Board of County Commissioners - Regular Meeting

If you wish to speak to any item on the agenda or during the public comment portion of the meeting, please fill out a speaker card. Each person addressing the board shall have three minutes to complete his or her comments on each agenda item for which he or she has filled out a card. The chair has the discretion to determine or alter the time limits on any agenda item. The Board of County Commissioners requests that speakers appearing under the public comments section of the agenda limit their comments or presentations to matters relating to county business that are within the board's control, authority, and jurisdiction.

Welcome to the Brevard County Commission meeting. We have a quorum and commissioner Goodson is with us telephonically.

Do you want me to make a motion, sir, to allow him to participate by phone? That's my motion.

Second.

Okay. Motion and second. All in favor say yay. Yay.

Motion. K.

Motion carries unanimously. Thank you so much. Okay. Our pledge of allegiance. No. Actually, our invocation will be led by pastor JB Kump from the Great Outdoors Church. Good to see you, JB. Always good to see you.

Thank you, mister chairman. What an honor it is to present the opening prayer for this meeting tonight, if you'll join me. Heavenly father, we're grateful to be able to approach you this evening at the beginning of this important meeting to give you thanks and praise. We're thankful to you for equipping those who are willing to take on the task of governing. We know it exacts a price in their personal and family lives that they can never be fully compensated for in this life.

We're thankful for our system of government and for the will of the governed to support it. We ask now for your wisdom to guide the discussions here tonight, grant us the insight to see beyond the surface, the discernment to understand the implications of our choices, and the courage to make decisions that honor you and serve the benefit of the community. Help us now to put aside personality and favorite agendas, especially when they counter the better good. May all here work together in humility and respect and for the good of all. May the words and actions of all tonight reflect integrity, compassion, and justice.

We trust in your guidance as we begin this meeting in your name. And now may the Lord bless thee and keep thee. The Lord make his face to shine upon thee and be gracious unto you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Amen. Amen.

Thank you so much. Okay. Like to ask commissioner Felton to lead us in the pledge. Please join me in the pledge of allegiance. Okay, we are officially called to order and we have no minutes for slated on our agenda for approval.

We do have resolutions. We'll start with resolution e one resolution proclaiming May 2026 as older Americans month. I'd like to read the resolutions but ask the representatives here that are here to receive our resolution to step before up to the rostrum for us. Whereas is the the desire of the Brevard County Board of County Commissioners and the, Brevard Commission on Aging to celebrate the enormous contributions of our older citizens and the strengthening and prosperity of Brevard County. And whereas Brevard County represents the twenty first largest elder population in Florida and approximately 26% of Brevard County's total population is 65 years of age or older.

And whereas older citizens are a diverse and treasured link to our heritage and join with citizens across The United States in the promotion of the national theme of aging without limits. And whereas in keeping with the national theme, we recognize United Way Space Coast interim president, Emmy Kelly, celebrating a long history of public service as a as a United States Air Force veteran, a former Brevard County sheriff deputy, and current volunteers and current currently volunteers on several boards. And whereas, we also recognize former Brevard County commissioner and current city of West Melbourne council member, Helen Volts, for her dedication to seniors and all citizens for more than thirty years including nursing, volunteering, and serving on several committees and campaigns. And by their examples, continue to remain engaged in successful community activities. Whereas we applaud their work to combat ageism and engage with fellow citizens throughout the county, citizens and other nonprofit organizations and advocate on behalf of seniors and their families.

As we know, connecting with others plays a vital role in the health and well-being of our community and our senior population. Now therefore be it resolved that the board of county commissioners of Brevard County, Florida does hereby proclaim May 2026 as older American older Americans month, then ordered and adopted in regular session this May. That's our resolution. Thank you. You may be heard.

I'd like to thank the the commission for recognizing May as Older Americans Month and for this opportunity to honor two of our senior citizens who are still very, very active. Our first senior citizen was involved in healthcare like myself, but she also sat in those chairs and did public service for many years and currently sits on the West Melbourne City Council. Her name is Helen Volt, she was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, moved to Florida, and the day after she got married in 1968, She and her husband Norman had celebrated their fifty second wedding anniversary in October 2020, but unfortunately the following month he passed away. Together they raised three boys, two of whom have passed away. One from cystic fibrosis at the age of 19 and the other son was killed by a drunk driver at the age of 27.

Her life hasn't been easy but she's tough. The youngest son, Brad, is an engineer and married to Brandy and recently celebrated their tenth anniversary. After the death of her first son, Helena went to school to become a registered nurse and after working as a nurse for several years, she became involved in politics and served on the Palm Bay City Council and then eight years on the Brevard County Commission. While serving on the county commission, she also attended school and received a bachelor's degree in there from Barrow University and an MBA from West Webster University. She's very proud of the fact that she worked and went to school at the same time to get these accomplishments.

Since retiring in 2009, Helen has been volunteering with multiple organizations. She's the current president of the Federated Republican Women in Action in Palm Bay. Helen has also volunteered on multiple campaigns and has been the campaign manager for several local, judicial, and congressional candidates. For twelve years, she volunteered as an RN at the summer camp for disabled adults and volunteered one summer with deaf children at Saratoga Camp Endeavor. And she's also taking care of many seniors in the community on a volunteer basis. And so, I'd like to maybe give the mic to Helen for for a minute.

I think I did a lot there.

Well, I would just say I'm gonna give all the glory to my Lord and savior Jesus Christ. Forgive me all the energy that I have because without him, I would not be able to do what I do. And thank you. Thank

you for being here.

It's truly an honor to recognize someone who so perfectly embodies the spirit of aging without limits. Kelly's life has been defined by service, strength, and an unwavering commitment to others. She began her journey in public service as a member of the United States Air Force and continued that path as a deputy with the Brevard County Sheriff's Office. In every role, she has shown courage, discipline, and a deep sense of purpose. And while some might look at retirement as a time to slow down, Kelly saw it as an opportunity to do even more.

At 74 years young, Kelly is anything but retired in spirit. She is a constant force for good, deeply involved in her church, serving as a board member and active volunteer, and lending her leadership to numerous non profit organizations across the community. Her impact is not only broad but lasting. Through her work with Habitat for Humanity, Kelly helped lead the development of the first all female military members and retirees build right here in Brevard County. This initiative was so powerful, it was later adopted nationwide.

And when United Way Space Coast needed steady, experienced leadership during a time of transition, Kelly did not hesitate. She stepped forward once again answering the call to serve as interim president, guiding the organization with the same integrity and dedication that has defined her entire life. Kelly shows us that purpose doesn't retire. Leadership does not age out and service has no limits. She is proof that the impact of a life dedicated to others only grows stronger with time. Kelly, thank you for your leadership, your service, and for inspiring all of us to live and give without limits.

I'll be done here in June. I'm looking for a job. I want to thank you all. Growing old is not an option. But I'm never going to grow up. And I thank you guys. And it's all him. All him.

Thank you. Thank you. So a resolution for the motion for the proclamation would be in order.

I'll make

a motion, sir.

I'd like to second that.

Motion and second. All in favor say yay. Yay. Carries unanimously. Thank you so much.

We have a photo. We have the actual proclamation here. Okay, thank you so much for being here. Okay, we have a presentation of the twenty twenty six Florida four H FPL Public Speaking winners. This is one of my favorite presentations every year by the county commission.

I would love to ask the four H winner to approach the podium and say a few words and then give us a little talk.

Alright. Good evening. Thank you for the opportunity to be here tonight. We are very pleased to have our program showcased tonight starring one of our very talented Brevard County students. The four h program, public speaking is sponsored by Florida Power and Light.

So four h is a youth development program focused on teaching youth life skills such as public speaking and critical thinking through participation in clubs, project work, camps, in school activities, and much more. The public speaking program allows students to learn how to formulate a speech meaningful to them as well as learning how to deliver it to an audience. This year, we had just over 450 participants from seven schools. The winners in the fourth and fifth grades and sixth grade school competitions competed last week to determine our county winners. The fourth and fifth grade county winner is Finley Russell from In Atlantic Elementary School, who unfortunately was unable to attend this evening. But tonight, you will be hearing a speech of our sixth grade county winner from Saint Teresa Catholic School, McKinley Jones.

Great. McKinley, join us.

Imagine a world without physics. No predictable orbits, no understanding how light works, and no calculus. But in the seventeenth century, one man provided the evidence for a clockwork universe. And from there on out, we have never seen our stars or ourselves the same again. Do you know who Isaac Newton is? What about you or you guys? Well, if you don't, two key things to know is that Isaac Newton's ongoing dedication and intelligence are two main things that helped him reach his goals throughout life. Do you know the story of the apple falling from the apple tree, hitting Newton on the head? Yeah. That's more of a myth than an actual truth.

Newton was actually standing in that garden and witnessed the apple fall from the apple tree and wondered, why do objects fall straight down? Newton started his research on this topic. During this period of research, Newton found out the reasons objects fall straight is because Earth's gravity acts as an outside force, compelling objects to the center of the Earth, causing them to fall straight. During this period, Newton also found out the Earth's gravity is also compelling our moon to the center of the Earth, keeping it in orbit with us. All of this research shows us how dedicated Newton actually was to finding out how our world and its gravity works.

By implying his incredible intelligence, Newton developed three fundamental principles that connect force, mass, and motion so that we can understand them. Do you know the laws of motion and who they were created by? Well, of course, they were created by Isaac Newton. But the first law is the law of inertia, which states, an object at rest stays at rest. An object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.

The second law is the law of action and reaction, which has the equation of for every force equals mass times acceleration. The third and final law is the law of force and acceleration, which states for every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction. In conclusion, Isaac Newton's ongoing dedication and intelligence are why he was able to reach his goals through life. It's hard to overstate the impact of one individual, but Isaac Newton's contribution to physics, astronomy, mathematics, calculus, and more truly reshaped our world, making it how it is today. Lastly, Isaac Newton was never boastful, even having a quote saying, if I had made any valuable discoveries, it has been earning more to patient attention than any other talent.

Showing Isaac Newton is a great example of how one person can change our world. Maybe one day that person can be you. Thank you.

Thank you so much. That is fantastic. It gives us hope for the future, doesn't it? Alright, thank you so much. Okay. E one and we will do that later. Not hear that today and moves us to F consent agenda. We have two cards on the consent. Few. A few. A few cards. A few cards, not two. So we will begin with f one, Stel Bailey.

Did.

Stelle Bailey, Cocoa, Florida. I was actually gonna speak on f one,

the approval of

FDEP because we're already seeing real world examples of this at the Titusville Mall in Titusville, Florida. At their redevelopment project, it could bring housing, business, and economic activity to that area and it has been delayed due to the contamination that's migrating from a neighboring station. This contamination is tied to past underground fuel release and is still present in the groundwater today. What's important to understand is the cleanup programs that already exist that we're talking about. The the state has been managing petroleum contamination site for years, but what we're seeing in Titusville suggests there may be a gap between how these sites are managed in the real world impacts on property owners and redevelopment.

Even when a site is technically in a cleanup program, that doesn't always mean it's being resolved in a time frame that works for the community or for the economic development. Projects can sit stalled for years while contamination is just monitored, and we're seeing that on this property. If you walk throughout the parking lot, there are monitoring wells throughout it, and his project has been halted. This is why this grabbed my attention. It's not fully remediated in a way that allows progress.

So my question and my hope tonight is that this type of agreement strengthens coordination, accountability, and urgency that it helps move sites like this toward actual resolution, not just long term monitoring management. Because when contamination spreads beyond property lines, it affects people who didn't cause it, including developers trying to invest in our communities. If this program can help bridge that gap and move cleanups forward in a more effective timeline, then it could be a real benefit, not just county wide, but specifically for places like the Titusville Mall. Thank you.

Thank you. Kinda brings real life to the real problem. So the next item is f two. Rick

Rick Heffelfinger, District 12000 Juniper Drive. First of all, I'd like to say something about the young lady that just spoke. I hope there's a NASA recruiter in the audience because that one's a keeper. She did a fine job. Alright, F2, this one drew my attention because it says that it's about impact fees, and we've had some discussion about impact fees, and this is of course the school board, but the school board has recognized, which I think the county would take some note of, that when people move in, they are impacted.

So they are paying for additional schools, additional capabilities, and I think it's a good lesson. And they're not afraid to charge a developer that builds a residential and say, hey, you got kids, we need to have some money to pay for the kids. And I just wanted to say that, and I also wanted to say 24,200,000 collected by the impact fee, that's nothing to sneeze at. And there's other, that's just for Brevard as far as I know because there's a bunch of charts, I didn't go through all of them, It says the residential development requires us, requires to pay for impact to school capacity capability. Kudos to the school board for anticipating the development and the moon we get that they pay for their facilities.

That is just the people that are moving in and all these apartments, they're bringing kids. So let's keep that in mind because I will be back up here a little later. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Next item is f four. Rick, half a finger. I was should've been quicker. I could've saved you a few steps. And you're gonna be f five too. So

Okay. Well, I I think I can probably knock those two out together. What I wanted to say, this is you're gonna love this. This is about f four is getting us some federal money. Good job to staff. Staying on top of it. 11,200,000 is available if we meet that and sign up to the agreement. So that's not on my tax bill anymore. Thank you. And also good job to the staff on F5 because that's 1,990,000 of grant money. And this is just, I assume this is just putting in the paperwork to say we qualify. So another thank you staff because that's also not money I have to spend. And that's what I had to say about that.

We have f 10.

Oh, f 10. I would be me too. This is about the sale of a piece of property that's is in space yeah. Where? Space Park or I guess it's owned by the county, which means it's owned by all of us. And I guess this business that was started in with embeds, they're a start up. I don't know if they I could ask the question. I don't know if they got a tax abatement, but it's a small business. They put a good position together about what they bring to the community. They're growing.

That's good. But they wanted to buy the lot. And my question was, that that requires a super majority vote, right, when you sell a piece of property? Does anybody know the can I ask a question? Sure. Okay, so a super majority. Was there an appraisal done? Because it looks like they just came in and said, hey, we'd like to buy the property and it's you know, we want three acres for 195. And I know that Elon Musk is probably going to be hunting for properties soon. So is that a good enough number for that piece of property to let them build on it? It's three acres and I thought there had to be an appraisal so we didn't get because they made the offer. Did we counter? Are we gonna counter? This might be Morris's question. Right? Is this his item?

Whoever would be appropriate. Dave can answer.

Again, you guys don't have to answer. I understand that. I

just Yeah. Understand. But we can get staff to answer that and work this issue. Yeah.

Hello. So I'm, Troy Post with the county in the planning and development office. And, we, when the MBES was in operation, we would occasionally have a market valuation report done. I think the last one was done in 2022 to kind of give us a gauge as to what real estate prices were going to be. But it's important to recognize that this property is considered an economic incentive. We try to go after firms that have a significant capital investment, that are growing, going to create jobs. And that's probably a bigger consideration, price per per acre.

Okay. So you're saying that the price may be low, but it's an economic incentive to have them build and expand their business?

It is because right now the property, the county owns it, it's off the property tax rolls. So the county is not getting any money for it. If we're able to induce somebody to buy it, to build a new facility, 3,000,000, 4,000,000, that goes on the property tax rolls. The other consideration is that these lots are undeveloped. They exist just wooded lots. And so whoever goes in there to buy these lots has extensive site preparation work that they also have to do.

Right. That and that's, being hooked up utilities the county makes and they pay taxes and

That's correct.

Do do you know if they happen to have a, previous tax abatement from Enbez or was that through the

I'm not aware of any tax abatement. I know that they currently lease space in the building now, so this would be their first attempt to own their own property.

Assume this was an empty building. They're going to expand it then. They're

They're going to expand by building a new building to accommodate their operation.

On that new piece of property that we're getting.

That's right.

Okay. And I guess my only heartburn with that is when you don't have an appraisal to compare to what you're selling it, it's hard to tell how much incentive you're giving them. And that's because

So again, market I

don't want everybody to lose money because that's county property. So it'd be nice to have a number if an appraisal to know how much of a deal they're getting.

So one last comment, I don't want to drag out your meeting. But again, we do have a market valuation report that had been done, I think, as recently as 2022. And that would typically tell us what price per acre going industrial property is for in the county. So we would use that as a gauge when we would weigh those offers with the InBez board.

Okay.

Okay.

Great. That was that wasn't on here. So I didn't I didn't know how good a deal they were getting. It wasn't listed. It was only their offer. So thank you very much for that.

Thank you.

And I think I'm done. Now you can vote on consent unless somebody else is gonna waste your time. I mean, ask some questions.

Well, thank you for your questions. And I think any questions from the board on the consent agenda, any items that are removed? I think a motion would be ordered for the consent.

I'd like to move to approve.

Motion by commissioner Atkins and for consent agenda. I'll second. Second by commissioner Feltner. All those in favor say. All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Carries unanimously. Thank you so much. Okay. We will now move to I, public hearings. Oh yeah, gee, I missed public comments. That's right. Adrienne Vargas. Good

evening. My name is Adrian Vargas. I live in the woods at Crooked Mile in Merritt Island. I'm here to bring awareness about an ongoing peacock issue affecting multiple homes and neighborhoods. Before I explain any further, I'd like to play a ten second audio clip of what I am speaking about.

Oh, no. Don't tell me it's not gonna work.

It always happens. We can don't rush. We're in fire.

Okay. I'm gonna try. I I practiced all before I got here.

I know you're I feel your pain.

Here we go.

So unfortunately, this is not a one time occurrence. This is happening regularly all night long. Our neighborhood currently has 40 to 50 peacocks with new chicks continuing to hatch. So population is actively growing. Our HOA has taken steps including sending notices and asking residents not to feed them, but compliance has been inconsistent not only within our community, but also the surrounding areas without an HOA.

Because of this, the issue continues to expand beyond what any single neighborhood can manage. Residents have followed guidance from the Florida Fish and Wildlife, including removing food sources, using deterrents like sprinklers and trimming trees to prevent roosting. Unfortunately, these efforts have not been effective. We've also contacted both the FWC and the Brevard Sheriff's Office, and told that the situation falls outside of their scope for active removal. As a result, there is currently no agency addressing this issue.

This has gone beyond a nuisance. Residents are dealing with property damage, sanitation concerns, and safety risks involving traffic and pedestrians. There's also a significant quality of life impact. Families are being awakened as early as two, three, 4AM, and both adults and children are experiencing ongoing sleep disruption. There are several neighbors here tonight to support me and who are also experiencing these same issues.

Because this spans multiple parcels and neighborhoods, it's not feasible for one HOA or an individual resident to coordinate or fund a solution like hiring a wildlife trapper. In 2012, the city of Cocoa Beach addressed a similar issue by hiring a licensed trapper. We are asking the county to consider a similar approach or help coordinate a solution. At this point, there is no longer just an HOA issue. It's a broader community problem that requires county level support.

I provided a packet for the board that includes a petition with over 30 signatures, resident impact statements, photos documenting what our community is experiencing, and prior prior correspondence with the commissioner's office and the Brevard County Sheriff's Office. Thank you for your time and consideration, and we look forward to your response.

Mister chair, can I ask Yes, a absolutely? I I have a great deal of empathy especially with neighbors and and noise. So I'm I'm I'm with you now. I have some friends in Cape Canaveral and I think maybe the original peacock, herd started there. There's a there's a rumor of

I've heard

all the rumors. Yes.

Two birds, that someone got a long time ago. And, of course, and and I think they do call it a herd possibly. Anyways, and and I know all the challenges. So I'm curious. Now do you know what Cape Canaveral has has done with birds? Have they removed them?

Have they taken also hired the same trapper.

Okay. And then so someone comes in, they trap the bird, then then what happens?

They the trapper removes them, and I'm not sure if they relocate them or what they do with them.

Is there I I don't pretend to know enough about peacocks. Is there a state habitat or something like that? Are they

I've called the bird wildlife refuge in North Merritt Island. I've called the zoo. I've called a lot of people, and nobody seems to want them. I got you.

Okay. Okay. Okay. I'll I'll I'll think about that too. I I just I I don't know if any parcel in Brevard that's been used before for peacocks and and other other birds and such with peacocks. I mean, we have Scrub Jay Sanctuary. We have other things like that. But

From my understanding, it's illegal for us to relocate them.

For homeowners to them.

What a licensed person can do, I'm not sure.

Okay. So FWC could do it. A licensed trapper by FWC can do it. But

Yes. But FWC says that the peacocks are, domesticated fowl,

and

the Brevard County Sheriff's Office says that they're wildlife, so they both go like this.

Okay. Well, I I think that's an important part of the equation is figuring out where where they would go, and that's probably a thing that's that's hanging you up Yes. Today. I I see that. I'll we'll we'll get your information. I'll see if I can at least find an answer from potentially a state or something like that.

Thank you very much.

Alright. I know my mom lives on South Merritt Island, and they are dangerous when you're driving down there. They are Yes. They don't seem to pay attention to cars. They just walk right across. I've had to dodge a few.

People slam on their brakes.

Yes.

And yeah.

They're a problem. And I have heard them on the Mainland all the way across the river that that that loud. So, you know,

anything more audio if you ever wanna listen.

Yeah. Well, you know, they're they're exotics. They're not native to Florida.

Correct.

So they they're not naturally here. We used to have bobcats on Mare Island. Right. Still have some coyotes, but the bobcats probably would help take care of that problem. I don't It's not a question. Tell many of those anymore.

Just big bobcats.

We used to actually have Florida panthers. I've heard witnesses, talked to witnesses, same Florida Panthers. Didn't worry about the peacocks then. But, yes, I appreciate you being here. I'm sure we'll be looking at it. Thank you. Thanks for the the recording. Okay. Our next John Pardon me? Just John. John works. Okay.

Good evening. My name is John Requay. I'm from 908 Cashew Circle, Barefoot Bay. I was here and spoke to you before on 09/03/2025. And I spoke about the cost of the water in the sewer plant in Barefoot Bay and the surrounding communities.

On 09/10/2025 at a county commission's meeting, Mrs. Kim Atkinson made a motion to direct staff to have the rate consultant to study and authorize the utility service department to explore options regarding outstanding bond debt. She also agreed and stated in the Tatler that the cost of the bond should be spread over the district, which is all we've been asking for. Since then, the delivery rate to the meter has gone up $4.22 making the cost $79.48 before usage. So a single occupant like myself pays a $110 a month for water, which I feel is very expensive.

12/18/2025, I sent questions to the director of Brevard County and Silvert, mister Edward Fontan, and I sent a copy of it to miss Atkinson. Those four questions that I tried to get answered are, what was the cost of the bond in the beginning, which I believe was year 2000? How much has been collected so far? How much remains to be collected by 2029 when the bond is exhausted? And how much has been spent on bringing the water and sewer plant up to date which was part of the arrangements made?

I believe the residents have a right to have these questions answered at the very least. The issue affects Barefoot Bay, Snug Harbor, and Sebastian Lakes. So we're talking thousands and thousands of houses, over 5,000. Brevard County owns the water and sewer plant. The burden of the bond should be consumed by the entire district.

This is the worst deal I have ever heard of in my life. It reaps with waste, fraud, and abuse. I'm hoping that you'll give this some thought and some action on this. It's my second time here. It's only gotten worse.

It's going to get much worse. One of the things that provoked me to do this was when the director of Brevard County Water and Sewer Plant came to our community, I asked him what the fees of the new plant was going to be in five years, dollars 51,000,000 plant. He had no answer. That's wrong. So I thank you

for your time. Okay. Thank you. The next speaker, Dominic Thank

you for listening to me tonight. My name is Dominic Scafetta. Already contacted many of you about this matter. Like the other lady, I'm having difficulty with my phone and I forgot my notes. Bear with me.

I've been unable to find a commissioner or a common sense resolution since this all began on March 18. I'm in the process of building a house for my son at 1,600 in Canaveral Grove. It's a dirt road and it's fed by two dirt roads. On March 18, I contacted Brevard County and requested the next inspection, but they declined because they said I needed to pay a $10,000 impact fee. I looked into the impact fee a little bit and about $4,400 of that was for transportation which is for road improvements.

Well, because we're on a dirt road on the nineteenth, the next day I contacted Katie Delaney's office in District 1 on the phone and by email and explained that I'd already been in contact with they're they're a great staff, the fine staff at Road and Bridges. They've been doing the best they can, but they're sorely understaffed and they don't have enough equipment to maintain all the dirt roads in the county. In October 2024, when I first contacted them, our road was virtually impossible. If there was a fire at my house, would have burnt down. So anyway, it's a health or it's a safety issue and just a transportation issue.

They explained the maintenance was every three to four weeks and they were understaffed. This is no way meant to disparage them at all. They're doing the best they can. On March 28, received a response from Kristen Lourde from D1. This is a quote from her response, is very disturbing to me.

Even though the road is not paved, it is still maintained. But no one thinks it's maintained to the degree it needs to be. And the next thing she said was that the transportation impact fees support capacity improvements, new sidewalks, road widening and intersection improvements. It does not fund staff, equipment or maintenance. We're on a dirt road.

That's what we need. We need more staff or equipment or maintenance or we need to have the road paved. And I know that's an enormous expense. So my request is simple. I'm just requesting that the commissioners do what you did in 2016, at least from this particular instance, and waive the transportation portion of the impact fee. It's the only thing that makes logical sense. It's common sense in this case And I don't know who to talk to. I've been working and working and working trying to find someone that can resolve this issue for me. And so far, I can't get any resolution.

Okay. Do we have any questions? Thank you so much. We'll definitely follow-up. I have some questions that

Well, I know that Katie is gone now, so it's going to be difficult for my paper is sliding. Yeah. It's gonna be difficult to to get Well, we'll Who should I work with?

Yeah. We're gonna we're gonna try to make sure it's not difficult.

Okay. I appreciate that. Okay.

Yeah. I I think you may we'll definitely we'll definitely make sure that the staff, we fill that void not having her there. I I that. We need her. Because your problem is all throughout the county. And

I I think we're a little bit unique because of the fact that the you know, I don't I understand what the impact fees. We another gentleman spoke about impact fees. And, of course, we need impact fees when when we're, you know, developing new property. But in this case, I've been told point blank that you're not gonna get this this the service you need from the fee that you're paying. And it just it it it's not common sense. It's just not doesn't nonsensical. And I know that you guys have the authority to do it because you did it in 2016. So, anyway, I don't wanna take up any more of your time. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Appreciate it. True. Tracy?

No.

It's how do you pronounce your first

name? Chelsea.

Chelsea, of course.

I even tried to write it again more nicely.

I solved that.

There's two Chelsea.

Good evening, commissioners. My name is Chelsea True, and I'm a Merritt Island resident speaking in regards to the rezoning schedule for May 7 regarding Rangewater and Merritt Bidco. This application has now been ongoing since November. Over the past six months, it's gone through multiple continuances with the explanation that the project is still evolving. At some point, that becomes more than just process, it becomes signal.

A project that is changing after multiple hearings and six months of review is not a stable or clearly defined proposal. At the last continuance, the applicant requested additional time to potentially acquire more land, modify the number of units, and revise site access. However, according to the recent staff report, no update application reflects those changes and they haven't been submitted as of its publication. That reinforces the concern that the plan before you is still not fully developed. The record also shows that during the same time period, a separate request was submitted under the Live Local Act.

That adds another layer of uncertainty as multiple potential paths are being explored without a single clear finalized plan before the board. And that matters because the board is being asked to make a decision that has long term impacts on infrastructure safety and the surrounding community. I also want to briefly address how community input has been characterized in recent filings submitted on April 24 by Kim Rezonka. Residents like myself who have taken time to write, attend meetings and speak are not submitting abstract opinions. We're raising real lived concerns about traffic, flooding, safety, and how this project fits into their community.

These perspectives are an important part of the record and should be considered alongside technical reports, not dismissed. In recent filings, the applicant has argued that many of the key concerns, particularly traffic and infrastructure are only subject to preliminary review at this stage with more detailed analysis deferred to site plan, but that is exactly the issue. If the impacts are not fully understood today, then the project is not ready for approval today. We're also being told that traffic is not a deficiency while at the same time mitigation measures and improvements are being offered. Those positions don't fully align.

If improvements are necessary, then impacts exist and those impacts should be clearly understood before approval, not after. There are also still open questions about zoning, site control and environmental constraints that affect what can realistically be built on this property. Taken together, these are not small details. They go directly to whether this project is clearly defined, feasible, and ready for approval. Additionally, comparisons to other potential uses such as a hospital do not answer the question in front of you.

The question is not what could be built. The question is whether the specific proposal is appropriate compatible and ready. At this stage, the board should have a clear stable and fully supported proposal in front of it. That level of clarity is what allows for a confident and defensible decision. Based on what has been presented over the past six months, that level of clarity still does not appear to be here. So the question becomes, if it's not fully resolved now, what confidence is that it will be resolved later? Based on that record, I do not believe this application is ready for approval and I thank you again for your time.

Well done. Run on time. Thank you so much. And you you know

that that item is on the agenda for Thursday night, Craig.

I will see you

in June. Good. Good. Natalie Allen. That's who just spoke. Nope. That was Natalie. Natalie. Yeah. No. Chelsea.

Evening. Hi, I'm Natalie Allen and I'm a resident of Brevard and I wanted to speak to you guys today about a light hearted conversation of just civic engagement. It is Cinco de Mayo after all, right? And there's so many lovely faces here in the audience coming out to support the community. I had the opportunity to attend one of your board meetings last month and Rob actually mentioned that there was an art festival going on so it's just a beautiful place to be able to hear about events, see the individuals that Brevard votes for and have an opportunity to meet and understand some of the hot topics that are out here.

Natalie Allen, as a Brevard resident, I'm also interested in hearing about ways to get involved in the community. So a funny story, I was out gardening yesterday just in my front yard doing my own thing and speaking to myself about what I was gonna say tonight. And as I was practicing, my neighbor who I had not met after moving in recently came outside and said, Natalie, did you know we have a Brevard Democrats meeting and a Republican Democrat or Republican meeting as well? Why don't you come out on the third Tuesday of the month? And these different dates she just started throwing out and I said to myself, if I wasn't out here gardening tonight and just minding my own business and having a friendly conversation, I wouldn't have heard about these events.

So I said to her, Becky, why don't you just come to one of the board meetings? So we made a plan to start coming to these events together and it's just a simple way to point out to everyone here that these conversations like the one I had with Chelsea True and her lovely daughter and son right before we started on zoning, these are topics that I wouldn't know were burning in the community and things that are just on the minds of individuals that might not know how to be engaged. So my reason for being here today is just to point out my passion for engagement. I look for ways whether it's online, whether it's in person opportunities like this, whether it's hanging out just across the hall and meeting individuals like Dell, it's a beautiful place to just see and meet the faces that we could potentially be working with one day. I thank all of you for serving in your roles, very challenging.

I'm sure you've done it for a long time and I just invite you to continue to do what you've been doing. Engage individuals like myself, Natalie Allen, and help us meet who Brevard votes for.

Fantastic. Well, you for being here and engaging and you actually picked a good meeting to attend because we got the Susan B Connolly speak at Brevard.

Is that right?

Agenda. So you couldn't pick a better time to be here.

I see.

It's So dedicated for a lot of public involvement.

Well, it's interesting because when I was walking in this morning or this afternoon, I ran into you as well. And I remember complimenting your MacBook. It's just funny because you never know who you'll run into. IT conversations, AI conversations, being able to level up your conversational skills too. Having heard some of the speakers as young as they are standing up here, it's inspirational.

Thank you.

Thank Thank

you so much. Appreciate that. Public environment is what makes this all happen. Okay, good. That concludes our first public hearing section of our agenda. The next item is board discussion and directions to staff. No, actually no, I missed one. Extension of temporary moratorium for new application of biosolids to lands within Brevard County. We do have a card. Stell Bailey.

Still Bailey Coco. I wanted to talk about this because I've been on this for many many years as you know with the PFOS contamination and then first and foremost, I want to thank the county staff and specifically Virginia Barker. I don't know if she's in the room right now, but if it wasn't for their work, we wouldn't be where we're at today with this moratorium. And their continued work is very important to this issue. At its core, this issue is really simple.

It's about what we're putting on the ground and where it ends up. Biosolids contain nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus, and while that might sound harmless, when too much of it is spread on the land, it doesn't just stay there when it rains, it moves into our ditches, our canals, our rivers, and ultimately into the water we rely on every single day. We've already seen what that can lead to harmful algal blooms, damaged waterways, and added strain on our drinking water supply. Lake Washington, which serves about a 170,000 people, is directly connected to this conversation. And the data shows something important.

Areas with more biosolids application are seeing higher levels of pollution in their water. Areas with less application are not. This board has taken a careful and responsible approach over the years by putting this moratorium in place and continuing it as we learn more. That's proactive. That's exactly what good governance looks like.

It's not rushing. It's not guessing, but protecting what matters most while we get it right. Because once water is contaminated, fixing it is far more expensive and far more difficult than preventing the problem in the first place. This isn't about being for or against any industry. It's about protecting our water, our property values, and the quality of life that people in Brevard County depend on. So I respectfully ask you continue this moratorium, continue Virginia Barker's hard work on this, and thank you to this commission and your leadership for putting the health and safety of residents first. Thank you.

Thank you. Did any any comments or question? Okay, thank you so much and I think a motion would be. I'll make.

Well, you don't want Mike to introduce it because I'm ready to make a motion to approve unless Mike wants to talk.

Just here if you have questions, I don't need to talk. You've already.

Alright. Then, I'll make a motion to approve.

Second. There's a motion and a second. This is a good thing. This is the moratorium. We're seeing significant reduction of the application of biosolids here in Brevard and look forward to the day when it gets to zero. I know the state has been very active as well. So I appreciate your input and I agree with you. We have phenomenal staff here in the county. We appreciate what they're doing. All in favor say yay.

Opposed? Yay. Motion

carries unanimously. Okay, thank you so much.

Good job, Mike.

Okay, now item I1, board discussion, direction to staff, Commission one, District one, staff. We have a couple cards. First is Stel Bailey.

Alright. Stell Bailey, District 1 resident and I support option one retaining the current district one staff member. This is really about consistency of service, efficiency, and clear accountability. People in North Brevard still need help with everyday issues like trash pickup, permits, and knowing where to go for assistance. I understand there may be a desire to shift these responsibilities to other commissioner offices or to county staff, but as outlined, would require deciding who handles the workload, how it rotates, how citizens input gets routed back to commissioners.

That creates unnecessary layers and confusion for residents. Routing everything through county administration also adds steps since policy issues still have to be sent back to commission offices. Similarly, routing everything through the county manager or attorney's office still requires issues of policy to be sent back to commission offices, meaning it adds an extra step without truly solving the problem. Option one is the most straightforward and responsible. It keeps a dedicated local point of contact that we have grown to trust and love, maintains accountability with District 1, avoids shifting workload or expanding bureaucracy, and importantly this is a temporary solution just to maintain service until a new commissioner is elected and hires their own staff.

District 1 residents didn't create this vacancy. And we shouldn't lose access to a responsive local support because of it. I respectfully ask you to choose stability and keep that line of communication open. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker, Rick

Rick Heffelfinger. Hefelfinger District 1. Near and dear to our hearts, isn't it? I'm gonna have to agree with Stel. I don't if she's my opposition now, but I'm gonna agree with her. Unless you guys are gonna have a discussion and tell us that the governor's gonna pick, and I don't wanna waste my time saying I'd rather have continuation staff. So I I don't know where you're gonna come down on it. I'm looking for some information you guys might have had. I I there was discussion in the board reports about contacting the governor. I don't know if you've done that.

I don't I would hope that well, I don't know. If one of you did, it'd be nice to hear that. I don't know if the county manager did that to try to get some guidance on what he would think. I love the idea of somebody that worked in that office with my previous commissioner is listening to the community because she knows the community. She knows her district. Nobody else on this list does. So I would hope that we keep somebody in there that's point of contact. I do have, although I have one small little problem. Currently, does staff go to the briefings that you guys are given as commissioners? Do they attend the briefings that you get from the county manager?

Or is it just you guys? Because this person oh, and this person. Kristen is not gonna be able to vote. So I just wonder, are you giving her access for what reason would that be, inside baseball or does it help her? I mean, she can come to these meetings too and understand what's going on in the community, but I don't I don't know what access they're given.

But she's you know, we're not gonna have anybody that votes. It's but it's you know, at least somebody answers the phone, and it's somebody that we're familiar with, because she was answering the phone before, or one of the other people in the office. So I would like to see there be continuity and know that we've got somebody. And then like staff always, I guess assume you guys staff, if you have a problem, you work with other staff, you work with the county, and that I think would be a good way to make sure that when we've got problems, at least it's, you know, paid attention to. So, again, I'm interested to hear what you found out about what the governor do. I mean, it's a short duration, but it is budget season too. That scares me. So yep. That's all. Thanks.

Thank you. And the answer is yes. We do give her staff access to those briefings. And another yes, we we have sent a letter to the governor. It's up to each individual commissioner what they like to do. We're not I think our decision was not to take this position as a board, but each individual has that right, and citizens do as well.

Just to clarify, sir,

I

did not send a letter to the governor. Okay. No. Okay.

Commissioner Goodson, did you you don't have to answer that. Okay. Great. Thank you.

I have one one one comment, sir. Okay. Okay. The last meeting, if I'm not mistaken, Delaney made the motion to keep her staff. And there was no second, so it died without a motion. Second. So now do we go back and consider number one or do we start on two, three, and four?

I think good point. I think what we decided the last meeting was to wait. We didn't have to decide it. Talk about it now. And and I've I've I've so that's what we decided. I didn't wanna interrupt. Did you have anything else, commissioner?

Well, I guess, what I wanna ask you, can somebody go back and check the minutes now to see if we did not she did not have a second on number one?

We could check on that, but I I recall us deciding. And I've I've thought a lot about it. Having time to think about it and And I've come to the personal conclusion we should just go with option one and allow the staff that's there to work there. They were working with the elected commissioner. They and we need to make sure that District 1 has the best representation as possible. So I would support option one.

I actually have pretty strong feelings about this myself. I would prefer to have the county manager put someone in that position who can be there five days a week, all day to answer the concerns of all the constituents so that no one gets lost. And then if there are things that need to come to a commissioner, I would ask the county manager to make sure that, I mean, my office is certainly willing to take up a charge if necessary for a D1 resident. I would prefer to have someone in the office full time that reports to the county manager, and then you delegate to whatever offices are open to that. That would be my my preference.

Question. Is that a motion?

No. Just discussion at the moment.

Do we have any other discussion?

I I think something just to point out and to be mindful of, if there is an interim appointment, that's not up to us, that's up to the governor, then that person certainly has the right to appoint Right. And hire their own commission staff. So just just so that's clear, whatever the board does today.

Okay. Any other discussion, comments, questions?

I'd like to make a motion if it's appropriate.

Motion be in order.

I'd like to make a motion to ask our county manager to appoint someone to be full time in the D1 staff office and when necessary, send it to a commissioner who's willing to take up the charge for that D1 resident.

I'll second that.

There's a motion and a second. Is there any discussion? Any debate? All those in favor signify by saying yay.

Motion

carries. Okay. Okay. Was there any other discussion?

I think we have a time certain.

Yeah. I I was gonna bring that up too. Okay.

I'm sorry, sir. I didn't mean to

No. I I would I'm glad you mentioned that. I was thinking that. Could it do we need a time, a date? Would that take place? I know there's a letter that Kristen sent related to how long she could stay or be willing to stay, and I'd be willing to honor that. Are you familiar? I read the letter. I

would say county staff must know what that letter says.

The letter she offered to stay until May 31 in the email to run the office. I mean, board decision, I mean, you know, May 31, we can run it through the end of a pay period, we can do it immediately. Those are the couple of suggestions off the top, excuse me, couple of suggestions off the top of my head.

I I think we should just start with a new staff right now. I If we're going to do it, we might as do it right now and start and let that person get in the seat and get comfortable. That's my thought.

I agree with the chairman.

That's board direction and we'll get working on it tomorrow. Okay.

Do we need to have a motion on that or just board direction?

No, I don't think we need a motion so got got the direction. Alright.

Okay. Mister chair, if I may I

know we have a 06:00 time certain for SEER. Right. J two, I I know there's an attorney in the audience and it's going to be very brief, I believe. I'm sorry. J one? Yeah.

Okay. All

right. I was thinking that too, sir. I didn't mean to step on you with the time certain there.

Is there an attorney who can keep it brief?

We're all

paid by the words. Think Cliff Reperger is going give you a thumbs up.

Good evening, honorable board members. My name is Cliff Reperger. My business address is 2101 Waverly Place, Melbourne, Florida. I'm an attorney with the law firm of White Bird, we represent the applicant. On this item, with me today, have the principles of the applicant East Wind acquisitions. I don't know, Morse, do you wanna do a setup or do you want me to actually speak about this?

I could just introduce it briefly if that's

Okay. The pleasure of the board.

So this is a development that's actually within the municipal boundaries of the City Of Melbourne. Melbourne has already approved a multi family development here. It's to the west of Wickham Road, roughly in the area of Longleaf Elementary near you know, it's it's between Wickham Road and Windover Farms roughly. So you're familiar. Again, they're within the city of Melbourne.

They have approvals from city of Melbourne, but they're obviously gonna be traffic impacts to Wickham Road. This is just a concurrency mitigation and right of way agreement that is going to provide for the developer to either construct or fund improvements to that segment of Wickham Road either improvements right there in the form of a southbound left turn lane that would primarily benefit that development. We're more likely the county may apply those funds if developer goes the route of paying funds rather than constructing to another nearby project that's gonna improve capacity, perhaps the northbound extension extension of the northbound right turn lane on Pineda that's a planned project, something like that. So this is just an agreement of the for the developer to pay a $118,454, which is based on an estimate of project cost, and their share of, of contribution of the concurrency issue to Wickham there. And it will allow them to get a right away use agreement so they can do a sewer connection.

Can

I ask a technical

Yes?

Just real quick. The southbound left turn lane there on Wickham would essentially be for those residents coming out to make a u-turn?

It it it actually doesn't go into the development. That

I understand.

Yeah. The it's a southbound turn lane that

would Correct.

That would go eastbound, right, with the for turning east. Right. So it's at that inner it's at the intersection of Preserve Drive

Right.

But it's for That's what I'm saying, though. It it it doesn't turn into in I mean

It doesn't turn into the development.

Right. Right. Okay. Okay. I think I mean, I my vote would be that we take the 118,000 to do improvements wherever else we need to to do on Wickham Road.

And I think that agreement has the flexibility for that.

Right. That allows for that.

Okay. We do have a card. Rick Hufflefinger.

I realize the time crunch will be as fast as I can be. My problem with this is this this identifies in the description that there is a minor street delay also as a part of this development. A $118, you can't put concrete on my driveway. I know. So this must have just been for lining.

Well, 118,000.

Oh, 108

teen thousand.

118,000. Yeah. Yes. The turn lane on Friday Road with my development, 400,000 put a turn lane So this cannot be concrete or this cannot be asphalt. And then the fact that you're gonna divert it to some other project bothers me because this talks about some traffic delays because of this entry or this egress into the development.

I think the people that are impacted by this are gonna be concerned if you divert that to some other project on Wickham Road because they I I don't I'm surprised I don't have anybody here that from that development in the back. I I'm sure they were thrilled that this development was gonna happen right in the middle of their little pristine undeveloped section there. But I don't like the fact that it seems low to do any real road improvements, and it also says, or we can just siphon it off siphon it off is a strong word, but we can move that money to some other project on Wickham. How far away? Two miles?

One mile? You haven't put any constraint, and then there was also a traffic impact. So, hey, I love the idea that the guy that the developer's coming forward and said, hey, I can mitigate that if you, you know, let me have my permit or my zoning approval, but if you're just gonna siphon it off, that doesn't do anything for solving the problem at that intersection, which I think is a turn lane. So I don't think, you know, you're going to end up doing some improvements part of this and then 118 barely scratches the surface. You can ask Tom Goodson, think he's an asphalt guy. Hundred one and eighteen thousand don't go far for asphalt today. So that was my only concern that it seems a little light considering there is a traffic impact. That's all. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay. That's all our cards. It's back before the commission. Do we need a motion on this, don't we? Yes, sir. Okay. Motion being ordered.

Alright. I'll make a motion to approve.

There's a motion to approve the East Wind Preserve Concurrency Mitigation and Right of Way Use Agreement.

I'll second that.

Second. All in favor say yay. Yay.

Yay.

Carries unanimously. Thank you so much. Now, we'll move on to. Oh, thank you. To j two is the last time on our agenda. This time was set for 06:00 time certain.

Can we have a five minute

break? Yeah. Let's have a five minute break to make sure we get all the cards ready and we have quite a few speakers that are gonna be speaking and we will be right back five minutes. Okay, I'd like to call the meeting back to order. Okay, I'd like to ask our county administrator to give us a quick quick briefing of where we are.

Thank you, mister chair. Commissioners, we received 61 citizens, the efficiency and effectiveness recommendations from 44 individuals this year. County staff has spent several hundred hours thorough analyzing and reviewing the written recommendations. Per the home rule charter, staffs made the following recommendations to the board and it's in your package along with all the Sears that the board accepts revision accepts with revision 17 of the SEER recommendations that rejects 44 of the recommendations received and those rejections are based primarily on the fact that some of the recommendations received were either handled by staff as service requests, the recommendations were out the county jurisdiction or the recommendations do not enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of the county government as required in the county charter. The staff's recommendations are presented to the board in a manner that allow the board to pass the recommendations in one motion and if a commissioner wishes to discuss an individual SEER recommendation, it can be pulled for discussion after that vote is taken or given further direction.

Thank the citizens. We put together, staff put together, we call the speaker cards pink cards but this time we put together blue cards and pink cards under the board's direction. We have blue cards so that way the citizens have five minutes for their SEER and then if citizens want to speak on the item as a regular agenda item, We have the pink card with their three minutes. And then last but not least, I want to thank everybody. Well, thank the staff for working on it but then especially thank the citizens that put the recommendations together. We did take our time. We did take them seriously. We did go through everything. So I appreciate everything the citizens have done. Thanks, mister chair.

Okay. What we will do is we will begin with the blue cards where individuals have signed up to speak on behalf of their individual SEER request. And these speakers will be given five minutes. So the first speaker we have is Robert Pickert. The serial number is 2026045.

That's the one I have. Is that right? Yes. Okay.

Well,

evening commissioners. I am Bob Pickert, a resident of Brevard County, lover of the Indian River Lagoon, and a lifelong environmental professional and sustainability consultant. I proposed a soil health moonshot to transform Brevard's sandy landscape soils into a sustainable living filter for the lagoon. I'd like to leave you with three thoughts. Embrace the muck.

There are many beneficial uses. Embrace biochar. It absorbs water, absorbs nutrients, and provides a home for beneficial soil microbes, making nutrients bioavailable to plants without leaching to the groundwater or the lagoon and degrading organic chemicals. And embrace the lagoon as a living system where more effort needs to be focused on enhancing sustainable natural stabilization and filtration systems. Biochar is a natural material with extremely high surface area similar to activated carbon.

It occurs naturally as a byproduct of forest fires and is a big part of why we see green shoots and such productive growth after forest fires. It can also be made from clean sources of wood waste through a process or conditions known as pyrolysis. I have watched from the sidelines as team Sorrell has been busy with the Herculean task of restoring the lagoon. Two years ago, I was shocked to learn the county had not analyzed any of the dewatered muck after removing nearly 800,000 cubic yards of muck. Since then, SORL staff have arranged to analyze four samples of dewatered muck from the Grand Canal muck dewatering site.

Much more analysis is needed from all of the muck processing sites, but the muck is much lower in nitrogen, less than 1%, lower in phosphorus, less than point 1% than I expected. The samples contain 7% organic carbon. I understand it can range from 10 to 30% carbon, and minerals such as sulfur, calcium, and magnesium. I've heard SORL staff and COC refer to the muck in public as quote unquote toxic and nothing grows in the muck. The muck samples did contain arsenic, chromium, and copper in low concentrations consistent with background soil levels and government risk based standards and well below fertilizer guidelines.

I'm gonna refer to this figure here. SORL staff did arrange for me to take samples of a partially dewatered muck from the Grand Canal Pineda muck dewatering site. That's the photo that you see there, some of it. I collaborated with Rodney Eaton of Eaton Worms, and I mixed 55% muck, 40% biochar, and 5% compost by weight. Rodney added some worm castings and observed explosive gross growth less than one week after adding rye grass seed to the mix.

The muck would likely serve as a good binder to produce fertilizer pellets, but more importantly, it would serve as a galvanizing force for soil health around the IRL. I have proposed a nutrient loading and leaching study to demonstrate and quantify the expected nutrient prevention benefits of a muck biochar based soil amendment. I have proposed a variety of beneficial uses for the muck including an example of how the biochar muck worm casting seaweed extract fertilizer and soil amendment, that's a mouthful, could provide a sustainable source of sorrel funding. The SORL COC dismissed the idea in a so called white paper that was full of incomplete, inaccurate, and misleading statements and was more of a whitewash to dismiss the idea. These are essentially the same staff comments provided in the response to my SEER recommendation.

The original SOAR SOARL ordinance states, the purpose of SOARL funds is to quote, finance infrastructure for capital projects to produce primary reduce primary sources of pollution including excess fertilizer and natural stabilization and filtration systems. The SORL Oversight Committee specifically has a responsibility not only to allow, but to foster development and implementation of tools and techniques for restoration of the lagoon, and to identify and develop long term funding sources. I am not familiar with any single other idea proposed by anyone else to provide a nontax source of sorrel funding. I have a sailboat at my neighbor's house across the street in Indian Harbor Beach. That canal was dredged twenty years ago and has since been refertilized and silted in.

In order to protect our investment in canal dredging, I have proposed a soil health pilot project for the Indian Harbor Beach Satellite Beach dredging project. I'm gonna put up a different There's a lot of detail in there. Obviously, can't see, but it's included in the handout materials. The project includes remote sensing and precision nutrient mapping to identify nutrient rich sources, materials processing, distribution, and application to a 120 acres, monitoring including baseline and post application years two, five, and ten. The project is expected to prevent four hundred and thirty pounds of nitrogen, 40 pounds of phosphorus for ten years, 4,300 pounds n, 400 pounds p, and a removal efficiency of two seventy nine per pound.

The stone the builders has rejected has become the cornerstone. I encourage the county commission to embrace the muck, biochar, and a lagoon as a living system for a sustainable approach to a resilient lagoon, and implement the road map provided in the soil health moonshot recommendation and soil health pilot project proposed for the Indian Harbor Beach Satellite Beach dredging project. Thank you for your time. And I like I said, I have I have seen the I just now saw the comments. I didn't see them before I came in.

I would make one more comment. The SEER recommendation that I provided did have a money saving suggestion, and that was to reduce garbage pickup to one day per week since we have long since included recyclables elsewhere and yard waste elsewhere. I was suggesting we use that money for

Do know is this your second Sir, do you know the number of that?

I think it's 2026 it's right at the top of my comments in there. I don't $2.00 $2.06 $0.04 5.

Did you

We don't have a separate card for that.

We don't have one in that?

Wait. I couldn't find one. I This one. Let me see.

Signed in when I came in.

No. But I go

Five minutes to talk

about that.

Well, great. I'd be happy to talk with you about it. I mean, I presented my comments. I just found out today. I didn't realize that the staff comments were available. I went through them. They're the same comments that are in the white paper that I've responded to previously and have made comments to the board.

Now you're speaking about which which soil?

I'm talking about the soil health moonshot.

Yeah, one you just presented on this.

Correct, correct. Okay. I don't have another topic.

Oh, I thought you did. Okay. All

right. Could I ask a question?

Yeah, absolutely.

Real quick, sir. You say that there's many uses for muck. Can you can you tell the board briefly some of those uses?

Well, I I mean, in my mind, I was thinking, you know and and, biochar can help with reducing the leaching of the of the but for example, you could use it as a low permeability material for a stormwater settling pond. And then at the effluent of that pond, you could have treatment. Biochar be one. The county has used bold and gold, but that includes like shredded tires. And shredded tires have a highly toxic chemical in them.

The tire rubber that erodes from the tires driving on the road, the reason why you have to buy new tires is because the tire wears out and all that stuff washes down in the runoff. So we're finding six PPD quinone, I think is the name of the chemical. But it's as highly toxic as PFAS and we're finding that these are ubiquitous contaminants that we're finding in the environment. But but that that would be one is a stormwater settling pond. You know, I if I'm trying to think of what's strictly just the muck

I mean, we gave it away for free and someone could come take it and it's on a parcel and here's a 100,000 cubic yards of it tomorrow, What would

be the appeal? What would my journal use. This whole thing started with meeting a soil staff member at a party two years ago, and she said we don't know what to do with it. We don't have a way to use the muck. And that's where I started this whole thing on soil health and said you could use it as a soil amendment if you added the biochar and the other things. That's my best recommendation for what to do with the muck. But again, you could if you had a large stormwater settling pond and you needed to line it with low permeability materials, I would say you could use the the muck, but you'd want to treat it with probably fine biochar or something that could help stabilize that muck and could help reduce the leaching of any nutrients that are in there to groundwater.

How do make biochar efficiently? Right? And that's a huge gasifier or something like that. We're going to be talking about vegetative waste going forward and how we're going to process that. And that's its own process. And so if if a maybe it's you, maybe it's someone else Sure. Got that material for free and you go out there and you take it all and you turn it into biochar, I mean, can that be done? Is it

I mean, and it can be done but not economically just like that. There's a cost to it. Now, if there's an end use for the material, if the county was in both feet and and committed to the project, you could find private sector partners that would be willing to work with the county, I think.

What what just my last question, mister chair. If you were to take all the county's vegetative waste in a year, convert it to biochar, what what do you and let's let's just say that, you know, we found a use for it and there's a market and all of those kinds of things. What what do you think that would would cost? I

I don't know what the what the pass through volume is on that. I mean and I have to tell you, my role with Wakefield Biochar actually, I'm transitioning to another job, but my role with them has been environmental health and safety compliance at the facility in Valdosta, Georgia and looking at their EHS programs at the mills where we where we work. The mills take timbers and they shave off the bark and the trimmings and they put it in their boiler and they pull it out before it becomes it's fully ash and that's the char. That's the source of the char material. The plant is in the process of putting in a taco char system, which is a smaller system typically used for developing countries out in the field and that kind of a thing.

So they're producing their own, but they haven't produced their own at a large scale. So it's all sourced from the the pulp and paper industry basically in South Georgia and North Florida. So what I mean, as far as having somebody come in and say, yes, I'm excited to take your woody waste. There's still a lot cost associated with that.

I understand. And that's that's what I was trying to get my head around. Okay. And I know you're an engineer. No. That's that's okay. So I thought I take advantage and ask the question.

But if you've if you're already sizing it, if you're already chipping it up and you're doing something, I mean, that gets you a significant amount of the way there. And a big part of the cost would be the land and the improvements and all that. Now if you've got land associated with the landfills or you've got, you know, there's other some other synergy there, you've already reduced a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of cost and the capital cost and getting it started. If you could cost share that with Sorrel, which again, it's a capital project for the improvement of the lagoon, now you're you're actually sharing that cost between the counties county carrying that load all and the soil program.

I mean, we are going to be picking

up the

vegetative material in well into the future and so, I guess I was I was wondering, okay, at that point, we have it we have it at the the new landfill Right. Out there and maybe maybe they're gonna put it in a huge pile and it's gonna compost. Okay? You let it do it long enough, it'll it'll compost. But what would it take to turn it into biochar?

You'd have to probably buy a pyrolysis unit and send it through a a basically a pyrolysis unit, burn it, capture that gas, recover, and use those

gases. The syngas?

A syngas. Would be part of Yes.

The cycle?

Yes. And so that would that that you would use that energy in the process or the excess energy would be available for whatever other purposes, co located activities that you you have to have there or wanna have there.

Okay. Thank you, sir, very much.

You're welcome. Thank you, commissioners.

Our next speaker is Tom Cannelli. Alright. What are the few? And you have six, I see.

But I'm only gonna talk on two.

On two?

Maybe one. So can I have six minutes?

If you have two, you get ten minutes. You have five per item.

I see how good I do then.

You want it? Okay. Alright.

I'll just take the time I need and try to keep it.

We start the clock here while you're getting ready. So I would assume you probably which two do you want to speak on? 12. 12. I think that's right. I was assuming that maybe some of yours were rejected, but some were accepted. So

Yes, three accepted. One I won't speak about because I agree with the rejection. And two that got rejected by the staff that I would like to talk about.

Okay, excellent. Okay.

It doesn't really show up too well. Okay. So you can see on the monitor, I presented this to you before. I'm just going to recap just a little bit. The flooding on Indian River Drive, you can see the top of that. I mentioned that, you know, we're underwater, you know, October, just about every October. I put a chart in the middle to say we know the water levels in the Indian River Lagoon. We know we should take an action. And you can see that on that chart, I got a little red circle. And on the bottom one, I want the water, excess water, to go out through Port Canaveral.

But what want to differentiate is, I don't expect the locks to be open for seven days. I want a more methodical approach where the locks are opened and closed to meet that criteria of keeping us this close to flooding so that there's not a lot of volume of water going out through the port. So what I'd really like to ask the commission to do is to take the next step and let's do a study on this. Now, what the staff has said is this is out of their jurisdiction. And I'd just like to remind the commission that this county has agreements with all kinds of bodies.

They're in the business of cooperating with other jurisdictions. This is what they do so well. They're already cooperating with St. John's Army Corps of Engineers, FDP and others. So I don't really think the classification of out of jurisdiction is appropriate, and I'd really like to stipulate that the county does out of jurisdiction all the time.

And lastly, you know, with Speaker Brevard, you've got to have some economic value. And what this would avoid is our catastrophic problems. When the flooding gets too bad, it costs the county a lot of money. Given this is done right, this should be a minimal cost to have somebody like an emergency management look at the chart and say, yep, we're getting the flooding level. Let me call over to the locks.

Let's open them up for a couple hours. Close them back down, we're in good shape. I'm not expecting seven days like happened with Hurricane Fay and the negative ramifications thereof. So that's really what I want to talk about there. The staff recommended against it on out of jurisdiction, County does out of jurisdiction all the time, not relevant.

Number two is that there's no cost savings. I'm telling you this is going to save some catastrophic costs down the road. I heard, I don't know if this is true, all right, but somebody said to raise in your drive costs $05,000,000,000 We're not going to spend $500,000,000 to raise the road, but we could open the locks if that's more reasonable. Now number two, the second item I wanted to talk about, and this is really minor on the list, but just let me get it off my chest, if you don't mind. So I was out in front of my house on Indian River Drive. We it looks like a third world road. It's been patched so many times. Now it's going to get fixed when sorrel comes through. So I'm not really complaining about the fact it's never going to get fixed. It is.

But I contend that we need another hot patch truck. We got a lot of cold patch on the road and some hot patch. And boy, can drive down the road and see the hot patch is there forever. That is a high quality job. You look at the cold patch and you go, this is coming up and I'm making another call. So it's peeling at the edges. We've had so much cold patch on this road that I don't even know what's under this road anymore. So what I wanted to propose to the County was let's buy another asphalt truck. But now I'm involving my thinking to say, if the asphalt truck, which the folks that patch the road tell me, oh, it's down the south part of the County, we can't bring it up here. That makes sense, right?

You can drive the truck all the way up here for one job. Maybe we hire out some patch jobs when the existing truck is not available. But Public Works needs to have a better response than putting cold patch down on some really bad portions of the road. So that's the bottom line for seer number two. Any questions? Open the locks for me. All right. Just let a little water out.

Yeah. That's okay. Commissioner Felton? Can I

ask a question? Sure. On the have you spoken with the port about opening the locks?

No. I have not spoken with the port because I think I need the influence of who I think my advocates are, which would be the county to do that.

Well, you could they have an elected board, the port commission. Can you can talk to a port commissioner.

Yes. I can. A matter of fact, one of them may be running for District 1.

Okay. Okay. Yeah. But I I thought

I'd start here because I think it's more of a problem for the county. It's not a problem for the port that our road is being flooded.

I can't disagree with you there sir. But this has come up many many times over the years and long before I was a county commissioner and we don't have the ability to teleport do this now. It'd be nice if they if they agreed if if if that's what we all think should happen but II just if if you're if you're working on this problem, I think talking with a port commissioner and then possibly with the the port, CEO and and that staff. In the alternative, you could talk with a state legislator. I mean, they they vote on their budget and and other things that have to do with seaports. And, I I just

Yeah. I I came here first. I think it's Brevard County. I I I think I want to go to my representative first. Yes. I realize that I do vote on on the port and in the justification I put, you know, as taxpayers in District 1 and probably a few others, but not all of Brevard County, we're on the hook financially for the port. If the port doesn't make money, we get taxed. And so I'm thinking that they should be able to give back to us. And that give back might be to agree to help us out during the flooding situations because there might be a chance of some dredging that might be required. So I don't really know where to go with this except to come to my elected representatives and start here.

I I think your next step, my and I'm sitting here with a a former legislator and one on the phone is that you meet with a legislator because, I mean, it it could be the subject of a future bill. Yeah. What you're talking about, but I don't think you're wrong to come here first. Okay.

And maybe I could get maybe a commitment to rather than reject this outright is just to form a committee and just see, let's say, how can we get

to

yes on Brevard County side?

I think you should see about talking with the legislator first. And I'll say this last thing, Mr. Chair. Sorry, sir. The legislative session will start over, like, again with committee weeks probably in September. Am I am I making does that sound right? In the in the in the even years. And so this summer is the time to have a a discussion with the legislator.

I'd have to figure out what my ask of them is. Is it money?

Is it I think you say, how about opening the locks? When when flood, I mean you can you can put conditions and you can work through that with a with a legislator.

Yeah, I mean I I try that I I think that. They might say the same thing that staff said this is out of our jurisdiction and more in in port in the county, but why not I'll give it a try.

The legislature won't say it's out of their jurisdiction. I mean the the port was ultimately created. By the state so Okay. Okay? Sure. Alright, sir.

I think probably too, the Army Corps of Engineers would have a great deal of authority over that. But I I would personally look into jurisdiction issues. I understand that that was it's an intriguing idea, and I've a lot of people inquire about it over the years. But I understand that the they actually did that at one time. They opened the gates, I think more for inflow and water quality. But what happened that the current was so strong that it called a lot of sand to fill in, and it literally made the locks fail.

You're absolutely correct. That happened after Hurricane Fay because they opened the doors for seven days. Yeah. Which sounds it would sound okay, right? My proposal in this was, let's say emergency management measures the level of the lagoon and when the high tides or the low tides let's say the high tide is lower than the lagoon, we're going to get a slower flow out. So it's more of a methodical engineered approach rather than open the floodgate. But you're absolutely right. After Hurricane Fay, it did cause a big problem for the port.

Okay. Was an interesting idea. Thank you for your presentation.

As always, I appreciate you listening.

That's good. I agree with commission commission commissioner Felton with the delegation, and I would think the water management district would be also Yeah. Well, they do in terms of a lot of issues with the lagoon. They are responsible. I would think they could probably give you some good information too.

Okay. Michael Majak. That is this is 202-6044. Commercial Spaceport Authority, a Spaceport Task Force.

Yes. Let's get started. Is that the right? Yeah. That'll work.

Okay. So I talked to you, oh, year ago February. Got a standing ovation. I told you about all the friendly neighbors of ours that don't necessarily get to vote. Some are charismatic like redfish and some are not, like the benthic macroinvertebrates.

And then I came last month and I talked to you about why we need the Spaceport Authority and why I think you are the best place for us to go because the cities aren't gonna be able to do it. It's gonna take somebody like the county. And the reason for that has to do with all these kinds of things that are coming driving change in our area. We're looking at huge numbers of needing housing and workers, and that's gonna mean concurrency items and storm water and sanitary sewer and roads and schools and everything else that comes along with all that expansion. And you know who's planning for that?

Nobody. But it's coming. Just like the nineteen fifties when we didn't know how to make storm water work, we just dug ditches. Well, that's what they're doing out there right now. They're just digging ditches because that's how they know how to get the water away from their rooftops and into where they want it to go.

Now, presented this briefly last time just to give you some raw rough ideas, But I don't really know that this does a very good job of of making it making the impact, as strong as it needs to be. And so I started with this one last time about just the amount of deluge water that's being used. See if I can I can't quite get that separated? But this is what's been permitted, and these are just a couple of of this you know, their Starship is up there. There's a 120 launches planned. They use 1.1 per launch. Falcon nine uses 700,000. The new Glenn uses half a million. You add it all up. That's 227,000,000 gallons.

Who has identified the raw water resource for that water? Nobody. Now, let me put it in another perspective. They just decided to build a satellite processing facility out there. It's a million square foot building. A million square feet of rooftop. Rooftops are impervious by design, like 95% impervious, better than even parking lots, which are, like, 85, 90 because they puddle, pond, and evaporate. Not roofs. Straight down. Where does the water go?

You can guess. The nearest receiving water body is the Indian River Lagoon. Million square feet. That's 10 Walmarts. 10. Not one, not two, not five, ten in one space with no concern for storm water, runoff, anything else that they need. All of the concurrency issues are not being taken care of. I think you're in a neat a unique position to bring this into fruition. You can't lead it. NASA maybe could, but I don't think they want to.

Space Florida was supposed to be our hope, but they only have management control of a small area of KSE. Everybody else goes directly to NASA to figure out their leasing like the satellite plan. NASA is not in the business of planning. They don't want to even be in the business of property ownership. But let me tell you this this tsunami is on its way here.

We can stand up a committee, an interim committee made up of the stakeholders that are involved out here and they in turn can set up and stand up a permanent space force task force. It's a two step process. The people that's that are on the interim task force set up the rules and the guidance and the governance and the rest of them follow along when they adopt it. It's a two step process. I've done it before twice.

I've done it with the International Standards Organization, SIO, the simulation interoperability standards organization and I did part of something very similar to that when I was working with Homeland Security as a principal architect on the emergency operation centers and I had to take disparaged people from all across the country, put them together, and make them interoperate. You guys need to do that here. If you don't, we're gonna be sacrificing our space center and our space coast and our environment and our quality of life. It's up to you. It's in your hands.

We can help you pull it together, but it's gonna take more than than just talk because we really need to form a coalition that will take charge of our resources. We have very limited water. I talked to you last time about the water. The pipelines going to Orange County is just not big enough. We're now starting to look at exactly how much water COCO is providing and how much Cape Canaveral is providing to the space center.

These are two numbers that we wanna start tracking over the next well, last few years and years coming forward to see exactly how fast we're growing. Because it's well, you see the Gigabay going up already across the way. Right? It's it's gonna be bigger appears bigger than the VAB. Again, another huge building putting out a huge amount of storm water, and nobody's watching it. So if you have any questions, if you'd like to discuss it more, we would be happy to come and talk with you. I'm Michael Myjak, and I'm with the Union River Lagoon Roundtable. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Very interesting. Appreciate it. Okay. Thomas Perez. 202-6041.

Hello. Good evening.

Mister chair, I'm sorry, sir. May I mister chair, may I just quickly we just received a message that commissioner Goodson is is not feeling well, and he's going to be off the call from this point on. I just wanted to make the board aware.

Okay. Great. Thank you. Thank you for letting us know.

Okay. My name is Tom Perez. I'm from Titusville. I applaud your naming of the Speak Up Brevard program after Susan B. Conley.

I was fortunate enough to meet and work with Suzanne and attest, to how well deserved it is to name this program after her. I appreciate this opportunity to share some ideas with you. I also speak on behalf of the Titusville Garden Club of which I'm a member and four other garden clubs in Brevard County as well as all the citizens that have used this fine smolch that I'm going to be speaking about in the past. Over the years, Brevard County has dispatched our yard waste into huge piles of chipped up logs, limbs and branches. The yard waste that is chipped up and called mulch simply isn't.

The stuff that comes out of the grinder is very coarse and unsuitable for gardening. This product contains small logs and limbs that make it through the single pass process rendering the resulting material too coarse for most circumstances. A byproduct called the Fines was previously excuse me, produced by the county but became unavailable in the 2022. This product was effectively utilized by gardeners and citizens count countywide to tend their gardens and yards. To produce the fines, the coarse material needs to be run through the grinding process a second time using a finer screen to further reduce the course material to one inch.

Put another way, the course material produced from the first grind will take years to break down and become useful to the soil as an amenity. Whereas the fines can be put into service directly into the landscaping project and used to produce compost. For the gardeners the process of composting the fines takes a few months. It requires some maintenance, turning over the piles, watering, things like that. And the final product is a real good compost that you can use in your gardens.

At our garden club we make use of the fines. We offer plants grown at the club to county residents at considerable discounts and provide plants and participate in planning planting projects with the city of Titusville. We also donate vegetable produce from the gardens we tend to the food pantry in Titusville. The fines are a very usable and sustainable byproduct from our County's yard waste cleanup operations and residents wanted. Furthermore, it recycles some of the material that otherwise is landfill fodder.

The background history of the fines provided by the County staff tells us that it was previously enabled by a third party purchaser. The fines were produced in a large quantity that exceeded the purchaser's ability to use it all. This oversupply allowed for the excess to be provided to the residents at no cost. The third party purchaser discontinued the purchase in 2018 and therefore there was no funding available for the county to continue making the smaller fines. The county said it only needs the larger four inch fines for its own use so there is no need for the additional processing that would add to the cost.

The amount of fine materials used by County residents was very small apparently in comparison to the amount produced by the contract. Residents making use of the fines typically came to facilities prepared to load containers in the trunk of their cars or pickup trucks and occasionally small trailers. The small amount used by residents is illustrated by the time span from when the contract ended in 2018 and when the fines were no longer available in 2022, almost four years. We propose that the county resume the production of the fines and make them available to the residents of Brevard County. Gardeners and homeowners across the county appreciate the value of this high quality organic material.

Making fines available again would support healthier yards, reduce disposal needs and demonstrate the county's commitment to sustainable practices. The amount of fines that would supply county residents as I said is small. Okay, in comparison to what was produced previously. I expect that the additional grind to produce this small amount of material would be limited to maybe a few days, a year if that and not place an onerous request on the county. Its availability would be well received by county residents.

If the cost of producing the small amount is an issue, residents could purchase the fines from the county at what the county calculates its production cost. We're talking about a very small amount in comparison to what was produced for by the, you know, for this contractor that used it in a sense to burn as fuel. Okay? So, you know, I suspect just a couple of days of production of having that sieve put in so that you could do the second run would produce more than enough material for probably a year considering the way it was used. Know with the contract that was trailer trucks constantly just going through getting the stuff so there was a lot produced.

And this would just be a small, you know, cost. And if it's an issue it can be passed on to the people that use it. Thank you. Any questions? When

the county was producing the fines, did you ever use them? Did you ever acquire them?

Yes. Yes. Yes.

And what did you use them for?

Well, gardening. Know, amendment to the soil. I had a when I first moved here I was in MEMS. I had a small farm with horses. I needed to help that pasture, you know, and that was the way I did it. Know, would when I took things to the facility, I brought back some compost.

I know I know you of used to provide this valuable material. I have a question maybe maybe of staff. I know this particular seer was denied. And the staff recommendation was like I think many of them recommended that we reject this SEER because it does not enhance the effectiveness or efficiency of county government as required by Home Rule Charter. Now but it doesn't mean that's not a good idea and we're producing a valuable product and we are recycling biologic materials.

I mean if we chose to do that regardless of what this says, we could still do that, could we not? We felt it's a viable product, it's recycling, there's environmental benefit.

Yes, of course. If the board directs it, yes, then we would do that.

To just

point out, there's an extra cost to the solid waste department. Right. It's in the definition of being built with our commendations. Yep.

And this SEER though is very limiting then. It's only limited if it if it enhances effectiveness or efficiency, saves money.

Correct.

But doesn't make it be a great idea and save the consumers money because you

It's a win win for everybody. I mean, the county also, you know, giving the citizens something that they need and they appreciate for very little cost. You know, I suspect that, it's I

mean, it's something that anybody any commissioner could come up with. Right? We a commissioner could bring it

It could

as an agenda item.

Commissioner, and I I I don't wanna be disrespectful but if I remember staff discussion, it was not a very little cost. I think over a 100, it was over a $100,000 the program. So that's why I got rejected that way. Thank you, Ted.

Mhmm. I imagine that was put to produce quantities under the old, system. And if you determine the amount being used by citizens, I can't imagine that being an issue.

I think it has a lot of I mean it has some value and perhaps we'll look at it as we move forward. Appreciate you bringing it. I it. I think the Sears not just to meet the county charter and just the money side, but is it a good idea? Does it help the environment? Does it do good things? So I think it's interesting. Appreciate you bringing it forward.

Thank you.

Terry Fulton, serial number 20.

Terry Fulton and I'm from Melbourne. I'm here to ask to speak about the law enforcement encrypting our traffic. If you all don't know what that means, it's listening to police in the fire and anybody else on there. And I have six items to explain about that. Number one, the law enforcement agency's excuse for encryption.

Number two, what open and close transmission does. Three, what encryption does to the listeners. Number four, what I wonder. Number five, recommendations. And number six, I can't even read it.

Number one, the excuse, and this is I want y'all to listen to this really close. Sheriff Ivy said that he wants to encrypt and he did do it. He wants to do it and this is what he said. Criminals could could listen and evade capture. So could means apparently after all these years, no coulds came about.

It really makes me mad. I've listened to scanners over forty five years and I haven't heard a thing of the sort. Open and close transmission, that's number two. Closed transmission, full encryption undermines public trust. It hinders accountability that's major and reduces situational awareness for residents.

Encryption creates an information vacuum eroding the sense of community connection to law enforcement. Open transmission. Law enforcement and fire department have had access to public record records for decades. Open radio channels allow citizens first hand and about emergencies enabling us to avoid dangerous areas, prepare for disruptions, or even assist in a crisis. Open transmission promotes accountability.

Real time public oversight discourages misconduct This is what I'm worried about. It ensures police action align with community our expectations. Listeners help catch suspects, spot wildfires, even save first responders' lives. When agencies flip the switch to encryption, that two way accountability goes dark. Number three, what encryption does for us listeners.

Listening is very personal. We use the scanners to stay informed about neighborhood incidences like burglaries, fires, accidents, which affects our daily life. It really does. Y'all might not think about that. Being single and a female, and there's two more girls there that need to know why there was 10 police cars running around in my neighborhood, and we had no way to find out.

No way. Smoke was so thick when I walked out my door, it scared the heck out of me because it's so dry. And and if I'd been listening to my radio, which I would have been, I would have known what was going on. But I was so afraid I called the police and they didn't know either. Back when there was an open transmission, police were looking for a by helicopter for a person on a bike.

They hit they gave me a description. Well, lo and behold, he was two doors down, hiding under a tree, and I called it into the police department. On a trip to the store, I boarded a wreck and backed up traffic for six lanes two ways and four on another that closed the whole intersection down at Babcock and US 1. There's no telling how many minutes or hours that saved me. What I wonder, I wonder why the secrecy.

Is it to cover up misconduct? I suspect that's a lot of it, especially since he said it could criminals could monitor. They hadn't in all these years. I have some recommendations, but I decided not to give them to you. I'm telling you, we citizens need and we deserve this traffic, and I have thoroughly explained why. Please help me do something about this. We need it. Yes?

Okay. Thank you. I have a question for you just quickly. Are you aware how many communities do not encrypt now? Are there other communities that

I don't know how many more. I started seeing them fall off the radio, but there's still a lot on there, and I'm surprised the ones that are still on there are on there because it's the worst part of towns, not in Florida, in across this nation. Okay.

Thank you. It was interesting. Any other questions? Okay. We have one more and it's Elizabeth Baker. 202-6047.

Hi there.

My recommendation was to address the litter issues in unincorporated areas and requesting waste management planning provision for brick and mortar commercial properties and multi family residential properties with shared waste systems, including apartments, condominiums, HOA or COA managed communities. Have an additional one page waste management plan that could be incorporated into existing permit reviews, site plan approvals, or inspection processes. So the recommendation that I got back was to accept with revisions as Brevard County will continue to maintain regulatory provisions addressing solid waste storage, litter prevention, and development review through chapters sixty two and ninety four of the county code, as well as solid waste concurrency requirements. So I guess my idea is a little simple when it comes to the legalities of things, and I can see that staff took their time to really look into how they could incorporate something like this. And I think that what happened was a simple idea got covered in some bureaucracy.

And and really what I'm asking here is something very, simple, just that with a business tax receipt or any kind of acknowledgment that they are in business, doing business, housing people, that they simply have one form that says, yes, we know where to put our waste. We know how to handle it. We have dumpster on-site. We have got covers on our dumpster. We know the trash days.

Something very, very simple. Because that waste ultimately from those properties, and all waste comes from where the humans are. It comes from our stores, it comes from the restaurants, it comes from where the people are, where people live, where we recreate, get tons of visitors coming here using single use plastics at an even larger rate than than people that live here. We can make this very, very simple. And I my argument here is that if things were efficient, I wouldn't be here, and Keep Brevard Beautiful wouldn't exist.

So we have issues with garbage that that end up in our storm water ditches. It ends up clogging things up. It creates accidents. In 2017, in just three months' time, there was a study done in Florida highways, and there were over 42 tons of trash removed from Florida highways in just three months. We have millions and millions of visitors coming here.

We've got approximately 600,000 residents, somewhere around there. And and I think that we can I think we can work on this and and do some prevention? And we've gotta start holding some people accountable. We have great rules. This is not about expanding regulations.

This isn't about putting more departments in or more staff or anything. This is really just making sure that the laws that we already have are easy to enforce and that they get enforced. I I drive through some unincorporated areas of Brevard County all the time, and if you drive past just about any strip mall location, any area where there's multiple businesses, and you look at their dumpster, I promise you, you're gonna find garbage all over the place. We can find a way to prevent some of that. And I really believe that that a lot of that has to do with education.

The recommendations that came back to me really addressed new development site plan and review requirements, but what I'm talking about is the new small business that just opens up in the strip mall. They're not they're they don't need a huge site plan. There isn't new development happening. I want that business to be accountable and know that they have to take care of their waste too. So I I I think this can be simpler than adding a whole bunch more staff and more taxes and more. We don't need any of that. I think we can make this a really, really simple thing. So I really appreciate your time and I appreciate staff looking over the the recommendation. So thank you so much.

Okay. Thank you. And I was presently reading some of the staff input on this. Any questions? Okay. That is our last card, our last blue card.

We have one comment on j two that we need to hear prior to voting. Okay.

Rick Hufflefinger.

Rick Effelinger, District 1. I kind of wanted to come down here because I liked a lot of these. I didn't write one this year because what I saw happen this year happened the previous year that what the community is bringing to you are good ideas, and it's already of suspect when it says, you've got on your chart, does this reduce cost? A lot of this would probably cost something, but what they're saying is, as a citizen, like for example, if you are suggesting like this woman just did, this lady, I don't know, that we can take some of the trash and keep it out of the landfill, I think that's why we recycle in the first place. That's what I was told.

We recycle, save the landfill, save the landfill. We don't have to build a new one sooner. That's the only reason. We're not trying to save the earth. We're trying to save the landfill. Hate to tell you guys that. So everything that goes into that recycling bin does not go into the landfill. Why would you discourage that? Why would you not? Did the staff do a cost analysis and say, hey, this could be tons of stuff that doesn't go into the landfill, maybe this person's got a good idea.

I'll tell you one thing that I do, I walk the street, we've got people that clean up the street, keep her very beautiful, they'll give you little grabby things for nothing. They'll give you the bags for nothing. You know what you do with it? You sort it by recyclables and you put it in your own garbage. Guess what, waste management a little bit of stuff that should have been in that bin to begin with.

I don't know, we have waste management contract with the unincorporated. The cities have their own, right? But the cities I think are still complying with recycling. I think most of their recycling probably goes to waste management because they're the only ones that got a decent recycling plant. So that whole object of recycling, realize we do it because we're incentivized too from the state, I believe was the original reason that if you recycle, the big government smiles at you, so you kind of have to keep that program.

But it's a good program, keeps that stuff out of the landfill, so is a, just because it would look like, well we'd have to write a procedure and we'd maybe have to put, at the beach I don't understand why there's not a recycling bin there, I don't think a lot of them do, like dude we recycle here, we're letting the tourists throw all this crap into one, well it's going right in the landfill, because they're emptying that can right in the landfill. Would it be so hard to put another can there? Waste management won't like it, or whoever the collector is because now they've more recycling to pick up, but hey, we have a contract that says they, you know, where they're supposed to, to pick up that stuff. I have no problem taking it off my street and putting it in that bin, because that's a good citizen. Keep Brevard Beautiful can help with that, those programs, a lot of people don't even know they're there, a little bit more advertising and the county plugs the heck out of the recycling program.

You want to know the only people that are benefiting from that? That's waste management because that's what they do. That's a closed system, but we plug the hell out of it and we do it for good reason, it stays out of the landfill and we all pay for it. So I just think there was a lot of good ideas and just because they don't save money, if they benefit the citizens and they possibly have costs, that you guys should spend a little more time instead of kicking it back to them to come with a closed system, the gentleman with the biohazard stuff, bio fuel stuff, he's one man, he's looking to you guys to say this could benefit everybody, I don't know why Cyril doesn't weigh in on some of this water issue, keeping that fresh water out of the lagoon is a good idea, That's I just think there was little not enough thought put into some really good ideas. Think Sorrel should have embraced some of them.

You.

Okay that is our last card on J two. I think we've heard all the blue cards. Yes. That brings it back to the board. The staff have anything they wanted to add before we

And forgive me for repeating a little bit here, commissioners, yes. Under Thank you, Mr. Chair. Under the charter, commission's final vote and consideration the recommendation shall occur no later than one hundred and twenty days after written receipt so you have to make you do have to make a decision to accept accept with revisions or reject the recommendations

what they did we receive the written receipt?

January 31, so the ninety days under the policy for staff to get you, we met that by last week and then you would have to the May to accept, reject, or accept with revisions. You can accept them all today and then be done with it.

When you say accept them all today.

You review each of the written recommendations. The county commission shall vote to either accept the recommendation each individual one accept the recommendation with revisions, each individual one or reject the recommendation, each individual ones. We have it set up for you that you can do them all in one single motion if you accept our recommendations and if you want to pull one off to for a separate vote or to have us reconsider it, then you can make that as part of the motion. Okay.

I have a question. We accept your recommendation. That means we're accepting your recommendations to accept with changes. Am I reading that right?

Accept with recommendation mean it's an idea that it could mean a couple different ways. It's an idea that we're already doing. They may have more of ideas in their recommendation than we can do. It also could be something that we've been continuing. Example, I keep coming up with is somebody had in there for more bike lanes and so we have there in a set with recommendation. Of course, we'll do bike lanes where we can but you may not have space for bike lanes or the money but it's a good idea to have more bike lanes. So, I mean, that's an idea of an acceptable recommendation.

I I think it's confusing because we have staff recommendations on citizen recommendations. So, I think the the requested action is that the board of county commissioners approve these staff recommendations. But that if the commissioners wish to treat any individual seer or seers differently that you pull those just like you would the consent agenda.

And we still would. Well, let me ask you a question. If if we we saw one of these and we liked it, but we wasn't prepared to do anything. At any point in time, even beyond the ninety days, we can present it as a proposal.

Absolutely, sir. Yes.

Some of these may have merit, but we'd wanna look and evaluate. So it doesn't mean a no is a no forever. Correct. Right.

You're you're around a lot of these, mister chair, if I may, may not fall into the criteria of the SEER program, but they might be great ideas for a commissioner to champion.

Right. Yep. Appreciate that. And there's some good ideas. So if we accept the document, the staff. I'm looking at the summary. Are we accepting the items where the staff says except with revision? Does that mean we're gonna accept the recommendation with the revisions of the staff?

And

there are over 15 of those that I staff that

are really 17 of them.

Yeah. 17. Okay. Great.

Sir, I think you said what I was gonna say earlier which is you can always petition the commissioner, on on these items. I know I've said that multiple times that some of the things I brought to the board started with a conversation in publics. If there isn't more discussion, I'll make the motion to approve, the staff recommendations.

And I'll second.

There's a second. Okay. And and as mentioned, commissioner Goodson is not on the phone, so it's just us three. Any discussion? Okay. I would just say a few things. I think some of these were wonderful ideas. I will go back and review them and some that were rejected it could be that through the budget process or through comp planning process or through our rate process and solid web. A lot of things that we could do that this is don't think that your feedback is going deaf ears because it's really, really some good ideas. And I do want to thank the public that took the time to really evaluate these issues and come up with these excellent recommendations on many of them.

And staff hundreds of hours. Staff took it seriously with hundreds of hours.

Staff took hundreds of hours. And a lot of these rejections are just simply because we have no jurisdiction. And some We encourage that those who come up with these ideas to really look at other jurisdictions. And so we also in the legislative process have annual legislative delegation meetings and some of these would be really good to talk to the delegation about. Okay. Any other debate discussion? All those in favor say, yay.

Yay.

Carries unanimously. Thank you and again thank you for the members of the public who participated in this process. Okay, that I believe is the last item on our agenda.

Ms. We have one public comment.

Oh, we have the last public comment sector. We do have Rick Hefelfinger, Impact Peace. Rick

Hefelfinger, District one. One of the things that I was hoping to see on the agenda was something about impact fees. I told you it would come back. Don't we have a study that's sitting out there about impact fees updating the impact fees? Everybody say yes.

I was shocked when that gentleman came and talked about what he was being hit with an impact fee in the Canaveral Groves area. The impact fees, I believe, that we're supposed to be studying are impact fees that hit guys that are doing big developments. Like I talked about the impact fees, the school board has got a good handle on it, you're going to put more kids in my school, you give me money. When you have these huge developments come through and they put a load on the road and they put a load on, know, more people, more services, right? So they need to pay their fair share and I know we don't like to do that because we encourage building, we love building, it's revenue, It's tax base.

Right? But when they exceed the roads and then you turn around and say, you know, your roads got a high capacity problem now, it's like you need you guys need to you know, maybe we have to bust the cap. That happened in 2016, and I see a pattern, and you're gonna repeat it. You have the opportunity not to. This is a new board. 2016, none of you guys are sitting here. They kicked the can down the road. That's what this term kicked the can down the road. Those impact fees, they gotta they gotta start paying their way. The gentleman that talked about what's going on out there space, we want space, high paying jobs, at what cost?

The rest of us, we we like watching your rockets, but I'm not gonna pay an extra thousand dollars in my tax bill because you you made me have to deal with your water or you made me have to deal with fixing the lagoon more because you're dumping your your cooling water in it. There could be some good solutions to that stuff, but they should help work with that. We love their business, we really do. And it's great. We're the center of excellence for shooting stuff into space. We also happen to have a geographic reason that they're here, so they're not really, you know it turns out I guess Elon doesn't like Texas for some reason. Might not get the orbital insertion he likes. This is

the

place. So he's coming here whether or not he has to pay or not he has to come here, so let's let him pony up, I don't know, is SpaceX privatized now or is it just him? He's going to privatize the bench, he's making a boatload of money delivering satellites right, But he's got a good system. So if he's making money, I don't see a reason he doesn't help us out, we're helping him out, hey we'll accommodate you, we'll do some things, but you're not going to make the entire population of the people that retire here pay for a lawn to have fun shooting rockets are we? So those impact fees, he has an impact.

He shed water on these buildings, that's going right into the lagoon. Does the lagoon committee care that he's doing that? You're pumping it out and he's pumping it in, Something don't wash there. So that's all I had to say about that. We've one more meeting before that impact fee thing is overcome by events because the state is coming in and saying you can't raise them too much. You have the opportunity to break that trend and look like a hero. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay. That concludes our May 5, county commission meeting. We will move to individual reports. County manager.

Yes, thank you mister chair. I I have two two related items on one report. I I don't know if you're all aware but we had a busy end of the week and weekend last weekend. We had a car accident in the Viera that caused power problems. We had a lightning problem at the Viera Regional Park. We had another situation at the library. We had Hvac system go down at Sarno Complex. I want to thank the parks folks and especially the facilities. The facilities folks are hustling all weekend. I mean, Thursday through Sunday, they they work on everything.

The Hvac system at the Sarno Complex, you know, that includes a sheriff, tax collector, parks and rec. I think there's another office in there. The staff got me some data. I haven't had a chance to look at it but if I determine the best way for that as a replacement instead of just continuing fixing, I may be coming back at the May 19 meeting to ask if we don't have the funding to actually ask for the pull some stuff out of reserves. So, instead of that way, we're not just keep patching. So, I don't know. We can take a long term long term solution to it. So I want to give you guys a heads up on Okay. Thank you sir.

Sounds like a good plan. I have no report mister chair. No report from the county attorney. No report from the district one. District two is not here. So district three?

Yes. I had the opportunity to attend, two really cool events, this past few weeks. I attended the Archie Carr turtle celebration at the Barrier Island Center. Events like this always remind me how special of our county is and how important our natural resources are. Thank you to the county that was there.

Thank you to all the people who attended. Thank you to the donors for the silent auction. I won a bracelet and some earrings for sea glass, which was really cool. Also, I got to attend the swearing in of the new West Melbourne police chief, Chief Michelle DiGiorgio. She's been with West Melbourne Police for fifteen years, and I have full faith that she is going to continue to, you know, lead that department.

That's so well attended. I couldn't even get in the room. I was standing in the hallway. I'd also like to take a moment to thank Skip, Bell, and Doug Brown for their efforts over the weekend at the Melbourne Beach Library. A wall was vandalized at the library, and Doug came out on Sunday and painted over the graffiti. I actually had gone to the store to buy paint myself, and then I was told he was on his way out there to do it. The responsiveness and the dedication of county staff really is appreciated by people who aren't here. They tell me to tell you thank you. So thank you.

That's it.

Thank you. District 4.

Thank you, mister chair. I'll just say real quick. Vera Regional Park, you you can't make this up. There was a transformer that was out at the main concession stand in the middle of the park by the T ball field and I appreciate the park staff. I asked and they got a generator going so that they could power that building.

The short of it is that, you know, they could use the the bathrooms and and such. And then a transformer I think was hit out on the road or something along those lines that knocked out the power for the entire park. And so it was the one concession stand building in the middle that had power from the generator. So but the parks staff did a hero's job of taking care of everyone out there this weekend. So I I greatly appreciate it and we're going to bring them Chick fil A this week for breakfast.

And and then also the Vietnam traveling wall is in Wickham Park this weekend and this board has supported the the wall coming to Brevard the last two years with a grant to pay the park fees and so I hope everyone will go out there and visit the wall and enjoy. It should be a lovely weekend. That's it, sir.