001We're going to call this meeting to order. Time approximate 5. It is now 10 to 5. If we could start with the pledge. Superintendent, do you have someone for us? Madam Chair, we'll start with The Pledge with Ms. Diana Walker, UTM President. I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. I recommend that we adopt the agenda as presented. As there have been no requests in the board for changes. Second. Motion by Mr. Horan. Second by Dr. Woltanski. Any discussion? Any no votes? Hearing none. The motion passes. I recommend approval of the school board meeting minutes from the July 29, 2025 school board meeting. So moved. Motion by Dr. Woltanski. Second by Mr.
002Dick. Any discussion? Any no votes? Hearing none. The motion passes. Let's wait if we could on our gem and see if we have any citizen input at this time. First up to speak, we have Ms. Lisa Mongelia requesting five minutes. Marie, I have just been told by council that we have to wait till at least 5 for citizen input. So, if our Jim is here. Thank you. At this time, I would like to invite Ms. Dianne Wischmeier and Principal Laura Leotard up to join Mrs. Conn and Mr. Turney. Thank you. Come on over here. So, as most of you know who are here this evening, Dianne Wischmeier is a powerhouse of passion, precision and purpose. Her love for mathematics radiates through every corner of Coral shores. From her AP pre calculus classes, remarkable 100% pass
003rate this year, and the incredible high pass rates she has year after year, to the countless hours she dedicates to tutoring students before, during and after school. As a sponsor of the Mu Alpha Theta and the visionary behind the school's first Numeracy Week. Diane elevates math education with creativity and commitment. Her summers are spent attending and presenting at conferences, recruiting fellow educators and grading for advanced placement. Always pushing the boundaries of excellence for herself and for her students. A proud member of the Florida Council of Teachers of Mathematics, Diane also brings her heart to the community. Volunteering at the Rotary Nautical Flea Market and starring in the staff run Haunted House to raise scholarship funds. Her impact is both in academics and deeply human. An inspiring blend of intellect, generosity and joy. We are proud
004to honor her with this GEMS award for creating so many great educational moments for her colleagues and for her students. Thank you so much, Ms. Wischmeier [APPLAUSE] Since it's not quite five yet, I'd like to move to the consent agenda, if that's okay. No, you really want to go to reports. Okay, I really want to go to reports. In case you didn't know, that's what I really want to do. I guess that means you're up, Pat. Madam chair, board members, Mr. Superintendent, my recommendation, I think based on time available, would be to present maybe the Reynolds School report in hopes that that one might go the quickest. That's fine. Thank you. Okay, so it was just a couple meetings ago that we brought the Reynolds School kind of conceptual plan to the board. Had some
005good discussion, some good feedback. Based on the feedback we received, we made a couple of. We're kind of proceeding with schematic as indicated when we closed the last meeting. But I wanted to come right back to you because we did make a couple of initial changes based on the feedback we got at that meeting. Specific to Chair Conn's questions on the spaces. We made a couple adjustments and the. If we take a look at the front office space that I'm indicating to here, that used to be two separate offices. There was some concern with the total number of offices there. So, we made it more of a flex. It could be an office or something else if we decided to. So, that kind of opened up that space. And then if you go down towards
006the bottom where the H Vac office is, the maintenance supervisor offices. There was some discussion on the size of the maintenance supervisor office and the HVAC office. But that little notch previously went into the AC office. So, we moved the notch. We made more space for the AC techs, which there's three of, plus all their equipment, so they could absolutely use that space and decrease the amount of space for the maintenance supervisor. The rest of the kind of walls are dictated a little bit by where the windows are as discussed last time. So, we didn't see really much option to change anything else. The other point that came up that wasn't indicated previously was the perimeter wall goes where indicated in the bold around the back of the building, but not around the front because
007we still want to accentuate the kind of the historical highlights of the old structure. Itself and you can see a couple verticals of the wall and how we'll have some vegetation on the outside, the exterior of the walls again to kind of help blend that visually into the neighborhood, but also act as a sound deadener, a sound buffer if you will, for the trucks that are in that facility. There was a question on adding a generator. We're still having those conversations. In the conversations we've had, we'll get some costing once we get a little further on in design. We believe the initial, when it was brought up, my thought was the request would have been to have a generator power the front building. In hindsight, we think if we're going to do a generator on
008the site, it makes more sense to put it on the mechanics buildings in back because they're likely as our priority people to come back after a storm would be first to come back and possibly before power has been restored. Need that generator. So, if that encases the the decision, we go with the generator. So, with that being said again, let me go to the slide. Conceptual is done. We're into schematic right now. Unless there's significant objection by the board tonight, we'll continue with what has just been presented through the schematic design process and bring you back a completed schematic design when that's done. Looks like we'll be about the 19th of September before that's done. So, probably not until the October meeting before we bring you back a full blown schematic design. And then moving
009through the rest of the timeline as depicted there. Planning budget still is at 11 million. Once we get all the construction documents done, it goes out to bid and we find a CM to work us through a GMP for the project. Questions on Reynolds? Questions anybody? Can you go back to the picture? What is the covered. What's that space to be used for? There's like a wall in the parking structure, parking lot, a three walled thing and a covered canopy. That is where the dumpsters go, I believe. And I don't have my architect on online right now. Okay, that's fine. The walls are where the dumpsters are. And I don't have a question, but I can get a response to you and the rest of the board here maybe before the end of the meeting.
010Other questions? I have a quick question. Was any. Did you guys try to make the new building, the building in green, smaller at all? We think those are the proper spaces based on the space they're currently using. These are much smaller than the spaces they're currently using, but we believe this is the amount of space they need to operate, given the functions they're still conducting. Thank you. And you are looking into the generator, correct? Still on the discussion. Once we get into more of a costing of that specific piece of equipment, we will kind of do the cost benefit for you like we do for all of our generators. It's something we look at quite routinely, the generator maintenance year to year as compared to how many times you actually use it. The other interesting
011piece about this, this facility, it will not be the 2ft above flood that we are building most of everything else to. So, you run the risk of using that building in a storm anyway. But the standard power outages that we have, it would be a good backup for that type of thing. Other questions? Thank you, Pat. Okay, back to you. You can do whatever you want now. Look at that. So, let's go back then to citizen input request first up, and our only person to speak this evening is Ms. Lisa Mongelia, representing the history of the Diving Museum. Requesting five minutes. Oh, hello, viewers at home. Hello, for those of you that are here tonight, my name is Lisa Mongelia. I'm the executive director at the History of Diving Museum. If you haven't been there
012in a while, we say don't drive by, dive in. But I wanted to bring to the attention to the school board. I haven't done a presentation in quite a while, but just to let you know what we're doing for programming and offering to the school district from Key Largo to Key west, so we have expanded. Some of the good things about covid is everybody's learning how to do more virtual programming. And we also are now finally getting back to full staff. So when we go down to Key west, we can actually go in person, do a blitz, hit several schools at one time, do marathon in a blitz, and then come back because it's easier for us to do one off schools up in this area when it doesn't take as long to travel. And,
013you know, I'm speaking to people that know all this, but what we're doing for 2026, the History of Diving Museum in 2016 opened a feature exhibit room. Right now for the last, since 20, I think 18, we've done two featured exhibits a year from January to April, it's dive into art. And it's had a variety of themes from the history of underwater art before there were cameras, the beauty of recycling the schools. We partner with the Art Guild of the Purple Isles and offer programming to the schools. We've had everything from five schools to I think the most was 11 schools any particular year. We come up with a unique theme for 2026. It's going to be Stories from the Sea. So, not only are we working with the literary departments at the schools, we're
014also working with the public libraries to offer programming story time. We're going to be reaching out to locals, writers guilds and things like that, but focusing back on the school system. What we do is at the end of last year, last year was Fintastic Fish of Florida and we talked about some of the environmental issues. The Spinning Fish we worked with FWC with some with NOAA with the Marine Sanctuary came out with some more time sensitive programming. The kids learn a lesson plan that has to do with an environmental message. Then they create art. Their art is then on display at the museum between January and April. For the last several years, we've been able to do an additional traveling exhibit with the student work. Right now, Fantastic Fish is on display at Eco and
015Discovery Center. Our Edge of the Sea that talked a lot about seagrass and sponge restoration was on display at Crane Point Hammock in Marathon. Our Fantasies, which did a lot of folklore and sea legends and sea shanties that was on display for several months at different library branches. So, these are programs that not only speak to the students, but it also speaks to the community in different pockets after it closes at the diving museum. And some of our biggest successes for me are when the students bring the parents or the older siblings to the museum to see their stuff on display. Because a lot of kids like to do art. They like to do finger painting, they like to get all messy and gooey and do papier mache and then they get to see it
016on display. And there's a huge sense of pride. A lot of the principals, a lot of the teachers come to the exhibit opening in January. So, we get a lot of community involvement. But what's nice is when those kids bring their parents or their grandparents or other people that are in town to also see it. And then on their high school resume or their college resume, it can be in their portfolio that they have a museum quality piece of art that's on display. So, it really has been very successful. We're excited about Stories from the Sea. We are also going to make available a Dive into reading program. It's mostly geared towards 4th, 5th grade age levels. I know that there is a literacy coordinator, I think is the title. So, they already have reading
017coaches. They already have identified students who need. We give them a book, they read it. When they get done again, they get passes to the museum. We've been able to do a meet the author on Zoom so the kids can talk to the author who wrote that book and learn about, you know, the whole process of creative writing as a fourth grader. So, a lot of these programs are beneficial and we gear it towards fourth, fifth grade level. But that doesn't mean they have to be in fourth or fifth grade. It can be younger or older or English as a second language, things like that. We offer Museum in Motion so that if the students. It's really hard. I love Key West. It's really hard for them to come all the way up here. So,
018again we go to them. Is that my five minutes? Yes, ma'am. Okay, so that's it. Museum in motion. Dive into reading and dive into art. And you know, we're here for the students and here for the community. Thank you so much for that. Very informative and we look forward to continue to work with you. Moving on to our regularly scheduled programming. All items listed as consent agenda items are considered routine and non controversial by the school board and will be approved by a single motion. There will be no separate discussion of these items prior to this meeting. Board members have had the opportunity to review each of these items and may request that any item may be moved to an action item for individual consideration. That being said, I recommend approval of the consent agenda
019as presented. I'll move approval. Second. Motion by Mr. Dick. Second by Mr. Horan. Any discussion? Any no votes? Hearing None. The motion passes. Back to reports, Mr. Lefere. Okay. Good evening again. Back for my next update. This one will be on the Rex Weech renovation project. We are very happy to update you tonight and bring to you at least the Phase 1 guaranteed maximum price contract for you to consider on the action agenda tonight so we can get this project started. Hopefully the design process is complete and the contractor has in fact developed an initial guaranteed maximum price contract. Based on our current project budget of $3.5 million, the total project came in just under $5 million. And since the training center was the priority from the program, an initial phase of the project was
020developed focusing on that structure and some of the associated site work not only for the training center, but for the remainder of the project as well, specifically the concession and before museum. The cost of this first phase came in at 3.18 million. And that's what is on the action agenda for consideration tonight. If the board elects to approve this contract, work will commence almost immediately, probably about A week from now, August 26, we would be able to mobilize and start the demolition. The construction of the structure of the training center itself would start towards the end of September. And the estimated timeline for the completion of the training center would be the May 26th. Just to review. This is not a review. What we included in the attachment to the board agenda was the construction
021site plan. Just so folks can kind of understand what's going on. The training center is the highlighted yellow area. That's where it would be constructed. So, the fence around it is indicated in red there. So, the parking lot and all that area around where the existing batting cages and pitching area is, the training area would be closed off to the public. So, that's the current maintenance plan for phase one, site plan for the maintenance phase. And we just included. These are not new slides. They're just what we showed previously, the renderings of the training center itself, which is what the focus of phase one of the project will be. And again, that's going to be consider consideration for action item tonight for the school board to consider. Do we have a prospective remobilization dollar amount?
022Because once they remove everything from the field to come back for a phase two, that's not going to be free. Yeah. If the decision is not to complete phase two within the timeline of phase one and we have to close finish phase one and close the site down, probably anywhere from 800,000 to a million dollars additional cost because you'll have to remobilize and do all that setup and take down twice, essentially. Do we have a price if we don't do it in, quote, two phases? So if the decision is inside of that, the timeline to complete phase one, you lose substantially less money almost, I would argue, in having conversations with the contractor, if it's done within the first two or three months, it's probably no cost. So what we would need to do then
023is vote today on phase one and then at the next meeting, could you bring us phase two a savings of a million dollars seems like we want to get that within the first couple months of the project. No? Yes, absolutely. Pat, can you. The total project costs and the phase one, how much. Like, I know. Can you just remind me of how much was the knight granted, what are we. What was left over? Like, where is the funding from the leftover Tommy Roberts? Yes. So, the remainder of what was left from the original project was $2 million. Just in some change. That's what we started working with when the initial estimates came, when the scope of work got developed and the initial estimates came in on that. That came in at about 4.5 million. So,
024we knew we were short. We did do the application through the Ed Knight foundation and got a 500 plus 500 total of a million dollars from the Ed Knight foundation and most which brings us from 2 to 3 million dollars. And then we went to the TDC seeking 1.5 million dollars and got that $500,000 from that grant. So, that brings us from 3 million to the 3.5 budget number that I referenced and kind of the number we're working with now here coming very soon in the next month, we're going to start our discussions on the capital budget and the capital project planning within that. And as you all know, there's some revenue in there that was not, was not available to us when we considered this $3.5 million budget. So, then you know, at that
025point the board has the prerogative to discuss how to allocate that additional funding and potentially cover current projects or future projects. So the 3 million is for phase one is for the training center and the TDC money is specifically for phase two. Yes, that $500,000 is targeted for the kind of the museum concessions structure. All right, thank you. Mr. Lefere, does that price include all the soft costs involved? Yes. The only thing it really we don't because this question was asked of us. There's some IT stuff, cameras that are not included in there right now because we think we may be able to use some of our existing cameras. There's some other IT type stuff that we're still working on that are not included. But it's not something that we wouldn't be able to handle
026outside the cost of the project and that we would often do a normal FF&E furnishing fixtures and equipment, type of budget that is always outside of the project budget. Okay, thank you. Any further questions? Thank you. Pat. Hitting for the triple play tonight, another baseball field project to talk about the Founders park project. Some of you actually got on site, I think as I understand this afternoon. I was there Yesterday speaking with Mr. Saunders and his task force. The project is still kind of in schematic design phase. We'll get to that in a little bit minute. In a little minute. But just to refresh ourselves on the kind of the scope of work, we're looking at an artificial turf surface, the buildings being considered our concession, press box building as well as a multi purpose
027building which includes the locker room, the area for the athletic trainer, some storage Some restrooms, obviously, the bleachers that we're going to put in the complex, and then some new dugouts. Since the last time we presented this, there have been some small changes to the site plan, but nothing really significant. I would say probably the most significant was we brought the bleachers down to grade to kind of help with some issues with the vision of the people in and around the bleachers. So, again, it still consists of the concession restroom, press box building and the multi purpose building which is behind the home dugout. So, that's really specific to design. Nothing really significant changed. Again, still an artificial turf outfield. What is new is the graphics, the renderings that we asked the design team to
028put together. We wanted to kind of. We didn't. There were some concerns expressed about the buildings and how they will impact the aesthetics of the park. And so we asked the design team to come forward with some kind of new, some new graphics, some new renderings of the site to kind of show how the buildings actually really kind of blend in. For one thing, the new buildings are designed to kind of follow the architecture and the paint scheme of the buildings that are currently at the park. So, they'll blend in in that regard. And previously we had kind of the treescape hidden from view that was in there, but very lightly outlined. So, we wanted to accentuate those. So, we asked them to show them so you can get an indication, a little bit better
029indication of how the buildings do, do kind of blend into the rest of the park and how it is represented with regard to the trees and the foliage around it. So, we thought that was a better look than what we had previously shown the public and the board for that matter. Back to the slides. So, we finished up conceptual design and we're well into schematic design right now, hoping to move forward with some, hopefully some kind of just general consensus from the board tonight after discussion, the next big timeline kind of on this one is we hope to bring you the finished design, development design here at the October 10, October 7 meeting. That's a pretty tight timeline. So, we want to keep things moving on track in that regard. If we can make that
030timeline, we would hope to have construction documents done in the kind of March, late March time frame. Once construction documents are finished, it can be put out to bid to subcontractors. The contractor can develop a guaranteed maximum price that we could bring back to the board for approval and then we could get started at the end, at the completion of this upcoming baseball season. That's the estimated timeline. Current cost is still estimated at $6.1 million of a $5.0 million budget. So, that needs to be discussed as well. Let me check my notes real quick. Okay. So, that is, in fact, all I have to present, but I'm sure there's some questions and some discussion we want to have, so I'm standing by to support. So, we're still anticipating or at least projecting that we're going
031to put out an application for the TDC for some funds as well, just like we did at Rexweech. If that's the direction that we get from the board, we can absolutely do that. Are we able to do that, or is that something the city of Islamorada needs to do? Well, if it's a project we're funding, I think whoever's funding the project would go after the grant. Yeah. Okay. Worst case scenario, we both piggyback on each other, get them in simultaneously, and whoever wins wins. Maybe we both win. Other questions? Can you go to the design? Yep. I have one job here. No, not that. Go to the schematic. Slide up to the one that you can see. The back stomp. Keep going. The baseball field. From the field. From the field. I know which one
032you're talking about. You want windows, right? I want to make sure that there's a window so that if you work the concession stand, you don't miss your kid's game. And I also, you know, when they bring back project, you know, it needs to have Coral Shores logos and color. It needs to be Coral Shores home team. I mean, we need to present it as that, you know, just like Rex Weech and Tommy Roberts have conch shells. We need hurricanes and branding. Yeah, we can add some branding. We can. We typically don't do that until, well, probably about now. Mid to late. Schematic is when we start adding that. So, that would be appropriate. But to your first comment that came up last night, this is the concession stand at the bottom, underneath the press box.
033Obviously, the press box needs windows, but the concept is to add some windows to the concession stand so folks can see what's going on at the gate. And not the bathrooms. Yes. So I was one of the people that went down there today and took a look, and it's clear to me a lot needs to be done. So, I'll start with that. I want to figure out that giant building behind the dugout at the third baseline. What is the purpose of that? It's currently. And maybe I can get some support from any of the Coral Shores admin team. It's currently. I think there are restrooms out there in that building and it's currently used for storage. That's at the first baseline. The restrooms are down the first baseline. No, I'm talking about in this on
034the schematic. Oh, the new buildings. Yeah. I thought you're talking about existing buildings. Okay, let me go back to the design then. So, this building here is a multipurpose building. It's got a locker room. Most of the space is occupied by locker room. It's got the athletic training area. It's got a changing room for the for the umpires, for the officials, and it's got some storage and a couple of restrooms to go along with that. How big is that building? Because I'm wondering if we actually need that building. Maybe we can just make the press box building bigger. We have restrooms underneath the press box or no? We do. Okay, so we've got. And in my mind, I'm thinking about our rexweech project. Right. So, in the rexweech project, under the press box, we have
035a restroom or restrooms. Correct. But we also have the bigger restrooms that are a little bit further down the field. Correct? Correct. There's a very small office. And I'm not sure there's a restroom in the current press box at Rex Weech. But we're putting one or we're not putting one? The current press box that's at Rex Reach is the final press box. Okay, but I mean, are there bathrooms in addition to the ones that are at the end of the third baseline. at Rex Weech? Once we add the, once we finish the entire phase, yes. That's what I'm asking. And so I'm just wondering, because there are the existing bathrooms, they may need to be fixed up. I did not actually go in the bathrooms, but if we put, say, handicap accessible bathrooms, two underneath
036the press box here. There are currently. In this project, there are currently public restrooms as part of the press box concession facility. Okay, so how big and how much cost is associated with the giant building behind the dugout? And I'll tell you where I'm going with all this for everybody, because you and I have had these conversations. I don't have a warm and fuzzy from the Islamorada. Sorry. We still don't have a use agreement. We're looking at $6 million, which. It's not that the Coral Shore students and families don't deserve. They absolutely do. But we keep going back and forth. We do something, the city says yes or no, the city comes back and then we say yes or no. I'd like to move the project along. I know there are some issues about the
037scope of the project. For me, there's an issue with the cost of the project. And I'm just wondering how we get Coral Shores High School baseball students, families and players what they need. A, if it's with a 6 million price tag, something that'll give me a better warm and fuzzy in terms of our. I'm going to call it ownership. Even though we have no ownership over the field. Maybe that comes. You said in the use agreement, but I still haven't seen that. So, I love the schematics. I think this would be beautiful. A 6 million price tag is high. Part of the reason for that is because nothing has been done for a very time. And that part of it. I understand. But before I commit $6 million of school district funds, I'm going to
038need a better. More comfort in our right to use the field. The use of the field, the length of use of the field. You know, much like for our Trumbo project, we're doing a ground lease, right? They're going to put all this money in way more than 6 million. I get that. But they want a warm and cozy that they have this property for 99 years before they start sucking tons of money into it. And I want to have that same comfort factor before I spend over $6 million of school district funds on this project. And so I don't know how we get that done. I don't know if, you know, it's you or Mr. Tierney or if we have to make calls as a board to different board members because we can't all be
039in a room together discussing this. But I'm not comfortable right now with where we stand on use of the field based on the amount of money that's required. So we've got the existing interlocal agreement that allows us to continue using the field and move forward with what we're proposing. But that also doesn't. I'm sorry to interrupt you, but doesn't that seem use the same ILA also allow them to pull out? Not that they would. I know that's not the intention. It gives some option for that. But that interlocal agreement also calls for a license agreement for the field and an associated use agreement for the field field, which is getting a lot of discussion at the meetings that I've been attending with the village. Those are being negotiated currently with village staff and will be
040shared with both the school board and the village council as we work through those drafts. And we can address some of these kind of legal and ownership type discussions through those documents to include if we need to amend the ILA. If there are concerns that we are not currently covering in the ILA, we can flesh those out, hash those out either through the license and use agreement or through amendments to the interlocal agreement. I can assure you we can get to the place, a place where the school board is comfortable with regard to spending however much money this ends up being. We had some great conversation last night at Mr. Saunders Task Force meeting. Got some good feedback on what that use agreement should say and what it shouldn't say. And we'll work together between
041his staff and ours to answer all the questions that are being coming forward and we'll bring them back to the school board. So, that piece, I think we can ultimately satisfy the board's concerns with regard to the specifics on the multi purpose building. I don't have the exact. It's coming to me now just in. It's about 2,000 square feet. I was going to guess just a little bit more than that for the multi purpose building. Again, remember, everything that we have in the design plan has come from the input we received from the program itself. It's a facility that they believe they absolutely need. We ask some hard questions through the design process on why they need it and as being as fiscally conservative as we can through these design processes. We try to get
042the programs as much as they can without spending an exorbitant amount of taxpayer money. But we believe what we're bringing forward is modest to say the least for what kind of the programs up and down the county are receiving. Hey Pat, as we go forward, can you kind of give us. I'm not saying today, but as we progress in this, can you give us kind of a breakdown as to what each individual building may cost in specific the concession stand? Because obviously if we're getting a set amount of money for Rex Weech. It gives us some kind of barometer to set us to what we can hopefully anticipate in the event we do get TDC funds because this is a true public park and it will be used for other things other than the baseball
043team. So, don't holdme to it. But you saw the timeline I had on there. I'm hoping to bring you back design development on October 7th. So, I'm hoping to get as many questions answered tonight as possible so we can keep the ball moving. 2,000 square feet of a new construction is probably going to run you $1.5 million ish. Of that 6 million dollar total, maybe closer to 2. Pat, I agree that we do need to have all the T's, T's crossed and I's dotted because we have to know what the costs are later on, who's responsible for maintenance and who's responsible if the field has to have some major work on it down the road. But I also agree, you know, we've done a fantastic job in Key west for that Rex Weech Field and
044we're continuing on doing it. And while I do have concern that this is not school board property, it still is. It's owned by the municipality and it is the same people that we collect taxes from. So, I can get over that that it's not our property. And I really think we need to do what they want within our, you know, of course we seem to go over on all the budgets a little bit, but I think we need to do what they want. And I also want to know for sure that the Islamorada council is fully behind this. I need that stated to us. But you know... I've said all along we will work with village staff to make sure we meet with all of the groups. Whether it's the task force that I met
045with last night or their parks and rec or ultimately the village council, we can't move forward with this project without their approval. The people in Key west, they go to that Rex Field and Rex Weech Field and they're extremely proud of it. So, the people of Islamorada should be able to go to this field and be extremely proud of it. And that's what we're... That's what I'm, and Marathon is coming next looking for some help because they want to be proud of theirs too. But we need to do that because it's for the students and the community is still part of Monroe County. So, I can get over that. It's not ours, but we do need to know who's going to pay for what later on. So thatto get to that point, because I don't
046know that answer is coming anytime. The question has been asked of me in particular, who is going to be responsible for the replacement of the turf. The quote was, I believe six, eight, ten years down the road. For what we're seeing right now, these fields are lasting at least 10 years. So, we're talking about 10 years down the road. And the language in the agreements right now only speaks to maintenance costs. I would argue that this replacement of the field is not a maintenance cost, it's a capital project. And as that situation came about, we would start to see the deterioration at year 10 or 12 or whatever it is. And we would have the conversation at that point on, are we going to replace it? And if so, are we going to reach out
047to whoever to help us, to help us fund that? But I don't see any value in identifying who's going to replace a field 10 years down the road. You dont see any value inthat. Committing to that right now? I don't know. I think it's going to drag this process down that's already been dragged down for four or five years. Because there was no agreements? No, because we're installing something that's never been installed before. And we have fields that we've watched that we've witnessed in Key west that last at least 10 years. I would have thought it would have lasted more than 10 years anyway. But that's the average kind of. If you look at the national numbers, that's pretty average now down here because of the sun and the elements, we're concerned that they're not
048going to last that long. But the first one I saw put in was on Sigsbee Park Annex in Naval Air Station Key west. And it's still doing fantastic. When was that put in? It was, I believe, 2013. And still looks fantastic. It looks great now. It doesn't get the use that some of these other fields are getting, but still I won't be here. And so 10 years from now, none of the people sitting here will be here. Mr. Tierney will be here. Just like every other capital project that we face. When they come up for consideration, we start talking about them in our ten year plan or our five year plan. I don't see how this is any different than that. It's just like a school replacement or a bus replacement. It's no different than
049that. I don't see why you would commit anybody to that replacement in this far in advance. So I'm going to still be living here then and probably still going to baseball games. And in the, you know, 25 years that I've lived here, the Islamorada community has been nothing but supportive, overly supportive of Coral Shores High School specifically. What they do for our students here is tremendous. And I don't believe that the exception are the people serving on the village council now, their kids went to this, to this school. They are supportive of this school. And I don't believe it's going. You know, I think there's no reason to think that any disagreements we can't work out, you know, and I think the biggest issue right now is that there were so many people who didn't
050realize about the ila. And so it's surprising to people. There's a lot of new people who weren't here when the park went in and they just didn't know. Well, you know, once we get the logos up there, I mean, it's not going to be a misunderstanding. And afterwards that this is a joint venture. We have many joint ventures between Islamorada and the school board, the Islamorada library and you know, the part of the fire department. You know, these are all joint projects and between the school board and Islamorada and they work out fine. It's going to work out fine. So I am super hopeful it will work out fine. But the lawyer in me wants to see the paperwork that says that we're guaranteed to have the use of the field for X amount of
051time before we put all that money in it. I know it's being worked on. I'm not saying it's not being worked on, but I will feel better when I see those documents and what exists in them. We're trying to work together now and there are issues and there are personalities and just like this board won't be the board 10 years from now, not even probably eight years from now. Same will be with Islamorada Council. But if we have legal documents in writing that allow us continued use of that field in the way that we want and hope to many, if not most of my concerns will be, will be good. One question I do have is on the schematic you have approximate location of future covered hitting and pitching facility. Is the cost of that
052in the price and just the placement is approximate? That cost is not included. The original scope of work was to keep the existing facility outside of the outfield fence there. The recent, a relatively recent request was to build something new there. And that's not currently included in the scope. That's just kind of identified as a location. Okay. So it's really more than the 6.1 estimate if you include that building? If we do, but we're not right now. Okay, so that building's on here, but not getting built. It's a site for a building. If you're going to put a building there is where it was identified. We asked them to put it there. Just because we were. Because it came up during a design team meeting. Okay. It's not currently included in the scope of work
053or the cost. And right now it's basically used for hitting. Correct? There's a batting cage out there. And the batting cages will be where instead? The scope of work as it stands right now is the batting cages that they have will remain. Okay. Is there any money in this budget to fix up that batting cage? Because that batting cage is. We would need to a, if that batting cage needs some maintenance, we can do that within our maintenance budget. It needs more than a little maintenance. We'll take a look. Thank you. All right, thank you. So I called this slide back up just because I'm a little wary of this date, as is our contractor, the design development date. I would like to bring you on 10 7, a design development plan that includes the
054two buildings as presented to Nate, both the concession press box with restrooms as well as the multi purpose building. So I'm happy to keep voting on these things, but at some point we're going to need an actual gmp. And until I have actual legal documents in my hand regarding use and licensing agreements, I don't see how I can be voting on GMPs. GMP, as always, never comes until we have final construction documents and it gets bid out. It's all estimates up until then. The agreements. We can, we can, we already started kind of fast tracking those just recently. Once we decided, once we figured out we think we're beyond some of these initial hurdles now we have what we need to kind of finalize those documents and we will work with village staff to keep
055those moving along and maybe have some drafts to you sooner rather than later. Okay, thank you. Anything else? So not actually about Founders park, but this is the perfect time. I have brought up before this board before about getting in construction consultants to look over our projects that are $5 million or up. You know, much like the public adjuster I used when my house got wrecked in Irma. Yes, you have to pay them money, but yes, they also get you money, more money, because they can look through. They know where you can cut, they know where you have to add. And based on what, in my opinion was some issues with Tommy Roberts. I would like at some point for this board to consider not hiring somebody full time, but on a project by project
056basis, a consultant for these projects that can go through the specifics, the prices, can make themselves aware of the costs of doing business down here. I don't, you know, if we have somebody down here. Great. But we don't really have anyone currently on staff that knows the nuances, at least of fields, if not even if they knew schools and buildings. And it would help me spend money if I knew that we were spending it the right way on the right things. Thank you. We ready go straight to legal? I guess. For the most part, we've been pretty much focused on the ground lease for the last several weeks. And what you have in front of you tonight is our, I would say, mostly finished product. It is in a final form, but there are a
057couple of agreeable modifications that we have worked out, but they are not in the document right now. What you also have in front of you is an interim agreement to extend until our next meeting while we work out the language on those two issues, one of which was the timing of financing, and the other was changing from an option or whatever we had there to a right of first refusal on the property for the administrative lot. I've spoken to you all about this before the meeting, so you. I think you all understand, but that's been our focus for the last few weeks. And I usually call you all. I do call you all before a meeting, and I think I've straightened all the legal issues that we had for today. But if there's any questions,
058I'm happy to entertain. No questions from the board or? YesI did speak. I'm sorry, coming back to you, I just want to make sure that we're going to take a look at the eligibility for retired and disabled employees. It was not clear to me in this lease how that was going to be handled. And I want to make sure that we continue the purpose of the construction of the building. So, that's something I would like to, you know, have you take a look at. And I'm also concerned because one of the things I was very concerned with was obviously the space there is extremely valuable. And although I see that there is parking allotted for each unit, I did not read anywhere on there where it was covered. Parking. What I don't. I understand. The
059schematics appear to have parking underneath, but nowhere in the document did I read that it was included. And I want to make sure that we have good use of that space. And that was something else I was interested in. And I did mention to you that I just wanted clear, you know, that a deed survives foreclosure. And I'm going to let Hunter talk to you because he's got all those three things under control. But I. Did you want what you and I Spoke about does still remain the. My position. Our position on it. But Hunter will address the retiree thing first. Okay. Yeah. So, your concerns basically making sure that we're able to get new teachers in there every year, correct? Yes, my concern is that over time, based on the language that was here,
060that it is still eligible for retirees and disabled people as long as they earn 70% of their income from Monroe County. But once you reach that position, your money no longer comes from Monroe county, it comes from frs. And I wanted to make sure that. I understand the natural attrition, but to make sure that we had enough units available at all times to address our incoming teachers. Because that was the spirit of this project and I wanted to make sure that. That we continue that portion of it, keep it as we were intended for it to be. So under 608, there's basically a minimum threshold set forth in there. So, it. It's set to work. So, if there's not a certain natural attrition rate in a given year, then there will be non renewals to
061make up for that difference. Right now it's set at 10%. So, the effect would be 15 units in any given year at a minimum. So 15 units will be available annually to new teachers? Yes. Out of 150 units at a minimum. They, you know, Vscor can maybe speak on it, but before, they had projected a possible natural attrition rate of what, 30 to 50% typically. So, that's what they're estimating would happen. In reality, what we built in there was basically a minimum threshold to ensure that new people could get in, new district employees could get in on any given year. And the non renewals will be of non district people. Yeah, people other than district personnel. So you would not renew someone's lease at the end of the year in order to make room from
062one of our teachers. Correct. And bear in mind, don't forget, the whole purpose of this was not to keep permanent housing. It was to make sure they're in, they're saving money, they're trying to get permanent housing within the community and getting out. That is exactly my point. So that with the attrition, I think there's always going to be space available for our people trying to do. I understand. It's just there was two different paragraphs there. They kind of conflicted each other and I just wanted to make sure that we were clear on. On the goal here. That's all. Thank you. Sorry. Go ahead. Their goal is probably to keep all units full. Our goal is to keep them Full with staff. So, I think if the agreement reads in a way that staff gets the
063majority of the housing as long as all those units are filled, I can't imagine a reason they would be unhappy with that. For your next concern with the underneath parking, the ground lease generally doesn't talk about. Talk anything about how the structure is built or what it's going to look like. That's what the preliminary concepts documents are for and what the, you know, project design plans are for and why. I pointed out previously that if any member of the board has an issue with the preliminary concept documents, now is the time to work them out because of the material change language we had previously discussed. And I would certainly consider a change to the underneath parking a change in the overall concept, you know, making it a material change and, you know, subject to board
064approval. My concern was that material change could have been subjective. The schematics appears a certain way, but I just wanted to be certain because nowhere in there, although we detail other facets of the project, nowhere did I read that said covered parking. Opposed to. I believe it just said parking assigned to each unit or something to that effect. I just wanted to make sure that that part of the project was covered. Yep. That would be in accordance with the preliminary concept documents and Vascor can confirm but. [AWAY FROM MIC] Thank you. But that is why I asked last project. I'm sorry, the last project that was an issue because of height restrictions. So, they, you know, it was eliminated. So, I wanted to be sure that that was not the case this time. Yeah. Then
065third was, you know, concerned with the financing. They're limited to, you know, mortgaging away the leasehold interest. So, it shouldn't impact the board's fee, simply interest in the property and the bank would have to use the property under the conditions of the ground lease were they to foreclose. Any other questions for legal superintendent? Thank you, Madam Chair. Well, our first week of school went as well as we could possibly hope. And I just want to thank some of the employee groups that go into making that opening so smooth is it doesn't happen by accident. First off, I've mentioned how clean the schools are over the summer and they were amazingly well prepared to welcome students. So, I appreciate the work that the custodians do and I just want to thank them publicly because the schools
066look great and that is hot, hard, sweaty work. Bus drivers, another very difficult job, were near flawless as they worked to get students back and forth on that first day, which is normally chaotic, but they did a particularly good job. And then the cafeteria workers, I spent a lot of time in cafeterias those first two days and they had organized cafeterias and warm smiles. I get to talk to a lot of students and although many of them small in stature, were clearly concerning consumers discerning and they gave the food very hard marks. So, I'm grateful to them as well. I got to visit all 10 of our district operated schools the first two days of school, as did Ms. Acevedo. I appreciate spending some time with Dr. Woltanski to start off the day. I just
067want to thank the teachers, the school based administrators, support staff for opening those schools so flawlessly. By the second day, the teachers were in content, the classrooms were welcoming, the students were learning rigorous material right up through this morning when I got to visit the upper schools keys again. So, I appreciate everybody's work. We have a meeting on Thursday with the principals to continue to support them as they support the teachers and the students. And I'm very optimistic about the course of the this year. Thank you. Board reports. Ms. Talbot? Yes, madam Chair. Sorry. Our state representative, Jim Mooney would like to say a few words if we could. Oh, no way. Come on up. Oh, and he's bringing Kate with him. Are you kidding me right now? Public comment. Forget it. Well, we had
068an invite here. We don't know where it came from, but we're here anyway, so thank you for having us here. We're not asking for money. This is good. We actually are talking about giving you money. That's even better. So, you know, with a little legislative update for the school board, I see sue in Tallahassee. I think she has a second home up there now, but Sue's always there in our office. So, sue keeps me in line with what everybody's thinking down here and we try and do the best we can. But I'm gonna let Kate take over real quick and I'll just do the easy part about the Bruce hall funding. I'll let Kate, your lobbyist, run with it and she can tell you the whole all the A's and B's and Z's out there.
069Perfect. So, won't take up too much of your time. But as you guys know, it was a long session. It was 105 days before finally passing $115 billion budget. Of that about 33% or about 38 billion was for education. So, it's a big, big part of the discussion. Hence why we see sue in Tallahassee a lot. Just a couple of policy issues I wanted to touch on other than the big one, which was the budget one was obviously the funding for accelerated options like AP and IB and cape. In the beginning of the budget process those were proposed at being cut at about 50% which was was kind of an all hands on deck to get those back up to where they needed to be. We also had a big win with school start times
070in repealing that mandated bill from a couple years ago and giving some additional district flexibility and then the cell phone bill looking at banning them in elementary and middle school and obviously in the high school during instruction time. But the districts or the department still has to pick six schools, high schools to do that sort of full ban experiment on as their pilots. But obviously the biggest issue was the budget. The rep can tell you a little bit about what that climate was like, but it was incredibly, I'm incredibly proud to get to work with you and to be able to work on this item and bring some funding home. So, we did just get the new forms from the House on Friday. So, it is that time again to start looking at session. So,
071they are going to have a required date to submit them in the house November 21st. So, it's time to start turning back around and looking at what we'll be requesting next year. But kick it over to Jim for the good news on the budget. Yeah, I mean as far as the budget goes, we won't going to dive into how deep it was. It was a very hostile environment there for the majority of the session to say the least. But you know, the good thing is I work with great people. My staff is here, Lee and Pam Lee, my right hand in Tallahassee and everyday life. Basically I couldn't work without them. But working with Kate is a pleasure. And so easy. And I go back four years ago or so, and I did a little
072presentation, and the school board, we got between a rock and a hard place with about 28 hours left in session, and Kate came to the rescue for free. And then school board asked me, should you hire a lobbyist? I was like, I don't know, but I can tell you, one saved you guys. So, here she is now, and she's a rock star, by the way. But as far as the budget, look, our big drive this year for Monroe county schools was the Bruce hall money. Honestly, during the budget cycle, there was just nothing but doubt as to what we were going to get. I mean, across the board, people were just going, hey, how's it going? Not good. How's it going? Not good. Oh, my God, we got nothing. Nothing was popping on the board.
073But, you know, perseverance and the infamous, you know, it's not who you are, it's who, you know, has panned out very well for us in Tallahassee. To this day, I take a lot of pride in working my way through the ranks, you know, with my fifth year and coming up on the sixth session. So, I'm very comfortable when I have to get in somebody's crawl a little bit and say, hey, we really need this. This is not, and I use the term all the time. We don't ever ask for anything that we don't need. We don't ask for silly stuff from Monroe county or District 120 in general. It's only what we think is in dire need of. Because I'm not going to be one of those legislators that brought home new carpet for something.
074I just find that atrocious. But the three and a half million dollars to Bruce hall this year I think is going to get you guys off to a good start. And again, we're right up against the wall already. That's going to be here before we know it. I have a property tax. I'm on the property tax committee. So, luckily you guys are carved out of that. You don't have to worry about anything that happens with property taxes. And I think the rest of the state needs to worry a little bit, but there's a big push. Obviously you've been reading, but as far as, like, what your requests are for the session coming up, I would encourage you to sort of get it cranking up relatively quick so in case there's some jogging to be done
075down the line. We have plenty of time to, you know, solidify our path to success with that. It really has been an honor serving you guys. I'm born in Miami, raised here, went to Coral Shores, coached baseball here, played baseball here. Coach Tony. Tony and I lived together in college. We played baseball together. We coached Richie. So, we had a lot of history in this little piece of dirt here, and I'm proud of it. But I'm also proud of our school board, who does an amazing job. And I will tell you that I preach in Monroe and Tallahassee, that if you just follow our lead, you'll be very successful around the state. And so many school boards and so many leadership in local communities do not step up to the plate and do the right
076things. They're afraid to fight, and that's terrible. But I'm very comfortable with who you guys are and what you do, because my children went here, and I just look forward to the little kids that are going to go up here and they're going to stand here one day. Hopefully somebody will stand here one day that graduated. And as a tidbit, there are three Coral Shores students in the House right now serving in other districts. Think about that. Three kids from Ilamorada serving in the House right now. That's pretty weird. We're not Columbus High in Miami. That has 10,000 of them, you know. But anyway, it's an honor to serve you. It's a pleasure to serve you. And I would again encourage you to ramp it up and get the Ducks in order, because it's going
077to come really fast. We're first. Committee is October 6th, so game on. Love those early sessions. Yes, early session. Yeah, we'll be in. And then the deadlines are very tight this year as well, so there's no room for sort of lollygagging around. The deadlines are very, very tight this year. And the budget's going to be, in my estimation, more stressful this year than last year because Speaker Perez wants to make sure that Florida has a massive reserve in the budget right now at 14 billion. He wants to hit around somewhere between 35 and 40 billion on the plus side in reserve. So, expect a tight belt in Tallahassee this year, but we will manage our way through that issue. Anyway. Again, thank you. Any questions? Feel free. Any questions? Thank you so much for that.
078I have a clarification. I do not own a house in Tallahassee, but I have a friend who has one and her son is willing to give up his room when I come to to visit. Perfect. And Sue, by the way, I tell everybody in committee, like, you better listen to Sue. You better listen to her. She knows what she's talking about and they do listen to her. I had the fabulous experience, a good battle. Sue was a wealth of information for myself. Well, I had the opportunity to do Tallahassee with Sue and she is the most popular girl at the Capitol. I can tell you. Everyone knows her. Everyone. It was after your first. That's usually the. Oh, my gosh, that was a long day. But thank you to both of you for all you
079did for us in Tallahassee. We all appreciate it. Thank you so much. And thank you for that great update. We appreciate it. Moving on to board members, unless you have any other guests for us. John? I have no more. That's it. But. And if you want to start at my end. All right, we'll do that. Mr. Dick, why don't you start us off? Okay. I have nothing to say. That was an easy start, Dr. Woltanski. I also really had a great time. I think the Upper Keys really appreciated Superintendent Tierney coming up. And we had one of those great moments with Principal Darren Pace where he asked the students of a first grade class if they knew what his job was. And a little boy yelled out reading books. Which it was great. It was
080really good. A little bit along what Jim was saying. Next week, Dr. White and I are going to the Greater Florida Consortium of School Boards to develop the legislative platform. This year they are tentatively putting together a federal platform as well. I think that is primarily so as an organization we can gather the information about how we use Title ix, how we use IDEA and the other titles so that as a group we can be presenting that to our federal legislators to keep them informed. And then I will be in Washington, D.C. with the Florida School Board association for their federal advocacy meeting on September 9th during our next school board meeting. So, I will have to attend that virtually and it, you know, I'm not a third world country, so I'm pretty sure that
081the power will stay on this time. Mr. Horan? Nothing from me. Mrs. Talbot. Thanks. I just wanted to echo what Mr. Tierney said. First day of school was fantastic. I had the opportunity to visit, I think it was seven schools. And the reception was so warm and welcoming and the administrators and teachers and staff all seemed so happy to have visitors from the district office come and see them. I think they really appreciated the support and the energy level was unreal, if that is any indication of what kind of school we were going to have. Things are looking really, really great. It was a great day and I did want to take a moment and congratulate our financial team for their upgrade in their sales tax rating. That's a great job. So, congratulations. Thank you.
082I just want to say that I actually got some phone calls on the first day of school and they were all positive. Everybody said Mr. Tierney was terrific. It was great to see staff in the schools. I got no bad news at all, which never happens on the first day of school. So, I'm happy to report that and thank you for the work that you've been doing and for all of you for the work that you've been doing. It seems like we got off the first week and now two of school without a hitch and hopefully we can still move onward and upward as the saying goes. So, thank you. I do have one quick question. Has there been any issues with the traffic flow up here? Sue? Traffic has been relatively light, but we
083are going to need. And, you know, it is a big concern of the families about what's going to happen when it moves here and how much it's going to disrupt things. I think, you know, we probably need to have some conversations at the SAC meetings about what the options are and, you know, and people from need to be heard who have ideas of things that could help up here. I'm not sure how those conversations, you know, I don't even know what the date is. Do we have any idea when the date is going to be? We're estimating mid October, and we're monitoring that closely. We're talking with dot, With. With the sheriff's office and with the aqueduct. And then, you know, I spent basically an hour with Principal Leitar today to hear her thoughts. So,
084we are coordinating with the agencies and then we'll make sure we're up here listening to feedback from the people who are here and driving this road and, you know, living and working here. Right. And last year, a big issue was teachers being able to leave school and get back, get onto the highway because they had closed some things. And so, you know, student dismissal is one thing, but our teachers need to, you know, we need to make sure that they can get here and that when it's time to leave, they can go home because they spent a long time here and they, you know, it was taking people 45 minutes to get to the bridge. Pat, do you have anything else for us? No, ma'am. Okay. That concludes board reports then. I'm just going to
085mention the charter schools. We had district staff visit all the charter schools as well as district operated. They're functioning well. Their enrollment is basically steady. They appreciate the 201. Appreciate the support given by Ms. McPherson and the Greater staff. So, they're operating well as well. If that's it on pending items, let's move on to the action agenda. I recommend the board approve the phase one guaranteed maximum price for Rex Weech field improvements, construction, management. So moved. I'll second. Motion by Mr. Horan. Second by Mr. Dick. Any discussion? So we'll bring back the phase two at the next board meeting? Yes, sir. Thank you. Any no votes? Hearing none. The motion passes. I recommend the board approve the interim agreement extension ground lease with TVC Development Incorporated for RFP 2025007 Trumbo Affordable Workforce Housing. So moved.
086Second. Motion by Dr. Woltanski. Second by Mr. Horan. And any discussion, Any no votes? Wait, wait. I have discussion. We were given the Key west rental. There was some issue up here about how seemingly unaffordable some affordable housing was. And you know, the rent that we're looking at, if these were in in 2024 going would be a one bedroom. It depends on your income. But for the 60% of the maximum income, it would be around $1,200 a month. For 80%, around $1,600 a month. For 100%, around $2,000 a month. And for the 120, 2400 And then the higher level, 140 would be 2,800. So, that just gives some comparison to what we're seeing up here. And just for people who aren't familiar with affordable housing, these numbers, percentages and income levels are all not things
087that we as a school board have any control over. It's nothing that Fescor has any control over. These are amounts and standards set by state and federal government. And so while it may not feel affordable at some of them, there isn't a lot of choice. The only choice is to not do anything. And we as a board, I think would all agree that that is not the choice we're going to make. So, while we appreciate everybody's comments and input, there needs to be a level of understanding that there's just no flexibility at all in rental income versus rental costs. Those are all set and standard, not just countywide, but statewide and in some cases nationally, so. Or rather by the federal government. Any no votes? At my point of order? Okay, you're only voting on
088the extension of the interim agreement right now. And we'll take the rest of it all back on the ninth. Yes. And do realize this is your last meeting where you can discuss this amongst yourselves, because this is Our last public meeting meeting before the 9th. I mean, you can discuss it then too, but I'm. Changes on the fly are not going to be good because we're up against a hard deadline on the ninth for final. So does anybody want to talk about this before we close the motion? Is there any further discussion that anybody wants to have on the project? I'll only talk to myself from now on. Yeah, I had a last-minute kind of modification to make sure that we were involved in the actual process of whoever they choose to select as a
089management firm. Not because we have any involvement whatsoever. We don't want to manage the property. That's not our job. And I want saying this publicly because in case there's any kind of misreading of this contract with regard to that, I want to be able to reflect back on the minutes to say unequivocally, we are not going to manage this property. We just want to be involved to say, hey, we were part of the vetting process. We were able to do our own due diligence. If we had questions or any kind of comments, they were addressed by Fescor. Fescor alleviated those comments and concerns and they moved forward with the best person or company for the job. Anyone else? Okay. Any no votes? Hearing None. Any more points of order? No, Madam Chair. The motion passes
090and we are adjourned.