Board of County Commissioners - Regular Meeting

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Charlotte County Board of County Commissioners regular and land use meeting for Tuesday, September 8th, 2026. Let the record show, all commissioners are present except for Commissioner Deutsch, who is absent today. Also joining us on the dais is Dan Ravello from the clerk's office. Thank you, sir, for being here today. If you wish, please rise for the invocation given by Reverend Larry Yerger of Our Savior Lutheran Church, followed by the pledge.

Let's pray. Almighty God, we are here today once more to deal with the administration of your people. Help us to realize and understand that all authority comes to us from you. And to keep that in mind when debates take place, when legislation is talked about. Because without you, we have no order. And yet this week, we remember. The events of 25 years ago, when insane people, not to excuse them, but their insanity of wrongness that caused them to attack and kill so many people, innocent people, for reasons of a flawed ideology. We thank you for protecting this country in all the years since its founding. And for your support and direction and love and caring in the aftermath of such a tragedy as 9-11. We ask that you continue to keep us strong and resolute in our faith, not just in this country, but in you. Give us a revival in this land so that those here can function fully. Protect those who are in need of protection, which is all of your children. Help us to be guided by your principles, by your love. As we govern, help us to remember that we are not rulers, but we are governors. Bless us in all the actions taken. We ask in Christ's name. Amen.

Amen.

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

Thank you, Reverend. Next, we have changes to the agenda. Mr. Flores.

All right. Thank you, Mr. Chair, commissioners. On the change memo, while we begin, we've got addition number one, that was item S11, update on Pirate Harbor seagrass mitigation. Addition number two, S12, discussion and direction on hiring freeze within the commission office. Addition number three, we added a vacancy posting for the TDC, the Tourist Development Council. and change number one to item F1 we updated the wording there just clarified the year 2026 for that public hearing on September 22nd change number two F15 we added the attachment response from a question on at pre-agenda regarding the directional drill machine for utilities And change number three, VA3 on land use. That was moved from consent item VA3 and is now land use public hearing item VB2 for the afternoon. And change number four to S1. We had to update one of the candidates' names on the ballot. And then two deletions. Deletion number one was F25, and that was the purchase of the two brush trucks. We'll bring that back at the next agenda. And then deletion number two, same thing, N2, that's the agreement with Animal Welfare League. We're still working on that, but intend to bring that back at the next agenda. and then one last change memo from this morning um three additions addition or three really three changes um s11 hold on a second there we go all right um s2 and that is administrator evaluation we added the evaluation documents and then addition slash change to s3 same for county attorney tom david's evaluation

and then change number three uh s4 for the evaluation for economic development director k tracy and that is the two change memos mr chairman move the changes second we have motion second to move the changes is there any further discussion is there any opposition to the motion that passes unanimously mr chairman with the proclamation second we have motion second proclamation is there any further discussion is there any opposition to the motion that passes unanimously commissioner constance you have the honor sir

All right. Good morning, everyone. Good morning, Secretary. All right. We are going to start out with Constitution Week. That's you. Whereas September 17th, 2026 marks the 250th anniversary of the drafting of the Constitution Convention, and whereas it is fitting and proper to accord official recognition to this magnificent document and its memorable anniversary and to the patriotic celebrations which will commemorate this occasion. And whereas in recognition of the signing of the Constitution and of Americans who have striven to fulfill these duties and responsibilities of citizenship, the Congress, Public Law Number 915, signed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower on August 2, 1956, designated the week beginning September 14, 2026 and ending September 19, 2026 of each year as Constitution Week. Now, therefore, it be proclaimed that the week of September 14th, to September 19th shall be known on all of Charlotte County as Constitution Week. Passed and duly adopted this 8th day of September. And we have Janet Dietz, Regent, Randy Uhler, and Kelly Steinfast.

Thank you.

Our next proclamation concerns National Preparedness Month. Whereas National Preparedness Month is observed each September to encourage individuals, families, businesses, and communities to prepare for emergencies before they occur through education, planning, and proactive action. And whereas Charlotte County is vulnerable to hurricanes, tropical storms, tornadoes, flooding, wildfires, and other natural and human caused hazards that can threaten lives, damage property, disrupt critical services, and impact our quality of life. And whereas experience has shown that preparedness saves lives, taking simple steps such as creating an emergency plan, assembling disaster supply kits, reviewing insurance coverage, protecting important documents, understanding evacuation zones, and staying informed through trusted sources can significantly reduce the impacts of disasters. And whereas preparedness is a shared responsibility that requires the commitment of residents, businesses, community organizations, healthcare partners, first responders, faith-based organizations, volunteers, and local governments working together to strengthen the resilience of our community. And whereas National Preparedness Month serves as an opportunity for every member of our community to recommit to preparedness by taking meaningful steps today that will help protect themselves, their families, their neighbors, and future generations. Now, therefore, be it proclaimed that the month of September 2026 shall be known in all of Charlotte County as National Preparedness Month. And that was passed today. And we have Patrick Fuller and the entire emergency management team.

Nothing bad about it.

Thank you.

Love those guys. I'm glad we haven't had to interact with them at all this year. Let's keep it that way. You guys stay in the shadows. We're real happy about that. Keep it up. I had thunderstorms this morning that rocked me out of bed, so not good. All right, our next proclamation is regarding Florida Redevelopment Week. Whereas redevelopment programs authorized under Chapter 163 Florida statutes provide essential tools for local governments to address infrastructure deficiencies, promote economic development, and support affordable housing and public improvements in designated areas of need. And whereas community redevelopment agencies and redevelopment programs play a vital role in revitalizing neighborhoods, addressing areas of slum and blight, strengthening local economies, revitalizing downtowns, and improving the quality of life for residents and businesses throughout the state of Florida, And whereas redevelopment initiatives encourage private investment, support small businesses, improve infrastructure, enhance public spaces, and expand housing opportunities, thereby fostering vibrant, resilient, and equitable communities. And whereas the Florida Redevelopment Association, in partnership with municipality, municipalities counties and community stakeholders promotes best practices professional education and collaboration to advance community redevelopment efforts throughout florida and whereas florida redevelopment week serves as an opportunity to recognize redevelopment achievements highlight transformational projects promotes best practices professional education and collaboration to advance community redevelopment efforts throughout florida and whereas the observance of florida redevelopment week will raise awareness of the importance of community redevelopment and inspire continued public and private investment in florida's neighborhoods downtowns and commercial corridors now therefore now therefore be it proclaimed that the week of september 14th 2026 through september 18th 2026 shall be known in all of charlotte county as florida redevelopment week And we have Mr. John Elias and Kenna Hubei. where's our utilities guys right there okay this is the proclamation for utilities 35th anniversary whereas charlotte county utilities has proudly served the residents of charlotte county for 35 years providing essential water and wastewater services that support the health safety and quality of life of the community and whereas in 1991 the charlotte county commission acquired general development utilities marking the beginning of a county-operated utility and laying the foundation for what is now Charlotte County Utilities. And whereas over the past 35 years, Charlotte County Utilities has grown alongside the community, expanding and improving its infrastructure, services, technology, and operations to meet the needs of its customers, and whereas reliable water and wastewater services are essential to a thriving community supporting homes, businesses, public safety, economic development, and the environment, and whereas the accomplishments of Charlotte County Utilities would not be possible without the dedication of its employees past and present whose work ensures that essential services are delivered reliably every day. Now therefore it be proclaimed that the Charlotte County Commission hereby celebrates the 35th anniversary of the Charlotte County Utilities Department and extends its sincere appreciation to the employees past and present who have dedicated themselves to serving the residents of Charlotte County. And we have everybody. Jeannie Smith, Casey Knapp, Charles Rambo, Jennifer Carpenter, Christy Perry, Tammy Garcia, Chad Sutter, and Bill Hanfelder. And I want to say all the names because these are the folks that plug the cracks, make sure the water flows, make sure when there's a line break, they're there in the middle of the night. So really, let's give them a big round of applause.

Thank you.

okay our final proclamation today there is one more that's not going to be read but commissioner doherty is going to take care of that over at the elks on friday and this is the proclamation for patriot day and the day of national remembrance Whereas, 25 years ago, on September 11, 2021, America was suddenly and brutally attacked by terrorists, and thousands of innocent Americans were killed and injured as a result of these attacks, including the passengers and crew of four aircraft, workers in the World Trade Center, and in the Pentagon, rescue workers and bystanders. And whereas these cowardly acts targeted symbols of American strength and success and were clearly intended to intimidate the nation and weaken our resolve, and whereas these horrific events affected all Americans, but with courage, America carried on. With the regular activities of our lives, terrorism was not allowed to break the spirit of the American people, and in fact, the American spirit was never stronger than after that day. whereas all citizens of charlotte county are urged to observe a moment of silence on the 25th anniversary of september 11th to honor all those who were lost that day now therefore be proclaimed that september 11 2026 shall be known in all of charlotte county as patriot day and national day of remembrance and all residents are encouraged to celebrate our patriotism by displaying the american flag at half staff in honor of those who lost their lives and families We have two proclamations, one that I'm gonna hand off to the Sheriff's Department, and then the second one that I'm gonna hand off to our Fire EMS. Let's take one picture with both. Let's do one picture with both and then let's do a picture with each. Okay, with each person. Come on in. Let's just do these. Let's take guys. Then we'll do one with five of us. Three pictures.

let's get all the deputies in or let's get you guys are here let's do a little fiery mess Thank you.

Before I end, I want to make sure everybody knows that this Friday on September 11th, Charlotte County Fire EMS will host the 9-11 Memorial Stair Climb at the Charlotte County Sports Park. The event invites the public and first responders to climb 343 stairs representing each firefighter who made the ultimate sacrifice on September 11th, 2021. This year marks, of course, the 25th anniversary, making it a significant moment in remembrance of the community. Fire Chief and Public Safety Director Matt McElroy emphasizes that the climb symbolizes Charlotte County's commitment to never forget the courage and sacrifice shown that day. Gates open at 7.30 a.m. Opening ceremonies are 8 to 8.30. Stair climb is 8.30 to noon with groups beginning at 15-minute intervals. There is a registration cost of $40, including an event T-shirt and finisher medal. the proceeds will benefit the Charlotte County Fire and EMS Benevolent Association registration deadline has passed but I'm sure that hopefully there'll be an ability for people to where's Emily Emily's their ability for people to sign up there is okay so it's on the website yes I don't see a web address, but it's probably community services on our public safety page on the website. We'll have all the information. So please join us. It'll be a wonderful day, hopefully not too hot. But it was a day that really affected so many people in this country. And it's interesting when you talk to kids, they have no idea. And so I think it's our job to teach the history to those that have come after to make them understand how significant it was and how important it is to just support and defend freedom always. So thank you very much.

All right. Thank you, sir. Next, we have employee recognition. Yes, sir. Followed by awards. All right.

Thank you, commissioners. We've got the next two areas is recognizing our fellow employees that reached their milestone years of service in July, and then also recognizing our employee of the month. So I know people operations, and then I think Mr. Berger's going to handle employee of the month. So I'll turn that over to them. Thank you.

Hi, good morning. I'm Melissa Dunleavy, People Operations. Today we are proud to recognize and celebrate the dedicated employees who have reached important years of service milestones. Their commitment, professionalism, and contributions have helped strengthen our organization and improve the services we provide to our community. Thank you for your hard work, loyalty, and the positive impact you make every day. Please join me in congratulating and honoring these outstanding employees for their years of service. Clayton Palmer, Public Works. five years. Colin Bailey, Utilities, five years. Colton Lesanska, Public Safety, five years. Tracy Herman, Community Services, 10 years. Nicholas Hornberg, Public Safety, 10 years. Michael Mazzoni, Public Safety, 10 years. Benjamin Owings, Public Works, 10 years. And Roman Villasenor, Community Development, 10 years.

good morning commissioners for the record gordon berger director of budget administrative services it's my privilege to announce the employee of the month for this month and this month we're going to be recognizing michael winterkorn mike has a very unique position within the county he is the sole person responsible for all public information requests as you can imagine that When people submit public information requests, sometimes they're not in the best mood. Mike does an incredible job. His history and background, Mike has a legal background. He understands the law incredibly well. He's very, very proficient. But I think the other thing, too, that I want to mention is just the volume. In the past two years, two years ago, we had about 1,500 applicants. public information requests in the year. This year, we're at 2,500. Not only that, but with the advent of AI, these requests have gotten far more complex because anybody can submit a request that sounds like it's coming from an attorney. They've gotten far more complex, far more requiring far more documents than what has been in the past. And Mike has handled that all by himself. He's learned new technologies and enabled him to do advanced searches, improved the process, and has absorbed all of that. But I think even more than that is Mike is such a great ambassador for the county because when people come, they're not all public information requests, but oftentimes when people come with a public information request, they come with some distrust. Mike's understanding of the law and the way he handles that situation and his incredible patience. and just explaining to process people he truly looks at it as his opportunity to explain to people you know the law how things work and how and and and govern them or walk them through the process and that attitude dramatically changes the interface that those people have when they come to the county and they leave with a much better understanding of local government and how the process works so he is very deserving of this uh this award and so michael wintercourt

Next we have awards presentations.

Good morning, Commissioners. For the record, Shawn Dory, Tourism Director. The first award that we wanted to talk about was the Sports Tourism Award. Englewood Beach Water Fest has been a highly successful signature event for our community for over a decade. The event organizers who annually in cooperation with our department as well as community services, the Englewood Chamber of Commerce, Sunrider Surgery, and local conservation groups have persevered through adversity over the years. Whether it was red tide, COVID, or hurricanes that disrupted the event, the event organizers, all made up of volunteers, have not only met the adversity head on, but have managed to continually improve the event, which has led to the generation of over 38,000 lodging room nights and more than $40 million in economic impact since its inception. As a result, we felt the event was more than deserving of recognition, so we nominated it for the Florida Sports Foundation's Larry Pendleton Best Hosted Event of the Year for 2025. Among some strong competition, Engwood Beach Waterfest won the award in the small market division. This statewide recognition highlights the destination's excellence in event execution, county and community partnership, and economic impact through sports tourism. So thank you to Ray Labadee, Jay Henderson, Nakia Garcia, and all the board members and volunteers who make Inglewood Beach Waterfest one of the best annual events in Charlotte County. The other award is for our Destination Marketing Accreditation Program designation.

Thank you. Yes. So tourism was recognized for the Destination Marketing Accreditation Program. It was a nine-month application process administered by Destinations International, which included the input by all 12 tourism staff members. Over 100 industry standards were addressed to illustrate Visit Punta Gorda-Englewood Beach, which is the new marketing adherence to industry best practices ongoing process, which includes reaccreditation every five years, ensuring our tourism development department remains on the cutting edge of every evolving destination marketing trend and technology. They were officially recognized for their achievement in front of nearly 2,000 of the industry peers at the Destination International annual conference in July. And then, Sean, I just want to congratulate you and your staff, and if you want to fill in a few more details. Yes, sir. Thank you.

On behalf of the entire staff of Visit Punta Gorda Inglewood Beach, I am proud to announce our official accreditation as a destination marketing organization. Destinations International, whose core pillars include advocacy, research, and professional development, administers this comprehensive program providing guidelines and standards that help destination marketing organizations maintain best practices. while keeping abreast of evolving trends and technologies in a variety of areas, including marketing, public relations, sales, technology, fiscal management, personnel, and sustainability. Worldwide, only 200 destination marketing organizations have achieved this designation, including 16 other Florida destinations, as well as Visit Florida. While the application was rigorous, it promoted a deep dive into our internal processes, procedures, and programs, and has already prompted various action items, including a resident sentiment survey that we completed in July, new or refreshed SOPs for our department, and plans to refresh our current strategic plan in the coming fiscal year. I want to thank my entire staff as well as administration support in pursuing this accreditation. And we look forward to not only maintaining but continually improving our effectiveness as a destination marketing organization that strives to grow the economic impact and jobs that result from a strong tourism economy.

And while you're getting ready for that picture, we all received an update on the tourist development tax and we're up 11% year to date and 35% over last year. So huge numbers, big economic engine for Charlotte County, so job well done. Yeah, we've got a couple more awards. We've got National Association of Counties Digital Survey Award, Florida Planning and Zoning Sustainability Award,

Good morning, commissioners. Ben Bailey, Community Development Director. The first award we have here is the National Association of Counties Digital Survey Award. As you were, NACO recognizes those communities every year that leverage technology. And every year, Charlotte County has been in the top ten for several years, according to our demographics, for leveraging such technology. So we're being recognized again this year. One of our bigger projects that we were recognized for was the collaboration we had with Englewood Fire District. This past year, as you're aware, the fire district took over the responsibilities of doing the plan review and inspections in that area from the Charlotte County Fire Department. so that collaboration we had to work them into our permitting process so they're able to log in their plan review comments and their inspections and have a seamless process so we didn't have homeowners contractors and developers having a segmented process where they had to go that district first so That was part of the big project there. I also want to recognize Kevin Lapham from the IT department on this. He's one of our backbone employees that really does a lot of work when it comes to Acela and making sure these systems work. So I just wanted to have a little shout out for him.

Mr. Chair, they're moving up because this year it was sixth place. It's been to eighth, tenth. We keep getting higher up on the list.

Okay, next award is from the Florida Planning and Zoning Association. We received the Sustainability Award. So our planning staff worked hard collaborating with our building department staff. and trying to find a way that people could feel safe in their homes and giving them the ability to elevate their homes for storm surge and flood events so after 2024's hurricane season there was a lot of talk about what people can do to further protect their homes from flooding and seeing what happened with hurricane ian and fort myers beach We don't want that happening here. So we do have FEMA floodplain maps and Jay Hsiao was very instrumental in working this too. She got together and worked with our building department staff to come up with a free board, a voluntary free board that you could elevate your homes above the base flood elevation that FEMA requires to give a little bit of added comfort there when you're building. So we've had several people already take advantage of this elevating higher than the minimum and that's what i always encourage you can certainly build to code and build to the minimum but you can always build stronger and higher so we were recognized for that and thank you to our planning staff for putting this all together as well so

Okay, next we have a donation from the Charlotte County Historical Society. Mr. Scott, you're recognized, sir.

Good morning, Tommy Scott, Community Services Director. Today we are pleased to recognize the Charlotte County Historical Society for the continued commitment to preserving and sharing the history with our community. For nearly 60 years, the Historical Society supported efforts to ensure Charlotte County stories are remembered and passed along to future generations. Their generous contribution towards the new interpretive signs at the historic Placida Bunkhouse helps bring these stories to life. Six new panels together along with the Cape Hayes Pioneer Trail interpretive signs provide residents and visitors with a greater understanding of the people who lived and worked here and the important role that the Charlotte Harbor and Northern Railroad played in the development of our community. On behalf of Charlotte County, we want to offer our very sincere thank you to the Charlotte County Historical Society for their partnership, their generosity, and their long-standing dedication to preserving our local history. And today we've got Mr. Frank Desquin and Paul Polk. They're here.

Thank you.

You have an extra award that's not on the agenda?

Fire plan review and inspection streamlining initiative. Okay, next time.

That was the digital one, I think.

Yeah, this, Ben, you got a second.

We've got more awards than people this morning. All right, thank you, sir. We're going to move on to public input agenda items only. Anybody wishing to address the board during this portion of the meeting must fill out a card, state their name for the record, and state which agenda item or items will be addressed. Remarks shall be limited to three minutes and shall be addressed to the commission as a body and not to individual members. I have some speaking cards here. First, we have John Schwind, regular agenda S11.

morning mr chairman commissioners my name is john schwinn i'm the chair of the pirate harbor waterway msbu advisory board i'm speaking today on regular agenda item s11 the pirate harbor seagrass mitigation project first i want to thank you for putting this on the agenda I might say if it was added sooner than the Friday before holiday weekend, the public might have actually shown up. But nonetheless, I also next want to actually request that I be permitted to speak in a few more minutes beyond this when the item actually comes up. I'm an expert in the affair at hand. I'm an environmental protection specialist. I'm an environmental regulatory affairs specialist. I am the author of the position paper that represents the community's best interest on this. Staff has not represented our interest adequately despite how they've described it to you. And as the chair of the MSPU, I believe I have standing since we are the funding We're the funding source for anything that comes next on this, so I would really appreciate a chance to speak at length. In fact, I sent a PowerPoint presentation to board staff last night, sorry if anyone gets their emails at 12, 3 AM, to request about ten minutes of speaking time. There's a PowerPoint presentation ready to go. I noticed your agenda item doesn't have such a PowerPoint. So if that would be helpful, I'd be happy to go through it. At least three points really should be appreciated about this project. The first is, as your staff item noticed, that supposedly the objectives of this project were not met. And that's not a valid representation of what has happened here. And I would like to describe that in more detail. The second, there are more than one way to see that the seagrass mitigation project success criteria were met. But there's only one very narrow way to decide that it wasn't. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection has stated that because the words the buffer zones may be used as mitigation areas are absent from the permit. Therefore, you cannot use the buffer zones as compensatory mitigation. This is at odds with the spirit. Of the federal law that set up our state law, this is at odds with regulatory language in Florida's own regulations. And if they wanted to exclude the buffer zones, I might say, they should have explicitly stated so in the permit. That would be valid, but the absence of it does not render the rest of environmental law invalid, just because it's not stated in the permit. And finally, most important thing here, environmental protection specialists like myself, know that if you want to fix the environment you have got to have public participation fdep's rigid approach to this is costing us environmental protection volunteers in our community no one wants to play anymore because they don't see the value of their efforts since their sincere efforts are being shot down or or denigrated by the very agency that supposedly supports environmental protection, so help us help the environment by re-engaging people and not having such a rigid approach to this issue. Thank you very much. Thank you, sir.

Next, I have Jeff Lustig. Item 03.

hi there I live on Elmira Boulevard and I can only imagine um the traffic that's going to go through there like on Westchester Boulevard people wanting to circumvent the traffic and to go up through Kings Highway it'll be very difficult when the new Buc-ee's comes here it's just I don't know what you can do but if they're traffic lights or whatever I know they're doing a whole traffic on Kings Highway and West Chester thank you very much thank you sir

Next, I have Rob Robbins, B1. Those are the minutes.

I have some hands out there. So my handouts are getting a little bit more budget oriented. I have two kids in Gainesville in college at the same time now, so that's what you get is one page now instead of the color printouts. I'm speaking about the minutes from July 28th, and I want to remind you that the July 28th minutes, the part that I'm talking about were the waterside hearing that was called the restoration by the county. But it was advertised as to only allow for an existing grove to be restored to preserve with native vegetation. This is currently. being challenged in court, obviously the citizens came out and said this is a commercial mining operation in a landfill. And this is a way to get around the public hearing for the comprehensive plan amendment. The decision making process for a quasi judicial decision. must be transparent, balanced, and free from procedural favoritism. In a quasi-judicial matter, if a party appeals a decision to the circuit court, the court reviews the administrative record created by this board. If the minutes itemize one side's legal arguments while scrubbing out the opposing side's expert testimony and code citations, it distorts the public record and violates the procedural fairness. So if you look at this, this is just an excerpt of just that part of the minutes which I'm speaking about. This is the public input from July 28th as recorded in the minutes. These four lines here at the top, this represents 16 speakers all speaking about five minutes. Speakers that had done hundreds of hours of research, speakers that had done their research, met with staff. They're so good, the county attorney was logged into some of these meetings and instructed the staff not to answer his questions. That's how good they were. These people were super prepared. It was 77 minutes of public testimony that day on July 28th. Ms. Waxler, who told everybody up front that she's not representing these people at all anymore, she was a member of the public. She spoke for five minutes and about ten seconds because Tim told her to sit down because she went over her time, I remember that part. And then she spoke again later, but she got. Five lines of every point by point the minute taker recorded what she said, no more valid than what all the public had said. So my question is, how is this fair? How did somebody say we're going to record what Ms. Waxler said, but we're going to ignore and just mention the names of the people who spoke? I realize it doesn't have to be verbatim, but it has to be fair. because if a court or future citizens want to look for this do some research they're going to look at the minutes first and they're going to try to decide is there anything that's worth going in are there good arguments that were were made can they be applied to future policy decisions and that's why the minutes are so important not to mention the fact that this has gone to court and the citizens are challenging your decision so it needs to be fair And you can take a look at the transcript. I know in the court filing, they spent $400 of their own money having to get that meeting transcribed. So look at it, and you can get the details out of that, and hopefully these minutes will be rejected and fixed. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Linda Cotherman, item S10.

linda catherman i just wanted to speak very briefly on s10 and thank the commissioners for finding more expanding the funding subsidies for the beach renourishment on don pedro night islands i think that was great that they heard heard the community about that and has responded so quickly i also wanted though to just put a little nubbin out there of how the methodology is being done for the assessments for that excuse me that project and i would just question whether vacant lots are getting the benefit of the rec the enhanced recreational use the same as occupied houses and maybe there should be a difference in those rates between vacant and occupied but again thank you for everything and we appreciate it thank you

Thank you, ma'am. Meryl Schaefer, item S10.

Good morning, commissioners. Good morning. My name is Meryl Schaefer, and I'm a resident of Don Pedro Island. I've been in front of the county commission periodically over the last 26 years. And today, I'm here to say thank you. Thank you for the much appreciated revision on S10, the beach renourishment funding for Don Pedro Island. The new proposed funding model is fair and reasonable and is much appreciated by the residents and taxpayers, property owners out there. So we hope to see that change on our upcoming tax bills. I also just wanted to remind you that after a year plus of preparation, our Don Pedro Night Island, what we call the Palm Island Neighborhood Plan, was submitted to the county mid-July. and I just wanted to say I'm hoping you will help us kind of move this ball down the field because we have a tremendous amount of community solidarity regarding this plan and we'd like to take advantage of that common purpose in order to go forward with some small projects that are mentioned in the plan mr cullinan very graciously said that he plans to schedule a meeting soon with us to review the items but i just wanted to remind you that it is coming down the pike and please keep an eye out for it thank you very much thank you for your comments kim kitko

SLD landfill, item number nine, S9.

Good morning, commissioners and county staff. I'm Kim Kitko addressing agenda item number nine pertaining to the SLD landfill. I'm speaking for Halo, Homeowners Against Landfill Odors. This group consists of residents from multiple communities in South Charlotte County and North Lee County. Halo was formed because for the last decade, the SLD landfill has emitted odors that affect not only the drivers on Highway 41, And the health quality of life and property values of existing residents, but they also affect the potential sales of many new homes near the landfill. Halo is grateful for Commissioner Teseo and the board for recognizing the tremendous impact of the landfill odors and adding this issue for further discussion on the board's agenda today. One of the questions Halo gets asked continuously, especially from new residents who have moved from other parts of the country and lived by landfills that don't emit odors. How is it possible that these odors are still happening in 2026? Well, part of the answer lies with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, or the FDEP. During the ten years that commuters and residents have suffered, the FDEP received over 3,000 documented complaints, but never issued a single notice of violation against SLD. Recognizing that the problem was not getting better, the FDEP did execute a new consent decree with SLD in March, but the odors have not stopped. How often do these odors occur? Between July 27th and August 21st, there were only four days that no odors were reported. Commissioners, we need your help. First, with the FDEP, thank you for the letter of support for a strong consent decree that you sent to the FDEP back in March. Please continue to support the FDEP by sending a follow up letter. which is included on the agenda today. It might also be helpful to ask the FDEP for a briefing concerning SLD's compliance and enforcement history and regular updates to the board and or county staff until SLD complies with the law. The second area we need your help today. Please consider sending a letter to the SLD landfill directly, directly to the landfill. The third area we need help today, third and final. Please engage your Charlotte County staff team in this issue before the landfill expands to the next 60 acres, which they are permitted already to expand to. Thank you for your time and attention to this matter. Let's help SLD be a good neighbor. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments, ma'am. Michael Brown, item S9, SLD landfill.

Good morning, commissioners and county staff. Michael Brown, I am addressing item number nine pertaining to the SLD landfill. Sorry. i'm also speaking on behalf of halo wanted to provide some more additional information regarding the letters that can be sent to the sld landfill that would further our agenda of making this this stopping the stink so to speak we appreciate the letter that you're considering in this afternoon sending to the fdep FDEP is not responsible for this smell. SLD Landfill is solely responsible for what is happening on their property. They are owned by Waste Connections, that is the third largest provider of solid waste services in North America. They operate in 46 states, and they had about $9.5 billion worth of revenue last year. they also own a landfill in sumter county which is experiencing very similar things that we're having here in charlotte north lee county In the heart of Florida, they've been violating Florida law and their permits, and Sumter County had enough. And they wrote a demand letter, and that's included in your handout, and directly to the heart of Florida. But just like SLD, it didn't fix the problem. So two weeks ago, Sumter County has filed a, the Board of Commissioners authorized a vote and they are making good on the letters that they sent and they're filing an injunctive relief lawsuit against the Heart of Florida and Waste Connections. These are all tools we have in our toolbox going forward. We just want them to play nice. What this means for Charlotte County is the Sumter County commissioners, they determined they had standing and that they impact their residents and that matters to them. The county set up its own reporting system and once they did that, they realized how wide the problem was. And it didn't take them long to figure this out and help the citizens. our ask is it's in your packet um two letters the um and uh directly to sod uh demanding uh immediate and consistent compliance with all laws and permits of the state of florida in conclusion guys thank you for thank you thank you sir thank you for your comments

Jeff Weigel, I'm sorry, I'm having an issue this morning reading that.

No problem, it's a tough name. Can you hear me okay?

Yes sir, right up to the mic. Yeah, there you go. Item number nine, SLD landfill.

Yeah, thank you. Good morning commissioners and county staff. I'm Jeff Weigel addressing agenda item number nine pertaining to the SLD landfill. I also represent Halo. My background is 40 years as an operational, commercial professional in the chemical industry. My industry successfully deals with similar issues to what we face with waste connections. Halo is often asked, can the odor problems actually be fixed? Well, I want to provide you with assurances that the odor problems at SLD, with my background and experience within the industry, yes, they can be fixed quickly and before it expands. Commercial and demolition landfills, or C&D landfill, which is what this is, exist in neighborhoods all over North America, and they don't smell. So a couple things we think they can work on, they're operating best practices. Again, these are well known throughout the chemical and industrial industries. Technology, they have installed a hydrogen sulfide scrubber and a flare. Technical items, they're now on site, but their operation is obviously inadequate. We still have smell. When questioned, senior waste connections management cannot articulate a capital expense program for the expansion that's already been permitted. our ask as kim and michael have said could you please send the two letters one to fdep and the second to the sld landfill please also consider keeping the sld landfill situation as a formal agenda item until the odors are eliminated again as recently as within the last week we smelled these odors until they're eliminated for a sustained period of time that to date has not happened charlotte county has a talented staff we've seen them here today gaining awards they can probably assess monitor and provide you with updates better than us we're all retirees So in conclusion, thank you for your time and attention to this matter. We firmly believe the laws and technology exist to make landfills good neighbors. I experienced this in the chemical industry. My company started out being just like Waste Connections. 40 years later, we had a relationship with the community and we were environmental stewards. Waste Connections can do this. They need your help. So please ensure that SLD fixes their problems and becomes a true partner in keeping this community beautiful. Thank you, sir. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Next we have Tim Ritchie, item N2. That's Animal Welfare League. That was deleted from the agenda this morning. No, it's not coming before the board. So if you'd like to speak, you're on another item, please let us know. But you're recognized, sir, for your three minutes. Agenda items only.

Well, good morning gentlemen and ladies and everybody in the chamber today. And I'd like to thank our speakers this morning. Wow. I mean, seriously? What happened to the minutes? I read those minutes. Unacceptable staff. But I see Jerry Waxler's got all of her stuff in there in the minutes. Don't expect too much from FDEP, anybody. Because if FDEP and all their college educated graduates, their experts, were doing such a great job, Commissioner Truex, do you think the Peace River and Charlotte Harbor would be severely impaired? Highly doubt it. Now Pirate Harbor, the seagrass, a couple years ago, I was summoned down there to test a lovely lingba cyanobacteria outbreak. When's the last time any of you all been in the river? When have any one of you done fishing off the 75 where you all want to put buckies, when?

Yeah.

And I want to thank Kit and Halo. Because I'll tell you what, now that I hear this, why isn't staff on top of this? Why isn't staff on top of everything it should be on top of? Who pays staff? The citizens. Who pays the dais? The citizens. You all took an oath to govern. But you took a higher oath like a doctor, and that is to represent the citizen's best interest, Commissioner Truex. That's what we get. It's a shame. We all miss you, Commissioner Deutsch. It's not the same without you, that's for sure. And I am gonna say this, it might have been stricken from the record, but it was put there today. Animal Welfare League is to collect stray dogs. To go from 300 to 600, then to a million dollars is outrageous. Asking 20 years from all of us for the 1% sales tax is outrageous and I hope all of the taxes get cut. Thank you, everybody.

Thank you, sir. Thank you for your comments. Carla Smith, item S8.

Good morning.

Good morning

I sent an email to all of the commissioners back on August the 25th concerning this ordinance that we wanted to see in place instead of what had been discussed off with a couple of people and with Commissioner Tasseo. This is about S8, which is about having shelter at the polling locations during early voting and on election day. What we're asking for is to be able to place a tent that's a 10 by 10 tent and have a few signs out so that we have shelter and we can interact with the voters, just like every other county in the state is able to do, but this county is not. Back in June of this year, there was a memo that was put out that we couldn't even have an umbrella and that no signs could touch the ground, nothing could touch the ground, nothing could be strapped to your car, which is what I had to do last election season. So we wanted to bring forth this ordinance. It's all written out. It's been checked. All you have to do is look at it. The one I sent you in August did not address that the tents would be removed every day at the end of day. That has been added. And that a parking space could be used if there is no green space available, such as over at the event center down in Punta Gorda. And then signs that we would have at the tent, it gave a perimeter of where those would be allowed. So if you wouldn't mind looking this over, I would like to know whether you actually got my email since I didn't get any acknowledgement that you received it. Just to make sure I used the email accounts that were on the county website, wanted to verify that you actually received that. So this is just so that we could not be out in the sun day long every day trying to engage with the voters because they were very interested in what we had to say but they didn't want to send out in the hundred degree heat that we were dealing with in July and August thank you thank you for comments Lindsay Harrington community development just let us know which agenda item you're speaking to that would be helpful for the record

I didn't realize you couldn't walk from the front.

Didn't mean to scare you.

Thank you, sir.

Commissioners, county attorney, manager, county clerk, I'm here to formally endorse the presentation by Dr. Roberts regarding systemic issues with the Charlotte County planning and zoning review process. Dr. Roberts demonstrated that official minutes of petition DRC 25-075, the water side restoration project, omitted critical facts and findings presented by citizens and professional opponents, recording only their names while fully documenting the applicant's case. This one-sided reporting and potential procedural misconduct raised critical transparency, trust, and legal questions that require your immediate attention. A MISSION OF OPPONENT TESTIMONY. HOW MANY PAST APPLICATIONS HAVE REACHED THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS WITH MINUTES THAT ERASED OPPONENT'S FACTS AND FINDINGS AND REMOVED IN AN ADVISORY COMMITTEE LETTER, THUS POTENTIALLY LEADING TO FLAWED COMMISSION DECISIONS? INSUFFICIENCY OF STAFF REVIEW. HOW MANY APPLICATIONS HAVE RECEIVED FAVORABLE STAFF RECOMMENDATIONS WITHOUT A RIGOROUS, OBJECTIVE REVIEW OF ALL CONFLICTING, MISSING, OR UNREADABLE EVIDENCE? Sunshine law violations. What is the county doing to investigate reports that planning zoning staff are conducting public business on personal cell phones and violation of your own policy, and possibly the Florida sunshine law, legal vulnerability? What legal defense does the county have if a PNC decision is challenged in court to debate bias, record keeping or off the record communications? Will the Board of County Commissioners direct the County Administration and the Charlotte County Clerk to formally investigate these matters? Furthermore, I am restating my previous inquiries regarding Charlotte County's structural oversight, specifically staffing and capability. Does the Planning and Zoning Department currently lack the necessary manpower or professional expertise to balance the interests of taxpayers With those of applicants, establishment of an ombudsman. Why has the county not established an independent ombudsman to review applications for completeness on behalf of taxpayers and commissioners? As citizens, we should not have to spend our own money to counter developer applications, essentially fighting our own tax dollars, which are being used or misused to favor applicants. As a U.S. Air Force veteran, I know that when a military unit encounters operational safety failures, we initiate a mandatory stand down to review operations, retrain and refocus on the mission. Charlotte County PNC appears to be currently failing its mission to serve its citizens with transparency and trust. Therefore, I request the county implement an immediate operational stand down of the planning and zoning department until these critical record keeping, transparency, and legal issues are fully rectified. Thank you, gentlemen.

Thank you, sir. Karina Schmidt, item S8.

Good morning, commissioners. Karina Schmidt. I'm in District 3 and I'm here also on item 8 asking you to consider a very simple change that I believe can make participation in our elections more accessible and more humane. I submitted this proposal on August 9th to all five commissioners. I did hear confirmation from Chairman Toseo that you received it, thank you, and briefly talked to District 1, isn't it? Yes, District 1 Dowdy about this, and thank you for that conversation. Florida law establishes a 150 foot no solicitation zone around polling places and early voting sites. Within that zone, the campaign solicitation and political material is restricted. My proposal does not ask the county to change that law necessarily. I'm asking you to consider that we can have a reasonably permitted outside the 150 foot zone for people who spend hours participating in the political process. That is volunteers, candidates, political parties, and other active citizens here in Charlotte County. People can spend hours outside in blazing heat in front of the polling locations up until election day. And we still experience that heat later on in the season. I visited a polling location, the one on San Casa in Inglewood. I met three Democrat voters and other volunteers, all in their mid-70s, perhaps even older, who were sitting behind a vehicle simply to find some shade. And that isn't just a Republican or a Democrat issue. It is an issue for everyone. There are citizens who are participating in our democratic process, regardless of whom they support. That's irrelevant today. I believe we should make it possible for them to do so safely and not suffer heat strokes or dehydration. So I'm asking the commission to consider allowing a modest 10 by 10 foot tent as outlined in that proposal I sent you outside the restricted area during the polling hours. That tent would provide some shade and could contain a small table and some chairs. A banner could identify the candidate or organization represented, campaign signs and the American flag. should be present as well and allowed. Alternatively, I outlined the other restrictions in that proposal and I know you have a copy of that. Alternatively, this restriction should be completely stricken. There's no reason why we have this restriction in the first place. So I'm asking you to consider this proposal and either get rid of the restrictions or amend them. Thank you so much.

Thank you for your comments, ma'am. Phillip Smallwood, item S11, the seagrass mitigation.

Good morning, commissioners.

Good morning, sir.

I'd like to give you a little history on the Pirate Harbor Dredge Project. That project was for an outside channel. Our inside channel is dredged to 5.9. The only thing they would give us was an outside channel of 3.9 because they decided that that channel had never been dredged before. Even though it had been undermarked, we used to have shrimp boats go in and out of Pirate Harbor years ago. That channel's been marked for over 50 years, but it was determined that it had never been dredged. Therefore, it cost us over a million dollars. 300 lots, 300 waterfront lots cost us over a million dollars. It cost us $300,000 to fill sandbags and transplant one fifth of an acre of seagrass in some area that they decided that this is where it should go, this is where we should take the seagrass, this is where we should take the sandbags, put the sandbags, plant the seagrass on biodegradable bags. It cost us $300,000 just to plant the seagrass. It's been seven years. This contract was for five years of surveillance. We are still paying. Every year we pay for them to go out there and monitor the seagrass. It's time for this to quit. I had a small farm in Indiana, and if I planted something and it didn't come up, it was not my fault. It was not the seed's fault. They had proof that it was 98% fertilized egg, and it would grow. Well, guess what? We'd done our part. We filled the sandbags. We planted the seagrass. We didn't pick the area. We didn't put it where they said. We put it where they said it would grow. We did not control the weather. It's not our fault that it's their fault that it didn't grow. It's the weather's fault. As Tim Ritchie said, the harbor's dying. Well, it was either caused by the weather or it was caused by a bad place, a bad location. But we should not have to come back and spend money again to replant seagrass someplace else It's not right. Please help us stop this ridiculous charge that only 300 lots is all we got to pay for all of this. We're getting ready to do another dredge inside. It was.

Thank you, sir. Thank you for your comments. Anybody else wishing to speak on agenda items only? That was the last of my speaking cards. If you wish to speak, please come forward, state your name for the record. We'll get you to fill out a card on the way out. Name for the record and item, ma'am.

Kathy Bateman, precinct 307, I think. This is on the 10th. good morning commissioners i'm here today to ask you to address two relatively simple issues before the next election season shade and reasonable space for election signs on appropriate county property let's start with the health and comfort of our voters we live in florida and our heat and sun can be intense not everyone is young and healthy or able to withstand prolonged exposure we have senior citizens people with disabilities and others who may Need protection from the heat voters may also have questions about the voting process and want to speak with volunteers who are there to provide information and assistance So there is comments. There's here's a common-sense solution allow temporary tents for volunteers to set up and and take down each day providing shade and shelter for voters who are waiting or have questions this doesn't have to be permanent or expensive it could be a standardized policy with designated locations and reasonable requirements to ensure tents don't interfere with accessibility traffic emergency access or polling operations the second issue is campaign signs i believe we should allow election signs on county properties during clearly defined short election period with exact same rules applying to everyone i'm not asking for special treatment for any candidate or political party i'm asking for clear rules and equal access defined beginning and ending dates size and placement requirements and mandatory penalties for violations There should be no buyback fees of signs that candidates already paid for that code enforcement picks up. This violates our First Amendment rights. this could save the county money and reduce the burden on code enforcement personnel who otherwise spend time identifying and removing improperly placed signs and let's remember we are constantly looking for ways to encourage people to participate in our elections we tell people to register learn about the candidates and get involved and vote civic participation shouldn't suddenly become something we try to hide Seeing candidates sign, seeing people participating, and seeing an election taking place can make voting feel like an important community event. Of course, there must be reasonable limits and any county policy must comply with Florida election laws and protect access and safety around polling places. But outside those protected areas, the county should look for ways to facilitate lawful civic participation, not unnecessarily restricted. So I'm asking the commission to direct staff to immediately look at two things, establish policy allowing temporary shade structures to appropriate locations where voters and election volunteers may be expressed,

Thank you for your comments, ma'am. Anybody else wishing to speak, please come forward. State your name for the record. You'll have three minutes. Okay, seeing nobody rise, we're gonna move on to consent. I'll start to my right, Commissioner Daugherty. Nothing to pull, sir. Commissioner Constance.

I'll pull B1 and F6.

Okay, Commissioner Truex. Okay, I have F15. l1 and b1 which you just pulled commissioner constance so the balance we have motion second move the balance is there any further discussion is there any opposition to the motion that passes four to zero uh commissioner constance you're recognized for b1 and f6 yeah so let's turn the mic on that'd be better thank you sir uh so for for b1 i did pull up that page from the july

20's like 28th late land use and that was the be one DRC dash 25 to show 75 waterside restoration project page. 28 public input and i would have to agree with mr robbins um ms wexler was a citizen she was not an attorney she was not representing anybody and at that section of the agenda she was part of public comment so i would amend these minutes to say at the end of that first paragraph under public input howard kunick comma desiree rebuse comma change it to Rob Robbins get rid of the end and then say and Jerry Wexler and then strike the next paragraph because why are they adding all of that detail when they weren't doing any other detail for any other person under public input further down after public input was closed carried five zero then their work counter comments during testimony where she came up as part of the respondent and then it was mentioned what she talked about i think that's appropriate so that would be my motion we have motion a second to amend the minutes is there any further discussion i'll put myself in the queue here uh oh commissioner dory go ahead yeah i just wanted to uh make sure everyone understood that the decision on the detail of the minutes is the clerk of the circuit court makes that decision we don't

and and what the clerk does is appropriate it doesn't have to be verbatim and this has been a way the county has done their their minutes for decades so I just want to get that on the record sir thank you thank you Commissioner Constance yeah didn't mean to jump ahead of you sir but yeah I want to agree with that we we are

Sometimes I'm struck by how little detail it is because they go by a certain standard of listing who spoke, not necessarily what they spoke about, not necessarily their opinion. It's just getting on the record who participated and then what the motion was and then what the vote was. There's not as much detail as you would expect. That's why we have audio visual

ALL THE BACKUP.

YEAH, WE HAVE THE MEETINGS FULLY RECORDED AND AVAILABLE TO THE PUBLIC FOR TWO YEARS, AND THAT'S IN ACCORDANCE WITH OUR PUBLIC RECORDS RETENTION RULES AND WHAT'S EXPECTED. BUT, YOU KNOW, HERE I THINK, YOU KNOW, AND I APPRECIATE THE SECOND, COMMISSIONER TRUMP. THANK YOU.

Okay, so I'll jump in. So Commissioner Daugherty, you said what I was going to say. The Board of County Commissioners are not responsible for taking the minutes. It's the clerk's constitutional duty to record the minutes of the meeting. I don't know. how they determine what is substantive enough to put in the minutes and what is left out. But there was a disparity between public testimony by some and then others. So if you're gonna add detail to some, then it should be more detail for all. So I believe your motion was to strike Jerry Waxler's testimony but then that leaves less testimony for the public. I wasn't sure if you were gonna have the clerk revisit and put in testimony of the others. To your point, public records in the video has a complete history of what was said however it's only available to the public for two years but upon a public records request you could get the full video and you can hear exactly word for word what each individual said at a meeting but your motion was just to strike Jerry Waxler's and Jim just basically leave it where they're naming the names of people who oppose and and Jerry Waxler basically what would be left for her

uh well because it doesn't even say that that she it just said she commented it doesn't give her opinion because it says the first paragraph citizens spoke against the petition um so should she be and jerry waxler spoke in favor in favor and leave it at that probably more appropriate yeah yeah i agree with you that would i would amend my motion to say that

Okay, so yeah. Yeah, that's correct. That's what I thought too. I just wanted to make sure we're clear. Absolutely. Okay. Yeah. Commissioner Dory, recognize her.

Yeah, that's essentially what I was going to comment on. There was a difference between the testimony from the bulk of the names and versus Ms. Waxler. But I think the format, the detail that's been provided is consistent with what we've seen for years. But that is an appropriate change though. Okay, and just for the record, let's restate the motion.

Okay, motion is to amend the second paragraph under public input to just say that Jerry Wexler spoke in favor. And delete everything else.

And that was the second. Okay, so we have a motion and a second. Is there any further discussion? And I'd just like to say thank you to the public for bringing that detail out. We go through a lot on these agendas and, you know, they were minutes, but I guess they could have been done better. Any further discussion? Any opposition to the motion? That passes four to zero. F6, sir. Yep.

So this is the... The item on the design of the restrooms, this is to approve a $540,000 cost for designing six public bathrooms which we're required to have, but then we have to pay for construction. And we pulled this, we discussed this during pre-agenda, and at this point with property tax reform on the ballot, I don't have an appetite for moving forward. I'm sorry that there are port-a-potties at these locations, but like right now, I really think we've got to look at tightening our belt. There's going to be other items we're going to discuss further down on this agenda, and there'll be items that we discuss later over the next couple of months where I think belt tightening is front and center because, in my opinion, we're looking at austerity budgets moving forward. So I'm not in favor of this item. Thank you, sir.

Thank you, sir. Commissioner Dougherty.

thank you mr chairman yeah i don't disagree with with your logic commissioner constance i just i think i'd prefer to maybe continue this or delay this until the next meeting so staff can come back and make sure we have adequate facilities though at these parks even though they're temporary and getting the cost of that too understood because we're that's that's just throwing the money out the door permanent but i'd like to understand all that before we vote on this item is there is this time sensitive Can we defer this till next meeting would be the 22nd? Yeah, we're good Kim saying we can wait till the 22nd. So that would that go ahead I'm gonna make a motion or make a motion postpone postpone till staff brings it back a little 22nd I think the 22nd would be adequate second.

Okay. We have a motion a second to postpone Item number f6. Is there any further discussion? Is there any opposition to the motion? That passes four to zero. Okay. It's my turn, item F15. I appreciate you adding the justification memo, but on one of the attached items I asked for the M and O, it would have been on the capital improvement budget sheet. There is no operating expenses listed here. And I think for the board, it's on there. I think we need to understand for each item or capital improvement, or item we're purchasing if there is a maintenance in operation, we need to take that into consideration. Just so it's complete, because there is a line item on the sheet.

Ken, is this on? Ken Stecker, Utilities. The actual item on the last directional drill machine we had that we purchased in 2021, Fleet let us know, is about $5,000 annually on the maintenance for that item. So I'm assuming it'll be roughly about the same.

Yeah, I appreciate the verbal, but it needs to be on the sheet. I brought that up specifically at pre-agenda, that's all. That was my point.

Okay.

Okay, thank you for that information.

so good morning commissioners cloud job assistant county administrator just to add that that form is used for both vehicles and for capital operating projects this is a vehicle so um it's a piece of equipment so we don't typically add that capital um operating component to something that's a vehicle or it's a maintenance it's yeah it's a maintenance and it's a very minimal maintenance amount

Well, like I said, I brought up a pre-agenda and staff did not chime in with any information on that. So, okay, thank you. Do we have a motion? Mr. Chair? Yes. You're recognized, Commissioner Constance. Sorry about that.

I mean, being that this is just a Sheriff's Association piggyback, I would postpone until they have all the information that you want and then bring it back. This is not time sensitive, right? This is, right? Okay.

There's a motion. Is there a second? I'm okay with the 5,000, I failed for lack of a second. I'm okay with the 5,000 verbal to keep it moving forward. Reading the justification memo, I mean, there is a net benefit to having the equipment in our inventory. And I wouldn't want to hold it up for that. Do I have a motion to approve? So moved. Okay, I'm sorry, sir. We have a motion. Second. And a second to move item F15. Is there any further discussion? Is there any opposition to the motion? That passes four to zero. Item L1, that is in regards to impact fee waiver it's asking us to if awarded it requires a contribution from the housing trust fund i don't believe that's correct if we can have mrs turner come up just for the record i don't believe there needs to be any budgeted action on this item we're allowed by statute to to waive without reimbursement

Good morning, Commissioners. For the record, Colleen Turner, Human Services Senior Manager. That's correct. This application was for a match to an application to Florida Housing Finance Corporation's RFA, and it is an impact fee waiver only. The $388,000 is the sum total of the per unit impact fee for a three story apartment. And so there will be no budget adjustment. It is a fee waiver.

Thank you. Any questions for staff? Do I have a motion?

Move approval.

Second. We have motion and second to move item L1. Is there any further discussion? Is there any opposition to the motion? That passes four to zero. okay we're going to move on to regular agenda i'm sorry well you're recognized thank you could we uh do the public hearings i know some folks are here to hear this first public hearing and okay we could do that let me go back to public hearings if there's no objection from the board i'm hearing no objection oversized vehicles yeah i'm just gonna hold that back up Yeah, I'm getting it right. Where are my public hearings here?

Over here.

Do they recognize Mr. Lyce? Yes, Mr. Lyce, you're recognized, sir. I'm just trying to pull up my...

Well, let me read it before you do in that way. Yeah, I know.

I always do that to you.

Commissioner, for the record, John Elias, Public Works Director. The first public hearing agenda item we have is to prohibit oversized vehicles parking on the county right of way. There is an attachment that's just the ordinance. We work with the Sheriff's Department and our county attorney's office at the direction of the Board of County Commissioners to bring this back, and I will entertain any question you might have. It's pretty well spelled out in there.

Any questions for Mr. Elias?

That commission comes into no no no question however I got to tell you there's a big enough problem on people parking oversized vehicles in the middle of the street to unload much less in the public right away so I'm fully behind this I'm waiting for public testimony but yeah I want to see this move forward.

after regular yeah okay here we go just regulars forever yeah i keep going i can't can't find the page okay so we're going to open this item to the public anybody from the public wishing to speak on item t1 please come forward state your name for the record you'll have five minutes anybody wishing to come forward on item t1 prohibit oversized vehicles parking the county right away please come forward state your name for the record you'll have five minutes

Chris McTeague live on Grandin Ave in Charlotte I didn't realize that was on the semis and all but the right-of-ways and everything is like out of control Just over the weekend here. There was over 20 semis parked there Chamberlain and 41 I live over there and they're like the right-of-ways are trashed like and stop signs are blocked and My most got hit twice can't see the stop sign gonna keep inching out inching out Kids can't even go on the streets over there fish or anything changing oil tires The middle of the roads, I mean backing up it's changing stuff or whatever it may be I Don't know what else you can do. There's a place in Panagorda off Tucker's great. I think we can do storage and It's just out of control. I don't know what else I could do, but as I said, too, the right-of-ways are completely, like, trashed over there. I don't know what can be done, but I'm just parking over there. It's, like, out of hand. If you drive by there, it's a mess. Everybody knows. Come to my house, like, oh, turn where all the semis are at. I'm like, oh, great, yep. But anyway, I don't know what we can do about it, but it's, like, out of control. It's bad, bad. That's all I got.

Thank you, sir. Thank you for your comments. Anybody else wishing to speak on item T1, please come forward, state your name for the record. You'll have five minutes.

MR. CHAIRMAN, I SEE NO ONE ELSE RISING. MOVE CLOSE PUBLIC INPUT.

SECOND. WE HAVE A MOTION SECONDED AND CLOSE PUBLIC INPUT. IS THERE ANY FURTHER DISCUSSION? IS THERE ANY OPPOSITION TO THE MOTION? THAT PASSES FOUR TO ZERO. COMMISSIONER CONSTANT, YOU'RE IN THE QUEUE.

MR. CHAIRMAN, MOVE AN ORDINANCE OF THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS OF CHARLOTTE COUNTY, FLORIDA AMENDING ARTICLE 4, CHAPTER 2-4 OF THE CODE OF LAWS AND ORDINANCES OF CHARLOTTE COUNTY, FLORIDA AMENDING SECTION 2-4-79 to prohibit parking of certain vehicles and equipment within the right-of-way, providing for penalties, providing for codification, providing for severability, providing for an effective date.

Second. We have a motion and a second to move the ordinance. Is there any further discussion? Commissioner Doherty, you're recognized, sir.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. John, you obviously have coordinated this with the Sheriff's Office. What kind of notification signage of any, is this ordinance by itself sufficient for the Sheriff to be able to enforce?

We've worked through that. Is your button, are you green? Sorry, Commissioner. There is an element of financial impact statement where there are some signs, but we're trying to keep this high level as we can so that it's over the entire county. And to the citizen who spoke, this was really one of the catalysts to get this project moving forward. So we have talked with the Sheriff's Department. And we're on board. And they're on board. Very good, thank you.

Commissioner Constance and Truex. Yes, thanks, Chair. Yeah, and this is not just those vehicles. This is companies that are putting fiber in that are leaving their equipment everywhere, parking in rights-of-way overnight. They just can't do that. They're polluting the landscape and polluting the environment because, right, there's oils and all kinds of things coming out of these vehicles and these rights-of-way. and then it goes to the stormwater and that's not you know we don't want to get hit with dep violations because we're not being good stewards i do appreciate the fact that this is all-encompassing i just think it's going to be part of our rules not needing to put signs up anywhere they they just need to know you can't park you're sort of violating a few people they're going to get the idea thank you thanks sir commissioner recognize

Yeah, I just want to thank Chris and his dad for bringing this forward. Chris was instrumental in feeding me the information and the pictures of these violations as I see it, even without having an ordinance, because this isn't their property. So they're utilizing someone else's property slash right of way of the county, and it was a very unsafe situation. So I appreciate staff's work on this and support.

Yeah, I also saw the images that were emailed to me and, you know, picture says a thousand words, right? It looked like a truck stop over there. So that's why we have the ordinance today. Thank you for bringing this to our attention and the attention of the board and staff. Okay, so we have a motion and a second. Is there any further discussion? Is there any opposition to the motion? That passes four to zero. Next, Mr. Elias, item number T2, consider approving an ordinance to abolish the Cook and Brown Street MSVU Advisory Board.

That's, you presented the item, Commissioner, again for the record, John Elias, Public Works Director. The thing I'll say with this, because during the last couple of years we have public hearings when we're raising or lowering an assessment, typically it's folks come out in support or against something. We've struggled with some of these more rural areas like this where we can't get enough folks on the advisory board, so that's really the only reason that we're bringing this is that we can't ever get enough folks keep the advisory board going.

Yeah, I seem to remember this one where folks showed up for the assessment and the board said let's put an MSBU in place and get the citizens in there to give us input on their work program. So we did that and nobody, none of the citizens wanted to participate.

I will jokingly say that a lot of times we try to reach out as much as we can to the folks and work through this. But that's really what's happened here. The issues that we had for Cook Brown were some of the driveways being put in for the FPL polls and just generally our work program stuff that we typically answer.

Okay, any questions for staff? I'm going to open this up to the public. Anybody from the public wishing to speak on item T2, please come forward, state your name for the record, you'll have five minutes. Last call, anybody wishing to speak, please come forward, you'll have five minutes on item T2.

Mr. Chairman, I see no one rising. Move to close public input.

Second. We have motion to second to close public input. Is there any further discussion? Is there any opposition to the motion? That passes four to zero. Commissioner Turek, do you recognize it?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move an ordinance of the Board of County Commissioners of Charlotte County, Florida relating to municipal service benefit units repealing section 4-6-195 of the Code of Laws and Ordinances of Charlotte County, Florida.

thereby abolishing the cook and brown street unit advisory board providing for inclusion in the charlotte county code providing for severability and providing for an effective date second we have motion second is there any further discussion is there any options to the motion it passes four to zero now we're going to move on to regular agenda thank you sir okay we have an appointment by ballot for the manchester waterway advisory board if you have your ballots please pass them over to mr flores to tally those here you go sir You got four?

Okay, since we have four here, we do have a tie, so I will- Let's phone a friend.

Where's Commissioner Deutch?

There's three more.

Okay, we're going to re-vote to re-vote. Pass those down. we got one more coming down the line better not be two two again we'll reuse them there you go sir all right thank you so this uh this second round we do have a majority and that is for mr bettencourt thank you so we have we have motion second to accrue mr bettencourt um to the manchester waterway advisory board is there any further discussion is there any opposition to the motion that passes four to zero okay we're going to move on to item s2 performance evaluation county administrator hector flores And we have some more handouts here. Okay. Any discussion? Commissioner Constance, recognize her. Yes, sir. Thank you.

I just passed out because we're going to be doing evaluations for the county administrator, the county attorney, and our economic development director. And I just passed out their annual salary, FRS contribution, medical, miscellaneous benefits, automobile allowance, and then their employer contribution to their 457B. And so these are pretty sizable packages. I know we're always doing a 4% increase, but I also passed out the per hour rate for top um directors and i again um i said i was going to start talking about austerity we've got we've got financial issues we're going to be dealing with in this county and i think they're going to get worse after november so i just want that in perspective when we're deciding if we're going to be giving salary increases at this point okay that's all i have sir thank you thank you sir

Any other comments? So I guess I'll jump in here really quick. I appreciate your comments, Commissioner Constance. I've looked at running a county of a quarter of a million people. It's a lot of moving parts. And on its face, these salaries and packages, large but in comparison when you look at what others pay to run a county you know it's the old adage you get what you pay for I don't disagree we should be looking at all times at these salary packages we typically do a 4% pay increase every year if they meet the standards are you proposing something less like 2% I mean it is something you're making across the board proposal I believe in Sarasota County, speaking to one of the commissioners there, I believe they directed staff not to come back with anything exceeding 2% from the previous year's budgets.

yeah you know without without really good guidance from our fiscal you know I'm just very concerned I'm almost you know wondering if we shouldn't be talking about a salary freeze and the reason I say something like that is I don't want to start cutting positions and I don't think that's going to happen until after November but that's going to be something that's going to have to be dealt with in the first quarter. I mean, you know, what's crazy is we're proposing a budget and this month we're going to be talking about our budget for the next year, but the vote in November could severely impact and I think it's better to start thinking about that now than to react later on when, you know, we're already having, you know, issues. We haven't been fully paid back by FEMA. We're lucky that we haven't had a storm this year. That's all I can say, but I'm throwing it out there because I think that we need to start someplace and these are important conversations. They're difficult, but I think they're important.

I don't disagree. They are difficult conversations. When I was in business, I always look at it this way. When I draw my salary from my private business, my goal was to pay for myself just in the decision making process and what I bring to the table, right? I look at collectively the institutional knowledge that our administration has and what they bring to the table. Is that knowledge a net benefit to the citizens? If you get somebody in there that's inexperienced and you go with the lowest price, We're making million dollar decisions on a regular basis. You screw up a couple of those, the salaries seem a lot better at that point. That's what I'm saying. So I always look at it through the prism. Is the information when I have my staff meetings with administration, and I call it collectively, not just Mr. Flores, Mrs. Lewis and Mrs. Jubb as well, am I getting you know, good information with that institutional knowledge. And I'll be honest with you, some of the instant recall they have on technical issues, just navigating the technical issues alone is saving the taxpayers money. So I kind of have that kind of spin on it when I look at this thing. If you look just at the number, yeah, it's an easy decision, but we gotta cut. But when you look at it holistically overall, and the value that that staff brings to the table, is that a net benefit at the end of the day? And are they paying for themselves? That's the decision that I think about when I talk about, when I look at salaries. Because sometimes, what do they say, you cut off your nose in spite of your face. Commissioner Doherty, recognize, sir.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yeah, I respect Commissioner Constance, what you're saying. I think we're going to have to make some very, very difficult decisions if the Amendment 3 is successful in November. But we don't know that yet. We just don't know that yet. However, I think looking at what you're saying too, Mr. Chairman, you know, it's kind of like the marketplace, you know, when I was in business. You know, I'd keep good people on board that had the understanding. I was in a kind of a specialty part of the engineering world, and I had to keep those people well compensated and appropriately compensated. And we look at this organization, we're so unique. We're just not a county. We're effectively a municipality. we're not only a county commission we're de facto city councilman for the city of charlotte county you know the way we're set up one municipality a 20 some odd not even 30 000 people i don't believe so we're and we provide municipal services so the load here is a lot different from even you look at the people north and south of us to have all those municipalities have city councils city managers so forth and so on so i do think we're okay i think right now but it could get painful after November 3rd, and that's when we begin the real planning, I believe. I really believe that, that we're going to sit down. All departments will have to look at it. Everybody that's basically funded out of ad valorem property taxes, all that's going to have to be looked at. So I do respect what you're saying, but I'm going to wait and see what happens November 3rd. I would say I'm okay with these evaluations and giving them the same adjustment that the other staff members have received. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner Constance.

Yeah, I appreciate that. Again, just wanted to bring it up because I think it's important for transparency, get it on the record what the salary packages are for all of them. Also, I don't want to make a decision in a vacuum. I really think we need to see these analogous numbers for Sarasota County, Manatee County, lee and collier to understand what they're getting and you're right if those municipalities you've got four cities in sarasota you've got seven or eleven in lee county there's a lot so you know you do want to have parity and see where those things are so i think this starts that discussion um and i think after november you're going to have to look at that and keep it all in perspective so that's all i want to say thank you okay so i put myself in the queue so if you talk about parity we might be in trouble because we might have to start dishing out more raises

If I'm not mistaken, I remember doing an analysis when we hired Mr. Flores. I know for sure Lee County, Sarasota County are getting more, and I believe the city of Punta Gorda city manager makes more than Mr. Flores. I'm not 100% on that.

I think you might be right.

Yeah, but Mr. Flores, to be honest, when I looked at it, was one of the lowest paid county administrators in the region. So if you want parity, it might be even higher than what it is now, because we did do that. And as far as Mr. David, I remember looking at other salaries in the parity. He's below parity for the region, again. So let's put this in perspective. I believe our senior staff are making less already than others in our neighboring counties, and even the city of Punta Gorda, but we can check on that. Mrs. Tracy, I'm not so sure I'd have to look on hers. And Mr. Gurum, I mean, That's based on the budget and statute, so I don't know where we can go with him. As a matter of fact, I believe when we practically begged him to take a lower salary because we couldn't fit the position, because we didn't have any money to pay, if you remember on the MPO. And he graciously accepted probably a much lower wage than what he could have gotten elsewhere, but he wanted to stay in Charlotte County. So I have Commissioner Chuek, St. Constance.

Yeah, Mr. Chairman, I would move R2, 3, and 4 as being accepted, approved, and move for a 4% increase for all three positions. I'll second that.

Okay, we have a motion and a second. Commissioner Constance.

Yeah, and again, I put all four, I asked for all four just because those are the ones that we. you know, have to vote on. And again, I wanted to basically have this discussion because I think this was very good at defending the decision. You know, I didn't want to just have it be, well, yep, there they are, improve the 4%. And I think we have to have that conversation. I think we have to have the public understand how we're thinking so that it's not just a rubber stamp. Nothing up here is a rubber stamp. I want them to know that.

Look, I appreciate the conversation. And you know what? Before we do the final budget, I would like to direct staff to come back and do a comparative analysis of the packages of their colleagues in the region, just so we can get an idea of where Charlotte County sits in terms of pay package, and by the way, Charlotte County isn't the only one that offers the benefit package. No. That's not unique to Charlotte County. This is standard. Yeah, this is standard operating procedure throughout the state of Florida. These are the packages. So we can work with staff and just do another analysis just so we can put ourselves and the public at ease of where we stand in terms of in relationship to other pay packages in the area. okay we have a motion in a second um to approve i'm sorry that's two three and four yes two uh we have commission four i said r that's two three and four okay s two all three okay that's two three and four i had commissioner doherty in the queue i just dropped out i i we you brought up lax i just want to confirm we'll take care of that at mpm yeah at mpo no i get it yeah well he was on the list so i just figured out yeah on that okay we have a motion a second is there any further discussion Is there any opposition to the motion? That passes four to zero. Okay, we're gonna move on to item S5, Fishing Pier, Bayshore East Discussion and Direction.

Good morning, Commissioners. Tommy Scott, Community Services Director. This will be the first of three presentations I'll give you about different fishing piers that we're bringing forward for some discussion and direction. The first one, as the Chairman said, is the Bay Shore Live Oak Park East Fishing Pier. So east, to orient you, is the pier that is closest to Sunseeker. So the board, you all approved a contract for to begin the design process with Apex Companies. So that was to go through the full design and permitting process and do limited construction oversight. They included reviewing what our peer is and was and then the shoreline resiliency and then hardening measures that we have. The purpose was to identify deficiencies and compare replacement alternatives. So I've also attached the technical memo that was provided by Apex, the design firm. So this will be kind of a recap of that. So a little bit of history about the Bayshore Live Oak Park and the East Fishing Pier specifically. The park itself is a little over 10.4 acres located adjacent to the Charlotte Harbor. We acquired that land between 1999 and 2005 with a variety of different funding mechanisms, both with sales tax, general fund grants from the state of Florida. THE EAST FISHING PIER WAS ORIGINALLY CONSTRUCTED IN 1995, AND IT SERVES AS A FISHING PIER AND WATER ACCESS FOR THE PUBLIC. THE PIER ITSELF WAS APPROXIMATELY 477 FEET, 7 FEET WIDE, 477 FEET LONG, 7 FEET WIDE, AND AT THE END THERE WAS A TERMINAL FISHING PIER THAT WAS 15 FEET BY 8. JUST TO ORDINATE YOU, HERE ARE SOME PICTURES OF WHAT THE PIER USED TO LOOK LIKE. Then we had a variety of storms, specifically Helene and Milton that came through and did some pretty significant damage to the piers. As you can see, there's not really a pier left, it's just some of the pilings that were there. And then on the pictures on the left and the right is the undermining behind the seawall. You see a variety of the tie down straps that are somewhat there, but not necessarily doing what they're supposed to do. So Apex went through and did an evaluation of what was there, looked at the substructure that was still available, which were those pilings that you saw that were sticking out of the water. There is no decking available or left. All of that has since been relocated via the previous storms. They looked at the type of material that was originally there, which is just a regular timber fishing pier. They came up with a variety of different options. Also it had a four inch galvanized fire standpipe, which is required by code. And then electrical service, conduit lighting, and then the junction boxes that go along with that as well. Those all were obviously sustained damage because they're no longer there either. The broader project beyond the pier itself is that shore lining hardening and armoring. Really looking at how we're going to repair and replace that just because of the erosion that occurred due to the storm surge and the wave action. Looking at alternatives for the sea wall replacement, whether that is doing rip rap or other ways and mechanisms for scour protection. We're trying to do this in a coordinated effort. We're also putting in all of the efforts that with this contract and the designs are making sure that we are providing ourselves with the best opportunity to be FEMA compliant with the contract language. And then also giving ourselves the best opportunity to get financial support back from FEMA, although none of that is guaranteed. These, as we've done with many of the other peer presentation I've given, these are the lenses that we're really looking through just to make sure that we are trying to look at resiliency, the FEMA compliance, a variety of analysis of different opportunities from a design perspective so that we can provide public use, making sure we are ADA compliant, and then all of them will provide the cost effectiveness and give you the options of those different design options. So the design options will be specifically for the pier itself. There's four options, replacing kind, basically going back with that same timber look, same sizing of timbers, what you would traditionally see from a pier system throughout the county and most waterways. Second is a cast in place concrete replacement. We'll get into a little bit more about that. pearl truited frp which is a fiber reinforced system that will describe this as a newer we've never experienced anything like this so something to talk about and then d is a heavy timber so still timber but with larger cross braces and timber that is being used all of the options will have a regular height of what was there and then a two foot elevated as well just to provide another layer of resiliency So the first one, basically just going back with what we had, again, this is the same diameter of pilings, the same structure of two by fours and two by sixes for the actual deck and railing system. Again, there will be two height options, what it was, and then two feet higher. Pros of this option, it's going to have the lowest anticipated construction costs. It's a pretty familiar process for construction companies, so we feel pretty comfortable with getting someone to bid on this type of work. Again, traditional timbers, the increased elevation does give us more resiliency. The cons of this design and construction method will be the long-term maintenance exposure. Again, we're just putting that same out there. It's subject to, whether it's bio attributes that will erode the pilings themselves. It's got moisture issues that there will have some degradation. then there's the corrosion aspects of the different types of fasteners that we use again we'll have we stay at the lower elevation we'll have that same level of storm damage exposure we had before heightened will give us a little bit more resiliency For clarification, do you want me to keep going through all of them or take questions as we go through each one, Mr. Chairman?

Well, if somebody's in the queue, I would- I'll just keep rolling until you tell me to stop. Okay, well, since you paused- Yes, sir. I know in previous presentations, you'd have a schedule of permitting agencies and time frames to consider. So something may be more, but we can get it done two years sooner. I didn't see that on here for each option.

So with these options, because they're all going to require new permitting, they're all going to require the same types of permitting, that being FDEP, Army Corps of Engineers, National Fisheries. So some of the presentations and technical memos that are provided, and there's three different options today in there, two of them give you more specific of those that outline specifically which agencies. One doesn't include those agencies, but it's still going to require those. That's pretty much all. all of the required agencies for any of our waters because we all are in water preserve so we have to include the national fisheries in those as well so those are the agencies the regulatory agencies we have the reason there's not a specific timeline that is outlined is there is no timeline required statutorily or legislatively for those regulatory agencies So we have a general timeline that we have always used and discussed. So we have that. I mean, I can walk through that. I can send that around to you. That generally gives it. But the technical memos did not go through and give that specificity to these because Because we're going to put this one specifically back in the same place, even if it's different materials, the permitting is going to be the same. There aren't any different permit requirements. Some of the other ones we talked about differences was specifically at Placida, and that was the walkway where we had options and then going out into the water. Some of those were not going to require going back to the regulatory agencies. Other options did, which is why we had some conversations about where there were differences. This one is going to have the same regulatory agency permits, same timelines.

okay so no matter which option it's all the same it's all the same yes sir that's correct thank you so can i get your contents yes thank you mr chair um i'll tell you what can you remind us because the bay shore pier west is under contract it's going to construction is going to start next month what did we decide for that and what was the cost on that one

Let me see if I have that one on here. So it was supposed to start next month, but we got hung up with Army Corps. They wanted another bite at the apple, so we're going through a re-verification process with them. So I don't have an actual start date yet. if memory serves me I want to say it was 2.6 million dollars but I'll have to go back and look at previous presentation to get you the actual amount of what that peer replacement is going to be and we went back with like with like because that was before the storm so that wasn't storm damage that was just age and wear so we need to replace it so we had designed it to be what it was so it wasn't going to require any other additional I mean it had to go through the same permitting process is that the same as alternative a Yes. Alternative A is putting back what it is and what will be at West.

So West is going to be alternative A. We're trying to decide do we stick with A at East or do we do something different?

That is correct. Because we had already designed the replacement of West and had gotten our permits, they just required us to go through a re-verification process. It won't theoretically change the design. It's just taking a re-review of the regulatory agencies. But again, all that was designed and permitted prior to storms.

Right. So we're going to wind up with exactly what we had before on the west one. This may be more resilient or not once we decide what we're doing.

That is absolutely correct. Those are decisions that you will give us direction on which way you want us to go.

And then one other quick question, because I did review this and I want to hear the rest, and there's a lot of interested parties, a lot of the fishermen out there want to know what we're going to do. Did we at all reach out to Sunseeker to see if they were interested in doing a public-private partnership because this is closer to their property and maybe it's something that since they don't have a marina and they really don't have water access, this couldn't be something that they might want to bid on as far as a franchise or something. It's our peer. they'll help us construct it but then they would be able to launch tours and things off of it or you know i don't know i mean i understand it's a fishing pier but if we're going to go extra steps and spend all because some of these

these particular these three presentations these three items some of these costs are staggering yes sir okay so so let me i'm sorry yes sir in that they're staggering um we have not approached sunseeker i don't know that uh if that is something you would like us to do i'll talk with administration about how we can move that forward i don't know that that has much bearing on and i'll pause right there

I'm just curious yeah no he saw our eyes moving good morning for the record Emily Lewis W County Administrator commissioners Sunseeker did approach us months ago actually pipe in prior to the storms about wanting us to give them a portion of our park because they wanted to create a natural kayak launch there at the time we were not interested in giving up any public land we have not had any conversations about a public private partnership however we do know that the community's demand for fishing piers and boat ramps are out there and we are trying diligently to get them up and running as quick as possible

While you're there, I mean, just thinking about this as we're talking, because if we reconstructed the fishing pier portion and then at the end sort of made an L with something a lot bigger that they wanted to contribute so that they had an ability to launch boats and do things out there, that becomes an amenity that a lot of people could use publicly, but then they could also have other you know tour type things that you know folks you get on and now they could take a water taxi over to the fisherman's village or you know it opens things up a lot further and obviously this one being closer and this one being possibly a lot more expensive for us to keep resiliency there it makes sense so you know we'll talk about it today but this particular pier think we may postpone action and see if we can have a conversation with them and maybe we do redesign depending on and I don't know you know I'm not sure about the bidding process I don't know if we have to open it up to everybody else out there but the point is that I don't want to make a decision today that then sort of hamstrings us because this I think this is an opportunity certainly at the board's collective decision will happily entertain whatever conversations you want us to have with any private partners And I've had no discussions. I'm just thinking about it now knowing that this one's a lot closer and some of these options are pretty robust but very expensive. Yes. Thank you.

Yeah, I would just hate to duplicate what we already have on the next item. We have a water taxi and we have a boardwalk that goes underneath and traverses so people at Sunseeker can utilize that existing water taxi facility that's in the next item. I just would hate to spend money to create something that's already there that they can utilize.

It wouldn't be us. It would be if they wanted to have another option because that may be deeper water. I mean, I don't know. I don't know that we've approached them. I think they're looking at that one amenity, but there may be an option for

charter fishing a whole bunch of different things I just I don't know that we've we've discussed it with them I don't know if there's an appetite but I just thank you sir yeah thank you you recognize her to continue thank you uh Tommy Scott community service director still uh so uh option B is cast in place so I put a little uh visual representation of what this would look like this is a newer this would be a completely new concept of peers in Charlotte County think of this as Like major roadway, major, like I remember when they were doing the I-275 interchange where they build a tray underneath and then pour concrete over the top of it. So it's concrete pilings and that process for a decking with concrete on top of it. this is going to have some pretty high durability and structural mass to it which would hopefully provide a higher level of resiliency significantly lower maintenance requirements obviously if it's all concrete and the difference being between human traffic and vehicular traffic so this would not have as heavy of a stress load on it again improve resilience because again it's going to be all concrete poured The elevation, again, there's options for that as well, but just the construction methodology makes it more resilient. It does obviously on the con side come with a higher initial construction cost. It's the most complex construction that is going to happen to try and make sure we can get companies to be able to bid on this to do this. So that would be a struggle for us. The increased dead loading, again, that is really just the mass of it being out there. It's heavy, so it weighs on itself a lot. And making sure that it requires increased foundational support to make sure we can support that load. Commissioner Truex, I said that right, right? Okay, I had to look that up. I didn't know how that was going to apply to this, so I looked it up. So I thought I did okay on that one.

The engineer would have spoke up first. You did fine.

I did okay? Okay. Trying. Another new option for us is this protruded FRP system, which is a fiber reinforced polymer. So it's kind of, we have used, decking right that is polymer based this is the whole thing is basically built out of it it's a new concept for us um but it's so it's it's something that we're excited to at least look at it has a higher level of resistance for corrosion as well it is pretty strong from what they they tell us this one does come with two different height options what was out there before and then a higher elevation as well the pros and cons pros being that it it has corrosion resistance and it is a lighter weight lower maintenance cost favorable marine exposure just because of the environment that it's in that the salt water won't really have as much negative impacts on it as a wood would have and then the resiliency efforts if we were to go higher cons it is a specialized material so we'll have to work with trying to bid that out contractor familiarity will be a challenge for us making sure if we can even find people who have any experience doing that um the thermal movement and stiffness so that this one it is as it heats up try on this one commissioner wayne on if i'm messing up um as it gets hot it potentially could impact that polymer um and then making it either rigid or at times um it might make a little more fluid and it moves a little bit more so that that's a contact okay on that one Yeah, okay. Option D, heavy timber. So think of what we had before, but instead of using two by fours, we're using three by 12s, heavier, more dense timber for not only the pilings, but the cross members and the substructure. It is a very constructible pier, something we're very used to, just the only real difference being the sizing of the pilings and the timber members that are there. Again, it'll have two height options. Again, pros and cons, this is pretty traditional marine construction for piers. It does have, it is because it is heavier, it will have a higher level of resiliency that goes along with it. It's lower cost than the concrete and that FRP, so that is a pro to it, and then the evaluation, the elevation gives us more resiliency sorry about that cons it will have a higher level of maintenance in the concrete or the frp it still will have vulnerability because it is wood to marine biologicals and the moisture stuff boring type things but it will also be more resilient just because it's heavier and it will have a higher cost than if we're just replacing with in-kind Here's the cost breakdown for you, both same elevation, raised elevation for the four different options that were proposed. It is the recommendation of both the consultant and staff to go with alternative D at the higher elevation cost of 2.9. And with that, I stand ready to answer any questions you all might have.

Commissioner Turek, you're recognized, sir.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Tommy, thank you for the presentation. Have we, as a test staff, have you guys looked at a combination of systems? Like the concrete piles and heavy timber for the rest of it?

So not specifically on this one. We had a previous vendor that looked at that initially, and I want to say it was El Jobin. Back then the thought was if having timber allowed some more flex to it than having a concrete system. So concrete pilings with timber, it created a lot more movement in between those two is what that consultant told us back then. They did not evaluate any hybrid of mixtures of concrete pilings with wood, timber, decking, or substructures on any of these. They did not do that. Interesting.

Well, I first of all wanna say that we definitely need to go two feet higher for better resiliency, I agree with that. But I'm looking at even potentially looking at heavy timber, It's just to save money, not using cast in place concrete, but going to heavy timber. But I think that we need to talk about using some of the protruded FRP for decking and handrails for lower maintenance. I know it's going to raise the cost on this, but I think your long term expense is going to be reduced in maintenance by dual combination. I like concrete myself, but I just think we want to watch the belt a little bit. Yes sir.

Thank you, sir. Thank you. The funding sources again?

So right now, we would be utilizing the hurricane fund until we were to be able to get reimbursements. We've paid for the design efforts out of this. We started that effort back in January with monies allocated from the board through our smalls projects to kickstart the design process. Long-term construction of it, we would work with fiscal on that, but I'm pretty sure it would be hurricane fund until we were able to receive any, if we received any reimbursements from FEMA.

Yeah, this is a FEMA eligible project, yeah. Yeah, I'm pushing towards staff recommendation with the heavy wood timbers as well. I think anytime we can go back and add resiliency, It's not a small cost, but to go the extra two feet is almost $300,000 to raise the whole thing. I do find value in that to get the bank for the buck on resiliency. So I'm leaning towards staff recommendation to the 2.9 for the long term durability and resilience. Commissioner Constance.

Yeah, well, you can get raised elevation for $600,000 less if you just keep the replace it in in kind. But yeah, I mean, I'm thinking the heavy timber probably makes the most sense. So I probably would support that motion for D with a with a raised elevation.

Okay, Commissioner Doherty, recognize her.

thank you mr chairman yeah i'm intrigued by uh commissioner trex's comment heavy timber is what i when i came in this morning i want to do heavy timber staff recommendation the connections the decking you're right and all that that's the only part that really makes makes a lot of sense the decking trying to get that up in the air too but um with the dollars being the way they are and the uncertainty with reimbursement too. We don't know, there's a lot of things going around the country right now between floods and fires and FEMA dollars. I'm questioning the future of funding from the federal government. So I think we really have to come out of the blocks with raising it up i think we're all in agreement on that we need to get it up in the air a couple of feet more but i think i'll stay with the heavy timber i'm intrigued though by the concept and if there's any way we get the designers to kind of get a get a little bit tighter number on decking changes for for maintenance reasons I'd like to understand that you know but I for right now to move ahead I don't know the design would be that significantly different fasteners would be different but the design would be very similar you know so that's why that's why I think it'd be good just get a little bit more data on that but to move ahead have essentially heavy timber and raised up Commissioner Truax recognize there my thought is heavy timber structure yep and then get an option for

the composite decking and railing systems to see what the upcharge might be for that. Installation's not going to be, labor's not going to be the issue. Fasteners are going to be the same for anti-corrosion type fasteners. So I think just having that as an option, the design would be the same pretty much. Pretty much the same design, yeah. As long as they utilize the heavier If you're using five quarter, then you have to have more supporting systems. If they're using the two by six like we would put in for the heavy timber for decking, then we wouldn't have to have, I don't think, any more support system in there for it.

If I may, just to clarify. So we, even the composite, the heavy timber is for the piling, substructure, cross-bracings. We would still go back with the TREC composite decking system, so it would be more resilient.

So that is our standard model.

The heavy is more on the substructure and the cross-bases and the pilings themselves. But the deck itself would still be that polymer type TREC.

um what type what type of railing system though um i believe it is wood railing with the composite um cap so top wood wood for the side wood structure and and balusters okay all right sounds pretty good actually yeah i mean structurally it's it's very it's fine i've just i was just thinking long-term maintenance so but i think just going with the heavy timber then is the way to go

Okay, so do I have a motion for option D with the raised elevation? So moved. Second. Okay, we have a motion and a second for option D with the raised elevation 2.9 million as recommended by staff. Is there any further discussion? Commissioner Constance recognized.

Yeah, so how much of the prior piles will be saved? Are we going to be able, none of it? No. Is that going to be removed or are they just? No. Okay.

Okay, is there any further discussion? Yeah, there was a footnote in there about alternatives assumed full removal and replacement, but did the engineers go in there and say they've got to go? Has that determination been made?

They did make that decision that we needed to remove them.

Okay, all right. Motion to second. Any further discussion?

What about the wildlife? What about, I mean, there's habitat, you know. is there not a way to put piles in between or I guess it just you know we're you know we got a lot of oyster beds there we got a lot of just that's you know I'm surprised we're not getting gonna get hit by DEP or somebody else saying well now that you're removing that environmental structure you got a you got to put hard bottom someplace I mean this is it gets kind of silly so do we know they're gonna leave us alone on that

So we're pretty confident that going back with wood, oysters will reattach themselves. We have plans in place to attach artificial type paneling in there that will help with oyster. They're called oyster panels, I believe. So that way we'll add to that as well. But again, that's why the natural review through the fisheries is a requirement to be able to look at all of those things. But this is standard application process to be able to put that back in. That's why we probably look more favorably through that since we're going back with the wood structure, just the sizing of it will be a little bit different.

All right, so we make this decision, now what, it goes out to bid? We don't have permits yet, do we?

We don't, so we'll go into the, this is only conceptual, right? To give us direction on which design you want the consultant to actually design. So then they'll design while going through the permitting process. It's a parallel path that they'll go through, and once they come back with 30s, probably with these through 30s all the way through 60s and 90s we'll be working with the regulatory agencies to make sure that they are part of that process so it's not just here's a final set and that's the first time they've seen it and then come back with things we have to adjust to it's an ongoing iterative process that we'll work through and that's how all of these have gone so far up till now that's just the process so we'll be working with them side by side and that's part of this budget

For the design, absolutely.

Construction will come back. That's a different story.

Yeah, and I think, I'm really concerned. I think you're going to hit more bumps than you thought. Did we use the same piles for the West Bridge? We did, right? For the West Pier?

I want to say that was a full replacement as well just because no I'm I'm like 98 sure just because I know that and there's a term for it but where they eat out the pilings under right underneath the water so it starts to narrow we just had a lot of that which is why it was designed and permitted for construction before the storms right was because it had structural issues with it beforehand so it was I'm 98 sure and again we're pretty comfortable with these estimates right now from a construction perspective going through that again I don't have a crystal ball I can't tell you exactly what things are gonna cost when we actually bid them out for construction but with the best information that we have looking forward this is what the opinion of probable cost will be for the the construction of these years thank you thanks Jim any further discussion any opposition to the motion that passes four to zero

Okay, Mr. Scott, you're recognized for item number six.

Thank you, Tom Scott, Community Services Director. So second one is Live Oak Point, so this phase two. This is underneath US 41 from the connection point over near Sunseeker underneath the bridges over to Live Oak Point Park. Again, same company that is working on the Bayshore Pier project is Apex. Again, going through that same evaluation process, I attached their technical memo as well. a little history on the park itself it's actually fdep fdp fdot department of transportation it's their land with an fpa fp l easement and then we have another contract that we have with them on top of it to provide public access for a park So we acquired that easement back in 2012 and then went through the design and construction process through multiple phases to come up with the parking areas, restrooms, the pedestrian navigation walkways, shoreline improvements with the seawall, the boardwalk system, and the piers that are there. um so this is phase two uh phase one is uh the erosion and revetment near the sea wall sidewalks and restroom and commissioner constance you had asked about that at pre-agenda I got some information from our staff. So that's the scope. Right now we are working, we have a pre-construction meeting with the construction company. That'll be for the erosion and revetment around the seawall. So we're working on a meeting with them sometime in the coming weeks. The restroom is still being evaluated, whether that is the best location. Should we move it to a different location further away from the water? It would still be a modular system, but we're actively working on phase one of that. And once we complete that, then we'd be able to at least open up the parking lot portions of Live Oak. Thank you. Yes, sir. Okay, so pictures, these pictures kind of represent what the Live Oak point pier system looked like beforehand. This was a unique design for us. It's concrete pilings with kind of a gravitational decking system that it kind of sat on there. And I think everybody's thought was when they designed this was, these things are really heavy. They're not going anywhere. Mother Nature decided her own that they were not work. Again, unique concept. I mean, those panels, they look, it's really hard to tell, but they are at times four feet wide to 10 to 12 feet in length and about four inches thick. So, yeah, they're pretty heavy duty. But when we got the surge and wave action that we had through the harbor, it just couldn't hold up. The bridges themselves underneath fared better. Again, it's more of a concrete pour issue. The image here on the right, that is the fishing, no, that is the boat launched by technical classification. The bottom one is the more fishing pier that had a terminal in that went out into the waterway. So we break this down into three different areas, the boardwalks themselves, bridges, and then those two piers, the water taxi and the fishing pier. So the different piers, boardwalks, the first boardwalk section we'll talk about is about 585 feet long. Second was 870. Again, as those pictures show, we've lost most of the decking and railing system that went, and those also had a weird cap that went on top of the concrete piling that they kind of adjusted, and it was interesting. The bridges themselves, which is underneath that connect the two boardwalks that get you underneath the bridges, we'll talk about those, they're pretty fixed. And then the water taxi pier was 65, and then there was that 65 foot of the fishing pier that went with it as well. Both of which the pictures show have pretty significant damage as well. Again, the same lenses that we've looked through for all of our fishing piers, we've looked at it through this one as well. For the boardwalks, both sections we've presented, they'll present four options. Basically replacing kind, that perma-trek, that's the one that I've described in the picture of what we had before, that cast-in-place concrete, that protruded FRP, and then a heavy timber option. With the piers, both the water taxi and the fishing, same options for construction material and design. And I'll get to the boardwalks or the bridges here in a minute, but there's not any options for those. And I'll tell you about that when we get that. Here shows you kind of those different sections, both section one and section two of the boardwalks.

um so this kind of is a recap i guess i decided to put this at the beginning instead of at the end so i guess we're trying something new so question mr chair you recognize thank you so this up to this point you've talked about boardwalk sections now this is boardwalk two so what are we referring to the second section or is this Is that a mistype?

No, I think I just put, there's two cost points for them. I think I just slid this slide into the wrong area. But this is specifically for Boardwalk 2. um it was a monday i think when i put that together and i inserted this at the wrong portion so i'll come back to that all right very good thank you i'll make a note uh so um the boardwalk sections there uh alternative a which was to go back with what we had before right so you had the two sections that connected from sun seeker down to the first bridge underneath and then the one that connected from there all the way around to the point where the seawall is Permatrek is this precast concrete planking system that we had before. So the two different options were for boardwalk one was $2.6 million and boardwalk two is 7.4. And then we'll talk about that a little bit later as well. Pros of this, obviously since it's concrete design, it's resistant to rot and insect degradation. It says familiar system just because we had it before. It is the only system that we have in our entire inventory that is that concrete planking. It has a low initial cost just because the elevations would be the same and they look to try and reuse some of the pilings that were there before. Cons, for us, pretty significant one. It had a near total structural failure with the storm events that we had. So that's a pretty significant con for us. The connections, again, were difficult and I think compounded the impacts that we had just because i think when they initially conceptualized this design it was all just thinking that these were really heavy and nothing was going to move them and it is rigid and i think part of that with the wave attenuation caused issues at some of those points which is why it really had a catastrophic failure Option B, which we discussed at Bayshore, is cast in place concrete. Again, with the decking underneath that you pour concrete on top of, so more cast in place. Concrete pilings that are pre-stressed. and they'd reinforce the cap that it would sit on. This is what is the design firm considered to be the strongest, most durable option, and it has the highest resiliency as well. Cost for that, 4.2 for section one and 12.1 for section two. So pros and cons, again, highest durability and it has a lower maintenance cost, very similar to what the Permatrac is just because it's concrete based. So it has high resistance to rot and marine boring and those kinds of things. The elevation, we'll talk about the elevation, but It does have elevation options in it, but they're difficult and it's difficult in relation to where it comes down to the bridges themselves for all of our boardwalks to peer connections. Cons, it's really expensive to design and construct this kind of pier itself. It's a complex marine construction process. I think there are companies obviously that do this. I don't know many of them that do it in a peer situation, so that could be challenging. And then as we talked about the last time, that dead loading, they're really heavy, so it creates those challenges as well. Option C, again, is that protruded FRP, that fiber reinforced polymer for the stringers and this one has the decking system as well with it. Again, it's very corrosive resistant. It's lighter than the concrete and it has a really high life cycle just because of the way that it's put together and its resiliency that it's lasting. Rough order magnitude for the first section is 3.9, second section 11.1. Pros and cons of it, again, it's resistant and it's very lightweight. It has very low maintenance to it just because that type of polymer will last a pretty long time. And it takes out that dead loading, that heaviness of the actual construction. The cons, much like with Bayshore, it's a specialized material. Finding somebody who's ever done something like this was going to be a challenge for us. And again, that thermal movement just with things either warming up in the sun, it can make it either more fluid or it could get real stiff on it. Option D, heavy timber, much like with the last presentation at Bayshore. Again, it's going in with heavier pilings, heavier cross braces, going up to that 3.3 by 12s. It is a very similar construction method that we have used. The only difference is really that the timbers themselves are bigger. The cost projections are for boardwalk one, 3.2, boardwalk two, 9.2.

I got a quick question. Go back to that image, yeah. So in the last presentation where we went with heavy timbers, you said they're doing more of a perma track or a composite for the boards?

For the decking. So this one shows wood?

Yeah.

I couldn't find one that had heavy timber sub with a picture of Trek is the brand name, but it's that composite decking. I didn't have one that had that, so this was as close as I could get to it. But that is our standard to put composite walking decks. I just didn't have a picture of it.

Okay, no problem. Thank you for catching that. Thank you, sir.

Yeah, I just didn't have a picture of it. It was hard to find. Because we don't have heavy timber in our system, so I couldn't just take an old picture of an old pier, but regardless, anyway. Pros and cons, so it is a familiar construction methodology. In the county meeting, we'll be able to find people who should be able to do this construction for us. It has improved resiliency and repairability, again, just because this is something that we're used to doing. Lower cost in concrete and the FRP. It does have a higher maintenance cost, obviously, than the concrete in the FRP just because, again, it's wood out in a water situation. It does have those same marine exposures for moisture and sun exposure and marine boring type issues. So the bridges, so I've highlighted there's two bridges that go underneath here. The challenges that we face with the bridges themselves is trying to do an elevation change on the boardwalks, it's difficult because they're fixed, right? Because there has to be a separation between the bottom of US 41 and the bridges themselves. So we can't raise the bridges to thus raise the boardwalks to give us the appropriate rise and run that we have to. It would completely change the design and the footing of where we were, and it would, I just, because we asked them about just getting to that rise and run, having to come down, especially on the first one off of Sunseeker, sorry, I'm orienting myself, as you're coming from Sunseeker down to make that sharp left-hand turn at a steep angle, There's just no way to do any elevation changes with these, thus no elevation changes are proposed with the boardwalks themselves for those connection point reasons. But they are recommending to do some rehab and some repairs because obviously they had concrete sides and a variety of different things, so just doing some repair work to them. They had some lights that were embedded in there that are all destroyed and need to be changed out. In the grand scheme of things, nominal repair and rehab, but not replacing those bridges. They're actually structurally fine, and we're not changing the elevation of them. um the pier so bottom right um the one that is going towards the right which is kind of more towards the east that's where the fishing pier or i'm sorry the water taxi the one going south on the bottom that's where the fishing pier is again same four options same pros and cons as with the boardwalks the recommendation is of this to not put back a water taxi but to convert it to a fishing pier. And if you remember, and I can go back to it to show you, there is a wide open spans of open area which was thought to be where boats would be able to tie up to, to allow people to de-vessel up onto the walkway. We have talked with our staff and our institutional knowledge of this is there hasn't been really anybody who has ever used that for its purpose, but it creates a vulnerability to us from a liability perspective by creating a larger opening by allowing people to potentially fall off there. So the recommendation is to just make it a fishing pier and just put railing all the way across it. The fishing pier would be to just rehab it and replace it with whichever construction methodology that you would choose. This will break down based upon the four different types of construction method, being both what we had before, which was the permatrack, the cast in place construction, that composite, and then heavy timber. So it ranges from the water taxi 0.6 up through 1.4, fishing pier with those same options being at 1.2 up to 1.5. So, and this is where, oh no, I did, I don't know, I just added in an extra one. I don't know why I did that. You added, you put it in over there. I added an extra one at the beginning. It's here. It's also here. This is where it should have been. Yes, sir. That's why it threw me off. So here's a recap of boardwalk one and the different options. Again, from 2.6 up to 4.2. When you look at boardwalk two, we go from 7.4 up to 12.1. The bridges themselves, as I said, there's no real options on them per se, it's just rehab them. And these are the cost $276,529 for the other one. uh the piers um so you've got the different options both for the water taxi and the fishing pier um and i just went through water taxi being from 0.6 all the way up to 1.4 fishing piers being from 1.2 up to 1.5 and i believe so the recommendation are varied the consultant is recommending the cast in place option And then just doing the required repair work on the boardwalks for both the boardwalks, water taxi, and fishing pier. So doing cast in place, concrete for that. That would bring a total construction cost of $20 million. Staff's recommendation is to do heavy timber with the composite decking and the required bridge repairs and rehabs. That number is $15.3 million. So there is a difference between the recommendations from both the consultant and with staff. And with that, I stand ready for any questions you might have.

Commissioner Constance.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Do we have to do both? I mean, I understand that you're trying to recondition this and connect one side to the other, but we don't have to do both. We don't have to connect the two. And that second boardwalk seems to be very, very expensive, right?

So when you're saying, so do section one and not do section two?

Right. Okay. I'm saying that's an option. We could always come back and do Section 2 another time. I would like to understand, because I can't remember, you know, this was part of the CRA. We got funding from FDOT. We got state funding. This thing cost us initially, I think, $2 or $3 million to construct the whole thing, and now we're talking about $20 million. I just, again, I think we've got to put these costs in perspective, and, you know, we can bring back some of the amenity. I mean... You know, it's a long walk to go from one side to the other. So I'm thinking having one amenity on one side is good, and then fixing up the piers and the taxi launch to be a second pier, fishing pier, that's great. And we've got parking there. We're going to have amenities. So I just... you put all the boardwalks together instead of giving us an option to you know make a decision about definitely on boardwalk one maybe not on boardwalk two or vice versa but you know obviously i wouldn't i don't think just doing two makes any sense but i we don't have to do both isn't that correct of the boardwalk sections no sir i think you can you can give direction to have us do whatever you'd like and then the other part of this is what's the funding source

same funding sources as we have before we have put in all the language to make sure that we can go after and get as much FEMA money as possible the design was funded from the smalls list that the board allocated out but construction will come back to the county through our hurricane fund or the reserve of hurricane fund I'll leave all those discussions to Francine and Gordon on exactly where but I'm pretty sure that's probably where it will until we receive if we receive any funding from FEMA right

until or if i like that that you said if because that's the thing you know we can't count on the largesse of the federal government i'm i'm concerned about that if we had the money in hand that's another story but i'm i'm i'm having a difficult position here we've talked about before and the fact look i agree i think you can't change elevations so already you're sort of in a little bit of a resiliency jeopardy there This is a tough one. And I appreciate the work. I appreciate the consultant. I appreciate you doing the homework. I'm just having a difficult time. I want to hear from my colleagues. But for me, that second section is very expensive. And I'm not understanding. where the utilization it's I don't think it's to be utilized as likely as the section one for sure or people already on the other side of the street because they're parking there and we've got access through that other piece of property and you know and i think that would be a nice piece of information that should be part of this which is what is the current status of access what will the near term access be for that parcel as well you know and and the amount of parking theme and the amenities for the bathroom all those things i mean you know you're really working the problem and i appreciate that you're doing a deep dive Those are important pieces for me before I can make a further decision on Section 2 for me today. Otherwise, I'm not going to vote in favor of 2, but I want to hear from my colleagues.

Thank you. Mr. Chairman, if I may? Yeah. Each alternative at the very bottom, I broke down boardwalk one, boardwalk two. So I didn't do the math, the cumulative math to show what the difference. I can do that quickly if we get some direction on which construction methodology you want to use. But we did try and break it down by those two so you could see the end is a roll up where I'm putting both together. But on the sheet, I did try and break it up so that way, I figured there might come a conversation like this. I wanted everybody to know what each section was going to cost, but I just haven't totaled those up, but I can do that quickly.

Right. And so, I mean, because I look at this as we look at that prior peer and the one that we're going to see, which is, you know, what are the options and what's the roll-up? And I think this should have been looked at as two different sections, and then we could add them together if we thought we wanted to. But I appreciate you summing everything up in case we wanted to go with the whole thing. Yes, sir. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Yeah, nobody's in the queue, so I'll jump in. Section one and section two, aren't they connected under the bridge so you can get to Live Oak Point Park? Yeah, so it's a continuous run. You just broke it up into two sections.

So there is, so from, can you all see my arrows on here? So this is the connection point over by Sunseeker. This comes down here, goes underneath, and then there is a connection point over to the parking lot here. Right here, there is a connection point that then takes this walkway out and takes you underneath the bridge over here to get out near the point. So it could be designed in a way that we just made that a closed off portion if you all wanted to do it. we came back with we priced out option you know section one and section two but there is a way to be able to get from the sun seeker side all the way over to the parking lot without having to use section two yeah so i appreciate the fact that commissioner constant's talking about two sections that we can cut off section two however

What does that mean? Do we do away with it completely, it's not necessarily needed, we just demo the pilings, pull it out of the ground, we're done with it? Or do we just do section one and leave section two in a broken, you know setting where when does it ever get fixed so and and by the way when a future board decides in the public outcries why do you have a broken pier there that we can't use we're looking at it you did one why didn't you do the other because it was cheaper it's only going to be more expensive for a future board to have to deal with it so are you saying let's do section one and demo section two and just get rid of it it's no longer necessary that would be what i'd want to understand Because I can't see fixing section one with mobilization. It's going to be cheaper to do it all at once and do it in two pieces at the end of the day. But also understanding we have constraints on funding and having to understand the funding elements here, where we're going to get the money from. Those are just some of the things I'm thinking about as you made your comments. Commissioner Constance, you're recognized in Doherty.

yeah no i appreciate that um so i wouldn't demo it i would continue to pursue the fema funding but at least let's get section one online and let's continue to try to get funding for the entire thing and right now if fema asks why aren't you doing the whole thing the answer is we don't have enough money to do the whole thing we're having to front it so we're going to do section one and we're waiting for you to go ahead and fund one and two that would be my strategy commissioner doherty

thank you mr chairman yeah well let's get to the uh i guess the recommendations i agree with staff on heavy heavy timber as far as the the components to use i think that i really like to like maybe pause and say i'd like to holistically review this whole live oak point project You know, the bathrooms, everything we're talking about, instead of piecemealing this. I mean, this is good. We've got to get the design, the permitting. Those other aspects of the park won't require FEMA. You know, the other things, the bathrooms, things of that nature. Whatever we do there, Tommy. But I think we've got to get the design going because we're literally looking at years to get the permits to construct whatever we do out there. We might as well get the whole project redesigned We may bid. Maybe design may be in phases, possibly. I don't know yet. But I'd rather get the whole thing done. And I also think we need to get back options on financing. That's a lot of money. We just can't pay as we go on these kinds of ticket items and hope and pray that FEMA is going to pay us back. I don't like debt. I hate debt. But I don't know a project of this magnitude, how we can possibly roll the dice on $15 million or maybe even more. I'd like at least to understand how we could finance something like this. That's a big project.

I don't disagree. Commissioner Constance, you recognize?

Yeah, and it's a wonderful amenity. Tommy, do we have any statistics of usage prior to Ian? In other words, if there were 100 people a month, 1,000 people a month, I really would like to understand what was the usage for all the money we're going to pay. How many people are actually going to go? Because it was essentially there. prior to Sunseeker. So, you know, people were using at least the Live Oak Point Park and then getting up to a dead wall. You couldn't, or I think they could get up onto the bridge, right. So they were using it. Now we have 2,000 feet, over 2,000 feet of walkable public access know in front of sunseeker right on the water which kind of changes that dynamic so you know just looking at this but i i appreciate commissioner doherty you know design the whole thing maybe that makes a lot of sense yeah and permitting because that's going to take years maybe at that point the fema money comes it makes it easier but if it doesn't then funding for you know whoever's sitting up here has to make they've got to figure it out it's going to be a difficult might have to require financing Yeah, and then what was the utilization? So having that prior use would be important to know, and then now we know how many people are walking that frontage on Sunseeker, it's utilized.

If I may? I'll have to go back and look.

I don't know that you have it.

I don't know that I have it either, but I have a sneaky suspicion I might have a way to get it, but I have to go and look. I haven't gone that far back to see. But I will say this piece in comparison to other peers that we've brought forward and are talking about today, It serves also fishing, obviously, right? Because it gets people out over the water and they do it and they fish there all the time. But it's also a connection point to be able to get people from one side of US-41 to the other. Because that was one of the challenges we were having were people playing Frogger, trying to get across because they were using the bridge for exercise or whatever. And then they would get to the Port Charlotte side of the bridge. No way to do that safely. So that was one of the options. That was before the light was put in. but that was one of the reasonings behind doing this walkway underneath as well. So fishing, yes, obviously, but also the safety of people being able to traverse underneath the bridges.

But to confirm, if we execute on section one, They are able to get under the bridge to Live Oak Point Park at that point. That is correct. Because it ends on the western side of the northbound 41, but they're able to get underneath it and go right to the park. Absolutely. Which is a wonderful thing. Otherwise, they're just sitting there between the two bridges. Correct. So having that information for me is important because I think

I at this point would be very interested okay design the whole thing green light section one if we get the permitting and now we've got that connection and then hopefully by the time all this starts happening we've got FEMA money for everything I like it thank you yeah so I put myself in the queue yeah so now that I look at section two the fact that section one connects to Live Oak Point Park you've got the connection do you actually need section two it's an extra it's not really a need if you're looking strictly at connectivity Section one takes care of that. Section two just gets you further out to the point. So is that more cosmetic to your point? How much is it used? I'm kind of rethinking this thing. To me, section one is a priority. Section two, we don't really need it. It doesn't serve a purpose other than it's extra. You've already got the connectivity to get under 41 to the park. So when we look at funding and money, I don't know if there's anything in the FDOT funding that requires us to put that back since it was a joint project with FDOT. But I'm starting to now really focus on section one and not moving with section two. Because looking at the cost here, what was the total cost of section two, 12 million? I'd have to go back and run all of them, just depending upon which- Yeah, let's say we did away with section two. And just focus, section two, I think you had in here, scroll down to the options.

Board of work two was 9.2 million if it's heavy timber.

Yeah, that's heavy timber, 3.2 for just section one.

I'm talking about section two, if we do away with section- Section two, 9.2. Yeah, so 3.2 for section one, 9.2 for section- I guess the question is, what do we need section two for?

what do we need needed for so again it's just extra footage that would be the responses you already have connectivity to commissioner constance's point by just doing the section one section two does get more water access it does take you out to the point i'll that that's the reason why it was there was to provide that extra level of over water access and to get to the point but we can suffice the transportation of people from one side to the other with just section one

Well, that's what's important to me at this point. Commissioner Constance, you recognize?

Yeah, so two things. Again, I don't disagree with Commissioner Daugherty to design out the whole thing because I want to find out, well, first of all, is FDOT willing to put any money up to rehabbing this facility that they-

they I think they helped pay for I know we had a state grant for this yeah we do I do believe so and I've had conversations with lacks about the potential for there being some state additional state grant money that might help so we're still exploring alternative sources as well but none of that's confirmed and we have to have a design to be able to pitch to them on what that looks like but we are exploring other options and lacks is helping us in that regard I don't remember specifically what FDOT's contribution was, I don't remember if they did contribute or not.

It's in the CRA docs. And I guess I would also like to really drill down on what is FEMA potentially willing to help us with? Because is it just the original costs were out or is it for putting this back the way it was?

Well, I think if you could figure out how FEMA comes to that nexus, you could make a lot of money as a consultant. There is no real rhyme or reason that we've been able to establish. I mean, I don't know how to answer that.

Besides, I don't know. Again, I think I don't want to, if there's potential for us to recover on this and be able to have the full amenity, that's great. I don't want to hamstring that, but again look at look at that right there right right away from rough order magnitude yeah right refer to magnitude for boardwalk one three point two nine point two for the second so design whole thing that's great go forward with one waiting for the money for two I think that that's probably the best option

Yeah, I think Commissioner Doherty said it too, and Commissioner Constance highlighted it, that we probably need staff to come back with a deeper dive on the money, because what I keep hearing is, oh, it'll come from the hurricane fund. Well, guess what? We've just done all these projects. We don't have any more. What's the balance of the hurricane fund, assuming we did all these things? I think we had 25 million is what we put in there, but with this, I mean, it's probably not even enough, so that's not even an option here. So I think, you know, We really need to have at the next meeting to come back and talk about funding sources and options to get this done. The more and more I'm thinking about this, I'm inclined to go back with section one only and keeping section two as once we understand the money better but if staff need a direction today i'm all in on one because we got to put that back we do need that connectivity i think it's a net benefit to the public to be able to safely get under the bridge to the other park right so um that's where i'm at

commissioner doherty recognize sir yeah thank you mr chairman how long would it take to kind of wrap this up tommy and come back with an you know might have to get with administration and reschedule this but i think would be we'd be in a better place if we did have a better understanding of the entire holistically again the whole site what we're going to do with it and really what we what where that hurricane fund is going to sit after all these discussions this morning i don't disagree with section one being the priority i think we also need to know i can't remember the contract with the with the engineering firm do we have them through construction documents or through the whole thing what what do we save if we we we just don't do the design for the boardwalk too. There has to be a change. He can come back with that. That's what I'm trying to get to. All of that needs to be pulled together so we understand the whole picture. Thank you.

Commissioner Constance. Mr. Flores, is it possible to add to the workshop next week just the hurricane fund, the current status, everything that potentially could be requested out of the hurricane fund so that we kind of have an idea of much is there how much have we already committed and how much potentially is out there you know so if we if it's 30 and we've committed 10 but there's 60 still out there i mean i think just a quick item to give us three or four slides for mr berger so we just understand and maybe throw in a fema kicker slide of all the storms and everything we've been paid on and just that updated slide just so we get uh hurricane fiscal status if i get hit

Yes, I'm sure fiscal's listening. I know I mentioned and Emily said around 30, 30, 31 million was the last updated number we had from our last budget workshop, but we'll get any more updated to see. I know just the range, like Tommy said, there's still... method to the madness. Sometimes it seems like it's 30 cents on the dollar that we see from these reimbursements. So the range, from what I can remember, 30 to 60 cents, 70 cents on the dollar. That's our constant back and forth with those federal agencies.

I think that's really helpful because then we have a better understanding of you know, where we're at, how much is already absolutely committed, and then what's the beast out there that we have a few dollars, and then we'll make better decisions about, okay, well, we'd love to do this, but this turns out to be a want, not a need, because we've got these other things hanging out there.

Yeah, so, you know, we've talked about a lot as a board here, but we need to give some clear direction. We've got some direction on bringing back the funding that's available at the next workshop. But in terms of these recommendations, I want to formulate something where there's clear direction. We've had three commissioners say Section 1 is a priority. Right. Okay. Commissioner Doherty, recognize.

Yeah, and I just think as far as the components, I think I mentioned I'm okay with heavy timber. Yeah, me too. So, as long as it's the same kind of the system we talked about before where it has a composite on the decking. So did- Commissioner Truex, go ahead.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yeah, I'm listening and not saying anything because this is one that really bothers me overall. You can't make it more resilient because you can't raise it. and we can't afford to put in what might be resilient through a storm so i'm really torn on this one i i guess we do need to have that connectivity you know and and hopefully it doesn't get knocked out of the water but i certainly don't think we need to do both so i think just getting the one section for connectivity and leaving it at that is is important now fixing the piers is also something i would like to keep on the table

Well, you know, resiliency could be getting rid of Section 2. That's a resilient move right there in itself. Yeah, Commissioner Constance, then Doherty.

So a few things. I think one request is to find out what's the design cost minus Section 2, right? So I don't know that we can make a – full decision today but uh the other thing is if we don't do boardwalk two but it's there in concept waiting for federal dollars but the 3.2 is heavy timber the cast in place concrete is 4.2 so to commissioner tricks's point if we're gonna not spend the 9.2 maybe we make that first section much more resilient since it can't be raised is that correct none of these sections can be raised so you know maybe that's an option because all those cast in place concretes did fairly well it's just all the other stuff that fell apart and who's to say that it's going to resist a monster storm but again we're we're increasing cost you know 30 on that one section but it's a pretty good sized section and it does allow for connectivity so I need a little more information. If we want to move this forward now, we can.

Why don't we have staff hearing all these comments come back at the next available board meeting with a fresh slide show based on all these comments.

Instead of next week.

Because I don't know how long it's going to take staff, you know, because there were a lot of comments made, you know, get rid of section two, just one. Now we hear, well, maybe as resiliency, if we get rid of two, we'll have a little bit of funding. We can make the remaining section more resilient. Just those types of options based on what you've heard today. Because there's a lot of things being thrown around.

If I may, administration came up and let me know that there was lap and restore funding that helped fund the boardwalks, the whole park system. So- Again, we came back with options to restore all of it, not thinking we were gonna break it down into those sections specifically. So again, we'll need time to be able to evaluate those agreements to make sure are we required to or do we have to return funding? I mean, there's a whole lot of complexities if we don't go back with just a new whole full system.

Yeah, and that's what I said earlier. Are we in jeopardy since we had money from other sources if we don't go back with the whole system? So it sounds like you've got enough to work all that out, bring us back those answers, and then we could review the options again with all that additional information. Commissioner Doherty, do you recognize?

Yeah, and there's one other thing I would ask that be brought back is to have a conversation with the engineers. The uplift that took place is obviously what tore the other one apart. So it's common sense the cast in place will be superior to everything, but I'd like to know if they can estimate what it would have taken, what kind of forces took the existing facility out and how the heavy timber would compare. If it's a significant increase, Okay, but we might be forced to go to casting place because of the location and the lack of being able to raise this up because of the headroom requirements. So that's going to take some time. The engineers are going to have to give us a little guidance on this as to whether or not they really feel the heavy timber will really stand up.

So all of that said, can I bring this back when I'm ready? Yes.

Not with a time certain because- Yes, that's what we're saying. Okay, I just want to make sure. Not next week.

Okay, yes, I think we can do all of those things that you've asked us to provide information on given enough time. Got to do it right. We've got to do it correctly.

Okay gentlemen, you've got some direction on that to bring it back as soon as you have all the information available and ready to present.

So do you need a motion to postpone? Well I don't think this was just discussion and direction so I think we gave enough direction And we're definitely going to hear about the funding next week

Yeah, and we asked to bring back funding of what levels of that hurricane fund are remaining that have not already been committed.

Yeah, I'm looking at the- Mr. Flores, you're recognized. Thank you. I'm looking at the budget presentation for next week, and we do touch on just the ad valorem reserves. Like I said, we did confirm there's 31 million in the disaster retention. Okay, thank you.

okay we're going to move on uh mr scott you're recognized for the next item fishing pier we have a bunch of stuff to get through it i hope we get it done before we want to pm time sir point of information or order or whatever mr chairman uh we've got some folks here that have been sitting and you know we got the shade structures we got the letter i'm just curious whether or not we want to take the county related items staff items and defer that to have you know to another point on the calendar today. Let these people go. We do need to take a break a little bit. I gotta get some nourishment. I'll never get through land use.

Nope. Okay, so you wanna go to item eight? I was thinking that might be a good idea.

Okay, yeah, if there's no objections from the board.

Okay, we're gonna move, we're gonna pause on Mr. Scott's presentation on six. We'll return later. and we're going to do item number eight shade devices at early voting locations this came from the commission office gentlemen i put this on the agenda I've been going out to the sites, obviously, for as long as I've been a commissioner, and this year especially, with all the heat indexes we've been getting. I don't know if it's just my age is showing, but it was brutal out there. And I don't disagree with some of the constituent comments about how hot it is. And we did go ahead, as part of the presentation, there is a, will you go ahead and present? There are other places that allow shade devices. Mrs. Jubb, you're recognized to present.

Thank you, Commissioners. For the record, Claire Jebb, Assistant County Administrator. The reason I'm doing this is because it covers multiple departments. And what you're going to see in the presentation is really just the framework around where we are now, and giving you some information for you to have your conversation. This is certainly not a staff recommendation in any way, shape, or form. So the question was, should the county allow tents or other larger shade devices to be placed at county-owned polling sites during the voting period? I have to stress we can only control county-owned areas, not those that are privately owned. Current approach is we don't allow tents or structures to be installed on any county-owned property at any time for any reason, and any signs that are at those locations have to be held and not planted in the ground. The regulations around this, and these are sections from the code, the first one I put in there was a definition of county park. As you can see, that's a very broad definition. This is in your current code. We also talk about hours of use, so that's regularly nine hours of use. are closed between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. That does depend on various facilities and there are various opening hours based on the facility. I didn't put all of those in here. Prohibited activities, so basically prohibiting anything that has an unreasonable risk of harm or danger or interferes with the use and enjoyment by other users. Advertising and commercial signs, this first section here is actually in the parks area of the code that talks about it being prohibited for any commercial signs. And then the third section here is signs on public property. This is the general section of the code. No private sign shall be erected, altered, or maintained over or upon any publicly owned property or right of way. So this is the regulating framework that's in your code. Jumping now to the facilities rules, just highlighted a couple of sections around solicitation here, provided they do not impede ingress or egress, interfere with the use of county facilities by visitors, employees, or county officials, or harass visitors. Yeah, that's just highlighted, it's just in there. Cannot leave or store a personal property with or without the intention to return or reclaim. cannot include conduct which interferes with county employees or county officials in the performance of their duties, or interferes with the proper use of the county facility by others, and cannot block access to any county building, doorway, walkway, ramp, road, parking access, or steps with any purpose without authorization. Then I wanted to move on to the need for anything you do to be content neutral. And this is the prevailing regulation out there, the lawsuit that basically set the standard that Reed versus Town of Gilbert, this is nationwide, held that municipal sign ordinances that impose different restrictions based on the content of the sign are content based and subject to strict scrutiny under the First Amendment. and this is applicable to all of your sign code, you can regulate the structure. So you can regulate the sign or anything like that. You can't regulate the content. So you can't say it has to be an election sign or supporting a candidate. It can be any sign. It can be anything out there. So you just have to bear that in mind as you're considering what you want to do on around here. So these are just the early voting locations. So MacVie Horton, Charlotte Harbor Events and Conference Center, Mid-County Regional Library, and Centennial Park. And then the polling locations that are county facilities. So Harold Ave, South Punta Gorda Heights, Civic Center, and Tringali. What I've done for each of these, and I won't go in detail with each of them, but I've given you a map that shows the 150 foot polling at the area that's protected, what is outside the polling location, how many parking spaces you have outside of the 150 foot, your total parking count, and your code minimum required parking for the entire facility. These were pulled together very quickly, so there may be some nuance in there that is missing, but it gives you a good snapshot of what we've got. So this is Mack v. Horton, West County Annex. The Harbor and Vent Center, just a caveat on this, we would require, City of Punta Gorda would require permitting for tents at this location, if you were to allow it at this location. Another caveat there, code minimum required, city code, parking is very low. That's because they have shared parking throughout the city and that's per their code. Mid-County Regional Library, Centennial, Harold Ave, South Punta Gorda Heights, and Tringale. Couple of things that as we kind of talk this through through staff, just a couple of things to bear in mind. Liability from any damages or injuries caused by the tents or other structures placed on county property. The county may be liable there. We would need to make sure that we have proper ADA access to any location that was being used for these to make sure it was even. and minimize the possibility of risk and slip and falls if it's not on an even or paved surface. For operations, each of those facilities is not purely a polling location. They are open, they are active facilities with users that go on and uses that go on throughout those days. So we need to make sure that parking and amenities remain open. There's very few, if you saw the maps, it's very difficult to find areas in some of those locations that are outside of the 150 foot zone. Some of those areas are very constrained. And again, we couldn't limit the structure by purpose. So you couldn't say that this is a tent for the purposes of early voting for a candidate or a political party. It would be a tent. you couldn't say yes or no based on what their purpose was. Logistics, you've seen limited space. We do have a concern about management of who, how we actually organize that. Is it a first come, first serve, that type of thing. We'd have to make sure that there are no impacts to line of sight or safety concerns. Make sure everything is compliant and compliant with applicable codes and rules. Additional security staff will probably be needed to police this piece. And the permits will be needed for the city of Punta Gorda location. We did take a look at the proposal that you received, and I put in just in the request and then did some comments on there for you as to where we would require changes to the facilities rules, which are obviously much easier. Changes to code are more complicated to do and would take a little bit of time. Other jurisdictions, as you mentioned, Commissioner, from what we can see, Sarasota County and Lee County both allow these. Collier County does, but only with a temporary use permit, so the individuals have to come in and get those temporary use permits. implementation options you could choose to leave it as is and not allow you could do a partial implementation allow the tents and shape structures but no signs that type of thing or you could do a full implementation there that's all I have for you commissioners okay yes so when you looked at Sarasota and Lee County obviously they've they've been doing it so let's not reinvent the wheel they must have some policy in place or they're just silent on it Is your mic on? Sorry, I'm sorry. When you look at what they do, from what we can find, there are no regulations in place that really control this, so they just allow anything.

So that's a choice. Yeah, well it kind of tells me, typically if there's a problem, there's an ordinance. So either it's been going off relatively without a hitch, so to speak. And there was no need to actually create a policy just for somebody to shade themselves. I look at it this way, I've been going to the park systems for years, and those 10 by 10 tents are fairly standard, they even have larger ones. Along the first and third baselines, man, the tents come out, they set them up when the game's over. If they have to go to another field, they pack them up, they leave, they're pretty efficient. But we already allow tents on other county property. you know and they hang all kinds of signs up which you know for their teams or whatever and then other organizations whether it's soccer i pick baseball but it's not uncommon to have people set up tents on county property um this just happens to be elections and obviously i do have concerns um about line of sight because of the facility it's different than a park facility right we're conducting business um at these things so i get that but I do see a need to have some level of shade structure we talk about the health safety and welfare of the community like i said i was you know this year more than any other year i mean it was pretty hot for me in 2024 but this year when i went out to the different areas maybe it's just the year with the heat index it was like 112 115 degrees during the day i was dying you get 15 20 minutes unshaded you want to run for your car and crank up the ac so i'm just looking for something that's reasonable that people can protect themselves and and also exercise their First Amendment rights on county facility. Commissioner Constance recognized.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just had a couple questions, Claire. So you stated that. Well, going back to what Commissioner Tasseo said, so somebody watching a soccer game with their kids or baseball or whatever, you know, what's the difference between putting a chair next to the field versus putting a chair and holding up a big umbrella or putting in a four-poster, ten-foot, you know, it's put in, it's used for their personal use to protect themselves, to keep the kids cool that aren't playing, whatever, and then when the game is over, they... get they put it all pack it up and they leave it's like going to the beach we don't regulate that um but this you're so you're saying though that if we allowed this anybody at any time 365

No, you could limit the time period. You could say, like you do for additional signs during election period, you can limit the time period. But what you can't do is limit the purpose. So you could have Claire's bee removal having a tent there.

Right, so you could have any private citizen non-election related or a business setting up, this is great, a lot of people are going to be walking here, I'm going to just set my pool service

tent up and then they can and i'll have my flyers up and that's my free speech correct unless there's a way to craft it and then i've looked to the county attorney's office for if there's a way to craft it to prohibit that i don't think there is and i go back to that that gilbert the first amendment piece okay thank you thank you all right nobody else in the queues anybody have a commission doherty you recognize her

Yes, it's been very warm, you know, and the heat index this year has been extraordinary. I'm sympathetic to that. However, I think I need a little bit more information, Claire. I think that what level of regulatory involvement are we going to have on something like this, you know? Obviously, Lee and Sarasota apparently don't have anything. So that's interesting. I think it's important, though, that we make contact possibly with – Mr. Lewis up there and possibly the supervisor of elections just to get you know in Sarasota and Lee County to kind of get some historical information just to see if there have been any incidents. I think the only thing I'm looking at here with the limited space You know, the sun comes up, people are going to be running there to get their tents up and so forth. How do you kick somebody out, you know, that wants to come in and there's no more space left? How does that get taken care of? Is the sheriff's office going to have enough enforcement out there? They don't have any people extra to take care of something like that. That's what I'm looking at right now is how is it – Is it first come, first serve? You get your piece of real estate and you're there for the day? Or what? Or maybe there's some other options with chairs and umbrellas. I don't know. But I'm sympathetic to the fact that some kind of shade is necessary. I'd like to find out, though. I don't know that just saying because they don't have any regulation, there haven't been any problems, Mr. Chairman. There may be historically been some problems. I'd like to find that out. If not? Then we've got more information, that's all. But I find it difficult to say that some of these locations, and we're just talking about early voting. So we're talking about what, Centennial?

yeah so um the original item was around early voting i threw in the other poll i saw you but that's really what it shows you early voting location is um the four so mcbee horton charlotte harper event center mid county regional and centennial we were talking 10 days yeah i understand but the

The West County Annex doesn't have much real estate. I don't think your map didn't show very much.

And what I didn't do was highlight on here which are retention or detention areas. Okay. All right.

I'm just saying that's not that much land to be able to set. So what happens? And who kicks them out if they were within the 150? I don't know. That's the part. But if Sarasota and Lee have not had any issues, that would be very interesting. I'd like to find that out. Thank you, sir.

Yeah, I mean, I just say that generally speaking, I know if we had issues, we would have. If we had issues and staff was saying, hey, we got issues, we would have put an ordinance or some rule in place on use of tents. But if it's been ongoing for this long, I kind of suspect there hasn't been anything major. Or maybe the board doesn't even know and it hasn't been brought to their attention. But we know when there's a problem, right, gentlemen? When there's a problem, we know about it.

You would think the supervisor of elections, though, would know, though. That might be a good contact to me.

I just didn't want to, you know, it's shade structures, you know. It's just getting overcomplicated, you know. I know everything, you know, people look at government and go, geez, we can't even, you know, hold a sign properly. It's got to be in the ground. We can't be with it. I'm just trying to make it. more reasonable you know and i didn't think having shade since other people use shade structures on county property i didn't think that was unreasonable um and i still don't think this is i don't think we're gonna have hordes of people running out there with tents to set up a flea market or something like that i think it you know if it's for personal device you know for shading and your exercise in your first amendment i didn't have a problem having a board discussion about it commissioner constance um now i just wanted if we can get the uh

Collier temporary permits I'm trying to look it up and I'm having trouble finding it so since you mentioned it I'm just curious to see what they're what they want yeah I mean I think even the people who requested it

understand this year you know this primary is done we're already going into november this is really for you know going forward for the next cycle so i think we have a little bit of time if the board wants to get some more information from the other counties bring it back but in enough time so we're we're set for next election cycle that would be the key for me and maybe we get more public input because they're hearing us talk about it for the first time they may have some suggestions as well So is everybody okay with that? So we'll have staff investigate the other counties, see if there are any problems. I believe Commissioner Constance talked about what the temporary permit looks like in Collier County. Then we could take it from there and bring it back at a future board meeting.

Absolutely, thank you.

Commissioner Constance.

Mr. Chair, could we, before we're done, could we skip to 11 and do the Pirate Harbor seagrass mitigation?

Yeah, if there's no objection from the board.

That's fine.

Okay, are we okay on that item? Any more comments? Okay, thank you.

okay we're going to skip to item number 11 pirate harbor seagrass mitigation hi mr chair i asked for this um the two gentlemen that are here um i was approached and i know that we had this project um presented to us back in august of 25 or um i think this was a presentation but yeah mr elias is coming up you know i think that the the both speakers this morning really spelled it out you know it seems very onerous what's going on now and uh i don't think that that the folks in pirate harbor should have to be really paying for this anymore and i think the county needs to step up and and start to be stronger uh about the fact that they've met their requirements and you know this really needs to kind of go away that everything that they've done has been affected by storms and you know it's it's really unfair that that these guys are getting stuck

this is like hard bottom mitigation thank you yes and we know my opinion about hard bottom mitigation Mr Lyons so thank you commissioner for the record John Elias public works director so we uh at pre-agenda you had said you were going to add this item and uh administration had given us the heads up and asked us to go ahead and put together a point paper which we provided um in a nutshell specific to the project we were required to do some mitigation that mitigation is required to be monitored throw in several hurricanes and a bunch of other extenuating circumstances and it's still being reviewed by the regulatory agencies we've tried to meet again with the regulatory agencies which we've had and we're and we're advocating for literally the same thing that the folks that you're hearing from are Our approach though, as staff, typically, and I think I can use another analogy, would I love to move forward on the Rotunda Bridge? Or do we want to fund that ourselves? Those are the options you're faced with. So when it comes to this, unfortunately, because it was an MSBU driven project, if they come back to say, hey, we do want to monitor this for another year or two, that may be borne on the MSBU unless the board directs otherwise. But the only thing I would say is I would caution that with MSBU funded projects, because then every MSBU is going to come and say, why do we have to fund this when it could be because of example A? Essentially, again, we're not disagreeing with anything that the folks have said. We think we might be getting close to some sort of an outcome, but with regulatory agencies, it's anybody's guess as to what they're going to weigh in at.

You're still recognized, sir. You have the floor.

Yeah, I mean, to be very honest, I would like to have this board support writing a letter to the White House. I really think that, you know, the president is trying to cut through red tape. I would like to get the White House involved and, you know, talk to the intergovernmental affairs people and see, because it's a common sense thing. And I think we've got to try to shake things up. And I'm not afraid to go over the agencies and go to the White House and say, look, you're on top of this stuff. You know, this is a common sense issue, and we need your help.

Mr. Chairman? Yes, sir. I would add Congressman Stubbe and two senators as well.

Yes, sir. Yeah, that's fine. I mean, I guess we could talk to them first, but I just think that this is just something that makes sense, that we need to just go in a different direction and make the agencies understand, look, you're trying to tell us that you run the show, but guess what? We have a president that runs the show, and we want him to weigh in, and we want his staff to weigh in. Let them look at this with fresh eyes and go, wait a second, this doesn't make any sense. Why are you abusing these folks? This needs to go away.

Understood.

So I'd like to make that motion.

Second. Okay, we have a motion and a second to write the president and our federal delegation a letter regarding the requirement by FDEP to have us do seagrass mitigation for the Pirate Harbor Dredge Program. Could that be a complete motion, I believe?

COMMISSIONER DOHERTY RECOGNIZES. I'M TRYING TO SORT OUT THE APPROPRIATE EXECUTIVE BRANCH OFFICE TO CONTACT. NOW, THE FEDERAL AGENCIES, ARE THEY GIVING US ANY PROBLEMS? NO, I DON'T THINK SO.

I HAD TO RUN DOWNSTAIRS. FOR THE RECORD, EMILY LEWIS, DEPUTY COUNTY ADMINISTRATOR. THIS IS A STATE ISSUE. SO WE NEED TO START WITH OUR STATE DELEGATION AND WITH FDEP BEFORE WE GO

In the governor's office, possibly.

Correct. All right. Correct.

That's what I was going to say. Thank you. Well, we see the US Army Corps of Engineer permit in there. Yeah, yeah. Yes. So that's a federal element.

But the issue of seagrass monitoring is a state issue. Okay. So that is where the holdup is, and that is where we need to be putting the pressure.

So do we write a letter to the governor?

You could do the governor. I would do our legislative delegation. I would start with a conversation with them, and then also FDEP secretary.

So would you like to withdraw your original motion? And then we can restate it. For the moment, I will withdraw. And does the second agree with that? Yes. Okay, so we're going to withdraw the original motion now. Is there a new motion? Commissioner Doherty, your recommendation.

Same motion, except we direct it to the governor's office and the state delegation. I have no problem with copying our federal delegation so they're aware of what's going on because of the federal agencies that are also married to this permitting regulatory part.

right but the real effort needs to be in tallahassee clarification did were you going to include the agency as well dep oh yeah yeah okay all right i'll second that okay so that motion is second i think we had somebody from public works or staff no no no nothing okay i want to make sure before we get all the uh the required information here before we vote um okay so we have a motion in a second is there any further discussion Is there any opposition to the motion? That passes four to zero. Okay, well since we're pulling some items up where there are people here from the audience, how about the item number nine, letter to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. Those folks have been sitting here for a long time. Okay, so this was put on the agenda. Obviously, as was stated, the board previously sent a letter to the agency regarding the odors from the SLD permitted landfill and it's still happening we ended up attaching to the agenda a second letter that is a follow-up and a little bit stronger and what I'm hearing from the folks who came and spoke earlier was that they would like us to send the letter in addition to the one that's attached to the agenda a strong letter to the landfill operators Right now we've been sending them to the regulatory agency, so they wanted to add them to a list. They crafted a letter based on Sumter County that was strong, but it included some legal threats. And I know we probably want to hear from legal on that. But I'm not opposed to sending a letter, the attached letter. I went through it. I'm not opposed to it. The one to FDEP is a second letter. I'm not opposed to sending one to the landfill either. It's just that what will be in the contents?

that would that would be my question commissioner dory recognized well thank you mr chairman they did send the sample letter by the way yeah the the draft that we've got attached to the agenda item i'm okay with sending that out i would like our county attorney's office to review the sumpter and all these other things i'm not i'm i'm not saying i'm against a strong letter to the to the the uh to develop whatever sld but uh i need the county attorney's office and administration to review that more clearly and give us a recommendation

Yeah, it could be part of a phased approach. To get this letter, we can have the county attorney's office really flesh out that letter that Sumter sent.

It could be fine, I just don't know.

I haven't had a chance to really- Yeah, and we would need it to be attached to a future agenda, so it would be open to the public. This one kind of came in late, didn't get on the agenda. We didn't really have enough time to talk to staff about it. All right, so do we have a motion then to approve the attached letter to FDEP and then direct staff to look at the Sumter letter to have a board discussion about sending a letter directly to SLD at a future board meeting?

So moved.

Second. Okay, we have a motion and a second. Is there any further discussion? Do you recognize, sir?

Yes, sir. Did we want to give the attorney the opportunity to to copy SLD on some of these letters that we're sending to FDEP just so they're aware of what we're doing?

Yeah, I think, I don't see why we couldn't copy them. It's their permit.

Included with the letter that we send to them.

Yeah, it would be the right thing to do. Let the attorney decide what's relevant and he can do the cover letter to say, hey, just so you know, we're moving forward with FDEP. This was our first letter. This is our second letter. We're going to continue moving forward. We'd like to work with you.

um and see what what that what develops from that yeah i mean i think there was also a request that fdep give the county certain updates and we keep this as a running agenda item i'm not really so sure about about that i mean i think we could address these things like we're addressing them uh in in the approach we've taken and then as it bubbles up and we need to deal with it again that's fine yeah okay Okay, any further discussion? Any opposition to the motion? That passes four to zero. Okay gentlemen, now we have one o'clock time certain. We had a couple of items we deferred, the fishing pier, beach re-nourishment, commission office operation. Do we want to take a quick break so we can get some nourishment here and then we can pick up those others?

Yeah, I was just thinking, yeah, if we come back and one o'clock time certain, 30 minutes is plenty of time to get some nourishment. And then after, we see how many people show up for the one o'clock. Right. We might be able between one and two. To work some of those in. And then, but it's all in-house stuff from here on. I think we can do it that way.

Okay, we're on break until one o'clock time certain for citizens input.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome back to the Charlotte County Board of County Commissioners regular and land use meeting for Tuesday, September 8th, 2026. Let the record show all commissioners are present except for Commissioner Deutsch who is absent today. We've now arrived at the 1 PM public input, any subject portion of the meeting. Anybody wishing to address the board during this portion of the meeting must state their name for the record. Remarks on any county related subject shall be limited to three minutes and shall be addressed to the commission as a body and not to individual members. There will not be any discussion. anybody wishing to speak please come forward state your name for the record you'll have three minutes

Good afternoon. Can you hear me okay?

Yeah, just right into the mic. Okay. There you go.

All right. My name is Kathleen Strouth. I'm here representing my husband and myself as Charlotte County voters, homeowners, and year-round residents. First, I'd like to acknowledge that I'm not someone who likes to stand at a podium or in front of a microphone in general. But we believe that one of the most important rights that we have as voters is the ability to ask questions, request information, and ultimately use our vote to influence laws and decisions that affect us. So we are not here to be unreasonable or overly critical. There are good things that we believe the county has invested in, including our parks, public spaces, for example. We are, however, somewhat frustrated that we have not been able to easily find information that we believe voters in this county should have to make an informed decision come November. This is particularly true when it comes to amendment three, which will be the focus of the rest of my time today. We are not asking the commission to tell us how to vote. We are asking for the local information that would allow us and other Charlotte County voters to make that decision for ourselves. Our first question is straightforward. Has Charlotte County calculated how much recurring property tax revenue the county would lose in 2027, 2028, and after full implementation of Amendment 3 based on the final language that will actually be on the November ballot? If that analysis does exist, where can the taxpayers access it? And if it doesn't, will the county commit to producing and making that information available to the voters before November 3rd? We would also like to understand what the county's plan would be to do if Amendment 3 does pass. What would the county prioritize protecting? Where would reductions potentially occur? Would fees or assessments need to increase? And what would those choices mean in actual dollars for the residents? Our second concern is in regards to efficiency. We know that the county has an internal audit program, and there have been recent audits of areas including procurement cards, teleworking, parks and recreation, public works, and fire and EMS. We also understand the county recently received a positive independent performance audit of its infrastructure sales tax programs. And those things are encouraging, but they are targeted reviews. They don't answer a broader question that we think is important, particularly if the county could face a significant recurring reduction in property tax revenue. Has anyone independently looked at how efficiently the Charlotte County government operates as a whole? We'd like to see an independent county-wide performance audit, particularly looking at contracts and consultants, personnel and headcount growth, IT and software spending, capital projects, change orders, and facilities and fleets. We're not suggesting that these areas contain waste. We're asking that they be independently examined before taxpayers are told essential services have to be reduced because there isn't enough revenue. And seeing that I'm out of time, I just want to say that- Thank you for your comments, ma'am.

Yeah, your three minutes is up. Thank you.

We understand that audit can't happen before November. Thank you. I just wanted to add that.

Thank you. Anybody else wishing to speak, please come forward. Stay chained for the record. You'll have three minutes.

Good afternoon, commissioners. How are you? My name is John Osanic.

Good afternoon, sir.

I'm here to speak to you once again about parcel 52, which was county-owned land and is now right away out in South Gulf Cove. I'm here speaking on behalf of Friends of South Cove Cove and the South Cove Cove community. We've met a number of times with staff. we have reiterated that we're not against putting docks along that waterway however we continue to provide documentation to staff and we're trying to get answers as to why staff uses an open water metric in order to put docks into that area those docks that's a man-made waterway it's not a title waterway you cannot use title datum in order to make decisions on how those docks should be built they continue to use that particular ordinance that refers to a mean low watermark last night I sent you all a new document yet another document on top of the white papers I've sent you in the past the technical memorandum that specifically asked three questions of the county engineering staff which I'd like to have answered during our last meeting with staff excuse me about a month ago i believe it was in the fourth of last month we met and they said they would approach the county staff and try and get us the answers to some of those questions they continue to use mean low water in a non-tidal environment That's a non-starter. That measurement does not exist. I've been trying to make that very clear. I'm trying to get someone in engineering to make me understand why the county uses that measurement in non-tidal waters. The other thing is the Yacht Club out in South Gulf Cove, many of the people that I went to the meeting earlier this week are very concerned because docks are starting to go in. We've sat with staff. They claim those docks will not go out more than 35 feet, yet we see poles going out 60 feet, 70 feet into that waterway. That is a hazard. And staff continues to treat the fact that, well, there's plenty of water for two boats to pass. Well, you can't use... the mentality of a roadway on waterways any more than you can use that same mentality on an airstrip or airplanes. So the clearances are different. canals were initially put in they were put into certain standards those standards had a four to one ratio in other words one foot a drop for every four feet it goes out in order to get to negative four feet in that area or four feet below the high water line you only have to go out 16 feet there is really no reason to put a dock 60 70 80 feet into the waterway none not one Those waterways were designed completely differently. By the time you get out 25 feet and the county actually has its own independent bathroom exit survey that they ran, they refuse to adhere to that. They adhere to those that are being supplied. Thanks very much.

Thank you, sir. Thank you for your comments. Anybody else wish to speak, please come forward. State your name for the record. You'll have three minutes.

Yes, my name is Lee Phillips. My wife and I own a canal lot in Harbor Heights. August 25th, all of you decided not to approve the budget recommended by your MSBU Advisory Canal Committee. We also supported a $30,000 bath metric study to support the needs for dredging. The budget was prepared by your public work staff. You all said you wanted to study the matter and revisit it next year. Well, next year has come and gone. For some reason, you were not reminded to keep your word in this regard. Are you men who keep your word? There has been three storms in the past four years and no dredge. It has been more than ten years since the last dredge. It's your responsibility to maintain the navigability of all the canals in Charlotte County, including Harbor Heights. You should find a way to responsibly fund the dredging costs. The present system does not work. There are other sources of funds, such as grants. Can't you contact your people in Washington DC and get FEMA to fund the money they promised? Why can't we take the cost of the last dredge, which was over ten years ago, divide it by six years to establish an annual assessment needed to fund the next dredge? Doubling the maximum assessment for five or six years is extremely burdensome. We've had a range from $200 to $400 per lot for assessments, and that's not enough. I have sent emails to all of you. None of you have acknowledged this correspondence. The Director of Public Works has not supported his own staff's work either. It's now time for you to make the hard decision and direct Public Works to move forward with the 2526 budget and prepare to schedule the badly needed dredge. HARBOR HEIGHT SEEMS TO BE THE RECIPIENT FROM THE COUNTY OF DELAY, DELAY, DELAY, AND HOPE HE GOES AWAY. WHILE I'M HERE, I HAVE NO PLANS FOR GOING AWAY.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR COMMENTS, SIR. ANYBODY ELSE WISHING TO SPEAK, PLEASE COME FORWARD, STATE YOUR NAME FOR THE RECORD. YOU'LL HAVE THREE MINUTES.

Hi, Jeff Lustig here. I won't be able to be here for the Buc-ee's debacle or whatnot. They seem like used car salesmen, having you agree to something and then not go through with it. I don't know enough about it, but I value your expertise. You guys really do a very good job of going into the deep dive of what's going on and I thank you very much for your service. um you mentioned the a bridge the um the walkway under 41 um that would be for the first um boardwalk in other words it's a 3.2 million dollar thing that allows you to to make a round trip over the bridge. When the bridge wasn't available, I'd have to walk through traffic by the gas station to try to get across to get back. When I worked for Sunseeker, one of the big draws was that people could run and do a loop around the bridge. Again, thank you so much for your service. It's a pleasure.

Thank you, sir. Anybody else wish to speak, please come forward, state your name for the record.

Hello, my name is Debbie Kudry, and I'm speaking on behalf of Buc-ee's. And I was just wondering, I was reading up on elements on that, and they were saying that the OH hydraulics free radicals attack concentrated carbon dioxide and leave the methane to build, which depletes the oxygen for the conservation area. Shouldn't we do better for our conservation areas? As we all know, there's only a couple of places in the world where the small tooth sawfish exists. Won't the flooding of the mangroves carry the fuels towards the harbor? We don't have any kind of expert information about this. Shouldn't we get this information before we proceed and get final approval? I was just wondering about that. If this does get final approval, those people in that zip code, if there's more accidents within that complex, is that going to affect their auto insurance? Because it goes by your zip code and basically, and I don't think the people around there are going to be wanting to pay higher. auto insurance uh... bucky's hasn't done any surveys or anything about accidents and any of their their gas stations or anything i think we should get that information they should at the proceed with checking into that because it's a very accident prone area when you enter it they put the gas stations on two sides instead of four sides where they could alleviate congestion They don't do that. We don't want high accident volume. We need to take advantage of all four sides of that. Thank you very much for your time.

Thank you, ma'am. Anybody else wishing to speak, please come forward. State your name for the record.

My name is Richard Little. I'm a Charlotte County resident. Good afternoon, commissioners.

Good afternoon, sir.

Thank you. I want to speak today about something that's more fundamental than any single zoning case or employee policy violation. It's about an example set by leadership. During the July 28th Waterside hearing, Commissioner Daugherty stated that it is his position that the activity, quote, falls under commercial excavation requirement, end quote, and acknowledge that this, quote, does require a comp plan change and zoning change, end quote. He later responded by saying, quote, I see the commercial mining excavation fitting, end quote. And again, stated that it, quote, requires future land use zoning, end quote. Yet Commissioner Doherty voted to approve the project. If commissioners can identify a written legal requirement, acknowledge that it applies, and still approve an action that does not justify the requirement, what message does that send to the county employees about compliance with written rules? We now have senior community development employees conducting official county business through Facebook Messenger, even though the county's board adopted RECORDS POLICY EXPRESSLY PROHIBITS EMPLOYEES FROM USING INSTANT MESSAGING FOR OFFICIAL BUSINESS. AND THIS WAS NOT AN INSTANT COMMUNICATION. IT WASN'T TRANSITORY. SENIOR EMPLOYEES DISCUSSED THE CITIZEN, SHARED HER SOCIAL MEDIA CONTENT, MADE FUN OF HER, CONTACTED CODE AND COMPLIANCE AND ENFORCEMENT PROCEEDINGS WERE INITIATED AGAINST THAT CITIZEN THE VERY NEXT DAY. THESE ARE TWO VERY DIFFERENT MATTERS BUT THEY RAISE THE SAME FUNDAMENTAL QUESTION. Are the laws, ordinances, or policies of Charlotte County mandatory, or are they optional when compliance becomes inconvenient? The county government cannot demand compliance from citizens while treating compliance by government officials as optional. Accountability starts at this dais. If the board expects the county employees to follow the regulations that this board adopts, Then they should lead by example and follow the ordinances and laws that apply.

Thank you. Thank you, sir. Anybody else wish to speak, please come forward, state your name for the record. You'll have three minutes.

Good afternoon. My name is Carla Smith from Englewood. I'm speaking on the ordinance that I submitted earlier today that wasn't acknowledged. I understand that that's not something you can actually vote on today, but I wanted to bring it to your attention again and make sure that you do take a look at it. It's about the shelter for early voting and on election day. i'm going to make sure that this doesn't get pushed aside we were told two years ago that something would be done what ended up happening was a memo that didn't even allow us to have an umbrella or anything even strapped to our vehicle for shelter so i'm going to be here at every meeting to speak at public comments to ensure that this doesn't get set aside and forgotten again so thank you very much and have a good day thank you ma'am thank you for your comments

Good afternoon, commissioners. Dave Kalin, Charlotte County resident and business owner. I want to address a fundamental misunderstanding that I believe is contributing to many of Charlotte County conflicts between code enforcement and our farming community. Agricultural tax classification, commonly known as bonification, is not a license to farm. Florida Statute 193.461 governs the classification of agricultural land for property tax assessment purposes. A farmer can conduct a legitimate agriculture operation and can choose not to apply for that classification and simply pay the regular tax rate. Another farmer may apply for the classification in order to receive that tax benefit. That decision does not determine whether growing produce, raising bees, operating a nursery, or conducting other lawful agricultural activity is farming or not. Yet we continue to see agricultural tax classification treated as a county license to farm. It isn't. These are separate questions. The county should be. Should be whether the agriculture activity is lawful and whether the operation holds whatever state license, registrations or certifications that it requires, if any. We are also seeing farmers, nurseries and commercial fishermen and aquaculture activities pursued over so called junk like conditions. Commissioners, farming is working activity, it's not a landscape standard. Farms have equipment, nurseries have pots, plants, trailers, supplies. Commercial fishing and aquaculture conditions have boats, crab pots, tanks, coolers, trailers, and gear. These things are often evidence that an agricultural operation is actually taking place, not evidence of a code violation. Florida Right to Farm Act Section 823.14 provides important protections for farm operations and limits local regulations of agricultural activities. But yet there's another issue this board needs to address. This board has repeatedly told the public that Charlotte County code enforcement is reactive, not proactive. Commissioner Toseo, you yourself had made this statement numerous times. So I have a simple question. If code enforcement is reactive versus proactive, why does it appear that the majority of code enforcement activity in my community is now proactive by Mr. Greenwald? It goes further. We've recently learned that code enforcement is actively monitoring social media pages, looking for activities that they may consider violations. We also have a code enforcement officer reportedly seeking authorization to conduct overnight surveillance and stakeouts of properties. And my community determined whether somebody's on that property overnight or not. Commissioners, this is government overreach. There's a difference between responding to legitimate complaints and actively searching social media, deriving properties looking for violations and sitting outside of property ownership and properties. I am asking this board to establish a clear policy requiring code enforcement before pursuing an agricultural operation to determine what the agricultural use is and if those licenses are present. Farmers should not feel as though their county government's watching their social media. The line needs to be drawn, and I'm asking this board to draw it, and I'm asking you to draw it now. Otherwise, this is going to quickly become a legal problem for you. Thank you.

Thank you for your comment, sir. Anybody else wishing to speak, please come forward, state your name for the record.

Aren't we supposed to sign in or no?

Just state your name for the record.

Okay. Colonel Marianne Tipton, United States Air Force retired. Good afternoon and welcome back, commissioners. I want to bring to your attention three related concerns involving community development staff in the initiation of a code enforcement action against a county resident. First, violation of the county's records management policy. The county's policy expressly forbids testing or instant messaging official business with the member's personal or department-issued cellular phone, mobile device, or desktop computer. Community Development Director Ben Bailey and Planning and Zoning Official Sean Cullinan used Facebook Messenger to conduct county business concerning a citizen and a potential code violation. Sean Cullinan using the same messaging platform to discuss official business with Dave Santomaro, co-compliance supervisor. Again, county employees violating the records of management policy. The records I obtained suggest this was not simply an isolated occurrence, but maybe a common practice. These are senior employees. If supervisors routinely disregard a records management policy, what message does that send to the employees they supervise? Second, violation of Florida statute 162.06 code enforcement initiation. Statute 162.06 prohibits initiating code enforcement proceedings through an anonymous complaint. A person reporting a potential violation must provide his or her name and address to the county before enforcement proceedings occur. I have been unable to identify a contemporaneous complaint documenting that information before code compliance supervisor Dave Santomaro undertook enforcement activity. The record identifying a complainant was created after the fact. Third, and most troubling, the conflicting explanation of the originating complainant. Ben Bailey and Sean Cullinan have provided accounts that leave unresolved a very simple question. Who was the complainant, Ben Bailey or Sean Cullinan, and why does it matter? Before county government exercises its enforcement authority against a citizen, the public should be able to expect that county employees have followed the laws and policies governing that authority. These three issues cannot simply be viewed in isolation. Senior employees used a prohibited communication channel. Government enforcement followed. There is no contemporary complaint record establishing the required complaint and information before that enforcement activity and subsequent explanations conflict concerning who originates the complaint. I'm not asking you to revisit the merits of the code case. I'm asking this board to determine whether county employees follow the county's records management policy in Florida lot and if they did not to hold those responsible accountable. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Tipton. Thank you for your comments. Anybody else wishing to speak, please come forward, state your name for the record.

morning good morning sir afternoon yes good afternoon my name is charles brown i live close to where they want to build poultry homes i have i'm concerned about all the development going on in charlotte county poultry homes we're going to worry about the water and the infrastructure wildlife but what i want what i'm concerned about is the open development of charlotte county According to according to the information on on the website, there's 145,000 vacant lots in Charlotte County. And there are 228,000 vacant homes and condos that are unoccupied. I realized, I realized that Charlotte County commissioners get paid according to how many people live in charlotte county um the more more people that come to charlotte county the higher you guys wages which i'm against you know i have an upcoming commissioner coming in that has taken money from poultry homes which i am against um i just i just want uh things to slow down. We need we need to fill fill out what we got in Charlotte County. We don't need all this development. Another thing with Pulte Homes, they're going to be tied in to the mine that they're planning on Vermont Road because they're going to be getting all the fill. There's another development on on Vermont Road that will get to fill from this mine also. So you guys gotta think about what's going on. I'm tired of all the overgrowth. I'm a low income resident. I make $16,000 a year on my social security and that's it. How's that gonna benefit me? I mean, my taxes are gonna go up again. And I can't afford it. I can't afford to live here. We're all this development is not going to help me. I'm sorry, just it's you guys are looking wrong. All you're looking at is the dollar, the dollar signs and it's we're not getting any of it. So thank you.

Thank you, sir. Anybody else wish to speak, please come forward, state your name for the record. You'll have three minutes.

Don't start my time yet, but this is from the property owner. She didn't feel like anybody reads her emails. And I heard some of the comments from people. These guys read emails, email them. They definitely read them. I'm going to go ahead and start now, if you can start my time. The community development staff are not bad people. I too have social media conversations with friends and in private, I'm no better. I've made fun of people privately, but this Facebook conversation among staff on a Sunday night turned into a storm. It started with, hey look at this, where is this, is this a code violation, it happened. I know the planning and zoning official, sometimes I can't stand how he does some things, but I don't think he's dishonest at all. I like the guy, and I can see what happened here. He is an extraordinarily smart, knowledgeable guy, where you pose a question and he knows the answer, he gets right on it. I email him, he responds with an answer in less than three minutes sometimes. But somewhere in that conversation, his nature, his reaction was to instantly address a problem because that's who he is. And that message went to his friend who's a code enforcement guy. And instantly, it became county business, public record, but on a platform that the county policies prohibit using for county business. It happened. On the other end, the young property owner had just taken a giant leap of faith, put it all on the line, signed her life over, invested in property, and for months, trying to exercise her property rights with a glamping ag business, she gets that code violation. And like all of us, we want to know who complained, which neighbor was it. In her case, she's dealing with a lot of circumstances, a lot of life circumstances, but like any entrepreneur, she's also incredibly intelligent, determined, relentless, and she repeatedly files public records requests for information that I didn't even know you could ask for it. And ultimately, she captures that initial conversation among friends from that Sunday night in July, and she responds immediately by publishing those screenshots of the staff's private exchange on her social media channels. It happened. But here lies the core issue. The Charlotte County lacks a clear public portal or process for residents to submit a formal grievance regarding staff conduct. The employee codes of conduct aren't publicly accessible. And as far as I can tell, there isn't even a whistleblower policy to protect internal employees who choose to speak up. Consider how this was handled. The administration speaks with the department head involved, and then that same manager is tasked with explaining the situation to the affected property owner. We can debate the timeline and the details all day, but the breakdown and process is clear, it happened. The county has good, experienced, hardworking staff, but this board and the incoming board must confront the deeper organizational cultural issues within. There must be boundaries, safeguards, and fail safes in place. Use of instant messaging apps by staff may be a common place here, but it is entirely unacceptable. It raises the question, if community development staff conduct off the record conversations with developers and land use attorneys that they're close with, it destroys the public trust. Addressing organizational culture needs to be a priority that falls squarely both on this current board and the next board. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Thank you for your comments. Anybody else wishing to speak, please come forward, state your name for the record. You'll have three minutes. okay seeing nobody rise gentlemen um we have three other items from this morning's agenda we'll we'll get on right away okay we're going to go back to item number seven which was the fishing pier at port charlotte beach mr scott you're recognized to present

good afternoon commissioners tommy scott community services director so our final peer conversation today is uh at that at port charlotte beach but it's the fishing pier but also includes the floating dock boardwalk and seawall so the county approved the use of coastal engineering consultants as the design firm to go through and do the inspections work on the design permitting and construction oversight with us the technical memo was attached as our other previous peer discussions In the history of Port Charlotte Beach, it's a little over a 16-acre park. It does have 3,600 linear feet of waterfront into Charlotte Harbor. Originally developed back in 1972, renovated in 2012, and it currently is under construction for the new recreation center and pool. Waterfront access included the fishing pier, boating, paddling happened there, swimming, and just general recreational use at the beach. WE ALSO HAD IMPROVEMENTS THAT WERE FUNDED THROUGH THE 1998 AND 2020 LOCAL 1% SALES TAX AND THEN ADDITIONALLY WE HAD MONEY FROM THE STATE THROUGH THEIR GRANT PROGRAM. water amenities have included the boardwalk and fishing pier boat ramps canoe and kayak access park amenities that are sports courts playgrounds walking paths picnic areas in the beach so here's some general pictures of the pier itself and then kind of an overall aerial of what it used to look like because you can see the old building and the old pool in there floating dock is on the left board old old floating dock old boardwalk is on the right Then we get into some post-Haleen and Milton pictures that show significant damage that the fishing pier had taken. What you can't see in the middle was the floating dockets now underwater and the pilings are askew. And then I know we've shown you the pictures of the boardwalk system that had damage. So this shows you an overall aerial that includes the new rec center and pool, but highlights the areas that we'll talk about being the fishing pier, the two sections of boardwalks, the seawall over by the sailing center where the floating dock is, and then the floating dock itself. Again, same lenses that we've talked about previously, inclusive of the two that we presented and discussed earlier today. CEC, their analysis looked at 146 linear feet of seawall, the 66 by eight floating dock, including the gangway, 671 feet of the old timber pier, and the boardwalks, both of which, the boardwalks have been removed as part of the process with the new building and pier. The seawall they found to be in fair condition that we should just monitor and maintain it, so new additional work that needed to be done on that. The floating dock was destroyed beyond practical repair and replacement is required. The fishing pier is in obvious poor condition because there are sections that are just gone and is not serviceable. So this kind of gives you a rough recap of what we're going to talk about today three options on the fishing pier for construction options three on the boardwalk two on the floating dock and then two actions on the seawall So talking about the fishing pier first First option, go back with what we had there before, which was just a timber pier that meets all the requirements that we had. And this was keeping it at the same height and elevation. Pros of it, it's the lowest initial cost for construction. Permitting will be required, but it'll probably be the easiest. LET'S SEE, THE NEW STRUCTURE WILL HAVE ALL THE CURRENT STANDARDS THAT ARE REQUIRED, INCLUDING ANY STORM RESILIENCY. THE CONS OF IT, THE LOWER STRUCTURAL LONGEVITY OF THE PIER. OBVIOUSLY WE'VE HAD STRUGGLES WITH THE PAST COUPLE STORMS. REBUILDING IT AT ITS EXISTING ELEVATION HAS ITS LIMITATIONS ON CREATING ADDITIONAL STORM RESILIENCY. AND THEN LIMITED ADA ACCESS WITHOUT ANY ADDITIONAL IMPROVEMENTS INTO THE AREA. SO WHEN YOU LOOK AT ALL OF THOSE THINGS TOGETHER, THE COST OF THE TIMBER PIER REPLACED AS WAS WAS A LITTLE OVER $1.6 MILLION. SO THE SECOND OPTION WAS TO DO A TIMBER PIER, DO IT TWO FEET HIGHER AND THEN MAKE ALL THE ADDITIONAL ADA REQUIRED ACCESSES AND UPGRADES. AGAIN, SAME PROS AND CONS AS IT HAD BEFORE EXCEPT ADDING THE ADDITIONAL TWO FEET DOES MAKE IT ADDITIONALLY MORE RESILIENT TO STORMS. The cost to do that is a little over $2 million. The last one is a hybrid pier. So this is using heavy timber in areas to expand the footprint of the pilings, but while still using some of the pilings that are there. Raising the deck two feet, making sure it is compliant. And then the old pier had water spigots and built-in rod holders, so just putting back some of those additional amenities. Pros of that is the higher structural longevity. It again is built to those higher standards and has the highest resiliency. Using this in synthetic structure components, that is the decking that we talked about earlier this morning using that composite decking system. The increased elevation of two feet makes it more resilient and then it makes sure that we're fully ADA compliant. It does have the highest anticipated construction costs of all of these. And because we're going to be adding in additional timber pilings, it will just increase the permitting timeline. So that one's order of magnitude is a little over $2.4 million. All right, so next we have the sailing center. Over by the sailing center is the floating dock. So option one on the floating dock, replace that and the gangway that leads down to it, just new ones, new aluminum, new floating dock as we had before. So removing, we'd still reuse the older pilings that are there, straighten up any that are out of line and then remove and replace the pile wraps that were on them. Pros to this, it's got the lowest initial construction cost. The aluminum floating dock will increase its longevity. It'll streamline our permitting by staying in the same footprint and also maintains our ADA compliance. The cons, higher maintenance exposure and need to be able to maintain that. The no changing of the pilings in the floating dock, there's no additional improvements that are being recommended. So it's the same size, just basically replacing with what was there before. That cost is $180,000. Option two is a floating dock, but with upgrades. So we would expand it, so make it four foot wide, take it from four foot wide to eight foot wide. So we would gain four feet in width of the floating dock itself. So that would create a new profile, because we'd have to put in new pilings. They recommended putting in synthetic pilings, and then increase the top pile elevation, so that way, because it does float, so that way we can move with the tide a little bit better. and improve the pile designs by going with the synthetics. Pros and cons of it, this will have the higher structural longevity. It has better resiliency by adding in better pilings to it. Using the synthetic pilings will reduce the maintenance and the extended life of those. Expanding the gangway will meet the needs for launching boats from the sailing group or anybody that wants to launch their kayaks from that area. This will allow also for paddle crafts, that's the kayaks that I was just talking about, and it maintains our ADA accessibility. This one has a higher construction cost and higher permits because we will put in new pilings. Cost for that, a little over $280,000. So those are the two options for that. The boardwalks, we had a section that was behind the old recreation center and then there was another section kind of over by who's part of the bocce court. But this, because the way that we flipped and put the rec center over where the pool is and vice versa, this is recommending a couple different options for those sections. Both, I think there's three options. The first one, put a sidewalk and a retaining wall. so that'd be 600 feet of sidewalk on the east side of the new recreation center over to the parking lot and then west of towards the pool to connect to that parking lot as well vinyl retaining wall on the waterward side and then relocate and then use addition of the existing and then fill in with additional riprap where needed So this has the lowest anticipated construction cost, high structural longevity, the riprap will increase our storm resiliency, low maintenance costs because it's just a sidewalk and a seawall, may require an Army Corps permit to put in. may not i'm sorry may not that's why it's on the pros the cons of it completely eliminate the boardwalk system so we don't have that as an amenity to get an elevated walkway in the park and it may require swift southwest florida water management district permitting cost for that one little over 1.2 million dollars Option two, combination of sidewalk and boardwalk. So 300 feet of sidewalk on the east side towards the new recreation center to the base of the fishing pier, vinyl retaining wall and sidewalk after that. um and then relocated some of the riprap that's there add an additional um to backfill where we need to but then construct a eight foot by 260 foot boardwalk to go from the pier west to the new parking lot so sidewalk one direction boardwalk the other direction which would include an observation area that would be built into the boardwalk the pros of this it does have structural longevity to it the riprap will again increase increase our resiliency has lower maintenance costs compared to the last option it gives that that same natural characteristic that we had before with the boardwalk system CAN BE DONE IN PHASES, MAY NOT REQUIRE AN ARMY CORPS PERMIT. CONS, HIGHER ANTICIPATED CONSTRUCTION COST BECAUSE, AGAIN, COMPARISON TO JUST A SIDEWALK, HALF SIDEWALK, HALF BOARDWALK REQUIRES ADDITIONAL COST FOR THE CONSTRUCTION, AND IT WILL REQUIRE FDEP PERMITTING. THAT COSTS A LITTLE OVER $1.4 MILLION. Option three, boardwalk and riprap the whole thing. So that's both directions, eight foot wide. That'd be a 650 feet of boardwalk that will happen going both east and west from the pier. It'd still have that additional observation point. And then we would use what riprap we have and then add in additional where needed. So pros, it does have structural longevity, the rip rap again gives us resiliency. We would build it in a way that is timber piling with our composite decking, so it will have pretty good life expectancy and low maintenance cost for us. Can be done in phases, may not require the Army Corps permit. The cons of it, higher anticipated construction costs, and it will require an FDEP permit. Cost of that, a little over $2 million. The seawall, really simple, two options. First one, they say it's structurally fine, we don't need to do anything, so don't do anything. That's gonna cost us, well, low anticipated cost, zero. Low maintenance cost because we're just maintaining on its current cycle. The cons of it, it's not reproving any of our resiliency because it's not a new seawall. It has a structural longevity timeline that it needs to be replaced, but it's not any time in the near future that they, recommend doing it now. I don't know why Kansa has a no permit required because that seems like a pro to me, but that's where it ended up on their list. Option one, about $1,000 just to take out some cabbage palms so that way they're not eroding into the current seawall. Option two, Option two, replace it. It's 146 linear feet. So take it out, put in a new one. And so that would be precast with grooved panels, 24 inches by 18 inches cast in place with a beam constructed six inches water word of the old seawall. so this will have the longest uh longevity just because it would be new with a little to low maintenance cost permitting would be similar because we're using a similar footprint it would be minimal costs well to go from the what was a thousand dollars of that one it would be obviously a construction cost to build something in and we would have to go through minimal improvements it would have minimal improvements for the resiliency The cost of putting that in is a little over $390,000. So this tries to encapsulate all of that information, kind of telling you the different sections that are at the top, seawall, floating dock, boardwalks, and the fishing pier. It gives you sizes, the rough construction costs that go along with that, their longevity, existing footprints or outside of that, environmental impacts, any of their permitting impacts, and then just general overall assessment. So the recommendations are, one, with the seawall, don't do anything with it besides maybe take those cabbage palms out, because it's fine now structurally. Option two, the recommendation from both the consultant and the staff is to go with the updated floating dock, which would be a little bit wider, requiring more pilings and some additional permitting. But it would allow for additional uses, both for paddling and vessels that are using it from the sailing perspective. Boardwalk, option two is what is recommended, which is the combination of sidewalk and boardwalk, so that way we can still maintain some of that character that we had before with the elevated boardwalk and the observation platforms, but only in a portion of it, and then just doing a sidewalk on the other side. And then option three, which is the hybrid pier, is what is recommended, so that way it takes into account excuse me, all the additional upgrades that were proposed. So overall total projected of all of those is $4.16 million for the recommendation. And with that, I'll pause here for any questions or comments you all might have.

Thank you, Tommy. Sir? Okay, nobody's in the queue. Why don't we take these one at a time? I'll kick it off. The seawall, I don't disagree here. We'll just maintain and watch what we've got on that one. Now the floating dock. I know we have a lot of folks out there, the Dragon Club and paddle boarders. This may be a good opportunity for, it is an increased cost, but I think it's less than 100,000 to replace what we've got with to make it wider and a little bit more accessible for more users if I'm looking at it right. Correct. I think there's value in that to go to the option two for the 282,000. So that's where I'm at on the floating dock. When it comes to the boardwalk, you know, i'm not so sure how keen i am about putting something right on the water again i know you're saying it may mitigate future damage to the pool and to the facility but we've got a lot of rip rap in there already and we've we elevated the uh the patio of the back of the facility so you can get those vistas i'm not sure you know if the public's going to have access to that during the day i think and then you're going to put a gate up at night so you don't get anybody in there at night but there's going to be access to look at those vistas from the exterior of the new facility um I'm just a little bit hesitant about putting a boardwalk practically on or in the water at that point and as far as the fishing pier goes I mean to me we have to replace that I don't object to option three um for the pier my my issues are with the boardwalk components so if there's any other comments we can give some feedback to staff there's nobody in the queue but that's where i'm at on some of those projects Commissioner Doherty, recognize that.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Funding. Back to money again. Same pot? Yes, sir. Same thing. I think that really needs to be integrated into the discussion of everything else we talked about this morning. I don't disagree, Mr. Chairman, with what you just stated. So just to give direction today, I think those are... My feelings as well, but I don't want to move on any of this stuff till I have a better understanding of the dollars Then we can prioritize What we need to do it does fall back into need again.

Yeah as opposed to once I Yeah, that ties into our earlier discussions about, you know, we need to see where the money is and the different funding sources. Commissioner Constance, you recognize, sir?

Thank you, sir. Yeah, I'm in agreement. I see what all makes sense. No cost, floating dock option. Yeah, as far as the board works, I think I have to agree that we just took the tour, and you've got – the whole back of that building you've got beautiful vistas and if we can have it open during the day just for people to walk up those back steps or however they access that i mean it really supplants a need for for even recreating this and you always can build it later on i mean if if the money ever shows up i i think um next week's discussion at the workshop about you know what you know 31 million but how much is that um how much of that has been allocated, appropriated, those types of things. I really think we need to understand that because these are starting to get to be big numbers, but I agree that fishing pier has to be replaced. It's just a question of at what cost because we may want something, but we may have to pay for the lower installation because that will get the need taken care of. But I Again, appreciate the deep dive and how you've put these presentations together, because it's very helpful to give us an understanding of the different choices. But I don't think we have enough information just yet. I mean, I think you'll hear from all of us, but maybe you take that input, but then we kind of just again postpone this until we get a more holistic view of funding and then we can have a better direction. But that's it, thank you.

And I think the pool deck too, I don't remember the square footage of the old pool deck, but this pool deck is pretty large. And you can look out there. Yes.

Although you probably have to pay to get in there.

Well, I'm just saying it's just another opportunity. There's nobody else in the queue. Any more comments on this item? So we want to, I think, bundle this project in with our earlier comments about the money and look at everything together. So we can look at these options, but we can see the funding sources, so we can give better direction, clearer direction.

Perfect.

Yeah. I mean, if you look at the total cost value-wise, this is dead center in the population. I mean, this fishing pier is probably a higher priority or at least as high a priority as the Bayshore one. So it's going to be favorable. We've got to get it done. So don't come back in a year. Come back quickly. We're going to have our conversation in a week. This one you might be able to bring back right away so that we can kind of plug it in.

it's going to take time years permits right we got to still get all that stuff done yeah so yeah i think what we directed staff was as soon as they had the ability to get the information and put it together they'd bring it back we didn't give you a time certain but obviously we want to get it back as soon as possible

So yes, I heard that on Live Oak because of lots of complexities. So my understanding now is you want me to hold on all three of these presentations today until there's a further conversation about the fund. And I appreciate this is a lot to take in to have this conversation and look through all of these presentations and the funding of it. but we've been trying to make sure we're expedient in bringing these back because we know the desire of the public to get fishing piers moving forward knowing that we still have three and a half to five years in front of us for permitting design permitting construction so there's still a long lead time in front of it i just want to be clear so am i holding on all of these until after next week's conversation is that what i'm hearing

I have Commissioner Dory, then Constance in the queue. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think we were okay with moving ahead with design and permitting, right, on all these. That's the direction today was to give you those kinds of feedback, right? I think we did. i thought i had that too but then i was kind of concerned i thought maybe and then i thought maybe this conversation led me to not well but the you know basically i think design and permitting that's already that's already in the in the budget right we're already paying for that it gets to that next step as to when the design process is going through especially in live oak point we've got options down there right the designer needs to look at the materials look at other things we threw out that's going to take extra time yeah but i don't again i don't think we stopped the design and permitting he weren't a contract with that guy so let's let's get that stuff done but we may have to logically On that one in particular, stop at a certain point, 30% or 50% or something like that, and come back to the board with, okay, this is what the engineer is now telling us, right? Okay. So we can phase it differently. And that's kind of what I heard.

Yeah, I think that's what I was. My comments were more on the construction cost.

Yeah, construction's going to come back with a new contract once we bid it all out. just if i may mr chairman to recap what i heard was do nothing on the seawall option two on the floating dock option one on um the pier and option three no option one on the boardwalk option three on the fishing pier is that what you all would like us to keep moving forward on

Hold on a minute.

So option two is the wider floating dock. Option one on the boardwalk is just retaining wall and sidewalks, no boardwalks. And then option three on the pier is the hybrid that increases the elevation by three feet and does all of the upgrades on the pilings. Those were my comments.

I'm okay with that. You still have the floor, sir. You're okay with that? I'm good with that. Okay, okay. I had Commissioner Constance and Commissioner Truex.

so we're doing option one on seawall option two on floating dock option one on the boardwalks yes and option three on the fishing pier that's what i heard from the chairman in that okay yes sir i'll go with that okay commissioner

Yeah, I think that I'm actually fine with all the staff's recommendations, actually. I think that the option two on the boardwalk would make sense, but I'll go with option one. I just, I don't know.

we get streamlined permanently with one so yeah i'll i'll stick with the crew i'm i'm good with it okay commissioner constance you recognize her yeah so i think i think commissioner tricks i don't speak for you but you're looking at the fact that we can for another what is it yeah less than 200 000 get the boardwalk done as well with option two as opposed to just a sidewalk yes

supposed to sidewalk it's not like it's another million dollars right yeah exactly i i just think it makes sense to go ahead and go with but well if i go with you that's two and two so we have to have more discussion okay i mean that's that's i think that's that would be my preferred for longevity of the and use of the park it makes a lot of sense to me so because then you have connect you have connectivity with a boardwalk as opposed to just a sidewalk right

what are the if i can ask tommy what are the negatives of just doing the sidewalk versus is there a negative to putting the boardwalk in is because i would assume a sidewalk is going to be more resilient than than a boardwalk it will right and so that would be the problem which is why option one of just a sidewalk and retaining on riprap is the most resilient because you eliminate all of that piling and decking and boardwalky areas right

But meeting in the middle, to the commissioner's point, for the smaller amount of money, that's why staff was more leaning towards that because it gave a little bit of both, plus it gave an observation platform that people could get out onto. If it stays there. Yeah, but that's the point. Potentially with another storm event, the boardwalk is probably going to have more troubles than a seawall riprap with a sidewalk behind it.

So it's less than 200,000. Yeah. Well, I guess for the amount of money you are, what are the net gains, right? There's a net gain in connectivity and the overall usability of the facility.

Mr. Chair, can I ask? Yes, sir.

So I'm looking between one and two under the overall assessment. So option one provides protection of a new community center and pool, streamlined permitting. Option two does the same thing but also provides access to beach access.

so I think so the sidewalk can't get you to the beach it wasn't designed to do that okay it was generally I'm sorry I'm going back it's generally designed in this where the boardwalk could connect all the way over to here the sidewalk was just coming along here and then tying okay I see it tying into just the parking lot so it created that extra observation platform and connected over to the beach area so people could get up onto the boardwalk right from the beach area

Which makes sense because then from the beach you can go directly from the shoreline to the pool, to the center. All the way to the other side. Yeah. I think I'm going to lean with option two. You're right, Bill.

Yeah, I think I'm leaning, Bill. That's why we talk.

I look at planes a lot.

We're listening, we're listening. I believe that's where the old observation deck roughly was of the old building. Generally speaking, yeah. Yeah, and now that I'm looking at it.

We're kind of sneaky like that.

Yeah, no, I'm saying, wait a minute, wasn't that where the old one was? Yes, sir.

All right, so are we all fully aligned with staff recommendations then? Yes, sir.

Yeah, I think we are at this point, yeah. Okay, you got your direction. I appreciate that.

Sounds good. One final note, the last fishing pier that we have left to bring back to you is Anger Creek, which is adjacent to the Tom Adams Bridge going out into the intercoastal. all of the other ones now that we have this direction we'll keep moving forward on all the other ones are in in process and we are moving them along um so i know there has been some chatter that nothing's happening okay no construction is happening i accept that but it's not that nothing is happening these things take time but we only have one left that we haven't brought back to you and we're in negotiations on the contract right now so we can move that one back to bring that one back so we are moving along and i appreciate your patience with me today i know this was a lot so thank you for your time

Thank you, thank you, sir. Okay, we'll move on to item number 10, beach re-nourishment, additional subsidy.

Good afternoon commissioners, Rick Arthur, Fiscal Services. I'll try to be quick here too. We wanted to bring back some questions, some answers to some questions that were asked during our July 22nd public hearing on the beach re-nourishment MSBU. just remind everybody out there watching the timeline you know this has been a process over this whole year even into last year to begin planning for cycle 2 and at your July 22nd public hearing out at Tringali in West County you had some questions on additional subsidy for Don Pedro night island so we're bringing those back to you also keep in mind that the rate that you adopted or that you set tentatively excuse me at the July 22nd hearing is what went out on the trim notices in August and then anything any adjustment that you want to make today we will bring back to your first budget public hearing on September 14th and that's why we're looking for some direction today of what to bring you then on the 15th Amanda over there is gonna be working real hard to get the role certified the very next day Okay, so at the 22nd public hearing, we heard you ask about additional subsidies for Don Pedro. And in fact, you asked what did we do last time, so we've brought that back. And then there was also questions around what could we use as a source of funds for those subsidies. And what we heard were both the disaster retention reserve and or tourism dollars. So just to kind of show you where we're at currently, this is what was adopted July 22nd. The second column that say Manasota and Don Pedro, those are showing you what the splits are right now. If you look at the county and MSBU portions, those are the current splits. So we went back and compared to what we did last time. And if you look at the actuals, it came in very highly subsidized. And we can't afford to do that this time. For all the subsidies that we received, grants from the state and other dollars that we were able to apply, we put it to the MSBU side. so their subsidy was much greater last time but if you look at the resolution our original intent from the first cycle was to split at 50-50 so that's what we brought back to you today so you can see the current rates all the way to the right side of this slide that was what you set in July that's what went out and on the trim notice now if we adjust to make it a 50-50 split for Dom Pedro you're gonna see that the County portion shifts to 9.9 million, and the MSBU portion shifts downward to 9.9, so they're even. The prior slide, slide five, I should have highlighted the county portion was 4.1 and the MSBU portion was 15.8. So if we split those, that equates to the 9.9 million. million between both county and MSBU that's a change of five point eight million dollars so if we split that with with the MSBU that's what it would require an additional subsidy on top of the two million that you're already providing now one thing you'll notice is on the Manasota key we didn't touch that one because it's already over 50% and based on the race that you set in July you couldn't actually lower that subsidy and increase their rate because remember we always talk about you can go down but you can't go up so we left Manasota Key just as it is so uh 5.8 million is what it would take to uh to go to what we originally intended to do in cycle one which was a 50 50 split between the county and the msbu and you can see the impacts on the rate all the way although my it's a little cut off here on this slide i apologize on the online copy it should not be cut off it shows you the rates and that's just the max rate to the all the way to the right that's cut off So if you wanted to go in that direction, we just need direction from you that you want to go and add that additional subsidy. Again, to get that 50% level, it's just over $5.8 million. And then we can talk about the source of the funds. So disaster retention reserve, we talked about that a couple times today. We did increase that 6 million last year up to 31 million. So that's where we're sitting at right now. And then additionally, there are tourism dollars available between both of the funds. I have my team run projections, and there are dollars available there if we wish to utilize those as well. However, I know that with Don Pedro Night Island, it's got less access than Manasota Key. So currently right now, all of the tourism dollars that we do have dedicated go to Manasota Key. So we just need some direction from you all on if you want to go that direction, if you'd like to do the full 5.8, and then what source of funds you would like to use.

Mr. Constance, recognize him.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is the cost of the total program? Yes. So this is not like 5.8 million every year, this is the total cost?

Yeah, I'm sorry, I should have explained. Yes, that is the full cycle cost, yes.

I wanna make sure we get that on the record, okay. Yeah, so here we go again, disaster attention reserve. I mean, this keeps coming up. If that 31 million is gonna become zero very quick because we keep dipping into this pot.

tourism doesn't have that kind of bank i think they've got maybe i mean they've got six or seven million but we would bankrupt them right so i mean that's we got to be really careful about that yeah um tourism has i think my projections were showing in the first three cents they're just under 6.7 million and uh in the fourth and fifth cent they've got about nine and a half is what we're projecting at the end of this year

well but that's revenue coming in but a lot of that is that's spoken for there's a you're not that's not extra that's that's what's coming in but there's stadium debt there's there's um you know there's marketing right all the stuff that's correct yeah that's yeah that's what that's that's that's their revenue but that's right but and as you know tourism could be volatile as well Right, and the whole point is, you know, if Sean Doherty were in here, he'd say, yeah, you know, if we have a downturn in the economy, we need those dollars to keep the people coming and focus on us because otherwise our businesses dry up and we have problems. Correct. So, you know, I think all of this has to be, boy, this is tough, because this is, you know, there's a lot of parts of this that we don't have a crystal ball to understand, right? How many years is this program?

It's an eight year program so keep that in mind too. We don't necessarily have to just front load all of that in. In the first year we could divide it just like you do with the two million that you do annually right now. We just dedicate a certain amount each year.

You still have the floor, sir. Are you done? Yeah, I'm done for now. Thank you. Okay. Commissioner Truex, recognize.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I agree with Chris we have to kind of protect those tourism dollars what I would like to know from Sean and you together is what if any extra is there that might we might be able to look at as a slight subsidy I know we can't get it all from there but is there something that we can utilize it because obviously the beaches are a big draw for tourism so if we can get a little bit from there that would be great seeing that it's not All this does not have to be front loaded. I would like to see us go with the example that you've got present, and that's with the 9.985. okay and so you want to look at a split between yes the disaster retention if there is if there's some opportunity there i would like to see a split yeah but i know the most the majority of it's not going to come from tourism well yeah you still have the floor is it okay no i quit are you done yeah okay commissioner constance you recognize that

so i'm just going to throw it out there so if we did um and again this is over eight years but if we did 25 from tourism that's almost 1.5 million i think they could probably handle that over that period of time yeah just do it and then do a lot then do 75 out of the other now mind you i believe since it's not it's not going to affect the rate that we could midstream in a year or two, a board could decide, you know what, we probably can afford to do a few more tourism dollars and repay the hurricane fund from the tourism dollars. I don't want to commit them at the beginning, but if we have a few more good years and they're building up their reserves, I think legally, I'm just going to ask an opinion, but I think we can legally do that Since that was the intention here, and we can back fund it and repay the disaster fund with tourism dollars so that they do pay a greater amount because it's been effective. And so I think the theory is there. Can I get an opinion from staff?

Yeah, and we review that during the budget process with you anyway, all of those subsidies that you're, every year that we're adding to the budget. So we can absolutely have those discussions each year.

We can certainly look into that. Name for the record, sir? Tom David, county attorney. We can certainly look into that. I can't give you an answer right this minute. Okay.

well this is discussion direction so I think that's the direction I would go is at least they're committing a fair amount of money and then we can revisit and if if it looks like they can afford more or makes more sense we can always add to that in later years but but the rates are the same so we're not affecting the program we're going to commit to the 9.985 and just offset yeah thank you commissioner recognized

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So, Commissioner Constance, you're saying go the 9.985 and go 25% from tourism, 75% from disaster. And revisit. And revisit annually. Yeah. I'm good with that.

I'm good as well. I think that's fair.

Okay.

And we keep the subsidy consistent with what we've done in the past as far as the percentage of the cost. Okay. Which I think is fair, and that's what we told the folks at that meeting.

Yeah. We'll run those numbers, and that's what we'll bring back on the 14th.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Arthur.

Appreciate it.

okay we have one more item on regular agenda commission office operations that was put on the agenda by commissioner constance you have the floor sir thank you yeah again as we're like looking at what's going to be going on in the future i just think it would be important for us to commit to sort of putting a freeze on any hiring in our in our section of the building i think it's it's appropriate and um i just want to throw it out there

Yeah, nobody's in the queue, but I'll jump in. So by putting a hiring freeze on, that means that the number for executive assistants on our side of the office is five. There's one for each commissioner. Right. So you're freezing it at that. I mean, it wouldn't be going any higher anyway. I don't think anybody's going to be hiring more people.

But if there's attrition, I don't think we should be refilling those spots. I think we got away with three assistants for a long time early on. So, you know, again, I'd like to – make that as our position and then you know if property tax reform doesn't happen okay you can revisit that but i don't know i just think it's important to to make a statement that we're you know trying to be fiscally appropriate and i know that you in the past have discussed hey you know we were three we went up to five maybe we should start thinking about going down again so yeah that's my that's my proposal yeah i brought it up at last budget hearing last year um i said

I understand there may be some of the staff that's going to retire that we just don't replace. Then I also understand there may be operational issues with with having two or three assistants the way the office is set up with five independently elected folks and who's in charge i've also had discussions with mr flores you know does this get kicked back to him where he just gives us staffing and when we give him a number he's in charge of providing assistance to the commission office they're no longer working directly for the board of county commissioners because the way the system is now is each one of us Through the interview process, through HR or people's op, we end up making the final decision on who works for us. And so that's why we have five commissioners and five executive assistants. I don't object to having less, and I mentioned through attrition, but then I heard the operational issues that potentially could be there. So those are all things that have been thrown out there. I'm not sure if a hiring freeze, though, gets us to where you want to go, because a hiring freeze would say we're frozen at five. So in a year or two years, if we go down to three, does that mean-

we get two more positions because we're frozen at five if we're trying to reduce well we're not hiring okay okay but we're not hiring at five no we're not we're not hiring at all if people go okay and then it can be revisited if all of a sudden it goes down to two and that's too much of a strain the board brings it back and says hey we're having an issue i'm also open to having administration you know oversee it if that makes more sense but i just You know, I think we have to make a statement that we're fiscally concerned.

Yeah, I think if we do reduce, again, I don't object to that at all. Like I said, I wouldn't have brought it up at the last meeting. The issue is who's in charge at that point. That's the issue. That's why I think having Mr. Flores involved, he assigns a senior assistant and another one that operates under that person. That would be the only way. I can't imagine the five of us dictating to three different people, like how do we rotate them? There's five of us and three of them, it's an oddball number.

It can be done. It just has to be done under the right structure. All I can say is we did it. Yeah. We did it for years. Yeah. And it worked.

Yeah.

Again, I don't object. I wouldn't say it was easy, but it worked.

Yeah.

I have Commissioner Doria, then Truex.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yeah, I agree. A hiring freeze, I don't know if it is the right term, but I understand your goal. And I respect and agree with you that we need to make it clear to the community that Quite honestly, the threshold question is the results of Amendment 3 to really drill down on this because every department that's funded with ad valorem property taxes is going to have to look at cutting costs, period. And that's our office as well. So I think, though, what I'd like to do is reflect again. When Commissioner Truex and I both got elected in 2012, we were at three assistants. The only real problem that I remember was when it came, because of Sunshine Law, we came to the county attorney recommended that all of those three assistance had to be evaluated by all five county commissioners down in one nineteen or b one oh six or wherever the heck we were meeting that was extreme that's not how these current assistance were hired they work for us individually because we restructured so i see Especially, not that we have to, one way or the other with Amendment 3, I think ultimately we do need to restructure our office where the assistants, whether there's three, four, or five, work for administration. And the county administrator then assigns, working with all of us, assigns particular people to our offices. We no longer are necessarily the supervisors, we're working with the administration. They'll do the evaluations. The county commissioners won't be doing them down here in a public forum. And I've had that conversation with Mr. Flores, that we look at that as a possible change in structure of our office for operations. But I'd like to defer that, really, until the new board's on board and we have a whole discussion and we see what happens with Amendment 3, to see at what pace we go about that. But I don't know that it's a bad idea overall that we ultimately restructure. So I just wanted to get that out.

uh commissioner tricks right next sir thank you mr chairman um today isn't what it was 14 years ago. That's right. And 13 years ago. Population increase has been huge. The demands on my office, I mean, Diane works, whether she's working from home on a certain day or she's working here, I have constant contact with her and even on the weekends. I don't think that I could ever go back to three based upon our current workload. I just don't. I'm not saying we shouldn't have the conversation when the time comes, but I don't think the time is here. To put where I think your goal might be, Commissioner Constance, is this. No replacements until, if somebody happens to leave, then no replacements until after we find out about the results of Amendment 3.

If that's your motion, I'll second it.

So moved. Yeah. And I would like to add further that we investigate, this is not a motion, but we investigate what it might look like to shift the responsibilities, if you will, as far as direct supervision to administration. I don't know what that looks like yet, so I'd like feedback from people ops and administration on how they think that structure would work. It was very difficult on assistance when we had five commissioners evaluating them in public. It was very uncomfortable for them and they didn't sign up for that.

our three top people they signed up for that they get paid accordingly so um but the others don't so i don't really want to put them in that position anymore thank you okay so we had a motion yeah i didn't quite yeah i want to rephrase the motion or make sure we get it right was it that if we go down if we if we lose people in the office we don't replace them until we know about amendment three correct Okay, because I've heard out on the campaign trail with the incoming, they may not want an assistant. Anyway, that's what I thought I heard. That's their choice. Yeah, and I don't know if I heard it from one or two. So if that's the case, I don't object to that, but they're gonna need help. So we're going to have to restructure then how we operate our office, because they're going to need somebody to help them with constituent services and navigate the things that elected officials do. That's where it goes back, I think, to Hector, because otherwise the remaining assistants are going to have to be shared, and how does that work? Does now one assistant take care of two commissioners? Or do we rotate? It's going to be a mess. So that's why I think eventually if we go less than five, it's going to have to be administration who's going to have to assign us people and we leave it at that. Exactly. Yeah. It definitely has to go that route. Yeah, it has to go that route. You know, the other thing is a few things that this board has done. We talk about fiscal constraints. This board got rid of our local reimbursement for travel. We no longer can do that. We got rid of that. We also asked staff to come back with our travel of all departments, including the commission office, with cuts to travel and educational expenses. because we the board this board took a look at that it recently and directed staff we want to come back with numbers i believe mr flores is working on that so we are making those cuts i see commissioner constance's discussion in lines with those cuts um you know going forward okay so we have a motion in a second uh mr david did you have anything you wanted to you're good okay but motion second is there any further discussion there any opposition to motion hearing no opposition that passes unanimously okay that dispenses with our regular agenda we are now going to move on to land use Anybody who's going to be testifying today on land use consent or land use regular items, please stand and be sworn by the clerk. Anybody giving testimony today, please stand and be sworn for land use items, all land use items.

Please raise your right hand. Do you solemnly swear the testimony that you're about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Please say I do.

Okay, thank you. So this is going to be public input for land use consent items only. This is VA1, VA2. Anybody wishing to address the board during this portion of the meeting must fill out a card to state their name for the record and state which agenda item or items will be addressed. Remarks shall be limited to three minutes and shall be addressed to the commission as a body and not to individual members. Anybody wishing to speak on consent land use items? okay nobody's rising I will start to my right Commission Doherty anything to pull no sir Commissioner Constance no sir Commissioner Truex is left I have nothing to pull and nothing for Commission move your sense sir second we have a motion a second to move land use consent is there any further discussion is there any opposition to the motion that passes four to zero okay we are now going to move on to vb1 revisions to the uh the future land use and pr elements community development is presenting mr xiao you're recognized for vb1

Good afternoon, Jay Hsiao. Community Development Department and staff initiated application TCP-26-01. This is a text amendment to the county's comprehensive plan, and today's hearing is a transmittal hearing. The proposed changes are to revise the future land use flume element by adding new flume policy 1.2.18, government created nonconformities, and also to revise the property rights element by adding new policy 1.2.5, relief for government created nonconformities. And these proposed changes are applicable to properties throughout the county. So the reason for this application is because the county's existing comprehensive plan does not contain specific policies and the county's land-abundant regulations do not establish procedures or criteria for addressing properties rendered non-conforming solely as a result of a government taking for public purposes so that's the reason staff initiated this text amendment the intent of these amendments is to help ensure the properties affected by a government taking may continue to be used in a reasonable manner, and also to provide guidance for implementing land-run regulations to protect private property rights, and also to promote fairness, consistency, and predictability by established administrative process and criteria for addressing government created nonconforming. So you can see on the screen that is the new policy for future land use element. The new policy is to specific define a legally non-conforming use as a result of a government taking for public purposes and to establish the procedure in the county's land-level regulations. And the new policy will be added to the property rights element is to respect and protect property rights by recognizing that a government taking may create non-conforming laws parcel setback as well as other development standards. So this policy requires that the county to provide administrative procedures to allow the reasonable use and the development of properties rendered non-conforming solely as a result of a government taking.

Excuse me, Michelle.

Mr. David, you recognize?

If she can finish, I just want to- Okay.

Excuse me, Tom David, County Attorney. I just wanted to let you know that this has been a request from our outside council that's been doing the projects on the expansion of Harborview Road, etc. We have had a lot of issues because the county does not have a procedure like other counties have in place. And so we're ending up getting into massive fights over how much easements, and and small takings of property are when we get because what happens is we take that land we end up with a property that's non-conforming use so this has been that was specifically requested by our outside council that does our uh condemnation and the domain work

Thank you. Okay, staff concurrently proposing to amend the county code, which is section 3-9-9, in order to implement the two new policies under application TLDR-2601, which will be presented to the board for adoption concurrently with this application, because this is a tax amendment to the county's comprehensive plan, which is required to be transmitted to the state review agencies for review and comment. So that's why the adoption hearing is scheduled in October. So we're together with this new policy and regulations. So we can see on the screen which is the proposed land reform regulations. So the code changes you can see on the screen is to define the nonconformities resulting from a government taking and to establish the administrative process such as site plan review and also permitting process along with criteria for reasonable adjustments to address these government created nonconformity. So August 10th, this tax amendment was presented to the Planning and Zoning Board and the Planning and Zoning Board recommended approval of this tax amendment and I would be more than happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you.

Any questions for staff? Yeah, so my question, it may be legal since Mr. David weighed in,

when there is eminent domain or taking or some type of governmental taking of rights isn't the non-conforming use if it results from that part of the compensation package yes it is part of the compensation package but the by having this process in the code which is again was requested by our eminent domain council other counties have used this as a way to reduce the amount of time it takes to negotiate those packages mostly, and also to reduce, in a lot of instances, the cost.

Okay.

Okay, thank you.

Any other questions for staff? Okay, I'm going to open this item up to the public. Anybody interested in speaking on this item, please come forward, state your name for the record, you'll have five minutes. Last call, anybody wanting to speak on item VB1, please come forward, state your name for the record, you'll have five minutes.

Mr. Chairman, I see no one rising. I move to close public input.

Second. We have motion to second to close public input. Is there any further discussion? Is there any opposition to the motion? That passes four to zero. Mr. Chairman, move to transmit. I have Commissioner Doherty was in the queue. Sorry.

This is transmittal. This motion to transmit.

Okay. He was going to read. Do we have a second then? Yes. Okay, we have a motion to second to transmit. Is there any further discussion? Is there any opposition to the motion? That passes four to zero. Okay, we're going to go on to item number VB2, which is DRC-25-161, Bucky's. This is quasi-judicial. Commissioner Doherty, anything to disclose?

Yes, Mr. Chairman. I have my monthly staff briefing with Community Development, Mr. Bailey, Mr. Cullinan, and County Attorney's Office, Mr. Moscoso.

and i filed my paperwork this morning okay commissioner constance i had my meeting with staff and i believe i filed the paperwork but i'm going to check with luna but i will file paperwork today thank you commissioner truex nothing sir um so i met with staff i also did a speaking engagement uh with the curmudgeon club back on 327 and they asked me about bucky so i'm disclosing that they wanted an update on that some technical things from our previous board meeting i also spoke to the rotary club they also asked me questions about bucky's and i gave them the same update that was publicly available on our website and i received two emails and again i met with staff and filed my paperwork That's all that I had. Okay, Mr. Cullinan, you are recognized to present, sir.

Thank you, Sean Cullinan, planning and zoning official. I have been sworn. This item, DRC 25161, is a final detail site plan. This is for Kimley Horn on behalf of Bucky's Travel Center. This had been previously put on the consent agenda as it is typically an administrative item. It has been requested to be pulled, so I will go through the presentation. So again, they are requesting final detail site plan for a 74,000 square foot gas station, 120 fuel stations, and associated infrastructure. And the property is located at 25599 Harborview Road within the Harborview DRI. This is in Commission District 1. Here is the high aerial. So as you can see, it is the southwest quadrant. Here is the aerial location map. This is the 2025 Google Earth image. All our new aerials are newer than this. The future land use map designation is development of regional impact, DRI mixed use. And the zoning designation is planned development. The subject property is within a 10AE flood zone. And here is the approved PD concept plan. So you can see here what's known as the West Village here is the location of this. When that DRI development order was amended and the PD put in place, there was an improved land use equivalency matrix which will take trips from one use and transfer them to be able to do other uses. So basically it is based on the trip rates published in the ITE, Institute of Transportation Engineers Trip Generation Manual. it basically allows you to move while staying under a maximum amount of trips so all applications for final detail site plan shall include calculations supporting any proposed exchanges using the land use equivalency matrix matrices together with a running total of remaining entitlements The applicant submitted the proposed calculations for the 120 fueling positions of EFPs. They're proposing to use 60, equivalent to 1,168 multifamily dwelling units. And then also 60 of them will be offset by 175,200 square feet of other commercial uses. So this is the approved entitlements currently. This would be, if approved in this way, These would be the remaining entitlements. So the applicant submitted calculations, again as shown below, do not align with the testimony that was delivered during the May 27, 2025 adoption hearing. We have provided a highlighted transcript from that hearing stating that it would be utilized entirely or converted entirely from multifamily dwelling units. Staff has prepared a resolution reflecting what was approved and what you folks made the basis of your determination on and your approval on. That is the resolution that is attached in the backup documentation. So here is the layout of it. Harborview Road here. You can see the roundabout here, and there is another internal roundabout. So it's just a closer-in view. You can't see really the roundabout there. A couple of various views. This is the stormwater and paving and geometry plan. This is the grading and drainage plan. As you can see, everything is going to the north area into the stormwater ponds. There is a 100-foot buffer, environmental buffer, and then there is preservation land pursuant to the approved PD concept plan. Some of the landscaping that we added in, we wanted to make sure that you folks could see all the landscaping that was being provided. and then some renderings of what is being proposed. With the exception of the statements I made regarding the equivalency matrix, this meets all the standards and requirements about the DRI development order, the plan development as was approved, and look forward to answering any questions, and the applicant is present for questions as well.

Any questions for staff? Okay, I just had a quick question. Well, actually a comment. So I pulled the item and asked that it be put on regular agenda. As you've already stated and you have in your slide, I literally, if you go back and read the transcripts throughout the entire meeting and when I I couched my final vote, I said we're trading 2,336 multi-family units along with I think it was 20 or 30% more open space as a net benefit. because I keep hearing folks out in the community say what can we do to eliminate growth in terms of all the people. And when I looked at getting rid of 2,300 units, that was a net benefit. That was one way to do it because the DRI already allowed certain commercial zonings within the property anyway, and they wanted to move this one to that particular spot. So the trade off was, you lose 2,300 units. Then they come back with 1,168 multi-family units. That's basically half of what was promised. And I'm not happy. I'm not happy about it. And this is what gives developers a bad name. You don't make those kind of representations to the community and to the Board of County Commissioners and then flip when it comes time for the final approval. It's not going to happen. So hopefully we're going to hear from the applicant and they could explain or that they're in agreement with this 2,336 units. And I hope I don't hear a bunch of lame excuses like we didn't add it to the motion. This whole board, if you read those transcripts at one time or another, reference those 2,300 units. Again, we'll see what the applicant has to say. Commissioner Constance, you're recognized. Commissioner Doherty, next.

Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm in complete agreement. And I remember having that conversation up here that we were losing $2,300 because had we not done it, then the developer still had rights to put all those homes in there and the point was we're going to take all those houses and all that traffic and all those uh potential citizens you know driving their cars in and out every day and just I think it was almost a third of the total because I think that what what is the total entitlement for that entire area uh the entire Sean Cullen playing zoning official the entitlement for the entire DRI currently

yeah before this goes forward right 245 single family dwelling units 3 614 multi-family 655 000 square feet of commercial 50 000 square feet of office and 350 right so we were going to take away 2 300 plus of those multi-family units two-thirds of them were going to go away and that's why everybody up here felt pretty good about

we wouldn't be able to do anything about that other than approve this project and then cut away all those units then they came back with no no we're only going to cut a little over a thousand what does the current consent item before we moved it over to public what were we actually going to were we back to the original language with what we were going to approve yes what was in the agenda item that was posted um and added in the resolution is and was before you pulled it last week uh the uh the what was approved back in may removing the 2300 plus multi-family units correct that is the resolution on the table for you so i applaud the chairman for for pulling it but i just want the audience to know had we just left it on consent and passed it we would have gotten what we agreed to prior So they put out this thought balloon or this, they tried to cut that reduction in half and they got a lot of blowback from this board and they knew that we would be discussing it and we probably wouldn't approve it. So they're allowing this to go back to exactly, that's the item right now is to go back to removing 2,336 multifamily units if we approve this. Just want that to be clear to everybody. All right, thank you Mr. Chair.

Commissioner Doherty, recognize her.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yeah, I'm in agreement. I just wanted to give the audience some information. When you go to the verbatim transcript, which is attached to our agenda item, starting roughly around page 170 begins the discussion about just what we're talking about. It's very, very clear that the 120 gas pumps equated to 2,336 multi-family units. That was the basis for us to move ahead. There was a trade off. I don't know, I need to ask the staff one question. Who is the applicant on this? Is it Bucky's?

Yes, sir, this is Bucky's.

It's not Benderson, the developer? No, sir. So one of my questions to the applicant is, Who made this decision to deviate from what we so clearly articulated in our motions and discussion that day? Who did it? And I think we need that answer, and I need to get confirmation from the applicant, which is Bucky's, that they'll live with this resolution. Those are really my two primary questions, because quite honestly, I needed to adhere to what we agreed to. Period. End of story. No negotiating anything else. It's got to adhere to the 2,300, two-thirds of those multifamily units need to go away. Thank you.

And those units were going to be taken out of the high coastal hazard area with those maps. All kinds of aspects.

And when you read the two, roughly there's 300 and some odd pages to the transcript, but about 200, 250 are actual texts that I paid attention to. I have Commissioner Constance and Commissioner Truex.

so sean my question is the applicant here yeah yes sir all right um so but you're saying that this agreement here is with bucky's how does this bind the overall developer

I will defer to legal, but my understanding is we control the equivalency matrix and how it is utilized. And because this is within a DRI, this is a little bit different than just a regular PD. It is part of that, and so it will, decrease the rights of the the of the DRI there may be opportunity for them to come in to a future board and try to amend the development order again that would be speculative but this is controlling on the development of regional impact

Right and that's a nuance that I want don't want to be lost on everybody because this is part of a DRI we do control the matrix so by having this out and making this part of the calculation and if we approve this today it would be binding on the rest of the entire geometry the map that's there that is not just this one section yes it impacts everything correct the equivalency matrix is part of the dri development order and its usage is part of that right development of regional impact used to be something really big 15 20 years ago it's not done anymore but all of those actions are still codified and binding yes sir thank you sir commissioner truex and doherty

I was just going to summarize just real quickly that even Derek Rooney is very clear in saying we're removing residential. And then you go down to 173, and there's this paragraph on there that further explains the equivalency matrix. And then it's going from the 364 entitlements are going to drop by 2336. I'm not sure, I know there's a gentleman here that can probably answer that question. If we want to allow him to come up and do that, he's sitting by near Sean there, so.

We'll hear from him. Yeah, yeah.

Okay.

Commissioner Dougherty, recognize her.

Yeah, I just had one more comment on this, just to enhance what you just said about the DRI. The number of trips have been defined through a traffic study for the development of regional impact. It's a closed system. So many trips are allowed. And the matrix allows the shifting of those from one land use to the other. So that's locked in. And we have control of the matrix relative. But the request could come in from the developer. I do believe there's a condition. in the DRI development order that would allow the developer to come back in the future if they wanted to and restudy the traffic. It's a modification to the DRI. That's the pathway they've got to take. If they think they need to do more or whatever, they could come in and show that traffic study, show how they'll mitigate the traffic. That's not off the table, some future modification to the DRI. That is correct. Everybody has the right to apply. Right now it's a closed number. period so that that's why we have and we have to deal with that today but there's just a sort of the the public understands the developer would have the ability to come back in the future if they saw the there was a need for their needs or whatever the project to modify that that traffic analysis and justify it with proper mitigation and so forth that could happen just but that's not today but we have a closed number of trips right now and we have to deal with that

I had a lengthy conversation with the county attorney about the matrix and who controls. And just to get it on the record so the applicant hears this, it's of the county attorney's opinion that we control the matrix. And I'd like just to have the county attorney get that on the record.

Yes, sir. Excuse me, Tom David, county attorney. So the matrix is a condition, is a condition as part of the PD, which was imposed by the board, and so it's a board condition. The adoption of this resolution, item five in the resolution, talks about the rights in the Harborview DRI that will remain after this board's action if this is approved. And this is completely consistent with the PD conditions. It's completely consistent with the DRI statute. It's consistent with our comprehensive plan. So it's my view that this is fully within your purview and again, This instrument reflects the policy that the board adopted at the PD zoning hearing. So we think it's a completely legitimate exercise of board authority.

And again, for the record, so Benderson, who was the property owner at the time and sold to Bucky's, they don't determine.

at the end of the day the use of the matrix or the final use of the matrix in all cases every property owner that comes in is a petitioner underneath the dri and the pd rezoning so but they're not the final board of county commissioners it makes the determination as to how that is going to be implemented you you have the police power nobody else has that okay thank you sir Yeah, you're recognized, sir, Commissioner Constance.

Can I use that example? Because the Sandhill DRI, every once in a while, they bring that back. And we have to approve all of those changes and all of those matrix shifts because it has to come through us.

I don't love using the Sandhill DRIs. But the Sandhill DRI does have a procedure whereby there's a tally kept of the uses of the intensity that's being taken off each time a new property comes on. It's a very complicated process because of the way it's been It's very long. It's evolved over time, and Jay may be the only person in the world that actually understands it from top to bottom, but that is a similar process.

Yeah, I mean the fact that this 1168 multi-family dwelling units was even floated and they changed the mix, that was concerning to me. And the fact that it was coming, from what I understand, from the original developer who sold the land to Bucky's, when they were the ones here making those representations to the 2,336 multifamily units, couldn't figure out what was going on here. Like why the change? And so either they felt that they had final say on the matrix, or something at that time. I don't know, but we're gonna hear from the applicant next. Any more questions for staff? No. Okay, is the applicant present? Please come to the podium. We've got 20 minutes for a total presentation.

Stan Beard.

Including rebuttal.

Director of Real Estate and Development for Buc-ee's.

Name for the record, sir?

Stan Beard, B-E-A-R-D. So let me work out some nomenclature real quick. Bucky's is the applicant on this site plan approval. The developer is Benderson. I would not be here today if this mix-up was in front of me two days ago. This is a team effort. Folks are working for all other folks. There are a couple levels of human beings below me. And I was not aware of this ask in our application, Bucky's application, until two days ago. So what you've all said very, very clearly is we're in 100% agreement So, you know, we are fine with the conditional approval that has been added into the site plan approval.

You're referencing the 2,336.4 multifamily units?

Yes, yes. Okay. Yeah, we're Buc-ee's. We want to build a travel center.

Okay, any questions for the applicant?

No. Okay. I do have one.

Yeah, Commissioner Constance, you're recognized.

Mr. Beard, thank you for coming. Mm-hm. Are you working out all of the traffic issues that will occur because of this large facility? At 167, right, you're going to have to deal with traffic northbound and southbound. So those receiver lanes are going to have to be wildly expanded.

and the traffic lights and everything that's going to have to go in there so are you working with fdot for all of that our traffic mitigation is fully completed and i mean not completed but fully approved by fdot everything that we're required to do by fdot or the county we're doing

right because within that geometry we have no control you're you're working directly with us we the last thing we want as i've said multiple times is is a traffic issue so we're we're prepared to spend millions of dollars on the system okay just you know i just want to make sure everybody understood we don't control that at the at the county level because that's all within the f dots purview and so you're working directly with the state

Correct. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, good to see you again, sir. Thank you. And I think you've answered the two primary questions I had. It sounds like the developer may have gotten with your staff and below you and worked on this application and some numbers were changed. You were unaware personally unaware that this was coming before us you you are you do recall the the discussion we had back at the very clearly that and we were pretty clear correct crystal so you have no objection again you said that just a few minutes ago but you have no objection to us approving this resolution that's attached that takes it back to your 120 pumps equate to 2 336 multifamily you just want a building permit to bill bucky's that is correct thank you sir Thank you.

Okay, no further questions? That's all your presentation today? Okay, thank you, sir. Okay, we're gonna open this up for public input. Anybody who wishes to speak on this item, please come forward, state your name for the record. You'll have five minutes.

Good afternoon, commissioners. My name is Dreama Doolittle. I live in Harbor Heights. And I'm here to speak about the water quality and the traffic issues related to the construction of Bucky's Travel Center. While I recognize the rezoning of the West Village to a commercial development, The unprecedented scale of this project demands uncompromising scrutiny on this site design. It's an industrial footprint adjacent to a very environmentally sensitive area, and I would urge the commissioners to enforce three binding parameters before the final site approval. First is water quality. We know this is adjacent to the local bayou as we call it Which is a habitat a nursery for the small tooth sawfish endangered species as well as other marine life and Standard detention ponds. I mean I've looked through there's 360 drawings including you probably haven't looked through them that the traffic Drawings and and the site drawings. It's it's crazy. It's a huge project and The standard stormwater detention ponds really are insufficient for a highly contaminated site like this that's sitting in the AE-10 flood zone. I'm not sure what all quality treatment they are planning. I did not see anything special. Hopefully that they will be treating sediment removal to my understanding that hydrocarbons generally attach to sediment and if you can remove the sediment before you discharge into a waterway that you have removed a lot of the contamination coming off that site. So I don't know exactly what BMPs that are all included in here because I didn't have time to look through all the drawings. so I would like to know what is being proposed and to request that the commissioners assure that it's not just a standard BMP that any other site would be approved for secondly traffic accountability I'd like to speak to that the 2020 construction timeline highlights the massive scale you all know the massive scale of this development and Raising the grade, they're proposing to raise the existing grade over seven feet for the parking lot and 10 feet for the building. Just rough calculations, that's 260,000 cubic feet of fill, which is, that doesn't even consider compaction, which is probably another 15 or 20% of fill. At 20 yards of load, that's over 13,000 large truckloads of fill. So what is that, a year, two years of hauling and compacting fill on those roads? So what I'm asking, to my point, is to mandate that no construction begins on this site until the roadway improvements are made. Because there is no way that traffic is going to work with construction the way those existing roads are. I have looked at the traffic plans. They do have some improvements, but they're not making any additional lanes on Harborview other than the roundabout to get into Bucky's, although they are increasing off-ramp lanes. But if those improvements are not done prior to construction, it's going to be a nightmare, a total nightmare. And third, this conversion matrix inconsistency, if you look on the drawings on CO1, Kimley Horne's drawings, it has that matrix published on the first sheet on the bottom left-hand corner with the incorrect information. and it shows the multifamily entitlements remaining as 2,446 instead of the 1,300. I would just urge you to make them fix that because down the road that's going to be an inconsistency and it's surely going to come up especially with what Binderson was maybe originally trying to do in changing those so it just seems that everything should be consistent and proper approving this dependent upon this and dependent upon that yeah it's in the records but still their submittal should be accurate and That's all I have. I thank you for your time. I thank you for sticking with what was said. I've read all those minutes from backed into whatever, 300 pages, and I appreciate that you're staying true to your word on that. Thank you.

Thank you. Thanks for your comments, ma'am. Anybody who wishes to speak, please come forward, state your name for the record. You'll have five minutes.

Colonel Marianne Tipton, United States Air Force, retired. Good afternoon. I'm speaking today on behalf of Dave Northcutt. I'm pretty sure you guys know him well and some of the work that he's done. And he's asked for me to present his written transmission for you on the Buc-ee's traffic impact analysis. We are not asking the board to stop Buc-ee's, couldn't do that if we wanted, we are asking the board to make sure the transportation solution, which you've just been discussing, is credible before the final design is locked in. Dave identified two technical issues that deserve attention. First, the traffic impact analysis contains a clear statistical error. It says that a p-value less than 0.05 shows the Buc-ee's surrogate trip rates are statistically equivalent to the ITE rates, but the study's own table reports p-values less than 0.0001 for both the AM and PM peak periods. That means exactly the opposite. Those results provide very strong evidence that the rates are different, not statistically equivalent. The report completely misinterprets the results. Dave was also able to reproduce the reported statistics, T statistics. The calculation appears to use the ITE mean standard deviation and number of studies while treating the six site surrogate mean as fixed. In other words, the observed variation among the six Bucky's surrogate sites does not appear to be incorporated to the reported test statistic second That variation matters because the operational analysis then relies on a single average trip generation rate. Stated simply, after collecting six week-long surrogate studies, the TIA analysis ignores the variation in the surrogate data that were collected. Across the six surrogate sites, the AM rates range from 5.35 to 9.84 trips per fueling station. and the pm rates range from 8.38 to 14.05 for 120 fueling positions that corresponds to roughly 642 to 1181 am peak hour trips and a thousand six to sixteen eighty six pm trips The TIA analysis only averages the 828 a.m. trips and the 1192 p.m. trips, but it does not show whether the proposed improvements remain adequate under the reasonable higher demand conditions that are directly supported by their own surrogate data. So our request is simple. This is signed and sealed professional work. The engineer of record should be required to stand behind the analysis and address these errors before the board relies on the study. Before final approval, require the engineer of record to explain and correct these fundamental errors on the record and require the applicant and reviewing agencies to demonstrate that the roundabout, ramp signals, turn lanes, and Harborview Road improvements remain adequate across a reasonable range of traffic demand, not just at the single average use in the TIA. Again, we are not asking for you to stop the project. We are asking you to make sure the solution works for all of us. And a caveat at the end is that many people in your county work. And they cannot make a nine to five Board of Commissioner meetings. Sarasota and DeSoto have one a month land use meeting that they make from 1 p.m. to 8 p.m. So we respectfully request you look into that at some future date. Thank you.

Thank you, ma'am. Anybody else wishing to speak, please come forward. State your name for the record. You'll have five minutes.

Good afternoon. My name is Rebecca Scholl and I'm here today because the proposed Bucky site plan requiring enough field to raise roughly 20 football fields of land poses a serious and unacceptable threat to surrounding properties and violates Charlotte County's own floodplain regulations. It is difficult to understand how this site plan could move forward when it so clearly conflicts with the floodplain management ordinance. the county's code is unambiguous section 3-2-283 limitations on placement of fill requires that fill be limited to the minimum amount necessary and that it meet both the following conditions first the slope from the structure to the property line cannot exceed a six to one ratio and second the maximum amount of fill added to the site cannot exceed four feet measured from the average grade of the property line according to fema firm map one two zero one five c zero two three two g this site is located in zone ae with a base flood elevation of ten feet the existing average grade is approximately five feet yet the developer proposes a parking lot elevation of 12 feet and a finished floor elevation of 15 feet That requires seven feet of fill for the parking lot and 10 feet of fill for the building, nearly doubling in some areas more than two and a half times the legal limit. This is not a minor deviation. It is a direct, measurable violation of floodplain code. Beyond the legal issue, the practical consequences are severe. Raising 20 football fields of land by seven to 10 feet will displace an enormous volume of stormwater. Water does not disappear. It moves. And when a development artificially elevates land in a FEMA flood zone, that water is pushed outward into neighboring communities where I live. Many of those older homes are lower and far less protected. They will become the unintended retention area for this project. The county put these fill limitations in place for a reason to prevent exactly this kind of large scale elevation that increases flood risk for everyone else. This project is allowed to exceed the fill limit by 75 to 150%. Then the ordinance becomes meaningless. and once one developer is allowed to violate that code every future development will cite this approval as precedent this is not just a policy problem it's a liability problem so i must ask has charlotte county floodplain manager formally reviewed and approved this plan and if so on what basis because approving a plan that violates both mandatory provisions of the floodplain ordinance would contradict fema standards undermine NFIP compliance and expose the county to significant risk. This community expects development to follow the law. We expect the county to enforce its own code and we expect that floodplain protection, especially in zone AE, will not be compromised for the sake of convenience or expedience. For these reasons, I respectfully urge the county to reject this site plan as submitted. At a minimum, it must be redesigned to comply with floodplain management ordinance and to ensure that surrounding residents are not placed at greater risk. My home is 60 years old. I do have an older home here in Charlotte County and in Harbor Heights. I'm at six and a half feet. flooded with both helene and milton twice in two weeks there was no record of flooding prior if you don't think that putting a bucky's and 20 football fields seven to ten feet in the air is a huge concern for me when i'm right outside of that thousand foot buffer zone i'm going to keep talking to it we cannot do this it does not belong on the banks of the peace river thank you

thank you anybody else wishing to speak please come forward you'll have five minutes just state your name for the record sir good afternoon eric frone harbor heights i have been sworn in any action taken by the board today is dangerous two commissioners are lame ducks it has been said that democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch and the sheep thinks that's freedom Hans Hermann Hoppe laid this out in 2001. Governments discount the future. A politician in office has every incentive to plunder tomorrow to buy votes today. The politician doesn't own, just manages temporarily. We get the ever-expanding bureaucracy. Costs of every form land on the taxpayer during and after the politician's time in office, be it with a purse of pension or whatever loot is accumulated while they're in office. Federal debt and bureaucracy have ballooned to $40 trillion in 2026. Charlotte County is proving to be no exception to the trend, especially in the expansion of bureaucracy. Development without infrastructure at the developer's expense is insane. Blatant disregard of development standards is careless, reckless, and illegal. Continued development while simultaneously asking taxpayers to sponsor the cost of the needed infrastructure is unsustainable. Just like when the Mackle brothers came into town, we promised life on easy street, no concern for consequences. Commissioners, historically aided and abetted by county legal and dev staff, have shown a lack of character as well as a lack of moral and ethical compass in their decisions. Legal and or dev staff render a safe opinion, wink wink, nod nod, deal done, move on, and taxpayers get the bill. Any conflict of interest is swept aside. I call fraud. BECAUSE WHEN ONE SEES FRAUD, ONE MUST SHOUT FRAUD. FOR BY NOT DOING SO, I BECOME A FRAUD. I AM NOT YOU. I CALL UPON THE BOARD TO INVOKE EMINENT DOMAIN. IT HAS BEEN DONE PREVIOUSLY TO SAVE THE COUNTY BECAUSE YOU REALIZE THAT DEVELOPMENT DOES NOT PAY FOR ITSELF. you won't you lack conviction you're afraid of the developer and you'll continue to hide behind opinions rendered by legal dev staff or other so-called experts this is a dangerous situation you're borrowing our children's future AGAINST THEIR WILL. ANY MASS DEVELOPMENT THAT OCCURS WITHIN THE HARBOR VIEW DRI WILL BE AT PRESENT AN ENVIRONMENTAL DISASTER. IN THE FUTURE, CATACLYSMIC. APPROVAL IS THE EQUIVALENT TO THE CONDEMNATION OF HARBOR HEIGHTS, THE PEACE RIVER, AND THE SURROUNDING COMMUNITIES. THANK YOU.

THANK YOU, SIR. THANK YOU FOR YOUR COMMENTS. ANYBODY ELSE WISHING TO SPEAK, PLEASE COME FORWARD. STATE YOUR NAME FOR THE RECORD. YOU'LL HAVE FIVE MINUTES.

Good afternoon. I'm Mike Doolittle, and I live in Harbor Heights also. Actually, Rebecca took a lot of things I was going to talk about, so I will just kind of summarize. One thing I wanted to point out was that at the meeting last year when you guys approved this program, the Buc-ee's, If you remember right, there were over 200, maybe 300 residents of Harbor Heights area here, all of them concerned about the same two things. One is flooding because many houses flooded during the last hurricanes, Milton and whatever the other one was. And also the traffic problem about us getting out there if there's an emergency or even just the whole idea of getting down the street to Harborview Road, using Harborview Road. And it doesn't look like Buc-ee's is planning on doing, you know, when they talked before, I was under the impression they were going to make another exit that went right down to the interstate. They're not doing that by their current plans. hopefully you guys will look out for the people that live there live there for quite a while and are very concerned about this mainly flooding you know what it costs every one of those homeowners those people can't afford or the people around us cannot afford to have the house flooded every time that there's a storm that comes in here um it's just it's hard to comprehend how the plan can be approved with the brazen discrepancy is in the floodplain uh code mainly about they want to raise it 10 feet. The flood elevation is 10 feet. They want to raise it to 12 feet and 15 feet. That's a maximum of four is what the code calls for. According to the Charlotte County Floodplain Management Code, the intent of the code is in part to establish minimum requirements to safeguard the public and minimize loss due to flooding by regulation of development in flood hazard areas. and to which item four is manage the alteration of the flood hazard area, water courses and shorelines to minimize the impact of the development of the natural and beneficial functions of the floodplain. Filling 28 acres of floodplain capacity is not conducive to the maintaining beneficial function of the floodplain. Approval of the Buc-ee's to fill in this amount of floodplains sets a precedent for future development that is detrimental to our waterways and going to cause more problems in the future but um that's all i wanted to say thank you thank you sir thank you for your comments anybody else wish to speak please come forward state your name for the record you'll have five minutes

Good afternoon.