March 8, 2005

The Board of County Commissioners of Brevard County, Florida, met in regular session on March 8, 2005, at 9:03 a.m. in the Government Center Commission Room, Building C, 2725 Judge Fran Jamieson Way, Viera, Florida. Present were: Chairman Ron Pritchard, Commissioners Truman Scarborough, Helen Voltz, Susan Carlson, and Jackie Colon, Interim County Manager Peggy Busacca, and County Attorney Scott Knox.

The Invocation was given by Pastor Melvin Chapman, Parker Memorial Missionary Baptist Church.

Commissioner Sue Carlson led the assembly in the Pledge of Allegiance.

APPROVAL OF MINUTES

Motion by Commissioner Voltz, seconded by Commissioner Carlson, to approve the Minutes of October 26, 2004 Regular Meeting. Motion carried and ordered unanimously.

REPORT, RE: MALABAR ROAD IMPROVEMENTS

Interim County Manager Peggy Busacca advised staff has requested Item IV.A.3., Final Engineering Approval for Malabar Road Improvements, be removed from the Agenda to provide the City of Palm Bay additional time to comment on the item.

The Board, by consensus, withdrew Item IV.A.3. from the Agenda.

REPORT, RE: LANDSCAPE COMMITTEE APPOINTMENTS

Commissioner Voltz advised she appointed Dick Thompson to the Landscape Committee, but he lives outside of her District; and inquired if she can do that.

Chairman Pritchard stated when he read the Agenda item, it said “at-large” and did not say they must live within the District; that is what he understood the motion to be and the approval of the Board; so it would be his opinion that they can appoint anyone within the County and it does not have to be within the District. He inquired if the Board agrees it is an at-large appointee as long as he is not affiliated with the groups listed on the Agenda Report.

REPORT, RE: BREVARD SYMPHONY YOUTH ORCHESTRA ENSEMBLE

Commissioner Carlson welcomed the Brevard Symphony Youth Orchestra Ensemble who performed before the meeting today; and stated it is wonderful to start a meeting with music, it puts a special light on the cultural interests in Brevard County, and it brings it home to the viewers and the audience. She requested Laurie Waycaster, General Manager of Brevard Symphony Youth Orchestra, to say a few words and introduce the violinists.

Laurie Waycaster advised the Brevard Symphony Youth Orchestra has been around for 21 years; they have almost 200 students in their program and three performing orchestras representing 43 public schools, 10 private schools, and 8 home schools; and the students here today come from one of the home schools. She introduced Wendy Jessup, mother of Emily and Mark Jessup, and their private teacher Raymond Paige; stated music is a wonderful thing that enriches lives; and as March is youth in arts month, they are here to put a smile on all the faces. She encouraged everyone to come to any of their rehearsals or performances; thanked the Board for inviting them to the meeting; and noted she will be quiet to let the Board listen to the rest of the performance.

Commissioner Carlson thanked Ms. Waycaster for displaying the talent of the youth in Brevard County and Ms. Jessup for sharing her children.

REPORT, RE: DIRECTIONAL SIGNAGE

Commissioner Carlson advised Art Owens brought something to her attention regarding signage at County facilities; and she would like for him to explain the problems.

Art Owens presented documents to the Board, but not the clerk; stated he is a fly fishing guide and wildlife nature guide; and when he gets in the swamps, he does not get lost because nature provides great sign posts, but he dose get lost when he comes to Viera because there are no signs pointing to the Government Complex. He stated on I-95 there are only green signs with information pointing to the King Center and Brevard Zoo; on Wickham Road there are no signs; on Laker Andrew Drive there is one sign for the Justice Center; and there are no signs on Jamieson except for the courts and voter registration. He stated the only signs that are in existence are the little signs that once someone commits to turn into one of the drives to the School Board or County facility, then they see the small signs that tell them where things are. He stated they are so small and have so many things on them it gets confusing; and people have to stop and block traffic to find out where they are going. Mr. Owens proposed the Board set up an ad hoc committee to review the situation and come back to the Board with a proposal for some signs that are inexpensive.

Commissioner Carlson stated she does not know if there is an existing advisory board to look at signs or put something together and get staff to look at the issue.

Commissioner Scarborough stated the County had an argument with Florida Department of Transportation some time back; Department of Transportation said the Government Center did not qualify for a sign on I-95; some roads are not Department of Transportation roads; and it may be good to set up a committee, but it is important to get a good staff report about the different jurisdictions and different types of signage first. Commissioner Scarborough stated a good report may be important before having a committee because there are rules and restrictions; and recommended the Board instruct staff to proceed with the report, which would make more sense, because there may be things they can do independently and new action they may need to take with Department of Transportation, and the committee could be better directed as to where to go.

Commissioner Carlson stated she is not sure the Board needs a committee, but Mr. Owens suggested that and that is fine; staff needs to get an inventory of the signage that leads people to the Government Center, not necessarily off I-95 but all throughout the Viera community.

Commissioner Scarborough stated Mr. Owens did a beautiful job with his diagram of describing the needs; the Board can ask staff to take what he provided and work with him then come back with a report; and after that report, Mr. Owens can come back with a follow-up recommendation.

Motion by Commissioner Carlson, seconded by Commissioner Colon, to direct staff to work with Art Owens and provide a report to the Board on provision of signage directing people to the Government Center complex at Viera. Motion carried and ordered unanimously.

Commissioner Colon advised while discussing signs, as she was driving up to the Center, she saw a sign that is about to come off, from the Center pass Long Horn’s Restaurant; and she would appreciate it if staff would address it before it flies off and hits a car.

REPORT, RE: SAWGRASS LAND DEVELOPMENT COMPANY LAWSUIT

Commissioner Carlson advised the County received a court opinion on the Sawgrass Land Development Company v. Brevard County lawsuit regarding the eagles at Sawgrass South at Suntree; that came back in favor of the Sawgrass Land Development Company; and the Board has until Wednesday to appeal it. She stated she distributed some information from the residents; Mr. Rockwell, who has been observing the eagles since November has made a documentation of it; the Board can see there is activity there, but she does not know whether it fits the guise of evidence; and requested Mr. Knox review with the Board if there are actions it can take or what his perspective is.

County Attorney Scott Knox advised the opinion was a decision that reviewed the Board’s decision sitting as a quasi-judicial body; it examined the issue whether the Board had substantial competent evidence before it to make a decision that the eagle crucial habitat as defined in the Comprehensive Plan was impacted; and what the judge concluded was there was no evidence to support the Board’s action because the definition of crucial habitat that is in the Comprehensive Plan, which is what governs the Board’s decision, defines habitat in terms of survival of the species as opposed to survival of two individual birds living in the particular location. He stated there was nothing he can recall that indicated taking away four lots from the subdivision was going to impact the species of the eagles nationwide; that is where it came down to; and the reason it came down that way is because they said the County is stuck with its Comprehensive Plan because it has not adopted an ordinance that defines crucial habitat any further than that. Mr. Knox stated they have to look at what is in the Comprehensive Plan; since the County has a Comprehensive Plan that defines it so broadly, it basically cannot prove that four lots are going to impact the species; and as a result, he does not think there is much ground to appeal any further. He stated if the Board does appeal the decision, it would go to the Fifth District Court of Appeals that has a very narrow scope of view because it would be looking at another appellate body’s decision on the Board’s decision; and the only thing it is going to look at is whether or not the appellate body, which is the circuit court, completely applied the wrong law, which clearly it did not because it is doing it by the Comprehensive Plan, which is set forth in the record, and whether or not due process was afforded. He stated there was more than ample due process afforded to everybody in this case; it has gone on forever in terms of hearings; so he does not think there is any possibility of prevailing in that kind of appeal.

Commissioner Carlson stated so the evidence presented in terms of daily evidence of eagle activity is not going to be helpful based on the context Mr. Knox is talking about in terms of the species. She stated she is certain they could not provide that on any given circumstance, but she knows they have observations by staff and wants to make sure that is in the record; but she does not know if staff is here. She stated she has input from the Sawgrass Development folks; they will be abiding by what Fish and Wildlife Service permit requires, which is to preserve the four lots; so she assumes they will be seeing some movement on the item in the near future.

Chairman Pritchard stated he was the descending vote on the Board regarding this issue; it was a waste of taxpayers money when the Board pursued it; and it will be a further waste of taxpayers money to continue it. He stated the neighborhood has taken the position that the eagle is of critical status, and it is not; the eagle is being used as a surrogate to prevent the development; and it should not be used in that manner. He stated Mr. Rockwell’s observations are simply Mr. Rockwell’s observations; Natural Resources Management’s staff said the eagles that are there does not make it critical habitat; they fly in and fly out as they do everywhere else; the expert that was brought in said the same thing; and Fish and Wildlife Service said the same. He stated giving human characteristics to animals is called anthropomorphizing, calling them Ralph and Alice to try and humanize the situation makes it even more ridiculous; so he thinks personally if Mr. Rockwell would like to pursue this, let him use his money and not the taxpayers money.

Commissioner Colon inquired what is the next action, and will the Board be getting a report back; with Commissioner Carlson responding she believes it will be some sort of approval process. Interim Assistant County Manager Ed Washburn advised the next step will be to bring the plat back to the Board.

Commissioner Scarborough stated what Mr. Knox advised appears to be that the Board would have to define the eagles as the last two eagles in America; he doubts if that was the intention of the Comprehensive Plan when it was adopted; it can get to the point where they have a species at risk without being the last two; and inquired if the Board needs to address that
further; with Mr. Knox responding what the judge said was because the County has not adopted an eagle ordinance, which further amplifies what it wants to convey in the Comprehensive Plan, it is stuck with the definition in the Comprehensive Plan. Commissioner Scarborough stated if the Comprehensive Plan contemplates those are the only remaining individual eagles of that entire species, the Board would have a case; but it will have to prove there are no other eagles. Commissioner Voltz stated there are eagles in the development she lives in. Commissioner Scarborough stated his problem is if somehow the intention is that they have a definition that a species is at risk and it should be a concern as to development encroachment; and as such, maybe the definition in the Comprehensive Plan needs to be looked at in that context rather than the last remaining members of the species.

Commissioner Carlson stated that is the question she posed to Mr. Knox because in the opinion it says, “None of the citizens were able to testify that the property was habitat, which was crucial to the eagles or that development of the property would adversely affect the long-term survival of the species.” She stated she guesses it could be read either way, specifically talking to the eagle pair or specifically the entire species.

Mr. Knox stated what that comment relates back to is another statement the judge made, talking about the Comprehensive Plan definitions; and he said, “it is apparent, in order for the County Commission to conclude that a given parcel was crucial habitat, there must be evidence that the parcel was essential to insure long-term conservation and survival of the species of the animal.” He stated he was referring to the definition specifically in the Comprehensive Plan; he thinks what the judge was suggesting implicitly is either change the Comprehensive Plan definition or pass an ordinance that implements it and describes it in greater detail.

Commissioner Carlson stated the Board talked about an eagle ordinance at one time; she does not know where that went and maybe Ms. Busacca can bring back information on what they ended up deliberating on that and what the end result was. She stated if it just did not come back or if it died, she does not remember, but shoe knows they talked about it.

Commissioner Colon inquired if staff can put together an ordinance not only for this site but all the sites that are going on in Brevard County; and stated if the Board is to give direction of having an ordinance come back to the board, she would like to be able to make that motion.

Commissioner Carlson stated if staff has any information on that, perhaps they can bring it back under an agenda item with legislative intent.

Chairman Pritchard cautioned that the Board make sure it looks at the facts of the issue and not the emotion, and that it not create something that will give opportunity to use the animal as a surrogate to prevent something else from happening. He stated he is convinced that is what is going to happen.

Commissioner Scarborough stated Mr. Knox read general language in the Comprehensive Plan and nothing specific about the eagle problem; and inquired if that same issue would arise with any species; with Mr. Knox responding it would arise with any endangered species. Commissioner Scarborough stated his concern is if the board just deals with the eagle ordinance, it could find similar rulings coming down on any other endangered species, so the report should include comprehensive language as opposed to just the eagle issue. Commissioner Carlson stated that is fine, the Board can do the broad-brush approach, but it also needs to have Mr. Knox review the Comprehensive Plan with staff; they talked about crucial habitat, gone through that drill, if it has to be attached to crucial habitat, where does that leave the Board, etc.; and all the above needs to be exorcised and brought forward.

Chairman Pritchard stated the problem he has with addressing the issue is there are groups that have not prevailed in using animals as surrogates and now they are using habitats as surrogates; the bottom line is they are simply trying to find new and creative ways to say no; and he does not agree with that. He stated he always said it should be proper land use under Zoning and other applicable rules, but they should not try to find a surrogate as a way to san no to whatever the issue may be. He stated the hidden agenda is detrimental to the overall responsibility that the County has to the people who own property and the people who are also affected by the ownership of property; the Board cannot allow development to continue at four units per acre or higher; it needs to look at the Comprehensive Plan and figure out how many people it wants and where they are going to put them; but they cannot let that be controlled by a bug, bird, or whatever, and needs to look at the land use designations to figure our what is appropriate. Chairman Pritchard stated the mitigation they are paying on certain parcels is taking public usage, such as schools, to areas where they can afford to build rather than areas where they should be; the property was $3 million and the mitigation was $6 million, which cause the School Board to move ten miles away; and they should not have to do that. He stated a developer will come in, pay the money, and build a shopping center where they should have had a school.

REPORT, RE: PALM BAY ART FESTIVAL

Commissioner Colon invited everybody to the Palm Bay Art Festival on March 19 and 20, 2005; stated it is a wonderful event with live entertainment all day; and it brings out all the creativity from the community.

REPORT, RE: BRAC TRIP TO WASHINGTON

Chairman Pritchard stated Commissioner Voltz and he attended meetings in Washington sponsored by the Economic Development Commission on the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) issue; they met with Congressmen Feeney and Weldon, and Senator Nelson; they are fully onboard with the effort the Board and Economic Development Commission put forward to insure Patrick Air Force Base does not close; and it looks as if they have good positioning on the issue at this time, and will find out more as it gets closer. He stated they also met with the lobbyists the Board hired who are in tune with what is going on and have been actively involved in prior BRAC issues; so they are well plugged in. He noted Commissioner Voltz will talk about Thursday as he had to return early and was not at that meeting.

Commissioner Voltz advised on Thursday they had a three-hour briefing with the Pentagon and it was very positive for Patrick Air Force Base; they were shown a lot of information as to why it is important to have all the space shots going out of the east coast in Brevard County versus the west coast; they go polar and the shorts go east and west; and it was very positive. She stated they had a lot of good things to say and she was very pleased; and there was no negativism at all. She stated she knows that people say they are not going to close Patrick Air Force Base anyway, so why waste the time, but they never know; and it would be remiss on the Board’s part if it did not bother going up and letting them know that the community is involved and is concerned and wants to keep Patrick Air Force Base here. She stated it was a very good meeting with those in the Pentagon.

Commissioner Colon stated when she went to meet with them, the Pentagon was pretty tightlipped; the ones who did the most talking were from Brevard County; in regards to hearing any good news, the elected officials let them know they were very supportive of the Board; but that was the extent of it; and inquired if it was similar this year; with Commissioner Voltz responding no, there were military personnel there, including a three-star general; and they were all positive and talked about keeping Patrick Air Force Base open.

Commissioner Carlson stated Duwayne Lundgren from her office was there representing District 4; he is a 35-year retired Army Colonel, so she thought he would be a good representative for the Board; he enjoyed getting up there and dealing with those folks; and he understood the language they spoke. She stated the trip sounded positive even though some of the things are still in question. Chairman Pritchard stated Mr. Lundgren speaks the lingo and was quite at home with everyone they met; and he is a very qualified individual.

Chairman Pritchard stated yesterday they had representatives from the Governor’s Office who came and listened again to the group from Economic Development Commission and the government; Mr. Lundgren was also in attendance at that meeting; Susan Storey, Chairman of the Governor’s Advisory Council on BRAC, Dr. Pam Dana, Director of the Office of Tourism Trade and Economic Development, Admiral R. J. Nater, Wayne Nelms, and Pat Tucker who sat as a panel and listened to what they had to say; and he thought that was very positive. He stated they said they are on target and met with numerous officials; they have made frequent trips to Washington and met wit the Chief of Staff, Deputy Secretary of Defense, and various assistant secretaries; and what they said is the benefit Brevard County has is it is very military friendly. He stated the quality of life is great; there is the jointness of mission; people who come here tend to reenlist because they get such a positive outlook of Brevard County and its relationship with the military; and many of the military, after they retire, come back and live here, so there are a lot of positive aspects Brevard County has to offer and it is being recognized. He stated Florida is in front when it comes to being proactive regarding BRAC; and Brevard County is in front of Florida; so the Board should be commended for what it is doing.

Commissioner Colon stated Chairman Pritchard hit on something regarding Brevard County embracing the military; the Griffin Group does urban warfare training in Brevard County; and one thing they mentioned was that when a lot of military folks come to Brevard County, they feel welcome and that is not the atmosphere every where. She stated Brevard County makes them
feel at home; when they go to restaurants in their military uniform, folks get up and clap and thank them for their job; and she is proud of that and of the fact those men and women are sacrificing their lives for the citizens. She noted that is the least people can do, and she is glad to hear that.

REPORT, RE: FEMA REIMBURSEMENTS

Chairman Pritchard stated the issue of FEMA reimbursements was brought up to the Delegation; Brevard County is owed in excess of $30 million; in terms of the County, a lot of people are still waiting for their checks; and Senator Nelson and Congressmen Feeney and Weldon said they have been on FEMA’s tail for several weeks trying to get it to cut the checks. He stated he would like to know where the County is with Hurricanes Charley, Frances, and Jeanne in terms of whether it received all the money due or is till owed money, and what is the status of the reimbursement.

Assistant County Manager Stockton Whitten inquired if the Chairman wanted a short answer now; with Chairman Pritchard responding a short answer now and a memo to follow. Mr. Whitten stated the County is obligated to receive $10.7 million for all three storms; the total reimbursement request is in excess of $30 million; and of that $30 million, the County has received $10.7 million. Chairman Pritchard requested Mr. Whitten provide more information to the Board at the March 22, 2005 meeting.

Commissioner Carlson stated Mr. Whitten sent out a memo that defined how much was owed the County and how much it had gotten back, and it itemized those thing; and inquired if Mr. Whitten sent that out recently; with Mr. Whitten responding he sent it out last week or two weeks ago, but they are constantly updating the information so he can give the Board a new update as of perhaps last Friday.

Chairman Pritchard stated Senator Nelson and Representatives Feeney and Weldon seem to think FEMA will be exercising its right in the next couple of weeks and more of the money will be forthcoming; and he would like to keep up with it so in the event it is not as forthcoming as they would like, then perhaps the Board might authorize the Chair to send a letter to FEMA saying please sign the checks. He stated if the County does not get the money, it will have to borrow money and pay itself interest; so it will cost $30 in interest because FEMA has not signed the checks. Commissioner Carlson noted there is an item on the Agenda to that point.

REPORT, RE: MOSQUITO IMPOUNDMENTS

Chairman Pritchard stated he has been looking at mosquito impoundments in terms of who owns them and what it might cost to purchase them; the County is at the point where people who own mosquito impoundments may be looking at ways to develop them; and he does not think the Board wants that to happen. He stated he has an extensive report and packet of information from Mosquito Control Department Director Scott Linkenhoker and staff; and he does not know what the dollars might be to purchase them, but they are critical to the County. He stated with population growth more will be needed; he wants to ensure they do not end up developed and affect the purpose for them; so he wants the Board to consider using EEL’s dollars to purchase those important lands as conservation properties. He recommended Parks and Recreation Director Charles Nelson work with Scott Linkenhoker and the County Attorney to prepare a report for the EEL’s Management and Selection Committee and the Board.

Commissioner Scarborough stated it is an important issue and he shares the concerns, but has a number of questions; EEL’s money was by referendum; and the Board needs to get a full report on whether or not those monies can be applied in that way legally. He stated the County had real issues as to the viability of those areas if they changed; what it would mean for mosquitoes in the County; people should have a concern for what they are bringing up; but he would like to make sure they have all the bases covered; so the Board should get a comprehensive report before it takes any particular action.

Chairman Pritchard stated that is what he recommended because there is property on North Merritt Island on which the contract was not signed for 40 years; they ran into a sticky wicket on that; and he does not want that to happen again. He stated Brevard County is on the cusp of becoming Broward County or not becoming Broward County; and if the Board does not start taking action now, it will have serious consequences in the future.

Commissioner Carlson stated she would like to see staff bring back a report and have the Board vote on it going to the Selection Committee or not and finding out the legal aspects of it to make sure it is under the guise of what the people voted for and also the procedural side of things. She stated if they could bring back a report, she does not have a problem with it and shares the same concerns; but she wants to make sure they are doing people’s work and not overstepping it. Chairman Pritchard stated he does not think the Board is overstepping anything. Commissioner Carlson stated it does not hurt to bring the report back here and let the Board look at it first. Chairman Pritchard stated his concern is there are properties in his District that have opportunities to be developed on mosquito impoundment lands; he does not want to see that development and wants to see the impoundment land be utilized as it should be; and requested a motion to that regard.

Motion by Commissioner Carlson, seconded by Commissioner Voltz, to direct staff to provide a report on the possibility of purchasing mosquito impoundment lands with EEL funds. Motion carried and ordered unanimously.

PRESENTATION, RE: GOVERNOR’S POINTS OF LIGHT AWARDS

Chairman Pritchard stated this is the good part of the meeting; and requested the youngsters, families, principals, and everyone involved to come forward and stand at the podium. He stated Governor Bush requested the Board present the Points of Light Awards to the teens; and read a statement as follows: “More often than not we hear all the bad news about teens; and it is indeed a privilege this morning, on behalf of Governor Bush, to honor six outstanding and talented teens who received the Governor’s Point of Light Award for their project HOPE. In July 2004, the teens saw an article in Florida TODAY about the residents of West Wabasso, a small forgotten community of approximately 500 just over the Brevard/Indian River line. The majority of the community are African American senior citizens who labored in the citrus industry. Prior to the hurricanes, West Wabasso was a community of dirt roads, no fresh water, substandard living, and no hope. These teens identified ten families who were in need of rebuild or substantial repair of their homes. They received donations of architectural, electrical, septic, well, and carpentry services. They were working on the donation of trailers for use during the rebuild when Hurricanes Frances and Jeanne hit the community with significant damage. That did not deter the teens who organized a food, water, and clothing drive, visiting them regularly despite problems their own families had during the storms. Since the hurricanes, they have revised their plans to include rebuilding all the ten damaged homes, scheduled several fund raisers, and are working with a local architect Peter Crowell who donated his services along with several companies that will donate supplies and services for the rebuild to take place this summer. At Christmas they delivered nine truckloads of food and gifts to the Wabasso residents, and organized and worked on two different cleanup days to clear debris and moved people into their FEMA trailers. All of these remarkable teens are honor students at their schools. All are talented, hardworking athletes, and most also hold down jobs. They are truly an inspiration to all of us and we are humbled by their presence here today.” Chairman Pritchard requested the recipients raise their hands as he calls their names, and called Kelsey Stinnett, age 14, Indialantic, 8th grader at Holy Name of Jesus school; Sara Lorenzen, age 17, Satellite Beach, Senior at Melbourne Central Catholic High School, who was the originator of the project; Henry Lorenzen, age 16, Satellite Beach, Sophomore at Melbourne Central Catholic High School; Sara Kroger, age 18, Indian Harbour Beach, Senior at Melbourne Central Catholic High School; Jennifer Lynch, age 18, Satellite Beach, Senior at Melbourne Central Catholic High School; and Jonathon Rost, age 17, Satellite Beach, Senior at Melbourne Central Catholic High School. He noted also in attendance are Janet McCauley, Principal of Holy Name of Jesus School, and Sue Rowe and Kathy Gatchell, Principals at Melbourne Central Catholic High School. He stated each teen will receive a certificate and letter from the Governor and will be honored at a reception at the Capitol in the Spring hosted by the Governor and Mrs. Bush; and congratulated each recipient. Chairman Pritchard read the letter sent to the teens from Governor Bush as follows: “Congratulations to Project HOPE in being named the Hurricane Hero Points of Light Award recipient. During the months of March to May 2005, each Point of Light recipient also will be awarded the Hurricane Hero Distinction for exemplary work in hurricane relief. There are many people and organizations in our society that give of time and talents, but some are shining examples for all of us. Thank you and to all that have been involved in being one of the special organizations. The Governor’s Points of Light Award, administered by Volunteer Florida Foundation and sponsored by Royal Caribbean International and Celebrity Cruise Lines, is awarded weekly to a Florida resident or organization demonstrating exemplary service to the community. Nominations are reviewed by a panel of judges comprised of leaders in the areas of volunteerism and community service. The volunteer time you have given to Florida neighbors in this time of great need, and especially to your community, has not only enhanced the lives of many and helped them on the road to recovery, but has set a fine example of the important contributions that may be made by each and every citizen of our State. In addition to receiving the award certificates, I hope that you will be able to join me next fall at the annual Points of Light Award reception at my home. Congratulations and thank you again for your dedication and service to our citizens, our communities, and our State. Sincerely Jeb Bush, Governor, State of Florida.” Chairman Pritchard requested Sara Lorenzen give the Board an overview of what they did.

Sara Lorenzen advised they rebuilt homes in Wabasso; and during their Christmas break, they brought a bunch of gifts for the residents for Christmas and Kelsey Stinnett’s dad and Jonathon Rost dressed up as Santas. She stated the looks on their faces when they received the gifts were the biggest rewards they could have gotten, bigger than the Points of Light award. She stated they helped to rebuild at least 11 homes and hopefully it will not be a one-year thing and they can get somebody to help them out and make it an ongoing project. She stated they met with Anselmo Baldonado who does community redevelopment; and he is going to help them get in touch with the banks there and try to rebuild more than just the ten houses they set aside; they hope by the end of summer to have three of their ten houses rebuilt, especially for one man who is 87 years old and has been living in his car for five or so years. She stated it is heartbreaking to go there and see that the residents have nothing and they have everything.

A representative of the School stated as if the young people are not amazing enough, the day they delivered the gifts, they had identified families from the Health Department that were all homeowners and were on the Health Department’s list; and during the process, two families with little ones came out of the shacks they live. She stated after finishing delivery of the gifts and food they had for the families they identified that Holy Name Extreme Cheerleading and St. Katherine Greek Orthodox Church had so graciously donated, they pooled their resources and went to Wal-Mart, used what money they had on them, and went back and provided food, clothing, and toys for the two families they had identified during the process. She stated they are really an inspiration to all adults around them; and it is amazing to be associated with them.

Commissioner Voltz inquired if someone wanted to send money to the project, where would they send it; with Ms. Lorenzen responding they have an account at Wachovia Bank that the Pastor of Wabasso set up for them; and it would be to West Wabasso Progressive Civic League because it is a registered not-for-profit organization, and Project HOPE is not.

Commissioner Colon stated what the teens have done and are doing is remarkable because we are our brother’s keeper, but sometimes people tend to forget that; and they are definitely a great inspiration to our community. She stated she hopes whoever is watching realize they can make a difference; and thanked the teens for their outstanding project.

REPORT, RE: HOUSING AUTHORITY AND PILT

Chairman Pritchard stated apparently Berman Hopkins that audits the Housing Authority annually assumed each year that the Authority listed payment in lieu of taxes (PILT) as an expenditure; the critical question therefore, is why was this year the first year that Berman Hopkins realized the Authority was not submitting the PILT payment as required by HUD and kept back the funds, evidenced by the fact that it has one million dollars as net liquid cash after expenses. Chairman Pritchard stated he is not sure the Board is hearing the factual information coming from the Housing Authority; it is unknown why it kept the PILT money and did not forward it to the County; and it is his understanding that Michael Davis, the disclosure attorney, has been retained by the County to review all documents and prepare a new co-op agreement. He stated he personally thinks the Housing Authority should pay Mr. Davis’ fee with the $568,574 that it owes the County; it may be a violation of County, State, and federal laws; since there is new information coming to light that suggests it could be a serious issue with the PILT and Housing Authority, he would like to direct Mr. Knox to conduct an immediate investigation by the appropriate authority into the Authority’s business practices, and that it include immediate payment of the $568,574 that is owed to the County.

County Attorney Scott Knox advised they met with Mr. Davis about ten days ago, and his charge is to do that kind of investigation and find out whether or not there is any kind of violation of federal and State laws; so he is working on that. Chairman Pritchard inquired when can the Board expect a report; with Mr. Knox responding he will call Mr. Davis today and find out.

Chairman Pritchard stated this has gone on far too long; he asked for information repeatedly and finally got it at the 11th hour; and last week they tabled a zoning request because information they said was easily produced and could have been delivered by Thursday had still not been received by Gay Williams. He stated he does not like playing games; when he asks for information, he expects to get it; and if he does not get what he is looking for, they are not going to get what they want; and that is the way he plays.

Commissioner Scarborough stated each Commissioner is getting different information; in one meeting in his office, he was shown a form and on it a line item to be filled in for the amounts they received; and they call it Pilot and the County calls it PILT, but it is one and the same. He stated he would like to see that federal form for the last several years because it seems strange that they are filling in a form to receive federal funds for a line item that they get money for. He stated he shares the Chairman’s concerns and is glad he brought it up because it is almost like they get hit with those things in little bits and pieces; he does not know if Mr. Knox and Mr. Lusk are sharing information; but there were some things that seemed strange to him.

Chairman Pritchard stated that form had about $60,000 as a line item for PILT; it is there but the County did not get it; it is given a story that it is supposed to bill the Authority; but the County does not know how much to bill it until it tells the County what its revenue is because PILT is based on revenue; so they are playing a game and he does not want to play any more.

Commissioner Scarborough stated the other concern is in South Brevard, the restructuring that is occurring is rendering the poorest of the poor without housing by their rules and theories; in Chicago, 90,000 people have been rendered homeless through a similar type of rules; and it is moving from the poorest of the poor to affordable housing. He stated through the different classifications they can move from one type of entity to another type of entity; and many times they assume just because something exists as quasi-governmental, a 501(c)(3), or some eleemosynary-type institution, that everything is copacetic; but they do exist for their own motivations; and sometimes they are not fulfilling the public need. He stated there are many questions to ask.

Chairman Pritchard expressed concern about contributing money to an organization and finding out 90% stays in the organization; and stated when he gives something, he finds a family, gives directly to them, and cuts out the middleman because he does not need the administrative overhead. He stated the people need the money, not the people who form the organization so that they are employed; and he has a problem with “charities” that are more in the business of sustaining themselves than they are in producing the product that is the reason they exist.

RESOLUTION, RE: PROCLAIMING IRISH-AMERICAN HERITAGE MONTH

Chairman Pritchard read aloud a Resolution proclaiming March 2005 as Irish-American Heritage Month in Brevard County.

Motion by Commissioner Voltz, seconded by Commissioner Scarborough, to adopt Resolution proclaiming March 2005 as Irish-American Heritage Month in Brevard County. Motion carried and ordered unanimously.

Chairman Pritchard presented the Resolution to Fred Galey, who stated he is present on behalf of Ed Kelly; they have a parade and John Barry Day event planned; and it is his honor to accept the Resolution, as he found an Irish Lass in Miami and has Irish heritage himself as his great grandmother came over from Ireland, so there is Irish on both sides.

RESOLUTION, RE: PROCLAIMING FAMILY BOATING DAY

Chairman Pritchard read aloud a resolution proclaiming March 12, 2005 as Family Boating Day.

Motion by Commissioner Voltz, seconded by Commissioner Carlson, to adopt Resolution proclaiming March 12, 2005 as Family Boating Day, and encouraging all Brevard citizens to participate in the rally that will be held north of SR 528 along the Banana River. Motion carried and ordered unanimously.

Chairman Pritchard presented the Resolution to Aaron Gobraugh, representing Citizens for Florida Waterways.

Aaron Gobraugh stated he is glad to hear that it is Irish-American Heritage Month; he spent 25 years in Chicago where they dyed the river green on March 17; and he would come up and dye Chairman Pritchard’s pool, but unfortunately, he and the Chairman will be in Tallahassee that day attending the Governor’s Cabinet hearing on Whitley Bay public access issue. He stated the Board may not know it, but the item is on the Cabinet’s Aides meeting tomorrow; so he will leave here and go to Tallahassee at Representative Allen’s request to hear what is said about Whitley Bay as well. He stated they appreciate the Board’s support on the critical issue of public access and on behalf of family boaters throughout Florida, he is honored to accept the Resolution.

PUBLIC COMMENT, RE: INVISIBLE FENCES

Gary Guido advised he was on a committee for Animal Control last year but unfortunately after eight months of study and work, when it came to the final meeting, he was in the hospital and was not able to attend. He stated over the last two weeks, he is sure Commissioners received letters and pictures from him; his wife on Friday was walking through the development past a home where a dog was contained by an invisible fence in the front yard; and she did not realize it and did not notice the dog until she and her companion were almost on top of it. He stated the dog is a very large dog; it charged down the driveway barking; his wife went out on the street and her companion went the other way; it was about 7:30 a.m. when people are leaving for work or taking children to school; and it was by the grace of the Lord that his wife was not hit by a vehicle. He stated the animal did not come out into the road, but his wife was very shaken by the experience; he was away for the day, but when he came home she relayed the story to him; and he called Animal Control and spoke to Craig Engelson who related there is nothing wrong with the system and it is legal in Brevard County. Mr. Guido stated he was not at the Board meeting on December 14, 2004, but watched it on television when the Board took up the subject of invisible fences; a friend taped the meeting; he has reviewed it several times; his recollection is the Board spoke about the particular problem with invisible fences and unanimously said they should not be allowed; but there seems to be some kind of a problem. He stated Mr. Engelson told him the Board has to change the Code before he can stop people from using those systems in front of their homes; personally he finds it ludicrous; and the Animal Code talks about responsibility with animals and how to keep them, but nowhere does it say anything about invisible fences. He stated he gave the Board a copy of a letter that was put in the paper by Joe Ward in February 2001 that explained why invisible fences were not in compliance; and his feeling is the Board should be doing something. He stated last Sunday’s paper had extensive articles about animals attacking people all over Florida; and requested the Board do something about it. He stated there are three invisible fences in his development that went up in front yards within the last two weeks; and he sent pictures to the Commissioners’ offices.

Commissioner Carlson stated the Board did deliberate extensively on the issue of invisible fences; staff did a very well done investigation into the use of invisible fences; she did not like the idea of using them and does not recall what the action of the Board was; but she thought the Board agreed it would limit the use to people who were at home and had oversight.

Commissioner Scarborough suggested the item be put back on the agenda for a report from staff.

Commissioner Voltz stated the last time it came up was one of her first meetings; and the Board turned it down and said no invisible fences whatsoever. Commissioner Carlson stated it was discussed before Commissioner Voltz was on the Board; with Commissioner Voltz responding it was also discussed at one of her first meetings. Commissioner Carlson stated that was a long time ago; with Commissioner Voltz responding no, it was in December 2004. Mr. Guido stated the Board met on December 14, 2004; he has watched the tape 20 times; Commissioner Colon was not there at the time when the vote was taken; but four Commissioners were there.

Chairman Pritchard stated the Board said the fence would be a secondary and not the primary fence. Commissioner Carlson stated the circumstance Mr. Guido brought up is why she spoke against it before; that is a concern; but if the Board did not take action, that is why the ordinance did not come back with any changes; so it needs to have staff review it and bring it back. Commissioner Scarborough suggested a report be brought to the Board to take action as there are concerns about using it as a primary fence; and if it is, the Board needs to take action.

Mr. Guido stated the dog that came after his wife is the dog that bit someone a few months earlier; Animal Control came to his house Friday and found out the dog is a biter and could not believe it was outside; and it was there this morning when he left to come to the meeting.

Commissioner Carlson recommended the Board direct staff to go out and find out the status of that dog.

Motion by Commissioner Carlson, seconded by Commissioner Scarborough, to direct staff to return with a report on the use of invisible fences. Motion carried and ordered unanimously.

PUBLIC COMMENTS, RE: PORT ST. JOHN DEPENDENT SPECIAL DISTRICT
BOARD APPOINTMENTS

Maureen Rupe of Port St. John stated in February the Board voted to appoint the members of the Port St. John Dependent Special District Board, and directed staff to draw up an ordinance; on February 28, 2005, the ordinance went to the LPA; and she assumed that is an administrative process as it did not make sense to her why an appointment process, which is a procedural issue, would go through the LPA when it had nothing to do with land use issues. She stated the LPA made three motions at that meeting and recommended the Board deny the ordinance and abolish the board; and after much debate on abolishing the North Merritt Island Board also, the motion was to look at all special district boards for their effectiveness. She stated the arguments made for abolishment of the Port St. John Board were incorrect and misleading; and while she understands the LPA is advisory only, she strongly objects to misinformation given that influenced the entire board except Melissa Hoaglund and Natalie Morrison. Ms. Rupe stated yesterday she learned that the same ordinance is now to be sent to the Building and Construction Advisory Board for review; so there are now two boards reviewing an appointment process that should have gone through as informational purposes only. She stated if the Board allows an advisory board to recommend disbanding another advisory board, which sits in the same capacity, it will have a power struggle; and it may open it up to other agendas. She stated she would have brought it up at the March 22 meeting, but she is leaving the country tomorrow and will not be back for months, so she came to comment today. She stated she wants to know why the ordinance went before not only the LPA but the Building and Construction Board as well.

Commissioner Scarborough stated he was sent something from staff that the Board wanted things to go to the Building and Construction Board within its purview; and how boards are structured should be the purview of this Board unless it specifically asks for input from other boards. Commissioner Scarborough stated there were questions of if other boards dissolved and the authority by default moved back to the P&Z Board; and there were even some questions whether there were conflicting agendas there, so he will make a motion that unless otherwise directed, the structure of boards and appointments thereto will be within the purview of the Board of County Commissioners.

Motion by Commissioner Scarborough, seconded by Commissioner Voltz, to direct that unless otherwise directed, structure of boards and committees and appointments to those will be under the purview of the Board of County Commissioners.

Commissioner Carlson stated if there is a question on staff’s part, they need to come back to the Board and ask the question so folks do not come in and say it is ludicrous because it sounds ludicrous having the LPA review the reason behind having the other two boards. Commissioner Scarborough stated there is a North Merritt Island agenda being discussed in reference to the Port St. John agenda. Chairman Pritchard stated he is aware of it.

Commissioner Colon stated she is also concerned because there is supposed to be counsel at those meetings; and inquired why counsel did not ask what territory they were going into. She stated counsel is there to protect the LPA; and when she was told about it, she could not believe it was happening.

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

PUBLIC COMMENTS, RE: BEACH RENOURISHMENT FUNDING

Attorney Mason Williams advised he represents some Mid Reach property owners; this issue involves the mid reach beach renourishment project; they have a request concerning the 5th cent TDC issue that is coming before the Board on March 22, 2005; and the concern of his clients is the 5th cent is not going to be enough to fund the renourishment requested by staff to be permitted and not enough to fund future renourishment projects. He stated they want the Board to look at funding sources in addition to the 5th cent at the March 22 meeting; the Board authorized staff to work on permits for the 100,000 cubic yards of sand for the toe of the dune, which is great; it is about a $2.7 million project; part of that is authorizing permits for stockpiling sand and extending two weeks into the turtle nesting season; and their concern is that if those extensions are not granted, then the $2.7 million dune toe project will turn into a $3.5 or $3.7 million project because it would have to be a truck haul; and the 5th cent will not cover the additional amount. Mr. Williams stated the 5th cent will not cover future shore protection projects; so they would like to ask the Board, at its budget workshop on March 20, to ask staff to address the 5th cent issue and additional funding sources the Board can look at to do what it wants to do, which is provide as much protection as it can. He noted it could have staff present it at the budget workshop and as an agenda item on March 22, 2005.

Commissioner Colon stated she has a concern because the Board met with a group that comes to the meetings; and that is the Save Our Shore (SOS) group. Mr. Williams stated that is not who he represents. Commissioner Colon stated that is her point; hundreds of folks have come to the Board; and inquired if he has gotten with them because the Board is not going to do special little projects, so she needs one voice from that area, unless Mr. Williams feels he has spoken to those folks and is at odds in regards to the mechanism. She stated there is a huge history of how they are getting here; she cannot be dealing with so many different folks; and she would appreciate it if they would meet with her in her office and with Natural Resources Management Director Ernie Brown and the folks from SOS so that they are all on the same page. She stated they have a lot to discuss during the budget process; she does not want to add that on right now because they have to get their facts together and the mechanism of how to do it; and she does not want to throw it to the Board without meeting with Assistant County Manager Stockton Whitten to try to figure things out before they get there. She stated she has some concerns about having too many folks; and she would welcome Mr. Williams to meet with her as they want the same thing, but she does not want to be working different issues at the same time. Mr. Williams stated it is fine with him; he talked to Bill Jergens and they are coordinated, but one group that is different from the SOS hired them to look into it because of their extensive knowledge of the area. Commissioner Colon stated one of the things that also concerns her, with all due respect to Mr. Williams, because it could be any attorney before the Board right now and she would be saying the same thing, is that there was a fear factor that was brought to that area where they feel they have to hire an attorney in order to do that; it concerns her that they should have to spend money to have someone represent them when it is her job to make sure it goes forward unless Mr. Williams is doing it pro bono; and she wants to make sure they are clear on that and they realize that. She stated they have the right to be scared because it is their homes; it is something that is going to affect them, so she can understand why they would do that; but she wants to be able to share with them in regards to her concerns that other folks are not out there getting all kinds of attorneys and panicking. She stated they have been working really closely with the community; and she would like to sit down with all of them and try to figure out something.

Mr. Williams stated there is nothing adversarial about his being hired; their role was during the whole beaches litigation they did with the Corps of Engineers including working closely with Virginia Barker and now Ernie Brown; they coordinated a lot of their political efforts on the State and National levels; and they could coordinate with the County and supplement and enhance the County’s efforts. He stated the people asked them to get involved in the process; staff welcomes their involvement; they are here to help as much as they can; and his only reason for mentioning it today is because his clients want there to be some recognition and discussion on March 22nd that the 5th cent is not going to be enough to do everything. He stated he knows the County is tapped out; and inquired where will additional money come from, and will it be a special taxing district for just the mid reach or some other sources; he does not know what sources there are out there; but they would like those to be explored.

Commissioner Carlson stated she does not have a question for Mr. Williams, but he does bring up a good issue; she agrees with Commissioner Colon that they all need to be singing off the same sheet of music; they all have tried very hard to make sure they get sand back there; and all the different avenues they have brings to light the issue of strategic planning. Commissioner Carlson stated she noticed at budget workshops the Board sort of allowed any conversation on strategic planning to slip through the crack; this has everything to do with long-term strategic planning; and they need to make sure staff is aware of that. She stated when the next budget workshop comes up, they need to have a full-blown conversation on that; they are dealing with the jail issue, which was on the top of the list last year and the year before; and they need to deal with the much bigger issue of beach renourishment and how they are going to do it long-term, which is a huge issue for the community.

Commissioner Colon stated she wants to make sure it does not come back on March 22; they have to make sure they give staff enough time; just because someone comes before the Board does not mean it gets done like that; it does not work that way; and that is why she wants to make sure the Board gives staff and her office enough time to make sure the information is being filtered.

Commissioner Scarborough stated he does not have a problem getting a staff memo back on funding methodologies; the 5th cent frees up some of the 3rd cent that could be applied to beach renourishment; and he would caution Mr. Williams if he wants to have discussion on other funding as a condition precedent to the 5th cent, it may not be to the favor of his clients as some of those things may become quite complex. He stated how to structure an MSBU, who benefits and to what extent, where the district should be, and methodologies used to find consenting property owners are complex issues; and while he thinks it is good to see that picture, they may not have all the answers. He stated if they want to advance the 5th cent discussion, those are questions that need answers. Mr. Williams stated it is complex; Commissioner Carlson mentioned strategic planning; and they would like some consideration of the strategic aspects. Commissioner Scarborough noted that would be important.

PUBLIC COMMENTS, RE: STATUS OF BEACH RENOURISHMENT PROJECT

Allen Potter, representing the City of Satellite Beach, stated the Board has answered a few of his questions; he came to ask what the status of the beach renourishment projects are that were discussed at the last Board meeting; and he gathered from the conversation on the 100,000 cubic yards of sand that it will be coming up at the next meeting.

Natural Resources Management Director Ernie Brown advised on February 28, 2005, staff submitted a modification for permits relative to the Mid Reach restoration project, which included an additional 100,000 cubic yards of beach toe berm fill; and in order to accomplish that, they needed to ask for an extension of two weeks for the South Reach work and one week for the Mid Reach into the turtle nesting season to accomplish 100 to 150,000 stockpile of sand. He stated the application was submitted on February 28; and once they receive word on its disposition and conclusion, they will begin the preparation process for submittal for the full renourishment projects that the Board directed staff to do.

Mr. Potter stated on behalf of the City, he wants to thank the Board for the help the City received so far with the sand; and staff was very helpful.

PUBLIC COMMENTS, RE: CITIZEN INPUT

Evelyn Morrison of Melbourne stated she is glad to have witnessed the discussion regarding the LPA; she is here as a private citizen to say thank you for the opportunity to enact her citizenship in Brevard County by being on the Brevard County Commission on the Status of Women; and they have an activity coming up on March 24, 2005 at the Imperial at 6:00 p.m. She invited the entire public to come and enjoy their celebration of women; and wished all female Commissioners happy women’s history month. She thanked the Board for the discussion regarding the Planning and Zoning Board; stated she was a part of that, but speaks as a citizen because her position is always that the Board needs citizen input in whatever capacity, level, or shape that it comes in. She stated one board should not be able to say who exists and who does not; they were faced with that dilemma; it is kismet because she was coming here to get her date planner that she left under the seat at last night’s meeting; and she realized it was County Commission meeting day and sat in to see what the issues were. She stated she interprets that they are only there to say yes or no on the appointment process in lieu of election; and she has no history of that board, but at the same time, she knows that if the Port St. John people want to represent themselves on the board, they have every right to. She stated like many boards, a lot of members are so busy with other things they do not always participate like they should; but that is no reason to decide whether or not they exist; she did consult counsel on the issue; he said what is before them is to agree or not on the appointment for the County Commission process; and if they wanted to make a recommendation for something else, they could do that too. Ms. Morrison stated being new on the board she thought they were exercising their duties, but at the same time they have to be sensitive about personal agendas because when it comes to personal agendas, their civic duties can get very cloudy; so it is important that people who want to participate in the process of representing and being government, in whatever form it takes, put their personal agendas on the table or leave them outside of their civic duties. She stated she has had an excellent experience so far in Brevard County dealing with the participation process and looks forward to continuing the service. She thanked the Board for its support; and stated she looks forward to representing District 5, but more importantly to be able to participate in the citizen process. She stated she was glad she was here to have this input; it has been exciting seeing the progress in Brevard County; and she believes managed development is very important. She stated the Board does not have everybody’s agenda so it does not know who is working on what; what comes before it is a fair representation of what is happening in Brevard County, who wants to do it, and what the citizens say about it; and it is the most beautiful process that a citizen can participate in.

Chairman Pritchard thanked Ms. Morrison for her input.

REPORT, RE: AGENDA ITEMS

Chairman Pritchard advised Item IV.A.3 was withdrawn and will be rescheduled March 22, 2005; Items IV.B.1 and IV.B.2. were pulled by the public; Item IV.D.4, VII.E.5, and VII.E.7 were deleted; and Item VII.E.1 has a time certain of 1:00 p.m.

Commissioner Voltz stated she will vote no on Items IV.A.4, IV.A.5, and IV.B.1. Chairman Pritchard advised IV.B.1 was pulled by the public.

FINAL PLAT APPROVAL, RE: COLFAX LANDING, PHASE 1

Motion by Commissioner Voltz, seconded by Commissioner Scarborough, to grant final plat approval for Colfax Landing, Phase 1, subject to minor changes if necessary, receipt of all documents required for recording, and developer responsible for obtaining applicable jurisdictional permits. Motion carried and ordered unanimously.

FINAL ENGINEERING AND PRELIMINARY PLAT APPROVALS, RE: CAPRON RIDGE,
PHASE 6 (ST. PATRICK’S PUD)

Motion by Commissioner Voltz, seconded by Commissioner Scarborough, to grant final engineering and preliminary plat approvals for Capron Ridge, Phase 6 (St. Patrick’s PUD), subject to minor engineering changes as applicable, and developer responsible for obtaining necessary jurisdictional permits. Motion carried and ordered unanimously.

FINAL ENGINEERING APPROVAL, RE: MALABAR ROAD IMPROVEMENTS

The item was withdrawn earlier in the meeting.

RESOLUTION, RE: REVISING MAXIMUM TOWING RATES

Motion by Commissioner Voltz, seconded by Commissioner Scarborough, to adopt Resolution revising maximum towing rates to provide for an annual rate increase of 3% or the published Consumer Price Index, whichever is lower. Motion carried and ordered; Commissioner Voltz voted nay.

RESOLUTION, RE: AMENDING FEES FOR LICENSING REGULATION AND
ENFORCEMENT

Motion by Commissioner Voltz, seconded by Commissioner Scarborough, to adopt Resolution setting forth amendments to the schedule of fees for Licensing Regulation and Enforcement Section; amending prior fees for contractors and special meetings; adopting a schedule of fees for the registering of State certified contractors and affidavits; and providing for collection of fees. Motion carried and ordered; Commissioner Voltz voted nay.

RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING AGREEMENT WITH FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF
TRANSPORTATION, RE: MAINTENANCE OF ROADSIDE SHOULDERS AND
MEDIANS ON SR 520 AND PARK AND RIDE FACILITY ON SR 518

Motion by Commissioner Voltz, seconded by Commissioner Scarborough, to adopt Resolution authorizing Interim County Manager or designee to enter into a Highway Maintenance Memorandum of Agreement with Florida Department of Transportation to maintain the roadside shoulders and medians on SR 520 and the Park and Ride Facility on SR 518. Motion carried and ordered unanimously.

UNPAVED ROAD AGREEMENT WITH RODNEY AARON, RE: MULBERRY LANE,
EXTENSION C

Motion by Commissioner Voltz, seconded by Commissioner Scarborough, to execute Unpaved Road Agreement with Rodney Aaron for construction of a road in existing County right-of-way known as Mulberry Lane, Extension C, under the Unpaved Road Code of Ordinances, Section 62-102. Motion carried and ordered unanimously.

UNPAVED ROAD AGREEMENT WITH R. PARKER RUSHNELL, RE: REYNOLDS ROAD

Motion by Commissioner Voltz, seconded by Commissioner Scarborough, to execute Unpaved Road Agreement with R. Parker Rushnell for construction of a road in existing County right-of-way known as Reynolds Road under the Unpaved Road Code of Ordinances, Section 62-102. Motion carried and ordered unanimously.

CONTRACT WITH GUNNSTRUCTION, INC. AND SUNDANCE HILL, LLC, RE:
IMPROVEMENTS TO MALABAR LAKES WEST SUBDIVISION, PHASE 2

Motion by Commissioner Voltz, seconded by Commissioner Scarborough, to execute Contract with Gunnstruction, Inc. and Sundance Hill, LLC, guaranteeing improvements in Malabar Lakes West Subdivision, Phase 2. Motion carried and ordered unanimously.

APPROVAL, RE: FULL-TIME POSITIONS FOR LICENSING REGULATION AND
ENFORCEMENT PROGRAM

Motion by Commissioner Voltz, seconded by Commissioner Scarborough, to approve three new permanent full-time positions for Licensing Regulation and Enforcement Program for two certification specialists and one field investigator. Motion carried and ordered unanimously.

REQUEST FROM PETER ABATE, RE: EASEMENT WAIVER FROM SECTION 62-102

Motion by Commissioner Voltz, seconded by Commissioner Scarborough, to approve request from Peter Abate to waive the maximum two-lot requirement in Section 62-102 to allow a third
lot to utilize the same easement for an additional building permit off Margo Lane. Motion carried and ordered unanimously.

WAIVER OF METHOD OF CALCULATION FOR PARKING SPACE REQUIREMENTS
FOR RESTAURANTS, RE: MIMI’S CAFÉ

Motion by Commissioner Voltz, seconded by Commissioner Scarborough, to approve the appeal of Kevin Connell, Mimi’s Café, for a waiver to the method of calculation of required parking spaces for restaurants pursuant to Section 62-3206(d)(2)(bb), to allow the number of parking spaces to be based on the number of seats instead of total square footage of the building. Motion carried and ordered unanimously.

RESOLUTION, RE: INSTALLATION OF NO PARKING ON STREETS BETWEEN
CERTAIN HOURS IN HARBOR POINT SUBDIVISION

Motion by Commissioner Voltz, seconded by Commissioner Scarborough, to adopt Resolution authorizing installation of no parking on streets between 12:00 midnight and 7:00 a.m. at the entrances into Harbor Point Subdivision. Motion carried and ordered unanimously.

INTERLOCAL AGREEMENT WITH FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION,
CITIES, TOWNS, AND CANAVERAL PORT AUTHORITY, RE: PARTICIPATION IN
MPO TRANSPORTATION PLANNING PROCESS

Motion by Commissioner Voltz, seconded by Commissioner Scarborough, to execute Interlocal Agreement with Florida Department of Transportation, Cities of Cocoa, Cocoa Beach, Indian Harbour Beach, Melbourne, Palm Bay, Rockledge, Satellite Beach, Titusville, and West Melbourne, Towns of Indialantic and Melbourne Beach, and Canaveral Port Authority for participation in the MPO transportation planning process. Motion carried and ordered unanimously.

AUTHORIZE PURCHASE FROM STATE CONTRACT, RE: TRUCK-MOUNTED
SEWER CLEANERS

Motion by Commissioner Voltz, seconded by Commissioner Scarborough, to authorize the purchase of two truck-mounted sewer cleaners from State Contract #PO384 to perform routine maintenance and emergency repairs, including clearing blocked sewer lines, cleaning sewer lines as part of televised inspections, setting dewatering wellpoints, and removing sewage and groundwater from areas during emergency repairs. Motion carried and ordered unanimously.

FACILITIES RELOCATION AGREEMENT WITH FLORIDA POWER & LIGHT
COMPANY, RE: SOUTH BEACH COMMUNITY PARK

Motion by Commissioner Voltz, seconded by Commissioner Scarborough, to execute Facilities Relocation Agreement with Florida Power & Light Company for relocation of a power pole at South Beach Community Park. Motion carried and ordered unanimously.

AUTHORIZE SOLE SOURCE PURCHASE AND CONTRACT, RE: REPLACEMENT OF
BOAT RAMPS AT LONG POINT AND LAKE WASHINGTON PARKS

Motion by Commissioner Voltz, seconded by Commissioner Scarborough, to authorize sole source purchase from Tedder Boat Ramp Systems, Inc. to install replacement boat ramps at Long Point Park and Lake Washington Park; and authorize the Chairman to execute associated contracts. Motion carried and ordered unanimously.

APPOINTMENT, RE: PALM BAY REGIONAL PARK CITIZENS ADVISORY COMMITTEE

Motion by Commissioner Voltz, seconded by Commissioner Scarborough, to reappoint Everett Earnest Morris to the Palm Bay Regional Park Citizens Advisory Committee, with term expiring December 31, 2005. Motion carried and ordered unanimously.

AUTHORIZE SOLE SOURCE PURCHASE, RE: UPGRADES TO ELECTRONIC
REGISTERING FARE BOXES

Motion by Commissioner Voltz, seconded by Commissioner Scarborough, to authorize Space Coast Area Transit to purchase upgrade of 20 current bus fare boxes and related systems from sole source Genfare; and authorize the Chairman to sign any follow-up agreements, contingent upon County Attorney and Risk Management approvals. Motion carried and ordered unanimously.

APPROVAL, RE: CHANGE PART-TIME BUDGET ANALYST POSITION TO FULL-TIME

Motion by Commissioner Voltz, seconded by Commissioner Scarborough, to authorize a three-quarter part-time budget analyst position to be changed to a full-time budget analyst position. Motion carried and ordered unanimously.

CONTRACT SERVICE ARRANGEMENT AGREEMENT WITH BELLSOUTH
TELECOMMUNICATIONS, INC., RE: FRAME RELAY SERVICE

Motion by Commissioner Voltz, seconded by Commissioner Scarborough, to execute Contract Service Arrangement Agreement with BellSouth Telecommunications, Inc. for frame relay service for 37 months, which allows the County to take advantage of special rates at approximately 10% less than standard rates and eliminate installation fees for new circuits. Motion carried and ordered unanimously.

RESOLUTION AMENDING RESOLUTION NO. 03-211, RE: VIDEOTAPE PRESENTATIONS
AT BOARD MEETINGS

Motion by Commissioner Voltz, seconded by Commissioner Scarborough, to adopt Resolution amending Resolution No. 03-211, Section 10.3, to read: “A person presenting a videotape must state so on the speaker’s card. The presenter must be familiar with the content of the videotape and be able to address any questions relating to the tape that may be raised by the Board, staff, or other citizens.” Motion carried and ordered unanimously.

WAIVER OF CONFLICT OF INTEREST, RE: RUMBERGER, KIRK & CALDWELL

Motion by Commissioner Voltz, seconded by Commissioner Scarborough, to execute Waiver of Conflict of Interest with law firm of Rumberger, Kirk & Caldwell regarding Hilda L. Langley and Jimmy W. Langley v. Brevard County and Waste Management, Inc. of Florida p/k/a Waste Management of Central Florida, Inc. Motion carried and ordered unanimously.

APPROVAL, RE: SPECIAL MEETING ON PARKING

Motion by Commissioner Voltz, seconded by Commissioner Scarborough, to approve scheduling a special meeting on April 28, 2005, at 5:30 p.m. to discuss Ordinance amendments to Chapter 62, Section 62-2117, regarding parking, locating, and storage of vehicles. Motion carried and ordered unanimously.

PERMISSION TO ADVERTISE NOTICE OF INTENT, RE: INCLUSION OF POSITION
IN SENIOR MANAGEMENT SERVICE CLASS OF FLORIDA RETIREMENT SYSTEM

Motion by Commissioner Voltz, seconded by Commissioner Scarborough, to authorize advertising a Notice of Intent once a week for two consecutive weeks to designate the position of Criminal Justice Services Department Director to be included in the Senior Management Service Class of the Florida Retirement System. Motion carried and ordered unanimously.

APPLICATION AND ACCEPTANCE OF GRANT FROM U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE,
RE: GANG RESISTANCE EDUCATION AND TRAINING PROGRAM

Motion by Commissioner Voltz, seconded by Commissioner Scarborough, to grant permission for the Sheriff’s Office to apply for and accept a grant of $61,200 from the U.S. Department of Justice for the Gang Resistance Education and Training Program (GREAT). Motion carried and ordered unanimously.

APPOINTMENTS/REAPPOINTMENTS, RE: CITIZEN ADVISORY BOARDS

Motion by Commissioner Voltz, seconded by Commissioner Scarborough, to appoint and/or reappoint Kim Zarillo and Diane Stees to the Environmentally Endangered Lands Procedure Committee with term expiring December 31, 2005; Milo Zonka to the Investment Committee with term expiring December 31, 2005; Jacklyn Gregory, Rochelle Lawandales, and Dick Thompson to the Landscaping, Land Clearing, and Tree Protection Task Force, with terms expiring August 31, 2005; Mike Cunningham to the Marine Advisory Council with term expiring December 31, 2005; Ginny Mack to the Public Golf Advisory Board with term expiring December 31, 2005; Michael Corcoran to the Zoning Board of Adjustment with term expiring December 31, 2005; Roy Wariner to the Citizen Budget Review Committee with term expiring December 31, 2005; and Joanne Corby to the Community Action Board, with term expiring December 31, 2007. Motion carried and ordered unanimously.

APPROVAL, RE: BILLS AND BUDGET CHANGES

Motion by Commissioner Voltz, seconded by Commissioner Scarborough, to approve bills and Budget Change Requests as submitted. Motion carried and ordered unanimously.

AMENDMENT TO AGREEMENT WITH ROBERT E. WHITMORE, M.D., RE: FUNDING
FOR MEDICAL EXAMINER SERVICES

Assistant County Manager Don Lusk advised Dr. Sajid Qaiser is the person who would be the recipient of the dollars requested in the Agenda item; the County has a new Medical Examiner who came on board in October; and he called a couple of months ago saying if the County did not find him additional money for an associate, he would be in big trouble because the workload is too high for one person to handle. He stated Dr. Qaiser did his own study on salaries that showed how underpaid he was in relation to others; staff asked Dr. Qaiser to hold off until the new budget year and they would take care of it as part of the budget process, but he was unable to do that; so staff came to the Board asking for an additional $15,000 for the Medical Examiner’s Contract with the idea they would talk about the rest of the dollars he wanted. Mr. Lusk stated it is much cheaper to give him the increase because it was an exhaustive process to find a medical examiner as there is a limited number of certified people to do the job; and if he leaves, Brevard County would be paying, on a per diem basis, another medical examiner from some other location to come here; and it would cost more in the long run.

Chairman Pritchard stated this is an issue he brought up at the budget workshop when he said a lot of the professional staff are underpaid and the Board needs to evaluate the payment schedule it has with other counties and professions to ensure it is paying its people appropriately so it does not become a training ground.

Interim County Manager Peggy Busacca stated it is a recurring cost that would be paid from the one-time contingency fund.

Commissioner Carlson stated the agenda item that talks about the $15,000 additional funding is needed to bring compensation to the Assistant Medical Examiner to $135,000; and inquired if the Medical Examiner is paid $183,000; with Mr. Lusk responding that is correct. Commissioner Carlson inquired if the associate is a doctor also; with Mr. Lusk responding yes.

Motion by Commissioner Scarborough, seconded by Commissioner Pritchard, to execute Amendment to Agreement with Robert E. Whitmore, M.D., District Medical Examiner, to provide for an additional $15,000 to increase the salary of Associate Medical Examiner Sajid Qaiser.

Commissioner Voltz stated she will vote no because the Board cannot use one-time funds for recurring expenses and it should be funded from somewhere else. Commissioner Colon stated she will do the same for the same reason.

Chairman Pritchard inquired if there are other funds available; with Mr. Lusk responding from the Department budget, which is the new Criminal Justice Department, the Director used a lot of any funds she had to do some of the jail things, so there is nothing available in that budget; and they went to the Contingency because that is the only place they knew at this time. Chairman Pritchard stated the salary is appropriate and probably under what other jurisdictions pay; the Board has a choice to pay it or lose the services of someone it needs; and then it would go to contract labor and most likely the cost would be in excess of the $135,000, so it is a dilemma. He stated he does not want to lose the person; he recognizes they have an issue with the Contingency and it being a recurring cost; but Brevard County is losing its professional people because compensation elsewhere is generally better.

Commissioner Voltz stated she agrees, but the Board needs to be sure each Department begins to look within rather than at the Contingency; and she does not doubt it is needed service, but she has a problem with the funding coming from the Contingency Fund.

Commissioner Scarborough stated everybody has a little bit of money set aside for contingencies; contingencies mean those things they do not anticipate that could happen in their lives; it could be an unexpected illness, car repairs, anything; perhaps what the Board is struggling over is the terminology; and suggested, within the budget, they use terminology that will give the Board greater latitude. He stated the Board can turn to individual Departments and ask them to fund for contingencies, but that may be stacking of a budget, which may not be to the Board’s favor; and in other words, they would over-budget to handle contingencies. He stated he would prefer that any unexpected items that come up be handled by the Board as opposed to encouraging in budgets where contingencies could be internal budget adjustments; and maybe that is a discussion the Board could have as it gets into the budget this year.

Chairman Pritchard advised he wants to point out that the doctor passed the test to be a board certified forensic pathologist; there are 350 board certified forensic pathologists in the nation; they cannot afford to lose Dr. Qaiser as the workload is too high for one medical examiner; and the lost of productivity and recruitment would far exceed the $15,000 requested.

Commissioner Carlson stated given the fact there are only 350 board certified forensic pathologists in the United States, that is a very small pool; if Dr. Qaiser was coming, she wonders why he was coming to the meeting; and maybe the $15,000 was not quite enough and he was going to tell the Board it has a problem anyway.

Chairman Pritchard stated one of the directions the Board gave staff at the last budget meeting was to look within their budgets and find out what they are doing that they may not need to be doing, and what they are funding that they may not need to be funding, what is mandated to be funded, and some of the things that were assumed over the years that they really do not need to do. He stated he has a feeling they are going to be able to look within and find out they have some excess funding; and they would be able to do some redistribution of what they have. He stated if they have vacant positions, they may not need to fill those if they can get by; and there may be other areas where they have to fill or create positions.

RESOLUTION, RE: ESTABLISHING RECREATION AND EDUCATION ADVISORY
COMMITTEE

Thelma Roper of Titusville stated the committee has come about in many ways, and in part due to issues that were actually raised before the Board about the way some of the EEL’s lands were being utilized or not utilized; she had indications that certain people were being notified for this committee and others who had shown an interest were not; and in her opinion, that is an effort to recruit the same type of mindset and opinions that have currently prevailed in the EEL’s project, that questions have been raised about. She stated the Board needs some new outlooks and new blood on this committee especially; she looked at the requirements and saw the activity examples; and if the Board goes with the same people it already has on committees who are already helping design some of this stuff, then it is only going to get a few of the most conservative of these activities represented on there. She stated that is all that will be discussed, approved, or recommended, so the Board will see the same things that it has been seeing for years. Ms. Roper stated most citizens in Brevard County can look at an issue, and if given well-balanced and unbiased information, can make intelligent, informed, and reasonably balanced recommendations to balance both the conservation issues with activity issues without the view being skewed one way or another; and requested that the resolution or at least the criteria in the resolution provide that if a person is on any County committee, board, or commission, except the Park Referendum Committee because of its very limited scope, he or she would be ineligible for this new board. Ms. Roper stated it would give the Board an opportunity to bring in new attitudes and viewpoints that may be necessary to accomplish what she feels it is trying to accomplish from what she heard at different meetings.

Chairman Pritchard stated Ms. Roper brought up a good point in that the Commissioners tend to have the same people on many boards, but it is because the pool of candidates is somewhat limited; a lot of times they end up with 100 people in each District that want to become involved in things; and they end up with people on multiple boards; but the Board should not hamstring Commissioners as to who they would like to appoint. He stated he is going to make a pledge to try and find two people who have not been on various boards and bring them into the fray because training people for board activities is also very important. He stated when he volunteered for a board, he would go for three years and not make it a continuum for ten years; he found the knowledge, skills, and whatever he brought to the board during the first year was a learning process; the second year he effected changes; and the third year he continued to effect changes; but by the fourth year, it was time to bring in the next person and let that person become familiar with the processes of government.

Commissioner Carlson stated that is a good point; and she assumes Chairman Pritchard is basing his selection on paragraph 3 of the resolution which says, “shall include citizens that represent key interest and expertise that relate to environmental education, public access, and the recreational and conservation goals of the EEL program.” She stated she disagrees with the speaker only because the Selection Committee has done a good job; however, she noticed they act in an advisory capacity and are not required to file financial disclosures. County Attorney Scott Knox stated if they are advisory, they have to comply. Commissioner Carlson inquired why do the members of this committee not have to file; with Mr. Knox responding he is not sure what the committee does and will have to look at it. Commissioner Carlson requested the resolution be deferred until Mr. Knox gets back to the Board.

Chairman Pritchard stated there are a lot of people who do not serve because they do not want to make public their finances and assets; and that creates a limited pool of candidates. Commissioner Colon stated if they are on the P&Z Board, she wants to know what their interests are, but simple committees should not have to file financial disclosures. Chairman Pritchard advised the item will come back at the end of the meeting or sometime during the day.

The Board by consensus postponed the resolution establishing a recreation and education advisory committee until later in the meeting.

The meeting recessed at 10:53 a.m., and reconvened at 11:00 a.m.

PUBLIC HEARING, RE: RESOLUTION VACATING PORTION OF UNDEVELOPED PLAT
AND UNIMPROVED RIGHTS-OF-WAY IN INDIAN RIVER PARK SUBDIVISION -
MIAMI CORPORATION (GLENN D. STORCH, ATTORNEY)

Chairman Pritchard called for the public hearing to consider a resolution vacating a portion of an undeveloped plat and unimproved rights-of-way in Indian River Park Subdivision, as petitioned by Miami Corporation, represented by Attorney Glenn D. Storch. He stated there are four speakers, Todd Gipe, Glenn Storch, Walter Pine, and Thelma Roper.

Commissioner Scarborough suggested taking Mr. Pine’s questions first, so the gentlemen can answer them.

Walter Pine of Titusville stated he spoke to Mr. Storch; their issues were keeping the roads open for disability access; and the applicant is willing to do that, so they waive any comments at this time.

Attorney Glenn Storch advised the Miami Corporation is a company that purchased land in Florida in 1926; it has about 57,000 acres straddling Brevard County and Volusia County’s borders; and it has maintained them in a stewardship as a silviculture operation. He stated several years ago they got together and worked with the St. Johns River Water Management District to look at the idea of finding a mechanism to preserve large areas of Miami Corporation’s holdings; and what they ultimately ended up doing was creating a mitigation bank that he is fairly proud of and knows that Todd Gipe with St. Johns River Water Management District is also proud of because it is probably the largest mitigation bank in the State, if not in the United States. He stated when it is done, it will comprise 25,000 acres; and right now, the part in Brevard County would equal over 4,000 acres and the southern tip of Miami Corporation’s holdings. He stated the mitigation bank requires them to place a conservation easement over the property when they utilize it; and the conservation easement will prevent any development of the property in perpetuity. Mr. Storch stated they originally had the mitigation bank structured in such a way where they placed the conservation easements and gave those easements to the St. Johns River Water Management District; and as part of their discussions on the vacation of the old antiquated subdivisions, they would also be providing the conservation easements to Brevard County over the County’s portion of the property. He stated in the 1920’s, many land speculators came down and created paper subdivisions on the areas; in this case, it was an old subdivision that was done with five-acre lots; Miami Corporation owned all the lots, but the subdivision still exists; and there was one lot in the middle of the 4,000 acres that they did not own; and for some reason the lady thought they were going to turn it into Six Flags Over Georgia, and could not understand that what they were planning to do was put it in a conservation easement. He stated they filed for the vacation; the lady got to see the information that it was in fact a conservation easement; she called, and they purchased the lot, so that part is taken care of as well. He stated the entire area will ultimately be placed in a conservation easement; the vacation is required because one of the terms of their mitigation bank permit with St. Johns River Water Management District is that they vacate all the old paper subdivisions to prevent the possibility that the paper subdivisions would be open sometime in the future and provide access because St. Johns River Water Management District is trying to preserve the areas; and that is why they are trying to vacate the lands as a condition of their permit. He stated Brevard County will get a conservation easement over the 4,000 acres as
part of this. Mr. Storch advised if the Board has questions regarding the mitigation bank, Todd Gipe is here to provide some answers and education regarding that, which might be very helpful. He stated he talked to Barbara Myer and has been working with the County, State, and Volusia County for about a year or more regarding creation of corridors across the property or trail systems; his client is amenable to looking and exploring the possibility of increasing the size of those corridors to provide for habitat areas as part of the entire system they are looking at because although 4,000 acres are in Brevard County, there are another 21,000 acres in Volusia County; and the idea is to have ways of tying all of it together at some point in the future. He noted he showed it to Mr. Gipe as well. He stated Volusia County has a system of conservation corridors throughout its County; and the ultimate idea is to tie all those together so they have habitat all the way from the National Seashore area, Cape Atlantic Estates area, all the way into Flagler County. He stated it is a thought and something they have been working on; and this property is part of it. Mr. Storch stated there are logging roads that existing on the property now; those logging roads are not being closed as a result of the vacation; hunting is also allowed on the property and will continue to be allowed in the area; and they are available to answer any questions.

Commissioner Carlson stated Mr. Storch mentioned 4,000 acres; the Agenda Report refers to his client’s holdings of 57,000 acres and that it has owned the property since 1926; and it says 10,000 acres are in Brevard County. She requested Mr. Storch clarify that and if of the 10,000 acres in Brevard County they are mitigating 4,000 acres; with Mr. Storch responding that is correct. Commissioner Carlson stated the item was misleading.

Commissioner Scarborough stated the area that the mitigation bank is going on included property for potential EEL purchase; the property that was supposed to be purchased evolved to the position of being preserved without any EEL’s money being expended; and that is a plus. He stated to protect the County from any other action by the developer or successors in interest, the conservation easement is not only going to the District but also to the County; many times the Board wonders what its interest is and can it protect it; it is being protected; the roads that are being vacated are non-existing roads, but there are logging roads; and inquired if some of the logging roads are being vacated; with Mr. Storch responding the vast majority of the logging roads were done where the high areas are. Commissioner Scarborough inquired if there is no connectivity; with Mr. Storch responding no, there may be some small area where there was a right-of-way where a logging road continues to exist, but he is sure they are not vacating that area. Commissioner Scarborough inquired how many total acres are being vacated; with Transportation Engineering Director John Denninghoff responding approximately 187 acres. Commissioner Scarborough inquired if Mr. Glenn is working to see that the County acquire the ability to utilize the property; with Mr. Storch responding the County is getting 4,000 acres transferred for conservation; the Corporation will have mitigation bank credits; and if the County needs a couple of credits, it may use them. Commissioner Scarborough stated if the County needs credits, it would like to be able to look to the amount of the land; and it is to their mutual benefit to have a broader wildlife corridor as those concepts develop. Mr. Storch stated they plan on working very closely with Brevard County; they worked with Volusia County for
years, but did not have the pleasure of working with Brevard County very much until he started getting involved in the corridor and the vacation; and he has enjoyed working with County staff and Commissioner Scarborough and looks forward to continuing on that.

Motion by Commissioner Scarborough, seconded by Commissioner Voltz, to adopt Resolution vacating a portion of an undeveloped plat and unimproved rights-of-way in Indian River Park Subdivision, as petitioned by Miami Corporation (Glenn D. Storch, Attorney), with caveats.

Commissioner Carlson stated she does not want to cast aspersions on this; it is a great thing that the Board can accept it; but she wants to find out, since they had questions about the usage of land in the south end and the north end, what the intended use of the 6,000 acres that are not being put in the mitigation bank is, and if they have a plan or can give the Board an insight. Mr. Storch stated there is no intended use at this point although he has been called constantly regarding the idea of Six Flags, a giant automobile development, a city, etc.; Miami Corporation has a very conservative bunch of nice people, which is why they were able to talk to them about a mitigation bank; they owned the land for 75 years and eventually will have to look at planning for it; but if he does that, he will do it with the assistance of Brevard and Volusia Counties and work together with them. Commissioner Carlson inquired what have they done with Volusia County in terms of development; with Mr. Storch responding he represents a lot of clients in Volusia County; they just did a project of 6,000 acres where they worked with the City of Ormond Beach, Volusia County, and the land developer to hold it all in a single entity and do a town center smart growth community where they were able to get industrial, office, and residential areas together in a blighted area. He stated it is the sort of thing he likes to work together on; and in that particular case, they had unanimous support from everyone, including the environmental community.

Chairman Pritchard inquired if the logging roads have been maintained over the years; with Mr. Storch responding yes, it is a very active silviculture operation. Chairman Pritchard inquired if the logging roads will continue to be maintained; with Mr. Storch responding certainly, and they are private roads. Chairman Pritchard stated the reason for his question is if there is a fire, providing access into wooded areas is most important; with Mr. Storch responding fires have been their major enemy and they lost millions during the fires a few years ago.

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

RESOLUTION, RE: ESTABLISHING RECREATION AND EDUCATION ADVISORY
COMMITTEE (CONTINUED)

County Attorney Scott Knox advised financial disclosure will not be required for the committee unless the Board makes it part of the resolution.

Motion by Commissioner Carlson, seconded by Commissioner Voltz, to adopt Resolution establishing a Recreation and Education Advisory Committee. Motion carried and ordered unanimously.

PUBLIC HEARING, RE: RESOLUTION VACATING PORTION OF PUBLIC UTILITY
EASEMENT IN DIANA SHORES, UNIT 5 - EMILE AND HOLLY JETTE

Chairman Pritchard called for the public hearing to consider a resolution vacating a portion of a public utility easement in Diana Shores, Unit 5, as petitioned by Emile and Holly Jette.

There being no objections heard, motion was made by Commissioner Voltz, seconded by Commissioner Carlson, to adopt Resolution vacating a portion of a public utility easement in Diana Shores, Unit 5, as petitioned by Emile and Holly Jette. Motion carried and ordered unanimously.

PUBLIC HEARING, RE: RESOLUTION VACATING PUBLIC UTILITY EASEMENTS IN
BAREFOOT BAY, UNIT ONE - JOYCE E. CAMPANELLI

Chairman Pritchard called for the public hearing to consider a resolution vacating public utility easements in Barefoot Bay, Unit One, as petitioned by Joyce E. Campanelli.

There being no objections heard, motion was made by Commissioner Voltz, seconded by Commissioner Carlson, to adopt Resolution vacating public utility easements in Barefoot Bay, Unit One, as petitioned by Joyce E. Campanelli. Motion carried and ordered unanimously.

PUBLIC HEARING, RE: RESOLUTION APPROVING FIRST QUARTER SUPPLEMENTAL
BUDGET FOR FY 2004-05

Chairman Pritchard called for the public hearing to consider a resolution approving the first quarter supplemental budget for FY 2004-05.

There being no objections heard, motion was made by Commissioner Carlson, seconded by Commissioner Scarborough, to adopt Resolution approving the first quarter supplemental budget for FY 2004-05. Motion carried and ordered unanimously.

ACKNOWLEDGE RECEIPT, RE: RECYCLING CITIZEN ADVISORY COMMITTEE REPORT

Patty Goffinet, Chairperson of the Recycling Citizen Advisory Committee (RCAC), advised the Committee began in 2003; it presented the Board with a list of recommendations to improve recycling in Brevard County; the Board approved 11 of the recommendations; and the Committee reconvened to assess the implementation of the 11 recommendations. She thanked the Solid Waste Department that did a terrific job in implementing the recommendations even though it had two hurricanes and mountains of debris to deal with. She stated recommendation (1) was to distribute recycling information flyers to County residents every two years; staff has prepared the flyer; and it is to be mailed out to all residents in unincorporated Brevard County this fiscal year. She stated recommendation (2) is to increase advertising for recycling in the Solid Waste Department; and it has been done, and increased from $15,000 to $17,000. She stated (3) is to authorize the Chair to send a letter to the School Board requesting it initiate a recycling program at all school facilities focusing on white paper products and beverage containers at secondary schools; this has been done; the letter was written; Dr. DiPatri responded enthusiastically; and now there is a recycling program in all Brevard County schools. She noted attached to the report are more specifics on the recycling programs.

Commissioner Carlson stated she was at the zoo the other day; the new education center came from recycled plastics from the schools; so the children going through there are learning that they are active members of the recycling process; and that is a real education.

Ms. Goffinet advised recommendation (4) is to collect all plastic bottles and steel cans curbside; it has been done and now they are recycling the same products Countywide; they do not have to look for the triangle on the bottom; it simplifies the whole process; and they will be collecting more of the right stuff.

Commissioner Voltz stated she thought they could not recycle detergent bottles; with Ms. Goffinet responding if the bottle has a smaller opening at the top than the base, and is not bleach, it can be recycled.

Ms. Goffinet stated yogurt containers are not recyclable and should be put in the garbage. She stated (5) is to initiate a volunteers speakers bureau to educate service and professional groups on the benefits of commercial recycling; the policies for the speakers bureau have been established by staff; and a list is being compiled of community contacts to be approached. She stated the commercial haulers are also doing education on the benefits of recycling. She noted she will return to (6) at the end of her presentation and will move to (7) which is to permit RCAC members to assist as individual volunteers in the implementation of the recommendations approved by the Board; it has been done and a couple of RCAC members have signed up with the BRAVE Program to assist in recycling matters. Ms. Goffinet advised (8) is to place recycling bins and/or reuse tables for magazines in libraries; it has been done; they have four containers at different libraries, which are working very well; and they have diverted tons of materials from the landfill to recycling. She stated staff is looking for more locations. She stated (9) is the green procurement policy in all facilities with all Departments participating in it as a policy of County Government; it has been done; they have Policy BCC-90, Green Procurement; and a copy of the Policy was attached to the report.

Chairman Pritchard advised Ms. Goffinet’s time has expired; and inquired if the Board wishes to hear the remaining presentation; with Commissioner Carlson responding she thought the Board was going to get a briefing from staff; they have all read the recommendations and report; she has questions she wants to go into; but since Ms. Goffinet is the Chair of the Committee she should finish her presentation.

Ms. Goffinet advised (10) is recycle office paper in all County facilities, to be done when staff has no other task that is more critical; it has been done; they have had a large increase in County facilities that recycle; and they would like a stronger statement like, “recycling office paper in all County Offices is required.” She stated (11) is important; individual calculations for a recycling program for commercial properties with staff providing a specific report with additional details to the Board to be shared with the Chambers of Commerce; the report has been delayed because of all the extra work staff had with hurricanes; but they are also, besides working on the report, looking to change two individual calculations as ownership changes. She stated it is an important recommendation; and she hopes the Board will act on it when it receives the report because it is important to have an economic inventive to reduce waste and recycle. She stated if all businesses are paying for the amount of waste they dispose of, they are more likely to cut down on the waste and recycle. Ms. Goffinet stated (6) recommends the RCAC conduct an assessment in twelve months of the adopted recommendations; this has been done, and is the report; the members were unable to come to consensus on the fate of the Committee though; and they are not sure and have different opinions on whether the Committee should sunset or continue to meet quarterly, or sunset and members be reappointed in a couple of years. She stated they feel they have gotten a lot of work done; but in the future things change and technologies change; and it may be useful to reconvene a committee of this sort to discuss new items. She noted she will leave that up to the Board.

Bette Danse of Merritt Island presented a handout to the Board, but not the Clerk; stated she values the Board’s continued support of the RCAC; it is under Unfinished Business; and it is unfinished. She stated that is the nature of recycling; and the progress report annual assessment is a small step in the big picture, but a very needed step forward. She stated it was mentioned that all schools are recycling; she would like to clarify that it is cardboard only that all schools are recycling; and not all schools are recycling bottles and cans.

Commissioner Carlson inquired if Ms. Danse knows what the Zoo is doing because they told her that much of the plastic materials come from the School System that went into the planking of the educational wing. Ms. Danse stated she does not know about the Zoo, but Pam Shoemaker may be able to talk about it as she has been there a lot; however, the plastic comes from the secondary schools. Commissioner Carlson stated the questions can be answered later.

Ms. Danse stated she had a complaint from a teacher recently, that is why she mentioned it; and a middle school teacher asked why they cannot also recycle plastic. She stated not all the information that was requested by the Solid Waste Department or other staff in the recycling business was able to be turned in during the four months they met to consider the report although it has been over two years since August 2003; it takes a long time to gather all the statistics on how much they are recycling; plus they reconvened right after the hurricanes, which was not good timing for the Solid Waste Department. Ms. Danse stated the volunteers speakers bureau is considered extremely important; it was approved in 2003 to assist businesses and organizations to recycle; it is not in effect yet; but the paperwork for it was finished at the 11th hour for the last meeting. She stated she appreciates that it is done now and they can start working on it. She stated the Solid Waste Department Recycling Coordinator Pam Shoemaker is not a volunteer, but she works not only full-time, but also as a volunteer and is seen everywhere even on weekends; she will be at the Seafest this weekend; and she hopes the Commissioners join them and see all the recycling going on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. She stated she needs to be cloned ten times over; she is the chair of this program; and unless volunteers help and more recycling assistants are hired, the bureau may stay on the back burner and Brevard business recycling will continue to be limited. Ms. Danse stated the RCAC needs members who share the goal of increasing recycling tonnage; that is the bottom line; and the RCAC needs to monitor data and make recommendations. She stated they reconvened after a year, which is a long time; absenteeism was high for the eight meetings that were held; one member attended one meeting, another attended two meetings, and another missed the last three meetings; and three voting members were absent at the final meeting with no alternates. She stated some members kept asking if it was their last meeting; meetings at times were contentious; that was her husband’s description; and as the only member of the public attending the meeting, he did not feel comfortable making public comments and even left the room when someone started yelling. She stated as an example, she noted at the last meeting that it was great that the School System has finally started a recycling program, all due to a simple letter of request from the Board of County Commissioners; she started to word a motion asking the Board to make a similar request to commercial property owners to encourage recycling; but that same voting member yelled out no; she did not let her speak and influence the vote, which was three to two against; and three voting members were absent. She stated she hopes the Board considers asking businesses to recycle; adding one statement to the monthly Solid Waste bill that already goes out would involve no cost; and it could say, “The Board of County Commissioners respectfully requests all commercial increase recycling, as also requested of the residential and School System.” She stated it would be a request only, but one that could make a huge difference as it did with the School System. Ms. Danse stated the RAC in Modesto, California meets monthly to research, study, and discuss specific issues with both short and long-term implications, and forwards its recommendations to the city council. She stated to improve the membership, the RCAC needs alternates from each Commission District; and requested the Board refer to her list of over 20 citizen volunteers who would like to be on the Committee. She stated citizen volunteers should be the only voting members; that is what she had originally asked for; and having a municipal Director of Solid Waste and Recycling as a voting member is unethical and a conflict of interest. She stated monitoring needs to be on the front burner; it is critical for property valuation and assessment; if things are not checked, they remain the same; and it takes a good committee and committed people with the same goals. She stated she appreciates the changes made so far; and requested the RCAC become a true CAC with citizen volunteers by District or at-large as voting members and staff and other representatives as nonvoting consultants only. She stated the RCAC needs to meet quarterly or even monthly and be charged with monitoring the changes made as well as making new recommendations; and noted she appreciates the Board considering those points.

Commissioner Carlson stated the RCAC has done some great work; the work is ongoing, so the Board should not disperse the Committee as yet; and options are to allow it to meet quarterly or biannually. She stated there is a list of 11 items that appear to be ongoing, especially in regards to the green procurement program, which just started; and suggested recycling office paper in all County offices be required. She stated that should not be a difficult thing; most of the Commission District Offices have been recycling to set an example; and she does not know why Departments cannot do the same. She stated she does not know if it is a logistical or other problem with that; but that needs to be monitored. She stated she agrees with the second bullet of #11, staff research the possibility of changing commercial accounts to individual calculations; there needs to be an economic incentive for commercial institutions to start recycling more; the residential community is encouraged to do that; and more and more people understanding recycling is important. She stated to educate the children that recycling is important for future generations, they need to practice what they preach. Commissioner Carlson stated to bring the BRAVE volunteers into the speakers bureau is essential; and getting more BRAVE volunteers, who are interested in helping the County, and focusing them on something like recycling where they need warm bodies is a good idea. She stated if there are folks on the Committee who do not want to be there or who have just exhausted what knowledge, understanding, and interest they had, the Board can reconstitute the Committee and let it go on and do other things. She stated if she recalls when it came up, the Board agreed with 11 items, but there were many more items that it did not agree with at the time that could be a showcase of recycling efforts; the RCAC would follow those and see how good they are doing; but many items have not been followed since they have not been in existence long enough to be followed. She stated that is the main reason for her to want to continue to see the RCAC go on. She inquired if there is a staff member who votes on the Committee; with Solid Waste Director Euri Rodriguez responding no, the person who represents the League of Cities and is an employee of the City of Titusville is on the Committee; and that person is not a County employee. Commissioner Carlson stated there are a lot of things the County can do; she brought up the Zoo issue and thought it was wonderful that they are doing that; but she was surprised that the RCAC could not immediately tell her it was happening. She stated she would like to have more understanding throughout the community how they are actually using recycling efforts; and that is what they need to bring back to the Board and say it is how they have achieved some of the goals and it is what is happening. She stated she would have loved to have somebody come and say the Zoo is a wonderful education center and the planking on the boardwalk that goes around it is produced by the recycling efforts of the School Board; and she would like to hear those kinds of updates, outcomes, and deliverables of the whole effort. She stated if the Board decides to continue the Committee, she would suggest quarterly meetings to make sure they are on top of everything and nothing slides because it is an important issue that the Board get those kinds of updates, find out what they are doing with recycled products and how they are actually using them to make the community better, which is the end goal.

Chairman Pritchard stated Patty Goffinet is the chair of the RCAC, which is an unpaid position with a lot of grief heaped upon her; he is talking about the contentious nature that was referred to by Ms. Danse; he is sure there are a lot of sides that take place at the meetings; and inquired how many members are on the Committee. Ms. Goffinet stated when it started, there were
more members appointed than actually got involved. Chairman Pritchard inquired what would a good number be; with Ms. Goffinet responding they have one member from each Commission District, industry people, and League of Cities; and the Solid Waste Department staff are not voting members, but they need the expertise of the industry and Solid Waste Department. Chairman Pritchard inquired how many are voting members; with Pam Shoemaker responding there should be nine, five from each Commission District, three from the League of Cities, and Ms. Danse, the County’s at-large member.

Commissioner Carlson stated she is curious as to the attendance of the nine members to see if attendance and interest is one and the same; Ms. Danse brought up a list of other folks who are interested in doing it; she agrees the Board needs to have a balance; and that balance ought to be for recycling and what they can do to achieve recycling without getting too off base.

Chairman Pritchard stated nine sounds like a good number, but he does not know why the League of Cities would have three members; and he does not know if it is a Countywide effort. Commissioner Carlson stated it is important to have cities doing some similar things; and some cities have recycling programs, so they ought to mesh together. Chairman Pritchard stated he would like to know what the attendance has been to the meetings to insure the people on the Committee are interested in being there; he noticed Waste Management is part of the advisement as is Progressive Recycling because it has the credentials and is in the business; and the Committee needs to understand how the operation works. He stated quarterly meetings would be a reasonable schedule.

Ms. Goffinet advised they reconvened in October to look at the 11 recommendations, and they are for the most part accomplished; and if there is a Committee, it would need to look at different things and new technology.

Commissioner Carlson stated she thinks the original meeting minutes had suggestions over and above the 11 the Board agreed with; now it is giving the Board some outcomes; but some of the things have just started, like the green procurement and the suggestion that all County Departments achieve some recycling status; and staff, as well as the Committee, have to stay on top of those. She stated the Committee was requested to bring that advisory back to the Board; she agrees with that; but if there are people on the Committee who would like to step off for a while and have others come on because of the workload or other conflicts, that would be a productive thing to do. She stated if the Board could get the status of attendance and see where the holes are, maybe it can take some action to get a little more wholeness to the Committee; and the Committee can bring some suggestions to the Board as to what the next step is for additional advances in this realm.

Commissioner Voltz suggested re-looking at the appointments; and if they attended and are still interested, they can go to the League of Cities to see if it still wants to be on the Committee or whether they need to appoint different people. She stated people involved with solid waste should be on the Committee as non-voting members.

Commissioner Colon thanked Ms. Goffinet and the RCAC; stated it has not been an easy task; she has heard what has been going on and is quite disappointed because the members are volunteers who give of themselves and should get respect; and there are always two sides to the story whatever they may be. She stated whenever the Board makes appointments, she would be interested in finding out who has not been attending meetings; and if they are not attending, then probably there needs to be some reconsideration. She stated people start with good intentions and after that they have their hands full and cannot always serve; and that is why she would like to get those numbers. She stated it happens with every advisory board; but people need to realize they need to work as a team and not have the mentality of starting little cliques if they do not get things their way. She stated that is not healthy and not good for the community; it is not an easy task; and requested staff provide the Board feedback of who has not been attending meetings.

Commissioner Carlson stated she echoes Commissioner Colon’s concerns about making sure they work as a team; they cannot have one member going off doing something when it is not based on what the Committee wants to do; they need to make sure that is not happening; and if it is happening, the Board should know about it.

Chairman Pritchard stated he recalls a report about Orange County, not Orlando, that spent $3 million to recycle $70,000 worth of materials; the Board cannot afford to do something like that; and he is not going to spend $3 million to recycle $70,000 worth of materials. Commissioner Carlson stated that is not what they are looking at; they were working off grants, but the grants dried up; and now they are looking at volunteerism to help fill the gap. Chairman Pritchard stated he also mentioned the City of Toronto had trash police that would go through the trash; and if they found plastic or glass in the garbage, the person would be fined; he does not want to go there and is not ready for that; and the County needs to have an effective recycling program that is convenient. He stated convenience has to be the case; and requested Ms. Goffinet explain about a jar and jug and if the neck is bigger than the body, it should be thrown in the trash and not recycled.

Ms. Goffinet stated all the unincorporated Brevard County residents will be getting a flyer in their mail this year to explain it; before they were collecting plastics one and two, which were mostly drink bottles, but a lot of other things can be recycled now; it gets complicated because they are talking about different kinds of ones and twos; all one triangles are not the same and cannot be recycled; yogurt tubs cannot be recycled; and they were getting a lot of things that could not be recycled in their recycling containers. Chairman Pritchard stated that goes back to convenience. Commissioner Carlson stated it also goes back to people wanting to recycle things and not understanding why they cannot recycle it when it is plastic. Chairman Pritchard stated that is all convenience; they should be able to say if it is plastic, throw it in the bin; if it is glass or tin or whatever, it goes in the bin; and when people have to start looking whether or not it is acceptable, they will lose 90% of the people who are recycling materials. Ms. Goffinet stated they do not have to look any more; all they have to do is see if it has a neck and if the neck is narrower than the body; that is called a bottle; and bottle plastic is made in a different way than the yogurt tubs, so it can be recycled. Chairman Pritchard inquired about detergent containers; with Ms. Goffinet responding rinse them out and recycle them. Chairman Pritchard stated some of the necks are large; with Ms. Goffinet responding they are still smaller than the body. Commissioner Carlson stated the exception is bleach bottles. Chairman Pritchard stated after the container goes to the curb, he sees the collector doing all kinds of things with it, throwing it into different bins in the truck; and inquired if it goes to the landfill and down a conveyor and is there someone who screens the material to make sure the right type of plastics are going to be recycled. Ms. Goffinet stated the recycled materials do not go to the landfill; they go to the companies that take in recyclables; and newspapers are turned into new newspapers, and glass will be used for different things. Chairman Pritchard inquired if the truck that picks it up make multiple stops; with Ms. Goffinet responding no, it goes to the same place and from that facility the different items will go to different areas. Chairman Pritchard inquired if there are plastic bottles that are the wrong composition, do they go into the trash; with Ms. Goffinet responding if they throw the wrong things in the bins, they go to a landfill in South Carolina; so people may feel good about throwing their plastic tubs in, but eventually it travels a long way and gets landfilled. Chairman Pritchard commented it could be a benefit. Ms. Goffinet stated it is important to throw the right things in the recyling bins

Motion by Commissioner Carlson, that the RCAC reconvene in May; that the Board of County Commissioners have the information on appointees if they have been going to the meetings to determine if it has to reconstitute the Committee with different appointees or not, and that the RCAC meet quarterly after that.

Commissioner Voltz stated she would like to know ahead of time whether or not appointees from her District have been attending the meetings; with Commissioner Carlson responding that is why she said three months so the Board would have enough time to find out what the attendance record is.

Chairman Pritchard stated he would like the RCAC to come back every year for discussion as to whether the Board wants to renew it the next year.

Commissioner Carlson stated she will make that part of the motion.

Chairman Pritchard stated the Committee will sunset on February 28, 2006.

Commissioner Carlson stated if during the course of every three months the Committee comes up with ideas and issues, it can bring those forward at any given time and not have to wait for the one-year mark. Chairman Pritchard stated the reason he wants a sunset date is
because sometimes the Board forms an ad hoc committee and find out five years later it is still going on.

Commissioner Voltz seconded the motion. Chairman Pritchard called for a vote on the motion. Motion carried and ordered unanimously.

CONTRACT FOR SALE AND PURCHASE WITH MARY P. SCHUSTER, TRUSTEE, RE:
ACQUISITION OF HISTORIC PRITCHARD HOUSE

Commissioner Scarborough stated there are a number of people in the audience on an item that has been discussed a number of times; it is the acquisition of the historic Pritchard House; they have a contract that will allow staff to proceed on the item; and what he is concerned with is if the Board takes the other items and breaks for lunch, those people will have to stay here another three to four hours. Chairman Pritchard stated the Board could address the item now. Commissioner Scarborough stated everybody is here to support it and unless there is a question, the Board could let the people leave and could go about its business because it does have a busy calendar today. He stated it is a real historic moment; the house is cattycorner to City Hall of Titusville and close to the Historic Courthouse; and it has not only particular history as a building, but the same family has been part of it and there is memorabilia going back to the Civil War in the home. He stated the family has agreed to make its history a part of the City’s history; it is a unique experience; he feels good about it; and it is with great pleasure that he makes the motion. Chairman Pritchard stated he wants to second the motion.

Motion by Commissioner Scarborough, seconded by Commissioner Pritchard, to execute Contract for Sale and Purchase and Addendum No. 1 with Mary P. Schuster, Trustee, for acquisition of the historic Pritchard House; authorize ordering survey, Phase I environmental audit, and title commitment, and proceeding to closing; and approve proceeding with a $300,000 commercial paper loan for the acquisition and stabilization of the house. Motion carried and ordered unanimously.

APPEAL OF WAIVER OF DENIAL FOR BUILDING PERMIT, RE: JOSH KRUPNICK

Josh Krupnick of Port St. John advised last year he purchased a one-acre lot on Pioneer Avenue in Canaveral Groves so he could build a better house for his family; they were attracted by the quiet rural atmosphere and natural beauty of the area; and he signed a building contract with Lifestyle Homes, closed on a construction loan, and has been making payments since then. He stated they continued the building process, including pulling permits for a well and septic system; and at that point he had no knowledge of any special permit restrictions due to conditions of the roads in the area. He played a video showing access to the property off Satellite Boulevard to Pioneer Avenue; and stated Pioneer Avenue is usually much smoother and easier to drive than Satellite Boulevard, the connecting County-maintained road. He stated the road has been in use for many years and has been privately maintained by the existing residents who live on the road; there are five existing homes on the east side of Pioneer and one on the corner under construction; and as the video demonstrates, access to the lot is quite adequate. Mr. Krupnick stated a few years ago the Board made some changes to the Ordinance with respect to permitting specifically in the West Canaveral Groves area because the side roads are not County-maintained; a window was open for permitting where existing residents were able to come into compliance with the Code with the exception of the road condition; new homes were also permitted regardless of the road condition; so when he signed his building contract, he had every reason to believe that if many other homes held permits on the same section of road, including one directly across the street, that a building permit could also be pulled for his lot as it is the same road. He stated when he called, County staff informed me about this window and that it had been closed; anyone new who wished to move into the area must bear the full cost of bringing the road up to County Code in order to be issued a building permit; and it was not only for a section of road adjacent to his property, but the entire section between his lot and Satellite Boulevard. Mr. Krupnick stated there are eight other lots between Satellite Boulevard and his lot, so it is a highly disproportionate amount of cost for one person to improve the entire section of road. He stated he is willing to pay his fair share for road improvement and cooperate in any way, but the Ordinance creates a hardship situation for him because of the high cost of permitting, survey, engineering, and road construction and because of the time delay he will incur because he is already under contract for his home. Mr. Krupnick stated others who were permitted during the arbitrary period of time were allowed to use their land; the County has already accepted the existing residences on Pioneer Avenue despite the road not being County maintained; and he is asking the County to afford his family the same exception based on the principles of fairness and equality. He stated a precedent has already been set for allowing residency on the road, so any issues or liabilities related to access to the road are preexisting conditions; and building his home will neither cause nor aggravate them. He stated County staff could not approve his request for waiver based simply on the criteria of upgrading or replacing an existing structure since his property is listed as a vacant lot; and requested the Board approve his request for a waiver so he can avoid great financial hardship. He noted since there are several homes already on the road, including one directly across the road; the situation was misleading; and he signed a building contract based on the assumption that this was like any other community where people who own property on the same road would generally have the same rights as each other to use that property. He stated access to the property is not a problem as shown on the video; and his home will have a positive impact on the community.

Commissioner Scarborough stated the next item may be worthwhile hearing from the applicant as it is also in West Canaveral Groves and essentially has the same situation. He inquired if the applicant Annette Dittmer was in the audience, and received no response. Commissioner Scarborough stated the Board needs to be aware of the factual situation of what they had in West Canaveral Groves; people had gone out there without going through all the hoops; and the Board did not want to go out there with Code Enforcement and displace those people, so it provided a window of opportunity for them to come into compliance. He stated as time went on, they found that rather than just using the opportunity to come into compliance, it began to
evolve into more things being built out there. He stated he is not saying Mr. Krupnick is not going to build something to standards and do everything correctly; but the question is if the Board allows one person out there, what does that signal mean to other people in the community. Commissioner Scarborough stated previous actions were for people who were out there, whether correctly or incorrectly, and were trying to come into compliance; this is a signal if they own vacant property, the rules will be different as to the roads; if the Board wishes to go in that direction, it would be inappropriate to do it just for one individual or for one road; and the Board can take the question any time and any way it wishes, but it needs to understand it is very important that this house is not out there yet and would be something special for West Canaveral Groves. He stated as they proceed with West Canaveral Groves, the whole integrity of the Ordinance comes into question of whether the County should have a certain area with different regulations than other areas of the County; and if the Board wants to pursue the discussion, he would like to get a full report from staff as to the long-range repercussions. He stated rather than looking at this as overruling staff’s decision, which is completely correct, there is nothing similar in saying a lot that has not been built on would fall within the purview of the Ordinance specifically designed to help people who had built out there come into compliance. He stated the factual situations may be different; but if the Board wants to pursue it, it should consider changing the base Ordinance and providing a methodology where people can have exceptions, perhaps applying it to the entire County and not just West Canaveral Groves. He stated he would go to that discussion, but to overrule staff is not appropriate at this time.

Chairman Pritchard stated there are houses on dirt roads throughout the County; there are a lot of dirt roads; neighborhoods have recently been charged an MSBU assessment to pave their roads because 75% of the residents agreed to it, otherwise they would be living on dirt roads; and he has one on South Merritt Island that recently paved roads, and a couple of people objected to it because they liked their dirt road that created ambience, and others wanted pavement. He inquired what compliance is Commissioner Scarborough referring to. Staff advised the County has a Dirt Road Ordinance that allows people to build on dirt roads and/or bring it up to standard if the road is not at standard.

Interim County Manager Peggy Busacca advised the roads in West Canaveral Groves, except for Satellite Boulevard, are not publicly-maintained and in many cases are actually privately- owned; what happens in the area is when a building permit application comes in, staff requests that the road be turned over to the County; if they were to look at Mr. Krupnick’s situation, his house is the eighth house in; and it is possible that the owners of the seven houses on Pioneer Avenue may own the road, so the Dirt Road Ordinance would not work in that circumstance because it has to be a public right-of-way. She stated staff has written many letters to people in excess of ten years, requesting them to provide the rights-of-way; and people all over the world have declined to do that; in addition, they requested they provide easements to allow people to have electrical service; and in some cases that was also denied. She stated the Board is talking about a circumstance where it is a privately-owned piece of land rather than a public right-of-way; it is the County’s standard that they may have access from a County right-of-way and may have it on a dirt road based on the Unpaved Road Ordinance; but this is vastly different than that circumstance.

Chairman Pritchard inquired if Mr. Krupnick owns a portion of the road; with Ms. Busacca responding if he does, he would have to provide a deed to the County. Chairman Pritchard inquired why would Mr. Krupnick be required to bring the road up to County standards; with Ms. Busacca responding in Valkaria the roads are public rights-of-way, so the Dirt Road Ordinance says if they want to build, they would put in what is essentially the foundation for a paved road and at the time that over 51% of the people who own property on the road request building permits, an MSBU would be put in place to pave the road.

Commissioner Scarborough stated there were a number of memos and information previously provided; it would be good if staff would pull that file and provide copies to the Commissioners because they each need to understand the unique problems in that area; and if they do not feel comfortable taking action on this, what it is addressing is not a particular case. He stated staff ruled correctly; this is a question of overruling staff; but if the Board feels like there needs to be a different approach, that is a separate issue.

Chairman Pritchard stated the Board needs a different approach to this issue because it has properties on dirt roads; and the issue whether they are private or public roads needs to be addressed in that someone who buys property is not able to build a home unless he or she went through an expense that is disproportionate to his or her neighbors. He stated he recalls a year or so ago a man who maintained his road as far as he could off Satellite Boulevard and had the equipment to do that; there is a dirt road off Bevis on Merritt Island where the road narrows; and the person who owns a certain part of it will not give it up; so the neighbors cannot pave the road and are now subject to flooding and all kinds of problems. He stated he does not understand why people take the positions they do that are harmful to others; but they need to address how folks who own property are going to be able to build on the property without exorbitant costs. He stated Mr. Krupnick does not want the County to do it and said he does not mind paying his share; but he is being given the brunt of the problem because he happens to be the eighth house on the street.

Ms. Busacca stated in order for the County to legally ride on his road to provide him services, it has to own property in West Canaveral Groves; they have ingress/egress easements, which have been given to individual property owners; so in some instances the County owns property in West Canaveral Groves that gives it ingress and egress. She stated that is the only legal access the County has on those roads; it is a very difficult issue; and if the Board wants a staff briefing, they can do that. Chairman Pritchard stated it sounds very convoluted to him.

Commissioner Scarborough stated the problem is the danger of going with Mr. Krupnick and looking at it as an isolated case because it is going to mean West Canaveral Groves will be developed; moving to the next section of how it all comes together with roads and the other issues out there, it was worked many different ways; and proceeding with their participation to allow the County to consider them public roads rather than private roads would give it more latitude on how to proceed. He stated many things changed, but the best thing is for staff to bring all of the documentation forward so the Board can look at the whole thing.

Commissioner Carlson requested the Chairman get a full briefing from staff because the Board has spent many hours on this issue and Ms. Busacca has been out in the woods with shotguns and everything; and it was like a third world country out there that the Board had to deal with. Chairman Pritchard stated he would appreciate having a full briefing on it; he has a problem with people having property they cannot build on; in Mr. Krupnick’s case, he can do something as long as he wants to pay for the sub-base of the road; but he cannot do that. Ms. Busacca stated he cannot do it because it is not a public right-of-way, but is privately owned land; he cannot build a road under the Code on privately-owned land; and that is the access he has to his lot.

Commissioner Scarborough stated the road, while it is physically there, is not there as a matter of legal right even to Mr. Krupnick because as he goes in, he is passing over other people’s properties; and there is a problem with that. Chairman Pritchard stated what he does not understand is how did it happen and how can it happen. Commissioner Carlson stated the development community obviously was not aware of the requirements or the Code.

Ms. Busacca stated West Canaveral Groves was created as a paper subdivision and never platted; it was sold by metes and bounds; after the developer sold off the lots in individual one-acre metes and bounds, he came to the Board and asked it to accept maintenance of the roads; but the Board at that time said no. She stated the developer subsequently went back and deeded the roads to all adjacent property owners, so the roads are owned by the 2,000 people who own the lots.

Chairman Pritchard inquired if Mr. Krupnick owns a portion of the road; with Mr. Krupnick responding he does not, but everybody adjacent to his property does. Ms. Busacca stated it is possible that he would have deeded it to the County, but the County would have had to have all of it; if there are eight people who live between him and Satellite Boulevard, they own from the centerline of the road; so the County would have to have all the people on both sides deed their share of the road to the County. Chairman Pritchard inquired if Mr. Krupnick said he could build a road then get a permit to build his house; with Mr. Krupnick responding that is what he was told to do and to obtain the remaining easements that have not been turned over to the County. Ms. Busacca stated they would have to be rights-of-way turned over to the County. Mr. Krupnick stated he was told to obtain quitclaim deeds for all the road easements that were not yet turned over to the County; and several of them have already been, so the County does own parts of it.

Commissioner Scarborough suggested tabling the item and staff work it out with Mr. Krupnick so it meets the requirements. He noted the Board would be dealing with Mr. Krupnick on a case-by-case basis; and he will move to table to get additional reports to the Board.

Motion by Commissioner Scarborough, seconded by Commissioner Voltz, to table appeal of waiver denial for building permit for Josh Krupnick to get information to the Commissioners. Motion carried and ordered unanimously.

Commissioner Carlson inquired if the Board is tabling both requests; with Commissioner Scarborough responding that would only be fair. Chairman Pritchard advised the motion is to table both requests from Josh Krupnick and Annette Dittmer.

Mr. Krupnick stated things have changed in West Canaveral Groves; and it is not a third world country as was stated.

Commissioner Colon stated there were homes developed out there without electricity and septic tanks; those are the things she experienced; so the Commissioners that were here had those situations for years and they have to be upgraded. Commissioner Colon stated in Mr. Krupnick’s case, she is glad to table it to see how unique his particular area is; but she has been out there and could not believe what she saw. She stated the Board has to make laws that do not affect Mr. Krupnick particularly but apply to everyone. Mr. Krupnick stated he shares the concerns for the community as well; and the home he wishes to build will be of a vastly different character.

Commissioner Scarborough stated to work with people like Mr. Krupnick is to the County’s advantage; he does not know if he understands the risk for the Board to do what he suggested or whether it would open up Pandora’s box with thousands of potentials; but he would like to see it work out for Mr. Krupnick and the people like him who want to make West Canaveral Groves their home. He stated nothing would make the County happier than that; and his office and staff will be working with Mr. Krupnick to make sure all the parameters can be met. Chairman Pritchard stated he is going to take a trip out to the area to see it. Commissioner Colon stated she went home dumbfounded about some of the stuff out there.

The meeting recessed at 12:19 p.m., and reconvened at 1:04 p.m.

APPEAL OF WAIVER DENIAL FOR BUILDING PERMIT, RE: ANNETTE DITTMER

The appeal of waiver denial for building permit for Annette Dittmer was tabled by a motion on the previous item.

CERTIFICATE OF PUBLIC CONVENIENCE AND NECESSITY APPLICATION FOR
CITY OF PALM BAY, RE: EMERGENCY MEDICAL TRANSPORT SERVICES

City Manager of Palm Bay Lee Feldman thanked the Board for the opportunity to present comments on behalf of the City of Palm Bay on its application for Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity (COPCN) for emergency medical transport services. He stated he has some procedural matters to bring forward; first the City has several objections as to the procedures for issuing a COPCN, which it is participating in today; and he has a list of the objections, which is being passed out to the Board now and which he will submit for the record. Mr. Feldman stated many members of the public could not attend the meeting since it was scheduled during the middle of their work day; and with that in mind, he would like to submit for the record the comments made by the members of the public at the EMS Review Committee meeting of February 2, 2005, copies of which are being distributed to the Board now. He stated he also has a copy of the PowerPoint presentation that he is about to make so the Commissioners can follow along. He stated the Board had an opportunity to read through their COPCN application; and at this time he will briefly review the application and the basis for the Board’s approval. He stated he was told by SCGTV that he had to get approval to air the PowerPoint presentation.

Motion by Commissioner Voltz, seconded by Commissioner Carlson, to approve airing a Power Point presentation by Lee Feldman, City Manager of the City of Palm Bay. Motion carried and ordered unanimously.

Mr. Feldman advised the City is going to provide an enhanced patient care service; it is going to be done by providing for ALS paramedic rescue units within the City’s jurisdictional boundaries; and the bottom line is the City will have a shorter on-scene time for patients and faster movement from the incident to the emergency room. He stated Palm Bay Fire Rescue is going to remain as first responder in the community; it will alleviate reimbursing the City for the cost; and that is about $244,138 for FY 2005, which would be a direct operational cost reduction to the County. He stated they will not fragment or degrade the Brevard County EMS System; and they will be able to increase the level of service from the Board’s adopted level of service of 1 to 21,000 to 1 to 18,500, and at the same time reduce the cost to the residents. He stated their primary concern is continuity of patient care; they do not need to fragment service delivery by having first responders not to transport; they will show the benefit of patient care both in the presentation and subsequent ones that will come about; and the Board knows the history of why they are here today. Mr. Feldman advised they had Harbor City Ambulance Squad service prior to 1998-99; the County took over the system and started with an assessment of $31.69; and today that assessment has risen by 59.5% in just a few years with only one additional ambulance being provided in the City of Palm Bay. He stated currently Brevard County maintains four transport units within the City, located at Harris, Palm Bay, Bayside High, and Minton Road areas; each are staffed with two fire medics or paramedics; and a fifth unit was recently assigned two weeks after their COPCN application was submitted. He stated it was assigned, but there was no basis for the assignment; there was no previous study, deployment analysis, or response analysis to dictate that; and there is no formal commitment to keep the fifth unit in Palm Bay. He stated the current situation is that the Board has adopted its level of service (LOS) through its impact fee studies; that is one ambulance for every 21,000 people; and in 2003, if the Board looked at the population figures, it would see Rescue 38 services over 36,000 people and does not meet the LOS by 71%. He stated Rescue 84 services 26,463 people at 26% deficiency; Rescue 89 services 21,835 people and fails by 4%; and it is important to note that Rescue 89 services the fastest growing area in the City.

Mr. Feldman stated based on the April 1, 2004 population, the County provides Countywide one ambulance for 20,857 people and meets its LOS Countywide; however, when looking at the ambulance deployment within the City of Palm Bay, it rises to 1 for every 25,411 people; therefore, the County fails in the City to meet its LOS by 21%. He stated response time is a measure; the Board has a goal of meeting 90% of the calls within six minutes; and if it looks at the station-by-station analysis, it will note that only one station is under six minutes response time on average. He stated they had a citizen survey conducted and asked the citizens of Palm Bay what they wanted; they told them currently the City and County Fire Departments both respond to incidents requiring first responder emergency care, but only the County Fire Department is authorized to transport patients to the hospital; and they asked the people to what extent would they support or oppose authorizing Palm Bay Fire Department to transport patients directly to the hospital after providing initial care and treatment. Mr. Feldman stated 83% somewhat or strongly supported that notion; 64% strongly supported it; and that is an overwhelming response in the community telling the City the direction the citizens want to take. He stated they need to be cognizant of their future growth; the population in 1999 was just under 80,000; today it is over 92,000 people in five short years; that growth is continuing; in 2002 they had 2,227 single-family homes permitted; and so far this year over 1,068 permits were issued, which means in the next 18 months they are going to have another 6,500 residents in the community and that is not counting the high growth areas of West Melbourne and Melbourne, which also need to be addressed. Mr. Feldman stated the bottom line is that the County does not have a plan for the future growth of ambulance service in Palm Bay; it looks at it every five years; the last time it looked at it was in 1999; and things have changed between 1999 and 2005. He stated there is nothing on the horizon for the City; in fact the County’s best practices as adopted indicated that EMS was only needed in Central Melbourne, East Merritt Island, South Cocoa Beach, Lake Washington Central, Titusville, and South Melbourne Beach; and there are no ambulances planned for Palm Bay and they need to be there. He stated the County improperly collected Countywide impact fee for EMS services; since it adopted the fee in 2001, over $540,000 that should have been collected within municipalities has not been collected; the County does not have a dedicated funding source to deal with growth within the municipalities; and in fact, it is the unincorporated area of the County that is subsidizing the cities’ growth in the EMS field. He stated since the City brought this issue to the Board’s attention in November, over $55,000 has gone uncollected, which is a mistake that needs to be corrected regardless of what action the Board is going to take. He stated the map shows deployment of fire stations and rescue stations under the current scenario; the County has an assessment of $50.55 per improved lot; it assesses commercial properties as though they are one improved lot regardless of the size or use; and they believe it is a violation of the Florida Statutes and the County’s Ordinance that it just recently adopted. He stated the County currently has a 75% collection rate, which is pretty good for the industry; the City’s charges would mirror the County’s charges; the City maintains six ALS units currently at five different stations and is reimbursed $244,000 for that; and the City provides first responder service along I-95 south of the municipal line to the Brevard County/Indian River County line and gets reimbursed only $181 per call. He stated the map shows what the City’s deployment would be of its units; they will add an additional five rescue units to the system; they will be state-of-the-art ambulances with state-of-the-art equipment; and they will be staffed with two fire paramedics and deployed at their fire stations and in the southwest at a mobile station. Mr. Feldman advised they have done a tremendous job analyzing the budget and the need for this service; they will fund 30 paramedics under their system and will do that by meeting a 15% retain earnings reserve goal; their initial budget is going to require a start-up of $910,000, which their general fund reserves will fund; and it will be a loan that will be paid back over the life of the operation. He stated they calculated the revenue based on their current 30,149 single-family properties, 5,469 multifamily units, and 2,015 mobile home units; under their program they would not assess or charge a fee to any commercial businesses; they assume there is an average growth under the system of 800 units per year with no multifamily growth assumed; and as the Board can see from their previous data on growth, it has exceeded the expectations of 800 single-family homes per year. He stated they used a 60% collection rate on ambulance billing charges; the County has a 75% rate; their system will work because they are using lower numbers than the County uses; and for the revenue for the first year, they will charge $45.75 per residential unit. He stated based upon historical increases in October this year, the County’s rate will be about $54.09; and that is a 7% increase. He stated in the fifth year of their system under their model, the rate will rise to $52.50; the County’s rate under the same trend analysis will increase to $70.90 per assessed unit; and in the five years of their initial service, their rate will not exceed the County’s rate of any given year. Mr. Feldman advised the chart illustrates the City and County rates; the County rate continues to increase as the City’s rate increases at a lower rate; and under their budget, the first year they will have $2.7 million expense, which includes the $250,000 reserve payment. He stated by the fifth year, their revenues will increase to $3.6 million with expenses at $3.56 million, including a $415,000 reserve; and on top of that, they will have an additional $84,000 surplus. He stated they are governed by Florida Statutes, Chapter 401, which requires the County to issue a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity; that is why they are here today; County Ordinance No. 04-84 is part of the conflict resolution process; that removes the standards; the only items that the Board has to judge them on today are the application criteria contained within the Ordinance; and he will briefly review those. He stated the Board has to look at their population, their name, the number of monthly service calls, their response time, communication system, past performance and service record, financial ability and responsibility, and the names and certification numbers of all EMT's and paramedics. He stated it has to ensure compliance with vehicle inspection standards, proposed locations, telephone communication system, maximum number of units, type and condition they are going to use on each vehicle, and the proposed service rate; and the bottom line is the Board has already reviewed all that when it issued the COPCN for non-transport ALS. He stated nothing has changed; the standards have been met; and the application criteria in this case have been met over and over. Mr. Feldman advised the effect on the Brevard County system is that the Department will claim that turning over services to the City will fragment County operations and make the system less efficient; there is no basis for that statement; there have been no studies, independent or not, that have been done; and since December 1 when the statement appeared in Florida TODAY, they have been making public records requests to the Department to furnish them copies of those studies, which will indicate or support that fact. He stated the bottom line is they cannot provide the study, and that is why the City is here today. He stated they are fooling themselves to say the system is not fragmented today; their system is fragmented and inefficient today; for every emergency medical call in the City of Palm Bay, two agencies respond using two vehicles and four to six personnel on each signal call; two agencies are required to dispatch calls resulting in the 911 dispatchers transferring and monitoring two separate agencies; and the bottom line is they get there first and that is why they are in the first response business. Mr. Feldman stated the County’s Public Safety Director, in April 2004, said that municipalities get there two minutes beforehand, and that goes unrefuted today; the County will be able to re-deploy its assets to meet its adopted LOS; it has to meet growth demands not only in Palm Bay but elsewhere in the County; and that means it is going to have to re-deploy its ambulances in order to meet those LOS and response times. He stated it is not unique to Brevard County; in the State there are 171 entities licensed to do transport; 62 of those are municipalities or special district entities; municipal/county systems work well in 15 counties within the State; and there are no objections from their neighboring communities. He stated the ultimate concern, which still remains un-addressed by the County, is continuity of patient care; the bottom line is can the City meet the adopted LOS; and the answer is yes, it can provide cost-effective service delivery to the patient taxpayer at or lower than the current charges. He inquired should the City of Palm Bay be in the emergency medical transport business; and stated the answer is yes; and he will answer any questions the Board may have and if he has any time left over, he would like a chance to respond.

Commissioner Colon stated Mr. Feldman brought up a $910,000 loan; with Mr. Feldman responding they will borrow internally from their reserves. Commissioner Colon inquired how is the community guaranteed that the rates will not go up; with Mr. Feldman responding the rates will go up; they built in an increase of 3% a year into their financial model; and that includes the repayment to the general fund for the initial loan. Commissioner Colon stated the reason she asked the question is because they had meetings where they were able to identify some of the population growth that is about to happen and how it looks now, not just in Palm Bay but west of it and south of it. She inquired if it is something that ha been looked into as far a the equation, so she can be more specific in regards to the annexation and that kind of growth that is coming in. She stated whether it is the City or the County, either one is going to have to have a plan on how they are going to service those folks. Mr. Feldman stated Palm Bay has three major developments that are going to occur within the City; one is in the northwest by the Regional Park, Waterstone is south of Babcock, and in the future they will have the Quarry and Sotori Potato Farm projects coming on line. He stated those are going to bring residential units and commercial units to the City, which are going to require service; as part of their development agreements, they will be siting future ambulances as well as fire and police responses out of those segments; and the homes that are there will continue to pay a fee to the City when they get built. He stated the fee will continue to generate dollars necessary to run the system. Commissioner Colon stated she is asking because she is concerned about how expensive it is to buy an ambulance and build a fire station; and inquired if the City has millions of dollars to put up that kind of facility; with Mr. Feldman responding absolutely. He stated if the City ends up with the transport business, which they hope they will today, they will be instituting an EMS impact fee that will be equivalent to the County’s EMS impact fee; if it is collected within the
City, it will generate dollars necessary to buy ambulances; ambulances cost between $90,000 and $110,000 depending on what is purchased; and the EMS fee that is collected within the City will be sufficient to cover the cost of ambulances. Mr. Feldman stated in addition, the ambulances will be sited within the fire stations the City is going to be building; that is supported through the fire impact fee that is collected within the community right now; so there is not going to be an additional cost of infrastructure, just for ambulances and basic capital equipment for the ambulances. Commissioner Colon stated Mr. Feldman mentioned not charging businesses; and inquired why would a business not be charged when men and women have to respond to false alarms or someone being injured at a place of business. She inquired why would the City deprive itself and have the taxpayer pick up the tab. Mr. Feldman stated the County Ordinance indicates its fees; the fee is not against property, but against people who happen to occupy property; at least that is the argument made continually at the conflict resolution and at prior meetings; and the bottom line is if they pay for it already at their house and happen to get sick at a business, they already paid for the service availability so why should they have to pay twice. He stated different businesses have different impacts; for example, Home Depot is a major hardware store that does cuttings, and people can get hurt there; they pay the same under the County’s system as an attorney would pay in a single practitioner attorney office; and a nursing home pays the same, but that is where the majority of their calls come from. He noted they do not think it is an equitable system. Commissioner Colon stated she is also curious, and Mr. Feldman probably answered it, but he has been talking for such a long time that she might have not caught it; if it is illegal for the County to get the fee, why is it legal for the City to get it; with Mr. Feldman responding the system the County uses is a non-ad valorem assessment, which ultimately results in a lien on homesteaded property if they fail to pay; it shows up on the tax bills; they cannot pay a portion of the tax bill; but under the City’s system, they would have a fee, which they would bill to the residents and hope they do the right thing and pay their bills. He stated they used the model from Waste Management, which has 96% collection rate within the City; if they bill in the same manner as Waste Management bills for sanitation, they hope to get the same 96% response; but they built in a lower response in their model just to have a cushion. He stated they believe the same dollars can be collected by sending out bills. Commissioner Colon stated it was mentioned at previous meetings and she wants to reiterate that a lot of folks were saying it is mostly for patient care; one of the things she said was be up front, this is about money; and if it is about money, they need to make sure the citizens see that in black and white when it comes to what kind of income it is generating on either side so it is not just in regards to the City of Palm Bay. She stated one thing she heard from folks in the delegation was if it is about patient care, then at what point is the County able to say they need x amount of ambulances and x amount of stations, and so forth; and at what point does the City say that is not good enough. She stated those are some of the questions being asked; and inquired if it is about money or patient care. Mr. Feldman stated he takes exception to the fact that this is about money; under the County system, they run it as enterprise and have charge backs to the General Fund; there is a reimbursement to achieve that and indirect costs such as rent of fire stations are charged back to the system; and there are indirect costs for the County Manager’s time, County Attorney’s time, data processing, insurance, and reserves, etc. He stated the City does not proposed to run the system where it is taking those fees and having the indirect costs funnel back to the general fund or various funds of the City; it is going to be a primary municipal service; the fees collected along with the ambulance transport fees are going to go back into the general fund as revenue; and there is not going to be any charge back for his time, the City attorney’s time, or any aspect of their government. Mr. Feldman stated there are not going to be rental charges, shared costs, and reallocation back; if the fees do not cover the service, the City will do like any other municipal operation has to come up with the dollars in order to make sure it works; if there is an excess generated, as their model shows, then the excess would go towards reducing the fee in future years. He stated the bottom line is they are not in it to make money; if they were in it to make money, they would charge the same fee that the County does and be pocketing the extra dollars in the general fund, but that is not their goal; and their goal is patient care. Mr. Feldman stated with regard to the proposal where the County would agree to staff up to proper ambulance service levels of 1 to 21,000, the City has two concerns with that; and first is what will happen if the County cannot do it because resources are not there or resources have to go elsewhere in the County. He stated they do not want to be in competition with other communities with limited resources of the County with regard to ambulances; there was talk about the time the City would get a COPCN if County resources were limited; and he does not think the County can legislatively or contractually bind itself to a legislative action down the road. He stated the City would have to reapply at that time and go through the process again; and they cannot have one entity dictate or determine what their growth patterns will be.

Commissioner Voltz advised the County’s fee includes Marchman and Baker Act charges and the City’s fee does not; and inquired if the County has to bill the City for those services. Fire Rescue Director Chief Bill Farmer advised he has not had a conversation with Coastal Health Systems, Inc., which is the provider of the Marchman and Baker Act transports, so he is not sure how they would carve that component out of the assessment to get them paid to provide the service, whether Coastal would have to enter into an agreement with the City, or whether the County would become some form of collector of services for the City and funnel that to Coastal. He stated they have not had that detailed conversation yet. Commissioner Voltz stated the fees Mr. Feldman is talking about do not include Marchman and Baker Act costs; and that will have to be added on somehow or another to the residents.

Chairman Pritchard stated Slides 7 and 8 talk about the population for four rescue units and the response time for four units; and inquired with the fifth rescue unit, how have those numbers changed; with Mr. Feldman responding the fifth rescue unit is paired with Rescue Unit 84, so with regard to Rescue Unit 83, which is by far the worst level of service of all the stations, the population figure has not changed. Mr. Feldman stated the Board will see with Rescue Unit 84 the one where they added the additional ambulance, it was the one unit that was below the response time requirement. Chairman Pritchard inquired if the report from the City shows four rescue units; with Mr. Feldman responding yes. Chairman Pritchard inquired if the County added a fifth unit; with Mr. Feldman responding it put a fifth unit there two weeks after the City’s application for the COPCN in November 2004. Chairman Pritchard inquired if the fifth rescue unit changed the numbers. Mr. Feldman inquired if he is asking about population numbers or response time; with Chairman Pritchard responding both. Mr. Feldman responded with regard to Rescue Unit 84, because they are collocated, the Board needs to understand that the fifth rescue unit is not a rescue unit in its own separate station; it is paired with Rescue Unit 84; so the County has two rescue units working out of the same station and in the same primary service area. Mr. Feldman stated in that regard, the population figure has diminished in terms of level of service for Rescue Unit 84; but has not changed for Units 83, 88, and 89. He stated the same thing goes with the response time; and what they have done is put two ambulances in the same primary service area.

Commissioner Carlson inquired if the Board should allow Chief Farmer to go through the issues based on the criteria the Board was given that it needs to assess, or does it want to let the speakers be heard next. She stated she has a lot of questions, but wants to hear from everybody first. Chairman Pritchard stated he wants to hear from County staff next, then the speakers.

Commissioner Voltz advise she and Chief Farmer talked about demographics or people who actually encompass the 30,000, whatever it is; those are not the people that garner most of the services; in other words, areas with more of an elderly population are where they need to make sure they have ambulances rather than where the people who do not use it are; and inquired if that is how the ambulances are placed. Chief Farmer stated Mr. Swanke can speak to the level of service and impact issues better than he can; but his understanding is that the 21,000 figure for each ambulance is an aggregate figure developed by Tindale during the impact fee study to represent the current level of service so that any impact fee that is generated goes to improve or maintain that level of service. He stated it is an aggregate figure that was never designed to be specific to a zone or area or city, but to be a regional impact figure; and Brevard County does meet that level of service. Commissioner Voltz stated that was not her question; they talked about perhaps Unit 83 with 36,000 people and failing to meet the level of service; but that group of 36,000 people is not the type of population that really needs the service on a regular basis versus someplace like Barefoot Bay that may need the service more frequently. Chief Farmer stated the system is designed based on call volume and response times; putting rescue units in locations that have the greatest impact to hit that six minutes 90% of the time mark and trying to keep the units answering about 2,000 calls a year is the guide they have been utilizing; and as far as the population review, that only came out of the impact fee study, and that is why he referred that to Mr. Swanke.

Chief Farmer advised the Board is considering an application for emergency medical service transportation from the City of Palm Bay; the presentation provided by staff references the application and its possible impact to Brevard County’s regional EMS system; and all the information presented is supported by documents in the package the Board has before it. He stated the first tab is the presentation; the second tab is the point-by-point general review of the City’s COPCN application; and the Board can refer to that if it wants more detail than what is presented in the slides. He stated the County provides a regional EMS approach; what the Board will see in the presentation and hear from some of the speakers is that a regional EMS approach provides an economy of scale savings to all taxpayers; additionally, it allows the Board to have a greater amount of capital resources available to it for large-scale emergencies while not having the resources sitting somewhere collecting dust. Chief Farmer stated they are able to support 25 ambulances and have those ready for immediate need, but they are still running calls, so the Board does not have the loss of capital; and because of that, they have a quicker response to large-scale emergencies and there are no boundaries. He stated the Board will hear from speakers today that there are events where a rescue station will look out the back window and know if someone is having a heart attack, but not be able to go there without having some agreement in place; currently there are 13 or 14 mutual aid and auto aid agreements in Brevard County to manage the fire service; and there are zero mutual aid and first aid agreements because it has one contiguous regional system. Chief Farmer stated the Board also has one person responsible for the agency with a whole lot of backup; and he has the responsibility, authority, and ability to reach out and effect that immediately. He stated with a fragmented EMS approach, it will have the possibility of different treatment regiments; what that means is if someone is having a heart attack in Titusville, he or she may be treated differently than someone having a heart attack in Melbourne; and that does not exist now. He stated there can also be ineffective communication having multiple PSAP’s; information can be lost; it is a classic tale; one person tells the story to another person, the other person tells it to another person, and by the time it makes the loop, the story has changed; and the Board will hear about a real life example where a crisis was going on and the medical community was able to reach out to one entity and resolve that crisis. He stated there is also the possibility of having different equipment, where if there is an event and they have to come in and provide mutual aid or backup, they could have incompatible equipment; and that does not exist in the EMS transportation system now. He stated there will be an increase in cost to the taxpayers; those positions are not subjective opinions provided by staff; they are cited facts; and there is backup material in the packet. Chief Farmer stated one of the items Mr. Feldman talked about was that the application does not indicate all costs such as indirect costs; the City is able to not show those costs or shelter those costs in the City’s general fund; he is not saying that is inappropriate, but their figure of $50.55 shows all the operational costs. He stated there is input from the County Manager’s Office; there is assistance from the County Attorney’s Office; there is assistance from Information Systems Department; those services have to be paid for as they are raised by the EMS operation; so it is appropriate to pay for that. He stated regarding the City being less expensive than the County, that is not true; the $50.55 funds three programs, ambulances, Marchman and Baker, and first responder; and if they were to remove two programs, which they are not suggesting, and only look at ambulance service, the fee would be $41.47 or $4.28 less than the City’s proposed fee of $45.75. He stated the County’s lower service fee of $41.47 would fund 25 ambulances, not five; and there is the economy of scale. Chief Farmer stated the service area discussed today creates more calls than are currently managed by all five ambulances; it is due in part because a lot is going on in the south end of the County; and there are routinely back-to-back calls. He stated because of the back-to-back calls, the Board would be left with one or two choices, either build a wall around Palm Bay and they only provide the service with their five ambulances, which means the response time is going to go up for Brevard County citizens because those who live in Palm Bay are also Brevard County citizens. He stated they will have to keep sufficient resources on scene to provide mutual aid backup to the City; the City knows that; and because of the loss of billable units and user fees, the Board will have to decide how much to increase the assessment. Chief Farmer stated if the Board decides to keep all five rescue units, it will have to raise the assessment to $67.75; the end result is if it does not keep any, then it can have an assessment of $55.35; staff does not believe it can do that; it is just their opinion; and other speakers will say it cannot build a wall around Palm Bay. He stated the COPCN application does not demonstrate any objective study to indicate appropriateness of any of the subjective claims made within the COPCN; if the Board read the COPCN, it would see a lot of “we believe” or “it is believed”; there is no study that indicates they are going to provide any performance measurements that are going to indicate that there is going to be a reduction of response time or that patients are going to get to the hospital quicker, or that 50% of the time people will be off-scene transported to the hospital in one minute. Chief Farmer stated none of those performance measurements are there. He stated the Ordinance talks about the appropriateness of the current service and there is no review of the appropriateness of the current system; it is not about patient care service and in fact, the City Manager made the following statement, “I would like to reiterate once again that this submission is not an indictment of the County’s quality of care. In fact, our residents have told us that they are satisfied with the quality of care provided by the County.” Chief Farmer stated additionally, a city survey conducted in April 2004 indicated that the Palm Bay citizens rated the County’s EMS service just slightly below its own home-grown fire department and higher than its police department. He stated on February 2, 2005 the COPCN Review Committee recommended the Board deny the COPCN application based on the COPCN deficiencies and lack of performance measurements or objective studies, the negative impact of fragmentation, and the higher cost to Brevard County taxpayers; and staff recommends the Board deny the COPCN application of the City of Palm Bay for EMS transport.

Chairman Pritchard inquired why are there two rescue units at one station; with Chief Farmer responding it is a study to see if they can do more with less and can house two units out of one area; they did a study off Nieman Avenue in Melbourne and the system worked well; they were able to cohabitate; and the employees did well with it. He stated the pilot program was supposed to affect the amount of call volume for Station 84, which is the station they are cohabitating with now; when the impact did not occur and call volume did not go down, that is when they relocated to Station 84 and are running two units out of there to see if they can avoid buying a second manufactured home. He stated with regard to the County’s position on the fifth ambulance, they have told the City of Palm Bay in public meetings that they are leaving the fifth ambulance in that area and that they are happy to sit down with the City staff and review any kind of growth management plan for their City; they are also happy to review the location of the fifth ambulance to see if there is a better, more well thought-out location, in terms of cost efficiency and response times; and they have gone on record to that effect. Chairman Pritchard stated the County’s adopted level of service is 21,000 people per unit; and inquired if the County is currently providing one ambulance for 20,857 persons based on Mr. Feldman’s slide #8; with Mr. Swanke responding that is probably an accurate figure; they have over 500,000 people and 25 ambulances; so it would be just over 20,000 people. Chairman Pritchard inquired how is it the County can have 20,857 residents per ambulance yet have an apparent disproportionate share in that it is higher residents for Stations 83, 84 and 89; with Mr. Swanke responding he does not believe the LOS on which the EMS impact fee rates were based intended to look at the individual primary response areas for each ambulance; they looked at the County as a whole and assumed that as the County population increased there will be greater call for service and the need to expand the EMS system; and that is why they have a Countywide benefit district for EMS that is looked at as a system and not on an individual station-by-station basis.

Commissioner Colon stated she had a meeting two weeks ago in her office with the City of Palm Bay and County staff; they looked at applications that were coming in from the unincorporated area plus the City and all the annexations; they have been discussing it with the Board a great deal of the time; and regardless of what happens today, the growth that is about to happen in the south area of the County is something that they really have to look at. She stated she has not seen a plan that the County has come up with; that is also some of her concern; and she shared her concerns with the City of Palm Bay about what is going to happen to Malabar, Valkaria, Grant, and West Melbourne, and also about the kind of growth that is about to happen in a new town being formed to the south in Districts 3 and 5. She stated there must be a plan; and it may be a blessing in disguise to bring this item up in order to have that kind of discussion because she does not believe they had the kind of good discussion that needs to happen in regards to growth that is here. She stated she does not see the positive; she would like to get feedback from the County in regards to the level of service that the folks in Palm Bay are experiencing; Palm Bay is about to grow even larger; it was 65 square miles and Mr. Feldman said 71 square miles, which is out of control in regards to the size; and inquired what is the plan from the County. Chief Farmer stated the County is in the last year of its five-year plan; it was stated they only look at it one time, and that is not correct; they review it each year; however, they review it from their performance measurements on response times, call lines, and impact to rescue units; and they were missing a component, which is input from the city. He stated Mr. Feldman’s position on the growth issue brought that home very clearly; so they have sent letters to all the city managers asking to sit down with them and discuss their growth plans, not the proposed ones, but the ones that have been sited and will happen definitively so they can get that missing component. He noted they met with a couple of cities and are working on that component; and he sent a second letter to Mr. Feldman stating they would be happy to sit down with them and create a growth plan for the City of Palm Bay to bring back to the Board.

Commissioner Scarborough stated running the units per population is basically different than shifting over to response time, which is a level of care issue; and they are not connected. He stated Cocoa Beach is one of the older cities in Brevard County; Mr. Feldman brought up the issue of having more calls from nursing homes than from a younger community; and inquired if that is calculated within the matter of the level of service or is that a totally separate issue beyond the two they already distinguished. Chief Farmer stated with the exception of nursing homes, they have looked at the issue on commercial property and what type of businesses generate EMS calls; and to his knowledge, there is no study out there that says a pizza restaurant incurs more calls than an apartment complex or hotel. He stated when they did some preliminary reviews of hotels and other businesses, common sense would say they need to generate calls; but that has not been proven to be the point. Commissioner Scarborough stated they could assume people in Port St. John are substantially younger than people in Cocoa Beach, and from that staff would determine that the people as they get older have a greater need for EMS; and inquired if that leads to further analysis of how they station ambulances; with Chief Farmer responding no, they have not based any movement of vehicles on demographics. Commissioner Scarborough inquired if staff goes back to their capacity to respond within a period of time and if the age demographics are drawing more calls, would they look at that.

Commissioner Carlson stated Chief Farmer’s presentation on funding talked about the City utilizing three funding sources; he did not talk about impact fees; they talked about growth plans; and inquired how do those things correlate. She stated she expects if the County is collecting EMS impact fees it would not be on the route it is right now; and inquired if they can talk to the impact fee issue. Chief Farmer stated the impact fee issue was raised relatively late, but if they collected impact fees in the City of Palm Bay and surrounding cities, that would help considerably with growth; and the County’s growth has been utilizing assessments only and some billing, user fees, and no impact fees. He stated with regard to growth and the five-year plan, the COPCN application for the City of Palm Bay does not speak to impact fees and does not indicate growth for itself; so staff has not factored that in to its review of the COPCN application. He stated there is no five-year plan in the COPCN application for the City of Palm Bay; it did not indicate growth for itself; and it does not start factoring in another rescue unit, at least not in the application. Commissioner Carlson stated that was one of her concerns in listening to the City’s presentation; and on the ambulance billing, Palm Bay is saying it is going to bill the residents and not do it the way the County does it. She stated if they bill the residents, they expect them to pay; and if they do not, then they have to solicit the aid of a collection agency; and inquired how does Chief Farmer see that working out and how would he realistically apply that to a funding strain if he were not guaranteed the funding. Chief Farmer stated he does not think the County can do that; one of the issues they talked about in senior staff meetings was that the assessment is solid; he heard Mr. Knox’s arguments about it; they were able to provide some study material; but it is an issue that continually raises other issues with the Board and staff. He stated it causes a lot of work on staff’s part; if there is a better way of doing it, he would like the Board’s approval to review other options and bring them to the Board for its consideration; and he believes it has to have a guaranteed funding source, because it is not like they can say they will not answer a 911 call. Commissioner Carlson inquired if it has to be guaranteed and recurring; with Chief Farmer responding yes.

Chairman Pritchard inquired if Chief Farmer has someone who needs to speak now so he can get back; with Chief Farmer responding Chuck Kearns of Largo needs to get back to the West Coast; and there are seven other issues Mr. Feldman raised that he would like to respond to at the end if the Chairman does not mind.

Chuck Kearns of Largo, Florida, stated he was contacted late last week and asked if he would come and speak to the COPCN application that the Board has before it today, so he had very little time to review it; but he did look at the application and went on the Palm Bay website to read the transcript of the February 2, 2005 meeting of the EMS Review Committee. He stated by seeing those two things, he had serious questions, and the Board should have them as well; and suggested the Board get its own study done before it makes the decision. Mr. Kearns stated the City had an international consultant aid it in putting the application together but he does not think the County had an equal caliber of consultant looking at the issues from its perspective and with its interests in mind. He stated there was a House Bill offered today that hit the Internet, House Bill 1565; he did not see co-sponsors and there was no companion bill in the Senate, but it seemed to mimic the things that are in the COPCN application and that would put the entire EMS industry in turmoil and upheaval; so that would probably be a very active issue as they move forward in the session. Mr. Kearns stated he comes from a system that was highly fragmented years ago; and they had bad patient outcomes all the time, which sold a lot of newspapers. He stated it was not until a 15-year old boy was crossing one of the main thoroughfares, got hit by a car, the closest paramedic unit from the city was out on a call, the next closest paramedic unit from the next jurisdiction came racing up to the city line and stopped because there was no mutual aid agreement between the two governmental entities; they did have a mutual aid agreement for fire protection but not for EMS; and that was the event that shocked the conscience of the community. He stated they got a Special Legislative Act and had a countywide referendum to put in place a countywide all paramedic ambulance transport system; and that is where they came from in Pinellas County. He stated the results of that system have been fabulous; they are world renowned in Pinellas County EMS system; and people can go to their website and see the years of awards that have earned. He stated the most important test is patient outcomes; they have some of the best cardiac arrest outcomes in the world in their county; and they attribute it to good strong medical direction and a consolidated ambulance transport system. He stated people might say it could not happen in this day and age, no mutual aid in the community, but he can tell the Board there are problems right now in other places in Florida; in Hillsborough County there is a mutual aid issue going on with the City of Tampa and Hillsborough Fire Rescue; Broward County has cities that do not have mutual aid agreements; so they cannot count on mutual aid; and they have to ask if someone is available at the given moment some event occurs. He reiterated it happens right now in communities across the State; and inquired how will the Board know, if it grants the COPCN, that it will not start happening within weeks or months in Brevard County. Mr. Kearns stated the County ambulance service is successful and uses a balanced approach to offer the same high level of service to every citizen within the County every day; there was a notion in the application that scene times will be reduced; what troubles him about the application is the lack of specifics; he did not see any time mentioned, any data that directly equates with what the time is, or how it will impact patient care; there is a startling lack of clinical information in the application; and it seems to be overbalanced on the financial side and more of a financial argument to him. He stated the 6.5-minute response time for County ambulances is admirable; that is a very good response time and ranks with the better systems across the nation; and that is something the Board does not want to jeopardize. He stated the City may not realize that a first response non-transport unit spends 17 to 25 minutes on the scene of a call; and when adding the time of transport, turning over the patient, waiting at the hospital to complete the paper work, dropping off the patient, moving the patient to a bed in the hospital, coming back out, cleaning the ambulance, and if it is trauma alert, there could be a lot of body fluids and blood that have to be cleaned up so they are looking at over an hour that the unit will be out of service. Mr. Kearns stated it is four to five times more time on the task, which will take the ambulance out of the system to respond to the next call; he saw no discussion of that in the application; and when the City gets its ambulances depleted, the County will be going in to back it up just as it does now when it moves its units down from station to station to cover the gaps. He stated the application seems to contradict itself; the City said it would staff with two firefighter-paramedics, and maintain five ALS engines; that is almost 10 ALS units; and it has 35 paramedics to do the initial ambulance staffing and will use its cadre of experienced medics right now. He stated if one does the match of two medics times five units, times three shifts for the ambulance, the City will need 30 paramedics, at the bare minimum, if nobody calls in sick or takes a vacation; and there is actually a fulltime equivalent multiplier of 3.5 people per seat in the truck for full staffing and cover for time off the job. He stated on the ALS engine they said they will maintain, they are going to need one medic at a minimum for three shifts on five units; and that is 15 persons at a bare minimum; so they need 17 more medics to be safe at about 52 total; and they claim in the application they have 35 now. He stated the City needs to hire more medics and needs to do it quickly; he does not know if it is aware that there is a national paramedic shortage; he is the Secretary of the Florida Association of Counties EMS providers; and they just issued a white paper on the national and State shortage of paramedics, so hiring those people will not be easy. Mr. Kearns stated another thing to consider is how they stack up salary and benefit-wise; to be able to attract good help, they have to pay for it; and he does not know where they are in comparison with other cities in the area and the County. He stated the money does not seem to add up either; there is one number in the application and he heard the City Manager say a different number; the County is paying $244,000 a year for rescue services; he took a very conservative look at the user fees that the County generates and collects; it looks like it can save $244,000 a year if it is willing to give up $2.7 million a year; and it did not make a lot of sense to him from the County’s standpoint to enter into that agreement. He stated he is not aware if the City knows that new Medicare providers, when they get a provider number, are usually reimbursed at a lower rate during the first six months than what the City is counting on because Medicare wants to see if the City is actually going to survive the new venture; it does not want to take a big risk on the money it pays; and he does not know if that was factored into the equation. He stated he read comments from the February 2, 2005 EMS Committee meeting where a City speaker said it is inefficient to have a unit from two different agencies responding to the same call; the presentation by the City later said it is going to keep the same standard and send its engine and ambulance out; so it seems to be inefficient for the County but not inefficient for the City to do the same thing; and he is puzzled by that. He stated there is no guarantee that the overall medic staffing will not suffer from this plan; there is no guarantee the County employees will be hired by the City although the City did say it would hire the County’s best personnel; and inquired if it took the best of the best, would they be brought into that organization with the same seniority and rank. He stated the City said in its application there is no guarantee it would not privatize if it made sense and the City could make more money; that was contained in the application; it does appear to break out the Micco area; and if Micco is carved out, that would leave a noncontiguous gaping hole in the County’s system. Mr. Kearns stated in the presentation to the EMS Committee, the City did not consider UHF radios, which are required by the State to communicate with hospital emergency departments; that talks to the lack of experience in the transport business; and those in the business know that it is a given and they have to have them. He noted that was not contained in the original application. He stated other communities that have been struggling with a COPCN issue much more recently are Alachua, Volusia, Hillsborough, Leon, and Broward Counties, and Kansas City, Missouri from out of state; in Alachua County, the consultant who helped a city put its application together did a study and recommended a countywide consolidated ambulance transport system;
in Leon County, the same consultant made the same recommendation in the last two years; and in Volusia County in 1997, the same consultant gave the same recommendation to keep the County consolidated ambulance transport system. He stated in Kansas City last year, the same consultant went and provided four options for the metropolitan ambulance service trust to consider with possible reconfiguration in the system; and weighing the options of city transport, fire department transport, complete privatization, or keeping the consolidated regional approach, they overwhelmingly voted to keep the consolidated regional approach for economy of scale and better patient care. He stated there is a full-page ad in the February edition of the Journal of Emergency Medical Services where the consultants say they put out all the options and that is what was chosen, thanks to their help. Mr. Kearns stated moving from a fully-integrated transport service to one that is broken with fragmented units will increase the cost for remaining entities as each participant loses economies of scale; and one thing to consider as a patient is will the city ambulance take him or her to the hospital of choice even if it is 50 miles away or out of the County. He stated Brevard County Fire Rescue does that right now and will continue to do it; and inquired if a patient is taken to the hospital closest to the city’s fire station where the ambulance came from, would that person’s physician have privileges to practice at that hospital, does the hospital have the right capabilities and specialties to treat the patient, and is it easy for a spouse in Titusville to find out what happened and to see the patient. He stated for any of those reasons, the system design might cost and cause a second transport to occur, the first transport to the closest facility and a second transport to get the patient to the hospital that can take care of him or her, or where his or her doctor has privileges, or where that person’s insurance plan is accepted. He stated if they are taken to a hospital out of their plan, they are going to be hit with a large out-of-pocket claim; and inquired if the City ambulance goes to Titusville, will it take the next call that comes out two miles south of Titusville while they are returning to the City like Brevard County Rescue Unit will. Mr. Kearns stated if the Board votes to vulcanize its cohesive system today, all those things can happen to degrade patient care; and urged the Board to consider hiring an outside consultant to review the issues. He stated it is a clinical issue; and he understands there are doctors who will speak after him and will tell the Board some of their concerns. He stated on-scene time the City promised may be three or four times longer out of service time for an ambulance; he guarantees that is definitely going to happen; he saw nothing in the application about scene time going down by an specific number; and he saw no data in the application to backup that claim. He stated the County added a fifth unit recently to the City; there was discussion about the number of ambulances per population; and suggested two considerations along that line. He stated the number of ambulances per older population, people who are more apt and likely to need them, and response time are far more important than trying to put square pegs in round holes; and response time is where the rubber meets the road. Mr. Kearns stated the citizens will have to pay more; 35 firefighter-paramedics cannot adequately staff the five units; they are going to need 35 to 40 more people; so in the interim the existing firefighters staff in Palm Bay will be used to back their existing units if they go forward with this and cannot hire all the people they need. He stated last week he was visited by a South Florida community that the Board will hear about in a few minutes from someone who lives there; the community was seeking help to bring 20 fire departments together into a cohesive system; the county is an area where the cost has gone out of site; coordination
was sorely lacking and ultimately patients suffered; and he had a lobbyist in Tallahassee who saw a car accident in that location, called a dispatcher who asked what side of the intersection they were on because four jurisdictions came together there, and they did not know if the call was theirs or if they had to shift him to someone else; and that is what happens if they do not have consolidated dispatching. He stated it is a guessing game and the patients suffer from that; so the County is now looking forward to undo what it did years ago; the application starts out talking about patient care but there is very little patient care discussed in it; there is an awful lot of economics; and the City citizens are the County’s citizens as well. He stated Brevard County has in place a system that works well and provides equal high-level of care to anyone anywhere in the County; the application might make sense if a person does not travel beyond the City limits or comes from outside the City limits into the City; but the fact is people drive across borders and are going to want equal service; there are so many conditions in the application regarding enumeration for additional service, such as the City will do this if they join the financial plan, and it will serve here if they become part of the financial plan; and that caused him concern. He inquired if the City is given the power to transport, what will happen tomorrow and what will be the next thing. He stated page 11 of the application talks about going into the American Ambulance Accreditation process; he is not sure what the city is talking about; it may be a typo; the American Ambulance Association, of which he is a former director, has a management certification program, but it is only one group on the board of the commission on the accreditation of ambulance services which is an international accreditation body for services. He stated they might initiate that application by simply asking for the standards in the application, but they cannot apply as they are not in the transport business so CAS will not come in and review them; consequently, he is not sure which accreditation certification the City is talking about there. He stated EMS is not public safety; it is not going out and arresting people; it is public health care and provision of health care day in and day out from call to call; it is not arresting criminals or conducting building inspections for fire safety; and he said that to make a point. He stated the Board will hear from representatives of the medical and health care communities shortly; he knows physicians who work in the industry who have concerns about the fragmented transport system; and if his doctor has concerns, it is probably a good reason for him to be concerned too. He urged the Board to seek its own study before making such a major decision; and he would not be surprised if other local cities are watching these proceedings very closely and preparing to fill out their own applications as well.

Commissioner Colon thanked Mr. Kearns for coming to Brevard County, but stated she has to be honest and does not appreciate someone who is not from the community trying to tell the Board what to do in its community because he does not know the community like the Board does. She stated she would be saying the same thing if the shoe was on the other foot when they had Cocoa and the County and the cities bring in their experts; but Mr. Kearns made some comments that are kind of accurate, such as when they have an emergency in the City of Palm Bay, their EMS would bring it to the nearest hospital; if it is a specialty in regards to the heart and so forth, they know exactly where to take them; but they would not take a patient in the middle of an emergency all the way to Titusville because that is 72 miles away, so those are the kinds of examples that do not hold any water with her. She stated the facts are the facts; that is fine; but he should not give examples that are not realistic; and she has to be honest with him, it was wonderful that he came out and shared that information, but it did not hold water; however, if she was hearing that kind of testimony from the men and women from Brevard County, she would think differently. She stated she saw Mr. Kearns’ resume?; it was very impressive from the Emergency Medical Services Authority and so forth; but she wants to hear from the men and women of Brevard County because she has a hard time with folks trying to compare themselves with Brevard County. She noted she means no disrespect.

Mr. Kearns stated he appreciates Commissioner Colon’s candor and honesty; for the record, he was invited to come here and this is not the first time he has been here; and he was here eight years ago at the invitation of the County to give a presentation because of his industry experience and knowledge. He stated they met at the Florida TODAY Editorial Board Room so he has a little familiarity with Brevard County and certainly knows the industry.

Commissioner Carlson thanked Mr. Kearns; stated he presented a lot of good issues that she was not looking at and that were not brought out by staff in her briefing; so she believes his expert testimony is going to play a big part in the furtherance of the issues.

Chairman Pritchard stated he also wants to thank Mr. Kearns for coming to the meeting; he understands Commissioner Colon’s point about being local and what they might know in specifics; but this is not necessarily a local issue. He stated it is an issue that is somewhat universal; Broward, Pinellas, Hillsborough, and Volusia Counties are involved in it; it really does not matter; the situations are much the same; and the protocols for the most part are the same. He inquired if the Florida Association of Counties EMS Providers Association is an offshoot of an organization that started around 1979; with Mr. Kearns responding yes. Chairman Pritchard stated he was one of the founders of that; it was a long time ago; it is hard to believe in 1979 he was an EMT; and he is aware of the County Mr. Kearns spoke of. He stated it is the things he said that happened in Broward County; where Brevard County is now is where Broward County was then; it is now going back and looking for a countywide system; so he appreciates Mr. Kearns coming, and his words did not fall off his ears.

Mr. Feldman stated Commissioner Carlson indicated Mr. Kearns was providing expert testimony; he is confused what type of hearing this is and whether it is expert testimony that is being given; and they have a right to cross-examine.

County Attorney Scott Knox advised there is no right for cross-examination; Mr. Kearns gave a presentation; and if Commissioner Carlson wants to call it testimony, that is her description. Mr. Feldman stated he wants to make sure the Board has in its mind what type of hearing this is; with Mr. Knox responding he has been over it with Mr. Feldman and it is a quasi-legislative hearing. Mr. Feldman inquired if it was not expert testimony.

Robert Mulligan, Fire Lieutenant with Palm Bay Fire Rescue, stated he has served the City over 23 years and wants to speak about the continuity of patient care; he sees how it affects the people they serve in two ways; one is frustration and the other is relief; and he sees relief when they respond to a call and get on scene and finally someone is there to mediate their problem whatever the case may be. Mr. Mulligan stated usually the first person on the scene is a Palm Bay paramedic who sees frustration; when transport arrives at the same scene two or three minutes later, they ask the same questions they did just two minutes prior; he sees patients and family members get upset and frustrated at the system they have; and the information should go from patient to caregiver, being the first arriving paramedic, then to the doctor or nurse in the receiving facility. He stated Brevard County duplicates the system by putting up another transport medic coming to the scene; and requested the Board approve the City’s application for a COPCN so they can serve people quicker, more efficiently, and with better qualified personnel. He stated they have senior employees in Palm Bay who have been with the City eight to ten years; and those would be the paramedics that would be serving the public.

Commissioner Colon inquired if the comment about two agencies responding on scene is what is being told because the gentleman said the City Manager indicated there will still be two units responding possibly. Mr. Mulligan stated that is correct with the system they are going to put in place. Commissioner Colon inquired how would it be any different; with Mr. Mulligan responding the system they are going to put in place will be the closest unit; if a fire truck is around the corner, it will be the first unit there; and if the rescue rig at a next station is at the hospital or in Melbourne, the next station that is closest to the incident would be the next in line to take care of the incident. He stated the scenario the gentleman gave would never happen in Brevard County; the men and women would never let that happen; if someone came to the County or City line, it is not going to happen; and there are too many professional people in the County for that to happen.

Chairman Pritchard stated being professional is one thing and having jurisdiction is another; and unless there is a reciprocal agreement, if a unit crosses a boundary and does something, the persons are not covered under certain protocols or protections. Mr. Mulligan stated the County has one protocol and the Cities and County sat down and made the protocol; jurisdictions should not be jurisdictions; there should be continuity; and if he was coming from a hospital and was the closest unit, he would handle it; but that is something County staff has to hammer out. Chairman Pritchard stated he does not disagree, but he went to a fire years ago that was on the other side of the street and had to call in to find out if he could put out the fire.

Cheryl Parente, firefighter-paramedic with Palm Bay Fire Rescue, advised she has been in the field for ten years with the City of Palm Bay; and she would like to address concerns about the lack of continuity regarding emergency equipment on the scene, which those who work in the field every day see. She presented documents to the Board but not the Clerk; stated in 2004 Palm Bay Fire Rescue responded to 650 calls that were classified as cardiac in nature; that is a call that came in that somebody was having a problem with his or her heart; 478 of those calls were patients with active chest pains; and 37 went into cardiac arrest when their hearts stopped at some point upon their arrival or prior to their arrival. She stated as the first responding paramedics, they initiate all advanced life support procedures including advanced airway, defibrillation, and circulatory assistance to the citizens; and whatever equipment she hooks up or another paramedic that arrives on the scene first hooks up, they must take that equipment off for the County to put its equipment on the patient prior to the patient being transported. Ms. Parente stated what that means is if she is pacing a patient and delivering small electric shocks to make that person’s heart continue to beat, prior to that patient being transported, Brevard County must take her pacer off and put its pacer on the patient before transport. She stated the moment she turns her monitor on, it stores patient information; the initial contact has the initial heart rhythms and treatment; and when the patient is turned over to the County, the data stays in her monitor. She presented the Board with a printout of the code summary; stated if she were to print it out on the scene, it would delay transport; therefore, more times than not, the initial code summary and treatment of the patient is unavailable to the doctor at the emergency room. She noted she does not have to tell the Board how important the first two or three minutes are in a cardiac arrest or critical patient situation. Ms. Parente stated the County would not have the data for the first 20 minutes with them because it would be in her monitor on the scene; with Palm Bay transport, there would be no need to change over equipment; and she would arrive with the initial heart rhythms and treatments in her monitor, which is never turned off, and can print the entire code summary when she arrives at the ER, and hand it to the doctor. She stated Palm Bay responded to 560 respiratory patient calls; some of the patients required a device called SEPAV, which is a positive pressure device that puts positive pressure into the patient to assist him or her with breathing and to get fluids out of his or her lungs; the equipment has to be changed over from Palm Bay’s to the County’s equipment on scene prior to transport, meaning taking the patient off their life support and putting him or her on the County’s life support for transport. She stated 1,200 patients last year fell into one or both categories, which means over 1,200 times the continuity of care had to be interrupted by Brevard County prior to transport; and presented copies of each to the Board to see the information that lapses with the multi-tiered system they have now.

Chairman Pritchard inquired if Palm Bay does not have telemetry that is connected to the hospital to transmit data; with Ms. Parente responding they can fax 12 leads into the hospital; they have the capability to do that directly from the residence; however, in a code situation or with a very critical patient, their primary objective is to stabilize the patient and his or her vital signs, and get that person to the nearest appropriate facility as quickly as possible. Ms. Parente stated 12 leads are not always transmitted on scene; all of it does not go through telemetry; and it is a lot of data they develop while on scene with the patient. Chairman Pritchard inquired when they run a lead, are they in contact with the hospital; with Ms. Parente responding no, they actually read the strips in the field, figure out what the rhythm is and what the appropriate treatment is, and act under the medical protocols through their main Medical Director Dr. McPherson. She stated they have certain things that they are now trained to do in the field to treat a patient. Chairman Pritchard inquired if they are not in contact with any hospital; with Ms. Parente responding no, they have access by phone or radio if they need to call for orders or directives, and they carry radios that go straight to the ER’s of all the hospitals they use.

Commissioner Carlson inquired if Palm Bay has backup information on the actual outcomes of patients they treated where the equipment was disconnected and reconnected and whether there was any positive or negative impact on the patient care once the patient got to the hospital; with Ms. Parente responding there is no data that has been filed or carried; it is difficult to say; and any time they take a patient off a monitor and have to move the patient or any time they are not monitored, that is time when they cannot see the changes that happen. Commissioner Carlson stated she understands that, but is looking for outcomes. Ms. Parente stated for outcomes, they do not have records of outcomes; they did not go to that depth; but she is sure they can try to see what they can do to get whatever information the Board wants.

Commissioner Voltz stated that information is important to the patient and the doctors in the ER’s; and inquired if there is a way the equipment can stay on the patient and not be exchanged. She stated she was in the ER yesterday; there was some Brevard County equipment sitting in there; and she assumes it was left there because it was on a patient. Chief Farmer stated the continuity of care issue is something that occurs every day; if they go to an ER, they will talk to a triage nurse, then the unit nurse, then the physician, and the physician will talk to an internist or surgeon or somebody else; that is called reassessment; it is an appropriate medical procedure; and there are physicians here today to speak to that. He stated regarding continuity of equipment, they will have the same issue; they are going to get on scene with their engine and life-pak, and their rescue will show up eventually; on some occasions, maybe it will be right there and on other occasions it could be coming from a hospital; additionally, the movement of equipment occurs every day in an emergency department. He stated they could have a life-pak or cardiac monitor on in the ER and switch it to a portable monitor to go to surgery, then switch from the portable to the surgery’s cardiac monitor; so that type of movement occurs every day in the health system. Ms. Parente stated when a patient is put on a Palm Bay monitor, if they start to do transport, that monitor will go with the patient; the monitors are interchangeable between their transports and engines; so the patient would not have to be moved off the monitors.

Commissioner Colon inquired why Palm Bay does not hand over the information it has to the County at the scene; with Ms. Parente responding it takes a while to print out; getting the patient to the hospital is most important; and they do not always have the time, once they swap the equipment over, to print out a code summary, especially for a very critical code. Ms. Parente stated they have multiple rhythm changes with a patient, and initiate various treatments that affect the rate or speed of the heart beat along with other things that are hooked into the monitors.

Allen Howard, Fire Medic with the City of Palm Bay, stated he wants to speak on continuity of care as it relates to information dissemination on patients on scene versus with a doctor in an emergency room. He stated continuity is defined as the unbroken connection or sequence; his information gathering starts before he arrives on scene by getting pertinent clues from dispatch; on scene it continues from things bystanders say and visual evidence around the scene; and when he gets to his patient, he or she may give some information or he might pick up things from some clues in the immediate area. Mr. Howard noted an example may be some empty pill bottles, insulin needles, etc.; and while treating the patient, further information is compiled. He stated if the patient is alert, he establishes a good rapport and trust with someone who may be very frightened by his or her present condition and the commotion of a two or four-person ALS rescue team. He stated with the current situation, he has to add at least two more people to the scene with the arriving transport unit; he needs to pass along the information that he gathered to them; in that transfer, a lot of the emphasis is on the vital signs and present condition of the patient; and the lesson he learned in a kindergarten game of telephone taught him that even with the best of information pass-ons, some of the more obscure items gathered can be lost in the shuffle only to be possibly needed later during transport. He stated an example of that may be a seemingly stable child who was struck by a car; while on scene, the patient’s family might have mentioned the patient was a diabetic and has recently taken his insulin; and during the pass-on, the receiving medic may have only caught that the patient was diabetic due to the speed required to get the child to a trauma center. He stated during transport, if the patient becomes unresponsive, without extra clues, the patient might be treated for a head injury or some type of shock than for a possible low blood sugar problem, which is a simple fix. He stated not only would the medic who initialized care probably be better prepared for this, but there would be a lot less time on scene transferring the patient over. He stated having worked for Harbor City Ambulance Squad, Brevard County, and City of Palm Bay Fire Department, he realizes the importance of helping his patient from start to finish; the information he gathers can be given directly to the ER staff and any further questions the doctor has can be answered appropriately; so in his opinion, the only way to insure the best care for his patient is to insure the unbroken connection of the sequence of care.

John Buckley of Melbourne stated he feels he should express his opinion on this issue; he originally felt that Harbor City Ambulance Squad should have been continued when this first became an issue; that did not happen; and the County took over those services. He stated since that time, the County has bought all kinds of equipment, hired emergency medical technicians and paramedics, and established stations all over the County. He stated while he was still employed by one of the largest cities in the County, he heard that Palm Bay wished to take over transport control in its city; and he is of the opinion that it is not economical and will result in a fragmentation of a system that has been working fairly well for many years. Mayor Buckley inquired what would happen if Melbourne firefighters wanted to do the same thing; stated he would say not on his watch; and he personally feels that Palm Bay Fire Department would need a substantial amount of additional equipment and the response time would not improve. He inquired what Fire Department would have the mutual aid response with Palm Bay; stated he does not know how the County would feel about that; he feels this issue would work against the County; Palm Bay would want a certain portion of the County’s money; other cities may ask for the same thing; and the synergy that has occurred would be lost and County firefighters would eventually have to be laid off. He stated he hopes that Palm Bay does not feel this is an unfriendly move, but that is his personal opinion on the subject.

Tom Jenkins of Melbourne stated he does not want to say anything that would reflect adversely on the fine public servants from Palm Bay because he holds them in high regard and has for many years, but he is here today to speak on behalf of the regional emergency medical system. He stated having worked a number of years in local government, it is his opinion that Brevard County’s EMS is a top-quality medical system; Brevard County Fire Rescue benefits from having highly experienced seasoned paramedic professionals to respond to medical emergencies; and based on the volume of calls paramedics respond to on a weekly basis, they must treat a wide and diverse range of medical emergencies, which enhance their skills and knowledge and most importantly save lives. He stated Brevard County Fire Rescue continues to upgrade its service, demonstrated by the number of new units that have been added in the last five years; based on the size of Brevard County Fire Rescue’s operation, it is able to gain access and utilize state-of-the-art medical technology in treating patients; and the current regional system is the most cost-effective for all the residents in the County. Mr. Jenkins stated disrupting the current funding distribution will undoubtedly increase the costs for other residents throughout the County. He advised Florida law clearly contemplates emergency medical services as a county service and places that responsibility under the jurisdiction of county commissions; the current regional system provides quality emergency care; it is one of the best in the State and the nation; and the question is what is the real benefit to the taxpayers in Brevard County in changing the decal on the side of an ambulance or the logo on a paramedic’s uniform, and who really benefits from such changes. He stated he does not think the taxpayers will benefit nor will the families of Brevard’s paramedics who have serve the community for so long.

Chairman Pritchard noted Mr. Jenkins was with Broward County while he was with the city trying to get a COPCN.

Teresa Charlie Elliott of Palm Bay stated she is a 38-year resident of Brevard County, 19 of which has been in the City of Palm Bay; she lives in the southeast section, and is a member of the Bayside Gate Community Association, one of the fastest growing areas in the City; and nine new houses have been built on her street alone, two since February 2, 2005. She stated the City of Palm Bay is growing at a rate that is almost unbelievable; they need their own emergency medical services; she attended all the meetings on the COPCN application; and the last meeting at the Council Chambers with the Commissioners present was very disappointing. Ms. Elliott stated she learned firsthand that some of the Commissioners do not care what the citizens of Palm Bay think when they said the whole City of Palm Bay could come out to this meeting and it would not matter; that is wrong; they said they only want factual information; but what they need to do is listen to the citizens of Palm Bay. She stated the City has presented a well thought-out application; and it is evident that the Commissioners are trying to find reasons not to do it because money is an issue. She noted Mr. Jenkins said it was an issue; it is in the best interest of the citizens of Palm Bay that the Board approve the application; and requested the Board listen with an open mind and vote in favor of the application.

William Pezzillo of Palm Bay, member of the EMS Council, stated he stood as an appointee and listened to the presentation of the City and wholly supports it. He stated when it was presented, the Chief sat and did the presentation as a representative of the County; his assistant chief sat in that seat; that assistant chief works for the chief, so he voted in favor of denying the application; there was never any opportunity to have any discussion because it was predetermined before that meeting how it was going to come out; and that is what he is worried about today if the Board is predetermined to turn down the City based on individual thoughts instead of thinking about the citizens of Palm Bay. He stated they want their own EMS service; he is a senior citizen who could have a heart attack and wants to have immediate transport; he does not want his wife to go through a traumatic experience of having the same information; the Chief said it is not a problem because in the hospital everyone gets moved around; and that is true, but they are in the hospital under the watchful care of an authorized physician. He stated he has gone to the ER for heart problems; but if he has a heart attack, he wants Palm Bay to respond and take him directly to the hospital and stabilize him, and does not want to be transported back and forth.

John Mongioi of Palm Bay, representing Vance Circle Neighborhood Watch, stated he has lived in Palm Bay since 1972; over the last two or three years he had the opportunity to work with City staff and Council on other issues; and what he can tell the Board is the present staff and Council are very perceptive and responsive to what the citizens need. He stated when he goes to them with a problem, they do respond and react to resolve the problem; he likes to have some control of his future; and they have close relationships with the City because they elect the Council and complain to them. He stated he likes to keep that control as close to the City as possible because the City knows what they need and whether they have problems that need to get resolved; and just like the small company versus the big company, sometimes they get things accomplished a lot easier with a small company. He stated anybody who controls EMS will have problems that are going to need to be resolved; but the City approach would be a nice way to better control it and be more responsive to the citizens’ needs, which is what he is looking for. He stated he is a control freak; he is not a quiet person; and when something is wrong, he is going to get in there and tell them about it. He stated they are a good group; he has worked with them on other issues; he is very active with other issues of the City; they are not going to be inexperienced and are going to do a good job; and he wants the Board to seriously consider the application.

Richard Rahn of Merritt Island stated he has been a resident of Brevard County for the past two years; previously he was a four-year resident of Dade County and served on the Dade County Fire Department for over 25 years; and as he climbed the career ladder, he worked in most of the classifications from tailboard firefighter to battalion chief and acting supervisor of dispatching EMS and fire units, as well as EMS captain and EMS chief. He stated he is here to support regional fire service; he wholeheartedly supports it and encourages the Board to do the same; he believes that regional fire service works to eliminate duplication; and one of the problems he has heard from the Palm Bay people is there is a lot of duplication going on during calls. He stated a system where one agency handles a call from start to finish is the best; a regional fire service is the best business model; he feels confident supporting that kind of a system; and anything the Board can do to work towards that kind of a system he will support as a Brevard County resident. He stated that is how he would like to see his tax dollars spent. Commissioner Voltz inquired if Mr. Rahn is not talking just about EMS but about fire service as well; with Mr. Rahn responding EMS/fire. Mr. Rahn stated his experience was in the EMS business, that made up 90% of the calls the fire department responded to; and he also would like to mention another issue of medical malpractice liability. He stated counties have a shield against large liability judgments that municipalities do not have; the reason he brought that up is because he recalls that the City of Pembroke Pines was tagged with a $9 million award judgment by a sympathetic jury over an ambulance case; and with that said, he supports a regional fire system. Mr. Knox advised malpractice applies to both cities and counties, so Mr. Rahn was incorrect. Chairman Pritchard stated there could be judgments imposed, but the payout would be $100,000; with Mr. Knox advising unless they get the Legislature to go along with them.

Michael Shervington of Malabar stated he is a lifelong citizen of Brevard County; and Brevard County Fire Rescue does not work with municipalities when it comes to handling service needs. He stated the City of Cocoa on October 21, 2001 came to the Board; during a Board meeting a Commissioner brought up the fact that it was important to get on scene with ALS in six minutes or less; Chief Farmer addressed the Board and implied the citizens of Cocoa were in jeopardy due to the fact they could not do that; and he said during a heart attack any minute by ALS is 10% loss of heart tissue, so there is a 50% chance of surviving a heart attack if an ALS unit responded within the City of Cocoa. He stated his resolve was to have an ALS ambulance remain stationed in the County and they would take over the fire service; the citizens voted against that takeover; and Chief Farmer has done nothing since that time to resolve that six- minute issue; yet other ambulances have been stationed in the City of Cocoa Beach, for example. He stated they started asking for an ambulance May 7, 1996; the response to the City was to provide a facility to the County first, then they will negotiate an ambulance; and inquired if that is not what they pay the EMS assessment for. He stated at that time the income from the citizens of Cocoa Beach was $32,000 more than that of the citizens of Cocoa and Rockledge, yet they only received half the level of service; they had one ambulance; the Cities of Cocoa and Rockledge had two; and it took six years and an increase to all taxpayers to get them their ambulance. Mr. Shervington stated on February 20, 1996, the area of Aquarina in South Melbourne Beach needed ALS coverage; at that time Harbor City Ambulance Squad was made to put an ambulance down there; there were questions by the Board to save $300,000 for making an ALS engine; and that engine was shut down because it was not an issue of ALS, it was a transport time issue. Mr. Shervington stated after Brevard County took over, that ambulance was shut down within a little over a year to save money on budget without any public meeting at this level; now that Brevard County is providing ambulance service, the ALS engine is perfectly fine; there was a decrease in service without a decrease in assessment; two stations, beachside, Rescue 68, which the Board will continue to hear about today, was in the Town of Melbourne Beach; and Rescue 65 was in Aquarina; and they became one ambulance running out of Station 64 at Spessard Holland, which was done in December 2000. He stated in
2001 a unit was open in existing Melbourne Station on Nieman Avenue; everybody was assessed for the new station, but it was not a new station; it was one that Chief Farmer put in a staff meeting was unplugged; that unit was Rescue 68; and it was placed as a second unit at the Melbourne Station due to the current unit never being in quarters and putting 4,000 miles a month on that unit. Mr. Shervington stated at that time Brevard County staff not only stated it needed a unit in Melbourne, but it needed a unit in Palm Bay, the busiest unit in Brevard County; Chief Farmer today stated they were doing a study on that; and inquired if it takes 4.5 years to do a study. He stated just recently Brevard County moved Rescue 68, the unit that started in Melbourne Beach, into the busiest station in Palm Bay; and Chief Farmer wants the Board to believe that moving the unit had little effect in Melbourne due to the opening of the new rescue unit in Lake Washington, as he brought it up the conflict resolution meeting. He stated anyone knowing the area would argue that a unit stationed at Lake Washington and I-95 can do very little to assist the east and southeast Melbourne areas; the distance is close to seven miles; and they would have to drive through another Rescue Unit’s area. He stated Brevard County Fire Rescue is having a hard time meeting the needs of the County; and requested the Board let Palm Bay help by freeing up units to serve other citizens. He stated he has all the minutes and all the facts of what he just stated.

Pat Lewis of Palm Bay stated she has been in Brevard County 23 years and has seen a lot of changes and a lot of growth; some of it disturbed her when it started because she liked the small town community that she grew up in; and then it blossomed into a city. She stated she is very proud of the citizens of Palm Bay and the services they have in Palm Bay especially from the Fire Department; from the first month of being in Brevard County, she had a lot of dealings with paramedic service; she collapsed and was electrocuted within a month of being in Palm Bay; within four minutes, there were two fire trucks and possibly a third and within four to five minutes, she had paramedics working on her and making sure she was all right; and 20 minutes later the ambulance showed up; that was Harbor City Volunteer Ambulance Squad. She stated right now if she had to call for a paramedic, she has one or two stations that will respond; she will have them within three minutes, as they came when her husband collapsed; and he died as a result of having to wait for transportation. She stated the gentleman who was working paramedic services demanded that she go and open the door for him while he was trying to help the paramedics, giving them information as to why and how her husband collapsed. Ms. Lewis stated the level of service she has seen out of Palm Bay has been courteous, respectful, and professional at all times compared to what she has seen from other agencies in the last 23 years; there is a world of difference; she had a situation in December when she helped a lady who tripped in front of a post office in Malabar; she assisted her, made sure she was all right, asked for 911 to be called, had Malabar respond, and the County showed up at the same time. Ms. Lewis stated Malabar was pushed aside and not asked to do anything; the two gentleman who took care of the woman never asked her anything other than what happened and what was wrong; the lady did not know how she managed to be on the floor and said to ask her because she saw the accident, what happened, and was taking care of her, but they never asked her what happened. She stated they checked her over briefly by word of mouth, not body check, and asked her if she could get on the gurney; she was on the ground and they never lowered the gurney to her; they had her walk to the gurney to get on it; and it was found later on she had a broken knee. Ms. Lewis stated that upset her; and inquired if that is the kind of care she will get from Brevard County should they show up for her, and how is she going to get to the hospital and in what condition. She stated that upsets her because of her grandchildren who live in Palm Bay and Malabar; it is more than likely going to be the County; she does not have a problem with the County doing a mutual aid with Palm Bay; but she certainly wants to see Palm Bay get the transport. She stated she spoke to about 300 people in the last month about this issue; she has some signed petitions stating how they want Palm Bay; they also had complaints; and she wrote letters to the chiefs involved in the incident she just spoke about and had a letter back from Chief Hellman. She stated she wrote a letter to the City Manager and got a letter back within a week; but she has yet to hear from Chief Farmer since December 15, 2004.

Christopher Simmons of Merritt Island stated he is a resident of Brevard County and Lt. Fire Officer in Brevard County Fire Rescue; he has had the pleasure of meeting with each of the Commissioners a couple of times over the years and had the privilege to discuss this issue with them; and right now he would like to take a few moments to reiterate a very important legal aspect of the issue. He stated in 1971 the State of Florida signed a bill into law empowering Brevard County with the full responsibility of providing EMS transport to all citizens of Brevard County in unincorporated and incorporated areas; that is an awesome responsibility; and it is a responsibility that 34 years later his coworkers and he proudly and professionally carry out to all the citizens of Brevard County from Scottsmoor to Sebastian Inlet. He stated it is a responsibility they always take seriously and understand completely before taking any action. Mr. Simmons stated in the fire service, when a candidate begins fire officer training, one of the cornerstone doctrines that he or she must understand is that responsibility can never be delegated; authority can be delegated but not responsibility; responsibility will always remain with the entitled agency or individual; and it is the theory of that doctrine which should ring in the Commissioners ears as they make the decision whether or not Brevard County can hand over the duties to provide EMS transport to Palm Bay Fire Rescue. He stated the State allows the Board to alter the way in which it will serve the community; but it must remember that just because it gives the City of Palm Bay the authority, the ultimate responsibility will always remain with the Board. He stated critical decisions and policy decisions on EMS transport issues can and will be made by Palm Bay when they take over transport with no input from the Board; and the fact that the Board will remain responsible for those transports with no input should strike a tone of reservation in handing over that authority. He stated each of the speakers will place valid arguments as to why the Board should vote in favor of their agency; and as Brevard County Commissioners for all citizens of Brevard County, the Board that has the authority and responsibility, and must act responsibly and vote no on the COPCN application.

The meeting recessed at 3:03 p.m. and reconvened at 3:15 p.m.

Dr. Joe Nelson of Largo, representing Medical Direction Consultants, Inc., stated although he is currently the State EMS Medical Director, he has to preface his comments by saying that his opinions and comments are his and not reflective of any State agency today. He stated he is speaking to the Board at the request of County staff as an EMS Medical Director with over 30 years of experience in EMS, starting out as a paramedic, then tailboard firefighter, EMS educator, and for the last 15 years as EMS Medical Director. He stated he has done EMS medical direction in Broward County and was there before the County fragmentation took place, worked there since that fragmentation took place, and wants to share with the Board a couple of comments about his experiences. He urged the Board to fully think about the consequences of approving the COPCN; stated he has been involved in Brevard County since 1992; it was a few years after that when the County chose to fragment its EMS System; and as the Board heard today, it is rethinking those decisions. He stated when he started, if he had an issue with Broward County Fire Rescue, which ran the majority of the EMS service at that time, it was simple for him to contact one of the few people to get an issue resolved; and 15 years later, with about 20 EMS systems providing services in Broward County, interagency communication, mutual aid issues, and medical quality assurance issues often took months to address, and sometimes years or were not addressed at all. Dr. Nelson stated in contrast, he has also been involved in the EMS System Mr. Kearns spoke of in Pinellas County; that system is much better organized and provides much more efficient patient care research and continues quality improvement in its system; and as an EMS medical director, he feels a regional system is much better than a fragmented system. He stated Dr. Joseph Fitch, who was a consultant to the city, wrote a textbook in 1995 called Pre-hospital Care Administration; in the book on page 610 under a section entitled “Insuring Value for Money,” it says, “Simply put, every EMS system should be cost effective.” He stated in his opinion, a regional approach to EMS is the cost-effective approach; it avoids duplication of essential functions such as management, quality assurance, medical direction, communications, and training; and fragmenting the County’s system would be giving up some of the cost-effectiveness that the Board enjoys now. He stated another issue he would like to speak to is continuity of care; it is a two-tier system where they have a nontransporting fire response unit followed by a transporting unit; and it is a function that is assured by uniformity of medical direction, protocols, and professionalism during a patient handoff. He stated a patient handoff occurs in the State thousands of times a day; it occurs when a ground-based ambulance crew hands off to a helicopter, when a hospital receives a patient, and when patients are transferred within hospitals; so he heard the same argument in 1994, 1995, and 1996 about continuity of care and does not think there is any weight to it. Dr. Nelson stated there are ways to work around it; it is a logistics issue; and on those few cases, which require the code summary the young lady showed earlier, simply putting that paramedic on the ambulance to ride in with the patient would solve that. He noted it is a logistics issue and equipment issue and not a huge patient care issue; and it can be solved. He stated one last point he would like to make is in regional EMS systems they have a better capability to handle mass casualty incidents and disaster management; to fragment the County’s system will run the risk of diminishing the resources available for mass casualty situations; and if the assets are lost due to fragmentation, they may not be available for the next hurricane or next terrorism attack. He urged the Board to consider its decision carefully.

Commissioner Scarborough inquired what is Dr. Nelson’s title; with Dr. Nelson responding he is President of Medical Direction Consultants, Inc., a company that provides medical direction to various EMS agencies and consulting work for EMS around the State; and he is also a part-time State EMS Medical Director and provides consulting work for the Bureau of EMS Office in Tallahassee. Commissioner Scarborough stated he heard in some counties, rather than having the county in control, they have a separate entity where they have sharing of responsibilities between cities and the counties; and inquired if Dr. Nelson has worked in one of those environments; with Dr. Nelson responding yes, he worked in Pinellas County. Commissioner Scarborough inquired if Pinellas County has a shared responsibility system; with Dr. Nelson responding it is a shared responsibility system; there is a County office that oversees it, but they have 17 different ALS providers and a private ambulance company that is the contractor for transport. Commissioner Scarborough inquired if Dr. Nelson considers it one of the better systems; with Dr. Nelson responding it is one of the more functional and efficient models to be found. Commissioner Scarborough inquired which ones in the State are considered premier systems; with Dr. Nelson responding in his opinion, Pinellas has a good system, and so do Orange and Miami-Dade Counties. Commissioner Scarborough requested Dr. Nelson describe the makeup of how those systems are structured; with Dr. Nelson responding he would call it a regional approach. Commissioner Scarborough stated what he heard was there are different regional approaches; and requested Dr. Nelson describe Orange and Dade Counties’ systems. Dr. Nelson advised in Orange County they have a common medical director, common protocols, and individual agencies providing EMS under a County office that oversees the system; and in Metro-Dade, it is chiefly county run in most areas with one or two cities that do provide services independently. Commissioner Scarborough inquired how do the environments of those three counties differ from Broward County, which is now reconsidering the fragmentation; with Dr. Nelson responding he can tell the Board about Broward County’s history. Commissioner Scarborough stated it appears the devil is in the details; they used the nice term fragmentation but what are they actually creating; any time they create something they can get a good one or a bad one; they can get a good or bad contract if they contract the service; it could be a good arrangement or a bad arrangement; and inquired what did those three counties do. He stated he does not want to talk about what Broward County did wrong because it is trying to correct that; and inquired what did those three counties do that made their systems better than others in the State, did they set about getting an overall study to begin with, and what did they do to arrive at what Dr. Nelson considers some of the better systems. Dr. Nelson stated he thinks they set forth in design of their systems to have a coordinating body to coordinate a regional approach to EMS. Commissioner Scarborough inquired if all three counties have a coordinating body; with Dr. Nelson responding Orange and Pinellas Counties do; and he believes Miami-Dade has some coordination, but it is less than the other two.

Chairman Pritchard stated he has a report on Volusia County, which summarizes what Dr. Nelson said about coordinating body, regional system, and different methods of providing the service; and inquired if that is something which Dr. Nelson was talking about, a type of study; with Dr. Nelson responding that would be one of the examples.

Tom Neidert of Malabar, representing the Brevard County Professional Firefighters Local 2969, stated they wish to express their support for their Fire Chief and a regional response system; they do not support fragmentation of the EMS system; and they desire to retain their jobs as professional firefighters and paramedics. He stated they are 100% committed to saving jobs that a fragmented system would take away from their Department. He stated throughout the process, the City of Palm Bay has stated that this is not an indictment of the County and its services; Brevard County has achieved the ideal emergency response system that is highly efficient and envied in the EMS community; and inquired why would they disturb a quality system that has been working well for years.

Nancy Fazio, Lt. Fire Medic with Brevard County Fire Rescue, stated she was the Union President for Brevard County Professional Firefighters for five years; six years ago she came before the Board and asked it to adopt a regional transport system; the Board’s decision was visionary; and it saw then that fragmentation and contracts do not work or serve the best interest of the citizens of the County, those who live here and those who travel in and out. She stated Brevard County Fire Rescue has 20 years of prior based emergency medical system transport experience; their experience is not limited to the men and women in the field on the unit doing patient care; and very importantly it is also in their management team, which is Chief Farmer’s senior staff that has over 30 years experience in managing EMS transport. She stated those men and women did the job in the field and now are overseeing the team in the streets; and inquired what better solution for Brevard County to have that guaranteed experience there to guide the day-to-day operations. Ms. Fazio stated they heard frequently today about continuity of patient care; that exists; they have it through common protocol that all paramedics and EMT’s in the County follow; and it is also in their equipment. She stated all municipal departments and Brevard County Fire Rescue use the same manufacturers in 98% of their equipment; and as a street paramedic she can tell the Board that they do trade out life-paks. She stated if they have a critical patient, they are not going to disconnect and reconnect; and most of the time in a very critical situation, a municipal paramedic will ride in with the Brevard County transport unit. She stated she came off shift this morning and yesterday they had a couple of class II critical patients, and the municipal paramedic rode in; it insured quicker transport; the fear of anything being missed was not there because they worked as a team; and requested the Board continue its vision of what it saw then and to please see it now. She stated fragmentation is dangerous; the American Heart Association has stated that the fewer amount
of transport agencies within the system is safest for the citizens; and requested the Board remember that and keep its vision.

Dr. Ed Figueroa, Assistant Professor of Surgery for University of Florida, and Trauma Medical Director for Holmes Regional Trauma Center, stated he is the father of two beautiful daughters who live in Eau Gallie; and today he wants to talk about why a regional system works or makes sense and why a fragmented one fails. He stated in a business model, if they decrease variable costs, they increase revenue; from a clinical perspective, he stands to a rise in care; and that is once again decreasing variables to improve outcomes. He stated the same theory can be applied to a regional system; central direction and communication provide best opportunities for properly aligning need with resource availability for trauma; fragmentation would cripple timeliness and deliverance of care; and in the event of a mass casualty or even more frequently as has happened here with two vehicle traumas in Cocoa, two injured motorcyclists in Palm Bay, and five workers that fell off the Pineda Causeway all in 30 to 40 minute intervals, two things happen if they have a fragmented system. He stated they could get incompatible or jammed radio frequencies; and it would be unclear who is in charge. Dr. Figueroa stated the McKenzie Report of 2002 about what happened on 9-11-2001, says, “A large number of ambulances that were not part of the 911 system volunteered and/or self-dispatched to the site, this without coordinating or getting direction from EMS Command or dispatch, which basically degraded New York’s Fire Department’s ability to maintain control.” He stated the recommendations of the McKenzie Report, have three things: (1) create common command, common means to control, and common structure and terminology; and by looking at common, he can almost equal it to saying regional. He stated (2) is to carry out joint planning and training; and read an excerpt from USA TODAY newspaper saying, “paramedics are not always saviors of cardiac arrest patients.” He stated it is not an article about EMS bashing; it simply says some EMS systems are finding out more paramedics do not necessarily equate to better survival of cardiac arrest patients; so in other words, training them better and concentrating the forces will get better results and better outcomes. He stated (3) is to develop interagency communication capacity and procedures; and during the 2004 hurricane season one agency at the EOC managed all patient care and coordinated with all hospitals and the public health systems. Dr. Figueroa stated to address the current hospital crisis, two weeks ago they experienced an unfortunate and undesirable phenomenon; a hospital declared an internal disaster; and that would send chills to any administration of any community He stated it was 205 patients over capacity or 20% over capacity, which basically equals the amount it would take to build one small community hospital.

Chairman Pritchard advised Dr. Figueroa his time expired; and Commissioner Colon requested he be given additional time to complete his presentation.

Dr. Figueroa stated trauma in this scenario cannot be diverted; it is a State mandate; they cannot send their patients anywhere else from the scene; so they were faced with one option, screen and triage discretionary trauma alerts to allow transports to the nearest hospital facilities from the scene. He stated they asked for that support from a single regional system; it took a
few hours to put into effect the protocol under the current system; that time could have been well spent with patient care; or they could have spent that time finding solutions for placement to decompress their over-capacity. He stated he cannot imagine what would have happened in a fragmented system; he does not want to imagine it; and what he would like to see happen here is that one phone call placed to a regional command would initiate a coordinated and effective plan to redirect transport to those hospitals with availability of resources. He noted Bismarck remarked, “even fools learn from their mistakes”; and stated he prefers to learn from the mistakes of others.

Mr. Feldman advised he will go through some of the comments he heard and make sure they are all talking from the same page because apparently a lot of people read the application but did not read it thoroughly. He stated under their proposal the County is doing the dispatch; there is still a common medical protocol issued by a common medical director; so a lot of issues the Board heard speakers talk about over the last couple of hours with regard to continuity of care and how the system will be fragmented if they do not have those common protocols and common direction do not exist under the application. He stated Chief Farmer talked about different treatment regiments; again their application is the same regiment; it is the same medical director and the same protocols; he talked about inefficient communication; and again the County will do the dispatching; they are all on the same 800 megahertz radio system; and they all work off the same UHF systems, so they would have common communications. Mr. Feldman stated regarding different equipment; Chief Farmer’s Chief Emergency Medical Director said 98% of the equipment is common, so it is still going to be the same equipment; and Chief Farmer talked about increased cost to the taxpayers, but yet they heard money is not the object, it is quality of care and patient care. He stated Chief Farmer talked about sheltering costs; again their system does not charge indirect costs; and it is not running the system as a business, it is running it as a municipal service. He stated Chief Farmer stated they cannot build a wall around Palm Bay; the City does not want to build a wall around it; and it wants to be part of a system that works with automatic aid and mutual aid. He stated Chief Farmer talked about a standard of appropriateness of the current system as a standard for the Board to measure in its own Ordinance; while he was reading and others were speaking, he went back to the Ordinance; and there is no measure of appropriateness current standards because the Board took those away, so they do not use that as a measurement. He stated Chief Farmer used his quote about quality of care; his quote and his comments have historically been that the fine men and women of Brevard County System are equal with the fine men and women of the Palm Bay system; and that is not an indictment saying they cannot do the job, but an indictment on a system that is inefficient and fragmented. He stated Chief Farmer talked about a study being done at Station 84 with Rescue 68; on one hand he tells the Board it is permanent, and on the other hand he tells it they are just studying it right now to see what the effect is; and inquired which is it. He inquired is it going to be a permanent fifth ambulance in Palm Bay or going to be at Station 84 under a study that may or may not end; and stated they do not know when it would end and do not know what the standards are going to be to measure up whether it stays or not. He stated Chief Farmer talked about using EMS impact fees; that is a question Commissioner Carlson asked; the County does have the EMS impact fees and uses them in its system; but the problem is it is only collecting it from one entity, which is the unincorporated area, but it is a revenue source in its budget and it is spending it. Mr. Feldman stated Chief Farmer talked about their business model on collection; again they will get the dollars in there to make the system work; they do not have to use a fee; they can use other sources in there; the fee system works; the bill system works; cities all throughout the State and country send bills out; and they seem to get paid. He stated even private industry like Waste Management, which does not have the power to lien, seems to be able to run entire solid waste system for the County on a collection basis based upon sending out bills. He stated Chuck Kearns from Pinellas County operates one of the three best systems as Dr. Nelson told the board; and inquired if the Board heard Dr. Nelson say Brevard County was one of the three best systems. He stated Pinellas County has a private provider; the Board cannot compare Pinellas County with Brevard County’s system because they are not the same; what Mr. Kearns did was take a quick look at the COPCN application and completely misread and misconstrued it; and he talked about paramedic shortages. He stated if the shortage exists for Palm Bay, it is going to exist for Brevard County; if they have a commitment to add ambulances to accommodate growth, they are both going to have to figure out where the paramedics are coming from; it is not who they work for; but where they are going to get them from; and it is going to be an issue as much for Brevard County as it would be for Palm Bay. Mr. Feldman stated with regard to mutual aid agreements, they have a very effective mutual aid agreement system in place; he does not see why it will not work under the EMS system as well; the system is not going to stop at the City lines; the paramedics are not going to stop at the City lines and will respond whether they have a mutual aid agreement or not; and sovereign immunity is clearly going to protect the City on that issue. He stated with regard to where the units are and how they are deployed, their proposal is a common dispatch system; the County will tell the City where the units need to re-deploy to in order to take care of the movement; and they will operate in Melbourne, West Melbourne, Malabar, and unincorporated Brevard County, or wherever the County directs their units to go in order to make the system work. He stated Chief Farmer talked about fulltime medics and the fact that they are only going to have 35 medics; they have 35 medics today; their proposal talks about hiring another 30 medics for a total of 65; he said the City needed 52 to run its system; so that means they will have a surplus of 13 paramedics under their program. He stated Chief Farmer talked about the Micco Benefit District and UHF radios; all that is not applicable to their application; they have the UHF radio system; the Micco Benefit District is the County’s District that charges a different assessment; and the Board would not want to go into that discussion because the folks down there are not getting a real bargain by paying twice as much as everybody else in the County. He stated Chief Farmer talked about whether they will use the same protocols; their application says they will use the same protocols; and all he had to do was read it. He stated Chief Farmer talked about the need to have consolidated dispatch; the City agrees; and that is why they put it in the application. Mr. Feldman stated the gentleman from Dade County, Richard Rahn, who now lives on Merritt Island, talked about the Dade County System, a system that Dr. Nelson tells the Board is one of the best; in that system there are 30 cities; there are perhaps 32 cities now; but the five largest cities, the Cities of Miami, Miami Beach, Hialeah, Coral Gables, and Key Biscayne, all have their own EMS transport systems. He stated those cities have their own transport system under a regional program that works because they work alongside the County and make the system work; those cities are large enough and on such a scale, such as the 70 square miles of Palm Bay, that they can make it work and be efficient; and it does not hurt the taxpayers in the end. Mr. Feldman stated Mr. Simmons said, and he does not know if he intended to say it, but he said he works for “your” Department, and he is right, but the problem is EMS is “our” issue not “your” issue; and that goes to the underlying mentality about the system. He stated it is not your department that provides service in their City, it is supposed to be our Department that provides service within the City; and that is not the philosophy the County’s Department has, which has led us to this
application today. Mr. Feldman stated Mr. Simmons said the Board needs to be responsible for the system; it is under its own Ordinance; it created an EMS Advisory Committee, which has representatives of the EMS providers, the hospitals, the first responders, and the County system; and that is the Board’s advisory committee to provide guidance to the entire system. He stated Dr. Nelson had interesting comments; he said he is not representing the State, but a lot of his comments talked about the regional system; he talked about the fifth rescue and said EMS needs to be cost effective; but he does not show the Board how Brevard County or the City of Palm Bay will not be cost effective; and he said Broward County is rethinking its system. He stated Broward County is rethinking, but it has not rethought it yet; and it probably is going to stay with the same system. He stated he talked about the problem with 20 different agencies; the County only has 15 cities and not all of them are in the fire business; so it is not going to have the magnitude of problems that are in Broward County even if those all seem to manifest more on territorial issues than anything else. He stated Chief Farmer talked about continuity of care; he said it is the function of the medical director and professionalism; they both have professional firefighters and paramedics; and they both are going to have the same medical director. He stated Chief Farmer talked about diminishing from mass casualty; he wants to divert to a week ago Sunday when a tornado hit Palm Bay; they were able to muster the police, fire, public works, parks and recreation, and public utilities groups; they had one transport unit that came in to transport one patient; but they did not have the transport units to work with them and help to go door-to-door to check for rescue needs and patient care. He stated the City handled it on its own; if it was really a unified system, the ambulances would have been there working side-by-side with the City without the City having to call; that is a unified unfragmented system; but that did not occur last Sunday, and that will not occur in the future. He stated Chief Farmer talked about Pinellas, Orange, and Miami-Dade systems; the Board already heard how Miami-Dade works; Pinellas County has a private provider, not Brevard County; Volusia County has another private provider; and that is not what the city is proposing and is not the system the County has today. He stated those systems seem to be the ones all the medical experts keep talking about working; Orange County has 20 ALS providers that have a common agency that oversees it; but there are still many different transport agencies working in Orange County; and that is what the city is asking for today. He stated Mr. Kearns pointed out in their application that they called for privatization; there is nowhere in their application where they call for privatization of the system or say that they would even be private in the future; what they did comment about is that the Board of County Commissioners can privatize its system any time it wants; and that is not the type of system the City wants to have. Mr. Feldman stated with regard to Mr. Neidert’s comments, he spoke of the EMS Review Committee; the Board has his testimony; it is the same today; they are worried about jobs; not once did he say the Brevard County Firefighters Union is concerned about patient care, quality of life, or lives; and he can go through the other speakers, but those comments are redundant. Mr. Feldman stated if they read the application, they would have found out there is one entity that is going to do the dispatching; there is one entity that is going to have control; they are not trying to create a separate system; they are trying to join the County’s system as partners; and requested the Board approve their COPCN application.

Chief Farmer stated he will review a couple of things; first are the interlocal agreements or contracts; the County experienced contracting EMS and it did not function; and Mr. Feldman said they can stay with the communications, protocol, and common direction, but at the same time he made it clear he does not have to. He stated Mr. Feldman said at the EMS Review Committee meeting that if necessary, the City could privatize the same as the Board of County Commissioners could; the issue is they believe they do not have to come forward and speak with the Board about it; Mr. Feldman’s issue has been dealing with the City’s growth and having the ability to affect the citizens of Palm Bay; and he made that point very clear. He stated regarding the fifth rescue, he did not say it is permanent at Station 84; he did say the fifth rescue is permanent in the Palm Bay area; and he stated they need to work together to make sure that is in the best location; and he has agreed to that, but Mr. Feldman stood at the microphone and said Chief Farmer says it will not stay there. He stated it will not stay there because they are going to work together to make sure it is in the right location. Chief Farmer stated they have 40 personnel in paramedic school right now; they have additional money set aside to send 40 more to school; so they are growing their own paramedics; and that is how they are dealing with the nationwide shortage. He stated currently there are cities that have different mediations and different protocols; there is not a mandated countywide protocol; the cities can opt out if they want to and can add different protocols, procedures, and medications; and in some areas there is a set county standard that is forced upon them; that is not the case in Brevard County; but it is when they have a common event. He stated regarding continuity of care, they are talking about removing three, four, or five leads, taking them off the patch, and pushing the button to put them back on the patch; it is important and has to be done right; and Brevard County’s personnel are trained to do so. He stated the paramedics are going to ask the same questions over and over again because they are trained to do so; they have to make sure the person does not remember after their child fell down and hit his or her head, that they forgot to tell the paramedic he or she is diabetic; and they reassess constantly. He stated these are issues that are not dealing with patient care; these are issues of either money for the City or control; but it is not to make the system better; and there will be a financial impact to the County and the Board will have to deal with an assessment increase if it plans on keeping any backup vehicles to assist the City of Palm Bay because their system is not sufficient to handle the call volume generated in that area.

Chairman Pritchard stated the issue has come up about what the cost may be; Chief Farmer has pointed out the County’s cost, which subtracts out other features included in that cost, like additional personnel, County Attorney, etc.; because of the way they do the budget, they are down to $41.47 out of the $50-plus currently being charged. Chairman Pritchard stated he is concerned about what is going to happen because he can see a trickle effect; he can see Palm Bay followed by Melbourne, then Indian Harbour Beach, then Titusville, and pretty soon they are going to have 15 different providers; and that is only based on the exiting cities. He stated there are a lot of other places like Scottsmoor, Micco, Mims, etc.; and who knows what will happen with them. He stated in the next ten years they may become cities; they will grow and may be searching for a fire department, EMS department, their own police department, etc.; and pretty soon they will have even further fragmentation. He stated he grew up in Broward County; Orlando Domingas also grew up there; he was at one of the city fire stations as a county paramedic; and he recalls what it was like. He stated the issue the Board is debating, running across different jurisdictions trying to provide a service, he has lived it and seen it; one gentleman since 1992 was involved with Broward County and has seen what has happened there; and now Broward County is looking for another way to provide regional EMS service. He stated the ideal is regional EMS service; when he talked to Chief Farmer yesterday, one thing they talked about was maybe it is time for a consultant to come in and look at how best to provide regional EMS service; the problem is going to be the cost of that study; and he would imagine a report like that would run about $100,000. Chief Farmer stated it was between $140,000 and $145,000 four years ago. Chairman inquired is there grant money available for a study; with Chief Farmer responding there may be, and he would have to look at that. Chairman Pritchard stated like the jail issue, a study would be an opportunity to have another set of eyes come in and look at what is best for the County; and what may be best for the County is to have a regional board, including a group of medical directors, CEO’s of hospitals, and other medical providers, to provide direction to another single entity to figure out what is best for the County; but at this point, he does not want to move forward to agree to the COPCN for Palm Bay because they are acting prematurely instead of evaluating the system and coming up with what probably could be the optimum level of service. He stated the other counties have taken second looks at how they are doing something and readjusting how they are doing it because it is not working and creates jurisdictional boundaries and turf wars, protocol issues, and so many other issues that they do not need to face at this point. He stated what the County has is working; inquired if it is working and not broken, why fix it; and reiterated right now it is working. He stated Palm Bay’s level of service has the fifth ambulance; they are looking to put it in a location that will provide a lower population per ambulance rate and a quicker response time; so that satisfies the issue of providing continuity of patient care, response, and whatever else. He stated to move forward with granting the COPCN at this point is going to be counterproductive; and to look at what would be the optimal system for providing EMS transport/ALS service in Brevard County is the way they need to go.

Commissioner Voltz stated she spent almost half of her life in Palm Bay; she has a unique perspective on what goes on in Palm Bay; not only did she live there for that many years, she and her husband met Mike Cachure who works for the Fire Department; and they are best friends who do everything together. She stated she rode on the back of the ambulance with Harbor City Volunteer Ambulance Squad, has ridden in a fire truck for the City of Palm Bay as a nurse, and understands a lot of what goes on; and patient care is the most important issue. she stated the citizens of Palm Bay deserve to have the best care; Brevard County provides that best service for them; and she does not want to see the residents of Palm Bay pay more money and not get as much quality or backup as Brevard County provides. Commissioner Voltz stated the Palm Bay Fire Department is a great department; it provides wonderful service; she would never take anything away from them at all; but she has not heard anything today that would cause her to approve a COPCN for Palm Bay. She stated the City has a lot on its plate with
roads, infrastructure, annexations, charter schools, and a number of other things to deal with; and throwing EMS transport in the mix right now is not a good time. She stated she loves Palm Bay but cannot support giving it a COPCN right now.

Commissioner Scarborough stated the Commissioners are elected by people in the cities and collect taxes from them; and he would like to think they are partners and not opposed to the cities becoming involved. He stated it is good that cities want to care for their citizens; the Board should never take a negative position on that; however, he likes the Chairman’s approach at this time and does not think certain questions have been answered to the level where he could vote for the matter. He stated other issues have also been raised that need to be addressed, particularly some systems that have a blended environment or more participation by the cities are held as examples; so perhaps this matter needs to be taken forward. Commissioner Scarborough stated the City of Titusville has three items for the Legislature and one deals with EMS, so it apparently has an interest; it appears the votes are to deny this COPCN today; the Board understands its responsibility to the cities and asks any city in becoming involved to participate with the Board; and if there is a certain amount for the study, that the study not be just the County’s study but a combined study to find the best possible system in the future. He stated unfortunately the Brevard County system was not named as one of the top three; next time, when they are making a presentation, he would like to say they would like to start with Brevard County; and if it costs $200,000, he thinks it is worth the expense if they save some people’s lives.

Commissioner Carlson stated at the meeting with Palm Bay there was discussion of quasi-legislative or quasi-judicial; Mr. Knox clarified that earlier about the Board being quasi-legislative; and inquired from that perspective, has the Board covered everything it needs to cover in today’s meeting, or is there any other further clarification or anything like that for the Board to go forward and make a decision. Mr. Knox stated the Board can make a decision today, as basically the ball has been handed to it.

Motion by Commissioner Carlson, seconded by Commissioner Voltz, to deny issuance of a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity (COPCN) to the city of Palm Bay to provide EMS transport. Motion carried and ordered; Commissioner Colon voted nay.

Commissioner Colon stated the Board knows this will end up in court; one thing she said was the procedure of how they went about doing it and changing everything in midstream; she knows the Board has denied it; and inquired if it is still possible to have some serious discussions. Commissioner Colon stated her main priority is the citizens of the entire Palm Bay area, including Malabar, West Melbourne, Valkaria, and Grant; she needs to make sure those folks are collectively being able to get all their ducks in order because of the growth that is about to go in that area; and inquired if this precludes those folks from being able to take that to the next level as far as discussions and more details and exactly where the funding is going to come from. Mr. Knox stated the next step they have to go through as the City and County is mediation; and certainly there is fertile grounds for discussion. He stated if the City is seriously interested in a joint partnership of some kind or some sort of shared arrangement, there are ample things they can talk about in mediation, if the Board is interested in doing that. Commissioner Colon stated whether Palm Bay is in the picture or not, that is something the Board has to do regardless; so she will make a motion that County staff focus on that.

Motion by Commissioner Colon, to direct staff to focus on discussions and more details and exactly where the funding is going to come from.

She stated she has a great concern with the kind of growth that is happening in regards to having a specific idea about where the future fire station would be and planning in the areas that she has shared; they do not have to do it jointly if that cannot be the case, but she would like to get support from the Board that it will get the ball rolling. She stated this issue could end up in litigation forever, and meanwhile she has a community that is growing; and she would be negligent if she did not make sure they were taken care of. Chairman Pritchard stated if it is annexed, it will be Palm Bay’s fire station and the City’s determination where to put it. Commissioner Colon stated it affects Valkaria, Grant, and the unincorporated areas of Palm Bay, not only the City of Palm Bay; and until that discussion takes place, the Board has not focused on it. She stated she needs to make sure there is some planning and she cannot see the Board denying her the opportunity for that planning. She stated this issue started those discussions; it would not have happened because the County is so huge unless the Board really focused on a particular area. She stated the Board cannot do it with litigation; and she understands that.

Commissioner Scarborough stated Commissioner Colon’s motion is in order if she is asking staff to work with the City and try to optimize the level of service, and he will second the motion.

Motion by Commissioner Colon, seconded by Commissioner Scarborough, to direct staff to work with the City of Palm Bay in trying to optimize the level of service for EMS transport and bring back a plan as soon as possible.

Commissioner Carlson stated Commissioner Colon is concerned about the growth in the future not necessarily right now, but in the future with annexations; and if it is a County-run operation, the Board needs to deal with that. Commissioner Colon stated that is right; and inquired if she heard that it would be out of line; with Mr. Knox responding just the opposite. Commissioner Colon stated she wants to make sure she was not misunderstanding, so that would be her motion to give that direction.

Mr. Feldman stated what Mr. Knox said is correct on the conflict resolution side; they go to mediation and hopefully can work it out; he knows he sent a letter to the County Manager and hopefully the Commissioners have seen it, on what he calls the partnership alternative, which they think is extremely viable; and they hope that the Board gives staff some direction on that. He stated he wants the Board to understand clearly, while it may have made the wrong decision today, they are not going to pick up their marbles and go home and not work with the County on other issues; they still are the largest city and will work with the County on all the issues that surround not only Palm Bay but also the surrounding areas. Commissioner Voltz stated she appreciates that.

Deputy Clerk Berni Talbert requested the motion be repeated. Chairman Pritchard requested Commissioner Colon repeat the motion. Commissioner Colon stated since they have been told, and Mr. Feldman is here, basically what the Board is doing is giving direction to staff to work closely with the City of Palm Bay in regards to looking at the big picture. She stated whether this goes through or not, they still have an issue out there; and that is all that she is saying. She stated she knows Chief Farmer is receptive and made that perfectly clear, but she just wants to have direction of the Board and does not want it to take six months or a year or two years. She stated there is serious growth that is going on and they need to make sure that they bring back that planning as soon as possible; and that is the motion.

Motion by Commissioner Colon, seconded by Commissioner Voltz, to direct staff to work closely with the City of Palm Bay in regards to looking at the big picture and bring back a plan as soon as possible. Motion carried and ordered unanimously.

Commissioner Scarborough stated following up on Chairman Pritchard’s original comments; the Board has a concept of a report; he does not know where this thing is going to end up, but does think at least a couple of Commissioners want to make sure they have the optimal structure for the future; and inquired if Mr. Feldman would be interested, rather than just the County doing the study and the City being on the outside, if the City of Titusville and other cities would want to participate in looking at other models throughout the State and the potential of restructuring and doing some things that are done elsewhere. He stated he knows Mr. Feldman cannot speak for his Council as it will require financial commitment to come to the table. Mr. Feldman stated he will not make the financial commitment, but will make a commitment to have input into the process; and any study, to be meaningful, is going to have to have input from not only the cities that are in the fire business but the ones that are not because they are still the County’s customers. Commissioner Scarborough stated he wants everybody involved because, for example, if the other guy pays for the attorney, the opinion is less inclined to go the other way. Mr. Feldman stated he understands that. Commissioner Scarborough stated it is the City’s call, and he just wanted to offer the opportunity so the cities do not feel it is the Board’s study.

Commissioner Colon inquired what is to be accomplished with the study and is it strictly EMS. She stated some of the things she heard today were some people saying they support a system for the entire County; it is perfectly clear the Board has set a direction of not wanting fragmentation and so forth; and inquired again what would the study accomplish, other than spending money.

Chairman Pritchard stated what he would suggest is looking at the fire service as a whole so they do not have to worry about jurisdictional boundaries and can look at fire, EMS, transport, ALS service, BLS service, and the entire component and figure out how best to provide it so they do not have some sort of issue that they cannot cross the street or worry about mutual aid and auto aid agreements. He stated they look at the County as if they are going to have the same type of board to evaluate a type of service and come back with recommendations how best to provide it; and that does not mean the cities wold not have their fire departments or EMS transport; it means that they would be under a board, they would have governance, they would have protocols, and they would have standards so nobody has different thread couplings on hydrants or hoses, nobody uses different defibrillators, and everybody uses a common protocol and common piece of equipment so that things are interchangeable. He stated the reason he is saying that is they are at the point where they need to do something that is going to be universal as well as regional.

Commissioner Colon stated there better not be a hidden agenda with this thing; the reason why she is sharing that very clearly was because when they had a meeting in her office, which took place a year and a half ago, they were having issues with the City of Cocoa; Cocoa wanted to come to the County; at that time they were hearing issues in regards to who was swaying what and who was going to take over; and that was part of the stuff that she really was uncomfortable about. She stated she wanted to be pretty specific if this is about fire or if the study comes back saying since it is paid for by the County, the County would be better to provide fire service in the City of Palm Bay; and inquired if that is something or is that totally different.

Chairman Pritchard stated that is not the way a study like this is done; Cocoa came to the Board because it provides BLS service and the County is an ALS transport provider; the County offered to provide ALS transport service for one million dollars less than the City was paying, saving it 25%; and the Union of Cocoa fought that and the Board got caught up in the litigation. He stated that was not done in the best interest of Cocoa.

Commissioner Colon inquired if the cooperation is already there or are they just wasting time. She stated she wants the Board to be brutally honest of what it is doing here because if it is not going to accomplish something at the end of the day, she would not be wanting to do that to the Department either.

Chief Farmer stated about eight or nine years ago, another board asked staff to look at the perfect world fire department; that perfect world fire department caused such a riff between the County and City fire departments that they are just now making inroads to improve those relationships. Chief Farmer stated a regional EMS system works; the Board has it now and is in no pain to make it regional or keep it regional; but if it looks at a regional fire system, even though that may be the best system, there will be a lot of pain. He stated they looked at it once before and it caused a lot of problems; and he does not know if the Board would not be better off to solicit input from the cities and ask them if they would like to look at a study like that because the last time it was forced on them and they were very unhappy.

Commissioner Scarborough stated the Board has moved from EMS to the fire system and all he mentioned was the EMS system; a gentleman from Pinellas County said that the Brevard County system is not like the top three systems because they incorporated municipalities to a greater degree; and he would like to find what they do and maybe that could be incorporated as sort of an in-between system. He stated that is all he was going to do; he is not in favor to any extent of assuming the entire fire system; he is not going there; and if that is what was interpreted, it is wrong.

Chairman Pritchard stated that is not what was interpreted, but it was what he said when he mentioned creating a study that will look at the EMS issue for a regional system having a board of governors and having directives that would come from it; and he was only basing that on what he heard about Volusia and Pinellas Counties and how they operate.

Commissioner Carlson inquired if the intent is to have staff look at other systems and have a study, she personally is not interested in doing a study because she is not sure it is going to reach the economies of scale that they have been talking about throughout today’s meeting being able to provide the service for the cost that they are able to provide that with; and that was a huge weight as far as she was concerned with the COPCN. She stated the Board obviously wants the best patient care it can get; it put to bed a lot of issues in terms of continuity of service and all that kind of stuff; and she really does not know where it would go with a study.

Chairman Pritchard stated it would set up an idea of how it is going to provide for the future as the County is going to grow. Commissioner Carlson stated if the Board is going to get cooperation from the cities to do that study, then she could probably deal with that; but if not, she has a problem with the Board taking it on itself. Chairman Pritchard stated he does not think the Board should take it on itself; it is talking about the County, not the unincorporated area, so it needs the municipalities involved with it. He stated maybe the first step is to find out who has an interest in doing the study; and if the Board finds out no one has an interest in doing it, then it can adjust it from there. Mr. Knox stated that concept is not without precedent in the County; they worked on the water board, and the cities participated in that; they worked arrangements to make everybody happy eventually; so it can be done if the Board wants staff to try and do it. Commissioner Colon stated it is a meeting of the minds and not a study; and staff can find folks and say to them how can they work together. Chairman Pritchard stated it starts that way and it may have to go to another level like the Board did with the jail. He stated when the Board did the Countywide Water Ordinance, he chaired the water board; that was his first year on the Board of County Commissioners; and it was interesting. He stated they resolved a lot of issues and moved forward; and they might be able to do that again; so it is a good way to start.

Chief Farmer stated he is meeting with all the City Managers; he has spoken to a couple of them and can get back in contact with them as a course of discussion on growth and their needs; and inquired if it would be all right for him to additionally survey them as to their interest in joining a study or a think-through and give the Board a report; with Chairman Pritchard responding exactly. Chief Farmer stated he will do that.

Commissioner Voltz stated she is not interested in doing another whole study; if it was the study a city had done, the study would say it is best to have the city provide the service; and if the County did a study, it would say the County had the best service; so if the Board is paying for a study of some sort, which she is not interested in doing, she thinks it needs to involve the cities and find out where their needs are. She stated the bottom line is where are the County’s EMS needs; if they are within the cities, then the Board needs to address those; and anything more than that she sees no reason for.

Chairman Pritchard stated another issue is growth; Mr. Feldman brought that out when they had their meeting in Palm Bay; the City has issued more residential building permits than the County; according to his chart there were 2,227 single-family homes permitted in FY 2004 and 1,068 permitted so far this year; so that is 6,500 more residents. He stated they all need to start looking at what they are doing because they are going to end up with wall-to-wall people, and he will end up having to move. He stated he moved to Brevard County because of what happened in South Florida; he does not want to see it happen here; requested all the municipalities out there put the brakes on a little bit and start looking at what they are doing and problems they are creating with traffic and infrastructure and all the public service issues that they have. He stated West Melbourne is looking at 5,000 new homes; and it is going to be back up on County roads that the County can only have as two or four lanes.

Commissioner Colon stated she wants to thank everyone here and stated in the middle of all this controversy, while elected officials are going back and forth and administration, that everyone in the field has been extremely professional and she wants to thank them for that because they did not let it affect them and that is based from feedback in the community. She stated that is where she is from so she is able to get the feedback and both sides have been extremely professional; and she said to the Chief of Palm Bay and Chief of Brevard County not to let bureaucracy get in the way because they are good men and women and do not allow politics to interfere with their professionalism and continue to do that; and thanked them, on behalf of all the residents of Brevard County, for doing that.

The meeting recessed at 4:18 p.m. and reconvened at 4:28 p.m.

PERSONAL APPEARANCE - MIKE CUNNINGHAM, VICE CHAIRMAN OF MARINE
ADVISORY COUNCIL, RE: WAIVER OF SOLID WASTE DISPOSAL FEES FOR
DERELICT AND ABANDONED VESSELS

Mike Cunningham, Vice Chairman of the Marine Advisory Council, requested the Board consider reinstating the waiver of Solid Waste disposal fees for abandoned and/or derelict vessels found on the waterways and shorelines throughout the County. He stated the purpose is to encourage vessel owners to properly dispose of unwanted boats and reduce the abandonment on waterways and shorelines; it is a problem; and it is not a problem that has been helped by the storms of six months ago. He stated one of the purposes in their mission statement is that the scope of their work includes all marine-related issues to insure well-maintained, safe, healthy, and friendly marine environment for the residents and visiting users of the marine resources; and he emphasizes marine users. He stated it brings to mind an article that appeared in a boating magazine, Boating World he believes, several years ago, which virtually advised the transient boat traveler to steer clear of Brevard County because of some of the attitudes that seem to see were prevalent; it has been one of their primary tasks to reverse those feelings if they can with the boating public; and it has not been easy on occasion. Mr. Cunningham stated waiver of the fees will encourage boat owners to get rid of boats both in the water and on shore; there are 59 vessels listed in the Board’s packet; that is not a complete list; for instance, this morning on his way to the meeting, in his District alone he counted six vessels in the water and out of the water that were abandoned and/or derelict; and that did not include numbers 53, 54, and 55 on the list. He stated they know there are more; Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has a process for handling this issue, but it is lengthy and does not present a realistic picture on cost estimates for removal; there are supposed to be funds granted for this purpose; but last year and the year before they were told no money was available. He stated this year it will come before the Legislative Delegation again and it will address the issue; the State basically told them there is no money; but they feel like they have to do something to help clean up the shorelines and waterways. He stated they are threats to navigation when they are in the water or near a navigable channel; the same consideration should apply for marinas and marine service operators especially since the storms; and some of those people have been inundated with those vessels. He stated a member on the Council pulls up to the dock in his yard, throws a rope around a cleat, and walks away from it; a couple of good rains and northeasterners could down the boat; and he would have to pay a disposal fee to go to the landfill for something he did not cause. He stated the effect of the hurricanes is the reason they come before the Board and ask that it reinstate the waiver on disposal fees; they think it is an advantage to the County; and he will be happy to answer any questions. He noted he discussed it with Solid Waste Management Director Euri Rodriguez; and if they can work with Solid Waste and Code Enforcement for the ones on land, a concerted effort between the agencies will help the entire citizenry of the County. He again requested the Board reinstate the fee waiver.

Commissioner Carlson inquired if the Council has been working with the illegal buoy issue as well because a lot of times they hook up to illegal buoys and abandon the vessels; and that was an issue she brought up that the Board is going to get a report back on regarding the Banana River Aquatic Preserve area. Mr. Cunningham stated that is one of the problems they have; there was a 44-foot boat a guy bought in Rockledge and started to Marathon to get it fixed; however, it sank; and that is part of the problem they are working on. He stated they are working on a brochure, which they will distribute to all marinas, marine operators, and people who have any marine-related businesses; and there will be a picture on the front of a derelict or abandoned vessel with “Have you seen one of these?” and who to report it to. He stated they are working with Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission that has one officer in Titusville who basically handles derelict vessels; and it does not make his job any easier when his government says there is no money.

Motion by Commissioner Scarborough, seconded by Commissioner Carlson, to reinstate waiver of Solid Waste Disposal Fees for derelict and/or abandoned vessels by including them as part of the Solid Waste Annual Assessment. Motion carried and ordered unanimously.

PERMISSION TO BID, AWARD BID, AND EXECUTE CONTRACT, RE: REPLACEMENT
OF EMERGENCY GENERATOR AT BREVARD COUNTY GOVERNMENT CENTER
IN VIERA

Motion by Commissioner Scarborough, seconded by Commissioner Carlson, to grant permission to bid, award bid to the lowest and best responsive bidder, and authorize the Chairman to execute the Contract with the successful bidder for replacement of the emergency generator located at the Government Center at Viera. Motion carried and ordered unanimously.

DISCUSSION, RE: HURRICANE LOANS FOR COUNTY DEPARTMENTS

Commissioner Scarborough stated he was concerned that the Departments were not putting the information together; it is a number months after the storms; the costs are reimbursable; and the Board needs to get the money to the Departments so they do not have to come in and get it because the sooner they get things done the more likely they are to be reimbursed.

Motion by Commissioner Scarborough, seconded by Commissioner Carlson, to approve loans from the Insurance Reserves and/or Utility Services Department to Parks and Recreation Department for $5,742,432 and Facilities Department for $3,795,383 for repair of damages from Hurricanes Charley, Frances, and Jeanne, with loans to be repaid from reimbursements received from FEMA and the State of Florida. Motion carried and ordered unanimously.

APPROVAL, RE: CHANGES TO BOARD MEETING SCHEDULE

Motion by Commissioner Scarborough, seconded by Commissioner Carlson, to approve changes to the 2005 Board Meeting Schedule to add Legislative Workshop on March 18, 2005 at 1:00 p.m.; move the Budget Workshop from April 21, 2005 to April 19, 2005 at 9:00 a.m.; and add Healthcare Workshop on December 8, 2005 at 1:00 p.m. Motion carried and ordered unanimously.

RANKING EXECUTIVE SEARCH SERVICES, RE: COUNTY MANAGER

Commissioner Scarborough stated in looking over the proposals, he does not know how the other Commissioners feel, but the Mercer Group, in his estimation, is substantially stronger; he does not know if the Board needs to hear from three firms as it said previously; and he is happy to go immediately with the Mercer Group. Commissioner Voltz stated she did not put them in first. Commissioner Scarborough stated then the Board should make a determination whether it wants to hear five or three presentations. Chairman Pritchard inquired if the Board would like to cut it to three instead of five; with Commissioner Scarborough responding that would be wise.

Commissioner Voltz stated staff can tell the Board which ones they are when the Commissioners turn in their rankings. Commissioner Scarborough stated the Board needs to determine if it wants presentations from three or five firms. Commissioner Voltz responded the Board will be able to figure that out. Chairman Pritchard suggested the top three firms; with Commissioner Voltz responding three is fine.

The Board postponed the item until later in the meeting to allow staff to calculate the rankings.

APPROVAL, RE: SUPPORT OF SENATE BILL 746, FIREWORKS

Chairman Pritchard suggested the Board support Senate Bill 746 regulating fireworks.

Motion by Commissioner Scarborough, seconded by Commissioner Carlson, to authorize sending a letter of support for Senate Bill 746 concerning the sale and use of fireworks to Senator Al Lawson, the Brevard Legislative Delegation, Legislative Coordinator Theda Roberts, Florida Association of Counties, and the County lobbyist. Motion carried and ordered unanimously.

CITIZEN REQUEST - ROBERT J. GREENE, MAGNA MEDICAL SERVICES, INC., RE:
PROPOSALS FOR PILOT PROJECTS FOR MOBILE DRUG TESTING OF COUNTY
EMPLOYEES AT VIERA AND FOR RANDOM TESTING OF CONTRACTORS

Robert Greene, representing Magna Medical Services, Inc., advised last year they did a pilot project with Department of Children and Families; when there were suspicions of drug and alcohol relating to child abuse or neglect, they were called out with DCF to investigate the home; and they would test willing parents and give immediate results to the case workers so they could make immediate decisions about the safety of the children in the home. He stated in that pilot program Brevard County had the highest positive rates of any of the four counties they looked into; and when the pilot project ended, there was a lot of concern about what to do from that point forward. He stated ironically the issue carried over into the judicial system where a lot of cases were not being handled because the judges did not have the ability to immediately test the individuals; and instead of coming to the County, the State Department found some emergency funding for them to put a drug screener into the courthouse in Viera. He stated he walked from the Justice Center to the Government Center and it is exactly 231 steps; and Magna Medical is a mobile service, which is kind of an innovative service where they go to the locations and do the drug testing instead of entities going to drug testing labs to be tested. Mr. Greene stated they were approached by the City of Casselberry that had
a union issue with their critical staff of the Fire and Police Departments being called off-site to do tests as is being done in Brevard County; the problem is those are critical staff and it gets into their time and also costs money; and the solution was that Magna would come onsite, do the required tests, and get back with them. He stated there was no increase in cost but there was a savings in terms of utilizing onsite testing; and that is the proposal he is making to the Board; however, he would amend it to go back and talk to Departments to look at where the Departments are rather than just at Viera and go back and see which areas in Brevard County need the service.

Chairman Pritchard stated he does not see a price for the mobile drug testing pilot project; with Mr. Greene responding he has not talked to the Human Resources Department yet, but what he said was they were willing to match the price of what the County currently is paying under contract. Chairman Pritchard stated testing of contractors is $7,600. Commissioner Carlson stated contractors do that for their employees. Mr. Greene stated background check procedures vary, which is a very serious issue. Mr. Greene stated an article in the News Journal said, “A dump truck collides with a bus in Deltona sending nearly a dozen students to the hospital with bumps and bruises. Recyling collector in Edgewater rolls his truck over two children critically injuring one of them”; those happened in January; and the driver had 11 citations. He stated Florida has a drug-free workplace policy; it requires any contractor to follow that policy, but it is a good-faith scenario; and what he is proposing is an innovative approach to how things are going from this point forward, meaning that on the County’s contracting bids, the contractors would sign a document saying they are willing to be spot checked for background as well as drugs. He stated it is a critical issue and has huge liability; an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure; and it is important, especially with the degree of development the County is doing right now, that some sort of infrastructure or safety net is put in place to insure that the contractors the County is working with are complying with drug-free policies.

Chairman Pritchard stated it was said that the drug testing of County employees would be the same as what the County is currently paying; and inquired of the situation. Human Resources Director Frank Abbate responding the county has a bid that it put out for those types of services; they do have a current provider who comes onsite whenever requested; so staff’s recommendation is to complete the due process this year and continue the contract; and in 2006 they will be putting it to bid and will invite everybody to participate. Chairman Pritchard stated right now the County has a vendor, it was a bid process, and it cannot stop the process at this point. He inquired what does the County do about contractors; with Central Services Director Steve Stultz responding the drug-free workplace is used as a tiebreaker in competitive procurements; the Florida Statutes only require various items, such as the contractor establishing a policy regarding the drug-free workplace and informing employees of such policy and procedures for violation of the policy; it does not indicate any kind of random drug testing requirement; and any random drug testing would be under the auspicious of the contractor.

Mr. Greene stated what he is trying to say is it is an individual approach because of liability the County could face with serious accidents; the drug-free workplace policy is something that is recommended but not insured, so any contractor can say he is following a drug-free workplace program; and what is lacking is the ability of any entity, be it city, State, or County, to follow up and find out if it is actually being followed. He stated that is what he is coming forth to the County with; it has contractors, it has a certain degree of safety it has to guarantee to the public, and it is the sort of article it does not want to see happen in Brevard County; and he is asking could he institute a measure of looking into such a practice to see if it is feasible. He stated that is what the proposal is.

Chairman Pritchard inquired regarding random drug testing of contractors, is that the County’s responsibility and would it be held liable; with Mr. Knox responding typically the arrangement with the County is as independent contractors, so they would be treated as independent contractors unless somehow the County is involved in supervising its employees. He stated the County allows the contractors to do the contract, so it does not have liability. Chairman Pritchard inquired if the County has run into a problem with contractors and drug issues; with Mr. Abbate responding not that he is aware of. Mr. Abbate stated the point he would like to add is that under CDL licenses, one of the examples that is utilized is Department of Transportation Federal Guidelines that require them to do random drug and alcohol tests, post-accident tests, and reasonable suspicion tests, so that is all in place under federal guidelines for contractors as employers. Mr. Greene stated it is not checked and that is the issue; this is the same exact issue Volusia County discovered that if they do not check, it is like telling a wolf to sign a paper stating he will not harm the chickens, and then putting him in the coop; and it is a good faith scenario. Mr. Greene stated he has subcontractors; he knows that any actions they have, he is liable for; and he would be hard pressed to think that an individual could not extend the suit to the contractors with existing counties. Mr. Knox stated they can always sue the County. Chairman Pritchard stated regardless of what the County does, they can sue. Mr. Greene stated an ounce of prevention is what the proposal is and to look at it as something a county could do. He stated if it is yes, it could do it for 12 weeks; he envisioned new proposals from this point forward to have a line item saying the contractors are willing to submit to random drug tests, and not necessarily that it is going to be done; but they are willing to do it so at least the window is open in the future if the County needed to do that. Chairman Pritchard stated his feeling is it does not fall within the County’s purview; it is the contractors’ responsibility; they are the ones who would be held liable; and regarding the other project for County employees, that contract is underway, the County has a vendor, so next year when they re-bid, Magna Medical would be given an opportunity to bid for the project. Mr. Greene stated that is no problem; and he was under the impression they did not provide mobile service when he inquired about it. Mr. Abbate stated they come on site. Chairman Pritchard stated there is no action the Board would take at this time; and thanked Mr. Greene for being at the meeting.

CITIZEN REQUEST - KENNETH AND MITZI SAUL, RE: EXEMPTION FROM
EDUCATIONAL FACILITIES IMPACT FEE

Commissioner Scarborough advised Kenneth and Mitzi Saul’s issue relates to school impact fees; the Board considers if a person had become obligated at a certain period of time, that gave the person certain rights to be grandfathered in; and this item falls within the parameters on which the Board previously granted waiver of the fee.

Motion by Commissioner Scarborough, seconded by Commissioner Voltz, to grant an exemption from the educational impact fee for Kenneth and Mitzi Saul, as they had a contract to build a home dated July 21, 2004, and the building permit was applied for on October 6, 2004. Motion carried and ordered unanimously.

PERSONAL APPEARANCE - CLYDE THODEY, CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD OF
ADJUSTMENT AND APPEALS, RE: APPLICATION OF DOUBLE-FRONTAGE
LOT PROVISIONS

Chairman Pritchard advised he has watched many meetings of the Board of Adjustment and is very pleased with the professional demeanor that the board exhibits; and in particular, he likes the way they start the meeting with a preamble as to the functionality of the board and the requirements of the board. He stated that is where the Board came up with the preamble for zoning meetings that it has initiated.

Clyde Thodey, Chairman of the Board of Adjustment, advised he appreciates the comments from the Chairman; he has been on the board for six years, and has been chairman for four years; and he missed one meeting out of six years. He stated they take the duties very seriously; they love the staff and think they have one of the best staffs in all of Florida; and they work hard and diligently with them. He stated they had problems with accessory buildings; every time somebody appears before the Board of Adjustment, they spend $600; and they brought that to staff’s attention. He stated they thought the fees and other things were okay, but if they could approve accessory buildings to make them larger and other things and incorporate it in, it would work out; they brought that to staff; and staff came back and worked it out so those do not come before the Board of Adjustment as much as they once did. Mr. Thodey stated with him is Dale Young, co-chair of the board; what he is here for is a concern of all the board members; and basically it is called double-frontage and special setback requirements. He stated it has come up so many times that he will run through a couple of scenarios and tell the Board about it; double-frontage lots are lots that front on two streets at both ends of the lot sometimes called a through lot; they also include by definition waterfront lots; and the water is considered one frontage and the street is considered another frontage. He stated a person came before the board requesting a variance from the 25-foot setback from the road and 25-foot setback from the water to put in a swimming pool; she had a very narrow lot as well; unfortunately it was a three-two vote and she did not get to put in her swimming pool even though the Department of Natural Resources agreed to give her the six-foot variance and did not think it was a problem. He noted that is one of the board’s concerns with double-frontage lots. He stated the Zoning Regulations provide where there is a double-frontage lot, the front setback is applied to both frontages; therefore, a standard lot may have a front setback of 25
feet and a rear setback of 20 feet. He stated they get requests for pool variances constantly, and it is always four or five feet or something like that, so they are concerned about that; and basically he is bringing it to the Board with their concerns. Mr. Thodey stated another concern of the board is the area off Highway A1A; the problem is oceanfront lots that have an extra setback of 30 feet from the property line to 80 feet from the center line of A1A; and they also have an extra setback from the ocean of 25 feet. He stated waterfront lots are subject to greater setbacks; and lots west of A1A are also subject to an extra front setback that ranges from 100 to 130 feet from the centerline of A1A for residential and commercial parcels. He stated the board’s concern is that density on A1A has been reduced to hardly what it was expected to be in order to accommodate four-laning of A1A; that is not going to happen; so the rule should go away because they have other setbacks that apply and takes precedence. He requested the Board direct staff to revisit the setbacks and see what they can come up with for a solution to double-frontage lots, which would help the citizens rather than hinder them.

Commissioner Scarborough stated they can proceed with legislative intent on both items because they make sense. Mr. Thodey stated they are concerned because they have eight cases coming up next week and know they will have double-frontage lots as they normally do once a month; so they thought if they could get it to the Board, the Board could pull it together and have a study done, which will help their board.

Chairman Pritchard stated it makes sense to him; and thanked Mr. Thodey and the members of the Board of Adjustment for all they do so well. He stated when people visit the Board of Adjustment, they do not go to the Board of County Commissioners; and the next step is the court if they do not like what that board decides. Mr. Thodey stated that is true, and they have to know everything in the book that they go by. Chairman Pritchard stated they have a specific level of expertise that is appreciated not only by the Board of County Commissioners but the public as well.

Motion by Commissioner Scarborough, seconded by Commissioner Voltz, to direct staff to prepare legislative intent on amending the Zoning Code regarding setbacks for double-frontage lots and setbacks from A1A or the Coastal Construction Control Line. Motion carried and ordered unanimously.

RANKING EXECUTIVE SEARCH SERVICES, RE: COUNTY MANAGER (CONTINUED)

Interim County Manager Peggy Busacca advised staff has calculated the ratings of the firms to perform executive search services.

Central Services Director Steve Stultz advised No. 1 is the Mercer Group, No. 2 is Colin Baenzinger & Associates, and No. 3 is MGT of America.

Motion by Commissioner Voltz, seconded by Commissioner Carlson, to approve The Mercer Group, Inc.; Colin Baenzinger & Associates; and MGT of America to make 15-minute presentations to the Board of County Commissioners on March 22, 2005 at 10:00 a.m.; and direct staff to invite the firms to the meeting. Motion carried and ordered unanimously.

REPORT, RE: SARNO LANDFILL APPRAISAL

Commissioner Colon stated she meant to bring up the Sarno Landfill Appraisal under her report, and would like to schedule it on the Agenda in April 2005 for discussion. Commissioner Voltz stated she is still looking into that. Commissioner Colon inquired if that will be okay with the Board; with Chairman Pritchard responding that will be fine.

Motion by Commissioner Colon, seconded by Commissioner Voltz, to schedule discussion on the Sarno Landfill Appraisal on the Agenda in April 2005. Motion carried and ordered unanimously.

WARRANT LISTS

Upon motion and vote, the meeting adjourned at 5:04 p.m.

ATTEST: _________________________________
RON PRITCHARD, CHAIRMAN, D.P.A.
BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
BREVARD COUNTY, FLORIDA
___________________
SCOTT ELLIS, CLERK

(S E A L)