meeting. Today's date is May 14th, 2025. That's approximately 2 p.m. If you could do a roll call real quick. Of course. Thomas Bradford here. Brad Freeze here. Russ Redmond. Joe Went.
Michelle Shouse here. Wade Chance here. All right. Um, if you've had a chance to look at the agenda, anything to add, delete, change, etc. A motion two. Motion to approve the agenda as submitted.
Second. Motion carries or all those in favor? I. Any nays? Motion carries. Communication from our ghost citizens. None. Uh so we'll get straight to the
presentations. Uh first is Marjorie Craig. This is our Tquesta utilities department director and is here to speak about the vulnerability assessment that Tquesta conducted recently. Good afternoon.
Marjgerie Craig, utilities director and it should say utilities director up there. Does that work? Does the pointer work too? The pointer doesn't work. Um, so I'm also going to here give you
this is a a print out of the vulnerability assessment which is also available on our um village website. Is it one big packet? Yeah, it's just it's just one big. It's just for you to kind of see kind of um basically what it
looks like. How big is it? Kind of flip through it and just see. Oh, okay. It's got an inventory. It's got a basic and we'll just go through that too a little bit. So, just here's a presentation outline. So, motivation, why did we do this? what kind of funding did we get,
how much did it cost, um an overview of what's required as a part of an FD vulnerability assessment, um the approach and the methodology and the next steps. So, um and then just a nice definition by Noah of vulnerability and
why you might need one um so that we can help assess what's vulnerable in our community and might might be impacted. And for us, um part of this is So we can qualify for additional grants as
well. Okay. So Allison put the uh moving water in there. I want you to appreciate the the movement here. But um so why we do this and climate change, some people call it climate change, some people call
it sea level rise, but according to the latest science science on it, um it's projected to rise over the next 30 years along the US coastline between 10 and 12 inches. Over those three years, that's like point uh 3.4 inches per year. And
that's as much as what it's been measured over the past 100 years from 1920 to 200 2020. So with that increase comes an increase in probability of flooding as you can imagine and that's first f further exacerbated by the intense intensified
natural disaster strength and just even during my lifetime even though I look quite young in my mind um I've just noticed just an increase in the intensity of these wet weather events that we've experiencing even just last
night just so this is just a little uh bit from the FT, Florida Department of Environmental Protection, they have a whole program on Florida resiliency. Um the uh on
the May 12th of 2021, Governor Ronda Santz signed Senate Bill 1954 into law and this comprehensive regulation ensures a coordinated approach to Florida's coastal and inland resilience. Um, so D has an entire
section devoted to coastal resiliency and uh just the Florida resilient program. And the program enhances our efforts to protect our inland waterways and coastlines and shores. And if we can do that, it helps provide natural
defenses against sea level rise. And the this legislation will yield the largest investment in Florida's history to prepare our communities for the impacts of sevil rise, intensified storms, and flooding. And we would like to try to get some of that funding if we can. This particular project was funded
at 100%. But anything that we go for as a part of our vulnerability assessment will be funded at 50% unless we can get funding from somewhere else. But usually you have to come to the table with some level of
funding. So we received a grant originally of $95,000. That was a 100% grant to conduct this assessment. And then um as we were conducting that uh assessment, we found that we had some data gaps. And so I applied for an
additional $50,000 grant. And that was also funded at 100% to uh uh capture some additional uh survey data for some of our storm water structures to put into the modeling
scenarios. So there's going to be a lot of technical information here as well. I will tell you that my background although I have an undergraduate degree in petroleum engineering and a masters in civil engineering. Um most of my career I've not been doing inundation modeling. So please bear with me. I've
done storm water modeling. I've done storm water permitting back in my early days and even in my more recent days. As I told Jay earlier, the thing I like about storm water, it's mostly related to gravity. So it flows, it knows where to go and um you can um typically follow
it. So um this particular grant, this particular uh when you apply for a vulnerability assessment grant, D is extremely prescriptive and how they want this grant uh conducted, the modeling that they want, the data they want
collected, and how they want it analyzed. So um I've already mentioned the three the the threats of sea level rise and increasing intensity of storms and for us our critical infrastructure our water
plant electric supply and any regionally and culturally significant structures and when we evaluated our inventory we also we didn't just look at you can have things that are certainly village owned infrastructure and village
owned items in your inventory. but you still have other items on that inventory list that are partic potentially at risk even if they're not owned by the village. So that layer there that comes directly from the DP,
I'm just going to call it the recipe book. It's a highly technical book on how you put together a vulnerability assessment, what layers, what what types of data that you put together, what kind of flood scenarios um and what you put into that and the
steps that you have to take. We had two public meetings. Um we c we came up with the inventory, the topography, the GIS layers. Um we found the data gaps. We drafted a vulnerability assessment. And when I say we, I mean the royal we um
the consultant that we hired to do it and then with review by the village as well. Um we did exposure analysis and sensitivity analysis and then put together the final vulnerability assessment. Again, this is just the
methodology and the steps that we took. had a kickoff meeting, public outreach background, performed the analysis, identified our focus areas and a preliminary adaptation plan, held a second public meeting after that. And
Mr. Bradford, you were at both public meetings. Thank you. And we finalized the vulnerability assessment. So we we did the flood analysis, the indation um modeling, and there was sensitivity analysis.
And this is a uh just a a map of the critical and regionally significant assets. You can see that uh a lot of that's the infrastructure in place and the some of those stars and the dots would be the wells uh in our water
system, our water treatment plant and some of the other important uh city hall, the public services building and places along uh the coast there. This was just just a list of types of
inundation modeling and analysis for anyone that really wants to get into the weeds on the technical part. And then this was just actually some sensitivity analysis. So if you're as you're looking at these maps, the one
is low as the lighter colored. medium would be the um medium color and then the high or higher intensity blue. Those blues are a little bit off. And as you as you look at it, you see how it matches or uh the
our flood map as well. So this is existing conditions with a 100red-year storm, what that would look like in their model. And then the 2040 predictions with intermediate high 100year storms. And these storms that they and the
modeling they conducted was at typically very high like high high water depths and 100red-year storms. So you can see I mean we're a coastal community there's not a lot of places for the water to go. You can see
um that as the uh climate changes that um our infrastructure and our community is more at risk. exposure analysis and this is this is the rainfall I gave you the list of all the types of modeling. This is the the rainfall induced
flooding. This is the storm uh surge flooding and you can always go to our um vulnerability analysis uh study and and take a look at these things too. and then the sensitivity with the rainfall induced
flooding and then an exposure level results for critical assets. So rainfall induced flooding uh just another way to detect depict that information as well. And you can get a copy of this presentation if you want would like it.
And the sensitivity analysis again for storage ser storm surge flooding and another way to det depict the information for exposure level results for critical assets. So after all all the mo the modeling
that was done um our focus areas and we could see you know where the water would go the the exposure level of the critical assets was ranked and mapped and split into three focus areas for
prioritization. So in the larger map you can see focus area one is highlighted in blue and focus area three is highlighted in green or you see the blue there to the right closer to the f
uh the coast. So both of those areas consist of a less urbanized and eastern portion of the village and contain a lower density of critical assets. And then focus area two is depicted by the red highlight highlighted portion as the highest concentrated of critical and
regionally significant assets. So these were the five items that came out of the entire uh vulnerability assessment. So if you look at the vulnerabil and we're a small village so um more resilient water treatment plant and I would say that the
water treatment plant is still pretty resilient if you've been to it you've been some of y'all have been on a tour and if you haven't I invite you to come see the the plant it's still a pretty pretty resilient building but we can do
more it could be more resilient um and we we need to do some more hardening US1 and village roads are subject to flooding. We all we all know that and we're constantly looking at ways to mitigate that to help improve that.
Um the generators at village hall in the public safety building, they've identified a need to raise those and lift stations and those are not under our control. They're Lockxahhatchee River Environmental Control District
and while we could not help fund them do anything, we can help you know provide our vocal support and then storm water conveyance in the downtown area and uh where we have storm water systems. those swailes
and restoring the swailes and lining our storm water pipes where they need lining and maintaining our ponds. That's important. So, here's a little more detail. Um, and that's just a little more detail on the modeling that was
conducted, what elevations it showed, and then the costs related to raising those um generators, which is quite high. So, if we can get the funding, we can
uh get 75% grant money for that. And Dover Ditch, um y'all are uh familiar with Dover Ditch. Yes. Yeah. and the living shoreline component of it.
It's pretty neat. It's a drainage canal. It stretches a half a mile along the border of the village of Questa in the town of Jupiter. And since the 1990s, the canals in Backbet has suffered from long-term erosion leading to sediment displacement
into the Lockahhatchi estuary. um it's reduced the water conveyance capacity and flood protection cap capabilities and so this pro project came about u it's a joint project with the town of Jupiter and we proposed it
to the Lockxahhatchee river preservation initiative they supported the project and we um uh advocated to the legislature and got some 50% % funding. So the project's estimated to cost
$315,000 and of that uh the village is responsible for 60% and the town for 40% and that would be the remaining 50%. So 50% of 315,000. So
um we had the the design is actually out to bid. I don't know if y'all are uh have looked at the I'm got to smile because we're we're real happy that that's on our website out to bid and on demand star. So,
we're ready to get that constructed. So, that's a plan view to the right of the project when it's done. It's no longer if you've if you've driven by recently, it if you look down, it's kind of almost a straight line and
now it's going to be more of a meandering. Uh, yes, J. So, you said it's a half mile, but that does that include the portion that goes east of Riverside? I, you know, I don't know the answer to
that. I don't think so. I don't think this goes east of Riverside at all. Okay. This project Yes. Okay. The Yes. This project does not go east of Riverside. That's correct. This is just west of Riverside. And are there
plans to in the future do anything east of Riverside or is it just going to be this? I recently became aware that there was a second part of this project that might be um that up for consideration. So right
now our storm water fund is very limited. So we have to like save up to even be able to apply for a 50% funding. And then this is just a view of our
um for storm water management approved. The map depicts the road road segments in the village that will experience flooding under existing conditions under uh during a 100red-year rainfall event. So our storm water inventory consists of
about 12.6 miles of berry culberts, a half a mile of do ditch of course and four pollutant separators and three water level control structures. And we have since I've been here, actually before I've been here, probably in the last five years, the village has
definitely planned and invested in the repair and rehabilitation of the storm water system. Um, and with um the um Mr. Bradford, what's the the one up
at uh we just installed the large catch basins? You're not talking about equivalent. Well, it's up uh uh north of Tquesta Drive. El Portal portal. We did the El Portal project. We've done a numerous uh
lineal feet of storm water pipelining. And right now, the biggest bang for the buck is the storm water pipelining. We have uh many feet of of storm water pipe that are near or at their useful life. And so, they're starting to deteriorate.
And so we have a a list of prioritized storm water pipe to line. And so that's what we've been really focusing on. But we also have identified some swailes that we're going to restore this year and next year because we really need to
restore our swailes throughout the the village to help convey that water to our storm water structures and to the the ponds. So go ahead. Did they tell you how long a life expectancy when you line the pipes versus
so it it basically my understanding is it doubles the life of the pipe now. So it's another 20 years at least maybe maybe longer. I just say 20 years because you got to keep checking it and TV it TV it. Um, and we also have some
uh um flapper valves that we need to install in our system as well. Margie, yes. Does lining work well with corrugated metal pipe? Not that I know of. Um, don't we have a
lot of corrugated metal pipe? So, what I was told when I got here was that they had replaced most or all of the corrugated pipes. So, if you're aware of some, there may be some little pieces here and there, but I think most of it's been replaced.
Um, I've not typically seen corrugated pipe being lined, but what is it replaced with? What's that? What is it replaced with? Do you know what it would be? Yeah. What it was? Would it be cement? Like those
big cement? Could be cement. It could be PVC. Could be Could be plastic. Yeah. Yeah. PVC. Okay. There's a a grade. Thank you. Of pipe for that. So, as you probably know, swailes are
natural systems that can store and uh slow down storm water runoff before they uh they pond water between uh areas of discharge. So, it's it's kind of considered a natural treatment.
I'm hoping that we can maybe get some grants for some soil restoration, but typically the granting agencies will not consider um regular maintenance things like
pipelining for grants unfortunately. Um okay, so I'm calling them flapper valves or ti title check valves is probably a better more technical term. Um, so we've identified the uh Tequesta
Bridge, River Drive, Pineh Hill Trail, and Gulfream Drive. And the total cost for those uh would be it says $223,000. So it's um it's not cheap, but it's worthwhile.
So we just try to do as much as we can every year. Resiliency and water supply. So you got a little bit of um got a skater panel, some piping and of course the the plant itself.
Um so as best we can we want to floodproof the plant. So raising any critical components such as the gener any generators, electrical, the electrical building and pumps will be evaluated and we'll have to do an
additional detail assessment to analyze all of these components to see about raising the levels uh and the best strategy for that. Um, we think that it'll cost about 30 to 50,000 to conduct that
evaluation, but it'll be worthwhile. And then I mentioned the wastewater lift stations and um, Lockachi River owns and maintains the wastewater infrastructure. As you all know, you had Bud come do a presentation
I think probably last time and then probably before that even. Um so to really enhance resiliency uh the some of the lift stations may need to be elevated or modified.
So that's something that we can communicate with the LED LRD rather to um see how that's going. Then did I skip one?
I already mentioned that uh the whole goal of this is to understand what our risk is and what uh what we need to focus on and also to set us in a in a good position to apply for grants. So um
the resiliency resilient Florida grants come up every year uh about this time due in usually in September and they're available at a 50% grant level. Um, but they don't I can't apply for a
pipelining project. So, it needs to be um something that meets the criteria. But for Dover Ditch and Do Ditch Part Two, we can apply for legislative support if the legislature is taking
those. Sometimes that landscape changes, right? And then we've also I've talked to the manager about is there anything we can do to partner with any neighboring governments to understand what their vulnerabilities are and is there anything we can do to collaborate with
regional solutions. And that's just a picture of the Lockache River Coordinating Council and the Lockache River Preservation Initiative which we're a member of and I sit on. So we we really care about the Sachi
River and making sure that we're preserving it. And then these are just general recommendations to help mitigation mitigate climate change. Jay, you probably recognize a lot of this stuff. Compact Community design, preservation of flood planes or
zoning, reducing pvious service surfaces, maintaining storm water features, elevating critical facilities, and relocating structures at high risk. dune restoration. Now, we don't really have any in our community. Um, but we do
see others. Some of our our residents and members have the uh dunes and then constructed flood control measures. How how does uh compact community design mitigate climate change?
That's a J question there. He probably knows. I'd have to get back to you on that one. That was just one of the Maybe on a macro scale. I don't know. I'm struggling with that one, too.
Yeah, I I would agree with you. Yeah, maybe on a macro scale, not on a building like statewide, right? But not necessarily wise. Yeah. So just our goals improve improve our resiliency and promote safety. There's a
um and be fiscally responsible. And you can see there's a um QR code. Allison created a QR code to the link to the vulnerability assessment if you want to go there. So that other link is to um the toquesta
critical assets inventory on the RGIS system and I don't think I can get there now but it was um a hot link to when we were evaluating the mapping that they were doing which
was kind of cool to see all the critical assets on the GIS system and what they were looking at to do their inundation modeling. That was pretty cool. Any questions? Yeah, I have one and then a comment. No
questions from you. I'm just kidding. So, let's take as an example the subdivision waterway village which is east of say hog snappers that shopping center. So that's
unincorporated. All right. So if the just hypothetically the v had infrastructure in that subdivision or if the lockache river district had it in that subdivision and let's say for
example the lift station also simultaneously served some portions of toquesta nearby would your vulnerability assessment have picked that up to say that that's something that we need to
potentially improve whatever that be something that would be in that assessment. So if it was outside the village um I would say no. Uh but if it was inside the village are you talking about something that's
like adjacent that would impact it just if you had a surficial well somewhere in Waterway Village. Would that study pick that location up for Yes, if I had identified that and I did
tell them our service area was outside the village and to make sure you know that they were kind of looking at that as well because we still had we still have assets that are outside the village. Our service area is twice as big as the village itself which is common for a municipality that serves
outside its limits. Um and yes, the answer will be yes. So my comment is this. supposed to. Okay. My comment is this. Not too long ago, uh Jay uh was able to get the executive
director of Locket River District to come and speak to us, Mr. Arington. Dr. Arrington. Yes. Yeah. And uh the question that I asked him was, was he aware of this program? I said I wasn't certain if a special
district was eligible for it, but we knew and I said we knew that they had some assets that were close to water bodies that would likely need benefit if they took part in this program. And to
my surprise, Mr. Arrington basically said I would words to the effect that I would be very cautious in getting involved with anything with the state. I was stunned. I can't believe you know
what is do you are you aware whether they're doing anything at all in regard to uh this subject of vulnerability assessment. Do you know whether he does any of that
activities? I know that he uh based on what I know about the LEC, I'm pretty impressed with their operations and you you know I come from larger utilities that include wastewater and reuse. Um and I I've visited them on
their their I've looked at their SCADA systems um and their their whole site. If you haven't done a tour, I highly recommend it. Um, the direct question to your answer would be I don't know
specifically if he has done a vulnerability assessment. Um, I have told him that we're doing one and that we, you know, that we've done one. Um, but I don't know if he has done one. So you have identified for example list
stations that they own that are that serve the Questa and noted that it is a is that one of the regional assets of significance or something like that. Is that what that would have been? Well, it was uh
identified as a focus area uh for us to focus on for making sure that they you know if we could coordinate regionally with them to make sure they were elevated beyond the the levels. I was
stunned by what he said. I It's like he didn't he wasn't even interested in talking about the subject or having anybody to be engaged with anybody relative to vulnerability assessment. So, I mean, I know you don't control the man. I'm just thinking perhaps you
interface with him at the Lock Heat River Coordinating Council or things like that to find out what what if anything is that guy doing because we know there's lift stations that serve both unincorporated and to Questa. And if he's doing
nothing and a storm happens and it's it's out, our res could potentially have sewage backing up in their house if they don't attempt to do something to lift up that infrastructure.
So, I I uh will talk to the manager. I will be happy to talk to uh Dr. Arrington. I do see him at all the LRPI and the lock the LRC MCC meetings. Um I'd be happy to to talk to him about
that, ask him what he's doing. But um you know wastewater uh utilities are typically always looking at their vulnerabilities and doing risk assessments just as a part of of how
they work. So I would be surprised if he didn't have any knowledge about what the risk was. Yeah. I can remember in past hurricanes who I live in Questa Pines off Sebrook past hurricanes them sending us emails saying please don't
because our our system is overloaded. And Mr. Bradford, I have done similarly in a previous utility because of the same thing because your system just you cannot design a system for a hurricane or for such a large event. It's just
it's it's beyond what you could afford to possibly fund something. Yeah. I understand. It's really it's beyond the design capacity and and we always overdesign. Isn't that called inflow and in
infiltration? I ini infiltration and uh inflow. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm aware of it. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure I'm sure you are from I have a quick question on the swale
restoration. What would that look like in terms of existing properties and new properties, residential? I'm sorry. How does that restoration program look? Does it go to existing properties? And we are
actually we're actually um discussing that with the public works director um the village manager and I are working through what we think that would look like from a um because From a purely engineering design
standpoint, this is not the swailes are swelles. They're like an like I don't want anything in the swailes. But I also recognize that people would, you know, we all recognize
maybe ground cover, maybe, you know, I I just, you know, no trees, no, we need to figure out what that looks like. because it does work. We've seen it on our street. Wherever there's a swale, it collects all the water, but then it can't go anywhere because the other
people don't have I think Michelle touched on something though. If you work in conjunction with the building official and a new home is being built on River Drive in West of Country Club and it currently has a swale that is no longer
functional. Make that a requirement to make it functional at that time as part of their permit for new development. We do. Okay. It is. It is in there. We have the swale crosssections. There is the
um some of it's been a can be painful but it's yes we have that in the process. That's good. So as we as we restore the swailes that's going to also be painful.
Well then you can you the proposition to a property owner was if you don't like the swale then how would you like our taxes to go up in order to pipe this water and store it properly. Well, it it we have to we have to do it. Yeah. Right.
It's got to be we can't we can't ignore it. Not for not for these big storms. No. No. And but we're just trying to make sure that we do it properly as best we can before we
roll it out. I'm gonna piggyback on that question. Um, it's too early uh to determine which existing residences you're going to restore the soils. You haven't gotten that far yet. It is. I
have um it it's too early. Okay. But I have a few that we've identified. I we have a few we've identified for doing some restoration this year and we can provide that to you.
for our capital program. Have you found the, you know, the drainage inlets? Okay. They have that little thing on them saying, "Please don't throw paint." That works. Yeah, I know. But have you found that the
elevation of those uh catch basins is higher than the grade of the soil? Meaning you know, the the at some point you you can't do this, but you
make the the the elevation of the inlet slightly higher than the grade of the swale so that it's automatically capturing water before it goes into the
inlet catch bas. Are you aware if our inlets are edge basins are slightly higher than the grade of the swailes that are out the earth. Yeah, if you're aware of one that
isn't, why don't you let me know? U most of the most of the um catch basins that I see are great have grates on top as opposed to um the covered ones. So, but if you if you have a concern about one, let me
know and we'll go check it out. Okay. For sure. questions. Anything else? Question. I have another question. Um, did you alert the residences that are a logged over ditch that they were going to soon have a
living shoreline? Um, I think there there's only two, right? Well, one's on Jupiter side. Yeah, one's on Jupiter and one's on Tquesta side. So, it's a good point. we've been in contact with with um
probably with our side. So, thank you for for reminding me. We'll make sure. I'm just curious of what they would what that resident would say, you know, their reaction to it, pro, con, that sort of thing. But it might be nice to let them
know. Do you know when that there will be a start date for that project? So, it's at the bid now and it's about a 30-day bid date and um so then that would it went to bid on
Tuesday so about 30 days and then we'll award it still be a couple of months before it would start probably before the end of the year. Yeah, it would be before the end of the year. Cool. And we do have a list of our capital
projects online as well. Um and a schedule there if you want to. Okay. And it's if you look under projects affecting the V, you can look under utilities department and go to projects or go to projects affecting the village. Either one and should bring you to those
projects. If it doesn't, let me know because I've tested it. But you just never know. And um kind of off top off topic. Um, how long did it take for your department or whoever you may have
contracted to write the grants, the applications for the grants? Okay. Is it an arduous process? For which grant are you talking about the vulnerability assessment? Yeah. So, for that one, it was done before I got here,
but I did one at my previous location. Oh, actually I did the GAP one too. Um, that particular one, the initial submitt is not ownorous. Um, but then when you when they come back to you, you need to make sure you
have all the data. It it's a lot of it's been a lot of plates to keep in the air with the different grants and the SRF loans. I'm really grateful to have I have a deputy director, a new deputy director who helped me with the presentations. as well. I want to thank
her, Alison Felsburg. Um, and uh there's quarterly reports. There's in it seems like it's not a lot, but there's still a lot of detail that you have to
keep up with. Yeah, he made me think of this. I'm sorry. The um uh the do ditch has that uh what do you call it? A sandbar forming at as it discharges into the
locks at your river. Correct. Yes. Yes. I mean it's everybody knows it. It's it's been there for 20 years. So my question Yes. I looked at the aerials. I've seen the sandbar and I've seen the aerials through time where it still shows the sandbar
two times. I believe in the past we asked the Jupiter Inlet District that periodically does dredging up the river that area and they did it for free to remove that sandbar. I know from watching uh I think
the planning and zoning board meeting that the uh adjacent property owner in the village uh wanted a modified and extended dock because he could not access to his dock
because of the sandbar. So, I'm wondering instead of shifting in the future shifting around docks to accommodate uh sidstepping the sandbar, why don't we just ask the Jupiter district to put it on their to-do list and get rid of the
sandbar? I think Mr. Hops has had some conversations with Joe. Yeah, we reached out to Joe and Joe said he wasn't aware of any history, although he might not have been here when you
were manager a long time ago and he said to tell Marjorie to do it as part of her Dover Ditch project, which they really can't do because they've already scoped it and um so we're having a little bit of a finger pointing game. Joe Chason, who's
the director of the Jupyter District? Okay. Yeah. All right. who's been I mean he's been a really great partner in NASA to work with phenomenal guy it's not difficult at all I mean he's seriously great um Mr. freeze to go back to your I think the application was not the initial
application was not that it was not ownorous. It's making sure it's all of the the other things. But if you if offline you want to go through what's required for one of these grants or a state revolving loan, I'd be happy to sit with you and show you the submitt
for the U vulnerability assessment for the final documents took hours and hours and hours. And then the final submitt to get the grant reimbursement was pretty rigorous. Okay, I might take you up on that offer.
Yeah, I'm happy to to show you what it takes to for a grant. Okay, any more questions? Thank you very much. Appreciate your time. Thank you.
Okay, so we're going to uh delay the second presentation. Um, uh, Thomas Gearing will not be here for another hopefully 45 minutes. 30 45 minutes. 40. Yeah. So, we'll just, uh,
we'll lurch forward. Uh, consent agenda. Does anyone have any changes, modifications to the minutes from last month, April 9th?
I'll make a motion to approve the agenda including the minutes of April 9th, 2025. Second just walking like all those in favor. I nays. Motion carries.
um couple items for old business and uh Michelle is uh going to give us a small little recap. It was um very well planned by the village and had the mayor speak and
Jay was there and public works was there and they had uh students from two local schools. They were a little bit older elementary level, not the young ones. Fourth, fifth grade, I think third through fifth maybe. Third through fifth. Yes. And um it was very nice how
they set it up. They had the tree already set up with the dirt around it with the shuffles for the kids. And the kids wrote their wishes on a biodegradable piece of paper and they tossed them in the little ditch around the tree and then they had them fill that in. And um it was very nice. Did a
good job. And you have to go look at the tree. It's right outside village hall to your left. As you when you when you leave here. Okay. Did you give your ligignite presentation? She did. She did a
phenomenal job. She represented. Well, the crazy lady about that tree now. I really Yeah, the tree lady. Um, well, I appreciate everything you did for that. That's very nice.
Um, I'm going to move on to the next item. These were follow-ups from our April meeting. Um, just a few small things. I think uh the uh Jupiter and Narrow's Conservation Alliance had requested or
asked if um the village of Dquesta could uh support them renaming uh to and I've forgotten the the new name that they wish Andrew Red Harris Islands at the Quest, right? Well,
preferably, but I don't know if she kind of looked at me funny when I said that. Um I was wondering if the council had Yeah. So the council had kind of tentatively reviewed that maybe six months ago, nine months ago when Sue had asked them and they really didn't take
any action on it. Um they would because it's a policy decision, they would be making the final decision on the renaming it. Um if if this if you guys want to, you could kind of make a recommendation to them to encourage them to to do so, but ultimately, you know,
they're going to be the final decision maker. But if it's something you the board supports and thinks is a good idea, um it's certainly something that you could probably bring up at your the next time you meet with them. Yeah. Do you think Jay that Sue has her application in still at
FD? And would that be a proper avenue for her to also attempt to get a little renaming for the work that she wants to do? Yeah, I mean our council really won't have any decision making. Um, they
won't be the final decision maker. It's almost more of just asking for a letter of support like we would for a grant. Um, I don't know if it's the D that has the final say, if it's the state. I don't think anyone really knows for sure. Um, and I think our council didn't even know the last time time they
discussed it. So, they kind of left it open-ended. Um, so really, yeah, that it's just a matter of do we want to write a letter of support for them supporting the concept of the of the renaming? And by that you mean does the
EAC want to write? No. No. Does the EAC want to encourage the village council to write a letter in support of the project? In support in support of the renaming. They already they're already supporting the project. We already have a we already have an interlocal agreement or a a public
private partnership where we work with them on grants. So we already are a supporter and a partner. Sue just wants our support for the the political channel she has to go through for the renaming of it.
Well, uh my recollection is the family of the the person named uh was a major contributor to the cost of the project. Correct. Which is a good
thing. Not so good that this person passed away, but anyway, the uh I would think that that's uh warrants the significance of that contribution would warrant the renaming if such a thing can happen
and he lived in the condos adjacent to it as well. Yes. So, so there is a connection between him and the islands and as you said I think they've made a six figure donation. So, I'd make a motion that we ask the
village council through whatever we use to to support the request for the renaming in light of the significance of the contribution etc. that the family may in the name of that person.
All those in favor I any nays? No motion carries. Um what would be just a letter of support or me going to so their or shop? Yeah. So I think we'll talk about that
when they we talk about the um the the meeting situation and the meeting timing. They want to talk about that. So you'll probably have to go to a workshop with them about that. So I think it's a good time to just talk about any other EDC initiative. So we just roll that into that meeting. Okay. which I think
will be in maybe Julyish, maybe August. That's the next workshop or that's the one where we have a really busy June one, so July is the earliest one that is queued up. All right. Um the no fee permit for FPL tree
trimming, that was a great suggestion by Tom in the last meeting. Is that something else that has to be uh if if they wanted to move forward doing that, it would have to go through council. Correct. Correct. Uh and I
think I mentioned it, but we can roll it into the the code updates that we're already doing. So remember, you had the recommendation about the prohibited species list, green building. So I've I've got those two code updates queued up to go to council in the next few months along with a few other things
we're working on. So that's really a pretty small thing. I can just I can just put it in there as kind of a addition to to uh to what we're already doing. Okay. So, should be easy. I wasn't sure if that was finalized or we came to I think you guys even took a
vote to support Yeah, I think you did. But, uh it's small enough and I think it's an easy it's a good idea. We'll throw it in in the code update. Would Doug Chambers be responsible for the permitting process? And if so, I
guess he needs to be made aware that we've made this. Yeah, we'll note that they have to do a permit. It'll come through the building department, but I'll note that it gets routed to public works and to um the village landscape architect. So, Steve
Parker could also provide some input. If we think they're doing something outlandish, we can we can try and work with them on it. Um just a question about um the workshop. Uh because I think in the last
council meeting that I did watch um they said that in June they would take up the seat vacancy and the frequency and yeah they they might have said that but they didn't know at the time that we have we have a we already
have that agenda set and it's got like four big items on it. So there's it it can't go to them until July at the earliest. That's fine. All right. Um, construction runoff mitigation strategies. I probably would
just hold off on this until after our next month's meeting unless someone has comments about it because next month we will be having what was his name? Uh, Wayne Cameron, our building official, who's who's on vacation right now, but we'll
have him at the next meeting and and I'll try and get Marjorie as well. Isn't there something in the code for For example, let's say let's take River Drive as an example. The properties on River Drive that are on the water. Okay. I recall
there being something in the code that there's like a 10 foot setback barrier, that's my word, barrier area required to keep fertilizer out of pesticides out
of. And then the other thing that I I've been when I saw the agenda, I was is like so let's say you're you are constructing a new home on River Drive and there are a lot of them underway. Um during the construction are these people building a
temporary burm or something so that when the rain comes there's no landscaping is just flowing straight to the river. Why isn't there a burm requirement to keep that water from going to the river? These are questions you'll have to ask
next month. Sir waiting for next month. Um, anyone have anything else? Wayne, he'll have the information out about existing code and restrictions and everything. And I sent some of it to you in an email, the existing codes, but he'll he'll be able to provide some
color to that. Okay. It's homework for us for next month. We'll take a look at that. Okay. Uh, new business J. Okay. So, we have our annual reorg, which is where you vote for uh chair and
vice chair. Um the way that works is uh somebody will just make a nomination for each and second it and then take a vote. If he is so inclined, I would make a motion to reappoint Brad F as the chair of the
EAC for the next year. I think you've done a great job. I can tell you're working well with Jay to keep the agenda interesting and pertinent. I would recommend that we
approve, unless you don't want to do it. No, that's why I said I'll do it. Yeah. Okay. So, that's my motion is to reelect Brad. Seconded. All right. All those in favor? I nays. Motion
carries. Vice chair. Any motions? Um, if anybody wants to be vice chair, it's okay with me because I, you know, it's your main role is just to run the meeting if Brad is absent or something. So, it's fine. If you want me to do it,
I'll do it. But if you want to do it, I'm a okay with whoever that may be. I move to vote for vice chair as vice chair again. Second. All those in favor?
Nays. Motion carries. Okay. So, I didn't know this until it was brought to my attention, but um uh Clay Damon u I guess gave up his position or resigned.
Um, so we did not have anyone apply for uh that vacancy and there was some discussion at uh council about uh the EAC and should we keep that seat? Should
we do away with that seat? And I guess there was also some talk about the frequency in which we meet and the time that we meet visiting that. So that's when I uh wrote that email that I think
everyone saw. It seems like we have already discussed our frequency and time that we meet. Um I was pretty satisfied and secure with you know continuing once a month starting at 2 p.m. Um I think we even
tried to have something a little bit later with the uh living shoreline presentation in the evening. we got the turnout that you know it's just a little bit but uh um
so I guess really the only question would be removing this seat um I don't know we've never really had any problems um achieving quorum so I don't see why
it would hurt us in any way to keep that seat open in case someone does, you know, come by and and show some interest in filling it. So, um, if anyone feels differently, please
I like the idea of keeping it open. Other than the quorum size, are there other any other implications that are important? I don't. And how do you handle it if it's a split? That's That's a challenge where you need you typically need an odd number of
board members for for votes. So that's why I think I think one thing they mentioned was leaving the seat or eliminating the seat and then letting not not eliminating any of you but the next time somebody resigned
uh retired whatever you call it um that seat just then wouldn't be filled and then the board would become a fivep person board versus a sevenperson board. um which our our planning and zoning board is a fivep person board. It's not out of the norm. So that was an that was an idea that got floated.
Well, if it's not unusual to have a five seated board, which I in past experiences with boards, you always have odd number for that specific reason of a tie vote. So I would probably lean more
towards that being more constructive. operations with an odd number whether it be five or if we need to add one later for seven because somebody two extra people were interested. I'm thinking for our neighborhood why don't we put it out on Facebook a little post absolutely
looking for another person because I don't know that it got a lot of attention out there that yeah I mean it it was in the newsletter and on our social media but I think a lot of times it's a word of mouth thing or one of you finding somebody you know I mean I just met is it Dr. Lisa
Krinsky, I think she used to be on this board and I'm going to meet her and see what it would take to get her back on the board. I think I think it's probably a challenge with her with the two o'clock thing, but um yeah, if there's anyone you know that's in Sequesta that you think would be a good fit, do some recruiting.
Everybody's it it's it's another opportunity to reach your community when you get to something that's a little more tangible and closer. So, You know, we do the village does everything wonderful with doing the newsletters and everything, but for them to see it again
in their local communities is another touch that's a little closer and might but you're right, word of mouth is um very powerful. And also the are they doing the um forgot what it's called?
the one that I did that I found out about these. Oh, the um resident academy. Yes. They they didn't get enough interest this year. Okay. But they had done, you know, they've done it three years in a row and had really good turnout. So, you're eventually going to,
you know, probably have a period where the most of people that would do it will kind of stop and then, you know, you give it a little breather and then next year probably have more come through. But a lot of people have come through there. How many of you I was signed up and I was the Oh, so sad.
But yeah, I think I think several of our current council people have done it. Um, some of our PCB members have done it. That's awesome. It's good. We had the problem in Palm Beach where in the beginning it was extremely popular. They fed them well,
too. Uh, but after a while it waned and then they did this. They didn't do it for a few few maybe two or three years and now it's back and it's from what I'm told it's very popular once again. So it's like you know
new citizens want to get involved and get it takes time for that number to build up. But I did want to say something about the following. Um, so I'm a member of the Rotary Club, but I'm about
to end my 10 years there in Palm Beach on the Rotary Club because I'm too busy. But the U Rotary International has created a new focus on the environment for their worldwide
activities. And one of the reasons that they've done that, aside from, you know, trying to heal the environment, is that it the the environmental issues attract young people overwhelmingly. Okay, it's
a big deal for the younger generation is protection and enhancement of our environment. So if that's true, and it appears that it is in terms of the Rotary Club, then I think
that our 200 PM uh start time for our meetings is problematic for young people. Let's say people out of college uh in their 20s and maybe up until the
40, they're 40. They're working, you know, and they They couldn't even though they may want to be very active and locally about environmental issues they got to work so they can't be here too long or they got to take time off from
to be here. So I think we might that might be something to think about. Maybe not right now, but it it is problematic for anyone that has a regular job to get here at 2 o'lock. And um uh what was the
other thing I wanted to say? So, here's an idea that I I heard the other day that uh it when we we were appointed I was in the audience that night and um I saw that they have a
proviso or there's some sort of proviso where in the retirement boards that the village has that if there I'm paraphrasing if there is the need for the retirement boards to
maintain functionality, they can have a nonresident be on that board. And it made me think and I mentioned it to Jay, you know, if we had seven members, wouldn't it be pretty cool to
have somebody who was perhaps like lived on the water in an unincorporated area? Because, you know, we could we could uh uh discharge zero uh pollution into the river, but if they're
not participating, then the I mean the problem would be less, but then they're not they may not be doing anything because they're not in the loop with what we're doing in the village. So, I'm just curious if if that would be something I know in Palm Beach, for
example, we had board we had architectural review board and planning and zoning commission and they allow up to one non-resident to be on that board when it is felt by the town
council that their level of expertise would be beneficial to that board. So, I'm just throwing that out there for y'all to think about because, you know, it might Jay's probably going to tell me there's no way, Jose. No, I I think it's
I think it's a good idea. Yeah. You know, because we have a lot of uninorporated area. Yeah. You see the map there? Bermuda terrace. Uh there's what's those things in county? I mean, Other idea too is if is if it's
somebody that's that's local but has a really technical knowledge of something you get you know water some water quality expert or I mean could even be Bud Howard or one of these people that have spoken that don't live in the village
in our village what but does okay what a cult today he lives in the country well so I don't know Jay if you we run it up the But with the council, do we talk about you know
uh just the benefit of having an uninorporated resident be in it and or would they prefer that that per a non res have a level of expertise that is deemed to be important for EAC? Good suggestion.
And I would strongly recommend an odd number whether it's five or seven. There's seven some I mean why was six picked? It's it's seat number six. Yeah. But why why there's why was six
positions originally? No, I think there's seven. There are seven. There's just currently an open position. And so the talk was of Oh, of just because we can't fill that seventh seat, right? Which is seat six, right? Oh, I see. Okay. Yeah. Okay.
And how often do we have um tied votes anyway, but it could happen. It's rare when you're on a board. All right. So, I will I'll put together something to present to council regarding this. Um I
do like that idea of um outside of you know to village of Tquesta bringing in you know another person I'm not sure how we would advertise that but maybe just word of mouth someone from Jupiter or
unincorporated areas or someone with specialized expertise. Um I think that would be a benefit. Uh, so I'll write something out, send it to you, send it out, and have everyone take a look at it. But it sounds like
still July. Okay. All right. Maybe, maybe it'd be something I'm throwing this out. Maybe it would be limited to zip code 33469. That goes all the way all the way down. Yeah.
So does anyone do we have other comments on anything? On anything on anything? Well, let's talk about Washington DC. I'm kidding. Um, so do you want me to give do you
want me to give you guys a quick primer before before uh our 3:30 comes? So, so Thomas Garing is a high school student, which is why he's not here, which also gives some credence to the 2M thing. Um, so he's he's coming here from
Jupiter High as quickly as he can. I'm hoping he'll be here before 3:30, but um he is an Eagle Scout, so he's already achieved his Eagle Scout. He did a project with Peter Dit at the Jupiter Lighthouse. I don't know exactly what he did, but I know Peter said he did a
great job. And he then reached out to Peter and said, "Hey, I'd love I live I don't know if he lives in Quest or nearby, but he said he he wants to encourage more recycling." Um he's a member or maybe the president of the Jupiter High Recycling Club. So, he's in charge of all the recycling on campus.
He recycles the actual stuff there on campus. He told me, did he get a 1580? He got like an absurdly high SAT score, right? So, he's a very high achieving kid. Um he's a junior, so we've got one more year with him and I think um he's
just looking to do to give back and do something cool and so he reached out to us through Peter Dit and wants to do in commercial recycling. So, we're trying to get in contact with Jeff Sabin, who I think has spoken to you guys before at Waste Management to
get an understanding of things. It's legislative session, so it's been tough to get a hold of Jeff. Um, but I think we've had a little bit of contact with him. But basically, I think Thomas wants to kind of spearhead this initiative where he's gonna maybe even use some of his other
high school students, get materials where he would go to the local businesses, assume each plaza, and just knock on each door and say, "Hey, let me talk to the manager." And have some handouts and say, "Hey, did you know that you can recycle?" And this is all it takes to do that. So, um, that's kind
of the thought where he he's at right now. So, don't want to steal a stun, but um No, it was good. That's kind of what he's gonna pitch to you guys tonight. Question uh regarding the uh vacancy. Is there an age minimum? I was just
thinking, yeah, right. Right. Currently, I know you have to be a resident of the village and if it says an elector, if it says an elector, then that would mean anybody 18
or older, I think, but I don't remember if it's a great idea. Well, let's see if you like him first, right? Or any other student. Yeah. Coming up July, we can have There you go. You
would think that Jupiter High would let him out of school if he was on an environmental committee. I think high school gets out at like two. It does because military at 2:30, 215 is just murder. Yeah, 2:15 I think maybe. Would a student possibility candidate for a
seat on this committee receive community service hours? Probably. Very likely. Absolutely. Very likely. I think I'm liking that. Well, we even told him that we we could support this as community service if if
he needed it. I wanted to ask all of the But does everybody feel that the frequency of our meetings is satisfactory? In other words, I wrote to Jay in response like you did and I said,
I like the monthly meeting. It feels just right. It's not too much. It's not too But I do have a question. What is the staff's preference? Would you prefer quarterly versus monthly or do you see trying to do a quarterly agenda and all
that backup and everything being potentially more problematic? It's it's tough from staff's perspective because I I mean I I love the meetings. I think each one's productive. I think the speakers we get are amazing. Um, I think that there should come a
time where this board can pivot to only maybe doing I don't I think quarterly is too too infrequent, but I think maybe every other month. I think that's a sign that you guys have been super successful, right? That there's not much more left to do. Um, I don't know if you
feel like you're there yet, but um, we did the village manager one. Oh, there he is. Do you want me to go get him? Yeah. The village manager did want us to look into what other environmental committees do and like Jupiter does quarterly. Bokeh,
I can't remember what it is. There's only seven in the whole county, but it's kind of a mix between quarterly, bimonthly, and monthly. Yeah. Because when we talked about it at one of our meetings, we liked the idea at that time because we had a lot of
momentum going and change over to members and stuff. So, If we did it quarterly, we would lose our momentum. I agree. But every other month, but every other month, yeah, we could keep our I think I think a follow on question to
yours is is how much stuff do we want to get done? Like, do we have a whole list of things that we want to tackle and accomplish? If we do, then our meetings ought to really be set based on our agenda items, you know, our aspiration, our mission, however we want to.
position that we got a mountain of stuff to accomplish. It seems like we ought to be meeting more frequently in order to get that done. Yeah, probably less meaning, but you kind of never know because all of a sudden something comes up and oh, this is a an educational piece comes up and
so you really don't one of one of the communities I think it's Ocean Ridge does it where it's like bimonthly, but that the the um pres or the chair can call a meeting at any time or three members together could call a meeting if
they if they wanted to. So then you could still do it on demand if a pressing matter came up. Okay, that's good. Yeah. So that makes me think about the resolution that created us. If it says we have to meet monthly, but let's
say it doesn't say that. Well, then maybe, you know, Brad is the chair. You know, one month he says, you know, next month we don't need a meeting. And then we have a meeting and he says, hey, this big issue is coming. We better keep meeting. monthly for you know we have
flexibility but I don't remember what the resolution says are I'll conf I'll I'll confirm that but to that point you know with our planning and zoning board we we typically have between four to six meetings a year they meet monthly but it's kind of on an as needed basis it's
a little bit different because those are application driven um but I think that a lot of them kind of appreciate like getting a month off here and there um and I think it does make it easier easier to not get burned out and to to make sure each meeting is
productive. And how many are we allowed to? I believe it's three, maybe two. Don't quote me on that. For 12 meetings, I think you can't miss multiple back to
back. If the if the committee met at a evening time, does that present any issues with facilities and staff. No, we would just have to move it off of
the first second Wednesday. We'd have to move it off the second Wednesday because we do council meetings Thursday night. The the second Thursday. Come on in. Come in. Come in. Nice to meet you all. Good to see you. Hello. Nice to meet
you. Nice to meet you, sir. Thank you for coming. you. All right, we can uh we'll talk about that in a minute. All right, Thomas, I think you're all queued up. Do you want to show them how
to use the clicker? Clicker's right there. Testing it out. Let's see. So, we've already had kind of an introduction to you uh while we were uh sitting here. So, um welcome. Uh hello. So, you're going
to be speaking about a project to promote and improve uh commercial recycling in Questa. Yes, sir. All right. Sounds great. Um congratulations on Eagle Scout. Thank you. Um so, go right ahead. All right. Hello. My name
is Thomas Scaring. I uh I run the recycling at Jupiter High School. So without further ado, this is my proposal. So a big problem I see in Questa is, you know, we have a lot of people that really support
environmentalism. Nearly everybody in this town loves our environment. They like going to the beaches. They like going to Jonathan Dickinson right over there. But I find that they don't have there's no recycling and there's and that
creates a problem because a lot of waste will end up in landfills and end up even on our beaches and in JD and in the Jupiter Lighthouse natural area.
And that's bad. We don't want that. So what I wanted to do was work to introduce recycling into the small business of Tquesta so that this waste has somewhere to go where it's not just being ending up in landfills or ending up where it's not supposed to. It can actually be
recycled. And I find I think I believe because I'm still working it out with waste management. It's been very there's been a lot of trouble uh working out with Mr. Sabin the representative from waste management. But what I want to do
is what I want to what I have to work past I think the biggest issue is recycling rates. So waste management the company that picks up recycling they charge various
fees for recycling pickup and this creates an issue where businesses even if they can afford the recycling there's just not a lot of incentive to pick it up. And the two main solutions with that would be to renegotiate the rates where maybe they
could be cheaper, more economically viable or if it's inexpensive enough, have it come out of the uh toquest a budget. But I don't know how, you know, enthusiastic people would
be about eating into uh the budget. And our other issues is a lack of demand where businesses don't think that customers will really care or even use recycling. And three is just people don't know about recycling. They have
no they don't think this is like a problem or they just don't um they don't know they can recycle. How I want to fix this is there's two main sides to it. There's the management side which is where we're working with waste management or we're
working with the shopping plazas here in Tqua or working with the village itself um to introduce recycling into QuUa. And the other side of it is a community side where we're reaching out to small businesses and we're reaching out to individuals and we're actually raising
awareness for recycling and working to get it introduced. And finally, why why should you introduce recycling? I'm sure you guys all love the environment. You're here on the environmental committee. But for the greater town, number one, helps
to beautify the Jupiter to Questa area. Number two is it makes our village more I'm going to say this, our village becomes more illustrious because we have a recycling program that other villages
don't. You know, we're this environmentally friendly, sustainable town. And three is it promotes engagement within the people. People like to help the environment. They like to feel like they're recycling and making a difference. So introducing a
recycling program will will build that sort of community involvement. Thank you. Time for questions. Ask away. If you guys go first. I I just asked any
still formulating. Okay. I have a question for you. So, in thinking about the small businesses, especially I'm thinking of the gallery uh square, both sides, the north side and the east side. So, as a business, they would be taking
their trash out that back door. And there, I'm assuming there's a dumpster for just their full trash disposal, whether it's recyclables or not. And so a commercial to get a commercial person
to recycle, are they open to sorting their trash and disposing of it, assuming that there would be receptacles there? Is is that the Have Have you had a chance to talk to some of those shop owners to
find out what their how they would do it? How how you know, how do they feel what would motivate them to do that? Um, so first with the pickup, I'm working it out with waste management. They haven't really responded to any of our
questions, but how I'd imagine it is exactly what you're saying, how waste manager would come by via the back, via the alleyway, and they pick up recycling. Now, with sorting it out, going through the trash, I would not
want them to do that. I doubt the the people who work at these businesses want to do that. Um, what I envisioned was an actual recycling bin for people to put recyclables in there. Both one for plastic and one for
paper. And lastly, with what would motivate them, I think showing a demand and having people go out there and say, "Hey, this is something we'd want introduced." I feel like that would really motivate these businesses to introduce recycling.
So you see um a recycling receptacle in addition to the the main dumpster. So as a business owner, they come out. I'm just looking at thinking about the actual operation. So they physically would walk out and have these different
receptacles for their recycling or asking um waste management to sort it. Yes. What? With the rec with the receptacles. That's That's what I imagined with a separate recycling
dumpster. Okay. And I will see Michelle on that point. And Brad, remember when they were saying in Martin County, you guys that they're putting it all in one and they're they're separating it all at single stream. But until that would be awesome because
I think people are more inclined to recycle more of their stuff if they're just put it all in one uh bin. But um maybe that you know that's going to be yeah currently they're having to separate it all. But I think if if the
stores knew that their customers you know care about this it would push them to then want to do more more recycling. For sure. Thomas, do you have people at the high school that will help you be make all of
this happen if it came to fruition? Yes, sir. There is a club called Green Team, which I'm a part of. Uh, has over 100 members and we have the funds and the people willing to help out with this project. That's great.
Um so in the past I'm I'm just going to give you the history about commercial recycling. Uh first of all residential Tqua has a fairly high rate of participation in
residential recycling uh relative to all of the other cities in Hob County. So we're we're probably doing good there but we could do better. But that's not your focus. The focus is commercial. So in the past, the problem
has been twofold. Tquesta, the government of Tquesta has not mandated required the commercial properties to recycle. We the residents are required
to recycle but not the commercial. So one of the problems from the property owner perspective of a commercial say shopping center is they have to designate space for the
receptacles say yellow and green uh blue for and it takes up property and sometimes it could take up parking spaces and it has to be accessible like waste management to pick it up etc. So they have to do that out of their pocket
is to make currently make the room available for the receptacles. Okay. So that's a cost and so on to the property owner. And then the other thing is uh waste management expects to be
compensated for coming at least once a week to pick up those dumpsters. Okay? And so that means the property owner has to bear the expense of that in which currently doesn't exist. Um but now keeping in mind that
both the installation of the of the bins as well as the ongoing collection cost that can be spread amongst all of the shops in the shopping centers part of the overhead. So the but so boiling it down
the biggest problem is one the government of the does not mandate the the commercial properties recycled and two the property owners have not been interested in doing it in the past for
the reasons I stated. They incur a monthly bill and they have to make capital cost to create the place and pay for the bins that hopefully west waste management would give it. So those are
the two problems. Now imagine we imagine we cannot solve those problems. We could look at having such commercial recycling facilities installed in say to Quest
Park and commercial property owners could take their recycling there and that would be better than nothing. But you know it's the participation's not great when you've got to make a trip in a vehicle to drop off your recycling. So
anyway, I just said all of that so that you would have a feel for the things that you going to have to deal with to make this happen. I want you to be successful. I just wanted you to know what the problems have been in the past. Thank you, sir.
I do have a question. Has there been an analysis on the opportunity to recycle in commercial space relative to residential? Do we know if commercial can contribute more than residential and by how much?
Could you elaborate on that question, please? So, if we as an example, if we knew that I'm I'm making up numbers, we knew that a ton, okay, 2,000 pounds of recycling goods are available out there in the city of Tquesta, do we know if
20% of that comes from commercial and 80% of that comes from residents or the opposite? Has there has there been a type of analysis to know if we're working on the biggest problem? I know your aspiration and vision is to go after commercial, but is it the biggest
opportunity for us to make a dent in recycling? That I don't know. What I'd assume is that it wouldn't make a very big dent as I've seen um being in charge of recycling at my school, a lot
of without these recycling programs, a lot of trash goes unrecycled. And I believe that if we offer if we offer these commercial recycling programs, it would improve recycling a lot. In terms of making an impact on residential
recycling, I'm not exactly sure how we could do that because that is somebody's property, but I would be all in favor of um encouraging people to recycle more in this in this village. Um I I will tell
you um a way that you could improve um residential recycling. Uh it was just mentioned single stream recycling. Uh it's done up in Martin County. I'm not exactly sure. Maybe Stewart, but somewhere in Martin County where all of
your recycling material. No, no, there's still no one bin. I thought they were separate, but like the recycle was all in one and then your regular garbage is two bins. Two bins. trash. So you have
regular trash in one and you have all your recycling in another instead of like we do it now with the blue and the yellow bins and you got, you know, kind of separated out. Um I think he said that they collected a third
Yeah. 30% more recyclable material with a single stream versus having two bins. Does that make sense? Yes. Um so that's one way to I think improve on residential recycling as far as you know
is it 80 20 um there's no commercial recycling really right now so that that is a target it would be some estimate you can estimate you know the opportunity but you know could be I mean you mentioned school like that's a huge
user right of recycling opportunity I 4,000 people what's that about 4,000 people about 4,000 people and faculty so like Even thinking about if if we couldn't and didn't want to target all small businesses, but there could be some high volume businesses unique to
them where they get boxes every single day that they need to recycle or would like to recycle or they get cans or bottles every single day, you know what I mean? Throughout the week, there could be some really high volume businesses that we could target and still make a
big dent in the commercial space. Yeah, absolutely. I know. to to your question which was a great question. I I phoned a friend chatbt and they said that according to EPA nationally so it's national not
locally but 60 to 65% of all waste is uh generated from commercial and institutional uses 35 to 40 is from residential users. So commercial does on on average more. And thinking of like big users, Publix, right? I mean, how much how many boxes do you think they
get? Barnes & Noble now. Barnes & Noble. But I I know for a fact I know for a fact Publix into Questa has a compactor and they they they recycle all cardboard, right? Because that's they
make money on that cardboard, right? And it cost them money, too. just it's a great problem to solve. It is a good problem to work on, too. I have I have a question. Have you had a chance to talk with any of the local businesses here in the owners in Questa
and what has their feedback been if you've talked to them? I have not talked to them yet. I think maybe it would help to go and ask them and ask ask them how you what they feel could be done to make it easy enough for them to do this.
I wanted to hear from you all first if you had any advice. That's Well, personally, I want you to be successful. I want you to try to do whatever you can to facilitate a viable commercial recycling program. And as you've clearly
noted, it's non-existent in Questa unless somebody like Publix is using box compaction to to they're the only thing that I'm aware of. So, it's a good thing to focus on and like you said, Jay just said how large
of a potential it is. So, I'm I for one, I'm willing to help you get off the ground and do whatever it is you want to do and you can come to our meetings regularly and you if you run into problems, you could bring them to our attention. We could give you our
advice or whatever it is, whatever it is you may need from us. Thank you, sir. Um, what do you other than coming here and letting us know about this project of yours, is there something right now that you would want maybe our group to
do to help you along? I don't want to put you on the spot, but Oh, yeah. I'm I'm thinking. So, right at this present moment, I'm I'm speaking or attempting to speak with Mr. Sabin at Waste Management. And what I really want to
work out is what the rates are and how much are they actually charging because and it was thrown around by some some people who work for the village of Tquesta. They thought could maybe happen is if the fees aren't too
exorbitant, if they're relatively cheap, it could be paid out of the village of Tquesta budget. So that's what I'm really trying to work out with Mr. Staven right now. also how waste management picks them up. What I would like to ask you you guys is
I am aware that there has been some attempts to turn recycling into single stream. Correct? Not here. I think they just brought it up that it would be a good thing to try to do, but I don't think they've attempted it yet. Well, I can tell you
yes, Monday morning I saw a brand new waste management truck for the recycling collection in my neighborhood and it's brand spanking new and it's got the yellow goes on one side and the blue stuff goes on another. So they've
already invested, you know, tons of money to keep the dual stream thing going, but I'm not negating the fact that the data shows the single stream is better in terms of particip participation. It's the solid waste authority who does
single stream recycling. Correctly. They process everything. Correct. It's solid waste is the one that actually accepts it. Oh, waste management cannot implement the the single stream until solid waste authority has the facilities to actually take the single stream recycling. Right. So, well, and we've
been down that road. Yes. You know, Steuart does it, right? So, it goes somewhere that can handle it. I think it was further north, right? And we question whether they could uh we bring it to switch it off to
responsibility. Yeah, it's remote, but it's possible that Well, no. Palm Beach, let me explain this to you. Palm Beach County, you've all you all know who Liz shower is, right? Maybe you've heard the name. She
was in the last uh it's on the back page of the uh smoke signals. Um she's been she was a past mayor. her husband oversaw the project for the solid waste
authority to to build an energy waste to energy plant. So everything that's collected like in our our trash goes there and is burned okay and it creates
electricity. Now that the upside is it reduces the demand for the landfill. Okay. The downside is if you're in this, the smoke from the burning includes things like mercury and other stuff that
lands wherever the wind's blowing. Okay, so that's the downside of it. But Rey Shower, Liz's husband, he was oversaw the project at the time. It was the largest waste to energy facility in the world.
And so they're paying it was like it was over a billion dollars for this plant. And so they've got 30-year bonds on this. So they're not likely to say, "Oh, to question you can take your waist stream here." They want the waist stream and they want the money that we pay that
goes with it. So very low opportunity for us to get out of here and go with Martin County. But maybe someday we could, but I don't think right now. Yeah. But just the recycling side. They don't burn recyclables. Well, that's true. That's true.
That's what I'm talking about. That waste management picks up the trash as well. Correct. Yeah. Yes. So, I I doubt Waste Management would do two trips, which is why I think that if we're being kept into the um waste
energy program, they probably would. Thomas, can you move that mic closer? Yes, sir. I'll talk louder. Okay. That's why I think if they were moving from the waste to energy program, if they were doing that, really committing to it, they probably would not want to
have us switch our recycling to Martin County because if there's only one truck that's going by, am I am I wrong? No, there's multiple trucks. Oh, is there? Yeah. Yeah, that the trash guy comes and then the recycle guy comes. Oh, then I'm completely wrong. Sorry, sir. Okay.
Um, so you need help interfacing with um, Mr. Sabin? Yes, sir. Okay. Um, what can we do? Yeah. So, I think I said to you guys earlier, he's been in the middle of the legislative session, which I think is wrapping up, so I think he is a little more available now. He did
leave us a voicemail recently, but I'll I'll have uh the village manager ping him again and see if we can get in contact with him about that. So, let's say uh Jeff is willing to meet with Thomas or Thomas, do you have a
team like do you have a I know you how many members you said you have, but do you have a core that's working on this particular project with you? I have some very dedicated volunteers, but currently it is just me. Okay.
The question is, should somebody besides Thomas meet when Thomas has his meeting with J? I'm happy to attend. Yeah. Okay. If you're willing to Yeah. And I think And I think we can help. Me
has gotten really good. Sorry, Meg. She's gotten really good at doing graphic design work. Um she has a program that pulls together stuff really easily. We could we could probably help them out with graph. Although you didn't you say your sister's like a graphic design wiz? I was actually going to pass this out at the end of our
meeting. This is a flyer. I had her make something very simple. She is she is artsy and you'll notice that there's there's an artsy edge to it. But I can have her make something a little more corporate, a little more receptive to
the general public. And this is just a first draft of what she made. Okay. and I'll pass that out at the end of the meeting if any of you guys want copies. That'd be great. But yeah, but we've kind of offered to help out with um some of the educational stuff and pulling together materials that they can share
to the the public. But yeah, really when Thomas came to me, I said, "Well, why don't you just come kind of workshop your ideas with the EAC before you before you go out to the public?" Um because you guys can help him. Any questions?
I got one more thing. Yeah, sure. So with whoever in the end you end up trying to get to spend the money, right? So whether it's the village or if it's, you know, the the business owners or plaza owners or whoever, you might
consider ways that you can incentivize that proposal to them so that there's something more than just I'm being kind of jaded here. Just selling them on the environmental benefits isn't always
going to work, right? I completely agree. So um recognition works well though, right? So any kind of incentivization that can include recognition would probably be helpful for whoever ends up spending the money
on it. I'll just add add a couple of thoughts to that too. I think it if you the suggestion to go out and talk to some business owners is is a really good one. Understand what they experience each day. Most consumers, including small
business owners, will take the path of lease resistance. They want something incorporated in their own routines. They probably don't want an extra cost burdened on them. If you could figure out how to design this solution inside of those
parameters, why wouldn't someone do it? But if there's a cost, if there's, hey, I got to go haul my stuff in my car to a different place and dump it off or I got to sort it out for the because the distribution center doesn't want to do that for me. I I think that's
when, you know, the uh participation rate starts to go down. Yeah. Especially for small businesses, any additional costs, it's tough. Yeah. I don't know how what the fees are, but um I know for a small business, any additional cost is
It's a lot. It's significant to them. So, we're just giving you all kinds of No, no. I I really appreciate it. Thank you. You can really, oh my god, what have I gotten into? I personally out of you know, if you have to pick and choose with recycling saying that um you know,
taking into account these owners and their resistance, right, to really do this. I think the most important would be plastic paper and glass. I mean, I think plastic one that I would focus on the most because that just sits forever in our
environment and yeah, I completely agree. I mean, the paper eventually it disintegrates eventually, right? But the plastic just stays and that's what I wanted to focus on. Okay, perfect. Here's something for you to consider, Thomas. Um, so today, imagine a shopping
center that has zero recycling. Okay? And so that means that that shopping center generates x amount of tonnage of waste that results in tipping fees that waste management has to pay them which
is built into the rates they charge us. Okay. But imagine if they had an active recycling program. It would reduce the tonnage that goes to the waste to energy facility or to a landfill. So there
would be a theoretical offset in the cost of trash and garbage collection and maybe that would help pay for the implementation of some or a portion of a recycling program
for commercial. So just keep that kind of theory in mind that I the numbers may not add up but in theory something there might be able to be used and it's a great selling point. I mean you tell people you're going to offset your trash you're going to offset your trash
collection and this will result in the fees not being as high. That's going to really help sell people. All right. Thank you very much Thomas. Um, thank you. I would urge uh if you don't mind, there is a way to email our
entire committee at once on the website. If you could keep us updated, it would be it'd be great for us and maybe helpful for you. So, I tried actually when I was first starting this project, emailing um a
couple people via the Tequesta website, some console members, before I came to the person who runs Jupiter Lighthouse, Mr. Dwit, when I tried using the website, it
actually did not work. It kept telling me that it was invalid. So, is there any way I could have whatever email address it's sent to where it'll get to all of you or maybe just one of your I'll send an I'll send an invite and copy Thomas and it'll have all of
their emails on it. So, yeah, that great that works. That's good to know. When was this? When you tried month ago. Wow. Okay. I have heard that that happens to people trying to do counsel and I didn't know that EAC had a
Everybody got we'll look at how we got that um the guy who had a problem with I think he sent it to all of us at once. Yeah. Good to know. Thank you. I forget. Yeah. Thank you very much for coming. Appreciate it. I really appre appreciate
um all of your advice. I really it does help a lot and uh I'm going to sit with everything that you you've told me and I really think that I'll have a great approach when I talk to the public and talk to these businesses. Don't hesitate to reach out if you need anything else. Thank you.
Thank you for doing it. All right. Do any of you guys want a copy? Great site. Thank you. Something my sister She is in eighth grade right now at Hawk
Middle School. She's going to high school next year. That's where my boys went for um digital arts. Would you like one? I like this better than commercialized one. This has more like Hey, get involved. Yeah. Yeah. I like it. Tell her we love it. I will. I'll be
sure. Up for good work. Yeah, that gets your attention. It's not a standard booking. All right. All right. Any other matters here?
All right. Anything else? No. Thank you, Thomas. Thank you, Thomas. I appreciate all of your time and thank you. Thank you. Great job. Have a nice day. Have a great summer. I will.
All right. Motion to adjourn. Okay. I make a motion to adjurnn. Second. All those in favor? I name. Can we take a group picture before? Oh, yeah. Yeah. All right. Yep. Today's the day.
Hold on a second. All right. You're not recording. Let's go to the New York Times. What do you want us to do? Stand. Maybe just stand together right in front of the Put the chairs in the back. Put the chairs in the back. So, you
don't have that. I was hoping the chairs were in recovery,