Town Commission - Regular Meeting

All right. All right, we're going to call this meeting to order. We're going to start with the roll call.

All right. Mayor Allison Dennington is absent. Vice Mayor Terry Cronin. Here. Commissioner Anna Butler.

Here.

Commissioner Tim Reed. Here. Commissioner Sherry Corey.

Here.

Town Manager Amory Smith. Here. Public Works Director Tom Davis. Here. And Interim Town Clerk Sid Jones is also present.

All right. Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. We're going to take a moment of silence. All right. Thank you. And now we'll recite the civility pledge. The commission and the staff of the town of Melbourne beach pledged to conduct all public discourse in a civil manner. The mayor and all members of the commission will treat each treat one another with courtesy and respect and ask the public to do the same toward the commission, each other and towards staff. We will be respectable, respectful of one another. Even when we disagree, we will direct all comments toward the issues. We will avoid personal attacks. All right. So now we're going to open up for public public comment. This would be not about what we're going to be talking about here in the workshop. But anything else that's on the mind of the town.

um jan pence 200 riverside drive i also forgot my glasses let me see if i can blow this up i just wanted to bring this to the commission's attention and actually ask our town manager whether or not she can answer this it's already been answered it's been addressed this commission had ryan speak to this already but there's stuff floating around on social media that i find very concerning especially when it's not accurate and i think the town kind of has a responsibility to address it So it's irrelevant who the person is, it's just not accurate information. It was posted today in Melbourne Beach on Nextdoor. Judge's decision in Town of Melbourne Beach versus LLC is coming on Friday, 6-12, that would be tomorrow. It will be an interesting decision for the Town of Melbourne Beach. Then they closed it for comments so that nobody could actually post the accurate truth. And I would like to ask Marie if you would respond to this with what the attorney told us the last time that he spoke to this.

Thank you so much. Is there any concern from the commission whether Marie should respond to this? OK, very good.

Yes. Yeah, I actually have been in touch with our attorneys about this. They are supposed to put in their proposed order to the to the judge on Friday, the 12th. But the judge can take as long as he wishes to respond. So there will be no instant judgment on the 12th. That is just when our attorneys and Fino's attorneys have to submit their proposed orders to the judge. So there is no hard and fast deadline of when we are going to hear back on this case. It could be a week. It could be months. We don't know as yet. And I'm sure that our attorneys will follow up on it. But Friday is just the date that we submit the information. So I just want to make that clarification.

Thank you so much. Any other comments from the town. If not we're going to have a presentation about base intense stormwater and representatives from Haley water here, but a miss Smith, you're going to lead this discussion.

Yes. So at the at the May regular town Commission meeting. Workshop was requested of with Haley Ward to discuss next steps in the stormwater issue of base in 10 specifically. I just want to say on a separate track, I'm also looking at how we can finance some of this work as well as other work and that will be brought up in the discussion at the regular town hall or the regular commission meeting next week. So this is not about how to necessarily how to finance it, but this is just the estimates of how much the work is for Haley Ward to engineer it and even to give us an estimate of how much it may be to construct it as well. So I want to just bring up David Baggett from Haley Ward.

Welcome back, Mr. Baggett.

Thanks for having me. Appreciate it. I'm happy to be here to, I think, answer maybe more questions, share a little bit of information, and discuss anything that you all would like to. We did provide a proposal for upsizing of the storm sewer along Cherry Drive between Rosewood and Oak Street. the meeting that I was here at that I presented our findings from our study. It seems to be the area where we can make the most impactful change. There's other recommendations in our report for other improvements to do, but this would be the one that we listed as the priority. I understand there may be some other suggestions that have been brought up in the interim or maybe some other thoughts that happened between my presentation and now, so I'm happy to discuss any of those options. We also had, I guess I'll call it a benefit at this point in time, of seeing kind of some of the storm sewer in action this past week. So on June 3rd, there was a pretty significant event that hit in town. I was on my way to my office that morning and noticed, okay, the US 1's got some flooding on it, but they have a lot of drain socks in the inlets right now because they're doing paving work out there. And then as I was driving around, I go, OK, I should probably head over the bridge and go take a look. And so came in and drove into Basin 10. And on my way in, I noted all the way from Indian Atlantic all the way in, it was pawning on the road, not just in Basin 10. Let me make that very clear. It was a pretty significant event. Maybe not like 12 inches of rain, but it was a pretty good punch in the mouth for an hour of storm that morning. I track a lot of rain data for all my sites and projects that I work on. That morning when I was out there, I took a screenshot of it and it clocked in at about 3.3 inches in about an hour that morning. So referring back to my report that we did per NOAA's storm data and intensities, that puts you somewhere around a 10 to, probably closer to a 10 year storm event just for that one hour. Obviously three inches across a day is something we see pretty regularly. but you could go back to April when we got a similar amount of rain across a day or two, and you didn't really see any impacts out here. So it was that short amount of rain, that short blast of rain that kind of made the difference. As I noted in my presentation last time, one of the things that we observed was that there was a potential that when the inlets back up, that there could be some cascading downstream through the basin. So while everything wants to collect locally at the inlets and go into the throat of those inlets and into the pipe and into the storm sewer and then continue downstream out to the river, when things get intense or it gets backed up, it ponds at the inlets. Eventually, if that ponding is enough, it can crest the road. And instead of, you know, eventually when it starts ponding, it's trying to get into the inlet and then if it gets high enough, I'm gonna go this way down the gutter because now I can keep going down the road. I was able to observe some of that while I was out in that storm event at intersections of Cedar and Orange, Orange and Rosewood, Rosewood and Cherry, kind of where all the inlets are. Eventually, the lowest point with enough of that cascading is at Cedar and Cherry. So the ponding on that particular storm event did crest the top of the drainage structure. So it was over the rims of those structures, which if you look at it as a gutter, there's a six inch step there in the gutter and then a concrete top on those. It was over the top of that. Yeah, it was it was kind of happening at all the intersections. Like I said, it was it was outside of Basin 10. We were seeing a lot of this, so it was not an isolated problem, but it was bonding there. And at the storm stopped around 910 that morning. And then I had taken a picture and day and timed it around 940. So it's somewhere 910 to 940 is somewhere in there. I think I clocked at about 26 minutes it came back down and it was the roads are dry again. But it's that cascading that was kind of important because that kind of validated some assumptions that we had and that's something that we can build upon in our model if we need to, certainly with the next steps. Long of the short is it's cascading when it gets really intense down to the lowest parts of the basin, which is at Cedar and Cherry. And then there was some at Cherry and Rosewood. So right in this corridor, that Cherry Drive two block stretch is really where the focus is. And our models seem to indicate that the biggest drop could happen, and I wanna make sure I don't sell that word too much, but The biggest improvement to the stages where we see the flooding the worst happens if there's some upsizing capacity to get it out of there. And so that's why we targeted our proposal with our leading recommendation, which was to do the upsizing from Rosewood to Oak Street on Cherry. bringing that pipe up closer to the equivalent that actually crosses Oak Street and goes to the river. Right now it's at 30, it's been repaired, slip-lined a few times. This would upsize it to at least a 42-inch pipe, and then continue that out to the river. I would love to say that we could take that pipe, make it a 60 and run it all the way to the river, but as you go west of Oak Street into Harbor East, I think we discussed this last time, It gets really tight to be able to do that improvement in there. And you'd have to go into the river, seawall side of things to cut that out. When we look at it, it looks like you will get enough of an improvement by just upsizing cherry because that drop happens as it takes the corner from cherry across Oak Street. So we didn't want to take that any further. Plus with the new house that's been built there, it would be a very invasive installation to have to do between two homes. So I'm not exactly looking at that as something to pursue. BUT OUR PROPOSAL INCLUDES THE UPSIZING OF THE PIPE ON CHERRY, UPDATING OUR MODEL WITH THOSE IMPROVEMENTS SO THAT WAY WE GIVE BACK TO THE TOWN AN UPDATED MODEL WITH ALL THOSE SURE IMPROVEMENTS. WE CAN DEMONSTRATE BEFORE WE ACTUALLY PUT THE PROJECT TO CONSTRUCTION WHAT THAT DROP IS. RIGHT NOW IT'S NOT IN THE MODEL. OUR PAST SCOPE WAS JUST THE EXISTING CONDITIONS. but when we design it we can put it in there show what that improvement is because i think knowing is it 12 inches 18 inches is it what kind of of saving you know what kind of reduction in stages are we going to have there is important in the town pursuing the project as a whole i think um we don't have to do any updated surveying we think we can use what we have right now we don't expect to have too many conflicts with the project because the water main is on the opposite side of the road the sewer is in the middle of the road and we would be running down the south side of cherry which is where the pipe is now and just upsizing and hopefully dropping it some because those inlets are pretty shallow at the intersections too so if we have the opportunity to drop it as a whole not only does the pipe get better but the flow line of that pipe gets lower. We're thinking we can accomplish that as well. We did include a quote for a TV sewer within Basin 10. It's the overall quote that we gave you with our last proposal. We can reduce that to probably about $3,000 instead of the price that's included in there if we just do the stretch where the project would take place. But I wanted you guys to have kind of both in case that was something the town wanted to pursue. It's optional. We can do the design without it. But if it does answer questions that I think while I've been involved with this project have kind of repeatedly come back, should we do it, shouldn't we? The only way you'll ever know is if you actually do it. But we can do the project without having the lines deweyed. because that pipe's gonna come out, new one's gonna go in. Whatever is upstream and downstream of it, wouldn't know without actually TVing it. So updated model, updated plans, bid support, final cost estimating. I did provide a preliminary cost estimate, and this is really just taking the existing lines that we know are out there today, the number of inlets, and interchanging those is what we think they'd need to be upsized, plus any kind of paving work, sidewalk repairs, driveway repairs, sod repairs along the side of the road. And it does come in north of $300,000. So it's preliminary at this point. We're utilizing FDOT cost indices, which is when the Department of Transportation goes to fund a state project, they take their plans, they use cost indices. They're all itemized for about everything you could build in a roadway. and you generate an overall cost based on that. And then those quantities and those items are given to a contractor and they bid that work. So at this stage, I've kind of taken the same approach just without having a final set of design plans and tried to kind of narrow down a number so you guys could have some idea of what that looks like before we proceeded. So we think based on the FDOT cost indices and what the scope of the work would require, you'd be somewhere NORTH OF $300,000, 323 AND CHANGE IS WHAT IT CAME OUT TO BE. AND THAT'S IN ADDITION TO WHAT OUR SCOPE WOULD BE. But we would help coordinate, obviously, with Public Works and the town manager to get those plans bid to a contractor. And then that would be your final cost, obviously. We would hope that because these are DOT indices, you'd come in with a number that's a little bit lower than that. But again, that's just me looking ahead at that and kind of best guess. Without plans, we really don't know.

Questions or?

Feel free, feel free. If it's all, if everyone's, if the commissioners are all comfortable, I think we should just have open discussion and let the rules lie for right now unless things get crazy.

You know, that sounds reasonable to me, yeah. So first, kind of two questions. The first question is you talk about upsizing of that main run there from Rosewood to Oak. So then what about the, there's like seven drain,

Yeah. Points there.

Does that include redoing those seven as well? Yes.

Because to make that connection with an upsized line, you probably would have to... Well, you will. You will have to do that. And I think one thing, if we're going to do that, just change those to ditch bottom inlets. So that way... any issues with the throats of those inlets clogging or anything kind of gets put to the wayside. If you have to replace the box anyways, just make it a ditch bottom in which if just for clarity, what you have out there now is called a curb inlet. It's where you've got just the throat that's in the gutter and it can go in into like the vertical slot, whereas the ditch bottom inlet would be like what you see maybe out in the grass or in a ditch or around a parking lot out here where it's just a flat grate. Reason being, that'll open up the cross-sectional area that it can drain into off the road. And they clog less, they're easier to maintain. So the ones that are out there now, they're kind of dilapidated. They've got some blades in them, which are meant for good reasons to keep solids pollutants out of getting into the river. Um, but they do clog. And so just from a conveyance standpoint, I think it'll flow, flow better. It'll work better. We can set the great, you know, flat to grade at the edge of the road and it'll take in a little bit more runoff.

So those seven items, those ditch bottom, those are in your number here? That's included in the number here?

I included replacing seven inlets and then one manhole. We think the county structure, we can preserve that. I think it's big enough to tie in a larger pipe if we need to.

So where are we tying in then? At the baffle box then?

Yeah, I think we would run it right now. That cost includes running it through the baffle box and upsizing that pipe there because there appears to be, based on our survey, a drop in elevation between one end of the pipe and the other. We need to confirm that. But right now, it looks like all the baffles are below the flow lines of the pipe. It's just really a sediment baffle. It's not like a... It's not like a rack that it flows through and collects trash. It just kind of settles in the bottom. Like when you pull the lids off, you look in there, it's just water that you see. The baffles are down below that. And so when there's not a lot of rain, solids settle into that and then they can clean it out. More modern ones have vortexes that take solids out and do all this stuff. I think it's a pretty good cost to replace that box, so we'd like to avoid that. But I think right now it looks like it's large enough based on the design drawings that we have from the county to accommodate a larger pipe.

All right, so then you were talking about the video inspection stuff too. So, I mean, if you're planning that you were, the core plan is to remove that section of, you described there. Yeah, that is probably little value in doing a video of that if you're just gonna pull that But it seems like downstream of that would be kind of important to know, because that all has to work as designed and the integrity of that is important to make everything upstream still work.

I agree. I would say this is a purely surficial observation of mine, even going back to last week during that event. The fact that it came down in 26 minutes after it was fully ponded across the road and down Cedar and other areas while the rainstorm was going on told me it probably doesn't have any significant blockages. Like I said, that's purely a surficial observation. There's no way I can actually get in the pipe and prove that to you. A significant obstruction would have taken a lot longer to come back down, is my point. But if I was looking at making this improvement and making sure that what was downstream was working, that would be a priority to look at if you're going to TV it, yes.

And that would be the lower number you cited?

The lower number would be really just looking at that section that we had. But I can certainly, I'm imagining that if I went back to the folks that I have do that and just quoted that run from say Oak to the river, like the downstream limb of our improvement, it would come in lower than that probably.

All right.

Thank you for those questions. Any questions?

In the report, you say that there was flows coming off of the Rock Harbor Grace Lutheran site. Was that from the front of Grace Lutheran? Just like everything was just going south?

Yeah, it just it yeah, so. I've got to go back 20 years now, but the original stormwater master plan had delineated all of the town's drainage basins where everything went to summers to their respective boundaries. The cutoff was right there at orange for base and 10. What I saw. On the third was water that was ponding along Oak Street, looked like it could connect up into the church. The church didn't look like it had a whole lot of containment, like it's not like there was a berm and you could see the church flooding and then there was water outside. It was all kind of along the side of Oak. Now some of that could be just purely coming, what's draining off of Oak Street. But it just kind of it was an observation of mine Okay, that's that boundary is supposed to be kind of a hard boundary here, but I'm sure during more significant events There's some commingling a runoff there

So there really isn't anything that will stop that water that's north going south?

You could construct a berm, but again, you'd have to take a little bit of a more critical look at the church to make sure you're not going to cause any other issues. That's really what I would say. It doesn't seem like it's something that happens all the time, but during that more significant event, it looked like it was making its way to that corner with orange.

Okay, thank you.

This picture that you gave us, this is Oak Street, right?

That's Orange at Oak, yeah.

That is Orange at Oak?

That's one of the underground exfils.

And that dissipated within the 26 minutes? That did not.

That was at the end of it. So what happens is those for most your half-inch events are probably going to catch it and perk it pretty quick. During a bigger event, those are going to fill up, and then it's going to come down Orange Street and into that. And into Basin 10.

This is where we were discussing possibility of a swale being made, right?

Correct.

Yeah, I think there was, and that was one of the things that I mentioned earlier is that I think I'd heard some discussions in talking to Tom and Marie that there were some maybe further conversations that you guys might want to have about that. Last meeting we talked about it, the context of the swales that I was responding back to was if it was going to help anything maybe there at the frontage of Harbor East if we were to construct them there. And I really didn't see the benefit in that because that's kind of downstream of the problem. But certainly if you wanted to capture anything along Oak Street, and just keep it out of Basin 10 or give it a place to have some storage. So during those more significant rain events, you've got a little bit more storage. That's certainly something that the Public Works Department could go cut in. That's not necessarily, you know, something that I really have to think about hard with the design. If you add swales, you add storage. The one thing you wouldn't want to do is make them so deep that you invite the river closer to Basin 10. But carving out shallow swales on Oak Street or doing some improvements there certainly would add some more storage.

So if you put a bigger pipe, you said a 42, we have a 36-inch pipe going into the river, correct?

You have a 42 going into the river right now. It's a 42 equivalent. It's a pipe that looks like this. It's squashed. Not because it's broken. It's shaped that way.

So we're not replacing that with a 42. It's just going to have another 42 connected to it?

It's just that we would bring that 42 further into Basin 10 because if you're sitting on Cherry driving towards Oak Street and you were to take a left, that's what the storm sewer does. It hooks a left there. It drops. In our model, we see a drop in the peak elevations of the flooding. as you take that corner and they're all below grade that's another observation from the third there was nothing backing up downstream of this area it was not like anything was coming out of the manholes now it's a higher elevation it's a couple feet higher than the low spots at Cedar and Cherry. But, you know, if I would have seen water bubbling up out of the manhole in Oak Street or in Harbor, you know, I drove around even Harbor East to just kind of see how they're doing. They were faring a little bit better. It tells me that it's bottlenecked right there along Cherry. The observations line up with the modeling is basically what I'm saying. That's why I say it was a benefit to actually kind of see that in action without anybody's property getting damaged.

So do we run the risk of having the river being pushed up into the pipes that will flood that subdivision with any of this?

The pipes are already connected to the river, right? The downstream limb of Basin 10 is already connected all the way up to the river. So if the river comes up, if we have storm surge, something to that effect, it does have a hydraulic connection to that. And there's no way to get water out without having one, right? But if you were to say, let's... dig swales out along Oak Street to try and, if it floods in Basin 10, we'll store some water there. My worry is that if you start doing that downstream of everything, all you're doing is kind of inviting the, what we call the tailwater, the river closer to the problem. I would rather get the water out faster.

Thank you. And what is that pole that's in this picture, that red and white pole, what is that?

Can I approach?

Mr. Baggett, would you be happy to take some questions from the audience?

Sure.

Why don't you come and have a seat by the microphone. I see a lot of people have showed up for this meeting. Are there people from the town who have any comments they'd like to make?

Before we start, can I just ask a real quick question? So I just want to understand that the $49,760 that you gave us earlier, that's a separate cost to the $323,000?

Yes, the $323,000 would be a construction estimate. Only? Yeah, and then the $49,000 that you mentioned there would be the consulting engineering and bid support. All right, thank you.

I can pick it 15 one. I do have a couple of questions about your proposal for cost. You're talking about enlarging pipes so you've got 42 inch diameter for 47 pipes, but you have 163. 24 inch diameter pipe so we're going down in size now 20 grand and also wondering about the on this is traffic. I would think the town. Mean that's a lot of money $12,000 for traffic control. I would think the fire department's ham could maybe Do something to offset that cost as well? I?

Yeah, I can answer both of those. So the 24-inch pipe that you see there isn't what I would call the trunk line that runs down Cherry. It would be replacing the necessary pipes of the inlets that connect to that trunk line at the intersections. So to make sure that those are adequately sized. There's 18s there. I think if we're replacing the inlets to make this improvement anyways, then it's a IT WOULD JUST HELP THE INTERSECTION DRAIN BETTER TO THAT LARGER PIPE. SO WE DID INCLUDE THAT. LIKE I SAID, WE ARE NOT AT A FINAL DESIGN LEVEL YET ON THESE PLANS. SO I AM PURELY LOOKING AT IT PRELIMINARILY. AND THAT'S ALSO A CONSTRUCTION ESTIMATE. SO THAT'S MONEY NOT BEING SPENT NOW TO DESIGN IT. THAT'S PURELY JUST LOOKING AT BUDGET. IF THERE'S WAYS THAT THAT NUMBER CAN COME DOWN ONCE WE GET INTO FINAL DESIGN, WE'RE ABSOLUTELY HERE TO LOOK AT THAT. TO ANSWER YOUR OTHER QUESTION, I'M SORRY, THERE WAS A SECOND HALF THERE.

TRAFFIC MAINTENANCE.

OH, MAINTENANCE AND TRAFFIC, YEAH. OBVIOUSLY IF THAT'S SOMETHING THAT THE TOWN CAN DO WITH PUBLIC WORKS AND THEIR RESOURCES, THAT'S MONEY THEY WOULD NOT HAVE TO SPEND.

AND THEN MY LAST QUESTION ABOUT THE CONTINGENCY FEE, THAT'S AN OVERRUN FOR YOU OR WHAT IS THAT FOR?

JUST CONTINGENCY. IT'S JUST TO INCLUDE CONTINGENCY PLUS MINUS. USUALLY WHEN WE'RE DOING ENGINEER'S ESTIMATES OF PROBABLE COST, WE'RE IN A POSITION LIKE I AM RIGHT NOW WHERE WE'RE TRYING TO GIVE SOME FEEDBACK BEFORE WE TAKE THE PROJECT TO A HIGHER LEVEL OF DETAIL AND TRYING TO GET MORE SPECIFIC ON COSTS. SO WE JUST INCLUDE A CONTINGENCY. THAT DOESN'T GO TO ME. OKAY. THAT'S JUST MAYBE A CONTRACTOR'S CONTINGENCY AND 15% IS USUALLY WHAT WE TRY TO INCLUDE.

I SEE. OKAY. THANK YOU.

THANK YOU. Anyone else with any comments?

Eric Sander, 1910 Cedar. I was wondering on, and I know this is really early in the process because it's just the design of the actual work. What's a realistic timeline if work was to actually begin? How long or like an estimate of how long that project would take to complete?

I WOULD SAY YOU PROBABLY, I DON'T WANT TO OVER SPEAK HERE. I DON'T WANT TO GIVE A TOO AGGRESSIVE ONE. IT'S PROBABLY A COUPLE MONTHS, REALISTICALLY, WHERE YOU'D HAVE THE SIDEWALK SHUT DOWN, YOU'LL HAVE SOME, YOU KNOW, THE PIPES GOT TO GO IN. THE LONGEST TIME THAT IT TAKES IS AS THEY'RE LAYING THOSE PIPES IN THE GROUND, THEY HAVE TO HAVE SOMEONE COME OUT AND DO DENSITIES TO MAKE SURE EVERYTHING IS COMPACTED. We don't just put something in soft mushy dirt and it falls into the ground. So they have to take it a stick at a time. And another thing that I mentioned that's worth mentioning is I put in RCP pipe in that estimate. We could explore using what's called HP storm pipe, which is a 20 foot stick, much lighter pipe. It expedites construction timeframe, can be cheaper in a lot of cases, less user error. But I figured coming in, coming in at this level, we would kind of use RCP. But if we use an HP storm, for instance, that's a 20 foot stick of pipe that shows up on a truck. They cut the band, it rolls off and they can lay that a lot quicker. So it can expedite that. But I would say you probably see some disturbance out there for a couple of months.

And I know we were talking about Orange earlier. You also noticed that on Orange and Oak, that north of Orange, right on the Rock Harbor and that area, that That was not a swale. Recently, a swale was dug on North Orange side all the way down. Previously, that used to drain because there was not a swale. It drained down Orange into Rosewood. I'm wondering from your perspective, obviously you can see it cresting over the road and going down Cedar. Is there any significance to that amount of water contributing to volume? I know it's mainly just a ton of rain, but that basically drained down Orange into Rosewood before the swales and now it's crusting over and coming down Cedar.

One of the things that is mentioned in our report and in my last presentation was that you have really long flow paths in Basin 10. So you have everything from A1A coming down all the east-west streets and then hitting Rosewood really and then confluencing there. So I think in context of the overall amount of water that's draining in Basin 10, it's probably a smaller fraction of what you're asking about. Certainly you make a good point though when we I always say we don't do improvements to make others ones worse so construction of swales things like that you would be careful to not divert water to places that it didn't go I don't have all the history on that that corner but usually those are the things that you try to be careful with but to just really directly answer your question I think it's a marginal part of what's going on there I think some of it from Orange

More like a nuisance, not necessarily contributing.

Yeah, I mean, because I saw it ponding at the upstream inlets first, and then you see the impact further downstream. That makes sense. It's a longer flow path to get to Cedar and Cherry. So by the time that that water is getting passed down, you know, things were letting up on the upstream end. And then I think when you had seen me driving out there, that was when things were starting to come downstream, right? Right. Most of that appeared from was the majority of the upstream basin. That corner is just an observation. Could there be some improvements there to maybe keep it to Oak Street? I'm sure there's some great improvements that could be done.

And then final question. I know we're focusing on Rosewood to Oak. Basically enlarging that pipe fixes the issue from a model perspective, like fairly well or fantastic. You also mentioned the run from Oak to the canal. If there was not a house there and that lot was open, would that be part of your proposal to address? And like, would that be a normal part of your proposal? I do know that lot from my understanding, that lot is too small to build a house. And I think there were maybe special approvals or some voting for a house actually to get built on that lot. Now there is, but I'm wondering in a perfect world, would you, would that be a part of it that you'd want to fix it? Or we think it's sufficient enough where I know we're not talking about it because of cost, but in a perfect world, we include that, or we think just Rosewood to Oak is, would be appropriate to be okay.

The 42? Yes. That runs from Oak through Harbor East out to the river, you're saying, and where it runs through the two lots?

Yes. I know that's not a focus because of cost.

If that was a clear slate of land, would I be here recommending that that gets upsized too? Yes. That's an easy thing to answer. and I want to be careful how I do it, but if you could upsize something all the way to the downstream, of course you could. You could put a larger pipe in any place that it could fit, but if you're physically constrained, you really have to look at your constraints. So that's why when I see that as it takes that corner from cherry to oak, that there's the drop there, at a certain point once you start upsizing everything downstream that drop becomes kind of a wash i would say um i need to i would i would need to play with it more but i i think in when we were making our recommendations and i was looking at different things that we could do because of the constraints and because of where we actually see the improvement made um it wasn't something that we were really pushing as a recommendation but you are extremely confident if you upsize that pipe and i know you're changing some of the grates that it would BE A SIGNIFICANT IT'S JUST COMMON LIKE IT'S LIKE ME SAYING WHAT IF I MADE THIS PIPE A 120 FOOT WIDE SPILLWAY OF COURSE IT WOULD YOU KNOW LIKE THAT'S BUT BUT THAT WE LOOK AT IT AT A DEEPER LEVEL OF THAT COST RIGHT MEANS OF CONSTRUCTION DIFFICULTY TO EXISTING PROPERTIES BUT FROM ROSEWOOD TO OAK LIKE UPSIZING THAT PIPE WOULD BE AN ENORMOUS OR SIGNIFICANT CONFIDENCE OF LIKE THERE'S GOING TO BE A MAJOR IMPROVEMENT IN WENT ALL THE WAY TO THE RIVER NOT TO THE RIVER JUST ROSEWOOD TO OAK LIKE IF YOU UPSIZE JUST ROSEWOOD OAK YOU HAVE SIGNIFICANT PART OF OUR PROPOSAL YOU HAVE SIGNIFICANT CONFIDENCE THAT IT'LL BE A MAJOR IMPROVEMENT THAT'S WHERE WE SEE THAT'S WHERE WE SEE THE BIGGEST DROP IN THE MODEL AND SO THAT'S WHY OUR PROPOSAL INCLUDES UPDATING THE MODEL TO SHOW THAT BECAUSE WHAT I WOULD WANT TO MAKE SURE OF HERE IN ALL FAIRNESS IS THAT we demonstrate what that difference is projected to be, so that can be a calculated decision whether this project gets built. Because to me, for instance, I'm trying to think, if you were gonna make an improvement in your house, right, and you were gonna spend $100,000 and then all it did was increase your sale value in your house by $3,000. WAS THAT REALLY A WORTHWHILE IMPROVEMENT THAT YOU NEEDED TO DO? THAT'S WHERE I THINK SOME OF THOSE, THAT'S DECISIONS BEYOND ME, BUT KNOWING WHAT THAT LEVEL OF IMPROVEMENT IS, LIKE, IF IT'S ONE INCH, IS THAT GOING TO BE A PROJECT THAT THE TOWN IS GOING TO WANT TO SPEND THAT LEVEL OF MONEY?

YOU'RE ULTIMATELY FOCUSED ON THE IMPROVEMENT THAT'S GOING TO HAVE THE BIGGEST VALUE.

I WANT TO BE ABLE TO DEMONSTRATE IT, AND THEN BEFORE IT GETS BID AS A CONSTRUCTION PROJECT THAT COSTS SIGNIFICANTLY MORE THAN WHAT IT TAKES TO DEMONSTRATE IT. THANK YOU.

Mr. Baggett, you brought up two different types of pipe, RCP pipe, and what was the other one?

HP Storm. HB Storm? ADS HP Storm. It is an approved pipe by the Department of Transportation, and you'll see a lot of projects going with it these days, public transportation projects.

To follow up on the last public comment there, and you're talking about wanting to do a remodel, update your model with that 42-inch run in there. So is that work to do that updating of your model, is that one of the options that was in here?

Yes, it's included. It's one of the items in there. It's one of the options is another that I would I could I would take advantage of that task as well to look at what I observed on the third, which is maybe some of the cascading because we can build some additional connections into the model, too. And that way we're taking, you know, as we learn and this gets specific, it helps.

So it sounds like you're recommending that you WE WOULD DO THAT UPDATED MODELING BEFORE GOING MUCH FURTHER WITH THE WORKING.

THAT CERTAINLY COULD BE DONE. WE COULD DO THAT WITHOUT EVEN MOVING FORWARD WITH FULL CONSTRUCTION PLANS.

IT SOUNDS LIKE WHAT I'M HEARING YOU SAYING IS THAT YOU'RE make that modeling change based on if the results are still bearing out what you're thinking, then that would be kind of like the green light for doing that.

Yeah, I know it's time sensitive, so I tried to give you guys as many tasks as we could in one proposal. But if the town's choice was to be careful and take bites out of it, we certainly could do the modeling, demonstrate what that difference would be, and then have more conversation about that.

ALRIGHT. SO THEN ALSO ON THE EXFIL DRAINS AT THE END OF ORANGE AND AT OAK THERE, MY SENSE IS THOSE ARE COMPLETELY FILLED AND THERE'S REALLY NOT ANY CAPACITY IN THEM. IS THAT A WORTHWHILE EFFORT TO RESTORE THAT CAPABILITY?

I don't think, I don't have anything telling me that they are failing, but that they do reach a capacity at a certain point. All underground drainage does, theoretically. So an intense event like that, it probably just filled up to its capacity. You gotta think it's a sand filter is what it's trying to do. It's dead end and it's just going into the ground. So at a certain point when it gets saturated enough.

So as a vertical pipe going down, Clear pipe, vertical pipe, clear.

Yeah, correct me if I'm wrong, Todd. It's like a French drain underneath there, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No trees, no animals, no bricks.

I don't think it's, I think it's, if they were absent there, it would be worse. Could you?

So you bring up a question to me that I've been thinking about, because we did get a lot of complaints during that flooding. You know, people were very nervous about their homes and seeing all this water. Do you have like a definition? Maybe, Ms. Smith, you might be able to answer this as well. Is there a definition of what flooding is? I mean, when do we really start to worry? If the water's dissipating it at 25, 28 minutes, then our infrastructure's working. When do we start to worry? If we've got standing water longer than four hours, or is there a cutoff before you really get nervous?

Yeah, and that's why in our well you yeah, you're hitting on and that's why in our in our report We tried to touch on all of it. What's the what's the peak elevation? What time during the event does that peak elevation happen? How long does it take to come back down to where it's not flooding anymore? So that way you had enough in order of magnitude of if it's three inches It's only an hour if it's 13 inches. It might be eight hours, you know before it comes down. Okay, and And so that's in our model and we do that as a calibration of exactly what you just asked. My professional opinion on that is I don't use the word, there's not really a flat standard for what we would call flooding. Flooding by definition is ponding on the surface of the earth. It can last for 30 minutes or it can last for 10 days. IT COULD BE 100 FEET ABOVE GROUND OR 6 INCHES ABOVE GROUND. THERE'S SUBJECTIVITY TO THAT, I WOULD SAY. I LIKE TO USE THE WORD LEVEL OF SERVICE. WHAT IS THE SYSTEM'S LEVEL OF SERVICE? THERE ARE SOME MUNICIPALITIES, SOME AGENCIES THAT HAVE HIGHER LEVELS OF SERVICE REQUIREMENTS. FOR INSTANCE, IF YOU'RE IN SOUTH FLORIDA, MINIMUM PAVEMENT ELEVATIONS HAVE TO BE SET ABOVE THE 10-YEAR STORM. So you model a 10-year storm for your system, and your lowest pavement elevation can't be lower than the peak stage of that. You can have a 25-year storm and have some flooding, but the houses better be above the 25-year. And then the houses better also be above the 100-year storm. So like I said, I just use that as an example. There are some agencies that have very specific requirements. When you are a municipality where you may not have those set in, stone for what your design standards are or you have old infrastructure that you're looking at you're really looking at what can you do to improve the level of service and the level of service is a combination of what does it do during the storm what does it do after so it's it's it's both if i could almost answer it when you said it appears to be working because it's coming down in 26 minutes it's doing that part right Yeah. But if you want to increase the level of service during a storm event, you have to start looking at improving or upsizing the infrastructure or finding new ways for the water to get out. I know that's a complex answer, but it's a complex thing to answer.

Always.

Yeah, they won't. I KNOW YEAH I KNOW THAT WAS WAS A REALLY LONG-WINDED ANSWER BUT AS SOON AS I WAS IF AS SOON AS I SAID SIX INCHES YOU KNOW THEN THAT THAT THAT'S A THAT'S SOMETHING ON A RECORD OR SOMETHING YOU KNOW SO I WE REALLY DO HAVE TO BE CAREFUL CERTAINLY I THINK THE ONE THAT MOST WILL AGREE TO IS THAT YOU WANT TO HAVE HOMES THAT ARE ABOVE 100 YEAR STORM RIGHT That's kind of going back to FEMA. Older homes predating certain regulations, I mean, grandfathering, it can get as complex as you want to make it. But in general, that's why I always like to stick to the term level of service. If you want to make an improvement, what you're doing is making an improvement to the level of service of the existing system. Flooding is not unavoidable in all circumstances, or is not avoidable in all circumstances, I should say.

Eric Sander, 1910 Cedar. I just want to give a resident's perspective to what you just mentioned. David was there and witnessed it. While it does recede, and that's three inches of rain an hour, we've had worse in the past several years. It's gotten worse. It's not normal to be able to kayak down an entire street from Cherry to Orange. Not normal. It's frightening, and I'm sure other residents that they want to share, it's frightening when the event that just happened, water came multiple feet over the sidewalk. We were just another 15 inches of rain of a short burst from water hitting houses. It's absolutely terrifying and frightening watching just water and all you can do is pray, please don't rain anymore. So I want to make it clear while it's doing its job, we hope upsizing that pipe is going to flush that volume out faster, which will prevent that problem. But it's absolutely terrifying as a resident standing there in the middle of the street knowing you can't do a single thing. And water is coming up and coming up, nothing you can do about it. And again, I just would say it's not normal to be able to paddleboard down a street. Yes, it's doing its job and eventually water is getting out of there, but we need water out of there faster. And there's multiple residents in that area here today. And every single time, I can't express enough how frightening and terrifying it is where you're powerless. You can't do a single thing. And you just hope that it just stops raining. I just want to be clear on that front. I mean, you could put yourself as a resident. And that's a mild picture of what just occurred. We've had worse over the years. put yourself in the shoes of a resident living on that street i don't think any type of water when it's hitting the sidewalk is you know a problem i think i think you may all agree at that case just you know putting yourselves in our shoes it's it's a horrifying terrifying situation to be a part of if i may a number of years ago i met sunset and pine and a

A number of years ago, I've been there over 20 years, over 25 years. I had flooding at Sunset and Pine that was so bad that when people drove down the street and made waves, it was practically in my garage. And so what I did as a joke is I put out signs that said no wake zone. But honestly, I was trying to get sandbags and everything else because the water was literally right at my garage door.

In the last couple events, actually, I saw David out there. I was out there. The last few events, I have stood outside stopping. Luckily, we haven't had a car that flood. If a car drove through it, it would flood. We've had trucks be able to drive through it because they're lifted high enough. I've had to stop them because I've been in my garage while water is hitting my garage. A truck drive through in wake hitting the back of my garage.

Yeah.

And while I'm in the garage and I have to run outside, neighbors can attest they heard me yelling at trucks not to drive through the street.

Yeah.

And again, it's absolutely terrifying to just witness that and be powerless in where we're not doing it. So again, I appreciate listening to this and hearing this. We're taking positive steps to address the problem. So I just thank you for listening to this and having some positive traction to have a solution.

I'll respond to the wave action, at least statement there, just for clarity, I guess. That's kind of an intangible of what we do, right? But it does go back to the level of service, right? It's a real thing that people experience, and you see people in Florida love to drive through flooded streets, but... IT'S NOT SOMETHING I CAN REFLECT IN A MODEL OR SOMETHING I CAN REFLECT IN A DESIGN OR A SET OF CONSTRUCTION PLANS. IT IS SOMETHING THAT YOU CAN OBSERVE, THOUGH, WHEN THOSE THINGS HAPPEN. AND AGAIN, LIKE I SAID, AN IMPROVEMENT TO A LEVEL OF SERVICE THEN REDUCES THE LIKELIHOOD OF THOSE KIND OF THINGS HAPPENING. SO THAT WOULD BE MY POINT ON THAT.

YES, SIR.

HELLO, CHRIS KIM, 1906 CEDAR LANE. I THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO SAY EVERYTHING I SAID THE LAST MEETING. based on your comment, Dr. Cronin. I would say the definition of flooding is when in the past four years it's been one inch into my front door, okay, the last four times. That is the definition of flooding. My garage, three quarters of my garage is flooded every time it happens. Okay, I'm willing to bet that there weren't any other streets during this event a few days ago where the Waste Pro trash carts were floating down the street. Okay, and this was a minor event. This went over the sidewalks. If that's all it did each time, went over the sidewalks, I'd be fine with that. You just have to move your cars out of the street is all. Okay, and Eric mentioned about wave action. There comes a point when anything but a very large pickup cannot even traverse the road there. In fact, a few years ago, I don't know if you have the pictures anymore, but I'm willing to send them. There was a car that was completely totaled sitting out on cherry that had flooded up to the dashboard and it had to be towed off and it was a total loss. Okay. So that was a car that tried, I know there's some larger trucks that can probably make it, but I mean, this is a significant problem. And like Eric said, it is a helpless feeling. Just sit there and watch the water come up and you put your measly little sandbags in front of your door in front of your garage That slows it down for maybe 15 20 minutes And then it just starts coming through the where the sandbag is on my garage door that we have pictures that I hope you guys Have if not, we're willing to send them all there are scum lines my house in particular you know where the mulch and everything leaves a line, okay and It's a good 10 to 12 inches up the side of the house, completely around, 360, all four sides of my house have a scum line around them when the water recedes. And the last point I'm gonna make is yes, The system is working, it's just not working appropriately for what we're getting. Because yes, when the water is up all the way to the houses, I would say within four hours, it's receded. And yesterday, or not yesterday, a few days ago, you said what, 26 minutes?

26 minutes is about what I timed it.

Okay, yeah, but that's because it was only to the sidewalks. Think of how many more millions of gallons of water are sitting there in that,

YOU KNOW, I'M NOT MINIMIZING THAT YOU'RE SUFFERING OR WHAT YOU'RE GOING THROUGH. YOU KNOW, I'VE HAD MY HOUSE FLOOD WHEN FAY HIT MY MY LIVING ROOM FLOODED AND THE GROUNDWATER ALL CAME UP AND IT WAS IT WAS TERRIBLE. IT'S TERRIBLE. AND IT'S WHERE WE LIVE AND THESE THINGS HAPPEN. MR. BAGGETT SAID THAT THIS WAS A TEN YEAR STORM. BUT IT SEEMS LIKE WE HAVE THESE STORMS A LOT MORE FREQUENTLY THAN EVERY TEN YEARS.

WELL, WE LEAN ON HOW THEY'RE CLASSIFIED IN THE AGENCIES THAT PRODUCE THE DATA IS ALL.

YEAH. YEAH.

All right, well, guess what? We were here through Fay as well, and we survived. So that shows you that something has happened between then and now to this infrastructure. And I told you, okay, I've been in Melbourne Beach for 35 years. I've owned that particular house since 1999. Okay, we have never seen issues like that until, I know I said this the last time I was here, but until about the past 10 years. And I believe that coincides with that last construction that was done to replace that steel corrugated failing pipe, which was much larger, possibly collapsing, but much larger than the one they replaced it with. And I have seen, you know, we have all seen problems from that point on. So I suspect that is at least a significant part of the problem. and it might just be, like you said, aging components to the other pipes as well. I don't know, but this is not something that can be waited on anymore. Like you said, this was one storm, three inches of rain. Okay, we get that all the time. If that is something that's gonna flood over the sidewalks, you can only imagine what a storm with five or six inches of rain will bring. and and also to your point and to your point of does the system work if it rained throughout the day a moderate rain that system would not be overwhelmed okay it just it would work it's when we get the sudden downpours or the extreme volume of rain that's when it doesn't work and so It's not rocket, I know you're an engineer and I respect what you do, but think about it, from a layman's term, it's not rocket science. You make the pipe bigger, the water's gonna flow faster and not be overwhelmed, okay? I mean, think of the analogy, we all have pop-up drains in our sinks, right? You pull the little lever, the drain comes up and down. If you pull that lever, let's say halfway, and you turn your water on full blast, okay, for a typical one, let's say, It's going to overwhelm that drain. Your sink is going to rise and rise and rise. You push the drain down, it flows back out, right? So I'm looking at this system as basically inadequate because it's like the pop-up drain that's, you know, a third closed. And when we get the volumes of rain, it won't handle the capacity. And so you enlarge it, and no longer is it overwhelmed. So that's...

So I think that's what Mr. Baggett was recommending. It definitely is.

I'm just reiterating a very simple term that I think we can all understand. I mean, it's really that simple. So I heard the cost prediction, and I think that's a deal. I mean, considering what we're all going through There's at least 12 houses that are affected by this on that street. I mean, that cost is not even half the price of one of those pieces of real estate. So I think that's something that we definitely should move forward on and quickly because this is dire. The next big storm, we're not going to be so lucky because it's continually getting worse. So something is happening where the system is not performing like it used to. Because like I said, I've been here for a lot of years. We never had this issue up until about 10 years ago is when it started. And in the last five years, we've had flooding, significant flooding, like up to our doors at least once a year, sometimes twice a year in the past five years. And if you haven't seen the pictures or if you misplaced them, we'll be happy to send them again. I think Eric even has video. where it's just a lake from one door to the next. In other words, from mine all the way across the street, My neighbor, by the way, and I'll wrap it up. I'm kind of rambling here. My neighbor has grew up in that house. That house was built in the 50s. She grew up in that house. She now lives in that house because her mother's passed away. So she essentially has been here in that house on Cedar Lane since the late 50s. And she has never seen a problem until, like I said, the last 10 years or so.

Thank you so much. Thank you for your impassioned plea. We appreciate it.

All right. Thank you.

And I want to say, too, that there's a there's certain as a design professional, it's of absolute, I think, responsibility for us to not make promises that are too big. RIGHT LIKE WE'LL NEVER SEE WATER OUT THERE AGAIN IF WE DO THIS THAT'S THAT'S NOT WHAT'S BEING CONVEYED HERE TONIGHT AT LEAST NOT FOR MY SIDE I WOULD SAY BUT THAT'S WHY A PART OF THIS IS HAVING A MECHANISM TO GAUGE WHAT THOSE IMPROVEMENTS COULD BE BEFORE YOU MAKE THEM AND SO THAT THAT'S THAT'S PART OF WHY OUR PROPOSAL IS STRUCTURED THE WAY THEY ARE BECAUSE I WANT TO MAKE SURE THAT IF YOU KNOW WE MOVE FORWARD ON ANYTHING THAT THAT'S NOT CONVEYED TO THE PUBLIC HERE AT ALL TONIGHT THAT THIS IS GOING TO ABSOLUTELY MAKE THAT PROBLEM GO AWAY FOR ALL LEVELS, ALL MAGNITUDES OF STORM EVENT. THAT'S JUST PHYSICALLY NOT POSSIBLE IN THE DRAINAGE WORLD. BUT LIKE I SAID, I GO BACK TO THAT TERM LEVEL OF SERVICE. WHAT CAN WE DO TO IMPROVE THAT? WHAT CAN WE DO TO LET IT HANDLE A HIGHER MAGNITUDE OF STORM? AT A CERTAIN LEVEL, THERE'S ONLY CERTAIN SEPARATION AWAY FROM THE RIVER, YOU KNOW, VERTICALLY. HOMES ARE ALREADY ON PADS. WE WOULD LOVE TO RAISE THEM A COUPLE FEET. LOVE TO RAISE THE ROADS A COUPLE FEET. BUT WE'RE REALLY WORKING WITHIN THE CONTEXT THAT WE HAVE WITHOUT TOTALLY, YOU KNOW, ABANDONED AN ENTIRE NEIGHBORHOOD. SO THOSE ARE THE CHALLENGES THAT WE FACE WHEN WE'RE LOOKING AT THE DESIGN ON THESE IS WHAT CAN WE DO WITH THE INFRASTRUCTURE THAT WE HAVE, MAKE THE IMPROVEMENTS WHERE THEY'RE MOST IMPACTFUL, BUT ALSO JUST TO MANAGE THE EXPECTATIONS, THAT'S WHY OUR SCOPE INCLUDES SOME MODELING SO THERE'S A GAUGE OF WHAT THAT IMPROVEMENT MAY BE.

ALONG THOSE LINES, MAY I? That day I happened to be going on a trip with a bunch of friends and we were picking people up that morning in from Melbourne Beach to India Atlantic to Indian Harbor to satellite to tropical trail and So I got, and it was, well, we were supposed to leave a little earlier, but I was like, that's a little crazy out there. So anyway, along exactly what you're saying is the promises, I don't know the history or the current situations in any of those towns, as far as their infrastructure. And believe me, I want what's right for the residents here. I'm curious because one of the girls in the car said, oh my gosh, if we were driving my car, we couldn't pass the road in all of those places, every single one of them. So as we drove, it was scary to your point. I can't imagine it being that close to my house. So what's going on in those municipalities? have they done, what haven't they done? I'm just curious because here they are really suffering the same issue and I didn't stick around to know if they dissipated in 26 minutes that time or not. Right. Right, so I don't know the answer to that but certainly it was happening simultaneously to them and are we, much much worse are we the same did they have they done changes that we haven't done I'm just these are all kind of hypothetical uneducated questions but but valid because I witnessed it with my own eyes it was it was pretty amazing yeah no it it certainly that the drive in and drive around after that I had it was you know gave me some insight that it wasn't just a

ISOLATED AND THERE WAS OTHER AREAS THAT EXPERIENCED SIMILAR. PONDING, FLOODING, WHICHEVER TERM YOU WANT TO ASSIGN DO IT ONTO THE ROAD AND IN FRONT OF HOUSES AND I KNOW THAT THEY'RE BLOWING HUGE PUDDLES UP AND DOWN RIVERSIDE WHEN I WAS COMING IN AND I DON'T KNOW, I CAN'T SAY SPECIFICALLY WITHOUT KNOWING MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THOSE SYSTEMS. IF YOU GUYS HAVEN'T CAUGHT ON, I'M A PRETTY CAREFUL ENGINEER. I DON'T LIKE TO OPINE TOO MUCH ON THAT, BUT WHEN YOU SEE IT IN AREAS THAT HAVE SIMILAR LANDSCAPES, I MEAN, YOU WERE ALONG BEACH SIDE, RIGHT? SIMILAR LANDSCAPE, SIMILAR ELEVATION, SIMILAR LOCATION BETWEEN THE RIVER AND THE OCEAN. YOU CAN KIND OF DRAW SOME CONCLUSIONS. SIMILAR SOILS, SIMILAR RESIDENTIAL TYPE NEIGHBORHOOD. THEY'RE GOING TO HAVE SIMILAR RUNOFF CHARACTERISTICS. where you see the ponding just means it exceeded that particular level of service in that instance. And tracking the amount of rain and then having a model like we've built for the town gives you some calibration of that. Okay, I went back and looked at what did three to three and a half inches and an hour because we did run one hour storms. What did that stage up to? It's pretty comparable results that we got. So that that gives that's where I'm able to look, give you specific recommendations, specific instances. What happened in other municipalities? It just gives you an idea of, yeah, we got a lot of rain that day and probably these systems that you don't see flooding every day got reached capacity pretty quick when it was happening over in Melbourne. But I could just as easily look at the the stock drains they had and go, that would probably be draining a little bit better if those weren't in there. It happens on my construction sites all the time. We wrap the inlets in fabric, and it slows the drainage down. People say, the site's flooding.

I'm like, just pull the fabric out.

And in those instances, it's pretty easy to point to. But drainage is dynamic. It's why we like to build models. It's why we like to get a survey done. It's why we like to be as accurate as we can be.

Mr. Baggett, it seems like you're almost like a physician getting ready to perform surgery. You're underselling what you're doing and hoping to outperform it.

uh what if we what if we did this modeling what could we find in the modeling that what we're planning wouldn't be helpful is that a possibility i think i don't think there's any way that it doesn't show that it wouldn't be helpful because it's just upsizing the existing capacity that you have but it does give you a means of like if we came back and said for 324 000 it's going to drop at a half an inch during an event like we had in the third that's something to think about i think UM SO THAT'S WHY WE REALLY WANT TO LOOK AT THE DESIGN INCORPORATED INTO THE MODEL AND KNOW THAT THAT AND AT LEAST HAVE SOME CONFIDENCE THAT IMPROVEMENT IS GOING TO CONTRIBUTE TO AN IMPROVEMENT I DO HAVE ONE QUICK QUESTION AGAIN JAN PICKETT 1501 OAK I'M SURE IT MUST BE HORRIFIED FOR THE RESIDENTS AND

correct me if I'm wrong, but as the water runs downhill to the river. If the river's high, then at some point, because those culverts sometimes are under the water, so is there a way in your design to mitigate that issue at the river side itself? Is there a way to bring it up and over or to come above the water, the level of the river, or no?

So we can't control the river. It's what we call our tailwater condition in our model in that It can be dynamic if you have storm surge, wind-driven rains, things like that. It can change the elevation of the river. But for the most part, the tidal datums, which is where the water normally hangs out between low tide, high tide, what we call mean high tide, Those are pretty reliable. And so that's been incorporated into the model. Obviously, if we had a significant hurricane event and it had a storm surge of an elevation of six, well, an elevation of six is higher than the drainage inlets at Cedar and Cherry. So just a storm surge with no rain, just if enough of the ocean came into the river to raise it that high, it would cause a hydraulic backup. There's nothing a huge size pipe could do for that. There's nothing bigger inlets could do for that. That's a hydraulic grade line that's established by the river. So we're always kind of fighting that. The upsizing and the improvements of any infrastructure in the drainage basin is really to get the runoff off the road to there. if you're trying to raise things above a certain level because of the river, you're really looking at physically raising property, raising roads, raising all that, which is at this point not really a feasible option. Creating a separation from the two. You could look at things like flap gates that don't let water back in and only discharge them in one way. But at the same time, those to me have always just introduced... uh hydraulic inefficiencies to a system that wants to drain out you really only use those in extreme situations where it's not even really tidal it's more when you've got upstream flooding areas that you want to keep out and send another direction so but but maybe i'm getting in at the heart of your questions that are there things you can do to kind of get up and over i think is the term that you used our model gives some indication of what storm events cause certain levels of flooding. And so if there's some anticipation that there's a storm event coming, oh, we're slated to get six inches of rain. We might want to have a pump on hand. You could certainly pump out into the river and do it by that means. But when we're talking about gravity flowing through the system, we're already hitting the river as you get to the downstream limbs of the system. So we're just, gravity's doing the work there. you would have to physically pump out to do anything else in addition to that when it floods.

Sure. Did I answer any of your questions? Yeah, you did. Well, sort of. And then another question is dilution, I guess would be the right word. And as opposed to going straight to the river, is there a way to siphon it off in other direction to dilute, I guess, that area for the runoff to the river? So it's going through multiple outlets to the river as opposed to straight down.

THE PREFERRED PATH OF DOING THAT WOULD NOT BE SENDING IT TO MAKE IT SOMEBODY ELSE'S PROBLEM. WE WOULD NOT WANT TO SEND IT TO ANOTHER BASIN IN THE TOWN OR TO THE PARK OR TO THE SCHOOL OR ANYTHING LIKE THAT. WE'RE ACTUALLY REALLY NOT ALLOWED TO DO THAT. IN TERMS OF LIKE SAY I'M GETTING A PERMIT TO DO WORK, I CAN'T SAY, OH, I JUST WANT TO DUMP MY WATER. WE CAN'T DO THAT. OKAY. WHERE YOU WOULD DO THAT IS UPSTREAM. SO UPSTREAM OF THESE LOW SPOTS THAT EXPERIENCE FLOODING, YOU COULD PUT IN ADDITIONAL MEANS OF CAPTURING RAIN. SO THAT WAY IT'S SLOWER, THERE'S MORE STORAGE, IT'S NOT JUST RUNNING OFF AND GOING MEANLY TO THE STORM SERVER SYSTEM. THEN IN THE CONTEXT OF THE RESIDENTIAL NEIGHBORHOOD THAT WE HAVE THERE, YOU'RE REALLY LOOKING AT LIKE UNDERGROUND SYSTEMS. I'M TRYING TO PUT SOME STORAGE UNDERGROUND, GET THE WATER INTO THE SOIL A LITTLE BIT QUICKER. THERE'S LIMITED OPTIONS THERE. BUT YOU WOULD DO IT IN THE BASIN, NOT SEND IT OUTSIDE OF IT.

OKAY. THANK YOU.

YOU MENTIONED PUMPING. DO WE HAVE THE CAPACITY TO PUMP? WE DON'T, RIGHT? NO. OKAY. JUST WANTED TO.

THAT WAS A GENERALIZED COMMENT, NOT A SPECIFIC ONE. OKAY.

I may elaborate. Wouldn't that pumping, if we did have the ability to do that, make it somebody else's problem?

No, I was saying to the river, if you were going to get it out to the point of discharge where it already goes and you just want to get it out. That's more of a reactive approach than actually doing anything to your infrastructure. Thank you.

Eric Sander, 1910 Cedar. I'm going to try to bring us home because I think everyone wants to go home. I have a statement and then a close. Um, so I take it as a positive. I know Chris mentioned too, I take it as a positive with 30 minute drain. It's doing its job. We just need, again, it's, it's from a simple perspective, more volume, more water out less time. We can, we can clear the problem up. What I want to ask is we have the design costs about 49 K. We have the initial, the estimate to do the work roughly a little bit over 300 K I'm operating under the assumption We are going to do that. Can we start the design now so we speed up the process rather than waiting to do the design? And then we got to wait to get the bids. Is there an action we can start now? I know financing, maybe for the second project, we got to get that covered. But can we start a design? Can we get that going now? Because time is of the essence. It's trying to have some answers.

There is nothing budgeted right now in the budget for that, for the $49,000. We would have to have a vote. The commission would have to vote to take the money out of reserves to be able to do that. But the budget from what we were perusing, and I've asked the finance manager, you know, it was pretty bare bones to begin with. So there is no money there. for that we can scrape up for 50,000 so but but again the only other option would be to take it out of reserves and the and the Commission through a vote can do that.

So it is it an option to and is it the vote next week at the Commission meeting we can have a vote to take the design money for reserves now and is the intent if there's no money for the 300 K this year is the intent to put that in the budget for next year so we can get it on the calendar next year.

Yes, I'm looking at finance options for stormwater management, and I'm going to present that at the meeting next week. We have a financial advisor that's coming in that I've been talking to along with our finance director. I think the other thing we need to also look at is we also have the RFP results from the grant writers coming in. And I think there is a lot of money out there for grants, but we don't have anybody to do this. I know that there is a grant writer in the audience that I am familiar with who is out here listening to all of this because he probably has some ideas about that. So it's going to be a combination, hopefully, of grant money and also of financing. So it would be something definitely, you know, stormwater in general. I don't know the order. It depends on the commission what they want to put in there. But we are looking at doing, you know, capital projects for stormwater. We have a stormwater assessment fee that is only for maintenance, and that's something that we talked about last regular commission meeting about raising that fee to the CPI, the inflation, up to inflation. But that's only for patches and things like that. So that's why I am looking at how else we can finance the capital projects, which probably around here, I think one gentleman was saying, I bet you didn't have the waste flow trash cans floating around. No, they were floating around. I saw them on 2nd Street floating around with the rain. So there are some other areas. So we do need that kind of capital financing, and we'll be discussing that next week.

IS IT POSSIBLE FOR THE COMMISSION TO VOTE NOW FOR RESERVES TO PULL MONEY TO DO THE DESIGN OR IS IT NOT POSSIBLE TODAY? IS IT POSSIBLE THE NEXT COMMISSION MEETING FOR THAT PROPOSAL?

IT'S NOT POSSIBLE TODAY BECAUSE IT'S A WORKSHOP.

SO FOR THE COMMISSION MEETING IT'S POSSIBLE TO LIKE PUBLIC COMMENT, ASK IF THERE CAN BE A VOTE BE DONE TO PULL THAT MONEY OUT OF RESERVES. IS THAT CORRECT?

NOTIFY OR ANYTHING? WE COULD DO IT AT A MEETING.

YOU COULD DO IT AT A MEETING BUT NOT AT THE WORKSHOP. WE JUST CAN'T VOTE AT WORKSHOPS ON ANYTHING.

DOES SOMEONE NEED TO BE PRESENT TO PROPOSE THAT OR IS THAT ABLE TO BE PUT IN THE AGENDA TO VOTE ON THAT FOR THE NEXT COMMISSION MEETING NEXT WEEK? THE AGENDA HAS ALREADY BEEN PUBLISHED FOR NEXT WEEK.

IT WAS PUBLISHED EARLIER TODAY.

SO I DON'T KNOW ABOUT WALKING ON OR... SOMEBODY COULD DO A WALK ON.

YEAH, YOU COULD DO IT AS A WALK ON. OKAY. THE DAY OF, BUT IT'S PART OF THE REGULAR AGENDA. IT'S ALREADY BEEN PUBLISHED.

Okay, so it's possible to propose the next meeting and have a vote?

Yes, it's possible.

I guess I'd like to hear from the commission, is that enough time to be able to review the proposal and to have that discussion, or do you feel like more time is necessary before next week's meeting?

It sounds like we're going to have some further discussion, right? Because it's on the agenda.

Yeah, it's on the agenda.

During that meeting, for me, it would probably be ample information and time.

Okay.

Yeah.

Hopefully.

Not quite done.

Brian Casasa, 2009 Oak Street. We were out there when that three inches of rain occurred in about an hour. The one thing that we saw on Oak Street in front of the house at 2003, where it sits low in the sidewalk, there is water bubbling up through the cracks in the sidewalk. That was occurring even after the water had left off where Orange and Cedar had. All that water was gone. It was still bubbling up. So again, I don't know anything about water flows other than the shower. Seeing that bubbling up means, obviously, there's water sitting. Is there potentially a problem around where that baffle box on Oak Street is that maybe some of that water, instead of going straight into the river, is actually backing up a little bit into that area? Because there's no question, my wife and I saw it, it was coming through the cracks in the sidewalk at, and I don't know if anybody knows where that is, at 2003, it's the first house after the corner at Orange. And it sits low in that, after Cherry, I'm sorry, after Cherry.

Right there where there's that rail on the sidewalk?

Correct. And that sits low, and that floods all the time. And a lot of the houses, our house, our front yard is like a swale anyway. It floods all the time. But that was the first time we see water coming up through the crack in the sidewalk. And that was my concern after seeing that. We were looking at that and wondering if maybe some of the problem for the last 10 years is the water's not going, even though it's draining, some of it's coming back. And we were really surprised to see that, considering how dry the ground has been. It hasn't rained that much, so you would expect the water to drain through the soil rather quickly. But why would it be coming back up?

It's likely just an intensity thing, that it was that amount of intensity during that short duration. You'll see it, too, in cracks in the roads, too. When the roads are pumping, you'll see bubbles coming up through the cracks. We're sitting on sand, right? So there's a void space in that usually somewhere around 25 to 30% of sand is air. And so as that moisture is filling in with that, that air is coming out and it does force water in some strange directions. I really didn't observe it. So I don't want to say too much, but it kind of sounds like that from based on what I've seen. And then during storms, when you do have swales, It is somewhat of a normal thing for water to go to those whales and then come back down when I when I look at swells I get more worried when they don't recover when they don't percolate back down if it just said that means they're kind of underperforming or they're not design an area that works that well. So hard to say I didn't walk over to that area sorry. But those are some of the things that I might think you could point that I have nothing that I've seen in our work in base in 10 to suggest that there's back flow in that. But there is flows that come in from the park and the church across the street. It all contributes.

Okay.

The other thing is, I know you're talking about grants and stuff. The EPA has grants, you may be aware of this, for stormwater management for municipalities. I think they okayed $81 million in April through the federal government for stormwater management in municipalities. So I don't know if that may be an avenue through the EPA. That may be helpful.

Yeah, thank you. Yeah, we have a RFP for a grant writer because there's all this money there, but if you don't know how to access it or you don't have the right buzzwords or keywords, sometimes you can't get it. So we actually are actively soliciting for and have some responses to that. So hopefully we'll have a grant writer soon to help us with that.

Okay, great. Thank you.

If I could, I mean, I know that there's going to be more discussions and if I'm overstepping, just check me on this. But in an effort to throw out how we can be helpful to the situation, our proposal does have itemized tasks. And if if you need to go to the reserve fund for anything and you want to say just advance the modeling portion first, it's a fraction of that proposal. So maybe that eases some of the decisions that have to be made on that but move some things towards the design i just i'm letting you know i guess here tonight we're willing to work with the town on anything you guys need to appreciate your flexibility yeah thank you for letting us know that hey uh

Bruce Pickett, 1501 Oak. I think part of the issue here is that what it's going to take to fix this is not an instantaneous fix. The money is not sitting there waiting to be spent. The people aren't standing there waiting ready to start. And you all have to go through the process to get the money to make it all work. And so that's going to be a frustration no matter what. So I think I would encourage you all to do it as quickly as you can because it obviously is an issue. And then just as a side note, if we do have emergency flooding, the fire department does have a floating pump that we can put in the water and pump water somewhere else. The issue with that is if we pump water somewhere else, it goes somewhere else where we may not necessarily want it to go. Correct. And that would be an emergency situation if needed.

The river's a safer bet for doing that because you can treat it as like an infinite basin. You're not really going to flood the river.

If we can get it to the river, we're good.

Yeah, but certainly not on anybody else's property.

Jan Pence, 200 Riverside Drive. One thing I think it's, and Marie, this is probably up to you to do. I don't think, and this is not meaning anybody's naive or anything else, but I don't think that the public really understands the process of how this has to work. If we were to get financing, which is a great idea, if we can get a bond, and I know we have time to do that. That's my understanding. That's something that has to go to the vote of the people. Am I correct?

YES, YOU'RE ABSOLUTELY CORRECT. WE HAVE TO GO TO THE VOTE IN NOVEMBER.

SO IT'S NOT SOMETHING THAT THIS COMMISSION, AGAIN, MY UNDERSTANDING, AND CORRECT ME IF I'M WRONG, THIS COMMISSION HAS THE ABILITY TO on the ballot to go to referendum. They don't have the authority to say, hey, we're going to take all this money out of reserves and do this project. And I just want to be sure the public understands that so they don't think the commission is doing anything. Everybody understands it. It's frustrating. I live on the river. I'm right next to Terry. I understand the flooding thing. We've had, you know, seaweed up to our pool. And it needs to be resolved. But I think it would be helpful if the public understood exactly

how it works and they don't so they don't just think the commission can just vote next week and do this and make it happen thank you well the one thing the commission can vote um to utilize reserves but they can't just vote to um forward a bond or bond financing that does have to go uh for for the voters to make a decision on that so you are right about that yes sir

AND THE GENTLEMAN WHO JUST SPOKE ABOUT THE PUMP, I JUST WANTED TO REITERATE, I MAY HAVE SAID THIS THE LAST TIME, BUT DURING FAY, THE FIRE DEPARTMENT DID COME TO OAK STREET. THEY PUT A PUMP ON THE INTERSECTION OF CHERRY AND CEDAR. AND THEY PUMPED IT ACROSS THE STREET. THE POLICE CAME AND BLOCKED OFF OAK STREET AND THEY PUMPED IT ACROSS THE STREET TO THE RIVER. AND THAT WAS DURING FAY. No, for a fact that alleviated a lot of the pressure that we were starting to see. It was up to our doors during Fay, but we survived it. And that may have been part of the reason. And like I said, last time I give Fay a pass, I wasn't even concerned. I mean, that was like you said, a hundred year storm. We had possibly 30 inches of rain and 24, 36 hours. That storm just stalled right over us. So yeah, that was different. But my point is, the pumps did help.

It's good to know that we have that.

So if that is an option, if we're in a dire circumstance going forward in this season, I would love to see that utilized. The other thing, Tom, I mentioned to you the last time about those suction trucks that service the county boxes. Is that something that can be done to You know, like I said, every little bit helps. Can that be possibly, you know, utilized? Can you get on them to come and maintain those before the season gets into full swing here?

They're baffle boxes?

Yes.

They may have last week, they did this one.

But I don't know if they did the one on oak. Yeah. If you could follow up on that.

I should have done you last week, but I'll check. They did orange.

BECAUSE I'M SURE JUST KEEPING THEM CLEAN IS GOING TO HELP A LITTLE. ALL RIGHT. THANK YOU.

GREAT POINT. THANK YOU.

Okay, I know I asked you guys this last time, but I never got a response. Did anybody check into the person that did the work 10 years ago or 11 years ago and didn't do it properly? You said you were gonna ask the town manager to look into that?

I didn't get that info yet.

Okay, can we get that info? Because that could kind of solve our problem because it might be worth a few phone calls to find out. Now, I heard there was no written contract. I don't even think that's possible. I don't think anybody would.

That's not the case. There was a contract.

There was a contract. Do you know who did it?

I can't tell you now. It was on there.

Well, you could find out though, right? Yeah, let's find out who did it.

But then we would just, and I'm not an attorney, Ms. Smith.

No, right, no, no one's an attorney. We would have to litigate. We just have common sense.

To prove that they were insufficient, right? We would have to have.

Yeah, I think there was a statement made there about the contractor that did it wrong. There's the first part of that is the proof of it was wrong. And I'm not saying that that's an opinion in the matter.

Contractors have insurance. You could put an insurance claim in.

OK, you could just put an insurance claim.

And I'm not saying that you don't you could go ahead and proceed with what you want to do with with these repairs. But we could possibly get reimbursed by putting a claim in on that guy's insurance because he's the one who messed it up to begin with. He didn't do it properly. And who was overseeing him when he was doing it? Because two plus, I mean, I don't even do storm systems, but if somebody's gonna change something out and they're gonna put less in, it's a big round thing now, and we're gonna put a small one in, JUST COMMON SENSE WOULD SAY WHY ARE YOU PUTTING A SMALLER ONE IN WHY DON'T YOU PUT THE SAME SIZE IN OR MAYBE A LITTLE BIT BIGGER RIGHT IT'S ALL COMMON SENSE NO IT'S A IT'S A GREAT POINT AND I THINK I THINK YOU'RE ON TO SOMETHING AND I DO THINK WE DO NEED TO KNOW WHO THAT WAS BECAUSE WE CERTAINLY WOULDN'T WANT TO HIRE THEM AGAIN YEAH

RIGHT? IT'S IMPORTANT THAT WE KNOW AND IF THEY HAVE INSURANCE OR SOMETHING, WE CAN PURSUE IT. OBVIOUSLY, YOU KNOW, WE HAVE TOM MENTIONED LITIGATION IS SOMETHING THAT EVERYBODY HATES SO MUCH AROUND HERE, BUT WE NEED TO KNOW WHO IT WAS AT LEAST.

YEAH, FIND OUT WHO HIS INSURANCE CARRIER WAS. I mean, I'm willing to make phone calls. If you give me the name of the company, I'll find out who his insurance company was, and I'll call the insurance company, and I'll call some insurance adjusters.

I don't know that you have to do that, but I think that we definitely need to know who it was. But I'm willing to do it. But I know you're happy to do it, and I appreciate your volunteerism.

Okay.

Yeah, for sure.

Okay. All right, that's all I wanted to, because I don't want to go ahead and pay for something and have to, we get it done and in 10 years we're in the same spot. Right on. Right, right, right.

Thank you.

All right, thank you.

All right, we'll go ahead and look for them. They're probably on paper, so we'll have to go into the files and look for them.

And again, it would be terrible to find out that that's somebody who's bidding again. You know what I mean? To do the work, you know? All right.

Is there any other comments from the town?

If not, are we happy to stop discussion, or is there anything that the commissioners want to say? Commissioner Reid? Okay, we're all set. All right, then.

Motion to adjourn.

Was there a motion to adjourn?

Second.

Second.

All right, all in favor? Aye. Thank you.