Waterways Advisory Committee - Regular Meeting

And, we're out of time. I will declare us adjourned. And I thank everybody for

Is Martin coming today?

No. Oh, okay. No. He won't be here.

The old vacation thing.

Yep. What are we meeting in July? July. It's 08:30. I would like to call the Waterways Advisory Committee of Marco Island to order. Thank you all for being here. I'd like to start with our roll call, Tara.

Here.

Thank you, Tara. Let us all please rise for the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America, to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. I'd like to now turn to the approval of the agenda. So I'd like to make

a motion or I've got a couple of comments on that. One

Okay. We have our agenda, and, I hear we have some some comments to be made.

Yeah. Just quickly on, 4489 Flushing Of San Marco Road. Because of the complementary nature and similar, remediation, like to include for our conversation deep well injection. And we do have somebody in the audience that knows quite a bit about it. So at the time, he may wish to make some comments because it's kind of a relative thing. Okay.

That'll be fair.

The other comment I have is on dredging, 4491. The attachment I've requested to be put on it is not there. I have asked the question why it's not there and whatever, but it just isn't. So it's gonna be difficult to have a conversation, but I'll speak to it. I'll probably have to minimize it because you don't have this this discussion item. So I'll leave it at that.

Okay. Okay. I appreciate that.

Can I

ask a question? Why isn't it there?

I've asked a question. I haven't had a response from staff yet. Martin?

Yeah. There's there was some items in that attachment that is not within the purview of the waterways advisory committee, but you're welcome to discuss

I

question.

A second? I second. Think that's Okay. We have a second. Should we take a vote?

A moment. A

consent? All all in favor of approving our agenda as it stands?

Aye.

Aye. Opposed? Opposed. Okay. I appreciate that. Now I'd like to get an approval of the minutes.

I have a comment. Okay. The minutes don't reflect my objection to not having sent the recommendation that we voted on regarding costs for the fertilizer ordinance to city council.

Okay. I have been told talking to various, you know, people that are involved in this that we basically here are not to be discussing cost. We are to be discussing advice coming up with advice to counsel. Cost is left to counsel. We are not to be basically focusing on cost.

My motion had nothing to do with us I understand that. Discussing cost. Right. It was suggesting that counsel asked staff to cost out what it would be to enforce.

That we can do. That we can do. That's not on here this time, but we can put it on here for next time.

Mr. Chair, just to clarify things. If Member Woodward would like to say what should be written in what section?

Okay.

In terms of the approval of the minutes?

Yes. If there is something that needs to be revised, if you could state what needs to be added and where Well, or stricken or

in last month's minutes, it would have been my comment on either the approval of the agenda or the approval of the minutes because it did not include my question about why our motion was not forwarded. Well then put it under approval of the minutes. That's where I raised the issue, I think.

Alright. So, we'll go back and review the, the video and, under approval of the minutes, see if there's anything missing there that needs to be added.

You might as well add it for this month too because I raised an objection again.

Well, the minutes for this month haven't been prepared yet. We're talking about the minutes from last month

Correct.

And what needs to be revised on the minutes that have been issued.

I I understand that. But when they go to make the minutes of this meeting, since they missed it the last time, make sure they include it this time.

Point well taken, but we need to, fix the minutes from last meeting. And, if if you don't know exactly, we'll go back and review the video. If it's related to approval of the agenda, we'll review that. And if there's something missing, we'll add that.

Terrific. Thank you, Justin. Thank you. Okay. So can we have an approval of the minutes as they stand? I think we've had Motion to approve. A motion

approved. Second.

We have a second. A consent vote. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. The minutes are approved. Let's go to old business. Flushing San Marco Road, I think the the one area that I wanted to talk about briefly is is there anything I feel everything I have learned and seen as I investigate what the situation is.

This can make a big difference for yes. It's we're not talking about cost, but a few million dollars. I think 5,000,000 for each of the the culverts. Correct me if I'm wrong. But there are two that would be needed.

And after looking at the maps, if we can put that up on the screen, do we have that available, Justin? The the hydrodynamic modeling. I think that after investigating this pretty thoroughly that I know council's working on it. My question is, if anybody can answer, Justin in particular, is there anything that we can do to push this along more quickly and to get this really happening in a timely fashion?

Well, council has has approved this. Okay. And we have sought legislative appropriation funding and we've gotten funds up to, as you know, this went out to bid about a year ago and it came in at 5,000,000. And we have 2,000,000 that's been allocated thus far.

Okay.

We're seeking additional funding. The city's lobbyist is seeking a legislative appropriation of 750,000. That's not gonna get us all the way there. But the city has city council has authorized a grant writer to seek additional funding, and they're working on that right now. So this is something that's gonna need additional funding. It's a, you know, a considerable price tag. And so, we're continuing to chip away at it. And so when the funding is in place, we'll be able to go back out to bid on this. The design is done, obviously, since we went out to bid, but, that's where it's at right now.

So what you're telling us is that there's nothing more that this committee can do to push that along. It is really to get the funding and, to wait for that to come through.

Unless you have a $2,000,000 check.

Anybody?

Thank Okay. You, Justin.

Justin, question for you. So just to understand, so it's been out to bid, we got a price. We're seeing if we can get more money. Once we get the money, we've got to go back out to bid again?

Yes. We rejected those bids. We had

to reject bids. The bids

are only good for hundred and twenty days.

Expired. Right.

And so we had to reject the bids and we will go out to bid again. Obviously, you know, we're still a long way away from having the sufficient funding for it. But when we do, we'll go up go out the bid again.

So there would be no need to discuss this for the council to discuss this at the July 7 meeting other than to update what you just said. Correct?

Yeah. The July 7 meeting is a water quality workshop. It's not a budget workshop. We already had the capital budget workshop. It's not in, you know, additional funding for this is not in the current projected FY twenty six capital budget other than council's direction to seek additional funding in grants and appropriations.

I think that answers where we are at this. Nothing else. Just I just wanna Sure. Go right ahead, Jim.

So what so what I think I heard you just say is is that the earliest that this could happen because it would have to be put into a budget year, would it now it would have to be '27. So 2027 would be the as soon as this could possibly happen.

If we're able to secure funding for it in as far as grants and and that would be sufficient for it. Yes.

So if we got enough money from the state and the city wasn't paying for it, could it happen before 2027?

It would need to come back to council to be able to include it in the, capital program for that fiscal year. So it could conceivably happen, but we would just have to come back to cancel at that point. But right now, we can't do that because we don't have the funding in place.

Right. Right. Thank you.

Okay. Any any other discussion?

I just have one further question. We have three counselors here,

and I

don't know whether they could answer it

or not.

But when there are capital projects like this, where they may be short on funding and there are probably others, is there any way that those capital projects could be bundled together and bonds issued to cover those capital costs?

I I can probably answer that. For yes, the city can always bond something, but there are a lot of things that go into the decision making of obtaining a bond. The first one is what is the life of the project, Like, for instance, a bridge. DOT right now is designing bridges for a seventy five year life. So the longest amortization that the city could get on a bond is thirty years.

So if you look at the cost and the amortization time, thirty year period and see what those payments would be over that time, does that make sense? So if you're talking about bundling several projects together and one project has a five year life, another one has a, you know, fifty year life, it it kinda complicates things, but it could be looked at. And then it would be a council decision of whether to proceed with that and whether it makes sense. But that would be something during the the budget process. So it would need to be done, a year in advance, to answer your question.

Okay. Since there is nothing that this committee can do at this time, I'm not going to make any motions or any suggestions, but I'm glad to get the update. And I wanna thank you for that.

I do have a comment.

A comment? Sure. Go right ahead, and then we'll Okay. Move

I'm always positive for anything that I hope with the waterways. I've always had problem with the modeling. But since it's been approved, I won't get into it. I mean, there's there's a bit of garbage in, garbage out a little bit. So the expectations of what we might get from it, I think, might be discussed at some point, but it's already going to be down the road.

But I would like to touch on, Justin might help me with this, with the culverts of, 5 and six over on that eastern side. It's kind of a little bit separate. It seems like that waterway is trapped by North Barfield Road to the east and the north, cutting off the actual outlets that are to the East of North Barfield Road from the ocean. And it's trapped on the west completely by the golf course Mhmm. And the school area and, of course, to the south by San Marco Road.

And there's only one bridge that goes over, but I'm not sure if there's conduits that go under North Barfield Road because without that, it seems like you're you're kinda trying to move bad water to bad water back and forth. And it might be something that you might get more bang for the buck with conduits under North Barfield rather than that kind of exchange, but there may be already ones that I don't know about.

Sure. You did mention the bridge. One bridge is will get you a lot more bang for the buck than 50 conduits. So it does have, a bridge there, and it has the that's the way out for the water from the south to the north, if you, putting in these culverts underneath of San Marco. So there is a path from Roberts Bay at the south all the way to the Big Marco River going underneath of that Barfield Bridge.

But the construction there is at San Marco. And this model showed adding another conduit there. That would be the second one after this first one that we're trying to get built. But yes, when you have a bridge, it's like open channel flow. And you have a lot more cross sectional area than just a five foot diameter culvert or conduit underneath of the art field. So it does have a way to get out through that bridge.

It but that's all we've got. There's no other conduits on that long stretch of North Barfield. Correct?

No. That that that's correct. But that is a significant amount of, flow that would go underneath of that bridge to be able to to go out. And it would, it would be significantly more than, like I said, adding 50 conduits or 50 culverts

Okay.

Because of the cross sectional area of the channel underneath of the bridge.

Alright. I I the only reason why is because of the expense of doing work, of course, on San Marco Rubino has gone up exponentially that opening up more to the ocean outlets that are all right there, there's about a dozen of them right there, might be better than doing that. But you've looked at it so apparently.

Yeah. I I see exactly what you're saying, but, the the tidal difference is from the south to the north is is is thirty minutes, which gives you about six inches of tidal difference. So if you short circuit that, you're not going to have as much of a tidal difference. So if you put in I see what you're saying, in more conduits underneath a barfield, closer to San Marco, you're you're not getting as much head pushing that water through as where it is right now because you have that tidal difference. But, we didn't ask the consultant to to to model that, but this was their recommendation.

Since there is a bridge there, it's the bridge provides a large flow volume that you cannot get with conduits. And, but the again, the bottleneck is San Marco. The more that we can do on San Marco, the better it's gonna improve the the flushing from south to north and vice versa.

Justin, I'd like to thank you. And if there is no further discussion on this, there's nothing that this committee can do to advise at this time. I'd like to move along. We have a lot to cover. The next item is atons, and I have a question. Is or are all of the Eton's in the Marco Waterways and the vicinity now up and secure and where they should be and doing their job? If they are, great. I don't have anything else to say. If they're not, I have a few comments.

Yeah. The with the exception of one, which we need to put in a a piling for. The city can't do that on its own. We're reliant on marine contractors to do that. Okay. And it's it's the the challenge is getting a marine contractor to respond for putting in one piling. They have so much work that Uh-huh. They don't prioritize it, and they have a backlog of work that, it's hard to even get quotes. So It's

being worked on.

It it's being worked on. We're soliciting quotes, but we have to follow the city's purchasing ordinance. And under 25,000, we need three quotes. It's if it's 25,000 or greater, we have to go out to public bid. But it's gonna be less than that. It's just trying to get quotes and getting marine contractors to to respond.

So I think my follow-up question is, are all the other Eton's Yes. In the Marco waters, whether it's under Marco, you know, what what what Marco Island can do versus what the Army Corps of Engineers would be doing or the state of Florida or Collier County. Everything in the Marco vicinity is in Okay.

There's Marco vicinity and there's Marco Island city limits. Everything within the Marco Island city limits, which the city has jurisdiction of is done. Now, there there are the ones in the Big Marco River, Capri Pass, which are not in the city's jurisdiction that the pass has shifting sands, and so the deep water there, as the vice chair knows, shifts all the time. And the problem is getting the coast guard to keep up with that deep water, shifting and being able to move those markers. And that's not within the city's control.

As mentioned here and at previous city councils, it's gonna take an effort between the city and the county to push the issue with the coast guard to be able to

Are all are all avenues being explored and made into a priority at this time, or is there anything that this committee can do to help council push that along so that all eight tons and all water ways are dredged adequately for commercial and personal boating, and it is a it's a completely safe and secure environment to the best that it can be made. I mean, is there anything that this committee can do to push that along and, you know, and to get, you know, that to be a priority for council?

The the committee wise is to bring awareness to both city council and also to county, whether it's the coastal advisory committee or, county commission, bringing awareness to them may get some additional, push with the the federal authorities to be able to do something. But, there's other than that, there's really not much leverage that the committee would have other than just bringing awareness to those bodies that would then

Can we is there is there any sort of emotion that we can make to accomplish that or to make that a priority? Because my concern is that all of the commercial and personal interests on our waterways surrounding Marco, involving Marco, even if it's not within the city limits, are safe as they can be for the boating public. I think anything that we can do to help make that the best it can be, I would be very in favor of, unless there's

not much It's hard for me to answer that. But if you're able to have, the city council or the chair of city council to reach out to the county commission to be able to bring it to the forefront so that it's

I think it

should be.

A priority. That would be something that

I I would like to bear that.

Mister chair, can I

Yes? I'd I'd like to hear some some comment, please.

So for this item, the Aiton update, I thought this was going to be an update on the hideaway markers. I think last meeting, I asked about if we can update on the hideaway lagoon markers that were

Those have been installed.

They're installed?

And the engineering consultant that prepared the specifications for that on behalf of the city did a final inspection, came up with a punch list of things to be done. And it's we're waiting on the marine contract to finish that, but those have been installed. Those three pilings and the signs are all there. It's just tightening up some punch list items there.

And then as far as getting that one piling address that you said is difficult because contractors don't want to come out for just one piling. Within the city's purchasing process, does one piling have to go out to a bid? Or do you have, like, people or companies that you can just call and say, it's under so many thousand dollars. You just go out and do it.

Okay. To

answer My point my point being is because I see barges going by up and down the river all the time.

To answer that, if it's less than $5,000 then we can just call one contractor, get a quote and get it do a purchase order and get it done. If it's between 5,000 and 25,000, we need three quotes by the purchasing ordinance. If it's 25,000 or over, then we need a public bid.

So, like, one piling is pretty much under 5,000, I would imagine.

You would imagine. However, we

Well, that's sad. I guess

I know

we charge off.

21,000 for three pilings, the last time we did this.

That's $11,000 for

three pilings. 7,000 each.

Wow. And

I would imagine that just doing one, would have incur all the mobilization costs that you would for a three. So it'd be more than that more than that 7,000.

Is there any further discussion? I personally, I may not get any support, but I'd like to try. I'd like to make this a priority for counsel to do everything that council can do to involve the surrounding entities, you know, to make to bring everything up to date and make it as secure and safe for the the boating public as possible. Does anybody have any any reaction to that, any support? Well, I'd I'd say we all support that. Right. Okay.

And there's counselors here in the audience to to hear our support of that. I I I don't know if a motion necessarily needs to made.

So it's okay. But So it's adequate in your opinion. Okay. At this time.

You you could ask for a motion and and actually inform counsel formally that we voted hopefully, unanimously to support that decision, and then there would be a a record, a written record of it. I'd like that.

Would you like to make that motion?

I will make that motion.

And I would like to second that motion. Do we have any further discussion?

You wanna state what the motion Rick,

since you're making the motion, I'd like your The

motion is that the, Waterways Advisory Committee send a recommendation to City Council to contact the appropriate agencies to support fixing, upgrading, whatever the proper terminology is, any markers that are that are currently not visible or not there. K.

In surrounding Marco Waters. In surrounding Marco Water. I'd like to add that. Right. Affecting the Marco Island community, both personal and commercial boating. That's fine. Yeah. I would like to see that. Drew, you second. Yeah. We already have this. I already did that. Yes. Can we take a vote? All in favor?

Aye. Aye.

Any opposed? Motion passes. The next item here is a big one, and it is fertilizer discussion. And I've been trying to do this for the last two months. And finally, I think we have a chance. I'm gonna be as brief as I can, but I have come up with some groundbreaking material. I would like to present. I have many things I could read, but this one here, I think, is a game changer. I don't know if anybody is familiar with something called and then I'll get back to the nitrogen and phosphorus in a few minutes. Anybody has heard of K and K Super Blend?

Can we put that up on the screen? I have a copy for everybody to look at. And here's let me give some background, Okay? If if everybody can read this. So I won't read it to you.

One of the the way we're doing things right now is mandated by, what we believe to be true, that we must not fertilize during the rainy season, and we should allow people to just throw fertilizer all over their lawns and all over their yards in the dry season. I'd like to just ask everybody to be aware that during the dry season from October until May, April as you will, the grass is half asleep. Turf is not awake. You can put fertilizer all over the place, and it sits there. A lot of people don't really water it in.

At least not that well, not that you even can water it in well because the ground is so dry. The fertilizer gets applied and applied over and over throughout the winter. We get these June rains and what happens? Fertilizer washes into our waterways. Hasn't really done anything. When is fertilizer really needed? When is the grass using it? When does it take it up now when it's raining? We can't fertilize now because it will wash into the waterways, and that is true. That is not a good idea to put nitrogen and phosphorus onto our lawns and have it wash into our waterways.

I agree with that. But there are other types of fertilizers out there. You can go with certain types well, let me back up. First of all, the public can go into any Ace, Home Depot, Lowe's, whatever you want, and buy anything they want and throw it on their lawns, not in the rainy season, but in the dry season. One of the big problems is I think we need a public education program, and I'll get to this in a moment.

But the public education is we need to explain to people that are watching and listening out there that it's for their benefit. Do you want waterways that have grass growing in them? They're healthy. You've got the fish jumping. You can take your fishing pole, catch your fish out of your backyard at your at your canal. I think we all want that. And I think what we're doing is we're doing the opposite. We're throwing the wrong kind of fertilizer at the wrong time of year on our lawns, and it winds up in our waters. There are other ways of handling this. First of if you want to go with traditional fertilizer, you can go with zero phosphorus.

There are three I'll go back. There are three numbers on a fertilizer bag. Nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. The middle number is phosphorus. Phosphorus is a danger to our water. We all know that. We shouldn't be putting any phosphorus out there at all. Grass doesn't use it. You can have a perfect lawn turf without one molecule of phosphorus ever added to it. You don't need it.

It doesn't use it. It doesn't want it. We should never be putting out a bag of fertilizer that carries any phosphorus in our lawns. That's that's that's well known science. Number two, when we do put out nitrogen, it should be slow release urea coated, and it should be minimal. You don't need a lot. Potassium, it helps out. Not a big issue in our waters. That's the traditional type of fertilizer. Let's take a look at this for a moment.

The K and K super blend has been developed in this part of Florida in the Fort Myers area, I believe. And I've been in contact with a mister Ken Boyce. And I told him, if we wanted to take a quick peek at this that's on the screen, it's an exciting, innovative, all natural, eco friendly, biodegradable type of fertilizer which is totally organic, can be used all year round with no restrictions, satisfying all climates and all soil needs. And there are many First of all, it's only available by patent. And on top of that, I think Sanibel has been actively pursuing it.

We could here on Marco Island pursue this patent. I don't know what the cost is. I've been told not to look at costs, so I'm not doing it. Don't know. It could be unaffordable. It could be something that could be a game changer. But this is the type of thing, and there are others out there. I just wanna give you an example. This type of fertilizer is not really a fertilizer. It is an organic hummus and it is a soil conditioner. And also, if you were to go this way, you can use a lot less water. It helps to save water. It's really a win win win. I'm not saying this is the answer. I'm saying this is something to be investigated.

And I could get into all kinds of fertilizer talk. I could take up the whole two hours and go beyond with talking about fertilizer. What I'm trying to say here is that when it comes to fertilizing our lawns, we have mandated lawns. We want turf on Marco Island. Whether that's right or wrong, that's not for me to say. What I am what I'm trying to say is the most important thing is if we're going to fertilize, let's do it smartly, let's do it legally, let's do what works, and let's stop polluting our waterways. Something like this could be an answer. I'm not saying it is, saying it could be, and we should investigate it. So what I would like to do is get a little bit of discussion. I think you've all been able to read this.

I'm not going to read it to you. But if anybody has any questions, any discussion, I'd like to make a motion when we're through in a timely fashion to counsel, to investigate this fertilizer and these types of ideas and to see if maybe a patent that Marco Island could acquire might help our situation and be I'd also like to get into the education aspects of this, but I'm not going to do that at the moment because I just wanna really focus on this type of outside of the box, you know, thinking that might help us. So we'd like to open this up to a brief discussion. Anybody have any questions? Yeah. I I have a

I have a question to understand. You keep saying Markle Island get a patent. We could. I I don't I don't understand.

This is only up for patent. It's not on the open market.

So we couldn't call this guy up and commercially purchase this.

I've told him that. I just emailed him this morning, and I said I'm going to bring this up to the Waterways Advisory Committee and try to make a motion to counsel to see if they're interested. That's all I know. Okay.

Yes. I mean, I think I think it's a great idea. I've heard from anecdotally affordable landscaping that you're absolutely right. The island does not need any phosphorus. No.

Our soil doesn't require it, the grass, everything that grows here doesn't need phosphorus in any form at all. Exactly right. My question would be is whether Marco could dictate to the several 100 landscapers that they only use a certain kind of fertilizer. I don't know that legally you could say you can only use K and K Super Blend or Marco Super Blend. So I'm not sure how you enforce that.

Rick, I would say education is a big part of this, that we one of the things I'd to add to this, and I'm not trying to cut you off, but I'd like to add to this, that we go on a major education campaign, even if we don't go this route, to get the public to know how to do what we can do the best way we can and to do the least amount of damage to our Marco Island area environment and water that we can possibly avoid. So that's my goal.

Well, I support that 100%. Education, if you look at what's required under the MS4 plan for the city, and pretty much every one of our consultants, education, public education, is at the top of the list or one of the most important items. It is. My question would be, and this probably goes more to Justin, from a historical point of view, the city decided to pass the ban on fertilizer in the summer, who gave that recommendation to the city? If you are right that we should really be fertilizing in the summer, not If we could, it's best, but we can't.

But is there I mean, you can amend or change the ordinance. Right. But how did how did that dictum

Rick, from what I remember, it kind of blossomed all over Florida just about the same time. All the municipalities that are affected the way we are, all kind of did that at than a year, two, three, or four of when we did it. Is there

a science behind it? I mean

The science is you put fertilizer in the lawn when we're having flooding rains and it washes in the waterway. Yeah. That is a bad thing, and we shouldn't be doing that. I agree. You're either absolutely right. But there are other ways to get that nutrient into the grass to make it strong and healthy and stop just pummeling our environment with unneeded fertilizer in the dry season, which is what we're doing, and it's so detrimental. But we don't really address that.

So you're really the scope of of what you're suggesting is that the ordinance be amended for the winter months to only use a certain kind of Right. Right. Of fertilizer, almost go to no phosphorus at all for

Not almost, no phosphorus at all, period.

That's what we have.

Okay. Get my vote for that. Any other discussion? I I I'd like to hear some points of view.

Well, you're Elliot, you're saying that the the fertilizer that's applied in the dry season

Mhmm.

Builds and is not properly saturating down Right. And washes off.

It does. So Definitely does.

So would it, you know, so, not putting phosphorus, during the dry season on your lawn

There should never be phosphorus ever. Right. Dry season, wet season, I don't care. You don't need it. It doesn't use it. It shouldn't be.

But our our code says that in the dry season, you can use phosphorus.

Yes. Right. Yes. No. No.

Nobody is restricting it maybe the the code may say that, but people can go to Ace Hardware and buy phosphorus fertilizer and put it on their lawn, and nobody's gonna

do anything about it or know about it. So and we don't know if the landscapers are

We don't know. I don't know.

Because they're not checking to see whether or not fertilizer is Exactly. Contains phosphorus. Right.

No. I mean, there is a lot that we can do to make things better in the fertilizer arena.

Well, my understanding is if you wanna use fertilizer, you've gotta get it tested by an accredited place. I never gone into it. You can correct me if I'm wrong. That's the only time you can put phosphorus on, period.

Yeah. But the public can go to Home Depot, Ace, wherever and buy a bag of fertilizer that has phosphorus in it, put it on their lawn, and nobody does anything about that.

I agree with that.

You can. I it's we shouldn't be doing that. I mean, we need to educate the public. I'd love to also make a motion later on if I get a chance on an education of the Marco Island area public to really push this because it can make a difference. The less of this we do to to the detriment of our environment is going to help things immensely, and it's all educating the public too.

Does the current Marco Island fertilizer ordinance allow fertilizer with phosphorus?

Only Justin?

It's my understanding that it does not.

It doesn't allow. Doesn't did not allow it. How do we

enforce you can use it is if you get an accredited person to test it, says he need it, then he can go and buy and put it on. That's my understanding.

Right. Also, my understanding is within the first thirty days of planting a lawn, your or a sod, you're allowed to do it. That's what I have seen, heard. I don't know how true it is.

Well, there's nothing about that in the audience.

No. But I've heard that that's permitted, and I don't know how the ordinance reads. I We have to take a look at that.

Well, if the ordinance doesn't allow phosphorus phosphorus in fertilizer year round

I on

for what if it doesn't, if there's I haven't read it in that detail, but if it's not allowed then we just need education Right. And some kind of educating, like, spot checking, you know, or meeting meeting with landscapers.

Landscapers and I don't know how you check private homeowners. I don't think you can.

But, Jason, do you know how many landscapers there are on Marco that have registered?

I do not. That's managed by the growth growth management department. I I don't know what the count is.

The last I heard it was like 290 had registered. That sound It sounds close.

Yeah. It was discussed at one of the meetings and numbers came out of what it was.

I I would guess that probably 90% or more of the island is done by professional landscapers Mhmm. Than are done by homeowners. Right. And therefore, enforcement of the ordinance with the landscapers to me would seem to be a fairly important part of this process.

It's also been Totally agree with

you.

It's also been part of my experience, and I don't know about for other people in the room, that an awful lot of the landscapers on the island do not do fertilizing. All they do is cutting and trimming, and they come in and they do that, and then there are a limited number of specific companies that come in and do the fertilize. So I don't think the project would be

That big.

Necessarily as big as I don't think it's $2.90, because all the landscapers I've ever had, and my neighbors ever had, they come in, they cut, they blow, they trim, they're out. Exactly. And then, quarterly, you've got another company that comes in. I can think of three or four big ones that I see around the island because they come in and always put the little plastic Right. In your

yard when they're good. Truly known.

They're the ones that are doing the fertilizer. Right.

So maybe you only need to check 10 or 15 coverage.

That may very well be. I would really there's a couple of things I'd really like to get to counsel here. I think one of them is on investigating the K and K. That's one thing. The other thing I'd really like to get started is a massive and this is not expensive, A massive public education campaign. I think those two things would be very advisable and very useful, and I think it could make a big difference.

Well, this is a comment to that. Sure. Before or as part of recommending the council on on alternative natural fertilizers, I've had limited experience with it, not here up north

Okay.

Where we tried to do that and go all natural because of kids and dogs and all that kind of stuff, and it was not nearly as good for weed control and some other things that go along with it. Right? It's wonderful, but it doesn't work as well. This is different, though. I understand that, but it's, once again, it's all natural, that type of homeopathic method of of taking a look at it. Do we have any examples of where this potentially is being used already? Or if not Kankake, like you said, there's other people. There are there

are other sources. I guess

Other cities, other areas in Southwest Florida that maybe have done this already that we can use and not reinvent the wheel.

Well, I don't know about that. That I could investigate. I do know that this, I think, was developed in the Fort Myers area. It is a locally it's a local company that was working on this, and it was big. It was really being pushed and investigated back in the late twenty teens.

So this is not brand new. And it's up for patent, and I know I the only thing I know is that the city of Sanibel was actively pursuing it, or at least I heard that. Maybe they are not now, but I heard rumors that they were. I haven't reached out to anybody there at Sanibel Island, which I could do. But I know that there's interest here in the Southwest Florida area to, at least, at the very least, to be able to do some good in the summertime, in the rainy season when it really matters, and to lay off in the dry season. And I think that's something to investigate. If it doesn't come to fruition, at least we tried. But I think it makes sense to look into it.

But I'm I'm trying to figure out how we so what we need to do is to figure out our steps forward as as to how we're gonna look into it. I'd like to advise counsel to do that. Isn't it up to us to come back to take a look at it and then to come back and make a recommendation to counsel that we've looked into this and this looks like a viable alternative and we think it's something that the city should pursue?

That's up to you. That's up to this committee.

I'm kind of asking Justin as I make

that comment.

Okay. Yeah, this is an advisory committee and you can advise counsel on what your recommendations are. And since this is on the agenda, you could take a vote to to provide that advice.

I I guess what I'm getting at is is that we have two ways we can go. We can go to city council and say, you should look at this. We think this may be, or it might be a good idea. Mhmm. Or we can do the investigative work and come back and say to council, we've done investigative work, and we think this is a really good idea for the following reasons. We think you should consider it. I mean, to me, I I feel like we're kicking the can down the road saying, hey. This is shiny, bright, and new. You guys look at it. Or do we come back and do the work and come back and say, this is a really good idea for the following reasons. You guys should seriously consider adding this as part of our mantra of the city.

I would say we can go either way with that.

I would say the latter, council would want this committee to to to do the legwork to look into it and then make Alright. A I just want to respond to a question that was asked earlier regarding the phosphorus and the fertilizer ordinance. I pulled up the, the ordinance and, regarding timing of fertilizer application. It says no applicator shall apply fertilizer containing nitrogen or phosphorus to turf and or landscape plants during the rainy season, June 1 to September 30, and the prohibited application period to and to saturated soils. And then further, it says, Phosphorus fertilizer shall not be applied to turf or landscape plants unless a soil or tissue deficiency has been verified by an approved test.

Where deficiency has been verified, phosphorus fertilizer shall not be applied at application rates that exceed 0.25 pounds per thousand square foot per application and to not exceed 0.5 pounds per thousand square foot per year. So, technically, it could be applied, but it would you would have to meet these conditions for it to be applied and with a test.

Okay. Just for people to know a little bit more about phosphorus just briefly, the only time you need phosphorus is to create fruit or flowers, basically, on a tree, on a flowering plant, something like that. You don't use it for turf. And I guess there could be times when it could be allowed as just mentioned, but There's

a lot of flowering plants in the beds in Marco Island.

I know. I know. Yeah.

That's but that's the only place where you would use it. And, you know, that's

But not on your lawn, you'd

use it. Not on your lawn. Not on your lawn. Right. On your beds. Just to elaborate on that. Okay. So, personally, I would love to see counsel investigate Superblend if this committee feels that we should do more investigating in the next month. That's fine too, but I'd like to see something going forward as we think outside the box when it comes to fertilizer and to doing better than we've been doing. So let me throw it open to our committee as to how we'd like to proceed.

We'll just

We have to do the homework because there's a lot of chemistry. I'm not a chemist. Nope. But there's different kinds of nitrates, different kinds of phosphorus. Some are taken up, some are not. I've we've seen biodegradable stuff not work at all. Yeah. It's biodegradable just as Jim mentioned.

No. No. He's right.

He's right.

And often it doesn't work.

Yeah. And so that's the question that they would ask, and we have to have that answer already can.

So my suggestion would be, and I don't know how we proceed with this, but we need to find out if anybody in our geography, whether it's Southeast or Southwest Florida, has done this at a city or municipality level, and what type of success or track record they've had with it, and what their waterways potentially are like. I'd I'd I'd I don't wanna have us bring in theoretical person after theoretical person saying this is a great idea if we can find somebody that's done practical application, and we can use that as a jumping point. But I'm not sure how we would do that.

For what I know on this, I don't know any more than basically what we have. I have a little bit more on my computer, but this here, it's a patent that would have to be acquired in order to use it. And that would would definitely not be us. It would be the city council

to pursue.

So does this does this plant not manufacture?

It's not you can't go and buy this in a store.

I understand that. But but if we acquire a a patent for it, who makes it for us?

K and K Super Blend.

That was my question. Okay. To me to me, the first step is is to go back to K and K Super Blend and ask him who, if anybody, is currently using this?

Okay. Alright. Any further discussion, Chris?

I see you had the light lit.

Yes. On the city's website, there's 31 registered people for fertilizer. Some of those are expired. And then you talked about the phosphorus. And then on K and K's website, there are sites that you can actually buy it up in, like, Fort Myers.

Right.

So let's look at that. But I think we need to look at it, test it, look at it and see what we can do and come back with something.

But it I thought I know it can't be acquired in a store. I think you'd have to go through this.

It's got lists of, like, true value in Ace Hardware.

Up there? Yeah. They are. Okay. They told me that it had to be by patent. Okay. Great. Excellent investigation.

According to their website. Okay.

Alright. Before

we move along,

one thing that should be shared with, what is it, the beautification committee that also has an interest in landscaping, and I was told once that the fertilizer ordinance was initiated by that committee, not out of this committee. And and therefore, getting joint support on this might be helpful if it's going to go to counsel.

Okay. I think that's a good idea too.

Maybe talk to the chair.

I would suggest do your research first. Come up with the recommendations that you're proposing, and then you can have the chair or vice chair attend the beautification committee and explain it to them and get their feedback at that point.

Be glad to do that.

I would say do the the the work first before going to them.

Okay. Okay. I do

have I get One last question. Because I I don't if we're gonna do this, let's make a plan to do it and not just say, hey. Let's talk about this. Let's come up with a definitive what is our next step. K. Is it permissible underneath Sunshine for a couple members of this committee to meet with this gentleman personally from K and K?

If you're going to have more than one committee member meet with that company at a location, then it needs to be just advertised so that it should be at a public location. Otherwise, you could designate one person from this committee to do that coordination.

I I would like to recommend that one member of this committee before our next meeting meet with this gentleman from K and K to see what we can delineate.

Okay. Is this a motion? Yes. Okay. We have a motion made. Do I have a second?

Second.

Thank you, Chris. Okay. Any further discussion? I'd like to

take that.

You need to identify who the person is.

Oh. Yes. I nominate Elliot. Yeah.

That was my next step was to point that way.

Already You started the conversation. I it's my fault.

Okay. You you started the conversation. Yes. I did. So it's natural for you

to Yeah.

That's fine. I think, to follow-up. Okay.

Let me see what I can do. Okay.

With that vote decided, Could we could we take a vote? Do you wanna take an individual vote or consent? It would be better. We'll take an individual vote. Tara?

Member Schneider?

Yes.

Member Lewandowski? Yes. Member Rowena?

Yes.

Vice chair High?

Yes.

Member Woodworth?

Yes.

Chair Mascoupe?

Yes.

And I'd like to thank you I'd

personally like to thank you for bringing this to our attention, helping us think outside of the box. I've been doing this on this committee for about a year and a half, and I think this is the most concrete thing I've seen in a year and a half. Thank you. So thank you.

Thank you. Well, I think it was time because we keep talking, but we need to do concrete advancement. And I appreciate the support. Thank you, and I'll get to work on it. Okay. We need to we are now an hour in and an hour away from the end, so I wanna quickly go to, ID 254490, a white paper on the benefits of implementing a storm water utility district on Marco Island, member Woodworth. The white paper, the floor is yours.

Thank you.

Yes, sir. Well, it's been some time since I submitted the white paper, and I don't know. Maybe people have forgotten what's in the white paper. But, basically, this was for the committee to make a recommendation to city council that they explore a stormwater utility district as a way to have a dedicated resource for its stormwater activities. I know that it did appear on one of Justin's presentations that the city explored, and I'd just like to make a few short comments and then maybe ask Justin what he thinks about the idea of a stormwater utility because he's had obviously some exposure to it.

Part of the Florida Stormwater Association in their 2024 report indicated that Florida has about 67 counties and over 400 cities. Of those, approximately 171 local governments have established stormwater utilities in Florida, which include Cape Coral, Clearwater, Fort Myers, City Of Naples, Fort Lauderdale, Miami Beach. There's in that link that I gave everyone, there's a list of all the cities, and I think at the second page of my note, the stormwater utility rates at all of the utilities that they surveyed ranged from 60¢ a month to $60 a month, so there's a lot of flexibility in how much gets determined to be an assessment to help fund a stormwater utility. It just seems to make sense to me that if there's 171 cities in Florida that have already found this to be a useful and productive way to make sure there's a dedicated resource available for stormwater, that it's something that the city should at least explore. And I know it came up in part of the budget discussion as an alternative, and I don't think it got ranked very high on the list.

And, you know, maybe this isn't the year that it gets implemented because we're kind of out of time in terms of exploring it and implementing it. But, I just think exploring that as a funding source, a dedicated funding source makes sense for the city to explore. So now I guess I'd like to ask Justin if you've got any thoughts about it.

Well, as the public works director, I I would be thrilled if we had that, but it's it's not really a decision for me. That's a decision for, for city council. As you mentioned, there are other municipalities and counties and cities, throughout the state that have that. And, essentially, it's something similar to a water and sewer utility where you would have, those funds, funding, those revenues funding those infrastructure projects. So it would kind of separate it from city council somewhat.

It depends whether it's an actual district, as is mentioned in your white paper here, with, you know, voting members and a they would have they would meet at this room just like we have a the the Hideaway Tax District does, and they would have their, their own budget based on the revenues that they that they raise. But, yeah, it's an alternative way of funding, storm water and water quality related projects separate from the mechanism that we have right now with the general fund. Other than that really it's up to City Council on taking action on that.

Well, that was my recommendation that at least City Council direct the staff to explore it and make a recommendation. It's probably too late for this year's budget cycle. But I'd hoped that this recommendation would have come up in the agenda several months ago so that it could have been more actively supported if it was supported at this committee.

Would you like to make a motion? Even though we're not worrying about about the budget. That's the council's job. We if we want to, you know, to forward this, I think we have the right to do that if, this committee would like to forward that. So if you'd like to make a motion and, we we have some discussion.

Well, I'd like to make a motion that we make a recommendation to city council to at least explore it as another funding mechanism Absolutely. To cover our stormwater costs.

I like that. Do we have a second?

I'll second it.

Okay.

Any discussion before we Absolutely. Move

I'd like to open it up to comment. Oh, let's see.

Public comment or committee member comment?

Committee member comment.

A committee member comment

first. So this this this is an advice to counsel. I would also encourage public comment before you Okay. Take a

Okay. That's fine. Comment here on

I understand the funding, but there's another aspect. There seems to be appropriate mechanism to bring all these issues together because they're all interrelated and to create a strategic plan. It's a mechanism to create a collaborative project team to get together, put up the whiteboards, discuss it, get down to a long term strategy that we can't do. It would appear to be that mechanism one of the options of mechanism to make that happen. True.

Because I think one of the counselors at one of our previous meetings also said, we need a strategic plan. Need to if picking out it eats piecemeal like we've been doing for seven years, need to collect it. And that seems like it would be a mechanism on top of having the money to deal with.

Seems to be worth exploring.

Well, unfortunately, because of sunshine and the way the committee system works, by the time we could collect all of our individual recommendations into a plan, it'd be five years from now. So, unfortunately, I I think that we're sort of forced to come up with recommendations that could be considered as part of a comprehensive plan. And so we approved one to explore funding of further fertilizer ordinance enforcement. This is phase two of our strategic plan, is have the city explore a storm water utility. I I mean, I'm not saying do it, but a 167 cities with pretty huge budgets and and a wide range of assessments might make sense to look at.

I would like to see counsel investigate this, and I would be very, very in favor of approving this motion.

My light's on.

Oh, yeah. I'm I'm sorry. Well, there might be

some people ahead of me. You go right ahead. Okay. So what's what's another I mean, storm water utility. For everybody in the audience watching, what is a storm water utility? What's another phrase for that? Well, it it's a would

be another line item on your tax bill, if you will, or it would be a line item on your water and sewer bill that would have a fee from 60¢ to $60 depending on the need. I mean, I think

Okay. So a tax. And have you kind of got a pro form a in your head as far as what that thing could net every year? You know, what given the What would be the benefit? Given the number of households

A number.

Tell me what number you wanna use. $5, $10. I could give you a spreadsheet with a million variations on how much money you could generate.

So that's the question is what would it generate? And the idea of raising funds to accomplish something that I think has universal support or I shouldn't say universal support, but it has significant support is the flushing interconnects on San Marco. What could you do a targeted What's that? Could you do, like, a you know, like, the 1¢ tax was only for a few years. It was a defined period of time.

I mean, the idea of, not having taxes go on and on and on for and just generating large buckets of money that sometimes maybe get used for other things than they were originally intended for, The idea of creating an assessment or a tax or something to address a specific problem, which is the dead ends hit of you know, on both sides of San Marco. And then that's that's built and accomplished, and then it goes away. I mean, that would be But I think there's revealing.

I think that's a good point, but I I think there's other things that go on almost forever at the last or one of the last budget meetings. Justin talked about how many swales need to be repaired, renovated, I don't know what the right word is, but at $100,000 a year or 200,000 a year or whatever the number is, we'll never get all the swales completed on the island. And I sent a spreadsheet when I was on this committee before in 2020. It was virtually impossible for the city to do what it needed to do just on the SWAIL project alone with its current budget allocation. Is that a fair assessment?

Yeah. Similar to the other issue, I think that counsel would come back to this committee and ask for, well, what are the financials? And what I would suggest is maybe taking a look at one of these other municipalities or counties and see what the utility funds. Obviously, it's infrastructure projects. The interconnect was mentioned, that would be one.

SWAIL would be another one. And how much revenue does it bring in? And what are the the assessments? And how does that work within the framework of the city council? I would envision that it would work similar to the tax district for Hideaway where they would have their own tax district board with appointed members that would take votes on on the infrastructure projects based on the revenues, then that vote ultimately goes to city council as a recommendation for adoption.

So I would think if I'm a city councilor and we have some here in the audience, is I'd like to see how it's working in other communities and what it what the benefits are, what it does, what what the financial ramifications are. So I know, for instance, Sarasota County has one that's very successful. But I would suggest that prior to just having a blanket recommendation vote set to city council. They would want some more information behind it.

Well, I guess my question would be, is city council more likely to take a recommendation from this committee based on research it does or are they more likely to take a recommendation from city staff after it does the research?

Yeah. That for city staff to do it, we'd have to be directed by city council. City staff doesn't do initiatives on their own. You know, we'd have to be directed by city council. So you'd have to have a city councilor bringing it up at a city council meeting, get enough support to then direct city council, to then direct staff to do the research on on-site.

I would say that that is probably what we'd have to do because I don't know that anybody here on this particular committee would be the one to do that. So, you know

Well, this this committee could look at other municipalities and counties Right. And see how they do it. Like You have

to appoint somebody to do that.

Or you could do it, you can assign different tasks, for the committee members that would volunteer to do that. Compile the information and then you can send that up to city council as a vote saying, here's what was done in in in in ABC City, and this is these are the the benefits of the utility. This is how much it costs. This is, this is how it's administered. Okay. So that they have some sort of reference to be able to, you know, take a vote on.

Yep. We have a couple more comments here. Jim?

Yeah. So it's let's call it what it is. It's tax. We can you can put any other name you wanna put on it to make it sound pretty. It's a tax.

I'm I'm not in favor of voting for anything until I to to make a recommendation to city council or anybody else in the city that myself personally or this committee is coming back and recommending that we increase the taxes on Marco Island. Unless we can specifically come back and say that, like you were talking about, that this is what it's for, this is what it's gonna fund, this is how much it's gonna cost, 60¢ to $60 is a pretty big range. Right? As you said, I I thought that maybe that's a typo, but evidently it's not from from that perspective. But I don't care if it's 60¢ or $60.

I'm not voting positively for any tax until we come back as a group and have a recommendation. To your point, if we came back and said that we could do other conduits on the island because it improves the water quality by x percent, and it's gonna have this cost. And to do that, it would cost every door in Marco Island 60¢ a month for two years to come back and to fund it. And then we would come back to city council and say, we make this recommendation to city council that you guys come back and and you, take a look at this. But I'm I'm not in favor of voting for any tax Okay. Until we understand it.

Well, I'm I'm not asking for a vote for a tax. I'm I'm asking for exploring what the possibilities are.

But that's why I brought it up because what we talked about once again was us coming back and saying as a recommendation to city council, we think you guys should take a look at That's not what we're supposed to do. We're supposed to come back and do the legwork on this, and then come back to city council and to say, we've done the legwork. We think this is a good idea as your waterways advisory committee. We think that this project should be paid for. We think one way to fund it is through this tax. Right? But you'd have to do this tax to do it, or we'd have to find other funding from the state or county or whoever else that would come back to do it. So I I think it's incumbent upon this group to come up with that, rather than to say, City Council, you guys should think about doing this.

I think Chris had a comment.

So I think this goes back to what I talked about last month. We don't have an agenda for what we're trying to accomplish. So this is one more of those, one more things that we need to look at. And I won't vote for it because I don't think that we should push anything to them, to City Council or anybody else until we've actually done it, just like we talked about the fertilizer.

So

the fertilizer, we have to do the research, we need to test it, we need to talk to staff and say, can we do what we need to do? Then we come up with a new thing. But the problem is that over the last few months, all we're doing is we're taking one little piece here and there, dredging on here. That's already been pushed to City Council. They're already looking at that. So I think we need to sit back, whether we do it as an agenda item in the meeting and make the whole meeting towards or do a workshop, but we need to come together as one and figure out what we want to do. We can't do it with Sunshine Law. We have to do it sitting here. So we either take a whole meeting or do a workshop and come up with what is what should we be focusing on before we should send anything back to city council.

I would just like to interject here that if I get a chance before this meeting is over, I have got exactly what you're talking about printed out here to a t. So if you want to get to that, if this committee wants to get to where you are, we can do that if we get the time. So just wanted to let you know.

Well, if if the consensus is for various reasons, which I personally don't agree with, you can't say no new taxes if you need money to protect our infrastructure. That's just, to me, that's insane.

Thank you.

You put you put you know, you gotta look at what your needs are first and then look at ways to fund it.

And once again, I've been asked again by city staff to not get embroiled in cost and the funding to get advice to counsel.

But the same you you guys are asking, and I'd be happy to volunteer Okay. To look at Sarasota, say, or if you guys don't like Sarasota, pick another city. I'll I'll do the research and we can talk about it. But if I come here with research from one city with all the details to say, well, okay, that doesn't that might work for Sarasota, but it'll never work in Marco.

I wanna get a few.

Or you know? Well, then, you know Not just one. Somebody else pick a city.

No. I think since I don't know how everybody else feels, but I think that this is I think you would be the one I'm going to do the fertilizer. You would you'd be the one to do this.

I'll do as much as I can.

Okay. Is any other discussion of that? We do need to move along. We have some other items here to discuss. So we can't take the rest of the time here.

Do have a motion?

Can we have a motion?

You already do.

But I already okay. Justin just oh, I'd just I'd like to amend that.

Justin made a comment that this would be appropriate time for public comment as well. And I think there's somebody that

Anybody that that would like to speak on this, if that's allowed?

Dave Crane, Marco Island resident, former Member of this committee. Just a couple things to throw out here. It's your guys' job to do this. It's not don't be pushing it down the road to city council. You have to do the research. You have to make presentations to your own board, and you guys figure it out. You can't put up one paragraph about fertilizer and go, let's run this. Might be a great idea in all due respect, but it's your guys job to come up with this. I find it hard to believe that you're buying a patent. You might be buying an agreement that can use a patented item that he's giving you permission to use it.

But I don't think your name's gonna go on a patent. I don't see how that's gonna happen. Regarding the storm water utility back in '22 when we had the water symposium back then. That was our board at that time, recommended to do this. It was shut down by city council.

Many of the city councilors at that time said exactly what Jim is saying. This is a tax. Okay? It was it came from the ERD report, doctor Harper's report, where he was recommend recommending it. And his point being you are more you're you're you have a greater greater likelihood of getting grant money for these types of projects if you have a storm water utility.

They're available for more grants than just the city is. That was that was general. We we we as a board approved that idea. That was part of our presentation in the waterways symposium and it was shot down. So if you guys wanna try it again, you know, by all means, you know, give it a shot, but you've gotta do the work. You can't be pushing. They have enough stuff to do. You know, they've got everybody pushing at them. That's what you're here for as you guys do the work. And and, yeah, it's difficult with with having the sunshine laws.

Sure is.

I mean, when we did that when we did that presentation, I wound up doing 95% of it myself because you couldn't talk to other board members legally. So that's why I pushed off some to Bob Roth if you recall. That part of I mean, you guys need to go. Like, there's a lot of history on all of this stuff. As far as the fertilizer, there's two factions in the state that you have you have one fact that's exactly what you're saying Elliot that your your root system and everything else is developed in the rainy season.

Correct.

And that's when it can uptake the fertilizer. Correct. In the dry season, it doesn't. But you know that's a that's a huge battle in the state all the way through the state. What my my suggestion would be, as as Justin pointed out, our our ordinances now don't allow phosphorus without testing.

Mhmm. I would do the research, see what's count I would have a a hard time believing Collier County doesn't have a similar ordinance for the whole county and the city of Naples. I know Fort Myers Beach has that. Do the research on that because this might be a this deal where we don't know what's in the fertilizer because the trucks come over the bridge which is an excellent point. But if it's a whole county wide ordinance which could be, I'm not saying it is, I would think it is because we're all along the coast.

It certainly should be. But do the research, look into that and then come back. Because that you could just wait a lot of these talking points with just what are the actual facts on. Okay.

Okay.

I do thank you. Okay. I guess we withdraw your motion. I withdraw my motion. No,

it's your motion.

Alright. I withdraw my motion. Okay. And I will volunteer to do more research and present it at the next meeting. Excellent.

Rick or Elliot, can I chime in? Yes. Rick, the Flushing and this is for Justin also. The Flushing interconnects, what was the price for like all one conduit under San Marco, the connects?

We went out to bid and for a 60 inches diameter culvert, given the fact that we have to go between houses with micro tunneling, address the put in turbidity barriers on the canals on each side, do restoration work to docks and pilings, all that came up to about $5,000,000 for one sixty inches diameter culvert. So we need two, so that would be $10,000,000 and that's in today's dollars.

So thank you, Justin. Just for like the pro form a of what your the utility. Know, at like a $10,000,000 target to to solve like one focus project, to get one project across the finish line. It's $10,000,000. We have 15,000 homes on the island. I I don't know how many we

have. Roughly. So

No. That's population. That's not home.

I'm sorry. Okay. So four what's how many households? About 16,000.

No, that's population.

Housing units.

No. Whatever it is. No,

you're under 2,000 for residential lots. So that would give you an idea and then I don't know how many condo units.

Can be right there is 5,000 single family homes on Marco.

I'm sorry, it's the number I'm thinking of is 1,600 that was remaining vacant. Yeah, 5,000.

Plus or minus.

Plus however many condo units you have.

Do we have you're going to investigate. Do we get a motion? I've done spreadsheets. Yeah.

We'll start with the target, like a goal. It would've been my suggestion of let's accomplish the the flushing, $10,000,000. And then how many, you know, homes or residences would have to absorb that, what would that be per residence? I mean, just to get a basic understanding.

Well, I think I did it using AWT as an example and if you issued roughly $15,000,000 in bonds and it was assessed equally among the 16,000 housing units, the cost for twenty year tax exempt bonds would have been about $60 per year per household. So that's in rough numbers that if you did it through a bond, that's what it would be. And I can very easily, if I could circulate information to people, I could send you lots of data already, just don't respond to me, but I have done a lot of work on this already with different target agendas.

Just send your material to Justin or Tara or Joan and they would send it

out to everybody. He's not doing that anymore.

Yeah. We could do that as long as it's something that, yeah, that wouldn't be a problem as long as it's something that doesn't violate Sunshine Law. So gathering data, providing data, and emailing that to the committee members is not a Sunshine Law violation. That would be in the purview of this committee. Now, when it gets into something other than that, opinions and wanting to sway other committee members and how they would might vote, that would be a violation.

Well, I am happy to circulate just the facts, ma'am. I will save my interpretation for the next meeting. I happy to send you the facts and you all can form your own opinions. Within

the confines of the Sunshine Law and we keep it legal, I am fine with that. And Uh-huh. So you're you're going to be doing this investigation and coming up with this material for us for the next meeting. And do we we don't need we don't need any kind of a motion in order for no. I didn't think so. Okay. Okay. I do need to move along because we've got two more really important things along with a few other agenda items. I wanna get to dredging, member Rohina, and I do wanna have time to go over this, which is extremely important, and it's gonna be very enlightening also along with what I did with fertilizer. So, member Rohina, it's Yeah.

I already expressed my concern that my attachment didn't make it to the agenda. It goes a little bit beyond that. I have requested that this be on the agenda prior to the Seahawk presentation and for us to discuss immediately thereafter while it was still fresh. I think the people should have a little bit more considering they're on the hook for 60 to $90,000,000 investment more than a can presentation and some city council queries when they admittedly don't have that level of expertise. So I'm a little concerned when you talk about transparency, why I'm having so much difficulty getting this discussed.

But maybe there's good reason. I just am not aware of it. I also have a problem. Most people know my background, forty two years in marine industry. I've worked more dredging project probably than anybody who doesn't do dredging for a living.

And I've tried several mechanisms to get involved in the discussion immediately with Seahawk with staff, and, that hasn't transpired. Considering Seahawk has limited experience in this type of dredging, I could have helped them, gloss through some of the red flags. I could have been a technical backup, but for the city, but it seems like nobody wants to is interested in anybody that has experience. So I'm a little concerned, that this discussion is having trouble taking place. With that said, since you don't have discussion notes to go through, it's very short and give you some more time to discuss other things.

I'll just read my conclusion on this particular presentation. I believe this proposal, talking about the Seahawk dredging proposal, is premature. It does not lay out the true scope of the dredging based on how many canals are truly in need of this type of costly invasive remediation or of ultimate volumes. Without a survey to ascertain the level of impairment of any individual canal and then ascertain what remediation technique is most appropriate for cost effectiveness, I don't see how this proposal is decision ready. The true scale and potential costs have not been ascertained.

There are a number of red flags that question the expertise and experience to carry out this project as envisioned. Overall, this proposal only addresses the symptoms of the problem and needs to be judged in conjunction with other mitigating other sources of canal degradation such as reuse water, excess fertilizer, illegal outfalls and landscaping debris. An all encompassing strategic plan is called for. This proposal continues the piecemeal efforts made over the years. So I'll leave it at that.

If I could interject just I'm in agreement with you in a lot of ways. A lot of the canals on Marco do not require dredging. A lot of the waterways are fine. I have been out there and I have looked around and I see fish jumping out and I see grass growing and I see clear water in places, and I see places where it's not like that. So even to discuss dredging every single canal on Marco Island, I think, is totally ridiculous.

I I just don't see it needing it. And the water quality reports that I have seen that have been actually given to me by Azarima at Public Works indicate that the trends are definitely getting better. They are improving. We are not great. We are not perfect. But we are not the disaster that a lot of people think we are. Some canals need some help, others don't. So I'm in agreement with you, and I think that what you're bringing up is extremely vital. I'd like to throw it over I don't want to take up all the time. I'd like to throw it open to the committee for other comments.

Well, I happen to agree with Ralph. We, in my capacity at Clean Marco Waters, we submitted to city council our opinion on the dredging, which kind of doesn't mimic his recommendation, but we had a lot of the same concerns and elements in there. And, you know, one thing that did come out was that, to us anyway, was that this kind of dredging could do more damage to the canals than say And the seawalls. In the seawalls than say targeted suction dredging, which is a whole different process and maybe it's feasible, not feasible, but there was a presentation made a couple years ago, last time this was opened up at council on alternatives for cleaning up the water. And it was rejected at that time for cost reasons.

Right. But from an environmental point of view, suction dredging was a much more environmentally sensitive way of doing targeted canals.

Well put.

I just want to say I agree with Ralph's conclusions that there's a lot of different things to be considered before this moves ahead.

I would also just like to interject here real quickly, and I hope you get back over to Ralph. Some of the aspects of what they want to propose for dredging, I think, are incomprehensible in that to put the islands at the ends of canals and block water view and waterways for the public and for people that have spent millions of dollars for homes in these locations that are, in many ways, all about their water view and their access to the water. And to go ahead and to put those islands where that would really impact property values and is really unfair to those people that have spent that money and live in those locations is absolutely incomprehensible that that could be considered. Talking to public works, there's plenty of area out there in the Marco River that I know it costs a little bit more, but to get that material, should we go that way out there as opposed to the islands that would be everything I've looked at and everybody I've talked to, I don't think it would be right or fair. So I could never support that.

But I do like what you have had to say. And Ralph, I want to throw it back to you. I just wanted to interject that.

Just one last comment. Hopefully, my document might be disseminated. One thing that I've always been pushing is we need to know what's in these canals, what are their conditions. And the format has already been done in other places. We just steal it from them, spreadsheets or whatever. Each individual canal have a different issue. Some are very vibrant.

Some are fine.

Some of them have showed up to the extent that you must dredge those areas just to get boating depth. So going out, we don't need you can do the basics with dissolved oxygen meter and a sludge judge and visuals to say this is what this canal looks like, the broad strokes and this is what it needs to remediate it to get it started. But it has to be started. And it's not just for dredging. Everything you do in these canals, you need to know what it's like, what's there.

What size does

this look Some of these have dolphins. There's manatees. And we need to get out there and do these canals at least a broad stroke so we know what we've got. Get it on the list and start working it.

I just have one comment to address that comment. Alright. Go ahead. I'll make it quick. Our group created a tube to do sampling and I hired a diver at the Esplanade Marina to take this tube down, a clear acrylic tube, to see how deep the muck was before he hit hard bottom.

And

in the case of the slip at the Esplanade, the muck was about three feet deep. Now, I know my canal, the muck is not three feet deep, but I bet it is a good six to eight inches deep. So to Ralph's point, the muck could be different depths all over the island, some might need to be cleaned more than others. But I mean I know for a fact and if you look on our website or if I could share that with the committee, I can show you what we found when we did our own exploration of that. Thank you.

Ralph, one last comment. Very

quickly. Okay.

We have a bucket of money to use. We could buy the tool, he was mentioning, which is a sludge judge. Right. Dissolve oxygen meter. You get it from Amazon. And can we buy that so that if we want to, we could go and as examples how much sludge

in I all these can throw that to you.

That's certainly something that this committee can vote on and purchase. However, before you do that, I would suggest maybe talking to the water and sewer department, see if they already have something that They did it right.

Do it digitally. They only use slug judges. Okay.

Anybody have a

I just got I just wanna chime

Go right ahead.

Sounds like a great project for the high school biology

class.

I'm not kidding. You know? I mean, get these kids out there with that meter and that tube and let them do some applied science for us, for the community. And Not a bad

experience for them either.

I I just say, though, I mean, we paid a diver to do it. You you can't send a bunch of kids in seven feet of water. No.

I would I'm not talking, like, going in the water, but standing from a boat and like pushing a pole down and taking a sample.

Yeah. That's

the way it's done. Putting it in a tube and sending it

That's to a the way it's usually done. But that's not a bad example.

No. It's not. Anybody have any any further on that or any is there a motion you'd wanna make? Anybody?

Well, I I think the motion to purchase this equipment would be appropriate. Alright. That's the right way to Do we have a second?

I think we need to know how much it's gonna cost first.

How much Well, we're not yeah.

We're not again I've been asked not to get into cost.

Who asked you that? I just have to

ask you. There are people in city staff that have asked me not

This if you're talking about something that is related to the waterways committee, the waterways committee does have a an annual budget that you could allocate for a purchase of some minor

Case like this.

Our budget is it I'm sorry to overwrite it, dollars 10,000?

That's what has historically been budgeted. I don't know if that full 10,000 is remaining right now since we are halfway into the fiscal year or a little bit more than that.

I don't know if there is respect.

But have you spent it on anything as a committee? Not that I know of. I mean, I will just tell you and this is from my experience on the last committee. Every time we requested money to do something like that or to increase a specific testing, we were always turned down and I don't think this committee is

ever You have budgeted funds. You have budgeted funds for this fiscal year I that are just don't have the exact number now, but it's going to be depending on how much has been spent so far. Like for instance, when you have new members and you have these nameplates up here, that is charged to each committee.

That comes out of our budget?

Exactly. So each committee funds its activities. But I got to if you haven't voted on any expenditures up until now, then you're gonna be somewhere close to that. Would

we want to put some money into this?

I would, but I'd like to know what it's gonna cost. You don't know.

I mean, it is relative you can go crazy, which is the equipment these consultants would probably use and charge you for. But the sludge much, you like you described it, is an acrylic tube with a valve. So we're talking about less than a thousand dollars.

Yeah. I spent a couple $100 on my tube, I spent a $100 on the diver to do it. So But I

would say make a motion if we can purchase this for under a thousand dollars, we do it. Otherwise, I'll come back with a cost.

Okay. Would you like to make that motion?

I'll make that motion.

Do I have a second? Second.

Okay. We have a motion and a second. Any other discussion on this before we vote? Okay.

One one other item. Just the logistics of the purchase itself.

So

once you have the cost and if it's under $1,000 then the city would have to purchase that. So either we would issue a purchase order or we could purchase it with the city purchasing card. That would be either mine or Tara's or somebody here. So that member would have to coordinate with me with the quote and then we would see how we'd do the logistics of the purchase.

Okay. I'll do it. Okay, Ralph. This is your this is your ballgame.

Okay.

Alrighty. Have

to We vote on

have a comment.

So I'm gonna vote no because, again, this goes back to what I'm saying before. Let's pick items that we think is important at some meeting, whether it's next meeting or whatever, and then focus on it. But I think we're still jumping around and grabbing little ones here and there.

Exactly what I'm going to try to get to before we are through.

Any other? The budgeted funds for this committee don't roll over, I would imagine, at the end of the fiscal year. If they're not used, they just

No. They're they're operating funds. So each year, council votes on the budget for that fiscal year. And would you know, those funds could be reduced, taken away, increased, and that's all city council's decision and it's initially discussed at the operating budget workshop, the one for the fiscal year '26, I believe is coming up in July.

But I can

tell you that if you don't use the money, it just gets recaptured back into the general fund. It doesn't it's usable. That's correct. Understood.

Do we wanna take a vote? We need a second.

One more discussion item. One more point on Sure. Okay. So this is to buy a sludge what's it called?

Sludge Judge.

Sludge Judge. Some kind

of Oh, the oxygen meter.

So, you know, just giving us those tools, if if we were to buy them, what do we do with them? Who do we send the stuff to? What are the procedures to capture it properly so there's no, questions about the validity of? That's a

very

a question. It. So I wouldn't think jump on the bandwagon just to buy this stuff right now without

This is something you could do it. As you said, that will be the next phase because they'll be just taking our word for it. You wanna get for more formal with it. But it's to get information first to work off to make other decisions to bring some of this together. Because right now, we're blind.

Okay.

So What's in the what's

the condition?

So it is to get an idea for us as we wanna go out to do that. You do

point out a problem is because of sunshine. I can't volunteer to help Ralph do

it. Right.

You have to get your own pals to help

or or So when you get the sample, what do you do with it?

Well, you don't get a sample. You can go that next step and have a laboratory analysis

Well, you just wanna see what

the depth is of the muck? Is that

that's How much muck is there versus how much hard sediment, that type of thing.

Okay. Well, I mean, sticking a PVC pipe in the ground is gonna give you that information. I mean

That's what I'll show if you guys go to this clean Marco Waters website, you'll see what we did and what you get, if you're interested.

Last comment, Chris? Again, Dan started to bring this up, and I think again this goes back to the other part that let's, before we buy something, let's come up with an idea of what we're going to do, and Dan, if you want, I think we can go to MIA and we can actually set this up as a high school program for them and they'll have kids and we can be there to do this because even in Sunshine Law, we can do it as an open public forum and this would be a great opportunity for them. But again, I think it needs we need to figure out what we wanna do.

Okay. Alright. We do have a motion on the floor, and it has been seconded. Do you wanna just for clarity, repeat the motion?

It was to spend less than a thousand dollars to purchase a sludge judge and a dissolved oxygen meter.

Okay. And we have a second. Do we wanna take an individual vote or a consensus vote?

I I would say a roll call vote since this

is expenditures.

Okay.

And also, if you're gonna take a roll call vote, you should have public comments

Okay.

On this item.

Do we have any public comment at this time?

Of course, we

do. Of course, we do. Sorry. Sorry. Dave Crane again. I would just say again, we're back at the same thing where I mean, it it might be a great idea. I think it is a good idea. But you guys gotta do the homework. I mean, come on. You know, show you know, find what it is, bring it out, show it, have everybody approve it. I mean, we're throwing stuff out of thin air

Yep.

And expect you guys to do this. That's not the way it's done. I mean, you gotta do the homework. I mean, come on.

Okay. Do we wanna vote? Individual vote.

Member Rojena?

Yes.

Member Woodworth?

Yes.

Member Lewandowski? No. Vice chair High? No. Member Schneider? No. Chair Mascoupe?

No.

The noes have it. Forwarded too. I think that was just getting the car before the horse.

Yeah. You know? And I think it's a it's a Yeah.

I don't think it's a bad idea. Oh. We don't have a plan.

I need to move along though because I'm probably not gonna get a chance to really explore my last item, but let's go to staff communications really quickly if we have any.

I don't have anything to Don't share.

We'll go to number nine, city council communication. Councilor Bonita Schwann.

Bonita Schwann, councilor. Yes. I did wanna let you know, actually, we had our capital budget workshop this past Monday that the city council did. And during that, I did bring a question up about that we needed to get a depth survey of the canals. I think it is an important thing because we need to make all these decisions on facts when we're looking at water quality and any decisions that we make at council. So I appreciate you developing a plan and bringing it to us at the appropriate time. Thank you.