7.15.25 Pasco Board of County Commissioners Meeting

[Music]

hey [Music] Hey, hey, hey. [Music]

Hey, [Music] hey, hey. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music]

A heat. to the afternoon session of the board of county commissioners. 's meeting for July. What's our date? 20 14 15

2025. So, we had some unfinished business from this morning uh which we are going to take up first. Um so, uh let's get on to our um I don't remember the number C6. Yes.

Sorry, I just pulled it all out.

Good afternoon. Carrie Roberts, purchasing director. We are here to discuss a bid award protest. It is IFBB KM25029 ongoing and as needed guardrail handrail installation and materials. So we opened the bid on the sec 25th of February. We received three bids. One from C Slater Construction, one from grading bush hog services and one from southeast highway guardrail and attenuators. We received a memo of a recommendation of award from public works to award to two vendors, grading Bush Hog Services and Southeast Highway Guard Rails. We received a protest on the 19th of March from Southeast. We denied that protest through the county administrator's office. There was additional information requested by Southeast and then we denied it on the 4th of I'm sorry, the 22nd of April. The basis for the protest from Southeast is that they do not feel South S excuse me slated grading Bush hog and hog services should be eligible because they did not bid on all items. Our response was that the bid clearly states that we can award to more than one vendor if found to be in our best interest. It also states that we reserve the right to reject any or all bids in whole or in part to award by any item, groups of items, total bid or accept the bid that is most advantageous and in the best interest of the county. We denied the protest on the 22nd of April and as a result the protesters asked to come before you all. Our recommendation is that you uphold the decision by the county administrator to deny the protest and to award the contract to both Grading and Southeast. That is the purchasing side. We have um Southeast is here and they'd like to give a presentation as well.

Okay,

Carrie, have you set up time frames?

I'm sorry.

Time frames.

10 minutes, sir.

And are both sides going to take 10 minutes?

No, ma'am. Grading Bush Hog did not come today. The the protest is not of their award to them as a company. It's our procedures. So, they did not feel it was necessary for them to come.

Okay. Thank you very much. Good morning. Afternoon.

Good afternoon. Um, my name is Elizabeth Vandenberg and I represent Southeast Highway Guard Rail and Attenuators LLC. I'm here today with Ilana Angel who is the estimating and contracts administrator for Southeast Highway. Um, she actually puts together the bids, so she has the best knowledge of that process, much more than I do. Um, we're here today actually about protecting the integrity of Pasco County's um, procurement process. And by that specifically, we mean all of the vendors need to be on an even playing field. They need to start from the same position. And the problem that arose with um this bid in particular was that no one was notified which items in the bid form were mandatory and which items were optional. So it created a situation where the other two vendors chose no bids on eight items and my client bid on those eight items. And because of that, bidding on those items rather than a no bid, which is a zero entry in the calculus, created um their bid tabulation um that was $60,000 higher than it would would have been had they entered no bid on all of those items like the other two competitors did. And so when it came to I'm sorry, I'm supposed to be going through this. Um, so what we're what we're disputing today is not really the dual award. We knew going in it could be awarded to more than one vendor and we're completely fine with that. It was how the calculation was um tabulated. So my client currently holds the contract for the county for guard rail. They've held it for the past three years. um they noticed that this year, unlike the last bid form they submitted, there were um I believe eight additional items added to the bottom of the bid form that were not there in previous years. And so again, for the procurement process to be fair and equitable, all of the parties need to be on a flat field. If one party is starting higher or lower, it's not equitable. And my clients, by not entering no bids for those items that the other two vendors entered no bids for, was actually placed at a disadvantage, strangely, even though arguably their bid was more responsive than the other two competitors who entered no bid amounts. And what resulted by virtue of them going through the form and and entering a bid for every line item was that their bid actually turned out more whereas the parties that refused to answer on several items ended up with lesser bids. So here's the bid form that I completed and she can um explain to you a little bit about um these items that were added to the bottom. The uh items uh that we decided to uh bid on are a materials only. Um we did not know that it was optional. Uh when you bid as a prime contractor, you um are supposed to bid on all items. If you do not have experience or can't do it for some reason, you will uh send um request for code to SOPS and that's uh what they um that um file is for. If you

send it out to so they uh can choose whether bid to bid or not bid on the items in the scope of work, they can. So um that's that's why we uh beat on all of them. we uh wanted to um beat as a prime contractor and uh it was not specified that it was optional. So you'll see um as comparing these three vendors, Grading and Bush Services, Southeast is there in the middle in the white column and um I think it's CL Sea Slater Construction Inc. is in the rightmost blue column. And you'll see that um Grading the Bush Hog and Steve Slater did not enter bids for those last eight items. Whereas my client, Southeast Highway, believing that they had to or their form wouldn't be accepted um bid partic in particular on item 38 $60,000. So, all things being created equal, because the other two vendors entered no bids for those items, my client's bid for that particular item, which is handrail, should have been zeroed out or not counted because what resulted was in the bid tabulations, my client's bid came out $60,000 higher than it would have been had they entered no bid. So, while we agree and acknowledge that the bid instructions did say that you could enter no bid on items, it was never specified which items those were. And the county um administrator has taken the position in his response to us that the form wouldn't have been accepted had we failed to bid on required items. But that would mean a scenario where trial and error. You leave some items blank. It's not accepted. You add them back in. It is accepted. But then you've submitted something that you don't necessarily feel is your full balanced bid. So there needed to be clearer instructions. There needed to be items earmarked mandatory versus optional. and my client shouldn't have been penalized by $60,000 for bidding on something that did not have to be bid on at all. So again, this was a um end result that my client ended up with an unbalanced bid by including the handrail when nobody else did. It was a game of chance, picking and choosing which items to bid on, which items not to bid on. it it amounted to a rigged game at the end of the day. And I know how much this county prides itself in integrity. And in this instance, the integrity of the process was undermined by the fact that the instructions were not clear. So, in the end calculus on all those items at the bottom in which the other two vendors entered no bids, you'll see that because my client put that 60,000 in there, their total tabulation came out to 265 67625. Without that 60,000, had they entered no bid and had a zero in that column, their bid would have been 205,67625, making them by far the lowest bid. We also believe, but I cannot confirm because I did not ask um the purchasing office or the administrator about this, but it appears to us that the reason it was dual awarded is because those two um first lowest bids were only $4,427 different. And so here it certainly

could make logical sense to dual award. But if you do correct math and not count that 60,000 that my client bid on when it's two competitors didn't, their bid would have been $25,000, which would have amounted to savings to the county. And when you're having to answer to taxpayers about where the money is going, I'm sure you would like to be able to represent to them, we accepted the lowest bid, and in this case, you didn't accept the lowest bid because my client's bid was artificially inflated by this nonrequired item. So, these are the numbers. had that item been um conveyed to the biders that it was not required. And clearly my client's bid would have been by far the lowest without that item had they entered a no bid like grading bush hog did.

How long has it been? You got time. They got a time.

So the potential unrealized savings based upon this dual award is 57,789. That is the difference between the average of the two awardee vendors bids minus Southeast Highway's bid without handrail. And again, you know, we're here today about maintaining the integrity of the process. Broward County recently did away with this the same or a similar bid form that included those optional items. they no longer have those items on the bid form because they realize they do not need to be on the bid form. They're not mandatory items and they're not used that much in the field. Um, Pasco County has an opportunity here to maintain the integrity of its public contracts process by either rebidding this contract or readding it up. All we're saying is that $60,000 should not have been used in the bid tabulation.

Thank you for your time.

That's your time.

Oh, that's your time. Okay. Um, commissioners, do you have questions? I have

Madam Chair.

Yeah.

I know sometimes we've had different things where we kept other bids in place, picking some items, etc. Guard rail seems a little bit simpler to me, but if the bid was 57,000 without those items, it would have been hands down one by that uh by this company. So I I I find it a big gap.

Well, you know that we so we went with two companies this time. So they they did win. I mean that we're we have two companies that are getting a contract. So that's where I'm I'm a little you know even if without that they still would have been they would okay they would have been number two but we still have two companies now.

Yes ma'am. The intent was always to award to multiple vendors in this case because we do have an abundance of work in this area and this will allow the public works department the flexibility of having more than one vendor available to them. Each individual project will be quoted out based on the the actual items to be used on that project. So if it's a matter of cost savings, they'll look and see vendor A bid. If you add up their bid, it's 35,000. If you add up theirs, it's 37,000. All being the same, we would go to the lowest one for that quote. But the prices do have to match what they submitted in their bid.

So on the handrails, do we do that very often? The handrails,

that part, I don't know, ma'am.

All right. Um, so if someone bid no bid.

Yes, ma'am.

Let's say you have a job and you put it out to the contractors and someone didn't bid on a handrail. Is that what that was? A hand.

Yes, ma'am. In this case, since they are the only one that bid on that last item that they showed there, we would automatically have to use them for that item.

Well, then you're going to get the job that has the you're getting all the jobs that have the handrails. So, what what's the problem?

Our our point is just that the playing field wasn't even. It wasn't an applesto apples comparison.

I'm not a lawyer,

but you had the same instructions that they had. And if you if there's a job with a handrail, you're getting the work because they didn't bid on it. So, I think you're good.

Okay. I I I would just say we've held the contract for the past three years and I don't think we've ever turned down a job or been unavailable for a job. So I don't really understand the explanation that we need two vendors for availability purposes when we've never shown you all that we can't fulfill our needs or your needs under the contract.

Okay. Well, we have a county employee stepping up, Mr. Barrett Doe, and then Commissioner Wakeman has a question.

Yes. Good morning, uh, Chair. Good morning, commissioners. uh Barrett Doe, assistant director, public works department over operations and technical services. Uh it's kind of a mix and match. Um if we have to repair a guardrail, it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a handrail associated with that. It just depends on the situation. If that helps kind of clear it up. So we use the different line items for whatever comes our way. If that happens,

there's a busted guardrail on Mary Jane.

We will check it out.

Needs to be fixed.

They put in a work already.

All right. Good. Um Commissioner Waitman.

Thank you, Chair. Just something noticed. So twothirds of the vendors in this procurement no bid were you bid. So obviously I mean did you ask the question? Do we bid them all? Do we not bid them all? Um but obviously it tells me twothirds of the participants, you know, had an idea of what to bid and what not to bid. I don't know why Southeast uh chose to fill out the line items the way that we did or y'all did, but um two of the three had a idea of of how to fill out its price sheet.

Well, we haven't really been in that situation when uh you beat as a prime contractor and you can choose when what you want to.

You ask the questions during the bid process and get an answer and an addendum. Uh, yes. But that's the thing. If it was added by the county, we just assume that it was needed for us to perform.

There you go.

Can you go back to the instructions?

If it if it wasn't needed to um it it wasn't if it if it wasn't needed, maybe the county wouldn't have to uh just add it to the pay items. So,

it says right here though, if you if you decide to bid on an item, it doesn't say you are required to bid on an item. That's why I'm getting hungry. Yes, but the thing is when you bid as a prime, you are supposed to bid on everything. Otherwise, the county if uh needs to go and uh perform the uh the the job on on a on an item that is not bid by their contractor, they have to incur an um more um work and more taxpayer dollars to get a company to do that. So a prime contractor is supposed to cover all as opposed to just what is convenient for them.

Madam chairman, if I could ask the board to finish your questions of the protester,

then ask any questions of staff.

That's it for me. Any other questions from anybody? Okay. Um, thank you very much staff.

Yes, ma'am. We have included on the first page of our page of our specification documents that we reserve the right to award the lowest responsible responsible vendor by line item and then we also put directly below that that we have the intent to award to multiple vendors. So that's very clear in our documents.

Okay. I'm looking to my board for direction based on that information. I'll uphold support staff's recommendation. Um,

I'll second it.

You'll uphold the administrator's determination.

Chief administrator determination.

Okay.

Okay. All in favor?

I opposed.

All right. Now, we are on to our afternoon agenda. Thank you very much, ladies.

Um, P70. Madame Chairman, members of the board, we approve the publication of the hearing of this matter in previous meetings on May 7th, May 14th, May 21st, and May 28th of 2025 for at the last meeting on June 3rd. It was continued to today. Nectarus PTO's playing development economic growth department. Item P70 is PD250166. This is an ordinance uh regarding the Two Rivers East Community Development District. We are requesting a continuence to the August 5 Port of County Commissioners meeting at 1:30 p.m. in Date City.

Take a motion.

Move to continue time.

Second.

All in favor? I

I

P71. 71 here again similar dates previous uh previously published May 7th, May 14th, May 21st and May 28th and the Tampa Bay Times continued from the June 3rd meeting to today.

Move to continue time.

Second.

All in favor? I

I

B72.

B72 again uh May 7th, May 14th, May 21st, May 28th, 2025 in the Tampa Bay Times. published. It was continued from the June 3rd meeting to today.

Move to continue. Time certain.

Second.

All in favor?

I

opposed. Thank you. P73.

We approve publication in the Tampa Bay Times May 21st, 2025, supplemented by an affidavit of certified mailings and site postings.

Item P73 is uh PTE number 250092. This is an ordinance amending the Pasco County comprehensive plan providing for a small scale comprehensive plan amendment to to the future land use map 2-15 and sheet 23 from res 29 residential nine dwelling units per gross acre to Palm commercial and OAF office on approximately 5.78 acres of real property located on the north side of pure waterway formerly known as state road 54 approximately 680 ft east of Allen Road and providing for additional text amendments as necessary for internal consist consistency providing for a repeal or severability and an effective date. This comes with a recommendation to adopt the proposed governance of plan amendment and ordinance by roll call vote. And there's a presentation if so desired.

Chair, I have a question.

Commissioner W.

Uh just my typical live local.

Yes, it's in place.

All right. Thank you.

Or will be in place.

There we go.

All right. Board. Uh do you wish for a presentation?

No. No.

Okay. Um let me try this. Is there anyone here who wishes to speak against?

No, it's an ordinance. You need to take any public comment on

If you want to talk to it for or against?

We have no one signed up nor online in advance.

Okay.

Approval.

Second.

All in favor? I

I call Oh, I'm sorry. And I even wrote roll calls. Uh roll call vote.

District one, Commissioner Oakley.

Hi.

District two, Commissioner W. Hi.

District four, Commissioner Jerger.

Hi. District 5, Commissioner Mariano.

I,

District 3, Chairman Stark,

I. P74, also a roll call vote. Maybe I'll remember.

P74, we have proof publication Tampa Bay Times, June 4th, 2025, supplemented by affidavit of certified mailings and site postings. P74 is PD250165. This is an ordinance amending the Pasco County comprehensive plan providing for a comprehensive plan amendment to the future land use map 2-15 and sheet 04 from res one residential dwelling units per gross acre to PD plan development on approximately 19.41 41 acres of real property located at the south side of County Line Road. A text amendment creating sub area policy flu 7174 Pasco Mine PD and a map amendment to the future land use map 2-9 adding sub area map 2-974 Pasco Mine PD and providing for additional text amendments as necessary for internal consistency providing for repeal or servability and an effective date. This comes to you with a recommendation to adopt the proposed comprehensive plan amendment and ordinance by roll call vote. And there's a presentation if so desired.

Board members, do you wish for presentation?

I met with the applicant.

No chair. And we're good on uh the local

the locals there.

Thank you.

And um

or not there.

I think I talked to them about

sidewalks etc. up on County Line Road. Um okay. So, uh, is there anyone here who wishes to speak to P74?

Seeing no one, move approval.

Second.

All in favor?

Roll call.

I was just testing. Yes.

District one, Commissioner Oakley.

I.

District two, Commissioner Wick. Hi.

District four, Commissioner Yates.

Hi.

District five, Commissioner Marian.

Hi.

District three, Chairman Stark.

I. P75.

P75. We have proof of publication in the March 19th, 2025 edition of the Tampa Bay Times where it was continued in the May 6th, 2025 board meeting to May 20th where it was continued to June 17th uh 2025 where it was continued to today.

Item P75 is PD250144. This is the development agreement in the name of Riverstone, formerly known as Rener uh MPUD. That was the name of the development agreement. Um this is a request to continue the item to the August 5, 2025 board of county commissioners meeting at 1:30 p.m. in Date City, though the memo says August 19. The request is made by the applicant with PTE support. um since this is a project in the middle of the county and is not changing anything as it relates to density intensity design land use or anything like that but is just an amendment to a provision of the development agreement.

So you're asking them to continue it to the

date city meeting on August 5th.

Correct.

Move approval for continu.

This was ad was this

it was advertised as a continuance. It was advertised for a different date. I I you can see you can see if there's anybody in the in the audience that wishes to speak to this one.

Yeah. Is there anyone here wishing to speak to this one?

Madam Chair?

Yeah.

I mean to continue it to a different district um even though it's advertised for a different date. I mean I don't know if we want to

Well, we're here in Date City, so we didn't have an issue with

So think it's going to come up to the 19th and now they they show up on the 19th instead of the 5th. You've caused confusion.

Well, there's that. County attorney.

That's completely up to the board. That's

it wouldn't show on August 19. The only way it would show on August 19 is if you continued it from here to August 19th,

but it's advertised continued to August 19.

It it was shown in today in today's agenda that was published online as August.

Right. So, if someone looked at that and they they just thought that, okay, it's going to be continued that day because it always is. Now, it gets shipped two weeks early. Someone may miss that date.

I don't believe that was on the agenda per se. It's on our notes here, but the agenda didn't. It shows a continuation request.

The motion on the the motion on the agenda item shows it for the 19th. Yeah,

I think we should stick to the 19th.

H this is about um their obligations to the road and how many houses have to be completed in time. So

this was a project that was the board was the one that had the issue, not particularly

the neighbors. It was, if you recall, this was the the the sheriff, Mr. Gad, and

I'm okay with the 50.

Okay. All in favor?

I wait, did I get a second?

Second.

I had a motion. He had a second.

Okay. And we

And since we've been debating, it's it's moved to continue to August August 5th.

Okay.

At 1:30 or soon thereafter, as same may be here.

Correct.

Okay. Uh P76.

P76. We approve the publication of the hearing of this matter in the May 7th, 2025 edition of the Tampa Bay Times.

Item P76 is PDE250202. This is a development agreement in the name of Homes by West Bay LLC. The request is to continue the item to the August 5, 2025 Port County Commissioners meeting at 1:30 p.m. in Date City.

Move to continue time.

Second.

All in favor? I

I

P77

for publication March 19th, 2025 edition of the Tampa Bay Times for the May 6th, 2025 board of county commissioners meeting where it was continued to May 20th where it was continued to June 17th where it was continued to today.

Which item you want?

Okay. I I might have misspoke on P70. One's the development agreement, one's the MPU.

Okay.

Yes.

They're both They're both They're both Riverstone rent ren.

Correct.

So, same issue that we have both.

Yeah.

Yes. So, P77 is PD257838. This is a substantial modification to the Riverstone Runner NPU to reflect the same language that would be in the DA. So, no other changes are taking place.

I see. And the request is to continue it also to August 5 at the uh applicants with PTE uh support.

Let's get a motion.

Move to continue.

Second.

All in favor? I

P76.

Miss Madam Chairman.

Oh 78. I can't read like a

madam chairman. Would you like me to read read the procedures?

Thank you.

There are two reasonzoning agendas regular and consent. Staff will present each application to the board of county commissioners. If staff or planning commission has recommended approval and there's no opposition, the application will be considered by the board without further presentation. If staff or planning commission has recommended denial or if there's 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 group representative. And the applicant will be given three minutes for rebuttal. Any individual disagreeing with staff or planning commission recommendation or anyone wishing to object to any condition of the resoning 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 resoning 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 for reasonzoning. Uh Mr. Clerk, would you like to swear the public in?

At this time, we'd like to ask anyone who is will and planning on speaking to items P78 through P83. P78 through P83. If you intend to speak to these items, please raise your right hand. Do you swear or affirm the testimony you will give in these matters is the truth. So help you God.

Thank you. You may be seated. When you come to the podium to speak, for the record, please indicate whether you have been sworn that you just accepted and state your name and address. Please spell your last name if necessary. We appreciate it. Thank you. So for P78, this was published in the April 30th, 2025 edition of the Tampa Bay Times, supplemented by certified mailings, an affidavit of certified mailings and site postings for the June 17th, 2025 meeting where it was continued to today. Item P78 is PTE27749. This is a zoning amen amendment in the name of Pasco Mine MPUD master plan unit development by K&M Pasco 130 Holdings LLC. This is a resoning petition from an AC agricultural district to an MPUD master plan unit development to allow for the maximum development of 30,000 ft of commercial retail, 150,000 ft of light industrial and 7 acres for a concrete batch plant and associated infrastructure on approximately 19.41 acres located on the south side of County Lane Road north and 1.25 miles west of Sun Coast Parkway. Um the recommendation, this comes with a recommendation to adopt the MPD reszoning request subject to the conditions of approval. There were uh a series of expartes that were submitted late for all the commissioners. These have been uh given over to the clerk's office. Um and yes, there's a commission of approval that addresses the live local act.

Okay, this board members, do you have any questions?

All right. Um,

do we have anyone in opposition?

Yeah. Uh, do we have anyone in opposition to this? This is on our consent agenda.

Seeing no one, we'll leave it on our consent agenda. P79.

P79. Proof of publication for this matter in the May 7th, 2025 edition of the Tampa Bay Times.

Item P79 is PDE 257851. This is a zoning amendment to the name of Shatsburg MPUD by Ronald J. Shatzburg. It's a resoning request from AC Agricultural to MPUD master plan unit development district to allow for the development of 20 single family detached lots and associated infrastructure and approximately 10.09 acres located in the villages of Pasadena Hills within village F. This comes with a recommendation to adopt the MPD resoning request subject to the conditions of approval of the MPD. Additionally, there were a series of late expart days submitted for all the commissioners and these have been uh given to the clerk's office for the record.

Okay. Um board members, any questions? Is there anyone here to speak against this item?

Anybody online? none online nor um SC or signed in advance.

Okay, we will leave it on consent.

P30 or P80 rather uh approve publication from the Tempe Times June 25th, 2025 supplemented by affidavit of certified mailings and site postings.

Item P80 is PDE257867. This is a zoning amendment in the name of Swami An LLC/Wesley Chapel Professional Center. This is a change in zoning from a P2 professional office district to a C2 general commercial commercial district south central in South Central Pasco County south at the southeast corner of the intersection of Vidian Way and State Road 54 containing approximately 0.94 acre. This comes with the recommendation to adopt the zoning amendment and we have taken provisions to address the live local act in this case as well.

Okay. Board members presentation.

No.

Okay. Um is there anyone here to speak against this?

All right. We'll leave it on consent.

P81. We have proof of publication. Tampa Bay Times, June 25th, 2025 uh 2025 supplemented by affidavit of certified mailings and site posters.

Item P81 is PD257869. This is a zoning amendment in the name of James A and Cheryl L. Pelleter/powerline road reszone. This is a change in zoning from an AC agricultural district and AR agricultural residential district to an AR agricultural residential district in northeast Pasco County on the east side of Powerline Road and approximately 2,300 ft north of Frzy Hill Road containing approximately 9.8 acres. This comes with a recommendation to adopt the zoning amendment.

Okay. Is presentation. Is there anyone here wishing to speak against this item?

Okay, we will leave it on

P82. We have proof of publication Tampa Bay Times May 21st, 2025, but uh supplemented by affidavit of the certified mailings and site postings.

Item P82 is PTE 257878. This is a zoning amendment in the name of 23846 State Road 52 LLC/duty calls. This is a change in zoning from a C2 general commercial district to I1 light industrial park district in central Pasco County on the south side of state 52 approximately 1,274 ft west from Aaron cutoff containing approximately 10.09 acres. This comes with the recommendation to adopt the zoning amendment and there are the local act

and I have a question on this one. So I'm going to pull it off consent.

Yes, ma'am.

All right. I will take a

move approval of the consent agenda remaining.

Second.

All right. All in favor? I opposed.

All right. P82.

Um when I passed by there, it's it's already there. So

what's

this is I believe uh a result of code enforcement actions regarding the zoning on the property.

Okay. And so my question is when I passed by there today, first of all, they have a chain link fence. It's not a and they put the landscaping on the inside of the fence and not on the outside of the fence yet again. So that fence is going to have to go Madame Chairman, Clark Hobby, Hobby and Hobby, PA, 109 North Brush Street, Tampa, Florida. Madame Chair, all good points. We are correcting those as part of the settlement agreement with the county. There'll be new landscaping.

It looks beautiful. I saw it.

Yeah, but the the the old fence that you're seeing is coming out. That's not allowed. And so, we already worked with staff. It's all going to be changed.

Okay.

We're actually doing a sidewalk.

All right. and that the landscaping looks very nice, but I'm overseeing it on the inside of the fence and

Okay.

Okay. Um I'll take a motion.

Move approval on all consent items.

You you already did consent. You're just doing that.

Yeah.

Second.

Okay. All in favor.

Was a separate It's not consent.

It was, but she pulled it off.

Okay.

Did I get a

Excuse me. I lost that part.

Let me go again. Did I get a motion?

Yeah. A motion and a second.

And a sec. All in favor? I

I

Okay. Um

P83 approved publication Tampa Bay Times July 2nd, 2025. Um and supplemented by affidavit of certified mailings and site postings. And we do have one person signed up.

Good afternoon. William Vermillion, Planning Development, Economic Growth. Before I get started on this presentation, a couple items to submit to the clerk's office. Exparte communications as well as proof of the neighborhood meeting with its summary and signin sheet for this project as well as any emails from citizens that I received throughout the duration of the two years. Move

receive file.

Second.

All in favor? Hi. This is PTE 2577738, a zoning amendment, Evans County Line 80D. The location map of the subject site within the north market area at the intersection of Blandon Road and Lake Iola in northeast Pasco County. The current subject site is seeking reszoning from AC agricultural district to MPD master plan unit development to allow for the maximum development of 300 multif family dwelling units to be platted town homes or condos. 100,000 ft of support commercial and 1.5 square ft or 1.5 million square feet of light industrial and approximately 80 acres. This is roughly.3 miles from the I75 interchange. a location map aerial of the subject site, its existing zoning reflecting agricultural, its future land use reflecting employment center. Here is an overall context map to show the subject site's location and relative to the future land use designations that surround the subject site at its interchange of uh of Blandon Road and I75. To the south, there are several pockets of residential nine indicated there by the blue color. The pink color, which is also on the subject site, is employment center. And to the south side of Blandon Road, you have the old mixeduse flu, which is more intense than the current employment center flu on the subject site. Here's the master plan indicating the location of the warehouse distribution industrial office as well as some of the support commercial. It also indicates the required scenic corridor buffer along Lake Iola Road shown in green. There's one variation request with this with proposal from 901611 to not provide an interconnect to the east or to the north. To the east there's a category 1 wetland and non-developable acreage and to the north there exist uh existing single family homes that are more rural in nature and uh any further connection would provide a disturbance to them. So there were some changes uh when this this project initially went to planning commission when PTE the applicant and the citizens reached some agreements that everybody was happy with. Of course the board heard the companion EDA this morning. The MPD conditions will be reflected to update the 30-year time period now before multif family entitlements can be sought by this development. And I know the slide says 20 years. The conditions will be updated to be consistent with the economic development agreement. The rural crosssection being adopted for Lake Iola Road as well as the additional rideway required for that cross-section is now a part of this MPD. It wasn't originally in February. Throughout our subsequent agreements before we received unanimous approval from the planning commission, we incorporated this as

well. Additional buffering to be in compliance with the north northeast rural were added both to the corridor as well as to the buildings and the landscaping to the north. The the MPD owner also um offered to work in good faith with any employment center master plan that's com contemplated in this area. Originally, the comprehensive plan contemplated an employment center master plan for this entire interchange and also the the applicant agreed to work with the county in FOT about any improvements to I75 County Road 41 interchange. Gina, do you mind pulling up my revised PowerPoint, please? The one I emailed you. I just want to go over the real cross-section typical. Um, I know that there was some questions about that cross-section and what the 135 ft entails in terms of the typical section. This is the rural cross-section adopted in LDC 604 which is the northeast rural section of the land development code. You can see here that on this 135 ft ample amount of room is given to landscaping and buffering. And on the on the one side of the rideway typical section, there's the meandered 5-ft sidewalk. On the opposite side, there is the option for an 8-ft meandering multi-use path and or at the time when this was adopted in 2004, an equestrian trail uh depending on how the environment was being built out within northeast rural at the time. So, just to shed some light on that typical section there, multi-use path with the 2004 option of an of an equestrian trail there that's uh indicated if you're looking at it from left to right on the right side of the road.

This comes to the right.

I have a question for you on that.

Well, I just Yes, sir.

I want to make sure because we made a change earlier in consent item dealing with this property. We changed from the 20-year uh run out of for the residential and we move that from 20 to 30 years.

Yes, sir. And that that will be reflected in the impunity conditions.

Okay.

Um I'm going to ask Commissioner Oakley. How much more presentation do you have?

I'm I'm available for questions. Now,

this kind of goes to Commissioner Oakley. Um because it's his neighborhood and I know um from the cyclists that I know um that Blandon is a much used road by the cycling community that come from around central Pasco to ride there.

The what now?

Bllandon.

Is this on Blandon?

Lake.

Well, this is Lake Ayola, but it's an extension.

I know, but that's part of the route that most cyclists take when we did the route studies. I Stantech or whoever did the studies.

You really don't see that many of them on this area, but you see a lot more down into Blandon going out Triby Road. So, um, is the would the community prefer the cyclist to be off the road and on a bike trail than on the road?

Well, it's it's safer for them to all be on a subtra rather than So,

that's been some of the issues we've had. Well, we're we're we're having that um that RV park is having to build um bike trails. That's on Lake Iola, right?

But it's south of

South. So, it's not near here.

Well, there's one there's one on Lake Island when it comes

the one that was your sister's property.

Yes. That's in my district. So, there's there's a trail coming by the RV park, you know, the Mooney Lake. As we come out, there's a trail provided there.

Yeah. And how wide is that one? That's what kind of what I'm getting at.

I think that's eight foot if I'm not mistaken. Jack, you

I just think they should be consistent and I'm a little concerned that if we go from paved to dirt, it's going to be a problem. What? Because this says uh either a multi-use path or an equestrian. The equestrian can go just right beside it.

This is your typical section. This is not

But he said something about a a paved trail or a dirt trail

that equestrian path optional is your from 2004 is your typical section not necessarily what Mr. 2 is going to be proposing.

Go ahead and fill me in.

Joel to Palm Harbor, Florida, land use consultant for the property owner. the property owner will build whichever of those options the county asked us to build. So if you want the equestrian trail, that's what will be constructed. If you want the multi-use path, we frankly think the multi-use path makes the most sense. Uh that we want it to be a business park with hopefully some support commercial. And we're happy to put that bike lane either in that or in the roadway. you and your engineering department just tell us which road section because as Mr. Stein Snder said, it's your it's your requirement and we're going to submit the plans and do it the way you want it constructed.

Well, I guess what I would ask is if it would be consistent with what we had the developer put in at Lake IA and I I don't even know at at further down the road.

It would make sense. They're both on Lake Isa Road. They're what, a half mile, 3/4 of a mile apart. So, whichever you decide, you probably should require. Here comes the Here comes the attorney that represented

both locations. So we're we're flexible.

Okay.

And for the record

on the east side of the road, so that makes sense to be a paved walkable trail.

Yeah.

Uh the equestrian trail probably should be on the other side, which they would not have anything to do with that land.

Well, I don't know where they cross or whatever, but

yeah, Barbber's coming on the east side of of Lake Road.

Okay. And and while I'm here so I don't have to get back up, hopefully uh I'll agree for the record the applicant agrees to the extension of the residential restriction from 20 to 30 years in the MPD as we agreed in the development agreement this morning.

Yes.

Okay. Um well that's that's my only issue. Um this is a p any other questions. This is a public hearing. Has anyone signed up to speak on this item?

Scott Bland.

Hi, my name is Scott Bland. My wife Debbie and I have lived at 122 Spring Lake Highway for the last 26 years. Um, I have been sworn in.

Thank you.

So, the idea that there's not a lot of bikes still running up uh Spring Lake Highway and Lake Iola, I I'm out there all the time. I see a lot of bicycles

trying to get them off the road. Well, there's like a thousand feet there in front of that 80 acres. You think those bicycles are going to run off onto this little multi-use thing and then run back onto the highway? That seems like a I don't I don't I wouldn't do that if I were if I were one of those people riding that bicycle. Um that's kind of crazy. Um there's very very few uh horses or as they like to say equestrians running up and down that highway either. There's a couple every once in a great while, but it's mostly bicycles up and down there, which runs into the whole traffic idea. But I did want to go go to my my written notes here. Uh this is my third time attending one of these meetings on this subject and my second time speaking. So I'm still in opposition to dropping down this immense industrial area in this rural this rural community. Uh so all the reasons that I had stated the last meeting and more I I would like to address a couple of the statements I heard during the second meeting. It was stated that they were going to have a small septic system running on the property. And it was also stated that a properly run sewage treatment plant doesn't stink. Well, a quick drive down 75 past Wesley Chapel will show you that either that plant is not being run correctly or indeed feces does stink. Uh, I'm going to go with the second one on that. I also listened to a traffic engineer speak about how traffic wasn't an issue and how should it somehow become an issue, uh, some other government entity would fix it for everyone. Now, having been an engineer myself for more than 40 years, I can tell you that the problems often lie in the details or in this case, handy omissions. Somehow it was omitted that the traffic on this road continues to increase as the population of Brooksville's immense developments finds this an easy shortcut to Tampa and back home. It was also admitted that the huge RV park that has been mentioned today is under construction just south and that too will increase traffic. Add in the additional traffic that will come from the mega development just west of Dade City. All of these projects are currently underway. This project will add on the order of if we take the number of number of uh uh residential units and all of the uh industrial and everything call it something like a thousand cars and hundreds of tractor trailers per day. this road and its intersection and the bicycles on there, you're not going to have some bicycle l train uh lane going all the way up the Spring Lake Highway and Lake Blandon. It's just not going to happen. I can guarantee the developers and the traffic engineer won't be the ones waiting to be struck from behind on I75 as they sit at the jammed intersection. I ask again for the commissioners to deny the reasoning.

Okay. Thank you very much. Um, do we have anyone else who listen?

No, that's the only one signed up and no one online.

Anyone in the audience?

Yeah. And well, is there anyone else here?

Okay.

Anyone else want to speak?

Seeing no one close the public hearing.

Yep. We will close the public hearing and it's back to the commissioners. Um, you know, when I look at the map here, the RV park is on the right side of Lake Iola side. Yeah,

we we made them put a bike trail in front of that. Um, and this is still on the east side as I go up Lake Iola. So, it I think it would benefit uh somebody um for these to we for these to connect. And also I recall Spring Spring Lake Highway, Hernando County got state safety money to widen their road for the cyclist because they encourage the cyclists to come and they they widen that road so it would be safer for them.

So there there are cyclists in this area and I know we won't get all of them off the road, but it'd be nice if we can get some off the road, especially kids as this gets more developed. Commissioner Oakley. So, with the new new RV park coming and and that trail actually being on the east side of Lake Ola Road, it only makes sense that it would cross Bellamy Lake Road going toward the Evans property up there. So, that would be your trail that you can put in.

Yeah. and and not necessarily a equestrian trail because there's not many horses right there, but there are about room for both going both of course. So,

but it just needs to be whatever width we said it would be at Spring Down south needs to be at least as wide as that, if not wider. That's all.

Okay. Um that's my own my issue. Anyone else have any

I have I want to um I'm very much in favor of this project now. It's much better than what it was three years ago and it's come a long way to be a more u fitting the area that we're talking about. So with the changes and all of the 20 to the 30 years I'll make a motion approve I'll segment just one more discuss

discuss it. Sure.

I I I do think we should address the the bike trail. If the other development to the south has it we should mirror what that has as well. Yeah.

So, let's go to the motion maker.

Yeah. We'll make sure that that trail goes forth and it it'll still be you know by the RV park and we talked a lot about that. That trails on the east side of the road which is on the right hand side. When you go and cross uh 41 to the Evans up by the Evans property, it'll be on their their side of the property for that trail. So, it fits in.

Yeah. And you may get um some kind of user at the RV park, say in a golf cart or whatever, that wants to come up to some amenity that they may put in here. So, in this way, they're off the road.

All right.

Yeah,

that's good.

Okay. Um and just to the gentleman who spoke, remember we're dealing with a a lawsuit and a settlement, and so we have rules that we have to follow. Um, and we just can't come up here and say no that we have to follow the law. So with that, I'll call a quest. I'll uh take the vote. All

All in favor?

I opposed.

Okay. Okay.

All right. We are back to we finished all our Rs in the morning.

No. budget.

You need you have a budget presentation on

budget presentation. You're welcome to stay.

Um just for my fellow commissioners heads up. Um Commissioner Joerger has to leave at 4. We should be fine. I have to leave at 5.

So just going to try and

We have to leave at 3.

Who?

You have to leave at 3.

Oh. Well, Mariano, you could be running the meeting all by yourself at five.

Be fine. I think it would be fine.

Commissioner Mariano three.

See how fast I can talk if I have two minutes.

No pressure, Amy.

Amy Ferrell, budget director with Pasco's Office of Management and Budget. um item R68 or OMB250048 where we're going to be setting the um truth and millillage. In your packets in front of you, commissioners, you have a copy of the PowerPoint presentation. And then behind the PowerPoint presentation, you'll see the details for the 5-year CIP excluding the general fund. The next bit of your packet is the details for the five-year transportation engineering department CIP. And then your final grouping of papers is the road rehabilitation MSGU three-year plan where we outline the projects by district group by fiscal year. So just so you know the packet in front of you and so you have those details to peruse. Um um just wanted to make sure you had all those details behind those big summary slides that we're going to talk about in a minute. All right. So, our agenda today, which I'll get through all of this in two minutes, um it it sounds like or maybe 30 or maybe an hour. Um so, we're going to go over the budget cycle. We're going to talk about what we've already covered in this cycle, the work that we've already accomplished, and the work that's still before us. We'll regground ourselves in our strategic priorities that the board has set forth for us for this first year. Um, we're going to talk about the assumptions and the pressures on our general fund and our other major funds. And we'll be looking at assessed value updates since the last time we met in June. Uh, we'll look at capital and then we will um approve proposed millage rates for the trim notice and set the first public hearing. All right. So, in January, we came together and we had a workshop where we talked big picture strategic planning. So, we have a nice five-year plan, but we really needed some guidance in what do we really want to tackle in year one. And then we heard your input and then we went back and we kicked off um with our internal team and we started all of the heavy budget work that happens behind the scenes. We came back and we talked about um the general fund. We talked about the municipal service fund, our various MSTUs, and we also looked at our big revenues for the upcoming year and what we thought those were going to shake out to be. In April, we workshopped with our constitutional officers and the chief judge to make sure that we had good line of sight on their budget priorities for the upcoming year as well. and we held a bunch of rigorous internal meetings to really kind of shape and form and um malate the budget that we're presenting to you today. In June, we workshopped again and at that time we had our June preliminary taxable assess value numbers and now we're back in July with final taxable assess value numbers and to set trim and then after this we'll have two public hearings in September so we can adopt the budget. All right. So, let's get reggrounding our

strategic priorities for year one. Now, some of what you see up here, uh, we're going to be aligning resources through the adopted fiscal year 26 budget, but we also have a team that's working hard on that community development block grant disaster recovery funding, which is also going to assist us in being able to move the needle on some of these items that we've been talking about this year. So, community resilience and sustainability, reducing homelessness, access and availability to cultural, educational, recreational, and social opportunities, meeting affordable and attainable housing needs, stressed communities, and supporting our small businesses and entrepreneurship. All right, so budgetary assumptions. So, now we're talking about kind of the revenue side of the house. And before you today for um the proposed budget, we've got no change in the general operating millillage, no change in the fire MSTU, no change in our road rehabilitation MSTU, and then based off of the um heavy dialogue that we had in June, we are presenting zero mills for the parks MSTU. no change in the storm water assessment. Next month there will be two rate hearings for the water and wastewater rates and then for our solid waste. Um fiscal year 26 is the seventh year of our 7 for7 plan. Um so that is all baked into the numbers that we're presenting to you today. All right. So this slide is showing you our taxable assessed value and how that changed from our June 1 preliminary number to our July 1 final number. And in the general fund after we look at the sheriff's allocation, the change in our payments to the CRAAS and our increase in payments to our um tax increment finance financing units, you're looking at roughly 3.84 84 million more dollars in advorum taxes in the general fund. That uh same increase in July looks like 1.8 million more in the fire MSU than we talked about at the June workshop and roughly 300,000 more to the road MSTU than what we discussed in the workshop. But as you all will remember, the property taxes is one piece of our very complex general fund. And so, uh, it's important for us to talk about that business rent tax repeal. So, while we had 3.84 more million more in property taxes in the general fund, the business rent tax repeal yielded $7.2 million less in halfcent sales tax revenue. And so, our the big picture impact here is our reserves are about 2.5 million less what we're presenting today than what we presented in June. And so that equates to roughly two days less of our operating in reserves.

All right. So, um, this slide is very similar.

So, so it cost us,

you said you're $2 million less and we lose,

that's two days. So, it cost this county about a million dollars a day to operate

in the general fund.

Out of the general fund. That's new statistics I hadn't heard

before. So million dollar. Okay. Thank you,

Madam Chair. Quick question.

Yes.

Um, so the reserves generally what they run

like what's our goal?

So our goal is 60 days in reserves and so right now we're looking at 34

and that's because the storms we just went through that were reserves have dropped down. Correct.

Part of it is the storms. Part of it is um we were already experiencing um less and half cent sales tax revenue than we were expecting this time last year. Um, so there were there were a few things that kind of got us to to this point. All right. So the general fund, so those revenues we were talking about, how are those allocated to expenses within the general fund? So you'll see the big piece of the pie, the purple piece, um that's our public safety, which makes up our sheriff office, corrections, fire, rescue, emergency management, um those types of services, our 911, dispatchers. Um the next piece of the pie, that teal, that is that reserve amount that we were just talking about. And then if you keep coming, that blue one is our general government, which is facilities, our different administrative departments, information technology, those types of departments. If you keep going to that red bit, that's the other constitutional officers, less the sheriff, plus the sixth judicial circuit and how we support them in the general fund. And then the last piece of the pie is our outward-f facing departments like our parks, community services, libraries, um misdemeanor probation, those types of things.

All right. So, constitutional officer budget request. The one So, there's two things in here that are a little bit different from the June workshop. And so, we'll start with the clerk's budget. So, you'll remember that um she was requesting an additional position to the tune of $60,000 a year annually because of the value adjustment board impacts with the tax bill that got passed. And so, that is baked into her number. And then the second component that's different is the sheriff. So, based off the 11.2% taxable assessed value growth, his budget adjusted up likewise. Um but good news. So, the sheriff as a fiscal conservative believes that he can take roughly 2 million less of that amount that we have allocated to him. Um, and he also wanted to say that he appreciates the funding that the board worked really hard to set aside for his helicopters and that the state um worked hard to help fund some of their critical capital projects. And so, while that number is not yet reflected here, uh we will be making those adjustments as we come to you for the first public hearing. Okay. And then this is our outside funding. And just a friendly reminder that anything that is bolded and italicized on this slide are statemandated for us to fund. Anything that is not bolded and italicized are at the board's discretion. All right. And so this slide is by and large the same as it was from the workshop. The only update is with the homeless program administrator. We did get somebody on board and so now we were able to kind of finalize what that recurring dollar amount is going to look like. And so we have that up here. And then these are um some additional initiatives that the county administrator is proposing since we got the July 1 taxable assess value numbers. And so the first grouping of items, we're calling those by and large costneutral. So either they're offset by revenue that will be generated or expiring contracts or for the most part it's going to be offset. And so we'll talk through those. We've got um ambulance medical billers who should be able to generate more revenue for us that is going to offset the cost of those positions. our parks director had some expiring contracts and so he's repurposing his recommendation is to repurpose those funds to a Sunwest crew leader and a Starky Ranch District Park sports turf management. And then that last bit is where I say mostly costneutral. So for project managers for transportation engineering, the majority of that of those dollars are going to be charged back to capital projects, but there's some some overhead that we just can't charge back. So, at roughly 10,000 a position um won't be charged back, but by and large the majority of the cost will be. Um and I don't know, Mike, if there's anything else you wanted to touch on here. Just keep it moving, she says. And then

I What did I do? Oh, now I went too much every time. I do this every time. Okay. All right. I, you know, I joke and I said there's going to be something silly I do. Well, we got to it. All right. So, now here's our general fund capital that's being recommended for this year. Um, you'll see the Hudson Library. The total cost is still at that $10 million, but we did want to be specific and talk about what of those costs are specific to the renovation bit and what of those are, you know, just wear and tear on the building itself and some repair that we need to do, things like water intrusion in the walls, some roof repairs. There's a parking lot that needs um some tender loving care. And then the board did direct us in June to add $3 million to the park's capital maintenance budget. And so in June that number for the parks maintenance was 1.253 million. And now you'll see that is 4.253 million. And then we did get an updated cost estimate for the sheriff's armory. All right. So change in our major funds. So major fund as defined by the statute is a fund that makes up 10% of the overall budget for the county. And so all of the funds here listed meet that definition save the tourism development tax. But that is a um that's an important fund for our board. So we always do like to come back and talk about it. So some general assumptions that are in the proposed budget. We've got wage increases are in there. Retirement increases are in there. general um inflation and then also any new initiatives that are being added to those funds. And so we have a couple slides after this one that'll outline what some of those initiatives are. All right. So I'll just touch on a couple of these. So, looking at our building inspections, um our team is adding two mobile permitting trailers, a few positions, and some software enhancements. Our county transportation trust fund is adding some vehicle equipment, landscape maintenance, and some positions. Now, by and large, what you see on this slide is um our county and our departments keeping up with the work that they're already doing um and just making sure that we're able to really meet those demands for service. So, um, let's see. Storm water management, same thing. Adding some vehicles equipment and a a small number of positions. And when we get to the solid waste system fund, again, vehicles, equipment, minor positions. And then you'll also notice that they are working through their master plan revision just to make sure that they are teed up and ready to go when they come back um to see what are those needs when their 77year plan expires. All right. And then our water utility fund. Um, so by and large, what you see on this slide are positions to meet growth and some studies to make sure that we're, you know, prioritizing our resources in the right spot. All right. So, big picture, um, our five-year capital improvement plan less the general fund because we had those

called out. And again, this is one of those beefy handouts that you all have in your binders. Um, but looking at a $ 1.7 billion budget, you'll remember, I'm sure, this time last year, our 5year CIP was about 1.8 billion. So, we're still roughly on par with the same kind of growth that we've been experiencing. And then we are taking this transportation line here and then we have broken that out by the different types of categories. um how they group those projects. So looking at landscaping, big capacity projects, um multimodal, so things like sidewalks and whatnot, signals, street lights, and then again, this is another one of those packets, and it's pretty beefy. So all the I'm going to get this wrong. Nitty-gritty details. I might have gotten it right, but I might have gotten it wrong, but all the details are in your packet. All right, so we've got two slides here that show mill rate. So, this one um state statute requires us to show you how we compare to the rolled back rate, but we also want to take a second and just talk about how are our proposed millage rates compared to our current millage rates for 25 adopted. Um, and so you'll notice where we talked about we're proposing no changes, but then when you get to the general obligation bonds, so the way these work is that we have a millage that will generate the revenue we need to pay our debt service and the interest payments for that year for those bonds. And so because we've been experiencing some growth, you take that same number, you apply it over more um taxpayers, and then it actually turns out to a slight savings to each individual person. So, just taking a moment to educate kind of how those general obligation bonds work. Um, that is a call that our office fields quite often uh about this time next month. So, that's awesome. They're going down.

All right. And so here's the the state statute how we compare to the um the rolled back rate which a reminder that rolled back rate would generate exactly the same revenue um for the most part as what we received in this year. All right. So we're here today to approve our proposed millage rates and also to set the first public hearing for Wednesday, September 3rd, 2025 at 5:15 here in Dade City. And when the board um does do this, both of these will be published on the trim notices that will go out in August. Any questions or do we want to move to approve?

Move to approve.

Second.

All in favor?

I time spare.

Wow. Commissioner's items.

That was close.

What is it?

Your turn.

I load up my picture.

My turn.

Your turn.

Okay. We're going to talk about a

We're going to talk about a large tree out here next to the World War II memorial. But first, I'm going to show you this film of a tree over by the U government center,

the courthouse

or the courthouse. Yeah. So, we'll watch. If you watch the uh as it moves, you'll see what happens. No wind, clear day, and it's gone. Show no issues of uh problems with the tree, but uh as you noticed, it toppled down. Good thing you were not sitting there eating lunch at the uh table there. So,

so a a question

that happened in 2022.

It doesn't look like there was any maintenance done on that oak tree. No thinning

maintenance.

Yeah, you have to trim trim these up oak trees. I

I mean that that branch looks super heavy. And did did anyone ever do anything to

I don't a tree. It had no issues. Right. Well, I think I think it doesn't look like someone

So, if I get Andrew took care of that tree and loved that tree.

And so, we'll go back to what what this is talking about is I have been very concerned since I've been elected as commissioner here in District 1 of the tree that sits out here by the World War II memorial. Um, we've missed uh having real we've had issues over the years because several limbs have come off that that tree, but none have fell on the World War II memorial. The tree we have found out through an arrest back uh probably seven, eight years ago is is dated as somewhere between 200 and 250 years that tree. And according to that arborist back at that time said it was near its end of its life as a tree. Um I got a call that a tree limb had come off of it during the storm all the storms we had. We were very lucky a huge tree down meridian closed meridian after those storms because it toppled over. It was as big or bigger than this tree. But I had an M come off this one that was about eight or 10 inches. It just so happened to fall on the west side of the tree and um didn't cause a problem with our World War II memorial. But I have a great fear of the fact that that's going to happen. And with another storm season coming up, um I think it's been a while back. Maybe Andrew can give me a little history of of when we all discussed this before about a new landscape around the courthouse. So, if you can do that, Andrew, that

Yes, sir. Um, and it's regarding the maintenance of trees. We do our best to maintain all of the trees on county properties. Obviously, we have a budget that we have to live within and uh there there's a reason that we are aware of this tree because we did an arborist report on it eight years ago and take took action to ensure we are maintaining our trees as best as we can. Um and yet still a catastrophic failure um occurred. And so last year uh when this event occurred about three years ago, last year we we started talking to each of the board members individually about hey this tree failed catastrophically. We have a similar aged tree here on this campus but there's a critical asset that we have that's right next to it that's historic. The band stand and this building are registered historic places nationally and we want to ensure that we preserve those historic resources. And so a discussion was had with each member of the board to how would you like to proceed? Uh what are some of the options that we can look at to ensure that we consider uh the age of this tree considering the previous arborist report. Again, it is seven to eight years old. Um, and then ultimately last summer we all agreed and I think Commissioner Oakley, you brought it back to the board and there was ultimately some consensus to move forward with the plan. Um, so we've been doing that. We have a contractors lined up and we were about ready to uh begin the process of taking down this oak tree. Um, and that's when Dade City decided to uh pause that permit that we had sought. Um, but then there was some other discussion that that's happened since then. And really what we're looking for is the way forward. But and and the reason I'm bringing it to you because uh the date city commission brought up that the tree looks great all this and they feel like there's no issue with the World War II memorial, but I have I have different opinion that we have to worry about the World War II memorial. I have several family members names on that memorial as as a lot of people around this area have. Uh I don't want to see it destroyed. So, but according to when it came up at the Day City Commission here not too long ago when we applied for a permit, um the word came out, well, it's only because Commissioner Oakley wants down. But I I want to believe that all my commissioners in Pasco County want to preserve that World War II memorial. So that's why I brought it to the day today to discuss with you because you are a part of this and you've been a part of it since we've been talking about it over the last few years. But I mean we're lucky at this point that it hadn't already happened. So it could happen any day. So during the last storms that limb came off pretty pretty rare. We were lucky during these past storms we had this last summer. So, we're faced with that coming. Actually, u the rainfall and all and the event we had with weather

yesterday was some tornado sightings in this area.

We could have had that come out yesterday.

So, that's how critical it is to move forward. So,

but I want to bring y'all get your interpretation, get get how you feel about it. So, okay.

Um, my only issue is that I wanted it to be replaced with another oak tree,

but you don't want to replace it.

Or that's not the thought. A

after meeting with all the commissioners,

I always said I wanted oak trees back around here.

Understood. Um after meeting with all the commissioners um there wasn't 100% consensus on what the landscaping plan looked like. So we tried to create a bridged landscaping plan that was that met the majority of everyone's needs. Um we shared with the the board uh that we have a lot of oak trees around the property already. We also shared with the members of the board some of the historical photos of this campus here around the historic courthouse and that there used to be many sable palms on the property and currently there are none. And so it was and I also showed that that's something that's traditional at many other historic courouses around the state. Um and so we thought that that might be an element to bring back onto the campus. um it was part of the history of this campus and we thought that would be a good idea. Additionally, there were some other ideas about uh oaks and magnolia and we've tried to do our best to incorporate that into a universal plan that does the best to provide for this campus.

Do you have a picture of that of what your plan is so the public can see it here? If I could share Andrew.

Sure.

A little bit of historic historical not background. Historical too. When I was city manager here in Dade City, the tree canopy became was very precious to a lot of folks. and uh right after the storms the next year that made spaghetti out of most of the power lines. Why then there was a concerted effort to do something about it. But back in the early 90s, Dan Johnson, who took my place as assistant county administrator for facilities or over facilities, had a plan to rework the canopy around this building for a uniform canopy that would have developed over the years and whatever. And again it got sidelined uh at that time because of concern for the stately trees. Um but um again we have had concerns going back that far uh above that tree because it has a very limit limited area of soil for that size tree and uh being able to get so it's it's interesting how long that tree has stood but like many of us time is catching up.

Oh yes right. Yes, sir. Thank you for that history. Appreciate it, Harold. Um, and so you can see what the proposal was there. And this is what I shared last summer with all the different commissioners individually. Um, the two uh trees that are were represented by those big orange dots. Those were removed by Dade City um due to concerns along 301 about two years ago.

Did they replace them with anything?

They had came down. They came down. Now, the one to the

during the storm,

they took them down and they didn't put anything else up in its place.

No, ma'am.

They didn't get rid of the stump. I don't believe either.

The one to the north was important that it that it went away because that's now where the peace officer memorial is. The tree highlighted in blue, um, that also needed to be removed so that we could accommodate the peace officer memorial. The tree highlighted at the yellow dot, all the ones in white dots are trees that remain on the campus. The tree highlighted in yellow when we did our arborist report um seven or eight years ago, that one was uh that one was diseased and needed to be taken down. Their recommendation was taken down immediately. So, that one is go is has been taken down several years ago. Um there's a vacant spot. If you look over there, kind of where the the row of trees are, there's a vacant spot.

Well, we got money. we're ready.

We and that was part of our replacement plan um was to potentially put a magnolia in that area to represent some southern charm and that was some of the feedback that we had gotten.

Um and then to if you can go back to the red dot is obviously our large uh stately oak that uh is sensient. It is at the final stage of its life according to the arborist report that we had done. what our proposal was.

Andrew,

the fact of it is before we do take it down, we're going to reach out to a third party and get his report based on what our findings are so far.

Yes.

I think it's I think it's important to not be in in conflict like Commissioner Oakley. I have family members names on that memorial. May Brian offer protective

a bunch of but I think I think to to to to have a good partnership with the city that we we ought to do our own independent arborist report just to see

we're going to

and uh then what then what that that answer the question and then you know if we're getting real back into the into the weeds um Commissioner Shive I'm sure he's reached out to you too obviously he's he and the city have concern about where they can do their Christmas tree lighting so I think it'd be good you you know, have a make sure they have a spot that they can do do their annual Christmas festivities, however that lays out in in partnership with with the city.

I don't we're not going to affect the spot they've been using for their Christmas tree out to the front left here.

Okay.

So, there's electric there for them and it's there. So,

so ultimately we're we're we're sort of committed to this plan that we've already sort of established. It's now with Dade City putting the the permit on pause. We've come to understand that there's actually an exception. Um, but that's really a determination of whether the board wants to move forward. What we propose to do is to do a third arborist report, one that is funded by Pasco County, represents us as the owner, and try to determine what the best path forward is.

Okay. Okay.

But that's the right way. So everybody's we're above board. We're not keeping secrets. I'm not going to take that tree down without y'all knowing. I mean, this is all our campus as as commissioners here in Basco County. So

I I just can tell you when I go to a parking lot and if there's a spot open and under the shade, I'm going to take it.

Yeah. Most people avoid it

and I'll wait for it if someone's walking to their car around and give them one across from it in the sun.

Yeah. Most people don't want that dropping on your their car.

My Porsche goes right under the shoe tree.

Yeah, I agree.

Any further discussion on this?

So, I think we're fine. We we just need to move forward and u get that third party uh report and uh go from there.

I just wish you were placed.

Hopefully, the tree stands while we're doing this. So, I think time's of the essence. So,

absolutely. We'll we'll act quickly.

Um uh while you're up here, do you go around and I'm going to show a picture of my commissioner items,

but are you do we have someone who looks at our trees and thins them properly so they live long and healthy?

Yes, ma'am.

Especially important ones that are around the courthouse.

Yes, ma'am.

Okay. Well, based on

that one that one should not have looked like that that was over by the other courthouse.

Yes, ma'am. We with within the budget cap capabilities that we have, we do our best to maintain all of our trees at all of our campuses.

Well, he has 9 something million

budget capabilities that we learned of today dollars.

Apparently, I'm going to have less money now. I think that historic I think the historical look of of the courthouse going back to like it was in the 30s or 40s with some of the sable palms and things of that nature that are that's the state tree. That was a very nice look and when Andrew first showed me that picture is pretty amazing. Yeah, I think Gina has that right now for the historic um some other courouses around and even our our courthouse house campus from those historic photos that we that we had.

It means the um

Yeah. So, these are other courouses. This is Jefferson County. Here's Citrus County. It's interesting to look at that Citrus County one because you can see when they first planted those palms to what they are today. Um that's kind of a fun look. you know, and then that's what we do at our other courouses. Here's our Robert D. Sumner Judicial Center and our West Pasca Judicial Center. And then finally, here's here's the campus. And you can see multiple sable palms and and other palms around the courthouse.

I see that trees, too.

You know, that that one has 51 on it. Uh, and I it's hard to tell what date is on that top right corner, but I see it there. I don't know if Gina, you can read it better.

Yeah. But historically, obviously, uh, palms are a tradition.

Yep.

And it's something that not not only do we want the house for the majesty of the oaks, but we want that that Florida feel as well.

Yep.

Right.

Commissioner,

that's all I have.

Wait, Commissioner Wait.

I have nothing.

Uh, Commissioner Joerger.

Okay. This was a home dedication for the Golden Hanley, Habitat for Humanity. Um, this house was gorgeous. Um, it was, was this a three or four bedroomedroom, guys? Four. This was a four bedroomedroom house. Um, absolutely beautiful. They are, um, buying up lots in Newport Richie and Port Richie. So, that was really neat. And, um, this was our we had part with the um health department with TR and her team. We did a um wellness fair out in Moon Lake. We had vision and blood pressure checks. Uh matter of fact, we had one lady, her blood pressure was so high that um they wouldn't let her go anywhere and she had to immediately go see the nurse.

Oh, great. Um, I want to say with the mammograms, I'm trying to remember, I think we had 14 mammograms done that day and normally their numbers are a lot lower than that for an event. We had the dental bus, but sadly they had to leave early because their generator went out. Um, we had uh HIV and hepatitis C testing. We had mosquito control wick and we had Grace's food pantry out there giving out food. So, um it was very much a success and we are going to do another one in the fall. Um Moffett was there as well and I want to say they had six people sign up. You have to sign up prior for lung screenings and they said they could be at an event all day and they may have one or two. So, they were really really happy um with the re with our numbers there. So um and I want to say they had like 10 shots given for um hepatitis. So yeah, it was a great successful event. So and thank you to Train and her department for doing that and her volunteers. They were there on a Saturday and um we had so much help. So it was great and we're going to do it again. So

great.

That's all I have.

Mariana,

I got a few pictures. We had a couple of ribbon cutings. Let's see which one we get to.

That's just a picture of a uh county I was at where

I suggested we did this years ago.

Everywhere. We don't do it. Huh.

Every time we should have a trash vehicle press, there should be a recycle item next to it. And we should start with our parks, our buildings, and then let it go from there. But every every city you kind of see that's what they do. I've actually given John Batista at the FAC conference who was a person who had those exact things. I took a picture of the brochure, sent over to John. He's he's working on that for us as well to bring us something back. But I think it's something we should get back to it and incorporate that. The more intense we do with recycling, the more we save the landfill, the more we save the burner, make it more efficient. So, we need to, I think, step up our game a little bit. Um, and that that was a picture from that. You see that picture? That was from 2020.

Oh, wow.

I had more recent ones, so it's not the first time I've talked about it. Right.

All right. Next pictures. Uh there's a groundbreaking in Hudson across the HCA hospital along the trail at 5A that we just had done. Part of the reason this got funded was that trail that was like the last missing link as far as like connecting. It connects to shopping. It connects to a library and now right along the hospital. So, that was a a big trigger. That's phase one of three. And they're going all the way down to this 30% AMI.

Who is this again?

ECOS. Uh McDonald McDonald Development, I believe it was. Yeah.

Uh they partnered with Truish Bank. Uh that project's been again phase one. They'll be looking at phase two and three coming up. But again, your lowincome people like we say want to take care of. This is going to take those seniors that don't have anything more than income as far as just a social security check can afford to live there.

It's going to be great. Uh, next picture we had the Merrill Brothers which I will tell you people that look are looking at this looking at Pasco County is being brilliant for for taking this step forward. I I would say as good as the waste energy plant was this is getting looked at. the bioolids what used to be really expensive. We were looked at this years ago and I tell you Mera Brothers a familyrun company very well very a lot of smart people they have now got I think it's 80 employees down here in Pasco County but are looking to do more like more of this around the around the state around the nation and the more they do it I think it's better off for everybody but going to show a couple more pictures kind of just show you the trucks they got maybe not all we got anyway it was a great ground great ribbon been cutting for what they were doing. They are now bagging their bio solid. So, they're going to be able to sell to Home Depot and Lowe's, etc., which we share in that revenue, and that will even cut our cost down more.

A great picture.

Uh coming up here, we got the Scolop Music Festival starting July 24th. Uh we've got uh the American Stones are kicking it off. Uh and at the same time, they're there. We're going to have Point Distillery there as one of the uh sponsors that'll be there. They'll have uh their own product that's out there. And if you don't recall that the hurricane rum that the Rolling Stones sell internationally is made right here in Pasco County right near 52 in Little. Uh they got a new test tasting they're looking at doing should be great. We've got a beach volleyball tournament coming in. We've got a scallops um splash race a 5K run be going all the way around. We've got a carnival that's going to be coming in and we've made it really economically uh to make it so it's affordable for kids to go that don't have much money. Matter of fact, Commissioner Simpson is helping sponsor with that. Um there's going to be a US water ski uh team that's going to be out there. They'll be out there the first Sunday and the next Friday, next Saturday, Sunday as well. You can see the list of sponsors. A lot of these people that do work in the county are giving back to make it so it's free for everybody to come. So, not only at Pasco residence, but also free for everybody else to come in. All you do is pays the parking and away you go. So, we're looking forward to that to be a great kickoff as well. I see one more picture.

And you're getting um Starky Seltzers donation.

Starky Selzers. Yes.

The strawberry lemon coming.

Yeah.

Oh, that's the best.

It's really good.

Really, really good. Yes.

Put a little wine in it. Make a wine spritz or spritz.

That's all I've got.

So, you doubled down. Double down. uh county administrator

really just uh one one thing it struck me as we were talking about all the art um dawned on me that um our libraries team in conjunction with our employees uh again we're doing another successful year of the Pasco perspective which is where our um our employees and their families uh generate art various uh various mediums and they're on display now in the uh Westside Government Center And so I just encourage you to to take a look, check it out. Some really interesting stuff that uh that's been put forward and thanks to our libraries team for kind of running with this and making it such a success. So you'll see that uh I I knew it was going to be a few about a month before we're there, so I wanted to mention it. Maybe you're on that side of the campus. That's all.

Um one of you two.

Hi.

Okay. County attorney. Um, if if David will come up, uh, you were all given a copy, emailed a copy on Friday of Mr. Coldstein's memo on Senate Bill 180 and what it potentially can do to fire rescue impact fee as well as a whole lot of other ordinances. Um, I'd like David to kind of walk through his memo with you all.

Yeah. So, um, Mr. Moore kind of briefly touched on Senate Bill 180, but and he he was correct that it does potentially prevent you from adopting more restrictive or burdensome land development regulation amendments, comprehensive plan amendments, u moratoriums, or any additional procedures that would impact um issuance of development orders or permits. The reason the primary purpose for the memo is that this what Mr. more did not cover is that there's a section 28 of that bill that actually is the more problematic part of the bill because it's retroactive to land land development regulations that you've already adopted after August 1st of last year and it prevents anything from being more restrictive or burdensome until October 1st of 2027 for the entire state of Florida. So it's not just within 100 miles of where the hurricane landed. The entire state of Florida is prevented from adopting more burdensome or restrictive regulations from August 1st of last year until October 1st of 2027. That's in section 28 of the bill. Mr. Moore covered section 18. That also applies, but that's for a year after the hurricane makes landfall and only within 100 miles of where it makes landfall. So the problem with it being retroactive is that it applies to amend potentially applies to land development regulation amendments that you've already adopted. And just by way of example, that would include the car wash ordinance that you adopted in September of last year. uh invasive vegetation. There's a few others, but the one that really needed some immediate attention is the fire rescue impact fee because that was due to effect take effect on July 1 of this year. So, we temper after Senate Bill 180 got signed by the governor, we asked for it to be the implementation to be put on hold until we could get some feedback from the board about how you wanted to proceed. Now I will tell you this law is not a model of clarity. It does not define what more restrictive or burdensome means. So we don't know what it means. It is not clear about whether it applies to properties damaged by hurricane or if it applies to the basically all development that occurs in the county. Um, so you know, there's a lot of ambiguities in it and I don't know if those ambiguities are are going to be resolved either through litigation, maybe the legislature will fix it next session. It's my understanding this this these provisions of the bill were added at the very last minute to this emergency management bill. They were not part of the bill going through the whole process. And so there's very little opportunity for Florida Association of Counties, Florida for League of Cities, our own lobbyists to get ahead of this one because it got added at the last minute. There was a big push to ask the governor to veto it, but I think because it was included in an emergency management bill that had otherwise good provisions in it, the governor was reluctant to veto it. So

I looking at these, you got three options on here.

Three options. And they're probably listed in terms of most aggressive to least

number one for me.

Yeah. So one one would be probably the most aggressive option. Um three is the most conservative option. One basically is we let the impact fee take effect. Um and then if somebody goes

but not not on new construction,

not on anybody that was

damaged by the hurricane.

Anybody was damaged by the hurricane. But let me let me be clear. Even under before 180 was adopted, we likely would not have assessed an impact fee to somebody damaged by hurricane because there was already an exception in our ordinance for for um replacement structures. So, we don't assess an impact fee on a replacement structure anyway. The other thing that's interesting about our impact fee is we use it to respond to hurricanes. So, this is to buy our fire rescue vehicles that we use during a hurricane. Um, so I mean if I had to defend any particular ordinance against 180, this would probably be it. It's probably a good poster child if we have to go to litigation because it's so important for public safety purposes. So I'm not sure the legislature realized that they were impacting public safety when they put this in the bill, but for us it is impacting public safety. So option one of the three is basically says that we would allow the impact fee to take effect and then if we get anybody challenging it we county attorney's office will defend it and can't promise you whether we will win because it's an ambiguous ambiguous law. I don't know what a judge is going to decide. There is a little bit of a risk that we'd have to pay attorneys fees if we lose because that's also in the bill. Um so there is some risk associated with one. That's why it's probably the riskiest option. two basically says we allow it to take effect and if somebody either sues us or gives us notice that they're invoking the act, then we come back to the board and ask you what you want to do. And then three is probably the most conservative option, which is we just defer the increase until October 2nd of 2027 or a year after the last hurricane has made landfall in Basco County.

Who's good for one besides me?

I'm good for one.

I'm good for one. And Madam Chair, I think just because this I think we started this fee what 12 years ago, 15 years ago. Hadn't increased it.

We have not increased the fire rescue impact fee since 200 since it was originally adopted in 2004.

Four. Okay. So 20.

So have it. So it can't be burdensome. It's been expected. I think I think number one's the way to go. I'll make that motion. Well, we we owe it to everybody that that does that job that um they not need to be worried with what Tallahassee is doing. Let this board take the hits with them. That way they can keep doing what they need to do to keep our folks safe and healthy.

Madam Chair,

motion

second.

A motion second. And I and I think just to add a little more comment. I think um we've got an appropriation share senator up there that would probably be very very helpful in trying to get this amended to make sure that it doesn't hurt us when it does come up.

Okay.

Okay. Uh is that do you need a a motion or just board direction?

You might you've got a motion in a second. You might as well take a vote.

All in favor?

I hope you defend that that car wash ordinance with the same vigor. Otherwise, you're coming with me out in the world and you'll understand.

We have we have some good arguments ready to go. So,

and I and we we escaped this with the parks fee. We are out

park impact fee was prior to August of last year.

Okay. Um you know, we talked about a law enforcement or whatever we're calling it impact fee.

Well, let me be clear. All right. We talked about the stuff you've already adopted, but even stuff that you have pending is potentially subject to 180. So, you got you talked about the comp plan update. Um, we've got, you know, other regulations that are kind of making their way backyard chickens, covers over docks. I mean, any amendment we do to our land development regulations.

Oh,

I guess there's somebody that could argue that it's more restrictive or burdensome. So

we we I chair I think we just need to keep moving forward and governing ourselves and what do what we were elected to do and what the people expect us to the decisions that we need to make and then if someone challenges it they challenge it.

Yeah. And we'll tell them why.

Yep.

I agree. We will let it be known why we are being challenged. the the the finesse point of the of the law really is we don't know that just by exempting stuff that was damaged is going to be good enough.

I know but we're willing to test the waters.

But so there there might be somebody who challenges any of these regulations based on the fact that it was a declared state of emergency and you can't you can't do anything. But we're willing to take

We were a county that waved our building fees, paid for our houses to be demolished. We went over and above. So, I feel we're in a good good place.

Okay. We have direction. Thank you. I and I think when we have our our legislative discussions, we're going to talk about counties who who are finished finishing or just finished their comp plan revisions in this year should be exempt from some of that stuff. So, I had discussions with our legislators at lunch.

Well, what I'm hearing the board say is you want to just keep doing business as usual and

we'll litigate it.

Yeah. We don't want you guys to stop working on LDC's or you know tee everything up and we are going to

keep moving on.

It does seem to be a conflict when they tell you you have to do an an evaluation and appraisal report and then say you can't do anything with it.

You know what we could we could ask our development community if they want no more comprehensive plan changes for the next two years.

Well, interestingly, it does exempt privately initiated plan amendments. That's the one thing that is exempt. So,

all right.

Thank you for the director.

Thank you.

Anything?

Anything else?

Thank you.

Um, yes. Uh, clerk Alvarez Souls wanted me to call the board's attention to item N 107, which was just a an example of working together with the inspector general's office, providing um part of their work plan and uh working with utilities to verify the u accurate implementation of new new utility rates and through testing through their extension partner Corvvis Mazars. cars. They did find some areas that needed to be cleaned up. Utilities took care of that and is um again it's just cleaned up the house a little bit and was a positive uh experience and work together between the inspector general and u of our office and utilities. So just a a positive thing that we can do. It's not always it's not intended to be gotchas. It's how can we help and it worked out well. Great.

Okay. Is that it?

That's it.

All right. I have some um Well, I guess we'll start with Niko. I So, I uh recently attended the Niko conference. Um it was in an interesting city where they had to cancel. I always do the Niko bike ride and um it's an early morning thing and they didn't have one in Philly because they said it was too dangerous. So, that was that was kind of interesting. Um but um as one of the highlights was uh our own Gavin here winning uh intergovernmental relations off official of the year. Davin won that. He's with fact. Um and that's me in the upper um picture um talking to General Mcrist. Is that how you say his name? Mcrist who used to run Jac. Um he was our speaker at our board meeting, board of directors meeting on leadership. um very interesting man and um I talked to him about initiative I've had for a number of years at Niko to make it easier for the spouses of um military families to be able to work in multiple states because my daughter is a a PA and every time they move which sometimes one year sometimes two years um she has to go through this whole process to be able to be a physician assistant in that state and and um it takes 6 to 8 months. She has to get a letter from everyone she's worked at and it's just crazy um what some of these military families go through. So, he was appreciative of that. I didn't want to take very many pictures. Do you have anything else to add to Nico? Um oh yes, this is fact. Uh this is Derek Burgerer getting an award. when he was my assistant and we go to the conferences, he would take classes and um get his uh points towards um filling fulfilling this education program and he was able to come over finish up and get his award um this last week. So, um or two weeks ago. Um that is the CGE designation. It consists of a total of 45 hours of coursework. Gosh, Jack, your your staff should be able to get that. Consisting of um let's see, diverse range of courses such as growth management, financial management and ethics, elective courses such as affordable housing, emergency management, and resiliency. So, um that was very good. Uh I um on the way home from fact I stopped at a um a Publix in Orlando and yeah they put oak they put oak trees in theirs and we put crepe myrtles and it was so hot in Orlando and when I drove in that parking lot it was so refreshing to drive in through the shade. There's some there's some more pictures from there. But this is what this is what I was talking about to Commissioner Oakley who looks like he's gone, but they're trimming their trees and they're thinning them out so that they grow healthy. And um but it's it just looks so much better than what we have. So as you're driving around the county, take a look at our development and look how we really have so few of our tree canopy left in the developed areas. Um, I spoke at the Bama dinner. I think you should have a picture of that. Maybe, maybe not. Um, which is the Bay Area Manufacturing, uh, annual dinner. And then I have a few other notes. So, I mentioned to you, um,

that this upcoming year, and I don't remember what they call it, is the 250th year of the of our independence when we declared independence. and almost all the counties that I talked to have something planned. So, I thought we should start thinking about something. And you know those video machines that we got?

Um you know those ones those

those ones that were Yeah. So I got one and the county got one.

You can project a movie or something 300 feet to 30 feet in perfect quality. their laser. We could we could have fun with those around the county showing showing, you know, interesting historical things. That was just a something that came to my mind. But I'd like for you to assign someone. She might be sitting to your right to be thinking about what can we do to celebrate in a special way our 250th anniversary. And you all be thinking of of things. It

it might be good if we could collaborate with the cities and all work together, whether it's one side or two sides.

I was thinking

and incorporate some

fireworks. We don't like fireworks.

Let's not just leave it to the cities, though. Let's let's participate.

Ask them to to partner with us. It's not probably going to be a cheap endeavor, but

there's I think it needs to be a whole at least the offer needs to be made and have the whole county

Yeah.

involved. Let's Let's decorate up the county in red, white, and blue. Um I was thinking we could each do a part of reading the direct Declaration of Independence. Um

light the buildings up,

huh?

You want to light the buildings?

Light buildings up. You know,

you want to make a motion.

I don't know if we're allowed to put banners on polls on state 54 and 52. You know, some some bunting, whatever. But let's let's think about doing it up. No, I think they we want to come you to come back to us with ideas. We will come back to you with a sister centennial.

Is that what they call it?

That's what it's called.

Okay. Yeah. I I can't remember that. Um All right. And uh I um I've got a very big issue brewing in my district and it's going to touch both of yours and that is the lack of playing fields. Before it was little league baseball, but now it's flag football.

Exactly.

And u Yeah, it's bad. But we just went through uh a procedure that our county put together for four different leagues which included Pop Warner or PAL I'm not sure which an NFL league um and two others on who would get to play like on one field and um they you know they ranked and scored and the the team they picked two teams actually one gets to play at Mitchell one gets to play on a field at Starky and the team that was founded by a mom in Starky Ranch. Actually, I think um a flag football team from 2021 with 400 girls is out, no fields. So, um imagine the calls and texts and things that I'm getting and um Keith and I have been racking our brains on what can we do. Um, I've got uh a talked to Commissioner Flowers from Penllis County about the property they own on Trinity Boulevard. Can you can he go to Google Earth up there? If you could go to the um Panelis Pasco County line on Trinity Boulevard. Um I we've we've touched on this before, Mike, um about their property, but Commissioner Flowers is is again going to try at their Thursday board workshop in Penllis to see if at our expense we could put some fields in there and some lights and maybe we'll have to bring a portaot some portaotties. But um it's land that Penelis County has Penelis County Utilities that they are not using. They, you know, I asked if we could buy it. Um, and um, they said no. They said no. Right. You, I mean, you were, you were leading those discussions. I don't know what their issues were. Okay. Go to up here to the right. Upper right there and zoom in. Uh, to Yep. Over over right. See it right there? It's all upland. It's Nope. You went too far. It's that that area right there. Right there. Zoom in on that, please. This is Penllis County Utilities land. I think they were going to use it for water treatment facility or something. Um, and it's would be they don't use it. They mow it. They have a very nice entrance. I'm just trying to see if we can throw some ball fields on there. Even if it's temporary, we'll take the liability.

Whatever it takes. Commissioner Mariana,

I got another idea for you because you mentioned Mitchell as well as Trinity. And if you talk in my district, I'm not sure where it comes in, but I know we're talking about doing something at Magnolia Valley.

Yeah. But it's years away because of the environmental permits.

I I think you got that old driving range that was right out front. You got a golf course

that's got the arsenic on at that driving range,

right?

Um I don't know, but I I think with the land space you've got there, if you put enough topping over it and you put the field over the top, I think it'd be all right. I think

that would probably be an ideal site to actually go look at doing that and maybe as you say

to try to make that happen with what you've got going on right now. That probably the quickest, simplest, easiest way to get something done

if if we could do that quickly. Um but I think they're out for bid again. Who's who's here from? Um is who's your aa here that knows about this issue?

Where's Brford?

Brandford would be the one who's on vacation. I know.

Okay. Well, I just had a meeting with some of those guys and talked to Keith about this and my understanding is they have to go they're going back out to bid that it's got arsenic on it and they have to get Army Corps approval before they can even start the the water the you know the storm water project. We went through this at Gulf Arbors with the arsenic. That's what held up us closing. And get this, this is where some of the rules are so crazy. We can't even put a tennis court, like a a an asphalt pad over it because it we have to get go back to DP because there's a little level of arsenic underneath. I'm like, well, it seems like if we're putting concrete or something on top of it, like even a clubhouse, no, there's arsenic in the ground. So, I said people are going to go out and eat the dirt underneath the clubhouse. I don't I don't understand their rules. But we finally gave up trying to fight it. So I I think Jack that would I mean look into it but I think it's be longer than you think.

Another suggestion I had I talked to Keith about was at Mitchell Park. We have the back 40 there.

The wet it's real wet

at Mitchell Mitchell Fields. We have the back 40 where there's really nothing. I mean kids use practice there. And then the field across from the soccer field. It's small, but it could definitely be used for um like like for for kids like flag football, you know, things like that.

I I think one of the fields that this league is going on is at Mitchell. Um I I just we just don't we don't have enough fields.

I got a league with 400 girls. They give college scholarships for flag football. There's four um let me see. I think it's 34 teams that now are out. Why? Why? If if the county is going to take responsibility and the board approved impact fee increases, why what's the hang up with the school board allowing us to use some of their facilities?

It I know in the summertime they're concerned about

different things, but I feel like this is an unprecedented time. The county has grown 20 years younger within the last six years. They see it. They're in the in the youth business themselves. We have a new administration.

I can answer that.

And I tried when I was on the school board,

so I can answer that. I just recently asked um Keith to pull up all the uh areas that were lacking in parks that were near schools. And I have them I have the two the school board and Keith talking to see how many more schools we we have opened up. I think, don't quote me on this, but I think they're working. They have seven right now that they that that are opened and we're talking about opening more schools and they have they're all of them are elementary schools.

So, this is and I tried to I tried to get rid of those fields. Well, now school going. It's up to the principles.

Are they kind of is the school?

There's a hierarchy in the school system.

Yeah. Uh, so you're saying the school system could potentially be open to the county taking liability and paying them to

We already we have that agreement now

and we have

we have we have a master agreement with the school board that Yes.

that could add fields. It's but I think

the chair is right.

I know I've been down this road until now. They have left it up to the principles and there haven't been very many principles that

and they don't necessarily want them with lights on and open at night. But my my my angle is to try and make it more of the superintendent's decision instead of the principal because we're in need as a county and all these everybody pays taxes.

Yeah, that's public land.

Exactly. So these fields should be open.

I know a legislator who might work on that.

Yeah.

Anyway, so we're in we're we are actively working on that. Commissioner Raitlin.

Yeah. And

it would just be a wonderful thing. I mean, I just always just scratched my head as to why in the summertime and others is you got public facilities that are closed.

It's not right. It is not right.

Agreed.

I grew up playing on those fields.

Well, there's new superintendent in town.

Yeah, there may be a new opportunity.

Great idea.

Um, okay. So,

not a new one. The the the last one um I want to say is it's funny because we heard from our legislators, but I know um our county administrator was at the fact meeting and we heard some some of the talk about doing us and that we were too heavy with employees and and they were putting numbers up there of employee growth and then and then we had uh the one of the top guys from LAR I don't remember who else was on that panel thing. Counties don't have enough employees. It's taking too long to get permits, you know. So, they want us, you heard it today, they want us to increase our service. And um but they're going to cut our budget with this property tax thing. So, which which way is it? I I'm very I feel whiplash.

No, we we we are we formally got doed, right? So, we start the process.

We start the pro your memo in your memo about the Florida. When do we start our process to Didn't you send Mike a a memo about

I sent I sent an email to the board. We we're complying with all the state doge requests that that come out. Absolutely.

There was a commissioner I think it was from Manet who asked that question. Um just he did it much better than I did. But

yes,

I think we saw a lot of AI at the fact conference and they go big big topic. What's going to happen? So putting a policy in place I think we've done that already is what we need to do. Uh so we're ahead of the game there. But there's opportunities through the state. I think if you have a compilation base of n about a million or more that you can get some money to go actually set up AI as well. So I think we need to look around us and kind of join forces to go put a project together because it'll only help us anyway. The better the region does the better we all do. So I think if we could maybe David you could reach out and let's have those those conversation about how can we tap into some of that state money they've got allocated for AI could give us a free program and help us out.

Yeah. And I did send back some some of the transportation grants that um we talked about then I re was researching further while I was sitting there and I don't think we've applied for any of those. So, um, we need to get with our our lobbyists and make sure they're earning their money and if and they need to point out some of those transportation grants that we should have applied for and that we could apply for. We missed a deadline on one. And that reminds me, I want to make sure that rolling grant that's coming out that I told you about that the U Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council is allowed to go for, but we are too that um federal one. Um we need to be applying for that.

Yes.

Three years ago, working with them, we were talking about baffle boxes like Indian River Randy Fine. Um we had them apply and they had to do a special way to do it. They had to include regional planning regional planning council and estuary combined together but had to separate them out. They get a total of 9.5 million all and they've now allocated the first chunk to the estuary about I want to say around $2 million. We can now go put our plan forward. I think we're working on it right now. Right Mike?

Sorry I making some notes. I think we're working on money right now for B boxes, litter traps through the regional planning council right now that we're going to submit a plan to to try to get a big chunk of that money. We'll be the first ones jumping into it.

All right. Because there's there's um well, I'm not going to try and look it up. I'll send it again, but it came from Mike Matthews who used to chair used to be the lobbyist for my committee at um Niko and he's the one who sent that grant to me. It the NOFO had come out that day. Okay. And um and it's a rolling it's a rolling grant till the money's gone and we just if we don't apply we're not going to get any.

Okay.

Madam Chair, if I can have one takeback or I missed one. I was remiss in and you reminded me in your presentation. Uh Mr. Goldstein was given the friend award for the Florida Association of County Attorneys. Oh yeah. for his work on live local.

All right.

So, I thought I needed to bring that to the board of

and and I did get to see some of his presentation. It was very well received.

I ran in there. You were done.

He's up there with the whole room and he's given a whole pitch on it. So, great job, David.

I um we also uh won an award at Nico. Uh, and I'm I didn't I didn't have the whole list, but uh we we won an award for our Bayare um opioid mental health um project. We won it at Niko and we won it at FAC. So um great program.

Okay, with that we are [Music]

Hey. Waterways and wildlife depend on you to keep them healthy. Excess fertilizer, grass clippings, trash, oils, and pet waste wash into gutters and storm drains when it rains. Storm water carries these pollutants directly into our lakes and rivers, creating an unhealthy environment for fish, water foul, and other aquatic animals. Storm drains are meant for clean rainwater. Most other discharges are illegal. If you suspect an illicit discharge, please contact Pasco County Department of Public Works at 7278-34-3611. Here in Florida, we're no stranger to rain.