City Council - Regular Meeting

Please rise for silent invocation followed by a pledge of allegiance.

Amen. which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Will the court call the roll?

Councilman Foley? Here. Councilman Goebbels? Here. Councilman Green? Here. Vice Mayor Grubbs? Here. Mayor Spilman? Here.

Thank you guys for everybody being here tonight. It's an honor to welcome Wichita County Councilman District 3, Mr. Danny Robbins. He has some

great news for us he wanted to come in tonight and uh share good evening welcome sir welcome thank you uh honorable members of council uh the delight it is to be on this side of the dais uh for once here but no i just wanted to give you guys a quick update uh that uh it's going to be helpful to port orange you have the spruce creek phase one and two studies uh that are going to be complete here soon i'd say within the next week or two Also, if you haven't already, I think some of you have been in discussion with our county manager and staff. They're going to be opening up the Transform 386 program again, which has been so helpful, not just here in Port Orange, but throughout the entire county of Volusia. So get your applications in. We're going to be talking and focusing more on the regional projects, and I know Port Orange has some great projects.

uh that are on the slate um prioritize them keep talking with our staff and whatever i can do for you guys please please keep us in the loop so we appreciate your hard work and dedication to volusia county and i appreciate you danny reaches out to me frequently to see what's going on in port orange and what they can be helping us with and staying into a lot of our flood mitigation stormwater projects and efforts and uh danny matt and jake have done a great job and And we appreciate you guys keeping an eye on Port Orange and being supporters for what you've already done with Transform 386. And there's more work to do, like you said. Absolutely. And try to keep it all on the tracks and moving forward.

Thank you, guys. I appreciate it. If you have any questions, email, call anytime. Thank you. Keep up the good work. Thank you.

See you later. Thank you, Danny. Thanks, Kenny. Item four, public comments on consent agenda items only. Any public comments on consent agenda items? One of them, Robert.

Thank you. Mayor, council members, Robert Reinhagen, Port Orange. With regard to the biosolids study, I see that the city manager is going to be addressing it later. I know it's early on in the process. The staff report raises a lot of questions. I hope some of them will be answered. But with regard to the three workshops they're going to have, I wanted to just say I'm hoping that they're going to be open to the public. And that's what I'm interested in, that we'll be able to follow it. Thank you.

Thank you, Robert. Thank you, Robert. Anyone else want to speak to consent agenda items? I have to counsel and entertain a motion and a second to approve consent agenda items 5 through 8, please.

Motion to approve consent agenda items 5 through 8.

Second. I have a motion and a second to approve items 5 through 8 on consent. Will the court call the roll?

Councilman Fuller? Yes. Councilman Gephardt? Yes. Councilman Green? Yes. Vice Mayor Gross? Yes. Mayor Stelmer? Yes.

5-0. I'll bring this quickly to public participation. Mr. Dan Morris? Yes. Welcome, sir. How are you? Very good. How are you doing? Good.

Thank you very much. Dan Morris. I'm here representing the Port Orange Chamber and my business, Pet Evolution. I just wanted to say thank you for your continued support. And going into next year, we really do appreciate everybody that comes. Sean, you name it. It's great being in this community. I also wanted to let you know we have a member appreciation night coming up on Thursday, September 24th. It's from 530 to 730. You're all welcome. It's free to charge. And we have pizza coming from one of our local restaurants here, which will be great in Port Orange. So that's my comments. And thank you very much for what you're doing.

Appreciate you. Thank you for stopping by. All right. Now move us quickly into item number nine for comments by council members. Mr. Green, we will start with you tonight.

I don't have anything tonight, Mr. Mayor.

Outstanding. How about it, Mr. Foley?

No, nothing to nightmare.

Sean?

I just want to talk a little about what we just approved in our consent agenda in reference to contracts and bargaining agreements with our police and our union. And just a thank you to the staff that helped with that, educating us on that, and, of course, the members of that union to accept it. what we've got going forward. It's important. Our employees are important. I just wanted to mention that. Outside of that, nothing else.

Absolutely. Absolutely. All right, Mr. Grubbs, I know you've got a couple of things. Go right ahead.

Yes. So weekend before, we had spouses backing the blue golf event. They probably won't ask me and my team to come back anytime soon. Green's held up partially. But what a great event. There was tons of people there. It raised tons of money. Really looking forward for that event next year. Hope that council, when it comes up, we can get that information out so we can have all councils with their teams out there too. But going into that, we also have an event to mark on the calendars. Saturday, September 12th at the Port Orange Library right across the street here. from 11 to 3. Volusia County Public Library has a how-to festival that they put on every year. It's kind of unique. Sometimes you find out about these things and you don't know about them. They've been doing this for years. This is actually over 12 years going on. But the TPO is actually going to be there and be doing bicycle and helmet fittings for the kids. So if your kids need helmets, this is a great event. They can come out to the How-To Festival and be able to get sized up. The other thing I want to talk about is we had a cancellation of Port Orange Family Days that was out on the web a couple weeks ago, a month ago. It brought to the attention that people didn't know that it wasn't a city event. It's Port Orange Community Trust event and the outpouring came out and we actually have a flyer outside here and I'll be posting this up later that Art House has picked up the event to make it a smaller event because we have 45 days to organize it. So it is a challenge, but Art House has always done the chalk art festival in conjunction with Port Orange Family Days. It's a spectacular thing for the family to see what these kids and adults make every year. And it stays out here on our veranda going around City Hall for everybody to see. uh they're making a smaller scale will be approximately about 75 vendors allowed into the event because of the smaller scale there will be a qr code that you can scan and sign up so being a smaller event and only a few vendors i would definitely advise everybody to come in because We literally launched this today with Art House, and we've already got out of the 75, 10 vendors already signed up. And that's been in the last two hours. So if you're interested and you have a company, see me afterwards or grab a flyer on your way out. But the date is October 17th and 18th here around the city. And that's it.

Well, I appreciate the comments on that. That is one of the neatest parts of that whole annual event is the chalk art stuff. And when the event is over, it stays there for a really long time. And people really enjoy walking the city center and seeing that art and what they're able to do with chalk is just so important every year. I know what I'm going to see because I've seen it so many times, but I'm still incredibly impressed to see it all the time. Item 10, Mr. City Attorney, what do you got for us, sir? Enough for tonight. Thank you very much. Mr. City Manager, I know you've got a few things. Go right ahead.

I do. We're going to lead with our public utilities department doing a presentation, a little brief understanding of what's going on with the biosolids that came up during consent. And we also have a special guest with Steve, Mike, who's the county public utilities director. He was one of our former employees, one of the better people I worked with. He was here when I first started. So if we go back 20 years or so, working together and the relationship stayed strong and it continues to and this partnership I think is a positive one so they're going to talk to you a little bit about the biosolids and while they are there's a byproduct from it I'll pass down so that you can see and Steve will explain what it is while he's talking. It's very safe, you can touch it.

What's it taste like? Welcome.

Steve Parnell, Public Utility Director.

I have with me a fellow colleague and a man who's actually been very influential in my career path, Mike Aldrich with Volusia County. He's the Water Resource Utility Director. So I want to start off thanking you guys for approving on consent tonight the memorandum of understanding with Volusia County for the cost sharing of the feasibility study for a potential biosolids facility and TA number 31 with Kenley Horn which is going to kick that off. So I'm going to keep it short tonight. We're going to hit three points. I'm going to hit the first two might wrap it up with the last one. So I'm going to hit what are we doing, why are we doing it, and what are the outcomes. So before I jump into the what are we doing, I want to give a little history of how we got here. So I'd say about five years ago, Mike and I bump into one another at conferences, kind of talking about big picture things that are going on in the industry, and the biosolids is always right there. The cost, the treatment, the disposal, it's there and you know it's coming. And I did a little short stint with Volusia County, and that's where I met Juno. And when I was there, I was running the leachate facility, and Juno was the engineer at the landfill, and he was in charge of the gas recovery system. That's the methane they pull out of the landfill. And so over talks over years, you know, Mike's like, man, if we could build a facility that runs off that gas, you got free fuel 24-7, and treat biosolids here locally, we're on to something. So me, Mike, and Juno, and he's getting credit for this too, even though he's sitting back there, the talks started. You know, Juno's the expert on the gas, and logistically we start talking, and Mike kind of coined it a while ago. He's like, you know, this is a legacy project. If we could do something like this, we're locking in biosolids treatment for the east coast of central Florida for the next 30 years. People come to this dais and go, wow, they really got it right on this one. so that's that's our driver on this because as you see the the cost of treatment and what's been going on with some recent bills that got signed it's going to get out of control quickly so as i refer to it as the legacy project what it's what we're looking at is using the landfill recovery gas to run thermal dryers on jointly-owned property off Shuns Road, which is probably going to be just south of the landfill, so we could use the main transmission line of the gas to clean it to run the facility. The main driver on this is the farm bill that just got signed in July. That's going to completely ban Class B biosolid land application by 2028. You can no longer put it out on the fields. It's banned statewide. So that's gonna make everybody go to Class AA. House Bill 245 and Senate Bill 1294 were vetoed this year by the governor, but they're expected to come back. And what that's gonna do is limit how much Class A can go on the ground. They're gonna start looking at loading rates. So right now you can put as much Class AA on the ground. There's no limits for it. You can fill your whole field, no problem. But they wanna start limiting that on loading rates based on nutrients and stuff. So it's gonna really tie people's hands on that. Before I get into some of the costs, I'm going to explain what a biosolid is, just to make sure we're all on the same page. So at the wastewater plant, we use the bugs to treat the wastewater. After about seven to ten days, the bugs have served their useful life, and we ship them off and we press them out. We make a cake, referred to as biosolids. It's 15% solids, 85% water. We haul a lot of water, and it's very expensive. So with that, we have a vendor who takes it to central Florida in the middle of the state. We currently make a class AA compost, the highest that you can make in the state. And the process that we currently use, or they use, I should say, it's a volume increasing process. So we take the biosolids, one part, we add three parts of green waste, yard waste, land clearing, chipped debris. They mix it all together, and they compost it, and then through decomposition, you basically get double volume. So 20 tons turns to 40 tons, and you have 40 tons of now that you have to dispose of, and it's a great product, but it's a volume-increasing product. And just to give you a background on the cost on that, in the 90s, we disposed of biosolids free here at the city. All the farmers in the northwest part of the county took it, no cost other than to drive it and to treat it. Just go dump it on the fields, they took it. Regulations come in, costs started going. in 2010 we were at 35 a wet ton to dispose of it we're currently at 102 per wet ton we're the cheapest in the area and that's due to a 10-year contract we secured in 2017 2017 to a really aggressive itn we did here at the city pretty much everybody in the area piggybacks our contract currently that is up next year The market value right now for new contracts is between 175 and 275 a wet ton. So we're gonna double. We produce 10,000 wet tons annually, just Port Orange, not counting the county. So next year, our potential new contract's gonna be about 2.25 million just to dispose of biosolids. So what we're looking at with this evaluation using the gas and thermal dryers is we are looking at a volume decreasing process, which is what you guys saw in front of you. Use thermal dryers and we take the solids from 15% up to 95% solids using the landfill recovery gas. There's no green waste needed to add to it, to anything. And so we go, we take that 20 ton trailer comes all the way down to three tons. So we're bringing it way down. And to put that in perspective, I tried to make it on things that you could grasp on. So the 10,000 wet tons of our current process is 500 semi-trailer loads a year, not a dump truck, the big, long ones. That's 500 a year just to get it out. After they treat it, now we're at 1,000 because it's doubled. Put that in perspective, it's from Riverwalk Park to Flagler Avenue beach ramp. If you line those trailers up bumper to bumper, it's from Riverwalk all the way to New Smyrna down to the beach ramp. That's our current process. What we're looking to do would reduce it down to 75 loads or from Riverwalk to Dunlawn if you wind up the trailer. So it really reduces the volume that's going on the ground. So it's something we need to look at. With these future bills coming in and the regulations getting tighter, we really have to just figure out how we're going to set ourselves up for the next 30 years because 250, 300, a wet ton is going to be coming. So we have to try to do something where we can lock in the rates and kind of be in control of the area. So that's the technical piece. I think Mike's going to give you the regional stuff.

Well, thank you, Steve. And Steve gives me far more credit than deserved. He's been an excellent leader, as well as Juno, in coming up with this solution at the county. We're very pleased to be part of this initiative, which we also believe will probably have the interest of every other city within volusia county which is what we really hope to be able to achieve with a true regional facility here in volusia county as steve mentioned all of us as utility directors across the county right now move all of our stuff into the center of the state and everything like that so perhaps it's really time for volusia county and when i talk about volusia county i mean all volusia county all local governments our respective utilities to work together on a regional solution where we take care of our own matters. And I think that this is going to garner a lot of support from the state along with all of our local governments. As Steve mentioned, these are laws that began five years ago with the Clean Waterways Act. initiated by the state. There were several years of rulemaking and clarifications and everything, but the end results, as Steve's mentioned, is the Class B biosolids, the elimination of it eventually, the elimination of land application, just as we've seen in most recent years as they've been limiting the amount of land available, that has driven up all these costs. This scarcity in land is what's driving innovation today and why it's necessary to proceed with this. And we're looking, you know, there are other methods, but I think, again, thinking long term, sustainability, this type of biogas method or any other technology that we feel will be best suited for the joint lands out by the landfill and everything like that. I mean, there's going to be regulations to overcome. all the way through. You know, there's no, you know, solve one problem, think about how we're going to solve the next one. You know, we want to avoid the unintended consequences of everything, but this truly is the direction the entire state is more or less dealing with these issues as well. So I think that from a regional standpoint, this is clearly the best approach, most cost effective, combining all of the utility resources together to create a, and again, there's a few ways to do this. We might be able to run it ourselves, but I think a P3, public-private partnership may in fact be the better solution. We've watched, we've gone around, spoken with some of the other companies that are doing things like that, and I think that that's probably going to be in the best interest of everyone. They know the business, they know how to do it, we don't have to worry about training our own staff how to do these technologies. And while it may appear to be much more expensive than current methods, that gap is closing as this scarcity exists. So going to these technologies and then creating a product that can be used for beneficial use sold out on the open market and things like that will probably in fact cut our costs in the long run. We'll combine that with As soon as we start on this study, we'll engage the state, tell them what we're doing, what we're thinking, get some comment back from them, solicit some more ideas, look at potential funding sources such as Clean Waterways Act sources. There's also SRF loans. And again, in a P3 type of approach, then you would also have another partner who could gain from that as well. So that's pretty much all that I can say outside. I'd really like to congratulate city staff. Matt, thank you for helping draft the memorandum of understanding with our county attorney. And we'll look forward to reporting to you on progress in the future.

i appreciate the uh the brief on this gentleman um you know it is it sounds eerily familiar to past projects uh where the city kind of led the way and reclaimed water services and got out in front of that early and st john's water management you know i remember when i first got elected a lot of that happened prior to me 12 years 12 years ago farther But I can remember going to Tallahassee in those early years of me being on this, and people in Tallahassee were talking about it. And St. John's Water Management District was referring other cities, go talk to Port Orange, go see what Port Orange did. The videos and all those kinds of things were out there, and it's just a reminder that we have a lot of talented people here in the city and in the county who are always thinking about ways to try to improve not only the quality of life, but also, you know, matters like this, for lack of a better description. And so I do appreciate you guys coming tonight and us having the initiative to try to get out in front and have a plan and figure it out, as opposed to just going

money figure out where to get the money without any kind of a plan to try to have an alternate way to handle that so you see if any of these gentlemen have any questions thanks no no questions just again same thing is you know look into the future uh again you guys get it out in front of it is is awesome and it's not about you know what it's going to cost in the long run it's what it's going to save us in the long run doing this and um i appreciate i appreciate you guys getting out in front of it

I had an opportunity to talk to Steve about this a couple months ago and just seeing the vision a couple months ago and seeing it come together and seeing it finally here, it's superb. These type of things that staff and everybody collectively coming together look at long term, how we're going to save money as we go forward, it's the initiatives that need to be done. So thank you for what all of y'all have been doing.

Me?

Nothing to add.

Thank you guys. Hell no.

I thought this was something you spread on your salad or something. Thank you guys very much. We look forward to hearing more about this. Back to you, Wayne.

I don't have as many items tonight on the other updates because I went through so much last time but the one thing we do have a confirmed start date on the city center sports complex fields over there September 14 so two Mondays from now the Monday after Labor Day is a start date and we did get our echo score on the Willow Run Park and we scored in the 90s which is well above the minimum number for the board to recommend that to the county council so Mr. Robbins and the others will see that soon and hopefully we'll get that money and start that project here in the next couple of months. That's all I have.

Very good. And Wayne, I appreciate you and your staff already being on top of the Transform 386.

I understand we were the first city to go see them.

That's what I heard. They said Fort Orange was the first one to show up and you better show up if you want to be considered.

Absolutely.

We appreciate that tremendously. That'll bring us down to... Item 12 in the public hearing portion of tonight's agenda, first reading of ordinance number 2026-9.

An ordinance of the City of Florence, Volusia County, Florida amending the Land Development Code Chapter 15 relating to non-conforming signs to clarify the existing standards for height and digital sign face area for proposed digital sign face replacements, providing for repeal of conflicting ordinances, severability, and an effective date.

Can we get a motion to approve in a second? Put this on the table for ordinance number 2026-9.

Motion to approve ordinance number 2026-9. Second.

I have a motion and a second. Welcome, sir.

Thank you. Tim Berman, Community Development. The agenda item is a LDC text amendment that's initiated by Lamar Company. It makes changes to Chapter 15 of the Land of Ellen Code, which is our sign code. And it's pertaining to the reconstruction of billboards and that are part of a billboard reconstruction and relocation agreement. According to Lamar, their text amendment is intended to modify code requirements that were adopted as part of the 2025 code amendment that Lamar had proposed last year. The proposed text amendment tonight by Lamar is to address the allowable height of the reconstructed structure and the size of the reconstructed digital panels, along with the timing and issuance of the permits for those items. A little bit of background. The 2025 amendment was initiated by Lamar to select existing billboards within the city of Port Orange for upgrades to digital signs while also reducing the number of static sign faces throughout Port Orange. The approved 2025 amendment established criteria for reconstruction along either I-95 or Ridgewood Avenue required that they had existing locations on those corridors. and required that at least two ecstatic billboards were sign faces were removed as part of the exchange the 2025 amendment also required that a billboard relocation and reconstruction agreement for the project come before city council which outlined the billboards to be removed and replaced along with specific criteria then So after that got approved in 2005, they submitted building permits and demo permits in 2026. During the review of those permits, Lamar determined that the current requirements in the 2025 text changes did not align with their design of what they're proposing at those two locations. Therefore, Lamar is proposing the amendment tonight to clarify three existing code requirements. No other changes to the existing codes that landed on the code are proposed, just the three specific items we're going to go over tonight then. First is the height standard. The current LDC states that the height of the structure can be equivalent to what is there currently on the property then. Lamar is requesting that it have a minimum 30 feet height standard for the billboard. Lamar is stating that this is due to their maintenance of the digital sign faces. If it's not above 30 feet, it requires a special anchoring system which could possibly damage the LED sign face then. And Lamar's design, Lamar's maintenance preference is to have it above 30 feet so they can utilize a catwalk for maintenance of the sign there. And again, the applicant is here from Lamar and they can further discuss the kind of maintenance requirements and what's generating the need for these code amendments.

Tim, I'm sorry, walk back through that one again now. So what is the difference between

currently what are they allowable to what they want to change it to again currently currently the code states that basically the structure the beer Greek structure could be the equivalent to the size that's currently on the property then so for instance if the sign structure is 34 feet tall they can install a sign that basically is up to 30 feet tall 34 feet tall What basically they came across was the one that is on, we get a little bit further in the report on this, but basically the one that's on, that they went to replace on the I-95 southbound on-ramp is at 25 feet tall. And they're basically looking to that to be 30 feet tall in order for them to be able to design a sign to comply with their maintenance standards then. The second item is...

Sorry, just a quick question if you don't mind. When we say structure, we're talking like from the ground to absolute top of sign. Top of the... Not just the sign, but like... Yeah. I thought so.

Second item is the digital sign face area. The LDC currently limits that to the sign face being removed on the subject property. So basically whatever is there now is kind of equal to the sign area that you can have. After we went through that then, Lamar basically came back with the having to have a minimum of 380 square feet sign area. That is based off Lamar saying that that is the only, that's the minimum size available from their manufacturer who they produce the sign, get the sign bases from there. So they are requesting essentially that the minimum sign base area be 380 square feet. Again, versus the current code stated whatever sign face was being removed from a property would be what you'd get then. So the example of this one is the one on Ridgewood Avenue, which basically the sign faces, there's four sign faces overall coming down. Those sign faces are about 248 square feet each then. So under the current code, the max sign area could be 248 square feet. Under this provision, they're looking to basically get that up to 380 square feet.

You had said minimum of 380, not maximum.

Right, the minimum there. Basically, the way the code is written, it could be, so if the existing sign had like 300 or 400 square feet, then they could replace it at 400 square feet. But basically, like if it's at 280 square feet, then basically they could go up to 380 square feet is what they're proposing.

So what's the maximum that they're allowed to go up to?

it'd be equivalent to whatever signs on that property that's being removed. I think basically the one that's on I-95 that's proposed to come there is about 460 square feet then. So that would be, of everything that's being proposed there, that'd be the largest one. But that, again, would only apply to that sign at that single location on the I-95.

I understand that. Thank you.

The third item is the sequencing of the issuance of the permits. The way the code reads now, it states that the demo permit must be issued first, demolition must be completed. Once the demolition is completed of the structure, then the permit to construct the structure in the LED space could be issued then. They are requesting for those to be able to be issued concurrently. There, again, this is typical with how we do other projects here in terms of a demolition of a house and reconstruction at the same time. As long as everything is in line with both permits then, we typically issue those together then. So this would be the same request here. Again, they would be required to make sure that all necessary permits, documents are all approved then in order for that to happen then, but this would allow for the possibility of issuance of a demo permit and the building permit concurrently. So the next steps, if the proposed code amendment is approved tonight, Lamar intends to bring forward an amendment to the 2025 billboard relocation reconstruction agreement and would amend the following two items. The Ridgewood Nova Road sign would basically have an increase in the sign area from 246 square feet to 378 square feet. And then the I-95 southbound one would basically be, or basically the request would be changed to change the height from 25 feet to 30 feet then. But again, the applicant is here with their staff to further discuss their proposed code amendment.

Let's go ahead and hear from the applicant.

Well, can I ask a question to Tim real quick?

Oh, sorry, go ahead.

So, but Tim, so how does this apply if the sign's two-sided and you're reading both sides? Is it the maximum square footage on both sides?

They're basically both sides. Each side would be able to be up to 370, or 380 square feet there.

Okay.

So basically both, on the original side, so basically southbound and northbound, each side would have 380 square feet based on what they're requesting.

Okay. Sean, did you have anything for Tim? No. I think I'm good now.

Thank you.

Thanks, Tim. Rob Merrill with Cobb-Cole here on behalf of Lamar. Guys, we spent a pretty good deal of time a year ago talking about this. We went through all the nuances and everything. I'm not going to do that again unless you want me to if you have questions. I think when I deal with signs or billboards, typically the picture speaks a thousand words, right? I brought a few slides, and basically they are before and after pictures. And you guys are going to think they look pretty similar to what you saw a year ago. It's because they pretty much are. The nuances that we're changing here, the five feet difference on the interstate sign and the square footage on the US 1 sign, are pretty much the same pictures. We just didn't catch the whole replacement number on the square footage. And we didn't realize that the one on the interstate was five feet down further in a hole. So at the end of the day, that's all we're doing here. But I want you to see the pictures. It'll refresh your memory. The one picture that's different, I actually have a slide that shows you. Can you pop them up for me? Or do I do that myself somehow? Oh, okay. Sorry, I'm technologically... Challenged. Challenged, that's it. Okay, that's not it.

Okay. They did a dry run about 15 minutes before we got started.

Maybe stay with me or tell me how to click it. Okay, arrow. All right, so this is the I-95 sign existing from the interstate as you're passing over the interstate bridge. There's a picture eastbound Dunlaughton, so really the reason for showing this is you can't really see it. Same with the westbound Dunlaughton. That's in the background. Don't really see it from Dunlaughton for the most part. Same there, the off ramp, you're pretty much getting the same perspective on the other side of Dunlaughton. And this is the after picture. So you're not going to notice the five feet difference. I mean, you can't really perceive it, but this is to scale, so that's really what it's going to look like from the interstate. Again, not really visible from Dunlaughton itself. This is the one on US-1 that we talked about at great length originally a year ago. So when you talked about the faces, there's two faces on one side, two faces on the other, and ultimately there's gonna be one face on each side. And so there's the other side of the same one that's there now. This is what I wanted to show you in terms of the square footage. So the red box is what we're going to put up now. And the yellow boxes are the ones that are there now. So that's basically the trade-off. You're going from 492 square feet total with those two that are stacked to 378. So it's a smaller sign, essentially. But one of them is two signs, two sides. And then there's the other side of the same sign in the future, also to scale. So that's what you see. And I want to point out that this is a V-shaped board that we're putting up, whereas before it was flat, so it's basically perpendicular to the road. And this, in many ways, is beneficial in the sense that the light that comes from the board itself is emanating away from the board itself. That's it. A nice picture of the sunset for you.

Any questions for Mr. Miller?

So I do have the Lamar folks here, both technical and otherwise business folks. If you guys have questions from them as a company, they're happy to jump up as well. All right, let's see. Any questions for Mr. Miller?

Is it possible to have the Port Orange logo on every sign that's in Port Orange?

I should have said something. We did talk about that. I like the picture. Absolutely. So it's part of the exchange program. Absolutely. You guys are going to have... the opportunity to put stuff up there, both emergency things, you know, public messages, and that's part of the deal. So when we come back with the exchange agreement, it has that, 100%.

These signs come in that size now, right?

It's not... Yeah, so this is the same sign that you see there that's on the bridge. Yeah. It's a pretty standard billboard.

All right. Anything on this end? just because I'm curious more than anything, explain to me the height, the need for the height up to 30 feet or like, So if it's below 30 feet, it has to be anchored in a certain way, and that's just not your practice of choice.

I'm going to try the simple guys. Yeah, that's fine.

Not yet. Maybe we don't need you. Hold on a second.

So basically, we need to make it so we have a catwalk so somebody can get up there and actually service the board. Right. And so that's the reason for the extra five feet. Instead of having to use some sort of a device that is a hook and ladder or something like that that's not as safe. It's not as safe for the people that are servicing divorce.

Is that a Florida's, like, I guess, like a... Why can't there be a catwalk on one that's 25 feet tall versus one that's 30?

Well, there's a couple different things. So, Brad Miller with Lamar Advertising. So, I don't deal specifically with the safety. I deal more with the digital technology as a whole. But basically, the way the shepherd's hook works, it's typically for our static panels. And that panel is geared so that this hook can sit over the top. And the digital isn't really set up for that. It's built to be serviced from the front and the rear. And... So there's certain rules where if you're a certain height above the ground, because of the lanyard on the harness that the guys are wearing to be 100% tied off, you want to make sure that you're hooked into the right point that if they fall, that lanyard absorbs the energy and the guy doesn't hit the ground before that. And that's where the shepherd's hook comes into play because it gives some alternate spots to hook midway up the sign.

Right, because... Without knowing that, it's hard to understand why five feet higher is also safer without that explanation. Right? Like I said, it's not really a point of how I'm going to vote. It's more just curiosity than anything else.

Right. Absolutely. That makes...

It's kind of like, yeah, I forget what they call it, like not skydiving, but when you're bridge jumping, right?

Yeah, you want to be high enough that you don't hit the ground.

All right, before it springs back.

The bungee cord, yeah, it's got to be certain.

Anything else for staff or Mr. Merrill? Thanks, guys.

Anybody from the public wish to speak to this? Come on up.

Welcome.

Thank you. Good evening, Angela LeDuc, 674 Herbert Street. Good evening, council members, mayor. Lamar Outdoor Advertising is one of the largest advertising companies in the world. They have the money, the resources to change city ordinances as many times as they want with complete disregard to staff's time. So now we are here again listening to more text amendments. Tonight I only will be discussing about the billboards at the US 1 Nova location. There are four sign faces located there. and based on their static poster spec sheet from their website, those are 244 square feet each, so a total of 488 square feet combined in each direction. They want to replace the language stating that the reconstruction sign shall now exceed the square footage of the largest sign face being removed which is 244 square feet, to language about the total combined area removed and not to exceed amount of 380. That is a 56% increase from the largest sign face that is currently there. We are supposed to be reducing the number of the non-conforming signs in our city. A new sign can be reconstructed if they remove at least two sign faces that are greater than 200 square feet. Why do we then allow them to put a bigger sign in its place? The overall net reduction, if you allow this, would be 216 square feet. So in essence, they are only removing one sign for two new ones. During the June 25th Planning Commission meeting, the applicant stated the requested increase was based on their manufacturer's specs. The smallest LED sign face available is 380 square feet. When Pete Costanza, the GM for Lamar, was asked during that meeting if that was in fact the case, he stated he needed to be profitable and he would, quote, I would lose my shirt if I put a small sign there. He even said, yes, they make the product, but I will lose money and I won't put a sign there. That's around the 42-minute timestamp on the recording if you want to confirm. Now, in tonight's agenda, they are stating the 300-square-foot is the minimum size that is readily available from their manufacturer. So which is it? Stop trusting corporations to do the right thing and make them adhere to our established codes like the rest of us. Thank you.

Thank you. Anybody else from the public wish to speak for this? All right. Back to council. Council? Any other discussion?

No. No?

No? We'll call the roll.

Councilman Foley.

Yes.

Councilman Gephardt? Yes. Councilman Green? No. Vice Mayor Grouse? Yes. Mayor Zillner? Yes, 4-1.

Thank you. Have a good night. That brings us to item number 13 has been pushed to the next meeting on the 15th. Is that right, Amanda? That's right. Item number 13 that was on there?

Yes.

On the regular agenda is going to move to the meeting for the 15th.

So TPO was actually a really good meeting. We were talking about what is sitting in Congress right now at the federal level as far as future funding. um it's in the house uh to be voted on if this funding goes through um it brings a 9.6 percent increase to the tpo locally as far as monies that 9.6 ends up being about a 45 million dollar increase per year to us it's absolutely huge um and then you hear the the numbers that just scare you you know it's 580 billion dollar budget they're voting on as they push forward with it. But 9% increase to us. That money can definitely be used on roadways. All of us know that. But one of the highlights that I took away from here, and I talked to Wayne and Robin about this, is they're formulating a new bridge formula program that is totally separate from the budget. It's $9 billion a year that is set aside, and it's a 95% federal match. Yeah, so that's something to look on the horizon. If that one goes through, $9 billion is up for grabs on bridge programs. Bridges around here are nice, but I can think of some maybe in Daytona or sister cities, LPGA. to get projects moving along that are already on uh proposed but at the same time as Williamson uh right here in Port Orange also so these uh grants are going to be coming up uh hopefully in 2027 for them so that's what I got to report definitely keep us posted on that there's obviously

to get figured out how to move faster on the timeline. There's no question. You just go out there and you just see that you can widen both sides of it, but without that bridge, there's just no way. Go ahead. I can't. I can't. Not any engineer trying to tell us otherwise.

Yeah, the road project is actually under study right now. Of course, studies don't mean timelines, but widening it all the way to the bridge. So that is one of the holdups so far in the meetings I've found is that if it's not planned and not waiting,

they're not going to build a bridge so you got to have everything pushed forward and being built out so we can get the bridge going so hopefully this will come to fruition can i can i speak on this too this past week at the economic development committee meeting with the chamber of commerce the florida department of transportation was there speaking in reference to how roads come about and funding and it's our local chapter here in over in delance One of the things that they had educated me on is that if we don't expect them to come up with an idea for us, it literally is up to us to go to them and say, we need this. They're not going to do it for us. So if we as a council in the future need an interchange or an on and off ramp, to help service this community and its growth. We're not growing much, but from that overpass north in Daytona all the way up is growing and we have no control over that. Everything west of Williamson and north of 95 is Daytona. It's spoken for. It's probably going to be developed. And where are all those cars going to come? So if we want, as a city, to see improvements in transportation, we need to go to Florida Department of Transportation and tell them we need help here.

They're not going to do it. Well, that's the fundamental function. Did I say the fundamental function? That is fundamentally, that's why we have representation on the TPO board. All right. And that regional outlook, not only for what do we need, but regionally what impacts us.

Yeah, but are we as a council... instructing our representatives to talk about that. But we don't have those discussions as a group, and I think we should.

So every time I'll be bald comes up here. we have the opportunity to talk about that. And we should.

And also... Every year when we do the TPO list, it's an agenda item the council sees and discusses.

That's what I was going to say. We do have that.

I'm going to pay a hell of a lot more attention to it now knowing that no one else is looking after us. That's the one thing I found out that day. I'm assuming, hey, the state's got this. They're going to put the interchange in when they feel it's necessary. No, they're not looking...

So, all right. I will just say, too, one of the things that has always just, you know, because I served on the TPO board for a while, is every now and then annually, I guess annually or every couple of years, they will also talk about how cost are impacting projects. And that's the one thing that just floored me was to see how fast the cost was rising just to pay for one mile of road. I mean, it is not something where it just goes up a couple percent a year. I mean, it has really escalated. And so when you hear big numbers like that, you think, wow, that's a lot. Well, it is a lot of money. But that doesn't get you anywhere close to what you might think it would get you.

It doesn't get you very far.

All right. Anything else on that? That's all. Anything else to come before us tonight? Nope. All right.