ECHO advisory committee votes to restore original 20/30/40 covenant terms for existing grants

The Volusia County ECHO advisory committee voted to revert existing grant covenants to the original 20-, 30- and 40-year terms for projects already approved, overturning a prior committee recommendation to retroactively reduce many existing covenants to 20 years.

The committee approved the motion on a recorded call vote: Reggie Santilli, Gerald Feazer, Tom Liputka, John Macaluso, Jay Pendergast and Doug Pettit voted yes; Pat Drago and Pat Northey voted no. Gerald Feazer, an ECHO advisory committee member, moved to revert to the earlier covenant schedule; the motion was seconded during the meeting and then adopted.

The vote follows several hours of staff presentation, questions from committee members and public comment. Daniel (staff), who briefed the committee, told members the packet showed 305 ECHO projects at the time the memo was prepared and gave a breakdown of covenant lengths and exemptions. The packet and staff remarks said 52 projects were already governed by 20-year covenants, 59 by 30-year covenants and 62 by 40-year covenants; 132 projects were listed as exempt from restrictive covenants (county projects, projects on state or federal lands, trails and projects governed by interlocal agreements). Staff also said eight restrictive covenants had already…