Welcome to our April 21st, 2026 Board of County Commission meeting. I'm calling the meeting to order. Let's have a moment of silence, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance, which is going to be led by John Sparaga. allegiance 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. Thank you. We have a number of presets today. We'll have public comment at 9.05. At 9.30, we're going to have a comprehensive agreement for public-private partnership. At 5.05, or at the end of our meeting, we'll have public Comment again. There are two additional items. Consent eight is a proclamation commending Kevin Joseph O'Connor, Nicholas DeGrazia, Graydon Miller, and Jake Croteau upon the achievement of Eagle Scout. Consent nine is a local planning agency commission district one appointment. Is there a motion to approve the agenda? I'll move approval of the agenda. Second. There's a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. opposed that motion passes unanimously we will now begin with proclamations the first proclamation is a proclamation recognizing Master Gardeners volunteer week in Martin County Florida good morning commissioners we have a we have a large crew here today The Master Gardeners with the University of Florida IFAS Extension Martin County have been serving their communities through plant clinics, demonstration gardens, youth education, community outreach events, and one-on-one guidance, improving the quality of life for our residents since 1984. Their dedication, professionalism, and spirit of service exemplify the highest ideals of volunteerism and reflect positively on UF IFAS Extension Martin County and our community as a whole. April 19th through the 25th, 2026 is recognized as UF IFAS Extension Martin County Master Gardeners Volunteer Week. Oh, that's a mouthful. To honor the outstanding contributions of our local Master Gardeners. And here to accept, along with a lot of her crew, I guess I would say, Jennifer Pelham, who is with UF IFAS Extension Martin County. Thank you and good morning. Good morning. First of all, I'd like to thank you for your continued support with the University of Florida IFAS Extension here in Martin County. The Master Gardener volunteers are just one of our many volunteer groups we have with UF IFAS Extension. The Martin County Master Gardeners have been volunteering in Martin County for over 40 years, and they provide education on gardening and landscaping practices through community events, school gardens, community gardens, one-on-one consultations, our Florida-friendly landscaping program, just to name a few. In 2025, the Master Gardeners hit a new record and recorded more volunteer hours than they ever have before. They volunteered 12,699 hours. This is only what they recorded, because I know there's probably thousands of hours they didn't record, into our volunteer management system, which has a value, an in-kind value of over $420,000 that they volunteered back into Martin County. To make this week even more special, tomorrow we are graduating 18 new Master Gardener volunteers who have went through over 75 hours of training just to become volunteers with University of Florida IFAS Extension, Martin County. And so I want to thank all the Master Gardeners for their dedication and hard work to educate the residents here in Martin County. And I also want to thank the commissioners for their proclamation today. So thank you so much. We're going to do the photo in the well, commissioners. Into the well. And we can just stand right there. Yeah, mine needs to go. Those are fine. Those are OK. There's no reason. All right. Come on in. We're going to have to have the layer here. It's a lot of people. Definitely going to have to layer. A wild group that just keeps growing. Tallest in the back, tallest in the back. A lot of gardeners. Tallest in the back. And a taller plant. Just like in the garden, taller in the back, middle, front. That's a group. Yeah. Sarah. Sarah. All right, make sure you can see well so he can see you. All right, everybody right into this lens. Three, two, one. Another one. And three, two, one. Thank you. Right, right, right. Wow. Where'd everybody go? And our next proclamation is a proclamation declaring Earth Day in Martin County. April 22nd marks Earth Day, a global observance highlighting the need to protect the Earth's ecosystems, which span 510 million square kilometers and support millions of species. Sustained efforts by residents and organizations can preserve these resources, ensuring their ecological and economic value endures for future generations. Earth Day provides an opportunity to celebrate Martin County's commitment to green initiatives, such as expanding stormwater treatment areas, promoting native plantings, and fostering community engagement in conservation. And here to accept, we have Mark Perry, executive director and CEO of the Florida Oceanographic Center. Always good to have you here, Mark. Thank you. I've got, you know, today, tomorrow is actually the Earth Day special day. I mean, back 54 years ago in 1970, Some of us were around and we were very active and we started the first Earth Day back then and a lot about 20 million people all over our planet, mostly in our country, gathered up to kind of recognize the Earth as a precious resource. The folks before me obviously are taking care of that Earth and we're really working hard to try to all work together to try to understand our sustainability on this planet. We're at 8.2 billion people right now. When I was born in 1952, there was only 2.2 billion. We've grown a lot, and there's a lot of need to, the more we occupy this planet, the more we need to be recognizing how to sustain it. I've got for you a little picture. So this is the Earth taken from space in Apollo 17 back in 1972 from about halfway to the moon, about 125,000 miles up. What I want you to note is that all those white puffy stuff that's around the planet, that's our thin atmosphere, which sustains about all that water vapor. You know, the water on our planet covers about 71% of the Earth's surface, and about 96%, 96.5% of that is saltwater in our oceans. So only 2.5% is freshwater, locked mostly into glaciers, ice packs, and even a little bit of our rivers and streams and lakes. But a lot of that also is needed to understand that water vapor right now is in the atmosphere and it condenses into those clouds and is constantly moving around our atmosphere. The Earth has three forms of water, you know, gas, solid, and the liquid. But right now Lake Okeechobee is about 11.94 feet, but the evaporation rate For today, it's almost at 3.5 billion gallons a day of evaporation off the lake. Where does that happen? That happens at water vapor and it goes into there. We're breathing it constantly. We're constantly hydrating our lungs with this water vapor. So water's a big part of our planet. And I appreciate all that Martin County's done and this area where I've grown up as a resident. And I really, really appreciate Martin County's efforts to try to protect and preserve our water planet with all the initiatives that they've done, as we mentioned, stormwater and all the other kind of things that the county works to stop the pollution and clean up the water so that we have a viable, sustainable environment for the future. So thank you for declaring this Earth Day and I appreciate it very much. Thank you. I'm Mark. Next is a proclamation honoring Nurses Week in Martin County, Florida. Nurses are the backbone of the healthcare system, providing compassionate, skilled, and evidence-based care to individuals, families, and communities across Martin County. The dedication, resilience, and unwavering commitment of nurses has been especially evident during times of public health challenges, demonstrating their courage, leadership, and adaptability in the face of adversity. In recognition of Nurses Week, May 6th through the 12th, the board encourages all residents to join in honoring and celebrating the dedication, compassion, and essential contributions of nurses within our community. And I don't think Lisa with the Florida Nurses Association is here, so we will accept her on her behalf and get it to her. Okay. I think we need a motion to adopt this proclamation. I'd make a motion to adopt. Second. There's a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? That motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Thank you, commissioners. Thank you, Laura. The gardeners left. It got very quiet. We're going to need you folks to really rev it up a little bit. They're a wild bunch. Next is public comment. I have one request to speak for them, and that is from Justin Dukas. Good morning. My name is Justin Duquesne and it is nice to see you guys and see how this thing works. And it's cool that you guys are here. I wanted to start off by saying that I am a native of Martin County and I graduated from Martin County High School. So I'm just going to get straight into it. House Bill 1 3 6 5. which was passed I think was late 2025 or somewhere, it pretty much makes sleeping in public illegal. And trespassing is also illegal. There are no shelters for me to sleep at tonight or any night. So I have to commit a crime in order to go to sleep along with the hundreds of Martin County residents who do not have a house to sleep. And I feel like this is an emergency and a civil rights crisis. And I'm speaking for the behalf of everybody that is going through a similar circumstance. And I feel like we need to designate a camping area or something to alleviate this emergency in which I have to commit a crime to sustain my biological body. And if we could talk about that at a later time that would be great because this is an emergency. This is also a federal lawsuit but I do not want that to be an indication that I do not like you guys because obviously I like the Democratic way. It's just that I have pretty much exhausted all of my legal ways of going about this and I don't know how to proceed forward. And if we could do something about this. Thank you guys. Thank you. Thank you. Very well said. Would you like to address us, sir? Please come forward and then fill out a request to speak form, hand it to the bailiff. You'll have three minutes to address us. Charlie Bartholomew, I'm from Palm City. Just a couple quick things. I'd like to just give more appreciation to Mark Perry for everything he's done. over there in the Oceanographic Institute. He's an old friend and a picking partner, known him forever, and his brother and family. I was just curious if there was any recent information on how the CRA in Palm City is rolling along. I see them working. Sometimes civil contracts have pauses in them once in a while. But I was curious how we're doing with the city water and service as they would apply to the southern end of the CRA district there. Does anybody have any recent updates? We don't do that here at the meeting, but if you call my office, I can give you the answers. And if I don't have them, we have staff that will absolutely give you the answers. Very good. Thank you, Commissioner. My pleasure. Thank you. Would anyone else like to address this? Seeing none, we'll return to, oh, Mr. Flanagan. You hit your head on the ceiling? Yes, I did, actually. On a doorway, but that's a whole other story. Joe Flanagan, as some of you may know, I am, the last few years, been in charge of the parades, the Veterans Parade, Memorial Parade, Martin Luther King Parade. And this year, after the Veterans Parade back in November, I let everybody know that I was gonna have to step down from that position because in May, project graduation and my lovely wife is retiring finally. And so I need to kind of free up my schedule. So I let everybody know that somebody else is gonna have to pick up the ball. And I worked with the Veterans Council and talked to them and said, you guys have enough of the information and I can give you the manual, I can have everything you need to be able to do this. And I was told, we don't have the resources or the personnel to do this. And I kind of went, seriously, you guys are the veterans. You all are in charge of battalions and platoons and who else. All I need is five people. I ran it by myself, but that's a skill set. And before that, Jim Reardon ran it very, very well. And he had an office staff. He had a couple of people that were helping him. It can easily be done. But now I'm hearing, it's a rumor, so I can't confirm it, that there is a group that is very upset, feel like we're being disrespectful to the veterans, which I disagree with. My personal opinion, Veterans Day, parade, fireworks, huge celebration. Memorial Day is a solemn moment. It needs to be revered, and the city of Stewart now has a beautiful park in Memorial Park, and the city of Stewart said they support that, and said the commissioner said they would not support the parade. So anyway, just on there. I've got all kinds of information if you wish to talk to me more. But I also offer this is everything on how to run the Memorial Day Parade. Three different times I've offered it to the Veterans Council, and I'm not here to bash them. They are great people. They have a great service. I'm ready to hand it to somebody. It can be done in seven weeks. Thanks, Mr. Flanagan. Anybody else want to address us? And we'll move to commissioners. Commissioner Vargas. Well, on a light note, that was a light note too, Mr. Flanagan, University of Florida IFAS Extension, I had personal experience with them. They helped me plan my butterfly, buzzing bee, and hummingbird garden. And they came out, five of them came out, and they gave a lot of information, and we're trying to promote, obviously, growth and development. nature here in Martin County. So that was a success for me. University of Florida, I've had the pleasure, along with Commissioner Capps, to continue commissioner training up in Gainesville, a stellar group up there. And now they've been tagged as on par with some of the Ivy League schools. So we have them right here in our backyard. I urge everyone to take advantage of the services. There are many that they have. The A young man that spoke a moment ago about homelessness, would that be a social services matter, Commissioner Heard, Chairwoman Heard? Okay, and possibly we can refer him to that department. I'd appreciate that. So, yeah, that's it for right now. Mr. Capps. On April 16th, I attended the Apollo School Winter Speakers Series. And the speaker was Catherine Larson, and she is the keeper of the house at the House of Refuge. And she talked about the restoration that has been done there and that there's going to be a ribbon-cutting event on a Saturday. When is that? It's coming up in May. May 2nd. And so we would invite... everyone to come who can. We look forward to seeing the renovations there. She did a great job. It was really fascinating to hear all about the history of the House of Refuge. I'm sure you all will enjoy seeing how it's been restored. Thank you. I serve as your representative, our representative on the Children's Services Council. And as your representative, I get invited on field trips to visit a lot of the organizations that the Children's Services Council funds. Last week, I visited the Little Lights Dentistry. It's a homegrown organization. It's from Martin County. No other one exists anyplace else. It's for low-income children. children who don't have any insurance, and Little Lights Dentistry provides free dental care to newborns to 18 years old. And there's a dentist who's been on the staff there for nine years. There are three dental hygienists. The offices are on the St. Joseph's campus, and they are just beautiful. My own dentist office is really state-of-the-art, fine, fine office. But this place has just new, wonderful equipment, beautiful rooms. All of the rooms have beautiful murals that were painted by Lynn Barletta's group. It's just an astonishing asset. Last year they provided dental care to over 1,000 Martin County kids for free. Another organization that I visited, that also is homegrown and exists no place else in the world is Banner Lake. If you don't know about it, it's in Hope Sound. It's grown tremendously over the last 20 years and now has a school that provides excellent education for I think 200 and something children. It's just terrific and added to that campus recently is Project Lift, another homegrown Martin County organization. Bob Zacchio started that organization, I think about maybe 16 years ago, something like that, with a $5,000 grant. And now it's just an unbelievable organization. We have so many organizations here that are singular and distinct and provide so much wonderful care, particularly to kids in Martin County, particularly low-income kids. extraordinary assets that we should be very, very proud of. Also, on Friday, I attended the celebration of the acquisition of the easement for Barbie Ranch. It was held in Indiantown, and it was the first gathering of that sort, the best one that I've ever, ever attended. It was incredible. It was really well attended. A really diverse group of supporters. The entire ELOC was there. Army Corps of Engineers was there. South Florida Water Management was there. Lots and lots of people from our agricultural community were there. You know, some of our best, greatest philanthropists from the eastern part of the county. It was such a wonderful gathering. And of course, it all was made possible because of the inimitable troop family. And they are so reliably full of joy, and they're so gracious and so grateful and so emotional. And every time Lance Troop speaks about this acquisition, he's very tearful. And on Friday, there wasn't a dry eye in the house either. So it was just a wonderful celebration of a terrific acquisition, and it showed so much community support for the half-cent sales tax. Thank you. Very well said. A couple of quick things. One, to Mr. Flanagan's point about the Memorial Day parade, that has been swirling around for quite a few months now. I know that I had heard from a couple of folks. I agree that Veterans Day is the appropriate day for more celebration-type events and that Memorial Day should be more solemn. I do also, you know, I've been reading what's been in the paper and on social media. It's obviously sort of a split group. I think part of what, knowing that the ceremony portion had still been planned to take place and give up the parade, which the folks that were concerned about it were thinking it got a little broader than it needed to be. There was car clubs and other events and a little too celebratory, a little too upbeat for Memorial Day. And I guess if, you know, God forbid I become a Gold Star family, my son is in the military, I hope to never have to walk in those shoes, but I can imagine if I were one that it would be difficult to see people celebrating Memorial Day or saying, Happy Memorial Day, which I know is not meant to be a knock, but I think we've sort of faded from it. And until someone brought it up, and I give Colonel Wynn a lot of credit, he had been really... quietly saying that for a long time. And I think people have gotten that. So we're still, from what I understand, we're still having the ceremony. It's just the parade portion. And Mr. Flanagan, your idea now that I was thinking that where they normally have it right in Memorial Park with the tents that they put up, if we get the crowd that I would hope we get, it would be too small. But immediately next door, steps away, is a much larger... venue that the city of Stuart did a beautiful job putting together. That could easily handle anyone that is interested in coming. I still think it's important that if you have young children, scouts or anyone else, that they come and still understand what we're going through. Now more than ever, I mean, under the current political circumstances, now more than ever, we should remember who did what. so that we could say and do what we please in the United States. And sort of on that, so I appreciate you, Mr. Flanagan. I know that putting parades together is crazy, a lot of work. And probably if there was one person who could do it by himself, it's probably you. Last meeting, I had mentioned to Mr. Donaldson about creating some kind of discount structure for some of county activities or services for veterans, active duty, military, and first responders. Many, many communities already do it. Many private organizations, private companies already do it. I would like to see, just as a reminder that that would be something, and that Mr. Donaldson, I was thinking, I had gotten some very positive feedback about that, people that live in other communities that shared with me how they do it there. each of our department heads would try to brainstorm with their staff on what they could offer. It doesn't necessarily have to be a discount. It could be some type of incentive. I think it's an appropriate way that we respect and honor what those individuals go through. And then finally, I'm having an additional or the next in my series of Dish with the Commish. which will be this Friday, April 24th. It starts at 8 a.m. at the Palm City Community Center at the base of the Palm City Bridge. Now, Charlie Layton Park is under construction, and when you come by, you'll see in the last couple of weeks a tremendous amount of activity. They're redoing the parking lot, which is the northern parking lot closest to the bridge. So instead, if you're familiar with that, if you came directly over the Palm City Bridge and made the left to go into Charlie Layton Park, the first entrance is detoured. You go down a little bit further, you make the left onto the side street, and you'll come around by the rowing club, and then there's a parking lot there. My guest this month is Dr. Chaudhry, who is the Vice President and Medical Director of Cleveland Clinic. He was the, they had split that responsibility between Tradition, which was his area, and then Martin North and South, which was someone else's, and they have consolidated them back, and he is now over all three of those areas. He is a tremendous wealth of information. He's a great person. I've had the opportunity briefly to meet with him. I think he will be an excellent person. Guest he'll have a lot of information. You know, there's a lot of sadly there's a lot of misinformation floating around He will be able to be there to set the record straight It's not recorded. It's a little more of a casual conversation He is prepared to answer any questions that are asked. We're obviously hoping to keep it very civilized As a nice conversation with amongst our community. It's a free event It's hosted or I guess helped to be hosted by the Palm City Chamber of Commerce. So I invite you all to come out this Friday, 8 a.m. It's about 8 a.m. to 9.15. So if you're a working person, you still can come and hear what Dr. Chaudhry has to say. And thank you very much. Thanks. Commissioner Hetherington. Briefly, Commissioner Hurd mentioned some of my comments. Friday was a really amazing day as we celebrated Martin County Forever's success. and we put Barbie Ranch, celebrated putting that under a conservation easement. I had the opportunity of growing up in Indian Town and being able to explore all those beautiful ranches in properties. So it was an emotional day and I wanted to thank the troop family and our ecosystems department here at the county and the DEP for all of the partnerships that made that possible. It was worked on for years and years and it wasn't easy. And thank you to the voters who approved the Martin County Forever Land Acquisition Program. to put such a beautiful property that you'll see in preservation forever. So thank you to the Troup family and all of the parties that made that possible. It was a wonderful day. Thank you. Mr. Donaldson. I have some recognition I'll present at the end of the day. Okay. I'm all set. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else? Then we will take up Department 3. which is a public meeting for consideration and approval of comprehensive agreement for a public-private partnership, P3. Sorry, before we do that, let's approve the consent agenda. Is there a motion to approve? There is. So moved. Yes. I second. There's a motion and a second. Any objections? That motion passes unanimously. Thanks. Good morning. All right. Good morning, Chair and Commissioners, Matt Graham, Assistant County Administrator. Joining me today is Sean Donahue, our General Services Director, and Stephanie Murley, our OMB Director. Today is the third required public meeting under Section 255065, Florida Statutes for the Martin County Operations Facility Public-Private Partnership, or P3. Why are you here? At this meeting, staff will present the final negotiated comprehensive agreement and provide both the board and the public an opportunity to review and comment prior to consideration of approval. This represents the final step in the statutory process before board action. This item is a result of a multi-step public and statutory process. As a reminder, we received the unsolicited proposal on October 31st, 2025. The board held the first public meeting in December, followed by the second public meeting in February, where the board made a formal public interest determination and authorized staff to proceed with negotiations. Since that time, staff and our consultants have completed negotiations, bringing us here today for the third and required public meeting. So this project addresses several longstanding operational challenges. Currently, the county operations are spread across multiple locations, as we know, including facilities on the airport property. Currently, excuse me, these conditions create inefficiencies, duplication of services, and increased operational costs, while many facilities are also aging and outdated. Additionally, the county is required to comply with the FAA Voluntary Corrective Action Plan or the VCAP, which requires location of the non aeronautical uses from airport property. So this project provides a long term centralized solution by consolidating multiple departments into a single modern operations facility. It supports improved coordination, enhances service delivery, and aligns with the county's long-term capital planning and infrastructure goals. And importantly, it ensures compliance with the federal requirements with regard to the VCAT. So why the P3 approach? The public-private partnership model was selected because it provides several key advantages. It allows the county to transfer certain project risks and achieve greater cost and schedule certainty, as well as accelerate the project delivery. We're going from 18 months of building this as opposed to 36 months with the traditional method. It also leverages private sector expertise in design and construction while maintaining public ownership of the facility. Overall, this approach was determined to provide the best value to the county. And with that, Sean's going to talk about the evaluation and what we've been going through with the negotiations for the past two months here. So the proposal has undergone a thorough and comprehensive evaluation process. That process included hiring some consultants, financial advisors for technical review and legal review by the county attorney's office. The evaluation confirmed that the proposal meets statutory requirements. It's feasible, appropriate, and in the public interest. So the staff effort since October has been extensive. We've met with The developer we've met internally, we've met several times, up to 100 hours, 100 plus hours, discussing the unsolicited proposal, the department's needs for the new facility, conceptual plans and cost estimates, legal framework, and details of the comprehensive agreement. The administration, county attorney's office, OMB, and the county's financial advisors have spent the last several weeks negotiating the terms of the comprehensive agreement. and the financial arrangements for the project and negotiating key areas of the contract, including insurance, liquidated damages, county's comprehensive requirements for development, the project schedule, project milestones, and completion terms. And I'll talk a little bit more about those. So the scope includes the construction of a 114,000 square foot facility plus an additional 4,000 square foot hazardous material storage area. There's 10 acres of secure material and equipment storage, 300 parking places plus, stormwater improvements, landscaping, utilities, a lift station, a chilled water plant for cooling, covered storage, material storage areas, and a fuel station and emergency backup power. So it's a pretty comprehensive plan meeting the needs of all the county's departments. The facility meets the requirements of the CIP. the capital improvement plan with a central core component shared by all departments, individual department spaces for offices, warehouses, labs, storage areas, and trade areas. The schedule is aggressive, like Matt said, 18 months for completion and includes several milestone requirements along the way. It's a guaranteed maximum price not to exceed $74 million. Payments will be based on completion of the milestones and work performed, not ahead. The project has several areas where the county is protected with bonds and provisions for liquidated damages. The county was involved in significant decision-making across the agreement, including a non-substitution list where we get to define what we want in the building and the developer can't come in with a cheaper product or something that doesn't meet our requirements. We still have design review to go. We still have to pick and deal with the fixtures, furniture, and equipment. and then we can do inspections and construction permitting. The design will be minimalistic and cost effective while still meeting the needs of all the departments and the county's LDRs. Once complete, the building improvements will be conveyed directly to the county as required by statute. Some of the benefits of the project include a hardened facility able to withstand 180 mile an hour wind speeds, which will allow the county departments to better respond to the residents and infrastructure needs after a storm. We can actually stay in this facility and be ready to mobilize as soon as the storm's over. The reduced construction costs provide additional efficiencies. The design was intended to avoid duplicated spaces, such as shared locker rooms, conference rooms, communal spaces, lay down areas, storage areas, receiving operations. All that's combined into one centralized space. Consolidating into one space and one main building provides for better collaboration within the departments. Combining the departments to a new modern facility will also provide a cost avoidance of not having to maintain the older facilities that we're at now. The plan complies with the FAA requirements, as Matt pointed out. And then finally, our consultants... performed an analysis of the cost per square foot of the project initially and then compared it to what we could do now if we did this ourselves in a design-bid-bill process. If we did this on our own, we'd be paying around $700 a square foot. This project is coming in at $533 a square foot, so it's a significant savings in just the process alone. The speed of the process in getting that done is something that we just can't do as a county. So we're laying on the expertise of the developer and their, you know, experience and then overall as we've negotiated through the through the project we increased the size of the building we added a whole bunch of required improvements and that total cap never changed the developer met all of our needs and never increased or never even talked about increasing costs from here I'll turn it over to Stephanie so a little bit about the financing structure of this project Based on analysis by the county's municipal advisor, PFM, self-financing the construction of the Martin County Operations Facility has been identified as the most cost-effective option and the approach that delivers the greatest overall value to the county. The proposed financing structure includes bonds pledged by the county's existing half-cent sales tax revenues, with the annual impact anticipated to be budget neutral. This is due to debt obligations the Board paid off during the current fiscal year, which offset the annual repayment requirements of this bond, thereby improving the project's overall financing structure. It also includes a $10 million budgeted buy-down with approximately $64 million in total debt issued to fully fund the project. A 20-year repayment term is recommended, reducing overall interest costs by about $22 million compared to a typical 30-year term. This approach comprehensively delivers approximately $45 million in total savings to the county over the life of the term. This includes cost advantages from reduced square footage costs compared to traditional design-bid-build delivery, estimated time value of money impacts, avoided rent payments to the airport, and savings compared to the proposer's lease purchase alternative option. Finally, the strategy ensures the county retains full ownership of the facility upon completion, supporting long-term operational flexibility and maximizing value to the public over time by allowing the county to directly control how the facility is maintained, adapted and utilized without the constraints or additional costs typically associated with long-term lease or third-party ownership structures. With us today, we have Jay Glover from PFM, our municipal advisor, and Dwayne Draper, the county's bond counsel with Bryant Miller Olive, and they're here and available to provide additional detail on the county's financial position and the bond issuance if needed. So for the comprehensive agreement considerations in accordance with section 255065, the county has made several key findings. The project has been determined to be in the public interest, and the financial plan has been reviewed and confirmed to be feasible. The agreement includes adequate safeguards to protect the public from additional costs or service disruptions. And then based on all the analysis, evaluation, and negotiation, staff is recommending board approval. And there's five recommendations here. And the third bullet point, commissioners were asking that. Should we approve this that that be a separate vote on the third bullet point? So I'll go through The first bullet point move that the board adopt a resolution determining the proposed project and comprehensive agreement comply with section 255 065 Florida statutes move that the board approved the comprehensive agreement between Martin County and building tomorrow's infrastructure for the design construction and conveyance of the Martin County operations facility and and authorize the chair to execute all documents related to this request. Move that the board approve supplemental bond resolution authorizing the issuance of half-cent sales tax revenue bonds to fund the project. Move that the board approve the budget resolution appropriating the debt proceeds into the fiscal year 26 budget. And finally, move that the board authorize the chair to sign all related documents to effectuate the issuance of the Half-Cent Sales Tax Revenue Bond Series 2026. That concludes our presentation, and we'll be happy to answer any questions you may have. Mr. Capps. You know, when I think about this project, I think of it's a very large contract, $74 million. And the first thing that comes to mind is the need. Why do we need this? And I'd like to remind the public of a couple of things that have been brought out in prior meetings regarding this matter. And one is that we need the new operations facility because the FAA is asking us to get off of the airport property because our operations facility there is not an aeronautical use. So we're kind of under a time limit. We need to to get off the airport property. And then also, I remember visiting the current operations facility when I first got elected. And it's like a bunch of trailers bolted together. That's what I remember. And it's kind of subpar. This very large department in our county government has... has been working and sort of substandard conditions for like 25 years. And this issue has been talked about for about 25 years as I remember. So there is a great need to have a new operations facility. The second thing that comes to mind with regard to this is how would we pay for it? And that has to do with this Half-cent sales tax revenue bond, apparently there's a half-cent component in the sales tax that we pay that gets shared back to the counties from the state, and we're actually able to use that for bonds, to bond that amount, and that's how we would raise the money to pay for the project, not through ad valorem taxes. So that's really important to note. We won't be raising your tax bills, property tax bills, in order to pay for it. And then in prior discussions with Ms. Murley and the staff, which the presentation was excellent by all of you. Thank you very much. I remember something that was very interesting. We retired about $4.5 million a year in debt last year. Several things like the Veterans Memorial Bridge comes to mind and there were a few others that we knocked off and it created about, it was about $4.5 million a year in debts that we erased last year. The payment on the operations facility will be about $4.6 million. So it's a large payment, but it's pretty much on par with the debts that we retired. And also we're going to be saving $250,000 a year that we paid the airport fund for the to rent space at the airport. So actually, we're going to be to the positive about 100,000 a year. So we've got the room and the budget to do this. I thought that was important. Lastly, I would note that the county has strong credit ratings and very low debts as a whole. And it looks like we're aiming toward having a 20 year repayment instead of a third year a repayment which saves 27 million dollars 22 million 22 million dollars so i'm impressed with the proposal and i'm comfortable supporting it and i think mr graham you mentioned that you thought the motion should be to initially to cover the number one two and four And then we would do number three as a separate motion? Is that what I heard? We'll do three and five separately. Three and five. Okay. Well, anyway, initially I would make a motion. I would like to go ahead and make a motion to approve this project. Second. Excellent summary. Thank you. Mr. Vargas. I brought this up at the previous meeting also. In the way that I practice, When I'm getting bids, I get at least three bids. I just don't go with one bid. And it seemed as if it was a push just to have one organization submit a bid, negotiate with them, and it was hurry, hurry. I'm really uncomfortable with that because I don't know what else to compare with. I understand the money. I've got that down. You're going to float a bond. And those that choose to invest in it, that's fine. And I understand about the half-cent sales tax and the cost savings. However, this is $74 million. I think one of the previous commissioners, previous meeting, said we're going to compare this to a roof. This is not a roof. There are many companies that would be interested in putting their hat in the ring, and we have to get the best value for those taxpayers in Martin County. You know, this is not something that's impossible to do, and I have a very, very big problem with this. This has just been pushed forward, and there's not a lot of thought, gee, is this really the best deal? This is really the best deal for us. So I'm very reticent just to go ahead and approve this with one vendor coming in, one contractor to come in. I said that in the previous meeting also. Commissioner Campy. Thank you. A couple of things. sort of side notes to the process. I know that there will be a consolidation, as you mentioned in your presentation, a consolidation of other areas where county departments have been located. I know, obviously, the biggest one is the airport property, and we know that that will revert back to being aviation or flight aviation. uses on the airport property, but there are several others. I had heard a couple of clever uses, reuses of some of the properties, but I would seriously like the county's leadership to consider evaluating properties where operations will be moved and where appropriate should be considered for sale back to the private sector, back to the tax rolls. We shouldn't just creatively figure out a way to repurpose the property. If there is a legitimate, and I know speaking at Hale-Patioke, there is already a vision of what could work and make the park more efficient. But if there are other areas, the property on the southern portion of the fairgrounds at Indian Street, one of the more valuable pieces of property that the county owns, I would prefer to lower the cost of this project. to think about putting that back out for sale, back to the private sector. And then secondly, when the private partner and the public-private partnership, the private partner, that organization, if not the ability to require them, I would strongly appreciate and value our connection with them if they would utilize as many local contractors and service providers as possible. I know that it's a big organization. It's a tremendous project. Every opportunity to use our local folks, to engage our local folks as consultants, contractors, service providers, whatever the case may be, that brings an extra value to this project, you know, which will serve the public residents of Martin County for decades, but I also think it's an additional opportunity for us. So I don't know if we can structure that, and I see our folks that are part of that shaking their heads yes. I'd like whoever's going to be overseeing the project, especially in the beginning, to see that that is not something that we set at the meeting and hope for the best, that we literally would see either in collaboration with the Treasure Coast Building Association or whoever else might be needed. I think that although you have structured a very well done plan, and I can hear my colleague, and I don't disagree with what Commissioner Vargas is saying, the traditional way to negotiate something would be to collect bids from multiple people. But this, as we have discussed in meetings in the past, is a strategy that is not familiar necessarily to a lot of folks. It has not been utilized everywhere, but it has very much been utilized globally, I'm sure, in the United States. And I think Commissioner Hurd and I, having sat up here for quite a while, this is sort of an interesting day, as Commissioner Hetherington has been in her shorter term, has heard this many times. But Commissioner Hurd and I, this has been discussed for decades. Commissioner Capps touched on it by saying how it looks almost like an encampment. It looks like something that was slapped together for a temporary use on a piece of property at the airport. We're like, hey, you know, we're going to just push everything in here. We'll put some people in trailers. We'll put some people in metal buildings. And we'll utilize some structures. And we'll just hope for the best. Except decades have passed. And it really is inappropriate. our community I don't think most residents have any idea how this portion of the county employees have to exist I remember touring our old fire stations and looking and saying you know sewage coming up through the shower pans the cabinets falling off the walls and we asked our employees to live like that and to work like that and now if you look at these facilities and i get it we're trying to be fiscally responsible and we drag those projects and those facilities out as long or well past their life expectancy i think it's disrespectful and it's not because we weren't trying to come up with something but i think enough is enough it's well past time that we do this I know that certain residents will think, like, they get nervous that we're spending tax dollars reinvesting into the organization, which most private sector businesses do. But people get frustrated that we're spending money on building things. But anyone that had a concern that this project shouldn't move forward or that we're building a Taj Mahal for our employees, I invite them to come and see what we've been up against. When I say we, I mean our staff. has been up against for decades. Lining up to use a restroom before you have to go out for the entire day, inappropriate. So I know that we kid with Mr. Donaldson because it was, he just celebrated his 30, he's 31 years into the county now, but probably for at least 25 years this has been an issue, all the way back when he was the engineer and head of public works. And I think we're finally, I don't want to jinx it, I think we're finally here. And I'm glad we don't have to name it the Don Donaldson Memorial Building that you lived long enough to see this happen. But if, God forbid, something happened to you, we will name it after you. At least I'll make a motion. But it's nice that you get to see the project come to fruition and that you'll get to be at the ribbon cutting for this. So I second Commissioner Capp's motion with my two caveats. Sell any property that you can and employ locals. Thank you. Commissioner Hetherington. Many of my notes have already been spoken. I read her notes. Long before I was here, the day I arrived, this has been a priority. I've been here seven years and opportunity also to take a tour. And it can't be the way it's not an efficient way to deliver the public works services to our residents that they expect, demand and deserve. And, um, in addition to even accelerate that further is the FAA requiring us to use that property for aeronautical uses. So that was my first point. And as far as building tomorrow's infrastructure, that is a group that has actually, they have proved that they can do this kind of project and be successful at it with what they did at the Indiantown High School. So I'm excited to be partnering. And I do agree that the more local vendors you can hire, the better the project will be for our entire community. So I absolutely support that. And I'll just say that this has been in the planning process. It's been well planned. It's been a capital project that has been discussed. It's been planned. And I think it's the financing. The P3 mechanism, we were not talking about this five years ago. I think that's going to give the residents and the county a huge significant benefit to getting this project done on time and on budget. And I support the way it's fiscally planned. And it's the best way to move the project forward at the most fiscally, I think, sound and efficient. And I will absolutely support it. Mr. Vargas. Okay, so in light of everything that I said, I'm not going to reiterate that because I'm not verbose. I get right to the point. Yeah, properties need to be sold. That's important. We can't be hanging on to this. This is not in the best interest for the county and for the taxpayers. As a matter of fact, I'm glad Commissioner Campy brought this up. I've had small contractors approach me, and they said, you're locked up there at the county. I can't get in. And these are people that have successful businesses. But it's the same names that come across for engineering, plumbing, electrical, whatever it may be. This is not correct. This is not correct behavior. We have to afford the opportunity to everyone and give them a hand up to be able to offer their services as vendors and or contractors. And I think that anything that we do in the future should be included in contracts if they want to be considered to be successful. I'm still very reticent. I don't have anything to compare this with. I see a $74 million price tag here. I already said before, without the additional information and the knowledge, I cannot go along with this. I cannot go along with this. There are other companies out there, believe me, that would love to throw their hat in the ring here, absolutely, without a doubt. This is not a roof. This is not a small project. This is huge. It doesn't come along every day, and I've had this discussion with staff. You did a great presentation, and I appreciate it, and of course our accounting, and I get the money crystal clear. However, we're in tenuous times right now, and we have to be extremely frugal and prudent with our money, as we do personally. This is what I've heard from folks since that they're incredulous. What? You're spending how much? Why? And I understand all about the trailers and how they're cobbled together. I get all of that. But there is a certain way in order to make this more effective. This is where I stand right now. Mr. Donaldson. I just wanted to point out two things at this project that are unique. And certainly the P3 is a unique process. It is new. However, you must recognize... that you just see a small part of the team here. Part of the initial contract also included us hiring a number of consultants to help us evaluate that. And we don't have them here today because, quite honestly, we have some excellent experts on our staff that allow us to present in those details. Our county engineers had a number of decades of experience working for the private sector. Mr. Donahue also has similarly decades of experience building large facilities at colleges and other areas. And financially, too, we have significant resources within, and then our consultants are here. So there's two critical elements of that, and one of them is, you know, the first one is are we getting built what we need? And I absolutely guarantee that we have that. And then the other piece is how does it cost to put this site together? site development is a complicated business in martin county and in florida in general you know all the utilities have to be brought in all the all the stormwater infrastructure meeting the codes and that assemblage of of infrastructure is expensive and so we did have between ourselves and our experts looking at how that would cost mr donahue brought up those costs of 700 a square foot which is really for the entirety of the site all of those Pertinence is everything that goes into putting the site together. And those are real numbers. And those are real numbers that are compared to other particular projects. P3 contracts are complicated in that fact that they can't exceed a dollar. I would say that for a contractor, it is not for the weak. It is a cutthroat business that they work in in building large facilities for very sophisticated private sector developments, and when they get it wrong, they go out of business. There is no second chance, if you will. It's a one and done. So I think that's part of the advantage. That's why we're interested in it as well, is that it is a tight contract. They have the experience to do it. And I think the other thing that's really important that, as I've been told by our Taxpayers Association, Ms. Murley speaks too fast, the financial piece is also, I think, a piece that is very noteworthy, and I invite the public to pull that apart in the fact that we have a really great financial team that put together that is saving significant amounts of money, both in terms of the financing and how the board supported buying down debt and actually having over $100,000 a year in revenue and to build a $74 million facility all at the same time is really quite creative. And I don't want to over gloss that because it was pretty significant and it kind of goes to the heart of Martin County's pay as you go mentality. and our ability to deliver on significant needs when we need to. So that, I think, just wanted to make sure that there was a lot work on here. There was a whole team of experts that were behind them. We didn't need to bring them because, quite frankly, you have some of the best right here. Thank you. Yeah, I just want to say that this project was done in full compliance with the law. And how many public works employees work out of the Witham Field facility? We're going to name a wing after you, Jim. Jim Gordon, public works director. So we have about 110 employees out there just in public works, but we also have general services with another 50. 50-plus. 50-plus employees out there, so we share that facility currently. So 160 employees there. And then we're adding the parks department as well. Right. Yep. Yep. And I just want to say that we have the team in front of us here. Mr. Abate and Mr. Gorton were significant parts of the design team. And then the negotiating team was Ms. Murley and Mr. Donahue and Mr. Graham. And I could not have more faith in the team that we've put together. I have complete trust. and confidence that this will be a terrific project. It's the biggest project that we've ever contemplated, but it's one that I have no reservations about approving. I think that you've... I'm so proud and so confident in... that this project is the best that we can do. Terrific job. And that's coming from Sarah Hurd. That's right. I'm a pushover. Yeah. That's what people call you. Pushover. 23 years I've been a pushover. Getting pushed over. So there is a motion to approve bullet items 1, 2, and 4. Is that correct? Yes. Okay. There's a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Opposed. That motion passes 4-1 with Commissioner Vargas dissenting. Now, on to three and five. I'd make a motion to... Separate or together? You can do those two together. I'll make a motion to accept items three and five. And for that, it looks to me like you're going to have to buy me a new box of pens. Right? There's a motion. A motion. Is there a second? Second. There's a motion and a second. We just need to ask for public comment. Okay. This is a public hearing. Would anyone from the public like to address us? Yes, Mr. McChrystal. Thank you. You're right. It has been a long time, a long time of people fighting to keep as many jets out of the sky as possible at Wytham Field. 30% of the property still does not put jets in the sky. So when I'm going over this item on your website, the agenda website, I didn't see building tomorrow's infrastructure mentioned. All I saw was building tomorrow's schools. Building tomorrow's schools is an operation that's been actually in functioning for only two years out of North Palm Beach. And then when I researched that, I saw that it was a shoot off of building tomorrow's infrastructure. So this feels icky to me. The appetite for jet hangar space at Wytham Field is insatiable. And obviously, you guys have decided what you're going to do. I think at this point all we can really hope for, and I hope you would at least throw us a bone, knowing that the illegal extension of runway 1230 in 1998 started all this. I think you could at least throw us a bone and do what you can to preserve the 23 acres on the airport property that border the YMCA and all the neighborhoods to the north of there. Yeah, this is Icky. Knowing that the real need for hangar jet space is coming out of North Palm Beach, it just has an icky feel to it. And it's over. I fought it as long as I could. But again, throw us a bone. Preserve that 23 acres of buffer between the airport and the the YMCA in those neighborhoods to the north. Sir, would you identify yourself for the record? Francis Joseph McChrystal III. Thank you. Any further, anyone else from the public? Seeing none, there's a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Opposed. That motion passes 4-1 with Commissioner Vargas dissenting. Thank you very much. We're now going to take up Department 4. THAT'S OKAY, WHICH IS ADOPTION OF A RESOLUTION APPROVING THE SURPLUS AND DISPOSITION OF A COUNTY-OWNED PROPERTY TO THE TOWN OF SEWELL'S POINT FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE PUBLIC OR COMMUNITY INTEREST AND WELFARE. THIS IS MS. SEGURA. OKAY. We could sit here in awkward silence. She's got to be like sprinting back. Jim Gordon, Public Works Director for the record. This is a request for acceptance and approval of a resolution for the surplus and disposition of a .23-acre county-owned property that's located adjacent to the Sewells Point Town Hall. The subject property is currently leased to the town, and the lease term expires next month, May 10, 2026. The property is not currently needed for county purposes. There she is. The Town of Schools Point has proposed purchasing the property for public or community interest and welfare. You don't have to say sorry. Take a deep breath. Sorry, Mr. Gerd, this is my fault. I moved out of order with that. I was watching and I was like, wait, I thought they were going to go back. It came all the way from Willoughby Boulevard. How much did you use it for? I just did this. Oh, okay. The county currently has a public purpose lease agreement with the town of Sewells Point for the .23 acre parcel, which is directly behind and adjacent to their town hall parcel. The lease is scheduled to terminate on May 10th of this year, and rather than entering into a new lease, the town, at their September 2025 meeting, authorized staff to explore the potential of purchasing the property. They completed an appraisal, which came back with a fair market value of $50,000. By way of background on this... piece of property, the county acquired this property in 1981 as part of the Southern Gulf utilities purchase. In 2010, the county determined that the site was no longer needed for county purposes and removed the storage tank that was located on the property. Then in 2011, the county entered into that public purpose lease agreement. More recently, the town manager brought forward an item to proceed with purchase of this parcel. which was approved at their board meeting on April 14th. Staff is requesting that this parcel be declared surplus and authorized for sale to the town of Sewells Point, who is a municipal corporation pursuant to Florida Statute 12538. The statute allows the county to convey property that is no longer needed for county purposes to a municipality in support of public interest and welfare and a mutually agreed-upon price. The mutually agreed upon suggested price would be the appraised value of the property, which is $50,000. With that, we ask that the board adopt a resolution declaring the property surplus and approving its sale to the town of Sewell's Point for $50,000 and authorize the chair to execute the contract and a county deed transferring the property to the town of Sewell's Point. If there's any questions, we'd be happy to answer. Commissioner Campy. Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. Gore, can you pull up onto the screen the location of the property so folks at home can see what exactly we're discussing? It's on 396, if that helps you. Can you, I guess that's as big as we can make it. There we go, sorry. Can you zoom in a little bit? Donna, are you in charge? Oh, that's it. Okay, perfect, perfect. The point I wanted to make is I'm surprised this was county property in the first place. It literally is that building to the right that says TSP, Town of Sewell's Point, that's their town hall. This is like their, if you didn't know any better, you would assume this is their parking lot or their property. I think it makes perfect sense that we would... finalize we don't need to continue to lease it and I would remind people that when they think about the county is selling off property Sewell's Point is in Martin County Sewell's Point residents are Martin County residents so it's not like we're selling this off to Port St. Lucie we're selling this off basically to ourselves other residents and the appraisal came in at 50,000 then that's a fair number we shouldn't be trying to twist the arm of our fellow residents behind their backs, I would make a motion to staff's recommendation to sell this property to our friends at the town of Souls Point. I would be glad to second it. Mr. Daniels, do you want to add anything else? Bob Daniels, town manager, Souls Point. Just wanted to thank the commission. You know, it's great when we work on cooperative efforts, and this is one that's been a little bit of time in the making, and so I really appreciate your cooperation, and hopefully you all vote to approve. Thank you. Thank you. Would anyone from the public like to address us on this matter? Seeing none, back to the board. Any further questions for our staff or Mr. Daniels? There's a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? That motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Thank you very much. Put that $50,000 towards the maintenance facility. Need to get as much revenue as you can. Shall we take an early break for our morning break and then come back in 10 minutes? Isn't there something else? The hotel in Palm Springs? Can't we cover that one? I don't think that'll take that long. Let's just funnel through it. Take up public hearing quasi-judicial number one, which is a request for approval of a revised major master site plan for Palm Pike Crossing and a revised final master site plan for lot five. This is quasi-judicial number Commissioner Vargas, any ex parte disclosures? If I have any, they've been filed. Commissioner Capps? If I have any, they have been filed. If I have any, they've been filed. And Commissioner Campy? I don't have any, and that's been filed. And Commissioner Hetherington? If any, they've been filed. Excellent. Mr. Aguilar, have you provided all of your important materials to the clerk? Good morning. A copy of my work history has been turned in as Exhibit 1. Okay. Anyone who's going to be providing sworn testimony? In this public hearing, please stand up, raise your right hand, and be sworn in. Do you swear or affirm the evidence you're about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? I do. Thank you. Please proceed. Thank you, Madam Chair. My name is Luis Aguilar. principal planner for the growth management department. There are no interveners. Proof of public notice was thrown in at the LPI meeting. I'm presenting a request from Bradford Trading Partners LLC to revise the Pound Pike Crossing master site plan by expanding lot 5 and to approve a revised final site plan for a three-story 20,959 square foot hotel. with 105 units on approximately 6.57 acres. Included is a request for a certificate of public facilities reservation. The subject site is located in the southwest section of Palm Pike Crossing, a master-planned commercial development south of Southwest Martin Highway and west of Southwest High Meadow Avenue in Palm City. this is the pampai crossing development this is an enlarged area of the site the property is undeveloped the zoning district is limited industrial the properties to the north east and south are limited industrial as well The future land use designation is industrial, and the abutting properties have the same designation. And this is the approved master site plan. Here's lot five and the proposed addition to the lot, which is a lake and a dry retention area. North of the subject site, you'll find lots one through four of the Pound Pike Crossing development. which includes a convenience store with gas station, a vet clinic, retail, a day care facility, and a pet care facility. Here's the proposed revised master plan showing the expanded Lot 5. And this is the approved site plan for Lot 5, which was for a 120,600 square foot residential storage facility. However, this building was never constructed. This is the first sheet of the proposed site plan. Access to the property is from two locations on an internal roadway. Here and here. And here's the enlarged version of the site plan. You can clearly see the entrances to the site, the circulation, and some of the features such as a pool and outdoor seating areas. This is the addition to Lot 5. The applicant is proposing site enhancements such as a gravel pathway, a gazebo, and a paved seating area with benches. So you can see the pathway here, the gazebo, and the seating area. The applicant is requesting alternative compliance from the primary façade transparency fenestration criteria of Article IV, Division 20. Staff recommend approval. The Board of County Commissioners is the final decision maker for this application. And these are the proposed building elevations. These here are the primary facades. This matter was heard before the LPA on April 16, 2026. The LPA voted to approve 320. Development review staff have found the Pound Pike Crossing Lot 5 application to comply with all applicable regulations and the Comprehensive Growth Management Plan as detailed in the staff report. We recommend to move that the Board receive and file the agenda item and its attachments, including the staff report as Exhibit 1. a move that the Board adopts the resolution approving the revised Mayor-Master Site Plan for Pound Pike Crossing, a move that the Board adopts the resolution approving the revised Final Site Plan for the Pound Pike Crossing Lot 5 project. This concludes my presentation. The applicant is here, has prepared a presentation as well, and is ready to answer any questions. Commissioner Campi. Thank you, Mr. Aguilar. Two quick questions. I know you mentioned it, but can you tell me again, what was the square footage of the proposed and approved storage facility that was going to go there? 120,600 square feet. 120,000. And what's the proposed square footage of the hotel? So it is for 20... 60. I lost it over here. 20,959 square foot hotel. It's 62,877. Yeah. Yeah? Correct. It's a three-story hotel. Okay. I'll hear from the applicant before I continue. I just wanted to get those two square footage totals for something I'm going to tell you later. Thank you. Any further questions? Applicant, would you like to give us a presentation? All right. Good morning, Board of County Commissioners, Chair Hurd. My name is Leah Heinzelman with Kotler and Hearing. Here on behalf of the applicant for Palm Pike Crossing, Lot 5, I wanted to thank Louise and staff for their coordination on this project and their presentation. So we are here to present a revised major master site plan and lot five final site plan for proposed hotel use within the existing master plan commercial development. This request reflects a vision that aligns with both the market demand and Martin County's long-term goals. This project is supported by a highly experienced consultant team, many who have been involved from the original master plan. You can see on the screen our full team, and together we have worked collaboratively with staff throughout the review process to ensure a comprehensive and compliant design that meets all applicable county standards. As background, Lot 5 was originally envisioned for a hotel, and the master plan was approved under the assumption one would be designed in this location. During the uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic, The project was transitioned to a self-storage facility, which received approval in 2022. Today, with a stabilized and growing hospitality market, we are returning to the originally intended hotel use, an evolution that better serves the area and supports economic activity within Martin County. The application includes both a revision to the existing master site plan and final site plan approval for 105 room. three-story hotel, approximately 62,870 total square feet. The proposal has been designed to integrate seamlessly within Palm Pike Crossing while meeting all requirements of the comprehensive growth management plan and land development regulations. The site is located at the southwest corner of Southwest Martin Highway and Southwest High Meadow Avenue and consists of approximately 6.57 acres. The property is well positioned within an established commercial and industrial corridor with strong regional access this close to the turnpike. The subject property carries a future land use designation of industrial, consistent with all surrounding parcels. The proposed hotel is compatible within this designation and supports the broader employment and service framework intended for the corridor. Staff has confirmed consistency with the comprehensive plan. The site is zoned light industrial LI, and the proposed use is permitted within the district. The surrounding zoning context is also predominantly industrial, further reinforcing compatibility. The revised master site plan contains the overall framework of Palm Pike Crossing, while allowing the expansion of Lot 5. This adjustment supports the operational needs of the proposed hotel, while maintaining compliance with all site standards. The site has been designed with a strong emphasis on open space and environmental performance. Over 64% of the site is either open space or landscape, significantly exceeding minimum requirements. Extensive pervious areas and stormwater features enhance both function and aesthetics. Part of the reason for the existing dry detention was included. The site not only includes an outdoor seating and cafe area, but also outdoor amenity pool, as well as an overlook to the modified lake, pedestrian pathways, and extended landscape areas. This site accounts parking for the total hotel room count, employees, and outdoor seating areas requiring 113 spaces, and this design provides 121. As outlined in staff's report, the project satisfies all applicable criteria, including stormwater management and water quality compliance, compliance with flood elevation requirements, enhanced landscape and tree preservation standards, minimal traffic impacts with acceptable levels of service, adequate utility capacity, and full compliance with fire access and ADA requirements. Alternative compliance is requested for a facade transparency on select elevations. Staff has reviewed and confirmed that the design meets the intent of the county standards and is appropriate for the site context. Here's a look at the architecture of the site with the proposed landscape. As mentioned earlier, we are above the requirements for landscape and open space, creating a beautiful hotel for future guests to enjoy. This project provides meaningful benefits, including supporting tourism, activating an underutilized parcel, and aligning with the county's long-term vision for growth. The applicant respectfully requests approval for the revised major master site plan and lot five final site plan. The project is fully compliant and provides a positive community and economic benefit. And I want to thank you for your time, and I'd like to invite our applicant up to say a few words. Good morning, Mr. Patel. Good morning, Chair. Good morning, commissioners. I'm very excited to present this project to the county. My name is Raj Patel. I'm a county resident for almost a quarter of a century, which implies I'm pretty old. But I just wanted to thank you for the opportunity to speak to you about our proposed hotel project. I was advised by my team to stick to script. because I'm usually involved with the city of Stuart and things get exciting over there. So anyhow, Palm City is growing. There's a need for more places for visitors, as you all know, travelers, families to stay. Our Palm City is very, it's pretty affluent. It's doing very well compared to 20 years ago. There was a little bit of difficulty. Restaurants couldn't even survive. Today we have so many beautiful restaurants in the CRA and We've got other ones opening, and they're all busy. They're all thriving, and they're doing very well. So we're just part of the whole thing. We just wanted to make sure that our project functions well, includes enough parking, as you've seen. Traffic floor is exactly what it should be, and obviously stormwater systems are very important to all of us. The project will benefit the community by creating jobs, bringing in tax revenue. This is not a... 3P project. This is a private, private project. We'll be contributing to the tax roll, which is fantastic for everybody. We'll be supporting local businesses like restaurants and shops. And we'll be giving visitors a convenient, nice, safe place to stay in Palm City. It's a Hilton hotel. We've presented a beautiful layout, lots of green space, places for people to walk, congregate. It's nice. I believe this is a responsible project that supports growth while maintaining the character of Palm City and Martin County. You know, just to let you know, my kids all studied here. They went to all the Martin County school systems, both graduated from Martin County together with my ex-neighbor, Commissioner Campy. And we're very much involved in the county, very much involved in the city of Stewart. I'm building the other hotel. downtown Stewart that faced a little bit of resistance rightfully you know city of Stewart is small and people wanted to preserve the quaintness but we definitely need a hotel in downtown Stewart so that's going to start in a couple of weeks but I just wanted to let you know I'm trying my best to make everybody happy here one more thing before I finish up It would be very, very nice if I get a 5-0 unanimous approval. That's all. Thank you very much. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask. I'll try to answer them. Questions for Mr. Patel or Ms. Heinzelman? Commissioner Campy. Not so much questions as just I wanted to give my feedback on the process that's been here. Originally, as you heard in the presentation, They were going to build a four-story storage facility. That was the plan. Not these folks, but somebody else. And I was very unhappy with that strategy. As a Palm City resident, as the district commissioner, and for 20 years, as Mr. Patel said, I could literally walk to this site from my home if I felt the urge. That being said, I was frustrated, but rightfully so, the board voted for to approve the storage because they basically had to. And I voted no. Because it just, my vote was more of a symbolic vote of just not pleased that we would have been adding an additional storage facility, 120,000 square feet. And for reference, the Publix, the original Publix on Martin Downs Boulevard is 55,000 square feet. So imagine stacking the Publix on top of the Publix. For more reference, the Publix, which we call the small Publix, on Martin Highway behind the Palm City Post Office is 27,000 square feet. So you're talking approximately four or five Publix, four stories tall, storage that within, again, walking distance of that site, there were five others. So I was very frustrated that it was going to be storage. And as I've driven past there every single day, waiting to see this monstrosity start to come up out of the ground. And magically, it's not. There's been talk, as the applicant said, there's been talk about a hotel going on the site. It makes perfect sense because it is one of the few areas in South Florida where you can get on and off the Turnpike and on and off 95. right there. Indian Town Road in Jupiter and up in Fort Pierce are the only other spots that I can think of where you can do that. There is hotels down by Canter. Most of the time they're busy. As we had heard, Palm City is the largest of the communities, 26,000, currently approximately 26,000 residents live in Palm City. So if you have the convenience of in and out, on and off of 95 and the Turnpike right there. And the largest of our communities in Martin County, a hotel makes sense. The other thing that frustrated me about storage is that if you were not storing things there, there's no benefit for the overall community that a hotel would have. I also like, you know, I travel quite extensively for work. and stay in hotels similar to this one, and they're lovely. All of the brands, whether it's Hyatt or the Marriott or the Holiday Inn, they're fine. But I think Hilton, and I know they're independently operated, a lot of them, with the brand, but the brand requires the independent operators to really maintain the exterior and the interior, and the service is provided at a very high level. So I was very happy to hear that it would be also a Hilton. So you put all those things together, and I'm very pleased to make a motion to accept staff's recommendation. The final thing I would say is that other than this alternative compliance for some – I didn't even really – I read it two times. What is it, windows or lack of windows, too many windows? Give us the layman's definition of – what the alternative compliance is meant to be. So for the transparency on the first floor of the primary facades, it requires a 40%, and the hotel is proposing 37%. So a 3% decrease in transparency, which obviously means the windows. Okay. On the first floor. Other than that, they would be allowed to build this without us really, you know? So it's not like we are, you know, giving up the farm to allow some crazy project. So I'm pleased. I think there'll be always, as we know, folks that won't want it to be anything. But I think that it'll be an excellent new project for Palm City and for Martin County. And Mr. Patel is, as he mentioned, a longtime resident of Palm City, he's building in his own community and I personally thank you for doing it. Mr. Capps. Yes, I will second the motion and remind us all that this is a master final site plan approval. So no comp plan amendments are needed and no zoning changes are needed. So they're going straight to major master site plan approval which basically means this is a buy right project is that a good description uh paul thank you good morning commissioners paul schilling growth management director so in essence yes the the proposed use is consistent not only with the zoning the land use the uh proposed master site plan and the accompanying revised final site plan so All of the evidence has been provided, all of the staff reports and compliance findings. So, yes, sir. Great. And I want to remind the younger people today of what motel life was like back when I was a kid. I have a few memories that I always like to share with younger people. The first thing I remember is this was the days before cell phones. My mom would drive us in under the awning at a motel and she would have me go inside and check the price of the hotel. And if it was five or $10 too much, we'd get back in the car and drive to the next corner and check on the price on that one. And we might make three or four stops before we make a decision. And that's the way you had to do it back in those days. And it seems like the prices back then for like $40 or $50 a night, as I remember. And then my next memory of early days and using motels was the days when you had to use an actual key for the door and not a little plastic thing. And it was very important that you check out, not just that you check in. You had to check out to return your key and get your little deposit. And people would drive away with the keys. So I don't know how the motel kept so many spare keys, but I suppose they had to. And so that was interesting. And then there's the ice bucket. That was the kid's job. When the family checked into the room, the first thing you did is hand the ice bucket to one of your kids and say, go down the hall and get us some ice so we can have some water to drink. This was before bottled water. was commonly used. So you had plastic cups, and you had your ice bucket, and you just drank water out of the tap. Go to the bathroom sink and get yourself a drink of water. So on those lighter notes, I thought I would share that with the young folks. I don't have any memories of that. I'm much younger than you. Commissioner Katz, you're forgetting the waterbed. Oh, yeah. Nice point. Commissioner Capps was Expedia before there was Expedia. Commissioner Hetherington. And all the hotels that we stayed at had access on the exterior of the building. Motels, yes. So I would just say many of us remember that this was the very sought-after site of Costco, and then the community rejected it being on that site. And I also remember sitting up here, and it came in as basically a straight zoning project for, where we, and I thought that was approved unanimously. So it was a straight zoning project. And so the landowners were entitled to build what they're doing. So what you're doing, I believe, is a straight zoning entitled project. And I believe it has its benefits. And I will be supporting it. And I wish you all the best. This is a public hearing. Would anyone from the public like to address us? Seeing none, I'll close the public hearing and return. And I also will be supporting this. And also, I appreciate that you have far exceeded the open space requirements and also that you are only planting native trees. Both wonderful decisions. So there's a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? That motion passes 5-0. You got your wish. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you to staff for all the work you guys did. Appreciate it very much. You're in the county. Thank you. Sorry, county. Thank you. Thank you. We're going to take a 10-minute break now. We are back taking up. workshop one which is a review of the fiscal year 2027 tentative capital improvement plan miss shelby dela pietra oh a new name new name new name no longer a baker so once uh before shelby gets started i just wanted to make a just a few quick remarks on the capital improvement plan for this year and the the short story is there's not a lot of uh Any additional requests? There's a few requests for additional funding, but largely it is flat. But I think it marks achievement in Martin County in the fact that for a number of years, we've talked about backlogs and the need for significant new funding sources to deal with maintaining what we own and operate. and from resurfacing for years. We talked about that, parks, facilities. And while Sean is here, he knows that we still have some needs in building operations. The last few years, we were able to catch up on some of our FISC-FARB funding so that we're able to keep some of our numbers flat now in terms of making repairs to the courthouse and our jail facility and some of the other major projects that we were largely having to do emergency repairs and come to the board throughout the year for reserve funds. So I think we should be proud to look at that we have made some progress that we are no longer going backwards in a lot of our operations and maintenance farms. and that we're actually starting, we are catching up. And so I just wanted to thank the Board for our past projects and funding opportunities. And while there's always a need for resources, this, I think, represents a CIP that can achieve our goals. and still keep up with our maintenance opportunities. Thank you. I just wanted to tell you that Commissioner Campy is over here whispering about the improvements to the courthouse. He thinks that you're partial because your daughter is going to be working there. And that's why they're finally getting the repairs that they need. Any truth to that? I plead the fifth. Which is fantastic. She's going to be working there as a judge. So congratulations to you. That was a secret. It's out of the bag now. I don't think this is a secret. It's not a secret. Please proceed. All right. Good morning, Commissioner. Shelby Della Pietra, Budget and CIP Coordinator, here today to present to you the fiscal year 27 capital improvement plan. During this workshop today, we'll walk through the key objectives of the fiscal year 27 capital improvement plan. It begins with defining the CIP, outlining a project's origination and process, and reviewing revenue planning and proposed expenditures. Then we'll move into project highlight slides, the CIP's impact to the overall county budget, and wrap up with board review. What is the capital improvement plan? When we talk about the capital improvement plan or CIP, we're referring to a multi-year planning tool that helps the county identify infrastructure needs and the funding sources to address them. It plays a critical role in supporting the services provided to our community by ensuring that we plan for future construction, maintenance, and to protect the infrastructure over the next 10 year period. Throughout the CIP, you will see fixed asset replacement budgets, also known as FARBs, which are essential for planning and maintaining our current assets. All revenues in the CIP are required to both be available and feasible. With approval of the CIP, the board acknowledges that the projects contained in the plan represent a reasonable interpretation of the anticipated needs for the county. Projects included in the first year of funding of the fiscal year 27 CIP will be included in the fiscal year 27 county budget that will be presented to the board in July. Most CIP projects originate from a variety of sources, such as FDOT work plans, mandates, strategic planning, level of service requirements, and more. The capital improvement plan is an ever-evolving process that assists in identifying and planning for the county's capital needs. The process begins in December. Departments develop and refine their CIP sheets. These are then submitted to the Office of Management and Budget in February for funding and then are reviewed by county staff and administration. In April, we have the CIP workshop as we are here today. With approval, the CIP projects presented to you today will be included in the tentative budget that will be brought to the board. In July, the annual budget workshop, the board will review the tentative annual budget and will set a tentative millage rate. The final step in the budget process is in September. The annual budget that will begin on October 1st, 2026 will be adopted at the board at two public hearings. The fiscal year 27 CIP is a continuation of previous year's projects. Let's take a look at some key projects across departments that include Parks and Recreation, the Sea Turtle Beach Cafe and Beachside Restroom. Ecosystem Management, we have the Cypress Creek Floodplain Restoration. Coastal, MacArthur Boulevard Beach and Dune Restoration. stormwater management we have the Bessie Creek retrofit roads we have Old Palm City North neighborhood restoration community development we have Maple Avenue drainage improvements and Jensen Beach CRA utilities connect to protect force main and grinder systems public buildings Martin County operations complex library we have Elizabeth lot see library audio-visual upgrade As presented today, the CIP includes a 1% increase in budget Avaloram revenues over fiscal year 2026. This slide represents an Avaloram impact per department, which totals to approximately $385,000 increase over fiscal year 2026. Here's a snapshot of the products that have contributed towards the fiscal year 27 ad valorem impact. These will be discussed in depth with each department's highlight slides. CIP projects typically involve the outlay of substantial funds. Therefore, numerous sources of revenue are necessary to provide financing over the duration of the project. Most capital funding sources are earmarked for particular purposes and cannot be transferred from one capital program to another. An example of this would be an enterprise fee-based project, such as airport fees to assist in the rehab of a runway. With the CIP being presented to you today, ABLORM only makes up 17.7% of all revenues proposed. The fiscal year 27 CIP represents 7% slice of the total countywide budget, which is still under development and will be brought to the board in July. This concludes my portion of the presentation. If there are no questions, we can proceed into department highlight slides. Questions? I don't see any, so let's proceed. First is airport. Good morning Madam Chair, good morning Commissioners, Andrew McBean, Airport Director. Today we present the fiscal year 27 CIP highlights. In fiscal year 26, the airport utilized approximately $235,000 of enterprise fund towards the CIP. In fiscal year 27, we're looking to utilize $1.2 million of airport enterprise funds towards the CIP. This is an overall impact of $970 additional. What stayed the same, commissioners, is Wytham Field remains an enterprise fund with no support from local taxpayers. We operate entirely from the revenues generated at the airport, and our grants are matched with both FAA and FDOT grants. What's changing in fiscal year 26, we had a number of design projects, and we're moving into construction projects, which is reflecting the $970,000 increase in our CIP request. Completed... Completed fiscal year 26 CIP projects included the airfield signage replacement project, the airfield security improvement projects, as well as vehicle gate security improvements. Current airport CIP includes the taxi lane Bravo rehabilitation. That project was paused due to season. The runway 1230 PAPI and reel replacement, that's the precision approach path indicators and runway end identification lights, as well as the taxiway alpha hold bay. Upcoming CIP projects, commissioners, is a runway 725 rehabilitation that is a crosswind runway at the airport with the state participating in funding that, as well as the residential sound insulation program. That is the insulation of homes that are affected by aircraft at the airport. Any questions, commissioners? Any questions? That's correct, airport enterprise funds. Thank you, commissioners. Thank you. Can we do tentative approval for each one as we've done in the past? Sure. Move approval. Second. There's a motion and a second. All those in favor, aye. Opposed? That motion passes unanimously. We'll take up community development. Good morning, Commissioners. Susan Correz with the Office of Community Development here with my colleague Jordan Pastorius. What stayed the same, as I come every year and say, We are focused on infrastructure installation and improvement in all six of our CRA areas. We look at programs, projects that forward that goal and concentrate on the completion of each community's redevelopment plan. Completed projects, oops, let me just tell you what changed. Increased private investment. We're proud of this one, and that is because of some of the streetscapes that we've all, and I include the county in that, built around the county. And you can see that if you drive down Map Road or Bridge Road or Dixie Highway in Hobe Sound, the increase in private investment on those streets. We have new social media in the CRA. We're going to have a Facebook, so that's exciting. Is that something new? Is that a new thing? It's a new thing. You're just getting Facebook? How about that? I will point out some AIPP projects when we get to completed projects, and we did receive four project awards this year, so that was exciting. If you go to completed, again, I'm going to point out AIPP because it really was a stellar year for art in public places. We have Windy Day in Palm City, Navigating Martin Waters, a Gorgeous Mosaic in Port Salerno, And the Hobe Sound Library should be celebrating shortly their new mural and their book benches, 3-D printed book benches. The other highlight I believe for us would be the sale of the Palm City property, and that was completed as well. Moving on to current projects, I'll point out those that are under construction at this time. Golden Gate El Camino is under construction. hopefully to be finished at the end of the summer. We have Port Salerno Park Drive improvements, and those improvements include sewer for that street and the entire pocket. The CRA is doing that street and some improvements to the dock and the parking and the streets there. New Monrovia Park should be underway in a couple of weeks. We should have shovels in the ground, and that's going to be an exciting project for that neighborhood. And, of course, still working with Habitat for Humanity on Petway Village. They have completed 14 homes, I believe, and we have four left. Yeah. Upcoming projects. We've done so much design this past year that we will have – Lots of projects in engineering next year. And I would point out specifically in Rio, two very large projects. In Palm City, we do have Cornell Ave, which we hope to be getting underway as well. Construction for Jensen, Church Street, should be completed next year. And that's going to be an exciting project for that community. Additional parking. We did receive a very nice easement of RIGHT AWAY DONATION FROM A PROPERTY OWNER THERE THAT WILL ALLOW LOTS MORE PARKING FOR THOSE RESIDENTS AND THAT DOWNTOWN. AND WE ALSO HAVE SOME PROJECTS IN NEW MONROVIA THAT WILL BE IN CONSTRUCTION NEXT YEAR. ANY QUESTIONS? QUESTIONS FOR MS. KORES? SEEING NONE. MOTION TO TENTATIVELY ACCEPT THIS CRA CIP. SECOND. There's a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? That motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is fire rescue. commissioners, Chad, Jane, Julie, fire chief, Martin County Fire Rescue, Matt Rush, fire rescue administrator. So we're here to present our CIP highlights. If I just look at FY26, our request was 2.171. We moved to FY27. Our request is 2.169, and that's a decrease of $1,096. Now, why is that impactful? $1,096. Let's talk about the challenges, what changed. So if I look at just fire apparatus alone of the increased in cost over the last several years, they have gone up. These are fire trucks and rescues by 85%. If I was to buy a ladder truck today, I have to spend roughly $1.5 million in that truck. Years ago, that was under a million dollars. Fire trucks, no different. It's just insane what we're up against, but we're still able to decrease by $1,000, just almost $1,100. The other is, and I'm going to contribute this to Matt Resch. Matt Resch is always our secret guy out there that really does an amazing job with how we impact and negotiate with our vendors. We took our vendors, really... We kind of pressed them hard this time, this year. We're able to press them regarding our firefighter ensemble of our bunker gear, which is pretty much what firefighters wear to go into building fires. This is what protects them. It's their personal protective equipment. And we're able to do a 20% reduction because we put these vendors up against each other, and we saved over $200,000 with that gear alone. The other is that we absorbed the AED replacement program that we now have in the parks, which is an amazing program that is really benefiting the community. What stayed the same, if you look at the ad valorem impact, we have sustained for four years straight roughly $2.1 million. And up against the challenges that I'm sharing with you, that is absolutely amazing. The other is our apparatus replacement program. This year, we're able to purchase 10 new trucks. $7.2 million, and that has zero budget increase. And we're able to sustain that. And we've just been ongoing with just how we present our budget, how we apply it with the vendors, how we negotiate with them, and it has really put us in a very healthy place. And, again, I just want to kind of thank Matt for what he does along the way because he works hard and he demonstrates here where it actually pays off. So with that, if you have any questions, I'd be more than happy to take. Questions? We do have a question. Commissioner Capps. Can you state that again, about 85% increase in the cost of trucks? Say that again, if you would. So before COVID, I'm going to kick this to Matt because he's got the hard numbers. Before COVID, we're able to purchase the trucks, and those would be the fire trucks and our rescues. We had roughly a one-year turnaround. Everything, even our most expensive truck, we were under that million-dollar price point. Ladder trucks are usually our most expensive. Then we go into COVID. Then it turns into a supply issue. And then these vendors, they really, and this is just my personal opinion, I think they took advantage of the situation and these prices inflated and they never, ever came back. Now we're at the point where we're really putting a lot of pressure on them to decrease it. But the actual number, I'll pass that off to Matt, what they were prior to COVID. Yeah, it's pretty close as far as the percentage there. And it's even post-COVID. I think in FY21 we purchased a truck for $635,000. That same exact truck, same specifications, same manufacturer, same everything is now $1.1 million. And we're seeing the same thing, and he alluded to the bunker gear situation. Those prices have increased 100% in an eight-year period. We used to buy a set of bunker gear for approximately $1,600, and it blew into over $4,000 per set for one coat, one pair of pants. And they're not Versace suits. So I'm not really sure what they're making out of it. I think that's a good example of what can happen in county budgets. And there's a lot of talk in the legislature about cracking down on local governments and they're all wasting tons of money. And this is a great example right here of what happens. There are lots of things in the county budget like this. where perhaps you would look at the overall county budget and you would look at the inflation rate of 5% or 6% in a given year, and you would think to yourself, well, the county budget should only go up 5%. This is a great example of why that is not always possible. There are weird things that happen in the economy where health insurance spikes 20% in one year or gasoline prices spike. 20 or 30% in one year. There's a lot of stuff like this in county budgets. So I think that's a good thing to keep in mind throughout this whole discussion as we're talking about the CIP. Another thing about the CIP that's interesting to note is that this is not the budget. This is not what we're actually spending. This is kind of a wish list, a thing that it's a planning document. and what we would like to get done if the resources could support the plan that we're putting in place here. So that's also good to keep in mind. Thank you. I'll move approval. Second. Any further discussion? There's a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? That motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Thank you. Library is next. morning, Ms. Salas. Good morning. So what has stayed the same in our CIP requests is for our radio frequency identification system. We're continuing the funds from FY26 into FY27. What has changed is we have a request in for a new audiovisual system at the Elizabeth Lottie Library, and we are requesting a library materials increase within our impact fees. We have a very healthy impact fee fund right now, and we could use with cost of doing business increasing for books, both electronic and print. Our completed projects, we almost are very close to finishing the Hobe Sound Public Library outdoor space. The pavilion is finished. Susan Kors mentioned in her presentation, we have our 3D book benches through the public art program, as well as a mural. So we're just working on one component. And so we'll be setting up a ribbon cutting soon for that. We recently had our ribbon cutting for the Hoke Library outdoor space, and I'm happy to report that it has been used quite a bit by the community. We haven't even planned any library events in the space yet, and it's getting used all of the time. We do have a future potential project through the public art program to do an eco art project as well in that space. Then we did just complete our Peter and Julie Cummings Library in Palm City, the audio-visual upgrade there, which has improved significantly our ability not only to host our own library programs seamlessly, but outdoor outside events too from other entities. Our current projects we're working on is the Hoke Library radio frequency identification system. That's our check-in and check-out of materials, which is an automated system. And our upcoming CIPP projects, again, request to implement an audiovisual system. You can see in the picture there, that's our current setup at the Lotte Library. We have a cart with a projector and a microphone hooked up to a portable sound system. So with the increase in residents in that community and increase in usage in our space, we could really use a fully implemented system. And then we're still waiting on the Newfield Library for developments in that. Happy to answer any questions. I'll move approval. Second. There's a motion and a second. All those in favor? Sorry. Sorry. Ms. Salas, the Newfield Library 700 dwelling unit, could you explain that? Sure. We have to wait for a certain amount of residential units to be built before they build the library. Okay. Just wanted to clarify. There's a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? That motion passes unanimously. I inadvertently passed over number four, which is public buildings and law enforcement. Okay. They've already had a big day. Thank you. Good morning. Sean Donahue, General Services Director. We are asking for a $127,090 increase. and I'll explain that in the changes. What stayed the same, though, from a fire rescue, and I'm going to jump around for a couple different ways, different departments that we represent. Fire rescue has been consistent in their request to expand the Station 23, Cantor Highway Station. That's their third busiest fire station. It only has two bays, and they've increased the equipment numbers there to do the responses, so it's a much-needed expansion. It also was built to have an expansion down the road, so we'd like to start working on that. The Western Palm City Fire Station, a new station in the Indian Town Fire Station, the Fire Rescue Department's been working with the local developers trying to get contributions to fund some of those improvements. What's changed is we had a project that was in – hopper for bay door replacements at all the older stations all the older older fire stations to do the newer quicker uh bifold doors uh fire rescue department is in the queue for receiving a local mitigation uh grant uh funding to fund all of those so we actually took that off the list as a potentially fully funded project uh sheriff's office has been very consistent in their prioritization of their projects. I've been looking at that gun range for quite a while to expand that for their operational training. And what we're trying to do there is now that we've saved up a couple of dollars over the years, we can start to design and start some early construction on those projects. What's really stayed the same is the department's continued commitment to maintain the county's assets in a most efficient and economical standpoint. And then the increase that we're looking for is specifically for libraries. Libraries take a lot of abuse. A lot of people in and out. The restrooms need some attention. The flooring, some of the furniture needs attention. And the way libraries are used now has changed quite a bit. So we're looking for some sound attenuation in certain spaces. Some of the projects that we've completed were near completion. The House of Refuge, Commissioner Capps mentioned earlier, is just on the last leg of completion. We just did the final punch list yesterday, as a matter of fact. We did complete the chiller plant at the Larry Massing Building project, and there's a second phase of that coming. The Sheriff's Office had to have their tank replaced, their fuel storage tank replaced. Crucial infrastructure for them required a full replacement of the tank, the dispensers, the underground, and the canopy. And then we did manage to paint the Blake Library as a project. Current projects include the energy and operational project that you approved last year. That's nearing completion. You can see on the top left, the chillers are being loaded into a chiller plant that will serve the public safety complex, a very valuable, cost-effective solution there. Top right, Larry Massing building expansion is coming. We just released the contract to Remnant Construction for that. Holt correctional fence replacement project was a much needed replacement. That fence is 20 or 30 years old. You can see the bottom right picture of that slide there. The fence is actually wiggling because it's just losing its structural components. Expense. Yeah. And then we are finishing the 9-11 dispatch renovation. That was a great grant-funded project. I think three quarters of a million help fund that project. Upcoming projects, we need to do some work on the courthouse. We're still saving some money to replace the courthouse rooftop air handler units. That's gonna be a significant project. We gotta figure out a way to keep that building occupied while we're doing some major improvements. And then they also have requested some major security enhancements to the building and the complex. Thank you for approving the Martin County Operations Complex. We're going to start on that very quickly. I mentioned the Moorgate Library or library improvements. We'd like to start with the Moorgate Library. That bathroom and that facility needs a lot of attention. And then we are in the middle of negotiations for the Employee Wellness Clinic. That's it. Is there any questions? Questions? I have a couple. I'm looking at the Western Palm City Fire Station. which is on page 119, and there are impact fees of $3.5 million. What kind of impact fees are those? Stephanie Murley, I'm director of OMB. The impact fees should be actually the fire rescue impact fees that are being paid. From Newfield. Okay. Also, fire station number 24, which is Indiantown relocation, and I see $10 million, and what's the developer's contribution to that? So that's what we're actually currently in talks right now. We're trying to see if impact fees can be a part of that, what they can do, but actually the developer This is the village of Indiantown. They did a state appropriation for roughly, I think it was $13 million. Unfortunately, state, they went into the special session, so we don't know if that appropriation has happened or not. But if the appropriation does happen, that's what funds the building for the relocation of Station 24 is the appropriation from the village. And if it's not appropriated? Well, then we have to really talk to the developer and see what we can get from the developer, and we can also look at the impact fees. for the building itself. Have you been talking to the developer? Yes. Yes, Commissioner. We have been talking to the developer quite a bit, quite extensively, but we're kind of in a holding pattern because of the appropriation. So we need to know what kind of conversation we need to have until the state actually decides what they're going to do. Okay. Okay. Now I'm asking about the Martin County Sheriff's Office Firearms Training Facility. I'm on page 62. What's this proximity to the new field development and to the Newfield's improvements like the FPL substation. It's a firing range. The firing range is located at the very southwest corner of the Newfield development. It's about as far removed as you can get from any of the residential. There's a lot of preserve and upland preservation areas in between the shooting range and any residential development to the northeast. Is the... firearms range, indoor, outdoor, or both? It's outdoor, but it does have a series of berms and protection devices that can keep the projectiles contained. And that's all ad valorem? Correct. $5.4 million of ad valorem? Correct. Okay, and also the Sheriff's Office Logistics and Operations Center, that is... $14.5 million all ad valorem. Tell me about that. Looks like expenditures are to be made. $5.5 million in 2028 and $7.5 million in 31. Correct. That's a much-needed improvement. It is replacing what is the oldest building on that complex. That building was, I believe, used as an old packing house when that land was used for fruit production. It's 50, 60 years old. It is literally falling down. The awnings on the building that were on the north side and the east side actually fell off the building. We couldn't do anything with it. We had to take them down. The building needs some significant help if we're going to try to keep them in there. But what we're looking at, since we saved up a little bit of funding for the project, is do a partial phase construction. So if we can build the critical parts of the sheriff's office, it would be the... painting booth for the cars and for their logistics, basically receiving and purchasing departments. If we can get those started, then we can come back later and look at adding on to the building with maybe a metal warehouse building that has some good wind resistance similar to the other building right next door to it. So we're looking at strategically trying to phase it while getting the project moving because literally it is falling down. Ms. Murley, I don't see any carryover. But I do see over $3 million each year of ad valorem money that we're going to be spending toward these projects. That's new money. Where is it coming from? So this is maintaining the current levels of ad valorem that we have increased law enforcement over the last couple years, mentioning what Donna had mentioned earlier about kind of getting those programs to that level. So if you look at the summary of law enforcement, it is maintaining a constant level over the next 10 years. So essentially they're prioritizing their projects, completing one, moving on to the next. With no increases in ad valorem, we expect the same level of funding for the next 10 years. So that level of funding is how much each year? I'm seeing just for this project, 3.2 a year. So the total ad valorem that's programmed in law enforcement every year is $4,753,073 for all of their projects. Okay. Any further questions for Mr. Donahue? I'll move approval. Second. There's a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? That motion passes unanimously. Parks and Recreation is next. Good morning. Kevin Abate, Parks and Recreation Director. This, the FY27 CIP was approved by the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board last month unanimously, and I'll talk about what's happening. What stayed the same for FY27 CIP is the funding levels for our fixed asset replacement budget. That's been the same for almost the last decade, and that's mainly for all of our fixed assets throughout the entire system, our parks building program, paving, fiber security and Wi-Fi. Those are generally the same. Our boat ramp funding is also to replace our boat ramps over the next 10 years. Right now, we're currently replacing the Leighton Park program, the Charter Leighton Park boat ramp right now. And then Sailfish Stands Golf Course replacing all the aging wells and pump houses, which are nearing 50 years old right now and need to be replaced and will be replaced by the end of this year. What has changed is the additional request to complete the final funding of the Sea Turtle Beach Cafe and Beachside Restroom. That project, to take it back in history, we actually started in 2013 as a public design workshop just after I first arrived about 15 years ago. And then we started our funding for this project that we're on right now in 2023 and our design funding in 24. We're at right now about 60% designed through that project right now. That includes the beachside public restroom. That includes the deck, which is over 8,750 square feet. Also, it replaces the dune crossover, which is currently not there. The new kitchen, this includes the seating, furnitures, fixtures, and equipment and storage for this facility, which is right now has a seating capacity of about 100. and 20 planned and 31 at the bar. So that one is moving along quickly. What we've completed in our CAP program is we did a nice ribbon cutting this past year for the Langford Park Playground, state of the art. We resurfaced all of HAL Patioke Regional Park with all new parking spaces, road surfacing, and parking stop bumpers. Also, we resurfaced with a state of the art product the new hockey rink flooring, and of course at Jock Layton Park, we replaced all the skate park equipment. When you build those gorgeous playgrounds, now every community wants one. Yes. I'm getting a lot of people in Palm City wanting one of those playgrounds. Understood. So the current CIP programs that we're actively on right now are Charlotte Layton Park, which is scheduled for hopeful ribbon-cutting this summer. the goal and we replaced the boat ramps they're doing the parking now we have pavilions open space security cameras and working very closely with the Treasure Coast Rowing Club Mary Brogan Park replacing the skate equipment Langford Park we're currently working with utilities on septic to sewer program and then we're going to be replacing outside of the boat ramp program the J&S fish camp which is much smaller project but we're going to take care of that now out of our FAR budget And upcoming CIP projects, the Wojcicek small-sided soccer court and restroom, which is for small-sided soccer synthetic turf courts over at Wojcicek Park. That is almost designed. We expect to put that out to bid this summer. The Sea Turtle Beach Cafe and Beachside Restroom, which I just spoke about, we expect that project to be completely designed with anticipation of full funding in FY27 and out to bid by the end of the year. The Francis Langford Dock Pavilion improvements, first floor, second floor, that project, we expect to be out to bid sometime this summer. If you recall, the first floor of the Francis Langford Dockside Pavilion has been vacant for most of my career and 15 years with the county. And then the second story building, unfortunately, had a fire. This gave us an opportunity to reimagine and re-envision the entire project. The project is funded. But we're working on a really new concept with brides and grooms rooms. It could be something I'll be sharing with the leadership team next week. And we're very excited about some great opportunities for the community. And then the Vince Boquino Community Center improvements is something we've been working on to kind of rehab and remodel a very aging building. And then, as I said earlier, before we move to any grass improvements on the 18-hole course, which has not been done, is to replace the aging, the wells. Actually, we will need all new wells at the golf course because they're beyond repair and replacement. So we need new ones, and we'll be replacing our golf course pump houses with the goal of connecting all lakes on all three courses with wells and pumps and motors so that if a well goes down, we can water all three golf courses with one well, and we're all connected. It's quite the project we just received. a 25-year consumptive use permit with the South Florida Waterman Management District, which requires that we have well monitoring, and this is a big project for the future of the golf course, which is doing quite well. And if you have any questions, I'm here. Questions for Mr. Avante. Commissioner Hetherington. So the Seaside Cafe, what's the overall budget for that cafe? It's... I have 5.281 million, and that includes everything I spoke about, furnitures, fixtures, and equipment, all DEP permitting for the new Dune crossover, which we have to connect to the backside of the building for beach access, the beachside restroom. There's actually a little basement for the project for storage. There's storage underneath because this cafe is elevated about 14 feet above elevation. It includes all the... The kitchen equipment, so it includes all the work that needs to be done and ingress and egress to the sidewalk from the cafe to the beach and from the parking lot. That sounds like a lot of money for a beachside cafe. What did we get for insurance proceeds? We didn't get much on the burden build-on. We received $255,000 year-to-date. That's all we got for the proceeds, $255,000? So far, yeah. I thought I saw something about $2. 8 million somewhere in here. So the balance of the five point X million minus the 255,000 insurance proceeds is all ad valorem funding? There is beach impact fees and there's also district MSTU fees towards this project and along with bed tax. If we see some cutting this year at the state, then we're going to have to analyze our wants versus needs. And this is probably going to be scaled down immensely. To be specific, we're using park fees from proceeds from the other cafe at $339,000. $200,000 allocated towards the beach crossover and bed tax. The ad valorem asked for this year is $1.49. We have District Embassy District 1 funds that were allocated last year at $964,000. and beach impact fees, and then insurance proceeds for the total. So it's a combination of several funds. Last year, if you recall, we reallocated some funds from other products to move over to get this done. This was the final year of funding. I've been working with the design team every two weeks to really hone in on the final dollar. This is a conservative estimate. It's not aggressive at all, and I think it's probably the spot. It's about $600 a square foot all in for everything. when I calculated it for this project. Seems like a lot for a cafe. On the Indian Riverside Cafe, what did we get for insurance proceeds? I'm sorry, the Indian Riverside Park. What did we get for insurance proceeds for that one? Oh, I have that here. Hold on. I don't have that number, but I recall it being just around $400,000 total for that one because it included revenue loss. And the thing about the cafe, the Jensen Beach one, we were closed when that fire took place, so the insurance company wasn't going to give us any reimbursements for revenue loss. That's why this is higher because we lost all the wedding revenue and all the event revenue. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner Vargas. I just want to reassure my fellow commissioners I am overseeing this project with a fine-tooth comb. We talked about costs going up. This is a big draw. Hutchison Island is a huge draw. So rest assured that we are pulling as much money from different sources as possible. This is not just some park stuck in the middle of Martin County somewhere. This is very, very visual. It was unfortunate that we had the fire and we had to close, but we're working diligently to put this together. So if you have any questions, feel free to reach my office and I'll disseminate that or certainly Mr. Abate can do that. Commissioner Campy. Mr. Abate, thank you very much. Can you share with us what portion of your budget you guys are reluctantly having to spend on repairing vandalism? I know that in Palm City we have a whole horde of kids going around vandalizing, not just permanent destruction, but the constant littering and graffiti that requires your team to go out every single day to clean stuff up. Give us an idea of what you're up against, please. My guesstimate, and I've done some numbers over the years, is right around $90,000 to $100,000 in actual product damage throughout each year, not including staff costs, too. fix things you know sending the team out there so and we plan for that in a big park system when you have 74 beaches and parks throughout entire system we fully expect the public to accidentally and then purposely vandalize unfortunately and we deal with it um probably weekly you know cleaning things up but um it's part of the the process we do in our fixed asset replacement budget i do hold you know back a couple hundred thousand a year for the uh-oh moments that we get. Thank you. And Mr. Abate, the Newfield community fields and trailheads, there's talk about the four soccer fields. Are those about finished? I haven't worked directly with Newfield on it. I don't think it's unconstructed yet. So the biggest question, part of the reason we have the sheet in here so that we can actually – provide the impact fee credit as a part of the development agreement. So we'll be engaging with them on the operations of that. I believe that the four fields are across the street from where they're building. It's their property, and I believe they're going to operate and maintain it. We haven't got a finality on that, but the purpose of bringing this sheet forward was to have those discussions as a part of the development agreement for impact fee credits. And who's going to be using the soccer field? It would be open to – they would have to be used in the same way as any other county park facility in order for them to – But we're managing them? So we have it likely – we are responsible for how they're managed, whether we manage them directly or the CDD manages them for a period of time. That negotiation hasn't been finalized. But nonetheless, it has to operate just like any other public field – in order for it to receive impact fee credits. So, you know, the traditional method is we would operate it. We would own and operate the facility. It would be the traditional method. If there is an advantage for them to have some party, we'll bring that to the board for final approval. It's a terrific new public asset. I just wanted to make sure that we're using it as wisely as we should. And also, you're keeping an eye on the... Twin Rivers Boardwalks. They're really getting warped and worn, and I don't know if they're nearing the end of their useful life, but it looks like they might be. They're really, really well utilized every single day of the year, and they're showing their wear. I'm glad you brought that up. That was brought to my attention by staff. It is quite the project we may consider. bringing it as an independent CIP sheet next year to look at redeveloping it, maybe make it not so wide, not so expensive, but it'll be more than just your typical replacement. If we're going to look at trying to, you know, do some permitting to reduce the size of it, save some dollars, but we'll work on something for next CIP for 28 to get it funded. I don't think it's in dire straits now, but it's something that it is, it needs to be addressed. Well, we also need to look into alternative materials, composites, because wood just doesn't last. Correct. It's a great example. So right now at Charter Litton Park, we are redecking the entire deck there along the water with a new composite. It's a 50-year warranty on a new recycled plastic, if you will. So that's what we're moving to, and as a matter of fact, we're doing this, we would be doing the same thing for the new Sea Turtle Beach Cafe, would all be not wood, all this new decking, which has a longer shelf life and it's easier to clean. Yeah. Commissioner Campy. Yeah, to your point about the soccer fields, I remember when we were originally negotiating with, it was called Pineland Prairie back then and now Newfield. We... collaborated with them and I want to give Mattamy and Newfield credit because they could have put those soccer fields deeper into the community and it would have been very difficult to coordinate with us. When we originally built the baseball facility there, there was a plan in the initial phase to have a couple of recreational multi-purpose, we call them soccer fields, but it could be lacrosse and football or whatever. And when we weren't able to do that, Mr. Avate and I met with the folks that were just in the preliminary stages of Newfield to build them as close to now Newfield Parkway, then Citrus, as they could. And they've lived up to that commitment. They could have tucked them in and they wouldn't have been so... so much of an advantage for the rest of the community, but where they are now. And I hear they are moving along on them. I think that. Yeah, that's a plus. And then also, do you have any thoughts, even if it's in the future? There's a lot of talk of a Martin County field house or a bigger recreational facility. That might be a public-private partnership. Yeah. What's your... So in our master plan and in this current CIP sheet, there is funds in there for feasibility study for Martin County. So right now we have out to bid firms for engineering services, feasibility studies, conceptual plans, and the team will select three vendors, I believe. That should happen within the next month. After that happens, we intend to, for all the planning documents that we have that are tied to our master plan, specifically a regional indoor community center, we'd be looking at doing a feasibility study that would find out how big something should be, what it will cost. I just toured Palm Beach Gardens last week, and they have a facility that acts as a hurricane shelter, has a multifaceted approach. So that is something that we plan on doing in this document. And also at Lance Corporal, Justin Wilson Park, in this document, we have your district funds to move forward on that. And I think that we had discussed about advancing that today at the CIP to move forward with the dog park. We are ready to go on our end to move forward with a small dog park over at Lance Corporal, which is one of your goals. So that would be something that... Not just small dogs. that means a smaller like dog park in size correct yeah so that's something that we have in the cip sheet to move forward if you'd like to advance that cip sheet today um we can begin on it you know tomorrow if you will um you make a motion while you're speaking of that it's part of it is it part or is it separate it's it's in the cip um but you have the funds now and um and per budget and so we can move it forward now instead of waiting until october good segue I'd like to make a motion that we advance the Palm City Dog Park CIP sheet. I will be using district funds to prime the pump for that project so that we can start immediately. We've been waiting a long time. I'm hoping that this District 5 dog park will be a motivation for the other districts to have dog parks as well. Second. We've been talking about dog parks nearly as long as we've been talking about the Donaldson facility. Donaldson campus. There's a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? That motion passes unanimously. Commissioner Hetherington. I just said we had a conversation maybe last meeting about the Howe Patioke Skating Rink and I was just going to suggest that as a part of your FARB that you put in floor covering for that so that multiple organizations can use it. It really is beautiful, and the skating rink turned out great, but we want to make sure that multiple organizations can use it. So I would just recommend maybe putting that as a part of your FARB. Do you want a motion for – let's make a motion to include that as a part of your FARB. Word on the street was that staff had asked the not-for-profit to pay for it themselves, which I know wasn't the conversation, and I'm sure they would just – misunderstood our direction. But it certainly is not for the not-for-profit to have to pay for that themselves. I think the challenge for this new service, which is a beautiful service, is what sports does the manufacturer want to permit on there? And it's really for them, it's roller hockey. But these events that are coming our way are not sports. They're just more of like just community events where they're standing. And the goal is to protect the floor. So certainly we are looking at just the standard policy on the sports that we won't allow and then the events that we will allow so that way we can protect the investment. Because it was a pricey investment. We want to keep our stakeholders happy at the same time as those that want to come in and use it. So we'll be looking at... The fees for that, you know, the rental fees for this new floor, of course, and then, of course, now we can look at some product that we can select. Maybe we can, you know, if we have fund balance now in our FAR, we can look at buying something now as opposed to waiting until October, but we can get that done. Whose district is that? Mine. I mean, Commissioner, hers. She's got plenty of cash. It's because I'm a saver. Eventually, the concept is to utilize the funds for the people. Is there a motion to approve Parks and Recreation's CIP? So moved. Second. Second. There's a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? That motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Thank you very much. We will take up. Yeah, we didn't do. I'm sorry, Madam Chair. We did not vote on the covering the. I don't think we need to, do you? We do. We have a motion and a second anyway, so. Okay. Is there a motion and a second for the covering? There's a motion and a second for the covering of the Hal Patioke skate rink. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? That motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Now we'll take up miscellaneous, which is Ms. Della Pietra. What? Shelby Della Pietra. We're showing an adlorm impact of approximately 312,000. What stayed the same is the continuation of the communications fixed asset replacement budget, along with constant level of funding for the countywide radio replacement project. What changed includes a $23,600 increase to the communications FARB to support ongoing replacement needs, as what supports the dais down here. We also added two new CIP sheets for the county data centers. These support mission-critical infrastructure. It's just important to note that these were previously funded in the technology investment plan. So this isn't a new request. It's just a reallocation into the CIP to show the long-term need and planning for this. And stops here to answer any questions, if there are any. Questions for Ms. Sinclair or Ms. Della Pietra? Commissioner Hetherington. Are we seeing any additional unfunded mandates come down from the state as far as technology as we've seen in the past in the coming year? We have not at this time. Most of what we are bringing to you today is to secure and replace what we have. and utilize in need for critical support. Okay, because in the past, the state has instituted fairly significant unfunded mandates that we've had to comply with. Thank you. I'll move approval. Second. There's a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? That motion passes unanimously. We'll now take up Coastal with Mr. Gorton. Good morning, Commission Members, Chair Heard, Mark Aveni, Deputy Director, Public Works. For our coastal CIP highlights, we'd like to highlight the FY26 ad valorem request of $5,705,000, the FY27 ad valorem request of $5,815,000 for an impact of $110,000. What has stayed the same, as you can see on the slide, is the funding for our important waterfront assets of the St. Lucie Inlet Management, our beach programs, as well as our bathtub beach in Sailfish Point. The addition of the $110,000 is for something we're calling strategic waterfront asset management projects. As this commission well knows, we have about 27 non-beachfront waterfront parks along our inland waterways, and those constantly need help in terms of bulkheads, riprap, boat ramp stocks. and often Public Works is called upon to do those, so we're proposing some funding for that. In looking at some of our completed projects, I'd like to specifically highlight an exciting project that was done this year, the 227-foot freighter, with the name of the Bracho, now lies 200 feet down at the bottom of the Atlantic, about nine miles off the coast of Stewart. And that successful project is now getting a lot of wildlife, sea life, fishermen, divers, et cetera. So that was a very successful project that occurred just this past couple months for the coastal CIP. And also, interestingly enough, It generated the most Internet engagement on the Martin County website to date, so a lot of interest from up and down the coast looking at that project. That's until the CRA site is live, and they'll punch it up. We'll have to think of something to compete with that. For our current... coastal projects that we're working on. You see a number of projects there, including the Indian Riverside Park Living Shoreline, the Hutchinson Island Shore Protection, which is ongoing as we speak. And we'd love to do a tour for commission members to look at some of that in Commissioner Vargas' district. We have a number of exciting upcoming projects as well. In particular, we're going to be starting the Bathtub Beach Sailfish Point Beach Nourishment Program and also the MacArthur Boulevard Beach and Dune Project, as this commission well knows. There were some hurricanes that did a lot of damage to that, and we've been trying to keep up with that and some erosion. And we are getting some homeowners to contribute to that as well, so we're excited to begin that project this year. for ecosystems. Do you want to describe in further detail what the MacArthur Boulevard dune restoration is and also the shoreline management, living shoreline projects? Absolutely. So for the MacArthur Boulevard, My understanding is that the dunes were damaged by hurricanes in 2004, and they were restored. But then Ian and Nicole also caused some significant erosion problems, as this commission well knows. And so this is just repairing that ongoing damage. And I'll let Mr. Gordon handle the other item. The Living Shoreline Project. Our first Living Shoreline Project was at Twin Rivers Park. That was a successful project. We're already seeing... sand coming in behind it and building out that beach that is very beloved by that community. And the project we're working on now is the Indian Riverside Park project. And it's actually shown in the bottom photo there on the left. where we're building a living shoreline and we're putting those rock mats in in various locations along the shore and in the locations that we've already put that we have sand accretion behind it and we also have some native plants and mangroves volunteering in that area so with that project we're also going to plant quite a number of mangroves and that's going to provide protection for the park it's going to reduce the erosion of the park And there's some very important historical assets at and underneath that mansion that we're going to protect with that project. Fantastic. Any further questions about Coastal? Nope. I'll move approval of Coastal. I will second it. There's a motion and a second. All those in favor, aye. Opposed? That motion passes unanimously. Commission members, for ecosystems, we had an FY26 ad valorem request of $1,775,000. For FY27, the request is $1,924,500 for an impact of $149,500. What has stayed the same is the funding that we have for our very important stormwater treatment areas, our implementation of our BMAP and TMDL compliance for water quality, and leveraging our state and federal funding currently over an impressive five million dollars in match funds for these projects so we're very pleased that to have that what has changed is the stormwater master plan and as we talked with commission members this past week as you know our last stormwater master plan was in 1998. And a stormwater master plan or a watershed management plan is a plan that includes community involvement and looks at flood resiliency, different types of stormwater projects that are important for the community. So what we'd like to do with the Commission's OK, of course, is to begin that project again since we haven't really looked at that in detail since 1998. And that's the beginning of that process. Some completed projects. You can see East Forth. Creek Phase 2. We planted 15 acres of seagrass, which we all know are important for our manatees. And then obviously Martin County Forever, we have over 3,500 acres that have been preserved, and we're very proud to have participated in that project. Some of our current projects are listed there. In particular, we would like to point out that we're going to do some more seagrass planting. We're going to continue with Martin County Forever. We're going to look at some of our stormwater treatment areas and look at how we can make them perform even better for water quality and so forth. So that might require a little bit of extra work as well. A lot of these projects occur in each of your districts, and we're happy to do that for the betterment of the community and for water quality. some upcoming projects that we have. I did talk about the Stormwater Master Plan, also known as our Watershed Management Plan, and then we'll also continue with our Martin County Forever looking for properties that we can add to that. Are there any questions on ecosystem management? Any questions? Commissioner Capps. You know, in talking with staff about an issue that and where to inject this into the CIP. I have a concern about exotic vegetation in the county. And there was talk about talking about it in the context of ecosystem management. And then there was talk about us bringing up the issue when we get to roads. But I guess I'll go ahead and address it here. We have a huge problem with exotic vegetation all over the county. And it's very complicated because a lot of it is on private property. And our county does a pretty good job of keeping it off the roadways. But there are places where exotics are still in the right of ways. And I asked staff to give me a little history of what kind of resources we have devoted to this purpose for a several year period. And it appears that there's been a rather flat budget for exotic removal. I would encourage our residents to learn more about exotic plants and how thick they are everywhere. And once you get it in your head, it'll start to irritate you. When you see these beautiful cypress hammocks with climbing ferns that go all the way to the top of the cypress trees. You know, some of the names of them are Brazilian pepper trees, which are just by the millions everywhere. Acacia trees, willow bushes, and then these vines of various types. Air potato, kudzu, and old world climbing ferns. All of these things are smothering old Florida in our county. You know, if it's not a pine tree or a live oak or a sable palm, there are a lot of native species, but a lot of what you see along the roadways is just garbage vegetation that's eating us up. And I think we need to... increase our budget for exotic removal, particularly in light of all of the conservation lands that we're bringing on board now and in the next several years. And it appears that the budget for eradicating exotic plants for about a six or eight year period has been somewhere in the range of $500,000 or $600,000. And I just think that's totally inadequate for the problem on our hands. And I would propose that we substantially increase that. It doesn't necessarily mean we will spend it. Once again, a CIP is a planning document. It's sort of a wish list. And we'll wait and see when the budget rolls around as to whether the resources are actually there. to where we can utilize them for that purpose. But I just think that that is a very lean budget for the problem at hand. And I'd like to see that increased at least 50% to perhaps $900,000 instead of $600,000. And I will make that motion. You will or you won't? I will, yes. Commissioner Vargas. Yeah. Are you talking about exotics on private property or? Well, there are all over the place and we're obtaining thousands of acres of additional sensitive, environmentally sensitive lands that are also have exotics all over them. So we're going to have a need for more exotic removal in the coming days because of the new lands that we're going to be obtaining. And then also, I think just in some of the more visible areas in talking with staff it appears that more could be done along the roadways and and in some of the lands that we've had for many years okay so if it's on private property then unless there's a pamp we cannot force a landowner to remove exotics. I just had this discussion with growth management, actually, and I wish they were all here, but we can continue that at another time. But just to take a broad brush and say, oh, let's just double it or, you know, 50 percent, I think that we need to look at this carefully because we have other needs here. When we're talking about purchasing lands, I don't know, is that in the agreement if we're just buying the rights, that they will make sure that it's cleared, that property owner of exotics. So there's a lot of, you know, questions that I have about this. I definitely could not go along with something like this right now. I have to speak with our directors, and I have to see exactly what's out there. Do you have a comment? Commissioner Campy. Thank you. It is an issue. The private property portion is important. Obviously, we're not going to be able to do that, but I think the compelling part to Commissioner Kapp's point is that We've all been celebrating this new acquisition of land. And I know that one of the biggest expenses in general is, you know, it's one thing to build something or purchase something. It's the maintenance that gets very expensive. That's true. And if we're going to celebrate these new acquisitions, obviously, if it's a conservation easement, the folks that are using the property are continuing to use it. But the ones that we are genuinely purchasing, I think it's a smart move. proactive strategy, Commissioner Capps, that we would, it makes sense that if it was $600,000 that we'd put something additional towards it because we've just layered in thousands of additional acres. And I think we do everyone a disservice if we just purchase it and let it just completely overgrow. So I second Commissioner Capps' motion that $300,000 be added to that, especially considering our most recent acquisitions, as well as the fact that we need to catch up on what we already own for a long time. I agree with you. Mr. Donaldson. I was just simply going to clarify that all of the expenditures would be on publicly owned properties that we would use it on. That's all. Thank you. And Mr. Gordon. I wanted to clarify that same thing, that the expenditures would be on public property. An example of a So we would be focusing these efforts on county-owned property as well as county-owned right-of-ways. An example of exotic removals is one we did about 10 years ago is Cove Road. On the west end of Cove Road near 76, there was a sidewalk near the school that the students couldn't be seen from the road, and it was a safety issue. We removed all the exotics in that area. We've opened that area up, and it looks much more presentable. Things like that could be done with this funding, where we were able to, especially when the right-of-way touches a preserve area, if we can get rid of that seed source and get all of those pepper trees out, then it's a lot less effort going forward on those preserve areas as well. One other thing I wanted to point out is the sales tax properties. There is a provision in the sales tax that allows us to maintain those properties and do a one-time clearance. But the other properties that are coming over, the donations that we're getting, are going to require a big lift as far as removing exotics. And we can't use sales tax funds for those properties. Commissioner Hetherington. You started to touch on it, and I support that we need to probably invest more into exotic removal. I don't know exactly what that number is. I think it would be better to outline a priority list and what we're spending now. I would certainly support in the CIP to add that. I think before the budget comes around, we probably should. have an item which talks about prioritization. How are you going to analyze and spend that and prioritize it? And what exactly are we looking at countywide as far as maintenance? Commissioner Vargas. Yeah, this is one of those times I definitely agree with Commissioner Hetherington. We just can't put a number right on something. Let's put 50%. That's not well thought out. We really have to look at this. We have to think about where our dollars are because it's always about let's go get this, do this, but then it's the back end, the maintenance. So I think we need to tighten this up, but I don't think this is the moment to just put a number out there. I could not support that at all. I think we need to take a step back. We pay people here, directors, folks that understand this a lot better than we do. So I don't want a knee-jerk reaction today. My understanding of the proposal is that this be put into a planning document, and then before the budget is approved, then there's prioritization for spending those dollars. Seconder agrees. Commissioner Hetherington? I just wanted to clarify. That was my interpretation of it as well, that we were adding a finite number, but that this is part of the CIP, and that that would come back, and we would prioritize, and then we would look at it as part of the budget as a whole. Correct. Correct. Right. Commissioner Vargas. Okay. So I definitely understand that. We'll take a look-see at it. That's where I am, a look-see cautiously. Understood. There's a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? That motion passes unanimously. So is there a separate motion for approving the ecosystems management CIP? Move approval. Okay. There's a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? That motion passes unanimously. We done? Yes. Moving on to public transportation. Okay, this is the public transportation CIP sheet for the MARDI system. So what has stayed the same is a constant level of funding for bus fleet purchasing. Much like the chief said about fire trucks, same thing is true for buses. The cost has gone up quite a bit. So we accrue those funds over multiple years to replace the bus. And we also have a constant level of funding for our transit stops to upgrade the transit stops and to provide additional maintenance to them. What's changed is really a budget-neutral change, but we moved the... cost for the fleet replacement for the light fleet there's some small sedans that support the program those were moved out of operations and into CIP solely because this is a federally funded program and we can't enter into a lease for those vehicles as we have with the rest of the county so we just moved money from operating over to capital to accommodate that change and that's all I've got for that one Mr. Vargas. Okay, so if you could clarify for me, is it my understanding that within two years or less, you'll be phasing out some larger vehicles? Yes, our most recent purchase, based on the information, the board direction that we got in the transit development plan, which was about two years ago now, we were asked to explore using smaller buses. And our next bus purchase is going to be two of the midsize buses so that we can serve some of the – routes that don't get as much ridership with those smaller buses. So we think it will be more cost-effective to do it that way, and so too will the bus purchase. We can get two of the medium-sized buses for the same cost as one large bus. Right. And what happens with the two large buses then if you're going to? So the way the FTA, the Federal Transit Authority, works is we have to keep the large buses in service until they reach one of two things, the total number of years in service or the total number of miles on the bus. So we have to keep those in service until they reach their mileage. We do have two buses coming off in two years. So those buses will be replaced accordingly. So it will happen simultaneously. Yes. So we have to order the buses two years in advance because they take quite a long time to get. Mm-hmm. Yep. Delivered to us. Motion to accept, tentatively accept staff's recommendation. Second. There's a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? That motion passes unanimously. We'll now move on to roads. Okay. In roads, we have... Boy, we're getting our money's worth out of you, Jim Gordon. Well, we do. So in roads, we have... significant reduction in ad valorem on this program. It's a million dollars of reduction. We've been able to keep a constant level of funding for traffic safety measures, signal maintenance, intersection improvements. Those are continuing service programs that we use to maintain our assets. We've got a constant level of funding for our bridge maintenance program and we've got a constant level of funding for our heavy equipment replacement. What changed that million-dollar decrease was because we've been very aggressively seeking grant funding, and we have about $8 million in grants in this year's CIP budget for roads. So we were able to reduce the local impact by offsetting those costs. We didn't push any projects out. We're still bringing the projects forward at the same rate that we previously had, but we were able to reduce the ad valorem impact. While I'm talking about grant impacts... In the entire CIP, there's $21.4 million in grants that are able to reduce those costs. Seventeen and a half are on the public worksheets. So we are aggressively going after grants for all of our programs. So here's some completed projects under the roads. As you know, we have a neighborhood restoration project program where we go in and completely replace all the infrastructure in a neighborhood. Sometimes that includes water and sewer. Sometimes it just includes stormwater and roadway resurfacing. So we've got a couple of those projects in here. The Port Salerno Peninsula, we did the stormwater and sewer phase one. The Leilani Heights, that's a complete project that was just the stormwater and the resurfacing. We just completed out west the Fox Brown Road resurfacing, which is one that's come full circle. That was paved right at the beginning of my career. It used to be a dirt road, and now that pavement needed to be replaced. So I've seen it replaced twice now. And then also out west, we had to replace the railroad crossing on 714 under the tree canopy. That crossing was a little, it didn't ride very smooth, so we designed in-house, our staff designed and installed a fix for that, and it rides much, much better. The current projects, county line road bridge replacement, that's in South County. We're just waiting for some utilities to move their utilities out of the way before we can get that one on the street. That's another example of a grant funded project. That's a $6 million project. And we have federal and state appropriations for $6 million. So that project is being funded state and federal dollars and not local dollars. We also have phase one of the Rocky Point neighborhood restoration. We're going in there and just doing the streets that aren't getting water and sewer. So it's kind of a piecemeal project, but we're catching those streets up and some resurfacing projects as well. Upcoming projects, we have a multimodal path that's going to fix an issue we have with cyclists and pedestrians between Airport Road and Monterey Road. We're going to make that a lot safer for our cyclists and pedestrians. Right now, the bike lane ends right at Airport Road, and we have a conflict point there that we want to address. We also have resurfacing the second phase of Port Salerno as well as Beaurevage. We're going to finish that one out with some resurfacing. And we've got a sidewalk. We're able to move that project up and work with the school board on a safe routes to school project to get a sidewalk going into South Fork High School. Right now there's kids just walking along the side of the road, which isn't a great condition. So that's all I have for the road department. Pardon me, the road CIP. Questions about the road CIP. I have an additional comment to make, and it's about turn lanes on Cantor Highway and US 1, and these should make everybody in Martin County so happy because we're not funding it. It's $8.5 million of state funding, and we're going to get two new turn lanes. Fantastic. One of them is going to be a northbound and one is going to be a southbound off of Cantor Highway, and that will relieve so much pressure at that hideous intersection. Good news. Yep, backs up in both directions at that intersection. It does. Commissioner Hetherington. And, Jim, do you want to clarify or talk about how State Road 710 is funded and how that's wholly... or Stephanie, DOT funds, and while it looks like it's part of the CIP, it is wholly funded by DOT? Yeah, absolutely. So we have in our CIP concurrence projects that add capacity, and oftentimes those are DOT-funded projects. They're in our planning document because they have to be, but they're fully funded through state and federal monies. So State Road 710 was a project that was the number one priority in the MPO planning board for a couple of years and it's because of a number of traffic accidents that are occurring out there. Our partners at FDOT went after funding, and we were very happy to find that they were able to fund almost $300 million worth of improvements out on 710 to widen that. They split it into four phases, but they're actively in design on the project, and then the next step is right-of-way acquisition, which could be another two years, and then construction will come after that. Fully funded. It's in our CIP, so it looks like a really big number, but it isn't local dollars. It's still tax dollars, but it's state and federal money that's going to build that project. Thank you. Commissioner Vargas. Yesterday at the MPO meeting, I did address 714-710. I did speak with Congressman Brian Mast's office. He is on the Transportation Committee. It has unlimited the funds. Can we request, Madam Chair... that we get funding for 710, 714. I went to an open house, and they were just talking about a couple of turn lanes. The money is there for us for the asking. For 714? And 710 specifically. Well, 710 is funded. I'm talking about purchasing portions of land to expand. That is not. And I spoke with his office, and he said nobody is coming to us. So the 710 project is fully funded. It's fully funded over a multi-year period. This year is design. Next year is right-of-way acquisition. But they need to complete the design before they can acquire the right-of-way because they need to know how much space they need for the turn lanes and everything. So the project is fully funded as it stands now. If more money was brought in up front, they might be able to accelerate some things. But the trick is with right-of-way acquisition, it really takes time. 18 months to two years to get that done. So throwing additional money at the front end won't make the project go any faster on the front end. Once they have the property, the right-of-way acquisition, then additional monies definitely can help because you can do multiple phases at the same time. Yes, I understand that. They actually do have all the funds for the right-of-way acquisition and the construction, which is why Steve Braun has... made it a point to try to figure out how he can fast track it, who's our district four secretary. And so this is really, the federal funds for this project comes through Tallahassee, through the state DOT and then to the district. And they are on it basically because of all of the input from this board and the MPO. And that also includes the 714 and 710 intersection alignment, which includes the Okeechobee connecting to a road in Okeechobee, which they're also working on. So it is fully funded. They can't build it all at once. It is sequenced. So as I understand it, no additional federal funds are needed because the state has used their federal allocation plus their state allocation to fully fund the projects. Projects, plural. Right. Okay. I understand all that, but... Insofar as identifying the properties, either through eminent domain or outright purchase, which they do give the appraised value for the property. I mean, they said there's nobody moving this forward in our county. So I'm coming back to the board here to discuss this. The DOT is moving forward on it. They have to follow NEPA process. And in order to follow the federal acquisition process, they have to have gone through NEPA, which... from us, our standpoint seems fairly simple. It seems obvious which right away they need. However, they have to have the record of decision recorded with, uh, before they can actually negotiate the price, they have the money to purchase it. So unless, uh, as I understand it, Steve Braun was looking at our methods to try to speed that process up, but they still, in order to condemn the property or voluntary acquisition of property, They have to have a recorded record of decision, which is all following the national – well, I can't remember the acronym right now. I know the NEPA process. So the good news is the pressure that we put on has generated the funds. They just now have to go through the bureaucratic process of putting all those pieces together. and we're still working with our DOT partners to see if there are ways that we can help them speed it up. But there are some hurdles that they have to go through. So additional funding, as I understand, is not their issue. It's actually getting through their record of decision and following it up with the acquisition process. I think they're prepared to do... construction, design, and building at the same time, but they have to get the right of way. Okay. I spoke with Secretary Perdue about this twice. He says, well, you know, I'm kind of not sitting on my hands, but I don't have a direction here. So somebody needs to maybe have a conversation. I've done as best as I can at this point. I spoke with Brian Mast's office also. I understand about the funding, but They also said, well, you know, we don't hear from the county. So I'm bringing this up again as I brought up the MPO. People are dying on these roads. We've all been having conversations with District 4 and DOT, and I can assure you they're moving forward on the project. And we just, two weeks ago, we participated in a field safety review on 710 with DOT. So we're not only working on this project to expand it, but we're also working with DOT to expand see if there's any measures, even no matter how small, if there's anything we can do out there to improve safety, they're committed and we're committed to make sure that happens in the short term. Okay, I wanted to bring this up at the meeting to the public in here. One of the difficulties that are huge are easements with FPL and FEC along this corridor, so that's slowing things down too. And there's also a gas line that needs to be moved. It's very complex. Is there a motion to approve the Rhodes CIP? So moved. Second. There's a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? That motion passes unanimously. Chair Heard, Commission members, Mark Cavaney, Deputy Director, Public Works. Wrapping things up for Public Works here, we want to talk about stormwater management. The FY26 ad valorem request was $600,000. For FY27, it is $700,000. for an impact of $100,000. Our level of funding for stormwater management and flood control has not changed, and our leveraging of grant funding for our resiliency projects has not changed either. However, we are requesting an additional $100,000 for our stormwater infrastructure rehabilitation, and I'll talk a little bit more about that in the next couple of slides. In District 3, we had successfully completed our bridge road slope stabilization. This stabilized the stormwater management ditch, and future phases will continue towards I-95. As you all know, our stormwater infrastructure needs maintenance and needs to be kept up with, and we're certainly endeavoring to do that with our CIP. For current CIP projects in District 4, We replaced or will replace about 2,800 feet of a major ditch, really an old farm ditch, with very steep slopes prone to erosion in the Hibiscus Park Ditch Bank Stabilization Project, and that's currently under design. And then for future projects, the number one priority in our stormwater management plan was the Bessey Creek retrofit, this roadway drainage crossings, which act really as a stop for the flow of water. We need to upgrade those road crossings there to allow better flow of water, and we will be planning that activity in this coming fiscal year. That's my presentation, Sam. Ready to answer any questions. on the stormwater management. Any questions on stormwater management? Commissioner Capps. Just a point of curiosity about how stormwater is paid for in different counties. And I believe that in some counties there's like what they call a stormwater utility, which would make it like a line item on your tax bill. instead of an mstu yes it'd be a non-advalorum assessment a non-advalorum assessment that's an interesting difference and like why would a county choose to do it that way instead of the way we do it So there is a stormwater utility in Martin County, but it's the city of Stewart's. So they operate under that methodology right now. A lot of communities will utilize stormwater utilities rather than ad valorem funding because it's the most equitable way to do it. It's usually based on, it's always based on the amount of impervious area that's on a property. And they will back charge the property owner based on how much runoff is contributed to the stormwater system. So it's a different way to imagine how to fund stormwater mechanisms. But the stormwater MSDU that we utilize is we're definitely in the minority. We're one of the very few counties that use that funding. mechanism. We have brought a stormwater utility a couple of times just to get board input, but we haven't proceeded with a stormwater utility to date. So we are in the minority using the MSDU, but it does serve the purpose and funds most of our operating as well as some of the CIP. The other area that a lot of communities have are what's called 298 districts, special taxing districts that are specifically for drainage. If you live in You know, there's Fort Pierce Farms Water Control District to our north of several other names south of us in Palm Beach County. There's the South Indian River Water Control District. Nickname is Sir Wicked. You have the Lake Worth Drainage District. And so a lot of them were originally set up for agriculture and some of them, and they have specific plans of reclamation. You know, Palmar is a... drainage district that is as an example. So you'll find it's one of those areas when you look at comparing governments and counties to how they operate where you really find apples and apples are hard to measure up. So you may have a community that has both a stormwater 298 district along with a county ad valorem program and a stormwater utility. So the thing about a stormwater utility is it is very specific as an enterprise front on having to spend monies that specifically benefit the properties within the district. So there are financial reasons that make the stormwater utility more cumbersome, especially if your goal is purely water quality as opposed to flood protection. And, of course, we do a lot of both. So I think there are some real advantages of having it primarily MSTU-driven, especially on the flexibility of trying to do water quality projects, where stormwater utilities are usually focused purely on flood protection or implementing the BMPs required by a – a total maximum daily in an impaired watershed. Anyway, I gave you way more than you wanted to hear, but the point is that there are other choices out there in the business practice. If we had any changes that would require it, we would dig into it much deeper. But anyway. Sorry to go on and on. I will tell my new colleagues that the time that we set a record for filling this room and the lobby and the parking lot was when we brought up the idea of a stormwater utility. It's too late here. There's too many people that would be wickedly, adversely affected. when he talked about impervious, anybody that has a large parking lot. So businesses, retail, the flea market guy lost his mind over at the mall. It was absolutely packed in here. People not interested. Plus there's in there like a tax. You can't write it off on your taxes or something else. So there was several different reasons why it wouldn't work here. Maybe every several years people forget And the staff tries to bring it back. Look at Mr. Donaldson. He loves a stormwater assessment. And I'm pretty sure as long as some of us are sitting up here, I don't need to beat that drum again. People are probably nervous when they hear us talking about it now. Well, it was interesting learning about it anyway. I'm not an advocate. I'm not an advocate of anything. I just wanted to learn about it, you know. Today's headline, CAP's interested in a stormwater assessment. Just wanted to learn. Fake news. Is there a motion to adopt the stormwater management CIP? I don't even like anything with the word stormwater in it. I'm out. Yes. Second. There's a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? That motion passes unanimously. Moving on to solid waste. Can I ask a question? I want to go back to roads. Sure. Sorry. I forgot to ask you. On page 202, what is this? Operating budget impact. It says 49,731. Then it talks about bright line seal. The corridor requires quad gates at crossings, increasing the license to 100. That's three times. Oh, yeah. $152,000. Then it could go between $150,000 to $300,000, which is six times. What is this? So annual commitments is our CIP sheet that we use for maintenance of the crossings of the FEC and CSX track. Going back in Florida history, those railroads existed before our roads did. So we have to get easements from them or license agreements or leases to utilize the crossings, to build roads across them. So in the bottom one, we're talking about the operating budget impact for the increase for Brightline. What that stemmed from was Brightline had a settlement agreement with the county And they were required to make safety upgrades and install quad gate crossings at a lot of the crossings in the county. The intent of that was to make it so that we could consider in the future quiet zones. But with those improvements that Brightline paid for, through the settlement agreement, they had to pay to upgrade every single crossing, put in striping, put in quad gates. put in new signage, and now the license agreements have gone up because there's more infrastructure there. So someone has to maintain all of those quad gates that exist now, the lighting that's out there, the fencing that's out there, the lights that have been added. So all of those things have costs to maintain. And this sheet is where you maintain them. Secondly, the crossings themselves have to be maintained. So the roadways that cross them within the FEC right-of-way, from time to time, they've got three projects that are going to happen this year. FEC comes out and does a crossing maintenance project where they replace all of the pavement in between their right-of-way lines. Now that we have two tracks, the cost for that has gone up. So each one of those projects is going to be 20% more than they used to be because we have more area that we need to cover with those projects. So that's what that is, is there's more infrastructure that needs to be maintained because of the safety improvements that Brightline was required to put in, and then the cost for the maintenance of the right-of-way crossings as well. Okay, you're talking about countywide? Or just at certain... This is only at the 19 crossings that Martin County controls. There's 27 total crossings countywide, but this sheet only addresses the ones that our county maintains. Okay, or City of Stewart? City of Stewart's separate. They have their own. They've got seven crossings in the city, and they have their own funding mechanism to maintain those. They, too, have leases. They've got leases for the parking that they have within the right-of-way. and the crossings themselves. So they have quite a number of leases with FEC. Okay. All right. Okay. Shall we move on to solid waste? Mr. Amerson and Mr. Covey. Mr. Covey. Good afternoon. For the record, Jeremy Covey, Deputy Director of Martin County Utilities and Solid Waste Department. We'll start with solid waste. Our fiscal year 26 request was roughly $2.1 million. In fiscal year 27, we were asking for $1.2 million, which is roughly a $900,000 decrease. Decrease? Yep. Yeah. That's always nice to hear. What stayed the same? Renewal and replacement projects such as roadways, capital improvement, and scale improvements are still in there. With a majority of our funding requested, for equipment, which is basically 70% of our CIP for equipment. What changed? The decrease was mainly due to the transfer station fuel island was fully funded in fiscal year 26, which drops out in 27, and that was roughly $1.1 million. Additional funding is also requested for capital improvements and the floor replacement. Capital improvements are additional $150,000 and the floor replacement's additional $100,000. and we also moved us the inbound scale timing from fiscal year 28 to 27. a couple completed projects the transfer station admin building with public restrooms you can see a photo in the upper left there this allows us to move the porta potties off site for the residents also water and sewer is now extended and complete out there so we are fully hooked up to martin county water and sewer The middle photo on the bottom is covered area for employee parking is completed and we also had some renovations for the hazmat unit. Current projects out there are the transfer station fuel island, which are three tanks, 8,000 gallon off-road diesel tank, 8,000 gallon gas tank, and a 2,000 gallon on-road diesel tank. The single stream recycling relocation is currently in design. It's conceptual design right now, and hopefully our goal is to be up and operational within two years. And then additional capital equipment. Upcoming projects. The largest item on there would be a street sweeper under capital equipment. Right around $150,000 for transportation capital improvements, which is building renovation, security, landscaping, that kind of stuff. $100,000 for floor rehab, and $100,000 for scale replacement on the inbound scale. Questions for Mr. Covey? Seeing none, is there a motion to approve solid waste? Move approval. Second. There's a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? That motion passes unanimously. Now we're taking up utilities. All right. We'll continue forward with utilities. In fiscal year 26, we had roughly a $60 million request. In fiscal year 27, it's a $17 million request, roughly $42 million or close to $43 million decrease on that. We'll get into why the decrease. What stayed the same is projects such as deceptive sewer, ongoing renewal and replacement, project-specific renewal and replacement. Those are all still in there. What changed is we had two large expansion projects, the Tropical Farms Water Treatment Plant expansion and Jensen Beach, and both of those roughly were $43 million and budgeted in fiscal year 26. Another item that changed is light vehicles were in our FARB. Now they are in our operating budget, so they got taken out of capital, which are F-250s and smaller. And we do have one additional project in our CIP. The biosolids dewater and rehab. This sheet allows us to save up roughly $400,000 a year for the next four years to eventually buy another centrifuge for the tropical farms wastewater treatment plant. Some completed projects. In the north, water treatment plant high service pump improvements was adding VFDs to two pumps out there. That's the picture in the upper right. A Dixie Park generator improvements. We had a new 1,000 kilowatt generator added there, the bottom right photo. Martindown's wastewater repump station, we added a fifth booster pump. Evergreen Windstone, we completed the water main assessments just recently in there to roughly 400 homes. And then we also have our rehab projects, which reoccur on all three sheets. Lift stations, we have roughly 378 lift stations and five vacuum pump stations. Your sanitary collection system, which is mainly now manhole rehab and ARV maintenance. Water meters, we have approximately 40,000 water meters, and right around 8,600 are still manually read, so we're replacing those out with a goal of 3,000 to 3,500 meters a year. Chemical tank replacements, those are anywhere between 7 and 10 years replacement, depending on the chemicals. And then fire hydrants, we do complete replacements of 45 per year, and the operating budget handles the actual maintenance and painting of existing ones. Current projects are the two large projects of the first ones here, the Tropical Farms Water Treatment Plant expansion, currently under design and permitting, and the North Water Treatment Plant operating half a million gallons a day. It's currently under design and permitting. We're going to bid those two together, hopefully within the next month or month and a half year or so. And both of those combined are right around $43 million worth of work. North wastewater treatment plant dosing pumps are under construction. We just started one of the three new pumps up. Parallel forest mains in Palm City down high meadows to handle additional flow for Palm City. small diameter forest veins in multiple neighborhoods. Right now there's roughly 650 homes or our service for 650 homes under construction for the small diameter forest veins with another 240 in design. Coral Gardens is now kicked off and in construction. That broke ground roughly a month ago. That's going to serve 638 homes and should be completed in October of 2027. Port Salerno-New Monrovia vacuum system. is currently finishing design. We're tweaking some mains to try to minimize roadway impact on that. And our goal is to have that bid hopefully within the next two months or so, plus or minus. Sewells Point water main replacements, current land of construction, and then our general rehab projects that I discussed earlier. And then upcoming CIP projects. Small diameter forest mains. Next fiscal year would be Beaurevage East and Skyline. Roughly $600,000 for that. Capital equipment replacements such as pump trucks, utility equipment, and generators. There's a farb sheet on the water mains and service replacements. MacArthur Boulevard and Center Street will be next. Dixie Park Rehab Station Improvements is adding a fifth booster pump out there on the wastewater side. The North Water Treatment Plant filter rehab. The actual system is roughly 20 years old, and the media is 20 years old, so it's time. Parallel force mains of Stewart on Cove and Salerno to handle additional septic sewer flows, and then our general rehab projects. Questions for Mr. Covey? Commissioner Vargas. Mr. Covey, the utilities and solid waste is enterprise, is that correct? That's correct. So what does that mean to the public? That means the actual fees from either the actual solid waste side or your water and wastewater bill pays for the upgrades. Everything that we've talked about here. That is correct. Your wish list and maintenance and projects. Is that correct? And if you can't do it, you can't do it. You push it off, right? Yes. I like your management style very well. Thank you, both of you. Thank you. Any further questions? Is there a motion to approve utilities? Tentatively accept the utilities. It's all tentative. Second. There's a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? That motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Which brings us to the end of our CIP workshop. Do you need a wrap-up motion to approve the CIP? No, you can approve each one. Okay. What other loose strings are there? I would just... If I could, I just want to thank the board for your support. All of the county department heads and staff that are involved in formulating this process. My OMB team, but specifically Mrs. Stella Pietra for kind of reining it all in. And also Melissa Calise, who is behind me, who assisted big time in compiling all this information. Your department's terrific. Thank you. I agree. Mr. Vargas. You know, as a closing comment, I would just like to say that everybody I've met with that is a director or subdirector or co-director within these walls, I think you do a fantastic job. I do pick apart a lot, as you know, but you are very professional in explaining, and I may come back again and ask because I'm working here for my 160,000 bosses, a lot of people out there. So I want to thank you so much, all of you, and those that aren't here. They know who they are. Thank you. Thanks. Thanks. So we've reached the end of our agenda. Any commissioner comments? I just have a very light note. I saw on my calendar that tomorrow is Administrative Professionals Day, so I wanted to wish District 2's five-star customer service team liaison and a rock star Patricia Higginbotham a happy administrative professional day as well as all of the the administrative professionals that keep every all the wheels running in this county so thank you and happy administrative professionals day tomorrow thank you all set Mr. Capps. All set. And Commissioner Vargas. I would like to thank all of our aides upstairs. My aide, Kathy Bowden, she carries a lot of things. And at one time, and she juggles, and I don't know how she does it. But having said that, everybody is very cooperative. I've been very appreciative when, you know, we've had maybe some little loose ends up there. But everybody knows what's going on, and that's what I like. That's the way I operate. So thank you very much, girls. You know who you are, too. Mr. Donaldson. You said that you had something. Yeah, I had two things. First of all, just on the P3 agreement, there was one thing we left off of there to the chagrin of all of us, and that is our legal department and Ms. Elder. It was a critical part of getting all of that together through multiple. meetings and details and so uh i just she would they they're a really critical part of no she she didn't say a thing yeah but her and her team really are are instrumental in making it happen and so thank you elise for that um then i also have uh you know staff got some recognitions last week the safety council of palm beach which is really a concomitant of public and private entities. Some of the private entities are like Tropical Shipping, Chaney Brothers, Pratt & Whitney, and we have public entities like the Solid Waste Authority, Martin County, St. Lucie County. In any event, they have an annual meeting celebrating, and we submit awards, and Martin County got several. And I thought our little county competing against all the others, I'm always impressed by those that received awards. And I'm just going to list them off really quickly here. We got an Excellence Award for Worker Safety and a Special Award for our Safety Manual that went to our Risk Management group. There was also a recognition of our burn building and how we had implemented state-of-the-art training, but it was more importantly on the training program that was actually developed for that facility. And as a part of that, a separate actual was a special recognition to Kevin Moore, our Martin County Fire Rescue Chief, for his safety initiatives and the program that he's developed. Also Sailfish Splash, a water park, obviously we have a lot of customers there and there was special recognition for them. Solid waste and utilities and solid waste, our transfer station safety enhancement, we heard from staff earlier today. So anyway, I want to recognize all of our departments and recipients who were recognized at a banquet in Palm Beach County last week. And I was proud to participate with them and really proud to see that really there was a lot of really great reward recipients. But Martin County's, I think, were certainly noteworthy in our class amongst the best. So I just wanted to point that out to you all. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Elder. I'm all set. Thank you. Excellent. We are adjourned. Thank you. Yeah.