[1:04] Access a quasi-judicial body when it hears requests for rezoning and conditional use permits. Applicants must provide competent, substantial evidence, establishing facts, or expert witness opinion testimony, showing that the request meets the zoning code and comprehensive plan criteria.

[1:19] Opponents must also testify as detects or provide expert testimony, whether they like or dislike a request is not competent evidence.

[1:26] The board must then decide whether the evidence demonstrates consistency and compatibility with the conference at plan and the existing rules and the zoning ordinance, property adjacent to the property to be resowned and the actual development of the surrounding area.

[1:40] The board cannot consider a speculation, non-expert opinion testimony, or pull the audience by asking those in favor or opposed to stand up or erase their hands.

[1:48] If a commissioner has had communications regarding a resounding or conditionally's permit

[1:53] request before the board, the commissioner must disclose the subject of the communication

[1:57] and the identity of the person, group or entity, within the communication took place before

[2:02] the board takes action on the request. Likewise, if a commissioner has made a site visit,

[2:07] inspection or investigation, the commissioner must disclose that document before the board takes action

[2:11] on the request. Each applicant is allowed a total of 15 minutes to present their request,

[2:16] Unless the time is extended by majority vote of the board.

[2:20] The applicant may reserve any portion of the 15 minutes for a battle.

[2:23] Other speakers are allowed five minutes to speak.

[2:26] Speakers may not pass their time to someone else in order to give that person more time to speak.

[2:37] And welcome.

[2:38] Today is May 1st.

[2:40] Brevard County Board of County Commissioners zoning meeting.

[2:44] We are going to have the invocation this evening by District 2.

[2:47] Commissioner Nelson and I will file with the pledge.

[2:50] It's my pleasure this evening to have a friend and a community leader Reverend Peter Roberts from St. Luke's Episcopal Church.

[2:59] You can see, sir.

[3:00] Good evening.

[3:06] We begin with a night by giving thanks to this beautiful place we live.

[3:12] This place of peace, a place of prosperity.

[3:16] We pray for that it may continue to be so.

[3:19] We give thanks.

[3:23] Give it to them by us the people.

[3:27] We pray for the commission tonight as they meet.

[3:29] They may have a spirit of courage,

[3:33] judicial oversight, and more stooporantly wisdom.

[3:37] They remember that they are servants, not rulers.

[3:41] We pray for all those who present their case that will do so

[3:43] in a spirit of openness, of honesty, and acceptance

[3:48] of the democratic will.

[3:50] We ask this all in the name of the ever-living God. Amen.

[3:56] Please join me.

[3:58] I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the U.S.

[4:04] and to the U.S. and to the United States of America and to the U.S.

[4:08] and to the U.S. and to the U.S. and to the U.S. and to the U.S.

[4:17] We will now go into the resolutions.

[4:20] I do have a resolution posted here by Commissioner Fentini.

[4:25] Thank you. Last meeting, we had some individuals come before us from Indian River County and

[4:33] helped expose some of what was taking place with all aboard Florida. And as such, I

[4:38] told them that I would place a mirrored resolution on our agenda today as it had just passed

[4:46] Indian River County to work against the forward movement of all aboard Florida, the train

[4:54] that wants to be bringing passengers from Miami, Broward County, and Palm Beach County all

[4:59] the way through to Orlando, which in a way doesn't sound bad, except that they won't have

[5:03] any stops here in Broward County, and there's a lot more to go to that.

[5:09] I could read the resolution, if everybody would like me to read it, there's not somebody

[5:13] here that's accepting it, but rather, I'd rather just make the motion to approve.

[5:17] I was just presenting this that Nico homeowners in down in Bearfoot Bay and they're all

[5:23] very, very excited.

[5:24] So, with that, I make the motion to approve the resolution.

[5:28] I have a motion by Commissioner, if a teeny second by Commissioner Anderson for discussion.

[5:33] I have a light by Commissioner Nelson.

[5:36] I thought it was a sports direction that we were going to talk about that at the PPL on Thursday

[5:40] to include our cities.

[5:42] I think there were some legitimate questions to ask, but I don't know that I heard the answer.

[5:48] So, my preference would be, is that we can always do the resolution. There's no urgency.

[5:53] I would want to have our cities on board at the same time.

[5:56] And that was kind of the direction we took.

[5:59] Commissioner Fentini chairs on our own to do this and I appreciate that.

[6:02] But I would prefer to have a full body, have that discussion,

[6:07] have all board floor to actually be there to be able to to respond to some of the questions and I

[6:13] talked to a Bob Com today with TPO and he said that they would be there so rather than

[6:18] then rushing through something which we may have to change in the later date I'd like to at least

[6:23] be informed as to what what those answers are.

[6:27] Good morning sir.

[6:28] Good morning sir.

[6:28] I couldn't agree with you.

[6:29] More Sir audio.

[6:31] You guys know from B1 I didn't like the deal and I hadn't had concerns about it and said

[6:36] If it's not coming through with R, then while we go through all this, I'm in a commission

[6:40] meeting, can you tell me that I shouldn't be so selfish and all that, whether it happened.

[6:46] So with that, I guess we'd be for this resolution.

[6:49] I made a recommendation of the day that goes to TPO and go the proper way of getting back

[6:54] and getting cities and to TPO, understanding what our concerns are and then letting them make

[7:00] a recommendation to this board.

[7:02] I am going to concur that I would like to have the entire geographic county behind something

[7:08] like this before we move forward.

[7:11] And so if the end of the discussion, do all of them please state aye?

[7:16] All opposed.

[7:17] May.

[7:18] Does not pass 2 a 2 net 3 net.

[7:22] And I just want to say is that I think there are some legitimate concerns.

[7:25] I'm concerned about the cost that it could have the local government, but the questions

[7:30] there was nobody there to answer them. I think it's only fair that we hear what those answers are.

[7:35] And we play as I said we can always do this.

[7:37] The environmental statement has not even been completed at this point in time.

[7:42] So I would prefer. So thank you.

[7:44] I don't even know what is cost, what have we even cost is counting.

[7:47] You know, I think we ought to have those numbers and then understand exactly what we're saying no to.

[7:53] So.

[7:54] Okay, next time we go into, we'll be the public hearings.

[7:58] I have 3B1 is the applicant, I do not have a car in the applicant, and I am going to look at

[8:08] staff then, is there any opposition?

[8:11] Anything else?

[8:12] Now, I believe the applicant is here.

[8:14] This is a conditionally used for it for beer and wine only accessory to an existing 40C restaurant.

[8:21] Would the applicant like to make a statement before and move forward?

[8:30] I think we're ready to approve unless you would like to just stand there and let us do our business.

[8:37] I'm going to take the, oh, you already did it?

[8:45] I have a motion by commissioner Anderson, second by commissioner Nelson, all in favor please say aye.

[8:51] Passes.

[8:56] I know I haven't been here for a couple of meetings, but I didn't know we spade that up that fast.

[9:02] Okay, great. The next item, then, is the two, did Mr. Jake Wise want to say anything before we move forward?

[9:14] Okay. I have a motion by Commissioner Nelson, do I have a second?

[9:18] by Commissioner Anderson, all in favor, please state aye.

[9:21] Aye.

[9:21] Passes 5-0.

[9:24] Okay, next item.

[9:29] Mr. Underreal.

[9:31] Okay, if we would like to move forward on this, do I have a motion?

[9:35] I have a motion by Commissioner Nelson.

[9:37] Second by Commissioner Anderson, all in favor, please state aye.

[9:40] Aye. Passes 5-0.

[9:43] Don't get used to it. It's not going to stay at this pace.

[9:48] Okay, B4, and do we have B&C consultants here to come forward?

[9:58] The property owners.

[10:00] The property owner, if you would like to come forward, if you'd like to speak to us.

[10:04] I make a motion to approve and ask there's questions.

[10:12] I'm assuming there's including the recommendations.

[10:16] Correct.

[10:17] I do have a motion on the floor by Commissioner Incontaining.

[10:22] And a second by Commissioner Anderson, open for discussion.

[10:27] I'm still a loss at why you need a 70 foot jumbo tron when our code says that the

[10:33] tallest point of the structure should be no taller than the tallest point in the building

[10:39] itself.

[10:40] Why do you need 70 feet?

[10:42] That's a seven-story building, right?

[10:46] Through all the issues that I had brought up before with it, it's basically a line of sight

[10:52] on the baseball fields. Most fields you see similar to what you have here in Vira.

[11:00] It's got the blackout screen in the center field of it and anything that's in the line

[11:06] of size of anybody throwing the ball around or anything that has bright colors or a white

[11:10] type of color or anything can cause a distraction and not be able to see the ball being

[11:16] thrown at you. And so with a 40 by 30, it's the minimum

[11:22] That the manufacturers and all of the major league baseball and all of them advised to have the least amount, but they would want it.

[11:33] And we originally had it at 90 feet, but it was really kind of hard to see, and you could see it from 5 to 20.

[11:40] I know there was an issue with that, so we lowered it down to 70 feet to address those concerns.

[11:46] But you, again, you can't see it from 5 to 20 or Friday road.

[11:53] You might recall the last time I was up in front of you.

[11:57] We had a line of sight and detail that the architect did.

[11:59] I have one of those with whom if you'd like to see it again.

[12:03] Well, I have seen the information provided.

[12:07] I just played baseball ahead of a few fields under my control over the years.

[12:14] And I don't accept the fact that you say that it has to be that that elevation because at some point during a game that's going to be in play, no matter where it goes, no matter what height you put it at at some point, all those issues you say will come into play.

[12:31] The fact that you did move it up to further till that field as far as you can move it, I think it's good, but I think the height is still excessive.

[12:39] So I, I just, the, the, the tallest structure in your facility is 38 feet or the, the, the tallest point of your stadium and this is only going to be eight, the bottom will be eight feet from that and then going up another almost 30 feet.

[12:55] So I just think that's unnecessary.

[12:58] Be honest with you.

[12:59] If, if we couldn't have it that high, then we wouldn't be able to have the board.

[13:04] I'm just a great Jeff stuff.

[13:07] You are aware of the stipulation that the structure would only be used during the schedule

[13:14] events and so would not be on any other time than that.

[13:18] We didn't know reason to do that because it eats up a lot of electricity.

[13:22] Okay.

[13:23] Any purchases were already?

[13:24] No.

[13:25] No.

[13:25] We had a deposit on it, but it's saying we have a deposit on it.

[13:30] All right.

[13:31] Okay.

[13:32] Okay, we have a motion. All in favor, please state I, anyone opposed?

[13:38] Four, one, commissioner Nelson, nay.

[13:41] Thank you very much.

[13:44] Okay, next item is going to be a small scale plan amendment.

[13:49] Do I have the applicants?

[13:51] We should just speak this.

[13:55] Face that.

[13:56] This is a change from TR1 to V2 with the accompanying small scale plan amendment

[14:03] from residential one to community commercial.

[14:05] This is for an existing use for a storage yard.

[14:10] They have or are either planning to pull some additional

[14:13] building permits to construct another building on the property

[14:16] and therefore they need to have the B2 zoning.

[14:21] Okay, and they come into the board to have a motion.

[14:24] I have a motion by Commissioner Fisher,

[14:25] second by Commissioner Anderson,

[14:28] all in favor, please state aye.

[14:30] Anyone opposed?

[14:31] Pass us five zero.

[14:32] We will now go into the public hearing amendment for chapter 62 of

[14:39] the changing of the guard over there.

[14:43] I have no cards on this item.

[14:46] I have a motion by Commissioner Nelson, second by Commissioner Anderson for approval, all in favor.

[14:50] Any discussion? All in favor, please state aye.

[14:54] Anyone opposed? Passes 5-0.

[14:58] Unfinished business.

[15:00] Now, we're going to be talking about a board representation on audit selection committee. And Mr. Whitman, would you like to bring us up to speak on that?

[15:11] Yes, ma'am, your policy requires a board representative for the selection committee, for the auditing firm, for the annual financial audit. And so, per your policy, it is before you to either appoint a commissioner or a board representative.

[15:30] to serve representatives from the Constitutional Office here as on this committee.

[15:39] I do have a light by Commissioner Nelson followed by Commissioner Matini.

[15:43] I was involved here at the last time.

[15:47] Can I do a hint?

[15:48] Okay.

[15:51] We do have a motion by.

[15:54] Are you second of your first?

[15:56] Commissioner Nelson, second by.

[16:00] committee for discussion. It says that the audit committee will be consisting of a deputy

[16:06] county manager, and I'd like to welcome our new county manager to the audience. Did you

[16:13] want to change that title? That's actually the mistake we made from last time. Do you want

[16:22] to change that? Or are we going to have a deputy county manager still?

[16:26] No, on April, when you previously have this item, you did have a deputy county manager.

[16:32] And so we're just advising you that that was the wrong make-up for the committee.

[16:37] And so that's really the historical on the item.

[16:40] But again, the request before you as for a board appointee.

[16:45] Okay, I have before me a motion for the appointment of Commissioner Nelson.

[16:50] All in favor, please state aye.

[16:52] Anyone opposed?

[16:57] The next item is going to be first responder agreements for the year 2013-2014.

[17:07] I have no cards on this item.

[17:09] I've been to move the item.

[17:12] But again, this, for my perspective, is the last year that we will be doing this.

[17:15] I know the cities have sent us resolutions, but I think it has become time for us to move on.

[17:22] It's inherently unfair to unincorporated because we pay twice, so if the cities don't want

[17:28] to provide that service, then I would suggest anybody in the audience have an accident

[17:31] in the county in the cities, because we pay for and provide the higher level of service

[17:37] and we have been subsidizing them doing that, and I would hope they would step up, so move

[17:43] that on.

[17:44] I have a motion by Commissioner Nelson, do I have a second?

[17:50] I'm just making sure, I'm just saying, stop helping me figure out Mr. Whitton, exactly.

[17:56] I mean, we already made a motion prior to not funded this budget cycle. Why aren't we,

[18:02] why aren't we, why aren't we exactly in front of this budget, we funded this cycle.

[18:06] Yeah, we did it from, we said we responded to the end of September, right?

[18:12] We were going to fund this year so that we, because we were in September doing the budget,

[18:17] they hadn't anticipated the loss of those revenues and so the board made the decision to

[18:23] fund it one more year with a notice to them that this would be the last year.

[18:27] And that year is the search number of the current.

[18:31] This is 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20.

[18:32] They could have gotten the money in October of this year, but I think historically the contracts have

[18:37] come in about this for just time of year.

[18:39] That's great.

[18:42] So, if we pass this, then we will not have discussion in budget cycle this year about

[18:48] We will have.

[18:52] I do see you're like Commissioner Anderson. Yes, it will probably be brought up,

[18:57] but we've voiced pretty strongly from last time where we stand on it. I do have a motion

[19:03] do I have a second at this time. I'll move the gabbled to you in a second. Open for discussion, Commissioner Anderson.

[19:10] I'm just being consistent with what I said in the past.

[19:15] Since we have some budget constraints,

[19:18] and I concur with Commissioner Nelson's view

[19:23] that, you know, the bartending resonance

[19:26] or such a buzz and municipalities,

[19:28] but I'm just going to continue to vote now.

[19:30] It's just to be consistent.

[19:33] Even though I'm dead from budget.

[19:34] For next year's budget to me.

[19:36] I don't know.

[19:37] I'm sure we won't know again.

[19:41] Okay.

[19:42] Now I see what your consistency is.

[19:45] Commissioner Nelson?

[19:45] Just one last comment.

[19:46] I think we take this thought.

[19:49] We had indicated to the cities that this was the last year.

[19:52] So I would hope that because I think it's three two last time.

[19:55] But I would hope that we would be consistent with that because if not,

[19:59] there's going to be some deep holes in Palm Bay's pocket,

[20:01] as well as Melbourne, as well as some of these others.

[20:05] Okay.

[20:05] I have motion before, so all in favor, please say aye.

[20:10] Those opposed.

[20:13] Three, two.

[20:16] And then the discussion will be for the budget next year, later.

[20:19] I do have a card on the next item, which is the presentation by the Blue Ribbon Advisory Committee Report.

[20:26] At this point in time, I have 11 cards.

[20:30] Excuse me, Mr. Witten.

[20:32] Madam Chair, do you want the—we would anticipate it that you would have the presentation

[20:38] of the findings first and then go to the public speaker cards there, and so that's

[20:44] the case, Chairman of the Committee, Mr. Larry Schultz, is here to provide that presentation.

[20:52] I think it's about a 20-something-slide power-borne presentation, and so we'd ask Mr. Schultz

[21:01] Shoulders to come forward and make that presentation.

[21:05] Good evening, sir.

[21:10] Madam Chair, are you using

[21:15] ladies and gentlemen of the commission?

[21:18] It's good to see you all again.

[21:20] It's been a little time, but I'm glad to see that you're all getting a little real well.

[21:27] My name is Larry Schultel, I live in Rockledge, and I am the community representative

[21:32] to the Blue Ribbon Committee and I'm also the chairman of that particular committee and I'd

[21:40] like to acquaint you with the recommendations and the activities of the committee as they

[21:46] transpire. First of all, I wanted to say that you appointed a very good group of people,

[21:53] some very interested folks who were interested in the subject provided valuable input provided

[22:00] some spirited discussions at one time or another, and I appreciate the fact that these folks

[22:07] were a part of it, and we could not have produced the document that we did without the support

[22:13] of these folks.

[22:14] So I just wanted to say thank you.

[22:18] Now if I can get this thing to work.

[22:23] Wait, you know what I'm talking about?

[22:27] I was the design guy.

[22:34] Mr. Locker, will you be able to assist?

[22:42] There's a magical switch now.

[22:50] One of these small screen lines.

[22:52] I'm going to say that one.

[23:42] The particular mission that you gave this particular committee was one I had two parts.

[23:48] First of all, you asked us to look at the ongoing road maintenance and capacity needs.

[23:56] for all of the county roads, and also to take and recommend to you some sustainable, short-term

[24:04] and long-term funding solutions that could be appointed could be approved by the Board itself

[24:11] or by the voters in Brevard County.

[24:18] The committee was 19 members. Business community was well represented. There's a nice long list

[24:25] folks there. We had some good input from them.

[24:32] The development community was

[24:34] aptly represented. We had some good participation and the community at

[24:39] large was part of this also and I'm the citizen represented. So there are

[24:47] some folks from the committee that are here today and I know that later on

[24:52] some of them want to talk to you and I'd like to have those members of the

[24:56] many who are here today to stand up and to be recognized.

[25:04] Give them a round of applause.

[25:06] Thank you.

[25:13] We did a lot of good work and appreciate the opportunity.

[25:20] You all formed this particular committee back in April of 2013.

[25:24] All of the appointees were in place by about the first of July.

[25:29] We had our first organizational meeting in the end of August.

[25:32] We conducted eight meetings where we reviewed all of the options, looked at all of the inputs and discussed various alternatives and recommendations and finalized our recommendations on March 18th.

[25:51] My birthday.

[25:56] We had two birthday boys, the chairman and the vice chairman were birthday boys on the 18th.

[26:03] Here is what we learned as a result of all of this activity.

[26:07] First of all, county roads, what do we mean by county roads?

[26:11] We're talking about 1,200 miles of roads in the county that are both in the cities and

[26:21] in unincorporated before.

[26:23] What we're not talking about are state and federal highways.

[26:27] We're not talking about I-95, US-1-192, A1A, state road 50, all of that stuff.

[26:38] That's a separate category of road that is managed by other people and funded by other

[26:43] sources than what we're talking about here.

[26:46] There is a breakdown there of all of the roads by district for your information.

[26:55] We also took a look at the neighborhood.

[26:58] We looked at our surrounding counties in East Central Florida, tried to figure out where we

[27:04] were in relation to all of those other counties.

[27:08] And as you can see, we're at the work of the bottom.

[27:11] We spend less on transportation for a mile than anybody else.

[27:18] And in a lot of cases, these other counties are able to take and provide additional funding

[27:23] because they have more alternative funding sources, more sources of funding for transportation

[27:29] than Brevard.

[27:44] What we wanted to do first was to look at the current expenses, the current public works

[27:50] department budget for maintaining and resurfacing all of the county roads is about 14 million

[27:56] dollars annually.

[27:58] That budget includes drainage, mowing, hot holes, infrastructure repair, equipment maintenance,

[28:04] replacement and some small portions of landscaping. An example of what is covered in this particular

[28:12] budget is the Palm Bay Road drainage failure, which is currently costing $850,000.

[28:23] We quickly

[28:24] learn that one of the big issues is keeping up with resurfacing and that's one of our greatest

[28:31] challenges right now your budget allows for resurfacing of only 8 miles of roadway each and every year.

[28:41] Roads generally have a life cycle of something like 20 years in order to properly maintain all of those 1200 miles we were talking about.

[28:51] You would need to resurface basically an average of 55 miles every single year and currently we're only doing a.

[28:59] Without regular resurfacing, roads deteriorate usually beyond repair and must be reconstructed.

[29:08] The cost of reconstructing a road is something like three times more expensive than repaying.

[29:14] Reconstructing a road costs about a quarter of a million dollars a mile.

[29:19] Normal resurfacing costs about 85,000 per mile.

[29:29] Right now, we're investing something like $600,000 annually to resurface those 8 pounds in order to resurface an additional 47 miles which would get itself at the 55 and to keep current with current traffic drainage sidewalk, all the other costs you would need approximately $6.2 million at referring recurring revenue.

[29:58] Now if you look at the...

[30:00] At other folks, other than Brevard County, for the last 15 years, the county spent about 20% of its total transportation

[30:08] budget on maintenance. 80% has been dedicated to capacity expansions. As you can see, in comparison

[30:18] with the State of Florida, and the United States, we are significantly less than most anybody, either

[30:26] in the state of Florida or in the country.

[30:35] Before our county is a current budget shortfall,

[30:38] that's just for road maintenance and resurfacing

[30:41] is $6.2 million annually.

[30:43] Knowing that we've not kept up on a regular basis

[30:46] a year after year after year, with resurfacing,

[30:52] that leads us to a further challenge.

[30:56] And that's basically the maintenance backlog.

[30:59] There is a significant backlog of maintenance and resurfacing projects.

[31:06] Currently we have 283 miles of road or about 25-24 percent of the total inventory that

[31:16] require reconstruction.

[31:18] The total cost to address all of the backlog projects is estimated to be about $178 million.

[31:25] If you worked to address that backlog over a 15-year period, you would need about $12 million

[31:34] on a range of basis.

[31:37] This backlog has been going on for a long, long, long time.

[31:42] So you can't necessarily blame this particular commission or this administration or this

[31:48] department.

[31:49] We've heard presentations from most of the cities in the county, there are in similar situations

[31:54] sometimes better in a couple of times there are much worse than the counties.

[32:03] If you look at the state of Florida and the United States, as far as this particular

[32:09] maintenance backlog, you can see, the state of Florida is generally in pretty good condition

[32:16] where the 80% of the roads in good condition, the United States itself is about 60%.

[32:28] The annual budget shortfall to take care of this maintenance backlog over an kind of an arbitrary 15-year period is about $12 million.

[32:38] This backlog will continue to grow as more roads deteriorate beyond their life cycle, this 20-year life cycle.

[32:52] In addition to all the maintenance issues, one of the things that we looked at was a very, very long list of capacity issues.

[33:03] We received a multi-page list of road projects that is designated to address capacity issues.

[33:12] This includes expanding existing roadways to accommodate increased traffic, as well as new construction to support growing population.

[33:22] The list is very detailed, describes each of road segments and the costs associated with doing that.

[33:32] If you add up all the costs associated with this list of projects, the total is about $443 million.

[33:43] If we tried to address all of these needs over here again a 15-year period, you would need an additional $29.5 million each and every year in order to solve that particular problem.

[34:02] In order to summarize a little bit,

[34:08] $6.2 million annual is needed for maintenance and

[34:12] resurfacing of the additional 47 miles of roads each year.

[34:18] About 12 million is needed to address the maintenance backlog over this 15 year period.

[34:25] And about 30 million is an annual needed over this 15 year period to expand the existing

[34:33] roads and to build new ones to accommodate growth. That's over $700 million, needed over

[34:42] the next 15 years. That's not chump change. That's big money, big dollars. First and foremost,

[34:51] the committee urges you to prioritize transportation infrastructure projects in this order.

[35:01] First, we need to adequately fund the existing maintenance that we've got.

[35:07] We need to budget for resurfacing of 55 miles of roads each and every year.

[35:14] Second, we need to invest funds annually to address the maintenance backlog, which includes

[35:21] the reconstruction of about one fourth of the accounting inventory of roads.

[35:26] These two priorities would ensure that we're adequately taking care of what we've got here today.

[35:35] Finally, we need to ensure that we grow and prosper, and as a community we continue to invest in capacity building.

[35:48] The committee talked over what I just showed you. There was a lot of discussion, a lot of differing opinions.

[35:55] There was a lot of struggle as far as what we ought to present, what we ought to recommend,

[36:02] what it be accepted, what it be rejected.

[36:07] And basically what we did was that we came back to what you had asked us to do.

[36:13] And that was the basically review the needs.

[36:18] Take a look at ongoing road maintenance and capacity needs.

[36:22] And then basically provide you with a series of recommendations, both short-term and long-term

[36:30] that are sustainable, that would solve our capacity and our maintenance needs.

[36:42] We have come up with some recommendations, first recommendation.

[36:48] We need to maintain the existing $14 million that is appropriate for public works each and

[36:56] year. The maintenance decline will continue if that is done. The backlog of maintenance and

[37:04] capacity problems will increase. But in this particular case, the committee felt very,

[37:12] very strongly that if the new revenue sources became available, this base funding is critical

[37:19] and should not be reduced.

[37:23] Next recommendation.

[37:27] The auto-levy additional gas tax. This would

[37:31] raise about $7.8 million. Would require a supermajority vote of the board.

[37:39] This funding

[37:40] stream would be dedicated to maintenance.

[37:45] This particular option is probably the closest thing

[37:48] We thought of in the way of a user fee, and is the more you drive, the more you pay.

[37:57] And it's estimated that about 25% of the projected revenue from the additional gas tax would come from visitors and from tourists.

[38:10] The current maintenance budget and the gas tax revenue combined would be enough to address all of the recurring maintenance needs,

[38:19] including resurfacing 55 miles of road near a single year.

[38:25] But it would not address either the maintenance or capacity

[38:28] back law that we've developed over the years.

[38:34] Recommendation number three, we ought to collect impact fees.

[38:40] This would generate about 3.4 million.

[38:44] The board would have to allow the more Torrent to sunset at the end of the year

[38:48] and begin collecting impact fees as of the beginning of 2015.

[38:55] In a recent survey conducted by the Space Coast TPO,

[38:59] two out of three residents supported impact fees.

[39:04] Impact fees cannot be used for maintenance,

[39:07] and the capacity backlog would remain.

[39:10] These fees are specifically designed to help future growth pay for itself.

[39:18] We ask if we...

[39:20] I have a question. You said that two out of three people supported impact fees in that study.

[39:27] How many people supported the gas tax in that study?

[39:34] Well, no, I mean, he was fighting a point of the commission.

[39:38] The survey to we're going to finish the report, and then you can ask this question.

[39:42] I was just mentioned. Well, it is irrelevant because 82 percent of the population

[39:47] I just thought we should interject that.

[39:51] We can certainly address that.

[39:53] Okay, later.

[39:55] Anyway, what we do ask you to do is to work very, very closely.

[40:02] We have that.

[40:02] We list state and the building industry stakeholders in the county.

[40:08] Over the next few months, explore what you all feel is best practices

[40:13] in what they feel is best practices, and set aside appropriate impact fees that will support

[40:19] the capacity to expand your

[40:24] next recommendation.

[40:26] Support a half-cent transportation sales tax referendum.

[40:30] This would generate about $17.5 million annually.

[40:36] It would require a simple majority of the commission to put it on the ballot, and a simple

[40:43] majority of the voters to approve it.

[40:46] The sales tax would be collected for a period of 15 years, and all the funding in the

[40:54] cities and the county would be dedicated to transportation infrastructure, only nothing else

[41:02] through an analytical agreement process was also suggested that the gas tax, if that was

[41:15] The infrastructure sales taxes, the only revenue stream that begins to address maintenance,

[41:25] backlog, and capacity needs identified by the county and the cities.

[41:35] Let's do a little summary here.

[41:38] If you all adopted all of these recommendations, maintaining the current budget within the

[41:45] works, adding the additional gas tax collecting impact fees, and if the sales tax referendum

[41:55] was approved, you would have a funding solution for about 70 percent of the problem.

[42:05] 70 percent of the total maintenance and capacity needs of the county would be met.

[42:15] summarized a little bit again. Spread over 15 years, the total annual transportation infrastructure

[42:23] funding need is about 61 and a half million dollars per year. This includes routine and regular

[42:32] maintenance, resurfacing of 55 miles of county roads every single year. Reconstructing 283 miles

[42:42] of failing roads and addressing the currently identified maintenance and capacity backlogs.

[42:51] The annual revenue projected from all sources recommended by the committee is about $43 million.

[43:00] And that's about 70% of the final

[43:09] chart.

[43:12] You guys got a rough road ahead of it.

[43:15] There are some big decisions to be made here.

[43:20] There's a lot of factors to be weighed, there's a lot of money involved here.

[43:27] I do not envy you, your position.

[43:33] I did want to say thank you for the opportunity to take and serve this community once again.

[43:39] I do know that some of our members did want to speak here this evening.

[43:45] Talk to you a little bit about what we've done, what the recommendations are, and to provide

[43:50] additional information and I would like to have those folks come up and talk to you one at a

[43:58] time. I'd like to ask Mr. Willy Vice Chairman of the Committee to take them come up and talk to you

[44:06] for a few minutes. Sir, I agree. Yes, we will have them come forward. Let's go ahead and answer

[44:13] Commissioner of Attini's question, and then we'll proceed.

[44:17] Her light is up.

[44:18] Thank you.

[44:21] Last year, a survey was taken by our Transportation Planning Organization.

[44:27] And there was a very nice analysis performed to determine the support or lack

[44:34] thereof for new taxes.

[44:36] And out of the people survey,

[44:40] 78% said they wanted us to find

[44:43] road improvements out of existing funds.

[44:48] Now, if you weren't going to impose the tax, it's

[44:51] true. Two-thirds said if you're going to impose the tax, they'd like it to be impact fees.

[44:57] Out of sales tax, it was split.

[45:00] 49 to 49% said charge sales tax don't charge sales tax. Property tax increase, 66% were against having a property tax increase. And for the gas tax, 82% were against having a gas tax. So when we present information, I wanted to make sure in the interest of full disclosure. You didn't just see the one statistic that was reported that two thirds wanted impact fees, but rather 78% requested.

[45:30] that we not raise any taxes at all.

[45:33] Thank you.

[45:34] Who would you like to have come forward to speak, sir?

[45:37] Mr. Willow.

[45:38] Mr. Willow.

[45:40] Mr. Bob Willow.

[45:51] Good evening, sir.

[45:52] Good evening, Madam Chairman.

[45:55] And commissioners, my name's Bob Willow.

[45:58] I was appointed to represent the home builders and contractors

[46:03] Association of Brevard to this Blue Ribbon Committee and I did it gladly, even though we

[46:11] just spend our last evening on both our birthdays.

[46:18] As most of you know, I've spent a lot of time being involved in transportation issues.

[46:24] So I thought I knew a lot before I went into this and learned that I didn't.

[46:30] As you know, there are many different pots that are restricted as far as your ability to do things in transportation, particularly.

[46:43] What I think we all came out of this learning was that you created this committee because you recognized the need.

[46:53] I mean, this isn't something that was just to pass off, I mean, this is a serious effort to address a backlog, a backlog of transportation needs that's been going on for decades.

[47:09] I will try to restrict my comments to being part of this committee, although I do represent the home builders.

[47:18] I may go off script here a long way, I apologize, but I do have my own personal point of view as well, and I'd like to take that opportunity to share that with you.

[47:31] But as the Chairman referenced, I also was tasked to share the subcommittee that wrote this report.

[47:39] And I'd like to acknowledge there's some committee members, Dana Kilburn, I don't know.

[47:46] Dana's here or not, she was from the banking community, and that Dr. Jack Schleck-Bier,

[47:52] who was former city of Melbourne manager and representing the Economic Development Commission.

[48:02] And then also Dr. Michael Slackin from Florida Tech, who's an economics professor.

[48:11] So I felt somewhat out of place in that August group, but I will assure you that the time

[48:21] that we spent working on coming up with this report to submit to the major body was done

[48:29] with great deliberation, a lot of discussion, and I stand behind it. Although my organization

[48:39] will not support the impact the recommendation. I felt it was appropriate to bring

[48:44] it forward to you with that because as we went through and that's why reference the buckets

[48:52] of funds, impact these have their restrictions, severe restrictions. We believe, and you'll

[48:59] hear more about that, that don't really address maintenance, which I think every member of the

[49:05] committee recognized was the number one. We have sufficiently not taken care of maintaining

[49:13] what is a core function of government, and that is maintaining the roads that are owned by the

[49:19] So, with that,

[49:25] we submitted the report.

[49:26] We had a vote on impact fees.

[49:30] We were voted down, and so there's a 15-1 in favor report in front of you today with those recommendations.

[49:40] And I voted in favor of that, and I feel the stairs, and maybe a few arrows, you know,

[49:46] back, but I say that, because in the bigger picture, we have to advance all of the options

[50:02] to you.

[50:03] I think the Chairman finished his remarks with, ultimately, the buck stops with y'all.

[50:11] We can only recommend, we can only review and learn as best we can.

[50:15] what are available funding options out there?

[50:20] And the first is certainly work within your own budget, you know, you have a budget.

[50:26] I was shocked, frankly, to learn some of his historic lack of funding that has aided

[50:33] getting us here is clear that from the graphs that you look, there's been attempts to

[50:39] improve that, but it's clear we're still not keeping up with it.

[50:44] only resurfacing eight miles a year, that's not enough with a system as large as

[50:52] others. So something has to be done. And so that, again, I'm very pleased with being able

[51:02] to come before you support all of those recommendations as consideration, because the impact

[51:14] item number three and the list of four did actually have, you know, an effort to remove that.

[51:23] I would feel it's appropriate to, you know, to draw that, you know, point to your attention.

[51:29] And for your consideration, as you discussed this, potentially consider creating some kind of a working

[51:38] group with the workshop that would allow greater deliberation into, and the report references

[51:46] that.

[51:47] It does recognize that there is more that can be done with engaging the real state and

[51:55] real-der groups that are most interested in parties in this to deliberate that on further.

[52:02] So, with that, I thank you very much for being willing to bring this up and put it out there in the public venue.

[52:13] It's not easy. I understand. But it is, again, your job, you know, it's a core responsibility of government to maintain.

[52:24] It's easy to cut the ribbons for new stuff.

[52:29] But, quite frankly, what I've learned is folks never ask what's the operation and maintenance

[52:38] going to be after we've taken on this new facility or whatever and that's what's happened here.

[52:48] We are not taking care of that.

[52:50] So again, I look forward to working with you a few choose and if you choose to disband us,

[52:58] That's just fine too, so I thank you very much for your time.

[53:03] Thank you, sir.

[53:05] Chairman, is there another person that wanted to speak on to your group?

[53:17] Good evening.

[53:18] Good evening.

[53:20] First, I'd like to thank the Board for the appointments in particular for my name.

[53:26] I enjoyed serving on the task force, and as you've already heard from the chair in the last

[53:32] We met a number of times, they were all noticed meetings, they occurred in Florida, in the sunshine.

[53:39] We didn't have too many speakers, we didn't have too many interested public.

[53:43] It's a perplexing problem because of all the various funding sources, all of the constraints.

[53:50] And the biggest part of the problem is the inordinate need.

[53:55] And I think that that is something that the public has no idea.

[54:00] When the people of this committee looked at this and they were told that every year you're putting off 30-40 miles of roads that need action, need attention now and by attending to them now if you would only do that you could do it for $80,000 a mile but by not attending to them you triple the cost.

[54:27] Those are numbers that the public ought to be clamoring and stammering and jumping up and down

[54:34] on the table about the lost opportunity cost of saving money in the future because it's

[54:42] a tremendous burden, a tremendous problem.

[54:46] I'm not here to duplicate replicator, be redundant.

[54:49] I think we had excellent leadership in the chair of our committee and the vice chair of

[54:57] subcommittee. We spent a lot of time. I think we got great conclusions. I do wish that two

[55:06] things that you could do to actually puts in me. I know that in the report there were identified

[55:14] the various organizations that contributed people or contributed representation to this

[55:20] Lou Ribbon Task Force, indeed, was county-wide and encompassed a huge amount of interests of not

[55:26] all of them consistent interests. They were conflicting. We talked about a lot of things,

[55:31] and we agreed to disagree and so on. But I think that sometimes when people spend their

[55:37] time such as this for the betterment and for the cause, it might be beneficial for the public

[55:43] to know the names associated with this Lou Ribbon Task Force not just the organization, but

[55:50] people's names who they are. So if somebody wants to ask, why did you do that? Gee, you

[55:57] know, you'd have names here that you can say, hey, these 18 or 19 people told me after they

[56:03] looked at it in depth, which is what you asked us to do. So I would ask that you incorporate

[56:08] the names in the report somehow. And secondly, I want to bring to the board's attention

[56:14] one other thing that, as a part of the recommendations, and this, I think, had some element

[56:23] of daring to it, someone says, well, why would you recommend the board do a gas tax?

[56:33] And the reason is, it's a sort of a rule of parsimony and a rule of efficiency and effectiveness

[56:39] because you can. Because you can, that authority rests with the board. It is true that

[56:49] is a supermajority of the board that would be required to do that. But related to that

[56:55] idea that you can do that, you can do impact fees. And we understand there's a difference

[57:02] of opinion and you will resolve that what level if any impact fees will be part of the

[57:07] package, that was not for the board to resolve, but related to this, if you chose to pass

[57:15] along a referendum at which the voters could act, and they may or may not, but they could,

[57:25] we asked you as a part of our recommendations to sweeten the pot for them. In other words, hold

[57:32] the gas tax, if you were going to adopt one because you can, hold that off to the side

[57:40] during any time where the sales tax is in place. So they're not getting the double whammy on

[57:46] that. It was a decided strategy to engage the voters with an interesting idea that the sales tax

[57:58] is the best long-term answer, but because you can, please do accept that portion of the recommendation

[58:06] relating to the gas tax.

[58:09] Thank you again.

[58:10] Thank you, sir.

[58:12] Mr. Chair.

[58:20] A vodka couple of each.

[58:21] I was a tourism representative.

[58:25] I had a whole bunch of mixed feelings on this board.

[58:27] First of all, I participated in the poor poll, and I sit on the CAC, TAC, and I sat through some of the early workshops, and the, so first of all, the first poll I wanted to tell you about is it was 100% everybody wanted that meeting, not wanting to raise any tax.

[58:48] There was nobody in that committee that wanted to raise the tax.

[58:55] And some of these taxes were more repundit than the other taxes, and there was a fairness

[59:00] issue.

[59:02] And we did it really to not get into that.

[59:04] The need was so great to do something here because roads affect economics of the county.

[59:16] You can't have a vibrant community.

[59:18] You can't have good property values without good roads, okay, and so this county has been in a pretty good recession now for six or eight years

[59:32] We're starting to come out of it and I live on the barrier round, okay

[59:38] 97% of the barrier rounds build out where I live so the impact fees to me are really repunit because I pay high property values

[59:47] I voted for the impact fees.

[59:51] Why?

[59:51] The need is so great.

[59:55] And the inequities of this county

[59:57] is the barrier to balance produce tons of...

[1:00:00] Taxes. And the road money is going in other areas. But we are one county. And so if we're going to continue, and you're going to cure your budget problem, and that is a vibrant business economic community here, you can't do it by ignoring the fact that your house is running, falling down. And your house here is your infrastructure on the roads.

[1:00:28] Okay, so bottom line, if we're all fiscal conservative and everybody in this political arena, we're all fiscal conservative and I know I practice it.

[1:00:41] It's cheaper to solve the problem now than later, so if you don't maintain your house and you don't know the yard and you're going to lose the asset and you're going to disappear and you're cost to fix that up.

[1:00:54] going to be threefold or greater longer you awake the more cost you. So no way likes increase taxes.

[1:01:03] I can tell you I pay a lot of taxes. I hate them. Okay. I was against it.

[1:01:09] But you don't have a choice. We've got to do something here to fix the problem. Thank you.

[1:01:13] Thank you sir.

[1:01:22] If you had filled out a I think kind of pulling your

[1:01:25] name as we got. Can I just real quick on as a committee I'd like to come up

[1:01:30] from a real estate perspective, okay?

[1:01:32] You guys know who the single of the center was on this 15 to one vote, right?

[1:01:36] It was me.

[1:01:38] But probably for not why the reasons you think.

[1:01:41] My biggest issue being a part of this committee, I agree, roads need to be repaired.

[1:01:45] They need to be built.

[1:01:46] However, I strongly disagree with the $443 million wish list that this funding is intended

[1:01:53] to serve.

[1:01:55] I don't have it in front of me.

[1:01:57] I'm sure you have it.

[1:01:58] I'll give you an example, the post-road flyover of I-95 for $11 million dollars.

[1:02:04] I don't see that as being a need now, I don't see that as being a need in 20 years.

[1:02:09] So I think this group had the opportunity to vet that list and see what was really necessary

[1:02:15] and what might be necessary to be more comfortable with it.

[1:02:19] I also understand there's a bridge in District 2 that's there mark for replacement that

[1:02:24] was just graded in A.

[1:02:26] So, that's my issue and that's why I voted no against all of them.

[1:02:30] Thank you.

[1:02:43] Just a couple of parting thoughts.

[1:02:46] This particular problem can be solved with two things, time and money,

[1:02:54] and as far as

[1:02:54] I'm concerned, it's either pay me now or pay me a lot more later.

[1:02:59] And that's my parting advice to you all.

[1:03:02] Thank you very much.

[1:03:04] Mr. Schultz, we want to thank you on behalf of the Commission for putting this group.

[1:03:09] and guiding them through this very active process.

[1:03:16] I thank you and I applaud everyone who has been able to support us.

[1:03:20] I will say that we knew the commissioners knew that we had a problem,

[1:03:26] and we had an option that they put our head in the sand or to stand up,

[1:03:30] take ownership of this and ask for help, and that's what we did.

[1:03:34] And I thank you very much for helping us.

[1:03:37] I do have cards before us, is there any discussion with the commissioner's before I move to the cards?

[1:03:45] Commissioner Nelson.

[1:03:46] I think it would be helpful to have the discussion because it may change the nature of what gets discussed later.

[1:03:53] When we first decided to do the we're having committee, I didn't have a problem talking about the issue.

[1:03:59] I was not convinced that it was a good time to do this.

[1:04:02] We're just coming out of a bad economy.

[1:04:06] I think you have to plan and have that discussion so that you can prepare yourself or whatever is going to happen next.

[1:04:14] I want to thank the committee because I think we give you a mission impossible because we said you've got all these problems.

[1:04:19] You've got to find the money and nobody's going to like the way you do that.

[1:04:24] And so don't shoot the messenger.

[1:04:27] I think they did a remarkable job.

[1:04:28] identify what the possible solutions are and ultimately it comes down to how this commission

[1:04:34] and future commission's deal with a, you know, Larry and committee, thank you so much.

[1:04:39] I think you did a great job given the circumstances.

[1:04:43] I also think the devil is in the detail as a Tim Harveston, and I'm one who has some significant

[1:04:50] concerns with the list of projects and done some analysis of it, and I realized their mission

[1:04:59] wasn't to do that. I think we may have let them down, because I think when we first

[1:05:04] talked, I had wanted to come up with a list, which we gave them for funding purposes, and

[1:05:09] we didn't do that. We just said, okay, we've got some big road problems.

[1:05:15] One of the things

[1:05:16] that Tim was talking about, I had my staff to a chart.

[1:05:22] We're a big, wonderful county, but we're a big county.

[1:05:27] And the needs are different in each part of the county.

[1:05:31] And I'm going to pass this out to Board members.

[1:05:33] And maybe Fisher, Fisher, if you would hold that so our camera,

[1:05:38] it's space code television to get a copy of this.

[1:05:41] This is the chart, and I'm going to hold it up, this is the percentage of capacity

[1:05:48] needs in the county, and these two big numbers here are county commission districts 3 and 5.

[1:05:57] There's no question there are some road issues in South County.

[1:06:00] The little one down here is county commission district too, and the problem is this is that

[1:06:06] you're going to be asking the citizens of Bervard County, we all represent about 20%

[1:06:11] citizens to fund this. And on the list of the committee was looking at, my 20% have

[1:06:18] 7% of the projects. So we are going to be at a huge deficit.

[1:06:26] And for this to be successful,

[1:06:29] there's got to be a balance between the maintenance. I appreciate the fact that you guys won't

[1:06:33] maintenance. I would like to say that we have in District 2 resurfaced about 80 miles

[1:06:40] road in the last three years. Commissioner Fisher, I think you're over 100 now, and

[1:06:45] hopefully by the end of the summer I will have hit that 100 mark. And we did that by the

[1:06:50] allocations that the board gave us and how we spent them. But it's got to be that balance

[1:06:55] to be fair. And right now we don't have a list that I see as being fair in doing that.

[1:07:00] because you've got to balance capacity with maintenance.

[1:07:06] And there are some projects in there, for instance.

[1:07:08] Vapcock Road is a big ticket item, it's the widening of it.

[1:07:15] Typically, that would be a developers' responsibility to do that.

[1:07:18] Not county governments to build a growth cord, or for that,

[1:07:22] because if you take Viera, Viera gets an impact fee credits.

[1:07:27] They would pay those impact fees, but instead they build the infrastructure,

[1:07:30] and we don't charge them for that.

[1:07:32] And so as a result of that, they do the flyovers,

[1:07:35] they do all the roads, they do the widening of Wickham,

[1:07:38] they're paying for all those things out of their pocket

[1:07:40] because of impact fees.

[1:07:43] What kills us are the little, I say little,

[1:07:47] the 100 units subdivision, where we now have to somehow

[1:07:49] widen roads, but we don't have the money.

[1:07:52] And what struck me from, we first weighed the impact fees,

[1:07:55] And that was back in 2007,

[1:08:00] whenever that was, we gave Sam's Club back almost $800,000

[1:08:06] for a building that was finished.

[1:08:09] And the result of that was, was that to do an intersection

[1:08:11] improvement, a cox road, and 520,

[1:08:14] I had to take county dollars in the amount of over $500,000

[1:08:19] to offset that.

[1:08:20] So, I lost, you know, probably 30 miles of road to that could have been resurfaced because we didn't have the impact fees.

[1:08:31] I believe in impact fees, but I also think there's some problems.

[1:08:35] When a fast food facility, when the impact fees cost more than the fast food facility, there's a problem there.

[1:08:41] And we need to address that.

[1:08:44] So the study is being done, I don't think this board's going to make a decision on impact fees

[1:08:50] until that study is done and looked at, I don't even believe I'll be on the board at that time

[1:08:54] because by the time it gets here, I think it'll be after November anyway.

[1:08:58] So I don't see that happening before the end of the year.

[1:09:00] So as we talk about impact fees, why support them?

[1:09:03] I think they need to be fair and equitable.

[1:09:05] I think in terms of our road projects, if you really are going to start talking about sales

[1:09:10] tax or talking about the gas taxes, I think there has to be a list.

[1:09:17] If you don't have a list, why in a world with any of us want to do that, that's the

[1:09:23] trust to me answer, and I think there's got to be a legitimate list, and for those in my

[1:09:30] district we've got a lot of waterfront properties, and we are seeing failing pipes, so our

[1:09:34] needs are different.

[1:09:35] We're seeing a lot of piping between houses that are going to have to be replaced.

[1:09:41] Those kinds of things.

[1:09:43] So I think it was a good start, but I, certainly, I don't see that we as a board are

[1:09:49] going to be able to move forward on anything that can be placed on the ballot, because looking

[1:09:54] at 7% of the projects and 20% of the requirement to pay for it, I couldn't tell anybody

[1:10:00] my district to support that because that's such a huge leap of faith, it's just not fair.

[1:10:06] And I think we've got to come up with a fair list. So that's where I am, one at this point

[1:10:10] time, I'd like to hear what the rest of the board wants to do.

[1:10:11] Yeah, I do have Commissioner Fischer followed by Commissioner Anderson, Commissioner Anderson. Please proceed.

[1:10:19] The need is to hear me. The I agree with a lot when you say it as far as the maintenance

[1:10:25] versus the capacity needs, and we've always gotten into that issue that they

[1:10:31] shouldn't really, the burning pads that should be complementary on each other.

[1:10:36] But one of the things that this report didn't point out and it kind of goes over

[1:10:39] your saying that nobody can make a decision, some of those capacity need

[1:10:44] dollars, our levers are getting more dollars than our own state dollars, and I

[1:10:48] don't think that was enclosed dollars from never part of the study, correct?

[1:10:54] You see a figure they put in there about how much we need for capacity, is that also figuring

[1:11:02] in the matching dollars we get from federal and state, for instance, as we know, the heritage

[1:11:09] parkway has leveraged a lot of money with the money in the bank to build that road from federal

[1:11:14] and state sources.

[1:11:16] The follow-around bill?

[1:11:17] I believe so. The project list there and the estimates that go with those are unfunded amounts.

[1:11:30] There's no leveraging money associated with them and there's no grants or earmarks or anything of that sort to help fund those at this point in time.

[1:11:40] They can be generated, but ordinarily you've got to have the studies done, perhaps designs

[1:11:47] done, sometimes even right of way acquired before you can get some of those grants.

[1:11:52] So you have to get at least part way into those projects before you can start hoping for those

[1:11:58] types of sort of revenue streams that would come in to help you accomplish the task at hand.

[1:12:05] So there is no funds, all the funded projects, there are no funded projects that are on that list.

[1:12:14] Whether we built it yet or not, if it's a funded project, it wasn't included on that list.

[1:12:19] So there's all the funds that we currently have.

[1:12:23] They are excluded from any of these lists that you've seen.

[1:12:27] So, on the fun of us, or the on the fun of a basketball, as it does not include things that may be in the worse off matching money.

[1:12:37] Right, there's, well, there's no local funds identified to match or to even put there.

[1:12:42] So, unless you generate some revenue to match, you don't have-

[1:12:45] In the last thing, I'll say the board and this came up, I think, in 2000.

[1:12:48] I wonder when we did that transportation workshop originally, I think it was 2009, 2010.

[1:12:57] You know, it was a real hard decision for any board, but you have roads that throughout

[1:13:05] the county, and that need maintenance, repair, and upgrades, some of which basis failing

[1:13:11] on them, and they need to be repaired now and went through this number side.

[1:13:14] So, whenever we do those reports and I know it gets kind of awkward when you, you know,

[1:13:21] I've been a big proponent to say, hey, I want to see every road based on engineering

[1:13:24] analysis and traffic counts, you know, what's our most important priority?

[1:13:30] Well, that's the way to do it in my understanding.

[1:13:33] There's concerns on the other side that if I'm on the five houses on a family road, why do

[1:13:37] I get left out because I didn't make that list?

[1:13:39] But we still have to match those up somehow.

[1:13:42] You know, I've been, John knows it's on a big repellent

[1:13:45] of taking the engineering analysis and finding out

[1:13:48] what propositional roads are needed to be done for it.

[1:13:53] So, and we can't always do that,

[1:13:54] because we have five different districts,

[1:13:56] and we represent five different groups of people,

[1:13:59] and my rank higher, but you may need your road down,

[1:14:01] and it just becomes just the system's top to work within it.

[1:14:04] So, but I think the committee for all the work they did.

[1:14:07] I want to really thank the committee and all the work that you did.

[1:14:12] I, um, is this subject being gone for the last couple of weeks, I, I, it was a, it was

[1:14:19] amazing to me that some of the people that was on this committee that I know are very conservative

[1:14:27] as I actually come into this board asking them raise taxes.

[1:14:32] And I just, I mean, I was shocked by it because it's not typically what you see out of

[1:14:40] people that I think it was on that community and then I got a concern because I think

[1:14:46] about the eight and nine months that they spent really looking at this issue and they

[1:14:51] looked at it beyond the switching probably in more detail than we have looked at it and

[1:14:57] And the reason that the committee get formed.

[1:15:00] Well, it's because nine months ago, a year ago, whatever we were here, and we were talking about more

[1:15:08] torrential impact fees, and I think I'm the one that said, you know what, we're going to kick the

[1:15:13] can down the road and keep the more torrential, man. But at some point in time, we're going

[1:15:16] to have to dress roads. And I think several people, I think Mr. Willie, the one I'm saying, we want

[1:15:22] to help you come up with a solution and find something. And when we put the blue ribbon committee

[1:15:26] together and form the committee and say okay, but the interesting thing to me about is

[1:15:32] once all the facts and figures get out in front of them and we can argue rather, you know,

[1:15:38] I'll argue rather I need four lane on dairy road from corporate to US one, you know, I like

[1:15:44] to have it repaid, but I don't know if I need four lane to sidewalks today, but it would be a nice

[1:15:50] So John, don't tell me you had plenty of food, I'm getting ready to take it off with this, but no.

[1:15:58] I'm going to be here, but we have to tell you a list, but what I don't want to do is

[1:16:06] know that a group of citizens took eight months of their time on their life to work on something

[1:16:13] And we ask them to work on them.

[1:16:14] And then we're going to just totally ignore their effort.

[1:16:18] Because if we are, I'm not sure if I've ever

[1:16:21] want to work on anything, but again, it's kind of

[1:16:23] commission is not going to at least look at it.

[1:16:25] So I don't think it's ready to, I think the impact

[1:16:30] fee more in Torim.

[1:16:31] It's already set to set in 12 or 31.

[1:16:37] I, from a personal standpoint, I think that,

[1:16:41] whether it's a new commission or if we do some workshops between there, I think it's a legitimate question and not whether or not once the list get tightened up.

[1:16:49] There's a make sense to go to the voters, maybe in 2016.

[1:16:52] I don't think you do it in 2014, you've got this school self tax, in school tax and all the things you don't want to do anything that could be difficult to get all of this past.

[1:17:03] But it could make some sense in 16 this board.

[1:17:05] If we can agree on a list, if we can agree on what the need is,

[1:17:09] that you have to vote in 16, is this something that they want to find or not?

[1:17:15] And this is a vote of decision at that point in time.

[1:17:18] But I don't want the committee to think that we didn't hear you

[1:17:24] and that we don't respect your work.

[1:17:27] And that you didn't spend eight months out there

[1:17:30] And this board is just saying, you know, we ain't going to pay attention to you.

[1:17:34] We just want to accept your report and forget you, because that's not where I'm at.

[1:17:38] Or I'm at, and I don't think the other commission further there either, but we do, it

[1:17:42] doesn't need to be tightened up a little bit.

[1:17:44] Commissioner Anderson followed by Commissioner Nelson.

[1:17:47] And that's something I agree.

[1:17:49] Commissioner Judge Straga would be asked those people who leave their families and their

[1:17:54] jobs and stuff for a long period of time to go to these meetings.

[1:17:58] One of the things that I thought about is taking their report and their recommendations and maybe,

[1:18:06] I mean, you know, three public sessions where, you know, I don't know, staff residents, sort of the chairmen and the Vice Chairman want to show up and advertise and have the public review what they reviewed.

[1:18:18] in a couple of hours period and explain what's there and at least the general public and if

[1:18:26] you dig into the balance 16, the informed voter would understand what was there.

[1:18:31] One more thing is going on.

[1:18:33] I do think that it is, they had the Simon of Rhodes, we get the Simon of everything that

[1:18:43] I was responsible for, for part of the libraries,

[1:18:45] to register, to, you know, mosquito control,

[1:18:49] and I can go on and on that we have,

[1:18:50] we have responsibility for.

[1:18:52] But it's funny that when, to me,

[1:18:55] it's interesting that when the facts got laid out,

[1:18:59] people who typically would have said no before the fact of there,

[1:19:02] coming up to us now and saying, you know what?

[1:19:04] I get it, you know?

[1:19:06] And that happens a lot when you really take time to study

[1:19:08] issue and study what this county's face with.

[1:19:12] I can tell you, you experienced it with on road, we experienced it on all just about every item that

[1:19:19] counted for this board and when you see some of the decisions being made, it's because

[1:19:24] we did what you've done, we've understand issues and we've made some of those hard choices.

[1:19:28] And this is a hard choice, to anytime you start talking about tax people and doing things,

[1:19:33] it's a difficult one.

[1:19:36] So, Michelle Nelson, Bob, I think the challenge is, and I agree is actually, I was

[1:19:42] I was looking to give more work, but, you know, the challenge is on priorities is that if the board doesn't say what the priority listing is, it's almost impossible.

[1:19:52] A capacity road will always compete and maintenance if we don't say or put some criteria in there. We will always lose.

[1:20:00] And I think you cannot diminish the fairness question.

[1:20:05] You've got to come up with something that says that my need and my district, whether it's

[1:20:11] North or Florida, South or Florida is different from the other needs, but we have to address

[1:20:15] all of this.

[1:20:17] And so if we came up with a straight priority listing and it's not balanced, it will be inherently

[1:20:24] unfair.

[1:20:27] We've got the issue of how we fund ourselves.

[1:20:30] We split the money with cities, and you've heard me say this, and now that I've got a

[1:20:34] I don't want these guys to know it.

[1:20:36] We get a share of that money based on unincorporated population.

[1:20:40] We bonded it and then we spent it inside cities.

[1:20:44] That's unfair to the unincorporated population.

[1:20:47] So we shouldn't, we've got to address that.

[1:20:51] We can't spend, you know, we've got to come up with a better way of funding those things.

[1:20:55] Now in my case, some of that bonded money went to Cape Canaveral, Coco Beach who then took

[1:21:00] the roads from us.

[1:21:02] Those are now city roads.

[1:21:03] They said, if you'll fix it up, we'll take the road.

[1:21:06] That doesn't happen a lot.

[1:21:08] And a lot of our capacity needs, Wickham Road,

[1:21:11] and some of those roads are because the city

[1:21:13] made growth decisions that created the capacity

[1:21:16] that we are now expected to fund.

[1:21:19] And that's an issue.

[1:21:21] So we've got to come up with a better, fairer way

[1:21:24] of identifying those, and that's a much tougher discussion

[1:21:28] than anything that we've seen so far.

[1:21:30] because it's just, there's this question of how we're going to get to that point.

[1:21:37] The difficulty is, you know, I call this the last one holding the grenade.

[1:21:43] You know, this has been a problem since I got here in 1990.

[1:21:49] There has been a really legitimate long term attempt to try resolve, but there have been

[1:21:56] starts and stops, but it's never been a long-term solution and at some point, some commission

[1:22:02] is going to have to do that. Our difficulty is, is that even during the boom times,

[1:22:08] we didn't address it. We're just coming out of the worst times we've seen, and probably

[1:22:12] our lifetime, and we're expected to address it. And I think that's bad because, as I said,

[1:22:19] in staff will tell you, when off-camera, when we first started talking about this, I said,

[1:22:23] I don't want to talk about this right now because the public's not ready.

[1:22:26] It's going to take gridlock to get the public ready to talk about it because that's where

[1:22:30] we were during the boom.

[1:22:31] During the boom when you were standing in line in Palm Bay for an hour to get home, suddenly

[1:22:37] roads were important.

[1:22:40] But during the downturn, it wasn't.

[1:22:44] People, because they weren't leaving home.

[1:22:47] So I guess we, you know, unfortunately we are great at reacting, we are terrible at acting.

[1:22:50] And so I just think that we've got some major issues that are subsets of what these guys have

[1:22:58] started that have to be addressed.

[1:23:00] There's got to be some recommendation on the question of city versus counties in terms

[1:23:04] of roads that go through cities and how we're going to deal with that.

[1:23:08] And I think we've got to address the issue.

[1:23:11] Why are we spending money based on a unincorporated population inside of cities?

[1:23:17] Yeah, Commissioner Inventini?

[1:23:19] Well, by Commissioner Fisher.

[1:23:23] It almost sounds like we're going to have a 5-0 vote tonight, and so I'm really sitting

[1:23:27] up here.

[1:23:28] Very, very happy.

[1:23:29] I'm very happy all of you all took the time to show up and come to our meeting.

[1:23:33] Tim, I'm extremely proud of you for being the one vote, not that I know what that feels

[1:23:38] like because I don't have a clue, but I'm very, I'm very proud of you, and I'm proud

[1:23:44] of the sport for listening to the people of Provard County.

[1:23:49] Thank you.

[1:23:51] Commissioner Fisher.

[1:23:52] No, I was just going to say, and then I didn't think we were kicking the can on a road,

[1:23:58] because I think this sport has been very active in trying to solve issues that have been difficult,

[1:24:06] sample, stormwater.

[1:24:07] For the night since 1990, I would ever know when one of the dresses, and we saw that we

[1:24:14] we're going to address that, and we adjusted our utility fees to do that. We are watered

[1:24:19] sewer lines, which were, you know, that got kicked out of the road for years and years

[1:24:24] and years and years and in this, you know, at least four of us agree that we needed to address

[1:24:30] that. So at some point in time, you know, I think part of it is a political ball to with

[1:24:40] Well, it's showing in the past that we will address some of the issues and I bet if we get some work shots and stuff, we'll come up with some solutions that have worked long time.

[1:24:52] Okay, Commissioner Nelson, then I'll do my comments.

[1:24:55] There's one thing, I really did not appreciate that Commissioner Fantini sent out an email presupposing how I felt about this issue.

[1:25:03] I think that is such a disservice.

[1:25:07] It forces us to respond to a position that we haven't even taken, and that's just not good

[1:25:14] government.

[1:25:14] It's unfair to us.

[1:25:18] Unless you violate the Sunshine Law, you don't know how I'm going to vote.

[1:25:23] So I would just ask, if you really want to have a good discussion, it should be in here.

[1:25:28] It shouldn't be inflammatory e-mails with misleading information about what the commission is going to do or has done.

[1:25:35] Could you tell me what was misleading because I happen to have a copy of the e-mail?

[1:25:39] With me and it says...

[1:25:40] Watch your wallet.

[1:25:41] That the commission?

[1:25:42] Yes, it does.

[1:25:43] Yeah, watch your wallet.

[1:25:44] Sorry, that's not it.

[1:25:45] Commissioners will be discussing additional tax funding ideas for you.

[1:25:51] I'm sorry.

[1:25:51] How does it say you're going to have a report?

[1:25:53] You think you can just ask me in a minute.

[1:25:55] I'm not sure if I said your light is on for a minute.

[1:25:58] There were two things.

[1:25:59] You know, to start an email with watch your wallet

[1:26:01] and to finish it with Godzilla,

[1:26:03] I think it's just inappropriate.

[1:26:05] I just think it's unprofessional.

[1:26:07] I think that it's a discredit to you

[1:26:09] to do that to the board members

[1:26:11] and it doesn't lend to itself to go go by.

[1:26:13] So I would just ask that in the future

[1:26:15] just tell people that we're having a meeting.

[1:26:17] I'm okay with that.

[1:26:18] I don't mind having that discussion.

[1:26:21] I just think it's important that you not presuppose

[1:26:23] how this board is going to act.

[1:26:26] Commissioner Fontini.

[1:26:29] I read it carefully.

[1:26:31] I did not say we were voting on it.

[1:26:33] I said we were discussing additional tax funding ideas.

[1:26:37] And hang on to your wallets was just a clever way to let people know, hey, I'm talking about your tax dollars again.

[1:26:43] No big surprise.

[1:26:44] I continually inform the public what we're going to talk about if it's going to impact them.

[1:26:49] I don't see anybody else doing it.

[1:26:52] It's the best, most efficient way I can deliver information

[1:26:55] at the lowest cost possible.

[1:26:58] And I don't see one single reference in here

[1:27:01] that indicates how anybody will vote.

[1:27:03] I know how in my heart I pray that you will vote,

[1:27:06] but I'm not you.

[1:27:08] I don't know how you're going to vote.

[1:27:11] So, and the people were made aware,

[1:27:13] and I'm very, very proud that the people were made aware,

[1:27:15] I'm not going to change my policy.

[1:27:22] Commissioner Nelson, you had to start talked about the list, and yes, I agree that we

[1:27:29] probably need to go over the list and I understand you're need to have it well balanced.

[1:27:35] But to me, the facts still remain, we're short, and I don't think that we're going to be

[1:27:41] able to remove enough from the list to make it feasible that we don't have to look

[1:27:47] something. And we have the people from the committee coming out and telling us they know

[1:27:54] that we're short. So I am going to be very strong and finding a way to stop the situation

[1:28:04] of losing ground on our roads. We have to do something. And so what your recommendations

[1:28:09] are will be discussed and to see which one or all are going to be best. But we have to do

[1:28:15] and so I'm going to move forward on the recommendation.

[1:28:21] Commissioner, if any of the discussion of those, we will go to the cards.

[1:28:27] Okay, if those who would like to come down forward, so we can go timely on this,

[1:28:33] Lynn Whippley, Tim Harbour again, David Eaton and Keith Hendrix.

[1:28:43] We'll be first. Please come forward and state your name and address for the record.

[1:28:47] Good evening, Lynn Welply, 560, Jupiter, Boulevard, and Pompeii.

[1:28:53] I am simply here to respectfully ask you to defer any action regarding the impact fees

[1:29:02] only until we can have a little bit more discussion regarding the economic situation in

[1:29:08] county. Simply. Okay. There is a question for you, Lynn, but I

[1:29:15] Commissioner Fisher. Yeah. 11, 1980, seven. I was a palm-based

[1:29:21] city council. Do you know that? No, I did not know that. You know what the number one

[1:29:26] issue on palm-based was in 1997. Probably the same one that it is right now.

[1:29:31] I understand. I understand that. I understand that. I mean, your

[1:29:38] a small brokerage in Palm Bay and just curious, I'm going to try and put you in Palm

[1:29:43] just trying to get a feel for. I mean the wish at some point in time that city would

[1:29:48] address or the community would address road needs. Oh sure, that's an easy yes, yes I do. However,

[1:29:56] my concern is being a realtor.

[1:30:00] In this time, I know that a lot of people think that the economy is boosting up, and it's getting better.

[1:30:05] And I think we just need to have a little bit more security in that.

[1:30:10] So more conversation, some more understanding of what the real estate market really is doing right now.

[1:30:15] I mean, we're still on wobbly ground. And until that is a little bit more solid, and that line is moving up a little bit more,

[1:30:25] Then we can reintroduce impact fees, but I'm just afraid from my profession.

[1:30:31] I think one of the things was confusion for a lot of the realtors, at least the ones that call me was, as if we, you know, this thing sunsets in 1231.

[1:30:41] So the board just allows it to do that.

[1:30:44] And I think you've heard from the majority of the board, so you're willing to do that.

[1:30:46] Correct.

[1:30:47] And you don't, I mean, you didn't have to come out tonight.

[1:30:50] That's right.

[1:30:51] What you're asking for was already 1231.

[1:30:53] Unless you're vote with tonight.

[1:30:55] Yeah. I'm sorry.

[1:30:56] Unless you were going to vote on it tonight.

[1:30:58] I was going to ask you to defer that until we can ask them more conversation.

[1:31:01] And maybe we'll be back and ask about more conversation at the end of the year.

[1:31:05] Thank you.

[1:31:06] Thank you.

[1:31:07] Thank you.

[1:31:08] So, if I can, we have an attorney here to represent the board.

[1:31:12] Could I have him take my spot and I'll go after.

[1:31:16] It sure is.

[1:31:16] He could not.

[1:31:23] I'll start again, please.

[1:31:26] Thank you.

[1:31:27] Commissioner, my name is Keith Patrick.

[1:31:28] I'm a lawyer, lobbyist with the Rambalog Group.

[1:31:31] Out of Tallahassee, and I represent the Space Coast Association of Relators in this matter.

[1:31:37] I'm going to get to the point.

[1:31:39] I think Commissioner Fisher made a very good point about trying to figure out how to sell

[1:31:45] many of these broad-based revenue sources.

[1:31:47] And one of the gentlemen previous to me had mentioned the public doesn't even know what the need is.

[1:31:53] We haven't even gotten out there to convince them of what the need is.

[1:31:57] I'm not here.

[1:31:58] One of the concerns that we have is with impact fees.

[1:32:02] But it seems to me the white elephant in the room is the local economy.

[1:32:07] The best I concern it and it can discern after reading the blue ribbon report in the final meeting

[1:32:12] There's obviously a great concern for transportation needs in this county and that they're overwhelming.

[1:32:18] There's no question about that.

[1:32:19] And also that the present moratorium can't last forever.

[1:32:23] There's also an appreciation, I think, for an uncertain local economy, for un-easiness about the local economy.

[1:32:30] But nonetheless, in the end, the prevailing view seems to be that the moratorium has been an effect long enough in its kind to move forward and simply allow the sunset to occur.

[1:32:40] Painful, as it is, in the context of needed revenues for transportation, no one's really looked at the facts of what effective any, allowing the sunset of the moratorium to occur might have on the local economy and the real estate market in Brevard County, much less what the current condition of the local economy is, we all have anecdotal evidence and intuitive feelings about it, but nobody's really that I've seen, there's no real look at that issue.

[1:33:07] The local economy, as I said, is the white elephant in the room, and we've given you a copy of the NHB report, and it shows a long, slow recovery at this time.

[1:33:19] Our ask of you is this, because of the fragility of the local economy here, we respectfully request, and you've already done this.

[1:33:28] for a vote on this report until the impact fee concerns come back.

[1:33:33] But we'd also like to have a dialogue on the sunset in the context of the economy.

[1:33:38] If we're below normal, as these indicators indicate, impact fees can't have an adverse

[1:33:44] effect, we want to be part of the solution.

[1:33:48] We're not saying no to impact fees, and I'm sorry that this recovery for all of us all

[1:33:53] around the state.

[1:33:53] If you look at those figures, it's a 12-year period and your climb was steep.

[1:33:58] It was higher than anywhere in the United States just about, and your fall has been steeper.

[1:34:03] And so we're not going to solve this overnight, and we do want to have that discussion and

[1:34:08] work and engage our national economists even more, bring them into the frame, come down and

[1:34:13] have that discussion.

[1:34:15] I think if we can have that discussion openly, then at the end of the day, you're going

[1:34:20] get us as a partner and helping to sell broad-based sources of funding to the public, and

[1:34:25] also engaging us in the best way to do that. And when to do that, and again, Commissioner

[1:34:31] Fisher, I know my times out, but you made a good point. The public has to understand the need

[1:34:36] first that I can understand it between now and November. That's going to take some work and we're

[1:34:41] not going to solve this problem overnight. But it may be 2016. All of these, the timing

[1:34:47] of all of these issues needs to be taken into consideration.

[1:34:51] So we don't want you to assume, or we would like to ask you to allow us to come back and

[1:34:56] in two months or so after we get our act together, and let's talk about the sunset and whether

[1:35:01] this economy is the right economy.

[1:35:04] I know we don't want to extend it anymore, many of you don't, but it's been in place since March

[1:35:09] of 2009, and we've been 12 years in this, and we're just skating along the bottom now.

[1:35:15] Thank you.

[1:35:18] David Eaton's, Edent, Tim, you want to come back?

[1:35:22] Just take a minute.

[1:35:23] I'll give you one minute.

[1:35:25] One minute.

[1:35:26] Just again, thank you.

[1:35:27] We really don't want to have you vote on this item tonight.

[1:35:31] We want to be a part of the impact fee.

[1:35:33] Robin, you know, you just said you live in Palm Bay.

[1:35:35] If you're a first time home buyer, and you go to Palm Bay, and you add an impact fee

[1:35:39] onto that house, it's not going to praise.

[1:35:41] today's not the time, 2016 maybe. So we just asked that you allow us to help you make this decision on impact fees in the future, not tonight.

[1:35:53] I'm sure he was referring to unincorporated Palm Bay.

[1:35:57] Well, I'm sitting at Palm Bay.

[1:35:59] We already pay.

[1:36:01] And doing some real sit down, I can tell you it's hard.

[1:36:03] I've just picked it on Robin for Palm Bay.

[1:36:05] I should have said tightest bill.

[1:36:06] You guys know what I'm talking about in here.

[1:36:08] Everybody in Tennessee is unincorporated from our camera.

[1:36:10] I mean, you guys are both actors or warriors.

[1:36:12] You know where I'm coming from.

[1:36:13] It's not that we're tight.

[1:36:15] We just need to be right.

[1:36:16] And to be fair to the board.

[1:36:17] We've always allowed you all to be part of the discussion.

[1:36:19] Okay.

[1:36:20] Well, we want to get so much money.

[1:36:21] We want to get so much money.

[1:36:22] And thank you for allowing us so far.

[1:36:27] Sir.

[1:36:29] Hi, I'm Dave Eddens.

[1:36:30] And I'm a small business man of the board county.

[1:36:33] And I've got something to do out to be done.

[1:36:34] I'm on these roads every day.

[1:36:36] I have four trucks on the road.

[1:36:37] I've got seven employees.

[1:36:38] And I just wanted to speak out against the 6% gas tax.

[1:36:42] The committee made a comment earlier that if you drive more, you pay more.

[1:36:47] Well, guess what?

[1:36:48] I drive more because I've got guys on the road.

[1:36:50] You're a planetary paramion, your air-conditioner, fair-man, your guys, your plumber that's coming out, your guys service in your alarm system, anyone of those guys that have these trucks on the road would be unfairly targeted by a six since or whatever it is, increase.

[1:37:07] In fuel, I already pay an average of probably a hundred to a hundred fifty dollars a week per vehicle in fuel cost.

[1:37:15] Your plumbing, your AC repair, all that's going to cost you more.

[1:37:20] If I have to start showering that kind of a burden and think of the other companies,

[1:37:23] I have 30 or 40 trucks on the road.

[1:37:26] I'm already battling the national companies as a small business man, we're 50 hours a week,

[1:37:31] trying to make a living.

[1:37:32] I don't need to add that to my cost to provide services to the people of this county.

[1:37:39] Solidness.

[1:37:39] I'm only concerned also in regards to the cost of the maintenance of your vehicles after they've been hitting

[1:37:46] Potholes for all that time too. It's kind of a balance here that we have to look at.

[1:37:52] I do agree with that, but I started my day in Rhode Island today, went to Mellburn, went to Taisville, went out to rock, went back up to

[1:38:01] shorts and I'm here. I didn't hit a whole bunch of balls. It's not that bad. I'm on the

[1:38:07] roads every day. Thank you. We want your roots.

[1:38:14] Keith Hedrick, followed by Mitch Ribba.

[1:38:21] Okay. Mitch and then James Reed.

[1:38:27] Thanks for having

[1:38:28] me here and allow me to speak. I appreciate it. I mean, Mitch Ribba, I'm the president

[1:38:32] of the Space Coast Association of Rilters, and the conversation I wrote down at a conversation

[1:38:37] kind of changed over the conversation we've had, if that makes sense.

[1:38:41] I too would like us to be involved with the discussion that impact fees. Obviously, we're

[1:38:46] just coming out of this. You know, if you look at the stats, we're just hovering along the

[1:38:51] bottom there, and I do, I'm afraid the impact fees now may not be the right time. There are

[1:38:56] different models out there now with impact fees versus when these were in place before.

[1:38:59] Those are things that we need to discuss, and I think the real-to-community is a huge source for you to help you to get to these places.

[1:39:07] We're not against any broad-based funding. Obviously, the roads were an issue with our house.

[1:39:12] If the roads aren't there, we can't take our customers there and sell them houses. That's an issue for us.

[1:39:17] But really more importantly, it's about us being involved with you to bring you to the pot we need to know.

[1:39:23] We have a lot of support. We have a lot of people we know in the county.

[1:39:27] we can help you bring in the community to help support these

[1:39:32] province things that we need to be there for you.

[1:39:35] Thank you.

[1:39:36] Thank you.

[1:39:38] Thank you.

[1:39:38] Mitch Riba,

[1:39:41] James Reed,

[1:39:45] fellow by Dan Barber and Bob Barber to do one speak again.

[1:39:50] Pass.

[1:39:52] Thank you, Madam Chairman.

[1:39:54] Mine will be short because everybody in the blue shirts

[1:39:58] have made the same comments that I was going to make and Mr. Fisher, I had in my first

[1:40:08] draft of what I might say kicking the can on the road. I decided to pull that back. That

[1:40:13] sounded pretty political. So I won't address that. But let me emphasize one thing that we

[1:40:21] talk about seriously today when we met, we want to work, we want to work with you to

[1:40:30] find the best solution. Whatever it is, we are ready to work with you. Thank you.

[1:40:38] Dan Barber, followed by Gary Johnson. Good evening. My name is Dan Barber,

[1:40:44] 387th Court in Merit Island on the 27-year veteran in real estate and currently a director

[1:40:51] and a past president of Space Coast Association of Relators.

[1:40:55] And I look at this from a little different perspective.

[1:40:58] I try to get the big picture.

[1:41:00] I happen to be in a profession that I think is second on Maslow's hierarchy of needs that

[1:41:06] being shelter after sustenance or food.

[1:41:10] And in the impact fees, in some of the data that I have read, is going to affect affordable

[1:41:20] housing.

[1:41:20] It's going to price people out of the market.

[1:41:25] 5,000 dollars will take 1,300 people out of the market, not be able to get a home.

[1:41:30] I think that's much more important than a pot hole.

[1:41:34] The other thing I've noticed that, all of the things I saw up there in the presentation,

[1:41:38] the impact fees was the lowest revenue providing, the lowest item that provided revenue.

[1:41:47] And I echo the realtors in trying to help the county come up with a solution and take a look at the impact fees.

[1:41:54] There is more than one way to do something right.

[1:41:58] And some of the studies I've seen is that the impact fees, if it's applied to a hundred thousand

[1:42:03] our house got a petty same thing as somebody's building a million dollar house we might want to

[1:42:08] look at those kind of things too. Thank you. Gary Johnson.

[1:42:17] I'm Gary Johnson, Coco Beach. I'd like to

[1:42:20] think Commissioner Infantini for a leader alerting the public to the topics of interest,

[1:42:25] taxes, and spending. Almost 10 years ago was necessary for me to come down here and ask

[1:42:33] have justified 100% increase in my property taxes.

[1:42:38] Especially since there was no improvement in services.

[1:42:41] The obvious answer was the incompetence and irresponsibility of the commission to establish and manage a reasonable budget to provide essential services and eliminate wasteful and nonessential spending.

[1:42:54] Why is it that this commission's answer to every problem is more spending and higher taxes?

[1:42:59] Do you not understand that your job is to manage the funds available to provide the essential services needed, which means to eliminate unnecessary spending?

[1:43:14] Why is it that Commissioner in Fentini is the only one that has shown their responsibility to do that?

[1:43:21] You need to recognize priorities, which is more important, roads or golf courses.

[1:43:28] Why are we spending, who knows what, subsidizing, who knows how many golf courses in the

[1:43:36] county, not to mention those in the city that I also have to support for the benefit

[1:43:44] of a few privileged individuals without question when the roads that are utilized by everybody

[1:43:51] are like in the required revenue.

[1:43:54] This is mismanagement pure and simple.

[1:43:57] After the county has approved millions of dollars in tax breaks to attract new business

[1:44:02] to the area, please tell me how changing, charging, impact fees on new construction and

[1:44:10] raising other taxes is consistent with this policy.

[1:44:15] Apparently, you have no understanding of what it's like to live on a moderate fixed income

[1:44:19] budget.

[1:44:20] or if you do, you simply don't care. If our taxes go up, then essential items must

[1:44:27] be cut to pay for it. We manage responding to match our income. You need to do the same.

[1:44:35] Do you realize the impact of all the proposed increases combined? Do you care? The solution

[1:44:43] is for the County Commission to do their jobs, file a lead of Commissioner in Fentini,

[1:44:49] and roll up your sleeves, go to work, cut unnecessary spending, and find the funds necessary

[1:44:55] to provide the essential services without the required.

[1:45:00] Without increasing taxes. If you're not competent to do this, without raising taxes, then you should step down. New taxes and fees and increased taxes is not an option.

[1:45:14] Thank you.

[1:45:17] John Wheeler.

[1:45:21] John Weiler.

[1:45:22] John Weiler.

[1:45:24] Sorry.

[1:45:25] Put your name again.

[1:45:26] That's okay.

[1:45:27] John Weiler.

[1:45:29] 40 to 40 south tropical trail.

[1:45:30] District 2.

[1:45:33] And thank you.

[1:45:34] Commissioner Anthony.

[1:45:35] I saw your email.

[1:45:36] That's one of the reasons I'm here today.

[1:45:38] And I appreciate you saying that email.

[1:45:40] And alerting us taxpayers.

[1:45:42] What is being considered.

[1:45:44] Anyway, it's not 2.43 minutes yet, isn't it?

[1:45:48] Was that to go?

[1:45:49] Just looking at that.

[1:45:52] Yeah, I listened to everything that was going on in the last 30-40 minutes.

[1:45:58] And I came here with a little different approach and listened to the Blue Ribbon Committee.

[1:46:06] And I'm sure those gentlemen did a very excellent job of considering what they were given.

[1:46:12] listening to some of you commissioners afterwards. It looks like they weren't given all the right information to do the study that they did.

[1:46:20] I think Commissioner Anderson's comment was very appropriate because,

[1:46:24] gee, if you're considering a new build for $30 million and you haven't considered in there,

[1:46:33] you're assuming that all that's all going to be locally funded and you're not considering in that the possibility of having

[1:46:38] additional sharing from federal estate funds, that sort of skews the entire proposal that

[1:46:45] they made on the amount of taxes in freeze that you might need if you followed that.

[1:46:50] Now, well, I'd like to emphasize that I'm sure you know this, but apparently a lot of you

[1:46:56] have forgotten it. You have a lot of people in this county that are retired and have a lot

[1:47:01] of people on fixed income at the level. They own a house, they drive a car, all these taxes

[1:47:08] that you're talking about, in fact, all of them.

[1:47:11] They're not getting an increase in their income,

[1:47:14] so as the last gentleman indicated, they're going to have to take

[1:47:18] and do without so that we can fill the holes in the pot holes

[1:47:22] in the road or maintain them.

[1:47:24] Now, obviously, we'd like to maintain all these roads,

[1:47:27] but we're taxed enough already.

[1:47:30] You guys have enough funds if you learn how to manage your budget.

[1:47:35] It's obvious that I've been up there for 10 years coming before you, and every single issue that we talk to you about

[1:47:43] You ignore us the taxpayers you keep asking for more and more the rates keep increasing. They never go down

[1:47:50] My taxes haven't went down in 30 years. I've lived here in Brevard County. They have gone up and up and up, and

[1:47:57] And I'm now at that time where I have a fixed income and I'm considering the same things that others are

[1:48:03] So I'd ask you to look at the other possibilities that you might have.

[1:48:08] It's my understanding and I don't have my source with me today, but next time I will,

[1:48:13] that you have approximately $50 million in a fund that could be used to settle somebody's

[1:48:18] problems right now and hasn't been spent.

[1:48:21] So think about that, you guys know where the $15 million I don't, but I understand you have it

[1:48:26] and my source will be here at your next meeting, to point to you if you don't know where it is.

[1:48:32] So, there's food for your thought.

[1:48:34] The other thing that I would like to remind you of is that this county owns an awful lot

[1:48:38] of property and has a lot of vacant buildings.

[1:48:42] Why don't we consider selling off that property to private owners guess what?

[1:48:47] They would then be paying taxes on it, as long as the county owes it, you don't get any tax revenue.

[1:48:53] And I think we've got tens and tens of millions of dollars of property that we could take

[1:48:58] and do that with.

[1:48:59] Thank you very much.

[1:49:00] Mr. Ron Taylor, followed by Michael Hartman and Diana Frider, I'd

[1:49:19] first like to commend

[1:49:22] the commission for taking and having the courage to start the dialogue of this process.

[1:49:29] And the people who did this work, that was excellent work, and I'd like to commend you

[1:49:35] to. And Commissioner Nelson, I'd like to commend you for pointing out the unfairness that

[1:49:42] the district that you represent that they are going to possibly bear an unfair burden

[1:49:49] there. I appreciate that. I want to speak to a group that really isn't here, supposed

[1:49:59] to be here and in you. And that is the regular guy and gal, the homeowner and the small

[1:50:09] business.

[1:50:15] This issue is whether we should maintain a road infrastructure.

[1:50:22] This is, excuse

[1:50:23] me, forgive me. This issue isn't whether we should maintain a road infrastructure. This

[1:50:30] This issue is how our current commission prioritizes where our tax money should be spent.

[1:50:37] We buy expensive helicopters, reject the lowest qualified bidders for waste disposal services

[1:50:43] by expensive trees, the line roads, and the list goes on and on.

[1:50:50] On citizens want good roads, but they are burned out by the burden of the tax load.

[1:50:58] They are prioritizing too. They want to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table for their families.

[1:51:07] That is why they don't want to pay extra taxes for repaving rows. They can't afford it.

[1:51:14] The regular guy and gal, the homeowner and the small businesses are still struggling with the impacts from this last reception.

[1:51:23] session, and no one bailed them out, just asked more from them.

[1:51:32] I'd like to say, I am four item one, I'm against item two because it fundamentally is

[1:51:38] an unfair tax that puts a significant tax burden on the regular guy and gal.

[1:51:43] Against item three, because it will hurt economic development and impacts a significant number

[1:51:50] of small businesses and against item four because it fundamentally hurts all of the constituency

[1:51:56] and which I want to represent.

[1:51:59] I want to reorient our priorities and define the monies and other areas of programs.

[1:52:04] Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak.

[1:52:08] Michael Hartman.

[1:52:18] Good evening, Madam Chair.

[1:52:20] Commissioners.

[1:52:20] My name is Michael Hartman.

[1:52:22] I live at Merritt Island in District 2.

[1:52:26] And over the last two months,

[1:52:28] I've gotten a chance to talk to probably 2,000 voters in District 2.

[1:52:35] I think Commissioner Nelson gets it correct in what he's seen, from what I've seen.

[1:52:43] And I think that Commissioner Infantini has it right.

[1:52:48] Most of the people in District 2 that I've met are seniors, or people who are barely scraping

[1:52:55] by at the jobs they're at.

[1:52:57] They don't have an extra money.

[1:53:00] The two people that spoke before me, one from Mariton, one from Cogo Beach, both from District 2,

[1:53:08] I can give you hundreds of names that would say the exact same thing.

[1:53:15] So I ask you and I'm just giving you what they're saying.

[1:53:21] We need to look inside our current budget because the people who are out there

[1:53:26] Do not feel that they have the additional money to give for the roads

[1:53:32] Thank you very much as the animators show her there you are. I'm sorry. You're right in front of me here

[1:53:42] That's okay. I never see and there you go. Hello commissioners. My name is Diana writer and Chuck is very fortunate because I live in his district district too

[1:53:52] and I like to stay in touch with him at all times, but anyhow, I'll be brief because I think

[1:53:59] I'm going to say probably what a lot of the other folks have said.

[1:54:03] I just will throw this piece of information in Brevard County for some time was listed

[1:54:08] in Rilty Track as the number one foreclosure County in the entire United States.

[1:54:14] Now we are slowly, very slowly beginning to improve, and now is not the time to bring back

[1:54:20] PEC fees, provides economy needs more time to heal, and then we can have a dialogue and how

[1:54:26] and when to solve our road problems, and agreeing with what Mr. Hartman said, you know what I

[1:54:33] find scary? I do fundraising for the various groups I'm in, and I am telling you, when you have

[1:54:40] a hard time selling ladies jewelry, you know times are a little tough, so I do think our citizens

[1:54:46] are feeling the pinch. So I appreciate your consideration. Thank you very much. Mr. Don

[1:54:53] Sims, followed by Scott Morgan,

[1:55:00] and B. Barry.

[1:55:10] Thank you for setting up this meeting today so we could come in here and kind of talk.

[1:55:17] I haven't been a developer in Brevard County for almost 34 years. I've never seen a severe

[1:55:23] drop in activity and permits like these past six years.

[1:55:27] Many of my friends in the business have closed their doors, going out of business or moved

[1:55:31] to Texas or other states in order to continue operations.

[1:55:35] Building is the greatest broad-based job provider and economy booster in the world.

[1:55:41] Help us bring back the goose that laid the gold neck and delay implementation of impact

[1:55:45] fees.

[1:55:46] Let us dialogue after the realtors, the builders and the developers on firm ground again.

[1:55:52] Thanks for your time and God bless.

[1:55:56] Mr. Scott Morgan.

[1:56:03] Thank you.

[1:56:03] I just wanted to provide you with a letter that is the West Melbourne thoughts on

[1:56:08] this complex subject that you have to grapple with and sort of listen to a lot of this

[1:56:14] speakers.

[1:56:15] I don't think I heard anybody say we don't have a problem with maintaining our roads in our

[1:56:19] county.

[1:56:20] It's a matter of what are the solutions and that's certainly what you have to wrestle with.

[1:56:24] And so I think sort of the bottom line in our position is that this ought to be something that

[1:56:29] you start to move towards action, and I've heard a lot of, you know, the real are saying,

[1:56:35] okay, there's going to be a time, but, you know, let us get together and help you with solutions.

[1:56:40] And I think those that are a solution oriented that can help you grapple with this is how you're

[1:56:46] going to leave a better legacy for the roadway network than we have right now for the next generation.

[1:56:54] And I know that's part of, you have a very long-term view, not just solving today's

[1:57:00] problem with solving tomorrow's problems, and there's a very difficult thing you're

[1:57:04] having to deal with, but we have some thoughts, and we'd like to leave that with your

[1:57:08] clerk, and add our thoughts to that, Max.

[1:57:11] Thank you.

[1:57:15] Thank you.

[1:57:16] Personal shall be.

[1:57:18] It's Barbara.

[1:57:19] I'm Barbara Barry.

[1:57:21] There seems to be a consensus on the problem, the solution, however, is in question.

[1:57:26] And to assume that the citizens of Bervard don't understand the problem, or not aware of the problem, maybe a mistake.

[1:57:35] And I'm surprised that some of you haven't heard them taking your name and vein as they drive into that pothole.

[1:57:42] What the problem is is you're not listening.

[1:57:46] They, it's your problem, I believe Chuck Nelson, you've been on the commission since 1990.

[1:57:54] Is that what you said?

[1:57:56] What did you say?

[1:57:57] I'd have absolutely no air.

[1:57:58] We should go back and read that.

[1:58:00] Anyway, see you've been on there four to eight years.

[1:58:03] Is this just all of a sudden you realize there's a problem?

[1:58:09] You are tasked with prioritizing what you need to do.

[1:58:14] This may be a legal issue, because you, as the roads have deteriorated, you have decided to fund

[1:58:24] frivolous or projects that a lot of people would say are not necessary and are not needed

[1:58:31] and we don't need to spend their money to do that.

[1:58:35] So, I think that you will need to own the problem, you need to look at the entire budget,

[1:58:41] take some money from the tourism development they don't need to go to China to sell

[1:58:47] provide county they don't need to go to Germany or Las Vegas to sell

[1:58:53] provide county take some of that money spend it on the roads you can find the money

[1:58:58] you have plenty of money to spend you don't need ours we've had it thanks

[1:59:06] One more thing, I just want to say, a lot of times the commission reminds me of a bunch

[1:59:12] of spoiled children. You know how, if you have teenagers, they run out of money, they

[1:59:18] got, I need more money, I need more money. That's what you're doing. It's the easy way out.

[1:59:24] Work, do your job, work harder, look deeper into the budget.

[1:59:29] You were doing so well until that last little comment.

[1:59:31] you know, I just couldn't read it, but you know, you mentioned

[1:59:36] legality. We can't, we can't spend tourism dollars on roads. We can't spend

[1:59:41] mosquito-controlled dollars on roads. Where do you get all the money that you spend

[1:59:45] on frivolous projects? Well, those are the things you call frivolous, as I recall,

[1:59:50] but you can't. No, I can't, but I won't. Well, first of all, you talk about

[1:59:56] legality. You know, we've got a very complex budget. These guys went through, yeah,

[1:59:59] Thank you.

[2:00:00] They understand how difficult it is. So I just want you to know that it's not quite as simple as it sounds. And I got to hear about the helicopters earlier. We actually got rid of three helicopters. We have two. We now have fewer pilots as a result of that. We're funding that through the savings. So we didn't raise any of the revenues associated with mosquito control. And we have greater capability now that we have before

[2:00:29] So it was a good business decision, and it didn't cost any more.

[2:00:35] It is not costing you any more for those helicopters than it did before.

[2:00:39] I don't think anybody's saying it's easy.

[2:00:41] What we're saying is, taxing the people is the easy way out.

[2:00:46] You have plenty of money, find it, cut sums and out.

[2:00:50] And the other thing is, have you done a study on how much more it's going to cost the county,

[2:00:55] If they raise six cents on the gasoline to run all of your vehicles, just a question to think of it.

[2:01:01] We're taxing you, Sam, but that's okay.

[2:01:03] Oh, oh, oh. Okay, then we'll raise it ten cents.

[2:01:08] Kathy Parson.

[2:01:10] I had my light on and I didn't, I didn't need her to stay there, but I did want to point out that she.

[2:01:15] She was trying to mention some of the frivolous spending and the other gentleman mentioned the golf course

[2:01:19] And we did spend a million dollars to correct the irrigation of a golf course that has been

[2:01:26] losing money.

[2:01:26] And when I present the option to my students and try to show them what facility would

[2:01:32] you close, they have all agreed that each time you should close a business that is continually

[2:01:38] losing money and not even bringing enough revenue to cover your operating expenses.

[2:01:43] If at least you cover your operating expenses and a little debt service, they get it.

[2:01:48] You close the facility.

[2:01:49] But instead we spent a million dollars, so we do have a prioritization problem, and I think that's where she was going.

[2:02:00] If you'll bear with me one more moment.

[2:02:02] Yeah, Commissioner, you minimize the issue because even if we close the golf course, you have to pay the debt.

[2:02:09] So you're going to pay the debt on something that's not operational.

[2:02:12] Right, and the fact is that it is losing money above and beyond the cover of debt.

[2:02:18] As long as, in, in, I did not talk about you.

[2:02:21] You just asked me.

[2:02:22] You just now asked me.

[2:02:23] You just now asked me.

[2:02:23] Let me go ahead.

[2:02:25] I'm sorry.

[2:02:25] Please.

[2:02:25] I was saying the county.

[2:02:27] What I wanted to point out was that we've had that discussion about the fact that the debt would go on even if the golf course was closed and the payments on those end and about three years I believe is that we will own those and that issue goes away.

[2:02:40] And it's a decision that was not made by this forward.

[2:02:43] That was made before any of us got here.

[2:02:46] long for any of us got here. So we kind of get stuck with it. But I'll have your goffers at

[2:02:52] it's Fester Hall and call you and see how they feel about it, so.

[2:02:56] I'm sure I'm continuing. If you'd like to respond, then I do have Commissioner Anderson, please bear with me one more minute, Cathy.

[2:03:02] Okay, Stessard Holland is actually the one golf course that's making money.

[2:03:06] Habitat is also losing less money. It's barely covering. It's not covering all of its debt service. All the money comes in.

[2:03:15] It does cover all the operating costs, but doesn't cover all of the debt service.

[2:03:20] Savannah's on the other hand is, let me throw out numbers.

[2:03:24] If it costs $100 to operate it, it's only bringing in 70.

[2:03:29] And then it also has debt service.

[2:03:31] So not only is it not covering its operating cost, it's got the debt service.

[2:03:36] So you would lose less money by closing it down.

[2:03:41] The only one that you wouldn't lose less money by closing down is habitat.

[2:03:45] And while we're not making money, it will cost us more money to close it.

[2:03:50] So I'm for habitat, you're correct, but not on Savannah.

[2:03:53] Commissioner Anderson, were you returning to the topic of the evening of road?

[2:03:56] Yes.

[2:03:57] I just want to mention that some people said issues about prioritization and roads and then we haven't

[2:04:05] come on out.

[2:04:06] I don't add up the other commission in this or to know Commissioner Fisher and Commissioner

[2:04:11] Nelson have done stuff.

[2:04:12] know, you know, both Commissioner, Bowen and, and if a teammate had projects in the

[2:04:17] roads, then that's simply not true.

[2:04:20] But at the time, I've left office, we would have spent, we haven't figured out, calculate,

[2:04:23] 60 to $80 million in district plot, my district alone, on roads and drainage.

[2:04:29] So to say that we haven't been doing it within the budget, is a misconception.

[2:04:33] We've done the Wick and Road, what route were applied to me in West Melbourne, area in my district,

[2:04:39] So I'm a member of I-95 overpass,

[2:04:43] Lampwider Village drainage, which lots of seniors

[2:04:46] were put out of the home for a long time,

[2:04:48] including Kisle Lake drainage.

[2:04:52] And it goes on and on.

[2:04:54] And then what's going to my office?

[2:04:55] I'll give you my list.

[2:04:57] We have, right, organized number one

[2:04:59] Rose and drainage in my office.

[2:05:00] So I don't want to, I give a little offended when I hear that.

[2:05:03] This is simply not true from the least district five.

[2:05:05] Thank you.

[2:05:07] Thank you for all the commissioners I should say that's unfair, but I definitely my office.

[2:05:12] Thank you very much for your patience.

[2:05:14] Kathy Paisons on the owner of St. Coast Realty, and the realtor 42 years, just an old back here.

[2:05:24] Anyway, the thing that I would like to say is that number one, the county commission has a very difficult job.

[2:05:32] Nobody wants to raise anybody's taxes for anything, so I've been on committees, I know what

[2:05:39] this is like, it hurts. It really hurts. But we have to do something, and I think that

[2:05:44] the committee did a beautiful job. To me, it's just kind of shocking that we got ourselves

[2:05:50] into this position. And that over the years, these things have gotten out of hand, and we

[2:05:56] haven't taken care of some of the problems, these big problems and roads are a problem.

[2:06:01] roads and bridges are certainly keeping us our cities alive.

[2:06:06] On the other hand, I've always understood why we kept a moratorium on the impact fees because

[2:06:15] we need business in Brevard County.

[2:06:19] We don't want to shun business, we need business, but we need impact fees that are reviewed

[2:06:26] and taking care of by people with a brain.

[2:06:34] You know, you like Andy said,

[2:06:38] you can't have something an impact fee

[2:06:40] cost more than what the business is going to cost

[2:06:42] to create this business.

[2:06:44] So we need to look at the committees

[2:06:48] and look at the people that are overseeing impact fees.

[2:06:52] And yeah, I think we do need impact fees.

[2:06:54] But do we need them in an economy when we have a federal government at 17 trillion dollars in debt every morning?

[2:07:03] I get up and I want to call it because our country isn't debt and why are we in debt?

[2:07:08] It's because we're spending money. We forgot and what a budget is.

[2:07:13] We don't know what a budget is anymore.

[2:07:16] Nobody knows it at home.

[2:07:17] I went to Catholic School and on every Monday, the nuns said,

[2:07:21] did you bring your money for your savings account?

[2:07:24] And we had a savings account.

[2:07:27] And that little savings account stayed in my head my whole life.

[2:07:32] And the budget stayed in my head.

[2:07:34] So it's any time anybody gets together.

[2:07:39] And they think that the money is theirs.

[2:07:42] And they live up to that budget.

[2:07:44] instead of saying, how can we cut here and how can we cut there?

[2:07:48] Hey, we're in trouble.

[2:07:49] But I'm going to give you some impact fees.

[2:07:52] Florida Power and Light has added a 38% fuel search charge

[2:07:56] to every bill.

[2:07:58] So if you paid $2.25 per month about $75 to $90

[2:08:03] with fuel search charge, there's an impact for you.

[2:08:06] Water bills are up about $1.30.

[2:08:09] This is something that does everybody gets, OK?

[2:08:12] Car registrations.

[2:08:13] real estate insurance. It's nuts. It's absolutely nuts. 2389 last year, 4,000. This year. Same thing.

[2:08:23] Less coverage. All right, so the real estate people we deal every day with people who are impacted by this.

[2:08:32] People who've lived in their homes like my neighbor, Chris history, she's 90 years old. She's not going to sell that house

[2:08:38] because it should be selling for about five, 75,

[2:08:42] but she probably would get about 3,75 or 400,

[2:08:47] if she's lucky after living at 30 years.

[2:08:51] So, and it's in a price range, that's not selling.

[2:08:54] You know, you have a price range from 4 to 800,000

[2:08:56] that might as well, you might as well

[2:08:58] if your home falls in that category,

[2:09:00] don't bother to put it on the market.

[2:09:02] So, that's, I'm serious, I'm serious,

[2:09:05] I know I sound like a crazy person,

[2:09:06] But I am crazy because every day I have to deal with people who live on social security, and this is what's coming in.

[2:09:15] But these things have gone up.

[2:09:17] I like state.

[2:09:20] I used to get a ribeye for $5.99 per pound, now it's $9.99, that's only like two years.

[2:09:26] So, you know, every day everything is going up, mobile phones are costing more.

[2:09:32] everything else is up. Guys, we have to find a way, sell some of those properties.

[2:09:38] Thank you. Mr. One, quickly. Sir, I do need to have your address for the record.

[2:09:45] You don't have a gun here.

[2:09:46] Good evening. Address is 560 jute or bullet mark on May Florida.

[2:09:51] Okay.

[2:09:52] Good evening.

[2:09:53] Just real quick. I just want to throw out the air.

[2:09:56] We need to look ahead. We're all talking about the past and road that haven't been fixed.

[2:09:59] I've been a resident here for 12, 13 years, and I hate paying taxes as much as anybody.

[2:10:05] I want the commission to take in the consideration that we are facing the largest influx

[2:10:09] of baby boomers coming to Florida over the next 10, 15 years.

[2:10:13] And if we're going to increase the revenue and the spending, we're going to do that by bringing new people to come here.

[2:10:19] We have to track them.

[2:10:21] If we have higher property taxes and we have higher income taxes and higher gas taxes, they're going to go down the road.

[2:10:27] And that will hurt us if we use the model of states that have been successful in the

[2:10:31] governors that have been successful and in growing their economies, we need to look.

[2:10:37] So I'm asking that we take in consideration not saying we screwed up last one years and

[2:10:42] not spending money or appropriated right or fixed things, let's look to the next 25 years

[2:10:47] as we bring in a whole group of new people moving to Provard County and grow this so

[2:10:52] everything grows in accordance.

[2:10:54] Thank you.

[2:10:54] Thank you, sir.

[2:10:55] Thank you, Mr. Fisher, you had your life. We're back to the board.

[2:10:59] Yeah, I was just going to make a comment. I think people remember, and oh, nine.

[2:11:06] And he didn't like me as much. I don't know.

[2:11:11] But I was the big one to say, we shouldn't be building new roads until you've paid the maintain the ones you have.

[2:11:19] And then at that point in time, we shifted how we did our LLGT taxes and reason I want to do that because I wanted to get some roads paved and my community.

[2:11:30] So if you remember that chart, there was a 80 miles of one paved road in this county, 75 of them in my district.

[2:11:39] But over the last couple of years, I'm proud to say that we've paved the 125 miles of roads in my district.

[2:11:46] over in front of 350 homes got asphalt in it, and we spent about $10 million in doing it.

[2:11:53] He spent $60.

[2:11:54] I spent 10, thank you, Mr. Nelson, probably spent about 11.

[2:11:58] With a million spent in the last three to four years, we still got the same need that need

[2:12:04] out there.

[2:12:05] So the problem was bigger before the report and the study got.

[2:12:10] And one of the challenges is if you really go into the budget and you really want to

[2:12:18] When I came on commission, I think in 10, when we were talking about increases, you know, we had, we asked the auditors, I said, you know, I want to really figure out when the boom was going and it was booming, where were we spending money?

[2:12:31] What happened?

[2:12:32] Thought it was a fair question because a lot of you were asking that question. How come you didn't put some away and how come you didn't do it?

[2:12:38] The interesting thing was that in the boom and when the money was coming in, the areas that were the money was spent,

[2:12:46] And it's no fault and I'm not trying to throw him out.

[2:12:48] It was public safety.

[2:12:50] It had to be spent there because we created, we were getting sued for overcrowded

[2:12:55] jail.

[2:12:55] We had to go build tents and put public safety in correction officers in it.

[2:13:02] So public safety was the number one place that's been money.

[2:13:05] Number two place was on, I think, health insurance in that category.

[2:13:11] And the other, the other ones was that you, the voters,

[2:13:17] said, let's spend money on parks and regulations and

[2:13:21] referendum.

[2:13:22] And so referendum.

[2:13:23] But that's where it was spent.

[2:13:24] And then when you, and so I, and then every other area,

[2:13:28] since I've been on this board, and I think it's probably

[2:13:31] the Mr. Bowling Nelson on the board,

[2:13:33] government has got, it's, it's, it's, I don't know,

[2:13:37] stock, there was a flat 140, you get the, with the village

[2:13:40] in all that. It's been pretty flat and we've made cut after cut, after cut, 400 people

[2:13:46] on it. So to say we haven't prioritized spending, we've got 80 men on roads or probably 90,

[2:13:54] which you yours from yours, that we spent the last few years on roads, but we still got

[2:13:59] the needs that you saw the study that people came out with. And so it's a serious problem,

[2:14:06] But it's not like, you know, this commission is totally kicked a can down the road.

[2:14:11] We've spent some dollars, and we've tried to get asphalt in front of people homes.

[2:14:16] Please, at least I have, that's been waiting 30 years to get a road we paid.

[2:14:22] Were you going to answer my question on the flat, and it's just a little budget, why is it because people don't understand it?

[2:14:27] I think the question from one of the prior meetings was, the general revenue and the general revenue is 124 million.

[2:14:35] now and it was a hundred and twenty four million a little three hundred thousand dollars

[2:14:39] last now that it was five or six years ago. So, to all this rating increase and all this

[2:14:47] revenue increase that you keep hearing about we haven't seen it. Commissioner Anderson.

[2:14:55] I just want to point out one other thing, you know, part of the other.

[2:15:00] Projects and a lot of them weren't, it wasn't all real projects, a lot of it was drainage, my district.

[2:15:05] But that was

[2:15:09] John Denninghoff and his staff to a phenomenal job. We were in a recession. The budget was going

[2:15:15] to backwards. We've leveraged with a little bit of money we had and earned a ground with the drainage

[2:15:21] side and got other dollars in. So even though that was an all, only a small portion, probably with that

[2:15:29] like letter project was a direct property tax

[2:15:33] from the Barcini taxpayers.

[2:15:35] They went out on letters, your federal income tax

[2:15:37] and got your money back.

[2:15:40] So we weren't a donor district in my district.

[2:15:43] I could tell you that we're getting probably

[2:15:45] to offer dollar back on drainage and infrastructure.

[2:15:48] And definitely on projects and property tax,

[2:15:50] I could tell you, and Robin will tell me this,

[2:15:53] and private won't bash me in public.

[2:15:55] He pays for my residence to get the roads and check doesn't it out.

[2:16:02] They don't be in the up in public, but just to point out, this wasn't done by just some

[2:16:10] miracle during the recession, the county staff went out in leverage money and the commission

[2:16:17] supported those projects.

[2:16:23] Back to the board, Mr. Witton, did you have a comment to make?

[2:16:29] I didn't have a comment, just as you're considering your next step, you're certainly considered

[2:16:36] whether or not you are sunsetting the committee.

[2:16:40] So if there's more work from the do certainly advise us of that, but if not, I think we would

[2:16:46] want to sunset the committee.

[2:16:48] I just want to know if the commission is interested in the public hearing thing that I have mentioned.

[2:16:52] If we are, then you don't want to sunset them.

[2:16:54] I want to keep looking at the public.

[2:16:57] I'm hearing from the public, I don't want you to be

[2:17:01] a public meeting thing that I mentioned earlier on some workshop types stuff.

[2:17:04] Yeah.

[2:17:05] Kivish, I'm Brittany, and then Kivish, I'm Nelson, and then we'll go back to discussion on that

[2:17:09] particular topic.

[2:17:11] Based on what I'm hearing, I would like to make a motion to extend the moratorium on

[2:17:17] in fact these till 2015?

[2:17:22] No, 2014 is when it expires a different country.

[2:17:27] Well, it is well, we have a point of time to work on.

[2:17:29] Is it already, well, that one day in 2015 is better than it is.

[2:17:32] Well, December, December 31st, 2015.

[2:17:35] I'm sorry, I didn't mean January 1st.

[2:17:37] I wasn't talking about the next day.

[2:17:40] I don't mind entertaining that, most of them,

[2:17:42] but I want to do it later.

[2:17:43] Remember, I was the one that brought them more important.

[2:17:46] Oh, my staff wrote it and got beat up,

[2:17:48] I need to get it through and get through, but I don't mind, you know, I'm entirely, but I don't

[2:17:55] want to do it with that more input from the builders and the home builders and how that

[2:18:01] impacts them.

[2:18:02] Because if they get into a situation where they can't meet concurrency on a development, they

[2:18:08] want a big problem.

[2:18:09] Because we can't afford to do the expansion, and then they won't be able to build.

[2:18:13] So I just want to see how they feel about that.

[2:18:15] I can care that we need a little bit more information on that.

[2:18:18] And when we get a study going, so let's get to study.

[2:18:21] I mean, you know, I've got some concerns about how we even charge impact fees.

[2:18:25] You know, as far as, rather, they're distributed fairly.

[2:18:29] And, you know, two professional office buildings, and sometimes depends on what's in it.

[2:18:34] It could be double a triple, which doesn't make sense.

[2:18:37] And to me, I think you get the same use.

[2:18:39] So we got it.

[2:18:39] We've got a study going, and I think I was.

[2:18:42] I thought what we need to do is wait on the study before we do anything.

[2:18:48] I concur with you on that.

[2:18:50] Commissioner Anderson, are you concurring to me?

[2:18:51] Yeah, I want to see the study.

[2:18:53] I mean, I still have part of it with, you know, you know, your charging, not based on it.

[2:18:58] There's a whole message that we've discussed in the past.

[2:19:01] But I just don't want to get a situation where we're doing harm to the development committee,

[2:19:05] into the community either.

[2:19:06] And I do think as we go through the budget process also that we need to address some of these issues,

[2:19:12] you know, in prioritizing, you know, what roads next that we might want to pay even.

[2:19:19] So, well, as, you know, county manager, to try to hear Mark some, at least the 14 million that we got going now,

[2:19:27] but we continue to fund that, or if we can increase it, we'll look at doing that.

[2:19:32] But then I think the other thing is getting the, I don't want this committee to feel like, you know,

[2:19:40] this been eight months and we're not going to do anything and we're not going to dress it.

[2:19:43] So I think we, I think we still keep that committee going and asking them for some help.

[2:19:49] And it might take us to 2016 to get it, you know, get it there.

[2:19:53] But we're going to do our best to try to come up with some real long-term solutions to the problem.

[2:19:59] Can Mr. Anderson do you want to go back and talk about the workshop?

[2:20:03] There are just two things that I wanted to mention that I forgot earlier.

[2:20:06] I remember that the roads and drainage are not just solely a functionality issue.

[2:20:12] I mean, they really impact property values.

[2:20:14] The road, there's a totally idea.

[2:20:15] I do real estate on the side.

[2:20:16] I just don't do it as often.

[2:20:18] God bless me.

[2:20:18] You're going to send the afternoon to show the house.

[2:20:20] I can't do it.

[2:20:23] But that affects property values.

[2:20:24] You take the same home in Palm Bay, Florida where I live.

[2:20:26] That's how one of those graded roads that got tore up and turned into dirt, and you take

[2:20:31] that same house and put it in lock on, there's $100,000 difference.

[2:20:37] So it affects property values, so we got to figure out why we don't want to go backwards.

[2:20:41] It doesn't invest in every citizen in this community has the expected return on their

[2:20:45] house later on.

[2:20:46] The other issue is economic development, good luck attracting any new businesses when they break

[2:20:51] an actual every time they travel down a road.

[2:20:54] So, we just got to make the very cognizant of that during the whole time.

[2:21:00] The other issue, too, is on the recommendations, the fear that I have in 2016, we're all gone.

[2:21:07] You guys are gone.

[2:21:08] Me, Trudy, and Robert are gone.

[2:21:10] In the $14 million that's sitting there, say something got passed, whatever recommendation.

[2:21:17] And what prevents the future commission from taking that forth doing a cell game and reducing

[2:21:24] that $14 million per and back in a general fund and just replacing whatever action that

[2:21:29] may have occurred with this commission?

[2:21:31] That's very scary to me.

[2:21:34] Well, anything else, that's an interesting question for you.

[2:21:37] Are you answering?

[2:21:38] I'm just saying that you're like, yeah, I'm thinking this is a voter-approved initiative.

[2:21:47] And so, you know, what I'm talking to 2016 is rather than that, the voters that is counting

[2:21:53] things is that these roads are serious enough that they want to address it.

[2:21:57] That's what I was just, you know, seeing, it doesn't make sense at some point in time.

[2:22:01] I don't put on about.

[2:22:02] Yeah, I don't mind when the voters decide that it's somehow, I think the voters are going

[2:22:06] to want some guarantee that the general fund transfer that public works currently is

[2:22:13] mean things, but you can't go and pull that out. That's happened in the past. Yeah, I don't

[2:22:20] know how to do it, but I can't support almost, we figure a way to guarantee it. Thank you.

[2:22:26] I'll make sure Nelson, and then we'll come back to your second.

[2:22:31] I don't want to see the group sounds yet, because I think there's at least one more opportunity

[2:22:36] for them to look at some of the questions. What I would like to recommend the commission

[2:22:41] to write down what those issues are that we would like for them to address and see if we can

[2:22:47] come to some consensus on sending that to them.

[2:22:51] So I don't want to run their vacations,

[2:22:54] but if they would just hang on a little bit longer and let us put over the next couple of weeks

[2:22:58] from before we break for our agenda. Let's come up with a list of things that we would want them to

[2:23:03] look at.

[2:23:05] Yeah, just like the one issue that I have, I would like them to review that and see what their thought is on.

[2:23:11] The impact that it can solve the journeys on that.

[2:23:14] Mr. Fisher.

[2:23:16] Yeah, and I'm just going to say one more thing is kind of a plug for this commission.

[2:23:21] The one to support it anyway.

[2:23:23] You might not realize this, but because of the economic development zone and because of this commission,

[2:23:30] we were able to get out of any five, which is a pure economic driver from how we 46th of

[2:23:36] the Lucia County paid under a way that never been really or it's very settlement down

[2:23:41] in this county and it got moved at five years and we took state money, FDOT and work with

[2:23:48] a contractor and funded that thing five years early, there are space-cold infrastructure

[2:23:52] and that's moving commerce and moving people, and it was creative, and so that was a

[2:24:02] $44 million investment that we made, just so those of you all that didn't know that.

[2:24:08] I didn't come out of anybody's pocket.

[2:24:12] If I can do a recap to get some of the census here, I'm hearing that we do not want to

[2:24:22] to be dealing with staff bringing forward their concerns so that we can address those and

[2:24:28] then come back as a commission and decide how we want to do the next step as far as a community

[2:24:33] event or a workshop to go and step.

[2:24:38] The information has been brought forward.

[2:24:40] We have a problem.

[2:24:41] We know we have a problem.

[2:24:42] Now let's get the best way of starting to solve that problem.

[2:24:48] Any other recap on this or staff direction?

[2:24:53] Thank you very much.

[2:24:57] Thank you.

[2:24:57] Thank the committee once again.

[2:24:58] Really appreciate the work.

[2:25:01] Great.

[2:25:01] Any other reports?

[2:25:04] Again, thank you very much.

[2:25:07] Mr.

[2:25:10] Witton.

[2:25:12] There's no public comment.

[2:25:15] No report, Madam Chairman.

[2:25:17] Okay.

[2:25:18] Assistant County Attorney.

[2:25:20] No report, Madam Chair.

[2:25:21] Commissioner Nelson.

[2:25:24] Commissioner and Petini, Commissioner Anderson, Commissioner Fisher.

[2:25:28] Welcome aboard, Mr. Stockton Whitman.

[2:25:32] Yes, first day.

[2:25:34] Yeah, you know, I was under my reports, I won't point you going to make a joke and go,

[2:25:38] motion to terminate and make a joke.

[2:25:45] I have no reports, hearing no further, we are now going to adjourn

[2:25:50] at 7.29, the meeting of the Board of County Commission is voting.

[2:26:05] The opinion is expressed by any member of the public during any period of public comment.

[2:26:10] Do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the Board of County Commissioners

[2:26:14] of the Board of County Florida, Space Coast Government Television, or the program sponsor

[2:26:18] at our solely those in the presenter.

[2:26:21] The Board of County Commissioners of the Board of County Florida, Space Coast Government Television,

[2:26:24] And the program's sponsor, hereby expressly disclaiming any and all responsibility or liability, or need to

[2:26:30] Fammatory or slander its statements expressed by any member of the public during any such period.

Brevard County Commissioners BOCC Zoning

Agenda

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