Minutes - Brevard County Board of County Commissioners

Rollcall

Commissioner District 1 Katie Delaney , Commissioner District 2

Tom Goodson, Commissioner District 3 Kim Adkinson,

Commissioner District 4 Rob Feltner, and Commissioner District 5

Thad Altman

Present:

PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE: Commissioner Rob Feltner, District 4

Commissioner Feltner led the assembly in the Pledge of Allegiance.

The Board approved forCommissioner's Delaney and Goodson to participate via telephone.

Result: APPROVED

Mover: Kim Adkinson

Seconder: Rob Feltner

Ayes: Delaney, Goodson, Adkinson, Feltner, and Altman

C.1. Budget Overview

Jim Liesenfelt, County Manager, stated it is just him today doing a little on the high level, and

keeping it a little bit informal; at the last Board meeting it was asked what staff was going to do

in the budget workshop and he advised staff would talk facilities; the Board also asked to see

infrastructure; he wants to point out that Facilities is infrastructure so he is going to cover a lot

of stuff on infrastructure, some may be surprising; if he starts to talk too fast, he would ask that

someone wave their arms so he can slow down; there is staff in the room and if there is a slide

related to their Department they are here to answer any questions; just a couple things before

he gets started, he would like to thank Keith Neterer, Interim Budget Director, Tad Calkins and

Jill Hayes, Assistant County Managers, for dealing with him the last week to put everything

together; and also the budget office and all the other Departments because he has been asking

lots of questions to get this put together for the Board. He went on to say the topics to be talked

about is County infrastructure and the slide shows the subjects that he will be going through;

believe it or not, a little bit on insurance funds, some revenue options, questions, and then

Board discussion on whatever direction it wants to go with; at the last workshop, staff talked

about the color of money where it went through the $2.5 billion budget; when one gets down to

it, it is about $288 million in operating funds in the General Fund; last year, to help balance the

budget, staff went through a number of recommendations to General Fund for cuts and he

wanted to highlight that, reductions is a better word, for what they did not fund in the budget

that staff would have liked to have funded; there were a number of Public Works items there

and quite a bit of Facilities management, that will be discussed; and the next slide it shows the

Parks and Recreation items. He noted one can see the asterisk there that was one of the last

updates because based on Board actions on Tuesday, they restored the Parks and Recreation

through the Municipal Service Taxing Unit (MSTU), and those reductions have been restored;

one can see a couple of the reductions; he pointed out this slide was in the Budget message, it

is the items removed from the recommended budget before it was given to the Board so it

could fund all the other needs and priorities it had; and he stated he does not have this in front

of him but would point out that when looking at the cuts, the County Charter Cap is three

percent or Consumer Price Index (CPI) or whatever is less, so when talking to Departments, if

they have General Fund, he does not let them ask for more than three percent, therefore, when

looking at the number of cuts, there were a number of Departments that actually received a

little bit less in General Fund. He continued by saying IT was one, they received about $70,000

less with network switches; there were a number of other Departments that did not even

receive up to the full three percent; when looking at this list of items removed from the

requested budget, that was even after he restricted the Departments in what they could ask for;

a lot of folks took a little bit of a haircut last year to make sure they could balance the budget

for the Board; along with the Public Works funding, there is the Detention Center; they had

correctional impact fees; normally being spent is about $3.5 million just on various functions of

the Detention Center, anywhere from repairs to maintenance; there were some impact fees so

they were about to use those for this year; now there is $3.5 million reoccurring which is an

issue that has to be addressed; the road resurfacing has kept the same amount of money as

last year, but due to inflation in construction costs, instead of 50 miles it will go down to 40

miles; the reconstruction went from seven and one-half to five; at the March 17 Board meeting

what the Board did with Parks and Recreation it restored $1.5 million back into the road and

resurfacing program; and the miles will be a little better than 40 now. He mentioned this slide is

always shown; these are cumulative changes in the CPI since 2009; pointing out for those on

television and Teams, the blue line is the CPI and that is what the County follows along with the

cap; one can also see the construction costs and the general municipal cost index is higher

than what they have been able to do; one cannot tell in the slide, but there were three years

over three percent; the cap is CPI or three percent, whatever is lower; those couple years there

was eight percent inflation and another year it was six percent, but the revenue was only

increased by three percent those years; when there are a lot of bad years of inflation, the cap

keeps it under underneath, just even the inflation rate there; this next coming budget year is

2.63 percent; they had just gone over some budget guidelines for Departments; they probably

do not even know what this year, but the guidelines to them will be 2.6 percent increase not the

three percent; and nobody fell over in their chair. He stated under Facilities, he loves this chart

and the fast facts, there is 154 buildings that facilities is taking care of; there is 2.6 million

square feet and they are under direct management of 76 buildings and 1.8 million square feet;

it is going to be seen from a couple Departments, showing the different infrastructures they

maintain; the Facilities budget is 45 million and they are having a hard time, staff cannot keep

up with the current budget, to be honest and that is just the way it is; there are the fast facts; he

likes at the bottom, the average building was built in 1971; this building opened in February

1991 and is 35 years old; and there are not a lot of young facilities out there and the older they

get, the more repair one has to put together. He went on to say this slide is a list of some of the

critical needs, Public Works was nice to divide it into different areas; he will read through it, but

will not catch everything; in the North area there is a couple million dollars; this is beyond

constitutional needs, he is going to highlight those, but there is the historical courthouse, the

Brevard Room, which is a community room up there that needs HVAC, the Detention Center

where it is estimated to have at least $6 million in repair there, four sprung structure tents which

are the tents that are called sprung structure and they are working on replacing the fabrics with

the Sheriff’s Office, and the Central area, the County Service Complex that is in Merritt Island,

which the old folks call the Merritt Island courthouse; Timothy J. Mills Fire Rescue Center is a

multi-storage building in Rockledge that houses Fire Rescue and Public Safety; the South area

includes Viera, and one will see on the next slide about elevators and HVAC; the Moore Justice

Center across the street are working on envelope repairs; there is work being done on

buildings down on Sarno, and then the Melbourne Courthouse chiller and tower equipment; and

as one can see there are a lot of immediate needs already that they are trying to find and fund

for this next year’s budget. He continued by saying this slide has a list of major issues; he is

learning a lot from Skip Bell, Facilities Management Manager, and Marc Bernath, Public Works

Director, and that is why they are right here; he is going to start on the right side, the HVAC;

last year eight projects were completed, but someone will always being working on HVAC no

matter what; then there is the budgeted another seven different HVAC projects that are being

worked on right now; when he says what they have budgeted, they budget what they think the

costs are, but the costs could be different once one gets in there and start tearing apart walls,

ceilings, and floors new stuff can be found; that is the way they budget and what they try to

accomplish; elevators, even without Mr. Bell’s instruction, he learned about elevators and how

they can be a pain; they had to do a major reconstruction of the elevator at the Central Cathy

Schweinsberg Library, when that went down they had to rebuild it to meet the new Code, so all

the elevators need to meet new Codes; there has to be new monitoring on the elevators; the

recommended life span, and one may hear him say the word useful life which is a Federal term,

the lifespan is 27 years and 19 of the 31 elevators are beyond that right now; one can see the

crew has been working pretty hard over the last seven years; there are about 10 of the

elevators that they have been able to replace, rehab, and fix up; they have budgeted for three

of the elevators this year, so they still have at least half a dozen more to go; and that is just

rehabbing, not if they breakdown or there might be another issue with them. He stated the

Detention Center, at one point there was multi-year major projects and they had to take the S

off because it was duplicate, but it does feel like multi-years, there is a lot of work to do; one

can see there is a pretty nice overview of the Detention Center; one can see the older, existing

building at the Center, there is a newer wing on the right, and then to look because he is going

to talk a little bit about the pods, one can see the four green structures at the lower right-hand

corner, those are all the different pods; over the years, staff has been working on plumbing

chases; he has a friend who is actually an architect and plumbing is different in Detention

Center because they can back it up, it is everything, not the standard plumbing one would find

in a house or a building, so there is a lot of work there; of course they are always working on

the HVAC replacement; the jail doors which one just saw at the last Board meeting was a

couple million dollars to help finish up those, they have to refurbish the showers in there, and

they got more HVAC fiber cable; what they added was, speaking with the Sheriff’s Office, some

of the key points, the last expansion of the jail was 2006 and since then the population has

grown by 25 percent; the tent structures were somewhere around 2005 with the last expansion

there; and the capacity is still running, there is a committee that keeps an eye on it, probably

running 80 to 90 percent. He added the thing to remember is it is almost impossible to have the

jail at 100 percent capacity because if somebody gets sick or different things, they may not be

able to double up in a cell, one would have to move stuff around. He noted if the capacity is

1,500 that does not mean there can be 1,500 inmates every single day in the jail; the Sheriff

does a really nice job working with the various County Departments that keep that number

where it can; he put in there hundreds of work hours annually; Mr. Bell and his crew do a lot of

work; the Sheriff’s Department is already in there doing a lot of work; and for expansion, the

rough number for a new pod might be $40 million.

Commissioner Feltner stated the Committee is the Public Safety Council that meets here and

he is the Chair for that; they work collectively with all the stakeholders to keep the jailhouse

population at a certain level; and it is a diligent thing that is always ongoing, even making sure

that people get to State prison when they need to go because that is getting them out of the jail

and on to State prison, something they work on a lot.

Mr. Liesenfelt commented yes, that group has been pretty successful, Chair Altman remembers

back when there was an add on, there was a sales tax for the Detention Center because they

had to expand, there were suits to make sure on the capacity and that committee came out of it

and has been a big help to keep them at the proper level of population. He advised this slides

shows the Constitutional Offices facility needs; Mr. Calkins and himself met with the Tax

Collector, Property Appraiser, Supervisor of Elections, and a representative from the Clerk’s

Office last week and went through the six-story, the Brevard County Government Center North,

or something like that, he is going to call it the six-story; they went through all the floors looking

at what is needed to be done; if one takes a look the HVAC system, there is at least another

$2.5 million of repairs, windows, electrical upgrades, so about $4 million in immediate needs for

that building; there is reoccurring at the Sarno Complex of about $300,000 a year; he does not

know how familiar anyone is with the elections office down on John Rodes, it is a pretty

comprehensive building with a lot of functions in and out of there, with some work to do there;

there is the East Precinct being worked on with the Sheriff’s Office and once again, just to

repeat, the Detention Center is $4 million, but there are also a couple other costs there that are

he called it almost non-prisoner related, but it still has to do with the facility, so there are some

costs there; a couple pieces of good news with this is when they come back with mid-year

adjustments in April, they are going to be able to put some funding towards the HVAC system,

so they will be able to start cutting down on that $2.5 million dollars in need; and meeting this

morning, he heard that there was a walk-through with the different contractors for windows and

he had a much larger number than first thought of contractors what are interested in bidding on

the project which will hopefully lead to much lower costs with a lot of interest for that. He

mentioned this does not cover everything of the Constitutional needs but it provides some of

the highlights of what staff was shown last week; the next slide is unfunded enhancements;

they have been working throughout the County on bathroom replacements; as one can see, in

this building the first two floors were able to be completed; they had taken the funding out for

the third floor, and there are other buildings, buildings D and E next door that need some work,

buildings A and B are not quite there; the restrooms are 34 years old, they spent a lot of time

and the crew is out today working on the washrooms here and across the building; a bathroom

is about $100,000 a pair and he has heard from somewhere else that would be about the right

number; and he commented it is expensive to fix bathrooms nowadays. He continued by saying

there is LVP flooring and other needs out there; they are looking, even when they do stuff

in-house, there is about $800,000 in needs there; for flooring there is another $2 million; just in

the Government Center, the Melbourne offices, and the Merritt Island Office they are looking at

another $3 million of needs for Facilities; that is what one sees in Facilities; he is going to

highlight some of the Departments because there is more than just what Facilities oversees

directly; there is the Library system that is operating out of 18 buildings and they have that

many branches, the main Library and 17 branches; interestingly, only 14 are owned by the

County, some are owned by the cities and a number of libraries actually sit on city-owned land

which is interesting how they put stuff together; one can see the Library needs, just under $12

million; in their budget they have about $4 million funded, unfunded list is $7.4 million; the

Libraries operate under their own Municipal Service Taxing Unit (MSTU) so they do not use

General Fund; what he points out is they generally spend about a little over $5 million per year

on infrastructure needs and they have $7.5 million in needs right now, showing they are a year

behind; and it would take them a while to get caught up, assuming there are not any other

issues that might happen to the buildings, making it more than a year and one-half of needs

that they have out there. He went on to say Parks and Recreation, he will start off right in the

middle of the slide, noting there are 130 parks, over 1,000 different buildings and facilities,

anywhere from fields, lights, playgrounds, bathrooms, boat ramps, and community centers,

they have a lot; they spend a lot of time and money on it, about average, they allocate about

$3.2 million for infrastructure needs; that is above what they do on a daily basis for

maintenance, repairs, and construction of new items; the unfunded list is somewhere around

$30 million so looking at almost 10 years of needs with the Parks and Recreation; he asked

them to put together, and one can see at the bottom, there are eight community centers,

divided up between community, nature, and Senior centers; there are lots of infrastructure and

then other centers and amenities; one may or may not know the County went out to the voters

in 2000 for a referendum to build more parks and pay for more park facilities, and they had to

go out again in 2006 to complete the funding, luckily all but one of the debt millages have been

paid off, the last one will be this year; he will point out that these facilities that they have been

putting together are now reaching their 25-30 year lifespan, therefore they will start requiring

major repairs or maintenance as some things may have reached their useful lifespan; the

County, to pay for those repairs it will have to come out of operating; when it was built, the

County issued debt to build it, and then there was separate operating funds to operate parks;

and now that the debt is gone, they lose that ability to bond that out, therefore any major

repairs or replacement of these facilities are going to have to come out of their operating

millages. He commented they also receive some General Fund; a couple minor things before

getting into Public Works, there is some good news, and this just provides an idea of different

departments and what is out there; Natural Resources management needs a facility to put

together their aquatic harvesting equipment; the Extension Center has a roof replacement and

pointing out the Extension Center says Ag Center, that really operates as a separate

community facility where they host a lot of meetings like the famous Blue Origin meeting that

was there; it is used by a lot of the public, it is a public need, it is more than just UF and the

IFAS Program; Mosquito Control has been putting a lot of money together and spending a lot

of years, as one can see their biology laboratory on the slide; they have been putting together

the money but they are still about $800,000 short; they also have their own MSTU so it comes

out of their own budget; and as he points out, many of these MSTUs are also operating under

the cap, they cannot just decide to raise the MSTU by $800,000 to fund it, they have to stay

within the Charter Cap. He noted Road and Bridge, there is a slide about their maintenance,

drainage, and everything that is needed, but Road and Bridge also needs to make sure their

maintenance shops are well-maintained and put together; a few years ago they put funding

together to do a needs assessment and one can see there is over $25 million in upgrades,

replacement fixing that they have to do of the maintenance facilities and that is just the three of

them that one can see listed on the slide; they are working pretty hard on the Melbourne

Central Fleet, he calls it CEP because that is what it was called when he got to the County;

there is about $40 million in needs and $23 million of it funded; they are actively working on it

right now, but still $17 million short; and this is to help the crews that go out and help the

people, they go out and fix the drainage and the roadways, so they need to make sure they are

operating in good facilities. He stated Information Technology (IT) one may not think of it as

infrastructure but definitely to him, it is the backbone of everything that is put together; there

has been heightened awareness of security attacks going on; he knows of one place that was

attacked and their system was brought down, so staff always tries to keep an eye on everything

and stay up-to-date; this last year they were able to fund their Department with existing funds;

one can see looking at the bold parts, they are having to replace the network connectivities, the

switches, the firewalls, and keep everything up-to-date, that is going to cost about $80,000 per

year; when looking at the systems with all the servers and the infrastructure with the servers,

beginning in 2029 they are looking at $350,000; all the storage, once again more equipment,

they are looking at $400,000 per year, so basically looking at $400,000 and $500,000 per year

of IT starting in 2027; this chart has been seen before, it was put together by Utilities; on the

next slide there is a number of wastewater and water plants that the County has to bring online,

upgrade to make sure the County meets all the new regulations; based on the revenue one can

see the costs are going to exceed the existing revenue; this is a list of them all, literally from

Mims down to the South Beaches, Port St. John, South Brevard, Sykes Creek, Port St. John or

new regional plant; their needs are going to be over $865 million, and right now they have

about $71 million funded and that does not mean they are not moving forward with the projects;

they have $793 million of unfunded needs; Eddie Fontanin, Utility Services Director, his crew,

and the County lobbyists, both Federal and State have been really good to help them with

getting grants going through, so they will stay active with the grants; at some point they will be

issuing debt to build some of the plants and facilities; the Board will see them coming back to

talk about connection fee adjustments and user fee adjustments as the studies go along and

they know what they need to do to meet the funding gap; right now analysis and studies are

ongoing and Utilities has a deadline of 2032 to meet all these regulations; and some of this

stuff is occurring, even without capacity needs, that staff has to make sure to have the

upgrades. He noted Solid Waste, and he looks at them both as partners because they are kind

of working similarly, they have to expand their capacity; the new Solid Waste facility on 192, the

first part is funded at about $35 million and part two is still unfunded, but they will be looking at

some kind of debt financing for that; the Titusville transfer station is currently under

construction and it is funded with bonds and commercial paper, that is what the CP is; that

should be completed by July which is good news for Tom Mulligan, Solid Waste Management

Director, and his crew; cell three at the Central Disposal facilities is funded right now with some

commercial paper, but they still have $31 million to go to complete that; to help funding sources

for that is right there at the fund disposal assessment adjustments, debt issue, gate charges,

impact fees, and they all have studies going on to show the costs because if they have to issue

debt they have to justify what they need with debt; while it is not super directly connected, the

Board will probably see in the next month or two staff talking or speaking with Waste

Management as their contract is up next year; there is a chance for extension but one will see

them talking about rates and collection, so that is just a heads up there; and this is his favorite

infrastructure slide because he does not know if people think beaches are infrastructure, but

this is Brevard County and it is extremely important to Brevard County, to the tourism, to the

businesses, and to the residents and the County has made major commitments; one can see

on this slide that over the years they have replaced 16 million cubic yards of sand and it costs

the County $375 million, $31 million from Tourist Development Tax (TDT) and the rest comes

from various grants, mostly from the Army Corp of Engineers for the funding; there is a

commitment or a plan with the Army Corp for 50 years and as one can see the County is going

to spend $600 million over the next 43 years, and when showing that slide to him wife she told

him he better live to see the end of that, which would make him 101, and he hopes to see the

end of that contract; the other on is across the street the United States Specialty Sports

Association (USSSA) facility that the County owns; it used to be Spring training site, the County

worked out a really nice arrangement with USSSA where they rent it from the County and as

part of the contract they put in $250,000 of their own funding into the capital fund, and for the

first five years of the agreement the County also put in funding, but the County is now past that

five years, and the capital fund has a little over $3 million in it; and USSSA spends about

$350,000 per year out of the fund, but a side note, they have to run those approvals through

tourism, they do not get to just that fund as they see fit, they work with the County, get approval

through the County, and make sure they spend the funds. He pointed out there are 15 fields

that require turf replacement and that could start beginning in about two years; the fields are

getting that old, the first ones were coming in in 2016 or 2017, somewhere in that neck of the

woods; that is about $10 million; as one can see $250,000 a year from USSSA does not cover

it; he will have to talk with Tourism and ask to sit down with USSSA on how to address that

need; there is also the turf at Viera Regional that was paid through TDT and a $5 million

project; they are probably about six years in so at some point that is becoming due for the

parks too; and he did not highlight everything, he did not want to torture every Director, but

there is other important infrastructure out there that he did not highlight such as Valkaria

Airport. He noted Adam Hied, Valkaria Airport Manager, does a nice job with getting grants, a

lot of this funded through Department of Transportation (DOT) and the Federal Aviation

Administration (FAA); Mosquito Control has their own MSTU but they have a lot of

infrastructure between vehicles, airplanes, drones, buildings, and labs; they put a lot together;

another good example is Transit Services whose capital needs survive on grants, and they are

100 percent Federally-funded so they have needs that they cannot meet with their grants, but

there is quite a bit of infrastructure out there; and he wants to make sure to bring back, and Mr.

Bernath did a wonderful job explaining, the Board wanted to know what needs to be done about

improving the drainage infrastructure, and this is the same slide that the Board saw before

showing the impacts of what would be needed to have additional drainage crews to get the

frequency down between two and three years to one and two years. He commented if the

Board wants to double the support staff and the drainage crew again cleaning each ditch a

year; there are a number of other projects in the slide that will help and included is the funding

impact that goes along with it; the last Department he is going to speak about is Employee

Benefits and Risk Management; it is not infrastructure, but at some point he needs to highlight

this to the Board; the top chart is the fund balance for employee benefits, health and pharmacy;

the claims cost run about $70 million this past year, it has gone up; the last few years it has

been $60 - $65 million; as part of the budget the rate adjustment is six percent on the

employer side and as the employer they gain about $15,000 a year per employee for health

insurance; the bottom chart is Risk Management, the auto liability, property insurance, general

liability, and workers comp; the claims last year were a little over $8.5 million; as one can see

the County is down to $4 million and is being drained quicker than he wants to see; they are

down to maybe a couple years before having an issue with the balance forward; one can see

the rates are going to go up between eight and 12 percent; he is pointing this out for both areas

because it is a budgetary need and a budgetary impact to everybody, the Constitutional officers

that may be in it, and there are a couple other outside organizations that joined with them; the

County will be looking in 2027 and going out for procurement on the health benefits side; they

do annual renewals every year on Risk Management; more wonderful news, the legislature

passed to increase the sovereign immunity limits, it has been $200 and $300 forever probably

and they passed the bill to $350 and $500, but it has not been signed by the governor; and

Melissa Powers, Human Resources Director, just preliminary is thinking that may raise the risk

costs by about 20 percent, she does not know for sure yet, but will see when it comes with the

renewal, and it will have an impact. He mentioned it will be a multi-year, but he wants to look at

a change in how the County charges out, whether it is Department-wise, employee-wise,

vehicle-wise, so there will be a more in-depth look at that because staff has to do something

before it comes to the Board with some direction, to make sure it can kind of level off the fund

balance in these two items; a little good news, Florida has its own Department of Governmental

Efficiency (DOGE) office and they put together a report, this is from page 15 of the report and

he read, “To their credit, Brevard County leaders lowered the Countywide millage rate

supporting Board of County Commissioners agencies each year during this period, over 20

percent in total”; taking a look at that chart, one can see how they have been going down

some; one other County has gone down every year which is Pinellas County; other ones have

kept their millage rate stable, down a little bit, one actually went up, Broward County, but

looking at the chart going back to Fiscal Year 2021, Brevard County’s Fiscal Year 2021 millage

rate, the highest, is actually lower than any of the other nine counties lowest rate; and that is

Commissioner direction, staff working to keep the budget balanced, and also a lot of effects of

the cap in that. He stated this slide has been seen a number of times before, it was in the

budget message, it was talked about at last year’s workshop, and it was talked about at the last

workshop; there are different ways to generate some revenue; public service tax is up to 10

percent on various utility bills, staff does not implement any of it, every municipality implements

it in some form; that could generate somewhere in the neighborhood of $30 million; under the

Charter, that requires even if the Board decides to do it 5:0 it requires it to go out to the ballot,

the voters have to vote on it, it cannot just be implemented; the fuel tax that the Board talked

about a couple meetings ago could generate about $9 million super-majority vote, or the Board

could put it on the ballot referendum, but the $9 million only gets the transportation related

expenditures that were highlighted throughout this report; the discretionary surtax the local

government infrastructure, right now is a half penny, there is a half-cent for Save Our Indian

River Lagoon (SOIRL), the Charter Regional Transportation tax is also what they call a

discretionary sales surtax and that will get transportation related expenditures similar to the gas

tax; and last but not least is the finding the critical need to exceed the Charter Cap limitations.

He advised under the Charter Cap as he said earlier, the Board can only increase the revenue

for millages by three percent or what the CPI is; if the Board goes above that, and it has done it

twice before, it takes a super-majority vote of the Board of County Commissioners, put out a

resolution describing what it is doing, the cost, and the reasoning behind it; that is also a way to

help raise some revenue to meet some infrastructure needs; those have all been shown to the

Board before in the budget message, in last year’s budget, and in the workshops; as he went

around in the briefings, he said he would give a high level overview, provide some numbers,

and basically get out of the Boards way for discussion; and staff is there to answer any

questions if there is anything specific on some of the numbers, and then they will do their best

to follow whatever direction or information the Board provides.

Budget Overview

Commissioner Feltner stated Mr. Liesenfelt said three percent or the CPI, it is the lesser of the

two so everyone agreed it is the 2.63; and he asked if that is correct.

Mr. Liesenfelt thanked Commissioner Feltner for correcting him and replied yes, this coming

year’s cap is 2.63 percent.

Chair Altman stated it is not spelled out in the Agenda but he assumes it is part of the Agenda;

and he asked if there are any questions from the Commissioners or is it good to hear the

public, then questions from the Commissioners.

Mr. Liesenfelt stated to treat it like an Agenda Item that would be the way to go.

PUBLIC COMMENTS

Lisa Cullen, Brevard County Tax Collector, stated she would like to thank the Board for having

discussion about Facilities today; Mr. Liesenfelt and Mr. Calkins came to visit the Government

Center in North Brevard and she is there to speak for the inhabitants of that building; this year

has been pretty bad in there, there is no heat; there were days it was hovering around 60

degrees in her office, she is on the sixth floor; it just got colder as one went down because heat

rises; it usually stays around 53 degrees on the bottom floor in the Clerk’s Office; yes, it is cold,

they work with gloves and she just does not know how they do it; the HVAC in that building is

as Mr. Bell would say, way beyond its useful life; and the chillers that serve the building are no

longer operational, so there are portable chillers setting outside of the building that thank

goodness are no longer powered by diesel generators, which was another fiasco within itself.

She continued by saying the building’s windows are not sealed, therefore the cold and any

fumes come right through the building in every regard; rain is a constant visitor through the

windows, as are wasps; on the first and second floor there is a rat problem; she has not

experienced rats and does not believe anyone above the third floor has experienced rats; this

building is in serious need of some attention; it is getting to where it is almost inhabitable; and

on many of the air conditioning vents one can see some type of black mold, or a black

substance that is coming through the vents, therefore, the HVAC has got to be addressed. She

added it has been passed over year-over-year; she would say if it was inspected, the building

just needs to be torn down and something else happen; and if the Board has any questions,

there are several hundred employees there and they need a better place to work.

BOARD DISCUSSION

Chair Altman stated he is looking forward to his tour; he is going to go up and take a look at it;

obviously, it is something the Board values, it is the County’s Seat, Titusville; the Board

definitely wants to take care of that; that was the only card; and he thanked Ms. Cullen for

sharing that. He noted he has questions and does not know if the rest of the Board has any, so

he will start; staff has done an excellent job in presenting to the Board; the data is very concise,

clear, and communicated extremely well in a very straightforward and simple way; on slide 19

the Utility Services Department infrastructure needs, he noticed Countywide there is big ticket

of $793 million shortfall; and he is curious of what is going to be the impact of that shortfall. He

asked if the County will be facing moratorium if it does not meet that unfunded need; does it

mean there will be no building permits because they cannot get sewer permits; he commented

he knows the County is facing moratorium and a big part of the campaign on septic; and he

asked what is the impact of that.

Eddie Fontanin, Utility Services Director, stated it would be a consent order from the State of

Florida.

Chair Altman asked that Mr. Fontanin explain that.

Mr. Fontanin noted probably the County Attorney could explain it more from the legality side,

but a consent order is from the State of Florida Department of Environmental Protection

through their legal department notifying the County that it is not abiding with State Law; the

projects associated on that list, the majority, if not all, are associated with the Florida Statutes;

nutrient removal, as those conversations are had, and all of the laws related to water and

wastewater are in Chapter 403; going under Chapter 403.064 or 403.085, as he says this as a

Director it is just ingrained and there are subsequent laws coming, it is a notification basically

that within those laws it provides a deadline of when the goal has to be achieved; if the County

does not achieve it, legally it is not following the law which would then result in a consent order.

Chair Altman commented this does not mean if the County has an unfunded need, whatever

that may be, capacity in a plant, and he asked if that means the County does not have the

ability to treat the sewage.

Mr. Fontanin stated what has occurred in Florida on the wastewater side is, about 2020-2021

Florida started enacting a bunch of laws increasing the standard of disposal treatment; to go

back prior one hears the buzzwords of ‘nutrient reduction’ and that requires advanced

wastewater treatment; it is the expectation, not only the State of Florida, but that the

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) expects; all of that has a cost association; if one thinks

of how the, not to put it in such a way, but the business model of what Utility Services are, it is

very different from most other utilities, even from a Brevard County geographic; when thinking

of Cocoa, it is one continuous area that Cocoa oversees, when thinking of Melbourne it is the

same model, when thinking of Brevard County Utility Services, it is essentially six independent

utility services, none of which it has the ability to interconnect; and in the magnitude of how the

logistics are set up, they really do not have the benefit of scales of economics, so to speak. He

noted what is done for one has to be done for another; the issue then becomes, if looking at

them individually, some of the areas from a payback period, from what would be generated in

that area, would be a lengthy amount of time, so it is constantly doing a fund shifting; and now

with the intensity of these State Laws, and not to forget what really through this into a wrench

was 2022-2023, he knows there was the graph showing the construction index, but that really

through in a wrench in it, for example, the norm for a typical lift station project used to be about

$1-$1.2 million and now those same projects are $2.4 million; and when he talks with other

utility directors, 30 years of doing this, the data points of what he used to think would be the

price of a project have been thrown out because they are constantly moving higher and higher.

Chair Altman commented what he hears Mr. Fontanin saying, this is real interesting, this is not

necessarily just quantitative treatment, but these costs are probably qualitative treatment, that

the County meet standards that are based by State Law, which he assumes a lot of those State

Laws were mandated by Federal law, as well…

Mr. Fontanin replied affirmatively.

Chair Altman continued by saying he still has to defend the State a little bit; and it was probably

many of the nutrient reduction requirements of Federal Law as well.

Mr. Fontanin responded by saying absolutely, but when going through the exercise of achieving

the goals of whether it is water or wastewater quality, it has to be looked at from the sense of

what service area is the County expected to provide; he understands they may not be coming

today, but as a utility one has to be three to five years ahead of it because if thinking in the

world of development, they move much quicker than the government; and again, it is

quantitative and qualitative.

Chair Altman asked if any of these standards are imminent and if the County is facing any

immediate consent orders; he noted the County is already facing a septic moratorium; and he

inquired what the County is looking at from a time frame when it has to suddenly find itself...

Mr. Fontanin noted the closest ones right now are going to be the water treatment plants; this is

related to the Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) rule; right now, the EPA has set a

threshold of 2029, however, there is conversation at a Federal level of expanding that to 2031;

the other ones in relation to the wastewater quality, he believes it is either 2032 or 2034 are the

thresholds for that; as they are speaking about this conversation now, there are still additional

bills being provided; right now, it is one of those things and Commissioner Altman spent a lot of

time in Tallahassee, he knows when seeing the same common bill being floated year after

year, it might not pass the first year, or the third, but maybe the fifth or the seventh, it will get

through; and what is alarming to Utility Directors is they are seeing those bills that have been

floated for four or five years straight, and in conversations, it will occur. He went on to say that

would be an additional cost on top of what is presented.

Chair Altman stated he knows in Tallahassee as he has been there, the people run a victory lap

which is good; they have increased the standard, the nutrient standards to clean up Florida’s

waterways, which is also good, but it is not providing the funding or having utility hearings or

the rate payer hearings, so there has got to be a follow-up; people have to step up and fund

those; there seems to be a lot of public support; and he asked if there is an immediate need to

start looking at rate adjustments to meet the standards.

Mr. Fontanin answered by saying absolutely, it is already in the works; he mentioned upon

conclusion of this, and he has consulted with both Mr. Liesenfelt and Mr. Calkins, they have

already completed the connection fee; the connections fees from this Department go back from

1993 and have been unadjusted; currently, he has a rate consultant going through the financial

model with recommendations on, not to be presumptuous, but if the connection fees were to be

placed, and he showed that graph, there is still a delta there; there is not a project in the CIP

that he would say the County should be doing; these are what they must be doing; and the

‘shoulds’ have been removed about two years ago.

Chair Altman stated there is a lot of public support for cleanup of the Lagoon.

Commissioner Delaney stated she was wondering while on this topic, if these are things that

could be paid for by the infrastructure sales tax and what that would look like; and she

explained when she last spoke with the County Attorney, Morris Richardson, the County could

still possibly have some time to update the language to include some of this stuff.

Chair Altman asked if Attorney Richardson would like to comment.

Attorney Richardson stated he believes the question is if the Board revisited its decision to

renew the SOIRL half-cent surtax, and instead make it a full penny with provisions for

infrastructure, could funds generated by that be spent on these projects; and the answer to that

would be yes.

Commissioner Delaney stated or to even keep it at a half-cent and just expand the allowable

uses.

Attorney Richardson replied potentially, yes, but even though it would still be a half-cent, it

would be equivalent of implementing a new surtax.

Chair Altman stated he is looking at the half-cent and it generated in the last five years about

$500 million, he is looking at $793 million, so it would not fund it, and that is if every penny of it

was used on it; and that would mean none of that money would be going toward cleaning up

the Lagoon, it would be providing sewer treatment.

Commissioner Feltner stated say the County did the half-cent and expand it in that last

scenario, he asked if half of the funds generated there would also go to the municipal

government, so it does not just stay in Brevard County.

Attorney Richardson stated that is correct, either by formula or…

Commissioner Feltner interjected by saying interlocal agreements.

Attorney Richardson continued by saying or it being allocated through interlocal agreements,

but yes, it would not be exclusively to the County; and if the County sort of revised the existing

half-cent to expand the uses, it would absolutely be in a position of renegotiating those

agreements with the municipalities.

Mr. Fontanin noted to add because he was mentioning about State funding, at the next Board

meeting, the Commission will be seeing that staff is submitting for State-revolving fund; the

State-revolving fund is a great program that started in the early 80s and is associated with

water/wastewater; however, due to the demand the rules have changed; what the rules

changed, it used to be they could submit for multiple projects, now that has been scaled back

and what they have done is scaled it back to where one can submit on multiple projects, but as

an entity, the maximum they can receive is $25 million; and that is pending what their

Committee decides. He noted the County will be leveraging that because it is a lower interest

rate; they always submit every opportunity that Florida Department of Environmental Protection

(FDEP) has, and they have been in communication with the lobbyist on the State and Federal

level to try to see how to leverage it; as people know, they are doing the effort as it is related to

the Space industry, and want to make sure they are leveraging Federal dollars and not County

dollars on the infrastructure for that; and staff is definitely trying to stay as aware as it can to

stretch the dollars as far as it can.

Commissioner Feltner stated the County is not alone in bringing the wastewater up to the new

standards; and he asked how other municipal governments are tackling that.

Mr. Fontanin advised they have an advantage because, and he feels quite comfortable in that

question, because for 10 years prior to being a Utility Director, he was an engineering

consultant as a VP doing water/wastewater with a variety; the logistics of these utilities are they

were able to capitalize on a treatment plant; there one has the ability to get the scales of

economics in terms of keeping the price down; as this County functions, it is essentially six

independents; if one thinks about the nutrient removal, Brevard County has six wastewater

plants; advantage of whether it is a Cocoa, Melbourne, or Cocoa Beach, they are pumping

there assets all into one asset, and this County has to do that times six; and it is not just the

nutrient removal, now it is in to the disposal, especially if one is in the Indian River Lagoon

(IRL). He went on to say disposal methods is traditionally a deep injection well; going back

eight years, if one would have asked him what a deep injection well cost, it used to be $6 to $8

million was the swag number, today they are getting into numbers of $25 and $30 million; the

State has now said that every five years, there has to be a test done on that well and the

testing period is about a five-day period; the State used to allow a period of time where they

would allow someone to discharge to the IRL during the testing period for the benefit of testing

the well; and come 2032, that is no longer allowed, now that requires a second deep injection

well at a cost of $25 - $30 million so that there is the benefit of when testing one well, it

transfers over so nothing is getting discharged into the Lagoon. He added these are the

challenges that Utility Services has, it does not allow reuse to be a primary disposal, that is

considered a secondary; and the reason being is because staff has no control of the

homeowners shutting off their irrigation pumps. He mentioned right now, today, the County is

producing more reuse than demand; if one can imagine, there is the wetlands that are familiar;

by permit, that is the primary disposal because the County controls it; and Department of

Environmental Protection (DEP) does not provide an option, if one decides to go full reuse,

there does not need to be a deep injection well, that is not considered an option.

Commissioner Feltner stated that is interesting on the demand situation because people know

when it gets dry here that there is pretty heavy demand on reuse in at least this part of the

County.

Mr. Fontanin stated it is cooler weather right now but he can guarantee in about a month or

two, it will be flipped.

Commissioner Feltner added when it rains more.

Chair Altman asked what the Board is looking at to fix this problem as it sees the gross amount,

the number; what are they looking at as far as potential rates and adjustment of rates; and is it

significant.

Mr. Fontanin replied for connection fees right now, just to provide a sneak preview, the sanitary

or the sewer connection rates would double.

Chair Altman asked what the rates are.

Mr. Fontanin stated if this is pop quiz, he hopes he scores a passing grade, and it is

$2,300/$2,400 and he thinks it will go up to $4,800; the water, because there is less water, but

it is a calculation; he would be thrilled to discuss this one-on-one on how the calculation was

formed; and it is going from $1,700 to, he believes, $5,000 per ERC.

Chair Altman asked what are the monthly rates.

Mr. Fontanin advised monthly rates are still being worked on.

Chair Altman commented so staff does not have those numbers yet.

Mr. Fontanin noted he anticipates in the next two to three months they will.

Chair Altman noted he assumes there are a lot of rate payers using Brevard County sewer in

cities, this is not a jurisdictional thing, especially with the cities doing the large annexations,

therefore it is not a County City thing; of a lot of the rate payers are in the cities; and he asked if

that is correct.

Mr. Fontanin explained when talking about rate payers in incorporated, the beaches come to

mind; this is where there is Satellite Beach, Indian Harbour, and whatnot; the only areas, what

staff calls South/Central that they reside in, Palm Shores, but the rest is really the Suntree and

Viera area; they do Merritt Island and Port St. John, so those are really unincorporated; and

then there is North Brevard.

Chair Altman asked if in two or three months there will be more news.

Mr. Fontanin responded affirmatively.

Chair Altman stated as far as the consent order, are any of those imminent in the next year or

two; and he noted that may be a question for the County Attorney.

Mr. Fontanin stated not yet.

Chair Altman commented there is still a window.

Mr. Fontanin reiterated there is still a window.

Chair Altman stated Mr. Fontanin mentioned that window is still about a three-year period and

the Board needs to start thinking about it.

Mr. Fontanin commented for the most part, most of those projects, if not all, are already in

motion; staff has already gone through the Request for Qualification (RFQ) portion, there is a

consultant, and they are working through the design; the benefit of that is because whether it is

Federal or State, even when one does come for an opportunity for a grant, they will typically

ask what stage of the project it is in; it is critical to get these projects at least, if not more than,

90 percent complete because that seems to be the threshold that they are looking for, for the

County to be seriously considered; therefore, as they are trimming out these projects, and even

though they may be in a situation today to be asked why they are designing it when they do not

have the money to construct it, they still need to in order to be viable to get those grants when

they become available.

Chair Altman commented it makes sense. He stated he will give a little history; when he was

first elected in 1984 to the County Commission, a prior Commission in the late 70s, early 80s,

were facing a consent order for a Federal Mandate; there was a direct discharge into the IRL,

as part of the Federal Clean Water Act; a lot of those plants that they had were not County

plants; with the growth in the 60s and 70s and the space programs, they allowed developers to

come and develop these package treatment plants; there were all kinds of package plants that

were just not working as the developers did not put capital reserve there; the County had to

inherit them and effluent was just being dumped into the Lagoon, raw sewage practically; it was

a lot of courage for the Commission to step forward in so many things they will probably never

get the due credit, but the Commission of the early 80s and late 70s really had a great

Wastewater Director, as the County has now, great staff and a lot of capability, they had a

Federal gun pointed at their head, but they stepped up and had to do a rate adjustment; the

public hearings were so large, they had to find all the largest churches they could find because

they could not fit people into any of the public meetings; it was the issue of the day; but they

had laid the groundwork for so much of what has got the County to this point now, and the

prosperity that they have now was based on what they did. He went on to say history does

repeat itself, the County is going to be faced with some challenges here, and he appreciates

that; the good news, it sounds like there is a little lead time; what he is trying to get is where are

the decisions points; he asked if there are a set of benchmarks that the Board needs to act and

react; he mentioned he knows staff gives the Board those that the Board does not catch itself

in a situation where it has not thought ahead and addressed those; and he appreciates the

Board bringing these numbers up, it was real interesting.

Commissioner Goodson stated he would like to make a motion.

Chair Altman asked if the Board can take an action being this is a Workshop.

Attorney Richardson advised the Board cannot take final action at a workshop, it can generally

give staff direction and ask staff to bring things back for formal action at a future Board

meeting, and things of that nature.

Chair Altman asked if Commission Goodson heard that.

Commissioner Goodson stated he moves to direct staff to evaluate what steps would be

required to reset the General Fund millage rate to a level that would generate revenue needed

to address the County’s infrastructure and other critical needs; the evaluation would identify

these needs and include any analysis that potentially impact property owners; and staff should

bring this back to the Board at a future meeting to discuss it.

Attorney Richardson advised that is absolutely direction that the Board could provide staff at

this Workshop.

Commissioner Adkinson stated she thought the Board could not take a motion, but she agrees.

Chair Altman asked if the Board can do a motion, second, and vote on that, it is not taking final

action but asking staff.

Attorney Richardson stated the Board can take a motion on directing staff to bring back.

Commissioner Adkinson seconded the motion.

Commissioner Feltner asked for clarification in resetting the millage to what, a critical funding

need.

Commissioner Goodson stated it would be to reset the millage to handle the critical needs.

Commissioner Feltner asked if that is to exceed the Charter Cap.

Attorney Richardson stated he is hearing that it is direction for staff to do an evaluation and

analysis of where the millage would need to be reset in order to fund critical needs and then the

Commissioner listed off things to be included in that analysis.

Mr. Liesenfelt stated he is with Attorney Richardson; and what he is hearing and understanding

is to address the critical needs, and come back with the categories or list of critical needs for

the Board, what the cost would be, what the millage would be to generate the revenue to offset

the costs.

Commissioner Feltner stated also to clarify, the Board is not even voting for a tentative millage

until July.

Mr. Liesenfelt stated that is correct.

Commissioner Feltner stated the Board can decide that at the end of June for a July meeting;

or it can give direction today to start preparing those things; but ultimately the Board is not

voting for any of that until July.

Attorney Richardson responded affirmatively; and he mentioned this would not be action today,

it would be direction; otherwise, staff will prepare a budget that is within the limits set forth in

the Charter.

Commissioner Feltner stated so there are going to be two budgets prepared for the Board; he

asked if staff is going to go in the direction of, if there is no critical funding need this is what fits

within the Charter Cap; and if there is a Critical funding need from the Board, then this is the

budget.

Jill Hayes, Assistant County Manager, stated her understanding of the request was that staff

would be coming back to the Board with an evaluation of what those critical needs are and

what that millage would need to be set at; and she thinks staff would try to do that before it

brought the proposed budget to the Board in July, and receive additional direction at that time.

Mr. Liesenfelt stated the Board has asked for a third Workshop; that is what staff can target to

bring that back for; it has been penciled in but has not been placed on the calendar or asked

officially, but there could be a third Budget Workshop, after the second meeting in April; it

would be the same day; there is a Board meeting, hopefully finish up around noon, and come

upstairs around 1:00 p.m.; and he believes the date is Tuesday, April 21, 2026.

Chair Altman asked if that would give staff time to meet the motion.

Mr. Liesenfelt replied he will have to sit down with the County Attorney’s Office and the Budget

office; what he is picturing is something to bring back to the Board to look at and for the Board

to say yes or no to start proceeding with developing a final critical need that way staff can

present it to the Board with the budget on July; and he is making something up, so if staff

decides to build a four-story in Viera and it is put on as a critical need, and it is presented in

April, then the Board says it does not want that in the budget, but if staff comes back and says

it needs to fix $10 million in elevators and the Board agrees with it, then that is what gets

placed in the budget.

Chair Altman stated that is an extremely good motion; the Board members have all been

briefed by staff; it has been difficult because the need for direction; he appreciates that motion

and thinks it was well thought out; and he will support it.

The Board reached consensus to direct staff to evaluate what steps would be required to reset

the General Fund millage rate to a level that would generate the revenue needed to address

the County’s infrastructure and other critical needs, with the evaluation identifying those needs

and including an analysis of the potential impact to the property owners, and for staff to bring

back to the Board at a future meeting for discussion; and reached consensus to schedule

Budget Workshop #3 on April 21, 2026, at 1:00 p.m., following the Regular meeting on April 21,

2026, at 9:00 a.m., to discuss options.

Result: APPROVED

Mover: Tom Goodson

Seconder: Kim Adkinson

Ayes: Goodson, Adkinson, Feltner, and Altman

Nay: Delaney

BOARD DISCUSSION

Commissioner Feltner asked if the Board is going to have these options brought back in April.

Chair Altman replied affirmatively, explaining that the Board is not committed to anything.

Commissioner Feltner asked if the Board is agreeing to have a workshop in April, and if that is

part of it.

Chair Altman replied he is fine with that.

Commissioner Feltner stated he is fine with it too, but…

Mr. Liesenfelt stated he is working a little on the fly; what staff will bring back is critical needs

for the Board to decide on what would be a critical need.

Commissioner Feltner stated even in the workshop, where it is not a vote, that is some

direction.

Mr. Liesenfelt reiterated that would be direction.

Commissioner Delaney asked if the Board would be able because of the topic of this workshop,

to possibly be able to do it as an evening workshop so people would be able to be available, as

far as the public goes.

Chair Altman commented he does not know if this is intended to be a public hearing like a

public hearing on the budget, this is workshop, but the Board would not be able to take a final

action.

Mr. Liesenfelt stated it would be a workshop; like he said he is doing this on the fly; staff has

sent a number of items the Board can take a look at; then it could give some direction; and

then staff could develop a resolution or whatever for critical need and present that as staff

presents the budget in July.

Commissioner Feltner stated he is talking about the second regular meeting, so that is a

morning meeting; if the workshop is following that, naturally 1:00 or 2:00 p.m., by virtue of that

the Board members are all here.

Chair Altman explained right, it is a normal meeting at 9:00 a.m.; the Board has that meeting,

maybe a lunch break, and come back; he agrees with that; he would not support doing it at

night, he thinks that would be a hardship; and the Board is not going to take formal action, it is

a workshop and time to consider.

Commissioner Adkinson stated she would like to discuss the email she sent out on Tuesday

evening.

Chair Altman stated absolutely; the Board can vote on the workshop; he has a procedural

question on that; and he asked would that be advertised as part of the regular meeting that it

phased into, or does there need to be a time certain for the workshop.

Mr. Liesenfelt advised he would call it a workshop; Agenda the regular meeting; and then come

in to a Workshop.

Chair Altman stated that makes sense; and if the Board ends early it can come in here earlier

on the workshop.

Commissioner Adkinson stated probably everyone in the room saw the email she sent out on

Tuesday evening; she wanted to explain it a little bit to her fellow Commissioners and to staff;

last year, being new, she felt like she was drinking from a water hose trying to understand this

budget; she does not feel as though she had a whole lot of input in it to be perfectly honest;

staff did what staff does which is make it balance because they have to; she feels like she

wants to participate a little more in that this year, to the best of her ability; therefore, her office

went through and looked at some non-essential County services. She added all of these

services matter to someone, multiple someone(s), and they matter to her, but she thinks it is

important to look at what the Board can because this is not talking about cutting the fat, the

Board is talking about service cuts here. She went on to say the only way to balance the budget

is either bring in more money or cut stuff; this is here because she wanted the Commissioners

to look at some of the things that maybe the County does not have to do; Mr. Liesenfelt said

“took a haircut last year”, the Commissioner said, “Facing challenges”, and all of that is lovely

language for the County is in trouble here; everyone has a budget at home that he or she tries

to balance, doing different things, so while some of them seem mean, which is a couple

comments she has heard, yes these ones hurt; what she was hoping was maybe the Board

does not discuss it right now, but it encourages everyone to go to staff and say, “Is this foolish

thing that Kim brought up possible, or do I or do I not like it” and get staff to weigh in on it a little

bit; while this Board might not want to put its name to these cuts because they are emotional,

maybe if everyone tells staff what he or she thinks, what could be supported in full or in part,

that gives staff some direction when the Board does ask them to start dealing with this budget;

and if there are Commissioners who overlap in things that they would support reducing, it

might help staff create some cuts that are needed. She noted that is what her email was meant

to do, it was not to support getting rid of any of these things, wholly or in part, it was just an

idea to start talking for real about what some of these cuts could look like.

Chair Altman stated that was very good input.

F.1. Jim Liesenfelt, County Manager

Jim Liesenfelt, County Manager, stated an email went out earlier today from Billy Prasad,

Planning and Development Director, they have been invited to the LNG workshop; he is calling

it a workshop, it is an openhouse or workshop at the Canveral Port Authority next Tuesday,

March 24; they have been asked to be a presenter, and Mr. Prasad will be there presenting;

one can see the slides that were sent to each Commissioner, which emphasize the process it

would take if an LNG plant was built on County land; he pointed out that is not County land right

now, it is Port land; is somehow the Port decided to sell it to the folks to build an LNG plant,

there is a long process they would have to go through to get it permitted or allowed in the

County; and Mr. Prasad will explain that and part of the process is explain to the citizens that

there will be a number of chances for the citizens to speak up or have public input if that plant

happened to be proposed on County land. He went on to say since it was just worked on, he

had the chance to discuss it in public; he just wanted to make sure that it is out there; and he is

sure Mr. Prasad will do a very nice job representing the County and explaining the process.

Chair Altman commented he assumes what that means is if that transfer were to become

reality, it becomes County land, and they wanted to put an LNG plant, they would have to do

things like Comp Plan amendments and zoning requests; and he asked if that is correct.

Tad Calkins, Assistant County Manager, replied yes, sir they would have to do a Comp Plan

amendment, zoning, and they would have to go through the site plan process and meet the

County Code.

Morris Richardson, County Attorney, stated and the Comprehensive Plan Amendment would

not just be a Future Land Use Map (FLUM), they would also require a text amendment to the

Comp plan.

Mr. Liesenfelt advised it would not be an easy process.

Chair Altman asked if there needs to be a vote.

Mr. Liesenfelt advised no, he just wanted to let the Board know so it is aware, and it gave him a

chance to speak a little bit on the floor to the public.

Chair Altman asked if Commissioner Goodson was okay with that since it was his District.

Commissioner Goodson responded affirmatively.

F.3. Katie Delaney, Commissioner District 1

Commissioner Delaney stated she just wanted to thank the Board for letting her participate

remotely today.

F.6. Rob Feltner, Commissioner District 4

Commissioner Feltner stated Brevard Zoo ranked as the fifth best zoo in the nation, in the USA

Today 10 Best Readers Choice Awards; he congratulated the Zoo saying it is a beautiful time

of the year, if anyone gets a chance to get out and see the animals; and it is a wonderful thing

to have one of the best zoos in the country right here in Brevard County, and congratulations to

them.

Chair Altman stated it is a phenomenal zoo, it is great; and he learned something when he was

there just a week or two ago, that Giraffes love to eat Brazilian peppers; he watched them and

they just devoured them; and yes, do they need to introduce Giraffes into Brevard’s native

habitat.

Adjourn

Upon consensus of the Board, the meeting adjourned at 2:20 p.m.