Town Commission - Regular Meeting

September 17th, 2026, regular commission meeting. Trim and budget public hearing.

Okay, I'd like to call this meeting in the town of Sewells Point, final budget and regular meeting. It's September 17th at 5.05. Please stand for the pledge.

flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Okay, want to call the roll?

Mayor Burrill?

Here.

Vice Mayor Mayfield?

Here.

Commissioner Fender? Here. Commissioner Kersman?

Yes.

Commissioner Titicus?

Here.

We have a quorum.

Okay. Is there any public comment? Okay, here we go. Jason? Bultman. Bultman? Yeah. Jason, come on up. There's no proclamations and there's no presentations, so...

I didn't know I'd be first. I was going to wait until the agenda item, but if it's appropriate to speak now on the number three, water quality.

Yeah, okay. We'll wait on that, if you don't mind. Okay. Scott Craft.

Good evening. Scott Craft, Fort Delano Lane. I have a Kind of a question as to the legitimacy of the forever schools point. You know that's going to come out between my lips almost every meeting. We're to believe that one person is really not behind all this because it's an organization, it's a group, it's a collective bunch of people making decisions and coming up with questions. And I'm glad to see that the candidates running for office didn't bend the knee to answer the questions that they had a deadline to answer. under the threat of this was going to be published in the next whatever publication it was that he was going to put out. But anyway, there is no owner of the site. Basically, it's the not-for-profit. But really the not-for-profit is one person that's the registered agent. We all know who that is. And he has the say in what goes on, what's said in it. There's no oversight. To me, there's no legitimacy to it whatsoever unless we know how many members there are of this organization, when they meet, what is said in these meetings, what goes on in these meetings. They're allowed to do that, a 501 or whatever it is. They're allowed to not have minutes, not disclose what's said. But as a board member, I would really think that there is a conflict there. And it's been the source of a lot of different angst between different board members, the town manager. I don't have to remind you of all the things that are said and the innuendo. And it's not a positive thing. So for board members to answer these questions, knowing full well that they're going to be used in the future, yes. If I want Dave's position on something, I can call Dave. I can ask him. He's been a board member. Mr. Tom Peck, no, he's not a current board member. If I want to know something about him, Facebook, he says he's got a statement on there, what he's running for, what his views are. He's got a website. He's got a phone. I mean, you can get in touch with any of these people. So this is not going to save all these people in town from what they don't know. It's like putting sunshine on things that are hidden. I just think it's one person's view that's hidden behind a website that claims to be an organization. If it's an organization, who are the members? I wasn't asked to be on this part of this.

I'd really love to know.

Every other group, it seems like you've got to have some kind of responsibility. There's some kind of oversight. There's something that goes on. Otherwise, you print anything you want, whenever you want to. And how are you supposed to defend yourself against that? So thank you for listening.

Thank you. Any additions or deletions to the agenda?

Motion to approve the agenda as provided. I'll second it.

We have a motion and we have a second to approve the agenda. Any other discussion on it? Seeing none, we'll move over to the approval of the consent agenda.

We have a vote. Oh, okay, I'm sorry. Vice Mayor Mayfield? Yes. Commissioner Fender? Yes. Commissioner Kersman? Yes. Commissioner Titicus? Yes. Mayor Burrell?

Yes.

Motion passes.

Approval of the consent agenda.

So moved.

We have a motion. Do we have a second? I'll second. And we have a second. Call the roll.

Discussion. Mayor.

Okay.

I would like to pull F, G, H, and I off the agenda for discussion. F, G, H, and I. There are four grant applications.

F, G, and I.

Mayor, can I ask a quick question unrelated to this, but for the lawyer, just about procedure? I'm curious. OK, thank you. So when we do the approval of the agenda, are you supposed to pull the items from the consent agenda then, or do we wait till we get to the consent agenda?

We wait till you get to consent.

OK, thank you. Because I think in the past we've done it differently, but that's fine. Thank you.

OK.

So would you amend your motion? Commissioner Fender?

Yeah, certainly. My motion is to accept the consent agenda and pull FGH and I as requested.

I'll second it again.

OK. We have a motion. And do we have a second? We've got a second. Take a vote on that.

Commissioner Fender? Yes. Commissioner Kersman?

Yes.

Commissioner Titicus? Yes. Vice Mayor Mayfield?

Yes. Yes.

Mayor Burrill? Yes. Motion passes.

OK. Let's go up for discussion.

Okay, if you would turn to page 105. And I've gone over these with the town manager earlier this week. Page 105, and this is, I forget which application, this is South River Road. It says on the second paragraph down under Tier 3 criteria, The town has a dedicated millage rate and discretionary sales tax for grant funding. And after Mr. Daniels and I discussed this, we agreed that this discretionary sales tax can't be used for this. So the application needs to be amended.

Okay.

And if you go to page 113... As you're going there, just a question.

Why can't the discretionary sales tax be used? Just so I know.

It's to be used for... What is it? Environmentally sensitive lands. Environmentally sensitive projects.

This grant is not for an environmentally sensitive subject?

I direct that at the town manager.

I'm sorry, what is the grant? I should know.

It's for South River Road.

South River Road raising and the AES, the stormwater?

Well, it was a diversion of it to underground storage tanks.

That seems environmentally sensitive to me.

Well, Mr. Daniels, if you want to jump in, you discussed this with the assistant... the assistant town or Martin County.

My only concern really with this line of questioning is modifying the grant submission could hold up the process, change the process, allow them to reconsider it. I mean, I don't know. But I'd rather not change it if I can help it. But is it worth changing, even if we never use that funding for that purpose?

Well, I believe we want to submit something that is accurate.

Pretty accurate.

Not pretty accurate, accurate.

Pretty accurate.

You and I have a disagreement.

No, I'm just wondering if it's worth all that, is my question.

Mayor? yeah it's if you're talking south river road down there that is environmentally sensitive all that water coming down not capturing it allowing them go over everything wash all the debris the pesticides from the yards and i guess we shouldn't have done cindy lucas's property once again because the property was going down right into the river onto other properties and people do use pesticides there are all kinds of debris that washes down and it was going into the river That's kind of what this project's all about. That's the resiliency project. Resiliency project is to improve the environment, and it captures everything, and then the water gets filtered out before it's released back into the river.

I mean, maybe there's another reason why discretionary cell stacks can't be used, but you said it can't be used for environmentally sensitive things, and this seems somewhat environmentally sensitive.

No, it is designated for environmentally sensitive things, and I think Mr. Daniels had a discussion with the assistant county administrator in terms of what the monies could be used for and what they couldn't be used for.

He had that meeting when?

You'll have to ask him.

The mayor or the town manager?

Town manager. If I may. We talked about roughly the uses of the funding that comes from the discretionary sales tax. I haven't been able to get back with them since we had the conversation on Monday to verify that. I did find out that usually with the grant application, if we get chosen, they send us a contract. and at that time we can modify the contract through the program manager, which is an option. I also have our town engineer that's here now, and if we need him to chime in whether this is an environmentally sensitive issue or not, I'm willing to take whatever direction you want.

Well, to me, this is an issue with grant submission. And is there a reason why the grant might be denied because we have the entrance of discretionary sales tax listed in the grant application form?

No. We would have to come up with the money somehow.

To me, it is, quote, unquote, pretty accurate. So I mean, this is a grant submission request, right?

Well, the grant's already been submitted.

OK. Even more so, then, my case is even stronger as why would I change it after I've submitted it, unless it's aggressively inappropriate, right?

I mean, it's not illegal, is it?

That's my point. I haven't been asked this before tonight, so I haven't looked into it.

I had a quick question. My question was somewhat along the same lines, but who is the party that determines the interpretation of environmentally sensitive? Who is the party that makes that final determination?

As I suggested to Mr. Daniels, first of all, the county, the Board of County Commissioners, it was a referendum. The voters voted on it. The wording was put together by the Board of County Commissioners. The person that I think opines as to whether money is being spent appropriately in the county is the clerk of courts. And I suggested to Mr. Daniels that he contact Carolyn Timmons and get an opinion from Carolyn Timmons. And I guess he reached out to her, but she hadn't responded to him.

Well, I would say the most important thing is that the money actually, if it is not deemed environmentally sensitive, the most important part is that the money does not get spent. And that seems like something that we can make sure of by the time we get the money and go to spend it, as opposed to stopping it now and trying to determine it now. So I'm with you that if it's not correct, it should not be spent. But since there is time to figure that out, I think that makes the most sense to leave it as is. Joe, come on up for a second.

Okay. Okay.

Are you going to make a determination on whether this is... Just let me say, when we file for grants, they obviously need to make sure they're accurate, but every one of these projects we're working on that discharge the anger of a goon, which is a sensitive water body, if we provide any sort of retention, which we are doing in this case in exfiltration, we are providing benefits. that would be determined by the county and how they wrote that. But I mean, as it is stated here, I can't even get a permit unless I provide some sort of water quality nutrient reduction on any of these grants, okay? So that's why I personally believe we are providing benefits to the Indian River Lagoon.

And frankly, that's why they set up all the money they have in the Indian River Lagoon. So again, I'm not,

disputing what you're saying in the sense of maybe we can't use that funding, but if that's the case, this does not really, it says some options that we have, okay? You could use your general fund, you can use that funding. I mean, there's probably other funding we're gonna find that we may try to change. We've done a lot of these grants, as you know, in the past, and we go after whatever we can. And anytime, by the time they'll tell us that we can't DOT funding. You would think, well, you know, can you use DOT funding? Well, we are providing transportation benefit, right? People can get down these roads to get to their homes. That's a transportation. You can say, well, that's a stretch. Well, the fact of the matter, it still allows us to get that funding. And so I'm just, I'm not trying to dispute you, and I think we already are on path to try to get an answer from the county, but I, any one of these grant programs we've been working on, what we're providing here.

Have we put these on our grants before, this exact verbiage?

No. We didn't have the discretionary funds available on the other grants. It's only been out about a year, I think, is when it got approved last November.

Mr. Fender.

So just to try to put this to bed, I mean, what I heard you say is that you're not happy with the term discretionary sales tax because it is applied to, because it cannot be used for environmentally sensitive or it can only be used?

It can only be used for environmentally sensitive projects. And in my discussion with Mr. Daniels, he told me that based on his discussion with the county, is that he didn't think that this could apply.

would agree that what we're doing here has some impact on the environment.

It has an impact on Margaritaville. Yeah, it does. Margarita and Mandalay. But, you know, this is, no, I don't retract it. This isn't a matter of being happy or sad over something that is written down. When I went through these grants and I looked at them, I looked at Are they accurate? Do they accurately reflect what's here? And I've got a list of things.

We can go through more, but this one seems accurate.

With the exception of the discretionary sales tax.

That's the first one you brought up. Correct. The next one, I guess.

You got it.

All right. But you do agree that discretionary sales tax and this issue are both environmentally sensitive and they probably are appropriately on this grant application form. They're making it exceptionally accurate in your case.

No. You're not putting words in my mouth, Frank. Thank you very much, but no.

It seems accurate. More than pretty accurate. It seems highly accurate.

I don't think it is highly accurate.

At least with this particular clause. There will be more down here that you're going to point to me. There might be off.

If the money can't be used for that project, then it shouldn't be in the grant application saying that's a source of funding for it. But it can't. I don't know that, and you don't know that.

You just told me it has to be used for environmentally sensitive topics.

Correct.

Okay. All right. And I think we just agreed that this is environmentally sensitive. Won't put any more words in your mouth, but I think you proved your own case.

No, I think you need to go and you need to read the enabling legislation approved by the county. And then come back and let's have a discussion.

No, we're submitting a grant application. As I suggested, this is not a grant contract. This is will we qualify for funds, which is what we want to do so we don't, as taxpayers, do not have to carry the burden of the work that we do if we can find a way against it, a way not to do that.

Well, we are going to carry the burden because it's basically a 50% match.

Unless we apply those 50% again, that match against some other grant that we get.

Let's go on to the next, please.

Yeah, you guys are awesome.

We're beating a dead horse.

Okay.

So let's go on to the next. We're beating a dead horse. Okay. Page 113.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry, 114. Under background... It states that the proposed project will include converting an existing retention area into a stormwater treatment area. And we've already discussed that this piece of property up on North Sewells Point Road was permitted as an STA. And Mr. Daniels has said that we did get a permit for it. He has requested a copy of the permit. CAPTEC, I don't think you've gotten it yet. Have you, Bob? No.

In fact, I think I was incorrect. Talking to Joe, he said it originally was a retention area and it wasn't a certified STA or whatever the exact terminology is. Can you clarify it?

Yes.

Okay. Let me clarify that. First of all, that road and that location used to flood quite often. And the town approached the county to raise the road and to do storm water improvements, okay? What we did is we raised the road and we put in a retention area, okay? And that entailed, it did not entail creating a storm water treatment area for an SDA. That was permitted through the Water Management District The money was obtained from the county to buy the land and to do the design and permitting and to do the construction. And that's the way it happened. The town had to get part of that, of course, because it was land within the town. And I believe you actually rezoned a piece of land and so forth. So that's how it was set up. And that happened. I think it was in the early 90s, that's when that happened. It was done by the county, okay, most of the permitting. We have a permit, a permit from the water management. Let me just say this. We had approval from the water management district in the county for this project, okay. They reviewed it at the county, the water management district looked at it. I have to be honest with you, when a project was under a certain amount of plan in an area back then, The water management permits were written a little differently.

So I have to get that permit for you.

I've got to be honest with you. It's archived. The early 90s stuff is quite a bit out there for me. But we will find it. And we can go to the water management district and they have it. So again, I need to look for that permit. But the fact of the matter, it went through all the proper channels to get permits and so forth so that we could build that. It kind of would not allow us to build it if we didn't have proper permits.

I mean, I've been asking for this permit for two months now.

Well, this is the first time I've heard of it when Greg Franklin told me about it. I mean, there's nothing. We're not hiding anything. This permit was obtained, and again, I will look for that, okay? But the first time I heard about it was last week, and we'll look on it for you.

I mean, I've got plans in my office. I design plans, okay? So I went through the proper procedure. And the reason I'm trying to be a little hesitant with you on some of it

is I, again, when we've gone through a series of different rules at the Water Management District, quite frankly, if the project is, at that time, if it's under two acres and 10 acres total, you didn't even need to get a permit, OK? So from the Water Management District. That doesn't mean you don't follow the rules. It just means you didn't get a permit. So I want to make sure I get the permit in hand before I break and get you the number. We'll do that. No problem.

Well, the reason why I'm raising the question is, if it was permitted as an STA.

It was not.

Okay.

It was not. It was permitted as a stormwater management area at that time.

You needed a permit from the stormwater management area to return it to its original, I mean, as a fast-track approach as opposed to a long, laborious approach.

First of all, we will apply for a permit to do this work. Because we are turning it into a stormwater treatment area. And I answered your question.

Okay. You say it's a retention area, but it goes back to the 90s. However, if it was originally... From what I read, South Florida Water Management District, anything that goes into the Indian River Lagoon needs a permit. And there is a weir

That's right.

And an outfall. That's right. I mean, I've walked the property to where it goes into the Indian River Lagoon, and it seems like it would have needed a permit from SWFMUD.

And I'm not denying there was one. I just don't have it. I didn't find it yet. I will find it. I got the plans, and I spent a long time designing this frame.

I can tell you stories about this. People try to get me to change things.

over the years because I have this permit specifically so that basically the road doesn't flood, that the properties don't flood. And some of the properties hold water. The mayor will tell you that. Some of the properties hold water. But I'm just trying to tell you, we spent a lot of time on this, going back and forth with the water management district, the county, and the town. A lot of it, because we did not go You're alluding to the fact, and I'm not saying you are, that we didn't get the proper permits.

No, I'm not alluding to that fact. I'm alluding to what I'm saying. If we have a permit and it says, what I'm questioning is, is it a retention area or STA? And if it's an STA, it can be restored to its natural habitat on a fast-track basis, according to SWFMA, their own rules. And so that's why I've been asking for the copy of the permit, so we could see exactly what it is. Point of order.

So the process we're in is consent agenda approval based on discussion. Love it. But your thesis on what your discussion is applying to this grant application is what?

is that instead of converting it from an existing retention area, if it is not a retention area, then we're basically upgrading the stormwater treatment area to a more sophisticated STA. And that's what the grant, I think, should read if that is an STA. And then I've got another question.

Is it semantics?

It's going to be semantics. That's why you create a stormwater treatment area, put plants in there for nutrient load reduction. That's not the way it was permitted originally. It was permitted as a retention area. So you are right. We are bringing it to another level. And that's why we should be getting grant loans for it.

Right. But I look forward to seeing a permit, please, Joe.

Well, I mean, the question is about the grant submission. I mean, do we have to change the submission? Is that what you're trying to accomplish or not?

That's what I'm trying to accomplish is if this is an STA and not a retention area, then the wording needs to be changed.

Well, it depends on how you term the term retention area, right? It does retain, right?

We went through this already.

Well, my point is we're trying to accomplish something here, and this seems like semantics.

I know, but we said it was either a retention area or an STA.

In the terms of a grant submission form is what we're talking about. Right. The R is not capitalized. It's a paragraph describing an area.

Okay, let's move on to...

So we're skipping that one, too.

Well, I'm not skipping.

We've been through the first one, and you found one thing that we agreed was wrong. And so I assume we're submitting that grant as is, with no changes.

No, we need clarification as to whether that money could be spent. If I may.

That's after the fact. We're submitting the grant. Go ahead. I'm sorry.

No, that's OK. I apologize. I just think we've got to get back to the question. But the way the order will go, once we get through the comments, then there'll be a vote on the motion. Or we would need a motion, that's right, because it was pulled already. So we would need a motion and a second. And then you call the roll and take the vote, or public comment and then take the vote.

Understood. We've got more lights. Matt.

OK.

I've got a couple other comments.

No, I'm good. I was just going to ask, are we voting on them individually? Are we going to do it all at the end?

We're probably going to wind up voting as a whole, I guess.

Okay.

On page 117, we say that...

And I'm going down to number G. Does the project impact areas identified for critical habitat for threatened and endangered species? And we answered no on this. If you go back and you look at page 89 on a similar grant, first of all, this is water running into the Indian River Lagoon. We said that we are impacting threatened species, which is manatees, and so these are inconsistent. If we're going to say we are endangering a threatened species, we ought to say it in both grant applications, not just in one.

Just again, the way that's written, I tend to agree with you. understand a couple things. We're not actually impacting, in other words, getting into the inner lagoon. We're staying above the mean high water with our improvements. And just so you know, I just want to make sure, and it's kind of a critical habitat.

So all I'm just trying to say is we're not actually doing the work in the inner lagoon.

We're staying upwind, upwards of that area, what would be considered the east side of the, there is a Just so you know, there's a weir there, like you said, close to the shoreline. Then there's some stabilization, which is a good idea. We now put it all up in our SDAs and so forth. So the answer is we're not getting into the critical habitat area, which you are correct that anything we do will benefit the habitat and endangered species by the fact that we are removing nutrients that are currently going into the weir. So that would go either.

All I'm looking for, Joe, is some consistency, you know, because in the grant application for South Sewells Point Road from Ridgeland to Ocean, we're saying that, yes, this project impacts an area that's been applied to state for critical habitat, and we answered yes. And then on another one, we answered no. Both of them have water going into the lagoon. And I realize it may be nitpicking, but that's one of the reasons why these grants should turn around and come before this body before they get submitted, so that you have an opportunity to go over them and take a look at them. And then on page 127. I have a question why all the others have been submitted. And this one says, this sample application is provided for information purposes only.

I'm sorry.

I'm in the septic to sewer grant.

Yeah, well, first of all, the overall application says this is a sample application that's provided for information purposes only. And it's my understanding from our town manager that these have been submitted. And if that's the case, why is the format different?

Yeah.

Can I respond?

So this was a different grant application in a different area within DEP. And we were advised to apply for a non-point source management program grant. This grant portal does not have a form that it spits out after you fill it out. So some of the grant portals can spit out like what you had in the previous three grants. Some of them can't. What we've done in the past too is we've had to screenshot the application because like with HMGP you can't get certain grant, you can't get your application. So we have to kind of create it as we're going. So we take screenshots of the questions and the answers and then we put it in a Word document and we do that. This was the application portion. This was submitted. With full disclosure, the non-point source folks did reach out to us after it was submitted and stated they did not feel that that was the best place for it. And so we basically got on the phone with DEP under water quality. Water Quality took a look at our application, said, yes, they're going to transfer it over to the Water Quality program and review it under there using the same application. So...

Okay. Just so you know, to be fair, the DEP actually told us to use the form that you have here, okay? They told her, she hasn't been writing anything, that Grant managed it.

And quite frankly, when it got turned in,

So we put everything in, and then they decided, you're a better opportunity, and you really should be following for just a different brand. Okay. And quite honestly, there's more in your funding than the place we're at now. you should use the Southern Grant one. So anyways, I'm only telling you that because some of these things may sound like we're making changes. Well, you do make changes. And sometimes we get poor direction from the people of the state or the federal government. So we have to kind of change things, adjust things. And I'm certainly expecting that on all our grants. But I want you to know, the ones that are stormwater related, they are going through the resiliency program. on all of these, it's really resiliency. And resiliency tends to be more, okay, what happens when this area floods and how are we going to keep it from doing it again? And this has a lot to do with sea level rise. It also has to do with flood control. And I just want you to know there is a little difference compared to when we talk about removing septic tanks, which is what you're doing and what you're talking about.

Right. A couple other questions. On number 12, page 127, it says the project is located in the St. Lucie River and Estuary BMAP. And part of it is, not all of it. If you look at the official Florida Department of Environmental Protection watershed modeling maps, the St. Lucie River and Estuary boundary cuts directly down the spine of Sewell's Point. Better than half of the project is not in the BMAP. It's just an accuracy and statement issue.

Well, just so you know, that has been an issue since they've done the BMAP, okay? They have always put us in the sandwiched estuary program. We point out that we're discharging to any river we're doing, and they just assume we stay where we're at. And quite frankly, there's more money available, so we've been staying. let's see, maybe since 2020 at least, and they've said, stay where you're at, and we all live in the same as your estuary program, and they look at our road reduction items in that program, and they keep track of them that way.

So I don't disagree.

I'm just trying to point out, we've had this discussion with them numerous times, and they like to keep us in the same as your estuary program zone. in any way so and there's more opportunity and there's more and so we kind of we actually use what's better for us okay we know there's more funding in it the same as just worry or the interview over the good will be usable so we have that opportunity page 128 under 23b

name of the impaired water bodies affected, St. Lucie River Estuary slash South Indian River Lagoon. The South Indian River Lagoon is not an impaired water body. And according to the bill that was signed into law in July of 2024, the South Indian River Lagoon was not listed as an impaired water body. So I think that's also an error. And then if you go to page 140, how many on-site treatment disposal units are targeted by the project? Number 66 and number 77. 156 have been listed. There are only 138 parcels that are one acre or less. And number 67 is erroneous since not all parcels are within 200 meters of the water. And if you measured the distance between Onirijilin and Emerita, you'll find that they are in excess of 600 meters, or 400 meters. So they're over 600 meters wide. And I'm sorry, and then on page 139, Question 55, we said that we would notify all the residents that they have to hook up within a year. And then question 61, will connections be required? We're saying no. And so that seems to be an inconsistency. And I'd like to point out that This grant application requires that the grant signer, which was Mr. Daniels, basically says that all the answers are true and correct.

I have a question or a comment about that one. I believe this is for the low pressure force veins, correct?

Correct.

this has been an issue since we started this thing that yes that is the law but even according to the county they have said they're not going to require you know they're not going to do that so it's kind of it is in contradiction but this is kind of how it's been correct is that correct i'm not saying that's how it should be theoretically but it is consistent with what we have been told That is how I view it, because that's it. Joe, do you agree? Am I saying this correctly?

Well, the fact of the matter is that I'm filling out an application for the talent. You've insisted that we never say that we are mandatory . That was the whole purpose of this whole setup. So that's more why I did not fill out an application so that we would make them hook up. Because we've been constantly, exclusively said no to that. And I think we've had discussions last five years, they actually want us to say that we were going to mandatory hook up. And so we'll try to kind of, yeah, you're right, we're kind of following the path of we're not requiring him to hook up, but we're going to meet the requirements of the criteria. And that's what we've tried to put in here. So again, we've been successful in getting the grants that we've been putting in, and I'd like to say that we're going to be you're not allowing that door to hook up. I'm not going to put it in a grant application. If they want to challenge us on it, we will talk about it.

They'll probably tell us, okay, we'll give you an exception before. We're going to give you an exception now.

Or they'll tell me that they're not going to agree to this. At this point, I just feel I would not be representing you the way you told me to represent you.

Correct.

And that's kind of how we've been operating throughout this, right? That's right.

OK. Well, we've also been operating under the assumption that by 2030, everybody has to hook up. So that might be in question because Indian River County seems to be rebutting that. So we don't know what's going to happen with that. That's the other issue.

The reason I'm bringing this up, I think that we should just correct the application so that what we're putting in is true and correct, and particularly since the town manager has to sign off on it and says, yes, everything's accurate.

Well, I think it's true and correct, so I'm okay the way it is.

Is the town manager comfortable with that?

Yes, I am. Also, with the caveat, the county now is expanding the grinder program. And they do not have the ability to enforce any mandatory hookups.

OK. Defender.

So that's all of them, right?

That's it.

So as I understand, these submissions have already been gone, right?

Yes. Had to be in September 1.

So I would say the only thing that people are frustrated with government on more than taxes would be bureaucracy. And we need things to happen fast and we need to save taxes. So if you put in, I think there are several reasons why you're bringing this forward, but one of the things that I hear from you is that you want these to come before us before we submit them. Doing so will slow the process down and reduce bureaucracy and also allow us to miss deadlines. So the only one that I think you probably have, out of all the things you've said, they were all immaterial except the one about the endangered species. I would like to say yes, because I think we'd have a higher chance of getting the grant. still not worth holding up the process. And I certainly wouldn't want to go back to the submitting format and say, hey, we want to change some of our answers now. Unless they come to us and say, hey, do you want to make any revisions? But I wouldn't want to change the process that they have, even on the submission forms. I mean, they're going to tell us in real time, the staff that is working them, what they need. And you heard the discussion as to why even it's on an odd paper. This is a process of grant submission, where we want to receive grants. So we don't want to stop that process. And we want to pay staff to do it efficiently and quickly without letting us be a bureaucratic bottleneck in the process. So yes, I'm fine with this. Well, a couple things.

Number one, I'm assuming that CAPTEC wrote the grants. Is that correct or not?

They were written by Mariah and a member of CAPTEC's staff.

Okay. Are we paying CAPTEC to write the grants?

Yes. Part of the expenditure. Nothing compared to what we were paying before.

Okay.

And Mariah as well.

And so the grant window opened on July 1. and it had to be submitted by September 1st, which basically is a 60-day timeframe. We've met on July 21st and the 11th of August, and then we had a workshop on the 8th of August, where we didn't conduct any business, but at some point in time during... There is a 60-day window when this stuff could have been brought here before the Commission.

Could have been, you're correct. But what you don't take into account is we just went through a cycle of major projects. okay and we got the projects done in time to meet the construction phase but now there's the paperwork phase so we have to go ahead and get all the documents that they need the as builds all the other things that you needed to turn in and it was a constant process and you know it all funnels through the town engineer and through the finance director and you know we Again, we're dealing with the contractors to get us the information we need, the paperwork that we needed. So the priority, and correct me if I'm wrong, the priority was to get those grants, get the projects done, and get the reimbursements. So that was our priority. So I thought, again, we've got it done, we've got the grant applications in, and I could come back to you and say, would you ratify this and that's basically what i'm asking you to do now you have the option you don't have to ratify it that's a policy decision that you all make i made the best decision i could for the town and doing what i did and channeling the workload so if you want to fault somebody fault me but that's what i did mayor

No, I think, Tom Andrew, I think you did a good job and made the right choice. I would have said the right choice, because for me, at least, it's always been about the projects, getting the projects done, getting the grant money to lower taxpayers' costs as much as possible, so that's always been the main goal. I think there's a way for us to stay, because I see both sides. Frank, I think it's good that you go through all these grants and pay attention to details. I think that's an important role, and I'm glad you do it. Commissioner Fender, I agree that we need to be nimble. Nobody likes a bureaucracy. How are we gonna get these grants? The deadlines change, there's all these. if you like what instead as opposed to coming back to all of us and making it a public meeting and and and bogging it down with those steps we're all here like meet with the staff like you did go through it yourself because i know they're always available and bring it to the most important point which i think is kind of what you did tonight and and so as opposed to you it feels like you want more but this is kind of where we are right or you're unhappy i'm not sure exactly well let me okay

I did meet, no, I don't want it to fail. I did meet with the town manager last month. And I went over all of these points with the town manager. And some other points I brought up, he corrected me and I said, okay, drop that. And I suggested to him that these should be corrected for a submission. I didn't get a commitment. So let me ask you this. What would you do?

How would you direct staff to do stuff? You know, I don't think that we individually can say to them, do this, do that, do this. Because they have their role. We have our role. We're the policy makers. So I understand that you go over it with him and he says some stuff you don't agree with and then you bring it to us and we vote on it. If it's an area that you are concerned about enough, I think you'd say, hey, this thing is wrong. Let's not submit it or whatever. And we say, yeah, that's correct. But I don't think you need to go through each, only the most important things, because he's doing the job that we all agree that he should do. That's at least how I see the roles playing out.

I'm not suggesting that the grant shouldn't be submitted. All I'm suggesting is that they should be corrected so that they are accurate submittals.

But does that not mean you have to unsubmit it? Like, those are the kinds of things I'm wondering.

That I don't know. I don't know whether you can go in online and just change the wording.

Well, I guess because we agreed, and I remember agreeing to this, having him submit, having them submit and do the work so that we can stay ahead of the game, get the money, move on track. that is what we agreed to so i think in the future meet before the grant is submitted and give your input then and then maybe they're more like yeah that makes sense that's a good point and they'll and they'll do it and if it's something major you come back to us if i may i think that's what commissioner titicus is saying it's just unfortunate under this set of circumstances we didn't have that time element because we had to get the grants done That's what I'm referring to.

I guess that's what I'm referring to. Obviously, in the future, if we ever get to a point where things slow down, we can do that, and I'd be more than happy to have him as a representative from the commission to take a look at the applications beforehand.

I guess to wrap up, because I don't like the back and forth that I'm not participating in.

Initiating, not participating in.

I guess I didn't understand exactly what you wanted. I know you didn't like the things that you were pointing out, but again, they had already been done, so it's like, did you want to unsubmit them all? Like, what was the major thing you were looking for?

No, I don't want them unsubmitted. I would like them to go in online to the portal and change the wording of the inaccurate statements. That's all.

I don't know if you're, if that's something I don't know, I feel like that's something you could, like I guess just come present it to us with what you want that we're able to, and are we able to change that or no? No.

Once the portal has to deadline, you can't get back into it.

But it's good to know it for the future if we can change it. So I appreciate that.

Okay. Mr. Kirsten.

I'm going to say one thing and Our town manager's been here for four years, and I think during that time, and I want to thank you for coming along and helping us achieve over about $27 million in grants. The only thing we put out of pocket is the point four that we got yelled at for raising the taxes, that $2 million, that's all we had to come up with. Everything else is matching grants with matching grants, and we could thank our town engineer for that as well. as well as our finance director. But in the last two years, less than two years, he's been questioned more than any town manager has since I've been up on this dais, and hasn't been by us four commissioners. And it shouldn't be. There's a door that goes in his office, and bob and i have had disagreements but it's behind that door not out here i'm trying to have a productive meeting to move things he's worked with this i don't get things in a week or two sometimes it might be a couple of months but it happens and i know that there's a lot going on and what we should be doing is sitting here praising man you did a great job look at this project that we've done and look how we put it together with just smoke it's just When we started this project, we were told, oh, the town's going to go bankrupt. You're going to kill it. We're going to get taken over. We're going to be gone. You're killing us. We have to sell our homes. We can't afford the taxes. And it's not because of us. It's because home values have gone up, that the taxes have gone up. And I think Don Weiner said it best a couple of weeks ago when we were in here. We still have an infrastructure to fix. We're far from done. And, you know, we have roads that are falling apart. You go, even on High Point, it looks like a spider web. There's so many cracks. And even at High Point Road, and you go on Island Road, you go to the archipelago. There's, you know, it's not this thing. It's just... I'm tired of having staff criticize and town manager criticize on a weekly basis. That should go behind closed doors, not in public. I don't think anybody in here is being entertained by hearing this either.

Thank you. Mr. Fender?

I'll make a motion to accept the four grants as part of the consent agenda outside and I'll ask for the approval of those as submitted.

Okay, we have a motion, we have a second.

Would you call the roll? Would you consider amending your motion that we correct the inaccuracies?

I would not.

Okay. If we have a motion, we have a second. Call the roll.

Commissioner Kersman?

Yes.

Commissioner Titicus?

I vote yes. However, I believe that the inaccuracies should be corrected.

Vice Mayor Mayfield? Yes. Commissioner Fender? Yes. Mayor Burrill.

Yes.

Motion passes.

Okay.

I'll make a motion to approve the rest of the consent agenda. Do we need that or do we already do that?

Yeah, we did that.

We did that.

Okay. Moving along here to public hearing. Public hearing of the TRIM budget and brief.

rollback announcements yes the proposed millage rate of three point two seven mils is greater than the rollback rate of three point zero four seven seven mils by seven point two nine percent that is the required statutory language that we do have to read okay

I need a reading of the resolution. 1006-26, adopting the final millage rate for year 26-27.

Resolution number 1006-26, a resolution of the Town Commission of the Town of Souls Point, Florida, adopting the final millage rate for the Town of Souls Point for the fiscal year commencing on October 1st, 2026, and ending on September 30th, 2027 and providing an effective date and other purposes.

I'll make a motion to approve 1006-26.

I have to call for public comments first.

Okay.

Are there any public comments? Seeing none.

I'll then make a motion to adopt resolution 1006-26.

Okay, we have a motion. Do we have a second?

I'll second.

Okay, we have a motion and a second. Call the roll.

Commissioner Titicus?

I'm voting no, and I'm voting no for the same reason I brought up at the last meeting, that I think we should reduce the millage rate by 0.17 mills to 3.1 mills. And if you look at page 5 of the financial report, it shows that we currently have, at the end of 11 months, a surplus in the operating budget of $819,909. And so I think that part of that should be returned.

Mr. Fender? Yes. OK. We have a motion. We have a second.

Commissioner Kersman?

Yes.

Vice Mayor Mayfield? Yes. Commissioner Fender? Yes. Mayor Burrell?

Yes.

Motion passes.

Okay, we have another resolution, number 1007-26, adopting the final operating budget for year 26-27. Finance Director, please.

Resolution number 100726, a resolution of the Town Commission of the Town of Souls Point, Florida, adopting the final budget for the Town of Souls Point for the fiscal year commencing on October 1st, 2026, and ending on September 30th, 2027, and providing an effective date and other purposes.

Okay, are there any public comments? Seeing none. I'll make a motion. We have a motion and a second. I'm going to call the roll.

Vice Mayor Mayfield? Yes. Commissioner Fender? Yes. Commissioner Kersman?

Yes.

Commissioner Titicus?

I'm voting no for the same reasons I voted last week, is that I'm in favor of the operating budget and the CIP budget. However, I think the building department is running a deficit.

I think the motion, this is not a discussion, this is a vote.

Well, you asked my reason last month, or last meeting. I'm just giving it to you this meeting.

Mayor Burrell?

Yes.

Motion passes.

Okay. Let's go to number three, old business. The town manager. Okay, seeing that he's not here for now, we'll call up Jason Boltman. You're up.

Hi, commissioners. Jason here. I wasn't planning to present anything. But where we are, I was told on the agendas, the topic of the water quality study. So I was going to wait and see how that was presented and then be available for any comment or question. But since maybe that might not be happening, I'm glad you're here, Joe, because I'm excited to hopefully partner with you and CAPTEC on this topic. I'll be brief. I would like to go into more detail in a future agenda item. Bob, did you want to start with anything on the water quality topic?

Yeah, I apologize. It's OK. Well, just as kind of give you the update of where we were, and I know it's been several months, but it took a while to get the information and also with Jason's help in being able to weed through the different organizations and so forth. So I do basically have the estimate and the recommendation that came EAI, which is the Ecological Associates Incorporated. And they actually do the analysis for the testing. And I think one correction I have, until I met with Jason yesterday, I was working on the assumption that this was for the four quarterly testing. But this is for one quarter. knowing what our project list is to do the future, you know, really where money is better spent if we look, if you wanted to do testing, we have Phase 2B, which is going to be in the same area. We can do testing, pre-construction testing, and then maybe come back and do you know, testing once we get done to see the results. Now the only problem with that, and Jason and I talked about this too, is you run into, you know, when you put in an STA, it's immature plants and stuff, so it takes a while for them to get up to the point where they're, you know, working the best. So If you all decide that you still want to do the water testing, I'd kind of be looking at more of our different areas where our projects are gonna be and get a baseline, because that's the problem of anything that we do right now is we don't have a baseline testing. I don't know if you got into that, Jason, when I wasn't here, but that's kind of, if that's what you wanna do, it would be my recommendation that we do baseline checks at first and see where we're at.

Mr. Fender.

Just a few questions. So my understanding of this agenda item was a follow-on on the concerns we had from some residents who there were some illicit discharges. And so I would guess I'd like to hear somebody tell me what the actual quantitative data is from your perspective in layman's terms. And then also I have questions about the diagram at the end and also the blank block that has no data in it. So just so I understand what I'm actually looking at.

Can you help us out, Jason, please?

I've been witnessing some very impressive work on this peninsula. And it's doing work that is badly needed in a lot more places. And so with all the infrastructure in place and all of the improvements, hopefully, to our runoff, were ready. So anyway, in the midst of that concept, there was the illicit discharges, right? So it was actually Easter morning, riding my bike over to check the wind. I see Joe on Easter morning. I'm like, uh-oh, what happened? I didn't really know what happened until a week or two later when I was asked to help with water testing. Here we are a couple months later. I think, you know, as far as that what damage might have occurred. I don't know if the residents are still in agreement that that ship has kind of sailed.

I doubt it. I said I doubt that.

Well, I'm just speaking on the water perspective. I'm representing the river at this point. If there's something residual that's still there, then let's test and let's get a baseline.

So is your position that we have not tested?

We haven't. We have not tested.

We've done the sediment, not sediment testing. Turbidity. Turbidity. Thank you. I appreciate that. turbidity testing and that's what DEP required and I did inspect the log that the contractor kept of their tests and the results and as well as our inspectors also had done testing so but that's this is a little bit different because this deals with more of the sediment and you know what's there now and we know for years and decades there's been a lot of runoff and everything into the waterway.

Okay, but as we've gone through these different phases, and set up the first stormwater treatment area, I can swear I saw some scientific data there collecting information.

Yes. I assumed it was... The first year after the phase one part of the project.

That would be like a baseline or something, or at least the... Trying to determine the benefit of that STA would be my guess, right?

Yeah. I'm aware of that study. I haven't seen it. I spoke to the gentleman who conducted the study, and he told me what he did.

So it's testing for nitrogen, phosphorus, both green and post-green. And so that's really the vision for the whole project is to, all right, well now let's do it for the whole peninsula. to confirm that the model is designed correctly.

TJ is someone who I'd love to meet and discuss with. But I guess to follow up on the concern of the residents, it was these volatile organic compounds that they were smelling. If there's water quality experts that would like to comment, I feel like the tidal flush, you know, that testing of the toxins, the volatile organic compounds, could have been done back then to answer that question.

Well, that's what they were requesting back then, right? So I think having listened to that conversation at the time, I think what I heard from them was that regardless of the situation after the fact, they would like to know that the water quality in their basin out in their backyard is safe for their kids to play in, even three months after whatever has happened. And I would agree that if you tested it today, and indeed it proved to be, I'll use the lamest term, unsafe, It would be hard to connect the dots to that particular event, but there seems to be value in understanding the damage ecologically being done around our peninsula. I would rather see it in the form of this is the improvement we've made with the STA, but I think these residents are hoping that the town doesn't come back to them and say, ah, we just blew up. It's Neither here nor there, and it's bygone. I don't think the words that you're stating here are going to be easily conveyed by us to our constituency, I guess is one way to say it.

I'm 100% supportive of doing testing. I'm an engineer. I love data. It would be valuable to do testing that we have a quote for. It would not test the sulfides, all the stuff that they were smelling. If we don't have a quote for that, we can work to get that. but then that'll be more time, right? So we do have a quote for testing. It does include quarterly, Bob, so that quote is for tests. So it doesn't have to be quarterly, but there's four samples in there. And so I would say, yeah, at minimum, Let's do a round of testing to get a baseline.

Just a separate question. Are you familiar with the ongoing testing that happens in the North and South Fork that I see published occasionally? Because since the last summer, I think there's been a lot of visibility on water quality in all parts of the lagoon. Is it possible that we can work with those folks to either move one of those test locations to somewhere near us or just, plus it would apply a baseline against whatever data is already out there in the world?

No, I am familiar.

I know the DEP does some testing. I don't know who either. Somebody's doing it.

Yeah. And the health department, I think, is doing off the sandbar.

When I looked into that... That would be helpful too.

I mean, if we just tie it in with something that's already ongoing and it's already being an expense, you know?

Yeah, but that's not, you know, that's not our neighborhood. That's in title zones and so it's not...

I'm just trying to be creative to put this particular illicit... What's the term we're liking to use? Elicit incidents, illicit discharges, and an illegal dredging operation.

So we want to do some testing. We have a quote. It's basically doing the same testing that I do every week right here. So dissolved oxygen, temperature pH, conductivity, and turbidity, and nutrients, which is nitrogen and phosphorus. a good realm of data. It does not include the stuff that they were smelling, which is the salt box.

That seems to be, it doesn't stick around.

So I'd love an expert to fact check me, but I think while that did occur.

Well, that's what testing would do, right? It would fact check all of us, not just you.

Yeah, yeah. And if there is testing already being done, of course,

That'd be interesting.

Yeah. But that's in the tidal zone, right? That's in the channel. So I think the vision for water quality study is, I think, our runoff from our neighborhood and what is being discharged into the river, ultimately. We don't want to be sending any pollution into the river. Unfortunately, there's no way to get away from that because the folks that understand roofs and roads and in our improvement of drainage I mean the environmentalists are going to say no we don't want everything all the flooding to go into the river that's a problem so we want to store it let it filter through everybody's yard like it used to and we'd be a lot better off but anyway you know so I can make recommendations based on what we have today we do have a quote I think if we wanted to do one realm of data it would be around

But this will not answer the question or take care of anything that smelled from the water bases that are there.

Yeah, no.

Okay. So this is something totally different.

Well, not totally different. I mean, if you are, you know, we all get,

in the sediment that was probably nutrient being discharged.

And this test, quote, does include nitrogen and phosphorus, which we know in general is a problem. That's the thing everybody's testing for. So I think it would be valuable to do that at minimum.

This is something that we're doing on a quarterly basis. And moving forward, it'll just go. And it won't answer the question about the illicit discharge, but it'll keep us We'll get a baseline for what we should be, and we'll keep measuring it. That's pretty much the size of what you're asking right now.

Well, the scope of this is a little different than my original pitch, which is somewhat of a larger study looking at the peninsula, our runoff as a neighborhood, and what we're discharging to the lagoon. So I would love to be talking about that in the near future. This specifically incidents that occur.

Okay, so that's what we're really testing for. Okay.

Yeah, so there's kind of two different scopes. This is an archipelago-focused thing, and the locations that were determined are

smack in those areas so I thought it would be more important okay just before I give up my time can somebody explain the diagram that I'm looking at the blue one the spots of the testing the spots yes those are just the addresses of where the testing will be is proposed I believe so let me pull it up I guess the four arrows are the four spots

there you go yes that's what those are the locations that uh jason talked about and that bottom location yeah that's the one

I would, which is why that box is there.

I understand. OK. Thank you. Mayor? OK. OK, are there any public comments? All right, seeing none. Well, we'll have a discussion on this right now. Let's see who's first.

I think I'm there. Thank you. Jason, thank you. I like this idea. I kind of look at this, though, as more of a positive outcome of an unfortunate incident as opposed to any kind of significant rectifying of the situation because so much time has passed and because if we didn't do the same testing then how do you have your baseline and how do you compare? I think this is something positive that came out of something negative. I like the idea of kind of seeing the results of our projects. I think that's a good way to communicate to our residents the good work that we're doing. So I do understand that now that we're looking at this and talking about how it's just archipelago and archipelago is important, but, and I'm also cognizant of money spent on it. Is there a way to widen it a little? Because this total focus on archipelago as you said is neglecting some of the other areas although it does sound beneficial because that's where I like the idea of phase two because that's where it hasn't happened yet and then we can kind of maybe measure the results better afterwards so I don't know if that has been thought of in depth that there those are the best locations if we were really wanting to study the before and after that's kind of more what I would be focused on um than just what's happening in Archipelago just because you don't really know exactly what caused what. Even though they do need some testing, I think, because they don't have the title wash, but I don't know if the focus should just be on that or how much money we want to spend, blah, blah, blah. So those are the things I'm thinking.

Well, and just in looking at this, and again, you know, I haven't discussed this with Jason, but, you know, When we look at the map, we have the three areas that are, you know, right in close to where our, you know, this was phase 2A, the Baku Street one. But that's also where we had the illicit discharge. And then the other two are basically covering the area where 2B will be. And if you wanted to move one, I would guess we could move, well, you can direct me to do whatever. I'm just suggesting the one that's over more closer to the river, that is where they had the dredging operation. But I don't know, for our purposes, if that matters or not. Am I correct?

The one that they did themselves, correct?

Yes. So that's one we could move maybe up to where we're going to do the Phase 4 project and just pick a good spot there that it might be good to...

I like that idea. One other question. The significance between the three options. I understand. I always tend to look to the middle. Tell me about those three options concisely what they benefit and not benefit.

And actually backing up to your earlier comment, the vision for a water

So this couldn't show you anything, is what you're saying? But I guess this is kind of a baby step. I understand you're...

This is getting started. This is starting the conversation. This is a huge milestone that we have to quote, actually. So it's something to celebrate. But because EAI is very reputable, and so I'm glad that we've arrived here. But I think what we want is a partnership with CapNet. And so... looking at the in-falls, the out-falls, the design of the whole thing, and deciding where the samples are taken. Where are we going to test a runoff, which is before treatment, and where are we going to test the stuff going out before it goes into the lagoon? And so the big concrete tanks, I think, are ideal. So if I could table that discussion to answer your...

So this wouldn't show you any kind of before and after, even though it's a year.

This is only after. When you're in the river, you're after.

Well, actually, it's post our work.

I was talking about before and after our work, and since we don't have that other part done yet, I kind of thought, okay, well, maybe that could kind of give a little...

This would give us a baseline for phase four.

Like a little bit of...

If we took one of those testing sites and moved it.

Yeah, true. For one of the areas of the peninsula where there's an outfall, they would provide data for that. Yeah, absolutely.

So what about the three options?

The first option is not really anything. The second option, and the reason I say it that way, sorry, is because that's testing that I do all the time. And if you do it once, it doesn't really provide much information. If you do it over a period of time and you develop it across rainfall and all these different seasons, then it becomes something valuable. When you add nutrient to the equation, now you're getting data on something significant.

And so testing the water, very important. But we have this thing called muck.

That's the technical term. So when you have a bunch of stuff on this sediment building up over years, there is

nutrients stuck in there.

And so that's why it's also important to measure the sediment, especially in the archipelago where the dredging operation occurred. So there's no sediment I don't think that we would bother with in the other scope because we're only testing runoff water. But in the archipelago specifically, where you do have muck, where you do have this dredging, then that's why I believe that's helpful information.

But not necessary, right?

So at minimum, we could test the water, and there's your middle option. So if we take the quarterly quote, and we add the urofins, the laboratory testing, and we divide by four, we get, I did the math earlier, we get around 3,500.

Say that again? I'm looking at the quotes here.

And actually, if we do the sediment and the water then it would be around 3,500.

Okay, and what would number two be to get it going?

Less than that. If it's just the water, it would be less than that.

Okay. I'm kind of leaning towards two, to be honest.

I'm just curious, is there any plans to do the rest of Sewell's Point this way? Or are we going to be specialized just in one area?

So as mentioned, what we've done in the past, OK, is there was a requirement of the grant, phase one. Basically, all we did was test the water going into treatment area, which is exfiltration, STA, and then testing it afterwards to see if the treatment train being created, did it reduce nutrients such as phosphorus and nitrogen, OK? That's what we've done in the first phase. What's being talked about here is a little different than that, so I don't want you to know. I'm just trying to let you know there's a little difference.

Why is it different? Different testing?

Well, obviously, as noted, we're just trying to test, is the treatment training that we're creating, is it beneficial to the water that we're discharging to? And so therefore, you test it before it goes into the before it goes into the lagoon and you test it afterwards. Before is of course, before it even goes through any of the treatment training. Again, let's remember what our treatment training is. It's the pipe system, the river road infiltration systems, all that water going through there, it goes through a baffle box, it goes through a series of things, one of them being an STA, right, that basically provides nutrient loaded And then it goes over a weird. So at that point, we take a test. There it's gone through the treatment train. Has that been effective? So that's the testing we've done. I just want you to know. That's different than what we're talking about here in some ways.

OK. But that's a test that we do now?

No. Well, again, so. That's not right. Well, they were correct, okay? But then I think that they also mentioned that there was something that they smelled in the water and things like that. I'm not so sure that came from the work that was done by the guy that took the dewatering water and put it in. I don't know that for a fact, but I'm just saying that seems to be what was said. So I'm just trying to point out testing just so it was clear, if you look at phase one area of improvement, it actually goes into a lagoon around the hammerhead. There would be a different amount of, not just sediment, but different types of nutrients in that water than there is anywhere. Because it kind of is an enclosed area and basically it would hold those sediments. That's a little different, but I would think you'd want to know if that area What we do in other communities is we dredge those areas to get rid of that material that's creating a poor quality in the water. And those suddenness have to be removed. Not everybody's doing that yet. But I'm just saying you have that one area by the hammer. That's one area. The second area is what you just pointed out is the area around Samara Street and the archipelago. in the open water area where you've got a lot of tidal influence. There is tidal influence there, but it's kind of a little, that you can hear it.

So that'd be another area.

But when we get farther coming north, okay, guess what you see is the river. And you've got a lot of water moving back and forth in there. It doesn't, I mean, it's, I'm not saying that there isn't things we should test there, but we have outfalls that we should test in those areas. So when I, one of the things that we noted, and this came from the first, We clean inlets, okay? We don't clean all the pipes, okay? And the point was, what was happening is, basically, when they went out their T to dewater, to install the new pipes, they discharged through those pipes that had sediment still in them, okay? And so what we're going to do in phase 2B, the one that we're going to build, is we're going to clean those pipes out. sediment that's going into the lagoon. So those are things that we're doing differently. Again, I'm not going all over the place, but I'm just trying to tell you, we are doing lessons learned here, okay, in some aspects of this. Personally, we probably have more sediment coming out of when people put in their docks, when they install the docks and everything. That creates sediment and so forth. Then what came out of that I was there, I mean, there was plenty of fishes right there feeding at that same location. Okay.

Thank you. Gotcha. Hi. Mr. Kurzman.

Yeah. The first thing, I know the discharge that we've seen over by the outfalls, especially around Jack Watkins' property, that Outfall has seen the flooded waters of Riverview as well as Palm Road, which we know go halfway up the street. They cover the septics. They've been going into that outfall for God knows how many years, probably 40, maybe even 50 years. So you're going to have sediment in there. Plus you also add in all the fertilizer that's been put on there, the mulch that's washed in. I know when I was called up by the neighbors there, every time there'd be floods, when I first became commissioner, this is eight years ago, you'd see like a little funnel just developing, and you'd see all the foam up above and everything. This has been going on for a long, long time. So you have underneath there, I'm sure, and I remember Mr. Watkins, he had that muck cleaned up before, but he still had muck that's several feet away, and... And that's probably any outfall that you have across town, you're going to see the same thing. The other thing I wanted to mention, I've been told by the people that live in that area, around like the Hammerhead, both sides, the seagrass is coming back. There was no seagrass there two years ago. That's a big plus to hear that. I know that was a major subject here probably three years back. We were talking about seagrass every meeting. The other thing, can any of this be grant-driven, the water testing? Any way we could feed it into grants?

that's going to start that has grants, and if we have enough money in that grant, we should do some of the test paper, some of that testing through the grant, so I don't discharge.

Could we put under that grant?

I will tell you that

Basically, the footprint has to be clean before and after. It's pretty sophisticated in the sense of what DEP wants when they do a monitoring program. So those things were followed. So that's why, I mean, that's going to be pretty accurate of what the quality of the water is. And grants pay for that. They pay for the monitoring at that point. They don't always require subdued monitoring. I've done monitoring on a number of projects. But lately, they've been a little reluctant to tell us that they want the monitoring. And just to give you an example, monitoring was between the 10 events over a year's time and all the things they tested.

It was about in the type of equipment and everything. It was between $50,000 and $60,000 price. So it's a little different than what we're talking about.

So you can see this is quite beneficial for the pressure. I'm not saying he's testing for the same things. And he's not doing the same. But he should be doing some testing. So the point is, it's going to be good data. But again, I'm just trying to point out, there's different levels of monitoring.

Maybe when we write the grant, we'd write, we're going to test before it, and then every six months after for a three-year period or something to show that it's working.

Well, so one of the things that I tend to find is when build a project like this, you can test it before you start the project, but it takes a little while for everything to settle down. You're talking about the watering material that's coming in, I mean there's a lot of different components, so usually I like to try to make sure everything levels well. Water tables drop to what their normal level is, because we're messing with everything. Water tables, sediments, the whole bit. So, and again, even when we, we stabilize an area with rock and sod and everything, it takes a while for that stuff to grow in and basically keep the sediments from getting into the alcohols. And so those are things that we do and that's why you see all those, the turbidity barriers as well as the sediment barriers

Okay, so right now we're just talking about one issue, so that's okay. Thank you. Mr. Titigas.

Joe, I'd like to ask you a question. How many STAs are there in North Sulph Point?

Currently, we don't have any STAs in North Sulph Point. Let me go through the difference. When Plantation was built, when Castle Hill was built, when Oaks, or what do you call it, not Hidden Oaks, it's River Oaks. They talk retention areas. I don't remember them having STAs.

Maybe I'm using the wrong terminology. How many outfalls are there in North Souls Point?

There is approximately, I have a number coming up here a little bit here. I'm going to say Indiolucy, Knowles, Prairie Waco, Castle Hill, and Plantation 5, and then maybe one in the area of Wendy Lane. So that's about 5 or 6.

Okay. Well, a couple comments. One is I agree with the town manager and Mr. Bultman. that the purpose of this should be to establish a baseline. In terms of the archipelago, that ship sailed. And I had a discussion with Ken Strick after the book came out in terms of what would they like to see done back there. And he's the head of the HOA. And he basically said, that ship sailed. He said, if you're going to do testing, establish a baseline and and then turn around and go from that point on and measure whether or not what we're doing is being effective. So I would suggest that we establish a baseline. We do this by the outfalls and the STAs. And the frequency should be on a quarterly basis. And then I would have the town manager investigate whether or not the special sales tax money can be utilized to pay for the testing. And that way, over a period of time, we were able to demonstrate the effectiveness of what we're doing with the road resiliency projects. To go back and just spend the money on the archipelago, I think we'd be wasting our town's resources and really not accomplishing what we would like to accomplish, which basically is to demonstrate that We're cleaning the water and we're putting it into the lagoon, or it's going into the lagoon cleaner than what it's coming to the outfall from.

Okay.

Are there any other comments? Vice Mayor.

Yes, I'm with you on the, you know, showing how well our projects are working and not necessarily focusing on the archipelago. I also think that archipelago should get one in those areas that do because they shouldn't you know it should be relative they should also get some improvement in theory if the water is improving by a lot and they are the area that catches the water and holds on to it more so I guess if there's like a co-mingling of the short-term plan and the long-term plan and Jason had asked that we try to table the longer term plan so I would maybe look for some guidance on what a short-term plan would look like for us, but I do, in terms of that, I like option two, not doing the sediment, but doing the water. That's kind of where I am.

Can I make a comment?

Yes.

I don't know, but yeah, my advice, I guess, any big project, you know, it's not But every project, you have a little pilot, right? You do some practice, you get going, and you see what the data looks like. So I think it would be valuable to do a single data set with just the water, with the quote, with the AI, and the Eurofins testing. And then we've got that established. And we've got some data. And we did some testing.

Which locations?

Yeah, we can talk about locations, whether they're appropriate. So I guess I'm 100% in agreement with what Commissioner Tivica said. Let's focus on the whole system. That's the original vision that I was pitching to begin with. Just thinking that we've got to prepare for that. We could conduct some testing. And then we know what it looks like. We know what the data looks like. We have a partnership ready to go into the larger scale studies.

So the acapella go is out now. We're going to have to revise the motion. There is no motion. There is no motion.

In that respect, I would like to make a motion.

Let's hear it.

OK. I would like to move that we move forward with testing to establish a baseline. and that locations being by the STAs, which were articulated earlier. You got Hammerhead, you got Samara. There's one between Cranes and Hearns Nest. There's also phase four where the outfall will go in at phase four. And I would test a lot up by North Souls Point Road. where we have a grant application to put in another outfall to see what the water quality is there. I'm assuming that we will get the grant application. And then perhaps other locations, maybe two or three other locations on North Souls Point Road where we have outfalls. and that that be done on a quarterly basis, and that the town manager investigate funding source of the special sales tax.

I'm definitely opening to seconding that, but I think that is beyond the scope of this, because this is only four spots. Is this right? And you named like six or seven, so then we don't know exactly what that's going to cost. So I would say we stick with the quote we got, pick four, And then come back with a better, just because I don't want to vote on something, I don't know what that would look like cost-wise.

Well, if you were going to just pick four, then you got hammerhead to where we have data already. Okay. There is a baseline that was established there because that was part of the grant. It was required by the grant that we do the testing. So you could skip that in terms of establishing a baseline. Summary, you could establish a baseline. Cranes and Herons Nest, you could establish a baseline. Phase 4, outfall, you can do the baseline there where that outfall is going to go. And then North Sewells Point Road, those would be your four locations.

But that's not what we're talking about. What we're talking about is what you just said.

I guess I'm not against the North School's point. I definitely think it should be included. But a lot of this was talking about the construction. I know that the STA, the construction happening here in South School's point, I think, is at least the second phase two or whatever is a little bit sooner. I just want to make sure there's a beginning and an after of sorts.

Well, I thought we were going to bring that back. We're going to vote on this one right now. right and we're just talking about the spot one way or the other with this and then if you want to discuss this at a later date i could put it on the agenda and we can push this forward to another time but we'll try we'll try and get it on the next next agenda so now we could discuss the full project if you want want to discuss all the outfalls that you're talking about We can discuss that. Right now, they're just asking for a vote on whether we want to do a test on archipelago water quality sampling. That's all they're asking.

Well, we were kind of trying to move some of the archipelago.

Well, then, that's what I'm saying. Now, where do you want to move it? Now you're talking about moving it to North Souls Point. Yeah.

And obviously, there are two people that know a lot more about this than I do in terms of where. I would be open to you guys within the scope of what we want. coming up with the best locations, because I'm just kind of going off what I think.

I mean, I guess the scope of what we want is within the... Yeah.

Can you give us some latitude on the locations, and we'll let the two experts get together and decide what the best location will just be four spots.

And then it stays in the scope of the contract in front of us, correct? Correct.

Right.

I'm open. I'm good with that. They know better than I do.

I'll be happy to amend my motion to that effect.

Which is for the $3,500. Okay. That's staying in. Yes. So that's within what you're talking about now.

That would be one test which includes sediment. So if we're only testing water, it would be less than that.

Okay.

Well, excuse me. I think if we're going to be testing, then we should be testing for nitrogen Could we roll down to... Iondal, nitrogen, nitrate, nitrate, and phosphorus.

I think number two does that, correct? Yeah.

Number two, $7,500.

That's for four. So when he's talking about one, he's dividing that amount by four, correct?

I see options one, two, and three. Right. $3,500, $7,500.

I think the $3,500 is option three divided by four. Is that right, Jason? You see that, Jason?

It's number two. There's two of them, right? There's the graph samples and then the lab tests. So you're adding... That's $7,500 for option two. Yeah. And then if we do one test, we're dividing by four. Oh.

More or less. So you're $2,000 something. So it's less money than what we estimated here. So I'm sure that should be a problem. Up to, say, $3,000 in your motion?

Right. Up to $3,000.

I would still like as part of the motion that you investigate whether or not the special sales tax would cover this. I'm going to do that no matter what.

Okay, so will you amend it? I'm seeing if you remember. I have a public comment now.

Just a quick comment? Yep.

Thanks. What do you do if you don't like what you see? You're going to test. What happens? We have to fix it. I'm all for the testing, the baseline, we want bragging rights. Maybe that helps get us grants in the future. It's proof that everything we did is solid. But moving forward, what do we do? I don't like what I see. It's kind of God at that point.

Can I respond to that?

Yes.

Well, if we do testing, and the testing proves out, we establish a baseline before, and afterwards it proves out, and after everything is settled down, so give it over a period of time, a year's period of time if we're doing quarterly testing, and it shows that the outfalls aren't working, then I think we need to go back and redesign. We need to take a hard look at how we're doing it. And if it's not being effective, then obviously we have a flaw in the system that we put out there.

Yeah, so I think the design is based on a model, right? So you have... What I would say as an engineer is the equation is you have nutrient, toxin, whatever coming into the system and then going through the design and then exiting. So there's large value in determining what's coming in because the model that was created that turned into the design made assumptions, right? And so what were those assumptions? Were they correct? And that depends on what we're putting in, what we're the water when the rain falls on us.

And that's the baseline. It's going to give you that information. And then when you test on the other side, in terms of what the output is, if there's been no improvement, and I believe that was Mr. Kraft's question, what do you do if there's no improvement?

That wasn't my point.

What do you do if all of a sudden you have some kind of problem? Then you look at the

We know that we're going to have an improvement. Every time you take a test, we had a hurricane. We had a weather phenomenon. We had a drought.

It's going to vary every single time.

And at the end of this, we're going to say, okay, it was nature. We're doing the best we can with the money we have. And we've built a great system. I don't want to build another system. We want to prove this 20 years down the road that it's not the worst it doesn't.

I'm not trying to scare you, this could happen. Let's face it, one of the things that we pointed out when we did get the kind of agreed to the boundary systems and we showed them that there's access, we're getting a lot of coliform and different items in our, in the stormwater from subject tax. You may decide that, you know how now people can voluntarily hook up, you may decide we need to make some encouragement for people to hook up. You may need to expedite some of that or try to motivate people to do that. And then you'll go after grants for that outcome, which is to get some grant to pay for that, because I would assume most people don't want to do it because of the cost.

There could be any other reason.

But that's one of the items that could come out of them, the testing that you do over time.

Could be. But you never know until you do the testing. That's right.

You don't know until you do the test.

Mr. Curzman.

Yes. One of the things, which is a good point that was brought up before, we had all those discharges from Lake Okeechobee, and the water for a while there, we even had the blue-green algae in the Indian River Lagoon. You had muck that is already there from the discharges from Lake Okeechobee that is now settled, and a lot of it may not have moved. You might have five feet of muck in certain parts of the indian river lagoon and if you you'd understand what i'm saying um this is something you're not just talking a few inches and it's there and it's really what you're doing and it's been undisturbed so it's settled on the bottom and so you are going to see that it's going to be there and i read something that they somebody else talked about I forget if it was in our county or the state. They were talking about along the Treasury Coast cleaning up a lot of the Indian River Lagoon from these discharges that we've had because it's been there. So this might have something that has nothing to do with this. And the biggest polluters were from Lake Okeechobee probably. That's where you had a lot of this. It was billions of gallons were released a year there. And then each one of these releases that they'd have. And it never benefited us by any means. It actually hurt us, as we all know. And you had fish die, manatee die, dogs die because they went into the water. People got gangrene on their foot. I mean, you had all kinds of things that happened. And I know that there's still some of that muck on the bottom.

Okay. Ms. Mayfield.

I was just going to say, I think a benefit of this beyond showing the testing the water beyond what our projects are doing is it gives residents information and I think that we have a lot of people that care about the environment in our town and to be able to give them like real data close to home could inspire them to take the actions they might need to use less fertilizer can help inspire some more not activism but more efforts on residents parts if the water if it were if we were to not have good results that's also a way to get people inspired to help And if we don't know it, then we can't do that.

Can I restate my motion now?

Yes, you can.

Okay. I move that we engage in testing in four locations to establish a baseline to be determined between Mr. Boltman and CAPTEC and the town manager, and that the cost not to exceed $3,600 and the town manager to investigate whether or not we can use the revenue from the special sales tax in order to pay for the environmental testing.

I'll second.

We have a motion and we have a second. Any further discussion? Now that we beat it to death, call the roll.

Is that one time or quarterly?

Sorry? The $3,500 covers it one time.

Commissioner Titicus?

Yes.

Vice Mayor Mayfield? Yes. Commissioner Fender? Yes. Commissioner Kersman?

Yes.

Mayor Burrill?

Yes.

Motion passes.

Okay. All right. Moving right along. New business. Resolution 1005-26. Florida City of Governments Week.

Resolution number 1005-26, a resolution of the Town Commission of the Town of Souls Point recognizing Florida City Government Week, October 19 through 25, 2026, and encouraging all citizens to support the celebration and corresponding activities.

Basically, this is a project that the League of Cities does every year, and it's again pushing out that the cities are important. When they say cities, it's towns, cities, municipalities are important because they bring services at the local level. So all we're going to be looking at is things that we can do that will especially showcase our town and the services we deliver to the residents.

OK. I'll make a motion.

I'm going to ask for public comments. Any public comments on that? Seeing none. Second motion. We have a motion and a second. Call the roll. Commissioner Titicus?

Yes.

Mayor Kersman? Yes. Vice Mayor Mayfield? Yes. Commissioner Fender? Yes. Mayor Burrill?

Yes.

Motion passes.

Okay. We have 4B, approval of contracts. Commissioner Titicus?

Yes. I had... And going over the county's agenda for the 15th of September, I noticed that there was an interlocal agreement that was being put before the Board of County Commissioners from the town of Sewells Point. And when I spoke to Mr. Daniels about it, he brought up the fact that this contract, even though it's a two-year contract, and it also has an evergreen provision, was less than $10,000, and since it has an evergreen and it could be extended for longer periods, which could be over the signatory authority of the town manager, I wondered whether all of the continuing service contracts raised an issue, and if they can be reviewed without commission review, and is that the intent of the commission? Our charter states in Article 3, Section 2, Paragraph 3 that the mayor is responsible for signing contracts, but it can be delegated to the town manager, which is the case for contracts under $10,000. Back in May, I requested a list of all the continuing service contracts prior to the budget cycle with the name of the vendor, start date, finish date, and the amount. And because I believe that these should be reviewed by the commission before being reviewed by, renewed by an evergreen provision. And an evergreen provision basically says either party doesn't notify the other party, then the contract discontinues. And so I would like to make a motion that the Commission should review all continuing service contracts 60 days before termination or when a notice period of termination slash renewal commences.

How many contracts do we have?

Right now.

Well, I think what we have is interlocal agreements, and then we have contracts. This particular case that we're looking at is an interlocal agreement with Martin County. It's to pay for the inspectors when Jack is sick or he's on vacation. So we didn't really have this two years ago, and this is something that I wanted to make sure that we're documenting it, that agreement. And so if that's the case, and I did something that you all don't want, I apologize to you, but I think it's the course of business that we've been doing has been successful. And if you want to see all contracts in the future, no matter whether it's $10,000 or $2, I'll do that. We never addressed interlocal agreements. And there's another interlocal agreement that didn't even have Don Donaldson's signature on, that's our mosquito agreement that gets renewed every year, but it gets renewed between the managers. And it's of no cost to us because the county provides the service, but they ask for an interlocal agreement. So all those, I'm more than happy to bring them forward to you and let you all individually look at those. But in this particular instance, that's what we're dealing with is the interlocal agreements. Now on other contracts, that's a policy that if you all want to set, we can bring it back and You know, get the wording from the attorney's office and, you know, we can decide that's what you want to do.

My motion dealt with continuing service contracts and the list that Mariah provided to us this week. Do we have a motion? Yeah, I made a motion. It wasn't seconded. Okay. I'm sorry.

I missed that. I have a couple questions.

Yeah, I had a comment on that. One of the things I always say and I'll continue to say, I'm not looking to micromanage a manager. That's what they're hired for. I don't think there's a perfect one in the state anywhere that's out there. But I trust our town manager that I don't have to look through this and I trust his decisions. Is he going to make a mistake? Hell yeah. It's going to happen. Everybody does. But, you know, I have people that work for me that manage for me, and I'm not sitting there and not looking at every single thing. I don't believe especially in government. In this case, we're a small town. We have the ability to see everything we need to see beforehand. If you really want to go through the documents, Commissioner, you have many times and you pull up some good points, but I don't want to get into looking at every single piece of paper that we called out so many times on this. It's just more of a waste of time. And like I say, I don't want to spend two or three different conversations about one of our employees every meeting never had this happen prior to two years ago it'd be very rare that we'd ever have that um usually it would be to commend an employee and you know i've been this years ago the last time i've seen we were a town manager really good you have to go back 80 over about 10 years ago eight years ago that we had a town manager that people weren't happy with And they used to line up at the microphone and complain about her at that time. But, you know, other than that, the last couple of years, before the last two years, not one complaint about Bob, nothing but compliments. We're talking about... Yeah, yeah, I'm just saying, this keeps coming in. Every conversation, every meeting, it comes up about our employees. And I'm tired of seeing it personally. Because if it's that bad... he has a glory you sit in a conference room over there with him and you talk about it that's how it should be done and i'm not like i say managers to manage not be micromanaged and i don't think that's a commission shot to micromanage the manager i'm sorry well i don't i don't know if um i i know that i have an issue with just one thing that we discuss all the time is um waste management

I'm going to give you an example of a contract or an interlocal or an agreement. Every year that comes up, and every year they get a 5% bump. Years ago, we used to negotiate waste management. I don't know when the county took it over, but it upsets me when I see that we have no input to what the county does with that. I mean, that's our money. That's our tax money. That's money that we pay waste management. So every year they get a bump. Whether it's right or wrong, whether it's good or bad, it doesn't matter. We should know about that because we're paying for it. It isn't micromanaging. I'm not trying to say that Bob did the right thing or the wrong thing. I'm just saying that it's an issue. that we're paying taxes on everything that the county commission is approving that's one of the things that's just my hang-up i've been talking about that with bob for a long time so it's just a you know i'd like to see that agreement we can't find it i don't know who made it with waste management i don't ever remember it coming before us in 2019, so it was after that. So I don't know. It's just something that I understand what you're talking about, that we'd like to know what they are. It isn't micromanaging in my eyes. It's just kind of confusing that we don't know where they are, the interlocal agreements. Commissioner Mayfield.

Yes. Question for Commissioner Titicus. Is this interlocal agreement a continuing services? Because your motion was for continuing services. Is this included?

It was on the list of continuing service contracts.

Okay.

We all received.

No, no, no. I'm just asking the questions. Your motion includes this, is what you're saying.

My motion addresses continuing service contracts. There are 22 of them that were on the list. Of those 22 agreements, I mean...

I'm going to lose my train of thought. I'm just trying to keep my train of thought. This is part of the ones you're talking about that you want to see before, and that's the other thing I wanted to clarify. I thought you were going to say you wanted to see them like every year or whenever the, what did you call it? Evergreen. Evergreen. I thought when you were talking about it, I thought you were going to say that you wanted to see it before every possible evergreen, but then you said you only want to see it upon potential termination. Is that what you said?

No, what I said was 60 days, they ought to be brought before 60 days before termination. In other words, if it's a multi-year contract.

Okay, before it ends?

Right, so 60 days before it ends. Or if it has a notice period, which basically is the evergreen provision, and normally an evergreen provision, it says that either party has to notice each other within 30, 60, 90 days, depending on how it's negotiated, that it come before us prior to the notice period commencement so that we can take a look at it. And part of the purpose of this is suppose that, and I'm not trying to pick on any particular vendor, but I've had a number of residents complain about the demeanor of Dennis Serafino. And so if he has a contract and it's coming up for renewal, the commission ought to have an opportunity to weigh in on that and say, well, wait a second. We heard a lot of complaints about this. Maybe we need to put this out to bid and look for a different vendor. And there are 22 contracts on this list. Without something where we're not an opportunity to review it, you as a commissioner never have an opportunity to express your opinion as to whether it's good or bad other than the first time that contract was entered into. That's where I'm coming from. And Dave, this is not an argument...

Wait, I'm not done. I got the button. I asked you questions and I was letting you finish.

Go ahead. Sorry.

No, that's okay. I understand all this, but I'm a big fan of the $10,000 limit, meaning that makes sense for him to do the day-to-day operations, but I do understand why we should be looking at the contracts. So if there are certain vendors that come up, I would say we... bring them up and put them on the agenda like you did tonight like okay hey i have an issue with this can we look at it and then we look at it on an as needed basis as opposed to always having the contracts come before us because i remember voting on the ten thousand dollar thing and i don't know i think that makes sense i'm not suggesting we change that but you said you wanted to see any that like this one you said the notice thing would have put because it was going to be within the evergreen thing and since this is yearly it sounds like we would see that one even though the renewal would still be Would we be seeing anything that, well, it wouldn't renew for a different price, right? Unless it was worked into the contract meeting. If it went over $10,000, would we see it for you to have to, like you're signing anything that's over $10,000?

I wouldn't be signing it.

Okay, that's my concern. I don't want that to happen.

Unless there's an emergency, then I'd have to come back for ratification.

And I'm not suggesting that we take or that, you know, we removed the $10,000 limit from the town manager. I mean, I'm okay with that. And, you know, let's just take the interlocal agreement, okay? The interlocal agreement for this, we're spending roughly about $3,500 a year with the county to cover Jack when he's out. So two-year contract, you're looking at $7,000. That wouldn't come before us. You know, I don't think And if you want to carve out interlocal agreements from continuing service contracts, I'm okay with that. But if you go down the list and you look at it, there are a number of vendors. There's 22 vendors on this list. And probably maybe you have the Sheriff's Department, you've got Martin County Building Department, and you have... communications with the network communications with the Martin County Board of Commissioners.

Carve those three out. I like the $10,000. I think that makes sense. I think that's so we don't get bogged down in the, we stick to our more policy than the details of the day-to-day work. If it's over $10,000 or if it's coming up, you know, the contract ends and you're doing a new one, then we would see it again with the $10,000. I think it's reasonable. So I do understand why you're saying that, but I like it the way it is.

Frank, one thing I will mention is when I've seen vendors that I wasn't pleased with, like what you say, I will go ahead of time. I'll ask them, when's this up? And the town manager will tell you, I've named a couple of our vendors that were just doing a poor job or they had bad reputations. And I say, this is something that I question expenses when that happens with the way they're charging us. And Before they get renewed, I drink it and we're out looking for somebody else in some cases because that vendor wasn't the right vendor. But once again, I'd go in the office and look, I have a list of vendors too, and I've asked Mariah for that. And if I feel something's coming up, I will go to them and I say, this guy has done a terrible job. They weren't doing what they were supposed to. They don't show up half the time. And we'll look elsewhere. And, you know, so I do see when people do a poor job. And I understand, I do understand what you're saying. But, you know, what I would do, you know, I'd suggest that you could see when the contracts are up or whatever, or if you see somebody that is doing a poor job. Or, you know, I'm not crazy about the county building inspectors, I'll be honest with you. I wish there was an alternative. But unfortunately, there really isn't, unless we do something with Stuart. But I don't know whether, but it's an unknown commodity. So, but, it's, I'll sit down and I'll talk, and that's the best thing I could do, and suggest, and, you know, I'd probably agree with you, some of the panelists, there's some people, and, that I'm not exactly crazy about, and like I say, I'm not crazy myself about, um, the building inspectors. I'd look into maybe Stewart, but we already have a contract signed, I guess so.

Mr. Fender.

I have nothing real valuable to add to this topic, but I just want to let everyone know that in 40 minutes, I'll miss the deadline to submit payroll for tonight. So in about 10 minutes, I'll probably have to excuse myself. But this issue, I think it's our last one, and I hope it dies in the mine.

OK. Mr. Titicus.