MINUTES OF MEETING COPPER CREEK
COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT DISTRICT
The regular meeting of the Board of Supervisors of the Copper Creek Community Development District was held on Tuesday, April 21, 2026, at 11:30 a.m. at 2160 NW Reserve Park Trace, Port St. Lucie, Florida 34986.

Present and constituting a quorum were:
Francis (Frank) Lange	Chairman
Kathy Menard	Vice Chairman
Nicholas Scalice	Assistant Secretary
Jonathan McKnight	Assistant Secretary Also present were:
Andressa Hinz Philippi	District Manager
Matthew Hans	Governmental Management Services
Scott Cochran	District Counsel
Roberto Cabrera	District Engineer (by phone)

FIRST ORDER OF BUSINESS	Roll Call
Ms. Hinz Philippi called the meeting to order and called the roll.

SECOND ORDER OF BUSINESS	Organizational Matters
Consideration of Appointment of Supervisor(s) to Unexpired Term of Office(s) – Seat #1 (11/2028)
Oath for Newly Appointed Supervisor(s)
Electing Officer(s)
Ms. Hinz Philippi: Moving on to organizational matters, so at this time I just need to ask if you guys have anyone to appoint for this seat, and if not we can just table this to the next meeting.
Ms. Menard: I do. I would like to nominate Oscar Hance for seat #1, he has been a resident of our community for over 5 years, he is a manager for the Emergency Management Division of St. Lucie County, he has spoken to legal and HR and confirmed there’s no conflict being on the CDD Board.

Ms. Hinz Philippi: Alright, so I have a motion by Kathy, do I have a second?

On MOTION by Ms. Menard seconded by Mr. Scalice with all in favor, appointing Oscar Hance to fill the unexpired term of office for seat #1 was approved.

Ms. Hinz Philippi: So, he probably will come to the next meeting so we can give him the oath of office.
Ms. Menard: Yes.
Mr. Hinz Philippi: And Kathy if you could give me his email address and then we can send him the information for the meeting so he can be here, and you can give that to me after the meeting, then of course when he comes we’ll give him the oath and do the electing of the officers as part of that.
Ms. Menard: Ok.

THIRD ORDER OF BUSINESS	Approval of Minutes of the June
17, 2025 Meeting
Ms. Hinz Philippi: The next item would be approval of the minutes of June 17, 2025. Do you have any corrections, additions, or deletions, if not, a motion to approve would be in order.

On MOTION by Mr. Lange seconded by Ms. Menard with all in favor, the Minutes of the June 17, 2025 Meeting were approved.

FOURTH ORDER OF BUSINESS	Consideration	of	Resolution
#2026-01 Approving the Proposed Fiscal Year 2027 Budget and Setting the Public Hearing
Ms. Hinz Philippi: The next item would be resolution #2026-01 approving the proposed fiscal year 2027 budget and setting the public hearing. So, we did have very little changes on the budget, and I don’t know if you guys had an opportunity to look through it, the one good thing is we’re making the last payment for the lighting loan in May so that amount of money we were putting towards that we could use for other

projects, we can just keep the payments as they are and then have that like a reserve for the community to do other projects. So, if you guys have any questions on the budget let me know.
Ms. Menard: I do.
Ms. Hinz Philippi: Ok, so let me just see one thing here, I want to just look at the dates that we have because this motion is made in two parts, one that we approve the budget, and the other one is the dates that were going to do the public hearing on. We need 60 days from today for the public hearing, so we would be looking at July 21st because our other meeting is June 16th which wouldn’t be 60 days, so July 21st or August 18th, those are the dates that we could do the public hearing, I don’t know which one is better for you.
Ms. Menard: The July date.
Ms. Hinz Philipppi: Ok, the July date, how about you guys? Mr. Lange: What time on July 21st?
Ms. Menard: 11:30.
Mr. Lange: Ok, the usual time, I’m good with that. Mr. Scalice: That works.
Ms. Hinz Philippi: Ok, so let’s go to the questions.
Ms. Menard: So, I had questions but I’m going to start with, ok so management fees, we’re going to start with management fees again, last year we voted for a 3% increase, from the 2023 budget to the 2026 budget we’ve increased management fees by 13.52%. In 2023 we started at $32,960 a year, and by 2026 we’re now at $37,415, on this current budget they’re asking for an additional 5% increase to bring them up to
$39,286 that will now put us well over a 15% increase in the next 5 years.
Ms. Hinz Philippi: You mean from 2023 to 2026.
Ms. Menard: Yes, it has increased 13.52%, I have all the budgets here. So, I know last year we gave a 3% increase even though they were requesting a 7% and I had mentioned that I didn’t feel like we should have given an increase but, the Board voted to increase, so it ended up at 3%. So, if we calculate 13.52% divided into 5, and I don’t have that number but, that’s the average increase we’re giving per year.

Mr. Lange: Did you also notice further up on the list that the engineering went from $10,000 to $22,000, that’s a big jump.
Ms. Menard: Yes, and we’re going to go over that too because I think that was part of the cost when we approved the project.
Ms. Hinz Philippi: And you know that the budget for the engineer and the attorney their fees are when you use them, so if you don’t use them then that’s going to be less.
Ms. Menard: And the engineer only went up because of the project but, was that expected when we voted on the price of the project or was this in addition?
Ms. Hinz Philippi: It was on the price of the project.
Ms. Menard: Ok, and I know the attorney fees are going up.
Ms. Hinz Philippi: Yes, and as I said, you only pay when the services are handled, so you would budget for and just because you’re budgeting an amount like hours for the projects that we already know that are going on, that doesn’t mean you’re going to spend that amount, so if you don’t spend it that money is going to be in your budget.
Ms. Menard: But aren’t our gates finished, the lift is finished, it’s complete, we’re getting ready to do the inspection, so we don’t need to have a $22,000 budget again for the engineer.
Ms. Hinz Philippi: No, not really, we need to see with Roberto how much they are going to charge for the service if they have to go out but, that’s going to be an extra fee. I don’t believe that amount is needed, and then he can give us an estimate on how much it would be every time they go out, I hope we don’t have a flood each month or something like that.
Mr. McKnight: Well, even if it does we can use our best judgement as to when to actually lift it or not.
Ms. Menard: Yes.
Ms. Hinz Philippi: Yes, but in any case we will would have like excess revenue that we do keep for the next budget season, so it doesn’t mean that if it’s there it’s going to be spent, it’s just there in case we do.

Mr. McKnight: So now which line items does that apply to? Does that apply to the attorney fees, engineering, management?
Ms. Menard: We’re just talking about engineering right now, it went from $10,000 last budget but, because we spent so much this year because of the lift project, they’re putting it on the budget to put it at $22,000 for next year, I think we could definitely drop that.
Mr. McKnight: And right now it’s at $10,000? Ms. Menard: For 2026 it was set at $10,000. Mr. McKnight: So this year we’re at?
Ms. Menard: We’re proposing for 2027.
Mr. Hans: So, I would say too it’s important to notate we’re not looking for an increase here, they’re showing $22,000 for the engineer doesn’t mean we’re going to spend $22,000, and it just goes over to our general fund afterwards.
Ms. Menard: Ok.
Ms. Hinz Philippi: Right, if you don’t spend it, you not going to lose it. Mr. Hans: We’re not guaranteeing the $22,000 is going to be spent. Mr. McKnight: So this goes to the operating reserve?
Ms. Hinz Philippi: Yes.
Mr. Lange: And I was just going to say if they do have to open up the gate it would come from that.
Ms. Hinz Philippi: Yes.
Mr. Scalice: And why did that number jump so from $17,000 to $35,000?
Mr. Lange:	The loan that we were paying back, that money is going to the operating reserve.
Mr. Scalice: And is that the loan for the lights? Mr. Lange: Yes.
Ms. Hinz Philippi: Yes.
Mr. Scalice: Which that will be finished you said next month. Ms. Hinz Philippi: Yes.
Mr. Hans: This is showing the extra money that would go towards repaying the
loan.

Ms. Hinz Philippi: Yes, and May is going to be the last payment
Mr. Scalice: Ok. So, everything was increase because of the loan and now because the loan is gone, all that extra money that we would spend is just going to reserves.
Ms. Hinz Philippi: Yes.
Mr. Lange: And if we need to do something with the stormwater that would come out of that $35,000.
Ms. Hinz Phillippi: Yes, if you need to do anything, yes.
Ms. Menard: So, would we have to keep engineering costs up so high if we have a huge operating reserve?
Ms. Hinz Philippi: No.
Mr. Hans: No, you can just move that money to operating reserves.
Ms. Hinz Philippi: Right, or you can move it to any line item you want, if you want to review that and say, hey, you know we could move that money also to operating reserve or capital outlay, any item that you wish to do that we can move it.
Mr. Lange: Is there a best practice for how much should typically be in an operating reserve for a community of our size?
Mr. Hans: So, for CDDs there’s no actual reserve requirements because you have the bond function with that, it’s HOAs that do have typically do have reserve requirements.
Ms. Hinz Philippi: And I usually want to have reserves for the CDD in case something happens, like a hurricane or something like that and you don’t rely on FEMA, and things like that so I like to have that. So, basically anything that we can have, the operating reserves are different, these are for your projects in the neighborhood like things that you need, and that you want to have, so this is a good thing to have if you wanted to spend, like during this year for 2027 fiscal year, you say, oh this fiscal year we want to get this done for the community and then you have this operating reserve that you can use and you have that sitting there that you have available for you in that fiscal year.
Ms. Menard: Ok.

Mr. Hinz Philippi: So, I did the calculation of the $13.5% divided by 5 and that gave me 2.7%.
Ms. Menard: Yes, 2.7% has been the average increase, so they are asking for another 5% on the management fees because this is my thing, I know you guys do a lot behind the scenes that we don’t really notice but, I feel like we haven’t met since June last year, we’ve only met once this year, and we’re going to meet one more time, we’re going to confirm the budget and we won’t meet again, so I just don’t feel like a repetitive increase in fees is warranted.
Ms. Hinz Philippi: I understand, so what do you think would be fair for us because I want to talk to the big boss about it, and make a policy that you guys are comfortable because I don’t want you to come to me every time we meet, so what would be fair because I’m going to go and say, hey, this community we do meet less amount of times, and of course we work behind the scenes like you said but, we meet less times, so how can we accommodate that, and I’ll fight for you guys and talk to him. So what would be fair in your eyes that we could do, like a 2% increase each year or just no increase for a year, and then do like a 3.5% so what would be fair?
Ms. Menard: I would be, and this is my thing and everyone has a say, I just don’t feel like any of us at this table is guaranteed a pay raise by 3% every year, which you have confirm that we don’t have to, I just feel like we have consistently given raises every single year and like you said it only came out to 2.7% and I think that we need to freeze the fees, I don’t think meeting once or twice a year calls for an automatic 3% increase, I would be comfortable with maybe a 1.5% but that’s not saying that’s every year but, I don’t feel like, and I took it last year and we gave a 3%, and we’re not raising again next year because we were at 7% and the year before that we were at 7%, so everyone has an opinion but, I don’t think it should be habitual every year management is guaranteed a 3%.
Ms. Hinz Philippi: Well, and everything has increased so much, and I guess their costs, it’s not us, but it’s their costs it had been going up so much with everything that’s increased, and not even talking about only like office space but, payroll and everything, and people had to be given me money because the food prices are more expensive,

and gasoline is more expensive, and everything else, so then they have to give that also, so I’m just letting you know what I know.
Ms. Menard: Yes, and I know like Palm Beach County teachers, they won’t even approve them a 1.5%, they won’t even pay the teachers, so imagine if we ran the School Board, they’d be getting a 3% every year, and these teachers would be happy.
Mr. Hans: I would say though too, it is market standard essentially, every management company is going to come to you every year to ask for an increase somewhere between 3% and 5% typically, it’s not unique on that front for GMS.
Ms. Menard: That’s fine.
Ms. Hinz Philippi: So, we’re not doing something off the marketplace.
Ms. Menard: Yes, I understand completely, I’m just saying as a Board we need to decided when is enough, enough, or how we need to reconsider what these increases are every year because we also noticed field management down under field expenditures, in 2024 we never had, from 2024 previous we never had a field management line item, there was none. All of a sudden in 2025 we got a $2,000 field management expense, then it went up 7% in 2026, and now they’re asking for another 7.01% of field management, and I looked at some of the expenses we’re paying out monthly, and we’re paying monthly field service for the lakes, $166.07 every month, and then it recently increased to $178.00 I think back in October or something, so $178.00 per month, this is field service for lakes, then we have midge and mosquito control
$468.00 a month, this is like clockwork, then I’m noticing pond maintenance every month, $1,275 like clockwork, then I’m noticing wetland management every month,
$150.00, so I’m thinking, so what’s field management doing.
Mr. Hans: Field management, the job for field management is to oversee the lake management company, people who are treating the lakes to make sure they’re actually doing what they’re supposed to be doing essentially. So for that $178.00 a month, 2 hours of field management time a month to go and check on the lakes to make sure they’re doing what they’re supposed to be doing essentially, that the lakes are being treated, that there’s no algae growths in the lakes, that the vendors that we have are doing their job essentially.

Ms. Hinz Philippi: And the things that we did, like the engineer had to go out to do the outfall, so the engineer got the specifications for the outfall locker, so he went out, he bought it, he went there, he put it on, and things like that where you need a field person to go and do it, he does it. Like when we had a problem with the lakes and the HOA person sent me an email, and then I said to him, hey.
Ms. Menard: Do you mean the green lakes?
Mr. Hans: Yes, there was something in the green lakes, we had a fish kill a few months ago as well.
Ms. Menard: Ok, we had another one because of the rain? Mr. Hans: Yes.
Ms. Menard: Ok.
Ms. Hinz Philippi: So, when those things happen I call him and he goes there and then he speaks with the HOA person and he deals with the vendors but, we only have like 2 hours per month, it’s not much, so if anything happened like that he goes, and he just goes there once a month just to look at the lakes and make sure the guys are handling the job.
Ms. Menard: But what are they doing for $1,275 a month?
Mr. Hans: They’re spraying an algaecide into the lakes, so they come for algaecide typically, once or twice a month to make sure we’re not dealing with the algae blooms, so they come for algaecide essentially which reduces the hydrogen levels in the lakes to prevent the algae growth. They also trim for invasives, non-native Florida species around the lakes as well, so that’s what we’re there for to make sure that they doing that.
Mr. McKnight: So, you’re overseeing all the maintenance on the lakes. Mr. Hans: Yes.
Mr. Lange: Does it involve anything with the gate now that the gate is there of the maintenance, inspecting the gate or does that fall under the engineering.
Mr. Hans: So, I’ll be working with the engineer on that essentially when I do my month checks I will check on the gate to make sure that nobody has tampered with it or cut our chains or done anything along those lines, and if we there’s anything we needed to do I’d be speaking with Roberto then.

Mr. Lange: So, it’s save to say the scope was increased basically, the responsibilities because we now have the gate.
Mr. Hans: Yes, it is one additional thing to check on.
Ms. Menard: So, I’m going to, and I know we’re all over the place, I’m so sorry, but this isn’t going to help us decide on the budget, I’m just going to login to something real quickly, so I did a PowerPoint on the lakes, and the reason I did this was because I want to discuss, and that’s one of the things I wanted to talk about because we have to vote on it.
Ms. Hinz Philippi: And by the way, you guys have littoral maintenance, and littoral maintenance is the aquatic plants that you have on the lakes.
Ms. Menard: We don’t have any aquatic plants, only on the front two lakes by the entrance.
Mr. Hans: There are a few on some of the further back lakes as well, they do have spike rush growing.
Ms. Menard: Ok, because I would like, I wanted to vote on and I have a slide show I want to show everybody because I have real pictures of the lakes and how they look. I wanted to vote on letting natural grasses grow around the lake more because they’re, and if you want to listen to my slide show, I’ll go over it but, this is basically what our, and I’ll show you Frank, what our lakes look like, we have massive erosion, and the lakes that I went around and looked at which was just a couple of the front ones, there is no grasses, there’s nothing helping our lakes, nothing, so this is what our banks look like, and we have massive algae growth, tons of algae growth. You don’t see natural habitat, and then this was the front lake, and it looks much more beautiful now because it was overflowed when I took this picture but, the reason I wanted to bring this up because I put some time and effort into this, so if you don’t mind can I just go over this.
Ms. Hinz Phillippi: And I was just thinking that we started spraying the lakes because people didn’t like the tall grass.
Ms. Menard: But it wasn’t that, the reason we started spraying the lakes was because of midge and mosquitoes, and I put a lot of work into this, so here’s the mosquitoes we had and we’re spray for midge and mosquitoes, so those are mosquitoes.

Mr. Hans: And actually we don’t spray for them the midges or mosquitoes, it’s the fish that are in the lake that is stocked.
Ms. Menard: So, we have midge control that we’re paying for. Ms. Hinz Philippi: No, we didn’t pay for midge control.
Mr. Hans: Right, we aren’t paying for midge control.
Mr. McKnight: So the midge control is restocking of the fish? Mr. Hans: Yes, it’s constant restocking of fish.
Ms. Menard: We haven’t restocked any fish. Ms. Hinz Philippi: No, we restocked one time. Ms. Menard: Once and that was $30,000.
Ms. Hinz Philippi: We did pay for that.
Mr. McKnight: Ok, so now the pictures that you took around the lakes, was that after the lawn care company went around and cut all the grass?
Ms. Menard: No, this is recent, this is a couple of months ago.
Mr. McKnight: Well, what I’m saying is, it’s a possibility that the HOA’s lawn care people, they do mow around the lakes.
Ms. Menard: No, this has nothing to do with mowing. So, this is my reason for doing this and I can’t read this first part but, erosion control, roots systems from the shoreline plants anchor soil preventing it from washing it into the lakes and reducing sedimentation, shoreline stabilization plants absorb wind and wave energy protecting the banks from damage, habitat and biodiversity submerged and shoreline plants offer shelter, breeding grounds for fish, which we need, birds, beneficial insects, like dragonflies that eat mosquitoes and amphibians. Water quality improvements, plants absorb nutrients that would other full excessive algae blooms ensuring clearer, healthier water, vegetation buffers trap debris, pesticides, and pollutants from the stormwater runoff protecting the lakes from contamination and aesthetics and natural control native plants enhance natural beauty and can deter nuisance animals such as geese from entering the water. So, again, you guys saw the picture of what our lake beds look like, there is no natural grasses or flowers.
Ms. Hinz Philippi: So, we have one thing that is on the agenda too that the engineer work is the BMAP, we did a response to them and one  thing that they are

looking at is to better the water quality from phosphorous and nitrogen and Roberto can talk about it later once we submit it but, what you’re saying, if we did go to littorals and they have maintenance there, and the couple of lakes that you have in the back.
Ms. Menard: Right, and the front two entry lakes. Mr. Hans: And they’re in the back lakes as well.
Ms. Hinz Philippi: But before we had it in all of them, then the spray, I think he killed them because I remember I have so many pictures because people didn’t like it, and I said this is good for your water, and for any life that stays in the water, like the fishes because it prevents them from being eaten.
Ms. Menard: And we also used to have a ton of these claims, like a ton of these black claims that open and it looks like a pearl inside, you barely see those anymore, all these natural habitats that was keeping our lakes healthy, now all we’re doing is spraying and chemicals and more spraying and chemicals to keep the lakes healthy, and we have to have natural habitats to help the erosion because it’s terrible and before you know it we’re going to have engineering bills to put the edges of the lakes back up.
Ms. Hinz Philippi: And the littorals, you have to think about what you’re going to put there, like you have natural spike rush I think there, right?
Mr. Hans: Yes, there’s some spike rush. Ms. Hinz Philippi: And they’re noninvasive.
Mr. Menard: What’s the one that has the purple flowers.
Mr. Hans: That’s pickeral weed, that is a native Florida aquatic, that is good to plant but, spike rush is very to have, it’s not invasive, it’s a native Florida aquatic in can only grow in a foot and a half of water, a few people are saying it’s invasive, and a resident said, call it a weed, it is very good, and that’s what we proposed for all those, we were talking about planting spike rush which is one of the plants that are in there. The one that they don’t like is bull rush, bull rush is a tall grass, and spike rush stays lower, and what you have around the front lake.
Ms. Menard: And for our lakes to get that back again, we would have to neglect them for 20 years for them to get the spike rush as bad as it was when we first starting spraying for it. So, I would like to figure out on this lake maintenance thing, how to stop the herbicide or whatever that’s killing those natural aquatic plants.

Ms. Hinz Philippi: Ok, then that’s just a direction from the Board, we can do that. Ms. Menard: Yes, I want that.
Mr. Hans: Yes, we can reduce the spraying on the native aquatics, we need to see how much actually grows back and there’s a good chance because of how much it’s been sprayed, a lot of that spike rush isn’t going to come back, you would have to look at doing plantings, kind of like select pods, and it would grow.
Ms. Hinz Philippi: Because the spike rush is, like it spreads, you don’t need to plant all over, you can put a pocket here, a pocket there, and then it’s going to go.
Mr. Lange: Kind of like St. Augustine grass. Ms. Hinz Philippi: Yes.
Mr. Hans: But if you want to do like the pickeral weed and maybe some of the duck potato as well, duck potato has a nice white flower to it, so you would want to mix those in with the plantings that way there’s a little bit of like pop of color, it looks less like a swamp because the big issue I’m sure, and the complaint that we were getting back in the day which is the same complaint I get at other properties, I paid for a lake view, this is not a lake view this is a swamp view, so that is the main complaint that I’m sure lead Lennar to make the decision to do that.
Ms. Menard: I mean like I said, it’s way more beautiful now because the water isn’t so high but, there’s flowers on them, there’s white flowers, purple flowers.
Mr. Hans: Right, so duck potato, it has more like a flat leaf on top, and then the pickeral weed is one of the purple flowers.
Ms. Menard: So, this is like a fatter leaf and it just looks beautiful, there’s tons of birds, and we have to have a breeding ground for fish, we can’t just keep buying fish to put in there, I mean I just walked around the front lake when I did the community cleanup and I counted 5 dead fish, and they were big fish, they were about this big each.
Ms. Hinz Philippi: So, what we can do is to give direction to staff to work with the lake company, stop the spraying, and come back with a proposal for putting in some pockets of the flowers that are noninvasive.
Ms. Menard: Well, how can we, because I don’t know what is means by the midge mosquito control that’s happening monthly.

Ms. Hinz Philippi: So, the mosquito control, the midge control is the one that they spray the lakes for the larvae so the mosquito goes and puts the eggs on the lake banks, and so it kills the mosquito and that doesn’t mean that it’s going to do anything with the littorals.
Ms. Menard: Ok, and I’m just trying to figure out what can’t be sprayed.
Mr. Hans: Algaecide also does not affect the plants either, they’re spraying essentially specifically to kill the plants.
Ms. Hinz Philippi: And the midges and it’s important because you guys have such a problem with mosquitoes in the summer time, that if you have the mosquitoes and the midges it’s going to be a lot.
Ms. Menard: And also what I see on the budget, like when I see what’s being paid every month, I don’t understand why we don’t just spray for midges in the summers, in the warmer months, and then why are we spraying in the cooler winter months, I don’t feel like that’s necessary.
Ms. Hinz Philippi: I think that’s how they divide the service to be a monthly payment.
Ms. Menard: Well, we are paying monthly.
Mr. Scalice: I think what she’s saying is we’re quoted a certain amount and then they just split it up every month instead of paying it in bulk.
Ms. Menard: No, they’re out there doing the service and billing. Ms. Hinz Philippi: Yes, they are doing the service.
Ms. Menard: So, I don’t feel like we need to be paying 12 months of the year for mosquito control.
Mr. McKnight: But here’s the thing, there might be days in January where it’s 40 degrees and then a few days later it’s 80 degrees, and mosquitoes are going to multiply in the heat.
Ms. Menard: Yes, but it’s usually the cooler months you don’t have the mosquitoes like you do in the summer like look they’re spreading for midges right now, every month, and these are the mosquitoes that are flying around me on my lake property.

Ms. Hinz Philippi: The mosquitoes are not the problem, so the mosquitoes, it’s another service.
Ms. Menard: The midges aren’t the larvae. Ms. Hinz Philippi: No.
Mr. Hans: No, they are completely separate.
Ms. Hinz Philippi: The midges are the smaller ones. Ms. Menard: Ok but, they look like a mosquito.
Mr. Hans: Right, they’re the little black ones, and for a while they were covering the back of everybody’s homes and they just cover everything.
Ms. Menard: Ok.
Ms. Hinz Philippi: But these ones, you have to spray for the mosquitoes and that is more the landscape company.
Mr. Menard: Yes, and when people came up there were all wetlands around the community so I’m just saying we can’t keep paying to spray when you’re around the Everglades.
Ms. Hinz Philippi: Because to spray for mosquitoes need to be probably the HOA with the landscape company, and the best way would be like the one that we were doing there.
Mr. Hans: Right, and I don’t know about the county but, the state is supposed to take over the mosquito treatment for this area as well because currently we’re not in a mosquito treatment zone right now for the State of Florida. The City of Port St. Lucie was petitioning to the state to get it approved.
Mr. McKnight:  Well, they used fog our community at lease once a month with

trucks.

Ms. Menard: Yes, we pay for mosquito control.
Ms. Hinz Philippi: Ok, so you have mosquito control, so they are doing it? Ms. Menard: They only fog.
Mr. Lange: The county, they usually have a blower on the back of a pickup truck. Ms. Menard: Yes, so we have mosquito control.
Ms. Hinz Philippi: Ok.

Ms. Menard: So, I just want to make sure that whatever we vote on this lake that we’re not killing the plants, we need plants to help the health of our lakes with the erosion of the beds and habitat and more fish to grow.
Ms. Hinz Philippi: So what we can do is the Board can vote to cancel the spray for the plants for the littorals, so not spray to kill them.
Mr. Hans: Stop treating the Florida aquatics. Ms. Hinz Philippi: Yes.
Ms. Menard: The Florida aquatics, that’s exactly what I want, and I would like to wait a few more months, maybe 6 months and see what plants have decided to come back before we continue to decide if we’re going to get any estimates for plants.
Mr. Hans: Ok.
Mr. McKnight: And then at the next meeting also we can decide if we want to restock because if all the plants are growing back then we can add fish back because that will be around the summer time so that will help with the mosquitoes and whatnot.
Ms. Menard: Yes because you can tell the way that lake, and did you guys get a picture of that green lake, and I don’t know if I have it on here, I think I saved it but I hope I did because this is what we’re dealing with.
Mr. Hans: I would also say with the lakes, the money that we’re now going to be getting back from the lights, depending on what we chose to do with lights, we have it, it would be worth considering a multi-year project adding in aerators to the lakes if we’re worrying about the lake health and everything because we seem to be having a lot more fish kills at this community than any other community, and identical lakes at other communities are not having the same issues with fish dying, so it might be worth monitoring if we did that.
Mr. Lange: Is that just under the surface, so it wouldn’t be noisy or anything like
that?
Mr. Hans: Yes, correct, it just circulates the water.
Ms. Hinz Philippi: It’s the only one that really works because the fountains are
just for beauty, the aeration is the one that goes under and it really brings in the oxygen.
Ms. Menard: And this is what our lake looked like. Mr. Lange: When was that?

Ms. Menard: This was in February.
Mr. Hans: Yes, so that lake is the refuse lake, it gets filled with water from the wastewater, and that’s used for irrigation, so that one is extremely prone to algae blooms and all sorts of stuff.
Ms. Menard: Yes, so again, you can see what our banks look like everywhere, I mean even here, and I know this is a refuse lake but, to me all the banks look the same.
Mr. Hans: Oh yes, the banks look the same.
Ms. Menard: So, when this happened, here’s another good picture, when the lake was green like this the neighbors were livid, what is the CDD doing, what’s going on, livid.
Mr. McKnight: So being where that water comes from, will we have issues with plants?
Mr. Hans: Well, everything grows in that one, it’s not about what won’t grow.
Mr. McKnight: No but what I mean like is if we’re planning on, well ok we said we can still spray noninvasively, we just stop spraying the Florida aquatics.
Ms. Menard: And these are the shelves that used to be flooded on our banks and fish, the birds would eat them, and you barely find them anymore, you’ll find them here and there but, nothing like before so that just tells me that things are not reproducing in our lakes, so I think I made my point on these.
Ms. Hinz Philippi: Alright.
Ms. Menard: And this was just another glimpse of our algae along the lakes, and I’ll show you Frank, very thick and foamy, and there’s no plants.
Mr. Lange: Where did you get that one?
Ms. Menard: This one I got them from Miley Greenspring, and I got the algae from the school lake, the little two lakes, so I did nice a walk around just to inform everybody of what I’m thinking so that you understood when I’m asking for the plants.
Mr. Cabrera: And Andressa, can I speak for a moment? Ms. Hinz Phillippi: Yes, sure.
Mr. Cabrera: So, what I’ve heard from the conversation, I really do like a lot of what I’m hearing, especially as you mentioned we have that Copper Creek lake like probably most of the communities and the county discharge into the St. Lucie River, and

we’re being asked by the state to provide additional water quality options, and one of the popular ones is littoral plantings which are more intentional than just letting the grasses grow but, I do like the idea of, just so you know, other communities what they’re doing is instead of just spraying with herbicides, it would be more mechanical removal by hand, because you’re spraying with herbicides, you’re killing the plants that are absorbing the nutrients and so that means you have more nutrients in the lake which a higher lake may have more algae and then those plants decay and add nutrients back into the lake, and it increases the likelihood of algae. So, again, those are all positive things that I think we’re doing, I would consider maybe if the grasses do start growing again, doing like a mechanical type removal, and then eventually it would encourage more of an intentional littoral planting system, and these are all things we can get credit for with the state in their goal for us to reduce our nitrogen and phosphorous levels that we discharge through our systems.
Ms. Menard: And so they don’t want us lifting those gates and dumping the, and it was in our agenda, dumping our waters into their canals and into the systems.
Mr. Lange: Is that something we have to apply for with the state?
Ms. Hinz Philippi: No, so this is the first year that they contacted us and said, hey you need to, or our phosphorous and nitrogen levels need to go down, so they told us how much we had and I contacted Roberto and Roberto worked with them to show them what we are doing and to apply like credits for us for what we’re doing, and for Copper Creek, did you put anything for the future that we should look at?
Mr. Cabrera: Yes, there’s a list of them, and we focused on not capital projects, something that we’ll be doing, we tried to identify those as best as we could, we did not include any sort of littoral plantings or mechanical removal of vegetation but, these are things that you guys are already talking about, and I would encourage us to do these things, those will help us get credit towards the goals that they have established for Copper Creek.
Ms. Hinz Philippi: And the littorals by the way, we can bring several different
ones.
Ms. Menard: And can you tell me again the names of the ones that I told you I
loved, the purple ones.

Mr. Hans: Yes, it’s pickeral weed is the one purple one, and the potato is the one with the white flowers, and then spike rush is the short grass that we definitely want as well.
Ms. Menard: Ok, so I love this idea, I’m so happy right now, and can you explain to Nicholas and Jonathan about the credits you’re talking about with the water management?
Ms. Hinz Phlippi: Yes, so Roberto is going to go into this when he gives his report but, basically when you have things like street sweeping or littorals on your lakes, you are taking away the nutrients or the particles that go inside the water and that are making our water reaching the nitrogen and phosphorous. So, when you say, I’m going to do a like a planting of the littorals and we can look here at the ones like Roberto said that are more intentional ones, those are the ones that benefit more than water, and take out the food, so when you do apply that and say, I’m going to do this project and put it in our lakes, then you’re going to gain the credit for the BMAP that we are obligated to do.
Ms. Menard: So, this is the nitrogen cycle of how the plants benefit the ecosystem of the lake, ok, wonderful but, what I was referring to was, when you say the credit, remember South Florida Water Management District we had that money that they issue us back and we have to use it, so it’s kind of like that, but you have to show that you’re using it or need it or something like that.
Ms. Hinz Philippi: Yes.
Ms. Menard: And this is the one I want. Mr. Lange: Yes, I think we’ve seen them.
Ms. Menard:	So you can’t complain when you see beautiful flowers like that around the lake, and what is that, that is not in our area?
Mr. Hans: I’m not super familiar with the red flower.
Ms. Menard:	I’ve never seen it in our lakes, and it just tells you the different heights.
Ms. Hinz Philippi: Alright, so we have some things that we can take a look at.
Ms. Menard:	Ok, so do you have hope that we’ll get some natural grasses growing or you don’t have much but we still have to give it time.

Mr. Hans: Yes, you still have to give it time, I have a feeling what you’re going to see more of is just regular weeds popping up in that area than anything. There’s a chance that some of it might come back but typically it’s stuff that you don’t want that’s going to pop up in there. The areas on, I think what I have is lake 8 and 9 for the community, those do have spike rush growing there currently, so if they do reduce the spraying those might see a good amount of growth in the spike rush.
Ms. Menard: Ok.
Ms. Hinz Philippi: So, let’s go back a little bit.
Ms. Menard: Ok, so back to management fees and field management, so management fee they want a 5% increase, and field management they want a 7.01% increase which they received a 7% last year, so let’s think about that.
Ms. Hinz Philippi: And for field management we are charging only $2,000, so it’s very minimal, this is barely keeping his hours.
Mr. Lange: But work is going to increase.
Ms. Menard: Yes, it is, especially if we’re going to be handpicking grasses.
Mr. Scalice: As far as management fees, you mentioned increases but look at the COLA, the cost of living increases that people get that get, like me I’m a retired government employee, I get 2% but a 2% in management fees would be acceptable to me, I know you said 1.5%, COLA was 2% this year, my retirement check went up 2%, which isn’t much but it’s still 2%, so that might be something we can look at in the future, if the COLA is 2%, we’ll increase them 2%, if it’s only 1.5%, we’ll increase it 1.5%, just some other measure that we use that the government issues for us retirees, and it’s the same with people on Social Security, that we all get the same COLA, so that’s my two cents in it.
Mr. McKnight: Well, everything increases, so we’re not going to be able to get away from it, it’s just a matter of what we are approving for the increase, so a 2% increase would be fine for me, I’d be ok with that because the amount of, like you said the amount of meetings we have, stuff does get done in the background but, I don’t think we can just not an increase, what’s already been done, it’s been done, and they got that much in the past, so it is what it is but, moving forward I think we have to give them a minimum of something this year, so I’d go for 2%.

Ms. Menard: Ok.
Mr. Lange: I agree with 2%, yes, that’s a fair middle ground. Ms. Menard: Ok.
Ms. Hinz Philippi: Alright, so I will review the management fee.
Ms. Menard: And also our general liability insurance went up 5%, did we get any other estimates?
Ms. Hinz Phlippi:	There is only two companies that do CDDs and this is the cheapest one.
Ms. Menard: Ok.
Mr. Scalice: The new budget for management fee should be $38,163, that’s with the 2% increase.
Ms. Menard: Ok, and what are you guys thinking about the field management increase?
Mr. Lange: It’s going to have more work to do with the gate and then all the other additional stuff that we’re looking at because with all the plantings and all of that.
Ms. Menard: Ok.
Mr. Scalice: I think the $22,090 is a good number. Mr. Lange: I think that’s fair, and it’s small item.
Ms. Menard: Ok.
Ms. Hinz Phlippi: Ok, so if you guys are ok with the changes that we stated, then I will need a motion to approve resolution #2026-01 approving the proposed fiscal year 2027 budget and setting up the public hearing for July 21, 2026.
Ms. Menard: Is this also including that lights budget, are we approving the light item, are we still keeping that?
Mr. Hans: That’s going to the reserve now is where it’s going.
Ms. Hinz Philippi: That is going to come out and is going to be on the budget for the reserves.
Ms. Menard: Yes, but when we approve right now that’s including that too? Mr. Hans: Yes, it’s moving into the operating reserve.
Ms. Menard: And we’re ok with keeping that full amount to decide what we’re going to do with lighting and planting?

Mr. McKnight: I was just going to say, this budget includes what are plans are for this lighting?
Ms. Menard: Yes, the lighting budget that we will now have, the $231,000, you don’t have it on your paper, I printed it, so the street lights are paid off, so we won’t have the loan anymore, so we’re now collecting an additional $231,000, no, so that’s the budget, we’re collecting more than that.
Mr. Hans: It’s the $17,870 that goes into the operating reserve, that’s what we were paying annually, and it was like a $120,000 loan.
Ms. Hinz Phlippi: Exactly.
Mr. McKnight: So, we’ll just have $17,000 and some change going into the reserve.
Mr. Hans: Correct. Mr. McKnight: Ok. Ms. Menard: Ok.
Ms. Hinz Philippi: And by the way you can also put like, if you want to change for the engineer instead of $22,000, you can make that $15,000, and the extra like $7,000 we can put it in capital outlay.
Ms. Menard: Ok.
Ms. Hinz Philippi: So we can move that money, now I don’t know how much you want to keep in engineering but, Roberto, are you able to tell us like how much would be a fee for the service coming out and checking if needed the outfall mechanism?
Mr. Cabrera: I wouldn’t be much but it kind of depends on storm events, last year was a very quiet year and calm but, this year who knows, but I could come up with a per visit estimate but it wouldn’t be much.
Ms. Menard: Ok.
Ms. Hinz Philippi: Alright so how much do want to leave there?
Ms. Menard:  What do you guys want to leave for the engineering budget for
2027?
Ms. Hinz Philippi: Remember that we don’t need to use that money, it’s just there
for if you need it.

Ms. Scalice: How do you determine if it gets used for that budget or the operating reserve budget?
Mr. McKnight: So, can we move that somewhere else?
Ms. Hinz Philippi: Yes, so that’s what I said, if you want to move maybe $7,000, like leave $15,000 and move $7,000 to capital outlay then you have $7,000 to use in capital outlay.
Mr. Lange. We’re just allocating where it’s going.
Mr. Hinz Philippi: Yes, where you’re allocating and where it’s going to come out from, if you’re doing capital outlay, like we’re going to have an expense, we’re going to do like a littoral planting, we have like a $5,000 check that we’re going to use and that they’re put capital outlay.
Mr. McKnight: So that would include restocking with fish? Ms. Menard: I don’t think we need fish.
Mr. Hans: The money can come out of that, we can use that money for capital outlay for whatever we need essentially.
Ms. Menard: See I was going to change, instead of last year’s budget for engineering was $10,000, and we spent $22,000, a little over $22,500 but, we’re finished with that project so I was thinking of making that $15,000 project and make sure we have enough money for our littoral.
Mr. Lange: Kathy, they’ve only spent $11,260 so far, so that $22,500 is projected.
Ms. Menard: Yes, projected.
Mr. Hans: At the end of this year too, all that money gets bumped over there anyway essentially, we balance the budget at the end of the year to match what we spent, so any extra money that we have that didn’t get spent goes into what we call the reserve or the general fund, or capital overlays.
Ms. Hinz Philippi: So, if you want to do that just to visualize what you have.
Ms. Menard: I guess it would better to homeowners not to see a $22,000 engineering budget.
Ms. Hinz Philippi: Ok, so we will leave engineer at $15,000 then. Ms. Menard: Ok, let’s move on.

Ms. Hinz Philippi: Alright, so if you guys are ok with the discussed changes, we’re going to do the 2% for management fees, the engineer at $15,000, and I think that’s about it, so if you guys are ok with the changes in the budget to approve resolution #2026-01 and setting the public hearing for July 21, 2026, I just need a motion. Then just for the record the public hearing is going to take place at 2160 NW Reserve Park Trace, Port St. Lucie, Florida 34986

On MOTION by Mr. Lange seconded by Ms. Menard with all in favor, Resolution #2026-01 approving the proposed Fiscal Year 2027 Budget and setting the Public Hearing on July 21, 2026 at 11:30 a.m. at 2160 NW Reserve Park Trace, Port St. Lucie, Florida was approved.

FIFTH ORDER OF BUSINESS	Discussion of:
Procedure for the General Election
Fonroche Lighting America
Approval of Replacement Solar Batteries with All Coast Electric, LLC
Ms. Hinz Philippi: The next item would be procedure for the general election, so we have two seats up for election, Frank’s seat and Kathy’s seat, and you guys have to apply from 12:00 noon on June 8th to 12:00 noon on June 12th. Then you guys know, and I have it in the agenda, you see there we have we have 4 different places that you can go to apply, so St. Lucie West South County Annex and the other ones that are listed there, and you guys know to qualify you have to be 18 years old, and a citizen of the United States, resident of the State of Florida, and the District, and are registered to vote in St. Lucie County with the Supervisor of Elections. Make sure your candidacy is for the seat that you are in now and running for because sometimes Board members forget and they put the seat that the other person is in, and both are running for one seat and nobody is in the other seat. So, if you need any help with anything just let us know but, that is just for you guys to know. Then how it works is, if they apply and if they are unopposed, nobody is running for their seat, then once the qualifying period is over they will let them know, you were in the seat and running unopposed so you’re still in that seat.
Mr. Scalice: So, then does it get removed from the ballot at that point?

Ms. Hinz Philippi: Yes.
Mr. Lange:	The only time your name will stay on is if somebody is running against you which is what was going to happen to me at the last election.
Ms. Menard: So, do you have the list of places to go? Ms. Hinz Philippi: It’s in your agenda on page 26.
Ms. Menard: Ok.
Mr. Lange: I used to go up to Orange Avenue. Ms. Menard: Ok.
Mr. Lange: And you have to pay $25 to register. Ms. Menard: Ok.
Ms. Hinz Philippi: Alright, that takes care of our procedures for general election. Then we have, so Michael who I had mentioned before got a proposal from Fonroche Lighting America, and it was just lighting, since we were going to talk about lighting I put that on the agenda because that was one more informational thing for us. Then Matt went out several times with these people to get the proposal for replacing the solar batteries for the current lights that you have there, and there’s a very small niche of people that do that, and the batteries are very expensive. They do last for 5 years each time that you replace them but, they are very expensive as you see in the proposal, it would be $10,920 to replace them but, what Matt had thought about it was, since we’re going to replace let’s just replace everything already because the amount of work that every time one goes out, and then you go to get the guy and come back and they charge more, so he asked them how much would be to replace all of them, and I think almost all of them were bad anyway.
Mr. Hans: Yes, they’ve all reached their useful life essentially, they could go out any day now with those lights, and it is a lot more cost effective to have to do it all in once sweep and we know the next time, in 5 years from now if we plan on doing it altogether again as well if we stick with these lights, otherwise each time we have them come out it’s would be like $3,500 just to do one set of them. It doesn’t help that the batteries are located 25 feet in the air, if they put them at ground level it might have been a different story, we could have anybody do it, but I picked this company who specializes essentially in taking care of solar lighting and street lighting in general.

Ms. Menard: So, are you done Matt? Ms. Hans: Yes.
Ms. Menard: Ok, when I looked up these batteries which was 8G27 12 volts, the price range was anywhere from $375 a piece to $460 a piece, on that high range of
$460 a piece it’s looking like about $7,360 just to replace the batteries, like just to buy the batteries and the proposal came in at $10,920 which approximately a $3,560 installation fee, they were out at our community back in March, 2025, we paid a diagnostic solar power STLT of $3,840, then they came back again in November, we paid them another $2,570, the lights still have been out since then because I’m still sending emails since November about a bunch lights out, so we’re now thousands, and thousands of dollars in the hole, and even if we go and spend $10,920 on new batteries it doesn’t mean the components in the light aren’t going bad, so we could have another problem with components and I would like as the CDD to look into alternate options at either replacing the lights completely or contacting FPL and seeing if somehow we can get some type of light whether it’s solar or electric running through the community, get a cost and get something that where maintenance is, we just pay a monthly fee, maintenance is handled.
Ms. Hans: Ok, and FPL would be the route for that, going solar, I’ll check with them, I’m not sure what type of options they offer for that under a maintenance plan, there’s a reason why 2 years ago when they made a decision to go solar that FPL was not an option for that but, I’ll double check and see. One of the reasons why they had originally gone with solar as well is because at the time Lennar did not want to take on the price, and did not want the CDD to take on the additional cost of running conduit, doing direction bores to get to the locations that they had selected for the lights is why solar was the choice for them at the time. I’d say swapping these out for new solar lights though, we’ll run into the exact same issues we’re running into unless we can get something from FPL that’s a guaranteed maintenance plan.
Ms. Menard: Because the lights we had installed by the HOA, FPL installed them, they worked consistently, they looked beautiful, they match the community, and I think now that we have that additional money coming in because the loan is paid off, we have the option to look into investing in something beautiful and more reliable.

Mr. Hans: Yes, 100%.
Ms. Menard: Something that’s appealing.
Mr. Hans: This is going to be a large upfront cost though with FPL for getting their lights in and then afterwards it is just a maintenance cost from them but, there is typically a pretty substantial upfront cost because they have to put the infrastructure in to make those lights work.
Ms. Menard: Well, we’ll have to I guess get that number and then go from there. Mr. Hans: Yes but I can say, on that front, they did explore those options back in
2020 or 2021 when they were making these decisions, and the $70,000 that it cost to do the solar lighting was the much more economical option at the time.
Ms. Menard: Ok.
Mr. Hans: So, it is going to be relatively expensive, it is $70,000 for us to put in 9 solar lights, and that’s just putting those light poles in, that’s not even for us to get the power to those locations. Typically a directional bore costs around $4,000 to go under the road and that’s not even including getting the wire to that location in the first place where they can do the directional bore, so it is going to be a pretty substantial cost for us to go with FPL lighting in here.
Ms. Menard: Well, I think that it’s going to have to be an investment and once it’s done it will last a very long time, and we do still have $153,388 that will be coming in to do this project.
Ms. Hinz Philippi: So, what we can do by the next meeting, we can have Matt can call FPL, and let them come and give a proposal, and see what they have on both fronts and if they provide the maintenance and all of that, and explore the options, there’s nothing that is going to hold us back from there. So, we can bring you the options and then this Board can decide because I think in the long run, you’re going to have much less problems and less maintenance.
Ms. Menard: Yes. Mr. Hans: 100%
Ms. Hinz Philippi: Because it may be up front you’re going to pay some extra money but, in the long run you’re going to see that you’re not having to replace parts

every 5 years, you don’t have problems with the structure that you don’t even know, and you need a specialist to come out and figure out what’s happening.
Mr. Lange: We’re only talking about those silver lights.
Ms. Menard: Yes, but we don’t necessarily have to put a light right where those

are.

Mr. Lange: Right, Lenna just said put them here. Ms. Menard: Right.
Mr. Hans: So, what they were trying to do though with that, the goal was to fill in

gaps where the HOA lighting did not cover, and the reason the CDD got tasked with that lighting in the first place is because the CDD, it was easier for the CDD to get a loan than the HOA, and that’s how Lennar and the CDD ended up with those lights but, the specific reason for those lights at those locations is because those were gaps in the HOA.
Ms. Hinz Philippi: And also because people requested them saying it’s very dark in this area, or it’s very dark in this area.
Mr. Lange: Especially at that gate where the kids cross the street to go school, there was no lighting there at all.
Ms. Menard: And if it was up to me, I would have a lot more of those path lightings, like along where the kids walk.
Mr. Scalice: Yes because we have to think about what are we actually trying to accomplish with the lights in general, if it’s to light up the streets then we have to go with the bigger poles but, if it’s just to light up the sidewalks then it may be cheaper, cost effective, and those would probably look a whole lot better and we may be able to get more compared to those right there, we may be able to get more compared to everything else.
Ms. Hinz Philippi: And you know what we should do, if you would like Kathy, we could, if the Board wants to task you with looking at this with Matt we could, when we do the appointment with FPL to go and look at this you could be there too so you can give them your view, if you want to of course.
Ms. Menard: Ok, so Monday or Tuesday I can be there Matt. Ms. Hinz Philippi: Ok.

Mr. Hans: Ok.
Ms. Menard: I love these lights, like we need something that looks higher class, these kids are walking to and from school every day, we need lights that are shining on the ground, people can see people, we have to level up.
Ms. Hinz Philippi: Alright, so we have some direction here, so Matt is going to bring the proposals and he can contact you too, Kathy and then you guys can take a look together.
Ms. Menard: Yes, and I know it all depends on what light we’re getting but, we need to just have some ideas and then we go from there.
Ms. Hinz Philippi: Yes, and you can even say, can you give me two proposals, one for the big the poles and one for the path lights, and compare them, maybe it’s even cheaper for the ones that are the path lights and then you can do much better.
Ms. Menard: Yes.
Mr. Hans: Just remember, our biggest cost is getting the power to the locations. Ms. Menard: Yes, we know that.
Mr. Hans: So that’s going to be the biggest thing, so we’ll probably have to put the lights, the closer they are to the green FPL boxes the less conduit, the less line they’re going to have to run, so there might be a few locations to the FPL boxes.
Mr. Lange: We just have to remember where we place these lights, if they’re on HOA property we have to get approval.
Ms. Hinz Philippi: And the easement with them and then Scott would come in and get us the easement agreement with the HOA if it’s not on District property, then we would have to get at least an easement.
Mr. Lange: And I’m the vice president of the HOA, and I’m all in favor of it but, it still has to be presented to the HOA and the community because it is their property.
Ms. Menard: That’s if we’re on HOA property. Mr. Lange: Right, that’s why I’m adding that.
Ms. Menard: Ok, and I also have to say, to take into consideration during this project, remember how sticker shocked we were with the gates and we didn’t want to spend too much money on the gate, I am prepared unfortunately with this project, if we

have to go under the road to make the lights look proper and not just placed because it’s easiest, we’re going to do it.
Ms. Hinz Philippi: Ok, so let’s see what we can do, bring you the numbers, and then the Board can discuss.
Ms. Menard: Thank you.

SIXTH ORDER OF BUSINESS	Staff Reports
Ms. Hinz Philippi: Alright, so the next item would be staff reports, Scott.

Attorney – Consideration of Request for Adjustment to District Counsel Fee Structure
Mr. Cochran: Yes, ok so more fun conversation, so in your packet I think it’s on page 32 there’s a letter from Mike Pawelczyk at our office.
Ms. Hinz Philippi: And Matt if you need to drop of the line you can do that now.
Mr. Hans: Ok, and if you need me to come back just send me a message and I’ll hope back in.
Ms. Hinz Philippi: Ok, thank you.
Mr. Cochran: So, our current fee structure has been in place since 2023, and that was the last time we increased, and before that it was 2015. So, our current rates are $300 for partners, and $225 for associates, so all we’re proposing and this would be effective the start of the District’s next fiscal year, so not until October 1, 2026, so it wouldn’t affect anything between now and then, is a $25 increase to the associate rate, and really this is wanting to keep up with the cost of living and stuff like that, it’s also to help us just kind of make our rates uniform across our different Districts. For new Districts, recent Districts, we charge higher rates than are reflected here but, obviously this District has been a long time client, and we appreciate that and we take that into account and realistically, and I’m a partner, so it’s not going to have any impact because my rate is not increasing, it’s just for associates but, we don’t really have associates that work on this particular District, and as far as your budget goes, it definitely won’t impact that I think for the next fiscal year you guys have budgeted $15,000 for attorney, and we don’t come close to that unless something really weird happens but, I don’t even know what could happen here for us to get up there.

Mr. Scalice: So, you’re saying the associates would go from $250 to $275? Mr. Cochran: No, I’m sorry, it’s currently $225, so it would go up to $250.
Mr. Scalice: But you said we don’t typically have associates.
Mr. Cochran: Correct because I’m a partner and I’m the one that typically does this District.
Mr. Scalice: Ok, so it’s $25 per hour increase and we don’t really have associates, so I don’t understand.
Mr. Cochran: If we can finalize, and I’m working with our schedule, one of the things that’s tricky about this type of work is because you have Board meetings all over the place, and in different weeks of the month, different days of the week, different times, so it’s a little bit tricky with the schedules and we try to keep it consistent so that you’re not seeing different faces all the time but, I can do that, I can see if one of the two associates is available and because I have more experience, I would hopefully do the work more efficiently.
Mr. Scalice: So your hourly rate doesn’t change. Mr. Cochran: Correct.
Mr. Scalice: So, worse case scenario if you’re not here we get somebody that’s cheaper.
Mr. Cochran: Yes, unless it’s one of the other partners. Mr. Scalice: So then it would be the same.
Mr. Cochran: Yes.
Mr. Scalice: Ok, I don’t have a problem.
Mr. Lange: I don’t have a problem with it either, Kathy? Ms. Menard: I’m good.

On MOTION by Mr. McKnight seconded by Ms. Scalice with all in favor, accepting the request for adjustment to District Counsel fee structure effective October 1, 2026 was approved.

Mr. Cochran: Then as far as any other items, just a reminder since we won’t be meeting again until likely later in July, your Form 1 financial disclosures are due by July

1st, and you’ll probably get your emails from the State Commission on Ethics sometime, probably next month but, even before then you can use login credentials and go ahead and fill that out.
Mr. Lange: Do we have to do the training again?
Mr. Cochran: Yes, that’s the other thing, the ethics training, but the deadline for that is not until December 31st, so you have the rest of the calendar year to do that but, the Form 1s are due by July 1, so just make sure you turn those in on time, and it should be pretty I think that if nothing has changed since last year the fields just repopulate so it’s pretty quick to update. So, then just the 4 hours of ethics training which is an annual requirement, so by December 31st that needs to be done, and you’ll see that on the Form 1 there’s a little box that you check just to say you completed your ethics training last year, other than that, that’s all I have unless anybody has any questions.

Engineer
South Florida Water Management District Operable Gate Control Structure Construction Completion Certification Acceptance
Memorandum from Culpepper & Terpening, Inc. – Operable Gate Control Structure Completion Notification
Memorandum from Culpepper & Terpening, Inc. – Response Summary of the St. Lucie River and Estuary BMAP
Ms. Hinz Philippi: Alright, not hearing any, Roberto you’re up.
Mr. Cabrera: Thank you Andressa. So, I have a couple of things to report here, the first set of items is regarding the control structure, attached is a letter from South Florida Water Management District where they’ve accepted our certification package that the structure was built and as-built, in accordance with the permit. So, as far as our permitting conditions or concerns we’re back into the operational phase of our ERP permit. The second item is a memorandum we put together just kind of summarizing the project and how it works, so we went out there, and just a quick summary, the project has been designed, permitted, constructed, we have record drawings of it when we certified it. In this memo I also attached, there’s some of the operating parameters for the project, so there is a proactive component to it so in anticipation of the big storm that we know is coming we can go out there and operate that gate and lower the water

to the control elevation if know a major storm is coming. The storm last week is not one that I was tracking, and we do a lot of this work for a lot of our communities but it is one that would have fallen within the 10 year storm event, so this is one that we should have been out there. So, it’s something that we’re need to work out on a process, and it’s something where we can go out there, open the gate, let it come down, because it will come down quicker with that gate than the normal time than what used to happen. We can run that gate for 2 days without any sort of additional permission and that should be plenty to get us down to the control elevation in plenty of time. So, if anybody has any questions regarding the control structure and how it works I’m all ears.
Ms. Menard: What would be our routine?
Mr. Cabrera: This is what I’m thinking, and I’m sure, I think 2 hours is enough for us because we have to go out there, open the gate, we’ll leave it open for up to 2 days, until we have to go back out there and close the gate, so I think 1 hour for each trip is enough. The inspectors that we kind of use, they’re used to looking at other kind of potential conditions that might be affecting the system so they have an eye out for blockages and that sort of thing that might not just be the structure, so we’ll kind of multitask while we’re out there trying to troubleshoot to see if there are any other issues but, I’m thinking just a simple text message or email and we can get our guys out there. I do have somebody out there where they’re an hour or two in any given storm event.
Ms. Hinz Philippi: So what I’m requiring from Roberto now is, Roberto if you could put together an email and send it to the Board members, and copy me on it, and of course they are not going to answer but, so they have the information of who to contact, and their phone number, email address and like the timeframe that is needed for that to work so they all have it and then in an event of a storm they can contact you guys.
Mr. Cabrera: That sounds good, and I did want to mention one other thing that I heard and depending on the type of storm and the intensity, different parts of that stormwater system are designed for different types of storms, and most roads here in Florida, they’re designed to hold stormwater during certain storm events, now that stormwater is supposed to recover within 24 to 48 hours, depending on the storm event but, that is one potential bottleneck of the control structure, depending again on the

intensity of the storm that the control structure might not directly reduce the way it should, I mean it’s the inlets and the roadways that are sized for a 10 year storm, now the control structure is meant to offer protection for the 100 year storm on the flooding of the actual homes. So, I’m trying to say that some water in the roadways in Florida is a normal thing that we see.
Ms. Menard: But not impassible.
Mr. Lange: Not the entire roadway from sidewalk to sidewalk. Ms. Menard: No, it was into the yards, it was like yard to yard.
Ms. Hinz Philippi: And once you send the email to the Board maybe Kathy can send you the pictures that we saw here for you to have an idea of what they saw there.
Mr. Lange: Yes, that’s a good idea. Ms. Menard: Yes, I’ll reply.
Ms. Hinz Philippi: Yes, and just reply to Roberto, don’t copying anyone else. Ms. Menard: Ok.
Mr. Cabrera: Ok, and the other thing I was going to mention is, I don’t mind, and I don’t know that we’ve done it at any sort of recent way, is just kind of going out there and doing, because we’re not really into rainy season yet, and we are approaching it fast but, I don’t mind going out there, and I think it might be a good idea to go out there and just do some inspecting, probing, especially if you have some areas that you’re seeing potential issues with just doing some investigation and seeing if there isn’t anything else that could help.
Ms. Hinz Philippi: Roberto, one thing that we should do is take a look at the catch basins and make sure they are clean because if not we should do that before the rainy season comes.
Ms. Menard: Ok. Mr. Cabrera: Yes.
Mr. Scalice: Now you said the water basically the roads are made to hold water 24 to 48 hours?
Mr. Cabrera: Depending on the storm event, the roadway is meant to hold some water in it, and that water is supposed to recover within 24 to 48 hours depending on the intensity of the storm.

Mr. Scalice: So, the storm that we had last week, the majority of the roads were cleared out within, my road which was completely flooded, like no other car could pass down my street just because but, the water was cleared out on my street within like 12 hours and that’s with at least 6” or 7”of water, other roads here in the community took a little longer.
Mr. Cabrera: Yes, and what that tells me at least with your roadway is that the control structure was probably not the bottleneck, the bottleneck is probably that the inlets are sized for a 10 year storm, and we got a storm that was in excess of that 10 year storm.
Mr. Scalice: Ok.
Mr. Cabrera: And if it gives you any comfort the amount of water other people that have these issues, this is common throughout Florida that the roadways are part of the stormwater system, like you said, it’s not really meant to be entire roadway but, I’d be interested to look at the photos but, it’s not meant to do that.
Mr. Lange: The roads became lakes.
Ms. Menard: Yes, it looked like a lake, it was impassible and cars were having to part in other people’s yards because they couldn’t drive any further.
Mr. Cabrera: Ok, and that might be other issues then.
Ms. Hinz Phillippi: Ok, Roberto if you could send that email and then if you could check for the catch basins so we have an idea if we need to get somebody out there to give us a proposal to clean those, because we don’t want to have a problem that they’re all full of sediment.
Mr. Cabrera: Sure, and I would love to do that, so Kathy if you could share whatever photos you have when I send you this email.
Ms. Menard: Yes, I will.
Mr. Cabrera: I’d like to target those areas, and whatever the Board wants I can go out there and send an inspector for 2 days probing every single structure.
Ms. Menard: Those were the absolute worse ones because I took the pictures off our Facebook page, and one of them was yours, one of them was mine, and somebody else. Which one was yours?
Mr. Lange: Greenspring, we live right near each other.

Ms. Menard: Yes.
Ms. Hinz Philippi: So, when you send the pictures tell him the roads that were worst and then he can go and inspect those, because probably you could have some catch basins that are overflowed with sediment. Alright, Roberto she’ll send you the addresses so you can check on that.
Mr. Cabrera: Ok, and I’ll send the email with the contact information for the control structure.
Ms. Hinz Philippi: Ok. Mr. Cabrera: Alright.
Ms. Hinz Philippi: Alright, and you have one more item, right?
Mr. Cabrera: Yes, one item really quickly, so the State of Florida has identified St. Lucie River as an impaired water body and they have come up with a Basin Management Action Plan for the St. Lucie River. So what that means is that they created a model and they set a target for the river to reduce its major nutrient loads, specifically nitrogen and phosphorous, and then through their model they kind of prorate it back into all the contributing communities and then this is as far as I know, the first time that I’m aware of that they’re asking communities to reduce the pollutants from the communities discharge above and beyond what we are required to do without DEP permit. So, they reached out to us late last year and back in January they had asked us to identify possible potential projects that would help us achieve the major in loads that they requested. So, the list that we came up with, we’re not committed to these projects, we can modify them, we can change them, and by the way we still have a project that we’re discussing with them in terms of their model, we don’t necessarily agree with a lot of the stuff that they’re doing. We have an upcoming kind of timeline here in June where we’re going back and forth on some of the points on their model that we don’t agree with, so when we prepared this list of potential projects of the CDD, we focused mainly on trying to get the maximum credits for the things that the CDD has already done, so that includes this recent control structure project that we took underway, and we can go down the list the projects that we identified as potential projects. Educational efforts, so this is public outreach, we were able to successfully argue that whatever the City of Port St. Lucie and St. Lucie County already do in terms

of that, so that got us an initial 10% discount on the credit that they’re asking for. The cleanouts which is kind of the thing we’re talking about right now, so this is going around the community and observing the structure and identifying the ones that are full of sediment and vacuuming them out, so this is just like maintenance type of item that we told them that we would look at, fertilizer reduction, so these are methods, application rates, slow release fertilizers, things that we would look at maybe partnering with the HOA and the properties around the lakes that we already manage that this would help reduce some of the nutrients. Then stormwater harvesting is another one so maybe looking at a way of using more of that stormwater there to irrigate parts of our system, I know that we have that reuse way from the north side, but there may be other opportunities to increase the amount of stormwater that we’re using for that, and then we talked about the control structure. I would love to add to this list if we’re looking at it already, things like littoral plantings along the lake banks, they do have a category for mechanical removal of plants, if that’s something that we can do or look at it, it’s another category of potential things that we would want to do anyway, we’re just doing it a little bit different, so right now it’s just an update. We spent a lot of time in December and January to upload all these projects into their portal and flagging them as potential things that we could do, and right now there isn’t a timeline for when these projects have to go into effect, this law was challenged last year that they passed but, it survived that challenge by some other communities, so there may be additional kind of challenges moving forward. So, if anybody has any questions on this please let me know.
Ms. Hinz Philippi: Alright, thank you Roberto, and yes we have talked about this before we got to this point.
Mr. Scalice:	So basically what he’s saying is everything that we were talking about, the state could basically fund that.
Ms. Menard: No, the state is requiring it. Mr. Scalice: Oh, they’re requiring it.
Ms. Hinz Philippi: Yes, they’re requiring it, we just are doing what they’re asking
about.
Mr. Lange: We’re ahead of the game, we’re being proactive.

Ms. Menard: Yes.
Ms. Hinz Philippi: And there is a discussion that they are doing, like how can you ask that from the communities, and a lot of communities are going to struggle with this, so there’s a lot of things to consider.
Mr. Cabrera: And right now Copper Creek is slightly ahead of the game, there’s some things that we’ve taken that we’ve already started doing it and are in the middle of discussing that which are things that they’re looking for.
Ms. Menard: Ok, alright, thank you.
Ms. Hinz Philippi: Alright, thank you Roberto. So Scott, do I need a direction to cancel the treatment for Florida Aquatics.
Mr. Cochran: I think the Board gave direction on that, yes, I think that was the consensus and it was understood.
Ms. Hinz Philippi:  Alright, so just the direction is good.

Field Manager
Ms. Hinz Philippi: Alright, so we have that on the field that I already made notes.

Manager
Ms. Hinz Philippi: I don’t have anything further than what we already discussed.

SEVENTH ORDER OF BUSINESS	Financial Reports
Acceptance of Summary of Invoices
Acceptance of Unaudited Financials
Ms. Hinz Philippi:	Next item would be approval of the financials, tab A is the acceptance of the summary of invoices, so I need I motion to approve.

On MOTION by Ms. Menard seconded by Mr. McKnight with all in favor, the Summary of Invoices were approved.

Ms. Hinz Philippi:	The next item would be acceptance of the unaudited financials, I need a motion to approve them.

Chairman / Vice Chairman

On MOTION by Mr. Lange seconded by Ms. Menard with all in favor, the Summary of Invoices, and the Unaudited Financials were approved.

EIGHTH ORDER OF BUSINESS	Supervisors	Requests	and
Audience Comments
Ms. Hinz Philippi: The next item would be Supervisor’s requests, and just for the record we don’t have any audience here. Do I have any Supervisor’s requests?
Mr. Lange: No.

NINTH ORDER OF BUSINESS	Adjournment
Ms. Hinz Philippi: Not hearing any, I need a motion to adjourn.

On MOTION by Mr. Lange seconded by Ms. Menard with all in favor, the Meeting was adjourned.

Secretary /Assistant Secretary

Certificate Of Completion

Envelope Id: 7DB05379-BCA7-8D18-8229-8A266FCC25CA	Status: Completed Subject: Copper Creek: Complete with Docusign: 4-21-26 Minutes.pdf, Resolution 2026-02.doc, Resolution 2026-0
Source Envelope:
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Certificate Pages: 2	Initials: 0	Ellen Acosta

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Andressa Hinz Philippi AHPhilippi@gmssf.com Assistant Secretary	
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Kathy Menard missesmenard@gmail.com
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