[{"MatterHistoryId":145225,"MatterHistoryGuid":"C9343069-0977-4A78-B8EA-715652CF07C0","MatterHistoryLastModifiedUtc":"2026-07-15T20:01:14.483","MatterHistoryRowVersion":"AAAAAAC6+OU=","MatterHistoryEventId":1803,"MatterHistoryAgendaSequence":null,"MatterHistoryMinutesSequence":30,"MatterHistoryAgendaNumber":null,"MatterHistoryVideo":null,"MatterHistoryVideoIndex":4468,"MatterHistoryVersion":"1","MatterHistoryAgendaNote":null,"MatterHistoryMinutesNote":null,"MatterHistoryActionDate":"2026-05-05T00:00:00","MatterHistoryActionId":383,"MatterHistoryActionName":"approved","MatterHistoryActionText":"Thomas Perez stated he applauds the Board naming the Speak Up Brevard program after Susan B. Connelly; he was fortunate enough to meet and work with Susan and attest to how well deserved it is to name this program after her; he appreciates the opportunity to share some ideas with the Board; he also speaks on behalf of the Titusville Garden Club, in which he is a member, and four other garden clubs in Brevard County as well as all the citizens that have used this fine mulch that he is going to be speaking about; over the years, Brevard County has dispatched people’s yard waste into huge piles of chipped up logs, limbs, and branches; the yard waste that is chipped up and called mulch simply is not; the stuff that comes out of the grinder is very coarse and unsuitable for gardening; and this product contains small logs and limbs that make it through the single-pass process, rendering the resulting material too coarse for most circumstances. He continued by saying a byproduct called the fines was previously produced by the County but became unavailable in the fall of 2022; this product was effectively utilized by gardeners and citizens Countywide to tend their gardens and yards; to produce the fines, the coarse material needs to be run through the grinding process a second time using a finer screen to further reduce the material to one inch; but another way the coarse material produced from the first grind will take years to breakdown and become useful to the soil as an amenity, whereas the fines can be put into service directly into the landscaping project and used to produce compost; for the gardeners, the process of composting the fines takes a few months; it requires some maintenance, turning over the piles, watering, and things like that; and the final product is a real good compost that can be used in one’s garden. He noted at the garden club they make use of the fines; they offer plants grown at the club to County residents at considerable discounts and provide plants and participate in planting projects with the City of Titusville; they also donate vegetables produced from the gardens they tend to the food pantry in Titusville; the fines are a very usable and sustainable byproduct from the County’s yard waste, cleanup operations, and residents want it; furthermore, it recycles some of the material that otherwise, is landfill fodder; the background history of the fines provided by the County staff tells one that it was previously enabled by a third-party purchaser; the fines were produced in a large quantity that exceeded purchasers ability to use it all; this over supply allowed for the excess to be provided to the residents at no cost; the third-party purchaser discontinued the purchase in 2018 and therefore there was no funding available for the County to continue making the smaller fines; and the County said it only needs the larger four-inch fines for its own use, so there is no need for the additional processing that would add to the cost. He went on to say the amount of fine materials used by County residents was very small apparently, in comparison to the amount produced by the Contract; residents making use of the fines typically came to facilities prepared to load containers in the trunk of their cars or pickup trucks, and occasionally small trailers; the small amount used by residents is illustrated by the time span from when the contract ended in 2018 and when the fines were no longer available in 2022, almost four years; he would propose the County resume the production of the fines and make them available to the residents of Brevard County; gardeners and homeowners across the County appreciate the value of this high quality organic material; making fines available again would support healthier yards, reduce disposal needs, and demonstrate the County’s commitment to sustainable practices; the amount of fines that would supply County residents, as he said, is small in comparison to what was produced previously; he expects that the additional grind to produce this small amount of material would be limited to maybe a few days per year if that and not place an onerous request on the County; and its availability would be well received by County residents. He continued on by saying if the cost of producing this small amount is an issue, residents could purchase the fines from the County at what the County calculates is production cost; he is talking about a very small amount in comparison to what was produced by this contractor that used it to burn as fuel; he suspects just a couple of days of production to do that second run would produce more than enough material for probably a year considering the way it was used; with the contract that was trailer trucks constantly going through and getting the stuff; there was a lot produced and this would just be a small cost; and if it is an issue, it can be passed down to the people who use it. \r\n\r\nChair Altman asked when the County was producing the fines, did he ever use or acquire them. \r\n\r\nMr. Perez replied yes.\r\n\r\nChair Altman asked what he used them for. \r\n\r\nMr. Perez replied gardening, amendment to the soil; when he first moved here he was in Mims and he had a small farm with horses; he needed to help that pasture and that was the way he did it; and when he took things to the facility he would bring back some compost. \r\n\r\nChair Altman stated he knows the County used to provide this value material; he knows this particular CEER was denied and the staff recommendation was like many of them, recommended because it does not enhance the effectiveness or efficiency of County government as required by Home Rule Charter; it does not mean that it is not a good idea if the County is producing a valuable product and recycling biological materials; and he asked if the Board chose to do that regardless of what this says, it can still do that as it is a viable product, it is recycling, there is an environmental benefit. \r\n\r\nMr. Liesenfelt responded by saying yes, of course, if the Board directs it, staff would do that; just to point out there is extra cost to the Solid Waste Department, it is in the definition with the recommendations. \r\n\r\nChair Altman stated the CEER is very limiting and it is only if it enhances the effectiveness or efficiency, or saves money. \r\n\r\nMr. Liesenfelt responded affirmatively. \r\n\r\nChair Altman stated that does not mean it could be a great idea and save the consumers money because…\r\n\r\nMr. Perez stated it is a win-win for everybody, the County also giving the citizens something that they need and they appreciate for very little cost. \r\n\r\nCommissioner Adkinson stated it is something that any Commissioner could come up with; and a Commissioner could bring it as an Agenda Item. \r\n\r\nMr. Liesenfelt stated he does not want to be disrespectful, but if he remembers staff discussion, it was not very little cost, he thinks it was over $100,000 for the program. \r\n\r\nMr. Perez stated he imagines that was to produce quantities under the old system and if staff determined the amount being used by citizens, he cannot imagine that being an issue. \r\n\r\nChair Altman stated he thinks it has some value and perhaps the Board will look at it as it moves forward; he appreciates Mr. Perez bringing it up; he thinks the CEERS, not just meet the County Charter and the money side, but is it a good idea, does it help the environment, and does it do good things; and he thinks it is interesting.  \r\n\r\nTerri Fulton stated she is there to speak about the Law Enforcement encrypting the traffic; if anyone does not know what that means, it is listening to police, fire, and anybody else on there; she has six items to explain about that; one, the law enforcement agency’s excuse for encryption; two, what open and close transmission does; three, what encryption does to the listeners; four, what she wonders; five, recommendations; and six, she cannot even read it. She went on to say one, the excuse, and she wants the Board to listen to this really close, Sheriff Ivey said he wants to encrypt and he did; he said criminals could listen and evade capture, so could apparently means that after all these years, no ‘coulds’ came about, and it really makes her mad; and she has listened to scanners over 45 years and she has not heard a thing of the sort. She went on to say open and close transmission is two, close transmission, full encryption undermines public trust and it hinders accountability that is major, and reduces situational awareness for residents; encryption creates an information vacuum eroding the sense of community connection to law enforcement; open transmission, law enforcement and fire departments has access to public records for decades; open radio channels allows citizens firsthand about emergencies, enabling them to avoid dangerous areas, prepare for disruption, or even assist in a crisis; open transmission promotes accountability, real time public oversight discourages misconduct, that is what she is worried about, and ensure police action aligns with community, the people’s expectations; listeners help catch suspects, spot wildfires, even save First Responders’ lives; then agencies flipped the switch to encryption, that two-way accountability goes dark; three, what encryptions does for the listeners, listening is very personal and they use the scanners to stay informed about neighborhood incidences like burglaries, fires, and accidents which affects people’s daily lives; the Board might not think about that; and being a single female, with two more girls there, need to know why there were 10 police cars running around in her neighborhood and they had no way to find out. She went on to say the smoke was so thick when she walked out her door, it scared the heck out of her because it is so dry; if she had been listening to her radio, which she would have been, she would have known what was going on; she was so afraid she called the police and they did not know either; when there was an open transmission, police were looking by helicopter, for a person on a bike; they gave a description and low and behold he was two doors down, hiding under a tree; and she called it in to the police department. She mentioned on a trip to the store she avoided a wreck; it backed up traffic for six lanes, two ways and four on another; it closed the whole intersection down at Babcock and U.S. 1; there is no telling how many minutes or hours that saved her; what she wonders is why the secrecy, is it to cover up misconduct; she suspects that is a lot of it especially since he said criminals could monitor, but they had not in all these years; and she has some recommendations, but decided not to give them to the Board. She noted the citizens need and deserve this traffic, she has thoroughly explained why; and he asked the Board to please help her. \r\n\r\nChair Altman asked how many communities do not encrypt now; and if there are others. \r\n\r\nMs. Fulton replied she does not know how many more; she started seeing them fall off the radio; but there are still a lot on there and she is surprised of the ones that are still on there are on there because it is the worst part of towns, not in Florida; but across the nation. \r\n\r\nElizabeth Baker stated her recommendation was to address the litter issues in unincorporated areas and requesting a proactive Waste Management planning provision for brick and mortar commercial properties and multi-family residential properties with shared waste systems, including apartments, condominiums, and Homeowners Association (HOA) or Condominium Owners Association (COA) managed communities; have an additional one page Waste Management plan that could be incorporated into existing permit reviews, site plan approvals, or inspection processes; the recommendation that she received back was to accept with revisions, as Brevard County will continue to maintain regulatory provisions addressing solid waste storage, litter prevention, and development review through chapters 62 and 94 of the County Code as well as solid waste concurrency requirements; her idea is simple when it comes to the legality of things; and she can see that staff took their time to really look into how they could incorporate something like this. She commented she thinks what happened was a simple idea got covered in some bureaucracy; really what she is asking for here is very simple; just that with a business tax receipt or any kind of acknowledgement that someone is in business, doing business, housing people, that they simply have one form that says yes, they know where to place their waste, how to handle it, there is a dumpster on site, the dumpster has covers, and they know the trash days; something very simple because that waste ultimately, from those properties and all waste comes from where the humans are, the stores, the restaurants, where people live, where people recreate, and there are tons of visitors that come here using single-use plastics at an even larger rate than people who live here; this can be made very simple and her argument here is that if things were efficient, she would not be here and Keep Brevard Beautiful would not exist; this County has issues with garbage that ends up in the stormwater ditches clogging things up, and creates accidents; in 2017, in just three months’ time there was a study done on Florida highways, and there was over 42 tons of trash removed from Florida Highways in just three months; there are millions of visitors coming here and approximately 600,000 residents and she thinks the County can work on this and do some prevention; people have to start being held accountable; the County has great rules; and this is not about expanding regulations, it is not about placing more departments in or more staff, it is really making sure that the laws that the County already have are easy to enforce and that they get enforced; she drives through unincorporated areas of Brevard County all the time; and if one drives past just about any strip mall location, any area where there are multiple businesses, and he or she looks at the dumpster, she can promise he or she will find garbage all over the place. She noted the County can find a way to prevent some of that; she really believes that a lot of that has to do with education; the recommendations that came back to her really addressed like new development site plan and review requirements; what she is talking about is the new small business that just opens up in the strip mall; they do not need a huge site plan, there is no new development happening; she wants that business to be accountable and know that they have to take care of their waste too; she reiterated that she thinks this can be simpler than adding a whole bunch more staff, and more taxes, that is not needed; and she thinks it can be really simple. \r\n\r\nChair Altman stated he was presently reading some of the staff input on this; and that was the last blue card. \r\n\r\nCommissioner Adkinson stated there is one comment card on the Item that the Board needs to hear prior to voting. \r\n\r\nRick Heffelfinger stated he wanted to come down here because he liked a lot of these, but he did not write one this year; what he saw happen this year happened the previous year; what the community is bringing to the Board are good ideas and it is already suspect when it says on the chart, does this reduce costs; a lot of this would probably cost something, but what is being said is, as a citizen for example, if one is suggesting that the County could take some of the trash and keep it out of the landfill, he thinks that is why the County recycles in the first place; that is what he was told, the County recycles, saves the landfill, and the County does not have to build a new one sooner; that is the only reason, it is not trying to save the earth, they are trying to save the landfill; he hates to tell the Board that; everything that goes into that recycling bin, does not go into the landfill; and he asked why the Board would discourage that. He went on to ask if staff did a cost analysis or did they say, “This could be tons of stuff that doesn’t go into the landfill, maybe this person has a good idea”; one thing he does is walk the street; there are people who clean up the street, Keep Brevard Beautiful; they will provide little grabby things and the bags for nothing; he asked does the Board know what they do with it, and replied they sort it by recyclables and place it in one’s own garbage; and guess what, Waste Management just got a little bit of stuff that should have been in that bin to begin with. He continued by saying he does not know, but the County has a Waste Management Contract with the incorporated, the cities have their own; the cities are still complying with recycling; he thinks most of their recycling probably goes to Waste Management because they are the only ones that have a decent recycling plant; he realizes it is done because it is incentivized from the State, he believes was the original reason, that if the County recycles, the big government smiles at it, so it has to keep that program; but it is a good program and keeps that stuff out of the landfill. He stated there is…just because the County would say, “well, we’d have to write a procedure, and maybe have to put…”; he does not understand why there is not a recycling bin at the beach; he does not think a lot of them do; it is like, “Dude we recycle here,” instead it is letting the tourist throw all this crap into one; it is going right into the landfill because they are emptying that can right into the landfill; he asked if it would be so hard to put another can there, Waste Management will not like it, or whoever the collector is because now they have more recycling to pick up; but the County has a Contract that says what they are supposed to do to pick up that stuff. He went on to say he has no problem taking it off of his street and putting it in that bin because that is a good citizen; Keep Brevard Beautiful can help with that; a lot of people do not even know those programs are there; a little more advertising; the County plugs the heck out of the recycling program, but the only one benefiting from that is Waste Management because that is what they do; that is a closed system but the County plugs the heck out of it and it does it for good reason; it stays out of the landfill and the residents all pay for it; he reiterated he thought there was a lot of good ideas; and just because they do not save money, if they benefit the citizens and possibly have costs, the Board should spend a little more time instead of kicking it back to them to come with a closed system. He noted the gentleman with the biochar, he is one man and looking to this Board to say this could benefit everybody; he does not know why SOIRL does not weigh in on some of the water issues; keeping that fresh water out of the Lagoon is a good idea; and he thinks that there was not enough thought put into some really good ideas, and that SOIRL should have embraced some of them. \r\n\r\nChair Altman advised that was the last card and there are no more blue cards; and he asked if the Board has anything to add.  \r\n\r\nMr. Liesenfelt asked for forgiveness if he is repeating anything, and he stated under the Charter, County Commission’s final vote and consideration of the recommendation shall occur no later than 120 days after written receipt, therefore, the Board does have to make a decision to accept, accept with revisions, or reject the recommendations.\r\n\r\nChair Altman asked what date staff received the written receipt. \r\n\r\nMr. Liesenfelt replied January 31; the 90 days under Policy, for staff to get to the Board, that was met last week, and the Board would have until the end of May to accept, reject, or accept with revisions; and the Board can accept them all today and then be done with it. \r\n\r\nChair Altman asked when Mr. Liesenfelt says accept them all today…\r\n\r\nMr. Liesenfelt explained the Board reviews each recommendation; the County Commission shall vote to either accept each individual recommendation, or reject each individual one; staff has it set up so the Board can do them all in one single motion if it accepts staff’s recommendation; and if the Board wants to pull one off for a separate vote or to have it reconsidered, then the Board can make that as part of the motion. \r\n\r\nChair Altman inquired if the Board accepts the recommendation, does that means it is accept recommendations with changes, and is he reading that right.\r\n\r\nMr. Liesenfelt advised accept with recommendation means it is an idea that…it could mean a couple different ways; it is an idea that the County is already doing, they may have more of an idea in the recommendation than the County can do, it could also be something that the County has been continuing; an example that he keeps coming up with is somebody had in there for more bike lanes, and we have accept with recommendations as the County will do bike lanes where it can, but it might not have space for bike lanes or the money, but it is a good idea to have more bike lanes; and that would be an idea to accept with recommendations. \r\n\r\nAttorney Richardson commented he thinks it is confusing because there are recommendations on citizen’s recommendations; and therefore, the requested action is that the Board approve these staff recommendations, but if the Commissioners wish to treat any individual CEER or CEERs differently that it pull those, just like it would for the Consent Agenda. \r\n\r\nChair Altman stated some of these may have merit but the Board would want to look and evaluate; and it does not mean that a no is a no forever. \r\n\r\nMr. Liesenfelt stated correct. \r\n\r\nAttorney Richardson noted year round a lot of these may not fall into the criteria of the CEER program, but they might be great ideas for a Commissioner to champion. \r\n\r\nChair Altman stated he appreciates that, there are some good ideas. He asked if the Board accepts the document, the summary, is it accepting the items where the staff says accept with revision, that the Board is accepting the recommendation with the revisions of staff. \r\n\r\nMr. Liesenfelt responded affirmatively. \r\n\r\nChair Altman noted there are over 15 of those. \r\n\r\nMr. Liesenfelt advised there are 17 of those. \r\n\r\nCommissioner Feltner stated he thinks what the Chair said was what he was going to say earlier, which is anyone could petition a Commissioner on these items; he knows he has said that multiple times that some of the stuff he has brought to the Board started with a conversation in Publix; if there is not more discussion he will make the motion to approve the staff recommendations. \r\n\r\nCommissioner Adkinson advised she will second. \r\n\r\nChair Altman stated as mentioned Commissioner Goodson is not on the phone, so it is just the three of them; he thinks some of these are wonderful ideas; he will go back and review them and some that were rejected, it could be that through the budget process or the comp planning process, through the rate processes, there is a lot of things that the Board could do; he does not want one to think that his or her feedback is going on deaf ears because there were some really good ideas; he wants to thank the public that took the time to really evaluate these issues and come up with these excellent recommendations…\r\n\r\nCommissioner Adkinson advised and it took staff hundreds of hours, seriously hundreds of hours. \r\n\r\nChair Altman reiterated staff took hundreds of hours; a lot of these rejections are just simply because the Board has no jurisdiction; he would encourage those who come up with these ideas to really look at other jurisdictions; and also in the legislative delegation process, annual legislative delegation meetings, some of these would be really good to talk to the delegation about. \r\n\r\nThe Board reviewed the CEER recommendations submitted through Speak Up Brevard and accepted staff’s recommendations with revisions as required under the County Charter.\r\n","MatterHistoryActionBodyId":138,"MatterHistoryActionBodyName":"Brevard County Board of County Commissioners","MatterHistoryPassedFlag":1,"MatterHistoryPassedFlagName":"Pass","MatterHistoryRollCallFlag":0,"MatterHistoryFlagExtra":0,"MatterHistoryTally":null,"MatterHistoryAccelaRecordId":null,"MatterHistoryConsent":0,"MatterHistoryMoverId":727,"MatterHistoryMoverName":"Rob Feltner","MatterHistorySeconderId":776,"MatterHistorySeconderName":"Kim Adkinson","MatterHistoryMatterStatusId":72}]