Good morning everyone and welcome to our final day of our February winter workshop. Please call the role. So, Councilwoman Morgan, >> yes, ma'am. >> Councilman Picket. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Mayor Martin, >> here ma'am. >> Councilman Bana, >> he's not here yet. He's running a little bit late. >> Vice Mayor Carbala. >> Hey, ma'am. Thank you. Please stand for the pledgece to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. >> Do we have anyone that would like to speak at public to be heard? Seeing no one will close public to be heard. Okay. Good morning, Brad. Parks and Wreck. >> Good morning, Madame Mayor, City Council, Mr. Manager, City Staff, and the viewing public. Um, if you'll allow me just a brief second uh before I start with our high impact plan. Uh, Madame Mayor, you had asked a question on Wednesday about the parks and recreation department's camera uh program uh security camera program. I was able to go back uh Wednesday evening and uh talk with staff and I'm very pleased to let you know as well as the rest of council that in fiscal year uh 2526 just the the year we're in now we have plans for uh camera projects to begin at the C24 canal boat ramp uh Riverland PO and Sportsman's Park upgrade. Now, Sportsman's Park was one of our first camera systems many years ago, but it's due for an upgrade. So, we plan on doing that. We've already completed uh this year alone uh Lindgate Park, Sand Hill Crane, Swan, Mczznney, and Whispering Pines. And then uh you had asked about Woodland Trails. That is being proposed as part of next year's budget. So, pending uh city manager's approval moving forward and then ultimately the council approval as part of the budget process. Uh that project will be next. >> That'd be great because that park's been around since 2017. So, it's been a while. >> Great. Thank you. >> Yes, ma'am. My pleasure. So, getting into the high impact plan for the parks and recreation department. As the council heard on Wednesday when Zach gave his uh presentation, uh the parks recreation department has seven major construction projects going on currently either in construction or in the final stages of design. In addition to that, we have 21 other significant CIP projects for a total of uh 28 uh major projects totaling $79 million. So, that's a significant uh investment into the parks and recreations uh infrastructure. In addition, we have over 30 smaller projects which could include anything from replacing overhead netting to prepping the newly acquired Roser Lakes Preserve property. So, uh we're we're quite busy in in the things that we're doing. Um, so to start with our HIPP plan, our first and primary initiative is the implementation of our 10-year master plan. If you'll remember our midcycle revision, we've our plan was first approved in in 21. Our midcycle revision to the plan was completed in late 2025 and key initiatives of the plan are already being carried out including the completion of the conservation trail south of Pioneer Park which we under um which we've uh presented to you earlier this week that our grand opening is scheduled for March 4th. So just in a couple of weeks. We're also uh expanding our trail network through the construction of wilderness trail that is an active project underway right now. and phase one of tradition and Torino regional parks continue. Our master planning of sportsman's park and the newly acquired school site we're moving forward with. It has been review the RFP process to secure a land planning professional has been approved by risk and is currently in review in the legal department. We also focus on the expansion of recreation pro programming. Our master plan update was associated with the simultaneous update to the recreation programming plan. The plan is used in the planning, operation, and review of new and existing recreation programming. This fiscal year has seen the delivery of 22 new programs, including a young engineer STEM workshop and a musical education program for youth. In addition to that, five outdoor recreation programs were also developed. A core focus of the department and the master plan is the improvement of current facilities. Okay, we go. This ensures that all guests can enjoy the highest quality park experience regardless of the specific facility they visit. The department is looking forward to phase one improvements at O Peacock Senior Park currently underway. New playground installations and renovations, including the one at Riverplace Park, and utilizing new technologies such as open Gov asset management. Of course, the department the department also focuses on moving forward as a high-erforming government organization through its continued focus on CAPRA accreditation. The department has worked over the last five years to prepare for our first reacredititation. I'm happy to report the department successfully submitted its application for reacredititation this past January. This application included nearly 700 individual files for compliance, evidence of compliance. Our Kapper Commission review team is now beginning its review of our evidence of compliance and the department is looking forward to receiving its first reacreditation in September 2026. Per Kapper requirements, our accreditation manager, Bobby Shenier, is also currently serving as a CAPA mentor to a park and recreation agency in Oklahoma as they move through their first accreditation journey. This is significant to me personally because while we in this city for many years have reached out to other high-erforming agencies, finding out what they do, visiting them, Chicago, Rockill, South Carolina, um, Texas, San Antonio, um, constantly going to other agencies, seeing how they perform, bringing back their good ideas and trying to implement them into our system. This is an example that that tells me now other agencies around the country are coming to us to do that exact same thing. So I think that's something we can all be very proud of. >> Absolutely. >> I don't know why this is There we go. And finally, I'd like to do a brief review of some very important numbers of our department for fiscal year 2425 ending in September of of of this past year. Our department's indoor facilities and outdoor parks attracted a total of 6.3 million visits in fiscal year 2425 alone. 6.3 million. >> That's amazing. >> A lot of folks. Mhm. >> Over 391,000 of those visits were to our various recreation centers, including the Mid Florida Event Center, Minsky Gym, and the Port St. Lucy Community Center. Over 165,000 of those visits were to the botanical gardens, which is evidence of our strong partnership that we maintain with the friends of the botanical gardens. And these numbers are a testament to the hard work and dedication of our team. And I want to thank them for their daily efforts to provide excellent and safe parks and facilities that enable our guests to learn, grow, and serve every day. And a very huge thank you to the city council and our city administration. With that, I'd like to turn the podium over to Mr. Keith Bradshaw, Saints Golf Course Administrator, and he'll give you an update on his high performance plan as well as a brief update of the Saints. Any questions for Brad before we move on to Keith? >> Thanks so much, Brad. >> Thank you. >> Good morning, everyone. >> Good morning, >> madame mayor, vice mayor, council members, city manager. Um, I'm going to start off with the Saints high impact plan here. A few slides on that without stealing too much of my thunder from my presentation. So basically with this, the Saints Golf Course continues to have the same strategy we've always had. Provide the best, most enjoyable golf course to the community as possible, a safe, fun place for everybody, and a beautiful golf course to go with it. along with that to uh provide advanced lesson programs for all of the adults and juniors that play there, have partnerships with with different tournament structures, uh host a city golf championship and the fall time frame, and support parks and recre for certain fitness activities like yoga on the line on Saturdays that are happening right now. So, let me jump down to the the structure here. So, uh, I don't want to take too much time on this because I'm fixing to tell you about this numbers in my presentation, but we had a great year last year. So, let me jump over to my presentation now. The clicker there. So, if I can walk through this. The Saints did very well last year. We've been doing well for several years now. And we had a banner year last year. One for the books. And as a record year, we experienced heavy customer traffic. Um, experiencing over 70,000 rounds for the golf course, making us probably the busiest, if one of the busiest golf courses on Treasure Coast. That's way that's a lot of golf rounds for one 18hole golf course. >> But we've never experienced that much traffic in one year. This helped the Saints achieve a total annual record revenues of over 27 $2.7 million including record total retail sales at $171,000. I mean and Range at $183,000 and a total retail sales at 171. And lastly, our food and beverage at 107. So across the board, almost every area, we set new records across for the Saints. First time we've ever done this. >> Awesome. >> And I have to ask why. Everybody ask why. Why have you been so successful? I have to give all the credit to my Saints staff team. Okay. Because without them, we wouldn't be who we are. Um, I have to first say my my maintenance staff led by my superintendent manager golf course maintenance Mark Gerston who manages the golf maintenance every day with his staff to do and they do an excellent job at keeping the course in great shape every single day. Second, my golf operations manager, head golf pro David Oke Kelly and his staff team there in the pro shop who manages the Saints and the staff of the Saints to ensure that the best golf experience possible is provided to all of our guests. And third, a huge shout out to all of our volunteers. I mean, I have a huge staff of volunteers and they provide such a great job at hospitality, customer service, and they make the Saints for what it is. I actually try to model our our business model. I used to work for Arnold Palmer Golf Management years back and we ran the Disney courses and I was I I knew the GM up at the Magnolia and Palm Course there in Disney and I loved the way he had set it up because it's all about customer service. So I try to make our model similar in terms of how customers pull up in their car, how they get greeted, the hospitality, pick up your bags, how you doing today, you know, and and all that and the way they we you introduce them in the pro shop. Um we try to model that and it's it's it's been very successful and the volunteers just do a fantastic job at it. A lot of other kudos go to u I worked very well with the communications department with Sarah and her team. They've uh updated our website to really nice website if nobody has looked at it lately. It's all brand new and it looks fantastic. Um and they helped me on social media as well. And of course, Port St. Lucy has grown in number. So, we've increased our market pool through the years. >> Um and and uh that's helped us a lot. But also the golf market. Let's let's talk about the golf market because that's a lot of the of the variable here and why we were so successful. uh the the number of uh you know kids that we see at the golf course now is we never used to see that. Five years ago when I got here we never saw the youth that we are seeing today and we we have a lot more women that play at the golf course too. So let me show you some slides here from the National Golf Foundation. This first one shows um a graph for golf participation in the in the nation uh since 2014. Um, and it shows both a dark green bar. You can see there it shows total golf participation. Then it shows a dark green bar and a light green bar per year. Where the dark green is represents oncourse golfers, those who just play golf. And the light green are those who considered practice golf or some venue of golf. Okay. Notice what happened in 2022. the offc course golfers sup surpassed the oncourse and it's been growing that way ever since. What does that mean? What drove that? Well, they believe it's probably things like Topgolf and all these fancy driving ranges. Um kind of moved uh you know, in fact, I was from I'm from Dallas, so I kind of watched a lot of what was the original founders of Topgolf did. I remember reading the article when they first came out. They said, "We realize that we build a product for a market we didn't even know existed with Topgolf and and Drive Shack, Big Shots are two companies that kind of mimic them." And then you have also a lot of other parts of the market like um fancy putt putt ranges like Popstroke here in Tradition. Okay, there's lots of that across the country, you know, invented by Top Tiger Woods. Um, you also got, um, the inline hitting stays, the virtual hitting like Boogie Bay over in Gatlin Boulevard. That one's packed till 11:30 at night because people are hitting into a net, into a screen, playing virtual games, virtual courses. They're doing online playing with other people around, you know, virtually around the country. That is what's part of that. But it also grows the green line, the dark green line. So more people who practice, okay, and play venues like that end up playing golf as well. So, and it also explains a little bit of why the Saints driving range has done so well. I'll get to that in just a minute. Here's another uh marketing slide from National Golf Foundation. Let me I know it's busy, but this is really relative to how the states performed rounds rounds increases or decreases across the country. Let me focus your attention to the red states. Um, that's where golf growth grew at least two plus percent round zero-over-year from 2024 to 2025. But mostly focus, Oops, I got a I got a pointer here, don't I? Mostly focus here on the southeast south Atlantis area where we are where rounds grew from 24 to 25 to um um almost 9 plus percent. So it's a huge growth where Florida continues to be the leader in golf courses across the nation. last I saw was around 1,270 uh courses in in in Florida. Um and it's also can still considered be the number one leisure activity in the state. A recent um report from National Golf Foundation reports that in 2025, it was another record year for golf, climbing to an all-time high in rounds played last year. And last year being the sixth consecutive year in a row where Americans played more than 500 million rounds nationally just so golf continues to be huge and a growing sport in the country. Here's uh some placer AI data um from our own placer AI. This is since uh October 24 to last month or through this month. Uh it shows that we've had 92,000 visitors to the saints. What's interesting about this is notice that 34% of my traffic comes from west of the turnpike. >> It's you know I I when I first saw this I'm going I was surprised about that. That's interesting. So next is part of that place AI data it shows that our median age is around 46.6 47 years old. Now you can see what this graph uh on the different age demographics. The dark blue is represented for the saints visitation of the 92,000 visitors. The light gray okay uh bars are are what placeer AI considers similar uh business venues around the state. So and how we compare to it. It's very interesting how we're you know our demographics our age demographics follow pretty much around the state other than the the older section. Well let me say one more thing about this slide. I already mentioned that we have a lot more younger traffic um and a lot more women. So you you can see from here how it's balanced out. We never used to see that before. Um and in fact our weekend traffic sees a lot more of that. We used to have our weekend our weekend traffic used to be the deadest parts of our week. I mean in fact prior clubs that I was at, we had we had Florida courses and we were actually lowering the green fee rates on the weekend just to got try to get more traffic because the weekends were dead. It was all about retirement people playing in the weekday. Uh the Saints doesn't have a slowdown day anymore. Every day is busy. This this month alone, we're averaging over 250 rounds a day. So, we're just busting at the seams. So, let's talk about some of the financials about all of that. The first slide I want to talk about is something that I developed for myself a while back because we kept doing so well since the first of 2021. Kept breaking monthly records month after month. So I uh went back and made the report for myself. I said let me just start checking off the boxes of every month that we're breaking a monthly record. Now, what that means is in this gray box here, I mean this light tan box with a check mark, that's a month where we've never hit that level of revenue in that month. Okay? And I and I ended up doing it all the way to last month. We've only missed other than the drainage pro project during 2023. Uh we've only missed three months where we didn't break a monthly record. Two heavy rain months in 2022 and Hurricane Milton October 2024. uh just I've never had a success story like this in my any of my of my careers. This is unbelievable. And the next part of that is you can see we've 2025 last year we broke every every month. In fact the fiscal the year we're currently in October, November, December and January. We've already set major milestones for those these months. So we're having a banner year this year. Now, let me see how that leads in to the financials year-over-year. Here's what the Saints total revenues looked like. Um, starting in fiscal year 15-16, you can see we kind of averaged around one and a half million u revenue per year. Starting in 2021, we started changing that and we grew to uh we had a slowdown in 2023 because the drainage project kind of came back for so for last year. We broke a record. We've never made $2.7 million at 70,000 rounds before. Just a fantastic story. Now, let me talk about the driving range, as I like to call it, um the re-imagine driving range. Okay, during 2023, um during the downtime of the construction project we were doing, we took advantage of the timing and um we recontoured the driving range. We rec kind of added uh extra insulation, extra drainage, uh resoldered lots of lot lots of the driving range, and we rebuilt this area here, rebuilt the actual um you know, hitting surface all the way out to here with new sod and everything. And then in May 23, I added the astroturf in, okay, concrete pad with hitting astroturf area. And then se the following year, September 24, we were able to finish the installation of the covered um awning you see here. Okay, so u very good um project for that. Let me show you how the financials came out. So here's the year-over-year annual revenues for the driving range. Um you can see um all the way till 2021, we were pretty much averaging toward 40 $50,000 a year is all we were ever doing on the driving range. We started increasing a little bit in 2021 and then when by the time we added the astroturf in we jumped the revenue at the end of fiscal year 23 24 to $114,000. So basically a 76% increase in 2425 after the installation of the awning we jumped at another 61% to $183,000 last year of record revenue for the range. So thus tripling the range business in probably two years with what we've done. I we're doing so well this year. I expect us to grow additional 23% maybe to hit 225 is kind of my target right now. Next, uh the retail business at the Saints, uh year-over-year, we've done pretty well on that. Um, mostly because one of my head golf pros, Ray Rash, um, a lifetime PJ member, does a great job at retail, always making sure that we are fully stocked with the right kind of, uh, material and retail business, merchandise of hats, gloves, shirts, even shoes, clubs. Um, he does a fantastic job on that and, uh, and really good good margins as well. We, uh, changed it. We started growing a little bit with some changes in 2021. We've been growing it ever since. We hit a record last year at $170,000. Barely beat last year because last year was a good year, too. But he does a fantastic job. Now, on to the Saints pub. The restaurant at the Saints has had u some interesting years in the past. As you can see, we we weren't doing a lot. Now this revenue here represents our commissionbased revenue based on the relationship we have with the concession era there. So in first of 2021 we brought in a new concession area under a nuke agreement. We boomed it the next year 2020 22. So we really shot it up over what it used to be. Had a slowdown in 2023 because of the construction project but we've been growing it back ever since. And this last year we had a record $107,000 which once again is our commission base. So that means he did really well. >> And that's what I have to as an update. We did a fantastic job this last year. We're doing really well. I expect us to continue doing well. Um and so thank you. Is there any questions? >> Any questions? >> No. >> No. >> It is great news. You know, I remember we had a workshop several years ago. It was during the COVID time and we were at mid Florida, right? And um we weren't doing so well and we said there were improvements that want to be made and we said show us you could turn it around, right? And so now we are here full circle. So thank you very much for that. We have made a remarkable turnaround with the Saints. I know everyone loves it and the numbers prove it. And so thank you very much for your leadership and to your team because um we do have one of the very best golf courses I would say in the entire state of Florida. So thank you so much for that. >> Madam Mayor, just I really need to point out is the investment that the council made into that golf course also has made a tremendous different to be able to operate it the way it does operate, especially adding these different components and the drainage system that was there for many, many years that prevented golfers from getting out to the golf course. to me that investment uh this team has made onto the golf course has been tremendous. >> Absolutely. >> Right. Thank you. >> VP for the grant. >> Hold on. Um Joanie Dave, go ahead. >> Keith, the the driving range um I think you did a remarkable job out there, but do you have any um thoughts on on enhancing the experience there? Basically, right now you just walk out there and smack golf balls >> at the driving range. >> Yeah. >> Yes. Um, I never envisioned it to be a top golf venue, okay? You know, like Martin County has their Selfish Sands, which is a double uh decker, you know, with monitor screens and couches around. I didn't I didn't envision us to be at that level, but there are a lot of things I still would like to do at the driving range that can increase the revenue even more, especially our lessons programs. I mean, uh, I still would like to do an advanced teaching center out there. I could put it at the end of the range. you saw the picture. I've kind of built it out for that as kind of a long range plan. Uh so that we could um actually bring some of the in, you know, the heating bays inside, you know, the simulation thing that I mentioned um and uh go to that. We also could possibly light it up at night. That's where people hit range balls more than anything is at night. That's where I was going because you're limited right now to to the daylight hours and people that work >> don't get don't get it to have that same experience unless they come on the weekend. >> You're right. You're right. Um the um the a lighted driving range would not be like it used to be. The really today's world and technology, it'd be all about focused LED lighting. So with the awning the way set up, I had I built it to where it could support electrical hookup. Okay. and we could put the focused LED lighting on the hitting area under the awning and it wouldn't be invasive to the neighborhood or nothing like that. And then when they hit balls so they could go out there and play and and of course that that would bring a better component to my food and beverage because they you'd have the them for out hot dogs, hamburgers, you know, all that and and other drinks uh to support all that and up to the evening. But the other thing is once they hit a ball, how do they see it? And so, um, you know, Brad and I went down to park down at West Palm. Yeah. West Palm Beach. And, uh, that par three course and their driving range has the focus LED lighting in the ground. So, it's it's actually in the ground that people can't hit it and it shoots up with focus LED so it doesn't flood like it's not like a baseball field where it's you have a glow. So, you just see the ball flight, you see? And so, you don't really see it outside of that. So, that's something I' I've been looking at. Um um and that would be a whole new I'd have to change my operations. I got to keep the pro shot open till probably 10 o'clock at night because you got you got to support that business. So it it's something for me to look at. Um and I have looked at options there. The other one is tracer technology. I had it on my plan. We have some budget money for that this year. Um the technology has changed so much I never implemented it this year on purpose because um u this the citizens advisory committee made it gave me a good question one day when I was presenting to him says how do you I said I would you do that Keith if it was your course I says it is my course I I treat this as I own this course this is this is my money I'm spending and money I'm making for my course and so that's how I treat it I know it's not but just to make you aware. So with that in mind, I'm cautious of when I really spend money for things I don't need to just because I haven't budgeted. Um I'm looking at there's so much new technology on that tracer technology today of I'm changing my mind and I'm looking at what's really best. So that's another venue for ball tracer lighting the the the driving range at night uh uh advanced teaching center all that. No, I I think it's something that should be considered given the the revenue that that that one aspect of that golf course is producing. >> Yeah. And it it'd be probably another 20 30% increase in business just keeping it open at night. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. >> Okay, >> Jolene. Go ahead. >> Thanks. Um, I really appreciate your your um you sharing your ownership and how you take ownership over what you've been charged with and um that's a fantastic attitude and and I'm just grateful that we have members on our team, Mr. City Manager, that take that ownership over the uh responsibility that you've given them and have succeeded and so you've done a great job. Um, I continue to uh look forward to future years and how you're going to grow this program even further. And when we continue to talk about affordability, you know, I look at the uh place or AI information and I look at how many people in this area are coming to the saints and I don't know a lot about golf, but I do know that when it's privatized, um, you have to pay very large membership. Sometimes there's very there's a there's a higher rate to come in and play. And um even though I don't play, those that do play share with me how it does help their mental health. We were having a conversation of mental health and being able to go out and do a sport of some kind. And I've always felt government shouldn't be in this kind of a business, but if you're breaking even and you're about to actually go over and it's making money on its own, um it's very hard to argue that it doesn't provide number one a benefit to the community and then more importantly isn't causing a burden. Um, and you know, so I'm so grateful that you've actually been able to do that because for many years I spent on the council and I mean Brad knows this considering do we need a municipal golf course and if it's going to continue to drain funding from from the general fund is it something that we just eventually, you know, dispose of and and I never wanted to really do that but you know numbers are numbers and budget is budget and so I I truly appreciate what you've done. I do think in the future as we move forward in um you and I have talked about this, Keith, I think we all need to think about um some of the aspects that can be approved outside of just the driving range um the the ballroom, the restaurant, the interior. It was built a while ago. and those items really if we're going to have a robust offering and then more importantly a robust economic opportunity of growth for this program, we need to think about that and how is that going to factor into the C um the CIP in the future as well as I think it'd be really cool. I'm going to I'm going to set a goal because I know you're going to hit it. I think it'd be I'd be it'd be very interesting if you could get so profitable in the sense of going over your revenues that you'd be able to uh save like 50% of what the what the cost would be for um fixing and redoing that um that particular building that really needs to be done. I think that would be it's a challenge, but I think it'd be a great story to tell the public if you're able to do it because um you know, municipal golf courses are not profitable. That's the other story we've got to tell across the um state and um to our leaders and this is one that will be and looks like it currently is. So that's exciting. Um and just let us know how we can support you further. Thank you. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Yep. So, I would agree with that in terms of yes, the improvements to the driving range are great, but we do need to look holistically at the entire uh course and see what we can do. Um, the building is a little bit dated. We we know that. And so, um, it's important to be able to keep that up as well. And so I would be looking at at uh especially with the revenues if there's funding um to make enhancements or make updates and changes. I' I'd love to hear what those are going forward because I remember going back to that workshop and we said, "Show us you can improve the revenue. Show us that you're in the black and then that's when we'll consider all these updates." And so and and you've been again very successful at that and that's exactly what we want to see. happen, right? Because you want to keep reinvesting into the Yes. >> into the course. >> Okay. Thank you, >> Steph. Go ahead. >> Um, kudos because I the few years ago it was to the point that it was like, uh, maybe we need to get rid of this golf course because it seemed like it was a big hole and there was nothing but money pouring into this hole and going somewhere. I also wanted to give a shout out to Burn and his team. >> Yes. because that restaurant did it was kind of like yeah it wasn't the best but he has really brought it to the next level. Um the teamwork uh I I've been to several events there. I go to several lunchons there a month and it's consistent and I think he's done a great job. >> I agree with you. Um, just to expound on that a little bit, when we brought in Burn under in first of 2021 and established the relationship with him, um, and did the contract, I said, "Burn, I want you to know your number one priority is that you're here to support my golfers." >> Okay. Everybody before that was there, the golfers were in invading their business. Burn has supported me 100% on that. And that's why we've done so well >> and we work together as a team. He's helping my golfers. He 30% of the business comes out of the to- go window. >> So, it's fantastic and um he's done a great job. I I I appreciate what you said. >> Great. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> So, I echo those comments, Steph. That's he he does a great job. His whole team does. And yeah, it's been great to have him as a partner for sure. >> Thank you. >> All right. Thank you very much. All right. Um council, do you does anyone want to Any other high impact plans from any departments before we go on to our ordinance? No. Are we good? All right. So, we have second reading of ordinance for naturally PSL Community Trust. Madame clerk, can you read the ordinance? >> An ordinance of the city of Port St. Lucy, Florida. Amending title 3 administration chapter 32 departments, boards, and commissions of the ordinances of the city of Port St. Lucy, Florida by specifically adding article 15 naturally PSL community trust providing for conflict, providing for severability, and providing an effective date. >> Thank you. >> I just saw Kate. Where did she go? Oh, sorry. Are you Oh, >> did you do you have something to present to us? >> We do. if you would if you'd like to hear it now or I don't know. I just wanted to ask you. Yes, >> it was a second reading so I didn't realize. I apologize for that. >> Yes, we did not give the presentation at the first reading. Um it was not. So that's why we thought we might want to hear that. >> Go to a motion. >> Thank you so much. Um thank you mayor, vice mayor, members of council, city manager, um the city team. This is really an exciting moment for the entire city team um in the in the uh consideration of the adoption of the um ordinance to support the naturally PSL Lamb Bacon Community Trust. Just to remind everyone, this began really with listening to our residents. Your vision to put residents first in all that you do. The 2023 Citizen Summit residents ranked access to natural areas and preserves as their top priority, and you allowed us and supported us in pursuing a a citywide innovation project to accomplish that. As a result, we worked with the Bloomberg Center for Public Innovation at Johns Hopkins, the Bloomberg Harbor City Leadership Initiative, and the Center for Public Impact on an innovation project that engaged over 1,000 residents who generated over a thousand ideas in in solutions to this. And an innovation team with um department representatives from throughout the city came up with a portfolio of ideas and some of these ideas we're going to be putting in motion today as well as celebrating at the Roser Lakes um press conference later this morning. I um we have been again looking at this because we've had such a influx of new residents. Residents have seen that of the total developable land per city land use and zoning 72% has been developed and we're growing faster than our green spaces which is a reason why um we looked at this land bank as one of our portfolio of ideas. We want to increase residents access to parks, trails, natural preserves, and recreational green spaces and public spaces through land acquisition, enhance resiliency through storm water management, education, and green infrastructure, and improving the quality of environmental sensitive lands, wildlife habits, habitats, and connectivity, and improving the quality of life of residents and neighborhoods. And I'm going to bring up a Nikki Zen who's really been leading the design of this the Naturally PSL community trust which will be this historic uh formation this nonprofit to help um bring revenues into the city to acquire more land and take care of our green spaces and places. And I want to acknowledge Miss Sen who's um who has been an incredible asset to our team. She came to us from the Bloomberg Harvard um uh city fellow program and um that's been her fellowship has been completely been funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies and we are so grateful for their support and we couldn't ask for a more extraordinary team member. Um Nikki's background in landscape architecture and just her ability to create meaningful civic design through this process has really enabled us to take these ideas and put them into action and um she's been just done an extraordinary job and I'll let you share more about her work. Thank you. Great. Good morning, Nikki. Yes, we've been very blessed to have Nikki on our team. >> Thank you. Thank you, mayor. Thank you, Kate. Um, good morning, city council, city manager, uh, and the city leadership. I'm excited to be here today to share more about the next chapter of the commitment of Naturally PSL. And obviously, we behind this presentation, there are so much so many people in city departments that have uh, been landing, giving us the support and the help that we need to get here. uh including uh city city attorney Rich um Stephen from finance office uh Sarah and her whole team uh Megan from KPSLB, Zach for from parks and recreation and the list goes on and on and it truly was a team effort. So yes, as Kate has introduced and I would speak a little bit more about the naturally PSL community trust and to support a lot of the goals that we have mentioned through naturally PSL land bank, uh we are proposing here today is the naturally PSL community trust which is directly address addressing to the biggest challenge of it all which is funding. So, as a 51c3 nonprofit partner, the trust will serve as a fundraising arm to leverage both public and private funding, allowing us to maximize the public benefits on city land through donations and in kind contributions, which allows private citizens and groups to help bridge the funding gap of this land acquisition. And some of the key benefits of this approach including the uh the potential to attract more philanthropic donations and to also expand the grant opportunities that can be eligible to us. also to make room for more resident le fundraising at neighborhood scale similar to Frano group uh for specific parks and here on this slide I would like to expand a little further on how the trust can support the city in achieving the land bank's goal both through transparency and collaboration so let's say if a private citizen or group would like to uh contribute to the city on acquiring certain green spaces or building a trail the donations will be received by the trust and transfer referred to specific city revenue funds based on the donor's choice and the city staff will incorporate these funds into project plans wi which will then be brought back to the city council for the final review and approval just like most of the project in our uh budget plan and at its very first establishment the trust will support three major areas land acquisitions park trails and amenities and trees and the trust will provide a way essentially for the resident to say I'd like to help the city to acquire the land across my home to keep green or I would like to help plant more trees in my neighborhood. And it also can help support youth actions and environmental stewardship and the addition of amenities like trails in existing green spaces that might not have the regular city budget support. The trust could provide a massive opportunity to optimize our existing land and properties, including,460 acres of lakes and ponds, 46 city parks, and almost 200 acres of city-owned natural preserve that currently don't have access for public. And more importantly, we are to keep residents at the center of everything we do and to turn spaces into places through community actions. For example, the image on the left here shows the project we're collaborating through Love Your Block Program and Public Works urban beautifification team and over 35 volunteers to turn an underutilized portion of the canal bank into a space with benches, tree, free little library, and a pollinator garden. We've al also started to approach vacant lots and neighborhood differently. uh initiating small improvements to help improve invasive plants from these overgrown lots and taking every opportunity to engage with the residents every step of the way to develop stewardship around these green spaces. More importantly, the additional funding will be expend will be able to expand the inventory of protected land for our future residents. Since 2025 alone, we had approximately acquired 200 273 acres of land and that's roughly providing one acre of future green space for every thousand residents in the city. In this slide, I'd like to introduce the management structure of this incorporation uh which will be vested in the board of directors and to ensure the communitydriven oversight and align with the city's overall strategic plan. The board will consist of at least five members. Crucially, at least three must be St. Lucy County St. Lucy County residents who are not employed by the city. The role of the director will be to solicit contributions and accept contributions on behalf of the corporations. The immediate pri priorities for the trust include accelerating land acquisitions by for example by leveraging the naturally PSL brand and river cutting events to really tell the city's story uh financial stabilities such as building a donor database and removing barriers to public private partnerships as well as organizational capacity developing more administrative roles to support the city and the trust and performances by committing uh annual reporting and quarterly presentation to to this council. And where we're at now is the February 2026, a milestone for the ordinance reading. And following this, we'll move forward with following with the state, appointing the board, and eventually releasing our first annual report. And in your attachment, you will see a communicate communications plan uh for this trust as well. Um and therefore the staff recommends the approval of the ordinance 26-17 which give us the permission to move forward with fing for natural PSL community trust as a 501c3 entity to support our city's naturally PSL green spaces and places initiatives. And thank you and I'll be happy to take any questions. >> Thank you so much for the presentation. Uh I know we've been talking about this for a really long time. So it's so great that we're finally here. Uh I remember conversations with Brad many many years ago about especially when we've um gone on site visits to different places and seen how other cities um have been able to develop their park system and their uh land baking system and their green space system. So um again it's it's so great that we're finally here. Council, do we have any questions? No. >> Go ahead. Go ahead. I want to thank you for all your hard work, you know, and I just want to I just want to say that, you know, there's there's always um a lot of want as far as from the public to conserve as much land as possible, and it's always a reminder of the history of the city, which is all of our land is entitled pretty much, and it's a this was a GDC community with entitled lots. Later on, the annexation was also entitled, meaning those have property rights attached. And as much as we all in this council and past councils I'm sure wanted to protect green space, you can't you can't save something that you don't own. >> And so unfortunately um that's the way it goes. I mean I would love I think we've all said it. We would love to put a moratorium on things sometimes. We would love to be able to preserve more green space. We do what we can in our developer agreements by by you know having them include parks and um giving park land, school land, those kind of things. Um, this is going to be the way for us to hopefully um, either have land donated to us um, as well as give the ability for the city to purchase on behalf of the residents additional land um, for preservation. And so I just want to make sure we tell the story a little bit and that's why this is so important and this trust is going to be so important to the residents that are here today but for years and years to come. So thank you. >> Thank you. >> All right. So um and in keeping with that, what are next steps in terms of building this board and what does that look like, Kate? >> Absolutely. So we are working of course with finance to to file the necessary paperwork and then we'll be working to you'll be appointing the the board members to it as well. So we'll be getting that to you as we get everything get everything established. >> All right. Great. All right. So we have a motion in a second. Correct. Do we have a motion? Motion to approve ordinance 26-17. >> Second. >> Second. >> Any final discussion? Great work. Thank you very much, Nikki. We appreciate it very much. >> Thank you very much. >> All those in favor? >> I. Any oppose? Motion carries. >> Exciting. We get to celebrate later with our press conference for Roser Lakes Preserve. Very exciting to be able to go out there and see that property. Mayor, may may I mention speaking of Roser Lakes Preserve, we do have an update from staff. Um we have been working on um we applied for a Florida community trust grant, the the purchase price that you spent on Roser Lakes, we could actually use retroactively after you purchased it to see if we could receive some reimbursement back to fund some amenities, you know, walking trails, pavilions to make it more um amunable. But we did um check with our parks and recreation department and we are able to open it very at a very, you know, it's very basic. there are really no amenities but within um two weeks. Correct, Miss Seabburgger. So um so I just wanted to let you know that's something you're we're celebrating the acquisition but you're able to very quickly open it up to the public with lots of signage because like I said it's very basic, very natural. >> So I just wanted to bring see um Mr. City Manager if there's any comments or >> Yeah, Madame Mayor just um and vice mayor council um land purchase is very strategic to the to the um to the city and the overall life of the city. So, I just want to give you an example of what land purchases really truly is and what the city has done previously. And a lot of times, you know, people may criticize, oh, why did you buy that piece of property? Why did you buy this piece of property? But let me just give you an example. Back in 2010, 2011 during the recession, um the city embarked in purchasing a piece of property that most people thought that we were crazy doing what we did at that time. We spent roughly $22 million um at that time to purchase $5,100 acres. Today, that property is worth $510 million. >> Mhm. >> $510 million. And that is an asset of the city. >> Right. So when people criticize why we do what we do, why we purchased the roster lags, why we did a swap with the county, why we invested into sportsman's park, uh why we bought the St. Lucy County tax building, why we bought the Peacock building, these purchases are going to put us 20, 25 years ahead. And think about if we didn't make those purchases, where would the staff be? Where would our employees be housed if we didn't make those purchases? So those were some of the strategic purchase that the city has done and I think it has made a tremendous difference today and into the future. >> Absolutely. We all you know many of us up here and all of us in the room and even in the public have some understanding on how real estate works right and what is real estate about location. And many many times you only get one chance at it, right? Because you know, as vice mayor said, you have to wait till the land is for sale in order to be able to acquire it. And so we've we've uh made great strides at that over the years. Um really proud of what we've done and listening to our citizens about, you know, saving as much space or acquiring as much space we uh possibly can for green space, land that is undeveloped, that doesn't have entitlements already that were given out years ago that we can't control or we can't manage the growth for. Um so we have made great strides and and we're doing it. Why? We're doing it because our residents told us that's what they want. We started this by asking the question a few years ago on our on our annual community survey and we got that mandate from our residents a few years ago and it takes time and again the land has to be available for sale. Um and and we've been able to capitalize on that and yes these are assets absolutely assets and they're assets for our public to be able to enjoy. Um, and I love the fact that we're able to we were able to purchase Roser Lakes because if we all remember back in history, there was a time where that property should have came to the city of Port St. Lucy, right through taxdeed and and it didn't happen. I'm not going to go back in time for all the reasons for that, but now we have this opportunity again and we got very lucky because you don't get a second shot at it very often. So, um really grateful for it. I know our residents appreciate it and um I know we have more work to do and we're going to continue to do that. >> And I think you know I think council made the right decision when basically you told the developers we don't want more houses. >> That's right. And really they you didn't really give them an option of say well you can have 25 houses. You said no more houses and really they came back to us and said let's negotiate a land purchase. >> And look at the other properties that we were able to acquire from the school district. We did the tour. We saw where those locations were. They were right smack dab in the middle of all residential. And we know we didn't want more residential. And you certainly didn't want to put commercial or office or anything right smack in the middle of those neighborhoods. So, it made perfect sense to be able to acquire those parcels also for green space. So, >> we've done a great job and I know we're going to continue. >> Yes. >> No, go ahead and finish. I didn't I thought you were done. Oh, I was going to say I was like, you know, I think um one of one of the people I think we probably all know on this board, he said to me, he goes, you know, everyone always writes Port St. Lucy off. Everyone thinks the story is written. you know, you had the downturn in the economy and that's it. Port St. Lucy's done. The Civic Center um parcel, you know, look, it went under. That's that's done. Southern Grove went down. Look, that's done. Um the medical corridor, that failed, that's done. And I mean, we've seen time and time again that people count Port St. Lucia out and it comes back and it comes back stronger and roaring. >> And to me, this is the beginning of land conservation. And it's going to be the desire of the residents first of all because just because let's say every piece of green space is done and it's taken doesn't mean more cannot be made. I've seen cities actively say that block is for sale. We don't want more housing or we don't want more whatever. And it's been revitalized, brought back, added trees, made green space in in some communities. That's not my decision. That's their decision. Um, but this can serve to even grow land conservation if the if the city and its residents so desire in the future. Cons having more land, more nature isn't done. It's really up to us. And we can when we want to reverse what history has given us if we so choose to, just like we've done with many other things before. >> And so Port St. Lucy is not down and out. We're on our rise and we're coming up. So, >> absolutely. >> Thank you. All right, we are at the end of our workshop closing discussion. Steph got anything? Anyone? >> Well, thank you everyone so much. Thank you Jesus, entire team. It's been a great workshop. We uh discuss a lot. We've really had a really robust conversation and I'm really proud of it and so grateful for everyone here, grateful for our entire team because it takes us all working together in order to make Port St. Lucy the best it can be and just keep doing everything you're doing because uh like Jolene said, we are on the rise and we're going to keep climbing as high as we possibly can for our residents and for our entire organization. So, thank you all very much.