Space Coast Podcast Network
Enjoy a medley of shows from different hosts in the Space Coast Podcast Network. Huge thanks to all of our partners: PlacePROS, INI Productions, LLC, Brevard Local and Apocalypse Coffee Roasters for all your support.
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Space Coast Podcast Network
Melbourne Uncovered: Community, Economy and City Improvements
Ready to get the inside scoop on what's happening in the bustling city of Melbourne? Buckle up as we dive into the community's current projects and open the conversation to how the economy, interest rates, and housing inventory are affecting homebuyers. With the city's millage rate at a decade low and an exciting partnership with Brevard Zoo on the horizon, there's plenty to talk about.
But it's not all about government and economy; we're also delving into the community's role in maintaining Melbourne's beauty. We'll uncover how you can lend a hand in cleanups and even adopt a road or beach. We'll also touch on the city's efforts to cater to the cycling community and potential safety initiatives. To top it all off, we discuss some exciting city improvements, including the much-anticipated Downtown Melbourne Food and Wine Festival.
To wrap things up, we'll navigate through the city's approach towards parking and the rising trend of rideshare apps and bike riding. We examine the city's response to traffic safety, including the installation of cameras and license plate readers. And most importantly, we'll emphasize the significance of community engagement and transparency in local government. So, gear up for this enlightening conversation and stay informed about your community!
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All right, happy Thursday evening, melbourne. This is the mayor podcast with Paul. Hello Jesse, what's happening man?
Speaker 2:We got A. We're happy Thursday. It's happy Thursday, you know Happy Thursday. Tomorrow is Friday. Man, I was looking for Friday. I tell you yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, friday, the first Friday of November. Okay, you know, we just got through the Halloween season. Did you have a good Halloween? By the way, not a great Halloween, yeah, good.
Speaker 2:I ate no candy, yeah, likewise.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no candy, it was an anti-candy. No candy.
Speaker 2:No candy, no, I stayed away. I hit the gym, john and I hit the gym and we basically said no candy, good, no, we don't need that. No, save it for the kids, they need it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the sweetest all go is maybe a spoonful of honey nowadays.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there you go, there you go.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, it's been a minute since we've taken to Facebook, but here we are back once again. A lot of things have happened. Yeah, a lot of things have happened.
Speaker 2:Plus, you got some upgrades on your system, which really yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:so definitely the upgrades. Have a good time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we definitely we're going to get back to it and kind of go over some of the updates. We have going in the city of Melbourne. A lot of great things going on. We're starting to kind of wind down. We had budget season. We finally got all the budget season all that past. We got the lowest millage rate in the city of Melbourne, that 10-year low. So that's good whenever you can lower the millage rates because unfortunately, well, if you already own your home, you have the 3% cap on the save. Save our home.
Speaker 2:Yeah save our home. But if we lower the millage, normally most people if they've been in their home, they'll actually see a slight decrease in their taxes, which anytime you get a decrease in these kind of economical times, it's a good thing.
Speaker 1:Whenever things going up, man, if the city could help you you know just reduce one thing in your line items.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and everything that we're buying is more money. You're talking about fire trucks, you name it. I mean, even when they're paying 15, 16 bucks an hour at McDonald's, you got to pay your public safety a lot more you have to.
Speaker 1:You know, yeah, when you have I mean especially again with everything going up, the cost of goods going up, you have to make sure that everybody has a living wage, right, yeah?
Speaker 2:So there's a lot of unique challenges and so we'll see We've got a lot of good projects. A lot of projects kind of been on hold because of the economy and the financing and stuff. So you know, it's a challenge for a lot of people. A lot of people ask me some questions like how's Margaritaville doing? I'll kind of explain a little bit of that tonight. What's going on?
Speaker 1:I'll tell you what the Melbourne PD headquarters. That looks good, doesn't it? Oh man, it's making shape Beautiful. I mean, it's coming alive. It's coming alive, very exciting.
Speaker 2:It's awesome. So yeah, it'd be Shane. Well, shane Robbins, will be your 25th year with the city of Melbourne. Absolutely I'm going to be there, shane. You know better than that. You know you make it 25 years. That's good. You know. Proud of you, man. Definitely I'll be there, shane. But, yeah, a lot of good projects going on. We'll spin up some pictures.
Speaker 1:Oh, let me one announcement.
Speaker 2:I did a great video that'll be coming out tomorrow. We're doing a partnership with the Bavard Zoo, the city of Melbourne doing. You see, all these oysters that they put on On O'Galley Causeway by the pallet Right well, pallets and pallets, but what they do is they take them out, and there's about 20 restaurants that donate them and they actually put them together.
Speaker 2:But if you go around Ballard, all the houses there they're putting them in the waters. But we're working on the permit right now. As of next year we'll have an oyster bed, the largest in Bavard County, about 17,000 square feet.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:And you figure, one oyster can filter around 30 gallons of water per day. So we're, that's the Bavard Zoo. You know, with Keith, you know they're amazing group.
Speaker 1:I can't say more. I think we have some photos of that. So, yeah, if you haven't seen these cages as filled with shells, they're like what is that? This is what that is. So that's exactly what that looks like, and, again, certainly in partnership with Bavard Zoo. So they go in bare, right from being cooked, I guess, at a restaurant, and then new life. We'll find these shells and there you go.
Speaker 2:And then they start filtering the water. So when they're on the bottom Cause years ago we used to have a lot of those here and they were basically stripped out.
Speaker 1:Indian River Oysters at one time was on the menus, like Prince Edward Island Mussels or Apalachicola. You know it was known for the seafood here, and then, of course, overfishing and whatever may have yet has happened. But now, now we have an opportunity to make it right.
Speaker 2:Well, what we're doing, we're reversing the effects of what happened in the Indian River Lagoon. So, you know, you add, you know I mean tons and tons of oysters that are just filtering the water, and that's just one aspect of what you're doing. You're adding baffle boxes. You're doing, you know you're doing a lot of cleanups, demucking, but that's just. You know, you put them around these houses and and, and you know, hey, it will end up cleaning the water.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Cause I believe anyone who lives on the water and has a dock they could apply to to like pretty much donate their dock to have oysters suspended from there so they could participate in the program. Right, and what?
Speaker 2:does that bring fish?
Speaker 1:100% Other sea life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, bring all the sea life back. I'm proud to say Melbourne, we're one of the leaders in that and I think many of the projects when this video comes out tomorrow it's being edited right now. I mean most of the projects that Bavard Zoo did was in Melbourne and you know a great partner who keeps Winston, his staff look, I love the Bavard Zoo. I mean they do more than being just people here Bavard Zoo. They do more than just their zoo. They their conservation, they are. So they work so hard in the community. Their volunteers are amazing and when you'll see them on O'Galley Causeway they're prepping all these oysters. Those are all volunteers. You know the Space Coast Parrot Head Club. They're all there and they're working hard. So go Parrot Heads.
Speaker 1:Go Parrot Heads.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. So you know that that's our commitment to the lagoon and with the city of Melbourne, we're working on some water quality. We're number one on water quality projects hands down. When you, when you see, like last week I went to the Bavard delegation, their meeting, and I was kind of saying, hey, what we're looking for, melbourne's always, you know, water quality projects, lagoon, lagoon, lagoon. You know some cities are saying we want to do this, we want to put a statue up. We ain't got time for statues, you know. You know we don't got time for statues. We got time to, we got to get this lagoon done.
Speaker 1:I love to see an underwater statue like down the keys. John Pentecamp, you know, you know, we just have a yeah, exactly. You know, we got to celebrate the lagoon right.
Speaker 2:Hey, we'll do one of Jesse Hall underwater like this, like suspended.
Speaker 1:Whatever it looks like, let's, let's, let's, do more. But you know, and it's an aquarium project that the Bavard Zoo has going on, you know, and so they're really spearheading all kinds of really cool stuff, Plus all the events you know, the Buet the zoo, jazz zoo is coming up. The zoo is really a great resource here and it's it continues to win all kinds of awards. Oh yeah, Like one of the nation's best zoos. Yeah, I'm not even.
Speaker 2:I'm not even looking at the award anymore. They already won them all, but they deserve them.
Speaker 1:I mean look they're.
Speaker 2:they're a great, great place and they're only getting better. I remember being a kid here. I remember when the Bavard Zoo was on New Haven and, yeah, they had an elephant out front. It was terrible and they did. They had it on a chain. It was terrible as a kid. Yes and yeah, it was terrible.
Speaker 1:It was terrible.
Speaker 2:I mean that that that's old school, Right, but yeah, but listen, one more kudos out to Bavard Zoo. Good job and I appreciate your partnership with our city and, you know, with their volunteers and their, their, their, their machines. Love them all, Thank you.
Speaker 1:Thank you, and so hopefully we'll see more of these pallets of oysters.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, you'll see it.
Speaker 1:Continue to go out, hopefully you know off of one-night-two causeway, pineda causeway and yeah, and we you know, from 17,000 square feet like that's I mean for for most people I mean if, if average houses is maybe 2,000 square feet, that's essentially like nine houses.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So like worth of, like you know, oysters, just just sitting there Into oyster beds. Yeah, that's great, so no huge things. But you mentioned, because of the river and low-packed in development and in helping, you know, reduce the runoff, I know Margaritaville started to continue because they had a brief pause Right.
Speaker 2:Okay, so so, so kind of let me tell you what happened there. Now they're, they're still building. I know we had some people and I get a lot of messages hey, how come there's nobody out there working today? Look, I don't run Margaritaville. Well, I know that's private development, but I will tell you.
Speaker 2:You know the, the, the gentlemen, harry, who's invested in whose project that is. You know when that initially started, that was a $65 million project. It ballooned up to about $100 million. So imagine you having a project like this and a lot of that financing. And you know they get a part done. A lot of that infrastructure is done, the boardwalk is done underneath with the rocks, all that done. You know they go to pay the bill. The bill is $4.2 million and they got 3.1, the bank's giving them. So you know that's one of those things they've had to work on.
Speaker 2:To refinancing I I expect right now, the beginning of the year, when the new year, I think concrete is kind of stabilized too, I believe at the beginning of the year you'll start seeing it going vertical and that's when you'll see. You know a lot of people like they don't see much done, but whenever you look at a project, probably a large portion of that is underground, whether it's the utilities you know with with I know like the drainage has to be on site because instead of running in the lagoon Right so they got you know underwear on the right hand side, where there will be the parking garage, all that is chambered underneath so the water will go into that and chambered in rocks and all that stuff. You know a lot of that work is done, so what people are looking at is oh, there's nothing being done, there's a lot of that stuff being Below the surface Right below the surface and, and you know, that's pretty substantial, especially when you talk about a hotel.
Speaker 1:Uh, and it's going to have good food, or you know. I mean there's a lot. There's a lot that needs to happen, 100%, and doing it in a very respectful way, to you know, being sensitive to the lagoon.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and and so that. So that's still being done. Um, but you know, anytime, your pri, your project, uh, you know, 30% more than when you started. You know, and if the local guy would what people don't understand they hear Margarita they'll. Oh, that's a big corporation. No, that's a local person that assigned an agreement with them and you know he's on the hook port. So you know he's, he's.
Speaker 1:You know well, it's hard. You know you want a $65,000 car and you go to finance it and all of a sudden it's going to cost you $100,000. Like, it's not in your budget. You got to figure things out. So yeah, uh, you know 65 million is already a big paid. You know that's, that's that's a big. Uh, yeah, it's a huge budget to work with.
Speaker 2:Well, and, and what I will say is, when they bought the property back in, I think, 18, 2018, so they've been on this for quite a few years Um, there were so many easements that they had to clear uh with with state.
Speaker 1:I heard there was some leans too. All that stuff they cleared.
Speaker 2:I mean, they had, they had. I know that I know they spent probably well over a million dollars on clear nose alone, wow. So I mean it's not just, hey, we're going to start building something. There was a lot of challenges. Matter of fact, I was told by one of our city attorneys uh, she didn't think they could clear them all, it's just if they do, and they did. And she just wowed and then she was like I just so much attorney work, yeah, clearing, clearing everything.
Speaker 1:And then you talk about permitting state, you know, st John, federal, all that, all these permits, yeah yeah, yeah, from DOT to you know anything that has to do with the river, because you know you want that boardwalk. Yeah, you want that many. You know how many slips is it gonna have? Like 200 slips arena or something.
Speaker 2:280?
Speaker 1:Yeah like that's a ridiculous amount of you know. So you're penetrating it to the river. That's a whole other jurisdiction. Yeah, that's not the city of Melbourne, you're talking county state. Yeah, yeah, it's a lot to get through and I think the layers and the red tape and bureaucracy and you know just that's just what development does.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's you know, and it's tough, but yeah. So once we do start to see some of that stuff from you know, come above the fence line and you know it's gonna get real and it's gonna be fun to watch.
Speaker 2:Well and plus, you know, anytime you go back to refinancing stuff, you know, look, I got X amount done. You know the economy has changed a little bit. Hopefully these interest rates will go down, especially. I mean, you can ask any realtor, right, jesse, they'll tell you. You know these interest rates that really impact your sales.
Speaker 1:Oh, 100%, and you know what would cost you. You know, because I mean it comes down to, even a lender is gonna look at well, what could you afford per month, right, right, what's your loan to value, you know, and what's your, of course, you know what's your income. So we have to make sure that when you get financed, that of course you could afford it. And in debt to income ratio is a real big thing that they look at. So how much could you afford? And then you look okay, at this rate. So yeah, so essentially buyers have less buying power and you're not, you know.
Speaker 1:So to afford, like, say, for instance, a $2,500 a month mortgage, which is what you know, for instance, some people could afford based on your income, well, that only fords you, you know, not a $400,000 house anymore, it's only a $300 house. And then you look at the inventory, there's really not much available at $300,000. So, you know, you just, there's not. Just it's quite a conundrum for a lot of people, especially first time homeowners. You know, especially when you're competing with other people coming out, you know, from out of state, it could get frustrating and I totally get it. And there is such a thing called buyer fatigue syndrome where it's just you know you're sick of making, you know offers and losing it, or financing falls through because you know whether or not you know you have the right income, or maybe you just have too much liability. You're already paying for so much you know out of pocket, you know for every month. It's tough, it's a hard thing to balance right now and I totally get it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we'll see. We'll see how that goes and that's not. There's multiple projects like that that you know there are. Hopefully we'll see, I think in January, where we are on economy wise and see hopefully some of these ramp up cause. Hopefully, yeah, hopefully, and we'll hopefully see interest rates. I've been looking into it. They expect interest rates next year to go down and be in the beginning around 2025, I think I read somewhere that they expect to be around four and a half five percent, which would be kind of nice, you know, then everybody would be on a refinance train.
Speaker 1:Well, absolutely, and that's what we recommend. You know, if you find the right house and you really need to, either you know upgrade. You know maybe you're expecting another kid or whatever the case may be, you know you really need to get from where you're at. Or you're just sick of renting, maybe the landlord's, you know, trying to jack up your rent and now it's time to buy. Well, again, marry that house, date the rate, as they're saying.
Speaker 2:Well, and you know, if you keep seeing the price of rent, I mean you know, wow, just crazy crazy, yeah, and sometimes it's unaffordable.
Speaker 1:so you know. So, again, if the option is to buy, just remember you know the rates will change and if it takes, you know, two, three, four years of paying, you know a little bit higher mortgage and then you could finally get some equity in your home because, thankfully, we haven't seen depreciation, we're still seeing, you know, the properties appreciate again, which is kind of tough because you know right now that home is gonna be, as you know, cheap, as it is right, I mean it's not gonna get any cheaper, it's just gonna continue to appreciate. So again, now is still the time to buy and it's still a great time to sell. You know, with as little inventory as there is, I mean you could pretty much still get, you know, a really good market value for your home. So but again, you know why make a parallel move, it's gotta be right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know. Shane Robbins just asked are there any plans for the city of Melbourne to work bike and pedestrian safety? Oh, absolutely. You should know if anybody Jesse about this one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I picked up for a quick.
Speaker 2:But absolutely, if you see some of these projects coming out now understand. Well, let me back up. We're working with old infrastructure, unfortunately, but you see these changes like if you go down to downtown O'Galley, you see all the pedestrian safety, you see the crosswalks, all that being added. Those projects, unfortunately, when they go into, by the time they go into engineering and funding, it may take two years. You see that happening. But yeah, that's something that you know, that's something that's being worked on. I mean, there's some places. Well, I remember John Rhodes. You know we got, that's got now, sidewalks all near O'Galley, john Rhodes, all that's got sidewalks. That didn't before. But yeah, it just unfortunately takes time and we need that because, you know, when I go to other cities and I went to Miami Beach over the weekend, you know me and a friend and I, he and I I took him down there and we noticed that you know there was a bike lane which was a different color, which was pretty cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so some of these bigger metropolises will have, like, actually like a good grip. Green lane, like they will make it, you know, a big indicator. It still doesn't help when you know, again, delivery trucks will park in the bike lane so you still have to go around and get into. You know, share a lane with vehicles. You know there's no perfect scenario with what anybody could say is whether pedestrian cyclist, you know driver of an automobile, just be courteous, yeah, be, you know, have your head on a swivel, put the phone down. And that goes for pedestrians.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I could be riding my beach cruiser on a sidewalk and it's like you know I'll come up behind a pedestrian. I'm, like you know, coming behind on your left and they got the you know headphones on, or you know they're distracted, and then I'll spook them and then they'll look at me like I'm a bad guy when I try to give them as much, you know. So, even like bicycle pedestrian, pedestrian, bicycle vehicle pedestrian, you know I mean no matter what combination, both people, both parties, you know you gotta, you just gotta, be vigilant, you gotta be able to, you know, have self-awareness and just always know what's going on around you and just be courteous at the end of the day, just be a kind person, you know, and just give somebody a little grace. You know if they take, you know, a little longer to cross. You know the path in front of you. You know whatever it is if they have to share. You know the lane because you know there's no sidewalk or bike path. Just be courteous.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's all Exactly With me. Yesterday we got to do the DeSau Falcon. You wanna pull those videos?
Speaker 1:up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so this is a pretty cool project. This was originally out of Project Vista and you know this was in coordination with our EDC, the governor's office, city of Melbourne, the airport authority board. This was pretty neat because what it is? It's a company, a French company, that's coming in and they're building. You'll see it already cleared. They're on Apollo about $150 million campus. It's gonna be bringing in 400 high paying. Well, like $86,000 to $90,000 a year average salary for the plane maintenance. That's actually me, my daughter. That's me, my daughter and a Fox 35 reporter, esther. She's awesome. But my daughter, who's there, 19, always messes with her because she's much taller. If you know her, she's like she's a. I guess she just ran like a 10K marathon, which is crazy 10K, yeah, 10k, 6.2 miles, god, those are fun.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that was Senator. That's right there. Senator Mayfield, she was there. She's been a great champion of helping us at the airport and everything she does. I'll tell you, right now she's terming out and we're gonna really miss her. I mean, senator Mayfield, she's amazing. She gets a lot of our water quality projects. We send stuff in and she's always asking what can I do to help you and help Melbourne, and she's amazing.
Speaker 1:So yeah, we're definitely gonna miss her.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so hopefully she stays in some kind of capacity because she's really a champion of the people she really is, so love her to death. But these are this actually Falcon Jet here this is one of the ones they flew in is 25 years old. So they're gonna be doing all these here at Melbourne repair, manufacture, et cetera, in 400 jobs. But they're pretty nice, they're really. They have their own niche and the campus I expect I think they're gonna start pouring concrete in the next few months and right there and that's on the inside of it and if you look at it again, that that is that's really how Sri Lanka liked it playing 25 years old and it's impressive if you keep Well maintained. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, well maintained.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, for 25 years old. Yeah, you know that that's Exurious. Yeah, it's really nice. So if you look and hey, jump in, go anywhere in the world Nice.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, we're definitely excited about these. I mean, you know just the jobs. I mean, let's Listen, you know, this is what good leadership is all about. When you have, again, a French international company, choose a Melbourne of all places, yeah, that's. That's got to say something about our, about our area and and certainly the climate you know, because there's plenty of places for them to choose, just like Embraer from Brazil. Why? Why little Melbourne? Why not one of the? You know the?
Speaker 2:bigger. You know, and a lot of that's the help to from the EDC and getting them, attracting them here, so that that that that helps out a lot.
Speaker 1:so yeah, now it looks like we're getting some pretty good comments. Yeah, keep keep those coming.
Speaker 2:Work Bear, what about working with the county and cleaning up the sidewalks? We're constantly trying to clean up our sidewalks, but I will tell you this you know we can only do so much with the county, their own entity. People choose to become a municipality because they get better services. But you know I own commercial property right there on Aurora and if in the county, right in the county, and you know they get there, sometimes it's hard to get a pothole filled. You know people think that I can make a phone call and no jump. No, they won't.
Speaker 2:No, they won't you know, you know I I'll try to respond as best I can to people, but you know I can't speak for other elected officials. I ain't going to lie. Some of them I don't even like, but it's OK. Well, sometimes I don't like, I don't like myself, you don't like me. I love you all.
Speaker 1:Come on.
Speaker 2:You're lying. You should be the mayor now. You're lying.
Speaker 1:No, no, no, no, you're likeable, but but again, it's. You know, I'm sure that the few people that that actually work at the Bavar County Public Works, you know they have a punch list, I'm sure. Oh yeah, you know, I mean.
Speaker 2:I worked there when I was for three years on 19, before I went to Coast Guard in 21 and we did. You know there's always washouts, there's always, you know potholes and you know the city and the county's grown and you know they have a budget and you know. So, really, what I do is I try to stay in my lane and I try to fix the city stuff. You know, when you start getting in the weeds and you try to address issues outside of your area, then you're really not doing your job in your area. Think about that. No, absolutely. You know, anytime you're at work and you pick up your phone, you start, you know, going through social media. You really like doing your job.
Speaker 1:And you have a budget to abide by. You know you just can't hire 20 more people just to be on a road crew. And now you're in the road cleaning business, you can find 20 people. Well, yes, I mean because that's you know. I mean, let's be honest, you know it's, there's a workforce out there, yeah, but you know they want all the amenities, you know they want the health care they want. You know, and again, that's not maybe in the budget, and then the mill drake has to go up, you know. So which one it is, you know. Do you want to have a more affordable you know cost of living, or do you want every pothole to be rectified within 24 hours? I mean because that's a big demand.
Speaker 2:Well, one thing that we do notice and we've done really good and is we know we do have the adopt the road and actually a lot of. There's a lot of groups that do adopt the road. I was one at one last week and and it they had probably 30 people out there, bags, cleaning up the side of the road and they get their name on a sign, their business on a sign, and so you know their partnership. You got to have partnership.
Speaker 2:You can't expect the government to fix all your problems. It is, you know some people think, hey, government need to fix this. You know my neighbor won't turn the radio down. You know we could deal with that in the police and stuff. But really the government really should stay out of your life as much as possible. So there's a fine to me, a balancing act of you know with your public safety, you know with your quality of life, but also keeping government out of your out of your life. You know. So that that's that and you got a lot of times take it as case by case basis and you know people will call and say, hey, well, how come this employee did this? Melbourne has over 900 employees. You know I can't speak for every employee and and or their actions. There you know, we, we have managers, we, we do the best we can.
Speaker 1:Exactly, there's only, there's only so much of an expectation. Same same thing with you know, I mean shoot the the airports, one of the biggest employers in the county, and yeah you know there's always going to be. You know, some, some people who maybe don't do their job as well as they possibly could. You know, maybe some troll makers, I mean, but that goes with that. They're aware of doctors, that lawyers, that they're everything Exactly. Nobody's immune to just having a good quality employees people yeah, no, yeah, the podcasters are the worst.
Speaker 2:Podcasters are the worst. Yes, he said, they're all horrible.
Speaker 1:Wow, but no, I mean so.
Speaker 2:so yeah, getting back to up like is there a fee for adopt a road? Absolutely not. There is no fee for adopting a road. Yeah, there.
Speaker 1:so there's also like for instance KBB Keep them are beautiful.
Speaker 1:They will let you adopt a beach, which I did, it's not a, it's not a horrible practice Selle Beach, where I reside. They also have a adopt the road. So look at your municipality, look, look at who's, who's road that is. It may be a county thing and maybe a local municipality thing, but certainly I mean or you know, and again, you don't need recognition to just go out there and and make your neighborhood look better by picking up some trash. You know, I mean, you know, just just be vigilant, go out and just make it happen you know you don't need permission.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, but it's not wrong. Get your name on a sign, get your business on a sign.
Speaker 1:No, it's great. And when you organize it like there's this one group that does the Pineda Causeway and I think they're called the Pineda, I'm going to butcher it. I apologize and I really wish I give you a shout out, but they are out there in droves and they got the vests on, they got the pickers and then I'll see them in the morning and I'll come back later, maybe a couple hours later, after running in errand and all the bags are just sitting there ready for pick up and it's like, man, there was that much litter. But yeah, there are shorelines. You just can't help litter blowing into the river. That's why you don't throw things out your window.
Speaker 2:You think it's going to be on the street and it gets windy out there.
Speaker 1:But then it's going to be in the lagoon, and so we all got to do our part. So, whether you get recognition, reach out to KUB, reach out to adopt the road. I know most of these roadways will have the sign. It has a contact info, so just holler.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so definitely, if you're interested in adopting a road, you'll definitely get with us and be glad to sit you in the right direction. Yeah.
Speaker 1:The only fee like say so. When I did adopt a beach with KBB there was a small fee, but again it was for the materials. I got some shirts for volunteers.
Speaker 2:So when we did clean the beach, we yeah, I don't think there's a fee without we had our shirts, we got the grabbers and we got some buckets.
Speaker 1:So again, they supply you with some rubber gloves, and so it's really just a cost of being able to do your job efficiently, but again, you're contributing. If it's important for you to have the signage, there's so many ways of participating in this area, so just get out there, just get out there, figure it out. And, yeah, thank you for helping us keep our roadways clean and doing the right thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly. Well, I even answer some of the tough questions. I don't shy away from any kind of questions. One of them is would we get in trouble if we throw away clothes hanging on the fence or bridge from the homeless? Well, I don't know if it's a bandit at the band of property I'm going to talk like a former police officer but the bandit it could be considered garbage. I mean, if you want to look at the legal term, if something's laying there and it looks like garbage, you throw it away. I mean, you're doing your civic duty At the end of the day. How do you get in trouble for that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, because I mean, especially if it's hanging off the bridge, that could very easily just go right into the river and contribute to harm and sea life. So I would say, yeah, take the liberty of doing that, Unless it's clearly somebody's clothes and he's down underneath the bridge and he just wants to dry out his shirt, that he's sleeping in or I don't know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, at the end of the day. I stop all the time, Because one thing that really pisses me off is when you have people standing on the middle of a corner with a sign and then they end up leaving all their litter there.
Speaker 1:They're cuffs and they're garbage.
Speaker 2:So I'll get out and I'll pick it up. Usually I'll say something to somebody and say, hey, if you're going to leave your garbage, go to another city. But look, I'm not going to beat around the bush. This is my city too. I've been here longer than a lot of people, and if you leave garbage on the side of the road while you're staying there asking for assistance, if you can't even pick up your own damn garbage, get the hell out of my city.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would say as a general rule, if it's been there for more than a day, I would say take the liberty, keep the area nice looking.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it sounds like the city's still going in a great direction, the airport's moving in a great direction, the river, again with the baffle boxes, with some of the achievements that's been going on, and we're still again seeing a lot of the septic to sewer transitioning step by step.
Speaker 2:That's all funding and that's all getting matching funding from the state, and that's where our senator, like Senator Mayfield and them, come into play, because we do request money, we have it there. I mean, it's all about funding too. We get that funding, we get some matching with the lagoon funding, but we put it all together and try to get these projects done. So if you were to look at our city map years ago, everything flowed and drained into the lagoon and we're doing a baffle box right now. The next one that we just got funded and it's in engineering, is Espanola by near Florida Air, so that one's being done now. So I think we're up to 18 or 19 baffle boxes now, that's a lot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and they removed the nitrogen and phosphorus. If you ever see them, they're pretty cool because they're big chambers. You open them up, you can suck all the garbage. It's like after one rainstorm and it's like a dump truck full of garbage.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:And so it's pretty impressive to see that.
Speaker 1:They're doing their job.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then there's little things. If you look at all this after hurricanes, I remember responding to power being off for a couple of days and that's because of the traffic lights being on cables and they'd sling and they'd hit the ground and you'd have to order 40 of them and try to get those. Now you notice they're all on mastheads. They're solid now. You got good turn lanes. You got pedestrian safety. When you go to an intersection you hit a button. I mean you see all these upgrades. I see them. I don't know if a lot of people see them, but we're upgrading the crap out of stuff. I mean just in the last meeting we had, I think, three of our parks getting all new kid playgrounds. So I mean we got a lot coming to them and we're investing millions and millions of dollars into parks and rec and the baseball fields. I mean we're really getting things done.
Speaker 2:It just takes time and sometimes we're at the mercy of independent contractors. When you have to go through the bid process you just can't go out and hire somebody. It just takes time. And I think the biggest thing, if you were to ask me, is learning as mayor and learning about government is the process you have to go through everything. It has to be because people will cry foul because they didn't get a job or they didn't get the bid. So everything you work through the city attorney's office and just trying to make sure. And then you got to make sure all the records are available to the public. I'm big on public records, where if our residents are citizens or anybody has a right to public records, they have a right to emails or whatever, and that should be made available because there should be open government. I mean, that's I believe it.
Speaker 1:Transparency yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, but no other than that we're looking at. I know next weekend it's going to be downtown Melbourne. It's going to be the Food and Wine Festival. Got to mention that that's going to be a great event.
Speaker 1:I'm glad you did because I have Kim in the studio today.
Speaker 2:Did you?
Speaker 1:For our Space Ghost Eats episode Did she mention it. All we talked about was Food and Wine Fest.
Speaker 1:It was a Food and Wine Fest, deep dive. So tune into Space Ghost Eats. You can find us on Facebook and Instagram and, yeah, everything you need to know. I mean we did a virtual tour with Google Earth because now it's going from right there on New Haven and we're taking it to Melbourne Ave along the promenade, right along the water. Two bands, I'm sorry, two stages, many bands on each stage, 15 breweries in the beer garden, tons of vendors, over 30-something restaurants, and it's going to be fun. And it's Veterans Day, so there's going to be a couple of nice tributes to our veterans incorporated within the event. The cost is still they've kept it at $100.
Speaker 2:And it's like all you can eat all you can drink and at the great. And what you're doing also is that money goes to support downtown Melbourne and it goes to support what they do down there, and we're really making some great changes. If you look at downtown Melbourne just within the next year, we're starting the engineering all new streetscaping, all new drainage You're going to have actually, what some of the recommendations have come back is on one side you have a space for outside eateries. It's going to be a really j the the face of downtown gonna change. It's gonna look good, yeah we had.
Speaker 1:We had an episode where we were I believe it was you can uh and maybe erin uh, but you guys uh went through all this funds streetscape stuff and that's. That's a great episode. I would look that up. And you got a acknowledged when you guys were up in a cala.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, yeah, yeah well the well, actually, what it was that I, I, I was, I got, uh, like the official the europe of the state of florida. That's awesome for the florida main streets, out of all the main streets in florida. They chose me as them, as a mayor, the year and that's amazing really in in it.
Speaker 2:It was our, uh, it was, it was our secretary state gave us, gave me the award, which is really nice, and there was a ward, uh, our downtown, for their branding, but, uh, you know, the big honor. But, uh, you know, I, really, you know, I, I hope I don't sound negative here. I'm not really in the ward. Who could, really? If the people around me?
Speaker 1:that really are modest guy, I know.
Speaker 2:But well, I mean at the people around me, you know, if you put good people around you and you let them do their damn job and you don't nick on dime, you don't, you don't micromanage and you just say, hey, let's work together, and if anybody knows, you know me, just, yeah, I asked you, for I asked your opinion on a lot of stuff I do. I'll say just, what do you think about this idea? Because I don't have all the ideas, but uh, and I don't have all the answer, but what I do, I will listen and, and you know, when you make a decision to be should be best for the community. So you know, it was nice to get that award, but uh, you know it, it uh, you know. Where do you go from there? I don't know, you know uh.
Speaker 1:So yeah, food and wine fest. So mind you that, uh, those couple days before and after, those streets will be shut down. So please find alternative routes. And one of the themes for food and wine fest because there is so much whiskey, so much liquor being poured so much, why be important beer garden with fifteen brewers? Rideshare rideshare user, lift user, uber's uh, state hotel melby. You know parking is always going to be. Uh, you know something to be talked about, but you know, just avoid driving well, we have to free parking garage.
Speaker 2:You know what I've actually done and I'll I'll sit right here, uh, but it like a lot of times what I'll do is that they go somewhere, uh, and let's say, you know, I'll park at city hall, uh, and if I get a uber some, I don't mind at all, or I'll get a ride or some. Right, I'll actually get my bike, because I ride bikes on the weekend. I write I ride twelve, john dipmore and I. We ride like ten, twelve miles on saturday normally and sunday, and I'll I'll grab my bike, my, my mountain bike, and I'll ride it to my car, take the front well, I'll put it in the trunk and and drive home.
Speaker 2:I love that right now get up in the morning and we go over the cause way, we go everywhere and and really love riding a bike great on the knees that just getting out in the fret, you know fresh air and much more low impact than a run yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah exactly and of course you know, mountain biking I mean, yet trails in wickham park, I mean there's all kinds of like we're trying to take over wickham park I'm I'm a city.
Speaker 1:Yes, oh, is that was that breaking news, right?
Speaker 2:yes, actually it is and you know what, yeah, and that's okay, we're we're researching that. Uh, we think that, you know, because of the county park, they got it, they give. I guess they gave uh, one of the park to palm bay. We're gonna try to take, you know, I'm not saying we'll get it, but we're gonna are a parks and rec director. Uh, we've discussed this and, uh, we'd love to take it. We think we can do a little more with wickham park, make it more family friendly, uh, and it, I mean it in the heart of melbourne, I mean, and it's something that I think they want to get out of that and if we can broker a deal, I wouldn't mind taking wickham park leach says that free parking garage is scary.
Speaker 1:Kids are drifting their cars from the third level up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and, and and that thing uh, we will yell and we actually have. We've been having uh plea undercover police in there. We have the security guard now, uh, we are addressing that. I, I promise you, we are addressing that. And curious. So, uh, I'm gonna be honest with you. Uh, leesha, if you get a ticket for doing that, it's your fault, not mine. I'm not with you. But no, seriously, we're working on it yeah, I did.
Speaker 1:I never heard of uh kids drifting in park of the ground. I guess that's a thing now.
Speaker 2:Well, it was a thing for a little bit just they would go on the top floor and take, like selfies and they do all these videos and stuff. But yeah, we, we. That's one of the reasons we put in actually just put in, uh, cameras and we're going to start looking at the license plates and making phone calls oh yeah, we just got all those cameras in there, just wait here and I'd just wait.
Speaker 2:Wait till the police department calls you on your cell phone and say hey, your car was seen uh doing this. You know, would you uh like that?
Speaker 1:your parents get a knock at the door yeah yeah, the, uh, I mean back in the day, this shows my age. Uh, we, we suggest bomb parking garages, you know, with our skateboards. But yes, now it's taken over by cars. Get on a skateboard, go bomb, go bomb a hill.
Speaker 2:Yeah, go have some fun yeah, but that will see how that works out. That that's that uh. The uh uh camera program that we have for the parking garage in downtown melbourne could we definitely wanna, and that will be able to be monitored at the new police department. So they'll better pull up any camera and and and actually the new some of the new recognition software that they got scary, yeah, scary now, well, you know what, we'll better find somebody and what's what's wild is, they'll better find.
Speaker 2:Uh, with the tag readers and stuff, they'll better find if somebody goes to her light, they'll better see where the car was or is yeah, changing, that's some real surveillance stuff right there big brother, yeah, but it listen, we got it.
Speaker 1:we got to keep our community safe and if that's, uh, that's, let them habitual the, you know, and there are you know, and I look at this way it was.
Speaker 2:It was. You know it was funny because, uh, and I'll tell the story but the other day I got a phone call and you know, I'm, yes, I'm running for reelection and I'm not, I don't know, website up. I don't, I'm worried about my job right now. At the end of the day, I'm not worried it it. You know, I work hard at this job and you don't make any money. But, uh, I had a phone call in a guy said hey, uh, I don't know who was come out orlando today. Uh, mayor, like to give you political donation? I'm like, okay, first off, I'm not even really taken political donation right now. And and I'm like, well, who's this? While I'm with the red light camera company and I'm like you know what? Number one, no, and number two, no.
Speaker 2:Yeah, first off, I don't, I don't play that, I don't have time for that to go away obvious yeah, and I thought it probably lobbyist and I'm like, no, not interested, and I even send them a text, thank you. But I'm not even interested in this. Because, number one, red light cameras. I don't believe that a independent third party should come in and dictate whether you get a traffic ticket. And let's say, it's if you go through the red light and you know if you and you get a ticket and it just through the mail and and that's that to me. I don't agree with that. I, I've just to me. I, I don't, I don't, I don't like that.
Speaker 2:Uh, now, if you get caught bya police officer, that's on your own. I mean you deserve to get that ticket, but you know, I don't think a third third party of me. There should be evidence right there. So, uh, but you know, the camera to keep people safe, I mean it was, for example, let's say, you have a child as a car that's missing. I mean, situation like that, you want to better find with a car that you have a senior parents, somebody. You know you have to find somebody or stolen vehicle. You know, there there are uh time when that kind of technology is needed hundred percent.
Speaker 1:But certainly if there's a big semi on your rear end and it's uh been yellow for a minute, you know he's not thought slowing down. I'm pregnant, I'm proud. Gonna risk not uh getting re-rendered by a well yeah, absolutely, and it's all. And I'll just hope and pray that you know when I went.
Speaker 2:When I am forced to traffic laws of the police officer was all situational, right, you know, someone went through in a very iffy and they felt they had a good excuse. My head, I make sense, right, I mean you, you have to not only be, you know, you have to be defensive driving and, and so that's something that you know. If you see somebody speed up and a flight there, that that's different at the needy one. But, uh, question there, uh, any questions relief. Traffic congestion on wickham road, north of post.
Speaker 2:Uh, yes, uh, one of the things that we've been working on uh is that we didn't did not have is the sinking of traffic lights. You know it, that's something that hadn't been done. Uh, I know, during that process I don't know exactly where they are, but, uh, you know you go to one light, it's red. You know you go to go speed up, it turns red, and next, you know, it's almost like gridlock. Those traffic lights need to be time to a point where they include, they allow traffic flow and and that's what we're doing. Uh, againi, I, I can probably see where we are and talk to our city staff on that and then kind of give you an update on that, but absolutely because that that's something that traffic, traffic lights, they can be the death of. You know you've been a place is where you feel like you went twelve blocks and stop twelve times.
Speaker 1:I mean that that should work like that yeah, I think, uh, to have that engineered so that when there's, you know, different times a day, the light shouldn't be sink, so that it's the same right clock, you know, the same, the same kind of uh, uh clocking, you know, four, four, eight am, during rush hour as it is, as like three am when there's almost nobody on the on the road, you know. So, so it it really should be timed in a way that agrees with the right patterns of traffic to and it's all situation.
Speaker 2:Only different than in the morning is that night you know a hundred percent. You know there's nothing worse than coming up to a main light and nobody's around.
Speaker 2:It's dark and you're at a red light, it's like what I'm on here I'm a wick of whatever I'd like, you know, but now it there, like it, that something that being done, because the timing of the lights, uh, it's very important that one of the biggest, uh, yes, where I hit every red light, yep, I feel like that sometimes to, but we've all been there, all been that, so, uh, but yeah, a lot of good things are happening. Jesse, uh, you know again, uh, we had next week, uh, the downtown food and wine festival.
Speaker 1:If you can make it go, I'll tell you right now, it's a great event there's a yes, so few tickets remain, so definitely get them while they're still like available.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, every year it's sold out yeah, exactly, yeah it is a sell out event and uh, yeah, the amount of talent with those artists, installations, there's gonna be the dancers, there's gonna be a couple fun surprises, but between the bands that they have lined up, all these great, uh, I mean, there's so many good, good food there. You know Shay Kwanzaa's returning. They've been like, you know they pretty much win it every year just about. But Clean chicken that's where I was today. Clean chicken baby. There's some new, yeah, there's some new entries. We have Alibi, there's Bami, saigon, there's a couple of new entries in there, and then there's the old staples that are just always there like.
Speaker 1:Crush 11, Ember and Oak with their aha. I mean, trust me, you don't want to miss it.
Speaker 2:You don't want to miss it exactly. And again, and it's the benefit, downtown Melbourne, the redevelopment, so, and you know, downtown Oak Alley we're working on that be announcing real soon, you know, with that parking garage going up and we pretty much got the deal done a hotel Good, I got the, I know the brand, I know all that. I cannot release it because you signed an NDA.
Speaker 1:Yes, I did.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, I mean it's a go, that's awesome. It's a go and, like I said, I'll probably maybe next time and I'll announce that, and it's actually different from the plans. It's got a the pool on the third floor of Overlook and it's like got a convention center kind of and the pools on the roof. Yeah, it's pretty nice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that new music venue that's getting better and better on Guava, right across from Salty Fox, and the Intracosal that's coming. I mean they're doing the exterior now. I mean that's going to be exciting once they finish that project. So so many cool things happening. Thanks for keeping us updated, mayor.
Speaker 2:All right well, thank you, jesse. Love appreciate what you do and, if you know, with Spaceco's podcast, you look, you're the expert and I appreciate you allowing me to put out the information to our residents.
Speaker 1:Hey, it's a service right. We're all at service here, making our city the best it can be right.
Speaker 2:And actually I want to address one question. Somebody said what are we doing about the Feld water testing? We just actually put out a bulletin. It was basically it's we had to buy by federal regulation. What it was was we got the test, but I guess one of the tests if I'm my city manager, I think she said one of the tests was the outdated. It was an old test kit or something. So it wasn't bad at all. Nothing was out of place. It was just a test kit. So we had to report it that way. I assure you the water is safe. But at any time there was anything, anything that doesn't match up, we have to put that out. So it wasn't really that the water was bad, nothing like that. Matter of fact, knock on wood. I'm gonna knock on it right now. We haven't had any kind of major blooms or anything, if you notice the water starting to cool down, which is great. So we really hopefully it'll keep cooling down and we, you know.
Speaker 1:Because we had some very warm days this summer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so there wasn't. You know that wasn't well, matter of fact, when we got the call and I got the call about that and I'm like that, it was just a test kit. But all that stuff is regulated. You, the test kits have to be, you know, produced to us, or, you know, it's gotta have a big chain of custody.
Speaker 2:And there was something very minor and and and but we have to let the residents know. I mean, you know whether it's good news or bad news. Was it bad news? No, I'm not necessarily bad news.
Speaker 2:Was there an issue with water? No, but that was something that we did have to wrote and we reported everybody and that and I'm answering the question now, believe me, I remember we had that water issue, you know, a few years ago, and I called for a, you know, called for a special meeting before I became mayor, because one of the one things I wanted to make sure is our water is clean, our water is safe to drink. I went a matter of fact, we were down in South Florida when I said we just went, went away for a couple of days, and we stopped somewhere and you know they had water from a restaurant and it was terrible. It was terrible. I mean, you know, I'm like did you put a limit in this? Oh no, it's like lime. But you know, we don't have that problem in Melbourne and we're moving to the more injection wells, so the water comes from the aquifer and not from St John's.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Well, thank you all for participating.
Speaker 2:And thank you very much for the questions.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a lot of engagement tonight. Go ahead and make sure you share the episode, let everybody in your friends list, you know, understand what's going on, because you know, knowledge is power and when everybody can, you know, communicate and everybody knows what's going on, there's less questions, there's less case of rumors and you know, you know how those things go right and I appreciate everybody out there letting me serve as your mayor, and the fact is, I'll always be transparent and get the information out to you and, like I said, we're all in this community together.
Speaker 2:So thank you everyone. Have a good night. 住親戚, 住親戚 you.
