that, they are hoping that their ancestors will be very glad that they put all this together; and
their descendants will have something to enjoy. She commented she leaves the Board with the
words of the esteemed Joni Falls, who is Enchanted Forest Sanctuary Steward for many years,
“May the forest be with you.”
Ronald Jurgutis stated the Board has door number one, door number two and door number
three, or door number four to spend money; he understands it takes money to get this done;
hopefully staff is going to be doing the correct job on this; as he remembers being a resident of
Florida since 1972, vacationing here many years when he was a child, it was totally different;
his major concern is he has seen Fort Lauderdale, Miami, West Palm Beach, Tallahassee, he
has seen a lot of places, and this gets going here with save the land, and it needs to, but are
they the correct choices of where they are being saved, is there enough participation to ensure
that it is saved, because he will provide examples in these various communities, hopefully it will
not happen here, but it is already happening with rubber dust hitting the waterways, not only the
IRL, but the St. Johns River; and he asked again if the County is going to save the correct
places because at one point in Fort Lauderdale, which he lived down there for a little while,
nothing will be developed past the road on the other side of the interstate, it is going to be
saved everglades, nothing is going to happen, they have this land, and then it happens, more
money, and guess what, they developed, and they kept going west, and west. He noted he
hopes this is spent diligently, correctly, and in the correct spots; and there needs to be a lot of
citizen input.
Keith Winsten thanked the Board for taking up this important topic. He stated he really wants to
just make one point about what a great investment this is in the community; as people know, 70
percent of the citizens voted for it, to bond up to $50 million; here are two reasons why he
believes that is so; first, the nature of the process, as the Board saw the options tonight, he
would encourage it to bond as much money as possible; if it takes a look at the actual pieces of
property, they have low value in terms of the tax market, but high value for conservation they
have pinpointed for that purpose; and it is well done by staff to date, and the Selection
Committee. He went on to say the second piece he wants to talk about is the intrinsic economic
value to the community; as the Board is probably aware, the Economic Development
Commission (EDC) and the Tourist Development Council (TDC) just completed a unified brand;
they literally engaged thousands of people in Brevard County to talk about what makes life here
so special, how to recruit the kind of people they want to live here, and how to bring new
companies here; to look at the brand, it is built about two things, space and technology and
nature; the two live side-by-side; without the nature, people do not move here; when people
wonder about the investment, this is the best investment to make about keeping this economy
thriving, protecting the Lagoon and the lands that buffer the Lagoon, the lands that bring quality
of life, the lands that showed up in all of that work on the brand; he would encourage this Board
to bond the maximum possible, and at a minimum to combine one, two, and three, and start the
work, because this gentleman said, time is slipping away; and he mentioned to just get at it and
empower the teams here, and the very capable staff with the County, to move forward and
protect the right land, build the right facilities, engage in the next generation, and keep this
place really special.
Craig Wallace stated he is representing the chairman of the Indian River Lagoon Coalition; he
will keep this perspective on the Lagoon mainly, but also to the rivers; this is really the
opportunity for the County to preserve some of the wetlands; as one can see that has become
kind of the focus of looking at future lands here; wetlands are super important; one, because
that is where all the surface water is going to drain when they develop all of the areas around
there that are not maybe purchased by this bond issue; those are the critical areas where they
are going to keep from flooding and keep that water from directly going into the Lagoon; and
those are the perspectives he would like the Board to consider when it thinks about this. He
added these are areas, as was said, that are swamp land; he would like to keep it in that state
because it is the best way to filter that water, to keep it clean when it gets into the aquifer, and