Board of County Commissioners - Regular Meeting

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

Thank you, and welcome to our county commission meeting. I'd like to recognize pastor Steve Young with the Islander l Alliance Church to lead us in the invocation this morning.

Thank you. And I wanna just thank you for the privilege and the opportunity to be able to open the meeting in this way and acknowledge that your job can be both a blessing and a challenge, but we appreciate the the service that you do for our county. Let's pray. Father god, we thank you for this day. We know this is is your day, and lord god, we just ask that your will would be accomplished.

Lord god, we pray for this meeting. We pray for the decisions that will be made. Lord, we pray that you would give each of the commissioners wisdom and guidance that they would be seeking it from you. And lord, we pray that and we acknowledge that you are in control of all things. And, father god, we just pray that the outcome of this meeting would be the the praise and the honor and the glory of you. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen.

Amen. Okay. Please stand for the pledge.

Pledge allegiance to flag of

The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Okay. I'd like to formally call the meeting to order. We do have, minutes. And by the way, before we do that, we need a motion to accept commissioner Goodson's appearance here telephonically.

I'll make a motion, sir.

I'll second.

All those in favor say yay. Aye. Okay. Yay. Carries unanimously. Thank you. Okay. Minutes for December, January 29 budget workshop, 02/05/2026 zoning meeting, March 5

zoning meeting. I'll make a motion to approve.

Second. Motion and second to approve, minutes. Any debate, corrections, deletions? Seeing none, all in favor say yay.

Yea.

Carries unanimously. Thank you. Okay. We have a number of resolutions. We wanna move one up. We'd like to hear e six first. Commissioner

Feltner. Thank you, mister chair. And we have Minerva Rogers here today. Welcome to come up. I'll read the resolution and then we'll we'll pass it and then the chair will recognize you to speak.

Okay? I have a resolution for my ositis awareness month. Whereas residents of Brevard County are among those affected by myositis and other rare diseases because nearly one in ten Americans have rare diseases and whereas idiopathic inflammatory myopathies collectively referred to as myositis are rare chronic autoimmune muscle wasting diseases and myositis often features debilitating muscle inflammation and other symptoms such as pain, fatigue, and trouble swallowing and myositis can result in myositis associated interstitial lung disease. And whereas myositis is difficult to diagnose so treatment is often delayed and individuals generally experience difficulty finding a healthcare provider with expertise in their condition and whereas all who suffer with myositis experience reduced quality of life especially as no cure has been found and life expectancy is shortened especially for those with inclusion body myositis and women with peep and people of color with all forms of myositis myositis experience particularly pronounced health disparities. And whereas the myositis association is the leading international patient advocacy organization serving the myositis community focusing on patient services, education, research and public awareness so as to achieve a world without myositis and the Myositis Association is organizing a nationwide observance of Myositis Awareness Month from May 1 to the thirty first twenty twenty six.

Now therefore, be it resolved that the Brevard County Board of County Commissioners does hereby proclaim May 2026 as Myositis Awareness Month in Brevard County and that all citizens of Brevard County are encouraged to come together, learn more about all forms of myositis and its symptoms and support the families in our community who will benefit from greater awareness of these rare diseases done order and adopted in regular session this May 2026. With that, Mr. Chair, I'll make a motion to approve.

Second.

There's a motion and second to approve resolution. All in favor say yay.

Yay.

Yay. Carries unanimously. Thank you.

You're you're invited to speak. Good

morning, commissioner Felder, members of the commission, and everyone present. My name is Minerva Rogers. I am a Brevard County resident, a myositis patient, and a proud advocate and volunteer with the Myositis Association, also known as TMA. What is myositis? Myositis is a rare incurable group of autoimmune disease diseases causing chronic muscle inflammation, severe pain, chronic fatigue, and mobility issues.

Because it is so rare, it is deeply misunderstood leaving many patients fighting in the dark. I know the fight firsthand. In 2024, I was diagnosed with dermatomyositis and lupus overlap. When I stood before you last year, I was navigating a terrifying period of transition, struggling with rapid hair loss, severe skin rashes, muscle weakness, and a shaken sense of self. But today, I return to you with a heart full of gratitude and significant progress. Thanks to a dedicated medical team, my support

the team. I'm

care

I'm

of

team. Speaking patients. Furthermore, I'm I recently co authored a scientific abstract presented at the National Health Council Science for Patient Engagement Summit and my story on using mindfulness to cope with chronic illness will be published as an article by TMA on May 26. While I'm finding my footing, many of our neighbors are still in the invisible, terrifying stages of this battle. According to the Florida Department of Health, rare and the Rare Disease Advisory Council, one in ten Floridians or about two point two million people live with a rare disease.

They are sitting in our clinics, living in our neighborhoods, and feeling completely unseen. By declare declaring May 2026 as myositis awareness month in Brevard County, you are helping us reach those who feel dismissed. You are directly supporting TMA's national proclamation fifty campaign to spark awareness in every corner of our nation. I want to deeply thank commissioner Frelner, his team, and his entire commission for recognizing the importance of this cause. This proclamation is not just words on paper, it's a lifeline.

It is a step toward earlier diagnosis, better treatments, and a stronger, more compassionate community. Today, we send a clear message to every every resident fighting an invisible illness. You do not have to fight alone. With awareness come action and with action comes hope. I invite you to join us at www.myositis.org and follow the myositis association Facebook page and to stay informed and curious. Thank you so much and blessings to all. And

we have framed a resolution for here, okay?

Thank you for being here and bringing awareness to such an important issue. Thank you. Okay. Our next resolution is resolution under e one resolution for fire chief Pat Vultehr.

Commissioners, if you will bear with me a moment, I wanna say a couple of things before I read my very long resolution. For starters, I wanna say just so we all know the next new hire group for BCFR is gonna have 30 people in it. So that brings us to only 10 short staff of 500 plus. This is light years beyond where we started before this current contract. Thank you. 42 candidates have already started this year. Of the 13 separations that we've had in 2026, nearly half were retirements or involuntary. So people aren't leaving because they want to now. Fantastic. In calendar year 2025, hires versus separations broke even.

So far in 2026, there have been 60 personnel gained when accounting for the separations. Between 2025 and 2026, we are averaging a 91.5% new hire retention rate. That's up from 45% in years '21 to '24. So that's I mean, that shows what chief Voltaire has done. Thank you.

I consider myself fortunate to have had the opportunity to so closely with you. You've gotten me out of a couple of silly thing things. I appreciate that. At this point, I'm able to consider you a friend, and I admire your dedication to the community and the county that you serve. Of course, you're not gonna get forgiven for leaving so soon because you promised me you wouldn't, but there you go. All the good ones too. Chief Voltaire is the leader of BCFR. You left your mark here. Everybody says so. And I wanna take this time to personally thank you for everything that you've done.

Sorry. Best of luck. You'll be missed. Thank you.

Okay. Now I'm gonna read this whereas that's so long that my chief of staff didn't want me to she didn't want to type it so long so I had get Brian to do it. A resolution on behalf of the Brevard County Board of County Commissioners recognizing and honoring the exceptional service of fire chief Patrick Voltaire. Whereas chief Pat Voltaire began his career as a fire EMT in March 2000 And whereas since that time, he has advanced through the ranks holding positions of fire, EMT, fire medic, lieutenant medic, district chief, assistant chief of fire operations, and fire chief. And whereas chief Voltaire's service has spanned the entire county, including Station 63, 89, 47, 88, 22, 64, 47, 45, 80, and finally county wide.

Whereas in addition to Pat's immense practical experience, he's also attained impressive educational credentials including a masters of public administration and an associate fire science along with graduating from the Brevard County Executive Leadership Institute. Whereas the combination of his education experience have allowed for outstanding achievements such as launching the county's first BCFR marine program, creating the comprehensive technical rescue team, improving the sponsorship program for more effective hiring and recruitment of local talent, upgrading BCFR from ISO class four to class three, and securing auto aid agreements with every municipality in the county. Whereas chief Voltaire has also led the county's response to over 100 fires and mutual aid incidents in command role, and whereas Pat has extremely valuable numerous commissioners has been extremely valuable to numerous commissioners as they develop their understanding of BCFR and the role the commission can play in helping the department thrive. Whereas chief Voltaire has decided to retire in July 2026 and whereas Pat's intelligence, compassion, humor, institutional knowledge, pragmatism, and leadership will be sorely missed by both BCFR and by the board. Whereas the board agrees with public safety director Matt Wallace in saying that chief Voltaire lived up to his leadership philosophy of be a good human every day and with every decision that he made.

Pat managed to lead a thriving professional life while also keeping his family first, whereas he has always demonstrated an unwavering dedication to his wife, Ali, and never failed to support and be present for his children, Gabrielle and Ryder, in their education, extracurricular activities, personal lives. Whereas excelling personally and professionally is no small feat, and chief Voltaire's ability to do both clearly shows why he is such an exceptional individual. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Brevard County Board of County Commissioners is thankful for the service of chief Patrick Voltaire and readily acknowledges that Brevard County is a safer and better place because of his years of diligent and dedicated service. Dunn ordered and adopted in regular session this May 2026. I'd make a motion.

I'd like like to make a motion.

Yes. And second. There's a motion for approval of resolution. All those in favor say yay. Yay.

Yay.

Passes unanimously. Thank you. We'd love to

hear from you.

Oh, man. Thank thank you, guys. It's it's been a great six and four years as the fire chief. Not that long ago, it feels like I stood here in front of commissioner Zonka and, you know, started you start as a fireman and you never really expect to be here, but things happen in your life. And you go to school and and here you stand.

And through through that time, you learn to be the fire chief and the leader, but I couldn't have gotten here without, like you said, friendship. I consider all you you guys friends and the trust that you've put in me to lead Brevard County Fire Rescue means the world to me. You know, I walked into my first director's meeting and I gotta give thanks to all all my friends over here. All the successes that you spoke of for Brevard County fire rescue, every person in this room, every director has had a piece in that. Brevard County fire rescue and their success is county wide.

It takes all the all the other directors over here as much as they, you know, get tired of hearing about fire rescue, they've all lended a hand to help us be successful. The achievements you talked about, none of that would be possible. I was just lucky enough to hold the steering wheel and have the vision, but these guys, holy cow, I didn't realize that many of you all showed up. Sorry. I looked back there now.

I'll be a little more nervous, but it it was their heavy lifting that really saw all those great initiatives through the marine program, the ISO, and that's only gonna continue to get better as time goes on. So thank you all for for everything and your support of fire rescue and of of me in this journey as fire chief. And I would be remiss if I didn't thank, you know, my mom and dad for the beginning for helping me go to fire school. I wouldn't have gone to fire school if it wasn't for, you know, their support and help. And then the most thing probably if you ask what I look forward to the most is I've been married to this job as much as I have my family and the opportunity I mean, the county manager knows that I, you know, I text him all the time and keep him abreast of things happening in the county.

So I've stayed very in tune with and you you guess I call you guys too. You know, many dinners I've ran away from from the house. Many Sunday nights, I've been on duty twenty four seven for the last six years, and my wife has not battered an eye when I run away from a family dinner or a trip or whatever to make sure that Brevard County is safe. So I look forward to giving that time back to my family, and I appreciate and thank their understanding through the last six years that I've that I've done that. So thank you to my family.

I think they're watching, and thank you to you guys for your support, and thank you to all you guys. Thank you so much.

Okay.

So sorry. Thank you so much.

Chief, I just wanna say you were here in some of the most challenging times, and you always you always conduct yourself at the highest level of professionalism and courtesy and level headedness. So thank you for for your work, and you'll be greatly missed. Okay. Resolution acknowledging National Public Works Week in Brevard County.

Alright. I think we got half the room that's gonna come up. I think you're welcome to. Or their representative anyways, commander Bernath. Okay.

Alright. I'm I'm honored again to do resolution recognizing Public Works Association Week. Alright. Whereas the year 2026 marks the sixty sixth annual National Public Works Week sponsored by the American Public Works Association, and whereas this year's theme is rooted in service powered by community, And whereas there are growing critical infrastructure needs that are outpacing available resources at the local, state, and federal level requiring alternative and innovative solutions. And whereas now more than ever, public works professionals are recognized as being first responders and are part of the fabric that ensures the proper functioning and serviceability of our vital infrastructure, facilities, and services that are critical to the public's health, high quality of life, and well-being in Brevard County.

And whereas these infrastructure, facilities, and services could not be provided without the dedicated efforts of these public works professionals who at all levels of government and the private sector are responsible for rebuilding, improving, and protecting our nation's transportation, water supply, water treatment, and solid waste systems, public buildings, and other structures and facilities essential for our citizens. And whereas it is in the public interest for the citizens, civic leaders, and children in Brevard County to gain knowledge of and maintain an ongoing interest and understanding of the importance of public works and public works programs in their communities as well as celebrating their essential role in safeguarding health, safety, and quality of life. And whereas the Brevard County Public Works Department maintains 1,159 miles of paved roads, 80 miles of dirt roads, 714 miles of sidewalk, 909 miles of curb and gutter, 1,058 miles of drainage ditches and swales, more than 20,000 drainage pipes, 48 bridges, over 65,000 signs, 370 traffic signals, six sixty seven street lights, 200 traffic warning beacons and school zone flashers, and 4,400,000 square feet of county buildings. And whereas the Brevard County Solid Waste Management Department handles 4,000 tons of solid waste daily disposing of 1,200,000 tons per year and diverting more than 1,000,000 tons annually through recycling efforts and whereas the Brevard County Natural Resources Management Department protects the county's water resources by sweeping more than 6,000 lane miles of curb streets maintaining four eighty five storm water treatment facilities overseeing the design, permitting, and construction of 125 capital improvement projects and 800 active homeowner agreements for pollution reduction, removing 8,500,000 pounds of nutrient rich aquatic vegetation from stormwater ponds and conducting thousands of inspections annually to safeguard local water quality and ecosystems.

And whereas the Brevard County utility services department to ensure compliance with all federal and state environmental laws while maintaining and upgrading essential water, sewer, and reuse systems for the safety and benefit of current and future residents. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Board of County Commissioners of Brevard County does hereby designate the week of May 17 to the twenty third twenty twenty six as national public works week. Don't order and adopted in regular session this May 2026. And with that, mister chair, I'll make a motion for approval.

I'll second.

Motion and second. Is there any debate? All in favor say yay. Yay. Yay. Carries unanimously. Thank you. Alright.

Well, good morning, commissioners. I want to express my sincerest gratitude, for the board support to recognize the sixty sixth annual National Public Works Week and in particular, commissioner Feltner for again sponsoring this recognition. Public works extends far beyond a single department. Today, I speak on behalf of the county's five primary departments, their directors, and nearly 800 employees who help keep our community running safely and efficiently. This year's theme rooted in service powered by community highlights the strong connection between public works professionals and the communities they serve providing reliable essential services for our residents every day.

By recognizing National Public Works Week, we acknowledge the dedication, expertise, hard work of these often unseen professionals and first responders who work tirelessly behind the scenes to support our daily lives and strengthen our community. Again, thank you.

Okay. Thank you. And thank you for all the work you do. So many people takes for granted. I love the resolution where you listed all the things you do and you keep the keep the wheels on the bus and keep public safety and public health and so many things. I think we should all go down and

take a picture with them with the resolution.

Yes. Absolutely. Okay. Item E3, resolution acknowledging National Child Care Provider. Child Care Provider Day here in Brevard

County. Thank you, Mr. Chair. For the group here okay. Was going to say Lori Gambino, Alan Bergman, Dee Halbig, Karen Laird, right?

And we have our own Linda Graham. Okay. Happy to do this recognition for you this year too. I have a resolution for Provider Appreciation Day in Brevard County. Whereas National Provider Appreciation Day also known as National Child Care Provider Day is celebrated on Friday 05/08/2026 and whereas there are 8,000 children under the tutelage and care of these contracted providers represent 30% of the total number of children aged zero to five in Brevard County and childcare providers offer the opportunity for parents who live in Brevard County to work, attend school, or participate in the job training program while their children are in high quality nurturing environments.

And whereas the daily care support and education of these children by home based public and private providers sets the baseline for a child's success in the future through quality, affordable and easily accessible educationally based childcare and whereas there are over 200 childcare programs in Brevard County ranging from small and large private businesses, family childcare homes, faith based programs, and public school settings. And whereas without these providers, thousands of workplace positions in Brevard County would be un filled by parents and caregivers. The quality childcare providers affiliated with the Early Learning Coalition of Brevard County not only educate young minds but support a vibrant workforce and continued job and economic growth across Brevard County and whereas the early learning coalition of Brevard County will be honoring their more than 200 contracted childcare providers during Provider Appreciation Day and it allows Brevard County to honor its childcare educators commitment to facilitating high quality care and early learning to our youngest learners. Now therefore be it resolved that the Board Commissioners of Brevard County does hereby proclaim 05/08/2026 as National Child Care Provider Appreciation Day done ordered and adopted in regular session May 2026. And with that, Mr.

Chair, I'll make a motion to approve.

Motion and second. All those in favor say yay.

Yes.

Carries unanimously. Thank you. Yeah.

Thank you commissioners. Appreciate, and thank you commissioner Feltner again for for the second year. We we appreciate the acknowledgement. I'm stand before really the leaders of our community that that do the work, and I would acknowledge our board members Linda, our board chair Alan Bergman, as well as Dee Helbig. And Dee is our we have two governor appointed seats on our board as well as two mandate seats as legislatively drawn, and Dee represents our faith based and runs a program called First Friends at First Baptist O'Galley First Baptist Church, and Harriet is our I said it right.

And Harriet is our director of provider services as well here at ELC. We have a special guest that we wanted really to bring. I know she told me not to do this because she was going to cry, but we really needed to acknowledge somebody quite special in our community today in acknowledging all of providers. Karen Laird has run the VPK program for sixteen years. I'm now I'm gonna get choked up.

At holy name of Jesus in Indian Atlantic. And I have to tell you, both of these two providers run a program for our parents and for the children in the community that have made a difference to those two and three and four and five year olds as they enter the k 12 system and that this is our foundation for our parents and for our children in setting up an educational system here in Brevard County. So I just wanted to take a special thank you to Karen as well for her retirement. We have some special flowers. Oh, wow. And and also pretty flowers. And also just to thank you as well for your support and always believing in the educational system in Brevard County. So thank you. Thank you for that.

Okay. Good morning, gentlemen. Just one point I'd like to add. Not only do we do what we've been doing forever, but we're looking at the future. We're adding basic education to in space science and in rocketry and STEM research so the children have an idea of what the world they're entering will be. They will be qualified to to attend and take part in, which is just as important. And we've been working on that, and we have something called a scratch program, which is developed by MIT, but we'll be employing it. And it's just another step in the progression of educating our children. Thank you.

Future rocket scientists. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. First time.

You gotta start. Come on. You gotta start. Okay.

I'm short. I'll go in the front.

Okay. Our next item is e four, for recognizing Brie Emer, the twenty twenty five division two conference commissioners association women's soccer Ron Lentz National Player of the Year. Bree, please step forward. Can I get that right, Emer?

Correct.

But we're with royalty here today, so we thank you for being here. I wanna read this resolution. Whereas Bree Emer, a Melbourne native and 2023 graduate of West Shore Junior Senior High School is a national is is a junior forward at Catawaba College women's soccer team in Salisbury, North Carolina. And whereas, Emer was honored as the twenty twenty five division two conference commissioners association women's soccer, Ron Lynch national national player of the year, emphasizing national, the best in the nation, becoming the first female student athlete to earn a national player of the year honor in Catawaba athletics history. And whereas Emer was also named a first team all American at Ford, the d two CCA Southeast Regional Player of the Year and South Atlantic Conference Player of the Year and finishing her season with 20 goals, including seven game winning goals and six assists for a total of 46 points.

Whereas, Emer, who was named the team's most viable player, helped lead the cattle Catawaba Catawaba. Got that right? Catawaba Indians to the undefeated season, regular season, sweeping the s s a c regular season and conference tournament titles en route to the first top seed in the NCAA Southeast Regional in program history, whereas Emer also excelled in the classroom earning a perfect four point o cumulative grade point average through the 2025 semester in sports medicine, resulting in her being named the 2025 South Atlantic Conference Women's Soccer Scholar Athlete of the Year and Katta Wabas Kattawaba? Am I saying that

right? Kattawaba.

Kattawaba. I didn't think I had it right. The Kattawaba Whitley Award winner for the most outstanding junior senior in sports and health sciences. Now therefore be it resolved that the board of county commissioners of Brevard County, Florida does hereby recognize Brie Emer for her outstanding achievements both on and off the field. Donor ordered and adopted this regular session May, and a motion would be in order.

I'll make a motion, sir.

I'll second.

Motion and second. All in favor say yay. Yay. Occasion. Occasion. Occasion. You. We'd love for you to say a few words.

Well, firstly, thank you guys for being presenting me with this. It's truly an honor to receive something like this. Also, just a shout out to all my coaches, teammates, trainers, and my family up there. Because without them, I wouldn't be here, especially my parents. Glad to see that, you know, your gas money was well spent. And, lastly, just thank you to Brevard County for supporting local sports programs because dreams like this can come true. Thank you.

Well, I tell you, just graduating from Westshore in and of itself is a huge achievement. What an amazing place. So it's great to have you here, and congratulations. We're very proud of you, and you represented the Space Coast extremely well, and just wish you the best in your future endeavors. We'll get a quick picture.

I'll that let all the commissioners come down. Okay. And she's got another year. So okay. Our next resolution, e five resolution recognizing Florida Tech for earning the military friendly schools designation.

So this is a great honor being a former Florida Tech student myself, my favorite university, and our homegrown school. Whereas Florida Tech has earned the military friendly schools designation for 2627 for the seventh consecutive year, seven years running, and also received the program's military spouse friendly school designation. And whereas institutions that earn the military friendly designation invest in active military veterans, transitioning service members, and military spouses by building sustainable pathways for academic success and exceeding thresholds for student recruitment, retention, academic progress, graduation rates, career placement, and support services. And whereas as of fall twenty twenty five, nearly 12% of all Florida Tech students enrolled were veterans, active duty, National Guard Reserve, veteran dependents, or veteran spouses. And whereas of Florida Tech's military and veteran student services provides accessible guidance to key programs the university is engaged with, including the GI Bill, military spouse career advancements accounts, wisdom warrior program, and for online education, and the yellow ribbon program.

And whereas Florida Tech, as the Space Coast STEM University, remains committed to empowering those who have served this, country with an education that strengthens the next chapters of their careers. Now therefore be it resolved that the board of county commissioners of Brevard County, Florida does recognize Florida Tech for its ongoing innovative efforts to educate men and women who have valiantly served our country. Daughter and done ordered and adopted this May 2026. A motion being ordered. Second. I'll second. Motion to second. Those in favor signify by saying yay. Yay. Yay. Motion carries unanimously. Thank you.

Thank you, chair Altman. Thank you, commissioners. On behalf of president Nick Lowe, thank you very much for this recognition of Florida Tech's continuing pursuit of excellence for our students, our faculty, and our staff. From the United States Navy at Port Canaveral where we do a lot of research on a long time basis to the US base force with our continuing graduate programs physically on-site, the Patrick's Base for space to the US army with our unique partnership with ROTC. You know, Florida Tech strives for excellence in our partnerships supporting our military and our country.

With that, if it'll please the chair, allow me to introduce my friend and colleague, colonel Stillings. He's a professor of military science at Florida Tech and an inspirational ROTC leader who has dedicated his career to educating future army leaders. That's our end.

Colonel, next.

Good morning. Thank you for allowing me to speak here. I'm lieutenant colonel Rob Stillings, the professor of military science at Florida Tech, also a proud Brevard County resident, and I'm proud to have been been able to serve inside this community. In addition to all of the work that Florida Tech does for our veterans, which I'm honored to be a part of, we they also train future leaders within the army. So this May, I had the privilege and the honor to commission seven new commissionees.

Those commissionees came from that was the number five cohort in the entire country out of 279 schools. So in addition to the work for veterans, the work for future leaders that Florida Tech is doing is really raising the bar. About half of those graduates who commissioned into the US army are Brevard County High school graduates, which is awesome to see them do that. And we and along with the the veteran support which we received, we could not do the things that we accomplished without the the leadership and the support of the university and president Nick Lowe. So it's it's very well deserved, and thank you. Okay.

Thank you. I understand, colonel, that this ROTC program, I don't know how many times I know the past is ranked number one in the nation. Pretty good. Number one in the nation. So we're very proud of you and honored to have

you here. Thanks, sir. Thank you.

Okay. What a great honor. I really enjoyed those resolutions. A lot of good things happening here in Brevard County on the Space Coast. Okay. We now have the consent agenda, and we do have a number of things that we do have quite a few cards, and we do have some items to remove. Commissioner Atkins, I think you have one.

Yes, please. F seven.

F seven. Okay. I'd like to remove f eight. Commissioner, do you have any items? I'm gonna okay. F one, I'd like to remove f one, then f three, f four, f eight, f nine, f 10, f 12, f 14. That may be a record. So

Do we have to remove them?

I don't know the process. How does that work?

Well, these are cards that have asked to be heard, so I think we will we'll remove them in here. And why don't we go and take a vote on the rest of the remaining consent items, or do you wanna hear and then do it at the end?

How are we going to do it?

Let's Let's let's go and pass the consent with the exception of f one, three, four, eight, nine, ten, fourteen, and twelve.

And 7. Because we're we're pulling

7. And 7. Okay. Motion be in order.

So moved.

So motion and second to approve the consent agenda with the exception of f one three four eight nine seven ten fourteen and twelve. All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Motion carries unanimously. Okay. Let's we have a speaker card on f one. Rick, help finger. Have felt finger. Felt. Felt finger.

Since he has multiple

cards Rick Effelfinger, district one. Alright. F one. I I'm sorry. I apologize for all the cards, but I feel compelled to represent District 1 with our lack of a commissioner.

First one f one. I think there might be a math problem, but I'm not sure. It says that there's 890,000 from the Department of Commerce grant that's matched by the Merritt Island Development Agency for 600 and the site lease revenue for 40. And if I do my math, I come up to 640,000, but it says that the total cost is $8.90. Although it does say down in the requested action that I think Brevard County picks up in excess of 200 to accomplish the work. But if I add 200 to $6.40, I only get $8.40. So I'm should we should that list 300?

This is someone answer that question. Or maybe we can move on to the next item and let them check that math just to be sure.

Well, I didn't, you know, it Alright.

Let's go to the next item, f 3.

F 3. Let's see what we got here. Let me catch up on my agenda. F 3. Let's see. That's a district one. And I have another question. I know this is not question and answer period. I've been told that in the past. But chairman Altman, you've been generous about trying to get questions answered. So I appreciate that. I'll push that as far as I can. I guess my question is, were any impact fees waived for this project or is it too early since this is just approving the site map or the plan? Because we have a well, I have a certain issue with impact fees as you know.

I I don't I don't know. We'll have staff answer that question and they'll get the get get the answer and we'll move on so they can answer both those.

And I and I had another one on that one too that there was a attachment, and I'm not sure which one it was. Subdivision infrastructure contract. It said the principal agrees to impose description below, and then there is no description below. And I was wondering if something's missing.

Alright. We'll

get I don't know what work that is that the county would mandate that they do.

We'll have them work on those two those two items. That way we yeah. F f four and ask her to sit down here in the front row. I don't know if she has anything, Kim Rozenka, did you I saw her here earlier. No? I will just let you sit in the front row while they're getting that in front. Oh, she's gonna come out.

She's pulled

the car over. Yeah. Yeah.

F four.

Yeah. That four out like this poker night.

Not yet. You wanna go? Let She's gonna go. Well, we'll let you go first. There's nobody. Who? You. Oh, outstanding. You're already up there.

I'm all prepped, I got my stuff laid out. F four, again, this is another impact fees, but I think I understand the impact fee waiving on this one. This is considered a low cost housing development, 55 and over. Nobody under the age of 18. Sounds like a good reason you would waive the impact fees for the schools. So I got no problem with that one. Right? Because I don't think anybody well, I don't know. Nobody's going to to the school system. They're going to university if you're, you know, active at 55. But under 18, I wouldn't imagine. Well, I don't yeah. They're they'd be going to school, but 18 over wouldn't be. So that that one's fine. I guess I also have a question about it talks about the the different levels of low income, and I'm not quite sure.

I mean, I could just get this at at some later date, but the percentages and I remember last meeting maybe that we had a presentation about the level of average income in our area, and it was really high. So is that the number they're using to determine low income housing? Because that would mean that number is pretty high if we're factoring all those people that work out at The Cape and work in the space center and work at, you know, the high paying jobs. And we keep getting more of them, so I guess this number keeps going up. That's terrible for the people on a fixed income.

But waiving that impact fee, I like the way the language works. I'm learning about all this stuff. The fact that you're going to hold them accountable that if anybody sells that property, there's a lien on that property. I like that. So this is the first time I've actually had an opportunity to look at one of these. So I like that. But, again, that that issue about what the what the income level used to determine that the price of those units is a little bit boggling to me. I think that that's all I had on f four. So I guess

she's next. Yes. Kim Rusenkamp.

Morning, chairman, members of county commission. I represent HTG, the developer for this project. HTG is a affordable housing developer. This is 55 up. The school board has agreed to the waiver of impact fee for schools.

And as the question requested actually in the impact fee deferral agreement, it says on page two, project has 80 residential units, eight will be reserved for occupants with a gross annual income that does not exceeds 40% of the area median, and the rest are for those that do not exceed 60% of area median income. So this is a true affordable housing supported by the Florida Finance Council up in Tallahassee. We would ask that you approve these at this time.

I have a question.

Yes, sir.

Now those are typically set forth in statute, aren't they?

Oh, well, the statute says low income is a 100 can be up to a 120% of area median income. This is a true affordable 4060%.

Okay. Thank you. Mhmm. Thank you. Okay. Alright. Why don't we backtrack to f one and three? I'm sure staff has those answers.

Good morning, commissioners. So in f one, the agenda is for the board to receive a grant of $890,000 from the Florida Department of Commerce. There will be a match from the Merritt Island Redevelopment District of 600,000 plus there's a lease side of 40,000 which brings a total to $1,530,000 The $200,000 that Mr. Heifer Pickle was talking about was for to allow the county manager's office to approve any budget changes over that amount. Okay. Thank you. Any questions?

Any questions from the board? Okay. F three, we'll get those answers. Put them ready.

F three is for final patent contract approval. It has no relationship to impact fees whatsoever. There's no way for a deferral of impact fees associated with the request. I'm not aware of any impact fee deferrals or waivers in the development in general, but I can look into it and get back with you. But there there were certainly the board's action has no no relationship whatsoever to impact fees.

Okay. Great. Thank you. Okay. Let's move on then. We'll and by the way, that's a great shirt. We need to brighten something. F eight. Rick Helfinger.

Back on deck. Alright. Again, Rick Helfinger, strict one. Whenever we play around with pay raises, that's not a one time event. Right?

So we thrown some money at a pay raise from the tourist capital facilities fund. And what's gonna happen, I guess my question is what happens in after 2526? Those guys have gotten a pay raise, so that's gonna be a reoccurring cost. And I was wondering if anybody actually tried to what that would do to the cost of that funding effort in the future because we know it's going up by what? $25 to help pay those guys. I'm not sure how many employees that is and how much the raise is, but that twenty five is gonna be reoccurring every year after that with the fire with the lifeguard guys. So we're just wondering if anybody had done that math. And that was pretty much the question I had on

that one.

I'll attempt to to answer that. I'm looking for the TDC. So fire rescue has already decided to give the lifeguards a raise as as a means for us to stay competitive because we're competing with area schools to hire or area pools, excuse me, to hire the lifeguards for the summer. What I did at the TDC was to ask for the $25,000 to to help shore that up for the next slide.

I'm to

the next I'm that's

I important

upset that we gave our lifeguards a raise? And No. I think think well, I I don't have the history of it. I don't know what they're currently making. I don't know how much they got. I don't know I don't know what 25 the 25 k does go toward that salary. Right? That's not something. Is that a reserve that they could get a

So yes. What what we did, so you know, we had some serious acts of deaths on our beaches. Yes. And we're understaffed tremendously. I also pulled this item because I wanted to thank staff for the incredible work they've done. They were able to look at reserves and funds and and provide for an increase in pay. And it's really enable us to to fill a serious backlog that we have, and it's gonna save lives. So I think it's I think it's good that we did this. And to answer your question, yes, these pay raises will not go away. And and what was the pay scale? We went from one, I think that was part of the question.

It was

a good question. Okay.

The lifeguards are being paid about $16 an hour. We went up to $20.21 dollars an hour.

And you've gotten tremendous Yes.

And we've already yeah. I'm getting the thumbs up from the guys in back since we're already getting positive response to recruiting from it.

It's tough to fill those positions, and it's a very, very difficult job. And I was reading the requirements to to be a life lifeguard. This is serious. And many of our EMTs. So I think it's good, and I hope we continue to pay our lifeguards a wage that's affordable and we get the best and brightest because beach safety is so important, and I want to thank commissioner Feltner for what he did in the TDC.

I think we have some real challenges out there, and this is not I mean, we probably have a lot more we need to do, and I think it's I think we need to get everybody pulling in the same directions, and we need a diverse and broad form of funding because the beaches were more beach than any other county in the state. And so the economic impact to tourist dollars of restart can see a lot of this one year. Think we had nine just a year. Fortunately, our our lifeguards have been really incredible in in preventing deaths and so this will help them. I'm excited about this. I wanna commend staff.

Okay. Well, just a little add a little note. I went to the mayor's breakfast and I enjoyed sheriff Ivy's speech. But there were a couple comments made taking shots at this dias about not funding certain beaches. And I don't know where we are on that. Do you anticipate any more TDC funding some of those beaches that had cried about not have enough cities that because I'm not sure exactly where which beaches the lifeguards are currently on that Brevard County through the TDC.

I think we're gonna have a lot of discussion about that.

Okay. I

can't predict what happened, but as we go through the budget process, I'm hopeful that we can continue to look at making our beaches safer. Okay. I have to say that it's amazing that our staff and our lifeguards have done as good a job as they have with the resources that we we've given them, and I hope we can continue to give them more.

Are all those lifeguards fire rescue types or or do you take college kids and part time them or

because let me

say real quick that we we rely pretty heavily on high school students when they're out of school to cover to cover the summer. So in fact, we celebrated where they two 16 year old students, I think at your fire rescue awards just a few weeks ago.

Okay. So they go through a course offered by fire rescue to certify them for that? I'm getting the nods from

the back there.

Thanks. I think that one answered that one.

Okay.

Do I

stay here?

You might as well unless you're trying to get more steps in.

Well Yeah. You

might be getting lost. I don't

have a pedometer on, so I can't get paid. So I guess I don't wanna do

that. F nine?

F nine. Let's see. Follow grant. I think I had tagged this one for salary adjustment has long term effects as well. Alright. This is what exactly is this one? Okay. They did the 26. Did I have a problem with no. One of the things that I did wanna kind of bounce off of this one was that I think we had a county commissioner that used to work here and she was advocating for some transparency or additional transparency on the agenda. And now this ain't one of

them.

Well, the money is not there, but I think the title is good. I got a comment on the next one about the title. Well, the total fiscal impact was not listed under the fiscal impact, and it could have been done there. I had to I get in other words, I had to read through to get the total was $322,001.56, and that was not totaled up. I mean, that's a nitpick really. Right? But it wasn't totaled up in the fiscal impact for 2026. So that was just I was just trying to bring that back up that it would be nice if the agenda had those numbers on it too. Because when I see big big numbers, I like to zero in. So that just helped me to figure that where I wanna go. And that's all I had on f nine.

Okay. And f 12?

I did I had 10 too. Right? Yes.

Oh, I missed 10. Okay. Yes. Let's let's do four F10. R f 10. I'll make

the same comment. This says approval RE budget amendment, and it doesn't say what it's for. And it would be nice to say approval RE budget amendment to mosquito control operations resources. And you could actually pull the fiscal impact for the text of that statement because it says that we are going to have to draw on the mosquito control operation reserves for March for additional pesticide chemicals. One question is, how big is the reserve for mosquito control? I guess you could say how much is it before and how much is it after the poll? Does just to kind of an idea, I mean, every department I assume has a reserve. Right? I mean, the county has a reserve too.

Well, we'll we'll have that number. We'll move on. And I'm gonna bounce down that 14 since you're already standing here. We got a speaker's card. Well, you got a 12 too. I got 12 too. Okay. Alright. While they're getting that number, we'll go to f 12.

F 12 is about the the funding for the guys that the economic development commission. Didn't they do a pitch about I mentioned about the cost of the average salary and whether or not we incentives were good because we had a high level of salary. So we're good target for incentivizing when we hire good paying jobs. I just have one question that I I ran their little numbers here that in in the six month period that they reported they're 're

able

And then going be poll of asking you guys to fund them for the rest of the year or was that their entire billing period? Or they just gonna ride it out and this is all these are salaries and stuff that are already covered for the year. I wasn't sure if they're out of money or if this is a total allocation for a whole year, and they just burned through it in six months.

Well, I let's back up. I think we were getting an answer on F 10. We have another card in F 12. We'll hear that, and then we'll get the answer.

So, yeah, question was what was the amount of reserves in mosquito control, and that amount is currently $737,524.

Good. Okay. Alright. We have another car on F 12. They can work on that question you have, but let's hear the other car too. 12. Yeah. Sandra Sullivan.

Oh, wait a minute. I'm gonna get all jumbled.

Good morning. Sandra Sullivan from Waves Action. Yeah. So we're paying currently EDC $1,400,000 and that's quick to go a little bit. We were about 700 and something.

So I just wanted to mention that commissioner Atkinson had in her list a discussion of whether that should be cut. And I'm just gonna say I'm I'm a little disappointed by the performance of what they are delivering. Their private organization funded by special interests and you're looking at busting the cap and raising our taxes. I think it's appropriate to look at cutting costs. This is certainly one.

So this is our financial statements. You doubled the amount that they got. In addition, they got $1,810,000 towards a study for the regional sewage plant and there's concerns about that. There's concerns with seemingly the original location which was at Tyco according to the Black and Beach study. The first study that they did that they didn't consider that airports have rules that you can within one point one nine one point one nine miles, you cannot have a sewage treatment plant because it's a bird attractant.

And yet that was the plan to where to put it and then, you know, interestingly enough when FAA came back and said no can't do this that you know Brightline sold that $38,000,000 piece of property for like 6,000,000. So I don't think they're doing a good job and I think that it should be cut back to what it was, which is half. That's my 2 my 2¢ on it. Thanks.

Okay. Thank you. Do we have another question? Is that it? We'd have F14, but did we get that F12 answer? I don't know. Your question?

I'm sorry. I'll I'll just jump in. F14, EDC gets a grant. Miss Sullivan mentioned it's $1,400,000 a year. Okay. Alright. Good. Alright. I'm sorry, chair. They get a grant from the board of county commissioners for $1,400,000 a year.

F14? That's Rick Hefelfinger.

Alright. F14. That's Jill over there. Right? Jill Hayes?

Yes.

Okay. I thought Jill Hayes was the budget director. That not true?

She's the assistant county manager.

Did she move?

Mhmm. Yes. We Oh. We gave her. Congratulations. Well deserved. A well deserved promotion. Okay.

I I I missed that. Mister Nieder Nieder has a very good resume. I like to see like I saw that happened that I was a little disturbed about one time when we seem to I guess you guys for continuance and for rewarding people that have been here, you progress, you hire from within. I don't have a real big problem with that. Well, I did have a problem with that.

But this guy must be a sharpshooter. He managed to get himself all the way up to the manager in just nine years. So he's done well. He must be really good. Look forward to good things from him. And I guess we've got a challenging budget coming up too. So I hope he's up to the task, and that ought to be interesting to see. And that's all I had on that. That.

Well, I'm glad you brought that because I know I I had the opportunity to work with mister Neder, and he is incredibly qualified and really excited about his role. Got some big shoes to fill. I'm happy we still have Jill with us. So we were we're really well equipped to tackle this upcoming budget process, and I'm sure we'll be seeing you throughout that process as well.

Oh, I I think you will. Okay. And and, Jill, don't forget, if he taps you for information, charge him overtime.

Okay. Thank you so much. Alright. Okay. Let's go ahead and have a motion on all those items that we had removed. Do I need to repeat those f one, F3, F4, F8, F9, F10, twelve, and fourteen. Motion

Move to approve these and then discuss seven?

We haven't heard seven, Let's approve these and we'll go back to seven. Okay. All in favor of the motion or is there a motion?

Move to approve the one you

think think

Development Council Marketing Support Program funding.

Good morning commissioners.

I'm the one that pulled that and I was hoping that Peter could go over it with us.

Sure. Good morning. So yes, marketing support program grants are similar to what we've had the last two years. They're cultural and sports grants. This request is to approve the budget for $740,000 of which 120,000 is allocated to the five commissioner districts.

So there's 20,000 each district that they can use for for their purposes if they would like. It's not a requirement, but they can. In the last couple of years, I think four out of the five commissioners have done that. And then there's also some changes to the criteria, some some strengthening of of the wording in in the criteria relative to what is allow able and also some clawback language now that we have in there. So that's the gist of it, but I'm happy to answer any questions. Okay.

I do have one question if I may. Were there any applicants who qualified who didn't who aren't gonna be receiving their funds?

So this is for next fiscal year. For this fiscal year, all applicants who did qualify were gonna receive funds except for there's one event that isn't occurring on the sports side Okay. So they won't be getting their funding obviously. And that's provided for in the criteria. If they if an event doesn't happen for some reason, obviously, there's no ability for them to get reimbursement. Okay.

So there's there's no event that qualified that our $100,000 that the commissioners are getting to distribute is taking away from?

Not that I'm aware of. No,

ma'am. Okay.

So my issue is that I brought this up last year because each commissioner district is getting $20,000 to award to events that didn't meet the minimum qualification. So last year, I gave my districts 20,000 back. Yes, And now we have 25,000 to give to lifeguards, which is handy. Partly because my understanding is that the TDC didn't even discuss my concerns last year. Is that is that also true? You guys didn't have an opportunity to discuss them?

We went through the full criteria. I don't believe there was a any real discussion on that particular issue, but

Right.

But it was brought up. Yes, ma'am.

Okay. If the TDC last year found a $100,000 to allow commissioners to distribute and they did again this year. Does that mean that we can do it every year and all of a sudden it becomes recurring funds and we could give that $100,000 a year to lifeguards? I know that's a future question, but that that's my issue with this.

You know, can I say something? I've only tried to first of all, it's not the commissioners who appropriate the money. The board of county commissioners votes on it. I I've we have only sought to get input from each of the commissioners because historically, over many many years, there were commissioners who said, hey, I think that in my area, this this thing isn't being supported and I think it's good. So I'll I'll tell you what we could do today possibly to satisfy things.

We could eliminate the whole $100,000 towards the small grants that don't meet those criteria's for all the various things that were funded last year and we could put all the lifeguards and I would make that motion today if that's

I support

that. Alright. Is that your motion?

That is my

motion. Okay. Fine. Okay. There's a motion and

a second. Is there any other discussion? I I just wanna address a couple of the things that were brought up. The minimum criteria. These organizations, in my mind, were even more capable than even some of the items that was funded.

These were wonderful programs that provided a lot of resources to our community, and many of them were significantly financial strapped. I think they were good programs. I think that the minimum criteria was somewhat of a loophole because it's a broad based set of criterias and some of them may apply or or some of them not. And so I don't think it was a misuse of public funds. Secondly, I think it's it was very it is very helpful that the people that are elected, people that the public votes for that are vetted more than any other group has a voice, and they know what's the need in their local communities.

By the way, this money just didn't go to local communities. I know I recommended a program that wasn't not even in my district. Yes. But it was so important, so critical, and they're so strapped that I felt it was appropriate that that I just didn't look at the district. So I I just wanna point out that this having our involvement was very healthy and very very good.

I think that going to lifeguards is not bad. Although, that 100,000 is not gonna solve the lifeguard problem. And there are other things other funding sources that we must look at beyond the TDC. I don't think you can expect that to fully fund that. I think that that we should have a broad base level of participation, and it should be specifically related on how we provide the services and who benefits.

I think everyone needs to have a little skin in the game, and it doesn't solve the problem that that we are gonna need to solve. And this appropriation, as small as it was, did solve some significant problems for some of the smaller organizations.

And I'll say one thing if I could mister chair. The 25,000 that I asked for in the last TDC meeting, that was an unplanned thing, but we were we were in that moment trying to do a raise for the the lifeguards because we're we're competing with area pools. And so the 25,000 that the TTC appropriated for that that were is on the agenda today. We took from the capital fund and we did that because we agreed as a council that we weren't going to spend money on capital this year because we had less than a million dollars, so somewhere in the $900,000 range and so we wanted to wait until that was sort of replenished. So from those funds is what we took the 25,000 from to to offshore the lifeguards this year.

Just to Thank you. Does that sound right, Peter?

Yes, sir. And I was gonna ask for clarification on this 100,000. It does come from the cultural budget. So if that's the budget where you wanna move dollars to lifeguards, that would that would be great if it was part of the motion.

I will amend the motion to take the 100,000 from the cultural fund to fund lifeguards. Guards.

I'll second the amendment.

Now are we able to do that? Are those funds specifically designated for that area? Do we have the legal ability to do that? Because I know it's a formula that was passed by the public and it's provided for in statutes.

Under state law, we can. We'll have to take a look at the budget ordinance, our local one to see if that needs to be amended or adjusted.

Yeah. That's the that's the part of the budget where it says up to, and so those funds could move to marketing and then then from there be directed to lifeguards.

They just won't go directly from cultural, they'll they'll pass through to another fund where they can

So we'll look at it. If there's a problem, we can address that. Is there any other debate on the motion? All those in favor say yay.

Yay. Yay.

Motion passes motion passes unanimously. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you.

I'm sorry, chair. Then we need the motion with the requested action minus the $100,000 for the marketing support program. What I heard you, you took $100,000 out of that for lifeguards. Now we need approval if you so choose to approve the marketing Okay. Support

So for the rest, any other questions on the TDC?

Nope. Okay.

Should I make a motion for the rest of the TDC marketing program? Okay. I'll make a motion for the rest of the TDC marketing program.

And I'll second that.

Thank you.

And how much is that?

640,000.

Okay. Quick question. Did we need a specific motion on the 100,002? Is that what you're

No. You think we just you made the motion We

did that. We're good. Okay. Yeah. Bye. Any discussion on the motion? And second? All those in favor say yay? Yes. Aye. Carries unanimously. Thank you. Now do we need a motion on that item since it was on the consent? Did we do that? We're fine. Okay. Good. Okay. Now we will proceed to public comments. Do we have any public comment cards? Alright. Jackie McPhillips. And the next speaker will be doctor Lance Armstrong.

Good morning. I'm Jackie McPhillips. And for many years, I've been an affordable housing developer. Currently, for the last several years, I represent nonprofit organizations that are developing affordable, both rental housing and and subdivisions of first time homeownership. And there what I passed out to you is there's and you're probably aware of this, but there's some new laws coming down the pike that our Florida legislature did.

One was House Bill three ninety nine, the other senate bill five ninety four, one of which really has to do with changes in every local government's LHAPs as far as allowing factory built, excuse me, factory built homes are now going to be allowed as of 01/01/2027 and other extended areas, residential developments. The other law primarily deals with ship funds and currently Florida housing had a 20% cap on the amount that any local government could give of their ship on manufactured homes. So it will deal with that. It's repealing that. So local government could give any amount that they want.

We're seeing a lot of things coming down the pike having to do with factory made housing for affordable housing because of the sheer cost of land escalating, the construction costs escalating, and it's getting more and more difficult to develop true affordable housing with income limits and so forth. So I think our state government is trying the best they can to come up with some new provisions that will open up or help create more affordable housing both for rental and especially for first time homeownership. There is going to be, I believe, it's a coalition on June 23. We'll be hosting a a webinar that think all local governments, counties, as well as cities will be listening into because it's gonna be basically a tutorial explaining the law, how it affects local government and the citizens and so forth. And I'm sure the Department of Housing and Human Services will will be on that call as well.

One of the items which has to do with SHIP is why I'm here today. As I understand it, after discussions with Nicole Tenpenny, who I I'm sure you all know is the director of the not for profit that works with all eligible applicants for SHIP, qualifying them and so forth. Right now, if I under oops. They got past Okay. Thank you.

There's they're serving less than about half of what they used to just because of the higher cost. She's very much in favor, and the request is to please reconsider allowing ship dollars to be used on manufactured homes no differently than site built homes that will allow many more families to be served with your shift. Okay.

Thank you. Thank you. Input. Any question? I'm sure this will be something we'll look at in the future. Thank you.

One last thing, if I may. We've been invited to go to one of two factories that are built here in Florida for manufactured by executives of the Florida Manufactured Home. The Florida Housing Coalition introduced me to them. They've offered graciously to do a private tour. I will be bringing not for profit organizations myself. I'm gonna reach out to your staff to see if maybe some of them would like to to become more educated on today's manufactured and if any of our commissioners would like to attend.

That'd be great. Now it's my understanding. We're not just talking about mobile homes. Some of these manufactured homes are

Mobile homes is like a beautiful trying to get educated now more on the whole subject, actually stopped being built in nineteen seventy six, fifty years ago. They were more mobile. They kept the wheels on. Manufactured primarily are now being permanently affixed. They're made much, much better, a much higher quality, supposedly very similar to frame site built for wind and and every other factor, energy efficiency. That's why I wanna do the tour. Excellent. Florida housing did the tour, and now they're gonna have a pilot program because they were so impressed for community of first time homebuyers with manufactured housing.

Great. Thank you so much. Thank you for bringing this

Thank you.

To our attention. Okay. Doctor Lance Armstrong.

Hello, county commissioners. I'm accompanied by Amanda Hernkind. We are representing Rolling Thunder Florida chapter chapter one.

I want to pull that up here a little bit taller than the last. We need a longer mic I think. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I think we need to turn it 90 degrees. Will it fit? Here, we'll get the staff help you out there. And then we can slide it up as just the as they talk. Okay. Good. Alright. We won't use that against your time. Okay. Let me reset. You said that.

Rolling thunder is a Florida chapter one. It's the largest chapter in Florida, the third largest in the nation of a nationwide organization that's simply an advocacy group. We're not a motorcycle club. We are searching for our missing troops like my cousin, a pilot who took off in World War two. Our organization has done a lot to help the US DOD restructure under one roof at Hickam where many of the remains the Maryland. For

state

posting the statement that we want our missing the returned. There's almost 80,000 plus since World War one. Of that number, we believe approximately 27,000 can be found. Annually, we would go to Washington DC for thirty two years. And in 2019, when 1.7 flag million motorcycles showed up, the FBI organized a little statement to us that said, don't do this again.

Please make it state run. We've played by that rule for five years, and I've been asked to run it two of the five years in 2021 and 2023. It's also been in Daytona, Port Charlotte, and Punta Gorda. I screwed it up so bad. They've plucked it on us here for the next five years, so I'll be coming back to you over year after year.

But this is our big first year, and I wanna thank this county and its commission for letting us use the brand new $8,200,000 amphitheater for one of the three major events we have going on this weekend. Like Washington on Friday night, Gold Star family members would carry a beautiful flame of freedom in front of the Vietnam Wall. About 30,000 of us would go there, not one speaking. We've upped the quality of that night by having Texas Roadhouse complimentarily feeding Gold Star family a dinner. These folks will come together, meet, break bread, and heal.

And then we will ride in from Fish Lips And Sandbar where we're doing our ride registration and escort them after dark about 08:30 on that walk. If we have patriotic people in Brevard County that wish to support our Gold Star family, please consider being at the Brevard Veterans Memorial Center Friday night at about 08:00. Saturday is our festival, and that's where we have some great music, vendors, and we hope the public comes and enjoys the music there at the Veterans Memorial Center. And then Sunday is our ride for freedom. We are riding down State Road 3 from the Veterans Memorial Center just like last week's law ride.

But we're gonna turn left and go across Pineda Causeway to a one a and up through Cocoa Beach. Cocoa Beach PD will escort us. Every sheriff in every location has supported this, but sheriff Ivy says he cannot. He'll help us get on State Road 3 with a couple of deputies, but I just want the folks who reside on State Road 3 South Of 520 to know that we're coming down that route Sunday at about 11:00. We're leaving the VMC.

And so please consider coming out front waving waving American flag, supporting our organization in that manner. And as we come out through Cocoa Beach, we hope the same will occur again as it has those two years. We hope though that the public knows that this is a center for the state state of Florida. This is a Florida event, but we're not playing by that rule this year. That's the Texas emblem, and they're talking to Mississippi.

Both North And South Carolina chapters are considering, and Georgia is coming. And so this might be turning into the southeast United States Memorial Day weekend rolling thunder ride for freedom event, and I hope the county will be aware of that for the next four or five years. Thank you for your support. And if I may we're considering the fifth it's about a 20 foot wide median on Sykes Creek, and we would like just a little sign there that's lit that says rolling thunder event this direction. We hope that's allowed.

Okay. We have by the way, just for those listening or here, the Gold Star family is a family who's lost a loved one in in the service of their country and the ultimate sacrifice and we certainly appreciate them. We can't do enough for them and I thank you for that.

Quite Can I ask doc doc now do you have the sign? You're asking if you

can put it

out there or you're It's

it's waiting to be rented. It's waiting. So It's just a little trailer sign that says event this way type thing. We can't borrow them from the county, you know, but

It's electronic message board sign?

No. Not a minute. It's just a lit sign, rolling thunder event this way. Do we it's it's would

a motion be appropriate to allow them temporarily to do that? Because, yeah,

I have no idea where the sign ordinance might be. So yeah.

Okay. So an exemption from the sign ordinance for this event? Is that

I can guarantee you not block any sort of That's good. Public view I think roadway, anything like that. It's just it's I I still today mentioned Brevard Veterans Memorial Center to many of my patients and they go, where is

that? Okay.

I think cat's got

It sounds like the sign is going be placed in the right of way, so if he wants to work with Mark Burnett's group, we can get them the appropriate permits to have that happen.

It's back from the intersection on the media. Do

we need a motion to them to do that for this event?

Yes. I'll make I'll make a motion and to And waive

waive the fees of And waive any necessary fees so they can have the sign temporarily for for the event. Okay. That's my motion.

Motion to allow for the sign, waive the fees. Is there a second?

I'll second that.

Second. All in favor say yay. Yay. Carried unanimously.

Okay. On

that note, thank you also. I understand there may be a fee for using the the amphitheater next year, and we thank you for waiving that for organization this year.

Thank you for what you do.

We'll put this in the

back if anyone wants to shoot a picture or

something like Please.

See you Friday morning.

Thank you. Yes. Thank you. Okay. Next item, g three, Dana Belinkley. Is she here? Yep. Over there.

You almost got that And And we'll slide. The serious woes in the facilities that most of the constitutional officers reside in. So I wanna specifically talk about the Titusville facility at 400 South Street. That building was constructed. Matter of fact, the first time I occupied that building, it was 18 years old, and I was 18 years old.

It was in 1986. It is classified as a class a or class b commercial building with an economic life of about sixty years. Now that's based on Marshall and Swift, which is the gold standard for valuation or cost estimates for both residential and commercial construction. So the last ten years have been the most challenging and we are now at a place where we're pretty much well dire straits. Commissioner Altman, you just happen to be there on a day where we took on hundreds And shows do with

first

time that we I have been lot property the appraiser, I have never worked with a county manager that has been so supportive and communicative about any issues related to anything, but but certainly facilities. So we are thankful for Jim's support and for facilities support. They are trying to make lemonade out of kumquats, and it's just impossible. So unfortunately, I did not get my videos to you guys in time,

but I do have see

if I can get this right. That is one piece of the latest breach that we had of galvanized waste pipe that burst on the 6th Floor. So all of that, about 20 foot of pipe was removed. This is one piece of it.

And

that is basically what the piping, the fluid mechanics of that building look like throughout. Now I'm not saying that every pipe looks like that, but every pipe has the same age. The result of that was several several gallons of waste black water that ended up in our lobby. Of course, we had to shut down operations. The tax collector and the property appraiser's office have had to shut down operations for a total of five five, six days either due to the temperature in the building being in the eighties, high 80s where we cannot work or service customers and of course water intrusion.

You guys have been very cooperative. We are moving our servers that are in a space located on the floor below that one that also had a flood. Thank goodness. It was in one half of the server room that doesn't have the server rack. So you guys are working with us to move the server out of that building and into your EOC Building.

We've moved our redundancy to Barbara Pill. I did that shortly after taking office. So at least we've got those infrastructure potential major deficits covered, but this is not getting better. And we're just at at a crossroads now where, you know, unfortunately, no fault of the five people that sit here today, but the combination of the people that have sat there before you for whatever reason have made decisions to ignore the mechanics, the major mechanics of this building, and it is now failing. So there's only so many more black water spills we're gonna be able to take on to where it's not habitable, and so we're we're playing Russian roulette every day.

I'm not here to be chicken little. It's just that I've got to have operations and I've got to open, and I am very sympathetic for the tax collectors. I don't have 300 appointments that I have to try to move. The Sarno location we're in that has also had AC woes is in the same condition, and it was built in 1968. So we just have some construction that the remaining economic life is zero at this point.

So, you know, I'll continue to communicate with the county, but something has to be done. Eventually, it's not going be habitable. And I'm only going to be shut down so many times for operations before I'm going to have to make some moves and contact the department and say, I've got to have some facilities and potential look for lease spaces, which I don't want to do because it makes it more challenging for our customers that need to do other things in those other offices, so it's nice that we're located together. So thank you for letting my time run over, and I'm certainly here to answer any questions that you may have.

So have a question. Now when you say blackwater, you mean sewage?

Yes, sir.

So you you're not like chickens. It's not like the sky is falling. Something else is falling on your head.

Yeah. Yes, sir.

Pretty abhorrent. And I do wanna shout out the staff for their rapid response because ironically, happen to be there. And I'm I certainly personally am committed to doing what we could do to restore that that that courthouse. It's part of our legacy. It's our county seat, and we need to take care of it. I know it's a big undertaking and I will probably have a lot of discussion about that as we go into the budget hearing. Any other comments or questions?

Well, know that we appropriate some money for the six story at the midyear, my recollection maybe in the last month. Remind us of what that was going to. And I'm sorry, maybe that's a marked question.

It may 1,000,000 point dollars $1.8 somewhere in thought it was $1.8 Yes, for the HVAC and something else too. I'm sorry, I apologize, I don't have it off the top of my head.

The chiller project? Yes. Mainly the chiller. We're running a piece of

then

do

that.

And

like what I just showed you there. So we don't have a choice, you know, you can't operate when the temperatures are in the nineties with a when an inside temperature in the high eighties, you know, we just can't do that. So it's not like we have a choice not to be paying that, but we are paying $20,000 a month for a temporary chiller and that's just in the North End, I don't know what we're paying for the Sarno Complex, but it's how we're existing today. As I stand here and talk to you, we've got temporary generators or equipment running the HVAC system at Sarno.

And commissioners, your new budget director texted me $1,800,000 for the EAV which Mark can tell you I'm HVAC and then and the property is correct. I talked about the last board meeting. I was panicking thing is $1,000,000 but the lease the fix, the permanent fix for Sarno is about 150,000, but that's like six weeks away still six to eight weeks has been a couple of weeks. So that's why we're running chillers or whatever the the tubes are in that in that office building too.

And and also my recollection, I think at the Melbourne Courthouse, we it was it was something like $400,000 for the HVAC just in just in the last year that that we replaced. Somewhere in that neighborhood.

That could be. I've had a lot of discussions in HVAC with the staff, yes.

Thank you for being here and bringing us to our attention. I'm sure we'll be having a lot of dialogue in the future. And so, hopefully, we can get it fixed.

Thank you.

Thank you. Okay. Next public comment, Rick Huffelfinger.

Rick Hufflefinger, District 1. What a fine segue into my topic for public comment. We talked about kicking things down the road, and I think Dana's description was quite nice that it's not your guy's fault, but some things have been seriously neglected. Where are we gonna get the money? There's one place we could have gotten money that I was really disappointed. It's not on the agenda today. Didn't we talk about an impact study that was gonna adjust those impact fees? That's not gonna fix it this year. I understand that. We'd start collecting those at some other point.

Is is the study done? Do I understand it right that there's a study and these impact fees this this is see, I'm getting this stuff off the Internet. So correct me if any of this is incorrect. We have an updated impact fees in twenty five years. And now your opportunity to do that.

And I'm afraid we're gonna miss it because I think the state's gonna step in and they're gonna limit how much you can do that in in a fell swoop. Now if you don't do that and we don't correct the problem in the future, that's all gonna fall on us, the taxpayers. Because these people that are coming in, these people, these these organizations, these builders, building these big housing outfits, bringing in big buildings, bringing in space stuff maybe as well. They're they're not being hit enough to cover impact they have to our community. Right?

The roads, while the water treatment plants, holy grud, sewage, and and water resources. So if you guys don't do that, this I think here's here's my ask. Why don't you make a motion to conduct an emergency meeting next month when you should be off and bring that study up and make a decision if you're gonna fix the problem or not? I would like to see you guys do that because you you you that whole thing about the buildings. Right? You you you're talking about a 100,000 to fix this 100. That structural failure there. That's probably eroded concrete maybe. You don't pull pipes in a building easily. Right?

That that's gonna you know, that that's huge. And those numbers aren't even gonna touch it, I bet. If you if you actually got I don't know. Is anybody an estimate on redoing the plumbing in that building? It's four stories high. Right? Holy crap. Six. Are we gonna suggest we knock it down? Is that gonna be cheaper? Because there sounds like it might be cheaper. Right? That's the cost that you gotta do. I I hate to say that because you know what? We ain't got no money to do That sounded like an emergency. Oh, that's perfect. We can blow we can bust the cap with an emergency. So that she set that up nicely. But it really is an emergency. But if we don't if there's no light at the end of the tunnel, there's gonna be another emergency.

After you build that building up, you you sock it to us. You get that building on other buildings and other projects. I mean, like, there are a lot of projects that we're talking. Oh, it's terrible. And and it is. She has pictures. It's terrible. So I'd I'd like to see you guys have a meeting when you're supposed to be off and bring that issue up so we can talk about it. Thank you.

Thank you. Sandra Sullivan?

Good morning. Sandra Sullivan from Waves Action on Facebook. So I've been coming to these county commission meetings for about eight years. The impact fees that which is developers share what they pay has not been updated in over twenty five years. For fire and EMS, we had a lot of struggles with the with that, not being able to pay them a fair wage and not having the infrastructure.

I mean, it goes to infrastructure for impact fees. But so we in 1998, a study was done to recommend that we increase those impact fees to $205 per resident. It's still $98. It hasn't been updated in so long. The can has been kicked down the road, and you've created a crisis.

And in 2022, I came before you and said, we'll hit the day when we have a crisis. In 2016, there was an impact fee feasibility study before the former commission that sat here, and they said no. It was recommended a 79% increase to transportation, and they said no. You know what they did? They busted the cap and they put it on the taxpayers to pay the increases developers got off.

Well, know, it's been another ten years since then and now you're supposed to have an impact fee study. It was supposed to take nine months. It was supposed to be done a couple months ago. Well, there's a new law that goes into effect, effect the July 1 that will limit you to a 100% increase over four years. You purposely, my allegation, has delayed this and not put this on this agenda today. And what are you doing? It's a repeat of 2016. You're going to bust the cap and you're going to tax the people. The developers get off and our taxes go up. And you wanna talk about affordability because you know who it affects?

You're on the affordable housing board, miss Atkinson? It affects the elderly the most. That is the highest group of people that have homelessness. And that's what you're doing. You're pushing the veterans and the homeless out of their homes with the increase of cost. You're going to increase garbage 12%. You're gonna increase storm water a lot for put the burden on us for the flooding impacts because you develop wetlands. You're gonna you're gonna bust the cap and put that to new levels, and there are other taxes. That's all I have to say. You guys, I I I repeat what Rick said.

In good conscience, you guys need to schedule an emergency meeting and put bring forth that impact fee feasibility study. It's been over twenty five years. And put that because otherwise, the burden is on us, the taxpayers. Thank you. Oh, the next meeting is the July 7, which is seven days after the new law goes into effect.

Okay that's all over public. Hearing cars was time for a break was come back at 11:00.

Good morning chairman. H1 is a public hearing for adoption of amendments to chapter one zero two article two entitled business tax receipt and repealing reserving section 62 dash eleven fifty five entitled zoning approval for business tax receipt approval of home occupations.

Okay.

Have any cards.

We have

no cards on that. If there's no questions or cards, make a motion to approve.

I'll second.

All in favor, yay. Yay. Yay.

Yay. Motion

carries unanimously. Thank you. H two.

Good morning commissioners. H. Two is a public hearing that does not require a vote. Is just simply the announcement that we are accepting citizen. Input for twenty twenty six twenty twenty seven annual action plan. Per head. This is for our CDBG and home dollars. The public meeting will be held today. One at CDBG and then the second public hearing will be will be July 21 during the commission meeting.

Okay. We have no cards here. Any discussion? Motion being ordered. There's no vote. There's no vote. We don't need a vote.

We don't need a vote.

All right. Good.

Thank you.

Thank you.

H three.

Good morning, commissioners. This item asked the board to consider placing placing before the voters a referendum to renew the existing half cent infrastructure sales tax that funds the Save Our Indian River Lagoon program. In 2016, Brevard County residents chose to invest in restoring the Indian River Lagoon following a series of harmful algal blooms, fish kills, and significant seagrass loss. The voter approved sales tax created a dedicated trust fund that allows the county and our municipal private and nongovernmental partners to implement projects that reduce nutrient pollution, remove legacy muck, upgrade wastewater and septic systems, and restore natural ecological filtration systems. Over the past decade, the program has completed more than a 130 projects, leveraged over 127,000,000 in state and federal grants, and helped thousands of homeowners and businesses reduce nutrient pollution on their private property.

During this time, excess nutrient levels have declined, harmful algal blooms and fish kills have lessened, and seagrass and fisheries recovery has begun. While this progress is encouraging, continued pollution reduction is necessary to meet water quality targets and restore lagoon health. The current sales tax expires December 31. Renewal, if approved by the voters, is estimated to generate approximately 800,000,000 over ten years for continued lagoon restoration efforts. The actions before you today would approve the ordinance placing renewal referendum on the November 3 ballot,

extend the existing interlocal agreement

referendum with the

municipalities contingent upon voter approval,

November and approve the ballot language for transmission to the supervisor of elections. Approval of these items does not renew the tax. It will provide Brevard County voters the opportunity to decide whether they wish to continue this locally dedicated investment in restoring and protecting the Indian River Lagoon. That staff is requesting the board

going do able to And

that. Substantial number of cards. Our first one, Mitchell Roffer.

That is right.

Oh. That's prayer.

Nice to see you, everybody.

My name is Mitchell Roffer. I live down in Melbourne Beach 6025 Highway A 1 A. I received my doctorate in biological oceanography from the Rosenfield School in Miami. I've since served twenty years in the NASA biodiversity science team, and I'm presently on the STEM council as part of the IR council. The save our our Indian liver lagoon program plans prioritizes and delivers project that reduces pollution, removes legacy nutrient loads, to and we would like to restore natural filtration systems while tracking progress and effectiveness over time.

What's important about this plan in addition to looking at the science is it provides transparency. Transparency through projects, citizens oversight, public meetings, educational tools are provided for the residents to understand what's really going on. It doesn't take much for someone to know what's happening with the lagoon, particularly with this program just to go on the website. Try to stay away from some of the false information on Facebook, but go to the website itself, which really shows what's going on. Depending on who you're talking with, it's taken thirty to fifty years to get to this point in the lagoon, and it's certainly gonna take this much time to get to the lagoon to get to back to the point where it can help restore itself.

There's nothing we can do other than stop the pollution to actually go and get it back to the natural cycle that we hope to do as scientists. So it's important to know that the RL provides, I think you know this, that provides a strong economic boost

to

the county as well as the county health depends on it, not just the health of the animals associated with the lagoon, but the people around the lagoon influenced by algal blooms as well as eating the fish that may be toxic themselves. So I'm here to hopefully you will support putting this half cent tax back on the referendum for the taxpayers, and hopefully, we can continue the good management that that Virginia and her staffs have been doing for the last ten years. Guys, it seems ten years has gone by so fast, and we're just barely touching the problem. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Our next

Shaking is not from a nervousness. It's due to its coldness in this room. Yeah. Okay. Freezing. Alright. It is a little bit chilly. A lot of people over

the Alright. I agree. Jim Moore? And the next speaker will be Phil Stasik.

Thank you, commissioners. Good morning. I'm Jim Moyer. I am with the Marine Resources Council and I'm also the Indian Riverkeeper. I live in Martin County.

I I was very engaged in the early days of of the SORL program and I applaud that commission and I applaud you all for continuing to to keep this SORL program going. Other counties up and down the seven counties that live on the Indian River Lagoon look up to you. What you guys have done truly sets a high standard for how a community really cares about the Indian River Lagoon and is willing to do something about it. I really hope that you, you know, persist and continue because we're beginning to see progress. We're beginning to see that this program actually has worked and has reduced some of the negative inputs that decades of misuse have allowed the Indian River Lagoon to become what it had.

Thank you very much for considering the resolution and I hope you move forward with it and I hope that you actually exceed the goals of $800,000,000 That's an amazing amount of money that you can actually leverage to get something positive done for something that we all care so much about. Thank you.

Thank you for coming up all the way from Martin County.

Thank you Chairman Altman, commissioners and commissioner Goodson and the great beyond. We're glad that you're here. Thank you so much for your service to our community. It's amazing that well, my name my name is Phil Stasick, North Merritt Island. Ten years ago, I and many of my friends that are here today stood before the commission and asked for the support of this wonderful program.

The program works. One of the things that that we have to also say thanks to is Virginia Barker and her team for making this reality. The Indian River Lagoon Estuary is the beating heart of Brevard County. We know that it has been in trouble. I think probably eighty years ago, the decline began.

As people moved into this community, we began impacting the community in negative ways. And it's literally only been in the last ten years that we as a group, thanks to the courage and the leadership, the wisdom of the previous commission back ten years ago that we were able to begin reviving the beating heart of our community. And now ten years later, we all get up and we look in the mirror and we say, oh my gosh, if ten years gone by, yep, they sure have and here we are again. But it's now to you. We're looking to you to have the courage, to have the wisdom, to have the leadership, to bring the save our Indian River Lagoon back to back to the people, back to to vote again in November for this half cent sales tax.

The cost is minuscule. The benefits are awesome. I can speak to this personally. Over the years, I've been a oyster gardener. I've worked on a spoil island. I've done cleanups on the shore. I've spent hours diving on the bottom of this lagoon cleaning it up. I've seen it with my own two eyes. I felt it with my own hands. The save our Indian River Lagoon program works.

We're measuring the restore restoration of the seagrasses. We're seeing fish return. It's gonna take a lot more than just this amount of money that we've done over the past ten years. It's gonna take another ten years. It might take ten more years beyond that. But half cent sales tax, it's a

very

simple solution to a very complex problem. And so once again, ten years later, we're standing here and we're asking you again, please say yes to bringing the Save Our Indian River Lagoon back the the program back to the voters so that they can say yes. Do you have any questions?

Any questions? No. Thank you for Thank you very much for saying yes. Thank you. Gordon Nelson is our next speaker and after him Blair Wiggins.

Thank you, and good morning. I'm here and in District 5, and I'm in the hamlet, which is, you know, the Southeast corner of Lake Washington and Turtle Mound. Now, Turtle Mound is the watershed boundary west boundary line. We also are three miles from the lagoon. There are 59,438 septic tanks within the watershed of Brevard County.

Soil estimates the nitrogen from our properties and the 50 properties in the Hamlet. 12 properties are 1.6 pounds per year. 12 properties are 3.1 pounds per year. 18 or under 10 pounds per year, and eight are near the the county average at 31 pounds. That yields 210 per year for 42 homes plus £248 for the eight.

The cost to upgrade 50 properties is $1,100,000 at 22 k average, which is in fact not going to be enough. Clearly spending $1,110,000 is a waste of money. The current process of giving grants of $20,000 to high admitters, but only 6,000 at the low end is blatantly unfair. In fact, 42 low emitters of our properties should not be required to replace their systems with all the environmental damage that will be involved. The average emitter in the county is 29 pounds per year.

65% of that is 18.9 pounds per year. 42 of our properties are already lower than that will be achieved by the average perimeter after upgrade. If one looks at NSF two forty five, which is the test for septic systems, if you look at systems with low nitrogen influence, nitrogen is actually added to the test to assess whether the septic systems get 65%. You're actually adding nitrogen. It is not established, therefore, that low influence systems achieve any reduction.

Replacing 60,000 septic tanks at $20,000 is $1,200,000,000. The current state legislative date of July 30 will clearly not be met. By far, it will not be met. The plan for the next decade has 233,000,000 to improve sewage treatment, convert septic to sewer, and upgrade sewer upgrade septics. That is far from the billion dollars or 1 and a half billion dollars is gonna be needed.

Vero Beach has a hybrid system for 1,500 homes. That step system has half the cost and with minimal installation and environmental damage. Brevard needs better technology. The renewal and the sales tax is not ready for prime time given the sales that the septic tank issues that I mentioned. A rational comprehensive plan needs to be in place, and it's not yet there, or homeowners may well vote no.

Our next speaker, Blair Wiggins, and after Blair Wiggins will be Vince Lamb.

Good morning, commissioners. Thanks for hearing us out today. And I just wanna say I'm captain Blair Wiggins, host of Blair Wiggins Outdoors, lifelong resident of Cocoa Beach and Brevard County here, and founder of the Indian River Clam Restoration Project. And I just wanna say that my fans and myself are in support of keeping the half cent sales tax on the ballot. The programs that Sorrel is funding now would hate to see those go away, and I'll keep it short and sweet since it's been a long day. And I just wanna say that we are support of keeping the sales tax on the ballot. Thank you.

Great. Thank you. Vince Lamb and Gary. I'm sure I'll be corrected when you get up here, Gary.

Okay. Good morning, commissioners. Vince Lamb, and I'm speaking today on behalf of the Brevard Indian River Lagoon Coalition. I'm sure you can remember back in March when we requested assistance from the from the Trust Republic Land to come forward and that and perhaps help us with some of the elements of campaigning for this. So I wanna share with you that that the trust that the the Trust Republic Land conducted a public opinion survey of likely twenty twenty six November ballot to Brevard County voters and believes based on these results that the renewal of the Save Our Indian River Lagoon half cent sales tax has a very good chance of passing.

Alright. Therefore, we recommend that the Brevard County Commission place the place the measure on the November 3 ballot. Most people recognize the efforts of the past nine years to save our Indian Indian River Lagoon program have resulted in seagrass recovery of more than 10,000 acres. Many people believe that the Brevard County portion of the Indian River Lagoon remains in poor to fair condition, substantially improved from ten years ago, but but not yet back to anything resembling good condition. The Brevard Indian River Lagoon coalition is prepared to launch a campaign to to inform voters about about this referendum and why they should vote for it as we did in 2016.

We are we're currently recruiting volunteers to get ready for a very active campaign in September and October. So we've got yeah. We appreciate your consideration of this matter today, and we look forward to getting to work on it. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, Vincent. Gary. And then after Gary, Matthew Nyland.

Hi. Gary Aguinaga. So I'm a long time resident of Brevard County since the sixties. I live on the Inner River Lagoon presently in Cocoa, marine engineer by degree, and a many, many hours a year volunteer with all the many programs that all these great organizations and scientists and engineers and other folks do to have helped try to turn this lagoon around. Why am I here?

I'm here because I care deeply about this lagoon. I grew up when it was pristine, and I would love to preserve that for my children and their children. Also, I care deeply about this county, and I think it's pretty clear. I think someone said that this lagoon is the heartbeat of the county, but the direct tie to the long term well-being and viability and economic viability of this county is critical to have a healthy lagoon in terms of property values, in terms of inward growth, development, business success, tourism. It doesn't work with a dead lagoon.

And so I'm here to ask you all to please consider not only approving this to be on the ballot, but to do it unanimously and to as you go about and are able to use your circles of influence to please help raise awareness of just how critical this issue is to our county. I think it's critically important at this point, after ten years that as others have said, there is visible evidence now. There's scientific evidence and visible evidence that it's beginning to work. But to stop funding now would present such a huge challenge as we've just begun this, I think would be devastating not only financially but to the hundreds and thousands of volunteers who have gotten behind this team effort to try to turn this lagoon around. The root causes haven't been solved yet.

There's lots of reactive fixes between the filter feeders like clams and oysters and seagrass growing, etcetera. But we still have far too many septic systems. We still have a huge storm water runoff problem. We have municipalities that municipalities that have been a bit slow to require low impact development with developers, etcetera. And the more concrete and asphalt we put down, the more storm water runoff and nutrients will go into the lagoon in the future. So I think now is the time to double down, continue what we started, and do the right thing. Thank you all very much.

Thank you, Matthew Nyland. And next speaker at the Matthew would be Ann Conroy.

Good morning, commissioners. I'm Matt Nyland. I I'm from the Brevard Democratic Environmental Caucus, and I'm here to just quickly say, I wanna thank the commission for the public and transparent process that has brought us to this critical point of decision on the renewal of the program. I'm confident today in a positive outcome from you. And I look forward to the opportunity to build a broad coalition of Brevard County residents who value the quality of life in the county and share our view that the Indian River Lagoon is the crown jewel that anchors the area's environment. So thank you. Thank you.

Anne Conroy and Elizabeth Neville will be the next speaker.

Good morning, commissioners. I'm Anne Conroy and on behalf of the Space Coast Chamber of Commerce, we support allowing the citizens of Brevard County the opportunity to vote on the renewal of SORL for an additional ten years. We're already seeing meaningful meaningful outcomes from SORL through critical infrastructure improvements, water quality projects, septic to sewer conversions and restoration efforts taking place throughout the county and all backed by data and transparency. Continuing this momentum is important not only for the environment but for the long term economic health and resiliency of our region. The health of the Indian River Lagoon is directly tied to our community's quality of life, environmental sustainability, tourism industry, property values, and long term economic vitality.

A healthy lagoon supports local businesses, attracts visitors and talent, helps retain that talent and protect one of our region's most valuable natural economic assets. And with the economic and population growth Brevard is forecasted to see in the next ten years With the accompanying environmental stresses, it's more important than ever that this essential work continues. The chamber believes that the residents of Brevard County should have the opportunity to decide on the future of the lagoon. Thank you for your service.

Thank you. Thank you. Elizabeth Neville, and our next speaker will be Lisa Bruckman.

Good morning. Thank you for the opportunity to provide comments and for your service to the county. My name is Elizabeth Neville. I'm the director of environmental law and policy for Save the Manatee Club. We are a nonprofit dedicated to protecting manatees and their habitat.

We strongly support placing the SORL referendum on the ballot to allow the Brevard County voters the opportunity to continue investing in the long term health of the Indian River Lagoon. Since its creation, SOREL has funded critical restoration and water quality improvement projects throughout the lagoon watershed. These investments have supported septic to sewer conversions, muck removal, storm water improvements, wastewater infrastructure upgrades, and habitat restoration projects aimed at reducing nutrient pollution entering the lagoon. Together, these projects are helping improve water quality and ecosystem health across the region. These efforts are especially important for manatees.

As you well know, over the last decade, the Indian River Lagoon has experienced catastrophic seagrass loss, large largely driven by nutrient pollution and harmful algal blooms. Seagrass is a primary food source for manatees, and its decline has had devastating consequences on the East Coast manatee population. Between December 2020 and April 2022, Florida experienced mortality event on record during which one thousand two hundred and fifty five manatees died primarily from starvation linked to the severe seagrass loss in the lagoon. The SORL program provides funding for projects that improve water quality and restore submerged aquatic vegetation directly supporting the recovery and long term survival of our state marine mammal. Environment and economics are deeply entwined when it comes to the benefits of lagoon restoration.

The lagoon generates approximately $28,300,000,000 in economic value and attracts millions of visitors annually, meaning water quality decline can carry serious economic consequences for the surrounding communities. Poor water quality and harmful algal blooms contributed to average property value losses of approximately $36,000 per home and roughly $2.2700000000 dollars in total housing mark market losses in just eight years during the crisis. In sum, Save the Manatee Club strongly supports placing the SORL renewal referendum on the ballot. Swirl is making a measurable difference, but the work is far from complete. And with state and federal funding influx, we cannot afford to lose local investments.

For the sake of our manatees, our environment, our economy, and our communities, continued commitment to the Indian River Lagoon remains essential. Thank you so much.

Thank you. You. Lisa Ruckman and our next speaker will lower be Laura Lee Thompson.

Hello, thank you so much for everything that you guys do for the county, and I'm also appreciating the all the county staff members every time I've called with a question, they've always been very helpful in making sure that the my questions are answered. I'm a volunteer with the Lagoon Coalition, but also with the East Merritt Island Community Association, which is basically the East zip code for Merritt Island. And we've we have seen improvement with the lagoon, and we're happy to see that, you know, we're seeing the the progress that's been happening. But they're still looking forward to having the waters be more clear to having our dolphins be a little healthier because I know that they're struggling a little bit somewhat and being able to, you know, be able to see the fish in the water and have healthy fish to be able to fish again as well. We have a lot of the homes that are near the water on Merritt Island, of course, many of them have still have the the septic tanks that are in probably too close proximity to the Lagoon.

So we're grateful for the projects that have been happening, that are still going to be happening in our area and also for the financial assistance because it can be a big deal for people who are replacing their septic tanks to either a better septic tank or for the ones that are being able to connect to the newer sewer conversion. We also like for our tax dollars that the Saver Lagoon program has been really working hard at focusing on finding those things which are going to make the most impact and trying to use our finances strategically. And we're also concerned about our property values. And as people have already mentioned before, so many of the things that are are improving the the lagoon will make the the property values increase. And if things are not handled well and we end up having more algae blooms and that sort of thing, that that will not assist with our property values.

We'd like to be able to continue and we see success in all the education that's been done with the program, the cleanup and all the restoration efforts. And in fact, we've got a project starting in our neighborhood right now, and we have a meeting in East Merritt Island on Tuesday where we'll have staff come to speak to us. So thank you so much.

Lorie Thompson. I live in Mims, long time river rat. And I brought you proof. You know, this is absolute proof and the timing is wonderful for St. John's River Water Management District to to do this press release a couple of days ago, you know, showing that absolutely the seagrass is increasing in the in the Indian River Lagoon.

And and so based on this is a twenty twenty five update. They do these updates every two years. So the next one will come in 2027. You know, they've shown that in in 2023, there was 24,000 acres of seagrass, which was a huge increase over the survey before. And then in 2025 last year, they have 42,000 acres.

So that's like a 18,000 acre increase in two years. And what I've seen, I watched it start out in Southern Mosquito Lagoon and then creep over to the Northern Indian River Lagoon, and then last summer we had seagrass all along the shoreline in Titusville. And so the the seagrass growth is slowly working its way south. It's it's you know, it was above the NASA Causeway last year, but it and and now it's creeping below the Nassau Causeway. So you guys that don't have seagrass down here yet, it's coming.

It's coming. And, you know, the water management district did a seed survey a couple years ago and and found that there there are seeds in the sediments all up and down the lagoon. So we just gotta keep steady, you know, keep with the plan, their their transect links have increased, that tells me that the water is getting clearer. The density of the seagrass in this in the transects is getting denser. Everything's pointing towards a huge success with the sorrel program, so I hope that you will keep it going.

And then, you know, finally, we had the seahorse that the fisherman found off of Kelly Park in his in his shrimp trap. I knew that there were seahorses in the Northern Indian River Lagoon because the crabbers have been seeing them in their traps for a couple years now. But to see that one has shown up down in the Central Banana River is really really good. And again, it shows that it's working, and so I hope you guys will keep it going. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Lorne. Keith Winston Keith Winston, and the next speaker, Sandra Sullivan.

So as elected officials and as county employees, think most the time you only hear it when people think government gets something wrong. And I just wanna say this has been sort of a great day hearing how government's getting a lot of things right. From the fire chief you just honored this morning to the piece about public works, and the SORL program is a fantastic example example of of that. That. The original ordinance was well put together.

The structure, the oversight, the approval, the impact, you have seen step and step again. This is government getting something right, and you've heard it. And the two the two meetings that you held in the North and the South Side of the Pond County, you heard it from everybody there. I think there was one speaker against out of 60 plus speakers. So I just wanna commend you all for getting this whole process right, getting the review right, continue to act. This is a great government program, and we should all be proud of that, and it involves thousands and thousands of people helping it. So I wanna recognize all of you today for your role in that and pushing it forward. I know you're gonna put on the ballot and let the people decide, and we're pretty confident what the people will say. But thanks for giving us that chance, and thanks for managing such a great program from

progress we're And

slide.

Can you turn that on

for me?

Stop this. Before you start my time.

Sorry.

Okay. Can you start my time again? Thank you. Sandra Sandra Sullivan with WAVES Action. So that was me leaving my community this morning. In 2024, the county stopped spraying the ditches with herbicides. This drains directly out to the lagoon. We've had no seagrass since the law changed in 20 special session, November 2010. That was HB nine eighty one to start spraying. And so the county stopped spraying the ditches here, Tropical Trail, US 1, etcetera, that drained to the lagoon.

And so I posted at the time. I said, but you wanna make a bet. The the seagrass is gonna make a recovery and this is being done at a time to show that the lagoon tax is working. So I'm not in favor of the lagoon tax. And one of the things that I wanna talk about is the impact of we know that the herbicides feed or phosphorus food source that feed algae blooms that kills the seagrass.

We lost, you know, over 90% of our seagrass after we started spraying. Other counties do not have a lagoon tax. We're the only one with a lagoon tax and we had the worst degradation. So you stop spraying and now we have good recovery. Now we have good recovery starting with the lagoon, but it's not the lagoon tax.

I call it the muck tax because I don't know how many people in this room have actually read the lagoon plan, but I have. $2,000,000,000 worth of muck dredging projects and $600,000,000 worth of storm water projects at the Cape And Patrick's Base Force Base. I call it the military muck tax because one of the things that's missing in our lagoon tax is PFAS contamination. Yet if you read the NEP, EPA approved CCMP, their plan, we're required as part of the Indian River Lagoon Council to have certain pollutants in our plan, which we do not have. So a big one missing is PFAS.

So lo and behold, in twenty in twenty ten to 2015, we did studies that that mock acts like a sink to attract PFAS. And then p then Patrick comes out with their remedial assessment in the 2015, and you guys, that you were on the you were part of this newspaper article. You created the you were like, we're gonna create the muck tax, and that's what you called it in the newspaper article. And it said it's not legal to do it, that we have to go and change legislation so that we can create the muck tax to remove muck. Well, guess what? It failed twice in appropriations. So I question whether it's even legal to have the muck tax. We got mocked.

Okay. Our last speaker, Bruce Moya. By the way, I have no recollection ever using the term muck tax. I'll have to if you give me a copy of that article, I'd love to read it. I'm sure you can find me. I'd love to see it.

Okay. Thanks. Bruce Moya. Yes. Good morning. Probably surprised to see me here. I'm not normally here to talk about environmental issues, but this one's very important to me as a Brevard native. I've enjoyed this river my whole life and I wanna make sure that it's gonna be even healthier than what I remember back when I was young for my grandkids, you know, and their and their grandkids. So this is this is very very important. It and to see the progress some of the people have talked about this, it brings me joy when I open up the paper and I see an article about how the river the lagoon's coming back, seagrasses, the seahorse.

That's yeah. So exciting to just to read that in the paper in the morning and hopefully more to come. So, you know, I'm obviously in support of this. I think it's it's very much needed. If I wanted to see anything different, I would hope that the the adjoining counties would would also tax themselves as we do. We clean up our mess. I wish they would clean up their mess. That'd be awesome. And then maybe tax more of the people that have been polluting that river for over sixty years would have been kinda nice, but we're getting there and we'll one step at a time. So thank you and we hope that you approve this for the ballot. Thank you.

Thank you. Well, that's our last card. So we'll bring this to the board. Board. First, we'll start out with any discussions or questions from the board.

I think a few points today, mister chair, if I if I might. With regards to other counties and their tax or the lack of the the fact of it, the matter is because the this sales tax does exist in Brevard County, we have gotten much more support from the state, from Saint John's federal agencies because we they're they're willing to match and it's a much harder conversation when you go to Tallahassee and you say, we want you to spend money here. And they say, how much have you raised at home? Nothing. And that is an impossible ask when you get when you go to Tallahassee.

So I I think that's one of the the the most significant benefits of having this at the local level is that we get a lot of additional support for the lagoon. I think it's taken, I've said this several times, three generations to make the river dirty. I think it's gonna take this one to clean it up. And I think we're we're partway into it, but we we are making progress. A lot of people here today were came to the two workshops that we had, so we've we've made a lot of effort to reach out to the community and talk about this and we had great participation in Titus Ville and then again in Palm Bay.

And so I I feel like the the county is gonna this this is sort of the the end of a chapter for us and then the issue will go before the voters and the the voters will will write the next chapter. Thank you.

Thank you.

And me mister chair?

Yes. Absolutely.

So you all have put me on the Indian River Lagoon board. And I will tell you every time I go to a meeting, I sit there and it takes me the longest to say all of the progress that we've made in Brevard County compared to all of the other board members. And I'm always proud to be able to say how much money Virginia has gotten extra in addition, but only because, like you said, commissioner Feltner, because we have the money to put up as well, do we get those extra funds. So I fully support allowing the the voters to make the decision.

Okay. I agree with that. Some wonderful statement on behalf of Novartis and its citizens to show that they care so much for this very precious resource and very unique environmental treasure that we have here in in Bovard County. I certainly support putting this back on the ballot. Any other discussion?

Okay. Mister chair, there's no more discussion. I would like to move to approve.

Okay. There's a motion. Is there a

I'll second.

A motion and a second for approval of the ordinance to place the referendum on the 11/03/2026 ballot to renew the 1 half cent infrastructure sales tax for the Save Our Indian River Lagoon program. Okay. Mister there might be more. Okay.

Just to be clear, that includes the other two components of the requested action as well I assume, which is approved extension of the existing sales tax use and distribution in our local agreements with the municipalities, subject to voter approval obviously and approve the ballot language included in the ordinance. Yes.

Is that included in

the My motion includes all three.

Okay. And the second. Included.

Okay. Great. Virginia, we got you. Okay. Alright. Any debate, discussion, debate? All in favor, say yay. Yay. Motion carries unanimously. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay. We'll move on to no no item. I am finished business. Jay, new business. Development Environment Services Group J1.

Good morning, Board. So J1 is a contract for sale and purchase from

go ahead, we can hear

from Ms. Meyer. This is for a project on Merritt Island Zone G septic to sewer conversion project and it's for a vacant parcel at 1485 South Oak Drive for $299,000 to do a critical project for a pump station.

Okay. Any discussion? Motion been ordered. I'll make I'll make

a motion. Make a motion.

Yeah. Thought he was going to. Hear commissioner Goodson.

I'll second it.

Yes. I would like to make a motion for approval.

Okay. Thank you, commissioner. I'll second. Seconded by commissioner Feltner. All those in favor, yay. Yea. Carries unanimously. Thank you. J two.

Good morning commissioners. Item J2 is concerning the solid waste collection contract. The contract has an initial seven year term that runs through 09/30/2027 with a single provision for a three year extension to extend the contract through 09/30/2030. The current collector waste management has requested that extension and requested a revision to the price adjustments on an annual basis and we're requesting the board to approve one of the following options. Option one is to approve legislative intent to consider the three year extension of the current solid waste collection contract, authorize advertising a public hearing and notification to property owners of a potential increase to the non ad valorem solid waste collection assessment and hold a public hearing in the future during a regular meeting to consider approval of the contract extension and the associated assessment increase.

Option two is to authorize purchasing services to advertise a request for proposal to competitively select a solid waste collection provider and to authorize the county manager to establish a selection and negotiation committee at which staff will bring back a negotiated contract for the board's consideration. Option three is any other action as determined by the board. I'm happy to answer any questions.

Okay. Do we have any questions? Okay. Let's I can Do you wanna hear Let's hear the cards and then we'll have questions. Okay. Rick Hefelfinger is our speaker. Sandra Sullivan will be our next speaker.

Rick Hefelfinger, district one.

I think Sandra mentioned what brought her to this commission and started to her little quest to get things straightened out. This brought me to this commission seven years ago. I've also made some recommendations not necessarily through a seer, but through the line page. There's some things that need to be fixed in the contract, and one of those is somebody else hauling away our stuff. Waste management has had a monopoly on this.

They hold they hold the tight reins of recyclables. I don't think there's anybody else that can do recyclables. And if I remember correctly, it was the county that gave them an incentive to build that facility. Wonderful facility, but they own it. I don't think anybody else got one. So they're gonna get recyclables, I think, unless we just wanna do away the recycle program. I don't think we wanna do that. Those recyclables taken out of the landfill should extend our landfills if if they are in fact taken out. Maybe we don't have the greatest participation, but we can work on that. And I think the solid waste department has worked to do that.

So they've got this monopoly. The last time we did this contract, contract, there were other bidders. And I said, why don't we go with some of those other bidders? They're cheaper. And the decision was made by that commission at the time that, you know what? We we just don't we don't know if we have confidence in those bidders. They don't have enough trucks. Well, that's the reason you get a contract. You get a contract, you win the contract, you buy trucks. If you take the contract away from somebody else, I bet you they're selling trucks. So that was a my my view, that was not a good answer. If we break the contract up, I realize that's a pain in the butt. You gotta manage potentially three contracts. Right? That's pain in the butt.

But we're paying for the fact that we're being extorted, if you will, by waste management. Their service is not good. Their service was not good during the last contract. That how many people still have piles of debris left over from the frost? The county actually cut them some slack, gave them a two week extension. You can blow the the date you give somebody on the phone or through one of the requests. We'll give you two weeks. We still got piles of stuff. The grass is dying underneath. We're gonna get into hurricane season. Where's that stuff all gonna go? They're not doing a very job. They don't they don't follow the contract as it is. I know you guys, we have that little system where you can ding them if enough people complain that they missed the pickup. I made some money last year.

I think I got one of them where I where I got enough people in the neighborhood to say, hey. We didn't get picked up. Right? If we put your thing in there, we get enough, we get money. Got one of those. But you don't have any idea how many complaints I had about the way that they leave the garbage can when they're done picking it up. The lid's supposed to be closed. Nobody seems to be compliant with that. Nobody's pushing. You guys manage the contract. I don't see any effort to to smack them down. I did get one refeedback that that they did that, but we need to break that monopoly. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you, Sandra Sullivan. Next speaker, and Joanne Stanley after Sandra.

Good morning. Sandra Sullivan. So my request today is that you go out to bid, you do goodbye the people of Brevard, and you go out to a competitive bid and because we're looking at next year 12% increase. 12 a 12% increase on the taxpayers. So from a fiscal perspective, doing due diligence and seeing what you can get as competitive bids would be the rightful thing to do.

It's not lost on me the lobbyists that are here, lobbyists that have contributed to your campaign. So it'd be really interesting whether you are fair and equitable by the people of Reverde going out to competitively bid for the best deal. My residents in in Walton Manors, they've switched from waste management. Other entities have switched from waste management. Put it out to the competitive process. That's all. Just don't do what the lobbyists say, you know, like, you know, your phone during the vote for the hospital where you got

next speaker.

Good morning. Joanne Stanley with Public Services. We are a $16,000,000,000 environmental services company that picks up solid waste and recycling. We're in 42 states. We have 18,000 trucks, and we pick up about 5,000,000 homes a day. So we are a viable option for the county to actually put this out for RFP and we have about a 99.5% pickup rate. So our service is excellent throughout The States and the country, and we ask you to pick option two and put out a competitive RFP for your services. Thank you.

Jordan Chandler.

Good morning, chair Altman, vice mayor Atkinson, vice chair Atkinson, commissioner Felton, or commissioner Goodson. Jordan Chandler, I am the government affairs manager for, WM and a lifelong resident of Brevard County and a very proud constituent of District 5. First and foremost, let me say that waste management is proud to serve Brevard County, not just as a service provider, but truly as an integral part of this community. We have more than 300 employees who just don't work here. They live here.

They raise families here and they show up every single day to serve their neighbors. Our team members in your neighborhoods before sunrise interacting with residents, helping solve problems, supporting school events, and giving back through charitable endeavors across this community. So I can simply say that we are not just of this community, we're truly in this community, making a difference every single day. And while we know that no service operation is ever perfect, what defines us is our commitment. Every day, we work to earn the trust of the community and also to grow together.

So simply, I ask today is that we're respectfully requesting the board to pursue option one and consider approval of the three year renewal that is outlined in this current and existing franchise agreement. This extension would take the contract through 09/30/2030 and after which it will go out to a competitive RFP. This is the only renewal option building the current contract and it provides a structured pathway forward, and we're asking you to ultimately pursue that. So what's really important here? We service 92,000 households.

Continuity of service is important. And a renewal ensures at this particular point in time, zero disruption during a critical time. What's important here? Reliability, you can count on. Transitioning providers at this particular point in time introduces operational risk, staffing disruption, and potential service gaps and renewal ultimately and renewing this current agreement ultimately avoids those risks altogether.

What's important here? Cost predictability. Staff, think, has done a phenomenal job in outlining the potential fist impact that there ultimately could be if this were to go out to competitive RFP RFP at this particular point time due to the market volatility. And so in closing, this decision today is about certainty versus uncertainty, continuity versus disruption, and a trusted relationship versus transition risk. This renewal keeps a proven system in place, maintains maintains reliability, provides cost stability, and for strong and preserve strong community engagement.

So we respectfully once again ask that you at this particular point in time consider option one. And as stated once again, 2030, this will go out to competitive RFP. Thank you.

Thank you. Dean Ulrich. Ulrich.

Good morning. I'm apologize a little under the weather right now, but Dean Ulrich, I'm the division manager for Waste Pro here in Brevard County. I'm also a Brevard County resident and we are encouraging you to put this out for a competitive bid. Obviously, we would like to see that. Waste Pro is nowhere near the that.

That. To that. We're wood. We are celebrating our twenty fifth year right now, so we're very pleased with the growth that goes on here. We have right now in Brevard County, we have six municipal contracts and so we are again, we're not as large as the others, but we are fully capable of providing the service for everybody.

We do operate much larger operations us, the resources are there. We have large divisions in basically that surround Brevard County. So we're down in Port St. Lucie, we've got Orlando, we've got Sanford and Daytona all the way around us. So we have, again, plenty of resources that we can pull from, and we encourage you to put this out this out for a bit.

That's what I have. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay. That's our last card that I can see. We'll bring this back for the board. What is the desire of the board? Any discussion? I'm sure we have questions. Yes. Commissioner Atkins?

Thank you. My question, experience and your experience, who has gone out to bid recently and do you know what the results of those have been for other municipalities, other counties?

I know there are three other counties that have gone out to bid recently, which recently in this case is 2024. Excuse me. I believe that Lake County ended up with a 42% increase on their renewal of the contract. Orange County ended up with an 82% increase. Volusia County ended up with only a 7% increase and the reason why is the difference between whether they have a cost adjustment allowance or a low cap in the cost adjustment for annual cost adjustments. Volusia County I believe had a 5% cost adjustment. So the collector was able to keep up with the consumer price index year to

year.

Okay. Thank you.

On that question similar, build on that. How about the municipalities in Brevard? I know