Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Charlotte County Board of County Commissioners Focus Area Workshop on Economic and Community Development for April 17th, 2025. Let the record show all commissioners are present. If we please rise from the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the supply bag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Okay, Mr. Flores, before we begin any comments, sir? Yes, if I could, Mr. Chair, commissioners, thank you. So today, first meeting, and to cover some of our focus area workshops, specifically the economic and community development strategic focus area. So we get our budget process and review workshops started with y'all. You'll get an update on some of the population requests or our overall resource requests, information on populations and other data to help you drive that decision making. So you'll get an update on each of the different elements that fall under that strategic focus area. So with that, I will turn it over to Francine. Thank you. Good afternoon commissioners, Francine, Liz B. Assistant Budget Director for the record. Welcome to your first or four strategic focus area workshops for the fiscal year 2627 budget process. Today we'll be going over economic and community development. The mission is to create a business climate that promotes a diversified growing economy, consistent with sustainable growth, management plans, environmental stewardship, and enhanced quality of life. The agendas that we're going to be going through over the next four workshops are all very similar. So we'll start with financial trends today, and then we'll look at the goals that you all have set throughout this budget process, and then initiatives to move those goals forward. So looking at financial trends. Today in today's financial information we've included the following departments or divisions. We've added two since the last time you all have seen this. So we've in the past have included all of the divisions for community development, economic development, tourism and community services. We've include natural resources. But what we've added is the administration division of water quality to the financial information this cycle. It aligns directly with our water quality bold goal and initiative. So important to share you the financial information and resources allocated to that division. And then we also added neighborhood services once again because it aligns so closely with the affordable housing initiatives. So when we look at the overall budget for fiscal year 24 expenditures, and we compare your four strategic focus areas, you can see economic and community development makes up 7.3% of the resources allocated for fiscal year 24, which is approximately $30 million. When we look closer at the economic and community development pie chart, you can see that community development makes up the largest portion at 64.7%, which is approximately $20 million. We then include tourism at 13%, as well as neighborhood services and then economic development. So the revenue that offsets, in addition to the general revenue that is allocated to these divisions. We collect permits and assessments which make up 58.7% of the pie which is approximately $15 million. The majority of that is from building permits. Our other taxes which is 22.2%. This is our tourism development tax as well as a small portion for business tax. Charges for services which is 9.2% that is in additional fees for zoning and planning and primarily community development as well. And then the state and federal that's 6.9% that is mostly ship funding for human services. This graph commissioners are providing expenses by department. I want to focus on the last two bars for fiscal year 23 and 24. These are actuals. Excuse me, Mr. Constance, you recognize. Just real quick. Let's try the microphones. Just real quick. Could we at the beginning of the, because we're always diving immediately into three departments, five departments, you know, each one of these. Could we start with a pinwheel that shows us the macro budget for each department so we can look at the full amount that we're spending every year on community development versus community services for every department just so that we're. You don't have to break it down at this point into capital versus maintenance that'll come later,'s we're already looking down at 10,000 feet when I really want that 30,000 foot we're spending most money for this department. I'm probably going to be public works but now I just want to know where you know I want to see where that is and then we look at the section of that part that we're now. The focus area. Yeah. Yeah. And then you could probably corden off each focus area within that pinwheel so we can give us some perspective. Thank you. That's all. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you, sir. Okay. So for those historical expenditures by department, 23 and 24, we did see a significant increase. and I just want to point out, if you look at the blue portion of the bar, that's community development. Department 23 and 24 we did see a significant increase and I just want to point out if you look at the blue portion of the bar that's community development we know that the expenditures that we're showing here were offset by additional revenues so we know between the growth that we are experiencing in the community the new construction permits but also hurricane permits so you can see that although I'm showing revenue here, it's important to note that. Same thing for the tourism portion of this bar, so the purple portion. As we've seen tourism expenditures increase primarily from promotional and advertising, we've seen our tourism tax come in higher than it has in the past as well. So it's still offsetting those expenditures. Also want to point out. Mr. Constance. Sorry. This is showing expenses that you're making that comment on board with. It would be nice to show ours a good evening. Thank you. Since you brought that up and I agree with your assertion, it'd be nice to see those revenue bars either on like an adjacent slide just so we can see. Yeah, look, we're spending more but look here, the revenue generation because of the activities in that department, it matches up. Okay. Thank you. So when we look at neighborhood services, I also just want to point out their expenditures did increase in 23 and 24, and that's primarily from hurricane impacts. They did receive additional funding as well, but also the need was larger in those years as well due to the hurricane. When we look at FTEs by department, we are seeing a small increase in 23, 24, and then 25. As you know, these are as of October 1st of each fiscal year. I do want to point out that although we saw the expenditures increase, we have departments that are utilizing contracted services to offset that. So for an example of that would be community development. When they saw an increase in permits that needed to be handled, they hired an outside contractor to help and facilitate to keep that level of service where they'd like to be. So as you know, as part of this budget cycle, we did introduce a long range operational and staffing plan. So I just wanted to remind you all when we look at new position requests that one, these are still being vetted part of our budget cycle we're working with the administration now where each department is presenting their budget to administration and we'll have a finalized list or a recommendation as part of our July 10th of budget presentation but when we take that list that was brought to you all in March and look at the positions that directly relate to economic and community development. This are the requests that we've seen for 26 and 27. So moving on to county comparisons. The way that we like to handle county comparisons is we use information from the annual annual comprehensive financial reports for each neighboring county or comparable counties. So we're looking at economic environment expenditures per capita here, and you can see our bars are the first two bars. And when we compare ourselves, we all do things a little bit differently. However, when we compare ourselves to our neighboring counties, you can see we're very much in line if not on the lower portion compared to the others. And then when we look at economic environment, FTEs per ten thousand population, you could see once again very much similar in line. I do want to point out there are other areas that use, for example, may not have economic development staff, but have a council. So everyone is slightly different, but this is the best way we can compare ourselves. And then for this is our population data information. It's just supporting documentation. We use beaver to gather the population information and this is the supporting documentation for those last two sides. Mr. Chair, why are we using 2023? Because for the last two sides, we did use the 2023 Act first, but our 2024 annual comprehensive financial report was just published last week and we're still waiting for the others to publish so it's a timing issue. So moving on unless you have any questions about the financial trends? Nobody's in the queue. Okay so commissioners as you know this is the structure we use when working our strategic plan. We start with the vision mission and values of the organization. Then you all identified the four strategic focus areas. And then through your strategic retreat, you came with a revised bold goals for each of those areas. Today, we're going to be focusing on the goals associated with economic and community development. The revised goals that have been set are these four here. So the first one we're going to start with today is affordable housing. So, Kerry Walsh from Human Services will be presenting. Good afternoon commissioners for the record Carrie Walsh, Human Services Director. I'm pleased to be with you today to celebrate some of the work and the highlights going on in affordable housing regarding the bold goal. So some of our accomplishments and highlights briefly is the creation of the Affordable Housing Trust Fund. We're very proud of this. There was a $2.3 million initial balance we're now currently at the unencumbered balance of $400,000, which shows the success of the model and what we're doing that it's being used. The Charlotte Home Process itself is proven to be a really great process for our developers and really sings to the accomplishments of the Affordable Housing Advisory Committee, our neighborhood services team, and you as a board. So Charlotte Home, the process itself, is what awards density subsidizes any fees, waves impact fees, and essentially tries to remove barriers for our developers. Our first funded project is fully leased up. And I hope you all have received the invitation to the ribbon cutting for the Verandas 3 on May 22. Also, the first local government area of opportunity development is Blue Deep Creek, and they do anticipate not this summer, but next summer being completely leased up as well. Also a huge highlight for us is through year work which is negotiating some acres from culture for future affordable housing development. And then certainly the expanded and the strengthened affordable housing advisory committee which we are incredibly grateful to them for there. It is not an easy committee to sit in because it's a lot of work and it's intense hours-long meetings and so we certainly appreciate their commitment. Also, our local housing assistance plan, it does incorporate long-term recovery strategies which unfortunately is a necessity for us and further speaking to ship and also our hurricane housing recovery. We do have subrecipient agreements with local organizations to increase capacity and to further the affordable housing goals and recovery. I just wanted to jump in real quick and just recognize kind of what you said about the committee. I've been on that obviously for I think eight years now, seven years, and the core people, they're still there working hard. And I wanna thank even the subcommittees, that score, the home applications, it's not an easy task. There is a lot of information and data to review and the effort that's put into that, you know, needs to be recognized. I mean, we get the clean version when it's all done, so we get to look at the finished work, but what goes into that work behind the scenes is the effort is just exceptional, in my opinion, anyway, on the board. And you're right, some of these boards are hard to staff. They are. They are, and we've had a team that stuck together and stayed with it for the most part. So I just wanted to commend the members of the committee. I agree. I agree. Thank you for that. And you are a member of that committee that is incredibly valuable. By the way, thank you for that. So to highlight some of the affordable housing progress since this did become a goal in 2020. So you can see over to the little pie chart over there. But the units that have been created, that people are living in, that were newly created 251 units, we've preserved 243 units. And preserving affordable housing is the rehab of existing affordable housing units, whether that's rental or owner occupied units. It's really maintaining and assuring that continued affordability. We have attempted or excuse me, we do have 165 units that are pending sort of in the queue and then units that have been attempted but not funded. And as you well know, it is incredibly difficult to thread the needle to get projects all the way through to fruition that are fully funded. So we do keep trying. So you'll see that there's a much larger number that has been attempted and not funded. But that's, again, the effort shows. The impact fees that have been waived total $1.4 million, the Affordable Housing Trust Fund, fee subsidies that have been awarded total $3.7 million, and then the ship or hurricane housing recovery funding total $6.7 million so the total investment they're represented is $11.8 million. The affordable housing trust fund and for those that have seen the quarterly housing report that you all get you are are absolutely well informed because of Colleen and her team that do this for you every couple of months. Essentially, you have the projects, the award date, the amount, the amount expended, encumbered, and some project status information. And then down at the bottom, there's some pending projects there for you to see. But importantly down at the bullets are the reoccurring source of funding for the affordable housing trust fund. So there are a couple of options that I would like for you all to consider, which is, we've discussed this before as an option, but we'll introduce it again, but the percentage of general fund carryover at the close of the fiscal year. If you all opted to do that as a psychologically, I think it does help for developers to see that there is money that is carved out. Even though you as a board have requested that regardless of the balance of the trust fund that projects be brought forward to you. But there is the remainder of a general fund reallocation of ARPA set aside, and it was for $1.6 million. So at some point we would need board action on that for a one time, but the reoccurring source of funding for the trust fund, we would love that. And one, you know, if you saw fit, we could look to the affordable housing advisory committee Perhaps to make a formal recommendation So I would leave that in your hands Yeah, I have a question on that The ARPA funds they sit in the general account In the the general fund, I'm sorry. The way that funding is earmarked, this may be a fiscal question. The uses of that fund are they tied to us receiving the funds and using them in a certain manner? I'm pretty sure. Pretty soon. receiving the funds and using them in a certain manner. Frenestein, let's be fiscal service for the record. As you may remember, Commissioner, the way we draw down the money was different than the way that the spending plan was going to be for the arbor dollars. So we have received the funding, the money that we're as allocated for without affordable housing based off of your spending plan is sitting in the general fund reserve at this time. Okay, so I think what I'm hearing though is its appearances in some of this money in the affordable housing trust fund would give the appearance obviously to interested parties that hey there's money in the fund that we can attract these developers. So as a matter of policy does it, you know it would be a board decision to say if there's 1.6 million remaining maybe we park 600,000 in there. We don't have to use it, we just park it there to show we've got a healthy balance to attract players in the industry to come in is what I'm hearing. I don't have an issue with that because we're not obligated to spend it. What's the difference if it's parked in the general fund or some in the Affordable Housing Trust Fund? And I guess that would be a board discussion to see if we can split up that allocation. Yes, and that's exactly what we were thinking to because we have positioned the Charlotte home model to be an attractive and easy to navigate process for developers psychologically for them to see that there is funding there. We think that that is also helpful. I would agree. But certainly, that's in, yeah, for your discussion. Thank you. Mr. Dory. Yeah, just a clarification question, I guess, in the previous slide, Gary, you're showing a trust fund balance, an unencumbered balance of 400 grand, I guess. Yes. So this, of course, complement that. If we did something for the sets policy, we get the R-Prope Summary of the balance over there. How does this integrate? It's a kind of related to the agenda item for next Tuesday, you know, that home application. I think I saw a number of like 900,000, you know, was needed in order of magnitude, just under a million. How does that all correlate? I mean, I should have asked that question down there, it'd be 106, but. So I'll do my best here, so that's a calling question, because she is much more in detail. But if you can see on this particular slide, One of the proposed projects is the project that will be coming before you on Tuesday. And that's the just sitting in proposed. Okay, so the 900,000 number I'm seeing is that's not a number that I know. Yeah, Tuesday. I'll be asking more questions. Thank you. Thank you. And I believe Colleen is listening, so she'll know to have that answer. Yes. Very good. Thank you. All right. So some current initiatives that are in progress. Certainly we are in the works for becoming urban-qualified, which we're all thrilled about. And being able to receive CDBG or community development block-rand funding or other HUD community planning development projects. Additionally then, about and being able to receive CDBG or community development block ran funding or other HUD community planning development projects. Additionally, then Charlotte Homeship and Hurricane Housing Recovery Investments are in multiple new affordable housing rental units and then over 50 load of moderate income owner occupied single family homes. We are doing purchase assistance. And as well as the, excuse me, the preservation of hundreds of affordable housing units for rental and single family owner occupied units. We continue to support the community land trust and its work to become a developer or a chodo, which is really unfortunate acronym. And then we continue to monitor obviously legislation on the state and federal level that really certainly does affect us in the affordable housing and social service world. Are we still on track for the urban qualification for 2026? Yes, sir. Okay. Thank you. When we had a meeting with HUD yesterday, so the staff is continuing to work on that. And yes. But it's nothing this year. No, so, and again, you'll see that there is a timeline, but we will begin in October 1st of 2025 with that full process. Okay. But yeah, no, that's when the funding will be here in the program year, we'll begin. Okay. So some potential initiatives is to continue to pursue county-owned land for the purposes of affordable housing development. And you all have done that with culture and with Bachman. We have heard that and we continue to, you know, try like with Bachman and then sometimes you come back to the drawing board and you try again. So we certainly appreciate that. We do have opportunity for a request for proposal with the 2025 local government area of opportunity funding. Additionally, we would like to consider a resolution to accept donated property for the purposes of affordable housing, also to consider purchasing land with any funding source that we can find for the purposes of development. And then any opportunity that we can have to have educational and technical assistance. Again, we tried to get the technical assistance through the housing solutions program through the National Association of Counties. Unfortunately, we were not selected, but we will continue to try to do that and get their support moving forward for the development of affordable housing on government owned property. And that's all from me. Any questions, gentlemen, for affordable housing? Thank you very much. Thank you, Carrie. Next, we've got water quality, Mr. Moody. All right. Good afternoon, commissioners. For the record, Brandon Moody, water quality and resiliency manager. So we're going to do a brief review of what we've been working on to meet the six strategic initiatives there in the current iteration of the one shot of the strategic plan, which was basically centered around developing a network of water quality data collection, reporting and communication tools, as well as working on building projects and goals to further good stewardship of our water resources. So where we've been moving and accomplishing these over the last few years involves our water quality monitoring program, which we've discussed quite a bit in these chambers of the past couple of years. We're now just about at the three-year mark as a reminder that started in July of 2022. So we're at the point where we've got enough of a data set that some of the hotter, hot spots are kind of bubbling up to the surface. And we've been moving on doing analyses and source tracking studies to try to figure out what might be the causes and sources of those issues. For bacteria, it's doing DNA analysis, determine whether or not those high rates of bacteria that were seeing in waters are actually coming from human-born sources. For nutrients, it's doing the source tracking, going upstream, taking a look and seeing if we're seeing the same problems upstream, downstream, and then honing in on where those nutrients might be coming from. This is also kind of giving us ideas. Mission at Deutsch, your attention's required. Thank you, sir. Go ahead, Brandon. Oh, sorry. This is also giving us some good indicators of areas that we can focus on for implementing neighborhood scale stewardship and water improvement programs with the local citizens right there. In addition, this part is not exactly the sexiest when it comes to water quality monitoring, but this is probably the most important. And that is putting together the products and the mechanisms by which we can very quickly and efficiently collect good high quality data and review that data for any anomalies or issues. RGIS group been building a digital field form, for example, for our field sampling staff, in an effort to move away from paper forms and all of the errors that can occur when it comes to documenting things on paper and then transcribing that to other sources. The IT applications group in the meantime has been working with us to develop what will eventually be a centralized repository for all of our water quality data. So no longer what we have a spreadsheet of data sitting on somebody's desktop in some office somewhere it all is going to get consolidated in one place, making it not only easier to access that data but also to combine it and review it. And so then anybody that needs to take a look at it, anytime you get public requests, it'll be a lot easier to pull that information together, analyze it and submit it for review. Also, Commissioner Constance, you're right, guys. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So will we all have temporal information because we've talked about if you go to the water atlas and you click on something where you look at some of these and you get a data point but it's 10 years old. Right. So at what point are we going to wipe out the old data and say there just isn't a data point. They're not realistic, they're not significant. It's not helping us. In fact, it can be very misleading. So personally, I'd like to understand your philosophy about what's important is Is it just in the next, in the last six months, I mean, is it the current state of affairs? And then we talked about having real-time monitoring or consistent, if not a unit sitting there, a consistent monitoring. But I really need that addressed because, you know, garbage in, garbage out. I need to know, I need to look at a map and know that this is all current, not three years ago, two years ago, one year ago, current. And now we're going to go back and start testing the other side of the wave and keep doing that. Right. So the way that we try to address that, especially in the dashboard that's currently available is twofold. We have one panel that allows people to see how things are looking over just the most recent three-year period. So just within the last three years, our things go at our things bad. And then folks that want to dig in a little deeper can go look at an individual site on another panel in the dashboard, and they can see the overall historical trend. So it's not just showing a dot on a page or even an old dot, it's showing only those sites that were actively monitoring and then from there the entire historic record of it so you can see how things have changed because we don't want to, while we want to make sure that people understand what we're doing currently now and what we're seeing now, we also want to maintain that historic context as well. How did it look 10 years ago? And is it any different than it looks now? So being able to provide multiple different ways for people to be able to access that information is kind of a key part of addressing that. One other question, if I can, Mr. Chair. We've had individuals come up and talk about doing core sampling of the base of the harbor or the riverbed or so forth. Is there historical value to doing that and how far down do you know as you go down one foot, three foot, eight feet, what is that timeline? Is there a significant timeline to that? And what are the costs involved in getting involved with that kind of a research project or are there, you know, as FGC, is anybody interested in looking at that type of data, some geological section of the university? So about 20 years ago, a little more than 20 years ago, the Southwest Port of Water Management District pulled in Louisiana State University to do just that. And they went to just a few locations in the harbor and the upper part of the harbor in the Peace River and they collected course samples. I can't remember how deep they went, but they were able to use carbon dating to identify how old the sediment was in each layers. And then from there, they looked at how much carbon and nitrogen was in each of those layers to build the story about how things have changed over time in the geologic record that we have in the sediments. I've been interested in going back and revisiting it, because again, that the sample... about how things have changed over time in the geologic record that we have in the sediments. I've been interested in going back and revisiting it because again that the samples associated with that were very localized. It was only in the upper reaches of the harbor, didn't include things like the Eastwall. And it was done in 99. So that was before Charlie, it was before Irma, it was before all of these major storm events that we've had that of added more things to the Senate before. And even as of late, where the entire Benthek Straton. all of these major storm events that we've had that have added more things to the Senate before. And even, you know, as of late, where the entire Benthek strata has probably shifted dramatically since Milton. So I would like to revisit it. It is not cheap. But we're taking the first steps in that with some of the work that we're doing with Sea Grant with the the IZON Sea Grass Program. They had for the last few years been having their volunteers collect macroalgae samples. And we just had those run for nutrient isotopes, which you can use to help determine where the sources of the nutrients came from. So, one, a couple of my many army of PhD interns are actually synthesizing that data now and creating maps as we speak. We're supposed to review them during a conference next week to see how they look. But using that to kind of dovetail into where we maybe need to do more of these geological studies to dovetail with this to really get at the heart of the sources of some of these issues. Well, as usual, great information. If you could furnish us with that reference from Louisiana State just so we have that. And then, I mean, I would think that DEP or SwiftMod would be interested in this kind of stuff. So maybe it's grant worthy at some point. But I would say through a university, I really think, and academic center benefits, somebody can get their PhD on looking at the history. And then, since 99, there's your thesis. Go forward and say, no, we've had all these events. And you can probably pick up in the core, match it to where it was, and then go from there forward up. And I'm going to take a sabbatical and do those again. One way we've been able to do this and keep costs down. For example, we've been funding a comprehensive study of water circulation in the tidal piece river. sabbatical and do those things. One way we've been able to do this and keep costs down, for example, we've been funding a comprehensive study of water circulation in the title piece river between us in Pondagorda because we don't have time to talk about here because I've gone for hours but it is extraordinarily complex. But the way that we made that work financially is we essentially hired the graduate students and the PhD students as interns. And so we're only paying UF for their advisory professor to do the final review and what not of the work. And that cuts way down on what it actually costs us to have universities do this sort of stuff. So we're looking at those sorts of things. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So speaking of our many army of interns, I've leaned on them to start building products to help us very quickly and easily review our data. For example, you see on your screen this mast of gray and blue and red yellow things that doesn't look like a whole lot of much of anything. But what that is is the entire historical data set for, in this case, the ammonia in Charlotte County. And what I can do is take this zoom out and see via the red dots exactly where we're seeing high levels of things, whether those high levels are based on a particular day, where samples are collected, are based at a particular location. I can look at the yellow dots and see how often data is getting flagged as being erroneous. And so it's a way to very quickly and easily take a look and see the state of our program across the county with these different values. And the interns actually coded all of this. So all we have to do is dump in data, hit a button, and this magically erupts. And so I then get to spend all of my time hunting down the sources and causes of these issues rather than actually organizing and managing all this data. So it's a huge time saver to have these sorts of things created. I have a question for you. Pre-imposed septic to sewer conversion. Yes, we've talked about this for years. Where are we with that? So when you, I believe it was one of the huge planning meetings that you brought this up to me up to me when I was giving a presentation and we're asking if we could start digging into what we're seeing in the data. And so I took what we had from utilities that they had been doing some groundwater sampling for a little while and what I had found so far were two things. Number one, the results are kind of half and half. So depending on the location, we either saw a dramatic drop in nutrients after the septic things were moved, or we didn't see a whole lot of difference at all. It was very minor. And one of the issues with it is that I also noticed that there were a number of anomalies in the data. There were situations when we're viewing it that certain results were flagged or earmarked in such a way that made zero sense for the type of data that was collected. I don't know if it's the lab that did it. There were anomalies in just the basic physical characteristics of what were reported. So for example, they sample a bunch of wells in a given area, and in some spots, the groundwater levels in a couple of the wells were dramatically higher than at the rest of the wells, which doesn't make much sense on the surface. If you sample all the wells in the immediate area on the same day, unless there's some really weird geologic formation going on, the groundwater levels should be similar. So it brought some concern to me about the veracity of some of the data, which is why we've been working with utilities and moving towards these things like I've been talking about the database and the QC checking functions to eliminate these issues so that they get caught as soon as the data comes in, as soon as we receive that information, we can rectify it and then we're spending our time figuring out what the state is actually telling us and whether things are good or bad Quote versus whether or not their valid or invalid. Do we have pre-construction sampling for Ackerman? I am not entirely sure Okay, I Don't know if it was utility who would because we had talked about KPays and I believe the board directed to at least locate and come up with a strategy for locating wells that would be representative of you know a conversion right and utilities that's been working on getting a contract to gather to actually implement that program that's been their initiative for that pre-construction monitoring. So I know that's ongoing. I'd have to double check with utilities. I'll Mr. Watson's approaching. So maybe he can give us an update. Dave Watson, Charlotte County Utilities. So as far as Ackerman goes, I will have to find out. I don't know what testing was done prior to the septic disorder starting out there. With Cape Hayes, we've kind of linked Cape Hayes in the Lakeview Midway area. We are proceeding with testing in Lakeview Midway. That is still ongoing and being worked out. But I will find out about the Ackerman and get that back to you. Yeah, I just remember the board having discussions about demonstrating the benefits of septic dissuer and how it was important to demonstrate pre-imposed construction data, understanding that it may take some time for the system and hydrology to work, however that works. But I also understand there are some immediate impacts that we can measure right away. I have Commissioner Dory and the QCEL, I'll let him jump in. You're right, Commissioner. You know, my memory is that the test wells that we installed initially were east-west spring lake. That's correct. And I think that's the data that you're looking at. I would guess that the quicker removals probably were, again, related to the proximity to the tidal waters. I would guess the canal system, in other words, out the east-west spring lake possible. But there was some work done by Western Michigan on Ackerman, if my memory is correct. They actually created, they did some modeling and to develop a try to an estimate of how quickly we'd see removal, 50% removal that I remember seeing the curves. It's a spring lake area that they did. I'm not sure if the first phase. Yeah, Akerman, I think they did too. But anyways, bottom line is the PhD got, but it wasn't based on a whole bunch of wells. I mean, I think they just did a modeling of, again, hydraulically, hydraulic connectivity of the soils and they did some work because we were about to move over into Elgebean So they did some work there to try to estimate how long we should expect to see 50% removal nitrogen and and 90% as I recall occurs So I've got that stuff upstairs. I'm gonna try to find out Yeah, I remember too. And I believe Western Michigan can put that chemical into the system and measure how quickly it moved through the soil. I can't remember what it was called, but there's a, it was something. I just can't remember the name of it. The bill, you might be right. It might have been spring-wise. It might have been super-lose. Yeah. I remember having that discussion. I also vaguely remember that there was a, I can't remember if staff brought it up, but if we can demonstrate in the pilot program that it works, why do it going forward? Because conceptually, if it works in the pilot program, then it should work everywhere. I don't know if we took action on that and directed staff to do that, but obviously not because we talked about KPays and others to do some test well so we can see the impact. But that was kind of thrown out there. We talked about a lot of things. Okay, you can keep going. Any further questions on this issue? Okay, you can keep going. Just. Just a quick aside on the interns. Right now we've got five associated with the University of Florida, University of Miami and Florida Gulf Coast University, working on stuff that we just talked about, as well as helping us conduct field surveys, doing monitoring installations, developing outreach projects. They're going out with me tomorrow to start installing our tide gauges that we just got in earlier this week. So they've been a huge, huge key to the work that we've been able to do at this point. So far, we've had, I think, a total of 10 interns move through the water quality programs since I got here. And I owe a great debt of debt gratitude to all of them for the help that they've given during various parts of this process. I also have to give a shout out to our newest addition to the team Molly Holland, who's our emergency coordinator. She came to us from Sarasota County. She spent many years there in stormwater, both in project management and in outreach and communications. And so we're leveraging her experience and expertise in working with the CISN area up here to develop products and projects to help our community learn how to be better stewards. One of the first things that she did actually was revamp the One Charlotte One Waterway page. She took the hyperlink salad that was the page I created and turned it into a pretty comprehensive guide for the public on what we do, how we do, and also the things that the public can do to be better caretakers of the resources around them. So she's been doing a fantastic job being just with that and is now moving forward on evaluating opportunities for bringing some of the similar initiatives that have been implemented in Sarasota County down here. All right, so all of this is of course building to the implementation of the inaugural edition of the One Water Plan, which we've been holding public feedback meetings on this year so far. We've been running through the feedback we received from those meetings and making tweaks to some of the plan language accordingly. We're about to get this sent out for 30-day public review of the plan at which point we would then make any changes based on comments from that and then meet with you all for acceptance of the plan and for the conversation. In the meantime we're looking to move forward on some of the plan tasks that were recommended in the plan by our consultants. For example we received direction in the past to start moving forward on these insurance plans. So there is a requested budget allocation for implementing the Libyan Bay reasonable insurance plan with Sarasota County as that was the one that our consultant stated was at the highest readiness for implementation now. Mainly because Sarasota County has a copious amounts of data in modeling and information already developed for them in Bay, so we can just leverage that for development of that plan. We've also, as was noted by Francine, are requesting some additional staff as we continue to build on all of this work that we're doing and create more responsibilities and more projects getting more full-time assistance to help us make sure that those are the best they can be. And that leads me to what I'm proposing as the six strategic initiatives for the upcoming plan, which are basically summaries of the main tasks in the plan itself. There's just kind of groups them and organizes them for the format of the strategic plan. But these are essentially kind of the overarching first steps, goals and tasks that we are discussing and doing as part of the one-challet one-water plan. Any questions? Okay. Thank you. Next we have industrial development and I've got Sean Cullen and Tina Powell, Francine Lisby. Thank you. Sean Cullen and Plank is oning official. Today we're going to talk a little bit about some strategies that we could look at for the increase of industrial land. So the Metro Forecasting Model study found that by 2030, the county could support an additional 1.3 million square feet or 184 acres of industrial development. So we're just having some discussion. What can we do? We create strategies to expand some of the industrial areas. In that, we would look at where do they make sense? Impacts in neighboring properties. What types of industrial could we look at? Better to find what is industrial. Are we looking at, you know, coal spewing power plants? Or are we looking for higher, you know, higher tech, higher wage type jobs. So those are things that we've been discussing internally in order to possibly look at some expansions of our industrial opportunities. And one of the other things that you folks have spoken about recently is the Request for more green space, more open space with projects. So as I've done a couple of presentations within the past year or so, we've got numerous comprehensive planning code provisions regarding the protection of natural resources in open space. Unfortunately, we know from the sins of the past how we've been previously developed, those opportunities with larger areas to work with developers on are becoming more and more limited. And so we're trying to maximize those opportunities. We've got an entire element in the comprehensive plan, the natural resources element. We've got projects that are required to have open space and protect natural resources, such as through the Florida area ratio and square footage limitations, required stormwater and landscaping, planned developments require 20% of open space, as well as the overlays. My presentation earlier this week regarding the US 17, similar to Burnt Store, where about half the land within those areas have to be put into preservation. Sorry. It's the right question for you on the industrial. Yes. Industrial obviously brings a lot of jobs and also issues because it's industrial. And where does it go? Are you suggesting maybe a strategy would be to take existing zone property, change the zoning or expand the urban services area and create a new zoning area for industrial property. I'd say yes. We're looking at all strategies. There are some opportunities where we could, there are some areas where we could look at existing maybe commercial zoning that could be switched over to industrial zoning, some areas where we could look at potential expansion of the urban service area. There's some areas that have good natural boundaries that it can't expand any more past certain areas, but we're looking at all of those. Yeah, because industrial by right creates a lot of uses that may not work well with existing neighborhoods and uses that are already there. That's why I was thinking, are you looking geographically at a certain part of the county? And of course, you know, the boards have conversations about utilities and those issues. Industrial, you have to have those utilities to make it work. And that's why one of the things is better to find industrial and what types of because, you know, yeah, you could have a concrete batch plant that wall unnecessary use or storage and necessary use. You compare that to a chainy brothers or a FedEx distribution or something like that and completely different, but both classified as industrial uses. So again, we're looking at all of those types of those types of opportunities. So how does that come back to the board? Is it coming back at a future workshop for you know specifically industrial you're gonna put something together? How does that how does that happen? I believe that's why we're here to get your thoughts on it. If you just say no, we don't want anything then we still. Well, it was one slide and we went by, nobody commented and I wanted to go back because, you know, I was looking at that metro forecasting on our board agenda and reading into it. It was zeroing in on industrial, you know, so I didn't want to let that go. I mean, I'm just one commissioner. I mean, I'd like to see it come back where the board can have it. I think you're going to hear more from K Tracey on that very issue. Okay. Well, this was on industrial land. So yeah, that's why setting the table. This is obviously the first surprise many discussions we'll be having because it is a very broad type of discussion. Again, defining what type of industrial do we want. and as I'll get into in the next slide as well, we've got a lot of goal posts that continuously move. So going back to the open space requirement. So again, we've got a number of areas like the US 17 and Burnt Store Road area plans. Again, we tried to focus on areas. We know will eventually develop, and how can we get them into a better development? You know, 500 feet protection of flowways and greenways, the requirements of half the land being put into, you know, open space and preservation. For next week, the sending zones of density, those will all go into conservation easements so we're always looking at strategies but as I said the goal post keep moving right now we can't create more restrictive legislation as you're well aware of on their SB 250 now it is until October 1st 2026 but there is pending legislation that will extend that another year and And as I believe I said Tuesday, there is no lack of natural disasters which may extend these even further. So with that, I'd be happy to answer any questions. And if not, I will go on to some slides that Tina has to talk about some of the things that we already have currently for conservation and public lands and things of that nature. Any questions? Mr. Collinan. Okay. Commissioner Dordy, here I go. Another question just to comment. I think I do support getting together or numerous workshops. It's necessary on industrial. I mean, we need the options. We need to define, again, define what types of industrial opportunities we have and realistically what we can really support and where that would be. We obviously have some stuff really going strong out in the E-CAP right now, relative to aerospace, you know, and all that stuff out there. So, you know, that makes sense to look at that whole region quite honestly and see what's what what makes sense out there. Commissioner Constance. So, you say you can't create more restrictive legislation. Well, you know, some would also look at you're saying limiting people to not being able to do things would be restrictive where some would say that not allowing things to go back to nature is restrictive. It's not how we view it, it's how a court would view it if something was brought forward and we were challenged on it. I understand. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon commissioners. Tina Powell, Parks and Natural Resources. I'm just going to give a brief overview of our conservation lands in Charlotte County and the status of the Conservation Charlotte program. So this map just shows all of the conservation lands in Charlotte County owned by various entities, whether it be the state county conservation easements, not not for profits. The dark blue are the conservation Charlotte lands that we have acquired through the conservation Charlotte program. It's five properties totaling approximately 2500 acres. The current status of the program is we've had no new acquisitions since 2009. All of the collections have gone to bond repayment. Physical has determined that there will be a surplus when the program is set to expire in 2027. However, those funds do have to be expended under the current criteria that outlines the program. Okay, Commissioner Constance. So two questions go back to that map slide, please. So what is this represents? It's been like 42% of all of our land? Roughly 46%. 46%. How much of that is actually accessible to the public? Most of it. The majority of the state lands have some level of public access. It differs by which agency manages it, whether it's state lands, FWC, but they all have some level of public access. Everything in the... But hang on. But not every square inch. Correct. Okay, so I'm going to go back. I'd like to know actually how much of that 46% is actually accessible. 1% of it, 5% of it, 10% of it. I'm just curious. We say it, and people give us a hard time because they say government owns all this land. Well, most of it's owned by the state. It's not us. But it's there. It certainly serves a purpose for water quality and other and nature and habitat and all those things. But people understand the utility of it. And I can't recall the second part. Go ahead. I'll you go back. Mr. Dordy. Yeah, I just would appreciate an update I know within the last year we had we had a presentation on the estimated surplus in the program How many dollars and there were some properties that could fit into the program? I would defer to fiscal on the dollar now, but I mean in my one-on-ones, you know Sometimes in the relatively near future. I'd appreciate the update on that. I just don't remember. Thank you, Commissioner Cox. Yeah, my second question did have to do with the dollar. So I caught what you said that we're going ahead and repaying the bond and we'll probably be doing it ahead of schedule, we're gonna have a surplus. So what are those criteria? Because they, in my understanding, and I'll kind of look to the attorney, We have to pay, we have to use the money. I mean, there's no alternative. If we have a surplus, There's a slide right there on 36, the bottom there. You have to use the money for the purpose that it was collected for. And those are the criteria that was in the ordinance that went to referendum. There's a group that considers the rarity of the land that connectedness, quality, manageability. Name for the record? Genet and old and county attorney. Thank you. But OK, if I can follow up, so rarity, correctness, quality, manageability, and water resources. So within the ordinance, each of those has a one to five ranking. And when a is nominated that goes to the environmentally sensitive oversight board and they do that ranking and then staff will put together supplemental information and then they would recommend to the board to purchase or not to purchase and then that would be brought to you all for final decision. Okay, so if there were, ifed lands that could fit these criteria, we could purchase them, but not be able to do anything with them. Like you can't purchase them and say, hey, these are conservation lands and then put a parking lot on it or use it for boat access or anything like that. You could put minimally invasive support. So parking lots, trails, developing a full boat ramp would not meet the intent of the ordinance, but to provide public access, those types of amenities are allowed. The majority of our conservation Charlotte lands have public access and have small parking lots. The only exception is the Wharton Key, the public access there is only by kayak. Okay. And let's say there were a five acre lot that was untouched. I mean, you couldn't put more than five spaces on that. There's got to be some ratio of allowing public access but not destroying the amenity. Right. Under this criteria, smaller parcels around five acres wouldn't score well, so it would be dependent on what they're kind of up against us, up against for other site nominations, just because manageability and connectedness. If it was five acres directly adjacent to something, it would probably score well. but if it was in the middle of deep creek it would be a challenge to its writing. I'm thinking something more with water access for a kayak launch or something like that. I don't know what the parking lot to ratio standard is that might be a shone question. Don't wear the green jacket during masters. You're going to get called just telling you. All right. I apologize. Can you repeat the question? So if it's a smaller parcel, say five acres, two acres, seven acres, and it's close to a natural water amenity and an argument could be made. Let's grab this for conservation easement. We have the money. We have to spend it. This is a good application. We think can't do a full boat ramp, but maybe a kayak launch area. What percentage can you invade that property for parking bathrooms, things like that? Is there any sort of criteria set up or it's nothing, it's a drop off zone, you can't do anything there. It would all depend on the piece of property. It would depend what the zoning is, it would depend on what the natural resources were, if there are wetlands, if there are uplands, we would work with community services to develop what would fit best. We do that quite frequently. They've got a plethora of different types of launches. We'll use a kayak launch. They've got some that are just very rudimentary where yeah, you drop your stuff off and you go park somewhere else. They've got some that are fully paved and you know full parking lots. We would look at the individual sites work with them. But there's no set ratio. No sir. Okay. There are parking requirements for different types of uses but we also have ways to where that can be addressed or reduced certain things under Florida building code for accessibility. You have ADA issues. You may have to put in facilities there so folks can, you know, it can't just be a port of party but you need something stable. So I'm just potentially putting things through all of this. Right, and we run the gamut of that throughout the county and again it's a lot of it based on the zoning a lot of its based on you know obviously if it's a more active park you've got a lot more of those infrastructure needs if it is more just hey we've got a lot here where we've done a clearing and put in some shell you know just so people can park on to put their kayaks in we've worked worked with those folks on it as well. We do allow parks, public parks, and I believe every zoning district, except maybe ECAP, to be able to do that so that we have those up. Well that makes sense. I mean if it's permeable surface, then that makes things a lot easier because then I think as soon as you trip stormwater the answers know. I have a request if I can to fiscal through the administrator. But let's just find out like when the bond ends, we're going to continue to collect, give us an estimate because I know we don't have one today, but I'd like to find out what is this going to be looking like because this is usable and we're going to have to start planning on how we use it. You'll look. You're good? Yeah. Well, Francine was going to come up first. I think you answered that question. And then Commissioner Dory and the Q. And then I feel a little bit of information on that. The Smith will end in fiscal year 27, as well as the bond payment will drop off in that year. We're anticipating over $13 million of surplus. Okay, that sounds weird. I think that was the number we had talked about. Thank you. Mr. Dordy, recognize me. Yeah, just on that same topic, I need some help from the administration. I can't remember who made the presentation. Then we, that basically the amount of money, 13 million, but there was a list of projects, eight or nine pieces of property I believe that would qualify and everybody's estimation at this point for that 13 million. So I think that's what I'm talking about as far as the refresher. Let's get those pieces of property in front of us again in our one-on-ones so we have an opportunity to make talk about them. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. My last slide is just about the potential future of the program. It is set to expire in 2027. There are a couple options to renew the program as is. Renew the program as a more hybrid program that provides some adjusted criteria or let the program expire. I have talked with Brandon about looking at that water resources category and how it can more strategically align with the one water one Charlotte program, look at ecosystem services as additional benefits or criteria that could be reviewed on. Commissioner Trux. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah, I like the modification discussion. And a broader use moving forward, if we go back out, I hope the board will consider having more flexibility to the program if we renew it. You're good. Yeah, Commissioner Constance. Question, I mean, but you're saying, but to renew it, it goes back on the ballot. Right. Yeah. I mean, it's not a question of, you're saying that you're in options, but any of these options has to be put on the ballot for the public to decide if they want to move the ballot. Correct. And we want, I would want to modify it so it gives more flexibility to use other phones very restrictive now thank you we were we were to submit the ballot initiative yes yeah yeah come to your door to your recognizes thank you mr. German yes and I think we had the use of the phone. It's very restrictive now. Thank you. We were to submit the ballot initiative. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Commissioner Dordey, you recognize it. Thank you, Mr. German. Yes. And I think we had this conversation too. The last time we talked about this surplus. And I think the consensus was that we, do we put this on the ballot the same year we have the sales test on the ballot? OK. because it would have to be a 26-ballot. And I do support exactly what you're saying. It's the timing of it that has me. We have the sales test on the ballot. Okay, because it would have to be a 26 ballot. And I do support exactly what you're saying. It's the timing of it that has me a little concerned as to which would be, it would be too risky. That's all. Speaking of timing though, it expires in 27, so it would be after 2026, it would have to be 2028 or a different date. Well it would expire in 27 and you couldn't start it again until 29 because it goes on the ballot in 28. It would be a new tax. It would be a new one, right? If you did it in 26, it would start again after 27 at the end of 27. It would move forward. Yeah, I just don't know from a legal standpoint if you can overlap something that has not yet expired and then you put it back on, I see. I hope. Yeah, Emily coming towards the podium. So, I see. It helped. Yeah, Emily coming towards the podium. So commission for the record, Emily Lewis, Deputy County Administrator. So you could actually have taken it this past general election, but any referendums have to go in general election, which means it would have to go on 26 in order to renew under as an existing program. As a matter of fact, if you bring it back in 28, which would be the next general, then it would be a new tax. But the issue is renewing as existing. The language is being proposed to be changed, so it would require. But you would be changing the millage. It would be the same. You could be changing the parameters, which is what we do with sales tax every time. You change the parameters of it, but it's not a new program. I mean, I think, you know, from what we've been hearing is a board from the community, they want more preservation and environmentally, you know, they want more conservation. So I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility that, you know, this would, I believe I think there's that much interest in it. I think it's got a good chance on a ballot, but I do agree. I think we need to look at the language and look at the optimum time on when it would be to get this done. And I see some more discussion. Strategy, that's all. Strategy, yes. I should have been prepared for this question. I was just asking Tina, what was the passage rate? Last time we took it, I'll do a little research around that and come back to you in one-on-one. So we can take a look at what the outreach program was at that time, the education program, and the passage rate. Certainly we've had some shifting and demographics and changes in our community but I will tell you when we surveyed doing the citizens survey back in November the top two areas that were of interest to our residents water quality which this has a tie to that and transportation so. Yeah, I seen the remember north of 55%. It goes way back. It was 20 years ago. I just remember looking at some documents. And that's why it stuck in my head. Commissioner Chouac. I would just say that my recollection was I was shocked at how readily it passed. I just don't remember the percentage. But I remember I think it was closer to 60. It could be. It was a good number. Yeah, just remember. That's recollection has been as well, but we'll know that now and bring that back to you. OK, any more comments on this item? OK. Next, we're going to go back to Mrs. Lisby. Francine Lisby, Assistant Budget Director for the record. I just wanted to briefly touch on the Growth Incremental Fund. As we have had conversations about potentially setting aside funding for when land acquisition becomes available, I just wanted to mention that the Growth incremental funding, as you all know, is funding that's been put aside at Valorant Dollars as we see new construction come on the tax roll. So completely at your discretion. Currently we have a, this is the history behind growth incremental funding for the last five years. You can see we do, we are carrying a fund balance. We're anticipating at the end of fiscal year 25 to have a fund balance of $8.6 million. I also want to point out that currently the expenditures that we are utilizing the funding for is beach re-nourishment, the fire assessments for not-for-profits and churches, and then stadium maintenance. So with that being said, if and we're not making a recommendation at this time that we would utilize this for future open space or land acquisition, however it is an option, but we do have to take into consideration we would have to find it new funding sources for these items we're currently using for the growth and criminal funding. Any questions on this item? Okay, thank you. Oh, Commissioner Constitiation. So what you're saying is the three expenditures currently which are going to come up to about four and a half million if this went away we've got to find a source to fund those three. You still extra money that were never expended anyway. Correct because these are continuous expenditures. Thank you. Alright next we're going to move on to economic development. Mrs. Kay Tracy. You're going to tell us about industrial land. Uh oh I'm in in trouble. Yeah, you're in trouble. Good afternoon, commissioners. I just wanted to take this opportunity to present to you a very high-level briefing on economic development and to start off and what our strategic focus is, our progress, and then our planning going ahead. Oops, from way. These are some fancy things I put in and I can't believe Francine kept it in but apologized. So at the core of economic development, our work is to build a strong and balanced economy that supports both businesses and residents in Charlotte County. We attract new businesses and investment to diversify and strengthen our economic base. We support and the expansion of existing businesses to ensure continued job growth and stability. And we also foster business-friendly environments where companies can thrive and grow. And then we also help facilitate in the creation of high quality, high-paying jobs that are from high-impact targeted sectors. And then finally, we help to strengthen the local tax base, which helps to reduce the tax burden from our residents. Our target industries that are local focus, well, first of all, I wanted to mention that our activities do align with the state of Florida and their target industries, which is advanced manufacturing, aviation, aerospace, clean and alternative energy, financial and professional services, information technology, life sciences and medical technologies, logistics and distribution and also the defense and homeland security. So locally, we tend to concentrate more heavily on the sectors where we have strength and that advantage. And that is in the aviation and aerospace industry, particularly in that ECAP area through our AMP training programs and now our new MRO which is helping to fuel some more projects coming into the community. Our light manufacturing and advanced manufacturing, so I think I heard a little discussion about industry, smokestaff. We're not that kind of community that attracts big heavy automotive manufacturing, steel mills, things like that. The concentration is more modern driven, technology driven, types of industries and manufacturing. And again, that is anchored by that airport area, that ECAP. And then of course the logistics and distribution arena benefiting from the proximity to I-75 that whole corridor is just prime for logistics and distribution companies. Then we also focus on workforce development and talent development and the critical need of our business community. And that is years gone by, this is becoming more and more of a critical need for our businesses to thrive and grow in our economy. We do also work very closely with our partners, such as Career Source, the Charlotte Technical College, Educational Institution, Higher Educational Institutions like FSW, FGCU, and others. And then of course our Business Retention and Expansion Program to proactively support our local employers. This is helping them to expand and grow again. And then finally our entrepreneur and innovation programs fostering small businesses and start up ecosystems, which is very critical to any type of economy. Does anybody have any questions about that? Any comments? Okay. Okay. So, our work is rooted in the economic realities of facing, or I'm sorry, our work is rooted in some of the things that are facing our economy as far as wage comparison. When you look at our wages compared to our surrounding counties, Lee County and Sarasota County you can see on the slide that we are falling short of those and it makes it very competitive in two ways. I mean, an industry coming into our community can look at that as a plus because they don't have to pay their employees as much. But then again, if it doesn't really matter, it's an industry that is high-paying naturally. They may look at these other communities and say, okay, you know, I want to go to an area where there are higher-paying jobs and people that are accustomed to that type of a wage. And then as you can see, the Florida State average is the highest. So just our region alone is a pretty low pain in comparison to other communities in Florida. I have a question for you. So I just saw the new data came out for affordable housing and the air and median income and it looks like we boosted up to 90 some out thousand, 94 thousand from 77 or something like that. So it shows a significant increase in income in Charlotte County. Yet I guess the wage comparison, it's still less than surrounding counties. But it could be retirees that are skewing that number. I'm not sure. I'm not sure what. But we did make a significant move. Absolutely. Absolutely. Thank you. So the impact of the economic development office then is not only about numbers, it's about the impact and the work that contributes to the community, which is improving household incomes, supporting public services through tax revenues, building a diverse, resilient local economy, and then creating opportunities for future generations. So I think that early on a million years ago, when I started an economic development, one of the first comments that I had heard, my kids are graduating from high school. They want to leave the area. And this company was just brokenhearted to see their kids go. That they didn't want to stay. They didn't want to take over their business because they wanted to go to other areas where they could make a lot more money. So that has been something that has been around for a very, very long time. In the past year, let's see here, in the past year, some of our accomplishments, as you can see on the slide, is Jud Creation. We've helped to facilitate, we don't create jobs in economic development. We help with the facilitation of job creation. Over 100 high wage paying jobs through targeted industries, our workforce development collaboration with business and educational partners. We have been able to launch our magnet programs and specialty school programs with our partners as well as the PCS, which permanent change of station program for veterans that has made a significant impact in our area who loves the veteran community and then finally our industrial growth and it's the eCAP now so it's very difficult for us to take the entire we had to do this manually to take the entire county and see how that impacted the entire county, our growth in the last year for 2023 and 24. But we were able to look at just the ECAP area and that area alone added approximately a million square feet of industrial space, which is great, and also increased the taxable value from, as you can see on the slide, from 2020 to 2024, there's a huge difference between the taxable value that's in that ECAP. That's a resale of property and then improve property as well. So in just that year, so if you look for 2023 to 2024, it's about a $51 million difference in taxable value. Okay, let's see here. Looking ahead, looking ahead, we are focused on expanding our impact. Our development and capital investment, we're targeting another $50 million in new business investment while balancing open space and industrial growth. Our business retention, we are conducting about 50 business retention and expansion annually calls or visits. Our workforce development position, we're trying to position ourselves as a hub for well-paying well skilled with well-paying jobs in high-level sector or technology types of businesses. So in saying that, I see in the future that there will probably, we will probably need a dedicated person just devoted in that area because our average wage in this community happens to be on an upward trajectory, which is very concerning to us because as we all get older, more and more people are going to be coming off out of the market, the workforce market, and the baby boomers, the tail end of the baby boomers are starting to retire, and we're going to be in really sorry shape in this community if we just have retirees in our community. We need people to help our business community service the aging population. And then job creation, job creation, we're looking at, we're targeting another 100 high wage paying jobs in high impact sectors. And then we're doing a lot of this through our marketing outreach. We have an excellent marketer that is working with our office right now and we're looking to expand our digital footprint and improve our performance by 20% in that regard. So really economic development is about preparing for tomorrow while delivering results today through strategic planning, collaborative partnerships, proactive outreach. The Charlotte County Economic Development is committed to building a balanced economy, one that supports the local economy, strengthens families and sustains long-term growth. Any questions? Yeah, I wanted to circle back to industrial. So I was just thinking while you were talking, do we have zoning take a look at available land that might be conducive to industrial? And I'm just thinking off the top of my head, cross from Florida, Southwestern, off airport road right on the interstate. There's a bunch of land. I think Mr. McQueen knows that I'm just thinking about it, it's got cows on it in a house. Do we create an industrial overlay map and say, if you fall into this by right, that's the key, by right, you can have industrial uses, and it would incentivize that type of use. So I'm kind of thinking about those things, you know, just taking a look on our GIS looking at areas that would again would be conducive to industrial because from there you can you can you can go to pipe a road and get on the interstate either way. It's kind of like a hub. So areas like that, you know, and just start making some changes and incentivize it. I have Commissioner Dory and the Q. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yeah, I just wanted to comment on your slide about workforce. And you have been there, increased workforce housing. And you and I have had that conversation in my office about, you know, we've concentrated and rightfully so on affordable housing, 80% below, right? And of course, market. And we seem to have another category that we need to maybe give some consideration and create policy on is workforce housing. Kind of a donor hole. The people that they start off, their salaries are too high to fit into affordable. But they're not strong enough. You have to start off their careers and don't have enough money to hit market. So I think we need some data. I think we need to have some analysis done as to what the new numbers that have come in too. I saw those numbers as well as it bumped pretty significantly from roughly 78,094, and 948. So, but what does that all mean? And quite honestly, what's the rental picture look like right now? What is typical market for two better? And I think we need to understand that data and see if it's worth the effort in getting with administration, you'd work with administration and human services to try to figure out whether or not we need to create some policy, additional policy on workforce housing. We have it on affordable, but we don't, you know, I'm not sure we've got it all covered properly. That's all. Yeah, and I think the question is, you know, how do you define workforce housing? That's number one. That's really, exactly. Yeah, because really you've got affordable and market rate, and I can tell you with the amount of stock that's under construction right now on rental rates there has been a lowering of some of those market rate because it's driven by the market when you start flooding with supply and the man is stagnated you know you're going to see some of those rents drop and I've seen it there's a lot of stuff coming on the line you know online if you go down level and and bullet bar. Yeah, supply and demand that's market rate, you know, and Again, that just goes with the market trend supply demand, you know economics. I just want to look at it Yeah, you know if they can if they can get some some data and confirm that yeah, we're okay Everything's fine or do we need to do something right? Thank you Oh, did you want to know? No, I'm not. OK. Well, again, I'm just interested in hearing more about the industrial side of it and what we can do. So hopefully staff will come back at a future meeting with some ideas and recommendations on how we can expand industrial. Because again, we're going to get into this at our next meeting. When we looking at the data from Metro forecasting. We're going to have some good information to go over and give some good direction. Okay, thank you for that. Yeah, any questions for staff before we move on to comments? Okay, we're going to move on to comments, Mr. Flores. Okay, thank you, Mr. Chair, Commissioner. I do have two items. One is a letter of request that we do want to get out the door here in the next day or two. It came to us just yesterday. So Coastal and Hartlin National Estuary Program, SHNEP, they are applying or working with Congressman Donald's office for a federal appropriation for NOAA title gauges to be installed along our coast. Like I said, it's a federal appropriation request. The appropriation window was extended of end of business tomorrow, end of business on Friday. So FGCU, Water School is providing a letter of support. We understand and they are requesting one from the county. So we'll put that together, put it on an upcoming board agenda for you all to ratify. So we wanna move forward with that, just wanna let you know that. Okay, so the deadline is when? The appropriation request deadline from what the Congressman's office relayed to us was end of business tomorrow. So are you making it a change for the meeting on Tuesday? We would add the letter that we would draft here the next day or two to send off to meet their deadline and for you to ratify it. I think he's asking if you have any objection to him drafting a letter. And then if not, if there's no objection sitting here today, he'll put it on the agenda for ratification on Tuesday. Given the time. Well, it's a future meeting and I hope he meant Tuesday. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Well, are we allowed to give direction at a workshop? You are individually going to say if you have any objection. He's running a risk that will vote it down on Tuesday. Yeah. And you could withdraw if that happens. OK. Just want to make sure we're correct. Any comments? Anything else, for us? Yeah, just one more thing. Thank you great feedback on these items Like I said, this is our first discussion for you the strategic folks areas One thought is you know, we'll discuss more we appreciate the feedback on how we populate the affordable housing trust fund We've talked about land acquisition opportunities, whether it's conservation park lands. We've got good, healthy reserves. You always want to keep your fiscal stabilization. I thought I'm actually, and it's not an official reserve, but call it an opportunity set aside if it is, and you know how I protect the general fund, but if it from general fund to dollars to address those issues, we've always talked about how do we put our best foot forward for affordable housing and showing that we've got that commitment to it. So we can certainly come up with some thoughts, ideas, recommendations on how you do that. But again, thanks for the feedback. We look for more as we kind of go through the budget process. Okay. And regarding the health of the reserve, in terms of FEMA reimbursements, had, yeah, where are, have you heard anything on anything incoming? Not in the past week or so since we last updated the board as far as the, you know, from E and the, the 180 million, the 80 that's come to us. So, unless we've got a wire transfer or something that I wasn't aware of here in the past week or two, I believe the numbers still stand or still waiting. You know, that's part of the uncertainty and goes along with our, the need for that fiscal stabilization reserve too. And the debris costs associated with Helene and Milton. Those have not yet been invoiced or requests for payment yet. We haven't seen those come in yet. Well, that's where I'm saying we may be healthy now. I don't know what those numbers are, but should they come in, I'm thinking it could be a different picture a week from now. That's probably going to be tens of millions of dollars. Great point. Yeah, well, I'm just, yeah. So that's what we don't know. So I want to make sure we don't have a false sense of security with the understanding. We still haven't seen five months after what those numbers are. We have not been invoiced. So I just want to make sure the board's aware of that. That we got a big number coming up. And that's why it's so important with FEMA, with the E&Money, that we start to backfill wherever that came from, from the different funds and get it back into those accounts. Because we may need it again for the next tranche of invoices and I see Mrs. Lewis getting up to correct me. She's got the details, but that is absolutely spot on. That's the uncertainty part of what we have those fiscal stabilizations for. So yeah, thank you. And we're going into another hurricane hurricane season you know so. So for the record Emily Lewis Deputy County Administrator wasn't coming to correct you more just to say that typically debris and voicing lags pretty long time we're still doing PPDR, CPDR wrapping up those operations. I think our estimates are in the $30 million range. So, but I will say typically that's one of the first obligations you get from FEMA. We are, that's the only obligation we've gotten from Ian so far that we've seen actual funds start to trickle down for. So that reimbursement process is a little bit quicker than the individual project process. Okay. Any questions on that? Yeah, Mr. Constance. Thank you, so thank you Emily Lewis for the record. How are we drawing down funds from the state? Because remember they're supposed to be covering or are they getting billed directly for their 25% or whatever the debris issue? So for Haleen and Milton we got 100% up to a certain period of time then it dropped down to I believe 80 and then 70. We will do our full obligation and then we split that part with the state. Right. But I'm looking at, and maybe I missed it because I was outside the door, but have we been completely reimbursed for the E and debris? No. There's. Right. So let's start again port that part was also partly reimbursed by the state. Have they at least paid for their obligation? Are they being billed directly or that it's a pass through us and we need to get the money? No. It's a court question. It's a court question. Not a joke. While he's approaching commissioner, I believe it's a million is the balance owed from Ian. Plus another 30 in here. That's not all on debris though. No. OK. So, I agree. OK. For the record. For the record, Gordon Burger, Director of Budget Ministry of Services. I hate giving numbers off top of my head. What is the big asterisk over your head right now. Yeah. Just give us a brother. Here's the one thing I can definitively say. The last time I gave you an update, which was like six months ago, we haven't received another sense, since then. So that's the one thing I can tell you. We've gotten about $44 million back. We had the two expedited projects. I can't remember exactly what they came up to, but we've gotten about $44 million back. But we had four expedited projects, 200 debris removal, 200 protective measures. We've gotten one, one, one tranche back. So $44 million, what we've got to reimburse on essentially the, you know, hundreds of millions of of dollars. On Milton and Hulleen, I get the two storms mixed up. I hate doing the soft talk. I have one storm was a 90% reimbursement, and the other was an 80% reimbursement. So that's what makes this stuff complicated too. I have to breathe, yeah. It moves. It's never consistent. And now I'm sorry, the $44 million you referenced was debris for Ian. That's how much we've received back on the two expedited projects. I want to say that total. I want to say that's half of it. I want to say the total is 88 million. So we were supposed to get half of it up front, half of it after they verified. I believe we've gotten the half upfront on both the expedited projects, but they're still flying through. I need to have the scoreboard in front of me to fully understand this, just the way you're working blind here and I apologize for making you do that. So, roughly, what was the total, because I know the total amount were out for Ian, is it 180 million for everything, facilities, debris, everything? That we've spent, that sounds familiar, 180. And over and over and over again. Plus, close to 100. Plus private insurance too, I mean, it's not, it's so rolled together, it's not all federal obligation. Then of that, how much of that is not infrastructure and it's just debris, 88, you said, and we've got 1,5? Roughly? I don't know. If Zignia Zims, you're arranged, please run down. I think it was 88, yes, I believe so. OK. Just trying to get it. And maybe I don't want to give anybody extra work. If you can't get it all on one paper, one page, then I don't want to give anybody extra work if you can't get it all on one paper One page then I don't want to see it But if we can get like a one-pager That just gives us the highlight of just debris and everything else for Ian, Helene and Milton just to kind of get a perspective because we're far enough out the mountain sand is is gone. We're trying to, so we're finally, we're on the barrier island operation at this point winding down. So I just want to understand just relative, because that was a great point that the chairman brought up is we got all this money and we've had really good reserve policy and we had a little bit of an arpa kicker. It's all gonna go away if we don't get our bills paid. Thank you. Mr. Director. Thank you. Next week I'll be in New Orleans for the disaster reform. It's all going to go away if we don't get our bills paid. So thank you. Mr. Director. Thank you. Next week I'll be in New Orleans for the disaster reform task force meetings. And we have meetings with John Kennedy and Bill Cassidy. And if I could have that information for Tuesday to take with me, I would love to, because we're addressing these issues with them. And it'd be great timing for us. know that that's a good point. You'd be great information for you to have in the white paper, the one sheet or so on the agenda on Tuesday. We have parks, hurricane recovery update. I'd like to have FEMA hurricane recovery update on again from Ian. What was the debris? What was others? What's been paid? And we can look at it on one page and put our arms around the numbers. Because right now it's kind of a little all over the place. Mr. Schillman, I agree, and if it's in order, I think it's got to be a separate item. I think we need to highlight that specifically. I don't want it rolled into off the back of what Tommy's talking about. I think this is very specific, very important. Commissioner Trux can point to it and show it on an agenda and have a resource. So we're trying to get Mike Johnson to do this. If I might. This is Louis, you're recognized. Thank you. Just to manage expectations a little bit, we will do the best we can to pull together what we can by Tuesday, but it's a holiday weekend. And we have essentially one day to work on this before the meeting will do the best we can. A staff gets eliminated. That's the start. To pull this together. Okay. We'll do the best you can. Yeah, I mean, it. We are, I will tell you, we are as a team working with our consultant to be able to put some dashboards out there and also some project status updates on all Hurricane Recovery projects so that for the public and for the board you have a central area where you can go and look for real-time information on where we stand on certain projects. So that is well underway and hopefully we'll be rolling that out in the next couple weeks. Well Mr. Berger has his laptop right behind you you there. So he may have some data to share. Yeah, more than enough data. So for Ian, our portion, county's portion of debris removal was right at about 94 million. Now, there was additional that we counted in that happened, there's private roads and things like that that put it up. But our portion was about 94 million and the emergency protective measures were right at about 29 million. So, you know, between the two of those, you know, you're talking 130 million. When you said our portion, well, what we have to pay? No, no, no, no. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. What flowed through us? OK. There were multiple things that state and other agencies did outside of what flowed through us, but what flowed through us was about 93.4 million. OK. And what was our obligation for our cost share? Our portion of that is going to be, oh, I'm trying to do a touch screen on that topic. Because it was. Okay, our portion for category A about total about 10 million. Remember some of that that we had done wasn't reimbursable. So in that 10 million is the amount that have to be done for the FH? You know what, there's a lot of detail here. I'm sorry. Can you go on along? Can you agree, A just means to brief removal. Sorry. I think what we're going to have to have is when staff can get it together, we're going to have to have a formal presentation where the departments are able to flesh out all these numbers and give us a good presentation on that. But in the meantime if we can get some numbers something for Commissioner Truex to have that you know some rough order of magnitude just just general numbers that are close they're not going to care if it's a, they're carried out to the decimal point. Right. They just want round numbers anyway. But at least I can tell a real story. And I think that hopefully that'll help. Okay. All right. Mr. Flores, anything else? That was just happy Easter. We can come up. Thank you. Mr. Norton. Nothing except happy Easter, all of you. I'll start to my left. Commissioner Duets, any comments, sir? Commissioner Truex. Deputy Easterd. Okay. Commissioner Dordy. Thank you, Mr. or all of you. Okay, I'll start to my left. Commissioner Duis, any comments, sir? Commissioner Truex. Step Easter. Okay, Commissioner Dordy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, to you and all your families. Happy Easter. Yeah. And Commissioner Constance stepped out, so I'll jump in. Yeah, same to everybody. Have a safe Easter. Best wishes to you all and your families. And with that we are a job.