and then an employee level implementation cost estimate. So person by person, what does that cost to implement our pay ranges? The reason the organization develops or
updates a job and pay framework is to ultimately ensure that the village manager has good guidance when making pay decisions. So that's whether he is posting a position outside the organization and Merlin is trying to
recruit talent to come to Tquesta or an an existing employee is being promoted um from within. So we want to make sure that the organization has up-to-date current pay information.
Now, every year, Merlene and the the HR department reviews information that's provided um through the Pepe study, which is a great tool and a wonderful resource, but every 5 to seven years or so, it's necessary to do a holistic
review and to get to know recent changes within the organization. As Merlene said, we heard from each of the department directors who provided input about recruitment and retention challenges, things that have changed in
their department in terms of um new jobs, new technology, new legislation, things that impact the way people work. So getting that updated information was really important because that helped us to confirm the internal job alignment
before we then turned our attention to the outside. Now there's many things that you can survey when you're looking at labor market data. Our primary focus was on base pay. So we want to make sure that your pay ranges are up todate.
In the past, we surveyed five organizations. Those that you see bolded here, the town of Juno Beach, Jupiter, the city of Palm Beach Gardens, the town of Palm Beach, and the village of Royal Palm. Because so much has happened in
our local labor market, especially postco, we felt like it was necessary necessary to expand that search. So, we wanted to look a little bit further north and we wanted to look at some other um organizations
in Palm Beach County. So, we included City of Green Acres, Village of North Palm Beach, the city of Stewart, the city of West Palm Beach, and pardon me, the town of Lake Park. So we wanted
to get a fuller view of what was happening in the labor market. As Merlene said, we always include a private sector data point. Many of the skill sets of individuals that you employ. Um the jobs that you have are
similar to those not only in other towns or villages or um cities, but in the public sector, but also in the private sector. So if there were 10 responses to a job, the private sector data point is would be point number 11. So it doesn't
unduly influence one way or another the overall pay structure, but it does allow us to check and keep an eye on changes that occur in the private sector. I know this is a lot of numbers and I'm not sure how close your screens are to
um for you to view, but let me just orient you from a color perspective. Over on the left hand side in the green columns, that's the 2025 um market data. So, we surveyed for pay range
information, minimum, midpoint, and maximum. And what you see is the summary of all of the benchmark market data by grade level. So if you'll notice on the right hand side where the peachy color columns begin, you see the um column
called grade. So each job title is assigned a grade number. And then we survey the labor market for benchmark jobs in each grade to find out what the value is of those actual jobs. What are pay ranges? What are those others being
paid for similar positions? So, the market data is summarized on the left. In the middle there in the clear columns, you have your current min, midpoint, and maximum. That's your current pay structure. The one that is periodically um updated
using the Pepe survey. And then on the far right hand side, you've got the grade, the proposed min, mid, and max in the peached columns. And on the far right, that's the midpoint change from your current
midpoint to the proposed midpoint. So, the good news is that your current practice of periodically shifting your pay ranges has helped to move your current pay ranges closer to
the current market value. And by doing this type of study every 5 to seven years, you do a holistic review and then you need some in some cases some larger changes to keep pace with the market. So
um contrary to popular belief, the labor market does not change at a consistent percentage for every single job. So, I know we hear a lot about that in the media about um oh, the average pay
change was 3% or organizations have shifted their pay ranges or given cost of living adjustments and it's a set percentage that everyone gets that all is applied to all jobs. And so, when we do that, we can do that for a couple years um to help keep pace with the
market. But it's good that you're doing a whole study like this at this point in time to really truly know what the proposed pay ranges should be to be truly reflective of the market. We did also include the village
manager's position because we know um as a commission you have the council you've got the responsibility to make pay decisions there as well. And so we surveyed those organizations and provided to the highest data point, the average data point and the lowest.
Um that's in the box on the right hand upper right hand side. But then we also recommended for grade 13 because that's where the job fits in the overall schedule a um pay range that's consistent with the approach that we used for the other uh
village jobs. So, in implementing the new non-union pay plan, so it's just focused on non-union jobs, we do recommend some changes. Um, there are five part-time employees primarily in the parks and recck department whose pay is under the
new minimum. So, we find that um quite common that there's a um consistent trying to catch up to the market for our part-time staff in and around the state of Florida. As the state continues to move minimum wage um up a dollar an hour
and other employers are also following suit, we find that we have to make those incremental changes, especially with our lower level staff. Now, the good news is, knock on wood, all full-time employees are within the new pay ranges and no employee pay is
over maximum. So, that's the good news. Um, we did identify some minor title changes and we shared that with the human resources department for their consideration to implement the new pay ranges. And this is where the budgetary component comes in. I'm going to show
you the cost on the next slide is that we recommend you consider bringing all employees to the new minimums first. So that would be changing the pay of those five part-time employees first and then do an across the board general increase.
So this increases everyone's pay by the same amount, but it moves their pay into these new ranges. After we did those calculations, we then went person by
person to ensure that the pay of an individual employee was far enough within the pay range based on their time and position. So for example, if there's two employees who have different time and position today and they have
different pay rates today, by moving them into the ranges, their pay may have gotten a little closer. So what we want to do is to make sure that based on the differences in their time and position that we've made recommended minor changes to some employees pay to ensure
that their pay is competitive within the range. So I want to walk you through the cost here. This is as of um employee data that we had as of April 11th. So it does
not include benefits, does not include statutory uh deductions or costs for those items or vacancies. So we have provided this information so that finance can include that in the budget and then include the associated costs
with uh benefit statutory deductions and vacancies. Out of the 42 non-UN employees, just to kind of put that in perspective, there's 31 that are full-time and 11 that are part-time. So, the first thing we need to do is adjust those part-time
employees, adjust their pay. It's very minor. There's five employees, but they, you know, need anywhere from a nickel to 25 cents to move their pay to the minimum of the range and that cost is $6,338.
Now, once everybody's at least at the minimum of the range, and as I told you, all of the full-time staff are their pay is already above that new minimum and into the range, then what we recommend is that you consider increasing everyone's pay, full-time and part-time,
by the same percentage. And what that does, that 5% increase moves everybody's pay within the range. And that cost is an additional 187074. After you move everyone's pay into the
range by 5%, we then went and looked person by person and we said based on their time and position, is their pay far enough within the range? So if someone has been with the organization for 10 years, um, but they've been in their job for five, you would expect
that their pay would be within the pay range, you know, roughly halfway, right? Uh, between the minimum and the midpoint. And so if it wasn't, we recognized and identified five individuals. So this is four uh full-timers and one part-timer who based
on how long they've been in their job, not how long they've been with the village, but how long they've actually been in that position at the village. Five people needed additional um changes in pay totaling about $24,29. And again, the amounts vary.
They could be relatively small, a few hundred to um a few thousand. This ensures not only that your structure is competitive, the minimum and the maximum, the the pay structure, but also the employees pay.
So, every person, every full-time and part-time person that their pay is far enough within the range. So, we only identified five people that needed those additional equity adjustments, which means the other 37 people are their pay
is far enough within the range. Their pay is competitive compared to the market. So, as I said to Merlene, great job. continue to keep the structure updated and to make those sorts of
investments in in employee pay and then do this holistic study again every 5 to seven years to really level set and make sure that everyone is paid competitively. I know you need this information for your budget. So that
total cost is 217,483. We've provided under separate cover the market analysis report, the grade order list with the proposed pay ranges, that implementation plan and cost analysis. Um, we've already updated management, your department heads who had provided
that input in the beginning about jobs that they were having trouble recruiting for or jobs that they've been having trouble retaining. um we did um give them a preview so that they knew kind of close the loop on that communication of um what we found with our study results
and then here tonight with you all as you make these important budget decisions. I realized I did not take a break during that entire presentation and I am happy to go back to any slide and answer any question. I can't see you. So, Merlene,
I'm gonna rely on you to identify if people have questions. Merlin, do you have anything else to add? Uh, add. No, that's that's pretty much it. And Jeremy, um, we work as a team. Yeah, I mean I I think it's starting
with, you know, I told Merlene when I first saw this, I think she's done a very good job of really trying to stay within stay within the market and try to be competitive every every year we look at this. We we spend a couple hours going through every position. So, kind of justifies that. And then obviously
having a third party looking at this, that helps. If we do this every five to seven years, I think it's it's good. So, um, you know, I think, uh, I was pleasantly surprised that, you know, we we were alignments. All right, council, open up for
questions, discussion. Have any questions necessarily? Um, no, I really don't. I mean sense and it sounds like we've done a good job keeping as many employees within the competitive ranges as we can and we go
through this similar study um the company I work for and this just happens sometimes you got to catch some people up so I get it um no questions I mean the 9%s are really high question for Jeremy with the
non-union employees I mean, do we have a serious issue where we can't keep them or is there morale issues? So, we're I mean, the the equity adjustments uh so there were some ranges that were changed 9%. That doesn't mean
that the employees necessarily getting 9%. So we move the range to make sure that when we're recruiting or re the retention move those ranges to make sure that when we do recruit somebody it's going to fall within that most of these
employees are already closer to the midpoint. So while you see the range change 9% doesn't mean an employees getting a 9% increase just because the range does. So most of the employees, as long as they still fell within the range and close enough to the
midpoint, there's no adjustment being made. Like she said, there was only, I think, five part-time people and four full-time people that were not close enough. And I'll use a couple examples. We had some employees, one that's been here 18 years, another one's been here
19 years. They were on the very low side of that new range. And so those are the ones that are getting the equity adjustment because they've been here longer. They should be closer to the high side of the range. So um but it's not a 9% increase. It's um you know I
think it was an additional two 2% which is what we've typically done year to year with Merlin and I when when we've been off we we try to work 2% uh additional on top of what we're given all non-union and so it's a slow bite of the apple. And so you're seeing a 9%
change, but that is not what those five employees are getting. Correct. Correct. That's how much the range itself moved, but that's the people are already within those pay ranges, the minimum and the maximum. So their pay
doesn't need to move by the same amount. We're only recommending a 5% uh general increase to move employee pay into the range. and then those five additional employees um for the equity adjustment. As Jeremy said, those individuals who've
been in their position for a long time, you would expect their pay to be further within the range, and it's a relatively small amount um compared to your overall payroll. It's less than 1%. And I will add, if we hadn't been doing what we've been doing on a year-to-year basis, we'd
have a lot more people, a lot more employees outside of those ranges that we'd have to play catch-up with. But because we look at this every year and we make adjustments every year based on the Pepe study, we're not we're not as far we're not we're not out of ranges in most of
these positions. So that's why I say kudos to Merlene and what she's done. And then we've taken that and we've compared it specifically to those 11 data points and they fall within those data points. Exactly.
Um, thank you for all the work, Marlene, and also to team of consultants. Um, I've said it before, I say it in all of our negotiations that, um, we need to retain our people and we need to be able when we lose them to recruit the most
qualified people. I mean, we haven't for the size of our village, we have some of the most qualified and and amazing staff and this is part of that. And so as long as our management team is comfortable with this and knows that this is what needs to be done, um I put my faith in
what you do and so I'm totally on board with this and I think it's just one more thing that we can do to keep our employees happy. So thank you for all the great work. You Merene, great job. I, you know, um I wasn't super surprised at the study that
we weren't way off because I think if we were, we would have retention problems and we don't here. You know, people want to be here. It's a great place to work. The culture is great. The staff here is fantastic. So, good job. Um Katie, great uh presentation. It's very understandable, which is helpful. One
thing that I couldn't decipher is the grades that you have on um the market summary spreadsheet. And this might be more of a staff question. You can get the info to council later. You don't have to answer it tonight, but like how many employees are in each grade?
We can provide. Yeah, I Okay, that would be helpful. And then um on the if I go to the employee implementation cost tab um do we I don't do we have any open positions right now and if so does this
does this total include open positions currently since the study started we have had some movements so uh with persons um either leaving joining and so on. So right now we have a part-time
vacancy and uh I'm just talking about non-un. So we do have a part-time vacancy. I'm think police officer that's not that's union. That's pretty typical. I mean budget wise we budget 100% of salaries for that
position. And if we have vacancy through the year, we at the end of the year, you'll see that we have some and you'll see in the budget the audit coming up is that you'll see some savings get transferred to our um our fund balance because we have some savings and so that's so even if we have a vacant
position, those savings be recognized at the end of the year. Okay. So this 217 that includes vacant positions as well. No, it does not include benefits. It does not include the budget, right? And it does not include vacancies. Okay. So
this number could go up if we're like if it's missing a theoretically. Okay. Depends on your budget. Yeah. And it depends on the level at which the new person comes in. So Okay. But yes, I mean makes sense. We would budget for that though.
Yeah. And then kind of a hypothetical question or theoretical I guess you know there's a lot of talk and articles out there about uh flattening or tightening economy and market like what would you say if that were to happen with what we're seeing right now?
So there is you know the data shows that there is a cooling and the reason you see this in air quotes can you see me? Yes, we see we can cooling is that you know from a mathematical perspective you know our um
we'll just take the consumer price index as an example the consumer price index while it doesn't cover wages it covers you know the cost of living obviously we saw a huge spike for about an 18month period due to changes in energy costs
primarily um and rent and and groceries but things have started to come down so that's on what's happening with the cost of living on on this side. So that is cooling. Um but in the last 24 to 36
months we have seen the largest increase in public sector compensation almost like a market correction. And um and so we saw that for years the um change in pay for
public sector staff had always um sort of been at or behind the cost of living. And so we did see that number go up um at the same time that the consumer price index went up as well. that is also cooling, but it's not getting cold and
it's um definitely above where it's been for like the 30 years prior to um 2022, 2023, and 2024. So, there's we were not seeing a huge especially locally um reduction in the
investment in employee costs. It is a tad lower than it was where it spiked, but it's still not down to that 3% number that was so common. I mean, we almost didn't even need to look at surveys. We're just like, uh, 3%. Shift
your ranges, shift your employee pay, everybody's doing it, you know, you'll be fine. That used to be the recommendation. Now, we're still seeing a lot of volatility, a lot of movement, a lot of people retiring, a lot of new people coming in. So, there's that
change in wages and I I wish I had a crystal ball, but frankly, I just I I don't see it stopping. Okay, great. No, thank you. That was helpful. All right. Any other council questions or comments? I have none. Any public comment? All right. Thank you, Marina
and Katie. Appreciate it. Thank you so much. Enjoy the rest of your meeting. Thank you. Right. On to agenda. Good evening. Jay Hutch, community development director. Uh so as you recall back in February, we started the mobility plan study. Um the project has
progressed quite a bit in the past few months. Um and our consultants have identified 27 kind of key projects. Um ultimately 10 are going to make our final, you know, top 10 list that are going to really get a special focus in this finality plan. So before we really
start putting together the final plan, we really wanted to get the consultants in front of you for some kind of feedback and buyin on on these key projects. So our uh lead consultant JP Weezner from KDson Associates is going to give a presentation and uh hopefully we can um dig into those projects
they've identified. Wonderful. Awesome. Thank you very much and uh thank you for the being here on a rainy night. Uh, and I appreciate uh the time that we've had a chance to work with you all, get to know the village, get to know your staff. Uh, it's been really great on on our part. Again, my name is
JP Weezer. I'm a principal with KDson and Associates. We're transportation planning and engineering firm. Um, and we're working on this project uh on also on behalf of the Palm Beach TPA. Um and yeah, so we kicked this project off a
few months ago, uh looking at a mobility plan for the village. And the mobility plan and our vision of this is intended to be a living document that sets out to connect the community uh to the places here uh enhance safety, improve traffic,
and develop multimodal improvements. And so our process, as you'll see through this presentation, is a mix of both quantitative and qualitative kind of input that we kind of get to a series of projects that we want to set up as a priority project for you all to begin
implementing over time and uh uh improve the quality of life and uh sense of place in the village. Our overall process uh goes through a series of sort of establishing goals and vision. This will kind of mirror the rest of the PowerPoint show uh where we establish
what those goals and needs are with a project steering committee made up of folks here in the village. Um going through a needs assessment and some of our public engagement to understand uh what's going on here and what people want or don't want. Um identify projects
out of that. get to uh what those physical opportunities are for projects, but also recognize that some projects or some opportunities are there within development codes uh and zoning and again looking at those things and then getting to a mobility plan which is
again that living document that talks about um both near-term and long-term projects. So again, our vi our vision and goals for this to develop new safe connections and improve existing connections for village residents. Uh
establish tools for continued success. So to to monitor things that are happening and are those improving the conditions out here um and build off those successful elements that are implemented and continuing to grow that community interest.
So within our needs assessment we looked at a lot of different aspects different sort of quantitative mapping aspects. Uh one of the first things we look at is to understand what are the sort of basis of the people that are here in the village. So both from uh residents that work here
in the village as well as workers that live outside and come here uh to work. And so you can see kind of the little heat map there. A couple of uh notes of interest. A lot of uh Toquesta residents actually it's a pretty high percentage of work from
home. 32% the state average is about 14. So a lot of folks live and work here as part of working from home. Um but you can see a couple bubbles uh in Jupiter a little bit further south and then some more down there in West Palm. Uh in terms of dquesta workers that that live
outside and work here, uh again a large portion of folks coming over from Jupiter, a little bit sort of south of Jupiter, and then um a fair amount of folks coming in from Hope Sound up to the north, traveling south to come in. So in relation to that, we started
to look at what were some of those existing trips that were occurring. Obviously a lot of daily needs sorts of trips getting to the Publix uh going to the parks uh moving along Seaqu uh along Seabbrook and to Quest Drive and the sort of bubbles that you see there are
where a lot of those walking trips are occurring in its frequency. Conversely looking at those biking trips uh a lot of biking trips within where there are existing bicycle infrastructure. Um, so we see people in those areas. Um, and
then kind of comparing those things to those existing facilities where there might be some gaps, where some things are occurring. Uh, looking at the traffic where some of those volumes are today where people complain about intersections or being backed up uh and and kind of how that makes them feel uh
in those areas. And then of course looking at accidents where we're seeing a high percentage of those. There's a lot of crashes out on US1 at different intersections, but we've also seen some along uh Old Dixie Highway as well as Beach Road as well. And so all of those
different things that we look at kind of come together into what we call this sort of synthesis map. So this was sort of happening early on as we kind of merged all of our data together and we started to see a pattern where there were specific bike ped connections that kept being kind of rising to the top of
the different data sets that we were looking at. Uh there were traffic calming opportunities where some speeds were exceeding what the speed on the roadway is and we were kind of identifying where some of those points were. There was also an interest in connecting some of the parks as you'll see kind of leading into some of our
initial projects. Um so with that we started to realize that these project types sort of fit into these six buckets. Traffic operations and calming safety access uh multimotal pedestrian bicycle transit
sustainability enhancements and then wayfinding and kind of the benefits that were listed out there kind of how that benefits the village. And so we had our kind of long list of projects and not sure if you've had a chance to look at these in some separate documents. I'll
I'll go through these quickly. We'll have a map that shows the 10 priority projects at the end as well as some others that I'll touch on, but it kind of gives you an idea of all the different things, the 32 or so projects that Jay talked about, different sorts of projects um that started to kind of
rise to the top that were would start to address many different types of issues as well as um uh improvements that would help fix some of the things that we saw in that analysis. Um, so again, additional identified projects and as this sort of moves down into the later
part of the alphabet, those are projects that maybe got brought up once or twice and, you know, didn't quite kind of hit a lot of different things. So, they're a little bit lower on our list for right now and then gets down to we get to the end of the alphabet, we get to a double A.
So, um, where we're headed with this, and then I'll talk about some of the public engagement in a minute, is the top 10 priority projects. We're going to look at what are those improvements and sort of generate a sheet like this that talks about what are those planned improvements, what are the key aspects,
streetscape enhancements, what does that mean, what does it look like, the wayfinding, crosswalk updates. Begin to sort of understand the improvement priority. Is it improving traffic operations? Is it increasing sustainability? Is it giving a a point a better part of access? We'll show what
that proposed typical section is and what that plan looks like and then eventually get to a planning level cost so we can understand what that cost and and involvement with that would be. Also want to pause here for qu quick second to talk about some of these projects are within solely the village of Tqua. Some
of these include overlap with the county. uh some of them include uh overlap with FDOT or with uh the town of Jupiter. So we're also taking that into consideration if there's a project that's going to need cooperation will sort of understand that complication of
the project. Um another example is our sort of parks connector trail. Uh again sort of showing it in a graphic way that starts to connect the the ocean to the river. Uh and looking at how maybe multiple projects may tie into that. So, we're also looking at um spot treatments
that might be some intersection improvements, but those would be connected with a bigger uh overarching project, and we might look at those in in different kinds of phases over time. So, public outreach, we did have a chance to uh uh attend the last food
truck uh Friday on March 7th, and we had a little over a hundred participants. uh had a big board or a big uh uh map out there and people talked to me and uh Alex and a few other folks about all of the different things going on, areas
where people are speedy, where it's hard to cross, where they wish there was a sidewalk. Um and again, a lot of the areas were starting to overlap with what we saw in the quantitative data. Uh again, these are some of the the the different aspects. We had a kit
of parts. So, what would be things that you would like to see in these improvements? And the top five green dots were things like street trees and uh seating and pedestrian priority. Um, one thing that kind of picked up some red dots. That would be something they didn't want to see or new ways to get
around. And I think that might be tying to uh new development, right? We don't want more development. We just want to kind of enhance what we have now. um kind of shying towards uh golf carts being a part of the roadway or not necessarily kind of moving towards uh
facilitating golf carts all around. Um and then you can kind of see some of the the primary comments, more lighting and trees. US1 doesn't feel safe. Um wanting to see bike lanes and wide sidewalks uh for uh pedestrians, not necessarily for
golf cars or ebikes. Um, we also have an online map that's been out for a few months. We've had about 43 to 50 comments. They have a few more since this afternoon. Um, and again, this is an opportunity for folks
to point right on the map just like they could at that public engagement of something they want to see. And we not only get the little dot that that was placed, but we also get whatever comment was left. and we can take that and kind of then assign it to a specific area and kind of back any one of the priority
projects or any of the projects that we've listed with where public engagement came for that specific uh project type. Um we also put out a survey. So once we kind of had these priority projects, we put out a survey that said
of these 10 priority projects, which do you feel should be the most important one to to move forward? And so this is uh we've had 114 responses so far. I think we had maybe about another 30 over the weekend. And so what you're seeing
for example here is the Toquesta Drive complete streets uh project is kind of up at the top. But what's interesting is uh D which is the intersection safety at Willow and Fiesta and Cyprus. So right
where uh Toquesta goes from four lanes to two lanes, that sort of intersection area there, that's actually starting to move up a little bit as well as uh the village of Tquesta parks connector that seems to have gotten some uh interest and is starting to move up the category from sort of where it was previously. Um
right now the uh is that County Line Road had the most last place votes uh for what it's worth. Um, we also as a second page in that survey listed all the other projects outside of the top 10. And part of the idea on those was
that if there was something that we were missing or a project that we for whatever reason didn't have in that priority, but it was getting a lot of votes, uh, we wanted to maybe consider that and bring that up to the priority. And so, as of uh, Friday of last week, um, Q and W have kind of risen up above
the limit of the 10. Uh that's uh improvements at Riverside Drive in Tquesta which is related to that intersection and making that intersection a little bit safer to cross. Uh as well as I believe W is uh Tquesta and Old Dixie Highway
intersection safety uh as well so we can kind of look at those. So again this is still we're going to keep this open a little while longer to get a few more um ideas behind this and then see how that influences our 10 projects uh moving forward. Additional comments that we've
heard through this kind of secondary survey process is a focus on building things quickly. So I think a lot of residents are concerned some of these are really big projects or grandiose projects. Are there opportunities to do something faster and sooner because we have a need for it immediately. Um also
wanting to weigh the cost of the improvement which sometimes a quick build kind of project can help offset that. Um and then again focusing on these projects being smaller scale and specifically for the uh village focused uh for the residents here. So again you can kind of see some of the notes that
are coming in trees and uh shared use path on Questa no lane narrowing the roads are fine as they are uh that sort of a thing. So, uh, kind of getting into the wrap-up here, some of the initial non sort of physical projects are looking at some of
the policy improvements. And again, this is sort of a living document aspect. We'll want to look at some land use and zoning improvements. Uh, look at potential amendments to the 2017 plan that kind of aligns, make sure everything's sort of in alignment with with the safety and the traffic calming
elements that we're talking about, as well as kind of connecting into placemaking opportunities. uh some of the parks you have going in kind of building off of the success of Remembrance Park in its future phases to allow for some opportunities for midblock crossings as well as other
locations like along Old Dixie with the linear park uh formalizing those into some uh parks and things like that. Um program improvements, there are no uh public schools in in Tquesta, but there are a lot of sort of smaller private schools or schools related with churches
and whatnot. also looking at opportunities for safe routes to schools to improve that safety and walking. Um I think on Willow there's a a small school there and driving it today there are about four or five of those little uh uh plastic little kids with the flag up saying you know drive slow because kids
are walking here. So you know recognizing that there are residents that are out with their kids and then also building off of the Palm Beach TPA's vision zero initiatives. Um, so how can we kind of uh continue the vision zero planning that's already been occurring? Um, and again looking at golf
carts initiatives, identifying sort of safe low-speed connections that support support that as well as continue to grow the ebike safety initiatives, focusing on education and enforcement uh as key aspects of understanding where and how and and when to use those. Um, and then
finally getting to this implementation plan. So, what are some of those quick build resource and ideas? Um, we've developed quickbook uh uh excuse me, quick build guides for other cities where we sort of show what are the sort of kit of parts that are used, what are those costs and how do those kind of
come together to form a project quickly. Um, and and what are those opportunities for that? um as well as begin on some of the larger projects to identify them and start to build in a sort of tracking metrics which which was something that the TPA wanted to see out of this
project was an opportunity to say when these things are improved whether it's bicycle facilities or sidewalk facilities or other safety upgrades we can start to track how much better we're making it in that way and then lastly kind of this overall toolbox of traffic calming what are different elements that
can be done not just in these initial set of projects like for instance Willow Drive a traffic calming on Willow Drive. But if in a few years another group of residents come and they want a traffic calming project, what are the kit of parts that are available for them to sort of implement something uh uh into
the future and then of course all of this kind of revolves around funding. I know you guys are talking about your budget today. Uh we'll take all the extra funding that you have available to do these awesome projects. Um but you know again looking at how we secure and
identify funding. So what are those opportunities with federal agencies with state agencies with the county with the TPA and others to get other earmarked funds for different different projects. How do we kind of use the mobility plan to say this is what we're planning and this is what we're thinking about and
that kind of helps get uh on the table and then moving through the different coordination and processes to design it and then implement it. So, that was a lot. I know kind of catching up on all those things, but I kind of ended on this slide for the kind
of top 10 projects as they are right now. Uh, and thank you very much for listening. Any questions? Thank you. All right, council. Open it up for discussion. I guess I'll start with what are you looking from us? Our thoughts on the top
10. Yeah. So I think a really important part of this is because there's a lot of inter agency coordination that will eventually be needed because uh you guys are obviously talking about your budget, what are opportunities to fund some of these things. I think your one knowledge
of this but also your leadership of understanding how the mobility vision kind of fits into all of this and kind of moving forward for that. some of these projects as we get closer to planning level cost estimates, you know, it's probably going to need some outside funding sources as well. So, being
knowledgeable about that and if in part of that is identifying some of these and saying this is really important or this is what I've heard from constituents or this is something that that is really meaningful to the village, it's good for us to hear that too so we can kind of imbue that in us moving forward.
I mean, if I'm going to break down the top 10, God, it's so echoey. What's your favorite? I've been here a while now. We're small, so that's usually the very obvious challenge is we can't
create new roads and spacing for pathways like up in Jacksonville has where they're creating new mini towns and they're creating golf cart paths specifically. like we don't have the room to encroach on people's yards that live on to Questa Drive. So that's just
an obvious issue. But like when I see J I know Village Boulevard intersection that's not just us and we have looked at the roundabout concept before that was I believe county had to be part of that and so I don't know if sorry to
interrupt but I saw on the overall list there was there was the village boulevard intersection at also mentioned at US they would be the one that's behind Publix. Okay. So, an an example of that, we're actually talking about it earlier.
A roundabout was part of the previous study that I think the Treasure Coast had done with the the workshops that they had. And when we went out there and looked at it, roundabout could be an expensive project, right, in terms of all that coordination. But one of the things that we were hearing about that specific was it's actually part of the
sightelines when you approach it that it's hard to see when you're making a left turn out or when you're kind of coming in. And so one idea at that location might be and again looking at the volume of it, there's not a lot of of right turn volume that justifies the
right turn lane northbound on Old Dixie. Taking that out and moving the stop bar up would actually give you better sight lines and potentially make that a safer intersection in the near term. um you know that would require that is a county
road so it would require I think some county cooperation on that but again that's part of this was a project that was very important um and there was money from the village coming into that then the county wouldn't see it as solely their own and maybe there would be opportunity
to uh partner for that project I don't know you guys go um thank you for the presentation and your team for a great job done. Um H the county line pedestrian. What what does that include? So the idea behind that was um to
basically I think it's on the south side of that at least to have a wider sidewalk kind of from US1 to sort of the village uh uh uh kind of the village residents that live on that north side. Um that is and and then it would also
connect kind of that residential over to the east to toquesta park and then the idea in the overall picture is to get it to Dixie and then a way to kind of travel south down there. So part of that was an overall connection. Again county road is an interesting situation. I think uh you've got the village, you've
got the county, and you've got Martin County too because it runs right down the middle of the road there. So, um, we were kind of thinking focusing it on the south side because that's the the Palm Beach County side of things. Um, but that was the idea of the project. Okay. And the, uh, f the Questa Parks
connector trail. What does that look like? So, that one is something that's kind of bubbling up to the to the surface. It involves maybe a sequence of a couple of different projects uh, sort of all included within that. The idea there was something that connected uh,
the county park and I'm not remembering the name. Jackson. Jackson. Jackson. Yeah. Um down along the roadway potentially on the um if you're going north on the road, it's on the east side of the street where there's no sidewalk
today. That that would come down around through there and connect to what would be the phase two and phase three of Remembrance Park and then through there down Seabbrook uh along to Qua. And again, these would be on a shared use path uh type of of condition eventually
getting you down part of Old Dixie and then over to the lighthouse and then to Beach Road to the parks on the beach side. So it would be sort of a overarching large big trail that would kind of connect neighborhoods to the beach. So it's a sidewalk. Yeah. A wide
Yeah. Like a shared use path. So a wider sidewalk. Um, and on the north on the north and up towards county line, we're in the unincorporated area there. That where does that terminate? What does that go to? That goes uh up right. It would terminate at county line. I think
there's a private development right at the north side. No, sorry. That's the cemetery. Cemetery on the north side of that. Yes. So, it's really just taking it into the county portion. That's right. Okay. I drive. Yep. I I I like the the concept. Um and I
like some of the public comments that were, you know, things that we could do quickly. Um but also make it make sure they're meaningful and and and safe and everything else. But uh I think I think it's it's good good discussion and I'm happy with the 10 that have been picked. So
yeah. No, I I appreciate you guys putting this together. Um, some really cool ideas. Obviously, like uh Lori said, all this costs a lot of money and space that we may or may not have, but like the Tequesta drive, I think it's a very cool idea. Whether or not it's
possible, I don't know. I mean, I will the one thing I will comment on that um that I don't think would be all that difficult um compared to some of the other some of the other items on here is the intersection improvements. Like I would 100% agree that that village boulevard intersect I mean we've talked
about it many times up here um that to me is some of the more lowhanging fruit. I know it doesn't it it's great for safety but it's not really you know the exciting part of all this you know but um I would love to see some of that that
um fixed. But yeah, I think there's a lot here we could do a lot of cool stuff with. It's just determining what we can actually do. But I I do appreciate it and I think you guys put a lot of thought and I love that you know the public feedback was put into it as well
because we happen to have it a little bit further along uh on the Tquesta drive to your point on ride of way for the most part and I'm going to and I'm saying it I'm couching it that way because I don't know at specific intersections. So for instance, like a
roundabout may need to corner clip intersections for the space, but outside of something like that, we're trying to stay within existing rideway that's there today. So for instance, on uh to Questa Drive, what it might involve is, for instance, if we did a 10-ft shared use path on the north side, that would
widen the path that's there today, and we would still have space for some of the the sort of tree lawn that's there and some of the grass that's there. we would make those intersection changes. Uh narrowing some of the turning radi at the intersection would actually make the crossing a little bit more narrow. We
could look at some things like a raised intersection. Um and I'm not sure if Doug is here. Um some of these things do have some geometrical constraints related to drainage. So we'd also want to consider some of those for where we are in the mobility study. We're not going to be able to deliver a sort of
engineered drawing that says this will absolutely work, but more of a vision of what that could be. If we're looking at this, we're saying, you know what, drainage is going to be a problem. It's not even a starter. We might look into a different concept to talk about what those changes will be. So there'll be some kind of overarching understanding
of not trying to take ride ofway, trying to fit within what is existing and and those sorts of things in the um the shared use, the shared paths um shared by walkers and bikes or
so where do golf carts come into play? Because what something I I've always hope we could find is how do we get somebody from the back of the country club up to Gallery Grill, keep them off the street so they can have that, you know, maybe it's coming through the trail, you know, maybe it's utilizing the park part part of it. I I don't
know. But um how do we get a golf cart from the back of the country club to Gallery Grill? That's a that's a great question. Um generally the shared use path is for bicyclists and pedestrians. um the width of the golf cart uh you know combined if you're looking at
two-way traffic or anything like that it gets a little sketchy also the speeds and I'm not going to count ebikes for a minute but the speeds of golf carts sometimes aren't compatible with a shared use path especially newer golf carts that in some other municipalities they actually have to like license them
you know have seat belts those are made for 25 miles per hour or lower so those could travel on some roadways generally we're not thinking the golf carts would be on those shared use paths and part of that would be signage and enforcement and that sort of a thing. Um so those
would travel on safer streets on on slower speed streets. Can I jump on this one? Sure. So we are working on a little bit of a side project on low- speed vehicles, right? So golf carts can only go 25 miles per hour. They cannot get across
um low speed vehicles can get up to 35 miles per hour and they're pretty similar to a golf cart, right? They're just fitted with, you know, a license plate, lights, things like that. They're a little bit safer. So, we are trying to like do a little Meg and I are doing a little side project. We want to put together a low speed vehicle connections
map that will show people where they can take their low speed vehicles. And I think I think people can take them currently right now more than they realize. So, we do want to to kind of put a map together that shows people that and then kind of do a little bit of an educational thing because they can share the road with with the vehicles
and not have to get on that shared use path. Okay. Thank you. Um, a couple questions. Uh, last time I looked at the map on our website, it was over the weekend, there was 44 comments, I believe, if I was reading it correctly. Like when I pull you could
make a list of the comments versus putting it on the map. Okay, we got one more over the weekend. We had 43 on this one on Friday. Okay. So, yes, you received one more and then you said 100 participants at the food truck. Did you say how many have responded to the survey so far? Uh we
had 114. Uh and that was a Friday and I think should you say another 30? 130. So another 15 over the weekend or so. 16. And how much longer are we taking citizen input on these
map? Two more weeks. Two more weeks. Okay. I think yeah it's in as much as we could advertise that um I think you know the more data we can get back from the residents the better um because you know that that total over 6100 isn't that much and we do really need to weigh
heavily what we are hearing from the people that have responded um I do it it's hard for me to even rank the projects right now not understanding the feasibility or true necessity right now like I would hate for you to waste time
even looking at a project if it's not feasible or necessary um where there's you know statements of traffic calming or speeding. I mean do we have data from TPD that yes there is excessive speeding consistent speeding here or yes this intersection has had a lot of accidents
and we know Bridge and Old Dixie is one of them but what about the rest? So I I can't necessarily rank them right now or give you that kind of constructive feedback until I have a clearer understanding of the necessity and feasibility because I think the
residents are going to tell us what they want and it's our job to vet it and make sure it's feasible and then hopefully some of these will come to life and you know we're being fiscally responsible with it as well. Um so I can give you some highle comments on some of the
projects with my thoughts. Um, I do want to say you mentioned in the survey you're uh I think there's a plan to track metrics if something is implemented which is fantastic. I've asked for that on the US1 complete streets or have brought it up several times because I drive US1 a lot. I'm sure a
lot of people in here do and it's hard. You don't see a lot of people using the bike lane. So, it's hard to see if that was successful. I think some of the uh narrative for the complete string US one was it would bring you know more foot traffic to the businesses. Well, has that happened? We have no idea. Um, so
that would be great to have some uh tracking metrics. Let me and sorry, I will I will say quickly at least on the crashes and some of the speeding items. We do have information from um what's called signal
4 data and other information that um we can get through GIS that tells us that. And so as part of our quantitative analysis that led to some of these initial projects kind of even kind of floating up to the surface, those were based off of facts. Uh so we do have
that. And then as we've um gotten sort of the qualitative ask folks about it, those have lined up quite a bit. Uh you know, Bridge Road intersection, that's number two right now. Uh because of the I think there was a fatality there. Um but other accidents, whether they're fender benders, whatever, we can look and see what kind of accidents they
were. If they're speed related, then we know there's a speeding issue. If it's, you know, a left turn or whatever, we understand kind of what's happening that's causing that, which is leading us to at least those initial set projects. So, there is some backing behind that. Um, and I'm happy to to show you more.
And also failed to mention we did an interview with Lieutenant Blancc over here um to kind of get their input. He's been involved in the process. So, there's been some some back and forth about about where there are issues. I will say I feel pretty confident that Willow Road is a street that that does have speeding. We heard from so many
people it it's even if there's not data, it's just substantiated by firsthand accounts. The other thing I'll say at least for the US one bike lanes is we got a lot of feedback about the US1 bike lanes and whether or not they were effective. I will say that most residents that we
talk to do not believe in their effectiveness. Yeah. And so then we go to do a complete street on Twesta Drive and you know are we going to get the same well it wasn't effective on US1 why would it be effective on Questa Drive I personally think it would be
I myself there's different reasons right there's things that weren't done on US1 that could have made it feel safer and and just striping alone doesn't do that and so related to that uh someone doesn't feel any safer being on it therefore
they're not going to use any more than they would have before. Drive speed is lower, of course. So, there's there's those things to take into account. And then, um I do I'm hoping for some a little more innovative ideas, which it sounds like you're probably still marching down that path with the low-speed vehicle connection
map. Um I was surprised the golf carts received the most red dots, but it sounds like you are still looking at some other things that aren't here. um because some of the projects is stuff we already have known about for a while or they're on our Treasure Coast uh regional planning council master
corridor plan. So, I hope that you know you're looking at those not reinventing the wheel and you know you can use that um as your baseline to see if that those projects were feasible. But it does sound like you're kind of maybe working on some more ideas. And then I don't know if this was part of your scope, but
I was hoping to see some ideas for connectivity um you know to come in and out of Tquesta too for you know you show the map of residents who uh leave for work which surprisingly we have a very high percentage of work from home but then also uh workers that come here. So I
don't know if you're going to look at any you know innovative ideas for connecting people in and out of the village as well because we don't have a bus stop as you probably you probably saw. And real quick, so I don't want to take too much time. I'm just going to give you some comments on some of the
um some of these that the the parks connector that the vice mayor brought up. I it was missing the park. So I don't know if you'd want to add that into the mix or uh no other side. I want to show this
graphic because earlier today I noticed the same thing and I put the little uh dotted path along the the linear park along uh Dixie Old Dixie that would come up to Countyline Road and connect it to Questa Park as part of this overall thing. So uh it's not in the it's not in
that that priority map that I had at the end, but I've already started including it here. Okay, that's what you were asking, right? Yeah, because yeah, on the survey and the map on our website, it wasn't on there. So that that's important. And I would add that the one to the what's it called? Jackson something that county park I you know
there's not much at that park. I've ridden my bike there. You can go walk around there. There's really not much to offer at that park. It is a nice open space but you know that's something we want to invest dollars for a park that maybe isn't as heavily utilized as like Toquesta Park Constitution the lighthouse. Yeah. And actually I learned
earlier today that that's a little ecologically sensitive there as well. So maybe it's something that connects up to the cemetery or maybe it just stops at the the sort of remembrance phase two and phase three piece and res residents can kind of come into there and then continue on. Okay. And then there are
several old Dixie projects listed. I don't know, you know, can those be combined? You know, ideally you would do them all at once if you could. Um, just from my experience from biking and running around Dquesta, that old Dixie and Dquesta Drive intersection I
personally feel like is a high high priority. Um, I can't tell you how many times I've been my by myself or with my daughter and like you have the, you know, um, walking light, but people are still turning, they don't pay attention. So, any more, you know, delineators or
whatever. Um, I do feel like just from my experience, that one's a high priority. And and I want to say on that, we're sort of balancing a line of projects that could be done but not necessarily anchored by something bigger. So that like for instance,
Bridge Road, uh the intersection there, um we probably want to have a project that can be implemented sooner than if we need to get the county to cooperate on other things kind of in a different part on Old Dixie. So there are projects
where probably at the end of this it might be branded as a full-on streetscape for all of it. But in a phase one, phase two, phase three approach, phase one might be intersection treatments and fixing some of these things. Phase two might be, you know, looking at those right turn
continuous right turn lanes and could we narrow that? You know, phase three might be um uh over by kind of where the linear trail sort of stops in front of the gas tank there. you know, shifting the road, putting a chicane in the road that gives enough space for a sidewalk
to continue on that side. That might be something because that's going to require a bit of a road reconstruction to shift over. That might be longer term, but it's part of this overall kind of change to the roadway. So, we're kind of looking at it in two different ways, but we don't want that to then preclude the ability to get something done that
needs to be happening in a near term. Okay. And then um the Bridge Road, the whole street project, it was in the top 10, but it was in the overall list. I don't know where that is ranking now. But um that one, in my opinion, we should hold on doing anything. The
intersection of Old Dix Dixie, I think that could be progressed. But the um whole street, I feel like we should wait till we know what's going to happen to the development to the north before we even touch that or anything there. So, if that starts to creep up, you know, with more survey survey uh results
coming in, just keep that in mind. Um, and otherwise, just general, yeah, focus I would focus on the ones that would have the most most impact. Most residents use like the highest impact projects to me would be, you know, top of the list. Great. That was a lot. My
apology. Thank you. Any other comments or questions? I have none. Thank you. All right. Any public comment? Oh, is this on the website? Jeremy Jay, do you want I think it's on the website. It's gone out in our
newsletter. Social media. I'm not on social media. Sorry. So, is it on the question of work? We can email it to you. On the Jackson thing, that's really not a park. It's a natural area and it is extremely
sensitive. So, I would try to keep that under the radar. Yep. Hey, Mr. Bradford. Thomas Bradford 44 Chestnut Trail. Wow, this is working.
Um, I took the survey a couple of weeks ago, maybe a week, 10 days, 12, I forget, but I took the survey and I noticed in the survey several references to different of the 10 projects that I was looking at, references to traffic calming
alternatives for different projects. And I uh uh I wanted to share with you or throw out a word of of caution in regard traffic calming alternatives. Generally speaking, I'm in
favor of traffic calming alternatives such as streetscapes, landscaping, bumpouts on the road with or without landscaping. And believe it or not, on street parking is a traffic calming tool. Um I
but it's from my own experience uh I am opposed to the implementation of speed bumps and speed tables. And I can tell you from experience a typical scenario you you get an entire neighborhood
telling you we need speed bumps for example. Okay. And you may have one or two people are very strong leaders on the and lo and behold when you put that speed bump in in front
of the house of one of the residents within two weeks they're going to ask you to get rid of it because they can't stand the noise from the people either don't see it but it's all it's a constant bump bump bump bump all the time and I've even had leaders of
neighborhood efforts to do that when you put it in front of their they don't. And then the last thing about it, it's a hindrance to the delivery of public safety services. It will slow down the police a little bit and it will slow
down fire rescue vehicles and it can turn their inside of those trucks topsyturvy if they're trying to go too fast and they hit the speed bump or speed table. So, I I generally speaking, I'm okay with uh the the ones I said
about uh traffic calming, but speed bumps and speed humps, I think it you you need to be very careful and try to avoid them if you can. Thank you. Thank you. Kind of um related to speed humps, um what Mr. Bradford said, "Just
remind the uh like the reflective traffic coating calming at the Dequesta Drive crosswalk by the church and didn't we have to remove it because we got a lot of complaints, right? So, because one cars went over it, so the condos nearby and homes nearby didn't want to
hear it." So, that's a really good point. So, please take that into mind, too. All right. Any other public comment? Oh, all right. Well, thank you for presenting tonight. Appreciate it. Agenda item three, discussion on the EAC vacancy and
meeting schedule. Thank you, mayor. At the previous uh meeting in May, um Mr. French brought up uh the comment um as we were talking about filling a vacancy um about um
moving the moving the EAC to a fiveman committee through attrition um meeting um moving the meeting time to 6:00 pm and u meeting to every other month. At that time that was not part of the agenda item was not part of um the
discussion. So council agreed to move this discussion to a workshop and so tonight we have that on your agenda. We have reposted not for it and so um in your backup you have other EAC resolutions
um and some other hopefully valuable backup information for discussion tonight. Thank you Jeremy. All right council open up for discussion. Um, I missed our last council meeting um
where this brought was brought up, but I would defer to um Mr. Freeze as the chair of the EAC in his memo of May 20th saying that continue to advertise it. They're said they've never had a problem reaching a quorum and I don't have a
huge concern outside the village to fill that um because it looks like it may be establishment, the resolution when it was done. So, I'm I'm supportive of Mr. Freeze's recommendations to kind of leave it as is, continue to advertise
and to maybe even open it up to outside the village um for this one particular. I wouldn't go on a on a regular basis to all of our committees, but in this one because I think um it may help that and it might bring in um a subject matter expert that perhaps we haven't been able
to attract in the past. I'll say I'll go next. I'll say um and first of all, I want to say how, you know, I'm very thankful for all of our current and um past EAC members. So, you know, my um opinion does not diminish the great work that they've done to
date, but I would be in favor of reducing the committee uh members to five and doing the cadence to every other month. I think a big part of it is when they were created, there was more of a need because we did not have in-house staff that could vet some of
this stuff and now we do with Jay and Meg. Um, so things have changed since the EAC was created, which is uh to me another reason to maybe make some of the changes because we do have important boards such as our pension board and or
PNZ that we have hard time filling and um those are maybe a little bit more higher priority to fill sometimes because they're doing uh a need for the village with you know the pension and planning and zoning recommendations to us for development which are really
important important matters. Um, so it does the fact that we have a hard time filling those boards too makes me um a little more leaning towards reducing this one so we don't have anymore. Um, I don't think I'm in favor opening up to
outside. I was I'm kind of on the fence with having out it open to the outside on their pension board. Um, uh, again, you know, that's a critical one for us to fill. I do this is not related maybe another time to discuss our vacancies. Um, I think the vacancy
resolution says it's for it just says they don't have to be a resident, but doesn't really specify if they need to be like uninccorporated Martin County, unincorporated Palm Beach. I don't know if that's something we want to discuss and have it just, you know, updated in the future. Clarifying on that if that's
even important to anyone. Um, but if we if the consensus would be to open up the EAC for people outside of the Quest, I'd want to kind of clarify what that means. Is it, you know, Palm Beach County unincorporated? Is it do they have to be within unincorporated dquest or can they
be from Jupiter? So, I would want to kind of put um some boundaries on that and I would like to put some boundaries on that with our vacancy on boards in general too in the future if council has a desire to. That's kind of my high level input. So, legal question if if it was reduced
to five, their quorum would have to be three present. That's correct. Yes, that is correct. Quorum of three for a five member board and I'm assuming we usually have three consistent members. So at this
Okay. No, I'm just I'm trying to feel it out. I'm trying to just go by facts, logistics, and data that we currently obviously watching you guys since the EAC. I would not be opposed to reducing it to
five. If it becomes an issue of getting quorum there, I think that would probably logistically go into a time of day that people can make it. But physically seeing that it's been very difficult the seats in general as of
right now I would lean more reser and I say that because so far the EAC has been really great about reaching out to experts as experts usually with already engaged in
organizations guys have been amazing over the past few years to get organizations to come present, create a partnership. We have them at our event sometimes like Loggerhead. So, I don't see why we would need to open it up to get some of
the engaged with them. So right now at this very specific moment I would lean more towards reduce to five keep it to Questa Incorporated and I'm still going to leave the time frame for meeting dates up to the actual members of the EAC because you guys are the ones that
are physically coming. I'm not on that committee. So I'm not going to choose that for your availability. That's what I got. I would agree with all of that. Um, so yeah, just going backwards there.
That I would agree dropping it to five is totally fine. Sounds like quorum won't be an issue there. Um, the meeting meeting times, I mean, I can see how that is a deterrent, but again, I would defer to y'all. I understand that the idea behind that was reducing staff time
after hours. So, I totally I think that was how it all started at least. Um, and yeah, I mean, I guess I have to defer to the committee. um on whether it's bimonthly or or monthly whether if if there's a need to meet monthly then absolutely and if you guys have the you
know the quorum that's available to be there monthly I think that's fine um I guess with the understanding that you know staff would still need to be available on a monthly basis and if we moved it to six that could create some kind of after hours issues but um yeah I
think I think dropping to five is good and I agree I think deferring to you guys the work you guys do is awesome So I really defer to you all on the frequency and timing of the meetings. Whatever you think will be best. Can I make a comment now? Absolutely.
Absolutely. Yeah. Um to to your comment um engagement and participation I think are two different things. Um yes we do engage subject matter experts to come in and give us presentations and provide some insight that perhaps
the committee members don't have. Um but having a subject matter expert perhaps or someone with a different viewpoint from outside of Tquesta on the committee I think would be valuable to in a participatory
manner. Um so I think my memo probably speaks for how myself as well as the committee would like to move forward. I'm sorry to hear that you
would want to attrition down to five seats. Um, you know, like I said, we have never missed quorum and it's been, I think, four months or maybe five months since seat six was vacant,
essentially vacant. Um, so I don't know if you've read the memo, but yes, I' I'd like to keep it at seven, continue to advertise it, open it up to residents as well as non-residents.
How many people are attending the meetings now? Do you have six? Um, it varies, but yeah, between five and six. So, we would have in essence, we'd have to kick somebody off if we dropped it to Yeah, unless you know Oh, yeah. I didn't think about that part. Okay. That's my concern is that somebody
that is giving their time. Yeah. Um and then to say now we have to remove, you know, volunteer. I I I have a concern with that. Yeah. We're not getting to seven, but we are having six people that, you know, five to six people that are consistently showing up and to tell them one of them that their service
isn't needed anymore unless somebody would voluntarily step down. Well, that good point. Yeah. I thought what we had talked about was they would we wouldn't be kicking someone off. they would just when their term was up then they would be done but we wouldn't like right now be like
done again like very thankful for everyone's service past and current members but yeah I mean correct me if I'm wrong would that is that not the intention yeah that was the intent is that right now you'd go down to a six-man board if somebody else stood up from their seat or couldn't fulfill
their obligation then you would consider five so we would not be getting rid of anybody um no one would be removed from the board. It would just be through attrition. But if somebody if that person wanted to renew and and reapply, then we keep it still going. What what you have to do now is you'd have to
amend the resolution to say six person. When you got to that point, you would amend the resolution again to say it's a five person board. So I mean you're not you're not removing anybody. You can let them we you may have six member board for I mean the remainder of time and keep it that way. But if there is a
problem again of trying to fill that spot, then you would have that same conversation. So I would say your your motion or your action would be remove moving it down to a six member board, not a five at this point. And I'm sorry. Um Keith com couple
things. Um so the the resolution uh is worded uh to indicate that this committee is composed of up to seven members. So you don't have to change the resolution. You're only six or five. You'd have to change it if you wanted to
make it bigger or it back resolution doesn't have to be amended. it listed the original seven uh original members. But
so that's on on that point on on virtual attendance. Your code allows and and this applies to every board. um board members. If there's a quorum present, it allows board members to
appear virtually on the villages platform up to two times in any 12-month period. Code encourages in-person attendance. Final I think and most important piece uh on this discussion
your code requires all board members to be village residents and registered voters except for the pension boards. So if you wanted to open this up to outside residents, you'd have to change that. That's an ordinance you need to change your code before you can do that, which
is certainly within your uh purview to do. But you need to be aware that before you can advertise and start seeking outside resident membership, you need to change the code. Okay. So what I don't know if um since we made our comments if anyone's mind
has changed but what I think I heard was there was consensus to reduce it to five um if six and then five if it gets to that point but leave the cadence as um suggested in Brad's memo.
I'm not in favor of reducing it but because we can go up to seven. It can if I understand what council said it can we can operate at five or six. I mean, why why would we change something that can operate at five? Why would we make it a change? I don't understand why we're
doing that if it can operate at four, five, six, or seven up to seven. Why are we changing something that doesn't need to be changed? My my concern I stated was that we have a hard time filling PNZ and pension board seats sometimes. And I just didn't at the time when the EAC was
created, we did not have in-house staff assisting with a lot of this. So, I think the need for seven isn't quite there as it was when it was originally created. And it really goes back to again like filling those vacancies on um the other boards as well because we do
we have a hard time we have a hard time filling you know many of our boards. So, it that was kind of where you know my head was at with that. I think somebody is called to the EAC based on that's their passion or their interest or they want to get involved just like a PNZ is
going to have a qualification for P&Z and the pension board. I started out on the pension board um because law enforcement background that's the only reason they asked me to do it. Um so there's different reasons for getting involved. I just I'm not supportive of of changing it but you
know changing the number committee that is active. We have a committee that wants to continue as the structure currently exists. And I don't think we need to change anything because we can't fill a pension board seat or we can't fill P&Z. I don't think those two I don't I
don't think people environment do you know meet the mission of of that committee. So I I just disagree with my my colleagues but that's okay. Something I noticed too in the other cities that had uh whether they call it
environmental advisory committee, whatever they call their uh equivalent committee is some of them required everyone on the committee to have a professional background in the environment and some required I think at least one. Ours does not require that.
Now, is that something we want to consider or no? I think that'll make it extremely more limited. True. Yeah, we already have a hard time. And I'm not going to knock anybody for not having a degree in some sort of environmental studies because we have
some we do have some amazing people I can think of right off the top of my head who are just so in tune with Florida lifestyle. Yeah. But they just didn't happen to get a degree in it or work in that field. Yeah. I'm not going to knock them for that. And the only other difference I noticed in the other cities and I'm just going this is the
backup that we were provided. So, was um they were ve a lot more clear and descriptive on the EAC's uh power of duties. Is that something we want to consider on defining and expanding on or are we
happy with how ours is written now, too? I'm happy how it it is now. I think the system is working. you know, we're down, but I think if we look back at the history of all of our committees, I think we've probably been down one before. I I'm I'm I'm happy with what we're
doing. I think it's the committee is extremely committed and the individuals are committed and I don't see the need to make any change at this time. Okay. So, we know Rick's vice mayor's opinion. You had said you were good for
reducing it, but I might change it. That's what I'm saying. No, I'm I'm not rushing because I know we're in a workshop. Um, but after hearing the attorney and the fact that it's worded as up to seven, I'd say let's leave it at seven for now. I still would like to keep it
at to Questa residence for now. For now. Um, but the fact that it does say up to seven, you say you do have great particip I know it's in the memo, but just I wanted to hear it from the horse's mouth. Like you see people coming
just see how it goes. Keep it at seven, but we might have to revisit it if we have issues. But again, things are Oh, you know what I want to ask? Legally, do we have an age limit? Like, is it 18 and up? Well, by virtue of having to be a
registered voter and Okay. So I almost wonder if we could maybe one more angle I don't think we've done is reach out to like local college because I know you have to be present for six or half the meetings. There's a percentage of the meetings you have to
be present for. So maybe we can reach out to some of the younger demographic when they're in town for the holidays and whatnot and we can make sure that they're here for those and get them involved. Yeah. especially if they're there like studying marine biology or
maybe we can think outside the box of where to find another person of a different even age demographic. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Sorry. You go ahead. I was just going to I'm kind of going to change my tune a little bit here based on Yeah, I agree. I don't know if
there's I don't know if there's any changes that really need to be made. The only thing I would say, unless we absolutely have to go outside, which I don't think we really know at this point, I'd love to keep it inside the village. Um, not to say you can't care about the
environment if you live in Jupiter, you know, down the road, but till that's an absolute necessity, I don't I don't think we need to look at that. That's just my opinion. Um, but I agree. It doesn't look like we really need to make changes, you know, seeing though it's up
to seven and I'm reading the memo again right now and sounds like everything's working just fine. So, um, yeah, go ahead, Mr. No, I was just uh to your comment before uh that was something that we were raised at one of our
committee meetings to discuss perhaps even going into high schools, but I think uh we had found out that it had to uh so yes uh if you just keep it within Tquesta and
the residents within Tquesta, we have a great, you know, Palm Beach State Community College, uh, that, you know, we could draw, um, experience from, uh, from these students that are in tracks of study that are in the environment.
Um, we're missing out on that because it's only to Questa residence. I really I maybe it's not the time right now, but I think eventually it could be. um you know adding insight specialized
environmental uh information that uh these subject matter experts would have I think would benefit the the committee. Okay. So consensus has switched to leave everything as is. Yes. Okay. Yeah. All
right. Any public comment? Oh. All right. Thank you. Welcome. Moving on. On agenda item four, discussion on true rebate program. Good evening. Jay Hutch, community development director. Oh, it's it's up there.
Yeah. Sir. All right. So, uh, presenting on a a new proposed program, uh, tree rebate program. As you recall, in recent years, we've operated
a adopt a tree program, um, where residents can have a tree planted in the swale or rightway adjacent to their property. Um, the residents are responsible for maintenance. Um however really due to due to issues with um challenges of planting trees in the
rightway like overhead utility lines um swale underground utilities um proximity to sidewalks and driveways. It's been kind of a challenging program. Um I don't know if we have the exact numbers of how many people participated. Do you
do you know Doug? We probably had about maybe eight to nine. Yeah. Maybe 20 applicants. So fairly limited number. Um so kind of in response to that the village manager um had an idea which was to do a tree
rebate program to to incentivize residents to plant trees. Um the program is proposed to be open to residents and HOAs. Um residents can get a rebate for up to two trees and then the HOAs can get a rebate for up to five trees. Um
the trees must be planted on as proposed. The trees must be planted within village limits on a property that's owned by the applicant. They can't be planted within 10 feet of a of a building foundation sidewalk um or in utility swes proposing a cap of up to $10,000 for the first year of the
program and it would be distributed on a first come first serve basis. Um what what I came up with and feel free to butcher this if you don't like it but was to kind of create two different tiers. Um, one is canopy trees, and these are really your you're going to
have a lot of shade. Um, they're all South Florida native. Um, they're all really going to enhance our our overall village tree canopy. They're really a village asset. So, these are proposed to get up to $300 per tree. And the species are live oak, gumbo, limbo, bald cyprus,
mahogany, Florida red maple, and slashpine. Um, then tier two would be kind of your medium-sized trees. These are trees that might um you know, you might not have room on a on a smaller property or on an HOA where they're planting in kind of some limited public space. These are ones you might be able
to fit some of these trees in. They're not going to provide as much shade, but they're going to still provide a little bit of shade, a little bit of aesthetics, a little bit of color in the village. And um we use these from um they're all South Florida native. And this is kind of from a list that Doug has um which are trees that are smaller
trees that are more appropriate kind of closer to power lines. So you might be able to get these kind of in some tighter areas. Um and so we're proposing to open this up at the beginning of the next next fiscal year. If this program goes
well, um Jared and I have talked about expanding it in um kind of in year two to commercial. In the master plan, you may recall that there was a proposal to to kind of add street trees throughout the village commercial corridors. And um you know we thought that you know maybe
doing it on residential and HOAs first would give us a year to kind of see how the program works, how to implement it and um kind of learn some best practices and then in year two maybe start identifying some opportunities, some commercial properties to work with and um you know work on enhancing our
commercial corridor and um that's that's what we've got. Happy to answer any questions. Thank you Jay. Council open up for discussion. Yeah, thank you Jay. Just quick question. So, and I I I don't think I might be in here somewhere, but I apologize if I missed it. So,
just how would it work? So if I if I or a resident went out did they go and buy one of these uh specifically named trees, they plant it and then they call the village, come out, approve, make sure it's located in the correct areas, right species, and then and only if it
qualifies and meets all that, then they would be qualified for $300 for the shade tree and 200. Okay. Uh two for two trees per property. Okay. Uh and and that's correct. Yeah. because we've you can't just show us a receipt and get So we unfortunately, you know,
staff, we have limited staff, but we would have to go out and have somebody just verify the trees actually planted. Okay. How many did you say? I know it's a very different program, but how many did we have in the past program that Doug said eight or nine in the past few years in the rightway program?
That's over a two-year period. So we have eight or nine, I think. you know, even there's probably more than that that have inquired, but you know, knowing where the the trees were going to be, uh, we we told them it'd be it hard with because we knew we were having like the water line replacement, you
know, put in. Yeah. Um, this is a I think a better option. We have $7,500 that we have budgeted for for the the tree enhancement for this adopt a tree. So, I mean, it's possible if council, you know, is all on consensus, we can go
ahead and start this program, but just knowing that this will be part of the next year's budget as well. Okay. No, I mean I uh Okay. So, trees may not be planted within 10 feet of any but as long as you or a resident follows
these I think three guidelines. um doesn't matter where they put on their property as long as they comply with that and it I think and and there's a certain caliper requirement too. So they've got to do caliper so you're not coming okay no I I I think it's great I think
more people will probably um try to utilize this program the way it's written now. So good job. Thanks. I'm all for more trees. I'm literally working on that project we started last year with my family where we take
temperatures and shade and sunny areas. And literally already this year in early May, we have a 40°ree difference between shaded and non-shaded dirt. Not even a hard surface, but dirt. So the more trees we can find to put anywhere, I'm
all for it. Microclimates, the the 300 and the 200, just curiosity, what is that as what what is the cost of a Sure. pre. So, so we looked at um I think it was Beckers is one of the most popular ones locally and 300 was generally about
what you could what it would cost to get a shade tree that's about three or 4 inch caliber. It's a little bit more for live oak. It's about 400 for live oak. Um but the 300 should should cover most of the you know the gumbo limbos, the the red maples and the other trees. So basically covering the cost of the tree.
That's great. Not the installation necessarily, right? But the tree itself. Yeah. which is not that hard if you just grab a shovel. It's the delivery, but then it's really just digging all remember this. Get that on the record when I get my tree. I got some boys. You could take the boys.
Great job. Thank you. Um on the tree specs for tier one, why the different sizes for single family or multifamily? That's just the code requirement. That's how we have it. Oh, it's already in the code. Got it. Um, is this required for us to remain a
tree city or No, it's not required. We have to spend a certain amount of dollars per capita. And so I think Jeremy's run the numbers and 10,000 I mean I think we we technically have to spend $12,000 a year on trees. We can count what we do in parks and a lot of
other stuff for maintenance for that money. But I think I think maybe you can explain better, Jeremy, but I think that was kind of where you're thinking. Yeah, I mean I think it's 12,500 10,000, but we you can also use staff uh time and cost that's associated with that to meet the 12,500 or
12,200 whatever the number is, we can meet that requirement just with staff time. But I have a feeling with what public works does or what we do with parks, we we'll meet it just with trees. But we won't have any problem meeting that requirement. Okay. And then I am
all for more trees as well. I mean there's you know so many benefits from them but do do we feel that many properties are lacking trees and landscaping that you know our code doesn't require like is there this perception that yeah I
mean it's a that's a tough question we did a there's an overall canopy tool that the state has where you can look at the village's tree canopy and there were a few areas where it was a little bit lighter um I I wish I I should have included included it with this, but um there were some some spots where where
we could um increase the canopy a little bit. Are there ideas just answer what what the question you're asking what Jay's saying. A lot of those applicants turn it onto their property. Uh but we
don't plant on private property, right? Could have had potentially 20 trees 20 trees planted. Okay. those areas on the map where you said there's gaps, is there any way for us to try to like focus or incentive
incentivize those people even more? I think if we're not getting much um participation in it, we could we could probably target specific neighborhoods and target specific areas or or even HOAs. I think Jeremy's already said he's had had interest from HOAs on this. So, I think we'll get some strong interest
from them. Okay. And the only thing I definitely I definitely want to see this come to life, but um considering that we haven't gone through our um even our first budget workshop yet, I don't I mean are
we we still have our corridor um enhancing the tree canopy on our corridor projects that aren't done first right last year. So is there I mean does this money need to go towards those projects first and do we after we finish
our corridor tree canopy plans or I guess just from a is this you know fine to add and we can still um move those projects forward too or should we prioritize them? No, I don't think I think we're talking about going from one budget year to the next. We're talking
about an increase of $2,500 to increase it. the the tree canopy that we that we started two years ago. We did phase one with Questa Drive. Phase two of that was supposed to be the other where we're gonna basically just started the water main project process. That's supposed to
be phase two. So that we don't have that budgeted um until 27. So it's really two years away. This year what we did is we did remembrance park um is that we planted like 90 trees out there. So that was like every year trying to do a and
we'll have some discussions about phase two of remembrance park and and maybe that's the tree part that we do this next year but um we're going to do some trees every year and it this won't have any effect on that. Okay. Yeah. Then that was my comp if there's competing interest I would want to focus on our
you know main corridor finishing those tree canopy efforts first if like I said if it kind of became an issue. But otherwise no this is great. I think it's a great program to start. Any other comments or questions?
Great. Any public comment? Just a little concerned that if I go by and I buy a tree and I put it in and then I expect the money back and I don't get it. So, I would say sure up the
um you know where I somebody is interested in doing this and you do it upfront rather than I put the tree in and then oh no, it's not a live oak or something. You know what I'm saying? That you've got to have a procedure where everybody knows that they're going
to get the reimbursement. Okay, maybe Jake can speak on that. That's a great point. We can we can probably try and make it so that you apply and get allocated a certain amount of money for it before you go buy the tree, but then you don't get rebated until after you actually install it and
buy it. That way, people aren't going out and buying a tree and then, oh, we just hit our $10,000 and there's none left. So, that's a great point. We'll look into that. Okay. Any other public comment? All right. With that, we are
done. Can I get a motion to adjurnn? So moved. Second. All in favor? I