The Board of County Commissioners of Brevard County, Florida, met in special session on October 30, 1995, at 5:00 p.m. in the Government Center Board Room, Building C, 2725 St. Johns Street, Viera, Florida. Present were: Chairman Nancy Higgs, Commissioners Truman Scarborough, Randy O'Brien, Mark Cook, and Scott Ellis, County Manager Tom Jenkins, and County Attorney Scott Knox.

Chairman Higgs advised this meeting is continued discussion of the recommendations from October 24, 1995; the Board has a memorandum from staff regarding how to proceed with the Scrub Conservation Development Plan (SCDP); and the Board can decide if it wants to take comments, as she has two cards from the public.

Commissioner O'Brien advised the SCDP is still in draft form and not final because of the recent changes; conflicting numbers from Natural Resources and the information he has make it difficult to come to a decision of any kind; and recommended a workshop in three to four weeks to go over Commissioner Ellis' ideas, the number of notifications, what is said in the notification, and everything involved with the SCDP to come to some final decisions. He stated the workshop format is best for making decisions; and recommended no public meetings on the plan until the Board does that because to have public meetings when it is in a draft form and evolving, and changes may be created by the workshop, is ludicrous. He commented he feels like he is on a freight train ready for a collision and no one is putting up the red lights or saying slow down, stop, and re-think the whole thing. Commissioner O'Brien stated they are working half in the dark and half in the light; the public has a right to know what is in the dark half that the Board has not discussed yet; so he will make a motion on that if there is support.

Commissioner Cook stated the Board needs to discuss it since it has changed, and apparently the recommendation changed again with Mr. Peffer's latest memorandum; and the Board should allow people to address this again because it is not the same issue; so he will move to allow the two speakers.

Chairman Higgs stated if there are no objections, the two speakers can address the Board. She stated the first speaker will be Micah Savell, followed by Kim Zarillo.

Micah Savell, 1370 Sarno Road, Melbourne, stated he will not belabor anybody to great lengths; he agrees with Commissioner O'Brien's statement that it needs to go back and be reviewed and workshopped, and a plan drawn; and suggested before the final plan is done that the public be invited. He stated they appreciate the Board's patience in putting up with a lot of them over the last few months and years; and they would like to see a resolution to this issue, so they support tabling it and working it out.

Kim Zarillo, 760 Cajeput Circle, Melbourne Village, advised she agrees with Commissioner O'Brien's statement and would like to see the issue tabled and discussed at a workshop before a notification goes out. She stated the move to apply for CARL acquisition of scrub properties is another pending factor they need to wait and see what the response will be; so she wants to thank Commissioner O'Brien for speaking up. She stated if the Board is going to have a workshop or discuss this issue, 30 minutes is insufficient time.

Commissioner O'Brien recommended canceling the current schedule of public meetings and hearings on the SCDP to allow additional time to resolve, not only the problems of scheduling public hearings, but the logistics of the mail out of notices. He stated that is up in the air especially the number which has to be determined; and the workshop should start at 10:00 a.m. and continue for the entire day where a meeting is not scheduled after the workshop at 5:00 p.m., so the Board will have time to really discuss it thoroughly.

Motion by Commissioner O'Brien, seconded by Commissioner Scarborough, to cancel the current schedule of public meetings and hearings on the Scrub Conservation Development Plan, and schedule a workshop.

Commissioner Ellis recommended people get as many comments as possible in writing to everybody so the Board can be ready to address those; and it will still have issues come up at the workshop.

Commissioner Cook stated that is a good idea; and the Board needs to review its responsibility, if any, to private developers with their dealings with the federal government. He stated the Board asked the State for 90 million dollars; and beyond that it needs to find out what the consensus of the Board is, how much further it wants to go, and whether it wants to adopt a plan, modify it or continue. He stated the Board will need additional information to make that intelligent decision; so he supports the motion.

Commissioner Ellis inquired how soon would the workshop be scheduled; with Chairman Higgs responding Commissioner O'Brien mentioned three to four weeks. Commissioner O'Brien stated they are open on November 21, but need to make sure it is not followed by a night meeting; with County Manager Tom Jenkins responding it is. Chairman Higgs inquired if anything is scheduled for the night meeting; with Mr. Jenkins responding he does not know but it is highly probably something has been advertised. Chairman Higgs inquired if the Board would be interested in scheduling the workshop on November 21, 1995 and canceling the night meeting; with Commissioner Cook responding no, because people call from time to time and want to get on the Agenda, and he would hate to cancel the night meeting because there may be something they want to use it for. Chairman Higgs recommended Mr. Jenkins work on the schedule.

Chairman Higgs called for a vote on the motion. Motion carried and ordered unanimously.

Commissioner O'Brien recommended an Agenda for the workshop starting out with determining the number of parcels they are going to discuss. He stated Tami Townsend sent out some numbers and it is like comparing apples to oranges or onions to pickles; it starts out saying, "all parcels in the occupancy polygons, 26,000"; then nothing else refers to polygons except the last two numbers; and it is very confusing. He stated he talked to Mr. Peffer about it; and the Board can finally get the number and all talk the same language, whether it is parcels in polygons, parcels in core area, the two-acre rule and whether it would apply in the core or only out of the core area, only in map areas, what they want to eliminate, which map areas they do not want to discuss, etc., and have a good Agenda to keep the Board focused on specific issues as it goes through the day. He stated he wants to discuss the two-acre rule thoroughly so he is not confused any longer where the two acres are; and he is concerned with the rule not being a rule. Commissioner O'Brien stated the Board also needs to discuss the financial plan; and if it is going for CARL money, he would like to discuss what happens if they say no.

Commissioner Cook stated he concurs; the Board should go back and open the whole thing up for discussion and start from scratch to determine if the plan is what it wants to go with, if it wants to pursue money from the State and other options with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and maybe get answers from Fish and Wildlife because this is essentially being driven by a memo.

Commissioner Ellis stated there is more action that just the memo from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service which threatened the County's liability; from a County point of view, that is fluff; but one thing that is real is the individual liability. He stated U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has shut down various projects in the County and the Board has to address if the individuals are better off with the HCP or without it. He stated that is the key issue; threatening the County's liability is fluff because he asked and no other county has been penalized for private activity on private property; so the Board needs to concentrate on the individuals involved because they are affected.

Chairman Higgs inquired if the Board wants to use only staff as opposed to taking additional public comments; with Commissioner O'Brien responding he would resent not being able to comment if he were the public, so there should be room for public comment, but not have 18 people say the same thing for three hours.

Commissioner Ellis suggested limiting public comment to three minutes which would force people to be concise with their points. He stated he does not normally like to do that, but in a workshop the Board is trying to get things done, and if it had 25 long speeches, it would not have time to get anything done.

Commissioner O'Brien suggested the pro-scrub people select four representatives to speak for them and the property rights people pick four to speak for them; that would be eight people to present arguments; and although he likes open public debate, it would be redundancy and the Board would not be able to get its work done.

Commissioner Cook stated he is reluctant to put a time limit on it; if the Board gives itself all day, it would have people on both sides who are probably going to want to present information about the subject; it is a complicated issue; and he is reluctant to cut off debate because it will have all day and adequate time to let people talk.

County Manager Tom Jenkins advised the Committee is continuing to refine its product; and inquired when will it conclude and have a final product; with Chairman Higgs responding the Committee does not have a meeting scheduled at this time; so she does not think there are any further revisions from the Committee right now. Mr. Jenkins inquired if there is a final report available; with Chairman Higgs responding they have a draft; the Board has the recommendations for changes; so she does not anticipate any additional information from the Committee between now and when the Board has its workshop.

Commissioner O'Brien stated he would like to have a blackboard they can share and let Berni Talbert know they may be walking around the room and drawing on the blackboard and talking and discussing in open and free discussion. He stated she does not like to have them all talk at the same time, but in a workshop format sometimes that is how they get things accomplished; and if they have to wait to speak in turn, it is counterproductive.

Commissioner Ellis stated if someone is going to speak for ten to fifteen minutes, the Board should have something in writing beforehand because he does not want the workshop to be an ad infinitum process, in other words, everybody comes to the workshop with 15 minutes of comments, then staff goes back to answer the comments and the Board holds another workshop. He stated the Board had a workshop already; so they should get their comments in writing beforehand if possible; and what the Board needs are specific questions about U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the plan as written, etc., so it can get specific answers.

Commissioner Cook stated Commissioner Ellis hit the core of the issue; the Board has to decide what is best for the individual landowners; and he wants to make decisions at the workshop. He stated it is something that the Board needs public input on, but it has to be prepared to make decisions at that workshop. Commissioner Ellis stated that is why the public should get their questions and comments to the County beforehand.

Mr. Savell stated regarding the questions beforehand and responses and allowing the public to speak, when a question is asked, the answer is postponed or deferred for many minutes and sometimes to the end of the meeting or subsequently addressed in the form of a letter; a good example is the issue of two acres which he tried a number of different times to get clarification on; and they were not able to follow through with it because it was not answered at the time and still remains unanswered today. He stated what the public needs is to be able to ask questions and challenge the answer source, and come forward with their points which they can substantiate rather than being forced to write it and have someone answer a question that may not answer it. He stated they would like to have that opportunity at one time; Commissioner O'Brien said maybe they could even debate it; but what they need is the time, once the Board comes up with a plan, to review it and try to give good questions. Chairman Higgs stated regardless of what action the Board may take at the workshop, it would then move to the public hearings on the plan because it has to be adopted by ordinance, and there have to be public hearings to do that. Mr. Savell stated he understands that, but the same thing applies, there have already been four or five meetings on this issue; and if there had been enough time to adequately go back and forth and dialogue to get a lot of things answered, it would not have wasted as much of the Board's and their time.

Chairman Higgs inquired if the Board wants to limit discussion to three minutes a person and ask them to address the plan; with Commissioner O'Brien responding yes, and he would like to have a member of staff available to answer questions as they are asked; and if they do not have the answers, to present answers to questions in written form and send them to each Commissioner within 48 hours or two or three days maximum, so they can see what questions were not answered. He stated the last time they had 15 questions that were asked that they could not answer.

Commissioner Cook stated it is a good idea to present the questions before time, but he is concerned about limiting public input.

Motion by Commissioner Ellis, seconded by Commissioner O'Brien, to limit public comments to three minutes per person at the workshop on the scrub conservation development plan.

Commissioner Ellis stated the last time it got out of hand with ten minutes per person, and it went on for hours so the debate was lost at the Board level.

Chairman Higgs called for a vote on the motion. Motion carried and ordered; Commissioner Cook voted nay.

Upon motion and vote, the meeting adjourned at 5:26 p.m.

ATTEST:
						_____________________________
							NANCY N. HIGGS, CHAIRMAN
						BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
							BREVARD COUNTY, FLORIDA
___________________________
SANDY CRAWFORD, CLERK
SEAL