City Council - Regular Meeting

Hold on one second. Good evening, everyone. Welcome to our City of Port St. Lucie City Council meeting this Monday, August 24th, 2026 at 6.02 p.m. Madam Clerk, please call the roll. Councilwoman Morgan.

Yes, ma'am.

Councilman Pickett.

Yes, ma'am.

Mayor Martin. Here, ma'am. Councilman Bonham.

Yes, ma'am.

Vice Mayor Caraballo. Here, ma'am. Please stand for the invocation and the Pledge of Allegiance.

Almighty God in heaven, we ask thy blessings upon those gathered here this evening and upon all of the citizens of Port St. Lucie. Look with favor on our leaders and give them the insights, the wisdom, and the patience to deal with the problems and tasks coming before them. Please bless their work and their deliberations. Amen. Amen.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands,

We have two proclamations this evening. The first one is for Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. Whereas September is recognized nationally as Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, and whereas childhood cancer affects thousands of children and families each year, bringing emotional, physical, and financial challenges, and whereas children diagnosed with cancer demonstrate remarkable courage, strength, and resilience throughout their treatment and recovery journeys, And whereas Child Cancer Childhood Cancer Awareness Month is an opportunity to honor the children who are bravely fighting cancer every day, celebrating survivors and remember the young lives that have been lost to this disease. And whereas families facing childhood cancer deserve the support, compassion and encouragement of their community. Whereas organizations such as Maddie's Fight Foundation works to support families affected by childhood cancer through financial assistance, resources, advocacy, and community support. And whereas increasing awareness helps bring attention to the need for continued research, improved treatments, and support for affected children and their families. Now, therefore, I, Shannon Martin, Mayor of the City of Port St. Lucie, Florida, do hereby proclaim September 2026 to be observed as Childhood Cancer Awareness Month and encourage all of our residents to recognize the strength and courage of children battling cancer, support families affected by childhood cancer, honor the memory of those young warriors who have lost their fight, and join organizations such as Maddie's Fight Foundation in raising awareness and supporting local families impacted CAN I HAVE BARBIE AND JESSICA COME FORWARD, PLEASE?

Hi, thank you so much for taking the month of September to acknowledge Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. We started Maddie's Fight Foundation 10 years ago, October 2017. We lost our daughter, Maddie, to osteosarcoma bone cancer. And one of her wishes was to help families who battle cancer, and unfortunately she wasn't able to be here to witness that, but we have helped over 300 families locally with it, and we financially support children and their families battling cancer. And I just want to thank you so much for this. Thank you.

My son was Julian Fraga. He passed away when he was eight years old from pediatric cancer. I'm an ambassador for Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation, as well as I help out with Maddie's Fight Foundation as well when I can. I appreciate the fact that you're able to bring this to everybody's attention. It's an important matter to everybody, whether at one point or another, We all have to worry about our children, our grandchildren, and our goal is to find a cure so that nobody else has to go through this anymore. So thank you. I appreciate the attention.

Thank you very much. Thank you for all you do. Our next proclamation is for Hunger Action Month. Whereas hunger and food insecurity remain serious challenges across the United States, the state of Florida, and the Treasure Coast, affecting one in four adults and children in our region, and whereas access to nutritious food is essential to the health, well-being, and success of individuals and families, and no one in our community should have to wonder where their next meal will come from. And whereas the city of Port St. Lucie is committed to raising awareness of food insecurity and supporting efforts that connect residents with resources and strengthen our community. And whereas the city proudly partners with organizations such as the Treasure Coast Food Bank, whose mission is to lead the fight against hunger by providing food, resources, and hope to neighbors in need throughout the Treasure Coast. And whereas Hunger Action Month, observed each September, brings communities together to raise awareness, encourage volunteerism, inspire advocacy, and support the vital work of food banks and hunger relief organizations. And whereas by working together, residents, businesses, nonprofit organizations, and local governments can help ensure that every member of our community has access to nutritious food and the opportunity to thrive. Now, therefore, I, Shannon Martin, Mayor of the City of Port St. Lucie, Florida, do hereby proclaim that September 2026 be observed as Hunger Action Month in the City of Port St. Lucie. Ms. Sekenius, Treasure Coast Food Bank here. Come forward, please.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

Okay, before we move on to public to be heard, I'd like to share our standards of decorum that we follow here in our chambers as outlined in section 11 of the council rules. Our meetings are to conduct business of the city, and we ask that all participants please uphold the principles of civility, honor, and dignity. When addressing the dais, please use proper language, direct all comments to the chair, and refrain from personal attacks, disruptive behavior, or the use of profanity. In addition, outbursts or applause are not permitted. Each speaker will have three minutes, and time may not be transferred from one to another. If any of the rules are disregarded, we will provide a warning, and after that, you may be asked to leave the chambers, and if necessary, may be removed under Florida law. We value and thank each and every one for their participation, and we welcome your input. Thank you. Teresa Aronson. She outside. Teresa Aronson. There she is.

Good evening. Good evening, Madam Mayor, City Manager, Council Members. I'm Teresa Aronson, St. Lucie County Chamber of Commerce. I'm here to talk about the Small Business Assistance Program that we conduct throughout St. Lucie County. We had Leona Peters, who's with me now, come through that program. She is opening a tutoring center in St. Lucie West. She ran into some issues. Her first planned was a school which seemed to be a little bit overwhelming, wasn't quite ready to implement that plan and had already submitted paperwork. So we were able to work with staff and I wanted to come and formally thank the staff from planning and zoning and the city for working with us on redirecting and adapting to the new plan of this center because she's already four months in and needs to get this up and running. And so I wanted to introduce Leona Peters.

Good evening. I want to say thank you and thank you to the changeover conference for helping me. I'm looking and hoping to open it by mid September for the tutoring enrichment center that I'm doing. And again, thank you for this opportunity.

Thank you. And I just want to say it really is a pleasure to work with staff. I think we all have a common goal of getting these small businesses open and operating in Port St. Lucie. As most of you know, small business employment is 40%. of our market and it's because people like Leona are brave enough to get out there and try and go through the process. Regulatory process we take very seriously and safety is always paramount, especially when it comes to our children. So working with staff on this issue was very, very seamless and a pleasure and I want to thank you for our opportunity to help businesses throughout St. Lucie County.

Thank you. Thank you. Good luck with your business. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Casey Honeycutt? Casey Honeycutt? There we go. Good evening.

Good evening, Madam Mayor, City Manager, members of the Council. My name is Casey Honeycutt. I'm a near lifelong resident of Port St. Lucie, and I'm currently serving as the secretary for the Sandpiper Bay Community Association. But today I'm here in my personal capacity, not representing Sandpiper Bay. After speaking with friends and family and seeing communities across the country come together for a common cause, I am here today to urge the council to cancel the city's contract with flock safety and end the use of automated license plate readers. Beyond the dozens of examples that we know about of law enforcement across the country abusing this technology to stalk exes, friends, or potential lovers, the artificial intelligence used by these systems hallucinates like all AI does and is leading to innocent individuals having contact with law enforcement. To many Americans, an encounter with law enforcement is one of the most terrifying and dangerous experiences of their lives. Families have been ripped from their cars at gunpoint because of misreads of these cameras. Police officers have no need to investigate for themselves after the camera has identified a vehicle, only to enforce justice with impunity. Because the burden of proof is moving from the state to the individual, we as citizens are now forced to purchase doorbell cameras, dash cams, or use our phones to document our day-to-day lives in case we ever need to prove our innocence from the accusation of a soulless machine. A few weeks ago, our chief of police assured the community that these cameras do not collect biometric data, but I believe he and this council have been lied to. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has documented evidence that when these cameras are activated by any motion, a picture is taken and all images are stored. This is also demonstrated by the use of these cameras to identify vandals that have been cutting them down. My neighbors cannot leave their home without being photographed by billionaires. They can't mow their lawns without being photographed by billionaires. Their children cannot play in their front yards without being photographed by billionaires. I understand that there is no reasonable right to privacy in public, but these systems are unreasonable. We are using taxpayer funds to pay a private corporation to harvest our data to be used however they see fit. Flock's business model depends on building a nationwide interconnected surveillance network that creates risks no software update can eliminate. We need legislation to catch up to these technologies, but until those safeguards are in place, we should not be using these systems. The people in this city need a government that is responsive to their needs. As Benjamin Franklin once said, those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. I hope you will reconsider your position on this matter. Thank you for your attention.

Thank you, sir. Eileen Honeycutt.

Good evening. Good evening. Are we doing this alphabetically? I'm here again to ask the city to reconsider using the flock cameras. The contract is an expensive contract, not one that I think the city really can afford to have any longer. I'm also here in my personal capacity. I did want to say that I am president of the Sandpiper Bay Homeowners Association, but I am not representing the association. It is strictly my personal opinion. Again, there's been a lot of information now about the misuse and the abuse of the cameras. Personally, I do not like being tracked every time I step outside of my house. We've had these discussions before. I don't feel that they're being used well, and I don't feel that they give me any more safety than we already had. We've been a safe city for several years. We are very proud of that, and your personnel, city personnel, Police officers, they are very proud of the fact that we are a safe city. We were before these cameras came into use. The cost is also a problem for me. It's a huge amount of money to spend for us to be tracked. It's an amount of money that is spent for that company to install and maintain these cameras. If we go on to an austerity budget, if Proposition or Amendment 3 is passed, we aren't going to have the money for these cameras. So the reason I'm here today is to ask you to reconsider the contract, to take a really good look at what they promised you when they first came in. These may not be the same situations that we face today. So again, I'm asking you to reconsider the contract and also to take a look at the cost of what this is going to be for the city, both IN THE ACTUAL PHYSICAL MONETARY AND THE ATTITUDE OF THE RESIDENTS BECAUSE IT SEEMS THAT THE RESIDENTS ARE NOT IN FAVOR OF THESE. THANK YOU. THANK YOU. GOOD NIGHT.

DOTY SPENCE?

DOTY SPENCE? YOU KNOW I MISSED THE OPPORTUNITY.

a couple of good evening a couple of comments questions the city of port st lucie community redevelopment board is this council has this council ever thought about allowing citizens on that board definitely i know you guys invite us out to get our opinions and whatnot but then it seems like a lot of times they fall on deaf ears um another thing one of the things i took note after the freeze earlier this year throughout the community many trees were removed and replaced Yet in the forest of phase two, which is between Fort St. Lucie Boulevard and Crosstown, they stumped a lot of the trees. And if you watch, when they come through and cut, they miss those pieces, but those stumps are sticking up out of the grounds. Why? It doesn't make any sense. After spending a fortune on rebranding Fort St. Lucie, someone forgot to fix the logo on the turnpike. It still has the old logo on it. When the city allows the contractors to put underground cables in residents' yards right away, you guys have, they really need to let the residents know before they're doing this. I had the waters break down on my street. Nobody got any notices to boil the water, nothing. If somebody wasn't home, nobody would have known. Another question, the bus stops at Floresta and Port St. Lucie Boulevard for the ARC bus. The benches are on the east side. The bus stops on the west side. Is there any way to get those benches moved to the west side where the people have to sit and wait for the bus? It doesn't make any sense to me that they're sitting there with nobody sitting on them. still awaiting a response from last meeting where i asked the city's turnover rate and how many employees are making over a hundred thousand dollars annually i found an information i found information on the gov salaries.com it's a free site anyone can use the downside is it was last updated in 2023 so if you're not getting the most current um so that there is information out there if anybody wants to see because there are a lot of people here making a lot of good money Another thing is give Russ Cullum out there in the lobby a raise. That man deserves a raise. He's always wonderful when he comes here. Last but not least, Mayor, I see you're going to be coming to my district. It looks like you're having a beautiful home being built on the St. Lucie River and a preserve with boat dock and ocean access. Welcome to the neighborhood.

Rita and Noel. Rita and Noel.

Good evening. Good evening. So I've lived in Port St. Lucie for 20 years and I've owned a home for 10 of those. I'm deeply upset to learn that the council has allowed one of the safest cities in America to expand surveilling its own community. We need policing based on trust, not AI. Automatic license plate readers have no place in our city, especially those owned by private companies. We need to cancel the contracts of all ALPRs, not just Flock. Companies like Axon, Motorola, and Verkada are known to swoop in to replace Flock once they've been rightly chased out of town. I have lost confidence in the council to make good decisions on behalf of the community. TO PERFORM EVEN BASIC RESEARCH INTO THE PRODUCTS AND SERVICES WERE BEING SOLD. IS ANYONE ON THE COUNCIL AWARE THAT POLICE DEPARTMENTS CAN OPT INTO FLOX NATIONAL DATA CHAIRING MODEL? THAT THE PITTSBURGH INDIANA POLICE DEPARTMENT HAS A RECORD OF PSL CAMERA NETWORKS BECAUSE THESE AGENCIES ARE SHARING ALPR DATA. THAT THERE IS LITTLE OVERSIGHT FOR THE SEARCH TERMS USED TO JUSTIFY THESE QUERIES. THE SEARCH BOX WILL ACCEPT ANYTHING FROM NONSENSICAL STRINGS to the word protest. Do you know that flock's default data storage timeline is 30 days, which is more than enough time to establish the lifestyle patterns of any person you look into? Do you understand that residents have a problem with this? I have some adjacent experience when it comes to automated camera systems. Recently, my vehicle was misidentified by a camera system in another city. Thankfully, this was for a small parking fee, and I spent my time arguing with a collections company to fix the mistake that its AI system had made. But what if this had been Flock or Axon? And what if an officer had been querying for a serious crime? If instead of spending my time arguing with a collections company, would I instead be visited by law enforcement for investigation? I never thought I'd become a single issue voter, but the issue, but this issue is a litmus test for how seriously each council member takes residences right to privacy and the presumption of innocence. My, my family's disappointment will be reflected on our ballots come November. Thank you. Thank you.

Hannah Galindo. Hannah Galindo.

Good evening. Hello, City Council. Yes, it's me again, and I'm sure seeing me here feels like dealing with a persistent ex-boyfriend. Ironic given the nationwide cases of officers using flock cameras to stalk their exes, but seeing young faces in the audience today makes it even more important to stand here. As a mother, I want everyone in this room to know that I'm not up here just fighting for my own children, but for yours as well. This isn't just about their safety right now, it's about the future that we leave behind. Let's talk about transparency. After we submitted a public records request, a staff member claimed no request existed, except we have proof right down to the reference number, P008708081226. When called out their extreme fees, she cut the conversation off midway through Section 3 of 7 to say, oh, this is more than 30 minutes of work. We're going to have to charge you. Well, after weeks of silence and the invoice never being sent, I finally got an email just one hour before this meeting started. The city claimed a partial release was ready August 20th, but a typo in my email prevented the notification. Think about the logic. You sent an email to my email informing me that you couldn't email me. Crazy. Now you're demanding clarifications just to calculate cost estimates. Whether this is gross incompetence or deliberate stonewalling, it is unacceptable. But in action, citizens are stepping up to defend their basic liberties. Your active push for this surveillance and your total disregard for the consequences is a complete failure of leadership. Deploying unconstitutional 24-7 dragnet tracking against your own citizens violates the oath of office you took to uphold the Constitution. When elected officials turn government power against the people they serve, that isn't just misconduct. Some would consider that outright treasonous against the public trust. Five years ago, we mocked authoritarian regimes like China for mass surveillance. Today, you are installing them on our street corners, turning our city into an open-air prison. And where does that data go? To fuel massive AI networks. These processing facilities drain millions of gallons of water from our fragile aquifers, strain our electrical grid, and blast low frequency noise that disrupts communities. Florida's natural ecosystems are paying the price for this insatiable thirst for data. You are risking our power, drying up our water, and threatening our health if you continue down this path innocent children will be born into a world with no water to drink destroyed wilderness and living under a dark shadow of the florida we once knew and loved look around our neighborhood and palm bay just across the way pulled the plug and covered their entire flock network By keeping this system running, you are exposing our city to an immense Fourth Amendment legal liability. It is only a matter of time before someone files a federal lawsuit against you. Consider this your warning. And I'd like to thank you guys for listening to me every time I come up here, but I also really want to thank the Honeycuts for what they said and the girl who was just up here before me. Thank you.

Peter Deegan. Good evening.

Hi. I'm here to talk about bulk garbage. I think you people somehow think that the garbage issue is in your rear view mirror. But unfortunately, you're missing the point of what the real cause of trouble will be, and that is when you closed the Cameo bulk center, you left a vacuum. There's nothing for the bulk pickups. You have bulk pickups once a month, and it just doesn't cut it because For example, I have pictures here. And on these pictures, it shows before they pick up the garbage. Now, this first picture shows that twice a week is probably not the primary problem because these lids look like they're not overburdened. Now, this picture here shows what's gonna be there for about three or four weeks. Garbage, you know, someone's garbage. Here's another one up the block. and here's another one, and it's not bulk week. Now what's gonna happen, you have bulk week once a month. You've got these people now with all their stuff, these houses don't have cellars, they don't have basements, so what these people are gonna do, they're gonna go ram and put all this junk in their garage, then some of them are gonna forget about bulk that one time a month. It's gonna start going into the attics. Now you have the attics where 130 to 160 degree temperatures during the summer. They're fire traps. Or you're gonna have to hold the risk of a whole family and their children burning because we didn't have bulk pick up twice a month at least, something to cover what's happening at Cameo. Now you say that this is supposed to be the beautiful city, the city of beauty and the heart, But you're not paying attention to what these streets look like because the people are throwing their crap all over. They throw it in the empty lots. And it's also because they're not being provided with at least two bulk pickups a month. Look at Amazon. How many people are getting these Amazon boxes, Amazon deliveries? We're in a complete order system, and they don't know what to do to get rid of the stuff. And so what I'm just saying and summing it all up, I mean, if you want me to, you want to keep these pictures to look over for yourself because the picture's worth a thousand words, you'll realize that you have to fill the vacuum of closing cameo with at least bulk pickup twice a month. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. You can give them to the clerk. Mr. Deani. Good evening.

Good evening. Uh, city council, madam mayor. Um, I'm here only because, and I really didn't want to be here, but that three meetings ago, I spoke about a property on par. That is, now it's two cars wide, deep. There's probably 20 cars easily on one property. You can't get in the driveway. I don't know how people would ever live there. But anyway, after I spoke, a young lady, Ms. Flores, has come up and gave me her card. She called me at the meeting. And she gave me her card. She said, if you need this... get any updates call me well i did call her about two and a half weeks after that and she never called me back three times i called her left voicemails i finally got her and it's funny because i got it for a guy called the central number and they transferred me in so she doesn't know who i was calling now she's just picking up her phone and i got and i spoke to her at that point she says to me well it's out of my hands um but i will give it it went up top of management uh west armstrong And I will give it to him and he will get back to you. Why? God must be real busy because that's like three and a half weeks ago. No one's called me back. And I'm getting a little frustrated. You know, it's something I'm also feeling that disrespect from the city. But it's only getting worse over there. Also, I call you on a totally separate matter. into the city of Port St. Lucie Police Department. I asked to speak to the chief of police. He was out of town. That was about two and a half weeks ago. And I was told by his secretary that, she asked me, would I be able to speak to somebody else? And she said, DeRosa. Don't know if he's assistant chief or whatever, but DeRosa. I said, sure. She said, give me your name and number and I'll call you. Well, guess what? To this day, and that was like probably about four weeks. To this day, we receive no phone call from anybody. Not a thing. And we talk about communicating with people. And I hate to say this, Mayor, but you were my last resort, and I called you. And your secretary, some young lady, answered and said you were in a meeting, and I understand all that. and that you would get back to me. Well, it's been two weeks now, and you have not gotten back to me. And that's just, again, I understand hard phone calls, because when I was in business, I took them. When a person called me that was irate, that they couldn't be dealt with, anybody else, I took the call because it was my business. Well, the city's your business. You should be taking that call. With that, have a great day.

Thank you, sir. Krista Gaudia.

Good evening. Good evening. Well, I did not come here prepared to speak. But since moments before I came, I learned that one of our main voices, who has been lending her opinion on the matter of the flock cameras, has been ordered to cease and desist. I thought I should come and lend my voice against the flock. So I'm here to ask you to please reconsider your contract with the flock cameras. Mainly because I feel that the owner of the company, Palantir, is a treacherous person who is listed in the Epstein files. And if it isn't abundantly clear to the public, our government is turning tyrannical. That should be clear to you since the Epstein files have been released and also with the recent exposure of Fauci and his trial. I think that people are becoming more aware of how we are being treated by our government and it is abundantly clear that they want us surveilled because we are becoming aware and we're waking up. I am asking you to end the flock cameras, stop the government, the tyrannical government surveillance of the citizens, and to bring peace and prosperity back to our wonderful city. I've been a citizen of Port St. Lucie since stage three, and I would like to see this city continue in its glory. And I think that it would really put us on the map and show OUR NATION THAT WE STAND IN THE PATH OF RIGHTEOUSNESS IF WE COULD END THESE FLOCK SURVEILLANCE CAMERAS AND TRUST IN OUR CITIZENS AND THAT IS IT THANK YOU THANK YOU MA'AM MR PELTON

Good evening.

Madam Tyrant, Penguin, Council Clowns. I'd like to reiterate a couple of things like what Hannah said. What it costs for public records is an absolute joke what you charge people. That should be records for the public, and it's pointing out things that you guys do that we're able to use against you. So I don't understand why it's so expensive. But going back to it, Wow, I love that look of disgust on your face. Now you know how the rest of us feel. Thank you. You know, you run your city on retaliation. You talk about small businesses. I'm a small business. You've done nothing but retaliate. Don't look at me like that. You're in my district. You've done nothing but make my life a living hell. Okay? But here's the thing. They're talking about doing schooling and stuff. I offer apprentice programs for my business. I have teenagers that have worked for me and that I pay. And you treat me and my business like garbage. You've overstepped our privacy rights. You never answered my question about the sidewalks that were done the last time. You were such a rush to tell me and jump up and go, oh, I've done this and I've done that. Let me pat myself on the back and I'm going to break my arm because it hurts because I pat myself on the back so much. All you do is disgusting. You work for us. Period. There's nothing else to say. You don't listen to none of us. There's many people out here. This is the most crowded group I've ever seen. And I can guarantee you by the end of the night, you're all going to still make the same exact decisions and put everybody last and put yourselves first. I'd be willing to bank everything I got on that. Going back to the way you run your tyrannical city, DeSantis put into law that somebody has to call before you send your tyrant boys out. I talk to my neighbors. They don't call. What are they doing? Harassing me, my neighbors, and everything else. Why? Okay? Back to the sidewalks. Somebody asked me 15 years ago when you did the last half of Scent you were supposed to do inner road sidewalks. They're not done. Okay, fine. That might have been before you got here. But it's your responsibility to follow up with past promises. You haven't done that. And you haven't done promises that you made to people as it is. This is a voting year so we're, yay! We're gonna actually do some work. We're gonna get off our duffs. You haven't done squat. You treat people like garbage. You're invading our privacies. It's absolutely ridiculous. And you guys are all a bunch of clowns. To be honest with you, Mr. Vice Mayor, you've got to be the only person in this group that actually has ears. Thank you. You're like the only one that listens. Because the rest of these people just want to vote and get money in their pockets. They don't give two damns about us or anybody else that's out there. And if you look to see how many people are out there, that's how many people, that's a small portion of the people that are disgusted with what you do and what you've been doing in this city. The rest of us are disgusted. And then you go, oh, you can't clap. But if you're up here patting yourself on the back, we can clap all day long. But they're not allowed to clap for me because we're disgusted. Why is that? I'm done.

Those are all the cards that I have signed up to speak. Would anyone else like to address public to be heard? Come forward, ma'am.

Please state your name for the record. Hello, I'm Shannon Scott. Thank you very much for giving me a chance to speak, even though I failed to sign up for it. I just wanted to mention the flock contract. Currently, it has cost the city a little over $266,000. Continuing the contract would increase that to $455,000, more than a 70% increase. So I just wanted to make it clear this is a big price tag, not just that... not just that the ALPRs sometimes hallucinate. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.

Would anyone else like to address the council? Come forward. Please state your name for the record.

Frankie Clark, Port St. Lucie resident. How's everybody doing tonight? Okay. So I actually, uh, wanted to actually discuss, I took, uh, had the opportunity to review, uh, tasks that's on the agenda contract number 2 0 2 0 6 2 9 0, which is for Southwest Gatlin resurfacing and Bridgerton or Burlington or Brighton 10. Sorry. So, Um, you know, yeah, I'm a, I'm a high school dropout, but I, you know, I worked my way up through, uh, the corporate world. And what I learned from there was the ability to review contracts and analysis. And so when I had the opportunity to look at this, so we're going to talk about the tax dollars here. So I compared the Gatlin and Brightonton Intersects projects against Florida Department of Transportation construction price benchmarks for St. Lucie, Martin, and Indian River counties. Now for two inch asphalt milling, the proposed price is $5.75 per square yard. The regional average is $3.12. That's a difference in the amount of approximately $276. Okay. So then I also looked at the super pave asphalt proposed price of $181 per ton. Now compared to the approximately $148 regional price, there's a difference of $194,000. more so for the asphalt friction course the proposed price is approximately looks like two hundred and eighty seven dollars per ton compared with the regional average of a hundred and sixty six dollars the difference approximately added onto this invoice is an additional two hundred thirty three thousand dollars those three items alone exceed regional benchmarks by approximately seven hundred and three thousand dollars At the Brighton intersection, milling price is about $33.30 per square yard, while the regional average is $3.78. Now, I understand smaller projects can actually cost more, but the equipment is already mobilized at Gatlin. Why are taxpayers actually paying such a substantial premium nearby? The schedules also include combined mobilization charges of $112,540, two pre-construction videos totaling $6,900, and traffic control charges exceeding $280,000. So my question is, how many companies actually submitted a bid? What are the engineering's independent cost estimates? What are these prices substantially higher than recent Treasure Coast benchmarks? And why are taxpayers paying separately for mobilization, videos, and traffic control across the related project?

Sir, your time's up. Please conclude your comments. Thank you. Thank you. Would anyone else like to address the council? So no one will close public to be heard. Oh, sorry. Good evening.

Good evening ladies and gentlemen of the council. I'm Jimmy Jackson, founder and president of Do You Give a Ruck? I was asked to come in tonight to speak with the council about our upcoming event and support for the upcoming event. As many of you know in our community, our organization goes above and beyond for our local veterans. But we don't have grant writers and we don't have support from our local governments when we go out and we do these missions. And our missions include repairing roofs, changing out panels, doing bathroom remodels for veterans that can't afford to do it themselves. And we put a lot back into this community. And tonight I'm here to champion support for this upcoming event. This event highlights the 25th year of 9-11. Many of us was compelled by the events of that day and went forth and served for our country. This event goes back to support our mission, and the funds from this mission goes back to repair a lot of the veterans' houses here in Port St. Lucie and across the Treasure Coast. We also donate a lot of the portions of the food that's raised from this event. It goes back to the Treasure Coast Food Bank and other food distribution points across the Treasure Coast. It's a big event that really impacts our local community. And I just was hoping that coming in tonight and speaking with the council would show usher some support with us in the future to help our local veterans in many aspects. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Mr. Jackson, you do amazing things in our community for our veterans and you are to be commended. So thank you very much. Anyone else like to address the public to be heard? Come forward. Please state your name. Jennifer Patnaud.

So I just want to talk about the, if you're a law abiding citizen and you have nothing to worry about with these cameras, that is not true. And I'm an example of that. What happens when you are law-abiding and the government gets it wrong? Let me show you. A female on a motorcycle with a handgun? What is she going to do with a handgun? Like a cowboy on a horse? Shoot, it just didn't make sense. This is a direct quote from the then Martin County Sheriff William Snyder about me in 2024. It doesn't accurately describe what happened. I was on my motorcycle parked when the situation escalated. I displayed my firearm after I was threatened and repeatedly told the other person to leave. When I could safely disengage, I put it away and I left. Instead, the public got an image of me riding around like Yosemite Sam. I WAS ARRESTED, THE STATE ATTORNEY FILED IN NO INFORMATION, AND I WAS NEVER PROSECUTED OR CONVICTED. YET ALMOST TWO YEARS LATER, GOOGLE MY NAME, YOU'LL FIND MY MUG SHOT AND YOU'LL FIND THAT QUOTE. WHAT YOU WON'T EASILY FIND IS HOW EASILY THE CASE ENDED. I TOLD CBS 12 NEWS AND THE SHERIFF'S OFFICE THAT I WAS AFFECTING MY ABILITY TO FIND HOUSING. I PROVIDED DOCUMENTATION AND I ASKED FOR HELP. All the CBS 12 would do is add that the charges were dropped, but the article remains. When I contacted the sheriff's office, the chief legal advisor told me that the statement was made before the disposition of my case. The government helped create a narrative, but I was left responsible for trying to undo the consequences. I don't have an attorney. I don't have money. I don't have influence or connections to make this go away. Someone considering me for housing eventually asked, have you Googled your name recently? I implore you, Google me. Consider that you want to hire me or potentially rent a house to me, and all you can find is this quote from Sheriff Snyder. And I have no recourse to get rid of this. So my question is, what happens when the safeguards fail and our officers mess this up like they have all over our country? Who is going to be paying for citizens to get things corrected and taken care of, to get articles removed? Because the media and the sheriff is more protected than my life and my ability to get housing. And these problems are only going to get worse and worse with officers relying on AI and not doing their own individual investigation. So I just want to point out, I'm not against technology and I'm not against cameras, but flock or any of those AI things are not what we need. And there's a million other things I'd rather be doing here, but I just want to remind everybody, You work for us. Your responsibility isn't to Flock or a corporation selling technology. Your responsibility is to the people who put you in those seats. You don't have to agree with us, but you do have an obligation to listen to us, protect us, and answer to us. Never forget who gave you the privilege to sit in those seats. We did. And never forget who is going to hold you all accountable while you're sitting in them. Thank you.

Would anyone else like to address public to be heard? Seeing no one, I'm going to close public to be heard. Council, comments?

Madam Mayor?

Yes.

So I'd I'd like to make some comments to address the flock cameras and there's going to be a lot of you know, there's going to be a lot of comments here. So please please stay with me because I want to be very I want to be very balanced and very thorough. So I have always said that I will stand 100% with law enforcement and I will stand with keeping our community safe. I also took an oath to protect and defend the Constitution when I assume this office. I don't believe the two are incompatible. I also want to say that I was the sole vote on this council against our red light camera systems. So I do have an understanding of the sincere and real privacy concerns that are out there. I want to take a minute and talk about how we got here with Flock. So Florida's yeah, this didn't happen overnight. Florida's law has recognized cameras for a while. In 2014, the state legislature unanimously both parties approved laws that included privacy protections based on what would have been public records generated by these cameras. Governor Scott signed it into law. In 2019, Those protections were made permanent. Governor DeSantis signed it into law. In 2023, the state legislature authorized FDOT to install cameras on state right-of-way when requested by a law enforcement agency. Governor DeSantis signed that law. At least 24 agencies on the Treasure Coast in the four counties have documented use of automated license plate readers. And these were approved before a lot of the examples of national abuses. So these examples of abuses throughout the country are relatively recent. This is a relatively recent issue. They were adopted with the goal of solving violent crime, of combating human trafficking, of helping with property theft and stolen vehicles, etc. And there have been a lot of successes, right? There was a murder in St. Lucie West. Suspects were apprehended within 72 hours. And just today, the Indian River County Sheriff, Eric Flowers, credited these cameras with the apprehension of a Vero Beach homicide suspect and he was apprehended, I believe, in a West Virginia hotel. In recent months, the examples of the abuse are undeniable, and also these questions about privacy are a new area of constitutional law. And they're one that's currently being evaluated throughout the country. These questions provide even unusual majorities at the US Supreme Court level. So you have justices that don't usually agree with each other agreeing with each other on these questions. And I believe that while these constitutional questions are being settled, we must use our best judgment to strike the appropriate balance. FLOC recently announced some changes to their policies. I believe absolutely at the local level we need to immediately, and I think PD may be doing this already, but immediately adopt those. So one of the things that they did was The 30-day retention period was the default. I think they've changed that to seven. They've required case numbers for searches. They've increased auditing requirements. I think we should audit. I think one of the things I'd like to see is pause any new technology. I'd like a full report. And audit by the police chief presented to Council because we need to really consider as a community now that we have this new information. I don't think we should do anything brash. I don't think we should do anything overnight. But we should really, you know, this is this is new information. I want to stress that. In 2025, there were not these examples. These are relatively uncontroversial. Even someone that opposes red light cameras quite passionately was in alarm based on what I was told, that these would have a very short retention period, that there was an express prohibition on selling the data, that it only captured the license plate. But I do think we need to listen to our residents, we need to listen to our law enforcement, and we need to strike that appropriate balance as a city. Thank you.

Thank you. Other comments?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I don't know if anybody else. Did you have something? No, no, go ahead. I'll wait. I'll wait.

I just want to talk about Jimmy Jackson and the great things that he does for our community. I would like to see the city communications department, maybe special events, reach out to his organization. And we support him in the same way that we've done other nonprofits here locally. If there's a consensus, I'd like for that to happen.

So we have an item on consent, which is 7G, when we get to it. You good?

I'm good.

Councilman Morgan, did you have something?

I just wanted to... echo what Councilman Bono Bono just said about the cameras and there's a lot more information out there. And I appreciate what he said and I'll just leave it at that there's a lot more information that we need thank you.

FIRST I WANT TO CONGRATULATE THE YOUNG LADY THAT CAME FORWARD ABOUT THE BUSINESS PROGRAM AND THEN THE CONVERSATION MUCH AROUND FLOCK AND I AGREE WITH MANY OF THE COMMENTS SAID BY MY COLLEAGUE. I THINK THAT THERE'S ALSO AN OPPORTUNITY FOR FURTHER EDUCATION LOCALLY WITH OUR RESIDENTS AS WELL AS Q&A. I know Mr. City Manager previously we used to have sessions where we would actually do Q&A. We would have experts in the field come in as well as staff members do it even from the dais and welcome Q&A and do open like essentially town halls for the public. I think it's important. I have spoken to Chief. Chief and I I'm sure everyone else has regular meetings when we can to talk to Chief. I've asked many of the questions that the public has asked, and Chief has answered those questions as well as ensuring the protection of the public. And I think in this conversation, the way to frame it, the way I think of it is we are in a situation as a nation, as a people, as a human race, where right now everything is in flux. There's incredible technology that is coming at all of us at 100 miles an hour. Flock is just one small portion of that, if we're being real. And so the challenge is that as all these technologies come forward, just like anything in life, we're going to have positives that come from that, and we're going to have negatives that come from that. I appreciate the comments and the questions, as well as the shared concerns. Because that is how, as a nation and as a people, we're going to actually utilize this technology and ensure that it is safe for the public. The outcries of what you're bringing to the table is what pushes back on these companies and as well as government to ensure that we use these protections to do exactly just that, protect you. And I know that I'm probably not the only one that feels this way, but in my conversations with our chief as well as our police department, I have full confidence that the chief is not just concerned with the protection of the safety to ensure that we have people that are not kidnapped, harmed, et cetera, and that's what this technology is used for, but he's also extremely concerned with making sure that that technology is not personally affecting your privacy as well as protecting causing unintentional surveillance of you as a person. And so obviously, like I said, I've had access. I want you as the public to also have access to him and to hear his answers to those questions. And so I really am going to ask Mr. City Manager to put something together with our PD as well as part of our city university. I think this is a good topic to kind of interject in our city university for the time being, because I know there's going to be a lot of questions in that, so I think some slides in that. For those that may not know, city university is an excellent, I think it's a seven-week program. Is it seven weeks? Seven weeks to educate you on all the aspects of what the city does. There's a lot of questions about where your tax dollars are going. It's available online as well as you can sign up. There was a question about bulk garbage. I'm not going to belabor this, but many of you already know that we only do a bulk garbage once a month. That is because of the contract that occurred during the failure of WastePro. The only thing that we had available at that time as an option was a once a month service. There was no other company offering us additional weeks of service. The Cameo Center was closed, and it was because that was a temporary site during the transition. And it was actually costing your general fund approximately $3 million additionally. ANNUALLY TO RUN THAT. AND SO AS WE LOOK FORWARD IN THE FUTURE, THE SOLUTION, AT LEAST ME ONE OF FIVE, IS TO THAT CONTRACT WILL EVENTUALLY COME FORWARD. SO IT'S MY HOPE THAT WE'RE GOING TO LOOK AT THE CONTRACT TO SEE IF WE CAN EXPAND SERVICES. there's one psls mr dn there's one psls that i know have probably been filed that mr city manager i would like to see those like you'd look into those one psls to see he says that staff has not responded and we should have one psls on that and um Oh, and Ms. Dot, Ms. Um, Ms. Spence. Uh, I appreciate her bringing up also the stumps on fluorescent. It's a small issue, but I have brought that up to the city manager. I have noted that we, uh, where's our public works person in the room. There he is. I am very disappointed in whoever is doing the landscaping and the cutting. I really feel that, number one, that needs to be replanted because we need to replace those items. But number two, you're going to have to pull that stump out anyway. So when it was cut, it should have just been pulled out immediately. So not happy with the company, whoever that was. Oh, and as far as, I know Mr. Clark talked about the contract. I don't know if Colt you want to comment on that. There's a difference between a DOT contract because they deal with state roads, which usually I look at the Turnpike, I look at other areas, those are straightaways versus an intersection. In addition to that, because of RFP standards, we're not able to necessarily go beyond what's actually presented to us in an RFP. So I don't know if you want to briefly touch on that.

Yes, I can. I share your frustrations with the fluorescent landscaping and it may not be widely available, but that work is starting this weekend. They're going to be taking care of the stumps and pulling the remaining dead vegetation and then coming together with the plan to replace the landscaping that has failed. Regarding the gallon surfacing, there was an engineer's estimate that was done on that. We have reviewed that estimate, compared that. The engineer's estimate does utilize statewide averages. We are also utilizing our continuing service contract for this work that was competitively bid at the time. And some items that may not be considered in reviewing the DOT statewide average is because of the volume and this roadway and the location, this work is being done in nighttime. So the statewide averages don't necessarily always account for the additional cost of nighttime and the additional expense of MOT for those operations because they need to have adequate lighting to go along with a few of the items, but we can provide a detailed breakdown if you so wish.

It's usually within the, and I know we have our one-on-ones on that, but I just, I know it's a complex issue. It's not as straightforward. In addition, I don't necessarily know what year those numbers were, so I think that it'd be interesting just to see if that's current year numbers. And then to Mr. Jackson, I saw something with, do I give a rock? I saw something recently. I'm glad to see that there's events taking place. for me the biggest piece of advocacy that i see him do which is just so humbling is when we see them actually walking madam mayor with the rucksacks in honor of their brothers and sisters and i just to me that's just always a very touching piece just to see when they actually do that thank you

Thank you. So when it comes to the license plate readers, I agree with all the comments that my colleagues have made. As a matter of fact, when this started coming up, I did have a conversation with the chief about what are we doing and the city manager, what are we doing to educate and to have these conversations. So, Mr. Morejo, can you please elaborate and let us know what the police department is planning to do? Because what happened was when it came up for the first time, the chief came down and spoke at the podium. But the reality is, and what I was frustrated about is, and he gave information that was important, but We don't know how many people are watching our council meetings, right? Not as many as the general public. And so it's imperative that we have that communication. Um, and also, um, as was mentioned by councilman Bonner, um, there are cities across the state and other places and who have. put in policies um that are in line with what their police department is doing and it does provide for that better education so i'm sorry so uh i would like to see us have that conversation and can you elaborate on what's going to be done one of the things we've done in the past also is put a landing page on so yes madam mayor you're absolutely correct this is an issue that's really

It's been around for a while, but really it's coming to a head at this point in time. The legal department, the city manager's office, and the PD, and also our communication department are gonna be meeting on a regular basis to really see what's out there, What can we do different? What can we put on our landing page where our residents could go out there and see exactly what's going on? And eventually at the end of the day, like Mr. Bond indicated earlier, we're going to be bringing it back to council and have that conversation. And even maybe at the end, even have a public meeting with our residents to have a further conversation. Because really, this is something that all our residents are concerned. We're also concerned. But at the end of the day, we also have to think about our safety of our residents. And really, that is what's truly important to us. Thank you.

All right. Thank you very much. Any other comments or questions?

Madam Mayor, I am in agreement with what you said. I think we should have a policy brought forward because this policy is already happening. And I think if the council, by resolution, adopts the policy, that will also provide better education. So I don't know if there's a third person, but I would like to see that come forward.

Absolutely. Thank you.

All right. We are moving on to additions and deletions to the agenda and approval of the agenda. Is there a motion? Move to approve.

Second.

We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Approval of consent agenda. Is there a motion?

Motion to approve.

Second. I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. We're going to skip ahead because we have an item with regard to our youth council, and I believe we might have some youth council members here. And they've got school tomorrow. And they have school tomorrow, so we want to make sure that they can get out and go home. It is a recommendation. 13 a recommendation for appointment to serve on the city of Port St. Lucie Youth Council. Happy to report that we do have 15 returning members this year and 41 new students to serve and that will be a record of 56 students who want to be involved in our Youth Council and that is something that is amazing is the highest number we've ever had and to have so many of our young people be involved and want to be involved in our city government is just, like I said, amazing. And so I want to thank all the students that are here tonight for wanting to be involved in your city, want to be involved in our government organization and learn all the different aspects about what happens in city government. Again, it's truly remarkable. And I want to commend each and every one of you who want to serve our city with that council. Is there a motion?

Motion to approve 13 a second.

I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Congratulations. All those in favor. Yes, congratulations to all of you and we are so excited to see what you're going to do over the next year. Thank you very much. give them a minute. Yeah, we're gonna take a five minute break.

you

Okay, we're back from the break. We're gonna move on to item 10, first reading of ordinances, 10A, ordinance 26-73. This is a quasi-judicial proceeding. Actually, we have three items tonight that are quasi-judicial. So if you're here, before we move on with this item, if you're here to speak, ON ITEM 10A, 10C, OR 10H, PLEASE STAND AND RAISE YOUR RIGHT HAND. YOU MUST BE SWORN IN BY THE CLERK. DO WE HAVE SOMEONE ON ZOOM? TERESA, SOMEONE'S ON ZOOM.

OKAY. DO WE HAVE ANYONE ON ZOOM FOR ANY OF THESE ITEMS? NO. AGAIN, IT'S 10A, 10C, AND 10H. Do solemnly swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God. Thank you. Thank you. Madam clerk, please read ordinance 26, just 73 in ordinance to rezone approximately 33.23 acres of property generally located South of Southwest discovery way East of Southwest Sundance Vista Boulevard and parcels of land legally described in section nine of the attached composite exhibit a from the zoning designation of St. Lucie County agricultural, TO THE ZONING DESIGNATION OF RIVERLAND WEST SPORTS AND RECREATION MPUD FOR A PROJECT KNOWN AS RIVERLAND WEST SPORTS AND RECREATION MPUD, PROVIDING FOR THE APPROVAL AND ADOPTION OF AN MPUD CONCEPTUAL MASTER PLAN AND REGULATION BOOK, PROVIDING FOR CONFLICT, PROVIDING FOR SEVERABILITY, AND PROVIDING AN EFFECTIVE DATE.

THANK YOU, COUNCIL. OUR NEW EX PARTE COMMUNICATIONS TO DISCLOSE. I SPOKE WITH THE APPLICANT. I ALSO MET WITH THE HOA PRESIDENT Dan Gerskowitz and Bruce Perod.

Spoke with the applicant.

I spoke with the applicant and I also did a tour.

Spoke with the applicant prior to the last date.

I spoke with the applicant, but I did not do the tour or speak to, and that was prior to, that was not before this item, it was prior to the other item. Okay, thank you. All right, go ahead.

Good evening, Madam Mayor, Madam Vice Mayor, Council, staff. For the record, Francis Foreman with the Planning and Zoning Division. I have been sworn in. Just so you're aware, this is a slightly revised presentation, if you would like to hear it. If not, it's all the same information, just a little more background, if that's what you would like to hear.

Council, would you like to go over the revised information?

I'd like to know what the changes are.

Yeah, so it's on the public record.

Understood. So again, the item before you is the Riverland West Sports and Recreation MPUD rezoning. Again, just for the record, my name is Francis Foreman with the Planning and Zoning Division. I have been sworn in, and the official city file has been given to the city clerks five days prior to this meeting. Madam Clerk, if you could please enter that into the record. The applicant for this presentation, or this application, I apologize, is Aslina Goldstein with Riverland Kennedy II LLC. The owners of the property is Riverland Kennedy II LLC and the city of Port St. Lucie. This site is located south of Southwest Discovery Way and east of Southwest Sundance Vista Boulevard, with this request being to rezone 33.23 acres of land from St. Lucie County's agricultural to the Riverland West Sports and Recreation MPUD. Just again, a little background now. This is the map of the general location, as well as the aerial of the overall site, with the subject site being outlined here in yellow. The overall area does have a future land use classification of new community development, or NCD, with compatible zoning districts of master plan unit development, or MPUD. The overall area is currently developed, developed or developing with the Riverland Kennedy communities in the area with the city utility site to the north of this project. A little background to exactly where this process is and where we are in it. The Southwest annexation area was first approved back in 2004 with the annexation agreement. followed by the Riverland Kennedy Development of Regional Impact, or DRI, being approved back in 2006. Along with that DRI approval, a comprehensive plan amendment was amended back in 2006, which classified this overall area with the NCD Future Land Use designation, as well as adopted Figure 1-5, which adopts the designation of the NCD, as well as the sub-districts that go along with the overall DRI. The annexation agreement in DRI provides specific information regarding what the developer will build, as well as the timing along with those requirements. Within every DRI is a map H, which that map H is a The same map that we approve and the comprehensive plan known as Figure 1 5 that was also approved back in 2006 along with the DRI. Since then, both the DRI and the comp plan were amended in 2020 and 2024 to amend this map to show different sub districts as well as move certain sites such as parks and anything else of that nature. To develop any portion of the DRI, the application must rezone the land to a master plan unit development to identify which uses may be developed in the MPUD consistent with the approved comprehensive land map as well as the map H of the DRI. After that time, then the developer may come in with any plat or site plan that may be associated to that property. As of today, this is the currently approved map H within the Riverland Kennedy DRI on the right you'll see the overall on the left you I'm sorry on the left, you'll see the overall on the right, you will see a blown up version portion of the map stating that this area was currently designated as a neighborhood village commercial area. which this map does also map match figure one five within the comprehensive plan which again on the left you'll see the overall on the right you will see the blown up portion stating as it did in map h that this is a neighborhood village commercial area again this is just a rezoning to riverland west sports and recreation mpud for 33.23 acres this area is located within a neighborhood village commercial sub-district which allows for a mix of residential and non-residential uses which consist of commercial and office uses personal and household service establishments institutional uses public facilities parks everything that's you know meant to us help and go along with the overall communities in the area The Riverland West Sports Recreation MPUD is proposing to provide 135 square feet max of indoor recreational uses, 30,000 square feet max of commercial and any other uses or some other uses that are within that neighborhood village commercial subdistrict. Within the MPUD, you will find an exhibit 17, which is the conceptual plan. This conceptual plan is just the outer boundary that is going to make up what the MPUD will encompass. The subject property, again, is located within the Riverland County DRI, and it is within the Neighborhood Village Commercial Subdistrict. Per Policy 1224 of the Comprehensive Plan, Neighborhood Village Commercial needs to stick within the parameters of the previously described uses, as well as provide two or more of those said uses. Once the MPUD is approved, any site plan or plat that is associated with that property can then move forward. At this time, again, this is just the rezoning. There is no current site plan application or plat application along with this project. As you may know, this is a continuation hearing from the July 27th hearing. THE TABLING WAS TO ALLOW THE APPLICANT TO MEET WITH THE RESIDENTS TO DISCUSS THIS REZONING AND ANY OTHER DESIGN SUPPLEMENTAL STANDARDS THAT MAY COME WITH IT. SINCE THAT TIME THE APPLICANT DID MEET WITH THE RESIDENTS AND THEY DO HAVE PROPOSED SUPPLEMENTAL DESIGN STANDARDS WHICH ARE NOW PLACED WITHIN THE MPUD DOCUMENT AND THEY ARE AS FOLLOWS. WITHIN SECTION 3D is outdoor pickleball courts within the MPUD shall be located a minimum of 225 feet from the eastern property line. Additionally, to the east of any area containing outdoor pickleball courts, the developer shall have the option to either install a minimum 10 foot wide landscape buffer containing a minimum six foot high concrete panel wall or locate habitable structures between the outdoor pickleball courts and the east property line. well as section 3e which states that lighting fixtures utilized to illuminate outdoor racquetball courts shall be no taller than 22 feet and dark sky compliant with no spillover of the at the property line the planning and zoning department staff did review this to be consistent with the direction and intent of the city's land development regulation and policies of the comprehensive plan and the Planning and Zoning Board recommended approval of this proposed MPUD rezoning and regulation book at the July 7th meeting. This concludes my presentation, and I'm here to answer any questions you may have for staff, as well as the applicant is here to give their own presentation.

Thank you. Any questions? No? Thank you. Good evening.

Good evening, Madam Mayor, members of the council. For the record, my name is Kevin Rattery. I am the vice president of GL Homes. I am the director of entitlements. I have been sworn in. I have been the director of planning for GL Homes for 27 years. It feels more like 5,000. But I wanted to kind of get past some of the consistency issues because your staff went through that and kind of talk about First, the mea culpa. We could have done a little better job communicating what we were doing relative to this property and the process that we were in. We were in a rezoning. There was no site plan attached to that rezoning. However, we put out a PR piece to promote sales of the new Valencia community out there and included a conceptual site plan and it created some confusion to the property owners thinking that they were seeing what we were proposing to build while we were going through a rezoning process but as a reminder we are only in the rezoning process in the future the final site plan by phase with the improvements exactly as where they're proposed with the buffers with the landscaping has to come back before this city council for approval

So you've already been through this with staff. Let me just kind of get to the meat and potatoes of this.

First and foremost, this is what you're approving. It's really a triangular-shaped piece of property. It shows the vehicular access coming from the west side via Southwest Sundance Parkway or Vista Boulevard, excuse me, and then from the east side, access from the fpl easement only so to clarify some of the comments that i got in fact i got one tonight there is no vehicular or pedestrian connection from valencia grove west through the fpl easement into this site the access is through the paseo which is south of this site that connects all of the riverland communities golf cart and pedestrian connection This is not a site plan. This is literally a box showing how the access is working and how we are proposing the connection. So I wanna take you back in time and talk about the things that we were doing when we were planning the Valencia Grove community to address two things. The first is we have a 200 foot wide FPL easement to the west of Valencia Grove with high transmission power lines that are sitting 80 feet up in the air. And west of that, there was this property that you own that we entered into an agreement to do improvements at the Riverland Paseo Park in exchange for the city conveying 26 acres of their land interest back to GL. The proposal that GL will be moving forward with was based on years of surveys and discussions and focus groups about what were the needs of the community and how can we use this site that's before you tonight as one of the ways to meet some of those request. It is not to be to be clear an obligation. We have 0 obligation to do the improvements that we are discussing this evening. It is not an obligation of our development order. It is not an obligation or commitment that we have made other than we're making a commitment and investment in the future of our riverland residents to provide the types of amenities and features that they like about this community. So part of that was our initial site plans for Valencia Grove, and that's what this is, Valencia Grove. And I can't point because nothing shows up on the TV. I hate that. To the west of that circle is part of the site that we're talking about this evening on the southerly half. When we originally site designed Valencia Grove, we had homes that were abutting up against the west side buffer, meaning the rear of those homes would be directly east of the buffer, and then from the buffer would be the FPL easement. So we would have rear of homes. We would have a lot of homes that were directly abutting that. However, in thinking our way through the FPL easement, the power poles, and the potential that could occur on this property, we did a redesign. And that redesign was to reorient that western side So that we had homes that had the front yard facing west and putting the rear yard facing east. And then we had north-south orientations. In other words, we took all of those lots that had their rear yard facing west towards this proposed site and flipped them and moved them east. To flip them, we had to redo the road so that the road became the break between the homes and the buffer. Our required DO condition of approval for the buffer in Valencia Grove was 10 feet. The required landscaping was one 12-foot tall tree every 30 linear feet. What we installed out there is 40 feet in width with a berm with heavy landscaping, and I'll show you pictures of that. But I wanted to walk you through that part of the design of this community was done thinking in terms of what were we going to be doing in the future along the west side so this is a picture of that berm i would do a height joke joke with aslina taking the picture and you gotta factor in but i'm not gonna do that um so we installed fishtail palms seven feet on centers we went out and bought the tallest fishtail palms available in the state of florida and put them in nurseries and held them so that we could put them on the west side of this Valencia Grove buffer. Again, first goal was to do the best we could to screen those power poles. And if you can see from that picture, all you can really see is the very top of those power poles. Those power poles are 80 feet up in the air. And number two, thinking our way ahead of what type of buffer would provide a very good screen to development to the west of this site. Another picture again this is now the road and then the homes are would be to your left of this picture the buffer 40 foot buffer to your right. Lot has been made about pickleball and the noise of pickleball and the sound of pickleball and so first and foremost we have facilities out there already they are built And I wanted, I can't point, I hate that, but if you look at the yellow, point at the screen? Wow, how about that? What? Oh, hey, that's nifty. Okay, so this is the existing and built Riverland Sports Complex. It is located at the southwest corner of Valencia K and the northwest corner of Valencia Walk. The nearest pickleball court to our north is 375 feet to the rear yard of this property right here. I also will note for you that's water. On the east side, our nearest pickleball court is 264 feet. And then on our newer complex to the south, we have 401 feet and 261 feet. This was the plan that everybody saw and reacted to, but I just want to give everybody a reference point. The westernmost lot in Valencia Grove, which is east of that 40 foot buffer, is 261 feet away from the nearest pickleball court, not separated by water, separated by a heavily landscaped buffer, a 200 foot wide FPL easement. When we met with the community, and I'll be clear, we met with the community. We requested the meeting through the Valencia Grove Property Owners Association. I took some comments from people wondering why, well, you didn't meet with just the people who were upset about what we're doing, and that's because I don't know who's upset about what. So I could be meeting with Group A and not meet with Group B, and suddenly I'm caught in the crosshairs of people complaining about things Why didn't you meet with us? And so we coordinated the meeting through the Property Earners Association. It was held on August 13th. There were over 200 people in attendance at the meeting. There were some hundred or so on Zoom. So the first thing we did is explain the process that we are in a rezoning that there is no site plan in front of the council for the council to approve. But there were some things that we could do as the developer that would provide some guidance and assurances to the community through the mpud approval process and by embedding those in the mpud they become conditions of approval of the mpud so if in the future gl homes needed to amend one of those conditions for whatever reason we would have to come back through the very process that we came through to do the rezoning which means it comes back before this council and more importantly and one of the best questions i got from one of the neighbors was What happens once you turn over and the master associations in control of these properties, can't they go in and change like some of the tennis courts around? And the answer is no, because it's a condition on them because it's a condition that runs on the property and we're conveying our interest in the property to them. And therefore they have to comply with that condition. And if they want to amend the condition, they would have to go back through this process. So the first thing we did from a site design standpoint was like the pretty obvious thing. And I changed scale a little bit here because I wanted to pick up a few more of the lot owners along the east side to give relative distances. But if you remember, we had the pickleball courts, outdoor pickleball courts over here, and we had the indoor pickleball courts west of those. We flipped them. And so we put the indoor facility on the east side and the outdoor courts on the west side. So that 261 foot dimension that I mentioned earlier now goes to 496 feet because we're putting that building intervening between them. And so you can see there is a significant spatial separation that's created by just doing a simple site design flip. And so that's what we've proposed to do. There is 18 acres of property that GL is getting back from this transaction that we have no idea what we plan to do with it. We've had a lot of discussion about doing commercial elements. We've had a lot of discussion about should we be doing more of these type of amenities. And I think the answer to that is time will tell. But the fact is, as a developer of a community that will take decades to build out, we can't know and assume every single thing that's going to be important to our residents when we open for sales on day one. Pickleball wasn't even a thing when we opened up. Nobody even heard of Padel, which is the newest thing. And so we have to evolve and make those business decisions as we go. So staff brought up the condition a little earlier. What the condition does is two things as it relates to spatial separation. The first thing it does is no matter what, we can't put an outdoor pickleball court within 225 feet of the east property line. Just a reminder, it's 225 feet on our property, 200 feet of FPL easement, a 40-foot buffer, and Valencia Grove. That's 465 feet right off the bat before we get to the nearest town. So it sets a mandatory spatial separation of 225 feet. And then we put in the second part, which is the building orientation of the indoor pickleball, and then if we don't have a building between the two, I still have to meet the 225 feet, but we would have to put in a six-foot concrete panel wall that had the same acoustical treatment if we used, and this is one of the things I mentioned to the homeowner, the technology and the number of companies that are looking at pickleball right now is amazing. People are developing paddles. People are developing sound meshing. People are developing all different types of technology because pickleball is such a huge part of communities and a huge part of what people want. You've probably read the stories about Parkside and Boca where the HOA made a decision to add two pickleball courts to their existing facilities. Parkside's been built for 30 years. And all of a sudden, they had neighbors that were 50 feet away from these new pickleball courts. And so they sued the association because so what we're trying to do is build into the zoning approval protections on distance. And then the second part of that condition was just dealing with lighting because of some of the comments that were made. People were concerned about the lighting elements that we were going to put in. And my answer to them was that's pretty simple. Just go out to the existing facility and there they are. So we embedded in this that condition. The or part is simply to protect us if we don't have a building on the north side. What do we do to put an intervening thing is to put that separation just to remind that piece is 1490 feet wide up there so we could put outdoor pickleball courts that were 700 feet away from our East property line. But then we would have an obligation to put a building in between the two. So we just belts and suspender to provide the option. But on the South piece, the plan is to put the indoor pickleball as a intervening mechanism between the two. I have committed as part of the final site plan process, and I'll finish, Madam Mayor. I have committed and GL Homes has committed as part of the site plan approval process, we will engage acoustical engineer firm that we use all the time, Gary Seabine and Associates. In fact, we've already engaged them. They're going to be out this weekend doing measurements at the Tunnels for Towers event that's occurring this weekend at the pickleball facility to start getting some of those measurements. In Palm Beach County we have indoor pickleball facilities that are built and operational that have outdoor pickleball courts next to them so they can and they will go out there and start doing sound measurements on those facilities. The whole idea is when there's a final site plan we will go back to our neighbors through the Valencia Grove Property Owners Association. We will present that plan. I'm going to leave with this. Did I make everybody happy? I think that's an impossibility these days. I just really do. We're trying to do the best we can at this stage to put in some protections to our neighbors. But at the very least, they know and you know as a council, we are far exceeding the spatial separation of existing facilities that we've built. We're far exceeding the typicals out here. And the caution I have is that You might hear somebody talk about 1,000 foot. Well, they say 1,000 feet. It had to be a minimum of 1,000 feet. Do 1,000 foot standard pickleball. There'd be no pickleball. I mean, the reality of it is you have site constraints that are site constraints. We're trying to build in those facilities and factors as best we can. And I think that's it. Thank you very much for your time. Any questions?

Any questions? I actually have a question in relation to the event you just said. You did say Tunnel for Towers is the one that's actually doing your pickleball event coming up?

Yes.

OK. I just wanted to verify that. I don't know if staff can answer this. Because to me, clear is good. Clear is always good for the public. I APPRECIATE THE CHANGES THAT HAVE BEEN MADE BECAUSE AS MR. RADERY STATED ON RECORD, MANY OF THESE CHANGES COUNCIL CAN'T FORCE THE DEVELOPER TO DO BECAUSE BY LAW WE'RE ONLY ALLOWED TO FORCE WHAT IS ACTUALLY WITHIN OUR CODE. SO THEY ARE GOING ABOVE AND BEYOND WHAT'S BEING REQUIRED. THAT'S IMPORTANT TO SHARE. I ALSO WOULD LIKE STAFF TO DISCUSS WHAT IS THE LEVEL OF ABILITY FOR THE COUNCIL or any municipal body in the state of Florida to get into the intricacies of these HOAs? And I don't know if it's your attorney that would like to answer or our attorney, but I just really, again, I wanna make sure that people understand that there's a limitation to how much we can do. I don't know if you wanna take a stab.

Sure. I think we tend to stay away from HOA matters as a matter of course. As it relates to the application, We have our zoning regulations, our land use regulations and code to kind of support that. They may seem interrelated, but we don't get involved in the nitty gritty of the amenities provided by GL and Riverland and things of that nature. The only involvement we have here is to consider this rezoning, which I think Mr. Rattery explained perfectly. It's basically the outer boundaries of a triangle. WITH SOME INTENDED USES THERE, RIGHT? THE SPECIFICS OF WHAT'S ACTUALLY GOING THERE AND WHERE IT'S GOING AND HOW IT'S GOING IS MORE A MATTER OF THE SITE PLAN PROCESS. AND SO THAT'S NOT BEFORE COUNCIL TODAY. ANYTHING THERE WOULD PROBABLY BE CONJECTURE, RIGHT? BECAUSE THERE'S NO APPLICATION PENDING BEFORE THE CITY COUNCIL ON WHAT IS ACTUALLY GOING IN, DETAIL BY DETAIL. SO I HOPE THAT HELPS START

It does, but I just want to further clarify. So for example, when someone applies for a land use change and we have in our most situation, we have a comprehensive plan, we have a DRI, there are certain parameters that they have to meet in order for council to agree or disagree. So for example, in this situation, being that we're being, we're a body, a judicial body, without getting into how we're going to move forward. If the conditions are met, is it almost in a sense of a legal requirement where we have to verify the conditions have been met and then we approve the conditions and then further with the site plan, if the site plan is meeting the conditions of the definition of recreation, AND WHAT'S CONSIDERED UNDER THE CITY'S CODE OF RECREATION AND THE BUFFER REQUIREMENTS OF SAID RECREATION, THEN IT'S ALSO MEETING THE CRITERIA. AND SO, AND AGAIN, IT'S GETTING COMPLICATED, BUT I JUST REALLY WANT, I REALLY WANT TO JUST STATE, LIKE, I UNDERSTAND THAT I'VE HAD EMAILS, I'M SURE WE ALL HAVE, WHERE PEOPLE HAVE THEIR OPINIONS ABOUT CERTAIN SPORTS AND THAT KIND OF THING, BUT THERE'S JUST A LIMITATION OF HOW DEEP WE CAN GET INVOLVED.

SURE. I'M GOING TO STAY AWAY FROM SITE PLAN. RIGHT, BECAUSE WE'RE TALKING QUASI, I'M SORRY. I think what you're alluding to is actually what we're doing here, which is a quasi-judicial proceeding, right? And so you guys take off your legislator hats. I said this last time. You put on your judge robes or your caps or whatever you want to call them, and the applicant has the burden of proving by competent substantial evidence that their material and their application meets the requirements of the two uses that were proposed in the context of the rezoning. You heard from Mr. Foreman. You heard from Mr. Rattery about that. I can't tell you how to weigh that evidence, but that is evidence in the record. When it comes to public comment, there is a public hearing component to all of these quasi-judicial proceedings. The issue, I guess, or the confusion can arise because, yes, we have an obligation to let the public speak. Just public opposition to not wanting something being granted is not a basis for which you're allowed to consider a yes or no on this application. That's just law. I'm not telling you what to do. Just case law is pretty clear that mere opposition, just not wanting something to be there because I don't like the way I think it looks or without any substantial evidence pointing to the criteria that we just went over is something you're not allowed to consider.

And then to be fair to the public, would it be also fair that Mr. Rattery provided a sketch or a conceptual plan, but that conceptual plan of a conceptual site plan essentially is what I saw that he just provided. Technically, should it be considered for evidence either because that's not part of the actual rezoning, correct?

That concept is not an application before this council.

And I just want to say there's certain things that we're able to consider as evidence in this portion, and there's certain things that there's not. And I just want to make sure that as we move forward in the process, we're clear. I appreciate the applicant's willingness to actually address many of your concerns within this actual item. Because I don't think that they legally needed to do that. That being said, as we move forward for site plan, you know, I do take your comments into consideration in regards to what you've shared with the public and how you're going to move forward. So I just want to thank you.

Thank you for the questions for me to do that.

Any other questions? And again, the site plan comes after the rezoning, and the reason why that we do the rezoning is because the rezoning has to match the land use. That's the key, and I want everyone to understand. We could talk about all these different things all day long, but why we're here is because you have the land use, and in order to rezone, it has to match. They have to fit together. And we have to make the judgments based on the criteria that show and demonstrate that they fit together. So any other questions or comments before we go on to the public hearing? Okay. Thank you. Okay. We have several people signed up to speak. Everyone will get three minutes to speak. Helen Peters. GOOD EVENING, MA'AM.

HI, GOOD EVENING, EVERYONE.

CAN YOU HEAR ME? YES. IF YOU COULD BRING THE MIC DOWN A LITTLE BIT, THAT WOULD BE GREAT.

OKAY. MY NAME IS HELEN PETERS. I LIVE IN RIVERLAND. I LIVE IN VALENCIA WALK, NOT VALENCIA GROVE.

OKAY.

ABOUT FOUR OR FIVE WEEKS AGO, THEY OPENED UP THE NEW EXPANSION, WHICH WAS 23 ACRES STRAIGHT BACK, AND IT BACKS UP TO MY YARD. The farthest point are the pickleball courts. And a few, I think two weeks ago on a Monday night, it was cool outside. So I go to open my patio door. I felt like they were playing pickleball in my great room. No joke. close the doors, come back later, the same. They play until after 10 o'clock at night. They're allowed to play until 11 o'clock at night, and they're supposed to start at 8, and they start at like 7, 7.30. here's the issue if it was just one or two courts fabulous click click click no biggie but you're talking in my case 15 courts and they're always full always i even have eight that are underneath a structure a metal structure the sound bounces off that structure at night when it's quiet And I don't know if anybody here plays pickleball, but it's not just click, click, click. People are cheering and hooping and hollering and swearing and whatever. So you know what I mean? So you have all kinds of noise. So from someone who's living with it now for the last five weeks, and it's 23 acres back, way more than 225 feet, probably more than 400 and whatever feet, 51 feet. I think you need to take that into consideration. Um, and so should GL because someone on Facebook, when I put my comment on about all of this, well, this is an active community. You don't like it. Move out. Well, you know what? I know it's an active community. I worked out six days a week and I used to play pickleball. So here and when I lived in Palm Beach County, it's not necessary to have that noise at night and early in the morning. It just isn't. And perhaps that could be a point everybody could agree on or work out or make everything indoor. This is Florida. In the summer, it's hotter than hell. And it rains all the time. In the winter, this is summer and it's noisy. What's going to happen when half of the population of Riverland comes back? The snowbirds. It's going to double the noise, maybe more. So that's what I have to say. Thank you for listening.

Thank you, ma'am. Miss. Miss Gottlieb.

Ma'am, have you been sworn in? Yes. Okay. Okay. First, I want to thank the council for your decision to postpone the zoning vote to allow GL to meet with us, the Lenzer Grove homeowners. We had a great presentation from GL and a question and answer session. I want to also thank GL for their time and attention to this matter. I think they've been very helpful. We love and are proud to live in Riverland and wish GL well with its growth, but we just want it to be responsible. I listened to Mr. Rafferty, and he did point out how close pickleball courts are to some homes. But as you just heard from Helen, who just spoke, that doesn't mean that it's quiet. And I love the idea that they are proposing to move the pickleball courts not within 225 feet, and with their conceptual plan, moving the building closest to the homes in the grove. But that's a part of the answer. It's not the whole answer. And what I really am concerned about, and I asked at our meeting, would this With this, take care of where they have no section 3C1, where it says there are no buffers on the south and east, but there are buffers on the north and west. And when Mr. Rafferty was talking about the trees that we put in, half of them are dead from the from the weather we had this winter. So we don't have that buffer there. And you're putting a buffer on the north and the west, but nothing on our side at all. And my house is about 550 feet, let's say, from the pickleball courts. And they are blocked by the building. but I'm by the proposed parking lot and there was nothing stopping the sound there. So, I DO REALLY FEEL THAT THERE NEED TO BE MORE BARRIERS, AND I KNOW THAT GL, AS THEY JUST MENTIONED, THEY'RE GOING TO HAVE THIS ACOUSTICAL ENGINEER, AND I CAN'T WAIT TO HEAR WHAT THEY HAVE TO SAY, BUT I REALLY WOULD LOVE TO SEE IF WE CAN HAVE THAT LANGUAGE REMOVED FROM THE MPUD, SECTION 3C1, THAT THERE ARE NO BUFFERS ON THE EAST AND SOUTH. I look forward to working with GL and hearing what they have to say at our next meeting, which sounds like it'll be before the site plan. But before the MPUD is approved, I'm just wondering if that language is a possibility to have that language changed. Thank you all for your time and attention to this matter. Thank you, ma'am.

Mr. Diaz. Good evening.

Good evening. First of all, I'd like to say I thank each and every one of you. I'm honored to be here in your presence. Ever since I moved here from New York City, where in New York City, you hear silences, you hear shots, you live in a different world. Living in Riverland is living in paradise. And what the executives here have done in Riverland is actually built a wonderful lifestyle for everyone. I personally feel, I'm not a big pickleball player, but I enjoy watching people play pickleball. I enjoy the lifestyle that we have. I think they're bending over backwards to actually move. At first, they had their plans. They're moving the building to block it. They're putting barriers. They're trying to accommodate and try to make everyone please everyone. And I know that it's hard in this world to please everyone. Like I said, I'm honored to actually be a resident of Port St. Lucie. I'm honored to actually have had the pleasure of working with each and every one of you. I've heard a lot of bullshit comments here tonight about all of you, and all I can say is I'm honored to actually be in your presence. You guys have been outstanding. And I want to say something. These are seculars from Riverland. They bend over backwards to make sure that we're having a good life in this paradise that we're living in right now. And I want to fix something up that you said. It's not Tunnel of Towers that's doing this, okay? This event. I was a New York City detective for 36 years. I served two years from Ground Zero when the towers went down, collecting, helping people get out of those towers. I collected body parts. I did DNA samples from the family members, which now there's a new technology that will be able to give closure to the families. It was myself and Joe Roski and members of the GL staff that actually opened up the facility for us to have this great event, which is on August 29th. I hope that all of you will come and attend it and support it. This is the 25th anniversary. Let us never forget. And I want to give my hat out to the law enforcement that you have here. We have a great, safe city here because of them. And that's it. That's all I got to say. Thank you.

Thank you. Lisa Watkins.

Good evening. Good evening.

My name is Lisa Watkins. I live on River Rock. and I want to thank City Council for postponing the rezoning and also gave us the Villancia Grove residents a chance to have the meeting with the GL on August 13th. The meeting was educational and informative. I also want to thank Kevin Rattery from GL for being accessible and responsive to all of our questions after that meeting. I was pleasantly surprised that GL heard our concerns and they made modifications to the NPUD. However, there is some clarity that needs to be done on page 18. In the section of the MPUD under B, setback requirements number two, a zero foot setback shall be permitted along the south and east property lines. And under section C, as Ms. Gottlieb said, there's no buffer be required for the south and east property lines. Now I understand sections D and E of that page 18 that were added on the August 14th changed NPUD. Our understanding is they're going to supersede, but I don't understand why those lines still exist in the NPUD if they're no longer valid, if they're going to add the additional setback and all of that. Why are we still seeing them in the paperwork? Regarding the future site planning meetings, we respectfully ask that the residents who receive the initial rezoning letter from the planning and zoning department are also notified of the date and time of the site plan meeting because it's crucial for us to still be... engaged in all of this going forward. So when it becomes available, it would be helpful for us to know when it is. For those that think that residents adjacent to the proposed new sports and recreation center are against it, we aren't. Today, Channel 12 posted something on their website about the residents having a fight with GL. I don't think of it as a fight at all. I think that we'd like to think that it's GL hears our concerns and we're hopeful that they'll resolve some of our issues. I myself find the quality of life in retirement has exceeded my expectations, and living in Riverland has made that possible. All the amenities that GL has made available to us as the residents has allowed me to experience many things I've never done before, such as bocce ball and pickleball and many fitness classes. So I welcome the additional enhancements to the GL property and what they have planned for us. So I'm happy here and hopeful that the peace and tranquility that we currently have continues. And I also want to recognize that the rezoning approval will go through, so I know we can't really stop that from happening, but I do look forward to continued dialogue with GL. So thank you all for your time.

Thank you. Scott Kaufman. Good evening.

Good evening. My name's Scott Kaufman. I live on River Rock Road also. I agree with what Lisa just said. I do want to point out, though, when we bought our homes, it was sold to us as a park. It wasn't sold, you know, it wasn't sold as this community. Now, I knew we grew, and I know GL wants to supply the facilities that we all want. So I'm glad that GL will listen to us and make some changes, but I hope that the noise level will allow us to live the same way we have, and I hope the THE ZONING BOARD WILL TAKE THAT INTO CONSIDERATION. THANK YOU.

THANK YOU, SIR. ANDREA MAMANO.

GOOD EVENING. MY STATEMENT IS FOR YOUR BOARD. IT HAS EVERYTHING TO DO WITH FPL UTILITY EASEMENT And I have one of the one of the photos that they have here and I have a question regarding 4 GL at some point. But it's a statement that the Paseo or the golf cart is looks like it's encroaching on the FPL easement. And I thought that there might have been additional setbacks from the easement to where the construction would begin. And that is the statement that I'd like maybe some clarification on in the future regarding your zoning laws. But it looks like the golf cart and then there's something else that looks like it's encroaching on the FPL easement, which in turn is making it a little bit tighter towards where we live. That's my statement.

Okay. Thank you, ma'am. Bill Sternberg. Good evening.

Good evening. I'm Bill Sternberg. I'm a three year resident of the Valencia walk neighborhood in Riverland. I'm also editor of the community newsletter, the talk of the walk. and a regular pickleball player. I'd like to speak in favor of the proposed rezoning that would pave the way for the new sports and recreation center. The current facilities serve about 4,000 homes in Valencia Cave, Valencia Grove, Valencia Walk, and now Valencia Park. And those facilities are strained to the limit, especially during peak season and peak hours. And adding 2,000 homes for Valencia Vista represents a 50% increase at Riverland. So new amenities are clearly necessary and have widespread support in the communities. This new facility that Mr. Addery discussed would be available to all Riverland residents. The opponents are vocal but represent a minority and our neighbors in Valencia Grove and Valencia Walk who were impacted certainly deserve reasonable noise mitigation measures, so I'm encouraged to see the changes that were described here, but that shouldn't be a reason to scuttle a project that would benefit all of Riverland, which will be 12,000 residents once Valencia Vista is built out. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Carl Watkins. Good evening.

Hello. My name's Carl Watkins. I'm a resident of Valencia Grove, which is in Riverland, of course, GL Holmes. And we're, of course, in the section that was close to the proposed fitness center, the new fitness center. I first off want to thank the council city council here because for last week listening to us and then postponing the vote for the rezoning last week last month and requesting GL meet with us they did meet with us as you've heard through our HOA board they had a meeting at the at in River at Valencia Grove with the whole community was able to attend And I thought it was very well, went very well. And I was actually pleased with what they did from the gentleman from GL when he did his slideshow, especially when he showed that they are talking about flipping the indoor pickleball courts over closer to our border. I think that's 100% great. I do have a couple issues with his presentation today. I don't know where he got the photograph of the buffer the buffer the trees that buffer the property in January when we had the freeze most of that stuff is dead so It needs replanted or redone. I would really hope they'd put a wall in to help buffer the sound, just because if we have another freeze, there goes that vegetation that he talked about. He also showed where the current pickleball courts are. I think he showed the closest house was like 220 or 250 feet. First of all, from our standpoint, the residents where I live, When those people bought, they knew there was a fitness center and pickleball courts going in there. When we purchased, because we're the, you know, we're not re, we didn't sell, buy, you know, we bought when the first, when Valencia Grove was first going in. We were told there was going to be a city park there. We didn't think there was going to be any kind of noise. So, um, we, you know, that were our biggest thing is noise for the gentleman who just spoke. Also, we're not, I don't think any of my neighbors that are close by the border are against the amenities, which GLS offering to put in. We just are interested. We want the sound barrier as much as we can, which he sounds like he's willing to work with us. And I look forward to your voting positive tonight on the rezoning. I also look forward in the future TO ATTEND AND FOLLOW UP ON THE SITE PLANNING COMMITTEE, SO WE WANT TO MAKE SURE THAT HOPEFULLY YOU CAN HELP US MAKE SURE GL DOES WHAT THEY SAID THEY WERE GOING TO DO. THANK YOU.

THANK YOU, SIR. HARRIET GALLIS.

GOOD EVENING.

HI.

I'LL BRING THIS WAY DOWN. AGAIN, I'M HARRIET GALLAS. I LIVE IN THE GROVE. AND FIRST OF ALL, THANK YOU ALL, ALL OF YOU, WELL, ALMOST ALL OF YOU, BECAUSE IT'S BECAUSE OF YOU THAT WE MET WITH GL, YOU ENSURED THAT IT HAPPENED. AND THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU. I BELIEVE THAT WHEN WE MET WITH GL, THEY HEARD OUR CONCERNS AND THEY'VE AGREED ONCE WE GET TO THE SITE PLANNING TO IMPLEMENT CHANGES. AND THANK YOU, GL, FOR MAKING CHANGES TO THE ORIGINAL MPUD. THERE WERE A FEW THINGS THAT WE WERE CONCERNED ABOUT THAT WERE BROUGHT UP EARLIER. So I saw Mr. Kevin taking notes on that. But my objective tonight is to remind you all that we are not adverse to the new amenities. We want and we all take advantage of them. What we found objectionable was a lack of thought for the current homeowners. We need GL to treat noise as a design question, which it sounds like they're planning to do. Pickleball noise is not about volume alone. It's about the kind of sound. Each pop, often in the range of 70 decibels, and it's a relentless sound. A single double scheme produces a pop every second, and think about the multi-chord complex where there's layers of the pops upon layers of the pops. And that's something that the human brain can't, you can't get rid of it, it's there. So GL I know is proud of its value of doing the right things and I'm asking that value to be honored. Our hope is to continue to work collaboratively with GL prior to and at the site planning meeting to hear about their plans for noise mitigation and their design to address the needs and the mental health of the current residents because that noise can make a person crazy. And I also respectfully ask GL to notify us when the site planning meetings take place so we can continue to have our voices heard. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am.

Larry Gallis. Good evening.

Good evening. I'll raise that up a little bit. Thanks for letting us talk to you about this Riverland issue tonight. I've heard a lot of words about trust and honest tonight. Trust here and trust there everywhere. So let me share my thoughts. I come to you with 40 years of sales and marketing career. In many interactions with my customers, your word was your bond. Up until recently, we were told there was going to be a park there. Today, there's not. It's going to change, they say. GL's word is broken. The bond of trust. Don't join them. GL has hundreds of acres to choose from. They can find a different area. They advertise more pickleball courts in a private community in the entire United States. With that statement comes responsibility and trust to their current communities. So let's be honest. In my opinion, they were always going to put their health center, their pickleball, and their tennis courts there. I urge you, don't do it. They rely on this council to do what they request. So be an honest broker to all of us. Resist their demands and put your trust in us. Thank you. Oh, by the way, GL showed you a beautiful picture of palm trees and collusia bushes and how thick it was going to be. Come out to Riverland. Come out to our street. and see that all those trees are dying, the collusia bushes are brown, it's not gonna stop any sound. Thank you very much.

Thank you, sir. Maya Guider. Sorry, did I mispronounce your name?

It looks like a Y. Maxa. It's a confusing name. Maxa Guider. I live on Seaway Street, which is off of River Rock, but I'm actually reading a statement by Rochelle Bettino, who's stuck in New York, and she's on 11974 Southwest Coral Cove Parkway. She writes, I live on Coral Cove Parkway, and my home is adjacent to the proposed project we are discussing this evening. I'm very appreciative of the action taken on July 27th during which members directed the developer, GL, to meet with homeowners and to raise specific legitimate concerns about the location of the amenities. This was done in the spirit of responsible planning, in other words, upholding the city's commitment to making the best decisions for the community by involving stakeholders early on in the planning process. We understand that responsible planning is the underpinning of managing the continuous changes that are occurring not only in Port St. Lucie, but also in our community, and your leadership is important on this project. The meeting with GL and homeowners on August 13th was helpful because, as we've discussed, the revised plan. We would like to remain informed and involved on this project as it moves forward through the process of the next stages. At this junction, I would like to state up front that I, Rochelle, am an avid pickleball player. However, since my home is about 600 feet from the proposed location, I'm concerned about the noise that may travel to property given the recent documentation indicates no real buffering will be required on that south and east property line. No sound barriers, walls, structures, or landscaping like has been discussed before. And again, those trees and that whole buffer line of trees was discussed at the meeting with GL, but because that's part of Valencia Grove, it's been turned over and GL themselves feel that they have no responsibility to upgrade that and upgrading those trees and replacing that will go a long way to providing additional sound barrier. During the August 13th meeting with homeowners, GL executives stated that they will be utilizing an acoustical engineer to conduct sound and noise studies of the proposed outdoor pickleball courts. We were encouraged to hear this and trust that there will be transparency and sharing of data from the analysis conducted at several interviews up to and including that 1,000 feet direction. 1,000 feet in all directions. The reason I reference 1,000 feet is that literature shows because of the frequency and decibel level of pickleball impact, it can be heard as far as 1,000 feet away. During the growing concerns of this relatively new sport, technology has been evolving to mitigate the sounds better than landscaping and walls. We trust that GL will share the findings and recommendations of the acoustical engineer and continue to find a work to avoid future problems by investing in the right technology up front. This is one of the primary reasons we bought in a GL community and recommended them to many of our friends. They are highly respected and reputable builder that does not sacrifice quality for cost. And we hope that we'll continue to do that in this matter. Thank you very much.

Thank you, ma'am. Bradley Miller. Good evening.

Thank you very much. I'm a resident of Valencia Walk in Riverland. We're coming up on three years in November. My wife and I purchased here because of the amazing amenities that GL was offering. We looked at many of their properties and we truly fell in love with Riverland. WHEN WE PURCHASED, WE DID OUR RESEARCH. WE ASKED A LOT OF QUESTIONS TO GL, THE SALES PEOPLE. WE RESEARCHED WITH THE CITY. SO WE KNEW, NOW THINGS HAVE CHANGED A BIT, BUT WE KNEW GL WAS GOING TO EVOLVE, KEEP GROWING, ADDING MORE SPORTS COMPLEX AND CONTINUE TO GROW RIVERLAND. THE CONCERN HERE SEEMS TO BE THE NOISE FACTOR, BUT THERE ARE HOMEOWNERS in the walk that are backed up on the park with baseball fields. Any homeowner, myself included, that lives near a clubhouse hears music. In the walk, we have music three days a week, Thursday, Thursday, Sunday, Funday, with music. So when you're living in an active adult community, you're going to have these kinds of events going on, and you're going to have some noise. I think everybody purchased knowing Pickleball courts, music and so on. I think GL with what they did tonight to move the sport, their new sports center and move the other pickleballs to the other side was outstanding. I know you mentioned another 18 or 19 acres. I currently believe an additional 8 or 10 more pickleball cars would be in store as it will certainly be needed when the snowbirds come back. We all chose to live up here. We should embrace the lifestyle and the fantastic lifestyle that GL has given us in Riverland. And I thank you for your time.

Thank you, sir. Can I respectfully ask that when someone is at the podium speaking that everyone stay quiet because it's really hard to hear from up here when everyone's speaking out. Thank you so much. Abby Daniels. Good evening.

Good evening, and thank you for hearing our voices. It's been actually very enlightening for you to be there and listen to all of our voices and take this in. It's much appreciated. My name is Abby Daniels. I'm actually on the board of directors of Valencia Walk. But I stand here before you strictly as a resident of the community. I've been living there for three years. And Riverland is growing at an astounding rate. There is no question about it. And it continues to grow. And I think we are at the point that with Valencia Vista that we are outstretched in our current amenities. So this understanding that it is a zoning meeting, not a site planning meeting, I understand what is before you now is to discuss that track of land turning over to GL to be able to provide the amenities to us as a community and that is critical. Some of the noise levels I can tell you everybody has their own personal standpoint as to noise. We get people who hear noise coming from the clubhouse who maybe don't like hearing the music. My sister happens to live directly on the brand new pickleball courts And she hears the pickleball noise. Not tremendously that disturbs her. She said from her standpoint it gets her out of bed in the morning and wants to go run and go play pickleball. So to each their own. But I do understand the concern of noise. I greatly appreciate what GL has presented and is willing to do and to make the concessions to us as well. This is something we're standing here before you today from a zoning standpoint, again, that this is just something that we as Riverland, I do not feel, can wait. As we continue to grow and need these amenities, we are so far outstretched now that the longer we wait on anything getting passed, it is affecting thousands and thousands of residents. So thanks for your time.

Thank you, ma'am. James Reardon. Good evening.

Good evening, Mayor, City Council, members of Council, and other Port St. Lucie officials that are here this evening. My name is Jim Reardon. I live at 13484 Southwest River Rock Road in Valencia Grove. I provided you with my written notes, and it's well over three minutes, so I encourage you to read it, and I'm going to give you the abbreviated version of it because I want to stay within there. I spoke at both the zoning meeting and the city council meetings last month. When I left the July city council meeting, I was encouraged. I recall you asking GL to meet with the Grove residents affected by the proposed Riverland Health Club West. That didn't happen. What did happen was a meeting that consisted of about 250 people that I could kind of look at it in the meeting, and it kind of diverted into other topics, not what we were trying to address. I know that GL tried to address some of the topics. I gave you a slide, and on that slide, they went through a number of different items. One of the items that they talked about, this should be number three, this should be a public park, and we were told it would be a public park. At the last city council meeting, I provided you with four years worth of site plans that they advertised. It is not a health club. It is a city park. We would not have purchased in that area had it been on their site plans for four years that it was going to be a health club. We would not have purchased. You can talk to a lot of other members who are affected by this, and they would say the same thing. But you know what, though? That night, GL kind of turned that around a little bit. So what they started to do, item number three reads, this should be a public park, and we were told it would be a public park. GL advertised it that way and sold every member of the Grove that promise. I spoke about that at the last meeting, and I gave you the plans. Instead, GL executives began fear-mongering at that meeting. They referenced examples of their own children, the vice president sitting underneath lights and this and saying, we don't want this, we don't need this, basically implying that if it stayed as a city park, you would be the bad guys in this thing. That's how I interpreted what they said that night, and it turned me off. I know that this city council has done a tremendous amount of work. PSL has created and modified several parks, inclusive and adaptive play equipment designed for children, siblings, and adults of all mobility levels and sensory needs. Check out the name Susan Quinn, who has worked with the city designing adaptive parks and apparatuses for PSL. Maybe that park would have been that. I don't know. What I can tell you is that's what I took away from that meeting and it turned me off. I actually have a proposal, and it came from a number of different people, is make the west complex all tennis and make the east complex all pickleball. The conversion of that, they have architects, they have engineers who can kind of refit all those things. I put all the numbers down there for you. I do believe that you can stipulate in agreeing on the rezoning. And if you stipulated that the West complex would stay as tennis and the East complex would stay as that, it could move forward and then get to the site plans.

Sir, your time is up, but thank you very much. James Homan. Good evening. Good evening.

Yes, I am James Holman. I live in Valencia Walk, which is one of the five neighborhoods that make up the Riverland community. The recreation of this MPUD will be utilized by all five of those neighborhoods, not just by the Grove. And that recreation area is very needed for those 4,000 homes and residents. As the current recreation area is often overcrowded and we have now with the Vista being open, 2,000 more homes will be, and residents of those homes will be using those facilities. So this expansion is is definitely needed. I've heard some people suggest that it should be located somewhere else. I think the current location is the best location because it has the added benefit of giving the residents from those 4000 homes soon to be 6000 homes access to this recreation area by golf cart and bicycle. keeping hundreds of cars, perhaps even 1,000 cars, off those nearby roads every day. So I fully support the rezoning as proposed with the two additional conditions that GHEL has added, and I ask the council to approve it without further delay. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Dan Belfer. Good evening.

Good evening, everybody. I just want to say that I live in the Grove, and when I was looking to buy into Riverland and the Grove, that I specifically looked at that area and investigated it, as well as talking to salespeople, knew that it was city. City, they told me, as well as what I saw, could put a park in there, could put a school in there, might even put a fire station in there. I also know, because I've been in... St. Louis, Port St. Lucie for a while, that the city parks, like Whispering Pines, have pickleball courts. So I totally expected that if it was a city park, it would have pickleball, tennis, and other activities such as what you have in Whispering Pines and other parks. More concern is the sound that they talk about. I live far away from the clubhouse when they have parties out there in the back with the singing you can hear it all the way into my house and my upset no I'm happy because everybody's enjoying themselves here and being able to enjoy themselves in Riverland is a great thing as well as being able to bring a destination like Riverland is in Port St. Lucie for people around the country and around Florida are moving here because of all the pickleball courts, because of all the amenities, the tennis, the clubhouses. It doesn't matter what you like. There is something to do here. And that's what's great about this place. I appreciate it. Thank you very much.

Thank you, sir. Daniel Gershkowitz. Good evening, sir. Good evening.

Mayor Martin, council, staff, thank you very much for the opportunity to speak. Most of what I've written has already been stated, but I'll just restate it a little bit. First, I think the last meeting we held on the 27th, I think was the most wise decision that you took to table this motion. It gave us the opportunity to have GL come to our community. We as a board, and I am the president of the board, we took that opportunity to offer GL the opportunity to present what their plans were, have all of our residents ask the questions, and we opened it up to our entire community because only the people who had the small meetings were having the discussions, and it really deserved to be a much wider audience so that people could really see and understand what was going on. I think what's been going on is that people have different expectations and understandings, and I think in the future, GL, I think has maybe learned that it's probably a wise thing to do to engage some of the communities as they move forward. I've had the privilege of dealing with them over the last three years. I have found them very accommodating, and I think the issues, whether it be lighting or sound, sound studies, There's always ways to mitigate sound. I've been in the large construction business my entire career and I've always dealt with those issues and they are manageable. It's just a matter of finding the right solution for the right problem. And since they don't have a sound study yet, we don't know what the problem really is. So again, As a board member and having this community and the reception that they gave GL, I would like to say that going forward, hopefully this will pass and all the right things will take place and then we'll be engaged in the site planning and approval process. Thank you very much.

Thank you, sir. Okay, those are all the cards that I have signed up to speak. Would anyone else like to speak in this public hearing? Seeing no one, I'm going to close the public hearing. Mr. Roderick, do you want to address some of the concerns that were brought up with regard to noise and buffering?

Yes, if somebody's going to put the presentation back up for me so I can refer to it.

And Madam Mayor, while we're putting that up, I do also want to remind the board, we do have a sound ordinance as well for residential areas, so not that it would come to that, but we already do have protections in place should there end up being a problem.

Okay.

Go ahead.

Again, for the record, Kevin Rattery, I just wanted to respond to a few of the comments that were made by the public. First and foremost, there was a lot of discussion about when the pictures were taken that showed the buffer. The answer is July 22nd, 2026. Yes, there was a freeze last year and a combination of wind, and a lot of that vegetation was damaged through natural actions. We had already turned over the community. To be clear, our landscape guy has offered his assistance to the landscape companies at Valencia Grove and the other communities to help them understand how to bring that material back. But that picture is a recent picture. It shows you that that buffer is there and that that buffer is thick and that that buffer, from a sight line standpoint, is blocking out everything with the exception of the top of those power poles. This is great. We love it. Just don't build it here. We know that as a NIMBY in my line of work. I think that's more, I said it at the community meeting, that's more of a banana. Build absolutely nothing anywhere near anyone. And respectfully, the site design of this community, I can't change it.

Oh, there it goes.

It's not up there, though. I'll go back to this one. The site design was specifically done and this location was chosen because of the Paseo. Somebody made the comment earlier. If we take this site and move it somewhere else, we as GL may not want to put those amenities in because we're now going to be catering to another community and another set of circumstances. It may be family. It may not be retiree. This site was chosen because of that connection to the Paseo where those golf cart, pedestrian, and bicycles can access the site without having to get in their car. The whole idea of this Paseo was to allow that interconnection TO THESE AMENITY AREAS, TO OUR COMMERCIAL AREAS, SO THAT WE COULD REDUCE THE AMOUNT OF VEHICULAR TRAFFIC THAT WAS OCCURRING ON THE ROADWAY SECTIONS. SO IT'S IMPORTANT TO US, AS WE SITE DESIGN THESE ELEMENTS, THAT WE TAKE ACCESS TO THOSE INTO CONSIDERATION. THE FPLE'S, YES, WE WERE SHOWING POTENTIAL GOLF CART CONNECTION from the Paseo up through the FPL easement. We are in discussions with FPL about doing that very thing, which allows us to maximize that site design. With regard to the consistency argument that was brought up by several people. So the reference was to see one and two having no buffer or setback requirement and how does that relate to d and the answer is you read d explicitly as it's written and that is if we have outdoor pickleball courts standard d always applies Elsewhere on the site where we don't have outdoor pickleball areas, we do have no setback, no buffer because of that very picture I showed you, which is you're 240 feet away with FPL easement and buffer. And then our property and the site line of that buffer in Valencia Grove, you can't see the site. And that's why we designed it this way. We specifically put in D. So you read D in combination with C. If C says you don't have to do it and D says you got outdoor pickleball, you have to do this following standard, D applies. And I just wanted to make sure that's on the record and very clear that C doesn't usurp D. Um, the last thing I wanted to mention is there was some discussion about this city park stuff. It was a city park for a long time because we conveyed that property to the city as a future city park site. And then we entered into an agreement whereby GL spent $6 million to build improvements for the city at the riverland Paseo park. And as part of that agreement, which is public record, just to be clear to Mr Reardon, is public record that agreement said if we do those improvements the city agrees to convey that property back to us and what i said at the meeting was if it's city owned property and a city park property the city makes the decisions on what uses occur on that property period hard stuff okay wasn't making anybody out to be the bad guy i was stating the fact that if the city owns it, the city decides what city uses go on that, and you don't build park improvements for just the folks in Riverland or just the folks in one community. You build them for all of the residents of Port St. Lucie, and that can include uses that are not typically done associated with a retiree community, like active ball fields and those soccer fields where you have games you have referees you have people cheering we simply stated the fact that the city would make that decision if the city retained that ownership but we have an agreement that we would build those improvements and the city would give us back this property now we're coming forward to utilize that property and i just want to close with this just to make it clear to everybody I think it's pretty obvious that the folks that are very close to this site have a very vested interest in what we are proposing. And I think there's also a vested interest on behalf of the Riverland residents to get this facility built as quickly as possible. I think we have shown time and time and time again to this commission and to our residents that we always try to do the right thing for our residents. And that includes what we're talking about tonight, that when we come in for final site plan, I've committed to meet with them. I've committed to provide the noise study. I've committed to do the things necessary to try to do that. Can I guarantee that I'm going to make everybody happy? No, I can't. Because I know if somebody reads that noise study and says, I don't agree with it, they're going to show up at the public hearing and they're going to object to it. That's just the reality of the world we live in today. But what I can tell you is we built into this document some protections, and then you as the council will see that final site plan as part of a public hearing process, just like the process we're in. And we would respectfully ask you to move forward on the rezoning tonight so we can go to the next step.

Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. Rotary, hold on. That's okay. I was going to say, if council has any further questions for you.

Sure. Thank you for your comments, and I want to thank the public for showing up tonight. COMMENTS. YOU MENTIONED A SOUND STUDY. SHOULD THIS MOVE FORWARD AND YOU DO A SOUND STUDY, WILL YOU PROVIDE US WITH A COPY OF THAT SOUND STUDY PRIOR TO ANY APPLICATION SO WE CAN REVIEW IT? AND ALSO, HOW DO YOU CONVEY THAT TO THE RESIDENTS ONCE THE SOUND STUDY HAS BEEN COMPLETED? AND ALSO, IF THIS MOVES FORWARD, WILL YOU ADDRESS THE EAST-SOUTH BUFFER IN THE SITE PLAN?

So the east-south buffer is really a matter of what does the sound study tell us, okay? And so to sit here today and say, oh, it's going to be 20 feet or it's going to be 10 feet or it's going to have this tree or it's going to have that type of – it's premature because that's really what the sound study is designed to do. The whole purpose of moving that building was to provide – a block of the sound from the outdoor pickleball courts.

I understand that, sir, and I appreciate it. I appreciate what you did. So to answer your questions. To my question, once the sound study comes up and it's determined, we're going to address the east-south buffer.

As part of the site plan process and as part of the results of the noise study, we will address the east-south buffer.

That's correct. Thank you. That's all the questions I have. Thank you.

Okay. Anyone else have any questions or comments for us? I mean, for Mr. All right, we're good. It's all part of the process. Go ahead, Vice Mayor.

So first of all, I really want to thank everyone for their comments this evening. As many of you watch national TV and national news, I cannot tell you how refreshing it is to be in a room with individuals who can agree to disagree. and do it respectfully amongst each other. And I'm not necessarily talking about us and you. I'm talking about each other in your community. I think that that's the hope of America right now is that we can get back to agreeing to disagree sometimes and still be able to play pickleball or enjoy music together or take a walk in your paseo and enjoy each other's company. I am not a huge fan of HOAs. I live in an open lot. the city and it's not my thing but I will tell you I visited your community in the past and I call it a cruise ship on land um i have been thoroughly impressed with the level of amenities that you have i have to say i'm jealous of the kitchen and your ability to do cooking classes i'm jealous of the artwork that i've seen in there um and i say that lovingly not jealous as an obvious but you know i really believe that what you have is extremely And so I hope despite this particular issue that you guys can take that away because I have yet to see HOA community operate the way that Riverland does. And many of that is because of you, the residents there that love it. I appreciate your advocacy. So much so that you know that you have a councilman elect from your community. I mean, you guys are extremely vocal. And we love that because River Lane has really become a major fabric, I believe, of our city, as well as Mattamy and our tradition development out there has really been just a refreshing addition to the city of Port St. Lucie. But with that, I want to do talk about some of the things I do. I remember Miss Peters. I don't think she's still here. She went and she left. I heard a comment in regards to the pickleball and this again is not about the item. I just want to share some thoughts. I think there is something to be said about if you don't have enough of the amenities to actually deal with the level of demand, you can see areas that are gonna end up having a lot more sound and a lot more impact because there's nowhere else to go, right? So all 20 courts are filled and there's no other new courts, those 20 courts are always gonna be filled. So as the development continues to expand the amenities Like just like at the city, you'd hope would have to expand because if not, then you're just going to end up with centralized areas that are impacted at a very large capacity because everyone's trying to get there to your to your comment, sir. And I want to make sure I get to it. And I'm not speaking for them or defending them. I wasn't there to hear what they said, but there is some truth to the public park concept. You know, we have had the opportunity as a board to vet many park projects and to work with the residents on that project. And it does become a fight over what great amenities we can put there. And I could pretty much, if it was done today, almost for sure and tell you that it would be noisy. There would be some form of major activity occurrence because we're so short on fields. We're sort of short on fields, baseball fields, soccer fields. There's just a lot of needs within the city of this size. We're the sixth largest city and just not enough land. I think what's interesting is because of the change that occurred, you're able to advocate at this level, right? It would have been a lot harder to advocate at the city level and push back on a city park. because there's different needs that we have to look at and evaluate. And so you might have ended up, I believe, potentially with a more harsher impacted product if it came from us, potentially. And not to mention, depending on when it gets built, it might not even be this council sitting here, because as you know, things change. You're able to Do exactly what you're doing right now. Advocate for your community. Advocate for what you want internally. Speak to the developers to make these mitigations, to put the buffers up. They still have product to sell, so they want that to be successful because people aren't going to come if it's an impact to the community. So I think it's a huge advantage that you have. And I think as you guys continue to become... your own leadership, because you're going to have your own boards that are going to take over when GL is no longer the developer. You are going to probably have these internal debates about time when the pickleball courts are open, when music is played, all of these things that you really get to be your own kingdom, in a sense, in many ways in your community. And so, unlike us, who, you know, we have to take care of, like, everyone in the city, and if I... It's 268,000 people I'm trying to make happy versus, you know, like, you guys making each other happy in your community. So it's just... But I really do truly appreciate... All of the comments, I appreciate GL's willingness to work with their community. And as the site plan moves forward, I know that we're going to be speaking again. And I know that GL is going to be on top of it and being great partners with you as well. So thank you very much. And I look forward to chatting with you guys in the future.

Sure. Thank you, Madam Mayor. You know, When my daughter, she's 12 now, a few years ago, she first drove by Riverland. She had moved here from Palm Beach County, and she sees this sign that says Riverland. And Tara and I are in the car, and she says, Mom, Dad, I want to go. I want to go. And I told her, I said, well, no, it's a 55-plus active adult community. You really can't go. And she just looked at me with this blank stare, and she said, why would they do that to kids? But Riverland is a place that people expect amenities. It's an active adult community, and it has been said is a very special place. place and the fact that all of you are here tonight is out of a desire to protect that special place, even though some of you are coming at it from different angles. And I think the one thing out of this process, I would say, is that public input, and I think GL got the message, but public input and community engagement should be the first step in this process. It shouldn't be an afterthought. It shouldn't only be because there's pushback at a meeting. And you begin your presentation with a mea culpa, and I appreciated that. And so in this instance, what we're discussing tonight, and I always love the analogy that Chief Justice John Roberts gave when he became a Supreme Court justice. He said, I call the balls and the strikes. And there is criteria that we're supposed to judge this application on. and we're not you know this is quasi-judicial we're not supposed to quote unquote legislate from the bench And in my estimation, the criteria has been met. And so I have to call the balls on the strikes. The public opinion, you know, we really can't consider that as part of an up or down decision, but it was mixed. I appreciate the fact that, you know, the public engagement did occur, at least to some level, after our first meeting. And that's kind of, you know, I wasn't here for the initial agreement on the, you know, conveying the land and all of that. So I'm making, I'm calling the balls and strikes based on where we are today. And so that's my comments on this issue. Thank you.

Any other comments? Just really quick, because you just now in my memory, too, is as far as the exchange, because I did see some comments in the audience about that. Keep in mind, too, that the land that we carry as a city is only as worth if I can actually produce a park on it. And so many times because of limited funds that we have, when we discuss and I remember this now that he, Mr. Rothery, brought it forward and the city manager and Madam Mayor, you're part of it. You know, if I can't, if I don't have the financial wherewithal as your representative to be able to build the amenities, then there's no park. And that promise is it kept to the city of Port St. Lucie and its residents. And so in this particular instance, Riverland Paseo Park, that park was needed for the community. And they basically did it. It's almost like a trade. We will trade land and we will build the amenities of the park that the city does not have the financial ability to build. And so that is a $4 million taxpayer savings to the public. to be able to do that. Was it four? I can't remember. Six. It was six million. Sorry. I know it started at four and then costs raised and then COVID, so it went up to six. So it was over a $6 million investment from GL to be able to build those amenities, and that's a $6 million tax saving to the public. So that's some of the decision. That's kind of how the sausage is made, and I don't want the statement just said without kind of giving you some background of what's considered and what we take into consideration when doing that. So thank you.

ANY OTHER COMMENTS? NO? OKAY. SO I WANT TO THANK EVERYONE, I AGREE, FOR COMING TONIGHT. I AGREE WITH MY COLLEAGUES, EVERYTHING THAT WAS STATED HERE. AS WE MOVE THROUGH THE PROCESS, MR. ROUTERY HAS STATED THAT HE'S GOING TO HAVE ANOTHER COMMUNITY MEETING. WE'RE GOING TO DISCUSS THE NOISE, THE RESULTS OF THE NOISE STUDY. AND IT WAS ALSO STATED THAT I GUESS THE TREES ARE NO LONGER THERE FOR THE GROVE. However, I would love to see some encouragement with regard to getting those taken care of that needs still to be taken care of. I think that is proper and appropriate in this instance. And again, going back after the study is done, when we get to the site plan level, looking again at the buffering, I think that's important to make sure that we're communicating that information. And with that, IF THERE'S NOTHING FURTHER, COUNCIL, IS THERE A MOTION?

I MOVE APPROVAL OF ORDINANCE 26-73 WITH THE PROPOSED SETBACK AND BUFFERING LANGUAGE IN THE NPUD THAT WAS STATED IN THE STAFF PRESENTATION. SECOND.

I HAVE A MOTION AND A SECOND.

ANY FINAL DISCUSSION? YOU JOGGED MY MEMBER ABOUT SOMETHING ELSE. TOO MANY NOTES, TOO MANY COMMENTS. JUST REAL QUICK. MARY, BECAUSE I WANT TO MAKE SURE THAT PEOPLE DON'T LEAVE WITH AN EXPECTATION. TYPICALLY BY ORDINANCE WE HAVE TO SEND OUT FOR THESE CHANGES FOR THE ACTUAL LAND USE CHANGE. WE HAVE TO SEND THOSE OUT. DOES SITE PLAN GET NOTIFIED IN THE SAME WAY AND CAN YOU EXPLAIN TO THE PUBLIC WHY OR WHY NOT?

SO WE DON'T SEND A BUTTERS NOTICES FOR SITE PLAN REVIEW. HOWEVER, WE DID HEAR THE APPLICANT assert that he's going to be meeting with the community and engaging with them prior to even submitting to us. So my takeaway from that is that they will be aware as the project gets designed and I believe the applicant will let them know When it's going to be submitted now, there are ways to follow what projects are going on in the city You can sign up to have agendas emailed to you the site plan review committee does publish agendas and so you can certainly get those but I think in this instance we heard GL is going to be engaging with their residents and and letting them know and

Right, and I appreciate that because I think for the question of transparency, Sarah, I know our website's changed over time. There is a location for, and if we can, we can share it with you. There is a location where people can sign up for emails, sign up for site plan, planning and zoning meetings, council meetings so they can get notified, and then you just look at the agenda and it's going to be able, you're going to see the site plan change language that is being proposed so you can follow it. So I just want to set expectations, Mayor. Sorry. It's okay. Great.

Okay. There being no further comments. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries.

Do you guys need another break? Okay.

We're going to take five minutes. Okay, we're back from the break. We're moving on to item 10B, ordinance 26-74.

An ordinance of the City of Port St. Lucie, Florida amending the comprehensive plan of the City of Port St. Lucie to provide a small-scale amendment to the future land use map to change the future land use designation for approximately 2.74 acres FROM RECREATION OPEN SPACE TO CONSERVATION OPEN SPACE FOR TWO PARCELS OF LAND LEGALLY DESCRIBED AS A PORTION OF SECTION 15, TOWNSHIP 36 SOUTH, RANGE 39 EAST, GENERALLY LOCATED SOUTHEAST OF GLADES CUT OFF ROAD, WEST OF INTERSTATE 95, AND NORTH OF COMMERCE CENTER DRIVE, PROVIDING FOR CONFLICT, PROVIDING FOR SEVERABILITY, AND PROVIDING AN EFFECTIVE DATE.

THANK YOU. GOOD EVENING, MADAM MAYOR, COUNCIL, BETHANY GRUBS FOR THE RECORD. The application before you is a small scale comprehensive plan map amendment. The city is the applicant. this is a request for a small-scale future land use map amendment to change the future land use designation of approximately 2.74 acres from recreation open space to conservation open space the property is generally located southeast of glades cut off road west of i-95 and north of commerce center drive the two properties that make up the 2.74 acres are outlined in yellow the rectangular shape and the oblong shape. The existing land use, as I stated, is open space recreation. And the goal is to unify these two properties that the city acquired with the larger open space track around it. Let's see here. The city had received 94.49 acres back in 2009 as preserved natural land under the reserves DRI and it must remain in its natural state. And these two parcels were acquired over the last couple of years. The parcels will expand the existing 94 acre site to create a 97 plus acre site. And the proposed use it's outlined in our adopted by ordinance conservation lands and acquisition management plan that was adopted in 2009 and later amended in 2015. This plan identifies these parcels for addition to the city's inventory of large natural areas. And the goal is to um have this space as passive recreation with limited clearing currently the site's being cleared of all the invasive vegetation and will be restored with native vegetation and just so you can picture the plans outlined in blue is the entire 94 acre site and so these two pieces will serve as one the access to the site and then make up the remainder of the larger 94 acre site and this is supported this action is supported through our policy 5.2.5.2 which states to implement guidelines and recommendations in the adopted city of port st lucie's conservation lands management and acquisition plan to allow for the purchase and management of preservation areas in the city and the difference between open space recreation and open space conservation is open space recreation is more geared towards development of park sites and this is more open space conservation is to maintain the natural character of the land and be more passive recreation When justifying a small-scale future land use map amendment, adequate public facilities must be available to serve the site. Upon analysis, further outlined in the new staff reports, the site does include adequate public facilities including water, wastewater, salt waste, transportation, police, and firefighters. emergency services. The site contains two wetlands, sorry, a wetland and two retention ponds, which were originally excavated as borrow pits during the I-95 construction. And as I stated before, the invasive vegetation has been removed and is going to be restored with native plant communities and maintained in its natural condition. The area is in flood zone X, which is an area of minimum flood concern and planning and zoning board recommended approval of this land use change at their August 4th, 2026 meeting. That concludes my presentation. I am available to answer any questions you may have as staff is the applicant. Thank you.

Any questions? No, I almost want to say, madam mayor, you've been such an advocate to this particular, um, discussion with the conservation lands. I was like, do you want to pass the gavel so you can make the motion? Cause I just think, you know, like this is, this has been, um, one of the things you've championed. No, thank you.

I'm good though. I'm just, I'm just going to say, cause you've been, yes. Thank you. I appreciate that. Uh, this item is a public hearing. Would anyone like to address the council? Seeing no one close the public hearing council.

Motion to approve orders 26 to F74.

Second. I have a motion and a second. Any final discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. 10C, Ordinance 26-75.

An ordinance of the City of Port St. Lucie, Florida, providing for the Fourth Amendment of the Conceptual Development Plan and Zoning District Regulation Document for Verano South Pod G PUD for property located south of the C-24 Canal, east of Glades Cut-Off Road, west of I-95, and north of Crosstown Parkway, providing for conflict, providing for severability, and providing an effective date. Thank you.

Council, any ex parte communications to disclose?

Not that I can recall.

Okay.

Madam Mayor, Council, Bethany Grubbs, for the record, I have been sworn in and the official file has been provided to the clerk at least five days prior to this meeting. The application before you is Verano South Pod G Planned Unit Development Amendment Number 4. The applicant is Kotler and Hearing in the property under Verano Development. The property is located within the Verano Development of Regional Impact, also known as DRI, south of the C-24 Canal, east of Glaze Cut-Off Road, west of Interstate 95, and north of Crosstown Parkway. The request for this Amendment No. 4 is to update the permitted and special exception uses within the Pod G development to be consistent with the allowed uses in the General Commercial Zoning District. earlier in the year staff brought forward a future land use map amendment to amend 8.03 acres from residential golf course community to general commercial which affected this this image here you see the 8.03 acres which is in the lower east corner of the property. And so this amendment is specific for cleanup to amend the land use and zoning to amend the PUD documents to be consistent as the zoning documents for this land use that had occurred. The remaining pod will remain residential golf course and there's no changes to the remaining pod that remains residential golf course and The general commercial remains for the 8.03 acres. Pod G of the PUD is a part of the larger development of regional impact, which encompasses 3,000 acres, and Pod G encompasses 1,181 acres of the 3,000 acres. The applicant is requesting this Fourth Amendment to the Verano South Pod G PUD regulation document for the purpose of making the 8.03-acre site consistent. And with that, you have to update the regulation document TO REFLECT ALL OF THE GENERAL COMMERCIAL USES AND ANY OTHER CALL-OUTS. AND WITH THAT, FOR EXAMPLE, WOULD BE UPDATE THE SITE INFORMATION CHART TO THE CG LAND USE, UPDATE THE LIST OF PERMITTED USES TO MATCH CG STANDARDS, ET CETERA. AND THIS APPLICATION IS CONSISTENT WITH COMPREHENSIVE PLAN, COMPREHENSIVE GOAL 1.1 PROVIDE AN APPROPRIATE MIX OF LAND USES WHICH MEETS THE NEEDS OF CURRENT and future residents of Port St. Lucie in a way which is environmentally acceptable and developed concurrent with needed facilities and services. The Site Plan Review Committee recommended approval of the PUD amendment at the January 28 Site Plan Review Committee meeting. The Planning and Zoning Board recommended approval of the proposed PUD rezoning amendment at the August 4th hearing. That concludes my presentation. The applicant does have a presentation. Council, any questions for staff?

No, ma'am. Okay. Thank you. Good evening.

Good evening, Mayor, Council. For the record, Pete Hoffines with Cutler & Herring Land Planner for the project. I've only got about 64 slides to get through, so I'll read it real quick. Just kidding. Staff really went over the technicalities of it. I just had a few slides to go through just to provide a little bit of context. Let's see here. That's just the project team there. Don't need to get into any bit of the background. You all understand the request staff presented that. This is just a snippet of the PUD document of what we're actually changing. We're striking out commercial, office commercial, retail commercial, and adding in the reference to the code. Important here, nothing changes with special exceptions. Those all follow this exact same process as laid out in the code. Project history, Bethany went over that. Again, just surrounding uses. Just had a couple context images here so you can see where Verano sits within the larger part of the city. Many of you already know that, just north of Tradition and Western Grove. And just zooming in, you can see how Verano's developed over the years with individual pods and PUDs. And what we're doing tonight is updating the regulating document for the eight acres right there identified with the yellow star. Zooming in a little bit, you can see the context of Pod G. It's just over about 2,000 homes that are in Pod G. There's our commercial site on the corner. I just wanted to walk the Council through a little bit of history on the DRI. So back in 2011, MAP-H, which is the master plan for DRIs, identified several large areas within it for centralized mixed uses. Throughout the years, much like land development codes and comp plans, these master plans are living and breathing documents. They're changing. It came forward in 2017, which really regulated a lot of the development of Verano down to the PUD level as the regulating mechanisms. But just to provide that consistency with our DRI approved uses, we are permitted retail service and office uses. And again, just walks you through a little bit of the consistency analysis that staff did. And I'm available to answer any questions should the council have any.

Any questions? No, ma'am. Okay. Thank you very much. This item is a public hearing. Would anyone like to address the council? Seeing no one, I'll close the public hearing. Council. Motion to approve ordinance 26-75. Second. I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. 10D, Ordinance 26-79.

An ordinance of the City of Port St. Lucie, Florida, establishing the use of special magistrate hearings for the public nuisance abatement program cases. Amending Chapter 40, Nuisance Abatement Program, Article 1, General Provisions, Sections 40.05, 40.07, and 40.08. And Article 2, Nuisance Abatement Procedure, Sections 40.16 and 40.17, 40.18, 40.19, 40.20, 40.21, 40.22, and 40.23, providing for codification, providing for conflict, providing for severability, and providing an effective date. Thank you. Good evening, Wes.

Good evening. For the record, Wesley Armstrong, Deputy Director of Neighborhood Services. The current ordinance revision before you outlines Chapter 40, which is our nuisance abatement program. It does fall in line with goal number one for Safe, Clean, Beautiful. The establishment of the nuisance abatement program is to establish problematic properties in the city to declare them a public nuisance. It will authorize the city to step in and abate said nuisances. And most importantly, it will require the administrative costs and cleanup to abate those nuisances to be placed on the tax roll as a special assessment. So the property owner foots the bill for all of those costs. That is our current ordinance under Chapter 40 as it stands right now. one of the um these are several examples of what would constitute a public nuisance whether it's an unsecured pool excessive open storage vehicles that would be required to be towed things like that we would also potentially demolish a house if it was ravaged by fire and was not brought into compliance So our current requirements under Chapter 40 requires the City Council to establish a nuisance abatement board. Historically, the City Council itself has always acted as that nuisance abatement board to hear and review these cases specifically and offer a ruling on that because the ordinance requires a resolution to be declared, declaring that property a public nuisance. After reviewing nine out of the top 10 municipalities, our size, all of them go through a special magistrate process. It streamlines everything. It brings us in line with every municipality, our size. So the proposed changes to chapter 40, we are asking for the appointment of a special magistrate to replace the nuisance abatement board. It allows the special magistrate, the authority to hear these cases. It will allow them to review any nuisance abatement. uh at a show cause hearing and if affirmed if they affirm that the nuisance exists they will offer an order of abatement with a time to correct the violation should the property owner not correct a violation it then legally authorizes the city to enter that property abate the nuisance and then again place that back on the as a special assessment lien on the property which is outlined in our current ordinance. And we have done before, but we utilize Chapter 37 for most of our nuisance abatement. But moving forward, we're looking to utilize Chapter 40 because we recoup all of the cost for abating the nuisance. And I'm here to answer any questions.

Questions for Wes?

West. Approximately how many cases do we have per year, cases per year? So give or take probably the better part of 200 cases that the city enters a property and whether it's cutting the grass, whether it's removing open storage. 200 cases that we actively go and abate. Correct. So all of those cases moving forward would go through one of our nuisance abatement hearings. And that would ensure a recoup rate of about 96% on the monies the city spends to recoup the cost on those. Right now, we lean the property for the cost of abatement and hopefully get that back. Thank you.

Any other questions? Just one. You had mentioned pools. I had a question from a resident. recently in regards to an unsecured pool. Do we still treat those as emergency situations?

Yes. So they are. So under this process, how it was previously, it would have to go to city council. So we were limited by the return on how quick we can turn some of these cases over per state statute were required 10 days maximum notice, I guess, that we provide the resident unless we hand deliver them and we can have 24 hours. And so our

Request for time for abatement is 24 hours on those So they have 24 hours to secure that pool or the city's coming in there with their vendor and securing it because of the life safety Yeah, I was gonna say I was like, I don't know how the rest of the council feels But I really think that when it comes to polls, especially with the drowning issues that unfortunately we've had You know, I think we Could we literally hand it to them and and change immediately, as quickly as possible. So once this process, if this passes, once this process is available, I want it as quickly as possible. I mean, I think it was taken care of. I think this is going through special magistrate, but she was asking me why it was taking so long. And I had remembered a time on the council, and I might have not even been on council, was when Councilman Bartz was very active on this particular issue and it was literally getting hammered, I think almost at every meeting. And I really thought we had like a emergency process that it would be taken care of almost immediately. So that's why I was asking the question.

There is a provision in Chapter 40 that we are establishing that would allow essentially the city manager to deem a public nuisance, a threat, that the city can cure that violation and then go through the public nuisance hearing. So we can realistically correct an issue within 24 hours.

May I ask what council's temperature is on that particular nuisance? Because I would be OK with the city manager making that immediate determination on a pool, on an unsecured pool.

Yeah, I don't have an issue with it. Back in the day, it was because we had so many foreclosures. It was after the Great Recession, and we had pools on the agenda, emergency pools on the agenda, every meeting for probably a year, at least a year. But, I mean, they are a problem when they come up, and we should treat them that way, in my opinion.

Totally agree. We have almost monthly, we get a report of a child drowning in a pool.

So anything we can do to negate that, I'm all for it. So in the requested revision would be under section 4021 which is emergency order which grants the city manager or his or her designee the ability to abate any nuisance immediately and then bring that to a nuisance abatement hearing for again to recoup the cost.

Thank you. This item is a public hearing. Would anyone like to address the council? Seeing no one, I'll close the public hearing. Council?

Motion to approve ordinance 2679. Second.

We have a motion and a second. Any final discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries.

10E, Ordinance 26-80. An ordinance of the City of Port St. Lucie, Florida amending Title VII, Traffic Code, Chapter 72, Stopping, Standing, and Parking, Article I, General Provisions, Section 72.10, Utility Trailers and Residential Zones, Providing for Conflicts, Providing for Severability, Providing for Codification, and Providing an Effective Date. Thank you.

Again, for the record, Wesley Armstrong, Deputy Director of Neighborhood Services. This proposed revision outlines, falls in Chapter 72 for utility trailers, 7210 to be exact. It does fall under Strategic Plan Goal 1 for Safe, Clean, and Beautiful. Our current ordinances for utility trailers outline operability standards under 4108E, design standards under 7210A, as well as parking restrictions under 7210B and C. Some of the challenges we face are similar to ordinances we already have in place currently under 4110B, which prohibits mold and mildew on any structure at a residentially zoned property or within the city, realistically. So whether it's a home, a fence, a shed, mildew is prohibited on any said structure. So when you have vehicles that are sedentary, often like your enclosed utility trailers, they tend to mildew quicker, specifically the sides that don't get direct sunlight. So the proposed change would be under 7210 to create a subsection E for maintenance requirements That basically stipulates all enclosed and open utility trailers shall be maintained in accordance to Section 4108E, which are the operability standards, unless stored within an enclosed structure. And additionally, all enclosed and open utility trailers must be kept free of mold and mildew at all times. And that's the only provision for that section.

Any questions?

Can you go back? No, no, no. Go forward with one. Okay. All enclosed utility trailers and open utility trailers shall be maintained in accordance with requirements of Section 41.08. You're specifically talking about algae. We're not talking about dirt or black streaks or anything like that.

Correct.

This is specific, so we're not talking about... What I don't want to see is I don't want to see somebody come here and say that they got ticketed or cited for... having a utility trailer parked in the driveway, and a code enforcement guy come by, and he was a little overzealous, and they got cited for having black streaks on their trailer, or the trailer was muddy, it hadn't been cleaned.

So specific to that, it would fall under mildew. So what you outlined would not be a violation, mud or a faded paint or anything to that effect? would not fall under the provisions of this prohibition. So similar to how we handle mold and mildew on primary structures, whether it's your home or accessory structures like your shed and fences, if they had mildew there before and they power washed it and it's gone, there might still be some fading of that paint that doesn't violate the ordinance. And that's exactly how we would handle these.

I just want some clarification on that because I own utility trailers, I own RVs, and... The general cleanliness is really not up for debate. I keep my stuff clean, but I don't want to get cited for having a black street coming down the side of my RV.

Yeah, there's not a home in the city of Port St. Lucie that doesn't have a section with mildew on it, whether it's on a windowsill or directly under it. We don't cite those. Realistically, when you look at the photo of it, it will... look something like that. Mine will never look like that, but I'm just saying. Yeah, that's what we realistically would cite. We would not cite you have a little bit under the wheel well or something to that effect. Okay, thank you.

So what you mean is when you go mudding, you don't want anybody giving you crap, right?

No, what I'm trying to get at is some things are interpreted differently by different people.

Oh, for sure.

And I just... most of us three of us up here have rvs and and we spent a lot of money for those rvs so we're going to maintain them but like right now i have black streaks on mine because of the rain and i need to get out and clean it but i don't i just want to make sure that i don't get ticketed or anybody else get ticketed or cited for having black streaks on their trailer

realistically our handling of these would be complaint based and we have received some complaints for vehicles that look very similar to these photos and we would handle those individually case-by-case staff would be notified we would all apply the same criteria which is excessive we're not going after Like I said, there's not a home in the city of Port St. Lucie that doesn't have a small bit of mildew, whether it's under a windowsill or by an air conditioner unit or by a soffit or what have you. We don't enforce that. Thank you.

All right. I'm going to open this up to a public hearing. Who would like to address the council? Seeing no one, we'll close the public hearing. Council? Motion to approve Ordinance 26-80. I'll second. I have a motion and a second. Any final discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. 10F, Ordinance 26-81.

An ordinance of the City of Port St. Lucie, Florida, amending Title VII, Traffic Code, Chapter 73, Recreational and Off-Road Vehicles, Article 1, Recreational Vehicles, by creating Section 7305, Maintenance Requirements, providing for conflict, providing for severability, providing for codification, and providing an effective date.

Once again, Wesley Armstrong, Deputy Director of Neighborhood Services. For the record, this is Chapter 73, our recreational vehicle ordinance. And to bring it in line with the previous ordinance for mold and mildew on a recreational vehicle, that we had previously for the utility trailers. We do have operability standards. We have registration and inspection tag requirements for recreational vehicles, as well as the prohibition that you cannot live or reside, whether temporarily or permanently, within a recreational vehicle. AS WELL AS PARKING RESTRICTIONS FOR THOSE SET VEHICLES. WE DO NOT HAVE MAINTENANCE STANDARDS IN TERMS OF MOLD AND MILDOO. SO THAT IS WHAT WE ARE REQUESTING TO PROCEED FORWARD WITH THE PROPOSED CHANGES TO CHAPTER 73 WHICH CREATED A NEW SUBSECTION FOR 7305 FOR MAINTENANCE REQUIREMENTS BRINGING IN LINE WITH THE PREVIOUS OPEN AND INCLOSED UTILITY TRAILER ORDINANCE UNDER 7210. And that would state all recreational vehicles shall be maintained in accordance with the requirements of section 4108E unless in an enclosed structure. Additionally, all recreational vehicles must be kept free of mold and mildew at all times. And again, just bringing our ordinances in line with our current maintenance requirements for all structures within the city to prohibit them and be kept clean at all times.

Okay. Any questions for Wes? Okay. This item is a public hearing. Would anyone like to address the council? Seeing no one, I'll close the public hearing. Is there a motion?

Motion to approve.

Second. A motion and a second. Any final discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. 10G, Ordinance 26-82.

An ordinance of the City of Port St. Lucie, Florida, adopting the First Amendment of the Engineering Standards for Land Development, Commercial Residential Subdivisions, and Capital Improvement Projects, providing for conflict, providing for severability, and providing an effective date. Thank you.

Is there a presentation on this? No? Okay. This is a public hearing. Would anyone like to address the council? Seeing no one, I'll close the public hearing. Council?

Motion to approve. Second.

I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries.

10h ordinance 26-83 an ordinance of the city of port st lucie florida rezoning approximately 2.74 acres from the industrial and service commercial zoning district to the open space conservation zoning district for two parcels of land legally described as a portion of section 15 township 36 south range 39 east generally located southeast of Glades Cut-Off Road, west of Interstate 95, and north of Commerce Center Drive, providing for conflict, providing for severability, and providing an effective date. Thank you.

Ex parte, this is our item, correct? Yes. And this is the rezoning to go along with the prior item, correct?

Yes, companion application.

Do we need to go through a presentation for it? I'm good. Mr. City Attorney? Can we bypass?

As long as whatever staff has submitted is entered into the record and council is okay with that.

Okay. Is everyone okay with that? Yeah. I met with staff on it. We're good. Okay. Thank you. This is a public hearing. Would anyone like to address the council? Seeing no one, I'll close the public hearing. Council?

Motion to approve ordinance 26-83.

Second. I have a motion and a second. Any final discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Moving on to 11A, Resolution 26R65.

A resolution of the City Council of the City of Port St. Lucie, Florida, authorizing the City Manager to enter into and execute a supplemental agreement to the Local Agency Program Agreement with the State of Florida Department of Transportation concerning the construction of interstate improvements at Southwest Gatlin Boulevard and Southwest Savona Boulevard, providing for conflict, providing for severability, and providing an effective date. Thank you. Is there a motion?

Motion to approve Resolution 26-R65. Second. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye.

Any opposed? Motion carries.

Yay. Intersection improvement at Gatlin and Savona. Yes, ma'am. That's a celebration right there.

Very important.

Right, Colt?

Okay.

11B, Resolution 26-R66.

A resolution of the City of Port St. Lucie, Florida, relating to the provision of stormwater management services in the City of Port St. Lucie, reimposing and increasing stormwater service fees against commercial and residential developed and undeveloped property located within the City of Port St. Lucie for the fiscal year beginning October 1, 2026, specifying the unit of measurement for the stormwater user fees, providing for conflict, providing for severability, and providing an effective date.

Thank you. This is a public hearing. I do have one person signed up, Anthony Rubino. Good evening, sir.

Good evening, Madam Mayor and council members. My name is Anthony Rubino, and I'm here in reference to the stormwater management. That covers the culverts, too, I understand. There's going to be an increase of $6, your proposal. I was wondering how you justify this increase First of all, I was told we get the covers cleaned six times a year, once every two months, correct?

Is that what- You can, we'll respond afterwards, sir.

All right. So anyway, as Councilman Bonner knows, he happened to come by the last Saturday of June. He was campaigning and he was handing out paraphernalia for the primary in the November election. And he asked me if I had any concerns, and I showed him the culvert there that was full of soil, topsoil and dirt, had it been cleaned. January and February came and went, no cleaning. March and April came and went, no cleaning. And here we are in June, and I asked him what was going on. And I told him I had called the Department of Public Works on March 12th and spoke to Will Figgey. And I asked him, what's going on with the cleaning? I was understood that we're supposed to get a cleaning six times a year, once every two months. He says, oh, no, you were misinformed. He said, you're in Section 13. Whoever told you that, they're misinforming you. He says, Section 13, you're due to get a cleaning between May 5th and 15th, once a year. Well, May 5th and 15th had come and gone when Councilman Bonner came by on a Saturday in June, and I says... Will Figge told me that if I wanted it done, clean it myself and bring it to the closest retention pond and dump it in the retention pond. That was his answer. So my understanding is, where's this money going? Between October 1st of last year and August 24th today, I went on the internet and checked. 3,800 to 4,500 building permits were issued, residential and commercial. And all these buildings are going up. They're all paying. for the culvert fee. So where's all this money going? Why do we need a $6 increase? If no construction took place between last year and here, I could understand you've got to replace some of the equipment. You've got to maintain some of the equipment that they used to clean. But with close to 4,500 buildings going up between residential and commercial, they're all paying their fee for culvert maintenance. I wanted to get a justification. Where's this money going? Why do we have to keep increasing every year When we keep building more and more buildings every year, they're all contributing. That was my answer. And we're not even getting the service. We're not even getting the six cleanings a year that we're supposed to. And that's part of the stormwater maintenance project there. And when I called my, he's in district two, I'm in district one. When I called my own district councilwoman, Stephanie Morgan, I spoke to her assistant, Brandon, I believe works in your office. He told me, I told him what happened. I told him about Will Figge. And he tells me that outside contractors, two outside contractors were cleaning the culverts. And then one of them up and quit. And that he would take it up with you and get back to me. Well, that was right after the May 15th, May 16th, I called your office. Never heard nothing. It was Councilman Bonner that came by on that Saturday. And don't you know, the following Wednesday, the City Department of Public Works came and see me with a pickup truck. They cleaned the carpet and they went in the next street and cleaned the next street too. So I don't know what he did, but between that Saturday and the following Wednesday, my cover was clean and so was the next year, but that's the last time it was cleaned. It hadn't been cleaned since last year when I came in front of the same board when the increase was $10 and that was September 17th and Public Works came and see me and then they cleaned it and that was the last time last year. So we never got six clean. I never got six cleanings a year and I've been there since 2020. I mean, 2000, I bought the house and we've been there 20 years this year and I've never seen six times a year cleaning. Not since I've been there. So that was all I had to say about this increase.

Thank you, sir.

So I don't recall receiving anything to contact you. So I apologize for that. The second thing is you kept mentioning culvert cleanings. To my recollection, we don't clean culverts. We do the swale cleaning. Okay, so, and I'm sure Colt will address that.

So just to be clear, last year, Colt, you can come up. Last year, the increase was $6, not $10. This year, the increase is proposed to be $6 again. I just want to be very clear in that our stormwater system is a lot more than swales. The swales system is a very small part of the overall overarching stormwater system that we have here, but I'm going to let Colt go into that a little bit more.

Yes. Thank you, sir. I'm sorry for your interactions that have happened with the department. I've asked Mr. Johnson here, my assistant director, to get with you to try and get some information and get to the bottom of these interactions. That's not the kind of customer service that we starve ourselves on here at the city or the department, so we want to get that rectified. To answer the gentleman's question, per city code, it is the homeowner's responsibility to clean the area in between the right-of-way line, their property line, and the edge of pavement. We do do supplemental cleanings up to six times per year is the plan. Yes, there is some truth in that one of the contractors did walk away from the contract during the middle of it, which put us in a predicament of services not being provided as well as we'd like to. We are currently in the RFP process and there's an evaluation committee meeting happening very soon. I believe it's next week to evaluate the proposals we've received and to try and get more responsive contractors or a contractor in place to handle the supplemental cleanings per year. But again, we will get to the bottom of the interactions that you've had and get this taken care of.

Thank you.

Oh, and I'm sorry, to answer the one question, the sway liner maintenance roughly accounts for 20% of the operational maintenance of the overall stormwater system and what that fee goes to.

Thank you. Would anyone else like to address the council? Seeing no one, I'll close the public hearing. Council?

Motion to approve Resolution 26-R66. Second.

We have a motion and a second.

Yeah, Madam Mayor. Yeah, I just wanted to clarify. I made similar comments at the workshop that in the past I have not voted for the increase. However, because we had had one of the highest ones, but now looking around the state as we're looking at these fees, Other communities throughout the state are really increasing the cost, and the cost for this has gone up. And so I think $6 puts us right around the middle of where other communities are, and preventing flooding and addressing our stormwater system is very important, and so I will be supportive of the fee this year.

Okay, Madam Mayor. Yes. So I know that we're getting close to the witching hour, but an end of this item is going to be a resolution and we're done this evening with it. That being said, last year during a budget retreat, we had decided as council to make sure that we would have a company videos of education as part of the presentation. that would have helped this gentleman immediately before we even made his comments of where his money goes. So as we prepare for the budget hearings, I really would like to make sure that Mr. City Manager, we see those videos come back as part of the discussion. Because I think for me, if we are asking for more funding, that's a conversation as well as where the current capital improvement plan is should be in the video and the level of investment that needs to be done. To your point, Madam Mayor, we have significant amounts of infrastructure that we are, I don't want to use the word behind, but we are in need of because of the retrofitting of the city. And so the stormwater fee is very, very important for those projects.

I AGREE. WE NEED TO BE PROACTIVE ABOUT EXPLAINING THIS TO OUR RESIDENTS, AND WE NEED TO DO A BETTER JOB IN MAKING SURE WE'RE DOING THAT, ESPECIALLY AS IT COMES UP TO BUDGET TIME. ANYTHING ELSE? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. 11C, Resolution 26-R67.

A resolution of the City of Port St. Lucie, Florida relating to residential street lighting within the residential street lighting assessment areas in Port St. Lucie, Florida reimposing residential street lighting assessments against assessed property located within City of Port St. Lucie, Florida for the fiscal year beginning October 1, 2026, approving the assessment rate, approving the assessment role, providing for conflict, providing for severability, and providing an effective date.

Thank you. This item is a public hearing. Would anyone like to address the council? Seeing no one, we'll close the public hearing. Council?

Motion to approve Resolution 26R-67. Second.

A motion and a second. And it should be noted that the street lighting CHARGE WILL REMAIN UNCHANGED THIS YEAR, CORRECT? ALL THOSE IN FAVOR? AYE. ANY OPPOSED? MOTION CARRIES. 11D, RESOLUTION 26-R68.

A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY OF PORT ST. LUCIE, FLORIDA RELATING TO THE LEVY OF SPECIAL ASSESSMENTS AGAINST THE LANDS AND REAL ESTATE WITHIN THE CITY THAT ARE SPECIALLY BENEFITED BY CERTAIN STORMWATER, ROADWAY WATER, AND WASTEWATER IMPROVEMENTS and which are in an area known as the Southwest Annexation Special Assessment District Number 1, adopting and approving the revised and updated assessment role with respect to such special assessments, providing for conflict, providing for severability, and providing an effective date. Thank you.

Nope, no public hearing on this. Is there a motion?

Motion to approve.

Is there a second?

Second.

For a motion and a second, any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. 11E, Resolution 26-R69.

A resolution of the City of Port St. Lucie, Florida relating to the provision of voluntary culvert repair services in the City of Port St. Lucie, imposing culvert assessments against assessed property located within the City of Port St. Lucie for the fiscal year beginning October 1, 2026, approving the assessment rate, approving the assessment role, providing for conflict and providing for severability, providing for an effective date.

Thank you. This item is a public hearing. Would anyone like to address the council? Seeing no one, I'll close the public hearing. Council? Is there a motion?

Motion to approve resolution 26-R69.

Second.

I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Madam Mayor, just a discussion quickly. I cannot find the email now, but there was an email. I don't know if the council received it in regards to the concern from a resident and the covert replacement program. Any update on that particular issue specifically? And I think that there is some legitimacy if, for example, the inspections, it sounded like something that we inspected. The inspection, when they actually completed the work, it wasn't really needed. So I wanted to provide some context for the record.

Yes. Madam Mayor, Vice Mayor, City Council, City Manager, Kevin Matyagic, Special Assistant to the City Manager. So I as well did receive the email today for him. the property owner on Quay Street regarding a culvert replacement that was conducted at his residence. The culvert pipe is the responsibility of property owners. This voluntary program is available. It's actually been very popular in that we've seen more demand than needed. We are looking into exactly the claims by the homeowner. What I can confirm and factually base this work, had been performed on behalf of the resident at their request, and the funding has been paid to the contractor effective in May. And so this work has been completed. What staff has been able to confirm is that the standard operating procedure for the inspection for that. Staff did follow that. There is a separate agreement that the property owners do sign that talks about issues of conflict in an appropriate manner. I will be confirmed with city manager following this meeting, et cetera, to follow up with the residents specific to the email received today regarding it. But at this juncture, it would be staff's recommendation to move forward since funding has been expended on behalf of the property owner for the property owner's benefit on that.

no i'm not in conflict with the item i'm just this is i just want to understand i guess in the future is who's truly inspecting and how are they i don't know there's a certification for it but i just think that whoever is inspecting there needs to be some form of process i mean and I don't know the situation either, but especially if we're asking someone to make such a major investment of that nature. So that was just my concern is the proper person inspecting it.

Thank you. So that was my concern as well in reading what the resident wrote. And obviously, like Vice Mayor said, we don't know what happened because we're not part of that process. But we do need to make sure that if a culvert is failed, it's truly failed. And again, I'm not going to judge the comments that were made, but I didn't like the way it was written. It sounded like the responses were a little bit blase. And so we just need to make sure, 100% certainty, that if we're going to go forward with this process and commit people, that we know for a fact that their culvert was absolutely failed. And it can't be just, oh, well, we think it is, or it looks like it. I mean, that's our responsibility.

We understand as much as well as the contractor, you know, getting that information from the contractor from the statements made, you know, their assessment of the pipe that was replaced as well. So we'll be further digging into it and responding to the homeowners.

Thank you. Thank you. You're welcome. Okay. I'm sorry. Do we have a motion and a second?

I don't. I don't think, did we have a motion? Yes, ma'am.

We did. We have a motion and a second. That's what I thought. Okay. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. 11F, Resolution 26R70.

A resolution of the City of Port St. Lucie, Florida, relating to the collection and disposal of solid waste within the City of Port St. Lucie, reimposing solid waste service assessments against assessed property located within the City of Port St. Lucie, for fiscal year beginning October 1, 2026, approving the rate of assessment, approving the assessment role, providing for conflict, providing for severability, and providing an effective date.

Thank you. This item is a public hearing. Would anyone like to address the council? Seeing no one, we'll close the public hearing. Council? Motion to approve Resolution 26-R70. Second. I have a motion and a second. Any final discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. 11G, Resolution 26-R71.

A resolution of the City of Port St. Lucie, Florida, approving the Third Amendment of the Agreement for Construction of Parks and Recreation Facility for Regional Park and Park Impact Fee Credits, providing for conflict, providing for severability, and providing an effective date. Thank you. Council, is there a motion?

Motion to approve Resolution 26-R71.

Second. I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. 11H, Resolution 26-R72.

A resolution of the City of Port St. Lucie, Florida approving the naming of road right-of-way within the LTC Ranch West Pod 9 Phases 2 and 3 as legally described and depicted on Exhibit A, providing for conflict, providing for severability, and providing an effective date. Is there a presentation?

A very quick presentation, Council. Go ahead. For the record, Sophia Trout, the Planning and Zoning Department, This is Project P26114. We are doing a roadway naming of Tract RW and LTC Ranch. The applicant is Austin Burroughs, Midway Glades developer. The tract is located north of Century Way and spans east 510 feet to Wilder Parkway. The request is for City Council to support for naming a road right-of-way within the LTC Ranch West Pod 9 Phases 2 and 3 final plot to Crossfield Drive. This is a location map showing the roadway in LTC Ranch. This is an aerial of the roadway. It is already constructed. Again, the request is to name track RW within the final plot as Crossfield Drive. The final plot was approved by City Council back in June 2017. of 2025. However, when it was recorded, it had been left unnamed at that time. So since then, the roadway has been constructed and a formally designated street name is necessary for emergency personnel to accurately identify and locate the roadway and provide additional access to the residences and serves. This is an exhibit of the plot showing it being unnamed and still tracked RW. There are no existing homes or structures on the affected roadway, so it does not affect any residential law addresses. St. Lucie County has approved the name of Crossfield Drive. If City Council does approve the proposed name, St. Lucie County will be notified and the Board of County Commissioners will approve the name and adopt it by resolution and subsequently notify all public safety offices post office and mapping systems this is just the adopted DRI map showing the roadway and the 2045 mobility plan showing the roadway and staff finds the petition to be consistent with the city's land development regulations and recommends approval of the request if you have any questions you can let me know any questions so we got crosstown now crossfield what's the next one

I will let you know. Crosscut.

Doesn't sound very good.

This item is a public hearing. Would anyone like to address the council? Seeing no one, I'll close the public hearing. Council.

Motion to approve resolution 26-R72. Second.

I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. 11-I, Resolution 26-R73.

A resolution of the City of Port St. Lucie, Florida authorizing the execution of an interlocal agreement with St. Lucie County for the deployment and operation of the mobile visitor center on certain city-owned and city-operated or city-managed property and in connection with certain events for the purpose of tourism promotion, visitor services and related outreach activities, providing for conflict, providing for severability and providing an effective date. Thank you.

Is there a motion? Motion to approve.

Second.

I HAVE A MOTION AND A SECOND. ANY DISCUSSION? ALL THOSE IN FAVOR? AYE. ANY OPPOSED? MOTION CARRIES. ALL RIGHT. 13B, APPROVAL OF PUBLIC ART CONCEPT AND TO PROCEED WITH A COMMISSION AGREEMENT FOR ARTWORK AT THE SOUTHWEST PAR DRIVE AND SOUTHWEST DARWIN BOULEVARD ROUNDABOUT. OKAY. DO WE NEED A PRESENTATION, COUNCIL? EVERYONE? I REVIEWED IT. I think we're good with the presentation. It'll be back before you two more times. Okay. Is there a motion? Motion approved. Second. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. City Manager's Report.

Yes, Madam Mayor. I just have one item. I think we were very fortunate yesterday with the tornadoes that kind of CAME THROUGH US BUT NEVER LANDED, BUT IT'S SO IMPORTANT THAT WE ARE HERE TO THE NEWS AND THAT IF YOU'RE ASKED TO TAKE COVER, PLEASE DO SO BECAUSE WE'RE IN DIFFERENT SITUATIONS NOW WHEN IT COMES TO OUR TORNADOES AND WITH THE HEAT THAT WE HAVE, ESPECIALLY IN THE MIDST OF THE HURRICANE SEASON, LET'S MAKE SURE THAT ANY TIME YOU DO HEAR SIRENS OR ANYTHING GOING OUT THERE TO MAKE SURE THAT WE'RE HERE TAKING COVER. APPRECIATE IT. THANK YOU.

THANK YOU. COUNCILMAN MORGAN.

I won't elaborate, but I did attend this past month Florida League of Cities annual conference. Coffee with the council. We held it at the Botanical Gardens and the San Jose County Fire District board meeting. My announcement is we invite residents to celebrate the season with a new lineup of free family-friendly fall events. That's a mouthful. Say that 10 times really fast. No, don't. Mark your calendars and join the city for a variety of activities designed for the whole community to enjoy, including Oktoberfest, Fall Fun Fest, River Nights, and more. For a complete schedule of fall events and hopefully cooler weather, Follow the city on social media and visit, you know how much I love book face, and visit cityofpsl.com forward slash events. Thank you.

Councilman Pickett.

Thank you, Mayor. On 19 August, I attended the Treasure Coast Regional League of Cities board meeting. And my announcement is, join us for a morning of reflection during our annual 9-11 remembrance ceremony at 8.30 a.m. Friday, September 11th at the Mid-Florida Event Center. We will honor the lives lost on that fateful day and in recognition of the 25th anniversary, offer our community a meaningful space for reflection, unity, and tribute to our nation's enduring resilience. Thank you.

Thank you. Vice Mayor. On August 13th to the 15th, I attended the annual FFLC conference. On the 19th, the Treasure Coast Regional League of Cities. Mr. Manager and Communications, I would love to make sure that we're working with the Treasure Coast Regional League to ensure that any discussion with Amendment 3, our education, is consistent. I think that was the biggest thing that was discussed at the Florida League of Cities conference is As we educate the public, try to speak with one voice, because there's a lot of information out there. So we want to make sure it's accurate for the public. Also, I know we spoke about the 9-11 memorial, Mr. City Manager, in regards to the smaller location. Based upon what I heard from Riverland, I just wanted to let you know I don't really have an issue if your decision is to allow them to use it. But I just wanted to circle back, because I know we talked about it earlier today. And then my announcement is As a reminder to residents, the half-cent sales tax renewal will be on the ballot November 3rd. Initially approved by voters in 2018, the sales tax plays a vital role in funding infrastructure improvement projects throughout the city, including road widening, sidewalk construction, drainage upgrades, and park enhancements. It has funded a major project in my district, the Floresta Drive Improvement Project. And now, thank God, it is in its final phase. Learn more about the half-cent sales tax at cityofpsl.com slash sales tax. There's a ton of information. We have a great committee that makes sure that all the money is spent appropriately by law. And so ask questions if you have any. Thanks. Thank you. Councilman Barra.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Well, the first thing I want to do is I want to congratulate Councilman-elect Jim Norton, who is here for all of the meeting except Council comments. But I know he's going to be a very great addition to the City Council, and I'm very excited to know that he's going to be sitting in this chair. Oh, yeah, I mean, if anything, I'm going to suggest to see if he can sit on, you know, the chair next to Jesus.

But that's not the order. That's not how it works.

But other than that, you know, it'll be good to have him here. I attended the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council. They just celebrated 50 years and they had a great celebration with some panels. that kind of talked about the history of the whole region. And, um, so it was, it was a nice celebration, um, attended the treasure coast commerce park groundbreaking, uh, serve on the homeless advisory committee for St. Lucie County, uh, Ted did the PSL police department second quarter awards. And I attended the school board meeting as immediate past chair of the education foundation, um, where they presented, you know, uh, they did a annual update to the school board and, A recap of all the funding that the foundation does for our kids in this community. As part of my update, city hall field trip days are an immersive experience that allows students to explore how city government works and how its services support the things they see and use every day. The next city hall field trip days are in February, but space is limited. Teachers and homeschool group leaders must submit a request to participate by October 31st. Visit cityofpsl.com for more information. Thank you.

Thank you. I also attended and spoke at the Tradition Commerce Park groundbreaking. And for my announcement, on August 22nd, the Port St. Lucie Youth Council and our Love Your Block team came together with residents and volunteers to restore and enhance the Naturally PSL green space. in the Whispering Pines neighborhood. They installed bird houses, bird feeders, and a new bench. The project, funded through the Love Your Block mini grant program, powered by the Bloomberg Center for Public Innovation at Johns Hopkins University, shows how small actions can make a lasting impact in the place we call home. And what has occurred in the Whispering Pines neighborhood over the past two years has truly been absolutely amazing. It's something that we should all be extremely proud of. And I'm so excited to be able to continue that and that we're gonna expand it to different areas of the city to give different areas more love. But that entire neighborhood is just blossomed beyond belief between the neighbors coming together, all of the projects, the artwork, on the restroom facilities, the skate park there. I mean, just everything. It's just so wonderful. So great job to everyone involved, to the entire team, because really turned that neighborhood 360. And I know that we're going to do that at other places as well. So awesome. Super awesome. With that, we are adjourned.