09.08.2020 Board of County Commissioners (BCC) Hybrid Virtual Meeting (Afternoon Session)

good afternoon everybody we'd like to resume the border county commission meeting and we're gonna go ahead and move to our p1 let me one sec here [Applause] okay so we'll go ahead and move forward with our public hearing agenda starting with p1 ordinances madam clerk do we have proof for item p1 sure okay item key one was published in the tempe times on august 12th 2020. mr sure good afternoon commissioners mike schumache director of animal services department of pasco county p1 is an ordinance of the board of county commissioners of pasco county florida amending chapter 14 of the pasco county code relating to animals restricting the retail sale of dogs and cats providing for applicability repealer severability inclusion into the code of ordinances providing for transmission of ordinance to the department of state and providing for an effective date on august 4th we introduced this proposed ordinance amendment to restrict the sale of dogs and cats the board unanimously approved it for public hearing today what we'd like to address right now is the fact that um over the course of the last few weeks i know that you've received a lot of emails concerning the adoption-based business model that's part of the ordinance um there's been some concern about loopholes in that so we want to make sure you understand that given the definitions that we have for animal rescue organizations we think that that will sufficiently prevent the loopholes we also like to think that we've done enough research into what we're actually presenting and so that we can actually enforce it to monitor any rescue organizations that come into our accounting through the retail sales at pet stores as you know most of the pet stores that we have in the county already sort of follow the adoption-based business model where they don't receive any renumeration from the sale of dogs or cats they're primarily focused in the business of pet services and pet supplies and they also collaborate with animal shelters animal rescue organizations to give them space in their facilities to adopt out those homeless pets throughout the county and this is primarily what the adoption-based business model represents so the department's recommendation is to accept public comment adopt the proposed ordinance by roll call vote authorize the chairman to execute the ordinance amendment and direct board records to retain the original

and file an electronic copy copy of the ordinance with the florida department of state within 10 business days after the adoption of the ordinance thank you mr schumache um does anybody have any questions before i go to public comment or would you like to hear public comment first commissioner if we've got a specific breeder that's been breeding dogs so this is not preventing them from carrying on the business model correct no we do have an exemption in the ordinance as well that's correct thank you and i'll just refer back to if you remember a couple years ago um in the clerk's office handles this we do have the abuse registry too this is a reminder just a reminder to the public since this is coming up today that we did um work on that i think it's been what almost three years ago now if i'm not correct and the clerk's office has done a great job obviously of of handling that abuse registry um i want to make sure people the public does know and remind them that the abuse registry is out there so you can obviously go on the clerk's website and it says states animal abuser registry search and you can search through that too so if you have any curious concerns about any individuals please do utilize that registry and look up those those individuals i would uh mr trump and i think i'm sorry and if i'm not correct um your office obviously would go through those prior to during the adoption process and i would assume a lot of the other rescues do as well right they're required by the ordinance to check that registry before they adopt out anything okay one great commissioner mariana a quick thing too yeah when we adopted years ago that 90 percent adoption rate yes what's percentage we're up to now um well believe it or not we historically hit a 96 save rate for cats last month but right now we're at 93 for the year doing a phenomenal job thank you yeah great job thank you great job yeah congratulations thank you so and i have a special guest too i wanted to present but we'll wait for the special guest after we have public comment so madam clerk um let's go let's go with um the webex first do we have anybody that's in queue to speak on this item p1 for item p1 um i do have a list of 11 individuals who pre-registered the first person on the list is pamela hiltz hello can you hear me yes okay i wasn't sure if i was unneeded my name is pamela hiltz my address is 4037 wincrest drive in wesley chapel and um i want to just thank you very much for um trying to listen to comments um and also for supporting this ordinance i think

it's an amazing ordinance i'm very very happy to see you guys are working on it um i've been volunteering with different animal shelters and um for probably at least maybe seven eight years now in various states and um this is just very exciting to see this happening um what i did want to say though is i'm a little concerned about the fact that there's a kind of a grandfather clause in this thing that allows existing retailers to continue selling um pets through their store and i'm just wondering if maybe you guys had considered putting some sort of an end date to that exemption for existing retailers i know in royal palm beach they had an 18-month period in order to let people transition into everybody being under the same type of rules and hillsboro gave 12 months for everybody to get in line with new rules i know their stuff comes into effect in march um there's 70 counties and cities in the state of florida that currently have this type of legislation and there's only five of them that have any kind of grandfathering clause so i just really like you guys to think about is there a way to put a um end date to the grandfather provision but other than that i think it's an amazing ordinance very very happy to see you guys working on this and i think pasco is really a trailblazer thank you thank you ma'am appreciate it all right the second person um signed up for webex is sybil albus miss albus i'm sorry miss elvis is not on the line okay next and then we have talani mcnealy mcnealy miss mcneely is not on the line okay okay deborah shippy mississippi miss shippy is not on the line okay okay uh amanda bush ms bush yes i'm here can you hear me yes ma'am name and address for the record miss bush oh yes it's amanda bush and your address please address is 2124 west brandon boulevard in hillsborough county thank you you may go ahead okay is it okay to start you can proceed we can hear you fine good afternoon mr chairman mr mr vice chairman and commissioners um i'm here today to encourage a dialogue between your county and small business and i thank you for your time small businesses are the heart soul blood sweat and tears of the families that started them they are the backbones to communities they are the dreams come their dreams come true and they are the futures of generations to come my family started one of these small businesses all about puppies 25 years ago and we now have three generations of my family working within them

we are educated about what we do we are honest about what we do and we are extremely committed to educating state county and city officials as well as citizens as to why bands such as the one in front of you today cannot and should not be the answer when trying to advocate for animals my family and i are animal advocates we are not the ones that hold up hate signs and say horrible things about people we have never met we are not the ones that make assumptions and put them out to the media politicians and citizens is truth we are not the ones that look for information that only fits the narrative we want to see we understand the concerns we understand the need for transparency and we understand that our passion and what we do is not fully understood or appreciated that is why we have been putting ourselves out there to educate nothing is changing with these bands not a thing the change is happening behind the scenes when stores like the ones my family operates seeks to find people that hold themselves to as high of a standard as we hold them to the ones that are animal advocates and place great care and concern for the animals in their care these relationships take time effort and great care to begin and to sustain and we have been building these relationships for years even decades it is unfortunate we live in a society where we have to even think about people harming each other or animals but it is a sad truth i do not think anyone watching this meeting today condones this harsh reality and yet one of the negative consequences of bands in any regard is the knowledge that by taking something away can ultimately mean you put something worse in its place there are a lot worse things out there when it comes to caring for animals than licensed inspected breeders and regulated pet stores some examples were emailed to you earlier today so that you can begin to understand the complexity of this issue fans are absolute they should only be voted on when no other viable option exists is that the case here are no other options available i know with 100 certainty that other options do exist and i know this through research through decades of seeing how this industry has improved i know this through the relationships my family and i have built i know this because i live this and my family lives this all you are accomplishing by passing a ban is limiting consumer choice keeping with um okay we yes i'm here hi i'm david address yes

ma'am we can hear you fine okay 21 24 west brandon boulevard my family owns and operates the three all about puppy stores in hillsborough and in pinellas counties you just heard from my sister amanda a moment ago um our family expressed interest in bringing our small business into your community however please do not mistake this as being the only reason for our attendance today through years of research and networking with various pet professionals and animal advocates we have gained the knowledge and perspective needed on this topic in the last four years we have assisted local officials in multiple communities aided in drafting of ordinances that prioritize animal welfare consumer protection as well as preservation of small businesses and responsible breeders i personally have visited many professional breeders affiliated with pet stores all of which exceed the regulations within pasco and surrounding county's regulations there is not only federal oversight on breeders through usda inspections but additionally heightened breeder standards at many state levels currently florida is not one of them having a better understanding of what laws are in place will help you understand the degree to which pet retail sale bans are flawed this knowledge base is essential before you can tackle such intricate topics we provide a service that allows us the professionals in this industry to vet the breeders that we work with provide transparency to the consumers as to where their puppy was raised we warranty our animals for infectious and hereditary illness and we follow strict vaccine protocols to ensure every animal and owner is protected having regulated pet stores and communities provides a safety net we are the security that simpsons and future pets need and deserve we play a vital role in the solution to ending substandard breeding practices we along with our breeders and advocates across the country have been working tirelessly for decades understanding issues that are at hand and working to create solutions in many community communities advocates and pet professionals work together to create rules that don't prevent small business owners from enriching the community but further protect the animals and the people within it a few examples would be palm beach collier manatee brevard counties as they saw the best decision was made by asking the right questions and understanding the consequence of knee-jerk reactions we had the round table discussion to decide what issues our communities animals are facing have we done the research have we put in the work

by adding that existing retailers transform the pasco county's commitment and end retail pet stores because this really is a big problem pasco county has made great start strides towards accomplishing this and is truly an animal welfare trailblazer thank you guys again for doing this and please support this ordinance i'm done thank you miss hills madam clark gary reynolds do we have a terry reynolds on the line we do name and actress for the record please terry reynolds 14554 ballock drive hudson florida um thank you first of all for um supporting this ordinance because it reduces the number of homeless pets and the demand for puppy mill pets it's very generous for you to take your time to care enough to solve this problem i volunteered for over 20 years in two shelters one in my home state of indiana the humane society of st joe county and now after moving to hudson i volunteer for the humane society of pasco county i am of the opinion that we should restrict pet store pet stores from selling puppy mill dogs and cats instead partner with local shelters to seek out puppies and kittens who were brought into the shelters this would not only benefit the shelter but it may have the added benefit of rescuing more animals from euthanization and possibly even educate people who adopt the importance of rescue versus over bred and cruelly kept animals and puppy mills my kids live in newport richie and they adopted two times two separate times white schnauzers from a local pet snort store and both had issues one had a shaking white dog syndrome and the other had severe well they both had severe skin issues this is irresponsible puppy mill breeding and needs to stop it would be nice to partner between the shelter and the pet store to educate people to spay neuter microchip and vaccinations why not help the cure the cruel animal crisis by working with the shelters volunteering in these shelters i have seen the result of raided puppy mill puppies and the horrors of what animals had to endure matted ferg went over years years of being in feces in their fur deformities not treated women horrible medical issues non-treated and these animals all had behavioral problems all shaking all frightened all in the name of the mighty dollar on the backs of living feeling creatures of god that we've read be the caretakers of it's time to take action on this ordinance and give a reasonable time limit allow colors to adjust let's get this possible as

to not let any further animals suffer you may have the ability to break ground here and be a true trailblazer and pave the way for other counties to follow suit i want to thank you once again for your time that's all thank you mr reynolds madam clerk next person peyton mac paul you say mackwell okay is that person on that line yes hi this is kate hi how are you name and address for the record please yes sir of course uh 1206 walton drive i live in tallahassee florida and leon county so my name is kate mcfaul and i'm the state director for the humane society of the united states i'm here in north florida and in my role as state director i work all over the state and i work to pass animal protection policy legislation on the state level as well as the local levels with city and county leaders currently there's actually 74 ordinances proving that the retail sale of pets like the one you you all are considering i mean there are so many ordinances in florida as more and more leaders gain a better understanding of the inherent cruelty in puppy mills in puppy selling stores enough to protect the pups um and also to protect their local residents from the heartbreak and financial drain that's so often associated with purchasing a pet store puppy our goal is never to put anyone out of business but rather to facilitate a change to a more humane business model supporting pets for adoption shelter animals of course um and they can you know instead of going um outdated and uh old business model of selling pups more are going in in the more profitable way of selling supplies and services the grievances from the puppy selling stores claiming this will put them out of business as false as most stores sell goods and supplies that don't sell puppies and do very well in february of this year the american pet products association reported that americans spent a record 95 billion on their pets i know everybody here who has a pet certainly spends a lot on their animals i know i do that 95 billion on their pets in 2019 with pet food treats product services on and on a great example is super pet in tampa that converted from they used to sell commercially bred dogs and cats but now they work with local shelters and rescues and they converted because they felt a social responsibility to do so and encourage others to follow suit the bakery owner with over 130 stores nationwide said to be perfectly clear the wolfgang bakery company accurately opposes the archaic practice of puppy mill breeding and selling puppy mill dogs good pet stores do not sell puppies

and respect pet breeders developed the stores so the future is bright and pet supply sales and we have a program at the hsus that supports pet stores who make that transition from the retail supple pets to a more humane model promoting pet adoption and supporting their local shelters and rescues i urge you to support this ordinance today thank you so much thank you ma'am and we have one more person last one okay jennifer hopgood hopkins my name is jennifer hobgood i'm from tallahassee florida i want to check and see if you can hear me yes we can i need your address too ms hopkins uh my so my work address because i'm representing our constituents in passport county is po box 57 5741 tallahassee florida three two three one four all right great thank you yes ma'am okay so yes my name is jennifer hopkins i'm senior director for the aspca's government relations southeast region today i'm speaking on behalf of our pasco county constituent and we do appreciate the commission's consideration of this important issue unfortunately we have to oppose the ordinance as drafted since it still contains even with the change to the definition of animal rescue group serious loopholes that we've seen elsewhere that will undermine the intended protections and simply amending the definition of animal rescue group will not address the fundamental problems with allowing pet stores to sell dogs or cats they acquire from shelters or rescue groups tuscan's proposed appears to be closely muffled on a similarly problematic ordinance adopted in hillsborough county so this is not trailblazing that allows pet stores to sell animals if they get them from shelters or rescue groups years ago animal shelters provided surplus dogs and cats to animal research companies in a practice referred to as pound seizure now this is different obviously but public policy that transforms homeless pets into commodities to support private businesses is simply fraught with peril and that's been documented throughout the country and in hillsborough the idea of shelters or rescue groups providing dogs and cats for the purpose of sale at for-profit stores raises ethical and legal questions like should non-profits or government agencies be propping up for-profit entities does such activity conflict with the shelter's mission or non-profit status this is not the smarter petco model where they partner with groups this is allowing them to sell dogs and cats that they acquire uh hillsboro rico sales law also initially grandfathered existing stores

and almost a year ago today on september 17 2019 aspca notified hillsborough county animal services of documents we received through public records requests indicating that a grandfathered tampa pet store was shipped on multiple times over a five month period in 2019 by an out-of-state breeder with documented usda violations this is a random catch by aspca that demonstrates the steep local enforcement challenges to such a law that allows pet stores to sell puppies from specified sources so instead we urge you to unequivocally prohibit all retail sales of dogs and cats while making clear that stores can partner with shelters and rescue groups and make space for legitimate shelters or humane organizations to showcase their homeless pets for adoption this could be a tale of two counties where pasco prevents the myriad problems we're now seeing emerge with these what we call dirty laws throughout the country and instead adopts a clean straightforward law that can be effectively enforced while promoting found humane adoption partnerships with retail stores thank you for your consideration of our views we appreciate it thank you ma'am so we don't have i do not have anybody else if i'm not correct in the queue for webex that is correct okay do we have anybody at the kiosk wishing to speak to the board there's no one at the kiosk right now it'll be the kiosk now we do have a number of emails that are don't need to be read into the record but are going to be filed that's correct there's 118 emails that will be put into the record okay 118 emails for the record okay great thank you so mr shumate i guess we'll invite you back up since we're done with public comment so i i brought i brought a friend today myself so i'm going to stand up for a second so so this is this is little jojo it's his nickname jojo but he uh so he's a rescue dog and he's originally from that correct came to passover county animal services and then animal lovers dream rescue actually goes to a lot of the shelters and they will uh basically foster the the dogs they're medically needy so if you see jojo here he was he was born he's got what we call a little lobster call here but he has no he has no leg here so and he's yawning now because he's been sleeping on me but he's obviously he's adorable he's a great little guy we also adopted another one his name scrappy do very similar situation from animal lovers dream rescue and and he came

um through i think the humane society i think that was actually out of hillsborough county similar situation he was um thankfully this guy was turned in by the breeder when he came out um let's just be honest he's deformed um scrappy was unfortunately i guess you could say toss in the garbage and i don't know the whole story because i wasn't there but um a nice family rescued him and then and brought him to humane society and then and they reached out to him lovers dream rescue because as you know a lot of these dogs that are born with disabilities or special needs um we're going to go to what they cost i mean they they cost the taxpayers quite a bit of money and animal services and mike you can attest to this yeah um so obviously we think about the side of caring for our animals and and wanting to care for our animals but there's also the side you know to the taxpayers of what it cost them to obviously treat these these animals and unfortunately i hate to say it but again mike you can attest to it those most of these animals are the ones that don't get adopted um thankfully again we you know we they they found us i guess you could say so we have two two great uh family members now that that join us but um you know all too often um some of these animals are tossed to the side if they even make it right there's animal services or the humane society or another rescue unfortunately a lot of them don't um but uh you know just wanted to introduce jojo he's uh again he's a great member of our family and and i'll i can attest to i mean and i think some of you have participated in adopting animals from either shelters or animals or animal services you know kathy pearson we talked earlier you you found a rescue not too long ago yourself and you know they're great animals they're great dogs and cats and they are and absolutely listen i i will promote pasco volcano and password county animal services to the day i die but there are other great rescues out there too you know whether it be maine society or spca or um again animal lovers dream rescue there's a lot of rescues out there um so there's a lot of great dogs and cats available to our residents but the unfortunate thing is if we continue down the path we're going um you know the public can't always afford to move forward with taking care of these animals and that puts these animals in a bad situation but also again like i said it is a burden on the taxpayer so for the people that are

wondering why do you want to do this you know why do you really care about the animals well i know all of us do that's why this is moving forward but the other aspect is if you're not really concerned about the animals i know a lot of people are concerned about their pocket books too and it does cost you as a taxpayer more money to continue on the route we're going now and we want us there's lots of options there but hopefully in the future there won't be as many options in animal services for you to choose from right yeah absolutely and we do appreciate uh bringing jojo and and giving us that testimony about yeah um how he was you know taken to a rescue organization um we probably work with over 300 rescue organizations at our shelter so those rescue organizations are taking animals from the public themselves but they're also pulling from shelters like ours where the public drops them off and the good news is there's a lot of families like the moors and others that will take those dogs they will rescue them they do find attachment to those dogs no matter what the situation is i would say keeping a small breed dog at the shelter is one of the highest turnovers for us it doesn't matter how old it is it doesn't matter what the skin condition is it could be limping it could have arthritis it could have a number of things that they still will adopt it and they will take care of it they'll find a way and this good thing about the rescue organizations is when they get those dogs from breeders or other folks that have those deformities or situations those rescue groups will put out a plea and the public always responds one thing i know about pasco is they're very compassionate about animals our citizens have long supported these rescues you're right yeah that's a good point mike so you know a lot of them i know i know at least scrappy or their dog you know he's real his name is joey trooper not jojo so he when he came to us his name was trooper at the rescue and obviously he's a trooper for having three legs and a lobster claw arm he's definitely a trooper and we went ahead and named him joey i wanted jojo if you remember that cartoon jojo circus yeah it reminded me he reminded me of jojo circus for some reason so i call him jojo some of the kids call him joey he's got a trooper he's got all kinds of names but uh but you're right about what you said about people stepping up and i've noticed this with a number of

them especially the one we've gone through is that they'll put a they'll put a plea out um you know well especially nowadays on facebook or something like that and they'll need a thousand or two thousand or three thousand dollars to take care of this animal so whether they were hit by a car or they have a skin condition or whatever and people are really really willing to step up just not everybody can take on three or four or ten more dogs of their own but they're willing to participate financially to help but yeah not everybody can take on that many animals or afford to take on that animal that many animals so it's really really awesome what you guys do but it's also pretty awesome what a lot of these rescue groups do that come in and assist and obviously providing the health care they need and paying for that health care so they are adoptable and people are maybe a little more willing to adopt those animals absolutely and you know it there's no shortage of the pets honestly i mean prior to covid our shelter was consistently overcrowded yeah right now it's down quite a bit which is great we're managing it a lot better with more help from rescues more adopters but the thing about this ordinances is that it doesn't prevent anybody from getting a pet from a shelter an animal rescue organization or a local breeder we really don't need to bring them from out of state because what you need or what you want for your family you could probably find here in florida at a good breeder so oh and it goes well last thing you know then i'll stop because another people want to talk too you know how much kind of resources do we continually want to you know put forth to police certain areas right i mean it was being honest you know so i think what we're doing and moving forward with um not only for the sake of the animals but again i'll go back to the sake of the of every tax player at pasco county there's a benefit for the animals people that care about the animals but also for just the general taxpayer too that we don't have to continually have to quote police um some of the bad ones now we know there's some good ones we won't get into that but um so questions from the board concerns thoughts okay entertain a motion this would be a roll call i have a motion in a second this will be a roll call

madam clark district 1 and commissioner oakley aye district 3 commissioner starkey district 4 commissioner wells aye district 5 commissioner mariano aye district 2 chairman moore aye motion passes 5-0 thank you so much thank you appreciate it okay ladies and gentlemen we're going to move on to the procedures for rezonings mr county attorney please review the procedure for resulting be happy to mr chairman there are two rezoning agendas regular and consent staff will present each application to the board of county commissioners if staff for planning commission has recommended approval and there is no opposition the application will be considered by the board without further presentation if the staff or 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 that 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 rezoning 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 sir good afternoon good afternoon so i will go ahead and let the clerk um swear in anybody that's pre-registered for public comment okay for those individuals that are registered for the remaining agenda if you could please raise your right hand do you swear or affirm the testimony you're about to give is the truth so help you god again i'm sure they all said yes and today we have two public hearings on the consent agenda these items we approve with one vote without a presentation unless there is someone here in objection those that are pre-registered are at the public comment kiosk to speak to any of these items on the public hearing agenda prior to speaking hopefully you were sworn in and with that mrs hernandez it is now your show good afternoon good afternoon do you

want to go for proof of publication yeah she can do that with each one would you want to do it let me see we don't you can do them all now that's fine if you want to do them all okay um item p2 was published in the tampa bay times on august 19th 2020. item p3 was published in the tampa bay times on august 19th 2020. item p4 was published in the tampa bay times on march 27 2020 item p5 was published in the tampa bay times on august 19 2020. item p6 was published in the tampa bay times on august 19 2020 item p7 was published in the tampa bay times on august 19th 2020 and august 26 2020 item p8 was published in the template times on august 23 2020 item p9 was published in the tampa bay times on june 24 2020 and item p10 was published in the temple times on june 10th 2020. thank you good afternoon mr chairman commissioners denise hernandez planning and development item p2 is pd20 7498 it's the zoning amendment brandon ray sotomayor changing zoning from ac agricultural district to ar agricultural residential district we're asking that this item be continued to september 21st 2020 board of county commissioners meeting at 1 30 p.m in newport richie hope to continue oh motion to continue have a second second i have a motion a second to continue this item to september 1st 2020 all in favor aye aye aye all opposed same sign motion passes thank you p3 p3 pd20 cu36 it's a conditional use and operating permit for cypress preserve 841 llc lands a land excavation and a master plan unit development district request is to continue to september 21st 2020 bcc meeting at 1 30 in newport richie move to continue second it'll emotionally continue to september 21st and a second all in favor aye aye all the post names motion passes thank you following item p4 pd 27454 to zoning amendment iqbal groves this is just for your information the item is withdrawn as the location has been annexed into the city of dade city on july 14th of 20. so there's no action required today and that's p5 and p6 are on the consent we already did proof for those right now clark all right excellent go ahead mrnas p5 pd20 cu38 conditional use is for fdot state road 52 clinton avenue for a temporary portable concrete plant superior construction conditional used to allow the operation of a temporary portable concrete plant that is necessitated by fdot project number 435142-1-5201 the state route 52 widening a new alignment between uradco place and forking road on approximately six acres of the order overall 32.90 acres this comes through with a recommendation of approval with conditions

from the past pasadena hills planning and policy committee and the planning and development department thank you do i have anybody that signed up via webex or is it the kiosk that i would like to object to this item there's no one at the kiosk at this time nobody on webex take that now okay leave on consent p6 pdd20720 it's a school development plan consistency for the east tech east central tech school a proposed technical high school which will include the construction of two buildings totally totaling 228 429 square feet hosting an estimated 1200 students and 150 staff members of the local planning agency on august 27 found it consistent with the comprehensive plan and recommended approval to the board so today we ask that you approve the item um with conditions as included in your packet uh thank you mr hernandez do we have anybody signed up via webex or the kiosk in opposition to this item there's no one at the kiosk at this time okay thank you nobody webex so that does it for consent i'll entertain a motion don't move second emotion in the second improve the consent agenda all in favor aye aye all opposed same sorry motion passes thank you p7 we have proof do we do that when i'm ready to i did them okay did them all you're awesome amazing good afternoon uh derek berger real property plane division real property planning received a petition to vacate a portion of a maintenance easement from jose velez located at two four eight two zero permanent way in lando lakes um the petitioner is requesting to vacate eight feet of 15 foot maintenance easement an hoa has no objections to this um the reason for the vacation is to install a pool and a surrounding deck thank you sir any questions for the board comments entertain a motion uh move to approve backup oh wait sorry i didn't have public hearing hold on a sec i didn't have anybody signed up but let me ask again anybody at the kiosk or a webex that would like to speak to this item okay all right let me ask again do you have a motion and a second i have a motion in a second all in favor hi i'll oppose the same side motion passes thank you p8 now i know we have people signed up for this one so good afternoon good afternoon commissioners marcy esper director of community development i'm also here as the chair of the continuum of care and we're here to present the coordinated investment plan we have some slides coming up next slide so the uh county was awarded a second round of emergency solutions cares act funding

the purpose of the funding is to prepare uh or respond to the covid19 virus we've been awarded over 3.8 million dollars from housing and urban development and today we are before you to approve an amendment to our 2020 action plan this is the way that hud uh requires us to look at new funding and um as a way of approving it we also are pre presenting to you the way that we plan to spend the money which is called a coordinated investment plan recommended by the continuum of care in the next slide we go over some of the data about homelessness in pasco county so before we want to go ahead and make a plan on how to use the money we want to make sure that this plan is data-driven so we're looking at what is the status of homelessness in our community so if you look at the information from our 2019 point time count we find that over 688 persons were unsheltered meaning that they were living in the woods and cars in a place not fit for human habitation and 206 were sheltered the majority of our uh of our people that experiencing homelessness are single adults with 609 single adults being unsheltered versus 53 being sheltered as opposed to the groupings and families with 77 being unsheltered and 132 being sheltered so i know that the word unprecedented has been used a lot the last six months but we are seeing unprecedented amounts of funding for homelessness and we wanted to make sure that our plans were strategic and that whatever we decided to do and present to you to do would really make a visible difference to our community with the bottom line of believing that the most effective way to prevent prepare and respond to covet 19 is to safely and permanently house those who are experiencing homelessness so we wanted to make sure um in our next uh the slide before um targeted response okay keep going uh that there's uh unprecedented funding the funding uh includes a targeted response very clear goals a specific focus making a visible difference ensuring that the effort would be coordinated that the it wouldn't be done as silos and we wanted to make sure that our funds would be leveraged and we would use our community agencies so let's take a quick look at some of the funding that we do have coming in at all of the funding and not just the un just the funding that we're talking about today but we have funding coming in from

uh from to our continuum of care partners that are all of our slides are kind of confused here uh um our funding uh coming to the county and funding also coming to the coalition and we have noted that there is over 7.3 million dollars dedicated to homelessness and so again we wanted to make sure that this funding and what we are looking at today is the funding in in bold in the middle the esg covet 19 money that the commissioners have already approved 835 000 you did that in june so this is the 3.8 million dollars so what we did was we went to the florida housing coalition and we asked them what are best practices for using this funding and they worked with us to create what's called a coordinated investment plan this coordinate investment plan has four elements and the four elements include firstly setting a local setting local re-housing goals based on the needs of the people experiencing homelessness which is why we talked about in the beginning what homelessness looks like in our community because we want to tailor it to what is needed in our community the second part is to look at the permanent housing interventions what types what's needed the amount of assistance based on people exiting homelessness or preventing it the third part is looking at the resources that are available and we looked at the list of all the different funding sources not only the emergency solutions grant but funding that comes into the continuum of care funding that comes into the county and funding that goes directly to the homeless coalition and then the last part of this plan is to merge all of those things together to merge your resources and the goals that you've made and put them together with a plan to make homelessness rare and brief and put people into housing so in the next slide you could see some of the steps that we've taken in this process so first this has been very time constrained at the end of june we went to the continuum of care and presented this strategy to them they voted to go ahead with it and they established a small local planning group that has met weekly since the end of june to put this plan together in addition to that we've determined local goals defined cohorts or groups of people that we've wanted to serve we've determined what interventions were

appropriate we've estimated the number of households in each cohort how much this would cost us we inventoried all the available resources and determine how best to deploy those resources so next i'm going to share the uh the goals that we've set before you today and it starts with rehousing uh 225 households uh in 180 days so we've created these cohorts based on the significant number of unsheltered people that we have experiencing homelessness one of the first slides we know that we have a number of on high unnumbered sheltered because we have smaller numbers of emergency shelter beds and high barrier shelters here in the county uh we know that we have a high significant adult male population and we also recognize that we have hot spots in the area that i've spoken to each of you considerable amount of times about and worked with law enforcement about so with those things in mind here are the goals that we have first starting with 80 unsheltered who are elderly disabled a long time homeless but not considered chronically homeless based on hud's definitions and the plan is to do outreach to go ahead and identify and assess them and for these people who are very vulnerable we're going to be bringing them into motels for safety reasons and then surrounding them with case management one-on-one case management with a focus on re-housing rapid rehousing rrh stands for rapid rehousing the second group of people 80 unsheltered as well but they're not elderly or disabled or long-term homeless and these people can be housed right from the streets and the encampments so again the outreach the assessment and then going right into rapid rehousing the third group of people are 30 unsheltered who are chronically homeless so those are people that have a disabling condition as well as being long-term homeless again most vulnerable we want to bring them off the streets out of the encampments keep them safe and then put them in motels surround them with case management a housing focus and put them into a program called permanent supportive housing where they're going to get more high-touch case management in their housing journey and then lastly those the first three are all single adults again most of our population are single adults

and the next group are 35 homeless families with the intervention of either unsheltered or from a shelter case management into rapid rehousing along with keeping people uh bringing people into housing we want to next also prevent people from becoming homeless and our next slide we talk about a hundred people in 180 days preventing homelessness and we would do this with two strategies the first strategy is for 40 families that are recognized as probably temporarily homeless here and they have connection and supports in other locations so we help them with diversion by getting back to uh where they have family and support so they could be housed the second group of 60 at-risk families we believe is probably a very low number based on what's happening now with rentals and and foreclosure possible foreclosures and evictions but helping those at-risk families stay housed by giving them rental assistance and making sure they don't cycle into homelessness so that's a lot of information and it sounds like it might be really expensive but uh in the next slide we'll go over the costs with you the anticipated costs to provide housing for 225 households and prevent a hundred households from becoming homeless is 3.8 million dollars that includes the outreach the case management and the rental assistance the housing for them so so in the slide that we looked at all of our resources we saw that we identified 7.3 million dollars that's dedicated for homelessness so there's sufficient funding to do this and and the leverage part of it is using the coronavirus relief funds that have come into the county uh and being awarded to our non-profit providers as well as the money that's come in to community development leveraging the initial money for motels and for move-in expenses with funds that have to be expended by 1230 and then using the rental assistance money that could be used further after that i know that one of the questions that we are often asked about this is where are people going to go where is the housing coming from and we've actually identified over 150 units throughout the county country county east side and west side uh and uh people will be be able to choose units to go into ready existing we're not talking about building one group of housing for everybody to go into at once on our next slide we i want to show you how this system is going to work this is um this is a strategy that is both systems and data based so uh this would

be how the workflow uh will be implemented first and foremost this is an initiative of the pasco county continuum of care we are recognized geographic coc of um of housing and urban development working to make homelessness rare brief and non-recurring in our county the leadership council has 21 members and they span a number of different sectors government health law enforcement schools courts and and i will tell you the uh our members of law enforcement have been involved specifically uh in building this strategy as a small planning group we will be using the coalition for the homeless of pasco county they are the lead agency of the continuum of care and they will be the fiscal agent for this process and coming from that there will be local agencies that will be a part of each of these strategies so again a local agency that will be will help with prevention diversion and short-term rental assistance for 100 households and then uh local agencies to do identification and outreach as well as local agencies working with the motels rapid rehousing and permanent supportive housing so it's a workflow and a system that will start at the coalition for the homeless and then span out with subcontracts with all a number of different local agencies so again the plan commissioners are very clear measurable goals 225 households in 180 days and a hundred households preventing homelessness their goals on the next slide are very measurable we have identified all the available resources we are not asking you for any additional money and there is been support and outreach to our community and different agencies thank you marcy we appreciate everything what a great plan at least i think it's a great plan uh you may also want to ask any questions before i go to public comment and then come back to questions commissioner starkey do you want to um well i can wait after public comment yeah we do what's up if you guys want to watch out for public government okay okay so i know we do have um first we have anybody on webex that's signed up yes we do have um don anderson signed up hey don go ahead and just do your name and address for me don anderson nine zero two zero sharon drive newport richie three four six five four uh commissioners county staff thank you for the opportunity to address you regarding this uh regarding our homeless neighbors um i'll make my remarks brief so it's not to be too redundant

ms esberg has presented i think you'll agree if there's a silver lining to the covet pandemic it has to be these monies that become available to address homelessness in our community and not just homelessness but those at risk of homelessness which we all recognize will be a growing concern um the proposed monies as marcy is so emphatically stated will make it possible to house 225 homeless individuals and families and prevent homelessness for 100 families all in 180 days beginning in just weeks these monies are are inclusive in that they cover the cost of outreach which brings our teams into the the streets into the camps to identify and assess these individuals as well as rental assistance and maybe more importantly than anything else cover the cost of case management which will be extensive in each of these cases all of this will be done under the housing first model where we look to house individuals and families and then wrap services around them in order to address those critical issues that have prevented them from being housed previously this is certainly a coordinated plan and it's based upon data and processes and best practices as we've been advised by the florida housing coalition and in particular dr uh susan porcheau um i'd like to acknowledge the the leadership of the community development director marcy esberg in her role as the coc leadership council as well several other individuals greg armstrong captain tony roach detective karen norris and a special gratitude to our chief operating officer at the coalition thomas o'connor bruno we just very much appreciate this opportunity to provide a service in this community that we're all uh anxious to see results with thank you thanks don do we have a video yeah we can't show it an email to us individually no no we can't they can't put it up on the screen not working but can i get an email up we can have an email to you yeah sure you can i was just looking to see if it came in but it hasn't come in anybody else signed up to speak via webex anybody everybody how about at me we do not have anybody else on webex how about the kiosk there's no one at the kiosk at this time um any emails for the record no emails for p8 okay so that does it for public comment open up to or questions comments anybody commission mariano thank you mr chairman marcy thanks for meeting with me and

all your support that you have and thanks for doing all the research you've done um one of the things i brought up in our conversation was as far as the suncoast recovery center and after talking with them they've actually submitted their permit today i've talked to sally sherman she's working on trying to propose the process their first phase would house about 25 people and they can be ready in about 30 days once the permit's done there's room to get another 25 on top of that 30 days even after that or subsequently um knowing how many males that are out there along us 19 katherine mr stark you've seen him up and down that near the wawa's i'm going to tell you up in hudson it's even more brutal and in between is still brutal so i know it's a very important segment for the population to try to get treated and just it's not just getting them in place it's the treatment uh drug use is up over 300 percent from meth uh mental health is up 69 so those people need that step and and talking closely with uh susan campbell from the rope center what they deal with is a unique population uh recently they even just had someone that was trying to get back in there again have to be reoccurring homelessness because they failed the drug test he had no place to go i don't know where he is right now but um you know looking at all the things you get tied in i just hope that knowing that this could be something coming forward as well working with the rope center we talked about holy ground a little bit tougher but work in every single angle you can and just keep on going but it's it's a huge problem but this hopefully helps us get those thank you yes thank you mr starkey well you kind of touched on a question that i have and it i have to say i hope i hope it goes away and so do these things because it's a little hard to hear each other um what what are the rules with drug tests with drugs so this is uh this program is based on a housing first model so that means that we put people into housing first no matter what and while they're being yes and while they're being housed you're we are building relationships building trusts and helping them to identify the additional steps that they need which might involve suncoast recovery it might involve career source for for job placement or m skills it might involve mental health counseling but the difference with this program is that somebody does not need to jump through additional hoops or ladders in order to get housed you get them housed you get them stable in their housing and then work on the other issues

so that's what you meant when you said social services right all right um um okay i haven't asked i didn't think of it when we had our meeting um but i don't know if you all got the email that my assistant was to forward to you all may come to all of us another house and holiday lakes that they don't have the garbage pick up they have vultures uh taking the food from the garbage in the front yards onto the roof of his house and they're all up there eating on the roof of his house and rats running around so i hopefully you guys all saw that email i really going to require ask that we require that anyone who goes into one of these rentals has a contract for garbage services so hud requires us to do housing quality inspections for the places that they go into but i think we need to have a rule that they have to have garbage service they can't put it in their backyard put it on their side yard they have to have a contract where someone comes and picks it up like everybody else they have to be a good neighbor so most of the units i expect that it'll be 90 and will be in apartments multi-families okay but i still i still would like us to have that rule for anyone else that i mean if you're an apartment you have a con they have a contract with the service so i what do y'all think i mean i just think yeah okay i think they have to have a garbage contract um and then uh the other thing that uh i brought up on our in our conversation and um is that when these families or these people first go to the motel i think a lot of them are on us 19. although i think newport richie just closed one up so i'm not sure how many motels are left in the county uh but um they they don't they're not getting food so they get it they get a shelter but they don't have anywhere to go eat and and so i had suggested that maybe um maybe the rotaries get involved jack i know you're in one or or we have some way that we can adopt someone who's been put in a motel i mean i am happy to make some meals and take it to a motel and i just thought maybe the community could help if it's you know it's not forever it's during this big push and i think there are a lot of people who will be willing to help so i don't know what that program looks like but i had mentioned it to them thanks mariano i was gonna just add on that um you know when we talked about this part part of the problem is like if you go to in front of beacon woods the walmart that's there there's a church that

was the right it was a restaurant teaching teaching the gospel at the same time feeding people as a as a place well that's burnt down now but they still feed them and all those people there from where they're getting fed from different sources they go there and they just they live under the bridge they live alongside the woods and they go back in the woods they can back out what we need to do when we talk about this is actually get to those people that want to feed these people and let them go to the motels let them go to the recovery center let them go to the rope center and bring the food there rather than out in the public where now they're hanging around and waiting for the next one to come by because otherwise they're standing on 19 even though they're not supposed to be no we we uh have we have started that conversation and we hope to connect also with members of the faith community and and bring them on board so that we're all working and rowing in the same direction as getting people housed uh helping them while they're in motels getting food and then perhaps even once they're situated in their housing transitioning them uh with uh uh doing work in a grocery store how to buy food how to you know all those kinds of things and and working with our non nonprofit partners or faith-based partners to be a part of this effort yeah and i i think we should name it i think you should come up with a new name good name should market it we should brand it okay and like i said i am willing to cook and um and i think there's other people that will too so great i i hate to see that we bring them out of the woods they go in a motel no money to buy food it's we just need to give them that extra little help i think marcy maybe it's an opportunity like we've been doing for others in need where we're losing these local restaurants maybe we can i know we're going to have some additional cares money maybe it's something that we we do that way and we have a couple restaurants up and down 19 that can deliver to certain motels um just just thinking out loud um and i was gonna say something else i mean it's a great program i appreciate everything you're doing i like um feeding pasco's elderly i mean we have funding there human services like the seniors if they're homebound we're putting them in a motel or a house or homebound but we can get them on the list and deliver them meals that way so just just a thought that's yeah i

agree good idea i mean it's more incentive too right so if you do think you're going to go you're not going to eat then maybe want to stay where they are because then they're going to at least get bad so i think it's a great thought you guys have so um question is the other can i get back i'm sorry yeah can i sure oakley was waiting oh sorry i wasn't i had one more thing i'll tell you before this is a great program uh appreciate all the work you've done um as always it's never enough when you got this kind of void in our county that east and west have have homeless people uh the sooner it's gone the better we'll all feel about it but thank you for all you do and your staff so thank you commissioner stark you had something else yeah the other um issue that we talked about during our meeting was um when they when they uh do move them out of the um is it rapid housing into a home right now it's one per house is that right no it is it uh so it's a household so if i identify as a single person as a household then i'd be going into a unit for myself but if i have a partner or a child then that's considered a household as well and again confirm that it's not all single families as a matter of fact it will be very little single-family housing it'll be mostly multi-family housing excellent any other questions or comments with that i'll entertain motion oh i'll move to a proof with the stipulation that they have a garbage contract i have no okay i have a motion and i have a second all in favor aye all opposed to him so much for passing five zero thanks marcy thank you okay go ahead p9 which is going to be a continuance all right so denise hernandez planning and development item p9 is pd 20 7489 this is under the name of truman d and margaret g campbell and truman don campbell revocable trust for a change in zoning from c2 general commercial district to rmh mobile home district with a voluntarily agreed upon deed restriction limiting the units to single family only so no mobile manufactured or modular homes a maximum of 109 units and a 200 foot distance separation from the parcel boundary to the east the applicant has requested a continuance to the october 6 2020. florida county commissioners meeting at 1 30 in dave city we can't do that just yet i'm sorry we did have people send it for public comments let me just make this statement

first um for those that may still be in the queue or at the kiosk you can speak today here's the only issue if you speak today you're not able to speak at the next public hearing um which is a continuance to october 6 2020. october 6th um so again i'm not telling you what to do not to do but be forewarned if you speak today you are not able to speak of the october 6. this this opportunity to speak is really only if you're unavailable for the october 6th meeting yeah yeah to speak so with that i just wanted to give that disclaimer there is no public hearing today now is there anybody in the queue now that would like to remain in the queue and speak today that will not be speaking until october 6. i do have miss bud in the queue i don't know if you want to ask her or not she is unmuted miss bud but somebody yes i'd you would like to wait talk you want to speak today for october 6 or come back on october 6 come back october 6th okay well i just wanted to make sure you knew that thank you miss bud we'll see we'll we'll talk to you then okay all right um anybody at the kiosk there's no one at the kiosk at this time and anything that was letter wise in a public record i guess would just we can still submit it so there are a total of 18 emails five were asked to be read but we can read them on october 6th that's right i i would um make sure that all the commissioners have a copy of them so that they can read them and those that still want to be read on october 6th we read on october 6th okay or if they've updated their comments we read those instead all right so yeah that's if we can have that direction to make sure all the whoever's staff wise will can forward those to us all the commissioners that'd be great please now with that i will entertain entertain a motion for continuance to continue to october 6th second i have a motion and then we're going to continue this one third time certain times yeah or something after the same may be heard yeah okay all in favor hi all opposed same side motion message five zero and number ten is this a withdrawal again or is this a continuous no um pdd27487 seven oaks um mpud for sb associates limited a modification to the currently approved mpud master planning conditions of approval the applicant has requested a continuance to the first public hearing that is on at the historic pasco county court

courthouse in january of 2021 at 1 30. however the board has not yet adopted the public hearing schedule for 2021 but that is the specific request from the applicant so let me ask you this why was r2 withdrawn because it wasn't a public hearing item and so staff can put that back on whenever whenever it can if you technically if you withdraw this item they would have to pay a new application fee and there lies the caveat okay so that's so this is this is similar to your continuance to a date uncertain because they're going to have to re-advertise it but that's correct so it's really it contains to a date on certain yeah it's really a continuance we don't have a date so that's correct right but i'm i'm only um yeah stating what the applicant has requested so we need a continuous date uncertain because well you can say january i guess right i mean move to continue january there you go 20 21. okay second have a second all in favor aye aye all opposed same side passes thank you thank you and with that ladies and gentlemen guess what you have time just for the kicks and giggles was there was there anybody in the queue for in on web accounts i think everybody pulled out but let's see is there anybody in the queue or on webex for that item there is mrs chelsea waller duthar oh well she's just chelsea you're just standing by in case this was hard right so you're good yes that's correct okay so you don't have anything right one okay and there's nobody at the kiosk nobody at the kiosk there's no one at the kiosk okay all right good we're good just checking the box no thank you okay so you have two and a half hours we'll see you back here at 5 15. we are not adjourned we're on break [Music] [Applause] [Music] do [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] you