09.06.2022 Pasco Board of County Commissioners Meeting (Morning Session)

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good morning i'd like to call to order the pasco county board of county commission 10 am meeting of september 6 2022 at this time please silence all electronic devices and mute your microphones please rise for the invocation and pledge of allegiance o merciful creator your hand is open wide to satisfy the needs of every living creature make us thankful for your loving providence and grant that we remembering the account that we must one day give may be faithful stewards of your good gifts america amen history for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all good morning please call the rule district one commissioner oakley here district two commissioner moore district four commissioner fitzpatrick here district five commissioner mariano district three chairman starkey here okay now's the time for public comment citizens are given an opportunity to comment on any current or future agenda item coming before the board and on any on other business under the board's purview today's public comment will be handled as follows first we will take public comment from those who are here in person then we will take public comment from those who have pre-registered for a webex link and are currently on cue we request that when you address the board comments are not directed personally against the commissioner or team member but rather directed at the issues this provides mutual respect between board members and the public after stating your name and address for the clerk a three-minute timer will be activated and after two minutes a single beep will indicate you have one minute left when your time is up two beeps will sound and you should close your comments webex participants will be disconnected automatically when the time is up madam clerk do we have anyone signed up from public only i don't have a public comment sheet i don't believe anyone signed up for the 10 because i see it was pulled no one okay is there anyone in the room here that would like to address the board of county commissioners this morning madam clark is there anyone online who wishes to address us no one's online okay well this will conclude the public comment portion of the meeting the next order of business is the consent agenda i have c8 pulled by commissioner fitzpatrick c9 pull and discuss fitzpatrick and c12 pull and discuss fitzpatrick number four is robert gearing c24 withdraw also c26 withdrawal and then chantel sicard c100 pull and revise board members is there anything else you'd like to see pulled from the content agenda seeing nothing i'd accept the motion move approval second on favor aye

opposed okay we are on c8 thank you i would just like to mention for the training burn tower for the fire rescue it will be in in the second week in november and only take a couple days to install and it should be operational in november or december great i'll take a motion for c8 motion to approve second all in favor aye aye c9 i would like to also point out that c9 fire station number two it is going through the design and engineering stage and it will be under construction um this summer the spring or summer of 2023. wonderful which one where is that one located swiss challenges all right any other discussion i'll take a motion motion to approve second all in favor aye opposed thank you madam chair yes i'm sorry um i want to clarify the motion of proving the um consent items that were not pulled was that to also to include the addendum consent items motion maker yes great thank you one of them one of them because one of them's full yes the 100 is pulled right thank you okay um we are on c12 and lastly i would just like to point out the e1 heavy hazmat vehicle is being ordered and the funds are going towards it that's not a cheap one is it 1.2 million 1.2 million and it will take about a year or a year and a half to build okay any more discussion i'll take a motion motion to approve second all in favor aye aye opposed thank you c24 is withdrawn c26 is withdrawn c100 pull and revise good morning commissioners joanna cheshire chief of staff county administration i'm here to speak on c100 this is the the item is the interlocal agreement with the sheriff's office and the county but we're here we're pulling this we're revising it because there's a minor issue with the final contract for the commissary item listed in exhibit f of the contract list it will not be ready for bcc approval but we'll just add that to the list for the county administrator to sign when the time is right okay is it is it me or is it hard to hear i think that needs to be is that microphone off it's on i know but the volume is not right in my opinion okay well if you all heard what she said do it are you waiting for a motion because i didn't hear it

any more discussion all in favor i oppose thank you okay we are now on the ours i'm trying to get to our 67 that's an 11 a.m time certain r 68 public services good morning commissioners paula ricaldo director of support services standing in for kathy pearson assistant county administrator for public services i would like to introduce to you this morning ms janina elkin who has been selected and hopefully will be confirmed this morning as the next director of go pasco our public transportation department uh miss elkin is slated to start on september 12th she comes to us with over 20 years of experience in the transit industry in different capacities such as operations customer service project management marketing and grants management she has also worked in implementation of technology solutions like intelligent transportation systems and real information to help improve customer satisfaction and ridership she has a bachelor's degree in business administration and most recently served in hernando county in the role of transit coordinator where she was responsible for the administration financial oversight and coordination of hernando county's public transportation and transit programs with that i respectfully ask for your confirmation of mr nina elkin as director of public transportation go pasco thank you thank you welcome well first we'll take a motion and make sure you're welcome i think you're welcome moving from a second all in favor aye aye aye well welcome to pasco county you didn't have to go very far did you no no thank you very much i really appreciate you guys having me today again thank you for the opportunity to be able to serve my county um to be able to lead our this department public transportation and especially be able to work with the team and make our department greater for the benefit of the the community and our residents so thank you again wonderful i serve on tea barna and jack and and christina and i serve on the tma so i'm sure we'll get to you much better and look forward to working with you thank you go ahead jake yeah janine welcome back you were with us a few years back so yeah up to vernon county uh so hopefully we've got good relations there we can work with to do some other transportation connections up there as well oh definitely we'll do thank you very much thank you thank you okay now we're on to 69. good morning i'm james flaherty assistant director go pasco we're just asking that you authorize the execution

or give our new director janina elkin the ability to authorize and execute fta and usdot grants and these are what we approved on our mpo meeting correct these are 5307 grants they're going ahead in the future 5307 53 39 53 second all favorite all right great thank you all right miscellaneous business commissioner oakley where's your group that's [Laughter] that's right that's awesome all right well a lot of things are happening in the county i uh we had our first uh workshop meeting for licucci and uh this past week went went very well um i left for that to continue going forward and actually that community coming back the school being back up to more than 50 hopefully in the 70 and 80 percent uh feeling in the near future so a lot of things got to happen in that area but that that area around trilby trilocutes and lucocci will continue to grow and there's a lot of pressures on it because we're getting a new four lane road from 301 from 50 all the way down 301 back into where it is four lane now four laning also around dade city on the bypass and then of course probably around june or july we will have the new route 52 being complete and they'll start moving forward with that across coming across 301 been in the new road toward 98 98 to the county line over in polk county before lane so a lot of things happen a lot of roads are going to be complete in the near future that that we've been struggling with the construction all going on like diversion diamond and it's coming together and it's moving very nice i've been through it a couple of times and of course overpass paid by pasco county that overpass hopefully toward the end of october we'll have a conclusion on overpass and that'll be operating and it helps spread out that traffic and things get better near the wesley chapel area mr moore so it'll help all of us so that's basically all i have this week great thank you mr martin thank you madam chair i'll talk really slow to get us to 11 o'clock no hurry well i guess first of all

congratulations are in order for um mr caballa we all saw on our consent agenda today his contract so he is official now so congratulations we can pick on him more yes he's the real deal now yeah yeah um let's just go over some tourism things we had some major events over the summer at advent health center ice that our tourist office um adam thomas and his team at florida sports coast partnered on um torah's roller skating uh tournament again was at 2643 room nights so that's really really strong and that's the tours the roller skating that's the um i call it it's not really roller skating it's roller hockey right they do it on inline skates but that's pretty big you actually have former um nhl nhl player minor league nhl players that actually play in that as well so it's pretty neat tournament sunshine's cup hockey tournament that was 1 386 room nights very strong then they recently had the us figure skating national showcase 809 roommates so that was a really really big event actually my my daughter got my my uh son to volunteer he actually volunteered there to help out they needed volunteers because they were coming from all over the nation i think the the figure skating folks are from up north somewhere so no wonder they needed a lot of volunteers no one are so busy in western chapel [Laughter] um but those are all conservative figures our final numbers really haven't come in we have a feeling that there's those numbers are even better than what that we've published so far but um again these are the people that are coming to our our counties are getting in our restaurants stay in our in our hotels and supporting our small businesses and we really appreciate that um so congratulations again adam and your team for constantly bringing in those big big tournaments um we talked about the port richie cra last last time that they're going to be voting on pulling another area out they did so where i know we're all happy about that good thing for everyone so we appreciate the mayoring and council and the new city manager for working hard on that i was going to talk about this but i'm going to wait because i need to talk to mr paula before i guess man go ahead go ahead we have time no no i want to check on something before actually well i i do too so please check your phone and give me a name but i will talk to him and well maybe i'll i'll bring it up next time um ralph do you want to come up ralph is going to come up and give us a um update on the legislative grant uh program

we talked i think we all probably i'm pretty sure you guys all probably talked to him yourselves but he has an update on the budget request for the summer summer legislative grant program that some people apply for good morning ralph lair and our governmental affairs officer so as a reminder during the legislative session this past year the speaker put in a pot of money for local support grants for 175 million dollars this will be money that the joint legislative auditing commission which is made up of both house and senate members uh will consider uh and these projects do not have to go to the governor so he he doesn't have veto over this particular pot of money so on friday the joint legislative budget commission noticed a meeting for this coming friday september 9th and one of the items on there is to consider local support grants for fiscal year 22 23 among their other businesses 238 projects we made the cut out of 971 projects requested and the total is 175 million dollars so we submitted two projects um the ancloak park project for additional boat ramps for 1.8 million dollars and the strickland park 1.85 million dollars out of those two we are getting one partially funded for strickland park for the sea wall and additional uh beach sand for one million dollars in addition pasco county uh other projects amp skills uh is looking to receive 350 000 the pasco sheriff's office uh cyber security center 1.5 million dollars the pasco sheriff's office fire arm range expansion for 1.1 million dollars uh the academy of the farm big winner 13.1 million dollars is that for the aquatic center for the one that was at no not a pool this is for their high school a high school yeah yeah they're going to build a high school they have their own modulars out there right now and then for the school board epic angeline which is the school connected to the moppet will receive 1 million dollars and last but not least sarah vandenberg tennis center 2.75 million dollars so pasco did quite well out of the 175 million dollar pot again not official until friday if it's on their like consent agenda um so what is what is that total for a total amount um i didn't add it up so it won about 20 million that's pretty at 175. okay thank you hey um while he's up there and we have time uh or i could call you back up during mine

you want to do um so when would you like us to start thinking about what our ask would be for this year so and so because it's an election year um as required in the state constitution session will begin in march we don't anticipate the delegation having their meeting until january so i want those projects ready to go by the end of the year uh so we can start having meetings with with our delegation uh as they as they decide so i would say if you have something in mind and you need to meet with staff to to talk about projects that you would like to see funding for start doing it now or in the next couple of months so we can bring that in for a landing and and i can try to get sponsors within pasco legislative delegation to to submit those and as a reminder our delegation struck our delegation is changing we're gonna get we still have three house members um we will be getting two new house members one on the west side and one in the central portion of our county um three because we have holcomb too yeah what was that steel oh that's right we do have so we did increase one to get back so our delegation is growing so we have one from hernando county uh that will dip in just into pasco county uh and then we have um three commissioners or three senators when um when will they get their assignments oh they won't get that until any december maybe beginning of january they'll start getting information the same goes for leadership assignments correct i i think that hooper's getting ted i think appropriations yeah it's a perfect fit for us okay so we have time so you have time but you know again start thinking about those let's get them in a posture i'm not going to say don't put in big high ticket items but i think the days of pasco county receiving high high numbers is might not be in this upcoming session but you never know well maybe our chances of being vetoed have gone down too yeah um so i think the state got some infrastructure money that has to be spent by such by a certain date that's a little bit independent of the regular budget money if i'm not mistaken from the feds yeah okay and so normally when they receive funding from the fed sometimes it uh it's discretionary and i'm not aware of which

pot of money this is um it's given to the the department and the governor to to disperse that funding or it's get put into a particular grant program and again right off hand i cannot think of any recent money coming down from washington except for environmental dollars going into fdep for their grant programs i just go back and check and i'll go back and look i'll just go back i i thought in the infrastructure bill they got some money that could only be used on on roads and bridges okay let's step up oh yeah yeah so and that's part of the raise grant and we um we i thought that's where some of that money was come we the ridge road ask was going to be coming from that pot that has a time certain to be spent no where i don't know where no i'm not flying with it no no and we're pursuing a different avenue for the ridge road extension so we'll have that worked out if i could just add one thing to what ralph said i would i would encourage you to if you have projects in mind talk with the assistant county administrators over those you know over those areas and then work with the directors because again we'll want to make sure there's probably some back end work that needs to be done in order to properly cost and model the projects or you know and a lot of projects we already have on the book so please have those discussions with with those individuals first yeah let's start working online okay well that was my legislative question okay thank you thanks for helping are you done yes ma'am um commissioner fitzpatrick thank you um first i'd like to mention if anyone knows anyone elderly or disabled that can use help around their homes the somebody cares is hosting their cares fest on september 25th so if you would like to refer them to somebody cares or if you would like to come out and volunteer that volunteer that day to help one of our citizens in pasco county what are we looking at since this photo is up i did take it from facebook so it is publicly available i don't know um so the board had approved to replace all the traditional extrication equipment and it has brand new hearse hurst e drawing submersible spreaders cutters and ramps and it looks like jaw's alive to me so wow how many are in that picture i don't know i took it from the internet took it from facebook that's all for our county that was from chief cason's page and it looks like pasco county it's like 50 probably huh

yeah so that's very exciting as pasco continues to approve new equipment for our citizens and the firefighters next i would like to mention that i know i'm very excited i've been working on the lake lisa project since i've been here and it will be coming up to bid this next meeting so i'm very excited to see that finally come move forward of course i've been out in moon lake numerous times and looking at all of the flooding and the roads i am looking at the non-passable roads and i will have a suggestion at the next board meeting so if anyone has any questions on that i would like to move that forward and another big project that i'm working behind the scenes on is i'm working on a homeless program to and also an opioid a program that can help women that are pregnant that are dependent of the system so they can move forward to being self-sufficient and being a productive member of society so they can have a better quality of life so those are some of the projects that i'm working on and i'm busy that's it thank you oh wait lastly it's very exciting i did get a message an email from faq so on behalf of the fact president i have been appointed to the policy leader as a policy leader to the fac health safety and justice policy committee for the 2022-23 policy development process so that's very very exciting all right mr moore i mean commissioner mariano thank you a couple of things there's a piece of property we own at fox hollow in 19 just on the east side a little bit we bought it for a maintenance facility it looks like it's light storage now i'd like to take a help us take a look at putting it over the surplus if we don't need it oh where is it it's at fox hollow 19. you used to be the old used car dealerships maintenance thing we were using it for a while it looks like just a lot of storage right now and there's a few other acres behind it that are undeveloped that again on that record it might be something workforce housing on yeah well don't surplus well we'll see surplus let's take a look at it for what we're going to do with the property so okay we can we can certainly go back and look and see what the proposed use was i don't care remember if that was for a fleet facility or not but let us take a look at it and if you're going to use it that's fine correct you're sitting there we're not then that's a different different call absolutely we'll take a look thank you all right

and talking to future representative holcomb the other day congratulating him on his win we talked about connie line road and as we've talked about kind of landing before we want to see it done we've moved it up to the higher parts of our list now at the top and he was concerned that he still hadn't received the interlocal agreement from us and i told them working on it it wasn't going to be a problem getting it so um mr county attorney maybe you'll do we have that sent out already or is it being looked at commissioner i think i can provide more information on that so per the previous board direction related to the mou and the sewer we are approaching those in parallel so the public infrastructure branch npo are working on the mou for county line road we're also concurrently working on an interlocal sewer agreement that we'll be bringing back to the board here in a few months to run those items through okay the the intel local or mou whatever it may be because i think it could be either way but he understands how we had it in our budget for funding and went through the house in the senate and got turned down he would probably bring it forward again on his side and probably get support so if if i could i'll have you guys reach out with him and i'm probably going to be meeting up and we'll have the conversation with what he's looking for to make sure we're working together with whatever they need and i appreciate what you're doing because that water sewer is i mean the sewer connections up there is a phenomenal thing and then i trust your expertise to get that done at the same time i don't know if it's just one little thing that won't slow it down and show them that we are committed to working with them it may may help him as we look for appropriations coming up to to make that happen i think our mpos are working together on the roadside i'm working very closely with their county administrator and their team so happy to inform and do whatever they think so most people a little detail like absolutely put a little negative to it so great um another thing i was at um a presentation and i i was trying to get the name of the company i don't have it with me but uh they do internship programs for autistic children um pepin academy was at the meeting uh they had school board members abel uh abel the able yeah the abilities we were added yes yeah yeah that's right yeah sorry commissioner able trust me

okay so um what a phenomenal presentation i thought it was um i'm just wondering if you could take a look at what we can do in the county to help with these intern programs that we can actually do i think there's got to be some things that are out there i was talking to a gentleman we were talking about it like for instance he's a postmaster and he said this in the boston area probably 32 jobs right in his one post office we could actually work with those uh folks and help get to work right away and put them to work permanently when they graduate from high school et cetera so whatever we can do to try to help pepin academy able trust to go forward i think is something good and that could be one of our legislative asked we might be able to start our own little program right here in the county so so um we tried a little bit with the clerk's office because um there is a there is a program in hillsborough county yes that's uh with the public defender's office that that brings on um young adults with special needs she's been doing it a long time julie um and there there are funds available and um through some of the federal programs that could help fund a lot of it i would love to see us be able to to have that here and it seems like some of the government agencies are the best place to start you know and maybe even you would set them up with maybe uh skills training works or too um yeah we've tried we we have we have had um some people come through with special needs and some we've been able to place i think we had one come through in our boot camp the other a few boot camps ago that um i don't i'm not sure if we were able to place that person in the company but we have we we have a woman in hernando that does soldering and um and she just loves to solder and she's just a great solderer so yeah we we will definitely be looking at that yeah i appreciate it you you'll be engaged commissioner won't be in there as well it was a it was great i think there's some good potential coming up yeah i'm glad you both went to that no i'm through sure okay um commissioner mariano um thank you for bringing that up i know there have been about they have the summer camp now that serves our special needs population as well they had about 30 special needs children this past summer but maybe if we can add or expand to do a summer camp or an intern summer program for our special needs children excellent

again the county administrator thank you ma'am really just a quick uh shout out to libraries i thought this was a well-timed month of september is uh featuring nasa-themed reading activities this kind of coincides with nasa's artemis project which hopefully will get off the ground later this month but really a lot of great things going on in libraries and also parks is happy to announce that they have opened another new playground at the samuel w pasco athletic park it's a tree and nature themed park or with playground equipment that includes ada as well as mommy and me swing so very exciting stuff that's all okay um county attorney i don't have anything generally for you thank you yeah i have um two quick updates one is our office is kicking off the constitutional essay contest it is something we've done for the past 10 years where we ask fifth graders in our public schools to write an essay answering the question why is the constitution important and it's in celebration of constitution day which is september 17th and um one thing i want to mention is a jury duty scam that is going on not just in our county but in other counties that are surrounding us it is where an individual is called and they are told that they miss jury duty and there is a fine out for them and if they don't pay the fine immediately then they'll get arrested and the individual is directed to go and buy gift cards scratch off the back of the gift card read out the number over the phone and um and then that satisfies your their their paying of the fine i know and it's something that happens it's crazy but um i just want to state in public that my office will never call you to ask you to pay in the form of the cards so that is not a form of payment that we would request for you um it also um i've heard from our customers that they require them to stay on the phone while they drive to the store to pick up the car oh my goodness oh they're going to stores like is this a macy's gift card they're going up here whatever the latest trends are it might be target so just letting you know letting the public know that that is a scam don't fall for it they obviously must um be very good at threats over the phone to get people to do that and leave their home and get those cards so it must be serious threats over the phone that is not something we would do i had i had one the other day was a publisher's house so i just won the grand prize did you win i wouldn't go good job but you're here today so it wasn't a big problem

what a magazine okay thank you okay to me so um uh first i want to mention about the scallops um scallop season if you saw in the paper there was an article today and i want to formally discuss how we since we don't have commissioner wells sitting here how we move to expand that and what the steps are and who would do that here comes ralph good morning again ralph lair government affairs officer that would have to be a decision by the fish and wildlife commission if that is something you all want to pursue we'd have to get it on the radar uh when they take that uh issue up at one of their board meetings i can check into that so i think we should at least if we can't open up for the full season i think we at least they let's baby steps and double it and just grow into it maybe but and i think that's all along they wanted us to be very cautious and careful when they originally approved it i was there with commissioner wells uh when the when the commission opened it up for those two weeks um i think again if we we talked to staff now and find out is it something we can expand maybe not get too carried away and crazy maybe a month um i you know i'm just throwing that out there um because if you if you also remember it wasn't what usually is a good season for hernando every year was not ag and citrus county was not so the commission probably will ratchet it back and and and lower that but it wasn't it was fine in pasco county but it was good in pasco county that's correct yeah so correct and our parks team they were out there collecting data and information and that all feeds into the equation but we understand that uh we'd like to see an increase in that and so we'll we'll certainly take it up with with your approach well i think mariano i just had a suggestion i i think what we should be looking for is to match what citrus and hernia both have whatever they do if they want to bring them down or bring us up however it may be but that's that's the approach and i think we should go with our legislators and get them involved let them put some push on it for us too with their support i think it'll make it easier to get to get a change okay commissioner moore thank you madam chairman i i think if it maybe it comes from the chair maybe it comes from ralph maybe it comes from um tourism um i i think um proper persian wells would be willing to help i'm not trying to you know give him a new job to do but he's built really strong relationships with fish and wildlife and he was very

instrumental in helping to get that done while he was on the commission so i have a sneaky suspicion he'd be probably at least willing to go to one of the meetings and help out maybe maybe adam's willing to go as well and work with him or whatever it's get i i'll ask him and see what he thinks i'd have no problem asking him i think that he's built those relationships through the years right that's correct you know so relationships matter well do we want to as well as the legislators like you mentioned right do we want to go for the full season or do we want to go to like double life i think i like what commissioner mariano stated was let's try to get the same as what hernando and citrus have but i think there's a good chance they're going to scale back next year that'll be longer than 10 days though i would assume because are they not as long as it's not three months they're three months right approximately three months that's so if they scale us back they scale them back and we get a month that's a lot better than 10 days well um what i uh someone told me on one of my scalping expeditions was that it's uh it's normal for scallops to have a um reset year or two and so we're probably in that reset year because i don't know a lot of people don't realize those scallops if if you don't get them they die i mean it's they don't live long within a year that's right but we need them to be you know there's a lot of other issues in the equation there are seagrass is healthy uh along the coastline red tide has an impact so i think we hear your point you know it's something that we need to start looking at i'll get with parks as well uh as we pursue trying to take that before the uh fish and wildlife commission to see if they will expand it all right so let's ask commissioner well i mean uh wells property appraiser yeah property appraiser wells maybe you can ask him if he wants to do that and if not then we'll take it up if you'll get with me we can talk to uh eric sutton he's the executive director and i mean i've been friends since with what you said with the lands and swift mud so i can call them okay great another connection yeah eric's a great guy man i'm sure yes just you know the if you would like to move ahead the 11 o'clock time certain is here now it's your call well let me let me finish mine okay um i wanted to talk about fences for a second just want to make sure that uh you know we said no more barbed wire fences on certain roads i want to be clear what roads we said and i want to

check and see if we want to expand that um i don't know if you've been getting those emails but i i've started to get emails from people who are complaining about bob dwyer fences i think i forwarded one to you on on our roads so i i you know i don't want to see any on little road i don't want to see any on um rowan i mean there's there's just no need for bob wire fences unless it's out in the country well if you've got ag use on there yeah it calls for a bob warfam yeah we said we said it again but for example when i was driving out here this morning on 52 um paw has moved their operations from his moving operations from 54 to 52 and they have chain link and bob wire and are we going to call that ag um but it does 52 is going to look like 54 one day and we're gonna have mistakes made that are hard to go back and clean up so um i also wanna i'm gonna get with brad i don't know if he's here on my own and and understand the um landscaping rules we have for commercial development because i think they're they might be a little bit more vague than maybe we want because i've been running into some issues but um anyway i just want to make sure that we are all on the same page about what roads we want to have barbed wire fences on i'm assuming you don't want them on chain link and bob wire on bruce b downs and wire grass ranch boulevard and you know so we need to we need to take a good look at that we got to be careful at 52 because still i'll have a rural area yeah and fencing i mean cattle cattle and barbed wire that's right and i've noticed that it goes hand-in-hand basically none on commercial yeah nope nope i've noticed barbed wire fencing around rv storage locations or boat storage locations yeah and they don't some do and some don't but i i'm not sure that that's necessary or if it's in the back okay but across the front no you know so we really need to be careful um okay so i was appointed to something oh there was a photo up there so i want to thank it says here florida state representatives they're not actually sworn in yet but um jeff holcomb who's the new one from hernando in northern pasco um adam anderson who is replacing chris brows it's actually his cousin his seat and then um brad yeager who's the placing at amber mariano they um they all talked about workforce training in their

in their stumps and so i said well come see a program and um jeff was a little familiar with it but brad and adam knew nothing about it but they loved it and they immediately how can we help how can we expand this so it was it was great um so i'm grateful to them for coming i'm gonna get another round kevin steele couldn't make it that day i only gave him a couple hours notice so i'm not sure why he couldn't make it um okay i was uh thankful to be appointed to something else like i needed something else to do um but i am uh chris browes has appointed me to the florida alliance to end human trafficking so i'll be working um with people around the state to end human trafficking so um lastly tibarda okay so t barda continues to have issues in um the tampa the regional plan no the tampa bay partnership is trying to help us move forward because when you when you have a county in the middle who isn't playing in the regional sandbox it's very difficult to do anything and so uh they want to step in and try and see if we could get past issues and we have a very big meeting it's a workshop friday september 9th i believe [Music] i've asked if we could get some of the new i think we should get some of the new commissioners there who may get involved in transportation and um and commissioner holcomb is bringing the new commissioner that will probably be appointed to t barda from hernando down to the meeting so they can be brought up to speed you know we have some new members on tibarta and so they don't know the history of some of the big projects that we've looked at for example the um rapid bus and so it's like when someone new gets appointed then they don't know the work that we've done and where the majority of the board has tried to go we have to reset and educate everybody again so i don't know what the future is but it's very frustrating to be the largest metropolitan service area that has no transit solution and if csx doesn't want to sell us the rail line anymore and they want only to lease it as what it looks like right now the state won't put money into a lease they only will put money into something they own then our only opportunity our right now are the brt routes

we're under going through a study on 19 that will involve hernando pastel and pinellas and that takes hillsboro out of that equation but the really big need is the 275 solution so um so we'll give it a big swing i'll have a night yeah so since thank you since you'll be attending that meeting this friday yeah it's friday so in my um boredom at times i would watch some of the other meetings and things and andy's assistants um saw where um watching the committee meeting and the previous t-bar meeting it doesn't seem to analysis 100 on board either besides hillsborough and then they all know and i'll just continue for a second and ask this question of you um if hillsborough doesn't want to fund and pinellas doesn't end up funding how in the world can pasco and hernando subsidize the for the other counties especially when the main project we're talking about with the brt uh majority of it they talked about someone possibly 19 and things like that the big one is like you mentioned that that you know 275 kind of corridor to i-75 to wesley chapel if hillsborough is not going to allow it to be built and expand those lanes and and work with d.o.t i mean and they don't fund how can we rightfully you know to continue to fund ourselves yeah what are we going to get out of it so that's that's part of the big discussion we're going to have friday and it's not that um pinellas county doesn't want tbarda to continue it's there is a commissioner from penelope so they have to this is my frustration that i'm the only pasco county voice we still don't have a governor appointee from pascal and um hernando has two two voices two votes and they want to bar to continue as well and they they are going to be the last one to really benefit from it but um yeah i spoke with yeah so what what commissioner um long is throwing out there is that tibarda gets folded into the regional planning council um and and their are maybe if there may be one or two who think that's a good idea um and that a lot who don't think that's a good idea so that's one of the challenges that we'll be discussing on friday so it's just do we keep doing what we're doing and or do we need to do something different and

and um you know i don't have a magic answer i just know it's really frustrating because in 20 years in 10 years people are going to say why didn't you do something because all these people are moving here and they're not going to be able to get around it's going to be it's not now and it's bad enough now but in 10 years what is that going to look like yeah right did you commission mariano yeah i think we have a topic on it on september 12th at the regional planning council as well um i'm not sure how the conversation is going to go but i can't imagine the regional planning council to take over a transit agency i mean t-bar is not getting funded from the state from what i as i see it locally they're not getting funded i don't know if there's a long game for them at this point a what a long game where do they go from here yeah it's just it's we're we're just leaving so much money in washington that could be coming down here to help pay as a matter of fact district 7 they had the money and have the money to fix the issue in 275 for the most part but um and they don't have to buy any right of way to to harden the shoulder through some old heights they have all the land they need and so they just have to harden it no house is being sold or demolished this is a frustrating thing but i i believe some of them there um want the highway to go wait in in that area oh that's yeah i saw this yes it's an interesting dynamic that we're dealing with crazy yeah but um i know they have they have a lot of challenges with their their internal movement around hillsborough and they keep focusing on that and i just keep trying to remind them that's that's the internal discussion but tibarda is the external discussion i'm sure yeah so now let's go but you you mentioned about the federal side too didn't tea barta actually not renew their federal obvious contract so we're trying to save money yeah i understand so who do they have working now on the federal side i guess well we don't have we don't have any project that we can ask for yet because um we're still studying the one the other one's ready to move to phase two but if hillsboro is not going to sign on we can't move to the next phase okay and and so the law the federal lobbyist that we did have is the same one that pasco has and the same one that pinellas has so if we need something we can we can ask for that and without going there but we're just trying to save money so now i understand this yeah i was wondering if he's going to pick that up we keep we keep getting funded in tallahassee but um there's

someone there's someone in the governor's office that has the governor's ear that uh gets him to cancel us so um and i kind of threw it out there last year let's go ahead and make it a requirement that everyone paid their fair share and it kind of puts their everyone's hands on the table of where everyone sits i'm kind of calling the question down there gotcha okay so that's the end of my chair yes one thing back to your um we're talking about the scalloping my assistant colleen just sent me a thing she'd been in in those conversations with us uh and she says we probably need to get an updated skull survey okay so let me do something to take a look at and uh i said to you all i emailed all of you um something from elaine chow who was the secretary of transportation uh in the trump administration about um workforce and uh america is facing an unprecedented worker shortage and one of the things she says is to federally fund technical schools which i am trying to make happen in washington because right now we don't get to pull down that federal funding and um and the school district hasn't signed on for us and so the money just sits there and no one gets it so we're trying to probably better way to spend money than canceling these college loans yeah wow imagine that could have been productive more a little more productive right all right we're moving on to r67 commissioner moore thank you madam chair so if i could invite um mr hill uh mr gandy the florida sports coast team adam and whoever else is coming up we had talked last time about the awesome news that uh florida sports coast and password county won the florida senior games for the next three years so we thought it would be great to have a presentation so you know exactly what the florida's senior games are and the benefit they'll have for our citizens here in pasco county so adam you can take it away good morning madam chairman fellow commissioners thank you so much adam thomas tourism director thank you commissioner moore for bringing this conversation to the board of county commissioners we are extremely excited to have not just one not two but three annual um florida senior games here in pasco county you know we we talk about all the time about the many great things and the events that we bring in but it's it's based off relationships and we have a great relationship with the state's agency the florida senior florida sports foundation that allows us to bring these

types of events to pasco county because there's a trust factor there they trust in us they trust in the community they trust in our industry partners and they trust in the facilities to pull off an event such as the florida senior games with me today is uh o.j hill and nick gandy who are the the brain trust behind the florida senior games but we wouldn't have him here today if it wasn't for the person who really owns the sports development for the pasco county tourism office which is consuelo sanchez and she's here with us today so thank you again i'll turn it over to oj to discuss and kind of present what's to come at for pasco county thank you good morning chairman starking um all the county commissioners happy to be here with you all today my name is orynthius o j hill i represent the florida sports foundation as the event manager but the performance the chair the florida senior games and we're happy to be here in pasco county on behalf of miss angela adams suggs our president ceo our chairman jesse bider and the governor ron desantis thank you all for allowing us to be in pasco county for the next three years um nick gandy will do the presentation for us on the florida senior games for anybody in the room who doesn't know anything about the florida senior games um you'll hopefully like this presentation and if you're 50 and older you can come join us in december so nick take the presentation away now madam chair did you hear what he just said 50 and older i'm actually eligible for the senior james i thought it was a 70 in order and commissioner oakley could have at least done it but i'm still no i know i'm still qualified i'm over 50. again thank you commissioners commissioner moore i have worked with the florida senior games long enough that i have advanced into competition age and i am a bowler in the capital city senior games in tallahassee trying to bowl and compete while working at the florida senior games a little bit too much but again thank you all and thank you to adam and consuelo and the florida sports coast for this three-year partnership between the florida sports foundation and florida sports coast pasco county becomes the ninth community host community in florida to host the florida senior games on a multi-year level this past year in 2021 we celebrated our 30th anniversary of the florida senior games and over 50 000 athletes have competed in the florida senior games since 1992 those are athletes aged 50 and over and we've yes we've had three 100 year old athletes compete in the florida senior games so for the next three years 2022 through

2024 the first two weekends in december pasco county and florida sports coast will be the center of the florida senior games universe and we hope to have approximately about 8 000 athletes come to florence sports coast for those first two weekends in december for the next three years not only will these athletes be taking advantage of the facilities that have been constructed here in the last few years in 2020 we were able to use the wiregrass sports barn grass ranch sports campus and sarah vanderburn tennis and wellness center but they'll they'll be returning to those again and some other places and because of the facilities offered in this area we will be adding two new sports to the florida senior games pidel and foot golf what was the first one pidel which will be played at sarah vanderburn and saddlebrook golf course will be hosting foot golf so those two sports will bring in international athletes and the florida senior games because of where they sit on the calendar being the last national event state event to qualify for the national senior games which we will be qualified for this year and in 2024 we've had athletes from over 40 states come to compete in the florida senior games and i always say every year that cities from alachua to zephyr hills are represented in the florida senior games and i've counted over 200 cities where athletes have come to the florida senior games to compete we've even had athletes come from the caribbean islands there's track teams from barbados and jamaican that come so these are international florida yeah yes they're international athletes come too so we're taking advantage of all the communities in in pasco county the wesley chapel zephyr hills land of lakes trinity the whole gamut east and west and besides taking advantage of these athletic facilities your county has to offer the florida senior games is also about fellowship among the athletes so once these athletes are done competing for the things that they compete they come to spend time together they'll be hanging out together in the hotel catching up with one another going out for dinner taking in a lot of the amenities that the county has to offer so the fellowship part and the camaraderie at the florida senior games is going to spread over the next three years from the athletes and they'll tell each other you didn't come to pasco county last

year why not you need to come next year the florida sports coast has a lot to offer besides the healthy and health benefits that the senior games offer i like to say that the senior athletes these are people not the younger ones in the 50s and 60s some of them are still working but the 65 and up athletes these are people who have worked their careers they've raised their family and this is now what they do they compete in athletic competitions in the foreign senior games and that's what patrick county is going to benefit from and once they start in their 50s they keep going they might have to take some time off because of some nagging injuries but they always come back so much though in 2021 in our 30th anniversary games we gave lifetime achievement awards to nine athletes and how they qualified for these lifetime achievement of warrens ones they competed in all four decades from the florentino games that's great from 1992 to 2021 and that's a commitment right there they probably started in their 50s and they were well into their 70s or 80s and they're still competing so thank you for this opportunity and i i hope that you all will pass this along this is the first on the three-year commitment registration is open right now we're already receiving registrations and we will be until november 15th and on december 2nd we'll be having a ribbon cutting ceremony at the wire grass ranch sports campus and we hope you're longing there are any events happening on the west side november 2nd or december december december we have golf in in trinity at fox holland at fox hollow and in the past we've used uh ritchie racket for racquetball uh they're undergoing some renovations right now and um hopefully we'll me i'm gonna return there okay i'll i'll get with you on an idea and i got uh we were at the florida recreation and parks uh association conference last week and a director from holiday came up and approached us and asked about something they might be able to do in holiday yeah we have a new park at starkey ranch district park there are tennis courts there there's multi-use fields there's softball fields um it's a really nice softball complex that just opened do you have softball going on yes we do right now we we host that in another it's coming up next in a couple of weeks actually okay um and some way from our our december dates but okay who knows

is there some place uh people can go to see a list of the activities thank you for that reminder floridaseniorgames.com okay because i'm going to go look myself floridaseniorgames.com and you can follow us on facebook as well for in the senior games okay wonderful we're excited that you're here and we're excited to be here thank you so much commission mariana yeah very very excited when you've said foot golf i said i hope this is regular golf too so i think we have a couple of the commissioners that would like to probably play i know i would it's very popular in the senior games and you'd be surprised of the number of golfers that shoot below their age do they have to call do you have to qualify to participate in certain sports you do um the track and field the swimming the pickleball and the more popular events require a qualifying performance at one of 21 local games throughout the year leading up to december but some register and come on out and uh you mentioned padal padel padel what's that consuelo [Laughter] i'm still learning between three sports you have racquetball tennis and pickleball all played there's a wall there's a glass wall on the side again yeah this is a very popular sport in europe and latin american therefore we're going to have a lot of international attendees but the sport itself is basically a mix between squatch and racquetball and you play it in four walls glass doors we have four of them right now at the sarawan denver tennis center and that's the reason why we propose florida sports foundation to include padel and foot golf as new sports for florida senior games and are there any um bicycle activities like gravel riding is becoming very big especially with the seniors so and for cycling all we offer is the 5 and 10k time trials which is just a lone rider competing against themselves and then the 20k and 40k rune race okay so we do have that going on yeah with this okay wonderful and oj just informed me for any of uh you that might want to participate we won't require a qualifying performance and once again a big thank you to florida sports coast we've had a very good relationship over the years and we hope to make the florida senior games in florida sports coach a flagship event excellent thank you very excited appreciate it we are happy you're coming big stuff very good so um if you know

mrs suggs husband is uh with the florida association and counties down so great okay i think that is there anything else to come before us all right we're adjourned till 1 30. excellent thank you [Music]

county waterways and wildlife depend on you to keep them healthy excess fertilizer grass clippings trash oils and pet waste wash into gutters and storm drains when it rains storm water carries these pollutants directly into our lakes and rivers creating an unhealthy environment for fish waterfowl and other aquatic animals storm drains are meant for clean rainwater most other discharges are illegal