City Council - Regular Meeting

Everybody, it's 05:30. Welcome to our regular scheduled Monday, May 4 city council meeting. If you have your phones, please solace them if you don't mind. As we're gonna talk about the rules of the quorum when we get to the agenda, but we have more pressing issues up front. So for starters, Jim, will you call the roll, please?

Councilor Henry.

Here.

Councilor Gohler.

Here.

Vice chair Champine. Here. Councilor Schwann. Here. Councilor Gray? Here. Chair Palumbo?

Here. Right. Folks, most of you have heard, or if you're here and you're local, we're going to have a little remembrance for our comrade on the dais, our partner, our colleague, councilor Eric Brechnitz, unfortunately passed. He was not here at the last couple meetings. So we're gonna say a couple of kind words, councilors. You'll have the opportunity if you want to, by all means. But we're gonna start by just explaining a little bit. Flags are at half mast. We heard from, governor Ron DeSantis in tribute to Eric and his accomplishments in this community and his former home of Decatur, Illinois. So he's being afforded all honors, for the position he held and for the service he did to the community also as a veteran.

You've seen the publications out in the paper. You've seen some of the kind words. I'm very happy to say I didn't see anything that wasn't kind and pleasant out there in social media. This is a time where we let the best of us shine. But I am gonna start with a letter from his daughter.

And forgive me, I tried to get through this today and I didn't realize how much of an impact Eric had on me coming from what I like to call old council when I joined him in veteran counselors to coming for new council, where I was the senior member with him. So forgive me if it gets a little bit tough. We did hear from his son, Chris Brechnitz, thanking us for our kind wishes and condolences, and this is written by his daughter, Beth Utley. So she says, some may remember Eric as intense and unwavering in his convictions about what was right on behalf of your community. I have no doubt that many of you considered him polarizing, especially if you weren't aligned in his principle.

He appreciated humility, respected hard work, and was eager to use wit to soften blows. Iron sharpens iron, he believed, so he respected the role of an adversary in the name of growth. There were many dimensions of Eric outside the confines of the Mark Wilde politics. He was a gifted athlete, a creative cook, an advent reader, and a veteran. Eric was the father of three, grandfather to four, and a great grandfather to three humans who all adored him endlessly.

I knew him as a father who always extended grace when encountered with the many challenges of willful children. Our dad was generous with his time, his advice, and his unconditional love. As a grandfather, he often chose to bite his tongue rather than offer reprimands. Sometimes these standard bearers of his genes were even bestowed the last word. Thank you for allowing him to represent a community that he believed was one of the most special places on Earth. From his home in Hideaway Beach, Eric always was always moved by the sun setting over the gulf where he once told me, never take this for granted. Those are beautiful words. Thank you, Beth Utley and family. Our condolences go out to you. Each councilor get a chance to say a few words.

But before we get to that, Aaron Deaver from senator Rick Scott's office is kind enough to come join us and bring a personal written letter. Vice chair Champagne was very friendly and good friends with Eric. I asked him to read that letter in his honor, please.

Thank you. I was a good friend of Eric. And for fifteen years, he and I traveled around the city of Naples playing kids in tennis. We were in our mid-70s, and we were playing kids in the 60s. And we did quite well, by the way.

Here's the letter from Senator Scott. Dear City Council Chairman Palumbo, please accept my heartfelt expression of sympathy upon the passing of councilman Eric Brechnis. I'm proud to honor his incredible leadership and legacy as a pillar of Marco Island community. My wife, Anne, and I keep keeping your community close in our thoughts and prayers during this difficult time. Eric was a tireless advocate for his committee, dedicated his life to public service, serving our nation, the United States Air Force and Marco Island on the City Council.

During his time in Marco Island, Eric served on numerous boards, committees and organizations and made incredible contributions to his community. His commitment to supporting others and his passion for making a difference left a lasting mark on all those he served. While Eric will be profoundly missed by all who knew him, his legacy will continue through his impact on the community and in the hearts of those whose lives he's touched. I know that words may bring little consolation in this difficult time, but be assured, Eric's leadership and compassion will be felt by many and future generations of Floridians. It is my prayer that you receive comfort in the memories you hold of Eric and influence on your life and many lives that he touched.

Sincerely, Rick Scott, you US senator.

Well said, senator Scott, and thank you. As I'm just gonna share a quick story and then everybody else share if they want, you know, Eric said something to me always, and I I learned it from the first time I met him campaigning next to each other and driving him crazy, asking questions during the ten day early voting. Because I told this story before, but he was kind enough when I asked the question. He said, you should ask me all of your questions. You might not have this opportunity should you be successful. He said lucky enough to win. So but while we're doing this, councilor Folly, who's here, I'm gonna say a few words also. He was up and down the street holding the big campaign signs, Eric was doing the work with me. And, boy, I barraged him with questions for ten days, and I made notes about it. But the one thing that always stuck out and he said this to me on the dais many times.

It's not personal, Darren. Don't take it so personal. Don't get so worked up. It's just politics. When you leave the dais, you're all friends and neighbors. It's a lesson I still need to learn a little better, but I'm much more improved from when I started. So thank you for that, Eric. The last thing I'll say is in my bag, Eric loved dad's root beer barrels. And and gosh. And they were in my bag for when he came back. And if he wasn't feeling well in this last year, where we all know he had a few challenges, I would give them to councilor Fowley, who's here in the audience, and say drop him off to the hospital. But these have been in my bag for two meetings, and I get a chance give them to them. So there's some in the bag for you folks to enjoy this. I'm here for you to enjoy. So, Eric, God bless you. We're gonna miss you. Counselors, anything else to add if you want? If not, you don't have to. Alright. Very good.

Former councilor Folly, former chair Folly, if you could stay up step up to the dais, it'd be honor for us to have you say a few words for your friend.

Thanks very much. I remember carrying those signs around. This is better. I remember carrying those signs around at that campaign. Eric and I were fortunate enough to be running together. And so a lot of the signs had both our names on them. And he was always a mentor and a friend, as well as a colleague. And I know you all shared that role as a colleague of his. And it's quite an honor to work with somebody who was just such a force. It's a huge loss for the city, for his friends, and for the family.

You know, he shared a deep love for his country. And that's how I got to know him. We were talking about his role with the Millikan University promoting conservative and constitutional values. And he's been involved in that. And when there was a vacancy on council, he encouraged me to throw my hat in the ring, which I ultimately did. And then had the privilege of serving with him. But this conservatism goes way back. One of his proudest possessions he showed me was a Goldwater Button from 1964. He's been there forever, and he stuck with it. A principal conservative, he quoted John Locke.

You know, I'm counsel Deus. You know, I wish more politicians would quote John Locke. He was steeped in the principles of the founding fathers. And he brought that to his job each and every day. It's a little controversial now, but, you know, he was a small government conservative.

And he fought to keep the size of government small at all levels, including here, and voted to roll back the tax rate eight eight years in a row consistent with his principles that he ran on. And he was rewarded by the voters and by his peers. More more than half the time he served on city council, he was the chair for four years. And before that, he worked on planning board. And as you all know, that's basically volunteer work on the council and on the planning board.

You get a pittance, but it's truly a pittance. And so he gave over ten years of his life to Markel Island in addition to the service he gave to the country and the military and city of Decatur. An incredible guy. I have to say that one of the things that impressed me about him, I thought there were some elements of him where he would just not let certain things pass that he didn't think was right. And if he didn't think it was right, he was gonna jump in.

He went where a lot of people dare not go. Myself included in many cases. But that was persistence, and it was courage on display over and over and over again. So he leaves behind a wonderful family, a grateful community, and so many friends over the years. I just ask God to receive his soul and let him enjoy his heavenly heavenly reward for a life very well lived. Thank you.

Thank you.

As I'm sure this is an applaudable moment, counselors. Thank you, former counselor Folly, and thank you for your service to the community and those beautiful words. Because we're gonna get to the invocation in a moment by reverend Matt White of the Wesley Wesley United Methodist Church. And after that, we'll talk about Valeria Meza, who's a seventh grade student to the to the pledge allegiance. But reverend White has agreed to have a moment of silence and give Eric his proper send off. So reverend Moore, if you can come up up, please. Folks, if you if you're able, please stand.

Dear God, we give you great thanks for counselor Eric Brechnitz senior. We thank you, God, for the eighty seven years that he lived in this world, and we thank you, God, for his faithful service and his life. And we ask you, God, to extend your special touch to all of his family members and friends, bring your comfort, and bring all of the special memories to each one as we celebrate his life this evening. We're reminded in Psalm one zero four twenty four, how many are your works, oh Lord, in wisdom you made them all. The earth is full of all your creatures.

We thank you, god, that counselor Brechnitz was fearfully and wonderfully made by you, and we thank you, god, for the promise of eternal life for all who put their trust in you. And so tonight, we celebrate counselor Brechnitz's life. We remember him, and we give you great thanks. And, Lord, as we pray for our meeting tonight, we're reminded that you are the one that gives wisdom. Thank you for the declaration of Proverbs two six, for the Lord gives wisdom, and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.

Proverbs four also declares, lay hold of my words with all your heart. Keep my commands, and you will live. Get wisdom. Get understanding. Do not forget my words or swerve from them. Do not forsake wisdom, and she will protect you. Love her, and she will watch over you. Wisdom is supreme. Therefore, get wisdom. Though it cost all you have, get understanding. Esteem her, she will exalt you. Embrace her, and she will honor you. I guide you in the way of wisdom and lead you along straight paths. When you walk, your steps will not be hampered. When you run, you will not stumble.

Dear Lord, we ask you to bless our city councilors this evening with great wisdom. We pray, God, that this would be a successful meeting, that there would be problems that are solved. And we ask you, Lord, to help the meeting flow and go forward in a way that that truly honors you. We thank you, Lord, for how you promise to bless us with wisdom and guidance when we seek you. And so we pray, God, that we would be able to look to you.

We give you thanks tonight, and we celebrate Marco Island and all of those that are a part of our community. And we pray, God, that this would be a positive meeting and that you would send your blessings in this time. We pray, oh, Lord. Amen.

Everest White, thank you for the beautiful words. Alright, to the Pledge of Allegiance. Valeria, come on up. As we have Valeria, is it Mensa? I get that right? Mensa. Mensa, very good. I wanna make sure. We got a chance to meet what a charming young woman. She is a seventh grader student at the Mark Wallen Charter Middle School. Favorite subject is science. I always say that's a great subject for today's world. She plays the saxophone in the school band and she's actively engaged in cheerleading outside. It's always great to see outside activities, right? Gotta get off the computers a little She enjoys travel, wants to see the world, and is a pleasure to have in class, and is highly academically motivated. So, Larry, what a pleasure it is to have you, and we're so lucky. If you would lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance, please.

I pledge of allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. So Thank you.

Counselors, before we get to the approval of the agenda, a few things I'd like to say. Start with the with the easiest. Last couple meetings were heavy agendas. I appreciate everybody's patience. I appreciate the public speaker's patience. Moving agenda items around the best we could to have everybody's voice heard. This will be a much lighter agenda. We'll have time for everybody's voices to be heard, for public speaking, for your passionate beliefs, praises, and criticism. Last couple meetings have been outstanding with rules of decorum and people respecting each other in the audience, listening with an open mind and heart to everybody. We ask that you keep that up, please.

I'd like to go one step further. Eric taught me something. This is apropos for him sitting right here. He sat here once and literally got berated by a public speaker, took it as stoic as as he could, and I give him credit. I don't know if think I could have handled that personally. I don't think you see me. I'm I'm an emotional person at times. I think I would have fired back. But he did, and he talked about freedom of speech and how one time he was accused of maybe possibly violating it, and he always erred on the side of caution when it came to freedom of speech. I'll speak for myself. Any of the counselors wanna you could say what you want about me personally. You could judge me for the job, whether I'm doing well or not. I'll I'll tell you this, though, folks. Every counsel here does the best they possibly can. We give you what we have, and that's all we have to give.

We're the only people that sometimes sign up for the job, and we're the ones that are trying the best to solve the city's needs. But what we've seen online lately is a whole different level of of of inappropriate I'll use the word inappropriate. It's a much better word. I would suspect some of these online comments, and you all know what I'm talking about. I'm not gonna glorify them by reading them.

I would suspect some came from somebody who is not a parent and doesn't understand what a teachable moment is. I'm gonna guess you, sir, who made or whoever made the comments, man or woman, you probably never woke up at two in the morning just to stare in your kid's crib to make sure they're breathing. Or you probably never flew in a separate plane in case mom and dad were flying to an event, but the kids weren't gonna be able to make it or so you took separate flights just in case you were never taking the chance that your children would be left with with no parents. You probably never thought to yourself, I can't die enough lives for my There wouldn't be enough to give. Running into one burning house once would not be enough.

So I'm gonna suspect this person with the online comments. Maybe it's a teachable moment. Maybe there's forgiveness there. Maybe you apologize online, and maybe you realize the areas you're going to are far below the belt and not acceptable for this council. We ask you to do better. I've asked myself to do better over time, and these counselors have all done better when asked. Do better. You can judge us for ourselves personally, but keep it civil and keep it on the agenda items. And that's all I'll say about that. The other thing I will just say, counselors, we are gonna with and this could not be noticed because it's not an agenda item yet.

It might be for the next meeting. But we are gonna talk at council communication about the open seat of our councilor. We have no other choice. Eric would understand. We're gonna do it respectfully and humbly, but the clock is ticking. We know this. So we're gonna bring up that conversation and collectively decide what our thoughts are on moving forward. So just be prepared for that. We're also gonna talk about the open CAC, a coastal advisory committee seat. But for now, there are no changes to the agenda, so I'll entertain a motion to approve it as presented, please.

So move.

I'll second.

I have

a motion by Vice Chair Champagne, second by Councillor Henry. All those in favor, aye. Aye. Anybody say opposed, say no. Ayes have it. On to item seven, approval of the minutes. Councillors, any changes to the 04/20/2026 council meeting minutes?

I move approval of the minutes.

Second.

We have a motion by councilor Gray, second by councilor Schwann. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Anybody opposed, say no. The ayes have it. Consent agenda. Counselors, does anybody desire to take any of the three items off the consent agenda?

Move to approve.

I'll

second We'll give this one we have a motion by councilor Henry, second by councilor Gohler. This one will be called to roll on, please, Jim.

Counselor Henry.

Yes.

Counselor Gohler.

Yes.

Vice Chair Champagne.

Yes.

Counselor Gray.

Yes.

Counselor Schwann.

Yes. Chair Palumbo.

Yes. Consent agenda passes. We are on to item nine, proclamations and presentations. Before we get there, let's see how many people have signed up for public comment under item 10?

Have four registered speakers for item 10.

Yeah. We're gonna go with since we have a little bit of time, we're gonna go with proclamations and presentations, employee service awards. Counselors, if you you know the drill, if you'd meet me over here, please.

While the council is lining up, I'd like to invite detective Johnny Rosario to come forward and be recognized for five years of service. Detective Rosario has been with the city for five years. But prior to joining MIPD, he dedicated twenty seven years in the New York Police Department, retiring as a first grade detective, including service during September 11. Since joining the department here in 2021, he has provided valuable investigative support, coordinated closely with the state attorney's office, and effectively managed property and evidence operations. We want to thank you for your service, Detective, and we hope that you'll continue to work with us here at MIPD and the city.

On behalf of the city council, the entire city, Again, on behalf of the council, the entire city staff, it's your five year award.

Thank you.

Alright. We have

a pen for you. And twenty seven years that I hear in

New York?

Yes, God, thank you so much for your service. Would you like to say anything? Thank

you to the city manager, city council members, and the chief for the recognition.

We're lucky to have you. Thank you so much.

Now I'd like to call up Jose Lopez. Jose, come on up. Jose is also being recognized for five years dedicated service to the city. He currently serves as a utility systems technician in the collections and distribution department in our water and sewer department. He is known for his reliability, skill, professionalism, and strong work ethic. His contributions include critical infrastructure repairs, emergency response efforts, and earning his water distribution operator level two license. All of his contributions are greatly valued. And we recognize and appreciate his five years of dedicated service.

Here's your five year plaque. We greatly appreciate you. Here's your pin. And I want to say something. When I first met Doctor. Lucius, and I would always say, Police and fire, first responders, gosh, they're important. And she said to me, and I forgot it, public utilities, getting the public utilities turned back on after hurricanes are the first ones out in peril. I never forgot this, so we thank you for being the first one out. Anything you'd like Thank to you. Yes.

Thanks for my boss, believe in me, and I'm happy to be here. We're lucky to have him. I'm very much. Alright. I Do have anybody from the National Arbor Day here? Is it alright. It's gonna be me for this one?

Oh, Oh,

come on up. If you're here for the Arbor Day presentation, please come on up. Darren, you are Mike, come on. Come on. Mike, sorry about that.

Any members of the beautification committee who are present couldn't come up.

Alright. Well, thank you for being here to represent. Linda, come on up. All right, folks. We have a proclamation here for Arbor Day.

This is in the city of Marco Island. And whereas in 1872, the Nebraska Board of Agriculture established a special day to be set aside for the planting of trees. And whereas the holiday called Arbor Day was first observed with the planting of more than a million trees in Nebraska. And whereas Arbor Day is now observed throughout the nation and the entire world, and whereas trees can be a solution to combating climate change by reducing the erosion of precious topsoil by wind and water, cutting heating and cooling cost, moderating the temperature, cleaning the air, producing life giving oxygen, and providing habitat for wildlife. And whereas trees are a renewable resource giving us paper, wood for homes, fuel for fires, and countless other wood products.

And whereas trees in our city increase property values, enhance the economic validity of the business areas, and beauty of our community, and whereas trees, wherever they are planted, are a source of joy and spiritual renewal. Now therefore, be it proclaimed by the city council of the city of Marco Island, Florida, that April 24, the year of 2026, was hereby recognized as the hundred and fifty fourth anniversary of Arbor Day. All citizens are urged to celebrate Arbor Day and to support efforts to protect our trees and woodlands and to plant trees to gladden the hearts, and promote the well-being of future generations. Proudly present this official proclamation to you and the whole Arbor Group. We appreciate what you do with us every year.

We appreciate the Lee Palmer Park, the events every year. And would you like to say anything? This year on National Arbor Day, we planted a purple trunk or tree in Calusa Park. We thank the city council and all the various city departments that help our committee keep beautifying the market. We love what you do.

We appreciate it. And if anybody wants to donate a tree, we'll let you know. Thank you. Thank you. Alright. Moving you know what we're gonna do? Jason, are you here, Jason Bailey? Are Stick a hand up if I see you. Hang out for a moment if you don't mind, please. So I'm gonna go to citizen comment first.

You have a few minutes? Thank you. Since we're close enough, Jim, why don't you call the first one? We'll give them the full four minutes. We don't have a heavy agenda, so please call up our first citizen for items that are not on tonight's agenda. Correct.

The first speaker is mister Richard Blana, followed by miss Anita Sarjes.

Former councilor Bladin, good to

see council. I just wanted to make a few more words to honor Just state

You know who are.

Of Rich Bladin, 1541 San Marco Road.

Thank you.

Eric Brechnicks was a true statesman. It was a privilege serving with him on the Marco Island City Council for four years. It'll be hard for me too. Eric had four qualities that made him the great statesman that he was, intelligence, humor, experience, and compassion. Eric's intelligence allowed him to understand the issues brought before the city council, especially the financial ones, at a very deep level.

His preparation and defense of his proposals were an inspiration and an education for me as a young councilman. Eric never missed the opportunity to inject a little levity into a meeting, especially when things got tense and we all needed to see the lighter side of life. His humor helped put things in perspective when we all began to take ourselves too seriously. Eric's experience both professionally and politically allowed him to govern from a place of deep understanding of the issues, especially the financial ones and their potential impact on the community. This was extremely helpful to me coming from an entirely different background. Lastly, Eric was a compassionate man.

I'm feeling you, Rich.

Excuse me. Eric was a compassionate man who cared deeply about the well-being of his family, his fellow counselors, and the residents. He often commented about the effects of the decisions that we make on the dais that have on the quality of life of those who will be affected by them. In summary, Eric Brechnicks was a statesman who served Marco Island with elegance and grace, and I will miss him very much.

Jim, before

Our next speaker.

Before we get to next speaker Rich, I apologize. I didn't know you want to speak tonight. I would have called you up earlier, but thank you for the kind words, please.

Our next registered speaker is miss Anita Sarjes followed by mister David Rasmussen.

Hi, Anita.

Hi. Good evening. Anita Sarjes, full time resident of the island. I am going to speak about the noise ordinance, but I would be remiss if I didn't mention Eric and his knowledge of the charter. And you're right, he was tenacious if he had something on his mind. I attend many council meetings. He didn't let it go. And even if you didn't agree with him, you had to respect him for that. I would like to bring up the noise ordinance and thank Counselor Gray for spending a lot of time putting that white paper together. I was sorry that I missed it.

It was presented very late in the evening, which was a shame. I know you would have had many more people contributing to the conversation. There are two issues that I think really need to be addressed. One is the level from 60 to 65. I know that Counselor Henry said that she doesn't even see a need for it.

Chair Palumbo, you said that you don't understand it, that it doesn't affect people maybe that you're aware of. I am aware. I am aware of many people. We're coming into the summer months. And short term rental homes, the rates go down, and it brings in many, many more people. They pile into the houses. If you've got a four bedroom house, you're running up to six couples. And they make noise. So I would like that to be considered. The last thing about Eric I just wanted to mention is you were going to have to replace him.

And I hope this evening you will explain the process to the public. And I just want to make sure I'm not forgetting anything else. And I don't believe I am. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker please.

Next speaker is Mr. David Rasmussen, followed by our final registered speaker, mister Elliot Mascoop.

David Rasmussen, Kaxambas Court. I wanted to speak a few comments about Eric Breckmans. The first meeting I had with Eric was in the nineteen seventies when he and my uncle were playing golf together at the Decatur Country Club. That was even a long time before I even knew what golf was. He even played golf together with them at in Hong Kong, believe it or not.

And while he and I did not always agree on all the issues, we did have a a strict, conservative approach to expenditures. And when the public voted one way against him, he went with the public. He was a devoted family man. And when he did suffer in life, and while he did suffer in life with the passing of his son, you know, and his and his wife, recently his wife, he never fully recovered from that. He is now together with them at peace. Godspeed, Eric, and we will never forget you.

Well said.

Our final registered speaker is mister Elliot Mascou.

Elliot, how are

you?

I'm doing great. This is Elliot Mascoop, 1,300. I wanna talk about the committees on this island, but before I do mention that, I'd like to also mention that Eric Brechnitz helped me become a better chair and a better member of the Waterways Advisory Committee. I learned a lot from him and I learned a whole lot as to better ways to present, to handle things, and to move into a positive direction. And he really made an incredible impression upon me.

And for that, I'm forever grateful. The last Waterways Advisory Committee last week was, in my estimation, a bit of a train wreck. For the better part of the first hour, our members basically just went back and forth about procedure. We have one hundred and twenty minutes, as I've mentioned before, to deal with some very serious issues on Marco Island when it comes to water. We are mandated by the council to deal with, on a regular basis, water quality, seawalls, navigation, and public education and awareness.

For at least an hour, we did none of that. We just went back and forth about arguing about basically nothing that helped the public, that helped the citizens of Marco Island in any way. We just wasted our time. If I could have crawled into a hole, I would have, because it was absolutely very embarrassing. We had a couple of counselors here.

In fact, our chair came up and he made a comment, which I was really appreciative of because I hope that our Waterways Advisory Committee paid attention. There's so much that needs to be accomplished. We have so little time and for the way they did not do the job that needed to be done. I'm not pointing out anybody in particular. I'm not mentioning any names.

But I think in part, councilor Palumbo, chair Palumbo mentioned that he feels that the council is remiss in not providing our committee and other committees with direction and with what the council wants. And that is in part correct, but we bear responsibility on the committees to also do our job and to come up with important material that benefits the city of Marco Island. And a lot of the time, that's not happening. I try to attend a lot of the committees over the period of the of the months that have passed, and I see a lot of those problems. I would hope that our counsel will do a lot to give us direction, give us material that we need to proceed in a valuable fashion for the citizens of Marco Island so that we can do the job on these committees that the citizens of Marco deserve because there's a lot to be done and the direction from the council will help a lot.

And I hope that the committees will also take what they're doing a whole lot more seriously than what happened last Thursday on the Waterways Advisory Committee. And I do thank you for your time.

Alright. Elliot, thank you for the kind words for Eric. Thank you for we are gonna talk about that during council communications, so thank you for coming in. Right. Anybody else signed up?

That's our final speaker. Jason,

we're moving on to you. Item C, presentation planning board advisory committee update, chair Jason Bailey. Come on up, please, sir. It's always good to see you.

Alright. Thank you. You as You

know, I'm usually up here, I'm usually short and sweet. I know you have a full room and a pretty exciting meeting.

Just identify your name. They know we

Jason Jason Jason Bailey, Mark Wine resident. So I have the pleasure of serving on your planning board, and we are authorized by state statute. We're here to assist you. We are appointed by you. We serve in that capacity. So most of the things we do is we make recommendations to you. There are some things we have the final say on, but, council still serves as the board of zoning appeals, for the vast majority of things. We meet monthly. You know, there's seven of us. I think we have a pretty diverse background, but we, you know, do a pretty good job, I think, of getting along and making things happen and moving things along to you guys.

So, you know, the main reason that I'm here is there are a handful of things that, we discussed at some of the past meetings, and we would like to ask if council has the appetite to give us some guidance on things. You know, we've had some spirited conversations in the past about what our role is, and, I've always felt like, we are supposed to take our marching orders from council. And so in doing that, I've brought a few things forward that we had a consensus from the planning board on. And so I'll just briefly mention those. And then if you have any questions for me on those items, if you have any questions for me on anything else, I'm happy to answer them.

But there are three things quickly. We've had a few people come to us in the past talking about some inconsistencies in our code with pervious and impervious with respect to docs. And so there was a consensus of the planning board to to bring that to your attention and see if you guys had any desire for us to get into the weeds on discussing pervious and impervious. That's the first item. The second item is something that has affected me as a builder.

I certainly don't want it to sound self serving, but there is a provision in our code where on waterfront lots, the rear yard setback's maximum fence height is four feet. Inland lots and other areas of the yard, you're allowed to go to six feet. So what's happening is neighbors are putting up a four foot fence for their pool barrier. It's a life safety issue. And then a builder like me is coming next door and, you know, building to a higher elevation and making a mess honestly of things. So there's a provision in a code that allows your growth management staff to provide exemptions to that four foot rule. I know I've used that. I think some other builders have used that. We send an email to Dan and Mary. There's a process behind it.

But, you know, we're basically asking them. We're saying, here's the house. Here's the problem. Would you give us an exemption to the code? What the majority of the planning board has suggested I bring to your attention is the possibility of changing the code such that rear lots on water rear waterfront lots, we could also do a six foot fence for pool barriers and things like that. You know, you have no riparian rights. Right? You don't have the legal right to to look through your neighbor's property down the canal or anything like that. So, you know, if you allow a six foot fence, it's not any different than allowing a 10 foot tall hedge. It's kind of the way I say it.

So, you know, that's the second item for you to consider if you wanna have us look into that. The last item was brought up by a couple of the planning board members. The process we have for contemplated code changes. You know, we've got some things in the code that suggest that there's a formal process, there's an application, there's a fee, there's a process to follow. What's happened on more than one occasion is that process has not been followed.

I think there's some frustration perhaps at the council level, I've heard. There's some frustration I know at the planning board level when people just come up and say, hey. We'd like to change this code, and then it kinda circumvents the process that's in place. So does the council perhaps wanna consider looking at changing that process, doing away with that process? You know, we we would welcome your guidance on any of those three items, and I'm happy to take questions on that or anything else.

Very good. Thank you, Jason. Counselors, any questions? Light signs if you have any? Counselor Gray, you're up first.

No suggestions yet, but one further question. Seawall heights, we discussed that as a possible category to consider. Your point, if we have a friction point, whether it's a four foot fence and a six foot fence, anything we can do to resolve these discrepancies for the benefit of the community is a responsible way for us to move forward. But I put seawalls on there, too, as something that I think is still ill defined for us going forward. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you, Councilor. Councilor Henry.

Thank you, as always, and thank you for serving. One thing I know Beach and Coastal just did working with, of course, growth management was rewriting about the beach kiosks and stuff. I'm almost wondering if the planning board would want to take those steps, like looking at the specific rules and kind of giving a marked up marking up the way the code is written as to and how it would like to be changed and then have it be able to go through the legal process for us to review, which I think is a great idea because I do think there are a number of things that need to be updated from where we were to the larger homes and what you guys went over on Friday with the dock that was built too big and plot lines and stuff like that. So I do think a lot of the things could be reviewed. I know it's something that Chair Palumbo has brought up in the past, is looking at those things.

Sadly, we did have somebody review everything, they didn't do the greatest job. But maybe that is something. If there are a few things of changes you guys would like to make, I would very much be welcome to reviewing marked up copies of the best way to modify each so that everything kind of goes in line.

So I'm going to

put it back on you.

That sounds like fun.

Thanks. Jason, we'll tie it all in at the end there and get you some direction. Councilor Schwann, you're up next, please.

Yes. Thank you, Jason, for your service. I wanted to concur concur about the height of the seawalls. We have been hearing a lot about that. And if there is some guidance on the board that you serve on that could be helpful to us, I know I would appreciate that. Thank you.

I think some of the guidance we had from staff is that they thought perhaps some a coastal engineering study might be necessary. Whether or not the Waterways Committee should get involved in that, I mean, I'm happy to do whatever. But we want to stay in our lane. But if you tell us to do it, we will do our best to look into it.

Thank you.

Thank you, Jason. Vice Chair Champine?

Thank you, Jason, and thanks to the entire Planning Board for doing the kind of work you do. Very important, obviously. And we're very we, as a council, are very dependent upon what recommendations you make. So on the three points that you made, I would come back and say, we are ill suited to make decisions on many of these topics because we just don't know enough of the information. You folks are living it.

I would recommend you recommend to us what the solution is for each one of those and help us from that standpoint. For us to sit here and contemplate what the decision should be, we can end up making that decision. Whether it's the appropriate decision to be reached or not is really questionable because we just don't have the background. I would prefer to hear it from the experts which are sitting on the planning board, tell us what your recommendation is. It's up to us to say yes or no. It's better than leaving it up to us to come up with an answer. That's my opinion. You. Councillor Gohler.

Thank you, Jason, for your service. And I know it's a process also. They're expecting for us to do the recommend for them for you guys to bring the recommendations to us. This is the process, right? And the last time I agree with all three points. I think one of the most frustrating that I have observed is the application process. It has been every time that we look at the application and I've spoken with Mr. Smith about that as well. So I think we need to definitely improve that process. So make it shorter and make it more structural instead of going back and forth constantly and just I agree with you 100%. And thank you again for bringing to our attention.

Thank you.

Jason, let me try to tie some of this together. And I agree with what my co counselors said. Some of these things, though, applications permits different things. Some of those might also be amount of labor and workforce we have, how do we pay. Those things we could talk about another time. Dan, can you jump in? We had spoken a while back, and I had mentioned this at the very end of a meeting, kind of another long meeting we had about a code review. Didn't get much traction. They said, I'll bring it back another time because it wasn't the appropriate time two minutes before. But we did commission a study at one point, right? We never went through with the cost or can you refresh me?

That's correct.

Just before I came here in 2017, the city council had brought in a consultant, I believe it was in 2016, to go over what they called the glitch list and to try to fix some of the issues that people perceived on Marco Island with the Land Development Code. One of those was trying to translate MICR requirements to the Land Development Code. It was cumbersome. It really didn't get too much traction. We did get some things that we could do.

But I think what happens is we end up biting off more than we can chew. We hired a consultant from the East Coast that didn't understand our regulations very well. And, again, it was one of those things that just didn't work out. There there's things in the code that need to be addressed at some point in time. Probably biting things off in small chunks is probably a better solution than trying to do everything all at once. But that's just my personal opinion. I saw it how it happened before, and it really didn't work out the way I think the city council envisioned.

Perfect. I appreciate that advice. So, councilors, based on the if we go through this one by one, would it not be wise to offer some directions to the planning board and maybe say, start with the parts of the code you think have the most issues, the most challenges? Start when you say biting them off, bite off what maybe is the most priority. And we could Dan or Casey or Jason, give me some guidance on this, but would that be a good first start?

If I may.

Please.

Because anything that the council assigns to the planning board, you're assigning to our staff. Because staff will put together a staff report. They'll include the codes. They'll include examples. They'll make a recommendation for a planning board to consider. Mr. Bailey outlined, I think, three very clear options that are probably a good place to start and that the planning board has heard issues with, and they're familiar with the code already. So the perviousimpervious doc material would be an easy one to assign to the planning board and staff. Fence heights, four feet, six feet. And then my understanding is that the seawall heights are not part of the land development code.

So then you're starting to assign the planning board things that aren't necessarily within their scope. So I wouldn't necessarily recommend that one. And then the final one is a little bit ambiguous because I think and I don't want to speak for Jason, but I think what he's referring to is there are several times when we have application process, an application for a variance, an application for a conditional use. Parking is a good example. Instead of a business owner using the app or a homeowner using the application process, they want to change the code.

And so where there are problematic areas like that, do you want the planning board to say, use the application process that's already outlined in our policies and procedures? Or would you like the planning board to say, Okay, we'll take a look at that code and possibly bring a recommendation to city council? My recommendation would be it'd probably be worthwhile to go ahead and look at the code and bring a recommendation. The downside of that is it will delay potential answers to those people who are asking for the code change. So you just have to weigh the pros and cons of that.

But I think the three he brought forward are pretty clear. And starting with that is probably a good approach, rather than just saying open up the books broadly and have them take on everything.

Kase, I appreciate the guidance. I'm gonna speak about COOs a little bit. I was actually gonna talk about that when we maybe talk about how we have to, in my opinion, get some better direction down to our wonderful advisory committees. And I thought seawalls might be something the Waterways Advisory could take a look at, but that was just going to be my thoughts. I want to touch base upon that in council communication, then we could decide if we want to formally revisit this on an agenda item. I like those three ideas. I trust Casey's lead in what the staff can handle. I like the last part. I hesitate to want to hold up somebody's application process. And if we see something that's maybe gonna be very difficult, then we might take it on a case by case basis.

I don't know if that's possible. But if not, I would say, if it's going take just a little extra time and we can get it right, fix it twice, we fixed it one time too many. As we're coming across these, I'd say we try to fix them as we're going along. So I like that last suggestion, Casey, personally. What do you need from us to move Jason forward with these consensus of the council? Just direction. What are we alright. Councilors, any other I see one more light sign. Councilor Henry?

I was just gonna take this as an opportunity, because so many of these things, is to remind everyone that there is the Builders Roundtable on May 13. So just to remind Enrique, because so many of these factors, people are coming in with contractors. And I know how the application process works and going through all of it. I think they've got that down. But when there are questions, that's where they get led into this. So I just wanted to do a little plug for the Builders Roundtable, which I think could be educational for just even people maybe with an intent or a plan to see kind of how the process goes.

Jim, even though there's a presentation, has anybody signed up to speak on this?

No, sir.

I didn't think so. Okay. So, counselors, just to review, we'd be talking about pervious versus impervious pavers, all approved by the Planning Board. Right, Jason? The setback and also the four foot fence to six foot and looking at the code on an individual basis as it pops up with the application process. Did I get that right for everybody? Casey, correct? Jason, correct?

Yeah. I mean, it was specifically talking about decks and docks on the impervious. I think the issue that's come forward is somebody's building a dock. The dock comes over the seawall into the backyard, and they're trying to figure out is that pervious or that impervious, and there's there's a discussion occurring.

So how they relate to pervious, impervious, how it relates to decks decks and docks, the setback, and the four foot to six foot fence and codes on an individual basis. Correct? Councilors, any other light signs? Alright. Everybody that wants to send this down to planning board for work, raise your hand for approval. Looks like you have unanimous approval here, Jason. We appreciate you. And before you go, will say, you know, I agree with vice chair vice chair Champagne. You and the audit advisory, we're lucky we're lucky to have great advisory committees across the board, but you are the two with real power, with mandated power that that we need. So when you bring us this and you come taking the lead for us, I agree.

Letting us know what you think you see, it's a big help. We don't look at them the way you do. We don't look at the agenda items, the planning board, the exact way you do. And with your background and the rest of the team, I personally am grateful. Thank you for all you do for us.

Thank you.

All right. Thank you, Jason. All right. We are on to item 11. There's, I believe, a city manager report. Light signs, if you have anything. Casey, if you have anything.

Nothing to add other than what's in the written report.

Alright. Great report. We can take a look at them as we always can at our convenience. Nothing under the city attorney report. Guys, any light signs for the city attorney? Alright. Item 13, department departmental reports. Counselors, anything? Tremendous. We are on to item 14, moving right along. Well, we're making up for a good time after those last couple meetings, are we not? Yeah. Alright. Item 14, quasi judicial public hearings. We are on item a, resolution and variance petition for 287 And 297 North Collier. Joe, do you wanna go first with that? Then we'll turn it over to Alan.

Chairman, if I may.

You want to go first? Absolutely.

This is a preside judicial item that's coming in. First, we need to have communication of ex parte by counsel to announce that, please, if they've had any communication with members of the public or anyone in particular with regard to the subject matter.

Counselor Henry, we'll start with you.

A site visit, and I've been to the planning board meetings.

Okay.

Site visit, watch the planning board meeting, and been to the restaurants many times.

Site visit, planning board meeting, that's it.

Site visit was at the planning board meeting.

And councilor Henry?

Site visit, planning board meeting.

Okay. Thank you. And then anyone who intends to speak on this matter must be sworn in. So if you would just rise and raise your right hand. Do you saw Mr. Ray tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

So help

your God.

I do.

Thank you. I turn it back to you, Mr. Chairman. And we need to have the resolution.

Thank you. Joan, you're up first before I turn

it over to Mary.

All right. Thank you. Reading Resolution 20 six-nineteen by title into record, a resolution of the city of Marco Island, Florida approving variance petition VP 20 six-twenty one providing for a variance from Section thirty-4A8.4A to allow for parking space credits resulting from the installation of a pedestrian connection for the properties located at 287 And 297 North Collier Boulevard, Marco Island, Florida, providing for findings and conditions of approval and providing an effective date.

Thank you. Mary, please.

Good evening. Mary Holden, your planning manager. Before you tonight is a variance, and they are requesting a parking credit for a pedestrian connection. Our land development code allows for a parking credit if you have a vehicular connection, interconnection among the parking lots, but nothing for pedestrian. Staff has I'm sorry, the planning board reviewed this and held a public hearing at their 04/03/2026 meeting.

There was discussion regarding the nature of the variance, And there were discussion on pervious calculations, which it does meet the pervious and pervious counts. There were two citizens, one just concerned with parking in the swale and another citizen who was opposing the proposed variance. After discussion, the planning board voted seven o to forward on a recommendation to the city council with the findings and the conditions that are outlined in your staff report and that are also in the resolution. I'm happy to answer any questions. And the applicant, his agent, Mr.

Zach Lombardo, is also in attendance should you have questions of them.

Very good. Thank you, Mary. We'll turn it over to the counselors for some questions. Counselor Gohler, you're up first.

Mary, I attended the meeting. And I know that it was seven-zero, so I don't have any questions. I would move forward to make a motion to approve this hearing.

We have a motion. Do we have a second? Second. We have a motion by Councilor Goler, seconded by Councilor Henry. I still see some light signs. Councilor Gray, you're up next. Next.

Thank you. Is this pedestrian interconnect ADA compliant?

I will defer. Is it going to be ADA compliant? Well, it's stairs, so it really can't be. No. It's stairs. They have ADA parking spaces on both sites that are appropriately located. But the actual connection will not be.

Okay. And then just to confirm, the code does not provide for parking credit for a pedestrian interconnect?

Correct.

Okay. Thank you.

Mary, seeing all the lights on, I just have one question, and you mentioned it already. There were there was only one letter of objection. I know it wasn't a direct neighbor, not that that should matter. They lived a little ways down the road, but just the one letter. Correct?

Correct.

And the planning board did vote seven to zero to approve this?

Correct.

Very good. Has anybody signed up to speak on this?

We have no registered speakers.

Call the roll,

please. Yes, sir. Councilor Gohler?

Yes.

Councilor Henry?

Yes.

Councilor Schwann?

Yes.

Vice Chair Champagne? Yes. Councilor Gray? No. Chair Palumbo?

Yes. Motion passes five to one. Excuse me. Takes a little five to one. Alright. Thank you, Mary. We are on to item 15, ordinances. 15A number one. Joan, I'll get you in one second. This is the second reading of the upgrading to the wastewater treatment plant AWT. Joan, please.

Yes. Reading ordinance 26 dash o two by title into record. An ordinance of the City Of Marco Island, Florida, amending the City Of Marco Island code of ordinances for the purpose of upgrading the Marco Island wastewater treatment plant to achieve advanced wastewater treatment, AWT, nutrient standards to meet a total nitrogen, TN, standard expressed as N of no more than three milligrams per liter and a total phosphorus TP standard expressed as P of no more than one milligram per liter. Providing for conflict and severability and providing an effective date.

Very good. Thank you. Alan, anything to add to that or start with the questions?

Mr. Chairman, I only wish to just remind you that if this is second reading, but if council fails to adopt the ordinance as it's proposed, that you would be required to place this before the elected officials or the elected on on the ballot on August 18 for the primary election.

Thank you for clarifying the August. I wasn't sure, to be honest. Counselors, you know this. We've been around this. I view this as one part in a chain of approvals. We we our next previous counsel might be talking about some other things regarding implementation and cost. This is either gonna be voted on by us or it's gonna be voted on by the people. It's that simple. I do see some light science. Councilor Gohler, you're up first.

We have been discussing this for a while, and this ordinance goes along with the PAC came up with. Right? That is correct. We are in alliance with the proposal. So I move forward to I make a motion to approve this.

We have a motion. Councilor Gorel, I'll second your motion. We don't traditionally but we have a motion by councilor Gorel, seconded by myself. Councilor vice chair Champagne.

Thank you. My position is the city absolutely must clean the canals. There's no question about that. How we do it and what order we do it in is debatable. The petition and the ordinance leave a tremendous amount of necessary information out.

We can't make a business decision based on the wording in the ordinance nor in the petition. We have no idea what the funding would be, what the actual cost, what the design would be. We need a master plan for canals that not only includes AWT, but also includes sediment management, circulation and oxygenation. Because without all three, that can those canals don't get clean. AWT on its own will not clean the canals.

It'll make a slight improvement, and it may take several years to see that slight improvement, but it will not clean the canals. The community needs to understand when I say and other people say it's a multifaceted approach to cleaning canals, what does that mean? How much is it gonna cost the community? We're passing an ordinance as a blank check. Whatever you want, we'll do regardless of the cost.

That's not how business is conducted. So we need a master plan, whether we do it at the waterways committee level or at the council level. I suggest it'd be better at the advisory committee level. We need to understand what's involved in this process. The the muck in the canals, according to the Harper report, 70% of that muck is nutrients, and they flow regularly with the water.

And so any new clean water coming in is gonna be tainted relatively soon by the muck. And then we have dead end canals where there's virtually stagnant water sitting for seven to eleven months without any movement. That just begs for problems. So it's a three part plan at least in addition to subcategories like getting control of fertilizer, getting control of landscapers, pumping grass and other stuff into the water. We need a multifaceted approach to this, but we must, as a city, you can't walk away from the fact these canals are polluted.

We must clean them. Now who what comes first? Chicken or the egg? Is it AWT, muck removal, the I don't know. But we have smarter people out there than than myself on this issue. But everyone needs to understand in the community, we're talking about AWT only. And that's been the focus. And it's been made to sound like it's the silver bullet, and it is not. Okay? So what is involved in doing the other multifaceted approach and what's it going to cost and how long will it take, none of which we've really seriously looked into at this juncture.

So I think before we I'm going to vote in favor of the audience because I understand at any time we can withdraw it. So that's a great deal of flexibility, to be honest with So let's move it forward by encouraging people in the audience who are advocates for AWT, don't stop there. How about muck? How about recirculation? Start looking into these other issues. I'll pass the baton.

Thank you. Councilor Gray.

Thank you. Vice Chair Champagne, those are some excellent comments. We started on the dredging conversation without the foresight and thoughtful approach that you just suggested looking at AWT. So we've always been driven and desirous of a master plan, water plan. I did run on clean water.

AWT is an evidence in Naples. It's an evidence out in the Keys. We're surrounded by at least municipalities doing this. I could I wholeheartedly agree that this is part of the solution. But this is one that, on the campaign trail, was reiterated to me over and over as an important point. And I absolutely agree with you that the financial discipline and the financial thought process has to be applied to this correctly. But we haven't gotten traction in quite a while. And I think this is an important step in getting some traction. And I guess what I would describe is lighting a fire under building the master plan. So I'm supportive.

I think it's an important step. And I do acknowledge that you've identified their safeguards in how we move forward with this. Prudence is always advised. Thank you.

Thank you, counselor. I see no other light signs. I'm gonna I agree with all the comments of the counselors. This is a first step. This is a bit of an open ended step, but it gets us going. I sat here many a times and and said I think a referendum should have the cost, should have the mechanism, and now we have those. And that may be a future or may not, depending on what council decides down the road. That could be a conversation. But for now, what's before us? This question was asked to citizens in a very high number.

They responded. They had extra ballots. I mean, I thought it was an excellent response. So we answer this question or the citizens do, by referendum. I believe this particular portion of it, should answer here in the council while maybe putting the rest of the questions to the citizens or at least being open minded for that. Jim, how many people are signed up to speak on this?

We have two registered speakers.

Please bring them up and give them their full time. Four minutes, please.

Yes, sir. Our first speaker is mister Richard Balana followed by mister David Rasmussen.

Rich Blana, 15 I 41 San Marco had prepared a couple of things. I sent you a couple of emails today. And the folks who are really championing AWT use Tampa as as the prototype, as the example. I went up to Crystal River when I was on council, which I thought was a more appropriate model for us because it is a canal community based around a harbor. The entire community lives on individual canals.

Tampa is one big bay, and they have one canal, which is really a drainage canal. So it's a totally different environment. Just to give you some idea, I totally agree with with Councilor Champagne about the three elements that are involved. You can't clean the water and then throw it into a a polluted environment with three feet of muck that just leaches, toxins. It it is not gonna work.

You have to get the crap off the bottom of the canal. Then you have to plant seagrass, and then you have to clean the water and put the clean water back into that environment. If you don't do that, it's just simply you're we're to waste millions of dollars. So I wanted to talk a little bit about the cost. Tampa, with a budget of $247,000,000 for AWT, that only represents 13% of their total operating budget.

We're looking at projections of $8,000,000 initially and 700,000 every year, which for our $33,000,000 budget, that's 24% of our budget. So we're spending almost twice as much as Tampa. And we're doing just one element of AWT. To me, it just doesn't seem like a responsible use of our money. I think if we're going to do this, we do it right. We find some grant money. We do all three things. And we do it right. And when you look at the ordinance, there's nothing at all in there that speaks to the cost. So you're gonna approve a blanket ordinance that could cost the taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars for a long, long time.

I I I just don't like it. The only other thing that I wrote was in light of Eric's passing, leaving only six voting counselors, I'm asking you to seriously consider voting against the proposal tonight and sending it to the voters on the November ballot, which will now be the August ballot. Having six people decide on an issue that will cost citizens multi millions of dollars annually for an indefinite period of time to me is irresponsible government. Please let the full voting public decide this issue at the ballot box. Thank you.

Thank you, Rich.

Our next registered we have several more. Our next registered speaker is mister David Rasmussen followed by mister Ralph Rohina.

How many total on that list?

Now we're up to five.

Very good.

David Rasmussen.

Can you recite his clock, please?

Yeah. I'm sorry.

David Rasmussen was there.

Text and

his query.

Just want to reset your clock, David. Sorry. Go ahead. Please. Thank

you. I agree with mister Champagne. This is not the end all. It our commune our agreement our our our committee, I'm sorry, advance or I'm sorry, advance Clean Market Waters has been fighting since 2017 to bring this issue to you, the council to vote. Numerous times, we've been resisted by council, including the the waterways advisory committee.

We keep going around in circles. It is money, but it's we, the council, spent a $180,000 to come up with the answer to these questions. And how much is it gonna cost? And how long is it gonna, you know, take to get it installed? And, you know, how much you know, what is it gonna do for us?

The single largest source of nutrients that's in our waterways, single single source is the reuse water. The ERD reports that 78% of everything that we put on the ground ends up in our canals, nutrients. And it's not only the the reuse water, it's also fertilizer. All of that is going in. And the muck on the bottom of the canals got there from nutrients going in and algae growing and algae dies and creates the muck.

If you stop the the reused water and the fertilizer from going in or reduce the amount that's going in, you know, you're gonna let that's that stuff is gonna be eaten by nature. Eventually, over time, it will. But until we stop feeding the fire with gasoline, we're never gonna get anywheres. And and I I sincerely appreciate you you guys meeting and discussing this today. But we're again, we're going round and round through the circle here, and we never get anywheres.

We and it's surprising because Eric Brechner was totally against this. And in the end, he said to me, Dave, I was wrong. The people need to be heard. We need to vote this in. And unfortunately, he passed away six hours after he had his last chance to vote. In his name, please approve it. Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next registered speaker is mister Ralph Rojina followed by mister Mario Curial.

Hello again. Ralph Rojina, 1630 Begonia Court. I didn't think I'd have to say anything today. You know, as we just said, going out in circles for years on this thing. And as you said, you're not experts.

You need people that know this stuff, live this stuff, work this stuff, bring it to you. And that's what's been done year after year after year. And now we're kicking it down the road again a little bit. I've advocated exactly what you said for I can't even understand how long of a strategic waterway workshop that will bring in outsiders that can speak to it, internal experts that can speak to it, where you can get the pros and the cons instead of isolated opinions. We had one isolated opinion on Clear River as an advocate for doing One Direction.

That was brought to you before by an ex counselor. And I wrote to you Clear River, I know it quite well. It's not appropriate comparison. It just isn't. But you won't make the investment to have that Waterway workshop to do that and say, yes, now we all understand it. We're on the same page. Let's move forward. You also, I brought to you one time on a viral remediation, muck eating bacteria. You all spent fifteen minutes rationalizing not hearing a six minute presentation by an expert in that arena. And he's also the patent holder for the best system for delivering that.

Couldn't get it done. You didn't want to hear it? Tried our best. There's a bunch of barriers that everybody is not making the investment to do what you want to do. We have to get back on the same page. And strategic plan is great, but we're now at the second hereafter this thing that we've been going around in circles. So I think I don't know what the next step is except to vote AWT in. The experts are telling you AWT is the first rung on a ladder. As that's in place, there's a lot of low hanging fruit, the whole landscaping arena with very little cost. You do that in the meantime, that's two things already. And that that's gonna get us a start. Thank you. Thank you.

Our next speaker is mister Mario Curiel followed by our final registered speaker, mister Rick Woodworth.

Mario, hello.

How you doing, guys?

Fifteen years ago

State your name just

so Oh, again?

For the record, we all know

Cree Island, live on Marco Island. Thank you. Past couple years. But fifteen years ago, different boards. Okay? We went around several times to find out how we're gonna keep this container clean. So I designed something, and I proposed to to the planning board. And I proposed I I proposed to the city council. And what it was was a filtration system to be put in on the end of every pipe that I discharge in the canals. It'd be like a catch basin with the filter inside.

I was gonna go ahead and build them. I build a mecca for them, and I show them what this how the thing works. But they said, well, it's gonna cost some money. People gotta come over to clean it up. Time out. I don't know how many pipes do we have leading to the canals. But if we could put a catch basin, which is only two feet wide, five feet long with the grate on top and a three inch filter in there, that prevents any kind of debris that goes into the canal. That alone would eliminate all the problem that we have right now because if they would install fifteen years ago, like I told them, we would have none of this problem today. We have problem with the fertilizer. If you don't fertilize the grass, they're gonna die.

Then you guys are gonna complain that grass is not green. Well, put the stones down. No. You don't put stone. Like, put a regular carpet down. Well, that was illegal. So somehow, the board had to come up with some kind of a way to understand the fundamental how the whole thing work. We want the canal clean when nobody wants to do a damn thing about it. Everybody throw trashes in the canal. But if you implement what I've said to you the last time, because I don't know how much longer I'll be able to tell you guys this, they'll eliminate a lot of problems.

You have people in the staff, they go there once a week, they take the grid off, pull the filter out, and clean all the junk out. And they'll put filter back in. That cuts down over 80% of debris goes into the canal. Now, if you guys don't get it, I'm sorry. I can't help you guys anymore. Thank you.

Thank you, Mario.

Our last registered speaker is Mr. Rick Woolworth.

Rick Woodworth, 908 North Barfield. I actually didn't bring any prepared comments tonight because I didn't think I needed them.

Well, sure you do. I think it's pretty positive.

I would address a couple of things that counselor Champagne brought up. At the Waterways Committee, despite the difficulty in having a good conversation at the WAC, we have put forth a multi pronged approach that got blocked by certain committee members, but it's it's on the table. And I'd like to say that, in fact, I have a meeting this week with with Dan Smith and with Chief Frazano and Justin Martin to discuss fertilizer issues, landscaping issues. We're going to review the ordinances, review code enforcement. I'm 100% beside a multipronged approach.

The other thing I wanna mention is that I did circulate to counsel a companion ordinance to go along with this ordinance, if you pass it tonight, which I hope you do, that addresses many of the issues that councilor Champaign has raised as cost and other, I think, additions that should be made to the ordinance. But I was told it wasn't appropriate to tack them on tonight to the ordinance. So, I hope you all vote in favor of it. We are working on it on the waterways committee despite some dis dysfunction. The city's been cooperative.

We have a meeting scheduled this week. So we are addressing those issues, but this is the first step that needs to be done. Thank you.

Thank you.

That's our final registered speaker.

I see no other light science counselors. I'm gonna make one last thought if you don't have any. I sat here. I sat actually there where councilor Gray is. And at that time, it was councilor Erwin. It was actually councilor Blana, Erwin, Folly, Grafoni, Brechnitz, Rola, and myself. And I saw the work they did on water quality. They don't get credit for the amount of time and effort they put into it. AWT wasn't the goal at the time. There was a different plan in place. And it produced some results, but now we're talking about another plan, the next evolution. I agree with what you said, vice chair. It is only the first step. I agree very heavily with what former councilor Blana said. There's a lot of things that need to be added, but I don't believe it's in this particular ordinance.

That, I believe, since there are safeguards and we understand where we are with this. That, I believe, is in the next version if council chooses in the future to put that to the people as opposed to voting that in themselves. That'll be their choice. But this piece of it, this portion seems like it's well within reason and overdue to me, personally. I campaigned on this also, and I certainly be supporting it. So you know the light signs, Jim? Call the roll, please. And you can call me second because I'm the Yes.

Counselor Gohler? Yes. Chair Palumbo? Yes. Counselor Schwann?

Yes.

Counselor Henry?

Yes.

Councilor Gray?

Yes.

Vice chair Champagne?

Yes. Alright. Motion passes six to zero. Congratulations. We are on to 15 a number two, ordinance second reading, amending chapter 54 for the definition of beach kiosk. Joan, please.

Yes. I'm reading the ordinance 26 dash o three by title into record. An ordinance of the City Of Marco Island, amending chapter 54, waterways and beaches, Article II, Beach Management and Vessel Control of the City Of Marco Island Code of Ordinances by amending Section 50 four-thirty two Definitions to add a new definition for the term beach kiosk, enacting a new Section 50 four-forty entitled Beach Kiosks to provide for the regulation of beach kiosks within the city of Marco Island, enacting a new Section 50 four-forty one entitled Beach Furniture and Vendor Equipment to provide for regulation of the placement of the vendor beach furniture and equipment within the city of Marco Island, providing for severability, providing for conflict, and providing for an effective date.

Thank you. Jerome, if you do me one favor, if you could just shut that clock off, please. Let's throw me off. Dan, you're up next, please.

Daniel Smith, director of community affairs. This is actually the second reading at the last, city council meeting. We had the first reading for, making amendment to chapter 54, adding two sections. One was the allowance and regulation of the beach kiosk. The other was regulation of how beach furniture and their wares are on the beach. This is a long time coming. The beach and coastal resource committee spent a lot of time on this. They've done a wonderful job, and there is no changes. It was voted unanimously. I'm just bringing this forward for the second reading. I'm here to answer any questions.

Thank you. Councilor Schwan, you're up first.

Yes. I was just going to make a motion to approve the second reading of ordinance twenty six zero three. All seconded.

Got a motion by councilor Schwan, seconded by councilor Gohler. Councilor Gohler, I see your light sign still on. Anything else to add to that? No. Okay. Anybody signed up to speak on this publicly?

We have one registered speaker. It's mister Zach Lombardo.

Please call him up. Zach thank you, Zach.

Yes. He's decided not to

And this is the easiest one you've ever please call the roll.

Yes, sir. Counselor Schwann?

Yes.

Counselor Gohler?

Yes.

Counselor Henry?

Yes.

Counselor Gray?

Yes.

Vice chair Champagne?

Yes.

Chair Palumbo?

Yes. Motion passes six to zero. Alright. We are on to 15 a item three, ordinance second reading of the sea turtle protection act or amendment. Joan, please.

Yes. Reading ordinance number twenty six zero four by title into record. An ordinance of the city of Marco Island, Florida, amending the city of Marco Island code of ordinances by amending chapter 54 waterways and beaches, Title V, Sea Turtle Protection, by amending Section 50 four-one 143 definitions to include fishing as a special event, amending Section 50 four-one 151 to provide regulations requiring a special permit for 10 or more people that gather on a beach at night, prohibiting anyone fishing on the beach at night between 9PM and 9AM during sea turtle season to protect sea turtles and their nesting habitats, providing for codification, providing for conflicts, providing for severability, and providing for an effective date.

Very good. Thank you. Alan, before we go to you and Councilor Schwarz, can you tell me how people are signed up for public comment on this so far?

On this particular item, have 14 people signed up.

Very good. Thank you. Alan, you first and then we'll turn it over to council Schwann.

I was just gonna say, for the purposes of this, maybe we should go ahead and talk to counsel Schwann, let her make her comments and then I'll chime in.

Excellent. Counselor Schwann you're up first.

Thank you. I move to approve the second reading of ordinance 20 six-four with one amendment and that would be to delete Section 3A1 special permit with 10 or more people on the beach at night. And I do have a few things that I would like to share, if I can do that before Ellen speaks. Sure. I'd first like to go over just a few facts.

And if, Martin, you would put up the first slide, please. You will see in this first slide, this is from the Collier County Sea Turtle Protection Plan Annual Report 2025. I obtained this from Mary Toro, the Collier County Environmental Specialist. On the second part of this slide, you will see City Of Marco Island annual emergence 2016 through 2025. As you look at this carefully, you will see the false crawls are up 86% the last three years.

That is the highest in Collier County. The cause of false crawls include artificial lights, human activity and disturbance and obstacles on the beach. Marco Island's first false crawl was recorded on 04/29/2026. Marco Island's first nest was recorded on 04/30/2026. Turtle season began May 1.

And on May 2, a Marco Island fisherman posted a dark nighttime photo of a sawfish on the beach with bright white light shining on it. Please, if you'd go to the second slide, Martin. Thank you. Thank you, Barton, for putting that up. I just wanted to share you this.

This is the Marco Island Code Enforcement flyer. And that first portion, you will see, it says, Do not use during turtle season flashlights, mobile phone lights, flash photography, lanterns, or any other light source on the beach after 9PM during turtle season. I'd just like to share four more points about the amendment and the law. The first one would be just talking about the amendment that we are considering on the second reading. It only restricts the hours of fishing.

It does this only during turtle sea nesting period. And it's only at night because that's when the female sea turtles come to shore to nest. Second, at the April 20 City Council meeting, the city attorney stated the city can regulate time of activities. The city attorney also stated other municipalities have restricted fishing during sea turtle season. Number three, the Florida attorney general opinion that says a city ordinance can regulate in the best interest of the health, safety and welfare of its citizens.

And number four, I would like to draw the council's attention to the Marco Island 2040 comprehensive plan. This was adopted by the twenty twenty City Council. Objective number 1.6 states Marco Island shall ensure the protection of wildlife species listed as federally endangered. That, of course, would include the loggerhead turtles. I feel it is our duty of the city council to protect these nesting sea turtles at this critical juncture right now with that increase of 86% in false crawls.

This is environmentally responsible and proactive. And I'd like to move it forward on this second reading with that amendment because we're speaking for the hundreds of residents, the over 600 people we've been contacted by, and so many of our residents feel this is so important to our conservation on this island. This also is supported by the Chamber of Commerce with over 400 plus members, and it is also supported by the 20,000 plus members of the Marco Island Civic Association. It's for that reason I would like us to move forward with this with this second reading and the amendment on it.

Councilor Schwan, I hear no second.

I'll second him.

I hear a second. All right. So we have a motion by Councilor Schwan, second by Councilor Gray. Light signs, conversation, folks? Or if not, we'll Councilor Gray, you're up first.

Thank you. If there's a more heated topic on this island, I don't want to find it. I've been buried in emails. This a very sensitive topic. My view is the following. I hate to restrict anybody's personal rights. Can't stand it. The issues that have concerned me is I've seen video, and I've seen complaints about, what I would say, incorrect behavior late at night. I think we've been challenged in either identifying infractions or enforcing them. Why?

I will not speak to. I don't know. But the next piece nobody's really spoken for the turtles. Science we just talked about AWT and the importance of science in diagnosing the situation. I've seen a lot of false crawls.

I've heard about them. I've read all this documentation. I do believe a pregnant turtle trying to crawl up onto the island and lay their eggs expense a great deal of energy. What's in their way, how serious it is, I can't tell you. What I'm dying for is some scientific perspective on what is the right behavior on our island and what is responsible, safe, and sound conduct on the island, this being our crown jewel and something to protect.

I have no interest in getting in anybody's personal rights. And I frankly love to fish. But I have a real problem with what I would call rogue behavior. The other element is the lights. I do know that our code enforcement is challenged.

I do wonder why we aren't running code enforcement drone on the beach or a boat sitting off the beach so you could actually watch the whole beach and see what the heck's going on there. We're left to speculate at what's going on. I would love to not restrict any of this. But what I want to do is I want to bring order and safety and soundness to our beach. And until I can find a more prudent way to get to that, I don't know how else to move forward, to put this in place until we can get stronger advice from sea turtles, scientific advice, etcetera, and what is acceptable and tolerable.

I hate to encroach on anybody's rights. I do hate litter. I don't like fishhooks. If you ever pulled a fishhook out of your foot, it ain't pretty. I've done it a couple of times myself. So I don't know how else to address the pressing current need of May 1, the sea turtles, until we can evidence that we can provide the right measures of protection for everybody using the beach, including the sea turtles. Thank you.

Thank you. Vice chair Champagne.

Thank you. I'm a little confused because we claim we're the most conservative city in the state of Florida. And here we are imposing restrictions. Do conservative cities impose restrictions upon their citizens, or do we take them away? A little confounding to me.

But nonetheless, there is a a paragraph or actually a long sentence in the current ordinance, which says, and it defines the word harass, harass means an intentional or negligent act or omission which creates the likelihood or injury to wildlife by annoying it to such an extent as to significantly disrupt normal behavior patterns, which include, but are not limited to nesting, breeding, feeding and sheltering. We have a law. So what's the issue? Okay? Compliance, enforcement.

That's what the issue is. The now addressing the hidden elephant in the room, which is really shark fishing because that's tied into this, of course. According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission and Conservation, all shark fishing activities must adhere to FWC best practices, which include minimizing fight time to reduce stress on the animal, prohibiting dragging sharks fully onto dry sand, keeping sharks in the water to the maximum extent possible, using nonstainless, nonoffset circle hooks where applicable, ensuring immediate and safe release. Failure to adhere to these practices shall constitute a violation of this ordinance. We already have a law, k, on shark fishing.

We have one on sea turtles.

We

have one on on shark fishing. Why don't we enforce them rather than restricting people's rights? The other thing I don't like about the proposed audit ordinance, from 9PM to 9AM, what about the people who get up at 6AM and work out on the beach? What about the people who just wanna walk? And they walk in groups, by the way.

It's restricting people unnecessarily, in my opinion, when the answer is enforce what's on the books today. Stop playing around. Let's carry it out. If someone violates the rules, and by the way, I've seen some of those videos and I believe there have been violations, then carry out the law. Enforce it. Don't write more laws. That's not the answer. Enforce the existing laws. They're here. They're in documented form, both for sea turtles and for shark fishing. No need to invent more laws. K? End of comment.

Thank you. Councilor Henry.

We kinda skipped over. Alan was supposed to, I think, give

some Thank you for I should switch with

you. No.

That's Alan did I

have a

I have a comment.

Did you wanna jump in or let them finish comments?

A bit. You can tell he's dying to say something.

So I'll speak that word, but I was gonna clarify. I just wanted to clarify the amendment. So the amendment is to remove on section three its lines 150 to 153 which is the reference to 10 people or more at night. So that will be completely removed. It will not be part of the it's not part of the amendment.

As well as item line seven and eight of the title also will be modified accordingly. So that's what's before you in the amendment. I just want to comment to the fact that there's been lots of questions about the fishing and the regulations and what the city can do. Frankly, the statute does allow local government to prohibit saltwater fishing for purpose of protecting public health, safety and welfare and that's what you've heard. What that phrase means and how it's addressed is all part of the subject matter that you're discussing right now.

But you do have a right to make regulations. I just want to make sure that you understand that as a big general statement. Does the ordinance go too far? That's yet to be determined. I leave that to you to make the determination.

I think we kind of leave that to you. You're the attorney, but we could go back and forth with that. Counselor Henry, do you want to add anything or were you just advocating, please?

I just want to add. I was advocating, and I do. Part of our existing ordinance now, it's about man made movable objects, shall not obstruct sea turtle nesting habitat. During nesting season, during obstructions, including but not limited to beach furniture, cabanas, umbrellas, tents, personal watercraft, bikes, vehicles, and boats shall be removed from the sea turtle nesting habitat, which is the beach, and shall be removed between nine to 8PM. That being said, any man made object.

So if you are going to the beach between 9PM and 8AM, that means you will not have, and this is with our court, no man made objects. So there's no wagons, no coolers, no chairs, no pole holders, no lights. That is what is in our ordinance now. And to support what Vice Chair Champagne is saying, enforcement of what is in our code says you can't. So if you want to go fishing from 9PM to 8AM, you can bring your rod.

No lights, no coolers, no chairs. I guess you can probably wear a backpack if you want to bring your gear. But our code specifically states you can't have man made objects on the beach in the turtle nesting habitat, which is the beach. So our code already says that. So that's where I have to say, I don't support the added language because our code already says you can't have man made objects on the beach. Thank you.

Thank you. Councilor Gohler.

You probably all remember my outburst last meeting. So I have had many conversations with experts. The people that actually fish there, they go out there in the early in the morning, 04:00, in the morning, 05:00, whatever, and they go and fish out there. And I also read into that I read more more carefully into our own ordinance, and I have to agree with mister Champagne at this time that we probably don't need any more laws enforced or or bring them in on our residents. Now my question is, when we saw the video and I saw the video, and I'm not going to engage with mister Bucks right now.

I'm probably I have a problem question for mister our chief chief of police that the video that was brought up to the soft the the guy this fish with the saw, right? Yeah. The sawfish, I saw the video, and the light was really bright. So, Chief, did you observe any of that and did you take any kind of measures? I don't know what the process is.

Good evening, counsel. On that night, there was no shark fishing on the beach. We checked it. The video that you saw on the website was an old video. However, we did forward it to FWC to get an opinion from them on what they think of that video. And I think they are here today to probably answer any of those questions that you may have in reference to the videos that have been put on the website.

And we still continue monitoring the beach and checking on the shark fishing at night, correct, Chief?

Yes, we've been monitoring the beach daily at night, checking to see how many people are out there fishing and if they're bringing something in while we're there. We'll observe if it is an infraction in any sort of way. And if necessary, we'll report it to FWC for follow-up.

Yeah. Thank you, Chief. And also, the letter that we received from FWC also stated that it will be pretty much unenforceable to continue with this ordinance. And right now, I have to step back and hear more comments from all of you. Thank you.

Counsel, I'm gonna take my first go around. Everybody's had one so far. I'll try to tie in a few thoughts. First of all, when you talk about enforcement, I think our police are doing a great job. There's only so many resources they can dedicate to the beach and the rest of the island, so we can't say it's from lack of doing their job, some lack of the amount of resources we may give them. We may have to choose to look at that if we're gonna more heavily enforce our beach. But that'll be a staff decision, and and we make the decision on how to pay for it. I I compliment you, counsel Schwann. I understand you're trying to solve a problem. Yes.

I don't wanna get there in the same direction. But this all starts because there was a little talk about shark fishing. I think, Mike when the four of you ran, Mike, I had it on one of your questions, I believe, your questionnaire when you if I remember correctly. So there was some talk, and then it perked up a little bit few three, four months back. Former councilor Joe Beatty and I communicated a bunch of times on it. There was an uptick in activity on South Beach. No question about it. It's probably why we're all sitting here having this conversation. Then somewhere in March when the word got out and council started getting involved, and then it just got on steroids. So people that never sharkfished showed up to watch shark fishing.

It just really became a spectacle or an event. I don't think we should lose sight of the fact that the real challenge to me here is how do we make sure South Beach is not over overrun with an overwhelming amount of fishing or shark fishing that it's that it hasn't seen before. I could accept some level of population population increase and some level of increased activity, but this has become a whole another level. So that's on my radar. Getting there through more ordinances or saying to turtles, look.

We had in my time here, we had 10 meetings on Pickable, and we need facts, and we need noise studies. We need items. We need science. We need all these things for an activity that is by no I don't believe it's constitutionally protected in the state of Florida pickleball, but here's an activity that is. We don't have a lot of science. We have a little bit of talk back here, and I appreciate, councilor Xuan, you adding some to this meeting. I need to see a lot more. Now I did a little research, and I Google Earth did. I like that measuring tool. There is 8,800 yards of beach from South Beach to the very tip of the Sand Dollar Spit.

And if you carved out 100 yards somewhere, I know it's never gonna be a perfect spot. Can't go here. Can't go there. Turtles, tiger tail, this. There has to be 100 yards we can concede to these folks. 1% or came out to 1.16% of the beach. I'd like to explore those opportunities. We had some opportunity to talk about diffusing the situation. Nobody liked it that I brought the message, hey. Don't shoot the messenger. It was given to me. But I'd prefer to have those conversations before I write more law and ordinance. Fish and Wildlife is saying there may be challenges. And he may say, stay in your lane. We have a letter from Fish and Wildlife to the city of Miami.

You're all copied on it, counselors, that say, hey, May, you know, stay in your lane. We have representative Ben Roach saying, stay in your lane. And there is a lot of money in the fishing industry. I'm not saying we should do this for this reason. We should protect nature. But there's a lot of money that will fight us on this. There is a lot of money that will show up at the end of May and June. You get a vacation on Marco Island. You go into a short term rental. You tick the community off as a bonus while you're defending your fishing rights and go have a party on the beach.

I don't think it's the best path. I don't wanna find out. I'd rather look at enforcement, look at some level of compromise, look at some science, see where this really lands, and go in that direction before I would support this going forward. And this but we still have a problem to solve. It's just I don't believe this is the way to do it. Thank you. Councilor Schwann, you're up next.

I was just gonna add some clarification, something mister Champagne brought up. Our two Marco Island Beach accesses are always open, and the beach is always open. They close the county accesses, the one at South Beach and the one at Tiger Tail. So in regards to what you were saying about going out for a walk early in the morning, yoga taking place, those things can all take place. And additionally, in our current language that we have with our first ordinance, it does say as soon as the Sea Turtle monitor goes by or nine So then the vendors can go out and set up chairs, too.

So I just wanted to clarify to you that the beach is open. It's just the two county accesses wait to open till eight But if you go to the public accesses of Marco Island, you can get on the beach. So I wanted to make sure everybody was aware of that.

Thank you. Vice Chair Champagne, and then before you go, if anybody has a second comment, if not, I'm turning it over to public speaking after that. Go ahead, Vice Chair.

All right, thank you. I just want to ensure the community that I hear you and I agree with you. For those people who live in the Apollo in South Beach and associated condos nearby, You were having trespassers go into your building, taking parking spots in your parking lot. I understand that. That does not require an ordinance.

To all the police, have the police come over, and take care of those kind of issues. So I understand. And by the way, it occurred primarily during the magic term spring break. And if we don't watch out, by the way, future spring breaks are also going to be a problem. So we need to conceive of how we're going to control spring breakers in the future, and we're not going to do it tonight.

But nonetheless, it's something to look at. Other people have brought up the fact that it should be illegal to use drones. It's not illegal on Marco Island to use drones. Okay? People can use drones. So that's a nonissue at this moment unless you wish to change the law. It currently exists. Chumming is banned. Some people have mentioned, boy, there's a lot of chumming going on. Well, if there is, we haven't found any incident where chumming has been used.

But nonetheless, if it is, it's against the law. So we don't have to change the law in that regard. Sea turtles, sharks, particularly endangered sharks, I'm like everyone else. I wanna protect those. K?

But we don't need more laws to protect those. We have laws on the books, both for sea turtles under the terminology that I read called harass. It prevents, you know, if we choose to enforce it, the it would prevent anyone from disrupting sea turtles as they come ashore. And on shark fishing, we know what the FWC says as best practices. If we see violations of those, then enforce it.

It's as simple as that, in my opinion. We don't need more laws. We need and by the way, I I commend chief Frazano and her staff because for the last five or six weeks, they've been patrolling the beach, and the incident rate has it's negligible. No violations from fishermen. There have been violations from lights in condos.

And that's still the principal cause for sea turtle false crawls is the lights. We have not yet found any factual data that says fishermen create false crawls. And primarily, by and by because the off season, there aren't that many fishermen out there. But nonetheless, let me pass it on.

How many signed up to speak at this point?

We have 14 registered speakers.

14 at four. That's almost an hour, so we'll have to cut him down to three. But we're gonna call up our fish and wildlife, mister Reinhart first, and we'll we'll give him a little leniency on the clock. Thomas, are you ready? Come on up. Counselors, you will be able to ask him some questions when he's done. Did you want to make any statements first, Douglas?

Sure. Yeah, thank you.

Say name for the record, please.

Yeah, Doctor. Thomas Reinert, Regional Director for Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. And our South Region is St. Lucie County through Monroe, Okeechobee, Glades, Hendrie, and Collier. I'm also joined tonight by our esteemed captain, area captain for Collier is Randy Yanez. He's here tonight.

I had to come up.

As my arm is backed up.

You can come up if you like.

The mission of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is managing our fish and wildlife resources for their benefit and for the benefit of the people. Article four, section nine of the Florida constitution grants us that authority over all fish and wildlife resources in the state. When we learned of this proposed ordinance, so we did craft a letter. You do have that in front of you now. We did get it to you a little bit late for the first reading, but I'm assuming you all have that now.

And we certainly recognize, counsel Swan, your passionate efforts to protect sea turtles, we share that. And we have a lot of rules and regulations of our own to help do that and conduct a lot of research into sea turtle nesting and hatchling survival and a variety of things like that. But I'm also reminded of amendment two that passed last year with nearly 70% of Florida voters enshrining into the constitution the constitutional right to hunt and fish. And given that the FWC has sole jurisdiction over fish and wildlife resources, this proposed ordinance, we deem it to be unenforceable and likely unconstitutional. So I encourage the the council to to reject it on on that basis alone.

FWC and I'm aware of other municipalities that have enacted similar similar ordinances. And toward that end, you have in front of you our letter to the city of Miami Beach informing them that their recently passed ordinance is likely also unconstitutional and unenforceable. And in fact, I'm meeting on Wednesday with Martin County to discuss one of their ordinances that they have regarding specifically shark fishing, and we're gonna help them get that right with the law as well. And so, again, I I do applaud the the the city for looking out for sea turtles and doing the things that you do to protect them. Lights on the beach, these are things that we wouldn't regulate, but things that that you can and have done so.

And I I note that in your sea turtle protection ordinance, requires what they call long wavelength that's amber or red lights on the beach at night and that is a great way to help protect sea turtles and lower disorientations. We would consider Marco Island a low intensity nesting area and the number of disorientations I have here. We have reported in twenty twenty five eight adult disorientations and 13 hatchling disorientations. That's relatively low And most likely not due to fishing, but more likely due to the intense light light intensity from emanating from the island from condos and hotels and other things. So again, would encourage you to take that into consideration.

There are things you can do and have been doing, and I applaud you for that, to protect sea turtles. Prohibiting fishing, which is not within your power, not one of them. And I'm happy to take any questions. And if we have matters of law, I have Captain Yanez here to help me out.

Counselors, light signs, if you have any questions? All right. Well, I appreciate

My light's not working.

Okay. Counselor Gray, please.

The sea turtle folks in FWC, do they agree with your position statement? And one of my biggest concerns was your description of false crawls, etcetera. You're convinced there's appropriate measures of protection for the sea turtles on our beach as it's currently structured if we were willing and able to enforce the laws?

I can't speak for if they're appropriate. I think

you

have have ordinances on there that can help. The reasons for false crawls are many and varied. On a perfectly dark beach in the middle of the night you might get a false crawl that's biology so it isn't necessarily every call false crawl is caused by some human intervention or by purpose or accident You do have things on your books that can help with that, but we can't eliminate all the light pollution that exists. So that that if if we could do that, then I think we'd have a lot less fewer false crawls and more hatchling success. But that's not what this is about here today.

Very. Thank you. Councilor Golder.

First of all, thank you for being here, for that information. And I was determined that I was going to vote for the ordinance. Then I saw your letter. And, folks, we do not want the lawsuit. Let's face it that way. You know, it's I love them turtles. I love them sharks, but let the lawmakers enforce the law and let them deal with it. So I think that's the right thing to do and that's an intelligent thing to do. Thank you both for being here. And your letter was just it was it for me. Thank you.

Thank Thank you, Councilor Gould. Councilor Schwann, you're up next.

Yes. Thank you for coming, both of you, this evening. I do want to follow-up with, and I'd like to ask the chief a question. You brought up about the artificial light is what you believe is causing the most false crawls. And I know counselor Champagne alluded to that too. I believe I read somewhere that last year, chief, where there are only five citations for artificial lights.

I wasn't prepared to answer that data, but looking over to my code enforcement officer and Maria Lam, they said yes to that answer.

It was only five? Okay. So just to follow-up with that, but I certainly do appreciate what you stated. But I think here in Marco Island, we only had five citations for the full turtle season last year. So just but I know there's several reasons. But thank you again for the information.

I see no lights. And gentlemen, I had a question, Thomas, for yourself or an officer. I forget your name. I'm sorry. I apologize if you could just state it for me.

Go ahead.

It's captain Randy Anas.

Captain Midd. Thank you so much. You had mentioned low intensity we're a low intensity nesting area there, right, at Marco Island, and we don't have many false crawls or hatchling 10 hatchling. Think you could give

me Just disorientation.

Disorientation. Thank you. How do we measure compared to other coastal when you say we're low intensity, is Naples a high intensity? Where's high intensity first?

Yeah. I did ask that question about the orient with disorientations. I wasn't able to get the full picture of data. But just as a way of comparison on the East Coast where I'm from, Riviera Beach, Juno Beach, they don't mark all the nests. They only mark one out of every 10 because if they marked every nest, no one would be able to go to the beach. Okay. There's the the the density is extremely high. And and our staff, our turtle staff, told me that they would consider this area low intensity. Very good.

Alright. That's all I had. Gentlemen, we appreciate it. Thank you. If you want to hang out for a few minutes, might be a question or two more, but we're going to open it up for public comment. And thank you so much. Appreciate you.

No. Thank you so much.

Three minutes each. Call them up, folks. If you don't need three minutes, we're grateful, but you have your right. Come on up.

Okay. Our first registered speaker is Mr. Adriano Castro, followed by Mr. Ron Gary.

You just state your name for the record and where you're from, if you don't mind, when you get to the microphone.

Hi, counsel. My name is Adriano Castro. I live in Naples. I will be speaking on behalf of Spencer Wonder of Land Based Angling Alliance as he was unable to attend today's meeting. During the last meeting and this meeting, you heard both local police and FWC say that no illegal activities were occurring with regard to shark fishing here on Marco Island.

You heard testimony from your own counsel that Us anglers are using turtle approved lighting and abiding by current turtle safe measures mandated by the city and FWC law. You have also received a letter from FWC detailing the illegal and unenforceable nature of the ordinance before you tonight. If the council is concerned about people on the beach during turtle season, then all activities should be banned during the proposed closed angling hours, not just fishing. If people on the beach are not the problem, then council is stipulating that anglers whose lights are on momentarily for catch and release are more a detriment by simply existing on the sand than shellers, beach walkers, sports players, etcetera, during the nighttime hours that reads as discrimination to me. Other cities have tried to close beaches to angling during certain hours and have all been told that anglers must have access to the high tide line.

The public trust lands of Florida cannot be closed by a municipality. Spencer has spoken to many of you about his concerns regarding this proposal, and we firmly firmly believe that the only actual legal defensible option Marco Island has in this matter is to vote no and not pass an ordinance that's doomed to preemption and legal challenges from day one. Thank you.

Thank you.

Mr. Ron Gary followed by Mr. Jay Colhagen.

Ron Gary, Amber Drive. Just like to say this this ordinance to me is is solely based on fiction. There's really no science behind it. I've done a literature search, and I've hired a professional librarian who did a literature search. I can make an argument that this is caused by short term rentals of false crawls.

Let's get it heated as we get. The point is that would be incorrect. There's no single data to show that fishermen are associated with this. What started out as a concern about specific situation, nighttime shark fishing, has now evolved into restrictions on all beach fishing and broad enforcement language. Somewhere along the way, they stopped being a scalpel and became a net.

And I'll be honest, if the goal here is to protect sea turtles, I think everyone in this room agrees with that. No one is lining up to argue against sea turtles. They're basically the most bipartisan species that we have. But what we've ended up with feels like targeting conservation and more like a bait and switch. This started with concerns about one person, but the response has been to restrict an entire group that has been operating responsibly for decades on our beach.

And here's the thing. When policy stretches too far beyond its original attempt, it doesn't it doesn't just lose precision, it loses credibility. So I want to offer a simple face saving off ramp. It is completely acceptable to say we took a swing at this and it went too far, and we're going to recalibrate. That's not failure.

That's good governance. You can protect hurdles through targeted evidence based measures without restricting ordinary anglers, without limiting families and groups on the beach, and without creating rules that are difficult to enforce and easy to challenge. Because broadbands built on narrow concerns rarely hold up well legally, practically, and publicly. Sometimes the best move is not to double down, it's to adjust course. Thank you. Thank you.

Mister Jay Colhagen followed by miss Stephanie Keller.

Jay Colhagen for the record, 34112. Hey, Eric was an anchor, you know, on this council, and he'll be missed. Getting right to it here. Coyotes and raccoons are more of a threat than fishermen. So it comes down to this, really. If you move to Spain and don't like bullfighting, you you don't try to ban it. You all took an oath to uphold the constitution. When there's doubt, we don't on the side of control. We on the side of the constitution, and that's exactly what's at stake here. This is a fishing ban being disguised as a sea turtle ordinance, and the people are seeing right through it.

So the question is simple. Are you gonna stand for the constitution, or are you gonna stand for control? Break the constitution, and you break public trust. And once that's gone, oh, god help us. This ordinance needs to be put to rest.

And I'll leave you with this often attributed to Thomas Jefferson. When people fear the government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, well, that's liberty. To put this into perspective, when government intimidates its citizens, that's tyranny. When citizens stand up for the government, well, that's liberty. And liberty is what brings us here today. Thank you.

Thank you.

Miss Stephanie Keller followed by Mr. Robert Randolph.

Hello, counselor. My name is Stephanie Keller for the record. I came here tonight because what started as a discussion about shark fishing a few weeks ago, maybe it was longer ago, has turned into something way bigger. A lot of people in the community feel like this ordinance is less about conservation and more about control. Control on how we use our public beaches.

We all wanna protect our beaches and wildlife. Everyone agrees on that. But we also have to be careful not to give up public access or go too far with regulations that we don't need there. After the shark fishing proposal didn't pass, this ordinance was then introduced introduced. And it raises some real concerns about whether it can even be enforced the way it's written and whether everything already in place has been fully considered.

Florida Fish and Wildlife already has rules to protect sea turtles and manage fishing. So the question is, do we really need another layer here? Do we are we just creating confusion or overlap? At the end of the day, protecting our freedoms takes all of us paying attention. As the old saying goes, eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. And I'll leave you with this. As liberty goes, so goes the republic for which it stands. Thank you.

Thank you.

Mr. Robert Randolph, followed by Ms. Lindsey Baynier.

Good evening, Robert Randolph, Collier County. I'm here in the support of all fishermen, not just the shark fishermen, but all of us. As a sportsman, a hunter, a fisherman, find that most sportsmen, fishermen especially, are great stewards, ambassadors, and conservationists of the environment. We watch out for everybody. The constitutional right is already in place by the state

of Florida. Little by little, it

is being chipped away by municipalities that restrict access to locations, restrict parking. You're not even rebuilding the periods yet. That's all bureaucracy.

It's all

driving everybody nuts. Mr. Champagne's comments about enforcement hits it right dead nuts on the head. Why not work and see if we can't get FWC to deputize some of us sports fishermen? Let us help out. We want the environment to be available for us. It would make sense. I, for one, I've turned in poachers. No problem. I'll block in somebody that's parked in a handicapped spot.

If they don't have the sticker, and I'll call non emergency. It doesn't bother me. Played by the rules. The manner in which this ordinance is being pushed through by hiding behind turtle nesting is disappointing, to say the least. I heard somewhere else also that there was a potential of readdressing the ordinance through equipment regulation. That is absolutely disgraceful. We have an opportunity here to keep everybody happy. The turtles, they've been here. The fishermen have been here.

I'd love to go back

to shark fishing, but my poor body can't take it anymore. But the fact of the matter is, folks, the sharks are there. The turtles are there. The fishermen are gonna police themselves. And if they don't, by god, throw the book at them. Thank you for your time. Thank you.

Miss Lindsay Boehner followed by mister Paul Miller.

Name is Lindsay Vayner. I live on Sheffield Avenue. I'm here this evening to speak about sea turtle conservation. I'm a former member of the Beach and Coastal Resources Advisory Committee, and I'm a former chairperson. I served on the committee during the updating of the sea turtle lighting ordinance, which was approved in March 2022 with a a unanimous vote in this very room.

The time I spent on the committee was enjoyable, informative, learning about issues the wildlife on our island face while meeting and working with members of this community. I would also like to add that I did this as an exercise to show that more young people can be involved in the process. This brings me to the current issue at hand, adding amendments to our sea turtle ordinance. The main takeaway I got from hours of presentations, meetings, and research is that our beach needs to be dark, quiet, and obstacle free to provide a suitable habitat for sea turtles to nest. Whether it's condos and their residents doing what they can to reduce the lights, including window coverings, turtle safe light bulbs, shields on their windows, appropriate lighting in parking garages, informing renters of the rules, and in one case, changing their pool lights to red.

These residents have done the work, but it's not enough. With an 86% increase in false crawls in three years, we can do more. Human disturbance on the beach is the main concern, and anything we can to reduce this helps endangered sea turtles. Like councilor Henry said, according to our own sea turtle ordinance, the removal of man made movable objects on the beach after 9PM is one thing we can do and we already do. We require our beach vendors to remove all obstructions, including but not limited to beach furniture, tents, umbrellas, bikes, vehicles and boats by 9PM and have them stored at the dune vegetation line.

I believe all beach visitors after nine should be held to this standard. This would include, but not be limited to, wagons, beach chairs and coolers. I would also like to see our sea turtle ordinance to continue to be vigorously enforced. Thank you, chief. If there is more work to do to get this right, then that's fine. Just like the sea turtles that have been nesting on our beach for thousands of years, I will keep working on this. And just like they show up every year, I will too. Thank you.

Thank you.

Mister Paul Miller followed by mister Spencer Roberts.

How are you all doing tonight? My name is Paul Miller. I'm a resident here on Marco Island. I'll keep short and simple.

Feel like Paul. Thank

you. Yeah. I'm trying my best, but I feel like we had a lot of wisdom coming from the state authority on who, you know, manages this. I think for me to say anything different and, you know, be redundant in what they've said would almost be a waste of time. I really just wanted to say I appreciate all the time that everybody has put into this matter. I know that from on both sides of the field, it feels like it's consumed a lot of that, and I'm not gonna say that I haven't realized that. So I just wanna say thank you all. I think it would be a wise thing to do to listen to, one, the state mandated authority on this subject. In the same instance, look at the constitution and see what the literature says. And if the literature says one thing, I think it would be wise to probably follow that. So you all have a great night.

Thank you. And thank you for your nice compliments.

Mister Spencer Roberts followed by mister Daniel Rodriguez.

Spencer, come on up. How there

you are.

Good evening once again. Marco Island, Spencer Roberts, marine biologist and wildlife crime researcher studying at the University of Miami.

Oh, I thought about that.

A growing body of evidence shows widespread illegality in United States land based shark fishing. My team of coders, criminologists, legal scholars, and shark biologists is conducting the largest study to date. I want to state this plainly, Florida has a crisis of illegal shark fishing. Last time I spoke of this illegality and some public officials questioned or doubted these statements, this time I came to show some evidence and I have sent you a slideshow. I hope you can review it.

If not now, then later. So the state wildlife code on shark fishing due to high rates of post release mortality prohibits a prohibited shark species from being removed from the water or the release being delayed for any reason. The FWC website and shark fishing course is explicit that this includes posing for photographs. Yet these photographs can be found all over the internet. There is an entire industry based around selling of these photograph opportunities.

And if you report these photographs to FWC, they do not respond. I have submitted many wildlife reports for many wildlife alerts for many reasons. I often receive a response the same day, but shark fishing reports are met with silence. However, since captain Yanez in the last meeting said that he owed a response to anyone who submitted a report, I pursued one from him, and we were able to briefly discuss four instances on Marco Island and only one of these FWC officers disputed the illegality of acknowledging that the rest were clearly illegal. However, they assured that they had had a talk with the fishermen.

Public records show that across the whole state, FWC issued one citation for illegal shark handling in 2025. My team identified over 100 on a single platform in a random sample. We'll be posting that research later this year. Now I'd like to talk about drones. The municipal code says use of aircraft on beach or adjoining water is prohibited.

Aircraft is defined to include drones. It's not ambiguous. And the state has not challenged this law, and I suspect that's because they know that they are superseded by the federal code, which states that acts prohibited in the airborne hunting act include while on the ground takes or attempts to take any wildlife by any means, aid, or use of an aircraft. So I know some of you aren't inclined to believe me, so you could take it from Texas Parks and Wildlife who conducted their own review of these regulations and came to the same undeniable conclusion that drone fishing is illegal in The United States. Yet, while TPWD is writing citations for drone fishing, FWC is looking the other way.

And not only is FWC not combating these emerging forms of illegal fishing, but is now picking fights with any local legislature trying to do something about it. Local shark fishing bans have existed in Florida since at least 2008. In 2002, the attorney general wrote an opinion explicitly listing beach shark fishing as an activity that cities could regulate within their limits. Only now, as more cities pass prohibitions on shark fishing in the midst of outcry against endangered sharks washing up dead across the state, has FWC come forward with a new theory on preemptive power to thwart these local laws. Interestingly, in this letter, FWC's FWC lawyers cite a case in which a court rules that an FWC permitted activity is not exempt from municipal regulation.

Now

Spencer, please.

Thank you. I don't know how you're gonna vote tonight, and I don't know how the state will react. But I know that when most people see these videos of animals being dragged from the ocean to be abused as photo props, subject to stress and suffocation to the point that many of them die. Most people, even in instances where it is legal, recognize that this is wrong. If the state intends to force this activity

Thank you.

On every city in Florida, let that be a legacy. It does not have to be yours.

Thank you. Next speaker, please.

Mister David Boggs is our next speaker followed by mister Noah Bandevere.

I really didn't

Why don't you state state your name for the record, please?

David Boggs.

Mhmm.

Marco Allen. I live here. I just wanna address a couple things because it was pointed towards me. Miss Guller, I'd like to answer your question about the sawfish. Mister Fish Pretender put it online that we had the balls to basically say, we caught this fish. That fish was caught two years ago. It wasn't caught. Social media works like this. I can't fish 365 a year, maybe three hundred and twenty. I was at home with my son, asleep in my chair, not shark fishing.

It's troubling to me, and I was just gonna let it go. And I I really do wanna go because we're talented people, and we could help the city in so many ways. But when you come after us, then you get mad if we respond. The pressure that city council has put on the city staff to put on law enforcement to track us is ridiculous. It's wrong.

The pressure you put on law enforcement to find something wrong with them is wrong. How many times you have to get upset because they don't find a violation? And when can you come to the point that says, hey, maybe they are doing it right? There are videos from two and three years ago that we didn't do everything exactly right. You know why? Because we didn't know any better. But today, we do know better. Why don't you embrace the talent that's here and say, hey. Let's figure out a way to make Marco Island a successful place for kids. Stop worrying about all this stuff that's irrelevant, and embrace the community like you do with all these other communities.

Design a fishing a fishing board or whatever, and let us help you help all of us so that Marco Island can be the place that we can raise our kids. And taking away the beach at night for kids, everybody don't have millions of dollars that they can spend to send their kid to the arcade at the Marriott. What do kids do in the summer? They fish. And you run them off the beach, they're gonna be in the street. And then you're gonna be complaining they're in the street because you took away fishing from them. Guess what? We can send them to the arcade or putt putt once or twice a year. That's all we can afford to do. Fishing is a way of life.

And for God's sake, let's get to business of fixing the bridges and the inter and infrastructure of this city, and let kids be kids, let fishermen be fishermen. You guys are wonderful people. I hate that this rhetoric got this and I apologize to both of you on the side. I don't wanna come at you like that. But I don't want you coming at us taking away our God given right and the constitutional right that was established by 67% of Floridians. God bless you, and thank you for your service to Marco Ireland.

Thank you.

Miss miss mister Noah VanderMeer followed by miss Maria Lamb.

Hello. My name is Noah VanderMeer. I'm a I live here in Marco Island. I just wanted to say that I think the FWC commissioners kinda hit the nail on the head with everything that was said. Realistically, we need to shift our focus from the fishing tactics to just protecting the environment. I think it's been discussed today that we have a lot of water pollution. And with that being said, I think all the time that we've put into this, and I think we had good intentions behind the entirety of this meeting. But, let's leave it to the professionals, let FWC handle everything that they've already handled thus far. Thank you.

Thank you, Noah.

Maria Lamb followed by miss Shaylyn Gordon.

Hi, Maria.

Hi. Good evening. I think I started all this. Okay? Because I said, what about the sea turtles from May 1 to October 31?

Maria, just state your name. We know who you are.

Maria. Thank you.

Lamb, l a m b. I write a column for the coastal release. It's the it's week one. I have twenty five more weeks to go. This is my passion, conservation. And I believe it is in our comprehensive plan, And I have to follow this through. Whether you think it is not right or you're going to say, Mr. Boggs and his creature crowd comes here. And I don't like the way he intimidates people on the Internet. I'm not used to that.

And I think there's also blame on the city council for that because chair and vice chair gave him a way out saying, hey, let's compromise. Some people think that is, wow, I have two city councils. They love me. But it doesn't mean that he has I think he has crossed the line. When you use family members to intimidate duly elected councilors, There should be some respect. You all talk about decorum. There is also decorum outside of this chamber. Okay. So I prepared a speech. It's about sea turtles, so don't be surprised.

I do not agree with the FWC data. I go with the sea turtle data by the Collier County Sea Turtle Protection that has been monitoring our beach since 1999. We became a city in 1998. That's a long time. I also do not agree with their legal opinion that we are violating the law, that they're gonna come after us. Guess what? We had a shark ban from 2008 to to 2024. We were never challenged by this state. What happened

to

that? That is nothing compared to protecting sea turtles from 9PM to 6AM. We have those time frames already in place. We were never challenged. All those condos facing the beach spent a lot of money being in compliant with lights.

It's finally working. We are seeing less and less light violation. Now we are imposing or proposing a time frame restriction at night, which will help further help the sea turtles. I don't see how you get not get that. It's a time frame for lights, a time frame for noise. They come ashore to nest at the beach where they were born thirty five years ago. We are so lucky to host this miracle of nature. And with this incredible inheritance, there comes a responsibility.

Finish up, please, Marie.

Alright. 86% spike in false scrolls is not acceptable. We can do better. Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Shailin Gordon, followed by our final registered speaker, mister Michael Young.

Good evening. Shalyn Gordon, 1630 Begonia Court. I'm gonna apologize if I go through this rapidly to meet the time and if any of it's redundant to previous speakers. I'm here today as both a citizen and a wildlife biology professional whose focus has been in conservation to address a very serious issue ongoing on this island related to shark fishing that demands your immediate attention. As you're aware, there are well documented instances of individuals, and I would be happy to provide more, engaging in practices that are not only unethical, but more importantly appear to be in direct violation of multiple federal and state wildlife protection laws.

First, under the Endangered Species Act, it is unlawful to take a protected species. A further statute defines take to include, amongst others, harass and harm. Further regulations then clarify that harm includes acts that not only kill but also those that injure wildlife by significantly impairing essential behavioral patterns, and that harass includes actions that likely that increase the likelihood of injury by disrupting normal behavior, such as impairment of essential biological functions necessary for survival, including respiration. The great hammerhead shark is a federally protected species, and the documented practices involving these animals, including removing them from the water past the point that their gills are fully submerged, otherwise preventing proper respiration during handling clearly and legally meet the threshold of a violation. Second, as Vice Chair Champaign commented, under Florida code, handling requirements apply not only to protected species but to non prohibited species as well.

This statue exists to minimize stress, injury, and mortality and requires that anglers use best practices to handle and rapidly release all sharks. Removing sharks from the water or handling them in a way that impairs breathing is not consistent with these regulations. It is a clear violation. Sharks are obligate ram ventilators and require continuous water flow over their gills to breathe. Failing to keep a shark's gills fully submerged during hook removal or by dragging a shark onto the beach for photo ops prior to release directly violates the state handling requirements.

Additionally, I'll skip that for time. Third, under the Federal Airborne Hunting Act, as was previously mentioned, it is unlawful to use aircraft, including drones. The statute prohibits any aircraft to shoot at, shoot or attempt to shoot at, or harass any bird, fish, or other animal. The use of drones to deploy bait and hooks for the purpose of catching sharks from the beach falls within this prohibition as an attempt to use an airborne device to pursue and capture wildlife. This is not a matter of interpretation, it is the law.

The conduct is repeated. Therefore, I'm asking three things real quick. One, recognize these abuses and that they present credible violation of State federal laws, work with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission and appropriate federal agencies to ensure they're investigated, and to issue to tackle the issue head on and not in a roundabout way by trying to create other laws and regulations.

Thank you.

It's not about restricting fishing. It's about what's doing right within the law. Thank you.

Thank you.

Mr. Michael Young, followed by Mr. Mario Curiel.

Michael Winn, for the record. Thank you for your time over these past four meetings speaking on land based shark fishing and sea turtle conservation. I just moved here four months ago. I fished all up and down the East Coast Of The United States. Most recently, I came from Maine.