10.20.2020 Board of County Commissioners (BCC) Hybrid Virtual Meeting (Afternoon Session)

[Music] all right thank you all right so that's all garbage do all right okay okay everybody like to call back to order the pasco county board of county commission meeting of october 20th 2020 and remind everybody please silence your electronic devices and mute your microphones unless you're speaking we're going to go ahead and proceed with the public hearing agenda starting with item p1 modem clerk we have a proof of item p1 yes item p71 yes it is today isn't it it is it was published in the tampa bay times on september 27 2020. thank you okay whose show is this i'll read it off until they get up here i guess warnings by the pastoral county board of county commissioners offending chapter 106 with a password county quarter awareness that had a provision requiring personal remaining erect or damaged vehicle from a roadway to remove it lawfully disposed of any glass or rather in injurious substance dropped onto the road from such a vehicle providing for several ability providing for inclusion the password kennedy could ordinance is providing for an effective date mr chairman this came to you for introduction several months ago uh and then due to cobid we had put off the final adoption hearing this was at the correct request of commissioner wells um to clean up intersections it basically mirrors right state law but gives us some teeth with towing companies that fail to clean up the scene the scene of an accident okay very good um commissioner i mean this is a public hearing but everything to add i know something you brought forward to us i'm glad it's finally made it back to us but no okay okay anybody else no it's the public hearing do we have anybody signed up via webex or any emails in relation to this item seeing none no i'm sorry there are none no anybody at the kiosk there is nobody at the kiosk for this item okay this will be a roll call entertain a motion move second motion by a commissioner wells the second by commissioner oakland clerk calls the role district one commissioner oakley aye district three commissioner starkey district four commissioner wells aye district five commissioner mariano aye district two chairman moore aye motion passes four zero thank you um moving on one sec here for those at home we have a new system we're using so the numbers have changed a little bit okay we're gonna go ahead and proceed with the procedures for rezonings mitchell county attorney please review

procedures for rezonings be happy to mr chairman there are two resounding agendas regular and consent staff will present each application to the board of county commissioners if staff or planning commission has recommended approval and there is no opposition the application will be considered by the board without further presentation if staff for planning commission has recommended denial or if there is opposition to the application the applicant will be given five minutes for presentation the opposition will be given three minutes for each individual or five minutes for a group representative and the applicant will be given three minutes for rebuttal any individual disagreeing with staff for planning commission recommendation or anyone wishing to object to any condition of the rezoning may at this time request the petition be pulled from the consent agenda in which case that application will be heard under the regular agenda later on during the meeting otherwise all resounding applications on the consent agenda will be approved by a single motion and vote if you wish to speak to any petition please give your name and address and whether or not you've been sworn for the record these are quasi-judicial public hearings the law in florida is that mere public support or opposition of an application is insufficient for this board to take action please limit your comments to those criteria found within the board's land development code thank you today we have a public hearing items on the consent agenda these as we approve with one single vote without a presentation unless there's someone here in objection does it pre-register or at the public comment kiosk to speak to any of the items on the public hearing agenda prior to speaking you'll be sworn in by the clerk uh so madam clerks is there anybody currently signed up to speak there are no individuals signed up to speak via webex okay uh anybody at the kiosk the only people at the kiosk are the applicants for p79 okay so they know that when it's be speaking unless somebody pulled this so okay cool so i'm not going to do and i'm not going to have the clerk swearing by the end unless somebody pops up during the process um via webex or the kiosk that wasn't currently signed up so item p 74 through 81 or the consent agenda madam clerk do we have proof of all those items please yes so i'll go through them item p 74 was published in the tampa bay times september 23rd 2020 and i'll go through the rest of that yeah please go ahead item piece 75 was published in the tampa bay times on september 23

2020. item p 76 was published in the tampa bay times on september 16 2020. item p 77 was published in the tampa bay times on august 26 2020 items p 78 was published in the tampa bay times on september 9 2020 along with affidavits of certified mailings item p-79 was published in the tampa bay times on september 23 2020 item p80 was published in the tampa bay times on september 23 2020 and item p 81 was published in the tampa bay tines on september 9 2020. okay we also do have can you go ahead and read um proof for 72 and 73 for me yes um item p72 was published in the tampa bay times on september 23rd 2020 and item p 73 was published in the tampa bay times on september 23rd 2020. okay thanks miss vanessa hanging over to you these are both continuances 72 and 73. thank you denise hernandez planning and development mr chairman commissioners item p 72 is pdd 21 cuo4 it's a tampa bay portfolio holding stillish gourmet cafe beer and wine on premises consumption in conjunction with the operation of a cafe with outside seeing in service on this item the applicant instead of continuing it the applicant mr caruso has agreed agreed to a withdrawal because by the time this makes through the public hearing process we will have adopted the administrative use permit so it's being withdrawn by the applicant no action required so i'm happy to see smiling faces at the dice even though it's a change in recommendation okay great so 72 withdraw 73. item 73 is pd21 cuo1 district school board of pasco county vertex development llc verizon wireless for 140 foot above ground level close bound monopole wireless communication facility and a master plan unit development district the continuance state has actually changed as well the applicants have just told me that they cannot make the 1117. so the request is to continue to 12 8 20 bcc meeting at 1 30 in newport richie okay was that advertised as a continuance it was not advert it was not originally advertised as a continuance but it it was advertised for today as a continuance but to a different continuance date okay so i need to go ahead and take public comment and then just probably since it was advertised as a different continuum state what are your thoughts i can ask for it how's that you can ask that i normally would say no because they could have gone to the next board meeting and then continue it again but you might as well ask and and we can so we have anybody signed up for a public comment on this item no one is there okay anybody at the kiosk on this for this item

there is nobody at the kiosk for that item any emails no emails okay so i entertain a motion to continue this item to 12 8 20 20. motion by commissioner starkey i think i heard of a second by commissioner oakley is that correct all right um all in favor all right i'll post some passes thank you moving on to the consent uh p74 dd21 7499 buddy and trisha streeter for a change in zoning from r1 rural density residential district to r1mh single family mobile home district comes here with a recommendation of approval from the planning and development department and the planning commission okay so anybody signed up in opposition to this item on webex or by email no one on webex no email anybody at the kiosk there is nobody at the kiosk for that item thank you believe on consent p75 pdd 21 7 500 for pasco county facilities management solid waste administration building change in zoning from an mpud master plan unit development district and ar agricultural residential district to an i1 light industrial park district comes to you with a recommendation of approval from the planning and development department in the planning commission thank you anybody sign up via webex or an email no one signed up via webex or email there is nobody at the kiosk for that item on consent p76 pdd217483 rle overpass mpud master plan unit development villages of pasadena hills villages k rle ranch llc inc sorry a rezoning request from ac agricultural district to an mpud master plan unit development district to allow 259 single-family detached dwellings on approximately 200 acres comes to you with a recommendation of approval with conditions as included in your agenda packet from the planning and development department and from the uh pasadena hills planning and policy committee you might sign up via webex or email to speak on this item no webex no email anybody at the kiosk there is nobody at the kiosk for that item all right great thank you moving on p77 pd21 7497 in the name of martin f and donna l albach for a change in zoning from ar agricultural residential district to rmh mobile home district with a voluntarily agreed upon uh deed restriction that limits the number of dwelling units to 120 single-family detached dwellings only prohibiting mobile and manufactured homes and that prior to the first develop preliminary development plan or within 180 days of the approval there will be a development agreement um agreement placed into with pasco county to provide a drainage retention area adjacent to the future right of way comes you with a recommendation of

approval from the planning and development department and the planning commission anybody here to speak enough well geez sorry anybody of webex okay hold on a second hold on time out so hold on one sec tracy okay um let me ask about webex and email first and i'll come back to you on the kiosk no one's on webex and no email submitted okay kiosk there is nobody at the kiosk for that item thank you p78 oh leave that one on consent though pdd21cu32 for conditional use and operating permit for a yard trash facility melvin and martha stutzman for a yard trash facility in an ac agricultural district comes to you with a recommendation of approval with conditions as included in your agenda packet from the planning and development department and the planning commission all right anybody signed up via webex or email no one's signed up via webex and no emails kiosk there is nobody here at the kiosk for that item all right thank you leave on consent p79 pdd21cu-03 duke energy florida inc u.s air force for two 103 foot above ground level wireless communication facilities and 195 foot above ground level instrumentation platform to support u.s air force communications in an ac agricultural district comes through with a recommendation of approval with conditions from the planning and development department and the planning commission thank you um anybody send it via webex or email no one signed up via webex or email hey tracy i know we have people out there but do they want to speak or are they okay they're they're okay they're just the applicants okay obviously no opposition will they want consent p 80 pd21 cu 06 rs equity holdings breakfast station sale of alcoholic beverages beer and wine only on premises consumption in conjunction with the operation of a restaurant with outside seating and service of alcoholic beverages on a patio and a pud plan unit development and this comes to you with a recommendation of approval with conditions as included in your agenda packet by the planning commission and the planning and development department and this should be the last alcoholic beverage item that you hear okay all right anybody here to speak in opposition to p80 via webex or email madam clark no one's on webex or email okay um in the kiosk nobody here at the kiosk for that item all right p80 i guess you can go down to uh across the street

b81 pd uh pw210012 it's driftwood village first edition paving assessment number three three nine five and it's in the amount of two hundred forty five thousand a hundred and ten dollars and the uh recommendation is approval adam clark does anybody send it via webex or email no one signed up via webex and no email submitted if you have the kiosk to speak in opposition to this item there is nobody at the kiosk for that item thank you that does it for consent entertain a motion so move second i have a motion by commissioner okay second by commissioner all in favor all right motion thank you thank you that does it for our regular agenda we will move to old business we're going to start with commissioner oakley sir do you have anything today i uh don't have anything to bring up today so save you some time thank you for your service okay commissioner starkey i do but it involves christy sims so i need to wait until she's uh here in the room i saw her a second ago awesome yeah i think we suggested she'd be here at two i thought she was gonna be here for that first first she was here well she was when i was in the back yeah um so i was on the phone with the constituent that has to do with the reason why she's going to be here so um i'll just wait there she is there she is okay cool and i'm i'm glad that our akka is here as well and um you're about to get a hard copy of an email that i i received that kind of goes to this the same issue so um i think i'm going to read you this email and um uh this is from one of my constituents and one of your constituents that lives in uh tahitian gardens or whatever it says on august 24th i called the billing department and spoke to marty regarding 3321 cincinnati drive holiday florida this property has been vacant for over a year there was a massive fire there there was a car that caught on fire too in the garage everything is charred and burned terribly visible from just riding by chunks of burn debris of the ceilings and walls are just hanging and dangling there are rats running everywhere and there are little children playing nearby very scary it's totally unsafe and a grave eyesore to our neighborhood i explained this all to a marty on 8 420 was given code ce code number 20-00-8751 then i called again as per instructed on 922-20 gave the same above complaint and got ce code number 20-10 0-1-0-4-2-3 then on 9 23 20 mr called me back and

said that the above building has been in the demo demolition but that the department ran out of money to hire contractors so on 10 16 20 i called and spoke to kathy who gave me your email address she looked up the code numbers that i was given and both numbers are closed what does that mean i'd like to know that too my concerns as a retired rn one of one of the directors on the board on tap and a concerned resident in my neighborhood is that this is that this neglected property is extremely dangerous with rat infestation and dangling burned and charred particles that child could get seriously injured i hope this matter gets addressed with significant positive results thank you in advance and then this person so i've received many emails similar to this and i brought up to you all the challenges especially in my district of the lack of code enforcement this is health this is a health issue here this is just not accessible to me but i want um christy to fill you in on what's going on with our demolitions and give you some numbers and i have them christy if you don't have them because i i don't know how you can see it on that little thing and i got my big thing here so um but floor is yours christy please help so i um keith mead our demolition manager should be joining me we i had told him to be here come on um so with resp is this the zodiac property oh this is a different one a different one this is a different one what was the name that they were reading um this is in in tat um i have the address i switched it to you so but we one of you guys just got a hard copy so the address is on there if you want to let me stay on the surface of this because we've had as you said a similar issue on um from a citizen last week on zodiac yeah so my response to the citizen was instead of her continuing to call because what she was calling about had been the determination to that it should be demolished or met the criteria for demolition had been made in may and nothing really had happened and she was asking about timetables and my response to her is probably going to be the same with respect to any property that comes up and i think this was new information to commissioner starkey that the rest of the board may may need to know as well the as you know um starting last september building and construction services who had been handling demolitions and community development before then

all of the demos were moved under the hre task force umbrella and i'll start with the good news first this board allocated um significant general funds um and since during fiscal year 2020 more than 130 structures were taken down um taken down taken down vote slated for demolition taken down very good are eradicated um almost 40 of the more than 130. almost 40 of those were taken down by the owners not at county expense so having become somewhat of a victim of our own success we're getting more and more um requests to look at at properties we're identifying mr mead and the one building investigator working under him um oh okay are getting more and more requests however we want you to understand one thing which i probably wasn't fully aware of the ramifications of when the hre team kind of took over this duty which was there was 200 case backlog um that had built up over the years so mr mead and his um investigator and he also supervises um the one person who does all the clerical work as far as ordering property information reports what used to be known as omnes um sending out notices to demolish etc they have had to take that backlog and try to prioritize the backlog as well as trying to keep up with what is coming in and um we've identified um tiffany gave me buzzwords tiffany paloff the hre coordinator she gave me some buzz words that um to use that we have not supposed to identify those words you just use it so use them you all know me and this i i don't use words like we're constantly assessing program metrics but we are i promise i'm not good at buzzwords so we we actually have a coordinator that is actively assessing program metrics and trying to identify pro areas for improvement in the process um so to make a long story short we we've known we're running behind we're behind the eight ball we started off behind the eight ball the eight ball keeps getting bigger we're chasing it we're chasing it i'll let keith talk to you about some of that but here are some of the revenue neutral um process improvements that we have identified to try to start chipping away more quickly at this backlog the first thing is we have are out for re-bid on the demo contractor vendor contract and the intention is to get more than one so we would have maybe one contractor working on the east side and

one working on the west that way we could be taking down houses in more than one location at a time there's only so much capacity one vendor contractor can do i mean you can only take down one house at a time so we intend to engage more than one demo contractor we um our timeline on that i believe that we should have i think it's going out for bid this month so i i would think by december we should a purchasing person somebody stop me if i must speak but i would think that by december we should have another one engaged as well as our current one is to keep on working um commissioner marion i want to jump into yeah if i could uh the contract that we had over in gulf highlands on scallop drive that guy did a phenomenal job and did it fast that's tnt and they have been extremely extremely responsive and helped us organize the program from their perspective as well and certainly we hope that they will continue to be event uh one of at least one of the vendors we've talked to them about increasing their capacity um there are certain things that they could do but they would need you know a commitment and a contract in order to expand their business to handle more business from us to make the investment on it so i would say if we need to do that let's go lay out the groundwork for that as well yeah because we can we do and we do not want to slow those guys down at all that's right yeah right so we're talking about either increasing the capacity of our current one or and or engaging more than one um and we have we could pee back off the state's demo contract but as you said we're working very well with tnt so um so that's one is increase the capacity of our of our ability to take them down number two is we've had some um i'll say challenges um with the o and e vendor so we need to have more than one of those we we need to have multiple people um ordering property and information reports before we can send out after keith's team and keith keith ultimately makes the determination that something meets the criteria then we have to get a property information report to find out who are all the people that have an ownership or interest in this so we can give them notice to take it down or appeal or we'll take it down those

are the three options so that is also in the process of being reworked and re-bid and i i'm not sure um what the timetable for that is but in the meantime um we have plenty backed up that we already have orders on um i would imagine again by the end of the year that we can get an o e vendor jeff do you think that's reasonable yes okay so so the issue with the o e vendor is that in 2017 the legislature decided to change the law and they allowed people other than lawyers and title companies to issue these property information reports as part of that they basically have said that the liability for issuing those property information reports is limited to the price you pay for them so it becomes a liability issue um if you're not sure that the vendor is providing you with everybody in the title chain your only liability is the 175 dollars that you paid for a title report not the larger number of the house that you've taken down and so that's we're trying to work through that change in law since our contract just has expired okay um so in addition to the um another or more demo demos going on at the same time more o e reports going on at the same time we've also identified a way to really double keith's capacity he can't go and look at every house i mean they just stickered three this morning that meet the criteria um so he has a building inspector sam lackey who works under his direct supervision another member of the hre team paul salettes we've determined meets the experience criteria to take the test to get his building inspector license and i spoke with paula and esther about um you know getting his application together once he becomes a building inspector that essentially doubles keith's capacity for they go out and do the initial determination make take photographs keith reviews them he signs off on them so that will double our ability to do determinations um and then paul right now is the dedicated officer from code compliance to the hre team and we would backfill as needed there's a couple of pure code high return task force uh um projects that we would like to do the first of which is to send out demand letters to all these yards that we've paid to have mowed over the past however many years and start demanding that they pay off those liens um but i i've spoken with the management down in code they've always

been very generous and temporarily loaning you know some of their personnel we will assess whether our current clerical person jen gardner that is um processing all of these needs more clerical help and if so will ask it you know for somebody to be temporarily detached to help jen process the paperwork for these demolitions but i think that only through um you know getting more capacity for our demo contractor faster on es and um additional assistance for keith to have somebody to lay eyes on the ones that keep rolling in and keep in mind keith and his team not only not only do they go out and look at them in the beginning then they have to go out and they have to assess the property before our demo contractor can take they have to make sure that the electricity is turned off identify where the sewer is see if there's asbestos and then after it's demolished then they have to go back and make sure that everything was cleared and etc but we're certainly not suggesting we throw more money at the problem we're looking at ways to force multiply what we have get some more vendors on board to spend what's been allocated more quickly and if we need to as far as the clerical aspects of it we will you know ask to borrow some clerical personnel you know hey can we have someone for two months to help us run through all of these notices um but i think the key is going to be um getting another license building inspector and we we've identified that person he's already on the team he just needs to take the test and i will also say that another part of this that citizens have been asking about is what happens after we clear it and um i spoke with mr wiles about this earlier this year and said hey we have an irresponsible property owner for example that's let something sit there for 10 years and now they're going to let a vacant lot sit there for 10 years and it's going to become a dumping ground etc etc he suggested that community development hire a program program coordinator to because the the answer to that is different in every question we took down four we cleared a four four parcel area in the middle of a neighborhood and that neighborhood for example wants to turn it into a community garden or a passive recreational space um sometimes the adjacent property owner may want the property we don't want to take ownership of all

these properties we can't afford to maintain and own all of these random properties everywhere but the answer may be for um us to assist in getting it into the hands of a non-profit like like habitat for humanity that will rebuild with a responsible owner and put it back on the tax rolls so community development is working on the back end part of it i'm just letting y'all know that we know about the backlog we're actively brainstorming how to address the backlog and we certainly appreciate the support for the program and it's absolutely paid off um no time in the history of this county have we taken down 130 structures in a year not even close so christy do you have any idea um how many lots we have um in our possession or i guess that's two two levels to that question some we own now i guess and some we should own because they're derelict lots we don't own them okay um i mean we might own one of them i think we own one and it hasn't been a pretty process um uh all the other ones are in the hands of i would say of the ones that we've taken down half of them i would say are investors that will by their own nature because it's an investment replace the structure the other half are sitting and something needs to be done with it but that's that's my intuition i haven't looked into that exact number or question i could have miss payloaf pull those numbers for you as far as what's vacant and and that sort of thing so if we were the ones to take down a structure then we must have a lien on that property so we could for enforce some kind of action on those either get our money back right i mean what what are the steps where we could get some action going you'd have to go through former formal foreclosure of your lien yes so what why would we not want to do that and help move the neighborhood forward we we did that on one sort of as a test case um it took a full year and that was before the court slowdown in covid and now we own it and it's a problem and we keep having to send public works out there to clean it up etc etc we had to do an eviction for people that wouldn't leave it took a lot longer and and i i'm treading sort of on kathy's area here because sh they've been assigned a brainchild is that a legitimate you know thing and we may wish to do that in some cases in other cases where there's mortgage holders arlene's just gonna end up being foreclosed or lost um but can't we force something to start happening on our on

i mean even if we're not the only ones that are owed money on the lot well and respectfully i'd like to punt on that i'd like to talk to um our program coordinator and see what they've been thinking about and come back to you and tell you the answer to that i really i have the information and the answers for you i don't want to give you bad information i'm thinking this is a workshop what we're doing on the backlog um but i i just simply don't know where they are in the process she's new um we've thought about it i can assure you that we've taken steps to you know hire somebody to come up with the solution to this problem that we foresee um because the more we take down the more empty lots we're going to have um and so we've been proactive in addressing that as far as where exactly we are in the process and whether there's multiple answers to what we do which i'm sure there is um and how we go about that i don't know so i have one more question i think commission mariano's looking like he's asked questions but um two two comments one i remember when we had george here and the banks were giving um vacant properties to the county on vacant houses they would give them to us and we would give them to george who would kind of get them out to the non-profits to rehabilitate and get people in with a special program and so may you know i don't know if that's still out there or not um but as far as the houses that are slated to be demolished is there uh for example this one is a burned structure that's dangerous to the community is there a ranking system as far as um which demolitions need to occur first even though you have 200. yeah we have 200 and to tell you the truth usually on fires and i don't know when the fire occurred but normally on fires we give them a little bit of time because there's usually insurance involved or settlements that need to be made before they can fix the house up so we give them a little bit of time we don't i don't know when the fire occurred and i just texted the admin girl jen to see if there is a cd case on this one i was just reading this in my office when i came in here um so i'm not 100 familiar with it doesn't ring a bell as far as us being out there and i'm not sure where she got her information as far as code enforcement saying that it was in demolition they ran out of money i don't know where that came from well she's you know she's quoting names here yeah i think it's someone i think it's one of the code enforcement officers and we've

spoken to them many many times just like when it comes to demolition [Music] direct them to us we'll answer the questions on demolition we don't need you giving them false information or telling them you know getting their hopes up saying oh yeah they're going to be out here next week to tear it down they they should not be doing that okay so and we we've we work very closely with them because the majority of our referrals come from code enforcement um we some of them are we see them ourselves drive into one we see another one so we stop and do an investigation but uh we we do work closely with them and i'll get to the bottom of this when we find out where we're at you know i have the sella reports here and there's seems like there should be a lot more information in here than there than there is um i have both both numbers here oh actually it's a copy i only have one one oh four two three i don't have the report on the other one but the thing is code enforcement uses a different acela than than we do what yeah so they have their own seller program and we have a seller program okay so we can't see what they're doing and they can't see what we're doing that makes absolutely no sense i agree a hundred percent okay that's that's an offline conversation okay yeah um so i had one more question for you guys and that is the drug house behind wawa the the trailer that i went and visited that had all the garbage um on holiday drive yeah yeah we've been out there i've actually been inside that structure and yeah you know that was last year and i know code enforcement with pso was in there about a month ago um the the structure itself by definition of the ordinance does not meet the criteria for demolition i mean i know there's lots of crime and lots of drugs when i was out there last time with pso they arrested four people on site yeah so it's it's a travel trailer from 1960 so it's it's 60 years old it's not an it's not a mobile home it's a it's a travel i i understand we see it we see them they're all over the place and it's still habitable in good shape yeah actually believe it or not yes it is oh okay yeah and unfortunately i can't just say okay it's it's a crappy rv from 1962. we should take it out because if they do appeal it then i have to explain that too so how many people can live in a you know 100 square foot travel trailer from 1960. well by code you're i think it's 50 square feet per occupant of a residential structure so but but it's grandfathered from if it

was put there in 1962 it follows the land development code and building code from 1962. this is where you'll find a lot of the folks who like to hang out at our bus stop there that's still there this is where they this is their other hangout place that's where they live back there okay i think there's other questions is the mail commission marianna yeah thank you mr sherman so as far as let's talk about the financial capacity to go tear down more homes because you you say there's a bunch more that you can take down if you had the funds oh there's a lot like she said we already have we have a backlog of over 200 cases this just this calendar year not fiscal year since january 1st i think we're on case number 190 right now that have met the determination for demolition so do you need the funding to be able to take them down but judging by the letter we saw on cincinnati drive i mean that i don't know the new fiscal year just started right yes there was funding allocated a half million dollars was allocated for the program for fiscal year 21. and at this point until we can increase our administrative and actual demo capacity that's all we can that's all we physically can do um we have maxed out as far as how many he can investigate how many o es you know we can order absorb do the clerical work on and how many our demo contractor can take down now certainly as an attorney i don't do math but i've been warned by people who do that if i start getting close if we start getting close to what the board is allocated in march or so we will come back to you and say hey we've taken down this many we've spent this much money do you want us to go do other things between now and the end of the fiscal year or do you want to allocate more money to the program so at this point i don't think that y'all saying hey here's another two hundred thousand dollars isn't going to move us forward because of these logistical that we're making okay well i think logistically you've got a pretty good budget to start with if you go through and you need more i think this board's going to say come back and ask for more money uh next thing now it's hard when you take down a house because now you've got an issue with what's left and what's going to happen to it yes um talking about the one even on scallop drive you get two hubs right beside it they're afraid of just people just going

in there matter of fact some of the old residents they're kind of dropping off trash had to pick them up the other day you got to mow the grass et cetera so we want to go turn those things back right so if we're struggling getting those turned and there's like i know there's plenty in jasmine i'm sure there's plenty in holiday et cetera empty lots sitting there that aren't doing the taxpayers any good aren't doing the neighborhood any good so i would love for us to go explore if they're not working with the banks work with the non-profits working to say that we need maybe even maybe may even need to put a special program together something maybe we work something with a tax break or something to get a new home put in there or something yeah we've we've done that um we anticipated the problem um miss pearson's uh group with community development has hired a project coordinator um who is studying the various options that we have for these properties that's what i said that i can't tell you exactly where they are in that process but that we already know that that has to be done so can i jump in real quick i mean let me let me just real quick because this is really really important obviously to a lot of people so right now we're getting like 30 minutes on this one subject matter that's why we need a workshop so i think we need to either schedule an agenda item or a workshop or bring it into a workshop or an agenda item i agree you guys good with that yep because i think we can literally discuss this for two more hours which is fine we need to do it but this gives your love demolition so we'll talk all day on another day whenever you tell us i think it also gives you guys time to prepare and you know have some some answers prepared for some of the questions that are being asked and continue to be asked i will though i do want to give credit where credit's due um so if i'm not correct the year before last we only probably demoed 20 or 30 homes and last year is upwards 130 or more we're a victim of our success right so at the same time congratulations and thank you to the teams for all your great efforts because you literally demoed five to seven times more last year than we did in previous years actually probably more than that maybe like more like eight or ten times more so there you guys everybody get with us but i have one more question for christy not not on that same subject but it is christy's world that i want to ask so uh and i'm getting these calls again and so and there was a newspaper article about juries so

are we able to send code enforcement out now and tell them they can't have garbage piled up on their house and give them a citation so i know on the west side they have set their first final hearing date for december um so i would say yes that they could start writing citations um hallelujah good yes okay as to when the court will set them for hearing on the east side i don't have that information right at my fingertips because i don't usually that patrick moore handles the month-to-month citation stuff but um like just last week we we got information that they had set on the west side a final hearing date in december okay well i think this is a really important issue and i'm i'm glad that we're going to i think move this to a workshop to to bd well that is an agenda in one of your board meetings workshops logistically don't we don't have space social distance to do a workshop in the format you don't work i want to hear from the non-profits and others on how and kathy's department how this could all work together because it doesn't do any good to take down a house and a neighborhood then becomes the place where everyone puts their their washing machine and their sofa and all that stuff and then as we've seen on some they pitch their tents and they live on it then we have to get the sheriff in so i think we have to have a comprehensive plan yeah i think it's a great idea great great makes 100 sense so maybe if you want to work with dan and his team to formulate that agenda item we'll bring it back and then soon be happy too thank you both for everything you do thank you commissioner starkey i just spoke to my uh admin uh gen and there is a cd case on this one so it's just a matter of order on a property report and then take it from there so we're we're already aware of it we've been out there and i would like you know to have some coordination between the two offices because when our constituents call and they're told it's closed well they're you know yeah we need us the wrong department we need to straighten that out there actually is a lot of coordination it's just that all all um questions regarding the status of anything on demo needs we we have a dedicated email demo contact i just mean that um the information should should be between what's she supposed to do should be more transparent she spoke to

the code enforcement case numbers those were closed out because it came to us and now it's a cd yeah but there should be a message there but somebody in building gave her their stuff right so it was it's a process there's a step missing i i will handle it the processes processes i will handle it thank you guys great job i didn't get to say this earlier but commissioner wells i thank you for your support plain speaking and your respect that you've given not just to me but to my colleagues as well over the years i appreciate it thank you thank you appreciate you feeling saying about you bye christine see you christian you gotta open up with jeff okay um one more one more thing i wanted to uh thank staff for um helping out with the tat cleanup oh were you talking no go ahead you're fine you're just cutting jokes i can't hear in these things my last meeting i'm just barely here commission mariana but i know we want to move along so uh 46 tons came out of the tat cleanup and uh in the next few weeks we'll have the holiday lakes cleanup so thank you very much for that thank you got anything commissioner wells real quick um yes and thank you all again excited it's my last meeting and sad but thank you um and i noticed that chairman moore's already commented on this in the paper but if you didn't see it and it's commissioner mariano's district but i grew up in port richey you know with the olsner mound make being the 11th pasco location to make the national registry designation is a big deal um spent a lot of time around ulsner's mount as a kid and so i thought it was pretty cool it's uh you know with the last one being historic courthouse back in 2006 so i just i thought it was pretty neat that you know it's a big deal so very cool that's all chairman thank you thank you yeah that we kind of did a tourism related piece to that yeah commissioner mariano thank you and uh uh thank thanks for mike carmel on the team for scheduling country club estates which is going to do their cleanup this sunday um looking forward to that i just drove through the neighborhood again and i'll tell you when we did the road paving assessment the neighborhood looks phenomenal i don't know if we're going to get 46 tons but we're going to go through it because it's really come a long way and they appreciate the stormwater improvements um i'd like to say i appreciate the board this morning and mike with his

team again uh you know with the bp redirect money we were looking trying to get money for many many years sitting in the committee trying to like work to get what we can for pasco we did very well with part three but uh we had an extra allocation not doing a project in cruise lake a 1.4 million sitting for the county commission uh and we took advantage of that today on consent agenda so that 1.4 million can go code the dredge which is going to help quite a bit for for cutting the cost down so we're lucky to get it staff did a great job setting it all up and coordinating and i appreciate the board going through with that now for a really good thing uh we got a video on uh october 8th we had a world war ii veteran navy veteran jim rickus that would someone's going to plan an event and it was funny because i saw it on facebook just like a little pink blurb on the screen saying uh 100 year old veteran gonna join at the hudson library at one o'clock you know come on out so i put on the calendar and i go and uh the day before that i think it was kathy pearson calls me she goes you know in your district there's something really big going on i think you want to want to be there it's kind of like really developing i go really what is it so she tells me about it so i go to my calendar and bam there it is so what kathy did with the team you're going to see here is absolutely phenomenal the enthusiasm in the whole neighborhood we had people that were watching it on facebook live jumping out jumping in the cars and getting behind the line just to kind of get in and to support this guy and you'll you'll see the quotes at the end when when this world went through vegeta thank you sir for your service it's an honor to be in your presence thank you [Music] hey [Music] happy birthday let's see what it is all right that's for your flag your own flag yes sir thank you that's awesome thank you sir for your service and then at the end we actually all sang him happy birthday too it was it was really cool he was uh just just thrilled um you know for a veteran coming back and you know those days you just came back you just went back to doing what you were doing uh so he really really appreciated the uh the the support that was out there and it was pretty cool now kind of neat staff did such a great job the total reach uh on facebook was two hundred and seven thousand

record since this was a change of something we announced the last meeting there's been a change in appointments commissioner starkey will be our representative on the affordable housing advisory committee and commissioner mariano will be um the mpo advisory committee this does not need a motion um it does not need a motion because just that chairs under the authorities under the chair so just for the record that's done i do want to bring up a little bit about um the fdot diverging diamond interchange i know because i was on a letter with commissioner starkey it was to both of us starting to get quite a few emails and calls in reference to the delays on the diverging diamond it's very frustrating to me i'm sure it's very very frustrating to all of you too as well i know when i first came on commissioner wells first came on you know that was slated to be started what 2024. we worked very hard with our legislators and i know it was one of my main priorities to get that thing moved up which we did thankfully and ralph's help as well working with speaker corcoran and back then you know and then senator simpson and representative burgess and got that funding moved up well now we're now we're into going into 2021 this was supposed to be done in the summer of 21 and be finished and completed unfortunately they're delayed and just i want to make sure you know and i did have a nice conversation with um secretary gwen but i did mention to him i'd probably be bringing this up today because i think it's important for the citizens of the constituents to know that obviously this board and this county are very very supportive but we have absolutely zero control when i say zero zero control over these contractors or that project because that is a d.o.t project um so i did speak with him and i just wanted for the record and for other commissioners i want to tell you what i heard from him and the construction construction company is dab construct doors which i'll talk about in a second afterwards because i think they're on some projects here in pasco county um this is a long conversation i'm going to run over just a few things the original project was be completed i think approximately 800 days you know excluding final touches clean up things like that but you typically when the project's done you can start driving on the um interchange and they just have some you know little

things to pick up on in in and uh and clean up before that so far the contract has been uh created i think it's 173 days of extension 173 days 1999 rain days [Music] i don't know how that is but okay 99 rain days i guess if it sprinkles out they don't work 34 holidays i didn't know we had that many holidays but they've been great 34 holidays which seems extreme to me um plus 30 for utility companies they said they stated failing to complete work on time or in 30 plus days for change orders according to the allowances the project should be completed by october 2021 but the contractor themselves has projected 2022 the spring of 2022. so some of the things that um secretary gwen told me that they're doing which i think is good um they they're stopping awarding any additional contracts actually to that contractor that's something i actually don't think i've ever heard happen before but they are actually not awarding them any additional contracts at this time um they've actually approved some variances that will provide i guess for some stonewall foundations to help with the site the walls on the side they did issue a letter of concern requesting a contractor to apply additional resources the project and they want proof from the contractor that they're getting the project back on schedule which would be a date of october 2021. um they've also leveraged their liquidated damages there's penalties of 10 000 a day or 300k a month for late delivery so fdot has stepped in and doing some things i was also taught that i think they brought them all the way up to tallahassee have these discussions very very frustrating what's unfortunate and really frustrates me is that and i'm glad they stopped giving this contract or contracts because they have so many projects going on right now they cannot handle it they're summoning out a lot of their things but they can't even handle their own projects and there lies a problem so are they on any projects right now with pasco county and are we able to prohibit them from bidding on any of our projects because they're behind another project they're i know they're on the 52 project which is behind they're on 54 which is behind in our county those are fdot projects but are they on any pasco county projects right now or they have they recently been on any projects in paso county and the next question would be for the county attorney's office can we prohibit them from bidding on this project since

they're so far behind in others and we know they won't be able to deliver because they can't deliver on their current contracts so i am waiting to hear back them on current jobs right now i know we have done work with that company in the past as to how their performance was we'll have to get back with with purchasing and go back to what the record showed i don't know yeah so from my understanding of about these conversations again they are behind on numerous projects all the way up into on 19 if any of you have driven 19 upper hernando county that seems like a never-ending project either and it's right you think about how quickly some of our recent projects have gone say state road 56 that was smooth right i mean i don't that might i may have been ahead of schedule but pretty much i think it was um worked out great but again it's frustrating to our constituents here it's frustrating to the business owners and i know commissioner starkey and i received a letter from um a group of businesses over on the um east the west side of the interchange um everywhere from the outlet mall to across the street to sierras and all those properties too i drive it daily my wife tries it daily my oldest daughter probably drives it three to four times a week in what she does so anybody that tells you they're behind and they're running behind and it's taking a long time to get through the interchange they're telling the truth because i drive it constantly it's not pleasant i so we can tell them frustrated yesterday when i drove through there i took a few photos i'm not going to put them up i saw one truck i don't know what he was doing i'm not a contractor and i saw two guys staying on the side and i saw a group down below on a project of that magnitude those are the only people i saw working on a monday a sunny monday and a little cool with that actually um working on that project and that was about 1 15 1 30 when i drove by there those are the only people working on that project that's insane that's ridiculous that's embarrassing sorry go ahead yeah so when i received that letter i reached out to secretary gwynn right away um and um and he you know informed me what the actions they were taking against d.a.b um gave me a little history on dab that this was a company that was owned by the parents and they kind of retired and gave it to their what 30 year old son or you know a young man who

uh probably has um gotten in over his head i will let you know dab was the develo the builder or the contract winner of the starkey gap which was delayed by at least a year maybe same company we had all kinds of problems with dab on the on the starkey gap um we did um just to let you know commissioner moore uh send out a letter to mr sierra who i know personally and mr whitley um letting them know um what secretary gwen what the steps were that he was doing um we also um and talking um with secretary gwen let them know that you know a big problem with this is this is going to put them that divergent diamond will not be open for next year's holiday season it's going to be in question for that season but we think the overpass um is that is it right it's the overpass one no what there's maybe it would be gun construction on the overhaul yeah um but they said that there will be another one that will be open that will help relieve this one i have to look there's no other interchanges um this is what um what was i oh no i think dan biles told me the overpass interchange will be opening in the last quarter of 2022. we haven't been i know but that's what i was told that it would be opening in the last quarter of 2022 and it may alleviate some of the traffic issues so is that incorrect because that's what we send them because that's what we were told in my office it's going to alleviate traffic that's why one of the reasons it's being done but it's not going to help out with the current situation well it's another exit point yeah we know yeah yeah all those are i mean so it's just a shame that this is put behind that it'll be you know the holiday season that's so good for that that corner so very unfortunate that um this is happening but i think d.o.t is doing as much as they can to push it along well so i'm glad to see the things they are doing now um i would you know i've talked to some of our legislators too and we continue to talk to some of our other legislators and leadership as well to make sure the pressure stays on because the pressure needs to stay on if um you know they can default them the only problem with defaulting somebody is that unfortunately they have to go through the process again delay it for a year what they told you so so what so let me continue um so basically what needs to happen is they need to hold their feet to the fire and if you tell somebody they're not going to be done in october of 21

they're supposed to and you start finding them 300 000 a month or withhold their payments people usually open up theirs my p my mind is they should just they should sub out every little piece of that project going forward as dab cut their losses get out that's my opinion i think there's a bigger problem here and that is and i think we saw that up in tallahassee when they um they bid on that new uh contractor for um for some uh i.t stuff is that that they shouldn't have to take the lowest bidder there should be more in that matrix that allows for performance yeah and i think you know that's something we could talk to our legislators about and these purchasing contracts performance should count a lot more than it does currently there's limited number and i don't want to get this wrong um but either mr steinstein or maybe ralph somebody might know they're unfortunately limited to the amount of contractors too even though some of the contractors are really good contractors because of some of the requirements that can't be met and i think that i don't want to call it the bond there's actually similar to a bond if i'm not correct they must have there's certain criteria that has to be met right now so a lot of some of your contractors are literally really good and all they're doing is getting the sub work so you have some of them so xyz company will get will win the bid they'll only have to construct i think it's maybe up to 30 of the project possibly and the subs can do up to like 70 percent so they'll go out there and win all these bids and then they'll subcontract all their work it's a racket let's just be honest it's a racket yeah so it's unfortunate they should allow more people to be involved that we wouldn't run into these issues and i know i'm talking a lot on this but it's very frustrating very very frustrating i know it's very frustrating for the citizens and the business owners alike so hopefully what they're doing and i appreciate secretary gwen i appreciate the pressure they are now at this time putting on them but again i'll state it never should have gotten this far behind i think this should have been taken care of a year ago when we saw it was how slow they were running so last question then if they do not this contract does not have any current jobs with us can we prohibit them from moving forward or bidding on any future jobs with paso county considering how its public record how far they are behind on their projects with the state if they are not debarred by d.o.t it's my off-the-cuff opinion

that we probably could not prohibit them from bidding on a project now that being said they also have to be responsible and responsive and so that may be the criteria that they would fall off of they could be low but if they're not responsive and responsible we wouldn't have to award to them but we'd have to evaluate that when and if they did and that sort of thing and to commissioner moore's point can we put in severe financial uh penalties are we allowed to write what our own penalties are we we do in every contract you issue whatever we want to you know that will well you sign it in within legal reason yes i mean you you currently with contracts like that you have provisions for liquidated damages if they don't finish i will you know point you back to the ridge road yeah exactly widening project and whether or not that really works but um that's you know that we do have we do as a standard matter have those provisions in your contracts i was going to go right along that line so i'm good but uh you know commissioner stark commissioner moore thanks for staying on top of it going through it i did talk to secretary dot secretary quinn he's he is phenomenal to work with so i know he's working for us too but keep keep the pressure on we need to any last words commissioner wells you drop it i'll give you here you you take the fight now to give it to him i like that that was good [Music] you [Music] [Laughter] [Music]

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