04.03.2020 Commissioner Starkey Hosts Pasco Public Services Virtual Town Hall

[Music] all right good morning everybody and welcome to our virtual town hall and I want to thank you for joining this important event and I'm convening this meeting to discuss a host of resources that are available to the citizens of Pasco County I'm pleased to be joined by all of our panelists today who I'll be introducing soon and I thank all of them for taking the time to speak to Pasco County citizens your updates and insights on how government services are evolving during this pandemic is much appreciated so following my my brief discussion you'll hear from the following speakers in this order some are robertson deputy chief of staff to representative gus bill Arrakis she'll be speaking on the cares act employees small business small businesses testing and supplies then we have a Shara Lambert federal affairs director at the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services giving us updates from the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services we have Pasco County School Superintendent Kurt Browning discussing closures distance learning and feeding sites Pasco County Assistant County Administrator Kathy Pierson discussing senior human and veteran services dr. Whitney Elmore director of the Pasco uf/ifas Extension will be discussing agriculture and kovat 19 issues youth webinars virtual clinic consultation and licensing marcy s burke will be joining us from the community-developed she's the community development director she'll be discussing the ESG funds for rental assistance the 90-day deferral on mortgages and CDBG funding next we'll have rosemary Bruckner transportation program manager with Pasco County public transportation discussing fares our safety and sanitation protocols the CDC guidelines on transit next Rene Brown our natural resources manager with Parks and Recreation and Rene's going to talk about what's open and recreative under governor de santé is executive order and lastly we'll have Adam Thomas Pasco Tourism director for Florida Sports Coast and talking about the economic impact of Kovan 19 on on FSC and our hotel impacts after that we're going to take some Q&A we're going to end this at 11:30 so we hope to still have time for some of these cute q and A's so on the second slide here we've advertised a few email accounts for questions but now that we've started I'll ask you to send any questions to my County address case turkey at Pasco County FL net and you can do that throughout the meeting and we'll send a copy of the presenters information and their contacts as well to those who request them after the meeting lastly we wanted to introduce you to a new effort that is starting in the county and you might have heard this on the news yesterday and today I heard it as I was driving in today it there is a national effort called flag or frontline appreciation group and we started a chapter here in Pasco County called flag 2020 Pasco will be raising money from the community whoever would like to

donate and this money will go to hire local restaurants who will make meals for our frontline folks working in the ICU and the hospital's you know it brings a smile to our frontline workers and it helps our local restaurants in these challenging times so we're excited to get that going here in the county it was started by two women up in the Northeast and they this morning they've already raised 97 thousand dollars and they've helped a bunch of restaurants and put a bunch of smiles on people's faces so I'm excited to announce that this morning when the process of setting up the electronic payments we've got a bank account set up and a Facebook group to begin raising money and if you'd like to donate right now that you have to venmo me that will change at at CAF it's at Catherine - Starkey and our Facebook group name is called flag 2020 Pasco County or frontline appreciation group Pasco County so more information on that will be coming out of my newsletter and in during the next week so with that I am very excited to turn the event over to summer Robertson good morning summer good morning Commissioner thank you so much for the invitation to participate this morning I'd like to share a little bit in four of information with the group the cares Act was signed into law last Friday and that act provided unprecedent to individuals to small businesses and to critical infrastructure throughout the country in terms of individual assistance the bill provides up to $1,200 stimulus checks for individual $2,400 for those who filed married jointly those checks will be delivered mid-april to anyone who filed a 2019 or 2018 tax return that meets the income criteria it does begin to get phased out as you exceed $75,000 for individuals 112 thousand for home had a household and 125 150 thousand sorry for married individuals we've received several calls from seniors who are on Social Security they do not have to do anything they are eligible to participate even if they did not file a tax return in the 2019 or 2018 year the same goes for individuals who are on Social Security disability and for those who are veterans who are receiving disability the Department of Treasury has worked directly with those agencies and will be providing those checks as well and secretary mination has said that those checks will be distributed mid-april the only individuals who will need to go and actively do something in order to receive the benefits to which they're entitled under the individual stimulus are individuals who did not file a tax return and because they made less than the amount of dollars that you have to make in order to file a tax return and they are not participating in one of those programs I just mentioned there will be an online portal created by the department of treasury within the next two weeks that online portal is not yet available when it does become available we will certainly share that information the same goes for if you used if you did file a 2018 or 2019 tax return but you

need to update your bank account information because the banking information you use to on those returns is no longer accurate if you need to do that you will be able to use the Department of Treasury's online portal as well The Cure's Act also expanded unemployment benefits for Americans we know that a lot of people are out of work during this time and we also know that there have been significant issues with the unemployment website in the last few weeks we talked to state officials yesterday who told us that they've had more people apply in the last week and a half for unemployment benefits in the state of Florida than have ever applied for the program since its inception so they are struggling to manage that please remember that the unemployment system is a federal state partnership the federal government provides the resources and the state operates that that program that it does administer that program we have spoken to state officials they have hired this week alone over a hundred employees to help manage that program the governor did issue an executive order last night in order to provide additional staff from other state agencies to help administer the program and he is has expanded and will be allowing the use of paper products the paper application very soon and again we will be sharing that information on the congressman's website as soon as it becomes available to those in the state of Florida the expansion of benefits does include new clips of people who have never been available before eligible before to participate in unemployment this includes people who are independent contractors sole proprietors as well as those who are working fewer hours due to the coronavirus but they are still working traditionally those people have been excluded from participating in unemployment but they can now participate we are told that once an application has been received by the state of Florida and approved for unemployment that those it's will be retroactive so even if you because of the website capabilities even if you were not able to get your applications results when it does get through when it is approved you will be provided with the back pay for that unemployment for which you're eligible the federal government who cares has extended traditionally unemployment has a one-week waiting period the federal government has waged that one wait one week waiting period we will also go after the first three stimulus bills to provide additional food for special bleep vulnerable populations including seniors our children and food banks and additionally this week Pasco County received over two million dollars in CDBG funds and ESG funds which will be distributed by the county and the local homeless coalition in order to try to provide basic assistance the care doctor also provided significant help for small businesses we know that they employ most Americans and so we have the traditional ee IDL loans which are SBA loans yeah quite a cumbersome process those are

available now immediately for for business owners however the application process takes several weeks to go through those who applied for the key IDL loans are eligible for a ten thousand advance on the funds that they're they're trying to borrow and the other type of loan which is a newly created program which actually goes online today you apply directly through your own lender it is a hundred percent guaranteed by the SBA but it's a much more streamlined process those loans up to ten million dollars are available to small businesses including sole proprietors which have traditionally not been allowed to participate in the SBA loans so you apply directly to your bank and the goal is to have those funds administered within a week of the application being received from your own individual bank the ppl loans are also eligible for forgiveness and if they are used to continue to pay salaries for employees and they're used for other operating costs such as your rent and utilities seventy five percent of what is for it must be really spent on salaries you can have an eID alone and the ppl loan at the same time but you cannot use them for the same purpose additionally and you you can transfer if you have an eID alone you can transfer that to a ppl loan essential service as many people have called called our office asking about essential services that is not a federal designation the federal government put out some guidance for the state the governor has it you should his own list of what qualifies as an essential service we've had several businesses that have asked us how do they get their business to become an essential service if they're not currently designated as an essential service that process has not yet been established by the state we are collecting those requests and we are sending them to the governor's office for consideration we have been helping local businesses who wish to work with the federal government to receive an approval in order to produce to begin manufacturing and producing supplies that are critically needed you can contact our office to help expedite your application to the federal government for that I would first suggest that you look on our website and you go to there's a link for FEMA and the FEMA help website and it's also on the slideshow that you're able to see here you can take a take a look at that and that gives you some critical instructions about what has to be done before you can begin selling your product to the federal government for distribution we do have a shortage of supplies and we that there's an increased international demand for critical supplies we are standing up and we have taken action at the federal level to increase the production by private business in those areas and that will help as we reach we're seeing more and more being ramped up every day and as we reach what's predicted to be the peak of this and mid May we do anticipate that we will have additional

supplies being distributed there is a national stockpile of supplies which has been begun to be released to States the state has a state stocked fly and each individual emergency management office can request funds from the state stockpile I will Texas though supplies are being distributed by the state to the entities into the communities in the state of Florida that had the largest number of cases we as a federal delegation and as a state delegation have been working closely with our providers or hospitals our community health centers our health departments in order to make sure that they have the supplies that they need and we had a conference call yesterday at Ella town hall meeting with Pasco County officials to say that they feel good about where we are right now their supplies are tight but they are getting them where they are most needed and they currently are able to comply with CDC guidelines for testing we are beginning to test more and more people there is a tiered testing system initially the only people who are eligible to receive testing were those who met the strict CDC criteria related to having previously traveled to an area that was known to have a community spread and having symptoms or cooking into contact with someone who was a positive case and having symptoms there is now a tiered system where more people are eligible and are able to be prioritized including frontline workers hospital workers seniors and those with severe underlying health condition as well as those who are currently hospitalized for respiratory problems so local health officials reported yesterday on call that they do believe they're moving forward and that they will have the supplies they need especially as private production continues to ramp up each and every day our website will be updated the congress's website will be updated daily with information as it becomes available this is a very fluid situation and so information is changing what you can do in the interim to keep yourself and your family safe is to stay home use good hand hygiene and please continue practicing social distancing so that we can all help to flatten the curve and thank you very much summer that was a great update and Ken gonna be on YouTube so people can go back and look at it at any time and see your list of resources and listen to your really good discussion next we're gonna have Shara Lambert our Phares director at the Florida Department of Ag and Consumer Services sharra welcome Thank You commissioner are you able to hear me we hear you great okay one Vietnam okay thank you all in good morning on behalf of Commissioner Nicole Nikki freed our 12th agriculture commissioner for the Florida Department of Ag and Consumer Services along with the over 4,000 state employees right now at the department we really appreciate Commissioner Starr cage for having this virtual town hall here in Pasco County the Commissioner really would love to reiterate that we

are all sharing the growing concern over the corona virus we are definitely in this together and please be assured that we're doing all we can to keep you safe during these challenging times we just wanted to take a moment to share some steps that the department is taking to minimize the threat of kovat 19 for consumers and also businesses along with keeping Florida's children fed during school closures here at the Department of Agriculture the commissioner regulates close to 40,000 grocery stores markets convenience stores gas stations and we have sent guidance directly to them on best practices to reduce threat of viruses to include providing sanitary wipes to clean keypad nozzle handles at the gas pumps and shopping carts on or basket handles at the grocery stores to places that we know are still essential and available today even during the stage shutdown which he played to place millions to go to each day also we want to remind the businesses that all employees must comply with state rules of hand-washing before after and preparing food handling raw food touching garbage etc this goes for you as consumers to please disinfect commonly used services cook foods the recommended temperature regularly wash your hands or sanitize them as we all know and I we will hear from the school board with our schools being closed many children are missing out on school meals for so many kids they're only males that they can regularly count on have been through our school systems here at the Department of Agriculture through passed through dollars from the federal government thanking congressman Baracus and the Florida our agency funds close to 1.3 billion dollars worth of school lunch programs serving close to 245 million free and reduced lunch ins to 2 million children ensuring that they continue to have their meals available we actually activated a couple of weeks ago the summer break squat website call center and text line to help the families find free meals for children during Kovach 19 school closures I think there should be a pop-up that I sent over to the Commissioner but to find your closest location you are - tech FL kids meal that's al kids meal - 2 1 1 - 2 1 1 or you can call 2-1-1 to speak with a live operator 24 hours a day please note as Wow that those operators can also handle bilingual calls in Spanish I believe they're working on Creole the piece about this summer is usually is for those children's that qualify for free and reduced lunch but right now the crises that we're dealing this is for all children 18 and under regardless of their previous eligibility the other look that you can go to to find the closest location is summer break spot all one work dot fresh Florida comm [Music] office mentioned and as we know here in Pasco when the deepest things that we really protect and serve here in this county through Commissioner Starkey and the Board of County Commissioners and you all the constituents is that of our seniors so the Commissioner has worked

to have 1 million worth of sodium emergency meals for years for community group distributions she's also been talking to our retailers such as Publix and she's going to assure you and she wants to implore not just federally but also statewide and locally that the food supply chain is steady there is no need to hoard food it makes it harder for the elderly and the compromise to be able to obtain those foods so without you without having to close down the schools and to know that the food supply chain is accurate it's flowing it's working succinctly you do not need to hoard the other thing I want to emphasize that we just need to make sure that the community knows is that the food is safe for our federal partners through FDA there is no evidence that Kovach 19 transmits and foods however as we always know just as basic consumers we are to constantly wash our fruits and vegetables and we've sent guidelines out and they're on our website on the best way to keep your food safe so from a county and beyond we are really in this together we are here for you every step of the way Oliver he's here inspection interdiction stations to going out to our farms we are a bit more information follow our updates on Facebook and Twitter at F Dax or online at FDA CS f docks F thanks guv thank you again for your leadership and I can speak more on the farmers issue commissioner but I know that this was very important to hold your constituents Thank You Sharon I know we have a question already in for you so we'll get to you at the end on a question about horses and now I'm going to turn to our superintendent Kurt Browning Thank You commissioners Starkey let me just tell you that the last two and a half weeks now three weeks anything short of different would be an understatement it has really turn the school district on it's on its heels but just a huge shout out to district staff that have just rallied around trying to set up processes and procedures to continue to meet the needs of our students and our families and that includes our teachers that are teaching today from home and we are quite honestly one of the few a state in the nation that wanted education to continue during this the situation I want to address just a couple of points this morning it's already been addressed by our two previous speakers in some part and that is the feeding the feeding piece we to implement our summer feeding program very quickly I want to thank the Department of Agriculture flora department agriculture and Consumer Services for working with school districts and leaving some of the requirements that we often have to meet in order to comply with this program because it is important to us that we get the opportunity to get food in the hands of our kids last week which was our first week of feeding we fed our served over thirty thousand thirty thousand three hundred and two meals this week we went to a single day that was a last

week it was five days a week we were delivering a dropping off through drive-thrus seven sites two meals a breakfast and a lunch now what we've done is we've moved our model to once a week on Tuesdays at about 26 sites throughout the district and this past Tuesday we delivered a lunch and breakfast for to each child for the full five days and we served at that point eighty thousand six hundred and eighty meals just this week so that's been a total of 110 thousand nine hundred eighty two meals over the last two weeks and we continue to try to meet the needs of those kids 18 and under that our of our food insecure and we're wanting to make sure that the word gets out to our families that that resource is available the other thing that we've had to do very quickly on the fly is distribute many many of the computer devices that's owned by the district so that distance learning can continue to take place we have currently had last number I heard we've distributed over 15,000 devices to our children to our students and we continue to distribute those devices as needs are given to us I want to thank school-based staff for coming up the plan that was smooth and efficient and was able to get those devices out in a time to those students with that the distance learning piece the distance learning piece Pasco has been a leader in distance learning through Pasco eSchool I believe that under Florida Virtual Education there were two districts Broward and Pasco were the two largest ones that provide that so the distance learning wasn't really new to Pasco district but it was new to many many of our teachers and many of our students those that are typically teach in what we call bricks and mortar schools a tip of the hat a round of applause to our teachers and our administrators for really stepping up digging in and figuring out how this works our staff f Pasco eSchool really did a great job with a training of these teachers in a very short period as well as providing technical assistance through our attainted processing services information services so that parents if they need help you can see on the screen the tech help email as well as the telephone number we are continuing to get those devices out there we have heat up hit a peak of about 37,000 students at one time and it is just like it's not like where they're necessary where teachers going to have kids in front of them at a certain time kids get on they do their work they communicate through the teacher and it can be at 10 o'clock at night and it is just a different model but I am so proud of where we are we are really trying to minimize the achievement gap and the opportunity gap that we have in this County with our students and we want to make sure that they are as prepared as they possibly can be so when we go into school in August that we will be there and they will be there and be almost if not caught up to where they would be if we were still in a normal operating system one last thing I want to mention

is the executive order that was signed by the governor this week about the stay at home this has a huge impact on the school district and into ways where it talked about 65 years and older needing to stay home and then a different class of people which were those that had underlying health issues the district is is as dramatically impacted by those two groups of people we have a lot of folks in our district that are over 65 many of our employees are over 65 years of age and many of those folks work in food nutrition services many of those folks work in transportation that help deliver some of those meals so we are we are working tirelessly trying to ensure we did an all call to all 10,000 district staff saying that if you can help we need your assistance in preparing these meals these meals do not come prepared necessarily we package these meals and then package them again as breakfasts or or lunches and so we are really this executive order has really impacted our operations why do i why do I say this well it's also closed our schools I've closed our schools we are kind of using Tuesday as the day that if you need to pick up a device from the school that is the day that you'll pick up a device from the school if you need to do transact business with a school that is what I would call a central business I need you to call the school it's called a school number we've asked principals to forward those phones to their devices their phones so that we can get the calls answered if it goes to voicemail this brings my major point and that is please be patient please be patient as we go back in and try to address all these different questions concerns we're struck between a rock and a hard place one is the executive order the other one is a horrific virus that's out there needing to keep our employees safe and so we are trying to support our students and our families while trying to do that at the same time so I would ask that parents be patient with us as we try to navigate this really as we've reduced our work down to one day we're all working from home on the other days including Saturdays and Sundays but the public interface day will be Tuesday if you need a device call the school if you don't reach somebody leave a message we will follow up with you we will get a device in your hand and we'll work through Internet connectivity issues also I wanted to mention that for those families that need meals on our website Pasco schools org there is a a coronavirus banner on there you click on that and you will come to a page with all kinds of information one says feeding students at the bottom of that form there's a a form about complete a meal request form the first day we did this we had 3500 requests that we served 8,000 meals we were not prepared we were not ready because we were only filling the requests that we had plus a little bit over that so if you needed to request the meal please complete that meal request form and with that we're continue to take questions addressing

concerns that come up our school principals are doing a great job the school staff the teachers all employees across this district because we want to make sure that our kids continue to learn and be engaged in that learning and I want to thank the Commissioner for the opportunity to have this webinar to get this information back out to our residents so Thank You commissioner well I'm very grateful that you're here and I know I'm hearing from lots of our residents that say we need more communication from the county and everyone's concerned it's it's a such an unusual time I know when I talk to my fellow workers and government that we have never been busier I cannot keep my phone charged it's just just a really interesting time and I appreciate everyone stepping up here today next we're gonna turn to Kathy Pearson good morning everybody and thank you Commissioner Starkey for this great Town Hall but I want to put a shout-out first to all the team of Pasco County Board of County Commissioners I'll tell you the team has been rocking between the PEI the public information office the Emergency Management the buses the the guys out in the storm water so thank you all are our home delivered meals reiver our senior care folks thank you I want to talk about a little bit today is about our community services programs and as you know we do home delivered program home delivered meals for our seniors that are 16 and over and we also have congregate dining sites well the home-delivered meal program is still going but we had to close our congregating sites due to this this horrible coronavirus so what are we doing instead we're having our seniors come down and come through a drive-through so that has been happening right now for all of our seniors that are registered with our programs 60 and over we're doing about seven hundred to a thousand meals a day so thank you all so very much but we have a new program that's going to be happening here and probably about the next week thank you to Congress and the gospel Arrakis on gutting getting our older americans act funding increased so with that it comes through the Department of Elder affairs to the state through a triple-a Area Agency of aging with Pinellas and Pasco and we're going to be starting a program called emergency meals restaurants and so as commissioner stark we had talked about the frontline appreciation we are also going to be having our restaurants prepare food for our seniors we're still in the working process of that right now we just got our allocation dollars we're working on agreements so for those restaurants that are out there that are interested you will be able to register with the area agency of pinellas pasco they will vet the restaurants they will make sure all the requirements are there and then we will be starting this program very very soon so very exciting with that though we are going to be needing more drivers so I want to shout out to Whitlock uchi Electric who has taken some of our delivery routes and is out there with their teams delivering

our routes for us so I want to say thank you to that so be looking for that and for anybody that's eligible or wants more information or wants to become registered with our programs you do need to call the Pasco County Senior Services dining site line which is 72 7 three four three three four zero so that is some of the things that they're gonna be happening there so the 700 thousand meals we're going to be trying to take off about four hundred people we have on our waiting list so with that extra funding we're gonna be able to take a lot of folks we're gonna need more help and more deliveries so that's going to be awesome I do want to shout out to the Tampa Bay Rays who also donated five thousand dollars to our Meals on Wheels program so we're very very happy about that and our human services and our veteran services their focus in our preventing homelessness via evictions that phone numbers are up on the screen for those our veteran services continue to work virtually with our veterans for any of their benefits that they need and with that we'll be happy to answer any questions as they come through also but thank you to the team up there we really appreciate all you're doing Thank You Kathy I'm gonna remind you if you have any questions it's case Starkie at Pasco County FL net and I did I did want to mention that the county is pushing out information all day long but you need to sign up for it so we have a section called notify me and if you if you go there on our County website I hope that's the right yeah we're yeah notify me you type in your email address and you will get all of our notifications that were pushing out and I think it's a really important thing to do at this time so I actually have friends who are very involved in in in our government and are not signed up on this so they they learned that yesterday when I asked if they got the notification for this event okay so next we're gonna have dr. Whitney Elmore yes ma'am can you hear me okay I can good morning good morning first of all just want to say Thank You Commissioner Stark you for holding in this town hall and allowing us to be involved and I also just want to send a shout out to my colleagues at the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences and Pasco County I mean you know in these unprecedented I think we are all pulling together and doing a fantastic job and to the folks that are on here also speaking from other organizations just a heartfelt thank you from Pasco extension office on being so responsive working with us to help answer questions with our constituents throughout the county so we are continuing to work with producers with ranchers and agriculture all across Pasco County this is somewhere around the 75 million dollar a year industry in Pasco so it is critical from an economic standpoint we are working with those folks because they have been deemed essential infrastructure industry and workers we are fielding calls from anywhere from horse owners and and

cattle ranchers all the way over to you to nursery owners plant nurseries and workers and everybody in between we are continuing our consultations with them and with anybody throughout our community you know we we are seeing a disaster unfold it's a different kind of disaster than what anybody's used to but this is a disaster in its own right and so we are there to continue answering the typical questions that we get from home gardening all the way over to pest control around the homeowners and then those commercial entities but certainly our agricultural entities are being impacted and so we are there for them and working closely with our colleagues across the state and with our friends in the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services so you just heard from miss Lambert a few minutes ago about some of those programs that they've instituted from the AG commissioner's office and we work very very closely I know Shawn and I have been on the phone with each other several times almost every day here lately exchanging information so we appreciate the opportunity to work closely with them we are continuing to work with the public by offering we've already set up within the first week of this situation unfolding at least 15 live webinars or on-demand programs from an educational standpoint and those are being centered around issues that are starting to spring up anywhere from food safety to all the way to you how to vaccinate your horse and and working within community gardens and staying safe everything in pleased with our 4-h use education and we just heard from Curt branding about the formal side of Education and half Pasco County school district is doing an excellent job of keeping those kids fed and educate our job is to help engage on the back side and an informal sense so we are working very closely with those 4-h youth all across the county to educational opportunities and also to them active and engaged and doing so safely he also responding pretty much daily to demands and requests coming from the public into our offices we are working with constituents on social media we have set up a virtual plant clinic that will go live on Monday being staffed by Extension agents and other parts of our team as well as Master Gardener volunteers that are all continuing to even work to help with all sorts of issues that homeowners and even some of our commercial entities are facing at this time so our consultation abilities to bring fact-based information are still very much in play and we welcome the opportunity to work with the public our one shop in Dade City it's located in Tomi town we have very close partnerships there folks with Sun Rise domestic services high schoo Economic Development Council we're working very closely to them to continue any of those operations that they've been operating out of our one-stop shop so that we continue to serve the citizens of the community our

community gardens that are spread out across our County are still open those are deemed essential because those are providing food you do have more in development and my program assistants are continuing their work at developing those community we're finding more and more people that are turning to community gardens for a source of fresh produce this is getting a sense of security and also helping them to stay engaged without socially distancing we won't physically instancing for CDC guidelines but also being socially engaged was just helpful you know health aspect so I do want to reiterate what miss Lambert said earlier about produce either coming after Indy Gardens certainly coming from our commercial producers Pasco County and the rest of Florida as being safe it's all about using those very basic processing techniques we should all be practicing at home even in normal typical times of washing our produce and preparing it safely if anybody from the public has questions about this they're welcome to call us we do have a family consumer science agent it works very closely in food safety and of course several of us that work in horticulture in a commercial standpoint we are very lucky to be partnered closely with FDX statewide through the University of Florida and F Dax to continuing offering pesticides and green industry best management practices trainings online and continuing to offer those fertilizer licenses and pesticide licenses and continuing education units to ensure folks stay employed within the green industry you know from the executive order that these folks are deemed essential and so if Dax has granted some extensions on those pesticide license is to ensure folks are continuing to work and doing so safely another thing that we are I'm working with Shar Lambert on is the development of a webinar hopefully very soon with opportunity and the Small Business Association to help especially our agriculture industries and cottage industries navigate the loan application processes for the bridge London and also for the Small Business Association disaster loans we understand that there are a lot of nuances each of those and we're still working closely with those associations to deem who's eligible and how best to help them work through those applications so university of florida through our website and that you see here online is pumping out information constantly about how to stay safe with Kovac 19 updates lots of safety information and we will continue to work with Pasco County government all of our different departments as well as our statewide colleagues and Department of Agriculture to continue offering services and being there or extension agents these are we are your Extension agent we are here to help in any way possible with fact-based reach research-based information from the University and again Thank You Commissioner Stark you for allowing me to have a few moments but also to our team across this County and definitely

our frontline workers working in food services at healthcare folks and first Saunders for doing what you do thank you thank you very much Whitney that was wonderful now we're gonna turn to martha has very important information for constituents good morning Marci thanks for joining us good morning commissioner and thank you so much for inviting me to be a part of this very important town-hall meeting and to get this information out to the citizens of Pasco County I echo what all the panelists have said these are unprecedented times and when government has to turn on the dime to make sure they're serving the citizens in a safe and and well manner and make sure that we get information out it it has been just an honor to work with my colleagues and all the people in Pasco County because we really are working over and above to deliver excellent information and services so community development is here to work with the citizens of Pasco County specifically in initiatives including homelessness affordable housing neighborhood revitalization and community partnerships and so one of the key areas that we work in is helping low and moderate income households to become homeowners because we've all learned over the years that homeownership is one of the key factors and stabilizing our community and building well so we have over fourteen hundred people in our community that are in the process that have bought homes or benef had homes renovated they are part of our owner-occupied households that we have assisted and they are in the process of paying mortgages back to the county so the very first thing that we have done is we're offering a 90 day deferral of payments to these mortgages to the clientele that we've served and on your screen now is the link where you can fill out that deferral request because we know that so many in our community especially those of low and moderate income I've been hit very hard through the at 19 and have lost their income so we are going through June 30th in a deferral of payments for or those active loads in addition we're you know commissioner and several people have mentioned the emergency solutions grant we do have money available from previous years and so as of I believe it'll be April 21st 22nd somewhere towards the end of April we are working to deliver short term rental assistance with the emergency solutions grant so this is really to prevent homelessness so if you are house now and you are renting we want to make sure that that's where you stay and you stay safe where you're living so these funds will be available through one of our community partners and that's the Coalition for the homeless of Pasco County and it's going to be for people who earn less than 30 percent or below the median income and don't be discouraged when you see the chart with the numbers below and so it's divided by your household side sides because if you've lost your job then you've lost your income so so we will be

working with the coalition to get Oh probably over $70,000 out to the community to help people pay their rent during this time next we have additional funding coming through the cares Act and this was mentioned a little bit earlier the county has been awarded for the Community Development Block Grant over and above the money that we usually get as an entitlement community 1.7 million dollars and again this emergency solutions grant where we normally get two hundred thousand dollars we're getting an additional eight hundred and thirty four thousand dollars and my understanding is this is just the first round that there might be another two one or two rounds of these funds coming through we're not quite sure how this is going to be rolled out and how it's going to be used but rest assured we have our teams working with national associations and with our HUD regional offices to get the information as quickly as possible and to to apply for whatever waivers or things that we need to do in order to work with our community partners and get this money out to the people who need it one of the things that you will see coming through this office that we have not done before is probably some more economic development working especially with our small businesses our micro enterprises they're going to be and they have been already particularly hit during this time so we'll be working to see how we can deploy some of these funds to the businesses that would need it so that when it comes time to reopen they will have the wherewithal to with open and then lastly we've talked a lot about home ownership and rentals and people staying safe in their homes but we do have people in our community our homeless neighbors who in sheltering in place for them is in a tent or out in the woods and we're very concerned that they have lost many of the resources that they would never usually use for their everyday hygiene whether it's going to the bathroom at at Burger King or McDonald's or taking showers at some of the places that have offered showers all those things have been closed due to safety reasons and so we are in the process now of working with some community partners to establish comfort stations certainly up and down 19 but perhaps also with other parts of the county and we'll be trying to deploy portable bathrooms and hand sanitizing and washing statements or our homeless neighbors to make sure that we're asking everybody to shelter-in-place them to stay safe at home that even our homeless neighbors will have the access to the amenities of health and hygiene that those of us who are housed whether we're owning or renting have as well so together we're working and using these resources to deploy to all of the citizens and those that need it at Pasco County and although our office is running out of limited capacity everybody is here to answer phone calls whether it be remotely or emails and please feel free to contact us if there is other information or services that we

could give you thank you that was that was great Marci thank you and I can see we have so much information that running over 11:30 so I'm going to ask all my speakers if you have to leave right away to get that information to Danny because we have some really great questions and I will throw those to you first next we have Rosemarie from our transportation public public transportation good morning can you hear me I can oh great wonderful thank you so much for having us here Pasco County wanted to give an update on what we're doing for the coronavirus and what we have established on March 19 we went to free fares we understood that many people were facing financial hardship as a result of the corona virus many losing their jobs and/or being laid off due to social distancing and closing up facility we also limited the number of riders on each bus and we're asking customers that could enter through the back door when possible with wanting to stay with the order of social distancing our busy route such as us 19 we wanted to add more buses to that route to encourage social distancing and more frequent availability we temporarily suspended our yet let's utilize drought and increased buses on us 19 in other corridors like 54 and 301 so we could have less bus riders on each bus and continue to have a good flow of traffic we increased our daily sanitizing of each bus we do clean our buses nightly however since this virus we are using anti virus killing disinfectant we have hired several temporary staff to assist with disinfecting all buses every night we are also disinfecting and spraying our shelters as often as we can we've also created a dispatch line for information it's option 3 on our phone people can call with information on 6 service route changes or any other questions regarding changes in the near future at this time we feel the steps that we have taken have worked and we do not foresee at this time making any other changes to route we feel that people need to utilize our services especially on 19 and something the busiest routes to get to places that are our potential such as people working at public health in the food industry and of course health care alright thank you that that is a great update on what with our public transportation I'm now gonna move to Rene Brown our natural resources manager with Parks and Recreation good morning Rene good morning commissioner thank you for the opportunity to discuss parks recreation resources so we are reviewing possible recreational offerings in accordance with executive order 20 91 particularly section three that participating in recreational activities is an essential activity provided they are consistent with social distancing guidelines a social gathering public space is not an essential activity and the fixture local jurisdictions shall ensure that groups of people greater than 10 are not permitted any public space

[Music] next slide please okay you got to ensure thank you to ensure that we are following the direction from executive order we have closed parks and preserves when people congregating in groups of ten or more could not be reasonably enforced so we had some parks that were open that had to be closed because of this and that followed that as well and even after the executive order state parks remain closed so our County are all day use areas all playground creational complexes all sports fields all swimming pools in public beaches and all pavilions boat ramps that provide access to the Gulf of Mexico and to freshwater lakes and trails and I'll provide more information on on those and just so our general recommendations for recreation of course to the recommendations of social distancing by maintaining that six-foot distance and by avoiding gatherings of 10 or more avoid yes if you arrive at a space and it is crowded and you enjoy it safely please return home or find a less crowded area and you may return less crowded time you're sick or if you've been exposed to someone who is sick and minor your own neighborhood may be the safest place to exercise outdoors right now because you don't get there and you can easily keep your distance depending on you says you may be able to walk jog and bike your neighborhood streets so just those areas are being overlooked as nice as it might be to gather neighborhood friends for an outdoor workout now is a better time to work out a loan and work out with others in your household but please social distancing guidelines at all times we also request that people be kind and patient with park employees as everyone is doing their best to ramps and these select trails open for recreation sometimes stop feeling what's kind of the brunt of freshman derstand but they're on the front lines too and so we ask for kindness and patience as we try to keep these areas open while adhering to the CD see guidelines and the executive order so some specifics boat ramps are open at Anclote river park and a strict Oriole Park these provide boat access to the Gulf of Mexico you also have moon boat ramp which is a freshwater lake in New Port Richey and middle kids on the east side it the address City it's it's really northwest of Dade City itself that permit or access to a lake on the east side and just this reopened Eagle Point Park for canoe and kayak access to the Gulf of Mexico so please keep in mind that these parks remain closed we've just opened the boat ramps so with bathrooms are closed and the other Park amenities are closed but the boat ramps are open so some specific guidance at boat ramps please plan to efficiently load and unload your boat at the ramps so we can minimize it and keep things flowing efficiently please adhere to the CDC guidelines at all times and maintain that six foot distance and avoid gathering 10 or more please wait in your vehicles until it's your turn to unload

your boat so we can avoid people gathering and please do not congregate in parking lots or at pavilions they're really for boat trailer and boat rep use only and not for a public gathering space the bathroom there so please plan accordingly and when leaving the prep area please be cautious and patient to accommodate incoming traffic that may be using the same roads as some other park roads may be closed [Music] additionally the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has issued some boating recreational vessel Kippen see is limited to no more than 10 persons per vessel and a minimum of 50 feet between recreational vessels and any other vessel shall be maintained but this disk does not apply to permitted mooring fields marinas or other permanently installed wet slips and does not apply to vessels under way so you can certainly pass other vessels but don't touch a raft or more your vessel to another vessel for trails the South Coast Trail is open it is a paved multi-use trail suitable for such uses as biking walking and rollerblading it is 42 miles of length across three counties and two miles of that is in Pasco County so that is a trip that's open there also may be some local trails in your area including the start or trail which is open and the Starkey gab trail and this connect Starkey Boulevard trail to the panellist and I checked this morning the Pinellas Trail as of this morning was still open so for the Suncoast trail please remember it is a multi-use trail for everyone's use please be courteous users including people less familiar with the trail we may have people out there that haven't used the trail before or less from the being and so on so please be courteous to those other users biker or posted speed limits and in heavy use areas please slow down you don't want anyone hurt in this time for your safety and health please avoid biking impacts please also note that the water stations are not available so plan ahead and bring your own water trails generally of course please adhere to the guidelines and maintain a six-foot distance between people out of your families and avoid gathering in groups do not congregate in the parking lots or pavilions and please be courteous to other users and if a trail should be busy again it's fine a less crowded section of the trail or return at a time when it's less crowded please also avoid parking illegally this graphic is from the National Recreation and Park Association and has some useful reminders do not use parks or trails of here exhibiting symptoms follow the guidelines on personal hygiene prior to visiting parks or trails be prepared access to public restrooms or water fountains share and warn other users of your presence and as you pass it's probably time to assume you have less experience than you do so please keep that in mind as you're using the trail and then of course these observe the minimum recommended physical distance of 6 feet from other people so what's next after reviewing the

governor's executive stay and homework considering other recreational opportunities where social distancing can't effectively forest and we will inform the public as soon as possible to provide updates clarifying withstanding issues please monitor our websites our website and social media feeds for updates and also before you head out it's it's wise to ready for the latest information if you plan to visit a park or trail managed by another jurisdiction please also check their website and social media feeds so that you have a list information before you get here thank you very much next date City and SEP 4 Hills that's a very nice trail and also over in the West Chapel area the new State Road 56 Trail I don't think we've given it a name yet but that is a beautiful trail that goes along the new extension of State Road 56 and also I read this morning that Swift mud managed properties are open for hiking so you can check on the Swift mud site for those properties that are in our County where you can access ok lastly we have Adam Thomas who's going to give us a very quick update on our tourism efforts here in the county Thank You Commissioner Starkey and thank you for the invitation of me being here I represented the definition and/or the sports ghost though I wish had some great news but I do have some some positive news on the back end of this that are forecast for 2020 at the national level through tourism economics that we see we're seeing that the supply is down 15% that's meaning that that hotels are closing lodging establishments are closing around the country and we just had our our first closure I'm in Dade City with the with the Hampton Inn in danger we're starting to see that effect our jobs our lodging establishments here the demand is down across the country for lodging at 52% occupancy down across the country for the u.s. outlook is around 53% we can see that 80 are at par is down as well and what that means for for Pasco captain II do two coded 19 and the pandemic we're seeing our events and our group meetings cancelled or postponed so currently for the month of March and into into April and now into May we've lost eight events which generates around 7,500 room nights that provides around $200,000 in local tax generation and really Spurs around five point five million dollars of business sales during during this gloss we're losing about six million dollars of economic impact which supports around 2,300 jobs or for Pasco County residents that truly means for Pasco County is that in 2019 tourism generated around 650 million dollars of economic impact while visitors while over a million visitors coming to Pasco County spent over 462 million dollars at the end of the day the tax savings for Pasco County residents in 2019 generated three hundred and ten dollars per household for Pasco County residents this number supports around seven to eight hundred jobs for Pasco so we're going to see as this continued this pandemic continued continues to affect the the the residents of passcode

tourism is being greatly affected as well the brigade sadness is that we are still booking events for 2021 the forecasts from tourism economics for 2021 is going to be an all-time high for demand at 82% we are very apt climb 63 we're gonna see our climb to 5% and again our red part climbing up to 65% and those are protected or the the for 2021 lodging so there is a there is a brighter side to to what is going on right now we're seeing a lot of losses but the future is bright for Pasco County the tourism industry and our and our hotel partners currently we know that the the stay at home order is in effect but I would love to direct those that are staying home that are not going out to eat there is takeout and delivery options page on our website which you see here at flora sports coast calm back takeout - delivery - options and that has a list of all of our restaurants locally that are providing meals for takeout or delivery currently we have stopped all of our marketing efforts and we're using our social media to really highlight the destination either on Facebook Twitter or Instagram we're doing live drone shots at some of the locations Renae mentioned we're doing virtual tours for for attractions that you still keep that top of mind awareness open for our our destination and you can follow us online at on social media at FL sports goes and if you're about on our trails if you're if you're out in your boat boating the 27 miles of coastline that surrounds pass I'll take a picture on your social media Tagus engage with us so we can reshare it love to hear from from our residents that are still out and about and exploring the great natural resources that that that we so we we thank you so much for your leadership with you to our partners who are at our hotels that are partnering County Emergency Management in providing lodging for medical professionals coming in from the CDC and the first mikkel they're also providing space for non symptomatic patients to free a possible space at our local hospital so we can't thank the or our hotel partners enough for providing those accommodations we still have a wire grass Ranch sports campus still on pace for finalizing construction July this year so you're looking for that to open up so thank you very much for allowing us to be here that's so boring and exciting I guess okay so I'm gonna get to questions really fast and I'm gonna throw the first one at summer summer tell us very quickly about part-time workers full and part-time employees and again that's whatever they're eligible for through the state of up to $250 per week plus an additional $600 a week provided through pandemic unemployment insurance through the federal government thank you okay great that was an important question I'm Kurt you got two questions one was about the kids in the car do you want to answer that that one kids in the car it is oh I texted that one too so when you go to

pick up food you need I believe the children need to be in the car yes ma'am that the the flora Department agriculture has released or relaxed some of those rules but it also requires some proof of identification of those kids that the parents have to have a passport birth certificate that kind of stuff what Pascoe's decided to do is stay with a this the same procedure that we're using now and that is you need to have the kids present I just don't think that we want to put the parents to the the hassle I say hassle of trying to find the student's birth certificates or other proof of who they belong to and not only that but we're feeding so many kids we just want to make sure we get the meals in the hands of our kids that said what we've done is we've changed our procedures it's now it's all been drive-through but instead of putting you know things through windows we're asking we will be asking the draw the drivers to pop the trunks we'll be putting the meals in the trunk and having no contact with the families at all this you'll mean address separate the the second question was asked about why are principals school administrators custodial staff required to be physically in schools they are not as I said in my previous comments is that when the executive order went into effect last night at midnight yesterday I ordered all schools to be closed and that principals would work from home that is why I'm asking parents if they need devices if they have school related business that needs to be conducted they need to call the school number are my hope is and I believe that's the case is that number has been forwarded to this to a school official and principal or administrator they will make arrangements to get the device to the kids on a Tuesday we've set some time aside on Tuesdays the schools will be able to transact that that business because we do know that parents are still finding out that we have devices available and we're trying to minimize the amount of impact that we have on our staff the last part of the question was about reducing the cost for lighting and air conditioning absolutely we did that yesterday when schools are not in session we've reduced the hours certainly the lights are not on but the air conditioner conditioning is being reduced we keep some air conditioning on just because we live in Florida and don't want to have our assets become moldy and mildewed so I hope that's answered the question awesome cat they got a question on Animal Services sure let me give you an update on the Animal Services so yes they are up and running limited staff we have had to ask all our volunteers are hundreds of volunteers and we're so sad about that just because of the social distancing but our shelters are I think the last camp and we were under sixty animals so it's a great time to adopt an animal you got lots of time to be at home to to bond with that animal so thank you for those who have done

that we are asking they're working on an online system right now for appointments so we can limit the number of people but if you do come in we will more than be welcome to so we are open and thank you all okay I did want to mention that we do have a 45-day moratorium on in diction's and foreclosures in the county and then I have a question for Shara and a question for Whitney Whitney I have question on you pigs in the county I know we have blueberry it's blueberry season I think we have peaches people are asking if you place will be open yes ma'am you pigs are open at some of the good news Cove in 19 it's not known to be a foodborne illness at this time but there are some best practices for those you pick owners employees should be using gloves when handling money we're asking that they try to limit the transfer of cash using hand sanitizer keeping their surfaces clean we're asking that they communicate very closely with customers so that anybody that's exhibiting symptoms feeling sick we're asking those you pick owners to display on social media signs flyers to ask those folks not to come but they're communicating with employees also not to come if they are exposed or having symptoms the farm should be using hand-washing stations hand sanitizers should be available to guests so that when they've coming onto the property and when they're leaving the property they are sanitizing their hands using gloves disinfecting surfaces bins buckets railings doorknobs and certainly practicing social distancing I'm at least six feet but also trying to limit the amount of people that are on site at any given time two to ten or under but it's a great time to get out with the family actually get outside and also be supporting local businesses so youpix are open for business thank you and Danny I don't have the exact question on the private horse facilities what is the question on that one for Shara we got a question if if people could still go to their horse private horse Barnes I think four lessons is that correct so there are many private horse stables in Pasco County you want to read that into the night there are many private horse stations and horse stables in Pasco County can other than the barn staff those who clean stalls feed and turn horses in and out come to these places for riding lessons volunteering grooming etc thanks for missionary yet this is a kind of great area the one thing specifically to note is that under the Department of Homeland Security and even with the governor's newly issued stay at home order that all AG essential industries all AG industries are deemed essential the peace with the horse grooming and the stables yes as stated you can't have your workers come in for feed cleaning stalls turning horses etc the component that's going to be kind of a case-by-case is the portion of the riding lessons as you know the governor stated that you'd still be able to do your exercises where some people say

that their riding lessons are parts of their exercises you'll be able to do it but still keeping within the social distancing and the CDC guidelines of Health in terms of volunteering and grooming the grooming can work as long as it's to the betterment and stability and health of the animals the volunteering almost similar to what Miss Kathy Pierson stated in terms of the the volunteers being able to come in and out that would be on the social distancing okay someone's getting a phone call Adam I've got a question for you actually on some of our tourism sites for example tree hoppers and our folks who rent kayaks and canoes are they allowed to do is that open and are they allowed to rent kayaks and good news at this time those businesses are still open yes ma'am I would have to check tree hoppers but I do know Wendy long men with Windsong charters you're still written ix canoes and boat rentals and I'm sure they're following the CDC guidelines for sanitizing them commissioner can i chime in on the tree hoppers yes unfortunately for that it is claimed agritourism and so that necessarily will not be opened okay well there's already that's on that one okay and we all some of us got a scare yesterday a fake news piece is going around saying that the FWC closed boating but that is fake okay that gave a lot of people heart attacks that is a not that is not true news also there was a fake news going around that because of technical issues that distance-learning have been shut down that is fake news our kids are still learning don't believe anything you read almost anything some of these things if it seems not to be true I can't be true then it probably isn't you need to verify it but at this point distance learning is taking place in Pasco schools wonderful okay so I've been asked to remind you a great place to get information from the county art is the avenues you have through social media we have a my Pasco app we have a Twitter which I don't remember what that is what's the Twitter is at Pasco County Pio at Pasco County Pio is our Twitter feed again you can email me we push out a newsletter every day and filled with all kinds of information you can go to the county website sign up for notify me get on our Twitter feed and again we will have all the information from today available for anyone who wants to get it just email us there are more questions we'll get those out to the parties who participated and they will respond and we hope you stay safe stay healthy and we will get through this it's certainly a challenging time for all of us um but there will be an end to it and we'll be able to get back out and enjoy our beautiful County as we used to so thank you to everybody again this is on YouTube and Facebook and you can share it with your friends with the people in your community to get this important information out so thank you very much [Music] you