Good morning and welcome to Brevard County's Board of County Commissioners meeting. Today is October 21, 2014. Today will have the
indication by District 3, and also the pledge of allegiance by District 5. If commissioner and
continue, would like to introduce? Yes, I would. If Rabbi Joel Fox with Temple Beth Shalom, please
come forward. And he has a little something for us. And if you'd like to tell us a little bit about your
temple before you get started. And if everybody would rise, please.
Good morning. I'm Rabbi Joel Fox from Temple Beth Shalom, a conservative
congregation at 5995 North Wickham Road. Thank you very much for having us. We're happy to be
part of the community and help in any way we can. Let our eyes be opened. Let us be a
wake and see the beauty that surrounds us. Let us be thankful for our good health and for this
day that we have been given for its blessings, its opportunities. As we gather here today,
we pray that we are ever mindful of our commitments to render our service to fellow citizens,
to our community and to our country. Keeping in mind always the enduring values of life,
exerting our efforts in those areas, and on those things upon which future generations
can build with confidence. Let us continue to strive to make our world a better place.
Amen. While the storm clouds gather far across the sea, let us swear allegiance to a land that's free.
Let us all be grateful for a land so fair as we raise our voices in a solemn prayer.
God bless America, land that I love, stand beside her and guide her through the night
with the light from above, from the mountains, to the prairies, to the oceans,
white with foam, God bless America, my home sweet home, God bless America, my home sweet home.
Thank you.
Please join me in the pleasure of our flight. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America
and to the Republic of which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.
Thank you very much.
We will now have the approval of the minutes for September 9th, 2014.
I have the motion by Commissioner Nelson, second by Commissioner Anderson. All in favor please say aye.
Anyone opposed? Passes 5-0.
Going into our resolutions and presentations, Mr. Stockton Witton, you have the first one.
Chair and members of the board, Margie Collins, who is the county's brave volunteer coordinator.
We'll lead you through this item. This is the volunteer recognition initiative.
Good morning. Once again, I want to thank you so much for having us here and giving us an opportunity to celebrate and recognize the many, many hundreds of volunteers that we have in the county that worked side by side with our staff.
This morning, the department that is recognizing an exception of volunteers, the MIMS, Scott's more public library.
And the volunteer will be introduced this morning by the Library Area Director, Susan Shemula.
Good morning. In fiscal year 2012, 2013, library services had over 7,000 volunteers who donated 76,000,
846 hours to making the libraries in Brevard County successful. These dedicated volunteers make it possible for us to offer all of the services that we offer to the public.
One of these outstanding volunteers is Esther Volpius. She was instrumental in helping to establish the MIMS, Scott's more library. She worked at the library from 1998 to 2002, first in circulation and then is the secretary.
Since Esther retired, however, she hasn't abandoned us, she's volunteered in technical services at the library, where she read these donations and purchased items for the shelf.
She's been a member of the Friends of the MIMS, Scott's more library since that organization began.
Esther has held the Office of Secretary and Treasurer and helps with the book sales. Her volunteer services are not limited to the library. She also volunteers at the North Brevard Historical Society Museum twice a week and has been a member of their board for five years.
We are very grateful to Esther for all the services she provides to our library.
Thank you. It's a real pleasure to be here. I want you all the time on TV, so I see a lot of familiar faces. Thank you for this honor. I appreciate it.
Thank you. Thank you.
And again, congratulations.
I have a resolution. It's Barbara near here. Yes, I feel please come forward. This is in recognition of the month declaring the month of November is pancreatic cancer awareness month.
It's very hard to detect it and it's important that you recognize the symptoms early in order to increase your chances of success.
Whereas in 2014, an estimated 46,420 people will be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in the United States and 39,590 will die from the disease.
Whereas pancreatic cancer is one of the deadliest cancers is currently the fourth leading cause of cancer death in the United States and is projected to become the second 520.
Whereas pancreatic cancer is the only major cancer with a five year relative survival rate in the single digits and at least 6%.
As when symptoms of pancreatic cancer present themselves, it is generally late stage and 73% of pancreatic cancer patients die within the first year of their diagnosis while 94% of cancer patients die within the first 5 years.
Whereas approximately 2890 deaths will occur in Florida in 2014.
And the cancer research at recalp could train cancer research act was signed into law in 2013, which calls on the National Cancer Institute to develop a scientific framework or strategic plans for pancreatic cancer and other deadly cancers which will help provide the strategic direction and guidance needed to make true progress.
And whereas the pancreatic cancer action network is the National Organization serving the pancreatic cancer community in Bernard County and nationwide through a comprehensive approach that includes public policy research funding, patient services and public awareness and education related to developing effective treatments and for cure for pancreatic cancer.
Whereas the pancreatic cancer action network and its affiliates in Brevard County support those patients currently battling pancreatic cancer as well as those who have lost their lives to the disease and are committed to nothing less than a cure.
Whereas the good health and well-being of the residents of Brevard County are enhanced as a direct result of increased awareness about pancreatic cancer and research into early detection causes and effective treatments.
And having lost a family member, my mother-in-law passed away from that, that is why I'm always honored to read this one because it has a true place in my heart for it.
Therefore it be resolved that the Board of County Commissioners of Brevard County Florida does hereby designate November 2014 as pancreatic cancer awareness month in Brevard County done ordered and adopted in regular session this 21st day of October 2014.
I make the motion.
I have a motion by Commissioner Fentini, do I have a second.
Second by Commissioner Anderson, all in favor please state I.
Anyone opposed passes five zero.
Thank you. You can say a few words.
Thank you.
On behalf of the Center Florida affiliate of the pancreatic cancer action network, I want to thank you for the opportunity to be here today to accept this proclamation.
I'm here because I have lost a breadth of sister-in-law and an uncle to pancreatic cancer.
I myself am a four and a half year survivor.
So this has special meaning for me.
In proclaiming November as pancreatic cancer awareness month, you are assisting us in making the public aware of this disease and it's truly lethal nature.
Working together with you, we hope to continue to raise awareness to support patients and their families and raise the funds to find the cure both through individual contributions and federal funding and legislation.
Thank you so very much for your support.
Thank you.
Our next resolution will also be by Commissioner Infantini.
This is the week of the family and I believe Doug Samuels and John Wifthley.
And Marlee Dunn.
I finally get to read this one.
Okay, whereas America's character begins in the home where children learn the proper standards of conduct and values and whereas families provide children with the encouragement, support,
and love that they need to become confident, compassionate and successful members of society.
And whereas we must work together to promote and preserve the health and security of our families by upholding the timeless values sustained in our society.
And whereas by working together to strengthen our families, we build a nation of hope and opportunity for all.
And whereas parents should be the most prominent and active figures in their children's lives, recognizing that by spending more family time together, they can develop positive and open relationships with their children that will allow them to better encourage their children and encourage them to make positive choices.
Now, therefore it be resolved that the Brevard County Commission does hereby proclaim November 2nd through November 8th, 2014 week of the family and Brevard and urges all residents to spend quality time with family members to strengthen relationships between parents and their children.
One ordered and adopted this 21st day of October 2014.
I make the motion.
I have a motion by Commissioner of Intini's second.
Bye everybody.
All in favor please say hi.
I want anyone opposed.
Congratulations.
Passes.
Five zero.
Go ahead and take Anderson.
You can say a few words.
We would like to thank the Commission for approving this resolution and especially Commissioner Infantini for sponsoring the week of the family.
We thank the commissioners for the numerous years that we have been able to do this.
I would like to introduce John Whitney from our family.
This year there will be another family fun fest in Rockledge and we will have rock climbing and two bounce houses.
We found we needed two bounce houses because the little ones just couldn't quite keep up with the bigger kids.
So that should be fun.
So be horseback riding, piety and contests, chilly contests.
And we believe that it is important for families to take time to have fun and to enjoy each other.
It has become a tradition that John Whitney and the family history center prepare a family history for a commissioner and this year.
We would like gracefully like to give one to Commissioner Infantini.
And John, if you'd like to say a few words about her family history.
Your family were some of the earliest pioneers.
And...
In the New World, as early as the early 1600s in New York, they even named a town in Long Island
for where they came from. A town is known as Brooklyn. Spelled absolutely differently.
This research we've done represents your heritage from England, which you probably already know
about Germany, the Netherlands, and your Native American history that you didn't know about.
It's been a great pleasure. We've had fun. There's a great deal here and there's a great deal more.
That can be done. Thank you for the opportunity.
I'd like to let you know that Mr. Whitney came to my office and asked for any background that I could provide him.
And I provided him with some background, but I can't tell you, as well as I definitely can't tell you because I didn't know it was in there.
But I can't tell you how hard he works to find out all the information background information on your family's side.
I just can't wait to look at it and see what my family holds in store for me. Maybe to explain some of my actions up here.
All right, this is another one.
That's right, this is fitting one and another baby, Annie Brown.
Commissioner Nelson.
It's my pleasure to read a resolution today for America Recycles.
And if I could have Yuri Rodriguez Hillary and keep from our staff, come forward.
I understand Mr. Sasso is out of town not available today, so you get to fill in.
Well, I'm sorry I couldn't harass him.
I'll read the resolution.
We're as provar county recognizes the importance of protecting and preserving our natural resources and adopting conscientious habits that will improve our daily lives and bring a clear
safer, I'm sorry, cleaner, safer and more sustainable environment.
And whereas, although there has been a significant increase in the amount of recycling and provar county to date,
we must also continue to focus on other initiatives such as waste reduction, composting,
the reuse of products and materials and purchasing recycle products.
And whereas, to focus the nation's attention on the importance of recycling businesses,
schools, government agencies, nonprofit organizations and individuals have joined together to celebrate
America Recycles day 2014, and further encourage their neighbors,
friends and co-workers to learn more about recycling and the benefits of recycling.
Whereas, provar county leaders can help raise awareness about recycling and informing citizens about recycling options,
and encourage the need to expand collections programs by promoting the benefits of recycling investment for businesses.
And whereas, it is important that all provar county citizens become involved in recycling activities,
and learn more about the many recycled and recyclable products available to them.
As consumers, it is also fitting for provar county to celebrate American Recycles day,
and take action by educating citizens and recycling programs available in our community.
Now, therefore, bear resolve, the Board of County Commissioners for provar county Florida, this hereby proclaim,
November 15, 2014, as America Recycles day in provar county, done and adopted in regular session 21st day of October.
That would be the resolution.
Motion by Commissioner Nelson, second by Commissioner Fisher, all in favor, please state aye.
Any one opposed? Pass us five zero. Congratulations.
On behalf of, uh, keep America beautiful and keep provar beautiful and also in partnership with provar county parks and wrecks.
We'd like to thank you for the proclamation.
America's Recycles day is going to be held at Kwanis Island on November 15.
It's going to be from 3 to 7 p.m., we encourage everyone to come out there, as we look forward to working with everyone to make a difference in our community.
Thank you.
We're just like to thank the citizens and the commission for all their recycling efforts as we move on to the next year.
We have met our goal for 2013, 52% is what provar county is recycling and it is ahead of the state goal, which is to recycle 50% by the end of 2014.
So I'd like to commend everybody on our citizens for their recycling efforts and look forward to more recycling awareness programs. Thank you.
Thank you.
That concludes our resolutions and presentations.
That commissioners, I'm going to bring an item forward off the agenda. 5c1 and this is for our decision, our lobbyists.
Since it's going to be a valid decision, I would like to go ahead and pass out the ranking sheets and then we would be able to get a tally on that.
If we have a clear winner, then we would be able to release everyone on that early in the meeting, because I'm sure everyone is seeing the agenda, it's going to be very full today.
And if we have a question or we have a very close ranking, then we will then keep that on the agenda at the time it's going to be and have the presentation by the lobbyists firms.
So at this time I'd like to go ahead and pass out the ballot.
Please note that ranking number one is the highest.
So are we going to be selecting the person that wins the highest number or how are you going to determine if there's a runoff?
Because I know I was surprised by this the last time this happened.
If there is a tie, then we will do the presentations of the people who are in the tie and then we will re-rank them again.
So only there's a tie, not a third.
Correct.
Okay.
One is the highest.
Number one pick would be the number one winning agency.
Okay, if stocked on if you'd like to collect them.
Just for the work we're going to see if we want the announcement ballot.
It's just for the record on the experiment management in I think Ron book is also part of that teamL see his name actually on the ballot.
But I'm assuming that that's
combination of those two.
Okay.
As soon as we turn them all in, then we'll continue with consent as they tabulate for us.
Although it would be wonderful to keep all six consulting firms here to see what a meeting is like.
That's exactly right.
Commissioner Nelson, we're afraid they're going to change the mind.
Okay.
We're now looking at consent.
Commissioners, there's anything on consent that you would like to pull.
I would like to vote no on two C2.
And I would like to pull two C3, C4 and D2.
Okay.
No on two C2 by Commissioner Ventini.
And then pull two C3, two C4 and two D2.
Right.
Any other from the commissioners?
Okay.
Mr. Stockton, is anything that you wanted to pull off consent?
I don't think we have any pools.
We're going to make clarification on the process associated with two C2.
We went over some items in a couple of briefings there.
If we could just move that to the end of the meeting, we'll make a clarification on the process.
So two C2, we will discuss later in the meeting then.
Or after we process the rest of the consent.
Also, I apologize there.
Two other items.
Three D2.
We would ask that when you get there that you table that to the November 6 meeting.
This will be under public hearings.
Three D.
Maybe I'm not understanding that correctly.
Three D under public hearings.
Okay.
So we would like to move that to the next meeting.
Also item 5F4, which is the CRA City of Cocoa Diamonds Square.
We'd ask that that be removed from the agenda.
We'll put that back on.
I think November 25th.
Or some some later meeting.
Okay.
That was under new business F4.
5F4.
Commissioner Nelson, you had a question?
Yeah.
I think three D needs to be continued.
Was that advertised as a public hearing?
Sorry.
I think we need a specific meeting.
You have to continue to November 6th.
Okay.
November 6th.
Number 6.
Yes, ma'am.
Okay.
That concludes our.
Changes.
You got to have them all.
Okay.
I'll move the consent agenda.
With those changes.
I have a motion by Commissioner Nelson.
Seconded by Commissioner.
I'm a teeny all in favor.
Please state aye.
Aye.
Anyone opposed.
Passes 5-0.
First item that was on the consent agenda.
The consent agenda to court discussion was to see three.
This item is approving the advertising media plan and authorizing the TDC executive director to negotiate some contracts.
I would like to put this off until the new director takes office and let him start making some decisions on that.
Right now I haven't been all that happy with the marketing plan.
I've seen some advertisements, some billboards.
For instance, when I'm traveling south on I-95 that'll say,
Brevard Zoo.
Well, before I moved to Brevard County in 1990, I didn't know where Brevard was.
I could be driving through it and I didn't even know what Brevard County was.
And I don't think I'm alone.
I think a lot of people travel I-95 without knowing which county they're in.
They might know what city, but they don't know county by county.
So I-I'm just not that impressed with the marketing plan.
So I'd like to pull this one until the new director takes office and let him make some changes.
Okay.
I do have a light with Commissioner Fisher.
I think the marketing committee, which really does them to the study that marketing from TDC a lot more than I know I do personally.
And I think the plan and place the new director can change it if he doesn't like it at any point in time.
And his tenure, I think it's going to take him a little time to get up and go.
And so the proven some type of plan today to keep marketing to county.
I think it's important to make a motion for approval.
I've a motion by Commissioner Fisher, do I have a second.
Second.
Second by Commissioner Nelson.
All in favor, please state aye.
Aye.
Anyone opposed?
Aye.
Passes four.
One.
Next item that was pulled is two.
The four.
To see four is where the advertising agency that represents the tourist development council had a contract with Bavard County.
And the contract agreed to spend $80,000 per year for a fixed amount.
Broken into quarterly installments.
And then up to 18,000 out of pocket expenses.
They exceeded that by $8900.
There is also an requirement that they submit their invoices within about 30 days.
Some of the invoices that there's submitting go back six months, nine months.
And they're attributing the overage to currency exchange translation.
And frankly, if you're in the tourism industry, I would think that you would understand that there's a currency translation factor.
So that you would budget that and if you're not able to budget that perhaps.
You may want to think about getting into a different line of work where you do understand.
How currency goes. So, I'm not in favor of approving the extra $8,900, but I'll leave it up to my peers.
Excuse me?
Mr. Barley?
Yes. Commissioner, it's first of all. It's not an advertising agency. The contract before you is a contract for a sales representation in the UK and the European
market. They've been on contract for the last three years, I believe, and they've done a great job for us.
I will tell you that we work for almost 10 years in the UK market trying to get into all the major tour operator books and, you know, marketing our area and trying to get them to sell it.
These guys within the span of two years managed to get us into every one of those books including Virgin tours, which is the big daddy, and you can talk to a lot of our hotels on the beaches, up and down the beaches.
They're generating a lot of business for them, and so the value of this contract is enormous.
We estimate that the last time we did research, the international market, the overseas international market, the UK and Germany are two biggest markets, and combined equal about $70 million in economic input into this area.
And I believe that probably about 20% of that business is a direct result of these efforts and in my staff's efforts. So yes, we did go over budget on this, so we didn't anticipate the drastic changes in the fluctuation of the currency.
We have adjusted that in recommending the new contract and making adjustments for that, and we think it's a fair contract, and we think going forward will be very successful.
I should also point out that this contract is associated with Kennedy Space Center, and they're very happy with what they've done out there, and I will tell you that Kennedy Space Center does almost 50% of their business is international.
So it's a very important company. Try to us.
Give us your opportunity. File by Commissioner Fisher.
Thank you, Mr. Bradley. My question is, I'm sorry, if somebody is not able to calculate the currency translation, knowing that they are entitled to 18,000 out of pocket expenses,
I think that they should better understand budgeting and not come to me after the fact, and so that's, I think it's a little bit late.
But also, continually, my offices asked for some statistics as to how many specifically heads and beds we've received out of say the European market, and we never get that type of data back to know that to quantify what's our return on investment.
And while I appreciate you telling me that, you know, they've done a tremendous result effort. I haven't seen it quantified, so how can I know how many people are actually staying here as a result of their efforts? Is there any way that we decide that we're going to quantify that, so we know whether or not we're receiving a return on our investment?
Well, actually we do research on a regular basis, and we actually track the reunites, and we could provide you with that report from ignite or the contractor, after the next TVC meeting, I'll be glad to provide you with an updated report.
The last time we looked at our research, as I indicated, we're almost 12 to 14% of our businesses international of which about 6%, 7% is that business side of the UK in Germany area, and just the calculations alone.
If you take the calculations of the precedents of that business, and look at 2.5 million overnight rooms, which we know we do have, you're looking at probably over 170,000 roommates a year.
So I think that's pretty good statistics right there.
Do you have the numbers from beforehand, because we've actually asked for this in the past, so I'm glad to see that it's being generated now, although I'm sure it wasn't able to receive it before, but if we could get that, that'll be fine.
Mr. Fisher.
I just want to comment on how to talk to Mr. Whitton about having some type report.
I have a good understanding exactly what the return on investment is, as we make this form travel and stuff in the future.
So I think that's something that Mr. Whitton is going to be watching closely with that.
I'm making a motion for approval.
I'm a motion by Commissioner Fisher. Do I have a second?
Second by Commissioner Nelson. All in favor, please state aye.
Anyone opposed?
Four one. Commissioner Infantini.
The next item on the consent was 2D2, and commissioners on this, we would need to have a super vote.
Motion for approval.
I have a motion by Commissioner Fisher, second by Commissioner Nelson. All in favor, please state aye.
All opposed?
Passes four one.
Mr. Whitton, did you want to go to 2C2 at this time?
We'll do it at the end of the meeting.
Okay.
That ends the consent agenda, so we will now go into our public hearings.
We do have a time certain at 10, but we have about 30 minutes.
Okay, 3A.
This is a request to vacate a portion of the public maintenance and utility easement for the construction of a pool
and a deck there and no objections.
We'll go through.
I have a motion by Commissioner Fisher, second by Commissioner Nelson. All in favor, please state.
Commissioner Infantini.
I wanted to comment on this one because I'm in favor of it just to see you know.
But gosh, about three years ago, we were presented with a similar item.
And the people's name was Hon, I think, and they Hannah.
Sorry, they came before asking for the very same thing, and this board voted to not approve it.
I would just like to encourage the board to have a little more consistency and less special interest,
but I'm sure that'll happen moving forward.
So I just want to point out the inconsistency.
All those in favor?
Mentor.
Yes.
Mr. Nelson.
This one is absolutely nothing like the one that she's referring to because there was an issue.
There was actually litigation between the parties.
It was two different plats bumping up against each other where it was actually settled in court.
So, Commissioner, this isn't inconsistent.
It was actually determining court on that one.
So, you know, if you want to point out that there was a vacation that was requested at that time that's fine,
but they were absolutely nothing alike.
Right.
There was a vacation and they put their boathouse in their dock over a vacated piece of property that had
piping that for our county had on it on a canal and they had to remove their boathouse.
So subsequently, to us not approving the vacating, then they had to remove their boathouse.
So I just wanted to...
I just wanted to...
You're wrong.
But you're wrong.
It's usual.
But if you keep being in it, it doesn't make it true.
Commissioner, that issue was settled in court.
Right.
But you can hear what was settled in court to this.
It was settled by a judge.
They were found not in compliance by our own code enforcement folks.
And you're comparing that to a simple vacation on the back of a waterfront property.
They are nothing alike.
They are very much alike, but that's okay.
Hey, I have a motion on the floor.
All in favor, please state aye.
Aye.
Those opposed.
Pass us 5-0.
Next item is...
Let's go to the next item.
And then we will have the results.
Oh, they vote.
Make a motion for approval.
Second.
I have a motion by Commissioner Fisher.
Second by Commissioner Fontini.
The card I have is for questions.
Only so with Commissioner will move forward.
All in favor, please state aye.
Aye.
Any one opposed?
Pass us 5-0.
Mr. Wooden, would you like to read the results of the labis?
Mrs. Roll, the reading is going to take you through that.
Madam Chair.
Thank you.
All right, good morning.
Okay, the results for the rankings.
We had six firms that did submit proposals for the lobbyist services.
And I'm going to give you the rankings.
One through six.
The ranking number one is from Ron Book, Guy Sparman.
Number two is from Pennington.
Number three ranking is Bryant Miller Oliver, Dixie Sansim.
Number four ranking is began at Buchanan, Ingersol, and Rooney.
Fowler, White, and Bugs.
Number five is from the advocacy group.
And number six is from Capitol Alliance group.
From those rankings, we have a clear decision.
Yes, clear.
You did have four number one rankings for your number one firm, which is Ron Book, Guy Sparman.
I have a motion by Commissioner Anderson.
Do I have a second by Commissioner Fisher.
All in favor, please state aye.
Aye.
Anyone opposed?
Pass us 5-0.
Congratulations.
And we will be working you very hard.
Madam Chair, can we also get authorization to negotiate contract.
County manager County attorney.
I have a motion by Commissioner Anderson to add that to his.
And the second.
Approved.
Commissioner Nelson.
One of the things I'd like to recommend is in the negotiations that the contract be based on calendar.
Or on fiscal year, not calendar year.
Because legislative session typically starts heating up in November.
And this way, we will always have a lot of guests on board with a current contract instead of kind of in a no man's land.
So moving forward when you guys should.
The motion has been amended.
All in favor of the.
Commissioner Fisher.
If you do that, there are.
Since we're in October.
20th.
We give them 11 up contract.
We give them an annual contract.
Is it important as a salary for a year?
I just want to be clear about.
Mr. Widen.
I just think we'd get three months free.
Okay.
All in favor.
There is some overlap because Mr. Book is also on the current contract.
And so I think we can work it out to where it will start October first.
Okay.
But there is overlap there.
The contract will overlap but the payment is not an issue.
I don't think.
Okay.
Sounds great.
And thank you to all the firms who applied.
The resumes and their proposals were outstanding from everyone.
And we just had to narrow down and make a decision for us.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
All in favor of the amended motion say I.
Anyone opposed passes five zero.
Thank you.
Our next item is going to be three.
C.
Commissioners this item is a vacating request to correct a.
Previously in error committed or accepted to easement.
That occurred in the mid and late 90s.
The petitioner was never had donated the property for the easement.
That we needed for the retention pond that we now have.
But it was not his intent to donate the remainder of the property.
So this vacating would just correct this error that took place previously.
And there are no objections to it.
I have a motion by Commissioner Fisher.
Second by Commissioner Anderson all in favor please state I.
Anyone opposed passes five zero.
The next item we had already decided to move that to November the 6th.
Item E as an Edward.
I have a motion by Commissioner Fisher.
Second by Commissioner Anderson all in favor please state I.
Anyone opposed.
Next item.
I have a motion by Commissioner Nelson to I.
Second by Commissioner Fisher.
All in favor please state I.
Anyone opposed.
Just me passes for one commissioner and continue.
Item.
I have a motion by Commissioner Fisher.
Do I have a second?
I have a second by Commissioner Anderson.
All in favor discussion commissioner and continue.
Item three G.
Is an item out of housing in human services and it is going to be deleting an ordinance from the
be deleting an ordinance from the Vard County's books that deals with having country acres,
home, it's a home for children that have been abused and neglected.
What have you?
Anyway, it's taking that off of our books and it's going to save the county probably a
million dollars per year.
And although I am known as the Type-Wad on the Budget, this is one place that I actually
believe in spending money.
So for that reason, I am not in favor of this ordinance.
I have a motion on the floor, all in favor, please state I, anyone opposed?
Passes 4-1, Commissioner and Petini.
The next item.
With the golf carts, and I do have cards on that.
Ms. Sabrina, good morning Madam Chair and members of the Commission. This ordinance was brought forward
at the direction of the board at the request of the Vierre Company to allow for additional
card golf cart passage on some of the right of ways.
Commissioners, I do have cards on this.
Jeff Worsick, would you like to come forward please? Jeff Barnett and then Jay DeKater.
Sure, what you all to be doing is giving your name and address and then I'll be giving the light that says five minutes.
Okay.
My name is Jeff Barrett. I'm a Vierre resident here at 3680 Brunaut Circle.
And would just like to say that I'm in favor of this change in ordinance.
And it's for the betterment of the Vierre area. Thank you.
Thank you.
Jeff Barrett, same.
Good morning.
Jeff Bursick, 3147 Cortona Drive.
I also am in favor of this ordinance change.
I think it's great for the community.
I think it promotes something that we're all interested in.
And that's a place for our families to grow up and we're trying to bring more people to this area.
I think it's good for small business.
And again, I'm in full support of this.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Mr. Jay DeKater.
Good morning.
My name is Jay DeKater.
My address is 7380 Morrell Road, Vierre Florida.
I'm in half legal counsel for the Vierre company.
And I'm here on behalf of the Vierre company and the residents of Vierre,
who seek clarity on where and how golf carts may lawfully be used in Vierre.
I appeared before the board back in August.
I asked asking on behalf of the Vierre company that consider
amending the ordinance to provide that clarity.
In the weeks since that time County staff has worked with input from the Vierre company
to prepare the ordinance as before you today.
The Vierre company agrees that this ordinance has clarified
where and how you can use a golf cart in Vierre.
And that's clarity is consulted by both owners and non-owners of golf carts in Vierre.
As such, we support the revised ordinance and urge the commission to approve its adoption.
Thank you, sir.
I do want to one notation that we do have.
We're back to normal Mr. Bill Ellis is back in the audience.
But no card.
Commissioner Fisher, your light followed by Commissioner Nelson.
I think it's great that we get some clarity.
Only thing I've got a little concern about.
If anybody else does the, when you look at what the who can drive this golf cart,
it's based on a 316 statute to 0.212.
That is a 14 year old.
So, you're just sharing that up there.
And if you come to one comfortable, why do you have a little concern on me?
I assume a kid that 13 is mom going to let him drive to.
You know, say you've almost 14, you know, means, so I think you're some.
But, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and talk in the staff of the dead, and I know that.
I made some sense.
Having a, a timeline, you can come back and look at this.
And a year or something, you think it's, you know, but not my might going to.
If, if I can answer, uh, Commissioner Fisher, I think this is something that's going to be continually looked at.
This is our first step forward to, to, to bring some clarity to it.
But I think that it will be always looked at.
Can I know that you started driving when you were eight, so I'm somewhat confused.
That's why I, that's when I went down the sort.
Commissioner Nelson, Bob, Commissioner Anderson.
Well, I had same concerns, uh, because we all drive through here.
We get to see sometimes some abuse of that.
And I, I hope that it is monitored because, uh, I don't know,
Phil softly ever problem.
I just think that sometimes those that are driving these things are not courteous.
And, uh, kind of ruin it for everyone else, but, um, I'm willing to go forward
at least see how it works for a period of time.
Commissioner Anderson.
Okay.
Beautiful approval.
I have a motion by Commissioner Fisher.
Second by Commissioner Nelson.
All in favor, please state I.
Anyone opposed.
Pass this five zero.
Okay.
Item.
Awesome district.
Four.
And I do have, uh, some cards on that, too.
Mr. Brown.
Good morning.
Commissioner.
Which had before you is a, uh, public interest determination for a wetland impact,
for a commercial property.
It's, uh, known as showwork member care.
We applied, uh, the new wetland policies to this, uh, particular development.
And it was determined that the wetlands that were being proposed to be impacted were not
high functionally.
However, the wetlands themselves were greater than five acres, uh, which requires a board
evaluation of it.
They are not considered high functioning wetlands.
And this meets all the criteria, uh, set forth by the board in policy for your approval.
Okay.
I have four questions only, but we do have Commissioner Nelson.
You know, as I kind of a first test, I think this has worked out the way we envision
that working out.
So, uh, when it's appropriate, I will make a motion to approve.
Okay.
Sorry.
I have a motion by Commissioner Nelson.
Second by Commissioner Anderson.
Uh, and uh, Sounders.
Did you want to say anything at this time or were moving forward?
Okay.
Smart gown.
Okay.
All in favor.
Please state.
Anyone opposed passes five zero.
Okay.
We'll now go to item J. We can get that in before time, certain.
Commissioners, if I could, uh, the LPA voted to table this item at their meeting yesterday
to their January LPA meeting.
As you're well aware, uh, per Florida statute, the LPA, as your advisory board,
has the ability to table an item once, um, before the Board of County Commissioners,
considering it, um, from, from them.
So, uh, this is within their authority to table this.
Uh, again, they've taken it to the January LPA meeting.
We would like to, uh, schedule this to a time certain on February 5th, which would give, uh,
the boards some time between the LPA and their meeting to consider the conversation and
proposed changes at the LPA may bring forth.
I'd also like to share one last, um, aspect of the LPA's conversation yesterday.
As you're aware of this item, sought to align the Florida building code with our local building code,
as it relates to finished floor elevation.
Uh, lot drainage techniques, uh, the amount of, uh, of fall and degrees of fall that we have in our
swells and our lots of coming away from our house pads to improve community performance.
And the LPA was also interested in us not just looking at the soils analysis that this ordinance, uh,
suggests that the code, look at, but also some permeability of, of soil.
So, we are going to bring this back to you in February with some attempts at also ensuring that soils are permeable,
the way that we would like to ensure that the lots perform the way that we would expect them to.
So, what you're asking is that we, uh, vote to move it to the February 5th Board meeting.
Yes, please.
Second.
I have a motion by Commissioner Anderson.
Second by Commissioner Nelson.
All in favor, please state I.
Anyone opposed?
Passes 5-0.
Looking at the sack of cards for the time certain, uh, we're going to take a six minute break.
So, the commissioners can get ready for the next item.
Thank you.
And we are back at the Brevard County Board of County Commissioners, today being October 21, 2014.
The adding that we have now is going to be 5F-2, and Mr. Stockton Whitney, if you will set them stage.
Madam Chair, and members of the Board, this is a request of the Florida Development Finance Court.
And so Mr. Joe Stanton, who is the legal counsel for the corporation, will come and overview the item for you.
Good morning, sir.
Madam Chair, commissioners, good morning, Joe Stanton.
I'm serving as General Counsel to Florida Development Finance Corporation.
And I'll just refer to them as FDFC and the shortness up a little bit. FDFC was established by the legislature in 1993.
And it's primary purposes provide conduit financing for capital projects that enhance economic activity and employment opportunities in the state.
Recently, AA Holdings, LLC, which I'll call all aboard Florida, has applied to FDFC to provide conduit financing for a rail project, portions of which will be located in Brevard County.
For our county and FDFC have had an interlocal agreement in place since 1998,
pursuant to which FDFC's previously provided conduit financing for other projects located in Brevard County.
The current in a local agreement limits the principal amount of bonds issued to not exceed $7.5 million.
We're before the commission today to seek the commission's approval to amend the interlocal agreement to permit FDFC to issue bonds
for the purpose of financing the portion of the AAF project located in Brevard County.
FDFC is agreed to pay 100% of its fees attributable to the portion of the AAF project in Brevard County as a waiver fee and connection with this amendment.
The approval of the proposed amendment is limited solely to the financing of the project by FDFC.
It does not impact any other approval rights that the county may have with respect to the project and the bond documents of the financing will expressly state that Brevard County has no responsibility for the project.
The proposed financing would be through the issuance of private activity bonds that are sold to private investors.
It will have a minimum denomination of $100,000 to ensure that it goes to sophisticated investors and there will be no state or local funds that would be pledged to repay the bonds.
FDFC Board is provided its initial approval for this transaction and respectfully request your approval to propose the amendment.
Thank you, sir.
Commissioners, we have many cards on this.
So if Mr. Whitten, are we ready to start doing the public comment on it?
Okay, if I can have come forward, Mr. John Walsh, Ms. Debbie Harvey, Mr. Tom Hermenson, you will come to the podium please.
If you would state your name and address.
John Walsh, 425, Pierce, Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Commissioners, it's nice to be on this side of the podium instead of the other and I appreciate the opportunity to come.
I represent Canaveral Port Authority.
Our commissioner will speak later today and talk about a resolution they passed in support of all board fora.
But my appeal today is about alternative transportation.
The port is involved in the intermodal business.
Moving cargo has been a big part of our push, but we can't forget that cruise passengers are a very large growing cruise business.
It is integral to the Barbarne County.
This year the port has had 4.2 million cruise passenger movements were number two in the world for cruise and indeed it makes Barbarne County a destination.
Flight power, air power is very limited and you would be amazed at how many people we get coming to the port from South Florida.
So we are in support of all board fora and we know it's not perfect as it's proposed today but we feel that you can't expand what doesn't exist.
So the port sent the Chairwoman Lewis as well as Stockton Whitten, a letter and we will fund an initial study after all board fora to get moving in order to look at and study where the ideal place for station is in Barbarne County.
The all board fora folks are open to future expansion.
But right now we don't want to get in the way of stopping the EIS and seeing this train exist.
Can tell you that I'm getting up about 430 tomorrow morning to go to Miami again for the fourth time this month for the business that we do with the port.
And I would love to sit on a train and do email and conduct business back and forth.
But that train doesn't exist today so I will be sitting in the car and pulling over whenever I get a text or an email.
So we're very much in support. The port pledges to work with Bob Cam and the TPO to study where a stop makes sense in Barbarne County.
And we would ask that you seriously consider today moving ahead, improving the resolution that's in place before you.
So the Barbarne County can have intermodal facility and we can connect ourselves to the rest of Florida.
Thank you very much.
Thank you sir.
Miss Debbie Harvey.
Good morning.
I'm Debbie Harvey president of runs on the surf shop and as one of as a member of the community and also a member of a business that's been in Barbarne County for over 50 years.
And a member of the state of Florida for as long as I can imagine for little could be a little kid.
I support us moving ahead and getting other modes of transportation for the state.
The state since I have been here has grown dramatically this year will probably welcome close to a hundred million visitors to the state and the roads simply can't keep up.
We need to get started somewhere again.
This is not a perfect solution but I'm in support of all aboard Florida and I think we just must get going both Miami and Orlando are the biggest international airports in the state.
To expect that people coming from out overseas are don't want to use trains don't want to use modes of transportation so if they're used to is is putting our heads in the fan so to speak.
So I think we have to have alternatives to the roads.
We certainly can't make i95 of 14 laying road at some point to handle all the all the people that want to move between Orlando and Miami.
I would support all board floor and I support the resolution.
Thank you Mr Tom Herman.
Good morning.
Tom Herman's in the 30 30 way press drive Pockel Beach Florida.
I represent our partnership ocean partners that offer its five hotels in Pockel Beach with about 250 employees.
We're vested in tourism here in Brevard County and in its economic wall being and growth.
I'm here to just upon that that as a community estate in the nation we need to embrace mass transit as part of the solution to our energy usage and future transportation requirements.
Not doing so ignore some of the most important issues we face today and in years ahead we should especially embrace opportunity for growth of man trans mass transit.
This is provided by private risk capital which is not normally the case with a minimal inputs from the public sector.
From the perspective of tourism I'm looking forward to the day when we can welcome customers to our area from a Brevard train station.
Whether they come from Orlando Airport or from other parts of Florida all aboard a Florida will eventually have a tremendous economic impact on Brevard.
Brevard County should be forward thinking in the approach to mass transit as well as all aboard Florida's proposal for a private endeavor to introduce rail project to central Florida.
We must recognize and appreciate that they're doing this with private resources.
Again, it's highly unusual if you look around the rest of the country especially if you look at how publicly supported so many other rail projects are in other parts of the country.
While everyone's main objective here today is likely that is to get a stop here in Brevard County so that we benefit from the installation of this or the build out of this project.
I believe it's safe to expect especially with the ports help and everybody working together that one day in the near future we will have that stop.
By working together with all aboard and including negotiating the cost of the quiet zones which I believe will ameliorate the biggest concern for most constituents.
We position ourselves to get the benefit of this station sooner rather than later.
In my view all aboard Florida has a right to develop this project on their private property in addition to the fact encouraging privately funded mass transit is the right thing to do.
I don't see that there's any risk to Brevard County and you're moving this motion forward today so I suggest you support it. Thank you very much.
Thank you sir. The next speaker will be Mr. Parish followed by Robert Smith and Mitch.
Robo from Mirad Island.
Good morning everybody. Mayor Henry Parish from the city of Coco and I bring greetings.
I also bring support for me and hopefully my council in the week on the 28th we're going to pass the same morning it's the port has passed.
I like to say a couple of things one is I had you water out in the mezzanine and the water is good.
Of course had a plug that when I can.
Where do we get that water?
I also want to make sure that Mary and Chuck you did a great job serving. I'm here to tell you in less than a month you're going to be off the hot seat.
If you serve in any capacity folks everybody is on the hot seat when you're representing your districts and areas and cities and things.
So a good job. Great job and I'm glad we don't have a whole panel full of attorneys. Sorry Jerry.
But the reason why is it takes all kinds to move a city or county or company and you've done a great job and we love working with you.
We have things we're going to bring up to you in the future.
So our all aboard let me give you a little let me speak Florida because I got suits here behind me in the state.
Probably data you know I just say this in a and we flag alert when he brought the.
Train system in the Florida he was criticized from New York City.
You know.
Scammer and all that he basically raised the money to raise to build the train system through Florida and it was considered a swamp.
Okay so all of us live in that swamp and his dream was to have the key west is the you know the port of the Americas.
Okay well he passed before he completed it all the way but the legacy and the company he left it still here after 124 years is right here.
These people behind me that represent it worked for it.
And my perspective is all they're doing is returning.
Back to their roots which is passionate passenger service and I give you a quick scenario.
My grandfather and his great my great uncle Jesperish and my grandfather Henry.
They contracted with FEC in the early thirties.
Okay to haul fruit from here in New York City because they thought they could make some money.
It turned out exploded and it actually hired a lot of people from the east coast and expanded business 50 or 100fold.
And it put us on the map probably a lot of people that are living here today were lured down here some way shape reform because of those early days but that being said.
You know you can criticize this or not but it's it's an almost perfect scenario for us there is details be worked out.
But I urge you to pass this ordinance. I think it's a visionary thing. Everybody all the visionaries are here. Got their stickers on. Right? And it's it's important. I think down the road, when we're all retired, this will be just another link in the chain of all the things that are happening right now with the port, the space center retooling.
And city of Koko doing what we're doing. I work 24-7 to make it the best city in Florida, and it will be when I'm done. And I'm here to tell you.
Let this happen. Welcome. We're going to succeed together. And my last challenge to the council is this, the commission. This dream to be the best county in the state, the county that everybody looks at is a model.
I know that companies are going to move here in the future because of our train system, because of our people, you know, in our poor and all these things we got going. We're sitting in the sweet spot in history and time.
And I urge you to step forward the visionary and pass this. Thank you very much.
Thank you, sir. Robert Smith.
Morning pressures. My name is Robert Smith. I live in West Melbourne.
I work between 1971 and 2009. I worked as a locomotive engineer for being in a separate way in the Chicago area.
I have extensive experience and passed your operation. They work 26 years as a commuter engineer.
I also worked on Amtrak. Additionally, I was an officer for the brotherhood of locomotive engineers.
I've been involved in disciplinary hearings and accident investigations.
I'm a big fan of passenger trains. I've been a railroader from my entire career.
However, I feel that all aboard Florida is fundamentally flawed.
And some of the reasons have already been expressed in the news media.
But I think the ridership projections are overstated.
I think the benefits of the economy are overstated. However, I know that's typical of any large project.
My primary objection to all aboard Florida, regards safety.
And I think the biggest issue I would take with it would be the fact that there will not be a dedicated right away for the passenger trains.
When trains are running at high speed, specifically passenger trains need their own set of tracks.
In a primary example of this was the accident happened in Chase, Maryland in 1987, where there were four-conrail, light locomotives that collided with the passenger train.
And we had 14 fatalities, multiple injuries.
As a result of that, Amtrak decided to have separate tracks, separate corridor, for passenger trains in the northeast quarter,
which is a high speed operation.
It's also worth noting this accident occurred in the speed of the passenger train with 108 miles per hour.
All aboard Florida is proposing to run trains at 110 miles per hour, essentially the same.
I have a picture here. This is the aftermath of Chase, the collision.
I think it's instructed to look at it and see what can happen when passenger and freight operations are co-mingled.
It's definitely not the way to go. I think high speed operation is definitely viable for Florida.
However, I feel this is not the best proposal, and I think a true high speed operation with dedicated right away for the passenger trains is the only way to go.
So hopefully we can get it right, we don't need to rush it through.
This proposal is flaws. I think eventually though we can get it right, so let's get it right. Thank you.
Thank you, sir. Mitch.
We're all by.
I can do it wasn't quite true in your last name, sir.
We're back here, close.
Mitch, we're back. I'm Merit Allen. I'm also the 2014 President of Space Coast Builders.
Thanks for allowing me to speak this morning.
I'm going to read my notes because I have to read my notes. I won't say what I want to say.
But I've been working this for about six months, and I think a lot of this has been a lot of misinformation in which when I first met,
we first met with the all board of Florida people. There was no no desire or chance that they were going to build a station in Brevard County.
We heard this over and over until I built a group right together and really started pushing back on that.
And then they say, well, maybe at some point we'll do that. Maybe. I'm a business man and I'm all about what's now, what's fact.
I'm not a big believer in ifs, you know, if it's profitable.
We know that there's been no high speed train in the world that's ever been profitable on its own. Never.
So there is no chance if that's the language they're using.
That's not the right language to make this happen.
I've talked to all the community leaders and I have not had one reason why this is good for Brevard County.
I keep hearing that it's going to be in the future or there's nothing.
It's going to take tours and dollars away from us because we'll go from Orlando instead of coming to here.
They'll go to Miami. There's no benefit. My immediate will might come up here.
I'm going to go to Orlando. We miss a lot of stuff. A lot of potential revenue.
And there's a few other reasons that I want to mention here. I'm going to lead these.
Well, I do it property values. Obviously being in real estate we're looking at property values.
It's estimated that property values of homes within a thousand feet of these tracks could drop as much as 20% in the valuations.
That's a huge issue.
Trust. Obviously.
Increasing train traffic from 14 trains a day which we currently have 46 trains a day.
That's going to hamper emergency services going across the tracks.
Again, another issue for our citizens.
It does not bring any jobs to Brevard County.
When we're told they told us that it would be hiring local crews to build the tracks.
We're going to train a brand new crew every time you move into a new area.
They're not going to change the new crew for real beach.
They're going to have a crew that's going to put together.
And yes, they might hide that three people because two people call it a sick that day.
We have to maintain all the crossings.
Again, there's a lot of money out the door for what we don't want to support.
Again, no plans to stop in Brevard County.
That's really my biggest thing.
If there's a stop for Brevard County, at least even though there's other issues of factors,
at least it'd be a benefit for us.
It'd be jobs created to be as if spoken, having tours and come to us.
But I'm not sure where the hotels and the poor think they're going to get people coming from.
There's no one's going to go from Miami to Orlando, Brent to Carr, and come over to Brevard County.
It's not going to happen.
That's all I have to say. Thank you.
We're going to be having Benjamin.
Hop finger followed by ginger, knocks, Jerry,
calendar.
That's on the next street.
Good morning.
Benjamin Hop finger, 760, El Dorado Parkway.
I recently, a plantation floor.
Thank you.
Well, I recently graduated from the University of Miami,
so I am very aware of the traveling challenges that face most college kids.
And, you know, they have told me kids that go to UCF and the University of Miami that it's very difficult.
And they don't go home a lot because of the traffic and just all of the problems that face on the roads.
And I know several, several kids at both of those schools,
and they have said that if there is a train service that goes to and from Miami and Orlando that they would use that.
And this would take cars off the road, including in Brevard County.
And this would also take millions, you know, over the course of, you know, several years.
Thank you.
Thank you, sir.
Thank you.
I'm not here to say one way or another if the road is good or not.
Obviously it's bad for me because I don't too properties it about it.
But, you know, I'd like it to be good for me.
I'd like to have quiet zones and I'd like to have the protections that all aboard has promised us.
My issue here is the resolution and why it's being heard now.
I'm not sure why it would be heard before the impact city is completed as to how it's going to actually impact our citizens of Brevard County,
of the people who are next to the tracks who have the vibration impacts and noise impacts.
And I'm also not sure why the resolution wouldn't include something about quiet zones.
I mean, why are we only including something about the seven year maintenance costs?
The quiet zones are what we really want, everything that I've heard in all the meetings that I've attended, it's all about quiet zones.
So I would be giving them the one thing we have control over, which is this resolution.
We have control over nothing else as far as I can see.
So I would be giving them that without asking for the one thing that we all want, which is quiet zones.
Thank you.
Mr. Jerry Allender.
Following Mr. Allender will be Martha Wichert, Kate Copner and Terry Fulton.
Good morning.
Thank you, Madam Chairman and members of the Commission.
It's my pleasure to be here before you.
I'm Jerry Allender.
I'm Vice Chairman of the Canaveral Port Authority.
I'm also chairman of the Space Coast Area Transportation Training Organization.
But maybe let me say I'm not here as a spokesman for the TPO.
However, I haven't served on the TPO for several years.
Now the TPO is closely followed by all Florida projects.
It first was announced.
We have had numerous presentations by representative from all of Florida.
They've answered questions.
They've given us information.
I believe that the all aboard Florida project is a tremendous opportunity for our county.
Not only to provide, but also the region as well as the state.
Let me point out that the project is at the stage coming through of our county.
There have been previous considerations of high-speed rail transportation between Orlando International Airport and Miami.
Those in the past have followed the turnpike.
So this is an opportunity that they will be coming to Bavarian County through Bavarian County,
which would be a great opportunity for us.
We know that as infrastructure is improved, the development will come.
Our future is important that we consider the economic growth of our area.
The transportation standpoint of Florida coming provides a unique opportunity for Bavarian County,
for the future as well as for the economy of our area.
In addition, all aboard Florida will bring 21st century workmanship and technology
and bring a higher level of safety for the rail crossings in Bavarian County.
As was previously mentioned, regarding quiet zones, it does create the opportunity to have quiet zones
through out of our county.
Those of the quiet zone issues are presently being addressed by the various city councils in Bavarian County,
as well as the TPO.
As you know, the Canaveral Port Authority, several meetings a go did pass a resolution supporting all aboard Florida.
And it does, because it does fall within our long range of plans and benefits of passenger service to a work in Avril.
And if I might let me, I'd like to just read a couple of excerpts from that resolution.
The Port Authority finds that this future proposed service by all aboard Florida may well be consistent with future.
And further the Port's master plan for services passenger services in the future.
And the Board of Commissioners of Canaveral Port Authority encourages Florida East Coast Industries.
LLC to study and consider the benefits of a future station serving the Vard County and Port Canaveral.
And as mentioned by our CEO of the Canaveral Port, John Marsh.
And of course, I and the other commissioners of the Canaveral Port Authority will be in full support of the Canaveral Port Authority,
helping fund a plan study for the future location of a station in Bavard County.
I think this is a clear opportunity for the county to look forward.
You know, we're all rooted in the present.
But I think it's important that we all look to the future and what will be beneficial to the county and our people.
Thank you very much.
And I owe hardly suggest and recommend that you approve the resolution before you today.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, sir.
Martha Woodchurch.
Following Martha Woodchurch will be Kate Katner.
Hi, my name is Martha Woodchurch and I'm a physical therapist in South Florida.
I'm here representing Woodchurch.
What city are you from?
From Plantation, Florida.
Thank you.
And I'm here representing Woodchurch today.
As we all know.
I'll floor to 10th to make a statement on a national basis. Whether it be hanging chas, or
stange or ground, or I'm going to do the thing to make an impression on people, and it's
not always what we want. I believe that all aboard Florida will make a statement. At first,
I was not supportive. It wasn't that I was not supportive, it's that I didn't have enough information.
And I think that's the key, correct, accurate information. I did my due diligence, and I think there's
more pros than there are cons. Nothing is perfect, as many people have said.
Another thing that I realized is in doing my research is that communities tend to take on
their own culture, meaning beliefs and actions that they do together, sometimes individually
not realizing it's because of that culture. It also can impact how they look as how they fit
as a community into the bigger picture and how they value paying it forward. I believe that all
aboard Florida is one of the first steps in being able to look beyond the communities and
the communities working together to be able to look at the big picture. Our state, Florida.
They've gone above and beyond on many aspects of this project. And one way that's dear to my
hearts is how they have adapted the train for disabled and people with limited mobility, meaning
someone that doesn't necessarily have a diagnosis, but has limited mobility.
This is a mecca for people that have disabilities because of the nature of the environment
to the weather and also because of its recent construction. Many of the ADA requirements are in place
because of the relatively to the rest of the world on the units of the cities here in Florida.
I read that all aboard Florida was the only one of its kind, which I didn't know what that meant.
And my skepticism came out. I did my research. And I wanted to just review some of the things that
they've done way above and beyond what the ADA requires to be able to accommodate those people in Florida
taking into consideration the demographics of our state, the aging population, tourism and business.
It starts before you get on the train.
The stations are all adapted. There's all accessible, whereas many of the other trains that we've done
they're not. There's sporadic stations throughout the state that are adapted.
Getting from the station to the train, we're all familiar if you've taken trains of that 9-inch gap between the platform
and the side of the train. It can be daunting, even to me. It's very daunting, taking the trains in New York.
I always remember that. But for someone that's using a walker or has a wheelchair, that can be extremely daunting.
What all aboard Florida has done, that is one of the kinds, is the construction of what's called a gap extender.
It's an electronic tongue that comes out from the side of the train that adapts to the level. It's a high low.
And in the person can push that, it comes out, it adapts and allows them to move right onto the train.
There's no embarrassment of the conductor coming out, having to put a big metal plate down for the people to be able to get through and over into the train.
Once in the train, all trains are required to have adapted seats.
Oftentimes those are booster seats that fold down, and they actually look like a timeout chair.
And sometimes, right by where the bathroom is, with no view, and they look at the bathroom door.
All aboard Florida has arranged it so that throughout the entire train, there are adapted seats with companion seats.
They're not the booster seat that we've seen before. They're the regular seat that we're all going to be able to enjoy.
And they have the choice of being able to transfer over or not, or lock down their wheelchair. They choose to stay in their wheelchair.
The aisles have been built wide, 32 inches. Most wheelchairs are 24 to 27 inches.
Through the entire train, this allows somebody to be able to go with some kind of a device or a wheelchair through the entire train,
which includes the car with the restaurant wherever they may want to go to see their friends.
They're able to get through, including the gang plank.
That's also daunting. It's an enclosed festival that has a sensor door.
It allows thousands of people to travel that before could not.
I think that all aboard Florida will make a positive statement to the country, and what can be accomplished with communities working together, because that's what it takes.
And they value, and those communities should be able to value how they fit into the big picture and paying it forward. I'm on board.
Thank you. Thank you.
Kate, Hatter, Kate Cotner, followed by Terry Fulton, Jim, Kovasky, and then Lynn Hepley.
Good morning. My name is Kate Cotner, and I'm the assistant county attorney with Indian River County.
And I'm here this morning to discuss this resolution that's before you.
Like Brevard County, Indian River County, has a lot of concerns about all aboard Florida, and it's proposed passenger rail project.
One of our main concerns is the lack of information that is out there as to whether or not this is a sustainable project.
None of the less what effect it's going to have on our citizens.
Another primary concern is that we do not know it's the exact upgrades that are going to be necessary at each individual crossing.
All aboard Florida expects to release its 90% plan on December 15, 2014, give or take 15 days.
Now, the information that's contained in this 90% plan is vital to making decisions without the crossing agreement that's before you today,
as well as the implementation of quiet zones.
Without knowing the information within the 90% plan, local governments are at a disadvantage, and they're less speculating about what this project is really means to the average citizen.
Not only do we not know what improvements are going to be necessary, but we don't know the costs that these improvements are what's going to mean to the local governments and maintenance costs.
As most of you are aware, there's two different kinds of maintenance costs.
There's the annual maintenance fee, and then there's that major project maintenance fee.
All aboard Florida recently told Indian River County that we can expect to see a 20% increase in our annual maintenance fee.
Well, our staff, any River County staff, has also done some calculations, and it tells quite a different story because that's only half the story.
Currently, this is a point of comparison, any River County has about 30 crossings.
We pay approximately $260,000 a year in annual fees.
Our public works director has crunched some numbers, and he anticipates that it will be an additional $280,000 on annual basis per year.
And please be advised that that number includes the annual maintenance fee as well as the big project and they just broke it down into an annual basis, so we know what to budget for.
Now, this is a calculation based on the equipment as it stands right now.
It's not the sophisticated equipment that's going to be installed.
We don't know how often that's going to break down or what the price tag on the maintenance fee for this sophisticated equipment.
What I can say from this resolution that you guys have the strike through, one can probably predict it's going to be between 8 and 10 years that something's going to break down.
Which brings me to the bond issue before you.
There's just so many unknowns.
It does the US Department of Transportation.
It does this project even qualify for private equity bonds under the US Department of Transportation rules.
We're not sure that it even does.
Also, what's the benefit to Bevard County according to their economic study?
You're going to receive 1,400 give or take jobs.
There's nothing in writing which says that you have to hire Bevard County citizen for this rail project.
There's nothing in writing.
Which I wasn't going to address this, but I am now about the additional stop.
There seems to be this impression that they'll be an additional stop in Bevard County.
Now, as I'm sure you're aware, there is a contrast between all of our Florida and Florida season it.
Orlando Orange County Expressway Authority, which is now the Central Florida Expressway Authority.
Which specifically said there will not be an additional stop between Orlando and West Palm Beach unless we say it's okay.
And yet there's even more.
Even if we say it's okay, our bond council has the right to veto this decision.
Unless you have it in writing that Bevard County is going to get a stop and you have an amendment to that.
Agreement with the Orlando Orange County Expressway Authority.
You've got two conflicting promises and ones in writing and it's not yours.
In closing, I'd like to thank Scott Knox and his staff.
We have any in-river county.
Bevard County, St. Lizzie and Martin have worked really closely and collaborating to get to protect our citizens.
So I just really appreciate the open dialogue.
I hope that continues in the future.
Thank you.
Terri Foulton.
File by Jim Coloski.
Lynn Whippelie.
I'm furious that I have to be here to protect my community.
I'm furious.
I'm furious that y'all would even consider running this train.
Now I'm here to thank you.
Terri Foulton.
Would you like to give your name an address for me?
I think 1888, Pontiac Circle, Melbourne.
Thank you.
There's nothing good about this for us.
Property values, noise, accidents, costly money.
Emergency vehicles are going to have trouble.
I'm reading about the drawbridge's south of us that are too old to be going up and down all the time.
I'm here in the US Coast Guard, although I can't prove it.
I expected them to be here today, but apparently they're not.
It's against this.
Why?
Why would we run something like this through our communities?
Why not run it out west?
Somewhere.
I'd like to know why y'all wouldn't consider that.
Would you consider that?
Why would you destroy our community?
These people are talking about convenience for the young and opportunities for the young.
They're not even from around here.
It's not going by their house.
It's not going to cause wrecks and traffic jams and thank God for the people that did have some common sense.
That talked about the train accident and things that are not kosher that's going on here.
And I'm wondering if this is about car go that's coming.
Something is just not right here.
There's nothing but risk involved in this.
This is so typical.
People looking at stuff through rose color glasses.
I remember when they were going to build a suit kitchen in Barbarna around three schools.
Apart from where kids go.
O folks home and everybody thought it was wonderful.
But thank goodness somebody proved that they were selling drugs there.
Inside and outside and then the rose color glasses come off.
I hope y'all have to come soft.
I'm understanding that this group will not release their right or information.
I find that very strange.
Who's going to write how many they're not releasing that.
They're holding that back for some reason.
This makes no sense at all.
This is like dumping a cargo of rattlesnakes in a kindergarten.
Why would you do it to us?
Why?
I don't think y'all have a clue of what's coming.
Thank you.
Mr. Jim.
Cova.
Let's see.
I take full responsible.
You did very well.
Good morning.
Good to see you all this morning.
Thank you for the opportunity.
Jim Cova.
169.5.
133th.
North.
Jupiter.
Florida.
I've driven about a hundred miles this morning because a lot of people say,
there's no benefit to my community.
And that's not what this project is about.
This project is about benefit to the state.
And what benefits the state benefits all of us.
And I understand Terry is scared.
And if you listen to everything that the nature say about this project,
there's no way you can go forward.
Luckily, what they're pedaling is scare tactics that don't stand up to scrutiny.
And I want to go over a couple of them.
The biggest one that I hear all the time is emergency vehicles.
Emergency vehicles won't get through.
I want to know why in towns in the treasure coast.
This will be a problem when it's not a problem anywhere else in the country.
Today, try rail.
Will run 50 plus trains a day through West Palm Beach Miami Fort Lauderdale.
All much more populated areas than this.
All with a lot more traffic and a lot more emergency vehicles.
And there are people don't die.
And yet people are going to die here because there will be 30 trains a day that block crossings
for a total of 90 seconds an hour.
Less than the length of one traffic light.
I've been in first response.
I've been a firefighter.
The biggest issue you ever have getting to a hospital is drivers that are too self-absorbed
to get out of your way.
That's what we need to fix.
Property values going down.
They love the yellow screen about this.
There has not been a study that shows where passenger trains are added to an existing in-use railroad track
that the values have been affected.
There are realtors who claim it, but nobody can prove it.
Now, they have some anecdotal evidence at the moment that people are selling.
Well, that's the fear that they are instilling in people is making that happen.
It's become...
Being a self-fulfilling prophecy. The picture of a train wreck. Yes, when train wrecks happen, just like
when airplanes crash. You see pictures, their big news, because they don't happen frequently. We
don't see the pictures of the thousands of people, I believe it's about 40,000 people a year,
that are killed on our freeways. The most dangerous thing I did today was driving here. And,
of course, I'd like to get back on 95 to go home. I wish I did to have to. I heard someone said,
the Coast Guard has come out against us. No. The Coast Guard has not issued an opinion. People say
this is all about freight. If this were about freight, they don't need to spend hundreds of millions
of dollars to build passenger stations. They don't need to have a right of way to Orlando that they are prohibited
from running freight on. Will an additional track help freight? Well, of course it would.
But additional tracks do not make additional trains. The trains will be there whether or not there's
another track. Additional tracks make the existing trains run more efficiently and actually less
in your wait time at crossings. Additional tracks do not equal additional trains. Someone said,
a dedicated right away? Yes, that would be an ideal situation. Nobody has the money to pay for that.
Can you imagine what it would take to try and make a new 250 mile right away along the state of Florida?
It would never get done. We need to move forward. This country needs to move forward and Florida needs
to take the lead. There are other states already watching us to do the same thing. We can be the leader.
This project can be done. It has so much benefit to the state and I hope you approve the measure. Thank you.
Thank you, sir. Lynn. Well, please. Follow by Rich Trabany. Demetrius Avila. Benita Jameson.
Lynn Welpley, 560 Jupiter, Brawler, Vard, Pompeii, Florida. I think you remember Commissioner. We had a little
talk about our beautiful Pompeii roads. Anyway, wow, it's a hard place where you guys sit. I hear the controversy.
I hear it all. I appreciate the people from other counties coming up and telling us what we should do. It benefits them.
But when you really think about it, it's about money and that's really where it hits us.
I know that the A.A.F. did a great job of making their train stations A.D.A. for the disability
acts. They're good. But make it known that there is no train stop here in Brvard. Nor is there one that's
to be scheduled because they cannot make money, which this is a private organization. They need to be
profitable. They cannot make money by stopping anywhere. They have to make money by taking the tourists
from Orlando and getting them to Miami in three hours. That's their goal. That's their mission.
If they have to stop along the way, then they're losing money. Ironically, this morning, you all spoke on
and forgive me for not knowing the details. I wasn't paying attention. But I think you approved an
advertising marketing campaign for our tourist council. I wonder where the tourist council is today
because they understand that the tourists, all of the tourists who come internationally, locally, anywhere,
they come into Orlando. They play in Disney a couple days and then they'd rent a car and they take
the beach line to Coco and they come to our beaches and they might even spend a night or two there
and they're going to enjoy Brvard County. That's our tourism money. Now what we're planning on doing
if we agree to this train is to take these tourists who come into Orlando and put them in a plane.
I mean in a train and make them go a hundred miles an hour through Brvard County, which Commissioner
just mentioned earlier that we don't a lot of people don't know Brvard County at all. They're
really not going to know it now because they're going to go through it a hundred miles an hour down to Miami and
that's where our tourists are going to go and because you're looking to want to go to Miami. Everybody knows
Miami, nobody really knows Brvard. We actually have an overflow of tourism from Orlando and I understand
that Mr. Flagler's dream about the train going through, but it's our pockets. I understand we
might not, we don't pay back this bond, but eventually we have to maintain all that all of the
track cross things. That's going to be a county or a city thing. I just don't see any benefit for Brvard
County. I see benefit for Florida, yes, but you know what? I'm paying taxes here and Brvard. Brvard is
my home. As a realtor, I also am for property rights and if you can think of all the houses
that are along the track now and they'll be having two trains going a hundred miles an hour behind their
house. I don't see the benefit for us. I see the controversy for the decision, but I really don't see
how this can benefit us at all. Let me see, I wrote some notes on the back of my card so that I could
remember. Somebody mentioned that Brvard County is a sweet spot. I totally agree. I moved here in 2001.
I love it here. It's all Florida needs to be not being crowded, but still having that down home feeling,
but the sweet spot will not be a stop on this railway way. We have to understand that. We're going
to have to pay for it, but it won't help us at all. It's going to take money away from our county.
And thank you for giving me this time. Thank you. Mr. Charona?
Well, the passing is out. Next, we'll be demetrious villa. Benita Jameson, Darfus
Vina, and then Fred McMillan.
Okay, Richard Charbonnell, satellite beach Florida.
I think I'm going to be probably the only person
in the room that agrees with me, maybe two other people.
That's fine. I usually work out that way.
I had a conversation with my friend, Scott Ellis,
actually by email, and both of us agree,
and then we also got Michael Ward from CSX,
and Warren Buffett agrees with the same thing.
So we got four of us that agreed with this.
I want you to imagine six high speed trains on the track at the same time,
but haven't four or five freight trains on the track at the same time also.
That cannot happen.
There's no place to pull over.
I mean, this is nonsense.
The man that was a railroad expert, I get didn't miss that.
I missed his name.
But he said if it was a dedicated rail for the high speed,
and then for another rail for the freight that he could go along
with it, like hardly agree with him,
but you can't run high speed and low speed on the track at the same time.
Because there's no passing lane to pass the other train.
Or is there a place to pull over?
Yeah, eventually, when you run in six trains on the track at the same time,
plus four or five freight trains,
they run into each other.
This is from Michael Ward.
He's the CEO of CSX.
To say it again, passenger rail can only operate
with government subsidies.
Frate rail is profitable.
The United States has the role's best freight rail operations.
Why would the freight rail operations tolerate intrusion of money?
Losing freight rail systems?
Losing freight rail systems that impede their own business plans.
It's another example of the government willfully exceeding
the kill-ease that lay the golden egg.
Michael Ward, Mincestinal Ward's passenger rail doesn't make money.
That's why private investors will shine it.
A realistic look at the problem, tell us who that passenger rail
cannot be in business a proposition.
In fact, it can be harmful to freight rail, which is a successful business.
They can't separate, they can't square a circle.
This is why they keep fudging the numbers to make it look like they can build a highly
profitable passenger rail system that pays for itself or even has returns on a business.
And that's why there is a version after one after another after another.
That's what keeps the funding from Washington mean mindless, pointless promises.
What we are asking for, the rail authority, is to sign their own debt for it.
He goes on, I'm a corporation, I exist to make money okay, Ward.
I said, today in the interview at Bloomberg, you can't make money all in passengers.
So why would I want to do that?
It wouldn't be fair to my shareholders.
CSX is the largest railroad in the United States by revenue.
While moving people by train may make sense for society.
But passenger trains traveling faster than 90 miles an hour, share the tracks with freight train.
Doesn't make business sense at work.
Who's Jacksonville, Florida owns 21,000 miles.
He's the same Lewis.
Putting high speed rail trains on freight lines is not practical because the curvature and the elevation of the freight rails.
Tracks cannot support the trains.
Operating at higher speeds in 90 miles an hour.
Those trains should run on separate tracks which may cost tens of billions of dollars.
To build.
I still got a few seconds here.
One of the other meetings, Commissioner Anderson made a comment about the 1500 jobs.
He didn't really say it the way I would have said it.
But I mean, come on, both 50 and our jobs are not coming here.
To install rail is a specialized crew.
And he's just blowing smoke up our rear end.
That's just nonsense.
And my closing argument will be they say they may stop here.
May come in a break.
Thank you.
Okay.
Demetrius Villa.
Thank you.
My name is Demetrius Villa.
I'm from 1980 Northeast Miami Gardens Drive.
North Miami Beach, Florida.
I represent Florida International University, all aboard Florida.
And also the high speed rail America club.
I want to say a quote from Mark Twain, where he said that history doesn't repeat itself.
But it sure does rhyme.
And I want to reference from the agenda of the Brevard County Historical Commission,
where they said Brevard commercial fishing industry was started in the early 1880s.
When George W. Skoby arrived in Titusville and became harvesting oysters from the Indian River.
His inaugural shipment of five gallons of oysters left Titusville on the first train on the new railroad
in January 1886.
Now, from here, they just see the railroad bond the country together.
And from what I'm seeing, we need to all live in the past, the present and the future.
And what I represent here is the future of Florida.
And we need to see what we're Florida stand for.
Brevard County and for Miami Day from West Palm Beach and every other county here in Florida.
We all need to stand together into helping this and to bring this interpretation.
And what is Florida also going to stand for for the rest of the United States?
Are we going to be continuing to be a joke called Florida?
And no, we cannot do that.
We have to be Florida does.
Florida does.
We do stuff here.
And we're going to be the leaders of not only just in America, but also for the world, as long as we need to stand for.
We cannot be the laughing stock of the world where Japan has trains that go 200 miles an hour in Germany and France and Italy.
And what do we stuck here?
If incompetent and abstract, no, we have to start with privatized rails.
It has been where America has started from the privatized rail after the dissolution of the Civil War.
But we all grand it together and we made the transcontinental railroad and we can happen to do this again.
And we also need to point out what will our children inherit here in Florida?
What will become the generation of the future because time always keeps moving forward?
And we cannot stand on self-interest.
So I implore you just not only the board, but also for all Floridians here.
And for everyone here who is American to stand for all of the board, Florida, to stand for the future.
I thank you.
Sir.
Benita Jameson.
Good morning. Thank you for allowing me to speak.
My name is Benita Jameson.
I live at 2557 Boyd Avenue in Melbourne, Florida.
I truly support all aboard Florida for several reasons.
I feel that it is going to be good for Florida.
It is going to be good for Brevard County.
We have to look towards the future.
We cannot always look at the past.
We cannot look for our own self-interest, but the interests of our future children.
For the interests of the future.
If we stay stagnant, we will die.
If we stay stagnant, we will never achieve what we should achieve.
Thank you very much.
Okay.
Darfith Zina.
Darfith.
Vina? I am so sorry. Thank you.
My address is 1980 Northeast Miami Gardens Drive. I have autism that stops me from driving.
High speed rail will benefit not just me, but everyone as well in a faster, safer way that will reduce our world, rank, car deaths
and effects on the environment caused by high pollution. Low environmental impact also means good for me, everyone, and good for the beautiful environment of Florida.
It would also increase tourism that means better for beaches, resorts, cruise lines, water parks and theme parks.
Thank you. Mr. Brad Mcmillan.
And after Mr. McMillan will talk of Eborah.
Angie Martinez and Jim Handley.
Excuse me. Good morning, my name is Fred Mcmillan. I am a resident of Bervard County. I live at 508 North, US Highway 1, formerly at 419 North, 1770, Florida.
I was originally on the trial rail discussion and developed in Broward County, and I worked with the Roward County Commission during this study of the beginning of trial rail.
I appreciate the lobbyists for all of board fraud. They're having all these wonderful people here, and I know there's quite a bit of money to lobby this board to say no.
I have a yes, and I also have a no. I would like to encourage the Bar County Commissioners to make sure you have a voice when this project gets started because undoubtedly it is.
Because it's evident here in this audience today that somebody has spent some money to get some people from all over Florida to come here and say what they think.
Provard County should do. Okay, that's all well and good. This is still a democratic society.
And we have the ability to differentiate between what we are being told to do and what's good for us.
They need to make sure they do the study that they promised that they would do when this project first started.
It was to go back to the drawing board and see what benefits Broward County. They have not done that.
I don't see it coming. I don't see it coming soon. It may eventually get there.
But what at expense are we going to have the sacrifice? Yes, we need rail service. Yes, we need transportation for the public.
Yes, the disadvantaged people who don't have a car who can't drive, who has no other alternative.
But to spend $150 in a taxi to get to Orlando Airport. Yes, we have to have some type of system produced in this county.
Now, you'll have to excuse my passion because I've been in this room too many times lobbying for the disadvantaged people of the Park County to do something about public transportation.
And it's not just all about Florida. It's the streets. It's the city of Tilesville. It's the city of Port St. John. It's the city of Melbourne. We need public transportation.
And you regardless of how many dollars are spent to put all aboard Florida in place. We need to start somewhere else. Yes, we need rail service.
Well, I'm tracking it doing too good. But they are experienced.
And they have a lot of trains already adapted to anybody that wants to get on there with the future. I write it all time.
Now, if all aboard Florida has all these fabulous facilities, where is the train station that is in existence today that has a disadvantage accessibility, a ramp from my walker to come up and walk onto a train.
There are none. And they haven't produced the study to produce it. But we might as well get ready. They are coming.
All aboard Florida is coming. I've had my spiritual advice. I have to bring it to my attention. This is going to happen.
I don't care how much we sit here and puke, have diarrhea. All of the place about saying no.
Excuse me. But I'm serious. We need to take a good look at what they are doing and the special interest groups that have provided all these people from all over Florida to come here
and tell us no. So here we go to what we say, how passionate I feel. Public transportation is needed.
We need to look to the future. Rail service is that possibility that we really need.
But why go to Orlando? What about from the port say to Jacksonville? Then come to Orlando.
Come through here. Please do. Come through here. But give us a chance to get some money too.
We want to make some money. We want to get jobs. We want everything else that everybody is screaming for.
But you promise us this. But you don't write, put it in writing. Put the train. Don't go to Orlando.
They get Disney, Universal and Seaworks support. Any effort they want.
Thank you, sir.
And the last name.
All right. Good morning.
Tolga or Borough Florida International University Honors College, 3740.
That's the important avenue throughout Florida. And also officer of the High Speed Rail American Club at FIU.
I believe that all of Borough Florida should benefit. And I believe that this proposition should be supported to encourage bonds on the corridor through Brevard County.
As a college student, many of us costumes are known for being pretty much, I don't know, sometimes irresponsible behind the wheel.
Some people text and drive. And I believe that all of Borough Florida as it provides an alternative.
It provides an alternative to that by having people writing, which would reduce safety risk at the current, the inner states and other roadways.
College students that would travel between UCF and Orlando, which is about 40 miles away.
And some of the universities that are scattered across the corridor such as Florida, Atlantic University, Florida, and National University, which is accessible by mass transit from Miami.
And the University of Miami can also benefit not only for tourism nor vacations and seeing their family and going to the theme parks, but also provide that there's a stop in Brevard County, which I will get to in a moment.
Can benefit from the research opportunities with organizations such as NASA and even the Port Authority in its hospitality and logistics departments.
Economics implies that you would do anything where marginal benefits exceeds marginal costs, or is at least acceptable, or greater than or equal to marginal costs.
And even though all of Borough Florida is offering its core product, which is a three hour service from Miami, to Orlando, which is undisputed between West Palm Beach and Orlando.
Anything else or another service, I mean, this does not limit them from adding a stop at Brevard.
So any other service can come in and provide stops in Brevard County that can benefit the communities in this area.
And also there's been talked that property values are going to be pretty much decreased once all the board Florida kicks in.
Now let me tell you this, there is a vacant lot in Delray Beach, Florida adjacent to the Triro corridor.
And what in organ is what a business is planning to do with that is developed that corridor.
I'm sorry, that vacant lot into apartments and to real estate for college students and people of my age and of the future generations.
That can benefit from access to tribal in order to get to Florida, landing in the university and all the other places that scatter the South Florida metropolitan region.
Now that is to say that communities across the Treasure Coast, which is for peer steward, co-go, Melbourne, etc, can also benefit from housing and real estate located adjacent to the corridor in that.
The board Florida or any sub-service of it that serves local areas instead of the faster express service can serve those areas.
And with all that said, I do ask you the please support the bonds that all the board Florida and the FCC is putting forward before you today and I thank you for your time.
Thank you, sir.
Good morning. My name is Angel Martinez. I am a F.I.U. Hospitality Management Guards student.
I was an organ planning student in New York City and and where are you from sir?
I live at 80 30, so I was with 19th Street, Miami, Florida.
I was raised in Florida, my life went to New York and I would like to speak first about the hospitality research that I've done and then also my personal experience in New York because I think it was an interesting relates to this.
The demographics are changing, okay. That is the buzz word in the hospitality grader school. Both the young people and the baby boom generation, just retiring is fundamental difference that the people that retired before.
The baby boomers have lived an international life. They are retiring in places where they want to continue that active lifestyle and they also want to be connected to the world.
They only necessarily want to live in a skyscraper, although a lot of them are returning to New York City, but they also want to continue to be active.
And of course, what happens is that I think that the last hundred years we build the United States, apparently thinking that everybody was 40 years old and everybody is going to drive forever.
We forgot about the young people, I'm going to forget about the old generation, that either for their own personal reasons or for they're not able to drive.
And so this very modern generation, they want to live in a different place already and we have to think about what's going to happen to these towns that have depend on a tourism of a different generation that want to live in a certain place.
I know there's an iteration coming and they want a different type of lifestyle. That is one of my research sort of like obsessions.
I believe in what is called strong towns. Not everybody wants to live in skyscraper and pay $2,000 in New York City. That's why one of the reasons why I came back.
They don't want to live in a whole world.
But I had an experience when I was living in New York.
I was teaching in Hunter College and then as a disgrace, you couldn't pay my apartment anymore because it's in New York City.
And I had a professor that said, why don't you come to Hastings on the Hudson?
Where's that?
No idea.
Song town of North.
No idea.
If it was Florida, I could have never done it.
But because you're in New York, you take the metro north and you go there and I want a half and you just stay there and then come back.
And on my right there, I saw this small towns.
Some of them have stops and some of them didn't have stops.
But they were smart enough and I'll tell you what they did before.
And I realized that this small towns were surviving precisely because of the train.
This is from the mental difference that everybody else has said.
And my experience was totally different.
They were surviving precisely because they had that train stop right there.
They had some people, actually, some of the big New Yorkers actually, they didn't want to live in the apartment buildings that actually bought some houses over there.
Therefore, the real estate would not actually go down.
And then they would treat the train and come back down, you know, just doing the work on the train.
They also had people that were able to, they were lock over, able to survive because they had hotels there.
And I decided to go back to one of those places.
I found out that one of those towns that I wanted, the train didn't stop.
But what did they do? They had like a toolbox.
And they took my money.
And then I went to one of those restaurants.
I found out that the rest of them weren't as cheap as they were because they were benefiting from the tourism.
And so they could, you know, charge whatever they want.
And I walked around the town was a wonderful town.
They were able to preserve the, you know, the nature of the town, the architecture because that was a tourism selling point.
And so I think about all the marketing dollars that people spend trying to attract people to permit them to provide or whatever.
And I said, there's no better marketing tool that having a train pass by, we can actually see the town, right?
If you're in I-95, you're not going to see anything you're just driving through.
This counties have become sort of like dry through country.
But eventually if you have a train, a train is going to make stops.
And even if you don't make stops all the time, you get to see the town, you can see what it is like.
And that is an immediate benefit that is not evident.
My experience was something that you cannot measure in a economic impact.
But it's something that if you have the experience, then you see the difference between writing a train and having that availability for everybody.
And then just driving.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Mr. Jim Handley.
Following him, we'll be rolletta by Mahabhai.
Darling, excuse me, I'm on with Jim.
Darling, Albert, and Monique Miller.
Thank you.
Good morning, Madam Chair, and commissioners. I admire your patience. We're hearing all the pros and cons about all the board floor. I'll try to be very brief.
I've been monitoring a situation for a number of months, and one of the things I've observed is that when concrete objections do come up, all the board floor does its best to address them and to try to find ways to accommodate the people that are concerned about this.
There are some emotional arguments that are impossible to address, but I think all board floor is trying to do the best they can do to make this a winning project.
And I think this project does represent progress for floor to and for provide county, as it successful and goes into phase two, we will have a train station here and it will benefit us.
We'll have a lot more visitors. Some of us may not like that, but we'll have more visitors. We'll have more revenue coming into the county.
The county that will help our property taxes stay low. So I think it's a very viable project and one that we should approve and go forward with the private activity bonds. Thank you.
Thank you, Jim.
Roleca.
Good morning for the record. My name is Rosita.
Thank you. I know it's difficult to read everybody's handwriting. I have to do it all the time.
And I live on 78.01. Abbott Avenue in Miami. I live in Miami, but I am your tourists today. I also do tourism consulting.
So I actually do tourism marketing for the state of Florida. I have clients all up and down the state.
I've done tourism in Martin County. I've done tourism in Broward County and actually work with your wonderful tourism staff here, Rob Barley and his staff.
And they do a fantastic job. It congratulate you.
I'm obviously here because I support all the board for Florida and I know that you've heard a lot about tourism, but one of the things I want to remind you is that
increasing tourism through a transportation like train is clean, eco tourism.
You can benefit from the growth, but you don't have to have all the traffic.
I do realize that a lot of people are concerned about the stop here or if it's not going to stop or when it's going to stop.
And I think those are some of the things that you need to look at with a bigger view because the train as one of the gentlemen mentioned is probably coming
with or without participation, but why not participate and make it beneficial for you.
I was on a committee a long time ago about 14 years ago with the Fort Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport.
Hollywood was against the expansion of the airport and did not participate in all the discussions.
And it was against my recommendation at the time since I was doing tourism for them.
Several years later the expansion of the airport happened and it looks like Hollywood was missed.
The exit to Hollywood was not no longer there. The signage wasn't there.
So a lot of these plannings does take a vision for the future now in order to get to the future.
And I do think you're going to have a tourism impact immediately during the construction.
You are going to get room nights working in Martin County.
We already see that construction of bridges and different things brought a lot of tours in our area in Martin County when working in Martin County.
So you need to look outside the box.
You need to look at all the different possibilities because you know that there are possibilities and opportunities there.
And you need to take advantage of them now.
Partnering with them is what's going to set the tone for what you want out of this for the future.
And this is the best way to do it.
And Henry Flagler has been brought up.
Cape Canaveral has been brought up. There are so many different things.
And what better way to invest in your future than private funding.
That's the ultimate goal in every state and every country and every client that I've ever had with tourism.
It's to have private dollars invest into a community that's going to benefit.
People talk about safety about living close to it.
There's always going to be people that are going to like one thing or not like it.
It's all personal preferences.
You can love living on the beach.
But there are people that don't like living on the beach because of hurricanes or different things.
There are people that do want to be by a metro or railroad and there are people that don't.
It's going to be something for everybody.
But it's looking at the big vision.
Looking at what's great for provide county.
What's great for treasure coast.
What's great for the state of Florida and the big picture.
I think it's going to make a business mark decision for you to support all aboard Florida.
Thank you for your time.
Thank you.
I'm Doreen Albert.
I'm from Malibu.
Good morning everyone.
My name is Doreen Albert and I'm from Hollywood, Florida.
I'm a Florida native.
One of the few.
I appreciate Brevard County's concerns.
I'm speaking for myself and passion for the state of Florida.
And someone who's done marketing and mostly corporate marketing sports marketing for over 21 years.
And I've traveled the state extensively.
And as a busy person like myself.
And we don't have enough hours in the day.
We only have 24 hours.
If we got 25, we would need 26.
So using infrastructure or using a railroad train to get up and down the state would add a few hours to my day.
Where I could be multitasking on the train.
I could be answering and sending out emails.
I can be skyping with my family.
And doing things that I needed to do that I don't have enough time in the day to do.
It's also cost-efficient with even though gas prices dropped a little bit.
Gas prices are high to travel.
Expense accounts are not there anymore when you need to travel for business.
It alleviates the tremendous stress of driving and traffic.
When people say they're worried about emergency vehicles getting over a track.
It just happens two weeks ago.
I was in a car accident.
And I stopped for an ambulance.
No one was letting him buy it.
And I got hit from behind and pushed him to another lane.
So I know that when someone says, and it's tragic, a crash on a train.
Every day people are getting hit by cars.
And think God that nothing major happened to me.
And I just wanted to say another thing that everyone's pushing to that.
Some of us do as a bad habit as texting and driving.
When all aboard Florida would be around,
and I would look forward to texting and riding.
So thank you.
Thank you.
Hon.
Miller.
Follow by Miles Tobin.
Casey Taylor.
And Barbara Finn.
Good morning.
Monique Miller.
And I actually live here in Brevard County.
I live at 8356 Highway A1A in Melbourne Beach.
And I'm not here to discuss the merits or whether all aboard Florida is good for us or not.
Because the fact of the matter is I'm not sure all of us have had time to really digest all the information about the project to know whether it's good for us or not.
I'm here to suggest that this vote is premature.
And there's a number of reasons for that.
There's a couple of other things that are in this resolution that go beyond just issuing some bonds.
One of the things that they're asking us to add all aboard Florida is a third party beneficiary to the grade crossing agreement that we have with Florida East Coast Railways.
This is a major bargaining chip that we have in our future negotiations with all aboard Florida in terms of who's going to incur costs that are going to come be born of this project.
The other bargaining chip is obviously the issuance of these bonds.
As a private company, which they're so fond of saying that they're doing this with private money, they can go and issue bonds to go raise money for their company anytime they want to.
The reason that they need us to approve this is because they want 500 million dollars of taxpayer money to do this, which is letting it be a tax-free bond instead of just a regular bond.
And that's obviously a major advantage.
And I'm in favor of this form of funding their project over what they were originally going to do, which was going to be a taxpayer subsidized loan that would have probably been about $3 billion over the life of the loan and value to them this is subsidy.
So this is definitely better. And but before we decide to give away our bargaining chips for a small concession, which was, I believe, seven years that they are willing to pay for the maintenance on the crossing agreements.
That's nothing compared to the overall cost that we're going to incur.
The environmental impact study was just released and I've only had about two or three weeks to digest it.
I don't know about you, but 500 pages and about a thousand pages of attendance. I haven't gotten through all of it yet.
One of the things that I did notice though is that there's a major issue with vibration that came out in the study.
And by the way, they commissioned the study. So I would argue that this is probably the best case scenario. So since they paid for it, I doubt it's going to be, you know, really the worst case.
But it did bring up vibrations. We don't even know how we're going to mitigate that or what the cost to provide is going to be for having massive vibrations going through because of high speed rail 32 times a day.
Bridges are going to have to be completely reconstructed.
I love our lagoon. You know, if we do work that involves drilling into the lagoon, we have absolutely no idea what the impact is going to be to our community and what the costs are going to be.
So before we decide to just give away seven years of for the cost of seven years of maintenance, which by the way isn't really going to amount to much since it's all new equipment and it won't start until 2016 at the earliest,
I think that we should probably hold on to those bargaining chips a little bit longer until we really understand the full impact to provide county.
Now, I know that commissioners Poland and Nelson are on their way out. They've served our community for several years.
And I'm sure that you're beginning to think about what your legacy is going to be to provide.
I'm sure you don't want it to be a vote for something that we didn't have all the information about.
And for the next years, we're racking up costs and every time there's a new cost, we remember you.
That's not how I remember you today and I'd certainly not like to remember you that way in the future.
I also appreciate some of the comments that were made by other folks here today.
John Walsh, especially commented about the state, you know, about the need for this for the for the port.
If we do not have a station here.
With all due respect, those comments are really irrelevant.
I'd love to have tourism here. I think there's a lot of merit to having a transportation from Orlando to the port.
That's not what this project is and we need to really just vote on the merits of what it is today.
So before you bet my future that these are really the only costs that we're going to incur, I just ask you to please.
Let's consider that there are two new commissioners coming in and we'd like to know what their position is on it.
I've been involved in a lot of big huge projects, you know, hundreds of million dollar IT projects.
And one thing I've learned is if everyone is not behind it, it does not succeed.
I'd like to know that the two new incoming commissioners are going to be behind this as well and give them an opportunity to weigh in on it before we make that decision.
So I ask you to delay this vote. Thank you.
Miles Tobin of KC Taylor.
Thank you. I'm Miles Tobin, a general counsel for all aboard Florida with the address set 2855,
Lichun Road and Coral Gables. And I appreciate the opportunity to speak and I'll try to keep it substantial less than five minutes.
I know you have a lot going on.
I'd just like to react to a couple of the items that we mentioned with respect to earlier speakers.
First of all, private activity bonds, what they are and what they mean.
Mr. Stan, pretty well laid out the details of private activity bonds.
I want to underscore that they are private activity bonds.
No risks to Bernard County, no risk to the public. They are private bonds, which we will take to the investor market.
And the investor market will decide whether it wants to buy these bonds.
And the risk is on all aboard Florida and is on the investors, not on the public.
As you know, there have been some nasiers in the paper talking about riflones and taxpayer risk.
This is an alternative financing, which has no taxpayer risk.
It is totally private as we have indicated.
We are trying to do this with private financing, and that's good for the taxpayers.
It's good for Bernard County.
There was an issue whether or not we qualify for private activity bonds.
We've talked to the U.S. Department of Transportation.
This vehicle is a U.S. Department of Transportation bond vehicle, which they allow surface transportation infrastructure to use.
Again, it's private, but there's a statutory vehicle to use these types of bonds.
We qualify for these bonds.
We would not have filed an application if we didn't qualify for these bonds.
As anecdotally I've read the IRS statutes myself.
And you may or may not want to take my word for, but we absolutely qualify for these bonds.
Safety. There's a lot of conversation about safety.
And I really do want to address that because I and the members of the All aboard Florida team have worked in industry, rail industry.
Other industries in Florida for many years.
I've been in the rail industry for 30 years.
The first thing we think about, that's the thing we think about in the middle of the day and at the end of the day.
And all of my conversations with my colleagues are about how we make this the safest railroad in the United States, the safest passenger railroad in the United States.
And not a day goes by where we don't analyze what we could do better.
Some of the things that folks have talked about, the crossing improvements, these are going to be as high tech as they can be.
We are upgrading these crossings in conjunction with FRA in conjunction with F dot in conjunction with your own publics works engineers and local cities in Bernard County and other counties to make sure that these crossings meet the needs of both the communities and the railroads and our as
In
Approved as they can be from a safety perspective, from a warning of the public perspective when trains are coming.
We are dealing with a company that makes the best trains in the United States for passenger rail.
I have met with them on a variety of occasions we've worked to deal to build the trains.
These trains will be as high-tech as they can possibly be. They will be efficient. They will be quiet.
They will be safe and frankly there will be no better train in the United States and some folks have alluded to. They will be ADA compliant.
That will be the first passenger train in the United States that will be ADA compliant as well as our stations.
We're building a new dispatching center to make sure the freight and passenger trains can coexist in the same corridor.
Again, it will be the highest tech and the best dispatching center in the United States.
We are focused on making this a reliable customer, a customer service-related railroad.
We are focused on making this the safest railroad in the United States.
The folks on the All-Aboard floor to team, I won't go into individuals other to say other than to say that we have built some of the largest construction projects,
the largest customer projects, service projects in the United States.
We built some of the largest railroads in the United States, some of the largest projects in Florida.
We are all bound to make this the best railroad that it can possibly be.
And when it comes into Brevard County, it will be the best railroad it can possibly be.
And I urge you to assist us in that process by allowing us to utilize private activity bonds which will finance this privately.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
We'll have a person for the end of that.
We'll just part out for you.
Casey Taylor, followed by Barbara Finn.
Good morning.
Madam Chair Owen Bowlin, Lewis and fellow commissioners.
Thank you for having us today.
I'm Casey Trailer.
I'm from Palm City, my address is 622 pine tree lane.
First, I just want to state, this is not a done deal.
I've heard some people say they believe it is.
This is not a done deal.
This company is actively seeking financing and I want you to be aware that the riff loan has not been withdrawn off the table.
They are still seeking that as well, including these private activity bonds.
Both of which are, they're trying to use the government as a conduit to provide financing.
I founded the grassroots opposition group of Florida not all aboard.
Commissioners today, I come to speak to you on behalf of over 31,000 people about your vote on the issuance of the text free private activity bonds for a private company.
All aboard Florida.
Sitting in front of me is over 32,000 signatures of citizens that oppose the All aboard Florida project.
This is a grave issue that should have much consideration before a vote is taken because it is a vote that impacts every single one of us.
Many of these signatures are from Brevard County as well.
All aboard Florida representatives tell us, we on the land, the tracks, we will do what we want.
They tell us we need to learn to coexist, yet they have done little to help mitigate the destructive effects to our communities.
They come you offering free maintenance and offer nothing to other communities, but they do not leave them, but they do leave us with devastating impacts.
They seem to have one thing in mind, profit for their parent company in New York City, the $60 billion plus hedge fund manager, fortress investment group.
The fact All aboard Florida is attempting to rush this vote through giving the residents of Brevard County extremely short notice on a vote that will greatly impact their lives.
Demonstrates they only care about their company and that the communities they are here to bifurcate.
If this company was an upstanding corporate citizen, they would do the right thing and ask for input on these private activity bonds from all communities impacted.
They have not and it certainly seems they do not care, but we hope you do.
I ask you on behalf of all our communities to please realize your vote today impacts all of us.
Please do not rush this vote today. Give residents a chance to weigh in, hold community workshops, let residents know about what could be the most critical vote to your county and frankly, all the communities along the FEC line.
Residents elected you to protect their interest and their quality of life.
Like the Rift Lone that is still on the table, the private activity bonds certainly do not benefit the taxpayers.
An editorial on the Tampa Bay Times last year is called this kind of corporate welfare cheats the federal treasury and an able's government to give an unfair advantage to one business over another.
All aboard Florida should not be using our government as they kind to it to fund them in any way shape or form.
They do on the land they own the tracks and we've heard their message loud and clear that they will do what they want.
But we beg of you do not allow this company to force us through our government to help finance the very project that will devastate and change our way of life forever.
If high speed rail is to be built between Miami and Orlando, it should not be at the expense of many communities who receive no benefit.
Over 30 other communities organizations have signed resolutions either against or about the impacts of all board Florida.
I have resolutions from provide all the way down to Miami date each of the counties.
The latest resolution was from the Treasure Coast League of Cities which is a comprised of 13 cities in the Treasure Coast.
Please do not allow all board Florida to ignore our communities.
The project is about all of us united to do what is right.
All aboard Florida has not given the three counties to yourself a voice in this matter.
Please stand united with all our communities and do not let this decision be divided by a county line.
Commissioners, unlike the paid FECI in all aboard Florida representatives, you have no doubt spoken to.
Myself and my volunteers, some of them have driven up from Martin and Jupiter.
They are unpaid and we've spent endless hours because we love our community and our quality life.
We're doing this to let our elected officials know you folks.
We are begging you to protect us and protect our quality life.
Please say no to all aboard Florida.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Please vote no or at the very least delay your vote.
So your residents have time to research this project, the private activity bonds, and if time to give you their input.
They vote if you listen to them, not a hedge fund manager in New York City that's over a thousand miles away and does not have to live with the devastating impacts of this project.
Please, together, we can protect our Florida and our paradise.
Thank you.
The commissioners were working to be holding our board of county commissioners' comments until after all the speaker cards are done.
But if there is a particular speaker that you want to have questions with, when we complete it, please notify me and then I will make sure that the person stays with us.
And that would be the first one that we would like to make sure that stays in the room is going to be miles token.
So you have to stay after school.
Okay.
Barbara.
Good.
I guess it's still morning everyone.
I'm Barbara Finn.
5809 Edwards Road, Margie, Florida.
I've come to support all aboard Florida for the future growth in our economy and the state of Florida.
Jobs for residents and an easier way to encourage the millions of travelers that visit our wonderful state.
And at no cost to the taxpayers because it is going to be privately funded.
I don't live in Brevard.
I don't live in Miami.
But I'm very interested in doing whatever I can to help Florida keep their economy growing with all the things that we have going on here.
And I just think that with all the progress that has come across our nation when a highway wanted to be built.
It was always a small group of people that didn't want it and their neighborhood.
They didn't want the train station and their neighborhood.
They didn't want a library or a school next to their neighborhood.
But we have to think of the total picture and do the best for what we can.
Thank you.
I'm going to be having then lowest locust.
Susan Olsen, the Jarvis Wash and Ronda Henderson.
Next.
Okay, lowest locust.
Good morning commissioners and the audience is behind me.
I want to make just one statement first.
If I could, my name is Lois LaCost.
I live at 675-500 acre drive in Port St. John.
Florida.
passenger rail services almost always lose money and end up subsidized by government.
I'll pass it on.
Brevard County is a sweet spot.
I moved here 10 years ago from Brevard County.
So I'm very familiar with the people who are in the audience from Miami-Dade and Brevard County.
Although I'm a really surprised that they would come up here and tell us what we need to do in our county.
Most residents who moved to Brevard did so to get away from the big city life like Miami-Dade County
and Orlando with the crime and daily increases of homicide and other problems.
Whether you are four or against AAS projects is a revelant to today's vote.
We are here to remind the county commissioners that their number one priority is to act in the best interest of Brevard's residents.
Boating in favor of the resolution in its current form is not in Brevard's best interest.
First it will cost money to apply for these railroad crossings and things that they're talking about and to implement them.
The state of Florida had allocated 10 million for some of the quiet zone costs.
9 million of that has already been allocated to southern counties.
It is important that Brevard know exactly how much this will cause to implement and who will incur that cost.
Second, there is likely an increase in Brevard's ongoing insurance costs.
If Brevard applies for quiet zones, it is our understanding that liability for incidents on the track shifts from AAS to Brevard County.
We do not know how much this will cost, but it will be perpetual.
AAS FEC has selected five counties to funnel the cash.
Miami-Dane, Brevard, Palm Beach, Brevard, and Orange at 280 to 300 million per county.
However, Brevard and most recently we heard Brevard are not done deals for this KAB financing.
We want the commissioners to delay voting on these issues until it can be studied further.
The train will reach 110 mile per hour, and for the young man who thought it'd be wonderful for the tourists to get to see our county,
I'd like to know what you're going to see at 110 mile an hour.
Once the horn starts blaring, you have seven seconds to evacuate a car or bus before impact if you happen to get stuck on the tracks.
How much more will the taxpayers have to pay?
Sometimes, eight seconds, 15 seconds, 30 seconds is all we have to save a life and the emergency department.
I am very concerned about multiple trains going through our community, starting traffic jams that keep ambulances from getting to us.
I live in Port St. John.
I'm on the west side of the railroad track, I'm on the west side of U.S. 1.
If I have an emergency and I need fire, rescue, ambulance to get to my home and possibly then get me to a hospital, I don't need them waiting on a train for me to get there.
The ridership projections are ridiculous, including the prediction that 4 million people will ride the train after three years of operation.
While in the North East, the trains that they have operating in Boston, New York City and DC has only 3.3 million riders,
and these are much, much larger cities than we're talking about in our area.
The convenience for a few will never outweigh the cost to all of us.
You said on this Brevard County Commission to represent the residents of Brevard County,
not the people from all over the state.
Thank you for your attention and please delay this resolution until the impact studies are completed.
Thank you.
Susan Olsen.
Good morning. My name is Susan Olsen.
I'm from Mikko and as you know, that's an unincorporated area in extreme southern Brevard County.
And we're never going to go stop in Mikko.
And I don't care.
And the other thing is, I don't think I'm going to live long enough and most of the people in this audience will live long enough for you guys to see enough to stop in Brevard County.
Maybe the guys from FIU. I'm not sure.
And as you know, this is an issue that's been important to Mikko homeowner's association for a long time.
We've been involved. I think perhaps since it's a very beginning of the discussion of Brevard County,
not since the TPO has been involved. They were involved before.
There's a couple of points I think are important to bring forward to you, that are specific to armico-community. I can only speak to Mikko. I don't live in Melbourne, and I don't live in Rockland, Georgia, and Thai, or the other communities that may be touched.
Adding a second track is changes the dynamics of the railroad. The FAC had a second track, which they chose on their own to remove a little over 50 years ago for passives or service.
And so one track has existed for an excess of 50 years, almost 55 years, and people have moved into the area, moved away from the area,
coming on, expecting the 14-18 trains a day that were coming through freight trains, small freight trains.
Now we're looking at an excess of 20 freight trains a day, as predicted in the All-Aboard Florida's draft environmental impact statement, and we're looking at 32 passenger trains a day.
This is a dynamic change, and it's what's going to be happening on the railroad as we see it today. Additionally, the freight trains, and we're not talking about freight trains today, because it's only All-Aboard Florida that needs money.
It's only All-Aboard Florida that needs to be added. It's a third party to the crossing agreements.
But additionally, not long ago, when there was a ribbon-cutting in the port of Miami, the FEC terminate at that time, it was reported that the newspaper is looking forward to making the FEC tracks, the cargo corridor for the state of Florida, and they are.
They will be touching every port along the way, and so this is not the train that we're used to seeing.
I sent you and the in by way of Michael Holmes Association, and by the way, I need to apologize our President Shelley Woods was not unable to be here today, because of a previous business appointment that she had in Orlando today.
And even if the train stopped in Vico, she's unlikely to be able to get to Orlando.
We sent you questions concerning today's agenda item. I think there were five separate questions. We got one response.
The other questions we made on answered. The largest question for me personally is why you're dealing with private bonds, revenue bonds at the same time you're dealing with crossing agreements and negotiating terms on those crossing agreements.
These are two separate issues. Additionally, if you look at them separately, you're negotiating terms, it could make those four separate issues, because you're negotiating, you obviously negotiated it at one point from 10 to 70 years on a more time.
More time for maintenance, you're dealing with the installations of safety improvements and you're now accepting crossing agreements without a 90% plan.
And I think that is important that you change. Additionally, you all, I have pulled and discussed with various other counties.
And all of the eight counties touched by all aboard Florida has agreed to accepting all aboard Florida as a third party to the crossing agreements.
Nor have they completed their negotiations for safety improvements desired.
And you are asked to do this in one fell swoop. And it's a bullying tactic that I find it atrocious.
Commissioner Boland Lewis, Commissioner Nelson, are leaving the dyes. I would agree with a previous speaker that you all have an important legacy that needs to be cherished.
You spent a lot of time here and you are going to leave if you approve this vote today in this manner in particular.
A lot of unanswered questions questions that we've answered.
A whole new track is going to be coming into Little Hollywood and Mikko from the bridge.
So where a track has never been before. Maybe still within the right away.
But that track is going to be on the east side differently than exist today, differently than it exists to 115 years ago.
And it's going to touch homes in a different manner than ever and no one has addressed that.
Anyway, thank you. You guys leave in the dyes. You'll welcome your retirement. I wish you well.
Thank you very much. You appreciate that.
Jarvis, wash, ronda Henderson, Thomas, Land of Marseilles.
Good morning, sir.
Is it good morning or good afternoon?
It's good morning.
Good morning, everyone. Jarvis, wash.
I live on 909 Bristol Drive in the beautiful city of Cocoa.
I come to hear this morning with really, really motivated and encouraged about all aboard Florida.
I passed there in the city of Cocoa, but many who know me know that I just don't pass to my church.
I passed our community.
And I live on the north side of Fist, besides pastor there.
I live there.
And North Fist has his challenges in the city of Cocoa.
And one of those challenges are jobs.
And we have hosted a number of job fairs to bring jobs to our community.
We actually have one on November 6th there in Cocoa.
All aboard Florida is a much needed transportation system for this state.
While they initially won't stop in Brevard in the first phase,
I believe that we can make a case for a station the second phase.
We're growing.
Brevard County is growing.
I love this place.
And more jobs need to be created.
There are many reasons to stop here.
But all aboard Florida must be operational.
Operational before we can think of stopping.
It's like anyone in business.
There are different phases and different levels.
I support this project.
And I think Brevard County should stand behind it.
I correct me from wrong.
But to my knowledge.
There is no other project or company creating this type of economic impact in our county.
Or really around the state.
And I think we need to look at some of the issues and things that are at hand.
And if this can help bring jobs.
If this can help our citizens.
Then I think it's a great thing.
Thank you so much for your time.
Thank you sir.
Ronda Henderson.
Good afternoon.
I'm going to say good afternoon because it's close to lunch.
Again, my name is Ron DeHenderson.
I live at 121.
Lantra Circle in Indian Harbor Beach.
I would ask you as a commissioners to take a hard look at me.
I am the future of Brevard County.
And let me state that I have a business here.
I made business owner have been for over 10 years in this county.
I've been here through the tough economic times that we have had.
As everyone in here who is actually from Brevard County knows what we have gone through over the past few years with the loss of jobs that we've had.
I am raising two children here.
Both of my boys attend public schools here in Brevard County.
You know what I want for them?
I want them to have a future in Brevard County.
How can we make that happen?
This resolution.
Again, why wouldn't you support raising the cap to allow all aboard Florida to sell private activity bonds?
I'm going to shorthand that by saying PABs.
This action does not affect your credit rating or your bond capacity.
And it allows this important project to realize solely on private funding.
Again, the investors in these PABs are private entities.
Therefore, this financing mechanism possesses zero risk to the local county state or federal government.
All aboard Florida will invest more than $315 million in infrastructure for Brevard County.
What is that equate to?
Job for Brevard County citizens.
And again, why wouldn't you support raising the cap to allow them to sell bonds?
I want my children to take after my legacy and to make Brevard County their home so that they too can become business owners.
We are the future of this county.
I understand people come here to retire.
But I came here to live and she raised my children.
And I want them to have a future as well.
And I hope that you pass this resolution now.
Not later.
But now what we need it.
Thank you.
Here.
Thomas.
Lead.
Mon.
Arsk.
Oh, please correct me on this one, sir.
Follow by.
Dale Davis.
And Bob Webster.
My name is Thomas.
Vladimirack.
And my spelling may have not been really good on my hand.
You're gracious.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
So nice.
I don't make my letters too clear.
I'm a resident of Portland, Lucy.
I have lived in Dave County, Brevard County, Palm Beach County, St. Lucy County, and possibly in the next 10 years or so.
I'm planning to potentially move to Palm Bay.
And I have concerns about this train and the project and its route.
I'm an advocate.
If the train wants to go from Miami, Fort Largo West Palm Beach, it goes by way of Indian town,
and there will be two Orlando.
If it wants to add a route up to East Coast at the future time, that's fine.
If it wants to add a route from Orlando to Coco via the 520 corridor, that's fine with me because it would not disturb any homes.
But to have it coming up to East Coast, not only the impact of Palm Bay, which I have driven around the last month or two, looking for lots.
It goes through meco.
It goes through several small communities where if you're coming straight out of Southern Palm Bay to go US-1, you will have to cross that track.
It's a very rural area.
So that's one of my concerns.
My wife, my sister, is a current resident of the Bar County.
She has lived up in this area, both in South Lake Beach and up in the current village.
So that's another reason for me to move probably closer to her and my wife has relatives and such a fort.
But again, I'm just opposed to the route that they've chosen.
I have called them and their attitude is what we're going to do what we want to do.
I've given them several suggestions.
There are areas in Martin and St. Lucie County.
I says, how about elevating the track?
So the car is going to go under it.
So there's not the delays for the hospitals, the ambulances, the emergency response vehicles.
The emergency response to voters, they said, no.
If they want the tracks elevated, let the cities pay for it.
I would be very weary of you doing an agreement with them.
And I would wait until the complete impact report is available.
The see what it says, and I understand, I have not read the five hundred-some pages.
From what I've heard, the information north of Palm Beach County is very limited.
Again, I know it's a preliminary report.
But I would be concerned to see what it says from Palm Beach County north all the way through here.
And I understand that there could also increase their cargo.
With the increase number of train crossings and cargo crossings,
you're going to have to delay for emergency vehicles.
Just my few weeks of wandering Palm Bay with the intent of purchasing a lot.
I am concerned that if for some reason I need to get to US-1 in the emergency and Southern Palm Bay,
I understand there's going to be an interchange of 95 to be built in the future.
South of the current Malibar Road interchange in 95.
I know that may be a few years off, but in the interim, if I need to get to US-1,
there's two roll crossings out there.
And that would be one of my concerns of let's say an accident occurs.
And the train is stuck across one or two of those crossings.
I have no idea how long these freight trains would be.
So I just hope you'll take this all in consideration.
I would post phone your vote.
At least until the impact, the environmental impact report is completed.
And I don't think it would be that detrimental to them.
If you decide to approve the bond later, fine.
But at least wait until you get the full impact report, the environmental impact report.
And also the impact of the committee, as the woman who mentioned near Barford Bay
community, I understand it's a trailer park community, that the additional train rail
that may be coming through there in the noise and the other effects of that committee.
Thank you very much.
Mr. Dale, Davis?
Good afternoon, commissioners.
The old Davis Melbourne.
I'm here to object, obviously, to all aboard Florida's issuance.
I'm going through a backyard.
My biggest objection is going to be to safety.
Obviously, we're talking about police, fire, EMS, and any kind of tragedy, which after seven years,
we may be responsible for.
What I would like you to do.
We consider is the issue at hand. Do you want to vote to exceed this cap? Are we premature in this? I'd like to take a moment while I was sitting here looking at Mary and Chuck.
I'm just on the side note. Thank you so much for your area of service and Commissioner Nelson, you've been here for over 30 years, so thank you so much for your service and community.
I'm telling you, all right, let me get back on track here. New York LLC is who's putting this through our backyard.
Do we want to have a New York company come down here with a surety bonds, making money and taking it back up north?
Once again, we're getting rail, shoved down our throats, but the issue at hand here is, do we want to exceed this cap?
Now my suggestion to you all would be to vote no. By voting no, you can at least revisit and or revise later on down the road, should the commission see so.
So if you want to go up to seven and a half, go up to seven half, let them get the ballroom, but do we really want to put us on a small pedestal of only seven years of abatements for these crossings?
I think when you look at our our own congressman bill posing, started looking at the federal grants and took it to the GAO, that's a major concern for all of you to look out for all of us.
The last time, as it says up there, this is the second time you look at the FDFC amendment.
The last time you amended it was a 1994, we had a return on investment, is there any return on investment?
There's a bunch of promises being made, but I know, as a citizen of Melbourne, if I remember correctly, the last time we looked at this, God bless you sir.
That there's over 22 crossings just in Melbourne, that's going to be an issue back to my original objection.
When we look at these grade crossings, what are going to be the O&M prices after seven years?
I think I heard it's in, you know, eight to ten years, that's when everything's going to start failing, well we have to start thinking up the price for this.
I agree with my commissioner Andy Anderson, when this was brought to I think May.
This is probably one of the poorest business models I've seen myself, and I agree with Monique Miller.
I think what we're looking at here is a prematurity.
If you're going to allow FDFC to go ahead and issue these bonds per the interlocal agreement letter, let them go to that seven and a half million,
and if we need to revise later, we can.
So I'm urging you to vote no on this, and I would ask you to have them remain at their count, and then we can deal with this later.
Thank you very much.
Mr. Bob Webster, Bob Webster followed by Kim Hutchinson, Philip Nick Adam Barbara Nick.
Good afternoon.
My name is Bob Webster, my address is 288, one St. Bart's Square, Zero Beach.
And I want to start out by apologizing, I dump some email on your folks since Friday.
And the only reason because of late date is I didn't hear about this, and most of it was generated over that same time frame.
You have a copy of what my comments are going to be based on.
And I want to start by offering a conclusion in the words, I would suggest that you do go forward in a positive manner with this, I believe.
So the reasons are ample and justified, a positive move forward.
What form that takes and the timing is of course up to you.
But let me just go over some of the benefits of all the board.
I want to talk about the negative side.
Let's talk about what the benefits are.
And ironically, some of these benefits sound like the same issue that the tractors put out.
First off, let me talk about the operational improvements that lead to these benefits.
All board Florida at its expense will install a GPS based positive train control system.
What does that mean?
That means that they will know exactly where every train is at every time, both passenger and freight.
This is the state of the art.
It's mandated.
I haven't been able to find the latest version of when it's mandated by.
But it will get me here earlier than the data was mandated for all train systems operating at a certain level.
This will prevent any of the 20 or 19th and 20th century type accidents that occurred when they didn't know where trains are.
Even today, they just know from block to block where they are.
They don't know precisely where they are.
They also identify any problems, it grades, so that the trains can automatically be stopped.
If there is something stuck on the track, whether it's at a grade causing, I mean, it's going to monitor the system.
So it's a huge safety impact.
They're going to also double track the main line entirely between Palm Beach and Coco.
And that there will be real elements.
Now, that will help the orderly flow of traffic.
They're going to also triple track in certain areas.
I understand about three mile long segments where there are no grade crossings.
They're going to install compliance with sealed corridor requirements of the Federal Railroad Administration.
What sealed corridor is a safety enhancing requirement that makes all sides,
whether it's in a direction of travel or not be controlled by a gate.
It assures that it is barrier to prevent people from doing the silly maneuver that gets them killed.
And that is the cause of most deaths at crossings and impacts at crossings.
And that is to try to weave around the gates because they think they can beat the train.
That won't be possible with sealed corridor.
Interestingly enough sealed corridor gives you their requirements you need to obtain quiet zones.
And they're going to pay for them.
There's very little else you have to do for most crossings.
There could be some, every crossing is different, so there could be some exceptions.
But for the most part, all you're going to have to do is make a request and install a couple of signs,
warning the traveling traffic public that the horns won't be sounding for this crossing.
So this idea that these are going to be, to obtain quiet zones is going to be a big expense
that the community is far fetched and not supported by the facts.
And I maintain that these changes will actually improve the health well-being safety of the people.
Because trains, they're going to realign not just where these tracks are, but they're going to get them to tighter tolerances
so that they can run with less vibration and faster.
And that will include traits, so your crossing gate times will be significantly reduced.
And that will allow some of the reduction in the crossing times for traits will be absorbed by the new passenger service.
I wanted to quickly say something about the crossings, crossings exist at the public's convenience.
The railroad doesn't want to crossings.
So if the public wants that crossing, there are really obligated to pay for it and they're obligated to pay the maintenance of it.
So if they don't want to pay that maintenance, then abandon the crossing.
So I mean, there are a number of other issues I could talk to, but they're addressed to the material I sent.
Thank you. I appreciate the time to speak with you.
Thank you.
Kim Hutchinson, followed by Philip McKettum.
Hi, I'm Kim Hutchinson, good afternoon, officially afternoon.
I am a fourth generation Floridian from Weirman, scarry Pemperpine, Florida.
I love Florida. I love the beauty of Florida. I love everything about it.
But the fact is, so does a lot of other people.
Last year, we had 94.7 million visitors to the state of Florida.
And this year, it is projected this year or next year, Florida's growth will surpass New York.
Again, I love Florida, but there's a lot of folks on the road.
And we need to find other ways of other modes of mobility to get them off the roads.
And I think all aboard Florida is the way to go. Thank you.
Thank you.
Philip McKettum.
Thank you.
My name's Fort McGout and my living Johnson Beach.
I would first like to say that I'm not against trains.
My father earned his living for 40 years from trains.
I'm against this particular train in the path that it wants to take.
The other thing I'd like to ask the board, a major portion of the taxpayers I'm not here yet.
And I asked you to please wait until they show up.
They deserve to have the right to join in on these meetings.
I want to read to you a resolution written by the President of the H.O.A. on a property that we have in St. Lucy.
Resolution for tax abatement due to all aboard Florida as adverse effects on property values.
Vietnam, the Oaks and Indian River property on associations.
Is that in the opposed to all aboard Florida, high speed trains and
associate track upgrades.
The excessive amount of trains to run from Miami to Orlando.
32 per day 32 per day proposed and will severe adverse effects on the property values on the Oaks and Indian River and the property
on Indian River drive.
Since the all aboard high speed train was announced the property values in our association have been going down.
Before the announcement, and when property values were still low due to the economic turn down,
they could land sold for $100,000.
Since the announcement of the proposed trains, property is settled for a 60 and 70,000 dollars.
And the time when the average property values in the county have risen.
There can be no doubt that this is a direct result of all aboard Florida.
Properties along the Guada typically rise much faster than properties that are in land.
Yet the values of the properties in this area actually are falling.
The address of tax of having an excessive amount of trains being proposed to travel along this corridor
has deeply depressed the values.
We have not seen cars born in a decrease in property taxes.
The Oaks of Indian River property association sees this bureaucratic move by AAF unsound.
And permanently unconscionable burden to our residents.
We are urging our residents to apply for tax abit and to voice their opposition to all aboard Florida.
Now, we have a piece of land that my wife purchased 10 years ago.
And last year I decided to go there and start clarinet because we hadn't had any sales in that property for years.
And all of a sudden it started to move.
So I went down and started clarinet in the process.
I was bit by a snake and almost run over by a pig.
So friends of mine in Boston said, what are you doing?
So I'm working in Jurassic Park.
Last March, we had no offer on the property.
Now, I dropped, we had a lot of view on our property.
This property had so far 100,000 didn't have one of you.
So we adjusted the price down to 80,000 when we had all these problems.
We had an offer of 80,000.
The person stepped up, ate this offer, came down here from Maryland,
found out about the trains and walked away from the offer.
Since then, we've lost another buyer from this property.
It is unbelievable on this impact study.
I've been both my whole life.
How they could take trains and run them down our coast.
I spent a lot of time in Brevard County.
30 years ago, what made me moved to Florida was the move that Melbourne made
to not let high rises go up on the beach.
And now, let them take these trains down.
I opened a car in Atlanta.
I'm not opposing them running these trains.
The other thing is, they want to get private finances.
I ask representatives from A.A.F.
and point and beach meeting simple questions.
How much is a ticket from Miami to Orlando?
They told me they can't disclose it.
Now, they can't disclose it.
It's very obvious to me that their business model is not in place.
Or that ticket is so expensive that no one is going to buy it for a family of four.
This is, I've been around a lot of business since.
The other things, the Sympac study, to only allow 75 days.
I used to be able to copy and develop gas stations and put big signs on highways.
We had to give residents surrounding residents notices.
It would take 200 days and that was 30 years ago.
And now they only allow us 75 days.
I ask you to please put this float on hold until the rest of the residents show up.
Thank you very much.
Barbara Nick, followed by William Capote and Jan Black.
Yes, it is afternoon.
Thank you for letting us speak.
I brought this issue up several months ago to the county when I found out about it.
And I found out about it from the group in Indian River County.
And at that time, I was appalled at what I learned about this train.
It's going to rip our county into.
To this day, I have not found any positive thing for Brevard County on this.
My opinion has not changed.
This is not good for Brevard County.
I think we have a bunch of rabbits in the room.
They're chasing the carrot called a station for Brevard County.
They don't have any plans of putting a station here. How many years do we have to wait?
Till they decide there's enough money here that they want to put a station.
I wouldn't object to this if it was out in the western part of the county.
If it didn't run through our major, our population areas, our busiest roads, it's just a
calling that what it will do to the county. The gentleman that spoke from the board of
Realtors stated all the facts that I learned when I first learned about this.
And I agree with everything he said, the attorney from Indian River County stated very well, why we
should not be voting on this today. At least today, I'm not sure if we ever should.
I didn't move here because of mass transit.
Brevard County, I've been here since 1976.
Brevard County was a quiet town, which I enjoyed, and I think that's why most people came here.
If they wanted to move to a big city with mass transit, they had plenty of choices.
They could state up north, they wanted that. That's not why they came here.
They came here for the life style, the climate and the slower, you know, more relaxed
way of life. They have plenty of places to go if they want the traffic, the traffic
backups, if they want to ride trains, if they want the big city life.
And it's not that hard to get down there with the interstate.
We don't have traffic jams on our interstate. They're not backed up unless there's an accident.
And there's not many fortunately. But what happens if we have an accident from the trains?
I'm much back up in traffic throughout the whole whole city of Melbourne.
Is there going to be?
I think those people speaking today from South Florida don't have a right to come here and tell us
how we should live.
They didn't elect you. The citizens of Brevard County elected you.
Does look after our best interest, not the interest of those from South Florida, they want to ride
the train to Miami, from Miami, to Orlando.
If you go with what they want, you can change the motto for Brevard County to say,
Brevard, a bump in the road.
Thank you.
Good afternoon, Madam Chair, Commissioner.
Are you doing okay?
My first time in front of you.
Did you make your mayor?
Something like that.
But I'm here in support of all of board.
Let me give you my perspective.
I know that I may disagree and agree with some people in the room, but the reality is this.
We're writing a new script as I told my students today.
You could either stay doing the same old thing.
I track businesses like Nathan Grumman and Brevard into your area.
Bring young people into your area.
And don't provide the services that they're looking forward to.
A lady just dated before.
Majority of the people may include myself.
Okay?
Well, I might be on their shoes later on.
May not get to see this train.
Maybe we will.
But the reality is that I've been around the country a few times in the last two years.
And a lot of the cities are structured now for a newer generation.
The new generation that we belong to, what we call the baby boomers, that are retiring to Florida,
who are accustomed to a community that was built.
Their grandparents lived in a city.
They went to college.
Made the money and bought houses in the suburbs.
Then on a sudden, that was the trend for the last 50 years.
This is a new trend that you need to get ready for, which is called the Millennials and the Gen X.
And they like transportation.
They like being in their community, which is called everything in close, multi-use.
So I would compel you to think about what kind of community you want to built into the future.
And if you want to continue to attract these businesses into the area and those young engineers and young families.
And how do you want the new economy to be to rethink your position as you take a choice here?
And I know because I sit in your shoes when I make choices.
And I don't think it's fair to pass the book to the next person who's going to get elected in November.
I think that is, you'll legacy this being determined here in a positive and negative that you have to live with.
And I always say I could always live with my decision, put my head on the pillow and go to sleep.
Because I've done my research and where there is the popular vote on popular vote, I live with it, because I've done my research.
And now so really what I wanted to come and tell you here today.
This is a good thing for our community.
There's going to be differences of opinion.
And that's why we live in America.
And that's why we have such a great political system.
Because everybody is entitled to their opinion.
But then you have to render the vote.
And that's your job.
We could have all the opinions we want out here.
And I sit in your shoes and you know that.
And sometimes I make unpopular decisions, but I have to live with them.
Thank you.
Thank you, sir.
Jan Black.
Good afternoon, commissioners.
Jan Black.
9807 Riverview Drive.
Micah.
Just barely in Bernard County, but we are in the yard.
Just I have one thing I just wanted to ask maybe the attorney could tell me.
Because I haven't really researched.
If we if you do this resolution today, I realize the money really isn't coming from Florida.
They're just a pass through from the U.S.
The O.T. or whatever they call it.
Does that will that impact our county be enabled to use some of those same funds for things here in the county?
Because I know that's been done in other places with FDFs.
Would you like to answer, sir?
What they're looking for today is private activity bonds.
I know that.
We need the money's going to come from private sources.
It's not going to affect the counties.
I understand that at all.
But it's coming.
It's being issued through FDFs.
There's a certain amount of money per year or something.
That counties can receive through that.
But we're not receiving any money.
So it's not an issue for us.
Okay.
But I mean, the fact that FDFs.
Okay.
That's what I need to know.
The other thing that's important to me is I hear so many people say
And that talk about quiet zones, quiet zones,
and everybody thinks that's the be all sent in.
I was looking at some information in the TPO that showed me
There are five crossings in Brevard County
that have moderate impact as a result of the trend.
There are none.
That's so severe impact.
If, unless that, and that was applied to the engineering company,
that GOP put to work to find out.
So if that's true to me that means maybe there's five crossings that would be
eligible for quiet zone, and none others.
I know up is Tom's here today.
Maybe he can tell us that's been changed.
But that's what was in the report.
Also, we left Brevard County because it got so crowded.
And then that's why we came here.
So I understand the people down there how they want to be able to move
because traffic doesn't move.
I also understand the college students.
But my thought about that is I think some of the kids in Brevard County
would love to have the opportunity to hop on a train here and go to the University of Miami
University of Central Florida.
So again, we're being asked to be a donor county to my way of thinking.
I'm a physician to pay in all that money, and I'm whatever you do.
Seven year moratorium is ludicrous.
Consider when you think about in perpetuity after that, what the citizens
are going to be stuck with.
That's it.
Thanks.
Reverend Glenn.
Thanks.
And then we have two cards left.
Wow.
I thought this time would never come.
Yes.
Talk to the choir, honey.
I feel kind of gay.
All the bad.
I haven't said that since kindergarten.
And I'm excited about seeing it now.
It's an opportunity for Brevard County to get on board.
Get on board the future.
And the future is now.
I haven't been paid.
I'm just passionate.
What am I passionate about?
I'm passionate about jobs for persons in my congregation.
Six, twenty five.
I've done an avenue.
Tidesville Florida.
Tidesville has been impacted tremendously.
By job loss.
And I'm passionate about anything that can create jobs for people in Brevard County.
And more especially for persons in Tidesville to have the opportunity.
And so I think we need to do it.
I think also the fact that I am a native of Jacksonville, if they should expand.
And end up in Jacksonville.
It's good because the noise on will go past Tidesville.
It will be able to benefit from that same barrier, which I think is important.
Lastly, but certainly not least, I think the port is taking the right approach.
And that is that this may have Kingston.
But you'll never throw the baby out with the bad for it.
And so I would ask that you commissioners.
Not throw the baby out with the bad water.
If we need to fix it.
That's passing and fix it and move forward.
But that's not in P progress.
Thank you and God bless.
Thank you.
Houston.
The next speaker.
Thank you, Chairwoman.
Who's saying Comber Florida East Coast in the streets 28.
55 South Bulls Union Road Coral Gamble Sport up.
I appreciate the opportunity to address all of you today.
But let me start off by first thinking Scott and Stockton.
We've been working with them for for weeks to get to today.
And should be proud of the fact that not only are they very accessible and receptive, but we've had a good exchange of ideas.
And where we are today is not based on all the board floor to walking in and saying here's what we need.
What's before you today is all the board floor to and your staff working together to find a middle ground that we could present to you today.
And that's important because it has to be a dialogue.
And it really concerns me when people stand up here at the microphone and say that the railroad came in and said this is how it needs to be.
None of us talk like that.
And we've had interaction with with many of you and and you know those are the type of words that that I know the opposition likes to quote.
But it's never been you know been uttered.
And today we have an important point in the in the evolution of this relationship with reward and and that's developing a partnership.
And a partnership that has started decades ago that continues today with what we do with the port.
What we do with the community.
And you've all said you want a voice and the agreement before you is exactly having that voice.
You've heard from local community support you've heard from your community leaders.
And Mayor Parrish I can't take credit for this for this comment but he put it very well several months ago when he said you can't expand a system that doesn't exist.
And he said you have to build this first system.
You have to get it financed and then you can expand the system.
But what I can guarantee you is there is no stopping barred if all the board floor to is in constructed.
Today as I stand before you.
The Florida development finance corporation through its interlocal agreements because of a vote that took place in Miami-Dade County hours ago.
Has the ability to be the conduit to issue 1.375 billion in private activity bonds for all the board floor to.
So we're asking for you today is to be a partner and to allow us to issue the additional funds needed in order to move forward with the project.
We will issue those bonds no matter what.
But we feel it's important that Bervard have a seat at the table.
And that's why you've got the benefits of the quiet zones of the fees that were paying of the maintenance of the payment and all of that comes with the project.
Private activity support today. Let me hit on the reverse private activity bond issue. One of the speakers
is correct. The riff loan has not been withdrawn. And the reason the riff loan has not been withdrawn
is we haven't had this vote today. We haven't issued the private activity bond yet. And what
we've said from day one that if we get the private activity bond allocation, it would substantially
reduce or replace the riff loan. And we can't be any more clearer about that. And depending on the
level of private activity bonds that were approved for, it will directly affect the riff loan. So
we're not withdrawing the riff loan because we don't know where we are with the private activity
bond process. Folks came to us and said, look, we've got issues with the risk to taxpayers. We disagree
with that statement. However, we did go back to the table, come up with an alternative that said, private
entities will be the ones that invest in this project. So when people walk up and say they have
concerns about the financial viability of this project, they have concerns whether the ridership will
exist. They should actually want this process to play out because if you have private entities
that have to do their own due diligence, the most sophisticated financial institutions in this country
that have to underwrite this project. You do not sell $1.75 billion worth of private activity bonds
because somebody says the marketing material looks really nice. They will do their own due diligence.
And so if you have concerns about financial viability, if you had concerns about ridership,
this is exactly the process you want to play out where you are giving private entities the ability to
do their own due diligence and invest in this project. Let me also mention the draft EIS because a lot of
people have brought up what's been in the draft EIS document. We paid for the consultant to complete
that study, but that consultant reported to the Federal Railroad Administration. They took direction
from the Federal Railroad Administration. So when people say the Federal Government should spend money
for these types of projects, the Federal Government agrees and says, we are not going to do the work
for free and so we are going to charge the entity the projects sponsor for it. Let me end by saying
on that issue it is an independent party that developed that document that laid out the facts of the
impacts of this project and the conclusion of that document which we did not see until everybody else in this
room saw it so that the project had limited impacts if the mitigation measures, the 19 mitigation
measures laid out were implemented. We have committed to agree to all of those 19 mitigation measures.
Thank you for your time this afternoon. Thank you. Have a nice running, sir.
I'm Chairwoman, my name is Mike Rininger and I'm the President of all aboard Florida,
members of the Commission. I asked to be here before you today. I appreciate the opportunity to take
a few minutes of your time. I also like to start by saying that I very much appreciate the comments from
everybody that took the time today to be here and let their voice be heard around the subject of
all aboard Florida. With certainty, the topic is something that generates an enormous amount of interest
across the state and it generates passionate views on every side, all of which are equally important
and the discourse associated with it we consider to be a central component of moving this forward in a very
productive and meaningful way. But with the very few moments that I have here today what I'd like to
do as I believe on the last speaker is perhaps focused this back in to the issues that are on the
table before you today. The first thing I'd like to do is start with a distinction between the
action that you're being asked to take today and the ongoing actions associated with the remainder of
the approval of approval for the project for its extension into the second phase into Orlando,
which is the subject of an ongoing environmental impact state study. These two actions are completely
distinct and separate from one another. So what happens here today with regard to your particular
boat in your particular action is related only to the financing of the project. It has nothing whatsoever
to do with the approval processes associated with the environmental impact statement. That process will
remain exactly as it always has been under the process that has been laid out and will continue its natural
course of things where everybody continues to have access to voicing their point of view and ultimately
the assessments will be made by the federal railway administration and all of the other cooperating
agencies of the federal government who have purview over that particular process. So it's important to note
that those two things are separate from one another. The second thing I'd like to point out is
all aboard Florida is effectively a direct investment into infrastructure and as with all infrastructure
investment programs it will generate enormous jobs and billions of dollars of economic activity.
It will additionally generate environmental and safety benefits that will be felt throughout the
entirety of the state of Florida. About 20% of the total investment that our company is going to be making
into the rail infrastructure that will be supporting our business will be made right here in
Brevard County and therefore the benefits that stream out of that direct investment here to
Brevard County will come along directly with that investment. The project all aboard Florida produces
important enhancements to the mobility of the state of Florida and mobility is central to prosperous
and sustainable economies everywhere in the United States and in fact everywhere in the world.
But for the investment from our sources here that we're proposing with you today,
these needs, these transportation mobility needs, with otherwise need to be serviced from public funds
as they traditionally are in the form of taxpayer contributions in one form or another to take on these
infrastructure challenges. What is unique about the opportunity that is before you today is a methodology
to overcome that challenge in a way that does not place burden on to public entities or taxpayers
in any way shape or form. And lastly, the economics of the proposition are really pretty straightforward.
There is a finite amount of investment that we can make in order to produce a viable and profitable
private sector business. The more money of our investment that we have to spend to pay for debt
in the form of interest payments, the less money we have available to direct towards tangible assets.
And in fact, it's the tangible assets that generate the jobs, that generate the economic benefits,
that generate the environmental benefits, and also the sustainable aspects of what we're talking about here today.
The proposition before you today is a mechanism and incentive mechanism to reduce the cost of debt
thereby increasing the amount of money that we can invest directly in all forms of the tangible
assets that will in fact generate all the positive benefits that accrue from the development of all
aboard Florida as a project. That really is the central question that you're being asked to apply on here today.
And so what you have for you is an opportunity to help make this infrastructure program happen in the state of Florida
to be an at the table participant in the future of the operation in a way that places absolutely no burden,
absolutely no obligation, and absolutely no risk on any taxpayer here in Vard County or in fact anywhere else in the United States.
And that at the end of the day is the central question that you're being asked to apply it on today.
We very much appreciate all the time and attention that you've given to this subject matter up to this point and we look forward
to the results of your vote. Thank you for your time today.
Thank you very much.
Can we first?
I do have Commissioner Fisher and then followed by Commissioner Inventini.
I'm going to pass the card down to Commissioner Inventini. That was the card that the gentleman you wanted to speak with.
Commissioner Fisher.
I want to thank everybody for coming to in a half hours.
I think it's great that we get the input and I think it's great that we got the hear from different
people in different parts of the state. My concern has always been what's best for reward.
And so when I put my entrepreneur head on, I see a company that owns railroad tracks that
wants to use their property for something that they think can be successful.
And who am I to say, you can't do that.
And I think that's very difficult to do.
Now I didn't tell them that in the negotiations, but that's how I really, when I put my, when I put
my entrepreneur head on, that's how I, that's how I feel about it.
So then becomes my responsibility and I'm not going to judge whether they're ridership or work or won't work.
You know what, that's their business model. They need to do make a decision.
And the private and the market would decide whether they're working not.
I don't think it's my responsibility to figure out whether the Fed will regulate the safety of
trains running down the track of a certain distance. And so I get that.
But I do have the ability to say, how's the before going to benefit from it?
And then I've got the ability to put my negotiation head on, because I think I can lease slow to process
down or at least make them have dialogue. And I can assure you that Mr. Mike, the first time he met me,
he called me some names. Maybe not to my face, but I think he probably said some things.
I think he told me that this is good for Florida. And I think I told him, I'm not near as worried about
Florida than him, but by our county. There's some other legislators that worried about Florida.
So I didn't do that to you, clap, but just want to. So some of the things that we're seeing in front
of us today is a couple months of negotiations was dealing with the resolution dealing with FFTFC
ladder to pay a fee. It's the first time FFTFC ever paid a fee. In addition, bonds in this county.
But, you know, when I looked at where the bonds would be in issue throughout this county and I saw the
stops were going to other communities and we weren't having a stop. I felt like we deserve to be compensated
in some way for helping issue these bonds. I felt like the crossing agreements, they met when we first met,
you know, we're crossing their land, we should be paying for the maintenance. I think that well, maybe we should be.
But there was an opportunity to talk about how long and how the responsibility of maintenance
won't be. We had that dialogue. There were some conversations also in reference to the the
quad zones. That is some language there that's going to allow us to make sure that the county doesn't
get responsible for quad zones. Also, the other issue which was also important to me is that
I like to see the port and the TPO drive the study because the port and TPO drive the study can be more
there's a thing in the prairie business called made as instructed. I think it's more important that we
be the driver behind the study to justify whether training at some point in time will go north or south
or in my personal opinion. I believe that the most likely place where it makes most senses from OIA to the port
because I think that as a county where the cruise ship industry is running that we're going to be running a
lot of people back and forth to that port and that it's very possible that we need to put some
relief on 528 in the pressure that all those people would do on that. And if they bring cargo, cargo to me is
success. That's business and that's entrepreneur. That's people driving business and I think that's important.
So, I'm supportive of this. I'm supportive of it and I'm supportive of the maintenance and the
the resolution and those things understanding that if we don't issue the bonds or the bonds don't happen,
then I would want to come back and address all those other issues in the future.
So that's more. Commissioner Infantini. Mr. Tobin, I don't know who's supposed to answer this.
I was curious as many speakers had presented a product. The only counties that are being asked to
use their name to help you get your tax except financing are the counties that have train stops except for
Revard County. Revard County is that being asked to support 21% of your bond financing request.
No other county that doesn't have a train stop is being asked. Where are we being asked to do that?
The five counties that will use private activity bonds and three of the counties do not have
caps on the amount of bonds that can be issued. So there are two counties Miami,
date and Revard that are being asked to lift their caps so that we can issue more bonds than the current caps.
So the station issues is frankly coincidental. It's simply is that there are caps 7.5 million in
Revard County and we're asking to lift that caps so we can invest more infrastructure in
Revard County utilizing the private activity bonds. Same thing with Miami, date counties. So there's
no relationship between stations and the and the PAP vote. It's just a coincidence of which counties have
caps in their regulations. But we do have a cap and we're not getting a train stop but Indian Revard
St. Lucy and Martin County are not providing any of the bonds the bond request from at least my understanding.
Is that incorrect? Is that correct? Is that correct? No, that is correct. We are not. There's
frankly only a certain amount of bonds that can be issued in the marketplace today and we determine and
talking with our financial advisors that 1.75 million is, I'm sorry 1.75 billion is the amount that
the current market will bear and that works with our financing structure and we will not be utilizing
a PAP financing for.
So you don't need financing for the track in Indian River, Martin and St. Lucy counties, but you do need financing for the track in
of our county, orange county. I'm sorry. There's something wrong with that answer.
No, no, let me maybe I think I understand your question. Maybe I can answer it a little bit more.
It's, it really is quite simple, because you rightly pointed out the magnitude of the investment here in
Brevard County represent a very significant portion.
Yeah, 21 percent cost. That's why the ask is here, because that's where the investment is going.
It's really more than no simple than a more simple than that.
But Indian River is not being asked to support. There's no investment going into Indian River.
The investment from the utilization of private activity bonds won't go into those counties.
The equity investment on the company will go into those particular counties.
Okay.
So basically you put the tracks there or whatever.
That's right. That's right. That's exactly right.
And again, the reason is because of the magnitude of the investment that is here in Brevard County,
that the ask for the participation in the total financing of 1.75 billion comes here to Brevard County as well.
Okay. Thank you. We do have Mr. Anderson's light.
I'm still going.
Okay.
Let me just make a statement that we will be needing to do some type of a break because our, our tape when we do our is running out.
So I do want to stifle our conversation, but we won't have to be taking a break.
Okay. Thank you. Commissioner.
I thought it was curious to note more than half of the speakers that were in support of the train and the resolution did come from South, South Florida.
Three of the counties that were being going to have train stops as opposed to the people that are opposed to it came from different counties,
but they came from all of the counties that are not going to be receiving any type of benefit.
The next thing I wanted to point out is it's not in writing that we would be receiving a train stop. I know it's been pointed out before,
but if something isn't in writing that you will receive a train stop, it's not likely you're going to receive it.
Anything that somebody willingly, completely intends to do, they will put it into writing and make a part of the agreement.
And absent an agreement with Orange County Expressway Authority, taking right now Orange County Expressway Authority has an agreement with all aboard Florida saying that there won't be a train stop in Bernard County.
If there is, there has to be a, a numeration in a financial manner to compensate Orange County Expressway Authority for all of the funds that they would lose for people that are no longer traveling along the beach line.
Okay. Is that correct?
No man, that's not exactly correct. And, and neither was the comments that were made earlier from the assistant attorney from the Amir River County.
It was either a misinterpretation of the words of the document or for some other ever.
The document public document, by the way, available, everybody to read, does specifically does not preclude a stop in Brevard County or really anywhere else.
What it does do is it has conditions that are around protection to the existing bondholders who have provided funding for the roadway, which says that if a station were to be added onto the system anywhere, that an assessment would need to be made with respect to the negative impacts,
actually to the existing bondholders. And if it was determined that there were negative impacts, the economics of those negative impacts would have to be made up relative to the approval of that station.
That exact exercise was conducted in the base agreement to put the system that is on the table today onto the, into existence.
In fact, there is a compensation method from all aboard Florida directly as a part of the lease that makes up the difference that was associated with the stops that are proposed in the first stage.
That very same process would have to be taken for other stations, including the potential future station here in Brevard, but it is not an impediment to actually having a station take place in Brevard or anywhere else.
Okay, thank you. And you are corrected. It does say that we can have a station as long as we enumerate them for the financial impact that they lose.
Right. Well, I think that there would definitely be an impact because when you start taking cars off of the beach line, you are definitely going to impact their pocket.
That's the document that I wanted to have reversed. That clause reversed out of the agreement with Orange County Orlando Expressway Authority so that they're obviously there's going to be a financial impact.
And so I'm trying to get that removed so that you can put an agreement with us that you will put in a train stop winning if there are some other things that I wanted to say.
I don't want us to substitute all aboard Florida for FEC and our lease agreement. A few of the things that I've pulled out and we have a ton of lease agreements. I was looking over on last night there.
Here's some of them. One of the clauses says in our existing lease agreement that the county shall not take any action to prevent or tend to restrict the operations of trains.
So as soon as we substitute all aboard Florida for Florida East Coast, then we lose the privilege of doing anything to prevent any type of train activity.
There's another part that says that the county grants all necessary permits to FEC and so that means automatically whatever permits that would be required by all aboard Florida are automatically going to be permitted by Bernard County.
So there's a lot of reading wording in the existing agreements to help protect the provide county.
As soon as you substitute all of those protections are lost and I just I just wanted to point that out. I'm sure not everybody had an opportunity to read these leases and so I didn't read all of them but I read many of them.
And that concludes some of my points.
Commissioner Anderson.
I'll be fairly short. Mr. Fisher. I got call worse names than you and I think I called them a name. I can't remember what it was.
The only thing I'll say is when I talked to them originally I said hey look we're getting all the burden with none of the benefits and I don't like the idea of taxpayer money is being used and one of my biggest issues is the maintenance issue.
By I think stocked and winded a fantastic job in the go shading this bond issue. So we at least get a voice and get something at the table and then increase overnight a couple times.
So that Mr. when you did a fantastic job doing that.
I'm okay with the agreement as it is because we're getting everything that I had a problem with it. So I would be a liar and it would be very disingenuous of me to say no I don't like it now that you as a fixed maintenance issue and that.
We also have moved forward to the quiet zones of protect our residents. I do have one issue that has nothing to do with them since we did just select and use state consultant lobbyist.
Mr. Knox pulled up the expressway authority legislation.
For me this week I've talked to one senator that would sponsor change.
They change the name it's the central for the expressway authority and.
Every county except for let's see orange county, seminal county, late county.
I see all the county all their chairman's going to point somebody to that board.
So we already have a senator on one side that said that if we draft something and get it through our council will get a house member will get a place on that board so we can.
Hand over this issue with this agreement that was on and that's outside of that, but I hope you guys would support that on one of our legislative priorities other than that.
I'm glad we heard from everybody and.
Here the other commissioner's having a spoken but we'll see where it goes.
I do have commissioner Fisher then commissioner now.
I just want two things to get addressed with the public that just want to make sure it was clear one of the things about the ESI.
I thought that.
How we could impact the ESI or not impact the ESI.
Whatever found out in my research is the ESI doesn't say that they came put a train here.
With the ESI say that these are the conditions that you can put the train here and so.
The ESI is going to be more of a document that put restrictions on how this train will operate and run in the safety features and the different things.
It's not about whether it stops a train or doesn't stop a train.
I think some people came in impression that if the ESI is not successful that the train won't come.
That's not the case.
I think they justified every reason why they can run the train on their tracks.
It's just a matter of how you address some of the issues that the ESI will bring out.
The other thing about the.
Bring in all aboard Florida as part of the agreement.
I think it's important to bring all aboard Florida part of the agreement because I think I don't want to get an argument.
Whether it's all aboard Florida rather FEC or others any other.
The city area they have when it comes to our maintenance who we're going to hold for responsible for maintenance who we're going to hold responsible for some of the quiet zone stuff and some other things.
So I think that all the players ought to be part of the agreement so that we make sure that we know who's responsible.
Commissioner Nelson.
I'm not going to lie to you when this first came to the board and in my last meeting I get to deal with this issue.
You have to go what were you thinking.
But yeah, the reality for me is this is that I'm uncomfortable with making a decision that a board is going to have multiple decisions to be made at later dates.
And first of all, I want to say that the folks from all aboard Florida have been highly professional.
They have never threatened.
They have always been in my estimation just top notch and doing what you do.
So I appreciate that because I really think that this has been a good discussion.
I am a supporter of multimodal transportation and I do think that trains are in Florida's future.
And I think that the difficulty will always be how does that look in any community.
And I've said from the very beginning that safety cost and community impact were important to me.
Because I think ultimately, if the state of Florida is going to succeed, then we need to have these kinds of opportunities.
But this was changing as of yesterday afternoon and I'm uncomfortable with that.
In two weeks they will be electing some new good old boys to replace us.
If you've never run for office immediately after getting elected you become one of those.
The point is this that they're going to be making this decisions going forward.
My preference would be they make those decisions because I think they need to have that input.
I don't want to burden them with the decision.
I made which they may have felt differently on.
While I believe that this is going to go forward in the near future, I would prefer that a new board deal with it.
I would prefer that some of the issues that are currently on the table.
They have a chance to be brought up to speed on.
I'm not really comfortable with it at this point in time.
Excuse me, please. I like to speak next in line.
They don't give me lights. I get to jump in when I can.
First of all, I feel like I have not been negotiating very well because you have not called me names.
When we did our negotiation, all of the commissioners are hands on with this.
And I just use different tactic. I just was a bully.
So you didn't have to beat me up too badly.
I differ in philosophy with Commissioner Nelson as that.
We have the experience and knowledge of the eight years sitting here taking hard decisions and moving forward.
And I support of this.
I want to make the hard decision now because it is something that's going to be beneficial to our county.
I firmly believe that this is going to be the future and that we will,
down the years, be able to get a location in Brevard County.
And I do not want to do anything to hinder that vision.
So I am being supportive of this.
I'm Mr. Nelson, the good thing about the good old boy that they can blame this commission.
They take the pressure off for them.
And, you know, we all build with things.
Other commissioners have done from decision.
So I want to make a motion that we approve the resolution.
We approve the FDFC letter agreement at 357, 357, 358,000 waiver fee.
We approve the maintenance moratorium agreement eight years for both the city and county.
Plus the $375,000 waiver fee.
Plus the AAAF contribution of $500,000 towards matching funds.
For the railroad related improvements initiated by the county.
I approve the AAAF and FEC crossing agreement attached at the exhibit to this agenda item.
And also, just make it clear that the public private bonds need to be issued.
Or these other things will we will come back and negotiate those things.
Okay, I do have a motion on the table.
Do I have a second.
Second by Commissioner Anderson.
Commissioner and Bettini, your like for discussion.
Yes, I just wanted to mention I thought I read that the quiet zones were going to be paid for by all aboard Florida.
But then I read the quiet zones will only be paid by all aboard Florida to the extent that there is federal funding
available.
So if somebody could clarify that for me.
Commissioner, what we have discussed with staff is that half a million is the first half a million.
That would be contributed towards the quiet zones.
So we're only going to contribute half a million.
I don't know how much it's going to cost because we haven't seen any of the gross.
So we don't know what we're getting into later for maintenance.
But so you're going to contribute half a million towards quiet zones.
Correct.
And no more.
But it's not contingent on whether federal funds or state funds are available.
Okay, so just half a million, and then did you decide which locations would get those?
That is part of the process that would take place with your public works department.
Okay, I just want to make sure that the sport is aware of that because I know that quiet zones were something that was important to Commissioner Anderson.
And he seemed to express about the quality of life and that he wanted quiet zones.
So I just want to make sure you're okay understanding that it's not going to be unlimited that there's not.
I'm not interested in that.
Okay.
Mr. Wooden.
I'm Chair, members of the board. There are two sections in this resolution that talks about quiet zones and still quarters.
And so if you go to page three of the resolution, you actually have the language with regard.
It's a number two and number three with regards to the quiet zone issue and the still quarter issue.
And so the still quarter expenses, the AAF's expense, which as I understand, in some cases, may actually address the quiet zone requirements.
And so I just want to draw the boards attention to those two sections.
So does that increase can you tell me what the dollar amount is?
Because what you just said was completely confusing unless somebody else got it.
So I was clear on it.
Okay, so how much money is going to be going and where's the coming from?
It's just as Mr. Combers said.
We recall that you passed the resolution that the TPL will go for state funding with regards to the quiet zones.
And so their contribution towards any cost that we may have, obviously those costs are unknown at this current time.
On quiet zones, their contribution is 500,000.
Their costs for the still quarters is 100%.
And so there may be a differential, a delta between quiet zone requirements and still quarters.
We don't know that, but they are putting forth a contribution towards that to supplement whatever dollars that may be available from state funds.
Hopefully that's.
Thank you.
That lines up.
Thank you.
So in other words, that they're actually given far more than 500,000.
Because we would have to pursue state funds for the still quarters ourselves.
If we were in this process today correct, Mr. Daniel?
I do have a motion on the floor.
Oh, I'm sorry.
I don't know not.
I want it.
That's a record.
I want it.
I've got to bless your heart.
I have a motion on the floor.
All in favor.
Please state.
I.
Anyone opposed.
Passes three, two.
Commissioner Nelson.
Commissioner Infantini.
Mr. Knott.
Yes, Madam Chair.
I just want to make sure that I understood that.
The.
The approvals that you offer rise with the four that Mr. that commissioner.
Fisher identified his motion.
And that all those approvals were conditioned upon.
The private activity revenue bomb financing that AF is seeking actually being issued and closed.
Is that correct?
Yes.
That is affirmative.
That concludes that particular item.
We will be taking a break.
Do I have a decision how much time it takes to.
A change the tape.
Ten minutes.
So we'll take a 15 minute break.
Be back at 1.20.
We're on unfinished business for A.
Welcome back to Bevard County Board of County Commissioners meeting. Today is October 21, 2014.
And resuming our agenda. We are on unfinished business, which is for A.
And we do have a couple cards on this and a presentation if Mr. John Ferrell would like to come forward.
Or would you like to step it up for us in?
Yes, please, commissioners. Thank you.
A little over a year ago, the Board through a resolution created emergency shelter task force to look at certain issues regarding homelessness, so it's in Bevard County.
That's group that's represented here today and going to be presenting has been working diligently for over a year on the issues and they're coming close to their sunset date.
And are going to make this presentation to talk about what they've learned, the partnerships that are in place, what's going on and what the vision is for the future.
Keith Donald, who's the founder and CEO of Steady Town, which provides homeless prevention and re-housing programs for families with children is going to be making the presentation.
He's also a member of the Provard Homeless Coalition.
Thanks, sir.
Madam Chairman, County Board of Commissioners, I come before you today representing our emergency shelter task force to
present our plans on the issue of homelessness in Bevard County.
My name is Keith Donald and I serve as your spokesperson today because of my independent work over the last two years on this issue of which I seek solutions, action and leadership.
Over the next few minutes, I'll take you through the issues as we see them.
How key community partners are working together to solve them, what are immediate and long-term plans are and how we intend to pay for them.
I ask for your continued support of our plans and recommendations.
I would like to acknowledge the diverse set of task force members involved in this effort, along with the participating nonprofit agencies, without them, our coordinated efforts would not be possible.
First, the issues.
Generally speaking, those experiencing homelessness fall into one of two groups, chronic or episodic.
Those that are chronically homeless are effectively disabled.
Own-going supports are needed to end their homelessness.
Those that are episodic for the most part, they are working families with some time limited supports and a job they will end their homelessness on their own.
The key takeaway here is these groups are distinct.
We have chronic, episodic, disabled, and working family.
Because they are distinct, they require distinct levels of support to end their homelessness and we cannot treat them the same.
In Brevard County, both groups are our neighbors and both groups need our help.
Last year, Brevard Public Schools identified 2,200 and 2 children experiencing homelessness equating to hundreds of episodic families.
75% of these families are doubled up with their natural supports, but 25% are either trapped in motels or are unsheltered entirely.
Last year's census identified 262 veterans experiencing homelessness in Brevard County.
The VA identified 91 unsheltered veterans last month in Titusville at their stand-down, most of them chronically homeless.
The cross that the daily bread lists the names of 80 chronically homeless individuals that died in Brevard County last year.
As of today, there is not yet an ongoing, coordinated effort to identify, classify, and prioritize those experiencing homelessness in our community.
This has the following consequences.
First, our data on this important public health issue is fragmented across agencies.
It's incomplete, it is not real time.
As a result, we don't have a good understanding of where those experiencing homelessness are and which ones need our help the most.
Second, our agencies help independently on a first come first qualified basis and not necessarily the most vulnerable in our community first.
The fact remains are most vulnerable faced the most barriers to housing.
Barriers that include prior evictions, criminal background, mental and physical health, substance use, abuser trauma, risk of harm and income.
They cannot end their homelessness on their own.
They do cost our public taxpayers the most money and they need our help first.
How we help is also important.
Today, most of our mainstream resources are directed towards treating those experiencing homelessness instead of ending their homelessness.
The only way to end homelessness is through housing.
Housing is the best form of harm reduction in its defoundation for stability.
We, as a community, must direct our limited resources to housing first,
then to the support that is needed to help our most vulnerable individuals and families keep their housing and move towards greater independence.
I'd like to explore some partnership opportunities for dealing with some of these issues.
First, who can help us identify those experiencing homelessness?
Well, the schools can because they know our families.
The hospitals can because they know our most vulnerable.
The police and the sheriff they can help us.
But first, we must invest in a county-wide team who's so mission is to identify, classify, and prioritize those experiencing homelessness in our community.
This team will then work with our schools, our hospitals, and our public safety officials to guide those experiencing homelessness to the right level of support needed to end their homelessness.
Second, who can help us shelter families that are living on the street in a car, on the beach, in the woods, or in a storage unit?
Recognizing that shelter is not a destination, but the process by which people get housed.
Today, we are building an emergency shelter network, supported by local business owners and church leaders that care about this community.
The budget and, in Titusville, the Cocoal Affordable Living Center in Cocoa, the America's Best Value in in Melbourne,
they're all helping us coordinate shelter for families that have nowhere else to go.
And our commitment is to welcome home every single one of those families into housing within 30 days.
Family promise of reward, a growing local nonprofit has cultivated a network of 25 plus member churches that shelter families on a weekly basis.
We should invest in them as well, let's help them grow to 100 churches.
Third, to the most important piece, housing.
How do we house people that have housing barriers?
The answer is by providing the right level of supports and by building a network of local landlords that see those supports is good business.
Today, my program, steady family, a rapid rehousing intervention for reward families experiencing homelessness is housing eight families a month.
And they built a county wide network of over 30 landlords with hundreds of units under management.
They've been able to do this because 87% of their clients maintain their housing, a success rate landlords find favorable to renting on the open market.
How much does the average rapid rehousing intervention cost?
It costs $4,000 per family, including the cost of the case worker.
$4,000 to break the cycle of homelessness.
Fourth, how do we ensure an adequate supply of affordable housing units?
The data shows that the average income of working families experiencing homelessness is around $1,500 a month, or 30% of the area median income.
The best value rents across our landlord network are $400 a month for a one-bedroom apartment, $5,50 for a two-bedroom, and $700 for a three-bedroom.
Our families can make that work, but they're not enough of these units.
It's more common to fund rents as high as $950 for a three-bedroom in Palm Bay, for example, and that rent burden is simply too great.
Substities that inflate prices are not the answer.
We need more units with lower-based rents that still produce returns for local investors.
We need to foster local innovation that drives down both construction and maintenance costs.
I could go on from ancillary support, such as Priority Access to Workforce Child Care, to eviction prevention and judicial awareness campaigns champion by law enforcement,
to leveraging the many tech companies here to better capture and process data on this issue.
There's a lot more we can do.
But I'd like to talk first about now about implementation.
So I've talked about it.
The first thing that we're going to do is put in place a coordinated system to address homelessness in Brevard County and invest in a team to run it.
A team of data heads and skilled assessors, and this team will bring the many agencies together and fall under the scope of the Brevard homeless coalition,
which will become the lead agency for the county on this issue.
We're going to put the system in place now and get to work.
How will the system work?
The system is based around the only solution to housing.
It's only solution to ending homelessness that is housing, but not housing only housing first.
This solution is in contrast to traditional approaches where we treat a homeless person until we think they are ready for housing,
which the evidence shows does not work.
Housing first puts the focus on housing as the foundation and ongoing flexible supports as the means of achieving greater independence.
Support such as medical, financial, social, transportation, education and work.
All the things that we've talked about through partnership opportunities that enable individuals and families to keep their housing.
Housing first is proven to end chronic homelessness.
They've done it in Phoenix. They've done it in Salt Lake City. They've done it in rural Michigan.
It can end episodic homelessness as well.
It's proven to save money and it's proven to generate returns for local economies.
Effective high fidelity housing first is data driven.
It's evidence based. It helps those with the greatest need first and it facilitates client choice and greater independence.
It does not help all the participants the same way.
Nor does it help those that can help themselves.
Success in this system is measured by taking the number of those in our community that are experiencing homelessness down to zero.
That's our monthly take down target.
And success is validated by the ability of the individuals and families receiving help to keep themselves housed.
That's our housing stability success rate.
Longer term. Let's put the focus on new workforce housing projects.
New builds and rehabs. Let's set the goal for 100,000 locally built locally owned units that deliver permanent affordable destinations for working individuals and families experiencing homelessness.
Today we already have in this county.
The resources needed to in veteran homelessness by 2016. I'm very excited about that.
By 2020, if we work smart, we will be able to say that homelessness as an issue in Brevard County or as a condition.
It is rare and of short duration.
To make this happen, funding will be needed from federal, state and local levels.
We should establish two funding streams.
One for chronically homeless individuals and one for families.
We should create a unified.
Funding conduit through the Brevard Homeless Coalition. And today we've already secured $3.5 million for ending veterans homelessness and $600,000 for families.
In summary, our recommendation to you is to sunset the emergency shelter task force and to put full authority on this issue with the Brevard Homeless Coalition. The coalition will then put in place a coordinated housing first system.
This year, we're going to house 40 chronically homeless veterans and 250 veterans of moderate need, 10 chronically homeless individuals and 150 episodic families.
We're going to expand our data collection and outreach efforts and next year you'll see what kind of impact and what kind of progress we've made on this issue as a unified team focused on it. Thank you.
Good.
I do have Mr. John Ferrell who would like to add anything to this.
And Dr. Sally Shine.
Actually, I decided I'd try to speak if there was something else to speak about, we didn't have the time.
But I thank you all for your graciousness.
Thank you, John.
I'd like to stay chair.
Name and address.
I am Sally Shine and I'm at 1347 Rockledge Drive in Rockledge, Florida.
I'm the homeless liaison for Brevard Public Schools and I stand before you today to commend the Brevard County Commission for the employees and the managers of Brevard County Department of Parks and Rec.
The motto, a sense of their motto, a sense of community, achievement, respect for nature and good health have all been demonstrated repeatedly to our children.
Many of them, some of our most vulnerable in our county, our students were coded as homeless and Brevard Public Schools for the 2013-2014 school year.
And they attended summer camp this summer for Brevard Parks and Rec.
The leadership shown by Jack Massen and others such as Hector Lopez and the Central Terry Lane, Karshonda Wright and the North Greg Miner.
Rebecca Hernandez, Brenda Matthew, Shanturner, Annie Deming.
Larry, would you, would you?
Larry W. Okay.
County Bat, Fred Pop, Jeff Davis, Ficky Bennett, Resolving, Wonderful Outcomes for Children.
Your employees welcome these students and advocated for their needs.
Your accountant, Michelle Sommers, kept detailed records and assisted us in measureably.
Homelessness in our county cannot be stereotyped.
For example, this support helped a homeless mother and son living in a shelter to continue attending college classes, knowing her son was safe and cared for.
An eight year boy identified as gifted in our district was alone when his home burned down, which resulted in a jail sentence for his father.
When next with his mother, he experienced a day in the fleece station when his mother was arrested for theft,
and he had nowhere to go because his father had been re-arrested for another unspeakable offense.
His child was frozen in fear and trauma and taken in by a friend of the grandmother who was out of state.
All this in five weeks.
His child experienced consistency, kindness, new adventures, outdoor fun, wonderful field trips, two males a day,
and healthy support of adults who are consistent, patient, caring, intolerant, the result.
He has now an unstable home with his grandmother and doing well in school.
He's on his way to healing from this trauma, and he's reaching his full potential as a student in a future stakeholder of this county.
For more than 18 years, we've heard parks and rec have ensured that hungry children receive food consistently this year in 12 locations.
This has been a serious responsibility for summer needs of hungry children working together, the staff enabled homeless children to attend camp at a reduced rate,
which enabled families of 70 children to stay employed, earning their way out of homelessness,
knowing their children were not only safe, but experiencing the most exciting summer other life.
We'll quick with that.
We had 70 children, 51 of them are no longer homeless.
51 of them are now in homes.
And a lot of it has to do with the work that this group has done as well.
But your barred parks and rec have been absolutely wonderful.
And I just want to thank you.
Thank you.
Do we have action?
Yes, commissioners.
The action that we're requesting for this group is to accept the goals and allow for the group sunset per
resolution.
I have a motion by Commissioner Fisher, second by Commissioner Anderson, all in favor.
Please state aye.
Anyone opposed?
Pass us five sooner.
Thank you for your work.
Thank you very much.
Excellent.
Commissioner, I'm going to be moving an item up on the agenda.
I'm going to go to new business item number A3, which is concerning citizens in the barred county.
And they sat through all of the railroads, so they deserve to be moved up for one moment here.
Thank you, John, for coming up.
Thank you so much.
Commissioner, this particular one does have a history here, which Mr.
Jenninghof can elaborate on.
And it's in my district and I've been working on this probably for the eight years that I've been around here.
This is one of my legacy things.
It's important to me.
Okay, Commissioner, this item is associated with the pioneered causeway, which the extension, the realignment extension has been completed now for several years.
But as a part of that process, we were committed with the FEC to a to the construction of an overpass over the railroad, which would actually eliminate one of our
great crossings with the railroad.
As a part of that, the state provided the funding that was in excess of $26 million to go towards that, so that no local funds would be required.
And we have since that time been working towards completing the design and all the permitting requirements associated with that project.
As such, we have identified right-of-way needs that are associated with the construction activities.
The completed project will not require a permanent right-of-way acquisition.
However, the process of construction will require temporary acquisition of property rights.
There are two parcels that are associated with that privately owned parcels that are associated with that one is the Holy Trinity Episcopal Academy.
Site and the other is owned by Bill Page.
The cost associated with acquiring temporary rights was extremely high.
And if we were to go that route, we would wind up with an effect the completed project and no property associated with that acquisition.
Keep in mind, of course, that it was being funded by the state, however, that still taxpayer money.
And so the concept became one of the possibility of, instead of acquiring a portion of the property rights regarding the page parcel that we consider acquiring all of it.
I've had multiple conversations with Mr. Page over the years and recently is last week regarding this matter.
And so the idea essentially was, we had another public use for the property that we would go ahead and acquire the entire thing at a marginal increase in cost as compared to what we would have gotten for just temporary rights.
And the property, as you can see in the agenda item and agenda report, the property would be suitable to be able to relocate the sign and signal shop from the Marad Island cone well next to the run bridge shop on cone road and and is effectively relocate that critical operation to an area that doesn't.
It isn't subject to evacuation from due to hurricanes or flooding from storm surge purposes and and effectively would be able to more quickly and efficiently begin the recovery process after any series event such as a hurricane.
I think I've briefed the commission previously that after hurricanes Jane and Francis in 2004 we were delayed by a couple of days in the process of trying to get our own shop back under under operation so that we could then begin the process of restoring traffic signals all over the county.
And then we would be able to avoid that at this location.
The it is centrally located it would be obviously on the tiny to cause way which is a short distance to US one tropical trail A 1 A 95, Wickham Road and so we would have access to all of those.
We also would have the ability on the property to construct and intelligent transportation system traffic management center on the vacant portion of his property that is there.
And so that becomes an option for us to do that.
Our objective here would be after consultation with DOT to utilize up to $3.1 million from the DOT's source of revenue
to pay the cost or the initial cost or the portion of the cost to complete those transactions both with the electricity and with the Mr. Page.
The county would be responsible to pay the difference of whatever exceeded 3.1 in that process.
The reason DOT would not pay for all of it is because it would clearly not be necessary to pay for all of it for the purposes of the overpass and so it would be outside of their scope.
It's felt that this would be an efficient way to make the most of the taxpayers money without an acquire permanent property rights rather than temporary property rights.
It would also require an approval of the joint project agreement with DOT which would modify the agreement to allow for that $3.1 million allocation or designation for the purposes of the right away.
And I believe that covers most of the topic if you have any questions that we have to answer.
Commissioner, I do have two cards on that and we will come back to the board for questions.
Commissioners, one item, one of the things that would occur as a result of this is that we would be able to relocate the entrance for the Holy Trinity campus to a location rather than up high on the overpass which is where it would be located if we don't do this to a location that's down nearly at the existing grade.
That would be a safety enhancement that we think would be important.
And so we would still have a driveway for the page property but it would be a far less costly one.
And so we would say quite a bit of money not just on the right away but also on construction.
Thank you.
Susan Smith, followed by Christopher Hayes, if you come forward.
Thank you for letting us speak here today commissioners.
I will say if I had known it was all about Florida or all the board day, I might have chosen a different meeting but.
I'm happy to be here and I'm going to let Christopher Hayes do most of the speaking.
I did want to say on behalf of the Holy Trinity both as their attorney and also as a Holy Trinity parent.
We are very supportive of this provision that's being put forward here and it really is a safety concern for us because we have.
We have big plans at the school.
We are moving the lower campus to the upper campus for those of you who don't know that.
So we're basically doubling the size of the campus.
And so there's a lot of transition going on and it's very important that we know where our entrance is going to be so that we can start planning for that.
Because our lease at the lower school was up and so we have to go forward with our planning of where we're going to have our entrance.
And so this timing of this is very, very important to us to keep this moving forward.
I'm sure you all know Kathy Ford was the former headmaster.
Well, I'd like to introduce you to Christopher Hayes and I'll let him tell you more about the exact concerns that we have as far as the safety issue.
Thank you.
Thank you Susan.
Thank you.
Christopher Hayes for 60 Oriole Lane in the Atlantic.
I'm thrilled to be here and I'm happy to.
Which maybe excitedly odd given this morning's tenure.
I'm grateful for your time and attention to our children and to their safety.
And I think it's wonderful when the best interests of the county and of the school aligns so neatly.
in favor of moving the Holy Trinity Episcopal Academies up for school main entrance,
signalized on Paineeta westward about 100 yards. I see this not as desirable, but as
necessary for safety reasons for our children. Our current main entrance serves 550 students each
day and is at grade. As a result of the pending move of our lower school to the Paineeta campus,
we will soon be serving 1000 students each day. The proposed elevation of the Paineeta to create
a railway overpass would leave our current main entrance about 10 feet in the air. The resulting ramp
would be significant.
Secondly, increase the risk, particularly to young drivers. Therefore, I am requesting that you continue to put the interest of our children and their futures first by moving the signalized entrance west. Thank you.
Thank you.
It is to the board. I see no light, but I do see the eyes of John Denningoff. Yes, sir.
I'd like to point out that if the options that are spelled out in there, option 1A and B are selected by the board, we would be proceeding with negotiations for the acquisition, which would then come back to the board for approval.
If those negotiations fail, then we would be coming back to the board with a resolution necessity or request for approval of the resolution necessity for combination purposes.
So, regardless of what happens at this point, if it's approved, we will be coming back to the board.
I make a motion for approval.
I have a motion by Commissioner Infantini for approval. Do I have a second?
Second.
I'm assuming the motion is for 1A and B.
This would commissioner Infantini for option A, 1A and B. Commissioner Anderson's second.
All in favor, please state I.
Anyone opposes passes 50 to Rific. Thank you very much.
Yes, I was just going to.
We do have a second request here.
So we're going to do five F1 also at the same time.
Excuse me.
Excuse me. Mr. Witten?
I was just going to give you that item.
Please come forward.
Thank you so much.
I have a motion.
Second.
You're good.
All in favor, please state I.
Anyone opposed.
Congratulations.
Okay, we are now at 5A1.
Do you want a summary or an introduction or if not?
Well, thank you all.
I have a motion by commissioner Fisher.
Second by commissioner Anderson.
I have a light for Mr. Nelson.
You have parts.
5A1, 5A5A5A12 cart.
That's Scott Morgan.
Is he still here?
Yes.
And Bill Merrick.
Okay.
Melburn, we support the resolution.
Thank you.
One thing.
Scott.
Why he's here?
I want to give a valuable way to Scott Morgan and Mayor Rose.
They've been working with us on the field of dream project and the partnership.
And they have been absolutely wonderful.
And I appreciate everything you've done to help move that project forward.
Just while we're here, we're going to have a groundbreaking November 11.
On that.
So thank you, Mr. Morgan.
I want the public to know.
You said you were smart.
You're mayoring your council.
Been great.
Okay.
Even though that wasn't necessarily a guy this way.
Bill.
Did you want to speak?
Okay.
We're coming back to the board then.
Commissioner Nelson.
Followed by commissioner Fisher.
Well, I can understand why Andy likes it.
Robert.
I'm like, I think he's right in front of the field of the dream.
But you know.
Okay.
I was going to give you the fairness speech.
But I'm tired.
But you know.
My concern is that we just, we approved over two and a half million dollars in South County
this last 60 days.
What I would ask is that.
You know, we've dealt with some emergencies.
And since his list came up, there was an issue that occurred on North
Maryland.
West specifically rode when under again during this last rainstorm.
And we can't keep it out of the water.
And it's right on the verge of flooding homes on a routine basis.
So, rather than fight with you guys over this, what I would ask is that.
Could we ask the Mr. Denninghof to look within all of our transportation funds to see if we can
come up with an additional $500,000 to deal with that flooding issue on North
Maryland.
And come back to the board at our meeting in November 6th.
How about this?
Commissioner Fisher.
I'll give up 200,000 and you give up 200 and Mary, you give up 100.
I don't know the estimate.
Yes, you then.
I have a minute and a minute and a minute and a minute and a minute and a minute.
I brought it up.
It's every time it rains.
It collapses.
It's a monster.
If we wait another range.
Just describe that road.
But.
But this is the private and top.
One of the top three busiest roads in all of the North County.
Good morning.
And when it rains.
I can drive down and watch the gold pot holes appear in front of my car.
And what my concern is, it's not about the aesthetics on this one.
Like it was.
It's just I know it's going to cost so much more.
Calvary chapel sits there with a lot of craft.
You might just want to give us a situation where we're being twice as much
as much as we can.
We'll get for us tomorrow.
We've got for some more dollars coming up right.
Yeah.
Let's go.
Bring that.
Can you bring that back on the 6th?
I can have something on the 6th.
I don't know where.
I'll get 500 but I know.
I thought you had help.
I can help you.
No.
Everyone remembers that this is the eight point two million that I saved in this
in District 4. And so when you're giving me back 100, you're too generous there. Yeah,
that's nice to try here. I'm trying to work it out with you guys. Yeah, you're welcome.
Yes, we're going to then take, we have not voted yet, but am I hearing that we're going to,
we have a motion of second on it for those allocations. For those allocations,
then I'm hearing that you want to, I think that's just for you already. So, okay.
Okay, I have a motion in a second. All in favor, please state I. Anyone opposed? Pass us
5-0. You're welcome. That's probably the one that the next board will be discussing very
intimately. And sure, whoever wins all that is for you. 5-8-2. Same John's Heritage Parkway.
Missioners, this item is a resolution necessity for the acquisition right away north of
US192 up to and approaching the future interchange for the Parkway at I-95.
These parcels have been, we have negotiated in the past with these property owners and we have concluded
that we do not believe that we can reach a negotiated settlement. And so we come to the board at this point
for requesting a approval of resolution and necessity so that we can more efficiently pursue
the ultimate acquisition of the properties. Can I share Anderson your light? Just they,
I've met with a couple of these property owners in the past to just like I've told everybody on this
project that owns property. I, you know, we're not going to bring something back to this board asking
for the purchase property of the appraisal value. And I think a couple of these instances,
that's what they had expected. And they want to even get a majority vote because I want to vote
to acquire property of both appraisal value for this project. So if we just need to go through this system.
Is that a motion? I have a motion. I have a motion by Commissioner Anderson,
do I have a second? Second by Commissioner Nelson, all in favor, please state aye. Anyone opposed?
Passes 5-0. The next item will be number four.
Commissioner, this is an item to acquire easement rights for the, for the construction of stormwater
improvements associated with the upper O'Galley project, which provides flood relief for the
lampwider area. And it represents actually the final area that we need to acquire property for that
particular project. The property owner has, if you'll note, they're under the fiscal impact. There is none.
The property owner has agreed to donate the property for the purposes. It's like a state stated.
I have a motion by Commissioner Anderson, second by Commissioner Nelson, all in favor, please state aye.
Aye. Anyone opposed? Passes 5-0. Number five.
Okay, item five, a five, commissioners is acquisition of a parcel of land on the west side of Northman
River Drive on Merit Island for purposes. The immediate purposes are for construction of improvements
for the sanitary sewer system for our water resources department or other uses for the property
as well. I have a motion by Commissioner Fisher, second by Commissioner Nelson, all in favor, please state
aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? Okay. I do have cards on five B one. If you would like to give us an
opposite of this? We have some photos, space goes government TV, will please bring those up, please?
Commissioner's the increased and fast enormous growth of ecotours in Brevard County because of our
natural beauties in this county has created so much somewhat of a control problem and one of our
particular parks. What staff is proposing is that the board consider a permit process for
kayaks can use stand-up petal wards. This process I provided you a copy of our agenda item
and a copy of our proposed agreement. We need to make sure that we have equal access, continue to
access by the resident and visitor and also the commercial interests that are involved in ecotours.
And with that, I have some pictures. I can show you at a later time after our speakers. What we're seeing them now, sir?
I can Mr. Mason. Jack, can you see them?
Yes. What is this up? First of all, this is the aerial Manatee Co. Park in North
Marred Island. Before I go any further, one of our issues is that the code 78107 requires that a
commercial permit is issued for commercial activity in any county park system or park.
And prior to any commercial activity taking place within the county park system, a permit has to be
issued with the following requirements I, in this case, the insurance and the various business tax
receipts and such as that. And that's any type of commercial activity within the park.
So, if we can revert back to the pictures, please. These pictures were taken in fact last
Monday yesterday, in fact. We do have commercial activity going on at Manatee Co. Park. Next picture, please.
Parking is the biggest problem we have at this, actually it's about less than a half acre of
this parking area, 26 parking spots. And if you can see, sometimes we have two tour buss. This is
it come out of the, actually the port through the cruise lines. And it's very, very difficult for the
resident who wishes to go to Manatee Co. in this case to find a parking spot. Next slide, please.
You can see there are two commercial three commercial vehicles with trailers and the buss. Next slide, please.
This is Manatee Co. This is 15 kayaks, which our proposal allows this, but at any time there may be
three and sometimes four commercial operations at the same time. So, you can imagine the same
picture with 50 to 60 kayaks in it. In the last slide, please. This is after the demonstration on shore
by the operator and this is them leaving out of the cove to view their observation of wildlife. Thank you.
Commissioner, that's all I have in this right. Thank you. We will now go to the public speaking cards,
John Schreppson, Shempton, followed by Pam Jones, Barbara Schrepp.
Good afternoon. I'm John Shanson. I live at 71.05, Brian Robb, Drive, North Merid Island. And I am on the
homeowner's association. I am a past president of the homeowner's association. I'm North Merid Island.
I'm presently a district representative. I'm also the representative for the parks and
recreation areas on North Merid Island for our homeowner's association. So I feel the
questions and I feel the complaints from the members of our community that may or may not
have a problem with the park. Very few of them do I get the compliments, but I do get
the problems. I am a volunteer for parks and recreation as well. To save the county money,
I open up Pine Island Conservation Area at 630 every morning. And I close it every night by opening and
closing locking the gate so that there is no damage done to the conservation area because there are a lot of people with
more horsepower than brain power that like to spend donuts in that conservation area. It also of course has
a much recreation including kayaking and others and very often in the morning. I am greeted by people
waiting at the gate so they can put their kayaking canoe in the water at Pine Island Conservation Area. These are not
commercial people doing this. These are recreational folks are our few fishing guides that go in and out there, but
but generally it's a general population.
However, I ride my bike through the park system
on North Merit Island.
I leave my house, go down tropical trail,
hit Manatee Cove, hit Mitchell,
and I hit the pioneer trail in King's Park
on my way back from the house.
And I can tell you that Manatee Cove is a disaster
on some days.
I am all for the recreation areas that we have.
But there has to be some kind of reasoning.
You saw the pictures of Monday,
well, there's some more pictures of Monday.
That's kind of a normal day with the commercial ventures in there.
I have seen it where you can't even turn your car around,
you have to back out to get out of that parking area
because of the buses and the operators,
outfitters that are in there.
There has to be some kind of control on Monday
when I was there.
Just one operator from the cruise line had 28 kayaks in the water.
And then there was another outfitter with only four kayaks
in the water.
And a couple of citizens, people were fishing
another kayaks and stuff that were coming in
and going out of there, as they could, as a matter of fact,
one young lady that was fishing told me that it was quite a traffic jam
out there on the river.
Because of the outfit of that head, those cruise passengers in there.
Each you remember now, each of those 28 kayaks,
most of them, 90% of them, had two passengers per kayak.
And the people were in there.
They piled up to the manatee area,
and then they actually sitting or scratching the manatee's backs.
And I have seen it at times after the outfitters pull their kayaks
out of the water.
Some of the citizens that had previously been on their tours,
swim out into the cove and swim amongst the manatees,
which is not in my estimation, acceptable way of handling it.
But I am not against them eating in there.
I just think there needs to be some reasonable list.
And I think a permitting process will give that reasonable list
because if they don't conform to the rules,
then they lose a permit.
And as a matter of fact, somebody, I'm not going to say
that the outfitters did it, because I don't know who did it.
But somebody has pulled off six of the two by 10 boards
that make up the fence that give access and limit vehicles
from backing down into the area of launch
and pulled those boards off and if disappeared.
Thank you.
Pam Jones.
I'm with a fun day tours.
We are a soft adventure and nature tour operator with eco tours.
We are all for sustainability.
We're a leader in it.
We definitely care for animals, water, and land.
I saw that the pictures on their,
their did seem to be parking available.
It didn't seem completely full.
There's just a lot of questions.
And this impacts us as a small company tremendously.
We don't know how it's going to be manned, where the money is going to.
Is that going to take care of the areas?
And maybe make some more parking for it.
You know, with the cruise lines, this can impact the businesses there.
So we just are opposed to the permits.
Not meaning that we don't want to see things
that will be a little bit more protected, especially for residents and whatnot.
But we don't even know in terms of how much they're looking to put on our business either.
So there's just a lot of questions about it that we would love to.
I mean, how is it going to be manned in terms of, you know, finding who's doing what and what not.
So let me just see.
And just so you know, we definitely do not let any of our guests ever touch the amenities that's
against the loss.
So that's definitely not something that we are for or ever go for.
And I think that's it.
And I do have a couple of lights for you on this just talk to me and then Commissioner
and Petini.
Commissioner, I think Jack or the net of should actually go back and we're
for gosh of the overview because the actual rules and regulations and the pricing structure
is actually in the agenda report.
And so it's the permit is in regards to a number of days and eliminating the commercial
activity to those days, but I think for the general public that's listening at home
that we need to to set up exactly what the proposal is before you as a matter of policy.
Commissioner, I'd like to start off just by giving you again the general overview and
the intent of this is to provide access, not only for the citizens, but for the vendors as
well.
We definitely support ecotourism, but at the same time we want to make sure we protect access
for the citizens and not love that manatee cove to death.
You know it's just so popular now that when you have three or four vendors in there, 50 or 60
kayaks, it's just taken over the park.
So we're trying to protect our park as well.
One of the other reasons is really a business issue as well.
We have people operating a business out of a county park so there needs to be some control
out of that.
Look at Kelly Park, we have a vendor who's under contract and who gives funds back to us,
and that does help maintain the park.
So in this case what we propose doing, it's similar to Coco Beach, they have a permit process.
It's a tiered process and it ranges depending between $5,000 and $2,000 and it has to do with
stand-up paddle board kayaks and what we're proposing is to limit access by vendors and
tour operators to Monday through Friday leaving weekends and holidays for the citizens.
And what we propose doing is a lottery system.
So there's really about four vendors primarily that will compete for these spots and I'll let
Jack go into detail about how the pricing structure will occur.
But I want to emphasize that we have 30 other parks, Kelly Park and many other parks where
your tours can run out of unrestricted seven days a week.
The only place where you're limiting is Manatee Cove and Pine Island once it's open.
Every other park can operate seven days a week by the tour operators.
If I just wanted to make sure that I set that up and everyone was clear on that.
Jack, do you want to go over the pricing?
Yes, ma'am, basically we're looking at a two-fold permit process.
One is a general permit that offers approximately 19 parks within throughout the county that would
be available seven days a week for $500.
That allows two tours a day, a limit of 15 watercraft or craft that includes the guide boats.
As Vanessa mentioned, in addition, we have the two restricted sites, which is on top of
the general permit.
Those are Manatee Cove and the soon to be open, Pine Island Conservation Area, two very, very
hotspots for observation as this group knows.
Those two sites will be done to ensure fairness through a lottery system.
We will have two water resistance, one for Manatee Cove and one for Pine Island.
Those two sites will only be open during the week and with the exception of six national holidays.
Those are the water resistance will be done per day per award and it's a thousand dollars per
that given day of the week for obviously 52 weeks of the year.
There will be the opportunity for more than one day that was one of the big concerns, depending
on the amount of vendors, there may be an opportunity for multi-day awardness on that.
But it's just that day you're awarding it, you can't do it fire because we wind up booking
things in advance where it's.
Okay, the lottery system gives you the opportunity through the lottery system to be awarded
that particular day of the week or multi-day depending on the amount of vendors.
It's not a seven day or it's a five-day operation, but if there are three vendors interested
in Manatee Cove, I would assume that each of the vendors, I would guarantee that each of the
vendors would get at least one of the three days or one of the five days with the opportunity
of getting a multi-day through the lottery process.
Okay.
Commissioner, have you have questions for this lady?
No, I don't, but I have, I don't, you're welcome to standards set.
This seems to violate the business model and I don't know what your business model is for
how you set up and how you make money, but at the same time, I don't see how we can suddenly,
and I know we can because we're government, but I don't see how we can suddenly go implement
a $500 or a $1,000 permit to struggling businesses, we're trying to promote ecotourism,
and so this is, as soon as we start trying to say we're going to promote something, and we're
handing out incentives and tax abatements, and we say, except for you, I want $500
from you.
So you can go in Monday through Friday for get about weekends, because those are for the, it
just seems wrong.
I mean, I can go on, I had a whole page of notes here, but is there, is there really
support for this up here that I, I, I spoke with Jack, I emailed him, and I asked him for a list
of all the complaints, because I know I haven't received any, but you know, the Marad Island
people are probably going to call Chuck or Commissioner Nelson, that I asked Jack, and he said,
you'd only received two complaints, one was verbal, one was written, and so I, I don't
really think we need to make a new rule, a new ordinance for just two complaints, perhaps we
should wait, we should monitor the situation, and can you tell me how many other counties have
policies like this?
I, I understand Coco Beach does, Commissioner Allow me to correct one statement, I did not say we've
only received two complaints, I've received two complaints from John Chances and Darling
Hunt, my staff has also received complaints, I did say that email, so there have been a number
of complaints, another issue, commercial activity in a park is nothing new, we do have commercial
activity throughout a park system primarily through concession operations, hot dog operations
in a various beach parks, runaway country as a commercial operation, so in our intent, it's
not to put anybody out of business, and it's not a revenue source force, the intent of this
is to control the activity, so it's a fair and equitable access to the waterway.
Okay, excuse me, let me correct you, your email says Commissioner, staff has received verbal
complaints from John Chances and Darling and Jerry Hunt, it didn't say you've received
and staff has received other complaints, specifically it says, because I know oftentimes
people want to make sure I've had a briefing and I've asked all the proper questions before
I render a position, and so I tried to do that, three complaints.
That's all we have on the books. It's three complaints and we want to make an ordinance. I'm just trying to discourage this board for making a new ordinance in Marad Island. And like you pointed out, there's a lot of other parks that people can go to. This is probably geographically the most logical park for you to go to for your business. That's probably why she put her business where she did so that she could use that park. Now, if it turns out later on that you're taking up all the parking spaces, we'll start watching.
That's not my great to watch that, but can we just give her a notice and say, hey, watch out about the parking, there's an issue. And let's see what we can do to cooperate with it before we make a new ordinance.
Okay, excuse me, I do have if you'd like to take a seat.
I have commissioner Nelson's by commissioner Anderson.
And then we'll come back to you. First of all, commercial activities prohibited. So the ordinance actually says, you can't do what you're doing already. And so what we're saying is, unless you have a permit, then we will allow it.
But there's another view of this as well is that, you know, I haven't come out of parks myself. You know, one of the things that you try to do is to manage the, you know, the resource.
And I think first and foremost, our responsibility of a board is to our citizens who purchase the property, who pay for its development and who want to be able to use it.
First, I think that that's our first calling. She's not listening, so it doesn't matter.
We were debating about the number of complaints.
Okay, and we have received complaints, but what I was saying was that our job as a commission is to manage the resource.
This property was purchased by Beach and Riverfront, which was a referendum. It was developed by the Merit Island referendum, which is, I'm paying for it.
Your business is not a rock, but I'm paying for it for the, for the development and those who live up there.
Well, you're still not paying for it. But, but only Merit Islanders are paying for the development of that park.
And to say that businesses have a higher level of priority than we do, I just think is not really fair to those who have developed it.
I was kidding with my staff. I said, you know, I want to list of the kinds of businesses I can run, because pretty soon I'm going to be unemployed.
And what I wanted to do is to run a park and ride out of Kelly West and what I'll do is I'll collect money and take them out there and run that business.
We need a partner. I'm going to say, and when I'm not doing that, I'm drilling for oil.
But, you know, the reality is this is that we have to manage these parts. I mean we've had food wagons pull up and compete against soccer moms and little league moms trying to sell hot dogs.
So you can't do that because they are trying to raise money for things like their insurance and uniforms and those kinds of things.
So it's not unusual to have some controls over it. I think we have to look out for our citizens first. Those who are paying for it first and we are saying that we're willing to share that.
But we've got to do it in a way that doesn't over run and push out the people who are actually should be first in line.
So I think it comes down to can we find something in the way of reasonable and I see Alex over there. It doesn't impact the fishing guides.
You guys have never been a problem and we're not looking to even deal with that issue. This is a relatively new activity where we have full buses pulling up with 30 to 60 folks on it.
They're learning how to operate their kayaks in the parking lot where there are now 30 kayaks. It does have an impact.
So I think we're trying to come up and struggling with the way of managing so you can be successful but also the folks who live there and have every right to use it aren't pushed out.
So I think the discussion should be not should we be doing this. How are we going to do it and how can it be fair to both.
Yeah, I do have Commissioner Anderson then with Mr. Whitten.
Mike, going back five, six years since like 20 years now.
If you remember, I had a lot of concerns about how we utilize different properties that were acquired through either eels or the B.S. and I had a whole community of people come out here that are nature lovers
and beat me up about the head and shoulder verbally that if I just hang in there with them we'll make sure access is there and it's all about egoturism.
It's the new thing that we're trying to get into to alleviate some of our economic woes.
Now, I feel like we're kind of going back where I understand the problem and I see it and my only thing is certainly don't want to dampen the success of the egoturism industry has.
It's just, you know, one of those situations where these locations are highly desirable.
And people from out town want to see them, but I just don't want to give them a slippery slope thing because I could take you on the Christians and leaving right now and show you four.
Guys that are outfitters for red fish to take your boat out there, are they next to our list when they start using up both slips.
No, they've never been a problem but it could be. You never know.
These are oyster programs going to take off so well already told me it's going to be loaded with snuck and red.
Well, but I don't know, I'm just not comfortable yet. Mr. Whit.
Yeah, commissioners and I don't want to get in the way of your policy discussion, but just to clarify the communication between Commissioner and Fintini and Mr. Madison.
You know, we would never bring you an issue where you only had two complaints and so you know, just read it just so we're clear the general public is clear on the magnitude of the issue.
Commissioner staff has received verbal complaints from John and I won't say your last name because I'll butcher it, but John Darling and Jerry.
Mr. John has informed me he has additionally received complaints from members of the North Marital and the Home Owners Association.
In addition, staff has observed the parking problems specifically with large buses as well as vendor vehicles with trailers.
The volume of kayaks lined up along the shore line for tools have been informed the District 2 Commission Office has also received calls from concerned residents.
One gentleman has made a number of calls to the Central Area Parks Operations Office expressing his concerns and so it's much bigger than a one or two complaint issue and I just wanted to clarify that.
Again, we wouldn't bring you a policy matters where we only have a small number of complaints.
Commissioners, I do have cards on this. I'm apologize for those who have speaking cards here. We just kind of get off on it and which is couldn't stop the commissioners here.
Barbara, would you like to count the use?
Okay, Andrew Nixon. Would you like to come forward followed by Captain Alex?
Field Galaway? William?
Well.
Thank you.
And Arlene Hunt.
Yes sir.
Good afternoon commissioners. My name is Andrew Nixon. I'm from Viral Beach, Florida.
I represent the fortified guides association, which is an organization whose directives are to ensure the highest quality experience of our customers and the operators who provide those services.
I'm here to represent our business partners in the area who operate in Provard County with some brief opinions along with some questions concerning the proposal of the usage permits for the guys and tours.
Understanding and I think is yours as well. It's fuel greatly by parking complaints by the local residents.
While access to the Thai launch locations is of concern to the local residents, we want to ensure and promote equal and open access to all citizens,
whether they're local residents, part-time residents or are beloved visitors from out of town.
I would like to also let you know that I've spoken in detail with Mr. Mason.
And with Mr. Barley with the TDC, you know, concerning, you guys are trying to bring the executorist here, the cruise ships, and a lot of dollars we're discussed earlier today in your advertising campaigns both overseas and here locally as well.
We want to bring those tourists here and let them enjoy the nature that we've got here in Provard County.
Our organization is basically an agreement with the bull and items of the proposal, but we do have some questions and concerns about some of those aspects.
Our business partners for the most part are not at odds with the county usage permit.
We understand that we are doing business on county property and there's a permit process in place and we would we'd love to abide by that.
And actually our organization, one of our missions is to assure that guys and tour operators are engaging in business activities with proper licensing insurance and permitting.
We're aware that we've got partners doing doing business on county facilities and understanding of the permit is necessary.
And as I understand, to obtain those permits, some of those documents from those businesses would have to be supplied.
They're by working in the same direction. You guys are going to ensure that people have got proper business license and insurance and that sort of thing, which is really what our organization wants to do. We want to raise the level of professionalism for guy guys and tours as well.
It's really good for everyone. Some of the questions that I've got and I've raised with Mr. Mason.
The permit is a twofold system as he discussed. You have a general use permit which would basically cover all of the parks in the area and then the second tier system which would cover
Manatee Cove and the new and the new park to be open soon. Manatee Cove seems to be the center of all the you know all the issues.
And within that, for the most part, parking seems to be the biggest issue. One of the questions that I have is you have someone who is a fishing guide for instance, he's a kayak fishing guide and he brings two kayaks, three kayaks with one or two clients.
And then you've got a large-scale operation that brings 15 or 20 kayaks. Both of them have logos on the side of their vehicle. Both of them are carrying trailers. Both of them are doing business out of the county.
You're going to segregate between a small and a large, between fishing and non-fishing, between echo tour and non echo tour, where are you going to draw that in that line.
And if someone who for instance is a small echo tour, they carry five kayaks, but a fishing guide carries three.
Does the echo tour not feel like they're being picked on, you know, where the fishing guide is allowed to do, allowed to do their business.
Further, with regard to the permit fees, I don't want to use the word haphazard, but I think we've just come up with a number on the fees, basically based on how much it costs for an individual person, how many people are going to carry there for we think this is a fair amount.
I think some more research could be done of what a fair permit price actually could be.
For instance, any of the other permitting that you're doing in the other parks, can we be in line with those with those types of things.
You've got businesses that are conducting business in other county locations, fishing guides, tour guides, the dolphin tours, pontoon boat tours, those types of things.
What permitting is in place for them, one of the fees that they're paying at this time.
We want to make sure those things are in line.
The last thing, and I see my time is running out, so I'm going to go as quickly as I possibly can, improvements.
Parking is the issue at Manatee Cove, or these dollars going to be making improvements in that area.
Can we make some sort of area for trailer parking, trailer parking is becoming very popular for carrying kayaks.
Now, I only own two kayaks, and I carry them on a trailer.
The lottery is another issue that we have.
You're restricting a business to only be able to do business on a certain day if they can afford that day, or if they can afford multiple days.
It's restrictive to that business, especially kayakotours are not a huge, we're not Walmart.
They're very small businesses, they operate on a very small budget.
Let me give you permit my theatrics just for a moment.
Hello, this is Carol from Oklahoma.
I'm here for a family reunion, and I would like for everyone to take a tour on Tuesday.
I'm sorry, man, I'm not allowed to do business on Tuesday.
Another tour operator, one that day in the lottery, and he's all booked up because the cruise ship is in town.
Okay, what can we go on Saturday before we head home?
I'm sorry, man.
We're not allowed to do business on Saturday.
It's not really conducive to good business practices here in the county, and it's not providing a good service to the customers that you're trying to attract.
Thank you very much.
I appreciate it.
Thank you.
We have a question by Michelle Nelson.
Yes, we're talking about two sites that would apply to.
That's true, and I'm sure you're aware because I know this is your area.
Those two sites are the premier echo tour sites because of the wildlife that's in that area, and that hits us the problem.
Right.
One of the problems that we have is control access and limiting access.
You're controlling and limiting business on what they're allowed to do.
I think what we really need to do is expand the access, expand the parking and allow these businesses to provide the services to the tourists that you're trying to attract.
And I would agree with you.
We need to expand access.
The problem is always going to be at a manatee code.
There is no more land that's all wetlands around.
I mean, we've literally carved out whatever we could carve out to develop that site.
And having traveled to counties all over the state, working with different different communities on this very same issue.
I'd love to be able to work with with Jack on trying to come up with some ideas.
If you want to, I did appreciate you saying is that you understand the need to manage it.
And I think that's the starting point.
Yeah.
Commissioner, have you got a question for this gentleman?
It's just a comment and soon the person that likes to regulate every single issue won't be sitting here anymore.
And I was trying to keep that myself and I thought, no, it's important to note that the person that brings up virtually every regulation.
Like when we had the fear about everybody going out and getting themselves a semi because now we were going to allow a semi truck to be allowed to be parked.
And somebody's yard.
I haven't seen a bunch of requests for that.
And so I think that soon we won't have as many regulations.
And we won't have this fear.
But keep it in mind that kayaking in 2012 and 2013.
And expectedly in 2014 is the fastest growing aspect of the voting industry.
So embrace the numbers of locals that are going to be having the kayaking.
And also people wanting to do those echo tours through these companies within your county.
Right. And I don't blame you. And I think it's a great clean business. And I'm so glad you guys ran it.
And I hope you stick with us for just a little bit longer.
Thank you, sir.
Thank you very much.
It's a shame you're going to have put up the hurt for two more years.
If you're going to make nasty comments towards me, Commissioner, then let's just go back and forth.
But the reality is this, is that I'm paying for that.
You're not paying a dime towards those improvements that were made there.
Why should a business have that kind of access to something that I'm paying for?
And my citizens are paying for.
Please explain to me why you believe that they have a higher right to a public property than the citizens who are paying for it.
The same reason I believe that you shouldn't have spent a million dollars on an irrigation system for a failing golf course.
It's priority.
I would have taken.
Yes, it is.
I would have taken that million dollars.
I think you would be better than in throw in the palm trees too.
Oh, the palm by a thousand dollar palm.
Yeah.
But I, and then I would have spent the million dollars on making some type of parking improvements.
I'm sure there's something a million dollars could have done.
Okay, Commissioner.
So I do have Captain Alex.
Would you please come forward and.
States.
Where you stand on this.
My name is Captain Alex Grichky.
I'm owner operator of locallinesharders.com.
Okay.
I am a lifelong resident of Marad Island.
Third generation resident of Bavar County.
I grew up on North Marad Island.
I grew up using said parks prior to them even becoming said parks actually.
Pine Island Road was actually where I was.
Great.
This first of all, let me kind of get into actually I want to give a little history real quick.
The reason why Pine Island and why many take over so fabulous right now and why everybody wants to take a tour there.
It's because there's little things called springs in both those areas and all the manities hang out.
It's the easiest place for them to do a tour.
That's why everybody's there.
It's.
That is easiest.
Okay.
Real quick.
I'm going to say right out the gate that I do agree with some sort of permitting process.
Some sort of controls on what is happening at those two said parks.
It also should.
Ripple out to all the parks.
I believe.
I hold a permit.
Not not is as solidified.
I actually hold a permit right now.
I paid 250 dollars a year to be able to launch in one of the most ecologically diverse areas around here.
It's also nationally and internationally known as being ecologically diverse for manities, birds and everything else.
It's called the Marad Island Wildlife Refuge.
All right.
I already own this firm.
For me, basically all this is going to do is tell me that the two places I fish when I was a kid.
I don't get to go there anymore.
Okay.
I run a charter operation.
I do fishing.
I do boat fishing and I also have kayaks that I run.
Okay.
I do no more than three clients at a time.
All right.
For me to go.
All right.
Let me throw away this 250 dollar permit to this ecologically diverse area that gets.
Press out the Wazoo to pay $1,500 to possibly be able to do one of my charters a week from either
Pine Island or Manatee Cove is ridiculous.
It's not business savvy to me.
It would basically help.
You know, me not be able to feed my kids.
So what I look for you guys to possibly do is take a larger look at this situation.
I know you guys are only in the beginning of this whole process.
There is other areas that already have permitting that are set more along the lines.
Cove each.
You have a permanent process.
Cove each has a real nasty reputation for playing favorites and for playing with those permanent processes.
It's not easy to get.
It's not a walk-through process.
It's not a fun situation.
I know longer and haven't for seven years.
Step foot and ramp road park.
Which is the park at Cove Beach.
Everybody regulates.
Because I have advertising on my truck.
I will no longer be able to step foot on Manatee Cove or Pine Island.
Are you believe the two places I grew up fishing.
Because I have advertising on my truck.
And the last thing I need is calls coming in that this guy is running in the new business.
Because I will not pay for the permitting for it.
It's not worth my time.
What is going to end up happening unfortunately is a lot of services.
You're talking about kayaks.
We don't have to have a boat ramp.
We don't have to have that stuff.
These guys are going to go to the side of the road.
And they're going to launch for kayaks.
They're going to have their people meet them on the side of the road.
Doesn't matter if it's 520 in some street.
They're going to do it anyways.
I would have a hard time not doing it.
There are seven different launches.
I could do to fish the same exact water as Pine Island or Manatee Cove.
And not pay a dime to the state of Florida to the county of Bucor.
And I would go that route.
I prefer to give my clients something nice.
They have restaurants.
They have nice parking.
Chances are there cars not going to get broken into like it would on the side of the street.
It's not a guarantee.
I just implore that you kind of take a bigger look at the situation.
Understand there's other operators.
There's not just large groups.
There's not just 20 kayaks.
There's people like me that have three boats.
And I put them in the water and I go fishing.
I run into the same problems.
Trying to get my stuff out of the water and it's a load.
And it's a little shuffling and a little bit daunting to get your clients.
And another water and it's the same if you're a person.
If you utilize that resource or want to utilize that resource.
But that doesn't mean that it needs to come down to 500 bucks.
And then a thousand dollars for each place.
I guess or one to try to get into a lot of go to a place.
250 dollars for that refuge permit is a lot cheaper than $1,500.
And I'm sorry, but even if it was hope.
If you're going to drive the business up that way.
Cool.
But I think we like to keep it in this area.
Thank you.
I'll fill.
Galaway.
Oh, thank you for letting me talk.
I'm fill Galaway owner of Clip So kayaking.
I've been doing equal tours out of a manatee code for four years.
They all know I've been doing it.
And I'm all for a permit system.
They, you know, I have licensed insurance and teach a folks come on my tours.
To respect manatees nature.
Tell them about the ecosystem and protecting the lagoon.
We do a, you know, great respect for the lagoon and teach people that.
And if you look at the pictures we're talking about parking.
You can pick them all up there.
You can see my trailer and one of the pictures.
There's my trailer, my truck and one of the vehicle.
And then it's, so there's only certain times of the year when the tourists come.
You know, there's been a millions of dollars trying to get tourists.
You know, the office, uh,
Flood office, the tourism and, uh, chamber of commerce.
The travel and the villages all over the country trying to get people to come here.
And they're really pushing nature.
I had a woman come from Germany and she says,
All the advertising I see in Germany to come to Florida is nature.
It says everybody's trying to, is I come into where's the nature.
So well, here, you're here on the tour right now.
So they're trying to promote tourism.
Only time, you know, every country, every city, every county,
Complains when the tourist come.
There's not enough parking.
The road gets congested.
Um, and sometimes it happens at Manatee Cove.
Spring break.
But when everybody leaves and comes to Florida and goes to my tour,
They leave with a smile and a face.
You should see the people how much they enjoy.
You know, coming out to Florida and seeing Manatees,
We teach them not to chase Manatees.
Don't chase the dolphins.
You know, we're very, you know, conscious.
I'm doing a proper business.
I adopted a nylon.
They clean the park daily.
I clean the islands.
You trash, I pick up.
And all those boards that were torn off, those were locally.
They want to load their, load their boat ramps or their trailers into there.
So they pull off the two by sixes.
And they were preparing all those.
But, um, limiting the days.
You don't think I have, I'm with the permits.
But limiting the days.
You can go there.
Um, I've been there four years.
When I first started business, nobody knows about Manatees.
Go.
It's off the beaten path.
Um, when I was there, like you can see three cars there.
You're lucky.
And, uh, I brought awareness to Manatees.
Go, more people are coming.
Because the word of mouth gets out and people come up.
I didn't know Manatees.
Go, it's here.
So I'm glad you're here.
I don't have a kayak.
You give me access now.
I've come down here and take advantage of the,
The launch point, the ramps.
Um, but I'm all for the permitting.
You know, I do run up standing business.
I want to do it from day one.
Um, so, um, let's say when the tourists come,
I can take 21 people out and they come in three vehicles.
Because they all get around car and they all come together.
They're the locals who come one, one, one, one.
So, um, I haven't seen a series.
Um, and we always try to teach my employees and myself.
We try to leave room for the locals and everybody else is coming in out.
We don't block the whole ramp.
You know, maybe on occasion, you know,
It might go over crowded at times.
Um, but we always try to help them, you know, the people that are loading.
I help them load their kayaks.
I'm loading them.
Um, try to get along with everybody.
All the other businesses.
Um, I don't want to take advantage of the parks.
I've looked around for commercial places where I could do it.
Off of a real commercial and pay rent.
But there's the county has the best places to launch.
They really do.
And they bought these places so we do have access.
So, you know, private people don't buy property.
Not anybody, uh, use the ramps and stuff like that.
You know, like the marina, they have no bolt ramps and stuff.
So, the county has the best spots to show the tourism, you know,
the ecosystems and stuff like that.
That's all I have to say.
And I think, uh, I also do, uh, they're, they're, they're all, they're trading in this, uh,
agreement that they don't want to do rentals.
I lowered my rental prices really low because I know that the locals don't want to pay
my higher tour prices.
They already see manatees and Delphs.
They just want to get out there and see the lagoon on their own.
So, um, I'll really low prices to get the locals come out.
And it's been a success.
And people are happy that I'm doing rental.
But the disagreement they're talking about says no rentals.
That's a why.
So, I don't know why.
So, um, and if you look at the picture as a parking,
and I tell you what to hit and jam.
I mean, Florida is really, um,
advertising hidden gems.
And Manatee Cole was a hidden gem.
And I think to see, with that pricing structure,
I won't be, I can't use, I can't go one day a week around a business.
I'm going somewhere else since we've said that the tourists won't be able to, uh,
see Manatee Cole.
Thanks for your time.
I do have, uh, commissioner Fisher with a question.
Okay.
I'm just a couple of times curious.
If parking's a problem.
If you, if you didn't allow, um,
buses to park there.
But that, is that even possible?
Um, if you say that you can freely drop off,
but you can up park your bus for 3, 4, 5 hours.
So, you'll allow residents to get America.
Is that it?
Yeah, that's possibility.
We could have the buses park another location in the park.
Uh, it's just that it's a bottleneck.
Uh, less than a half acre, 26 parking spots, including handicaps,
spots.
And when you get the bus, or buses, in some cases,
and three or four trailers with vehicles on it,
just creates a problem.
Uh, but yes, yes, sir.
That's it.
That's impossible.
Uh, your businesses required to carry,
are you permanent anywhere else in the county?
Do we make you get an occupational permit for your business or anything?
I have a business license.
There's a license.
There's nothing more occupational.
Okay, but you're a business license,
through the county or county.
Yeah, county.
Uh, I have my, I live in Cucco.
So, I got an office here in Cucco.
So, I have a Cucco and a county license.
Two, two, two.
And most of the other ones have the same thing.
Did you pick up?
Um, last year.
Right.
You can program.
It allows you to do the lives.
Anywhere you see.
There are a lot of left.
If you have no, and I have another,
no other permits.
Okay.
Um, the phone conversation strike me a little bit.
You know, if you're a private business and, yeah.
Uh, it kind of hit home as, you know, hey, got a couple.
I mean, we, I mean, we want to think we always kind of say this.
We want, we want, we want our parks to have use, right?
And sometimes we don't have enough use in them.
And so, I know this is a special, um, a park.
But, um, not being able to provide a tour from somebody when they want to.
Kind of strikes me as a little concerning.
With this, uh, if you lemon into one day or week or, you know, uh, just two days a week.
If I'm a business owner and, and I've got an opportunity to have, you know,
maybe it's just two clients every day.
Uh, I like to be able to take those two clients out.
Any day that I can.
And I feel like I'm, I'm limited, um, um, in a certain, in a certain park that some of the business can do.
So, I don't know. I mean, I, I, I, I understand the concern of our residents having access to it and being able to use it.
I think, you know, maybe if you move in the parking bus, uh, and not allowing buses to take up, you know,
six or seven parking spots at a time.
And the trailer is not doing that, that you might be able to come up with some kind of compromise.
I'm just not sure it's ready to be served up the way it's written today.
Um, uh, I, I, I was a small business guy on the kayak thing, especially if I'm only taking, you know, a guy.
I mean, you, you take a guy with kayaks, two people.
You know, he can only go on Mondays.
Something seems wrong with that process.
Uh, commissioner Anderson, do you have the question for this gentleman?
No, I just follow up and commissioner Fisher said that.
Okay.
You can control the buses that you can, like, a lot of tourists destination is, of course, the drop off.
They have to go stage somewhere else.
I don't care if they have to drive the perkins or wherever.
And when their clients come back, and the tour operator calls them,
and they're just taking my, I don't even want them beyond sight.
And I have them.
I don't have them, so I'm talking, so I'm hadn't sit down.
And I have one more thing I'm sorry, Mr.
I think I'm going to have a commission also.
I- how are you going to, how are you going to enforce it?
To, I mean, you know, you're talking from six in the morning.
What six is seven at night.
What's your idea of how you enforce this if we send in the Sheriff out there?
out there. We're sitting code enforcing out there. We got a park ranger calling us or how
would that work? Have you given any thoughts? Yes, we have. Okay, a lot of thoughts.
Can we hold that thought though for a moment? I would like to take care of these last two speakers.
And then we'll bring it back to the board for the discussion. William, thank you, sir.
My name is William Koalak. I'm owner, operate over the venture kayak of Coco Beach. And I've been in business for about 15 years.
And I've been around around circles with the city of Coco Beach. And I was there when the cruise ships came in pretty much screwed me over in the Coco Beach area.
So they put up permits and limited. And I've kind of taken working out of there too. And I also divided my business up into more areas, including Manatee Cove.
And that was real helpful too. And what I'm suggesting is to have some kind of permitting and limits, but don't go overboard.
I'd like for each and every one of the commissioners here. And everybody is sitting over there to look up the society of ethical ecotourism, right this down.
Go on the YouTube, go on the internet, and look up their reasoning on how to be a tour guide.
And this is a society of ethical ecotourism, capital S, capital E, capital E. And I was asking the mass to kind of tailor the contract into that guide here.
But anyway, I'm all for the top section. $500 is great. It's great. We should have access to everything.
But this bottom section here where they got restricted to one day, $1,000 for a Monday. He's going to get stuck with the $1,000.
The way I was told was, it's a restricted permit issued $1,000 per annual day awarded. So that's $1,000.
You're allowed to go every week on a Monday. Who gets the Friday?
And there was something about mention, and this other guy mentioned about Cucco Beach. They had the land management. They really, really were buddy buddies and they were trying to make friends and doing things and they're trying to make it as a franchise agreement.
That's not good. And I didn't like what they were doing over there.
It's this. But I like everything here except for this section. And I think if you were to come up with this restrictions, that would eliminate the bus loads, 50, 60 people out of time.
And I even admit that it's hard to work out of there. As far as the six pack, people with the six pack license that are operating out of these things don't bother them.
If this guy that's got a kayak full of trailers, taking out six people, shouldn't have to go through this permit process. I like to work with the group of 16 people.
And the people that get there early, I send them off with a guide. The people that get there late, they go off with the second guide. But I like to have two guides at the park.
That's only logical. It's one man operation is in good, unless you're under six people.
But I like for everybody to look up this society that the Calico tourism and just drop this 1,000 per annual day and try to keep it restricted.
And another thing, too, I'm grateful for the tourism, because it pays my state taxes. I'm happy about it.
These locations that we're talking about, we're talking about Manatee Cove. Once we open up sites, the Pine Island Road, you're going to find more businesses going over there.
And that's a good thing, too. There's only one problem. There's no bathrooms with Pine Island Road. So that's going to restrict everybody.
Parking, it's ridiculous. That picture you've seen up there was on a Monday in October.
They didn't take the picture in a march on a Monday because it is crowded right out the roadway. You can't get through there.
And talking about 50, 60 kayaks on the ground going out of one point. That's only about why is this good. 60 kayaks.
That's not talking about the people trying to get in the boat, trying to get in more or less trying to get off.
They're going to have to wait for about 45 minutes to get in back in again. And that's where I could see locals. Oh, another thing, too.
Sure, you'll need to wrap up your time. OK, I'm completed.
Let's expand Manatee Cove. And I've been talking to talk about getting an intersection for site's creep.
The intersection of barge can out in site's creep. This is owned by the poor canaveral authorities. Right under that bridge.
We could turn that into a park and that would be a great place for the cruise ships. The cruise ships need to start pulling their side of the way.
There are over-running these facilities. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Darling Hunt.
Good job, ladies.
Thank you, Madam Chairman, commissioners and staff. My name is Darling Hunt. I live at 125 Westwhistfully Road on North Maryland.
And I'm here because I heartily support Equatorism for Bavard County. And I love that tour companies are using our facilities to show visitors from around the world what we have.
But I also love wonderful little Manatee Cove Park.
It does need to have some sort of a sustainability public access use.
I was part of the group on North Maryland many many years ago who lobbied for Manatee Cove Park to be created and to purchase it.
And then to be created.
To the long time when they were talking about putting the road through there, it was through wetlands.
So mitigation was necessary.
We got a group of 50 local volunteers to plant native plants around a little pond there in Manatee Cove Park.
Yeah, Manatee Cove Park.
We got three pickup truck loads full of pick roll and duck potato.
I made contact with the Kennedy Space Center and got permission to harvest from there, so we wouldn't have to buy it.
Don't get to do that very often, but I did.
50 of us slugged in the mud and planted all around a little pond as the mitigation for going through those wetlands.
We do pepper bus. I don't know John. I wasn't here when John's going to.
We do pepper bus, which is Brazilian pepper trees that crowd out the native vegetation at Manatee Cove Park as well as King Park and other places on Maradown.
Our local residents do that.
I don't know if anybody thought about something like construction of an observation deck and maybe some blocks and platforms.
A little walkways so that people could come and seize Manateees without actually getting in the water with them.
It would not be difficult to do, but it would be a way of still offering this precious resource that we have.
Without as much of an environmental impact.
Just an idea.
Anyway, I do support the county effort very much to manage the overuse of these fragile kayaking canoe launching areas that we have through a commercial permit process and also a restricted use permit for the Manatee Cove Park.
Thanks. Thank you.
Commissioner Stavus, our last card. So it's back to the board.
Commissioner Nelson.
As I said, we need to do something to begin to understand what's happening out there.
I was a little bit squishy when I saw the numbers and I appreciate what Jack and his staff did.
But when I saw the numbers it kind of, I flenched.
But I think maybe what we could undertake is a two-step process.
One is we need to know who our users are.
And not make the, let's first understand who's using it and how often they're using it and try to develop some information as opposed to immediately deciding when we're going to allow it to be used and by him.
So some either low-cost or no-cost permiting process just so we begin to identify all the different groups that are using it so that we can then assess maybe some ways to do it.
And if you do that over a period of time, you'll also know when your high season is, you know, those kinds of things.
So you know, I would support staff, you know, working with the embassy and no-cost permiting process just to begin to develop the information so that we can, at least know who's using it.
And then in six months or whenever you, you have a team appropriate, probably almost a year cycle is to bring that back to the board with some recommendations and again working with the community.
That's not only the folks that are paying for it, you know, the, my North Maryland I folks, but also the kayak group.
Because I think it's a solution in there.
I'm just not ready to pull the trigger on exactly what we've talked about, but I think they're elements of it.
We can begin to identify.
So that would be my recommendation to the board is to initiate a permitting process at no cost to, with the elements that talk about proof of insurance.
Those types of things that protect the industry as well as us and to do an assessment over, I'll say, your period.
Commissioner Fisher.
I know we heard from today.
There have been any conversations between staff and this group prior to this.
Yes sir.
So you've had some dialogue.
Yes sir.
I mean, because sometimes you know, we've done working groups type of things set up.
It might be worthwhile getting some kind of working group together with staff to come up with some, you know, some ways of.
Some like several you've got to interest in making sure people legit, insured, you know, protecting the waterways and doing all those type of things.
And so it's probably.
There's some value and I think staff, which you get with them also and kind of coming back to the board with something that everybody can see live with.
I concur with commissioners on this. I think that this is a good dialogue to get started on something.
My concern is the parking.
I'm not as concerned with the permits as I am.
The parking is there a place where the commercial area because could go and park and come back is their ability to expand the parking locations out where they are currently.
There's just there's just a lot of variables yet. So I propose that we have the item go to staff work on it some more and bring it back to the new board.
Michelle Nelson.
I just could say I think we pointed out there's a bottle neck and that and not even I think more so than the parking is a problem how to get in the water because it's a fairly small space in there.
But I also think that once point island opens up it's going to move some of that traffic out so that I think it'll be interesting to see how that plays out going forward.
And the one thing I would never want to take away from staff is the ability to say okay we're continuing to see a problem but you will have had an opportunity to identify more of the specifics of what those problems are and then bring that back to the county commission and certainly have our local client businesses involved in that discussion.
So is it I'm getting the feel for the board that we would like to have this revisited and no no vote at this time.
Okay.
Well, do we need one we make an action to create the permit I think.
You know because that way at least they've got the authority to say I want to know who you are I'm not going to charge you for but I want to know who you are so we can develop.
If nothing else email list of what the issues are and and usage and those kinds of things.
Commissioner Fentini.
What are going to be the rules for receiving a permit is it going to be that lottery or you're just going to have to get a permit to go to the park if you're.
And if you don't have one we tell you would you please sign up is it's not there's no penalty what we're trying to do is to develop.
Knowledge about the the issue as opposed to be punitive or to control usage right now so it's really to find out what's what's happening and.
The issue of documentation this is a good way to do it.
Just if all we're doing then it just registering the people who's using it there's no fee anything like that.
I don't know.
Is there any enforcement on that so if I if I go to the park and I don't get my permit and I just go ahead and launch with my five people who's going to come by we're going to have like a park.
Did you need to put that in there I mean you need to add the whole step or don't have it at all.
I mean I just I think it needs more time I don't think you need to I don't think it's soup yet so you have an idea you want to have so what what are going to be all the elements you can't vote for something without knowing who's going to enforce it what are you going to do when you go to the people I mean.
Yeah see anything missing here.
I'm not going to comment on that one.
Go ahead all I'm trying to do what I'm trying to do is get the industry to work with us to come up with with some information and there is no penalty.
And and if somebody who is running a business through there says we don't want to fill it out then there's no penalty.
I mean it's in their best interest to do it I think but.
That's why I'm asking what there's nothing you you don't have all of the details perhaps we should do legislative intent have you all come back with.
Of better formulated idea.
I'm going to start by chair.
You just got the four people to hear it left for five people. Do you all have business license?
You do? I mean, we can start there. Anybody who's got a business license, go ahead and issue a permit to.
Okay. And so now they have one, it's free.
I know. Right. Right. So they post them a business license.
Go ahead and issue one of our part permits with them assuming they're going to use it.
And that at least start getting five, six, seven, eight, or ten people, you know, issue.
Jack. And then you can figure out.
Yeah.
The answer.
If you want to come forward, I'll ask you the question of, what do you think?
As far as the permitting system that you guys are talking about, whether it's a pay or a free permitting system,
it would help protect the county. I think as well is in order to issue that permit.
If it's free, have the same regulations as far as if they were going to be issued a hot dog vendor permit.
Whatever a hot dog vendor or any other vendor operating on the county property would have,
which I'm assuming is a minimum of occupational license in some sort of liability insurance.
If you've got those two things present to them, and then you're issued your, your license whether it's free or pay license.
But I think where I was going, we have the billi now to know where we've issued business licenses.
Correct.
So we could issue a permit based off of that.
Sometimes the description on the occupational license can be a little obscure.
You know, mine, for instance, doesn't necessarily cover kayaking.
I have a multi-faceted business.
You're part of the problem.
Is it that other thing?
And plus issuing, having a county permit does not indicate whether or not you have insurance.
You could have a county permit without having insurance.
And I don't think you want to do that.
In the county.
In order to obtain one of the county park permits.
You have to have liability insurance and occupational license.
So I would guess that would cover.
Mr. Whitman.
Madam chair.
We will work with the community and the businesses to develop the voluntary licensing,
and the local, the licensing, and bring it back to the board.
Okay.
Agreed.
All right.
Okay. Next item.
Shall we see two.
We're going to talk about space co-steam.
Thank you very much for coming today and discussing that with us.
Madam chair.
What we've done with regards to this item is
Prioritize a number of significant improvements there.
And if you look on page two of your agenda report.
The four different categories are safety improvement, waterproofing,
structural improvements in general capital repair.
Well, significantly is the completion of the waterproofing items there.
And so that's why unlike in the years past, recent years past.
This is 830,000 dollars.
And so these are basically priority items.
One through 22 on the Barbarque County facilities.
Listing of recommended are prioritized improvements there.
And so I would ask of the board.
Approved this listing.
We're not doing things like painting the stadium again,
but these are most significant and the most urgent.
Improvements that are necessary for your asset.
I do have Commissioner Anderson.
I just want to say there's a stuff that we'd have to do to protect the taxpayer asset
regardless of how to make the motion of the offer.
I have a motion by Commissioner Anderson.
Second by Commissioner Nelson.
I have.
Someone check on Fisher.
All in favor.
Please stay at I.
Anyone opposed.
It'll be four with one absent.
And I hope that wasn't intentional.
Next item on the agenda.
Three.
Lead action commissioners.
Item 5C3 corresponds to item 5E3 as well.
I just want to bring that to your attention.
So for five.
C3 once we have a new tower, which we are building at the day street site.
We would like to put that space on that tower out for bids.
Two cellular companies.
And the minimum bid would be 42,000 per year with a 4% annual increase.
Back to the board.
I have no.
I have a motion by Commissioner Fisher.
Second by Commissioner Anderson.
All in favor.
Please stay at I.
Anyone opposed.
Passes four.
One.
Continue.
Next item.
The next item is just like the last one.
The only difference is this is at a different location.
This is our new tower.
Radio tower at the Scott's Morse site.
And we also want to put that out to bid to cellular companies to co-locate with a
minimum $42,000 annual bid with a 4% increase.
I got a motion by Commissioner Anderson.
Second by Commissioner Fisher.
All in favor.
Please stay at I.
They want to pose.
Passes four.
One.
Commissioner and Fantini.
E1.
5E1.
This would be one of our new radio towers.
That we intend to build as part of the expansion of the 800 megahertz radio system.
And we would like to build that on a site owned by the city of Indian Harbor Beach.
Once we build that site on their property, in return for them, allowing us to build on their property.
They would like to share any revenue that we obtain from cellular co-location.
And so we would like to establish the ground lease and designate to the county manager or
his designate the ability to negotiate that agreement.
I have a motion by Commissioner Fisher.
Second by Commissioner Anderson.
All in favor.
Please stay at I.
Anyone opposed.
For one.
Commissioner Fantini.
Item two.
So this is requesting to increase the authorized borrowing amount.
And it's for the completion of the 100 megahertz expansion project.
If you'll recall in 2012 you approved in theory.
The approval of the $15 million.
800 megahertz expansion project.
In 2012 you then approved phase one dollars, which was 5.7 million.
In 2013 you approved the second phase, which was 5.6 million.
And then this is the third phase, which is 4.1 million.
This is not new additional dollars.
I have a motion by Commissioner Fisher.
Second by Commissioner Nelson.
All in favor.
Please stay at I.
Anyone opposed.
Passes.
For one.
Commissioner Fantini.
And then finally the last one.
5 E3.
Is it.
It's cellular agreement with Verizon wireless.
For our day street location in Titusville.
We need to replace that tower as part of the rate.
800 megahertz radio system.
We are in negotiations with Verizon wireless.
And in return for them building the tower and funding that for us.
We would have bait their rent for seven years, including two of those years being retroactive.
I have a motion by Commissioner Fisher.
Second by Commissioner Anderson.
All in favor.
Please stay at I.
Anyone opposed.
Passes.
5.0.
We will now go to our next item.
Which is a citizen request.
Mr. Robert.
Nope.
I'm sorry.
Okay.
I'm sorry.
You trying to add on to my agenda here.
If you would like to come to the podium, please.
Mr. Witton.
You're late.
Yeah.
I just want to make the point on those items.
Did you just approve C3C4?
E1, E2, and E3.
Those are all 800 megahertz radio system projects there.
And so those are public safety projects there.
I think the general public could have missed that.
And so we are expanding our abilities to communicate on the emergency radio system.
By their approval of a number of those items.
And we're simply leasing space on the necessary towers to sell companies.
And so those are very important items that you just approve.
And I just wanted to make sure that the general public didn't miss that.
Thank you.
Sir.
If you'd take your name and address.
My name is Bob Coonst.
I'm president of Shalom International out of my TV.
I'm 25 West 49 Street, native born Miami Beach.
I drove 200 miles to get here.
I've been here over six hours.
I could have driven almost round trip for Miami to Orlando.
While you were negotiating this issue with all aboard Florida.
And I'm sorry you didn't put me on with those other people.
I think I could have added some benefit to it.
I'm sorry Mr. Reinigre is not here because in March of this year we wrote to him and asked him.
Would you tell us what trains you're using?
And by the way, please don't go for a French or German trains.
Because these are companies that participated in the Holocaust.
I've never compensated survivors or ares.
And these are burning issues right now in the state of Maryland and the state of New York and the exact same issue of high speed trains.
And the question is why is any company that participated in the Holocaust allowed to do business in Bernard,
State of Florida, anywhere in the United States that hasn't met this obligation?
So I come to you today for moral ethical purposes, tragically lacking in all aboard Florida,
choosing Siemens to run its speed trains for Miami to Orlando, possibly to happen, who knows where.
Siemens was one of the worst German companies in the Holocaust.
There were 14 million slaves worked to death or lead to the gas chambers and Siemens,
who Hitler had addressed in 1933 in degrading Jews and was one of the leading slave labor companies with hundreds of thousands in Auschwitz and 400 other facilities.
I heard their presentation, week as much are a great train system.
There were no other trains to choose from.
We couldn't get a response from Mr. Reinerger at a three request because the game was already rigged.
There are company emblem, Siemens is still on gas chambers.
I book them all, death camp were 150,000 people were murdered.
Tens of thousands were killed in Ravensburg, which was a women's death camp.
They had a quarter of a million enslaved.
These women were working on V1 and V2 bombs, a killed tens of thousands between London and Antwerp.
They were working on you, boats, a killed 60,000 people, including right here off of the coast of Florida.
We're ships that were sunk.
This is the company that all aboard Florida wants to represent the state of Florida.
There's no other company in the world making trains.
Ravensburg, with a clothing and fur is from 7 million Jews were killed, that's where we're shipped.
The Soviets liberated this camp.
April 30th, 1945, and only 3500 sick people were left there.
Besides gas chambers, medical experiments took place.
Thousands of victims were murdered there.
Youth in Asia was carried out in mass.
And Siemens electric was the number one user of this madness in horror, among the 400 places they ran.
There were 42,500 places of mass murder in the Holocaust with a half a million participating in this industrial German killing of the Jews and others.
Siemens was a key player and its CEO was part of Heinrich Himmler's inner circle of SS planning the final solution of the Jews.
You don't want to hear this from Mr. Reiniger.
For 55 years, Siemens kept their mouth shut about the Holocaust and the role in it.
In 1997, they said, we have no responsibility.
We don't want to touch this.
All of a sudden, in 1998, this is the number two corporation in the entire world that brought in 104 billion dollars last year.
They offered survivors $12 million in 1998.
The German government itself has no better, but they've been negotiating to give money to ghetto, slave laborers for years.
They only negotiated this a couple of months ago, a billion dollars, only going back to 1999.
What happened to the 50 years of between?
That doesn't matter.
In 2002, Siemens Corporation wanted to trademark the word Zyklon.
Are you ready for this?
For its vacuum cleaners, Zyklon B was a gas use to kill millions of people with.
It was only because mass of protest took place that Siemens backed off.
This is the same Siemens.
I hope you'll give me the extension of being here six hours to have a little bit more time to tell you about this, OK?
I'll extend it to the board.
His time is up if he would want to extend.
Okay.
Yes, sir.
This corporation is involved.
Open such scandalous levels on bribery and corruption, from Greece, Brazil, Argentina, spy systems in Iran,
Iraq, a food for oil, scandal that costs $38 million with the United Nations. Seemance
has paid out over a billion and a half dollars, just in fines for their scandalous bribery
charges all over the world. This is the only company that all aboard Florida could put together.
I could go on and on and on. It's such a disgraceful record. The point is that I, as a Floridian, do not want to be represented and misrepresented on this scale.
And I want to just add a couple of points personally.
We all want business. We all want to do good things for Florida. Is this one of the good things for Florida?
Two weeks ago, we had a vote in Miami to put up a giant thousand-foot observation tower. The developer came to us and said,
no problem. We'll pay for it, no big deal. Soon as it passed, right away, he wants to charge $8 million to put up the structure.
We've already lost a support of the Miami Mayor. We have a monstrous situation with a nearly $700 million gift to Mr.
Loria for the Miami Marlins. Whose president came out and said,
God, you people are really fools talking to the citizens. After we vote this thing in and put up the burden and the stadium is empty,
because nobody will support this bomb with treats on the garbage.
Miami is like the hot spot right now. Every criminal in the planet wants to be there with their millions.
185 towers are going up. Three of them over 100 stories.
So when you talk about private enterprise, it just doesn't always work out because we're losing why we are there. You can't even see the skylight anymore.
They're making us look like New York and Hong Kong and Honolulu all together because of money talks.
What else is going on? You think you're going to get the job? You think you're going to have this and that and everything?
All great promises, but the bottom line is it's not there. And the reason is not there is because the ethics and the truth that should be coming out on the total project isn't there.
If we can't even get that response. So this sign that I showed you about all aboard Auschwitz, all aboard Florida,
we're already took to the governor's debate at the Broward Community College on October 15th. Now one negative.
We took this Sunday to the torture French at downtown Miami by Bayside to get thousands of tourists from all over the place.
One negative. Everybody else is on our side. Mr. Reiniger thinks he's got this thing all wrapped up.
And he came here by the way and I was got to tell you from all the people from South Florida. I was disappointed.
That's it. That's all they got. For a project on this kind of a scale, it's monstrous. All I'm asking you is to make a statement.
To Mr. Reiniger and all aboard Florida, from Broward County. If you're going to do your project and get away with it, maybe and I'm not sure that's even going to go through yet.
But maybe how about just trying another company to run the trains? Why would you pick this monstrous company?
And by the way, why would you not negotiate real money for survivors?
I've got to tell you something. In the last four years, I will wrap this up. Last four years, we've been demonstrating with all of us.
Survivor Foundation, USA, out of Miami, up in Boca, return. Because we have Aliands. Aliands stole all these deaf benefits.
Those survivors, two billion, won't even sit down and talk with them and runs all these golf tournaments in Boca, return.
That's what we're dealing with. So my question to you is why is any company that plays this dirty game that has their hands so bloody in this monstrous situation.
One of the worst events in history, why are they allowed to do business and not compensate the survivors and others?
And I'm asking you a moral issue here. Because how can you tell today's kids?
Oh, don't be criminals, don't be murderers, don't be rapists, don't be terrorists. Why should they listen to you when you already let the real criminals get away with it?
So I'm asking you two things here. One is don't support demons to run the trains.
And secondly, make a resolution that everybody will hear about throughout the state and throughout the country.
Nobody does business here unless you've paid up unless you've worked out an arrangement unless you deal with the survivors and areas.
We can't allow this criminal enterprise to be rewarded.
I'd be glad to answer any questions.
Thank you sir. I see no light. Thank you.
We did have under public comment on car, but I think he has already left. So we will be going now to the board reports.
By the way, we're not picking on you. We're going to 10 commissions with us to make sure everybody has to deal with it.
Thank you.
Commissioner, I think we need to go back to item 2c2.
We call that we want to clarify the process on that item.
That's right. Oh my gosh, we did forget. Okay. Let's go back to 2c2.
2c2, that was for the cell towers.
That's why you guys never got up.
Okay, I'm going to go over this and it's talking about the permission to solicit and award competitive bids for companies.
I just want to talk about the bid process and how that is going to work.
Initially, we are in order to determine how the bid method or process is going to work.
We're contacting the carriers to determine their top list of sites based on the master plan that's identified.
There are a lot of them that are included in that master plan.
To determine the best method, we need to know the height of the towers.
We need to know the locations where they're at within the sites and the sites around them.
And the different types, even though they are identified in the master plan, we want to capture which ones are those top sites for the carriers.
So we can include that in the bid documentation.
We're looking at possibly doing a multi step bid, which would be to pre qualifies contractors prior to obtaining bids for specific sites for this year.
And give them those contractors contractors that are qualified only those contractors, the opportunity to bid on those sites.
So there's a couple different methods that we're looking at, but we are gathering information to determine what is the best method for that.
Okay, to the board.
I have a motion by Commissioner Fisher, do I have a second.
Hi, I'm a second by Commissioner Nelson any discussion.
All in favor, please state I or anyone opposed.
Passes for one commissioner and continuing.
Now I'll go back to Mr. Whitman again.
Madam Chair, just two items there and first item is for you and Commissioner Nelson there just says.
The staff representative we want to thank you for your service and and thank you for allowing us to have eight years of open and honest dialogue.
So we really appreciate that.
I wish you well in your future endeavors, whatever those will be.
Second item is and is on a very sad note earlier today fellow employee art.
Churchill was killed in an accident on his way to work and so Mr. Churchill was a driver for transit and so our thoughts and prayers are with his family as they deal with that tragedy.
It's just a curve this morning.
That's it for me.
Mr. Knox.
Like to.
Did oh on Stockton's comments Chuck, I've known for over 30 years.
And we've done a lot of things over the years and I really appreciate that.
I had the opportunity to work with you here.
And Mary really enjoyed working with you especially the chair to a real great job and we should both the best.
Thank you. Thank you.
Commissioner Nelson.
I'm going to defer to the last meeting which is November 6th.
Thank you so much.
No report.
Commissioner and continue.
I don't have anything.
Commissioner Anderson.
Another report thank you.
Commissioner Fisher.
Yeah.
I did oh and I'm quite sure I'll say some of the last meeting too but it has been a pleasure serving with both of you for the last six years.
Six years for me and probably more important I felt like I've got two friends.
And that means a lot to me.
So thank you for your relationship and the friendship and professionalism and helping move things through.
As issues have come up in the last six years because it hasn't been hard.
Yeah, easy six years.
Thank you.
Under my report.
I have two things.
The first thing I want to bring forward is to have at least a rise come forward and Jen Conrad.
How are you?
Howard.
So first of all thank you very much.
And I know I'm probably the thing that stands between you and being released from this very long day.
So I will be as quick and as entertaining as I possibly can be.
I also want to thank both of you Commissioner Nelson and Commissioner Bowman for all of the help and just the support that you've given to career source provide and to myself personally even.
You know because I've called upon you guys at different times and asked for help and questions and things and you've always been very supportive.
So thank you very much.
We're going to actually roll a video.
I believe that talks about the item that I'm here today.
So hopefully I don't know if you guys get to see it while it's rolling.
I hope we have not seen it up pulled up yet.
But I hear it.
Here we go.
Hello.
My dynamic night retired Colonel United States Army.
Today I'm asking for your help and supporting our local soldiers.
The military spouses and older children and I know truly want to become employed in helping their families.
Yet they face so many challenges.
Your donation will help provide specialized training.
Kind of the cost of a certificate and help prepare them for work.
Please consider a small donation and then share the information with others who care about our military families.
Thank you.
Being the daughter of a military man meant constant moving for one teenager.
I've moved around around five times.
So it was hard.
It's like starting over every time I moved.
Finding a job in a new town every few years was equally difficult.
Until single Terry learned about the jump start program from career source for bar.
Formally provide workforce.
Jump start helping me be able to decide what I wanted to do in the future.
She says the program which is supported by public donations helped give her free training on finding a job
and provided many resources to learn about what her skills were and offer her help in learning more skills.
That takes money which is why jump start is looking to the public now for donations for this program.
Your donations will help me to be able to achieve my dream and it'll be an investment for the future.
I spent the first five years of my life with other people because my mom was always overseas.
So if I had a program like this, since I have a program like this, I can really get the skills I need from the people I need and excel in life.
Zach Lewis says he is glad for bar county residents are donating to the program for other military children and spouses.
Jump start really helps me get into a program that could help me.
My mom didn't have to pay for it and yeah that helps everybody.
The program is also offered at no cost to adults helping Christy Tanner.
I also gave me a scholarship to go to school.
So I started the LPN class in January.
I'll be finished in December of the same year and that will travel with me no matter where we get a patient there.
So career source providers involved in this crowdfunding effort because we have a lot of military families who are coming back here.
They're coming from overseas.
They're being outstationed here.
They're deciding to live here.
And they don't have that connectivity that they need to get into the job market.
Now you may go okay but why do you need to raise money because you get lots of money from the federal government?
Absolutely we do.
But our funds do not help in the ways that we need to help with these folks.
It doesn't provide things like entrepreneurial boot camps which is what we're going to do with the military spouses.
It doesn't provide a summer program or even not in summer time.
But a program for the youth that are over our income requirements that we normally have.
So military families they don't meet all of our criteria in order to be funded under our funding stream.
So this is why we're doing this.
We also know that 30% of military spouses ages 18 to 24 and that's both men and women are more.
They have a 30% I'm sorry unemployment rate compared to civilians with a 6.5% unemployment rate.
So this is a population that we need to get employed here in Brevard County and we need to get them back to work so that they can contribute to our economy.
So that's what I'm here to ask you about.
Thank you for playing the little video.
You can see that curdlement night is on our side and helping us with all of this.
It is available for folks to look us up on crowdrise.com and it's jump start from military families and they can find us that way.
And that's really on here for, and to thank you guys once again for all of your support.
Thank you.
I'm good luck with the program.
I am going to do my model swam song today, being a last full of commission meeting, and it's been eight years.
And we're going to cue up a little video.
My good friends, Brant Ronat, had done this for me as a little review when I ran eight years ago.
My philosophy was to build roads.
And so in this little clip we'll see if I was able to succeed and what I said I was going to do.
Is it ready to run?
Thank you.
It's too late to bring up the funding on roads again.
Well, we had started out saying it was going to be the five shades of Mary with the five aircolors, but then when they started doing the research now.
There's eight years like different colors anyway, and then as I watched it when they before we was put on a go, oh my gosh actually we should go through it again watch Andy.
On that particular one.
In needless to say, I want to thank everyone who is assisting me through my years of eight years.
I do have the audience here, Jan Conrad, who graciously worked for me until she finally said, okay I'm moving on.
And Pat Woodard here, and Molly, I have Tommy Redmond work for me, and when he said he was done, he went to New York.
He was definitely getting out of town, but in Marcia, Newl, she went to Tattisville actually I just considered my office have been a training ground for people who want to go out and do work in management offices.
I can't say enough about everybody here.
Okay, any other business before the board.
Hearing none, Jan.
Thank you.
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Thank you.