Good morning ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to welcome you to the Peace River Minnesota Region of Waters Playa Authority meeting in Charlotte County Administration Center October the 2nd, 2024 to approximately 9.30 AM. Today we have myself, Commissioner Taseo, Commissioner Beardin, and sitting in the day for Commissioner Moran as Commissioner Cuttsinger and from Sarah Soder, Florida. At this time, if we would, let's rise for the invocation followed by the pledge. Let us pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we come to you today, Lord. We just thank you for all that you do for, Lord. We just ask that you give this board to wisdom that it needs today to make the decisions that will glorify you, the Heavenly Father and the people that we serve. We thank you for the capacity you've given us to serve. And Lord, we also want to lift up our men and women that serve in our military that protect us, our men and women that serve us in our police officers or fire fighters or EMTs, all those who put their lives on the line, their Heavenly Father, to help protect us and to give us a better way of life in this world. Lord, we lift up those that were in the path of the recent storm, their Heavenly Father, from Florida all the way up in North Carolina and all those in between, Lord. We just lift them up to you. I ask that you just keep your hand on them, their Heavenly Father, and that you just comfort them and I just help them get through these tough times to your Heavenly Father and Lord. We pray for our country. We pray for all the other countries Lord, all the turmoil and everything is going in and owning this world Lord. We just ask that you just keep your hand on all those and your in harm's way Lord and you protect them and keep them safe. We ask all these things now Jesus, precious and holy name. Amen. Amen. We're glad. Here we are. I pledge allegiance to the flag 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. Thank you. If you would, if you would, make sure your phones are silent so they don't interrupt our proceedings here today and get yourself embarrassed when I have to call you out to turn your phone off. So, at this time, we will welcome Hector Flores is our Charlotte County Administrator for opening comments Hacker Thank you, mr. Chair commissioners. I just had a couple notes as a as I thought of last night what to bring up Obviously the you know the impacts from the hurricane. I think from south of us to north of us you know everyone's dealing with so appreciate everyone keeping keeping everybody in their thoughts certainly been a partnership a team effort in the response that's one thing I wanted to touch on just like the value that I know we have in the authority just the regionalism perspective I'm gonna think it's times like this you You know, in blue skies, it's great. We're ready to meet the capacity of the region. And in tough conditions, I think that's where we shine even more as being partners with each other. So just want to thank the board for that. That's been always my perspective. You know, for Mike, I understand it's his last day. I want to thank him for his partnership as well. Rich knows that I'm there to work with the team. Our teams work great together again. It's just been a great team effort. So we appreciate that. One thing I will share is that even beyond water, I think it was about a month ago, our, and our chief sends its thanks. Our Fire EMS Hasmat team had a chance to do some training in one of the big water tanks some high-angle and and rope rescue training so I thought that was pretty cool Just another way that we're working together whether it's on on water or just from a public safety perspective to to serve the community So so welcome everybody to Charlotte County hope for a good productive meeting today Thank you. Thank you Hector. This time public comment Mr. Tim Richie you're up. Well, good morning, everybody. Today I realized the first time I came here to a meeting for the Water Authority was, I believe December 6, 2018. And it's been quite a journey for me. And it led to Polk County and Hardy County and Manatee County, Lee County, Tampa Bay, City of Northport, City of Punta Gorda. And it absolutely made me learn about the Florida water quality crisis. For me this has been probably the college that I missed out on. And believe me, I've had many defeats and I've had some victories. I remember when I first met Patrick Lehman. That was up at the Mosaic de Soto County FDEP, Dog and Pony Show, back on September 30, 2019. On here we have number 10, the Peace River Basin Report. And I want every one of you to know that we still have time to stop the 25,000 acre beneficiation plant in eight clay settling areas that will be located at the end of King's Highway in between State Road 72 and 70 in Highway 17. That plant will be 15 miles from this chamber. We have enough problems with mosaic outfalls. Mosaic is building more outfalls on the peace river. Mozec is getting ready to increase the amount of acidic, radioactive waste water, chemically laden waste water that they discharge into our rivers. And why has our authority had to increase the budget for chemicals every year? Why? And who makes those chemicals? What country? I implore every one of you to please contact Governor DeSantis, Senator Senator Ben Albritton. Congressman Greg Stuby, and I need you all to get on board as a team. We must stop this. And after this is stopped, we must demand better quality for the best management practices. Every one of these facilities should have their own waste water treatment facility. And they should not be discharging in this water all the way from Tampa Bay to Charlotte Harbor in the Alaphaya, the Little Manatee, the Manatee, the Mayacca in Peace River, and multiple creeks and streams that are being abused daily by their discharge of their toxic pollution. I want to thank my coach for his service and his friendship. I look forward to working with Richard Anderson. And lastly, before I stop, I just want to say thank you, Commissioner Bearden, for your move on the wetland protection buffer zone. I greatly appreciate that and I applaud you for your decision. Thank you everybody. Thank you, Tim and Senna Jenda Anybody got any Questions or anything they want to pull or if not I'll entertain a motion moving sent motion seconded all those in favor signify by saying hi all opposed like sign motion carries regular agenda item number one water supply condition report report. Mr. Veeam. Mr. Chairman, I'm going to go ahead and try that again. You're better. We're Mr. Chairman. Members of the Board, Jim Guit, your Director of Water Resources and Planning. I'll be going on the water supply conditions report today. This is a no actions required. It's just an information light in for you. First we're going to cover hydrologic condition information on rainfall, which are all storage conditions at the Peace River facility through about mid-September, and then we'll also go through regional water supply deliveries for customers in August. So this first graphic provides you average Peace River rainfall for the last two years. The blue dashed line that you see is historic average, monthly rainfall. The green is our actual rainfall. As we talked about the last couple of board meetings, we had above average rainfall back in December and January timeframe, which helped us maintain our storage in the early part of the year, which was good news because as you can see, once we got into February and all the way through May, rainfall was very, very low. So you can see obviously with the advent ofe of the rainy season here in June, and then with the storms that we've had, we've since climbed. So by this time, we're in good shape on overall rainfall, as is at least for the use of water supply that is. Given the storms, we've had it's been more challenging. Next is river flows. Again, you can see how we actually had a bit more flow in the early part of the year. the area that we're going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to be going to conditions then we came back up with our river flows which allowed us to increase our river withdrawals. This is for the last two years what our river withdrawals have been. You can see we had about an 11 month period where we were actually able to consistently withdraw water from the river. And we did that through April but then by May we did not withdraw at all. And then with the magnitude of the rainfall from Hurricane Debbie, we were able to ramp up which was considerably. In fact, we got to the point where we filled the reservoir and didn't really need to pull as much by the time we got into August. Next graphic is our surface water storage. You can see the pattern here and red of how we fill up during the rainy season and then we withdraw and then we fill up again in the rainy season. So that pattern is continued. That's just our typical seasonal trends. As of July, we were at about 5.3 billion gallons in our surface water storage. By the end of August, we're about 6.5 billion gallons, which was about the same as last year, but the reservoirs were completely full by by end of August or early September. Next is our aqua storage and recovery storage. For the last two years, which you can see with the top line in blue is our total volume, and then here in orange is our total usable volume that we have in storage. As of mid-September, our ASR total storage is about 8.4 billion gallons and our total usable is about 5 billion gallons. Our surface water supplies were sufficient to meet all demands through September. We didn't really need to use ASR over the last year so we've just exercised that system to water clay samples etc but that's about all we've had to do in the past year with ASR. Next, we have our estimated days of supply as of the end of August. We had about 6.4 billion gallons of surface water, as I mentioned. We had about 5 billion gallons of usable aquar storage and recovery for a combined storage at the end of August of about 11.4 billion gallons. So we look at that in two different ways. The first is we actually look at the end of August of about 11.4 billion gallons. So we look at that in two different ways. The first is we actually look at the average annual daily use we've had over the last year, which is about 30 million gallons a day. That equates to about 381 days of storage or about 12 and a half months of supply. And then we also look at it from the Master of Water Supply Contract quantity of 34.7 MGD, which that gives us about 329 days of storage or about 11 months of storage. Next we'll move into regional water supply production and use across the region for the month of August. The combined capacity of all our systems together in the region is 104.7 million gallons a day or about 105 million gallons a day. In August, the authority delivered nearly 26 million gallons a day to the region. Members and customers delivered about 56.2 and total regional production was 82 million gallons per day. Of that total regional production about 3.3 MGD was delivered by Manasi County to non-authority, wholesale customers of the county. Those include Longbow, Key, City of Palmetto, and City of Braydenton. And the total August demand for authority members and customers was about 78.7 MGD, which is about 75% of the total combined regional capacity. Next, Charlotte County. Charlotte purchased 11.77 MGD from the authority. It's the Servitz West Central Service Area. Charlotte self-supplied 0.64 MGD from the Bernstorre Facility in South County. And the total use was about 12.4 MGD for the county. Overall, the county used about 64% of its total county-wide capacity and about 73% of its piece of river capacity. To Soda County purchased 0.67 MGD from the authority and self-sufflied about 0.36 MGD from its DCI facility. Total use was about 1.02 MGD and the county used about 72% of its total county wide capacity. August used for Manatee County. Manatee produced a total of 45.8 MGD from their water supply facilities. About 39.26 MGD of that was used to serve the county's own retail customers. 3.61 MGD was supplied to Manatee's wholesale customers. Again, the non-authority members, Longville, Key, Palmetto, and City of Braydenton. And about 2.94 was supplied to Saraseta County. Saraseta County purchased 12.91 MGD from the authority. Self-supplied nearly six MGD from their own facilities at Carlton, imported about 3.25 MGD, and their total use was about 22. 6 MGD from their own facilities at Carlton, imported about 3.25 MGD and their total use was about 22.1 MGD. They used about 66% of their total county-wide capacity. City of Northport purchased just under a half a million gallons a day from the authority in August, self-supplied about 3.5 MGD and exchanged just about 0.01 MGD during the month for a total use of about 3.94 MGD. Their total capacity amount that they use is about 64% of their total capacity. Sorry, I didn't move to that one. A regional demand. This is average annual regional use over the last 10 years and then the bar that's in red is actually the running 12 month average for comparison purposes. As of August 2024 that running 12 month average for the region was nearly 87 million gallons a day, about a 2% increase versus this same time last year. Overall the region used about 83% of its available capacity. Lastly this is a pie chart of regional utilization for August for all members and customers. Total use was 82 million gallons a day or about 78% of the regional capacity and that left about 23 MGD or 22% of unused regional capacity. With that I'll take any questions. Do you have any? All members, you all have any questions? Here none, thanks sir. Thank you. Okay, right, we're agenda item number two. This will be a agenda that we have to make a motion on, but Ms. Laura, Donaldson, who's supposed to? motion on but Miss Laura. Don't listen. He's supposed to. Doug, are you up for number, agenda item number two, or latest latest stuff? Two, I'm sorry. Item number two, are you up for this? He's supposed to present, yeah? No, I'm sorry, let's see. Let's see. Okay, so we went back through and looked at the prior years, let's say the beforety or let's say the issues that we kind of basically re-identified, if you will, you know, everything that we're going to be looking at. You got to put your button there. There you go. Sorry. So we're saying we went back and looked at the last years, let's say in priorities, and then we basically took what's happening this year and updated it into the agenda. And then we basically took a look at lore. I'll take a look at what are we going to look at as priorities. And we listed for you inside the area of the priorities that we think we're going to be putting in for obviously funding's top on the list. You know, for the ongoing pipeline projects and obviously for the res run, the treatment expansion. And then as we go through, we just talk about the issues that affect the water and up for storage and recovery. You know, there's a blue green algae task force out there as well. It tangentially affects water quality. It's not just obviously in the ocean, but in the rivers, which is our prime source of water of course and then also looking at the reappointments and appointments for the water management district especially the Southwest for the water management district that is obviously the district we're located in. Now also looking at supporting you know acquisition of state lands which has been very helpful as you know since we're on the RV Griffin preserve which was acquired lands and above us is Orange Hamic which which was acquired by the state. So we want to continue to support that as well. And we're also looking at, we're infected with all the activities that we're doing on the property for the new reservoir, the implementation of the loss of DEP of the state delegated 404 program, and that ongoing effort to retain that and get that back to the state of Florida and also developments in the waters of the U.S. with the Army Corps jurisdiction of Army Corps waters. So they kind of speak for themselves but there's a lot more to be done on federal activities as well on the following page. If you have any questions, I'll be glad to answer them. I'm kind of listed a little more in the back there and the writing of as far as what we're doing and how it's going to be impacted. Anybody has anything else they want to add as well? We've got an open discussion for that. Obviously, sessions starting up this year, but committee meetings won't be for another month. Actually, I guess they'll start in this month. So. Can I have board members. Do you have any questions? I have a question. Go ahead. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I know our request, 2025 request is 15 million. Is there a reason why it's 15 million or not any more than that? Or less? Well, it's because we need more money. It's not less. Right. But the issue is there's a certain number which you get to when you're quest funding, maybe, you know, pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered, at which you get cut by the governor's veto list very easily. So we've kind of kind of gauged our request to try to hit that sweet spot where we get as much money as we can, but we don't become a target during the veto budget process that goes on after the session. That's whether the number was selected. And that was a recommendation by the lobbyist. Yes, okay. All right, that's all I need to know. Thank you. Okay, any other questions? Mr. Chair, move to adopt the legislative priorities for 2025. Second. Okay, have a motion in a second. All those favor, sitting five, saying aye. Aye. All opposed, aye. Motion carries unanimously. Okay, agenda item number three. Miss Anne Lee. Good morning, Mr. Chair, members of the board, Anli of your staff. This morning, myself, plus Molly Clark from Prague, our financial advisors, will be presenting on the 2024 bond sales and the results from their un. Before I pass this on to Molly to give you guys the great news on our sales, I just wanted to share with you the sheer amount of folks that were worked together to make this extremely successful transaction. So here's just a snapshot of all the firms involved from financial advisors, the underwriters, bond council, general council, our rate consultants to all of your staff that would speedily provide us the required information for your official statements without all of these folks working together and coordinating and collaboration in such a great manner. and I would just like to thank everybody that was involved. And I really, truly appreciate all the hard work from everybody and look forward to doing more of these bond offerings in the future as we continue with financing the surface water system expansion program in the Phase 2B pipeline. So with that, I'm going to thank all of you for the support and support of the community and all of you who have been working on this project. to doing more of these bond offerings in the future as we continue with financing the surface water system expansion program in the Phase II B pipeline. So with that, I'm gonna pass it over to Molly to go through the good stuff. There you go. Good morning, Mr. Chair, members of the board. I'm Molly Clark with Public Resources Advisory Group, we service financial advisor to the authority. Just to go over the results of the bond issue, first talking about market conditions. Going into, taking a look back to January of 2023, just to give some parameters to what market conditions were giving us at the time we priced the bonds. To, as most people are aware, market, the market was quite volatile in 2024, that we saw some highs earlier in the year preceded by the, all-time highs in November of 2023, but by the time we were pricing the bonds in August of 24, we really had seen a fair amount of stability return to the market. And we were also seeing good supply and demand indicators. There's been a lot of supply in 2024 here today, which can make marketing bonds sometimes challenging because you're competing against a large number of issues in the market at the same time. However, even with that large supply, there was quite a bit of municipal demand as well. We were seeing municipal inflows every week, you know, more and more bond buyers interested in buying bonds. So with the combination of stable market conditions, so if it lots of supply, but at the same time, ample demand to meet that supply, we entered the market at a really favorable time for the authority. As we look at the series 2024 issue was made up of two series of bonds, which we'll look at separately on the following slides, but just at the lower left corner of this slide, we give sort of aggregate results. The this bond issue was approximately $89 million in aggregate. We received approximately $242 million in orders. When you have more orders than you have bonds available, your underwriter is in a position to then reduce your yields a little bit, which is to your favor as the issuer because the lower your yields, the lower your annual cost of interest. So with 242 million in orders for approximately 89 million in bonds, our underwriter was able to lower yields in maturitys ranging from one to three basis points, saving the authority interest cost overall. There were 22 different institutional accounts who participated in the offering. Now looking at the series 2024-A on its own, this was a refunding of the authorities existing 2014-B bonds. The here this series was 49.2 million and this one on its own received 165 million in total orders. That's about three times, 3.4 times as many bonds as were available. So again, our underwriter was able to reduce yields again saving the authority money. The bonds amortized from 2028 through 2035 and the average life was approximately eight years. Our all-in true interest cost was about 3%, 3.05% as you can see on the screen for an eight-year financing. We, this was a refunding, the refunding is done for the purpose of saving the Authority debt service cost. Our total gross savings to the Authority was approximately 9.3 million which will be realized annually for the most part between 2028 and 2035 where the principal amortizes approximately $1 million per year in debt service savings. On a percentage basis this is a 13.2% of the bonds refunded. So you've realized approximately 13% savings, which is quite favorable. Now looking at the 2024 B, this was a new financing to finance the 3C pipeline project. This on its own was approximately 40 million, 40.035 million. This portion of the financing amortized over 30 years, which is typical for a long-lived asset. This is an asset with a very long-useful life, so it's appropriate to finance it over 30 years. Amortizing out to 2054, this resulted in an average life of about 20 years on this piece, and an all-entrue interest cost of 4.12 percent, again, a really attractive rate for this long term of offenancing. Our, again, here we had approximately 77 million in total orders, which is about 1.9 times the amount of bonds that were actually available. So again, our under-ator was able to reduce our yields, saving the authority money. And in this portion of the transaction, we had 20 different institutional accounts who participated. So with that, I'm happy to take questions or anything else that could be helpful to the board. Okay. Thank you. Board member. Have any questions? Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Can you tell us what our current bond rating is right now today? The authority has two investment grade ratings. You're rated double A by S&P, also double A by Fitch. Okay, that's a great bond ratings. Do you know how much we have currently in our reserves? That's a question for A. Yeah. Could you be more specific as to which reserve fund you are speaking to? All of them. Well, the authority has both restricted and unrestricted reserves. Our restricted reserves are generally our construction accounts and considering we just received the wire for the 3C bonds yesterday, restricted funds. This is just an estimate off the top of my head, okay? With that is about 60 million and our general fund which is unrestricted reserves we have about 15 million and our general fund, which is unrestricted reserves, we have about 15 million. And how much of that is getting rolled over a year after year? Pursuant to our budget, we usually have carry forward funds of about $2 million from unspent prior year proceeds. Unlike a county, we don't have a fat reserve so we don't a lot of times in county budget you'll specifically reserve about 15 20% to put into your general funds as an unrestricted reserve we do not do that. So how much was pulled was how much was pulled out of the reserves whenever we had that big storm that hit? With the Hurricane Ian which, we have a disaster recovery reserve fund specifically for that purpose. At the time, we had $750,000 in that account that we expended. We have had very successful insurance and FEMA claims. And right now, we've recovered out of the $2.8 million. We've recovered about $2.6 million. So I feel like we've done pretty good on cost recovery from E&N and whatever funds that we do not need to more or less repay our general fund from those damages is being put back into that disaster recovery reserve. So that we're in a good position moving forward for other name storms. And also in the FY25 budget that was approved, there was a transfer of $750,000 from the general fund to the disaster recovery reserve funds who further support that. Okay, thank you very much. Yes, sir. Okay. Yes, sir. First of all, it's standing results, you know, exceptional savings and appreciate the refunding. Do we have additional, I'm just sitting in for Commissioner Moran today? Are there additional bonds going forward that we're looking to refinance? To refinance, right? This second? No, because we don't have any that are coming up callable. However, in the next year, we will be going out for new money needs for the Phase 2B pipeline. That's the pipeline project with Charlotte County, probably in the spring, as well as the Surface Water System expansion project. We might be doing that in a couple of different issuances, depending on the timing with each of the contracts. So we are going to be going out for some substantial bonds in the next year, year and a half. Well, let's hope the Fed keeps lowering rates. And as we reach out to you, it's a great thing. It's a great way. It's I think they will. So maybe it's a good time. All right, thank you. Yes, sir. Any other questions? Thank you. Here none. Thank you all. All right. Okay, next, regular agenda item number four, Mr. Chair, Richard Anderson of your staff. Last item item four is just a brief update on where we stand with the Master of Water Supply Contract revisions. As you know, we've been working hard on this for the last six months trying to get these contracts amended. And want to report just the status of that as we move into the phase where your county commissions and city commissions are approving these contracts. So, I want to go through a quick background status and the next steps and then a brief discussion. And then if Doug has anything to add from a legal standpoint, we'll turn it over to him after this. As a quick review, the documents that are being amended are the exhibits A, B, C, and F, as well as some cleanup provisions that are in the contract that are outdated or obsolete that have been cleaned up basically from the 2005 contract. Exhibit A is the DeSoto payment schedule. Exhibit B is the water allocations that apply to each customer. Exhibit C is the new water supply demands that apply to this project. How much water each customer is taking from this new water supply project? And then, excuse me, exhibit F shows the cost allocation percentage that applies to each customer for the project. I'm going to go through just a quick little timeline. Like I said, we've been working on this since back in April. Back at the April 3rd board meeting, staff presented a proposed disobey payment methodology. There were some concerns with that methodology regarding the escalation and the total payment amounts. You, the board instructed us to go back and meet with the administrators, work on exhibit A and come back with a recommendation. You, the board instructed us to go back and meet with the administrators, work on exhibit A, and come back with a recommendation. We did that. We met in May, on May 17th, had administrators meeting. We came up with some new ideas that although we didn't reach consensus, have become part of this agreement. And one is the proposed cap on the dissettopayment of $3 million that was suggested by dissettopayment county staff and then also the proposal that all members and customers should contribute because it really is an ownership issue being part of the authority and owning the permitting and owning part of this water supply here in Tisoto County. So like I said, we made progress but we didn't get to consensus on that. We came to the June board and presented what we found even though we knew we did not have consensus. Got some good input from the board in June. We were instructed to reconvene the administrators, which we did. I had a great meeting in August, on August 1st, and we did achieve consensus on exhibit A. There was consensus on the others on BC and F going back. There was no issue on who was taking what water supply and any of that. There was no objections to those, those three provisions. So once we came to a consensus on exhibit A, we brought that to the August Board meeting. Staff presented that methodology to the board. The board was in agreement with that and instructed us to go forward and send the documents out to the respective customers for approval at your boards. Since that time, we've agended the item on all the five county and city commissions. Charlotte County and DeSoto County actually heard it on September 24th. It was approved by both agencies, which is great. Thank you very much. We have, and this is a change from what you see in your board pack, Sarasota County had it on the agenda for October 8th because of the storm. They weren't able to complete board prep, so they have moved it out to the October 22nd meeting. So we've got a busy day on October 22nd with Sarasota, Manatee and the City of North Bort all hearing the item and considering it on the 22nd. So next steps hopefully once we get approval from all five commissions we will bring it back to the board on December 4th for ratification by this board. With that, I'll be happy to answer any questions. This is just a quick shout out to the timeline. You see this graphic before. It shows the need. We're right there on the red line. We're here at the end of 2024. We need to get these contracts approved and the permit secures so that we can start construction and get the water flowing to all the customers. So with that, we have any questions. More members? Yeah, I'll have any questions. Mr. Anderson? Doug, did you have anything to add? No, you covered it all. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. Richard. I'm going to push it off. It's not got fouled up. Okay. Let me begin again. It's will be an action item that we need to take action on. But basically it's just records that recognize and commission and ran for his service to authority forever the past two years. Even though he's not here today, we're going to send it back with Commissioner Cutts. Hopefully he won't stop somewhere, we're gonna send it back. Well, Commissioner Cutts, Senator Hockley, he won't stop some word and change his name on it. But is there anybody got any comments they'd like to make or say before we call for the motion? I will just say that Commissioner Moran has kept our commission up to date and I'm very encouraging about the work going on here, so I'm glad to accept it. Okay. Thanks, sir. Mr. Chair. Yes, sir. Move approval of resolution. I thought I didn't hit my button. Of resolution 2024-12 recognition of Commissioner Mike Moran for service to the region as a member of the Peace River Manusote of Regional Water Supply Authority Board of Directors. Second. Okay, have a motion in a second for approval of the resolution. All those in favor, signify for saying aye. Aye. All opposed, like sign. Motion carries. Here's Mr. Mike. Dr. Moussa, I'm award from the board. Oh,'t know if you had on your desk. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, just don't turn this pink and owner your piper's get wet. All right. General Counselor, report. Just something short. So we're saying goodbye to Mike Coates, who's the now he's a senior advisor this time. And I just wanted to thank him, not only the opportunity to work with an excellent executive director for the years he's been there, but prior to that working with Mike has been a pleasure. And it's not only obviously very competent and good at what he does, but he's also very easy to work with, is a very interesting person to be around. And he's a good friend. And we're going to miss you. We hope you still come around occasionally in between your trips and I want to tell you how much I appreciate you and both roles as a friend and as an executive director of the authority and lastly as a senior advisor appreciate all your help. Thank you. Executive Dire's report. Mr. Anderson, have you night? Next slide, dude. Last board meeting I didn't get a chance to express my appreciation to the board. So, you slow down the lady. That lady will hit you with a rock. She comes out of there fast. We should just leave all the buttons on green. Well, as I said, I wanted to just take a minute to express my appreciation to the board. And thank you for placing your trust in me. I know we're about to embark on what is going to be the largest expansion program in our history, and it's truly humbling to be part of the organization. Also want to thank Mike, Coats, or Coatsy, as you've named him. He's given me all kinds of encouragement. He's placed his faith in me as the successor and really laid the groundwork. He and Pat layman laid the groundwork for where we are today and it's amazing where we've come from. When Pat hired me, he asked me one question, he said, can you work with Mike Coates? And I said, well, nobody can work with Mike Coates. I mean, you know, no, but I'm not kidding Mike. But, you know, he saw the value and Mike's leadership as we move forward and it's really been a great ride since I've been here. So again thanks for the opportunity and I'll do my best to make this the best water supply authority in the state. Thank you. Okay, routine staff report is here. Does anybody got any questions or anything that they ask on a routine status report? If not, board member comments. Mr. Berden, you have anything? I don't have anything at this time. Mr. Sable. Yeah, just like again to welcome you all here to Charlotte County this morning. And I know our respective counties are dealing with some issues. And you know, if there's anything we can do to collaborate or help, I'm sure, you know, you can reach out to our staff. If we have resources available, we've always worked well together as regional partners. I'm sure we'll do it again. So good luck with the recovery. And again, I just want to reiterate, you know, we've been through these hurricanes and we know what it's like to have some level of infrastructure left to build off of. And when I look at the images coming at a North North Carolina, that whole built more Asheville area, I mean, they literally have nothing. I mean, no water, no sewer, no electric, no communications. You know, if you think about us waking up to that after an event, you know, it would be devastating for the community. So really, it hearts, you know, prayers and well wishes to those folks and hopefully they get the help that they need. But you know, it's just devastating. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Okay. Thank you. you. Okay thank you. Mr. Kessler? Yeah I've been an honor to be an alternate for the past couple of years here and during that time I got to tour the facility, got spend time on Mike and staff. Hopefully get appointed to be the representative for Sir So DeCounty going forward once Mike terms out looking forward to working together. One of the things for me I enjoy so much about these boards is the collaboration between the counties. While we work together and for the benefit of all of our communities and peace rivers are a great part of that. So looking forward to moving forward and being a part of a really important expansion for the future. And it is interesting that as soon as I look to get on the board, Mike did resign and get off. So I'm not sure if there's any connection there, but I'm just glad to be here and hopefully looking forward to working together next couple years. OK? All right, my turn. Mike, we're going to miss you. You know, I said before, I said just about time I got you whipped in the shape where you was kind of worse something now you decide to bail out of us. And I just want to mention we have our two former board members that come to our meetings with Commissioner Mayo and Commissioner Daltry and you're more welcome to come back and hang out with them if you want to. Beings you're gonna be a I guess an old timer now but anyway we're we're definitely gonna miss you and we appreciate what you've done and hope that you've got Richard on the right track and and so now by saying that Bens we got coach had the way we can get some stuff fixed around here finally But no we are we're gonna miss you buddy and I've enjoyed I've enjoyed serving we just When you were when you were patch right hand man and then when you was the man yourself I enjoyed it and you like to say you always made things simple and and easy for an old country board to understand and I say we're gonna we're gonna miss that and miss you and know you're gonna have a lot of fun and and so when you get bored you can come back and see us because it won't take long. Promise you won't take long. But anyway, saying that, I just, like Mr. Sayow said, we need to keep our brothers and sisters lifted up. And any help you can give, if somebody helping somebody, whether it be financially sending goods, sending whatever for drives for water or clothes, different things like that. You know those folks are they're in bad shape, you know, and it's it's it's very widespread. It ain't just you know one or two areas. It's all those areas up through there and you know got folks in North Florida that's that's it seems like that that's got a magnet or something there just keeps drawing those storms of that area and um but it's definitely uh definitely uh probably one of the worst storms I've ever seen since I've been around and been paying attention to storms and um so just keep those people in your prayers. And you know a lot of them lost more than just their homes. They lost loved ones and other things that can never be replaced. So just think about them before you get a bed at night. And I don't have anything else that I can think of right now other than our next get together will be at the Peace River Friends Barbecue November the 15th 2024 1130 and that'll be at the Peace River Facility Ranch House off the Kings Highway and then we'll see y'all in December, 2024 at 930 at the Souther County Administration's building. And is there anything else to come before the board? Okay, here none, we'll stand adjourned.