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 Tom Goodson, District 2, Vice-Chair

Commissioner Goodson led the assembly in the Pledge of Allegiance.

COUNTY DEPARTMENT PRESENTATIONS

C.1. Public Works (Continuation from Workshop #1)

Marc Bernath, Public Works Director, stated he wanted to quickly refresh where he left off from

the previous workshop, which was 10 slides in on Road and Bridge, which is the largest

program; he finished the Transportation Construction Management Revenue Generating

Report, the Traffic Operations and Facilities, briefly covered Road and Bridge budget funding

sources, commodity increases, maintained assets, growth versus personnel, and a number of

other miles of roads it maintains, which include of 1,232 center line miles; one Commission

office suggested he open with a joke that he stop right now if the Board would approve

everything in the rest of his brief, he figured he would throw it out there. He continued on slide

36 of Road Inventory Growth, new roads are added to the inventory each year due to

residential and commercial growth; over the last six years on average, they have added four

and one half miles of road per year through maintenance bonds as part of the development;

over the last 10 years they has experienced a 12 percent increase of the paved inventory,

making it second only to Osceola County, which saw a 17 percent growth in pavement; it is

important to note that Osceola’s increase is largely due to their aggressive program for paving

dirt roads, which he will get into later at the end of the Road and Bridge section; as far as

saying four and one half miles of new roads per year, it is not just the roads, it is sidewalks,

drainage, curb and gutter, parking, and Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) improvements as

well; and from a prior presentation, he mentioned there is roughly the same amount of

Municipal Service Taxation Units (MSTU)and funding that it falls on. He stated getting into the

Road Program itself, it is one of the biggest programs they have in Public Works (PW) as well

as Brevard County; the Road Program does a strategic rolling five-year plan each year that is

based on accomplishments, changes, revisions from the Board, or other past direction from the

preceding year; the slide looks back at where it was and where it is going specifically for this

program; in 2018 they had pervasive Countywide road failures, potholes, and it should serve as

a cautionary tale to what could happen if they take their foot off the gas; prior to 2018, there

was no formalized program and funding was based effectively on what could be scrapped

together year to year, and however, the Board formalized a Five-Year Plan starting in 2018 and

has been extended until today. He stated since 2015 they have spent $115.5 million on the

roads, mostly climbing out of a very steep hole post 2018; funding for the Road Program is

comprised mostly by the General Fund, but also supplemented by MSTU and gas taxes;

to-date Road and Bridge has completed 598 miles of resurfacing, 73 miles of reconstruction,

and 254 miles of preservation for a total of 926 miles, and again 1,232 of centerline miles; the

chart shows blue as resurfacing, red is reconstruction and green is preservation techniques

which he will share later; and there are fewer red miles because they are four times as costly.

He stated the slide also shows the current level of funding to preserve more miles of roads over

the next five years, and they intend to phase out almost all reconstruction, with some potential

challenges, which allows them to refocus some of that limited funding on capacity, on safety

projects, as well as other needs, which is fairly small; only $4.7 million is spent on

reconstruction compared to $11.7 million on resurfacing and preservation; as they reduce

reconstruction, the resurfacing and preservation is still needed in perpetuity and pegged to

inflation so that they do not regress; the next slide shows really good visuals, as a picture is

worth a thousand words, here the pavement begins to deteriorate from day one, so under

‘Good’ the Board sees fresh new pavement and on the opposite end is what failed pavement

looks like; their factors cause deterioration rates, including traffic loads, climatic conditions, sun

exposure, temperature, age, material durability, water intrusion from poor drainage, and

construction and factors that cause deterioration, which may be different in each pavement

section depending on all of those factors; and to effectively manage the network of paved

roads, they begin with a Pavement Management Plan. He stated the strategic document

outlines the systematic approach to maintaining and repairing the paved roadways; the Plan

includes a central decision-making tool which is a Pavement Condition Assessment that

generates a rating which is known as a Pavement Condition Index score (PCI) which provides a

numerical evaluation of the condition of each road segment, zero being the worst possible

condition and 100 is the best; the photo shows new pavement with a PCI of 100 which goes

down to 86 PCI where there is no distresses and should only require routine maintenance; the

Pavement Management Plan calls for applications of a surface seal, which typically it applies

reclamite in year two and year seven; he was willing to answer questions if necessary but

concludes with the last photo showing various patching, distressing, cracking, and wheel

rutting, having a PCI which has failed of between zero and 25; and the different pictures show

progressive deterioration, which will be helpful in the next few slides.

Commissioner Goodson asked how he classifies a road that was built with only soil cement that

cracks and people report their road is deteriorating.

Mr. Bernath replied he starts with a Pavement Condition Assessment every three to five years,

generally speaking, in 2019 they did a Structural Condition Index (SCI) and a PCI, but in the

last assessment they focused on PCI that is all of the County’s roads; in addition, they have

field teams that go out every year and ride every road, because the data is only one factor that

may not pick up all of the challenges, so PCI does not actually address ride-ability of a road, it

is really just the integrity; the field team drives the roads and recommendations are made by

the Field Supervisors of which roads are at risk of falling into the next category, the list gets

sent to Viera where they then look at it with the in-house Construction Team and Pavement

Management Coordinator, and they do another pass looking at the roads, then come up with

an initial list, getting together with the utilities and the municipalities, particularly those that are

doing water lines, like the City of Cocoa and the City of Melbourne, and try to deconflict what

they have going on so there is no pavement cut right after they…

Commissioner Goodson stated his question is totally different; he asked how he qualifies a soil

cement road that is falling apart when the homeowners say their road is falling apart due to

cracks; and he noted if he knows anything about soil cement, he could put a foot of asphalt and

the crack would come back.

Mr. Bernath answered soil cement can have excessive cracking but it does not mean it is a bad

road; and he wanted to describe the process they go through when someone calls they go look

at it to see if something was missed, but they do not automatically go and pave.

Commissioner Goodson stated there are very little roads being done with soil cement in the

County due to environmental reasons; and he asked about Pug mix from SNL mines, is there a

lot of Pug mix being done which cracks also like soil cement.

Mr. Bernath replied they use a fairly decent amount of soil cement, but Pug mix, he did not

know anywhere that uses it except one road in Commissioner Goodson’s District.

Susan Jackson, Fleet Manager, answered they use Pug mix mainly if they do a pipe crossing

as a temporary patch prior to the resurfacing, but they do not put Pug mix as a base mixture;

and in District 2 there are a couple of roads that were dirt roads that they have pug mix on, but

mostly only for pipe crossings over roadways.

Commissioner Goodson asked if they only use concrete fill for pipe crossings.

Ms. Jackson asked what concrete fill he was referring to.

Commissioner Goodson asked if Ms. Jackson is talking about concrete mix, sand mix.

Ms. Jackson replied yes, sir they bring it in temporarily until they can mill and pave.

Commissioner Goodson asked if she found that to be good with the Pug mix, concrete and

sand mix.

Ms. Jackson replied yes, for the purpose of stabilization, but they would never use it for a base

for a road base; the cracking from the soil cement, as Mr. Bernath stated, they let them know it

is only a base that the road is not deteriorating; if they put a micro on that, any crack that is

more than a quarter of an inch they seal them before they put any type of treatment on it; they

are trying to get away from so much soil cement and are also looking more at the mixture;

sometimes that mixture can have too much, the design mix, can have a little too much concrete

in it; and they have been looking at that as well.

Commissioner Goodson stated in the past, contractors put more in it to make sure.

Chairman Feltner asked the Commissioners to speak into the microphone, he does not think

the video is going to pick up him or her.

Commissioner Delaney asked if the deterioration had anything to do with the quality of the

material.

Mr. Bernath replied it could; but a lot of times it is really oxidation, sunlight, water intrusion, or a

number of factors, or a combination of each; they go out to bid every couple years to two

different asphalt plants that have serviced the County that have pretty good quality control;

Public Works Department inspects what is put down; and typically it is not the issue, but if they

see it then it is ripped up and replaced.

Commissioner Delaney asked what about best practices during construction, what are the

processes of what they do, and are there different practices of what people go through to lay

the road.

Mr. Bernath replies if it is new roads there is obviously a host of industry standards and best

practices; what is being talked about there is the existing road systems and going through a

process to either extend the life, or when needed, repair or replace and that is straightforward;

and it is just a matter of selecting the right application.

Commissioner Delaney asked so there is no difference in quality as far as different companies

go, or materials and practices that they do to rehabilitate the roads.

Mr. Bernath responded there is a pavement categorization in Florida, they use SP 9.5 or SP

12.5, those standards must be met; Public Works (PW) heavily rely on Florida Department of

Transportation (FDOT) specifications because they do not have an independent testing lab and

have to meet those quality control gates, depending on whether it is a friction course or a

structural course; and certain roads need one or the other, SP 9.5 is standard.

Commissioner Goodson commented that every phase of the road building from the fill dirt, to

the stabilization, to the base, to the asphalt is checked by usually an independent testing

laboratory to verify its construction standard to you; and he asked if that is right.

Mr. Bernath answered yes; even for its own projects it has independent testing. He stated on

road pavement conditions, the slide shows the results of Countywide pavement assessment

from 2019 versus 2023, ranging from good to serious, as the Board can see, left to right, it is

an industry standard to reassess pavement every three to five years and 88 percent of the

roads right now are in a good, satisfactory condition, and the overall report card is an 86 PCI

which is good overall; there are more good and satisfactory roads according to the chart,

showing bright blue is more recent and the dull color is from 2019; in 2019, when the program

was getting ramped up there was a 79 PCI, which grew to the 86 PCI; and in 2011, there was a

63 PCI which is fairly poor, but because of the investment it has seen a 76 percent decrease in

request for permanent pothole repairs since 2020, so their work is definitely helping. He stated

history shows deferred road maintenance results in more roads needing major rehabilitation

and reconstruction which cost more as the chart shows; a typical cost for preserving a road is

anywhere from $14,000 to $80,000 per centerline of mile and upwards from $865,000 per

centerline mile for full reconstruction; and as someone does car preventative maintenance, they

are doing the preservation which is extending the roads and not allowing them to fail, where

they are very costly to repair; at this point, pavement needing reconstruction should not get

worse, however, they are watching for a waterfall effect, where if one looks as good or

satisfactory, it gets bad enough it falls into the next category; in 2018, staff had to start there to

stop the roads from failing, have gotten a handle on it, but there are still roads that are in

serious condition and very poor; and they continue to work on, however they want to continue

to work on those roads to prevent them from deteriorating into a poor condition and becoming

at-risk roads. He stated the focus through Fiscal Year 2021 was to prevent roads from getting

worse, as the roads can degrade by an average of one to two PCI points per year and that

means if they eliminate or cut back funding for resurfacing, which he mentioned the County

needs in perpetuity, in five years that would be one to two PCI points per year, it would be

worse than 2018, as it requires continual investment; by letting off the gas, that would be

another $115 million plus inflation as over again, so in Fiscal Year 2022 an equilibrium was

reached where the resurfacing money was moved to preservation, which he will get to on the

next couple of slides; on the next chart it is symbolic of Best Management Practices and

Pavement Preservation, which has been around for over 30 years and has been tested by

FDOT and United States Department of Transportation, even the United States Air Force on

runways, also it has been used throughout the State as well as the Country, just not in Brevard

County; they began piloting this in 2022 because it was a great departure from what was

previously done, which was running the roads to failure; and PW is continuing to do pavement

preservation on local roads as it continues to ramp up by being selective so that it has

successes and can build off of those out of an abundance of caution. He stated the key benefit

of pavement preservation is cost effective, early intervention through treatments; instead of a

pavement declining over 20 years and then needing to be reconstructed, as symbolically shown

by the black line and then the dotted line on the chart, and then needing that rehab, as the

Board can see that curve, it starts at 100 percent, but the decline over 20 years over the course

of that, it gets into distresses and the pavement gradually gets worse; and people are riding on

bad roads until they reinvest and that is not the best way to manage pavement. He went on to

say by doing pavement preservation, it preserves the service life, delays the need for major

repairs, and studies, as well as work throughout the country, shows pavement life can be

extended 20 to as much as 40 years, it really depends on a lot of other factors; it keeps the

roads in better condition, longer, which is depicted by the green and blue area on the chart; in

the green area it drops off, but if they reinvest it is only a cost of $14,000 per centerline mile

investment; keeping it up there longer, it can be stretched out longer; and is cost effective and

gives the citizens better roads theoretically for the entire life of the road system.

Commissioner Delaney asked if she had a road done in her community that reclamite was used

and the people were not happy because it got on peoples cars; and is there another way to get

it on the road, or can they shift the time, so it has time to settle.

Mr. Bernath replied most people are out during the middle of the day, however, with reclamite it

fully washes off, as stated he thought it was vegetable-based.

Ms. Jackson commented three to four weeks, on a driveway, it can be removed.

Commissioner Delaney stated it had been weeks now and the reflective paint is still orange.

Mr. Bernath answered on cars, sidewalks, and driveways it generally washes off over time; any

concerns the citizens have, they can contact the contractor, who will take a look at it; and in the

past when staff has had issues with paving companies, they are responsible to fix those

damages.

Commissioner Delaney asked if they would pay for a car wash.

Mr. Bernath stated he could not say definitively because it generally washes away, it is a pretty

good product, and as soon as it is applied to the road, it can be driven on within 30 minutes; it

is a quick application; they try to apply it during the day to avoid people who are at work, there

is no really good time to do it; but he can check if it could be done at night, there are still issues

like cars in the driveway.

Commissioner Delaney stated not really the cars in the driveway, people were saying it was

getting stuck in the undercarriage of the vehicle; she does see the value, and she is not

objecting; and she wanted to ask if there was a different process.

Mr. Bernath responded he would take a look; he stated on the next slide as the saying goes,

Good roads cost less, and looking at the bottom left and right respectively, it shows

respectively, a comparison of preserving a two-lane road and what it would cost over 40 years

by diligently milling and paving every 13 years, avoiding the costlier two to four times

rehabilitation or reconstruction if they waited for failure, versus what it would cost to do the

pavement treatments; as shown on the left side of the chart, there is a 40-year cost for

two-lane road, which is roughly $200,000 cheaper; and this is not just about being cheaper but

keeping the roads in better shape longer, which has significant value. He commented switching

to Road Backlog by District; there will always be some level of backlog; these are roads that

are under 66 PCI; unless the County wants to spend more money, he thinks the monies which

have been afforded to PW by the Board, have shown they are good stewards, and through the

grade of PCI have continued to show improvement and why it works; but considering the level

of funding, there will always be some level of backlog because roads continue to age; with a

continued funded preventative maintenance plan they can control the backlog to ensure they

do not fall into at-risk categories in the future; they are still battling with roads that are in the

brown and red areas, which the Board can see compared to the total number of miles Road

and Bridge has which is 1232 miles, is fairly small, but the most costly to fix, which needs to be

spread out over time. He explained currently, by the chart, in 2017 versus today there are only

74 miles of backlog compared to 734 miles before the implemented program in 2018; District 5

has the most amount of roads that still need to be reconstructed; and though that has

decreased significantly over time, it also started out as the worst District needing the most

costly reconstruction in 2018. He mentioned they have continued to work down through each of

the Districts, trying to spread the money where it is best needed and most needed; District 1

has the most roads overall in the County, District 2 has been challenging because it has the

most amount of utilities, sewer plants, Save Our Indian River Lagoon (SORIL) Projects, other

issues as Florida East Coast Railway (FEC) and FDOT projects, and waterline projects; and

like many areas around the County, the area is booming, that presents challenges to the

schedule, trying to finish reconstruction over the next five years, though it is out of our control,

but the worst thing that could happen is if they go in and pave with Utilities coming in behind

them, it would like to coordinate that, which could extend the 2030 timeframe, which is their

best projection as of today. He stated the next item was the five-year strategic plan for bridges

of which there are 48 County bridges; as part of this strategic plan, the chart shows a rolling

five-year bridge plan updated annually and it shows the number of bridges that will be

rehabbed and replaced as they look ahead, as well as the projected costs; there is a graph that

shows what has been funded and unfunded, as it shows over that five-year period, a $8.5

million delta of things that they believe need major rehab or replacement versus the funding

they have today; there is no funding mechanism other than taking it out of existing projects; the

Districts MSTU budgets contribute approximately $500,000 a year towards minor bridge

repairs, which is shown in the bottom chart in the green boxes, and the rest is made up from

gas taxes; in 2023 and 2024 Bridge Projects were completed in District’s 1, 2, and 3, that

included Micco Bridge, rehabilitation of James Clark Pedestrian Bridge, and the Sykes Creek

Parkway Bridge rehabilitation; and they are now focused on required rehabilitation and

replacements in District 2 and 4 to stay ahead of deterioration. He stated they are currently on

Sea Ray Bridge which is under construction and fully-funded; the West Central Avenue Bridge

also in District 2 is in design, or nearly completion of design, construction is not fully-funded;

however, they sought State appropriations in the upcoming legislative session; and if not, the

backup plan is to look at a combination of impact fees and gas taxes to try to bridge the gap,

which is a continuing theme year-to-year unless they find additional funding.

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:

Chairman Feltner asked if the State appropriation is in the FDOT Trust Fund or a member

appropriation.

Mr. Bernath replied right now this is in the Legislative Delegation Process; it is on the short list

for consideration; and he does not know if it will be picked up.

Chairman Feltner showed his appreciation.

Mr. Bernath stated next is Mathers Bridge in District 4, the major components such as span

motor replacements were completed in 2023 and 2024, and some may recall there was a

number of bridge closings at that time due to very costly, large components that are only made

in Germany; currently there is a generator going in for backup power; the focus is now on

preventive measures, which includes upgrading security systems such as camera and lighting,

and also replacement of troop cables that was also an issue because as the bridge moves

those cables get crunched over time and then does not provide electricity to the things that

make it move; on Mathers Bridge they have started to look at corrosion protection, which is in

the planning process, they have a lot of concerns with corrosion on that bridge; North Banana

River Drive, both the north bridge and south bridge, as well as the Gerard replacement are all

in District 2 and are currently unfunded; and as it moves along, they will look at designing and

how it will be funded, the impact fees are not enough to cover all of this based on the shortfall,

but will continue to look for opportunities potentially through future legislative requests. He

stated it is important to note that out of the bridges on North Merritt Island, the Central Bridge,

the two North Banana Bridges, and Gerard, only Gerard actually meets the minimum standard

to be on the National Bridge Inventory (NBI), which means it is at least 20 feet longer; none of

the other bridges qualify for Federal Grants, so they are looking at alternatives of how to fund it

internally or potentially with the State’s help; there is also the Tucker and Rockledge Creek

Bridge replacement, District 4, also unfunded; all are part of the five-year program; and this is

just showing what funding it has and does not have. He continued Brevard County has 38

bridges on the National Bridge Inventory out of 48; FDOT, by Statute, is required to assess

them and provide reports, which it does every two years, and then adjustments are made; right

now, maintenance and rehabilitations are based on what they know today, tomorrow a bridge

report may come in and adjustments will have to be made that is why there is a rolling five-year

plan; for the ten non-NBI bridges they line up a consultant to do their own inspections every

four to five years, those bridges are smaller and a lot of pedestrian bridges; and it does not

have in-house technical staff competent to look at a bridge and determine what needs done, so

it will bring in a professional similar to the FDOT Program to provide a report, then triage those

things and add it to the list as needed. He stated switching to the Drainage Maintenance

Program which is large, before 2017 the Road and Bridge Program only had one dedicated

Countywide Drainage Crew; this resulted in significant backlog of outfall and collector ditches

on a cleaning cycle that exceeded 10 to 12 years; past record keeping was not as good as

today where everything is in a Geographic Information System (GIS); they have discovered

ditches that have not been maintained in 20 to 30 years, as they reviews old documents or

issues come up, then they adds them to the inventory; additionally, there was no formal Swell

Rehabilitation Program in place, so in 2018 the Board decided to fund an additional Countywide

drainage crew and in 2020 expanded to three crews, one serving the north, one serving central

and one serving south Brevard; that is in additional to the other five maintenance teams; and

this helped reduce the cleaning cycles down to three to five years reducing flooding in flood

prone areas, tackling the backlog, and improving drainage systems in each District. He stated

with the help of the one-time Covid Funding and mid-year supplements over the years, there is

now three Long-Boom Track-Hoe Excavators and four Kaiser Walking Excavators, which

replaced aging equipment and added to their efforts to be able to clean out some of the large

and wide ditches; with the assistance of Brevard Career Source, they have got training and

hurricane damage grants which they rely on for dedicated focus on ditch cleaning to augment

them and serves as valuable training opportunities, and to potentially capture people who finish

the training program to then start with the County; and this has been a win-win and have seen

various drainage improvements prove beneficial particularly during Hurricane Ian, Nicole, and

even recently during Milton. He continued by saying that the chart looks backwards to the

addition of the added crews, as well as a rolling five-year strategic plan; the dark green is what

is completed, the light green is proposed with the number of ditch miles per year at the top; with

the current resources, the number of miles achieved has reached a high-water mark as it is

labor and time intensive, requires skilled heavy equipment operators and specialized

equipment; as the aforementioned improvements have been made, community expectations

indicate an ever-increasing and higher demand for service, so to meet those requests,

additional funding, labor, and equipment is required from the Board; and just to staff up another

Countywide crew, they would need four staff members, a Grade-All Dump Truck, and a pickup

truck, that would be a $1.6 million initial investment and a recurring $400,000 investment,

unless the Board is satisfied with the level of service that is already being provided. He stated

critical to improving drainage, they are proactively cleaning culverts and structures using the

VAT-com equipment it has, replacing old metal culverts under County roads with concrete as

they approach the end of their life expectancy or have in some cases failed already; currently,

there is more than 40 drainage projects in the engineering shop for design or under the

construction Countywide crews where they will be replaced; last year, PW implemented a

Policy change to clarify Code, which ensures private resident culverts are put into proper

alignment with the design drainage system when replaced as it remains one of the most critical

drainage challenges faced; historically, if someone knew how to put a pipe in they could just put

it in themselves without a survey or a contractor; now, at least a survey is required, so that the

drainage system goes in the right direction; and another challenge to drainage is, it may be in

the right-of-way but it is the private residents responsibility by Code to maintain and repair their

drive-way culvert, and there was not an effective program until recently.

Chairman Feltner stated for the other Commissioners, if he or she has not seen one of the

Kaiser Walking Excavator’s in action, next time it is in his or her District they should go take a

look at it, it is fascinating. He asked if Mr. Bernath was to estimate, how many collapsed

driveway culverts does he think there are in unincorporated Brevard County that there is a

problem with, he will not hold him to it, he was just curious.

Mr. Bernath replied as a guess, he would say thousands.

Ms. Jackson commented she guessed about at least 30 percent of the inventory Countywide, it

is a problem for them, so at a minimum 30 percent of overall inventory.

Mr. Bernath stated just drive-way culverts.

Chairman Feltner stated he referred to residential driveway culverts.

Ms. Jackson responded that is what she was referring to.

Chairman Feltner stated he has been to neighborhoods and seen it firsthand, it is not the

County’s fault, but obviously to explain to people that is why they are out there trying to clean

out swells, but it does not do any good if there is a collapsed culvert under their driveway.

Mr. Bernath stated typically what happens is when they are ready to go into neighborhoods

they will start inspecting culverts; they will issue failed culvert letters, some of the

Commissioners may know if they received calls from residents asking why are they being held

accountable; PW works through those as they are going in to upgrade the system; there is no

staff that just goes around looking at the culverts and most systems have major problems, so

as they work on the culverts over time, they send out the failed culvert letters.

Chairman Feltner asked what kind of money typically does Mr. Bernath think a homeowner is

looking at for a collapsed culvert repair in today’s money with a double-wide driveway.

Mr. Bernath replied it depends on the size, because some are just really small driveways and it

can be $3,000 to $5,000 or it could be $15,000 to $20,000 or more depending on how big the

ditch or canal is that is spanning.

Commissioner Goodson asked if a homeowner has to be licensed to put pipe in.

Mr. Bernath replied they do not need to be licensed but they now…..

Commissioner Delaney asked if Mr. Bernath could repeat what he said about the $1.6 million

and the $400,000.

Mr. Bernath answered what he was talking about is having three Countywide crews and five

different Districts, so those three are split to go where the greatest needs are, but in order to

create one more crew, they would need a $1.6 million initial investment plus $400,000

recurring; and that would provide PW one more to float either between several Districts, or if

the Board felt like it was needed it could do two and have one stationed in each District.

Commissioner Delaney asked if that amount of money would get you one more crew.

Mr. Bernath responded yes; that is crew, equipment, and the heavy equipment is the biggest

initial cost. He went on to say so funding for pipe replacements mostly comes out of the MSTU,

he talked about that a few weeks back; the slide shows specifically the storm pipes that have

been replaced only using the MSTU funding; the dark green is actual, and the light green is

projected in the bottom with the costs at the top of the chart; additional pipes that cross the

road are replaced during resurfacing or reconstruction and are not reflected in this, but comes

out of the Maintenance Operations budget as part of the Road Program; the pipes being

replaced typically are old metal culverts, and in some cases could have been there many years,

or it could be old grove pipes, but basically, they have reached the end of service life; when

they put reinforced concrete pipes so not to undermine the roads future and have a much

longer service life; so aging drainage pipes and failing pipes are being seen at an increased

rate which poses a threat to safety, as well as contributes to flooding; and the drainage

infrastructure inventory also continues to grow through the new development, engineer

drainage improvement projects, and discovery of structures he previously mentioned. He stated

switching to another major line of focus for Road and Bridge is sidewalk repairs and

replacement; lifting of sidewalks, usually at the seam, or expansion joint, is a major issue on

public sidewalks and streets usually caused by trees and often Live Oaks; the lifting can extend

15 feet or more from the trunk as root length can easily extend two to five times the canopy

size; where possible, they try to limit removing trees or cutting roots as it can lead to a loss of

tree stability or can affect the tree health; once the slab is over one quarter inch, that is a

serious public liability, as well as a safety issue, as it presents a trip hazard, a fall hazard, and

does not meet the ADA; for that reason they do not allow trees to be planted near sidewalks

under current Code, however, they have an abundance of these issues throughout the County;

and often residents contend they do not want a tree removed on “their property”, but if Public

Works are involved, it is typically because it is in the public right-of-way not private property,

ultimately the County is the one to be sued. He stated the chart at the bottom reflects the

number of official sidewalk claims that County Risk received and the payouts each year from

County Risk Manager, Julie Jones; it is important to properly interpret this data as it can lead

one to believe that there is not much exposure, however, depending on litigated or non-litigated

claims, it can take one and one half to five years to materialize and see a payout, as such,

there is a high number of claims in 2021 and 2022 than in prior years which tends to

foreshadow; that cost may far exceed the 2018 peak of $700,000 which obviously could be

better spent fixing the issues than paying litigation costs; and additionally, every single case

involves countless hours of limited field and office staff assembling information and sitting in

depositions.

Commissioner Goodson asked if on the sidewalk repair they just trim the tree roots and re-pour

the sidewalk; and how long before they come back to do the same.

Mr. Bernath replied typically, every three to five years, and he was about to get into that.

Commissioner Goodson asked why not just kill the tree.

Mr. Bernath answered that is something they try to ensure that they are looking at public safety

and also work with the appropriate Commissioners; sometimes they have vocal residents and if

it is an absolute safety issue they will do the right thing, but do not want to be accused of

needlessly destroying trees; and it is an emotion thing for residents and they try to balance that

as best they can.

Commissioner Goodson asked if he knows anything about lawsuits and there is a sidewalk

repair, milling going on against the sidewalk repair, and inlet repair at the same time, there

would be a multitude of lawsuits, everyone can be sued or a joint lawsuit, right.

Mr. Bernath responded if the Board wanted to change that direction to only cut, they could do

that, but they really do have the public’s best interest in mind and try to weigh the issue.

Commissioner Goodson advised but if you cut the roots…

Mr. Bernath stated ….. position, one can only do that so many times before the roots continue

to push up the sidewalk and there is no sidewalk to grind; over two inches usually require

sidewalk panel replacement and at that point, it is not prudent to put a new panel over a tree

root; tree blocks, other methods have not been proven successful, over time the roots just find

their way around it because they are attracted to water; every three to five years there is a

recurring public cost; but again, they are not only trying to lookout for public safety interest but

balance the citizen concerns. He stated on the last slide he discussed a quarter inch being an

issue, it is not only a safety issue they need to address but also an ADA issue; the Public

Right-Of-Way Accessibility Guidelines or PROAG was issued by the US Access Board and

implemented in January of this year, it has been in development since 2001 and was first

issued as a final rule in 2013; the United States Department of Transportation (USDOT)

adopted it in December 2024; there is no requirement to retrofit existing facilities that are not

undergoing alteration, but it does require them to create an ADA transition plan that will be in

the works this year, which will lay out how they would approach things not necessarily

approaching it; and it not only affects sidewalks but detectable warning surfaces, transition,

pedestrian routes, crosswalks, transit stops, and passenger loading zones.

Commissioner Delaney stated if she could throw something out there real quick, she

appreciated what Mr. Bernath was saying about the trees and sidewalks and whatnot; she

never expected to be a person that talks about trees so much; her District is extremely

concerned about their lifestyle, their quality of life, and all of that; if Public Safety was truly the

thing everybody is concerned about, she thinks that they would not have let the Fire

Department get to the state it is in; and she believes they have a lot more liability when it

comes to that than someone tripping on a sidewalk.

Mr. Bernath stated continuing to the next slide, the Sidewalk Repair and Replacement

Program, in anticipation of the PROAG and growing calls to enhance Public Safety along pad

ways and sidewalks, as well as address trip hazards, the prior Board was briefed and laid out

the Sidewalk Repair and Replacement Program, much like the others, is a rolling five-year

strategic plan; the reason he does not show a long history is that he briefed it last year and is

just now implementing it; they are diverting $4.8 million of the funds they have already

discussed, gas taxes, General Fund allotment, MSTU, over the next five-years to address

sidewalks, which is much needed but only making a modest dent towards a much larger issue;

the County has 734 miles of sidewalk and roughly estimated at least 30 percent need repair or

replacement at a cost of $35 million; each year the Board accepts new sidewalks and also new

risks as the inventory continues to fall into disrepair; but the Department needed to start

somewhere and that was what could it live with within the existing budget to make a modest

improvement, and if the Board wanted to expand this, it would need an additional funding

source; PW recommended an additional recurring annual amount to be funded at $2.1 million

of dedicated funding that over the next 20 years they could actually close the gap; if the Board

recalled during his last brief, he provided a number of different funding options that could help

towards this, not just capacity, but also for maintenance and safety projects, which he will not

go back into; and the funding would be notionally distributed County-wide based on the

sidewalks in each district, but it is important to note Districts 2 and 4 have the most sidewalks,

which encompass 70 percent of the sidewalks in the entire County. He stated shifting to service

requests received, currently for service requests, the goal is within 72 hours they go out and

investigate the issue; if they can triage and resolve it, they resolve it, if not they schedule work

and that is occurring 84 percent of the time; the total calls for 2024 was 4,845, to-date, the last

three months, they are at 1,401 calls which means if they extrapolate, they are currently

exceeding 16 percent over the calls last year with the existing staff and existing funding; while

they actively perform metrics on investigating service requests, much like they do in many of

the other areas within Public Works, they are also working on improving our Standard

Operating Procedures (SOP) for follow-on work to improve scheduling, both in and out-sourced

work, as well as communicating using process improvement techniques such as Lean 6 Sigma,

they actually have two projects going on right now; and each District receives a different

number of service requests for different types of issues due to geography, geographic’s, and

infrastructure, going to get into that on the next slide. He continued most of the complaints

shown with a number of different categories which are the most prominent categories, looking

at ditch maintenance, drainage, or flooding, those are all drainage related and clearly it is the

Road and Bridge Program within the Public Works Department and sometimes he thinks it

should be the Road and Drainage Department because they spends more time on drainage

than any other issue; as the Board can see over a year period, there is quite a bit of drainage

issues that has been responded to, later he will mention dirt roads and those challenges;

looking at the equipment, it is large, heavy equipment, costly equipment, and the slide

represents heavy equipment Fleet Managers five-year equipment plan based on the type,

usage hours, and taking into account industry standards; the Ms. Jackson and himself review

this each year based on funding, emerging needs, they make adjustments based on funding

availability always looking to meet or exceed their critical needs; and the different colors

represent the types of equipment, where the total on the top is what is needed to meet the plan,

and the gray is projected funding available. He stated the average heavy equipment can cost

$500,000 to $800,000 per piece of equipment, so balancing the needs is essential; over the

last three, the Board they can see the funding line is lower than the total stacked bars, meaning

they are continuing to invest about $1.85 million per year in equipment, but that is insufficient;

over the next five years they would need an addition $4.5 million to meet all the needs the

equipment plans say; when funding is not available, they just need to make the equipment last

longer, and so due to harsh environments based on, road work, saltwater and brackish ditches,

keeping a lot of the equipment outdoors pays a toll; over the last three years they have

averaged $667,000 in equipment repairs because they were not able to get a new piece of

equipment; and this number continues to increase based on inflation, and at an increase of

outsourcing repairs due to high vacancy rates and limited heavy equipment mechanics.

Commissioner Delaney asked if the pick-ups, she understands they need different size trucks

for different towing capacities, but like the Ford-150 or Chevy 1500, are they being used for

towing or just getting around and just throwing stuff in the bed.

Mr. Bernath replied he could not answer specifically, but the Heavy Equipment Manager looks

at what the need is, what they have, if they can replace an aging vehicle; they look at that, not

necessarily grow their fleet, and then looks at the uses and tries to appropriately select which

one; but he can get back to her.

Commissioner Delaney asked if there is necessarily a need for that size of a truck or could they

do some cost savings and go with maybe a Colorado if they just needed the bed space versus

for towing.

Mr. Bernath responded he believes they are doing that, but he will take it back and ask the

question to see if that is something to consider.

Chairman Feltner stated sometimes they just pick up a road sign, things like that; he noticed in

parking lots, he looks for screws and things; if there is not a hitch they are riding with full-time,

then they are probably not pulling a trailer that often, but do have smaller trailers that they could

tow; there is quite a mixture, even with Road and Bridge, that there is not a lot of pickup trucks

pulling stuff, only dump trucks pulling a good size trailer, so they use heavier trucks for that

kind of thing.

Commissioner Goodson asked if they are mandated to buy under the State Contract, which the

State Contract might identify certain categories of trucks.

Mr. Bernath answered he did not believe it is mandated, they have County Policy that they look

to Chevy, that way they can limit the numbers of training, equipment, and parts on hand and

the County has a Contract that he believes that leverages the State Contract.

Commissioner Goodson asked is it.

Frank Abbate, County Manager, responded he did not have that information off the top of his

head.

Commissioner Goodson asked Mr. Abbate if he could get it for the Board.

Mr. Abbate answered sure.

Commissioner Delaney stated the reason she asked about the towing stuff was she knows in

recent years the trucks have gotten more expansive with their towing capacity, so that is why

she brought it up; where the 250 is doing the job that the 350 and 450 did five or ten years ago;

and that is why she was wondering.

Mr. Bernath replied he would look at it.

Chairman Feltner asked if they had a NAPA store in the Road and Bridge shop that is basically

your vendor.

Mr. Bernath replied they do for heavy equipment but the Board is talking about Central

Services, they handle all the white equipment, so as a Department they budget and are

responsible for it, but ultimately they are the ones maintaining it and there is a cost allocation

plan for their service.

Chairman Feltner stated there is a point where it makes a lot, he has talked to Fire quite a lot

about trying to keep the same drivetrain in their vehicles, and it is getting harder as the

manufacturer does not exist anymore; but it does make sense that it is the same drivetrain all

the time, so he knows that is the situation with the County’s Fleet too.

Mr. Bernath stated switching to Emergency Management within Public Works; this is not to take

away from the Firefighters and their plight, but did want to make a larger point here about their

own blue collar workforce; they start workers at $16.00 an hour, which is coming from the

outside working eight to 10 hours a day in the hot Florida sun; quite frankly, they can work at

McDonald’s or Walmart for roughly the same amount and not have the same stresses; the

Department has a high vacancy rate, particularly in the blue collar workforce of Road and

Bridge, Facilities, and Traffic, because of this, from what they were told, and he mentioned

previously, from folks that pass on them is because of the pay and in some cases it could be

from 25 percent to 50 percent under what contractors and other municipalities are paying;

specific to Emergency Management, he wanted to highlight some of the things they do; that in

2003, President Bush issued a Presidential Policy Directive, Directive 8, recognizing Public

Works as first responders; and three weeks ago, the State Legislature, linking back to the 2003

Presidential Directive in the Florida House under House Bill 341, sought to create ID cards for

Public Works identifying them as first responders. He stated each year in May they celebrate

Public Works as a whole, not just the department, but Public Works to include Utilities, Solid

Waste, Natural Resources Management, and Mosquito Control Departments; the picture

shown is all hurricane-related to underscore some of their greatest documented work, but it is

one of many because they respond nightly and weekends to power outages, leaks, drainage

issues, to significant rainstorms and winds, and even traffic accidents along with the

Firefighters and Police; often considered the silent arm of Public Safety and usually without

fanfare, they monitor water elevations year round, organize around continuity of operation

plans, prep and maintain drainage conveyance systems, and pumps, before during and after

storms, respond to hurricanes and other disasters, remove trees to restore power, clear paths

for Police, Firefighters and Florida Power and Light, and in years past the Road and Bridge

team maintained the line when brush fires encircled the County; they are often first to respond

but almost always last to leave after a major event for the Facilities, Road, and Traffic which

may take days and sometimes week to restore; and so he humbly asked that their staff, the

blue collar workforce, the junior staff also be considered when the Board is looking at increases

to the Fire Department.

Commissioner Delaney stated one thing she would be interested in the Board talking about and

seeing is how they could look through at maybe incentives for people who do these jobs, she

agreed with Mr. Bernath that they are part of the Public Safety Team as well for sure.

Chairman Feltner stated she can join him in sponsoring the next Public Works annual picnic, he

did it the previous year, which he was happy to do; he greatly respects the Public Works folks

who go out, he stood and told them he appreciated that the work they do keeps the County

moving every day; Commissioner Delaney is welcome to join him; and he asked if that will be in

late spring, May.

Commissioner Delaney asked if he was talking to her.

Chairman Feltner answered he is talking to everyone, and was going to ask each one of them

to help him do that sometime later, but since she brought that up, he would take the

opportunity; they had it at Wickham Park and he did not think it was enough, but it is nice to be

a part of it and get together for a lunch; and he shares her view and respects Public Works

very, very much.

Mr. Bernath stated continuing with Emergency Management, one of the items mentioned on

the last slide was year-round monitoring; the Board may be surprised to know that the Road

and Bridge employees take hours to drive around the County, one to two times a day,

especially during hurricane season, taking them off other critical tasks to manually read 53 staff

gauges strategically placed around the County, as well as, localized rain gauges and pump

stations at Begay in Cocoa, Deer Run in Palm Bay, and Hall Road and Pine Island on Merritt

Island, in addition to numerous private pumps critical to bring down water levels during large

rain events; this information of water levels, flow direction, velocity, rain amounts, and wind

direction are vital not only for operation of how to respond and where to surge assets, but

Countywide decision-making, such as whether to start sandbag operations in advance of an

approaching storm and where there is widespread flooding as decisions to reopen are made;

using one time Covid funding, PW and cooperation with Natural Resources recently awarded a

$750,000 contract to place remote Telemetry Stations at approximately the 20 of the total 53

locations, so this a start for PW and Natural Resources as they want to continue to build this

network to eventually build it out and replace all the manual stations, and eventually add remote

operators to the pumps as currently there is a gap in their ability to respond; once the wind, say

in a hurricane, reaches 40 miles per hour, that could last 24 or more hours, they are behind

doors and may need to increase their pump capacity, turn it on or off, and they cannot do any

of that until the storm subsides to go back out there and see the aftermath; and so having

remote telemetry as well as remote operators will be a tremendous boom for the County. He

stated that recognizing its criticality and importance, even as they move forward, Mosquito

Control has been recognized for their impoundments; obviously, Hall Road is one of the major

locations where they have pump stations and an impoundment, and they have to look towards

the future; based on current negotiations, which is still early on, he thinks he will need another

three to four million dollars to actually foresee this vision; and without it, they will continue to

piece-meal as they can, obviously, the Covid injection significantly helped them get a start.

Commissioner Delaney asked if that was a one-time thing or a reoccurring thing.

Mr. Bernath replied it is one-time for equipment, but there will be a maintenance charge, he is

talking technical equipment that will need to be serviced and pay for access to dashboards, but

will be able to sit in the Emergency Operation Center (EOC) and know exactly there things are

flooding, where now they have to go out and wait for someone to drive the whole county.

Commissioner Delaney asked if what he thought the recurring would be, like a guesstimate,

because he probably did not get that together.

Mr. Bernath answered he thought about 10 percent.

Ms. Jackson advised yes, that is about right for the software and hardware maintenance.

Commissioner Delaney expressed her thanks.

Chairman Feltner asked if that was anything SOIRL could help with; he noted maybe that is a

question for Morris Richardson, County Attorney, or Mr. Abbate; when the Board talks about

waterway is there any intersection there.

Attorney Richardson stated he can look into it.

Mr. Bernath stated Facility Upgrades, which is specifically talking facility upgrades to the Road

and Bridge fleet; as the Board can see in the pictures, they are aged and some cases failing,

like many other areas in the County; PW is proud and has historically worked with what it had

by fabricating the Cocoa facility themselves with scrap metal several years ago; these facilities

exemplify where funding has not kept pace with costs required to maintain and operate the

buildings and overall site to an acceptable standard instead focusing every limited dollar on the

mission of serving their public; leveraging one-time Covid Funding that all changed

approximately one and one-half years ago with the County Manager and prior Board support;

the pictures on the right, the Board can see aged facilities in various Districts, all of which are

undergoing a master plan to advise what it needs now and in the future, and whether the

current locations can even sustain them; the studies are fully funded but nothing else and in

District 1 in Titusville, metal buildings leak, support beams are rusted and corroded, some

storage barns have missing roofs and rusted or corroded beams, and the roof leaks into the

main office building; and in Districts 1 and 2 at the Cocoa shop, roof and structural beams are

corroded with rust, he could go into each one of them, but they are all failing, so he will skip

ahead. He stated the furthest along with funding, both a combination of one-time Covid funding

and General funding is at the Wickham shop, the first two of four phases is funded with $22.3

million that is not only to address PW needs, but also Central Fleet; the Wickham shop, those

who have traversed Wickham Road over the years might remember the purple eyesore that

was out front, they demoed that about one and one-half or two years ago; the mechanics work

outside now because they do not have a facility and are working under the lean-to’s that they

have, that is what they had to do to get rid of that eyesore; one of the things they wanted to do

was build a state-of-the-art facility for them to work inside, but also the Central Fleet and

co-locate them together, so combined with Central Fleet, not only have they done a full Master

Plan, but have finished the design and it is currently out on the street looking to start later this

summer with Road and Bridge to help defer some of the costs; and they are already starting to

clear the site, then later this spring will start digging some of the retention ponds to help get

that project a little bit cheaper and further along. He mentioned the first to be replaced will be

the heavy equipment building that was displaced a number of years ago and then the

maintenance and construction crews, it also addresses long-standing concerns from

encroaching neighbors; currently unfunded are Phases Three and Four, which is another $18.1

million; it would be to replace the failing pole barns, to protect the millions of dollars of heavy

equipment that sits outside, as well as the current office trailer, which is still in decent shape;

but to have a plan for the future; he brings up the costs just to bookend, with all the facilities

that may not be as great of a cost as Wickham, it is one of the larger shops, but are talking

about significant investment needs to be done and have not planned for that in the past, only

recent past; and there are also some issues at the Valkaria pit, but are small enough to handle

internally with the current budget.

Commissioner Delaney asked if any of the funding sources that he mentioned at the last

workshop go towards any of these costs as well.

Mr. Bernath replied they can, however, in the past, have historically focused every last dollar on

the mission and the public, which is noble, but now are at a State where the facilities are in

desperate need of repair.

Commissioner Delaney stated right.

Frank Abbate, County Manager, added they did check and there is a potential for some

utilization of some SORIL funding, but it has to be in the right watershed, in the Indian River

Lagoon watershed and cannot be in the St. John’s watershed, moving forward as they revise

and update plans every year; and if that is what the Board is interested in, then Natural

Resources can look and discuss with the Citizens Oversight Committee (COC).

Chairman Feltner stated there may be a St. John’s grant out there obviously, they could seek

as well.

Mr. Bernath stated here is the last Road and Bridge slide, but he still has Traffic and Facilities

to go, so do not get too happy; finishing out with dirt road paving he wanted to quickly address,

as he mentioned a number of slides back, it presents a real problem, and is one of the areas

besides drainage they receive a lot of calls on; a well-maintain dirt road features a smooth

graded crown surface with grass shoulders that slap away from the road and provide effective

drainage; the County’s dirt roads are typically 18 to 20 feet, consisting of two lane rural roads,

which are mostly old grove roads it inherited; to keep the roads in optimal condition, the Road

and Bridge maintenance team must frequently grade typically every three weeks by Best

Management Practices and repair as necessary; and as he showed previously, calls are

frequent and no one ever seems to be happy with the results. He mentioned they do not have

resources to increase by personnel or equipment, and/or more frequently maintain the road,

which also has a negative consequence of maintaining it; the more the soil is worked, the more

it breaks down the structure and makes it susceptible to weather, traffic, and effectively

becomes a powder that gets ripples, ruts, and potholes; in addition to routine grading, they also

rehabilitate a certain number of roads each year, and if they grade more frequently, they would

have to rehabilitate more; however, he wanted to point out, that work comes exclusively out of

their MSTU Maintenance Budget, and the last time he showed how that has pretty much been

flat for many years; some roads last much longer based on traffic and potentially other issues,

and grading would drive up costs; looking at District 1 alone, because that is where the

County’s greatest number of dirt roads are, if the Board recalls, at the beginning he mentioned

there are 68 miles of dirt roads for District 1 out of 82 miles total; and the Board can see on the

top of the slide the breakout. He went on to say if they would just adhere to an every five-year

rotation of rehabilitating, they would spend over half of the yearly MSTU Budget just to do that

maintenance, which is obviously not achievable considering all the drainage and other

challenges he mentioned; he understands that people bought on a dirt road, that is where they

pay taxes, as well as there are some arguments out there that some residents even want dirt

roads because that is why they moved there; there are a lot of reasons, both pro and con but

that is not his focus, it just costs more to maintain; if the they were to consider paving there is a

high initial cost, but it is actually proved to be cheaper over the cost of the roads life time than

actually continuing to invest the heavy equipment, personnel, and high volume of calls; it would

take many years, likely exceed $100 million; again financially and objectively, it is something

the Board should consider; and Osceola has dove in with both feet to lower their long-term

burden by paving, and so other counties are doing it. He continued alternatively, he leaves

them with one final thought on this note is that they should consider alternatives such as

divestment of those dirt roads to Homeowners Association (HOA), or maybe even increase

MSTU is for those who want to stay on a dirt road because it costs the Public Works more to

maintain than the cost to maintain a paved road.

Commissioner Delaney asked if that was one of things that she was about to ask, some of the

people who want the dirt road, what would be the process, what would that look like for the

County if it gave the road back to the residents with the understanding they would…

Mr. Bernath responded Commissioner, there is not necessarily an HOA, maybe there could be

one established; however, they could not just give it to Joe Citizen because they would have to

have the right liability, PW would need access easements over it, so the public can still drive it;

there is a lot of considerations, but he just wanted to throw out they think beyond where they

have been, because otherwise his successor in 30 years will be talking about all the dirt road

challenges that the County still has.

Commissioner Delaney noted, it is definitely a conversation she would like to have before any

kind of plan is made because it affects her District a lot, and there are a lot of people who really

love their dirt roads; she understands where Mr. Bernath is coming from and that it is expensive

to maintain, but maybe there is still a yes in there somewhere where the Board can talk about

giving the residents an opportunity to take over the maintenance of those roads if that is what

they so choose.

Chairman Feltner asked if Commissioner Altman has a question.

Commissioner Altman stated he often wondered if they have ever done an assessment of the

environmental impacts of non-paved roads; and it seems like run-off, sedimentation, and silt

would be greater with the dirt roads.

Mr. Bernath advised staff has not done a full assessment of that, but he believes the

Commissioner is accurate in his assessment; they have however, a couple of years ago, did a

dirt road assessment, it never was really completed because of challenges with the consultant;

but there are a lot of benefits to paving the road, they got that much out of the report, and only

paid for what they got out of it.

Commissioner Delaney stated it would be her ask that before the Board made any kind of

decisions, that they would do an extensive citizen input to this because it would turn her District

upside down if they make a decision without them.

Mr. Bernath stated obviously Commissioner Delaney has the lion share, but they do have the

same challenges in the other Districts, just not as pervasive, except for District 4. He continued,

switching to Traffic, they have a fairly small traffic operation staff consisting of 30 employees;

they have Traffic Signal Maintenance and Compensation Agreements in place with FDOT and

many of the cities within the County; to name a few of the items maintained, there are over

65,000 traffic control signs and signals, and provide road safety and guidance for that; and they

manage 700 intelligent transportation system devices, and many more that are listed on the

slide.

*The Board recessed at 2:24 p.m. and reconvened at 2:32 p.m.

Chairman Feltner asked Mr. Bernath how much more time he would need.

Mr. Bernath stated he had 22 more slides, so he is going to do Traffic and then Facilities, which

he knows had been a concern of some members on the Board.

Chairman Feltner asked if he was in the half hour or 40-minute range.

Mr. Abbate answered less than a half hour.

Chairman Feltner stated Mr. Bernath had until 3:00 p.m.

Mr. Bernath stated he would not spend any time on the current slide for the sake of time, it is

just there for the Boards situational awareness of traffic projects; he did want to make the

Board aware of the Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) of what it is and why it is important;

this is the ITS Infrastructure Master Plan, and was deployed a number of years ago; they are

continuing to work on it and refine it; back in the mid-2000’s, FDOT installed the fiber-optic

network and that really launched what they know today; it is important because, it helps

mitigate some of the traffic congestion and capacity challenges; they are in the process of

developing a five-year plan; and by looking close, one can see there are colors, though it is not

fully built out, it is a snapshot of what the plan would look like.

Commissioner Delaney asked if any of the cameras record.

Mr. Bernath replied that they do not.

Commissioner Delaney advised; she is 100 percent against a Surveillance State, yes.

Chairman Feltner stated he thought that was an issue for the State, quite candidly, that the

amount of storage is the problem; he does not think he understood that when he worked up

there; and he asked Commissioner Altman if that sounded right.

Commissioner Altman replied it does, and that is a very common question they get at the State

level, he has actually been to a lot of the State and local government storages, and getting

caught up in fights, lawsuits, and drama, it would open up a Pandora’s Box if that data was

available; although, there are times it should be available like 9/11 where they had some of the

terrorists on the tapes, he thought maybe in Daytona; and he does not know how long they

keep it, but from a law enforcement point-of-view there is a definite benefit.

Chairman Feltner replied he can say that the State Attorney is going to come and talk to the

Board about his need to continue to retain video and bodycam footage and such, which is a

pretty significant amount of money just to keep that stuff.

Mr. Bernath stated to give the Board a number to fully-build this out, they would need about a

$5 million investment; they continue to work in partnership with FDOT, there is limited funding

each year that goes to that in the realm of $200,000, so that would take many years to build

out; but he wanted to throw a number out there so the Commission understood what the vision

was and the cost to fully- implement it; the next slide shows a Traffic Management Center that

theoretically is fully-funded and is out on the street now, which is $17.8 million, $8.1 million in

grants, but will serve as the brain of the ITS System; if the Board looks at the picture on the

right, that is what it will be, just a more expanded version; this showed a SpaceX Launch both

on site through the cameras and what they get to monitor in the Traffic Operation Center

currently; and this allows them to flush traffic through during major events, as well as other

issues. He stated once the Traffic Management Center is built, the plan is to request additional

staff; they currently get $300,000 in FDOT grants which help with support the ITS Network with

three positions, and they will look to leverage that to get more people; right now if the Board

was not aware, PW only monitors this on an as needed basis, like an accident or an actual

space launch, they would go and look at it; they do not have staff monitoring it, that is only

during daytime hours, and if there is a launch our people come in after hours; and as they

continue to grow, there will be a need to look at it 24/7. He stated briefly on the Traffic

Congestion Management Plan, traditional road widening mentality was if they are near capacity

or over capacity the need to widen the road; he went into the costs in his last brief, but right

now, at least under current funding, that is not attainable, so they looked in a different direction

and that is looking at specific issues where they can better manage congestion, optimize

infrastructure, as well as improve safety mobility, etcetera, it is not a panacea but a mitigation,

there are still the same issues, but they can potentially continue to push out further on some of

the bigger costs; right now, they have been working on this for over a year, they are expecting

later this spring to have results; the map itself shows all of the arterial and collector roads that

were evaluated, so the consultant will come up with a series of recommended projects they can

do; and they do not have additional capacity funding, if the Board recalls his last briefing, they

have a very small discretionary pot, but at least these are hopefully going to be smaller bite size

and maybe something the Impact Fees can fund. He mentioned that the next slide is a

continuation of that, and in the interest of time, he will not go into all the details other than to

say the dots and redlines are indicative of where they believe the biggest bang for the buck will

be based on the initial results from the consultant; there is still work to be done, they are still

going to get cost estimates, and concept plans, and as he mentioned, it will be sometime later

this spring; Traffic Safety is an issue; Brevard County fatalities are not trending down, in fact

are going the other way, so they applied for a Safe Streets for All grant last year, they were

awarded $320,000; it is a Safety Planning Grant, unfortunately, right now they are on hold

pending the Federal Governments hold on pursuing grants; there are several Executive Orders

(EO) that freeze those funds, so they are caught up in that; they are hopeful this is a pretty

straightforward bread and butter infrastructure project that once the dust settles, this will get

funded and they will be able to move forward; a lot of goodness can come out of this; and in

order to apply for future Federal funds, a study like this is needed, and it will provide a lot of

recommendations that they could potentially bite off.

Commissioner Delaney asked if this included State Road (SR) 46.

Ms. Jackson stated it was only County Roads.

Mr. Bernath stated going into Facilities, he had an overall summary, but will get into details

moving forward; there are currently 50 employees that directly support 76 buildings, which is

1.8 million square feet, including the Government Centers, County Service Complexes, the

Courthouses, Public Safety Facilities, and the Detention Center; there are two vacancies, one

will be filled next week and the other is actively being advertised; but just to point out, they had

a high watermark in 2008 when the Facilities Program was a full department having 23 more

staff than they do today; while they have shrunk since 2008, before it became a full-fledged

program in 2014; they also have seven times the amount of work orders than they had back

then with the same approximate total topline staff, which means they are supplementing a lot

with contracting to get the same thing done at a higher cost; and based on industry standards,

they would need 10 more shop personnel just for the Departments direct support facilities. He

Commented it is important to note that Fire, Library, Parks, and many other Departments, even

some of the buildings under his control, such as Road and Bridge, fall outside of what he is

saying directly, other than the support that they provide them; and they are budgeted under

those Departments, managed by themselves, and come to PW as a service provider when they

need something, so that is 154 buildings at 2.6 million square feet, again leveraging the same

staff and contractors to help them; support is in accordance with Board Policy, which specific

facility construction mandates that renovations and construction go through their Construction

Division, though that is not always being done; and also there are centralized service contracts,

which he will get into shortly.

Chairman Feltner asked in his opinion, for the future, if it would be better for the County to rent

a facility that already exists or build and purchase property.

Mr. Bernath replied so, traditionally, it is better to own a facility, invest, and manage the cost;

however, on the flipside, if leasing a facility there is a fixed cost, but the County is always

paying in perpetuity; over time, to look at the cost benefit, but at some point, it will be outpaced;

potentially the County could have newer facilities but also maintain its facilities better;

traditionally it is better to own it; but there are a lot of reasons for not doing it.

Chairman Feltner pointed out he knows that debate has been around for a while and it exists

even in the County; he thinks in Merritt Island, the Tax Collector does not own the building; he

asked if that was a lease; and he stated he was just curious for the future if things like that are

a better deal.

Commissioner Delaney asked if the other Departments pay Public Works for services.

Mr. Bernath answered there are certain percentages PW gets and those Departments

reimburse their labor when the maintenance teams go in; and then there is a certain

percentage, depending on the size of the construction project, to help defer some of the

construction staff they have; and it is not a lot but it helps pay some of that back from the other

funds that are using them. He stated much like the other slides, he will not get into a lot of

detail because of time; as the Board can see the biggest area is Capital Improvements which

he will get into; it is important to note, they have continued to invest in the facilities, especially

within the last eight to ten years; under Mr. Abbate’s leadership and prior Board support, they

have continued; if the Board looks at the graph, it continued to invest more year-over-year than

it had in the preceding decade; since becoming Director in 2020, again with Mr. Abbate’s and

Board support, the trajectory has gone up even more as they realized they need to get more

aggressive on arresting failing or failed vital components as part of the infrastructure; the total

in Fiscal Year 2025 is $23.2 million in new funding that is General Fund, not including balance

forward, which he will get into in a moment; on the next slide it is very important because while

the County continues to invest, it shows that the balance forward on multi-year projects have

continued to increase; and showing in the light green is new funding, and dark green is balance

forward; he wanted to address that and what they are doing about it; but obviously, if there is

Board direction or guidance they could change. He mentioned currently, they manage 127

projects valued at $100 million, but it is not what is reflected there; what is reflected is the

General Fund portion that Public Works is given; there is every Department and the

Constitutionals that contribute to using the staff that he mentioned, primarily on the construction

side; over the last five years, they doubled the construction staff to 10, including adding two

Construction Coordinators, a Planner, and a Project Manager over the last two years; but PW

will only reach that realization and be fully-staffed next week, because as they have had

turnover, and that it is a challenging position to recruit for, but they will be fully-staffed next

week; the staff has doubled, but by looking at the graph, the Board could quickly see just the

dollars for the General Fund Projects alone, notwithstanding all the other projects have tripled

in dollars; and while they have doubled in staff, additionally the Construction staff is handling

larger and many more complex maintenance projects, as aging infrastructure continues to

accelerate that increases the workload and stretches staff capacity. He stated today the

Construction Coordinators are serving both as inspectors and project managers; by industry

standards, they are still at roughly half of what they need to have on board to manage the

workload they have, but have made great gains; additionally, as part of the strategy to tackle

the increased workload, it is better to plan, and they have been shifting over time, under his

direction, to a concept of three to four-year programing; in the past they would look at an issue,

do planning, design, and construction all in the first year, they might spread it out over on the

Capital Improvement Plan (CIP), but were tying up a lot of funding; and a lot of times they got

to the end and between inflation issues, that maybe got worse, better understanding the project

they needed to add to it anyway, so what they are focusing on, at least for the bigger projects,

planning in year zero, designing in year one maybe year two, and constructing in year three or

four, that way they can focus on what can they get done with the money quicker that needs to

get done, not tie up funds; and that is like turning a large ship, they are working on that and

have had a lot of staff turnover, but are closer now than the past because they have a Planner

and Project Manager now focusing on those things. He stated almost equally as important over

the last two years is shifting away from bidding every project to other flexible contract solutions;

he knows there have been some concerns about that; he wanted to quickly talk about why that

is important, and then on the flip side, if they did not, there are other costs to bidding; and he

wanted to make sure if the Board were to consider changing direction that it understood. He

stated the old adage of expecting what is inspected is true in the construction world where the

contractors can cut corners; this is not an indictment of everyone but certainly is pervasive in

the construction world; he feels he needs to make this point that they can save money on one

project or several projects by bidding, however, not necessarily for all of them with the workload

and staffing they have; he thinks this is a larger point and he wanted to address that, however,

he will work with whatever direction is given, but there are a lot of different things there; right

now they have to consult, especially when there is major equipment or a need for design; but in

order to bid, they need to be more reliant on consulting as one option, because they would

need to come up with specifications and plans so bidding can be done equally; and when there

is continuing contracts, when they have Construction Management at Risk (CM at Risk) they

are able to go in without full plans, and could get a cost, which is very hard in a bidding climate

to make sure of getting apples to apples. He continued traditionally, it costs eight to 10 percent

of the project to have a consultant; boosting staff could be another alternative; after a lot of

deliberation over the last couple of weeks with staff, they would need an additional 10 people if

they were to only bid at $1.1 million; it is important to note that it is not just construction folks,

but project managers, computer-aided design (CAD) technicians, specification writers, and

contract technicians, because a lot of times when they are leveraging contracts like CM at Risk

and continue leveraging his or her expertise, they are not having to put out specifications; they

would need that type of staff to help with design drawings, with contract specifications, and with

technical specifications; and that is another concern, bidding versus CM at Risk. He advised as

a quick example, if they took a million dollar project and planned for it in Fiscal Year 2020 but it

took until 2024 to complete as shown; the balance forward indicates that it has taken that long

and that same $1 million project now costs 50 percent more due to inflation at $1.5 million. He

stated having the tools that they can expedite contracts actually could save money even if they

cost more in the now; with few exceptions, he also wanted to note that on the Transportation

side there is a lot more bidding than at CM at Risk, but also have some distinct differences;

there is FDOT specs to back stop it, professional engineers that manage the projects, and

there are times it still uses CM at Risk, but even the large projects have a construction

engineering inspection contract, and additional quality assurance testing as the Commissioner

mentioned; that is 15 to 20 percent on the back end, but can save money because the

traditional CM at Risk fee is 10-20 percent, so either accept a greater risk or figure out other

ways to insure they are getting what they pay for; it is just about wanting to use the right tools;

another point about CM at Risk is, contracts go out for competitive solicitation and are required

to get three quotes for every major item of work and only pay the actual expenses; the

company will provide in return for the fee, dependent on the project size, a comprehensive

project management where PW’s representatives can rely on them because they are an

extension of the team; and for all those reasons, that needs to be considered when looking at

contracting tools. He mentioned it allows them to do owner-direct purchasing which saves tax

dollars because then they can do the lifting of equipment which might be an air handling unit or

generator; staff will figure out what the best one is to buy and hand it to the Purchasing

Department to buy, then the County does not have to pay taxes, so it has a lot more flexibility

for that contract vehicle; and for low bids, PW becomes the project manager and also is the

General Contractor. He stated there is a lot of goodness, and the reason he brings it up is

because the plan is to drive the balance forward down and deliver critical needs that are three

and four years old, they need to explore ways to try and deliver quicker; switching to a quick

facilities overview, the Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) is the number one

issue with a lot of aging infrastructure; the average facility was built in 1971, which makes it 54

years old, roofs average 24 years, where the typical life cycle is 20 years; HVAC average is 17

and one half years; there has been significant investment and the number has been driven

down substantially, so the typical life cycle is 20 years; for elevators, 22 of 31 need to be

modernized due to obsolete parts; there is a $71.8 million unfunded needs to address these

facility backlog issues; and similar to other slides, these are the projects in each District. He

stated throughout his brief the cost escalation continues to be a real thing, construction square

foot costs over the last number of years from 2017 to 2020 had a nine percent increase;

however since 2020 there has been a 50 percent increase in facility costs; service contracts

listed on the slide shows substantially more than the three percent cap that is on the budget

each year; also the listing of service contracts with details of what is done for the maintained

facilities and also facilities that they help oversee with direct contracts like Fire, other life safety,

and even the Veterans Memorial Cemetery, so major issues with elevators mentioned, 22 of 31

are beyond its lifespan and an estimate of $5.9 million of additional funding is needed over the

next eight years, which includes three percent annual increase to meet Code changes; it is not

to make the elevators look pretty, but for control boards and door operating mechanisms which

are obsolete, and per recent Code, must be changed out; and the only place interior cars had

been done is at the six-story where three were done several years ago. He mentioned there is

quite a bit still to do, the plan is to attack seven elevators with nearly $1 million a year dedicated

to elevator modernization over the next several years; and in the final year, to do eight to finish

out the total.

Chairman Feltner asked if it is true there is no fourth elevator in the six-story building.

Mr. Bernath replied he believes there are three.

Chairman Feltner asked if the Commission knows there is no fourth elevator, just a little

Brevard County factoid, in a building that was built in the 50’s or 60’s.

Mr. Bernath stated because of the new Code regulations, PW is mostly upgrading control

boards and door operators, and in 2024 alone, it had four boards fail, where under the previous

Code they could make customization and then get them in service; if the elevator failed now,

based on the new Code, they cannot put it in service but actually must make the replacement,

which will be sticky over the next several years; the plan of $1 million dollars a year, taking six

years, they may have to accelerate certain elevators if it gets down to less than three elevators;

HVAC is the number one challenge, but there has been significant gains, however, there is still

a lot to do; the location, because of heat and near the water, decreases the lifespan

considerably; and there is $7.9 million budgeted with those projects in various states, a number

of them were completed in 2024 and 2025, however, they have $8.3 million of known unfunded

issues on the unfunded infrastructure list just on HVAC. He mentioned two chillers are past life

expectancy and seven more that will be needed in the next five years, 13 cooling towers

averaging 11 years, and six are past the life expectancy; PW is in the process of soliciting for a

Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) to track and manage not just the

services but when, how often, and even the assets; and in Viera they are in the process of

replacing 89 Air Handling Units that were 14 years past the life expectancy. He stated another

major focus area is on the Detention Facility, located in District 1, in 2006 was their newest

facility, which was the tents that have a 25-year lifespan; the Maintenance Shop of six-plus

dedicated Construction Coordinators for the area is there near fulltime, the team is on-call to

respond to issues in the jail 24/7, and are locked in during emergencies such as hurricanes; the

Detention Facility currently comprises 49.45 percent of the entire facility CIP budget because of

so much deferred maintenance in years past; and the current jail CIP is $14.8 million, and

many projects began in 2022, but as he mentioned in the Contracts discussion, they were

budgeted for $8.4 million and so time, value, money was lost, issues got worse, and now it

costs $14.8 million, so they are continuing to look for ways to be more efficient and to deliver

quicker. He stated the Renovation Team has focused on parks, that was the reason for

deciding to build an in-house Renovation Team last Fiscal Year; PW quickly expanded to also

include contractors as they recognized the team that was built could not get as many parks

done; as they have seen more recently, they have worked on a number of office renovations,

and on the second floor in this building, they started a restroom renovation back on February

10, which had been a growing concern; right now, because they are working on other projects,

he does not believe the list on the Fiscal Year 2020 will get done but are trying to ramp up the

contract base to supplement the in-house staff and try to meet that goal; the contractors have

been much harder to nail down, has cost on average of 38.45 percent more, and have taken

double the time that in-house staff has done; they want to build up the in-house renovation

staff, especially if it continues to renovate the other facilities with the County; and the other

thing that is important to note is the park restrooms will be complete by Fiscal Year 2030, but

because of the high traffic, vandalism, and wear and tear, PW would be cycling through all over

again, so there is a need to continue to have a team. He mentioned that the restrooms were

started here on the second deck on February 10 to allow them to work out kinks and which is

not used as much as 1st and 3rd floor; it allowed the work without causing disruption and to

figure things out; right now they are estimating about $100,000 per pair of restrooms to do

in-house, and that goes up substantially if it is contracted out; it would disrupt staff during work

hours, so they have been able to flex the in-house team after hours, coming in early at a much

easier way to get done with less noise; and if there were contractors, it would have to be written

explicitly that they would have to work around working hours and that would drive up the cost.

He stated the other thing they tried to do learning from the park restroom renovation they have

done is standardizing materials, like the regular and heavy equipment, but having supplies in

bulk keeps the cost down, saves on procurement time, and provides adequate stock in case of

repairs; also they looked at and installed tested and proven vandal resistant dividers and other

things to hopefully get more time out of the investment; they are looking at doing Building A

right after this, it is a $900,000 unfunded investment, if the Board chooses, just the restrooms

in the Viera Complex Buildings A, B and C could be done; and also to accelerate, that would

require contracting support, so depending on the level of investment that would come in, it

could take longer to do a major renovation like that as it is very time consuming. He mentioned

another thing brought up by residents is how the County buildings look, so looking at how to

present this, one thing is to replace all flooring in primary walking areas in Buildings A, B, and

C, the current flooring is 19 years past its life expectancy, glue is breaking down, and there are

stains even after professionals come in which is obviously still unsanitary; a lot of Charter

Officers and other agencies have moved to Luxury Vinyl Planking (LVP), such as the Clerk’s

Office, Public Defender, and Moore Justice Center in a number of areas; it has a higher initial

cost, but is visually cleaner, longer and durable for high traffic, easier to sanitize and maintain,

and if there were to be another covid outbreak or disease-related issue, it is also resistant to

stains; carpet is cheaper but LVP is recommended to keep the cost down; it would primarily be

in the main corridors of the main buildings, and they also could do raceways inside the office

spaces but leave cubicles in place with the existing carpet for another time; it would make it

more costly to move everyone and replace the carpet; this would be a multi-year process at

$2.6 million unfunded to do that if the Board chooses; he is trying to be quicker but wanted to

mention, it is not that they did not know these things needed to be done, but they were focusing

on critical infrastructure that has been failing, such as HVAC and other components, the

envelope of buildings, roofs, and it would be his recommendation professionally that PW would

not do all this in lieu of all that, it would be additional funding the Board would find; if directed to

do so, they would; but again, there are failing buildings and they are trying to catch up.

Commissioner Delaney asked if the $ 2.6 million is with or without moving the cubicles.

Mr. Bernath answered without moving the cubicles; basically, this space and many other

Departments, there are walkways around everything, it would just be the walkways, which are

called raceways, and leave the center aisles for a future date; and generally, those carpets

have been walked on less because of being under the cubicle, it is really the main raceways

are what is in bad condition. He continued facility conditions and space concerns have seen a

23 percent increase in work requests this past year and right now in Fiscal Year 2025 there has

been a 51 percent increase in the first quarter based on last year this time; though they are

aggressively attacking those failed and failing components, there are still issues; even now they

are making a reasonable investment, if there was not such a large deferred maintenance

program, they are still catching up, and it will take some time before it levels out; the CMMS, as

he mentioned earlier, is only tracking 25 percent of the workload effectively, so that system will

really help track, manage, and measure the efficiency much better and provide a greater idea

of staffing needs or just having the right combination; current staff is not able to keep up with

the work that is why they are relying more on contractors to perform; also a quick note on

facility conditions, they have not performed a general facility condition assessment in the

buildings; if they simply look at deferred maintenance they have identified over the plant

replacement value, they believe it is at a fair facility condition assessment; on the slide it shows

a kind of a nomenclature in the facility world which shows where one would score out and is

fairly reflective of where things are; some buildings are worse than others, some better, but it is

just to see where things are; unlike with pavement condition there is not a proactive plan and

there is a reason for that; and PW has been spending every last dollar trying to fix the critical

infrastructure they know about, those are known issues or issues that fail and are addressed,

but there is no plan to see what they do not know. He stated on the last slide for review, the

aging infrastructure, growing backlog, constrained resources, aging and failing bridges,

buildings, sidewalks, and drainage that are growing concerns, but the County needs to continue

to invest to stay ahead; there are capacity shortfalls, which he talked about in the last brief; the

community continues to grow, but they have not necessarily remained commensurate with that

growth; employee attraction and retention is a continued challenge; they have not just sat

there, they have put in place specifically for Public Works, a focused recruiter, and they would

be far off today had they not had the recruiter; but it is a challenge based on current pay; they

have worked on career ladders, succession planning, internships with both School Board and

Florida Institute of Technology (FIT), and looking at other training partnerships such as Brevard

Career Source; and the cost escalation continues to be an issue mentioned a number of times

in different areas that they continue to outpace the three percent cap; and the construction

industry continues to boom, and that is a challenge, it just means they are getting less work

done. He mentioned the consultant and contractor base, not all but many are slow or

unresponsive and requires heavy government quality assurance to make sure they were

getting what we paid for, which is typically four to six times the in-house cost; continued

commercial and residential development, he talked about it is not just roadways four and one

half miles a year, it is sidewalks, gutters, and drainage, etcetera; staffing has not necessarily

kept pace with it, but it is new, and in five to 10 years there is significant amount of

infrastructure that they have not keep pace with financially as well as resources to address that;

the last point, cities continue to take tax base through annexations; they do not have a way to

stop that, it requires State legislation, so they leave the roads to PW, especially County roads,

they take right up to it; and is a continuing challenge, not just maintaining the roads but also

they are heavily traveled in many cases and they are not collecting anything to it. He asked if

there are any questions.

Chairman Feltner asked if he had something in his presentation about revenue generating

options, if he wanted to discuss that real quick before the questions, or is it for another day.

Mr. Bernath responded that he had spent a number of slides in the last brief, but would be

happy to revisit it right now if the Board wants.

Chairman Feltner asked the Board if it had any final questions.

Commissioner Delaney asked what the process is for the Board to talk about these things.

Chairman Feltner answered he would think at the end of the Budget Workshop process, he

imagines that would probably be a big theme; and it will not be just infrastructure, but needs in

general.

Commissioner Adkinson asked what the percentage of vacancies are in the Public Works

Department.

Mr. Bernath answered right now it is at 18 and one half percent, which is down substantially

from when it started; they are doing the best they can considering the challenges; it is not just

the pay, there is obviously many other issues; and that is a continued theme from people that

they interview and who pass on the County.

Commissioner Delaney asked in her notes she had that Mr. Bernath mentioned a 26 percent

vacancy rate.

Mr. Bernath stated he was referring to Road and Bridge at that point; Road and Bridge

specifically, the Blue Collar workforce is the worst, they have others that are without vacancies,

so overall it is 18 and one half percent.

Commissioner Altman stated for a little discussion he is fascinated with the fair facility condition

assessment as a result of the formula calculating the Facility Condition Index; he asked if there

is an unfunded infrastructure list totaling over $71 million, then divided by current cost

replacement, which is $1.1 billion; and can he explain that a little bit and how the formula

works.

Mr. Bernath replied that it is a standard formula in the industry, and they are looking to others

that have figured it out; the top numbers are the known issues, which is the same number of

the facilities unfunded; and the bottom number is from the dollar per square foot of new

construction, so that is the best approach at looking at the replacement value, what it would

take to replace a building, so they looked at the total square footage of the 1.8 million square

foot and multiplied it by that number, that is how they got that number.

Commissioner Altman advised to make it simple, someone has a home valued at $500,000,

with unfunded needs that were $100,000; that would be 20 percent, that would be in bad

shape; this is .06 percent of the total value; and $71 million sounds like a big number, but

compared to $1.1 billion, it is not in as bad of shape.

Mr. Bernath explained that is why they just went by the math that shows fair, which is not as

bad as poor; and they certainly have those facilities as well.

Commissioner Altman stated the Board is not waiting, some problems are bigger than others;

and if there are stains in the carpet, compared to mold in certain buildings, that is not

something to live with.

Mr. Bernath commented when they know about mold, an indoor quality test is done with a

consultant, and necessary repairs are made.

Commissioner Altman stated this formula does not weigh things on the severity of a problem, it

is strictly a linear, numeric value like an air conditioner about to break or a roof leaking, which is

worse than cosmetics; and he asked if there is a procedure where the severity of the facility

problems can be rated to determine the Facility Condition Index.

Mr. Bernath stated not just the Facility Condition Index from what he has seen, but in his former

life as a Navy Civil Engineer Career Officer, he did condition-based maintenance management

and looked at those things; there are techniques out there, but with the current staff there

would need to be a consultant to help; then they are looking at components to stay ahead of

the curve, and there is a chart to divide the most critical facilities to least critical facilities and

urgent issues, such as a building envelope and other things; but to the Commissioners point, if

there is a high critical facility with a low issue, there are mechanisms to evaluate that; and this

was just a quick snapshot to see how are they doing based on the numbers in-house.

Chairman Feltner stated there is money to spend at the Viera Courthouse to provide a jury

capable room, another hearing room, a larger jury assembly area which came by way of some

money by the legislature, and the County put some money towards it also; he was pretty

forceful that Melbourne Courthouse, though it is old, needs to be fully-utilized, with Juvenile

being done there; to bring it up to full speed, some elevator work needs done and the HVAC

System was replaced; and that may not have been on the list.

Skip Bell, Facilities Program Manager, stated they completed some significant work on the

HVAC System at Melbourne Courthouse, renovated the second floor, and the elevator is now

remodeled and mechanical parts replaced, not fully renovated on the first floor yet, the Clerk

has worked in her areas; but the courtrooms have not been renovated and are dated.

Mr. Bernath stated as well as the whole outside and building envelope, not just appearance, but

insuring watertight integrity.

Chairman Feltner stated it is an older building but it is being utilized it a bit more; the State

Attorney and Public Defender is there, and basically had left prior to Juvenile; and he asked if

on the second floor of the courthouse Public Works did some build out work.

Mr. Bell answered when they did the second floor, they also set up designated areas for the

Public Defender, the State Attorney, and the Clerk; and each space has different access

controls to keep everyone separate as they need.

Chairman Feltner replied it is not the pretty things, but the mechanical things the County needs;

he jokes with the Clerk and says he knows where she has been because it looks like a Pottery

Barn ad.

Mr. Abbate stated looking at longer term rather than short term, they did extra things and

different things outside the courthouse, so that what was done with the money that the State

gave to let that facility last significantly longer in terms of its useful life and what is needed

there; and it is not an exact amount, but he thinks they added about $2 million from what they

did up north and down south, so they could have done what they did at the courthouse.

Mr. Bell noted he can provide the exact number, and it was a very significant amount in that

area.

Commissioner Delaney stated she really appreciated everything that Public Works does, and

that they do so much with so little; that needed to be said out loud; and she expressed her

appreciation to Mr. Bernath and his team.

Commissioner Goodson stated he wanted to make a motion that the Board would consider; he

hopes to get a second, he would like to end the workshop at 5:00 p.m. and reschedule what is

left, because some staff has been there since 7:00 a.m. and they have a home life to go to; and

it is not like the Board will make any world- renowned decisions tonight.

Commissioner Delaney stated she would second it.

Commissioner Goodson stated he had a second; and asked for all in favor. He stated to

Commissioner Altman that he missed the most important vote, but he threw an ‘Aye’ in there

for him; it was 5:0, and if he can finish by 5:00 p.m., they will stay through his end, but not past

5:00 p.m.

C.2. Parks and Recreation

Ian Golden, Parks and Recreation Director, stated he will try and be quick; and will give the

Board a little bit of fast facts about the Department; as he goes through this, especially the last

bullet, is really the significant one he wants the Board to take away from this is the sheer

number of people they actually count who use the Parks and Recreation Facilities throughout

the County; these are people who are registered through the internal programs through

recreation partners and instructors, this does not count the two to three times this number that

probably just drop in to the parks to use the playground, free time at the gym, or those types of

things; Parks and Recreation is broken up into two functional areas, Parks and Recreation and

Environmentally Endangered Lands (EELS); he will go over each one through the presentation;

the Department funding budget of about $101 million, this will give the Board an idea where the

funding is coming from; about $16.5 million is coming from General Fund, Special Revenue

Funds he will get to on the next slide, and balance forward will have another slide just for that,

charges for services/fees are from facility rentals, campgrounds, and those types of things; as

they look at the funding sources in the Special Revenues, it is Municipal Service Taxation Unit

(MSTU) which they try to break it up by District areas or, by north, central, south, and EELS;

and EELS the Board will notice, is just bond and debt, the others is a mixture of some debts,

MSTU, and Special Recreation Districts. He went on to say again, as they get into each area,

he will talk about this in depth. He stated this slide is taking the Special Revenue Districts and

showing in the balance forward what that is; the Board will see that the General Fund in the

balance forward is a very small amount, that is a mixture used for some Capital Improvement

Projects (CIP) in the north area, with a mixture of Special Revenue Funds; debt out of the $49

million is a little over $8 million, Bonds are a little over $7.5 million, MSTU is $5.5 million, and

then Special Recreation District at $12.3 million; miscellaneous is actually interest, facility

rentals, and some of the other things he mentioned; the next slide is giving the Board an idea of

the expenses; and as a Department, the salaries and benefits is kind of a mixed green,

because General Fund was about $16.5 million, salaries and benefits are $22.2 million, and it is

a mixture of the General Revenue and some of the Special Revenue sources. He explained he

wanted to break out the pink Operating Expenses, which is typically all rolled up with

Contracted Service, Utilities, and all that is rolled up; he wants to give the Board an idea of

what some of the breakout expenses are and how expensive it can actually be for the

Department; repair and maintenance is $5.6 million; that is the normal where kind of things that

break down it tries to fix them, that are not in the CIP, to keep the operations running, but this

also includes when there is vandalism, which he has an example of in the north area from the

past Monday, at Scottsmoor Landing where there were signs that were shot up, broke chains,

tore down wooden poles for bonfires, and drove All- Terrain Vehicles (ATV) through the

grounds themselves, so that is where repair and maintenance comes in; and they got a hold of

Law Enforcement and talked to the Sheriff in that instance about increasing patrols, but that is

something that occurs at a lot of the parks. He stated CIP is a large portion of the balance

forward and Marc Bernath spoke to that already, so he is not going to this slide shows the

Board an idea Department of staffing, with a total of 354 employees, 299 full-time, 55 part-time,

and this includes a breakdown of who is Administrative, Recreation, and Maintenance; since

the question came up, there is a 22 percent vacancy rate, it is supplemented under contractual

services through a temp agency to fill in the holes, as they look at the turnover and address it;

an example is last week where an electrician who was just hired, was not there very long, and

left to go to the private sector making almost double what the County pays; and another

example of the staffing broken out into other areas; and if he did not mention it, the North Area

Parks Operations (NAPO), Central Area Park Operations (CAPO), and South Area Park

Operations (SAPO); and as the Board can see, other than EELS and for the most part north

Area, everything else is a mixture of General Fund, with the exception of north Area is Manatee

Hammock Campground where they are kind of an Enterprise Fund where it supports itself; and

EELS is supported by its Bond. He stated this will give the Board an idea of where Parks and

Recreation are on the Debt Service for the referendums that have happened over the years;

miscellaneous is typically interest; the statutory reduction is actually required by Statute; if the

Board is interested it is 129.1, 1C, and is required to be set aside on everything but balance

forward and transfers; slide 11 is a visual of where the debt is based on area; slide 12 is a brief

look at what the Interlocal Agreements are with different agencies throughout the County; there

is one with the School Board with an expiration in 2033, a breakdown of where those 10

facilities are by area, Titusville is in perpetuity, and then the City of Rockledge and the City of

Cocoa; and he is going fast, but if there are questions, he is happy to stop and answer. He

stated slide 13 is a little busy, but he is trying to give the Board an idea of where the CIP

Projects have been; from 2017 to 2024 the number is based on a breakout of types of projects;

they have also broken it out by different areas, and then how much was spent in each area for

those items; because it stands out, the athletic field lighting north area, there were zero and

zero expenditures, which has to do with the fact there was lighting put in place through the

referendum; and so they focused on other priorities, but they did put a small dollar amount that

went towards improving the remote light control where staff can actually address it remotely

through the internet.

Commissioner Delaney stated she recently got an inquiry about Holder Park and their lighting,

which is up in the north, north, the great north.

Mr. Golden asked what the inquiry was about.

Commissioner Delaney replied the lighting, which they could talk about later.

Mr. Golden replied he knows way further down there are some lighting projects in the five-year

CIP for the north area, he is not sure if Holder was on it, but he will make a note.

Chairman Feltner asked if the lighting is usually paid for, the costs of the actual lighting when

there are evening events going on, and paid for by the different groups that are running the

facilities.

Mr. Golden answered yes, it is usually part of their agreements.

Chairman Feltner responded okay, just so everybody knows.

Commissioner Goodson asked if he was referring to the night that people rent the facilities they

pay for the lights or if he was talking about installation.

Chairman Feltner answered no, not the installation.

Mr. Golden stated only the actual electricity used.

Commissioner Goodson asked the actual what.

Mr. Golden answered the actual electricity used.

Commissioner Goodson asked for that night only, not the installation.

Mr. Golden answered for that night only.

Commissioner Goodson stated he just wanted to make sure.

Mr. Golden asked if there were any other questions.

Commissioner Delaney asked she had a question about the hurricane repair projects, this is a

lot more than what they just…

Mr. Golden replied this was only through 2024; and this is of the last seven years and not

reflective of Milton.

Commissioner Delaney expressed her appreciation to Mr. Golden.

Mr. Golden stated since Mr. Bernath talked about the bathroom renovation project, he would

not harp on it, but he is grateful to Facilities and the County Manager for moving this project

forward because it is addressing things Parks and Recreation did not have the funding for; as

the Board looks at this, Mr. Bernath touched on it, the use of Contractors is 38 percent cheaper

to do it internally and takes half the time, and he is happy with that process; next is where those

projects have been completed and the ones that are still underway; they are also working with

Facilities to do a beach shower replacement project, since the ones they have in place are

rusting and cracking, but the ones chosen actually will not have that but a longer life span, he

provided a slide to give the Board an idea of where the new one will be in each District; he

stated on Chart 18, it is giving a visual of the north area and what it encompasses, the

municipalities, and other areas that are a part of that; and as he goes through the different

areas, he will talk about the revenue, expenses, and staffing, kind of what was shown at the

Department level, it is broken down each area, as well as the referendums background, and on

their Capital Projects. He mentioned, starting with fast facts in the north area, this was not

everything in the area, it is just some things to highlight for the Board; these numbers can be

accounted for because of registration for a program, but not the people who drop into the gym,

or those types of things, there is not a way to count that right now; he showed the Board

another breakdown of the north areas funding and where it comes from; he noted seeing a

balance forward is a large section, so he will show on another slide; the miscellaneous for the

north area was mostly donations from Parrish Hospital going towards Blanton Park and Harry

T. Moore Center; Intergovernmental is American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) Funding; and then

charges for services are primarily Manatee Hammock Campground. He continued by saying

the next slide is where the north area’s expenses are broken out; again it shows a large portion

of the funds goes to salaries and benefits; the Reserve number is required as the County is

paying back the debt on the bonds that was put in place through the referendums, and it will be

going down as it is used to pay off the referendums in the bonds; north area staffing breakdown

shows it has 18 vacancies, eight in recreation, and ten in maintenance; he showed some of the

referendums that were voted into place; first is a special recreation district voted on in 2000,

and then in 2006 there was another referendum to add additional money; bonds will be paid off

in 2026; and the Reserves will go away after 2026; and 2001 is when the MSTU was put in

place and approved as part of that referendum. He mentioned some things that were done out

of the referendum dollars were, the construction of Chain of Lakes, complete renovation of

Marina Park, Sandpoint Park, and enhancing of existing parks; the next slide gives the Board

an idea of what is actually being drawn through those two millages, the debt millage and

operations millage; and an idea of the operating funds, that .8 is what was approved by the

voters for up to .8, the County is currently at .1657, so that leaves, once the debt is retired,

because it is combined right now to get to closer to .8, but once the debt is retired, the

operating millage cannot be increased because it is above the line without impacting the

aggregate. He stated Port St. John had a separate MSTU put in place through a referendum;

the map shows a specific area that is encompassed; there is also a MSTU in place, it was paid

off in 2016, however, in 2015, an Ordinance was put in place to continue the MSTU for this

area; again some things done with those dollars and some idea of millage which has no debt

because it was paid off, so it is just an MSTU, it shows where it is at versus what it could be;

and it is fairly hard to hit the max without having to cut elsewhere. He stated up north there was

referendum rejected by the voters in 2006, and he showed the Board just an idea of what was

going to be done with those dollars; there is also a District 1 MSTU that includes the City of

Titusville and unincorporated, and is addressed through the Interlocal Agreement that he

previously discussed; the next slide indicates what that MSTU is generating; and all MSTU is,

everything going towards operating, have the same issue if it is adjusted up because of the

overall aggregate, because it is above the line. He stated here is an idea of where the north

area has been with its capital; this slide shows from 2011 through 2025; most until 2017, 2018,

it was those dollars that were from the north area funding sources such as the MSTU,

Referendum until 2015, and then in 2018 it shows the inclusion of General Funds dollars,

because there was a refocus by the County Manager to address some of those ongoing issues

and concerns that Mr. Bernath talked about, though they have them also in Parks and

Recreation, which he will share; Parks and Recreation does five-year planning; this is just a

sample of what staff has in the five-year plan for north area; the actual total CIP for the area,

like for 2026, this shows only $525,000, but there is over $4 million worth of items in that years

CIP; 2030 shows $180,000, but is actually over $5 million in that years CIP plan; those five-year

plans are like a rolling plan that are adjusted every year; as things get done, they fall off the

plan as things are found that needs prioritized, they will move up potentially on the plan; at the

same time, there are items that are unfunded, which are wish list items, things that come from

the citizens, or from the facilities, as there is funding available the items may move off the

unfunded into the CIP itself; and looking at the aging infrastructure looking even further out

than the five-year plan to make sure they keep an eye on things that will be coming up because

of the lifespans. He noted the next area is the central area, the numbers served through the

programs from last Fiscal Year; the funding sources, balance forward, and earlier it was

discussed about the $1.3 million of General Fund and balance forward as a Department, it is

reflected here, and mixed with other funds to address the CIP projects; the expenses showing

under salaries and benefits, a mixture of green and pink, because it is a mixture of funding

sources for the staff in the area; central area staffing has 27 vacancies, six in recreation, and

21 in maintenance; he provided a visual of one of the referendums and the area it

encompasses, where twice the voters approved it; he stated the first one in 2000 is where the

MSTU was established; he showed the Board some things done with the referendum dollars;

he advised there was another referendum that would have covered the central mainland area

that was rejected by the voters; overall, the central areas budget is less than the other two

areas for Parks and Recreation; there was an MSTU established in 2000 and he showed the

Board where the dollars were brought in; the MSTU is for the Merritt Island area, and the

referendum was approved by the voters, and he provided a slide showing the things that were

done with the Recreation MSTU dollars. He mentioned also created through the legislature, is

the County Special Recreation District 4, which used to include portions of District 4, but when

the Commission Districts were redrawn, those parks in District 4 became part of Districts 1 and

2, because the legislature did this; the redrawing does not impact the boundaries of this

Recreation District; and even though it says District 4, it has none of District 4 facilities in it.

Chairman Feltner stated when he ran for office in 2006, all of Rockledge proper was in District

4; and now what is known as the City of Rockledge is not in District 4 at all.

Mr. Golden stated this one is unique because the way it was set up, there is an advisory body

made up of representation from the County, City of Cocoa, and the City of Rockledge, so the

revenues from this area is actually generated from taxes over those two cities, as well as the

unincorporated Brevard County; he provided a slide showing what the Recreation District

generates through its millage and what has been approved; the next slide shows the facilities

that are included in that Recreation District; the same idea as the slide from then north area,

which is 2011 to current year; again, the Board is seeing the other funding sources and how

low it is, and it can see the focus from the County Manager putting additional dollars in; in

2023, there were addition funding because of the hurricanes, Ian and Nicole, is why the blue is

bigger; and one of the things, if the Board remembers from the previous north area that talked

about the five-year CIP, the same idea, but the dollar amounts projected out into future years

are not as high as the other two areas because those areas are not bringing in as much

through the MSTU, so for the most part, between $825,000 to $875,000 a year is what they

build a CIP for the central area for the five-years. He mentioned some unfunded items, aging

infrastructure, and he noted, even Kiwanis Island Park was dedicated in 1968, and got some

renovations in 2005; on to the south area, showing a map for a visual; some fast facts for this

area and usage, and the funding, if the Board recalls central was about $18 million, in this area

it is $37 million; and there is also less General Funding because more of it is covered through

special revenue funds.

Chairman Feltner stated to clarify there are three County Commission Districts in the south

area.

Mr. Golden answered yes, that is correct, the millage is also on a bigger tax base. He advised

where their balance forward is, a large portion is going to debt, which is going away in 2026; he

showed where funds are going and being expended; the south area employees with 26

vacancies, three administrative, which include superintendents, supervisors, area managers,

and office staff; recreation has six vacancies and maintenance has 17; showing the South

Brevard Recreation District and the area it encompasses, there is a carve out for the City of

Malabar; again, two referendums were approved; the referendum bond amounts were much

higher than the other areas, so that area could do more; at the same time the district bond was

set up, an MSTU was set up for the Special Recreation District; he showed what that MSTU is

bringing in on the operations and debt side; and to give the Board an idea, because of the

amount of funding that goes into the south area, there is no General Fund that has gone to

support the CIP over the years. He pointed out some examples from the area’s five-year plan,

notating Viera’s Turf Replacement where there are only two of the six fields; the turf itself has

usually a 10-year lifespan; speaking to the amount of CIP per year, 2026 it is $5.5 million, all

the way to 2029 where it is at $2.5 million, and 2030 it is $2.6 million; the next slide gives the

Board an idea from the last Fiscal Year of how the south area has a bit more funding, they are

able to move some of the unfunded items to become part of the CIP and are being addressed

current year, which is a luxury the other two areas do not have; and he provided the Board with

some other examples of aging infrastructure. He stated EELS is a Countywide program broken

up into the same three areas of north, central, and south, the maps show the acreage under

EELs acreage under management and sites; EELs fast facts, one of the things that people

may not be aware of, EELs actually does its own controlled burns for its properties, and have

been nice in reaching out to Parks and Recreation side to help when it is needed; in addition,

they create and maintain fire lines through-out their properties which is a great benefit to

everyone who surrounds those properties; some other ideas in Land Management, for

example, there are 49 miles of access and maintenance roads, they control for exotic species,

not only plants but feral hogs, insects and those types of things; they do educational activities,

special events like Earth Day, programs, guided hikes, and youth programs; the funding

sources as shown has no General Fund, the breakdown of the balance forward, of which the

vast majority of it is bonding, also no General Fund; he provided the expense breakdown where

the vast majority of it is bonding; next is staffing which has six vacancies, one in administration,

two in recreation, and three in maintenance; as for voter approved referendums, there have

been three to date, and it is not wrong to say EELs has been overwhelmingly supported by the

voters; he provided the dates and amounts that have been approved for up to bonding; and for

the 2022, which the Board may hear about moving forward either this year or in the coming

years, of the $50 million, $6.2 million has been bonded, which leaves $43.8 million available to

bond. He mentioned some of the things that have been done with the referendum bond dollars

is a lot of land acquisition, equipment purchases to maintain it, and the construction of different

sanctuaries, such as Pine Island, which has Sam’s House, Enchanted Forest, and Barrier

Island Center down south.

Chairman Feltner asked to point out that the prior Board, before the three new Commissioners

got here, did not want to go up to the $50 million bond it all out and spend it all before the next

Board got here; and there is nothing to say the Board has to do that, it can be done several

times, so this is an option left to the Board that will be heard about later.

Mr. Golden stated one last thing on this slide is, if the Board members have not been to Pine

Island, Sam’s House itself, it is actually the oldest standing home in Brevard County dating

back to 1875; so he talked a little bit about land acquisition, it is actually a combination of those

County dollars, as well as partnerships with the State and St. John’s River Water Management

District (SJRWMD); of the 28,000 acres that has been acquired, here is the breakdown of that,

28,000 acres, more than 19,000 acres is actually under management by EELs; the idea of the

operating and bond MSTU for those debt funds, some of the CIP; the Board will see there is no

green, but they do have some things that are other colors, they made them sort of some of that

special revenue because those were primarily donations; and for example, in 2012 and 2014

through 2017, there was an Air Force donation, 2018 to 2020 was an intergovernmental, and in

2025 that little tiny bit is interest. He stated again, they were looking further ahead at aging and

infrastructure; a little bit about golf, he did not know if anyone on the Board knew that the

County used to run three golf courses, Habitat Golf Course, Spessard Holland Golf Course,

and Savannah’s; in 2015, and prior is when the County ran them, and in 2017 they went to a

management company and kind of failed, then to a second management company, which did a

little better, and then it went out to a group called Golf Brevard, Inc.; they have been doing a

fantastic job maintaining the courses; Golf Brevard, Inc. took over in 2018 and it has been a

very successful partnership; when it took over, there was about $490,000 in total was given to

them, $390,000 was a loan, the other $100,000 was fees that the County had from the golf

courses that was given to them to maintain and for the transition; they are required for the

Habitat to do a lease payment because the Habitat is actually on land owned by Valkaria

Airport; Frank Abbate, County Manager, mentioned earlier about the increasers, and there is

an increaser on that lease payment that started back in 2018 to where they are currently; and

again, based on feedback they have received, it appears that they are being maintained better

than when the County did it. He mentioned these last few slides are an update of the Hurricane

Milton dollars that were identified by the Board giving it an idea of where those projects are;

there are several that are in progress; he is willing to give more details about these individual

ones if the Board would like, he has that; he believes the second to the last slide show what

projects have been completed; and the parenthesis under the dollar amount is the actual cost

of the project to complete it versus what was actually estimated when the Agenda Item was

brought before the Board.

Chairman Feltner stated to Mr. Golden that he was a miracle worker; anyways well done; and

that is his opinion.

Commissioner Delaney asked when he talked about the vacancy for EELs, he had one in

administration, but what was the second thing that he said.

Mr. Golden replied one in administration, two in recreation, and three in maintenance.

Commissioner Goodson asked on Merritt Island, when they impose their own taxes for the

Recreation Tax, does that affect the budget that it gets up and beyond that; and since they are

taxing themselves at about $2.7 million, do they get funding from the County that increases

their benefit.

Mr. Abbate responded he will take the hit on that question; He explained the answer is the

County uses the General Fund monies in Parks and Recreation to fund what is most needed;

the funds, after looking at the slides, they have not been equally distributed to the Districts; as a

matter of fact, the south District gets virtually none; as the Board can see, there is no dollars,

even in the Capital Programs because they did tax themselves at a very high rate; their

facilities, for a number of years, have been able to be better maintained because of the

additional funding that was available; this General Fund that is used in all the Districts, but all

the dollars, like from the MSTU, and it is the same for Road and Bridge, every District has its

own MSTU but still get General Fund dollars; and it is not equally, and has not historically been

equally, so that is the true answer.

Chairman Feltner stated Mr. Golden did a fine job; he asked for any other questions; and he

called the next presenter.

C.3. North Brevard Economic Development Zone

Troy Post of the North Brevard Economic Development Zone (NBEDZ) stated NBEDZ is a

special dependent district that exists in the northern part of Brevard County, and as a

dependent district, it has accountability to the County Commission along with the City Council in

Titusville, both jurisdictions came together to form the Zone; it functions as an economic

development organization which does a lot of the activities that an economic development

organization does, trying to work with existing businesses in the area, and help them expand

and attract new investment into the area; the primary reason for coming into existence was to

provide financial grants that could help drive capital investment in the north end of the County;

the reason for their creation was, in 2011 there was a dire economic state at that point for the

County; not only was the great recession affecting the country, but of course, the County had

the losses due to the ending of the Shuttle Program, so the political leadership at the time

thought North Brevard needed a tool that could provide grants that would induce businesses to

expand and create jobs; and there was a longer term mission as well that was to make the area

a little more economically diverse because the north end is still pretty heavily wedded to

aerospace and aviation- related industries. He stated on this slide it shows some of the distress

criteria to remind the Board how things were, high unemployment, in fact it was double-digit for

the City of Titusville that is an annual unemployment rate, high foreclosure rates, and the

Milken Institute, which is a think-tank that monitors the Top 200 metro areas; at the time, the

City of Titusville was ranked 177 out of 200, so not very good; the good news is things have

improved in the last few years, Titusville has actually been in the Top 10 in that ranking;

however, there is still much to do to make the area more economically diverse; as a special

district, they have to define the area which would be using the resources allocated to them; and

again, this will be pink money discussion, so the money has to be used for specific purposes

within the district. He added it is mostly District 1 Commission Seat; it is a little section of

Commission District 2 over on Merritt Island, that includes basically, everything west of the

Lagoon from the beach line and Cocoa City limits, north to the Volusia County line, and it does

include the Kennedy Space Center, north; that area just outside Kennedy is Exploration Park,

which is the Space Florida Initiative where they are trying to develop it as a business park; and

in terms of governance, they have a District Board, the County Attorney who attends those

meetings of the District Board, and it meets once a month. He mentioned part of being a

Special District means the Commission and the Counsel have a role in appointing the members

of that District Board, which meets once a month, serve for four-year terms, and they can be

reappointed, but they do serve without compensation; the Zone board has another role to play

for the Commission; in 2013, the Commission decided to give the Zone board the responsibility

of being the governing body for the Spaceport Commerce Park; this is a development the

County created in the early 1980’s, acquiring about 300 acres of land and developing it into an

industrial park; since 2013, the Zone’s responsibility is to negotiate projects and bring real

estate contracts to the Commission to actually vote up or down, and there is one of those on

the Agenda for next Tuesday for them to consider; to fund the agency what the City and County

did was to create two Tax Increment Financing Districts; and the way in which that mechanism

works for the Tax Increment Financing (TIF) is they benefit from an increase in the property

values that take place in the commercial and industrial property in the district. He stated if there

is an increase in the valuation, the Zone gets an increment for that; they do not get an

increment for an increase in residential valuation, it is strictly commercial and industrial, and it is

only for the northern part of the County, the district boundary map that was shown, not for the

entire County; the valuation is not set by the Zone board, that is done by the separate

Constitutional Office, which is the Property Appraiser’s Office; each year around summertime

they set that valuation and provide those figures to the budget office, and that is where they get

the revenue allotment; in terms of revenue allotment or the allocation assigned to them, as

shown on the slide, there is a revenue allotment of $14.7 million, which includes a balance

forward; and on the pie chart it shows the pink money, which is reserved only for specific

purposes. He shared the County TIF for the current year has an allotment of $3.3 million

approximately, and the City TIF has an allotment of $800,000; they do then have the balance

forward amount of $10.6 million; on the left-hand side of the screen, there is a breakdown of

how that is composed; there is about $6.6 million in the County TIF carried forward into the

current year, and $3.1 million in City TIF being carried over into the current year; the last item is

for the Commerce Park of just under $900,000 being carried forward into the current year; and

this amount represents the proceeds from the sale of that property that goes into the restricted

account. He noted per the Ordinance that was passed in 2013, they can only use those monies

for expenses related to the Park, so things like landscaping, signage, exterior lighting, and

those kinds of things can be covered; but the bulk of those funds are used as a reserve so they

can purchase property back if something does not go the way it is supposed to be when doing

the development deals; and all the Deeds when they do a land sell in the Park, there is a

provision that says within a certain period of time, generally two or three years, the business

that is purchasing the lot has to develop the land; and that is defined as clearing the site,

getting building permits, and actually putting a pad in. He stated if they cannot do that within

that period of time, the Zone has the ability to buy the land back; the reason is, so that

someone does not buy the land and hold it and realize some kind of gain on real estate

speculation; there has to be money available to buy those properties back at the same price

they sold it to them for if that is the trigger that is reached; and that is why that amount is

carried forward. He stated here is a look at the Budget Expenditures; obviously, the largest

thing they do, according to the chart are the grants and Aid Program, which has a Reserve

balance shown; on the right there is also operating expenses, capital outlay, and compensation

and benefits; they have a staff of three on the NBEDZ; capital outlay is generally related to

improvements in the Industrial Park; this year they are doing monument signs on some of the

landscape medians in the Park; this is a deeper dive into the operating expenses as the Board

sees; major categories of contracted services, professional services, and of course, indirect

costs, which figure is what is assigned to them under the County’s Cost Allocation Plan; in

terms of contracted services and professional services, they have vendors they have used

throughout the year to do different things like land surveys when they do lot sales,

environmental reviews of some of the property in the area, and they could work with different

consultants that help with market valuation of the lots, different things of that sort; and the main

thing for the Zone board is the grant program. He stated just to give the Board an idea, the

Zone has worked over the years on many different projects, but they are currently tracking

these 19 projects for which funds have been committed, and if the companies do what they are

supposed to do, the second column total at the bottom, with an amount of $13.4 million, is what

the Zone is obligated to provide if they do what they are supposed to; now the thing he wants to

emphasize is when they do the grant projects no money is provided upfront, everything is

conditioned upon the project reaching some point of completion; at that point, there is a

disbursement; sometimes in a project there are actually points towards completion to get to

different installments made as the project is progressing where the company qualifies for the

grant; and no money is given upfront. He advised the third column is the remaining

disbursements on these projects that are listed, that is a $7.6 million figure, of which the Zone

is contractually committed to provide that if company reaches the point of completion; and the

point of completion sometimes can be completion of a building, getting a Certificate of

Occupancy (CO), occupying for a period of time, or job creation. He stated the recent deal with

the Lockheed Project is going to be tied to jobs, to create jobs, evidence they can hold it at the

project side before they will qualify for the grant installments; the very last column is the Fiscal

Year the Zone thinks would be likely they would pay out the rest of those grants, assuming the

companies do what they say they are going to do; it is very likely the commitment made in the

current year they may not pay out the grant until the next fiscal year or year after that; for that

reason, that tends to see them carry forward those larger amounts from year to year; all grants

are approved in accordance with a strategic plan; as part of being a special district, there had

to be a plan that was approved by the Commission and City Council, which they did in 2012;

and they have had a couple planning sessions in the intervening years where they considered

amendments to the plan, but so far nothing was produced to bring before the Commission for

its approval. He stated they are still working with the 2012 plan which is available on the

NBEDZ website for all to see; basically, the programs fall into these three program areas, Small

Business Assistance, Redevelopment of Existing Commercial and Industrial space, high wage

job creation, which is how they were able to work on the Blue Origin Project, One Web Project,

and of course, the Lockheed Project; they also have in this plan the strategic initiatives they

can pursue; and these are for both physical and nonphysical infrastructure, so more than just

helping with the installation of utility lines, it could be for entrepreneurial development and doing

workforce development activities as well.

Commissioner Delaney asked if the Zone board was going to be doing some kind of business,

something soon, and is he able to talk about it.

Mr. Post replied they are talking to the Small Business Development Center (SBDC) office

about putting on a small business workshop up in the north end to help entrepreneurs, that is

something they can do; again, things that are projects within the district are eligible for their

expense or activities that help them advance commerce in the north end of the district are

eligible to participate in and support; and so they hope to support that workshop. He stated the

Zone has what he calls Program Tenets, the first he has already alluded to, but is worth

repeating, the grants are what is called performance grants, which are based on a company

reaching a level of completion for projects that have a value of the incentive that is more than

half a million, even if it comes from the City TIF fund, it still requires Commission approval; the

Zone has a project similar to that coming out in the next few months to see if the County

Commission wants to approve something the City of Titusville is considering doing with some of

the City TIF money, grants based on performance; the other tenet they have is searching for a

rate of return that is five to one or greater, that is for every $1.00 of Zone money being injected

into a project, they want to see $5.00 or more of other sources of financing coming in; the

reason they insist on that is they do not want the Zone dollars being seen as a substitute for

owners’ equity or capital going into the project; and the developer or business owner must be at

risk if they are participating in this projects. He mentioned the last thing is the justification that

Zone dollars are warranted in these projects, because there are some projects do not need

incentive; they may be too far along and may be clearly evident that they do not need any

assistance from the Zone; generally, where the Zone comes in is there is an application

process which will identify what is a barrier, hindrance or road block to implementing the project

they want to put together; and with that information they can see if it is possible that it fits into

one of the program areas where they can help bring the project about. He shared there are a

few projects he can go through quickly, but will mention from the second photo, Pharmco, was

a building built by Embraer who had purchased a company out of California that did their seat

manufacturing, they wanted to develop another campus in the north end of the County similar

to the one in Melbourne; they brought the company in after they received an incentive from

NBEDZ where they were helping them offset the cost of construction and working the site,

which was about 15 acres that they were grading; after a few years, they realized the

efficiencies were not there, and being a good corporate neighbor, they were willing to work with

the Zone; it did trigger a clawback in the incentive agreement; an important thing they try to put

in all the agreements are ways to recapture money that has been provided to them through the

grants if they do not following through in subsequent years with the scope of the project

described within the grant agreement; and they did return the funds to the Zone, which was

$1.5 million, and was left with a building that became a good fit for Pharmco Labs, which was

expanding. He stated the Zone also does redevelopment projects like Titus Landing, which

used to be the Miracle City Mall Project; the bottom photo is a small business owner who has a

little restaurant in Titusville who wanted to go to the other end of the building he was in and put

together a small-scale grocery for the neighborhood; it was a small business, but it underscores

it does not just work with the Blue Origin’s and Lockheed’s of the world, but work also with a lot

of small businesses of which they are trying to assist per the economic development plan; the

Strategic Initiatives they have are also some infrastructure projects; the middle photo is from a

project they are working on with Eastern Florida State, which involves their Aviation College,

which is building a new facility at the Titusville campus; the Zone served as a local match so

that they could obtain State funding to build that building; and with that, he asked if the Board

had any questions.

Commissioner Adkinson stated he gave some data about when NBEDZ was originally created

that unemployment was bad and foreclosures were bad; and she asked what that data is

currently.

Mr. Post answered he does have that information; from the NBEDZ Newsletter that just went

out yesterday and on that, the count as of December 2024 the most recent he has, the County

unemployment rate was 3.2 percent, the labor force size for the County was 301,000, and for

Titusville it was a 3.2 percent unemployment rate with a labor force of 22,398.

Commissioner Adkinson asked since she does not remember the initial numbers, is that a

significant improvement.

Mr. Post replied absolutely, the 2011 statistic was around 12 percent; the size of the labor force

has grown, so certainly, the unemployment rate has dropped; they continue to benefit from the

defense sector companies in the area and aerospace companies; they are interested now in

developing further are other industry sectors boating and pharmaceuticals, like Pharmco, and

other things, so that the County is not so dependent on just a few sectors for the economic

well-being.

Commissioner Adkinson noted so the original reason for NBEDZ was the economic distress

that was happening in the north end, and it sounds like it has done its job and has created, or

helped to create, the thriving community that is happening there.

Mr. Post answered they have fulfilled that part of their mission, but the longer term mission,

which he did not highlight on the spreadsheet, but it talked about the Sunset Provision, which

when it was created they were given a 31-year lifespan so they would sunset in 2042; the

purpose of that was to lay the groundwork for a more diverse industry, so doing what they can

to go after the manufacturers of boating and pharmaceuticals; and they recognized that it

would take a while to get there because of the workforce needed to do the variety of tasks, and

the challenges of developing sites that would be able to accommodate those kind of users as

well.

Commissioner Adkinson asked where the $3.3 million of monies comes from.

Mr. Post replied it is generated from the appreciation of property values above the base year

and it gets a portion of that appreciation of ad valorum tax or the General Fund.

Chairman Feltner stated they are at a decision-point and wanted to get it out of the way

whether to continue or not; someone wants to be done at 5:00 p.m. and someone may want

to push through; and he asked what the pleasure of the Board is.

Commissioner Goodson asked what topics are left.

Chairman Feltner answered they have Tourism, Planning and Development and Merritt Island

Redevelopment Agency (MIRA).

Commissioner Goodson asked if he thought that was possibly another four hours.

Chairman Feltner replied he was looking at the number of slides, Ian had more slides than all

these put together; so maybe finish after Peter Cranis and he asked if Mr. Cranis would be a

half hour.

Mr. Cranis stated he would be five minutes

Chairman Feltner answered ok, they will revisit decision after Tourism.

C.4. Tourism Development

Peter Cranis, Tourism Director, stated Tourism is pink money which comes from the Tourist

Development Tax (TDT) which is the five percent tax from overnight lodging such as

hotel/motel and short-term rentals; the Tourist Development Council (TDC) acts as the advisory

board to the County Commission, so the Board can see how that breaks out; a number of

sub-committees like The Beach and Marketing sub-committees are the active ones, the others

are not going to be active this year; the tourist collections pay for everything from promotions

and Marketing that is one half the budget, Beach Re-Nourishment is 25 percent, Capital

Projects, Art and Cultural Programs, Brevard Zoo, and the Stadium; a historical look at the

collections over the years, 10 years ago they were just under $13 million; in 2019 it cracked

$16 million; in the last few years have broken through the $25 million barrier; and the budget

this year is $27 million; they are doing well; but they have some big month’s ahead, the TDC

will see how it does this year. He commented this is the chart from the Marketing Support

Program Workshop where they went through the TDT allocation; as a reminder the first two

pennies, 25 percent goes to marketing, 30 percent goes to Beach, and Capital and Cultural are

up to 35 percent and 10 percent, so those are a more flexible; and then all the rest of the

pennies are defined as is, a little less than one-half the budget is marketing, and the rest falls

out from there. He mentioned the Budget for this year looks like a little over $55 million, it is

higher than the tax collection because of the carry forward, some funds are in Reserves, and

Capital Funds they are holding for various projects; it is a little more than what it collects and

they reserve those for other projects coming forward; a little bit about the Beach Fund, it is 25

percent of the Budget; a big project going on this year for about $52 million project, which is in

the Mid-Reach and South-Reach Beaches, from south of Patrick down to Spessard Holland;

the TDC was fortunate that due to the storm damage to those beaches, they got the Army Corp

of Engineers to pony up and they are basically covering the full project; normally they would

pay in the range of 10 to 15 percent so, that saved the TDC a little bit of money; and then in the

South Beaches, they are 100 percent responsible for the South Beaches, and were hit a couple

years ago by Hurricane Ian and a few other storms. He mentioned it resulted in $25 million

having to come from the beach budget, well $25 million total project cost, but $18 million came

out of the Beach Budget, which wiped out the budget for that year, and they ended up

borrowing the other $7 million; the good news is, they will be getting money back from Federal

Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), about 87.5 percent from FEMA; they expect a little

bit from the State of Florida, so hopefully getting back about 90 percent of those funds, though

it takes typically three to four years; over the last two years they have built the Reserves back a

little bit; as the Board can see, one project can wipe it out, but there is about $8.85 million in

Reserves; and sand has gone up in the last nine years about eight percent a year, so they are

paying more for re-nourishment than they have before.

Commissioner Delaney asked if the beach restoration is the dunes or the whole beach.

Mr. Cranis answered it is the whole beach, the sand placement is to refurbish the beach part,

but the dunes then have to be built up because it is the final barrier to the storms; and it is

usually a lot of planting, which is what holds it all together.

Commissioner Delaney asked what about the rock that is on the beach.

Mr. Cranis replied in the mid-reach there has to be some mitigation there because the rock

cannot be covered, the County is not allowed; however, in the past, and he is not the beach

expert, Mike McGarry, Boating and Waterways Program Manager, who runs the Beach

Program is; but what they have done in the past is built some artificial reef that has been pretty

successful at attracting fish, turtles, and a lot of wildlife which has been a little help for some of

the rock that does get covered, a kind of mitigating; and he reiterated they are not allowed to

cover the rock.

Commissioner Delaney asked if there was a percentage of rock allowed to be covered.

Mr. Cranis answered there is a percentage but he was not sure what it was; it can be a little;

but it is Federally protected.

Commissioner Delaney asked about mitigation for the turtles and the laying of eggs.

Mr. Cranis responded that part of the Beach Fund pays for turtle monitoring, and a big part is

making sure they do not negatively impact the turtles; what he has seen over the past five to 10

years has been unbelievable growth in the number of turtle nesting that is being seen; Brevard

County is one of the largest turtle nesting sites in North America, and TDC promotes that

heavily in their marketing; and it is important that they keep the turtles coming, they have really

grown a lot.

Commissioner Delaney asked if there are statistics Mr. Cranis could get together to show the

Board the increase in turtle nesting.

Mr. Cranis replied yes, they use several turtle monitoring organizations like University of Central

Florida (UCF) and a couple others who track all that every year, so they can provide statistics

on how much that has grown.

Chairman Feltner stated Natural Resource Management would also have that information; and

the County does not do re-nourishment during Turtle Season.

Mr. Cranis advised that is right, they have to be off of the beach by the end of March when the

height of the season begins.

Chairman Feltner stated he just wanted that for a point of clarification.

Mr. Cranis stated a little bit about the Indian River Lagoon (IRL) Grant Program, it was started

back in 2019, but 2021-22 was when they actually allocated the full $1 million for a lot of

different projects; smaller projects do not have to be matched, only a project over $50,000 must

have a .75:1 match, which the Board determined a few years ago; typically, the $1 million is

committed annually but because of the damage done to the South Beaches and the money

spent out of the budget, they did not; with Board direction, they have the Indian River Lagoon

(IRL) Program Grant for 2024 or 2025; but a recurring $157,000 per year was awarded to Keep

Brevard Beautiful (KBB) for five years to clean the causeways, which comes out of the $1

million every year; then $150,000 one time was allocated for derelict vessel removal for 2025;

and they will probably carry over some of the funds into next year because they will not be able

to use all the funds this year.

Commissioner Delaney asked how many boats does that cover.

Mr. Cranis answered it varies because Matt Culver, Boating and Waterways Program

Coordinator, who is retiring, has managed that program for a number of years, so typically, he

can get out 10 to 20 boats a year; however, it is a laborious process that takes a long time to

get approval to be able to move the boats; and this year with the $150,000, they will use less

than half of the money and then will use the rest next year.

Chairman Feltner stated he thought there was State Grant for that also.

Mr. Cranis replied he believes there is some State funding as well, he does not remember the

amount of that, but there is some State funding.

Frank Abbate, County Manager, advised he believes there will be some legislation that

hopefully will make it easier to remove derelict vessels than what is currently allowed.

Mr. Cranis stated this is a fun topic, Lifeguard funding; this year it was a $3.742 million

program, of that about $1.566 million was paid for out of the TDT; the Board can see the

breakdown is about $556,000 out of Marketing, $710,000 out of Capital, and $300,000 out of

Cultural; looking at next year’s Budget, a lot of the Capital and Cultural funds have been spent

down, so if the TDC were asked to do a similar amount for next year then probably a little bit

more will have to come from Marketing, which obviously could impact them a little bit, so just

food for thought; as far as Capital Projects, there were a number of Capital Projects underway

that were recently funded or funds are being held for; the largest capital award in the history of

the program is the Aquarium, there is $15 million allocated, which will break ground this

summer, and be $1.5 million per year for 10 years, so this is the first year it would be paid out;

the Canaveral Lighthouse was awarded last year which should be finished this year; and the

Brightline Station was awarded $5 million, those funds are being held to see if they can get

some Federal funding to finish or begin that project. He stated the Veteran’s Memorial Park

Amphitheater has been awarded a little over $2.5 million, which is well underway, but should

have a little carry over next year as they are just starting now; the Police Hall of Fame Project

was awarded $5.7 million, $5 million of that was awarded last year, or two years ago, which has

a payout of $1 million per year for five years through 2028; Palm Bay Sacrifice Park received

$250,000 and should finish this year; they are finishing that and doing a ribbon cutting

ceremony; back in 2018 or 2019, the TDC spent $5 million building the AstroTurf Fields in

Viera, which was a 10-year loan, so that is up through 2029; looking at the chart, the big

numbers at the top is for the Revenue, so for 2024-2025, it is just under $12 million; the Board

can see all the projects that makes up the expense side of the $12 million; and the Board can

see this year there are no available funds remaining after they awarded $710,000 for the

Lifeguards, and there is $2 million in Reserves, so the next year or two is low, but will start

building up around 2029 or 2030. He mentioned the United States Specialty Sports Association

(USSSA) operates the stadium under a 30-year Contract, which has to generate 100,000 room

nights annually; last year the USSSA did a little over 95,000, and got hit with a penalty, but still

spent a lot on stadium repair projects; if they are capital-type projects, they get reimbursed, and

were reimbursed last year for $443,000, which came out of the Stadium Repair Fund; they are

required to contribute $250,000 to that fund annually and they are required to spend $250,000

on Capital Maintenance annually; the Ordinance requires the County hold $350,000 in a Capital

Maintenance account on an annual basis, that comes from the fourth penny; TDC also talked a

lot about the Marketing Support Program (MSP) this year, and thanks to the Board, they moved

forward on this; this was $840,000 funded between the Cultural Fund and some of the

Marketing Fund; 44 events were awarded, $805,000 this year, they are in the process of

contracting with different events; some of the events that already happened will get

reimbursements; and some events will get Marketing support, as well, so they can choose what

they prefer either Marketing help or event reimbursement. He stated they will probably bring

back to the TDC, and then to the Board next year’s program, make some recommendations for

tweaking it, but it will probably be a similar program for next year; then the Marketing Plan,

recommended every year by the Marketing Committee and the TDC, and then the Board

approves it every year as directed by the State Statute and County Ordinance; the last couple

years District 2, Cocoa Beach, has received about 50 percent of the Budget, then the

remaining Districts will split the remaining 50 percent; that was an Agreement with the Cocoa

Beach Hotel Association; in the Plan they use the Florida Space Coast as the umbrella, but

then they highlight everything from beaches, to space, to the different amenities in the County,

and then they highlight the municipalities as well; they use a mix of media from billboards, to

digital, to TV streaming, all kinds of different types of media, they also their own media outlets,

like the Facebook page which gets millions of views; a Launch App gets a quarter of a million

downloads; and a website gets millions of views, and they have a lot of tools at their disposal

as well, heavily leveraging public relations, which is important to them. He mentioned to show

the Board just a couple of creative things to see, this is from District 1, some Digital Ads, some

of the billboards Cocoa Beach is running right now from Kelly Slater, Surfing Legend, for Space

and highlighting the beaches, Melbourne billboards with turtles, and Palm Bay highlights nature

and fishing; TDC looked at the top source markets to target marketing with Cellular Data Tool

that helps them understand where people are coming from, which is heavily the State of

Florida, but about close to 60 percent of the audience comes from the outside of Florida, so it

targets a lot of those main cities; people ask what if they had more Marketing dollars, he would

probably go deeper into the list and try to reach people that are coming here already and try to

find more people like them; and the highlighted areas are where it does market, but still many

areas they could market to in the future.

Chairman Feltner noted as Chair of the TDC and having worked in Tourism in this market for a

long time, the Florida folks that come here go to the parks when their kids are out of school,

and the visitors do the vice versa and come to the beaches, so that is a lot of the traffic; and he

asked if that is the summertime market.

Mr. Cranis replied it is heavy, and obviously, Orlando generates about 75 million visitors a year,

so they try to get a share of those for at least a couple of nights.

Chairman Feltner stated the County prefers that when the visitors are going on State Road

(SR) 528 they do not go left to Volusia County; and that is Brevard County Tourisms whole job.

Mr. Cranis stated a little how the TDC breaks out the campaign, it has an annual campaign that

runs all year long with billboards, airport signage, they do a lot digitally on Google search words

and social media; there are seasonal campaigns that focus on each season, so they just

finished the Fall/Winter Campaign; TDT just came out yesterday and said January was the best

in TDC history, which was a big focus for them of increasing that winter traffic; they feel it was

very successful with those results; being in February they just started the Spring Campaign,

and now they are getting into the heart of Spring, they are hopeful it will be a really good

season, it is late Easter this year, which should help; and of course the biggest spend is

Summer, which is the biggest season in June, July, and August, so they will start marketing in

May for that. He stated that he wanted to finish up some other things TDC does; one of the big

things is the Public Relations Initiatives, which is where it gets a lot of big media hits on

different things; they were named by Conde Nast as one of the Top 25 places to go in the world

in 2025; Brevard County was one of only two destinations to get that designation that

generated a lot of media coverage for Brevard County, over eight billion in media impressions

throughout the year; if the County had to go out and buy that media coverage, it would cost

tens of millions of dollars, obviously way more than what the budget would be, so Public

Relations (PR) is a really great way to expand the marketing efforts; and then there are things

going on like Film Commission, Sports Commission, and lots of other fun things TDC does. He

stated a little bit about the future on the final slide; there are about a dozen projects on the

Pipeline Report over the next few years; about another 3,000 hotel rooms, right now there are

11,000 rooms in the County, so it would make it 14,000; the Port has added a lot of new ships,

which will home port 16 ships this year, including four new ships that are part of that; the Airport

has done a good job of bringing in some other airline service like Touristik Union International

(TUI) as a new partner, the last couple of years the TDC has been working closely with them to

market in the United Kingdom (UK), Allegiant, Sun Country, and also other domestic airlines to

partner with; from a launch perspective, that helps as well, people want to come and watch a

launch, and they hope there will be a day when there is a launch every day of the year, but for

now there was 93 last year, they think they will break 100 this year, which is good for TDC; and

they have had a couple of really strong fiscal results, and looking ahead, hopefully over the

next couple of years, if they hit the 30 million mark, then the State allows the TDC to add a

sixth penny, which would add about $6 million to the budget that can go to various other

Cultural, Capital, Beach, Marketing, and all of those things.

Chairman Feltner asked if when Mr. Cranis says the State would allow the County that means a

voter referendum.

Mr. Cranis answered yes, the State just changed the law, so it is no longer a vote by the

County, it has to be a public referendum.

Chairman Feltner explained all of the other pennies are passed by referendum, just so

everyone knows.

Mr. Cranis stated there are a lot of major projects coming along, The Westin Cocoa Beach is a

500 room, four-star property, it will be the County’s first four-star; he is waiting to hear, but he

thinks Margaritaville will start construction again in Melbourne; the Westgate Pier is building a

pretty nice sized property there; part of the Westin is a Convention Center; of course, there is

the Aquarium and Brightline Station, so there are a lot of things happening in the tourism world;

and he thinks the County is on a very good, upward trajectory.

Chairman Feltner asked if the Board has any questions.

Commissioner Altman stated he knows the beaches are very critical to the Tourism Industry; he

recently heard a report on one of the media outlets about the most dangerous beaches in all of

America, one of the organizations listed all 10 of the most dangerous beaches in the United

States were in Florida; of course, that outlet was in Texas, and they are fighting for launches,

beach access, and tourism, they are the County’s foe, so he questions the objectivity; in their

particular report, he thinks New Smyrna was number one, Daytona was number two, Miami

Beach was number three, and Cocoa Beach was number four; the value of funding the

Lifeguards and keeping an eye out for sharks really hurts the Tourism promotion; he asked if

the County doing anything to respond to that threat, to respond to that type of negative

exposure.

Mr. Cranis answered not directly, per se; obviously, TDC marketing and promotion highlights

the positive side of what the County has to offer; that has always been his belief, focusing on

the positive and not trying to combat the negative and the media, because that battle cannot be

won; and he thinks to the degree that the County has Lifeguards on its beaches, great

programs, and great beaches, so that is the answer to that ultimately, and the positive will

always outweigh the negative.

Commissioner Altman pointed out even the Texas article did mention in Cocoa Beach, good

news bad news, there were 26 shark attacks, and none of them were fatal.

Mr. Cranis stated a lot of people with injured feet, legs and things like that.

Commissioner Altman stated Destin has had a nightmare, they have had some bad bad

attacks.

Mr. Cranis stated it is something to keep an eye on and stay ahead of, but just to keep pushing

the positive aspects then the things like the Conde Nast and those types of relationships of

where the County is featured and highlighted, even with Global coverage like that, he feels that

overshadows some of that.

Commissioner Altman expressed his appreciation to Mr. Cranis for what he does; the County

has a great TDC, he knows the Chairman is involved; he was lucky enough to start the TDC in

his last cycle in the Commission, and Tom Wasdin was very involved; and they have come a

long way, it is very sophisticated, and very well done.

Chairman Feltner stated he wanted to say something about lifeguards real quick and he thinks

Commissioner Goodson is reaching for his microphone.

Commissioner Goodson stated Commissioner Altman, prior to your election, the Board had

Cocoa Beach come before the Commission and said they did not care about tourists, they were

not going to put a penny in lifeguards; but just recently they did put a news blast out saying

they are going after the Airbnb’s and raise more money for them; so this year when the

Lifeguards come up, he is sure it is going to be a fight again; and it is interesting that everyone

wants the tourist dollars, but does not want to help pay the expenses to get them there.

Commissioner Altman stated he lived through that fight in Tallahassee, and Commissioner

Goodson may have been there; there was a Bill that allowed for the local TDC in the

Panhandle, Fort Walton, to pay for lifeguards; he was under the impression it was not legal to

use the TDC dollars for lifeguards; Morris Richardson, County Attorney, may have a difference

of opinion; and that is why it required an act of the Legislature to that at Fort Walton.

Commissioner Goodson commented that was kind of a two-fold situation.

Attorney Richardson explained it is a bit of a misnomer because honestly, what that Statute did

was allow for those Counties to use Tourism Taxes for police and Emergency Medical Services

(EMS); there is a statutory definition for EMS that does not include the lifeguard function, so

what was authorized to them is not authorizing lifeguards; his position has been, there was a

1990 he wants to say Attorney General Opinion (AGO) years ago, that says one cannot use the

equivalent under the Statute of what Brevard calls the Beach Fund to fund lifeguards; that

makes absolute sense because that Statute is very clear that it is for things like Capital Projects

on beaches, nourishment, things like that, not lifeguard kind of services; since that opinion

came out, the Legislature did change the Statutes to say that dollars can be used from what

Brevard calls the Marketing Fund to pay for any service that has, as one of its primary

purposes the attraction of tourists as evidenced by the promotion of that service to tourist, so

the Board adopted a very lengthy Resolution with a lot of findings, that one of the primary

services of providing lifeguards on the beaches is the attraction of tourists; and Mr. Cranis has

been promoting lifeguards to tourists, there are billboard campaigns with lifeguards, and also

promote lifeguard locations on Tourism Websites, things of that nature; and based on those

things, it is his opinion that the TDC can use under that provision TDT to fund lifeguards. He

stated at the request of the TDC, the Board just prior to Commissioner Altman’s election, gave

the County Attorney direction to request an AGO regarding that use still in process, he will seek

it soon; frankly, there has not been a lot of urgency; he does not know if the Board has noticed,

but over the last five years the Attorney General is issuing three a year, he does not have a lot

of hope, he will submit it, but needs to be thoroughly and properly done to help them get to the

right conclusion about the County’s particular use of that TDT, so he will be sent off, that the

position is certainly well-founded; and regardless of what the Attorney General says, all of the

AGO’s on Tourism Development Tax use have always said that while they can provide some

advisory opinions, it is always ultimately up to the County Board to make that determination,

those findings, whether it is a proper use or not.

Commissioner Altman stated he wondered if the lifeguards were required to be Emergency

Medical Technicians (EMT) if that would open up a door to providing EMT services.

Attorney Richardson answered it is only in those counties that they can use it for the EMT

services, so that might actually cut against the County; and he thinks lifeguard services are

unique.

Commissioner Altman stated it is a fascinating issue.

Commissioner Atkinson stated she has lived in Brevard County her whole life, she has lived on

the beach her whole life, the beaches are always packed; and she asked if there is data that

shows that having lifeguards increases the tourists that come to those beaches.

Mr. Cranis answered he has never seen anything have that direct line correlation.

Attorney Richardson stated what they do have finding on, he will say on the record, is that Mr.

Cranis has done survey data of visitors here and what kind of amenities draw them to certain

beaches.

Mr. Cranis interjected saying lifeguards are at the top of that list.

Chairman Feltner stated the prior Board got here, it was a little contentious at that time, and he

was the deciding vote, if he remembers, so he will own it; there were drownings and some

people attribute that to rip currents, a lot of rip currents, and some have suggested after the

beach renourishment is done maybe there will not be rip currents, but he does not know if that

is true; he is not an oceanographer, but the Board was contacted by the public saying this is

bad press, it does not sound good, the Board needs to do something, so it was looking at

spending County dollars to increase lifeguard services; and it looked to Tourism to help pay for

lifeguards. He advised he wanted to clarify something, up until that point, Brevard County

property owners paid 100 percent of the lifeguard cost; TDT was not paying for lifeguards,

tourists are not property owners, they do not pay property tax; that is how the County got there,

it was responding to a problem; and he does not know what this Board is ultimately going to

decide or how that works, but it will see going forward.

Commissioner Altman stated to Commissioner Adkinson he just noticed in the study that

Melbourne Beach was the ninth most dangerous, but he does not believe it.

Commissioner Adkinson asked what the reasons for being so dangerous were.

Commissioner Altman replied there have been 19 recorded shark attacks; most of the shark

attacks were surfing-related; and it says to be careful out there.

Commissioner Adkinson stated her son surfs, she has gone swimming a lot, and she has seen

a shark every single time because that is where she lives, she lives by the ocean where the

sharks live.

Commissioner Altman noted she swims with sharks and now she is a County Commissioner, so

she works with the sharks.

Commissioner Delaney pointed out that Commissioner Adkinson has all her legs.

Chairman Feltner stated for people who lived here a long time, he or she knows where the

rocks are, knows the beaches, and it only takes one time to figure out where the rocks are; he

asked if there were any other comments for Mr. Cranis; he stated well done, it is 5:00 p.m., and

the Board needed to make a decision whether or not to continue; Planning and Development,

Merritt Island Redevelopment Agency (MIRA), or they can stop; and there is one comment card

for Sarah Skywind.

The Board reached consensus to stop the Department Budget presentations for the day.

PUBLIC COMMENTS

Sarah Skywind, representing Brevard Barkhouse Inc., stated she gave a handout to each

Commissioner about her business; she was there the other day voicing the interest her

non-profit for property at 2605 Flake Road, the old Brevard Sheriff’s Rescue; it is an older

building, but is available, vacant right now, and is the only building available to be a shelter in

Brevard County right now; in the past six months, between two homes, she and another

person, have helped 52 dogs find permanent homes; they have had and taken in 6,000 pounds

of food and have delivered to animals in need, and another 3,000 pounds of various other

items for the animals in just under six months; that is following the laws and regulations of

having animals at ones home to either foster or take care of; the law only allows four animals;

and then on top of that, whoever the Board brings in and there is not a regulation for puppies

six months or younger. She mentioned with that being said, she would like to expand their help

to the community and would love to take over that building; they need it, the community needs

it, and there has been questions about the condition of the building; she is well aware of the

situation there; there is an itemize list of what needs to be done, it does not scare her; she

knows there is a dollar amount people look at; however, she looks at project and each project,

and she knows it can be accomplished; she would not be there if she thought it was impossible;

and a lot of it is housekeeping honestly, though it does need a roof, and she has spoken to

roofers, and she does not want to just get a roofer just to get in there, she is shopping. She

continued her organization wants to take responsibility of the money and putting forth into the

building; it is cheaper for them to use an existing building and then put their efforts, time, and

donations into fixing it up; she believes it would be beneficial to the community to use that

building, it is a wonderful place, a lot of magic can happen there, and will make it happen; they

have support from Palm Bay all the way up to Edgewater, everywhere in between, and even

out to Kissimmee, she has people waiting and ready to go; and she is asking the Board to look

at the website, call, or ask any questions that they want to.

Chairman Feltner asked if she had met with the District 1 Commissioner, because it is in

Titusville.

Ms. Skywind answered yes she has.

Chairman Feltner explained that sounds like a District item eventually, possibly; and he

remembers she spoke at the CEER workshop.

Ms. Skywind stated she will be back on March 11th, because it will be about what to do with the

building.

Chairman Feltner asked if it is on the 11th Agenda.

Ms. Skywind replied yes.

Chairman Feltner replied he will show it then, and asked if there was anything else or other

discussion.

Commissioner Delaney stated something she brought up at the last workshop and wanted to

bring it up again about public comment; as the Workshop had one Public Comment, she would

like to propose for workshops to have, the Board did not want it after every Item, but if maybe

have Public Comment at the beginning and the end just to be kind, so they do not have to sit

through four hours of a meeting; and she wanted to talk about it.

Chairman Feltner asked if it can be discussed at the meeting on March 11th so everyone can

have a chance to sleep on it.

Commissioner Delaney replied okay.

Chairman Feltner asked if there was any other discussion, and then asked for Board Reports.

Commissioner Altman stated he agreed with the County Administrator that they really need to

work on the bathrooms at this building, during break he had an incident where a toilet had

overflowed on him and not to get to graphic, but he has experienced it first hand, and strongly

supports that initiative.

Commissioner Goodson stated in the future go to Chick-Fil-A.

Commissioner Altman commented that is a great idea.

Chairman Feltner stated he suggested to Commissioner Altman it is a volume issue, it does not

happen every day.

Upon consensus of the Board, the meeting adjourned at 5:13 p.m.

ATTEST:

_________________________

RACHEL M. SADOFF, CLERK

_________________________________

ROB FELTNER, CHAIRMAN

BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS

BREVARD COUNTY, FLORIDA

*Approved by the Board on July 8, 2025