City of Fort Pierce Minutes of a Regular Meeting

MINUTES OF A REGULAR POSTPONED MEETING OF THE CITY COMMISSION OF 

THE CITY OF FORT PIERCE, FLORIDA, HELD IN THE CITY HALL 

COMMISSION CHAMBERS, 100 NORTH U.S. #1, FORT PIERCE, FLORIDA, AT 

6:30 P.M. ON TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2011. 

Mayor Benton called the meeting to order. 

Reverend Moses Hill, Moses Hill Ministries, gave the invocation. 

The Pledge of Allegiance was recited. 

Upon Roll Call, those present were: Mayor Robert Benton; 

Commissioners Rufus Alexander, Edward Becht, and Thomas Perona; 

City Manager David Recor; City Attorney Robert Schwerer; and 

City Clerk Cassandra Steele. Those absent: Commissioner 

Reginald Sessions. 

Motion was made by Commissioner Becht, seconded by Commissioner 

Perona, to excuse Commissioner Sessions from this meeting. 

Those voting in favor of the motion were: Commissioners 

Alexander, Becht, Perona, and Benton. Those opposed: None. 

----- 

The next item on the Agenda was Approval of the Minutes of the 

Joint Meeting on February 2, 2011, and the Minutes of the 

Regular Meeting on February 7, 2011. 


Alexander, to approve the Minutes of the Joint Meeting on 

February 2, 2011, and the Minutes of the Regular Meeting on 

February 7, 2011. 



----- 

The next item on the Agenda was Presentation of the Fort Pierce 

Police Department Certificate of Reaccreditation from the 

Commission for Florida Law Enforcement Accreditation. 

Chief of Police Sean Baldwin, Fort Pierce Police Department, 

said their Police Department is accredited by the Commission for 

Florida Law Enforcement Accreditation. The Mayor and the 

Commissioners are familiar with the process and appreciate the 

work that goes into that. It is essentially an audit or 

inspection process that the Police Department goes through every 

three years to certify that they are complying with more than 

225 standards for professional law enforcement agencies. Those 

standards go to how they deliver services, how they respond to 

administrative issues, handle administrative issues such as 

citizens complaints, etc. So they are extremely proud that they 

are reaccredited for another three years. He wanted to present 

the certificate to the City Commission. He will hand it proudly 

at the Police Department. He appreciates their support. This 

does take a lot of resources and administrative support. Linda 

Blanning is the accreditation coordinator for the Police 

Department. She is one of the people that helped them through 

this process and she was in charge of it. A number of other 

people on the team helped: Officer Kathleen Murphy, Officer 

Brian Avilla, all the Captains were involved in it, and every 

member of the Police Department in one way or other got involved 

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Page 1 of 45 

City of Fort Pierce Minutes of a Regular Meeting held on February 22, 2011 

Copyright © 2011 City of Fort Pierce Florida

in this, either through an interview or an inspection or just 

being ready for the process. He wants to thank his team for 

doing that. It is something they are extremely proud of. 

Mayor Benton said the Police Officers have done an excellent 

job. They are all very proud of the Fort Pierce Police 

Department. 

----- 

The following letters will be kept on file in the City Clerk's 

office: 

Letter from Gloria Pusch-Schiffert, Catamaran II Inc., in 

appreciation of the kindness, tact, and efforts by Fort Pierce 

Police Detective John Fasanello. 

Letter from Judith Cruz, Treasure Coast Food Bank, thanking 

Lucille Posa and the Indian Hills Golf Course staff for their 

support. 

Letter from Tom Bradford, Kendal Signs, in appreciation of the 

helpful, prompt, and courteous service by Building Permit 

Specialist Kim West and Development Review Planner Ryan Sweeney. 

Letter from Peter Wernick, Crystal Water Systems Inc., thanking 

Building Permit Specialist Kim West for her knowledgeable, 

professional, and diligent help. 

----- 

The next item on the Agenda was Comments from the Public. 

Mr. Peter Angelos said he has been the owner and operator of 

Chuck's Seafood Restaurant for 25 years. He is here to ask for 

their help in any way they can as their friend, neighbor, and 

local businessman. He has been patiently trying to get the 

fence and the no parking signs removed from the (St. Lucie 

County Fire District) training facility next to his restaurant 

that was just recently constructed since the completion of the 

A1A improvements and the roundabout. He is fortunate enough to 

have patrons coming to his restaurant from a distance of 25 

miles and more on a nightly basis, not to mention the snowbirds, 

tourists, and many locals and regulars. It is very frustrating 

to watch many patrons pull away because of the limited parking. 

Chuck's is only open in the evenings, so there is no reason for 

a fence. He does not understand why it has become necessary now 

that the Fire Station is closed. The fence and the no parking 

signs should come down as easily as they went up only a few 

months ago. It would be greatly appreciated by him, his staff, 

and most importantly, his patrons. 

Ms. Carole Mushier, President of the South Beach Association, 

said she is speaking on Agenda Item #18 regarding a South Beach 

Charrette. They have in their packet a proposal for a charrette 

to include a number of properties on South Beach that they are 

called the West Peninsula of South Hutchinson Island in Fort 

Pierce. They have all met with Greg Boggs, a representative of 

the owner of the old trailer park property, seeking a change of 

zoning and suggesting plans for that property alone. After her 

conversation with Mr. Boggs, the South Beach Association Board 

discussed the issue and came to the conclusion that a piecemeal 

approach with no public input was not the best way to proceed. 

Thus their proposal for a public charrette to include all the 

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Regular Postponed Meeting February 22, 2011 

properties indicated so as to achieve a harmonious development 

of this prime area. The charrette proposal was discussed at 

their annual meeting on February 10th. The members were 

overwhelmingly in support of the charrette and that it include 

all the properties, and they expressed strong interest in 

attending such a charrette. They all know how things can drag 

on and on, even when put on the front burner; but they are 

hopeful in this case that if they deem the proposal worthy, that 

the City taking the lead can move forward in a timely fashion. 

The City has done a charrette or two and knows what has to be 

done. If they approve it tonight, the County is waiting on 

notification, as it is anticipated that the County will 

contribute funding. Can this notification occur this week? Can 

all the property owners be contacted this week? Can they have a 

charrette scheduled to be held before April 24th, which is 

Easter, after which many of their residents begin to seek 

northern climates. The South Beach Association stands ready to 

assist in any way they can. The word is already out. Between 

their website, their email newsletter, and their ability to 

distribute flyers and posters on the beach, they can cover that 

segment of the City's population. They believe that the City 

will need outside professional help to carry this off. It 

cannot all be dumped on an understaffed Planning Department 

still in the throes of the LDR Rewrite, thus the need for 

funding. The time is right, the interest is high, let's move 

forward with this proposal. 

Mr. Lenny Schelin, 248 Bimini Drive, said the shoaling issue in 

North Causeway Channel and Shorty's Slough he has been looking 

into for the last year. The complication is, it is clearly 

within the boundaries of the City of Fort Pierce. It also is 

clearly within the boundaries of the Port Authority. The third 

glitch is, the County installed the channel markers in the mid 

or early 1970's and has maintained them for 40 years. He was at 

the FIND meeting on Friday and the Commissioners were very 

receptive, they had him come back on Saturday during public 

comments. They were very concerned that it was shoaling that 

badly, they had no idea, because it is access both directions to 

their shining star, Stan Blum Boat Ramp. He has met with County 

Commissioner Craft twice and he is looking into it. The issue 

of who is responsible is one of the biggest issues. The FIND 

Commission recommended that they try to get it figured out as 

quickly as possible because the grants need to be proposed by 

April 1st and signed by FIND Commissioner Gail Kavanagh by June 

1st to be thought about for next year. They were highly 

encouraging. He also sat through the meeting and they got into 

a long discuss in regard to what qualifies for 50% grants and 

what it takes to meet a 75% grant. Clearly this area qualifies 

for a 75% grant, which is a major plus, because it has more than 

two public facilities and other considerations like the boat 

ramps, Little Jim Bridge, the State park, he understands it is a 

designated ski area up in there, and it runs all the way up to 

Pepper Park riverside. So FIND felt it would clearly qualify 

for a 75% grant. So if the County and the City could work 

together to resolve who would be responsible, he can provide a 

lot more information in regard to background, who dredged it, 

what the control depth was, the history, and everything else. 

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Mr. Marty Laven, 2400 South Ocean Drive, said he wants to 

support Mr. Schelin and his concerns about the dredging issues, 

and the timeliness of appropriate grant submissions. He is 

certain that FIND Commissioner Kavanagh will give it her full 

attention. If he can assist the gentleman in any way or the 

marine industries can, please let him know. He would like to 

give a shout out to the Fort Pierce energy team, their staff has 

done an extraordinary job. He has had the opportunity to be in 

one of the assets they were reviewing. In the effort that is 

taking place across the county and the other municipalities, he 

thinks their team is taking the lead. There is some excellent 

opportunities for savings with some unique non-profit and net 

operating lease mechanisms. He will be happy to share that with 

their staff accordingly. Next, the Communitywide Council 

certainly is a great group and they indeed need to offer 

assistance. He understands they may be sitting as the 

brownfield advisory board as well. Having attended a recent 

major event in Miami for brownfield remediation, he would like 

to point out that in anticipation of their planned charrette 

there is a unique opportunity to secure funding for that 

charrette through brownfield designations that might be a 

consideration for the wastewater treatment facility and the 

opportunity to expand the footprint of the charrette and 

possibly resolving some long term challenges. Last, he would 

like to mention WOW - Art With Out Walls - will be taking place 

on Friday, March 4th. From 5:30 to 7:30, there will be an 

artist's reception at City Hall. For more information call 772- 

579-1529. 

Ms. Rachel Harris, 119 South 11th Street, said she would like to 

address the Commission's approval of the Site Plan for the 

Trinity Lutheran Church Childhood Development Center at the last 

meeting. David Carlin, Fort Pierce Planning Staff, stated that 

the most pedestrian-friendly urban design was one that did not 

include sidewalks. To give them an idea of the seriousness of 

the inclusion of a sidewalk, here is some pedestrian statistics. 

In 2009, Florida was ranked first among the states for 

pedestrian fatalities. In 2010, Florida was ranked second, with 

even more deaths than the previous year. More than 40% of 

pedestrians are killed when no crosswalk is available and only 1 

in 10 pedestrians are killed when present inside a crosswalk. 

Most telling, the FHA's designing streets for pedestrian safety 

study showed that sidewalks reduce pedestrian crashes by 88%. 

To recap the discussion of the inclusion of a sidewalk in the 

Site Plan, Pastor Engel of Trinity Lutheran stated that is a 

very community-minded congregation; however, the added burden of 

$50,000 required to build a sidewalk for the pedestrians of the 

community was a quote-unquote hardship. Commissioner Becht was 

the only commissioner who as an elected official of the City 

fulfilled his duty by pressing the matter during the meeting. 

As for the community-minded Trinity Lutheran Church, tax exempt 

status by the way, she is sure that the first pedestrian who is 

hit will be prayed for, when in actuality they could have served 

the community by including $50,000 to build a sidewalk which 

would have prevented the crash in the first place. 

Ms. Gerrie Biegner said she and her husband own the S&S Takeout 

at 148 North Depot Drive. It is her understanding the City is 

4 

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considering bringing in gambling arcades to the downtown 

business area? She would like to speak against this and to 

offer an alternative against the gambling. There is a lot of 

not really legal mostly only enforceable that could change with 

Sheriff. They did a beautiful job renovating the City, it is 

absolutely gorgeous. It is a shame to bring people here to lock 

them in a dark room so they can spend all the savings they have 

left in their life. Fort Pierce is really unique. A gambling 

arcade, a chain restaurant, they can put this in any pile of 

bricks anywhere and it will be the same across the country, they 

never even see the outside. But Fort Pierce is such a beautiful 

city with a gorgeous renovated waterfront on the most biodiverse 

estuary in North America with more parks, more wildlife 

access. A pristine beach they can horseback ride on five 

minutes from downtown attractions, that just doesn't exist 

anywhere. There is only five beaches they can ride on in the 

State of Florida. She must say the green restaurant, the ecofriendly 

restaurant, they are happy with the reception they have 

had, they feel like they have been a good test case for them. 

People are interested. Eco-tourism seems a perfect fit with 

Fort Pierce. Titusville has an eco-tourism page. It seems to 

her a crime Fort Pierce does not pursue this, because it is way 

more beautiful than any area she has seen. In this area they 

have so much more to offer. The Edgartown area, with a little 

incentive for independent business owners, she can see a bed and 

breakfast, water sports, parks. She has a huge vision, she 

would love to bore them to pieces about it. If they just come 

into her restaurant, she will tell them, no purchase necessary. 

She strongly encourages everyone, if this is really being 

considered, to stop and think if that is what they want to leave 

their children. She is also a Fort Pierce resident. She, her 

child, and her husband practically live at the restaurant. She 

doesn't want to walk around that sort of thing. She wants to 

bring in the type of business that is growing, the type of 

industry that is getting larger every year, that benefits the 

community. The tourism, the historic aspect, the artists - they 

have so much to offer. To throw it away on something like that 

she thinks would be the greatest shame of all. 

Ms. Jann Widmayer said she is curator of the Manatee Center at 

480 North Indian River Drive. She would like to publicly thank 

Mr. Recor and City Staff involved in the repair of the fence 

outside the Manatee Center that runs along Moore's Creek. After 

it was brought to his attention, the repair was completed in an 

efficient and very timely manner. They have received positive 

comments on more than one occasion. The other thing she would 

like to talk about is comments that were made, it was a subject 

that was brought up during Public Comments at the February 7th 

Commission meeting regarding the boat ramps adjacent to the 

Manatee Center. Those ramps are closed with good reason - 

manatees utilize Moore's Creek. In January alone they recorded 

60 manatees which they saw when they were open. Manatees are 

migratory animals and do follow the same route year to year. 

There have been two FWC rescues of manatees - one on December 

22, 2010, and one in early February 2011 - out of Moore's Creek, 

one adult and one juvenile. The juvenile was rehabilitated and 

released. The other one is still being rehabilitated. Parking 

was the other issue. There is not enough parking, that is true. 

5 

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Of course, if they don't have trucks and trailers and RV's 

parked in the parking lot, they usually have an okay amount of 

spaces for the three entities that are there. But they 

definitely need to keep those ramps closed for the Manatee 

Center, it does free up some parking during their busiest 

season. Also, on February 26th they will have their 14th Annual 

Nature Fest. On March 26th they will have their 3rd Annual 5K. 

She hopes to see them there. She thanks them for all that they 

do. 

Ms. Patricia Ferrick, 4802 South 25th Street, said she is 

representing herself and the North Fork property owners and 

others. On February 3rd she asked about the agricultural 

situation they find themselves in for not only the White City 

area in which she lives, but for across St. Lucie County, in 

their annexation process. They have come in this evening to 

thank the Commission for getting Staff to look at this, they 

sincerely appreciate what they have done. They hope they will 

continue doing this, looking at it. She finds they just have 

one or two things that will still not help the White City area. 

They have looked at AG-1, AG-2.5, and AG-5. In their area they 

have a lot of AR-1, RE-1, and RE-2, which allows similar type of 

uses but at a lesser amount. She would ask them to look at 

that. Since those were not included, she did bring in a copy so 

they could have it for their file on what the other ones are. 

She greatly appreciates them allowing her this time to speak. 

Sitting out here, she did see Item #22 on the proposed arcades. 

She has not looked at the ordinance, but she hopes they have 

some time frame in. Are they going to be open 24 hours a day, 

like they are in the County? Are they going to be able to give 

free alcohol and food? These are things that unfortunately the 

County did not look at when they drafted their ordinance and 

these are occurring all across St. Lucie County in the arcades. 

These are 24 hours arcades and they are full. 

Mr. Richard Nevers, 436 European Lane, said he is a member of 

First United Methodist Church at the corner of Orange Avenue and 

7th Street. He does not clearly understand the business and 

entertainment overlay district. He is here to hear their 

discussion on that. He would like to remind them that their 

church does have and has had for many years a very active 

preschool and a very active youth group of mostly teenagers. He 

would like them to keep that in consideration in any decisions 

made on the overlay. 

Mr. Bill McNeely, 2705 Sunrise Boulevard, said the last time he 

was here, he was still a little bit stunned at the fact that he 

had gone to a couple of the Fort Pierce Utilities Authority 

meetings asking them to take a look at the guidelines for 

renewable energies. Isn't it great that the City of Port St. 

Lucie put a big solar system on the civic center? They got that 

through a grant purchase. It is because they are truly 

interested in renewable energies. Once installed, it is free 

energy. Did anyone notice that gas went up 8% today? Renewable 

energy is really the way for them to go. The problem he has 

here is he is the first person to go with solar as a residential 

person. He received a contract that said welcome, they are 

proud to offer net metering. What net metering means is it is 

6 

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an equal exchange for what you create, what you produce, and 

what they pay you back. But instead, the FPUA is not offering 

net metering. He was stunned when they removed his meter, which 

is supposed to run backwards so he could use that power back 

during the day. Instead they put the digital meter on and then 

they sell the power he produces to the neighborhood and mark it 

up 200%. At nighttime he has to buy his own power back for full 

retail, but they are paying him wholesale during the day. The 

reason he is here, it is not for him, it is for their community. 

He is using most of what he is creating, during the day he uses 

a lot of electric, so he is doing really well with the solar 

system. But it is not fair to the community to be misled. They 

should be progressive. Most cities that are progressive have 

gone to net metering. The United States Department of Energy 

says that net metering is an incentive. So when they represent 

their City Commission at the meetings with Fort Pierce Utilities 

Authority, he would just like to ask them to address this. They 

are not offering that metering, but they are telling citizens 

that they are. This building is a green building. It was built 

with an initiative by the City Commission years ago to save 

energy. They should put solar panels on this building and on 

other buildings in the City. It is an embarrassment that this 

is the Sunrise City and they don't have any solar energy on at 

all. So he is just suggesting that they start to move ahead 

just a little bit at a time. Start doing some solar projects, 

it doesn't take much. At the workshop he attended, the director 

came up with a list of things that wouldn't even cost anything, 

and everybody walked out. 

----- 

The next item on the Agenda was Public Hearing on Applications 

for Conditional Use and Site Plan submitted by Betty Ann White 

for construction of One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism, House of 

Prayer at 1404 Avenue E; said property zoned R-4, Medium Density 

Residential Zone. 

Ms. Leslie Olson, Interim Assistant Director of Planning, said 

One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism, House of Prayer currently 

operates a church at 1404 Avenue E. This church was started 

some time ago. It is in the R-4 residential district. There is 

no record of a conditional use permit for this church, but they 

would like to expand. They have already gone through the 

historic preservation process. This is located within the 

Avenue D Historic District. They have secured the plan approval 

from the Historic Preservation Board. They have also secured 

the necessary variances to build this new church. They have 

secured the necessary permit to demolish the existing church. 

But because this church has not previously gotten a conditional 

use permit from the City Commission, that is what they are here 

for today. It involves site plan review, but this does already 

have that approval from the Historic Preservation Board, so it 

has been through a review. They sent out 160 notifications and 

28 came back, all approved. 

Commissioner Becht said he would like the public to know the 

benefits of this structure being in the Historic District. 

There were three or four variances from the Code they were able 

to obtain for this property. There are some positives about 

being in a Historic District. 

7 

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Ms. Olson said there are some really great things they offer to 

encourage redevelopment in their Historic Districts. One is, 

they allow applicants to receive variances from the zoning code; 

whereas, outside of that Historic District, it would be 

difficult and expensive. The variances through the Historic 

Preservation Board are $10. It is just a great incentive to 

encourage redevelopment. They took a small parcel and used 

every bit of that parcel to build a very nice church that will 

benefit the neighborhood. It is within a tight urban area, so 

it is pedestrian friendly. They are adding bike racks, so they 

waived some of the required parking, which made a lot of sense 

for this site plan. The neighbors appear to be very happy about 

it. 

Commissioner Alexander said the bike racks, this is a first for 

him. How many people are they going to see riding a bicycle to 

church in their Sunday best? He is thinking of how much space 

it would take up for a bike rack instead of having additional 

parking space? 

Ms. Olson said it is not going in a parking space. 

Commissioner Alexander asked it's not? 

requirement of having a bike rack? 

So why is there a 

Ms. Olson said because they are waiving parking, people are 

going to need more ways to get to church than by car. Also, it 

helps the overburdened roads. Infrastructure is very expensive, 

so they want to encourage bicycling. Installing bike racks, it 

is not that expensive. Maybe those will be used by the youth 

group on Sunday night. 

Commissioner Alexander said okay, he can go along with that. 

But when he does not see it applied to any other church that 

comes before them... This is the first time he has heard of 

bike racks. 

Ms. Olson said generally they do encourage bike racks in any new 

development. By the way, Staff is recommending approval with 

the condition that the building permit is not issued until the 

minor replat is finalized. There is a minor replat issue, but 

it is almost done. 

Mayor Benton declared a Public Hearing in session and asked if 

anyone in the audience wished to be heard. 

Mr. David Phillips, Sustainable Engineering & Design, said he 

would like to thank City Staff for helping out on the project. 

He can attest that the project being located in the Historical 

District was a direct benefit, because there were a lot of 

things they just couldn't physically do to make this thing 

happen. They got great support from a lot of the community 

folks. It is a good church. Some of the design elements, they 

are putting in sidewalks and bike racks, it is a communityfriendly 

church. There was a lot of elements they put into the 

project. They are using a lot of green parking. It is a very 

tight footprint, less than one-half acre. 

8 

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Mr. Robert Brown, 601 North 15th Street, said he is a lifelong 

resident of Fort Pierce. He was born and raised a couple of 

blocks west of where he currently lives, at 907 North 17th 

Street. He taught school here in Fort Pierce for fifteen years. 

He practiced pharmacy for in excess of 30 years in this area. 

He is currently the director of MAD DADS Fort Pierce Chapter. 

He is here to speak in favor of the church at 1404 Avenue E. On 

North 15th Street between Avenue E and Avenue I there are only 

three owners of property that live in that area. He is one of 

those owners. The other two owners are in agreement that they 

do need something as positive as that church instilling moral 

values and building character. They have enough of the one-stop 

hot spots get shot places in their neighborhood. They do want 

to see that church able to do whatever is necessary to get them 

functional. He is here to offer his support and the support of 

the other individuals that live in the area for that church. 

Mr. Sammie Smith, Andros Roofing & Construction, said they are 

the contractors for this project. He would like to call Mr. 

White up to say a word about back in the days when they first 

moved here to start a church and how they have progressed. 

Mr. Ted White, 2804 Sheraton Boulevard, said his real home is 

1404 Avenue E, he is the owner of that property, he was raised 

there as a young man. It is a lovely community. When they came 

back there, his wife decided to convert the house into a House 

of Prayer. It was a mess, so he has to get up at 2:30 or 3:00 

o'clock in the morning to run those vigilantes away; and after 

they found out that it was a church, it helped the area with the 

crime. The neighbors love them. They will be good for that 

neighborhood and this community. 

Seeing no one further and hearing no one wishing to be heard, 

Mayor Benton declared the Public Hearing closed. 

Motion was made by Commissioner Alexander, seconded by 

Commissioner Becht, to approve the Applications for Conditional 

Use and Site Plan submitted by Betty Ann White for construction 

of One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism, House of Prayer at 1404 

Avenue E, with the following condition: No Building Permit 

shall be issued until the Minor Replat has been approved by the 

Interim Director of Planning. 

Commissioner Perona said they have had churches come before them 

before that weren't a good fit for the neighborhood, because 

neighbors came out against it in droves, even little Christian 

ladies who would say they don't want this across the street. It 

is really good to see a good fit. It shows that the 

administration of the church and the contractor and everyone 

else have done the right thing. It is a definite asset for that 

area and he commends them for that. 



----- 

Ordinance No. L-208 entitled, "AN ORDINANCE AMENDING CHAPTER 14, 

SECTION 14-2 OF THE CODE OF ORDINANCES OF THE CITY OF FORT 

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PIERCE, FLORIDA; DELETING SPECIFIC REFERENCES TO THE CHIEF OF 

POLICE BEING SOLELY RESPONSIBLE FOR ENFORCING THE COLLECTION OF 

LICENSE TAXES AND CERTAIN ANIMAL CONTROL FUNCTIONS; PROVIDING 

FOR REPEAL OF CONFLICTING ORDINANCES AND SEVERABILITY; AND 

PROVIDING FOR AN EFFECTIVE DATE." was placed on first reading 

and read by title only. 

Chief of Police Sean Baldwin, Fort Pierce Police Department, 

said this ordinance proposes that they remove certain sections 

of the code that put the Chief in charge of animal control, so 

that administratively they can transfer that function to Code 

Enforcement. It is an administrative issue; it won't impact 

services that are provided to the community and he believes it 

will actually enhance the services. Right now the way Animal 

Control is positioned, it is having to compete in the Police 

Department with the priority for crime control; and with Animal 

Control being a priority for the City, he does not think it is 

doing it justice. In his conversations with the City Manager 

and Peggy Arraiz (Code Compliance Manager), they all agree that 

Animal Control is better suited in Code Enforcement, given the 

circumstances. This is bittersweet for him. He is so proud of 

the success the Police Department has had over the last couple 

of years - working with the Commission and changing the 

ordinance, reducing the cost of animal control, providing animal 

control services by hundreds of thousands of dollars, they have 

well over 1,000 animal registered now, where before they had 

very few animals registered, they are seeing more and more 

animals being spayed and neutered, which was the whole point of 

their animal control program. So they are saving money, saving 

lives, reducing unwanted litters of puppies and kittens. It has 

been a teamwork thing between the Commission, the Police 

Department, and community members, he is going to miss that 

aspect of it. Mr. and Mrs. Parry have been an important part of 

that team; and he knows they are going to stay on board and 

continue to work for animal control. He does not think that the 

public is going to see a difference, other than perhaps some 

improvements. Ms. Arraiz has some fantastic ideas and he 

believes she will be able to move Animal Control to the next 

level. 

Commissioner Alexander said in reading the summary, he sees 

where the Chief is transferring funds. Is that for positions or 

salaries? Is he transferring able-bodied people to the Code 

Enforcement Department? 

Chief Baldwin said they are going to transfer exactly what has 

already been allocated for Animal Control. Animal Control 

currently has three Animal Control Officers, some funding for 

vehicle maintenance, gasoline, equipment, and supplies. The 

remaining balance of that allocation is going to be transferred 

to Code Enforcement so that Ms. Arraiz can manage that part of 

the budget. They will see a reduction in the Police 

Department's budget, but an increase in the Code Enforcement 

Department's budget. 

Commissioner Alexander asked so that means next year Ms. Arraiz 

is going to have to scratch her head to see where she gets the 

monies from? 

10 

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Chief Baldwin said no, he won't ask for as much, she will ask 

for more. They will work that out in the budget. 

Mayor Benton said he is very glad that the last couple of years 

have gone so well with the licensing and with the public/private 

partnership. He wants to thank specifically Susan Parry for the 

job she has done bringing these animals off the street to be 

spayed and neutered. He believes she will work very well with 

Ms. Arraiz. 

Chief Baldwin said the Parry's have not only donated their money 

and efforts, but also time. Ms. Parry is working with Animal 

Control as a volunteer. She literally goes out and picks 

animals up that would not be spayed or neutered otherwise, she 

makes all those arrangements for the owners. Her passion is 

absolutely incredible. 

Mayor Benton said almost every day of the week, it is a full 

time job. It is just amazing the work she has done. 

Mayor Benton declared a Public Hearing on Ordinance No. L-208 in 

session and asked if anybody in the audience wished to be heard. 

Mr. Rachel Harris, 119 South 11th Street, said regarding animal 

control here in Fort Pierce, she would just like to give a very 

big thank you. She is a dog owner. They have done immeasurable 

work in educating the community on how to treat dogs. She just 

appreciates it greatly. 

Seeing no one further and hearing no one wishing to be heard, 

Mayor Benton declared the Public Hearing closed. 

Motion was made by Commissioner Perona, seconded by Commissioner 

Becht, that Ordinance No. L-208 be passed on first reading. 

Those voting in favor of the passage of Ordinance No. L-208 on 

first reading were: Commissioners Alexander, Becht, Perona, and 

Benton. Those opposed: None. 

----- 

Ordinance No. L-209 entitled, "AN EMERGENCY ORDINANCE OF THE 

CITY OF FORT PIERCE, FLORIDA, DECLARING ZONING IN PROGRESS AND A 

MORATORIUM AS TO THE FILING AND/OR RECEIVING OF ANY PETITION OR 

ANY APPLICATION FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF PAIN MANAGEMENT CLINICS 

AS DEFINED HEREIN; PROVIDING THAT ZONING IN PROGRESS AND THE 

MORATORIUM SHALL BE IN EFFECT FOR A PERIOD OF ONE (1) YEAR OR 

WHICH SHALL TERMINATE ON THE EFFECTIVE DATE OF THE CITY'S 

ADOPTION OF AN ORDINANCE TO REGULATE PAIN MANAGEMENT CLINICS AND 

ADOPTION OF ENFORCEMENT PROVISIONS; PROVIDING FOR LEGISLATIVE 

FINDINGS, INTENT AND PURPOSE; PROVIDING FOR A DEFINITION OF PAIN 

MANAGEMENT CLINIC; PROVIDING FOR THE BOUNDARIES SUBJECT TO THE 

MORATORIUM; PROVIDING FOR SEVERABILITY; PROVIDING FOR THE REPEAL 

OF LAWS IN CONFLICT; AND PROVIDING FOR AN EFFECTIVE DATE." was 

declared an Emergency Ordinance and read by title only. 

Mayor Benton said he wants to thank Staff for bringing this in 

front of them so quickly. He hopes the State gets its act 

together very soon, because it is affecting the lives of a lot 

of people, bringing a lot of unwanted people to Florida. He was 

11 

_________________________________________________________________________ 





in North Carolina last week and there was a trial on television 

where there were ten people who were coming to Florida in a big 

van, going from one pain clinic to another, and they would come 

back with literally thousands of oxycontin pills. This had been 

going on for some time. This is a big deal. It is really 

putting a black eye on the State of Florida. Maybe they can 

stop it in St. Lucie County. 

Mr. David Carlin, Interim Director of Planning, said it is going 

to be some time before they really fully understand some of the 

recent legislative changes that have been implemented. The City 

Attorney's office, the Police Department, and Planning Staff 

will be working together over the next few weeks and months if 

needed to digest exactly what the State has mandated and how 

that would be codified in their Land Development Regulations, if 

that is the most appropriate place to put the proper controls. 

Mayor Benton declared a Public Hearing on Ordinance No. L-209 in 

session and asked if anybody in the audience wished to be heard. 

Seeing no one and hearing no one wishing to be heard, Mayor 

Benton declared the Public Hearing closed. 

Commissioner Becht said this is an Emergency Ordinance. Do they 

need to put any findings of fact into the record? Or is the 

record Staff has presented to them sufficient? 

City Attorney Schwerer said the record is sufficient. But it 

would not hurt to emphasize that the primary reason this is 

being presented tonight for emergency purposes is the fact that 

this is an area which the State promised regulation, promised 

solutions to the problem, and promised it would assist the local 

governments in the protection of the public health, safety, and 

welfare. He thinks the State did its part by adopting, for the 

most part, good legislation. However, what has happened 

recently with the turn of events in Tallahassee is a moratorium 

so to speak on the implementation of many of the portions of the 

legislation that was passed, so that the State is unable to set 

up the database and is unable to do a number of the activities 

that were in the legislation. The City was counting on that 

happening on a timely fashion; and since it did not, this 

ordinance is before the Commission for emergency purposes 

because of the disarray in Tallahassee over the state of 

regulation which they have preempted to themselves. This 

ordinance is done on an emergency basis because of that fact. 

He believes Staff would echo those same concerns, he saw a 

report in his package. 

Commissioner Becht said yes, it is a good presentation. He just 

didn't know if they needed to articulate it out loud. He would 

ask that someone monitor this. It has a sunset of one year or 

when the State acts. So if someone could make sure that it 

doesn't lapse without it being brought back to the Commission in 

time for it to be extended again if necessary. 


Perona, that Ordinance No. L-209 be passed as an Emergency 

Ordinance. 

12 

_________________________________________________________________________ 





Those voting in favor of the passage of Ordinance No. L-208 as 

an Emergency Ordinance were: Commissioners Alexander, Becht, 

Perona, and Benton. Those opposed: None. 

----- 

City Clerk Steele introduced the following Resolution by title 

only: 

RESOLUTION NO. 11-08 

"A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY COMMISSION OF THE CITY OF FORT PIERCE, 

FLORIDA, ADOPTING THE ST. LUCIE COUNTY LOCAL MITIGATION 

STRATEGY." 

Commissioner Becht said he knows everyone has read all 450 pages 

in this binder. On Page 4, under Guiding Principles, it appears 

that the City is going to adopt some practices, followed by 

policies, followed by plan development regulations, to 

strengthen homes, to identify and protect at-risk facilities, 

and make sure that some other things happen. Has that happened? 

If not, who is going to follow through and make sure that it 

happens? 

Mr. Ryan Sweeney, Development Review Planner, said this is a 

dynamic document. In Appendix A there is a pretty large 

analysis of all the Goals, Objectives, and Policies in the City 

of Fort Pierce Comprehensive Plan that jibe with mitigation 

activities. They weren't able to get them into their EAR base; 

but he believes in Cycle II, there will be some policies that 

essentially state some of the same goals and objectives here in 

this plan in their Comprehensive Plan. There is an effort that 

was brought on during the update to make the Local Mitigation 

Strategy and the City's Comprehensive Plan work together. It is 

an on-going process. 

Commissioner Becht asked so City Staff is working on this? They 

are not relying on the County to take the lead with this? 

Mr. Sweeney said no, it is City Staff. 

Commissioner Becht said at this level, they are trying to get 

these recommendations into the Comp Plan; and then following 

that, they will get them into the LDRs. Is that what is going 

to happen? 

Mr. Sweeney said exactly. 

Commissioner Becht said there is a committee or a board that is 

established and it talks about having a City of Fort Pierce 

representative on that. Who is the City's representative? 

Mr. Sweeney said as of now, himself. It was Christa Razem, the 

previous Grant Writer for the FPRA. When the LMS Committee 

starts meeting again, it will be himself. 

Commissioner Becht said he thought he had seen some Minutes 

where Mr. Sweeney was in attendance at some of the meetings. 

13 

_________________________________________________________________________ 





Mr. Sweeney said during his graduate studies, he was actually an 

intern at the County. During the Summer of 2009, he was 

responsible for carrying out the five year update actually. 

Commissioner Becht said the City is lucky to have him. 

Commissioner Perona said he sees that the FPUA is on the 

Committee. He is wondering if the mitigation strategy involves 

and corresponds with the plans developed by the U.A. for 

emergency and disaster. 

Mr. Sweeney said he is not familiar with the U.A.'s disaster 

mitigation plans. But Bill Thiess, the FPUA Director who 

happens to be the Mayor of St. Lucie Village, is present at all 

LMS meetings, so he is sure the FPUA is fully involved. 

Commissioner Perona said the U.A. basically authored the 

emergency plan for a lot of the utilities since the two 

hurricanes in 2004. In fact, the Director at the time was on 

national TV promoting all the emergency tips and things like 

that. But when he read through this, he just didn't really see 

where the emergency plans corresponded with one another, and he 

thought that might be a good idea. 

Mr. Sweeney said this is a dynamic document, it can be changed. 

The five year mandatory update is just that, an update; but it 

can be amended at any point. It is not limited, like the 

Comprehensive Plan, to particular cycles. 

Mayor Benton said something they have dealt with for many years 

here, which kind of bugged him, when it comes to environmental 

mitigation, the mitigation bank was always outside the City 

limits, Bear Point. He believes when there were issues with 

their Marina, the money and the efforts went outside the City 

limits. He does not see a map in here. His concern is, when 

they change something, they cross out the old language and 

underline the new. This is just basically a new book. He is 

wondering, do they have a mitigation bank inside the City limits 

for environmental purposes? 

Mr. Sweeney said he is familiar with the Bear Point mangrove 

mitigation bank. But he thinks the Mayor is getting mitigation 

for wetlands and environmental degradation versus disaster 

mitigation mixed. Those are similar, but different 

operationally. This LMS is to lessen the impacts of natural 

disasters. Wetlands and environmental areas do serve as a 

buffer and in effect mitigate against flooding. Flood plains 

are nature's mitigation from flooding. But wetlands mitigation 

and hazard mitigation are largely separate. 

Mayor Benton said if Mr. Sweeney is the City's representative 

with this group, he would ask them to take a look at some 

property - as long as there is a wastewater treatment plant 

located on a barrier island in a situation like a hurricane, 

knowing that the water was within several feet of taking that 

facility out, maybe that could be their mitigation area when it 

comes to disasters, being on the banks of the Indian River 

Lagoon. Maybe they can at least incorporate that to help get 

14 

_________________________________________________________________________ 





some funding to relocate that facility in the future. 

Mr. Sweeney said sure. 


Alexander, that Resolution No. 11-08 be adopted. 

Those voting in favor of the adoption of Resolution No. 11-08 

were: Commissioners Alexander, Becht, Perona, and Benton. 

Those opposed: None. 

----- 


only: 



FLORIDA; SUPPORTING ECO-TOURISM AS A FAVORED INDUSTRY IN THE 

CITY; ADDING AN ECO-TOURISM ELEMENT TO THE COMPREHENSIVE PLAN; 

AUTHORIZING THE DEPARTMENT OF URBAN REDEVELOPMENT TO SEEK GRANTS 

TO SUPPORT THE SUSTAINABILITY OF SUCH INDUSTRY; AND PROVIDING 

FOR AN EFFECTIVE DATE." 

Commissioner Becht said he is very pleased this got moved this 

fast, like lightning. But because there is some momentum behind 

it - staff's energy and enthusiasm - he does not want to stop at 

this Resolution. What is the next step? 

Mr. Jon Ward, Director of Urban Redevelopment, said the next 

step, they are going to have another public meeting on this on 

March 3rd. He and staff have attended two major public 

meetings, he thinks there was a third before they got involved 

in the process. But a number of the local businesses that are 

involved in this kind of thing, tour guides, and the Manatee 

Center have shown interest, and a lot of the non-profits locally 

are involved in this. They are going to have a workshop on 

March 3rd at City Hall. They are going to do a presentation on 

eco/nature/agri-tourism entails. They are going to look at it 

not only from the positive standpoints, but also look at the 

impacts to the area. Eco-tourism brings with it pluses and 

minuses. One of the minuses is, if it gets really popular and a 

lot of people come to see it, it has the potential to degrade 

the very thing people come to look at. So they are going to 

look at management, how they are going to do that. They are 

going to start filling out forms and looking at the assets they 

have, what they have to offer toward eco-tourism, how long would 

a tour last, how much would they charge, what their capacity is. 

And they are going to start looking at grants. The City is 

going to take the 10,000 foot level - he is going to suggest 

they add another advisory board, set up an organization so they 

can look at seeking grants and disbursing of that kind of 

funding. So they are going to put it into a business plan. 

Commissioner Becht said he noticed the Adams Ranch folks had 

asked to be a part of this. He hopes they will be a part of it. 

They used to have tours out there. If a person wanted more 

information on this, is there a contact or a phone number? Is 

there anything right now where they can go to volunteer or 

15 

_________________________________________________________________________ 





participate? 

Mr. Ward said right now they are in the embryonic stage and it 

is a great time to be involved in it. Call the Department of 

Urban Redevelopment at the City. He would suggest the best 

person to talk to right now is Libby Woodruff on his staff, or 

he would be happy to talk to anyone. Their next meeting will be 

March 3rd at City Hall, 2nd Floor Conference Room. It is open 

to the public, they would love to have people involved in it. 

It is not only for existing businesses, but also they are going 

to start looking at opportunities for creating future 

businesses. 

Commissioner Becht said he doesn't want it to lose the energy. 

It doesn't need a whole lot of City Commission activity, it has 

managed to gain its momentum without them; but they do want to 

support it. So in 60, 90, or 120 days, he would like to have 

something brought back to the Commission, because he doesn't see 

this going as far as it needs to without amendments to the Comp 

Plan or without LDR's or without money that might need to be 

placed in this or without the creation of the additional ecotourism 

board Mr. Ward mentioned. 

Mr. Ward said the way they are moving, they should see something 

within 30 to 45 days with solid recommendations to the 

Commission about the creation of this board, the number of 

members, by-laws, name for the organization, and that sort of 

thing. 

Commissioner Becht said he would recommend they have this 

brought back in no more than 60 days. 

Commissioner Perona said he agrees. 

Commissioner Alexander said maybe that committee is something 

Mr. Ward can initiate at that meeting. Persons that are 

concerned, maybe they can up front give their names and numbers, 

so that can be put on the Commission's burner. 

Mr. Ward said the best part about this is, all Staff is trying 

to do is help the private sector accomplish a goal that they 

already want to be at. This initiative was started by the 

private sector - Chop Lege, Jim David from the County, and Dean 

Kubitschek, their own Marina Manager, has been involved in this. 

These are folks that are doing this every day. So they are not 

trying to create an industry out of whole cloth. What they are 

trying to do is just help them get organized, market themselves, 

build capacity, and make this a sustainable industry that they 

can all be part of. 

Mayor Benton said he was at their first meeting in January. 

That is how fast things have moved along. There was a lot of 

interest at that meeting. There were some folks from Florida 

Atlantic University, Harbor Branch, and South Florida Water 

Management District - so there is a lot of interest from various 

groups. But this is something the private sector needs to take 

on. Government can support it. There were a lot of grant 

writers at the table, there is a lot of grant money out there 

that is not being used that they can apply for. It just seems 

16 

_________________________________________________________________________ 





to be a good fit for Fort Pierce and St. Lucie County. 

amazing how quickly this came along. 

It is 

Mr. Ward said the job of the private sector is to develop world 

class programming. They will try to string it together in three 

and five day tours. It will be the duty of the private sector 

to tell them how long their tours take, how much they charge, 

what they need, and then they will be responsible for running 

their own businesses. The City is certainly not trying to get 

in the way of that, they are just trying to market it and make 

it something that is a unique Fort Pierce product that will go 

to the bottom line for business development for this community. 

Commissioner Perona said it is a real feel good thing. When you 

talk to people about eco-tourism and stuff like that, everybody 

wants to be involved. But he does not think every really 

understands what it can be. This is a chance for Fort Pierce to 

take the lead on this and define what eco-tourism is. He thinks 

it has the support of the entire Commission tonight. 






----- 


only: 



FLORIDA; INITIATING CONFLICT RESOLUTION PROVIDED BY SECTION 

164.1052, FLORIDA STATUTES PERTAINING TO MATTERS IN DISPUTE WITH 

THE FORT PIERCE UTILITIES AUTHORITY; INVOKING STATUTORY CONFLICT 

RESOLUTION PROCEDURES; AND PROVIDING FOR AN EFFECTIVE DATE." 

Mayor Benton said this is to resolve some issues between the 

City and the FPUA. 

Commissioner Becht said if someone looked at this without the 

benefit of knowing they have had discussions with the Utilities 

Authority, this appears to be the logical step towards resolving 

that dispute. This is not a shot across the bow, this is the 

step they have to take in order to get the problems resolved. 



Commissioner Perona said he has discussed this matter with the 

Fort Pierce Utilities Authority Board and there is a consensus 

to get these issues resolved. So he commends the leadership of 

the FPUA Board to at least come to some conclusions that they 

can resolve this without going to a conflict resolution. He 

hopes this is a successful process. 

Mayor Benton said they had a meeting, the City Manager came up 

17 

_________________________________________________________________________ 





with some ideas to resolve this. He believes the administrator 

over at the FPUA is working on it. So maybe it can be resolved 

before they go further. It appears on-going talks appear to be 

better than in the past. 




----- 


only: 



FLORIDA; REQUIRING APPOINTED BOARD MEMBERS OF THE COMMUNITYWIDE 

COUNCIL TO FILE A STATEMENT OF FINANCIAL INTERESTS; AND 

PROVIDING FOR AN EFFECTIVE DATE." 






----- 

The next item on the Agenda was Appoint or reappoint one City 

Commissioner to the Council on Aging of St. Lucie Inc. 


Perona, to reappoint Commissioner Alexander to the Council on 

Aging of St. Lucie Inc. 



----- 

The next item on the Agenda was Submittal of Applications for 

Appointment and/or Reappointment to various Boards & Committees. 

City Clerk Steele said they have the applications in front of 

them for consideration and there will be Resolutions for 

appointment on their next Agenda. 

----- 

The next item on the Agenda was Mayor Benton discussion 

regarding a South Beach Charrette. 

Mayor Benton said there has been a lot of renewed interest in a 

topic that has been talked about for a couple of years, not only 

throughout the City but with property owners and County 

Commissioners. Right now there is interest in moving forward 

with this. He has heard from Chris Craft, who is the Chairman 

of the County Commission, and he is very supportive of this. 

The South Beach Association and the residents of the beach have 

voiced their opinion. He spoke to Mr. DePeyster who owns the 

former trailer park property (at 601 Seaway Drive), who is 

interested and willing to put up some funding toward a charrette 

so they can plan that area and see what the public would like to 

see there. So when the market does pick up, they will have 

18 

_________________________________________________________________________ 





something in line that everybody can live with and would like to 

see there. It is the perfect area for the biggest and nicest 

resort this area will see in their lifetime. He knows City 

Staff is very busy, he does not think they have to spend a whole 

lot of money on this, but maybe with some help from the Treasure 

Coast Regional Planning Council... He would leave that in the 

City Manager's hands, if the Commission feels this is a good 

idea. 

Commissioner Becht said he wants to thank the Mayor for bringing 

it to them and thank the South Beach Association for creating 

some new energy on this in the private sector. He thinks the 

best idea is to leave it to City staff to talk with County 

staff. He does believe they will find support for it at the 

County Commission. It might be appropriate for them to write a 

letter to the County Commission requesting it, coupled with the 

fact that the South Beach Association has requested it, so there 

would be formal action. The City has qualified staff; but he 

thinks at this juncture it would be better to have an outside 

source bring it in. But he is open to suggestions if the County 

or City staffs come back with some idea for getting it done. 

When Ms. Mushier spoke earlier tonight (under Comments from the 

Public), she was asking let's not let this languish. They do 

have residents that live here and consider this home that are 

going to be leaving after Easter. He does not know if it is too 

optimistic or not, but if he asks for it, then they can tell him 

they can't do it, and then he can ask why can't they get it done 

in that time frame. 

Mayor Benton said when he last spoke to County Commissioner 

Craft, he told him he was putting this on their Agenda. He 

thinks the County was looking to see if the City would approve 

it tonight. He thinks the County would follow through at their 

next meeting anyway. But they can put something in writing 

asking them to be a partner in this with Mr. DePeyster. 

Commissioner Becht said this just needs to keep going forward. 

Mayor Benton said right, they will pursue it if there is support 

here. Do they have a consensus? (The Commissioners agreed.) 

Commissioner Perona said he was at the South Beach Association 

meeting and there was an overwhelming consensus to become part 

of this, the island is working and moving in such a great way. 

But he really thinks it is citywide, there is going to be a lot 

of interest from the entire community, because they access the 

beach on a daily or weekly basis because that's the draw to Fort 

Pierce. To become part of that is going to be real important. 

So they are really talking about something that affects 

everybody that is part of this community. 

Mayor Benton said that night, it was the first time in his time 

in office that he saw every County Commissioner at a South Beach 

Association meeting. Everyone was there. Almost all the City 

Commission was there. It was amazing, the public officials that 

were there. So let's see what they can do to get this rolling. 

----- 

The next item on the Agenda was City Engineer update on State 

19 

_________________________________________________________________________ 





Road A1A Project. 

Mr. Jack Andrews, City Engineer, said the residents should start 

seeing some construction on the final phase of the A1A 

construction (Phase I - Bayshore Drive to Gulfstream Avenue, 

less Seaway/South Ocean Drive Roundabout). The utility 

relocation work has started. Their prime contractor, Dickerson 

Construction, is scheduled to start the first week in March and 

have their materials ordered now. So they are moving along, 

they will start seeing the work. 

----- 

The next item on the Agenda was City Engineer update on City 

Marina Reconstruction Project. 

Mr. Ed Seissiger, Engineering Projects Coordinator, said City 

Staff is continuing to work with Tetra Tech on design, coming up 

with some total costs for mitigation, what the islands are going 

to cost, and come up with the whole package to go through the 

final review process with FEMA. He tried to contact FEMA today 

to find out if the final revised Environmental Assessment & 

Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) had been signed off. 

He knows it was sitting in Atlanta waiting for signature last 

week. Hopefully he will find out tomorrow. 

Commissioner Becht said when they met a couple of weeks ago on 

funding, Mr. Seissiger or Mr. Kubitschek had mentioned trying to 

get another outside entity to participate in the monitoring. 

Mr. Seissiger said they haven't gone that far yet. 

Commissioner Becht said a board member of that entity talked to 

him about it last Thursday. That was only one board member, but 

there was interest in following through for the benefit of that 

entity with it. 

Mr. Seissiger said that is one of the benefits they were looking 

to pursue, to get more public knowledge and use their project as 

an educational tool. 

Commissioner Becht said if he will call him tomorrow, then they 

can talk more about that. If they can move that board, then he 

thinks they will have a real good chance of getting that done. 

----- 

The next item on the Agenda was Director of Urban Redevelopment 

discussion on CDBG Housing Replacement. 

Mr. Jon Ward, Director of Urban Redevelopment, said the reason 

he is before them this evening, he wanted to put something on 

the table. As they know, he is normally fairly focused; but he 

finds himself in a conundrum. The average allowance from the 

Federal Department of Housing & Urban Development's CDBG program 

is something in the neighborhood of $750,000 a year. Of course, 

that has several uses attached to it. They fund some grant 

programs and they have some economic development programs. But 

the primary thrust of the CDBG program is housing-based 

programming. They have found themselves in recent years with 

the aging housing stock in the community being faced with more 

and more, not minor rehabilitations, but major rehab work. 

20 

_________________________________________________________________________ 





Houses are falling apart literally. He wanted to bring 

something to their attention tonight. He took this Department 

over almost a year ago. As they have moved through some of 

these issues, he wanted to make this Commission as aware of 

those issues as he has become. For that purpose, he has brought 

with him tonight a fairly large notebook. This is the waiting 

list for housing rehabilitation work. Each one of these pages 

represents a person and a house. These are not large 

applications, these are the pre-application "I want to be in 

line" forms. There are 364 requests for service in this book. 

Many of these houses are in dire condition. Three folks in 

particular have come to see him recently that have been referred 

by Commissioners. One of those, his contractor went to see the 

house, set foot inside the door, the house shook like a bowl of 

jelly, and he was afraid it was going to fall down around him 

while he was standing there - so it is obviously desperate. 

There is a family who had a house fire and they are living in 

one part of this burned-out shell. There is a third family 

whose home is built on a raised foundation and the floor is so 

rotten it is about to fall out from under the house like a wet 

paper bag. So there are emergencies, folks that need help; but 

he has 364 folks in front of them. It is an operational problem 

and it is a political problem. It is an operational problem 

because it costs between $75,000 and $100,000 to completely 

rebuild a home. The City is required federally by statute... 

When they go into a house, they can't just put a coat of paint 

on it and leave, they have to bring it up to the Section 8 

codes, federally mandated. So if they go in there to fix a 

leaking faucet and they see electrical problems or a roof leak 

or mold, they are mandated to fix those things; so once they are 

in it, they are in for a penney, in for a pound, in the truest 

sense of the word. His funding tells him he has enough to fix 

three houses. That means, of the 364 folks that are sitting 

here already in line - and this goes back to 2006 - if 2/3rds of 

them fall out for whatever reason, if the folks have passed on 

or the house fell down or whatever happened, if 2/3rds of these 

things go away, he will be able to address the folks on the 

waiting list in the next 30 to 50 years, the way the funding is 

going. So he is telling them, he has an operational problem. 

The political problem is, he is going to have to start telling 

folks that he can't help them. When they come to him, they are 

standing there at the front desk and telling him about their 

mama who lives in a house that is falling down... He has a 

young gentleman that is calling him three times a week and 

asking when is he going to go out and do something about it. 

The problem is, he cannot statutorily jump over the 364 folks in 

front of her to go address that issue. Because if he does, they 

other folks will feel they have been unfairly treated and 

obviously they have been because they have been waiting for all 

this time. They all want to know when he is going to get around 

to them too. Then he thought maybe he would have his 

contractors, these professionals who are working with him, all 

go out there and identify absolutely horrible fixing to fall 

down structures with real problems. He can't do that, because 

it might be the 7th, the 12th, or the 22nd on the list, and he 

would be jumping over people to do that. So he has a problem 

and he is not real sure what to do about it. 

21 

_________________________________________________________________________ 





Commissioner Perona said he is glad it is Mr. Ward's problem. 

He did read his memorandum (dated February 14, 2011) which says 

he is researching the federal regulations. Has he come to any 

conclusion? 

Mr. Ward said as always with these things, there is a legal 

answer and then there is a practical real world political 

answer. He will give an example. Their new grant writer is 

from Texarkana, Texas, which had a 42 person waiting list, and 

they couldn't get to it either, they had about the same or less 

money than he has and they were fixing one or two houses a year. 

So they said they were going to throw the list out and start 

over, just act like it didn't exist. People were storming the 

doors, it was a terrible thing to do. So he is scratching his 

head about it. They have very real rules that say he is limited 

in rehabs. The regulations say they are limited to $35,000 a 

house for a rehab. But they have the ability to combine with 

other resources and put money together if it goes over $35,000. 

Everybody knows he cannot rebuild a house for $35,000, so that 

is just not a practical solution. So the rules are one thing, 

they tell him what his limits are; but practicality tells him, 

it just doesn't work. So he is stuck. No, he doesn't have a 

good answer. 

Mayor Benton said watching what is going on in Washington... 

The City used to get over $1 million a year in CDBG funds. 

Several of their trips to Washington was fighting for that 

funding to continue. But each year, it comes down a little 

more. Now, with the national deficit, it is one of the big 

things at the head of the chopping block. His suggestion is, 

any time someone comes into Mr. Ward's office to check on that, 

let them know that the Commissioners are going to be fighting 

for that when they go to Washington; but maybe they need to 

contact their Senators and Representatives and the President, if 

they want this. It has really helped them turn this community 

around. But it could dry up by the end of the year and it might 

not be back for a long time. 

Mr. Ward said he had a conversation with their regional 

representative from HUD the other day. He was very straight 

with him, the CDBG program is a vital program for this community 

and the rebuilding of it, it does a lot of good things. He gave 

the gentleman the examples he just gave to the Commission, these 

three desperate folks in particular right now looking down the 

gun barrel, and he doesn't know what he is going to do for them. 

In conversation with the Secretary of HUD, they have already 

been talking about the 2012 budget. They haven't given him his 

2011 number yet. But the 2012 budget, he has already been 

assured is coming down at least 7% to 10%. The funding is 

backing off, that is if it continues to exist. So they are 

going to lose funding, it is going to be that much more 

challenging. His purpose for getting everybody on the dias 

involved in this discussion is that he wants everyone crystal 

clear on where they are with this thing. When they start having 

consequences as a result of the inability to do everything they 

need to do, he wants them ahead of time to know what the reasons 

are. He does not want to be explaining to them on the backside 

and them not knowing in advance why he is going to tell these 

22 

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little old ladies and folks that really need help that the money 

is gone and he doesn't have the ability to do anything about it. 

Mayor Benton said knowing this information, they should ask the 

County Commissioners to... He believes they are going to 

Washington in March. They could ask them to put this on the 

list. He can remember many years ago when they were fighting 

for this, if the Federal Government would fine tune CDBG. One 

thing that irked him years ago was cities like Port St. Lucie, 

which are relatively new, versus a city like Fort Pierce which 

is 110 years old and has housing stock that needs to be rebuilt, 

Port St. Lucie was using their CDBG funds to literally draw 

businesses out of Fort Pierce to relocate in Port St. Lucie, 

when it should have been used for other purposes. 

Mr. Ward said he didn't come before the Commission for an answer 

tonight, he is not asking them for an answer. He does not think 

there is a good answer out there. This is just an appraisal so 

they will know what they are dealing with. He will get back to 

them if things change. But he does not know how this is going 

to substantively change. 

Commissioner Becht said he does not know how it is going to 

change either. Even if they doubled the subsidy, they are still 

100 years out. His concern is, there may be some placeholder 

applications from people that won't qualify due to income or the 

project won't qualify; but unless they go through the whole 

process, they are not going to be able to knock them out of 

line. Does he currently have a requirement that they reapply 

annually? Or once in line, they are in? 

Mr. Ward said no, there hasn't been that process. The day he 

took over the department, he heard that they had a waiting list. 

This is a pretty long waiting list. 

Commissioner Becht said to put a burden on the people that need 

the money to reapply annually means also that there is a burden 

on staff to reevaluate all those 360 applications. But Mr. Ward 

might want to consider creating a more complex application now 

so that as he builds on this 360, that the information is there, 

so it is a little more difficult for someone who just wants to 

put a placeholder in there and they will figure out how to 

qualify for it later. But if it costs them a little time and 

effort to put an application together, maybe there is a better 

chance of knowing their potential for qualifying. 

Mr. Ward said there is a percentage of folks in here that are 

borderline illiterate, where Staff had to fill out some of these 

forms. There are folks that needed help, some were seniors. 

Just getting down to City Hall to fill this thing out is a major 

trip for them. He doesn't want to make it sound worse than it 

is, but he doesn't want to sugarcoat it either. Staff is going 

to start looking at this, throwing out duplications, the fringe 

stuff. Some of it has taken care of itself, some may have been 

condemned and may be on the ground. But that is why 

conservatively he told them, if 2/3rds of these applications go 

away, he has 120 left. 

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Commissioner Becht said he will be interested to know how Mr. 

Ward is going to solve this one. 

Commissioner Perona said he appreciates what Mr. Ward is going 

through. He read through the information and put himself in his 

shoes, and he would rather be sitting up here tonight for once. 

But morally, logic dictates that a triage process should prevail 

over a first come, first served, especially with limited funds. 

He would like to help those where this might be a life and death 

situation, a health situation, or children involved. If they 

are going to feel good about helping a small group, he would 

rather help those that are absolutely in dire need. That is 

just a moral response. Unfortunately he can't do that, he has 

to go across all the pages. But that is what he would like to 

ultimately see, if possible. 

Mr. Ward said yes, he will do his best. 

----- 

The next item on the Agenda was Interim Director of Planning 

discussion on proposed Arcade Ordinance. 

Mr. David Carlin, Interim Director of Planning, said he has met 

with each Commissioner to go over some of the parameters and 

interest they have expressed with this particular subject, and 

has molded some of those things into this document. 

Commissioner Becht asked based on discussions he has had with 

Mr. Carlin and with the public, are they required to have an 

arcade ordinance for the City of Fort Pierce? 

Mr. Carlin said he does not believe anything is required. The 

issue that came about with this whole direction was the business 

tax applications his office has received over the course of 

time. He has actually received several more as of last 

Wednesday. There really is no process to approve these uses. 

The City Code does not expressly identify how these particular 

uses are to be approved. That is the genesis of this whole 

discussion. 

Commissioner Becht asked if there is no process to approve them, 

then they cannot be approved? 

Mr. Carlin said he believes there is a history with these types 

of applications that have come into the City. Yes, there are a 

few of them that have been in operation, either annexed from the 

County or some that were somehow approved many years ago. But 

his office has not approved them because of the lack of a 

process and actually having something specified in the code. So 

really tonight it is a decision for the Commission to determine 

whether or not these types of uses are in fact uses that they 

would like to see or processes identified in the Land 

Development Regulations. He thinks that is the basic framework 

to operate on and decide if that is in fact what they want to 

see with these. They have been getting these applications in; 

but until they have a process in place, they technically can't 

be approved. In any event, he will be glad to discuss some of 

the components of this proposed ordinance. The proposed 

ordinance, the backbone genetic makeup, went to the Planning 

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Board. The Planning Board had some very good discussion on this 

ordinance, they did focus specifically on some of the 

requirements that were outlined within the ordinance as it 

related to some of the improvements such as requiring bicycle 

racks. That is something they have integrated within this 

particular ordinance because that has to do with encouraging 

pedestrian type activities, whether people come to these things 

via alternate modes of transportation, walking, etc. So one of 

the design elements they wanted to consider with this was to put 

the bicycle racks in there to keep it more pedestrian oriented, 

to soften up the image they sometimes have with arcades they see 

in other jurisdictions with the tinted windows and things of 

that nature. The ordinance does outline some of the design 

components in terms of proposed arcade ordinances they might 

want to take a look at in terms of requiring design review 

approval for regular applications or Historic Preservation Board 

approval, if the Commission is interested in having these in 

some of the downtown areas. That is one of the other issues 

besides just having the arcades, whether or not the Commission 

is interested in having these, is the location of the arcades. 

The proposed ordinance outlines the arcades would be in the C-3 

and C-4 zoning districts. C-4 is in downtown. One of the 

challenges they had integrating this particular location 

analysis is that the downtown district does encompass some C-3 

properties. What they did was outline that a conditional use 

process be implemented for those properties interested in doing 

that in the downtown area because of the unique characteristics 

that are associated with the Downtown Historic District, the 

waterfront properties and such. So that is another aspect they 

may want to consider, if this is palatable to them all. One of 

the requirements that the arcade uses will have to go through 

besides the specific design criteria - parking, landscaping, 

sidewalks. Sidewalks are a priority, the Planning office is 

championing the sidewalk provisions in their new Comprehensive 

Plan. They have also championed mobility in their new Land 

Development code will have more stringent requirements with 

regard to sidewalks. There is a clause in the existing sidewalk 

ordinance that exempts sidewalks from being implemented when the 

property owner has owned property for more than ten years. What 

they are doing in this particular ordinance is buttoning that up 

and requiring sidewalks to be there in the event they are not 

there for any arcade use. So these are the types of design 

parameters they have outlined in here. They did bring it to the 

Planning Board. The Planning Board did vote unanimously to 

recommend approval with some changes. He outlined those changes 

within the Staff Report - amending the language, extending the 

hours, instead of 10:00 o'clock to midnight, and also adding 

some additional age parameters for the operators of the arcade. 

But they really did not like the bicycle requirement, they felt 

the bicycle requirement was too cumbersome and restrictive on 

any business that was interested in doing the arcade. The 

downtown area has a full build-out condition where they have 

buildings that are placed up against the right-of-way, and that 

would limit the ability for anyone interested in doing an arcade 

within the downtown area to place the bicycle racks there. So 

the bicycle rack requirement was not mandated for those 

properties in the downtown district, but was for the other 

properties in the C-3 zoning. So there were some challenges 

25 

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going through this particular ordinance. He knows there are 

some folks they have presented this to that are not necessarily 

supportive of it. They did present this to the Downtown 

Business Association, which generally supported the arcades as 

long as those were not located downtown. They also had feedback 

from the Fort Pierce Area Council of the Chamber of Commerce, 

which generally does not support this particular endeavor. The 

Chief might have his own input on this particular ordinance and 

the direction they are going. 

Mayor Benton asked that means the two business groups they spoke 

to were not really supportive? 

Mr. Carlin said that is correct. When Ms. Olson discussed this 

with the Downtown Business Association, it was not in the 

downtown area, but outside the downtown area was generally... 

Commissioner Alexander said he attended the Planning Board 

meeting. What caught him off guard was the continued talk of 

downtown. He does not think any of them agree about bringing 

such things downtown. So they need to get off of downtown, they 

need to do other things in that downtown district. But when he 

reads such things as the fees for these machines, an individual 

machine is $115. If a person comes in with 50 machines, that is 

quite a bit of money for a person just starting off in a 

business. Does no one else in the State of Florida have 

arcades? 

Mr. Carlin said there are other municipalities that do have 

ordinances. He can give an example. The Gretna ordinance 

identifies it will be $200 per machine and $10,000 per license. 

There is quite a bit of variations in what a municipality 

decides to assess for this particular use. It could act as a 

deterrent. It could also be a benefit. The fee is something 

that would have to be done concurrently with an ordinance. 

Commissioner Alexander said they have these machines in the 

community now. Are they being tabbed $115 per machine? 

Mr. Carlin said he does not know what the existing fees that are 

being charged for those which have been operating for years. 

Commissioner Alexander asked is that the cost associated with 

these machines? 

City Clerk Steele said that is not the current cost. This is a 

brand new ordinance that the Planning Department has brought for 

their consideration and that is the amount suggested. 

Commissioner Alexander said he knows they are trying to deter 

some things in the City of Fort Pierce. But they couldn't deter 

that little bare all building out there on Okeechobee Road. He 

would rather see... When did they first start speaking of 

arcades? 

Mr. Carlin said this began last spring. They did research, they 

had discussions in the fall, so it has been on-going. 

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Commissioner Alexander asked so it has been a year for them to 

get an arcade ordinance in this community? 

Mr. Carlin said Amendment #4 was on the agenda for consideration 

and that would have changed dramatically how comprehensive plan 

land use... Staff was specifically tasked with doing that in 

addition to the LDR Rewrite. So yes, it took time to get to 

where they are today. But they have resource constraints. They 

recognize that it was a priority, that is why they are here. 

They brought it to the Planning Board. He met with the 

Commissioners before the holidays. Yes, it did take some time 

to get to where they are. 

Mayor Benton said for the public, they are talking about this 

preliminarily tonight. Staff is putting in front of the 

Commission what the Planning Board had decided on. There will 

be public hearings if and when this is brought forward. But 

tonight, they are just discussing it so Staff can fine-tune it 

and bring it forward, advertise it, and they can have a public 

hearing on it. 

City Manager Recor said he hopes they can decide tonight, given 

the fact that their resources are spread so thin, whether or not 

they want Staff to bring forth an ordinance. He would really 

rather not have Staff devote their time to prepare an ordinance 

that there is not support for. 

Commissioner Alexander said they have existing businesses now. 

So what is their dilemma? 

City Manager Recor said those are non-conforming. 

Commissioner Alexander asked how did they come into existence? 

City Manager Recor said there are a variety of explanations. 

Some may have been annexed in. He thinks there were a couple 

that had been approved in the last few years, minus this 

process. The issue is, there is not a specific land use 

specified in the code. They can interpret that two ways... 

Commissioner Alexander said his concern is being businessfriendly. 

They regulate what is going on in their city. But a 

game of chance? He does not gamble, so it does not rock him one 

way or the other. But if they have business people here in the 

City of Fort Pierce and that is their livelihood, he would 

rather see that type of livelihood than armed robbery or some 

other... He is not advocating that. In this day and age, it is 

hard for people. He just does not grasp it. 

Commissioner Perona said he has never been to an amusement 

arcade, but he has a nephew who has worked at one and he spoke 

to him in detail. He thinks the biggest problem is the 

enforcement of all the rules and regulations. He is not 

comfortable in the fact that they have a provision for that to 

be able to do it. He can see that they have rules, regulations, 

and restrictions. But if they are not able to enforce those, 

then really they don't have anything. 

Commissioner Becht said he guesses he had an ah-ha moment when 

27 

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he started thinking about these things in the downtown area and 

they didn't in his opinion fit well. They heard a young lady 

speak earlier tonight (under Comments from the Public) about 

allowing these businesses create something where the whole 

design of the business is to capture them inside and keep them 

there where they spend every last dime they have got. He read 

the Minutes from when they talked about this back in September. 

He has been in one of the arcades out in the County and it is a 

bit of a social gathering place. If they do their jobs, they 

are going to have other places for people to gather. It is a 

gambling establishment - to call it anything else is really just 

not honest. Staff members have persuaded him that they need to 

do what they can to prevent these things from becoming 

entrenched in their city limits. If they are here, they are 

obviously grandfathered and can continue to do business. But 

once established, how do they ever get shut down? Once they get 

in, they are going to be here forever. He heard a comment from 

a person who said they want to be business-friendly. But how 

business-friendly is this to the businesses that are surrounding 

the arcade? From what he has observed, these are in huge 

shopping centers and the businesses on either side of the 

arcades are really floundering, not doing well. So he does not 

know how business-friendly it is to be business-friendly to one 

particular industry that appears to be unfriendly to other 

businesses. So to summarize, he is not in favor of making it 

easy for an arcade to do business in Fort Pierce. He thought 

when he spoke with him, Mr. Carlin had said that Port St. Lucie 

has devised some practice where they are not approving arcades. 

He would like to do what he can to empower Fort Pierce city 

staff to make it difficult for this type of business to 

establish itself. He does not know if that requires them to 

enact an ordinance that has a lot of rules and regulations that 

somebody is going to have to come behind and enforce, as 

Commissioner Perona was talking about, or if it is to maintain 

the status quo, or if it is to do something different. 

Mr. Carlin said some of the things that are in this proposed 

ordinance may accomplish what Commissioner Becht is looking for. 

One of the things is about going through design review, having 

to make exterior changes to the building, be subject to that 

type of process, but also the Historic Preservation Board; but 

he gathers it is not something supported in the downtown area, 

so it would not be applicable. 

Commissioner Becht said but that's the rub. He very clearly 

sees the danger of allowing this type of business in the 

downtown area where he knows the City has committed millions of 

dollars; and yet, they are not going to protect the rest of the 

City from what this is going to be? It doesn't seem honest of 

him to say he doesn't want it in the downtown area, he is going 

to protect that, but he is not going to protect the rest of the 

City. 

Mayor Benton said he feels they can't treat downtown any 

differently than the rest of the community. One of the concerns 

he had - because in his opinion it is gambling - years ago when 

the jai alai frontons were allowed in Florida, those were built 

so many miles apart. If they were to limit the number they 

28 

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could have in one area to one arcade... His vision of Fort 

Pierce, the perfect one, would not be the downtown or any street 

lined with arcades. But if there was one for people that wanted 

to visit the community and do want to gamble, it is there. How 

do they do that? Can they limit the number to one every so many 

feet or miles? But he can't say it is okay to put one in Sable 

Palm Plaza but not downtown. It would have to be everywhere, 

that is his biggest concern. How do they limit or could they 

limit the number of arcades? 

Mr. Carlin said there are several things that could be evaluated 

with that type of arrangement. One is to implement distance 

restrictions, much like they have with the distance restrictions 

for sale of alcohol and beer and wine. That is one method of 

doing it. Some jurisdictions have those distance restrictions 

from churches, schools, or other types of uses, day care centers 

for example. 

Mayor Benton asked one per square mile? 

Mr. Carlin said he doesn't know if any of them say per square 

mile. He does not know if there would be anything that would 

preclude coming up with those types of performance standards, if 

that is something the Commission is interested in pursuing. 

Mayor Benton said that would be something he would be interested 

in. There are areas of the community that have a lot more 

churches. He wouldn't want to just open it up to an area where 

there is not churches, like downtown. He does not know if there 

is support up here, because they are talking about bringing this 

forward or not bringing it forward. But really, maybe the 

public would think more of this if they limited the numbers per 

square mile. 

Commissioner Alexander said he can consider that. But his main 

concern is doing what is right when they allow a business that 

is established already to be annexed as is. He knows one 

particular location in the City of Fort Pierce - how did they 

expand within this last year and no one else can grow? That is 

his concern, be fair. If they go from 20 machines to 50 

machines and they tell that this price doesn't associate to them 

because they are grandfathered-in? Everybody has to pay tax 

just like everybody else. 

Mayor Benton said he thinks if they bring this ordinance 

forward, apparently with the dollars it would bring in maybe 

they could hire that enforcement person that could keep an eye 

on all of them. It seems like it would bring in a lot of 

revenue to the City Clerk's office and they could hire an 

additional person. They used to have the ability to check on 

all businesses, to check their occupational licenses. 

Unfortunately with the budget cuts, they don't have that person 

any more. This would be a funding source also. He would think 

that the ones that were grandfathered-in would be given a period 

of time where they would have to come into code with the new 

ordinance, as they do with sign ordinances and everything else. 

Because apparently they must make good money at this. 

29 

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Commissioner Becht said whether grandfathered-in or new, if they 

establish a per machine fee... $115 might seem like a lot, but 

he had to meet a client in one of these arcades once and he was 

just amazed at all the people. Every machine had a person with 

quarters and they were just feeding the machines. Those 

machines are making money from 10:00 o'clock on. He would 

prefer 10:00 o'clock to 10:00 o'clock. He would start off with, 

if there is a way to legally prohibit arcades from being in the 

City, that is the position he would start with. If he has to 

compromise, then compromise from there. 

Mayor Benton asked do they have to allow arcades in the 

community? 

City Attorney Schwerer said the general legal principle involved 

would be, if it is a legal business under the laws of the State 

of Florida, then the local government would be charged with the 

responsibility of preparing its codes so that such business 

could coexist with other lawful businesses. But that would not 

prohibit them from looking at any special regulations that may 

be applicable to these businesses in order that they harmonize 

with the general business neighborhood; and also regulate them 

in a manner different than perhaps similarly situated 

entertainment establishments, given the fact that they are 

generally known as gambling institutions. More importantly, 

what effect do arcades have on the neighboring businesses, and 

what effect do they have on the public's health, safety, and 

welfare? So the answer is yes, they do have a duty to devise 

regulations to protect the public health, safety, and welfare, 

and at the same time allow the lawful business to occur. Many 

cities are grappling with this at the present time. There are 

cities that have been studying this issue for at least a year or 

two in order to harmonize their code with those principles. But 

they are under no obligation to come up with those tonight or 

even next month. As long as they are making reasonable progress 

that would in his opinion satisfy their lawful duty. 

Mayor Benton asked what were the two areas Mr. Carlin said this 

would be allowed in? 

Mr. Carlin said C-3 and C-4. 

Mayor Benton said his concern is limiting the number. Could 

they say they only want one per square mile? When they look at 

the C-3 and C-4 districts, there is not a whole lot of area 

there. So this is a way to possibly allow a few arcades, but 

not create an arcade on every corner. 

Mr. Carlin said that certainly could be evaluated. He could 

start doing some calculations and see what that distance 

limitation would be. The C-4 includes the downtown area, so 

that is out of the question. They would only be focusing on the 

C-3. 

Commissioner Becht said that is what really kind of tipped the 

scales for him. When he thought about it in the downtown area, 

he thought they didn't spend millions of dollars and preserve 

the waterfront and the Sunrise Theatre and expand the Marina so 

30 

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that they could have gambling arcades in downtown Fort Pierce. 

So it would be his preference, even if they limit it to... The 

B-3 or the B-4 district, if that evolves into the business 

entertainment district, staff can study that. If the reason of 

it is they have to allow for those gambling arcades that have a 

semblance of being a proper and reasonable and legal business in 

the State of Florida, he would like to push the envelope on one 

per... There has to be a distance restriction between the next 

one. He does not think that is one per square mile, he thinks 

that is one per linear distance, whatever distance they can 

justify. 

Commissioner Alexander said he can agree with going forward; but 

he is excluding downtown, that is not even on his radar as far 

as arcades. But he can see going forward with these matters. 

One interesting thing came up, he thinks someone from the public 

mentioned that arcades give free food and alcohol. He knows 

they do that in Las Vegas, but this is not Las Vegas. Wouldn't 

they have to have a beer and wine license? He just does not 

agree with that. They have to curtail some of these ways they 

get people into their doors. 

Commissioner Perona said another point is, when these arcades 

are up and running at full tilt, there are hundreds of people. 

If they had one downtown, there would be no other parking 

available. They could probably fill that parking garage. They 

just really have to look at the impact on what they have. They 

have millions of dollars invested in downtown. They have spent 

a lot of time talking about the entities that exist in downtown 

Fort Pierce. He just thinks staff did a great job trying to 

make this acceptable to what they have going on here. As far as 

he is concerned, as many restrictions they can to make these 

businesses exist a little more cohesive with the rest of the 

business environment. He would say promote everything they 

possibly can to make it so they would have to be really 

dedicated to exist as an arcade in this community. 

Mayor Benton asked is there interest in bringing this ordinance 

forward with Staff incorporating the discussion that took place 

tonight? Or should they put it on the back burner? 

Commissioner Alexander said he would go along with bringing it 

forward. But again, he has opposition to arcades in downtown. 

Commissioner Becht said if it helps staff with the problem they 

have with the applications, he would say move forward. But he 

is not sure that the status quo is such a bad place to be. 

Commissioner Perona said he agrees with that, move forward. 

Mayor Benton said move forward. Maybe what Mr. Carlin can do is 

try to incorporate the discussion tonight and run it past each 

one of the Commissioners like he did back in December so they 

maybe have something that they can live with if they have to. 

Mr. Carlin said he can bring it back for another discussion 

before spending the money on the advertising requirements. 

31 

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Mayor Benton said that would be fine. But apparently it is not 

at the top of the list. 

----- 


discussion on proposed ordinance establishing the Downtown 

Business & Entertainment Overlay District. 

Mayor Benton said they are trying to fine tune this before it is 

brought in front of them for a public hearing. The public will 

have the ability to have input on this when it is brought 

forward. 

Ms. Leslie Olson, Interim Assistant Director of Planning, said 

this has gone to the Planning Board. The Planning Board has 

recommended approval. In addition, City Staff has discussed 

this particular ordinance with the Downtown Business 

Association, the Fort Pierce Area Chamber of Commerce, and she 

also sent this out to the First United Methodist Church, because 

they are dealing with the alcohol ordinance again and they had a 

lot of folks come out for that one the last time from the 

Methodist Church. She has discussed this with those three 

entities that she know had questions and concerns about it. She 

is available to any individual or group that would like to 

discuss it further. Back on December 6th, the City Commission 

asked staff to take a look at the code and fine a way for them 

to not make things so difficult to business owners who would 

like to open in the downtown doing things like a cigar bar or a 

wine bar. They had a business owner who was interested in doing 

that and their code prohibited it. She will talk about wine 

bars and cigar bars. Wine and cigar bars serve only wine and/or 

beer and usually serve limited foods. One doesn't usually go to 

a wine bar to eat, they usually get different types of wine to 

taste along with cheeses or something like that. The current 

code restrictions require that if an establishment that desires 

to operate in this manner falls within the distance restriction 

of 1,600 feet, then they have to get a waiver of distance from 

the City Commission. If that were the only issue, it wouldn't 

be that big of a deal. But if they want to serve just wine and 

beer, and if they fall within those distance restrictions, then 

they must operate as a restaurant with a bone fide kitchen, the 

whole nine yards, which basically keeps the wine and cigar bars 

out of business. (Ms. Olson displayed maps.) This is generally 

the boundaries of the downtown. It is pedestrian-oriented, it 

is dense in retail, office, and entertainment uses, it has a 

history of business strength, but it is building into an evening 

and weekend entertainment venue as well. So they looked 

carefully at the code. Instead of just doing a quick line item 

saying they will also allow wine and cigar bars, they took a 

look at how the downtown is different. They proposed a twoprong 

solution. Number one, clean up the alcohol ordinance, as 

Mr. Carlin proposed last year. They would retain all of the 

cleanup portion of that alcohol ordinance in process and 

procedures and definitions and clarity; but they would keep 

those issues that made it controversial. They would keep the 

waiver of distance process in place as it stands for everywhere 

else in the City except for downtown. Then they would create 

the Downtown Business & Entertainment Overlay District - 

creating a purpose statement, cohesive boundaries, exempting the 

32 

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parcels from the parking requirements, and exempting the parcels 

from the waiver of distance process. Then they would go ahead 

and eliminate the B-4 business district. The B-4 business 

district is unusual in their code because it only has one policy 

issue - it only exempts off-street parking for these areas they 

see on the map. When she took a look at this, she assumed they 

would just amend this somehow into the overlay district they are 

considering; but then she realized that this district 

gerrymanders outside the contiguous downtown area, excludes the 

King Power Plant property, and it only deals with parking. So 

she thought it would be better to deal with this in a more 

cohesive manner, go back and take a look at redrawing downtown 

so that they can make a very strong overlay district that is 

suited for one purpose, it is contiguous, and it is built on 

best planning principles. They have created a purpose, so that 

when they add regulations to this overlay district in the 

future, they will judge whether or not it belongs in the 

downtown under this purpose - recognizing the unique urban 

character of the downtown, its unique orientation to the water, 

its historic urban design typified by its pedestrian-oriented 

design and human scale development; and to build on this unique 

character by encouraging redevelopment and keeping with these 

recognized values, and further the downtown's desirability as a 

place to work, play, and live through encouraging a broad 

variety of urban scale uses. Staff is proposing they start with 

two policies. One, they exempt the off-street parking, which is 

carried over from the B-4 business district. Two, exempt the 

requirements for restaurants, bars, and shops to obtain a waiver 

of distance to sell alcohol within the district boundaries. She 

would like to address some of the things that come along with 

this; because any time they touch the code, it has a ripple 

effect. When they exempt the B-4 Business District and they 

create the Downtown Business & Entertainment Overlay District, 

these parcels shown on the map (hatched in black or in green) 

will be excluded because they are outside the contiguous borders 

of the downtown. These parcels are not pedestrian-friendly to 

the downtown, people don't cross U.S. #1 or other streets to get 

there, and they don't have the style of development the downtown 

does at this point. These areas (in green) already are exempted 

from parking because of their historic status or their status as 

a Federal building. The parcels (hatched in black) are not 

currently exempted under the Historic Preservation ordinance; 

however, neither are they probably redeveloped to their highest 

and best use at this point, they will probably be redeveloped in 

the future. Upon redevelopment, that is the time at which they 

should determine how much parking they need, because as those 

are on U.S. #1 and not contiguous with the pedestrian-friendly 

downtown, they are going to need some parking. So it is a 

policy matter for the City Commission to decide how they would 

like her to handle this issue. Would they like her to create an 

overlay exempting these parcels from parking, so that they do 

not create any non-conformities? Or would they like her to 

create a text that say when these parcels come into the city, 

they will have to be evaluated to determine whether or not they 

need to have the full parking requirements? There are a couple 

of different ways she can go with that. But that is one issue 

she wanted to identify before they move forward. 

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Commissioner Alexander said when he spoke to Ms. Olson about 

this, he mentioned to her that maybe they can do this in phases. 

Has that been considered? Start off with Phase I; and as they 

build and grow, they can expand that area? 

Ms. Olson said the nice thing about this particular overlay is 

that it is just a framework on which they can build something 

strong in the future. This is specific to the downtown because 

the downtown has a very unique character. It is a requirement 

of the Comprehensive Plan that the Planning Department create 

special area plans for six neighborhoods, all of which are 

historic districts. They are outside of their date range for 

getting those done, they are very complex. She is in the middle 

of doing one for Edgartown right now. Edgartown is the 

neighborhood just to the north of the downtown district. They 

have had the public workshops, the charrettes, and they are 

proposing to re-do all of the zoning and future land use and 

coding of roads, the whole nine yards, to allow that to 

redevelop with a very finely-grained historically appropriate 

small scale redevelopment with bed-and-breakfast, retail, office 

uses - a very vital area that will feed the downtown. That will 

be a completely different character than the downtown, so it 

wouldn't be exactly an expansion or phasing of this, but a 

completely different plan that would integrate well. They also 

need to do that for the River's Edge Historic District, which is 

south of Citrus Avenue. She is willing to make that the next 

project after this, if the River's Edge homeowners and property 

owners are interested and kind of have a common vision. That is 

what they are looking for when doing a special area plan, they 

would like to see people kind of going in the same direction. 

That one will be interesting in that there is a transitional 

area between Citrus Avenue and Florida Avenue, and then from 

there on it is single family. So that will be a really 

interesting one to plan. That will be another special area plan 

they will be working on. But it does take a lot of staff time 

and they are a little busy. 

Mayor Benton asked she is including the properties adjacent to 

the south side of Citrus Avenue? 

Ms. Olson said yes. 

Mayor Benton said he will at least address the issue of the 

properties west of U.S. #1 when it comes to parking. His 

concern there is, there are some older buildings that are very 

big. For example, something that was originally approved in the 

County, Skatetown USA, which has an occupancy of hundreds of 

people and 30 parking spaces. He does not want that to happen 

here. There is a church, there are a lot of folks with private 

parking lots that could be filled up. Even if they tried to 

close those off, it could be a nightmare for the Police 

Department to deal with. He can see the old Grant's building 

filling up with lots of people as a nightclub and then parking 

for half a mile in every direction. In the downtown he does not 

see buildings big enough for that type of crowd, but they do 

have two parking garages, so it would be easier to keep things 

under control. But he can see things on the west side of U.S. 

#1 getting out of control, so he would want to require parking. 

34 

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Commissioner Perona said this is exactly what he envisioned when 

he talked with Ms. Olson back in December, this area. He thinks 

it would keep it small and manageable. Something in this form 

and fashion, if it is successful and it requires them to do so, 

they can expand that. Her explanations on the inclusion of all 

the properties that surround both sides of the roads and how it 

would include the pedestrian traffic and everything else like 

that made total sense. He really appreciates the time and 

effort staff has put into that, it makes sense to him. But to 

think about expanding it immediately? He would rather see this 

work. He has a feeling it is going to add value to properties, 

it is going to change the way the whole movement of downtown 

could happen, if everything works the way he is thinking. It is 

really amazing, after one guy comes in here and asks about a 

cigar bar, what can happen. There has been a domino effect here 

moving forward. He told Mr. Jones that he considers this to be 

the Jones Effect. They have spent a lot of time and effort on 

this and he is excited about it. He thinks it is really going 

to help out the downtown area without affecting in a negative 

way the surrounding community which they also must protect. 

Commissioner Becht said he is excited they have gotten as far as 

they have with it. He thinks Ms. Olson has approached it 

logically and put a lot of thought into setting the boundaries. 

He hopes this staves off some opposition to it by keeping it on 

the east side of U.S. #1. Right now he agrees that it is not 

pedestrian-friendly to get across U.S. #1. And there are some 

uses on the west side of U.S. #1 that might be impacted if this 

did encroach across U.S. #1. He would like for her to move 

forward on it, get more public input on it for those things the 

Commissioners cannot see, and get community buy-in. He thinks 

it is a great idea. It lays the groundwork for this area to 

really have some strong growth going forward. 

Commissioner Alexander said he supports that on the east side of 

U.S. #1, not encroaching on the west side. 

Mayor Benton said he thinks Ms. Olson heard loud and clear to 

stay away from the west side of U.S. #1. 

Ms. Olson said as she has been researching this, she bumped into 

a few uses that might be beneficial to add, so she thought she 

would ask them now before she included them for their public 

hearing. One of the things that came up in her discussion with 

the Fort Pierce Area Council - which by the way was unanimously 

in favor, they very much like the idea, as did the Downtown 

Business Association, she had no negative comments from either 

group. One of the things that was brought up was, some folks 

seem to have a tough time parking in the parking garage and 

crossing the railroad tracks, whether it is because they are 

elderly or there is a feeling it is too far away. But someone 

brought up the concept of a golf cart, which she didn't think 

quite worked, but it did bring to mind what they see in some 

urban areas, little pedi-cabs with a bike on the front and a 

little cart in the back. It is a little business, a guy with a 

bike. That can be cute and fun and it can add something to 

downtown. The other thing is water taxis to different 

35 

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restaurants and other places. If they would like for her to 

consider those uses or other ideas for uses that would 

specifically be good for making the downtown move lively, she is 

very open to hearing those so they can add those too. 

Mayor Benton said the water taxi idea has already been 

incorporated, either in the Port Master Plan or the... They did 

a downtown charrette and a beach charrette back when Ramon Trias 

was around and it was incorporated. In fact, he believes it was 

on the cover, a water taxi. He would support a private 

business, such as horses and a buggy. But for the City to be 

involved in that, taking people from a bar to a car, he can 

picture liabilities that they don't want to get involved in. 

But if somebody else wants to take that on, so be it. 

Commissioner Becht said he loves both ideas. 

Mayor Benton said they will move forward with a Public Hearing 

in the near future. 

----- 


discussion on options for consideration to address the 

anticipated annexation and incorporation of Agricultural Uses in 

the City Limits. 

Ms. Erica Ehly, Senior Planner, said on January 3rd the 

Commission requested that Staff bring a few options to the 

Commission to address the anticipated annexation of agricultural 

uses into the City. The current annexation policy is that the 

City assign a future land use designation and a zoning 

classification that is consistent with that which is assigned in 

the County. The future land use designation is identified on 

the future land use map and is adopted into the Comprehensive 

Plan. Zoning classifications at the time of development are 

required to be consistent with that future land use designation. 

The future land use designations within the FPUA Retail Service 

Boundary do not include agricultural designations. This is 

logical, as this area is identified as urban in the long range 

plan. 

Commissioner Becht asked in the current FPUA service area, 

obviously the City of Fort Pierce doesn't have an agricultural 

zoning, but even the County doesn't have any...? 

Ms. Ehly said agricultural future land use designations. So as 

part of the long range plan, it is not expected to have any 

agricultural land uses in the urban area of the County. That 

can be inferred from the lack of future land use designations on 

the long range plan. Now within the County Urban Service 

Boundary, there are a few - she thinks three parcels - with a 

future land use designation of agricultural. It is anticipated 

by Staff that both the land use and the zoning classification 

will be retained until development action occurs. The 

Comprehensive Plan identifies and defines future land use 

designations that are part of the long range plan by Policy 

1.1.4. She did not include the list of future land use 

designation descriptions; but what follows that policy is the 

description of their land use designations. None of those 

36 

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include agricultural uses. In addition, the plan directs 

development to be consistent with the future land use 

designations that are identified in Policy 1.1.4, and 

agricultural uses are not identified again. There are many 

properties that are assigned an agricultural zoning 

classification. There are quite a few agriculturally-zoned 

properties that they anticipate annexing, certainly within the 

FPUA Retail Service Boundary, and then out into the County Urban 

Service area. The City's zoning code does not currently permit 

agricultural uses. The current annexation policy is consistent 

with the future land use plan as identified in the Comprehensive 

Plan. County agricultural zoning is retained until development 

action occurs. Development action is defined by the Florida 

Statutes as: Any material change in the use or appearance of 

any structure or land, or the division of land into three or 

more parcels. So at the time that development action would 

occur, a property owner would come in for a site plan 

application or a building permit or an occupational license; and 

at that time, the property owner is notified that an assignment 

of city zoning would be required in order to pursue development 

action. If the City Commission decides to pursue an alternative 

protocol, then that which she just described is the existing 

policy. There are several options. These are based on how 

other cities in Florida address agricultural uses within the 

municipal boundaries; and these include incorporating annexation 

agreements into the current protocol so that those uses would be 

protected. They would annex in the same way, but protect the 

uses through an annexation agreement. The City of Stuart has 

done that in several instances; however, agricultural uses are 

not permitted otherwise in the City of Stuart. Also, the City 

could permit certain agricultural uses not within a zoning 

district or a future land use designation. Certain uses that 

meet certain criteria, such as being an existing agricultural 

use before annexation, that would be one criteria. The City 

could establish an interim agricultural district which would be 

assigned properties as they are annexed; and in that way, they 

would have a City zoning. Or the City could just establish an 

agricultural district. There are several municipalities in the 

State of Florida that do that. The Staff Report identified 

three areas. The first area was dealing with annexed 

agricultural uses. The second area is with regard to new 

agricultural uses. If somebody proposed a new agricultural use 

in the city, that would require additional analysis to identify 

which uses the City would be interested in allowing. Those 

would not be contingent upon the uses that are allowed in St. 

Lucie County, it would be separate from the annexation issue; 

but certainly these uses should be consistent with an urban 

environment, should meet certain criteria, should only be 

permitted in certain areas and regulated by the Land Development 

Regulations, not necessarily the Comprehensive Plan. The third 

area is with regard to agricultural exemptions. As stated in 

the Staff Report, there are parcels with existing agricultural 

uses. This is separate from the future land use designation and 

separate from the zoning classification. This is established as 

an existing use, regardless of those other two classifications. 

Because of the criteria identified by the St. Lucie County 

Property Appraiser, it can be inferred that agricultural 

exemptions will not exist once the property receives a City 

37 

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zoning classification for the purposes of development. The 

specific criteria is that the property have a legal use as 

permitted by the zoning classification for agricultural use. So 

that agricultural exemption would exist as long as the St. Lucie 

County zoning classification is retained. As soon as 

development action would occur, then the agricultural exemption 

would not be in existence. 

Commissioner Alexander asked she is telling him that any 

properties that have ag and want to come into Fort Pierce won't 

be allowed to come with that? 

Ms. Ehly said her interpretation is, everything remains the same 

until the property owner pursues a development action which 

would change the structure or the use on the property. 

Commissioner Alexander asked so they can't have a combination of 

both? 

Ms. Ehly said at this point the St. Lucie County zoning 

classification would remain, so they would still be entitled 

under the St. Lucie County zoning code to what exists at the 

time of annexation. But when something changes and they pursue 

expansion or site plan review or a building permit or a change 

of use, then that is when they would be required to pursue a 

City zoning classification. Currently the City's zoning code 

does not permit agricultural uses. That is the complication 

Commissioner Becht identified in the meeting on January 3rd. It 

is at that point where a decision has to be made as to how the 

City is going to handle that. And if they don't have a zoning 

classification that permits the ag use, then that kind of 

directs development away from those uses. Now that is 

consistent with their Comprehensive Plan and their long range 

plan, it is also consistent with the St. Lucie County long range 

plan, which they can infer from the future land use maps that 

these areas are anticipated to become urban in the 20 year 

planning time frame, and that these uses gradually will not 

exist any longer. 

Commissioner Becht said he compliments the Planning Department 

on an extremely thorough professional and intelligent assessment 

of how this issue is being treated throughout the State of 

Florida. They got code cites from other cities across the 

State. He does not know how fine-tuned they are going to be 

able to get this tonight. He thinks they should start with a 

general discussion. The interim agricultural district appears 

to be the most interesting one to him. All of them have pros 

and cons. As they discussed, there are a multitude of issues 

here. But the driving one that will either help build the City 

of Fort Pierce or help confine the City of Fort Pierce is 

whether or not they are viewed at least as friendly as the City 

of Port St. Lucie or they are viewed as being more unfriendly 

than the City of Port St. Lucie in terms of a property owner's 

ability to get that agricultural exemption, to continue to have 

that agricultural exemption, and to continue to make viable 

economic use of their property. So he is tempted to start with 

the premise that let's just mirror, if not exactly duplicate, 

what the City of Port St. Lucie is doing; because then there 

38 

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really are no differences between going into PSL or going into 

Fort Pierce. That is somewhat myopic because he is only looking 

at the areas where someone would have a choice of going into PSL 

or going into the Fort Pierce. There are a lot of areas, 

particularly as they go northeast, that they won't even have 

that choice. The idea of creating the general use districts has 

some appeal to him. Unfortunately, so do the policies of 

Davenport, Mineola, and Port Orange. So if he had to take the 

multiple choice test today, he would really be stumped because 

he would want to put in some of all of the above. But even the 

words "interim agricultural district" reemphasizes the fact that 

these properties, being east of the Urban Service Line in St. 

Lucie County, are ultimately planned to be urban properties. So 

far, they haven't figured out how to put urban next to 

agriculture. There are some ideas and those were in the packet, 

where they are going to have the potential for vacant lot 

agricultural enterprises. Some of the code references he saw 

that caused him some heartburn as it relates to St. Lucie County 

is they have a lot of agricultural exemptions that are supported 

by farm animals. A lot of those are supported by cattle. So if 

they do go in the direction of excluding farm animals, that is 

immediately going to create a problem for a lot of folks. If 

they start talking about no more than one farm animal per two 

acres, that could present a problem. He does not know if that 

is economically viable, which is a decision in and of itself. 

Is it economically viable for him to move his cattle onto that 

property if he can only have two cows per acre? That is the 

practical side of it. The legal side of it is, he does not know 

where Ken Pruitt's head is or his staff on, is that a viable 

agricultural operation if it is only two animals? That is the 

legal side of it. Even if the Mr. Pruitt (St. Lucie County 

Property Appraiser) says it is okay, he will not be the Property 

Appraiser forever, and the guy that follows him will have the 

opportunity to change those policies, so there is some range for 

discussion on that. 

Ms. Ehly said one thing that comes to mind is that because of 

their annexation policy in that they don't process future land 

use map amendments and that they do assign land use and zoning 

consistent to that in the County, it is important that they 

maintain the County zoning code and allowable uses in whichever 

option they choose, if they choose to change protocol and 

establish an interim agricultural district. 

Commissioner Becht said that is probably better than Port St. 

Lucie, because they change the zoning to this GU, General Use, 

which can affect what he can do as he comes in. But they do 

have some specific problems they have encountered with specific 

properties that have come in with applications for fencing, for 

clearing, for building pole barns. He is not sure if he is 

looking for her to address that in the general presentation 

tonight; but before they get to the end of the road, they are 

going to need to deal with those issues. 

Ms. Ehly said she thinks the issue of development action, when 

they pursue a development action so a fence would be a building 

permit, when they come in for a building permit, at that time 

they would be required to change to a City zoning 

39 

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classification, unless they had an existing... 

Commissioner Becht said if that is true, if they take that 

position, he wants to fence his property and his property is 

appropriate for cattle raising, the two animals per acre works 

both economically and legally, and he fences his property, now 

because he has done this development thing, he can't get his 

agricultural exemption because now he is considered to have 

developed his property. These issues have to be addressed. He 

thinks Ms. Ehly needs more direction from the Commission. 

Ms. Ehly said she did speak with the Planning Department down in 

Port St. Lucie. The criteria of rezoning to the General Use 

district basically doesn't permit any of the platted lots to be 

converted to that zoning classification. And at this time, 

there are no parcels that have the General Use classification. 

So according to PSL Planning Staff, there are no agricultural 

uses in the City of Port St. Lucie. When they are annexed, they 

are assigned a land use and zoning classification that is... 

Commissioner Becht said he begs to differ. 

Ms. Ehly said that is what their Planning Staff told her. 

Commissioner Becht said he thinks they are going to see ag 

exemptions in the city limits of Port St. Lucie. It goes out to 

Range Line Road. 

Ms. Ehly said ag exemptions are based upon an existing use. 

Commissioner Becht said she said agriculture, he is looking for 

the ag exemption. So they have ag exemptions in the city 

limits? 

Ms. Ehly said sure. They just don't have any General Use 

classifications assigned to any parcels at this time. 

Commissioner Becht said obviously an annexation agreement can 

solve these problems if the property owner chooses to address it 

as they are annexed in. They have had one or two that didn't 

address it as they were annexed. 

Ms. Ehly said true. She can recall several instances where 

Planning Staff has recommended they pursue an annexation 

agreement in order to alleviate any problems down the road. 

Commissioner Becht said again, it is a very complex subject. He 

thinks she have given them a lot of useful information. 

Mayor Benton said he would support an agricultural zoning in the 

City for the future. They don't know what the future will 

bring. But when they talk about eco-tourism, something that has 

worked in the past... The Marine Industrial area, they could 

possibly have fish farming. Along Taylor Creek there is Marine 

Industrial there. But the ability to do this would work very 

well off Indrio Road, there would be the ability to set up a 

full scale fish farm and it could be very profitable. Some 

people have talked about doing that in the city limits down on 

Bell Avenue. He would hope they would have the ability to put 

40 

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an exemption on them. 

Ms. Ehly said that is considered agriculture, yes. Certainly 

there are municipalities in the State of Florida that allow ag 

uses. Just because their neighboring cities don't permit it 

doesn't mean that the City of Fort Pierce can't. If that is the 

direction that the Commission wants to move in, then Staff 

certainly would be happy to research that and put together... 

Mayor Benton said when they had the Comprehensive Plan public 

meetings, he attended most of them. A lot of the meetings were 

on their western boundaries, a lot of the properties that 

thought they would never be annexed into the City. Their big 

concern was they had five acres and they wanted to have their 

cows and horses. He doesn't want to change their lifestyle. 

Ms. Ehly said currently they can have those, there is nothing 

that threatens their existing agricultural use in the annexation 

policy at this time. The only change occurs when development is 

pursued. 

Commissioner Becht asked what if they want to put a new roof on? 

Mayor Benton said there are properties along Jenkins Road for 

instance where they bulldozed some homes that were built and 

maybe that land will go back to its past. Maybe it will go 

backwards, people will have five acres and want to set up a 

little mini-farm. He thinks it is something that should be in 

their development codes, that way it is legal. 

Commissioner Perona said one thing he loves about Fort Pierce is 

it is a multi-use community - you can live on the beach, you can 

live in a downtown area, you can live in a rural area with a 

ranchette. Basically their history is steeped in agriculture. 

It is kind of interesting to read about some of these 

communities that are trying to eliminate agriculture from their 

city limits in any way. When he first read that, he thought 

that is just not a good direction. But he guesses some city 

planners and elected officials sit there and try to define what 

their community is. He thinks Fort Pierce is a multi-use 

community, it should encompass everything they have available to 

them. Anybody that moves to this community can find basically 

any style of life they want. So he would promote anything they 

can do to make these zoning effects proper and move in that 

direction. 

Commissioner Becht asked is that the clear concise direction she 

is looking for? 

Ms. Ehly said she understands they want to protect the existing 

ag uses on the annexed properties. 

Mayor Benton asked is there a consensus to create an agriculture 

zoning in the City? He is okay with it. 

Commissioner Becht said he is willing to look further at it. 

The apprehension he has is, if they create this agriculture 

layer around the perimeter of the City, what happens if the 

41 

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developers go in there and buy the ag land and then come in and 

put high pressure on the Commission to go multi-family, instead 

of putting the multi-family high intense use in the core and 

gradually decreasing the intensity of the use as they get 

further away from the core. He had a very romantic picture as 

Commissioner Perona was talking of a beautiful multi-use 

community. But he thinks they need to be leery of sprawl. How 

they do that differently than Fort Lauderdale and Dade County 

did it and Orange County is doing it, will be the test. If he 

gets his time machine and goes 20 years forward, he could tell 

if they did it right or wrong. Unfortunately he is here now 

trying to codify it so that it happens in a logical orderly way 

so that they don't repeat the mistakes made down south. He does 

not know how they can do that. 

Ms. Ehly said the way the Commission is speaking tonight is a 

move away from urban sprawl. One of the ways that urban sprawl 

is perpetuated is by zoning and land use designations that are 

residential urban in nature, even though they have a substantial 

amount of ag uses out there. By converting the land use over to 

a residential urban land use rather than maintaining an 

agricultural land use leaves those properties unprotected and 

allows an opportunity for somebody to sell their 5 or 10 or 15 

acres for development, and then that leads to urban sprawl 

because it is on the outskirts of the urban core. So she thinks 

protecting these ag uses in whichever way the Commission would 

choose would actually be limiting urban sprawl as much as they 

can. 

Mayor Benton said that was his aggravation from going to these 

many meetings that were held during the Comp Plan. Those 

properties west of 25th Street didn't realize that the County 

Commission in the 1980's took their agriculture and put future 

land use on it of 10 or 12 units per acre. That wasn't their 

job. When and if that became part of the City, it should have 

happened then. But for the County to have decided that this 

area was going to grow like South Florida, he does not know what 

they were thinking. Hopefully that mentality is gone. He wants 

to let those people west of 25th Street or Hartman Road that 

they can be part of the City, but they are not going to try to 

change their way of life. Maybe with the economy the way it is, 

it has slowed the building industry down and maybe they can get 

a better grip on things. He would support an agricultural 

zoning in the City. Is there a consensus of at least three to 

move this forward? 

Commissioner Alexander said yes. 

Mr. David Carlin, Interim Director of Planning, said they will 

continue fine-tuning that and doing some additional research 

based on their discussion tonight. Staff will bring something 

back. This is the first time they have had this discussion, but 

it is by no means the last. 

----- 

The next item was the Consent Agenda. Mayor Benton asked does 

any Commissioner have an item they would like to pull for 

further discussion? (No items were removed.) 

42 

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Alexander, and unanimously carried, that the following items on 

the Consent Agenda be approved: 

a. Request for Public Funds in the amount of $500 submitted by 

Ben DeVries, Treasure Coast Research Park, for 5K run as part of 

the XE3 Event to be held May 21-22, 2011. 

b. Approve extension to Revocable License for Land Use between 

the City and the Treasure Coast Youth Sailing Foundation for use 

of portion of property at Jaycee Park (April 1, 2011 to March 

31, 2016). 

c. Authorize utilization of four firms on a rotating basis for 

Construction Materials Testing & Geotechnical Services - Ardaman 

& Associates Inc., Dunkelberger Engineering & Testing Inc., A.M. 

Engineering & Testing Inc., and Universal Engineering & Sciences 

of St. Lucie County. RFQ No. 6005 

d. Approve increase in Blanket Purchase Order by Sunrise 

Theatre for advertising in the Palm Beach Post from $10,000 to 

not exceeding $14,000. 

e. Approve Memorandum of Agreement between the City and the 

Coastal Florida Police Benevolent Association Inc. providing for 

72 hours unpaid furlough leave for the Police Supervisors 

Bargaining Unit. 

f. Approve submittal of application to Florida Department of 

Transportation for FDOT Highway Safety Grant in the amount of 

$18,000 to expand the Police Department's Aggressive Driving 

Enforcement Program and purchase one message board and four 

radar units. 

g. Approve submittal of application to the NRA Foundation for 

funding in the amount of $3,500 under the NRA Foundation's Range 

Grant Program for the Police Department to purchase Automatic 

External Defibrillators (AED). 

h. Approve Contract for HHF Advisor Services for the HFA 

Hardest Hit Fund Unemployment Mortgage Assistance Program and 

Mortgage Loan Reinstatement Program between the Florida Housing 

Finance Corporation and the City of Fort Pierce Urban 

Redevelopment Department. 

----- 

City Manager Recor said the Department Heads spent all day long 

meeting with Mr. Sumek today and the preliminary Leadership & 

Strategic Planning Workshop for Staff is scheduled all day 

tomorrow in the River Walk Center. So their initiative is well 

underway. 

----- 

City Manager Recor said they have an orientation meeting for 

this year's Budget Advisory Committee last week. The first 

formal meeting of the Committee is on Thursday, March 3rd. They 

have accommodated the review of the Utilities Authority's budget 

within the schedule this year. So one week the Committee will 

be working with the City of Fort Pierce and the next week they 

43 

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will be working with the Utilities Authority. Their goal is to 

have the report to the Commission on both budgets by the end of 

April. 

---- 

City Manager Recor said there is a significant meeting being 

held at the County tomorrow. Congressman Rooney will be in 

town, as well as the Colonel from the Army Corps of Engineers, 

to discuss the Beach Renourishment Project, in response to a 

communication the City sent to the County and the County's 

efforts to secure emergency funding for that. They will have a 

staff member at the meeting representing the City of Fort 

Pierce. That meeting is at 1:15 p.m. in the County Commission 

Chambers on February 23rd. 

----- 

Commissioner Becht said he was at the Sunrise Theatre on Friday 

night and saw Willie Nelson in a packed house. Sunday he was 

able to see Tim Conway. If it wasn't sold out, it was pretty 

close. That is here in Fort Pierce. So go on line and look for 

the Sunrise Theatre and they are going to see some acts which 

are coming here that need their support. 

----- 

Commissioner Perona said he saw over at Jetty Linear Park they 

are putting bollards in for the parking. He is really happy to 

see that happening. South Beach, with all the improvements, at 

any given time they will see people on bicycles or walking. He 

has lived there for five years and never seen the activity he 

has seen in the last couple of months. It is really happening. 

He is very excited about those improvements. 

----- 

Commissioner Perona said they King Power Plant Site is starting 

to get cleaned up. He is starting to think about the great 

things that could possibly happen there. It is another really 

nice thing happening in their community and he looks forward to 

future discussions about that. 

----- 

Mayor Benton said this year the tourists are back in big 

numbers. He wants to thank the folks that are visiting their 

community this winter. He knows sometimes the roads are a 

little busier than usual, especially on the beach; but put a 

smile on your face because it sure does help their economy. 

----- 

Mayor Benton said Saturday night they gave appreciation to a 

local business that has been in business for 50 years, R.K. 

Davis Construction. They honored Richard K. Davis and his wife 

who started 50 years ago and passed the business on to his son 

Doug. They have employed literally hundreds of people in this 

community and done a lot for this community. Whenever they 

needed somebody to make a commitment, R.K. Davis has been 

sponsors for many things. R.K. Davis and Main Street is why the 

old Historic City Hall is still standing. When he was on the 

City Planning Board 20 years ago, it was condemned. That 

building would not be there if they hadn't put a lot of effort 

into restoring that. So if they see Mr. Davis on the street, 

thank him. 

----- 

There being no further business, Mayor Benton declared the 

meeting adjourned at 9:30 p.m. 

----- 

44 

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Adjournment. 

ATTEST: 

______________________________ 

CITY CLERK 

_____________________________ 

MAYOR COMMISSIONER 

45 

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City of Fort Pierce Minutes of a Regular Meeting

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