Volusia County Council Meeting – October 15, 2024 Live captioning by AI-Media (Music plays) SPEAKER: Welcome to the Volusia County Council meeting. The meeting will begin in 10 minutes. (Music plays) SPEAKER: Welcome to the Volusia County Council meeting. The meeting will begin in five minutes. (Music plays) SPEAKER: Welcome to the County Council meeting. The meeting will begin in two minutes. (Music plays) TROY KENT: To my left, we have David Santiago, Don Dempsey, (indiscernible), my name is Troy Kent, I am here for the chairman and district four representative. Today we are going to start with our invocation. I would like to bring up the pastor from the life Fellowship Church of the Nazarene from Deltona. When the pastor comes up if you will please stand and then stay standing for the Pledge of Allegiance. Pastor, are you here? At this time we are going to have a moment of silence, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance. Thank you very much. (Pledge of Allegience) TROY KENT: Thank you, you may be seated. Karissa, at this time they you please call the roll? (Roll Call) TROY KENT: OK. Mr Brower is out, not feeling well, we hope that he feels better. Next we have public participation. If you would like to speak, you have three minutes to talk about. When you come up you do not have to give the address for safety reasons, but we would like to know what district you live in for District representative know that you are in the area. SPEAKER: I am (unknown name), I do not know my district. TROY KENT: Can I stop you there? Please take your microphone and pull it closer. SPEAKER: I have heard it said that a picture is worth a thousand words. I brought this simple picture with me showing how the destruction of wetlands directly contributes to flooding. Our county was devastated by Hurricane Milton. Mom homes, old stock. Forms are significantly more of wetlands, grass and trees. When the wetlands our plans with concrete the water had nowhere to go. I am speaking on behalf of my county. I want to take this moment to quote Theodore Roosevelt, who established more than 450 national forest. He said there can be no greater issue than that of conservation in this country. He also sent do what you can with what you have, where you are. Councilman, a moratorium on development is urgent. Zoning laws need to be held tightly against his own people and component of our future. Let's move on speed ahead with conservation efforts. Let's start the ground (indiscernible) are not endangered plans to look for endangered species. More land to be protected and preserved. My appeal to this committee reminds me of the story of a man stuck on his roof when water was advising that he was at risk of drowning. He prayed to God to save him, he was sent a rope, a raft and a boat. He denied each opportunity say that God would save him personally and when he died, he asked God "Why did you not save me?" And God sent I sent a rope, a raft and a boat, why didn't you seize th the opportunity? As Theodore Roosevelt recommended the did not do what he had with what he had with you want. We are like that man stuck on the roof, and we have a chance right now to change the future the structure of this county. What more is it going to take? What more is it going to take? I am asking each one of you to jump into the boat. Eleanor Roosevelt said the future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. I believe in the beauty of my dreams and I am dreaming of a green Volusia. In the spirit of Roosevelt, support, join me in stopping future destruction because nothing is more important than the conservation of our country. Thank you. TROY KENT: Thank you. Next up is Raquel, followed by Lisa. DAVID SANTIAGO: Mr Chairman, if I can real quick, could you please inform the public on our process. We do not typically comment, but they can stay until the end where we may comment. TROY KENT: Thank you for bringing that up. That is absolutely right, we follow strict rules, Robert's rules of order, and we follow at a Volusia Council. And just so we know, we are going to hear a lot of different things this afternoon but we do not respond right now because that is not how he thinks are run. We run an efficient meeting and want to make sure everybody's voice is heard but at the end of the meeting a council member may very well take up what was said talk about at that time. Thank you for bringing that that up. SPEAKER: Good afternoon council. It is good to see you. I want to say I am very proud of this young lady who just spoke. Her name is Bella Schwartz and if she becomes the next American President that I hope that she hired I hope she does because I would gladly pack my practice en route to Washington to support that ideology. She quoted figure.more about who says there is no greater issue in this country and conservation. Conservation is or at least should be one of the greatest issues in our country. My name is Racquel, and I am the sole owner of Atlantic law center. We are a personal injury law firm on US one, and we unapologetically stand for conservation. We are a friend of animals, of the habitats, and we are also a friend to the people that love them. We are a friend of nature, of the outdoors, and my daughters and I spent a great deal of time outdoors. I want to let you know how the development and massacre of this County has affected my business. Well, being a small business it used to be that I would get a few car accidents here and there, car accidents. They have become an epidemic now. It has become very common in Volusia County about and Victoria Circle, that is a great source of business for somebody like me. Councilmen, a moratorium on development is urgent. I didn't know that it can be done. But if possible, that is what we need. It is necessary, it is but, it is what Volusia County need. Enough is enough. When are we going to stop? When will we stop? When the last tree is cut down? Developers do not care. They will just keep bulldozing everything that is true and green and real. The developers do not care about the lines at the grocery store or the car accidents. About the traffic, about the attack on our quality of life. I believe in property rights. I believe it freedom, and I actually love money. Just as much as everybody else here and in Volusia County. But what is happening is not freedom. It is not progress. It is not prosperity. It is an attack on our green space which is causing our quality of life to go down. Wildlife has nowhere to go. Wildlife is ending up in our neighbourhood, in our subdivision. But if I were to be honest with you, it is not that there is a bear in our subdivision. There is a subdivision in the bear's habitats. Which is being taken over by development, by the tens of thousands of acres. TROY KENT: Thank you, your time is up. SPEAKER: Thank you. TROY KENT: (indiscernible) you did not tell us who Bella is? Is that your daughter? SPEAKER: I am (indiscernible), Mr Recktenwald, I was going to email you but I thought it best that I come here today. What happened during the storm, I cannot say enough about. The fire alarm in one of our buildings went off during the storm. These children have not had the great lives, they have been trafficked, they do not feel secure. So there is probable went and drained, and who comes out to save them to the middle of this? The Volusia County fire Department. They came and they had their backs. Their faces had such relief to know that somebody, the county, these men gave up with their family came out to save those kids and us. Mr Recktenwald, I do not know who the Fire Chief is that he needs to be commended. Your staff is amazing. What they did, the confidence and hope that they gave those kids, that somebody in this county cares about them, and David, a you said the last time I was here is that you were not here. Have been there three times with your wife and I truly appreciate it. We still need a box truck but we still need you to show up at our event that we love them. Danny, the claims, everything. When Mr Recktenwald showed up last time he says that these kids job, that of the system. That is our goal. An email would have not been enough to show a gratitude. Our senior leadership wanted us to know that the fire department was there. The kids were panicked, we had no power, and there they were. It was horrible, and that they were to protect them. So I thank you from the bottom of my heart and so does our senior leadership. TROY KENT: Thank you very much. Before you go, the chief is right there, he will give you a business card. Next up is Paul, followed by Pat. SPEAKER: That afternoon. My name is Paul Richardson. I would first like to say thank you to the staff, local city please, SPL and anybody else that I'm it for the continued support in this difficult time. I pray that both of them and their families the same to continue in the service. Sadly the hurricane to perform life's in this county. I am popular thought comforts and gives them strength. Living in Florida has never been easy. But if it is from and hurricanes are a fact of life of it is not that they have come in? But there are more people and things cost more money. It is unfortunate that another storm is coming our way in the form of evil amendmant four. Not only does this amendment put human life in danger that women who can be permanently harmed and who can die from unsafe abortion practices. (indiscernible) die in Volusia County. It is a legitimate newsworthy event and we can learn how to prevent deaths in the future. However, while the same media (indiscernible) murder babies, what about the deaths of women due to botched abortions? No they will not. They are going to celebrate the inhuman factors and cognitive process. Murdering unborn human life and (indiscernible) is not progress. If we truly wants to save life that I highly suggest that anybody who listens to me. Instrument four in November. God bless Volusia County and America. TROY KENT: Pat Joslin and after Pat is Evelyn Rodriguez. SPEAKER: My name is Pat Joslin, I live at 1330 E. Taylor Road, Deland, Florida. I'm going to do everything I can to not cry. We are flooded again, and it's the 5500 Homestead went in. You guys tried to stop it, our neighbor behind us, Ronnie, is on the PUD committee, and he tried to stop it by not voting for it. He told the subdivision that is going in down the street from us on the corner of Blue Lake and Taylor that looked down the road, they are still flooded. They annexed into Deland, all of those houses. I need you guys to help us. We need to stop it, we need to put a moratorium on building, anywhere in Volusia County. (Applause) SPEAKER: Anywhere. It needs to stop. If it doesn't, you can buy us out and turn us into a lake and put a bridge over our property. There is 5 feet at the road before I started. I can barely get my truck out of the road. The first day of the hurricane, I called 911 for them to close the road. They said, "Ma'am, we don't have anybody to close the road, we don't have enough stuff." I have cones. I will go out, and put cones in the road. They said that you cannot legally do that, I said, "Watch me." I went out and I put cones on the road, Jerry, I don't know if Jerry is here, Jerry came around, he is a retired FHP Captain. He came around and helped me. He put cones at the other end of the road. I had somebody yesterday say to me, I was out straightening the hoses, "Your staff, your Road working staff is absolutely wonderful. Lewis Tribbett is actually wonderful." He is the one that got us the pump to begin with and I don't mean to be staring at you but you are the Chair. He got us the pump to begin with. He turned it on, even before Helene, that is how come we are not more flooded. I don't understand why we cannot stop, I don't know what we need to do. I called Saint John's water management today. I have given their name and a direct phone number to everybody that is here, by email. If they are on my email, or my Facebook. We've got to stop this. We've got to stop this. Jerry, Jerry, thank you. I yelled at everybody that came down the road. Some of them drove around me. If you came from the other end, I give you a lesson in etiquette. TROY KENT: Thank you, Pat. (Applause) TROY KENT: Mr Recktenwald, if you would keep a note of, we heard the positive notes about the public works employees come and share with them tomorrow we would appreciate it. Evelyn Rodriguez followed by Pam Peter. SPEAKER: 11 months ago, today I apply for transfer 386 assistance because my home was flooded by hurricane Ian and I did not have flood insurance. Today, nobody from 386 has come to assess the damages. In February, a representative 386 appeared at a neighborhood meeting in Daytona Beach and announced that they had expected to receive about 3000 applications but only received about 1000 so they were reopening the application process. In March, of this year, after many exhausting attempts to get anywhere with the caseworker assigned to my case I contacted Mr Reinhart, via email. He forwarded my email to Donna Butler who forwarded my email to Lisa Patterson, who informed me that my case was categorized as level VIII, with level I being the lowest income and most vulnerable population. In April, they asked me to update my information on a new software. I was given 12 hours, a window of 12 hours, to reenter my information. That did not happen because I saw the email too late. Eventually, they fixed that. Since August, I received (away from mic) emails, once every two weeks, telling me, "we are still working with damage assessments for priorities one and two, and the site visits are based on priority level and you're priority seven." In September I found this in my door, my doorknob. I said, "Oh my gosh, I better call 386 because I missed the caseworker to assess me." I called them and they said no, we are soliciting for more application for assistance. Then, I see this, in the hometown news, September 13. Volusia County Transform 386 initiative is now accepting applications for its rental repair program which aims to restore the affordable rental housing stock in the county. I am still waiting. If anyone doesn't see anything wrong with this scenario, I think whoever doesn't see, they are dumber than a fifth grader. By the way, I got flooded by Milton again. TROY KENT: Pam you are next. Chief can, individual scanning the back, can you locate chairs for them they are blocking the view of people here. We have plenty of seats. Pam, you are up, followed by Steven (unknown name). (audio issues) SPEAKER: ... Overflowed on her home to a property within 30 feet of our home and created a second retention pond. This next hurricane brought even more water, and once again the retention pond overflowed into our property as well as all the other water in the area. We watched in horror as the water level rose all around us and then came pouring into our home. Sorry. We tried everything to stop it. Towels, sandbags, but we were no match for this amount of water. Our home was flooded. We raced to try to protect our things, our floors were damage, it's a nightmare. The septic is under water and sewage came flowing into the shower. We don't even know how much damage because our home is still sitting in water. The house is not livable and we have had to move out. We are retired and this was supposed to be our golden years. It is going to take weeks or months for the water to recede. The repairs to our home, even longer. If we clean up this time, what is going to prevent this from happening over and over? Will you please help us? The amount of runoff our property is experiencing is not sustainable. Even though we have had to move out, are we going to be required to pay the $9000 tax bill for a home that we cannot even live in? Any help that you can give us, we appreciate it. Thank you. (Applause) TROY KENT: Thank you for sharing, Ms. (unknown name). Steven (unknown name). You live in Deland, come on down. JAKE JOHANSSON: Can I ask a question to staff, please? It seems, I know where some of the information can be found is on our website. As we are going through these, can we possibly get the website to replace the public participation banner up here so people can at least take that and look at what we have offer, instead of walking away with tears? TROY KENT: That's a great idea. Can you direct staff to do that? JAKE JOHANSSON: I think hurricanes is more majority of it. SPEAKER: Good evening, members of the Council, and fellow residents. I am representing my niece Lisa Smith, and also a good friend of mine, Stephanie Black. TROY KENT: Madame clerk, I need a timer going. Thank you. SPEAKER: ... That lives at 1510 Rockyham Lane in Deland, and has lived there since 1986 and raise children in a community. Over the years she has witnessed many changes but one of the most concerning issues she faces today, or they face today is increasing frequency and severity of flooding. Most recently, Hurricane Milton brought extensive flooding to the area and many of us saw properties impacted in ways we had not inspected before. Back in 2004, when we had three hurricanes in quick succession, she remembers facing challenges but never lost property as she did this time, or two years ago, nor did they deal with the kind of flooding that we are actually seeing now. The flooding problem is not just about the storms themselves, the shifting sugar sand West of us has all the topology and disrupted the natural drainage. As a result, the homes are now at risk of flooding, even in less severe weather conditions . Personally, she has been unable to even drive her car in my car as well out of her own driveway after some of these floods. We need immediate action to address the issues, our current drainage systems are no longer adequate and we to ensure what happened during Hurricane Milton do not become a regular occurrence. This is not about convenience, it is about protecting our homes and future of community. This is I believe representing all the residents that are affected, I don't know if any of the Council was actually affected, but you have to understand this is heartfelt, this is people's life. This is impacting them in a way, they are losing their homes, they are losing their livelihoods, and something really needs to be done about that. Thank you for your time, I hope the Council will take the steps and find solutions before the next storm comes and damages more of our town. Thank you. TROY KENT: Thank you, Steven. (Applause) TROY KENT: Lisa Smith followed by John Nicholson. While Lisa is coming up, I will say, it is brutal. Absolute brutal, and when you have water coming in your home, you feel violated. I hear you. SPEAKER: Good afternoon everybody, I have nothing prepared, but I'm just want to speak from my heart. I have been in my family home since 1986, when my parents built it. I lived on a Rockingham lane. It's criminal what it looks like, we have never in all the years, Don's wife used to live across the Street for me. Her parents can attest in his wife can attest, we have never had the flooding until Victoria Park. Started their building. They don't have sufficient drainage, it is smelling terrible, people septics are covered, pumps, wells are covered, sheds are destroyed with valuables that are in there. Jerry, my neighbor, he has lost his home. It actually went into his his home, as well as my other neighbor that is up north, and we are surrounded. We have moats around our houses. It is not going anywhere. Nobody is pumping it out for us. It is criminal what is happening. Why are the builders protected but the residents who have been here for all of these years are not protected? (Applause) SPEAKER: Why is that? What are you guys going to do? TROY KENT: Thank you, I appreciate the positives, but we are going to keep this going so we do not run over. Please, go ahead. SPEAKER: I am not upset with individuals, I am just upset. I don't mind the growth. Bring it. But, before you do that, you got to protect the people that have been here. These are people's – this is their retirement, their families homes, memories. Please, please stop the building until you fix what is broken. Please. I am begging you guys. (Applause) SPEAKER: Really. It has got to stop. Thank you for listening and I hope something will be done. TROY KENT: Thank you, Miss Smith. Next is John Nicholson. Followed by Jorge Figaro. SPEAKER: My house is 40 feet above grade, it will never flood. But riding over here, for the first time in 40 years coming to Deland, the water on the side of the road is literally above those ditches and onto the road. So when they blocked off about 400 feet of 92 because he could not drive that lane, there was water over it. That never happened before. What happen water go to the second lane? We lose the ability to go East and West. That is right around the corner. It is not a fairytale it is right there. What the people are experiencing, we have that in Daytona Beach for the 40 years I have been here. Midtown has been flooding forever and we have done nothing about. I have talked to you about trees absorbing the water. As you know, between Daytona Beach and here there has got to be a gazillion trees. And they did not absorb the water. So there have to be other ways to do this. Miami put ditches on both sides of the road to help with the drainage, this might help 92 but what happens to all these people when you have about 5 feet around them and they end up in a gully? It would have sat on the property around them is now sitting on their property. (Applause) We are doing that because we wanted to help the people who work (indiscernible), he forgot about the people who are already living there. They are the ones we should be concerned about. I am not saying stop development, but we have to say if we are going build XYZ property, if we are going to do the 10 acre site into 1/3 of home site and put in 500 homes instead of one, where is the water going to go? Clayton County, author want to stay on property. No it doesn't. You have all of you people say the water has got to come from somewhere and when they raise their property up it goes down to the lowest point. So we have got to find a solution before we passed the next development. Develop, go ahead. But they absolutely must not affect the neighbours. Thank you. (Applause) TROY KENT: Thank you Mr Nicholson. And it joined…? You can straighten me up when you come up here. It looked great, by the way. SPEAKER: George, or Jorje. I do not want to attack people that I am asking for help. You know the problem. I know your engineers. I worked with them my career. This is a 1000 year event, what did you expect? So this is the rare storm. But when it is not the rare storm, we are still getting this kind of enormous flooding. My son has been battling this for seven years, I know you all know him, JC. The chairman it's running for reelection and he is getting criticized in campaign has because he has not been able to fix it. Every time I look at vote on this board to approve development it is 4 to 3. So that the developers are strong. There campaign contributions are strong. I get that. (Applause) It is hard not to go native when you are in a political position. I have been around politics for a long time. I thank Mr Recktenwald for what he is doing, I know the city approved that crap, excuse my language, something has got to be done. My son has been dealing with this for seven years, but this is atrocious. At the father it is everything I can do not to lose my mind over there. I am going to put some thoughts in your head. The next time it rains, your brain is going to tell you I am ruining people's lives. The next time it rains, your brain is going to tell you I am ruining people's lives. The next time it rains, your brain is going to tell you I am ruining people's lives. You have to solve this, it is not going away. I have been up here many times, and have no ill will towards you, and I know many of you are affected by this but this needs to be resolved. The last thing I will say, I know there is a joint project going on with the city, I do not know the status of it. I know there is a project looking at my son's area, and that is not there, and I hope something comes out of it. I hope we do not get to the point where we have no one to put the water. I do not know what the answer is that the answer needs to be found. That lady who was out there who bought the property when they bought it I thought, "Oh my God, how could somebody sell them that property?" I know you have good intentions but referencing a website is not enough. I do not know what other words I can say to please get through to you. So thank you, this is not going away, we need her help. TROY KENT: Next up is Suzanne, followed by JC. SPEAKER: Suzanne Schreiber, dream green Volusia, Ormond Beach. It is the Volusia County charter outdated invalid or meaningless now? It's a question. The following is a potion from stormwater on the County charter, division four, the section on general design criteria states consideration of soil and hazards. A development or should not be approved is that all land intended for use as building sites can be used safely for building purposes without danger from flood or other inundation, or from adverse soil conditions or from any other threat to land the safety of public welfare. Lands should not subdivided developed until proper flood control measures are taken. What is needed? It is the intent of the provision that no spending upgrades that will change will be permitted, adverse drainage or public health or safety to any surrounding area. Also section 72, storm water management permit reviews states do not drain it onto adjacent lands, or receiving runoff from the proposed development. When minimum standards are no longer working, then what? Existing property owners have rights and they still have to pay taxes. Citizens losing their personal property is at a high. You cannot squeeze blood out of a turnip. County government cannot get something for people if they do not have it, especially money. People are filing bankruptcy and abandoning their homes because they cannot make repairs. I have talked to them, more than one. New areas flooded at every level for the second and third time, if the government prepared to deal with this? Keep in mind that some who flooded were not inexplicable. Economic failure (indiscernible). If what is being done is not working, then stop doing it. Respect the charter minimum standards. Review the charter minimum standards to set a higher bar. Actively pursue the boundaries sooner. Clean out drainage canals in the county and work with cities, increase stormwater capture and enforce the minimum standards with the cities and please stop over developing. Lastly, I want to thank the Volusia County staff who worked during the storm. I understand it was probably brutal. Thank you for your time. TROY KENT: (unknown name) you be followed by (indiscernible). SPEAKER: My name is JC (unknown name), I live on Jackson Woods Road. I have been dealing with this flooding a long time. I want to say a few things up front before I start talking about this picture here. Troy Kent, Dempsey and Brower, none of this is to you, you have been supported on this fact. The rest of you are the problem. You have failed us, and on zero good for any of us. I came here and put up topography maps... TROY KENT: I need to stop you for a second, we will keep your time at 2:28. I appreciate you have free speech in saying that, but please keep your comments to addressing the entire Council as a whole. SPEAKER: OK. I came with topography maps, I coloured all of the areas that were going to flood and I was right. It had happened. You see it. You've labelled this is me spreading propaganda, not directly me, but you try to block what people could promote and put on the screen and that is not OK. TROY KENT: If you could please keep all comments to the entire council? SPEAKER: Sorry. We need Miller in here and need to devote for change and go the other way. If Brower is gone, If some of these without disappear, the entire flooding situation is going to be gone. And I truly believe that. I do not know what the problem is with you guys investigated this and looking into it deeper. I have provided professional studies of people with PhD's to show the construction defects and developments that are affecting the county. I do not know if it is because the county's engineer was the one who stamped the plans. If this is a cover up. If you guys are saving your buddies, if that is what it is. But your chief engineer did stamp all the plans with the construction defects. So that is a problem. This rural boundary needs to be pushed for. I know it is trying to be delayed. That is not OK. We see the picture behind it. You guys are seriously affecting us. This lady's house, that was up here crying, is on you guys. I warned you. I could not make the picture any clearer. I have spent the money and done the work. I know the county is getting a study done, I have called the company, it is going to be worthless. The guy has zero idea what is actually causing the flooding. He thinks just like doing the city report, and the city gave (unknown term), which they spent $70,000 on, 1/4 of the information. The second I found out that this guy is not going to private property and listening to us people, it is worthless. So this is my house, the picture before was a pond, right next to it, where the pond watre was overflowing. Victoria Park also brought 200 million gallons of water to fill their ponds. TROY KENT: Thank you JC. (Applause) TROY KENT: Amy, followed by David Hill. SPEAKER: Amy, Springs Community Association. At our meeting last night we were overflowing with praise and gratitude to the county manager's office at the EMTs and all of the staff throughout the county who helped us, and to send out a tremendous amount of good, useful information to our community. The media department did a phenomenal job bombarding us with useful information. We sent it out to our members and they sent it out from social media really help prepare our community, protects our community and get our community ready to get back into gear. I want to especially thank Councilman Johansson for staying in touch with us and asking if on a regular basis if we were OK and needed anything. I also want to switch gears to the code compliance department. Since we started as an organization over a decade ago our main goal was to try to revitalize De Leon springs and try to make individual it has been in the past. A part of that was working with the (unknown term) compartments to share information about their credit properties, and people and businesses that were not complying with code compliance. And they have four or a long period of time and we have communicated with them and they have worked with us and we have had an opportunity as citizens to come together and work together and clean up our community. And part of that is coming out to our community and kind of helping people to understand what they are doing form. A lot of people? I also want to talk about the County Attorney's office who was recently enforcing our own noise ordinance. That was very important because we have a noise ordinance, and actually taking action to it enforce it. So we can get back our peace. People often say quality-of-life, quality-of-life, and my property rights and at the edge of yours, but when sound travels it's a whole different world. We have a citizen there, or 100 neighbours who have complained about noise in various locations. And they have just done a wonderful job working with the Sheriff Department and the County Attorney's office and office and I just want to take time to thank you all for everything you have done to help us get back to the jewel we once were. Thank you. TROY KENT: David Hill, followed by David Kirkpatrick. SPEAKER: Hello, I am David Hill. Ever since FDOT put the retention pond on Miller Road around Miller Lake, every time we have a hurricane it overflows. I see they are pumping now and I have been told that they are pumping to the river. Who is dumping water into Miller lake? Is it commercial plazas across the street? You can see it coming down during the hurricane and that is why the water way, who is putting water in Miller Lake? That is my question, a lot of people cannot get to their homes now and I cannot. I just hope that someone would contact me and say, "Hey, these are the people that are putting water there." Our lake is still rising right now, it is still coming up and I see other areas going down so I feel like people are pumping water in there and I would just like to know who it is so I know who I can deal with. If the county or you know of anybody pumping water into Miller Lake, I would ask that you ask them to stop. Thank you. TROY KENT: David, before you leave, go to the County manager there, George Recktenwald, he will give you his business card so you can have a conversation with him tomorrow so we will get the answer for you. Next up, David Kirkpatrick. Followed by Mollie Ferguson. SPEAKER: Good afternoon, gentlemen. I am David Kirkpatrick, I'm here at the County. KARISSA GREEN: Mr. David, can you bring the microphone closer to your face? TROY KENT: Mr Recktenwald, can you hand him the card? SPEAKER: Gentlemen, I am going to follow the comments, what I found trying to determine and access information through County. I found some indifference and some stonewalling. What I am looking for is access to records... TROY KENT: Audience, thank you we will get it squared away. Lift the microphone to your face. SPEAKER: Indifference and stonewalling. What I'm looking for is records and information and access to records, as a property owner I want to understand what store management is for the county and I'm having difficulty finding it. If there's a resolution that can be made so the cooperation with property owners, I don't believe in moratoriums, I believe in good engineering. Cooperation between the county. Right now I am by myself and in the dark and not able to get access to county records for things like stormwater management plan. That is what I want to address. And probably talk to the County manager, right? TROY KENT: I'm going to try to get answers for you. If you can grab a card from the County manager that way you will can have the conversation. Any of us are available as well. Mollie Ferguson followed by Janine Kimbrough. SPEAKER: I go by Kitty, everybody knows here in the town by that. I have lived in Volusia County here in District 3 for 37 years. My house, my husband was wonderful. My dream was to live in the country. 37 years ago, he built me a beautiful house. I love it. I have made wonderful friends, I had a great business going on, great friends there. I am literally watching Volusia County, and I don't know what is going on. I am seeing it, when I was a kid, my brothers used to build little dams and we kept moving the water. I am watching it. When I watched, (unknown name) Road underwater, and people walking their houses out. I was on an island this time, there hurricane before came across from the West, went straight through like a River. There was a sinkhole in the asphalt, I watched people from the road. I have a little culvert thing, pacing at my place. I am like the culvert, I am the retention pond. I watch the property next to me, I was confused because I watched 17 acres be slaughtered of all the trees. All of them. I was curious. I asked questions, I guess you don't have have permits, you can slaughter them out. I watch them take down gorgeous cypress trees in the back, mulch and bring them back, now it's called mediate where they buy other properties and they can do that now. Where is that going? My place is going more under here. My yard, after they slaughtered all the trees, look like machine gun came to it because I literally watched the animals and squirrels and everything come out there. I am tired of burying animals because they are drowning. I want to know, what are you guys going to do for everybody in here? This is crazy. Where is the water coming from? I have an alligator now in my pond. That is terrifying. Moccasins, I am getting terrified, it finally went down, but thank goodness for my brother for to help me. I feel for all these people. This is not funny anymore. I'm like everybody else, what are you going to do for us? I don't even want to live here in Volusia County. I'm in panic mode and look to leave. Anybody want to move into Volusia County is crazy. (Applause) TROY KENT: (unknown name) followed by (unknown name) SPEAKER: My husband and I have lived on (unknown name) Drive for the past 32 years since 1992. Showing on the screen is property of our flooding and the surrounding areas. We have experienced worse and worse flooding over the years. When we lived in our house when we first moved there, Taylor Road was not there, Blue Lake was a dirt road. This past hurricane, we have had the worst flooding we have ever seen. We have 3.5 feet at our gate, you can see the picture above. We parked some of the cars and trucks because when we have hurricanes, some have been cannot get our cars off the property. We did this same time, and parked the car, the Mustang, on (unknown name) and to our shock at the end of the picture you will see the Mustang is a complete loss, and parked in the same place we always parked it. We are devastated. We have applied for help to try to help with this flooding, 386 transform. I have dealt with the coordinator over time, but I was denied and primarily, I was denied because I took money out of my 401(k), which I have earned over the past 40 years. I feel like I should be able to reapply, and be may be reevaluated, not taking the money into consideration. No one has ever come to assess our damage. I would appreciate your consideration that our septic system is now underwater, that is the gate. You cannot even see where my property is on the right-hand side, that is a shot from the neighbor's property. Our septic system is flooded. Our shed is flooded. Luckily, our house did not flood. We are so thankful for that. Thank God. Right now, my car is stranded on my property. There is not going to be any way for me to get it out unless I go through a neighbor's property. Normally, when we have just routine storms over the last few years, we end up with 6 to 8 inches of flooding at our gate, just routinely. Regular thunder storm. I would like to reapply for 386 Transform to help with the issue. Thank you. TROY KENT: Thank you. Michael (unknown name) followed by Katie Price. SPEAKER: Can you hear me? TROY KENT: Yes, sir. SPEAKER: My name is Michael, we go by (unknown name), my sons go by (unknown name) to be fancy. We moved here in 1962. I was a schoolteacher for 42 years. From 1962 to 2024, I never had water standing on my front property. It is funny how when you get in front of a microphone, you start to get weepy. I did not do that teaching. Deland was pumping water into a retention pond by my house. 5 acres, retention pond. They filled it up, overflowed it, and put it on my property. They did not ask. They just did it. They did not ask my permission. Just did it. That is the power of Councils, the power of government. They can just run over you. All they want is your money. And your vote. It was so bad, so bad there, that my neighbor is still flooded. She can't even get out of her house. Fortunately, we have a very good neighbor, and he put his fenced down and she can drive out. I am reinforcing the fact that you guys need to help us out. There is a definite problem. You see the problem, everybody here is talking about the problem, and you need to do something about it. I came here to this meeting to fight for something, and it is for consideration for us. I even have a battle scar. Thank you. (Applause) TROY KENT: Thank you, Michael. SPEAKER: Good afternoon, I am Kate Price, I moved to Deland because I do not want to live in the city. I have 35 years in heavy construction building golf courses. These things do not have been, they are not approved without the infrastructure and the ability to obtain the needs that go around that. It is unbelievable that these things are happening, and we'll fix it later, no you will not. Noting that the not want to be said, and I will find out with water testing, is the water that is being pumped to our area that has flooded us, goes from Earl ground to behind the old Kmart to the reclaimed water that gets pumped onto the retention area which was great. That was great, until we overbuild and there was too much going in that area. I've never had a problem until this year. What you have to consider is, this is not just water. You have the reclaimed water, and we are all aware that the sewage tanks have probably overflowed. So we are not talking about dirty water, we are talking about dirty water. And I will be having some water test done, I am on a well. It has been pumped onto my property, I cannot get out of without driving through a neighbor's yard. No one has even checked on me. The city workers have gone down there and they took a backhoe down there yesterday and they must have had something clogged. We stayed about an hour, we went out, there is the dumb lady up there in the yard, but we are not going to see if she is OK, if we can evacuate her, does she need anything? If we are going to have growth, it needs to be done in a responsible manner. They tried, they did the right thing, they built a retention area, it works just fine. But they did not factor in the amount of growth that was done. Too many and too many places and pump stations that are pumping this up here, down here, over there. It is just one or two houses, we are not going to worry about it. It already happened. This is a historical event. I will be the first one to say, that was a lot of rain. But there's going to have to be a little more thought put into how to support all the houses. TROY KENT: Thank you, Kate. Audience, I am not being rude but I need to speak with my fellow council members for a moment. Gentlemen we are governed by the rules we have, listen to public comments for an hour, but we as a council can change the rules anytime we need to. I, for one, would like to listen to the rest of the individuals that are here. Is everybody else OK with that? Good, perfect. Karen Clark, you are up followed by Nancy (unknown name). SPEAKER: First of all, kudos to every county staff member. Including the Citizen information Centre Jeff Brower the sent out. I made phone call, because I have a lot of questions as you can figure. Yes, it was a wonderful thing that you did. It helped a lot wondering if the garbage will be collected, the trees. Thank you, Mr Recktenwald for allowing those affected trees that come and take the trees that were chopped up ahead of time. TROY KENT: We will keep your time. Can we see what is going on out here? Just one second. I didn't mean to interrupt you. (indiscernible) almost 2 years and I have never heard before. I just want to make sure that we are good. Fire Chief said no so I think we are OK. SPEAKER: This is so great that everyone is here. TROY KENT: Just so you know, somebody opened an emergency exit. That was the alarm. Please continue. SPEAKER: The one thing that I am annoyed with is the zoning changes that go from. But in time it gets here had already been in the works for years sometimes, I want I do not like is right you agriculture on the next step to the next step, voting for 72 houses next to the dump, all in one afternoon. Where is the warning to the people that live around? You get the little signs, the in 30 days it is coming, you can go out there and talk, but then you have the next couple of items after that assuming it is going to pass and it is just incredible. And how can a site developer at construction where the trees have been stressed out because that is what they do come out all that water on property? Look at what was on TV from Edgewater. They have pumps with 8 inch hose and falling into the neighbourhood, because the site was being flooded. That was not fair and that is the city of Edgewater's problem. Thank you to the staff at the Joyce Cusak Centre in the land. When you are stuck for money or supplies or anything you go there and they will help you. It is run by the county people. So that is a major thing in the neighborhood. And the city, I know most of you are here, stop annexing and allowing all this quote from that point. Because they will come in and affix tomorrow. Do you have all the infrastructure that ready and beyond what you actually need for the city at the time? It is not your fault. You get stuck with th crap later. That is about it. So thank you, to all you guys are doing that stuff. I have 28 seconds left. Thank you. TROY KENT: Nancy (unknown name), followed by Patty (unknown name). SPEAKER: Good afternoon. My husband and I have owned our home on tropical tablets, North Kepler and East Minnesota, since 2012. This is the second time our property has flooded along with other neighbouring properties on the south side of tropical Terrace and at least one a home behind our house, our septic and drain field is still underwater and not fully operable. The drainage ditches along North Kepler appear to not be maintained and do not drain properly. The corporate pipe running under tropical Terrace is crushed at each end and has been for years. It quickly becomes blocked. We appreciate the county coming out and clearing the clogged after Hurricane Milton, but it appears to be plugged again the standing water backing up into the pond behind our house. Today it is dry on the north side, the North Side appears to be about 12 inches too high. Of course, the county engineers will be better able to just that, but it cannot get an open storm drain because it is always flooded. Our backyards are currently the retention pond. We are about four feet at the end, still about 3 feet coming up to the backs of the houses. Luckily we have not flooded. We and our neighbors would very much appreciate the county's attention to the situation. We are also concerned that the plannned development at the corner of 44 and Kepler Road added to the current issues, and request that the county is assured that new development will not make it worse. We understand our situation is not as dire as others in the county but we are all concerned about the future development being performed without proper water mitigation systems being in place. TROY KENT: Thank you. Patty? And Christine (unknown name), he will be next. SPEAKER: My name is Patty, we live on blue Lake Hills, we are block back from Taylor, and Victoria Park back up to our east side. I have a lot of thoughts, nothing formally prepared. I moved here two years and two months ago. We have had three hurricanes since. To be expected. To call this last one one of the century, we do not know that. I think that is naïve and hopeful. But I think we should plan for it rather than think that it is a one-off. Because ask those folks in North Carolina, I think they would agree. I think about the development that has occurred, Blue Lake has been extended in a southerly direction. We have a pending development advertised, so to speak, approved bordering Blue Lake and Taylor. That is the Taylor that floods at just about any significant rainstorm. Pat know about it, so do my neighbours, Ann, Jerry, George, Kelly and Willie. My husband Tom. So that is just a nightmare waiting to happen. I am not trying to be dramatic but I guess I am. And now we are extending Beresford for to an easterly direction. OK?! I have to disagree with some members. The buck has to stop somewhere. And it is your buck. And a person mentioned and I have read about these 4 to 3 folks approving past development. That is so tight, it warrants some emotion that I think I am starting to show. Like the young lady said, who I think has departed, conserving weapons, the cranberry bog and Collinsville Pennsylvania state that little town back in the 1951 most of Monroe County Health Department's white out by a flood. That is what saved the town. Put… Tap the brakes. Put the brakes on development and paving. If you saw the broadcast last night, it's everything around the homes, and lastly, get a bigger pump. If you thought of broadcast night is not only Taylor Road that flooded. That is the obvious. It is everything about it. Lastly, get a bigger pump on Taylor. That is for my husband benefit. TROY KENT: Thank you Patty. Christine? Followed by Janet. SPEAKER: 15 Lovense here, I live on (indiscernible). Flooding and overdevelopment seem to be an issue. As you have been hearing. And my daughter is a civil engineer and she said that the core of engineers from the state redo the flood maps every five years. Mostly because of impervious surface, which of course is paving and development. You have heard that over and over again. What I wanted to speak of specifically it yet, we have this amazingly horrendous storm that we just have to. It might be a storm of 500 years, but we have them over and over every couple of years. So it is unrealistic to think it is not going to continue. That first picture the equipment, right here is the new Crestwinds development that was approved by the city. 307 acres, 630 homes going in. They are required to keep the water on the property. This is showing water flowing into our Lake, under the boat, this is across the road right into the lake, this muddy water had been flowing into the lake for the last six days nonstop. And then of course, you can kind of run through these pictures of the properties around the lake. I have lived there twentysomething years, some of my neighbours have lived there 40 years, and we have never had water this time. You can see the houses, this is around 44, there was water flowing over 44 into the lake and about five places. I live right next to what is called a canoe trail and it has been there since the 1920s and it is a design, there is a weir under the road, like a complete flat conference that goes under the road, and 53 feet above sea level, and in many of the other hurricanes when the lake water gets time, flows out into the wetlands and into the swampy area northeast of us. Again, with development, with just… Water does not have anywhere to go. Right now it is clogged as you can see and we are hoping, again, there is so much debris, we are hoping that the county can get in there and help do some cleaning up so that the water can flow out. This is a topographical map that was brought to me. I know it is hard to see. This is the can you… Well, you cannot see my finger, that is not helping. TROY KENT: Christine, thank you very much. You can is up. Sorry. SPEAKER: OK. You can see where it should flow out. TROY KENT: Janet, followed by (unknown name) SPEAKER: My name is Janet Meredith and I am a Daytona Beach native. Thank you everyone for being here this evening. I believe I am in Mr Reinhardt's district. I would like to speak as a concerned citizen at April. And I am also passionate about the beach and our coastline. As far as flooding goes, we will note what just happened. During me and I actually lost my car. The condo that I lived in, 33 units flooded. This time I moved my car, so it was safe but 28 units flooded and I was stranded in my heart for five days. The two main got into the development where I live flooded and they still are. At least I can get out today. So we really need action to improve our infrastructure. The development is a major part. I know that maybe Anderson and Margarita I'm not certain, but they are problem areas certainly for the Daytona area. I remember when Williamson and Airport Rd were both dirt roads. We would skip school and play on the roads and that they are nothing but development after development after development. So I didn't know the answer, but I probably feel like a moratorium on any building and any more development needs to happen immediately. A 10 year plan is 20 years too late in my opinion. We need to pull the emergency brake on building and development, not tapping the brakes. The other issue I'd like to speak about is about the dune restoration which is item number three. I am in favor of Living Shorelines, do not defer this any longer, the coastline is in critical condition. The Florida Department of environmental protection put out a report saying our coastline is in critical condition and nothing has been done. Ian and Nicole were two years ago. Please do not extend that dune restoration project any further. I will leave with a question for pondering, how much more critical does this need to get? Thank you. (Applause) TROY KENT: Thank you, Janet. Next up is Katherine (unknown name) while you're coming up, I just want to say, Council I apologize, I see a few elected officials in the house. (unknown name), thank you for being here, and Mayor (unknown name), (indiscernible) be here. If I bid anybody else, thank you for being here. SPEAKER: (unknown name), district 2, I have relatives in speaking for district 3. Dear council, we understand you do not create at the natural disasters that plague our state. No one as casting blame for them, you are greater intensifying the issues by developing. Volusia County Council continue to allow large-scale housing developer to an apartment. It's obvious that these development are direct they connected to the development induced flooding we not only see with heavy rainfall, but are creating more hazardous conditions in tropical cyclone. Much of our current infrastructure is outdated and needs upgrading. In addition to regular maintenance which need to be conducted twice each year and more if warranted. The excuse of the development are 10 to 20 years ago is not acceptable. We see develop and is causing the problem, and has been the last several years instead of halting develop it with the exception of schools, hospitals and infrastructure you fear sued by developers. It issues you have no regard for the citizens, and the hardship it happens. Declare state of emergency. Place a moratorium on building. Replace outdated researcher and replace storm drains will have each city leadership be petitioning the governor to do this across our whole state. Be responsible later. Take bold action to protect the people and the communities you were elected to serve versus development interests. The developers do not pay the price of flooding, us residents do. We pay the cost of cleanup, repairs, insurance and increase property taxes, replacing water damage contents, shelter to live while damage is repaired. Also, importantly some family paid the ultimate price with the loss of a loved one. We need to have a rural boundary charter amendment. As to personal losses, my sister and I still own or her childhood home, this flooded during hurricane Ida. We had to take a $50,000 loan from the federal government in order to fix it it has never flooded in the 50 years that my parents were alive and owned it. This storm, my home, came inches probably an inch from flooding. Had my car not broken down the day before and he had at the shop, I would have lost my car. I urge you to take action. Thank you. (Applause) TROY KENT: Thank you. Next up is Rodney Lipinski, following him will be David Smith. David Smith, you are on deck, if you can get ready to come down and following David is Jim Miller. SPEAKER: I am Rodney Lipinski, in Deland, you have some serious problems you let building going on. All y'all are doing is making Deland bigger, and bringing all the sewage back in from Deland where it stinks. This town smells bad. When the storm comes in you are pumping back into the city, it was underwater and it was not functioning, generators did not work. What do y'all do? I took a tree off a ladies house, I can drive right in there. 6 foot Drive bucket truck. She said I cannot get my truck back in the yard and you know why? Because they pump raw sewage into the retention pond which is fine, just like what she said, until they pump it over and the lady cannot get out of her driveway. 5 foot of water she cannot get out, the city employers drive right around, and don't even look at her. The worst part about it is, she's got a well there. That is raw sewage going into her property. She lives in the county. That is the city problem and they don't even acknowledge it. We are going to build some more homes outside to bring it back to the city of Delhi and that we know floods every single time? Everybody knows, that is always underwater, where is the city? The whole block was completely underwater. I think that somebody should acknowledge and stop the pumping down there where raw sewage is. Everybody knows the plant was not working. It was all the way up, we got to get the school open, so you pump the water and keep pumping. I don't know, you'll need to figure it out, so let's put more homes in there. Why are they pumping that from the subdivisions and putting it back in the city of Deland? Why don't they if they go develop, why don't they have their own sewage system. What is maladaptive pump it back to Deland. My buddy said I never would've bought the house if I had to smell that. Everybody's in a good mood until you smell that sitting at the red light. You need to change something, maybe put the pond or whatever right there at their place instead of pumping it to Deland, it stinks because of this. Let's bring some more. Some retention pond, let's pump it to somebody else's house. Would you want it pumped in front of y'alls? Somebody has to do something about pumping raw sewage into somebody's house that have their own well. I would want to because I city water because they would not let me drill a well because they put city water in my dog bowl how nasty it is, you would never drink it. TROY KENT: Thank you, Rodney. (Applause) TROY KENT: David Smith and following is Jim Miller. SPEAKER: I am Dave Smith, Orman Lake District 4, I lived in Volusia County for over 50 years. Thank you to the first responders and storm crews who have worked so hard for our civil defense. I arrived a little bit late today due to flooding at I4 and ISB... Property owners patients is now saturated, with clearcutting and overdevelopment. A moratorium on development until a careful study of this present flooding crisis is completed makes good sense. Volusia property owner's and voters are closely watching this council's future voting record regarding future development. Adding insult to injury, the support of any councilmembers to Belvedere's proposed fuel transfer and storage facility, on actively flooded wetlands, within close proximity to large residential communities will violate Volusia County charter standards, and will not serve its thousands of negatively affected residents. I speak in favor of the rural county charter amendment. TROY KENT: Thank you, David. Jim Miller, and Susan Shaughnessy. SPEAKER: I am Jim Miller, I live on (unknown name) Lane. We are not putting water in Miller Pond. I just want to add that. Just speaking to my friend here. I hope y'all are listening. I mean, I hope you all have enough heart to listen to the pain into the anger that this commission has voted in favor of. I am looking you in the eye, and I hope you heard the gasps. I could not see what was because of all the people back there, when somebody said something about we should not be coming here and crying. Good God, people. We count, citizens as, residents of Volusia County, for the Volusia County commission to have our backs, and the lakes in which we live in places I have been told by people who have lived here 35 years right where we live, there was never flooding. In the lakes where we lived, I will echo what somebody said earlier, what it looks like, you don't have our back. You've got developers back. (Applause) SPEAKER: Have a heart for the people you represent. Fix the problem before you make it worse. Where we live, it has never flooded. It has never flooded. It has never fled. Our host did not flood this time. I am a professor, six-month from retirement. I lost an office outside, small building flooded, thousands of dollars. Got a workshop on the property, lost two cars in the workshop. I cannot get to my pickup truck to find out if that's a goner too. Lost a mower. Probably going to have to come back to get permission to do some stuff on the land so this does not all happen again. How many thousands of dollars of my looking at? My wife and I. I am six months from retirement. We look to you to have her back. Here, please hear the pain and frustration and the anger of the people who look to you to help us. That is not what we have got. That is not what we are getting. Thank you for hearing me. That's it. (Applause) TROY KENT: Thank you, Jim. Susan (unknown name) in following you is Barbara (unknown name). SPEAKER: My name is Susan Shaughnessy, I believe I am in District number one. I live at 1323 Jackson Woods Road. First of all, I think you for the time, thank you for listening. I am another face of a real person affected by flooding in our neighborhood. I want to thank my neighbors, especially JC Figueredo and Ronnie Mills for shining a light on what is happening in our neighborhood. We have been on Jackson Woods Road since 1998. We cannot access our home currently. That is tough. Thankfully we have a son in Orange City who is providing shelter for us. He is actually on storm duty, helping to restore power on the west side of the state. And very grateful for everyone who does that. JC has made some very helpful videos, and also Mr. Brower came to common ground farm and was on Taylor road making a video. He said something, and I'm so thankful for people who brought really good documentation. The development behind us is supposed to retain its water by Florida law. That is not happening. That is not happening. In fact, Jackson Ranch Road was not flooded after the hurricane, but the next day because of pumping from Freedom Elementary School, the first dip way underwater, that was not from the storm it was pumping from the elementary school which is my understanding. I don't know when we are going to be able to go home. We cannot live there under these conditions. We would never be able to access an ambulance, the garbage men cannot come get our garbage. I am just another face, I represent my husband, Tom, and I'm asking for your help and I want to thank my neighbors again for the hard work they have done to really document what is going on. Thank you very much. (Applause) TROY KENT: Thank you, Susan. I would disagree, you are not just another face. Barbara (unknown name), Orange City. I apologize, Barbara, having a difficult time making of the last name. SPEAKER: Good afternoon council. I sent a reservation a month ago, regarding the dangers of the amendment and I hope everyone who is here today will truly open their ears and their minds and listen to what I am saying one more time. The law is very clear, no law shall prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict, no law. These words were carefully crafted by people, some attorneys, who did not even live in Florida. This amendment, if passed, will allow abortion up to birth, will remove parental consent for minors, and replace it with a notification only. It will remove medical doctor requirements, using the term healthcare provider. It will allow non-medicals to determine the need for abortions. It will remove health and safety regulations for abortion centres, that we have put in place over the years. It will remove the 24 hour waiting period, why the rush? On such an important decision for a young woman to make? When we have a 24 hour waiting period for a union people the cooling-off period? This is more important than that. If the abortion surgery is botched, causing the death of the young woman, or preventing her from having future children, the abortionist is not penalized. No law shall penalize. Actually, somebody is penalized. The woman. The woman who may not be able to have children in the future after that abortion. Or the woman who just died. Amendment four will cause lawsuits, by the same attorneys that wrote the amendments. In order to force, in the future, taxpayer-funded abortions. Now, Florida is the only southern state that actually has such a radical amendment. So what is going to happen? The destination to Florida will happen with increased abortions. Which we will pay for. The whole point here, this is my fourth time here which I greatly appreciate. But how can this amendment resolution not even be considered for discussion? When we have so many voters who I have spoken to in parking lots, and stores, in churches, who are not even familiar with this amendment. Because it is written so vaguely and still short, it is nothing like amendments. Thank you. TROY KENT: Catherine (unknown name) from Deland you are next. Following you will be Donna Evangelista. KARISSA GREEN: Donna Evangelista left the meeting. TROY KENT: OK. So next will be (unknown name). SPEAKER: Hi. I am a Florida native and I have been in Deland for 20 years now. I am concerned with the flooding, particularly at Deland High School. I sent a email to Ray Underwood, just a few days ago, requesting a inspection of the lift station there. Deland High School currently has two retention ponds, both of which didn't work during the storm. And overflowed into my property, and into Tomoka Avenue Christian Church. I don't know whose responsibility it is. The Christian church is in the city limits. The high school is in the city, on city land. I am on Volusia County. With every storm that comes Ian, I cannot even go back, the other ones. We have been flooding every single year. Does anybody have kids that go to Deland High school? No one has any kids? Well, you may know me if needed. I have the little goat farm. Right at the corner. I have had to shut down my business and let my goats run free. They are now living on my deck. I have lost two goat enclosures to the flood. I am within inches of losing my house. I am still sitting at the water that is over 3 feet deep. During the day after the storm, it is 4 1/2 feet. I could take a kayak and ride it all around by property. Like someone else said, no one has asked me if they could pump my water back over to that retention pond. Which would have been an easy fix. And we would not have water there now. But I am still sitting on 3 feet of water. And like I said, I am not 100% sure whose responsibility it is to fix the lift stations, or, the retention ponds at the school. But I know the school has continued to build and build and getting bigger and have to have small children. I have been very gracious, the parents park right along my property to pick up their kids every day as well as at the Christian church. They use that as a parking lot. TROY KENT: Catherine, thank you very much. (unknown name), followed by Sherry Herring. SPEAKER: Hello, Nick Schultz, New Smyrna Beach. I just wanted to come and represent my area. I have horses, and a house on Turnbull Creek on the beach side. During Ian, will be keeping our horses was flooded. I did not get signed up in time to send photos but is it OK I show you some photos on my iPad? This is some Samsula Drive, this is my horse neck deep in water. This is my daughter, 16 years old now, then 14, going to rescue the horse. We are not coming up with a plan for people to do with the water what needs to be done in an other than normal rainfall. The totals they calculatea re normal rainfall and they do not take into consideration tide level, and everything that flows everywhere, flows into the St. John's, Spruce Creek, Turnbull Creek or out to the ocean. If it happens in September or October we have king tides. One higher than it normally is. So it back streets everywhere, every reference. That is why we are having these issues in September and October. The need to be a moratorium, there was a moratorium after Ian, during the investigation, during the moratorium you must've found that it was OK and it was not going to happen again. It was a 1000 year event. Well, we exploded for Ian and Nicole and we have flooded during Milton the something needs to be done. That is it. TROY KENT: Sherry Herring and Robert Watson. SPEAKER: Thank you, I live in Deland. I live in Daytona Park Estates which has a lot of problems that is not why I am here. I did not prepare my remarks, but, I wore my shirts because I feel like we have a target on our back. I feel like we cannot individually do anything about this. It is up to you guys. I could stay… Let's just say we are not blaming you, that's not blame you. But you are the one who can do something about it so you want to be our heroes I was very upset that I was here two weeks ago, and a property owner was granted the right to build on a 1 acre lot in a 10 acre restriction area. And that is kind of the problem that this caused a lot of this. Turning the areas that were designated during comprehensive plan into areas that could be dealt with massive… Instead of leaving them rural. So, I am at realtor, and you can say that I do not have a lot of these problems at my house. But I am hearing all of these problems and the stressors of dealing with buyers and customers, and you know, looking at property and then thinking about… Do I even want to keep doing this? This is making me sick, why am I living here? I do not want to live here anymore. That is what I am hearing from a lot of people in here. You are our custodians, our servants, and you can be our saviour. By helping us to resolve this issue. There is no way that this is going to just resolve itself, and we cannot just let it go. Why did we not stick to the plan? People have mentioned storm management. We have a comprehensive brand, you know, the boundary solution is for the future. It is not going to change the condition of what is happening now. It is not going to change any of the conditions that are existing now. You have to stop everything and go back and prevent everything and it is not right that just because somebody was able to build something and the guy next door to him had 100 acres now have the right to sell his land to a development. You can help us get our property values out by making this a wonderful place to live. If you want to make Volusia better, that is what you have to do. I guess I have hit everything. Thank you very much. You know, we cannot hold you responsible to solve this. And it's not you, then who? Thank you. TROY KENT: Thank you. Next is Robert Watson and after that will be Nancy (unknown name). SPEAKER: As you can see on the photos, first and foremost let me explain, I moved to the land about 34 years ago and I made it… Nice living in Auto racing. And I moved to Florida, basically working for NASCAR, and then a friend of mine who was also a very satisfied if you want to move here as well. We found a nice piece of property for him, and at the time, Victoria Park was just a thought. If you can see in the photo, there is a nice pink garage, at one time he has 11 racecars working this year. He passed away two years ago. I am here today with a sorrowful heart because his wife just passed away on Saturday. She could not live here because of the property being underwater. She had to stay in her final years in New Hampshire. As you can see, they elevated the land in Victoria Park in front of his home 8 feet. Guess where that water came from? Into his property. This is a photo that was taken this morning. I have photos dating back to our three years. Same problem. She would not come back to this property. Lost her life last Saturday. So I am here to tell you gentlemen stop the building. My goodness everybody. This is right off of Rockingham Road, Taylor, we are getting all the water from Taylor, back on his property, and right when the new fire department is, that little development, all of that water is coming right into his property. I am a caretaker for that property. I do not own it. As you can see this photo was just taken two days ago. It is underwater. And the family itself do not even want to come back to the property. There is a realtor who has taken over the property, but how can he sell it? Right now it is waterfront property. Believe me. You guys need to help us. I did not list, I just take care of that property. I live up in the county of the truck. On Shady Oak Lane. I am up on a hill, I do not have this water problem but I do have because I have to take of his property. Thank you for hearing me out. TROY KENT: Nancy (unknown name) from Deland. Following you is Jerry Adams. SPEAKER: Thank you for hearing me, I'm president of (unknown name) Civic Association. I have an actual action item that you can do something about, so hopefully that will give you something to do after this that will be helpful for everyone. After hurricane Erma, that took down a 400-year-old Live Oak in my yard, I watched Davis tree service cut a 3 foot diameter limb and water came out of the limb like a torrent, it was like a fire hose, there was so much water in there. I came to realize how much water is stored in these big trees. Trees suck up tons of water, as you probably know. Tens of thousands of trees have been removed in the past year for crosswind, Lake Park Estates, and the (unknown name) courts storage facilities. My neighborhood, (unknown name), is surrounded by new development into what each side. City property is overflowing onto County property. Here is the action items that will help might neighborhood it's a small thing but there's people on Lake (unknown name) whose houses that are actually flooded. I have been there for 38 years and have never seen houses get flooded, water comes up and the dock is underwater, that's a second time I've seen that in 30 years but the first time in 30 years there is water in people's houses. We have a canoe trail that is north of the lake, passes under a bridge on (unknown name) Drive and used to get cleaned out. In 2004, after the five hurricanes that came through, the neighbors got together and clean out the canoe trail and the lake went down a couple of feet within days. This is something that can be done right now. We need some help from the county because most of us who did this 20 years ago are now over 65, and it's real hard to swing a machete at this point. Perhaps, you can send a somebody, they have gotten an excavator and helped clear the can neutral out. It will make a big difference in the neighborhood. Cannot help all of Volusia County but it will help our neighborhood. Thank you. TROY KENT: Thank you, Nancy. Jerry (unknown name). After Jerry it will be Elizabeth (unknown name). SPEAKER: This is not to be nothing new, you've heard a lot of story, we live off of Blue Lake Hill and Hammack. Eight of us are underwater, how about that. The retention pond on Taylor road east of Blue Lake and on the north side of Taylor is the big retention pond. My house is adjacent to it, dead center. You can walk up to my fence line and look over, you are looking at the retention pond. I pumped my yard, which help to other neighbors four times so far. I am done. Septic tank is gone. I have a 500 gallon propane bottle for my generate system because the power goes out, and it's trying to pump up. It pumped out, and I'm hoping it stays down. My house is not livable now. We are not going to our home. My home is up for sale. If the County would like to buy my house, you come out and talk to me and I will give you fair price. We are done. I have been through so much and I've got neighbors in here that would vouch for me, that I have done so much for them to help us all out. I am tired, I cannot do it no more. It is every year now. My wife is all stressed out, and it makes it rough for me to try to go on with my day. I went out to my house, I can't get to it so I had to walk through the water. What I'm doing is walking through water that belongs to my neighbors septic tank. When I got home I went through two bars of soap trying to get the stuff off of me. Y'all need to stop building. Put it on standby. Get the proper people. (Applause) SPEAKER: Get the proper people to come in here. I will come down and talk to them all day long. We have been through a lot. If y'all got heart, you've got to stop the building first of all, because first of all, if you do not stop the building, the area is (unknown name) Road South, and that it would be Blue Lake East to Martin Luther King. That whole area is underwater. It's a crying shame we have to live this way. As far as the retention pond, they came out, I met with the supervisor, and he'd brought the spider machine out and he only dug the edges out. He left the center, and I tried to explain, once the edges fell, the center is going to run to the edges, and the edges is going to overflow. It has overflowed onto my property four times so far. I want to conclude by saying, they were supposed to reconstruct it in August. They never showed up. TROY KENT: Thank you very much. Elizabeth (unknown name) and next is Jim Morgan. SPEAKER: Elizabeth (unknown name). I had a concern as to why we had so much development, and just on the Volusia County elections website, we have donation to a certain person going for reelection, four different donations from the same company. Two companies, Shell companies I guess, all coming from the same address, 3801 Avalon Park East Boulevard, Suite 400, Orlando, Florida. That is Avalon Park company, and that's going to Mr Reinhart on July 17, 2024. May 3, 2023, he had 10 1000 donations from the same address, 2379 Bell Road. 10 different companies, home residential holdings LLC, Tampa homes LLC and eat other name they go by. The (unknown name) advocacy committee of Orlando Florida give you $1000. You have a total of $27,000 from investment firms and real estate properties and $17,750 from insurance companies, some from Maryland, New Jersey, Michigan, construction companies, one from Orlando, $1000, and storage sheds. I think we have realized why the address for 2379 (unknown name) Road, ICI homes has multiple donations to multiple people on the Council, different shell companies. We have realized why this is going on, and who you're answering to. Maybe you can give back the money. Join the resistance. TROY KENT: If you would keep all come on to the entire Council. SPEAKER: Agenda three. TROY KENT: That will come later. You can speak about it when the agenda item when it comes up. SPEAKER: Enjoy your money, sir. TROY KENT: Next up is Jim Morgan and after Jim we have Noel Rivera. SPEAKER: First of all, I'm in very poor health, so excuse me. My name is Jim Morgan, I live at 4053 S. Blue Lake Avenue which is my home since 1977. I was a biologist for the state of Florida, Department of environmental regulation, which is now the Department of Environmental Protection. I know how to review land. My property in 1977, I knew it was (indiscernible) TROY KENT: Speak into the microphone. SPEAKER: My property is a property that is bounded by (indiscernible) retro in the north side and freedom elementary school on the south side. It is 11 acres, I never had any standing water on my property. On Friday morning after the storm, my wife and I walked our entire property. It was bone dry. There was no standing water anywhere, including the lowest point. I know where the lowest point is. By Friday afternoon around 10:05, water started coming into my property, with the force that I can hardly describe. By 7 o'clock, it was approaching my house. By 8 o'clock, my wife and I had water coming into the house. It has flooded the entire house. My wife and I finally took our dogs and swam the dogs to our truck, and went to Georgia. I came back this morning because I have to go to the hospital tomorrow, but this property, the property that has been developed, this Victoria Park, I knew it well when it was Tom Stewart. They used to be grassy ponds, and low-lying Upland that he grazed cattle on. It is now all houses. And now the water is being dumped on us. We can see it coming. We know where it is coming from. They had to elevate all the houses in Victoria park so they can build houses. Now the water is dumped on us. My whole property is underwater. I already spent a lot of money in the last two days having someone try to build coffer dams to surround the house, to try to protect it. It is too late, because it is already flooded. I know my time is running short, my parting shot as I left my house, I can't talk anymore. Thank you. TROY KENT: Thank you, Jim. I wish you the best tomorrow with your procedure. Noel (unknown name) and after will be Josie (unknown name). Noel? Noel Rivera. Josie... Joshua Rivera? SPEAKER: Hello, everybody. Here it goes. Here are the issues at Miller Road is dealing with. Flooding, 28 inches deep in the road, 120 feet, 120 yards long. 4 feet, 5 feet in front of people's driveways, emergency services cannot get to the back, in case of a house fire, emergency potential sinkholes is a newborn in the back, elderly, cannot get their medicine, cannot get groceries. Why is Volusia County continuously pumping FDOT pumping into Miller pond? Especially after they know that it is currently making the problem worse. What are the long-term, short-term solutions for water management at Miller Road? Please stop over developing, into Debarry in general. The water has no place to go, clearly. 237 on Miller Road should be used for more retention as a suggestion. The previous owner added 30 loads of dirt in Miller Road because they flooded her 15 acres, and the property is in foreclosure right now. She had to leave. In the future, Volusia County, this is a question to ask myself, and it's a pretty legitimate question because I'm currently going through it: in the future, will most Volusia County residents have to own a swamp buggy that is 10 foot tall? I know it sounds funny, but it's not a joke because I'm looking for a swamp buggy right now. 10 foot tall, or airboat to get over there neighborhood or a kayak, as I am currently using, and my wife is using to get to our vehicles to go to work. To get groceries. I'm a fireman, she's a crime scene investigator. I had to go figure out a way to go from the driveway, because the cars will not make it through, or damage the trucks and then what? To go from land, to water, to land, to water. So, luckily there is little dollars you can put underneath kayaks you can do that to make that transition. We are doing this at 5:30 AM so we can get to work, making it happen, that is good for now. We have the massive sinkhole in 1792, those are extreme a dangerous and there's a bunch of bubbles coming through Miller Road. Hopefully, that does not sink down. That would be disastrous. All I ask is to make the same decision that you would make of all these flooding issues if it was your family, your mother, your father, your kids, that you raised and purchase these structures and they are going through this. (Applause) SPEAKER: You know what the right thing to do is, please just do it. Thank you for your time. You guys know what to do. TROY KENT: Thank you, Mr. (unknown name). Mary Wainwright, and after will be George (unknown name). SPEAKER: Good afternoon. I hold two things that no one has mentioned yet, you are not the only ones to blame. It is the city. For some reason they have the right to imminent domain anything they want so they can add it to the tax rolls. And as you all know, we have been way over building. My address is 960 S. Massachusetts Ave. and that's on the corner appears third which goes all the way up to blue Lake. And there's a developer, I think he is approved that wants to put 87 houses in it. And that would be for Massachusetts to blue Lake. It's going to be a nightmare. And they will never be able to get out of there. And the water, because we live in the old clay mine, for those of you who have lived in the land a long time ago. When they excavated it, our property comes down 40 feet, and the water is going to make our whole lives unbearable. I speak for every single person in here that is talked about their personal tragedies with this water, it is not just Milton. You can't blame this present storm on all of the other time things were happening. I say to you not just from your heart, but don't let the city get you motivated with their plans of all the money they want and all the development they want. Don't do it. Let them – they can make their own **Audio lost** **Audio restored** SPEAKER: First I want to tell you that I have 2° from University of Florida. One in floor Street, one in engineering. I am telling you this because I want you to understand that I know. JEFFREY S BROWER: Can you speak into the mic. SPEAKER: Did you hear me? I have lived in the land for 55 years. I bought this mind, a clay mine 40 something years ago, and we plowed off a little plateau, and we put our house on it. And we sit on our back porch through eight hurricanes. And the wind, we lost a lot of trees. But water is primarily our problem. Maintaining it, getting it away from the house. This development you are proposing to build to the east of us, the ghetto is what it's going to amount to, because you are talking about 20 homes. You think ahead 10 years what the hell is that going to look like. And I have looked the plan that you have got there and you have a retention pond over here on the hill, and the road comes down. The road is 62 feet, that the elevation here. Your retention pond is 68 feet. How are you going to get that water up there? You say well we will dig deeper. What did i say I lived in ? A clay mine you go down six or 8 feet you are going to hit clay. What is one of the natural characteristics of clay? Doesn't perk. So whatever is there is going to have to evaporate or it's going to have to flow laterally. Okay? I know you guys are not going to do anything about it. But I can see a tsunami coming my way. If we have hurricane, it will literally wiped my house out. And like I said, I live in a clay mine. I have a lot of clay. Lots and lots of clay. And I am going to build a barn between me and that development. And it's going to be maybe 8 feet above the road. And Massachusetts will cease to be a road. Because it will be continuously – JEFFREY S BROWER: Thank you very much Mr. Wright, thank you. Heavenly (unknown name) and then after heavenly, our last speaker for the first part of our public comment portion will be Martha Astley. SPEAKER: Good evening. I was not planning on speaking. My husband JC is the voice of the situation as you guys know. He knows the facts, he knows alot. This has consumed our life for seven years. Okay? We have two kids. So I'm going to speak out of the heart and try not to cry. You guys can hear his frustration, you know how mad he is. Because it is very frustrating living like this. It is tearing us apart. Seven years ago we decided to purchase some property here in Deland. He's a business owner, and he has been that business owner his whole life since he was 18. We wanted our kids to grow up on some property, and have that life, that lifestyle. Our son rides dirt bikes, we purchase the 5 acres that we live on that we built our home, custom built from the ground up. We lived in a camper. As our home was built, my daughter is now 10, today is my son's 15th birthday and we are here. So this is how much it has affected us. The 5 acres that we built our home on we decided to invest another 10 which is next to us. Which is our son's dirtbike track, okay? The 15-year-old boy, loves what he does, keeps them out of trouble. Huge race this weekend. He busted his butt for two years to get to where he is. We can't even get out of our property. I can't get into our property. There is one road. So we are on 1359 Jackson Woods. That is right in town off of blue Lake right next to freedom elementary. Right now, this is our everyday life. I had to wake up back-to-school, back to work. We have one car, his truck, that can get through this water. We have a side-by-side, I have a huge SUV, the water is up to his doors. I took the – I took the side-by-side to my daughter's cheer practice so we drove the side-by-side up the road, have to park on the side, take the key, and have a coach come because up. You can't get down our road. I had to lift my feet up to not have water coming in through the side-by-side. This is not just our home, it is not just our easement. It is my whole road. And two years ago it wasn't as bad as it is now. This is affecting our life. This is every day, how am I going to get – I'm going to drop him off get in the side-by-side, I'm going to have all of these bags I am cheer coach, I work, he's got dirt bikes. So just think from a mom, this is our kids, this is our life and we don't want to live like this. We don't want to live here anymore. TROY KENT: Thank you Ms. Figaro. Okay, finishing up with public comment is Martha Astley. SPEAKER: Hi, Martha Astley, I live in Glenwood. Many people have said some of the things that have come here to say. We have reached the point of catastrophic property damage, loss of life, and injuries. The cost to recovery beginning with first responders, storm preparations, and providing safe haven for evacuees to rescues and cleanup has become astronomical. We all pay for this, we are all tired of paying for this. People have been displaced for the first time ever because their homes or properties have flooded, and the number of those peoples is quickly climbing. The cities and county are responsible for this, because permits were issued for buildings. This should never have happened. It is time to stop, not only is our quality of life deteriorating, people are actually dying. We are begging you to put a moratorium on building. My brother, I have relatives on the east side of the county. We are high and dry where I live. I have relatives on the east side of the county, my brother was flooded about 14 inches in his house. The last one. Talk to him before the storm is coming and he told me the city of Port Orange they would do their best and they had every faith in the fact that they would get all of that taken care of. While he only had 4 1/2 inches in his house this time and he was thankful for that. I can't tell you how it feels, some of you may know, I don't know. But be worried about your sister in Port Orange who has dementia, and her 83-year-old husband while you worry about your brother and his wife. It takes a toll on anybody that has a heart. Someone earlier said they want you to imagine you having these problems in your yard and acting like you would if it was you. I'm not going to say that, because I no longer have faith that people are going to do the right thing even if it happens to them, some people just don't understand things even while the water rises in their own homes. So I'm just going to say that you guys need to answer to us, and for no other reason, for financial reasons. We can't keep paying for all of this. The County, the cities, all of these people paying their own money for everything that has happened on land that they never thought would have water. It's too expensive. Thank you for listening. TROY KENT: Thank you Ms. Ashley. Counsel, thank you for bending our rules, and allowing us to hear from the public today. Resident, thank you for showing up, and for sharing with us. No ma'am, I am sorry. I will tell you very briefly, but on the county's webpage, all of the Council members email addresses and phone numbers are there. So that you can get a hold of them that way. Thank you. Okay Council, we are finished with the first public participation part of our meeting. Item number one approval of the agenda, we are going to need a motion in a second. Motion made. By Mr. Santiago. DAVID SANTIAGO: I know it's not normal to interrupt, but I see people walking out that if spoke about important topics today. I was going to – I wanted them to hear this, Mr. chair if I may. I wanted them to know that after this I'm going to make a motion to move forward item agenda to a that we have added on, which is going to be from our staff and we are going to have a discussion of what occurred, what the county has done, and what is going forward in future plan. So, if I would encourage you if you can stay, stay because you will hear from our staff firsthand on some of the things that have happened, more certainly in Volusia County. I wanted them to hear that I'm going to make that motion right after this. TROY KENT: Councilman Santiago, I'm pleased you're going to make that. Hopefully we get a second and it goes through. So counsel we have a motion by Mr. Santiago, a second by Mr. Johansson to approve the agenda all those in favor say I. Those opposed? Unanimous. Six – zero. DAVID SANTIAGO: Mr. chair, I would like to move that we adjust our agenda schedule to move item 2 A1 as the next topic of discussion from the Council and staff. JAKE JOHANSSON: Second. TROY KENT: Seconded by Mr. Johansen. Counsel all of those in favor say aye? Those opposed Nay? Six – zero again. All right, George, who do you have – I see Mr. Judge coming up right now. Mr. Judge, sorry to throw you off a little bit. But we know you are ready. One SPEAKER: With me this evening is Cliff our management director. We have a number of thing we want to go over with you this evening - just on where we are at with the response for the St. John's River but also where we are with recovery. If I could, we would like to show a brief video. TROY KENT: Thank you. Go right ahead. (Video Plays) SPEAKER: 911, what is going on? SPEAKER: There is a flood in the house with 4 inches of water and it is coming up to the (indiscernible). SPEAKER: Do you see it? SPEAKER: Yep. SPEAKER: We are here. SPEAKER: We are coming around, so you will be safe (?). SPEAKER: 10/4 state route 40 at the Volusia County line. SPEAKER: Your family called and said they were worried about you. Is it just you here? SPEAKER: Me and two cats. SPEAKER: I believe we also have a few pictures we want to show. This took place today, Volusia County fire went out and rescued a dog. It was on a little spit of land surrounded by water, so that rescue took place just today. A couple quick things. We experience 178 high water rescues that were performed countywide – it was a Coordinator response with the Sheriff's office, Volusia County rescue, municipal partners, beach safety, National Guard, Florida Fish and wildlife. So, quite a undertaking immediately after the storm. The Volusia County fire rescue experience a high call volume of calls that included 38 hazardous material. **Audio Lost** **Audio restored** SPEAKER: As the system approach, made the left quadrant the worst of the storm – this was over Volusia County. Significant weather conditions that we experience and we all know for the videos and also from the testimony of the folx here tonight but also, I would like to turn it over to Clint. Clint is our EM director. He's done an incredible job. We had a couple slow pitch is added with a few events lately but he got a fastball done. Clint, if you could take it over. SPEAKER:Thank you for sometime this evening. Before I get into any particulars about the storm itself, want to qualify that the information that I have – as far as storm data, comes from the National Weather Service and we use that as our standard. I'll preface by saying, before melting hit, Volusia County had already experience a large quantity of rainfall weeks before the event. Up to the storm, Volusia County received anywhere from 2 to 9 1/2 inches of rain before the storm impacted. As hurricane Milton came ashore, it came as a category three at 8:30 PM on the ninth. Across the peninsulas, as we all know and it exited between the Melbourne and Titusville areas of Brevard County, as a category one. And maintain a very strong and intense wind and intense tropical storm characteristics as a cross the peninsula. Volusia County emergency management, we stepped into our mode of enhancing our wash levels and began engagement with the National Weather Service in the state as early as October 6 and we start having meetings and preparations as this storm looked like it was going to develop in the Gulf area. We started engaging with twice daily calls. We went to a level II activation and then, we went to a full level one activation, beginning on 8 October. On the eighth, we did - we dealt with some executive order stuff. As a matter of fact, the governor issued his executive order for Milton on October 3. Our shelters and along with our executive order, are shelters activated on the ninth, as that was expected to be our day of the most significant impact. We also, in conjunction with the shelter operations, had a evacuation order and curfew put in place, in conjunction with the Sheriff's office. For our shelters, which activated five general population shelters and reactivated to special needs shelters and we (indiscernible)... We opened our citizens information Center as early as October 7, that Monday. The CIC has been in operation through today and will remain in operation through Friday. The hours that we started operations post-storm are 8 to 5 and to date, not to date, through yesterday we have taken 4100 plus calls for the citizens information Center and provided help to folx who reach out that way. Power outages, Florida Power & Light had 173,000 power outages. Clay at 114 and (indiscernible) utilities had under 5900. We were at 3400 folx (?) at the power of the peak. As of yesterday, we were down 2000 power outages countywide. Mr Judge already talked or touched on the water rescues. The property appraiser inner-city and again we have very good cooperation with her cities for doing initial damage assessment. We have total count of property tax of over 5100 properties that were damage in various degrees right now, with an estimated cost right now of approximately $267 million. So, that is where we stand in property damage was. Getting back to their rainfalls – I have mentioned the riffles prior to the storm. During the storm itself, we saw the highest rain level that we saw officially from the national weather service was in Ormond Beach at 16.5 inches will stop the lowest level was approximately 7 1/2 inches was to wind speeds, the highest official wind speed that we had recorded was at the Daytona Beach international Airport - sustained wind of 62 (?) miles per hour. That is sustained over a period of 10 minutes. The highest wind gust that was recorded was 88 miles an hour and again, we may have areas that experience higher winds but those are the official ones that we recorded through the National Weather Service. Right now, ongoing activities, as I mentioned, the citizens information Center will remain open through Friday 8 to 5 two provide access for our citizens. Were encouraging residents to apply for transitional shelter, the federal government has not turned that program on yet but we are encouraging people to apply so they can queue when they do turn it on. We are working with our state and federal partners to establish a disaster recovery center. That process, we finish that request today, as far as locations and again, we've had very, very good cooperation from our cities and asking for locations. The libraries are also preparing to provide assistance to help with individual assistance, public assistance and hazard mitigation, grant programs have been activated for this storm by FEMA and they are making sure they are ready to have access points to help citizens apply for the individual assistance of the process. Being mindful of time and the fact that I could go on for a long long time and I apologize for that, I will enter my comments there. I'm happy to answer or retain any questions that the Council may have. TROY KENT: Thank you. Don't run off, there is already a few names that want to ask you a few questions and Mr George will stop Mr judge, thank you as well. Counsel, we had a motion to move this item up. Before we get involved in this, would like to have a motion to have a second – just to make sure... DAVID SANTIAGO: So moved. TROY KENT: Thank you. Just keeping our ducks in a row here. Alright. Councilman Santiago. DAVID SANTIAGO: Thank you, can you give us a brief – I know you talked about what happened in Volusia. I think your emergency team, going after respondents did a good job. Thank you. I fielded a few calls that I passed on to you all and it was handled immediately. So, thank you for what you did. Can you give us and the public a little bit more information on how it affected the state. We're just one county but we have 67 counties and can you give us some? SPEAKER: Absolutely and again, and as we all know, when Milton came ashore, he came ashore as a category three storm with hundred and five an hour sustained winds - down near Tampa, near the Sarasota area. Those counties took the brunt of the impact and have been reporting that they saw storm surges as high as 12 feet in some areas, which is incredibly high. For our region, St. Lucie County, to the sound for example, experience a tornado outbreak. At last count, we had been told that they suspect at this point up to 38 tornadoes actually impacted Osceola and the St. Lucie areas with significant damage there. As Mr judge… DAVID SANTIAGO: Is that on precedents? SPEAKER: According to the weather service and the folx who work out of the Melbourne office, their experience goes back 30 years and their exact comment was, "Never seen a thing like this." For us, I became a tropical storm, in this particular case, along the track to the south, was to the north. So, what the storm attracted to the south, the south of us, as it moved to the south, we saw less wind but more rain. So, the counties that were closer to VI sustained a lot more wind damage where they might not have seen as much rain damage will stop does that answer your question, sir? DAVID SANTIAGO: How about flooding? SPEAKER: All along the storm fact, for (indiscernible), tremendous floating. Along the path, flooding an significant damage was up we looked at the videos and talk to our friends in the Southeast and Southwest and significant damage, significant flooding, tornadoes as a clay dimension. Utter devastation and again, this one moved up to the number five on the all-time lift – it surpassed many well-known hurricanes that we all have known. So, again, I think it is number five now for worse hurricanes to strike the United States was stopped DAVID SANTIAGO: Again, just setting a basis is what I'm trying to do here – you made the statement that still stuck with me that someone else said that we've never seen anything like it - this storm. When you top that, "We've never seen anything like it" To the nineties that happened prior to then rainfall that happened, we've never seen anything like that as far as the weather pattern did. SPEAKER: That's exactly what the National Weather Service told us and as we engage with them pre-storm, they kept telling us, Volusia County, Lake County and some of our other partners – come "You are already wet and you will get wetter." DAVID SANTIAGO: Some people said one in 100, one in a thousand, what is the general consensus from the experts on what we will get in that number range? SPEAKER: The National Weather Service hasn't giving us an official yet, but I have heard multiple 100 year plus event terms kicked around but again, nothing official, sir. DAVID SANTIAGO: Mr Chairman? SPEAKER: I want to add for this area 100 year storm, is a (indiscernible) occurring as far as rainfall in a 24-hour period is 11 inches of rain approximately, in a 24 hour period. So, 15 to 16 inches of rain in areas that will exceed the 1% storm chance for hundred years old. DAVID SANTIAGO: Exceeds the 100 year event but no number has been put on it yet? Mr Chairman, I want to make a quick comment. I think a gentleman said, I don't this he is here anymore, I don't have questions for you right now, but others may. This gentleman said "I hear the pain and frustration." And I hear the pain and frustration and I'm sure my colleagues here the pain and frustration to. In my 20 years of serving Volusia County in different capacities, this is probably – now this is the most emotional meeting from people having devastation that I have ever participated in. So it doesn't fall light on me. I don't get falls light on my colleagues either. And I will say more a little bit towards the end. But I'm just stuck with, I want to point out that the folks that spoke, 99% of you I like what you said, right? I like that you shared them real compassion, some stories that help us understand what you're going through. But I was still stuck with two individuals that I can't let lightly because this shouldn't happen. Some of my college were called out individually. Specifically one colleague, someone read out some campaign donations that they made, and funny that they picked just a few of them that may pick the narrative that the person at the bad guy and I can tell you that he's not. 100%. But if you really look through it, you see firefighters, law enforcement, small business owners, consulting firms, healthcare providers, and so on. Regular people that still believe in this individual serving the county. So I won't let that go by, you can blame me for shooting back, but that's inappropriate. Your concerns are legitimate, but the personal attacks should not have happened. And it was inappropriate and libelous in my opinion, because I will let that go. The other part I will let go because another individual did similar, Mr. chair I would like to put an image up on the screen. Can you put up one of my images. And this is by the way, what I'm sharing now is not to take away from legitimate issues, because they are absolutely out there. Right? But I want to point this out. Go back to the other one. This individual called out several members of his counsel, for, I won't even say what words. It was inappropriate. Let me show you this property from the individual that spoke and accused his counsel of doing wrongdoing. This is from December 2004. The property in the middle where it's a little bit green. Let me see if I can annotate. The public should know the facts. That's what's important. It's not showing? Right in here. One individual that spoke of, property is right inside there, guess what this is? Flooding. 2004. No house on the property. Go to the other image. See this here? No house on the property, still. Guess what this is? This is the subdivision that's built right behind this individual later on that was flooding on this property in 2004. Not negating the fact that this property is flooded now I'm not try to take away from that. But I've seen often, I want to find solutions, I have said that I've been here in the beginning. And I try to talk to engineers. I know when emotions are going, people want to find someone to blame. And so do I. If I can get facts rounded. But I will use this one property as an example. It flooded into thousand four. Significantly. There was nothing behind it. I'm not saying development doesn't play a part in it. And I will leave with this Mr. chair and then we can talk more later. The people should know that this County Council for my recollection, I'm going off my memory, I think we've only approved since I've been here two years, maybe two or three developments that have been of midscale, and this County Council. 2 to 3 since we've been here. 2 to 3 developments and not only gives in the areas of anybody affect here. Again, not taking away from what your legitimate concerns are. A lot of this has happened outside of the counties purview since I've been here. For the last two years. We have standards that I agree, I think I wrote down the note, I wrote on here, we learned a lot, and I think we should, and we should plan for it. That's what somebody else said. I don't remember who. Right now the standard you should all know, the standard by DEP in the state is to standards that we apply. One is to develop one in 25 year storm, so when a subdivision comes, it's one standard depending on where it's located okay? And the basins that they are located through the county, the state standards that we apply. One in 25, and then if you are in a closed basin, certain areas in the county, if you are in a closed basin and you want to develop their currently, you have to develop a retention, a water mitigation process to one in 100. So that is what's happening today. Should we look at it? Absolutely. As a matter of fact, this County Council, about six months ago you directed our committee, I think she's the chairwoman, I'm not quite sure. But she's out there, she's a member of this committee sorry that I called you out, but we task this committee to start working to create additional standards that we can do for storm orders specifically. So I want you to know that we haven't taken it lately. We are working on it, it's bad what happened, and I am all in to find solutions. We have to find scientific solutions and I just urge you all in a campaign season, which is what we are in, people sometimes like to stir the pot and take advantage of people's emotions. Let's go deal with this with the facts, I am in, and you can keep coming to the County Council and hold me accountable to it and say what are you doing? I am asking our committee to continue to look at it. Our staff is looking at it. You got solutions? Bring it to me. Bring them to me. I'm not an engineer. But I am all in for solutions. Please understand political season heightened things up, this was a storm but I don't think anybody could've predicted with the 2 to 9 inches that we got. And, help is on the way from the perspective of we are looking to see how do we develop more better. I don't know hundred percent certainly. I will finish Mr. chair, I don't know hundred percent certainty that the 100% culprit. I think there's other causes that we only to look at in the big picture to solve this problem. Thank you Mr. chair. TROY KENT: Mr. Johansson? JAKE JOHANSSON: First of all I want to call on a few people, I apologize for this. I had a lot of calls regarding helping citizens out east side and west side. This past few days. Clint, your group did phenomenally every time I called, including you looking for numbers that are easily identifiable on our website, and on the Volusia County EMS app. You were quick to respond. I know Holly Winhoven is sitting out there somewhere, I couldn't pointer out if I could in a lineup, but she was instrumental in making stuff happen for me. So I appreciate it. I also would like to give a kick in the butt to Jim Judge who this is his last rodeo for now. Jim, I appreciate everything you have done for me personally in the 10 or 12 years we have known each other. And for this last Hurrah, you went out with a bang my friend. I appreciate everything you have done. And Clint I look forward to you picking up those pieces he left on the floor and putting them back in the bag and running with it. You all from an EEOC perspective did a great job. I know you couldn't have stopped what happened, but you did a good job of mitigating. You asked everybody to get out of town, and some of us didn't, you still went out and took care of them and got them to a safe spot. So my hats off to you sir for all of your time. I'm sure you will get a cake at some point. So I appreciate you. SPEAKER: Thank you so very much. 50 years is long enough in public service. As I walked on the EEOC and I look at all the names on the walls, on the way back, Matthew, with George. We have been through a lot. We have been through pandemics, multiple hurricanes, tornadoes, flood events, topical storms. You name it. Over the years. But I am passing the torch to Clint and his staff that are doing an excellent job and will continue to do an excellent job for the county. TROY KENT: Mr. Dempsey? DON DEMPSEY: I just kind wanted to respond to what David was talking about with the area that we showed from 20 years ago and a more recent one showed. I can just attest – I'm very familiar with that area. That is in my district and I think I've told you before, I have written dirt bikes with my oldest son when he was two euros back in the early 90s. When it was before Victoria Park was ever there. I have written dirt bikes all through the area. I mean all through the area. Year-round. Pre-storm, post-storm, never have I seen standing water like this and I have been back through there since I've been on the Council and there is standing water. It is an issue. I don't know who to point fingers at, I do know who the bad guy is for this. But there is a problem with flooding in that area. My wife grew up, Trooper Adams now retired, right across from common ground and Rockingham, all that stuff. She was raised there and went to high school living on that same street. She told me there has never been flooding like that. Never. So I have no reason to doubt her. I am speaking from personal experience. There is a problem. But I don't know if it's the development, I don't know who to blame. I just hope we are looking into it. Because that's what I voted to keep and record, that's why I voted to explore this Urban boundary thing. Nothing in going to vote for it necessarily. I think we need to look and all options and I'm hoping we push forward. I don't know who we need to address, but are be able to use some of this transform 386 money for infrastructure, because it seems like a lot of the problems I'm getting complaints about are very concentrated to Mr Ferrero, that's on the common ground. That's in one area. I drove there after the storm, and it's everything they are saying it is. So over there by FFA on the truck route, that is a concentrated area of flooding. Is there any reason why we can't use this 50 million for infrastructure for those neighborhoods to either buy out the home owners. I think one homeowner said that they would buy out -- sell their home. Can we not buy some of the properties on the west side around common ground the Figuera? Is that something that's an option to look into? SPEAKER: That may be an option the 386 money has gone through process. And has been up to the cities. There are several projects that have gone through that process and the money really is being allocated into those other areas. Remember this flooding is not just in those areas you named, you saw those pictures. I mean it's all through the county. We will take a look, if there's - I think there may be money left over, that are not spoken for yet, and we will take a look at those monies and either the county or the city that when the floodings occured will be encouraged to put in more projects for infrastructure. It's occurring as we speak. DON DEMPSEY: Without actually – I think Mr. Johansson said there's another 42 million that within another fund that was available we were debating how much should go to where. SPEAKER: About $92 million total. DON DEMPSEY: With this otherwise qualify? SPEAKER: Projects could qualify. You've got to look - the last batch had to be specific to those storms and hurricanes. Now you will probably More money on top of that from these storms and hurricanes. So, the feds are kind of funny about you know, matching up storm with the money with storm. In some of these cases, they flooded in both. So that's not an issue. DON DEMPSEY: So I think everybody we heard from, from Ian which I think is what the 386 money is for. GEORGE RECKTENWALD: I disagree with the gentleman's opinion of the company disparaged are in an engineering study for one of the areas that was talked about. It's a very good engineering company, they've done a lot of work statewide. They are probably one of the premier of stone water in the state of Florida. And that's who is selected and who was working on that particular project. DON DEMPSEY: Is that something we might consider Volusia forever money I know we purchase more with Volusia forever money, is that possible we can buy some of these continually flooded neighborhoods? SPEAKER: There are other ways to do that. FEMA, when you have floods, and they are reported to FEMA, they become eligible for FEMA assistance, and through the years we have done quite a bit that actually. We have purchased homes, and converted areas to stormwater parks. And things of that nature. DON DEMPSEY: What should people do if they're interested in throwing the towel? GEORGE RECKTENWALD: Even if they don't meet the criteria, they need to get the information and get on the list, that way makes them eligible for maybe later programs but is very important if they had damage, to get on that list and there will be questions "Do you have insurance? Do you have other things?" Go ahead and answer all of that because maybe you have enough insurance or maybe there are other factors that you have to get on that list. So, anybody who has any kind of damage, I strongly encourage you – get on the FEMA website and get listed your property. What Clint is doing when he is not running around storms and all that, is we do have the FEMA programs. They help People get through the arduous process, and we do get properties almost every year – there is some sort of FEMA mitigation project. DON DEMPSEY: But that is just for houses that are damaged. It seems like a common theme here is the houses become islands and the surrounding neighborhood get flooded, the driveway, going out of areas to get to your house which is dry – albeit, your septic tank is underwater by your house is dry. I mean, does not qualify for FEMA or can we get them over to the transform 36? GEORGE RECKTENWALD: That might be more of a fix for infrastructure in that case. You're correct that if their house didn't flood, they may show damages for the septic and other things on the property. So, is access part of the criteria? SPEAKER: Part of that process looks at the reoccurring loss I will can be done to mitigate that reoccurring bus. DON DEMPSEY: I am talking about the $50 million pot that we allocated less than a year ago. I'm wondering if there's anything left of that and can't that be used for people who were affected during Ian as well as now? GEORGE RECKTENWALD: I believe the next meeting will have the current allocation of all the projects that came in from the last storm. You will see that Matt and with that, we will have accounting for what's left over and then, maybe we can take a look at the next level of projects. DON DEMPSEY: Do you think it still too late for this people to put in some of that money? GEORGE RECKTENWALD: The infrastructure has to be put in by a government. So, it would be us in the cities. And again, in the area you are talking about, we are already linked up with DeLand and we partnered all that study that we just talked about with engineering firms. So, it is the first one out of the gate. DON DEMPSEY: Okay. Alright. Thank you. TROY KENT: Thank you, Mr Dempsey. (unknown name) I will give you a break for a second. DAVID SANTIAGO: I want to add something I forgot Mr chair. I wanted to refer to another comment I wrote down. The lady said something about qualifying for the 386 the money – she said she had to deplete her 401(k) or something like that. I know there is financial qualifiers for that and I'm not saying that's the case but it raised my alarm for me that if someone would have to deplete that 401(k), I just want to put on you guys radar and maybe put back some information. SPEAKER: We will (indiscernible) the information. DAVID SANTIAGO: Okay. GEORGE RECKTENWALD: I think what she said, I think what she said is because she took money out of her 401(k) – I probably showed increasing income. I think that's what triggered the issue. DAVID SANTIAGO: Don, the only reason I show that property is because it said that the property never flooded and the fact that he came up here and make personal attacks to this Council, members of his counsel, when his property flooded in 2004 and again, I get the benefit of the motions. I get that. And then, the young lady that just left him I felt that because there is new faces in here come I think the young lady, is one of the First Lady that spoke, she spoke about preserving land in green space, it's important for members of the public to know that this County Counsel has had a very aggressive approach towards preserving conservation lands. And currently, I wish I could have had dialogue back and for with her because I would have asked her one question: how much land should we preserve in the county? Right, and I would've been interested to see what her number was but members of the public that are new here, we continue to buy land for conservation and for water mitigation, and for recharge – things like that that help towards this. We currently have 36%, 36% of the county, this County Counsel has led to the fight to preserve in conservation. And we have a goal in place of 50%. So, that is already also happening. Again, I understand the issue before us but know that this counsel is not blind and not going after things that have been mentioned here - there's plans in place that we have been executing and adding money, I think we had a $20 million last year if I recall. It is a very aggressive plan, I wish she could be here to hear that but I wanted the other new members to hear that. Thank you, Mr chair. TROY KENT: I have a few comments and then I will go to the public. We do have one public card to speak on this. And two, you know, the community of Volusia County and are 16 cities, to this counsel, to George, my thoughts on this. This is a County of Volusia problem but this is also the cities in Volusia County problem. For this solution, I believe it needs to be the County of Volusia, the cities, our state and we should also and should get help from our federal government. George, I believe we need a multi prong approach here. First and foremost, we need to look at the topography and where we are holding water right now – when we know there is going to be a rain event. It's like you could buy tickets to it, that's what they call it, a rain event or a big storm coming, we need to be pumping those water levels down. Get that down into the intercoastal and ocean. We need to make sure that our ditches are clear, so that the water can freely flow. We need to have a plan in place and the areas that are constantly flooding, we need to really, seriously be looking at purchasing those properties - multiple properties, and making sure that we can hold millions and billions of gallons of water for retention because this is happening more often. And I just think it is incumbent upon us to have a plan to help you. Very quickly, before I go to you, George will stop a want to bring John Chaney up, you want to speak on this item. You will have three minutes. Please, address the entire counsel with your comments. SPEAKER: I am John Chaney. 1521 Wingate Dr. I'm here to represent the West Minister Woods HOA, we have 70 homes that were built in the county in the mid-80s of which seven are threatened by water. TROY KENT: Did you say 70 homes? SPEAKER: 70 homes that were built in the county, by the county back in the 80s. Of those, seven are threatened by water and one of them has water encouraged inside of it. Our stormwater pond states adjacent to South blue Lake which sits adjacent to a County pound, which sits adjacent to the storm water pond – for Victoria Park. Everyone has been kicking Victoria Park but I will get to that later. What we would ask is that you directly County staff to review our stormwater pond. When it was constructed in the mid-80s, South blue Lake was a dirt road. Adjacent to our pond was a sinkhole and so, when we would get flooding, there was a reasonable expectation that our stormwater pond would follow the natural topography and go into the sinkhole. When South Blue Lake was constructed, the county built over the sinkhole – which is now where there is a failure in at least two locations where the road is starting to settle. The other issue we have is the storm water pond that was constructed, it reaches maybe 80% of its capacity and then, starts backing up onto South Blue Lake - which then overflows the roadway, down the embankment, into our pond. Our HOA has worked with the County to get the permission of the homeowners, so that you can armor the embankment with rocks, so that it wouldn't erode – like it has in the past. We would ask the County Council to direct staff to review that stormwater pond, to see if anything can be done to restore our reasonable expectation of the storm water flowing somewhere, whether you mitigate that or not. We do also note that the storm water pond for Victoria Park is currently overflowing. We understand that there was some issue at Freedom Elementary, I pray to God that no one was actually pumping water out of the pond but he came to the homesites - that pawn is now overflowing into the county pond, which by happenstance, the water is now migrating into our stormwater pond. We would ask that if there was a failure of the pond at Freedom, that there is no failure of the pond at Victoria Park. I apologize, I do have one suggestion, having worked with County, I mean with government for over 30 years… TROY KENT: Mr Cheney, that's okay. Counsel, are you okay with giving him 10 more seconds? Go ahead. SPEAKER: What I would ask is your storm value evaluation. You are looking at half of the problem. Our issues not only stormwater, it is with the underground water flow. We know Victoria Park's retention ponds are 15 feet higher than ours. It follows of the natural ground, we have a (indiscernible) by the city at their expert underground water – of the consultants think that we are getting leakage. We would ask that when you're looking at these standards, that you look at stormwater and underground, and that you have above by 1/4 mile or whatever, so that you evaluate the adjoining storm water pond – which right now, none of the computer models do. They just lay, the water goes into the ground. TROY KENT: Thank you, Mr Cheney. Think you very much. GEORGE RECKTENWALD: Thank you. I have a few more items to finish the report. First off, want to bring up, as we move into recovery, there will be questions on debris and we will be putting the information out as we speak. We will be following the governor, just I think yesterday issued a new updated order, which will be of course in compliance with. And that means we will have our landfill, it will be open 24/7 we will be setting up a special system there. We don't want to get anyone hurt or anything out there. It is not a good place to be, especially at night, so we will set things up. We've requested assistance with the state with light plant and probably security and we will set up a system where people can, if they are out there at night, they will be using that system. But we will also be setting up, as we have impasses, a drop-off site and other areas around the county – to make it as convenient as possible for people who do their own clean-up. Event, there is the other side of the more professional clean-up, with contractors and our staff. You are probably aware, there was a storm falling on the heels of Helene. I think this statement was made by the director of EDM, there was a fundamental shortage of debris contractors and equipment. And as one can imagine, as we hit two storms like that… So, we will attempt to do a lot of the clean-up with their own forces. I may be forced to bring some of those contracts back to you. As they may have to be adjusted given the current situation. For lack of subcontractors. So I just want to look at that right now. That is been done, I can tell you on the West Coast of Florida and now is coming this way too. So we will work on that. Right now, we are already beginning the debris removal process. As directed by the governor. We will be hitting some specialized spots. We do have flooding anticipated along the river, and we would like to get some of that taken care of. And you do have a large event in Daytona Beach come in. So we will be going in earnest as we get more resources from our contractors. So I just wanted to give that update. And then lastly, I had Carissa set out in front of you. We did this at the last major storm. Excuse me. With all of the people hurting, last time the Council requested to suspend application permit and plan review fees. If the council's desire is to do that again, we took the liberty this time, we don't do this often, but given the emergency circumstance we are in, we had is prepared. If you wanted to suspend permit fees, review fees, and plan fees. We had that resolution here on file. TROY KENT: What is the timeline on that, what is it say for how long we will suspend those? GEORGE RECKTENWALD: April 30, 2025. TROY KENT: Hopefully a member of Council will want to bring that up later. Mr. Santiago you had a question? DAVID SANTIAGO: George, on the storm debris, if I understood you correctly and between the lines there, you said we are bringing back those contracts. Are they wanting more money? Is that basically what is happening? GEORGE RECKTENWALD: Yes, the reason like I say, the debris contractors for the most part are – DAVID SANTIAGO: Price gouging us. GEORGE RECKTENWALD: That is a statewide issue bigger than us. I can say that. There is a lot going on with that, but what happens of course is these contractors depend on smaller subcontractors, so those guys go to where the money is. And in some cases, that has turned into a bidding war, we are trying to get ahead of that. I think that we have one of our select contractors as a good contract here in Volusia County. And they are going to have to submit something in order to get more contractors here. We have asked the state, and that is something that I know the idea to keep the landfill open was to make sure that you could be continuous debris removal. Which, I think they are trying to take advantage of the FEMA's plan to 100% reimburse for 90 days. So, there is a certain amount of pressure to get all this done in that 90 days, we will be fine with that if we can have the right amount of contractors. It's not the landfill, because like I say we always have these drop-offs, and we have debris reduction sites. And we worked 24 hours anyway. At night, that is when they reduce the debris, grinding, burning however. So, that's really not the issue. The issue really is getting contractors to get this thing picked up. DAVID SANTIAGO: Have we ever attended you a local thing? GEORGE RECKTENWALD: We have. In fact I've already put our contractor on notice to go on out. He always puts up a contact line, and they get in touch with that contractor, and usually they work as a subcontractor to that. Because it is all bonded work. And it requires a lot of backing in order. That is where these companies are, large bonding agencies, so that protects us, because they have the insurance and bonding to finish the job. And then of course, they are fronting that storm for a certain amount of time. The people who expect to come in they expect to get paid weekly. And this is one of those things that is very rare when you do debris removal, it is going to be a large expense in a hurry. So when you think of the past, we've been around $20 million in debris removal. But we are spending that in just a couple months. And that's fast for a construction project. DAVID SANTIAGO: Thank you Mr. chair, thank you George. TROY KENT: No problem at all. I don't see any other names up, counsel we have a motion in a second on an item 2 – 31 hurricane Milton update. We are just accepting this update. And by the way Mr. Judge, and Mr. (Unknown Name) we are -- great job. We have a motion in a second, all those in favor say I. Anybody disprove? All right, we are approved six – zero on that. And I am going to hold on just for a moment here, George, did she hope that the Council was going to approve this resolution today. I see Mr. Dyer shaking his head yes. Whoever makes this motion, if you would please just – to make me feel better about it. If you would read the bolded part in black at the top. Just settle that the listening audience knows what we're doing. I know we see it, but they need to hear what we are doing as well. JAKE JOHANSSON: I can make a motion to approve the resolution of the County Council of Volusia County Florida for providing a waiver of certain application permit and plan review fees for repair and reconstruction and residential structures that sustained damage directly related to hurricane Milton, providing proof of storm related damage, providing permanent application, must be submitted within a certain time frame, providing an effective date. TROY KENT: Is there a second? Got a second with Mr. Reinhart. And this was not on the agenda, and we are going to vote on this, so if anybody from the public would like to participate and have a comment on this, I'm going to have it right now. Seeing none. Counsel all of those in favor say I? DANNY ROBINS: I just had a question for possible modification. TROY KENT: Sorry, Mr. Robbins. DANNY ROBINS: Counsel I'm going to bounce this office real quick. I think we can do more. Section 4 if I can bring your attention to section 4. Any event required to reconstruct a structure, the applicant will be sponsor for do public cost and the legal notices, they will not be charged an administrative review fees. – Storm related. I lost my train of thought for a second. Can we waive that cost? How do you feel about that? SPEAKER: I am less than lukewarm about it. JAKE JOHANSSON: It's an actual cost we have to advertise. So, we've eaten that cost. DANNY ROBINS: My thought process, if it storm related, storm related. JAKE JOHANSSON: Can we get FEMA to reimburse for that? Because we chose to waive. DANNY ROBINS: How much would that really hurt us, is it something we can manage? SPEAKER: Talking about newspaper and mailing advertisements. Clay do you have an estimated per property cost? CLAY IRVIN: We don't charge for staff time, will be primarily charge for the advertisement in Daytona Beach news Journal. DANNY ROBINS: How much is that? CLAY ERVIN: I would say around $600. It depends on the size of what we have to do. **Audio lost** **Audio restored** TROY KENT: If we come back, we can always make a change down the road, if we need to. I love that you are wanting to do more. I just don't know that I am ready right now to jump with that. DANNY ROBINS: Can you meet me halfway? Paying 50%. TROY KENT: If the maker of the motion was okay with that, and a second, then I could go along with that. And I don't see the maker of the motion... JAKE JOHANSSON: Give me a minute. TROY KENT: Don I am coming to you I promise. SPEAKER: May I clarify what this is for, first and foremost, if a building is damaged to the point where if reconstruction would require to know through a planning and development regulation for a variance to be reconstructed, I have to say that I'm not aware of any from previous situations. And I have been here since 2016. We had Matthew, Irma and Nichole, plus some other nasty tornadoes. CLAY ERVIN: I'm not certain that it's a widespread impact. We are throwing it in there because we know it could potentially happen, and we didn't want to have to - someone to God for bid had to go through that, throw on the application fee which is again approximately $600. So, we are already taking away staffs revenue, we pull in to help support our staff's operation. DANNY ROBINS: This is really nickels and dimes, but people that have lost their business, they have to go through this process, the time, the government and bureaucracy, $600 or 700, or even a thousand. Even if it was 2000. It's a lot of money to our blue-collar small business folks. And folks that really need it. That's my thought process behind it. Whatever we can do, even 50% it's another avenue for us to take care of our folks in my opinion. JAKE JOHANSSON: As there is all probability that if they are reconstructing a building they would have a maker of the motion I would say that they have insurance paid for it. It looks like staff has already it is nickel and dime. And legal is. And this probably runs met 50% by getting rid of most of the other stuff pretty close to what the city is doing. I change it later. I think I'm going to stick with the motion due to the rapid nests of the resolution and maybe bring it back if it needs to be tweaked a little bit. I am not opposed after I do a little more research. But I will stick with the motion as it stands right now. DON DEMPSEY: Clay, I don't know – I'm sorry Clay I didn't mean for you to get up. When this is going to be released through the media, this only applies to the unincorporated sections of the county. Because guys, I've been hearing when this first happened, I don't know if it came from the city or the land, but it was being reminded that you can put your fence back up in Deland, after the storm without getting permits. CLAY ERVIN: Is up to the individuals and elected officials of the cities to make that determination. GEORGE RECKTENWALD: We meet with managers almost on a daily basis right now. We have one tomorrow. So we will bring that up what Carlton did. I can say in working with the city, they are very quick to do the same thing, in fact we are probably behind... **Audio lost** **Audio restored** JAKE JOHANSSON: You can squeeze a lot at the same time. I was going to say, send Van email because if I go – but probably shouldn't, (Laughs) Figure out a way. That is a good way to squeeze into the city manager meetings. Thank you. TROY KENT: Thank you. Before we vote, Mr Cheney, before you leave, would you see Mr (unknown name). I do want to find out if any of the schools were pumping out. Another constituent mention that is all. I think we need to find out what happened. Thank you for that. SPEAKER: I do know what happened. There was a pond at Freedom Elementary, the pond filled up with water and the breach flowed out like Mr said... To the school board's credit, they did get folx out there really quick. TROY KENT: That makes me feel much better. I'm sorry that a breach but that they were able to fix it right away is good. Counsel, we have this resolution before, so we will be waving repair and construction permits. All those in favor and by the way, the motion was made by Mr Johansen, seconded by Mr Reinhart. All those in favor say aye and those opposing say nay it passes 6 to 0. We are now on the consent agenda. Item 2, would any member of the Council like to pull an item on the consent for a vote or for a comment? Mr Robbins? DANNY ROBINS: Yes, chair, item A, airport services and also just some other information, item B. TROY KENT: That's okay. Both of those for a vote or did you just want to make a comment? DANNY ROBINS: May be A for a vote and B could maybe go there. TROY KENT: Let's just make a vote. Anybody else? I need somebody to make a motion. JAKE JOHANSSON: Motion to approve items C through R in the consent agenda. TROY KENT: Already, with a motion by Mr Johansson, seconded by Mr Santiago on the consent agenda. Minus items a and B. All those in favor say aye. Those opposed nay, we have a 6 to 0 vote and we are nonconsent item a. DBA Breeze Airways, airline operating. SPEAKER: Good evening, gentlemen. We will let Mr Robbins start. I will try to make this quick, I didn't have a chance... How are we doing, do you have any number or stats for (unknown term) and what we did in the past? How is it working in is in sort of the same thing that we did for (unknown term) or partial? I really just want to know how we are doing with that before I can vote on this again. SPEAKER: Absently, I'd like to tell you about Avella. There is no known association with (unknown term), the fund is coming from Breeze. This $600,000 item budget is actually what we've done with any of the airlines that have come in where we are giving marketing for the airport enterprise fund. Because they are bringing in four different routes $150,000 is the price per route, that is why the amount of... That is going with marketing and fees they would pay at the airport initially for two years and that's in line with the Federal Aviation Administration. DANNY ROBINS: What kind of returns can we expect? SPEAKER: So, each passenger that comes to the airport, we will receive approximately $21 per airplane passengers. So, $21 per passenger that comes through. That will be facility charges, concessions that we will receive – so, the airport will ultimately make money based on this airline being here. DANNY ROBINS: My last question, may be stupid but why do we have these programs if we are just waving them? If that is the norm. Why don't we just say, "They are free." SPEAKER: We're a smaller airport and we have to compete. DANNY ROBINS: Alright, thanks. TROY KENT: Mr Santiago. DAVID SANTIAGO: Will we have to add a new way to this airport soon? SPEAKER: We are going to get very busy. JAKE JOHANSSON: Don't be saying that out loud. SPEAKER: (Laughs) I unfortunately cannot predict the future but what I can predict is with adding these four new destinations, we will see similar with 10 to 15% increase in passengers and those passengers that have been contributing greatly to our economy locally. You can see through the convention and visitors Bureau and the bed taxes (?) and a variety of other services that we have throughout the community, they are all benefiting from the airport and Community Partners in bringing additional services. DAVID SANTIAGO: Before we were talking about airport funding and before (unknown term), you are in the airport business which we are, this is the airport business. These are the kinds of things that everyone is doing out there, whether we like it or not. If we're going to be in the airport business, we need to be in the airport business and we have to do things that require you to do in the airport business. Thank you. SPEAKER: Gentlemen, I assure you, I negotiated the best possible deal for the County and the airport. So, I just want to see more people being able to come to our area and take advantage of what we have to offer, and improve our economy. And so, wanted to make sure that this particular instance was not on the backs of our taxpayers. TROY KENT: Thank you. Mr Dempsey? DON DEMPSEY: This 350 for advertising, is that on top of the tax issue which is debated? SPEAKER: Yes and the CBBs (?) are going to help us with marketing addition on top of this. DON DEMPSEY: Where this come from? SPEAKER: This is from airport enterprise revenues. TROY KENT: Is that all Mr Mr Santiago, you helped me get over the finish line with (unknown term) because I was concerned about this and when you said, "We are in the airport business and we have an airport manager and why are we not giving him all of the tools he needs to be successful?" It was impactful for me. So, thank you for that. Mr Robbins? DANNY ROBINS: Motion to approve. TROY KENT: Motion made by Mr Robbins and seconded by Mr Santiago. All of those in favor for item a on the consent agenda say aye? Those opposed nay, six to 0. We are now on be Master Gas for natural gas services, $360,000 expenditure. We have Mr Corbett and Mr... SPEAKER: This master agreement will be for natural gas services to the buildings that you see listed test corrections being our largest consumer. Mostly, that is boiler or gas dryers. TROY KENT: Mr Reinhart? MATT REINHART: Easy. It's a jail. So we are just paying for the services? SPEAKER: Yes, this is paying for electricity. DANNY ROBINS: Motion to approve. TROY KENT: Motion made by Mr Robbins, seconded by Mr Santiago and counsel – all those in favor say aye and those opposed safe nay - 6 to 0. And I believe we are on item 3 now. Item number three, resolution providing for a limited waiver for replacement for property owners impacted by hurricane Ian and Nicole. Do we have Mr Clay Ervin? CLAY ERVIN: This is been an issue since Ian and Nicole first hit our coast unfortunately. We have placed a (indiscernible) dune permit. If you're putting specifically sea walls or rock, we require the placement of a dune to help kickstart restoration of the habitat. What we are seeing is that many of the property owners were concerned about spending money to put a 4 foot dune in front of these sea walls when we still were in title. In other words, putting the sand out there would simply be washed away. One of the options that we also have is you can pay into a sand placement fund based on the cost of what would be your replacement because it's not a set amount, it is based on the width of the property in those types of things. So, this counsel, realizing that we had received over $80 million in state funds for Sand restorations said, "Let's wait before we start triggering that requirement. We need to kind of pause this because we are not certain where this is going to land and we are not certain how much sand were going to be able to get on the beach of those types of things. Why should we be charging people for the sand placement when we ourselves are getting money from the state to come in and restore the sand on the beach?" We've been pushing forward and what we found is that at this point, there are approximately about 190 permits still kind of influx, that are running into deadlines. Not necessarily our deadlines, but dead lines within insurance carriers, deadlines in regards to some of the right of any resources - specifically for condominiums and those type of situations. What we have is a effort that allows those buildings that were impacted by hurricane Ian and Nicole to not have to contribute to the front and th (indiscernible) placement. I would be remiss in saying that we have collected from approximately 40 property owners that we feel if this resolution is approved, those folx would be eligible to request a refund because it would be appropriate to allow for those who'd already contributed into that front, as part of a permit requirements and closed out their permits - if we are waving it for the other roughly 190-196 that would be treated the same way. We want to make sure. We don't want to discourage the restoration of the habitats. We don't want to place the burden on the property owners who are putting the resource there but what we're looking at is plain and simple the timing of when we are going to be able to get all of the sand on the beach and the ability for us to distribute that sand that is being fronted through the state of Florida and also our long-term plans for beach management are not yet finalize. We are not yet in a situation where we can say that the money we would be collecting would be used here or here, or in what manner. So, we see this as a method to allow for those property owners to close other permits, proceed forward through the DEP process as well because their Department of Environmental protection permits are on hold pending satisfaction of our beaches and dunes permits. So, in front of you is that waiver, it is no longer going to be a deferral, it would be straight up a waiver. TROY KENT: Thank you, Mr urban. Mr Reinhart do you have questions? MATT REINHART: ... It is obvious that the beach is not the same makeup, correct that it is or was even a few years ago, correct? I know that we have taken some pictures recently of the coastline and that was, I think, just of them… Do we have those or not? SPEAKER: Mr Reinhart and Vice-Chair Troy Kent - we have some pictures, this is not anything that would really be surprised of the Council. They were taken off of our beach cams. This was on Wednesday, the day before the hurricane at 11 AM - which was actually about an hour and 1/2 before high tide. If you can flip through them real quick. The point of this is the unstable nature of the beach we have now, having high tides come up to the sea wall and the base of the properties is actually common. In fact, to comment it to have a 4 foot dune placed in front of a property in a unstable condition, it would be washed away rapidly. I think it's quite obvious. SPEAKER: This is before high tide, correct? SPEAKER: About two hours before high tide. SPEAKER: Most will assume that would be before. I actually have a question for you ma'am, if I could. Thank you. Thank you. We all know the answer to this is just more so for education of the public. What we do have, which was spoken by Mr. Ervin, it is to proceed I believe October 31. So Mr. Ervin with respect to the dune restoration project. When does that begin? SPEAKER: Anticipating them to show up to town most likely after Christmas due to contractor scheduling. Jessica Fentress. MATT REINHART: So the dune restoration in question will be to 770,000 yd.³ of beach compatible sand from the entire intercoastal waterway, correct? That is just navigating through the center basically correct? SPEAKER: Constantly on the inlet channel. We have an additional 550,000 coming off of rattlesnake… MATT REINHART: Than the staging of that would of course for the first one go in to where were we stockpiling that? SPEAKER: Between beech Street and ocean view. And then there it will be Chuck called… MATT REINHART: In the same basic would apply for rattlesnake going south. SPEAKER: Only it will be a pipe project. MATT REINHART: With that 770,000 yd.³ from the first project, is there a study that is being done as well? SPEAKER: We have a feasibility study that is underway as we speak, we are looking to do public meetings in our community in January after the holidays. Individual communities on what they want to see. Right now your coastal engineers, tailoring major firm, elite firm is analyzing our very unique Erosion rates. They will come back to you next spring or summer with the presentation, and options that are catered As it relates to our beach character, specifically to Volusia County, and our beaches, and then we will have a conversation of where we want our beaches to be as a community. MATT REINHART: It's about to take place in January? The Army Corps of Engineers rolled to town soon. The feasibility study will determine how we keep this going in the future. Meanwhile the makeup of the beach is not the same as it was it's already set. So we are talking about several months, meanwhile these permits are still being asked to be closed, or these people cannot continue with their work. And they therefore become more sustainable to more damage, because of that. So that was one of the issues, also one quick question if I could chair, thank you. After the completion of the dredging project done by the Army Corps of Engineers, I had heard that there is a possibility because of the shoals left in existence of still Beach compatible sand that is in the waterway, that could be judged as well, that we may have money left over, to assist with that. For who knows how much more sand. SPEAKER: We are hoping about 3 million. MATT REINHART: Wow, so 3 million still a good significant amount to continue this process. Again, that it's not going to happen tomorrow, meanwhile permits are needing to be closed. Thank you so much for pointing that out. TROY KENT: Thank you Mr. Reinhart, Mr. Santiago? DAVID SANTIAGO: Good job there Mr. Matz. I like that. I got a question for Clay. I want to kind of set this up from the perspective, help me understand why we have this ordinance? Can we start there? CLAY ERVIN: Whenever someone he puts in a coastal garment, you put in from where there were dunes, and that you have a steady structure there, that can encourage scouring, so what we do is we try to utilize this small dunes system to help jumpstart the accretion of sand, and creation of new dunes in front of the armament so that we have a natural buffer to the waves as opposed to a man made one which can result in us cowering in those types of things. DAVID SANTIAGO: But this particular funding process, what's the nexus for that? CLAY ERVIN: Well we identified – DAVID SANTIAGO: What are we looking to waive? CLAY ERVIN: Several years ago when we put in place the beaches and dunes is a permit requirement, what we established what is there are going to be areas, specifically like down in Daytona Beach Shores where at high tide, the ocean was already coming up to the sea walls that were in existence, so placing sand there was a not logical, because it would simply wash away and it wouldn't benefit the habitats, wouldn't benefit the property owner. So therefore we identified that giving us the cost equivalent of that placement could be put into this fund so that way when we start getting into the ability of either adding stand as part of a public project or tied with one of our parks, in another area, we can utilize that for those purposes. DAVID SANTIAGO: Thank you, that's helpful for me, let me understand what you said. So we had identified that there were areas in our coastline that it doesn't make sense to do this. But the sand. In front of these barriers? But there are other areas within the county shoreline that this does make sense with the supplies, right? If we pass this limited waiver, is it specific to the ones where it doesn't make sense to put that sand? CLAY ERVIN: Right now the reason they are paying into the fund is because they know if they put the sand out there, it will get washed away. Nine times out of 10, you have your contractor come in and put the 4 foot sand in, and do your plantings, rather than paying into our funds. DAVID SANTIAGO: Maybe ask a question a bit different, let's say Daytona Beach Shores, we have these C walls, it doesn't make sense to put the sand in front of them. I get that. I support that 100%, if it doesn't make sense don't do it. Let's say Ormond Beach, there are areas where this June program at we have it, does make sense to do it. There are other areas. If we pass this waiver today, with people that should be doing this, would they benefit from this waiver? CLAY ERVIN: In other words are we losing out on the opportunity to utilize these funds to add sand in other parts of the beach? DAVID SANTIAGO: Not necessarily the funds, but the requirements to place the sand they are? If something happened? CLAY ERVIN: Basically it's this, if you have a property which is impacted tidily, and you want to pay into that fund, we can use those funds on other areas that are not impacted by the tide. So yes, there would be revenue that would be going into that fund, that could be utilized for sand placement and other parts… DAVID SANTIAGO: I do like charging somebody for something they can't benefit from. So that basis Bob's me. It may be let me ask the question different only. I will use Ormond Beach. In Ormond Beach we have a seawall, property owner with seawall that is impacted, say whatever it is and the dune is gone, today. Let's just say from Ian. CLAY ERVIN: They would so be subject to being able to ask to get this waived. DAVID SANTIAGO: That's where I have a problem. Let me not say that – correction. Help me understand the funding that is coming also? I shouldn't have said that that I have a problem it. Because I need to establish the funding. What monies were available to folks in this area that were impacted like this to put the sand there? CLAY ERVIN: There were grants available through DEP, at varying stages. Since the storms hit, initially, there was a 50-50 match, up to a think hundred and 50,000, and then there was no match granted went through as well. But again, that was for placement of sand, no plantings, nothing along those lines. So therefore, you could get the grant, put the sand – but you have to put the sand in and ask for reimbursement. DAVID SANTIAGO: I thought about the hundred percent grant, it's no match. The government is paying for. In trying to distinguish the difference between an area where it makes sense to put sand, – I wouldn't support putting sanded an area that's going to be washed out, with an area that makes sense to put sand and restore the dunes, where there is money available. And I don't know if there any people that fall in that category. I have no idea. But when there is 100% available, in an area that it makes sense, why would we waive this? JAKE JOHANSSON: Just to clarify, this is only for Ian and Nichole. Right? We know what properties are effective -- affected right? DAVID SANTIAGO: Me I should ask this question, are there any affected properties where the sand dunes make sense that still hasn't been completed? CLAY ERVIN: We would not be supporting the idea of the waiver of this fee if we were not aware that it was impacting the specific geographic area that was severely impacted in knowing that we can't really do anything with those funds in those areas. And that it's going to take a larger approach to the overall beach management. SPEAKER: Clay if I could jump into, and Mr. Santiago, I have some pictures that I just tried to email to Jenna, but I see she has stepped out. And I took these pictures also last week, the very northernmost property of Ormond by the sea. The very last private property that is on the east side of A1 a. And even there, the tide was up to the wall. And to the base of the property. So is there any property where you can place them right now, I think we would be hard-pressed. There may be a single property somewhere, right now the beach is so unstable, its impact practical I think for us to require it. Anywhere where there is private property that I'm aware of, and I'm seeing Jessica and Clay. DAVID SANTIAGO: That's what I'm trying to establish. Because I don't know the case. When we do to all the studies, and all of those things are done in sand, who was going to pay to put the sand now in those areas where we have done those waivers? SPEAKER: That is the winning question, how are we going to paid to maintain those beaches long-term. There are a couple of mechanisms we will present fully when we have our report and have some true physical numbers for a couple of different approaches. Everything from artificial Reeves to recharge meant. DAVID SANTIAGO: I am talking from June restoration stuff -- dune. SPEAKER: As an emergency grant, that will go to funds placement. We are encouraging everybody to provide us with an easement to allow us to put sand on their property. DAVID SANTIAGO: So you are saying that once all of the studies in the Army Corps and all of that, we have the sand stored somewhere, we aren't going to come back to general revenue funds? That's where I'm going folks. SPEAKER: There is no general fund – DAVID SANTIAGO: I'm talking about later. SPEAKER: There is no plan for later yet. Unfortunately, there is no real delicate way of saying that. We have a study underway, by Taylor engineering, utilizing state funds, to try for Volusia County to begin to craft a long-term plan for our coast. We are also trying to get funded a federal study and I think those studies are going to reveal what options are out there, and then it will be up to the community. This Council and the community to figure out what investment if any makes sense for our community and our coast. DAVID SANTIAGO: I get that. Let me ask another question for our no match grant. I guess that is a state grant correct? SPEAKER: Yes, sir. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection has (indiscernible) grant available for zero match 100% reimbursable sand placement as long as it is a beach quality material, you can place it on your seawall, doesn't count for backfill. DAVID SANTIAGO: And its reimbursement. And it is after the sand has been placed? SPEAKER: Yes sir. DAVID SANTIAGO: I'm just worried – I want to make sure that in a year or so, the general revenue fund is not going to be hit to restore dunes on private property on the beach. I have nothing against anybody, I just want to make sure that we balance it. It's a very expensive very valid question TROY KENT: Don't apologize. Mr. Reinhart, more questions? So we have 10 numbers of the public that would like to speak. But before they speak to us, I just want to make sure that we have anybody who wants to make a motion in a second and we will vote on it later? DON DEMPSEY: I would like to set in motion for (indiscernible) for property owners impact by hurricane Ian and Nicole. TROY KENT: Seconded by Mr Robbins. You will have three mins to address the Council. Please, make sure your comments are to the entire counsel and following Steve will be Deborah Taylor. SPEAKER: Good evening, counsel and staff – I am Steve (unknown name) and I live in Daytona Beach. I'm here to vote against the resolution. I applaud you for your efforts to help people post hurricane but this resolution is not an equitable way to accomplish that. There are problems with how the resolution is written and problems with the general goals of the resolution. Note that section 2 of the resolution calls for a waiver, not a temporary waiver, but just a flat out waiver of certain sections of code, including the section that appears in both land development regulation and it also appears in the minimum environmental standards. In that section reads, "All new and reconstructed dune systems should be maintained by the property owner as long as the structure is in place. "So, the code requires the property owner maintain the dune system of perpetuity but the resolution waives that requirement. Does the Council really favors shifting responsibility from the owner to the rest of the taxpayers for all the future years that the structure will be in place? Regarded of what was intended in the text, it was certainly interpreted that way. So, that wouldn't be fair which is the bigger issue with this resolution. It isn't equitable. The property owners knew when they applied for permits to (unknown term) the coastline that they would be responsible for carrying out restoration or paying into the sand medication (?) fund. The property owners are the ones whose structure is impacted by the public beaches and they agreed to help the beach from the damage that those structures do. It is not fair now to shift the response below to the rest of the taxpayers. That beach must be protected. They are so essential to so much of life in Volusia County. But we need a better, fairer solution than this. For example, waive for two years only the requirement for the own homeowner is in question reparation, requiring said they pay into the sand mitigation fund – giving them two years to complete their payment. If the homeowner accepts the waiver, the matter then simply because a collection issue and permanence can be closed. This would provide temporary relief for the property owners, without putting the rest of the taxpayers on the hook for the obligations they signed up for. Thank you. TROY KENT: Thank you, Deborah Taylor, you are up next and Nancy Miller you will follow. SPEAKER: (away from mic) TROY KENT: Nancy Miller, you are up, thank you for being here Mayor of Daytona Beach. SPEAKER: Nancy Miller, Mayor of Daytona Beach, and I have our senior manager (?) Kurt. On top of being the mayor of Daytona Beach sure I'm also the president of the Florida league of mayors, for the entire state of Florida. I reached out last week to the majority of the mayors to Volusia County and was devastated to hear about the flooding that happened but was stay tonight, I agree with you Mr Santiago, I heard the pain, frustration and helplessness. If there is anything I can do in my capacity as president and I'm also an active member of the American flood coalition. So, I'm available for whatever needs help. I come here for that tonight but first of all, do want to say, thank you to the commission into the wonderful staff, for all the help that they've given us Since Ian and Nicole. I am just here to say that these are the pictures that are city manager took. The one you're seeing right now is right before the storm took place but if you see the steps there, the sand was there. I cannot in good conscious think that we will be able to do dune replacement when it is looking like this at all. Also, I want to talk a little bit… So, you can see right now, this is going all the way up to the seawall. So, would you have liked as a resident to put any money into any fund and then see that washed away? We are talking about hundreds of dollars of a sand that could be washed away like that. I want to talk a bit about the resident of Daytona Beach Shores but I don't want to speak only for Daytona Beach Shores. Any while they close, Ormond Beach, Ponce, Daytona, they are all on the same coast the have the same occurrence of water coming right up to the seawall, washing everything away. Mr Santiago, I'm going to invite you to lunch and come to Daytona Beach Shores during high tide and we walked down there and you will see how it comes crashing over to the seawall. So, the residence of Daytona Beach Shores but these properties using their life savings. They are retired, they are senior citizens and there has been many, many HOA dues that need to be assessed to this. These two million-dollar sea walls are not insurable. So, the residence of these condos had to pay for the seawalls and no, we are asking them on top of that to put dunes in front of the seawalls that they paid for. I want everyone to understand. So, I'm hoping that $80 million that we have will take care of these seawalls. Can I talk real quick about the rock prevents mint? This is a rock prevention at that was approved by DEP, so that is rock right there and if you went there we could go, you would have seen a sand on top of that with vegetation. So, everything got washed away except the rocks. City manager, can I turn it over to you, please? TROY KENT: Thank you. Next up is Miss Deborah Taylor. I want you to come up. Your name is next on the list and we will follow the protocol. Mr city manager, fill up a card? We will speak to you whenever. SPEAKER: I live oceanfront in Daytona Beach Shores and I am here to ask you help us with that dune replacement. One of those pictures you showed was my condo that I live in and I have some great pictures for you, to show you later. The waves are so strong, by the way, and I'm deviating from what I wanted to say but the splashes of the wave covered the 15 foot seawall that was approved. So, had we gone again and put the sand in there, we were waiting, it would have been gone now. So, it seems really foolish and wasteful for me to think that we are going to spend additional dollars on a restoration requirement, while it does seem doable and it is important for us to do, the efforts will never produce the intended results because sand is a sacrificial land. It goes away. Mother nature will always win. You never pick a fight with mother nature, she will always win. We only have 24 residents and we spent $1.4 million to build a sea wall, which I might add worked very well during the hurricane. By comparison, the beach access which is in addition to our property, the work that was finished – they put in rock, brought in sand, planted plants, gone after the hurricane. Again, nature is going to win. So, the coastline, as someone spoke to, has changing Daytona Beach Shores. It is not the coastline that many people moved here for. It will take much more than the required 4 feet of increased sand and plans to restore the beach. I am asking you to stop this senseless requirement and this mandate because it is me that has to pay for it. It is not anyone else. To get this permit cleared, have to put sand there that's not going to stay there. So, by bringing in the core of engineers, having them advise us to what to do, putting in a long-term plan – makes so much more sense. Thank you. TROY KENT: Thank you so much, Ms Taylor. Now Kirk (unknown name), you are up. SPEAKER: Good evening. Thank you, vice chair. Can you hear me alright? TROY KENT: Absolutely. SPEAKER: Members of the Council, I'd like to address a couple few things. Counsel Santiago, you had mentioned 100 grand grant (?) aye the problems that our citizens are facing is after this weekend, the sand would have been gone and they would've been 100% reimbursement. However, after this weekend, they have to do it again. As you are the other gentlemen say, there is perpetuity for that. I think there was about $50 million that the state had available for that. I would rather see that money be spent towards a large-scale project, rather than piecemeal (?). That is my concern with 100% grant. Yes, it would have been reimbursable, the money is gone. If he saw the pictures, the mayor started to talk about it – we had about 30 homes, I think 28 of them did that rock, that you saw in the picture, all of the rock is now exposed. They had beautiful plants and samples, it's all gone. The short-term requirement to me makes no sense for all citizens of Volusia County to pay into and even pay to the fund right now without having to find purpose for the funding, we don't go to the store and say, "Hey, Publics. Let me give you $5000 – which is the average of the sea wall cost, for groceries that I might buy in the future." When there is a planned come I think as a whole we should figure to pay for that. Until there is a definitive plan in another county is doing the work to do the plan, but until you have the plan, it makes no sense to me. So, thank you. TROY KENT: Thank you. John Nicholson you are up and following you would be Stephanie Rito. SPEAKER: John Nicholson, Daytona Beach - I don't live on the beach. I live a block away but for 40 years, I have been walking the beach and when I first balked at the beach up near Bel Air Plaza, the sand dune was about 20 feet above the grass on the property. Floyd came in and that 20 feet vanished, plus an additional 10 feet. And what I find when I walked, is a sea wall - a 4 foot seawall, 30 feet underneath the dune. So, to me that says, when they built the house in the 50s, there was a reason they built the seawall 30 feet below because for 26 years, there hadn't been a hurricane and the sand built up. Hugo came and it went. The storms we've had, remember 2004, the sand went and we lost 20 foot of sand. Normally, when I walked during the wintertime, the water comes up to the boardwalk, hits the boardwalk from (indiscernible) to the Hilton. So, little bit of sand left into the pier and after the pier, that is gone. When I walked the other day, the 1930 foundation for the steps that were there in the 30s, are now visible. It is about 15 feet below the seawall. So, this is going to happen. It will come and go. To put it there now, it is certainly going to wash away. In the summer, starting in April, the sand will build back again. $80 million (?) is a lot of money, $80 million it is going to do a lot in that time. It does make sense to require it at this point. I'm asking you to do what they are asking, allow this temporary – it will not be in perpetuity, as the gentleman said, it is just for the short time period until we can get through this. It makes sense. These, pass it. Thank you. TROY KENT: Stephanie. SPEAKER: Hi, I am Stephanie and I am really impressed by the councils stamina. I'm hungry. This is my first council meeting and this is a new experience to me. I have to tell you, with the opening comments based on the resolution that you are asking to be passed, I had a sense of release because I feel like we are saying the obvious. This is a different beach, everyone. I mean, there is just a different beach since Ian, since Nicole, since a little bit of Helene and a whole lot of Milton. I mean, I represent two condos – let me start with that, first of all. I am representing (unknown name) which is different voters and taxpayers and was built in the 70s and peck a tower that was built – I'm sorry, and the 90s and pack was built and that 70s. These are not new condos, but what is new is the storms. The frequency of them, the veracity of them, the strength of them, the amount of water that is being deluged. (unknown term) was a hotel and had basically a 6 foot, it was more of a placement wall to see where the property ended and it absolutely, absolutely did not prevent in any way shape or form the damage that condo received. The owners, all of 125 owners were evacuated with little notice for 42 days. We weren't sure if the building was going to be content, quite frankly and we had to spend an enormous amount of money and energy and time, and sweat, and pain – trying to rebuild from that space. I see I am losing Mr Santiago and I understand it's a long night but… But our owner, our president who is 6 foot tall was literally standing under the foundation and not touching the bottom of the foundation. It took him so much sand. So because of the kind of damage, we had to rebuild the seawall, there was a new application and a suggestion I have, respectfully for the Council and I know this is an easy one, but that process - even are very expensive engineers can't seem to figure out how to coordinate the process between the county, the state, they DEP. I think now our permits are still not approved and they are sitting with the county, the turtle specialists, how the new lighting needs to work… It has been horrific. The recently present is now standing here is because he just has no words left and he's not very diplomatic anymore. (Laughter) Ms Nancy knows that for sure. It's not that everyone wants to do the right thing… I was on turtle patrol… TROY KENT: Think you very much. Good to see you, Skip. SPEAKER: Counsel, for someone to say thank you for giving me the opportunity to quickly address this, I say quickly, I promise I will not go roughly 3 minutes, I learned my lesson years ago. A good salesman knows when to stop selling, there's been great presentations put up here. So I don't want to take a lot of time from that, but Clay and Jessica did a fantastic job of explaining this. We all share the beach. Think about what I just said, we all share the beach. It's very important. Vice chair Kent and I have had many discussions about the beach. And we had three homes that actually paid $1.5 million for their sea wall. After they got their reimbursement from the grant, they still owed over $1 million for that sea wall. And for us to ask them to put sand behind the seawall now is to me a little bit crazy. Because we all share the beach. You know, the biggest piece that I see in Mr. Santiago, answered your question on the grant of the sand, I called about the sand, I live on the beach. Two years ago, I paid over $10,000 for sand to go behind my home. Didn't I get reimbursed until today? We actually received our check in the mail today. On the 100% grant this you have is you have to go ahead, I've already called DEP, I get a permit for additional sand tomorrow. A field permit. But then you get in the queue of when it gets excepted after the job is done, if the money is gone, guess what? I get nothing. I get zero. It's not like if you say I want to get a permit, I get approved by the state, all of a sudden you are already number 10 in line to receive the money. It's not. If the money is gone, when you finish the job, you are out the money. If the grant is gone. That's what make it tough on the residence right now, they are saying, "why in the world she will go out and bring in more sand hoping that the money is still there with the grant?" That is a big issue. I will close with this, I am a firm believer in sand fencing and Jessica knows where I am going with us. The sand will broaden two years ago right front of that, we put in sand fencing over past two years, we caught sand because luckily we had no storms. After the storm, we only lost 75% of the sand that my fences caught. That is a victory. That saves my money right there. So, they're all kinds a way that we can do this. The coastline in the way that it goes up and down Volusia County, if you look... I promised, I knew I wasn't going to make it. One quick point, seriously, if you look at the coastline, and the way it goes up and down Volusia County, it's very fortunate because we actually come out. If you go towards Daytona, it jets out. The pictures you are seeing appear, that's where we need to not think about... TROY KENT: Thank you for the first-hand knowledge about and I know why it Miss white was smiling with that $10,000 check today. Congratulations. Elizabeth Bonds and our last speaker will be Wendy Anderson. Ms. Bonds? OK. Wendy Anderson, you will finish us up or public comment on item 3. SPEAKER: Thank you, Wendy Anderson, I live in DeLand which is not in the beach. Because I choose to live in a low risk area. Although, we heard enough earlier about the high-risk areas of DeLand. So, with the absence of Ms. Bond, I guess I am the last one who could possibly stir the pot here. Mr. Santiago, thank you for your really good questions earlier, those were exactly the questions I was going to ask, earlier when I was thinking about my comments but did you have arty asses very good questions and they have been addressed, I don't think satisfactorily they have been addressed. Under move on to a couple of things. I want to say back to the residents from the beach sitting behind me, the works that I just heard them say. Nature is going to win. This is not the shoreline used to be. It is senseless to keep putting sand there that is going to wash away. It is foolish to keep building and rebuilding. A good salesman knows when to stop selling. And we all share the beach. Even those of us in DeLand. So, when you put those quotes together, I want to remind you as I did when I addressed you two weeks ago that all we really did do is just followed the good rules that we have. And here we are today talking about waving one of those good rules. Tangent, I am a professor, I have tangents. Earlier today I did speak on the flooding issues because I was busy writing an exam for tomorrow morning where I'm asking questions... Including protecting these communities. I agree, it doesn't make sense to put sand here anymore. What the ordinance will need to uphold is our coastal construction control line. We have an ordinance on the books that says, "do not to build, do not build anymore in the areas that are a high risk. Do not rebuild in the areas that are a high risk." That is an ordinance on our books. Let's follow this one, go ahead, waive this one, waive this one for now. It doesn't make any sense to spend county or state or federal dollars to put in another grain of sand on the beach just stop. Building there. That's all I ask. That's a long-term solution. They could. DAVID SANTIAGO: Thank you for your kind words, I know we are not always on the same side of the issue, I appreciate that. I'm on the opinion that we should not be putting sand there, I didn't know, I'm not a beach guy like my chairman today is. Grew up on the beach with the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I remember them all. It doesn't make sense. More so what I've learned is that the ordinance... If this ordinance were before us today, and he said that you have to pay into a fund that we won't let you put sand because the sand is going to wash away, I would say no, I would not make anybody pay any money something they will not benefit from. From the principal perspective, I would never support the concept saying you pay for someone else and get sand or whatever it might be. I am OK with the waiver I think the ordinance needs to be fixed. Thank you for answering my questions. They help me. SPEAKER: Quickly, went did we enact to the ordinance that made them put Sandin? CLAY ERVIN: That's only created the beaches and dunes about five years ago, for five year's ago. SPEAKER: If we partly waive this... CLAY ERVIN: Its just for those properties impacted... SPEAKER: Will probably already know by property. If later will decide to undo the waiver, we can do that, right? DAVID SANTIAGO: When you say undo the waiver... SPEAKER: Go back to making it happen 20 years down the line. SPEAKER: This is time-limited, it ends when there is a specific... Sorry, this ends when there is an order that is specific to Volusia County, and that ends if you construct a seawall after that time, you will be required to put in a 4 foot... But only benefits those entities there if you want to change the actual policy, that requires a little bit more coordination and an ordinance change. TROY KENT: Counsel, I have not heard anybody speak about this in a concerning or negative way. We've a motion like Councilman Rinehart and second by Mr. Robbins, all those in favour say aye. Those oppose, nay. 620, and we are going to move on to item number four. We are gonna talk about selecting a firm for state lobbyist services in annual spinach or of $100,000. Various, come on down, Mr. Booker for some Mr. Santiago, publicly I am leaning on you for this one. There is pressure on you for this one. So? Hi. You are? SPEAKER: Pam (Name), I'm gonna help you guys walk through this evaluation process today. If you would like, Mr. Booker can give you a brief overview over this if not, we can get right into it. TROY KENT: Just go ahead and jump right into. SPEAKER: What we are doing today is we are going to be selecting the state lobbyist services be released statement of qualifications... TROY KENT: One second, if you could just be quiet in the back something of a SPEAKER: Were released the statement of qualifications seeking respondents for state lobbing services to serve the county. We received for responses, and point results, sunrise consulting group, and the Sunway group, we is at staff have reviewed them in both all of the applicants are responsive and responsible. They are here today to make a five minute presentation to you all. You should have already received from us the proposals, their presentation, the evaluation criteria, etc. While I talking right now and getting them cued up to come up, Jennifer is going to hand you a ballots that we will use at the end to make your selection. Also need to ask if anyone has a conflict of interest with any of these firms that they need to disclose? OK. TROY KENT: Our counsel does not, I'm glad you said it publicly for if anyone has a conflict... None for me. Thank you. And they know they have five minutes. SPEAKER: Their five minutes whenever that is beforehand. TROY KENT: We are ready. SPEAKER: We are to make sure Mr. Booker is on for them, we are going to go... First up is going to be Pinpoint results. SPEAKER: Good evening. Are we ready? Good evening councilmembers, thank you so much for the opportunity to present you to this evening, I am Marty Coley and as a survivor of hurricane Michael, I am -- also a hurricane, category five, our heart goes out to you. We are here to talk about pinpoint results and how we can help you. Pinpoint specializes in all aspects of government… And grants. Our firm has excelled in securing funding for clients in the state budget. Because of our experience, we know the process from every angle. I served as a Budget Chair for an appropriations subcommittee as well as Vice-Chair for the full Appropriations Committee. Two of our team members, Brian and Vance have served as chief legislative aides who oversaw district appropriations for their members and we also have a former budget sheet. So we have the expertise to navigate the process. … But we also take time to fully understand our clients need, to collaborate with them, prioritize their needs and develop a strategy to succeed. We will always guide you to success. By educating the members and the staff, which is critically important, to make sure they have the necessary information to support your priorities. We did the same with the governor's staff. The people you see here today people you work with year-round. You will never have to guess what we are doing, because communication is key. I will pass it on to Brian Terry and let him talk to you a little bit more. SPEAKER: Great, appreciate the opportunity to speak with you. Really, I want to give you an example. We represent local government since 2017. Our firm is very familiar with local government issues. I will highlight some of the bills we were heavily involved in. Senate Bill 328, very relevant to tonight's discussion and development. Development, specifically in areas where they are susceptible to flooding. So, affordable housing is a component of the bill. What we want to do is protect local governments right for resiliency planning. So, allow local government to control, to continue to restrict or have higher standards for development in areas that are subject to flood. House Bill 365, preauthorized (indiscernible), highly controversial. We want to work with local government and still have set up (indiscernible) dates, providing (indiscernible) to communities… And of course to add additional appropriation for the homeless challenge, as part of that legislation. In the suit against local government, these are liability… At least in some negotiation work… Ultimately, that bill did not pass. I will pass it on to Vance. SPEAKER: Great to be here. I am also a government affairs Council, I have the unique opportunity to lead our grants article ?. What that means, beyond applying and receiving grants, we work with agencies year round. Legislative session is 60 days, plus a few (indiscernible). The majority of you lobbyists is working with us regarding possession, and generally working together constantly for top we pride ourselves on that at pinpoint. We pride yourselves that we are available at all times, and we especially pride ourselves on solving problems at the agency level. We had a project recently that went $3.5 million over budget.… Working with the agency directly, we were able to tap into that extra funding and that project is moving forward successfully, without having to go back to the local government. Let me turn it over to Jason. SPEAKER: Sometimes our work with… Specifically, we have a client here is a Mills provider for singings. They interact with two different state agencies: the DPR licensing and (indiscernible), and the office of Elder affairs. Part of what we offer is we go in and talk to them in detail about the legal capacity in which they operate. In this scenario, we allow those two agencies to come together and understand each other a bit better.… Programs and hopefully help ensure that we have those meals continued for seniors. Thank you, and it gives us the opportunity that there was continuity for seniors. We want to transition that into other areas with local (indiscernible)… Thank you very much we appreciate the opportunity. TROY KENT: Thank you very much. SPEAKER: Do you have questions, you can ask them now. TROY KENT: Councilman Johansson. JAKE JOHANSSON: Tell me about your input and your influence during the Live Local act that Senator passed on? SPEAKER: So, from two sessions ago, that was the development bill. Specifically what we wanted to do in that bill was preserve the right for local government to have resiliency plan to be still important to have that right when that legislation passed. … To keep language out which would have prevented local governments, and wanted to prevent or provide stricter standards for affordable housing to elements that are in areas that were prone for flooding. So, to prevent the language from being in the middle which left the ability for local government to enact its policies. TROY KENT: Mr Santiago. DAVID SANTIAGO: Yes, my question (indiscernible). TROY KENT: Another one Mr Johansson? Thank you very much. We appreciate you coming down. SPEAKER: I'm going to go ahead and bring up (Name). I will walk through what is going to happen once we are done. Once you have every presentation, then it will go back to all for discussion if there is any public participation. When you are ready, we will give you your balance. Ran conference, 1-4. 1 being your first choice. TROY KENT: Thank you very much. Alright, Pitner Law group. SPEAKER: Good evening. Thank you for the opportunity to present tonight, my name is Sam Peltier. I enjoy tonight by William with some, who is our government advisor. You only know him. (Laughs) is been around. Pitner Law group is a full-service legal and government affairs firms nationally recognized or our in-depth legislative knowledge, extensive relationships, and results driven approach on behalf of our clients. We have represented local governments across Florida and the country. With over 50 years experience representing local governments, we are experts in (indiscernible) local frameworks… While headquartered in Tallahassee, we are deep-seated Florida. (Name) has worked for over a decade in a previous career, and we have represented municipalities in the region for over a decade. Furthermore, with a satellite office in Orlando, we are readily available to meet respondents when necessary. Our firm is proud to currently represent a total of (unknown term) clients… Including infrastructure, natural disaster and (indiscernible)… These are collaborative efforts that have… Our work is given as close relationships with agency staff and department stakeholders within the legislative process will One example I would love to get is that we had a client was trying to get an exit ramp sign welcoming Floridians to their community off I 75. They were unsuccessful,… Furthermore, we had another client who is impacted by a major storm a few years back, and was having trouble reaching the Department of emergency management and we were able to make sure they have the resources they needed in a timely fashion to get back out on their feet. Furthermore, with our local advocacy work we have been given strong working relationships with the Florida Association counties, the Florida alliance for intergovernmental relations and more aligned industries. … In the past five years, our firm has brought home over $25 million for local government bodies. Our firm's and in hand with our clients to develop their appropriation strategies before every legislative session. That is to say we strategize with each of our clients, on the priorities of both the House, the Senate, as well as the governor's office. We work with them to identify sponsors and stay in constant communication throughout the legacy process to get them the best chance of success before the legislature. A few of the projects we have secured in Volusia County over the last couple of years, I have included our water projects, transportation improvements, public safety measures and emergency management resources… One example that you can see a new screen is the minimum wage issue a couple years back, where we successfully fought against an effort to preempt local living wages from… To the extent that it gave specific carveouts… To local governments. Really quick, I just wanted to mention that the third number of our team is our founder and managing partner, Shawn Pittman. Before working here, he worked at all levels of Florida's government, including the legislature and state agencies, and the governors office. William and I have both worked in local government wrote our careers, which I believe gives us unique insights into the operations of these organizations and better allows us to advocate before the legislature. The last thing I will leave you with, and I will try to keep it concise: if you look at our client roster, I encourage you to check the dates for each of these clients. Our longest-serving clients have, in fact, been local governments.… TROY KENT: Thank you. I have a question for you: can you go back to the five years and the amount of money you got for each community? Why is Broward County the outlier? SPEAKER: Generally, we have been working on policy issues for our county. In the last five years I think we have been given to projects for the county to work on, and one of them was an appropriation for $750,000. TROY KENT: I was waiting on Mr Johansen to queue up, because I see the words there! ? JAKE JOHANSSON: That's probably why Shawn is not here (Laughs). TROY KENT: This is good information, I appreciate it. JAKE JOHANSSON: I was going to wait until comment, but since you asked… Shawn and his team and, if the Orlando team is still the person I think it is, had a very unique relationship with a lot of influential people up in Tallahassee and he was very able – and his team was very able — to get as in front of the people we needed to be in front of, to get will be needed. I didn't want to spend time when I went to Tallahassee to see David Santiago. I can get him here at the local, Westside McDonald's. So he had the unique ability to do that. I also understand that there are others, and I will talk during comment about the same thing. But I do have firsthand knowledge of the group, and they have always done great things for us in a nonpartisan way, I might add. TROY KENT: Thank you. Your name is on there, but I did want to hear from you, Mr Santiago. DAVID SANTIAGO: Broward County has multiple lobbyists, and that is probably why they were tasked that way. They are the big boys and spend a lot of money. SPEAKER: Hours goes with the motto K.I.S.S., keep it simple stupid. My name is Sean Foster on the founder of Sunrise consulting group. First want to say is an honor to be here. It's interesting to hear some of the same issues that we are dealing with as well with our side of the state. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families that lost their lives here. Not only here but in the state of Florida and those who lost everything. I can tell you, those hurricanes are to make a very interesting session, it's gonna be one that you are gonna want somebody that is working with you and representing you and fighting for you because there could be so many needs throughout the state. What makes us different? I think what makes us different is we have tremendous organizations here. We have deep relationships and deep knowledges of the issues that are impacting local governments. Local governments were the first clients that I had when I founded the firm. In second is that you want to have a client centric approach. When you're working with these folks you are making a very personalized service. We do reports for you, you are knocking to get summing that the cookie-cutter, you are to get something specific to Volusia County with meetings that will dip your that we can Tallahassee. And last, you are gonna want summative skin to tackle things for Volusia County and that's gonna fight for them. We call it all in, it is our all in motto. Not just saying some of that is flashy or approach the others use all in. Is what helps us succeed for our clients. When I say all in I mean legislation that impacts the County -like local bill, we are all in. We took bullfighting for legislation that meet the needs that you have with the flooding in your streets, we are all in. When you want your fair share of appropriations for the other center projects we are talking about, we are all in. When you want so many to respond to text and email or phone call in less than 24 hours, that is our office and that is the service you are going to get. That is our guarantee. Thank you for letting me introduce my team next and one guy I think is in expert in other issues, Andrew (Name). SPEAKER: Thank you so much, my name is Andrew Colwell. I've been in around state government with whole life. I am a government operations local government policy walk. We look at stormwater, water quality, that is something that I am actively working on. I think what I bring to this team and what I bring to this County is in fact that I view myself as a dynamic consultant. I help far past the house and Senate I pushing your comments about getting in front of the right people. You mentioned state agency work and I appreciate the previous response that was brought up because I think it is so bored to have summary they can help you pass the legislature regulatory work and other governmental works. I want to turn it over to Jordan (Name). SPEAKER: I think by now most of you know me, I have been in this area for a long time. It is a real privilege to be before you tonight. I have deep roots in this county and I think that's what I bring to the table for sunrise. I live here, I work here, I have an office here, and I have teamed up with them on this work because we want to help Volusia County and have the personal touch. I regularly attend Volusia city meetings and also the Volusia County elected round table officials meetings. And my career in government spans over four decades. I was only 13 when I started. I represent several cities in the county, I specialized in appropriations. I have worked hard since 1995 being in government, to really emphasize the relationships are everything. Key staff is also everything. If you get to know the staff because of term limits, you are able to get a lot of stuff done. I want to just tell you that I'm not going to list my accomplishments but I have helped with appropriations for several cities including Oak Hill who has had a terrible time and had no septic to sewer when I started. I'm glad to be here and I'm going to turn this back over to Sean. SPEAKER: I will say real quick will lead the charge... TROY KENT: Don't worry about that time, finish your presentation. SPEAKER: We brought over half $1 billion in the past 10 years for our clients and we are very proud of that and seeing the changes we are making in our committee. That is the last thing I will say, we are honored to meet with the senator, and I know we ran out of time. I apologize. TROY KENT: There is a couple that have cued up on the board to speak. Councilmember Johansson? SPEAKER: I think you will be the one we see most often what other cities. What other city do you represent? SPEAKER: I represent Deltona and the city of Oak Hill. JAKE JOHANSSON: Thank you very much. DAVID SANTIAGO: I think you mentioned... If you can elaborate. SPEAKER: If anybody read the newspapers you will see the past County we represented... I will let you quickly I got a phone call from Senator... When you get a phone call audit 8 PM on a Wednesday it's out of the thing. I'm not real happy with the County can you come in and meet with me, I said absolutely. I will tell you for three weeks, we worked on legislature an amendment, you get to a part where it was not just beneficial for the county but beneficial for everybody through the state who already saw the needs for formal housing being met and that is where the language they you see and saw afterwards for the County cities and local municipalities, that came from us leaving the charge and had a phenomenal relationship with the president's office. I did get a lot of grey hair from that but I will tell you, will obsolete, our firm was at the to the charge and her staff to come up with these amendments. TROY KENT: Mr. Reinhart. SPEAKER: You say you get a lot of grey hair from that, it could be gone. I heard you mention something about the code enforcement? Was that inclusive of just for code enforcement or animal control and code enforcement? I'm throwing it under that umbrella I know it was only that was of particular interest to me. SPEAKER: That's an excellent question, we are working on officers and animal control. We have some language we are working on that is just for code officer. SPEAKER: I was looking at all aspects that may respond to homes that are not law-enforcement but getting involved. Thank you. TROY KENT: Just briefly, is it Sean? I appreciate the background and the stories about the senators reaching out to you and having a meeting with you. If we were to choose your team what kind of access to we have to you? SPEAKER: I think one of the questions real quick about... I was asked the same situation, that one the commissioner said to me, "Do you feel that it is a negative that you don't live in Tallahassee?" I said, "No, it is a positive." Every single one of my members, we have three of the members not here today don't live in Tallahassee the rest of us live throughout the state with our legislatures they are in Tallahassee, we are in Tallahassee and their for the session. We are back home during the time they are growing the events and going to the nonprofit events doing their own events, where using the long relationship remaining in five or 10 minutes you are gonna get are those back home. Incoming secular appropriations chair is my personal senator, Ed Cooper. We have a tremendous relationship, I think it benefits us for the relationship that we have established living in the communities. TROY KENT: I'll go back to my question, what kind of relationship will be have with you? SPEAKER: We'll look in six years ahead of time and say who's gonna be leadership and how we work with them? We have done fundraisers for them... And the same access that we have had for the past 12 years. TROY KENT: OK. Thank you. And our final group. SPEAKER: It's going to be the southern group. SPEAKER: Good evening. Oscar Anderson with the southern group here with Nicole Kelly. We appreciate the opportunity be here for sure and continue hopefully will continue our partnership we had for the last two years with the county. We've seen a lot over the last six years, COVID, dramatically changing the state budgets, a lot of things have happened. A quick overview of the firm, I'm not sure... We have 45 partners around the state in seven different offices. We took that strategy very early on with the purpose and knowing that is better to be closer to the legislatures who have access to all the legislatures throughout the entire state. Because of that, there five members of the team, our founder, Paul, Nicole, and (Name) in Tallahassee. I'm going to pass it over to Nicole. SPEAKER: Sorry, I'm short. Here's a little overview of the legislated timeline, right now the agencies are working on their legislative budget request, those have to be some agencies are starting to compete them and they will submit them to the Governor's office. Then the governor on January or February will release his governors recommendation session switches... This year it is a later session and the session will start in March. And it lasts through May. Then the new fiscal year from November on will start having committee weeks it is a little strange this year the house are not aligned on the weeks but the process will start in November after the elections. Our partnership appropriations is is very strategic and comprehensive, basically what we do is we like to work with our clients in an off election year. Is different this year because it is an election year, we will start the process a little bit later we like to work with our clients and I like to go everybody has a different strategy but this is my personal strategy. I like to go to the members of the delegation who would likely be your sponsors and I like to put the wish list in front of them and say what do you think? It sort of becomes their idea and then they have little to ownership on it. When you're working for the process and it gets crazy during budget conference, they have this ownership in this project because they came up with the idea. At least in their mind they made up the final decision. We have been finding that a successful for us... So that we aren't getting to the stage of veto and where we don't want to be surprised or have our clients coming to us and saying, "what happened, the Governor had an issue but you made it through the legislative process." We like to do that all in the beginning so that it is smooth sailing and we have a really great appropriations team. We got over $2 billion for our clients last year. My group which is Sydney (Name)... The three of us got almost a billion between our clients and we are a well oiled machine and we really enjoyed the appropriations process. SPEAKER: Specific questions about preemptions and overrule. Will represent around 40 on the state... League of cities, all of the home rolling issues. I was thinking about specific cases related to an issue in Volusia County a few years ago, and was trying to change the thresholds on sales tax. The two thirds and had an immediate effect of date there was a big issue for the County. We worked really hard with our partners, we took the lead on trying to push that back we got the effective date after the election in November it will also go individually to third requirement too. It was very successful. SPEAKER: Basically our approach there are time limits... What we do, we have close to 50 lobbyists, we are able to build those relationships early on and really foster a trust and support above them in the off-season which is right now in fundraising. We are supportive of them, we put our clients in front of the decision-makers and only do we have one person that is closed with Danny Perez, we have five. We have depth and relationships with leaders, with committee chairs, with appropriation chairman. You can send five different people in to make a really big ask and we are able to do that because we are such a large firm. TROY KENT: Finish your thoughts, please. SPEAKER: During COVID over there was a huge influx inmates were being left in the jail... Starting to move the inmates out very successfully, that is one of our success stories. In conclusion, we are here, we were here six years ago making a lot of the same promises you heard and I'm standing here now saying we fulfilled those promises and in the last year we brought back over over $11 million. We are very proud of our work for the county, it's election season so we ask for your support in this ballot to continue to be your partner in Tallahassee. TROY KENT: Thank you very much, Mr. Johansson? JAKE JOHANSSON: I've a quick question for you. You are the biggest firm here representing today, and I think you said you have 40 municipalities or counties. What happens when we want something that another municipality represents once the opposite of how do you navigate that irony or does it seldom happen if the county wants it and we usually all want it. SPEAKER: The counties are all particularly good, most of the home issues will run into are frankly because of some local government in South Florida or something crazy, just being honest. We end up trying to fight against that as they create so many until.. but we don't really run into a lot of conflicts will stop there are a few areas where we say cities and counties or sort of mortal enemies, and sometimes they can become competitors. We haven't had anything that I am aware. TROY KENT: Mr. Dempsey. DON DEMPSEY: He's 80 years old in his office... Powerful person. Is he still active in lobbying or where did he get his services? SPEAKER: Yeah, he is around, he is more of Council helps us on different projects. And has a lot of relationships around the state that are very deep and helps us with some clients. I live in Orlando. DON DEMPSEY:Why walk so no all Despite his age, he is still willing to lobby on our behalf? SPEAKER: I will be happy to ask him. TROY KENT: Thank you, Mr Dempsey. Mr Santiago? SPEAKER: At this point, do you have any participations let's? If not, I have to turn it back over to you for counsel discussion. TROY KENT: We will start the discussion off of Councilman Santiago. DAVID SANTIAGO: Thank you, Mr Chair. This is a tough one. Honestly for me. Because almost all of pictures up there, I know almost everything one of them, the folks that spoke. And I think I know almost all of them, and have worked with them in one capacity or another. TROY KENT: Which is why, if I can jump in, it means a lot to me what you say about this was to you were out there, he worked with these individuals. DAVID SANTIAGO: I hope I don't lose any friends here. But you know, Mr Chair, and my colleagues, I am going to take this from the approach which are my comments, mainly from what we have experienced in the last two years and since I have served as counsel.… Marty, I haven't seen you in a while, I would say hi there. All competent organizations. But, if you recall my comment when we were talking about the lobbying firm contract last year, I made a lot of commentary around we should really focus on policy, if you recall? We may have some policy things that we fight alongside with the other counties. We have the Florida Association of Counties, and as I said back then what I have found my experience is when you go in as this experience on a policy issue that you want to change, I haven't seen a lot of effectiveness in that. When you have unique circumstances and I will say like the jail thing, that was right thing to do. It was a little bit different, when you say you're going to go in and fix this, but we go through the political process with policy, I haven't seen a lot of success in it from a lobbying effort. You mentioned Broward earlier, that is a huge County. Miami-Dade, another one. You get tons of lobbyists. So, that said, Mr Chair, I am focusing from the perspective of who can really help us with our funding issues. That's going to be keeping for me, I wanted to create our plan and say this is what we want to fight for and we want a bigger piece of the pie. I want bigger piece of the pie were Volusia County and I usually look at the budget at the end of the year. Every year I get angry because I see some of the money that is being dished out and I think we should do better as a County. We had our challenges, and some people may not be happy up in Tallahassee, Tallahassee is a relationship business. That's all it is. In my opinion, there are tons of knowledgeable people up there, tons.… With that, I will go through by starting with our current lobbying. Nicole, it's nice to see you too. Southern group is one of the biggest ones in Florida. They are the big boy. And I think, for make their lies the problem. I do not want to say, "Too big to fail," because they are not failing as an organization. But, if you recall, we had some policy issues where we had some conflicts. Jay, you did. And I don't want to rehash previous issues, but we had an amendment issue that was rolling around them. There was some conflict there.… That is a product of their own success, because they have been able to grow that firm with excellent people. But, at the end of the day, the bigger you get the more conflicts, you know? And conflicts in Tallahassee have become a blurred term lately, and with some of these big firms. I think that does a disservice at the end of the day, to the client. Very capable firms, I do not like conflict. I think we could do better in the appropriation side. The Pittman group, I have known of this group for a long time. You notice the word I said "of" and the reason I say this is because I can share with you that in my 8 years that I served in the legislature, not one time did someone from the Pittman group come and see me. That is a big deal, I'm sorry. That is my opinion. Now, once I was a member of the Volusia delegation, and you have… TROY KENT: Are you OK with Councilman Santiago going over time? OK. DAVID SANTIAGO: So… I have my assumptions but that is a big deal for me. I cannot get my vote of confidence because I do not know how they are going to the rest of the delegation. Marty's firm, Pinpoint results, I was hoping he would talk a little more about appropriations, because that is my focus. I don't know how long your for maybe has been in place, so I do not know if the real connections. I will end with where I think we should live with . Her Arm Is Worked with This Individual, Is More the Others, Although for 10 years. What I like about Shawn Foster is this guy works the hall. Oh my gosh, he doesn't just work the French and — which I would say is very key — (Laughs) he used the words "all in". He works the halls in a very personalized way, committed level. I've seen the relationships he has developed he is a smaller, boutique firm, obviously right? We are not going to get the conflicts that I think we have developed in the past. I have seen the guy work and I think if we set them loose with some key appropriations, tasks, he has the right relationships to say, I need this revolution." So you mentioned a little bit about Live Local, Mr chair. I knew that he was in the forefront with the secular president, he was in the with that of those relationships. I think we roll dice with Summers Consulting group, I think we will net some results in money and small policy when. Thank you, Mr chair. TROY KENT: Mr Johansson? JAKE JOHANSSON: I think I'm good. I think my questions were covered. SPEAKER: (Away from mic) DAVID SANTIAGO: 1 is the first choice? SPEAKER: Yes, 1 is your first choice. TROY KENT: We are ready. DAVID SANTIAGO: I hope I didn't lose any friends today, Mr Chair. TROY KENT: If you are going to lose a friend over that, they were not worth having anyway. JAKE JOHANSSON: I actually thought we would have one left due to attrition. TROY KENT: While we are waiting, to those 4 firms, thank you very much for sticking it out today. Bringing your team down here. Most of you had everything locked up or, you were seamless. I appreciate it. Thank you. (Voting) DAVID SANTIAGO: Hey, Mr Chair, you didn't mention Lisa Lewis yet. TROY KENT: Oh she is coming up. I am waiting. I am waiting on Ms Lewis. Before I was asking for some big time. DAVID SANTIAGO: You don't want some sandbags in front of the building, do you? (Laughs) SPEAKER: (Away from mic) (Laughter) TROY KENT: The timing to say that was perfect, Miss Lewis. Are you ready? Tell us the results. SPEAKER: I have to read everybody's a vote or just the totals? SPEAKER: You can read everybody's vote and then give the total at the end. SPEAKER: OK. I will start with Mr. Johansson, and I'm going to read down your votes. Pinpoint results..., sunrise 1, pinpoint results three.. Mr. Rinehart pinpoint results for.. Pitman Law group 3, sunrise consulting one, the southern group 2, Mr. Robbins, pinpoint results 2. Vice chair Mr. Kent, pinpoint results to, Pitman Law group 4, the southern group 3, Mr. Santiago pin point results three, sunrise consulting 4, the low score will go to sunrise consulting with nine, we will look for a recommendation for the Council to negotiate a contract that we will bring it back to you for approval at a later date. TROY KENT: OK, I wasn't aware we were going to a negotiate, it says annual expenditure hundred thousand dollars. Do you need a motion from us tonight then? SPEAKER: Yes, sir, if you could. It would be the counsel selection and they would authorize us to proceed with the negotiation. TROY KENT: Tell us who ranked first? SPEAKER: Sunrise consulting... Pinpoint results would be number three and 19 and pit and log group would be 4. TROY KENT: In the motion they will need Sunrise consulting. JAKE JOHANSSON: Motion to bring Sunrise consulting back to be our consultant. TROY KENT: Motion made by Mr. Johnson second by Mr. Santiago. Counsel all those in favour for bringing sunrise consulting back say aye. Those opposed nay, anybody? We have a 6-0 vote to bring back sunrise consulting. Happy negotiations. Item number five will be selecting a firm for lobbying services annual expenditure $42,500. SPEAKER: I'm back. Same procedure, we have released a statement of qualifications for federal lobbying services had to responses, (Name) and the Porter group. They are both here to make presentations, they are going to go in alphabetical order. Jennifer is going to quickly handout the ballots for at this one as well, and we will bring them up if you are ready for them to get started. TROY KENT: Mr. Johansen, did you want to jump in before? JAKE JOHANSSON: I don't think we got the solicitation in our packet. And if we did, I apologize, how long are these contracts for? SPEAKER: Is a three-tier what you did get this, you got an abbreviated version of it. JAKE JOHANSSON: 3, 1, 1, thanks. TROY KENT: OK, we are ready. SPEAKER: Mr. Vice chair and members of the Council, Mr. Reck and Walt and the rest of the team, so glad to be here. My name is (Name) and I'm very pleased to make my appearance before you. We are a 50-year-old firm based in Fort Lauderdale of 14 offices around the state of Florida. Our state practice has been around for that entire length of time. Our federal practice is relatively new. We are a bunch of veterans that came to Becker in 2011. Our managing director and one of my partners on the team came to me and said, I've talked to (Name) Becker in practice. We can only do this if I have me on the other side. Omar worked for (Name) at the time and I worked on at the Florida Senate with him. We opened up our shop just the two of us. That was in 2011 and will have 14 strong will still operate in a boutique fashion, that's what we believe is our bread-and-butter and strength. We work one person with 14 different abilities, 14 different Rolodex is, and that... Everything we do will apply everybody strength, we are diverse and bipartisan group, we are purpose built. Every person that was added was added for a reason not because one was a Republican or one was a Democrat because they wrought and added nature and value to our group. We consider ourselves leadership groove, it doesn't matter who is a speaker of the house and doesn't matter who is majority leader in the Senate, we built ourselves to be able to weather any administration, any group of leaders. And so doing. With this group in particular, as I mentioned, Omar (Name) who is in California today who wished he could be here but he was out in California on business he is one of our appropriations folks. He was the current chairman of appropriations state in Florida ops, the former chairman of subcommittee of appropriations, and is always a friend to us. Amanda Wood is the local government queen-pin. She came to us from Ferguson group which is a well-known local lobbying group. She was one of the strongest. She has done things with appropriations and folks, really, I am still figuring out more from her after 12 years and consider her my mentor. Anthony (Name), the executive branch side, he served as the number two of the US Department of transportation under President Trump. Prior to that he served as the number two with the Department of Labor. In fiscal year 23, we did about $75 million in appropriations; last year we did closer to 97 million. This year we are on board to do about $72 million in appropriations. One of the things that I slowly working representative waltz into taking on appropriations this year, we got him to do the right appropriation that he did that was non-military and is a tighter time and that was to help us with our issues with the Army Corps. Put in 1.5 million For us in appropriation that tied with the language and afforded us to get our coastal resilience study, which is an important thing. There are several other issue that we will looking at. We are very proud to see all the great work that you guys have done in our investments in the airport that are going to render a great investment overall for the county. $4 million in investment that we got from the EDA is only but a trickle of what can I expect that we get a working with... To start the process that you guys are doing. We expect an exponential amount of investment will calm the only from them but DOT and the Department of defence and others. And so we are looking forward to helping you there. I will say this, Volusia County for me is a labour of love, I am not myself from Volusia County but as I mentioned to you before, officiant at my wedding and to my groomsmen were all Volusia County residents. One in Port Orange, two of them live in Daytona, and one actually moved up to Jacksonville. This is to me of the clients that we have the will consider key clients, you guys are for me. And everything you guys do to make this place greater makes me happy because of helping people that I know that I love. And with that, I will turn it over to questions. TROY KENT: Thank you very much, I appreciate the background but the people at your wedding party... I heard two in Daytona. SPEAKER: My best man lives in Ormond and they just got their power back a few days ago. TROY KENT: The best man! Mr. Santiago, please? DAVID SANTIAGO: Is Congress broken? SPEAKER: Yes. DAVID SANTIAGO: Thank you for the honesty. And then I'm going to have questions Mr. Chair for John Booker and his sire is still around and if so, I would like to ask him a question after both presentations, they give a much, and good job. TROY KENT: Come on up because no one else is ready for any comments or questions. We are ready for the second presentation of the Porter Group. SPEAKER: Good evening everyone, it is not are to be here, my name is John Porter represent me the Porter group. I must say that having been a member of the city council for a decade and Mayor and serving at state Senate, and also a city member of Congress, I sat through a lot of meetings and I want to applaud you tonight with your passion and concern. Vice-chairman I appreciate you handling the meeting I applied you and to your team, thank you again for this opportunity and as I mentioned, my background is a little unique and different in that is a passion for me was to continue a service after I left U.S. Congress. I think you will find many of you once you leave office, you too will find other ways to serve the community. I decide to put together a team of individuals and professionals that I felt would be unique and different. I have been lobbied by the best in lobbied by the worst in my 25 years in Congress. And I've tried to take what I've learned and bring together and trusted with the clients group that we represent. Again, I mention we created this team as a passion of mine but also our members in the team, there were 12 of us. Having extensive experience on Capitol Hill, both on the Senate and US House of Representatives. But we don't just lobby, we find there is more to public service then funding. By the way, +200 million or so in the last year or year and 1/2 we found for our clients but will try to connect the resources. We want to raise and elevate Volusia County to be a major player in Washington, DC. I know based upon size, my experience as such with large to small communities and municipalities and airports conventional authorities and our expertise is in emergency management will understand what it takes to operate an airport. And to serve on the Las Vegas... We do have a depth of experience. The way above and beyond with the contract would call for helping whether it would be development or travel and tourism or finding other opportunities for the community at Volusia. Again, I am honoured. I know what it is like to push buttons. I noticed like to go to the grocery store, local government is the most difficult in 10 year while serving the community. We are different in that the passion will bring in the equities and understanding but also what it means for you to vote tonight or in the future it's not just showing up to vote. With that, I would like to introduce Mr. Ben Rosenbaum. SPEAKER: Thank you, Congressman... I'm also a 15 year veteran of Capitol Hill as the congressman mentioned. It was a rough game, I have to say. But with my limited time, I will move to brighter stories, I guess. The Porter group has decades of years of experience. He served on a variety of different committees. We are generalists, which sometimes can have a negative connotation but we believe that we have the understanding skill set and strategies to really bring what your goals and passions are to Washington and be able to deliver in this both on the policy side as well as on the funding side appropriations is something we take very seriously, work with a number of municipal clients, we recognize there are challenges we know we heard about Congressman Walton heard about some of his community project funding request. We know the senators themselves do not request funding. We have found ways to deliver for our clients and we have very close relationships with a number of folks on appropriations committee including the now chair of the Homeland Security committee and I previously worked for a member of Congress who is the subcommittee ranking member for emergency management economic develop it in public buildings. She has oversight over the staff redact, for disaster relief for FEMA, that was the area that I spent my time working on along with the work on Economic Development. I will say there is a handful of issues that we know are critical for the County. In terms of transportation infrastructure, this is similar where we have done a lot to invest in reports. Thank you very much. Invest in airports, in-transit systems, highways, as well as water and waste water infrastructure. I will say, our approach on a lot of these issues is working through exactly what has sort of been discussed earlier. Will take us toward a holistic approach, we know there is a lot of challenges. We look at notches the federal lever but also how it interacts with the state and local levels as well. We work with a number of teams that have state lobbyists as well. We are really good in working with those team environments to be able to bring those projects and priorities forward. SPEAKER: If I may include I did have the opportunity many years ago to work on a lot of your projects for Volusia County as a subcontractor of a different firm I was with at the time. We do have an understanding of Florida's challenges. I am a resident of Florida and third-generation. We are proud of the client so we represent, we are proud of the work that we do. We are proud and love to represent you as well as the same capacity. I do believe we can bring Volusia County to the table and elevate you substantially in Washington DC. Thank you for your time we appreciate is our protector. TROY KENT: Thank you, Mr. Porter. MATT REINHART: You had made the reference to transit and paratransit. Is that relative to funding? SPEAKER: Both on the funding side as well as policy. We represent to MPMs that also represent the Transportation Authority's or traffic management systems. They both have paratransit systems. When I worked for Congresswoman Titus in Congress, that was one of the areas that she really concentrated on. It was really because of the local -- conversations we were having with local entities that brought the stories forward and turn them into what my. It could be reimbursements or more investment to the systems to meet the changing needs. The Porter Group also represents the largest organization of nonprofits for people with disabilities finding employment opportunities.… This is something we have concentrated on and we have seen a benefit for a lot of our -- (Multiple speakers) MATT REINHART: I am the chair of the board, there, that is why I asked. TROY KENT: Mr Reinhart, question for Mr Booker? Thank you gentlemen, please have a seat. SPEAKER: Thank you. JOHN BOOKER: John Booker, government affairs, Volusia County. DAVID SANTIAGO: How much interaction do we really have with federal issues? JEANIENE JENNINGS: Is more specific in nature. During COVID, there was so much information coming out of the federal government, we looked to the firm to give us some information because we were starved for it. It was the CARES act, so in that regard it was useful to have a federal presented in Washington. As well as the airport issues. The EDA grant that we are finishing up now was based on a conversation that we had with our lobbying firm at the time. So it is more of a case by case basis. The Corps of Engineers issue with the beach has been ongoing for two years now. Working with Mr Wallace and Mr Mills offices. DAVID SANTIAGO: I'm not sure exactly if that is happening. Can I elaborate a little bit from Cyrus? SPEAKER: Thank you. DAVID SANTIAGO: Thank you, Cyrus. It perked my interest when I read the first presentation. We talked about airports, right? Because I know you work very closely with the feds. Regarding airports.… How much of that work is with a lobbying firm? Or is it directly with the feds? SPEAKER: I have been working very closely with John Booker, regarding federal support. We had a number of different things come up in the federal government due to COVID. We had Carissa, then we had the ARPA, and I, pardon all the acronyms,… In the aviation world. But another big one was a bipartisan infrastructure law and for a lot of airports, it was very important that they had some type of lobbyist support in order to get the amount of dollars across. … Just like John Booker said, with the EDA grant opportunity that we are just getting ready to wrap up, we are actively trying to get developers on the particular piece of (indiscernible). DAVID SANTIAGO: I'm going to assume that there is a Florida Association of airports, just like there is an association of counties? Is that something you cannot get from the Florida Association of airports? SPEAKER: We could, but that is the Florida airports Council. Every little push-ups, especially when you are competing against 19 other commercial services and airports in the state. My job is really about competing. It's a lot of competition with all of the other airports, and not only are we competing for interservice, we are competing for money or infrastructure project and so forth. DAVID SANTIAGO: Is this a good investment, that is what I am trying to determine. SPEAKER: I believe it is. DAVID SANTIAGO: Thank you, Mr Chair. TROY KENT: Mr Reinhart? MATT REINHART: It's more of a common, and I think with what Cyrus just said, there is been a receptive public about how well the airport is doing. They have been very vocal about making the airport great. And I know I am thinking of one individual — and I couldn't agree with them or – if you can have every little push, and every little hands to help, absolutely that makes us great. TROY KENT: Thank you, Mr let's start voting. Does anybody have conflict of interest they need to disclose? I have none. I am not hearing any. PAM WILSKY: Alright, think you will. Are you ready to complete that ballot? Once again, 1 is your top choice. 2 is your second choice. (Voting) DAVID SANTIAGO: Russ, you got enough fingers? SPEAKER: (Away from mic) PAM WILSKY: We have six members and we have a tie. So, I just consulted with Mr Brown. You all can look again amongst yourselves. Or, you can continue it until Mr Brower is back. They will have to come and present again for him. And then, we can move forward from there. TROY KENT: Let me ask you what they would have to come and present again? Can he not watch this meeting? SPEAKER: That is an option. He could. TROY KENT: OK. Counsel, I am not keen on changing my load. Is anybody keen on changing their vote? Can we get a motion to continue this to the next meeting? DAVID SANTIAGO: Motion to continue to next meeting. JAKE JOHANSSON: Second, Johansson. TROY KENT: … All those in favor, say, "Aye". OK, next meeting let Mr Brower make the final decision. PAM WILSKY: OK, thank you. TROY KENT: Are you going to read out the most at the next meeting? DAVID SANTIAGO: Can ask for confirmation on that? Are we going to do a new boat or are we going to accept his will? SPEAKER: You could read that now, for the six of you. If you wanted individually, then to the accumulation. JAKE JOHANSSON: I don't want to sway his load by knowing what our votes are now. TROY KENT: Good point. SPEAKER: So make sure that before, when he makes his vote, she will read them all individually into the record like she did for them in item 4. Then we will do the tally and make the announcement. TROY KENT: Perfect. David, did you make the motion to continue? And who seconded that? Johansson. We are moving onto item number six: selection of a contract with EM Weikel construction Inc.… OK motion to approve by Mr Santiago and seconded by Johansson. This might be the quickest one we have. Do we have any public comment on this? MATT REINHART: I just have one comment with respect to AM Weigel, they did a great job. TROY KENT: Thank you. Our supervisor of election, Lisa Lewis is in the building. SPEAKER: I do want to correct you, Mr Santiago, that we are a large county. (Laughs) DAVID SANTIAGO: … SPEAKER: We are about to crack the top 10 in Florida. And I just want everyone to know, because we have this group called Ulcers. (Name) is what it stands for. And I send some people that me to have Rolaids help with the Ulcers, and they have made me the unofficial Chair.… We are growing, hence why we do need more space. DAVID SANTIAGO: I am joking, I am joking. TROY KENT: No, stay there, supervisor. OK, counsel. All those in favor of item 6 say "aye." Moving on to 7, this is a public hearing. Is Tadd Kasbeer here? OK good he is. Proposed vacation of a portion of the so Park… Area. Please, make it as quick or as long as you think you need it. SPEAKER: … This vacation is a request to vacate a portion of Eaton and Wall Street's within the plat surrounded by property owned by the petitioner. Proximally half an acre. Unapproved. We have no use for it and we (indiscernible). DAVID SANTIAGO: Motion to approve. TROY KENT: OK, a second? Mr Robbins. OK, motion and a second. All those in favor, say, "Aye". although supposed say nay. Please stay for item number eight. What is going on here with the beard? (Multiple speakers) TROY KENT: Item 8, proposed vacation of the portion of the lower St. Johns River and Atlantic Coast map 21. Mr (Name) TADD KASBEER: … DAVID SANTIAGO: Motion to approve. TROY KENT: Thank you, motion to approve your Santiago. Seconded by Mr Reinhart. And I'll close -- I am sorry, I hereby close the public hearing now. Sorry about that, Legal. Any comment cards here? Counsel, we have a motion in favor of 8, say aye. We are under item number nine.… JAKE JOHANSSON: Like to make a motion to reappoint... He got dropped due to personal issues, he has resolved those issues and we have chatted once or twice and he is motivated to get back on the committee and do great work. He did grey work for us previously before his personal issues came up. And he is ready and willing to do some more. I will note that John worked with me in Port Orange on the environmental advisory committee and he and I often don't agree but that's why I want him on the board, I don't want bunch of the same thinking people. He is my pick. TROY KENT: OK, member Johansson has chosen (Name) is there a second? I'm going to give it to Rinehart. And Mr. Johansson, I will just say, one of my appointments with someone it was not a supporter of me was brutal towards me, but I like that that it was somebody that didn't think the way that I did. I can adhere to the way of thinking, think you for sharing that. Counsel, all those in favour of item 9 say aye. Anybody opposed say nay? Mr. Johansen, do you want to go first? JAKE JOHANSSON: I'd like to nominate Andrew Hall. Reappoint. DAVID SANTIAGO: I will nominate Chad T Lingenfelter. TROY KENT: Can one of you gentlemen so this is all cleaned up make the motion for both of those individuals. JAKE JOHANSSON: Like to make the motion to approve Andrew Hall and Chad T Lingenfelter. TROY KENT: All those in favour say aye? Anybody opposed with nay. You have it 6-0. And that is how we round out a meeting, gentlemen. Closing comments. We have a couple, we have two. Number one is John Nicholson. Thank you for hanging around this lake, Mr. Nicholson. You have three minutes. Use them wisely. SPEAKER: I often hang around late. A couple of things, one I like the historical photos you had when you pulled out the gentleman says he never flooded and then he had a picture of flooding. Often go to her place or did go for an all-you-can-eat and they had pictures of Daytona Beach and the beach. And it showed where the shoreline was. Everybody says they remember having the shoreline go out so far. I walked it, it was 450 feet. And low tide during the summer. It really hasn't shrunk, it just changed a little bit. Secondly, (Name) want me to comment at the city commission that his projects, his new projects didn't flood, because we have a problem in the Midtown flooding. We keep all of our water on our property. Our properties don't flood. If you raise it 5 feet, obviously, it's not going to flood. The neighbours will flood, which is what's happening. We as a county in Sydney change the rules back maybe 40 years ago to raise the properties so they wouldn't flood. Never thinking and never understanding that it would flood the neighbouring communities. If we can solve the problem ones about raising the property of all the new houses, we can solve this problem, it will just take some time and thinking outside the box. I remember historically Midtown raised all of their houses on cinderblocks so they were like three or 4 feet off the ground to start with so the floodwater went underneath. They decided in the 50s to start putting them flat on the ground and all those homes that sat flat on the ground flooded. Go figure. And lastly, when we did the parking garage at the ocean walk called the County Parking Garage. Counting the number of spaces that were there, there were 900 parking spaces that we were going to lose because we are putting in the parking garage. They wanted to build a parking garage with a thousand parking spaces. We would gain 100 parking spaces for taking 500 cars off the beach. For a theatre next door and for the Daytona Lagoon. We needed 1500 parking spaces and we were only going to build a thousand. It did not make sense. Then several years later we decided to expand the ocean Centre, and we were going to count the new expansion. TROY KENT: Thank you, Mr. Nicholson. Wendy Anderson... For second time this evening? SPEAKER: Thank you, yes I did stick around, I did have a few things to say in response to the flooding remarks at the beginning of the meeting. I needed to ponder them for a while and let you all do the rest of your meeting. I wanted to start pressing a lived in the neighbourhood that took a lot of heat tonight, I lived there for six years in Victoria Park. I was on the HOA board, I was also on the Masters association board before I stepped off of it after one month because I just couldn't stomach it anymore. In August, I moved out of the neighbourhood because I could not be a part of the problem anymore. I lived right across the street where had to look at JC's property every day. I watched the water rise up I moved in there just as the landing was built which the neighbourhood inside the neighbourhood this not the neighbourhood. That is supposed to make you chuckle but it's true, there is a neighbourhood in there this not as nice. These neighbourhoods have flooded that property. Yes there might have been standing water in there in 2000 3 Category 4 hurricanes in that photo that you showed your Santiago, but now it is a lake 365 days a year every year for six years. It's different now and those neighbourhoods did that. I watched it happen. That's all I'm going to say. Even though JC and others have been pretty aggressive in their commit occasion strategy about it. Poked a lot of bears about it. He is right, it's true. We are looking at recurrent events. We use this language of 500 year storms or this is a historic occasion or whatever, but we just did this two years ago. This is our new normal. I won't say the C word, but this is our new normal, whatever you call it. We need to start planning and designing policies that address our new normal. We can't keep doing what we are doing. They are doing good work but we are being actually conservative in our work because we know we have this counsel to present to that is going to be very cautious about making change. But I'm telling you, it is time for some aggressive change. I hope that our new lobbyists that are going to represent the County in Tallahassee will help us get support from our representatives in Tallahassee to have the freedom and the home rule and the right to make the changes in policy that help protect our residents in this county. That is really all I wanted to say, I really appreciative conversations you all of had tonight and I look forward to working with you in the future. Thank you. TROY KENT: Thank you, Miss Anderson. Closing comments. You never get a chance, and I never knew why they gave you or Suzanne a chance but you both are getting a chance tonight, any closing comments? That is a perfect,, thank you. Michael Dyer, closing comments? Suzanne, closing comments? Mr. George Recktenwald, closing comments? GEORGE RECKTENWALD: A few announcements. I encourage everyone in the public: Go to our Milton section on the website, there is a FEMA assistance, we also have Volusia County residence that are eligible for the Army cores program. We also will be talking about ship funding that will be available for qualified residents who need repairs. And then I would like to also say that this weekend Volusia County is organizing a community volunteer event to connect residents and businesses and organizations and churches local recovery efforts following Milton preparing volunteers with residents who need assistance with debris cleanup, tree removal and other tasks. We asked volunteers to arrive at 9 AM on Saturday, October 19 Volusia County 3100 Eastern New York Avenue in DeLand. Upon arrival participants will check in and complete necessary paperwork and receive safety briefing and be matched with opportunities based on their skills and community's needs. Also, just want to point out we have another event coming up at the ocean center on October 13. October 25 on Friday. 6:30 PM to celebrate the 120 for the anniversary at the ocean center with a pep rally concert featuring Pip Boy. Tickets are $25 and available at ticketmaster.com. I think Suzanne... SPEAKER: I wanted to add one point and this is for councilmembers who have been here... They can call the CIC and indicate the need help with tree trimming. We are looking for those missions because we are going to assign the mode to volunteer on Saturday. If you know of any residents who need volunteer help, it is important they call and get their name on that list for Saturday. There probably will be help after that but that is your first step and I wanted to make that comment. TROY KENT: Alright, is that all George? Before you start, Jake, want to publicly say thank you during the public comment portion. When you asked that we have staff put up the information that would help people even though there was a comment, somewhat of a snide comment, and I thought about it. I think that there were others who looked at it as helpful. I saw people writing it down and taking pictures. I think it makes us better, so thank you, Mr. Johansson. JAKE JOHANSSON: The reason that I gave a shout out to Holly earlier... When a councilmember closes the line, you don't talk to the guy the answers the phone, you talk to the supervisor pretty quick. But the phone was answered on the first ring and whoever answered the phone before they asked me what my name was was willing to help me get whatever services I needed. So I am a strong proponent of that number, that person has access to all of the people that sit or represent the EEOC to include our nonprofits, the Red Cross, the United Way. And tons of others. They are all sitting there and they all know where to go to get the service you need. I called the EEOC, I got a hold of the crisis cleanup team Maria Trent who got out to Magnolia Gardens and took care of a problem that I was trying to care of myself. My hat is off to the whole team. Tonight I have a bunch of items, but the first one was probably based on most of the comments that we heard earlier. I sympathize with everybody who is going through flooding issues, we currently have some friends living at our house at about 10 inches, I know they had 10 inches could be measured it. 10 inches of water in their entire home. And so, I saw firsthand again, first with Ian and now the problems that happen. I know there are problems out there. I will tell you what else I saw that was interesting. I was talking to George earlier, and I was in my vehicle and I saw water going from one property across the road into another property. Not owned by that person. And I was like so... If the guy whose property it was going into was sick of it and sold it to the developer who built one house or 20 houses or 30 houses, and had to raise the grade because that's what the building code calls for, then the water would probably not float over there anymore, and they would retain all the water over there and they would be happy. But the guy over here on this side now has to retain all of his water that was going over next door, which by the way, he was relatively empty of water the following day. It all went over the neighbors' house. I know overdevelopment is the big buzzword and being circulated in social media but I also believe there are other reasons why things like that happen. Not to mention the monumental epic storm that happens once every one or two years now. We do have to take a look at. I throw this warning out here. If we are going to try to mitigate a Milton type episode, we are not going to be doing a rollback, folks. Let me tell you that. Regardless of the federal. And state funding we get. Secondly, somebody from the public looked at the certain group of us with their steely eyes and talk about 4:3 votes for zoning and rezoning. And it wasn't you, John. So I went through and I did some light math while we were talking about some items. Rezoning, special exceptions and variances. As quick as I can tell, there were 52 of those that have been looked at during this councils time sitting up here. Of those, of those – and I may be one or two off – 41, 41! Have either been a 7:0 or a 6:0 vote. Four of them were 6:1. Three of them were 5:2. And three of them were at the dreaded 4:3 vote. So when you say that most of them work 4:3 votes, not the case. Must've them were 7:0. So when you look at us with a steely I — and Vice Chairman/acting chairman and when she did today — you are talking to us as a counsel. When we are sitting appear today, we are one person. One body. And I maybe one or two off, so if somebody comes back and says, "You are wrong! It was 40!" That is how I see it. Lastly, something completely off topic. A couple of weeks ago, before, I think it was between Helene and Milton, which is how my timeline works these days, got an official letter from (Name) asking us to entertain a request for amendment to land development code for billboard expansion at Lamar advertising. I briefly talk to George about this and he said that it is something we can look at, that we have looked at it before. I would like to ask that we entertain that on a Council meeting in the near future, where it fits. Where we can have a proper discussion about whether we want any advertising company to do billboard expansion. It will give us a little bit of revenue, but I am not sure whether we want to do it or not. But I would like to have that discussion. I would like to make a motion to bring back a request for land development code for billboard expansion. TROY KENT: What kind of timeline, two months? Three months? JAKE JOHANSSON: George, what works for you? GEORGE RECKTENWALD: Probably January. Even where we are at. JAKE JOHANSSON: No later than end of February. TROY KENT: OK we have a second in Mr Robbins. DAVID SANTIAGO: I am a strong know on it. The idea of this is I pollution. I see this in the cities everywhere and they are disgusting. That's just my opinion, so I will be voting no. JAKE JOHANSSON: That's fine, I just want us to have a healthy discussion. I want to be clear, I don't know if it is important to me. I want to have staff look at it and have a discussion. TROY KENT: Got it. DAVID SANTIAGO: And it's important for me not to bring it. TROY KENT: I don't believe it. Thank you. So we have a motion and a second to bring more advertising back in before February the All those in favor, say, "Aye".? All those not in favor, say, "Nay"? It is 5:1 to bring it back. So it is coming back for us. Mr Robbins? DANNY ROBINS: I want to give thanks out today to staff for providing the event. You heard a lot of Public Comment and the same comments about our fire services and law enforcement and whatnot. I personally want to thank Michael Ryan. Your resource for me to call, and I appreciate that as well as Clint – is he here now? We had an issue with the local that clinic. Clint was on top of it, making phone calls, putting me in contact with the right people, as did everybody.… Thank you very much for picking up the phone call. We had the event at the greater new Zion Baptist Church on Martin Luther King in Midtown. Several of the councilmembers were there to assist. He promised and you showed up and you delivered. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. Right, I didn't want to review, for me today. I appreciate everybody's help. Thank you. And David, thank you and you know what for. TROY KENT: Thank you, Mr Robins? DANNY ROBINS: Thank you. I'd like to echo a lot of what Jake and Matt have said. Ben and his team at public works, can't say enough about you guys will stop you worthy (indiscernible) through this whole thing. It took a lot of your guys working sometimes and just deep water cleaning out. A lot of debris and some of the, if you: vendors, but some of the folks that were helping us out get some trees off the power lines and whatnot. (Technical troubleshooting) also everyone in District 3. I'm going to be sending out an email to staff. I have been hearing a lot today, and I am not pandering over some things that have developed at Edgewater and in Southeast Volusia. I'm going to try to craft a policy when it comes to development standards, and also to stormwater standards. It is too much to get into now. I still have research to do. I will get it out to staff to see if there is consensus to get it on the agenda and whatnot. Other than that, thank you all for volunteering and getting other community. I saw just about everybody working for and people is that stuff. So, guys. It is a team effort. Thanks. TROY KENT: Mr Santiago. DAVID SANTIAGO: I'm going to get to go find me account for Ted to get him an weed Wacker. I'm taking donations today. (Laughter) DAVID SANTIAGO: I just wanted to say I appreciate the closing comments and I want to add to the commentary. First, let me go back to the… That was shown and maybe because the person came on aggressive and made personal attacks, but didn't provide the facts. We needed the facts, we need accurate information. It is clear when we need to do something. The state needs to do something. This is not just Volusia issue, right? And I want to take a factual approach because, I am not an engineer. A lot of people become engineers when things happen, but we can do that. I won't do that. I have to go with this from a scientific information, so that we make the best decision. Maybe that is we are calling the 1/100 and the 1/500… Maybe they are the 1/25 or the 1/10. We have to figure out what the standard is the change or development patterns to adjust tonight. I'm open to that. … But when we are fanning the flames and spreading false information and driving a pitchfork and knife mentality, that does not help the narrative. We have to go to a fact-based. I appreciate your comments and I think that not enough, those that sometimes and the flames don't really share what we have been doing because we have been doing a lot of work. I keep sharing the 36%, 50 goal. That is not shared with individuals that rally to come here. Which I appreciate the information, we have to give people factual information and then let them share it from there. So counsel, I think, is committed to this from a factual approach was to a reasonable approach to make sure that we do it right. Thank you, thank you Mr Chair, I am done.… (Laughter) DON DEMPSEY: I know I told Ben earlier, but I was really impressed. I went out through Taylor for Milton came and I noticed the county already have the funds going, they were already pre-draining everything. I mean, you guys were really proactive in this. And I think that is commendable. It was a big pun, too, I think it was throwing out water, doing his job. So that was great. Doctor Anderson, I appreciate you being stop I really appreciate ENRAC and what you guys do. You are highly skilled professionals giving is invaluable advice, which I think is very commendable. David, like I was telling you and kind of going into that 4:3 thing that Jake pulled out, this is something that we have inherited. All this stuff was done wrong before we were a body, so I just hope nobody is mad at us. I don't think it is any particular people's fault, and I don't think we are the reason for this flooding. I mean, it is probably unfair to say 4-3. I understand why it is not the proper way of putting it, but we are left to clean up from prior, prior cities. Whoever is to blame, I have no idea. There was always a flooding problem. This is something we have inherited, I think. I don't think it's a result of 4 people or anything like that. I think it is just about how we solve it, how we do it. Still, I don't know. It's a mess. I think we all have the same goal to fix it. And that's it. I appreciate you guys. TROY KENT: Thank you, Mr Dempsey. In closing out tonight, George, I have said it before and I will say it again my opinion. But one of your best attributes is that you know how to not only surround yourself with hard-working, dedicated, good people, but you promote — she seemed to be promoting the right people to elevate to the position and the need. And the storm just showcased it, yet again, from a perspective of Volusia County. Even with the epic failures of flooding, which Don I couldn't agree with you more. Which, if you are going to blame people, I do not think you can blame the selected body. And for the guy who sat on the commission in Ormond for 19 years, our growth rate was 1% or less every year. Fact check it. So, your team, George, for them to not only be able to get out there and do the job they did but to be prepared today with video footage and drone footage during the event, and the aftermath, to have that ready for us. That is next level for me. I had no idea you had that part of the presentation being here. Thank you for that. Is Sheldon Gardner, from the news Journal? I know it is your job to write about what is going on in local government, like the a lot of reporters every now and then and they can watch it online. They can go and type it all up tomorrow. But you show up and you sit here and I'm appreciated that. Last but not least, I think we as an elected body need to talk about a multipronged approach to address the flooding that is happening in Volusia County. David, you are right this is not just a Volusia County issue. This is a cities in Volusia County is new, this is a state issue and I believe we can get some help from the feds. Because not only do we need to make sure the ditches are cleaned and we are pumping water levels down before the storms, but those low-lying areas that flood whenever you spit on the ground, there is a plan to purchase those homes and turn that into some type of retention. So, it is a multipronged approach but if we do not do it, who will? Thank you all for being kind to me today for running this meeting. I got the phone call around 11 AM that the chair was not going to be here. He is not one to miss a meeting, so I hope he recovers pretty quickly. To my wife and my son I love you both, thank you for watching. What movie is this from, "Yo Adrian, this is for my kid who should be in bed."… It's from Rocky four!… (End of meeting, 10:06 PM ET)