>>CHAIR BROWER:  If everyone wants to find a seat we will get 
started in just a few seconds.  Okay, we will call the February 
17 2026 Volusia County Council meeting to order at 4:01.  We are 
glad you are here.  In just a minute I'm going to ask you to 
stand for an invocation and Pledge of Allegiance.  You can stand 
if you care to, it's not required, I hope you will and if you are 
part of a faith group who would like to participate in the 
invocation, please just send an email to K Green, the letter k, 
kgreen@volusia.org and she will get you set up, all faith groups 
are invited and welcomed.  Today we will have, you don't have to 
come up yet but the Reverend Alex Williams with the DeLand Church 
of the Nazarene in Deland for an invocation.  Alex, are you here? 
 I can't see him in the front row.  You are the one I accused of 
being a troublemaker.  We will have the invocation, please stand 
with me.  

>>  Thank you, it's an honor to be here.  God, you are full of 
all authority, all wisdom and all power is yours.  We are asking 
tonight you would impart some of your wisdom on us as we make 
decisions for our county Lord, you care about these people, these 
are your people, you care about these proceedings tonight and we 
ask for unity among this meeting tonight Lord, we pray for peace 
to come in, the peace of Christ to calm all fears, all confusion. 
 We pray this meeting would most importantly be about the common 
good of all citizens in this county Lord Jesus.  You are supreme, 
you are on the throne and we give you the glory and all the honor 
and all the praise is due your name.  Once again Jesus put your 
peace in this place tonight.  Bring your presence so we can make 
the best decisions for your people, in the name of Jesus we pray 
amen.  

>>  I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of 
America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under 
God indivisible with liberty and justice for all.  

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Okay and we always start our meetings after the 
invocation and pledge with public participation so when I call 
your name.

>>CLERK:  Mr. chair I need to do the roll call.

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Okay, Clarissa would you like to call the roll 
please?  

>>COUNCIL MEMBER DEMPSEY:  

>>COUNCIL MEMBER JOHANSSON:  Here.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER KENT:  Here.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER REINHART:  Here.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER ROBINS:  Here.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER SANTIAGO:  Here.

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Here.  And everyone is here.  Okay, when I call 
your name please come up to the podium.  There is a button on the 
side of the podium that will make it go up and down.  We need the 
microphone near your mouth so everyone can hear me and it will be 
broadcast to millions.  You have three minutes to speak on 
anything that pertains to the county, something we might be able 
to act on in the future.  So you are welcome to do that and I 
would ask you choose to be respectful in your language to the 
public and to those listening.  You can say anything you want to 
us, we ran for this.  We can take it but please be respectful for 
the people that are listening online when you choose your 
language.  First up I know but nobody wants to be first and also 
when you come up tell us where you're from.  You don't have to 
give your whole address for reasons of safety but let us know 
what part of the county you are from so your representative 
knows.  First we have Mary Dickinson.  

>>PUBLIC SPEAKER:  My name is Mary Dickinson and I live on Marsh 
Road and I have two things to say and I'm going to say it now.  
Under state law the weight limit on our substandard road is 
10,500 pounds which equals 5.25 tons.  Put our weight limit signs 
backup.  You all took them down for your convenience.  Repair our 
roads.  And the highlands you have caused damage to.  Move all 
utilities to your 5 foot easement.  You have caused a lot of 
ground movement and detriment in our homes.  The next is the 
seven cents a gallon gas tax is an illegal tax.  As of 2005.  
Rescind the tax now.  You have used taxpayer funds to do beach 
restoration that were allocated to pave every dirt road in 
Volusia County by 2005.  You have kept renewing this tax and now 
you've just renewed it again and the dirt roads are still dirt.  
Thank you.  

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Thank you for your comments.  Justin Sandusky.  

>>PUBLIC SPEAKER:  Good afternoon counsel, my name is Justin 
Sandusky off Marsh Road and I'm here today because our 
residential neighborhood is being used as an unintended 
industrial bypass corridor, specifically along Marsh Road and old 
Daytona, these roads were never designated to handle the 
commercial traffic we are experiencing.  Marsh Road is 
approximately 20 foot wide with 10 foot lanes, old Daytona even 
narrower at 18 foot wide with 9 foot lanes and when large dump 
trucks travel these roads they are forced to ride the centerline 
to remain on pavement this creates a daily safety hazard or blind 
headquarters especially near the golf facility on Marsh Road.  
Passenger vehicles are forced to come to a stop or pull off the 
road entirely to allow these trucks to pass.  This is not a 
congestion problem, it is a roadway geometry problem that makes 
safety wave travel difficult when trucks are present.  The level 
of traffic it was not how marsh Road was operated, when I moved 
it was a troubled one, the escalation is a recent development 
that's occurred over the last 3 to 4 years and I have direct 
visibility into this activity through camera coverage along Marsh 
Road and old Daytona been able to observe cut through traffic 
patterns that these trucks are not making local deliveries, they 
are using our neighborhood to bypass traffic control while 
traveling between your coroners and functionally our roads are 
treated like an extension of an industrial route without the 
infrastructure to support that use.  This occurs at all hours 
including 234 and 5:00 a.m., type vibration is strong enough to 
rattle homes, not just a nuisance they are causing physical 
impacts.  Many neighborhoods sit close to the roadway because 
it's a residential development not engineered for truck traffic, 
residents are observing cracks with truck volume, we have 
cyclists children and experienced drivers in the neighborhood, 
some residents are hesitant to back into their own driveways 
because of speeding traffic on their residential road.  Looking 
ahead we are concerned about the future diversion with the signal 
plans for the 92 intersection there is a strong likelihood more 
commercial vehicles will bypass the lien since there are multiple 
entries through the land highlands and we are asking the Council 
for targeted relief first implement weight restrictions to 
prohibit through truck traffic on Marsh Road and old Daytona rig 
Road and second install traffic calming measures such as multi 
way stop control and third post no through truck signage and 
industrial traffic should be redirected to appropriate corridors 
such as Edison Drive.  Residents have raised concerns without 
resolution and we are asking for intervention now before serious 
accident or further property damage occurs on our residential 
corridors, thank you for your time and consideration.

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Thank you, John Nicholson.

>>PUBLIC SPEAKER:  John Nicholson, Daytona Beach Beachside, 
actually I remember voting for that but I don't recall it being 
for dirt roads only so if you would mind looking at that, if what 
she says is true we have to deal with it so if you could ask and 
find out.  Secondly, there was an article in today's paper about 
Seminole creating 720, yeah, 1702 feet² indoor facility for 
tourism.  I know we are talking about doing something like that 
in Daytona Beach.  We've paid a consultant to look into it.  
You're also looking at giving money to orange city to help out 
Stanford so Sanford tourism industry could flourish.  I don't 
think it's our purview to help Sanford at the cost of our own 
city so I wish you would look at that.  Third, it's on I think 
your consent agenda wants to donate a Vietnam wall to city 
Island.  I wish you would pass that, I think it's a great idea 
that she came to the city of Daytona Beach two weeks ago, I wish 
you would pass that like seven up.  The Ocean Center hired a 
consultant for what Troy Kent is hoping to have to entertainment 
at the Ocean Center, could we expand that to help all our cities? 
 If there's something that could go in the Athens theater if 
something pops up in his bailiwick that could help the Athens why 
not help the Athens?  If we could look at the idea of helping the 
county per se rather than just the Ocean Center because 
apparently this gentleman has far reaching ability to contact all 
kinds of people and all kinds of venues so if he could help all 
our venues it would be helpful.  Lastly I don't know if you've 
been down A1A in Daytona Beach and if you think Armand had a hard 
time you should look at our area.  All the trees are down and now 
we have 200 signs instead of trees.  They just redid the section 
of the peninsula by the Coptic church.  They put a cement barrier 
in the middle-of-the-road so you climb down Seabreeze and all of 
a sudden 3 feet out from the side you have a 12 foot lane and 4 
feet of it has a barrier right there so you have to curve to your 
left and back to your right because there's a curve in the road 
and those people are going to come around and all of a sudden 
they will have traffic in their lane and they have to curve to 
the right so this idea of curbing back and forth please look into 
DOT.

>>CHAIR BROWER:  And Marie will occur.  Can somebody help her 
drop that?  No, she doesn't need any help.  Good deal.

>>PUBLIC SPEAKER:  Good evening, Anne-Marie will occur, I live in 
Deland and I am a regular user of the trail between Gemini 
Springs and Osteen.  So imagine my surprise when 4 miles into a 
12 mile run Saturday I encountered eight new illegally installed 
billiards in Deltona.  Not only are these the most dangerous 
style of bollards for cyclists they are not in compliance with 
the Americans with disability act, a federal law that's existed 
for 36 years can be found with a basic Google search.  These 
openings fall 5 to 7 inches short of the ADA minimum clearance 
and 17 to 19 inches short of the FDOT design standard minimums.  
Photos on the copy of the Justice Department ADA complaint filed 
against Volusia County is with Clarissa and while I was relieved 
to hear this mourning the issue may be addressed soon this should 
have never happened in the first place.  This is 2026 and we 
should not still be discovering accessibility barriers after the 
concrete drives.  This does not just affect people who look like 
me.  In the 20 minutes I spent documenting the site for cyclists 
had to dismount because their handlebars would not fit.  Two 
recumbent writers had to lift their bikes over the barriers and a 
mother with a jogging stroller turned around and went home 
because she could not safely carry her children stroller over the 
barriers on the side of a busy road and in Volusia County 12% of 
residents have a mobility related disability, 25.7 are over the 
age of 65 and 22.7% of households have children.  These barriers 
deny access to people not just disabilities but families with 
strollers and anyone using adaptive equipment.  These barriers 
block all of them while also creating a safety hazard while 
forcing cyclists to thread a needle made of concrete.  These are 
your constituents and right now they're being told the trail is 
no longer for them.  These barriers block emergency response, the 
spacing is too narrow for rescue bikes and equipment that is 
routinely used on trails when you install obstacles that first 
responders cannot pass through you are not improving safety my 
questions are simple.  How did it a noncompliant design get 
installed on a regional trail?  Why are we fixing things that 
should have been compliant before they were installed?  What is 
the timeline for full correction will end what safeguards will be 
put in place so we don't have to file a new complaint every time 
concrete is poured?  Equal access is not a special request, it is 
the law.  I look forward to your answer and to you returning this 
public trail to public access.  

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Thank you for your comments.  Rosemarie Latham.  


>>PUBLIC SPEAKER:  Good afternoon chair Brower and 
councilmembers, Rosemarie Latham, I live in the land with the ZIP 
Code 32720.  I'm a member of the Board of Directors and cochair 
of the legislative committee of the Northwest Volusia Democratic 
club.  All politics is local.  The goal of our legislative 
committee is to attend meetings of the County Counsel, the school 
board, city commission, the various town councils in order to 
learn firsthand what is happening in our community.  We report 
back to our membership to keep them aware of the decisions made 
by those entities.  And how these decisions directly affect each 
individual.  This is one way to assist our membership in 
decision-making when it comes time to vote for the membership of 
these entities.  This year being an election year, one of our 
focuses will be ensuring free and fair elections and the safety 
of all citizens participating in their right to vote.  Susan B 
Anthony said the right to vote is the right upon which all our 
rights depend.  The right to vote must never depend on 
convenience, politics or circumstance.  It must be guaranteed, 
protected and honored.  Each of you since in your seat because 
people were able to exercise their right to vote.  What is the 
motivation behind placing barriers against any individual's right 
to vote?  Is there concern about the results if all qualified 
citizens were to exercise this right?  Thank you very much.  

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Thank you for your comments.  Zoltan Caracus?  
You can correct me when you get up here.

>>PUBLIC SPEAKER:  Good afternoon everyone.  My name is Zoltan 
Caracus and with my wife we own Daytona short shop on Speedway 
Boulevard beach approach for the past 35 years.  I respect and 
appreciate the purpose of the $20 beach parking fee for 
non-County residents.  However I regularly observe vehicles 
approach their intent to park and after seeing the fee they 
immediately turn around and leave.  Many of these visitors are 
not planning to stay all day.  They simply want to see the ocean 
briefly, take a photo or visit the nearby businesses.  When they 
turn away the county receives no revenue.  Local businesses 
receive no customers and visitors leave without experiencing our 
beautiful beach.  I respectfully suggest exploring a short term 
parking option in addition to the current $20 daily parking fee.  
Perhaps a 30 minute option at the rate of our counsel decision.  
Maybe three dollars, five dollars.  Offering both short-term and 
full-term options could increase participation and create 
additional revenue for the county.  These are also times when 
conditions for sunbathing are not ideal such as early morning 
hours from 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. or after 5:00 p.m. until 11:00 
p.m.. During this time short-term parking would be especially 
valuable.  Since payment is already handled digitally by cell 
phone implementation may require only minor software programming 
adjustments and updated signage to include the 30 minutes option. 
 This could be a practical, low cost enhancement.  This can be a 
win-win situation for the county, tourists and businesses along 
the beach approach.  Additionally I have have observed some beach 
tenants parked on the approach instead of using the reserve beach 
parking on the beach.  Prioritization of this space could also 
generate additional revenue for the county.  I offer these 
comments in the spirit of collaboration and balance, seeking 
solutions that benefits the county, local businesses and our 
visitors.  Thank you for your time and consideration.

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Thank you for your comments.  Jeff Hearn.  

>>PUBLIC SPEAKER:  Thank you for giving me the opportunity to 
speak.  I don't see my representative, I live in Edgewater but am 
originally from Palm Beach.  I was looking for somebody much 
younger.  I am a business owner in Volusia County and I have 
several clients, HOA board members, condo associations.  Property 
management companies and have a hard time hiring people because 
it's such a hard business to get into and the only people that 
get into the business generally have drug and alcohol issues.  
Being from Palm Beach County Judge Mary Lupo which I would 
encourage everybody to research and look into doctoral program 
called the Palm Beach County Sheriff's truck fund.  I was a 
participant in that for Turk teen months and it changed my life 
forever, my 19 and 20 years.  I wrote some pamphlets are not 
going to have time to go through but I encourage you guys to take 
a look at those that goes into a lot more detailed explanation of 
what I see as a problem with law enforcement policing drug 
addiction alcoholism being that they Daytona international 
Speedway grosses close to $1 billion a year I don't see why that 
alone couldn't fund something like this, the homeless shelter 
costs from the jail could be utilized.  All these programs.  They 
can both incorporate some of these strategies this program in 
Palm Beach County used and maybe clean up the streets and get 
some of the homeless off the streets, get people the help they 
need and it's important to me because I do all my work by myself. 
 I have no one that wants to work where I can trust.  So I'm 
hoping that Volusia County combined with Daytona revenue can get 
together with Judge Mary Lupo somehow and discuss it and maybe 
start some sort of program particularly at that homeless shelter 
because that's the perfect building for it to run, thank you for 
your time.

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Thank you Jeff, could you make sure the clerk 
gets those and she will make sure we each get a copy, thank you 
very much.  Kathy Thompson.  

>>PUBLIC SPEAKER:  I return yet again with hope and optimism that 
this time you will honor your stated commitment to the arts and 
cultural organizations that inspired people like me to move year 
and remain here so far.  That promotes tourism and a quality of 
life factor for all our residents and offers a return on your 
investment on at least a two to one basis.  I'm going to continue 
to repeat this, we are not charities until you stop telling us we 
are somehow charities.  None of us have a charitable mission.  We 
are nonprofit businesses.  We support the arts through education 
exhibits, live performances.  We have been in the past in a 
private public partnership with you and we carried the majority 
of the expense for our facilities in what we do.  Good faith, we 
listened, worked hard with you to revise the criteria and focus 
of the grants.  We spent long hours rewriting them to your stated 
requirements.  You approved by a vote of 6 to 13 year process 
with a caveat you could alter the criteria for future years so 
once again, honor your commitment.  Honor your approval from last 
spring.  Honor that vote and approve the funding as recommended.  
Thank you.  

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Thank you for your comments, Greg Gimbert.  

>>PUBLIC SPEAKER:  Greg Gimbert, Daytona Beach, glad to see you 
all tonight.  I want to bring you some reports from the field, 
the city of Deltona the city of Daytona, significant things 
happened you might want to bear in mind as you're making 
decisions tonight starting with Deltona where it's been like 
hiding AP what they're doing with their aquifer injection plan 
and a bunch came out last night.  If you haven't seen it that's 
too bad because they pulled the curtain back and we've got river 
water were going to treat the sewage water we are going to treat 
the sewage water and will treat what Mr. Johansson educated us 
before is effluent and to put that in part of the aquifer where 
it's never going to escape and it's going to be fine and then 
there's river water they will take and treat that to a drinking 
water standard and put that into a different part of the aquifer 
where they get their drinking water from.  And it has a heckuva 
thing, somebody asks one of the important questions, if it's to a 
drinking water standard why don't we just drink it?  Boy did I 
not see the answer to that comment.  It was this real pregnant 
pause and the utilities director had to say uncomfortably you 
don't want to drink that.  You don't want to drink it.  And there 
it is.  It's sewage is sewage, it's just over the line where it 
won't kill you, minimum standards and in emergencies if you're 
desperate so there's big takeaways from that, number one is God 
bless America it's here, it's been all over the place tooting it 
in and they can't hide it from Deltona no more.  That 
Commissioner that asked that hard question why don't we just put 
it in the aquifer in the face that drinking water standard that 
drinking water does not really drinking water and it's dangerous 
to put it in the aquifer and I hate to keep going back to Covid 
but comparing the science like comparing Covid science, I was 
worried about what it was going to do to the kids drinking this 
long-term but it took seeing these people in the room behind me 
to remember what it's going to do to seniors they are more 
compromised than anyone else so anyway, in Daytona on the other 
hand who's done everything to pass any restraints to try to 
satiate certain interests has run off everything but the last of 
our visitors and one of them got his throat slashed on Daytona 
Beach boardwalk area, 13-year-old boy during the Daytona 500 week 
somebody slashed his throat for no good reason at all and that's 
Daytona Beach on the 500 weekend so we've got to start making new 
decisions around here, let's talk about that more later tonight, 
thank you.  

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Lloyd Bowers.  

>>PUBLIC SPEAKER:  Good afternoon Chairman Brower, members of the 
Council, Lloyd Bowers and I am a beachside resident and 
councilman Reinhart's district.  I stand before you today not 
just as a supporter of the arts as a citizen concerned with the 
integrity of our local governments commitments.  I'm here to urge 
you again to reconsider the decision to withhold cultural funding 
for the year, funding that was already vetted ranked and approved 
through established cultural Council grant process, a process 
approved by you February 18, 2025 now ironically one year ago.  
When the County Counsel established the grant program sets 
rigorous criteria and asks nonprofits to spend multiple hours 
applying you created a covenant with the community.  By 
unilaterally withholding these funds for this year after the work 
had been done and recommendations made you're not just cutting a 
line, you are eroding public trust.  To pull the rug out now 
tells every volunteer and educator a commitment from this counsel 
is subject to change without notice.  To understand why this is 
vital consistency especially I want to give you an example of 
something I helped start 12 years ago, the Peabody Auditorium 
foundation as one of the programs we did it's the youth plus art 
equals success which brings every year live professional filled 
children's theater into our public schools free of charge.  As a 
fundraiser for that we started a Mardi Gras party, I'm a 
transplanted new Orleanians today is Mardi Gras, happy Mardi Gras 
but it's taken us 10 years to get that party going to the point 
where it sufficiently funds separately the Youth Plus Art Equals 
Euccess program, it finally is at that level but it didn't happen 
overnight, it took 10 years.  I give you this example because it 
provides cultural impact is not an instant return, it's a 
long-term investment.  When you approve the grant program you 
stressed the need of our cultural organizations to become more 
self reliant and when you interrupted funding of the grant cycle 
you did not just pause a check you built the momentum of programs 
in place and in some instances canceled.  At the last County 
Council meeting you heard from the Air Force Museum at the Deland 
airport, they had to cancel the Tuskegee exhibition as it was 
funded by the grant they were anticipating receiving which the 
cultural Council had scored for them.  Volusia County 
schoolchildren lost the opportunity to learn about this important 
chapter in our history solely because of the grants approved by 
the cultural Council were not funded.  The cultural Council did 
its job.  It review the applications identify the programs that 
made Volusia County a place where people like me want to live and 
raise families.  I ask you today honor your promise, restore 
cultural funding for the current year.  

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Thank you for your comments Lloyd, Susie Peace.  


>>PUBLIC SPEAKER:  Susie Peace Deland, 32724 here again with a 
negative.  I don't understand why you are not honoring the voters 
decision which was to fund all the arts and also this is a poster 
I held at the corner of New York Avenue and Woodland Boulevard in 
2020.  I happened to find it behind a cabinet in my house.  It 
says vote yes for Volusia forever preserving outdoors and 
wildlife and to be voted yes and I wanted to ask you how did you 
vote?  How did you vote, did you vote yes for this?  Would you 
raise your hand?  Nobody voted yes for this?  Now why would you 
want to cancel it?  Anyway I'm just saying voting is all right 
and it's an honor to vote and it's an honor when your government 
stands up for what the voters want.  So I'm being kind of hard on 
you today but I have no other choice.  Thank you for your 
well-meaning but not doing what needs to be corrected, thank you.

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Thank you for your comments Susie.  Gabriel 
Perez.  

>>PUBLIC SPEAKER:  My name is Gabriel Perez and I live in Deland 
Florida, I live on Marsh Road, didn't know that was a topic.  I 
wasn't coming to speak about this.  I do have the white lines on 
the side of my road, I didn't know that was from heavy traffic.  
So I came to speak about the port Volusia issue that they were 
speaking of earlier, Zoe corrected this.  We have a big problem 
there where tenants are leaving from the property, we own the 
property.  Nobody can shop at their stores, nobody can afford to 
pay $20 for parking and $20 for a slice of pizza.  He's having a 
problem with T-shirts and we are having problems with Nathan's 
hot dogs as well.  We have a apartment on top of that property 
nobody can park at, they can't stay overnight in those spots.  I 
don't know what can be done as far as the lease problem, I think 
short-term is a good idea.  As far as upstairs maybe we can allow 
overnight parking for the residents of the apartment.  It's 
directly across the street from the property.  Thank you for your 
time.  

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Thank you for coming in.  Julia Travillo.  

>>PUBLIC SPEAKER:  Good afternoon gentlemen, Julia Travillo, 
Daytona Beach.  I'm here in my Volusia County cultural alliance 
hat.  So many times during your last meeting I heard members of 
this board speak and say if it ain't broke, don't fix it.  If it 
ain't broke, don't fix it.  I heard it over and over again.  Yet 
this counsel continues to break one of the systems it has that's 
been functioning for nearly 40 years.  We've told you time and 
again what it is the county receives from the arts community 
quality-of-life improvements, tourism, additional educational 
opportunities and of course tax revenue.  But let me remind you 
what you are breaking when you hold this year's all arts and 
cultural funding hostage.  Last meeting you heard from the Deland 
Naval Air Station who had to cancel the visit of a historic 
Tuskegee airplane that would have provided free educational 
experiences for 5000 schoolchildren.  The Harlan's Canal in new 
Smyrna Beach has had to cut it's all on the grow program that 
serves seniors, children, veterans by 30%.  If you examine each 
of the 32 programs that are being funded through the cultural 
grant you will find every one of them as had to pull back 
programs they have scheduled but cannot accomplish without your 
partnership.  We continue to lose events, scholarships, outreach 
programs each day that passes.  The fiscal year is almost halfway 
over and you still have not released the money.  Please deliver 
these funds as you have promised.  The people of this county want 
and need these programs.  Thank you.  

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Thank you for your comments, Pat Miles.  

>>PUBLIC SPEAKER:  Good evening Chairman Brower and esteemed 
councilmen, I am Trish Miles, I live in Port Orange Florida.  I 
am here course for the continued funding for the arts but I want 
to give you a brief history.  In 1999 Florida artist Christopher 
Still was commissioned by the House Speaker Thrasher to paint a 
series of 10 murals on the renovation of the house of 
representatives chapter in Tallahassee.  These murals are huge 
and encircled the entire camera area.  He is a Florida native, 
his father taught history at a local high school and his 
grandfather and great-grandfather were all farmers.  He's a very 
accomplished artist, you won scholarships to prestigious art 
schools and fellowships including studying at the Vatican where 
he was trained in Renaissance art.  If you go to Tallahassee to 
the house chambers you can see those murals when they are not in 
session, they are a sight to behold.  Because this man has 
researched and done these beautiful compositions that depict the 
different eras of our Florida history.  Upon completion of the 
murals a group of us were pulled together by Doctor June 
Hinckley, Mary Palmer and Susan Rostov, these are all arts people 
in Tallahassee to produce a magnificent book and a DVD that 
provided a complete multidisciplined curriculum or the entire 
mural project.  The project was called Our Florida Legacy and it 
was a marvelous compilation of work.  We were given the 
opportunity to share these DVDs and books with the entire state 
of Florida and public education and I was honored to write the 
visual arts part of that curriculum.  So that meant my kids at 
Deland high school at the time were the ones that got the benefit 
the most from that opportunity.  They had promised they would pay 
for these 10 murals.  He took it upon himself to complete the 10 
murals, they are magnificent.  I wonder how things are going now 
up there but each mural showed the promise of each generation to 
learn from the past and accomplish in the present what might best 
serve future generations, to seek balance where growth diversity 
and opportunity can best benefit all the state and its people.  
So these students now are here in Deland.  I see them often.  
They asked me about the funding promised here and I tell them 
that they need to come and you guys to let you know of course 
there raising their families right now.  Please gentlemen, please 
approve the funding for the arts, thank you.

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Thank you for your comments and last speaker for 
the first public comment is Gary Singleton.  

>>PUBLIC SPEAKER:  My name is Gary Singleton, a Volusia County 
resident.  My opening comment tonight would be on the use of the 
shiny object.  A common practice in political theater.  Hold a 
shiny object of fear, diverged our attention away from vital 
issues over there.  To pass a feel-good ordinance or charter 
amendment in no way addresses the real issue at hand.  No 
curriculum required, no hard questions, no unpopular answers, no 
actual work.  Just type it up, vote it in and spend your time 
congratulating yourselves on a job well done all while secretly 
being satisfied the most urgent issues facing Volusia County 
citizens made in the dark, unexamined and unaddressed.  

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Thank you for your comments and counsel on your 
behalf I'm going to make a comment before we go on.  Just as part 
of our rules we don't respond to people when they talk for time 
efficiency, however because of constituent proficiency and the 
fact that we all represent you, what some of you didn't see but 
nobody watching us can see is a lot of the people that speak here 
are held before they leave the standard by the staff member who 
interacts with whatever their issue is.  The rest will hear from 
many of us.  Several of us or some of us so it's sometimes 
uncomfortable to listen look like you're just ignoring what is 
said, we don't ignore it so counsel, thank you for letting me say 
that.  Okay, we will move to item 1, approval of the agenda, can 
I get a motion to approve the agenda as presented.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER REINHART:  Motion to approve.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER JOHANSSON:  Second, Johansson.

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Made by Reinhart and second by Councilman 
Johansson, any questions, all in favor say aye.  Any opposed.  
The agenda is approved 7 to 0 which moves us to the second item 
on the agenda which is the consent agenda, does any Council 
member have an item they would like to pull for a vote, 
Councilman Dempsey.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER DEMPSEY:  Queue Québec for discussion.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER ROBINS:  Motion to approve consent agenda.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER REINHART:  Second.

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Motion to approve the agenda by Councilman 
Robins and second was by Matt Reinhart.  All in favor of the 
items on the agenda please say aye.  Any opposed.  The agenda is 
approved 7 to 0. We will discuss item Q. and item Q is son trail 
agreement with FDOT.  Did you need Brad?  Brad can you come down. 
 Not that he doesn't want to hear from you.  

>>  He uses too many big words, I don't know.  

>>  This is in your department.  I don't know if you want to make 
a presentation first.

>>  Go to the question.

>>  This is the grant agreement.

>>  I'm sorry, I thought he was going to ask the question, Don 
had a question.

>>  I thought it was discussion.

>>  You can hear the quick presentation and I will ask Doctor 
Burbaugh.

>>  Lots of times will able to qualify the trail system for 
construction, get funds from the DoD through their son trail 
grant and as a part of that we get a grant awarded that's usually 
for multiple phases, design, right-of-way or construction.  Each 
time we go through a different phase we have to update the grant 
based on the amounts that's what this is, this is the section 
from 44 up to the north.  Cuts five at 711 through the, what will 
be potentially that Woodruff development and to the west of the 
dump and tie in ultimately to grand Avenue.

>>  Could I ask Doctor Burbaugh a quick question?  This is for 
productivity to the rest of the rail systems.  Actually trail 
system, I'm used to rails for trails but how much do we have in 
paved trails in Volusia County right now?  

>>  Paved trails, sorry, I'm trying to find the email I 
apologize.  So right now we have close to 200 miles of paved 
trails.

>>  Asphalt?  

>>  Yes, sir. Sections of concrete.

>>  How many males of this 200 mile trail goes through the 
wildlife corridor and wetlands.

>>  31 miles, goes to the wildlife corridor.  

>>  Have we received any complaints from the public about us 
extending more asphalt roads?  Through our wildlife.

>>  Not since I've been in the seat.

>>  And how much have we spent in total?  

>>  The set-aside total.

>>  We are working on that.  Parks and Recreation culture 
director.  We are working on that yesterday.  Let me get you the 
exact number because we are still working through the total, the 
question was how much have we collected in son trail and how much 
have we expended in trail development.  To get my hands on it 
later in the evening, I will get back to you.

>>  Appreciate the effort guys, that's all.

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Good job.  

>>  Just for discussion, for the record I am not opposed to this, 
I think it's great, it's wonderful we are providing outdoor 
recreational activities for the public and for their benefit.  I 
think it's great we've offered 200 miles to the public.  I just 
want to highlight the fact of the 200 miles of asphalt paved 
road, that's going through the wildlife, 30 miles of which goes 
through wetlands and wildlife corridor and I've heard no 
opposition to this and I would like to make note of that and I 
appreciate your time everybody, thank you.

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Thank you.  

>>  Tim Bailey again.  We collected $22,510,339 in echo.  We 
expended 18,000,714 522.  That's for echo set-aside.  18 714522.  
That spend is only our portion though.

>>  You'd like to get to the bottom.

>>  Son trail money, all that, we use that as leverage to build 
trails.  

>>  I don't want to put words in your mouth.  

>>  To refresh my memory from previous meetings these trails 
involve putting a potentially 30 foot wide path through the 
wildlife corridor and a 12 foot wide paved asphalt road.  

>>  Let me elaborate on that question.  So the east west or east 
central trail which is from Green Springs East to Brevard County 
line and North to cow Creek was on a railroad corridor, put it 
right on a railroad corridor, no clearing of trees.  So then 
other sections of trails are in the road right-of-way.  And then 
the spring trail which goes from DeLeon Springs State Park down 
through the very and east to the green Springs Park.  A large 
portion if that is on the right-of-way.

>>  You've received no public outrage about any of this, are you 
receiving any outreach about the motocross part?  

>>  Only from what I see in the media.

>>  And we are not talking about putting any paved asphalt roads 
anywhere in the motorcade.

>>  No.

>>  Thank you for your time, that's all guys, thank you.  

>>CHAIR BROWER:  We will move on to item 3 which is a 
proclamation that will be presented inside chambers which is 
unusual but it's an important one, it's the encephalitis 
awareness day and I'm going to hand it over to Vice chair Matt 
Reinhart.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER REINHART:  Thank you chair, last year we started 
this process and this results from a former Commissioner in the 
city of Port Orange cat Atwood.  A cat I've known since seventh 
grade, very active in the community.  She unfortunately after 
being sworn in probably less than a year had to leave office 
because of this terrible disease.  We miss her doing that type of 
work but she tries to stay as active as possible, she was to be 
here tonight but encephalitis if you're not aware is the disease 
that keeps on giving she's battling her own battles right now so 
thoughts and prayers are with her and her family but I did want 
to take the opportunity appreciate the fact we are able to do 
this because we do only present proclamations in chambers for 
certain situations, special occasions whatnot and this is one 
that needs to be recognized so thank you for your latitude so 
I'll read it quick, whereas every minute worldwide three people 
are diagnosed, sorry, nearly 3 people diagnosed with encephalitis 
for 1.4 million cases annually making this devastating brain 
inflammation a critical global health concern and whereas 
encephalitis strikes with the infectious agents autoimmune 
disorders mosquito and tick bites or other factors triggering 
serious inflammation of the brain and whereas symptoms range from 
fever headache and light sensitivity to more serious 
manifestations including stiff neck, mental confusion and 
seizures and whereas some forms of autoimmunity encephalitis can 
have mortality rates ranging 40% in severe cases with survivors 
frequently facing brain injuries and long-term neurological 
complications that transform lives and whereas nearly every poor 
early recognition and swift treatment are paramount to saving 
lives and improving patient outcomes and whereas world 
encephalitis date launched in 2014 and observed annually February 
22 unites communities worldwide raising awareness saving lives 
and building better futures and now therefore we the County 
Counsel of Volusia County proclaim February 22 2026 as world 
encephalitis day in Volusia County joining and commemorating and 
commending Port Orange resident cat Atwood for championing 
encephalitis awareness with dedication and courage so thank you 
chair for that.  I will say normally most of the cities I think 
every city has done a proclamation in they are chambers for this 
event as well and many are lighting their buildings in the red.  
I was curious if like we did last year with the pond out front if 
we could do the same Saturday for encephalitis day and that's 
all.

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Can I get a motion to approve.  Motion to 
approve by Vice chair Reinhart and the second came from 
councilmember Robins.  

>>  We are just approving the proclamation.

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Any discussion, all in favor say aye.  Any 
opposed.  Proclamation is approved 70.  Item 4, retirement of 
fire Lieutenant Jeremiah Greathouse.  

>>  I'm your director here to introduce item number four which is 
retirement of fire rescue Lieutenant Jeremiah Greathouse and with 
that I will hand it over to County manager Recktenwald.

>>COUNTY MANAGER:  Thank you chair and honorable counsel, these 
are always bittersweet and we say goodbye to a valuable member of 
our team.  But today we are recognizing fire Lieutenant Jeremiah 
Greathouse who retired the end of last month after 25 years in 
Volusia County fire rescue experience, Lieutenant Greathouse 
began his career in October 2000 committing himself to the safety 
and well-being of our residents and visitors.  Throughout his 
career he served as a member of the fire Walker team which I just 
want to expound on that that people don't know what that is but 
that's an elite group of firemen that have the ability to walk a 
fire right through a neighborhood without burning the house down 
and it's something that of course in our county can be very 
valuable and he demonstrated exceptional skill teamwork and 
dedication under demanding conditions.  In September 2013 he was 
promoted to Lieutenant where he continued to lead with 
professionalism and integrity both operationally and within the 
organization and also served as union president for many years 
during his career where he was a strong advocate for his fellow 
firemen and I'd like to thank him and wish him the best in his 
well-earned retirement.  [APPLAUSE] 

>>  I can't get away without saying something about this guy 
because we've known each other a long time.  It back in 2000 if 
we had the opportunity to ask Jeremiah about retirement he would 
say that's too far away and today he would laugh and think this 
flew by.  His wife would probably disagree but we are here today 
to recognize him on his 25 years of service retiring as a 
Lieutenant but I want to thank him as chief of the department and 
appear I appreciate your commitment to the fire service, Volusia 
County and leadership you give in this department.  [APPLAUSE] 

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Mr. Attorney Greathouse, I think Matt might have 
a question.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER REINHART:  Not so much a question as I was a 
former neighbor and lived right down the street and to see these 
young men growing up, I saw them when they were just born so to 
see what a beautiful family you have and one thing being in fire 
services what a commitment to your life that you have to give for 
the protection of others in Volusia County.  We deeply appreciate 
that to know that and see that and see firsthand what type of 
family man you are, I commend you sir.  Great job so well done.  

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Take a minute.

>>  I won't take much time but partly when I've in the past it's 
been something contentious, there's some holdout thing and we are 
here in our yellow shirts practicing for events or something.  
But they were always fair and always professional and always 
honorable the way everything ended.  Today is a different 
feeling.  The room feels a lot smaller, it feels closer and 
walking around as a firefighter with people who serve you here 
thank you for your service, everywhere at Publix or Walmart, 
thank you for your service and it's appreciated but the way we 
feel it's thank you for allowing it.  We are able to raise our 
families.  Retire with some dignity and it was a real pleasure 
serving the citizens and working with people like chief Keene, 
working with the finest County manager I've ever been allowed to 
work with, a guy who came up through the ranks, a road and bridge 
guy and every time we had this adjustment board they were voting 
our way he resolved the matter afterwards and on a fair and 
honorable way and I always appreciated George for that so thank 
you for allowing me and thank you for allowing me to serve you 
guys.  [APPLAUSE]

>> County Counsel take a step back that way.  One more.  Thanks.  


>>CHAIR BROWER:  Before you leave you might want to hear the 
vote, can I get a motion to approve the retirement?  Motion to 
approve my vice chair Reinhart and the second game by his wife 
and who else?  Jake Johansson.  All in favor of the retirement 
please say aye.  Everyone opposed.  Only the chief end County 
manager.  Congratulations.  The vote is unanimous 7 to 0 and that 
takes us to item 5, proposed draft ordinance and proposed 
amendment to Volusia County charter regarding Blackwater and 
thank you, we will split this up into 2 votes, one for the 
charter amendment, the other for the ordinance and contrary to 
the speaker who is a friend of mine who said this was a shiny 
object, I think it's not.  I think it's incredibly important that 
we discussed this with our constituents so I'm glad to have the 
opportunity to do that today.  

>>  Question four procedure, why are we taking it up as to items 
when it is on the agenda, couldn't we have the discussion and 
make a discussion based on that?  

>>CHAIR BROWER:  We could, Mr. County attorney we discussed doing 
it as 2 votes.  Are you comfortable with taking it all as one?  

>>COUNTY ATTORNEY:  Ultimately it would be counsel's decision on 
what you would pursue on this item so I think that's fine.  

>>  Thank you Mr. chair.

>>COUNTY ATTORNEY:  The agenda item based on the discussion 
includes two items, proposed charter amendment and ordinance 
which they both have the same effect.  On the ground.  The 
charter amendment that's attached is in a format that any 
proposed charter amendment whether it comes from the CRC or 
something you propose, what it looks like and includes a ballot 
title, a summary of the ballot measure and the text of the 
charter amendment and there's caps on the amount of awards you 
can use and the title of the summary.  I'm joined this evening by 
Doctor Erin Reed from public works who helped put this together.  
And navigate the state terminology.  Water is a heavily preempted 
subject so our focus on charter amendment or an ordinance is to 
not create a conflict with state law because that could be a 
basis to invalidate that language so what's attached to the 
agenda item as well our definitions from the Florida 
administrative code which is the rules adopted by state agencies 
to implement statute and some terms are defined by state law that 
we are navigating.  In essence, I won't repeat all the language 
in their but the effect of the language would be too prohibit the 
County from approving the use by its water utility because that 
is what we have authority over, our water utility, not the city 
water utilities, cities would have control over their own.  
Reclaim to Blackwater, source water for either an underground 
injection well into the aquifer or its potable public water 
system.  I know been and Doctor Reed and Apollo here are happy to 
answer any questions you may have on these proposals.  If you did 
decide to proceed with the ordinance by state law we do have to 
advertise it for a certain period of time so we would return that 
back to you for consideration of adoption.  

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Thank you, before we begin with comments or a 
motion does any Council member have a question for staff?  
Councilman Dempsey.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER DEMPSEY:  Apollo in our briefing this week I 
asked about whether we have the ability to let unincorporated 
area property owners opt out of mandatory tapping in of the 
municipal water supplies.  For instance in Delhi on Springs 
that's all unincorporated but the city of Deland has a main that 
goes through 17 of through the Guinness and if an adjoining 
property owner wanted to tap in or change uses, do they have to 
tap in to the lands water supply or could they opt out and stick 
with a well?  

>>  That depends on the size of their proposed development and 
how close the water level is so essentially it's altered by the 
utilities.  And that statutory definition and if you have the 
single-family house availability is defined as a line has to be 
completely adjacent to the property and the utility can force 
that connection but if it's further away from adjacent that the 
more the larger the proposed development is the availability 
starts to factor in so if you have a large development of 100 
single-family houses that availability reaches out to something 
like half a mile or even more and in which case the utility 
department can force that connection.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER DEMPSEY:  And we have no way of giving them the 
option to opt out of the city water supply.

>>  No because it's development driven and based on the type of 
utilities that are mandated.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER DEMPSEY:  What about the change of use, if 
somebody has a structure and they want to change the use, do they 
have to tap into the city's water supply at that point.

>>  Depends what you're changing the used to.  If you're changing 
it such that there is no change in the water demand, and if 
you're changing it to something that requires increased demand 
such as fire sprinklers you need an accredited water source, 
provide an accredited water source or have to tap into the 
proposed utility.  

>>COUNCIL MEMBER DEMPSEY:  Do we as the Council have the ability 
to change that or is that state code, so there's nothing we can 
do to change that.

>>  Not that I'm aware of.  That's building code and fire code 
driven so that's your safety codes at that point, those are not 
land development codes you have control over, that's a state 
code.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER DEMPSEY:  Appreciate you looking.

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Councilman Robins.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER ROBINS:  I want to clean up and clarify a couple 
of things and I didn't get a chance to speak last meeting so I 
want to clear up messaging I saw cut out in the public on social 
media.  It was said at some point Deltona was looking to inject 
sewage into the aquifer, is that accurate or current with the 
permits they had?  I guess cold?  

>>  Deltona has been ordered to permits and they received funding 
based on our information for one of those permits, the most 
recent permit they obtained is for what we call a non-ASR but 
what the state calls a non-ASR injection and that's a permit that 
would allow them to test the feasibility of constructing a well 
whether they pull surface water from the St. Johns River and 
treat it to a primary drinking water standard and inject it into 
the aquifer, that is one permit they've received and that is the 
grant funding they have received.  During the testing phase they 
can only inject potable water which is drinking water treated to 
not just the primary drinking water standards but secondary 
standard what goes out into a distribution system so there's a 
process that's a testing phase and if everything checks out the 
well meets the parameters it would be able to place that well 
into operation which would buy their permit allows surface water 
from the lake to be injected in there.  They've also received a 
second permit which is an older permit that to our knowledge 
they've not funded for construction and that is for an ASR well 
which is an aquifer supply and recovery will end in a sense 
that's where you can take various types of water including 
surface water treated to drinking water standard, potable water 
and treated reclaimed water.  You could potentially inject that 
into the aquifer specifically to lower Floridian aquifer and it 
can remain there and they can extract it out and use it to 
supplement and irrigation reclaimed system.  Before they would be 
allowed to put any treated reclaimed water into the ground they 
would again have to go through the testing phase where that well 
would have to meet all the requirements.  They couldn't during 
the testing phase inject treated wastewater but if it were to be 
moved towards an operational phase, then potentially they could 
based on the permit treat or inject reclaimed water into that 
well.  To our knowledge they have not, they've received a permit 
to do the testing phase, they have not funded it and there only 
moving forward as far as we know with the non-ASR injection well.

>>  Are there any other wells like this through the County.

>>  When this came up we did research we've seen wells that have 
been permitted for ASR and for other baked locations which 
include Daytona Beach, Ormond Beach, utilities commission of new 
Smyrna Beach and Deland.  To our knowledge the only well tested 
was the one in Deland and that one did not meet parameters and 
was not placed into operation.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER ROBINS:  Why hasn't the county put in for this?  
Is there a reason we don't need it or where not exploring it or 
are there other options?  

>>  These types of wells are a type of what the state would call 
an alternative water supply.  So the St. Johns water management 
District is charged with managing our water resources including 
the underground aquifer from which we get our drinking water.  
Every utility asked to get what we call a consumptive use permit 
which allows so much water to be withdrawn on a daily basis and 
in order to protect that resource and minimize the amount of 
water getting withdrawn from the ground the state through the 
water management district through the use permits as encouraged 
utilities to pursue alternative water supplies.  In ASR wells and 
injection wells for aquifer recharge.  One of the methods I have 
deemed reasonable to use to achieve that goal.  Specifically for 
our county we have chosen to go with other types of alternative 
supply.  We've pursued heavily reclaimed water systems where the 
treated wastewater we receive at our wastewater plants get sent 
back out for irrigation purposes.  We also have rapid 
infiltration basins which are essentially large percolation 
ponds.  Because we have land available to utilize that.  We also 
store reclaimed water above ground in aboveground storage tanks 
all in an effort to provide an alternative water source that 
reduces the annals of water we withdraw from the aquifer.  We 
what you see when utilities pursue ASR wells is for whatever 
reason they don't have land available to do some of the things 
that require large amounts of land, for instance Port Orange 
restores their water in large line ponds out near to Tomoka Farms 
Road so if you don't have a lot of land available to do something 
a rapid infiltration basins ASR is considered a large alternative 
for recharging aquifer.  We have not pursued it.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER ROBINS:  Has it ever been on the radar as 
something we encounter, what would lead us to ever go this route 
thinking of the X factor as many other people would, what would 
lead us to this point, are we there, are we close, is this a 100 
year sound aboard our Springs still pouring enough water out of 
the ground in our utility.

>>  What I would say to that is I can't predict the future but in 
terms of specifically recharge through wells there's multiple 
alternatives versus reclaimed water.  Right now our reclaimed 
water is in high demand.  When it's dry we typically run it and 
we can supplement it, we have agreements with other 
municipalities to supplement that.  We are constructing more 
storage so we can get that water out to the folks that the demand 
we have.  If there was ever a situation where the demand for the 
reclaimed water was less then the amount we produced we would 
have to find somewhere to put it and we have the rapid 
infiltration base to do it for that so for the future for Volusia 
County utilities this is not something we would see.  I think the 
only way we would pursue any kind of injection well would be for 
our consumptive use permit the state came in and said you have to 
look hard at alternative water that got stripped with the 
consumptive use permit but I think we would probably propose more 
of a surface water injection where you pull surface water from 
the St. Johns River, some other source and inject it into the 
ground because our reclaimed water is in such high demand for 
irrigation, we make money off if it, we get revenue and frankly 
we'd like to generate more demand.  

>>COUNCIL MEMBER ROBINS:  Thank you Ben and with this in any way 
elicit some alternative water supplies and I read social media 
and the emails, is this in any way by possibly adopting an 
ordinance or charter amendment will this stop growth or stop 
development with all these other reclaimed, you know, projects 
that are out there were methods out there.

>>  With respect to development development is dependent on the 
ability to provide utilities in some sense so you're always 
limited by the resources you have.  If for whatever reason the 
state came out and said nobody gets more water, theoretically you 
could run into a situation where you can provide that, I don't 
foresee that occurring.  You know, in this specific instance I 
don't, you know, absent some sort of massive 20 year drought or 
something like that I don't foresee a situation where the state 
comes in with that part of restrictions.  One of the main 
concerns in Volusia County specifically West Volusia when it 
comes to aquifer, what your pulling up is the maximum flow 
requirements for the Springs those are some things we monitor at 
the county pretty regularly.  There is a minimum flow they set 
that the state has set to make sure there's plenty of water 
coming out to support the wildlife and everything in the Springs. 
 So they actually raised it within the last couple of years the 
minimum flow.  And that's mostly dependent on the amount of rain 
we get, this is why the state doesn't want us to pump stormwater 
to the river, they want it to stay in places like that.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER ROBINS:  The way I understand it is as long as 
we're still getting rain Florida is still being Florida and the 
sun is still rising there would be no reason we never have to go 
this direction the way I understand it.  You don't have to answer 
that but it's more of a statement but thank you Ben.  Paula, a 
couple follow-up questions on the legal side, I want to clarify 
its projected last few months in the community across a lot of 
platforms that the county has rule over the cities utilities and 
we can mandate that.  I know the answer to that, can you brief us 
real quick.

>>  That is not correct, the county has regulations over its own 
utility service area so your charter and your home rule authority 
is valid to the extent it is consistent with state law so there 
are provisions, for example you cannot, potable reuse cannot be 
excluded from the water supply, that is one of the new state 
provisions regarding potable water so when you prohibit it for 
charter amendment through the charter of Volusia County through 
the entire region you start conflicting with that express 
prohibition saying potable use cannot be excluded from the 
regional water supply.  Additionally utilities operate under 
Chapter 180 of Florida statutes which provide municipalities with 
their own utility system have the supervision and authority to 
operate their utilities so that's an entirely separate process.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER ROBINS:  They said it's imminent we do this or 
the state will preempt us.  Is that a valid statement or I mean, 
the way I understand it is we can put all these regulations in 
and as soon as the session the state can say no, they are gone.  
Is it imminent, does that make sense to you?  

>>  The state has previously retroactively and they've done it 
before with SB 180, they can retroactively affect whatever laws 
or charter provisions any local government can put into place 
unless they carve out a grandfather provision in the actual 
regulation itself.  They can completely preempt something that 
has been in existence for years.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER ROBINS:  So if we hypothetically adopt something 
today or in the next few weeks the state can some come back and 
say you guys, no more.  Okay, is there a bill, last question, is 
there a bill currently that could preempt us for water quality 
and quantity?  

>>  That would be 718, that's the one this County Counsel has 
previously sent a letter expressing its concerns and opposing it. 
 That would basically preempt to the state all regulations on 
water quality, water quantity and pollution control, stormwater, 
all kinds of things.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER ROBINS:  So we can ban this today and in 60 days 
it can be wiped off.

>>  It depends on the wording of the bill, that bill specifically 
has exclusion for the local governments own water system, local 
governments own wastewater system, local governments own 
stormwater system, you could still regulate those perfectly fine, 
you just can't regulate anything else so that adds to don't touch 
other utility provisions.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER ROBINS:  Thank you Paul and last one is for the 
County manager.  Can you talk a little bit about current F DEP 
projects and our relationship with that state agency and what we 
are up against.

>>  We currently have two major projects that are in construction 
right now.  One being the DeBary sewage treatment plant and the 
other being the beacon line sewage treatment plant, they are 
upgraded to advanced water treatment standards and there's some 
expansion of their capacity as well.  The one in DeBary is a $67 
million project, 42 million is from DEP.  St. John's water 
management District and the remaining is from utility and ARPA 
funds and the one near Oak Hill is a $34 million project, 18 
million from the FDEP, the remainder is from our utility and 
ARPA.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER ROBINS:  In my district I don't know about Mr. 
Santiago's and DeBary, does that take affluent and pretty much 
keep it from going in.

>>  Our utility, now we are a newer utility so we were formed a 
lot later than the cities but none of our utilities have ever 
done water discharge.  They always have discharged to either the 
ponds or land like in the case of in your area down there in Oak 
Hill it was discharged into a grove for a long period of time 
until I think the orange greening at our Grove but we still use 
that land to this day for land applying the treated water.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER ROBINS:  George real quick to wrap this up we 
depend on DEP and our relationship we've built over a number of 
years, probably decades.  For local support when it comes to 
these projects, how would possibly going down this road kind of 
shape fat, how would it affect us or is there a possibility 
funding lies, is that something that could even be answered 
because that's one of the concerns.

>>  It's hard to answer, I would say remain respectful and 
constant communication with the department.  I think that any 
attempt for us to regulate something that's not in our purview to 
regulate would probably cause some issues with the department.  
But as far as us self regulating ourselves I don't think there's 
any issue with that but I do think again, I'm very proud of the 
relationship we have built with our state agencies and our staff 
and in this case Michael Ulrich and his team.  They've worked 
very well with DEP and I'm sure they will be income indication 
with whatever else we are doing but we never want to jeopardize 
that relationship because they are a major funder of our 
projects.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER ROBINS:  Thank you, nothing further.

>>CHAIR BROWER:  For all of you young people in the blue shirts 
that are here today to listen and learn how we function, what 
happens here is staff will tell us about the item and then we 
have an opportunity to ask staff questions and we hear from the 
public and then we debate it so that's what you're witnessing, 
Councilman Santiago.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER SANTIAGO:  Rossi us senior chairman.  It's not 
the proper way to speak in Spanish, thank you.  I have one 
question for Ben.  Then, as it pertains to the entire water 
providers in Volusia County, the utilities and all entities, how 
much water do we provide for the entire County as a percentage?  

>>  As a percentage of Volusia County utilities provides in terms 
of total customers 7% of the entire County.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER SANTIAGO:  7% of the entire County, thank you 
chairman.

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Councilman Dempsey.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER DEMPSEY:  I appreciate it.  Just to make sure I 
heard you right what Danny was asking you, it's my understanding 
there is no intention in the county to do any type of deep well 
injections.

>>  Correct, that's not in our plan to do any injection, well 
injection for recharge.  

>>COUNCIL MEMBER DEMPSEY:  It happened if it happens in our 
generation, maybe not our generation but a future generation is 
that something they have to require County approval or something 
your department could start doing without any fanfare?  

>>  That would be a major capital project undertaking.  Any 
design and construction would contract with the consultant or 
contractor assuming the managers signing levels are what they are 
now versus sometime in the future.  Those would have to come 
before Council for approval, if we were to pursue that type of 
method for alternative water source.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER DEMPSEY:  Okay, it's hard to predict how this 
would play out but there would not be too public readings of your 
intent to begin deep well injections or anything like that.

>>  There's multiple, I believe before permits are issued by DEP 
they have to do a public notice so that's one way.  We would have 
to obtain a permit from DEP so that's one way the public could be 
informed of any activity like that.  But you know, any major 
construction or capital project, you've seen how we planned those 
kind of things out.  You see a five year capital plan, those 
things would show up in that type of situation and obviously 
before a contract is issued those things have to go before 
Council.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER DEMPSEY:  If we were to pass an ordinance 
tonight with no deep well injections.

>>  Utilizing reclaimed Blackwater.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER DEMPSEY:  I want to be clear.  If there was an 
ordinance tonight past that in order for you to do it it would 
require more public notice and more public debate before it could 
happen is that fair to say?  

>>  I would defer to legal but my experience if there was an 
ordinance prohibiting us from doing either of those two things we 
would not even pursue it to the point where if there became a 
need and I'm not saying there ever will be but if there became a 
need to do it for whatever reason because of that ordinance we 
would have to come back to counsel and ask them to change the 
ordinance and I would defer to Paolo, he seems to be nodding.  
I'm not a lawyer, I don't play one on T.V. but I will give it my 
best shot.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER DEMPSEY:  Let's fast-forward 100 years from now 
and we do need to begin this process.  If it was an ordinance now 
there would have to be another public meeting debate and that 
counsel at that time would decide whether or not it should be 
done by vote of the Council 100 years from now.

>>  That is correct, yes, assuming the state hasn't preempted us 
you still have authority over our own utilities and a future 
counsel would have to amend that ordinance first and to provide 
direction to staff or the utility department to explore this and 
assuming the rules are still in place you still have to go 
through the state permitting process.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER DEMPSEY:  And if the future leaders and 
scientists approve the safety of this more than what's proposed 
today they could do it at that time.  If they decide to do so.  
Okay.  Thanks guys, thank you.

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Councilman Johansson.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER JOHANSSON:  First question for I guess Paolo.  
Mr. Santiago asked you a question that makes me curious.  Why if 
an amendment, a charter amendment would take the entire County 
would vote for that, correct, everybody.  Everybody.  From every 
city, everybody in the county yet it only applies to the people 
in unincorporated.  

>>  Yes.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER JOHANSSON:  So everybody would be voting.

>>  It would control the counties utility service area.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER JOHANSSON:  Which is a majority of 
unincorporated and some portions of some cities.

>>  I'm not that well versed on utility service area but yes.

>>  We would probably have more customers in the cities of DeBary 
and Deltona.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER JOHANSSON:  But none on the east side or some on 
the east side.  I guess I'm over the bend.  I want to put this in 
simple terms but I'm not sure I'm doing it right.  So from old 
days I consider it as theirs Blackwater which is where it comes 
out of the toilet and enters our water treatment plants.  And 
then what comes out of their is treated, I call it effluent but 
it's reclaimed water, we send that wherever we send it.  Then we 
have water that you can make to a minimum drinking standard and 
then you have the water you make that we drink.  Is that 
basically the strata, the 4 different kinds?  

>>  Correct, Blackwater is all wastewater, treated effluent can 
be treated, reclaimed standards because it goes out to the 
public, there's different levels of treated effluent where if you 
put it out in a public place which is what we do with reclaimed 
water versus effluent to you using a pump.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER JOHANSSON:  So the treated water you put in a 
pump, is it not as treated as the stuff we put on our grass?  

>>  In our case the treated effluent we put in our pots is the 
same, it's also reclaimed water standards, you can have some 
wastewater plants that don't utilize their effluent for reclaimed 
water, they don't have to kick it up to that higher standard.  It 
goes into a pond or something for percolation and it's not 
required to be as treated to its highest standard.  Then your 
second part of that which you were talking about drinking water.  
There's two standards is what we call primary drinking water 
standards and secondary.  When you hear about a specifically to 
injection into the aquifer, what they're talking about is primary 
drinking water standard which is a drinking water standard where 
your basically removing the kind of stuff like the microbes and 
the bacteria that will harm you in terms of if you were to 
consume it.  Secondary drinking water standards which is what 
goes out in our potable water systems so potable to secondary, 
secondary is more what we could call aesthetic so color, odor, 
organics, things that might not hurt you but might not make the 
water pleasant to drink so sulfur, things like that.  When they 
talk about treating to drinking water standards for ASR and 
injection well they're talking about those primary standards 
which is eight kinds of things, the bugs and bacteria and things 
like that.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER JOHANSSON:  What would your water treatment 
plant say the water we pull out of the aquifer to drink and to 
what level is that in that strata?  

>>  You'd be surprised but you can have different types of water 
coming out depending on your well but what I would argue is most 
of the water we pull out of the upper Floridian aquifer requires 
some level of treatment, you still have to do disinfection to get 
it to primary drinking water standard.  You might have 
contaminants you have to remove whether they be housing gases, 
things like that, you might have to remove stuff like color and 
odor to get those secondary requirements so it can depend but 
you're going to have to do something to treat the water you pull 
out of the aquifer.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER JOHANSSON:  I'll save that one for follow-up.  
Right now, I think it's the federal government and the state, 
both of them have guidelines on what is considered drinkable 
water, correct?  

>>  The federal government sets the standards and the state 
enforces those standards.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER JOHANSSON:  Got it.  Okay.  And you said we send 
water, reclaimed water up to percolate.

>>  Correct.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER JOHANSSON:  So that water isn't treated to the 
primary drinking standard yet?  

>>  No sir, it's treated to the same reclaimed standard, the same 
water used for irrigation on somebody's lawn but when it's 
raining a lot nobody is watering their lawn so that's why we have 
the rapid infiltration.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER JOHANSSON:  And we send it out there as 
reclaimed treated effluent.  And it filters its way to the 
aquifer.

>>  Correct, much like a septic tank in a drainage field.  Any 
wastewater goes through any wastewater plant if it's not being 
discharged to surface water at some point works its way through 
the ground.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER JOHANSSON:  Do we consider septic tank that 
drains, do we consider that treated by the time it starts 
percolating?  

>>  It's considered treated to a certain extent, probably the 
lowest level of treatment that is acceptable in today's world of 
utilities.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER JOHANSSON:  I'm going to ask another question 
based on Mr. Dempsey's line of questioning.  That string of 
events that would get us there, that obviously he wants to make 
sure we have plenty of precautions, how far out does our CIP go?  


>>  Our consumptive use permit?  

>>COUNCIL MEMBER JOHANSSON:  Our capital improvement.

>>  Five years.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER JOHANSSON:  Soap five years in advance if old 
Ben Bartlett gets you an idea we will know five years in advance 
and be able to start the shutdown process or take it off.  And 
that's just the start.  You have a lot of others, okay.  That's 
going to be it, that's all I have, thank you very much Ben, 
that's all I have for Paolo as well.  

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Who do you have down there on the front row?  I 
don't know if either one of you know we did a real border report 
every month and I don't recall the last time we saw one of the 
tested wells, blue Springs.  I think it was blue Springs is 
consistently falling below the minimum standard the state has set 
for us, even during the rainy period.  It was coming up but it's 
still below those standards, do you remember that?  

>>  I get the same report you got which shows a series of 
monitoring wells they record the groundwater level.  I recall 
considering the amount of rain we've gotten the past few years 
that it's been above the minimum flow requirement but we can 
double check that.  I check it every month, there might have been 
one or two months where it dipped below but for most of those 
months the amount of water on the surface since hurricanes Ian 
and Milton has been tremendous obviously so that water takes time 
to percolate through and it seems to be having an effect on the 
flows.

>>  Check it because I remember being surprised because of the 
amount of rain we had that it was still related to self.  That's 
all the questions we have so we will hear from the public and 
then the Council will discuss this issue.  The first person is 
John Nicholson and everyone as I:  You come to the front, you 
have up to three minutes to talk about item 5 only.  

>>PUBLIC SPEAKER:  John Hickson Daytona Beach Beachside, to me 
this is coming down to the ick factor – first encounter the ick 
factors 70 years ago when we were playing in what was a cattle 
field back then blocked from the house and like most kids, most 
guys you walk behind a tree if you have to go to it the bathroom 
and take a leak and my sisters would go ick, that's terrible, 
that water is going into the aquifer and I look and said there's 
2000 cattle here, where do you think they're going to the 
bathroom, where do you think their urine is going, right in the 
aquifer.  A couple blocks away is stale, they had one thousand 
head of horses, where do you think their urine is going to all 
the animals taking a leak, all the humans at the time especially 
historically when they went to the bathroom go into the aquifer 
and I just was surprised tonight to hear that nice aquifer that 
we always thought was drinkable water is not drinkable water.  
They have to treat it.  So at what point are we really talking 
about the ick factor?  All of what we drink is not drinkable.  It 
all has to be treated one way or another.  So she's not here 
tonight but I wish she were, there is a woman who comes in and 
she has a problem with Covid.  She just walked in the door.  
She's part of something that really had me think and I'm asking 
you to think about.  I've heard about plastics, plastics are so 
small, there in our water and we can't get enough and now they're 
in our bodies and they don't know what's going to happen with 
this plastic building up in our body like Mercury when I was a 
kid, we don't know what's going to happen in the body with the 
least fish we are eating so now she has a disease and they tested 
the disease by looking at the water treatment plants and through 
the water treatment plants they could tell how much of Covid was 
in the County.  So if that disease is tested and they cannot take 
it out of the water and they cannot take plastic out of the water 
and they cannot take medicines out of the water, this part of the 
tap had me worried.  I don't think we are even anywhere near it.  
I don't think we are really talking about it.  What we are 
talking about if anything is the Atlantic Ocean which has plenty 
of water.  Expensive as it is.  We have a huge river.  Not too 
far from our border.  The St. John's which has a huge amount of 
water.  That's expensive to do but more expensive than 
groundwater.  If all goes down to expenses.  And we have to go 
very very far in the future to go to toilet to tap so technically 
I'm not worried about it.  If you want to pass an ordinance I'm 
fine with it.  It's not going to matter one way or the other, 
thank you.

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Melissa Thorne.  She had to leave?  Amy Muniz.  

>>PUBLIC SPEAKER:  Amy Munoz, DeLeon Spring and in the mid-1980s 
one of the largest underground fuel plumes in Florida was 
discovered in the downtown area of DeLeon Springs and 18 to the 
water for almost everyone in the downtown area.  The commercial 
properties and landowners.  When I heard about it in 2006 when I 
came to the area I got together with other people and we pressed 
FDP to clean it up and they spent five years, did a four-phase 
cleanup and trucked out over 63,000 tons of gas laden soil and 
took it to Kasumi.  That's why we work so hard Mr. Dempsey to get 
waterway services to the downtown corridor.  It gave safe 
drinking to our elementary school that was important with 
everybody else but all the rest of us are on the wells and septic 
systems, Mr. Brower and I have wells all the residences.  And the 
older locations have wells and septic systems to close to each 
other so many of those people on smaller lots with older wells 
and septic systems are drinking what you're calling Blackwater 
unless they treat their water but for all of us no matter where 
you are if you have a well there's no guarantee the water you 
have is safe and clean that's the reason all of us need to look 
to treat our water no matter what whether your municipal or just 
on a well really it's important to check your water, important to 
have a cleaning system on your water but when you're talking 
about potable reuse water you're talking about one utility 
service provider named Volusia County utilities and it only 
covers 7% of the population of Volusia County.  You don't have 
jurisdiction over anybody else.  If you were to ask your great 
phenomenal utilities director Mike Ulrich if he has it in his 10 
year plan to use potable reuse water he would tell you know.  So 
this is something not even being used anywhere in Volusia County 
the one area you do have jurisdiction over Volusia County 
utilities which serves 7% of the ocean does not have it in their 
five year or 10 year plan review.  I feel that the charter 
amendment for something not happening and not being used is very 
much begin to what Mr. Johansson said needing a charter amendment 
for autonomous hovercraft because someday that technology might 
happen and we might need to put something in the charter right 
now to make that stop.  That's about the same, thank you.  

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Wendy Anderson.  

>>PUBLIC SPEAKER:  Good evening, my name is Doctor Wendy Anderson 
and I live in District 1, it's been an interesting conversation 
so far and we're just getting started.  It seems widely known 
that I have no fear of drinking highly treated water from any 
source.  I would be perfectly fine with drinking water that has 
gone through and ion exchange micro comfort over reverse osmosis 
which could take out in fact even Covid particles, FAS, micro 
plastics, all these things we fear I am deeply putting any kind 
of untreated water into the aquifer, I don't think that but in 
fact we already do.  It several times tonight we talked about 
rapid infiltration basins, the rapid part of that infiltration 
basin means that water is slipping through rapidly.  It may or 
may not be cleaned in the process last fall you all, every last 
one of you approved $15 million in transform 386 funds to do two 
mils of pipe from Mill Lake in Orange city to a hole in the 
ground right next door blue Springs State Park.  Stormwater, 
possibly reclaimed water not treated you a drinkable level 1000 
feet of first magnitude spring and you do that, you funded it and 
thought it was a good idea.  Why?  Because your staff told you it 
was safe yet Mr. Bartlett, Mr. Ulrich, Doctor Mead, they said it 
was safe.  You have great experts here and I encourage you if you 
need to know more and understand more spend more time with them, 
bring more expert in, don't take my word for it, you often don't 
but do not make a decision based on emotional fraud in the bunch 
of height and make good decisions for the short-term and 
long-term for this county.  We do not need an ordinance, we do 
not need a charter amendment and we're not going to get to this 
point anywhere in the near future so I would put an end to it 
right now.  

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Lynn Peterson.  Is Lynn not here?  Mike 
Pontiatowski.

>>PUBLIC SPEAKER:  Mr. chair members of the Council thanks for 
having me, Volusia County with your help will take a giant first 
step preserving our freshwater supply for the future by 
preventing injection addition or mixing of processed Blackwater 
with freshwater.  If allow this will be a drastic attempt to 
structure freshwater supply which would continue a vicious 
destructive cycle of drink flush clean, clear filled build, more 
drink, more flush, I guess you get the picture.  As well as these 
folks behind me.  But this is one arrow in the quiver we can use 
to protect our water supply.  Critical conservation efforts to 
reduce use countywide, removal of the current harmful forever 
chemicals that exist in every drop of water from every bead 
benefit ground in Volusia, that's a today problem to the slowing 
of unabated growth which compounds these problems with one of its 
most destructive facets of being the removal of natural soils 
trees and open spaces which for millions of years acted as 
natural filters clean rain runoff stormwater so it does not reach 
our aquifer.  It does so in amounts sufficient to quench the 
thirst of existing populations.  We need to reduce stormwater 
runoff for many existing communities and bodies of water or 
cisterns that may do the trick making that one or more available 
as a potable water source delivering a copious amount on a yearly 
basis that now allow us to freely flood runoff and in some cases 
destroy our homes businesses and our habitats.  But let me not 
cloud the issue today and I support this charter amendment and 
ordinance 110% is not of one and done, there are many more heavy 
lifts so it's time to keep your sleeves rolled up as the hard 
work of economic survival is dead ahead and one more thing, I 
believe today's vote and I hope today's vote will be a 70 in 
favor of you gentlemen supporting this ordinance in this charter 
amendment let's not make it a one off.  When Volusia forever 
comes before you and it will come for you but to make a record of 
70 in favor of protecting Volusia forever because it's a forever 
program.  75% of us voted for it as well as most of these folks 
behind me so remember 70 in favor today, 70 when it comes before 
you later this year, thank you very much, God bless and keep up 
the good work.

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Ted Rhodes.  

>>  Thank you for taking my questions, Ted Rhodes currently 
standing up at a local news outlet so I'm coming here as a 
resident and also as a journalist.  I'm excited to see grassroots 
campaigns gain support to influence lawmakers to vote real 
change.  But first I have to say I am not at all taking a 
position on what you have before you today.  I'm just here for 
questions and one thing I'd like to know is there have been a lot 
of questions from all of you also so Mr. Ben has also said all 
the water we have, drainage, sewage, irrigation water, it all 
ends up in the aquifer anyway.  So here are my questions, if we 
have irrigation water and it seeps down into the aquifer, seems 
to me that water might contain some contaminants.  So I don't 
know how this man today would address them.  So I really don't 
know that we need a blanket ban, almost what I'd rather see is 
some sort of a statute that would establish a minimum standard of 
contaminants or purity before any water ends up into our soils.  
So you know, I haven't really been doing a lot of research.  I'm 
not an expert on any of this, I only know what I see there's a 
lot of buzz on the Internet and I'm seeing a lot of that.  I'm 
just a dumb infantry soldier so I need some time special 
education to understand these complex issues.  I guess what I'm 
saying is I don't know that we are ready yet.  All of you made a 
lot of questions and I don't know that we are ready to make such 
a blanket ban.  Rather than man, how about let's get some 
specifics, set some standards, take a breath in this isn't a 
decision we necessarily have to make today.  So I'd like to know 
if we are abandoning what specifically are we banning, are there 
specific, is there data specifics of what we are banning?  Also I 
haven't heard much on solutions.  I'm hearing from with Miss 
Wendy here about solutions and maybe we need to discuss that 
equally as much as we do when we talk about bans or setting 
standards.  So if anybody wants to educate me on this, they can 
reach me on the Internet on roads news, thank you.

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Gary Singleton.  

>>PUBLIC SPEAKER:  Gary Singleton, Volusia County residents.  I 
can think of no brighter shiny object than the banning of someone 
is treated sewage being piped into our homes.  I want to be 
clear, I do not want toilet to tap, I do not support toilet to 
tap.  I'm going to repeat that, I don't support toilet to tap.  I 
don't want it.  What I want for this counsel is to address the 
reasons why there's a search for alternative sources of potable 
water and why you would need to ban an alternative source.  What 
I want for this counsel is for you to address the reason why our 
source of drinking water, the aquifer may someday be inadequate 
to supply our needs.  To acknowledge the effect of unrestrained 
and irresponsible development on our most precious resource.  To 
do your sworn duty to serve the citizens of Volusia County.  To 
do your job and manage our best supply of potable water so there 
is no need for search for alternative sources.  Every square foot 
of wetlands you allowed to be destroyed is a square foot of 
aquifer recharge area must forever.  Every gallon of water you 
rapidly dumped into our inadequate stormwater system is a gallon 
of water shuttled into the ocean if it makes it past our living 
rooms read wetlands and watersheds must be protected and allowed 
to hold rainfall so it can recharge the aquifer and discharge the 
remaining runoff slowly so the natural and man-made stormwater 
system capacities are not exceeded.  Eliminating an alternative 
source that nobody wants is easy.  Doing the right things to 
manage our most precious resource requires courage.  

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Elana Kraft.  

>>PUBLIC SPEAKER:  Good evening, my name is Elena Kraft 
representing protect Volusia and I want to start by saying how 
encouraged I am to see Volusia County taking a proactive step 
with this ordinance.  Acknowledging an issue early before it 
becomes inevitable takes courage and leadership and it makes me 
proud to live in a county willing to do that.  The reality is 
potable reuse is no longer theoretical red communities around us 
are moving in this direction Altamonte Springs for example the 
pure alto program is publicly described as taking wastewater and 
producing highly purified water as part of a future water supply. 
 And in places like Deltona officials are grappling where to put 
increasing volumes of wastewater as growth continues.  These are 
no longer hypotheticals, this is what happens when development 
begins to outpace environmental limits.  When we talk to 
residents about potable reuse the most common first reaction is 
surprise people ask is that even being considered and that 
reaction is completely understandable because most people would 
never imagine something like this could be on the table.  
Drinking water is something people consider fundamental and 
non-negotiable so when they learn about it the concern is 
immediate real and to address comments made tonight Mr. Robbins 
said as long as Florida continues in Florida we are getting rain, 
we won't run out of water.  That statement is simply false.  The 
issue isn't whether we get rain, the issue is whether the aquifer 
and supply it at the rate we are pumping it out, in other words 
pumping water faster than the aquifer recharge is what creates 
troubles and to address the other issue brought up about treated 
sewage versus natural percolation injection pumps treated 
wastewater directly into the wastewater under pressure while 
percolation allows water to slow naturally filtered down through 
soil in natural layers before reaching groundwater.  The key term 
is natural filtration.  I'd also like to mention a local 
environmental scientist compared potable reuse to a root canal, 
something we may not want but useful to have available.  I see it 
differently.  Situations that lead to root canals are often 
preventable and the same principle applies here read decisions 
about sustainable growth determine whether communities end up 
needing toilet to tap so we have to recognize these systems 
depend on technology monitoring, funding, human operation all 
working correctly for decades there are so many uncertainties 
that must be addressed prior to implementation and giving the 
people the opportunity to vote on this charter amendment will 
bring about much needed transparency and scrutiny, thank you very 
much.

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Thank you, Greg Gimbert.  He's spoken already.  

>>PUBLIC SPEAKER:  Greg Gimbert, Daytona Beach Florida.  We 
covered a lot of ground and thanks to Jake Johansson and Danny 
Robins, on the other hand it's never going to come, why bother 
and on the other they're going to preempt us so why bother, it's 
been The Y bother show all day long, if you're looking for 
excuses not to do it it's infinite, we could have said he heard 
the same stuff before again and again yet here we are today so is 
it coming, yes, is it dangerous, yes, even your own utility 
director said might not hurt you.  So we know about preemption, 
we all just fought two years of flooding, they ignored the 
cities, the counties, the counties and the cities when they tried 
to file suit, they're not going to ignore the citizens and what 
you guys do tonight is on you but after tonight we aren't going 
to quit.  We've seen year after year, meeting after meeting us 
lose more of our local control and our local:  First we are not 
going to change our comp plan, then we're only going to change 
our Coughlin once a year and you got to wait every six months and 
thanks to Governor Scott no waiting for changes at all and now we 
change them every month you we have the city commission and you 
wonder how the aquifer got the way it is and it's from writing 
all these long-range plans.  If not in any plan but you never 
stop doing a long-range plan yet, never know what we're all 
talking about in the future let me talk about a more likely 
future what if we don't do this?  Let's be the next community 
that goes to poopy water and it will go on and on until every 
redneck between Tallahassee gets a clue and says it's not a city 
sicker slicker problem there putting it in the aquifer and it 
will stop but for the people already doing this they are screwed, 
they're going to end up drinking it because everybody else will 
make you stop putting it in the aquifer so we haven't done it yet 
and this is the only way to make sure we never get any plans for 
it.  People are fond about our kids leaving and economic 
development and all kind of political blah blah so let's say day 
one we don't do this.  You're the next community that goes under. 
 What about year one, there's no longer plans to move years, not 
for people, not for companies and what about five years out, you 
run all the projects out of the pipeline.  I work in construction 
trades, we got five-year plans and we stick to them, as soon as 
there's sewage water nobody's planning to move there anymore, not 
moving any companies, nobody's going to leave to follow their job 
to Watertown, is one way out, all your best and brightest out 
Daytona State, how are you going to attract people there?  You 
need to let the people vote on this they don't want to hear all 
the excuses.  

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Michelle.  

>>PUBLIC SPEAKER:  How are you doing today.  I know you are 
pleased to see me today.  When it comes to the poopy water 
situation I think it's pretty poopy.  We've seen some people that 
believe in science and they believe in government, I was one that 
believes in science and the government and from then I'm 
suffering from multiple autoimmune issues, I'm taking $20,000 
worth of medicine stay alive being pushed into cancer.  Because I 
trusted the government I took the Covid vaccine but when I looked 
during Covid there was surveillance going on when they were 
testing the wastewater to see if the SARS 2 was going up or down 
and also omicron so it wasn't hospitals giving you reports, it 
was also giving the county and city, NIH, the CDC as well as the 
Department of Health.  There was a tractor you contract every two 
weeks and as of now there still tracking and right now there's 
four places in Florida, orange County is one that has an increase 
of Covid.  It's doing that because they're testing the wastewater 
from what's excreted from us but a lot of people don't realize 
the people injured like me suffering that you cannot get a test 
here in the US, I had to get it from Germany and it shows the 
science tells you you are supposed to be having a spike in your 
body wanted you days, three months, on 1864 days producing a 
spike and is pushing me to cancer and there's nothing they can do 
to me.  My blood vessels, my blood cells are bursting and 
everything else.  Are you going to take a piece of paper and make 
the constituents sign the consent form doing them, you giving 
immunity.  I'm not saying this right but they shouldn't worry 
about future generations, they shouldn't worry about their health 
or any immune compromise that will happen because if you make 
them sign a piece of paper saying that it's their problem if they 
get sick, that you have a consent to say we're safe if you get 
sick, it's not my problem, that's not fair to your constituents.  
I don't care how much you're going to purify this letter as long 
as they can look at the water still see what's going on.  It's 
going to be a huge problem for future generations.  I found out 
I'm going to be a grandmother I don't want my grandchild drinking 
this water.  And if there's any other information you need ID 
glad to pull it up.  But we have problems with our water before 
Karen and I care about everyone in here and I don't want anyone 
of you or any of you having to live through what I had to do some 
trust the science, trust the government.  I wouldn't think so.  
It's not worth it because I'm dying from it so I thank you.  

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Thank you for all who came up to speak.  I'm 
going to ask the Council in just a minute to make a motion to 
approve both the ordinance and the ballot amendment which is why 
the county attorney and I talked about splitting it up because 
the ballot amendment requires five votes in the charter, the 
ordinance requires 4 votes.  But can you put that picture up for 
me?  This is from the United States geological survey.  Note the 
difference between the upper Floridian aquifer and lower 
Floridian aquifer.  Note the direction of flow.  It leaches up 
into the upper Floridian aquifer, all lines go up.  Look at the 
confining layer, it's porous, it's shown as a dashed line here.  
This is the US geological services survey map so when you hear 
any government saying they're going to take the cleaned up sewage 
and shoot it into or underneath the Florida aquifer, our drinking 
aquifer and it will stay there I would recommend you be skeptical 
it seems to come up with very obvious and inherent risks we had 
at least according to the US geological survey map.  It seems 
obvious to me we should be putting this stuff in any part of the 
aquifer.  Will the poopy water leach into West solutions officer, 
will it flow, is that a risk you want to take or will it sit 
there and leach right up?  Can you show us the next picture?  
This is also one of their maps and I want to read one line from 
it, the line that's underlined says the lower Floridian aquifer 
contains rush to brackish water in northeastern Florida while in 
South Florida is salient and used to dispose of effluent from 
wastewater treatment processes.  That water will it stay there or 
will it follow the lines the US geological survey says.  Will it 
go up, next slide please.  Here's a slide we keep seeing from 
time to time about, it goes about recovery wells.  Look at the 
reclaimed water and then the native groundwater on both sides.  
It doesn't show them mixing, have you ever poured clean water to 
dirty water conceded not mix especially with arrows that we just 
saw.  All this water moves all the water is has upward pressure 
on it.  
.  Just a couple lines from the Floridian aquifer system.  It 
paves as an aquifer over much of the extent.  Here's the 
important line, while in South Florida it is salient and used to 
ask dispose of effluent from wastewater treatment processes, 
that's what's already happening.  It's not in the future.  Does 
it stay there?  The likelihood of it moving is small but in 
different areas other units of the aquifer system are 
hydraulically connected to equivalent units composing the upper 
part of the aquifer and the degree of water change is a matter of 
debate so our best scientists are telling us it's a matter of 
debate.  We don't know yet.  Next slide please.  So do you feel 
like taking the chance of poisoning the entire aquifer, it's 
already struggling.  One line, it tends to have a vertical 
migration.  This is from an independent engineering company.  
Tends to have a vertical migration component because of the 
density difference and the greater buoyancy then the target zone. 
 Few wells have been taken out of service because the seals 
designed to prevent this migration failed, out of 32 wells seven 
wells have failed and the non-drinkable water full of bacteria, 
the bacteria is detected, that's 22% of these wells have failed, 
are you willing to take that risk.  Next slide please.  So why 
does this happen?  Why do the wells fail?  Usually is because of 
fracturing rented by drilling through the confining layers of 
stone of tectonic forces can do it and the forces that cause 
singles sites where fracturing is well-developed such as the Palm 
Beach County wastewater has eventually migrated substantial 
differences in a very short time we had a few hundred meters 2.5 
years so maybe we don't have to worry about this you really do 
you want the children to me the game face that this is never 
going to happen?  It's going to happen.  I'll come back to this 
but extends that is not happening anywhere, it's happening in 
Altamonte Springs area it's been happening in self will run for a 
long time, it's happening in Sanford, it's here, David Santiago.  


>>COUNCIL MEMBER SANTIAGO:  Thank you Mr. Chairman and on the 
information you posted from the departments, I don't have any 
dispute.  I believe it for what it's worth.  Where I am 
struggling Mr. Chairman is first let me say this to the audience 
and anybody listening I don't think anybody appeared once water 
polluted work bad for you.  To serve it to you, there's no one up 
here that wants it, we don't want our kids to do it.  There's 
none of that motivation happening here.  But I sit here and I 
think I say part of our job is to be problem solvers.  It's the 
role the say.  But then I start thinking what's the problem?  For 
Volusia County I want to make sure I'm clear, that's what we 
govern, that is it.  What is the problem for Volusia County, the 
governance we have?  I can't find it.  I can't find it because we 
have no plans to do any of this.  I wouldn't support this.  You 
walk up to the average Joe and you say do you want to drink poopy 
water, they will tell you no, that's a pretty easy statement to 
say people don't like this, of course, one in 100 will say I 
don't want to drink that but our job is to do a little bit more 
deep dive into look into things and find real problems because I 
say this is a County solution looking for a County problem.  Mr. 
Chairman, we are not doing it.  It can only control our own 
destiny.  What a citizen initiative wants to do on their own they 
can do it, the cities considering doing this, go lobby the 
legislature because the legislature controls the water, lobbied 
them and say we don't want this because they can circumvent us 
anyway if we did something but Volusia has zero plans to do this. 
 Don't be fooled by what you're seeing on social media that that 
is what we are doing.  It is a con game as it pertains to Volusia 
County.  I know the warriors will go crazy, you're going to see 
it, my name will be in highlights and welcome to all of them but 
what I'm telling you is the truth, Volusia County has no plans to 
do this you hundred questions about the process and you know the 
process, for anything like this to come even on the horizon is 
going to be years out and guess what, filled the chamber for the 
people who say no we don't want that but the people will be 
interacting with us saying at that point whether we want this or 
not, that's the process.  To create a problem that doesn't exist 
for Volusia County and I am very concerned that if we ever put 
this as a referendum people can be deceived to think this would 
be solving in a County solution.  It doesn't.  We are only 7% of 
the water users, that's it.  For us to put something like that on 
the ballot would be doing a disservice from this dais.  From this 
dais it would be a disservice because we would be putting 
something in there that could happen people think this will 
affect the entire county when it does not.  So I'll wrap up with 
don't believe social media folks.  This is not a county problem 
and they are going to be out there very vigilant.  The ones that 
talk the most that get the good intentioned but good people that 
want to know the facts often don't engage, this is my problem 
with social media, will don't want to engage because they're 
going to be attacked like I'm going to be attacked tonight and 
tomorrow for tell you the truth.  If it were problem trust me I'd 
be diving in but I don't want this for my kids and I'm not going 
to pull the wool over your eyes, the other 93% of the drinkers of 
our water telling me we're putting a solution forward.  

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Jake Johansson.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER JOHANSSON:  Thank you sir, I apologize for not 
paying too much attention last meeting.  I thought we all walked 
away saying we were going to hear this the first meeting in water 
so I wind up some professionals with some scientific but they 
won't be available so I'll go basically on some of the things 
that we all talked about when we had a quick conference call 
number one is I think we need to address the fears of our public. 
 And the bottom line, the poopy water think is a key, you're 
right but bottom line, we end then and everybody on the staff 
wants to give our public the last cleanest water to drink.  And I 
know every city wants to do the same thing.  Every city in the 
county wants to do what they can under the confines of our 
current Florida culture to preserve the aquifer.  To the best of 
their ability.  We use reclaimed water but we don't stop planting 
beautiful green grass.  We have reclaimed water that can be green 
so we're good for now, we don't catch rainwater yet.  We don't, 
we're not very careful about how we use water in our house.  
Until those things happen I don't think there telling everybody I 
turn my shower off between wash and rinse.  So I think we need to 
address that.  Not that we are not but I think that needs to be 
the conversation.  I concur with most people that we do need to 
protect our aquifer and I think what we need to do is switch the 
conversation over or at least in tandem have the conversation 
about getting everybody off these old septic tanks, especially in 
our very vulnerable areas and get them on the newer septic tanks 
if we can provide them sewer.  The ultimate would be too provide 
them sewer because then we are catching that water and we can use 
it for reclaimed when it is running short.  What we're trying to 
regulate we don't have.  If we want to regulate these things that 
have been brought up, we can do that.  And Ben showed us the way 
five years out the CIP.  Then taking that off the list, we're not 
doing that now.  And then throughout the process we can keep on 
hitting them until they get right and it will start taking his 
birthday away, I don't care.  What's I don't want to do is 
something we talk about all the time.  I also don't want to 
restrict future councils.  I want to give them the ability to go 
thank God they didn't do that because we are in extremists now 
and we need to come up with alternative ways to take care of it 
and no pun intended, but this idea might be a little more 
palatable in 40 years.  I don't know.  Last but not least we 
don't want to ask the legislature to help us with this.  Every 
day we stand up and say home rule, home rule, home rule.  I don't 
want to start asking them to preempt to make it easier for us.  
So I'm inclined to just because this only affects our service 
area, I'm inclined to not really want to go anywhere with this 
right now although some good points were brought up.  Bottom line 
we need good clean drinking water.  We need to work every day and 
if you pay attention to the Fed every day there looking at things 
other than water that need to be regulated.  P FAS was one of the 
couple million parts per something now it's for.  Something we 
need to get to here in the county so I think we keep on working 
hard to get the best and cleanest water we can get.  Thank you 
very much chairman.

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Councilman Dempsey.  

>>COUNCIL MEMBER DEMPSEY:  Guys, I'm happy to hear you guys talk 
about future generations the way we address stuff in 40 years or 
future generations because I want to address the ordinance first 
because I'm kind of split on how I think I'm going to vote.  I am 
definitely in favor of an ordinance prohibiting B12 injections 
and potable reuse and I'll tell you why even though there is no 
foreseeable future for this county and using this as everybody's 
testified I do think it's around us and it concerns me the 
question is on what side do we want to err?  If we are someday 
going to need deep well injections for potable reuse in the 
county, I think that's something future generations should be 
able to debate.  I want to make sure the public is aware if and 
when it happens and they're able to debate it and make sure the 
future counsel is able to debate it, that's why I'm in favor of 
an ordinance because that will force the county public notice out 
there to everybody to see because now we're talking about 
changing an ordinance which requires a lot for dissemination of 
information to the public and what we are talking about.  Then at 
that .40 years from now Jake then that science may have improved. 
 We may have better science and we may have more of the need and 
just two, we are not labeling this ordinance no toilet to tap or 
no deep well injection forever or in perpetuity because I'm not 
arrogant enough to think I know what's best for future 
generations in 40 years, I am not a prophet so I can't sit here 
and tell you what the future holds for Volusia County but I think 
if there is a need for deep well injection that needs to be 
heavily debated, heavily noticed and put before the Council at 
that time and they can vote and the reason for passing this is 
because we would air on the side of no, I think we should air on 
the side of not trusting the science because once we put this 
into the aquifer, who knows what's going to happen.  We trusted 
science with the Titanic and you know how that turned out.  We 
trusted science with Agent Orange and we know what that did to 
our veterans, we trusted science with Covid vaccine Reno that 
did.  This has been going on for a while.  Bill Gates, I 
challenge everyone in this room to Google Bill Gates and Jimmy 
Fallon, poopy water January 2015 on Jimmy Fallon.  Bill Gates 
challenged him to drink two glasses, one poopy water, one bottled 
water.  And he drank it.  Mr. Gates was pushing this new 
invention that his foundation was propping up, the Omni 
processes.  Basically telling us 11 years ago this reclaimed 
water is somehow safe.  That's fine.  But I don't want to do it 
and then figure out later on it turned out to be the next biggest 
mistake in science.  If you ask the parents of mothers who use 
thalidomide where it was marketed in 1950 as being completely 
safe to treat pregnant women for morning sickness and as a result 
of 10,000 children received severe birth defects which included 
shortened or no limbs at all, I don't want to trust DES.  Cause 
all kinds of birth defects and heightened cancer, cervical 
cancer.  I don't trust the science.  And before I think we go 
ahead and make our entire County a guinea pig by just putting it 
in there and let's see what happens, I think we should air on the 
side of no rent we need to go ahead and put an ordinance in 
place, not in perpetuity, not forever.  But in place so that when 
and if it becomes necessary to implement this.  Then it could be 
debated hotly based on current science and the current conditions 
of the county we have none of us I would think there's a saying 
we know it's going to happen 50 years from now or 100 years from 
now in our county that's why I think we need to put this in 
place.  Let future generations deal with it because I keep 
hearing over and over it's not an issue now so why are we dealing 
with it?  Maybe we shouldn't deal with it but we need to put in 
place a presumption of no until proven otherwise and a future 
counsel meeting, that's all, thanks guys.  

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Councilman Joy Kent.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER KENT:  I was going to start out by saying I 
respect what David Santiago had to say but I'm not going to start 
that way because I actually respect everything that you six 
gentlemen have to say on all the issues we have even if I 
disagree where you are.  Don, to kind of Endor begin where you 
were ending, many of you don't know and don't blame me if I don't 
know this but I spent the better part of 15 years in the city of 
Ormond Beach fighting to get fluoride out of the water.  I 
mentioned that to you because of what's happened in the past 
year.  But I was railing against this and trying to teach my 
fellow commissioners that fluoride, flooring is the promiscuous 
element and the only element that will leave when it's with for 
something it likes a little bit more.  It has some great bonding 
abilities.  And it might have some medicinal purpose in a topical 
usage.  But to drink this stuff and when I saw the machine turn 
against me and they marched the health department in and that 
Doctor from the health department at the time and I said to the 
good doctor will you sign a piece of paper that says the health 
department is responsible for all medical issues from childhood 
infancy to old age.  Because they wouldn't ask the question what 
happens if you drink twice the recommended amount of water every 
day, if you drink 16 glasses instead of eight, what does it do in 
your cooking with this stuff, etc. I only mentioned that because 
it took the good doctor in the state of Florida to come out with 
a statewide ban against Florida dating water.  And I railed on 
this for 15 years.  In the city of Ormond Beach and we are 
talking about trusting the science and they say trust what we are 
putting in your water.  I am also against fear mongering and 
people will get upset with me because I will call them a fear 
mongering.  You're not going to like this many of you but there 
is no water problem where we are.  I can meet you at Silver Glen 
if you want and we can go swimming at Silver Glen tomorrow, it's 
72° year-round, their 35 million gallons of water pumping out of 
that spring had every day.  You couldn't swim down there and hold 
onto the spring had, it will push you out there's so much 
pressure.  Because there's so much pressure that water has to go 
somewhere and it's getting pushed out of the aquifer into the St. 
John's out into Jacksonville and the Atlantic Ocean and it 
becomes where you can't drink it.  There is no water shortage 
issue.  That I'm convinced that all.  And if you still don't 
believe me come to my house Ormond Beach Beachside and my house 
is on the top of a sand dune.  And if you want you and I can take 
turns with a shovel and we can dig down to about 6 and a half 
feet and we're going to hit freshwater.  We can put it through a 
filter and I'll drink it with you.  No water shortages what I'm 
saying here but that being said counsel I don't see the problem.  
With an amendment Don.  And putting this out to a vote on the 
charter.  So it might not be happening today, might not be 
happening tomorrow.  I've always, I will never have problems 
letting the people vote on any issue we had it's obviously talked 
about in other areas, we've heard about other local counties, 
we've heard about Dell ~keeps being brought up.  So the 
discussion is there.  I just haven't been convinced that what's 
the harm in not only passing the amendment allowing people to 
vote on it so I'm ready to make a motion combining them but Don 
you scared me a little bit because I think you want them 
separated.  I will make a motion right now to approve the 
proposed amendment only, going to break this up chairman.  To 
approve the proposed amendment, I will make that motion.  On the 
ordinance, sorry.  Then after that I'm planning on making a 
motion to allow this to go for a proposed charter vote.  

>>  So you said you split them up.  The first one was a motion, 
you said amendment but now you said the ordinance.  Okay, so 
that's the motion is to improve the ordinance.  Which takes four 
votes and you seconded that.  In the Don seconds it.  

>>CHAIR BROWER:  David Santiago.  Do you need to speak before 
David speaks?  

>>COUNCIL MEMBER SANTIAGO:  I'll be quick and you said it, 
ordinance goes majority vote, a vote of five.  

>>CHAIR BROWER:  And then I believe you have a follow-up for 
this.  Councilman Santiago.  

>>COUNCIL MEMBER SANTIAGO:  Don I had to do a little research 
because of you.  You reference the Titanic and the builders of 
the time that did not claim explicitly that it was unthinkable.  
It wasn't designed to hit an iceberg.  That being said Troy, I 
didn't know what you were going until the end.  But aren't you 
concerned that citizens of the 90 3% of the other people that 
will vote on this are going to think it's going to solve or 
protect them from whatever this amendment says.  

>>  Thanks chairman, may I rip we gave ourselves a time limit 
five minutes and I went on a tangent about fluoride in the water 
and use up a lot of my time but David, that's something I wanted 
to touch on so I appreciate that.  I look unfortunately or 
fortunately I look at our nation's capital as the leader and then 
I look at our state and then I look at our county and then I look 
at our cities in that order and I feel like us doing this, we are 
leading the way for our cities.  We are showing them hey,, this 
is how we feel about this.  I started with I wanted to applaud 
you for your comments and I respect what you say.  Even though I 
might not agree 100% but yes, I'm still okay with it even though 
93%, we are dealing with 70% of the water in the county, Ormond 
Beach, Daytona Beach is the largest one or dealt on a beach with 
the most people so you've got those three giants with the water, 
new Smyrna, Port Orange but I look at us as the leaders of our 
county and I think this cities look to us as that leader like 
they're taking that step so that's why I'm okay with it.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER SANTIAGO:  I wouldn't subscribe to that but an 
ordinance alone can do that.  My biggest concern, I may be okay 
with the ordinance.  It's a statement from us and that's a 
leadership statement.  So my concern is where I'm trying to 
change your thoughts put us on the board for is the fact that 93% 
will think it's for them and it's not but if it's about 
leadership and sending a message to the other 16 cities I'm okay 
with it and we can do that without a referendum.  The citizen 
initiative can still go on but it's us, when it comes from us 
it's endorsed by us.  And I don't want to deceive the people.  If 
it passes, it will pass, the way the question is written it will 
pass and I don't have a problem with that 93% of the people are 
going to think we did something for them and we didn't and that's 
all, thank you Mr. chair.

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Councilman Johansson.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER JOHANSSON:  Quick question for the chairman, 
we're voting on the ordinance.  So I want to give you my reason 
I'm going to say no and that answer is I am a less government, 
less regulation kind of guy.  We are not doing anything, we are 
not going to be doing anything.  I don't want to put something on 
the books for something that's not happening.  If that's going to 
happen I'm going to do an ordinance a week on some other stuff 
that's not happening, it's just beyond me so thank you.

>>CHAIR BROWER:  David, I agree when you said here's the truth, 
control our own destiny and that's what we're doing here is 
controlling our own destiny.  Jay, you've said numerous times 
it's not happening, we are worried about nothing and you've heard 
over and over again it is happening all around us.  Prevention 
only works before it is in your own house.  So we are taking 
preventative action to protect our own citizens from that 
science, from the reports I just showed said is not settled 
science.  And Wells, the wells don't work all of them.  They leak 
so do we want to take that risk?  I'm not willing to take that 
risk for our constituents.  The state of Florida thinks we're 
going to have water problems.  That's why they have approved this 
as an alternate approved clean water source.  It's being done in 
Altamonte Springs as a tester, it's being done for real in 
Brevard County, it's being done for real with horrible results in 
the South Florida, in Miami and beyond.  So we do need to control 
our destiny.  I don't know who will be here after the next 
election even or after in 10 years or 20 years or 100 years.  
Will our citizens think we've done something for them?  I hope so 
because we have.  We protected them having to drink cleaned up 
sewage water into our aquifer or direct consumption into their 
potable water supply.  I think you listened to the telephoto 
meeting last night, their own utility director said it's not 
really drinking water.  When it was asked why can't we just drink 
this?  You can't drink it and then he admitted the injection 
process was injecting cleaned up sewage water, reclaimed water, 
black water.  It started as black water, it's treated and he said 
you can treat into drinking water standards and injected.  So the 
veil is off.  We know what's going to happen.  We can't outlaw 
Deltona or any other city but I'll tell you what, they are 
looking for leadership.  Daytona Beach is going to vote on this 
tomorrow, they're looking to us for leadership and Edgewater or 
Ormond Beach, I don't know which will go first, they are all 
putting this on the agendas not because they were forced to 
because they believe the state when they say, when the state says 
because of the amount of development that's occurring we need to 
make sure we have a future water supply and out of all the things 
we could do this is it, cleaned up sewage water rent there's talk 
about conservation, I'm all for conservation and we need to deal 
with that.  But there's not going to be anything worth conserving 
once we put this in hyperspeed and injected sewage water into our 
aquifer.  What are we going to preserve at that point?  So I am a 
yes vote on the ordinance.  I want to see the ballot amendment 
also right now we are only dealing with the ordinance and again 
I'll just say prevention only works if you start it before the 
project is in our own house.  Does our county manager want to do 
it, does Michael Ulrich want to inject this into our aquifer, no 
I don't know how long any of our staff will be here or how long 
any of us will be here so let's give our own citizens local 
control and say no.  Don Dempsey.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER DEMPSEY:  Jake, to counter what you were saying 
about what's not an issue so we shouldn't create an ordinance, 
it's not even an issue and I agree, there doesn't appear to be an 
issue in our lifetime we do an act land-use codes for instance 
not because there's a fuel farm in Ormond but we do have zoning 
regulations if somebody wants to put one in you have to have 
public hearings and as we saw last time it brought up public and 
the masses so all I'm saying is this is a way of saying you can't 
do this until we have public hearings on it and Council votes on 
it.  This is a way of setting it up so if they want to do this 
type of science and technology 100 years from now it will be 
publicly noticed, it will be debated, I'm sure the public will 
turn out for that the way to they turned out for Belvidere.  
That's why I'm in favor of this as a protection and I always like 
to air on the side of know until I'm proven beyond a reasonable 
doubt so to speak that the science is safe.  I'm not necessarily 
convinced now, it's moot now because we are not even putting it 
in our aquifer yet when that happens I want to make sure the 
public is adequately noticed and the Council at that time votes 
on it and I don't know how the vote would go but at least it 
would be an issue for later generations they can deal with it.  
We are not making this forever, they're not making this in 
perpetuity like some things in this county.  I leave this 
available for future generations to vote on.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER JOHANSSON:  Mike I do a quick reply?  

>>CHAIR BROWER:  You were next.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER JOHANSSON:  Very quickly, I understand your 
point.  I beg to differ, that's all.  

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Councilman Santiago.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER SANTIAGO:  I want to respond to you because you 
reference ordinances in the comp plan but those are tools we put 
out for people that want to do things in this community.  What 
we're talking about, what this body governs this body and its 
leadership have said we have no plans to do this, we don't intend 
to I think you did ask some good questions about the process and 
the timing of this.  I don't know how this vote is going to go 
but I don't want the public to leave with if this vote fails to 
leave with the pretense this will not be on a public, if it ever 
comes back again it will not be on a public docket somewhere.  We 
said there's permits in DEP, process there that are public 
notices, there's funding cycles that are 5 to 10 years out, this 
will not go under the radar for whoever's governing appear at the 
time to make a public statement and deal with it.  So the 
bogeyman is not there.  Thank you, you can stay over there.  

>>CHAIR BROWER:  You're going to have to restrain yourself.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER SANTIAGO:  Keep that stuff on Facebook so Don I 
respect you but we are making the law where it doesn't need.  
It's not necessary.  And again if it were in front of me today to 
say Volusia County wants to do this I would probably say no.  And 
I think most people will at the time depending what the public 
sentiment is and what the science is all I'm just looking for a 
problem that doesn't exist.  

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Other than Deltona.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER SANTIAGO:  I know you represent Deltona and I've 
stood quiet for a while there because there was a lot of 
misstatements may and you kept talking about drinking water, you 
neglect to mention the two parts of drinkable water that then 
been clearly stated in the surface water pulled from the river 
was at stage one which they don't make it as a drinking water 
rent that's what they were going to use, I'm not offending them 
but I've stood quiet but not read your social media posts and I'm 
sorry to the public and have to read all these misstatements out 
there even from our chair, I was quiet but I've had enough of you 
falsely accusing Deltona.  

>>CHAIR BROWER:  I'll repeat what Deltona's city their utility 
manager said that they will clean up that river water to drinking 
water standards but when commission members said why don't we 
drink it his answer was is not drinkable.  

>>COUNCIL MEMBER SANTIAGO:  See the full truth.  We just learned. 
 Just be intellectually honest.  

>>CHAIR BROWER:  I'm being totally honest.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER SANTIAGO:  I was being home and you took me out 
of my shell.  Let's keep it there.

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Councilman Robbins wants to speak, go ahead.

>>  Weibel spoke to him three times except for myself.  Let's, 
yeah.  You are good Troy, it's a long one.  You're sitting.  Call 
for the vote.  

>>CHAIR BROWER:  I don't see any details on the board, I want the 
public that two ladies in the blue shirts that are here trying to 
learn how we operate so what we are voting on is just the motion 
on the floor is just for an ordinance that could be changed by a 
future counsel pretty easily.  The ordinance says that we cannot 
add any kind of treated sewage into our potable water supply or 
inject it into the aquifer, that's what we are voting on red 
Clarissa would you call the roll for the ordinance please.

>>.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER JOHANSSON:  No.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER KENT:  Yes.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER REINHART:  No.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER ROBINS:  No.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER SANTIAGO:  No.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER DEMPSEY:  Yes.

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Yes and the ordinance fails 3 to 4. Okay, Mr. 
Kent now we have the question of the ballot amendment.

>>  Filed a motion to approve the proposed balance amendment 
regarding Blackwater.  

>>CHAIR BROWER:  A motion to approve the proposed balance 
amendment that would prohibit treated Blackwater into the 
drinking water or the aquifer and I would say that this is the 
infinity of local control because it would not be any of us 
preventing this, it's not us saying you can't do this.  It's 
allowing the people that are most affected, but people that drink 
the water in unincorporated Volusia is utility areas.  They get 
to vote on do they want this in their water system anytime in the 
future, can it ever be changed Don, it is harder, it is harder, 
to stay way up on the top shelf.  Counsel can't change it, it 
would have to be voted on by the people I really like that idea 
and I think it's appropriate for us to make it difficult to 
inject this if in 20 or 30 years we have science that says it's 
absolutely harmless to drink cleaned up sewage water we can use 
reverse osmosis for every gallon of clean water, there's five, 
six, 7 gallons of toxic waste we have to deal with and where 
you're going to put that, do we inject that into the aquifer, 
there's no easy answers.  Let's give the residents the benefit of 
the doubt and not force them to have this come up.  The state 
approved it because of the amount of development that goes on.  
And it was a dangerous compromise.  I believe with others opens 
community to allow them to continue to build just one more house 
past our clean water supply.  Every land has a carrying capacity 
of what life is considered to sustain and if we are going to 
allow treated sewage water into the aquifer and pollute the whole 
system your well, my well, I want to give the residence the 
opportunity to vote on.  Don Dempsey.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER DEMPSEY:  I was curious in light of the fact 
there's a lot of municipalities voting on this issue in the near 
future and I-4 one and a, I don't like preemption on any level I 
don't like the state trying to preempt us and I don't believe I 
could in good conscience try to preempt cities from doing what 
they want to do so that's the reason I want to split the vote.  
Because I'm just not comfortable with us going to the cities what 
the state is attempting to do to us and tell us what to do with 
our own water through 718 so I don't know if it's possible to 
table this issue to a later date so we can see how these cities 
are handling this issue.  There commission votes and then I don't 
know, when the latest we can address this at a future date.  
That's my question.  

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Jake Johansson.  

>>COUNCIL MEMBER JOHANSSON:  Is this for the amendment?  The 
charter amendment?  I need help.  The charter amendment, I'm just 
asking, Don is asking for a continuance because he doesn't want 
to preempt the cities.  But this amendment doesn't apply to the 
cities.  The charter amendment does not apply at all to anything 
other than our service area.  We are leading the entire County to 
vote on what would affect our service areas, is that correct?  We 
are not doing anything to the cities other than allowing them to 
vote for water that isn't part of their service area.  And that's 
what David had mentioned earlier.  And I haven't gotten a lot of 
emails saying I want to influence what the unincorporated service 
area or the Volusia County service area is trying to do or not 
trying to do because we're not trying to do it, thank you.

>>  I wanted to ask Paul on this in no way is attempting to 
affect the city's ability to control its own water.

>>  We wrote it so it only affects the Volusia County utilities.

>>  This in no way.

>>  It applies to your service area.  So as we stated before your 
service area includes some municipalities and vice versa, some 
municipal service areas include the unincorporated areas so we 
are talking about service area.

>>  Point of order chair, we're having a discussion being timed 
and we haven't even gotten a second.  There is a motion made by 
Mr. Kent, no second as of yet.

>>  I will withdraw my question then.  

>>  Is there a second?  On Mr. Kent's motion.

>>  I'll second it so we can have a discussion.  Paula, so I'm 
sure there's no chance of us by doing this it will preempt the 
cities in any way?  

>>  We are not preempting their utilities because you're only 
affecting our utilities, to the extent a city is in the Volusia 
County utility service area, then I don't know it's not really 
preemptions, it's our utilities but we are affecting municipal 
residents because they are in the Volusia County service area and 
under Volusia County utilities.  I just want to give an accurate 
answer.

>>  I'm ready to go.

>>CHAIR BROWER:  I would add to your concern Don not only are we 
not preempting the city, all we're doing is letting the residence 
vote on whether or not that it's the ultimate in the government 
in a Republic where the people get to make a decision.  And the 
cities will do it if they want to but they are looking to us for 
leadership.  There watching us.  Daytona goes tomorrow and then 
at least two other cities.  I think we need to show them the 
leadership that let their own residence vote on whether or not 
they want to add treated sewage water to their drinking water or 
aquifer, councilmember Santiago.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER SANTIAGO:  We've belabored this point a bit and 
I call the question.

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Clarissa would you call the vote, this vote is 
for a charter amendment, this counsel has the authority to put 
the amendment directly on the ballot for the citizens to vote, 
not us to vote on the final outcome but the citizens.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER JOHANSSON:  No.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER KENT:  Yes.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER REINHART:  No.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER ROBINS:  No.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER SANTIAGO:  No.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER DEMPSEY:  Yes.

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Yes, and that required five votes and we only 
got three so the motion is not passed for the charter.  And that 
concludes item 5. Item 6.  Appeal by Clayton Benny oh of the 
planning and land development regulations approval.

>>  Carol McFarland planning and development services director, 
this is an appeal of a land development regulation commission 
decision for a variance at 5076 Central Avenue in DeLeon Springs 
which is the box in yellow on your screen.  There were two 
variances that were applied for and were approved by the PLD RC, 
variance one was for a dog shelter.  The setback there is 
supposed to be 5 feet, the dog shelter was built at 1.8 feet from 
the side yard which is what you see in the black circle on the 
plan.  It's 383 feet² structure so it does not need a building 
permit, however they still have to meet zoning setbacks though 
this is an after-the-fact situation.  Variance 2 is for a barn 
approved and that is not part of the appeal so we are not 
discussing variance 2, only variance 1. This is a picture of the 
subject dog shelter, started as code enforcement complaint that 
included structures that didn't meet setbacks as well as a hobby 
breeder operating on site without a license and without a special 
exception approval.  Since code enforcement has been working with 
the property owner on this they have ceased the hobby breeder 
operations and reduce the number of dogs on the property so it's 
five and under so that they are meeting the maximum number of 
dogs allowed in the unincorporated area so there is no longer an 
issue with the number of pets or use of the animals.  The 
variances require to meet three of the variance criteria, I'm not 
going to read these but these are the five criteria required if 
we need to refer to them, staff found they did not meet criteria 
one, two, three and four and the regulation commission voted to 
approve the variance for the dog kennel to three.  For public 
input there were two letters of opposition that were submitted 
prior to the meeting, two people who spoke in opposition, one is 
the appellate Mr. Clayton Bennio and the other is his attorney 
who is also present.  There were four letters of support that 
accompanied the variance application and also a form listing the 
neighbors who stated they were okay with the dogs and I would say 
a lot of the statements we got from both support and opposition 
focused in on the dogs and whether they approved of the dogs.  We 
need to be clear this is a variance to the zoning setbacks 
structures for an accessory structure.  This is the property in 
question in yellow, kind of in the center.  The property in red 
on the left-hand side of the map is the appellant's property.  
Not really great on the screens there but some of that light 
yellow is green meaning we received letters of support from those 
properties.  The appellant's statement discusses a lot about the 
business of hobby breeder being on the property and keeping the 
kennel could allow for that to be used as a business.  He also 
talked about following staff recommendation of denial and 
discussed dogs getting out and biting people, the applicant did 
say in the meeting there were times the dogs escaped and chased 
people on bikes.  That's why she wanted the kennel was to keep 
the dogs secure on the property.  So the Council in front of you 
is to reverse, affirm or continue the case for the appeal.  We do 
have an appellate here but do not have the property owner, they 
were properly noticed but we've been unable to get hold of them 
by phone.  So we do have the appellate year and if you have any 
questions I'm here.

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Questions for staff, Councilman Dempsey.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER DEMPSEY:  I have to excuse myself from this 
report for process issues.

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Councilman Robins.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER ROBINS:  Carol.

>>  Are attorneys have to announce it is quasijudicial so you 
need to disclose any communications.

>>CHAIR BROWER:  You didn't let me get to that.  Before Danny 
asked those questions does any councilmember have any ex parte 
they need to declare?  Okay.  Councilman Robins.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER ROBINS:  Carol, real quick the setback you said 
is 5 feet, it needs to be 5 feet and that's 1.8 so we are dealing 
with 3.2 feet.  

>>  That is correct.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER ROBINS:  Why are we here?  I'm not being a wise 
guy.  

>>  The variance was approved by the PLDR as RDC so we are here 
in the appeal.  

>>COUNCIL MEMBER ROBINS:  I've got plenty of comments.

>>  Made the motion.

>>CHAIR BROWER:  We need to hear from the applicant and the 
applicant is not here.  We have to members of the appellate and 
the attorney for the appellant who would like to speak, there are 
no more questions.  Okay.  Martin Padilla.  I'm sorry.  I see 
that cross on the L now making it a team.  

>>  My name has been butchered a lot worse than that.  I'm 
located at 120 E. Rich Avenue in Deland and I represent Mr. 
Bennio.  I heard her say there was conversations about them 
reaching some type of situation where they are not selling the 
dogs or breeding the dogs anymore but we provided evidence at the 
hearing that was not in fact true because there were 
advertisements we put in there showing they advertised for 
breeding and they don't have a breeders license.  But here's a 
legal argument I wanted to make because in the letter that was 
presented, it says the board based the decision on the following 
findings and the second finding is the special conditions and 
circumstances do not result from the actions of the applicant.  
That is completely not supported by the evidence put in their.  
The applicant testified they built the structure and they built 
it without a permit.  That's not in dispute.  As a matter of fact 
we attached exhibits that showed on the variance that she 
admitted on page two of the first exhibit where she made an 
application that the structure was being built.  That they built 
it.  So I don't know how the board ever made a conclusion that 
there was no evidence saying that the applicant had no impact.  
The applicant built something without a permit and without 
getting a variance and not following through and that I think by 
itself should have some merit here.  That this should be 
reversed.  Because they are the ones that caused the problem by 
not following the process like everybody else needs to do.  
That's why I think the board made an error of fact in their 
position by granting the variance.  

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Thank you, where is Carissa?  Okay.  If you 
would just note you have some time reserved if you'd like to come 
back after the discussion because as the attorney you get 20 
minutes you've used 17.  Or you've taken 17 minutes.  Clayton, 
did you want to speak now?  Excuse me, one second, Councilman 
Robbins.  Did you have a question?  Jake Johansson did you have a 
question for the attorney?  Clayton.  

>>  I'd like to say as far as for the breeding and selling of the 
dogs as were stated they said they're not doing it, they are.  
There are still on Facebook, she's still breathing, she's still 
selling, the dogs bark all hours of the day and night and 
secondly it poses a problem with the property owners of which we 
sent all the information out to.  Some of the people we actually 
looked into to see who signed those different statements saying 
they were okay with it, they are not even property owners around 
the entire area so they were set up, it was something that was 
rigged on it.  We looked into it, they don't even exist.  
Secondly I had a private investigator go there and actually go 
onto the property where she attempted to sell 2 puppies to him, 
said there were more on the ground and there they are right now.  
Another issue that raises, once this has gone through is it to 
stop her from doing what she does?  Her mother said it was for 
making her money on the property.  This passes, it goes to 
another person, that's allowed.  The entire integrity of the area 
goes downhill from there because who wants to live in an area 
where you hear dogs barking all hours of the day and night?  
Another issue is the noise ordinance, there's a noise ordinance 
set in fact by County Counsel and it should be something to look 
into even further when you call the Sheriff's Department 
Sheriff's Department says that's not our issue, that's animal 
control, animal control knows about the dog bites but no one 
followed up to take the dogs from the woman that was court 
ordered to spay neuter all those dogs and to this day she still 
breathing every one of them.  I rest.

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Councilman Robins.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER ROBINS:  Thank you chair.  Are we in the comment 
section?  

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Let's make sure nobody has a question first and 
Jake Johansson for questions.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER JOHANSSON:  Carol, can you go back to the map?  
I saw it as I was coming out of the restroom the yellow, the 5067 
Central is where the dogs are.  And 5075 is the person 
complaining?  

>>  One of the statements of opposition is 5075 which is just 
north of Mr. Bennio's property, 5040 commerce Avenue if that's 
correct.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER JOHANSSON:  Over there.  What's the distance 
Carol?  

>>  300 feet approximately.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER JOHANSSON:  And the variance that the PLDRDC 
gave was after the fact number one, about 3 feet, 3.2.

>>  The variance between what's allowed and what they had and 
it's also on the east property line.  

>>COUNCIL MEMBER JOHANSSON:  Writes, got it, thanks.  

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Do we have anybody here from animal control?  

>>  No we do not.  

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Okay, if there's no more questions Councilman 
Robins for a comment.  

>>COUNCIL MEMBER ROBINS:  Just to understand this, was it the 
PLDRC upheld the variance in this agenda item is to I guess 
reverse that?  

>>  The PLDRC approved the variance so the appeal is to reverse 
it which would result in a denial of the variance.  

>>COUNCIL MEMBER ROBINS:  So if we want to keep it the same as 
approved what do you need from us?  

>>  You would want to deny the appeal.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER ROBINS:  Motion to deny the appeal.

>>CHAIR BROWER:  You just made that motion.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER JOHANSSON:  Second.

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Councilman Robins makes a motion to deny the 
appeal and the second was by Jake Johansson.  Any other comments? 
 Then I'm going to call the attorney if he wants to say anything. 
 I think you've still got three minutes and reserve.  And I'd ask 
you while you please tell us how does, how is this affecting Mr. 
Bennio?  

>>  I think if you have a kennel with the noise that affects them 
and also it brings down the property damage, the property values. 
 Who wants to live around dogs that are barking through the night 
and nobody does anything about it and there are also 
circumstances where the dog bit somebody.  So they are breeding 
without a breeders license and that's illegal.  So essentially 
she's violating the law and didn't jump through the legal hoops 
to build what she wanted to do and the county is now going to say 
it's okay, you can break the law?  Some of this needs to be some 
kind of common sense too.  So you're going to approve somebody 
that is in violation and not only that but the staff recommended 
it shouldn't be, it should be denied.  And finally I think when 
you make findings of fact that are not supported by competent 
substantial evidence in the record as the reason why you are 
going to approve the variance, it is a matter of law.  In their 
own writings they relied upon that evidence and that evidence is 
not in the record.  They caused the problem so the whole reason 
behind them granting the variance is an error.  It's a legal 
error.  So that's our position and I'm going to ask that you 
approve the appeal.  

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Okay, County attorney.  

>>COUNTY ATTORNEY:  So here's what you're revealing and the level 
of review of a variance.  This council changed the review of 
granting a variance so you do not have to meet all five criteria. 
 You need 3/5 criteria.  As long as this council finds in the 
record there is competent substantial evidence for three of those 
five prongs, you have the authority to deny the appeal and uphold 
the PLDRC determination.  If you find there is not enough 
evidence such that they do not meet 3/5 that gives you grounds to 
approve the appeal and essentially deny the variance.

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Thank you for the clarification, Councilman 
Robins, Councilman Johansson.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER JOHANSSON:  Commissioner, I know the answer but 
I'm going to ask it anyhow to Carol.  Denial of the variance 
doesn't mean the kennel or whatever it is goes away.  That means 
they have to get within the limits, right?  It doesn't make the 
noise go away either.

>>  It does not affect the number of dogs on the property.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER JOHANSSON:  No ways I know to be a code 
violation and be illegal dog activity if there is any is animal 
control and the sheriff.  So whatever decision we make isn't 
going to bear any fruit on those two issues.  Other than maybe 
stopping it for a few minutes while they get rid of some of the 
excess barn if you will.  Thank you.  

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Councilman Troy Kent.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER KENT:  Thank you Chairman, I cannot go along 
with that motion to deny the appeal.  I would want to approve the 
appeal because the attorney and the gentleman he represents are 
just speaking with too much common sense.  Why in the world, why 
in the world would we applaud bad behavior?  Why would we say 
it's okay to break the rules?  Otherwise get rid of the rules, 
man, okay?  We're going to do that get rid of the rules.  I hear 
councilmembers talk about you are freeing up, do whatever you 
want on your land, it's your land, do whatever you want, it's 
well and good until you've got a dog barking in your ear all 
night long, it doesn't feel good.  It's not enjoyable and you can 
hear what you have to do, move it over 5 feet, although the 
rules.  Or get rid of the rules.  But I'm not I get rid of the 
rules kind of guy.  I may follow the rules kind of a guy.  So I 
will emphatically be voting against that motion.  

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Councilman Matt Reinhart.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER REINHART:  Jake had asked the question and I had 
it written down and he's answered it for me.  What we're here for 
today is the motion about the appeal, the dog activity we cannot 
decide upon, the noise activity we cannot decide upon so all it 
is is if they tore down the structure we can move it over and 
they are right back.  

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Councilman Danny Robins.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER ROBINS:  Thank you Chairman and we are here over 
3.2 feet and Mr. Kent, I respect and applaud your stance on this 
but the reason that there's after-the-fact permits and stuff 
happened, I don't know what happened.  I don't need to know but 
there's always a process to this, that's not a green light to 
break the rules.  None of us I don't think support that.  So at 
the end of the day counsel there's several instances here, I'm 
not basing my decision on these.  But you know, agricultural 
setbacks, they can build around the property line and if they 
want to have a couple hogs they can have hogs right on the 
property line, we just approved chickens, we just got rid of shed 
permits.  What else?  So we're here about 3.2 feet.  The rest is 
code violations.  I say call the question.

>>  One question for the County attorney or County manager if you 
know have you received any complaints on the dog biting, on 
breeding or noise?  

>>  I have not.  I don't know, I could not answer necessarily for 
animal control.  They are not here.  

>>  Michael.

>>  There definitely going to investigate.

>>  Paolo, are you aware of any?  

>>  My understanding is there was a code enforcement process on 
this property and from my understanding they are in compliance.  
There are no longer breeding but I don't want to provide that as 
factual information because I have no firsthand knowledge of that 
but that's my understanding and throughout the PLD RC hearing 
process it was reiterated that they were there for the location 
of the shed.  If there are any further complaints about continued 
dog breeding or hobby breeding or noise complaints, that should 
be settled under the code enforcement provisions because the 
PLDRC does not have jurisdiction under those matters.  

>>  So we're back to the placement of the shed.  

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Councilman Reinhart.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER REINHART:  With respect to what Paula said if 
you have no firsthand knowledge it's been investigated from a 
prior complaint and if there is yet that activity is suggested 
here another complaint could be filed and investigated by code 
enforcement and follow process, thank you.  

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Paolo, was the shed built with a proper permit?  


>>  This council removed the requirement to construct.  At the 
time they did not pull a proper permit but this removed the 
requirement to pull permits.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER REINHART:  I believe I voted no against that but 
regardless was the shed built before the Council made that 
decision?  

>>  Carol said it was built in 2024.  Yes.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER REINHART:  The shed was built before and did 
they pull a permit to build the shed?  Not following the rules.  
Maybe we can send them a cake afterwards after we approve this, 
send them a cake.  

>>CHAIR BROWER:  We could have avoided all this if the owners 
would move the shed, is it a problem the shed can't be moved 
easily, is it sunk with concrete, 

>>  It's a concrete slab and in the packet is a picture.  There's 
ways they could move it for sure but not easily.  

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Okay, don't see any more questions or 
discussion.  The motion was to comment was that your motion to 
deny the appeal and uphold the decision of the PLDRC.  Carissa 
would you call the roll. 

>>COUNCIL MEMBER JOHANSSON:  Can use skip me and come back later? 
 

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Yes is a denial and no is move the shed.  

>>COUNCIL MEMBER JOHANSSON:  Please say that again?  

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Yes vote is a motion to deny the appeal.  

>>.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER KENT:  No.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER REINHART:  No.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER ROBINS:  Yes.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER SANTIAGO:  No.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER DEMPSEY:  He recused himself.

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Well, this will make it a time.  If I say no.  
And eight hi means the motion is failed because it wasn't voted 
by a majority.  So Paolo, do you need a motion to approve the 
appeal now or are we done with this issue?  

>>  You would need a motion to approve the appeal because we need 
basically an affirmative statement.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER KENT:  I make a motion to approve the appeal.

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Motion to approve the appeal by Mr. Kent, 
seconded by David Santiago.  Questions, Councilman Robins.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER ROBINS:  I understand everybody's standpoint but 
if we package this up we're talking about 3.2 feet.  On something 
that he pulled after-the-fact permits for, he made a mistake, we 
are all human.  He paid double the permit fee fine which is 
standard.  He didn't get off Scott free.  And at the end of the 
day I think he voted for us, we got rid of this ordinance for the 
future.  Ahead of this.  As we sit here and look at the totality 
of this stuff in priorities although some people want to crucify 
this guy for probably being human but at the end of the day if he 
were to do it today he wouldn't need anything.  

>>  You have to meet your setbacks even though a permit is not 
required so if you were to build it today he wouldn't need a 
building permit but you would have to meet the 5 foot setback.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER ROBINS:  There's other measures to cover any 
violations but as we sit here and dicker over 3.2 feet we are 
probably wasting thousands of dollars in staff time.  Let this 
person pay double the permit fees and get his hands slapped.  

>>  That's an after-the-fact variance application fee.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER ROBINS:  So it's doubled, how many times did he 
pay that, once, twice.

>>  He paid it once and it's after-the-fact so it's doubled.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER JOHANSSON:  $669, That's what it says.  

>>  Times two.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER JOHANSSON:  1300.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER ROBINS:  David do you have any suggestions, what 
punishment should we give him?  I'm trying to land somewhere.

>>  I'll tell you because Suzanne said it six think delete and 
that was this.  Even now after some on this council decided to 
willy-nilly in my opinion get rid of the permits you have to get 
it would still have to be within the side yard or rear yard 
setbacks.  So basically what I hear you saying is wild West, do 
what you want, pay the fee.  Put it where you want and pay the 
fine.  I'm not okay with that.  I don't want to live next to that 
and follow the rules.  That's where I am.  This isn't about 
punishing some money.  I regret you used that term.  This isn't 
about punishing people.  I'm not a punisher, that's not what I 
want to do.  But this guy wife never seen a day in my life is 
punished every day and to willy-nilly let the scope I think we 
are punishing him and I'm not okay with that.  I continually put 
myself in the shoes of the person up here talking to us going 
hey, this isn't a fun life experience listening to this all day 
long and we can dicker as we use, it's 3.2 feet.  What are we 
going to say next, 23.8 feet?  19.4 feet, what is it?  Follow the 
rules, don't pay your way out of it, follow the rules, move it to 
where it's supposed to be.

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Motion on the floor is to approve the appeal, 
Clarissa would call the roll.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER JOHANSSON:  Yes.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER KENT:  Yes.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER REINHART:  Yes.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER ROBINS:  No.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER SANTIAGO:  Yes.

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Yes.

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Appeal is approved.  Does the applicant get his 
money back?  I mean the builder?  

>>  It's an expensive mistake.  

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Item 7, ordinance 2026 04 update to the 
five-year schedule of capital improvements.  

>>  Good evening councilmembers, this is an update to our 
five-year capital plan, it's pretty much a housecleaning item.  
You approve your budget every year and state law requires us to 
add our CIP or capital improvement plan as part of the 
comprehensive plan.  Here for any questions, the plan you all 
have already approved that.  

>>  Moved to approve Mr. chair.

>>  We have a motion to approve by David Santiago and a second 
came from vice chair Matt Reinhart.  

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Questions for staff, I have one question and not 
sure who's going to take it, Ryan answered it in my email but 
there is a lien on here of the million dollars and it says on the 
line for motocross but I believe there's more to it so just for 
the public consumption I like you to explain what that really is. 
 

>>  As I replied after research that million dollars was put in 
the budget for trail writing that would have been at the same 
site.  With a plan to try to apply for a state grant.  That is no 
longer the plan so the million dollars is not currently slated 
for anything and if it works it would have to return to counsel 
and if it is the desire to move that back to reserves and not 
explore the jail writing or which we are not really putting out 
right now anyway.  That could be done.  

>>  So the trail writing is off the table.  

>>  That grant is not being pursued right now.

>>  But the budget is just a budget, it's not executed until 
there is a purchase that would be brought to counsel.  

>>  Does anybody know if the decision to move trail writing is a 
result of the consultant or mass verbal.

>>  I may have made a misstatement, what I'm saying is the 
million dollars is not currently being planned to be applied for 
a grant.  There might be a possibility, I don't know whether or 
not with the project itself but it was not for the motocross 
track itself, that's the key thing.

>>CHAIR BROWER:  If the million dollars is spent it comes back to 
counsel.  

>>CHAIR BROWER:  All right Councilman Kent.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER KENT:  Motion to approve.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER JOHANSSON:  Second Johansson.  

>>  We did two of them so that's how excited we are about it.  
Now I'll make comments when you're ready with that.  

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Motion then the second, all in favor say aye, 
motion carries 70.  Economic development in the public works many 
budget workshop.  Brian, are you starting it?  

>>  I'm waiting for the slide to click forward, I don't know if 
it's battery dead.  Now it's working.  All right, once again 
Brian sells the chief financial officer and this is the first 
many budget workshop in a series of five similar presentations 
like this concluded with a final wrap-up, that wrap-up 
presentation is critical to what we're looking at here.  As we go 
through these presentations we are definitely looking for 
feedback from counsel of programs or services you're looking to 
make changes to, make red options to create because those will be 
the programs and items we bring back at bay in the conclusion of 
everything to be looked at for a final rollcall of these things 
that we come across for this five sessions.  Absent direction to 
include them in May, that implies you are okay with what we have 
today which is what's being presented to you to continue on being 
in the recommended budget.  So what we're going to be talking 
about today is economic development and the public works with the 
exception of a few areas.  We will be covering the development 
engineering function of public works with the growth and resource 
management presentation because it is tied to the function and 
then we have a whole separate presentation at the next council 
meeting for beach related services so the coastal division will 
be up here today to talk about the port district in two weeks and 
will be talking about the core beach management function that 
coastal works on.  With that I will turn it over to Lou Martino 
economic development division director to go over the economic 
development piece.  I'm sorry, Lou Paris.  

>>  Good evening.  Thank you for having me.  Chair and county 
council members, is this working Brian?  Right, I split the 
presentation in three parts, first I will tell you about the 
background of economic development then I will tell you a little 
bit of what we do and you some highlights and wrap it up with 
much it costs.  So that's jumping into the background.  You 
County Council have been supporting local businesses for years 
and years.  And we have had different shapes and forms over the 
course of decades and the version you see today as it exists 
today for Volusia County is was implemented in 2001.  The context 
in which we operate is that there are about 20,000 businesses in 
Volusia County.  Out of which almost all so 19,000 approximately 
out of 20,000 are considered small businesses.  These are 
businesses that have 20 employees or less.  Now, what's 
interesting and good in a way is most of the jobs in our county 
come from those small businesses.  And at the same time what's 
scary is those small businesses tend to be the ones more 
susceptible to changes in the economy and more susceptible to 
failure so that's why it makes sense for the county to support 
small businesses to retain a strong economic power and be able to 
retain or support those jobs in our county.  So what do we do?  
I'm going to highlight for you some key programs we have and I'm 
not going to cover everything just the key ones starting with 
what we are probably known for and that is supporting bringing 
businesses into our community.  We do this work through team 
Volusia and here you can see on the slide in the left-hand side 
if you will recognize all three but the newest one is insert 
text, this company once it finishes its planned it will be the 
largest metal plating company in the United States.  Which is 
kind of a big deal because that's a key service that Aerospace 
and aviation requires so once we have this company we will be 
able to attract more businesses in this industrial cluster and we 
have Boeing which I'm sure you've heard of before, thousands of 
high-paying jobs that support this economy and Aerospace and 
aviation happened to be an interesting and excellent industry for 
us.  We are also tasked with administering working with state and 
federal economic programs on the left-hand side we have to FDC 
which is the foreign trade zone, this has been a hot topic and in 
the last quarter we had three or four conversations with 
manufacturers in Volusia County looking to implement a FTZ in 
their business, one of them is moving forward and probably the 
farthest along, that is bio like we used to be radon, phenomenal 
company so right now they're being inspected to make sure the 
facility is compliant with FTC regulations and on the left hand 
side you have the industrial development Authority, IDA this 
program has been active for decades and it's been helped 
thousands of manufacturers expand their operations.  It is a 
cyclical program that when interest rates are low there's less 
demand for those financed bonds and when interest rates climb of 
course it becomes a lot more appealing.  We also help businesses 
that are in the county.  And businesses that want to launch in 
the county.  You may recognize the Volusia innovation hub and we 
took on the management of what used to be the incubation program 
and we wanted to make this program more readily available to the 
entire business community so not only taxed scalable businesses, 
we wanted any business that needed help we wanted to support them 
so we built a program called launch back Volusia a nine week 
program where businesses are helped anywhere from launching their 
idea to even small business to advance and help them overcome any 
challenge they may face in the future, we make them more 
resilient to make it in the market.  Since launching the launch 
Volusia wherein the second cohort and we've had 41 businesses 
involved, 21 have graduated, 20 are currently in the program and 
our goal is to service 80 to 100 businesses a year.  We believe 
the more businesses go through this program the better off we 
will be as a community because these will be individuals trained 
now to be able to make their business succeed.  On top of this 
program the launchpad Volusia we have orbit which resembles a lot 
what UCF used to have.  Orbit is a program we are a little more 
selective and I'll move to the next slide.  We look for 
businesses scalable and they're going to attract and generate 
more jobs.  In less than a year we have recruited eight 
businesses to the organ program these eight businesses have 
generated shy of $2 million in revenue and some of these business 
owners are pre-revenue so they haven't even started selling so 
just a handful of businesses are generating that $2 million in 
the more interesting or just as appealing as revenue as number of 
jobs, 34 full-time jobs accompanied by a ton of part-time jobs 
and internships from the higher education institutions.  What I 
call the sprinkles, icing on the cake from an economic 
development perspective is these businesses are looking for 
funding and bringing money into the county, these eight little 
businesses have brought about $3.3 million in investment from 
outside the county and some of these businesses have government 
contracts to the tune of a little over $7 million.  These are not 
municipality contracts, not county contracts, these are federal 
contracts sold 3+7, that's more than $10 million that these small 
businesses, tidy businesses at the innovation of our bringing 
into the county.  It's money that was not here before.  Our goal 
is to double that number so capacity maybe 15, 16 businesses and 
we are building that pipeline to get these businesses with us.  
To the extent they all actually make it to revenue these numbers 
should be exponentially higher than what I want to highlight is 
how age businesses have generated that much impact soap huge bang 
for the buck if you will.  We are also tasked with disseminating 
sharing economic information and we do a ton of things and I was 
going to talk about too quickly, one is the economic seed.  You 
received this letter on a weekly basis and we offer business 
information relevant to them in Volusia County, one example of 
how this is impactful about a month ago I was talking to a very 
well-to-do startup in Ormond Beach and she was saying she had 
seen an award on opportunity through the Chamber of Commerce on 
the newsletter she applied for it and got it so our businesses 
are getting recognition and they're able to find those 
recognitions and get exposure through the newsletter the other 
one is that you breakfast, the Q breakfast is of course it 
happens on a quarterly basis.  On this event we typically talk 
about economic indicators for the county.  And to begin with then 
we transition into topics that are of importance to the community 
the example you have on the screen is one in which we talk about 
aerospace aviation and how it impacts our community.  We also 
provide support services for sister divisions and departments and 
one of the things we do is the Volusia County unblock some permit 
and code enforcement clustered service.  Since its inception 
about 18 months ago we have serviced 550 businesses and 
residents.  Now, when you grow a business it requires a lot of 
resources, a lot of effort, a lot of knowledge that's why in my 
line of work we depend heavily on partnerships to me over the 
years have had strong partnerships with Daytona State College, 
SPEC and I want to highlight one of the most important ones which 
is the Volusia business resources which is a partnership of about 
42 entities in the county that some way shape or form assist 
businesses in our community.  And what we do is we look for gaps 
in support, business support and close those gaps so you have to 
examples, left-hand side funding revenues under the funding 
readiness Center was created after Covid and a situation where 
after all the grants were exhausted and businesses still needed 
assistance we talked to banks and found out the banks have the 
money said we want to lend the money, that's how we make money in 
the first place but they're not ready when they come to us so 
what they did was create a program that would prepare any person 
in the county if they go through the program to be funding ready. 
 So that program has been widely successful, a lot of people have 
gone through it and share their success getting funding after 
going through it and on the right-hand side we have the Volusia 
innovation challenge which build be taking place on March 25, 
you're more than welcome to join.  Put aside the fact it's a 
business pitch competition, this really is an opportunity to get 
people in our community to share their innovation, share their 
ideas and get feedback, get support to connect them with the 
right resources and again, very successful event thus far.  To 
kind of summarize all the services into a story I'll tell you a 
little bit about limitless.  On that photo the tall gentleman 
very tall gentleman with a time in the middle his name is Alex, 
Alex is an embryo middle student who one innovation challenge two 
years ago with a drone idea that had military applications and 
one of the things he won was one year membership in the 
innovation hub.  The business when he entered had to endure three 
changes.  Like subsequently we call that pivots.  Usually a 
business cannot survive one pitted less so two or three.  And 
because this company Alex was getting the support from the hog 
and resources we have and mentoring and coaching we offer there 
he was able to go through those three major changes in his 
business and land an idea that now has multimillion dollar 
contracts year and the reason I tell you the story and I get 
goosebumps when I told the story is about a month and and a half 
ago he came to our office and said home for me is Sarasota and I 
was planning upon graduation to move my operation to Sarasota.  
But you guys have been so good to me, Volusia County has been so 
good I want to keep this company here so I want you to find a 
building 15 to 18,000 feet² so I can start production and that 
will generate 20 jobs so it's a cool story that tells a bit of 
everything we do in a single showing.  And it's the essence of 
our job in economic development.  We do all this as you can see 
great ideas are operational organizational chart, two positions 
are grayed out.  They exist but we haven't hired anyone because 
we want to operate and do the best we can with the resources we 
currently have that brings the question what does this cost.  So 
if one thing you should know is you invest in us through the 
general fund.  General fund and here's a snapshot of our budget.  
Hopefully you have detected so far in this conversation I've 
mentioned support and partnerships a lot that is reflected in the 
budget as well.  There's two items here we support.  One being 
government affairs.  The other one team Volusia, these are two 
things we are proud to participate and support and the only 
reason I bring it up is because all the internal charges of my 
division account for a little less than $800,000 a year.  Here 
you have our top expenses.  For the division.  And here's a 
snapshot of our revenue.  For the year.  And to wrap it up I'll 
give you two quick notes on efficiency and how hard we work to be 
fiscally responsible, the first one is partnering with a VBR 
which is a Volusia business resources is a huge deal and let me 
explain that the two things I just showed you, the business pitch 
competition and the funding readiness Center will not be possible 
to 
ourselves, it will be too costly, too difficult to pull off.  So 
leaning on partnership has done wonderful things because it has 
amplified the things we want to accomplish without really 
increasing costs.  Last but not least when we took on the 
management of the UCF business incubator we did so for many 
reasons but one was to be able to save money and when we made 
that transition we saved the county $250,000 a year we with that 
thank you.  

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Questions vice chair Matt Reinhart.

>>  A couple takeaways I took, that gave me goosebumps to hear 
about the guy that wanted to stay here, keeping businesses here 
and we said it at many events we talk about graduates from Embry 
Riddle, from many local universities but to have them walk across 
the stage and say I'm going to stay here in Volusia, well done.  
Also I said this one we transition from UCF incubator and then 
keeping it in-house I was not aware of the amount of money until 
you pointed it out, $250,000 savings and if that isn't operating 
leading and bringing in revenue at the same time I don't know 
what is real I will say this, also partnership with team Volusia. 
 Could not be done without them I think personally, I really 
don't so I thank them for helping us.  Many businesses were 
brought when we saw and I'm not going to try to pronounce.  So 
thank you so much for that.  What a great already opening doors, 
I did visit that facility down in Edgewater.  I listened to that 
gentleman and the excitement from him and what he's going to 
bring is phenomenal.  One quick question and I don't mean to put 
you on the spot, it's a business you mentioned I'm the very 
beginning of the presentation and I've always been curious.  I 
see less and less cars in the parking lot but you say they're 
turning the corners.  I know they were at one point manufacturing 
computers.  Or not manufacturing, setting them up I guess if you 
will.  They have veterans working on and that program went away.  
I know that's government cuts far above us.  I know that impacted 
them in a negative way.  What are we doing to help them because 
that's a huge business.  That to that area import orange rib so 
I'm just.

>>  That contract went away for them and since then they found 
other areas to be competitive.  I don't remember the specifics.  
They did and last time we had a conversation it seems like they 
were very active and the fact they're looking for a FTZ tells me 
the volume of product they need to bring in is significant.  If I 
can ally operate on that the FTZ is a tool for cash flow 
improvement.  So in other words when product comes in and it goes 
into their facility that is part of the FTZ they don't have to 
pay tariffs as long as the product is there.  When the product 
leaves at that point if it stays in the US they pay tariffs so 
that helps them with cash flow so the fact they need that tells 
us the volume of activity they have in that building is either 
about to increase or is significant.

>>  That's awesome, thank you very much.

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Councilman Santiago for questions.  Let me see 
who else, Jake Johansson.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER JOHANSSON:  Your offices are at the airport.

>>  Correct.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER JOHANSSON:  Is there any other opportunity to 
save money where we don't have to pay rent?  Another place to be? 
 I know it's only 60 7K.

>>  Gentleman of the Council Cyrus Callum.  We are definitely 
looking at new locations for the economic development division.  
Of course as the airport is getting busier with all our passenger 
traffic where they are currently located right now is an area we 
are looking at towards expanding the security checkpoint.  Just 
for instance yesterday which probably our busiest time period in 
my tenure I've had with the Exodus of the Daytona 500, we 
processed just over 3500 passengers and our security checkpoint 
can only handle 300 passengers and our so as we get busier going 
to need that space.  We talked about consolidating economic 
development into the space that is the innovation the home right 
now.  As soon as we get some planning and designs and funding and 
we have a consultant right now we've tasked with designing and 
laying out what alternatives are with that security checkpoint we 
will process with moving economic development into where the 
innovation hub is, that consolidates costs initially and we will 
look at other opportunities as well.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER JOHANSSON:  All right.  What out of the corner 
of my eye I see team Volusia guys here ready to answer this 
question but what percentage of team Volusia 's contributions 
public and private do we pay?  

>>  I don't know the percentage off the top.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER JOHANSSON:  If Keith wants to come up, team 
Volusia.

>>  23%.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER JOHANSSON:  So we are at about 23%.  Is there 
any to decrease that through time?  I know when I was on that 
board we were trying to get public participation about 50%, is 
that trend continuing or are we stagnating their.

>>  In the conversation with Keith where there in the middle of 
having a study completed with trying to determine increasing 
private investment.  And how they operate.  I know that they're 
going to be on on Council agenda potentially in May they will 
have a full presentation that kind of describes those details.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER JOHANSSON:  Good, so in May we will get a good 
idea before budget season, that's important.  Not that I am in 
any position to say anything other than I want to see where we 
are and where were going.  And you answered my question about the 
innovation, it sounds like you're making amendments there.  
Marketing and public relations, that's 60 5K out of the general 
fund, correct?  But that is not the overall marketing public 
relations bill.  Per se.  

>>  The title of that account doesn't do justice to things in it 
and the part of it running the quarterly breakfast and other 
events that we operate and promote.  

>>COUNCIL MEMBER JOHANSSON:  Does any of the marketing and PR 
money come from other revenue sources, is there more going into 
that or is 60 5K always spent, Ryan is coming up like he knows 
the answer.  

>>  I don't have a direct answer to your question but this is 
just a marketing PR budget.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER JOHANSSON:  I know, I'm not asking about the 
lodging stuff for that airport.  This is it, all right, that's 
all I have.  

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Councilman Kent do you have a question.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER KENT:  Just a quick one I guess I should say.  
Thank you for your information Cyrus you might want to come up as 
well I appreciate the 20,000 number of businesses, 19,000 of 
which are small business which meet leaves 1000 large businesses 
and I would be remiss if I didn't mention one of my favorite with 
Charlie linebacker in Ormond Beach but my question is this, and 
we never want to turn away businesses coming into our community.  
But how important is it to keep the businesses that you have 
here.  And what kind of focus are we putting on that priority.  
To keep businesses in Volusia County.  

>>  The County Council made a smart decision years ago when team 
Volusia when we started contracting team Volusia.  Backup.  The 
County development comes in two flavors, one is to recruit the 
other to help the businesses here and when you help them they 
shouldn't leave.  So the flavor of recruiting is something I 
commend what you have done which is now outsourcing back to team 
Volusia who they're doing a phenomenal job, the three examples I 
showed you are great and that empowers us to focus on the other 
side of the equation which is to help the businesses here.  
There's a spectrum there so we have, we noticed there was a 
significant gap for the small businesses that were not covered by 
any other organization efficiently so that's the first thing we 
plugged ourselves in throughout all this time we continuously 
have conversations with the big businesses to help them in some 
way shape or form and as an example byline or germ-free, we meet 
with companies of that size regularly.  I foresee in the future 
being able to implement more standing programs that assist also 
bigger businesses but we have to start somewhere that's where the 
gap was.  

>>COUNCIL MEMBER KENT:  I learned a long time ago is more 
impactful to give what you have written you don't want to lose 
anybody, we want to give them and help them as much as we can.  

>>  A key part is when they come in for expansions we kick in 
total team for that as well so is not only keeping them it's 
keeping them and having them grow here so absolutely agree with 
what you're saying.  

>>CHAIR BROWER:  That looks like it's the end of comments, 
questions from Councilman Santiago.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER SANTIAGO:  You're looking for guidance from us, 
we like what we've seen.  Any suggestions, can you give us 
clarity so we can move along.

>>  If you want to know the cost of any subfunction they're 
doing, of anything, any program you might want to consider making 
a reduction in that's the type of feedback we need, we need to 
know if you wanted.  Costing estimates or anything, if you're 
okay with what you saw and you want to continue with those 
programs and have been in the budget, no feedback, that's what 
that means.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER KENT:  Thank you Ryan and for my part Mr. chair 
and Council members this is a great team, they will lean and they 
bring results and it's an investment in our community so I'm 
happy with what I see as an individual member.

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Councilmember Johansson you are done, okay.  
There you are.  I just want to add to what he just said.  For 
your budget, it's not a huge budget.  But you have a tremendous 
effect on Volusia County not only on giving businesses but 
helping entrepreneurs create business.  And that's invaluable.  
Small business is the backbone of America not just Volusia 
County.  So I think your budget is a really good investment from 
this counsel to the future and your partnership with team Volusia 
for a little bit of money they add a lot to what you do and what 
happens here in Volusia County.  So I'm happy with the budget.  
So thank you for your presentation.  Okay.  

>>  Honorable gentleman of the Council.

>>  You don't spend a lot of money.

>>  Then Bartlett public works director.  We had a couple 
presentations here starting with one of the shorter ones which is 
as you know public works is responsible for maintaining the 
counties transportation road network, most of that maintenance 
and construction associated with that is funded through gas tax, 
the transportation trust however we do receive property tax 
revenue that goes towards the maintenance of our road networks, 
specifically we get $5 million from NST for local road 
maintenance and get the general fund road transfer which has been 
a recent ad of $5 million so what does that fund, specifically 
MSC funding, local road maintenance these are your 
non-thoroughfare roads, these provide all the kinds of difficult 
road maintenance we do and also contributes to reef resurfacing 
of local roads we have roughly 90 miles of dirt roads we maintain 
then we have our emergency maintenance roads which are roads 
never really accepted for maintenance by the Council but they 
exist as public right-of-way and had roads built on them over 
time.  We provide a level of service for those roads to make sure 
emergency vehicles and traverse them and folks can get out there. 
 The newer funding we've received from this counsel is much 
appreciated and that goes towards like we talked about before 
roadway safety projects and it allows us safety projects are 
funded through one of our main construction funding sources is 
propped fair share and impact fees which funds are capacity, gas 
tax mainly goes towards maintenance, we have money for gas tax 
for these projects.  But we don't have much so this funding helps 
move those projects along and gets them done.  We have a lot of 
roads that were built.  We are bringing those up to current 
safety standards as beneficial for the traveling public.  
Pedestrian signals and sidewalk projects, these are things 
counsel spoke greatly about and wanted to do.  Bridge repair 
projects you approved one today, the crutch been for Taylor Road 
which came up as a result of hurricane and we were able to move 
quickly forward with that and we have other bridge repair 
projects on the horizon bridge repair is something that funded so 
as Ryan alluded to if there's any questions or anything you want 
to look at in terms of this funding happy to answer them 
otherwise we can move on to mosquito control.

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Councilmember Robbins.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER ROBINS:  Thank you chairman, how do we get dirt 
roads paved.

>>  Where we've got to get asphalt and throw it down, Mr. Brecht 
and Walt did a good job getting roads paved and we provide that 
program so we should be getting those done soon.  

>>CHAIR BROWER:  You do some every year.

>>  We budget every year with that money we are hoping to 
accelerate questionnaire using the NST fund, is there anymore we 
can pull out of their?  

>>  We've gotten MSC funding for some time that is very helpful 
for our local.  I can tell you during the downturn when budgets 
were really tight, the resurfacing program focused on the 
thoroughfares and local roads were deferred and so we focused a 
lot on resurfacing local roads, it has a major impact if you live 
in a neighborhood or your house, the road you drive your house on 
every day.  We really focused on some of those roads and getting 
that resurfacing done so we value the money we get from NST.  

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Continue.

>>  Mosquito control mosquito control is funded through a 
dedicated millage within the East Volusia mosquito control 
district that's existed since 1936 I believe.  Mainly on the east 
side of the county and we also perform work for the city on the 
west side of County and do receive some NST funding to the tune 
of $300,000 from NST to fund disease response in the west side of 
the county.  So we utilize those to provide limited mosquito 
control services on the west side outside that steel control 
district.  We do get revenue like I alluded to when the city is 
on the Westside request service we charge them municipal services 
agreement, a pay the bill and we also surplus equipment, that's 
mainly the source of the revenue we have written or chart we have 
28 full-time employees, FTEs.  And we run a pretty lean ship as 
well and mosquito control.  We are aware of the restraints we 
have and work hard to make sure we make use of those resources as 
much as possible so what do we do?  I've talked about this 
before.  Two things in Florida or two things that made Florida 
habitable, air conditioning and mosquito control so what's 
mosquito control's mission is to provide relief from mosquitoes 
that carry diseases as well as nuisance mosquitoes and we spend 
time controlling those mosquitoes through various methods whether 
it's larva side utilizing organic material to get the mosquitoes 
before they turn into flyers and also deciding which is where we 
spray chemicals to either get them while they're flying utilizing 
trucks or helicopters.  This is a public health service that we 
provide.  We provide defense against mosquitoes that carry 
tremendous amount of different types of diseases we had I would 
urge any of you to Google some of the outbreaks happened in other 
countries recently, Cuba, China and other diseases and we work 
hard to make sure that doesn't happen here.  You get occasional 
travel related cases where someone comes and contracts a disease 
because they were traveling and it comes back to Volusia County, 
the health department notifies is also those and the whole goal 
is to prevent locally acquired diseases and make sure that 
doesn't occur.  We do all the things we do to make sure that the 
citizens of Volusia County aren't being exposed to those types of 
diseases and another part of what mosquito control funds is the 
hundred 37 miles of canals on the east side of County we spent 
time talking about and they are pretty famous on Facebook these 
days in terms of how we make sure everybody knows where going out 
cleaning but that $800,000 is allocated towards a bridge where we 
have a large drainage maintenance crews.  So operating expenses, 
chemicals, canal maintenance, aircraft maintenance we have to 
helicopters.  Service charges, insurance you got to have a pretty 
significant insurance on aircraft and then the remainder of the 
budget is split amongst other items.  So the future challenges, 
inflation chemical costs, we work hard, the mosquitoes can become 
resistant to the chemicals we use so we spend a lot of time and I 
liked called in our science folks on that side of the house spend 
time studying to make sure we are using the pesticide in a manner 
that prevents existence.  Growth as more people come in we will 
have more people exposed to mosquitoes and then like we talked 
about the mosquito control can outstrip what I will say is a 
millage rate for mosquito within the mosquito control district is 
a tax.  People will pay the taxes and it's on the property tax 
bill on the 300,000, on house valued at $300,000 you're looking 
at about a $40 a year is what that person would pay.  So less 
than four dollars a month for an important service to put that in 
perspective, happy to answer any questions about anything we do 
if there's any ideas you may have regarding what we do in terms 
of mosquito control.

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Councilman Johansson.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER JOHANSSON:  You say $800,000 for canal 
maintenance that's all out of the mosquito budget.  Do we put 
additional money into canal maintenance from the other budgets.

>>  We have other ditches and canals through the county funded 
through other means.  If there along side of the road we can use 
transportation trust gas tax money or for unincorporated we can 
use stormwater funds but for those hundred 37 miles those canals 
are dug specifically for mosquito purposes, when they started.  
They've over time become conveyances for stormwater but their 
primary purpose is flushing mosquito.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER JOHANSSON:  That's my point, if we're using them 
for actual waters, couldn't we be using some stormwater funds?  

>>  Know the reason is the utility which is the other funding 
source stormwater utility is in the unincorporated area.  Most 
all of these are in cities so therefore that's their only main 
source.  There could be cases and there are a few where there 
would be in the unincorporated area a ditch but for the most part 
it's a quandary we get into and we've taken a read canal so these 
ones that are major, really true drainage canals but they 
originated as mosquito control canals which were dug to of course 
control the mosquitoes but also of course drain the swamp so to 
speak.  So things could be developed many years ago.  

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Then, this may be an unfair question for you, I 
don't mean it to be but will the legislature decide that we don't 
have property taxes or just property taxes on homesteaded 
properties go away, that leaves businesses and renters, how do 
you plan on paying for this if that happens?  

>>  That speaks to the larger discussion about poor services and 
I know Ryan said it many times.  You have to choices, you can cut 
the service level to provide or you can increase the revenue or 
the millage to account for the lost revenue.  I will say in terms 
of what we do and mosquito control, nobody's above when we look 
every year at Mr. Rector and Walt charges us every year when we 
do our budget to try to make sure we find cost-cutting things we 
can do.  We looked at reducing, we eliminated a division in 
public works traffic engineering to save cost and we're always 
looking at those things but it would be difficult, the things we 
do have direct benefit and direct cost and the services we 
provide and it would result in the service level reduction.  A 
lot of what we do a lot of our efforts focus on the mosquito 
Lagoon, they call it that for a reason those salt marsh 
mosquitoes are vicious and extraordinary.  If we didn't treat 
that in March probably wouldn't be able to go to the beach.  So 
it's a service level that we provide to meet the demands of the 
citizens that would have to be a discussion we would have to have 
you all to decide what level of service we are comfortable with 
versus the associated reduction.

>>  We could wait for a minor disease breakout.  And I don't mean 
to be flippant about it but this obviously is an important area 
and in other areas of the state is often found in a different 
portion of the government where it's more closely associated with 
the health department in a lot of ways rip here because of all 
the big infrastructure put in like the canal system we talked 
about, it's probably why it landed in public works but again, 
this will be one that will be very hard and one we will have to 
think real hard about and be cautious.  

>>  One thing I will say is a good friend of mine who's worked in 
mosquito control a long time and has traveled the world and 
studied other operations would say the mosquito control 
operations in Florida are the big leagues for a better analogy 
the FCC.  So what we do down here people come from all over the 
world to look at what we do.  If there's a reason because we have 
a lot of mosquitoes and a lot of folks around suburban 
populations that are exposed to these types of diseases we work 
hard to keep them in check.  

>>  The only thing I would add is I looked at the chart, the 
mosquito control fund in the last six years has been able back on 
half of them.  It is a fund where the financial due diligence has 
been being done all along.  So if you were to have a reduction of 
40% of your tax base you would have to have either a service 
level change or you're going to have to adjust the millage rate 
to not only offset some of the rollbacks you've done in the past 
but probably pass that if you wanted to keep the current service. 
 This being a self-contained fund you only have those two 
choices.  A property a special assessment which I believe would 
be something you could do here so you're limited in this area.  

>>  The key thing overview said it is we might have to raise the 
millage rate to whoever is left.  Which is going to be a much 
smaller pool of people.  We just built, we had to replace a 
facility, correct?  

>>  And we did that while going to roll back.  

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Matt Reinhart.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER REINHART:  You pointed on the org chart you said 
you had 28 employees but I counted 23.  Is there others that are 
not?  Forgive me.

>>  Is 28 unless there's something wrong with the chart.  I 
counted it up earlier.  

>>COUNCIL MEMBER SANTIAGO:  That UCF math.

>>  I hope you were as good when you counted.  

>>  You just peg it right there, there's me counting, it's an 
occupational hazard.  I notice also the vacancies, how long have 
they been open out of curiosity.  I'm particularly interested in 
the vacancies of the what was that, the one that works on the 
helicopter.  

>>  We have a, the office specialist is vacant.  The have.

>>  I thought you were saying the office specialist on the 
helicopter.

>>  The chief mechanic we have a chief mechanic.  They have kind 
of different, the aircraft maintenance supervisor feels, the 
assistant is not.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER REINHART:  Titles are deceiving.

>>  Unless there's any other questions I will move on to the port 
district which is another taxing district.  Pretty much the same 
as the mosquito control district, it resides on the east side of 
the county and its funded through a millage rate tax on those 
folks within the district.  I will say going back to that 
$300,000 house example you're looking at about $16 a year that 
someone with that value of the house would pay.  That is the 
total amount within the district physician, Port fund three which 
is a supervisor and to district partners that work in parks and 
split funded positions which because some of our administrative 
folks provide services to both the coastal side of the house and 
port side of the house are funded proportionately.  What does the 
Ponce Inlet port district do?  We are the sponsor for the Ponce 
De Leon Inlet the federal sponsor so we coordinate with the Army 
Corps on dredging activities and support those.  We also support 
waterway within the district so there's many fantastic waterway 
access projects the port district has helped fund including the 
boat ramp another boat ramps along the water as well as fishing 
piers like the one at Wilbur boathouse so we fund through grants 
program with the cities we fund access to the waterway and 
obviously a little parcel but two of the best beach parks I've 
ever seen our smart dunes and lighthouse Park are funded through 
the port district.  And what are our costs?  We do because Park 
Volusia does operate the booths at the inlet parks we contract 
with them through the overall contract and we do invasive plant 
removal and maintain buoys.  We also do beach profile monitoring 
associated with the inlet that tells you where this sand is going 
from the beach to the inlet in dredging operations and we have 
indirect costs, seasonal staff and maintenance of our facility 
grounds.  So future challenges is managing the beach going 
forward, funding of that I'll also throw in we haven't had an 
increase in fees associated with access to the parks.  It's $10 a 
day and $20 for an annual pass, it's been the same since 2013 
that provides a majority of the revenue to offset those costs.  
That's basically it for the port district.  Happy to answer any 
questions, Ryan has some.

>>  Add one more thing, this fund will rollback five out of the 
last X years.  

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Councilman Jake Johansson.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER JOHANSSON:  I think he answered one of my 
questions but I haven't been in a while but in order to go, our 
parking fees that would apply, we still have to pay.

>>  Correct, we've seen quite an uptick in people getting annual 
passes to the parks because they go on and register with Park 
Volusia and get their free resident pass and for $20 they can 
have a year pass into the parks today check that box to pay their 
$20.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER JOHANSSON:  Got it, I want to make sure and I 
think I know the answer but I want to make sure we are not 
getting the whole county access to something that only some of 
the county pays a tax for.

>>  There is no free for anybody.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER JOHANSSON:  Thanks.

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Future challenges you say planning in future 
years, described the beach management plan.

>>  I will let Jessica handle that.  

>>  Good evening gentlemen, Jessica Fentress Coast Director so we 
have an excellent partnership with Army Corps of Engineers and 
inland navigation district to ensure and maintain navigation 
through the intercoastal wall waterway.  If the sand and 
intercoastal waterway is beach compatible because of it most 
likely came from our beaches then we can put it back on our 
beaches.  So the partnership in beach management plan if we have, 
we are researching the ability to permit the removal of some of 
our shoulder islands immediately in the inlet fro that was not 
addressed during the Army Corps dredging project, the funding of 
moving those shoulder islands onto the beach in a recurring 
nature could be offset by the court district because in theory we 
are reducing the actual length navigation channel where I can put 
it in Ormond where it's not the right send material for abortion 
on our beach management plan we could fund it through the port 
district.  

>>  We can't not keep the inlet nothing will.

>>  The federal channel is obligation of the Army Corps to 
maintain.  The intercoastal waterway channel is the obligation of 
the inland navigation district to maintain through the Army Corps 
ran outside those navigation channels basically the white lines 
you keep the boats in.  They are shoaling outside of that that 
area is still beach compatible when you are close to the inlet 
itself that material where the port district can come in and 
remove it as advanced maintenance but it's beneficial material we 
can put back on our beaches.

>>  So we're okay this year.

>>  We are as part of the recovery grant in the process of 
permitting on 1,700,000 yd.³ in the throat of the inlet right now 
we can put on our beaches, it's being called the Shoals to Shores 
project, it's going to be our third project from a recovery grant 
expected in 2027.

>>CHAIR BROWER:  I want to make the point that we're okay this 
year, next year this whole conversation is going to be, could be 
a lot different and a lot tougher.  

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Match, you are done to.  

>>COUNCIL MEMBER REINHART:  I think that's it.

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Okay, thank you all.  Don't need any other vote, 
you just her direction from the Council.  Item 9 is a, the 
appointment to the educational facility authority, the person 
currently in that position is termed out, he does wish to 
continue on.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER JOHANSSON:  Moved to nominate Randy.  

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Motion by Jake Johansson to nominate Randy, 

>>COUNCIL MEMBER JOHANSSON:  Sorry, Randall Howard.  

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Seconded by Vice chair Reinhart.  Any questions 
on the applicants, all in favor of Randy Howard say aye.  Any 
opposed rent Randy is reappointed 703 of and that brings us to 
the final public participation and first up is John Nicholson.  

>>PUBLIC SPEAKER:  What grade do we get for today John, A, B, C 
or D.  

>>  I'd say look at the time, you're doing really well.  

>>PUBLIC SPEAKER:  John Nicholson, first off I'm convinced David 
that Daytona Beach is the economic engine of the county.  I'm 
trying to convince the rest of you that we have a reason to ask 
you to pay attention to beachside Korea I again asked you to go 
to A1A and check out what FDOT has done to a one day.  Because if 
it screws up our tourist industry it does affect your bottom 
line.  So again I ask you to take a look and make sure it doesn't 
keep happening because it will go up to Ormond and it will go 
down to new Smyrna Beach if we don't correct it.  Secondly there 
is a woman that came in earlier from the Democratic Party.  She 
read this little dissertation about fair voting.  And she wanted 
all of you to apparently do something about a fair and honest 
election.  That's what I keep asking, I wish somebody would find 
me a Republican somewhere because Daytona Beach does not have 
fair and honest elections.  You cannot have half of an entire 
city in one zone.  And have most of your Republicans in that 
zone.  So when you put 25, 27,000 people in one zone most of 
which are Republicans it means the other zones are free to elect 
Democrats.  So why are the Republicans not interested in winning 
seats in Daytona Beach, it makes no sense to me so if any of you 
know a Republican to contact the Republican Party to take a look 
at voting in the city of Daytona Beach, you know we are in 
another lawsuit.  ACLU is suing us again because we didn't do it 
right the second time or the third time or the fourth time.  So 
please pay attention to that.  And also I was contacted today 
friends were talking about New York Post, again as you know our 
mayor's wife got pulled over and he instead of just supporting 
his wife attacked our police department so he's not in a very 
good position at this point and again it gives another blackeye 
to the city of Daytona Beach.  We have a commissioner at every 
meeting puts the city in a bad light.  You cannot have a 
functioning city if you keep shooting it down.  So please pay 
attention to the city of Daytona Beach, thank you.

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Gary Singleton.  Michelle other.  

>>PUBLIC SPEAKER:  I have so many things to say but only three 
minutes so that kind of stinks.  I can't believe I lived in 
Volusia County all my life, my family, there's eight generations 
no one got involved to come here and see what's wheeling and 
dealing it where the money is going and pavement.  New Smyrna on 
44, that road sorry it just needs work.  There's a lot of things 
that have changed over the years and I wish I would have got more 
involved because you know, I think I should have ran for chair 
because I could have done a good job.  I'm going to stay alive 
long enough to be a thorn in some of your sides because some of 
you I don't care for some of you I really like but if you want to 
know which ones I don't if you ask me whether I like you or not I 
will be glad to tell you because I have no problem with it.  
Thank you, I finally got the house.  So my blessings for Volusia 
County, it's hard to be mad at Volusia County when I can't get 
doctors, I have to go overseas, can you give me citizenship 
somewhere else.  It upsets me I wish my family got more involved 
because of where all the monies going.  It's sad because I've 
seen new Smyrna when I was younger and my parents before that, my 
parents had the first restaurant in new Smyrna Beach, boats, a 
ski club.  I'm from Calvin Coolidge.  I raised three sons in the 
Navy.  There are just a lot of things I wish more housing for 
people.  The income, there's young couples that can't afford 
their houses, there's so much that needs to be done and when you 
listen to these guys in suits talking about where money is going, 
I know I got a smart comment.  It's unbelievable where some of 
these accounts come from and what you make up.  It sickens me 
because I'm going to do more of an effort to be more of a pain in 
some of your sides than I ever have before.  I want people to get 
more involved.  The decision you made tonight kind of blew my 
mind and I'm not happy about it and I'll put it all over Facebook 
and all my other social media accounts if that's okay.  I'm not 
here to fuss at you.  I'm just upset more people need to get 
involved and I want you guys, I don't know, to help the community 
more in some of the way you act to some of us is not right.  I 
know I'm not making sense, I'm not feeling good tonight, I need 
to give myself an infusion.  Anyway I hope you understand what 
I'm saying.  I'm disappointed in a lot of things happening over 
the years and I get ignored anyway but I think it's time for me 
to cause a little action in Volusia County.  And make you like me 
even more.

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Thank you, congratulations on your house, Lloyd 
Bowers.  

>>PUBLIC SPEAKER:  Thank you Chairman.  I was not going to speak 
again but I was inspired by something Councilman Kent said 
earlier and that was follow the rules.  February 18, 2025 I'm 
sure you're tired of me saying that dates over and over but I've 
been carrying these nets around the last three months, that's 
when you set the rules for this year's cultural Council grants.  
Based on your rulemaking, these organizations all spent the time 
and effort to put those grants together.  Based on your 
rulemaking the cultural Council met, heard the grant applications 
and score them for you.  All I'm asking now you do is follow the 
rules in the fund this year.  Councilman Dempsey you made on 
October 7 a motion to fund just the current year and not fund 
anything else.  I think you've made it clear to this arts 
community where the future of cultural grants from this 
organization is coming that is none but for this current year 
you've severely impacted these organizations in a way they should 
not have been if you could follow the rules.  On October 21 I 
think Councilman Santiago it was you that made the motion 
Councilman Reinhart seconded to fund and also bring up in for 
discussion asked staff prepare a future possible way of funding.  
That died by a 3 to 4 vote.  I'm not asking you to bring up that 
motion, I'm asking you to reconsider a motion for funding this 
year as Councilman Dempsey proposed October 2 that it's the right 
thing to do is what you agreed to do I'm just asking you to 
follow through and keep your word.  

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Thank you and that's the end of the second 
public comment so we will move to closing comments by the County 
manager.

>>COUNTY MANAGER:  Sure Mr. chair.  I have one thing.  I want to 
give a shout out this weekend to our emergency management team 
and our fire team and also the city fire teams that did a lot of 
diligent work especially Sunday during the race which of course 
is a spectacular event.  The community event, they did a yeoman's 
job out there as you probably have read.  We had several 
wildfires that shut down the major artery on I-95 during the race 
they worked hard to get that back open so we could get out 
hundred 50,000 visitors their home and I just think it's worth 
noting and related to that I'm going to let you know we are very 
close to having a burn ban put on here in Volusia County and it 
will probably occur with things forecast that we are having today 
it will probably occur this week probably in a day or two so 
letting you know that and that's it.  

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Thank you, County attorney.

>>COUNTY ATTORNEY:  I have nothing, thank you.  

>>CHAIR BROWER:  And County Counsel, this week we start with Jake 
Johansson.  

>>COUNCIL MEMBER JOHANSSON:  Thank you sir, a couple items coming 
up in February unfortunately in conference with our state and 
county address the East Central Florida regional Planning Council 
is going to have their diamond awards here at the Brennan Center 
in Volusia County followed by Jeffersonian roundtable and a 
resilience Council meeting if you will on Ben Bartlett and I are 
both involved.  I encourage anybody that has time the 25th 
through the 27th two come on out and see what that's all about.  
It will be interesting.  People from all over Florida will be 
here to speak.  Chairman it's kind of like those MRC meetings we 
go to in Brevard but it has to do with resilience and flooding 
and also to other school items.  Secondly I have been working 
with Jessica Fentress and John Booker on Senate Bill 636 dealing 
with part of our beach and how that's legislated.  I have an 
opportunity to reach out to some of our federal officials to 
reiterate how important that feasibility study we are trying to 
get done by the Army Corps in preparation for having an 
engineered beach so I want everybody to know I'm kind of working 
outside the lifelines to see if we can get that project approved. 
 This year federally and everything I say and do in confidence 
with what we've all done and promoted in the past so I'm not 
speaking out of turn but I am reaching out via some of my 
contacts.  That's all I have tonight, thank you very much.

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Councilman Kent.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER KENT:  Thank you chair, a couple brief items, if 
you could let Mr. Bailey know, Tim Bailey, I feel like he has 
just been on point with his job.  He was wonderful at my district 
dialogue, we haven't had closing comments in a while so I wanted 
to make sure I share that but not only that but an issue recently 
about Highbridge, him and Suzanne has been wonderful as far as 
sharing information with residents that want to know what's going 
on.  He's knowledgeable and I appreciate that and I also wanted 
to publicly share this also with Ben Bartlett and his team, he 
mentioned it briefly but his presence and the presence of what 
they've been doing on social media has been very impactful.  
People need to know that the ditches are being cleaned out and 
it's not a very sexy job but it's great to see the spider in 
action or front end loader or you know, just the guys and the 
girls out there doing the manual labor and showing the results.  
Those before and after pictures the pictures of them doing the 
work, I'm a huge fan of that.  You know, people comment on it on 
social media and I think it's important they know what's going on 
and with that I charge you with there's tons of other things in 
public works and things County does and I think we have a really 
good team here that can get the message out but I think if we 
could enhance that.  If we could make sure all of the good work 
that's being done if we can just get it out so people know the 
incredible hard work that these individuals do because you 
mentioned George, you have the Daytona 500 going on, people are 
going out to dinner, Valentine's Day just happened but you had a 
dedicated team of professionals putting out wildfires so and no 
one thinks about the hundred 50,000 visitors that have to get 
home and you have a problem if you don't open that up and you had 
an elementary school with the fire 50 feet away from it and it's 
important work we do.  And it's important we share that with the 
community, have a great evening everybody.

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Vice chair Reinhart.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER REINHART:  On what Councilman Kent said with 
respect to Tim Bailey I have to give him kudos for what we see 
behind the scenes.  When the young lady this morning and the 
wheelchair came up and talked about I say this morning, the 
Cortland Boulevard trail.  I had received an email about that, 
send it to Tim, Tim right away was working on it and I noticed 
after she wheeled late because she made the comment it was going 
to be she believed to be addressed, it was a contractor issue.  
Tim went over pulled her outside and explained the situation so 
that was done without anybody knowing it and I appreciate you 
mentioning the fact the beginning of the meeting often times we 
don't recognize not often times we don't recognize when somebody 
asks us a question to keep things rolling.  That being said I'm 
glad you pointed that out because when the other woman asked 
about the forever I think everyone of us voted for forever so 
I'll say that publicly, we all did and I can speak for myself, 
back in 2002, 2022 I can but we couldn't answer that so thank you 
for pointing that out because often times they think we are 
ignoring it.  There was another gentleman and I'm hitting on this 
so these concerns brought up during public comment are addressed 
publicly.  One of the things about the beach access, I'm already 
talking if Ben Bartlett, he's going to get with the business 
owners on that A1A access where the pizza shop was where we have 
the parking that was already done, we will meet with those 
individuals and see if we can come to a happy medium so if you 
gentlemen are aware of that so I don't violate any sunshine, we 
can tell you ahead of time they will address that and thanks been 
to his team.  If we have to bring it back up later we will.  
John, paying attention to city of Daytona, I am paying attention 
and I see a lot of street times.  I was kind of blown away at 
that but every sign I looked at I can understand why it's there.  
And to keep people safe, I get that but I agree on the other side 
of that coin as you're driving you see a couple signs that you 
don't know what to pay attention to first but we are paying 
attention.  There's not a lot we can do other than FDO T, it's 
not our road.  Lastly listening to constituents.  And I know it's 
going to get a little dicey in here probably but I've heard it.  
I've heard the arts community talk and they've come here time and 
time again.  I'm going to make that motion to approve it for this 
year and I said it was and I thought it would fail and it may 
fail but I'm going to make that motion again for just this year.  
That's all I have.

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Matt Reinhart makes a motion to approve arts 
funding for this year only.  The second was by Jake Johansson.  

>>COUNCIL MEMBER REINHART:  Does it need to go on a future 
agenda, better for legal, it will go on a future agenda.

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Even though we voted for it before.  Okay.  Jake 
Johansson makes the second still.  This will be the motion to 
bring it back in a future.  Councilman Kent.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER KENT:  Can vice chair Reinhart do that since he 
was on the losing end?  Legal?  

>>COUNCIL MEMBER REINHART:  The motion I made never passed.  

>>  We actually did have a motion that passed.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER REINHART:  Even the motion I made fail for lack 
of a second.

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Mr. Dempsey is the one that made the motion for 
a year and there was no second.  

>>COUNCIL MEMBER REINHART:  I think you have a clean slate.  
That's what I thought when we talked before.  I think illegally 
you could pass a motion this evening, I just know we talked about 
bringing an agenda item back, it's up to counsel.  

>>  If we were going to bring it up and it failed I was going to 
do that because I agree with Jake we could come back on a printed 
agenda so if it failed I was going to make a motion to take that 
600,000 distribute it evenly into the sidewalk fund between 
district 1234 and five 120,000 each for each of those districts 
for a core governmental responsibility.  So if we're going to do 
it that way I will make that motion and if it fails but if we put 
it on the agenda I will wait and see what happens.

>>CHAIR BROWER:  You could make that motion and it would go on a 
future agenda along with this.  

>>COUNCIL MEMBER REINHART:  I will make that motion it can go on 
the agenda after that item if it fails, then it doesn't fail it's 
a moot point but that we would put George $120,000 into district 
1, districts 1234 and five.  Sidewalk fund, thank you.  

>>CHAIR BROWER:  The second came from councilmember.

>>  You have a Karin's motion on the floor.

>>CHAIR BROWER:  We will, trying to catch everything as it comes 
the first motion by Matt Reinhart is to bring the arts vote back 
in future agenda.  Any questions on that, all in favor say aye.  
Any opposed.  

>>  Mr. Johansson.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER REINHART:  Can you quickly call the roll on 
that?  

>>COUNCIL MEMBER KENT:  No.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER REINHART:  Aye.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER ROBINS:  No.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER SANTIAGO:  Aye.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER DEMPSEY:  Aye.

>>CHAIR BROWER:  No, but the motion is passed so that will come 
back in the future.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER REINHART:  That's all I have.

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Second motion is on that agenda, if that motion 
fails the money be split up among all the districts to the 
sidewalk fund.  

>>  Christo would you call the roll on that one.  

>>  Tell me with a second is.

>>  Seconded by Danny Robbins.  

>>COUNCIL MEMBER JOHANSSON:  Yes.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER KENT:  Yes.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER REINHART:  Yes.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER ROBINS:  Yes.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER SANTIAGO:  Yes.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER DEMPSEY:  Yes.

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Yes.

>>CHAIR BROWER:  That motion passes unanimously and Mr. Reinhart 
says he is done, councilmember Robins.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER ROBINS:  Thank you Mr. chair, short and sweet.  
I don't know if anybody was paying attention, let's see if I can 
pull it back, there was a couple deputies, deputies Austin Graham 
and Nathan Vargas who rescued a woman in the land from a boarding 
home this last weekend.  I know this counsel has made it a point 
to support our police and fire or are deputies in fire and first 
responders, we did it with a few deputies, Royce, James and a 
handful of folks that deputies and firefighters up there in Lake, 
Lake dais, the boat was out of control or Lake George, one of the 
two but I'd like to again put these fine gentlemen in 48 
proclamation.  And recognize their great service.  In saving this 
gal's life.  And getting her rescue breathing and all that stuff. 
 Chair if you want me to put in motion.

>>CHAIR BROWER:  If we could agree by unanimous consent.  

>>  And to the state for this coming year gave Presidents' Day a 
recognized Presidents' Day, is that something the council wants 
to consider.  Four days off, I know we just added a few and it 
may be time to look at everything especially if we are tightening 
things up and we can readjust in the future if we decide to read 
it's up to counsel.  It was brought to me and I'm passing it 
forward.  

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Councilman Kent.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER KENT:  This is something around Christmas time 
that was very quick and we went ahead and did it.  I raised a bit 
of a red flag at the time this is something I feel like if we are 
going to do, this is something that I think we need to put in 
collective bargaining in George's court to deal with.  I don't 
like doing this from up here because it costs money and I think 
it's a bad precedent to set.  It feels good but it's too 
loosey-goosey for me.  So I would rather be something that George 
and his team talk with the unions and the rank-and-file.  
Give-and-take and make decisions upon instead of up here but 
that's just me venting.

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Councilman Johansson.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER JOHANSSON:  If we are going to do this why don't 
we have George bring back our day off policy in general.  All of 
them we can pick and choose.  Because next thing you know another 
one is going to come up.  So with a recommendation.

>>  Probably the easiest would be bring it back as part of the 
budget discussion.  I will make a highlight.  

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Was that it?  Councilman send Iago.

>>COUNCIL MEMBER SANTIAGO:  One thing for the lady sitting in the 
middle and I forgot your name so I apologize.  I wanted to 
acknowledge the murals you mentioned in the statehouse.  While I 
served there eight years and I used to look at these murals all 
the time when I was in there, I particularly like the one with 
the conquistador.  Walking in there so I wanted to, you brought 
back memories and I wanted to thank you but those are great 
funerals and I encourage everyone to see them.  

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Councilman Dempsey.  

>>COUNCIL MEMBER DEMPSEY:  Ice already died here and I don't know 
if you had a chance to watch the general tire 200 on Saturday at 
the Speedway.  But I just wanted to give a shout out to Randy and 
his son Daniel Daniel was the third qualifier in that race and he 
almost pulled it off and one so it's kind of like actually really 
good to see a hometown boy actually almost pull off a win 
Saturday at the Speedway so that was exciting or myself and my 
family.  His son went to Saint Barnabas, my kids attend Barnabas 
so it's really cool so I wanted to give a shout out, maybe see 
him on the monitor later on but congratulations to the family for 
a huge success, that's all I have.

>>CHAIR BROWER:  Thank you, just a couple of things, quick update 
on the IR L Council meeting I attend every quarter.  There was 
some good reports on water quality from South Florida up to 
Ormond Beach read good reports:  Seagrass and then some troubling 
reports that there hoping was a blip.  But one of the things the 
most important things they did is that they I got a unanimous 
vote from the Council which includes a representative of the EPA, 
representative of St. John's water management District and 
representative of the various County councils along the IR L. Two 
have a letter of support written to the County and it was and 
delivered by Doctor Wayne to freeze and his staff.  Thanking us 
for the Volusia forever program.  It talked about the importance 
of it.  And specifically the importance of keeping it forever so 
I was glad to receive that letter from the IR L staff.  Michelle, 
you mentioned you received housing and I wanted to direct this to 
staff as well as you.  I fed congratulations, it was not an easy 
process and I just want to point out that throughout that process 
Doctor Brad Burbach, Donna Butler, all the staff included in that 
work really hard.  It wasn't easy because there's so many strings 
attached with state money, federal money.  And it took far longer 
than what I wanted.  It took far longer than what this staff 
wanted to be a part in the whole, thank you for not giving up.  A 
long time, I'm so glad to hear you've got not just a house but 
safe housing, not in a dangerous neighborhood.  So that's 
important.  Lastly I just want to say something about the vote 
tonight.  On the ordinance and the charter amendment for toilet 
to tap water.  I wasn't going to say anything but I think my 
colleague David Santiago called me a liar without using the word 
liar.  It said I spoke misinformation out so I will take that up 
with him and as he requested online as well because I've been 
very I just want to the public on this, I've been very careful 
that everything I said I have verification for.  And to say it's 
not here is absolutely false.  It is here.  In fact the Deltona 
meeting there was a 30% rate increase on water utility.  Passed 
with only about 10 people from the public there so Michelle is 
right, we need more people to participate.  Partially to pay for 
their injection system.  So it's here, it's going to affect all 
of us.  And to the public the person that's the people that have 
already texted me that said that counsel lost there protections 
are hopeless, I want to tell you that you are not defeated.  And 
I will bring this back with the next new counsel in the Council 
after that.  Your protections are not lost because they are voted 
down.  Twice now, previous counsel in this counsel.  So don't 
lose hope.  Keep fighting and let's keep our aquifer clean.  And 
with that at 9:01 this meeting is adjourned.