e e e e e e e e e e all right it's great to see such a big crowd today we're going to go ahead and call the April 23rd meeting to order we're going to start with a moment of Silent reflection for our first respon responders and members of the Armed Forces followed by an invocation by Chris drenan of Grace Baptist Church uh followed by the Pledge of Allegiance by myself if everybody will please rise let's pray our gracious Heavenly Father we thank you for all your many blessings we are thankful For Life Health and strength we're thankful that you've allowed us to live in the freedom of this country we pray for our leaders for wisdom for knowledge and understanding as they attend to the problems and situations of our land we ask that you would help them to do what is right what is Honorable what is just create a desire within them to please you and to use them to help bless and prosper our County guide our leaders as you see fit we pray for them that they will yield to your spirit and to your wisdom lead them according to your perfect will we pray for protection over those who serve as First Responders and for those in our military and we pray for your guidance and your help for them this day and we pray father for your blessings upon this land we ask these things in Jesus name amen amened Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the repblic stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all all right Commissioners are there any additions or deletions to the agenda M chair move approval second I have a motion and a second all in favor I oppos motion carries and with that we will move on to proclamations and presentations our first is going to be a presentation of proclamation designating April 24th 2024 as ad Administrative Professionals Day it'll be presented by commissioner flesher to the inden over County administrative staff which I believe there is quite a few in the audience so y'all are welcome to come on up we have them come up to the PO I know they should don't be scared Tina of so many of our citizens have the opportunity to speak with them to get directed to get guided to get the valuable information necessary for us to be able to do our job we want to take the people behind the scenes and bring them in front of the scenes here I don't blame you thank you Paula very few people will I'm kidding I'm [Laughter] kid well thank you all for coming and I'm glad that on this way yeah yeah you could share it today I'm glad that the public will'll be able to finally get to see y'all because it's uh important you play a very valuable role in this organization and uh we thank you for what you do every day you make it easier for all of us to be with all of them thank you well Madam chair I'll present this Proclamation designating April 24th 2024 as Administrative Professionals Day whereas in the United States stes Administrative Professionals Day is observed on Wednesday April 24th 2024 just whereas an administrative professional is able to act as a strategic partner with the executive increasing the executive's productivity and the success of the organization and whereas Administrative Professionals are indispensable support to staff that coordinate often difficult to schedule meetings create presentations to educate the public and act as a lison between the administration and the citizens and effortlessly manage a wide variety of day-to-day office needs whereas as a master of time management and multitasking the administrator professional ensures smooth and efficient business operations and whereas in River County recognizes our Administrative Professionals as the backbone of of the county operations and celebrates the extensive skills knowledge and expertise that our administrative staff provide to all County residents and honor our amazing staff on this day now therefore be proclaimed by the board of County commissioners of in River County Florida that we recognize April 24th and 2024 as Administrative Professionals Day the board of the County Commissioners requests that all County residents take the time to thank administrative staff for their dedication duly adopted this 23rd day of April 2024 and it is signed by all five County Commissioners I can't say enough about your value so with that I I think there's enough of you if you each take about 10 to 15 minutes to explain what it is exactly you do to bring uh tiny you're first uh and to bring the community together with us again there are words here but I don't think we can place the amount of words necessary to identify the diverse environment that you work with every day and uh from the bottom of my heart thank you and you want to speak somebody wants to speak no you know see that's it you all are great listeners and we appreciate that and I know the public appreciates that too to the public I want to say this is your team and uh also uh you know sometimes the administrative assistance asked some bold questions they're only to ensure that we are able to do a better job for them and you want to identify their needs their inquiries their their suggestions and bring them to the table and so I thank you very much I my address uh address it this is your address okay I know sometimes for the last 19 years it has been you just about live here I I do I refer to it as home so I just wanted to say working in the budget office you never know what's on the other end of the line I imagine we all go through that sometimes we pick up a phone call from an outside um line and you don't know because sometimes I'm Animal Control sometimes I'm planning sometimes I'm John's assistant because Google has the budget office line for a lot of these they want to call animal control and then you call one 214 so we just have to always be prepared to help the people in the kindest way possible because there's sometimes confusion um and sometimes they're calling the tax collector's office so time given I always try to just be kind number one listen number two write everything down number three and then try to help them without having to transer for them because you never know if then is somebody going to be on the other line and to me it's very frustrating as a citizen when I call a county line or City Line and then just get transferred all over the place so you know and working with everybody here over all these years you know we we all just try to work together and help you know so thank you thank you you guys all do such a great job I just wanted to say that Natalie couldn't be here today and she was a driver from a lot of this so thank you to Natalie for bringing us for and thank you to you all for acknowledging this day thank you thank you guys I think we can get them all in a picture come on up come On's the head administrator professional you're going to hold this you have to hold Proclamation come you manage not to be next to Cathy so Mo's actually a little uh you're going to have to move in a little closer there you go thank you before you all leave I just want to got one comment for them uh to the commissioner's point you do play an invaluable role each of you play are each of the each of you are critical to the success of our organization and uh not sure what we would do without you and I can only speak for myself uh I would appreciate your patience and understanding if I have to call you I mean I I certainly I I think I pray for Tina because she has to deal with me a day-to-day basis uh but I do appreciate all of you and the assistance that you provide your departments and also I know when I have called upon your department and you have provided me assistance so I want to thank you and I know how integral you are to the organization and I know all the directors and all the other staffs appreciate what you do for all of us on a day-to-day basis unsung heroes thank you [Applause] all right keeping with the theme of recognizing our outstanding staff the next presentation is a proclamation honoring IND no County Department of utility services this will be presented by myself to the awesome team come on guys I know there's more than just Sean and and Rich you awesome because it took of you guys to accomplish this so with that this is a proclamation honoring indan over County Department of utility services blue Cyprus wastewater treatment facility as a recipient of the 2023 Florida Department of Environmental Protection domestic Wastewater Plant operations Excellence award whereas the Wastewater Plant operations Excellence award recognizes public drinking water and domestic Wastewater facilities ities that demonstrate excellence in operation maintenance compliance Innovative treatment waste reduction and pollution prevention conservation Recycling and other special achievements and whereas on March 12th 2024 inden over County Department of utility services received the Florida Department of Environmental Protections 2023 domestic Wastewater Plant operations Excellence award for the blue cypress wastewater treatment facility and whereas indan over County Department of utility services has maintained and operated the BL blue cypress wastewater treatment plant providing highquality wastewater treatment to the blue Cyprus Community since 1993 and continues to seek opportunities to optimize the plant to ensure an excellent level of wastewater treatment now therefore be proclaimed by the board of County commissioners of Indy no County Florida that the board applauds juniver County Department of utility services Wastewater Department staff's hard work and efforts on behalf of the county and the board wishes to express their appreciation for the dedicated service they have given to IND no County and the blue Cypress Community for the last 31 years and be it further proclaimed that the board of County Commissioners extends their support for the Department's continued high deegree of commitment to the operations and maintenance of the blue Cyprus wastewater treatment facility adopted this 23rd day of April 2024 thank you guys I just want to say first of all we can't be more proud of what you guys have accomplished with this award and representing Indian River County I mean it's amazing and to get this award for something so removed from where most of us are all the way out in blue Cyprus really speaks to the quality of work that you guys are doing I mean it's I could go on and I'm just going to sound like a broken record but truly at the bottom of my heart I'm so very proud of y'all I'm so excited that you're on our team and that you're representing us and doing that hard work and just it's fantastic and amazing and we wanted to just kind of recognize you guys for that work and for receiving this award because it really I mean it's a Statewide award for Wastewater that's fantastic especially in this County um as important as that is to us thank you guys so very much Sean I'm sure you want to say a few words yes commissioner Adams thank you uh Sean leisi director of utilities you know you mentioned this about team and it is teamwork that makes the dream workor right um and this is a great team of operators of mechanics of electricians of management staff we've just got a great team that does works hard every day and as you mentioned this is this is a facility that's far removed from the actual main part of the county it's about 20 miles outside of town west of town and so traveling out there daily to kind of keep things up we don't really have remote communication with the site so our staff has to currently go out there working on that um so we are working to get SK out to that system which is helps us to um operate it more remotely um but until that we've had to have staff out there pretty routinely to to help maintain the facility so I mean it's a testament to the hard work that the staff puts forth every day um so I appreciate all their hard work um and it really is can't do it without these guys so amazing amazing and I want to say that if for those of you that are not aware blue Cyprus is um an environmental gym out in the western part of the community so having a Wastewater facility like this that's maintained properly and doing its job helps us protect that environmental Integrity um that we love so much out in the western part of the county so rich did you want to say anything this is your team man you did this i w to um and I just while Rich is walking up I want to point out that Rich has been going around to a lot of conferences and talking to young people about what it is to do this job and really getting people involved in telling our story of Indian River County and what we do and what he does and I so appreciate apprciate you being an ambassador for the county and for the utilities department it's it's wonderful to see you guys out there doing that thank you for that um you know I can't say enough about these guys you know they really pull together when they need to and can get out there and get the job done you know um blue Cypress lake is actually the headwaters of the St John's river so this we don't take that lightly um we don't want to pollute what's Downstream of us so we take a lot of pride in what we do and these guys really do work hard at it and I appreciate the Commissioners you know recognizing that thank you fantastic thank you guys so [Applause] much thank you than you yes thanks for going out there to recruit good to see you man all right you got to take the obligatory picture there's a piece of tape in the middle that's the middle on the so some of yall have to come the right that's it take some leadership roll he runs the crew that's me I'm short so you're good I stand on my tiptoes one more thank you congratulations guys really amazing work amazing work good to see [Applause] you Mr chair all right it up with that we're going to follow that um Proclamation with a presentation of proclamation for National telecommunicators week uh presented by commissioner lore to sheriff Eric flowers and his team come on down hello everybody hey guys thank you madam chair I'll take this opportunity to recognize the National Public Safety telecommunications week and I'd ask the audience to listen to some of these outstanding numbers that our sheriff's office has accomplished over the last year whereas emergencies that require police officers fire and Emergency Medical Services can occur at any time and whereas when an emergency occurs The Prompt response of police officers firefighters and paramedics is critical to the protection of life and the preservation of property and whereas Public Safety dispatchers are the first and most critical contact of our citizens that who have contact emergency services as they are vital link to our police officers and firefighters by monitoring their activities providing them with information and ensuring their safe and whereas each dispatcher has exhibited compassion understanding and professionalism during the performance of their duties in this past year and whereas IND River County Sheriff's Office Public Safety dispatchers dispatched 171,172 calls for service for law enforcement and 35,0 936 calls for fire rescue in 2023 I think we should pause right there [Applause] and whereas in River County Sheriff's Office Public Safety dispatchers answered 73,3 67 911 calls and whereas uh administrative calls totaled 113,877 and whereas Public Safety dispatchers any River County Sheriff's Office have contributed substantially to the apprehensions of criminal suppression of crime and treatment of Pat patients and they are knowledgeable and highly trained individuals who work closely with police fire and medical personnel now therefore be it proclaimed by the board of County commissioners of IND River County Florida that the week of April 14th through April 20th be designated as National Public Safety telecommunications week in Indian River County in honor of the men and women whose diligence and professionalism keep our County and citizens safe adopted this 23rd day of April and signed by Five County Commissioners congratulations Sheriff won Commissioners thank you so much for taking time to pause and recognize our unsung heroes at the Sheriff's Office uh our folks in our 911 dispatch Center uh every year I come here and uh thank you for doing this for recognizing telecommunicators week and every every week I remind every time I come here I remind the public that our 911 dispatchers are still not receiving that high-risk uh retirement that the rest of our law enforcement do and I will continue to Champion that and fight for that as long as I'm the sheriff and uh I I believe that these folks are are dealing with stress every single day uh the calls that come in you know we have scientific studies now that have shown the the stress of answering a 911 call taking on the burden of that person never getting closure and then moving on to the next call is just uh so detrimental to your health and our folks do it every day uh they do it with a smile with compassion they're absolutely incredible people our team is so amazing uh and uh in this past year they've actually done 911 not just over the phone but actually on the floor as well and uh they're just incredible people so with that I'm going to turn it over to Casey she's going to she's got a few items from uh dispatch supervisor Robin uh to pass along to you guys but thank you again for taking time today to pause and we will continue to fight to get these folks uh the rewards that they deserve for the job that they do thank you thanks good morning my name is Casey Bailey I'm a dispatcher at the sheriff office our administrator Robin cerini is out of town she left me with some notes to pass on telecommunicators are more than just a calm voice on the other end of the line were the first vital Link in the emergency response chain we are Protectors of law enforcement and fire rescue she wanted me to Echo share flowers sentiments that we're still counting on you to help us be reclassified as First Responders the 911 save Act is a bill to reclassify us from administrative excuse me from administrative and office person to First Responders some states have even taken steps to reclassify us themselves um she said to continue to help us win this fight and as always if you'd like to come in and sit with us and put on a headset and see what it's like to live the life of a dispatcher for a day you're more than welcome anytime thank you thank you one more thing real quick of course come on up Sher was speaking that we're trying to get us reclassify to um First Responders I personally had um I was the lady that went into full C ciac rest on the floor this year and um the heart and lung bill that's out there I think that needs to include us as dispatchers because of that did not include me um I had to take and use my own second vacation time but I truly believe that what happened to me was a a culmination of the almost 40 Years of stress that has been put onto my body as a dispatch supervisor for the sheriff's department so if if you guys have time to look into that I think that that is something that's worth um you know addressing and kind of seeing if we can't include Dispatchers in that heart and lung bill um my to my knowledge I was the only one with this agency that's ever had that happen to go into full cardiac arrest on the floor and thank goodness you know our dispatchers are so well trained that they immediately recognized what was going on and they immediately started CPR ran and grabbed the defibrillator that we had outside the door shocked me and then fire rescue came and took over from there so I will forever be indebted to them and with that being said thank you and that that event that you have just described uh that hit pretty hard and you were the last that that was the last time that you were here before us and then you went back to the office and the information that we got I I could not digest no no she was just here it was wow I have to say that from the office either sister there every day yes yes and we we're glad you're up and about in here I I think you're the only person there that I was connected to to making sure that I got where I had to to ensure that people got what they need and you got us home safe so I'm glad you're home safe too well we as a as a group that's what that's what we strive to do each and every day that's our passion thank you madam chairman as you know like Sheriff lore at the time commissioner lore and and commissioner fleser we we uh sered with these ladies and gentlemen for many years doing what they do and and I was also shocked to hear that because Sam my son told me that afternoon and I was like no way because people have to recognize that your First Responders your dispatchers were still humans we're you know we're still just regular people that get affected in different ways by different things and so it's very important to recognize how important the job they do everybody thinks that uh or dispatchers or police officers or sheriff's deputies or firemen were all Iron Men We invincible and some of them think that too until something bad happens and so it's very important that we recognize what these dispatchers what these telecommunicators do and realize that they do Sheriff they do deserve the high risk benefit just like the rest of us because we certainly couldn't do our job without them so they're an open part but thank you each and every one of you for what you've done and what you could continue to do much appreciated [Applause] put K CH taking the picture [Applause] all right our next Proclamation is going to be a presentation of proclamation designating the week of May 6 through 12th as National Nurses Week this will be presented by commissioner irman to Meritus hinto did I say that right I apologize if I did not all right you did okay fantastic welcome go ahead commissioner Herman all right this is pretty cool we go from one group helping people to another group helping people that's awesome welcome ladies thanks for being here I'm proud to read this Proclamation designating the week of May 6 through the 12th 2024 as National Nurses Week whereas registered nurses in the United States constitute our nation's largest healthc care professional whereas the depth and breadth of the Registered Nursing profession meets the different and emerging healthc care needs of the American population in wide range of settings including the front line of the pandemic and whereas the American Nurses Association is working to chart new course for healthy nation that relies on increasing access to primary and preventative health care and better to utilize all of of our nation's Registered Nursing resources and whereas professional nursing is an indispensable component of the safety and quality of care of hospitalized and non-hospitalized patients and whereas the demand for registered Nursing services will be greater than ever because of the Aging of the American population emerging health challenges the continuing expansion of life sustaining Technologies and the explosive growth of home health care services and whereas more qualified registered nurses are needed in the future to meet the increasingly complex needs of Health Care consumers in this community and whereas along with the American Nurses Association the Florida Nurses Association has declared may as nurses month with the theme nurses make the difference with appreciation for nurses unparalled impact during the pandemic and their contributions to health care now therefore be it proclaimed by the board of County commissioners of any River County Florida that the week of May 6 through the 12th 202024 be designated as National Nurses Week in in River County and the board encourages all residents to join us in honoring the register nurses who care for us all not just during this month but at every opportunity through throughout the year adopted this 23rd day of April 2024 and signed by all five County Commissioners ladies congratulations and thanks for what you dok you could do it without Youk so much well thank you so much good morning everyone my name is Mary T Quinto I'm an advanced practice nurse and a doctor of nursing practice currently the Florida Nurses Association Southeast region director I wanted to say thank you I'm here with my colleagues uh from Florida Nurses Association and uh colleagues from Treasure Coast Community Health and Cleveland Clinic we want to say thank you for recognizing uh nurses especially uh May 6 to May 12 as national nurses months uh we nurses we are experts we are specialists in our field and most especially we care for our patients we are Advocates of our patients and with this we support our community I wanted to really emphasize and that because with this advocacy of taking care of our patients um you as part of our support for recognizing our efforts um we appreciate uh the support that you provide with workplace uh violence issues affecting nurses also the nursing shortage that was mentioned in the proclamation and most especially for the extent of scope of practice of advanced practice nurses there's a lot of work there are are things that we can do and we do every day selflessly with passion for our patients and this is why we make a difference and with your support together we are making a difference so thank you so much for this recognition I really wanted to share the podium with my colleagues if that's okay course hi good morning my name is Stacy AEL I'm emergency room department nurse and um I just want to thank you for recognizing us from May 6th to 12th and uh we appre appreciate the honor uh for myself I'm humble and grateful to be able to serve the community in their most vulnerable time and just make it as comfortable and easing and have empathy for each individual and know that I'm making a difference in the community so I thank you very much I'd like to take a moment to think back about all my professors all of the seasoned nurses or nurs n in leaders that have shown me that any one person's advocacy can make a difference in many patients lives when we look at the healthy people goals of 2030 we think about how nurses can impact communities and the nation as a whole um I think that our nursing leaders sometimes work behind the scenes and we don't get to see some of the advocacy efforts that they do but I just like to take a moment to thank all of the nurses that have ever helped me guided me and encouraged me to advocate for my patients hello thank you I just want to thank you for the recognition as well and thank you for your continued support as we expand our services to meet the needs in the community uh with Treasure Coast Community Health so um I appreciate that so we can bring you know care to those that are that are most in need thank you thank you you know Madam mam CH yes when somebody goes through a life event and they have the the journey through the hospital they thank the Lord they thank the doc and it's ironic that they spend so much patient contact with our nurses every time you go to a medical facility you have more contact with the nurses than any other individual ual in the organization so I want to say thank you and you well deserve that recognition thank you thank you so thank you very much you appreciate that there's like a line on the floor of photographers they have team thank you guys so much appreciate [Applause] it all right Commissioners in keeping with the theme of Public Safety and honoring um the good works in our community I'm going to just take a chair's opportunity to bring 7c up to proclamations and presentations which is a recognition of life-saving action performed by lifeguards Andrew franor I apologize if I butchered that and Aaron ly Mr Zito good morning Commissioners Michael zto Deputy County Administrator um this is a special day of recognition for our ocean rescue department and these two fine gentlemen um I just want to take a moment to recognize all of the other days of the year and months and years have gone by where they steadfastly protect our beaches and life safety is their mission um but this was a special day so I'm honored to have a chief Stone in the building today and U the town of Indie River Shores to recognize these finds gentlemen thank you Commissioners good morning my name is Mark Shaw I'm the deputy chief for Indian River Shores Public Safety I've been a paramedic in this County for almost 34 years um commissioner man knew me back when I was a 19y old weighed probably 130 pounds soak and wet so uh forgive me if I get a little choked up here because this is a a very unique call um I could probably count on one hand the number of cardiac arrest saves that we've had that I've been a part of at least um where where you see somebody at their absolute worst to them walking in your station a month later um about as healthy as he could be so um it's truly an honor to be able to recognize uh our beach operation supervisor Jonathan Billings uh our beach Lieutenant Chris Anderson and then most important because the only reason we're here today is because the two lifeguard EMTs Aon Levy and Andrew franker um was made possible we talk about prehosp Hospital Cardiac Arrest early CPR early defibrillation is is the key um much like our dispatcher that had her incident the the reason that she was saved was because they were right there witnessed the incident happened reformed CPR and defibrillated um so U I think this is a a great segue into uh presenting these uh these two lifeguards because like I said we would not be standing here today if it wasn't for their actions U I think the Lifeguard s don't get enough recognition and um much like Sheriff spoke about the uh dispatchers getting special risk I I certainly think that our lifeguards need to be included in that discussion for them to be eligible for special risk because they're putting their lives on the line just like the rest of us U so with that I would like to uh have uh Mr Wallace come up I I I can't tell you what uh what it means to be able to sit here and uh see him standing here after what witnessed on the beach that day uh Chief Stone and I were actually on the way back from lunch when the call came in and we were we were literally right there uh so we pulled in before the ambulance even got there and uh so this is truly a very special moment so I'd like to uh present uh some challenge coins here I have a challenge coin for Mr Wallace Mr Wallace it gives us great honor and I can't tell you how much it means to us to see you standing here today and it's truly truly because of our two lifeguards so like like present each one of them with a challenge point for in Shores and express our gratitude Mr W you'd like to say anything yeah I first of all I would like to say thank you to Aaron and to a Andrew uh those two guys the reason why I'm here is because of those two guys uh they spent a lot of time on me and uh believe me uh I've got a few more things to do in my life and I'm glad they're going to be able to recognize the fact that they made it happen and thank you so much for providing the trading for these guys I'll tell you uh just being on the beach everybody thinks they're they don't do much but I'll tell you they did a heck of a lot for me thank you thank you hi hi commissioner uh Jonathan Billings Beach operation supervisor I'd like to say these are two great examples of the dedication that we strive for out at the beaches and I too would like to present them with an accommodation coin from the Florida beach Patrol Chiefs Association for their hard work and training and dedication thank you thank you gentlemen I just want to say thank you for for doing your job and doing it so well um and representing again in jiv County County in in such a fantastic way I know it's a hard job um and we're very grateful that you were there um and and we're able to have a successful outcome so thank you I I think as was said earlier people don't realize how much goes into the job that you do it's not just Fun and Sun you're there for a reason and there to protect people's lives and and the lives of our public in those beachgoer so thank you for doing that thank you guys for your support and um just good job we're very proud of you thank you hey John thank you [Applause] okay sure sure sure close that item uh Commissioners uh we have now ordered and are installing uh aeds at all of the Beach Parks response to this success so stay tuned thank you all right Mike while you're there you wanted to do veteran services yes if I may beg your Indulgence Madam chair uh we do have our vet services team here um come on up folks Melissa art is our um Veterans Services Angel who's been um improving um and taking our department level of service uh single-handedly to a level unseen before in this County I think those who attend the council meetings would testify to that um but I have um the privilege of introducing ing our team as you know we've added the Sebastian office thanks to the cooperation of the city of Sebastian and we've added some U men and woman power to our team Melissa Michelle John Mike and Carrie thank you so much for what you do every day and for taking us to the next level Melissa thank you thank you sir Commissioners I just briefly wanted to um introduce the team because we do have new members and so I want them to be comfortable and and know who everybody is we have Michelle auton uh we have har Henry and we have Mike Bey we also have John the OG in the office so uh in case anyone doesn't know who he is um we also just wanted to take a minute to let you guys know that um we actually have streamlined the process and we're still working on it so right now we have Walkin Wednesdays which means in the Vero Beach office any veteran that needs assistance and that assistance takes 30 minutes or less is more than welcome to walk in and have a seat and Carrie will assist that veteran right there we also have walk-in Thursdays in the Sebastian office and so we wanted to make sure it was fair in both areas that Sebastian office exact same thing 9 to noon 1: to 4: they walk in and Mike will assist them um anything that's small so we can do our intented files or upload any documentation and needs to be uploaded for a claim the rest of it obviously by appointment only however depending on the vso that the veteran wants to see um we have some bsos that are available two days out three days out we have some B it takes about 3 weeks three and a half weeks to get into the you know a time spot for them but we're still under a month under a month for every vso we also have emergency times blocked in so we have the walk-in days but we also have an hour at the end of each day that the vsso uses for administrative time and that administrative time can be used for emergencies additionally my Fridays are clear for emergencies and administrative time so is Michelle's in the Sebastian office so just so you guys know that we don't have anybody w waiting more than 30 days for an appointment we don't have anybody waiting a full 30 days for an appointment um the other things that I wanted to highlight is we are trying to expand our presence in the veteran service office so we started working with um Piper Piper is one of the largest employers of veterans in the county and so with Piper we have scheduled a lunch and learn so I believe it's going to start May 31st but basically a vsso will go over to Piper on Piper's time they will allow four of their veterans at a time to sit down with a vso and we'll go over whatever that they need um go over do an intensive file if they have any questions about any additional benefits anything like that we have a vso that'll go over there and sit with them for an hour or so come back to the office um we also talk to Career Source over on 82nd because we don't have anybody in that area yet so Career Source has agreed to let us have office space so we would like to go over there and sit for a little bit um advertise it is like maybe the second and fourth Friday of the month or something and have a vsso on that side of the county where somebody can come in and get assistance with something if they may not be able to make it to one of our main locations um really that's about it does anybody have any questions for me um all of our officers are federally and State Certified correct yes they are so every veteran service officer has to go through the fdva accreditation course in the State of Florida to be labeled as a veteran service officer legally they have to be employed by the county number one if they're not employed by the county they cannot be labeled as a veteran service officer um after that they have to go through the basic accreditation course they have to be employed for 1,000 hours a year by that County as well so even if it was somebody that's part-time they still have to do a th000 hours a year according to the law uh to be labeled as a veteran service officer and so the accreditation portion comes in where I can actually put my name on paperwork with you and submit your paperwork directly to the VA um if not they're going to be considered a post service officer and a post surface officer what that person does is they are like a volunteer they can be taught how to fill the paperwork out but they can't submit that paperwork themselves to the VA they're a middleman so that person will help you get the paperwork filled out after they help you fill the paperwork out they'll take it to somebody like me that's accredited and then I'll go over the paperwork and I will submit that Madam Madam chair I would just also like to note that well Melissa noted that um the the weight times have gone down to less than 30 days yes sir during the same time period there's been an increase of like more than 53% of uh support calls and visits and I actually think it it was a 8.4% actual visits from you know comparison to the prior quarter quarter 1 so they are seeing increased service but they're actually doing it more efficiently and handling it in a more timely manner so we want to thank you all for your commitment to our veterans thank you sir Madam chair I just want to add that we were all provided a brief bio of each of you uh very proud of you and very happy that you've joined our team we've uh Gone Leaps and Bounds in the last six to eight months very proud of you and I know you're here thank you for your service too many times or not enough times but sincerely thank you for your service thank you wonderful thank you [Applause] guys all right Commissioners next excuse me the next item is approval of the minutes of the regular meeting of February 20th 2024 M chair move approval thank you I have a motion by commissioner flescher I'll be happy to second that all in favor opposed motion carries AAL all right we're going to move on to consent anybody wishing to pull something from consent I would like to pull 8 I anybody from the public wishing to pull anything all right if not chair move approval as amended I have a motion in a second all in favor opposed motion carries Commissioners I just wanted to pull 8i which is the the urban service boundary study agreement main not because I have a problem with the item uh or a question but I did want to take the opportunity oh Chris is here so I can let Chris do it uh to let everybody know about it and where they can go for further information we have a fantastic website with a um survey and all sorts of information of people aren't sure what the urban service boundary is and those types of things so take it away Chris good morning Chris Balter chief of longrange planning uh yes so before you you will have a change for the actual USB contract it's to add additional timings for the workshops to do both night and day um so we've recently sent out about 87,000 emails to all the voters in Indian River County that are registered for the urban service boundary um for those who don't know what the urban service boundary is it's the boundary where we actually provide Urban services water sewer um and actually encourage development there so we are going to be doing a study we haven't studied this area in about 30 years um it's been moved minimally in the last 30 twice um so we're actually going and doing the study with our Consultants uh on the website there's a about two-minute video to watch what actually is the urban service boundary what it entails what we're looking to do what we're studying and then also gives a whole survey about 13 question survey for everyone to answer how you know they'd like to see the county in the future and what are some important details that they would like um and as well as it gives the meeting dates and there's a little Q&A uh answer and fact question area as well as email addresses to reach us as well so Commissioners I just wanted you guys to know and the community to know that this is a great resource as we go through this process there's a lot of information there the project timeline um the video is excellent and also the uh listing of all the workshops and the timing on that so I give kudos to you guys for really reaching out to get the Public's input and make them part of this process so the more input we get the better resolutions we can come up with um so I just kind of wanted to give the opportunity to highlight that as we kind of Kick this off so sure and for the workshops as well we're going to have uh two workshops at the North County Library two workshops at the commission right here and then two workshops at the IG Center so it gives everybody an opportunity to participate um day or night so correct come on out and let us know what you think we look forward to the input and with that I really didn't have any issue with the agenda item so I'm happy to take a motion for approval M chair move approval second thank you I have a motion in a second all in favor opposed motion carries and with that we'll move on to public hearings first item is 10 A1 consideration of an ordinance of Indi no County are you taking this one too I won't read the entire thing c s okay then I'll read it while she gets here consideration of an ordinance of Indian River County Florida amending the zoning ordinances or ordinance and the accompanying zoning map for 19.6 Acres from A1 agricultural District to RS3 single family home residential district this is oh this is a quasi judicial so I can go through my quasi judicial checklist while she gets here the attorney will be so proud all right this is a quasi judicial proceeding the parties to the proceeding are Indian River County and let me pull up my agenda so and the applicant I guess I should name the applicant sorry I'll get my life together sometime today what's the name of the applicant um the island Manor Development LLC there we go so we'll go through our checklist commissioners please disclose if you've had any expart Communications site visits or independent investigations commissioner lure have not commissioner flesher no I have not I have not as well commissioner Ean I have not commissioner Moss um notes I visit but I did request the uh traffic impact analysis and that was done by mbv engineering I have a copy of that and I requested the draft minute from the pnz meeting which was held on this matter and that occurred on March 14th uh 2024 I also uh viewed the video of that uh Planning and Zoning uh meeting and I received emails from several people uh Rob Shapiro uh Peter Dubay second of have a telephone message from Peter Dubay and um another one from Beth Shapiro uh I spoke with only one of them I didn't at that point I didn't know what it was about I mean the nature of the call and in speaking with Mr Shapiro I explained to him that it was quasi judicial so uh the best thing would be for him to State you know his concerns uh publicly and that's it all right yes um just for clarification this matter came up before thei environmental lands committee and I believe uh commissioner man was there and present during the the presentation uh was that last week yes okay last week it was nominated to be reviewed by the environmental land right what that means is it's been criteria and it's going back to staff to go talk to the owner right to start that process whoever might be Ed in selling not selling that's that's the okay where it is in environment okay um Bill does commissioner Moss need to put those emails and things into to the clerk as part of the record that' be fine okay fantastic all right next we need to confirm that Commissioners have an open mind and are able to base their decisions on the evidence presented and applicable law commissioner Moss and and show commissioner Airman can you do you have an open mind and you're going to base okay can and will commissioner can and thank you commissioner lore will all right at this time we'll open the public hearing anybody that is going to provide testimony or I guess speak on this item testimony sounds so strong anybody that's going to speak on this item please rise so the clerk can swear you in collectively do swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth wonderful at this time then we will start with a presentation by County staff good morning board good morning for the record my name is Cindy Thurman senior planner long range planning today we have before you resoning request from Island Manor development LLC request from A1 to R RS3 look at the property thank you Chris shows that the property is located on the western portion of the north Barrier Island and contains 19.6 Acres this property of a portion of the the this portion of the Barrier Island includes the captain Forester hammock preserve a state-owned land that the county has a long-term lease to manage as a conservation area and the RS 6 single family Island Club River siiz subdivision to the South the surrounding land use pattern consists of a mixture of conservation land to the north and east single family development to the South and the Indian River to the West the property is currently zoned A1 agricultural District which permits one unit per 5 Acres there are two small small individually owned parcel zoned rm6 located at the northwest corner of the subject property and as we as we look at the zoning map we see the rm6 and we see the subject parcel they're in the pale green A1 the blue is the conservation con seat is co1 D1 and the tan is the RS6 the existing Island Manor Club Riverside subdivision next we have the future land use map the subject parcel is L2 low density residential which has up to six units per acre the again you see the pale blue with the conservation and then again the rm6 parcels are also the L2 and again the existing uh Island Club Riverside subdivision to the South is the pale yellow I mean the pale the tan L2 in a closer look at the A1 agricultural district is designated for agricultural aquafer recharge and conservation uses intended to provide for residential uses at a very low densities requires non-urban locations primarily devoted to agricultural activities serves generally as a holding District until the property is ready to be developed here's just a snapshot of the um details of the A1 and the RS3 just together the minimum lot size minimum lot width density and the setbacks and then next the RS3 proposed zoning it is just generally a single family zoning District designated for low density single family residential development ensures adequate public facilities are there to meet the needs of the residents in this location it will create a step down zoning buffer between the existing RS6 subdivision to the South and the conservation one area zone that it's surrounding area to the north it's required for us to examine the rezoning and the future land use layer and in this area the resoning request in is consistent with the L2 future landage designation is which is intended to provide for areas for the development of residential uses with densities up to six units per acre the existing L2 future landage designation is consistent with the requested RS3 zoning District the requested RS3 zoning district will limit the density to three units per acre the existing A1 zoning district will limit the density to one unit per 5 Acres but is not consistent with the existing l to Future luse designation which is in our future L use element and is consistent with and P pursu to table 2.14 and then overall when we review the criteria which is required per chapter 90212 we have to look at everything through items a through K so is it in conflict is this request in conflict with any applicable portion of the Land Development regulations the land Ed zoning Matrix provided in that section 91.07% listed here under the future land use element C consistent with the existing proposed land uses proposed RS3 zone is consistent again with L2 the existing future land use designation there is no future land use Amendment uh accompanying this request this is just a rezoning item D is in compliance with the adopted County ther plan the main ask access for this site is from Island clove Manor uh with access out to to Highway A1A Island Club Banner is aneded easement access which will be addressed during site plan development and that can be addressed we talk about the different time item e generate traffic which decrease levels of service as adopted all roadway segments within the areas of influence would operate at acceptable levels of service under the proposed zoning F subject to change conditions existing warrant and Amendment it meets its criteria a low density residual subdivision with home sites that are almost an acre in size as proposed to land use as a proposed land use is more compatible than the existing underlying the land use that potentially allows land uses of a higher density that is more likely to be incompatible with conservation areas and existing surrounding properties and G would de with this decreased levels of Service established for sanitary sewer pable water Solid Waste range and Recreation the applicant may be required to pay connection and customary fees a more detailed concurrency review would be conducted during the site development review process so we also have to look at the more detailed at the most intense use so of the 19.6 Acres the most intense under the existing would be for single family and the most intense under the proposed could be 58 however um the applic has indicated that he that there is a to develop less item eight result in the significant adverse impacts on the natural environment additional federal and state county coordination per may be required based on the results of environmental assessment and the property is in flood zone AE additional flood protection regulations will be required during the site development process result in orderly logical development patterns specifically identify any negative effects on such pattern this is consistent with the compersive plan and the surrounding land uses will provide for the logical and orderly development pattern is it in conflict with public interests and is it Harmon harmony with the purpose and interest of Land Development regulations this request is in harmony with the purpose and intent of the Land Development regulations andk any matters that may develop de inappropriate for review of the consideration of the proposed amendments such as police protection Fire Protection meical Services all criteria concurrency mandate facilities have adequate capacity to accommodate the most intend to use on the proposed zoning District so in conclusion the requested RS3 zoning district is compatible the surrounding area it's consistent with the goals objectives and policies of the County's adopted comprensive plan it's consistent with the County's Land Development regulations is deemed suitable for RS3 zoning can be supported by staff the plan zoning board recommended recommended unanimous approval at their March 14th meeting and the recommendation is that the staff and the planning zoning commission recommend the board of County Commissioners approve this request to reson the subject property from A1 to RS3 fantastic thank you Commissioners are there any questions of County staff all right yes sure even if this even if we pass a rezoning change it doesn't prevent it from being selected and bought under the bond that is correct even with the rezoning change if it was to be passed today it could still be bought as environmental land okay commissioner Moss did you have questions yes um item h under the um considerations with regard to this um in our books the uh backup material is a little bit different from uh the slide or slides that were just uh presented and that mentions um and I'll just read it the property directly ABS the captain Forester hammock preserve and may contain wetlands and potential habitat for listed species um so is it do we know if it says may contain correct because a wetland delineation has not been done yet uh during during site plan development and environmental assessment will have to be done and then any Wetlands will be delineated at that time through a wetland survey and any endangered species will also be identified during that environmental survey and at that time then there's a couple different options so one could be mitigate those wetlands and also mitigate the species meaning pay to have them moved or you can create a buffer so there's a buffer option as well with wetlands and endangered species where you keep them on the property and then design your project around them and and what form would the mitigation take what form would the you said yes you said mayate so there's a mitigation Bank through the state and they actually pay a fee um and then once that fee is paid then they can depending on what quality of a wetland they can mitigate a certain portion of it some of them can't be mitigated all the way um on the actual site it doesn't appear to be too wet but we have to State it because there could be a wetland there when a survey is actually done um the other uh question had to do with item J on that on that same list and again this is from the uh backup material which is uh has been posted for this matter and it says here um the the item is whether or not the proposed amendment would be in conflict with the public interest and and is in harmony with the purpose and interest of Land Development regulations the answer that's given underneath that is is stated as and I'm just reading this no detrimental effect to the public welfare has been identified and you know I in in viewing the uh video of the the Planning and Zoning meeting um there were a number of people who Express concern about that and unfortun you wouldn't know that from this backup material because it's reduced to a single sentence I'll read it again at the March 14 2024 Planning and Zoning commission meeting the commission voted to recommend that the board of County Commissioners approve this rezoning request but there's no that's it it's a single sentence and there's no indication of any public concerns or opposition when actually you know that did exist people testified um you know they they stated their concerns and it was it was recorded on the video Public Welfare means for life safety issues that means that we by rezoning this property it would create a life safety issue that would endanger people so it by rezoning this property it doesn't endanger anyone they may not like the outcome of the rezoning because there's houses going where there was previously vacant land however there's no endangerment to anybody by The resoning Happening so it is in harmony with the Land Development uh regulations and it doesn't cause any harm to the residents so in in danger and in what way can you define that physically endangering them physically endang people might die people might die if that sounds or be in otherwise physical danger Health yes that's a good one health safety and Welfare Mr Dew a concrete batch plant comes to mind with the dust and silic and things like that that might pose a health hazard we had one of those yeah okay well one thing that that I'm wondering about is we don't know necessarily what the hazard is um and that is filling in the wetlands and how that affects the Lagoon we don't we don't necessarily know that at this point so it might not be something quite as um apparent uh shall we say as a you know as the construction site dangers um that's and that that's that's what I'm thinking that's assuming that there's Wetlands on the site as well right and we don't know that correct I understand it correctly and then that's why through the site development process we as County staff look at all of that and you know we have built in regulations to Our Land Development codes that don't allow just Wetlands to be filled in automatically it depends on the actual type so there's different types of wetlands that allow for if it's basically a a lower grade Wetland they're allowed to mitigate that if it's a higher grade Wetland they're not all allowed to mitigate that and they have to design their project around that so it stays on the land now all of that is hypothetical assuming that there's actually Wetlands on the land this land was previously uh Grove land which I doubt that there's any I mean I can't say with certainty that there's wet there's no Wetlands but with it being grov land I'd highly highly doubt that it's actually has Wetlands there may be some endangered species as they do move from time to time from certain lands and then those can either like I said be moved um or they can stay on the land and be designed around thank you going going back on the slides I think it's item be as far as consistency and contigency of the comprehensive plan uh having this pel designated or leaving it where it is is actually inconsistent at this point is that fair to say correct if it's not changed then we will have future inconsistencies that's that's correct because the A1 zoning district is a holding place for a land to be developed uh that land use when the land uses came out came in when we established our first comprehensive plan um and the actual zoning came in as well now it's that time that we make it consistent when the property owner wants to come in with a development and that's that stands for any A1 Property within the urban service boundary because typically you don't have agricultural zoning within an urban service area correct all right commissioners other questions no all right with that then we will move on to the presentation by the applicant do you guys have a presentation or would you like to welcome come on up Madam chair and board my name is Ryan mcle with mbv engineering represent the applicant um there's no specific presentation to present above and beyond the staff's relatively streamlined process presented to you today um but I am here to answer any questions or com comments you may have if public presents any questions I can jump back up here and answer as well um but as you laid it out yeah realistically straightforward A1 zon in RS3 the intention of course was not push for maximum density to find something that really fits the uh the market and economic model going forward that we think would really kind of accentuate and you know kind of provide that transitional buffer as far as from the denser RS6 to the cap forer preserve to the north thank you so much Commissioners any questions for the applicant no all right thank you so much all right anybody from the public wishing to provide any input yep come on up please just state your name and address for the record thank you for giving us the opportunity to speak we're Robert and Beth Shapiro we live at 1293 West Island Club Square Drive we are concerned we're concerned about the building being impacted as homeowners and just the general community and the welfare of the environment we do not represent any group or organizations we're here just for ourselves my wife's gonna have a few words first thank you my husband and I fell in love immediately with Vero Beach Vero was very different from the rest of Florida we had known it was not a Concrete Jungle there was no traffic it was quiet and peaceful we were attracted to the unspoiled nature the jungle Trail and the Indian River Lagoon since covid we have witnessed the frenzy to develop every available piece of property in the county in just a short couple of years much of the area is unrecognizable with hundreds upon hundreds of Home sites sprouting up destroying vegetation Wildlife ecosystems and waterways we just learned of and are now encouraged by the County's efforts to buy and preserve some of these special properties through their environmental land acquisition program the jungle Trail Manor parcel has been nominated for consideration by the elap committee instead of being rezoned for more homes the property would be better suited for conservation with its beautiful natural veget ation abundance of Wildlife and contiguous location to the captain Forester preserve the jungle Trail and the Indian River Lagoon and I'd also like to add that the proposed Housing Development will have a huge negative impact on the lives of the 200 or so homeowners in the Island Club the construction will drag on for several years bringing with it pollution noise dirt dust and congestion to our small roadway in closing please keep in mind what is always differentiated Vero Beach from other un overdeveloped Florida towns please work hard to maintain and preserve the natural beauty and quality of life we've all come to love in our hometown thank you thank you I would just want to Echo what my wife wife just set forth um the special land is adjacent to the Jungle Trail the Indian River Lagoon and as mentioned the captain Forester Park in our opinion it should never be developed it has been vacant for a long time for a good reason the land is zoned agricultural and has been for years and in our opinion it should remain so it is my observ ation this appears to be an extremely sensitive track of land it's an integral part of the Indian River Lagoon and eco ecosystem one can simply observe the various forms of marine life Birds vegetation and more it's very wet I don't know if the commissioner has had opportunity to walk the property um and truly see it rather than just looking in reports um the applicants plan plans well well presented still will require significant construction and deconstruction and fill and vegetation removal um I would request that more independent Environmental Studies done before any any of this occurs it's also been reported I believe in the paper that their future use would include a a dock or a Marina and and I'm not sure how that would impact the Lagoon the mangroves the jungle Trail um I'd like to Echo what um I believe Mr irman had previously brought the question about conservation and my wife brought up about the environmental land acquisition program sometimes timing is everything perhaps if this program was available a few years ago we would not be sitting here today but we are and I would ask the board not to do anything that would prevent that from occurring if it's deemed so it would seem that two agencies are working in contrarian positions and perhaps this rezoning if it was to occur now would diminish that possibility in closing I just asked the question is the land preservation which is shared by all of the community all of Nature's inhabitants less important than two dozen more homes to buau beach thank you thank you thank you anybody else from the public wish to speak on this item all right we'll move on to final presentations um any final presentation by County staff no all right any final presentation by the applicant nope all right are all the documents and tangible evidence given to the clerk at this point okay with that then we'll close the public hearing Commissioners comments questions concerns chairman let me add about the environmental lands thing again and Bill please correct me if I'm I'm wrong or anything on this this property was nominated property can be nominated by anyone um can be nominated by anyone it met the criteria according to the board that the board uh the environmental lands acquisition panel board uh made and it's in their guide and you can go online into the environmental lands thing and you can you can see it all you can they have it all uh all the information you would need on that on that spot in in the website but again it could have been nominated by anybody I don't I I didn't bring it with me and I don't remember who who nominated I don't think I believe it was the owner I think it was someone in in the community the next door is was my memory serves me well on that uh so this property has been nominated what that allows is allows for staff now to know and find out more about it find out more about the property and see if it continues to meet the criteria to for the lands act with position panel to to possibly purchase us in the future I asked Chris minute ago that if even if the resoning changes it doesn't affect the uh the ability of the lands aition to panel to purchase it from the owner no matter no matter what we what we owned on so so that's kind of where it's at with the land acquisition panel it's kind of back in in Wendy's hands and staff's hands to go and and U check this further Beth am I correct on that yeah so it's that it's in that going to back in Wendy's hand to go and investigate it further and bring it back to the panel to see what the panel decides to do the panel decides to meet the criteria and they want to buy it it'll come back before this board for us to to approve that purchase and again we have no idea if they want to what the price would be or anything else of that nature so that's where we're at right now with the with the lands acquisition process yes um earlier I uh stated that uh I can and will and most certainly will and I had not uh conducted any site investigation or any other experte action uh regarding this decision however I want to be clear that in in my former life in law enforcement I spent a lot of time on Jungle Trail and uh I I believe that uh currently uh what we have done with Jones Pier what we have done with Captain Forester has uh enhanced the viability of our action for conservation and uh protected species I also have observed in the past uh many years ago that there was some condos in the area with balconies and people cohabitating and it works and they're not obtrusive to what we have there in our conservation efforts that's not to say that this land will not be eligible or considered or as uh commissioner am stated uh eligible or considered for uh conservation if that's the case but I want to point out that it is currently inconsistent with our comp plan being zoned the way it is so I have no reservation to uh move staff recommendation uh for this res only mam chair I'll second it with comments all right go ahead comments so this practice uh that we saw displayed today is consistent with other resoning that we've done uh within this County uh the applicant provides the information our staff puts hours and hours and hours into this at the end it meets the four corners of the page and it's consistent with our past practices it's U controversial obviously but if an applicant jumps through the hoop so to speak then they've met the four corners and with that I'll continue with my second all right thank you yes commissioner Moss yes thank you um this decision is to be based on a competent substantial evidence and as I'm seeing it and from what we've heard today and this is with regard to uh again to item H and item J item AG being the concern with significant adverse impacts on the natural environment and item J having to do with uh a conflict with the public interest um I can I cannot support this all right I just want to remind everybody that there's a process of a vast array actually of processes that any property goes through before it actually reaches development the first step is zoning then you have uh development application or site plan that's where most of the questions that have been raised today actually come into play that's where you start looking at if what the property owner wants to do will actually fit with the property what we're being asked to do today is to adjust the zoning to be consistent with our comp plan and future land use a zoning is not a land use that's consistent with a comprehensive plan within an urban area it's why you don't see AG zoning in cities um and our urban service area is the area that acts like a city for the county at this point what they're asking for is actually a reduction in the zoning from what they could get they could be coming in and asking for a zoning to be consistent with their future l use which is an RS6 which is twice the units per acre that they are actually asking for which would result in less open space which would result in more impacts to the surrounding communities which would result in twice as much of everything that everybody is concerned about so and I just want to note that if they meet all those requirements as commissioner lore said if all those boxes are checked we are in a position where you know they are being consistent with the future land use and meeting all the requirements there is no competent or substantial evidence that indicates that they are cannot Avail themselves of of the zoning of which they're asking so those are my three sents we have a motion and a second if there's no further discussion all in favor opposed opposed n motion carries 4 to one with commissioner Moss dissenting with that we'll move on to 10 A2 and then we'll take a brief break if that's okay um consideration of mod units LLC requests for local jobs Grant I figured it would be quick maybe it's me all right ran everybody off stick around there only few of you left all right today we have the mag units LLC local jobs Grant application local excuse me local jobs grant program the financial incentives for targeted Industries to locate or expand within Indian River county is policy 2. .5 in the U comprehensive plan we offer $3,000 for each new position created that pays 75% to 99.99% of the County's Aver average annual wage 5,000 for each new position created that pays play excuse me play pays from 100% to 149.99 per of the County's average annual wage $7,000 for each new position created that pays 150% or more of the County's average annual wage the target target industry classification mod units LLC manufactures affordable seal enforced modular modular units for the construction of affordable multif family housing complexes the applicant has been found eligible for the l jobs grant program that falls under the County's manufacturing warehousing District targeted industry category the location will be in Indian River County in the city of Sebastian due diligence focused on the main sources of data readily available on the company its officers and agents dun and Brad street credit financial report corporate registrations and lean search County official records for tax leans judgments and pending litigation public access to court electronic records Pacer to search for federal civil and federal bankruptcy actions and none were found the proposed job salary range and payments per job so they actually have none at the lowest level they have 20 at the mid level and four at the highest level so there's going to be a total of 24 jobs five uh 20 which at $5,000 will be $100,000 and four of which will be the 150% at $7,000 which will be 28,000 for a total jobs Grant of $128,000 the date proposed to the jobs will be in place are 9 uh 92 2025 for all of them um this can be extended up to one year administratively and this is the potential payments by fiscal year so FY 2026 27 it'll be 42666 66 um so on and so forth for 2027 28 and then 2028 29 so there's just three payments that'll total out to 28,800 excuse me $128,000 and recommendation staff in the economic Economic Development Council recommend that the board of County Commission approves the local jobs Grant up to $128,000 for Bond units LLC that being said I'd be happy to answer any questions that the board may have and the applicant is in attendance and I this is the same application that came before you for the tax abatement that was approved as well thank you Commissioners I'll just say that this did receive unanimous support from the economic development Council um this is will be a great addition to the north county U manufacturing Community as well as provide resources to address some of the affordable housing issues we're facing not only locally but Statewide so are there any questions location the old Ford and wire cable company yeah in Sebastian so they' they actually bought that um I believe I want to say six months ago yeah sounds great move to approve um Madam chairman I don't know why this is listed under public hearings but to air on the OHF go ahead open public hearing and do your thing at this time I'll open the public hearing anybody from the public wishing to speak on this item please state your name and address for the record thank you for that I totally forgot it was a public Helen Minor Detail good morning Commissioners for the record hilling Castle time I'm the economic velopment vice president for the Indian River County Chamber of Commerce and thank you so much for taking the time to consider this job jobs Grant application um I've been working with this company actually since August of 2023 so yeah these projects sometimes take a little bit of time um and the applicant Mr um Mr Rob apologizes for not being able to be here today he got called out of town but he certainly sends his appreciation and thank you um for your consideration as well and while this kind of seems like a smaller project 24 jobs um to those people who are going to be hired for those jobs it's a pretty big deal um and actually when you do the math and you do the you know multiply 24 jobs times the um paychecks it's about a million and a half each year in additional paychecks that'll be circulating in our County so that also is kind of a big deal so um Mr Rob's goal goal is to produce three of these units per day and he is looking at contracts around the state not just here in the region and as commissioner um Adams suggested I think it could very well put a maybe a small dent in our attainable housing issue crisis challenge Statewide so it's a very unique product so um thank you very much for your your consideration I appreciate it thank you Helen anybody else from the public all right seeing none we'll close the public hearing there is a motion still by commissioner Moss I'll be happy to second that oh you already did it never mind commissioner flesher did no I'm not gonna fight with you about it you go ahead I'm just trying to remember if I have a public hearing or not so I'm struggling on that let that's why we have Council bill that's why I'll let you do the seconding all right if there's no further discussion all in favor opposed motion carries and with that we'll take a five minute break e e e e e e e e e e e e e all right we'll call the meeting back to order our next item is is a is um 11a strategic plan element statements I will turn it over oh I'm sorry oh there you are okay there you're coming down there okay still good morning good morning board and uh chair chairperson and board just want to give you an update as well as uh go over the goals and the goal statements thank you very much uh the goal statements that our core internal strategic planning team uh developed based on the input from our workshop and the final report and then also we send it out to all of our department heads for their concurrence or comments so where we are uh it's it's just a continued progression we started in October late October and now up to the point where we're actually you know presenting to you the actual goals the goal statements was operationalized so somebody understands we say Public Safety well what do you mean by Public Safety the statement defines the intent and the purpose for which the subsequent strategic planning team will develop objectives strategies and tactics action plans uh I will tell you we have had discussions and I'm going to point this out right now with our uh the strategic planning Consultants as well as internally among County Administration and uh we are proposing uh this initi plan be a three-year plan and the reason why is as you know we have no less than 10 actually 11 but 10 are I think are studies one's an impact fee study but 10 studies or plans that are in the prog are in progress right now as we speak so we have a feeling that within the next year or so some of these priorities not so much priorities but the the objectives might be more involved that we may need to to adjust them so we wanted to kind of take for the first strategic plan for the county do a three-year and then recognizing that it is a flexible document you know and be able to adjust as appropriate and then look at the next subsequent update you know full scale update being a five year and that's if if there's any concerns with that please share those now with me or we can talk privately so this is a busy slide uh what I love this slide I'm just going to let you know this is the adjunct faculty member but this shows the heart of the process of where we are of you know we've got you know you see the two black boxes or the black box and the oval we've kind of done the agreement looked at our stakeholders uh below that you have emission values uh the internal core strategic plan team is still working on those right now we're refining them we're kind of narrowing them down uh above we continue to monitor mandates because as we know the legislature continues to meet but if you recall we did do our SWAT analysis and that was included in the final report and it's something that we're also going to go over in the strategic planning orientation with our strategic planning team on April 30th for them to say oh wait have you thought about this because we're actually including not just directors and assistant directors sorry uh we're actually we've invited members of the iff we've invited members of the teamsters we've asked department heads to give us managers and people down in the the organization so it can be broad-based and because sometimes they know more than what's somebody can be sitting in an office nose I mean that's just that's just the reality at some point so where we are is in the middle the square boxes number five and six where we will after and once you approve the goals and the goal statements we will take those using the goals approach and we will develop objectives strategies tactics uh could be initiatives or policies you know but we'll we we'll fully develop those and bring them back to you so I just want to see give you a big picture of where we are are in terms of if you see we're kind of about halfway coming up on halfway through the progress this that that square box that's is the rectangle that's the heart of this process that's where the rubber meets the road in terms of being strategic where we start from going from strategic planning once we adopt then we start hitting Strategic Management uh if you recall the I'm not going to review all these but these are the recurring themes from the interviews between uh the interviews with all of our with the the board members the administration and then also tested with our uh with our employees and these are the ones that came out in terms of the overwhelming themes if you will the the nine goals or tested in terms of a you know as everybody looked at what we presented in the survey with the beginning it was about 483 people that completed that survey and so what we've done is we've narrow them down to the environment governance infrastructure Public Safety and quality of life so for environment uh the proposal is advancing responsible environmental stewardship by protecting conserving managing natural resources and fostering environmental awareness uh governance delivering high quality local government services and managing resources and a financially responsible and sustainable manner embracing accountability transparency Innovation performance customer service and Community engagement the Hallmarks of good governance infrastructure planning Construction managing and maintaining critical public infrastructure in response to our current needs future demands and the expectations of our community and embracing uh innovation technology and resiliency uh Public Safety protecting residents and properties through effective and responsive fire rescue Emergency Medical Services and Emergency Management uh should be a perod there at my apologies promoting safety and well-being of the community Through effective planning and enforcement of of community and life safy standards quality of life enhancing the quality of life of to foster a thriving Community for Indian River County residents by advancing programs and policies directed toward children seniors Economic Opportunity attainable Housing Community Health Recreation and public Mobility so those are the five goals with the five goal statements I believe if you if we crosswalk them back to the the the themes and then the the goals that were tested and with the overriding themes I think you'll find a natural you know correlation between those so at this moment I'm going just take a moment to uh uh well before I I need to go back so is there is the board have any comments regarding any of these goals or their goal statements Commissioners yes just this is just a question and and we discussed it yesterday I'm not sure where it fits within this framework and that is the uh the commitment that we have to continuing to meet and and work with the municipalities within the within the county yeah where I'm not sure where that fits within this framework and I would say that under governance and that's part of community engagement it's well why we engage the public we would also be engaging our public you know our our Municipal Partners Community engagement to me speaks to any of our CommunityWide Partners whether there's other cities they're different groups um organizations Civic groups and even outside of the county on the state and federal level and those types of groups that's all under the umbrella of community engagement anybody else have any other comments on any of the goal statements the other two just to M yes Mr ministrator these are not in any specific uh triaged order no these are alphabetical because you know at the end of the day we will develop objectives and then we'll come back and we'll identify and then we'll have the we'll work on those and and we will actually then ask you know at what point you know you know what's most important you know and and I know I've had some we had a discussion internally about public safety and I understand it doesn't cover law enforcement here but what this what this covers is what this organization is responsible for and can control the outcomes too understand is the legislative process under governance assume involvement with the Florida legislature that would be under that's where I would assume it would be do you want it somewhere else or you just want to make sure it was included in there it's kind of important in the next few years yeah agreed completely and that's and going back to that's why I never tell people to just oh well let's just list our mandates now because they evolve especially we know in Florida that's why I was like listen mandates isn't evolve evolve but we will legislative advocacy I'm sure and the not just for issues of like home rule preemption but also for Appropriations are are critical to the Cy so I I I would surmise that that will arise and I will also I should add to you I will give you all each the like an action worksheet where you can identify in advance of the strategic planning team getting together any specific uh program any specific objective policy that you think Hey listen you know we need to be doing this we need to be doing this and then we'll have the teams work those through the process I'll be getting those out to you today after this okay yes I I I appreciate this IC planning uh it's been some time since something like that has been done here in in your River County and I like to see the the results of the strategic planning uh when you said that this is a fiveyear commitment or fivey year you just say five right three three years three three years okay it's getting closer so uh so when the the wheels hit the tarmac we're going to start seeing some smoke from the action uh would you say that you're beginning to do that now uh and as part of it it's it's a it's a melded process at this point and we're not going to wait for the the three-year finality of the the whole Strat know so with each objective you know the teams will be required to develop you know a smart objective they're you know measurable actionable results oriented and there's a timeline our resources and then there's a timeline you they may be shortterm long-term medium or more short and medium term because it's only three years so I mean I would submit that we're actually doing a number of things already with the 11 10 studies that we're doing to prepare us not just evaluating our current needs but also preparing us for the future so uh I just think some items may come out of that that will influence this that's why we're recommending a three-year plan initially and then it's a continuation when we do an update and maybe as we get say the next year we get the urban Services boundary we get the other stuff that comes in we may have to come back and and tweak you know because it's it's not like set in stone it's not they're not red letters you know that you like you don't mess with red letters you know reading certain books book rather and uh it's just something that you would uh you got to be flexible and agile as an organization and recognize that sometimes may the environment change maybe there's a mandate that comes down that changes what we have to do in building and permiting and that's they're the other part of that Public Safety component you know what you know fire prevention building permitting our lifeguards I mean they're under public saf that they fall under Public Safety as well our code enforcement you know on the property side so we're just trying to be agile make sure that focus on the first one three years let's make it manageable so when we direct the teams to look at the objectives say listen what in the next three years what do you believe are the most critical things that we need to do from a strategic standpoint based on this goal to fulfill this goal what are those objectives and then I just to uh to maybe assist I'm going to skip this slide here because the larger the big picture go to the big picture so we'll have that workshop and then we're the teams are going to work to develop the objective strategies but we will come back and work with the board have an update with like a preliminary draft if you will for your input to say well yeah I see where you're going here but I think this is a little bit more important and you know kind of looking at that opportuni for projects and priorities as well and then we will go out to the public and have two workshops on the same day kind of do the S similar thing uh morning afternoon uh or evening late morning evening and then come back and present to you all a uh a a a more I'll say a final draft if you will for additional public at a workshop for additional board and public comment and then once you all say yes we'll have a we'll adopt that we'll bring it before the board to adopt and then when you adopt it we'll take it to we'll work with our staff as well as maybe might have to entertain an outside uh firm to help us do you know create you know the what we do like if you recall like the glossy books and you know the the plan it's we want it small we don't want a big document like this that it's going to take people forever to read we want it to be something that's simple you know for people to evaluate in its u in its format and then we'll take it after we adopt it we're going to have organizational meetings and go out and meet with all the staff and say Here's Where We Are because it'll have everything in terms of our our our Miss our vision mission values the goals and the objectives and the time frames and who the responsible parties this fluid product is moving you'll you'll not be waiting for the birth uh we'll be working at it from the reveal stage and then continue on the process yes yeah we don't we don't want to stand still for a year waiting for these plans to be done there's things that we need to do we do because especially in the governance customer service things there's things that we know what we need to do right now thank you all right anything else so with that the staff recommendation nope sorry ma'am go ahead no you're looking for uh to adopt the presented goals and goal statements for the County's 2024 fiscal year 20242 to fiscal year 2026 27 strategic plan so move move to Second all right I have a motion by commissioner flesher with a second by commissioner Moss any further discussion anybody from the public seeing none all in favor I opposed motion carries thank you thank you board with that we'll move on to 12 G1 parks recreation and conservation department Fe schedule and standard operating procedures upd thank you welcome good morning Commissioners thank you for uh your patience while we pull up the PowerPoint and is there oh I have a mouse up here I should be able to uh drive from here uh good morning thank you so much uh so today I wanted to provide you with a uh brief overview of our new Department we've hit the six-month Mark and uh been uh running strong since October 1 I've got members of our team here so I'll introduce uh each of them so you have a name and a face with each of our division managers as we get to their uh segments we have a couple people who are absent but uh I can uh cover it for here so uh just a reminder uh under the new uh strategic leadership and organization uh from our new County Administrator uh parks recreation and conservation is getting easier to say but we include uh all of our divisions uh including Aquatics Beach operations conservation lands Donald McDonald Campground and Indian River County Fairgrounds though those are managed under Parks but I like to break those out separately intergenerational Recreation Center or the IG Center Parks maintenance division the public shooting range Recreation Division and our newest uh partner even because we've been working fairly collectively all these years uh but our uh newest Partners UF IAS and we're very excited to have them uh on on our team collectively parks recreation and conservation manages over 3,800 Acres we have over we have 154 employees uh some of those are budget attempts who help us out during the summer it means that we do a lot of hiring throughout the year and we have 36 Parks 35 miles of trails 28 conservation areas 14 ball fields two aquatic centers the public shooting range in the recreation center and there's so much more uh but that's just a highlight on the left side you'll see we are through through the six-month mark on our Parks and Recreation master plan this document uh is available this is the statistically valid survey that was conducted with a full report that's posted and published on our web page and it's got some interesting data there that will be used to inform decisions about our 10-year parks recreation master plan and we're very excited about uh what's going to come out of that um so our parks recreation conservation we have uh distributed over 8,700 program guides we have over 58 th000 uh Civic Rec accounts we've initiated our parks recreation master plan we've filled 45 positions in fiscal year 2324 filling positions takes a lot of time uh vetting applicants receiving those applications and processing all that information uh you know is a lot of work for our division managers and uh I apologize but I don't have the total revenue and the total transactions processed in this uh slide but we'll have those uh in future slides so just to go through um our different facilities North County Aquatic Center and Gord aquatic centers um are LED up uh by Dave Smith who is Aquatics manager Dave's here to answer any questions that you might have in regard to the fee schedule that we're going to talk about later as well as about the facilities themselves but just a brief overview here um I think sometimes it's important for us to go back over the numbers because when you're doing budgets you're seeing everybody together uh this facility operates with a $1.1 million operating budget every year and that number goes up and usually does not go down things like chemicals electricity staff all of the things that it takes to make a facility operate that calculates over the uh 360 days that were're open per year to a cost of $3,145 per day to operate that facility now we're very proud of that facility most of us have children who've grown up learned to swim at that facility my daughter was a diver there we have one of the best facilities I believe in the state of Florida we've done over 18,000 Civic corre transactions at the actual facility these are people who are keying in and entering that data whenever you show up and you need a pull pass and maybe you're like my dad who doesn't have an ability to do that himself we're there to help you so that's 18 over 18,000 Civic Rec transactions that we've processed we do this with a team of our Aquatics manager a certified pool operator who is also shared with gford Aquatic Center four yearr round full-time staff we've added a head lifeguard um which we really appreciate and that helps to uh manage our uh facility more efficiently and then we have 20 year round part-time positions and 10 seasonal positions again these are generally uh entry level employees who have just gotten their certification and a national shortage of lifeguards in N River County stands uh to be filling all of our positions I think we only have one or two open right now what how we do that we have active recruiting where we go into the schools we have other um initiatives to be able to recruit and then we also provide the training now that training used to come at a cost and probably does come at a cost for many other 16 and 17 and 18 year olds we provide that training if you come and work for us and that is there's value added there because that uh certification lasts for two years in many cases this leads to Career decisions for some of these young people but at the bare bare minimum it's providing them with an opportunity to work over the summer over holidays and over spring breaks in a leadership role so that one day wherever they go they will look back on that uh experience as something that added value to their life and helps to contribute uh so that they can contribute later on uh as adults gford Aquatic Center many of the same statistics here but operating budget of $684,000 again sharing the aquatics manager and the certified pool operator we only have two year round full time staff there we have 10 part-time staff and six seasonal staff this facility is open for 2,634 hours per year our average operating cost daily is $2,144 and I apologize I hit the little thing there Beach operations well there is no value like having uh a member from our community who happen to be at the right place at the right time if you get caught in a rip current or you happen to have children who are swimming and get stung by jellyfish uh four of our guarded beaches you have yearr round lifeguards who are trained and certified to help you and assist you give you guidance answer even the simplest questions when is high tide when is low tide are there jellyfish what kind of jellyfish is that but if you happen to become prey to the ocean and the strength of the ocean they're there trained capable and ready to pull you out of danger uh and you know as we see today it doesn't just have have to be in the water it can be a medical event that's happening on the beach uh heat exhaustion Johnson Billings you've met uh earlier today Jonathan uh leads this team with exquisite professionalism I am so happy to work with him uh the guards are amazing one of the things that we did uh strategically was to restructure how uh we hire staff one of the things that we uh found challenging was to be able to feel all of the 3 65 days per year times two guards times four guarded beaches um that became a challenge because these people uh are professional and they're highly qualified to be able to do what you know what they do so there's limited people to fill those vacancies what we did is we added a full-time lifeguard too so that Jonathan can take vacations and have some days off uh we have eight full-time lifeguards there's very little uh movement in and out of those full-time positions so these are highly qualified individuals who know all of the beaches and they don't work a singular Beach they work all of our beaches and then what we did is we lowered some of the part-time uh allocated hours so that we could more effectively hire multiple people to fill those chairs and that was one of the things that we did so when you see 12 part-time staff those may be budgeted hours of 12 hours by weekly it doesn't have to be 20 hours so regardless our budget uh for staffing has to do with how many many seats are vacant not how many people we're just putting the people into those seats so it's fairly stable but with eight full-time lifeguards plus the other two positions these uh folks are AC crewing vacation and sick leave it's important for us to be able to enable them to take their time off and when uh I came in that was one of the things that Jonathan and I talked about was that our guards were not able to take the time off that they needed uh and this strategy has worked thus far the annual operating budget for Beach operations is one .1 million on to conservation lands you know this will always be true and dear to my heart uh so we uh manage 38 conservation areas and that number is going to grow over the next coming years uh we have added strategy in terms of our staff we now have five full-time staff members we're undergoing the $50 million Bond referendum process uh to uh manage those funds and work with our environmental land acquisition panel uh in terms of selecting sites that would qualify we have received over $2 million in Grant funds since 2016 so our team works very very hard and celebrating Earth week this week uh we have today we had Pol powerful pollinators at 10: a.m. tomorrow we will have Eco yoga at 9:00 am. at Jones Pier Thursday we're going to have a program at North Sebastian Conservation Area called changing Landscapes and Friday we have a partnership with the at library uh showing an earthweek film this is all exciting and partly in uh due and part to hiring Olivia our new uh conservation lands program specialist um also known as our environmental educator we're very excited to have her on board additionally we worked really hard this year with uh GIS to create the elab dashboard and if you haven't had an opportunity to use that uh that's fully active and operating on the County's web page at Indian R.G conservation under the elap dashboard and elap information the annual operating budget uh for conservation lands is $92,500 this year our Fairgrounds our Fairgrounds is one of the things that came up in our parks recreation master plan uh statistically valid survey as being one of the most visited County owned and operative facilities uh was definitely within the top five we're very proud of the fairgrounds and I'm excited to tell you that we've initiated the fairgrounds master plan uh it's been funded in the cie uh for several years and we've have we have a contractor uh now that we're working with to negotiate uh a price to uh develop a full and comprehensive Fairgrounds master plan that we can build out over phase at a phase period of time uh the a pavilion's 28,000 square feet one of the largest uh underair uh Pavilions in the county and these are all available for reservation or use by the public we have Fairground staff there dedicated to helping customize packages so if you wanted to have some sort of event uh and then also recruiting uh Pro past events we'd love to see our dog shows come back and some of our other previous you users we have the Expo Pavilion and then the Fleetwood Expo Center both of those facilities are 20,000 Square F feet one Outdoors one indoors again some of the largest uh venue space available in the county and you can go from having a trade show in that fac facility to having a Kera or wedding reception it's all a very uh usable space it's air conditioned and uh the parks maintenance staff do an amazing job uh keeping those facilities up and running we had a fiscal year 2223 we booked 42 events you can see we're already ahead of schedule fiscal year 23 24 year-to date 27 events we're serving hundreds of thousands of uh residents visitors and guests and uh we were already on track to exceed our Revenue um last year's Revenue was over 108,000 plus the fairgrounds Revenue Donald McDonald Campground I pull these out because these are gems within our community uh our staff has been working really hard we've added the Civic wreck reservation process this last year this enables people to go in and actually plan their vacation unlike in the past when you had to show up and claim your uh campsite now you can go on to Civic wreck so over the last uh last year fiscal year 2223 we had 7,300 reservations and fiscal year 23 24 we have already $49.90 reservations this is generating Revenue uh in the case of last year 101,000 and we're already at 72,000 for this year um if you haven't been to the campground you'll uh know that it's right next to uh Dale wiro Park in that vicinity are two really nice boat ramps that are open to the public and uh we also have Pavilions and restrooms at both of those facilities the IG Center uh so I wanted to introduce Kevin Adams he's our new uh recreation facility supervisor for the IG Kevin comes to us with a wealth of experience and uh has in his former life been a parks recreation director so we're all about recruiting the best talent uh to our team and we're very excited to see um all of the things that he can help us with in addition to the IG Recreation Center this Center is one of the largest uh venue spaces in the county uh we use it for all different types of things when you come in and you have an event we're going to customize a package for you that meets your needs it can be anything from a 20 person baby shower to a 2,000 person event like our steamfest and we're very excited about the opportunity there not only that but the doors are open six days a week and uh we run a full uh Recreation Wellness programs in this facility in cooperation with our Recreation Division and these two are these two are like twins they go together everywhere they do everything together and Recreation gets to go offsite occasionally uh to different facilities and also works very closely with our Parks division last year uh we had over 56,000 Civic recck transactions these are cumulative transactions we did over 98 room reservations and facility agreements we receive around 1,900 calls per month the 17 uh 1780 phone number is what we use now for all of our parks recreation conservation incoming calls and that's one person who is not only greeting people at the front desk but Al also answering the phone so there's a lot of phone calls coming in and uh we'll later talk a little bit about our Sops and why those are so important across our entire department right now we uh offer over 24 Wellness programs per week our budgeted staff at this facility is four full-time staff members and three part-time we have an annual operating budget of $847,000 the shooting range Jerry couldn't be here today but we are so proud of our shooting range you have previously approved the fee update for that so you won't see that included in the backup document uh documentation in terms of an action today but I did want to highlight the facility in fiscal year 2223 we had over 7600 uh registered guests this year we have over 4,400 registered guests you can see the transactions are high there 14,000 transactions in 2223 and over 9,000 year to date 132 reservations last year and 80 reservations this year this is all made possible due to work behind the scenes working on Civic wreck and form uh formalizing our paperwork and our processes so that when somebody comes in and has an offer uh for instance they want to U have a show or they want to do a special event for their company we now have uh the method and the ability to be able to receive that information from them or their request and then make that happen uh the facility operates over 2200 uh hours per year they have five full-time staff and 13 part-time staff we have new programs this year that I'd like to highlight handgun 101 archery 101 uh shotgun Sports steel shooting rimfire challenge in Thursday Night Lights our annual operating budget at this facility is over $841,000 per year Parks I'd like to introduce Brad duen our Park superintendent many of you know him uh from various uh Parks issues maybe that we've had uh but our Parks maintenance div uh division is uh my home division it's the division I was hired into in uh January of 2000 and I will always love and believe in the value of parks and I appreciate the support that we receive from the commission uh on all of our parks and recreation activities uh as well as the Strategic leadership that we have right now because quality of life is one of the things that comes up very high for all of our residents and even our guests when you meet people who have never been here before one of the things that they'll always comment on is how great it is to be an Indian River County and part of this is because of greens space we know that greens space parks and recreational fac facilities add value to um our quality of life we currently maintain eight Beach Parks 14 ball fields 28 Inland parks and over F 1500 Acres we have issued 36 special event permits last year and this year we're on uh track to exceed that we've issued already 27 different special event permits we've had uh uh grown our pavilion rental process up through the uh Civic wre uh uh platform and that platform allows people to go on just like the campground and select and reserve dates we were doing that an oldfashioned way where we would write in in a calendar and this allows uh people to do this um by themselves and uh we had 469 Pavilion reservations in fiscal year 2223 and already on track to exceed that with 42 reservations all of the parks that we have the 1500 acres are managed with 30 full-time staff and two part-time staff that Workforce is very stable and we very rarely have openings with our team and I think that's due to the great leadership that we have with our management annual operating budget for Parks is $3.8 million per year Recreation I'd like to introduce uh gustava varara who's our assistant director um Gustavo has taken the lead with our Recreation uh depart uh division one of the things that I loved when I met Gustavo was that he was balancing me out I'm very strong in conservation in parks and he was very strong in athletics and Recreation as well as event venue and uh venue management so we're very excited about the progress and of all the different divisions that we uh have been uh working on and with Recreation I think has made the most strides over the last six months I'm so proud of our team because they've worked really hard we have over 33,000 uh program participants for fiscal year 2223 we're still calculating those numbers for this year um our revenue generated last year was $236,000 our revenue generated year-to date is $138,000 our team worked very hard to uh obtain a Florida blue Grant Foundation Grant we've received that second Grant in a total amount of $200,000 which funds not only our senior Wellness uh program Recreation leader Sandy who everyone knows and loves but also a part-time uh position as well in uh Chrissy has hit the ground running adding new programs uh that will specifically work with our senior population to provide them with free Recreation programming uh throughout the county new programs um over the last year preschool tumbling senior Wellness in different locations through Chrissy's um efforts walking Club veterans yoga homeschool PE pickle ball leagues and summer Sports Camp all of this is done in addition to all of our normal programs like our excellent basketball program softball uh and uh all the the uh younger children for their baseball programs this is all done with nine full-time and six part-time staff with an annual operating budget of $1.26 million ufas our newest team we're so excited uh about working with them uh the collaborative effort means that we're able to reach into the public with the resources we already worked with our ufas team to good conduct an in-house training with all of our staff um that was a great uh experience where we got to learn all about our personalities and how we work together in groups we did the dis assessment with an agent who came from Bard County again ufas is not just about 4 or agriculture UF IAS is our ability to reach into the University of Florida and access all of the information that's contained including new information as well as archived information so I really encourage folks including our own staff uh to reach out to UF ifas and use them in the way they were intended which is to be an extension of the University of Florida as land grant College in the State of Florida every county has a uh a University of Florida extension office so use your um use your UF ifas office you can see here the great work that they've done last year uh under Community Development and the great work that they continue to do uh in in this fiscal year their volunteer hours are amazing over 9,000 uh volunteer hours which is uh a a service that they provide by organizing and collaborating and uh educating their volunteers so that they can perform a service that the county or their own staff might otherwise do so there's a lot of value there did I miss anybody introductions no got everybody okay good and Wendy yes Wendy couldn't be here and Jerry couldn't be here so and Andrea also couldn't be here so uh even though they are not here in person they're here in spirit one of the things today that we're asking for is for uh your review and approval of our standard operating procedures this was something that uh when we were formed as a new Department uh we realized that we were lacking uh we've had difficulty onboarding employees helping to explain who we are what we do why we do it and the beginning uh elements of our standard operating procedures will help us to provide uh clear instructions and consistency for all of our department employees uh it will provide for continuity of service so that if you go to the shooting range you're going to see receive the same excellent service that you would receive at the IG Center and vice versa it outlines our expectations for level of service standards across the department so that every employee is very clear about what we're doing how we're doing it and why we're doing it it will provide for uh customer service expectations because we come into contact with so many individuals in our community and we understand that we are a reflection of the county and we're also a reflection of you we want to maintain that high bar we're a very conservative County uh fiscally but our level of s uh service standards are excellent and I think they're very very high and we we we we need to provide that information to our employees it also summarizes an administrative policy manual and Department policies as a new employee I'm sure Kevin can already tell you on his uh second day here trying to absorb a a brand new County and all of their administrative functions and all of their policies can be uh overwhelming and sometimes intimidating we needed to uh Whittle those down we're not taking away any of those but just trying to whittle those down so that at least as a brand new employee you could R read our 28 page sop and know exactly where you stand and where you fit in the organization not only that but you also know who you work for so that's one of the messages all of our facilities for the most part are offsite we don't have an office in the admin a building UF ifas does in admin B but we're somewhat disconnected sometimes so it's really important that we remind people um that they've been hired to work for Indian River County and that they're representing all of our commissioners as well as our administrator and uh we're here to serve the public that's the whole point of us uh having um having our existence and in the best way because we're just doing Recreation and uh providing quality of life for folks so some of the things that uh are necessary and uh can be um difficult uh on occasion are fee updates one of the things that we realized was that um our fees had not been updated in a really long time and we were falling very short again very conservative and uh it's not something that we're trying to profit on or trying to uh extend the cost beyond what is reasonable and normal uh but we do need to take a look and it's healthy for an organization to take a look at the fees that it's charging over a period of time especially as it relates to operating costs operating costs continue to grow and our facilities um re you know require maintenance and electric and all of the things that um have to be done in order to uh make the this space available to the public and safe so what we did is we took a long heart look and our staff I'm very proud of them they worked really diligently to apply uh fee analysis uh across all of their different divisions to look really hard at other counties other municipalities and make sure that our fees were in line any fees that had become dated and needed to be adjusted they then dug in even further looking at what the comparables were across uh different uh counties or municipalities uh we introduced uh the fee update uh at the board meeting on January 23rd we brought back another informational item on February 20th uh so that we were giving plenty of notice so that the public would have an opportunity to receive the information digest it think about how it might apply to them and then be able to provide comment back to us or back to you in terms of any concerns that they might have we posted the information on the County Parks and Recreation uh at all of our uh Parks and Recreation facilities we posted the information on our County's web page uh we provided notice to our Civic recre account holders and uh we also send out a constant contact information from time to time the proposed fee update uh to be initiated uh will be uh August 1st which would be consistent with the implementation and production and distribution of our winter fall winter program guide so uh just to go real quickly you've already approved the shooting range fee update uh but Donald McDonald Campground and Fairgrounds camping fees were last updated in 2018 Parks reservations for uh Pavilions and Fairgrounds were updated in 2017 the IG Recreation Center fees were approved in 2016 the aquatics fees um were our stragglers and have not been opened since North County Aquatic Center was opened in 2002 and uh as far as I know uh in the research that I've done Recreation fees were not previously approved by the board now fees don't necessarily have to be approved by the board but we're grateful when they are because it gives us clear Direction and we know that we're in sync and in line with your decisions and the expectations that you have of us operating the program guide this is our current spring summer program guide this is uh when this is published and it will go out with the uh start of the school year this is all the new fees would be reflect Ed in uh this catalog and that is all I have on uh the information so today we're asking for uh two different things here the first is that uh we would ask that you approve the proposed fee update um as attached in exhibit a with an effective date of August 1st 2024 I do have one caveat to that we feel based on information received from uh public comment that it would be appropriate to make the uh Lane reservation fees for Aquatics facilities eff of October 1st and then the second uh request is that we would ask that you approve the drafted parks recreation and conservation department standard operating procedures manual and authorize the director to make administrative non-substantive updates to the SOP as needed and we're happy to answer any questions you might have thank you commissioner questions Madam chair all right motion to approve right we have a motion by commissioner fleser I did have comment you have comment comment B I just wanted to correct that you do a fantastic job this presentation I I have one question okay we'll get you you um on you have uh stated the case of recreation but at one point you said that they were disconnected they weren't disconnected they're immersed anytime that you go to a facility in Indian River County whether it be the IG Center the pool the range you see the key personnel they're there they're part of it they're making it happen and I know when I go to an event whether it be you know we we did the Halloween thing uh good stuff K ask what celebrity is he okay because you know there were different dignitaries there what celebrity is he okay it's cute kids say nice things and uh you know and people love to come to Dave's Pool okay uh that that's what the the the swimmers uh have coined it uh even though it's the friend Adams it's the parkol it's a park but I I just want you to know that people know these individuals they know they can go to them and when something is happening they are part of the soup they make it happen and some of them travel great distance to be there on a Friday Saturday Sunday in evening and and I wanted wanted to say thank you you all make it worth worth having everything we have and the acknowledgment from individuals knowing that you're available well pick the right people to be there for many years many of you have been been there da how long how long you you with there 19 years now 19 years yeah so I want to thank everybody I know you identified as the newest entran but uh we have a tremendous staff and I wanted them acknowledge thank you as far as the cost of doing things and for the facilities look everything has gone up everything has gone up across the board people paying $359 for fuel the average family of four is putting up $1,000 addition for food and suares uh we don't have to talk about Insurance um the only thing that's been maintained was the uh the mill rate in in River County I'm proud to say 3.1 154 uh it consistent for four years and an adjustment has not been made in these rates for so many years I do want to point out that the the the pool rates as you uh have clearly stated that we've had to increase it's actually increased to the are are a minimum uh that's that's phenomenal you you you can't get a better price anywhere else so uh I want to acknowledge that too covering all the cost cost factors with the um the amount of chemicals that have to be utilized Manpower uh the the power the electricity and and the devices uh it you know to keep keep it cool the Chillers have to be maintained as well um it it's a large undertaking for a regional pool and uh you have the best of the best operating in lifeguards and and just it's a tremendous facility uh I think we have to make sure that the uh the all of the taxpayers don't pay for the luxury and privilege of having something a gem like we have there in in your R County at the North Center thank you did you have something Madam chair I'll I'll chime in and and uh I agree with commissioner flesher on those in fact last night I had an opportunity to throw out baseball for the Mighty Mites at the IG or dick bird park and Gustavo and his his crew were there uh this was way after hours young fellow named Drew couldn't couldn't catch my pitch cuz I kind of rolled it to him that's another story um yeah we heard about that yeah and and you know myself and commissioner man I think use the the gun range more than than the others because that's one of our hobbies and that's a fantastic Place Jerry does a fantastic job as well but last night I saw the enthusiasm that Gustavo had and Drew and and some other employees it's it's incredible um I did have one question sometimes in the city not sometimes but if we if a County resident or a non- city resident wants to rent a pavilion in the city of s Vero Beach it's a higher price for a non City resident but our prices are the same whether you're city of buau city or Sebastian right yes that's correct yeah so if you want to have a party or a kid's birthday party on the beach and you're a County resident you're going to pay more just so you know with that do we have a second no there would nobody had seconded your motion yet I'll second it okay did you guys have any comments before I open it up for public okay um yeah I agree with what commissioner commissioner lore said I think we got the back Department in the state I'm probably the biggest Advocate we need more Fields more green space we need we we need more stuff I mean believe it or not I hate to use that term but but but but but we do and and because with growth that we're experiencing Recreation Outlets are just as important as your roadways and your other things that they require when you have more people liveing in a county people want Recreation they thrive on Recreation not only for the young kids but for the older generation and all that stuff so it's very important that that we that that we do whatever we can to improve our Recreation throughout I have a couple of questions on this before we move on just so I can make sure that that that we're good to make sure brought it to everybody's attention um I'm just going to start down my list anything on the first page but I'm still under Aquatics under we've crossed out the dive team uh rental we remove that the dive team reservation per hour is why would we do we have people that dive I mean do we have dive teams and stuff that show up yes we have an one active dive team uh that regularly utilizes North County Aquatic Center uh with the 12ft dive well that we have there so what this would do is it would um change the format uh that we had prior which was called a rental we try to we tried to um rephrase and be specific with the verbage that we're using so you're not renting the dive well you're reserving space and a reservation excludes the public from that particular area and so what we would be doing is changing uh the the team rental uh for for instance 1 to five 6 to 10 hours and we would just make that a flat uh reservation per hour fee of $6 per hour that's what I that's what I wanted to know next let's go down to to to swim meets um facility reservation I know we've got a we had we've received some correspondents from from both Aquatics but do we not would it not be in our best interest for a swim meets at the pool dive meet uh organization is using pool to enter into an individual contract with with people that have meets and stuff like that I mean we we would deal let's say the United States swim Association the pool at the college can't work and they would need to come up here and and and and want to have an event that we would not go through Treasure Co Sports and things like that but we would not we would probably need to negotiate something individual for people that use it groups I say groups that use it for long periods of time versus having it in the schedule because there's some I think you need some stipulations in there you know you you're here you arrive on time you be there on time you're going to have it for this amount of time that maybe that we would that we would look at that we would look at look at that that's just my my suggestions to to looking at at Large Scale events commissioner if I may each of our divisions has already started drafting their individual division standard operating procedures one of the first steps for us because originally we wanted to bring this as one item with every division's Sops and we realized that that was going to be a bigger bite than we could chew and probably that you would be interested in quite frankly once we got into that what we realized was while we have the departmental Sops each division has to have very specific operating parameters one of those is agreements uh license agreements and or facility use agreements that we've been using uh over the last in some cases 20 years but need to be uh updated formatted and uh brought to you so that just like the fairgrounds um uh procedures that we have you blessed those you said that um you know we brought to you a template agreement you approved that template agreement anything that goes beyond or outside of that we bring back to you for your authorization and approval in the case of each of the division and Aquatics has already been working on exactly what you're talking about and we will bring each of those back to you individually so that you have the time to really look into it and think about the implications for what will happen uh when we approve those and we certainly want your blessing on those because they help us to ensure that we're providing the service and the manner and method by which uh you approve so uh one of the things that we'll be doing is uh and already have been doing is creating a template agreements we'll bring those and then anything that falls outside of that template agreement uh would be brought back to the board for consideration and approval uh so that's one of the things that we're uh working on right now and you'll be seeing the aquatics one fairly soon it was important for us to get the fees uh set so that we can then formulate the fees into the standard operating procedures and I would think that would also be prudent maybe like the fairgrounds rental I don't know like the gun shows you can there quite often I don't know if yall have a a separate agreement with with the people that produce that kind of stuff that would that would make sense and that's kind of where I'm leaning to with regards to uh the acet Use Somebody That You knows a a consistent user there should be a an agreement on that you're having a large meet of some kind where you know uh that you're going to have a ton of people there that would require assistant you know agreement to do what you do and to do what you should do or what needs to be done probably away from the schedule because I look at this schedule as more of an individual somebody that hey you know I'm going to have a a event one time at the fairgrounds you know I P pay I pay what you have here but if I'm going to use the fairgrounds consistently once a month three five four times a year I would think we would need to talk about that maybe level that's just that's just my opinion my next thing is is on the fairg grounds the Marquee out front we're GNA fix that yes sir okay the next thing budget I ask because we have a fee on there with something we do have um an entertain and do invite um special events to um meet with staff and work out details of um those events that are unique in nature but there is a certain a number of repetitive events that we find uh my staff will attest that my weekly department head meetings will often start with your best two friends in government are notice and consistency so we found over time that the more consistent we are in developing templates templates for those agreements the less you all are asked to make specific arrangements for different event owners so we've standardized that process and it's served us well over the last several years I brought that to you in 2015 and the fairgrounds has steadily increased in utilization and revenue ever since okay and then with regards to the the parks the ball fields for instance I see the the ball field use like for Fran Adams or dick bird park is only gone up $25 I think that's reasonable because I know the years that I used to play and softball has been the same I appreciate y'all bringing this attention about the fee increase because I think it's something that definitely needed to be done and I think by having Beth in that position now and you directly over seen that I think we finally realize that that's something that needs to be done so that's all I have Madam chairman for now all right thank you commissioner Moss anything to add yeah um just briefly um you know it really is a pleasure to interact with staff whether it's indoors or or Outdoors the IG Center you as soon as you walk in the door um they're friendly and welcoming and also at the aquatic centers um same treatment and the different places I've been so that's to compliment you and the staff and I wanted to especially thank you for the community outreach that you did on this that was a lot of work I know and you were there you put in a lot of hours I know I attended more than one and I think it was the last one you did um that I attended I I love the way you set that up that you had time it was specific time that was allotted for seniors a specific time for for younger folks in the community and I think there was a third group it was getting too late for me but I'm sure you stayed what was the third group uh adult athletics and then we had one for youth Athletics and one for youth yeah so thank thank you you know for taking that kind of time to it was was interesting to me to hear the difference in in what people want and you know what the needs might be and I know I know that was quite a large undertaking and it's appreciated all right at this time we'll open it up for public comment anybody from the public that wishes to speak on this item or the motion at hand please come to the podium and state your name and address for the record thank you Commissioners my name is Karen fuss my address is 2255 Vero Beach Avenue I am the CEO and head coach of Bolt Aquatics bolt Aquatics is a small community oriented B business providing an extremely important service to the community Progressive swim classes leading to competitive swimming bold Aquatics rents pool space at North County Aquatic Center and occasionally at gford Aquatic Center the business operates with just enough Revenue to cover expenses and employees wages while also while also offering free and reduced rate swim classes and team dues through a dedicated scholarship fund these proposed fee hikes would pose a severe threat to my small business and the families it serves the proposed monthly fee for my business repres represents an increase of more than than three times over current fees current rate is eight lanes for a total of 14 hours at $400 a month the proposed rate of $3 per Lane for eight lanes for a total of 14 hours a month comes out to $1,344 this would increase my yearly payment of $1,328 the magnitude of the rate increases varies depending on the type of patrons for example the proposed daily adult entry fee would only Rise by 28% from $5 to $643 at North County Aquatic Center 28% is a much smaller percentage than the proposed 236 per increase imposed on my Lane usage the increase rate seems extraordinarily High compared to other line items the state rationale for this fee hike is that the county has not raised its fees since these pools opened over years ago placing the burden of two decades of underfunding on current swim families and small businesses is unjustifiable Bolt Aquatics cannot absorb such a substantial cost increase without passing it on to bolts families the proposed increase would likely result in fewer bolt swimmers and less County revenue because families will drop out due to unaffordability the proposed increase would negatively impact availability of scholarship funds for families who cannot afford the fee dollars will not go as far so fewer families will benefit additionally fees for pool rental for swim meats are proposed to rise 100% for the pool reservation and 20% for the timing system this fee increase would likely reduce the number of meats hosted at North County Aquatic Center resulting in less Revenue to the county in addition fewer out of town teams and swimmers will attend reducing dollar spent in the county on lodging meals and other travel expenses the outcome from an April 12th meeting with parks recreation and conservation department staff and Deputy Administrator Michael zto was the county staff were inflexible regarding the proposed fee increases would not consider alternative approaches and advise me to change my business plan to fit the County's new rate structure a more flexible approach is warranted given Indian River County Pro bus stance I would hope that a compromise could be reached to achieve the County's budget shortfalls without fatally damaging a community oriented small business thank you thank you anybody else no all right we do have a motion and a second commissioner any further discussion yes commission um can I just has a question was the motion for to approve both or or one of them we have the the motion is to approve the fee schedule and Sops okay to approve both yep okay thank you madam chair I just like to also add that this board is commissioned to police County policy and the county budget primarily and this is an example that M pow has brought in front of us that can bins both of those and that's what we're commissioned to do all right with that chairman yes I would I would ask staff to for like for this B Aquatics or others like I said when I was asking a question maybe that's something we need to look at for users look at look at a it a lease contract something like that so each party knows what each part doing it is not I understand where she's coming but I understand where we're coming too we have fund Recreation is not something you make money of but we have to fund it we have to try to cover our cost as much as we can fact that we are doing this 20 years later is because we have a great staff now that caught this and it's time to evaluate it so that's that's the other thing yet we can't have it's kind of like like you and I Mike worked on the golf course issue we had a lot of users tying up te times that wouldn't show up or didn't do this or didn't do that or would they extra time and they they did different stuff that that cause issues on the golf course I'd see the same problem like that I think we addressed it individually with with the groups themselves and I would think that we would need to look at something like this yes sir this or other things whether it's a swim meet whether it's whatever the case may be sir the numbers presented can be misle because they're based on a maximum number of hours under an up to or bulk rental model so that if the uh swim team was maxing out the hours a lot of under the bulk rental agreement and actually using those hours they would extrapolate out to the numbers presented here but they're not being used we're just moving to a per use basis and we're moving to a rate that's $3 per hour per Lane and with no entry fee to the pool which uh by comparison is less than Leisure Square all right if there's nothing further again there is a motion by commissioner fleser with a second by commissioner lore all in favor opposed motion carries thank you and with that we will move on to traffic signal cabinet wraps project welcome Andy good morning Commissioners uh Andy sap director of planning and development services barely barely still morning almost um I know there is a presentation I know commissioner irman has put one together um I'm going to give a little background on kind of how we got to where we are today and uh this discussion started back in 2022 when the board um talked about developing a program to wrap traffic cabinets in the county we've got quite a few well over a 100 uh and it took us a little while to develop how we were going to do this but basically we did a pilot project of 10 um spaced those out throughout the county picked some photos that were you know local in nature and hired a contractor to do those WS uh so those 10 are done now and we've received a lot of positive feedback from the community um I'm aware of about 12 different different inquiries from folks saying hey I like those WS are you going to do more can I participate uh We've even heard from HOA saying hey we would like to maybe do this on a lift station can we do that so seeing that there obviously is a demand to do more of these um County staff also reached out to our neighboring municipalities uh city of Viro Beach City of Sebastian and felir and just asked hey would you like to participate in a larger program um and all of those entities said yeah we would love to um so that's kind of why we're here today to seek the board's Direction on do we want to do more how when um you know it may sound simple to do this but there's a lot of details uh that need to be covered as far as where we put these what photos we use uh who selects those who pays for them um so with that I believe we have a presentation as well Adam chair and sorry yes when you said you spoke to the municipalities did you did you speak with the decision makers or who yeah uh so we actually had an item commissioner and I spoke to the city V uh city of voo Beach Council and they made a formal motion to participate in a future program uh felir and Sebastian I reached out to the to the managers there and just you know I think they would still need to put it on a council agenda and take formal action but uh just in passing they said sure we would like to participate let me try to I'll try to answer some of the let me L I'll try to answer some of the questions Kim if you want to VI that up if you remember was back in November of 20 November 1st of 22 when we first brought this idea up and when after after we brought the idea up uh we had some changes of course Jason left U few other people left Phil Phil Matson left left and a few others that that were on the initial meeting so it kind of stalled for a while until we came back and John kind of you know got in the seat and we didn't ask for a few months let him get his bearings a lot more important stuff to do than this but this is a great project and and John thought it was a great idea so we decided to to go ahead and and move on with it you know between John Andy and I and the rest of the staff and we were going to do the 10 and I know we were initially going to set up a committee maybe do sponsorships of this maybe get a 501c3 like like Senior Resource involved in it they all kind of got out of the project because it wasn't going anywhere and thought they had more to do so we just said let's let's do 10 so we got staff together different people within the county to look at pictures stuff that was done because we wanted to judge what the um the the temperature was going to be with the community whether they liked it or not that was that was the whole reason that we just went ahead and and and and moved on the project to see what it was I mean as easily as they come on go on they can easily come off the the Reps can come off the they can they can take them off so this is what what we found is that the the response was really good Andy said he's gotten some emails I've gotten emails it was on social media people were posting pictures of them saying how much they loved them and all that sort of stuff and so that's kind of where we're at so I I made up a little presentation for you to kind of ask you where how you want to if you want to continue this and how you want to move forward on it because there are some unanswered questions such as what and what and what Andy said so Kim Let's Go to the next slide so this was with the initial rules we established for the traffic Rock signals the traffic signal boxes that was the you know the group Jason at the time uh Phil Rich Andy others myself other people that were in there uh Chamber of Commerce was in the room this is what we thought that the rule should be to stay with it because art is in the eye of the beholders if you sometimes put art up there some people don't like it you could say the same for photographs but we figured these would be the rules the best rules to use and this was also covered back in November of 22 Local photographer first photographs must used must be taken in River County so so that that Turtle needs to be on any River County Beach or the Osprey that's a picture of needs to be in any miver County Osprey we hope um we use we're going to use Chamber of Commerce stock photos that that they have because they got some really good stuff it needs to be local Senor Wildlife it could be veterans or military branches of the US armed forces and I saw this down in Port St Lou they had a couple traffic signal boxes and you'll see one of the logos that we could use here in just a second for armed forces local historical photos could be used any pictures of any County First Responders not in a bad scene but a picture of them with their apparatus or police car or or or or or Sheriff car or something like that could be used and then we thought that the photos should be relevant to the area of their placement the example of this I tend to use is let's say you don't have to put this one there but if you were going to look do the stop light even though it's the dot stoplight at 14th Avenue in state rad 60 in downtown buau Beach you may want to put the hor historical photo of what the city of R Beach looked like in 1930 on that box that we've all seen so that was that was kind of the idea so next one so these are the cost options this is what it's cost been costing about $500 per box we did we spent $5,000 and it did 10 boxes there's more than a 100 plus box boxes plus FDO roadway boxes around 175 boxes left is that pretty close I think there's like 186 traffic lights in the county so we maintain all the traffic signals with the entire County we own all the signals and Equipment other than the do boxes but we still maintain those boxes for the do on the state roads and other than the dot again we own all the signal equipment but they are in the cities municipalities and the FD fdot RightWay so in the city of Vero Beach or the city of Sebastian we own on the city roads we own the equipment but it's in the city right away so remember that so next one so these are these are what we could do this is how we could pay for it if you want to continue to do this program you know the the uh we can continue to pay for our boxes in the county that we would municipalities can pay the cost for each box with their inter city limits we could split the cost with the municipalities if they want to because again in there right away but it's our boxes but I'm I'm I'm kind of good either way on that and on private property HOAs the landowner can split the cost or the landowner can pay for the entire for the for the cost of the W so that that's another those are those are options when it comes to cost next one so there you see this is this is I'm going to talk about the committee next you can see that's the logo they use with a picture of a they have a down in Port St Lucy they use the department of the Navy um logo right there that's one of their logos and they have a picture of of a battleship or an aircraft carrier same with the Army you can do all that stuff or you can put the nice flower with the with the bug in it whatever whatever you want to do so that that's one thing so let's go to next this was my ideas on the committee because there were some questions about why didn't we have a committee or where was the committee on that first 10 well things changed rapidly and nothing was getting done and so we we went ahead and did it this is my idea for a committee if you want to pick if you want to pick the pictures is that the uh the the County traffic signal boxes can be uh this would be the the the the membership of the committee we we don't get a lot of people because you'll never make a decision on on what picture you like best if you have a ton of people so it was a have a county commissioner one of us would sit on that committee and you can alternate it by the by District if the box is in your location in other words we can do we can pick a number out of the Hat we say we'll start with District Two today and then next month we'll work on District Five whatever whatever you want whatever you want to do so you have a county staff member and the consensus has been kind of from planning and Z Planning and Development one from Parks and Recreation one from conservation and natural resources and then for the fifth member we could appoint somebody at large I'm trying not to make this complicated so next next slide City Beach County Commissioner would sit on that and it can alternate also it may be in uh commissioner Moss's District it may be in my part of it may be in my district whatever they want to do uh so or even commissioner L's District so think allthough those touch in the city of Viro Beach the county staff member shall be present and then the city council would have a member a city staff member and the city would appoint their committee at large so that would give them the majority of three votes on the for the for the cities and I we're are doing to go to the next one we're doing the same with the with the city of Sebastian if they decide to to to be a part of it we' be the same two County county commissioner and the staff member along with with three three members from the city council next one BS and look what picture we put in there I see so it's a historical picture see like I don't know if it would look it on a traffic you could go back to the days when when it was it was even different but uh same city of fsir two County two County folks and three uh three members from the city to do it next County M Shores same way they don't have a lot of stop lights there I think those are DOT stop lights but on A1A but that's still they would have an input in in in what they uh and what they do so again two two County folks and and three three City members next one kind of orchid they don't have any at this time but I thought those pictures really cool the one on the left of the goer tortois is like the favorite everybody liked that that was like the unanimous vote on the Gopher tortois so next so lift stations hoo boxes same any River County committee or or Committee of jurisdiction if it's if it's on County right away and it's not within an HOA or private property so the next next box if they are then you have a county commissioner County staff and HOA representative let them decide what they want to do especially if they're you know going to pay for it or however we decide to to move forward with this next see that's a nice picture we haven't used yet anywhere but we we may or whatever whatever we want to do so that's all I have any any questions on this my my first question would be do you all want to continue this project I have a couple questions and comments one thank you for putting together the PowerPoint and all your hard work on this I think that um I I appreciate the information um my questions and comments are kind of all over the place but I'll try to be organized one fdot traffic signal boxes are those hours that we can put wraps on we would have to permit them through fdot okay and I do understand that doing stuff on the lift stations which might be attractive for the HOAs would be a maintenance nightmare for utilities because they have to we have to we have to look at that this was my idea because I asked the same question Andy and I talked about that on the lift stations with regards to that is that yes that's a good question first of all we need to see if it can be done and I know that if we keep with the same surveyor with Justin McClure they can figure that out but we wouldn't want to put it on lift stations that are not visible waste of money in time so first those two things don't put it on a lift station or something that's not visible to the public to see and second of all if it can't be done don't do it um and then my concern my own my concern well I have two concerns one if we have 175 traffic signal boxes in Indian River County and we're going to put something on each traffic signal box that is as beautiful as the pictures are that's a lot of visual noise it's a lot of some of those traffic signal boxes I didn't even know were there until I drove by and they had wraps on them and um now they're very obvious and I'm I'm not sure if that's good in every location just because you have so much signage and stuff like that so I think that's something we should take into consideration [Music] um and then as as far as the committee goes I would be concerned with creating a bureaucratic nightmare you know my my mom always said that the one thing you don't want to do is Judge Beauty contests or youth pageants of any sort because you're never going to make everybody happy you'll make one person happy and everybody else angry at you and I I feel kind of the same with the pictures I'm going to make one photographer happy and 7,000 photographers unhappy but and I just think that staff time and everybody that might be very onerous so the city of Sebastian actually has a mural program and they have a whole setup of how they approve murals um there's an application process where where people submit their ideas obviously murals are different than wraps I get it's a much more expensive proposition um and much bigger but they submit their ideas for the mural it goes to actually the Chamber of Commerce has a committee that that vets those and then they bring whatever they decide to their city council which ultimately has the final approval on those murals before they're painted so we might look at something like that that's more of an outside um Committee of sorts instead of creating at it like five different committees or one committee with subcommittees for the different cities um but my my suggestion just in initially I understand that there were some issues with the photos that were submitted as far as the quality of photos we have to have like if you're doing a calendar contest you need to submit high quality calendar photos not just iPhone photos I think I have some pretty cool photos on my phone but that doesn't mean they're going to get printed anywhere by the time you blow it up so probably the same for the traffic signal boxes so maybe what we can do especially considering that the Community Development Department is going through ump teen planning projects right now um that's kind of a focus I think what did you say John we have 10 going on community countywide 11 total not just totally with them but right but in general share of them um I know we need to collect pictures so maybe we can we can create a submission link for people to submit the pictures to so we can collect those we can let Community Development get through the USB programs and some of those other things um so we can give them the time to to devote to that and then we can Circle back on this once we have a decent amount of photos to kind of waade through and figure out how and when we might want to implement something like this um because I I think it's n like we did the 10 and that's nice and they looked you know they look good some of them it took me a second to it took me a second I know that the turtle is everybody's favorite but it took me a second to realize it was a turtle when I was maybe I was driving by too fast to be honest with you but um that's probably my own problem and not the pictures problem Madam chair we were trying to make this we were trying to I was trying to working with Andy we were trying to come on the night to make this as simple as we can we don't want to make this a big deal you know no good deed goes unpunished I mean that's the way it is no and I know I think that you guys have done a great job but I think what has come to light is the more you go down the rabbit hole of trying to put these other places it does become more difficult than it needs to be right um and then maybe as we go through the budget process we can talk about the funding I mean personally if it's if it's on our thing but we're asking somebody else to fund it does that mean we give up control over over the choices that are made I don't know is it something though if it's going to be if the city's going to be able to pick out what they want should they participate in the funding I don't know what is better or what is not but I think at this expensive I think yeah it is expensive um I think I would like a little bit more time to just kind of think about it to be honest with you um and and and see what other places are doing like the city of Fort Pierce and I know we don't want to do artwork I get that but the city of Fort Pierce you know in certain sectors of their Community they have a different theme of what the pictures look like like downtown that's what I said where like the highway Museum the area is is Highwaymen pictures and then in other areas of Port St Lucy it's more you know um I guess landscape or nature photos um I'm a big fan of highway men so I like the highway men pictures but that's besides the point um so I just think that maybe we can let this settle for a little bit and and think about it and then come back because there's no real I know we want to bring it to fruition and get some answers but it's it's not um at an emergency here and I feel like between what they have going on um and what we have going on from a planning perspective if we try to figure it out today we're going to create a bureaucratic nightmare for somebody because staff's too nice to tell us that um it's they're overworked and I do think that um there's the Ombudsman coming on and some other people within Community Development that might be able to shepher through some special projects so you would have somebody that could kind of champion from a staff's perspective this while everybody else is championing other things I would again we don't want to make the complicated I just first of all want to know if y'all any staff wants to know if y'all want to continue this somehow how we do it to me I would like to see it done on a staff level let staff come up with a with the staff that that they could find to maybe you know meet every couple of months to see what picture let them do it I I don't know if I don't necessarily have the time to get involved I'm telling you it's not as easy as you think I know I guarantee you it's not as easy but you keep it happy but I think but you keep try to keep everybody happy and go with the best thing you can so I guess what we really need to know is is if y'all want to continue this and we and I just threw that out there because there was some discussion from some from a few people well what's this committee how's this committee who's this committee that's siding well there you go to me if it was up to me I think less is a better number and keep politicians out of it in in my opinion so that's kind of where I'm at with this I'm I'm I don't care I would like to continue it how we do that is is and if y'all want to make decisions if not if not we can leave it to the County Administrator and staff okay whatever you'all want to do I'll get back to you commissioner and yes and I I agree with some of those comments as well uh but uh you hit some key points uh talking about visual noise um I I have to say that I've traveled the same roads that the Joe has traveled you know when we go down south and you see them some of I can't tell you what's on them but I I see them but they're a distraction too okay people are looking at them in addition I see some that have some wear and tear on them so I'd like the opportunity to see how this summer heat one year how how how this summer heat affects them okay the ones that we have those boxes got get tremendously hot I don't know how durable those wraps are I have seen wraps in other jurisdictions that are bubbled up or t torn maybe maybe when when they get tapped maybe when they're hot if somebody happens to be at the traffic box and does this they peel off maybe maybe not uh but and I'm not not detracting from the appearance value but to do all the boxes and to really don't have a a plan uh I I ask I'd like to call for pause on it now as as the the the chairwoman did as to look at is this really a viable project for us to engage in with out a strong Foundation underneath it and then what are we adding to the community by putting uh randomly selected pictures on the bo the traffic boxes and it is to me some visual noise look when we want to put up one little sign going over the bridge people get up in arms not another sign you you take it away from the landscap ape well you could argue that the artwork might add to the landscape but it also detracts and it is a distraction you tell me you'd rather see a silver box than something with something nice I like the Silver Box yeah because it doesn't it doesn't distract it's taken for granted it Blends in it's the tree in the forest it's it's it's a it's a box it's traffic control device it it you know they're at well most railroad crossings we're waiting for a few more but at the railroad crossings KN they want to make them obvious there's all red lights but when they're they're not on they they blend in with the environment uh the same way with our street lights you know we start putting a lot of colorization to it it comes to distraction it's nice for downtown environment but uh and traveling through the county I I'm really it's not that popular with me at this point and I think that we need to do a little bit more thought process to it before we go forward it is a little pricey too if we do every box it's about 50 Grand and I I like the idea of of you know of the people paying for it when it's their property or municipality engagement but I it's 50 Grand we offered the you know I talked about ini initially when we talked about this back in October 22 about getting sponsorships families getting somebody to sponsor and put their how many sponsorships do we have so far on it' be like you get the Joe flasher you know this box by the Joe flasher family that kind of thing if you wanted to do that so now that that I'm I'm what I'm telling you is I'm wide open here do y'all want to continue this we can figure out a way and come back with a even a better plan if you want to do but we need to know whether you want to spend any because it's going to take some of staff's time I don't want to put it at the top top of the list but it's going to take some staff time to work it out because we have we have things we need to work out as for distraction I think they just like the brand new tree you planted on the corner you see it when the first thing that's a nice tree and you really don't see it anymore after you keep passing it to the 220th time so but I I think it beautifies the county I think it gets rid of a silver box the response for this from the public whether it's on the Vero neighborhood or the in River County neighborhood thing on social media was just through the roof with regards to positive stuff everybody that I've talked to emails I've gotten and done it I just want to know what y'all want to do I don't disagree that the community likes it so I you know from that perspective there's there's definitely Community Buy in and that's a great thing um I just think that there needs to be to your point that you just made maybe a little bit more fleshed out ideas of how it works with some direction um and I'm fine with the administrator and and staff putting something together in the future and bringing it back after they kind of get through these planning processes because I think that's a number one and actually this probably fits in with some of that strategic planning about Community engagement and about bringing our communities into one family so we could work that we could work that in but I'm not opposed to continuing to figure out the answers to those questions the issues I brought up were my concerns based on right now and being cognizant of Staff needing to focus on ,000 planning processes Commission L yes thank you madam chair when I do the math it's closer to 990,000 uh not to be a pesas but when I drive by them I see $500 taxpaying dollars on a box that's what I see and they may love it on social media commissioner man and they may enjoy the the photos but they probably don't know it cost $500 of their tax dollars to put those on there now I would support my position is I do not support any tax taxpayer dollars going forth for any of these that's going to add in Gross up the staff time and we've got too many things going on not that this isn't significant this is huge to some degree however we've got a budget hearing coming up we've got a lot of things that are probably going to be increased for our taxpayers I can't see 90 to $100,000 a taxpayer dollars going anywhere now when things settle down if we have a situation where uh I'm not so sure about a committee because as chair Adam said sometimes you get some infighting there um to drag things out even more but it's going to cost us something whether it's staff time or what if there's some grants if there's some funding maybe Fort Pierce for St Lucy maybe they had a resource that that we don't know about but we can't spend $500 for tax paying dollars on each one can't we can't do that uh particularly with the other things that are going on and I I was curious about the longevity as well and you said I think 5 years um so what do we do after the five years what if the $500 per box at today's date goes to 600 next year or next month whenever so for those um unless we have a separate and distinct external funding source I what do you all think about sponsorship I mean I I think that's tacky I think the next thing you'll see is you put it in a small thing at the bottom you won't put any logos or nothing it's just you know it would just say you know dear old L family something like that I don't know y'all don't want to do it that's yall don't want to do it that's okay I motion we no longer do it commissioner MOS you had a comment yes I think some of my questions were answered uh I was wondering about longevity so that I understand it's five years um do you know or or Andy do you know how do they perform in Hurricane sto or severe storm situation would they get off if you know they're stuck on yeah I mean I think they're pretty well attached but I do know they have a life cycle and that's approximately five years okay um and then I've also had questions about the funding of it um if they since you've already presented it the idea to I guess publicly to ver Beach and then uh to the city managers of the other cities was did funding come up do we know what the the positions of the the cities are with regard to funding just a general idea whether they wanted to participate and know specifics about how if or when that would happen yeah because I I think I think we would certainly need to look for sources of funding I think they're very striking I mean I've seen a number of them uh the the eagle in particular I'm looking at it now I mean I've I've seen that I've driven past it it is it it is very very striking but yes I think we have the the funding consideration is Paramount let me make a suggestion and commissioner Laura I know you made a motion but let me just consider this for a second Andy your intention is to have somebody that kind of handle special projects as a because we we do have a tendency to assign a lot of special projects to Community Development probably because we don't know where else to assign them so I apologize for that but if you're going to bring somebody on in the next year here with the next budget cycle whose job is going to do that and there's no rush at this point and then we can get some more public feedback perhaps when that person comes on board in the fall or whatnot this can be something that they can look at this meeting review these questions and try to bring something back later in the fall is to answer those questions look at the possibility of funding what other areas are doing and how to vet the pictures and make those decisions in a non bureaucratic nightmare Manor as a as a way just to because I I feel like some of us it's not that we don't necessarily like the program we just don't want to spend a lot of time on it we don't spend a lot of money on it it could you know there's some value in it from a public you know perception perspective and it it it could could we we talked about as part of the Strategic plan branding and public education it could be a way to do that um but I do agree too it doesn't necessarily need to be at every where the Osprey is I know it's beautiful but I didn't even know that box was there until it was wrapped with an ospre because it I think it used to be green and it just Blended in with the bushes um red of his beak so as an idea that would basically you know when the next budget starts on October and that PE person is in place this could be something that gives a staff person but not um takes away from the other work that Community development's doing again was part of the raise of do we whether we want to pursue this or not you know in whatever whatever way you wanted to that that was on the table too y with that it's just an idea and and what you just said Madame chair um and and the fact that you know we don't even we don't have the person in place that would be doing that okay we are uh up against it with staff are we not uh that County ad minist we still up against with staff we need to Boler up and we we would have somebody to be doing that um and the fact of of of the cost factor and so many things that have to be sorted out I think if we're being asked to continue the process or not continue the process and what Avenue we want to take well we can't answer the second question we can't answer the first question either because right now we don't have everything in motion it was a nice pilot project uh let's evaluate it uh I'd like to Second uh commissioner Law's motion so that this can be brought back at a subsequent date when we have the proper Staffing when we have other questions answered there's no reason why this can't be sorted out and worked and strategized uh to see if we have a different funding mechanism to see if the durability is there to see if the options are for submission or sponsorship uh I'm not really fond of that SP sponsorship because people will then self- enfranchise their their their own image uh onto the box that you can you don't have to do 186 boxes you can do as many as you want you could do 10 more next year again you see that's another variable so then we pick and choose to do that so I think we would like to do is that and my that's why I'm seconding uh commissioner Law's motion that we end it today uh for because there's no really way to continue it because we don't have the Personnel we don't have the the the Staffing we don't have the uh fi Finance mechanism is just ideation again so I'd like to do is end it and return it when we want to just so I understand commissioner lore's motion was to stop which to me says kill the program in general correct not to bring it back correct that's correct and I but you're seconding it so it can be brought back I'm no I'm seconding it to any further action today commissioner wants to bring it back he can most certainly bring it back and he can uh work with staff and maybe work with other funding I think if we but if we were to that's where I think staff gets confused is is if we are to kill it today staff is not going to work with anybody to do anything even have the staff to work it corre motion on the floor BR back the the motion on the floor is to terminate the project is there a second there was already a second to terminate I there was a second to terminate it w with instructions to staff to bring it back no I said they could they could Council they uh I I'll just keep it clean motion and a second to terminate the project okay end of carry Okay so we have a motion a second we I'll take the vote and see where that goes and go from there all right a motion a second by commissioner lore and commissioner flesher all in favor opposed I I would propose to get the general theme of where you're going is that somebody make a motion that we will revisit this at the time in the future where there is a staff person who can handle putting together the programs and answering the questions of which we have asked the record that motion failed three to2 oh yes sorry three to two thanks Bill I'll make that motion okay you'll make that motion I will second that motion we have a new motion all in favor I opposed with and commissioner FL are you're opposed to that okay so that motion passes 3 to2 so it is basically back burner until somebody comes on to deal with it all right anything else for the good of the order oh last thing I forgot to announce earlier um for Administrative Professionals week there is a food there is food trucks available in our parking lot tomorrow from 11:00 a.m. to 130 so come out and have lunch happy Administrative Professionals week and and we stand adjourned