those liabilities for sand re-nourishment and lifeguards; she asked why the County is handing
off parks to cities that charge parking while the County is still paying for lifeguards; and that is
almost $1.5 million of lifeguard services to these cities that are charging for parking. She
commented it goes to a bigger picture; free County parks that people pay with their taxes, but
instead of making a potential difficult decision and choosing to have premium parks with the
extra services the County charges for, it gives them to the cities that put that in place; the
problem is the citizens are not just taxed by the County, they pay the cities for passes; now the
citizens are getting taxed for parks that were former County parks; and really what should be
done is having the vision to have a common product across-the-County. She advised to do
what Collier County does; Collier County has a pass where people can go to all of their parks;
that would take care of this; have the cities to pay their fair share of the lifeguards; if they are
charging for parking, they should be paying for their lifeguards; and they are pulling in a lot
more money. She noted what is really heartburn for her is when they are former County parks.
Commissioner Tobia expressed his appreciation to staff for putting this comprehensive report
together; he stated this was numerous agencies that came together, not only to give the Board
some background, but to make some suggestions; he learned quite a bit, so he wants to point
some highlights out; and then, he wants to go in a direction by making a motion here in the
end. He went on to say it is very apparent that lifeguards work; over 390 rip current rescues
have been performed just from November 2022 and March 2023; since 2009, 2010 when the
full-time towers were first installed, there have been zero drowning deaths at
lifeguard-protected beaches during operational hours; however, the hiccup is the County still
has many vacancies due to reoccurring challenges; Ocean Rescue has averaged 40 percent
vacancies in seasonal positions since the pandemic; and currently the County is at 51
vacancies of 118 positions, both full-time and part-time. He pointed out those are the
challenges the County is facing; the County does have partners; the Statute is pretty clear that
it does not require the County to pay for lifeguards; in fact, according to Article X, Section 1104,
of the Constitution, it states that the State owns what is defined as the mean, high-water lines,
which is actually where the deaths occur in the water; and by saying it is the County’s
responsibility, it is technically not true, constitutionally it is the State. He commented the cities
pay 26 percent of the County’s total cost for the seasonal towers, and the cities pay zero
percent for full-time towers; by averaging those and putting them together, and a person would
be completely incorrect; in total, when adding it up, the cities pay $145,280 of $2.67 million; in
other words, they pay 5.4 percent of the total; and the County pays 94.6 percent of the
responsibility. He stated the cities responsibility to provide lifeguards should mimic that of law
enforcement responsibilities; if there is a shooting or a fire in a park with a city, the local
municipality’s law enforcement is called; Commissioner Goodson aptly pointed out that the
cities have almost $2.5 million in combined, dedicated parking revenue; therefore, they should
provide lifeguard services within their city limits as the County should provide lifeguard services
does in unincorporated Brevard; and Commissioner Pritchett’s constituents should not be
paying into the General Fund for lifeguards through property taxes for beaches that are in
Districts 2, 3, 4, or 5. He asked what the solutions are now that the finances have been laid out;
the Board may think the first suggestion is to approve priorities one through three as outlined in
the 2023 Rescue Assessment; safety is of paramount priority to Brevard County; even though
the County does not charge for parking in its parks, it shows good faith; and the County needs
to come up with the additional funds to support its lifeguard services through 2022-2023. He
added he is sure everyone read the report, but for the people who did not have the benefit to
read it ahead of time, those priorities include upgrading two seasonal towers at the Indialantic
boardwalk at North Spessard Holland to full-time towers, relocating the two seasonal towers to
Spessard Holland and Juan Ponce Deleon Landing, and in good faith he suggests the County
cover the costs for those upgrades for the 2022-2023 Indialantic boardwalk even though it is
located in the Town of Indialantic; he asked what the additional costs are; he stated over the
cost of a year, and it will not be a full year, that additional cost that would be burdened would be
about $898,000; the funding source would be 2022-2023 re-allocation of funds from this year’s
