Code Advisory Committee - Regular Meeting

Schedule and sponsors for 2027, so that it will be ready for January, or at least in our December meeting. That's one item. I'd like to add an item called gopher tortoise sign. I believe Amber has the new sign. Not exactly a new sign, but we ordered 100 of those, and I think I'd like to use those. So that's additional gopher tortoise sign. And those are two things.

Okay, so we have the cleanup, sponsors, and gopher tortoise signs. And I would see them being added as 8E and 8F. Is that correct?

Yes.

E and F. So I can make a modified motion to accept the two additional items to the published agenda?

Second that.

Any other discussion? All those in favor? Aye. OK. So moved. Great. So we have approved the agenda as amended. The minutes from last time.

I'll make a motion to approve the minutes from the May meeting.

Do I have a second?

Second.

One, talk about a NIT. I don't even know that it's worth making a change, but in five, question should be questioned. Past tense. Again, a NIT. I'm not worried. With that said...

I had... My light is on.

Oh, sorry. Got to get used to this. Yes, John.

The only thing is when I went through the minutes, item 12 on a proposed new agenda... We had discussion about goals and objectives. And I had made a discussion that we need to perhaps a potential goal might be to have better synergy between Collier County and Marco Island because some of the thoroughfares to the beach are controlled by Collier County. Some are controlled by Marco Island. And there was a discussion by Member Lamb that there is a memorandum of understanding. I just wanted to make sure that we note that there's potentially a memorandum of understanding that we need to understand. That's the only thing that I had noticed in the minutes.

We can discuss that. What's the best way to discuss that item, Chair?

So we have a question. It's an interesting question. We have a couple of spots that that drops in, whether it's a project to try and reach out to the Collier County, which is what I lean towards, but we also, some of the crossings are falling under the beautification committee discussion also. Yes?

Because it is Collier County, I would like to defer with the abundance of caution of us not having to go ahead from city council. I think this is an issue that our committees allowed to interact or form their own relationship or liaison relationship with Collier County, vis-a-vis beaches. So I would like to defer that so that we will not be wasting our time and then saying, oh gee, city council should be discussing that issue and then we bless you to do that.

While I agree with that statement, one of the things you probably noticed that I like to do is have someone own a project. So whether it's talk to our internal staff about the best way to have these communications, whether it's communicate with city council in order to figure out whether they're going to handle that, or whether it's to reach out directly to the county. To me, that's a project, and it's one project, one owner. Would you be okay with considering that a project?

I've had a relationship with them in the past. For example, this committee initiated the Thorgard lightning detection, and it took a while. It took some money because it's TDC. So I can easily own that project going forward, but that's a vote to take.

And that's fine. We'll discuss that more when we get to projects. For right now, we're just trying to figure out about the minutes from last time. So I think we're amending the minutes from last time.

And the memorandum, I just think we need to understand what that memorandum of agreement is, at least to start with. So that's all that was. So I just want to make sure that's captured in a minute. Other than that, it was good.

OK. Seeing no other light signs, we'll just do a voice vote. All those in favor? Okay. Unanimous. Making my own notes here. Very good. Okay. We can move on to old business. We have in here the norms and procedures. So I think we have two different items to go over. We've discussed this a couple of times, and they still continue to be in the agenda. So Amber, I'm looking at you. Did you just not think we covered it well enough last spring, or is this something we like to do every six months or so?

There was a request up by Mr. Nesmith to bring it back to this meeting, I believe.

That explains it. Okay. So the The operating norms, I think we all received the piece of paper. I won't sit here reading them to you. But it is make a motion. Second the motion, debate the motion, vote, announce the result. That's the overall way of proceeding. The way we're doing it, the motion is really the only one that gets, you know, we tend to just signal, address the chair, state the motion clearly. Other than that, we also included the handbook for the committees. It's 12 pages. It goes through in a lot of detail. Was there any further thing you want, anything else you wanted to comment?

Yeah, I just wanted to make sure that the meetings run as efficient as possible, we get things done, and that we're respectful of each other and not talking over each other and being respectful of the time limits that we each have to speak and make sure we're staying on topic as well.

Okay, so I think what you're addressing more is use the light signs.

Yeah, let's use the light signs, make sure we're using that. That's our request to speak. And, yeah, just follow that Robert rules of order.

Okay.

Just please be respectful of the other members' time, provide any input. So no cutting each other off. Just to make sure everything runs smooth and there's no issues.

Very good. Understood. Any further discussion on that? Okay. The budget. So this is the end of the year. The budget sits in front of you. For anyone that had a question about why our budget went up, that was due to Member Lam's efforts to bring in donations for the shirts. So since we don't have a shirt account anymore, it became an addition to the Oh, something's flashing. That became an addition to our budget, which, of course, we immediately spent. So in with the new, out with the old. I said that backwards, but you get the idea. So in addition to the budget, we are going to be talking about two different invoices today. Just so everyone knows, one of them is the Audubon Society and the other one is the Tortoise Signs. The Audubon Society invoice will be in this budget if it is approved. The Tortoise Sign invoice will likely be in next year's budget. So that's a distinction I wanted this group to know. The other piece of the puzzle here, and then I'll open it more to discussion, is we are going to have money left in the budget after all of that. And I'd like to discuss what we're going to do with that. So before I dive down that rabbit hole, any discussion on the current budget and let's not get into the invoices, we'll take those in order. Amber.

Just one note, I double-checked. I know you were talking about the beautification committee. They already have their meeting for the month. So even if you transferred money to them, they can't spend it before the end of the budget year.

So Amber has anticipated my statement and gotten rid of it. So we are done on that issue. Other than... Noting where we are and leaving some money on the table, I will also add that our budget for next year has been cut to $5,000 by the city council. I actually, from a personal standpoint, think that's a reasonably good number. So I was reasonably happy with that. So before we move on, anything else anyone wants to talk about on the budget? No.

So that budget cut, was that just because we weren't spending the amount each year over year?

That's just my understanding. The interesting part about that is that would have been the expected answer. Yeah. So it may as well have been that. But no, it's everyone, to my knowledge, took a budget cut just because we're all tightening our belt.

Oh, yeah.

Understood. Thank you. All right. Did I skip? I don't see public. Did I skip over public? You did. I did. I skipped over public comment. That's my error, but since I don't see anyone from the public out there, I think I'm okay. And with that, Brittany, are you going to come up and present? We all know Brittany, but I'll let you take it from here.

Good morning Brittany Piercema Audubon Western Everglades this will be very brief I only have two slides but I'm going to give an update on specifically our shorebird and burrowing owl program and thank you all for the continued support So to start off, we do stewardship for shorebirds year-round. Last winter, myself and our steward, with a lot of volunteers, surveyed residents, Dickman's Island, Sand Dollar, Pelican Bay, and Clampass in North Naples. Our stickers that we used this past season that say, I give birds space, made a lot of people happy on the beach. It was kind of like an added bonus. So we used them two ways for people that are doing really good. We just give them a sticker and then have a little conversation for people who are walking through the birds. We pull them aside, have a little education moment, and if they stay and listen to us for at least two minutes, then we give them a sticker afterwards. So either way, it gets a good education out there. So we had educated 2,414 citizens. We did 139 surveys. Throughout all those surveys, we counted 44 total bird species, and 970 banded birds. Some of those bands can be the same bird seen several times, but it still counts. We rescued 68 birds as well. Also appreciate the help of code enforcement and all of our volunteers that help transport birds to the Conservancy of Southwest Florida. Then we had summer. So summer our coverage is Dickman's point Audubon, Florida covers sand dollar Dickman's point has been an area near CACS and this that has had Increased in decrease of birds checking it out for nesting habitat Our only nesting species in Collier County are black skimmers lease turns Wilson's plodier clover kill deer and now we have officially added American oyster catchers to that list They have not successfully nested yet, but they have laid eggs in the ground and hatched out chicks, and sadly, those chicks were predated the last two summers. So, we are working with FWC, Rookery Bay, and Audubon Florida, trying to find ways to ensure that their habitat can be the safest possible. Of course, reducing any trash on the beach is really ideal, and ensuring that we have less predators drawn to these areas where birds are nesting. and giving them plenty of space. Black skimmers and lease terns did nest on Second Chance, and then lease terns attempted nesting on Marcos City Beach, closer to South Seas area. They sadly only fledged 12 chicks in that colony on the city beach, so not really enough to help with the population, but they are trying to find habitat where they have. Sadly, this is the first season in decades that we have had no nesting of Wilson's plovers on Sand Dollar, adding to the fact that we haven't had either black skimmers or lease terns successfully nest out there either. So we are trying to ensure that we can keep habitat the best we can wherever we can. We are monitoring closely both avian flu, but also just sick birds in general. We tend to get a lot of sick birds during migration in our area, and part of this can be involved with our water quality issues in the island, which I was really happy to see that code enforcement has a boat going around now. I think that is incredible, incredible support to helping looking at any of our runoff issues on the island, so we definitely are appreciative of that. But we are continuing to take water samples Around Marco Island, at 14 sites, we do it twice a month. And then we also collect any deceased birds that are fresh enough for testing. We send those off to NOAA, and they are comparing both the bird livers to the water testing results to look at the toxins and comparing them. By November, maybe December, we should have a report on our one-year efforts to look at those comparisons. I am not a water quality expert, so I rely on NOAA, and then, of course, FWC helps us out with necropsies, so I'm happy to come back and present their summarized version of the report once we have it. For burrowing owls, of course we're doing year-round monitoring for burrowing owls, and we monitor not only Marco Island, but areas in Naples. We are having some owls that are dispersing to different areas of Naples, so it's taking a lot of effort to ensure we can find where these boroughs are ending up, and then educating new communities that always pop up. I just finished going through our 25 to 26 data, and I will be presenting that at our end of season volunteer party in November. If any of you would like to attend, feel free to reach out to me. You're welcome to come listen. But I will have all the full results of this season in November, and then we can present them as well. But just to give you a little heads up, we had 373 naturally dug sites and 173 starter borough sites. Also, a week ago, I got my master's degree, and I presented 10 years of OWL data. So I am happy to come back at any time that you have a little bit more time. to go through more extensive. I won't get too statistical on you, but it'll give you a good understanding of how the population has really changed in the last 10 years. We looked at habitat, we looked at nesting, used a lot of different things to really go for that. So I'm very happy to be able to present that to you as well. This season, we had a very cold and dry start to our season. So we did have not a lot of nesting in the early beginning of the season. We didn't see much going on, and then we did have several sites that owls were kicking out eggs that just weren't viable. So a good indication of that means that the females just aren't suitable. They don't have enough food sources or what they need to have viable eggs. It can happen any year, but it was very, very dry. uh we just recently started getting rain and they're done with nesting but they had a little bit of a peak rain mid-nesting season and they still did very well we also had our first owl pair show up in goodland goodland is very shelly rocky habitat so they were hanging out at someone's house we tried digging a starter burrow in a dugout tree area and they actually went to it right away but then they left So whether or not it's just not a good habitat for them to dig in, it was just interesting that they really are dispersing and trying to find habitat nearby. Our starter burrow program is still succeeding on the island, and we need starter burrows more than ever now. So if you know anyone, feel free to send them our way. This is a good time of year as the rains will start settling down towards winter, because the owls are going to start pairing up in November, December, and then they're going to be nesting, excuse me, they're gonna be nesting again in january so it seems like we just ended nesting season and they're gonna start right back up so it's a good time to dig starter bros uh we banded the most owls that we ever have our highest year on record so far and i'll give you all those numbers in the future our rat poison outreach is continuing we are getting a lot of success working with condos and we're doing a lot of outreach and education to businesses nearby but we're always looking for help of anyone that has ideas Sadly, we had our highest mortality on record. We found 47 deceased owls this season. A lot of those we are saving for testing, but it costs about $500 to test a burr and all liver for rat poison, so we are looking for funding from grants and other options to be able to continue to test owls and figure out what's going on. It is weed whack season. So I know that people are reporting things here and there. We weed whack around 300 to 400 sites on Marco Island. We try to get to everyone once a month. So if we ever fall behind on a site, feel free to yell at me and call me over and we'll take care of it. But we try to keep up with them the best we can. This time of year, owls really aren't using their burrows as much. You'll find them at front doorways, trees, nearby, just hiding out. So they're not suffering by the grasses being high. They have their spots, but we do like to keep them maintained, of course, for appearance as well. And as I said, it's starter burrow season, so we are looking to dig starter burrows on any properties that people are willing to let us dig. And that is all. I thank you so much for all your support. If you have any questions, if you have time, feel free.

So first and foremost, congratulations on getting your master's. That's awesome. Thank you so much. I have a few questions, but let me just open it and see. Does anyone else? No? Then I will jump in. Has anything changed out on Sand Dollar that we should be aware of that is causing the nesting to fail out there?

Habitat changes, of course, are going to change where birds are coming and going. We have seen no success in nesting since the Drudge Project. So there's a lot of altering to habitat from there that we can look into. It can change predators as well. So, you know, birds will change and come and go, but habitat is a big indicator that I don't think people really realize how much Birds look at just even sand of where to nest, so if you change the sand, if it's a different substrate, if there's different vegetation, they just change where they're going. So it's a question that only birds can fully answer, but I can tell you that since the dredge project, we haven't had any successful nesting out there.

How long ago was the project, the dredge project? I'd have to go into the exact years now.

2022.

2022, okay, so four years ago, and then still nothing in four years. That's typical, though, that amount of time?

Of not coming back? Yeah. I mean, they're redoing it constantly. So the habitat is constantly being dredged out, changed. They're still taking anything from the north tip that they can within their permit. So they have a permit for about 15 years.

All right. There's more of a... A personal question, I've stopped one day when you were doing something with the owls to show you or to tell you that there were owls in the culverts. And then like the next day or maybe a couple of days later, the owls in the culverts were gone. Did you do something or was that just a natural thing?

Owls love hanging out in culverts until we start getting too much rain, and then obviously it's not a great spot to hang out, especially fledglings that are trying to find their own territory now. They end up in culverts because it's just a safe spot to hide until they can find a spot to burrow. So this time of year, it's very common. We have one that's hanging out at a culvert kind of near the Winterberry area right now amongst the sidewalk construction. So the city's doing a great job in keeping them safe too, but very common.

Okay, great. You made a comment about the trash on the beaches being a strong negative. We, of course, run trash cleanups all the time. Are you seeing any buildup, or is it a general comment, or is it a comment on a trend?

General message, yeah. You guys have been doing great. And I even said props to the hotels because when I first started six years ago, a lot of the morning times would be chaos of trash. And whatever they've changed at those hotels has been great. It's a lot of good cleanup out there.

Well I actually credit some of the members of the committee here for getting into the hotels and getting them out there and I've seen them more, them coming out en masse to join our cleanups and so I thank you for acknowledging that.

Yeah and it goes to all areas so just the messages in general to even boaters that are going on in Dickmans or landing on Sand Dollar, anything you leave behind definitely is drawing predators so always make sure to pack it up and take it with you.

I only have one other comment, and that is I would welcome the necropsy report when you get it. And I know Member Martz really likes the statistical analysis, so he'll dive in and, you know, so we always like seeing you here, and it really supports what we're trying to do.

Sounds good. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Let's talk dollars and cents. We have an invoice here from the Audubon Society for $2,500 that we need to approve or disapprove. So let's start with any motion here?

I make a motion to approve the invoice, $2,500, to Audubon Western Everglades.

Second that motion.

Okay.

Any discussion on it? All those in favor?

Aye.

OK. Unanimous. Great. Next up is the gopher tortoise strike mitigation, I believe. I'm going from memory. There it is. John, you want to?

Certainly. So I first of all want to think if we can bring up the PowerPoint Martin, I'd like to thank Public Works for Working with this committee in particular me to make sure that we put the signs where they were most impactful So I wanted to start by thanking Public Works again, and here's some of the folks that helped put in the last set of them so Phase one, as I called it, is complete, and they are having effect. A couple things of note. We had mentioned in the meeting when we approved this that we wanted to put a duration, so we had them add the 200 foot. I think that's a great idea, so we've got that in place now. And those are now up and running. So thank Public Works for all the work to help us get those in the right spots this time.

We're on to the next page, which I don't have a clicker.

We have a new one that we've been made aware of, and that's why I called it Phase 2, and it's on Barfield. And we think it's an existing nest that they keep coming and going from, and there's an existing sign. I don't have a pointer, but if you look at the right picture, there's an existing sign. that's facing the other direction we want one on the opposite side of the street going the other direction which is why I put the little star for proposed sign and there's an aerial of exactly where it is it's really just to help that that that nest there so if you go to the next slide I'm making a motion there's a slight delay, for adding an additional sign near that gopher tortoise nest near 797 Barfield at zero cost. And the reason it's at zero cost, and this may change, is that for the motion that I did in April, We have remaining in that motion $681 so we can pay for the new sign in that existing money that's already been allocated Problem is that's the budget that's about to disappear in two weeks. So There may be a cost with it But I just want to really motion that we want to put another sign there. I I'd like to talk about the cost later because member Lamb mentioned that there are some signs that may be already available that we could reuse. So I'd like to make a motion that we put a sign there. We'll talk about later the cost. So that's my motion is to add an additional sign near 797 at zero cost.

So do I have a second?

Second that, please.

Discussion?

Well, you mentioned that there's $681. Would we want to purchase two additional signs and have those at the ready in case something like this pops up again?

Good point. The problem is we can't spend it in time to get it invoiced by the end of the fiscal year. So that money is going to go away, which is the problem. When this original PowerPoint was created for the meeting that we didn't have, that would have been OK.

due to reasons we didn't have that meeting. So there's no way for us to approve it now and just to have the extra sign?

Good question. The problem is we have to approve it. The city has to get it procured. We have to receive it, and the signs are up in Fort Myers. The signs have to be received, and then we have to be invoiced for it, and all that will take longer than we have in this month left. Okay. Thank you for explaining.

Can I piggyback on that?

Please.

Okay. Now, you mentioned that there will be a discussion on the new agenda on a different type of Gulf of Georgia sign that are all paid for that we could actually might have the possibility of just using those for the meantime. Yep. Just as a directional and caution. Agree. Absolutely. Yep. Thank you.

So to clarify, we are approving the sign, not the spend?

Correct.

Zero cost. So zero cost. Could we call the roll?

Member Quinlan?

Yes.

Member Lam? Yes. Member Morris? Yes. Vice Chair Nesmith?

Yes.

Chair Ritchie?

Yes. Okay, great. Before we move on to a different topic, you already got your kudos up front, so I'm just going to throw you a different bouquet, and that is by submitting the article to the Coastal Breeze, I think you did something over and above, and I just want to give another little tip of the hat here. And I encourage all of you to do this. And that is, when you have a project, when you work on it, it's on behalf of this committee. It's great to get the public awareness up of what we're doing. And the article was well written and well received.

The only other thing I'd like to add is Week News also did a piece on us. Oh. And it was, my claim to fame was about two and a half seconds. I think everything else ended up on the cutting room floor. Brittany was one of the stars, but we did it out at one of the Gopher Tortoise sites, and Week News was there, so that was another way to get some outreach.

Great. Thanks. All right. Let's move on to project updates. So I went through the projects that we had outstanding from last year. The only one I saw still outstanding is the brochures. We had it on the agenda to discuss last time, but since there was a spend involved, we decided to just make it part of our general discussion here today. We had approved doing the brochures. I had volunteered to take a pass at them. I circulated something in the spring. The comments that went around, I received multiple comments, but probably the most notable comment was actually from Member Scarpa, who liked the old brochure better than what I came up with. And unfortunately, I don't have the ability to make the old brochure. I have certain tools. I don't do this for a living. So that's the reason that that came to a screeching halt. So I think we have to wait until Member Scarpa is on the line. Maybe we put it on the agenda for next meeting to discuss how we're going to move forward with the brochure. But my suggestion is we go back to our original plan, which is not have the free help do it. Maybe we send this one out to the professionals. With that, I'd like to bring up the new potential projects. And if anything resonates with anybody, by all means, step up. I'll be taking notes here. And I know I should write this down so I don't double count. Member Lam has said that the MOU with the county project investigating that will be, you'll take the lead on that, correct?

Yes, thank you.

Great. Councillor Gray had mentioned a series of statements and Before I start listing them, let's be clear. We only have so many hours in the day. So let's try and do this by priority. And if we get through one in a couple of months, we'll pick up one that didn't get picked up this time. So... He would like us to examine whether the city is getting sufficient cooperation for the shared responsibilities. Oh, with Collier County for the shared responsibilities for the beaches. I guess that falls into yours. Yeah. So there we go. One down. Police warnings and citations could identify harmful behaviors and guide educational efforts for residents and tourists. I'm going to lump that together with another one that Councilor Champagne brought up that he would He would actually like us to work with law enforcement to see what kind of protections we can do for the beaches and what kind of complaints we're getting out there. I see both of these as being, we'll call it more of an investigation up front, but working with law enforcement to find out Are some of these issues, are they real? Do we currently have ordinance in place to cover them and then we're just not enforcing? Or do we need new ordinances? And only then will we look at whether we should take the lead on creation of such an ordinance like we did before or whether we go back to council on this. So this is purely an investigatory role, but it's directly with city council. I mean with law enforcement. Does that resonate with anyone?

Yes, but this thing is not going. My bell is ringing.

You're oh you're up there now Yes, and that's because while I was talking others jumped in so amber I Just wanted to make one note about our agenda.

Yes this discussion I did have under review of City Council committee requests under new business right before goals and objectives.

Just oh What is so is projects simply supposed to be the old projects? Yes Oh, then we did that

No. Just no.

So the only thing left from the old projects was the brochure. So we started with that, and what she's saying is I lumped them all together.

Oh, okay.

I will accept my rebuke and move on.

All right.

Okay, under new business.

Wait a second. I'm a little confused.

I don't blame you. Oh. Is that where you were going to or is that related to that? Okay.

You were talking about law enforcement, whether it is worth investigating. Are we doing it now? Is it something we can do? Since April, this has been a hot topic with City Council. And I was going to bring it up. It is on the website of the Marco Island Police Department, all the issues they are enforcing on the beach. And it's called the Nightly Activity Beach Report. And I know we haven't discussed it because we were on a summer break, and we are ending the sea turtle season in October. I would like to take like two minutes to let you know exactly all the items that are under law enforcement.

And I would like to hear that. Can we do that under the agenda item that Amber has put into that?

Yes, yes. Thank you.

Okay. So doing things in proper order. We're in new business now. Committee meeting schedules is up next. Because I made my notes in the order I just read them, I'm going to be confused now. All right. So has everyone had an opportunity? I hope everyone's had an opportunity to review the meeting schedule. Does anything stand out for anyone that...

Just one note on that. The city council voted to change the committee meeting schedules. And so what you're looking at right now is available meeting dates. You need to remove three. During the year, you have a potential to add two workshops on a topic of your choice. It was suggested, I believe, in the city council meeting, and we have our city council member who clarified even better, that you do, like we have been doing, a break in the summertime.

I don't want to make you uncomfortable. Did you have something you wanted to? Fantastic. Okay. So thank you for that clarification. And Member Quinlan attended that meeting, that city council meeting in my stead. Was there any further discussion we should be aware of other than the fact that what our numbers are?

No, just I went through our kind of an update of what the team is doing and what our goals and objectives are, and there was some feedback that you've captured. So, yeah.

Okay. Great. So if – I assume everyone would be okay with taking the summer off. Oh, Maria?

Okay. Okay. We are one of – we're the only committee that meet 10 months a year, I believe, we take the summer off. And I think the city council is saying you might add on maybe a workshop. Is that what they're saying? Two workshops. We already have one workshop, which is the sea turtle workshop that we coordinate with law enforcement and the county and everybody involved. So that's a workshop, meet and greet presentation. We can do that as a workshop. So we've always been doing that. So we can claim that as a workshop. Not to reinvent the wheel.

Yeah, I don't think we have an obligation to use our workshop time. And given the fact that workshop requires, one of the points of the workshop is that we occupy this room, we take staff time to do all that, and what you just described is generally out there. No, we're here. I guess we did do it in here, didn't we? But the point is making it available to the city. I'm not entirely sure we have to worry about that as a workshop, but I'm sure we can if we chose to, to make it in that way we could make it televised.

I can say that we can claim that heretofore as a workshop vis-a-vis check that off our list. Yes, we've been doing it. We continue to do it.

Right. While I appreciate the legalese, that makes me feel comfortable. I don't know that checking off a workshop is helpful for our statistics or something, but your point is well taken. Thank you. Chair? Yes. Oh.

Sorry. I just want to, when we did the workshop, maybe it's a couple of years ago, on the burrowing owls and their rodenticide, the effect of rodenticide on that. That was a perfect opportunity to have a focus where we could spend the entire time talking about that. We didn't have to worry about a lot of other things getting in the way. Those are the kind of projects I think we should focus on a workshop going forward. Something like that that's self-contained. Rodenticide was a good example. Something like that in the future. And I support that we're trying to reduce we want to reduce the impact on the city so reducing the meetings But not as many as we just reduced Yeah, I agreed Vice chair Nesmith your name came up and then went down.

That's okay. So just for my clarification. All right, so we have on that meeting schedule we have there's 11 dates on there and out of those 11 dates were supposed to remove three and But then three of those can be, we can add in as workshops, is that correct?

So two of them can be workshops, but they aren't necessarily dates that we're going to put down. They're going to be what I'll call more ad hoc. So take the rodenticide workshop. If we want to do that, like, so this is purely our set scheduled dates for meetings.

Okay, gotcha. And then we have to choose which ones we want to remove? That's correct. Okay. And in July isn't on there? Because we normally don't do one in July in the first place. Gotcha.

Okay. So now that I'm understanding what was in front of me better, I believe this was our schedule for this year, correct?

This upcoming year, yes.

Okay. So with that, I think the naturals to drop are the June and August, making our summer off. Any thoughts on that?

I concur. The only issue is budget-wise. If we get into trouble with budgets and we need to spend some money near the end of the fiscal season and we're off for, at this point now, June, July, and August. I'm not sure that that's the best cadence.

That did come back to haunt us this year a little bit.

I think definitely July. I'm good with July, but you may want to... No, you're not wrong.

That... Having dealt with the budget stuff, I agree. So you're saying you want to keep August, and I think I actually agree with that now that we talked through it. Okay. So we've got two more to drop.

Maybe the May one?

So start our summer early, basically.

Yeah, start later. Okay. That would be my thought, unless I don't know how the holidays are for people.

I immediately went to our audit. I was dealing so much in May with the audit, but I guess I don't. Wrong committee, sorry. So everyone seems good with dropping June. Everyone good with dropping May? Okay. So we have one more. We have, so we're doing a whole long string in a row. How about taking a month off in the middle, like January?

It's season. January is when we vote on a chair, right?

Oh, okay. Then we don't want to take that one off. Maybe December, around the holidays? So, yeah, that would be the other one, I'd say. We're going to have four on one side of it and three on the other, no matter what. So that would leave December. We good? All right.

Repeat which ones we're dropping.

So we would be dropping May, June, and December.

Well, I thought we had July dropped, too.

They're not on here in the first place.

Oh, yeah. This list. Yep. Okay.

Okay. So I don't know if we need a vote on this. It doesn't seem like we should, but we'll see.

And then just for clarification, the months that we dropped would be December, would be May, June, July, and December. If we wanted to put in a workshop, that would be the window that we would put in a workshop, correct?

Not necessarily. We can put workshops in any time. Doubling up in a month with a workshop is not a real big problem. We did it last year with, in November we had two. I get that it can get challenging, but I'm simply saying... Not precluded. Not precluded. Okay. Amber, do we need a vote on this, or do you just take notes and we move on?

No, do not vote. I'll just take notes on this at this point.

That's what I thought. So just since you were around the corner, we're...

I'm sorry, Martin. Back and forth. Yes, you do need to vote on what your proposed schedule is.

Okay. So... I think I need a motion to drop May, June, and December from our schedule.

Vice Chairman Nesmith, a motion to drop those dates. I will second that.

Any further discussion? We'll just do this by voice vote. All those in favor? Aye. Review of City Council Committee Requests. Okay. So that's where you had me. All right, back to it. Just gotta find it again. So why don't we start with the discussion that Member Malam started about the police?

Oh, well, you ready for that?

I think we're in the right place now.

We're in new business?

We're in new business under review of city council committee requests.

I have three items on that that was previously put in the minutes, and that was the approval of the beach cleanup schedule. So let me just kind of quickly, this will be quicker.

No, we're doing the committee, the council committee requests. Oh, that's the council? So that was when I had brought up that we have two separate requests, one based on noise on the beach and the other based on just generally harmful behaviors and guide educational efforts for residents and tourists, but to look at police warnings and citations in that area. So let's stick to that one for right now.

Okay. Since April, do I have – okay, are we on? Since April, it is the initiative of our city manager, Dr. Lucius, to put together a BEATS report, which is nightly activity. So since April, May, June – They've been on the beach. Our MIPD, not code, has been on the beach every day. And one of those, and I'm gonna list, go down the list of the items that they check, because these are all law enforcement. It's not us, it's not volunteers, it is law enforcement. It's also a data collection, so at the end of the season, law enforcement and the city manager is gonna look at this and see how we can improve certain ordinance or maybe remove ordinance that are not anymore, that are not being enforced. Okay, beach activity includes the number of fishermen, the number of poles, number of spectators, the use of drones, the use of kayaks, are fishing licenses verified? So those are all law enforcement action. And on the sea turtle violation, We have number of building lights, number of pedestrian lights, man-made objects, which is Section 53, DAS 151C3, and other violations. Now, let me read you a sample of a report that an MIPD under Sergeant, I'm not going to name the name, and it says, on August 28th, I conducted beach patrol. During this patrol, I observed two groups of fishermen. The first group was on South Beach, consisting of two fishermen, five poles, one spectator, and a drone. That means they're using the drone. Permits and fishing licenses were verified. No violations were observed at this time. The second group was located on South Beach. four fishermen, four poles. Permits and fishing licenses were verified. There were three individuals younger than 16, and they were advised of the code regarding sea turtle protection. Both groups advised they will comply. The same report, it says that a noise complaint was lodged, meaning people on the beach called up night and for people partying on the beach. This is past 9 p.m. Upon arrival, I took a decibel reading with the agency's noise meter, which resulted in blank decibel. The group consisted of 20 individuals spectating fishing of the same group, etc. I informed the group of the noise violation, and they advised they were leaving. While responding to the complaint, I observed 10 chairs, again, on the man-made objects that are not going to be on the beach, and one table in violation of the sea turtle code. I informed the group, and they removed the chairs, tables, which means it's immediate compliance, so no warnings or NOVs were issued. On the same day, this was a very busy day, I located, again, other fishermen with poles, and they had two chairs, one cart, and one flashlight, which means it's a handheld device and has white light, again, They were informed of the code and immediate compliance. So this is an entire section of man-made objects on the beach being enforced nightly. Now in the month of July and August, the reporting is like 12 nights a month. Okay, there, there. This is in addition to code going in specifically for sea turtle lights. So just showing to you the extent of this report. And it is on the website for people to see. And at the end of the season, we're going to get data on all of this collected and see where we can improve things. So this is very detailed. So in my opinion, unless Councilor Swan is going to see other areas where we can improve, I think let's wait for the data to come up. I WOULD SAY BY NOVEMBER.

IS THIS A GOOD TIME TO SPEAK, COUNCILOR?

COUNCILOR, MARTIN, CAN YOU BRING UP THAT SLIDE THAT I SUBMITTED TO YOU? So you should have in your screen, it's an example of a nightly activity beach report during turtle season. And actually the date on it is 8-28-26. So respectfully, Chair, I would like to say when you refer to the city councilors who specifically asked for issues to be looked at by your committee, I did bring up the nesting sea turtles so I wanted the full committee to know that this is an issue that I've been working on and then I know that you sent me a follow-up email in that regard and I shared with you it was best as this is a wonderful data collection item that we wait till the end of season the six months October 31 where we can compile all of it But I would like you all to know also that I have been reporting to city council about this on a monthly basis with the numbers and the summaries for each month, and I continue to do that. I also, this was an initiative of Dr. Lucius, our city manager, and I speak to her weekly about it. I'm monitoring this very closely because we just need to do whatever we can do to protect our nesting sea turtle population. But as you can see here, MIPD, they don't do this nightly, but right now they're averaging they're out there 12 or 13 times within the month. When they first started out, they were doing it nightly, but of course there's manpower issues. But they have been reporting, and all this does get reported, these reports, on the MIPD website. So any of you can access that at any time also. But it is important to compile the monthly numbers. I know I'll be presenting to council once we get that last month in for October. I'll be presenting to council and saying that we're going to be reviewing it and of course you all can be looking at it too to see if we do need to make changes that we can better protect our nesting sea turtles and also help our code enforcement in that regard. But here's one of those reports. I just thought you'd like to see it. They're very detailed, and it's all about the enforcement and working with the community. So that's what I just wanted to share with you.

Very much appreciated and really like the efforts. Anything we can do to support what you're doing, just please, whether it's now or later, please let us know.

Thank you. I think right now we're just going to get our final numbers in for the season, the end of October, and then that will be a time to start analyzing it and moving forward to see if there are changes that we need in our ordinance.

Okay. Thank you. Great. Thank you. All right, so I think to summarize, we have a lot of data out there. So I think what I'm hearing is that we do not need a project right now to sit down with law enforcement to try and figure this out. We need some of this data to come in and then maybe do some analysis. Just my own summary. Anyone else have anything? OK. Next one. More vehicles appear to be operating on the beach, raising concerns about compliance with tire pressure requirements and possible beach damage. I'm not sure. Does that fall into that same category? Member Lam.

Yes, because under our sea turtle, and remember one time we talked about these vehicles on the beach during the daytime in terms of temperature. a tire pressure, okay? And this is different. One of the reasons I believe, I think, that they lessen the beach patrol at night from 30, 31 days to 12 is because to limit the number of vehicles on the beach at night during sea turtle season. It's hatchling season now, and those tiny little things are very difficult to see, especially with our amber lights. So that is being addressed right now from the reduction on the vehicles on the beach. Only permitted vehicles are there at night. So again, what is this bringing? I think it answers that question, does it?

Okay. I concur. So no other lights on. We will move on to the next one. A Hilton expansion could place additional pressure on beach resources. I'm not entirely sure where we come in on that one. I know the words beach resources are there, but other than that, I don't see where we fit. But I'll entertain thoughts. No? Okay. Public education is viewed as an important way to encourage responsible beach use and protect sensitive wildlife habitats. I like to think we're already doing that. Does anyone want to opine on that?

Just maybe at our cleanups, we do have the brochures that we bring to our cleanups usually. We just maybe need to make a mental note as we're there to make sure that we're making the public aware that we have additional pamphlets or additional information if they want them.

Do we have any pamphlets left? Because I haven't been bringing them for a long time.

Not sure. I'm not sure if we do.

Yeah, the last, it's been four years that I know of that we have not printed any brochure on the beach. So inventory-wise, I might ask Amber to look at the boxes underneath your desk, anything that pertains to beaches.

Which brochures you there's a kids brochure and then there's another Marlboro Island Beach brochure You did request me and we are very low I didn't bring that back with a quote because we can't spend get this stuff by the end of the budget year But I can bring that back again if you're injured one question, okay 30 seconds on this amber This is the one we're very low on Correct and you gave me a quote of how much the order is

300 at one point, right? My experience with the Beats brochure, they are meant to replenish certain areas of Marco Island, City Hall, Chamber of Commerce, hotels in this. And yet we have this on our website. So we'd rather drive people to the website because when we get this out on the beach, we're just going to find that's trash.

I'm glad you added that last part because I noticed the exact same thing. We do not want to provide people with potential trash. But if there was some history that said we got some benefit out of doing it, certainly would open that up again. All right. So to me, I think what we're saying is status quo, we've got the video, we're creating some other brochures, but I don't see a project here. Tourist-generated trash is seen as a growing problem with residents spending too much time cleaning it up. I think you've just described a problem on every beach in America. So... I'm not sure what to do with that. We could advocate for doing more beach cleanups, but the only way I see us doing that would be the only months we take off from beach cleanup is Tiger Tail month, in which case a different group is doing Tiger Tail Beach. We can, of course, continue to do ours. It's a different group. But I see it somewhat as competitive, and I don't really love that idea. John?

The only thing I would think about is during our cleanups, when we have a large group that shows up, we should try to split the group and send part of the group north. just have them walk to say Winterberry and go Winterberry north because when we have large groups that are going through the same area south of Winterberry that everybody else has gone through, maybe we need to take the opportunity to split and go north because as you go between Marriott and Winterberry, I think there's some potential for some trash in there that we don't always get to.

I think we can do that when we're starting at residence beach. But when we start at south beach, the southern part is so small, it can be handled by a few people. And it's usually the people that like to go down to the rocks and dig up tires. So Vice Chair Nesmith.

All right. I know that we have had this brought up to us before where we just didn't have enough trash cans along the beach access points. Now I know that's going to be done with our big project that will hopefully start next summer. But maybe we can do something with adding a little bit more trash cans around. Towards the right, when you're leaving the beach, towards the beginning of the boardwalk, maybe we can add another can or two, because I know those are always overflowing, so maybe that's part of what's causing the people not to dump the trash as much.

There's no space?

All right, we've got a line forming here on that one. But one more point. We did have some extra money that we could potentially use, right?

Extra money?

That we tried to pass off to the BAC?

So let me just address that first. And that is, because we lost our August meeting, we lost our opportunity to do anything with any extra money or the like. Please. They did. OK. There goes one.

OK. This is an ongoing issue. The trash cans on South Beach, as you know, there is an equal number of yellow tops recyclable and equal number of green, which is trash. The county does an excellent job cleaning that area because they know they get a snapshot of it from me if it doesn't get cleaned up. Winterberry is a problem. The bridge has become... where all the trash go right there underneath. Because we only have green top trash cans there. We have one recycle out of 14 cans. The recycle is on the top of the boardwalk up there. So by the time people leave the beach, when so does everything else, they all end up down the pit underneath the boardwalk. It has been addressed. And we don't want to be a nudge because those trash cans are expensive. We need at least three yellow top recycled wildlife-proof trash cans. And according to Councilor Swan, they are on order.

Okay. Yeah, I believe what she's saying is the three yellow tops are on order. Oh, gotcha. Okay. MEMBER QUINLIN.

THE ONLY THING I WANTED TO ADD IS, MEMBER LAMB IS CORRECT, WINTERBERRY, ESPECIALLY DURING HOLIDAYS, IS A DISASTER. UNTIL THEY COME OUT AND CLEAN IT, AND THEY'RE VERY DILIGENT IN CLEANING IT. BUT THE COLLIER COUNTY TRAILER THAT DRIVES DOWN THE BEACH EVERY MORNING LEAVES FROM TIGERTAIL, GOES ALL THE WAY DOWN TO SOUTH BEACH, PICKS UP SOUTH BEACH. HE WILL DRIVE AROUND TRASH THAT'S ON THE BEACH ON THE WAY. because it's not within his purview, which is part of why I think we need to have a little better synergy between us and Collier County, but be that as it may, he drives down, picks up at South Beach, and then drives back to Tigertail. Where we're lacking trash cans, and this is, it's difficult because of hurricane season, is right at Tigertail. So as you're walking from, like, Residence Beach north, when you hit Tigertail, there's a sign there that says Big Marco Preserve, I would like to try to figure out how we can get a trash can there because anyone that walks from there north to Sand Dollar Point and all that coming back, there's no trash. And the argument that we'll get from Collier County is you have to empty it. Well, that guy is driving by it every day to get to South Beach. He could empty it every day.

I have a question. answer to that question, which is not what we want to hear. By that sign, it's state-owned. It's critical wildlife area. So you will have to be out of the kindness of the county people to at least, and where will you put that trash can? I mean, you walked there. Will you give us a snapshot last night?

I have a snapshot. I can send it to Martin.

Well, so I'll continue Maybe that's part of my liaison with Collier County.

Let's at least have the conversation. Let's see what they say.

All right. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay. The overriding goal should be to preserve Marco Island's beaches for future generations through thoughtful long-term management strategy. That is not a project, but it is a nice thought. All right, the next one, and the next one is the one I had for Councilor Schwann, which she already addressed, so thank you for taking care of that. And Councilor Gray suggested that, no, we already did those. Where's, did I misplace Councilor Champagne?

I think that was the law enforcement.

I think you might be right. Okay. Well, if that is – oh, wait a minute. I think I found something here. He has the noise which you just referenced. Mm-hmm. You'll be happy to know that Councillor Champagne threw you a few bouquets for your work on the turtles. So the only thing left that I see here is, is there anything we can do that particularly, which is particularly bad during spring breaks, about the nightly beach scene? And I put that in quotes. It's progressively gotten worse during each year to the point where groups of young people are raising havoc to condo owners with the noise they are creating. So again, I think that falls into the, that category. So I think we may have closed out this subject with a fair amount of overlap. So I think we're good here. Anything else anyone wants to bring up on this topic? I'm seeing no light signs. I'm moving on. Goals and objective discussion. So with With the change of budgets, we previously had a set of goals and objectives. We've looked at them numerous times. I don't know if... Martin, do you have them to put on the screen? Your microphone isn't on.

Thank you again. There are two documents. This is the goals and objectives, and there is an additional document that has funding for some of the specific goals and objectives, items under those. This was developed under two committees past, I believe.

Okay, so the reason, and thank you for the clarification, but the reason I was bringing it up, tying it together, and we do have to do it one at a time, but they do go hand in hand. Each one of our goals There are costs associated with doing many of these things. And we have to take a hard look at these in light of that, that maybe one of our goals gets dropped. Maybe it's as simple as a change in dollar value attributed to it. But that's the reason I was sort of tying the two documents together. While I do understand they're two separate ones. Amber, you had another? Or did I forget to take you off this list?

That was it.

OK. All right, so let's just walk through them. They're relatively quick. So we have already dropped, okay, so we really only have three at this point. Protect Marco Island's beach area wildlife and their nesting areas in addition to protecting the critical wildlife area within the boundary of Marco Island. That's goal number one. Goal number two, protect burrowing owls, gopher tortoises, and other protected species on and off beach areas on Marco Island. Goal number three, ensure the cleanliness, safety, and resiliency of Marco Island beaches. And we previously had goal number four, which was manage non-native invasive and noxious species, which has been removed.

Just to clarify why that last one was removed, just to remind everybody that code enforcement does that now. So with the help of this team and some of the previous team members, we've trained code enforcement, and they're writing NOVs now for those. So that's really where that belonged.

Thank you for the reminder. It's helpful. So with that, we have three. What's that?

Yes, I concur.

Okay. And I think those three, personally, I think those three are core to what we do here. So unless there's any discussion about removing one or limiting, I think we can move on to budget.

Do we have to make a motion on accepting the three objectives and come back with those next month?

I don't believe so because there are current three objectives, but if we want to ratify.

I mean, not ratify, but see they're out. We only now have three, correct? All right.

Yes. Clean it up. I think what Member Lamb is saying is clean it up, take out the ones that are crossed off, and say this is for 26-27. And then later on we attach the...

you know, the allocation for the $5,000 going forward?

Well, we have to walk through that. We still have that yet to do.

Thank you.

So why don't we do this? I suggest that we go through the budget, we do the numerical allocation among those three, and then we ask staff to clean this up for next time. Sounds good. So right now, for goal number one, We have, now I'm moving, Martin, I'm moving on to the next, the budget document under the same topic. So you can see at the top, total committee budget, $10,000. That will be changed to $5,000, and we have to allocate it between the three. And if you look right now, that is allocated $2,000, $6,000, $2,000 for the three topics. I guess rather than walking through, there's not much to walk through. Does anyone have stronger thoughts on, because if we do just a we'll call more of a directional change, it goes to 1,000, 3,000, 1,000. That is just a proportional change. Now I'd like to hear advocacy for anything else other than just making a proportional change.

I would support that.

Anyone? Well, for goal number three, do we have an idea of what our budget is as far as buckets? I don't know if that might be a place if we wanted to take some money out of three to apply to one and two, but I'm not sure historically how much we're spending on grabbers, buckets, things of that nature, if we have a better handle on that number. It seems to be a little bit more of a known cost.

Amber, can you speak to that?

I'm not sure. You just said previously that you purchased some cleanup supplies. I think that was our last meeting.

Oh, no, I believe what Member Morris is saying is that historically we include buckets and things like that in there, so he's looking for some budgetary guidance on how much we normally spend in that category and whether there's some leftover that might make sense to move to other categories.

We haven't been spending very much like this past for that category. All the cleanup supplies were covered by donations. I did want to note in terms of the invoice for Audubon that you just approved, that funding has come out of this Shorebird Stewart item and then the Burring Out item.

So it's split evenly between them?

No, 500 and 1,500. No, 1,000. And then there was additional funding that came out of an item that we had gotten rid of that's currently listed. So that would fall under one of those other objectives under burrowing owls and gopher tortoise protection.

Okay. That is a useful ad because one of the big things I take from that is that the Audubon invoice will make up 50% of our budget for next year. And we don't want to cut that, at least not while Brittany's in the room. So we have to keep that in mind. And you're saying right now that's split 1,000 for goal one and 1,500 for goal two? Was that how you did it?

Right now it's listed as 500. Most of it came out of the goal two.

Okay. Okay. So if it works, as long as only 500 comes out of goal one, That leaves another 500 for goal one, which I think is reasonable. I don't think we even spent any more than that out of that one. So maybe we had, no, I'm wrong. We did have a couple of signs. But that's all right. It still came in under that 500. We're putting the bulk of the monies into goal two, which was the 3,000. And out of goal three, I believe Let me add numbers to what you were suggesting, Mark. And that is instead of 1,000, go to 500 for that one and move that to the middle. Makes sense to me, yes. So that leaves us, where was I? There it is. So that would go 1,000, 3,500, and 500. We have numbers on the page. Any further discussion?

Just a thought or question. I know Maria's been doing a great job of trying to find additional sources of revenue and donations. Anything in, are we allowed to put in these brochures that we print up or update a QR code if we were to, let's say, fund a trash can? putting anything on there, donate to this, like what we're doing, anything like that, and then we'll go into a pot of money to make up for those 5,000 that we're losing, maybe even exceed that. Obviously, we have to get stewards of it, but if there's a way to advertise how people could donate, anything with the beautification community is doing with Winterberry and what comes on there, thinking about ways we could solicit funding from people that are civic-minded.

Donations to the city are always challenging, so I'm going to look at Amber and say, what are your thoughts on this?

Nonprofits.

But we don't have a nonprofit, though.

My question, OK, why we finish our budget right now, OK? And then we can always have another discussion of outside possible sources. If there are items on our wish list that we're not funding, that would be an outside source. You know, that's a discussion of outsource, outside source funding. You know, we can talk about that.

Okay. So what I think I'm hearing is we're good on these numbers and we should probably have an agenda item for next time. uh, to look at, uh, the best way to tackle the problem of bringing in third party funding to augment, uh, some of these, these issues. Does that sound about right? Okay. So, uh, changing. So we're saying our goals are going to remain the same for the first three. Four is dropped, of course, and we're allocating the funds between them at $1,3,500 and $1,500. Can I get a motion?

Motion to approve the proposed budget for the rest of 2026-27. And I will second that.

Any further discussion? Okay, can we call the roll on that?

Member Lamb? Yes. Member Quinlan? Yes. Member Morris? Yes. Vice Chair Nesmith?

Yes.

Chair Ritchie?

Yes.

All right. Great.

It is 5,000.

So we just have to update the paperwork. Okay. I think we are good there. So that's the budget discussion. All right. Now we're on to cleanup sponsors. Member Lam?

Oh, yes. One of the new agenda item. Okay. Usually around this time, it's easier to be more proactive than get caught of it. On December, we should look at the cleanup schedule and sponsors, the current ones, look at them, and maybe reach out to them and see if they want to re-up. We will propose certain dates, and that's pretty much. So who's going to own this? Trying to reach out to our sponsors so that at the next meeting, maybe by November or December, this is all finalized and we're good to go for 2027. So it's very easy for me to do this. I'm not volunteering, but I just want an idea from the group if they would like to, because we have some very, very wonderful sponsors, and we also have other sponsors reaching out, which is good. So to make it easy, why don't I come back on... October or November and let you know exactly how the schedule is looking and if I'm having some kind of challenges, I will let you know and you can help me out. How about that?

That sounds good. I can save you a little bit of effort because at the end I was going to do my PSA for we have an October 18th beach cleanup coming. Oh, okay. And We have already gotten confirmation from our Daily Bread and MICA, who are our sponsors for that one, that they are all set for October.

That's good for October. OK, so perfect. We can start working on this, and hopefully by December, it's all ready for the 2027 season. You don't have to worry about it. So that's it. I'm going to start on it, present it at the next meeting, and see if you can help me if there are any challenges.

That sounds great.

Okay. We have nine beats cleanup, and we have several potential sponsors. The Chase Bank in Marco Island, it's small. They've been reaching out to me, but here is – A little bit of a humorous thing. The Chase Bank is worldwide. This approval of this tiny little participation to our pitch cleanup has to be approved from some, believe me, it's been seven months in the making. All right? But I'd like to give them kudos. They'd like to be one of us so we can put them in with some of our other sponsors. Okay. I got a reach out from Conquer the Rock for Cystic Fibrosis November 21st. We have a cleanup November 21st, a women's club. They are having this, I would say, triathlon or something starting at the JW on the morning of 21st. They would like to do something for the beach. I'm telling them we can't make it on the 21st, but what I was going to do is JW is the sponsor. I don't want to turn them down. They want to do something good. They can clean the beach as they always do every morning at 7 a.m. to 8 a.m. One or two of us might go there. It's either on the Friday before our thing, they will encourage their guests to do it and still own it that they did something for the beach. So I might just say that clean your own beach as you always do every morning, collect the tonnage, some follow up, and we're done with it. How do you like that? Yes or no? Yes?

Oh, I think that part's very much an automatic. I'll leave it to others. But I am guessing that they are interested in participating as well with us and being part of the community as opposed to cleaning up their own mess. So I'd hate to restrict them to only what's going on in their backyard, even though that's where probably the bulk of the trash is ending up.

They wanted it to be with this Conquer the Rock adventure series that they're also sponsoring. They want to tie all this, you know, cystic fibrosis, Conquer the Rock we're sponsoring, but we want to give something to the beach.

Right, and I agree. I'm just wondering the best way to do this jointly as opposed to just that. Is it as simple as a few of us maybe join them for their early morning one and then do our standard photo op for the coastal breeze and things like that with them and then do it again at 8?

We start at 8. They start at 7.

I know they start at 7.

For this event, they start at 7.30. It's a little tight.

That's a little tight, yeah.

So let's think about it. It's not until November, and they are very flexible. Okay, so I'm just throwing it in how we can all please the community because this will, you know, actually they're a big sponsor, and I want to make sure that cystic fibrosis and the fundraising event is front and center going on that day.

Absolutely. And I want to be clear. I want to encourage their participation, and I want to make sure they're happy with what we're giving them, not the other way around. So if they're looking for publicity, if they're looking for more partnering with the city, I want to provide that.

Yes.

Okay.

That's on for discussion. They're also looking how they can do it maybe a week before or something. So I'm just going to let you do that. I mean, think about it. In the meantime, they will probably finalize it in October. So we have time.

Okay. And if you need to move faster, you know how to work it through, Amber, so that we can all chat the right way. Yeah.

So that was a very good thing, reaching out to us for a big international, national event for them. My next thing is the gopher tortoise sign that Amber is holding up there. Amber, okay?

Okay.

This is going to help Mr. Quinlan in his signage issue. Background on that. We ordered way back in 2019, 2020, this committee work on that signage. It was designed by FWC and law enforcement. along with the language and color, because we have a lot of faded signs on gopher tortoises. So this is a nice sign, black, it won't fade. We ordered and paid for the signs and the metal thing that holds it. We ordered 100 and we have 23 left at the warehouse. I reached out to Public Works, how can we do this? And I said, maybe we'll provide you with a location to use up 23 signs. I also am going to do an article for the community because it is a free sign. They want more sign. But we have 23 to install. Mr. Quinlan, I believe, can piggyback on that project with signages that he might think we need it. So that's that additional sign Amber is looking at. Do you need anything from this group right now to support that, or is this more of a... Well, it's more of a bringing it back to this new committee for approval, that we have additional signs. We would like to use it where maybe mostly right-of-ways, faded areas. And since we are looking for more signs, I think it can help us with some of the things that we might need more cautionary, go for tortoise signs, okay. No, at the moment I think we're good.

And I would just add to that, I think maybe the use of those signs in addition to the big yellow signs is probably a better use of the signage. Because if you put yellow signs all over the place, you won't be able to see the road for all the yellow signs. But those I think we can put in the boroughs you know, right where the nests are. So I think that's good. That will augment what we've been working on already.

Great.

We're done on that one.

Okay.

Thank you.

I think that's it for my new item.

All right. Any staff communications?

Nope.

Councilor Schwan, you're up.

I'm really glad to be here today you always make a lot of good progress so thank you I just wanted to add something to your discussion about vehicles on the beach I live right on South Beach and And I do want to make you aware of I have been seeing electric bikes on the actual beach, just so you're aware of that. I also have been seeing electric bikes and other vehicles going down the beach access, weaving in and out of visitors, residents who are using those beach accesses. So just want to make you aware of that. And I know I will be discussing pedestrian safety, e-bikes, and things at our next city council meeting, but they definitely are causing some havoc on the beach and the access. That's all I have. Thank you.

Great. Thank you. That's an interesting one. That strikes me as that's within our purview to address, is it not?

There's some at the beach access points, too.

Right.

It's under our purview on wheeled vehicles on the beach. You know, right? OK. There are violations.

Yeah. Yeah. It's a major issue, even on all around the island, everywhere, at the streets, sidewalks.

Yeah, and that's what Councillor Schwan was referencing, that you have a potential ordinance change coming up on the next agenda for the streets. I don't believe, if I read that correctly, that that would address the beach access or the beaches, so I'm wondering if that is something that we should be addressing. Member Nesmith. Go ahead.

I submitted a white page and it does not address of course the beach or the beach access so that would be up to this committee if they feel that you can discuss some action but that would be up to you but I just wanted to make you aware of it and maybe others have seen that on the beach too John is nodding his head too so it's just something that the community and if you know committees may have to look at too Thank you.

I'm strongly in support of that. So that's great. I'm glad you brought it to our attention.

Council Member Schwann? I just had a point of clarification. The ordinance, is it specifically e-bikes? Someone told me you were thinking about pedal bikes on sidewalks being illegal.

No, the pedal bikes are not affected at all by the white page that I submitted. Actually, this white page, I think there needs to be a very serious conversation on our community about how we are going to deal with this issue. But pedal bikes are not affected by it at all. It's just e-bikes and micro mobility. Of course, there would be ADA exceptions and things like that. And it's discussing sidewalks. But they would still be allowed under the white paper. But there has to be a discussion between also MIPD, Fire and Rescue, and our residents as to what we want to see to solve this kind of chaos that's going on in our community right now, and that other communities have already addressed. And I'll be providing a lot of data and facts when I present this at the council meeting.

Thank you for clarifying that, because I think you got some unfair criticism for lumping bikes in there. And as a concerned parent, literally this morning I was driving to drop our girls off at middle school and the other one at TVE. And two boys just come whipping around. I mean, they got to middle school faster than I did. And it was just scary. And I've seen it before. And it's literally an accident waiting to happen. And whether the police need to be put out there, I know we're getting off maybe what we do. But I'm glad for what you're doing, because I saw firsthand this morning. And it's going to take, unfortunately, a tragedy, I think, before people maybe take it more seriously than they already have.

Thank you. The only thing I wanted to add to that is we have seen some e-bikes on the beach and we'll call code and usually by the time code gets there they're gone. So I'm not sure we've got to get ahead of this. But the other thing I've seen is those single wheel skateboard things whatever you call them going down the beach as well.

I've seen those on the streets. I have not seen them on the beach.

They're going down the beach and the problem is by the time you Would try to enforce it with code they're gone So I mean it's got to be and our access points I think say no bikes on the beach because I pointed out to people before I've seen those repeatedly to John.

I don't know what they're called But there's a lot of them now and they weave in and out of people walking on the beach also Fascinating vice chair Nesmith.

Yeah, it's it's clearly there right on our beach access point sign it shows No bikes. That means boardwalk and beach.

All right. May I suggest that given the interest in this particular topic that we give it some attention at our next meeting and add that to the agenda?

And I would suggest maybe we need to have Code McKeith or someone from his team be a part of that discussion because I think there's a synergy between us and them as to what they can enforce and how they can enforce it. But like I said, by the time they're usually there, and I'm not faulting them at all, The perpetrator has already left.

I like that. Amber, can you reach out to invite them?

Yes.

Okay.

Thank you. Chair, one note on that. Usually it takes a year and a half to get a revision to an ordinance adding e-bikes or whatever. And again, I go back to this report. It's very, we should add a few things. However, we need data. We need the law enforcement to provide us with the calls and the data log they have on wheeled vehicles on the beach. Now, John, to your point, they may be gone, but the person is going to have to take a photo that it happened, make a phone call. That is logged into their CAD or whatever it is. So we are gonna start collecting data. We're gonna start talking about this each time we meet, whether it's anecdotal, like somebody said they saw. Let's encourage the public to help us with reaching out to our PD, taking photos if you're walking, your personal experience on the beach entrances and out. So that's our task in the next year.

Let's strategize all of that at the next meeting, which is a natural segue to the next topic, which is any other proposed – oh, wait. The next topic is confirmation – next meeting confirmation and attendance. I was going to skip again. I'm sorry. I don't have the date for the next meeting in front of me. Do you have it?

The 20th.

The 20th? Is it?

Oh, 21st, sorry. 21st? 21st.

One day short. Okay. Everyone good with that day? We're all going to be here? Yes, as long as we're in costume. All right, all right, I'm in. Okay, now any other proposed agenda topics? We have a few that Amber's been jotting down along the way. Anything else we should be adding?

Well, I'm going to add this as a throw-in because, again, we're collecting data as in e-bikes, additional wheeled vehicles on the beach that we have to sort of specify what they are. We've been collecting this data for the beach now. Sorry for bringing this up. and it's not beating a dead horse, drones, regulation of drones on the beach or regulation of drones, period, okay? Many, many, you can ask anybody out there, no, we don't have drones regulations, we do. It is not being enforced, and I'd like to discuss maybe at the next meeting, if it isn't enforced, how can we change it so we can enforce it? Because right now, drones has become And I've spoken to FAA, and they're tired of me, they know my voice, and they said, unless you give me the certificate number of a particular drone, we are very, you know, we have few staffing, I can't send you my FAA inspector until we have, you know, set violations proving it. So again, I look at data. I look at how many drones are being used, have they been checked, call FAA to see if those licenses are current, because right now drones are being qualified as if you cannot have alcohol eight hours before you fly your drone. If you're flying your drone and there's a beer can next to that cooler, okay, that's an FAA violation. But we're not enforcing those. how far they can fly, what are they being used for. A lot of people on the beach on those condos are a little concerned that it's not being far. So can we have a general discussion on that?

Member Quinlan?

So the drone discussion, and I was going to save this for my communications later, but I had a chance to do a ride along with Officer Ed Curry. And I want to thank Keith Richter's team for allowing me to do the ride along with Mr. Curry and we spent the evening doing riding up and on the beach and we had lots of time to talk about things like that and drones came up and we pulled up within the vehicles you can pull up the code right live in the vehicle and we do have a code on Marco Island for for drones and aero devices and kites and what it states is not within 500 feet of a posted nesting area So if you look on our beach, any place that we have a nesting area, that's where That's where code can go after and enforce no drones or kites at a nesting area. The problem is we don't have that signage out on the beach. And MICA is working on that for Residence Beach right now to get some signage out on the beach to help that situation. So there is a code on the books, 500 feet within a nesting area.

CHRISTIE WOODARD- It sounds to me like we have a discussion topic for next time.

Real quick question. I'm Brittany from Audubon. Migratory birds are protected species, so they cannot be flushed by drones, kites, things like that. So if it's intentionally flushing a flock of migratory birds, which is very easy this time of year because we have flocks on our beaches, That, to me, would be, I don't know if it's something they have to change in the ordinance, but you're not going to have as easy to have a nesting posting. We're not going to have a lot of nesting birds, especially this time of year. Just a thought to add in the aspect of migratory protected species.

Okay. Thank you. Let's put some time aside on the next agenda to discuss this in a little more depth. Okay? Mm-hmm. Any other committee communications?

I forgot one thing. May I insert?

Please.

Well, back to the Beats cleanup, okay? Our last Beats cleanup was August. It was very productive. We had 150 pounds, 40 people, volunteers came. To date, we collected 985 pounds of trash from the Beats. We have had 435 cleanup volunteers come. today for 2026. We have two more on our books, which is October and November. So we're doing good. I want to thank everybody for that.

Thank you. Member Quinlan.

I just had a couple other things. I mentioned the ride-along. And if anyone else has an opportunity to do that, it was very... Very informative to see what goes on on our beaches at night. I also wanted to thank the city and Amber for the initiative to get the four-way stop sign at Inlet and Watson. That was one of our Turtle Strike areas and Amber's initiative got that to be a four-way stop sign. So I wanted to thank her and the city for making that happen for us.

Thank you.

And then I sent, perhaps, I sent Martin a picture. And I don't know if it came through because I don't have internet on my computer, but I took a picture of it and sent it. This is that area that I was talking... Thank you, Martin. This is the area I was talking about. This is the Tiger Tail. There's Lagoon, just the other side of where that... Brushes that sign to the left is where that big Marco pass critical wildlife is and that's the area and on the right is a Aerial view of exactly where that point is That's where I think down the road if we wanted to think about an additional trash Receptacle there we'd have to work on that but again the individual from Collier County that Empties South Beach every day drives right by this so that's an opportunity to to pick that up on the way through for free, thankfully. So thank you, Martin. That was my last item.

Thank you. Member Morse. So I had been working on this idea of a field trip with Tommy Barfield Elementary. I had reached out to the principal of the school. She put me in touch with the instructional coordinator, I guess, of the science department. And it took me months to get a hold of her. When I finally did, she said that they have an established field trip, planned a tiger tail. They weren't seeking any additional field trip opportunities. I asked what support we could provide. and the date of the field trip, and that's going back to last month. I've yet to hear anything. I followed up a couple times. So I can continue there, see if there's anything else, but just wanted to at least close the loop and update you.

Thank you. You're welcome. All right. If there's nothing else and I see no other light signs, can I get a motion to adjourn?

Motion to adjourn. Second.

All those in favor? Aye.