it's advertised it's advertised welcome everyone we're gonna do the rad call Mayor Bruner here vice mayor Rich yes commissioner Clark um yes commissioner Collins here commissioner McDonald here and U we're going to do the invocation of be uh pastor broches and then right after that everyone stand now and after that we'll do the Pledge of Allegiance Pastor broes thank you sir shall we pray Father in Heaven again thank you for your grace and mercy to us again just uh how we appreciate being able to live in this beautiful area you've given us Lord we thank you for these men and women and for their desire to serve us and to uh even to make this place better pray that you would give them wisdom and understanding and direction this evening even as they deliberate these matters as well as as they look to the things of the future so we pray for their physical health their spiritual health and your mental health Lord encourage them just day by day and we pray this all in the wonderful name of our Lord Jesus amen amen I PL aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you sir okay our hearts moment Sabrina Sano is going to do a song performance [Music] not go my love with without asking my IED all night and now [Music] [Music] my I feel I you when I [Applause] [Music] am not go my love without asking my I start up and stret my hands to touch you [Music] I ask [Music] [Music] myself I bangle your feet with my heart heart and hold them fast to my not go my love without asking my [Music] [Applause] that was beautiful thank you very much now we're going to go into uh mayor was oh yes for thank [Applause] you thank you have the um June uh Jimmy Smith will be receiving this and Miss dly read that for me please of course Madam mayor whereas juneth is the oldest known celebration commemorating the abolition of slavery in the United States in the emancipation of African-American slaves and celebrates successes gained through education and greater opportunity and whereas Union Soldiers landed at Galveston Texas on June 19th 1865 with news that the war had ended and that the enslaved were now free on that first juneth the people of Texas were read general order number three which stated the people of Texas are informed that in accordance with a proclamation from the executive of the United States all slaves are free and whereas the first juneth celebration was a time for reassurance prayer in the Gathering of family members today juneth continues to grow within communities and organizations throughout the country numerous local and National Jun jth organizations have Arisen alongside older organizations with the common mission of promoting and cultivating knowledge and appreciation of African-American history and culture while encouraging continuous self-development and respect for all people and cultures and whereas on a large larger scale celebration of juneth reminds me reminds each of us of the precious Promises of Freedom equality and opportunity which are the core of the American dream now there I Rebecca s Bruner mayor of the city of Stewart Florida do hereby Proclaim June 19th 2024 as juneth Freedom Day thank you and Jimmy Smith is going to receive this he's a president of the NAACP and Nina also here too down oh Jimmy wants us jimy Jimmy likes you hold open the proclamation I am I am I got it thank you good afternoon good afternoon my name is Nina douly I'm the president of Asus which is a nonprofit here in in Martin County um Stewart city of Stewarts we are hosting the juneth event this year we're doing something different than a Festival in the Park we're actually holding a Miss juneth Pageant so we want to get our young girls involved and the the the theme is Raising Queens so we're we're have we're delighted to have three we have two categories we have a miss junior juneth and a miss teen juneteth so we have three lovely ladies in the junior category from middle school age and we have two lovely ladies in the High School uh age group for the miss team this year so I'm encouraging everyone to come out it's juneth Freedom Day at the 10 Street rec center we're very excited the very first pageant in in East Stewarts and uh we want everybody to come out and enjoy celebrate with us these ladies are working very hard on their talents and their evening gowns so we just want everyone to come out and we also have mayor Becky Bruner as a judge and commissioner Clark as a judge so we have great things going on for this this pageant we're putting everything behind these young ladies and we just like your support thank you day and day juneth is the 19th June 19th is on the Wednesday at 700 p.m. at the 10 Street rec center is when the ceremony starts thank you perfect good good y'all come out here support it uh good judges I just want to say this uh give a shout out to uh all of you all for this beautiful day I just believe in when one free all us free is because the love God gave us in our heart for each other uh second I want to give a shout out to the uh fire department there was a fire on my street uh my neighbor and they responded awesome they came out with love and they share a lot of love to that uh that neighbor of mine and I just want the city student to know we got the one of the finest uh fire department also police department in the State of Florida praise God all right thank you [Applause] all okay we're going to go into our service award first award is Michael Woodside I know inside here it says 20 years please come [Applause] forward he's kind of a celebrity 20 years [Music] [Laughter] I just want to say thank you for the last 20 years never forget never of a really fun place work um and as for the bestas water have it [Laughter] [Applause] sip Michael Marshall also has 20 years thank you come forward he's not here out is he here move on we'll get give our next recipient 15 years of service Robert Green [Applause] here he's very picky thank [Applause] you we have several men tonight celebrating Thomas Gillan 15 years of service Mr Gillan [Applause] 10 years of service Robert Cummings [Applause] comings B Bob is what keeps our fire department running yes thank you Mr he's fixed everything in at once [Applause] okay another 10 years Cory Lee Mr [Applause] Lee Bach spech take a picture real quick yeah picture of the family thank you great you mind coming down mayor thank you or you could sit down get all that sun you like get the S this thank you yeah ready doesn't look like you were hanging out playing video games thank you [Laughter] [Applause] and now the drum roll oh yes right over there five years Darren [Applause] [Music] Duke come on come up bring the team up picture too I think that they're they're really is Darren a say he's a Unicorn it's a way to embarrass Darren give them the Unicorn yeah you need the Unicorn Darren you need you need the good luck for another five years look at his team is very Happ to see that birthday I'm leaving that alone speech speech about the future of the Cities it I I I can't talk about that because of State statue but what I what I kind of will take a few minutes to to talk about is my my five years is almost irrevocably linked to April of 2019 when the city was Ransom word and anybody that was here at the time and any Resident or tried to contact the city in April or May of 2019 knows what the city went through it was where we are today 5 years on to where we started is night and day but that couldn't be done right I'm not the only one involved in that it couldn't be done without the current commission so congrat thanks to you guys and also a former commission and also I wouldn't be correct if I didn't mention Mr Mortel the current city manager and also Mr Das the pr city manager without their support and also um Jolie boli Louis boli the finance director none of what we've accomplished in the last five years would have been here um so it's not just me it's it's a team sport and every single employee and every member of my department past and present also deserves irrevocable thanks for the craziness that we've spent since April of 2019 so thank you guys for thank you [Laughter] [Music] happy birthday no next is um our presentation procedure for the blue green AE healthy advisory notices presentation by the Martin County Department of Health they're here thank you sir thank you so happy that you're here I appreciate that so this kind of came about I met with Mr Morell a few weeks ago uh recently was appointed as the new health officer for the floor Department of Health in Martin County and got to talking about Blu analogy and kind of it looked like we were off to a bad start with the discharges and there was some Blu green Aly that was uh found in this St Lucy Estuary east of the Roosevelt Bridge so it was a little you know worrisome of where we were headed but luckily that's kind of seemed to have been mitigated with the lack of discharges but my main purpose to uh just let you guys know the process that comes about with us posting our notifications our cautions and our alerts um there's a a document that I provided that's kind of like a process map basically what it comes down to is uh de DS the lead agency they'll sample or they'll go out and they investigate for potential algo blooms and if it's either noted to be an uh Bloom present or if it's tested and it's an actual blue green algae then we have the ability to issue a caution and we'll put up our caution signs we've back in 2013 and 16 we worked with the city of Stewart Martin County we came up with a sign that was approved by the state that has all of our logos and uh we we we do Post those where it's Public Access access and if the D test results then come back with a certain level of either anot toxin or microen so the toxic blue green algae then we will issue an alert and that's kind of the the process behind it and I just wanted to let you guys know our roll there is a a good website it's the Florida agle Bloom dashboard it's a d site you can go to it it's uh de florida.gov alol Bloom and and that has it tracks everything it shows what the levels of the toxins were when how old the samples were so you can kind of keep track of where it's at right now everything that we see is in the lake or right around the uh Port Myaka lock so there's not anything east of that at this time but I just wanted to present that to you guys and let you ask questions if you have any um even you know pertaining to other issues initiatives with the health department so I just I just want to comment to the reason that we asked the uh Health Department to come is because it's this time of year that we start getting questions from our friends and Neighbors about why the city hasn't put up a sign to warn people of perspective uh conditions in the water and it's the Health Department's um Sole and exclusive jurisdiction as it relates to the determination for those signs and what they say on them and so our answer is to lean on them for that information rather than arbit contrarily put them them up ourselves and I wanted the them to come down and tell us um how they make that determination and and what goes into it and obviously you can see by the uh chart that he's placed up there that they take a lot of time to be very specific about it rather than over alarming or under alarming and we're we're more than happy to work together in the event that we do have to post something around city of Stewart then we'd be happy to post signage Fair signage you know collocate things we're happy to do that we have that ability as well so yeah hopefully we don't have to worry about it that's right any any questions um thank you for coming so do you have a regular testing schedule at at specific sites around no uh D it's site specific so they're they're constantly testing around the locks they test around uh JNS Fish Camp there's some sites that they hit more frequently because it's occurrence but usually it's becoming more and more of a common term like blue green algae season uh where it's the summer months and then it kind of Fades away around November October so there's not really they'll cease sampling at a certain point in time after they stop getting any active blooms or any visible blooms they'll they'll cease the sampling for the year and then they'll pick it up again this year was early it was April so now if somebody sees isn't there a means by which they can take a picture and send it to someone that that is and there's a website at the bottom of this that you can you can upload your picture you can contact e and they'll go and investigate and they'll sample it right and this is online as part of our agenda and we' reached at our agenda and how long does it take to get a result back they usually sample beginning of the week and we get the results by the end of the week so that we can post any advisories before the end of the week so usually if anything's going to go out like an alert takes about five days four to five days y it's not ideal but it's it's decent and do the county and the city incur a cost for those that testing no okay just straight from D all right y thank you question and when you're in season how frequently are you test are they testing they test weekly at the same sites um sometimes the sites overlap and we'll get like something that says to lift and alert but we'll wait a few days knowing that they just sample the same site and there was a visible broom Bloom so we have a little bit of a ability to uh use local jurisdiction our local knowledge of the situations so we we don't jump to conclusions if it's an alert and we have to post something we do that automatically but if they're telling us to a lift and alert we'll we'll kind of wait and gauge it if we know that there's a visible Bloom still there and if there is we'll still leave up our caution signs in Spanish and English so it's still an advisory Don't Touch the Water don't eat um what is it we have the Don't Touch the Water keep your pets and livestock away from it and um we do also work with the state level works with the state veterinarians they send out messages to all the veterinarian offices like some signs and symptoms to recognize with the animals that may have ingested the AO Bloom Waters a great idea may yes maybe between you and Ben uh do we specifically put the don't touch the water signs by our Parks like say Shepherd's parks and all the entrance to boat ramps and places where people directly are going to be entering the water if if we do see a visible Bloom and we get a notification or if it's tested and it comes back with a um microsyst and the toxins then we will post signage and we work with we'll work with Ben and just notify the city that hey we're going to post a sign or ask if they want to post signs so it's typically our signs and as a reminder to the commission sorry Ben hogra for the record um a lot of this uh stemmed from 2016 after the first um and that's when I first came in uh to the city as well uh that first onset um I know there was a horrible summer back in 2013 before that 2016 is really where everything kind of came to a head and then 2018 was a recurrent uh um but 2016 we realized that you know we really needed to to do some more uh messaging you know at a local level and and thankfully do was very responsive we all got together uh they solicited feedback from um from the county from us so it was really kind of a group effort to to get this kind of signage out there and and uh do has been kind of taking the lead on this ever since um and as far as like the the local parks and messaging has gone out every single year we've had algae blooms thankfully um at least for our Estuary blue grein algae um although it's a natural occurrence the the type of species that um and I'm not the biologist but the species to our understanding that produce the toxins and and where you get the toxins at the highest level and the highest concentration where they're dangerous it's typically following these discharge events from Lake Oobi a lot of it is is arguably all of what we get um when it creates a toxic um atmosphere for the river is after one of those blooms so although do does have spot testing and there there are spot issues um especially in the c44 canal because that still will continuously get um water periodically from um from the lake even if the the Estuary itself the the river doesn't get it after that um there could still be Canal issues and issues right past Port Myaka so it's important I think for the public to realize that um you know where the testing occurs in the locality of it is also important to pay attention to when you see these messages um so there's a lot of different moving pieces to that but um you know the the messaging the signs go out um you know you typically a few days you know after we've seen kind of a positive test do has historically kind of put those signs physically out there and they leave them up pretty much for the rest of the season because um as was just mentioned you can expect if it's you know March or April it's only going to be warmer for the next few months so uh that that's probably out there through the rest of the summer at that point um thankfully this year discharges only lasted for 60 days so the threat to us was was very minimal and and short right yeah and I did pre fail to mention that this is a freshwater algae so when it makes it into the brackish environment and the salt water it dies off and there will be toxins present but it's not supposed to proliferate and grow in the environment it's just what's been sent Downstream thank you you're welcome thank you do you have something to add uh uh no that'll be everything um we just have uh Department of Health did provide these resources at the bottom here so um D has a website this is kind of a reminder something again the state did start a few years ago um where you can report alal blooms as well so it's not just a site for alalo information it's also for reporting and I could tell you that not only D but the Army Corps a lot of uh federal and state agencies do pay attention to those so well well thank you that that we buil build this relationship I thank our manager this is this is great thank you apprciate you thank you no sir no sir you can save it thank you yeah the public comment sir and fill out the the green slipper coming when it's time for the public comment the development update Jody um actually I think I'm going to handle that for her today just because we were going over it if you don't mind yes please thank you the pointer it's extremely important I have a question so procedurally the way we run these meetings if if a person right if a if somebody has a question it seems more streamlined though while the guys at the mic I and in today's circumstance you're right it probably would have the problem is procedurally if you open it up every single time someone talks to a public comment but I agree that that probably would have been the fastest and best thing to do today anyway um so this is a development update we had it last month um as well um and I've uh basically going to be presenting once a month just kind of an update to give the Commissioners and the public an idea of what's going on in Stewart um I don't know if I can change the slides from here I don't think so can you come next okay so um this uh picture right here depicts the city of Stewart's boundaries and um it also uh depicts the outline of the only uh City in Martin County with a one ISO rating um moving forward and to understand the future land use map a future land use is a general use of land the red that runs along the US1 Corridor is commercial the yellow is the low density single family the light blue kind of down toward downtown is the urban uh Center and just north of the bridge as well is the was the CRA Urban overlay zones that in uh 2001 the treasure coost Regional planning Council was hired by the city commission to uh conduct a charet a study and to provide these overlay zones because uh the city of Stewart was trying to revitalize its downtown what was determined by uh the Consultants as well as all of the feedback was that downtown essentially every day at 5:00 died and on the weekends it was virtually a ghost town and the businesses had trouble even surviving downtown and uh they hired uh Andre dwani to come up from Miami a nationally known planner and the treasure Co Regional planning Council conducted charettes and studies and they determined that the reason for that was that there was literally no housing in the urban center and that that was contrary to the idea of providing um a vital downtown so codes were changed and essentially what the commission said was well we don't want to have any straight zoning we don't want it to be where people can just come in and build whatever they want under these certain guidelines and make it fit in a box what we want to do is we want to write the code so that the commission grants exceptions and it was called special exception for everything for the first seven years and that way every project will come before the commission and it can of be molded and negotiated with the commission to make sure it has a consistency and a relationship to the vision of the community and allowed for Community input Etc uh when Carol waxler and Mary Hutchinson became Commissioners um they felt that the uh special exceptions were being granted every single time somebody came into the room but that was actually the intent of the code and they didn't like it being called special exception and so they changed changed it to conditional use the reality of is it didn't change the code it just changed the nomenclature because they felt like special exceptions sounded like the city was giving stuff away but what was written into the code back then in this blue area that you see here was that the in 2001 you were allowed to have four stories by right as you are in Mar County and they took that away and they said well it's no longer four stories by right it's only for sted by right if 25% of it includes residential and I know there's a lot of people that feel strongly against Residential these days but in 2001 it was the contrary and the planners were saying no you need the residential in order for your community to thrive after 5:00 pm and on weekends and to be vibrant and and for those of you that have been around prior to 2001 downtown was a different place um when they first started the Rock and River walks on Sundays I got my name Ron Hart had to go to all of the stores in downtown and ask them to stay open on Sundays and and they wouldn't they didn't even stay open it was there was nobody downtown and they did The Rock and River Walk anyway and downtown was about a third of the stores would be open and that's it fast forward the people living downtown and the uh consistency of the downtown Business Association and the uh Stewart Main Street as well as the patrons Sunday has turned into one of downtown Stewart's best days of the week from a standpoint of entertainment and uh people coming down and uh shopping Etc in any event the future land use is not the specifics of how many plants and what the how many windows and how many bedrooms it's more of a broad idea and this said the the future land use says we want this to be kind of the downtown urban area and then we want this to be the residential area and this to be kind of the commercial business Corridor this also to be residential area and of course up here as well and then of course US1 uh commercial area and then down here these kind of brownish is more of the multif family and there uh Kingswood and Cedar Point Plaza Etc where it's white here you can see like this is Snug Harbor which was uh not in the city of Stewart it's actually in the county in fact all of the white area is County can you go the next slide so city of Stewart it wasn't always called Stewart it was called pot Stam at one point this water tower is right here it's changed over the years I actually got married on top of the water tower right there um in any event uh it was settled in the 18 1880s it was pineapples fishing and boat building and green turtles not sure what that means but we won't say they ate them or killed them um but uh if you look off the if you look off the shore here in really low tide sometimes you can see some of the pilings that stick up where the decks used to be be that the boats would bring the pineapples into downtown Stewart and then load them on the trains to be shipped to other areas in 1914 the city of Stewart was incorporated as a city in Palm Beach County current population has gone up I think it's closer to 18,700 but we'll get into that in a little while and the square miles for the city of stward is a moving Target as well because if you look at the maps the square mileage also includes the middle of the river and it goes down the river based on where the channel is for the water and so it does include water some people say it's seven square miles but either way median income is roughly $51,000 it was in the low 40s used to be the capital Palm Beach County it is now the um the uh Martin County's County Seat there's plenty of History here and we uh pride ourselves in the preservation of same as you can see The Lyric Theater has been there for a very long time but another thing you need to notice that's really important is down town it's full it's busy these are buildings that were here already this development did not happen recently this is not part of the reason for the traffic that I keep hearing about can we go to the next slide so comprehensive plan I always hear well that's violating the comprehensive plan or I'm a slow growther and I follow the comprehensive plan and what the comprehensive plan is is that in 1984 the State of Florida adopted regulations that said all zoning agencies which would be counties and cities are required to Pro provide a comprehensive plan and the legal this is the saying 1975 the comprehensive plan act but in 1984 is when it was mandated for everybody to do it 1985 the start of Florida enacted the local government comprehensive planning and Land Development regulations which is 163 and it requires us to update that comprehansive plan every seven years with your amendments but I will tell you in 1985 when the city of Stewart adopted its comprehensive plan it projected that the buildout for the city of Stewart was going to be somewhere between 25 and 30,000 people and as it went through it updated and everyone hears about annexation as well but before you get into annexation it used to be prior to 1985 annexation would be if you wanted Municipal Services libraries sidewalk street lights cable water sewer things of that nature when they State of Florida adopted the these acts they also uh put in what's called mstu and people see on their tax bill you have mstu well mstu stands for municipal service taxing unit and what they did is they made the 67 counties essentially act as cities and of course we're all agents of the state so the counties had the ability to install these Municipal services and then charge the residents that moved into the unincorporated areas taxes for the use of those Services just as the cities would but when I hear the idea that if the city of Stewart annexes something that it's causing sprawl that would be based on the presumption that if it didn't Annex there would no be no building outside of Stewart an example of that would be Palm City Palm City was never annexed into the city of Stewart but Palm city is not vacant by any means obviously because under the mstu it can be done however and no offense to those of you from Palm City but um if someone lives in Palm City and they come down and use the boardwalks and come to the Fourth of July and watch the fireworks or whatever it might be they pay their property taxes and you know they're part of the community but the truth is they don't pay the city any taxes so they don't contribute to the maintenance of the boardwalk they don't contribut to the fund for the fireworks they don't contribute to the uh security necessary or the parks Etc that are obviously centrally utilized and and the same goes for people from outside of the County as well and that's fine it just happens to be that when annexations come along they the the pretext is that the cities should Annex to have that that development be inside the city limits so that when those taxes are collected it also gets shared between the county and the city can I go to the next slide please so this is 1974 Stewart and the reason I included this slide is because wow it looks like Stuart now um so whatever you remember from the traffic in 1974 as I do Stewart was there it already had happened so it's all here you know it um go to the next slide please 1974 Norse okay if you go back one back one slide again I also want to point out this is also the only city in the county that has a one ISO rating that we just got renewed on Friday um go to the next slide please one eyes um this is uh 1974 North Stewart so right here's the Roosevelt bridge going over the river this has been annexed into Stewart right here but this is north of Shores that was there this is Jensen Beach Boulevard this is the Best Buy Etc can we go to the current Stuart this wasn't here but it's all here now but even without being annexed into the city a lot of this development happened and sure enough Annex didn't cause sprawl Mike it looks like the part that was annexed in the city has actually a lot less sense this is the portion that was annexed into the city right here right that's the cities and Haney Creek yeah and Haney right there um if we go to the next slide this is 1974 south of the city so if we go this is US1 leading South this is caner highway kind of going out South out this way you can see Salo road but might be right at there I don't know if that's Indian Street or yeah that's Indian Street right there go to the next slide and that's what south of the city looks like now but go back to the 7 the one before so in 1974 you can see the airport right here and the city limits is you know the stuff's in it it's already built this stuff this traffic was being generated go to the next slide this down here and all this and I'm not saying it's wrong or bad or anything anything wrong with it but what happens is these people travel down us one and down caner highway to come down town or to go places and we see traffic from that and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that but I hear every day that steuart's development has created all of this traffic and when I look at it I I can clearly see by a map that these Outer Limits are where traffic comes from um move to the next one I think the contention would be that if you add two to three thousand units of development over per it's going to increase the population density in that without a doubt and that's why I'm bringing these presentations forward because I think it's important 1974 south of Indian Street so I kind of zoomed in you can see the river going there this is the South down to Cove Road maybe go to the next one quite a bit of development this was part of those preserv areas which is good um you can see 95 is now here didn't happen before till 1990 keep going this is west of Stewart so in this particular image Stewart is over here but you can see it was full it was busy Lighthouse Point North of Shores all the way down that's the Palm City Bridge and this is essentially Palm City next one and now it's changed quite a bit you can see uh next one um this is the south of Indian Street again and go to the next they probably mixed up a little bit again lots of stuff so here are our populations historic population census 20 30 40 50 all the way to 2020 population 778 147% growth rate in 1930 meant it went from 700 to 1900 people Martin County came in in 1925 it had a 23% growth rate CU it went from 5,000 to 6,000 St Lucy County showed up in 1910 1920 Port St Lucy didn't come 330 people in 1970 which is a major number but they did have a 4,000% gross rate growth rate the next year moving forward though if you look here in like the 1970s you had a 6% growth rate and then 1980 it went from 4,000 to 9,000 so it added 5,000 people and it had a 96% growth rate 1970 to 1980 Martin County though didn't add 5,000 people it added 30,000 people and then if you go to 1980 to 1990 Martin or Stuart added 2,000 people Martin County didn't add 2,000 it added 35,000 and then 90 to 2,000 Stuart added 3,000 people 90 to 2,000 Martin County added 25,000 people and then 2 to 210 Stuart added about a th000 people 2 to 210 Martin County added another 20,000 people and then 210 to 220 Stewart added about 2 to 3,000 Martin County added another 12,000 so when you start hearing about these percentages and growth rates you have to understand that percentages really mean nothing what what you recognize is that Stewart from 1930 to now let's just call that 18,000 and that was 2,000 has added 16,000 people well Martin County has added 16,000 people every single decade from 1930 or from 1960 to the current president and there's nothing wrong with that because Martin County's 10 times the size of Stuart it's not supposed to have not done it I'm just saying that when Stuart when I get to hear this fact that Stuart's got this overwhelming number of people it really hasn't added that many people over that time time and in fact the land had already been impacted the frustration is with the apartments Mike the frustration is with the 2 to 3,000 Apartments we're going to get to that next two I'm going to talk about them um the other thing is the city of Port St Lucy the city of Port St Lucy and again nothing wrong with it but the Macker Leaf Brothers uh bought all the land up in uh St Lucy County many many years ago and they platted the land and had phone Banks and different ways to sell land to people all over the country and it grew quickly and one of their uh most Wells spoken Mayors uh was very excited about it and and brought uh Port St Lucy kind of into the new age and started doing infrastructure and things like that and in 2004 Port St Lucy was the fastest growing city in the United States it would play games with um with uh Las Vegas as to who was in first and who was in second place but in 20 5 Frank Brogan who at the time was the lieutenant governor for the State of Florida but was also a second grade teacher here in Stewart and had also been education commissioner superintendent among other things spoke at the bdb luncheon and he everyone had these fears of all this growth and they said Martin County is Broward ising and they're going to turn into Broward County and here comes Broward isation and he said you don't have to worry about Broward isation because you have a comprehensive plan in place and it doesn't matter when the growth happens because because if you have a comprehensive plan in place it can all happen at once or it can happen over a course of years but the comprehensive plan is designed to capture that population and be ready for it and in Martin County you have a height limit of four stories so the economic impact is that no one's going to buy a three-story or a two-story building and tear it down to build a fourth floor because it just doesn't have the economic return in 2005 though he did point out that Broward County had a million people and that million people was consisting of a buildout from the Atlantic Ocean all the way to Weston that was encroaching into the Everglades not just partially but literally in the Everglades exactly and they projected that in the next 15 years Broward County would actually add another million people but how could it because it was already 100% built out their future land use map was Zero vacant land and fast forward to 2020 Broward County sensus population was 1, 980,000 people so it was off by 20,000 of actually building another million people in 15 years but that's because in Broward County you could knock down a three-story building pay that price and then build back a 30 story building get a return on your investment but like a Zool across the street here if someone were to buy a Zool at three stories to put a fourth floor on the return of whatever number of units they got for that fourth floor would never come close to justifying the invest investment so we can all know that under our comp plan no matter what we're not going to be browed but what does that mean it doesn't mean we're not going to be something and it doesn't mean we're not going to face some trials and tribulations so we have to go back to the comp plan and say well what does the comp plan think we should be well in 1985 it thought should we should be 25 to 30,000 people in 1992 it thought we should be 25 to 30,000 people in 1998 there was a lawsuit because of some annexations we highlighted the stuff north of the bridge but there was some South as well and some on Indian Street and after the city of Stewart in 1998 increased its geographic area by 40% its projected buildout under its comprehensive plan went to 25 to 30,000 people and then in 2001 when Andre uh dwani did the study and said that fortory buildings have to have 25% residential in them the next comprehensive plan projected the build out to be 25 to 30,000 people and then in 2007 the county and the city got together and did a um utility agreement and divided up kind of who would provide water to who but as a part of the consumptive use permit had to meet with the Florida D they had to do a population evaluations and the uh Florida D said to the city of Stewart we know that by 2028 you are going to be 28,000 people people and therefore the water consumptive use permit had to be 28,000 people so the comp in 2007 the comp plan projected 28,000 which ironically is right between 25 to 30,000 people so it was consistent with the 1985 comp plan even though the land had increased by 40% and then in February of this year the City commissioners adopted a new consumptive use permit because we opened up our um water treatment plant and after the study was done and lot of development it happened in the meantime the uh projected growth is that if all of the vacant land that's left in stew gets developed at the maximum density the city of Stewart is going to be 23,900 people so it won't actually reach the 25,000 person number even if every single vacant land gets built at 30 units an acre with multif Family Apartments can we go to the next slide so here's the projected population growth St Lucy county is a blip here and comes into play if you look toward St Lucy is a player Stuart is light blue it's right here and it kind of creeps along and it doesn't go much more and let's I say it's an 18 or 19,000 right here let's say it completely builds out and it does get to that 24,000 so it's going to get to about right there the city of Stewart has 65,000 people a day that go over the Roosevelt bridge and that's because people coming from north of us are traveling into Stewart and to the south of us and people going to the south of us are traveling from Stewart to the North or through Stewart to the north and you also have the uh two Bridges going through Palm City that that lead to that too in 2017 the city did a study and in fact every single study the city of Stewart has ever done at any Workshop as it relates to development the outcome from the Consultants is that the city does not have sufficient housing and that they need more housing and if you did that study now they would come back with the same result go to the next slide so the last time the city and the county met and they have to meet under the uh 19 the 19 Florida statute 163 the comprehensive plan act requires a concurrency meeting of the cities and the counties and the school boards so that the school boards can can project how many student chairs they need and everybody can project what they were city of Stewarts projects approved and pending were zero so in 20123 the city approved zero units but it did have one single family home permit issued next Slide the county in review at that meeting had 5,883 units in review which is a lot and that didn't include last year's reviews that's now and the difference between the County in the city is that the countyy is a lot bigger than the city and the county has a lot more vacant land but there are no more cities of Stewart getting buil so when neighborhoods and developments and single family residential and multif family and apartments and whatever they are and Tow houses get built outside of Stewart it doesn't prevent those people from visiting us and we love that we want them to come down all our store owners love it it's it's makes Sundays fun Rock and Riverwalk is a blast but but those people don't have downtowns and so they come to steuart and we get traffic but you know what nobody cares because it's not bad and it's still Paradise in 2003 the city commission was faced by Florida Department of Transportation that they wanted to widen US1 and wanted to bring traffic through Stuart faster and the city said no and they said well if you don't your concurrency rating is going to be an F you're going to get a failing grade it's going to make traffic on us one from the Roosevelt bridge to Jensen Boulevard unbearable it's going to be terrible no one's going to like it and the city said so what they had some workshops and everyone said well that's okay going to be 15 20 minute ride but it won't encourage Highway and speeding and everything and maybe people won't come down and they'll stay up north or whatever it is but we're not widening it anymore that's that but the result in that is that we have traffic and there's no way to stop it other than building more roads but there's nowhere to put roads because we have lots of rivers and water that prevents that the question is what's the balance do you want more roads make the cars go faster or do you want a little traffic and a little inconvenience but enjoy your peace of mind and once you get out of the car you don't have to care you know the next slide so from 2010 to 2014 the city approved 237 units total that's 2010 to 2014 so as I pointed out the last 6 months Martin County had 5,800 units pending this is in the last 14 years the city did that now in 2018 there was some studies and stuff stuff done now what really happened though is the projects that came through were all of these everyone says it was the 2018 year but what really happened is all of these add up to the 1750 or 2,000 units that were talked about and all the apartments that were built that ruined all the neighborhoods and all the other stuff the truth of it is though they didn't they were planned they were part of the comp plan they were there people like to think that Apartments have this negative impact but if you go talk to the families that live in them they say oh God I don't have to drive on US1 anymore coming down from wherever it was I don't have the traffic and I don't have to wait on the Roosevelt Bridge or I don't have to wait in Palm City I don't have to be on ker highway I wanted to live closer to my job and that's what they've done now now the other side to it is is that there was also vacant land and can you go the next slide and the City of Stewart does not have that much vacant land now here's what we have out of all those units 63% are approved or completed 15% are in construction like Costco and 22% are approved and will be built but they're all contemplated in the comprehensive plan in the calculation that was done in February for the um water consumptive use permit Etc can you go again I don't think we're about out of slides here but is that the last one or no so the the reality of it is is that as a from a development perspective the commercial Corridor essentially has four times as many jobs as the city of Steward has housing and as a result every single day all the people that go to those jobs or go there as customers or go there for restaurants or entertainment come in and out of steuart but that's okay because we like it because they bring their money from outside of steuart and leave it with us and it causes our economy to flourish we have options we could have less jobs or we could build more housing or we could maintain our comprehensive plan at the level that it's being maintained except for no matter what we were going to have traffic on can on us one on uh East Ocean Boulevard during the business hours but not on weekends like on Sunday you won't because if the businesses aren't open then the neighbors don't come in to visit because they don't need to because the businesses aren't open and so when you're looking at these development projects we had one approval in 2022 that was 60 units and then we had zero in 2023 and we had zero so far in 2024 and in 2024 as of March the county had had 5800 what is going to happen at some point is that we aren't going to make up the same percentage of the population and can you go back I don't know if we had it in there the Census Data what one that showed the populations so the city of Steward being this the uh County Seat gets gas tax and sales tax and other Revenue sharing from the state that is used to fund a lot of our operations and we when we were say 1950 or let's say 1990 we were 12,000 people and the county was 100,000 people I can do that math we're roughly 12% so we get 12% of the sales tax at 12% of the gas tax and 12% of the revenue sharing and so if we wanted to keep up and have equal growth growth to the county that is no faster than the county but the same growth rate as the county we would be 12% of the county now so if you look at the County's population 163 10% would be 16, 12% 163 time .12 would be 19,500 and we're actually at 18,700 so we are losing ground but the the real losing is going to happen next we have zero multif family future land use Acres left we have zero special neighborhood District future land use Acres left we have 20 single family home future land use Acres left we have I think Six office residential future land use Acres left we have 130 commercial future land use Acres left so if we build that 130 Acres out as commercial you can anticipate that those jobs and those residential or those businesses and customers will all continue and populate but the housing numbers won't so the profit shares won't continue to stay with it and to go back to the annexation that I hear a lot about if in fact I can we go um back a couple or forward a slides like just to the 1974 south of Stuart right there that's good that's south of IND stre now go to the next one so assuming we didn't any we didn't Annex you'd presume that all of this didn't get built but it does get built so when it gets annexed into the City and built the city gets its millage or its its ADV valorum tax and using Costco as a perfect example if Costco hadn't been annexed into the city that land was available and would have been developed just as the putt putt golf course that's on Martin count on caner highway is under construction right now with 309 apartments and and a mixed use commercial component to it and there's nothing wrong with it I'm not saying there's anything I'm just saying that the city gets zero of those tax dollars on the other hand the county gets 6.7 Ms of the money generated from Costco because they're still in the county they're just not in the city of Stewart when you get to the outside stuff and if you compare that uh project that's at the put putut golf case the city puds required 25% Upland preservation that one didn't the city and the case required a uh 5 to10 million Boulevard four lanes wide with a traffic circle in the in the middle and a uh park with 10 foot wide sidewalks on either side between caner Highway and Willoughby Boulevard to be built at the developers expense and the one at the publica golf course didn't and the city required the uh developer to also before starting any construction test the water quality to make it as a flat base and let's see what the water quality is of this land vacant so that it can continue to monitor that water quality and it's PUD has guaranteed that its water treatment Cent system will clean all of the water at any water that's draining into the storm water system off of that property is going to be cleaner than it was when the land was vacant because they put in literally like a fish tank thing it's going to have charcoal and cotton and the water's going to go through filters that have to be changed and and maintained and the city commission is who required that it wasn't the city staff it was policies adopted by the city commission and by you guys that said wait a second I need caught a lot of heat for it but it worked and you also got a lot of heat that it wouldn't have been developed if it wasn't for you guys but that's not true either because if you look at the projects in those 5800 projects that got approved since Costco that were pening in the county they all got developed without getting annexed into the City and caner Highway and I know that there's a lot of misconception on social media about what caner highway is or isn't or should or shouldn't be but the truth is caner highway is considered an arterial highway and it's right here and when it was built can you go back one oh shoot there was one more that's a little further west I can't see it keep going one more there we go so you can kind of see it it's there but there was nothing out there and I know that there's folks that come in that live in here that remember it like that because I do and Martin County High School was like right here and when you got to Martin County high school after that like there was no there was nothing out here till you got to Indian toown and it was a two-lane road and nothing to it but Florida Department of Transportation saw it as an evacuation route and a four-lane road and and they also said we want I95 to come through Martin County and back before 1990s I95 didn't come through Martin County at all you had to get off in St Lucy County and you had to get back on in Palm Beach Gardens but they threatened to withhold all federal dollars and all Federal Highway money if Martin County didn't accept I95 so it had to but once it did that became the exit right there and it's a s mile stretch of road into town and they knew that that seven M stretch of road would end up being a commercial Corridor and an arterial highway so they designed it to be up to six Lanes or eight Lanes wide I think it's three and and and two through throughout and then in like 200 I think it was 11 or 12 the County Commission were approached by floor Department of Transportation and they were going to widen it which they did but they also put in sound walls and that was because the volume of traffic that they anticipated going on that road was going to be so high that those neighborhoods were going to need sound walls to protect them that was not a surprise when then later popey's started getting built and wwas and racetracks and apartment buildings and other commercial activity in Publix and things and Walgreens but that is a highway just as significant as us one is and in F dot in the state of Florida's eyes that's what it was intended for and the volume of traffic on it was intended for that as well which is why when the developers come before the city staff and say can we do this that or the other and they look at it they have to say yes because it meets the standards but we can all rest assured that it's okay because under the comp plan if you follow the 1985 City commission your projection should be that your growth is going to be to 25 to 30,000 people and right now if you continue at the rate you're going you won't make it to the 23,000 but if everything gets built out it'll be 24,000 and as a result when you approve projects it needs to go it needs to be under the guise of the dwani plan and under that Urban um overlay Zone concept that it was like the commission's going to get in and instead of getting beat up and have everybody angry at every meeting it was going to participate with the developer and make it interesting and add things to it to make it Mel with the community more and make it more part of Steward and we want awnings or we want benches or we want shade trees or whatever it is that bike racks and wider sidewalks and maybe it's not an industry standard but it was designed to give the commission an opportunity to Grant the request but at the same time to incorporate and to mold into that request what the Commissioners were feeling from the neighbors as it relates to what makes Steward eclectic and interesting what's happened with the out of out of social media is that instead of it being let's move forward and mold this into something creative it's turned into a if you grant this you're just developing one more apartment complex and ruining Steward and and the truth is that's not how it should be the commission should set policies and if it is that you don't want any more apartment buildings and we need you to amend the code and say no more multif family and if we want to have no more people we need to put signs up and say no more people but it can't be that we continue to have a code that that tells people that here's our future land uses and here's our development and then when they come through they're they're villains and and that's kind of what we're facing and I will continue updating you but the the truth is under the development you can see the city of Stewart really isn't much different and yes the infill I mean I could go back to the present picture and show you how the there's more more houses inside the city limits than there were then but overall from roughly 1980 till now there was about 12 to 13,000 people in 1980 and there's 18,000 people now so a 6,000 person change is not a humongous change 6,000 people would not have Justified the Rosevelt Bridge I'll promise you that and in fact 65,000 people a day go over it you wouldn't be able to measure 6 ,000 people traffic impact on the Roosevelt bridge at all because the volume is so heavy so I just wanted to update you and show you that the city of Stewart isn't actually the traffic and that it's some of a lot of different components but you know what else this is all part of Martin County's comp plan too so it too is not a big deal and those growth rates just so you know when I did them and I don't have them the city of Stewart's growth rate from 2010 to 2020 was 1.1% per year that's it now from 2000 to 2010 it was a little lower it was 6% per year but I will say there was a recession in 2007 8 n and 10 so there was some growth drop off and with the exception I think of 1970 most of the growth rate in the city of Stewart was right around 2% or less and most of the grow growth rate in the county has been with the exception of maybe their first few years under 3% and I think for the last 10 years Martin County's growth rate has been a little over 1% as well it hasn't been this overwhelming growth but if you looked at Port St Lucy to our North there's been a significant amount of growth and we feel that with our neighbors that come down regularly and it's fine we we we all get along and it's great and when you go downtown see people you know on the waterfront enjoying themselves it's all we welcome everybody and that's that's wonderful but we have to decide do we want more roads or do we want to say oh the traffic's really not that bad and that's really what you have to think about when you're seeing it all thank you any questions have Madame mayor Mr Morel oh I just wanted to say okay sorry I just wanted to say that as the chairperson I'm the one that has the control up here and I do that because I need to keep to control go ahead thank you Madame mayor so I wish you had put this up but maybe would probably controversial but just to when we were in the throws of studying um for the bright line I think the city had done some studies and we had had a a map or picture either from ourselves or from our consultant but I think you you probably will know this and it had showed all these ZIP codes of people just coming and who have used the downtown and so on and that particular thing wasn't on there but and I'm not saying that we were you know and people people there were people for and against bright line and all kinds of things but we did there was something there and that was just I wouldn't say it was tip of Iceberg or anything but it was just another thing that showed us in reality what is actually happening and how other factors and other people impact our community whether we want to or not and do we want to put up signs how much will it cost us to put up a big wall around Stuart right now and just have who we want to have dropping by by drone and nobody else for what is worth next month I will do more of the economic engine of and the tourism side of it which will include the bright line and the uh commercial activities that come forward I'll include those slides that showed us that we had about one .8 million visitors come to Martin County every year and where they're made up of and where they come from and how they get here and I'll also do some from the Department of Economic Opportunity uh studies on what we see in the city of Stewart and how that impacts us as well it was called the catchment area yeah yeah and mother mayor I have two other things not much it's just going to be a comment and maybe it might help you um uh steart and what is steart and I know that sometimes we're proud some people say we shouldn't be because we shouldn't let it out let the cat out of the bag and be a secret but people say when we say that we're the um coastal town or we're voted this or we're voted that the perception of Stuart is that we're all the way to Hutcherson Island and people think of Stuart Beach as being steuart and that kind of thing so that's um that's okay I I know I know and so that that that particular um uh perception is there and I I totally agree with you commissioner Clark and people have a mailing address that says Stewart so if someone lives off a Cove Road has their mailing address and it says Stewart on an envelope they believe they live in the city limits of Steward and that's the perception and that's okay and I also want to reiterate I'm not suggesting that this means you should or shouldn't approve anything what I'm saying is that the commission communicates with the people in the community and you guys hear back from them and you should do what you think is best for Stuart I just wanted to demonstrate that I I keep hearing on social media about how Stuart has like destroyed itself in the last three years or 10 years or whatever it was and and I wanted to point out that it it really has been very consistent and that's not to say you should or shouldn't to prove something it just means don't be misled by social social media statements that claim one thing when something else might be the case and do your research and it doesn't mean that you should let a developer just build to the maximum density on a spot just because he can you should make him be held to that higher standard and still be continuing to be stringent with them because that is what got us here and there's nothing wrong with doing that at all so I'm not suggesting to have a a free-for-all but I also will point out that if in fact you were to say have a free-for-all the public doesn't have to worry because we'll still only end up with 24 to 25,000 people as our population because there's no land left and there's nowhere left to Annex because the borders have all been built already so there's no incentive for anybody to Annex into the city there might be patches here and patches there but there there will never be a 100 acres annexed into the city from this point forward because there's just nowhere to Annex and as a result they'll never be a time that Stuart reaches that 25 to 30,000 number because it's just not going to happen that the sky isn't actually falling thank you the third thing Madame mayor and that's my last thing maybe this is a Jodie thing or something for the future again Mr Mortel when we used to have the Department of Community Affairs there were all these um e appraisal and reports and annual reports and comprehensive plan updates and all these things now we have the Department of Economic Opportunity and there's different rules in different ways plus we have something called the state legislature that does a lot of things to our local government and so is there a a a annual report um just for the citizens perspective just trying to uh that we have to report to the Department of Economic Opportunity on our come plan amendments come plan changes and that kind of thing just to just to let people know what the status is now and how things are done so the comprehensive plan acts uh I think it's 164 1864 whatever it is says that you have to do a comprehensive evaluation every seven years um our own comprehensive plan says that we will update the balance and the need between our housing needs and our commercial needs um every three years the last time we did it was in 2017 and it's about $50,000 to do it and the reason that I'm not spending the money to do it is because if you do the study it'll say we need housing and the the consensus has been to limit housing and so I don't need to spend 50 Grand to say we need housing just like it said in 2017 15 13 11 10 9 7 5 3 2 1 all of the 90s all of the 80s every single report we've ever done has said we need more housing never once have we done a report or hired somebody and come back and have it not come to that conclusion so instead of spending $50,000 on the study is telling you stud's going to tell you you need more housing I know that there's a consensus that people perceive the population growth as as the negative side to it so I don't do the study that's okay there's enough demand for housing anyway so we just playing along but it's not that it's being ignored it's not that staff isn't aware of it we deal with it every day it's just that we also know the the direction from the commission and that's to not go in that direction so we haven't but people may still come in with Comprehensive plan amendments certainly for commercial land uses that they may want to change to residential and well and quite frankly the the the state two years ago passed the live local act and it said that any commercial land can be built to 30 units an acre and four stories by right without us administratively if they if they put a parking in for it and Etc they amended it last year to say that it doesn't apply to anything within 10,000 ft of an active Runway and I have a map that I can see that shows what it's two 200 feet on either side of the runway and 10,000 feet out and there's three active runways at Witham field that fall into it but the vast majority of Stewart still falls under the Liv local act because the original live local act amendment was 10,000 ft of the airport which would have covered all Stewart or most of it but what was ultimately adopted was just the active Runway language so developers could come in right now on the commercial property and build the live local act there's certain regulations and compliances and parking and and other issues that prevent it because our code is restrictive as it relates to the parking and that was intended by the 2001 rewrite of the code to make it so that when people came forward for these projects they would come before the commission so that the commission could have influence on those projects I add something um today I don't know I think it was around 1:30 but I was at the U Mark Memorial Cleveland Clinic Dr sing and there was 20 of us at a a round table and before we left that that was his biggest thing that he's the biggest employer of this County 3,000 employees they need to hire 300 more and they all coming from most of them out of town there's just other companies are wanting to move here good paying jobs but it's just not housing's full yeah the reason their employees are coming from out of town is because we're full m m' I hate to can you please explain to the public the iso rating please for Community I I will when we get to manager comments I just couldn't resist throwing that in but it's an insurance rating the firefighters get that's hard to accomplish and on Friday they got noticed that they had just achieved it again and I knew that some of them were here and for anybody that was listening or watches this video it was all in just I wasn't trying to offend anybody or anything come on it was just fun thank you sir okay thank you I wanted to add to that probably kind of cute when I was growing up here 69 and70s when all these 55 and older condos came in and we we hated didn't want any part of it it's like oh my God what are we gonna do all these old people here but now we're and when they built them it just they didn't save any land it's just all concrete and uh oh my gosh this is where it's going to be for the rest of my life but anyway it sure has changed a lot since I was a little girl as I've gotten older I've learned that second floors are a lot more complicated than I used to think yes sir those folks aren't so old anymore commissioner Collins Mike you're an amazing lawyer we are blessed to have you and I hope when I'm campaigning you come with the same fervor of how we've overdeveloped um I won't argue with you because I think it's poor form as my city manager but people are incredibly upset with the apartments primarily and I think maybe when we're not going door too or haven't recently not saying you are disconnected but it can it can be easy for you know us in our bubble to get disconnected from from how upset they are that they can't get to the store they're worried about getting in car accidents there's ever more traffic and it would be one thing if we didn't approve thousands of units over a pretty small period of time my numbers that I had seen were uh previously when Dave was here were somewhere around 3,000 I saw what you put up today but it was the uh the housing pipeline 17 to 20 whenever I ran but uh the people who vote clearly feel a certain way right both of us campaigned on unly yeah right so I also incredibly let me hang tight I I fought hard not to interrupt again the the zero units there you know that's it's true that there have been zero units in that time frame and that's because of people voted the way they did and so you know I would argue that um I hope in the future that these development updates will stay in the realm of actually updating for what development is coming in the pipeline where today it felt more like sort of um apologetics for what we've been doing in in the recent future and um again I'm happy to to do a pipeline development as well but it the truth of it was we had zero in the pipeline line when we started talking about doing it it was the intention to do it was to correct misinformation and I think even when you guys ran the the word was that there were 5,000 units approved and there were 3,000 more coming and the people that were upset about that that were living in their homes it's because they had multiple people knocking on their doors multiple times a week saying have you heard how much development the city of Stewart's doing the city of Stewart is over building the city of Stewart's going to become Broward the city of Stewart is doing this that and the other and and quite frankly I think a commissioner's job is to disseminate accurate information and to respond as you have to to your public and to the people and do what you believe is best for them so I'm not suggesting that in any way I'm saying that we should have no development or new development or less development or more development and I didn't do it because of campaigns or elections at all I did it because every single day my phone rings off the hook with people that call me up with misinformation and I don't have enough time to call everybody back because the amount of misinformation that is being spread around on different forms of social media and different forms of communication is such that I wanted to put something up on the board to say look this is it by the way that's a still a huge number 2300 is a big number it's the most ever in you know if you look at the the ratios but and I would say generally that's what people are are feeling upset about when I was going door too is that when they bring this up you know that the traffic is terrible it's oh it's all it's Port St Lucy in Martin County at larg meanwhile meanwhile we approved all of those apartments you know but only 60% of them have been built so the traffic can't be them and the reason we approve them is because the Studies have shown that these people are driving in for their jobs so if they lived here they wouldn't be driving traffic balance point to that point we cannot control who lives in the units that we bring into existence correct well I mean and so the assumption that if you build an apartment that somebody's going to sell their house in Port St Lucy and pay $3,000 a month to live in an apartment the city so that they can work in the city is fake well it's an assumption it's right but it's it's a planning and what we end up doing is people from Port St Lucy are still driving to come into work but now we've created a space people from Miami and Fort Lauderdale and New York and New Jersey to come have an apartment and live here especially during Co well what we've actually seen which is the more well-rounded way to look at what we people that live here don't get jobs here and drive to Port St Lucy to work and they don't get jobs here and drive to St Lucy County to work and that they actually do in fact work in Stewart the vast majority of the apartment dwelling folks work in Stewart you can't prove that you can you can talk to them and you can get the data we P data pulls it sounds nice but that's that's where the and and I suppose that's what I'll add to it so you guys can see where these people are coming but there is no doubt that there are people that live in Steward and drive to other places for jobs there's people that buy houses and Steward for vacation homes and but nobody rents an apartment for a vacation home that doesn't happen because it's a rental Dr Sing uh today of Dr sing the president of Cleveland Clinic three 300 men and women nurses traveling nurses that are here and and probably living in some of these apartments and stuff people come from all around you don't know where they where they're going to live and and and and to commissioner Colin's point I mean there's no doubt that if you built a 400 unit apartment complex in Oort a city hall you would see an increase in traffic on Flagler Avenue I mean that there is no doubt that that would happen so it's important to make sure that those apartments are located in places that the traffic is anticipated or the volume can happen and the reality is there's a for unit apartment complexes going up anywhere in Stewart but either way the numbers are that you'd want them spread out and I didn't put the map up and I didn't show where they were but the the apartments are actually all over steuart it wasn't like it was one Corridor of Apartments there's some north of the bridge some South some as far south as Indian Street some on Commerce some over there by the Indian Indian Street Bridge so they were moved around and and it was in reaction to Five public workshops a Deo study and other stuff that caused that commission to make the decisions that they made and ironically the apartment the average apartment was runting for about $2,400 a month when the um the big Co thing came out and everybody was talking about relocating or whatever it was and the live local Act was being studied but there's apartments now in Stewart at the newer projects that you can get a two Tu for $1,900 a month so the the development of those apartments have actually dropped the average price by about $500 a month um and again I don't know what that means or doesn't mean and I don't you know does it mean with too many apartments and therefore there's a glut maybe I would just say this is the last point I'll make is due to the the nature of what the city is right it's this commercial seat that we should be very careful going forward as potentially SE Coast could go up for sale and Baptist Church uh the one we're talking about that's been talking about Eden Mar next these are all places where potentially Apartments could exist and my hope is that given the the heritage of of this place infrastructure wise that we intentionally chose narrow roads sort of you know kind of what you were pointing out that the city is particularly and all of the through traffic from everywhere else the city is particularly uh vulnerable to poor level of service on roads if we overdevelop it so my hope is just going forward and I think I can speak for at least most of the residents that we do not continue the path previously of more and more you know apartment approvals and I'll stop R and I don't want to comment on what policies you go forward with or not what I wanted to do was put up the numbers and show what the truth is because even though we're built out even though we're built out we are going to redevelop right okay thank you sir thank you great I just want to say good report Mike report okay are we I think so all right move on did you want to add something no I'm good thank you okay good we're g to move on then um comments from uh the commissioner Troy you said you want to go yeah uh thank you very much uh Madame mayor couple things uh one is I'm looking forward to hearing Mike's report on the uh iso1 I know that's something that the uh the chief and the entire fire department has worked very hard on and we should all be very proud of to have the only uh I think in the region not just the county but the region so oh um I think that's fabulous and congratulations to all the hard work from everybody um last I think it was last week it might have been the week before I got contacted by group of residents over on uh Riverpoint Drive regarding some uh parking issues on the side of the uh some RightWay uh parking U Mr mortell has been Mike's been working with them and I think he can give us a update on that you want to do it under under your com yes they will be and uh but uh I think it's important that um talk to some great folks over there we're going to get um do everything you can to get your situation resolved okay so and um last thing was we had a I guess it was the uh Memorial Day uh parade was uh it was a really good parade it was quite uh a scorcher uh but uh everybody survived uh it's always I always love coming out to the parade and seeing all the different people that uh at the parade and at the at the uh Services um remembering the our everybody people who uh who gave it all for our country and it's a solemn moment especially if you ever known anybody that um did not make it through uh their term and time in the service so thank you very much yeah unless you're come which way you coming now are you gonna let me speak five times again no I'm just good I'll come so I just wanted to say that today when we honored the um the water department I think we had quite a few water people had spent a lot of years number one that's just telling as to the experience and the great work that's going on in the water department that so many of them have spent so long with our city and the work that we've done with the reverse osmosis um it's just amazing and I don't know if the the the public is allowed to take a water class or see the water department if they'll have another open house or something but I just think it's a it's a wonderful thing and I want to just commend Mr wood side and Mr uchin our utility directors and Milton and everybody because Milton is right beside them all the time and uh just know that our water department is doing a good job everybody on that side is is really doing a good job that includes our Recreation Department we have one big Recreation Center that's the 10th Street recreation center and this weekend that Center was shining there were so many people who came out to the center because a young lady in our community and her team were inspired to do a program called taking back our children taking the children from the streets giving them Vision giving them hope giving them opportunity children were there playing basketball they were playing games they were listening to others there was a speaker there I think an artist Mr Wallace was there and there are other speakers there and it was just a really good time Miss Alia Wy um from all media for all people and I just want to commend our Recreation Department for all the things that they do when anybody has any event at the 10 Street Center how the staff is so Jessica is just way over the top and um Mr Redstone and his team very good team there at the 10th Street and I just want to um really say that I appreciate everything that miss Wy our police department and our Sheriff Department was there and so many other people who came out to make sure that our children started off the summer on the right foot and um hopefully we'll have more events I know we've had an issue in East Stewart for the July 4th and I'm hoping that we can get something together with the community to do something for three or four hours in the afternoon on July 4th and hopefully we'll have a good relationship with our Police Department as we always do to try to keep down um fireworks that are being sent all over the place that may possibly destroy homes that we'll try to work with the community to um to to to kind of cut that off but if we could try to do an event I want to work with city manager and probably work with some Community people to see how we can do that and of course always put the word out for folks to come and enjoy the fireworks um downtown I wanted to also say that on this Thursday morning at the Blake Library at 9:00 a.m. the city and the county and the school board will be meeting public is invited public can speak public can watch it on their um whatever TV at home or computers at home online online at home it's a regular it's going to be um posted like a regular Board of County Commissioners meeting um on their facilities their um broadcasting facilities but um it's going to be there at the Blake Library on the 13th of June at 9:00 a.m. and on that evening on June 13th at 6: p.m. there'll be a town hall meeting at the 10th Street recreation center and this is going to focus a lot on the history of East Stewart and trying to do some things in that community and we're really asking people to come out everybody to come out because there is so much shared knowledge and shared neighborhood and really getting the the community together so that's going to be on the 13th of June at 6:00 pm at the 10 Street Recreation Center um that's it Madame mayor thank you if I've forgotten something it's fine thanks commissioner Colin yes I know I've already spoken a lot already um my only question I wanted to kind of bring up was when we were when I was elected uh there was a pilot program going on with Pon Creek Pond to try to address you know limiting the herbicides that were going into our ponds overall so the the idea with the pilot project was you know planting some of the competitive native um aquatic plants and um you know there were several different sections of it uh removing mechanically weeds and then you know just just the herbicides and sort of seeing if we could get away from using as much to the herbici side and Joe Joe jilo was the one that was kind of heading that up with um Milton and and some of the guys but I wanted to rehash that and bring it up because it was you know it wasn't a completely defined um timeline for my understanding I think we were looking at like a year or so and we're kind of there now so what I wanted to do was see if we could get some kind of presentation when I talked to Joe you know unofficially he had said based on what he was seeing that we might even be able to cut down the herbicide use by you know half and I thought that was a great starting point but there's really not going to be any progress on that if we don't start talking about it and seeing you know formally through presentation what those uh options are how much they cost and and what what to do so I wanted to ask if we could rehash that bring that up maybe have Joe speak I don't know exactly who would speak if it's Milton I'd love to hear from you you know but I'd like to bring that back up was my comment no I have no comments thank you madam mayor I just have one um it probably should be brought up at the CRA but we have um we have only paint uh wrapped one one tram and they're just beautiful so I think I've misunderstood I would like for us to move forward and get all of the trams uh wrapped one at a time or whatever and I'll bring it back up at the c meeting commissioner Collins I mean commissioner McDonald I've already gone okay and manager um I'll start with the Joe gilio uh issue uh commissioner Collins is correct there was a uh matter where he was hired to use the poppleton Creek Lake at the peton Creek Dog Park to do a a kind of a pilot program and he um gave us a um report on the first week of April and I thought that I had shared it with the commission but I will share it and then he also um did a presentation here in City Hall a couple weeks later like 5:00 pm on a Wednesday but um I um read his report and I followed up and sent him some specific questions in an email as it related to his report and he did didn't give me any direction as to those issues and he had planted some plants and installed some fish and I asked him very specifically what he recommended and his report like I mentioned to you guys I'll give it to you um I just tried to click on the link for it but it's now expired um but I know I have it saved at my desktop um anyway uh said to maintain the status quo but I will organize um do presentation so probably the the um this meeting next month so the first meeting of the month where we have presentations but I'll make arrangements for him um I think it' be good because my conversation with him sounded a little different so maybe there's well that's why so I asked I sent him an email to um clarify his report and then he responded to the email at 223 p.m. on April 11th and um kind of did respond on but he didn't um make any of those changes but I'll let him speak for himself and so we'll make that Arrangement that'll be easy um the um thank you Mike I also want to talk about um I just you know Darren our Our IT director um had his five years here and he made a comment about the April 2019 but the truth of it is Darren's done quite a bit for the city of Stewart we kind of you know laughed and thought the balloons were fun but um it was very serious and we could have been facing hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars in Damages and and he came in and pointed out that pretty much everything we were doing was wrong but but we were doing it well um um but uh and we've really tried to correct a lot of that and I want to thank him because it really has brought us into a much better light um I also want to mention on July 8th um we are going to try and schedule the first budget meeting and I'll try and schedule it um just directly prior to the July meeting or maybe even Incorporated in the 4:00 time I was going to try and do it for the last meeting of June but there was certain uh money sharing that the state regulates and it's not going to we're not going to have it before then anyway so I could tell you the expenditure side of the budget but not the revenue side so it kind of would doesn't make sense it's not as good but if we wait and do it on July 8th it'll be a better pict picture and hopefully we will be further along with some of the Union negotiations as well that'll give you a better position but my goal is July 8th uh directly prior to the meeting so that we don't have to have it specially coordinated um next matter is the uh Riverpoint drive so back in like 2019 or 20 there was some discussion and may even been before that about um trailers and Parks or trailers and yards and things of that nature and um I had a meeting with code enforcement and the building inspector at the time Steve Nicolosi and um the decision was made that mulch wasn't enough but that the the commission was looking for some kind of hardened surface and um I totally missed it and I didn't um go to the engineering department or the public works department and run it by them but we kind of said sure you can we can continue doing gravel and never even thought twice about it so development Department's been kind of like okay gravel's okay um on May 24th there was a meeting of the development department and the engineering and Public Works departments and during that meeting um it was determined that gravel actually isn't such a great idea after all there's a multiple multitude of reasons but one of them is that the apron of the road when cars pull on and off the road onto gravel if people have a rock driveway and they're pulling straight on in the perpendicular manner it doesn't do as much damage but when they're doing the parallel parking and coming on and off they can slowly crumble the apron of the road in addition to that they can push and pull gravel onto the road and if a car tries to stop quickly it the gravel rolls like Mar Marbles and can cause um dangerous conditions now don't get me wrong some of these driveways have been in place since 1940 so I'm guessing they've been pretty safe but there's nothing like a government overreacting that can make that better and so what happened was we sent out notices to some residents and there was and and again part of this started because of some complaints we'd received as well and the notices um were intended to be less um assertive but they were you know it's the the written word sometimes comes across stronger than it is in any event um everything we said we've changed our mind just ignore them no just kidding it's not that bad um so what we've done is I after looking at it meeting with code enforcement meeting with staff these what's happening is that people in their in their neighborhoods our roads are really 40 feet wide but a lot of the paved areas are 20 feet wide so then there's roughly a 10 foot wide side on either side that's sod or whatever the people's Landscaping is or whatever and they our code requires the owner adjacent to the road to maintain that property but over the years some people have put like temporary or those short parking spaces in because when cars pull onto their grass it leaves ruts and and other things and so um for those of you that received a notice and it's not every single person in the city of Stewart that has one of those hardened surfaces but we're going to start with the ones that receive the notice because they're the ones threatening to kill me the most um but we're going to um enter into what's called a revocable permit and there's not going to be a fee for it I'm going to sit with the city attorney and draft it and it's essentially going to identify the land that's being used as that hardened surface it's going to agree that it won't expand and that if it does expand that you will come into the city to get an expanded revocable permit and that you will attempt over the course of the next however long to uh make that hardened surface be pavers because we want it to be permeable and we don't want it to roll into the street like gravel does however it is not going to issue bless you issue any citations there's not going to be any code enforcement hearings and um it's not going to be a situation that requires you to do anything in a specific number of days uh the it will though require you to sign and acknowledge that this parking space is on public RightWay and as a result those parking spaces on public RightWay are are technically P public parking spaces and so it can't be that just because someone pardoned the surface in front of their property they can tell other people they're not allowed to park there because that would be unfair to the taxpayers and it also is going to say that we are not going to store personal property in those RightWay areas that doesn't mean you can't park your car for a few days in a row or go on vacation for a few days and come back later and your car is there that's fine what it means is we're not going to put crates and boxes and storage facilities or or trailers that are not hooked up to cars and things like that and have them actually stored in the right of way because that's what was triggering the complaints and it's not just one particular street that came out in full tonight but it's it's throughout the city and we were having these complaints and it really um isn't a big deal it uh that there are gravel uh parking spaces and they really haven't been a significant harm to anybody over the course of the years but as we get built out and we get more people and you have um closer and closer to neighbors Etc if everybody were to do it it would then start to be a problem so we just want to provide some consistency so over the next 20 or 30 years as they probably come into play more and more they'll be uh number one acknowledging that it's City RightWay so there's no confusion about that later and number two no storage but I'm hoping that this week those of you that got the letter notice will receive a um new one a new comment that actually has the revok able permit we can talk about those and then lastly um I swear I was kidding it was not a big deal but it is I I want to congratulate the fire department they did get a one ISO rating Friday but the thing on the map when I backed up that was just all in fun um but the iso rating is a is a really difficult achievement um our current chief Vince fion has made it a mission of his to have this fire department achieve that rating and he's managed to do so and it's a reflection on how hard all of the firefighters work their response time and the level of safety that they're seen by the insurance industry and those communities with um ISO ratings that aren't as high actually have higher homeowner insurance rates so our fire department's one ISO rating is really quite an achievement and and they deserve the accolades for earning it um on their own but um I also just wanted to announce that Friday they received notice that it's been renewed again and I asked Vince if I could get a copy of the letter and he didn't have it so I'm not 100% sure he's telling the truth but um hopefully we will have not made this up tonight but thank [Applause] you um and and lastly um the director of our water treatment or or engineering department is Peter cunan and I wanted to acknowledge Him as commissioner Clark was thank you thank you I was reading those emails and going back and forth and U and reading and listening to you and how you handled it and I thank you might handled it beautifully ran and head the agenda second got a motion to approve the agenda we have a second by Miss Clark he do we have any comments from the public well I no is it about the agenda oh no no it is she's time it's about the r no she's at the right time it's not an agenda item I happen to know it's about the the hardened driveways oh well that'll be public comment right okay this is on the approval of the agenda okay yes correct all in favor I I okay now we're going to do a public comment I'm going to read these off Mr Bren um wenberg you're doing the acid preserving organic you've had to wait a long time to make your presentation three minutes to the audience a lot longer than you know okay um years back like I say accurate information is absolutely critical for you guys to make your good decisions that's why I'm here I come down from Bard County uh years back I emailed down here say and the shores of our Lagoon were acidic they removed the the shell to pay you for us one row bed and for ra um Railroad Bed in 1900 and it was at that time that I'm sure somebody put calcium beach sand in your Marina and all the poop that had been preserved in acid for the last 60 years floated up and stunk up your city well you might want to give me more minutes I'm having a hard time understanding you but okay well the shores of our Lagoon was a were shell back in 1900 and they pulled it off to PVE the road bed for us one and for Henry flagor to make railroad bed you can you can't R run a train on Sugar Sand but you can compress the shell and that changed the chemistry of the shore my dad was a fish guide UH 60 years ago and our Shores was foam like KNE deep foam all up and down well now that chemistry is going on on your beaches that foam is your sand turned into liquid and then it's why your water's cloudy and washing away so like I say I've open quite a can of worms here in 3 minutes well well I um go ahead but anyway what I found if you put the shell back on the shore the way it used to be that chemistry all life needs calcium it will come back hard you will have clams oysters fish but don't put it in the deep water uh there's a thousand times more surface area on Sand than there is on shell and ask said works on it real fast and I can take a bucket of beach sand and put it over in Lake okobi and start an algae broom right then and but the chemistry needs to happen on the shore where it was removed from uh I can go into a lot of detail like uh before storms barometric pressure drops microbubble swarm on everything that goes to everything works its way to shore where he used to turn an IPA shell but um what happens is that foam is CO2 calcium carbonate cac3 well that's a foam is CO2 but that 01 going in the water sped up the chemistry between your p and poop and made harmless calcium chloride salt so in freshwater rain events it actually switched over to calcium chloride salt Brent what I'm going to do is U you know more about this than I do and I'll have one of the men that that understand this call you okay well I'm I'm happy to talk on oneon-one with any one of you ladies and gentlemen and I appreciate you're hearing me it it says you're from fsme correct yes ma'am okay thank you sir what was his name um Mr uh wenberg w o h l e n b e r g give me a shout yes sir thank you Deborah Wilson Mr Wilson I'm Deborah Wilson I live at 500 Southwest North Riverpoint Drive I want to take the opportunity Chris to thank you because anytime I've reached out to you about any issue within the city that I was confused or didn't understand you immediately responded Mike I want to thank you for all your emails okay we were stunned we were shocked we were angry we're like why us we are rooted homeowners full time residences taxpayers and we've done nothing for 20 years but improve our property by the regulations that we are known to that exist but all I've heard in this relationship was about the Integrity of the apron of the road I wish at some point one of you could come out and actually drive onto our road because I talked with Chris about this two years ago and we did get a sign but for me to tell people to come visit me at my home I have to tell them make the first right after the washing machine or the refrigerator on Palm City Road it's embarrassing also you paved Palm City Road but you never brought the Riverpoint drives Integrity up to the level of Palm City Road so if you turn onto Palm into a street on Riverpoint drive you have alignment issues with the cars you can get Whiplash if you come around the corner too quickly okay those those are the things I was kind of hoping that this person that came and get would have noticed but I do appreciate the effort that you're going to put in to not hold us harmless to anything that we did because we certainly didn't do it deliberately and we love the look of our gravel driveway I don't want a lot of cement because I don't like a lot of buildings I like a lot of homes with grass and flowers and things of that nature so I wish at some point you could all take a ride down Palm City Road turn right after the washing machine or or refrigerator and bottom out your car onto Riv Point Drive I it is a County Road well that's what everybody says but you know at some point somebody's got to embrace the responsibility because Riverpoint Drive is a city road and I also want to thank you for the city of Stewart fire department I love them I have a son who works there for 17 years he's a paramedic fireman I'm not allowed to give you his name cuz I swore that I would never never do that well we're going to look it up now okay but thank you Chris from the bottom of our heart and Mike and Troy and Campbell Campbell actually came and visited did you botom out Campbell I came as well see see I came as well oh you bottomed out too no I came I came there as well mad I was hoping you were going to say you bottomed out you you can Cloe me any time my car is a little higher I guess okay all right but thank you for coming I really appreciate it looking forward to the letter Mike okay yes Miss Al you there tell Nick we said hello oh [Laughter] my good evening um course Alia um 1724 terce and St um I just want to I'm very tired but I just really want to just say thank you Mr Mortel um city manager um I mean he stepped up at a point where I was like didn't know what I was going to do but he really stepped up and I really appreciate um the city being a part and and helping out because this was the first time um of the event that was put together um in a matter of less than 60 days um based on donations and sponsorship um because because my um I don't like to continue to talk about things and what we're going to do and what needs to be done without putting things into action and we have no time to waste when it comes to our children um whether it's my child today and your child tomorrow we really have to get ahead of the issues that are taking place in our community because again whether it's my community whether it's East Sno or whether it's Palm City or selfish point you know these things with happening with our children is becoming an epidemic and we have to stop it um and a lot of organization from um Fort Pierce actually joined and came to partner with me with that we had commissioner gains come out because there is a need to stop the violence and to stop issues that is happening in the in and um in our community and in order to stop it we really have to go on the children's the young people people's Turf and understand you know their pain their depressions their issues that they're dealing with and that's what tobac is taking back our children so um I just really thank you again for that um I thank you for joining um coming in um Mr Mortel and the boys and girls club really stepping up we really helping me to take care of that and mayor Clark I really appreciate I mean commissioner attorney I really appreciate that okay thank you you miss thank you so much thank you Miss gilby Laura gilby good evening everyone thank you so much for letting me speak um my name is Laura Joby I'm at 2950 Southeast Ocean Boulevard in the city of Stewart first I want to thank Mr Martell for that presentation um it was informative I was a little shocked though I didn't think we were in competition with Martin County Fort St Lucy and St Lucy County so I mean we're just the unique town that we are and uh when you talk about social media um there are people who are talking in the street in restaurants it's not just social media I know they get a little crazy but people are concerned people are concerned with the growth and and as you said there were zero number of Apartments this year but in reality over the last five years there were almost 3,000 Apartments approved um so the you know we're at a point now we're at Redevelopment in the city and how we go forward is really important you are all the Guardians of the city and to maintain the uniqueness of the city and that needs to be that when a developer comes before you if he's looking to change something from commercial to multi or he's looking for more density he's looking for you know um approval of less parking those are all things that are in the comp plan that very much every commissioner can say no we're not allowing less parking you're putting in 18 I don't know what the ratio is but if you're putting in 18 units then you have to have at least 18 parking spaces half parking spaces I spent a year on the APL I mean some of the requests are almost ludicrous half a parking space you show me half a car I'll give you half a parking space I mean it's really not I mean it is like I said again you are the guardians of this city and the community is looking for you to do the right things for the community and the reports are really nice but they are on paper and a lot of them are really about you know the dollars and cents coming in there are some things about Stuart that you really can't equate to money they are things that you can't purchase it's the feel that people have about this community the way it looks the the the camaraderie in the town the uniqueness the smallness of the town and there's nothing wrong with being a small town but do we really want to just become a another nothing Community or or town in Stu in Florida is that what we want to just become another nothing town or do we want to remain to be the city of Stewart where people say wow that's a great town I've been there I love it and as far as people wanting to come here come here come to our restaurants Buy in our boutiques go downtown enjoy it there is no reason you have to live here we cannot keep making Apartments because someone wants to move here you know there's a movie I think it's Field of Dreams it says build it and they will come well you know what if you don't build it they can't come they'll just come and visit thank you Mr Reed Sean Reed so I've I've been running a a spreadsheet since 2017 on historical data I know I'm missing four years according to the slide but there was actually 2,846 units approved since 2017 so if I went back further that number would probably be much higher thank you second um eight yeah I wanted to ask all right first we got approval oh I'm going to amend my motion to move the pro approve the consent agenda uh pooling item 8 so move a second yeah second we've got an approval we've got number eight then can I get a yes do I have any public comment on pulling eight no on the consent agenda on the consent calendar we're going to finish that okay uh public comment on the consent I mean on the U there yeah there's taking their head yes item eight I believe you have multiple got it okay but eight is off the consent calendar so we don't need probably comment on that right now all right everything but eight so any comment on eight but eight I None uh we do I do no we're gonna take you get your got it yeah go get your turn I confused it I this is the vote is for everything on the consent agenda other than item number eight six seven and nine they're pulling eight for discussion everybody got it we're good all right um so uh all in favor no I have to do a roll call I um commissioner Clark yes commissioner Collins yes commissioner McDonald yes vice mayor Rich yes mayor Bruner yes okay now we will pull a lady do you want to read for me please of course Madam mayor a resolution of the city Commission of the city of Stewart Florida approving the award of preconstruction services to request for qualifications number 224-4004 undergrounding and streetcap project with a price not to exceed $67,800 to burkart Construction Inc of West Palm Beach providing an effective date and for other purposes I didn't know if there were any specific comments or if you just wanted me to give you the background information we don't want to have a presentation first and then and then comment yeah okay um so this item is coming before you um staff has been working on the design for underground ing um and streetcape design for last couple of years uh we went out for bid twice on this project for undergrounding and seminal streetscape project the first bid when we went out for uh the bid uh we didn't get a price proposal uh with that bid we requested the proposer to provide a a price but um they failed to provide it so we rejected that bid and then we went out our second bid um and the initial proposal was about 4 7.4 million ion um and then the board board authorized to negotiate with that contractor and we reviewed the the price proposal at that time and found a lot of errors in computation there were some discrepancies in pricing and quantities um there were some duplications and overlap on on some of the items So based on the price analysis we thought the price should have gone down um but then the contractor came back and it was almost doubled um so at that point uh staff did not feel comfortable uh to accept that bid because it was hard to determine what is the base cost for this project um since we didn't have anything to compare it to and if that if that price proposal was fair and reasonable so therefore we rejected the second bid as well um so the city has had an option to either go out for another RFP which would have resulted in the same thing uh or cancel the project or do an alternative um procurement method which was the construction management at risk um so we advertise for semar uh which is construction management at risk and received one proposal from barart construction um it will be a two-part contract first part is the pre-construction services and the second part uh should they get awarded um would be to manage the construction uh and that item would come before the board as an amendment to the contract um they would uh guarantee a maximum price uh for the project uh and that would be brought before the board for approval um so today we're just requesting approval of the preconstruction services um that will include reviewing of the the existing design um making suggestions and uh for alternative uh to design in material to reduce cost um administering the bid um they are in the business so they they will attract more um subcontractors um so we are likely to get uh a lower cost on some of this um items that are in the in the in the business design um so we can ensure that the pricing is fair and reasonable U they'll also do traffic control plan um so that will help us uh phase out the project you know how we're going to close off the streets and how we're going to work with the existing businesses um so that'll be part of the preconstruction services there'll be um meetings Outreach meetings meetings with businesses and then um at the end they'll provide the guaranteed maximum price for the project um that include the similar streetcape and the undergrounding so today staff is just requesting approval of resolution number 55- 2024 to award semar contract to burkart construction for downtown undergrounding and seminal streetcap project can I ask yeah so if if thank you this burkart Construction and it was a lot of stuff and I read through most of it but just on a general level if we do agreed to pay them the $67,000 to do this two-part thing um my question is whatever it is in this uh agreement that we have that we would have with them if we did that are they always going to be a a a third party or almost like uh I guess our um adjacent staff or whatever our person and not be in the long run even when we have a a RFP going out there be something where there's a I don't know I and I'm not blaming these guys are saying anything I just want to find out almost like an Insider type tra um trading where there's a engineering firm or somebody whether they're in Connecticut or California or wherever that may have close ties because it it's such a um specialized um field and I I I just how do we know when they put that when they cast that net out you said that they're in the business that we're sure that we're getting you know somebody that's independent of them per se that's all I want to say and that's you don't even have to say anything because I'm going to depend on you um make sure if we do anything I just we're going to be predicted that for the record all that's on the agenda for tonight is the city commission is being asked do they want to go out to a contractor at risk bid which is a $68,000 charge to have this company put together the exact proposal that it would charge to do the undergrounding if in fact they come back and say they'll do it for $100 or $100 million it still has to come back before the commission for approval anyway this is just to have them do the determination of the bid and I also seeing some of the public here I think it's important that we Define where the undergrounding is to take place the undergrounding would be from St Lucy Boulevard to Colorado Avenue on seminal Street Flagler and acola oh Flagler right well there's not really anything on Flagler because the power lines are on acola I I just I just want didn't want to say that after we do that if we agree to let them do the work and then later on we hear that well there's probably nobody else can that can do the work and I I don't know anyhow I do have um barart is here so address that good thank you thank you thank you sir so I'm CJ roie with burkart construction project manager uh I'd be the project manager on the project so everything we do is all open book so part of the the preconstruction process open book you would you'll see all the bids so what we'll do is we'll develop all the bid documents and we'll get it to all the subcon potential biders and we pre-qualify those we'll work with the city with pre-qualifying all that so every bid that we get back in you see every bit of that we'll put together a spreadsheet with every bid that that comes in and you'll see a spreadsheet of of each bidder that was everybody that it was sent to for the bid packages as well as every bid we receive so you you'll see everything transparency through the entire process there was almost so there's almost 300 Pages there going through that I'm glad you're saying that how transparent in the different steps and get and I know traditionally city of Stewart has not done construction manager at risk and and part of the the good part about construction manager risk is the transparency so although at at the end of the day if it does move forward with the GMP and you guys approve that we'll act as the Constructor manager at risk as well as like the GC the contract would be to us but we are like an extension of the city staff I hear you so it there is a tremendous amount of transparency in the process yeah it's still independent what you yeah still independent and and we haven't my understand we've not done one of these before and uh previously when I worked for the county they were just looking at doing their first I was attending a couple meetings shortly before I came here um they had not done one yet and I still don't think they've done one I talked to Sarah over there so it's something new um it's an alternative you're only locked in today by voting on 67,800 for them to go out and put together and give us a price basically but when we did it the standard way when we sent out requests for proposals we were getting very minimal responses so this is an alternative method that other cities and Counties have used we just haven't and I know County didn't as well so and they still haven't from my understanding your company's in West Palm correct that's correct go ahead Comm so when when we go out uh we go out and let's say we approve this today uh when you come back with the final document oh and uh price that will be the maximum not to exceed price for the uh for the job that's correct okay so um and I was just thinking it reminds me a lot of uh not this isn't directed at you so much but with cdbg grants we have to spend a considerable amount of money with some with lap certification to have somebody manage those projects and this is this is uh very much similar to that I think it's uh um we've been working at undergrounding these utilities on on uh since before I came to the city commission the first first time I mean it's been it's been something it's uh been something we've been working towards uh I think it's a I think that we we have the seats whether we do the undergrounding or not we're doing the the uh streetcape um because uh seminal is one of you know it's a it's a wonderful Street that's uh with some of the most valuable property in the city of Stewart on it um and I think it's important that uh we really keep this going so I I think that's something that we should move forward uh cuz I think that when we get the prices uh it'll actually be cheaper uh cuz we'll have the actual you know because we'll have the actual price I think I think the last couple years with all the arpa money and some other stuff people were just bidding up because they were busy and they could and they were just hoping they would get it and so we'll see and and we'll also and I also worry about whatever we get a low bid that we're going to have change orders so cuz that has happened on more than one occasion is that a motion I'll make a move to approve second you have a motion uh um for approval we have a second by commissioner Clark and we're just going so panel the first number was what very first number the oh um well the first bid we didn't get any price proposal this the second bid we got uh it was initially 7.4 million and then it jump it jumped double 14 and 14 right and all the price quantities everything just double okay so I have a couple comments one is if we're going to push the risk onto this contractor I have got to believe that number is going to come in higher right because if he knows he has to eat all those changes he is not going to oblige himself at this lower number um I'm very worried we're going to spend grand $67,800 for a guy to come back and give us a number in 15 $15 million and I can't believe we're just going to go okay fine go ahead with that to me this is a whole new decision the decision we're facing now is if I have $13 million what is the best thing the city can do with that and I don't think we've addressed that I really would like this to go back to the crb and for them to answer that simple question here's $13 million here's $15 million what is the best thing the city can do we've got a train station come in we've got a lot of opportunities here I'm not sure this is it now I also believe panal we asked you to show us what it would look like the streetcape if we with the new power poles I believe I showed that at the last presentation I did not have it at this and again I want to point out if we don't do this we're going to get large Concrete in our sidewalk I mean that's something that's going to be there for 100 years so it's either we move forward and and complete this right now or we're going to be stuck with large concrete poles about 10 15 poles in our downtown I mean 10 to 15 of those count cently there are about 20 poles I counted there about six on Oola there was about five or six on um Colorado from um from Flagler to seol and then also don't forget seol streetscape um there's some poles on there and then um on on St Lucy so there about 20 polls that will be replaced with hard concrete Po and that's going to stay for next 100 years right so it's our time to make this investment right now because otherwise we are Stu well the thing is we don't even know what the investment is right but I'm saying we won't know we don't even know what the base price is at this point and it's going to be a type of contract the city's never done or the counties never neither has the county ever done this if I understand Mr Bag City attorney I I have that information Mr bagot neither the city know the county have ever entered into this type of contract correct when I was at the county I attended meetings they were just they were looking at other cities that have done contracts and they were looking at doing a particular construction project but I checked with Sarah recently they never have gone forward with it yet but um and my understanding obviously I've been here a few months but my understanding is we've never done one here but right but other cities and Counties have used it um I know we looked at other cities um CMR agreements and so other cities were using it just locally we haven't yeah I just worry when you shove the risk onto somebody else um and also they they have have a Temptation you know to do to be guilty of shortcut sir all that Financial burdens on them you need to be careful I just believe so I'm uncomfortable with this at this point and also with the second bid even if it did come you know like I mentioned it was um doubled to almost $14 million and that was still the lowest bid so that means they could still come back with change orders so we don't know what could have happened with that in this case it'd be the guaranteed maximum price so you know we're not going to see the change orders and it's going to be the price that they they State I just don't I mean at some point the commission's got to say ouch could we um so I think if you know I have a comment so I I agree with your comments actually exactly uh this makes me very uncomfortable um I'm surprised that we just made a motion and seconded this so fast um I know this is your baby pel I know and the last thing I want to do is what kill your baby here okay well it's not just my baby it's for the downtown I but this is something You' been working really hard on and I know you're really passionate about it and I know nobody in here wants to see concrete poles but there's going to be some threshold where this does not make sense financially anymore commissioner Collins you can make a motion and it doesn't there's a motion on the floor there's a motion on the floor right now but it doesn't matter how you vote I mean I can make a motion still say no understand okay understand we're talking absolutely um so I would Echo the the sentiment that I'm worried that if if the bids that we were getting back I remember when we first maybe not first but we're talking about this and we were wincing at four million you know and then 7 million and it was um especially with bright line coming and maybe we got to take out a note for that and and and hope that grants come in there's a lot of money flying around here and at what point are we trying to smash you know Square Peg and circle hole here here to make this happen so we don't have concrete poles for me I would like to see separated out here is the streetcape versus the undergrounding I know the people around there would really like that to be updated and pretty um but for me from a price ticket standpoint even at 7 million this doesn't make sense and I cannot imagine these guys are going to come back with something where they're losing money um so I would like to see this separated out this is not you know a major thare if it if it was uh downtown PE people can walk you know through the street right there and it's not ideal but again at what point financially is it like $100 million is it too much to do this 200 30 million what what's the number we we should take this back to the crb and talk like what what are we doing here what's what's the threshold where it's appropriate versus just don't get in the way of progress you know don't so I I will with that I'll say I'm also very uncomfortable with this no no can I ask one more question is is if this does go through is what you're bringing back and to have separate options for streetcape versus okay they're doing both okay yeah my my um my thoughts are I would like to um we're saying other no other Counties have done it but I'd like to say we could call if it's possible a couple counties that have done it there are other counties and cities that have done it and and they have been involved with this project um city of West Palm Beach um town of P Beach can you can you give the list of projects birkart can give that can't comment you can't comment in the backup of the documents there's there's a bunch um to speak specifically on a few right now that we're doing working for that are similar projects uh town of Palm Beach were the construction manager at risk for underground in the entire island of Palm Beach uh West Palm Beach we have two projects active that are undergrounding uh pompo Beach we have one active project and Hollywood we have two active projects that are all construction manag at risk all similar project for the undergrounding so we do a lot of work in Brower County and Palm Beach County with multiple municipalities that with the construction manager risk Miss Becky can I mayor BR one more question I ask you a question mror I better leave you up here what's that thank you [Music] so this I know that South Florida or the sou south of us is much different but um uh for small like two or three streets and I don't know how big the are is in in um Hollywood and other places what's the lowest price for the smallest project for the undergrounding S scale yeah uh something that's a couple miles or a couple of we we've done we do smaller projects as well it's not all big projects in South Florida we do we have a couple Central Florida projects that we've done that I know that are smaller in you know one to two million range that I've been a part of uh specifically undergrounding ballpark without spending 70 grand what's that ballpark without spending 70 grand oh I won't speak on the the cost of this without looking into it further that'd be be irresponsible so but for for just for those projects yeah that's okay to ask answer your I think you're trying to say do we only do because I named a couple large projects there we do small projects as well so it's not all large projects we we actually specialize in downtown small environment corridors like in in uh West Palm Beach we did cata Street which would be a similar I know it's a little bigger than downtown Stewart but similar type downtown streets we do a lot of those in South Florida so I wish we would have started on this when we were saying no no no earlier right right I personally would would like to see this go forward uh but that's another thing after today um what I wanted to ask what what are the comments or why do the people come to you that want to do this like us do you know I mean are you in that part of the department so there's a couple of ad um advantages to constructure manager risk one with this with our specialty in this area we are working with three or four subcontractors right now that do the undergrounding work so we have the ability to get proposals from multiple people hopefully on this which I think in the past was part of the issues this is a very specialized project um first of all they have to be approved by FPL to be able to do the work so not every electrical contractor out there can even propose on this they have to be approved by FPL um as far as the other things we can go through and we can vet the plans so we can go through we can do a full review of the plans make sure that do a constructibility review we can do an initial early on cost estimate so you guys can get a a ballpark number on it we work with a design team to get all those items corrected if there are any uh issues in the plans as well as if there's um value engineering that we can do during the process so at the end of the day it it creates a value to the cities it almost sounds like we should be using these in some more of our project just because of the uh uh because of the uh having a more accurate price so Florida state law requires us to follow procurement and go for low bid and as a result you have to have sealed bid unless it's a specialized contract in this particular instance because the as he's pointing out the uh in the installation of Florida Power and Light grade power lines underground is not your regular run-of the day Contracting work and as a result it's a specialized type of work and it would qualify for a construction manager at risk we couldn't do all of our bids and all of our projects under that pretext because Paving a road or painting a building or something like that puts the emphasis on the lowest bid recognizing that all of the contractors would be qualified to paint the building or put the roof on and therefore they require them to bid for low bid because they have to bid against each other on the sealed bid based on the pretext that that's going to lead to a lower price in the instance of a very special IED contracts such as high voltage lines being buried in you know underground there's so few contractors that do it it it doesn't matter if it's procurement or not because you're not getting that type of competition to take place as far as low bidding is concerned but that is you know one of the risks of a semar contract is that you don't go to low bid however it's because of the specialized nature of it that's Madam mayor yeah the risk for these contractors though it's not losing the bid it's eating I mean copper is the highest it's ever been I mean I just built a little Adu on my property and these costs are not going down I don't see this coming at in at a low number so again I have a great deal of concern about putting that risk on somebody who doesn't have the degree of transparent responsibility that the city does um have you ever seen a community rip out their undergrounded lines in Florida remove their underground to put it back overhead I have not personally okay because that is happening on the west coast in some instances after some of the storm damage just it's really expensive to repair and so it cre it can create a difficult situation I could do the same at the no that's fpnl right mayor yes all right I'm a small business guy how much money do we have that's not allocated in the budget in your in your bank account how much is in the T allocated allocated for the project or that to that could be used what is not allocated I'm sorry I'm not following what is the amount of money in your account that is not allocated already uh it's my fund balance you mean yeah I probably I don't have the exact number but probably around 1010 to 12 million in my fund balance right now it's not allocated not allocated and it could be more it would be used for this and it would be used for the for the bright line but until you guys adopt the budget it wouldn't be anything this I think there was 6 million dedicated to this originally 4.3 million dedicated this year fiscal year so that money is in the account but because it's not going it would be unallocated and it would rail forward to the next budget cycle because what I'm going at is this has to be a really important priority for us if this represents potentially all of our budget plus if it came in above that getting a note for it this has to be a really really big deal that really uh adds to the mission of the CRA if especially if we might have to take out a note to do it otherwise we're wasting 70 grand right so the taxpayer money money that we're not going to use this year is going to go back into fund balance we could end up with almost 15 to6 million in fund balance plus we're going to get the new Tiff Revenue next year in fiscal year 2025 additional $6 million so we have enough funds to do this project and any other projects that are prioritized by the crb and CRA and God forcl the guy Davis part or the train station and God forbid I hate to even speak it but if we didn't get grant money for the station what what are we potentially on the hook for well we're we are moving forward and we are going to be on the hook for the entire balance of the station and we get grant money reimbursing anyway so it's $30 million right no matter what that we will then be trying to replace so in that context this seems like not a good idea to me is is what I'm trying to say from like a financial standpoint is the point I'm making if this is my small business and I'm using all of my money and I've got this other thing on the horizon there Common Sense here I know we love we love the idea of not having concrete polls but I and I'll tell you I mean it's not a it's a it's a commission initiative that came through the CRA and I think the board obviously this issue is to try and find a way to make this initiative that's been going on for several years continue forward um when uh was the mayor of the city of Stewart he spent $8 million in downtown Stewart and it was in 1988 or 89 and that was a lot more money than it is now and it turned out to be well spent so I'm not saying that it's a bad idea to spend money it's just more of what's the vision of the commission does the commission want to see this project go forward what you're pretty sure of is never going to go down in price I mean sadly I think commissioner uh Rich pointed that out that you know three years from now it's probably not going to be likely that burying the the the lines underground is cheaper than it is now and so as a board you guys need to decide well is it worth it for us to go forward when it was at $7 million was it worth it for you to go forward well then is it worth it for you to get this pay for this estimate to see what it would cost to go forward is really the decision you're making mam mayor so yeah I think that that's the thing is is uh first I'm going just address is far as the undergrounding of the um what will happen when you know hardens the poles and they right in the middle of the sidewalk on Oola Street they put two foot diameter concrete poles that people have trouble getting around that's going to be an issue and I can tell you that we will get phone call after phone call after phone call for that second is from a perspective of this is going to tell us if we can move forward if it comes back at 15 20 million you know but then obviously that may not we'll have to have a reconsideration and a discussion on that but we won't know until we do this and I think that it is worthwhile I think it is um to find out we've been something that we've been working on for over a decade uh maybe two decades um and it's and it's because it's been it because it's always been expensive and it's always going to be more expensive um but it's been a priority to the CRA since I can remember I first came to Stewart in the 90s he uh that's what in fact at one point if you look at the telephone poles or the Light Electric poles along um Oola Street you can see where they actually got fpnl to move the power lines out because people couldn't paint their buildings because it was too to too close and I think the lyrics run into that even to this day because the Transformers are so close to the building and so the uh it is a it is a um it to me it just looks terrible but more importantly I think when when we what are we going to tell the the community when there's going down Oola Street there's six or seven two foot diameter poles in the middle of the sidewalk so um but and we can find find out we can spend 68,000 or 67 whatever it is and find out how much it's going to cost we can then we can have it once we find out we can have that hard discussion so that's why I'm prepared to move forward it's something that we've been promising people for a long time and I think it's time that we that we move forward and then the second last thing I was going to say maybe we could go on the public comment because I know there's several people here that want to speak on it public okay Mr is it I'll let you pronounce it no problem there's not going to be a test afterward for any of you to spell it or pronounce it no pronounce it okay my name is koni and I reside at 41 Southwest seminal Street not seminal alley and we are you know I I I represent 38 unit owners in that beautiful building that probably is going to be contributing a good amount of tax as well in 2024 which coming along right and most of us we are actually professional working and we work in this area or even in Palm Beach Gardens and for very you know renowned companies so first of all good afternoon Madame mayor and the commission and I appreciate you know the time that you guys are giving I represent I'm a board of the direct as I'm part of the board member for the homeowner association and we make decision you know collectively with all the knowledgeable people that they reside in our in our building in our community so on behalf of my our residents and unit owners we stand before you today to express our enthusiastic support for beautification of seminal hisry and uh our city is a reflection of our community community pride and this initiative promises to enhance our public spaces making them more vibrant and welcoming beautification is not just about Aesthetics it Fosters Community Spirit attracts business and promotes well-being by investing in this project we invest in our Collective future creating a more attractive and enjoyable environment for all all of us at 41 seminal requesting that you put a higher priority in this project and get this to a you know successful you know uh approval on the comments that was made with regarding this whole 67,000 I am a professional and I have worked you know in South Florida for past 36 years in very public companies in the large projects when we were trying to do and I was responsible for delivering those project we always gave a small amount of money to make sure that the project budget that we are really going to go ahead and put forward to get approved by board of directors and the CEOs and all of that that there is no going back and kissing their Rings few times right because remember the for $12 million or $7 million that estimates they have gone it is just an estimate this $67,000 is going to give the opportunity for the contracting company and I have never had any business with these guys but they do their due diligence to come back and tell you that what is really you know what what is going to truly cost so you guys will not have any kind of surprises going forward and frankly and I think that you know in the scheme of the things the $67,000 is a really you know a Dust in the Wind to spend to make sure that you know in front of your constituents you guys will not have to go back and do a lot of backpedaling thank you sir my pleasure um Nina bro thank you so my name is Nina bro I also live at uh seol so it's interesting um I will Echo this side of the room's thoughts you live you live at the one that's right here by by Riverwalk oh we're not Riverwalk we're the one next to the boat house the newer one right right that's River 41 oh yeah next to River one farther down by right that's River House we are selfish Co yes anyway it it does look like a back alley um Cafe marer which I've heard is great has an air conditioning water issue it's always I don't know if anyone has ever walked back there but you walk through a sewer swamp every time you walk back there um it's pools of water every time so as we talk about bright line as we talk about beautifying the community as we talk about everyone enjoying downtown um that road is disgusting and panel's done a great job I think there's someone named Sarah we all before we bought in 2021 called the town of Stewart and we got um it in right ing that it was a project it was an appr it was a budgeted project and it was a project that was either approved or was going to be Pro approved I've had the beautification pictures in my wallet since 2021 and it is on that basis because the street is disgusting there's no two words about it we would not have bought if we didn't think the street was going to be beautified because as you know those were some high prices those prices are not worth it if that street is not beautified so we did our due diligence with some lawyers and we were told it was going to be done so whether that happens or not I Echo there's some backpedaling you're going to have to do if it doesn't get done and we all believe it should get done and this team believed it should get done or I wouldn't have the pictures in my phone of exactly what it's going to look like indeed we actually talked with our um architect and said hey where are those palm trees that we see in our building's picture and they said oh it's actually part of the buildings project and then we pulled out those pictures so you might have been talking about this for 20 years but it does seem like it's been a reality for the past couple years and we are here to say please get it done it will help everyone we were excited about the bright line coming and we thought that would get it done fast so I've been sitting in my seat with a pit in my stomach even hearing a conversation of this might not get done this side of the room is giving me a pit this side I'm loving so please get it done I clarify the audience the beautification of seal street is on the books and is going to be done the only reason it isn't Done Yet is because we didn't think it was a good economic decision to put in Pavers to put in landscaping and do everything and then turn around and rip it all out to bury power lines so the issue of the power lines is separate and distinct from the festival street that was designed and the area of the the pavers along the permeable pavers throughout the street and the landscaping and all those designs that's not on the table to be taken away that unequivocally is going to be done the issue is the power lines being underground versus not underground so you're right to say that you had an expectation of that because the commission did in fact direct that but you'd be lynching us if we had spent all the city money to put that in and then ripped it up the following year to put the stuff underground okay we're going to go on to the next one thank you uh Mr Moore hi uh thanks for everything you do I do appreciate you I'm not up here very often but um this project I'm at 41 Southwest Oola street so I get a lot of your mail but I have your mail so um but uh so so I've been downtown for about going on 25 years kilwin right we moved uh a little over a year ago so I've been waiting for this to happen for roughly you know 22 20 no um but there so there there's a lot of issues with the power lines on the sidewalks seminal street is a disaster it's well overdue you know when I looked at those pictures mik presented earlier 1940s right I think there's sidewalks on simal that are from before the 1940s you mean bits and pieces not all of it it's a patchwork right on seminal so um so my parents are 84 85 right they come down Stewart my dad actually still works for me he's my CFO um that's what we call him but um so you know as he's still pretty mobile but my mom's in a walker trying to get my mom down seminal Street disaster I mean it is just a waiting nightmare between the light poles you can't walk the sidewalks either side of the street you have to get into the road to navigate simal Street and that's because of the sidewalks and the and the side you know the poles in the sidewalk so that's a huge issue and out front on Oola and I don't know so much on Flagler side but on Oola side those power poles are a huge obstacle for people and Walkers people with their babies and wheelchairs or and strollers but wheelchairs Walkers and strollers are a nightmare if we get bigger poles on that street you're not going to be able to navigate it you can't get by a pole with uh you know two people can't cross on that that part of the sidewalk with those poles so you know it's really scary and it's not going to go down a price as we move forward I mean this is a project we do every 100 years I say you know something to this degree it's a huge project for the city and I understand it's a lot of money um but all of us have invested a lot of money in Stewart right we love our town um you know I've been involved with a DVA as the owner of kill ons been doing that but I've been the president of our downtown Business Association for about I don't know 12 years nobody wants the job I can't give it away so you know I represent about 35 40 businesses um they feel the same way you know they want the investment you know they've made their investment in the the city with their restaurants with their boutiques and with their shops they made their investment into the city with their residences so we want the city to invest in their Town into their downtown area I know bright Line's coming we got to be able to swing both we really do because if we miss it when are we going to do you know in five years we're talking about it again and it's you know the giant poles are up and it's over so you know we've got a 100-year project we can do now beautify our town get it ready for the next hundred years make those tiny sidewalks more walkable and uh and and easier to navigate for the older folks that we have in the area including my parents and uh that's what I'm hoping you guys can do and this is a good start you know we approve this we kind of see what we have on the table and then we make decisions going forward so when you one second when you spoke of the women uh with their baby strollers do you do you get a lot of locals a lot of women come there ton and you know so many people have moved back to steuart my employees that my you know my early employees now are in their 40s which is insane to me but um but they come in the store they live in Stewart one's a doctor well actually her and her husband are doctors at at Cleveland clinic now and uh so they walk downtown and they have their stroller they have number two baby coming so yeah um it's it's great to see great little C it a fun cycle wonderful town okay just you know just in that point as you saw Aaron Hawkins there you are back there Aaron hello how's everyone doing um I wanted to come forward tonight as a board member for Stuart Main Street and offer my support for this uh for this project for rewarding this project it's uh something that the city's been working on for a while you know I've looked through all the um documents that are posted online if it's uh something we should definitely move forward with because there's you know as someone already stated there's a lot of businesses up there that have those backside entrances on that street um as well as the new businesses that are underneath those condos so we should consider making sure that that street looks a lot better especially with some of the complaints that I've heard just out in the community I mean a lot of people it's not just a matter of it not being as walkable but a lot of people don't feel very safe especially at night walking on that street uh there's not a whole lot of lighting uh it's also just you know it would it's definitely something since we've been talking about it for so long that we should go ahead and move forward with and invest in um if I also could just make a quick comment um apartments are very important for young people that lived here and have been here and need a place to stay because they don't not everyone wants to live with their parents just putting that out there just um but yeah sorry sorry I just wanted to squeeze that in but yeah I as the econ Vitality chair for Stuart Main Street wanted to come and give my support for this awarding of this project thank you thank you sir sure is it just me or youa are are you having trouble hearing the speakers today I have not been able to hear the speakers today Madam clerk testing testing testing she turns it up though okay testing testing not be able to hear ahead testing all right uh Walter Lloyd it's uh nice to be in front of you today uh I would like to say in the interest of saving trees I marked two things on my little green request slip there when I wanted to address Mr morell's uh presentation so I was hoping maybe to get three minutes for that and also three minutes for this just get three minutes for this just three minutes for this you're not going to give me the uh no burn in three minutes okay well so uh few things I've heard in in this discussion was I agree with the commissioner Collins that you guys should break this out break this out to the underground the structural part of it and then the beautification and another part of it simply because of what Mr mortell said uh there it is a specialty it's a specialty uh Contracting uh Niche and if you broke them out you could take the uh underground you could find out who those specialty contractors are and give them a a plat of what areas need to be done and approach it from an incremental cost perspective and see if you could get these people to give you incremental costs on the Underground work that needs to be done after reviewing your your documents um that's basically what I heard I think that would give you the time and in the approach to to get your answers without the $67,000 um whatever time I have left wouldn't be enough by far to address everything that Mr mortell said but I will cut to the Chase and that is in the Costco example we talk that would be public comment I'm give you 30 seconds to get it all out I had it on the green thing so I don't know why I wasn't called so the the uh the Costco example we T talk we talked traffic caner is not a six Lane contiguous highway caner is six Lanes at points and anybody that wants to go in the opposite direction from the way they're entering into that uh Highway has to go down and make a U-turn to go so it's not six Lanes there's turn lanes that interrupt it it's not as fluid as everybody makes it sound thank you sir why are we cutting him off Becky it's only three minutes and it's not the other three I re minutes this guy's been sitting here I requested it and didn't get called that's not fair to me you shouldn't be cutting people off if the Bell Rings keep going yeah go ahead all right so so Costco as the example uh we talked traffic traffic was one of the big issues I'm glad to hear uh again commissioner Collins is concerned about what the public thinks and now I'm glad that Mr mortell is concerned about the uh what the public thinks but traffic we got people coming from 15 20 miles around coming in filling up their cars with groceries and going out they're not spending anything in town when we took the approach of studying how much growth we take the city of stent when in fact steuart at large includes us the mailing address says Stewart we consider ourselves part of Steward our quality of life matters when you Annex into our part of town and then bring all that traffic in that's irresponsible we're asking for responsible growth and so you should listen to us when we presented during that project with our experts it came in at the last minute was ignored even the alj said it was poor planning thank you uh Mr Flanigan your turn I don't think we're going to have a problem hearing me though just for the record I love all of you yes you I'm most sides is no um I was I live on Indian Grove Drive which is a cut through Street between Palm City Road and caner Highway and I remember many years ago when we had all wooden poles most of them across the back and then they decided they need to put some power lines in there and they had those big Square poles and I don't remember the number I'd say maybe seven across the length of the road well somebody at fpnl in the engineering department determined that square poles are not as effective in high wind conditions as round poles of Georgia Tech grad I guess anyway but they came in and pulled out all the square poles and put fewer but much larger round poles and I'm telling you that because I can see the same thing here occurring when you walk down there the only thing I would ask from this point the decision before you right here and right now is not give me $16 million and we'll do this is to spend the money to have an informed decision I agree guys this is a huge price tag that's almost exclusively that whole budget and with all the other things that we have coming I understand but I would rather be able to make an informed decision based on you know $60,000 that I don't have in my pocket sorry but that would at least give you the information that you need to look at and break it down I would ask if whenever they do it to do have some kind of breakdown into the polls versus the beautification because that that would make it a lot simpler but I just feel there you know potentially of unintended consequences here because uh same way when you're walking down there I'm a big guy I take up a lot of room already whenever I have come with those po I have to stop and turn sideways and let the people get by don't do that to me all right tough decision I'll ask one more time any anyone else would like to speak and I have one question for all good evening Miss Helen evening everyone I'm Helen McBride I'm Flamingo Avenue you know it's funny I've lived here for 51 years was this young lady was talking I thought well when I moved there 51 years ago that was an Alleyway I mean a Old Timers referred to it as an Alleyway and it was at that time the houses faced the river and that was their back but now progress and it it's a beautiful but I agree with the people that live there between the poles and all that power it's ugly but also you're allowing when parking on both sides now I've sat here when the beautification but like Michael said it's silly to put it in and then have to Jer it up you know it's like but I'm talking to a contractor today and I said to him this isn't you didn't do it right the first time oh well that's all right no I said if you do it right the first time you don't have to come back and I think that's what our neighbors because they live here now they're our neighbors uh let's do it right I know it sounds like a lot of money especially for someone on Social Security but it's the right thing to do and then another I don't know five years we can go underground and we can have that beautiful SEMO street I'll still call it an Alleyway because I tell you once I learn a name I stick with it but it's an investment just like your homes are in investment thank you thank you all right thank you um one question um if FPL is making these sidewalks like untenable to walk or use is there any grounds to to no we could take the electricity out it's like that it's Mafia okay and I just want to I just want to remind again the undergrounding project is not just not seminal streetscape when we see a large price tag people are thinking it's just seminal streetscape it includes Oola includes St Lucy Avenue and um and Colorado eventually we can approve all or none okay we're going to do do under right so we will bring different categories with price proposals so that the board can decide how to move forward mad mayor one more question just to be sure he it will be broken down yes by quite specifically correct uh we're going to have a roll call now roll call Mary okay I have a u motion by Troy McDonald and uh second by commissioner Clark yes commissioner Collins yes vice mayor Rich yes mayor Bruner yes commissioner Clark yes M McDonald yes okay thank you ladies and gentlemen we're now going to move on 10 the controversial item yes I will lead this to uh our lawyer thank you madam mayor a resolution of the city Commission of the city of Stewart Florida authorizing the city manager or his designate to apply for state permits needed or temporary closings of state roads to install and maintain wayfinding Andor quote welcome unquote Monument um signs providing an effective date and for other purposes move for approval second second got him um motion by commissioner um McDonald we have a second by commissioner Clark um I would need to hear from the audience do we have any um comments from the audience wow see none okay we'll have a roll call Mayor Bruner yes commissioner McDonald yes vice mayor Rich yes commissioner Collins yes commissioner yes thank you thank you thank you mayor br this is a Jour 705 hours anymore e