12.07.2021 Pasco Board of County Commissioners Meeting (Morning Session)

communities include careers in utilities public works traffic operations solid waste animal services public transportation information technology libraries parks human services recreation and natural resources administration senior services fire rescue 911 fleet building construction services code enforcement planning environmental science and so much more plus our benefits package is tough to beat we offer employee wellness centers health vision and dental benefits paid holidays and tuition reimbursement just to name a few we are local government reimagined we're progressive innovative and in many areas pasco county is leading the way want to learn more about what we do and how you can be part of it visit mypasco.net and click on job and volunteer opportunities our team is more than 2 700 strong your neighbors friends and even family members [Music] come join pasco county and make a difference every day [Music] roughly 90 000 dogs in pasco county create more than five tons of waste every year when left on the ground storm water carries bacteria and nutrients from pet waste into waterways causing algae blooms and unhealthy conditions for fish and other aquatic creatures polluted waters are also unsafe for swimming and recreation please do your part to keep florida waters clean by disposing of your pet's waste in the trash for more information contact pasco county department of public works at 727-834-3611 this is a message to anyone who is pimping selling or sexually exploiting someone in pasco county if you are forcing someone to sell their body for drugs or money or if you are giving them drugs in exchange for sexual favors if you're allowing a minor to stay in your house in return for sexual favors or if you're setting up sexual dates with a child if you are pimping providing a ride or security for someone selling their bodies for sex or acting as a manager and keeping all of their money the law considers you a human trafficker and human trafficking is a felony you could be sentenced to 30 years to life every law enforcement agency in pasco county including the pasco sheriff's office the new port richie police department the zephyr hills police department the dane city police department and the port richie police department are working to arrest and help prosecute human traffickers pasco county has zero tolerance for human trafficking if you take advantage of others forcing them to work or engage in commercial sex acts we have a special place for you to live the pasco county jail if you exploit or

traffic other people you are participating in modern day slavery would you want someone to sell a member of your family for sex is a life in prison worth it because eventually you will get caught we use state-of-the-art technology we have highly trained experienced officers we leverage detailed intelligence and monitor all of the online and social media platforms that traffickers use all law enforcement is working together if you are a trafficker in pasco county we're looking for you and we will find you pasco doesn't buy it don't traffic or sell another person or you will be arrested [Music] today we're celebrating the transition of pasco crowning public transportation to a new more modern name go pasco [Music] it's it's time for a change it's so much brighter so much better colors the buses look a lot better it's goodbye pcpt it was always hard time to remember those initials and to have go casco is going to be amazing for our citizens to remember even for us to remember we've been pcbt for 25 years go pasco envisions exactly what we mean we're here in pasco to go where you need us to go i think we're looking forward to the future showing that we have a lot of pride in our community we get to the yeah people actually liking that a lot and they said they just like the modernization's a lot better it makes us more reliable go pasco tells you who we serve we serve pasco or pcvt it was tough to determine that so that's why we went to this new new name and new brand again vibrant colors help us get that message across thank you to the team for putting this all together this has been a 20 something years we've been pcpt goodbye and see you on go pasco [Music] pasco county government is thrilled to be recognized as a top workplace for 2021 our focus people purpose performance with a culture of caring for and serving our own people empowering them to fulfill our overall purpose to serve our community to create a better future pasco county has become a better place to live work and play pasco county local government reimagined [Music]

hello i'm catherine seavy branch manager at the centennial park library we're putting the finishing touches on at your favorite branch there are lots of changes inside and out starting in the parking lot it's been repaved and new sidewalks and landscaping have been installed we've also added a bright new sign to keep you informed of events and happenings at the library at a glance there's a covered entrance now to help you keep dry and in the shade inside the flooring is complete along with the ceilings and lighting an expansive new front desk is the hub of the library with friendly staff ready to assist you quickly and efficiently the furniture shelves and fixtures are in place and we're preparing to deliver the books to the branch soon the loft is the new makerspace devoted to studio arts such as painting and arts and crafts there is plenty of room to conduct classes in the makerspace or to explore your artistic side on your own we know you're anxious to enjoy the remodeled centennial park library and we're eager to show it off follow our social media pages and pascallibraries.org for updates and the opening date thank you [Music] trails have so many purposes to them they connect you to places they get you outside in the fresh air and then you can exercise and you can be with friends when you're out using trails we're a pasco family and we walk together we're real mindful in pasco county that all the new neighborhoods need to have a trail system and they need to have a way for the residents who want to walk out of their community or cycle out of their community to have a way to connect to a trail system hi i work for the mpo as a transportation planner and i plan multi-use pathways i think our residents love the trails and i hear about it all the time and they do want them to be safe and safer soon we'll be building some of our first overpasses in the county pedestrian overpasses which will help a lot one of the reasons that i moved to pasco county two years ago was for the numbers of trails pathways that i could walk on i'm a frequent walker i try to walk two to three miles a day for health and fitness my name is tina russo i work for pasco county i'm a cyclist and i love to ride for my health and just to be outside in the great outdoors of florida today we're here for the grand opening of the splash pad at veterans memorial park in hudson florida two one [Applause] [Music] we're very excited about this this is a splash pad that we worked with investigation station investigation station is the traveling

children's museum we create interactive exhibits for kids and their caregivers to visit for free on their own time in pasco county this is a educational splash pad that teaches children about the water cycle so it contains elements that represent collection evaporation condensation and precipitation so the kids can learn about that while they play so folks will come in when it's open we have the button on the far side they come in they hit the button it'll run about 20 minutes at a time they'll play if it shuts off they go back over hit the button again and they're they're free to play we started working with our board of directors and lots of artists and i you know other people in the community for this to come about we could not have done it without all of the local businesses and private donors who contributed their time and talents and treasure to us we helped raise money for the project we applied for a grant and we had donations from personal contributions pasco county's role of course is that we provided the property and then we did do some of the uh work outside of the splash pad for example the the sidewalks we did fund one of the water features and we'll be installing benches and and things like that and then of course once it's open we'll be the ones operating it i think the whole community is going to be super excited about this for the community you know just like a playground it's it's a social hub it brings communities together people come out here they watch their kids the splash pad is going to be the same thing come on down to the hudson's flashback and have a great time [Music]

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thank you good morning everyone i would like to call to order the pasco county board of county commission meeting at 10 a.m [Music] december 7th 2021 at this time please sign us all electronic devices and mute your microphones before we stand for the invocation of the pledge i would like us all to remember that this very day is the 80th anniversary of the bombing of pearl harbor by the japanese and which later that that same day we went to war with japan and that's how we entered the second world war so let's remember those veterans the gate paid the ultimate sacrifice at that day is over 3 000 of them that took that uh time that they got killed in that battle and that actually started world war ii for the united states and we'd like to thank and and also show our support for all of our ems our police our sheriff's office and all of our veterans and armed service personnel at the same time so with that let's stand for the invocation and pleasure 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 [Music] the amen for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all madam clerk please call the roll district two commissioner moore district three commissioner starkey here district four commissioner fitzpatrick here district five commissioner mariano here district one chairman oakley here uh this time i would like to have mr steinsteiner will you please go over today's proceedings for the bcc uh mr chairman this is your election of officers um for the 20 20 21 22 year as we have done in the past the gavel is given to the clerk to conduct elections the elections for chair and vice chair of the board of county commissioners have historically occurred at the second meeting in november or that meeting occurring the second tuesday following an election this year we have it because there was one meeting in november we're having them in december and at this point the proceeding should be turned over to the clerk to conduct the uh nomination of thank you officers chairman at this time i will open nominations for

chairman of the board nominated commissioner vice chairman starkey second okay are there uh we have a nomination from uh for commissioner starkey are there any other nominations i'll do a second call are there any other nominations okay i will close nominations um since there was only one uh commissioner nominated um commissioner starkey congratulations for the chair thank you very much [Applause] my buddy came back to see me oh this is you now oh jeez thank you very much okay and do you do that no i do [Music] ask for nominations from the office of vice chair okay um i will now ask for nominations for vice chair motion to nominate commissioner mariano for vice chair second you don't need a second but then you go into are there any other numbers are there any other nominations for vice chair okay hearing none hearing none we have a new vice chair congratulations commissioner [Applause] all right so now is the time for public comment citizens are given an opportunity to no didn't you want to call wreck oh that's right we are going to have um we're changing the agenda around a little bit this morning we're going to call up joe moreno from wrec for a special check presentation and i will cross this off the list good morning joe marina with coochie electric district manager 21st street dave city morning board members administrator biles clerk souls and commissioners with the coochie is proud to be based in pasco county as you know we're member owned we're not for profit we've always supported communities and we did so in a really big way this year our educational foundation donated over 1.1 million in new equipment enhancing technical programs in pasco hernando and citrus schools we also awarded 110 scholarships valued at 1.2 million 65 of those were here in pasco county since our program of scholarships inception we have awarded 1146 scholarships with a potential value of 8.6 million we've also funded a state-of-the-art lighting system for ph sc's west pasco ball field that should be completed and dedication is going to take next month take place next month we also have a charitable organization called wrec cares we have helped 15

families and since the inception of that program we've helped 652 families that have suffered a catastrophic event through no fault of their own we've also as you know and appreciate the cooperation and partnership with pasco county we were able to to guide and lead vincent house which is a mental health facility in hudson it's open and operating well and has a good number of clients again i just want to thank the commission and mr biles for the excellent working relationship we have and on behalf of our ceo and our board like to i think we saw the check so it's 320 000 and 363.08 thank you thank you so much board members any comments go ahead great job we we certainly appreciate you working with us and and we do enjoy working and helping you because you your company actually does a lot for our our county and we look forward to many things that we do together in the future so yes sir thank you commissioner mariano yeah joe i want to say your company's absolutely a godsend to pasco county uh the involvement you take with the community uh helping our students which is great part of economic development personal development the vincent house project is phenomenal but no matter what it is whatever we're going to call on to to get with likucci at the table you guys are always there your service is tremendous and we greatly greatly appreciate you well thank you for your kind words we appreciate it thank you and we certainly value our relationship with you and um thank you 320 000. is that right thank you and some change thank you so much thank you okay so now is the time for public comment citizens are given an opportunity to comment on any item coming before the board and on items to be placed on a future board agenda or other business under their 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 webex link and are currently on cue this format does not weigh the request that when you address the board comments are not directed personally against a commissioner or team member but rather directed at the issues this provides mutual respect between the board members and the public for webex and in-person participants after stating your name and address for the clerk am i supposed to read that right now yeah okay the timer let's see the timer will be activated and we'll start a countdown after two minutes a beep will sound letting you know that only one minute remains after your time is up two beeps will sound indicating that three minutes have passed and you should close your comments webex participants will be disconnected

automatically when their time is up the following people have signed up to speak in person madam clerk i have seven individuals who have signed up to speak in person i will call the first three names so you'll know who's up next the first person signed up is raymond gad followed by john hefferin followed by joseph passanese regan deputy superintendent of schools 6504 wisteria loop lando lakes florida 34638 this is going to be the easiest public comment you ever have to receive i'm actually here to thank the county commission dan biles and his administration early on in the pandemic the school system was struggling trying to figure out how to feed our students and our families how we could buy devices for kids so that we could do online learning and i happened to be talking to commissioner starkey and she said well you know we have this cares act funding you might be able to get a million dollars of that funding to help out and so my cfo is with me olga swenson and so we pulled the treasury document on implementation of the cares act and saw that indeed schools may get some of that funding and so i got with um county administrator dan miles and he made it very clear to me immediately that if um the needs that we had met the criteria of the cares act that you had given him the authority to make sure it got funded so nine million dollars later uh miss starkey was a little under in her estimate but nine million dollars later you the county commission funded a lot of needs that the school district um required early on in the pandemic i want elvis winston to tell you real quickly what those are and i have a token of our appreciation from the pasco education foundation i don't think it will interfere with any gift policy it's a towel and a little cooler and based on your agenda today you might need a towel [Laughter] um so i'll let um uh olga just tell you what you funded and then i'll pass these out good morning good morning um again on behalf of the school board the superintendent and every employee of the district thank you for the contribution to the school district we use the money for the development implementation of online learning as you know our students had to take online courses last year about 30 percent of our students did that from home and about the 70s and 4 actually came into our schools we distributed 17 000 computers to our students we also served over 1 million meals to students and families around across the entire county and we also use ex all the uh

we use the money for all expenses associated with contact tracing as you know we had to do that last year and we spent a lot of time doing that so that's uh really a summary of the of the what how we use the money again thank you that's amazing it's great seeing you again olga thank you sir i'm really glad we could help the school districts when they needed it because we got our money so fast and so uh thank you that's very nice thank you good morning my name is john hefferon i'll try to speak fast with three minutes uh i come from we need your um uh name and address please name and andrew john hefferon 7235 graystone drive in the beacon woods project in the beaconwoods section of bayonet point i come from philadelphia particularly kensington neighborhood if you don't know that neighborhood you should google it it is open air drug activity and dealing where i used to shop deliver mail run sports clubs and everything else and community organizations i just moved into the area in september and realized that there was a homeless drug addiction problem directly surrounding beacon woods um i cleared out two lots since i've been there on beacon woods drive as you come off of 19. hypodermic needles in both spots i got into an argument with two homeless guys and i also witnessed a drug mule on a bike with backpacks uh feeding giving the guy that was begging at the corner drugs i almost got into an argument with him um i like to use the word effect of compassion i've been around this stuff all my life i grew up in three low-income neighborhoods in philadelphia and i also we had three buildings in the city of redding uh the lowest class the one of the poorest classy cities in the country i chased prostitutes drug dealers and slum lords in the city of reading using city council on the mayor to try to do so um i understand the problems i've been i've had discussions with four sheriffs they're all quite frustrated with a lack of tools to deal with the panhandling which supposedly is a first amendment right i understand there's an ordinance being written by the commissioners to address that hopefully that will come soon to give the sheriff some kind of power to do something about this also i went to amber mariano's office the assistant bear told me that 8 million was secured for metropolitan ministries i'd like to find out what's being done with that i have not had time to go there yet um some of the ideas that i have are not so compassionate but you you have to

understand that drug addicts sometimes or most times have to be forced into a situation to finally get treatment and people handing money out out of their cars is not helping these people drug sniffing dogs where are they can they be bought and trained clearing the lots i understand about uh trespassing and all that kind of stuff but can the national guard be brought in to clear these lots where these people are staying can uh local residents do it without legal ramifications i'm not sure of that getting the trespassing agreements with landlords so the sheriffs can do their job to get them off of their property understanding many of these landlords are out of state and the other legal ramifications of the national guard and private residents doing this also the pasco county of advocacy for the homeless is trying to find places to place these people with not much success so what can be done about that and i'd also like to know what pinellas county did with supposedly compassionate saint petersburg how but now this is what i've been told now that they were pushed up north so how did they do that why did they do that and was there any effective way to help these people thank you very much i think one of my staffers going to meet you outside and give you a brochure that's in the works and um i'm sure commissioner mariano can meet with you later to talk about things that are happening because assistants are both right right there so derek will meet you out in the hall next thank you joseph cassanese followed by and i'm sorry if i pronounced your last name incorrectly ron woodruff and dr betsy cola coville yes my name is joseph passanesi i reside at 2837 plantain drive in holiday florida i have a report i'd like to submit for your approval mostly receiving file second favor hi i live in the key vista subdivision there are about 1500 residents and living in about 718 houses in this subdivision we've noticed a higher than normal number of vehicles that have excessive noise when they travel the public roadways that surround the subdivision these public roadways are gulf trace boulevard strawber memorial boulevard and bailey's bluff road the vehicles using these public roadways produce unreasonable high noises can occur at any time of the day but usually they occur late at night when most people are sleeping i believe it's important that pasco county government do something about this problem to protect the quality of

life of the key vista residents on december 3rd 2021 katie dolotowski executive assistant to pasco county commissioner katherine starkey provided me with some facts pertaining to the florida noise law she indicated that the florida law makes it illegal for anyone to operate a motor vehicle on a roadway and amplify the sound produced by a radio a tape player or even a muffler that is plainly audible at a distance of 100 feet or greater or is louder than necessary my research revealed that enforcement of the florida norris law is a quality of life issue government in the form of pasco county commissioners and the pasco county sheriff's office are responsible for protecting the quality of life of residents in unincorporated pasco county in conclusion i request that the pasco county commissioners take action necessary to enforce the florida noise law and commissioner starkey's district as well as in the remaining four commission districts vehicles making unreasonable high noises are not limited to just one commission district this action should also include requesting pasco county sheriff chris norco to fulfill his enforcement responsibility in all five pasco county commission districts thank you thank you and i hear that noise across the water in my neighborhood in gulf harbor so i know what you're talking about okay thank you very much next ron woodruff thank you okay first of all uh your name and address for the record please uh ron waldorf 18723 uh east road hudson florida i'm here because i moved here a year ago and i wanted to build the garage to put jet skis and other things that don't fit in the garage in the house it took me i'm not done yet we're 11 and a half months into it to do two days work took one day to port of concrete for a 26 by 40 garage and one day to erect the building with a six or seven man crew we still haven't done the electrical work so technically we're still not done now um sonia who is the works with mr jack mariano has been very helpful um hooked me up with roy mazor who has changed everything and made things i wouldn't say easy but

couldn't have got it done without him uh i've been in the building trades for almost 40 years speaking of which huh million-dollar houses up north two million dollar houses 20 million dollar houses on lake geneva in wisconsin uh your building department is totally dis-functional okay totally your inspectors are not qualified uh the people that work in their office wanted me to do a topographical survey and a grading plan but i was exempt because i live on one acre they tried to force me to do so without sonya and mr roy um uh probably would have been forced to do so my demeanor has a lot to do with why i was successful in that as well but i have some suggestions that i would like to make to not everybody in this room because they don't want to hear it but i'd like to get an appointment with mr mariano to um make my suggestions to them because just one example that i'll use uh olympic pool who got a hundred permits okay there's no way he should have got a hundred permits now if you ask royce as well by law we have to give permits no you make a rule you get 20 permits or 10 permits when you finish five pools we give you five more more permits you don't allow people to go around and pull 100 200 permits and defraud all these poor homeowners uh it seems like the county is protecting the criminal contractors and not the taxpayers and residents so i don't have anything further to say i'd just like to get an appointment with this gentleman thank you uh based on 40 years of experience i think i thank you very much and uh one of his assistants right there so please set it up there you go thank you dr betsy coville is that something we need to receive and file no it's a letter for you all in favor hi dr betsy coville 510 stratfield dr lutz florida as a veterinarian and i begin educating myself about the plight of rabbits i will share what i learn with you a unique but unpleasant aspect is the numerous ways mankind has figured out how to both use and abuse them cosmetic testing raise for meat farm for fur entertainment used as bait for other animals in comparison who would have thought being a pet would be anything but heaven together we found thousands were not

only not in heaven but the third most surrendered pet they require higher maintenance than dogs or cats and can live 10 to 12 years frequently dumped outside when the rescues are full they starve become prey for coyotes or hit by cars no matter which way we are exploiting them the bunny mill is consistently the source no different than the puppy mills we recognize as inhumane the doughs are bred every heat for eight to ten litters a year as long as feasible the small and sickly are sold as bait or as reptile food they live their entire life in a cramped dark dirty cage without benefit of exercise or sunshine the boredom results in abnormal behaviors biting wires self-mutilation there are currently three locations in florida which have placed bans on retail sales of rabbits orange county desoto county and key west they have all placed rabbits along with dogs and cats in their retail sales ban key west simply added rabbits to the definition of pets similar to retail bans for dogs and cats they allow sales from shelters and rescues petco and petsmart stopped selling rabbits in 2007 and only work with rescues they are the number one and two retail pet supplies in the u.s so obviously a ban will not hurt these businesses financially this ban will take the pressure off rescues and humane societies removing the guilt of turning them away and negating the need for owners to dump them pasco county has been a leader in the state for protecting animals with anti-tethering laws and pet sales bans now as we are working to educate and change laws in neighboring counties we hope you will be the trailblazer for the tampa bay region thank you for your time thank you very much next renee rivard followed by miriam parham good morning commissioners nice to see you rene brevard p.o box 81 cortez florida the tampa humane society has taken in 246 unwanted pet rabbits so far this year that's a hundred more than last year hillsborough county commissioners are taking action because the tampa humane society is their partner in helping the county with unwanted pets there is no facility in pasco county that takes an unwanted rabbits suncoast house rabbit rescue is your partner with unwanted pet rabbits here in pasco county suncoast house rabbit rescue has told you that they are overwhelmed in september alone they had to turn away 66 unwanted pet rabbits it is extremely difficult to find fosters and homes for rabbits rabbits are a high maintenance pet they need lots of room to move around and chew on everything

they also need specialized veterinarian care which is expensive the majority of rabbit sales are impulse buys at retail stores you have roughly 45 pet stores in pasco county 36 of them survive without selling rabbits only nine sell rabbits petsmart and petco don't sell rabbits a manager at pecos said they don't sell them because they are the third given a pet behind dogs and cats a sales girl at foster's exotics in port richey told me that rabbits are not good pets for children they don't like to be picked up and you need lots of space for them another sales girl there said they are cute when they are babies but a lot of people don't realize the care that's involved like they don't want to be in a cage an associate at pet supermarket said kids see pictures of bunnies at easter time and ask their parents to buy bunnies then the bunnies end up being homeless you see commissioners even the sales people know that rabbits are a high maintenance pet that are an impulse buy and end up being unwanted we spoke at your last animal advisory committee meeting the committee seems interested in a ban on the retail sale of rabbits and even made comments that ferrets and other small animals should be considered your animal services staff said they would do some research and get with you about this matter commissioners please help your partner suncoast house rabbit rescue and start a discussion about adding rabbits to your retail pet sales band like hillsborough county is doing thank you for your time thank you very much we have and last one signed up in person is miriam depends on who you ask my husband or his son how to pronounce it anyway my name is miriam parham i'm at 9932 caribou trail dade city i've been a pasco resident for about 23 years but i also represent a non-profit 501 c 3 group that's been incorporated since 1989 called florida voices for animals we have almost 5 000 supporters in the area and we're all volunteer our mission is to educate um the public about animal abuse and exploitation and the sale of rabbits as you've heard can contribute to both abuse and exploitation so abuse at the hands of people who don't know how to take care of them and well-meaning adults and even children who don't know how to proper handle these gentle animals who require a lot of care but in transportation there's a lot of exposure to stress and then at the retail store also the way they're kept in the cages and they're also crowded often if you go to some of the pet stores they have those wire cages that are very harsh on their tender little feet so you've heard a lot of statistics so i'm not going to repeat anything like that but as you see they're turned into

the shelters and the shelters are overwhelmed and they're turned away then the sanctuaries apparently are overwhelmed so they can also turn them away so um the they require more time and effort and socialization than people realize and yes they're bought primarily at easter time but it is a year-round pro problem and as you heard from other small animals too like the ferrets the guinea pigs um and other small animals so as you heard how fragile they can be they can chew and scratch like you heard they can scratch the little faces and hands of the children handling them and they can also break their backs when the children pick them up and handle them and they can drop them so there's a lot of stress and discomfort and then when they're released because they're not wanted either accidentally or on purpose they're exposed to the cold and the heat and they don't do well in an environment that they don't know and they also get sick very often even in the domestic in the household and they they're good at hiding their illness so a lot of times you don't even know when they're sick till it's too late so they really do require a lot of care so um so in summary um we don't think that um rabbits would make good pets and they certainly shouldn't be sold at the retail stores certainly support adoption of those who are out there that need adopting and all animals shouldn't be left out of this equation and talking about animal protection you hear about dogs and cats but we need to add these other small animals to this equation and they should be provided protection from potential cruelty mistreatment and not being sold in the stores and we hope you pass this not just at easter time but year-round and again the best solution to preventing these is to not have them sold in the stores so thank you so much for your time appreciate it thank you madam chair that was the last um person who had signed up in person is there anyone else here who would list would like to address the board please come up and give us your name and address do we have anyone alone my name is john russell i live in 96 52 cavendish court which is in the heritage lake area my comment that i want to make is relative to agenda item 125. am i supposed to wait for then or can i comment now that the public hearing in the afternoon no the way my butt is organized i'll never find it 25 is the public hearing this afternoon yeah that's this afternoon um is it okay you can make a comment now but you won't be able to in the afternoon you can't be here in the afternoon then you can would you right yes you can make a comment we'll

have to enter it into the record okay and i have a diagram i should receive a file if i may ask them all in favor aye aye you've already heard uh all about the development along alvernon avenue from about chris sharer's development down there and the zoning change from presidential 2-2 multi-family housing one mh-1 i guess is what it's called and you already know it's a flood zone you've heard all of these different things but there's one item that and at the planning commission meeting that was not discussed or presented properly mr sharer said that he had a transportation traffic person go out there and do all these surveys and find out that st lawrence where it hits little road and heritage lake boulevard where it hits little road are fine the way they are he did not include if they're going to put 55 homes in there that's going to be another 110 cars approximately for the residents and in addition to that you're going to have ex a lot of other traffic and i don't know about your neighborhood but where i live i can't go for maybe 30 minutes or an hour before there's fedex usps all of these just delivery trucks garbage trucks everybody that's doing maintenance and if you notice the intersections with st lawrence and these are in yellow on your diagram st lawrence and at heritage there are no right turn dedicated lanes there and when one car wants to go straight across there may be eight or ten or twelve right turn lane turn cars going that are held up for two or three lights and it's also forcing people right now to take chances that they shouldn't take in heritage lake boulevard and little road and just like a week ago i witnessed a horrible accident there because people are just trying to push their limits and get through that intersection it was like a triple rollover with a car flying through the air so my point is that i don't think there can be right turn lanes put in there because of existing infrastructure poles drainage sidewalks trees and all this but i just think it's a really bad idea to even change the zoning the people i know in that neighborhood say that 19 homes is perfectly acceptable and that's what he's zoned for right now so i hope you give consideration to the traffic problems that are really going to get much much worse thank you very much thank you very

much and i is there anyone else who wishes to address the board all right i believe we have someone on webex we do a madam chair we have carla card miss card you can go ahead and um state your name and address for the record hi good morning can you hear me yes we can thank you okay um very good thank you for your time i really appreciate it today i'm here today to discuss the tremendous growth which is leading to the terrible traffic issues and accidents near state road 54 state road 56 the grove the tampa premium outlets and old casco road to bruce b downs my home is off of wesley chapel boulevard and this concern touches county districts one two and three fender benders and horrible accidents are happening in this area every day because of the overgrowth and population our community can't handle any more not only is the gridlock and the buildup negatively affecting the quality of life for the current residents but it's also negatively affecting the wildlife that has nowhere to go and live deer are constantly being maimed and killed on these hazardous roads and it's very disturbing to see the new construction in the area needs to be reviewed and additional development in this area should be halted there is no funding if there is no funding to fix the road issues we certainly should not allow more development to increase in this area which actually increases the chaos there are several new multi-tenant buildings being built right now once completed the population will grow and cause more traffic issues it's so bad right now that the emergency vehicles are not able to respond quickly and how awful this is if you or a loved one needs urgent care so we must stop any more new developments until we get this traffic under control people are running red lights and blocking intersections which is causing mayhem it takes me over 35 minutes to get to i-75 when it used to take 12 minutes there are six lights traffic lights in a short distance and not one works to move the flow of traffic correctly there are too many businesses near the i-75 on and off ramps this is extremely dangerous again we must halt any new developments until we get the roads and overwhelming population under control there are people running red lights like i mentioned um and we're running out of room there are too many businesses there are too many people being allowed to work in a small area with poor traffic control so we need to stop newer construction or at least require the developers to pay for the build on the roads necessary prior to development of new structures it's just really becoming too much and again thank you for your time and i certainly appreciate all your attention to this matter

ms card we need your address for the record please uh yes ma'am it is uh 23110 state road 54 lutz florida three three five four nine thank you and madam chair that's that's the only one all right thank you very much okay so now we will uh we have 15 minutes till time certain so we will move on to the consent agenda no now's the time for resolutions and i do believe we have one yes we do pauline smith could you please come up to the podium thank you i'm sure you'd like me to go ahead and read yes okay resolution number 22-021 a resolution by the board of county commissioners of pasco county florida commending pauline smith for over 35 years of dedicated service to the pasco county board of county commissioners and congratulating her on her retirement whereas in 1986 pauline smith began her career with pasco county pauline started serving the citizens as a part-time custodian in the facilities management department eventually pauline transitioned into a full-time position serving as crew leader of the custodial staff within the department and whereas in 1998 pauline decided to pursue a new career path and transfer to code enforcement pauline served the citizens of pasco county as a code enforcement officer becoming officer smith and whereas officer smith was responsible for for the new port richie for the for the port ridge and the new port richie areas of the county she investigated more than fifteen thousand complaints and advocated for and fostered better communication between code enforcement and the community and whereas officer smith was the second female code enforcement officer in pasco county in 2005 she became the first female officer to be promoted to field training officer then in 2010 officer smith became the first female field officer where she was responsible for the training and development of over 27 code enforcement officers and whereas officer smith takes pride in her work and is respected by her peers for her knowledge skills and constant desire to improve the quality of life for the citizens of pasco county and whereas officer smith has been one of the most effective supervisors in the department through the combination of her knowledge dedication and passion she is a true gem has been an asset to the department and is an unbelievable friend that will be missed and whereas after over 35 years of dedicated service officer smith will retire on december 31st 2021 from the pasco county code enforcement department as supervisory code enforcement officer now therefore be resolved by the board of county commissioners of pasco county florida in regular session duly assembled that said board hereby expresses its deepest appreciation to pauline smith for over 35 years of dedicated services to the citizens of pasco county and wishes her the best in her retirement done and

resolved in regular session with a quorum present and voting the seventh day of december 2021. thank you move abroad all favor hi hi commissioner mariano yes thank you madam chair pauline what a outstanding employee you've been for so many years for code enforcement the great work you've done whether it be going on calls going on sweeps getting into projects when we've got sweeps going on an area cleanup going on the area the work you do to make everything work better has been phenomenal and i think your great participation your teamwork with with pat micah and the whole team together um gave us confidence that when we needed to get more code enforcement people that they're going to get the job done right so thank you for your tremendous leadership congratulations on a great career and we wish you all the best thank you i appreciate it i i also i'm going to miss you very much we've worked a lot together in the last well i guess nine years as commissioner but even before that so um i assume you're going to stay in the area we'll see you around or you take an offer somewhere i'm going to hang out with you on weekends while i look at it why i look at violations you can call them in for me all right well um let's come down and take a photo yes sure i would just like to say thank you so much because every time i've reached out to code you've always been there to address the concerns and if i mention a concern you're out there the same day or the very next day so thank you for all of your hard work thank you okay if i may i'd like to say thank you micah for making me come up here and i i do want to bring pat phillips up here if i may well i think the whole we should take a picture with your whole team whoever you want in the picture yes yeah you want to none of them could make it so pat and i are the yin and the yang i'm the cold stern one pat is a nice soft compassionate one i i couldn't have done it without my work husband pat i just want that on the record and there's two other people that i want to acknowledge that i wouldn't be standing here today if it were not for them that have left an impact on my life and those are addie and dan johnson some of you know them yeah but they've left the impact on my life and they are the reason i'm here oh that's awesome thank you yeah that's awesome you know she says these kind words and i'm her work husband but i guess on december 31st she's filing for the divorce no thank you for everything you're a true leader and it takes a great person to become a good leader thank you so thank you thank you uh we're going to miss you pauline we'll

come down take a picture yes and if the code team would come up as well sally come on up dan a little bit more i have a cold so i'm not gonna here you go right there thank you [Applause] separations thank you everybody okay and now um we are on to the consent agenda unless i have a time set over here okay um we have on the consent agenda c86 c33 ac 185 c64 c89 i'm going to pull off c36 and uh commissioners is there anything else you'd like to see pulled from the consent agenda for approval um we do have two addendums to the consent items ac 185 and ac 186 those will be pers ac 185 got just got oh yes it did okay so we'll take that one off so so ac 186. okay all in favor of the consent agenda aye aye opposed nate all right we will take up c well let's take up c 36 first adjust um you know the our our uh community marcy's department i was getting mixed up with community services community development but they're always looking for properties and so just want to make sure that this is nothing that would be suitable for us to put some housing on because she told me she had wanted the one-on-mile stretch and to build what that's a great place to put some affordable housing on mile stretch but it's too late now i understand but is mariposa suitable for to give to one of our partners to build some housing good morning facilities management andrew baxter with our surplus and disposition property program we review uh all properties with internally and that includes community development prior to it ever coming to the board and so they have vetted it they have ensured that it is not a property that they desire and so this property is ready to be declared surplus okay um go ahead commission mariano this is what's going to happen with the property that will be determined once we once we put it out for sale um and then we'll bring it back to the board for for its final disposition this is just to declare it surplus this allows us to then solicit for a bid on the property so for example the property on mile stretch it was our old fire station that's an area that we're looking for redevelopment and um and also housing you know work workforce housing

so in my opinion that would have been a great site for a eight plex or something but that ship has sailed i think but i'm going to keep my eye out a little stronger so make sure i get that list too okay no problem we'll make sure you're on the disposition list thank you all right c86 and there she is on c36 well can we just take them together come on not marcy good morning commissioners item c86 is an amendment to our heart program which is emergency rental assistance program with the u.s treasury it is amending agreements with our partner agencies to extend the scope of work in the terms of agreement through the end of january so they could fully expend their money and we have a couple of changes to the memo they include the number of agencies have gone from nine to eight because because one agency is fully expended and then one of the amendments was not properly signed by the notary notary thank you for and now it is great okay um seeing and no questions i would take a motion to approve c8636 all in favor aye opposed all right thank you okay it's 10 53. madam chair yes i don't believe um it was on the record um the ones that were withdrawn just the agenda items so if you just would like to state that in the record that they're withdrawn yep c33 ac 185 c64 and c89 were withdrawn thank you ma'am okay now we're going to go to our regular agenda item and is that r97 my book is right done you've done our 97 98 is a time cert 99 is your next one which is the clerk's presentation of investment performance review reporter ending september 30th 2021. let's go to 99. thank you madam chair i'm calling up manny long my director of financial services in my office and also scott stitcher he's the director with pfm asset management investment advisors and they are here to present the semi-annual investments of the board of county commissioners good morning chairman starkey and commissioners thank you for having us manny long finance director for the clerking controller's office where we put the fun in funds okay well there either um so east pasco government center one four two three six six street date city florida three three five two three so as we continue to monitor the investment portfolio to ensure compliance with the florida statutes as well as the pasco county's investment policy you know we

monitor all the investments on a daily basis and with the help of pfm giving us some strong advice even with these low interest rates that we're still seeing we exceed the benchmarks for our short and long term investments again first and foremost we are maintaining the safety and security of the principal for all pasco county investments and as you can see here on our slide here the total unrestricted portfolio that we have is one billion dollars short-term investments distributed to the florida trust day-to-day fund in the amount of 204 million 162 million dollars in the sba and another 10.6 million dollars in local government investment funds florida class our longer term investments are with pfm we have 391 million dollars invested with pfm underneath their management and scott stitcher here who is the investment guru appreciate you thank you thank you all right and uh we have another 10.6 10.7 million dollars in cds with qualified public depositors total restricted portfolio is at 490 million dollars which directly relates to funds um that are dedicated to specific projects your bond issuance of of those funds and when we met the last time we were had about 71.39 of our investments in local government investment pools these investment policies states that we can have 75 percent but when we did evaluate the investments we did move a lot of that money out to now we're down to 31.6 in local government investment pools uh a large chunk of that money went to pfm to manage some of those uh funds uh in order to go a little longer out on the yield curve and to maximize some of the the yield that we have so and again um we're exceeding the benchmarks that are set forth out there by the industry standards and i think i'm going to turn it over to scott so you can not listen to me anymore but he's got a lot of great information thank you scott thanks man all right good morning everyone as mentioned my name is scott stitcher i'm with pfm asset management and i'm not nearly as clever as as manny is but i do want to just take a quick moment to thank madam clerk alvarez and manny and the finance staff we have a great working relationship with the team it makes our job that much easier so i commend nikki and her team so again pfm asset management has been entrusted with managing a fixed income investment portfolio on behalf of pasco county we do so within the parameters set forth in florida state statute 218.415 as well as the ordinance investment policy of pasco county the main objective of both the statute and your policy is safety of principle followed by liquidity and uh and yield did you have a question i i do but i'll

ask it okay okay please feel free to interrupt uh so as mandy mentioned i'm gonna focus on uh the line that says pfm board county commissioners investment we've been entrusted to manage a little over 390 million on your behalf i'm gonna pass through uh slides four through seven serve as a uh asset allocation or compliance summary so that you can see that you're again within the parameters set forth by your policy from a sector standpoint issuer allocation standpoint uh the credit rating agency standpoint but i want to make some comments on page nine if i can uh i'm gonna speak first to that duration number and why that's important you'll note that the duration is a measure of the interest rate sensitivity of the portfolio uh i suspect the next time we get together in six months you're going to see that number be slightly short or or less than the benchmark duration and that's really because the fed has indicated uh that they really planned it to raise interest rates come 2022. they they've really been signaling uh expediting their timeline giving given the right rising inflation numbers that they're seeing out there so we do anticipate uh interest rates to continue to rise which they've started to do in the fourth quarter since this report was printed and therefore what we will do is take some of the interest rate sensitivity out of this portfolio by reducing the duration relative to the benchmark i also want to point you to the upper right hand corner that sector allocation just note that the portfolio is very well diversified your policy allows us to do quite a bit and that's a good thing and it has served you well which you'll see when we look at the performance on the previous page page eight but the one number i want to point to is the treasury number and that number is a little bit inflated right now that's a byproduct of the new money that manny mentioned earlier that you get gave us back in the second quarter of this year about 175 million dollars to be exact so that large allocation is again a byproduct of that new money but it's also more importantly a byproduct of the fact that fixed income markets are very rich they're trading very rich right now and so yes fixed income can be rich like like equities they can be very similar so our job is to be very prudent and methodical when putting that new money to work for you we don't want to overpay for securities on your behalf and therefore again we've been a little bit slower and putting that money to work and trying to identify opportunities i spoke to the portfolio manager yesterday and he said he's definitely not where he'd like to be he suspects in the new calendar year that there will be opportunities to move into sectors like

asset-backed securities and corporate nodes and possibly even mortgage-backed securities as the fed winds down their asset purchase program okay i'll point you to also the yield of costs i'd be remiss if i didn't mention that number that point six six percent uh i know it's not really a car wheel worthy number but it is when you compare it to some of your other options like overnight bank deposits uh local government investment pools and money market funds that are yielding somewhere in the point zero three percent range so there's serious uh interest income pickup in investing out longer in this portfolio so let me go back to what actually i'll pause there for a second i've thrown a lot at you in a short amount of time any questions on page nine can we go back a couple of pages we may tell me when to stop there that's the next one right there okay all right so you've got look in the municipal california earthquake new jersey turnpike authority new york state urban development state of connecticut is there any reason we don't do more in florida compared to out there i know i know one time way back when uh there was an apartment complex we invested in with a group and that thing went under and it was part of the big collapse that kept our money tied up for many many years these things here kind of scare me a little bit and i'm just wondering if it's florida-based i feel a little bit more comfortable any reason you're not putting money back into florida so one of the challenges we face our firm faces is that we have up until today as a matter of fact we had another business line called pfm financial advisors and they are the largest financial advisory firm uh as far as deal volume in the united states all right because of that relationship we've really been precluded from investing in a lot of deals that take place not only in florida but in in the rest of the country when a deal comes to market our firm has worked on that we have to wait 60 days before we can actually participate in purchasing that security well the problem is those securities are not not available for sale in 60 days people buy them for a reason they buy them for the safety they provide for the the income stream that they provide they're not really looking to sell them within 60 days so for us a lot of it has been a supply issue and then our business relationship and i say that has held true up until yesterday when we were no longer really affiliated with the financial advisory firm any longer so i think what that's going to do is it is going to open up the opportunity set in which we can play and you're likely

have a question thank you thank you madam chair um you mentioned there's a committee that reviews these is that correct and where are these committee members located uh our trading desk is in harrisburg pennsylvania it's where we're based so we manage about 176 billion dollars i always say we're probably one of the larger asset management firms you've never heard of so we have about 176 billion dollars about 130 billion of that is in discretionary money uh meaning our clients entrust us to make buy and sell decisions on their behalf much like pasco county uh board does um so that committee again meets monthly uh to talk to discuss new names they want to bring to the list to names that they consider removing and then just again reviewing the the list as it stands um and we do that for commercial paper municipals asset back and corporate note security again i'm not going to harp on this anymore because i know we have a busy schedule a busy agenda i'd just be curious again to you know new jersey turnpike authority new york um new york state urban development corp state of connecticut we're looking at three northeastern states that abut each other that um password county is making investments in i don't take conley to that okay commissioner fitzpatrick um yes and looking at the new jersey turnpike authority and i would like to look further into it but as looking it up it does have strong traffic and revenue histories so i would just like to see what the histories are currently up to date if they are bringing increasing their budget and increasing their gross revenue or if it's decreasing because i know it's very expensive it it's it brings in and generates a lot of revenue so i would like to see what rate of return we have on that investment thank you okay is there more to your presentation i i really was going to speak to performance on page eight but in the interest of time i i'm i'd be glad to stop there well performance is important so i think this is important and i would say i think it's been um again manny made the comment earlier about the the county's portfolio out performance benchmark we are part of that outperformance so on this page we show you uh returns in dollar terms as well as percentage terms total return percentage terms at the bottom and for the three months ending september 30th the portfolio was up 0.09 percent versus the benchmark in that beige gray area at 0.06 percent we also show you net of fees and that net of fee return is 0.08 percent so about two basis points of outperformance for the quarter and then

we show you the trailing fiscal year end the one year number for september 30th 2021. the portfolio was up 0.29 percent versus the benchmark at 0.03 and then on a net of fee basis the portfolio was up 0.23 so that equates to about eight hundred thousand dollars in dollar terms um not a number we we like to see but it's just a a byproduct of where we are today the interest rate cycle uh we're hoping that we start to move towards since inception type numbers out there to the far right again as interest rates rise might be a little painful in the beginning uh again as interest rates rise bond prices fall but long term you're going to be investing at higher yielding security so that interest number should offset any pain in the long term so again we think we're headed more towards these since inception type numbers two percent north of two percent okay my question and manny you may have said at the beginning and i was getting organized here so i missed it might have missed it but i know it was unusual for when we got the money from the feds in one of the distributions um that we were allowed to get interest on it because apparently normally we don't get to collect the interest on it so is that money did that money go here um where you know where'd that money go since the money was originally supposed to be spent by 1231 uh last year so we we actually did put that in a short-term uh day-to-day fund in local government investment pools which has a maturity of about 35 days so we had easy access to that money and liquidity and and we're collecting interest on that and what about the second round that did and have we received any money the the second distribution which is coming in two years is it the airp yes we only got the first distribution last april-ish may i can't remember and we are allowed to collect the interest on that because we are yeah okay and do we does that interest get go into this fund and get mixed up somewhere or do we get to put that interest which is unusual for this kind of money in a separate um line item to be used uh say in general revenue where so that interest income is based upon the fund balances and whatever that interest is it's divvied up between all of the fund balances based upon the percentage of their fund balance so each fund gets a percentage of that interest well what kind of fund did you put the aar the arp money in so it's in it's in the general revenue general fund um so in the 01 general general fund i don't understand why the interest this isn't my world and maybe one of y'all can so say this president technically if we put 100 million dollars in there then

that 100 million dollars would go to the general fund don't talk about the interest yeah the interest would on that money would go towards the general fund okay but but you know i'd like to see that number called out eventually because in my mind that's undedicated money that we're earning on the federal money but you had to spend the first chunk you had to spend by december 30th yeah yeah and i'm not sure what the rules are on the interest it's a lot of money in a low interest bearing because it had to be liquid so madam chair yes the general fund is a unrestricted funds right putting the monies in there they are not restricted you can use them for what you would need the parameters upon you know the cares funding you had to make sure that it checked the boxes on what that amount of money could be used for but it's all within the general fund the interest and the original money okay all right any other questions i i know what you were getting at well it's extra money for us yeah i understand yeah yes and you can use it yes i just want to know how much it is because we allotted spending based on the the number that we received but it didn't include the interest we're earning and what are we going to do with that money and that's up to this board correct that's what i'm saying so one day i'd like to see that number we're very good at spending it okay any other questions okay i think we have a time certain did we do we missed that no they're here they're out there okay 11 30. all right thank you very much appreciate it and i think we we gave you some questions here i'll work on those okay thank you all right what do we have next all right r98 put this back in here is that our hubbleween this here yeah but we got the other money and it was interesting it's not normal that we get to keep the interest right come on don't be shy [Laughter] okay these two they don't bite too hard good morning commissioners how are you good morning good morning commissioners my name is reagan weiss good morning this is my business partner and chairman of hub life charities joey deeb it's another glorious day in pasco county and i would just like to say we are very grateful for this event and we are very grateful for the collaboration efforts between private business and public we would like we'd like to recognize two individuals right away mark burlinger mark please raise your hand and christina gordon guys give them a round of applause of parks and recreation because it was an absolute pleasure working with them with their support and their work ethic

is absolutely amazing this hubbleween is in memory of angela fagan of parks and recreation uh we lost her this year she was a great advocate for this event and it was honored to work with her and our condolences go out to her and her family and her co-workers this event was an enormous undertaking ideas are great but you need to have a right team of people to make it happen these people you see here behind me and next to me are what made it happen businesses came together in order to raise over fifty six thousand dollars for a two day event thousands of cars over six thousand people it was an absolute sight to see it tugged on our hearts when we received private messages that families um with real wheelchair-bound children were able to come to their first scary event for halloween guys it's been truly amazing we're grateful for all of you we truly are grateful for the collaboration event we're we're grateful for you allowing us to use uh parks and recreation and jb starkey park um it's just it's so amazing to see and everyone here can attest that when you see these kids come through and i know i know joey can say it too i have this mask on these people have masks on and you see the smiles in your face and sometimes the fear and they just it just it's such a great great feeling to know that we are all making memories and core memories for these kids for years and years to come and they're always going to remember mom and dad remember going to gb starkey park remember that and how much fun it was and then they're going to do that for their kids and we hopefully we pass on that generation so after the 56 thousand dollars is raised and expenses and so forth we have two charities involved we have hub life charities which we split right down the middle as we promised from day one so after proceeds and everything came to we have a twenty thousand dollar check to give to the board of county commissioners um for you to use for uh pasco county natural resources for children's scholarships and first win scholarships et cetera so we thank you we're grateful for all of you thank you excellent thank you so much reagan we'll come down and take a picture yeah madam chair i just wanted to say something i i would be remiss if i didn't yeah no problem so keith wiley director of parks recreation natural resources this is just an awesome example of how we get stuff done at the end of the day through through partnerships yeah and i wanted to thank all the members of the hub for making us from allowing this event to be a success and obviously a success or a project of this scale and a special event of the scale is not easy to pull off right did y'all seriously it's a lot of work and it's been a lot of work for the parks team so to have a partner that's willing to continue to provide this program to the to the community is just awesome so thank you everyone i really appreciate

it and and it's so nice that they did it in memory of angela who i i so much enjoyed working on the lectures on the lawn with that yeah that's a big loss for everybody so let's come down take a photo hey reagan reagan so many people did i hear that next year you're going to bring bon jovi in we're going to bring that up special request yes absolutely yeah why don't you guys come here because there's a lot of folks and we'll stand behind you and reagan hold that well should i go down just hold that check and i'm on heels too so reagan's going to get his knees yeah i'll move to the side oakley said he's going to arm wrestle you after the meeting by the way yeah i'll take him out all right everybody and then everyone can send it out [Laughter] we usually don't get it that way that's interesting [Laughter] thanks again guys that's that was awesome what you did okay so that was we did 89. we did i mean 98 99 and now well i see the sheriff's here 11 30. yeah 11 30 is the citizens graduation are we ready for that or should we the what we want first you have a few minutes okay we'll do 101 i'll switch over here good morning nick conspiracy county attorney's office item r101 is an eminent domain stipulated final judgment with wsmb we have placed that on the regular agenda to give commissioner oakley the opportunity to abstain from voting as he wishes to avoid the appearance of a conflict also a revised memorandum was distributed this morning with updated funding information and funding is available in project 20061 county attorney's office recommends approval i'll move for approval second now without abstaining from voting all right commissioner oakley will abstain do we have to do a roll call no no all in favor aye opposed with one abstention it passes all right thank you very much thank you what's r02 we have seven minutes probably 11 30 102. okay so looks like you've got you've got the class here we're ready to do citizens academy great let's do it citizens academy good morning commissioners johanna rodriguez intern governmental affairs today we'd like to celebrate the fall 2021 graduating class of the pasco county citizens academy we have 21 graduates this time around

we'd like to present certificates of completion to those able to join us today following the presentation we ask you join us for a group photo class when i call your name please come up for your certificate patsy albert megan benoit michael cionferani leticia collins linda connelly cindy donovan andrea eisenhower valerie francis william humphrey catherine julian stephanie lefue and may i add that brian actually just started working for community development so double congrats to him [Applause] geraldine sanchez jessica schmidt we didn't get invited to her carissa villa scott f west all right so congratulations to the fall 2021 class we hope you enjoyed our program thank you for your interest in learning about what we do every day to make a difference in the lives of those we serve we look forward to our next academy which starts on january 19th thank thank you all so much for participating um we'd love to hear comments from those who went through the class to um you know we'd like to know what you thought about it there's not very many places where you can learn how your local government focus uh functions so that's that's why we started this years ago and we're really grateful for the time you put into this and we'd love to hear a few comments quickly if any of you want to say anything to the board well we'll stand up and take a photo and then then if any of you will give us a few comments we'd love to hear it we we usually come on to date city during this oh yeah when they when they role play as commissioners oh that's right that's the oh is that leadership oh okay getting my my classes thank you and we can get you a copy of that picture so anyone want to make any comments real quick if you can do it at the podium yeah at the podium here yes for the record hi my name is jerry sanchez or geraldine sanchez i go by jerry and i definitely learned a lot more than i thought i would it was an eye-opener i think the game that we played was definitely an icebreaker because we were able to interact and kind of role play a little bit but also put ourselves in these roles that are very very important and see how so many of us in this county and our cities have different ideas but sometimes we don't think of the ideas of our neighbors or how it could impact our

budget or things like that so that was one of my favorite times because it was fun but we were learning and we were also experiencing so i really enjoyed it thank you thank you thank you hi my name is megan benoit i've learned so much about how the county operates and between the department heads and the employees that we interacted with everybody seemed to love their job nobody had a skull on their face everybody had great things to say about pasco moving here blindly not knowing anything boy do we choose the right county to move to you [Applause] good morning i'm cindy donovan i just wanted to sort of echo what megan said it was really lovely to hear from the department heads themselves and sometimes their staff about what they do how much they enjoy it they obviously have a great deal of passion for what they do and it was really nice to see oh thank you thank you very much well thank you all up one more okay my name is william humphrey and i just wanted to thank uh pasco county and for for investing the time and energy into putting this academy on it's a worthwhile investment in your time and i hope that you continue doing it because it i know that it you know time is money and you have a lot of uh leaders in the organization that are here spending their time and it is a worthwhile investment i think so all right thank you very much everybody please tell your friends to sign up january class thank you okay i see the sheriff's oh 11 45 but if they're here we can do it so um we have a time certain at 11 45 but if if if you guys are ready to go we can go all right why don't you uh come on up for the 11 45 r r100 i have no idea what this is ah good morning good morning morning congratulations thank you they're all throwing in all right can i begin are you ready ready yeah no we're right okay so i want to begin with thank you very much for the time and i know we sent a letter i know you each had opportunity met with uh major jenkins and captain riggins to go over the jail i just want to come forward also and we could have a discussion or at least just hear some of the things that we want to bring up and start with you know i want to thank dan very much you talk about leadership being able to work together absolutely we are doing that we're working together these issues that i'm going to bring up these are things that have happened way before many of us you know these are things been going on for years and because they weren't dealt

with then we're now in the predicament we're in now so i just want to say that but you know again mr biles thank you very very much you well deserved whatever award that was well deserved [Laughter] so just to give you some numbers so in 2015 cgl recommended and this is obviously this all goes back to free cgl there was 26 2006 wade trim study i'm sorry chris nacho 8700 citizenship apologize uh this goes back to a 2006 weight trim study uh but i'll fast forward a little bit to 2015. it was a cgl study that said in 2024 there the jail would have to pay 2535 beds uh right now we're at 1432. when the new jail opens in july of 24 we'll be at 1832 beds and cgl is coming out with some new calculations so right now going on those numbers we'd still be short 700 beds but cgl is going to be putting out some new numbers they'd say that we're going to be short 588 beds so we all agree where is this going to go we all agree in the fact that bail reform doesn't work uh when you saw like hey how can we get people out of jail you know we we don't want a warehouse and we'll never warehouse but as everybody can say just letting people out of jail for the sake of oh we're going to do that doesn't work and unfortunately we see across the country it's not working and when a nice woman came up and said i'm glad we moved to pasco county one of the reasons people are happy to move to pasco counties because it's safe they see the opportunity to see the growth they see we're working together but they're safe and that's important but i go back to it we do not want a warehouse and i'll tell you some of the things that we're doing in there you know we're proud to manage that jail for the county board of county commissioners um we've done enhanced inmate labor work programs uh certificate programs i mean that's the thing we do not want to warehouse people we want to improve them the fact that we give somebody a certificate in welding now they're going off making a lot of money they're getting a life on track those are winners you know special housing unit for veterans faith-based housing unit anti-human trafficking training increase education through tablets you know that's something you know we're always looking to be advanced so one thing i'll talk about later on is the fact that with those tablets we're able to have access so somebody doesn't have to come to the jail to visit a loved one they can do it online they can skype um general population psychiatric housing for inmates

coordinate recovery unit enhanced visitation that goes back to that people can visit from home alternatives to incarceration programs medication and system treatment programs so when people and i'll tell you everybody understands this the county is the largest center for addiction and mental health that's the biggest center right there so what we're trying to do is working with baycare which is a phenomenal partner to get them so when they leave they're not in that situation you know they're off the addiction we partnered with the university of south florida and did a study regarding traumatic brain injury um and we partnered with the end reset and recidivism project so those are those type of things we go back to we're not just trying to warehouse people we're actually in there trying to get these people back on their feet at the same time is we're dealing with a multitude of issues and the fact that you know the reality is you know 85 percent of the people in our felons the common misnomer and it's interesting you had that the group in here the citizens academy group everybody thinks that there's so many people in there for misdemeanor weed there's nobody in there for a misdemeanor weed like that is the biggest misnomer oh if there was there's nobody there are felons in there they saw last night people commit homicides keep it with robberies 85 percent of felons in there out of that roughly you know 245 are sentenced already 1346 are pre-sentenced we're dealing an issue right now with the department of corrections the department of corrections they're having a shortage issue they're not we can't send people over there that's that's very difficult to deal with right now there's about 100 people on vop that they're waiting to hear some from the judges to get in front of the judges what's vop violation probation i'm sorry violation probation so they it could be technical issues but we're trying to get them in front of the judge um but i'll tell you even with those things in place we're still at a shortage it's not going to move the needle that much at all uh we're still dealing with what we have the diversion program was taken you know not taken away it was done with several years ago it would be a substantial cost to bring it back but i'll tell you judges they have the they have the ability that's it's under that's what they do they can make those decisions on bond and they can ror somebody reported on their own recognizance so basically they can come back on their own that they're honestly going to come back so the judges have that ability to do that you know the county right now the detention service budget is 50 million dollars that's what we're dealing with so one thing that when the bond went out

and i'll get into that further but one thing when the bond went out which was not included was the staffing so the national institute of corrections estimates when this new jail is built we're going to need 250 more members to be in there and so that was not included that 250 is roughly 40 million dollars so that was not included in that original bond um those are those type of things that when you look upon and and if we don't maintain certain things certain amount of space number of bathrooms those type of things the federal decree can come down the federal judge can say your jail does not sit you know you're violating civil rights they can take it over if they can take it over a judge can order whatever he wants to happen in there she can order whatever she wants to happen in there so a couple of things we've done over the years to save money you know and it's actually not just save money but you know we make sure that it's the same quality you know we contracted healthcare it's a contract that we have uh contracted food operations contracted commissary operations so the honey buns the hot chocolate those type of things it's contracted contracted transportation we contracted where we could contract where we'd be successful in doing it to save money because it was it was cheaper same quality but it was cheaper to do it with a contract service than with uh county sheriff's office members you know when you look at the um man i'm skipping through budgetary needs contract oh who's doing i appreciate it whoever keeping up with me thank you very much i'm trying to i know you all have a packed agenda today so i just want to make sure you kept on track for a little bit so you know these steps aren't made you know the projected shortfall for county remains 19 to 25 million dollars that's just and this is where there were some things that were outside of everybody's control nobody expected materials to go up the way it did those are things that yeah absolutely those were things that just they just happened every industry's dealing with that now every every logistics deal with it right now so i'm trying to skip ahead a little bit to keep going so that was the number that was projected that was the number on the on the bond so one of the things you know could be asked is you know as we're looking at this the thousand bed expansion it's not going to be a thousand beds because you have to think when it's not just beds we're not just building beds when you when you build a when you're building more people you're building more people to come into a house or a hotel you've got to expand food services

you've got to expand laundry services they're another so those are things that have to be brought into consideration the other one is we're trying to expand medical in there we're trying to save because the amount of money that we have to spend to go out because there's been issues in there where rooms haven't been kept up uh there's been issues with uh there's one of the rooms in here i have it on our on my thing the um where was it the negative pressure cells thank you major jenkins negative pressure cells because the negative pressure cell does not work we had to send an inmate out because we sent an inmate out now you have somebody that has to sit with that inmate that the outside cost spread healthcare on it those are those type of things that you look at you know cutting costs we can't really because nobody brought nobody was looking at the staffing issue when they proposed the bond those are things when you're not looking at the staffing issue that's very hard to cut you know other things you have to keep into considerations i go back to if you cut things too much inmates sue when inmates sue and it goes in front of a judge a judge could make that decision and say i believe you're violating civil rights we do not want to violate anybody civil rights if they violate civil rights and they judge deems that they take over the jail and it doesn't matter what anybody thinks they will say you will do this and you have to do it this is just history the numbers for the daily population and where we're looking at the other one too is just so you're aware let's see if i have my numbers right here i'm going to skip ahead a little bit that was the basically the bond issues and i said the bond issues basically come down to it it wasn't enough money this is let's keep going same thing i keep repeating myself but let me let me go back one thing so we send about what was it there's 37 inmates i believe right now in hernando uh there is i got the number right here that we send to seminole county hernando charges 63 dollars a day seminole charges 73.50 a day seminole county is a little bit further away we have that's a transport cost we have to add you know we it's additional to it polk county would charge 113 a day with a minimum they want 85 inmates at any moment and that's if we decide to go to polk basically this is hotel charge rates you're like hey how much is your hotel going to cost what's your hotel going to cost what's this and so those are calculations those are things that we have to look at then you have to look at classification

issues is somebody high risk are they low risk can you know any sense those are things that we have to bring into the equation so it's not a simple oh we're just going to go here it's not that simple there's a lot that goes into the equation the cgl study also whenever am i going the right way i don't think so i don't know the cgl study also did in her study they said that you know when they were looking at projection numbers it also didn't take into account land acquisition site development utility construction financial cost or staffing those are things that you know i go back to it again when we talk about trying to cut costs there's nowhere really to cut costs there's not enough money to build what we were trying to build that was originally then when you take in effect all the logistics and supply issues that we're dealing with from a national level that trickles down across that is a that is a major issue that we're dealing with and so the bottom line is we want to work together like everything we've done and i appreciate this sport has been fantastic we've worked together like that like the crowd said earlier they're proud to be here that's because we're working but at the same time as if i don't bring this forward you know wrote the letter i know that major and captain sat with you i'm here i just want to bring it to your attention because this is an issue that since the early 2000s hasn't gone away it's still not going to go away and as our population grows tremendously i know one number had us projected to be you know where's that number i got numbers all over the place here today this is amazing one number had us at like 600 630 000 but then have gone up to 840 000 by 2024 and another one has this going over a million but not twenty twenty point twenty forty twenty forty i knew i wanna consider that trophy back um by 2040 but those are those type of things that you know it's not going to go away so some way somehow it's going to have to be dealt with and and the clicker is off so that's fine um i said we're very happy to manage it for you you know we're very happy that we work together the partnership it works well but i just want to bring this forward because it's your jail and if i don't tell you what's happening with your jail if i'm your contract if i don't explain what's going on in there then i'm wrong for not bringing it forward so that anything i can answer chair uh well we're glad you're here today but

it's frustrating news right that can got just postponed that you know got kicked down the street for many many years so it's a challenge that we at the county have administrator did you want to say something uh uh all i'll say i think the the current contract will be in front of the board here in the next few months for the the firm fixed price we expect construction to start in the spring but that as a sheriff said that's about 580 new beds it completely new central services area which is which means we won't need to touch that the next time we expand the jail but it is significantly short funding and we are working to bring it forward with a funding solution to that but it is still probably anywhere between 20 30 million short just because of i mean steel you know all the other construction materials so that's what we're dealing with and every month we delay that the prices are increasing anywhere from four to five percent all right right now chair was more crazy in the market right now on that so um commissioner more than commissioner mariano and then thank you man just yeah just started i think it's gonna answer a lot of people's questions um again right now what are the contractors we're stating the percentage why is what it's going to go up okay we're looking at 50 40 30 cost construct not not the o m in staffing yeah but cost constraints at the end of 18 the cost of materials for this project's gone up almost 45 percent okay and that's it's accelerating and it's not slowing down okay and then my last kind of slowed down but there's not a whole lot of wood in this building right well i would hope not right [Laughter] all right commissioner moore uh mariano oh thank you mancher uh sheriff thanks for bringing this forward um there's an opportunity that's coming up with the opioid funding we're getting and right now from what i understand it's only about 25 of what the total money's going to come between cvs walgreens coming down the road the way the legislation is written right now and i'm not sure how much you were involved i'm sure you were of how that money is going to be spent with the new contracts coming up or even legislatively we can change the legislature can change how that agreement has been settled with all the counties that have signed up etc do you think it's worth taking a look at especially for the mental health the drug abuse and at least trying to do a major offset on having a building structure that's going to accommodate this and dealing with this issue for down the road are you happy with the way that legislation looks you want to take

a closer look at that and try to get our legislators to go change and give it more flexibility so we can go let's say pump a lot of that money into this project instead of doing it the way it's been allocated now so uh that's to say commissioner it's a i have to dig dive deeper into it my only concern is i think it's going to be this one time unless i don't think it's going to be continuous dollars so we'd have to look at a capital project such as you know filling in the gap here um we would love i mean the goal would be honestly that if i said these are felons in here the 85 felonies um the misdemeanors a lot of them could be a violation of probation for something they had to come back in again uh but in a perfect world where we would have a separate system you know a separate system for mental health and substance abuse where we can divert them that would be the best but honestly there would be so low risk that the sheriff's office wouldn't have to really be involved in that so but from a capital standpoint if that money comes in and this is to fill a gap here i would say you know like administrator biles would probably say put it towards there if it's operating dollars and this is continuous dollar that's coming down like the cigarette um taxes that had come through that you know continuously go through i would love it that you know we can put mental health workers out on the street to start diversion program i know homelessness is a major issue and we can all agree that homelessness you know it's never a law enforcement issue there is a mental health and substance abuse component to it if we can have counselor we have somewhere we can take those individuals and put that money towards something like that you know that would be a huge diversion program that we would love to be a part of to assist with but it's there's mostly mental health and substance abuse issue but the reality is we all live it there are people that don't want help they just don't want it and i'll be the first to admit we've sent people we've worked with your with your homeless coalition up there they don't want help the ones who do want to help are the juveniles those kids that are that are surfing from couch to couch those are the ones that we can get money to help them i'm all for but yeah there's so much coming in i'll i'll dig deeper i'll work with you all to dig deeper to find out where that pan you know the money is from the prescription pills where is it coming in is it one time lump sum how can we best use it is it to fill the gaps because the prescript prescription pool epidemic caused a lot of addiction issues absolutely but it also caused people to commit violent crime and a lot of violent crime added to the jail that's true mr madden let me just

follow up on that real quick so yeah and i know we're tight here but um that's correct that's something to look into because you could actually encumber those funds and they could be used for o m down the road if you actually set those that's going to be a one-time hit maybe phase two there's a second phase so that a possibility i think mr steinsteiner could jump in but that initial pot i guess i hate you call it a pot of money but basically what it is fusion but yeah if it's the first series right so if there's a possibility you could uncover those funds and use them you know for possibility for operations maintenance down the road if so allowed by the settlement agreement but you're you're correct we may have to talk to our legislators after we look closely closer at that to open that up a little bit more but you're right sheriff because again some of these people unfortunately that have opioid addiction and committed crimes some of those war violent crimes so those are connected right yeah and then the weather you said commissioner about the money and that's one thing people want to remind you also is to run everybody you know th those members and we'll find out if you know if it is one-time capital cost that we can use it towards but the staffing issue that is a major component you know to hiring having to hire two over 200 people to work in there because they have the line of sight issues you have safety issues we don't have those things and i'll give you an example it's things that people wouldn't remember think of so if we don't have proper staffing according to you know national institute of corrections or some other group and somebody gets them in a fight and somebody gets permanently hurt and then they find out that we did not have proper staffing they will file a lawsuit and that lawsuit would come because there wasn't proper staffing to support to protect the inmates in there because we have to remember those inmates have absolute rights and so that's those are those things so i just want to make sure we remember that in the conversation is there's a huge staffing for deputies that's needed i'm curious because i do a lot of work in workforce development and i think i've been reading that part of the problem with the department of corrections is they don't have their workforce so they're closing some of their facilities do you anticipate any issues in hiring those people and we try to you try to hire corrections two oh yeah yeah we've been we've been hiring we have numerous members that come from department corrections okay and so it's just they were and they're they've had major shortfalls but back to your point that their shortfalls are are creating they're not taking the amount of inmates from us that they they're already sentenced so it's like a circle there

too yeah it also comes down on bottlenecking on us yeah so that's something we'll have to deal with as well okay well i'm sure we'll be talking about it um later on in this year about how to come up with the funding right commissioner commissioner oakley oh i'm sorry commissioner fitzpatrick and then commissioner patrick thank you i remember in 2013 at the asap convention you had said roughly 85's and 90 percent of all crimes stem from drugs is that still true today we believe that we believe about 80 85 percent if not more is there's a dem is a mental health component and that goes from domestic violence mental health and substance abuse domestic violence everything else if somebody commits a domestic violence even if they have a mental health or substance abuse issue they got they're taking a ride yeah so those are those type of things that you know it's hard to we know a lot of people in there have those issues we're trying to deal with them in there but same time there's consequences to their actions that state law will say you will be sent or you will be tried for it and then i'm not sure of how many inmates are housed out of county but with the jail expansion not being able to make the accommodations and not meet the capacity do we have a break-even analysis at what point how many additional beds can we make instead of sending inmates out of county right so the number we have is 63. how many are you here we're gonna come forward major here mate jenkins going to answer that thank you major stacy jenkins um 20101 central boulevard landlakes um with regards to um how can we make beds so right now our rated bed capacity is 1432 inmates when i started one deputy watched 64 inmates which was a heavy workload now i have deputies watching 112 inmates 112 felons that is including instead of two man cells three men to each of the cells and it is including inmates on the floor in the day rooms of our housing units so when you ask what can we add i'm going to tell you we can't add anything else we're we're housing about 1600 inmates currently in the landlakes jail 100 off site i've had as many as 1844 inmates in the jail but it becomes very much a management problem the classification of inmates we can't keep them inmates that should be in lockdown we have to release them out of lockdown so they become uh a constant turnover in the jail with regards trying to manage

inmate fights manage incompat incompatibility so i'm going to tell you the 1600 that we have in there we're very close to managing that the best that we can that's why we have inmates housed off-site anything else becomes much more difficult not only for my staff but also for the inmates to to co-exist thank you and you had said there's a hundred out of county so do you have an estimated how much per year does that cost to house them out of county about 3.2 million and with 3.2 million dollars how many more beds can we make in our jail with three point two million dollars with right here with regards to construction costs i couldn't speak on that either okay well i'm just saying there's a break even analysis if we can redivert that 3.2 million dollars every year for 10 years that's 320 million dollars that we can keep back in our county and use it to expand our jail and then also i know we had stated six or seven originally million dollars was going from arp if we can get a breakdown of how much funds with the arp funds are being allocated which direction maybe we can see if we can allocate some more additional arp funds to the jail expansion since we're already allocating some you're allocating about 14 million already okay so if we can just get a breakdown at some point of where all of the arp funds and see if we can okay we'll i'll send you the plan and we are not going to solve this problem here at the commission meeting today but we will work on this commissioner oakley thank you sure if i i realized uh about six or eight months ago i was told that we were going to be short of money when was looking for these thousand beds to be to be be built and all and inflation of uh products and we got so much growth going in the economy and things happen in florida all over the country the expense is just going out of sight and i mean you can understand what happened with the money when it when it costs so much more to build it and construct it and then in fact you have to hire people and you have a lot of our some of our departments that are short of people we don't have the people to go to work so some people are not actually working like we thought they would um but even that we have to be very thankful here in pasco county that the citizens chose to build a thousand bed jail for for their county that was done by the citizens we put that forth in a bond issue and it was done so they want safety just as well as we do and we are safe here in our county

we got a lot to be thankful for we need to buckle up work together and i know we will we've been doing it we'll support you and we'll we'll do the best we can to help provide in the future so now i appreciate commissioner as dawn is the truth the citizens supported this as i said it wasn't right they support being safe and that's the one thing so we'll work together because that's the one thing that makes pasco good is the fact that we're working together yeah and i give you kudos the more businesses you bring in here the more people are working the less we have to worry about the jail yeah because people won't go to jail so as i said bring those jobs keep those people working and amp skills is worth helping out too yes we are with the shortfall we got a lot to be thankful for oh absolutely thank you all right all right thank you am i good thanks mutts merry christmas i'll see you later on this afternoon private citizen commissioners it's uh we have 30 seconds left in the morning so i'm just going to go into adjourn now and we'll do commissioner items in the afternoon thank you [Music]

pasco 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