e e e e e GL e good e you're sense last night of I'll what you say absolutely than I forgot to tell you that wores be e e e SM remember e your good e see there we go oh let me turn my phone off y'all put your phones on silent and I'll try to do that with this okay good morning everybody so nice to see happy smiling faces in in our in our midst we'll call this meeting to order the echo advis your committee meeting at 9:00 and um excuse me we'll uh do a roll call from staff please Pat Nory here Jay Pendergast I'm here Jeffrey alt here Pat Drago here John Macaluso here Stephanie Mason Teague here Pat Patterson here regie Santilli here Dwight Selby here we have a quorum that's wonderful and um I have to extend my apologies I have so much paper up here I'm not sure I know what I'm doing okay um we will I welcomed everybody and we did a roll call so we will now go to can I get another agenda because I'm looking at the agenda from the thank thank you I don't know where I put that paperwork I'm sorry everybody just bear with me here it is I don't know how much longer I can use my brain tumor excuse as an issue but I've been I've been doing that so okay all right so we we'll move to public participation and we have uh two speakers today uh Sydney Johnson where' Sydney at okay and he'll be followed by Teresa Brooks thank you madam chair Sydney Johnston 535 North Clair Avenue D 32720 thank you for your service to the echo program for the many benefits to the vucha county public I want to take a few moments to encourage you to score and rank the app the echo applications soon to be reviewed publicly for full funding all projects for full funding countless hours are spent developing these grants with deep expertise by staff leadership and professional consultants and writing grants designing plans and developing maintaining projects for environmental cultural historical and outdoor recreational significance please fully fund them in 2020 over 70% of the Vala County Electric voted to extend the echo program for another 20 years with a20 millage rate the e program has delivered millions of dollars in matching Grant projects to build vital and valuable environmental cultural historical and outdoor recreational projects to the vucha county public without Echo some of those projects might not otherwise have been completed and because of Eko and its wise matching Grant Investments some private sites otherwise closed to the public are now available to the Luchia County public and many of them free of charge in 2024 there are far fewer project dollars being requested for funding in this cycle than available funds were flush with funds as I understand it so please allocate the dollars requested to complete these sites even as developers move quickly to develop real estate projects that may not bring any value to valia's wonderful environmental cultural historical and outdoor recreational amenities the valua county electorate is expecting the echo program to use those dollars to develop facilities and sites for them and for us after today's session regardless of the outcomes I encourage your work our efforts to include Service as ambassadors of the echo program encouraging others to come visit these sites to come experience the results of one of the finest Grant programs in Florida and to engage with others in buildings facilities museums Parks trails and Waterfront and Oceanfront Landscapes and I close that they embody the environmental cultural and historical outdoor recreational best in valua county that we have to offer to the public I share this perspective as a fifth generation native of the land in valua County with my descendants contributing to the county tax base since 1877 thank you again for your service thank you Sydney it's always good to hear from you I agree with I agree with much of you said as far as this Pro these projects and Echo that people really like this program so Teresa hey morning it's never easy to follow Sydney Johnston right um good morning I am Teresa Brooks over 45 year resident of Luchia County 40 of those years in Dand and the past six in Daytona Beach I have been very active and vocal in supporting the echo program and worked hard alongside many other taxpayers in getting this initiative approved for 20 more years I have participated in the program on behalf of several Municipal governments and nonprofits and assisted in preparation of many of those applications I appreciate the time this committee devotes to Echo program the time spent reviewing these applications touring the project sites and I value the input from the committee members over the past years here recently I have engaged in many many conversations with past applicants as well as current applicants and I stand here today on behalf of the city of Dand the city of Orange City the city of Port Orange the city of DeBerry valua Flagler YMCA and Sten University in 100% support of every project brought before you today and I ask that every consideration be given to fund each and every one of these projects they clearly Define the meaning of Echo and I can say that 72% of the voters are expecting projects to be funded and then I'll I'll close by saying specifically Michael P the city manager of the city of Dand asked me to publicly support the projects from Stetson University and and the City of Deber thank you so much and I just want to say um I hope you and Mike are doing well I know you we missed you and on the other oh my goodness that's the first meeting that I missed I made it to the parking lot I made it to the parking lot and Jason said no go away so thank you yall are good now so okay so that takes care of any other public participation that I did not get said it okay we'll go to approval of the Jan anuary 25th 2024 minutes and uh there is a technical error that I found as as far as the time that we reconvened on um coming when we came back from the chore we came back for the for the meeting so that will get fixed I talked to step about that and then I noted also that um we are doing a different procedure on De Barry than what is reflected in the minutes and I just explain that a little bit we're not changing the minutes and I understand that but we are de deviating from that and that change needs to be part of the total package yeah so the technical error was just a time we had 9:00 and we got back here at 4:00 so we will amend that change um and then um when the minutes were sent out on January 25th we had uh come together as with legal as well as upper management and staff uh sent out a a new notice that went out to all the committee members as well as the city of Barry as the process for them today which we will uh deem them exceptional or not and then that project will also get scored um which we are going to move them to the end uh instead of having them be seventh do we need to have a motion for that if you're supplementing the minutes then yes okay okay I'll entertain a motion to uh add to the minutes the information that was just presented to this commission regarding how we were going to handle the city of DeBerry and how we uh which is different from what is reflected in the minutes would somebody make that motion I'll make the motion okay motion Dwight did I hear you say you make that motion or not no you heard I think you heard Reggie say that reie said it and who was the second Jay you were second okay uh are we are we talking minutes or agenda um we're talking the minutes the minutes reflected that we were going to take DeBerry de was going to go direct to the council that is not what is happening today so we can't change the minutes but we can add if I just saying correctly we can add an an agendum that says what we're going to do to correct yes ma'am I mean I think yes yes that's fine does that work you you can supplement the minutes um I yes that's fine that's the easiest thing to do we're also going to if you're going to change the agenda I just want to be sure that that explanation is included in the agenda packet that set for posterity purposes yes ma'am okay that's fine so so do I make motion for for regular minutes does they are or do I you're going to need to to move to supplement the minutes with that additional information if that passes I don't think we had a do we have a vote on that one no we're we need to do that and then you can accept the minutes as supplemented okay does is that clear as Mud She Jeff I just want to be sure that that information that is different what from what is we can't change the minutes because that was what we did but we're going to do something different today than what the minutes reflected and I think that needs to be added to the package I'm you know Madam chair I just I'm I'm not familiar with a supplement to minutes okay not familiar with that well then let's do this let's do this we'll clean we'll make it clean we'll just accept the minutes and then we can talk about the change okay do I have a motion to accept the minutes so move which I know I'm looking at Mr have a motion on the floor though so we got to that was with a supplement so that needs to be withdrawn yeah I have a change to the minutes or comments oh okay I'm sorry go ahead um just on page n going to do Rob ber we have a motion on the floor with a second so it should be withdrawn and then we have a new motion am I correct yeah we need to withdraw or vote on a motion you can also vote you can also amend a motion the original maker and of the motion can amend it as long as the second or agrees that's easier I actually thought I actually thought we don't vote on usually anymore but this one was because was different I'm trying to just make sure that we okay put everything into the record so I'll withdraw the motion okay withdraw the motion seconds are on the motion so there's no longer a motion on the floor so I will entertain uh if let me let me go back to the way we usually do it if there is anybody who has a a change to the minutes please uh talk now otherwise we will file them away as they were presented that would be me that would be you um just page 19 and 20 it's the same comment and on both for the YMCA Delona and also Stetson University uh there's mention of me reviewing the uh annual reports and I gave uh I actually gave the figures of people served uh I just want that included in there I think it's extremely important if you're going back that you actually see how poorly those grants have been executed okay we you're asking to make an addition to the minut yes I I I just want the I want the figures that I read off okay at that time added to the minutes is there any other changes to the minutes and I'm looking at Mr paderson who is uh trained in all this so we'll go to him and entertain any thoughts so that we're doing the right Mr chair the purpose of men is what is done not what is said so what is you know what is the actual agenda item that you had there and and what was voted on and whatever but yeah there's a tendency to to uh include in the agend in the minutes just about what everybody said here at this meeting and it's not well I I would say I understand that but there are other examples of uh count Commissioners excuse me Comm committee members that make comments so I'm going to be let's not get what is done what is done is what the what the motion is so I'm going to add those minutes I'm going to add those in the spirit of collegiality we're going to add them I just want to get my do 298 in okay I hope this is not a reflection of the way this meeting is going to go okay um we'll add those to the minutes if that's agreeable with everybody except Mr Patterson um with that we will file the minutes away for with the corrections made okay now we are back to is that right I don't think we actually had a vote on that so if you can call we have to vote on that yes ma'am okay if you had a motion you have to vote on it no we didn't make a motion on the minutes this way we made the motion originally we withdrew that that motion there was not an alternative motion I thought there was an alternative motion that came through no I we'll go back to the original way where we will file the minutes away there's no Corrections or additions and now there is Corrections or additions and now do we need to make that motion then or can we file them away with the with the corrections I because we are changing the minutes to add to it I would vote on it yes ma'am we're not changing the minutes well the addition was the addition of Mr altz requested statistics correct sorry yes right if we're going to change the minutes then I believe you need to vote on it will you make a motion for the minutes with your changes sure I move to approve the minutes with the addition of the statistics on both the YMCA and Stetson University pass grants included in the minutes okay and who's going to second John I hear you second in okay any other Corrections or adds otherwise we will take a vote all those in favor iOS okay got we move it along got through the minutes okay so now um I I still have the question of the change in process do we have to vote on that yes we need to change if excuse me we need to vote if we going to change the stated agenda as published okay well this is changed to what was reflected in the minutes the minutes reflected that we were going to directly okay no I understand your question now so the the minutes can't be changed right change minut right so as far as changing the process itself know what has been published in the agenda is the only thing we would need to take a a vote on take a vote on on the pro on that process no all right no the order of the agenda is the only thing I think you would need to vote on if you wanted to change the order that was published okay with that we have finish with our minutes and we will now uh be the official opening as Grant review panel and item a is Grant review and scoring procedures and yes there's been a lot of questions about this new procedure scoring yes so Daniel Marsh Echo manager uh you will review we have not yet no not yet when when I get to that slide before we start this the process I will I will ask for that ju Just for the audience there was a new sheet that we are scoring on this is the first time there's been some confusion on the sheet just because it is big and adds a lot of information and the the items in the the way that you all filled out your your uh information does not necessarily follow that sheet and we'll talk about that the next meeting when we get to updated policies and procedures but for those people who have not used this and that includes all of us that this is a little bit more detail detailed and so if you could some members have been confused including me and finally as as uh my bet here next to me said Jay that you know by the ninth time that you did this you finally understood what the heck you were doing so y so I'll try scoring I will try to go over the score sheet you guys can ask questions as we go along um so we will review each application individually one by one there will be committee discussion that will give you an ample time to ask question questions to the particular project when they come up for their score okay the uh scoring sheet is broken down into four sections you have administrative compliance project description budget detail and an operating detail forecast in each specific section there is three criteria basically three questions that we ask you to score for a total of 12 total questions to be scored each section of the three criteria will be scored by section to get a total and then you'll have four totals from four sections to give you a total score of X whatever that number is okay um and then we'll do a roll call and you will verbally give your score after your score is given I will come up and collect your score sheet to make sure that it is signed and then I will come down and check your math to make sure that the math is correct while we're verbally giving the score Ashlin will be putting the scores into the computer which you will see above okay and then the highest and lowest scores are removed from the average and they will be notified in green and in red okay on the score sheet and then it's a cumulative average of the seven remaining scores after the highest and lowest score is removed okay and then the committee members will vote to recommend the grant scoring above 80 to County Council for final approval and award of the grants so 80 is the passing score any [Music] questions okay that does does that make sense to everybody the screen sheets okay and I think some of us did the scoring at home and we are able to change the score based on what we hear today that is correct you guys can ask questions and if your score is altered by the answer of that question then you may change your score on the score sheet okay okay so then we'll move on to uh uh exceptional Grant status vote that's the next thing on the my agenda correct so for exceptional status uh we have one project that qualifies for exceptional status which is the city of DeBry Alexander Island Phase 1 and just to give you the definition of an exceptional project it means a project that is Paramount or crucial importance which which provides for receipt of services by significantly large number of peoples in all area of the county okay and when we look as a staff we consider all evidence and data presented to determine exceptional status so for previous exceptional grants that we've had in the past we have used the following data points which are on your screen here so we look at countywide importance well what are the things that we're looking at we're looking at the public meetings the surveys the economic impact the robust F visibility study public input and then component of a master plan and then when we look at the significant number of people served we look at letters of support from municipalities and businesses Uh current and future projections a survey of potential users uh the robust marketing plan and then Partnerships to attract significant number of people to that specific project and for an exceptional status vote it must be 34 of the majority vote of appointed members so there's nine of you so we will need seven or more to deem the project exceptional no matter what happen today if it's zero or if it's nine we will still move on to score DeBerry project during the scoring cycle and we will score them last as I understand they understand that and and that was been a decision that was made internally to take them out of order and put them last yes so once we do the exceptional status now where you guys are giving a ye yes or no vote we will move on to the next to start the projects and then you can make the motion to ask to move to Barry to the last okay okay so uh this is a vote on the exceptional Grant status and it requires three three fours 34s majority vote of the appointed members so seven is the magic number okay is there a motion on the on that will be made by a member to make them exceptional are we have any discussion first or we're going to do that after I want to do the motion and then we can have a discussion Madam chair I'll move that uh Deber um Alexander Island phase one be deemed exceptional okay thank you is there a second to that I'll second thank you we have a motion on the floor now we can move to discussion Mr Al okay I've been extremely consistent with my expectations for exceptional St status voters did not vote on a grant program in 2000 that even had this in the equation it came out of a few other projects those two projects early on that really needed something else than just standard grants was the Lively art center and what was what was known as the partnership Center yeah didn't get the Lively Arts Center had Financial Partners um people involved in it with a clear indication that the usage of the facility was going to service a very large number of people over a 100,000 people a year Partnership Center was a collab collaboration between a lot of the Westside cities including Deltona Deber or City and didn't really fit into one municipality presenting a grant so there was money coming in from different sources and that too was going to service a lot of people so when I look at significantly large numbers that's what I'm looking for as a baseline Museum of Arts and Sciences which did get an exceptional Grant um at one point 161,50 annual visitation Jackie Robinson ballpark which is coming up we heard last year but rejected that Grant because they did not have the proper paperwork yet um the Tortugas have an annual attendance of 13757 bethon cookman there's special events there and that led service numbers to be well over 200 Rob Sullivan Park in DeBerry serves 158,00 people and that is a standard Grant because the people primarily come from De Delona Dewey Booster Park 45,000 standard Grant Daytona Beach PE body Auditorium 52,000 standard Grant Delona Dewey Booster Park did I mention that um 45,000 PS in the lighthouse 160,000 still a standard Grant so the projected number for Alexander island is only 9,746 that doesn't get me to where I need it to be there's also you know um Daniel just mentioned letters of support so there were six letters of support for this project I could also read that 10 municipalities decided not to support this project that's a that's a majority of municipalities um it was mentioned during the eligibility hearing that uh you know de has a lot of money already invested into this project which is good because they purchased the property I'm not sure why the forever program didn't get involved um and I know DeBry used the arpa funding to to purchase the property so it really wasn't general fund it was federal tax dollars used to to uh purchase it and there are no other Partnerships with this so the success of a grant does not come from spending the money it comes from people served that's my key indicator and I just don't I don't see the number of people served hitting that but they are more than welcome to phase this and come back multiple times over the years to get more than to get several standard grants other organizations have done that so to me uh this does not meet the criteria of providing services to a significantly large number of people in all areas of the county thank you thank you Mr Al let go down the line Mr Dango do you have any comment I you know I I listened to Mr Altis an experienced Committee Member and I appreciate that and his input uh I think I indicated at our prior meeting that I was very impressed with the value of the property to the public and uh the value of the commitment of the city of DeBry to the project and I guess I have a question in my mind were all the how many municipalities were asked and declined to partner you know those are the things I I hear and I was thinking about about the uh anticipated attendance but when I looked at this parcel and I feel that that projection may be low at this time but it it's not yet developed so as a park so we don't we don't know that uh I still think it's an exceptional property and the commitment of the city is exceptional and I want to hear from the other members and that is why I seconded the motion John I I I too have listened to Mr alt and and I also did some research with numbers as well uh based on uh our visit uh it's a great project I'm I'm 100% behind the project if uh if everything falls into place the way it should uh I'm here to listen and um ask some questions want to ask some now not now okay Mr Pendergrass uh yeah I I think it's anytime we have an opportunity to preserve uh open space such as that an area like that I think it's so important to Florida not just Valia County just you know to have open space and our you know undisturbed environment you know because so much of it's getting paved and just driving there and looking at like the you know production housing going up around there it made me uh even appreciate this site more uh so from that point of view I really do uh uh rank the uh project very highly um as you know uh I had a lot of questions about the drawings and what was in the drawings and what was in the submitt and I did review them and I just hope you can get up to speed very quickly because I'd really like to see this project happen I appreciate the fact that the city has put money into it and and prioritized it um but the fact that the drawing package was not as tight as it should be you know was a concern to me okay S I enjoyed the tour very much I think it's a beautiful piece of property and I think the presentation of the future plans are very admirable I think it will be has the has the potential to be a wonderful addition um I struggled to see um that two2 and5 million dollar um the ask is representative of what was presented in the application I think that it's a wonderful application and maybe several phases would be more appropriate based on what was submitted um to me it it did not meet the requirements for an exceptional application simply because it wasn't representative of of as Mr alt detailed the number of people that you expect to attend and I think without um there was another comment too about the marketing plan um if people don't know it is there how are they going to attend and so I think we're a little bit ahead of ourselves to to um list it as an exceptional project at this time but I would hope that the applicant would consider phases of the project because I do think it's very admirable and I think it does represent what the voter is asked for but I also think that our role in in reading through and scoring these grants is being stewards of the taxpayers money and I don't think we're I I personally am not ready to okay $2 and a half million dollars for this project at this time Mr patteron well I I you know I support the concept of the exceptional status situation as far as my comment on this project I wasn't able you unfortunately I had to withdraw the uh the little journey uh at the last meeting so um I can't comment any more than that other than my think that the concept of exceptional status is is a good idea and we'll just have to rate it rank it from there Reggie um I do support this grant as exceptional status um I agree with Jay that it's very important that we do conserve land when it becomes available um the city of Deb has skin in the game by making the purchase I think that the survey of potential users is conjecture they've just broke ground on a Town Center there's lots of development not only residential but commercial development going on in DeBerry and I think with SunRail you're going to be bringing more people in so I do support this project okay Mr Selby thank you um I think this is a very good project I support it um I think the um I did have a question though uh well first a comment the comment is relative to attendance um I I really you know I was thinking about Mr Ral about your comments and a lot of those venues that we're generating numbers in excess of 100,000 are um you know sort of brick and mortar type facilities that many of them have paid admissions um you know the Tortugas as an example or u a theater you know they're putting on performances I I suspect that if the city of Deber decided to build a you know a sports complex let's say and have a have a semi-professional team there or whatever that they would easily uh Eclipse a 100,000 so I think it's because it's a different type of um facility I'm able to I I I don't see that I'm not likely to compare numbers uh on the same scale because it's a different uh type of venue um uh so but I do have a question for the applicant and that is um I believe there's a reference to having spent in addition to the purchase price another million and uh I I was unable to I didn't see that in your proposal what what comprises the the other $1.8 million okay Mr sby I'm going to uh allow the city because this is ex exceptional status to come up and answer those three questions that were PR posed by the and any additional ones before we take a vote on exceptional status and that's we're voting on right now do they meet exceptional status and with that um I will defer to uh Mr Rosanda who is a city manager and I do want to just point out that um your mayor is in in the house Karen Karen Shaz so she's little there she is wave wave Karen okay U there were three questions were posed by the the board by the committee and the first one was the number of people that you would serve uh thank you chairman um um and the committee members um yes in the report it does call for 29,000 and they use the comparables of the parks that that are surrounding that particular area um right now the uh the area around the SunRail station is undeveloped um and as you saw maybe a couple weeks ago um we are now breaking ground in our new downtown and we anticipate uh across the street uh uh in short order a grocery store coming in um and the living accommodations that are going to be coming into that area it's going to be a high density area uh and it's not promised it's it's under contract um and so there's going to be a lot more folks that are going to be living in that particular area and we believe that downtown coupled with all the ecotourism around that area will get a lot more visitors than the 29,000 uh I believe that might be the first year as we're developing It But as time goes along and and uh uh and folks starts to move in this particular area you're going to see visitors in excess of of maybe 100 100,000 visiting this particular Park every single year do do you know how you came up with 29,000 they used the comparables of Gemini Springs and some of the parks that that are that are around that particular area and um okay be able to exactly what Jason sh Parks and Recreation director of city of DeBerry um yeah it's it's very difficult to uh to come up with a number right we have a blank slate a lot of undeveloped um property in that area so it's not really hitting its full potential right off the bat um so that's exactly what the uh the Consultants did they took comparables um from similar nature-based kind of passive recreation parks in the area um that had you know their best guest numbers to give us um but again a lot of the times even with those numbers and some of the ones uh Mr alt rattled off when we're trying to come up with uh with usage and numbers you know for for our project with Rob suan Park is a little bit easier because we have registered participants there's certain um things we can do at the park park because it is a developed Park where we can come up with a number but it's not like somebody's at the front gate you know taking a ticker sometimes we go and count cars we go by registrant things of that nature and you know when we spread it out throughout the course of the year um that's the number we come up with and we have the data to back it up um you know with with some of the other facilities especially something like this where you have um you know trails and passive Recreation thing like that things like that it's uh it's much more difficult to uh to come up with number even more so when we we don't have anything yet cuz we're starting from scratch um so uh so that's what our Consultants did we came up with the 30,000 uh a year number I think that averages to like you know 100 people a day coming through the park to get it started and then as Carmen said um there's no doubt in my mind when the downtown comes and we start having more residents more visitors in the area um that will blow that out of the water you know as time goes on so thank um y thank you and then other question was a number of cities that had sent letters of support report or resolution well we made a request every um city manager that I I sent a request to um some cities feel uncomfortable supporting other cities projects particularly when they have um a skin in the game or uh into this process as well um all of them uh expressed great interest in this particular project how many of them are willing to write a letter and support um is depending on their their environment and and their government so please don't use that uh I sered on rotary in that area we did not receive a request to write a letter did you reach out to any of the other well we this just this last week we received a letter from the the uh spring to Spring Trail group and and from um and some other groups as well after they saw um the last meeting and and watched it um but again it it depends on what the cities will do and please don't take six cities out of 16 as as other ones are not uh not supporting they all support it um it's just those that were committed to write writing a letter on our behalf so and then there was a request um it was the 1.8 million was that the right number yes I mean the 1.8 million is our match for this particular project um this what we presented is just phase one of this particular project there's 170 Acres on this property uh on the river it's it's going to be a very very large project and so phase one is $4.3 million that's the $1.8 million that we put up for match and the 2 .5 million that we're asking for um the county and so this is a this is only phase one there there's many phases to this particular project uh phase two three and four uh remember we got 1 um8 miles all the way around Riverfront that we're going to our plan is to build a boardwalk all the way around uh RI Riverfront boardwalk and so yeah it's going to take a lot more money than $4.3 million to F to finish our vision okay and because this an incept IAL Grant I'm going to go back to those members who had Madam chair I I mentioned that I did have questions Mr Roso and the other gentleman basically answered my question you you have a marketing plan it's the growth so I it settled that kind of settled what I had to to ask thank you okay I don't see anybody else who has a question yeah I've got a I'll have a question um so you you keep talking about other phases and that's what I want to see I mean what we're lacking is a complete complete overall plan for the entire project it it's there that the entire concept is there and and then phase one and phase two are outlined in in The Proposal there there's there's an itemized list of phase one and phase two um and so yeah phase one is $4.3 million and that's what we have provided uh there so there's phase two in there as well um that which is planning on taking the boardwalk all the way around outlooks all the way around uh the property all the way around Riverfront you you'll see that in the concepts there um on the maps that we have provided so um so what all of us are in agreement that the project itself and the land is beautiful gorgeous um but it is protected now since you bought it what was the reason not going to Forever was it because we applied we applied for forever um and unfortunately the the contract that was designed um for um the vucha forever was not adequate for the city of DeBry one of the provisions in there is um that we disagreed with was the penalty for non-compliance and the penalty that was in for non-compliance said that the city would have to pay back the prop money plus interest now the interest was 1% per month compounded with no limits and if the city had a violation 20 years from now um the interest loan would be $20 million and we could not uh um afford to put future councils in that position now conversely um the property that was bought uh besides us was bought in D land had a had a a cap on that interest of 250,000 that's what we had negotiated but at the last minute um that was taken out and so the interest um on that contract would have been if if there was a violation on the property you would have to pay back the money 1% interest per month compounded is just not acceptable we just can't put a government in that kind of position okay okay um I'm if I may who who was that Brad Brad okay to just to add to um Carmen's comments but DeBerry was also offered the $250,000 cap as well they were but um the attorneys for if you recall the attorneys from the vucha county had removed it and it was presented and uh you were there at that particular meeting as well as Mr Brown we're doing Echo that's and so that's one of the reasons why and and uh uh the mayor and Council we we've consider we considered the the contract uh you we're on record it's on video you can see what the council's comments were but uh the council was 1% per month compounded is just not acceptable we can't put our our government in that kind of position we're we're not going to debate that here because that's a vucha forever issue but we thank you okay um I'm I'm going to support this because one I have clear confidence in the city of DeBerry to get this project done they've been chomping at the bit to get it done I have clear confidence in the mayor and her ability to manage the project to completion and she a short timer or her last you're in your last um how many years you two end of 26 and um I'm confident this going to get done and anytime we can save riverfront we should be doing that so we will move to I have one final okay comment one final comment and it's this entire board last meeting had a perfectly good solution or suggestion to have you come back in a few months we have had two two Grant Cycles before at the at the request of council um and I just think it's sad that we're not doing this by the book okay they do not have a completed application so okay and that's you know depending on how this vote comes out that's a possibility so um okay we have a motion on the floor we'll take a will you reread the motion motion and then take a uh Voice Voice vote not a Voice vote individual ballot Pat Nory yes Jay Pendergast yes Pat drgo yes John Macaluso yes Stephanie Mason Teague no Pat Patterson yes Reggie stily yes Dwight Selby yes Jeffrey Alt no okay that's a 7 to n with two uh opposing so we they have meant exceptional status as I understand it correct three three4 of a vote okay all right congratulations to Barry um we'll now move to 2024 Echo Grant application review and scoring and we'll start with the Civil Village and Improvement Association and uh turn to stff just before you start let's make the motion to move I'm uh I need a motion from someone to move DeBry to the end of The Madam chair I'll move that the city of De DeBerry Alexander Island phase one uh proposal be REM uh be moved to the last item that's uh reviewed is there a second I'll second the motion okay motion me second um we just do a Voice vote on this one all those in favor say I I I any opposed okay okay it's uh your turn Okay so up first will be ceville Village Improvement Association the historic civil School restoration the echo request is $214,700 the score and the application and then we're going to prepare our scoree sheet and hand it in I I just want to make sure what we're doing right now yeah so you'll you'll be scoring the the application okay now if you have any questions for them that Now's the Time to ask and then once the questions are complete we'll start compiling the scores okay and if I had questions it would be as much listening to my fellow members as it is to questions of the applicant so want to hear what other people say is there any comment on this application other than I will say I loved it because it is a not for-profit they've worked hard they they provided a in my opinion an excellent application that showed they in fact do what they say they're going to do they remind me of Enterprise preservation which also got Echo money and has spent it well and still operates daily as it well most most days are open I think close couple days a week and does Festival so I think that we should be making sure that our historic piece of it stays intact and that they get their their money I'm going to swarm above I do want to add that in included in your guys packet um they did submit to us their state appropriated grant that they did receive from Tallahassee so that is included in your packet so they met everything they did meet the requirement yes okay Mr drao I this is this school and this project is dear to my heart uh when I was working with the school district in facilities I cared deeply about this particular School uh our department worked very closely with the village Improvement Association of ceville it broke my heart to close the school and we're so glad that we were able to transfer ownership and that it stayed and open ownership and uh touring the school again I still feel the same way and I feel like what has been brought forward really shows that they've got the wherewithal to take this forward and to continue to maintain the property keep the historic nature of it and uh it has a future so thank you okay Mr I see that you want to say something yes do we have um are they here yes um the unencumbered cash match that you have is is that coming from the the grant Mike register president uh civil Village Improvement Association you know the real yes um we received a $450,000 U Grant which we just signed um with the state this last week okay um yeah for a small organization I thought that the grant was extremely well worded did very clear uh we know what you're you're going to do um from the beginning Ekko has had an emergency historic stabilization Grant right that we yeah unfortunately have had to use several times because buildings have just been neglected um I give you a lot of credit for having the initiative to maintain that building as well as you are um you know your financial statements aren't great because you're all volunteer but you know if you if you read the entire Echo resolution the six-page resolution that was created there are two big whereas paragraphs in there about preserving our history so for an organization to have the heart to continue to take on the responsibility of a historic uh facility and a school have all the volunteers really maintain it I give you a lot of credit that that is in my opinion you know the heart and soul of the echo program what it was started for so um you know I I do have qu questions about the financial stability just because it's volunteer-based and if you lose your volunteers then what you know that's the big question but um I like the grant um I think your board members have all heart and uh I wish you a lot of success with it thank you and and I Jeff I checked a bank account and it comes at electronically so I feel confident that you guys are putting the money in to make make the payments so I shared Jeff's concern a little bit just because it is all volunteer but your mission statement was incredible and you are on the most endangered list too it's what I understand so we're saving something really good and we thank you for all the that you do for IT John you have any comment uh no it's a it's a great it was a great tour um first time I've ever been up there and great job the only question I had at the time was uh the submission of that document it's here here support you okay we'll start any comment well well yeah um obviously um I obviously uh support any kind of historic restoration preservation and Heritage preservation and the fact that uh you're a small organization most of what we see that comes through here are municipalities and I think that Ekko has always tried very hard to reach the small or not for profits so so this is a perfect example of that and um I mean I I totally support your project thank you great Stephanie any comment yes I was not able to take the tour however I have been to the school and enjoyed that very much um and think it's a wonderful property and too I'm very glad that you're applying under the echo guidelines I did have a couple of questions I did enjoy learning more about the school and your application is very well done and again for an all volunteer and a historic property and very it was very a very welcome read um I did notice that um all of the funds were from the appropriated cash and that you had listed no increase in fundraising membership or donations for next year here we um as we noted it is an all volunteer organization um we anticipate based on the budget of the grant program and the anticipated Echo funds that we'll have adequate funds to carry out the what's included within that the organization's been in existence for 100 years um we have always come together uh and had fundraising uh as necessary one of the big ones was when Ekko uh saw fit to help us um purchased the school years back we had a fundraising uh in order to pay our half of the uh of the uh the match for that and so we and and as far as mentioning being worried about the volunteer organization uh we have a strong core of volunteers uh with deep roots in the community that have been there for generations and generations and um I really feel like you know we've never been more financially sound than than we are today um we are uh having activities like Bingo and some other things that are bringing in uh more cash I didn't want to um speculate on what those were until we had a better history of them this year but they've been uh very profitable we also have some annual uh barbecue events and things like that as needed and the community like I said always comes together and supports those to to fill in any gaps that we have with uh with any of the funds that we need I guess my question was um tell us who they are I would have enjoyed to know know who are who are your volunteers and one is myself um my my family's been in there uh the civille area for I guess four generations now um Brad purcel uh whose wife uh actually attended the school uh and they've also been in the community for a long period of time my wife who um went to the sville school I didn't start dating her until we uh until we went to Taylor and Pearson is when we started dating so uh we've had long history with the school uh sker and Katie batty are another family that's been there for Generations uh they part of the vcia Sheri uh Department um that have come in um I have brothers and um let let me just add there is a list or there are plaques on the fence line many of them have the dean name on them but but they they're I don't want to say littered because that's not the right word but it's clear that this community supports this project so so I could keep trying to list them by memory but no no my comment was it would have it to read them you know one of one of our criteria is a listing of board members and in lack of board members maybe a list of supporters or volunteers or or people that have pledged their support um I think it would have just added a robustness to the application and and I would have en enjoyed learning a little bit more about the Family Affair in De that everyone seems very dedicated to it so I mean in civille excuse me um I just appreciated that so thank you thank you sorry for the neglect in that we should have probably and hindsight included a list of our membership which is not only CommunityWide but it's people that moved out of the community continue to support the organization wonderful thank you Mr Patterson was in your old District I I wasn't yeah I wasn't able to be up there that day but I have over 20 years of experience with civille uh both as a state legislator and as a County council member and I've been to many many events up there the they're well organized uh you can just see the love of of the community for for the property and everything they have there so I really I I really want to see you get to this thank you s Tilly any comments I think it's very commendable that the community comes together to prever PR preserve the history of Seville and the building thank you okay Mr Selby yeah uh great application um I made the comment on the tour that um the amount of work that you intend to get done for such a small amount of money is amazing and I think your response was we got a lot of volunteers and we have a lot of donated material you're making you're stretching the dollars even further and we appreciate that so thank you thank you for what you do okay and I I do want to recognize Brad pcel Brad was a former you don't serve any longer right former County Commissioner in in putham county and he understands well the process that we're going through and he knows how to get things done too so we've worked together on St John's river projects okay I just want to say that I think that uh for a small I I have no question as to the city of or Beach or Port Orange as far their find Financial capability we may be the makeer break on a on a civille and I think it's important to recognize that that's some that's really a lot of what the public has trusted us with as well we want to make sure it's well taken care of properly managed but we may be the we may be the the stalwart partner thank you good good comment thank you yeah can I just make a suggestion to you um for your maintenance plan and I've got this comment for a lot of these grants um the maintenance plan um think longterm as well you know HVAC has a lifespan 12 to 15 years make sure it's in that maintenance Bible so you know the next volunteers that come in or something you know I know Barberville had one of their main people pass away unexpectedly a month ago and I know Enterprise has had three people um move on yeah uh so when you're volunteer based make sure you you have that long-term maintenance plan too so the next people coming in know when this was installed when the plumbing was checked all that stuff so it doesn't become an emergency down the line thank you that's a good comment we'll do that okay we'll go to scoring on this ready Pat northy 91 one Jay Pendergast 82 Jeffrey alt 81 John Macaluso 86 Stephanie Mason Teague 82 Pat Patterson 86 Reggie Santilli 81 Dwight Selby 83 and we're missing Pat dgo number on this I can understand why I have it at [Laughter] 97 I have all my type Notes too but I'll submit them afterwards I signed it congratulations I think yeah your average is 84.4 three you meet the criteria good job now are you gave me theong now Mr Marsh are we waiting until you review those I'll I'll do the math as we go along and if there's any corrections then I will announce that okay as of this point they qualify to go to the council congratulations okay we'll move to the city of Orman Beach Sports Complex softball quad installation of LED lighting and the echo request is $46,490 yeah and I is there any um comment or questions on this for the applicant is the applicant here okay y'all are here okay okay any anybody yeah Madam chair I I'm I'm on record saying from the last meeting anytime you're replacing old lights with LEDs you have my support okay that's good I I think when we were there I was a little conc concerned because I've gone through field lighting changes before and sometimes you have to redo the electrical and the service and everything else but when I looked at if you have musco lighting and am Wile I and Sean Finley I had confidence that they were going to be able to address this dght you know what I'm talking about right so I just wanted to say that had been a a concern that I'd raised during the tour and the application when I reviewed it again uh was able to have those concerns met thank you okay M yeah um uh I I just have a maintenance question again not really a question you don't need to answer it but what where are you okay um come on down and put your name into for the record so we have a record that you're here Alex Schuman city engineer for City of Warman Beach okay just get long-term maintenance into that as well I I'm not sure what the life expectancy of those are but make sure that's in your your your maintenance plan we'll absolutely do that okay thank you um you know you guys submitted a great uh Master Plan update uh I think it's well organized detailed very clear what you're doing okay I don't see you yes yeah I just Madam sherik can this is what's interesting it's 450 $6,000 and you know it's um LED lighting which is a really good thing to do but I mean it just I think this this project I doubt that this project would get done by the city of Orman Beach if they had to spend $900,000 to do it so this is one of the things that that echko is really important for because this is kind of a you know it's not very it's not a playground kids you know and yet it'll enhance the experience it'll make it safer uh they get multiple use out of it because they're also doing flag football in the outfields of these quads of these baseball fields so um you know this is not sexy it's not you know it's not something that we'll all go to the Rotary Club and brag about but but it's really important and it probably wouldn't get done otherwise without Echo so I just I applaud you all for doing it and for putting the money in um at the U at the the general fund to uh get this going to Pro provide your match you might have been on the council when they did this but I'm a commission I'm very impressed that they have their own little Parks referendum that went out and collected money for that every year so it's actually deal it's actually a segregation of uh General funds yeah inter it's an internal um dedicated funding sources for there's four or five of those at the city of Orman does so okay thank you Stephanie did you have something you wanted to say um yes I enjoyed the tour and learning more about LED lighting and how beneficial it can be I um I thought it was pretty impressive that 190 days of programming had taken place in 2223 and you expect more programming because of the light quality on the field have you estimated how much more programming you'll be able to accommodate Stephan Sibly deputy director R Beach Le Services um it's hard to it's hard to tell uh by the by basically the nature of just having that expanded lighting we're going to be able to increase just just out of natural attrition so I I can probably a year down the road kind of give you a hard number on that but unfortunately a guesstimation would just be that it would just be a guesstimation I think it was very well written um 191 page of budget detail was a little ominous but impressive um and I noticed that you listed 3,000 volunteer hours what do your volunteers do for the quad everything from coaches uh overseers uh scorekeepers things of that nature so it's a a definite community community project 100% thank you okay okay we'll go we'll move to uh the scoring Pat northy 90 Jay Pendergast 87 Jeffrey alt 95 Pat drgo 82 I guess I'm learning John Macaluso 89 Stephanie Mason Teague 92 Pat Patterson 84 Reggie stily 91 Dwight Selby 88 88 okay and I want it to be known that this does not reflect as a comparison this is my learning curve not theirs yeah well it's we all have to learn this one this is a brand new form okay based on the average of 88.7 one orand is eligible to for us to advance this Sports Complex softball installation of LED lighting forward to the County Council okay we will move along to Orman Beach NOVA community park and um are yall representing just so here you are thank you okay uh are there any comments or questions for the applicant uh the echo request is [Music] $216,300 um I had a note that I'd written down it wasn't clear if um the survey results were very impressive were they sent just to Orman Beach residents or all of alucha County those surveys Stephan sibl deputy director or Beach Leisure Services uh it is an Orman Beach survey uh I'm assuming you're referring to the master plan survey yes yes yeah that is an Orman Beach survey it's a statistically valid survey that was performed by our master plan contractor and it show that there were 20,000 participants and 28,000 Spectators um but those probably AR all weren't from Orman Beach no there's a there is a large component u in Youth Sports of travel aspects uh we do try to focus a lot on the recreational side but yes there are some bleedin from select programs I noticed you had an agreement with the city of Port Orange for for using the fields can you elaborate on that we we have an agreement with Port Orange in regards to our special populations program and then we have have a a varied agreement throughout the cities they do use our Sports complexes for different events different activities thank you okay Pat I made a note that be uh the prior application and this one and it and I think the staff was that y'all have been heavy users of Echo and I'm just going to say when I looked at all of your budget and I thought to myself about all the various cities in the project I did notice that c the city of or beach has been a consistent applicant for Echo and successful at it pro or con and I think one of the reasons that they are is is based on you have a set aside that that goes to parks and these kinds quality of life Orman is known for having a good quality of life AB has chosen what they the commitment yeah okay could we please take a vote on this one Pat northy 9 Jay Pendergast 88 Jeffrey alt 94 Pat drgo 90 John Macaluso 89 Stephanie Mason Teague 92 Pat Patterson 87 Reggie stily 93 Dwight Selby 89 okay and with that the city of Orman Beach NOVA community park improvements meet the required average to be Advanced to the County Council of 99.14% congratulations we're glad to see you do those projects okay we will now move to city of Port Orange City Center playground improvements and the echo request is $150,000 and that's a budget decrease and would you talk about yes so the city of Port Orange uh submitted the budget decrease which is provided in your packet as well as sent in a email stating the decrease as well which will take the project to 150,000 total decrease of 100 okay all right everybody remember that that there was okay there any comments on on this is item or where's the P orange people where are they at okay they're there anybody have any question questions for Port Orange before we I just have I we're doing these we have several that are design built and some projects are really well suited to that and others are not and I just want I will be uh conscious of those and which projects are best suited this one is fine but uh some projects requ I think that's a good way to get around having shovel ready design but some want to comment on it Jeff yeah I think the who are we talking to oh Teresa okay Teresa Brooks Grant manager uh for the city of Port Orange and Peter Ferrar Deputy um Parks and Rec director yeah just you know the Ada PL uh playground it's it's commendable it's a definite need glad you're doing it so let me just in a public meeting point point this out any playground that I bring forward to this committee or any other committee will far exceed the minimum standards for Ada I have been chosen my husband and I were chosen with um a granddaughter who has physical limitations and I will make sure as I stand here that every playground will be suited for all children good um she has spoken Don't Mess With Grandma on this one uh the Strategic plan uh is very detailed just want to point out that it it's the Strategic plan from 2017 to 2022 so we're in 2024 now and I know this fits with the continuation of that but I hope the city updates that it is it's in the process of being updated yes okay it just wasn't available at the time of the application and just um for some reason this stood out on yours um some applicants do it some don't um I hope this could eventually become standard that all of the past grants were listed in order but also they're the amount funded some just some just list grants with with nothing so without me looking did I list the amount yes you did and that's that's what stood out to me it's like I don't have to research anything that's what I like okay any any other comments we we'll go to vote Pat northy well I really like this application I gave it a 98 Jay Pendergast I did not I gave it a 57 Jeffrey alt 85 Pat drego 90 John Macaluso 85 Stephanie Mason Teague 81 Pat Patterson 882 Reggie stily 86 Dwight Selby 84 I have to I'm working on my thank you okay based on the scoring this project will advance to the County Council City Port Orange playground improvements with a score of 84.7 one unless that changes for some reason we added it wrong I don't know okay um congratulations I don't see them anymore did you do they leave already City Port Orange they still here okay just want to say congratulations okay we'll move along to next get my numbers where I sorry I have new samna beach but want to make sure new Smur Beach city of New Smur Beach Skate Park expansion and the echo request is $148,800 I think we all made it to that one except Mr Patterson are there any comments I'll start down this time with Dwight if any comments or no comment no comment okay okay I Stephanie I did you're you're fine I guess I read very intently um I I I'm still curious about the design build and I'm sure we'll discuss that a lot more in our next um Echo meeting but it makes the scoring difficult because the questions asked if they are project documents and drawings and and they're not um and so I I found that part a little bit difficult um all of the funds were approved by resolution which is great and the city staff seems to have um a very detailed plan um will there be new opportunities for for participation or will it just improve what is already there for the participants and where utilize the skate park Rob Sals our Leisure Services Director City of new beach um thank you for the opportunity to speak on this first of all um the expansion of the skate park will increase the volume of skat area so we would be able to accommodate more skaters simultaneously so it increase the potential for maximum people to participate also what we're looking for in the design build component um designing skate parks is kind of a specialized um Forte and I can't just go to any design firm and have them put a skate design out there that would be suitable and wanted by the community so we surveyed the um user group that participates at the skate park and got the input public input on what they want to see for features for future use and the plan is to go out once we go out for RFP and provide that input to the potential biders um and designers of the of the expansion and allow them to tailor the design to the community input that been received so that's kind of the purpose of the design build and you'll still retain just one part-time employee So currently I have a proposal that I'm working with on the city and bringing the operation of the skate park under the city's umbrella rather than a third party and my proposal calls for one full-time employee and a part-time employee that's the double your employees or more than double yes ma'am to serve the additional attendees or skaters yes all right thank you okay I'll speak up okay this really hurts me being a city of Nar Beach resident well known there but this is not shovel ready this RFP design build was supposed to go out January 2nd has it gone out yet no sir so it's already behind schedule and I mean it just you're already behind schedule and there's no drawings and it's just I just I can't support it well thank you for the comment uh one thing that and by the way I am Chad Gibson with the CIP and Grand coordinator for the City of New SMA Beach um I understand uh we have the RFP ready to go and we really can submit any time we are trying to go with the time frame of the uh the echo committee's decisions and you know uh we have the funding we're ready to go like you said we can submit it any time so once we feel commitment it's going to take time for the paperwork to process anyway so it's going to go out for a 30-day RFP uh so that process will begin um it still aligns with the timeline that we're we're looking at well the problem is is you have no skin in the game this is like Go Fish I mean they these other communities have spent money on drawings on planning on Preparation and and new smna has not I mean the city has said oh yeah we'll we'll earmark this funding and give you a resolution well that's wonderful but these other municipalities have gone out and their drawings are ready they know what they're doing there I mean they're not all the same but there's quite a few here that are like ready to go and we can say yes and the minute they are they funding they'll be ready to go and this it's not ready to go absolutely I think the the the difference is that this is more of a specialized project in the sense that you're we're trying to capitalize on the most for the value that we have so we are limited uh this skate park is needing the expansion needed from day one from the opening and what we can see is from a design build purpose when you have limitations on funding and you want to make sure you get the most from that amount you especially when it comes to the design you want to have the coordination between the contractor and the designer to make sure they can effectively use the space uh as much as possible now generally we do not like to go after a design Bild with the city uh we don't do it often uh it only comes in certain places we do have the skin in the game because we already did the skate park we are already doing our projects uh that are enhancing it by uh replacing the skate shop uh we are putting everything towards it and we just feel that it would better suit for this project a design build and maybe that won't be for every project and this would be more of a limited case um but you know uh especially when something is in need uh sometimes this is a faster way as well because you're going to have this would if say you went the traditional route you're going to at least push it back a year uh in a sense and then you're going to have uh maybe other outcomes that come along with it maybe the design doesn't come out as best with the contractor and the contractor will have to change it so this makes it a better um route mhm just referencing the to follow up on what Chad stated uh the skin in the game are for the city is you guys have been to the the uh skate park on the tour and you saw um the new building that we were bringing in which is outside of this Echo Grant um and that was a $200,000 building that was not um included in this CU it was a replacement building as we know we can't replace with Echo so that old trailer that was probably uh 10 years past its life cycle is finally out of there and this this Expansion Project and the new building pH together is the city's vision for what the skate park can be and making it a true asset to fuchia County so that's there certainly is skin in the game despite um maybe that portion of it isn't as Illustrated as well in the application okay estra yeah I'm just going to um I mean there are things I really like about this project in terms of it's Unique it shows diversity and it really you know fits a lot of what happens in new smna beach you have a lot of skaters over there um but I too I I have a a problem more and more with is this shovel ready or not and um at the El eligibility um meeting two weeks ago Jay brought up that we really need to revisit this process and I think we do um as of right now though the design build fits fits our criteria so you know I I I have to be okay with it but um I I have issues with that it would have also been nice to you know show pictures of other skate Parts with with the features that you're going to add so we have a lot we have detail but nothing Visual and without construction drawings we even have less information I like the concept I like the diversity but you know I I need something a little bit more the other thing is um you know I know you're adding a Pro Skate Shop um well Echo doesn't build stores um I understand the importance for that can you can you explain a little bit because we don't have drawings is that funded with this grant as well no sir um the skate so the way this the skate park is set up there's a u there's a building there's a fence with a building and then behind the building is the skate park and the building serves as the entrance to the park so everybody there's no access to the park without coming through the the building and that's something that when we surveyed the community was very important to the parents of the users of the park um because it's prid a safe safe space for the kids um it the shop isn't necessarily for um you know a revenue generator for the city it's more of a extension of what the park offers we offer summer camps we offer free skate lessons on Saturday mornings we offer um after school programming and we offer tournaments and all that is based from the shop um that's not necessarily because the shop is um a monetary you know force behind it but it's an asset or a need of the park to be able to facilitate the programming okay um what's the norm normal lifespan of you know the features that you're putting in the the original skate park was installed in or created in I believe 2009 and the expect it's still in great condition um so the new the new features will be a similar lifespan um skate parks don't deteriorate that quickly thankfully because it's mostly going to be um concrete and asphalt so um I don't have an exact time frame but it's going to be similar to the current existing Park okay thanks okay let's have a let's have a a vote on this one Pat northy 81 Jay Pendergast 73 Jeffrey alt 81 Pat Drago 65 John Macaluso 74 Stephanie Mason Teague 81 Pat Patterson 84 Reggie stilly 8 81 Dwight Selby 85 is that the final that that falls short of the 80 is it it's because of my score but I I had problems because of the design build the when we visited even the drainage those were the concerns that I had is that it was ready and and also that it's a narrow population that it will serve so I ranked it that's how okay that will not Mr just uh just technically it's not because of your score well it yours got thrown out it's lowest oh okay so you're you don't you're not calculating the average I feel better was it your probably do you have anything you wanted to say or you want me to okay you can continue it is uh the score is average is 7 7929 which makes it fall below the required 80% and we would just say come back next year with a little tighter application okay we'll move on to our next one is a city of Edgewater and uh just for ex exclamation explanation purposes that application does that move forward to the council as with or does not move forward it does not it did not meet the requirement of 80 okay all right okay city of Edgewater Hawks Park pickle pickle ball courts and amenities the echo request is $600,000 and we'll so are there any comments or questions on this one and is the city here they there Hi Sam uh did do you have a I you know I just wanted to say as I reviewed the application when we were there I was I con was concerned about drainage I know this is and I when I looked at the percentage that you're spending on the design documents Etc I thought was very heavy in the civil engineering and I understand why you need that but I just I just am concerned with the site and uh as I I you're going to really need that civil engineering and that it's going to be very problematic so okay any other comments well and that's what I was bringing up I mean they have a full set of drawings ready to go right they do I mean they can go in for a building permit right now with those drawings so this is a shovel ready drawing yeah plan application okay we will may I I can address some of those comments if you like if you'd like to do that thank you so much my name is Samantha berson I the parks and rec director for the city of Edgewater thank you so much for allowing us to be here today and thank you for reviewing this project just so you do know um the company that we hired to do the engineering plans meet and Hunt is the same consultant engineer that is also on our G2 G11 Canal improvements that go that start from the gabori canal and go all the way South uh to Maran Avenue which is encompasses that whole park um including it's all of Hawks Hawks Park which is 46 Acres where the pickle ball future site will be um so with that um and the design of the storm water pond that's on the design you can see very clearly that it's a very large pond it's to accommodate all of the future growth that we have planned because this is only phase one before you today for the pickle ball So eventually when it's built out it'll be eight from what I understand eight is the minimum needed to do tournaments and so we want to be able to open this up so that pickle Ballers from all around can come to wonderful Edgewater and hold their tournaments and so with that with the paving of the parking lot and all of the needs that we have for that site and also just to point out that um even during in that building did not flood so um yes it is low and yes we un we are very clear and poignant about U taking storm water very seriously I think all communities are after Ian in addition I'd also like to add that for the next uh city council meeting which is held on March 4th we are updating our storm water plan um and so you'll see that on the agenda as well so that's a master storm water plan for the entire city that includes this very sensitive area we actually have all of our permits in hand uh including our St John's Water Management District permit and um impr yes so we've been working very hard um we actually brought this and submitted this three years ago it did not make it even pass staff because we didn't have the drawings and we didn't have all of those pieces that are so um important and required per the Grant and so we went back to the drawing board and came back to you with a complete package and making sure that we're including storm water um in that plan as well so um and I just wanted to point out one thing I know that Mr alt U probably May has a question about maintenance um um so our Parks and Recreation Maintenance Shop is located right across the street I have two full-time employees that are dedicated just to that part Park uh and so it's something and my office is also in that Park as well so um it's definitely on our maintenance schedule and it'll be cleaned and visible uh every day and we will be make sure we put things in the budget to you know when the courts need to be uh redone or you know resurfaced and Nets and things like that need to be replaced and those will all be an ongoing effort and maintenance so if you have any other questions I'm happy to answer those but I hope that addresses anything if anyone else has any additional questions I'm here to help to answer anything but Mr Selby yeah it's Four Courts right phase one yes Four Courts yeah so so the comment I have is that you know you're it's a $600,000 grant you're putting at least 600,000 of your own money in right correct and we've already spent 170,000 just on the engineering and design and permitting so you know Four Courts for a million to obviously is seems outrageous but the reality is that you're putting in a lot of infrastructure a parking lot to accommodate a much bigger project so in future phases your overall cost for the future phases will be significantly lower so correct so I applaud you for a big picture kind of picture right thank you y Jeff yeah um just a little bit of a technicality back in 20 back in 2021 when we made some guideline changes uh we require applicants to show local data um you do both I have problems with applications that come in and just use National Data or something they got off of Google uh you start off some of your explanations with all that stuff thankfully you you got into you know survey results and you know feedback from your citizen so um but that's just a technical question I don't really care about the national numbers I care about the local numbers okay you already know about maintenance and um one thing I just want to point out I think you have an excellent support letter from new smna beach and their pickle ball Association um that's commendable so um you know you're going to be partnering with them and you're going to have a phase two next year uh for us hopefully and yes I look forward to seeing that well the NSB and pickle ball club uh they've actually increased their numbers I think their membership is up to 320 now and more than half of their members are actual Edgewater residents but because Edgewater this is our first pickle ball we don't have anything right now to be able to offer them and I know that Henda Del Rio and a couple of the other um homeowners associations and so forth they they have some kind of pickle ball that maybe they have double striping on their tennis courts or something like that but we have a huge outcry there was a gentleman that lived in O kill his name was Jim Brown and every year when he wintered he would always bound me have we do do we have pickle ball yet do we have pickleball he even brought me a drawing of what the court layout should be so um this is dedicated to Jim Brown after him yes okay we'll move good Stephanie yes thank thank you um I I appreciated the information about the about the sport I I know that it was more National but I think it shows that that we're keeping up sometimes little Florida towns can be accused of falling behind so I think that the national numbers show that you were keeping up um and I appreciate also that you submitted three years ago and then realized that it it needed some updating and I think that that shows that the process is working I feel like that that's what this is about to so that we can help you before it's presented and shot down and show to the community that we need to see that it's going to benefit more than just the small town but everyone in included so I appreciated that um and the strong support and very compelling you know 78% of people said that they wanted to use pickle ball it made me want to try it because I still haven't even haven't tried it um the land match I find confusing and I just want to put that out there because I know that hopefully we'll be talking about that um in committee um but you do have very detailed budget and that was that was wonderful I did have a couple questions about your business plan I'm always curious is how are you going to judge the increase and your business plan says that you have an expectation of increased use but it doesn't say how many you you expect and how many can you serve with Just Four Courts instead of eight honestly I don't know this is our first pickle ball court um you know I look at the success that we have in Holly Hill with ponia and the success and the um lines that we have for people to sign up and to play pickle ball and in our other neighboring cities and communities I even visited Jacksonville Beach and a couple others and um it's overwhelming the amount of use plus you have to remember that these will be lighted so people will be able to use them in the evenings as well so it's really you know how many hours in the day can you play and and that's really the but I think because this is a phase project um and what we'll really see is when we get the additional four built and we have the eight that's where we'll really see the big increase with numbers and being able to do tournaments and are you using an online scheduling system or is it just show up and the court is free how are you going to control that we're tossing back and forth some different options um some cities use kind of a online like a a QR code to be able to sign up and use the that's what Jacksonville Beach does other ones are just you know first come first serve um at the courts um some people use kind of a combination of both where you can you know if you arrive just like when you're going to play pool I think you know you can kind of put your Quarters on you put your name on this on the uh board the paddle board that's s sitting there so we're looking at some different options and different opportunities of how to reserve and how to use those and we don't have an definite answer yet I think it's going to come as they get more popular and more wellknown of what we need to do next to try to make it fair for everyone to be able to have an opportunity to play thank you okay just one one comment the only comment I had in on was on scheduling and it's it's a personal thing based on personal experience you're going to fill you're going to fill up real fast uh and and it's get get ahead of yourself and and take a look at that okay thank you okay we'll go to scoring we're scoring Pat nor um 89 Jay Pendergast 95 Jeffrey alt 88 Pat Drago 92 John Macaluso 82 Stephanie Mason Teague 88 Pat Patterson 86 Reggie Santilli 95 Dwight Selby 90 okay thank you want to wait till we pull out all the okay it is uh with an 89.7 one% this will advance to the County Council it is a city of Edgewater Hawks Park pickle board court and amentities okay congratulations to Edgewater we will now move to um we're going to put city of debber last I thought right that is correct okay so we'll move to valicia Flagger YMCA Delona Family YMCA athletic fields and playground the echo request is 428,000 and they are here I know I saw them stand there they are I saw them standing so the the they YMCA is Rec is recognized and um Teresa are you going to handle any questions is that your job today well mostly yes okay but I have with me um a board member the branch executive and the CEO thank you and are there any questions by the committee for this project Pat Dro M mine is a general question when I looked through the application I saw year after year of YMCA having successful projects and I wanted to know within the Delona YMCA or the near vicinity are there project capital projects that have no Echo funds what are there projects at the YMCA funds on its own without the contribution of EO oh yes yes yes Capital project yeah okay name name one just so I could I yeah at the Delon facility specifically or other branches in nearby at the Deltona facility or within the service area okay well Deltona recently went through that Branch went through about a um $300,000 renovation internally we revamped the inside of it we added a multi-purpose room so we could add summer camp and after school care to that branch which hasn't had it in the history thank you sorry I did not follow that question okay any other comments or questions Mr St sure one of our categories again is the [Music] board you have no information on the board of directors again I I don't know how many times I've asked for that I mean but you were here last year or whenever that was we went through this there's no information on the board we don't even have any board minutes approving this project uh you know cities Supply their their board minutes or their resolutions okaying this we don't have anything there was no feasibility study for this to show a need for it there is a a want by the YMCA to do this but I'm looking for information from the community you had mentioned that well you've spoken to high schools and you're going to maybe have practices there or games but there's no backup material for any of that stuff and yes you have come in for project after project after project and it hasn't changed the public use and I read off those numbers last time you you're basically using Echo as your facilities fund you have land match in here which means now taxpayers have more than 50% at risk for this [Music] project and what do we get from it YMCA is a membership organization and your numbers do not show you do not show the public using the facility and these are your numbers 1.5 million we we've put into your Orman Beach facility and there's only 4,300 people a year using that 3700 of them are are your memberships so I I have problems with I have problems with that we had to we rescinded to YMC YMCA grants in 2021 too because you weren't following the the basic rules so um I I just have a lot of problems with this Grant somebody that was a lot of covers um let me see if I can start from backwards work forwards Orman Beach has um because the echo grants has exploded actually that y state has doubled in size in eight months from when we redid the last EOG Grant there for the playground the pool and the uh shade structure so that why I'm say now probably has uh probably around 9,000 members at that location alone pH so that's actually been a very successful one um Delona this is a situation where we're taking existing soccer complex that has been overused through the prior Administration and I'm trying to bring it back to a top-notch quality facility for a activity that's very popular in that Community use soccer and so the numbers that we are using from prior use from programming at that same site we don't plan to change the programming only upgrade it with a better facility so so we expect the numbers to go north from what we have and I think I calculated recently probably about 4,300 participants we expect to use that and that's a conservative number on an annual basis and again for the soccer complex you can only use so many people at one time so if you have four and five-year-old you have a game of 10 kids on on the field you have maybe three Fields per full sucker field that's 30 30 kids so it's not like you can heard hundreds of people on that site at one time so that's going to tap down on the number numbers compared to other Echo grants if you compare apples to apples which is going to very tough to do uh but but the numbers I'm reading off are your numbers this is what you submitted so you're saying they're double that but you submitted these numbers cor and when we submitt them we also didn't take into account that we were going to start a summer camp After School Care Program when you have to submit the the grant so far ahead things happen that are positive as hey you know what we can use that field for something else and you can't go back and resubmit it because it's already been submitted so I'm let you know when we go back and we look at after school care which going to start due to the interior Renovations summer camp are going to start due to Interior Renovations they're going to be using that same complex which increases the usage numbers from what I could give you the first time the grant was submitted okay we'll move on anybody else I I will I will just say because I'm a Deltona resident and I my kids grew up in soccer these are soccer fields and we have a large Hispanic population in Delona that are going to use these Hispanics watch soccer that's that's their Sport and these fields are really needed because of the explosion of growth in in Southwest fuia that is the only why that we have in southwest fuia and I understand some of Jeff's comments but for the use this is a great use of ecofun some Recreation because there we 100,000 people in Del in in Southwest fuia just in Delona and a very young population and and a very Hispanic population and so for me this is this really fits a need that is uh identified in that Community they are looking to play soccer wherever they can find Fields it's this just the truth of it and this is a great program and I like the fact that it's going to have solar panels will be added at no cost to us and there's going to be a shade structure so um that's what I will say I I like the project does anybody else have a comment I do SE um I I love the YMCA and I think the Y provides incredible Services across the county in different locations swim in their pool go there my kids went there there's a new dog park there's great things but I find myself wanting to say help me help you you've got so many great things but reading this grant I don't I don't see them in there and if this is the basis for for approval there's so much great things you can list um for example you say that um no one is turned away from the why well do they know that does your community know that and how do they know that how do they know that they're not turned away and then on page 92 you said that a um Community stakeholder session was held what were the comments what was that Community stakeholder session what did they say did they ask for it did they love it um just telling us you did it is nice I'm glad that you did it but what did they find out um also that it says that um on page 16 although a thorough analysis of the f I mean no it says a thorough analysis of the funds necessary to operate and maintain this facility was conducted well what was it what was that thorough analysis what did you say and how are you going to going to put that into your budget your budget was very not very detailed um there were a lot of statements in there and I believe you I believe that you're going to do those things and I believe that you conducted those surveys but if you tell if you if you did it just boast a little bit about what you did and who said it and put in some reviews um even even some um interviews of those Community stakeholders um in your business plan it was a little bit bit more of a statement as well um how are you going to be marketing to non-members I think one of the criterias of the echo is that it will serve everyone in the community now we talked a little bit about that on the tour that that doesn't mean it has to be free but it does need it does mean that it needs to reach more than just the people in Deltona specifically and how will you reach them um at and is that feasible or or not just to answer that question because in your marketing um plan there were no measurable outcomes listed there were just some bullet points and I think that that would help I think it's a great project I think soccer fields are wonderful I think the amenities that you're including the astro turf the solar panels all good for the environment not removing any trees but I felt like the application was really lacking some positive details that would help us and help the community to stand behind the approval of these funds thank you okay any other comments otherwise we'll move to okay we are voting on the um vucha flager YMCA Deltona Family YMCA the athletic fields and playground for the amount of 42,500 Pat northy 88 J Pendergast 88 Jeffrey alt 55 Patricia Drago 74 John magalo 81 Stephanie Mason Teague 82 Pat Patterson 90 Reggie senly 82 Dwight Selby 89 well I'm waiting for them to take out the high and low number oh I'm sorry go ahead yeah yeah okay we have an average of 83.4 three which means this project will advance to the County Council for approval for recommendation of approval for funding so Pat I I need to uh correct a mistake I made earlier uh for city of New samna that did not score under 80 that project will um be recommended uh by the committee Maybe funded by a majority vote by County Council it is not that's it's not recommended by the committee but we take the whole slate of projects with anything above 80 recommending for funding sometimes they will pull projects below the line but it was not it will not come as a recommendation it was so close that I wondered if I made a mistake on my on my so my bad okay all right uh okay we will move toie rookie rookie mistake I like that we'll let that one we'll go to sson university Lake beersford Shoreline restoration and Public Access enhancements at the Sandra Stetson Aquatic Center the echo request is 600,000 and we just had a um member of the committee league for just a moment do we want to take a a short break and wait okay we'll take a we'll take a 10-minute break at this point and then we'll come back okay I know I feel so guilty rules ru the more you look at that gra it's just I just know I had a skate a skateboard it um back of my yard my boys are gr didn't I know and I'm all about Outdoors yeah you really did your homework I thought I did my homework e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e oh they just left them who's sorry they disappeared I count everybody just one okay Reggie and Pat it is so cold in here where where' you go to get a bottle of water okay oh yeah where's Patterson I try to keep a handle on him but it's really hard there he is okay I think we have a full compliment now of our members so we will move through our application for setson unit University Lake beersford Shoreline restoration and Public Access enhancements at the Sandra setson Aquatic Center the echo request is $600,000 and we'll U Seton is here so we'll start with the committee they have any questions for setson or uh and that they could answer or do you have any well you're not allowed to give additional information just to answer questions Jason Christopher RI president and professor of American studies and education thank thank you for coming okay um questions I'll start off real quick because I know Mr Al has a lot of questions probably related to my comment but I it's a it's a beautiful plan it's a it's a great project I think I made myself clear when we were there about um the just just love the uh setting and what you what you all plan on doing there I've been resident of the county for 23 years and there's a lot of this going on out there that I don't even know about so please Market this let everybody know that it's there I mean we're you know I'm willing to vote to to give you the money I want to see this thing take off but please Market this because there's so many things I'm running into now that I just never knew I was there that my kids could have enjoyed if I would have known it 20 years ago thank you you thank you Mr macaloo appreciate that comment um if I may wasn't there 20 20 years ago as Mr pent pointed uh if I may one of the things that really appealed to me about becoming stetson's president back in 2020 was in fact the SRA Stetson Aquatic Center and the potential that that site has uh for so-called Town gown relations and also making sure that we can educate young people further about uh the importance of the environment so I take your um comment suggestion very seriously I'm sure my colleagues do as well okay Mr draw good ballot resolution the entire ballot resolution six page talks about public usage every category public usage every single one of your grants has problems with that I pointed out those statistics a couple weeks ago you weren't you weren't here um you know but your the Homer and Dolly H Museum only has 2,627 annual visitors and in the survey that you guys did on that museum showed over 90% of the usage just from your students and and professors so where's the public usage on that uh same thing with the Rinker Environmental Center which actually was one of the things talked about in 1999 and 2000 that you guys had in the future or you wanted to do um and there was supposed to be a really good educational facility but the usage 3,75 um you're not getting students in there you're not getting field trips in there I'm not really sure what it is you do but I don't see the public use us um and the Aquatic Center yes it's a beautiful facility it's gorgeous facility and nobody is ever going to deny the beauty of the St John's river but if people don't know about it and if you're not really open to the public and it's only your rowing team that's using it where's the public usage you know Eko is not please sure so uh yes so with the numbers that we have so I think it's between 10 to 13,000 per year that's the public so that is free access we have not counted any of the radas we have not counted any of what we have for what we call the concierge so we have all kinds of universities that are there that are rowing we haven't reported those as part of our numbers because it's not because we don't consider that Public Access but it ends up being 8,000 per year and that's bed nights okay so that's actually people coming in there's economic it so between 10 to 13,000 per year that are using that facility coming in that is Public Access we don't charge for it we have activities that are there the county uses the facility for all kinds of different workshops and it's going to increase with the SunRail so the SunRail is coming out to that site that area is going to explode and so having access free access to Lake beersford where else can you put in a kayak on Lake Beford where else that's the site and so it's free to the public it's free access so so for that site in particular I think it's very valuable and it's become and and as we grow it's going to become even more valuable so so yeah so I just want to yes want to get that in there because I think it's important for context well we also need to work on what an annual report is because annual reports are going to dictate whether or not a project is is successful or not not a build buing that we funded I mean anybody could build a building but if it's not getting used by the public then it's not a success um you know that's my comment you know on that we're we're not eeko is not designed for you know private universities or even Daytona State College or or the other colleges that have been using this fund your primary mission is the education of your students your student tuition is $57,000 a year that's not that's not general population here uh well I'd like in the area mral I'd like to respond to that and I enjoyed my walk with you uh onto the future mats Point uh when you visited the site uh one in four of stessen students are the first in their family to go to college and over 40% of our students are what we call pel eligible so the notion of a $57,000 tuition is not really the number uh we are very very generous in fact the most generous Regional University in the entire United States with regard to fet so I question question your number about $57,000 tuition and who's accessing the site uh I also would like to make the argument uh quite persuasively I hope uh that the education it's not necessarily the overall end when you educate someone about the importance of the environment that has a ripple effect for what they end up doing and teaching in their communities further so uh I'd like to respond again to that comment about our cost structure the price tag is not the price tag we are the most generous Regional University in the entire United States when it comes to financial aid so we have first generation college students and low-income students that are accessing this site and uh are I'm certain are going to make a difference in the world okay I have another question on marketing um exactly what is $5,000 an annual $5,000 marketing budget get you I mean it gets you some flyers printed uh I I I would refer to my colleagues on to how to answer the the marketing piece uh I I I will say that I think when I was hired as president back again in in in 2020 that uh one of the many many by the way there's no person that can do all of the various things they wanted the new president to do uh but one of the things that I'm deeply committed to doing is making sure that our relationship with this community is solid sound and moving forward together in fact that's the name of our strategic plan forward together uh we have been neighbors since 1883 and and we want to we're not going anywhere and whatever I can do in my capacity as president to make our facilities accessible and affordable for valua County residents I'm all in okay I see Sydney at the mic did you want to make any remarks Sydney Johnson Grant's office at ston I defer to you chairman northy whether I should have a moment to speak or not you may have a moment to speak we're being very uh non-exclusive here thank you I appreciate that so thank you Mr all for your comments and and critique I went through a number of our um annual reports dating back 14 years and compiled some of those numbers some of those reports in a uh brief narrative with some bullet points I'd like to share with you first about the Rinker environmental Learning Center that was a 2007 Echo grant for $325,000 it's free with no fees for Public Access we've had two academic Affairs staff members over those 14 years manage that building some of the data that they' reported include for one year alone 49 vucha County Schools represented in educational programs eight area private Charter Schools again represented educational programs 12 educational programs for homeschool alliances the valua echo Rangers wee belows and Girl Scouts 14 packs or troops the Florida Scenic black bear byway that's a conference I'm sorry I missed and I suspect some of you would have liked to have attended that and so your point about improved marketing is well spoken and I appreciate that we do need increase our marketing but I can assure you that people are coming to Stetson University and they're enjoying what they see it's a beautiful campus we invest Millions of dollars in historic buildings we have the oldest continuously occupied site for higher education in the State of Florida there's older universities but they haven't been at the same site since their beginning such as University of Florida so the West valua ottobon Society the lonia chapter with the Florida Native Plant Society regularly make use of the Rinker environmental Learning Center so be with you just a minute meanwhile I'm going to just acknowledge Kelly McGee standing out there Kelly was an employee here in at ficia County and did great things when she was here and uh she went out on her own and she's doing great things on her own and we're very pleased that Kelly was so instrumental in researching compiling writing editing and producing the beautiful Masterpiece that's in front of you to base your decision on this morning so I'm pleased to share with you that the science cafes that I referenced in our last meeting are online accessible through ston University Rinker environmental Learning Center and it will take you through the Gillespie Museum which is all part of the same property their adjacent buildings one director manages those two buildings and so spring 2024 open to to the public searching for the first Floridians that's February 22 the public is welcome to join Valia County at the Rinker environmental Learning Center to take in this science Cafe that's February 22 March 14th it's the U solar e Eclipse with a director of the seminol State College presenting on outer space science April 18th Coastal pollution challenges with Brook sari STS in Alum from the South Carolina sea Grant and so we have scientist from different areas of Florida and South and in some science cafes in past years from Across the Nation these are available to the Valia County public so real quickly do I have a few more minutes two all right two thank you I appreciate that very much I'll foro any other comment so only because you're Sydney thank you I appreciate that I I do appreciate that all right let let me move forward I went through all 14 reports looked at the numbers and this is what we compiled these are the data points that we reported to you and with your permission in a few moments I'll ask if I can turn to one of your staff you'll mark them to talk about our reports so anyways this is what I compiled from our reports to you the last 14 years 1053 10 5,038 visitors over 14 years for an annual average of 7500 visitors to the Rinker environmental Learning Center I did an extrapolation over the 14 years and if we look at 40 years I'm not going to make it 40 years I won't be here to report that part but over 40 years of an echo of the echo grant for the Rinker that would come in at around 300,000 visitors that said this is one of those projects for ston University that makes our beautiful private university accessible and available to the public the valua county public the public at large that otherwise would not be available and that's why this program is so significant and for private universities okay that's my two minutes and so if I could what what do you want to do I was going to ask perhaps your staff chill Markham to come in on our report if that was appropriate no okay not thank you very much I appreciate you allowing me to ask the question all right Mr all anything else okay Miss dgo anybody I just I just have one comment as I went through the application and it really kind of speaks to what we've been saying you had a goal and it was stated multiple times to shift the behaviors of millions of people and I thought my gosh that's ambitious to shift the behaviors of millions of people and you have five ,000 a year to do it and that speaks to the marketing and everything else and so I just have to say that's a great return on investment if you're able to shift the behavior of millions of people for $5,000 a year I still I think you heard from was really loud and clear yes we did okay I think they get the message okay John okay I know Stephanie am I getting a bad reputation already no you're not you're new to this and you asked great questions we appreciate you um the the project is beautiful I love the tour I love Matt's point I think it's wonderful for the community and I think that based on the application that was very well written and very well done um it it looks really good however going back to some of the things and and I wish that some of those numbers that were just laid out were in the grant you know I kind of feel the same way with the why um the application to the why it's share with us this these numbers what we have to judge your Grant on and what our our um guidance is is to to use this form and the grant that you've submitted um so if you don't tell us we don't know now we can go back and research which we did but um the community doesn't know that I don't think the community knows and I did a very unscientific survey of my staff and I said would you guys go to Stetson to do stuff and they're like no I said did you know that you could No in fact we thought we couldn't because it's a college campus and you have to have an ID to get in everywhere you can't park anywhere it's restricted and and so if it's open and available we need to let people know that because I don't think people do I you know I would like to think that I do but I I doesn't comes top of mind oh I'm going to drive over to ston because the first thing you think of is oh that's for students and they're not going to let me park they're not going to let me in I don't know what I'm supposed to do when I get there so the marketing plan of $5,000 which I think you're going to talk to that and tell us that that's just not not the whole thing which is great but I think you have an image an an image problem I think that ston is doing wonderful wonderful things but we don't know about it we being the community community at large doesn't understand that those are accessible to them um I had a couple other um questions I think the living Shoreline is great uh water conservation Matt's Point again is wonderful um on on page 141 you say that the university annually sets aside funds for future renewal and Replacements in that there's an endowment fund specifically for the care of the Aquatic Center so would this project have been done without Echo could it be done was is this on the radar uh it could not be done without Echo uh and that's because those endowment funds and this is very smart from prior administrations at ston whenever we have a new building built we make sure we build in the endowment so that the building itself can be well cared for uh this is a living Shoreline project that would not be possible through those endowed funds alone uh in fact I think it's safe to say that uh that particular parel land will not be here if we don't do this project right uh and a sense that there's already been storm damage Etc and once it's gone it's gone um if you'll indulge me for just another moment about the marketing piece we probably underestimated that value of that in the budget because we've just hired a brand new social media manager at Stetson and as we know that's where a lot of folks get their information is via social media uh so we've made a substantial Personnel investment in social media management which I think will also be a front and center moving forward so I think the number is probably low in terms of our commitment and investment to making sure the public is aware of that um just this past weekend the dog parade in the land we went out and handed out uh along along along the the pathway uh buy one get one free tickets for the basketball game we had the best attendance we've had uh all since I started uh I also made the half court shot at halftime which was not bad um uh if you'll indulge me for one more comment I do have personal investment in this project and I know many on the panel here are aware of that uh I I'm actually touched and truly moved by the fact that Stetson without me urging has chosen to name this particular project after my deceased nephew Matthew Michael Oiler he was a 2005 graduate of Stetson University he was a staunch environmentalist Outdoorsman uh much beloved uh member of our community and just a few short months after his um graduation he was uh struck by a drunk driver he was a pedestrian in Orlando and was killed by a drunk driver so uh my family has personally invested resources into this project um I was told by members of this panel that that was in fact a relevant thing to say uh even though I felt as though it was not necessarily germine to the proposal itself I just hope that illustrates my personal commitment and I plan to be stetson's president for a long time uh toward this project thank you and I'm just going to put a a uh your your uh Christmas program is wonderful and and that's s i to do with this but I just want to say I go to it every year and it is incredible and I guess maybe this an East Side West Side thing because we all know setson on the west side and that you're U gosh you hold down to land and and so we know you I just want you to know that and uh I understand what everybody's saying you got to get the word out but but you're known over here so Kelly you get the last word thank you actually wasn't finished I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I just wanted to to state and I'm sorry sorry if I'm reiterating things that were already said but because it was listed in your Grant it said in 2014 you planned it it it referenced the 10,000 hotel room nights but then there was no followup did that really happen did did Dand really see $3 million um in expenditures for that that's that's the kind of thing that as a reader I'm looking for so you you left me hanging a little bit because I'm like wow that's fantastic did you really have that yes for this last year so um we ended up with 8,000 for last year is what we documented so not quite the 10,000 we will say that with the covid right we had covid happen and so that that when we first opened the facility it was October 2019 just as we were starting to get it going and of course we had the shock of covid but now we're getting there's teams out there right now that are practicing from the north and so all kinds of activity that's happening over the winter because rowing teams in the north it's cold yeah and so this is a great facility and I can tell you that's just going to keep growing and just in terms of the usage and so that was it's that's 8,000 just for last year so I think we're going to hit the 10,000 do you do your own numbers or do you get them from uh from Georgia and the um advertising Authority how do you come up come up with those numbers num so so those are the numbers uh what we did is we said okay how many uh athletes and coaches and they're here per se and nine days 10 days so I got all those numbers and we assume they're staying here locally within hotels okay yeah you did say that and and that was interesting I didn't know that that the lake is one of the the best training facilities in the world so um that's pretty amazing put that out on social media I I think you know the east side doesn't know this this facts I'm just stating for me on the east side you also said that you plan to increase participation by 10% year-over-year but then I didn't see a current participation leveline yeah so that so that's our Baseline that we have for the usage right now so I forget what it was this past year somewhere between 10 to 13,000 that's what we've been counting and that's just been passive use again so that might be on me for reporting I just tend to be conservative so the way we've counted is I've had students I've paid them to go out and who are the visitors that are accessing the site freely and are just showing up right so we count and we extrapolate so those are the numbers we've reported not the numbers again with the radas we have big radas with throwing teams that I could be wrong right then I'll get with Jill to make sure that we report this correctly that that we have not reported right so that has not been our reports but I went back after the last meeting because I like yeah I kind of got blindsided frankly you know wan to make sure okay what did we do and we got all of the numbers and so again for 8,000 for this last year and then so there there we do expect the increase uh we do think with the living Shoreline that it's the first one that we know about of the size it's actually be within the St John's river and so this is a demonstration and that's where we get to this whole thing with millions of people and with the marketing so that's a lot on me right so I'm out there constantly talking you know so they pay me but we don't put that as part of the marketing budget right I'm I'm actually a scientist I'm a professor I'm not a marketer that's not what I consider myself to be where out there talking to St John's river we're talking to the county we're having educational programs and we do think that even just getting out there that you can do living shorelines on the river you can do it on lakes that this is something it's not just for the saltwater that's what we're trying to influence and sure we put in there kind of millions of people but we've got a really big horn that we can't influence people we think and so we want to be ambitious we are ambitious and we think it's a beautiful site we think it's a beautiful project and because it's the first of its kind that we know about I think it's going to influence a lot of people thank you I think it's a wonderful application it's it's a great project I um I just like to see a little bit more of that detail um to answer those questions so that people not familiar with it like myself would be able to be a better judge great thank you so much okay gy thank you home thank you Kelly McGee I am the executive director of the river Riverside Conservancy in Edgewater I'm also a member of the board of the Stetson Institute of um for water and environmental resiliency and I think one of the reasons that Stetson asked me to help them compile this is that Riverside Conservancy was the first living Shoreline um that was approved for an Echo Grant and um as we began talking about this project actually several years ago um and and Sydney gave you an amazing he's a great historian right he has all of the all of the data of of all of the echo grants um and um all of the the questions are really well taken and we we actually considered in the drafting you know there's the emphasis on the public and Sim just like we've had trouble over the years of getting the word out about the echo program generally you know I think that is something that we can all do better we we uh wanted to um promise low and deliver High um and also you know um if you will you know judge this application on its own merits um we really tried to hit all of your criteria um with the the new president I mean he really has inspired and led this charge and I think that's huge to have University president um really rallying um the troops and has there's so much community support and the last thing I wanted to point out is that the the marketing is within also the community of Partners Riverside Conservancy being one um there are literally dozens of organizations that work with Stetson and the Aquatic Center the shore Symposium which is the sharing our research with everyone um is uh co-sponsor of that and that happens in new samna beach and so I think that you know this is um this new ethic emphasis on the living Shoreline will really help Elevate the the knowledge of the community and and Stetson has a lot of partners that are the very committed thank you as you contemplate your vote two more things Stetson has 400 students currently that are valua County residents full-time students at Stetson and also national news we won the head of the Charles um so the word is getting out there these Investments are making a difference and when ston little old Stetson makes wins the head of the Charles that's a big deal for vage County thank you okay all right we'll go to just one final comment um talking about marketing are you familiar with Colby College yeah they've got a hell of a marketing program they have a museum they've helped they committed over 15 million just to help downtown Waterville rebuild and then their investment went up into twice that so um I spent 27 years up there teaching summer camps everybody knows about Colby College and everybody is welcome to go there uh their museum is awesome but their marketing is all over the place and I suggest you study that thank you very much very helpful feedback okay we going to go to sson university Lake beersford Shoreline restoration and Public Access enhancements of the Sandra setson Aquatic Center in the amount of $600,000 Pat northy 94 Jay Pendergast 92 Jeffrey alt 52 Pat drgo 89 John Macaluso 83 Stephanie Mason Teague 90 Pat Patterson 83 Reggie stilly 96 Dwight Selby 93 okay we're going to pull out our high and our low and get a final number is our final number you took took this out okay it's 89.14 and you will be in the money to go to keny council congratulations thank you all very much okay thank Youk you okay 89.14 okay we will now go to our uh final Grant application review and that is the city of Deber at Alexander Island phase one Echo requests 2.5 million we scored them in the beginning of this meeting not scored them we made them eligible for exceptional Grant status um Daniel is there anything else I need to say about the city of debber just handle it the way we handle these okay okay um are there comments or question we have staff here we have the mayor here anybody and we heard from the heard from them earlier do we need to hear from them now is there additional comments or do we want to move to the scoring yes the only comment I'll make is without a completed application and drawings you can't not sure how to score that stuff so okay all right we'll go to scoring may I may I make a request sure I'm misunderstood the instructions and I apologize for that um I have not completed my scoring yet may may I ask for five we'll take may we take five minutes I don't know if anyone is in that same boat um yeah it's quite a longc uh uh scoring sheet anyway so we'll take five minutes to allow anybody who has not scored this grant to score the Grant I appreciate that thank you well in the meantime do you want to say something well scoring is going on I mean we do we'll do that before we go to scoring because well I just want to address the uh I'm sorry no we cannot unless you ask questions so at this time I cannot Madam chair did you intend us to be in recess or just five minutes okay thank you who was that was Oh attorney five minutes e e e e e e e e e e e there we go okay we're going to go back into session and uh are there any comments or questions on this rant that we have not heard before otherwise we'll go to scoring okay scor sheet up Pat northy 91 Jay Pendergast 91 Jeffrey alt 65 Pat drgo 90 John Macaluso 82 Stephanie Mason Teague I'm sorry sorry Pat Patterson 85 Reggie stilly 90 Dwight Selby 86 Stephanie Mason Teague 62 okay that's the same that's the same number that was there okay it comes to 8414 is that correct that's final number okay um that makes that project eligible to go to the council as an exceptional Grant congratulations to Barry okay okay that concludes our exceptional Grant excuse me our 2024 Echo Grant application review and scoring Mr Marsh okay um first of all congratulations to everybody that scored and this move moving forward I know this was a we had new members and this has just been a process for some of us with the new scoring sheet as well and and next year we need to be sure that we get the scoring sheets out to the applicants so they can see how we're going to score okay because I heard some applicants did not see the scoring sheet before we scored it so okay we need to do that just because they would need to see that so okay okay new business before we move to new business I do need to uh correct some math errors oh okay oh dear we know who we are I uh yeah well I guess I will have to say who but uh so for the Orman Beach NOVA community park uh Pat northy score needs to be a 91 uh for the city of Port Orange Pat Patterson needs to be an 85 also Port Orange Pat northy needs to be 98 wow yeah something yeah yeah and for city of Port Orange uh Pat Drago needs to be a 92 I told you I didn't like the S it was the Pats yeah you're right something something about that name that's it okay so that changes the averages so that gives Port Orange a final score of 85.43 and then for the Nova community that changed the score to 90.2 n so still passing over 80 but we just needed to adjust the scores to reflect okay and we need to make a a motion to in total to move these forwards or we made individual motions do we me need to do one total the Slate okay I'll entertain a motion to move the Slate of echo Grant review panel score sheets to the County Council so moved moved by Mr Selby second by second padrio is there any conversation or uh comment on that motion okay see none we'll take a vote and please take a a roll call vote on this Pat northy yes Jay Pendergast yes Jeffrey alt Pat Drake yes John Macaluso yes Stephanie Mason Teague yes Pat Patterson yes Reggie stilly yes Dwight Selby yes and thank you to all the board members or committee members that got through this process today and thank you to staff uh particularly because this has been new for a lot of people the new scoring sheet and I know that is you're new to this and Nick is new and we appreciate all the efforts that you all put into it I I know it's been a tough year said and uh just so everybody is aware uh March 19th will be the date when the echo grants um will go to County Council March 19th yes okay so I I don't know how anybody feels but if you feel comfortable attending uh you should and that is a night meeting 4M okay I hate those night meetings Okay um with that we will redum with this we can move to new business yeah we'll move to the next slide you updated echoir County expenditure this is the dce plan that we approved last year and take it away Mr Marsh yeah uh so this is the uh a continuation of the approved plan for March 2023 uh so um you guys were sent a updated uh memo to the plan last night um so please look at that one instead of the one that's in your agenda packet uh this plan will be an additional $6.2 million to fund new requests of adjustments with 750,000 uh committed and an additional 2 million being requested as match for a total of 2 million $750,000 uh it's 20 new projects at 16 sites across the county and then we've made two adjustments to the timeline and then we've removed two projects um from the plan and then uh last night removed uh two projects as well and and I'll touch on that when we get to that specific District but before we go there uh I want wanted to give you guys an update on the 2023 dce projects this was the status update from the fourth quarter um so the projects are listed here um we should have uh all division directors or somebody from the division that will be here that can answer any questions about projects okay so this if this is just a a show of where where the projects are at currently in design and construction so I would just say if my jump in here we typically do design in year one and construct in year two so if you go by that kind of philosophy we're looking we're looking good on most of the projects we've had a little snafus but these are the priorities our accy manager has made that clear to these division directors that we get these done in a timely manner so we'll continue to to work with the division directors to to get these across the finish line and and so you're saying year one and then year two so the ones that were year one we won't necessarily see again correct everything that you approved as part of the plan last year all you are seeing are updates to the plan so it's a rolling so now there's a sixth year that we're making requests for so so none of the new ones are in this plan that's presented right now these are all the old ones that's up here correct the the ones that you're looking at on the screen now are for 2023 only the ones that we approved in March yes okay and I have one more slide so if you guys are good with this slide I can move to the next one question um so this is calendar 23 is that how we do these projects not fiscal year it's it's on award so March March would be when it was awarded well I'm I'm just looking at fourth quarter October through December that sort of implies it's calendar fiscal year I mean I'm just I just want to get the time frame Square in my head because isn't the County fiscal year doesn't it start first yes yes this is the fourth quarter report from the projects from October to November they were due January 15th so they turn those reports into us um for those projects but these weren't approved until March Dwight so we didn't start on them so we miss missed the first quarter January February March because we we started them in March because we didn't have approval from Council and this committee we don't start until we have it's probably not that important but I'm just asking are we are we reporting these on calendar year or County fiscal year because this appears to be calendar year unless I'm reading this report a calendar year Echo County starts in in November yeah Okay calendar year all right thank you October are you good with this slide yep okay and here's the other projects any questions on any of these okay and I will add that these are on dashboard and we mentioned that to you that we wanted to be very transparent about the dce plan as well so these are on the echo dashboard so you can track these just like you could track any other project okay and you can see that we we do have projects that are completed so the the Briggs the Briggs fishing do construction where is that it's very close to being going out to bid okay thank you but they were raing on some boring samples I believe and where is it physically geographically located Briggs uh where I don't know that town let me let me guess fishing there on one second just taking a wild guess I was not being a smart alec I prom I don't know I don't um but we're but we're very Briggs Briggs fishing dock is is 2500 John Anderson Drive in Orman Beach thank you know well so not Briggs I have no IDE we were all wondering thank you for asking okay all right okay any other questions otherwise we'll move on to the new projects for the second year yes of the program so one thing that is different from last year's plan to this year's continual plan is that last the 2023 was done by division this plan is done by District so we break the projects down by the five districts as well as a beach enhancement category okay so in district one we have uh four projects and they are listed here two of them are uh library playards at Pearson and Dand and then we also have uh $1 million for the improvements to the fairgrounds which is a phase three project and then the Lake George Forest kayak launch so one of the things I'd like to jump in here because you'll probably be asked this question as committee members is well do you are you required to bring any match for these funds um we are not because it's a separate program from the grant but we still try to so the fairgrounds money we will leverage this because you have to bring money to the state department of AG Grant so we will use this 1 million to ask for 2 million from the state and what are the the improvements so phase three improvements will be an open um there's been conversations let me preface that nothing has been set in stone and Council will need to weigh in as well but a open air facility where you could have uh concerts shows one of the things what we realize working out there during emergencies is um it would be really nice to have a place covered that people could drive through and we could load them up and send them on their way so you'll be able to drive in one end and out the other offers an opportunity for lawnmower racing tractor pools just bringing a whole different set of kind of events to the community okay thank you it's a it's a great location and it is really well centered as best we can be with the conservation Corridor in the middle of the county so uh it's well used that location is well used take parking right what it will use it will take some it take some parking yeah I I have two questions on generally the plan that I should have asked last year but didn't one do we meet the sustainability requirements that we impose upon our our regular Echo applicants they're guidelines they're not regulations I no but do we do we I I think we try all of our projects to to do those things okay and then uh there was a second question it'll come to be go ahead I can't think of it right now was it the exceptional Grant no no it was um oh art in public places the county has a resolution that we when we build or we you know we do art in public places and that includes outside art and public places do we incorporate art and public places in these projects I I can speak for our project and resource stewardship no but but we'd certainly like the money well well there's a resolution when I was on Council there was a resolution that we were we required it so could we check that out yes we'd love to that out I mean we even added art to the trail program with the crossbars on at in oin that was considered art in public placees because there was a historic beam that the railroad used to be on so yeah okay and we have art in public places already at the at the fairgrounds but but now that we're doing additional work we should put in additional art I know the council will love to hear that go ahead um I just want to reemphasize too and I did this last year as well the Valia County Fairgrounds the location is perfect I4 I Highway 44 even the other counties that I deal with know we have the spot we have the location for an incredible Fair Ground so you know as we get into developing that more I just want to make sure we're doing it right um and you know even with the outdoor Amphitheater we need to get users in there into those conversations the people that are going to use it to make sure we have the corre direct amenities to get the most use out of it as possible um also with district one can anybody um answer what happened to Bennett Park I you've been working on that for a couple years in terms of studies and Y we we have uh there's actually a feasibility study out on the street right now so we should be getting the results in the next couple of months uh and presenting them to council and asking for council's direction on how to Pro proceed and that is we're talking about the left side or excuse me the right side the opposite side of the road from where it is presently as a regional facility I've seen some of the preliminary need data um and it supports something in that spot but the council asks us to look at three things Motocross BMX and sports field so Motocross will be presented this this coming Tuesday this coming Tuesday and the BMX and sports feasibility will be um presented later in the spring so if if it came back and they told that that they're providing estimates in a proa and Council wanted to build it we would probably come back you know in terms of for Bennett uh and have a conversation with this committee well now that I'm confused because what we're presenting to Council next Tuesday not us but but what the stff is presenting is to Mo Farms is off tamoka Farms yes so how do we get to benett Park from tamoka farms no so that Motocross is for tamoka Farms right yes I thought I just heard you say you would relook at Bennett Park we are we're looking at Bennett Park as there's three things that are under study Sports Complex feasibility at Bennett at Bennett okay not the not the Motocross or the okay all right I misunderstood you Bennett Park is off Veterans Memorial Parkway in Orange City and it straddles both sides of veterans which presents an issue one time we were going to go under the road and then another time we were going to go over the road to bring those two Park sites together so has that been looked at we we have the cost estimates that I think were shared with you it's significantly more expensive to go under the road than over yeah but we are we are going to tie them together correct those two it's going to be a larger one one large facility we actually have a state appropriation in as well this year for match requests so 3 and A5 million we'll come back to you when we have all of that data for your input great okay Carry On ready to move to any other questions on district one anybody have any other questions I will I just want to on our library Services director since I'm the community services director now we have extremely Community engaged libraries oh yeah we have found that having a small Playard off of off of a library that's completely closed in you have to come into the Playard from the library um people love them and so we have them at on we have two on the east side and this will give us two on the west side we're about to move into to our new facility in Pearson taking I think the the library from uh how 1,000 square F feet to 4,000 square fet like it's going to be much nice nicer and bigger we're going to be in the old school media center wow wonderful wonderful lucenda don't there is Lucinda sorry Lucinda I didn't see you like this don't we have a a playground Delona Library play area yeah yeah yeah it's very popular and there's a children's Library adult yeah I'm big on libraries so whatever you want to bring forward to your staff sorry okay okay good with any other questions for district one okay all right so District Two uh is just an includes an adjustment and an updated request for an additional 2,000 but this or 2,000 the $2 million it's accounted for in District 3 because this Doris leaper Spruce Creek preserve straddles both District 2 and District 3 so we'll touch on that uh when we for district three which here is the D leaper Spruce Creek preserve site plan and are we going to talk about naming this uh I'm going to pass everything off to uh Nick Dunham uh Nick Dunham resourc director okay okay we can we can move on then okay ready yeah okay he's you I said I was pre he said I was premature or I said I was premature you don't want any information from Nick okay bring it on Nick I'm trying to help staff out here so the schematic of this site is uh a recent valua forever purchase called The Dome parcel and it has been absorbed into the 2500 acre door sleeper Spruce Creek preserve so this is site is going to be uh what we call the Reed Hughes Learning Center so the entire site will be a uh Learning Center so we're going to have a Pavilions observation tower a kayak launch um a story walk trail there as well um parking spaces um um a one M Trail Loop to the South it doesn't show up on the schematic but it's going to link to a trail head as well um will be a uh restroom site um and a uh drive-thru So currently if you drive on the property it's a one way in one way out so we're making it a drive-thru and and I'm just going to add this is um this the name goes back a long way when I served on Council and we did a ribbon cutting for a piece of property in new subur on the site that eventually because of the economic turndown uh didn't get done it just didn't get done and that site is no longer uh advisable to use so um this site here will will fulfill Reed's dream for valua County and most of you know Reed and he was an early advocate for preserving property um despite the fact that he was a gasoline man I mean different that's I know uh but I'm I'm very happy to see that the staff took this very seriously and named the whole this whole five acres after him because um he deserves it and can I add a few more details to it sure there's going to be a lot of educational components on this side as well um from the uh local Giants of conservation to uh habitat um and we're going to going to try to make some of it as interactive as possible and Louise from the school board is going to be using I would expect what use this site a lot for the school kids yes we we added a bus site so hopefully we'll get her up there so one of the things I think that's really cool is we've never told our and for those of you that were on the committee before um I think the direction after from leadership and the community after reauthorization is there's not a lot of synergy between vucha forever and Echo this was bought with forever money it was a disturbed site that's why we're doing some stuff on it because it was an old home site and had two homes on it actually and a trash pile um so we're connecting through concrete all of the educational activities and we're going to stamp leaves do stamped concrete um so it's educational as you walk and tell the history of conservation and Valia County we were really one of the the first counties in the nation to um vote to tax ourselves to conserve land and so that story is not tell told very well we're going to tell it here at this Reed Hughes environmental was instrumental and that happening in the 80s so you all okay good okay thank you and I will I will add there too that this is another one where we're leveraging $750,000 in park impact fees so we're trying to bring match to the table and then the other two projects are uh Beck Ranch shade canopy and long leaf pine preserve fishing and kayak launch as well and and Beck Ranch was damaged during the hurricane so I think this is a correction to that to the damage tree came down on on the old uh slaughter house slaughter house so that's being that's FEMA eligible it's actually down and will be rebuilt in its likeness and this is actually a new new request for a shade canopy that's not there okay I misunderstood that thank you yes ma'am all right on to District 4 uh District 4 is $1.85 million and it includes uh mostly outdoor recreation uh Highbridge Park improvements and then we got parking improvements and playground improvements at James Orman tube park the bicentennial dog park improvements and then Strickland will be converting the lights to LED as well as restrooms in an ADA accessible path from the ball fields any questions okay all right so District Five uh is where we had two projects that we uh had in District 5 but they were actually in district one so we struck those projects out that would be the Colby Alderman Park uh parking improvements as well as the PFC Bennett uh lighting to LED so this now uh takes District 5 to about $ 625,000 um which includes the Ada Boardwalk to lionia preserve and the high Banks Ada floating dock can I I just want to go on record as saying that Del kids use these other two parks they're District five kids and and while I understand why we have separated this into districts is former County council member I get it but all of this that we we're doing is used by excuse me everybody in everywhere than vucha County so for me I mean if there's a way to put those back in somewhere I would do that because they're they're great sites that are used heavily and they're used by District five people not just District well they're in District three I think that's what we figure out District three Danny's District yeah so point taken and uh we just we felt the easiest way last night to solve this issue was to remove them I understand that I also had a call with Tim Bailey this morning and said hey why why are we doing the lights if we're going to do a big park there in the future why don't we do all the work at once and upgrade the other side to Ada lights so that may come in a different request wrapped up into it we'll look at Alderman but I also didn't want to make rash decisions last night without looking at the ballot language and is it a new thing or is an improvement so we're going to go back and meet with that district council person and we'll probably come back okay it's important for us to try to maintain balance I understand that yeah okay so just the question so physical year um 2026 I'm assuming that's what that is yes sir so if you put Colby you could put Colby back in next year and still do it in 26 can't you yes okay because I agree with Pat I would have rather had these kept in and then uh the other two projects in District 5 uh both are at lonia preserve Pavilion and Trail expansion thank you there and uh there was a timeline adjustments to the following projects which are Lakeman row and Green Springs both playgrounds and it is due to safety we higher priority took precedent so we just flip-flo those two year two projects and by flip-flopping it will allow us to continue to provide this amenity to the community Community otherwise we're going to have to close the playground for a year we don't want to do that no all right and then the last category is Beach enhancements so this will be actually a reduction to the plan um two previous projects that were included um were Cardinal and 9th Avenue both of those are now going to be receiving FEMA funds so we have taken them out of the dce plan and the only new project is $75,000 for Samad Dunes Park uh main P Pavilion renovation I just want to comment that we we actually stated that these the ones that we removing as part of the plan we knew they might be eligible for FEMA and we put that in the plan so this is not a surprise we knew that it may be coming and it did come to fruition so we're happy to take FEMA money I I think we all trust yall with these things you you work with them every day so is that it so and final it's $ 6,215 th000 for the continued dce plan okay and you're looking for a motion okay I I'll move to approve the DC dce dce program for 2024 okay is there a second to that I'll second the motion okay Pat I'll put you down as second yes I'll second okay there any questions on this project this plan okay we'll take a vote on this if you call the rooll Jill Pat northy yes Jay Pendergast Jeffrey alt yes Pat Drago yes John maaloa yes Stephanie Mason Teague yes Pat Patterson yes Reggie Santilli yes Dwight Selby yes okay you got your marching orders on this one that's when this when does this go to March 19th as well okay yep okay all right thank you all very much for being so uh supportive of that plan okay we'll go to staff comments All right so the only thing need to bring to your attention would be the uh Grant 4-18 which is the Lake Helen creative arts Cafe um so we have been monit monitoring that site uh dating back to 20 October 27th 23 which we sent a letter to uh them to address their non-compliance um and then we also went out uh County Council passed a motion to approve a scope change to the project and we went out in the beginning of January two or three times and the it was still not open so we have sent them a invoice to pay back that Grant uh in the amount of $6,6 126 and that was sent out to them yesterday action needed by this advisory committee just wanted to bring it to your attention okay okay and that's it that's all I have have comments okay we'll go to advisory committee comments I'm going to I do have one more thing to add uh I wanted to I'm sorry I wanted to make I have something to add to okay you want to go I was just going to let you know the next meetings are on your uh above so you guys know when they are uh and they all be 9:00 meetings okay okay that's wonderful at that meeting we'll also elect chair and vice chair at time so we will do that and based on your interest and I don't think this group has ever seen it and it's in it's on my team the expertise is on my team would you like a short 15 minute 20 minute presentation on the fairgrounds master plan the data that we gathered what the phases were funded up to at this point good good yeah that would be great absolutely yes I I would also love a real clarification as to who own what because it seems like it's I have a colorcoded map that a colorblind person can understand owns part of it somebody else owns something else it's it's 111 Acres um Farm or um County owns about 22 uh the fairgrounds owns about 70 to 80 uh Cattleman's about 20 and Farm Bureau six but it's 111 acre complex and we all get along you do you do and bu Centennial is near there adjacent that's that's close no by Centennial is in North pen yeah I know but there's another I I'm thinking now it's name is what you're thinking of we all went there as kid that you had over there scho we used to call it the B sorry I've been around too long I think the school board still owns that what I think the school board saying but it's still public ownership yeah yeah yeah that's right next door you're right okay almost next door okay with that we'll start with Dwight do you have any closing comments um yes I do thank you I the first one is really sort of a question I just I was looking at the agenda and it you know on this on this review that we just did the U uh not the agenda but the note state that the County Council would like Echo advisory committee to review the direct expenditures that's in quotes that's what we just did is that what we just did okay I don't that was a pretty not a very deep review of a lot of money I mean certainly not pales in comparison to the review that we do for the the nonprofits in the cities so you know I'm just pointing that out as a rookie here okay that that I mean this stuff is just like taking a drink out of a fire hydrant you know I mean so anyway I made that and then I have I just have some comments that really are probably more gerine for our April meeting when we'll be looking at our the ways we operate but I want to share them now just to stimulate um maybe some thought process between now and then by other members um the first one relates to the whole concept of shovel ready um I the the the challenge with truly being shovel ready in my mind is the amount of dollars that uh the app applicant has to spend on soft costs I mean it's on a million dooll project your soft cost can easily be 10% 15 or 20% so if if you're doing a million dooll project you're asking for a $500,000 Grant you're not going to get you're not going to you're not going to do the project if you don't get the grant okay and yet to even apply for the grant under our current rules you have to invest applicant would have to invest $100 to $200,000 if they don't get the grant they're not going to do the project those plans all that engineering that architectural and all that is worthless that's wasted money and these are non-risk takers cities don't take risks with public money the YMCA or other nonprofits don't take risk with with don't take those kinds of risks so the the system right now in my opinion is is it disincentive vises applications because of that so one thought that comes to mind and I'm not recommending this yet because I don't you I don't know how this process works all that well yet but is maybe there's a two-tier maybe there's a two-step process maybe the first part is we have this concept you know and so they get sort of a does the does this committee like the concept and then if we like the concept then you know then then they get they get a green light on that from this committee with a high level of assurance but not not complete assurance that they'll get a grant so we're not awarding any or not recommending any money being awarded at that time but we're just saying hey that's a great concept you have whatever 12 months or 24 months come back with your plans and make an actual application now they can go back to their their deciding board whether it's a city commission or whatever and they can then say hey we got you know we we made it over the first hurdle so now let's go ahead and invest the 100 Grand so that we can go get the you know the half a million bucks and then do this project so that that's one idea which again it's to address the shovel ready and and and I'm also kind of confused on this design build satisfy shovel ready does it or doesn't it I because why doesn't everybody just do design build then I mean because all I got to say is well I'm going to hire this guy to design the thing and he says it's going to cost X and so therefore you know and I probably got that proposal for free from the design build guy didn't cost me a dime to do that you know to your point Mr Pendergrass well well the one thing um is uh the investment in drawings that can go as previous spent cash so that counts as part of your match yes it does however if I don't get the Grant I have just spent money that I will never use I can just throw those plans away right you can reapply yeah well no but what I'm saying is it these are not Risk Takers in the private sector I you know if I think I got a good thing I'll take the risk I'll invest the money I'll get to you'll get to that point but I don't see I I think it's part of the impediment to why we don't why we're not putting more money out which really gets to my next my next concern or my next comment is you know we got two .8 Million worth of Grants here not counting DeBerry when you add DeBerry in it's 5.3 okay we I I'm pretty sure that Ekko brought in about 10 million this year and I think we have 13 or 15 million in reserves based on right now and I didn't look at what the history is but I think the taxpayers want the money out they don't want the money sitting in a bank account you know collecting interest they want projects they want they want quality of life improved and uh and if there are any other impediments to getting money out I think we should explore those because I don't think it does I don't think anybody benefits from the from the money not getting used you know not getting into well and that was part of it we used to have quite a few projects that were years and years three years four years uh in not finished and and when we did that which was quite a few years ago the I it was near the end of echo also and we wanted to make sure the projects we were approving were going to get finished during the program or you know quickly so there wasn't because we did have projects running a very long time and and even a lot of this design build stuff okay so you hire somebody and they come come back with a plan and then the city commission goes oh well that's over budget so cut something out cut something out so when we're approving these design build things we don't know what we're going to we don't know what we're getting for the taxpayer dollars right and that's why I'm always so adamant about it and a lot of these design build things they've come to us and then they come back and go oh well we discovered that this didn't work that didn't work the dog parts not big enough you know so my thing is I believe in planning into it so you know what what you're getting and a lot of these you know we we approve things today like oh it's a new playground nobody said it's playground XY there wasn't any serial numbers there there was nothing it was just like oh it's a new Ada playground that's all wonderful but we don't know which one they're going to get there's probably a thousand you can choose from and I think when you're spending taxpayer dollars you need need to know what you're spending the money on and um that's a comment on all that's I understand what Mr Selby is saying we will review the Grant application I recall we've done that annually at a meeting is that true that we we typically review the guidelines but we can do the application as well well I think I think the application has to be adjusted to meet the criteria sheet because that was very confusing first of all but but my comment is we have a meeting that we do this at usually April April right so um I I hear you Mr Selby I would say bring that to that meeting there and everybody is prepared to talk about that then because there I I wasn't actually asking for any feedback right now I was just sharing some comments that I have I have two others if I may sure the the third one is I I respect the fact that the county is very protective of this of this whole program because the county ultimately is responsible for this because the countyy is collecting the money the citizens of the county did it but I think we got to recognize that it's all taxpayer money every dollar that go even the even the nonprofits where are they getting the money those are donations from taxpayers so it's all taxpayer money it there's almost kind of a Us and Them a we they sort of thing and I get it that we're putting money into a project that somebody else is is actually doing the work on and so we need as part as partners we need to be uh we we need to make sure that they're going to do what they say they're going to do but I just wanted to make the point that every dollar that goes into the project is taxpayer money it's all it's all taxpayer money okay and then the final comment is there's been a lot of discussion about marketing that the applicant isn't adequately marketing their their project and I'm thinking well why isn't the county why isn't Eko marketing these projects we're Partners in this deal why don't we set aside some real money out of the echo money and create a marketing fund and get the word out I mean who's better qualified to get the word out on all these tool things that are available to to taxpayers I don't know if the ordinance that passed it allows that or whatever but surely we ought to be able to figure they got a county has a pretty good sized public information Department as it is you know maybe there could be more done is what I'm saying instead of just beating up on our applicants you need to do a better job of marketing your thing maybe we should say how can we help you Market your thing let's get the let's get the word out let's you know let's use all of our resour TV I'm just saying these are just these are just ideas and I just kind of want to throw them out in advance of April so people can think about it and say Dwight those are the dumbest ideas I've ever heard or they can say well you know it's not a bad thought and here's how maybe you know anyway that's thank you thank you for if I may Pat I'm going to jump in here real quick and I think comments are totally appropriate in terms of we're putting the Strategic plan out on the street fin we just got it finalized the scope one of the tasks is to look at marketing as an entire extension program much like Jack Sarat used to want us to used to want us to do like have an explore valua web page with a map with all the amenities Luchia forever Echo educational activities how do you use these amenities to also Drive tourism as well rather than just so that was the task assignment we've given them so hopefully they'll come back with some good ideas um so we're align there um process I I will be honest with you we've asked them as a task to is to look at our process and make recommendations I have when it's one or two people saying your your is harder to write than a Federal grant um it's that's one offs but when it's three or four or five people telling you that and it's a pattern then I think we need to review it and so we're asking the consultant to come in and say Okay um how can we streamline things how can we better use technology for reporting you know just give us a fresh look you have this experience so that will come as part of the Strategic plan can we make sure that they include some of our grant writers not not ours but the public grant writers in the process in the talking we've asked them to do two focus groups with our local grant writers okay and I've already asked a few of them to serve when that happens all right great um so I think we're excited about that and um I just lost my chain I thought I was to share something I'm excited about that um I I think that this what I was going to say and I I hear you loud and clear every rule in this guide book was made up because of a situation and we've done that now for 23 years and never took one away so I think it's a good time to look okay Reggie anything um I think the grant review went pretty well today I think um I I understand Dwight's questions and I've sat on the board for a long time I think if somebody comes and they applies for an Echo Grant and they get turned down because their application is not complete they're committed they come back they usually complete the application and come back yeah and and we will help them too so when you guys were talking talking all the nice things about ceville I want to say thank you to Jill and thank you to Kendra and thank you to Daniel we sit down with nonprofits and hold their hand through the process to get them across the Finish Line okay Mr Patterson anything you have a double last name and I'm always confused so C Stephanie I I'll answer to Stephanie too um this was my first first review and I um thank you for allowing me the time to ask the questions and submit some information and I also am very much looking forward to April because I found a lot of difficulty in using this form concurrently with the application and I wrote down some of the similar things that that you did Dwight is that maybe there could be a two a a secondary or a first approval to go ahead and pay that that money because without drawings it's not shovel ready and they don't know what they're going to run into and that kind of thing um and that was all about the design build because it says right here is it shovel ready and no it's not and so it made it hard to grade them because if you average the numbers if you have an average application it doesn't score 80 so you're asking us to put everything as excellent and above average when M they weren't they weren't so as a as a Committee Member and representative of the taxpayers and and the community that we know want these projects that puts us as a reviewer in kind of a funky position um the word excellent and the word above average means should mean something um when you're a reviewer um I also wondered is there a need component a financial need component um and that's why I asked one of our applicants would this happen without Echo funds when we're looking and reviewing those statements some of our nonprofits they absolutely would not be able to do that project um some of the others they would and they're already receiving a huge amount of taxpayer funds so is there a need component um land match is that in perpetuity if I bought something a hundred years ago I've owned it forever is is that another one and then as as um um Dwight suggested eeko should do the marketing I wondered if Ekko could do some feasibility studies on those four areas and and really survey the county um some of those feasibility studies were really not feasibility studies they were I don't know what they were but they they were a little different that is Task one of our strategic plan so you all have just described what we're going to get from the good no basically doing um asset mapping what do we have a lot of what do we have a dir of how could Eko you know partner with people to provide some Capital to operate a facility that's needed in this community based on metrics from other communities well thank you and thank you for allowing me to serve on this committee and and um i' I've enjoyed the day great Jay well I do have a comment something that came up at our last meeting which uh had to do with with the um the DeBerry Park is we were discussing well they're really not ready but maybe we should have another Grant cycle and if we had I don't know where that went but basically doing the math by the time you advertise and go through the whole process that would have ended up being almost about the time our regular Grant cycle starts so that really wasn't a great solution but maybe we should have two Grant Cycles so if somebody comes in here in January and they're not quite ready you know we can say well okay this is looking good you can come back in June so I mean there's like a six-month lag now I mean that's a ton of work for staff I realize that I'll probably not get out of here alive but at any rate but the point is if there was an established second round and maybe you don't always use the second round um because the other thing that used to happen a lot in the past and uh Jeffrey I believe brought it up is they would run in here with these historic disasters oh my God the roof fell in we need to have a special meeting and do this and put a roof on something and it's like well that roof was probably in bad shape before it fell in so we with the historic buildings we would have a lot of people coming in and you know just it's an emergency and we' have to do these emergency Grant things and and that probably would have been another method of relief for um DeBerry but deberry's going to go to the council anyway I mean that's a special that's just a special exception that's a huge project whatever we say they're just going to go that's nice thank you the council is going to be the one that really makes those decision um but I do think we need to look at our um cycles and how many times they have uh and because our staff does a great job walking these people through like people like Seville you know and they're the ones that really need the help I mean the cities they should they have this down to a science should know Teresa yeah and and actually a lot of times too um those delayed projects were County projects you know there were some County projects that were just can got kept getting kicked down the road down the road you know so it's been an interesting I've been on this board for about 10 years so I've seen a lot of the things that go on so I don't mean to respond to every single one but I want to share with you as part of the conversation that we're going to have in April I did ask the internal auditor to look at time to completion of projects under the old rules and the new rules okay granted we've only had three Cycles under the new rules so probably a decent amount of them are not finished yet but under the old rules and we require them to complete projects in 2 years staff can give an additional extension but the original agreement we have with them says 2 years 2.7 years was the average from 20 2000 to 2020 so okay you seven you know on average 7 months over um since we've changed to uh request these documents 1.56 years wow now I will full transparency you're looking at a data set like this versus this so that's true you're going to have more accuracy on this you know with multiple data points but I I just thought that was revealing and I'll continue to to monitor it but that's interesting okay but I mean it it it if I may it takes for a a government or probably even nonprofit it probably takes a year to get to get the documentation to get the shovel ready engineering architectural get it all done approved and so forth so that's the extra year that's a 2.7 to 1.5 is the year 14 months but and that's what we do on our capital I get it why we want it upfront but I'm just saying it I I got I I would I suspect that it's an impediment to a lot of people applying because they look at the criteria and they go we don't want to we don't want to invest that money up front not knowing whether or not we're going to get the grant yeah I could be wrong I don't go John where do I start um I'll start I'll start on the right side I I agree with a lot of the comments that were just made on the right side of of the of the dice here uh being being a new member I was of course was a learning experience on the scoring which which I guess it was a learning experience for everybody body on the scoring with the new sheets but I was I was it was interesting that despite the inexperience of the sheet we were all pretty close on the numbers and that that's what really interested me so we're all we're all kind of thinking the same way and looking at the same parameters and basically had the same questions comments and concerns so again I want to thank the old members for helping us and I want to help thank the staff for uh for also the guidance Madam chairman thank you so much for uh keeping us online and I'll be brief but I want to say as a new member thank you very much um it was a great learning experience first the site visits as well as going through the scoring process and examination and reading all the applications and I can say that each one that had 200 and something pages with the city budget those are things I'd like to maybe take a second look at I would welcome a consideration of maybe a design award phase and a construction award phase or something along those lines and uh once again I think we've talked before I have a concern about what design build means and how you have that defined and uh but I also think that um if we have we look at those guidelines perhaps we can have more nonprofits because the city's coming in we match those dollars but we know that there are a lot of other things that add quality to life that are going to be hesitant about going through our grant process so I welcome that discussion and it's been a pleasure to work with everybody this far thank you Jack I'm looking forward to the April meeting and um just in terms of the marketing stuff I think what the county staff has done since 2021 in terms of the dashboard and everything that goes out on valua TV or there's a lot of marketing that that that the county does so um you know I applaud them for that I'm not sure what else this isn't a marketing program this is a bricks and morar program and if applicants come to us they're supposed to provide that marketing plan that business plan um prior to Echo if you came to the county for for funding you could get 30 $30,000 that was about it this is a special program for you know applicants that you know are really behind something so um that's my comment on that and see everybody in April I long meeting I just want to make one comment I I do think the score sheet and the application should be aligned we we will do that and we'll say section one and two this is section one and two on the application we're so I apologize that we had put you in that situation and we will fix it for the next round and just my my U observation and don't know whether my former older colleagues recognized or whe they would agree or disagree but it seemed to me the new scoring sheet reduced the scores that they weren't as high we had a lot of a 80s where we used to have ' 90s in in past practice so that's I don't know that makes a difference to the council with the scores are but they all they all with the exception of one pass I recognize that uh but it would it just change it changed Dynamics for me anyway so with is there anything that anything else that needs to come before us again thank you to staff and you did amazing work and I appreciate that and we would will um we will reconvene or well no we won't reconvene what's the word I want to use we we adjourn and then we will come back April 11th at our next advisory committee meeting so we adjourned thank you thank you good work today wow e e e e e e e e e e