--------- Whether you're employed with a salary or we get a nominal salary by being a city commissioner and what we deal with and what we tolerate. I do have thick skin and I can take the public comments and stuff, but I feel like it's been turned around against me by bringing awareness
towards public government. And whether you agree with how I conduct business or issues that I bring to the board, I do my best and I try to look out for the public with things that I do bring up. Um
the threats, the intimidation I had to make a police report last Monday regarding this agenda item, which is sad that I have to deal with that in the community. Um, I do my homework typically on agenda items. Um, you can watch the no board
meeting this morning if you'd like. And like I said, I know not everyone will agree with me, but to chastise me for, like I said, bringing awareness to important issues in the city, I just I don't always agree with it. Um, I still talk with my constituents whether you
agreed with me on an agenda item or not. I can justify the reasons why I supported something or why I didn't support something. I'm a phone call away. For anyone that wants my cell phone number, I'll mention it again if you'd like to write it down. It's
772-247-4772. And going back to it, yes, I bring things up publicly because I can't discuss things with fellow board members. That's not what the Sunshine Law was designed for at all. Um, and as far as the code of conduct, I'm more
nervous about the Florida Ethics Commission than anything. Um, but yes, I try to be as transparent as possible, and I know that's even been characterized by the public. There's two sides to every story as what I've always
been told my entire life growing up. and for people to attack me, my friends or my family. I just think it's uncalled for without hearing my side. And that's why I'm here tonight. And hopefully I can present things to the board on
things that have bothered me or that have concerned me by being a a city public official. So, thank you, [Applause] Commissioner Joby.
Um, I just would like to say that I really commend Commissioner Reid uh for his um commitment to the community. Uh, I have not been threatened, thank goodness, and um not sure how I would react, but uh probably not pleasantly.
But I want to thank you all for being here this evening. And I think that we can all conduct ourselves in a adult format and hear both sides of the story and go forward with that. Um I just would like everyone to understand that
we are also constituents and residents of this city and care for it very deeply. So I just want to let you know that it's, you know, it's not just one side. Thank you very much. [Applause] Commissioner Clark.
>> Thank you. Good afternoon, Mayor and City of Stewart residents. I come to you tonight on this 27th day of October in tears. in tears because
the country of my birth is now being battered by Hurricane Melissa at this time and possibly for the next three or four days with incessant rain and winds, which is unprecedented
for the Caribbean and for many other places that have experienced a hurricane more than a three or four. This is projected to be number five in a small island that's completely covered by the
effects of this uh hurricane. We understand nature. We understand the nature of God if you believe in God. And we understand that things happen in this world both good and bad. But we just ask
that you would think of the people, what they're going through, and when recovery time comes, how that nation will recover and how they will move forward. I just ask that you think
of others at this time. And I know that when things happen to us here in Florida, we work hard to help each other. we think of last year with hurricane Ian and we see the impact of water especially even if not wind water
has a big thing so I just ask that you would hold that that doesn't mean that I'm still not here I'm good decision maker I'm here to participate but really my heart is is there and I feel like I'm in tears my other issue I just brought
this up at the CRA meeting before this because several people have brought it up to me and we haven't really done anything about in the past few years and we're almost at the end of the year and this is a homeless issue and it's going to come up more and more when the winter
time comes and people come from up north and we see more people here. I know that we don't have shelters or homes or inexpensive housing for persons who have an income or no income to live, but there ought to be a way for us to work
with agencies and to try to figure out what we can do to help others. We know that there are lots of state statutes that's now prohibiting people from staying in places and our law enforcement has to enforce that. But there's still a way for our community to
try to work together and to do something. And if you have any ideas or solutions, um please talk to us, talk to the housing solutions council, talk to the county, whatever it is that we need to do, let us try to keep that uh issue
in front of us and try to continue to work on homelessness in our community. Um that's it, Commissioner. >> Thank you, Mr. Vice Mayor. >> Thank you. Just generally, you know, my hope tonight is that, you know, we're not
dissolving into teams or politicizing difficult items of discussion. It's not necessarily, you know, the typical fair that we're discussing, whether it's projects, um, even contentious items, Bright Line or it's
not this type of a thing tonight. It's it's people, you know, it's not policy. So, um, you know, my hope is that after tonight's over, whatever happens, that, you know, we're all going to see each
other a fresh market, you know, we may we may disagree on on h how to go one way or the other on agenda item four, but that we are all ultimately neighbors. And my hope tonight is that it doesn't, you know,
break down into um team A versus team B, but uh that the public will generally trust, the people in this room will generally trust that the human beings that are up here are trying to do the best they can to make the best decision with the information that they have. And
um you know it may it may be a little goofy but as close as I could get to purple tonight you know even though I'm however I may vote just to show that I do appreciate and support Mike and he's
been a huge benefit for me personally but um but again you know I hope we can all stay civil and respect each other and often I can be the most guilty of of dissolving into arguing more than anybody. body. So, I'm saying that to
myself as well tonight. [Applause] So, despite the turmoil that seems to swirl around this commission, there are some aspects of local government that are easy. And these tend to be the more ceremonial
aspects. That's ribbon cutings, groundbreings, and the opportunity to read a proclamation for a 104 year old resident. And there are other events that are not only ceremonial,
essentially ceremony, ceremonial nature, but they also involve protocol. And what I mean by protocol is how elected officials interact with each other. And one of the most significant of these events that's held on an annual basis is
legislative action days. And these meetings are held all over Florida prior to the legisl legislative session. And they provide counties, cities, and towns the opportunity to formally present the issues that are
most important to their communities. In addition, many local organizations take the opportunity to indicate to the legislators what's important for them to continue to be successful going forward.
They're also well aware that most of the other the other elected officials are present to hear them. In addition to Martin County Chairwoman Sarah Herd, myself as mayor, the mayors
of Indian Town and Jupiter Island speaking. I think this year we had 36 different organizations show up to speak to Senator Harrell, Representative Oberdorf and Representative Snyder. Whether you like it or not, these three
elected officials, they share our same constituency. and they have the ability to direct or deny substantial funding opportunities for our communities. Sometimes in the millions of dollars, tens of millions of
dollars. All that is asked of the local elected officials served by these three is to be there, if only to greet them and thank them for their consideration. All the Martin County commissioners were
there. The commissioners came in from Indian Town and Jupiter Island. The sheriff and some of his staff and members of the school board were there. Beside myself, not one other Steuart city commissioner
could find their way to the Blake Library. >> Believe me, their absence was noted. The taxpayers of the city of Stewart were not well served by the inability of this
commission to simply show up. Oh, I forgot there was one other representative of the city stewart there, the city manager, Mike Mortell. [Applause]
On a more auditory note, I'd like to thank Commissioner Reid, Commissioner Clark, and myself for taking the time to understand how important the decision we're going to make tonight.
and they took the time to speak with the department heads because one of the primary responsibilities of the city manager is to run the city staff and to run the city. And I found this to be a
remarkably interesting and revealing exercise and I appreciate I appreciate the concern of my two fellow commissioners in making that effort. How would you know that without violating sunshine?
>> Because their schedules are able to be seen. >> Okay. Thank you. Um, Mr. City Manager, >> I have a couple of things.
Um, first I I am so saddened to to mention that we lost a very dear and uh integral part of our Steuart family on Saturday. our uh co-employee, James Allen,
>> who ran the water reclamation plant, um passed away on Saturday from uh some heart complications, and he's 51 or was 51 years old and leaves behind his wife and three children. Uh it it was a shock to everybody uh at the plant as well as
the rest of the employees. And I I I don't even have any words to describe um the loss to the city and to his family. and it's just truly truly unfortunate. Um, along those same lines, our community also uh lost
uh Sheriff Crowder last week, who right uh for those of you that know him, he was one of the or was the longest serving sheriff in Martin Countyy's history and was an integral part in uh the evolution of Martin County and and
and the sheriff's department and and he was truly a part of our community and he would spend as long as it took to speak to who whomever wanted to talk to him about whatever the subject was. But he was also
uh the the guy that started putting wrong exit on the map and started getting the push to get people to recognize that uh Martin County was not the right place to go if you had ill intentions. Um, and it with with the sad news being
completed, um, I also should mention that our uh, community services department put on a um, Halloween haunted house a couple weekends ago that was again they do a great job in Memorial Park and all the children's children absolutely love it. There's
another event downtown this weekend that was very successful as well. We also received an email um regarding the policing and traffic around the elementary schools on 10th Street and the resident in the email wanted to thank the Steuart Police Department and
also stated that the stepped up law enforcement has made a huge difference reducing speed at all times because it is clear that the drivers are aware that our police are enforcing the uh traffic controlled areas. And that's all I've got.
>> Okay. Can I get a motion for the approval of the agenda, please? >> Move approval of the agenda as published. >> Second. >> We have a motion by Commissioner Clark and a second by the vice mayor. Is there any public comment on this item? >> Seeing none, all in favor?
>> I opposed. Motion passes. Do we have comments from the public on non-aggenda related items? >> Madame clerk. >> Yes, I have Kevin Hemple. That's not leftover from the prior meeting.
>> No, it was okay. >> I just saw >> Perhaps he's outside. >> I don't see Mr. Hemple. >> Kevin Hemple. >> He left. >> He left. >> He went outside. I don't know. We should rely on secondhand. >> It looks like Karen Stagger.
>> Stagger. >> Karen Steer. >> It is Miss Steer. It is the I know I don't look like you're um my name is Karen Steager and I guess you want my address. 71 Southeast Harbor Point Drive, Stewart, Florida. I used to
practice law in Stewart, Florida until two years ago. Greatest freedom of my life. But be that as it may, I have known Mike Mortell. I'm here to speak on behalf of Mr. Mortell. >> Okay, that's on the agenda. >> Okay, sorry. Then I will wait till later. >> Okay, thank you. >> I'll just
Thank you. >> I have Walter Lloyd. Good evening, commissioners. Walter Lloyd, 150 Southwest Cabana Point Circle. I just wanted to step up and say how much I appreciate we got a reminder from Commissioner Goi this week about
the River Coalition and the Lori meeting which was I don't know if it was hosted officially, but it was held here. and I showed up and I just was uh amazed at the amount of expertise and uh understanding of how to of of what's
wrong with our waters and how to make corrective action to it. So, uh our our new environmental attorney was here and all of that was just so inspiring and I just want to say thank you so much because I can't think of a more important issue than our waters. I mean,
we are a small coastal town and our waters for the most part can't be even swam in or you can't eat fish out of it. I can't see a more important issue to this town than to clean up its waters and make it a place where people want to be and
people can enjoy one of the major resources. So again, thank you so much, Commissioner Gio, and thank you to the local community and our new environmental attorney. Thank you so much. Thank you, sir. >> Helen McBride. Who
>> speak? >> She declined. I have no further public comment. Mayor, >> Miss Ms. McBride, we look forward to your contribution. Um, can we get a motion for
>> the consent agenda? >> The consent calendar. >> Consent calendar. >> So, moved. >> Second. We have a motion by the vice mayor and a second by Commissioner Clark. Is there any public comment on this item? >> Seeing none, roll call.
>> This is Miss >> Commissioner Gobi. >> Yes. >> Vice Mayor Collins? >> Yes. >> Commissioner Clark? >> Yes. >> Commissioner Reid? >> Yes. >> Mayor Rich? >> Yes. >> Commission action item number two. Mr. Will you read that for our consideration, please, Mr. Bagot?
>> Sure. A resolution of the city commission of the city of Steuart, Florida, authorizing the mayor to execute an easement agreement between the city of Stewart, Florida, and Florida Power and Light Company for the purposes of placement and maintenance of a conduit on the city-owned parcel known as Captain Adams Park located at
Confusion Corner, providing an effective date and for other purposes. >> Would you like to either you or Mr. Martell like to >> All right, I'm happy to. All right, go ahead. Uh, essentially this is the park that's right on the corner of Confusion
Corner as part of the undergrounding of the uh power lines on both Seinal and Flaggler Street to connect them to the main power grid. They needed a separate easement to go across that park and it's been designed and drawn and it's part of
the agenda item and it just shows it and it'll give them access to the underground power lines and make it so they can complete the job. Okay. Do we have a motion? >> So moved. >> We have second. >> Okay. You too. We have a motion by the
vice mayor and a second by Commissioner Clark. Do we have any public comment on this item? >> I do not. >> Clerk. Okay. Any comments or questions from the commissioners regarding this? I I was just going to ask, are there currently overhead utilities there and they're just moving it underground or
are they just taking an alternative route, I guess, so they can >> All of the utilities are currently overhead. There are overhead utilities that pass through Confusion Corner, but not where it is that we need the easement in Captain Adams Park in order
for them to be able to connect the power lines to a substation that'll allow them to access it and service it. Okay. >> Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Reed. >> No. No other questions. >> Roll call, please. Madam clerk.
>> Commissioner Reid? >> Yes. >> Commissioner Clark? >> Yes. >> Mayor Rich? >> Yes. >> Vice Mayor Collins? >> Yes. >> Commissioner Gio? >> Yes. >> Mr. Bagot, will you read item three for our consideration, please? >> Sure. Resolution number 72-2025, a resolution of the city commission of
the city of Steuart, Florida, approving the installation of additional stop signs along southeast Krueger Parkway, southeast Parkway Drive, Southeast Madison Avenue, Southeast Dolphin Drive, and Southeast Flamingo Avenue between
Southeast Ocean Boulevard and 10th Street, providing an effective date and for other purposes. >> Mr. Mortell, would you like to or Jody, I'm sorry. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> Uh, good evening. My name is Michelle Arzowl, planner one with the development
department. >> Oh, reading the resolution. >> I already read it. >> Oh, >> okay. >> And Jody Cougler with the development department. the development director with development department staff and the development and police
department conduct conducted a field review along southeast Krueger Parkway, Southeast Parkway, Southeast Madison Avenue, Southeast Dolphin Drive, and Southeast Flamingo
Avenue. The field review is between Southeast Ocean Boulevard and 10th Street. During the review, staff identified eight intersecting streets that are suitable for the installation of stop signs on Krueger Parkway and Southeast
Stafford Drive. There is an existing stop sign to stop before getting on Southeast Krueger. Staff proposes a stop sign on the north side of Southeast Krueger Parkway. On Southeast Krueger Parkway and Southeast 7th Street, there is an
existing stop sign to get onto Southeast Krueger Parkway. Staff proposes a stop sign on Southeast Krueger Parkway to stop traffic before intersecting 7th Street. On Southeast Parkway Drive, staff recommend adding two stop sign, one
facing north and one facing south. There's already an existing stop sign that that stop sign uh that stopped traffic on Southeast 7th Street going into Southeast Parkway. On Southeast Madison Avenue, staff
recommend adding a stop sign facing north to stop traffic at the intersection of Southeast Madison Avenue and Southeast 7th Street. Staff is recommending adding a stop sign facing north on Southeast Dolphin Drive
and Southeast 9th Street. Staff recommend adding a stop sign facing north at the intersection of Southeast Dolphin Drive and Southeast 7th Street. And I should say that I should have said this the first uh the blue stop sign are
the proposed stop sign. The red signs are the existing. Staff is recommending adding a stop sign facing north at the intersection of Southeast Flamingo Avenue and Southeast 9inth Street. Staff recommend adding a stop sign
facing north on Southeast Flamingo Avenue at the intersection of Southeast 7th Street. And I will ask uh Chief Zanelovic to speak of the Red Speeds photo enforcement solution. Commission. Hello. Um, as we were
discussing options with uh development and um looking at what's available in the in the enforcement role, this is just one option. I'm not endorsing red speed. There are many companies that offer a speed enforcement camera for school zones. They uh they are
specializing it and they're they're popular right now down south, but it's an option. There's a bunch of different technology. They have fixed cameras. to have cameras on a trailer that could be moved from one school district or school zone to another. So, there are some options if that was a direction that we wanted to research and go further with.
Um, and it takes a photo, a speed measurement photo of the vehicle and the license plate and sends the registered owner the violation. The fine schedule may differ from company to company and that's stuff that has to be worked out. I haven't studied far enough to know uh which company may be better or if that's
even an option for the city to explore in the future. But these cameras are gaining some popularity in the school zone enforcement and they would only be on during the school zone traffic restrictions. >> This ends our presentation. >> Okay. Is there any questions of staff
from the Commissioner Joby? >> I think that Commissioner >> Oh, I'm sorry. >> Hi first. Go ahead. >> Okay. Commissioner Clark. >> Let me forget all my stuff now. Um, >> well, do you want me to >> We don't have We don't have a traffic
engineer at the city, but I think we have somebody We have Kimley Horn on call, but I'm trying to figure out why isn't it just all four-way stops at all of those places? I was curious about the little blue thing. That's number one.
And then with regard to to chief's uh presentation, I was wondering is it going to cost us? And if it does, would it just be only in this area? What about Palm Beach Road and the other
places and 10th Street on the other side where people enter into the JD Parker School District area and then about hours and all that kind of stuff. But I guess if we did have a contract with a company like that, that's something that
would be worked out as to how far they would have those um uh cameras with regard to to the school and how it would be helping uh the ingress and egress during school hours
and that kind of thing. Um that's it. That's my two things. So, with regard to the potential for four-way stop sign at all of those places, I notice you're you're putting it at one sometimes just at one corner. We have two existing. How is that? How
would that work? >> Uh, we looked uh the police chief and development staff uh went out and looked at all of the intersection where the traffic study, the traffic calming study took place. Uh there are existing stop stop signs that are already there. So,
we're just looking to see where this would uh great have a great impact and slow traffic down. >> Uh, >> and these will be these are the additional Sorry. >> Chief, would you like to answer a question regarding how red I for what's it called?
>> The the red speed is one company. It's Yes. >> What question could I answer? >> She asked what does it cost? >> I I don't have I have not investigated those options further because again there's an optic that goes with that. We're putting speed enforcement cameras in a neighborhood, revenue generator, those types of things. The goal is to
reduce speed. It's an option for us to explore. I haven't gone into the dollars and cents of that company or any other company. >> The re the research that we did is that it won't cost the city anything because they take the revenue from the cameras and they actually give money to the city. But as the chief's pointing out,
there's a big brother feeling to that that a lot of neighbors don't like. >> Yeah. But talking about the extent of it, >> but that's why the state law was amended to say only in school zones, only during the school
>> hours and then they're turned off and that's it. >> Yeah, I just want to bring that out. >> So, they've had remarkable success rate in slowing down speeding and we're talking about the safety of our children. So we should seriously consider >> I will point out as well that this
conversation obviously started last spring and it kind of stalled because of the summertime and school let out and it was a little more difficult to implement but we still did traffic counts and moved forward with it and the chief said that at the end or mid of a middle
August they were going to start implementing um enforcement rather than just warnings because one of the things we recognized is that this isn't like we're in Barto and everybody's cutting through on their way to Tampa. It's a bunch of strangers blowing through our town. The people
that are on these streets are the people that live and work in this neighborhood. And so our police officers have been giving warnings rather than tickets because they feel bad for the people. And as a result when the commission adopted the policy to up the implementation and enforcement of the
tickets well first of all the implementation enforcement has gone up by hundreds of tickets. I think at the before they started it was about 700 and some tickets a month in warnings and about 100 tickets a month in violations
and in from August to September when they started it was 450 citations. So, four times as many tickets were issued. But as a result of that alone, we've seen this progression that the enforcement hasn't slowed down at all.
But the number of tickets is starting to slow down because the word is getting out and people are understanding that if you speed through these neighborhoods, you'll get a ticket. And as a result, there there are other options or multiple options that can be used
together or in tandem. You could do the lights in the in the school zones. You could keep enforcement higher. You could do other traffic calming devices, etc. But these are just ideas for the commission to kind of implement and give direction to the planning department so
that they can or zoning department so they can move forward with this project and and keep going in the direction or or follow the policy that the commission wants to adopt and go in that direction. We weren't here today to have a drop deadad final project to be adopted
because we've recognized that this is always intended to be kind of a work in progress and a reaction to the successes and failures of different attempts and different things we try along the way. >> And we're trying to keep a force or a continued um presence with the speed
trailer. We move it around. There's a little white trailer that displays the speed. We have one and we're looking to purchase another one this year in the current budget year. that helps to educate folks and see the speed. And like this week on Caner Highway, we we had it out there for a week and now the officers have gone to enforcement mode on Caner Highway to slow people down.
That speed trailer that we currently have does not issue tickets. It only reads the speed and gives us a vehicle count and and and captures that data for us. So from that, we can study it and see what type of changes. And yes, we have a lot of traffic in town and and we're going to consistently have traffic complaints and issues, but we seem to be
feeling in the school zones especially that people are responding to the warning signs that are put up. the big uh message board that Milton's crew put up on 10th Street warning everyone, you've been warned or this is your warning. Slow down or you're going to get a ticket. So, and we'll keep those uh those efforts up throughout the school year and and hope to see more
feedback from the community that they're seeing the the slowdowns as as we'd like to see them. >> And Chief, I believe that these tickets that are issu they actually issue them. you don't or the sheriff doesn't, but it doesn't it doesn't count for points on
your insurance and it doesn't go on your license. >> That that's that's correct. That's my understanding. We would in the steward it's just a monetary fine, >> right? It wouldn't be controlled by the city. It's controlled by the company, right? Um and then whatever revenues are generated, that's different companies. >> Some goes to the school district and
some goes to the city, the municipality. So, >> and again, that's just an option. Not not necessarily advocating that we do that. I'm just giving it as an option through our discussions for, you know, other ways to to slow down speeders. >> Mr. Vice Mayor, this is your neighborhood. >> For me personally, uh I'm not a big fan
of the cameras. It really creeps me out. Um just around kids and schools. And I know I get the intent, but u I'm glad we're ticketing people, but that's an expensive solution as well. You can't have a cop there all the time. And those
signs, the big blinking, you know, you're you're going so fast is only as useful as it's there and it's going to be bouncing around. So, I think to get back to the original intent of what even brought this up, it might be nice to have Bonnie come come up, but
the stop signs may be a a temporary, you know, band-aid to try to do something right now, but at least with 10th Street, you're you're on both sides. you know, you on the other side of the street, you have the CRA that you can lean on. You know, on our side, you don't, but you probably need to, in my
opinion, uh, fundamentally transform that street with medians and kind of choke it down just like we were talking about doing um, in in our previous meeting. And then, you know, I' I'd like to lean on Bonnie for this because we actually had a conversation about this
yesterday, but versus stop signs, even having um having Bonnie work u potentially with Joe Capra or something and and and start to formulate a little bit more of a a functional solution, even if it's
inexpensive, i.e. posts, you know, um bumpers post to start to look at more like neighborhood traffic circles and not just stop signs that actually start to slow down traffic uh versus and I'm sure you can speak to this, Bonnie, but
stop signs often lead to uh slowing down and then speeding up again, you know. So, depending on where you are on that street, you might be the drag strip portion where your kids are playing. Um do do you mind coming up? I hate to put you on the spot.
>> I just have one question before you >> I would appreciate because because Bonnie Bonnie was uh part of the original intent to achieve this. >> Do you want to take it back to the CRB or CRA or more in-depth? >> I would like I would like
>> I had questions. I don't mean and my questions would include Bonnie's input. >> Okay. >> I know. But she I'm just assuming she's not prepared. I think it I have no problem taking it back to the CRB. >> Okay, good. >> And have her have the ability to be prepared.
>> I didn't mean to cut you off. >> That's right, >> Commissioner Reed. >> Just Just for clarification, this area is not located in the CRA. >> It's not in what I was referring to is the other side of 10th Street, which needs traffic coming as well. It's not just this side.
>> Yeah, I want to say I'm not a big fan of photo enforcement solutions either. Um, and touching base on Bonnie, um, I believe in order to make this more effective, you wanted speed humps with stop signs, if I read your email correctly. No, not at all.
>> Um, >> we should bump it back to the >> C. The opposite. >> We can't do that. >> It was the opposite. Okay. The email said different, maybe. But anyway, um, I'm looking at the PDF that you had sent us, Bonnie, and I I actually like these solutions, by the way, a lot as far as the photo depictions and stuff. They
were very good. I know we can't um paint crosswalks and stuff anymore with DOT. Um but yes, Bonnie's stuff in here was actually very good. Um and I'm glad Bonnie you didn't put it to where when you're going down a road that you put a
median in the middle of it. Those are actually very hard to navigate and go around and yours was more like sweeping. So it it won't stop traffic so people aren't hitting medians, but it would still slow traffic down. Um, but I I don't think the stop signs are
necessarily going to solve it according to Bonnie. And I respect what you do because I know this is your career specifically and what you do. That's all I have. >> Okay. I I also received an email from Bonnie, but I received emails from other people who had been part of that um
group of community we came. We all looked at all the different the calming roads and all of those things were all good ideas. Actually, the least effective were the stop signs. people get to the stop sign, they get through it, they slow up, and then they speed up to catch up. I mean, so it's really not effective. Uh, I'd like to see it go
back for other than just adding additional stop signs. I don't think they're effective. I think we should look at other things. I know that the state has put a a stop on painting certain crosswalks. I don't know if they would consider something that would be
allowable in a school zone. >> We would just have to have that list of what's allowable, right? No, you can still paint them, right? It just can't be affinity. >> Yeah. Yeah. So, we can make it something that would be certainly striking the the other and I'm certainly not in favor of those and and I want to thank every
mother and and family that wrote to me uh regarding this issue. It's really important. I was one of the commissioners who was very adamant about going from warning to tickets. And I understand that these are our neighbors, but I'm sorry if if you're the neighbor and you live here, you should be more
concerned about our children walking to and from school and that they might be hit. So if it if it takes a ticket, and that was my question for Chief was obviously it's working. Um the tickets are working. It's decreasing. People are starting to slow up in the area without
having to be ticketed. So that's a good thing. I don't know how long we could keep keep up uh for police patrol in that area to do that. Maybe we'd have to move from school district to school district, but at least people who do speed would know that we do have intent
to ticket them. >> Yes. And the awareness is important and our uh our PIO frequently puts out information on it and we're there as often as we can have officers there. We have uh three officers being assigned to a traffic unit in just a few weeks and they there'll be full-time dedicated to
traffic enforcement throughout the city in addition to the routine patrols. Well, I want to thank you and I want to thank your your policemen, your staff. I want to thank Bonnie. Bonnie, you've done such a great job in leading us all down this road of safety travel around the school system. And I also believe
that we should be moving it too. >> Should we see if we can get a motion, Commissioner Clerk? >> So, I'm happy to make a motion. >> Hold on. >> You have a question of staff regarding this issue. >> I have my light on. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> Go ahead, Commissioner. So, I I hear all
the comments about um what Miss Moer has done. And I see what staff has suggested. And I'm not saying that um traffic signs are the most important thing or the only thing. We do need traffic coming, meandering, whatever needs to happen. And I'd like to make a
motion that we take this back to staff because it's not a part of the CRA, so it can't go to the CRB. But if staff would I don't if it would if it come back to us other than a discussion or at least we could give permission for maybe
staff either to form an ad hoc committee with Bonnie and some of the members of the community again and try to come up with a plan that's not just stop signs but incorporating some of the other innovative ideas that um Miss Moer has
uh provided to us. >> Okay, I'll second the motion. Um, are you tableabling or you are we just going to let this >> motion fail for live? >> I I think >> this item
>> Well, first off, staff staff needs guidance. So, I think the motion is getting giving guidance to So, I think we need to go forward with the motion. It's giving guidance to the staff of what to do. If you just let it die, >> okay, >> they're not getting instruction on what to do. Do you feel do you feel you that it's
clear commissioner clerk's motion with regard to instruction? Uh >> Mayor Rich, I do believe the the uh request is to go back and speak to the residents and to um form an ad hoc committee. >> Okay.
>> Is that satisfaction? >> I don't know that we need a committee. I think we're we're getting a little bureaucratic. >> Yeah. I I think if we just either I don't know if bumping it back to the LPA is appropriate or just having another commission meeting where there's been a little bit more time to prepare some solutions and and look at next steps
versus just going this route. I think it would be better to just table this now and then have a future agenda item, you know, as as we're ready to be able to entertain some different options more
>> and just just to make sure that they go back to to um the community while it's tabled and and bring it back to us >> to a date uncertain. >> Yeah. Right. >> Will that be would suggest that she work with >> Yeah, we would just have to read notice it obviously if you were to state a date certain. >> Yeah. to be here.
>> Does that work for your motion? >> And work with Bonnie Wild this motion. >> I couldn't hear you. Lee, what' you say? >> Uh, never mind. Mr. Ortell pointed out it's not an ordinance. So, >> okay. >> Uh, it's a resolution. So, >> it's a resolution. >> I I think you're you're you're tableabling it to bring it back if it's
amended because staff might amend it. It seems to me that you guys want more options than what's being presented. So, it might not return as the same >> resolution or agenda item. So, >> okay. >> Thank I think we've all a little bit of vague and maybe Jod needs something a little more concrete to work with.
>> So just just a history, we did have a meeting with the residents. Um we did have uh with the help of Mrs. Moser, she did uh provide boards and looked at the different options and we did bring that back to you as a as an agenda item just as a discussion. And this is what was
talked about during discussion. This was the uh temporary solution at that time. Um, but staff would be more than happy to go back and work with Mrs. Moer and figure out what would be more beneficial. And then also there could be a budget item uh attached to this as well.
>> Yes. >> Yes. >> So, we have a motion by Commissioner Clark. >> I'll second the motion. >> We have a second by Commissioner Gob. >> Um, do we have any public comment on this? >> I do. >> Item to be tabled. >> Mayor, I have a public comment from
Bonnie Moser if she'll come forward. >> She finds her way up here. Bonnie Moser, 1121 Southeast 10th Street. Before I start, I do want to thank the Stewart PD for everything they've been doing on our streets. Myself and neighbors have commented
throughout the neighborhood that speeds have slowed and we really appreciate it. Um, that being said, enforcement is one part of calming traffic um in an area. Other parts include education and then the actual design of the street. Um it
sounds like you guys heard what we said this week or last week to you as a neighborhood and I appreciate you taking that into account. I was um pretty stunned when I saw the stop signs as a recommendation because I've made it clear over the last few workshops and
commission meetings when we talked about this that stop signs actually increase speeds in between um cars stop and then uh folks mentally want to make up that time so they speed up in between the stop signs. Speed bumps do the same exact thing. It's why people don't like them. Um
I I yeah I was I think neighbors were hoping to hear a review of what they heard so that um we knew that you all had understood what we had said. But um yeah, I would I would love to work with city staff and um try and bring you like
some better short-term solutions and then maybe um talk about some long-term solutions as well. Um, one other thing just to note, uh, citywide whenever you're making decisions, the MUTCD, the manual on uniform traffic control
devices, it's our federal guidance, >> does say that stop signs shall not be used to um for speed management. So, the these aren't the tool that you're supposed to be using. >> Um, and hopefully we can >> we have signs >> have something for you soon. Thank you.
>> Thank you, Miss Moser. Um, any additional public comment? >> I have none. >> Roll call, please. >> We're to table this item. Correct. Okay. Um, Commissioner Reid, >> yes. >> Commissioner Gio, >> yes. >> Commissioner Clark, >> yes. >> Mayor Rich, >> yes. >> Vice Mayor Collins.
>> Yes. >> And so we come to the item of primary concern for this evening. >> 15 minute break. >> She did. Commissioner >> Commissioner Commission has to take a quick break.
>> Are you immunable to >> um these people have all been very patient? Can we >> do it to 10 minutes? Commissioner Reed >> 6:45. >> Well, that would be 6:40. >> Fine. We'll stand in recess till 6:45.
Thank you. Don't >> understand the point of that. [Music] I'm calling the regular meeting of the Steuart City Commission for the 27th of October, 2025 back into order. Thank you
all for your patience. We are on the discussion item number four, the discussion and deliberation of the city manager's employment contract. Mr. Bagot, you have requested to frame this discussion for us.
>> Sure. Absolutely. After the discussion at the last meeting, I thought it'd be wise to give you a little bit some legal advice um on on Mr. Martell's contract. And so I wanted to go through some of things. So, um, first off, under his contract, it
expressly states that he is an employee at will and that he reports directly to the commission as do I. All the other employees work under Mr. Mortell as the city manager. And so, in paragraph five of his of his
contract, it's expressly states that he can be terminated with or without cause. And so, I want to talk about that. So when you terminate an employee without cause, you don't have to provide a reason. However, you can provide a
reason, but it might just not uh equival. And so you are able to give a reason or no reason, but there's another um part of the contract that says for cause, and it doesn't give a definition. Instead,
it refers to a a a Florida statute. And so I wanted to go through the Florida statute which is 100.361. It's it's just it what it's what provides grounds for the removal of a city commissioner um under the state law. And so it gives seven grounds. And
so the contract um refers to this statute that gives these seven grounds. And so the first one is malfecence and the second one is misfecence. The third one is neglect of duty. The fourth one is drunkenness.
Fifth one is incompetence. And the sixth one is permanent inability to perform official duties. And u seventh is conviction of a felony involving moral turpitude. Um some people might have some uh are
not clear on malfeence in this reason. So I've taken the liberty of looking up some definitions so I could share with you. Malfecence would be the performance of an act that is legally unjustified, harmful, or contrary to law, especially by a public official or a person in a
position of public trust. Our fourth district court of appeal uh in a case gave a legal definition and it's similar and it says the performance of a completely illegal or wrongful act by an elected official. Uh misfence is a little different. It's
a transgression, especially the wrongful exercise of lawful authority. It's the performance of a lawful action in an illegal or improper manner. The improper performance of a lawful act resulting in harm or injury to another person or entity. I thought that I would give you
a little bit more definitions on that. I don't think we need to go through neglect of duty or drunkenness or incompetence, permanent inability to perform official duties or a conviction of a felony. Um there are some similarities
between the contract and our um employee handbook which is chapter 26. Both the the handbook and I mentioned already the contract is said he's an employee at will. The uh chapter 26 of our employee handbook also identifies that the city manager and the city attorney are
employees at will. There's only there's only minor differences between the contract and our employee handbook. And um for for example in the contract it gives Mr. Mortell severance of 20 weeks whereas in our employee handbook to the
other employees it's 90 days which is approximately 13 weeks. There's also some differences in in cause for termination uh employee handbook does not refer to this Florida statute. Instead it has its own areas um adjusting or or giving reasons for
cause. Florida law those Florida law states that when there's an employee policy versus an employee contract, the employee contract terms will prevail. So those minor differences don't really matter. We can just re rely on the contract.
Um if if the commission wants to terminate uh four clause, it's going to be my opinion that the commission will need to provide some one of those or one or more of those seven areas uh grounds. the malfeasence, misfecence, neglect of
duty, drunkenness. And I think you're going to need to identify any one of those and provide a factual basis in support of the violation and also provide a little bit not only factual support, but witnesses or any
documents that you have that prove um your your your assertion of the violation. And I think it's important that's part of the procedural due process. We give a similar process to all the employees um when they're being disciplined for
for cause including termination. Um if we don't provide Mr. Mortell with procedural due process on the on the cause finding uh it could potentially expose the city to another claim that he may have um for us not giving procedural
due process. And in my prior career as a litigator, I've litigated due process claims. So I'm familiar with that and that would be a separate claim than any other claim that he might have. So I think it's very important that we comply and provide the procedural due process.
I think that we would have to do identify provide him that information and then we would have to schedule another meeting. I would suggest a specially set meeting maybe next week to come back and and and give Mr. Mortell an opportunity to address uh the
allegations. Uh I I I I would say under our policy it has to be no earlier than two days from the time that you notify but I think we also have to comply with uh noticing public hearings and so forth. So I think next week would be sufficient enough
time. Uh I I think it would be better to do this on a specially set versus um on a regular meeting because it could interrupt a regular meeting. I think our next meeting have have we have a lot more agenda items on it than than this time. Um
section 2-22 of our code or code code of ordinances describes and pertains to an investigation by commissioners of charges of wrongdoing by the the charter employees. That's the city manager or the city attorney. It it goes on and describes the investigative process and
a hearing before the commission and we can rely on that. Um if if if you are going to go the cause route and we have a hearing down the road um you know like we did last time, Mr. Mortell asked that you have the option of allowing him to continue to work or you could place him
on admin paid administrative leave until that hearing. Uh the the contract also allows Mr. Mortell to voluntarily terminate his employment by resigning or retiring with uh 45 days written notice to the commission. However, under that option,
he would not be entitled to severance. Um if if it's termination for cause, he's also not entitled to severance. If you do um termination without cause, then uh he would be entitled to to to severance.
Uh, another option that had been discussed or mentioned I wanted to point out would be that the commission could perform a performance evaluation and and even give Mr. Mortell a personal improvement plan. This is another option that we do regularly on a normal basis
um with our employees. Um, if if you have any questions on that, I have discussed that with the human resources director Ros Johnson. And if you have any questions tonight about that that area or that roadway or pathway, uh I would suggest that we bring her up and
have her explain that process a little bit more in detail. Um and and last but not least, um depending on the commission's course of action, um you would need to appoint an interim uh city manager if if you're going to go the route of of termination of employment.
And I think that came up at the last meeting. Uh, and you instructed us to have all the directors here and I believe all of them are here. I'm happy to answer any further questions that you may have at this time. >> Are there any questions of Mr. Becket?
ly for clarification purposes. Um, if the direction was resignation or terminating with cause, that would affect future employment for city manager. Correct. >> Um, or potentially.
>> I I I Yeah, I guess potentially it could a future employer could be um if he's terminated with cause, yeah, it could affect his future employment. I don't know that I would agree that the resignation would, but and and and the termination without cause, I would say, would would be similar to a resignation.
And like I said, if you terminate without cause, um you you you can terminate them for a reason, it just doesn't rise to the level of one of those seven areas. Um or you could just not give a reason. That's that's the option under under an employment at
will. So I I wanted to reiterate what I said during my city commission comments. This entire process has been chastised towards myself for even bringing the issue forward to the board and I had to
do it publicly. And whether or not it's the right decision or not, I guess we'll find out. Um but yes, there were things that caused me concern throughout my I guess due diligence or
things that were brought forward to my attention whether it or not it meets cause for malfeence or misfecence that's a direction we would have to go and it would prolong it and I I respect you Mike for all the great things that
you have done for the city whether you agree with me or not Mike or whether the public agrees with me or Not. Um, but the things that caused me concern were there was uh an agenda item for a lot
split that was very controversial that came in front of this board that was voted on. There was a a traffic citation and a traffic stop that caused me to
stop and think about that. And I thought, you know, that was concerning to me as well as a board member up here. and you know certain agenda items being misrepresented specifically Bright Line in particular
when I first got elected when I first did my due diligence and I watched the meeting minutes by the way for the city and the county and that caused a lot of concern for what I uncovered. Um,
so what I'm going to do out of respect for Mike and the things that he has has done and I'm sure the public will come up and mention those things. Um, that was my reason for bringing this forward. So what I'd like to do is I'd like to
make a motion to terminate Mr. Mortell for without cause and put Jolie as the interim city manager for the time being. My job is not to punish people up here. That's not in my scope of work, but that's my
motion to be discussed and allow the public to weigh in on it. So, thanks. >> I second the motion. >> We have a motion by Commissioner Reid and a second by Commissioner Gobi. >> Do we have any public comment on this?
>> I do. I have Raj Patal. >> Okay. Before we begin, I would just like to remind you you may not address, insult or praise any member anybody who
sits up here individually. You may address me personally as the mayor, but not anybody else who's sitting up here. So, I would just ask that you observe that. >> Mayor Rich, can I ask you a question on that? Um, I have no problem getting criticized. If anyone wants to call me
out for what I've done, I don't know if that would be a motion or you as the chair would allow that because I can take the criticism by standing up here. That's why I'm a public servant. I don't >> I I'm not opposed to it. I >> I don't see the need for it. Commissioner Reid, why don't we why don't we try to enforce as much to
quorum as possible. >> Okay, Madame Clerk. >> Raj Patel. I win a prize for being the first person to speak. There's a lot of people out there, just so that you know that. Um, okay. So, I'll try to get below the
three minutes. There's a um Raj Patel, City of Stewart taxpayer. I live in Martin County, 4545 Long Bay Drive in Palm City. I'd like to read to this commission my daughter's graduate school application essay couple of months ago sorry actually a month before this
fiasco. So question number two in about 300 words what are the characteristics of a leader you admire and how does that influence your leadership style? Um some characteristics that I admire from a leader are this is what she's saying. Uh some characteristics that I admire from
a leader are fairness together with fortitude and strength and direction. A leader must be confident and unwavering when a final decision is made. They take full responsibility and ownership of the of the decision. They're committed to listening and looking beyond success. A
leader gathers information, plats, uh plans, performs, and plots. An example rather than giving one that's one that's famous and well read about would be the current city manager of a beautiful town in Southeast Florida called Stewart. I'm
sorry, this is part of her essay, so she mentions the word Mike Mortell. To keep the city and his staff on the top, he made hard long-term decisions, navigating his department into its next phase to stay quaint and safe and not become like a West Palm or a Delray
Beach. He at the same time makes decisions to keep the city as fiscally sound as possible, which we all know we're pretty fiscally sound. He listens. He prioritizes collective well-being and stands by his principles even under
pressure. I she she seems to have known what was coming. Um I was born down the street from Mr. Mortell's office so I don't have to look too far to uh to find for example a Nelson Mandela from Africa or an Abraham Lincoln from the 1800s
America. My leadership style would be similar to his. I would be a leader with bold visions. I would listen actively, build credibility, and be honest with moral courage and have empathy to make progress for everybody that's involved in this city.
This would be the legacy I would wish to achieve at the end of my career and when I'm 80, retired, and spending my time reading and reminiscing about my young days as an individualist 20some year old with a then future to make a difference. That was her answer. She's pretty smart,
progressive girl. Uh, but time will tell. I'm sure she'll get into college into the college of the choice. I hope. Uh, Mike, sorry, mayor. I know there are people that don't agree with my daughter's essay and don't agree with what you do, but on the
whole, it doesn't matter. None of this is going to matter in 10 years. We would have all moved on in 10 years there. You know, you've always been for the city of Stewart and you always will be. This is your legacy, not this unfortunate circumstance. This is
not your legacy. I'm not going to ask this commission not to fire you. The decision, as we all know, has been made. Michael, you like yourself, like myself, you're arrogant. You're continue to be young. You're good-looking.
>> Keep keep well. Keep well. Okay. Everything will be fine. City staff will be fine and stored will be fine. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, >> Jimmy Smith. >> All right. Jimmy Smith, president NAACP, uh member of Pentecostal Church of
Christ. I I just come I I have heard so many things here today uh including the storm and lost a life at the water department all the rules the threats
uh all the things that uh we have heard today in this place and u I'm looking at you commissioners all you smart loving kind people and I look at all of the people that came out today and I just believe that I want to use my
three minutes on one thing. Our country in a chaos in this world today. Our city, our county, everybody is hating one another because of a R or I or D. Uh a red, white, and blue flag. Uh because
of where we are. I'm looking at the history of this city in this county from 1963 when it was dirt roads and rattlesnakes. I I remember when it was segregation. I remember when uh my mother couldn't go to the same bathroom or eat out drank out the same fountain.
I look at that where how so how far God have brought this county in this city. And I just want to pray because we don't need nobody to be hurt or hurt uh or threaten. I just know that order for unity to come together only God can do
it. He do it throughout his spirit of God. the Holy Spirit. I'm asking that the Holy Spirit come down on this place whether you believe or don't believe. But I have to pray. Father, I just come today, God. And I'm asking that all those that's on the uh the news or on
this listening or looking or hearing what you has to bring before this commission today. God, I ask that you allow this Holy Spirit to come down on all us. God, that you'll touch us in the deepest part of our heart. God, remove the evil, e the hatred, oh God, and and
instill in us that love and unity and that meanness and kindness that you call upon us. God, we are a a country that believes on faith. God, we believe in you. One God, one faith, one baptism. And God, we come together and we hate one another. We don't like one another
just because we don't agree. God, you said in your word that we didn't you didn't say anything about like one another. You say love one another. Love conquer all. Draw all things to you through love. God, I ask that you anoint each and every one of them up here today. Even though the the the community
that's here today, God, touch our hearts and understand say in Matthew chapter 7, judging not, you be judged to the same statues. God, your words, these are your words. And you say, ask not, receive not. And I'm asking you today, God, that you'll send your Holy Spirit down upon
this city and this county and everybody that listen today, God, that you have a heartiness. Put our arms around each other. We don't know what the enemy have, but the enemy have came in and called us to be divided. In the name of Jesus, I pray. Amen.
>> Amen. Amen. >> Althas Judire. >> Amen. even home Stewart in Georgia. But I um especially stayed um here. I'm not here
recording, going live or anything because it's more to me it's more serious than that and it's more important than to publicize this because I'm going to speak from my heart and I never thought that I would be here to
speak um on behalf of Mr. Martell. never never thought you know but for a long for since I've was contacted phone calls emails textes um a part of me was
like ah but then reality set in reality set in you know and you all know I always speak from my heart you know we like to throw Christianity around we like to talk about
Christianity God and all this. But in the Bible, it says, "Come, let us reason together." It says, "Come reason together." So, where has the reasoning been? Where is the reasoning? Where where is the reasoning?
You know, when I was growing up, I thought I knew more than my parents. I thought I knew I'm a little child and I thought I knew everything. How you know so much within a year or two that you've been sitting up there,
whoever's been up here in the length of time you've been there. How do you know so much? You're not just affecting one person. You're going to affect the whole community. Black, white, whatever color, you're going to affect them.
What I do know about Mr. tell and I've shared. I know he has a heart and I know he has a heart for this community. We all make mistakes. We all have made mistakes. But he has a heart for the community. And who
has the experience that he has? Who has that experience? Is he perfect? Heck to the null. He's not. No one up there is perfect. But I know he has the best interest of the
community and he's approachable. I've asked several of you, several of you have asked me and I made the time to sit with you, but the ones I've asked before you even came up never took the time to sit with me and talk. Never. That says a lot. It holds a lot of
weight. And you're not just going to change how you feel. you're going to change the whole dynamic of this community of our community, those that are born and raised here. And I've looked at
different um post and comments and everything and all I see is venom. I just see venom. We got to stop. You I would hope you make the right decision, not just for you, but for everyone.
Karen Stiger >> Steer Stiger >> Sorry. >> Still Steer. >> For a minute I thought they put me at the bottom of the pile. >> My name is Karen Stager and I I already talked a few minutes. I was in the wrong
place. But anyway, my address is 71 Southeast. >> Hold up. Microphone. >> Sorry, I'm short. South 71 Southeast Harbor Point Drive, Stewart, Florida. I've known Mike Martell for over 30 years and we were attorneys against each other for many, many years and there are
few attorneys that I could stand up here and say with great confidence what an amazing honest individual that Mike was. And we were in the divorce business. So that is an ugly ugly business but frankly not as ugly as what I have seen the last few weeks happening in our
town. I lived in this town since 1973 and I look all around our country today and I see the insidious things that are happening. How due process doesn't matter anymore. How people get arrested on our streets and we can't blow our horns in Martin County now because we'll
get arrested or tickets. Sorry. Um but you all have to think about we have a constitution and I know um Mr. Reed has has proposed that he be uh terminated without cause here today, but two weeks ago there was just some rumblings of
something was wrong and he did something wrong. We have rights in our country. Mike has not had the ability to even address it and I haven't heard anything tonight that would even give a reason for an employer to terminate someone at will
under the contract as Mr. Bagot says. So we need to all look at ourselves. every single one of you sitting up there and all of us in this room as citizens of Stewart, our beautiful little town. And Mike has been such a big part of it for years. He's been the mayor. He's been on the council. He's been the city manager.
And he's done an amazing job. So for us to sit here tonight and gloss it over and say, you know what, we really don't have anything to to terminate him for cause. Let's just vote on it and we'll all be done with it. Let's wash our hand there. But for the grace of God go every one of us. When we take away the due
process that our forefathers years ago fought for, that I stood up in court and fought for for my clients for 45 years, we are taking away the part of America that's so very important that makes us different from Russia and China and
North Korea. And what I've seen happening in this town in the last two weeks is no better than those people. So, let's all search our souls. Let's all think real hard about what we're doing because someday it won't just be Mike Mortell. It will be one of you. And
then you'll say, "Oh my gosh, we should have taken what's happening in our country and our little town of Stewart seriously." [Applause]
Helen McBride Hela McBride from Flamingo Avenue in August of 1973. The children on I Bob was already down here moved to historic Florida. I went to my first PTA meeting in September. They elect there was four teachers there
and the principal. I was elected pr uh president of the PTA. Uh Dr. David McMillan called me up and said, "Mrs. McBride, you got to get air conditioning for our kids." Oh, I said, "I have no idea how to do that." He said, "Go to the next school board meeting." And as a
dummy, I will tell you, I never been to a public meeting in my life. And I just thought you'd go in and ask for air conditioning and I'd get it. Let me tell you it. When you decide to speak at this podium or run for an election, you better toughen up and get
your skin tough because let me tell you, the abuse my children had to take, I had to take, the letters to the editors, the phone calls. Bob worked for Bell South, his job was threatened by his supervisor if they he didn't shut me up going to
public meetings at the school board. But my family believed in me, the kids and the people at Parker, the parents at Parker and that you run for public office and oh I never called a police department. I at night
it was dark was at the old art center upstairs. I had cars following me home blinking their lights and their horns and that. I never was afraid because I believed in what I was doing and I never called the police department
and said, "Oh, somebody's bothering me." I never took my phone or I could have got a private line. I never did that because when you become a p a person when you stand here or you run for office, you better toughen up. It's not
an easy job and you may think, "Oh, I'm I'm right and everybody else is wrong." But you I I feel some of you I feel the commissioners are misusing our public police department. They're here to protect all of the people. And I guess
you can say, but you also said at the one of your the commissioners said uh he he wasn't answering his phone. Well, if you're public official, you got to answer your phone. I served on every committee as a volunteer in this city except the LPA. I had one commissioner
appoint appointed me to a board. She didn't like the way I voted and she fired me. It was the first time I ever got fired in my life and I never got paid, but that was all right, too. Uh, but let's go back in 1973 when I moved
here. Downtown Stewart was a ghost town. You couldn't come down. I was told I could go to Green's department store, park in front, go in, buy what I needed and tell and watch they'd watch me get back in my car with my children because it was it was it was
just a bunch of bums and was a thing. Joan Jefferson and Nan McMillan started to revise it. Mike Martell, I and a lot of other people just rolled up our se sleeves and look what it is
today. You all, you know, you you all walked in. Well, some of you were here with us working to make the city much better. But now you're sitting up there. Oh, I'm a city commissioner. I I got I I can do what I want. I can walk all over
the little people. Well, you're going to be surprised because we little people don't forget. And I know and I'm there's there's two people here. My I'm telling you the blonde is here uh who are going to rip him apart because I know at one meeting she her her case was going to
the Supreme Court and Mike was going to end up in jail. Remember never went to the Supreme Court. Mike, so Mike Mertel has gone through a lot of abuse much more than I have ever gone through >> it. No, my time is enough. Is it? >> Yes. Oh, is it?
>> Could you wrap it up in the right thing? I didn't I'm sorry, Mary. I didn't hear their thinking. >> Marge Bonamo. >> They don't get a warning. Um, I'm Marge Vanmo. I live in uh 1446
Southeast MacArthur Boulevard, which is in Martin County. I've known Mike for 30 years and I am shocked that anyone here, especially people who are new to this, and you are new to this, would be willing to let go of someone with the
institutional knowledge and the flatout love from the community that Mike Mortell has. I've known him for over 30 years. I think he's brilliant. I think any insinuation that firing him for no cause would somehow help him in the job
market is is comical because no matter how Mike leaves, if he does leave, I don't think he's going to have trouble finding a job because there's not a lot of brilliant people around. So, I'm just sad that's what's happening. And I think
that you should realize the feeling in this community that's coming from this. You know, when people come in new and they hurt the people who have worked so hard for many years, especially for rather vague reasons, I it's it's something that doesn't go
away. It's just a really bad taste. Walter Lloyd >> Walter Lloyd Cabana Point Circle uh theater with the city and went on to discuss the contract of Mr. Mortell as was fully noticed to the public. In that
discussion, one commissioner put out his opinion and made a motion so it could be discussed as it is the only time commissioners can discuss these matters. In respect of Mr. Mortell, they refused to drag his name through the mud in public. Any citizen is free to contact
any commissioner for more clarification. We now have the full perspective with all of its irony. At the highest level of perspective, it appears to me that this is a conflict between special interest groups, including local politicians who have previous previously
been voted out, and citizens at large as it pertains to our community, the best small coastal town. It was the citizens at large who voted in the commissioners prior to this board who at that time were responsible for all actions of
management and staff, including Mr. Mortell at that time their choices, actions and policies were largely acceptable to the special interest groups. But when the citizens at large noticed the results of that group leaders and staff did not meet their
expectations, they acted and replaced them with four out of the five commissioners currently seated on the dis today. Unfortunately, one of the four being the current mayor lied to the citizens at large about his motivation for seeking office. Now comes the irony.
On one hand, the citizens at large who elect their representatives and spec expect those representatives to serve them who pay the salaries of all the city officials and staff are the same people who provide the livelihoods of the special interest groups who are
supposed to serve them as well. On the other hand, special interest groups seeking to build their livelihoods in a community should be serving the citizens at large instead of instead of disrespecting them by calling state- elected officials for the removal of
elected local officials when it doesn't fit with their agenda for financial gain. Does this mean that special interest groups including state- elected officials and Mr. Martell are aligned as players with an agenda? It seems Mr.
Campenni thinks so as he expressed words on social media. If we're going to save ourselves, Mr. Mortell is the one person that stands between the barbarians and the gate. So, I guess citizens at large are the barbarians and the special interest groups are ourselves.
It seems we've lost the perspective of who is supposed to serve who. Last week, we saw a group comprised of mostly special interest and community leaders who were voted out, gathered at Maria's Cafe, who if they only had on yellow shirts, would look much like the same
people who gathered about the Bright Line ripoff and are working against the commissioners. Yet, they support Mr. Mortell. These commissioners were dyed and have stood in integrity to represent this community without compromising to the influence of special interest
groups. Their jobs as leaders are about the citizens at large. My prayer is all wisdom and spiritual understanding and make the right choices for the well-being of the communities you serve. I believe it's time for change and fresh
perspective which more closely reflects the will of people who elected you whether it be in policy or personnel. Thank you Nina Denton. Good evening, commissioners. My name I'm short like Karen Stiger. Um my name is
Nita Denton and I am a resident of Stewart. I live off Caner Highway. Um I also for a number of years ran the Martin County State Attorney's Office where I've had the opportunity to work with Mr. Martell. Currently I am working
for Carolyn Timman, your clerk of the court. Um, I know that Miss Timman has contacted or attempted to contact the commissioners to voice her feelings on Mr. Mortell and surprisingly her opinion
and my opinion are pretty much the same. Both of us have worked with Mr. Martell for many years. He's always been responsive. We haven't always liked his answers, but he was honest and he was fair. Um, as a resident of the city of
Stewart, I'm very concerned that if Mark Mortell is let go, what is going to cost me as a taxpayer? Um, I think that you need to look at everything very plainly and very closely and it's my opinion that you need to
retain Mr. Martell. Thank you, Pauletti. Thank you. Good afternoon or evening. Now, my name is Paula Nicoleti. I live at 1445 Southeast Lark Boulevard in Stewart. And um I'd just like to address
three things. I am not at many of the commission meetings, but I do watch them on television. And I will ask that you consider your lack of professionalism and the manner of which you speak to each other, the manner in which you
speak over each other is not what our city deserves and expects. I've been married to a city manager for 55 years and I will tell you what it's like when you decide on a job. There are
many cities in the state of Florida as well as around the United States that hire city managers. The idea of bringing somebody in every two or three years to take a position because you want to be the one to help
elect them is a little bit unrealistic. We sit down, we look at the different cities. Paul has been manager around the United States in different cities. And you have to weigh it. You're buying a home for your family. You're moving your
children. You're putting them in school. And you're accepting a position. People need someone now in our city, as Mr. Mortell is, that's well educated, that has background because we have serious problems. We have serious
situations going on in Martin County and the United States as well. So, I ask you to really think about that before you make your decision. And I will also share with you that I've been to many commission meetings for
many years. And I really believe in my heart that your decision today will make a decision on your future as a commissioner anywhere. Thank you, Jim Galos.
Jim Galos. Good evening, Mr. Mayor and commissioners and the citizens of Stewart. Um, I rise tonight tonight to offer my health heartfelt endorsement of Michael J. Mortell and to share why I believe his more than 20 years of
dedicated public service to our city deserves a recognition and our confidence. In short, if Stuart needed a Superman, in many ways, we have it in Mike Mortell. For more than two decades, Mike has devoted himself to the city of Stewart
in multiple roles roles as an elected official, a city attorney, and now as as a city manager. He's admitted to the Florida Bar, showing his professional credentials, and that support his work. In his current position, he brings with him institutional knowledge, legal
savvy, local relationships, and the full understanding of how this community works. as decisions are made, how decisions are made, how the city operates, and how the history and character must be preserved as it as it city evolves. He deeply understands the
interplay of private land, zoning law, and city oversight. Which is essential to the thoughtful growth and responsible governance. In short, Mike is not just an administrator. He's a strategic thinker who has helped steer the city through its next chapter. When we consider
leadership continuity, Mike stands out. Changing city managers is never costfree. In fact, public records indicate that the commission if the commission were to terminate the contract without cost, taxpayers would be exposed to significant significant
cost. His base salary is reported at 225,000. Moreover, one news out outlet estimates that the replacement of of could cost the city over $275,000 when you factor in search cost onboarding of a successor and transition
duplicate transition disruption. Beyond these figures is the int intangible cost of lost institutional me memory, slower decision making while the new person gets up to speed and potential moral and
operational disruption to the city. that come Mike Motel has consistently shown a commitment to our community, our community's well-being uh rights and future and future. Residents have file rallied in his support recognizing that
he knows Steuart from the inside and the out. When residents speak of leadership that is grounded, that val that values our citizens shareholders that embraces long-term visions, this is the kind of leadership Mike represents. Commissioners, I ask you tonight to
weigh Mike Mortell's service, his accomplishments, his extraordinary institutional knowledge, and the costs of change. I ask you to consider, is this a moment to for disruption, or is this a moment to support continuity and strong leadership, the time of
uncertainty of our city to move forward with confidence, uh, we need someone who knows the terrain, understands the community, and has already invested uh has already invested in it. Mike, thank you for your service, your
steadfastness, and your dedication to the city of Stewart. Commissioners, I urge you to reaffirm Mike's in his Mike in and reaffirm your faith in Mike's leadership and to allow him to continue to see serve the city with his deep knowledge, steady hand, visionary
perspective that he brings. Choosing to keep him at the helm is not just an investment endorsement of a man. It's an investment in the city of future. City's future. >> Bob Daniels. Bob Daniels. >> Good evening, Mr. Daniel,
>> good evening, mayor, commissioners. Um, I just take a few minutes of your time. Um, I've uh been in government management for >> Could you introduce yourself, please? >> Oh, I'm sorry. Bob Daniels. Uh, I'm currently employed as the town manager
in SS Point, your neighbors to the east, and we share the your fire department. Anyhow, I've um I'm here tonight because I think it's just important to look at different avenues and you look at options and I'm you know again I'm just giving you the some of the ideas that
I've uh witnessed and have been a part of in the in my past career of 40 years uh and 10 years of that I've been in city or town management. Um managers as you know we all work at will. So, we
know there's going to come a day where, you know, there's going to be a change and we might be part of that change. It doesn't make it any easier to stomach because we really, you know, and you know, I haven't lived in SS Point for 40
years or 20 years, but you know, here you have a gentleman that has lived and been part of the blood, sweat, and tears of this community. And you know, I I realize sometimes things don't go the way that you think they should and there's other avenues
that you can look at. And you know, when I have a commissioner that doesn't like something or you know, we sit down and go through the viewpoints and try to find some common ground on where we can resolve that conflict. And I think it's
so important when you look at the major investment that you have in hiring a manager. Uh I think you know looking at other issues like evaluations and I think your city attorney mentioned performance plans. These are items that
you have to your normal employees. Why wouldn't you do for the most important employee that you have besides your city attorney but your city manager and you know give him an opportunity to prove to you that he can meet whatever bars you
set for them. And that's what a true professional does. They look they try to take the adversity that exists not only in the city or in a town. They try to make even adversity within the commission and try to resolve that so
everybody can work together. Might not agree with everyone but you can work together and make this a better place, a better county and a better state. So, I urge you to reconsider your motion and
uh give Mike Martell what he deserves, and that's to be the best city manager that you'll ever find. Thank you, [Applause] >> David Sharfy.
David Sharfy. Oh. Sorry. >> Can I go next? >> Sure. Laya Wood. Laya Wood. Um, I'm Llaya Wood. My address is 669 Northeast Plantation Road in Stewart and
I moved to Stewart in 2004. And one of the first families I met were the Mortels. Um I have seen not as many changes as those that have been here 30 or 40 years, but I've seen a lot of beautiful changes. And I know that one
one source I could always trust with questions, concerns, or or any um any thoughts that I had would be Mike. A phone call, an email, it didn't matter
what time of day, a work day, a weekend, he was there. Whether the news on the other end was something I wanted to hear, supportive or not, he was there. Um, I stand before you today representing not only myself, but a number of
very good friends that weren't able to be here tonight and we rep I represent them and we're deeply disturbed about the decision of what we consider a freshman commission.
Um Mike is a lifelong resident of Steuart and this community and he's given so much to this community that deserves more respect and transparency. And not only does Mike deserve it, but
the citizens that elected you all deserve that transparency and that understanding because many of us elected you not expecting something like this would happen and have lost a lot of trust in
those that we will not vote for again should we lose Mike as our city manager. This action is not only unjust in our opinion, it's also what we consider a violation of the principles of fairness, transparency, and accountability to the residents of Stewart that we expect from
our elected officials. The city manager has consistently demonstrated dedication, professionalism, and a genuine commitment to the betterment of the city in all of his roles for his past decades of service. to move toward termination without justification or due
process in our opinion is indefensible. However, should we see transparency? Should we see communication? Should we see our great city manager be given the respect he deserves to sit at
a table and work through the process that all of us would deserve when you're terminating someone's not only prestigious position that they've worked for but their livelihood, their position in this community and those that trust you. So I ask all of you, not on behalf
of myself, but on behalf of thousands of people out there to do the right thing and not terminate Mike Mortell. Thank you, >> David Sharfy. >> Let's try again, sir.
>> Hello, neighbors. Two words come to mind. Re item four. >> Sorry. >> Name and address please. >> David Sharfy, 8 Middle Road, Stewart, Florida. So, two words come to mind. Recussion tonight on uh item number four here. First one is circus. I'm going to
give some definitions. Traveling company of performers including clowns, acrobats, and trained animals. A spectacle that entertains a mass audience. A circular arena surrounded by tears of seats used in ancient Rome for
contests and spectacles. An extravaganza marked by sensationalism, often with little substance. A frenetic, disorganized, and ridiculous situation. A place or event that feels chaotic or theatrical.
A public scene of confusion and uproar. An organized show designed to keep attention without necessarily resolving anything. A big top tent full of noise, color, and distraction. A gathering where everyone is performing but no one
is listening. A ring of endless activity round and round with no clear exit. A spectacle meant to dazzle rather than inform. A rotating wheel of applause, noise, and occasional juggling. A public performance that is both serious and not
serious at all. A space where the clowns run the tent. A place where everything happens at once and nothing gets done. The other word, theater. A building or area for dramatic performances. Dramatic
literature or the art of producing plays. A place or sphere of enactment of significant events. A place rising by steps or gradations especially for viewing. A place of spectacle or display. A structure where performances
take place often with a stage or audience. An area for events, both scripted and improvised. A place where a performance unfolds, whether planned or accidental. A space where roles are played and reality is arranged for effect. A house built not
for shelter, but for spectacle. A stage where what is said is not always what is meant. An institution dedicated to showing the world not as it is, but as it might appear. A room where lights shine on actors but the audience sits in
the dark. A place where one performance and a reality blur into one. A place carefully constructed illusion with real consequences. Thanks [Applause]
>> Joseph Cooper >> outside. >> Joe Cooper >> maybe outside. >> He's outside. Hello. Hello everyone. Commissioners, Joseph Cooper, 906 Southeast 9th Street. I thought I had another hour to get up
here, but just wanted to come talk about item four that we I want to come and um just talk about a few things. And I want to start with one of the things we talk about, you know, the country. Um we talk about being a Christian nation. And one
of the things I want to appeal to everybody on the das is that if we're going to be a Christian nation, if we're going to follow the steps of Christ, redemption is very very very central to his his ministry. And so what does it what does it mean to be
redeemed? If you find fault in someone, you should redeem them, right? And in a position as a city manager is a very important position. If there is something I think the attorney mentioned about some type of performance review, why not? Because the fact is that Mike
Mortell has a lot of institutional law is important because our city has grown to where it is now. It needs to be carefully managed um not be reactive or to possibly some wrongdoing. Now, first there was some wrongdoing, but I guess
there's no wrongdoing. So we talked about doing something without cause and how do you you know it reminds me of the story even when you there's always been rules and laws and the story of the Samaritan woman who was being accused of adultery. So what what what Christ the
the Pharisees and the teachers of the law were saying they want to trap Christ and says well don't you know she's committing adultery? He says yeah I know. He said, "But you know the first thing we have to do is I want you to figure out the law says she must be stoned, right? But Christ said if you
haven't done anything wrong, you get to throw the first stone, right?" And then what happened is that he said, "Okay, just don't go do it again." That's what he did. He redeemed her. And because that's the purpose of Christ, he's a redeem. He's a redeemer, right? And so
whereas if you have a problem with the way he's managing the city, sit him down, give him a plan, and then if he doesn't comply with that plan, then come back and say, "We gave you a plan. It didn't work. Let's go." So I I'm
appealing to the DAS to take us take a moment. Um let the emotions settle. Um, I know there's been a lot of things that's happened, whether it's the Costco or these things that have gone on, right? But it's not about retribution. We can't operate like they're doing in
DC. We have to have we should give due process, right? We don't just terminate because they don't go along with the program, right? That's happening. US attorneys are getting dismissed because they're not going along with the program. Let's not let's not do this
here in in our little quaint town. I never would have thought, born here in 1968, that we'll get to a point where we can just dismiss people without due process. We shouldn't be doing that. If we got a problem with the city manager, let's bring it to them. Let's give them
a plan. I think the the community will appreciate it. The city will appreciate it. The business leaders, everybody will appreciate it. And I I I pray as I walk from the das that if we're going to be a Christian nation, if we're going to have prayer before this meeting, just read
the ministry of Christ. Even when it's tough, we got to follow him and do the right thing. Thank you, Michael Ponte. Good evening, commissioners. My name is Michael Ponti. I live at 4635 Northeast Indian River Drive in Jensen Beach. This
letter is on behalf of the Martin County Realtors of the Treasure Coast, the Martin County Taxpayers Association, Martin County Chapter of the NAACP, the Treasure Coast Builders Association, and the Steuart Martin County Chamber of Commerce. We respectfully request that the si Stewart city commission embrace a
policy of regularly providing updates about its ongoing litigation against the state of Florida. This is a central responsibility that the city can and should provide to ensure the public remains informed of the process and how its tax dollars are being used. In
August, Stuart joined a lawsuit opposing SB80. We can appreciate the concerns articulated about the legislation. Even still, anytime a local government enters into litigation, particularly against another government entity and
one as powerful as the state, no less, the onus is on its officials to remain openly and thoroughly accountable to its citizens and greatly intensified. The primary items in need of regular public publicly addressing include costs. In
addition to the initial $10,000 fee to join the suit, what other costs has the city incurred related to the suit? What costs can reasonably be expected to come up as the process unfolds? How will the lawsuit affect the cost of staff and resources? If future expenditures are
needed, what is the spending threshold? Timeline litigation is is infamously unpredictable and timeconuming. How long of illegal engagement does the city anticipate? Consequences. Stuart is a recipient of
state grants. Was any inventory taken prior to filing the litigation as to the number of grants the city receives from the state? How many city services rely on state grants and to what extent? What do these grants come up for renewal? Is
there a plan in place to address potential funding shortfalls? Any is there a plan to address potential shortfall should any existing or needed state grants be imperiled by the litigation process? Such questions are particularly heightened following the
strong signals by the Steuart Commission majority recently to remove city manager Mike Mortell. Having also served as city attorney, Mr. Mortell has demonstrated his impressive legal skills for the city on numerous occasions, most notably following discovery of the contamination of its
groundwater and water supply. Mr. Martell successfully guided the city's role in the landmark litigation against 3M, resulting in a10 billion global settle settlement. To risk losing such a proven legal knowledge while currently
engaged in litigation seems shockingly short-sighted. As our nation's founding documents attest, governance is possible only through the consent of the governed. The consent is demonstrated through transparency, accountability, and respect for how residents tax
dollars are managed. We sincerely appreciate you honoring such responsibilities by promptly and publicly keeping the public aware of these important matters regarding the lawsuit against the state. Thank you, >> Ron Gonzalez. >> Good evening, commissioners. John
Gonzalez, um, Villa Street here in City of Stewart. I'm also a business owner here. I'm a Steuart resident, business owner. I hope that, uh, my thoughts and opinions will hold some weight in your decision-making. I'm here to beg you not to fire Mike Mortell. I spoke to some of
you about my thoughts on this matter. Our town is a model of great government until recently. Most important to me is the knowledge that when I get up in the morning, my garbage is going to get picked up on time. My recycling is going to get picked up on time. We have a well-trained and responsive fire rescue
and police department. That our infrastructure is modern and efficient. I know that when there's a hurricane, all of your employees will be here on the ground the minute it clears. I know that they'll be helping our families and the people that are surround them get
their lives back together. More importantly, I know that our public works department will be pumping down the lift stations to make sure that we can still flush our toilets after the hurricane, which if you've ever been here, that's one of the more important things that happens after a hurricane.
I saw Mike Martell pitching in in my neighborhood after the hurricanes. Um, and I know that he and his employees, your employees, our employees, um, are always willing to help the citizens of this town. I love the fact that when I walk down the town and I see
employees of the city of Stewart where proudly wearing their shirts and I wave, they smile back because they like working here. Your process today is flawed. If you have a problem with an employee, you should follow standard procedures. But but apparently some of you do not even
know what proper protocol is. Meet with the employee, take an HR manager with you, discuss deficiency, and work up an action plan to bring the employee up to your standards. Document the process, and then make an informed decision on how to move forward. Your actions at the
last meeting were deplorable and an embarrassment to the residents of this community. I know you have a Doge mental. Some of you have a Doge mentality and plan to fire countless employees. So be it. But are you really weighing the consequences of your actions? Do you know the that the
employees morale is at an all-time low? My opinion, I assumes are being sent out to everyone in your crosshairs. Who will replace him? After actions like this, who would want to come here to replace someone? Prior to your administration, this town was running perfectly. Now
you're beginning to see the folly of your actions. Soon, if you fire Mike, you will begin to see the unintended consequences of your egregious actions. Employees will leave, services will become inferior, and the happiest seaside town in America will forever change its desiraability.
Finally, you have the ability to do the right thing tonight. Some of you quote sci- scripture to justify your position. I would simply ask you to apply the golden rule. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Keep Mike, develop a
plan with him and department heads. Document the goals and objections and measure the outcomes. That's how you run a successful and happy organization. >> Nick Blunt. >> What did you say? Who? >> Nick Blunt.
>> Nick Blunt. Oh. Mr. Mayor and commissioners, I'm Nick Blunt, a proud resident of the city of Stewart. Um, before my comments though, I did have one comment just on a procedural comment. This is this was not
advertised as a commission action. It's under under uh discussion and deliberation. So, I'm wondering how you can even take a vote on uh what was made tonight as a uh as a uh motion.
Um you know, I've worked with the city of Stewart staff in so many situations for the entire 51 plus years that I've lived in Stewart. uh as a local operations manager for FPL and for 12 years as FPL's governmental affairs manager, I
specifically had to interface with each city manager throughout that period. And I don't know how many uh city managers that has been. I have seen firsthand the importance of a city manager who knows the history of
the city, has served in multiple roles for the city, and is familiar with the vast number of regulations that the city must comply with. I saw this as a member of the city's charter committee. And more recently, while serving as a city
commissioner, I gained a strong appreciation of the dedication that city managers have toward doing what is best for the city. It is very rare that an outsider steps into that role and succeeds.
There is absolutely no reason for the current commission to even think about going down that road. Mr. Mortell has and continues to conscientiously and proficiently serve the city of Stewart as its leader. There are so many more
important matters that you as city commissioners need to spend your time and effort on rather than creating turmoil by changing managerial leadership only for change sake. The residents of Steuart will be grateful.
Thank you for allowing me to speak. >> Mark Breckville. >> Mr. Beagger, do you wish to Mr. Reg, do you wish to comment on the assertion that it's inappropriate that a motion is made? >> I I've already given my opinions that if
we're if you if you're going to do it without cause, we can do that tonight. It was properly published. My concerns that I raised at the last meeting, I think we've cured. >> Okay. >> Now, I've given an opinion if it's going to be because we need to come back at a future meeting.
>> Okay. >> And and address it that way. >> Thank you, >> Mr. B. Uh Mark Rebel, 406 Southeast Finey Drive, Stewart, Florida, right near a number of you people. I live right down the street. You probably want to kick me out of the neighborhood. But anyway, I I just want to say, you know,
I come to these things just like we had the Sea Coast thing. And you you see all these people here and they're all our friends. They're all our neighbors. We may disagree about stuff and this would actually be fun if it wasn't such a serious thing because we all love each other. We love the city of Stewart. We all like we all, you know, outside get
along great and all of the commissioners up here I have immense respect for. I tried to run for office. I know how hard it is and I know what you did and you had support and I appreciate that. And I think you guys got elected because you're leaders. You're the leaders. It's
not Mike that's on that's on uh is the one that's at on trial or as a leader. It's the commission. Your job is to lead. And if you can't take somebody who's got that kind of tools and work with him to get him to do what you want
to do, then let him go at that point in time. But that's a failed leadership. And you guys are good at You guys can be good at this. You are good at this. You're leading. You're taking paths. You're doing what you were elected to do. Do it here. Take this man. give him
an opportunity to figure out what he has done that you don't want. Set up course for him to improve and follow that action. You guys can do that and it's not a thing to run away from. And I will tell you, just like others have said, it
will be much easier for you to take Mike and get him what you want because you know who he is and you know what he wants and what he's doing and what you want changed than to bring somebody in new, hire him from someplace we don't know anything about. They don't know
anything about us. You'll be the past the next election before you've really got that person in place. So I beg you, be the leaders you were hired to be because I think you are. You beat me, so I want you to be better than me. And so be that leader and and turn it around.
All right, that's all I'm asking. >> Bill West, mayor, commissioners. Bill West 1819 Northwest Sanusi Street Stewart uh resident of Martin County. Um I think of our community.
I think of it as family. I think of it as a marriage. Uh we're all committed. You have to invest in that marriage. You have to mutually support each other and you have to show up sometimes for decades. This gentleman here I've been watching show up for decades.
we share something so painful we haven't even been able to be friends. Um, and I want to share a verse that I shared then that is oddly been on my heart since this came up. A wife of noble character who can find she is worth far more than rubies. Her
husband has full confidence in her and lacks nothing of value. She brings him good not harm all the days of her life. She selects wool and flax and works with eager hands. She is like merchant ships bringing her food from afar.
She gets up while it is still night and she provides food for her family and portions for her female servants. She considers a field and buys it. Out of her earnings, she plants a vineyard. She sets about her work vigorously. Her
arms are strong for her tasks. She sees that her trading is profitable and her lamp does not go out at night. In her hand, she holds the daff and grasps the spindle with her fingers. She opens her arms to the poor and extends
her hands to the needy. When it snows, she has no fear for her household, for all of them are clothed in scarlet. She makes coverings for her bed. She is clothed in vine lining and purple. Her husband is respected at the city gate where he takes his seat among the elders
of the land. She makes linen garments and sells them and supplies the merchandise with sash supplies the merchants with sashes. She is clothed with strength and dignity and she can laugh at the days to come. She speaks wisdom and faithful
instruction is upon her tongue. She watches over the affairs of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness. Her children arise and call her bless. Her husband also, Annie, praises her. Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all. Charm is
deceptive and beauty is fleeting, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. Honor her for all that her hands have done and let their works bring her praise at the city gate. Mike, you could be commended for your selfless lifetime of service to her community. I am personally grateful and I sincerely hope that you are here. You have much
more work to do for us, sir. William Raj. >> Good evening, commissioners and fellow citizens. I am here to formally submit >> yourself, sir, please. >> Pardon? William Raj 1701 Southwest City Southwest Palm City Road Stewart,
Florida. I am speaking to formally notify you that the case of city versus rights was not lawfully resolved. It was procedurally buried by the current city manager who filed a motion to dismiss with prejudice in federal court while
appearing prosay on behalf of the city of Stewart. The current city manager is a licensed attorney, but in this matter, he was also a named defendant and a necessary witness. Federal law prohibits any party, attorney or not, from
representing a municipal party, per se, while being a leg litigant. This appears inconsistent with 11th circuit precedent and raises a conflict of interest issue
now under federal review. The case was closed April 24 without ad evidentiary hearing despite 197 filings and documented constitutional violations. The federal magistrate admitted she
could not find the original docket confirming judicial con concealment. Now the 11th circuit has formally reopened the case under appeal citing procedural sabotage, denial of due process and conspiracy to commit extrinsic fraud.
This is not adjudication. It is strategic burial now under federal review. Further, the former magistrate who previously served as city attorney and city manager appears to have coordinated or knowingly allowed this concealment. While he did not act as
magistrate in the Rudge case, he did preside over enforcement actions in other cases, ruling on matters that helped to create while serving as city attorney and city manager. This dual role also raises serious concerns about conflict of interest, procedural
sabotage, and judicial misconduct. The applicable federal statutes and criminal exposure of the above city officials action city personnel are USC 241 conspiracy to deprive constitutional
rights. USC 10001 false statements to federal officials. USC1 1951 Hobbs Act extortion on the color of official right with using armed police force. Um,
RICO liability and treble damages. USC18371, conspiracy to defraud the United States. I am submitting this record as cause for termination of the current city manager without seance comp compensation. Any
payout under the circumstances would reward misconduct and expose taxpayers to further liability when he should be investigated, arrested, and tried for his alleged criminal activities. And I hereby request formal review by the city commission appropriate
oversight bodies. The full investigation that this cries for will undoubtedly uncover many more illicit activities and individuals. as well. It's the commission's responsibility to take a proactive lead in this investigation and put an end to this widespread systematic
corruption. Thank you, Kathy Kabri Peters. >> Good evening. My name is Kathy Cabri Peters. I've lived in the city of Stewart my entire life since 1957.
That's 68 years. My parents owned and operated Castle Lumber Company for many years, likely before most of you had taken your first breath. I personally have owned and operated a business in the city of Stewart since 1984. I own a
residence, a vacant lot, and two commercial properties. I've had the privilege of working with Mike since he began practicing law in 1990. Mike is the consmate professional. He has worked tirelessly on the city board
of adjustment, the LPA, city commissioner, mayor, city attorney, and now city manager, dedicating himself to this city for two decades. I'm frankly outraged that you think after such a short stent
that you know better than those that have gone before you. I'm equally concerned that you violated the fundamental tenants of the Sunshine Law and you want us to think it was sheer happen stance that you make your motion for his resignation under the guise of
reviewing his contract without notice to Mike, the other two commissioners, and more importantly the taxpayers who you are supposed to be serving. Since one of your complaints is that you didn't have a voice in the selection process, should be we be worried that
your next motion is going to be to remove the city clerk or the city attorney because they were appointed before you were on the board. What's going to happen to city morale? As for a citizen that's so publicly so
concerned Mr. Mortell and his parallegal are working on private cases while on city time. I can tell you that I am involved in the 19th judicial circuit legal arena day in and day out. In the 20 plus years that Mike Mortell has been
on or involved in city government, I have seen him on one, let me repeat, one private law case. Yet this concerned citizen is not at all concerned that you guys are probably meeting outside the
sunshine. I'm really concerned about that. Your proposed actions will cost this city hundreds of thousands of dollars and your and in severance pay and recruitment costs and frankly possible litigation. You can bet I will
not forget this at election time. Mike may not be perfect. None of us are. I'd ask that you get off the voting block, that you be an independent thinker, that you think on your own, and
that you perhaps heed Mr. Daniels, I believe is his name, uh suggestions from the city of um or the town of Souls Point. In closing, Mike, I am so sorry you're having to go through this after all you've done for this city. You don't
deserve it and neither do the taxpayers of the city of Stewart. Thank you. [Applause] [Music] >> Ed Lucente Uh, Mr. Mayor and Commissioners, my name is Ed Lucenti. I live on Seminal Street
in Stewart. You've heard a lot about the contributions and experience that Mike Mortell brings to his job. I'm here to talk about process. I'm here to talk about how we govern and how we decide. The motion made by Shawn Reid, our newest commissioner of 14 months,
appeared on the agenda without notice, without a documented performance review, without a formal investigation, and without a public hearing. No evidence has been presented to residents of Stewart. No rationale has been shared.
And yet, the commission is poised to vote on a matter that could destabilize our city's leadership. I read in the local paper a quote from Commissioner Collins where he cited that the reason was increasing friction over
the past six months between Mortell and the majority of the commission. But let's be clear that no that so-called majority is a voting block. It includes Collins and two relatively
new commissioners who repeatedly align against the two most experienced commissioners that are part of the progress that we've made in the past. The pattern of 3 to2 votes is not evidence of a broad institutional
friction. It's evidence of a narrow coalition that pushes decisions without the benefit of the experience, consensus, or public engagement. That's not a majority.
That is what I would call a maneuver. One that could and should generate friction and it should not be the basis for removing a charter officer. Thus, this scenario presents a leadership paradox. Understandable.
Now, it does raise an important question and invites reflection on several key issues. The dynamics of leadership within the commission, the impact of different viewpoints and they can have on the decision-making process and the
procedures by which these significant decisions are reached by our local government. It also poses the question of government transparency. The citizens have the right to know what their government is doing and how decisions are made. What kind of a
precedent are we setting? Removing a charter officer without cause, without process, and without public input. Mayor Rich, you've had a long and standing reputation as a voice for order, fairness, and for institutional
transparency. I implore you to use that voice now. Delay the vote, call for a public hearing, and invite residents of Steuart to weigh in. Let's proceed with clarity and not conflict. Thank you, >> Dennis Steelman.
>> You say that again. >> Dennis Steelman. Good evening. My name is Dennis Steelman. I live at 101 Southeast Seminal Street in Stewart. Over the past 10 or so years, I've had many dealings with Mr. Martell.
Always positive. I've always found him to be extremely knowledgeable and available whether in person, by phone, or by email. If anybody should question Mr. Mortell's knowledge and his history of the city, I
recommend you view the Treasure Coast uh podcast in which he was interviewed a few months ago. I am sure that his extensive knowledge of the city, legal matters, and procedures have saved the city millions
of dollars over the course of his career. In 25 years as an engineering manager, I've had many disagreements with other managers, team members, and subordinates. Never once was my inclination to fire them.
Usually open discussion resulted in a superior solution. As a manager, I would never consider discarding such a valuable resource as Mr. Mortell. I did one thing I found this very
disturbing and ION though was the threats against Mr. Reid. That is intolerable. We live in a nation of laws. In conclusion though, I do find the lack of transparency on the part of the commission
disturbing. Thank you, >> Jeff Dowardy. Good evening everyone. My name is Jeff Dardy. I live on Riverside Drive and I have been a property owner, taxpayer uh for a couple decades, almost 25 years
in the city. I'm a a voter. I'm a a resident. And I say all those things. I've been a a member of a couple volunteer uh committees in the city. And I say that only because I care about the city. I'm involved in the city. I'm not just someone passing through. And in all
those years, I've dealt with many people. And uh from a commissioner point of view back to Jim Christie and Carl Krueger and uh Gene Riiffken all the way through today's commission I've dealt with managers have gone from Dave
Collier and Dan Hudson Paul Nicoleti Mike Mortell and I'll share some other local comm uh managers Taran Krisa and Don Donaldson at the county. And the reason I bring that up, one thing that's very important in a leader is continuity
and local knowledge. Every one of the managers I just said has previously worked for the city or county before they came a city or county manager. Every single one I said in the last 15, 20 years. The one exception is when you
went out to Virginia or whatever state it was, Mr. Ross was here less than a year was fired. I see a pattern that local knowledge is invaluable and that's what we have here. And I can tell you in the decades that I've been here, I've
dealt with Mr. Martell on different levels. I've dealt with him as a private attorney. I dealt with him as a city commissioner, as a mayor, as a city attorney, and as a city manager. And I say that both from perspective of myself
as a private citizen. I was a small business owner and I've worked for Martin County for the last 15 years. And we interact with the city on different levels. So, putting all that together, I can tell you every time I dealt with Mr. Mortell, he's been available, which is
hugely important. He's been professional and he's been knowledgeable. And you mix those together with local knowledge. You do not replace that overnight. And I can tell you that the concerns are if you do as a financial consideration as a
taxpayer, the board has decided to withhold some funds for some employees and have to lay them off. At the same time, we're going to go into whatever the debt is, thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars to replace. And that being said, what you don't know is
the cost, not money, but it it'll show up differently in morale and operational efficiency and continuity that will be lost if Mr. Mortell is lost. So, I thank you very much for your time and I appreciate that you would do the best
thing for the taxpayers, residents, and citizens, and that's to maintain the continuity with Mr. Mortell. Thank you. Robin Cartwright. >> Good evening, commissioners. You have a very hard decision in front of you and I don't envy your position, but I want to
review a couple of things. Um, Mr. Ross was mentioned, and you're right. In 2018, Mr. Ross was told he could either resign or be terminated, and he was not afforded this opportunity where people were rallied in his support. Maybe it's because he wasn't from here, but some things about that situation have since come out. But the the big problem here
is that the focus of this discussion should be about accountability and ethics and what is legal is not always ethical. Mr. Mortell has used his position to provide preferential treatment to some in the community and not others. We can look at what happened with the Airbnb on Isa Street versus what happened to somebody like the
Rudes. pushing for the lot split on Oyola that ended up being listed with his wife could be a pure coincidence, but the optics of that are very unfortunate and a huge conflict of interest. When it came to Bright Line, there was a discussion that there would be absolutely no financial obligation to
the citizens of Stewart. And yet, in the very next day in the county meeting, there was a discussion by their county administrator about our responsibility as taxpayers and what we were responsible for that the city had committed to. That was not part of the discussion. And all of this discussion about the sharing of institutional
knowledge. I get it. Mr. Martell is very aphable and he has a lot of information. But I would say to you that if he's truly the leader that everybody here says that he is, this staff is ready to run with or without him. This staff is ready to do their job. The garbage pickups will continue. The water
treatment will continue. All of these services will still continue. If he's truly the leader that everyone says, then he's done his job preparing this this staff in our community for what comes next. And I want to also address that employees are not being fired. I I've heard that a couple of times. From
what I understand, it's open positions that are not being refilled. And that's a very different conversation. So tonight, I just want to remind you that the city manager has a very important job. Absolutely. But they are setting the standards and the what everybody is supposed to follow. So when you make
your decision tonight, it's not about any one singular thing. Or maybe it is. It's about the totality of the behavior and what we expect from a leader in that position because it's not fair to the employees that they are not being afforded the same opportunities and the same set of standards. Thank you.
[Applause] Karen Hall, good evening. Karen Hall, uh, 1701 Southwest Palm City Road. Thank you for your service. I appreciate it. I am so grateful that I live in a country where
I can redress my grievances to my government and I'm so grateful to and proud to be an American. Um, I've been voting in Martin County since 1992. Raised two beautiful daughters here. So, this is my home. I feel like the
luckiest girl in the world. uh to live here. I I want to, you know, we're all dog piling them. Well, no, everybody's dog piling on them, Mike. But I want people to understand and commissioners to understand he didn't do this on his own. Okay? You know, he is not the head
of the snake, okay? He and and just in my situation, he and Nicoleti and Kilbride were all involved. But Mike doesn't do this stuff on his own. There's a network. So when someone last week said, "Oh, we got to cut the cancer." Well, yes, we could do this
surgery, but there's a lot more surgery to be done like Nicoleti, like people at the Men County. Um, so there's always going to be surgeries. We always h have to get the can uh cancer out. But I think the main thing is not about the
money. How much is it going to cost us? What about it costs us the the harm that happens to residents just because of misrepres misrepresentation and using the as an attorney using the law as a weapon rather than a
protection. And I guess the thing with us is I I feel like we turned out great. I have one kid that's an attorney and one kid that Duke. So we had really bad things happen and Mr. Mortell was responsible with Nicoleti. But we've
look what God has done for our family. He saved us and he protected us and he showed us favor. So I I uh love Mr. Mortell as a person. I just would uh may God bless and keep Mike Mortell far away
from city hall. Thank you. [Applause] Andrea Creech or Audra, I'm sorry, Audrey Creech. Good evening, Audrey Cree. I live in Palm City, but I work in the city of
Stewart as a land use and zoning attorney. Um, I would be considered the special interests that have been thrown around apparently. So, guilty is charged, but I live in this town and live in this county and actually live with whatever
it is I get approved. So, that's one thing. But I appreciate the comments that were made at the beginning of this as far as we're not trying to be on teams. If we are effective in actually doing that, which I hope we somehow manage to do, then we have seen some
significant maturity happen in the limited time that you all are in office. And I understand that that maturity has been bought and paid for because it is not easy to be where you are. There's a choice that I made long ago that I would prefer never to be where you are. So, I
appreciate your service and I do understand it. So, Last meeting, I didn't know what was going to happen. I came up here and gave my spiel about the totality of one man's
service to a community because I am used to dealing with worst case scenarios. I deal with them every day. I get up every day trying to figure out how to make worst case scenarios less bad. So when I saw the discussion and deliberation item
out of nowhere, I immediately went, "Oh my goodness, we are facing something that none of us have ever seen before, the ending of a city commissioner that has been within the city for over 25 years. One of the most insidious parts of
caring so very much, and I know that you all care, you wouldn't be here if you didn't care." One of the insidious parts about caring so very very much is that you're more likely to see what you want to see. You
are much more likely to see what you are looking for. Young attorneys face it all the time. We want so badly to do well for our clients and we want so badly for the answers to turn out well for our clients that we might misread them when we're young.
We might read them differently or interpret them in ways that maybe are a little of a stretch because we want our clients to be okay. I think you all are seeking something here that does not exist because you
want to see it. A large conspiracy. Someone who you can get rid of and somehow make everything better. supposedly taking away a cancer. I think you're seeing something that does not exist because you want to see
it. So, with all due respect, I would greatly appreciate it if you rethought what it is you are truly seeing because I see someone who has spent a very long time in the city of Stewart.
Has Mike Martell changed or have you? Thank you. Margaret Bramfield. >> Good evening, Miss Bramfield. >> Good evening. Margaret Bramfield, 1201 Southeast End Dollar Lane. I made sure to write my
notes because I've written my speech like five times. Um, Mr. Mayor, I just want to thank the city manager for his service to the city of Stewart over the years. Thanks for showing up at events in the community. Thanks for being gracious
during those times when you were publicly insulted. Thank you for your professionalism even in this last attempt. While the basis and the evidence for this current attack on you have not been made known to the public, something was
said since I wrote this. But anyway, I want to say that I'm quite sure you have ruffled a few feathers and maybe even said some things that you later determined could have been stated differently. But my question to you would be, have you ever intentionally
put your pen to the paper to defraud and hurt the citizens of this community? Have you ever stolen anything from the people you are here to serve? From my observation of you in the community, I have seen a brilliant, knowledgeable man
who is genuinely engaged and invested in the well-being of the constituency. I see a man who comes to the NAACP along with his wife not just for photo ops. A man who shows up and engage with
the people. He stays. He talks. He listens with an open mind. I want to take it a bit further and say even if you have slipped and have done something wrong, how dare we throw the
baby out with the bathwater. I am reminded of this scripture which was quoted earlier by Stephen Cooper in the scripture where Jesus um he was on the Mount of Olives and the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a
woman taken in the into adultery and when they had set her in the midst they say unto him, "Master, this woman was taken in the midst of adultery. In the very act it was caught in action.
Now Moses in the law command us that such should be stoned. But what sayest thou? This they said tempting him that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down and with his finger wrote on the ground as though he did not hear them. So they continue asking him. He
lifted himself up and said, "He that without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her." And again he stooped down and wrote on the ground. And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by
one, beginning the eldest, even unto the last. And Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. When Jesus lift up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, "Woman, where are thine accuser? Have no man condemned thee?" And she said, "No, Lord, no one."
Jesus said, "Neither do I, Mr. Martell." Neither do I condemn thee. God bless you. >> Robert Stankovich. Robert Stanovich. >> Not here. >> I have some packets I'd like to hand
out. [Music] I got a bunch of them. Some are for the press and some for you guys. Excuse [Music] me. >> Will you introduce yourself, sir, and
begin your remarks? Yep. One second here. [Music] Sure. Okay. It's Robert Sankovich, 1251 Southwest Laurens Lane. Um, I wanted to just start off by asking for
a pension freeze for Mr. Martell, uh, Paul Nicolleti and also, um, Kilbright. And what this relates to, well, like for my case, you know, I did a lot split and I had a lot of problems of I had to jump
through a whole bunch of hoops and it cost me tremendous money, you know, tremendous time. It's been since 2021 I've been trying to get my permit back, which was never legally closed.
But where it ended off is Mr. Martell wanted me to trench my property from Village Oaks community, which is dumpster water and parking lot water into Pppleton Creek, which would have been an EPA
issue. It would have it would pollute PP Creek. So, that was one thing. And then I was also asked to do a water test for a rainwater test for Community Oaks, which
is, you know, a community I don't even own and which would have cost $38,000 to get my permit. You know, when I originally had a permit with a site plan that was stamped by the city, everything was done
and I had a stop order. that that >> you can continue. >> So, so for my case, you know, I can't jump through hoops, you know, I can't pollute poppplin creek
and I'm not going to spend $38,000 on a water test for a community just to get my building permit back. It's just ridiculous. It's been years. So on top of that, the building department blue Hatton
in a commissioner hearing brought up a picture of a truss which was a scrap piece of truss and presented it to you guys and you know it was a like scrap wood and I had two sets of trusses. You know one was made wrong was a scrap and then I had the right trusses. So the
right trustes were up. So there was misrepresentation there. And then Jod Kuger changed my partial IDs so she would transfer my fines from the 1251 address to the new address in
order to do a lean foreclosure. So they did a rush magistrate hearing to do a lean foreclosure and adjudicate fines without a consent order. And you know, right now I probably have over $300,000 in fines.
So the fines, which is a big issue with Paul Nicoleti because, you know, he's supposed to be impartial, but yet he was 6 years city attorney and six years city manager. So how could he
be impartial? You know, he can't. It's a constitutional violation. You can't, you know, issue is issue fines. So, the whole thing is just been it's a racketeering to make money.
Just like the Rudes, it's just it's been 16 years to date, October 27th, 16 years ago, that the city filed an injunction on a dead person on a dead attorney. The attorney was dead
for months. and they filed an injunction. So, it's it's bad. I mean, it's it's really there's so many deep rooted things. I mean, everyone sees things on the surface, but it's really this broke up
my marriage, you know, to have the pressure of, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines. It broke up my marriage. It broke up marriage. And you'll see in all these documents
what's been happening. You know, there's things about Mr. Martell perjuring himself, you know, wondering why, you know, he just continues to not tell the truth. It's in there. It's in this packet. So, it's that's all court
documents. It's not a matter of opinion. It's it's what's there. >> So, people don't see what's going on. And I've had it. I mean, I'm not going to spend >> I'm not going to pollute Popling Creek and I'm not going to spend $38,000 on a
rainwater test that you know. >> Okay. >> It's Thank you, sir. >> ridiculous. >> Thank you, sir. >> But everything's in the packet and you'll see >> and we have received your information. >> Yeah. >> Clay sharer. Good evening, commissioners and and
neighbors. Um, my name is Clay Sharer, Clay the Treeman Sharer, actually. Um, 200 Southeast Four Winds Drive. I think um, it would be hard to to add to anything uh that has been said
tonight by by many others. um urging you all to reconsider the the the motion uh or the consideration of of Mike's role. So I I would just urge you to think about fairness, transparency, and a bit
of due process and and all of you are elected uh with that in mind by the voters. So please keep that in mind. Tonight I um I share the the board this the CRB the community redevelopment board uh with a
gentleman named Mark Reville who's here tonight and some he doesn't always say smart things but actually um two weeks ago um at this meeting which by the way I wasn't here two weeks ago I I watched the the tape and that's how I know how
how smart Mark is. So, um, he urged you even then when it it wasn't really clear that it was on the agenda to, um, he felt like it was a premature motion. And I I think that's probably relevant even tonight. If you all are receiving new
information like maybe we just heard and other things, then I would I would just urge you to reflect on that. Obviously, it's going to take some time uh to go through that. We've heard a lot of good things about what Mike does and even you all uh mentioned two weeks ago the contributions that that Mike performs in
his role um for the city and for the city. If there were there are issues that need to be addressed, surely you could find a better way uh to work with Mike on those than the current motion. I I would just suggest that you reconsider
that. Um, yeah. So, I would urge you to to vote against uh the motion. Please demonstrate that you're that you listen to the citizens. You've heard many tonight, and I'm I'm sure you've you've received other emails and so on. Uh,
please demonstrate that you hear us uh and that you listen. Thank you, [Applause] >> Andrea Hagopian. the name again.
>> Marie Braid. >> He was just here. She left. >> Andrea. >> Marie Braid. >> Yeah. >> Mike Braid. left. >> Just left.
>> They left. >> Lucy Magguire. >> Oh, >> they don't hear him outside. >> What's your name? Lizzy. >> All right. Lizzy. Okay. Lucy.
>> Good evening. My name is Lucy Magcguire and before I begin, let me clarify something because I have been mocked online previously by one of the commissioners about the fact that I live in East Port St. Lucy, which is currently what I can afford as a local because otherwise I would live in the city of Stewart. So, let me explain why
I believe I have a right to share my point of view here with you all tonight. I am here tonight because I care deeply about this community. I was born in Stewart right down the road. Raised in Jensen Beach, went to Jensen Beach Elementary, Stewart Middle, and Jensen
Beach High School. I'm a local leader. I founded a local nonprofit based in Martin County that continues to serve local underserved students. I own a local social media agency that provides free educational classes for small businesses in Martin County and beyond.
and I have held multiple leadership positions with community organizations based in Martin County. All of this done for free as a volunteer. And I serve this community on a daily basis and have done so for years and continue to do so just like yourselves. And I appreciate all of you for the time and effort that
you put into this community. I'm not a part of any special interest groups. I am simply a concerned native citizen who would love who loves this city and spends my dollars here and supports my community whenever I can. I'm so disappointed. It's painful to
watch our elected officials handle this situation and so many others with such little respect for the people that they serve sometimes. And one of you reminded us to act like adults and speak. And as we speak before you, as I speak before you, truthfully, so much of the childish
behavior I've seen has come from some of the commissioners here. And I don't want to say that. I don't say that lightly. I expect and we expect more. And a few of you have said whether it's the right decision, this is our decision whether it's right or wrong. That's not
leadership. Leadership is listening. The community is here tonight telling you this decision is wrong and it's your job to hear us. Mr. Martell is one of the most informed, experienced, and respected public servants this city has
ever had. He comes to every meeting with facts, history, and context that few others could provide, and has over 20 years of knowledge that has served in every position that you guys currently hold. According to my knowledge, he has more experience than all of you combined.
that matters and that experience has weight. To lose him isn't just to lose a city manager. It's to lose the very wisdom that has helped build Stuart into the city that it is today. This decision doesn't just cost our city financially, but more importantly, it will cost our
city its integrity. You are here to serve the people and our community, right? Well, the people are here telling you what they want. We are not asking. We are pleading. Are you listening? If you truly care about this community,
prove it. Listen. Reconsider. Do what's right. You are not here to serve your interests or your opinions. You are here to serve the city and every single resident, native, local who lives, works, and plays here. I urge you to make the right decision. Leadership
is not about power. It's about principle and responsibility. No one here is perfect, but we can all do our best. And right now, the best and right thing to do is to keep Mr. Mortell. Thank you, Mr. Martell for your service and the city is lucky to have you and hopefully we will get to keep you. To the
commission, I'll leave you with this. He deserves better and frankly so do we. So please make the right decision and do better. Thank you. Tim Hernandez Tim Hernandez Hi, Tim Hernandez. Um
uh I've encountered many elected and appointed officials over the past 40 years as a planner, as a community development director, as a regional planning commissioner, as a CRA
board member, as a developer, and as a college professor. I've met very few with as much intellect, talent, dedication, and obvious love for their community as Mr. Mortell. He clearly puts his heart and soul into every decision. Looks out for the city's best interests at all times.
City managers are like football or basketball coaches. They're let go all the time. Occasionally, it's deserved, but often it's for the wrong reason or for no articulated reason at all. Many times, a new coach or manager is not an improvement, but there are often other
deeper issues at play. Steuart's a wonderful place in no small part because of Mr. Martell's stewardship. In this day and age, it's rare to find someone to run your city with deeper ties to it than Mr. Motel has with Steuart.
I've never really seen a turnout like this anywhere. Um, I've seen city managers get fired before. I've sat in the audience when it happened. Um, but I kind of wonder who could perform the job
more effectively than Mr. Mortell. Will the cream of the crop even apply when they read the vague reasons for this decision? Somebody always wants a job, but you may not want that somebody. I urge you to retain Mr. Martell because
in my opinion, you already have the best. There's no reason to settle for less. Thank you, >> Olga Hamilton. >> What's it Hamilton? I saw Mr. Hamilton.
Here she comes. >> Good evening. Hi Hamilton, 311 Southwest 3rd Street, Stewart, Florida. The the city manager has a very very important job overseeing all the
departments. But these supervisory responsibilities should be done by the city manager and of course most of the city managers that do it according to the all applicable
laws not just city's policies and local ordinance but also federal and state laws. When the city manager implements this laws selectively,
deliberately what happens? It happens mistrust and it happens mismanagement and especially as it happened mismanagement on the federally funded program. When the state of
Florida awarded the city of Stewart with the federal funds, they expect they expect to report how this tax base money spent. When the participants
on this federally funded programs notified, everyone and this uh community development blog grant administration and the grant management company that hired by the city and the city manager
that mismanagement happened, fraud happened and fraudulent documents happened. It's all there. And then the city manager decides
to cover up everything. When the city manager has a document, the subgrant agreement between the city and the state that states
all the laws federal and Florida's laws and courts and regulations and they all states the city is responsible to supervise not only contractors but consultants
and everyone who paid from the federal funds and when it's not happen what happened it happens mismanagement of the federal funds and the city of Stewart
because I am sorry because you know I have it all on my website I have all documents Means the problem is when the city manager writes one thing
in one month then says another thing in one month and then I write to the state of Florida and state of Florida that all says me oh we never say it that's not what what we meant and when the city
manager drags into his false statement the state employee name. I had to write the letter to the state of Florida about it as well. It's we all talking
about transparency. Talk about transparency. whether you continue contract with the city manager or not, whether we can work it out or as at last meeting on September 22 when the city manager and grant administrator
in collusion we lighten lying about non-existent Cobra roof which went on metal standing seam roof and the money was paid for work was wasn't performed for work that
have to be redone when it all could be managed in the first days when we notified the city of Stewart about the mismanagement on the program. Talking about transparency, please be transparent and tell people what you
know. >> Thank you, Mrs. Hamilton. Robert Hamilton. Good evening. My name is Robert Hamilton, 1895 Church of Stewart. You know, I think what we're really talking about here tonight is truth and
accountability. What went on on our project was terrible. Cost us tremendous amount of money because the city of Stewart, Mr. Mattel did not follow the directive sent by the state of Florida. Not once, not twice, three times the state of Florida
sent a directive on our 130y old historical property. It was ignored the first December uh of 23 letter 5 months before the job started. That letter was hidden and ultimately we found that out in November of 24. And to reiterate what
Olga just said, the reality of this is is federal funds were used to pay the contractor for work that was never done. There is no roof ridge vent system on that building. There is not. Mr. Mortell lied on October 13th and so did Antonio
Jenkins. And if you were given wrong information again, Mr. Mortell, you could have turned around as I said 200.320. I wouldn't be here tonight because that's procurement and that is allowed to be done given these
circumstances of the damage to our historical building, the damage to my reputation, which is fine. But even the ladies in Tallahassee know what you did, saying the windows can stay. We'll just put a plaque on it. They never said
that. You lied, man. I'm not here to create a problem for you. And you seem to think that I am. Our 130year-old building has been damaged. Antonio Jenkins will never come on that property again. Not one time. He stood in this
room and lied to everybody on this dis. We may have difference opinions. There's nothing wrong with that. This is about leadership. I want you to think leadership. Why subvert the system, sir? Real leadership says, "Hey, man. Let's
work this out. We wrote letters to come in to work it out. But what were we faced with when we brought the truth and the evidence to you? We were faced with tell the city employees not to respond to their email. That's what I got.
And here we are. You know, I will not argue. He has a plethora of information. >> Mr. Hamilton, I cannot allow you to make accusations about Mr. Mortell's behavior and he's not in a position to defend himself. Well, speak October October
13th, sir. October 13th, he lied in this room on video. That's not an accusation. He lied. The church is over there. Anybody in this room can come and we'll show there's no roof, fridge, vent system. I realize you're trying to help him. I will not go away. This will go
forward. And HUD, they're investigating. The Office of Inspector General is investigating. I don't interrupt you when you're speaking, but you don't care about me. Nobody in this room owns that home. Nobody in this room knows what we went through. A few
commissioners do. And of course, I'm upset. 15 months. You have a job to do, folks. Do what needs to be done. Thank you, >> Lucas Laam. [Applause]
Lucas Laam, 369 Southeast Sea Hunt Way. I'm live in the Seaside Town Homes and I'm a Pleton Creek park goer. None of this is going to matter in 10 years. I heard someone remark. I couldn't disagree more. Some people have a lot of money to be made and a lot of building to be done.
And if we're talking about the acquaintance of Stuart, are we in a time lapse? The acquaintance of Steuart stopped in 2019. Let's get down some facts. We've talked about accountability fact knowing impressive legal skills. Let's talk
about the fact on April 12th, 2021, policy 1. A5.3, which anyone online can look up this public record. I emailed all the commission on Saturday was called an objective. I I corrected
said member and in fact it is a policy. The policy reads whenever possible medium density and residential open space should serve as buffers between higher and lower intensity residential uses to achieve an orderly lane use transition. This is in respect to the four-story monstrosity that looms over
Papelton Creek Parkway in the seaside town homes which were established by Mr. Reese and Mr. Freeman as low dens density residential at 10.2 dwelling units per acre. Funny enough, a member up here implied that it
is a medium-density buffer. How is a low density residential structure a medium density buffer? That's some excellent lawing luring there. On June 26 of 2025, someone decided to speak at the FDOT
meeting. They chose to tell owners in Seaside, as the news article from the TC Palm reads, the past may haunt opponents of the Willieby project, that they should have read the fine print that there might be a road coming down down through here,
and we should have known. I will remind everyone up here, there are three options for that project. One through Alahjhamra claiming em domain and barreling past seaside. A less bad option raise Wade and a third underappreciated option a no build.
The fact that someone up here wants to hold us to some something that's equivalent of reading a 99page iPhone agreement is preposterous. And let me remind everyone up here and something that should have been done over the past six years. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.
And that's all I have to say about that. >> Frank Mcrist bedtime. Hey, there there's nothing new here. This this has been going on for decades. The same old us versus them. the people
that make a lot of money from growth and those who get elected luckily once in a while by the people that live here and want to slow things down. By the way, before I forget, everyone needs to watch the MO meeting from this morning to get
a nice taste of our Commissioner Reed. Those of you who [Applause] you just need to see Mr. to read in action against the big boys. It was it was awesome. So, basically,
you do have a decision to make. Uh, a lot of hubris in here tonight. A lot of arrogance, and I think that's part of it. So many people cannot believe that this majority got handed a mandate and the
people that were doing what was being done before you got in were booted out and all those people at Maria's last week are not those people that got you in. All right. So there's nothing new here.
I'm reminded of uh and the job is this. If you really feel as though your city manager is not working with you for that mandate that was given to you,
if you feel as though he's impeding your your actions, then you have you do have a job to do. And the hubris and the arrogance is just it goes around. I mean, the people that think you're all just
ignorant rookies, they don't know you or they don't want to know you. They're sick of knowing you. Okay? So, there's nothing new here. The city manager position should be an
a-olitical position. I'm remember I'm I'm reminded the last time there was a Greeny Commission majority at Martin County long long time ago. Meltzer and and Herd and somebody else the majority
they got booted out by Weberman Dietery and Smith in 2004. And I'd like to remind everyone here, if you guys are a little naive, it's the fact that you didn't know that as soon
as the progrowth majority was elected, Mr. Olahoff's job, who was working for the Greenies, okay, his job as county administrator, the same type of job as Mr. Mortell's lasted exactly
45 seconds after those guys were sworn in. Okay. So, if you've given your city manager a chance to to play ball and it hasn't happened yet, then yeah, you got a job to do. All
right. Thank you, >> Robert Hos. Hello, I'm Robert Hos from 228 Southeast Iowa. Um, I wasn't planning on speaking today. I'm doing uh landscaping all day. Um, I was mentioned earlier by someone
that was putting down Mike Mortell and they mentioned the 228 ISA Airbnb uh thing with me. And uh I want to point out that there's been a lot of lies going on about myself and my property.
Um, it was said that I knew Mike Mortell and David Das since we were kids. Totally not true. The first time I met Mike Mortell is when he brought me to court as a city attorney. Um,
and uh, David Das, I've never met. I don't know where they got that from. Uh, I I admired the work that he did for us, but uh, I mean, I grew up in Stewart since uh, 1977. Charlie Foster, the mayor many times and
and city commissioner uh lived on my street. His son, Rob Foster, is very very good friend of mine. I introduced to his wife. We're still best friends. Uh I wanted to point out that all of you harassed by I'm sure
you know the guy's name. He was a tenant in my place. He kept trying to get me to give up my property so he could take it over. Uh one on one uh summer I went to visit my folks for 30 days before my son
went in the Marines and remodeled their their bathroom. Um I was called 28 days after I left and I was told by that lieutenant that uh he was hearing all kinds of rats in the house. I said, "What do you mean you're hearing all
kinds of rats?" And he said, "I'm just hearing a whole bunch of rats and I thought you should know." I said, "Well, it's been I've been gone for 28 days. Why didn't you tell me two, three weeks ago? Oh, I don't know. I just thought you should know. And he hung up. Now, when I got home, my property has two buildings and then between them, it's
been closed in. Um, I had a 20 lb brand new bag of dog food there. And on the bottom of the bag, there was a hole about this big, not not like a circle cut, but cut with straight scissors about 12 times. Bunch of little triangles. And in that 20 pound bag,
there was only six pounds left. In this foyer that l led through to the laundry and to the pool in the back, there was only one person in town that had a key and that was that tenant. All right. When I got back, I I called pest control
people and they were looking at the bag and they said, "Well, we don't see any rat feces in there." Said, "Have you seen any or did you clean any up in this foyer?" I said, "No, I I I didn't even catch any in this area." And uh so I
know that that tenant took 14 pounds of my food and uh and fed it to rats and I came home to a mess. I had to kill over 40 rats. Not only that, a week later after I got back, the health department showed up. Somehow they heard that I had
a rat problem and and uh maybe we shouldn't be living there. Um I let him look around. he saw that it was mostly under control. So, um, now this tenant, that is why I terminated his lease. It was a verbal lease, so I was allowed to
do that. And when I did, I told him I money that he had prepaid, I was going to pay him back out of the rent from the upstairs as agreed upon. But um when I was when I was uh when I was brought in front of the court for work I
did without a permit during the pandemic, uh Mike Martell went after me for $43,000. I was only able to reduce it because the head of the building department back then was lying about how long I was in violation. The magistrate made him go
immediately. We all had to stop. He went and got every email between us and those documents proved that I didn't owe 43,000. I owed 18,000. So, I still have that debt to pay, but the lean on my property prevents me from borrowing against my equity to pay that lean. It
also avoids me being able to pay get any money to pay Doug or excuse me. Um, so there there's nothing I can do until until I'm able to to tap into my equity or until I can rent the property out
again. Um, so I just wanted to bring that up. I want to bring up that Mike Martell uh was not a friend of me. He didn't do me any favors like that lady at claims. So I wouldn't trust much of what she said. And uh I I've just known I know Mike went to
school with my brothers and sisters at St. Joseph's. I was too old went right to Martin County High. But I've never known him to be dishonest. And I know he has a great deal of ex experience. And I I think in 25 years, you're bound to
piss a few people off. And you know, like the guy with the uh once the water drained into Paban Creek, I can tell you from living in that neighborhood, there's a lot of storm drains and things that run right into Pollin Creek. I mean, that's one of its one of its purposes is to handle the water, excess
water in the area. Um, and I just uh I just wanted to tell you my side of the story and that even though I've had been fined by Mike, I hold him in very high
regard and somebody with 25 years experience, even though you differ on a few things. I think if you get rid of him, you're going to really piss off the the voters in Martin County. So don't plan on staying around long because it's
not going to happen. Thank you, sir. >> Steven Vitali. >> Is Mr. Vitali the last one? >> Good evening. >> That's appropriate. >> Good evening, commissioners. Mr. Mayor, Mike Lee,
>> Steven Vitali. I am a resident um of SS Point. I've been a business owner here in Stewart for a long time. Um, I just want to say tonight that firing a city manager via trial by Facebook is wrong.
Wrong. There is someone who is a blogger on Facebook that has made a lot of defamatory comments about many families that are pillars of this community such as the Hartman's, the Leightens. Um, I
could go on naming them, but if people saw a posting about a lot split that was done that I was involved in and that you all voted unanimously on and the history of it, so
we don't rely on Facebook information, I'm going to tell you the history right now. Sandy Thurlo who is our local historian came to me and said this the most historic house in Stewart that the first judge appointed by um Governor Martin >> Mr. Vatelli. >> What's that?
>> What year is this? >> What year is what >> that this is taking place at this >> approximately a year and a half ago. >> Okay. >> She came to me and told because you you some of you may know I have experience in saving historic houses and I'm very passionate about it. I've been doing
this for a long time. I've been putting my blood, sweat, and tears into keeping our town as charming and as historic as it can be in the same way that Mr. Mortell has spent his blood, sweat, and tears over the past 25 years serving this city. So about a year and a half
ago, Sandra Thurlo came to me and said, "Stephen, what can you do to save this house?" Because it happened to be sitting on the very corner of a large lot. And everybody knew that when that when that when this family sold that lot, that historic house was going to be knocked down and a gigantic McMansion
was going to be built. So I said, "You know what? Let me see what I can do." And I my son Christopher who manages the hotel and who also paints all the murals. He had just gotten married and he needed a house. So I said, "You know what? If we could get this house, we
could preserve it, which which we love to do, and Christopher can can live in it, but he couldn't afford to own it because it was a very expensive piece of property. So we decided if there's a way that we can get this house and uh have a separate lot for that and then sell off
the other lot." Um, everybody voted on that with zero questions. I Somebody today said it was a controversial lot split. There was not I don't believe there was one question that was asked. It was unanimously approved. And we accomplished our goal, which was to save
another historic house and prevent a gigantic McMansion from being built right there and house being knocked down. Okay. So, I happen to live in this town a long time. Okay. I know the Mortells. I know a lot of people. I'm very close with
them. And I also know the Baratas. And I sang at Mr. Mortell's brother's funeral. Okay. It's a small town. We all know each other. The Mortells live in that in that in that neighborhood. Mike's wife happens to be a real estate
broker and she was dealing with people who were looking in that neighborhood. I decided, wow, there's already a lead. If you're in business, you know if you have something bird in the hand is better than two in the bush. I decided to give her the listing. >> The listing agreement was signed one
month. One month after you all voted on this. So you tell me what how and how dare the person in this I think is still sitting here. >> Direct your comments this way. >> Yes. >> Direct your comments here. >> I I don't even need to say it, but I I'm
insulted. I'm insulted that somebody would think that there was any undue influence at all. There was no undue influence. You all unanimously voted on it. And to even dis this whole >> creation of the lot was not the problem.
>> You allow him to finish. >> Let me just finish my Let me finish what I wanted to say. Okay. I wanted to say I wanted to just say a few more things too. I want to I know you give me a little bit more time, but and I appreciate it because this is important. I I want to say that Mike has I've been
an attorney that I've represented clients every time I've represented a client and Mike was on the other side. I was so I was so impressed with how well he advocated for this city. Every single time without fail. Without fail. What I
just want to say there's a few Bible verses that have been brought up. That's wonderful. I want to bring up one too. Ephesians 4. Okay. The body of Christ. Okay. The body of Christ is made up of different people with different skill sets and different talents. You all have
different skill sets and different talents. Some of you small businesses. Some of you are are experienced with city planning. Some of you have been commissioners and have been uh serving on all the different boards and a city attorney. This we need to we need to
work together. Okay. This has become is slowly becoming a very dysfunctional city. Let's let's keep Mr. Mortell. Okay. Let's get together and have a barbecue at the Owl House, invite everybody and start being a city where
everybody respects everybody. That's what I think we should do. Mr. Martell should be retained. He should be awarded for his service to this city. Thank you for your time. Does that conclude public comment? Um, I hate to do this, but let's take a
10-minute break. So, we'll reconvene at 9:20. We'll stand. We'll stand in recess for 10 minutes. could you please take your seats? If anyone sees Commissioner Reid, if we
ask him to rejoin us. I'm calling back to order this regular meeting of the Steuart City Commission for the 27th of October, 2025. So, we've con concluded concluded public comments. Do the commissioners
have any comments or questions? Would they like to hear from Mr. Mortell? >> I would like to respond to some of the allegations that I've heard against my without cause tonight. >> Is there any objection to Mr. Martell?
>> Um, which which specific ones were they? >> Oh, I love >> I don't know. Let's all of them. >> Okay. >> Just the insulting ones. >> Okay. Okay. >> Yeah, I'm not opposed to it. >> Okay. Thank you, Mr. Martell.
>> First, I just wrote some notes here at the end because I couldn't help myself. I've sat here quietly for a long time, and most recently, it's been since Commissioner Reid ambushed me with the firing a couple weeks ago.
But when I listened to the people speak, I I I was truly humbled by by the the outpouring from the community. And I'm going to get into that in a second. But I also heard people speak that that spoke against me. Uh the the recent ones
were the Hamiltons and they got up and Commissioner Reed assisted them for the last 6 months or so to publicly abuse me every two weeks and to accuse me of crimes and to tell me I'm a fraud and a
liar. And whoever out there is yelling it out, that's impressive, too. Um, in any event, what really happened was there was a contractor that did some bad work at their house and our CRA director within two weeks told them he
was going to replace that she would have their windows replaced and their their roof repaired. But that wasn't enough. It was a grant paying for it and they wanted a different type of insulation and air conditioning for their whole house even though it wasn't included in the grant. and they weren't signing
anything unless they got the air conditioning on top of it. And then we started investigating it. And during the investigation, I had found out that they had gone out and applied for an SBA loan and received a $41,000 grant that said that their home
was an office and that their office had commercial office insurance on it and that they had never gotten a change of use for residential purposes and that that was all still in play because the bankruptcy was filed in March of 24.
And I stopped then and said, "Wait a second, guys. When the city first applied for this grant, we didn't know they were committing two types of grant fraud. But I can't in in good conscience let my staff move forward on this
because then they'll be complacent and part of it. And the city of Stewart doesn't do that stuff and the city didn't do it. And those of you choking on yourselves, maybe you do it and maybe you look the other way, but we don't. and the city never has because
the city's had a culture of honesty and in our staff meetings we talk about it every week and you guys enjoy the fact that the Hamiltons are were committing the fraud but the fact is if we participated in that it would jeopardize
all of the future grant applications for the city of Stewart as well and Commissioner Reid knew about it. Commissioner Reid, I told him myself, he also went over to the Hamilton's house on multiple occasions and saw all the work they were doing in the house on their own without a permit. But just
like Robin Cartwright said this, let's not treat them differently than the guy on Isa Street that Mike sought a $43,000 loan against. Instead, Mr. Reed, allow him to continue working with no violation of the code. But it goes on
and we continue forward and they pull their hearing and they do the whole thing on me and it all of a sudden is my fault. But before I could get it even resolved, the city has a thing and it's called the municipal handbook and it
says that the commission's job is to set the policy of the city and the staff's job is to do the administration. And as city manager, Frank Mcrist said it tonight, the city manager has to carry out the staffs or the commission's
directives and policy. And as city manager, I did that. The city commission before them was pro was pro Costco. I did Costco. And that's why Robin Cartright's been after me. And then after that, they were pro Bright Line. And then this commission didn't want
Bright Line and we turned off Bright Line. And this commission wanted to do a zoning in progress. who handled the zoning in progress? It was me. I if if I wanted to be contrary to this commission's actions, I could have gone out and hired some consultant that would have drug it through the mud and it
would have taken 10 times as long and it wouldn't have gotten done in the six months. And you know what else? I wouldn't have been called an idiot by people telling me that I was not following good planning practices and that I really needed to be pushing mixed use and other things like that. Instead,
what I did was exactly what the commission wanted me to do. I brought it forward and I got it done in six months and every single initiative they wanted adopted was adopted. That's what happened. And then when that was finished, we moved on to the budget and
they wanted a million dollars cut from the budget and I was only able to do 917,000, but it was pretty darn close. So, I challenge you guys that want to choke on your on comments and make fun of me to think about what it was I
didn't do that this commission wanted because every single thing they wanted I did. And that's okay. And I know that we can be fired at any time, but not for cause for any reason or the will of the board. And honestly, that's their
prerogative, and I totally get it. But that's not what happened in this case. What happened in this case is Commissioner Reid brought up that he wanted to see my contract. He then never mentioned to me or the
city attorney that he was planning on firing me for the next two weeks. Never mentioned it in we saw each other probably five different times. He even saw the Steuart News spoke to them about it and they asked him flat out because they called me and said, "Is he going to fire you?" And I said, "I don't know.
You ought to call him and ask him." Next day I read in the newspaper that they did in fact ask him. He said, "No, I'm not I'm not firing him. I just want to review his contract and make some changes to it." Is that transparency? It would be if he didn't first thing out of
his mouth at the next meeting say, "I'm going to fire him and move to fire him for cause and then say, "Oh, but wait, he's a good guy and I'm not I don't want to fire him. I don't want to say all the bad things he's done. So if he resigns, we won't
have to abuse him. He wanted me to walk away from my contract. And I didn't. So you know what? I got abused. You guys have all read it day in and day out. I got abused. I got abused tonight. It was
fun. You guys choking on it. You think it's great. I hope it comes back to you one day. I'm okay with it because I know I didn't commit any crimes. I didn't do anything for cause and I didn't endorse a fraud
on Florida Commerce. I stood firm on it. And the other one was the Rudges and some thing that I did in 2009. I was never, the city of Stewart was never even a party to their lawsuit after they signed full releases in 2012.
And whatever they said I did went to the 11th circuit court of appeal and the fourth DCA on appeal and were all affirmed, were all accurate. And you know how much it cost city? >> Nothing. You know why? Because I defended it. And that's why she's mad at
me. I could have said, "Go hire some other lawyer and let us spend a hundred grand defending a frivolous lawsuit." But I didn't. >> I'm not mad at you. >> This is You had your turn. >> So >> Frank Mcrist said, "If you're giving him
a chance to play ball and has not happened, then you have a job to do." And and I told him during the break, I I I respect Frank and I totally agree with what he said. And I challenged Frank, "Next time you see me, tell me if you can think of something I did where I
didn't play ball." And the board knows that I've implemented every goal they've wanted. And if they've come to me and asked me to do something, I've done it. They even said I did a good job last meeting. It was just that Commissioner Reid didn't get
to hire the city manager and therefore he wants to hire his own, which is fine. That's the board's prerogative, but that's not for cause. That's say it. Be honest with the public. Tell them what your real motivation is. I wish
Commissioner Reid had told everybody that when he was running for office so they would have known that, too, when they were pulling the lever to vote, but he didn't because that's not transparency. I've adjusted my position every time. This is not a situation where I failed to go along with the program.
There's been increasing friction between Mortell and the majority of the commission over the last six months. And they're right, there has. And it's been horribly frustrating for me. And it's I've been sitting here quietly and I've been cringing over the last 6 months because it started when Commissioner
Reid started calling Florida Commerce and making private phone calls with them and sending them emails and doing administrative work which violates the city charter, the city policy, the municipal handbook. Without a doubt, it also included every every other me every
other Monday when he would ambush me with a Hamilton thing. Even though he saw me the week before, it got so bad that there was comments around staff. We knew when Commissioner Reid was going to ambush me, it'd be when he didn't come see me the Friday before.
But I stood quietly. I let it happen. Even during this meeting, members of the public laughed about how the city was operating in the past. They did not recognize the sta the the staff's job is to follow policies adopted by the city
commission. I think it's interesting that they blame me for doing what the commission asked in the past, Bright Line, Costco, whatever it might be. But now when I say what the commission asked me to do now, it doesn't count and it doesn't matter. And
if I were to stay, the next commission would blame me for doing what this commission wanted. But that's what a city manager is supposed to do. And I hope that the next city manager has the courage to come to this city and to follow the culture we used to have in this city without the fear of
retribution. But what's what else happened over the last 6 months? Well, we did the zoning in progress and we pushed it through and we got it done. But then the state stepped in and they pushed Senate Bill 180 on us and I was
the first one to say, "Guys, we can't follow the zoning in progress anymore. We got to pull it because Senate Bill 180 says we're supposed to resend everything back to last August." But on August 11th, even though I was saying that's a
violation of state law, this commission said, "Nope, we're telling staff to violate state law." And the next day I had to go to the staff meeting and say the commission voted we're going to continue to follow our zoning in progress. And the answer was what about
Senate Bill 180? We're going to challenge that and say it's unconstitutional. Which by the way is a great thing to do if you want to challenge law. That's exactly what you do. However, while it's pending, if you go back and watch the August 11th meeting, the city attorney
and I were telling this board, "Hey guys, it's kind of like if a person went out drinking and then they got pulled over for drinking and driving," and the sheriff said, "I'm going to arrest you for DUI." You say to the sheriff, "Oh,
no. You can't arrest me. I'm going to challenge this law for being unconstitutional, so it doesn't apply to me. That's what happened. That's transparency. But you know what? I sat quietly. It
wasn't until I read and saw everything that this board did to me over the last two weeks and the lack of confidence and the fact that they would hammer every one of the staff of the city of Stewart and me included and it didn't matter who was in their way. And what I did for the
last six months and really for the last year was defend my staff. I wasn't involved in the Hamilton's thing. That was a CRA matter, but I stood right in front of it and owned it because that's what you do. But the city lost touch
with the process and the structure that used to be the city of Stewart's government. And it used to be that the commission would give policy and that when someone would go to the commissioners instead of trying to take over the matter and solve it on their own, they would come back to staff and
have staff do it. And the city code of conduct clearly states that the that's what needs to happen. And all the commissioners sign it and it's in the charter. You can look it up. The the charter refers to the code of conduct and it's right there. And Commissioner
Reid said he didn't care as much about the code of conduct as he does about the Commission on Ethics. But it shouldn't be I care about this one more than I care about this one. It should be both matter. It should be that staff matters. It should be that everyone matters. It
should be that the people here matter and that people's voices matter. But that's all gone because they no longer matter. What matters is the decision that was made before we got here. And how are we gonna ram it down everybody's
throat? I know that I'm sounding a little frustrated, but you know why? Because I am. And it's not because I'm losing my job. I accepted that two weeks ago when I found out I was losing my job. It's I knew that it wasn't for cause and I was
going to stand firm on that. I want to take a minute to thank the residents of the community from the bottom of my heart because over the past several days I've been truly humbled by the incredible outpouring of support and Robin Cartwright made up stories that she knew I was the one behind putting
out everybody and getting everybody to do it. Completely made up. I didn't do any of it. I didn't return the media's calls, ask them. I didn't email them back. I didn't ask anybody to do any of the rallies for me. And in fact, I actually asked people not to because I
said the only chance I have of getting my job is if this commission doesn't think it's me versus them and that if these rallies happen, it's going to look like it's me versus them. But when I saw that it was clear that it was just let's have fun and batter Mike Mortell for the
next two weeks, I was like, you know what? I don't care if the rallies happen. In fact, I'm happy they're happening because I get to see the people actually come out for me. And you know what? It's been heartwarming. It's been great. It's It really has.
And I've always loved Stuart and I still do. This city is made up of many different types of people and all of them deserve to be included in the process. But the process matters and the structure
matters and the culture matters. And every single Tuesday when I have to tell my staff, "Yes, we're going to do this and we are going to work through this and it's going to be fine and you're not. You're no, you're going to be okay." And when Commissioner Reid went into the development office during the
budget cycle and started telling people, you're not on the list to get fired. I'll make sure you're saved. And he was not doing it on purpose. He didn't even realize he said it, but two people came to my office crying that day. Now, I said to him, he was just in passing. He didn't mean it cuz he didn't. I don't
think he even remembers. >> I don't even remember saying that, but listening. >> It happened. And if you don't believe me, I'll be gone. They're not going to be afraid to talk about me after I'm gone. So, talk to them tomorrow. But the it it can
this proceeding would not have gone this way if there had been true transparency. If Commissioner Reid had gotten up whenever he got up and said, you know, I just never had it for Mike Mortell. I don't feel he's the right guy for the job and the contract says I can fire him
and I'm going to fire him because of that. Nothing would have come of it. There would have been no rallies. There would have been no nothing. It would have been just like a couple commenters said, "Sity managers come and go." But what really happened is Commissioner Reid teed it up for his Facebook friends to
bash my teeth in for two weeks and said, "If Mike doesn't resign, we're going to fill you in and let you know it all what's going to happen." And the media is all here, so we can ask him. Every time they asked Commissioner Reid what it was, he'd say, "Stay tuned and come
Monday, we're going to tell you Monday." But the code of conduct calls that an ambush and says that commissioners should be removed for being an ambush. So if anybody's doing anything wrong, maybe it's the people doing the ambush. And
honestly, I don't I don't think Commissioner Gio has been deeply involved in it. I think that obviously she came and met with me and we had a nice conversation and she was candid about it and she even said to me, "You're not being fired for cause in in her book." But she had her own
reasons and I respect that and that's her choice. But if I wasn't being fired for cause, then why was I being fired for cause? And why was it all about me being delayed and we have to wait to find out what the cause is and we're going to have the cause and here comes
the cause. It was because they wanted to be able to say the traffic violation and the Steven Vitali real estate transaction. Steven Vitali
is a very grounded person in our community and any one of you can ask him. I never had a single discussion with him about selling that lot, participating in the sale of that lot or having anything to do with that lot. His
lawyer contacted me to put it on the agenda and I put it on the agenda. It was on the front page of the newspaper after that. It turns out my wife and I live on the street. So, multiple people approached her and said, "Hey, is that lot for sale?" And it wasn't because it
didn't we didn't split the lot that night. It didn't get split until he closed on it and did whatever he did a month or so later. And I didn't call him on the phone or talk to him about it. I didn't have a single conversation. And he didn't promise me anything for
putting it on the agenda. In fact, it's kind of sad that that Facebook page would actually make those accusations and want to drag your community through the dirt like that just so you can feel a little sensationalism. It's it's gross
because it didn't happen. And you know what else? I've offered to sit down with you many times and tell you what happened, but you won't because you don't want the real truth. And not one person met with Steven to do any of this investigation. And in fact, last week when I asked Commissioner Reid if he got
all the goods on me, he started talking about the traffic thing knowing that it's not much. And then when I said to him, well, you know, it's funny because the Commission on Ethics says you're not supposed to use your position as a city commissioner to be meeting with the union members to read the email that you
read to take that position in order to use it for your personal gain. And he goes, "Oh, I've known about it for weeks." Okay. So, you weren't transparent during the first three meetings we had cuz you never brought it up. Or
you were, but you didn't bring it up anyway. D, I don't get it. But what I know for sure is that I don't care when you found out about it. When you used your position as a city commissioner to get the email and meet with the union members that you were talking about,
that was a real violation of a real law. And I've been here 25 years and there's no violations that I've done in 25 years. The best thing we can come up with is that I got a driving on a suspended license that was dismissed later because
I had paid the ticket and that a my wife who was a realer did a real estate transaction. Be careful guys, it's a bigger conspiracy than that. Steven Vitali did a closing for me in 2002 as well, but it was part of the plan, right? because that's how it'll play
out. It wasn't. That's not what happened. But it also occurred to me that I had members of my staff saying to me, "Can you believe Commissioner Gio told the media that they would never tell the staff not to follow state law?" And I
told him, "No, Commissioner Gio did not say that to intentionally lie to the media." I don't think Commissioner Gio realizes that they told staff not to follow state law. And as we sit here at this moment, I still feel that way. I don't think she lied to the media. I
think that she just doesn't realize that the action they took on August 11th at about two hours into the meeting when they told staff not to follow state law was actually telling staff not to follow state law. But I digress.
I want to take a moment and thank all of you, including the ones that don't like me and that want to come to the meetings because you know what? You kept me straight. It's not you weren't the first ones that came to meetings and did it. It's been happening my whole career. There's always somebody in the audience and that's good. That's good balance. It makes everybody mind their P's and Q's.
I don't have any problem with that. Thank you. I've spent my life serving Stuart, not for the recognition, but because I truly love Stuart. I moved away and I wanted to come home again and Stuart's my home and Stuart was my parents' home and Stuart's my children's
home and Stuart's going to remain my home after I'm not the city manager in about 15 minutes. But I love this city and I love the people who make up this city and seeing so many people come together and speak out and stand up for what they believe in has been one of the most meaningful
experiences of my career. And I know it's not standing up just for me. I think it's the straw that broke the camel's back and I think they were standing up for lots of different reasons and I might be the catalyst to it. But the truth of it is I got to see it and I got to feel like it was for me
and it will go to me with me to my grave. It was honestly the most honoring and respectful thing that I've ever received in my entire career. No matter what happens and whoever takes my place, I'll never
forget the passion of Steuart and those for and against whatever the issues are and the ability to speak about it and the and the structure and the culture that we used to have where people didn't use misinformation on social media to
twist things and make people look bad because they like divisiveness and they like having their community at each other's throats and they think it's great because they got a like or a check box or whatever they got from it. It makes them feel like a big shot for 15 minutes.
I'm deeply grateful for everyone's support and I'll always genu genuinely hope I will always be genuinely hopeful that Steuart will find its way back to the happiest seaside town. My sincere hope is that the city of Stewart can return from the form of government envisioned by our charter. One where the
city commission focuses on setting policy on behalf of the residents and the professional staff carries out those policies without interference. Overall, I'm hopeful that we can return to local government the staff is not afraid to tell the commission that they must follow the law, where staff is not
afraid of retribution for following the charter, the policies, the code of conduct, the state statutes. I'm also saddened that I'm losing my job because I have continuously expressed concern to the board regarding those policies and those laws. And ever since I was on the board of
adjustment in 1992, I felt a a a desire to work for and with the people of Stewart and I've done so. But last last Thursday at
about two o'clock, I was also threatened like Mr. Reid, but I didn't run to the police. I was told that if I don't resign and wave my contractual rights by today,
that this commission was going to bring up the driving on a suspended license and the real estate transaction. Now, that's actually extortion. It's the real deal. Not pretend, but the real
deal. And I said, "If they bring it up on Monday, I'm bringing up the extortion on Monday." And they still brought it up. I don't know if it's because of a lack of experience
or a just complete disregard for all of it, but it happened and I was threatened with it for real. Now, I'm pretty sure that my closing
remarks have swayed the commission to keep me But the funny part is I knew before I even got here tonight I was fired. Go look at my office. I moved out last week. >> Oh, hallelujah. >> Yeah, we're happy for you, too, Mrs. Raj. You've been such a treat.
I don't have to I don't have to be quiet and polite to your rudeness anymore. >> I love you. >> I just want to thank those of you, all of you, for caring. I just wish some of you would stop getting your only information from the lies you find on social media. And I hope that all of you
find the moral perpitude to hold everybody accountable and to not let anybody not follow the policies and not follow the procedures and not follow the state law. And hopefully tomorrow after I'm gone, the city will turn back around
and stop doing it all. But I've been unable to keep it from happening. I've been begging Commissioner Reid to stop contacting Florida Commerce. They actually called me on the phone and said, "He is blowing us up," were their words. I then had to look up and see
some of the emails he sent them like, "You must be at the next meeting." He They told me that he contacted a state representative to get them in trouble for not calling him back fast enough. They told me that he wanted to know how much money we were going to be giving the Hamiltons.
I mean, it was crazy stuff. I mean, I can't even believe it myself, but he knew it. And when I asked him about it, he say, "I'm not calling them at all. I'm not talking to them. Nothing." And the city attorney was standing right there when I asked. So, it wasn't just the two of us. And there's no doubt that
it continued and continued and continued. So much so that the Hamiltons won't even talk to staff. They'll only talk to Commissioner Reid. Which is why at the last meeting I said, "Let's have Commissioner Reid handle it from here on out." He's still doing such a wonderful job with the administration of the city
that he should be the one in charge because I can't be because he's usurped all of my authority. And when I tell someone like Mr. Hamilton, "No, we're not going to give you air conditioning on top of your grant money." And he
says, "Yes, you are. If you want to get rid of me, you're going to or you're going to be gone." And he starts this campaign. And look who won. Mr. Hamilton. But you know what? I didn't give him his air conditioning and I didn't commit the fraud and I'll live with that.
It's all I got. Thank you for Thank you for giving me an opportunity to serve this community. [Applause]
Commissioner Clark, >> Mr. Mortell. >> Thank you, Mr. Mortell. >> Stay for the vote for soliciting. >> Oh, if you don't want to, that's Okay, I'm going to take rank.
I'm kind of I Well, we're not supposed to talk about age because of all this um seniority and the the federal laws and whatnot, but I've been on the commission I think the longest. >> I am older than you. >> Okay. Well, it's not the age. That's why I said I wasn't going by the age. I was
just going by the commission. And um I've heard everything tonight and I appreciate um Mr. um Reed and his idea of um wanting to to
speak up and wanting to get involved when he believes that he he wants to um participate fully in what uh he considers to be his job or position as a a a a council member and I appreciate
that. And um I just did not envision when I agreed that I thought it was okay. I thought it was routine. Let me have a copy of Mr. Mortell's contract. And I said I had no problem. I
didn't realize it was going to come to this. I know I heard all the cries for let emails be public, let other things be whatever transparency, but I didn't realize that there was a path to all of this and the path would lead to the
motion to terminate Mr. Mortell delayed and then tonight there's a uh motion to terminate Mr. Mortell. I know Mr. Mortell when he was a city commissioner. I know him when he was um city attorney
and our city manager as well as being as an attorney. I have not investigated all the details about Mr. Mortell and I've only seen some of the things which are some of the negative things that have been put out, but I haven't checked out all of them. But from what I know of
him, I didn't need to check out all of them. And I didn't I didn't see the the consequence of them as being anything whether it's ethical or criminal or anything in that league. I did for my
judgment I did not see it. So the the options that were given by um our city attorney and before the options that were given tonight. We were asked after the last meeting when we delayed, let us meet
with staff. Let us meet with the department heads and see how they feel. If there was an issue with Mr. Mortell not following the policies that are in the comprehensive plan that is in the charter, that is in all the stuff that
was set a long time ago before I was on the commission. Some of them, some rules have changed along the way, but most of them have been longstanding rules, long-standing goals for the city of Stewart. when we had new commissioners
the the the newspaper asked and it was asked here and I said I will agree that our new commissioners I know that they'll want to go through look at the land use plan look at um comprehensive plan all of our regulations and that
they may want to suggest and make changes I know that one of our commissioners pushed hard and we worked on at least a potential change and that was done with the zoning in progress. I didn't hear of any other changes whether
to the charter or to our comprehensive plan or to our land use regulations. But if there were those things, that's what needs to come forward because we're the ones who set policy and staff follows the policy. We hire a city
manager. We have a council manager form of government. We're the council. We make decisions when we're here meeting and we set policies and we uphold the policies that are there in the plans that we have to keep our city going. our
manager. There's a long list of things that our manager does that is do the administrative daytoday which means meeting with our council people whether it's daily, weekly, monthly, on occasion, whatever it is, but at least a regular basis so that we all have an
idea. There's a teaching ethic that goes with this job and it goes from both the Florida League of Cities as well as the relationship with the department heads and the city um admin the city manager to make sure that those who come on the
council know what the rules are, how things happen, how things operate, and how not to interfere in staff daily doings just to make sure that policies go right? If they're not going right, then bring it up or bring it up with the
manager and if the manager and that person says something needs to be discussed with the city, it comes there. So after the last meeting, I met with all the department heads. I heard all the scuttle when we first hired Mr. Mortell. Oh, he's tough. Oh,
he's going to be just like he's a lawyer. He's going to push these department heads. But when I met with people for two to three days last week, not one single one said Mr. Mortell was honorary with them, that he was
unconscionable, that he was whatever it is, anything that's negative that you'd say that he is not dealing well with staff. Everybody was happy. They've gone through tough times. We've had to make adjustments to our budget. We've gone
through things postcoid that he has had to deal with and they were happy with the contracts that they're working with police, fire, other departments and the things that is being achieved by the city kind of doing more with less. And
these department heads, not one of them complained to me. In fact, they were really wondering what will happen now that if their head person is to be gone
then how will things go? Yes, they're trained. Yes, they're professional. Yes, they will go through. But it's the part that really hurts I believe staff and I didn't talk to every staff member. But the thing that the image of what is
happening with the city of Stewart and how it affects people right down the line and which day is it going to be? Somebody will come for them. Somebody will come for the city clerk. Somebody will come for the utilities director.
Somebody will come for the police chief. We have a new police chief. He's still being tried. He's true, but he's still being tried. Okay. We have tried and true and so we all those things are concerns
and we need to pull back. I think a couple of people have said I would ask Commissioner Reid, Commissioner Joy seconded the motion if we pull back. I have spoken deeply with our human resources director
and I've asked how can we come up with a plan? How can we have Mr. Mortell meet with us individually, meet with Mr. Reed? How can we heal our city before it becomes broken?
I know that they're dissatisfied people. I know that there are people who come here who believe that the city of Stewart is against them and that Mr. Mortell represents a part of that. It's not just him. It's all of us up here and
we make divergent decisions sometimes. Sometimes we make decisions that come together. But we've heard a lot from people both sides today. But I think that side that talked about reasonleness that talks about us take we have an
opportunity here to say if we're not happy with the job that he's doing or the way that he's communicating whether it's with people in the public or whether with it's us as city um council members. Let us try to see what we can
do within our family, within our our own. This is the city of Stewart. A lot of people love Stewart. I've heard people tell me, "I'm not coming down there to have dinner anymore. I'm not having breakfast downtown. I don't like Stewart
anymore." Yes, it may be a way to not have people want to move here, but we're limited. We're eight square miles. We're we're developed. We're built out. So those who are going to come here, they're going to come here. And yes, there are people who could be here, but
they're living in Port St. Lucy because it's more affordable. That doesn't mean that they don't get here to come and say something because Steuart affects the region and the region affects Steuart. So it's important. So that is absolute nonsense when we try
to jer somebody who because they give an address that's not Steuart. Yes, it's important for some instances when people do put things or give their addresses as if they're in Stewart, but you can't find their property names their names on any property in Stewart. But that's that
that happens. But you know what? That's for certain reasons. If we're doing traffic and transportation, it's important to know where people live and work. And that's why the numbers were like that when we did certain studies and it was important to know who actually lived in Stewart.
But we just need to pull back. We need to look. We need to talk to our personal director. And I'm going to ask as a person who's been here for some time that we give Mr. Mortell a plan. We work
with him. We work individually between him and personnel. come up with something and then we tell the public what are some of those ideas that we've come up with to make sure that he's going to stick with that and report to us whether it's quarterly give him a
certain time whether it's six more months a year and do a performance plan we owe it to ourselves we owe it to our residents Mr. Reed has absolutely every single right and he knows what he's doing and
he knows his reasons for it. But I'm looking at the rest of the city of Stewart. Whether you agree with Mr. Mortell or not or whether you agree with all of the decisions that we make up here or any of them that we that that you don't agree with, I just think we
need to look at the best the greater good. We need to look at the greater good for the community for what we stand for. As the county seat of Martin County Expert Incorporated in 1914,
we need to look for the greater good, not for his pocket. His pocket is not going to worry about us. He can go off and get another big job somewhere. It's how things look. Somebody said that you can do certain things and and and they
said it for another reason, but I'll say this. Just because you can do something doesn't mean that you have to and that you should do and that you should do it. I think we need to get into reasoning.
We need to look at the morale of the staff right now, the morale of the people who've the families. We've had so many families spoke tonight and not given any special difference, but I will say that they have been here for three,
four generations and I've seen some of them, talked to some of them before this meeting and they are absolutely appalled. They're what is going on at city hall is what is happening at city hall? Something in the water maybe, but
we're trying to clean that up. I just ask you and I'll ask I'll ask openly if Mr. Reed could either withdraw his motion or amend it to see if we can have some time to make up a performance
plan. I would appreciate that. There's a motion and a second on the floor. And I know that that I can't make another motion until something changes. But I want to let you know what my mind is and what it is. And last of all, Mr.
Mortell, if this is the last time that I look you eye to eye, I appreciate >> your work and what you've done for our city despite not everything going smooth all the time. And you have stood here. Normally, it's women who have grace, but
you have been here last meeting and this meeting. And I consider it with such grace to be able to speak, not cry, not get angry, but to just be here and to respond appropriately. That shows leadership.
>> Thank you. >> And thank you. >> Thank you, >> Mr. Reid. Are you willing to withdraw your motion? I'm not willing to withdraw my motion. Um I'm not here to go back and forth with the city manager. Um
some things were thrown way out of context. Um I will say that. Um but I'm not here to go toe-to-toe with Mike whether certain things he said were true or untrue. I'll agree to disagree. We have different perspectives.
Um, but yeah, I'm not willing to withdraw my motion by any means. >> Okay, Mr. Vice Mayor. >> I have no more comments. >> I have no comments. >> Okay.
It's um it's very difficult to fire uh follow fire both but to follow Mr. Martell's very heartfelt comments. You know there has been friction between
the commission and Mr. Martell and a lot of that is between myself and Mr. Martell. That's because I disagree with many of the decisions that have been made by this commission. And I've said to him, "How the heck can
you let this happen?" And his response is, "I work for the board and I I will follow their direction. I also spoke to the department heads and
of course there have been no complaints against Mr. Martell filed with HR. But they made me aware of something that I hadn't thought of. So here's someone who's done everything
he's been asked to do and he got fired. And so they're like, "So I'm worried if I do my job, I can be fired, too." And it seems completely random.
And this is going to have a devastating impact on the morale of our staff, especially the more qualified ones. Um, we had a comment, a public comment, oh, if he's does such a good job,
they'll be fine. Apparently, this person doesn't understand the idea of loyalty. And Mr. Martell has built a very competent and very loyal staff. And
unfortunately, it's that staff with whom most with that's who people interact with it in the city of Stewart is our staff. And for us not to
try to understand how dramatic an impact it could have on them is naive. This is a very cowardly decision. This is a grossly unfair decision.
People have been able to come up here and make allegations and we do not have a proper process to hear both sides of those. I cannot believe I think Mr. Hos coming
up so much. Apparently, the information I was provided concerning Mr. Hos, and this was by someone I respect who's very intelligent, very thoughtful, cares about the community. It was complete lies.
That is >> that is remarkable. >> I'm sorry, Mr. Hustler. We can't. But that's why a proper procedure is so valuable and those lies have been running around
the internet unfettered and it's such a grave disappointment. I was attending a meeting about the Indian River Lagoon and a elected official
came up to me and this sums it up. He says, "I have never seen a group of elected officials who are so determined to ignore the will of the majority of their residents.
[Applause] Seeing no other comments, it gives me no joy. But >> Mayor Rich, may I? >> Commissioner Reid. >> Yeah, I want to touch base on that
meeting with department heads. Um, I met with all department heads as well. I won't state how many, but there was more than one that told me I was on the right path. Um, and I'll disagree with you on the public record request. There was actually three, by the way,
um, complaints in the HR file when I did one, so I'm not sure where you got your information from, but there were three that existed. Um, I do know one of the news agencies did a public record request for the same thing that I did,
and there were zero found. So, it does make you wonder. Um, and I know the public won't always see it. Um, it's good publicity. It's good headlines, but there's two stories being told up here. Uh, but yes, I've been told one thing
during public record request and the news was told something different and I'm assuming you were told something different as well, Mayor Rich. So, that's all I have to say. >> But there are three in existence. >> It would be nice to air that publicly.
Roll call, please. So I >> roll call, please. >> Okay. >> Public record request my email. >> I'm sorry, Mr. Reid. We've begun the roll call. >> The motion is to terminate the city manager without cause and put Jolie as
interim city manager for the time being. >> Commissioner Collins, >> yes. >> Mayor Rich, >> no. >> Commissioner Clark, >> no. Commissioner Gio. >> Yes. >> And Commissioner Reid,
>> yes. >> This meeting is a journ. >> Motion passes. Part: 2
Excuse me, sir. >> I'm calling this regular meeting of the Steuart city commission, the community redevelopment board and community re community redevelopment agency and community redevelopment board for the 27th of October.
Order. Good afternoon to all of you. >> Good afternoon, Mayor. >> Roll call, please. >> Oh, yeah. City Commission and Community Redevelopment Agency. Chair Rich >> here. >> Vice Chair Collins. >> Board member Clark >> here. >> Board member Gobi >> here. >> Board member Reed
>> here. >> Board member Breville >> here. >> Board member James >> here. >> Community redevelopment board. Chair Breville >> here. >> Vice Chair Moser >> here. >> Board member James >> here. >> Board member Laughlin >> here. >> Board member Mona
>> here. >> Board member Sharer >> here. Board Board member um Whan. Thank you. >> Is that it? >> Yes. >> Please stand for the pledge of allegiance. >> I pledge algiance to the flag of the
United States of America and to the republic for it stands. One nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Can >> I get a motion for the approval of the agenda, please? >> Move approval of the agenda as
published. >> We have a motion by member >> board member Clark. Sorry. >> Um, and a second by board member James. Any >> Oh, I'm sorry. Board member Breville. >> James, if you want it either way.
>> Any public comment on this item? Yes. >> Seeing none >> on the agenda >> on the approval of the agenda. >> No, no. We're just not using the microphone. They can't hear.
>> Okay. This is just We're voting on approval of the agenda. All in favor? >> I >> oppose. Seeing none. >> Could I get a motion for the approval of the prior meetings minutes, please? >> So move. We have a motion by board
member Breckill. >> Second. >> A second by board member James. Any public comment on the approval of the minutes? Seeing none, all in favor? >> I opposed. Motion passes. Now, Helen,
comments from the public on non-aggenda related items. Let the record reflect that we are being joined by the vice mayor. Paula McBride from Flamingo Avenue. Uh, a long time ago I asked the CRA about
getting play equipment for the Martin Luther King Park uh, over on Park Avenue between Park Avenue and Dixie Highway. And I was told the CRA money couldn't be used on new park equipment. But then at these last couple of meetings, you're
the CRA is approving the money for the skateboard park. So, I'm only looking for swings and some new equipment because the it's the original equipment that's at that park and our kids in that neighborhood do use that park a lot and I was wondering why can't we come up
with some money for that park to upgrade the play equipment for our children. Thank you. >> I'm sorry, which park is that? Miss >> Martin Luther King Martin Luther King Jr. Park. It's on a Park Avenue and is that Church Street?
Yes, on the corner of um Park Avenue and Church Street. >> Thank you. >> It's just a very small park, but we use it a lot. I go to a lot of things over there for the children. Thank you, >> Mr. Mayor. point. I don't know if it's a
point of order, point of privilege, but did we specifically approve the CRA CRB minutes for 728 2025 as well as the separately the uh CRA minutes? There's a joint MI minutes and
then the CRA minutes for 922 2025. Cler, >> would you >> I do have approval of um item number one, which was the joint minutes, and we separated them because CRA um different voting members can vote on those minutes. >> So, should we do number two?
>> I can I would take number two. I will need a motion. >> Okay. >> Well, you can use Fred and I are saying because we're on both. So, we we uh >> we have a motion for item number two for approval by board member Breckville and a second by board member James. Correct, sir.
>> That's good. Yeah, that works. >> They're both of the CR. >> Any public comment on this item? Seeing none, all in favor? >> I >> opposed. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, Commissioner. >> Thanks. >> Okay. Are there any other comments,
Madame Clerk, from the public on non-aggenda related? >> No. Further comments, mayor. >> Are there comments by board members? I'll start with you, Mr. Shear. Do you have any comments this afternoon for us?
I have no comment, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Ms. Moser. >> Two uh brief comments. Um first, I just wanted to note I've been watching the construction on uh Seminal here in downtown and the neighborhood north of
the bridge west of Dixie Highway. And I'm just really excited to see, you know, these projects that we've been talking about for a while being constructed. Um they look great and what an improvement to our CRA. Um, second, I just wanted to note, I think that you
all at the city are aware of this, but with the directive from the Florida DOT of the crosswalks downtown, they've been painted over and they're black in the middle. The visibility now is very low. And so, um, big safety concern there with pedestrians. This is obviously like
our most pedestrian heavy part of the entire county. So, um, as quickly as we can get those striped with the ladder crossing or something to improve visibility, the better. >> That's a very good point. Board member Mona, >> no comments.
>> Thank you. M Mr. Laughlin, >> no comments. >> Mr. Breville, >> no comments. >> Board member James, >> no comment. Commissioner Reid. >> Yeah. For clarification, Helen, who had
mentioned that we couldn't use CRA funds there, >> who had mentioned it? Do you remember? Do you recall who had mentioned that for CRA funds? >> I know it's Yeah. No, but I did ask someone. >> Okay. So, I believe we can use CRA funds
there. >> Board member Joby. backing on what Commissioner Ree said, I'd like to know if we can have a discussion as to the equipment for that playground. >> If you want to put it on uh have it be on an agenda at a subsequent meeting,
that would be a perfectly sensible idea. >> I'd like, >> but since staff is not prepared to address those concerns or any of the other board members, I think it's >> okay. I'd like to put it on the next CRA agenda meeting um so that we can discuss purchasing equipment for the park.
>> So noted and church. >> Thank you. >> Thank you >> board member clerk. >> Thanks. Um I too like uh Miss Moa um I'm glad that these um projects are going forward. I know that there's lots of concerns uh whether it's on north of the
bridge or semol street the undergrounding and other things but I'm glad that they're going forward. I'm going to bring up something that's uh not CRA but it's Steuart and I'm going to try to keep bringing it up until we
can do something about it. Sometime ago um and I'll bring it up at the next meeting coming up also. Some time ago um Commissioner Campy had talked about at a joint city county um school board meeting about
housing issues and people have been coming up and asking me about housing issues and homeless issues and I know that the more homeless people we have especially when they come from the north during the winter time and it's they
they stay in our downtown and um they're in our parks. Um, I know that that's a big issue. I don't know if there's any availability for anything and it's going to be some time before somebody can
actually build housing or provide uh opportunities for people to to use vouchers to go someplace. But I think it's still a community issue and that we need to look at it and if there's anything that business people or or
anybody can do to help with this situation, I think it will in general help to improve our community and the the face and the the the look that our community has when we can um help to
deal with that issue. So that's that's just one thing that I want to bring up. Thank you. Is that all? >> Yeah. Let's see. >> Thank you, >> Mr. Vice Mayor. >> I have no comments. Um,
action items. Item number three, Mr. Bagot, will you for consideration, please? Sure. Resolution number 08-2025 CR. A resolution of the board of community redevelopment agency of the
city of Florida, the city of Steuart, Florida, approving the conceptual plans for the Stipman neighborhood sidewalk and drainage improvements project providing an effective date and for other purposes. >> I believe we have a presentation by
>> I'll open the presentation. U Panel Gandhi Sabda, CRA director for the record. I'm going to provide a little background information to the board members about the project and how it was initiated by the CRA. Um the the stimman neighborhood was added in the CRA when
we expanded the boundaries back in 2015 as you can see in the purple area on the map. Uh we did a finding of necessity study um to evaluate the proposed expansion area and we found that there was lack of infrastructure and it was determined at that time that the area
met the requirements for uh Florida statues and made it eligible to include it in the CRA. And then since it was included uh we started receiving calls from residents uh back in 2018 2019 of any improvement plans and and what our
plans were to invest CRA funds uh within the neighborhood. And then in 2021 um CRA started initiating efforts to improve the sidewalk connectivity within the neighborhood uh especially because this area is close to our downtown um Steuart
Middle School, JD Park Elementary School. So, it's really important to um bring that connection of uh sidewalk with the existing sidewalk. Um we've held held uh four neighborhood meetings and uh many field visits with
Capac. Joe Kapper is here with us uh since we initiated the project. Um throughout the project project, the the residents um continuously expressed concerns about the sidewalk placement. Um especially on Fifth Street. uh they they prefer that the sidewalk be placed
on the north side of the street. Um especially because on the south side is the residential homes and they have concerns about privacy if if the c if the sidewalks are placed in front in their front yard u and also potentially
losing some driveways. though um they do prefer that um that the sidewalks be placed on the north side of street fifth street which is a commercial side uh to minimize impact on the residential side. Um the pro the project was presented at
the joint board meeting back in July 2023. Uh due to lack of consensus and limited budget at that time uh the board ultimately denied moving the project forward. Um during the outreach meetings, we also learned that um that there was a
drainage issues within the neighborhood. So then the CRA decided that we would prioritize that um and we wanted to make sure that uh you know that we address the drainage issue first so it doesn't negatively impact the future sidewalk
should the city or the CRA decide to implement it at a later date. So then in 2023 we applied for the D grant uh to address the drainage concerns. Um initially the project was not uh selected for funding. Uh but we were
given an opportunity to revise our application and we resubmitted the application. Uh we made it better strengthened the application and for the second resubmitt uh the project was awarded $1.6 million for drainage
improvements. Uh in the meantime, uh we were still getting calls from neighborhood um regarding um pass through pass through traffic and speeding. So we installed stop signs throughout the neighborhood to address their concerns and especially
after the completion of the Boys and Girls Club. They were really concerned about people using the neighborhood as a as a cut through traffic. So then um we have received a lot of positive feedback from the residents. Um, so it is having a positive impact on traffic calming in
the area by by placing these sidewalks throughout the neighborhood. I'm sorry, placing the stop signs throughout the neighborhood. Um, after the award of the grant, uh, the CRA held two meetings in May 2025 and September 2025 to inform the
residents that that the city received an award. Uh, and we wanted to reopen the discussion about the sidewalk within the neighborhood. Um, we explained to the residents that since we are moving forward with the drainage design, it would be a good time to revisit the sidewalk concept to ensure both projects
are coordinated. Uh, we do have a strict timeline to complete the drainage improvements per the grant agreement. Um, so it's very important that we finalize the conceptual uh streetscape design to avoid any losing funding for the project. Um so coordinating these
these two projects uh will help uh with cost efficient uh minimize disruptions, mobilization and just improve the overall infrastructure within the neighborhood. Uh the residents agreed uh to proceed with the drainage and sidewalk
improvements concurrently. Uh the consensus from the residents is to place the sidewalk on the north side of Fifth Street and west side of Cortez Avenue as you can see on the plans here. Uh we've also provided hard copies to all the board members. Uh so you can uh look at
that. And we're also proposing to install new and uh or any missing sidewalks along High School Avenue, Amergo Avenue, and Baloa. Um the existing sidewalk on Stipman Boulevard will remain in place and we'll just repair or replace wherever they're
damaged. Um Joe Kapan is here. He's going to provide more details about the design. Um, also there were some discussions about the Yield Street concepts. So, he'll kind of go through that those those concepts with the board members. Um, at the end of the
presentation, we're looking for um the feedback from the board members on the overall plan. Also, motion to approve resolution number 08-2025 CRA authorizing staff to move forward with the preparation of the final construction plan.
>> Sorry. I'll let Joe take over from here and he'll walk you through the the conceptual plans. [Music] >> Good good evening board members. I'm Joe Kapper with Captech Engineering. I'm going to stand on the side of this because I felt I was blocking a
PowerPoint presentation. Uh tonight I'm going to go through about nine slides. I'll try to quickly go through them because many of you have seen these before. Uh so essentially just so everybody knows there is some slight differences between what was in the agenda item and what I've have on your
table today. I just want you to know we've kind of updated a couple of the items, added some cost and so forth. So I just want you to know there is some slight differences. So it may be good to pay attention to this but most of the board members have a a clean copy of the new uh plots of this which is is pretty
pretty much the same stuff but just a little clearer for you. Uh first of all, I don't need to go through the history because Panel's already done that. I think uh what I'm looking for tonight is obtain all the board's approvals for this uh this complete street type of
project. It's really a narrow street. I know we call it yield on the on the plan uh and we use concepts from the yield street criteria, but the essentially what we're talking about is narrowing the streets tonight. Um where we're at is we've done a conceptual plan that I'm showing you tonight. We provided some
conceptual cost estimates that are fairly accurate. They have some contingencies in them. We'd like to get done with the design, permitting, bidding. Um, and and then ultimately the beginning of next year, first quarter is when we really need to start construction. And and that's important
because it's probably about a 15-month project to get this completed. There's quite a few components to it. And obviously the other the main objective is we a $1.65 million grant we have. make sure everybody recognizes the grant. You have to spend your money and
then we get reimbursed for it. So, we have to make sure those items are put in place and they have a deadline. Now, they have a deadline in two in 2028, but it'll c it'll catch up with us quickly. So, again, I'm very conscious of grant work and so forth and making sure we meet meet our deadlines. Uh the first
slide that will go to the next slide. Uh, just so you know, I know these these maps kind of get the top line is is East Ocean Boulevard. Obviously, the next line and east west line is is Fifth Street. The line below that is Stitman.
Um, and the north south streets on the right side of the drawing is is Palm Beach Road and then essentially Cortez, Belboa, Armergo and then High School Avenue. So those are that's the cross-section of roads here. what this is depicting if it was a
little clear for you but uh I'm going to get into details on a minute. Essentially the red lines reflect existing sidewalks that are out there today. This exhibit is mainly a sidewalk exhibit. Essentially the red lines
depict existing sidewalks. The um the green lines reflect where we are proposing sidewalks. Okay. So essentially what you'll have when we're done with this program is sidewalks on one side of the road on each of the roads out there. Okay. So essentially uh
what you see in green is proposed sidewalks. Red lines are existing sidewalks. We'll make some improvements to those sidewalks but not not a lot. Um and then um also you can kind of see at each of the intersections a kind of a a light a lighter green. That's basically
where we're having crosswalks. Uh and those are the same locations where you currently uh we put the uh stop signs in place already. So there'll be crosswalks at at those intersections with stop signs that are already there. Um essentially you can just barely see a
black dot at each of the intersections. Um essentially maybe I can see a black dot there. Black dot there. There there's about 13 of them. 12 to 13 of them. That's where we propose street
lights. So, each of them will have a decorative street light at corners similar to what we've done in other neighborhoods throughout um the city. So, essentially those are the items that are on this drawing itself. Um the location of the sidewalk, we've gone back and forth with where people prefer
them. just to kind of quickly uh basically the sidewalk is preferred on the north side of of Fifth Street, which is is more commercial projects on the north side. Uh the there's um sidewalks on the east side of
High School, sidewalks on the uh the west side of America, Balboa, and Cortez. Okay, that's where the sidewalks are located. There's existing sidewalk on Stitman on the south side and some of these sidewalks
that are being proposed on Sixth Street and so forth and around the loop are are again on the south side. So essentially that's that's the proposed improvements. Okay, relative to sidewalks. Uh slide number two. Uh quickly this is is we
call it again a yield street. It's probably more a narrow street. Uh we're proposing on three locations uh to narrow the streets and and the goal is obviously to slow down traffic. >> Joe, can I just to be clear on the corner of America and Stipman? Are there
two street lights being proposed? >> Americ [Music] corner to put it on, but you're right. There'll be one sidewalk or one one street light there. >> Okay. >> Sorry about that. Yep. There's There's only one at each corner. Good catch. Good catch.
>> Oh, we call him Deagle. >> Yeah, that's right. He's doing pretty good there. Good. Good. Um anyways, um essentially what the narrow streets are, what we're proposing on narrow streets is that the the the roads that are currently two 10 foot wide lanes will be
narrowed down to two 8 foot wide lanes for a total of 16 ft on the narrow streets. And the streets that we're proposing that on are Fifth Street and Stitman and Cortez. Uh those are based on the last public meeting we had with
the neighborhood where they prefer to have those all all other streets the the width of the roads will be as they currently exist. Okay. Um so th those are the three uh narrowed streets that we are talking about. again
fifth stipman and Cortez. Okay. Um, next slide. Again, this one gets into a little more detail, but and I'm going to I'm only telling you about the typical sections. The next slide blows these sections up that are down here. So,
they're probably going to be easier to talk from from the next slide. So, let's move to the next slide and just kind of go through this or a little bigger print here. Essentially you can see uh we and and this here is fifth street. Okay. And
this is from generally from high school to Cortez. Okay. And uh what you should know is there's two different sections here. Fifth street high school to Cortez. And this is fifth street from Cortez to Palm Beach Palm Beach Road.
Okay. Uh the difference is is is mainly from High School Avenue to Cortez, there's commercial businesses on the north side of the road. And so in this one, uh we are proposing parking on on the north side of the road. And so what
we did is we left the the um those would be eastbound traffic lane line, the edge of pavement. We left it where it was because the residents didn't seem to want us encroaching on their property too much with the road. So and sidewalks. So, we pretty much left that alone and then we basically kept the
road in place and and and basically narrowed the the lanage. They're 8ft lanes and then we put a parking lane on and again mainly the parking lot will be the parking the stalls will be basically on the north side of the road and they'll be between High School Avenue
and Cortez. Um and and both of these we've put in a very shallow swell. The idea being is we've what you're going to see in the in the later plan is our drainage program which has a lot of pipe inlets conveyance and so forth. But every so often we we really want to get
the water off the road into those swell areas will be picked up in an inlet. Again this is a crowned roadway section. Essentially we just have a shallow swale and again our our motive motivation is is to try to keep the the roadway
traffic away from the pedestrians. So in this case the the roadway uh is separated by almost six six feet there I believe that is on that there that elevate or distance there from a 5-ft sidewalk and those will be the where the pedestrians will walk. Uh so that's one
portion of the roadway again fifth street from high school to Cortez. We get to Cortez uh there seems to be mainly single family homes and one big commercial business on the corner. Uh essentially we don't need parking for that business. They have plenty of
parking and so um essentially we've kept two lanes of traffic, eight foot lanes, uh basically a a shallow swale and then a sidewalk. And our main objective that we had from the residents was to maintain a the current buffer there. So
we we intend to keep the current buffer that's between again Cortez to Palm Beach Road. So that's the typical section for uh fifth street that that's being proposed. Again uh yield narrow streets 16 foot wide total 8ft lanes. Um
the next slide is going to show you some details of actually all three areas of between Stitman, Fifth Street as well as as Cortez. And again, it's the same overall plan as far as that you've seen in the past, but essentially, um, I'm
going to go and blow these sections up next, okay? So, you can kind of see where they're going. Okay, so the first one is is again Fifth Street High School to Cortez. This is the one that had the port the parking. You've already seen this one. It was on the prior slide. Um,
the second slide is actually Stitman. Again, in this one, we left the sidewalk where it exists along the south side of the rightway. We put a little more area between the sidewalk and the street. We took the we took some of the street away
from this side and we narrow the street towards the towards the north. Okay. Again, both have a shallow swell and uh basically again they're two eight foot two uh eight foot lanes again in that area of Stitman. Um the next slide is
Cortez. Uh we have a little more flexibility on this one, but essentially we did have some drainage concerns. The sidewalk is being proposed on the west side of the road. again, two 8ft lanes and then we put a swell in between the
sidewalk and the roadway that we're narrowing up. Okay. And there'll be a sidewalk on both sides. Um so those are the typically the three different sections of the narrows uh yield street areas that we are proposing. Um the next
slide. >> Um well, it's going to come up in this slide because it shows you the fire truck. Um but yeah, we can talk about all these other details by all means everybody's going to have an opportunity to speak. So I just wanted to let you I was just going to go to kind of go through the presentation. So, um,
obviously there's a concern or there's been a concern about emergency vehicles, garbage trucks, Amazon trucks that make deliveries and so forth. So, we try to kind of give you a depiction of so this depicts a 20 foot wide street, two 10-ft lanes. Okay? And that's that's a pretty
much a typical fire truck and then the vehicles that would be on it. Okay. Uh, so that's Fifth Street, per se. Uh again, we then looked at Fifth Street in a narrow street with 8ft lanes on one 8ft lanes in each direction. As you can see, the fire truck encroaches. Uh so
one of the things that we are proposing is in that street that we're narrowing. Uh we will take the asphalt away. Uh but we will have a stabilized shoulder. It'll be base rock with sod on top of it. So it'll look like it's actually part of the swale work, a swale next to
the road and so forth. So if a vehicle does have to get out there, hopefully we don't see fire trucks down there, but there's occasion they would. Uh again, there's also driveways that the people can get away from the truck and so forth. So essentially, that's kind of depicting what would happen. A typical
vehicle, a car 6 1/2 ft wide, maybe 6 ft to 6 1/2 ft wide. The truck is about 10 ft wide. Again, there's about I think we depicted a a separation there of of at least 1 ft to the center of the road. So it's about two foot separation.
Obviously in a normal 20 foot wide road it'd be about four and a half ft separation between the cars in either direction. So that that's that's one with the fire truck. Okay. Uh the next slide uh again I know I know I haven't answered your question sir. I just wanted to kind of go through the slide.
The next slide is really a garbage truck. Okay. Surprising enough, the newest garbage trucks that you have are a little narrower than than the fire truck, and they're about 8 foot, a little over 8 foot wide. And then an Amazon truck. So, uh, this is kind of the wider Amazon truck. I measured one
yesterday. My neighborhood it was 6 1/2 ft wide. This shows 8T. So, there's different size Amazon trucks, but essentially you can see you can get around it. Uh, now this is a 20 foot wide road here. Okay. The top the bottom one is the narrow street of two 8ft
lanes. Again, you can see it's pretty tight. Again, uh but you can get around the gar you can get around the garbage truck and stay in the pavement. And the same thing with the Amazon truck. Um anyways, those are just two exhibits to just give you an idea of what the separation will be if those type of
vehicles are out there on the road. Uh the next slide, um I apologize this is kind of a lot of information. Again, the orientation is the same, but we have these blue lines and purple lines that you see here are storm sewer improvements. Okay? Essentially, we're
putting pipes and inlets throughout each of the roads. Uh mainly this area of High School Avenue ultimately goes to the ponds that are along uh MLK, okay? Into those ponds. And so, essentially what we're doing is creating a conveyance system for the water that's
ponding on these roads. Okay? Ultimately, there's some exfiltration in there. They get storage whether in bio swells. They go through baffle boxes. Uh some of the baffle boxes we may try an alternative to, but essentially they this the water in this area uh we've
tried to hit where the low spots are uh in these neighborhood neighborhood areas with with storm pipe and inlets take and taking it and conveying it to ponds in the middle here between America and and
pretty much Cortez itself. All this again pipe work and so forth will take it to those same ponds. So this area will be draining to the to the south and again in pipe systems the water will be conveyed. It will be uh it'll be treated
and so forth. Again I know I've explained this to the boards before. It'll be like a treatment train program that's going on here in in these in this neighborhood. And then on the um on the east side these will be going into the hospital pond area where they currently
drain to. But we will be extending storm pipes into areas that are currently there's ponding of water on the roads. So essentially the this is where we we've we've obtained a significant size grant from D. It's called the swag grant. We will spend the money on the
drainage and this is the improvements that will happen first. Um the neighborhood does have water and sewer lines that we have to avoid. Maybe some minor adjustments to those but uh there is sewer and water in this neighborhood. Um next slide.
Just to give you an idea the cost that we've accumulated through all the various meetings. Drainage was turned out to be the most expensive item and the most required requested item. So that's the top of the list about $2 million worth of improvements. Uh there's sidewalks that'll need
improvements about 938,000. Uh parking on that. It's really uh on uh this is parking on on Fifth Street. Um, and then, uh, to create the yield streets, we need about $328,000 to make those streets narrower. Uh,
there's all sorts of, uh, fees for consultants and contingencies that I've added to this. So, you're about $4.3 million. Um, on top of that, uh, the request for street lights came after the fact, so I put 50,000 for that. And milling and resurfacing is really the
money that the public works will be contributing to after we build all these improvements if you want to decide to mill and resurface the all the road. And that's what those numbers are there below. So you're talking about $4.8 million roughly in here. Again, this is
a concept plan. I do have quite a bit of contingencies in here and so forth, but I I wanted you to know what I've put the money into on the project. So, uh, next slide I think is really just questions. So we can go back to and answer any questions. >> So do any members have any questions of
either Panol or Mr. Keer? >> I just wanted to add that um when we noticed for this meeting I did receive a lot of emails and phone calls from residents along Stipman Boulevard where they don't want Yield Street. Um so if
they are here they might speak about where whether they want it or not on Stipman Boulevard. We do have consensus for Fifth Street and Cortez. So, just wanted to give you a heads up. >> What were the dates of those four meetings? >> I'm sorry. >> What were the dates of those four meetings? Neighborhood meeting.
>> Oh, we've had we've had meeting in 2002, 2023, and the last two meetings were in 2025, May, and September. >> Okay. Thank you. >> We started the project in July 2022. Could you come?
>> We had meetings on um May 2023, July 2023, August 2023. Mainly we spoke about drainage. Okay. And then in 2024, uh we we submitted the grant. So that we didn't have a meeting, but we did submit the grant request. And as Panel mentioned, we didn't get it the first
time, so we resubmitted it and it continued and they finally gave us the money. Uh we received the grant in March of 2025. And then in May of 21 of 2025, uh we basically discussed the storm water and sidewalks. And then obviously on the 18th of September is when we had
the the last meeting to talk about the um uh narrow street concept. >> So the so the neighborhood has had one meeting uh regarding the narrowing of the roads in essence. Is that correct? Um well I believe it probably came up in a couple
>> it came up in yeah a couple of other meetings also back in May and then September. So we've had two meetings regarding the Yale Street. >> Um >> Commissioner Reid. >> Hey Joe, do you know if there's any um
requirements for fire trucks for NFPA fire code as far as road widths or do we know if the chief is here at all? >> Um the chief could be here. Just so you know, we did have um we did present these to the chief, okay? And he he he
was he was okay because at one time we had talked about actually a narrower than 16 foot. He was okay with the 16 foot. So I just want you to know if he's here. That's great. Is he here? >> Do we know if he was ever a driver engineer? >> If he was ever a driver engineer, if he
actually drove the fire trucks at one point, I don't know his I was just curious. I know one of one of the members of >> Mr. Capra, could you remain at the microphone, please? >> The the city has every single
development project reviewed by the fire as part of the development, and they review a CAD program to make sure that all vehicles can go through. I don't have his report on this particular project, so I don't know what he said as it relates to this street, but I do know
that it was given to the uh fire department and the city of Stewart doesn't have uh dees or uh driver engineers as positions in the Stewart fire department. So, he would never have served as a driver engineer. However,
they they do review every single site plan and make sure that the uh driving trucks have gone through. And I know that we also provide services to SS Point and there was an issue just last summer with a fairly narrow driveway that I know uh the chief was very involved with as it related to the
widths of the road and also in talking with the trees too. They take into consideration actually the height of the clearance as well so that the trucks don't hit the branches going through. But I don't have his report. That would be my only concern or people
that have trailers or anything coming through there as far as narrowing. I know Bonnie knows more about traffic calming, but does it create other problems? Yes. Um, and then my other concern was the sidewalk as well and depending on where you put it,
if it affects the, you know, residents with parking, uh, if it was possible to maybe not have a swell on one side versus the other. uh as far as narrowing, but those were mine. >> Okay, I can address them just because I
I'd be happy to address them one at a time or do you want me to get all the questions? Cuz we did think about that. First of all, I I I knew I'd be criticized for swells, but I also would be criticized if I didn't tell people there might need to be a swell in front of your property because if I don't put a swell there and all of a sudden I have
ponding on the street, uh but if there's room for me to put a swell, I'm going to put it there. If there's a need for a parking spot there, we're we're most likely going to leave the parking space that they have there because that seemed to be the item that everybody was concerned about. I going to take my parking space away in front of my yard.
We weren't planning on doing that. Okay. So, but I but I I also wanted to make sure if you notice on the exhibit, I use the word various. Okay. I'm going to make them very broad so that they're not like they're not going to be a ditch like a I guess we call them Port St. Lucy swells. We're not going to have
those on this street. We're going to have just something shallow to get the water off the road and then it's going to get to an inlet. But if I don't have a swale in there, I'd be putting inlets just about everywhere on the road. So, we don't want that. So, that's why I want to make sure we the water can go to
a an inlet. And that's what the swale is more for conveyance. But it also can go across driveways and it can go across um and and I I also like to tell people in the current criteria for storm water management, people should expect there's
going to be water in the swells in the front of their property. There's going to be more storage of storm water because we keep getting more intense storms more often and people are going to see more water on the properties. Now, my goal on these is to make sure that it stays there for a very short
period of time. And we basically so that's that's the intent of of these is to get get the water off the road so people can get to their home, put store it in a green area, and then make sure it dissipates and evaporates um and and get transmitted through to through the
golf and the storm sources. So, that's that's where the storm water comes in. Was there another question you had on? >> No, that was it. I'm just I'm concerned when we narrow that's one of my I get it fast perspective but you're driving a
big vehicle it's not fun if you have a boat trailer just not all that's personal I don't >> did we do issue we get the complaints it's usually from what that towes a boat
>> and I get them every time I do a roundabout. Now, you can make them wide enough and make it so people can get around it, but I I wouldn't want to tell you that you will not get a complaint because you will get complaints for people hauling any type of trailer. >> Yeah, >> it just happened. >> It's just not possible on an 8ft tree to
tow a trailer at all. >> And and the other thing that we've been doing a lot of work on is canopy. Canopy is very important for residents as well as our communities. Basically, the typical rule is you want it to be higher than 14 foot. Well, you're going to find some areas that it's not higher than 14
foot and cutting that branches from the bottom and FBNL coming from the coming from the top and cutting them. Those are things that we seem to get a lot of comments about. I don't see that being a big problem in this neighborhood. I'm just saying those are things we will look at as we actually get to the final
design to make it so that we don't take away. >> Thanks, Joe. >> Board member Sheerer. Thank you. You know, um I get really excited when I hear trees. So, uh I would be remiss if I didn't emphasize that or or I know panel may or may not
have this included as part of the plan, but I I noticed in the budget I didn't see anything for street trees, shade trees. So, that is included in the plan or it would be something that would have to come subsequently. >> So, uh we are going to place trees wherever it's feasible. Um, and we also
have the residential street tree program. So, we're hoping that the residential residents will take advantage of that. This year, we planted 15 trees um on in residential front yards. So, I I think with this project, we'll get more interest from residents.
Um, and also, we're just going to do it wherever it's feasible. And maybe Joe can expand on that. >> Well, first of all, the swailes are the sidewalk will be going around trees on sidewalks. And as far as the swale goes, we're obviously not going to cut down a
tree for a swale. Nicely obvious. I mean, we we don't plan on doing that. And again, we're narrowing the street. So, we're taking up what is already in the road already as roadway. So, so intent our intention is not to take take down. If we need to, you normally we
have a video of the project before we start and if there's a tree or something that we need to to work into it, I do have some contingencies in the budget that we can take. Yeah, glad to hear that we are trying to uh maintain or keep some trees. That's great. I guess I was thinking about also
adding some more shade trees and street trees. Okay, you got it. Good. >> Vice Chairperson Moser, >> thank you. Um I couldn't I don't recall uh Panel, in the beginning of the presentation, did you say when you did
the um stop signs that you did traffic counts at the center of the street or you put in the speed feedback signs? Um um well we put the stop signs at all the intersections. Uh we first did it
just on Cortez a Avenue and then um once Boys and Girls Club was uh open we started getting more uh interest from the neighborhood to put it on the other streets and high school avenues. So >> do we have traffic count before and after? >> Do we have counts for any of the
streets? >> Yeah. What we did is we took counts before we put the stop signs in. We did we did traffic counts and then we did them after we put the stop signs in to see what they there was a reduction not a significant I'll be honest with you
but we did see a reduction in traffic as well as speed. >> Do you recall the number of cars that were on the streets? >> Was it hundreds thousands? >> Could you come to the microphone please?
Oh, is this is this a lay person or >> she work for you? >> Oh, okay. So, >> hi, I'm Terry Andre with Captech. I'm just reporting the U traffic counts. Milton, actually from public works, was the one that put them out. So, let's see. I don't have the summary, so bear
with me while I go through. So, for example, we've got um high school pre high school post. So, High School Avenue August 25th, then we have um High School Avenue July 1st. And
so, the difference um you were looking for volumes specifically >> total numbers. Yeah. >> Vehicles 1935 before and >> I'm sorry. Over this is over a 24-hour period or
>> um and then 997 after. It was one week. >> One week. Yeah. >> One week. >> One week. Okay. >> One week. And you said how much was the after? >> 997. [Music] >> That's on high school. >> On high school. >> Do you want another one? Fifth Avenue,
for example. >> That's the busiest street in that neighborhood by far. >> Fifth and and Stipman. >> I'd rather see Fifth and Stitman. >> All right. I've got Stitman before
11:15 and then Dipman after Hold on. [Music] That was just another location in Steman. Let me keep going. Um, we're going to do
>> I can I can ask another question. She's looking. >> It probably would be better. You want me to keep looking? >> Yeah, you can keep looking. >> Why don't Why don't you look and come back and >> Yeah, because I don't have it organized. >> Vice chair person can continue with her other questions. >> Okay. Um the street lamps, are those
pedestrian scale or are those >> tall? Yeah. Are those taller? >> Yeah. Pedestrian. >> So we're talking 12 to 16. Okay. Um can I say my comments now? Well, >> you may say anything you wish, Miss Moser. >> For the audience and the residents in
the neighborhood, I don't work in the city of Stewart. Um but I do work in transportation and traffic calming is one of the biggest things that I do. So, I was really excited to see this on the list and I'm really happy that you're all here today. Um, so you put the stop
signs in because you wanted to stop through traffic and you wanted to slow some cars down. As a consultant, the very first thing that I would tell you to do to slow down cars is to narrow your street. Either making your travel lanes narrower or using trees to make the street look near. It's the first
thing I would tell you to do. And the reason is because the wider traveling is, the faster a car goes. On an interstate, they're 14 feet wide, so you can go 70 miles an hour. On a major arterial, they're 12 feet wide, so you can go 65. Um, urban arterial, they're generally 10 to 11 feet wide, depending
on if you get a lot of bus traffic on the street. And then local streets, they can be smaller. One of the reasons, um, they can be smaller is because we want cars to go slower. Um, just for clarification sake, we do have these measurements that were in our
presentation. Those were including mirror widths. So, the average pickup truck is 6'8 in wide in the United States and the average Amazon truck is about 80 to 87 in wide, not including the mirrors. Um, so our cars is not are not as wide as we think. Um, the same
goes for boat trailers, any kind of trailer. Legally, nothing can be wider than 8 ft wide other than a fire or emergency access vehicle in Florida. Um, so far what we've seen with these traffic counts are, we're we're talking about a little over a 100 cars a day per
street. So, if we're worried about the street being narrow and cars passing each other, that's just not going to happen a lot. Um, over a little over 100 cars a day is a really low volume. I live on 10th Street. We're getting 3,000 cars a day. So, we still don't see a lot
of, you know, conflict with cars passing each other. Um, and I want to point out that um, fire emergency access on these streets is going to be really rare. It's only going to happen if there's an emergency on your streets. Um, because
these are not, um, streets that the fire uh, access or that the fire trucks need to use to get through somewhere else. they would be using um East Ocean Boulevard, Palm Beach Road, um MLK, bigger streets um so they can get places
faster. Um a few more things. Uh let's see. I do want to point out less asphalt means that more storm water is able to just drain. Um it's not going to run off. So you get two less feet on each of these. No, four less feet on each of
these streets. That that really adds up. Uh your engineers can talk more about that if they want to. Um and then the last point I want to make is we have about 20 streets north of East Ocean Boulevard.
So just directly north of this neighborhood that are all less than 16 feet wide with the exception of Oyola Street. Um they have been functioning that way for I don't know how many decades. People have boats, buyers able
to access. Um, I don't know if anyone at the city can tell me if anyone has ever asked them to widen their streets. But the beautiful thing about these streets, and I walk them almost daily, is cars never speed on them. And you see people out walking
their dogs and riding their bikes, and you see kids actually playing in the street because it's a comfortable width and they feel like they can. So, I'm a I'm a huge proponent of the narrowing. >> My entire street is eight feet wide. The whole street. >> Yeah, your street is very narrow and
cars. That's a good point that last point I'll make. Um, we're calling these yield streets, but technically these streets 16 ft is wide enough that cars can pass each other. They just have to do it slowly. Um, a yield street would be like Flamingo Street where it's 8
feet wide and somebody's got to stop and kind of pull off the road in order to let someone else pass. Um, that's not going to be the case on a 16 foot wide street. I would encourage all of you just to take a quick drive down Riverside or Weir or um Cortez on the
north side. Um, the streets are all really narrow and there are no issues on those streets. Thank you. >> Thank you. You have another uh board member Monera. >> Yeah. I just had basically I wonder if there's a further breakdown on the
expenses for improvements in the construction. Are you able to answer that or does Mr. Capra have that information. >> The breakdown. >> I'm sure we can obtain it. >> Yeah, you don't have it. Oh, just so I
can get I have a break. I'm sorry. >> Yeah, there could be a further detailed breakdown on the drainage improvement. So relative to the storm water size there's
I'm going to give you the breakdown of that relative basically there's control then there's inlet protection and then there's certain amount of demolition and clearing put in certainly there's
testing and Uh the different size pipes range from 24 in to 15 15 in to 24 ination pipe in there close to 1200 ft ofration
those pipes in such ditch bottom and 42 bios I'm hoping I've answered your question you wanted going to go into detail. So, the toal shells bond to hospital ponds.
Some of these items are in our in our grant requirements in our grant requirements. So, uh we've actually put we show in our criteria two baffle boxes. I will tell you right now baffle boxes become very expensive. You may be able to accomplish the same
amount of nutrient load reduction with something else. So, we we will look into that. Um, obviously two baffle boxes, I'm sorry. One on each end of this project or two going to the high school pond. >> Yeah, we got one. We have we we pretty much have the two outfalls that we have
to the west side are going to get those. >> Okay. box. Um there's already a baffle box going out of hospital pond into Krueger Creek. It's already on there. Now, we could also do some um sometimes we make these uh generation one baffle
boxes and improve treatment by adding an insert to them. We could do some of that if we furnishes. You talk about >> Well, there's there's again there there's variety of things. I mean we can do bio we can do more bio swell which we have when we have the room for it. We
can do uh we we can do um lal shelving more of that. Again we can in the baffle boxes that we have we can improve them by putting inserts in them. We can do them in we can do inlets and and do some some improvements into those and fil put
some type of filters in those. Um anyways, uh but other items that are in there is repairing uh pavement restoration because we have to do that when we do this cuz I got to keep the roads open for people to get to their homes and of course preparing pavers, concrete driveways again, excavating the
swells and soding the swells. Um the project does require for the grant to have a monitoring program when we're done to show that we are meeting uh we are nutrient load we're reducing the nutrient or nitrogen and phosphor sorry the contingency is just for
unexpected expenses. So the actual construction cost would be uh is proposed at 3.3 million and the another million is just for unexpected cost that could come up when we're in construction. >> Right. >> Actually there's less than a million. I
don't want I don't want to see there's a there's about uh $380,000 in continue. >> Could you pull the microphone just there you go. Thank you. >> I didn't want to touch it again. Afraid it would make a noise. Sorry. Uh, board member Monero, do you have any additional questions? No.
>> Okay. Mr. Breell. >> Yeah. I just I just have one comment. You know, a number of years back, we passed uh an ordinance about golf carts and, you know, these transitional neighborhoods like you've got over here with Stitman and Cortez and that, you know, if we could work that in because
that would be narrower streets. You know, we you maybe have dedicated golf cart paths, but I mean that that neighborhood in particular over there. so close to the middle school, so close to the elementary school would be an easy way to move people without putting cars on the road, you know, and and I
think a lot of the neighbors in there probably have a golf cart, but but I know down the road as we're getting older, you know, moving cars around, it's just nice to have a golf cart and be able to take them in the neighborhood, especially a neighborhood like that. That's a neighborhood. You know, you might be going, it's not just
going through it to go someplace fast. you're actually maybe going to someplace in the neighborhood and you want to get there um without having to, you know, make it a difficult path. So, I just I just mentioned that mainly for Joe in the future if there's any possibility of
working in the golf cart process to some of these neighborhoods. >> Golf carts are legal on those Steuart Streets now. They just have to be registered. >> The problem is that they're not legal on the county roads. So they couldn't drive on Palm Beach Road or East Ocean
Boulevard and others. So they end up being kind of landlocked within their neighborhoods. >> And if they try to take their golf cart from downtown and start driving down East Ocean Boulevard, you start getting an interference with cars going, you know, 15 to 20 m hour and go 45.
>> And that's what I I know that there and I have a golf course, so that's why I know that and it and all they got to do is be registered. That's great. But what I'm saying is as we're going forward in the future and we're redesigning some of these neighborhoods, particularly some of the neighborhoods that are right on the border of um of uh that the CRA,
which this is kind of right on the border and and downtown. It would be nice to have an even flow that there's a path for for people that want to take their kids to school on golf carts and things like that. That's all I'm saying. and it it maybe could solve some of the lane problems because now you might have
a bigger road that you could use in case of emergencies but smaller for most of the normal travel. Anyway, I just throw that out there. >> Okay, board member James. >> Thank you. Just one quick question. And I I heard you talking about some drainage and sewage and there would be
some some homes that would be affected, but I didn't see where the cost would come from if if you had to um relocate or refix some of the drainage for the homes that were along those areas that you're proposing. If will the city pick that charge up or will the resident be
charged for that? >> Okay, so this exhibits the drainage exhibit. We are going to be putting in drainage in the road right away. Okay. In most cases, what's blue on there is new drainage pipes, okay? And inlets.
Um, over on the lower right hand, the west or the east side, you see the red pipes. Those are existing drainage pipes. Um, those will probably be cleaned, but those pipes are active and are working. Okay. Um, but as far as the
the drainage of of the road road and the maybe the sidewalk next to the road, that's what's going to be going into those pipes. Now, the private properties, you know, they may have some drainage issues on their property. Um, and and quite frankly, we we like to
encourage them to to handle some storm water storage, but we want to also provide an avenue for them to discharge their water, and that's what those blue and red pipes will be for. So they can, you know, they they can get the water to the rightway, then we can pick it up on
those pipes. >> So I'm not includes a $1.6 million grant that was obtained by the CRA. >> Thank you. Thank >> any other questions of Mr. CRA. Um
just do Mr. Vice Mayor. No. Um, you're going to take water. It's going to feed into Fasier Creek from the lower left. Is that true, Mr. Keer? Ultimately, that drainage basin,
anything that goes to the south, I'm sorry, to MLK into those ponds and through a outfall system goes ultimately to Frasier Creek. The one to the norththeast, the red and the blue to the northeast
between Cortez goes to Hospital Pond, which ultimately goes to Krueger Creek. >> Right. You you're going to become known as the savior of Frasier Creek >> because we've been trying to clean this creek up for a while and one of the big
problems we're facing is insufficient flow. So between SE Coast Bank and this, I think we're well on our way to reviving this waterway, which would be huge. As regards drainage
and storm water, this is a huge challenge all municipalities are going to face. A little anecdote. My wife and I were driving back from North Carolina last night. We were in just north of Indian River County around 4:30.
We were in the hardest and we've lived here 45 years. The hardest rainstorm we have ever been in. There were hundreds of cars pulled over on 95. I'd never seen that before. Anywhere near that number of cars pulled
off. People were desperate to get off at the exits. I learned today that that municipality broke its rainfall record by 275%. These are the type of events we're seeing now, both in quantity and
duration. And so I'm so happy to see that we're making the commitment to your neighborhood to get that water out of there. Um, and these are steps we're going to need to take. I assume, Mr. Kapper, these conform to the updated storm water rags going into effect.
>> That's correct. >> January one. So >> that's just I'm I'm so happy we can provide this for this neighborhood. Um as far as the narrowing, so I live on Flamingo, north of East Ocean. It's a little onelane street.
Knows it. The city has proposed at very times to widen it and the neighborhood freaks out. They're like, "Don't you dare widen that street because it is people drive so slowly and the kids love to go on and everybody likes to walk on it." I remember when we proposed an
airway in Colorado. Oh my, you would have thought we were saying no cars would ever be allowed on Colorado. Um, and it's proved to be a huge success. We created a whole new neighborhood in the city of Stewart, the Creek District. Um,
and if you I remember when we So there another word for this is called road diet is sort of the term of art that's used. Um, in the Potts Dam neighborhood over there on West Ocean above West Ocean there. When we started talking to them about narrowing those roads,
they're like, "No, no, no, no, no, no." And yet now if you I'm pretty confident if you talk to anybody who lived there, they would be like, "Boy, that was the best thing that ever happened to that." is a very charming, walkable, safe neighborhood. So I I do appreciate these
pro proposal. We have a lot of experience around the country with narrowing with road diets and they can be very effective. So are there any other comments or questions from any of the board members?
If not, I'll entertain a motion so we can get to public comment. to approve this um >> resolution. >> Yeah. Resolution number 082025 resolution of the C. Second. Uh Mr. >> As presented, Commissioner Clark.
>> Yes. >> We have a motion by Commissioner Clark. And who seconded that? >> Vice Mayor, >> do we have any public comment? Madam Clerk, >> wanted to read the resolution. I think I don't think it's necessary. Do you
>> Okay, we do have public comment. We have Kevin Hemple. >> Oh, Kevin Hemp. >> Is Miss Hemple here. >> Mr. Hemple. I'm sorry. >> I haven't seen him in a long time. >> If you could just >> Hi.
>> identify yourself and your address, please. >> I'm sorry. >> If you could just identify your yourself and state your address. >> All right. I apologize. I have trouble hearing. So, uh, everybody thinks I'm yelling. I'm just trying to talk. My name is Kevin Hemple. I live at 512
Southeast Cortez Avenue. It's on the corner of Cortez and Stitman. I'd like to begin by reading part of an email my wife and I sent Joe Capra and Panel last May 23rd. Hi Joe and Panel. Good seeing you at the statement edition neighborhood meeting. We were fortunate to live in Stewart. I'm a retired city
worker. I know how hard it is to keep everybody happy. Our city staff does a great job. We are very grateful the drainage and sidewalk project is moving forward. As I told you at the meeting, my wife and I have been in favor of a sidewalk connecting Martin Luther King Boulevard with East Ocean Boulevard.
While our flooding is dangerous, walking down Cortez Avenue is even more threatening. Living on the corner of Cortez and Stipen for 40 years, we have seen mothers pushing baby carriages, people in wheelchairs going to the 900 building, and other medical offices. The
new stop signs have been a big help. Virtually now only local traffic comes down Cortez Avenue. Also, the 25 mile per hour speed limit is being observed. In no way do we want to slow down the process to install a new sidewalk. Since
86, we've seen uh when we bought our house, several times we've seen dogs and cats killed on that corner. However, we're hoping that the final design will respect the 40 years of landscaping my wife and I have installed along Cortez Avenue. Please, if you can save what save what you can, but if a palm tree
must be moved to save a life, the city has our full total support. Our only concern regarding a sidewalk on the west side of Cortez is the drainage needs to be considered when designing the sidewalk. Please do not construct a dam that will prevent the water from sheep
flowing out of our backyard to the existing drain. As I said, my name is Kevin Hemple. I first came to Steuart in 1971, April spring break. I was a city Stewart building official in the late 1990s. I have an urban studies degree. I have a
civil engineering degree, an AS degree. I have an AS degree in architecture. I'm a licensed general contractor. I'm a licensed building official. I earned my state license for fire inspector and plan review. In ' 85, we purchased our home from Judge David Harper on the
northwest corner of Cortez and Steman. In the early 2000s, my wife and I purchased our second rental home on the southwest corner of Cortez and Stman, which is right across the street. Over the decades, my wife and I have invested heavily in rehabilitating both homes
beyond the minimum current building codes, including electric HVAC plumbing systems, metal roof, windows, exterior doors, and accordion shutters. However, our home at 847 interior floods when it rains heavily. I have videos and photos on my phone I could share with you. We
need is that the time? >> Yes. >> Yes. That's all right. You can finish, sir. >> We need Thank you very much. I appreciate that. >> However, our home I have We need your help to correct the situation. This
situation was inadvertently created by the city 20ome years ago when they did the initial storm drainage project. My wife and I have spent several thousand dollars over the years correcting the drainage problem uh that
floods the interior of our house along Cortez Avenue. We plead for a new sidewalk similar as located on Kindred near the post office with a gutter between the street and the sidewalk. There are many advantages this design including cost savings. The new sidewalk
impact to the property's existing landscape will be minimal. with humility. I'm a resource of historical knowledge over 40 years neighborhood and I'd be willing to help and get involved. Our last comment is please listen to our neighborhoods and thank you to the CRA
board and the city commission for caring and all your hard work. >> Thank you. >> We do appreciate it. >> Peter Martinez. That's for us.
>> It's a cute She's a cute little house. >> Good evening, mayor, commissioners, staff, board members. Thank you so much for your time. We definitely are very encouraged with the plans which have been going forward for the narrowing of the street with the new uh sidewalks and
also with the >> Sir, could you just identify yourself and give us your address, please? >> Yes. Peter Martinez, 712 Southeast Steman Boulevard. >> Thank you. Okay, continue. >> Thank you. So, we definitely are very
encouraged with all the investment, a $5 million investment being made in our community. We're very encouraged for that and we thank you for it. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, sir. >> Maria Martinez. Good evening. Maria Martinez, 712
Southeast Stman Boulevard, Stewart. Uh, thank you very much. Thank you each of you for being here. Thank you for thinking about this neighborhood. I have to agree with >> Miss Moher >> Moher
Miss Moher uh Stipman I I I heard something about Stipman uh neighborhood not wanting to yield and uh my husband and I drove around I believe it was Flamingo or somewhere around there where the street was only 8
ft and then we drove around the ones that the street was six were 16 ft and versus stipman. And we really liked what we saw. Uh we saw a street, not the 8 8
foot, obviously the 16, but we did see the street where cars can come and go, but it was a more um community like um feel. And I think it will stop traffic.
um the the the the not just traffic maybe as much as slowing it down. The the larger sidewalks are great. Um the um uh drainage is absolutely wonderful
because uh we have uh the same issues that uh uh Mayor Campbell was speaking about. Uh and we will have them uh whether we like them or not. And uh we want to thank you so much and I'm I'm
just speaking that we would like to uh speak on approving the CRA plan for statement as we heard that in times prior there was none. Uh it wasn't approved. We we would like to uh speak on behalf of that.
>> Thank you. >> Thank you >> Glenn Collins. Good afternoon. My name is Glenn Collins, 636 Southeast Fifth Street, no relation. Um,
between uh myself and my family, we own four properties, two on uh Sixth Street or Fifth Street and two on Stitman. Uh we're totally in favor of this. Um mostly for the traffic calming um and
hopefully to get rid of some of the traffic. I'd like to address the traffic study. Um it the first and second one it was already after the Boys and Girls Club had opened. So it didn't really take into account the the influx of
traffic that we have received after the Boys and Girls Club came in. Um Commissioner Reed's uh comment regarding trailers. I have a trailer, a couple large trailers. whether the the um whether the street's
10 feet wide or 20 feet with 10ft lanes or 8 feet, you're still going to have to use two lanes to back your trailer in. So, it's not really a concern for me. Um Mr. Sher, you mentioned trees. I love trees as well. I'm hoping that with the
narrowing of the streets, we can have you, you know, them treelined. Um, and then Miss Moser, what a breath of fresh air. I hope that her comments can be read again before you vote because everything she said is exactly
what I agree with. And then just stuff that she said about the uh, you know, less asphalt, the the water can percolate into the ground. Um, it it just makes sense. And you know, you go on to uh the north side of Ocean and
those neighborhoods are beautiful there and I'm hoping that we can uh you know, have our neighborhood go in that direction. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Ed Stout. >> Hello, Ed Stout 600 Stipman. Um,
definitely appreciative of all the drainage improvements. It's been a long time coming, but why don't we save $300,000 and get to the elephant in the room and why don't we ask Boys and Girls Club to use their main entrance instead of using our neighborhood? I mean, that would solve the traffic problem. That's
where it all came from. Their problem with that, they when they built it, they told us they weren't going to use that road except for their employees, and now they're using it for their main entrance. So, Is that High School Avenue, you're saying?
>> Correct. >> They have a beautiful main entrance on Martin Luther and sometimes they have the gate completely closed and so everyone has to use High School. We've had thousands of traffic coming up and down speeding. They run the stop sign. It's crazy. I mean, you're going to put
a narrow road, they're just going to speed down the road, you know? I mean, >> I'll bring that up. >> Yeah. I mean, we we've we've asked I've called Mr. Mortell. I've called the commissioner. >> I'll talk to this. >> Someone needs to talk to Boys and Girls
Club. I've sent letters to them and they ignore me. So, that's what needs to happen for our traffic in our neighborhood >> and and for >> I appreciate everything else. It's all good stuff. >> The board's edification. I have met with that neighborhood and there was some construction issues. We were also getting the road resurfaced over there.
We did speak with the Boys and Girls Club and they claim that they tell the parents that they're supposed to use the front driveway to pick up their children, but there's a certain group of parents that don't care and that it's faster if you're coming off East Ocean
Boulevard just to cut through high school and come in the back gate. And I don't know about the front gate ever being closed or not, but but in the afternoon, I do know that the there are parents that use the front gate as well, but there is a consistent flow every
afternoon from 3:00 to 7:00 p.m. or so of people after work scrambling to get over there to pick up their kid and get out the back as fast as they can. And I think they use it as a means because they find it more convenient or faster for them to do so. But I had been communicating with Boys and Girls Club
and it is worth following up on. And in fact, I just suggested that they close the gate from 3:00 to 7:00 in the back because if it's just employees, then the employees can either drive out the front if they're getting off work or if they're going to be there anyway, they don't need to have the gate open to get out. But I also know there may be some
fire issues with that as well, but we haven't shot. >> So, it's something that it's something the commission can investigate further. >> Could I let it be known that I do love everything the Boys and Girls Club does? I just don't like the way they're doing it. Their their motto is to build better
communities and this is not building a better community. >> But thank you. >> You have a quick comment? >> Yeah, just quickly on that. Um certainly if they have a main entrance, they should use it. Maybe we could for some time direct traffic off of that back entrance. Um that just becomes something
that parents get used to or they're not going to be there. It doesn't have a safety issue because the gates will be open. Maybe there's for a period of time that we could do that is redirect the traffic and um I just think and maybe we do need to bring it up on an agenda
item. So can I make a request to have that on an agenda item? >> So noted. >> Thank you. >> Next, please. >> Mayor, we have no further comments. >> No additional comments. >> No, sir. >> Okay. >> Certainly, sir.
My name is John Leighton, 600 Southeast Ocean Boulevard. Um Joe, I have a question for you. Um you had mentioned that in the corridor where High School Avenue is in Fifth Street that in that whole area
that's all draining out toward Martin Luther King. Is that correct? there. We're we're going to have a pipe system that's going to come down from uh as you know from East Ocean south at that point. I know some of the stuff
that on the north end goes to the East Ocean Boulevard. I agree with that. But we're going to have an inlet there and take it to the south through the system that ultimately is the same system that actually was built by the Boys and Girls Club, but we're going to You can see the
blue blue pipes there. So is is the so at the corner of Ocean and High School A that inlet goes to the county. >> Yeah. >> And have you had a discussion with them about that issue? >> Actually I think uh Milton I think you
just recently cleaned that inlet out >> and so so the count the city is actually maintaining that inlet. Okay. >> And so that because it was there's a big problem. >> Yeah. Right. So and that's why he's been checking it and seeing if it solves it by cleaning it out. >> Okay. And then down at the corner of
Fifth Street and High School Avenue, the northeast quadrant, there is an inlet there that goes into an excilation system. >> Okay. And it appears you're you're connecting that, but I'm not sure because I do know down there is a
concrete inlet there that if you connected those then you would have positive out, >> right? And that's what our plan is. >> Is that what you're going to do on that side of the street? We're going to take it across the street and tighten that system and come back south and then bring the system farther south >> all all the way down. >> Just want to clear. >> Yeah. Thank you.
>> Thank you. Could you fill out a green card, Mr. Leon? >> I will. >> No other public comment. Okay. Are there is there discussion amongst the board members regarding >> Commissioner Clark? I'm sorry. Commissioner,
>> I just have a question for Joe. That's okay. The family that lives on the corner of Cortez and Stman, you're doing drainage. Oh, sorry. The family that lives on the corner of um Cortez and Steman, you'll be doing
drainage. Will that correct their problem? >> Uh yes, we met with Kevin quite a few times. So, but yeah, some of the stuff I'm actually putting some inlets there for that, but but he has a unique problem with the sidewalk, too. So, and
I'll be working on that. But also, the water, as you know, we're putting the sidewalk on his side of Cortez. Okay. He wants to make sure that the water from his lot still has a avenue of out from his lot to to that system that I'm putting in there.
>> It just wasn't clear sometimes to talk. >> Yeah, it is. Thank you, Joe. Yeah, it's not very clear on the map. Sorry, >> Mr. Hemp. >> May I say something? >> Sorry. No. >> May I say something? >> Oh, I had a comment about this. Okay.
>> Um, so I did receive email from emails from some of the residents along Stipman Boulevard that did not want narrow street. I know we're hearing tonight that some of them want it. Um, so I just want to be transparent, you know, that when we make uh when give direction to
staff whether on Stipman, do we want to keep the narrow street or do we want to um keep the existing width of the street? I do need direction on that because some of those residents could not be here because of their work or whatever. So,
>> is is that included in this? What you're asking that's included in this? >> Yeah, right now we're showing narrow street on Stipman Cortez and Fifth Street. But since then, I've received emails um from some of the residents along Statement only that they did not
prefer uh a narrow street just because of the truck, you know, if they have trailer or boats or something, they wanted to make sure that they had enough width for that. But we spoke about that here. So, >> is that what Mr. Collins brought up or you said it didn't matter?
>> He is on Fifth Street. He's on Fifth Street. >> Yeah. houses live on. >> Thank you. >> The resident on Fifth Street and Cortez are are um they have consensus for Narrow Street. It's just a statement
that's giving a little bit. >> Thanks. Thanks. We we hear that and we've >> The motion is currently for this resolution as written. >> Yes. To be adopted as written. Do >> you have any other comments, Commissioner Clark? Somebody had brought up about the neighborhood and I know
that in our strategic plan we have the idea of of working on various neighborhood and I appreciate Miss Moa being on the board and other people bringing up neighborhoods. I know that we're going to be considering something else u which is still within this area when we look again at the high school
avenue and what's happening with the Boys and Girls Club. But for the public, if there's anything at all in your neighborhood, bring it up to us, bring it up to staff, so that when we have funds or the opportunity to make plans to use CRA funds, um then we'll have
projects that we can work on. So, that's important to bring that up or to bring it up to any other members of the CRB board or or CRA in general. Thank you. >> I think there's one more. There's one more
>> a comment. Oh, sorry. [Music] >> Okay, Mr. >> Okay, seeing no other comments or questions of staff or amongst ourselves, I will ask for the roll call, please. >> Board member Goi, >> yes. >> Board member Clark, >> yes.
>> Vice Chair Collins, >> Board Member James, >> yes. >> Board member Breville, >> yes. >> Chair Rich, >> yes. >> Board member Reed, >> no. >> Can you repeat that, I'm sorry? >> No. >> Thank you. Motion passes.
Thank you. Before I adjourn the meeting, I because I have many friends who live in your neighborhood and one of them threatened to chain herself to the tree which was an interesting suggestion. Um I will
be going into your neighborhood uh trying to meet with you as many as many of you as I can to discuss what's required with regard to the banyan tree on just on stipman. So I will bring Mr.
Shear with me since trees have no greater advocates than Mr. Shear. So that is an issue we will address. Um there are many conflicting interests when it comes to trees. Unfortunately, we have FPNL and we have the the uh services that go under the
streets. So, we'll try to come up with a great solution. Seeing no other items for our consideration, I will adjourn this meeting.