I think a couple of our commissioners are at a retirement party across the street, across the, sorry, across the hallway and I expect them to walk in any second. So we're going to go ahead and get started. We have today Rev. Gerald Duncan from prayers by faith ministry to give us our invocation. So I'm going to ask everyone to please rise for the invocation and remain standing please for the P of allegiance. Welcome Mr. Dukin. Good morning. Good morning everyone. Let us pray. O great and excellent, sovereign creator you are. We humbly come before you, acknowledging how wonderful and excellent you are in all of your ways. We are truly thankful for this opportunity for life, health, strength, and well-being for us all and our beloved families. Or awesome creator, you make everything perfect and beautiful in your sight. We thank you for all of your chosen leaders who are courageous and exceptional in their duties. We're grateful for their counsel. We're grateful for their wisdom. We thank you, Creator, for allowing their thoughtfulness and mindfulness in the capacity of their governance to continue to be inclusive and empathetic to our all. We pray that you will continue to give them the strength and the knowledge and the wisdom to continue to do this great work. We're also truly honored as well to have alongside of them a team of staff and individuals that put forth their all and we're also grateful of them. O great and awesome creator, may you continue to watch over this land and grant us all the love within our heart to treat each and every one of our neighbors as the same. May cognitive empathy and inclusivity be acknowledged along with diversity that we may all live and be afforded a quality of life. We pray that this council of leaders, your civic and serving leaders, will continue to work towards policies and procedures for the good of this land and the commonwealth of us all. May their commitment to their office be a commitment that serve us all. I speak, I hope, and I pray for the common good. Always now and forever, amen. 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, Pastor Duncan. That was beautiful. All right. We'll call the meeting to order. And if I can, do we have any changes first to the agenda? Madam Chair, there's no changes from the manager. We just want to mention that we will have the . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . We plan to bring that up on the manager's comments. Okay, very good. We have adoption of the agenda and the content agenda adding the walk on item of manager comment. Second. All right, we have a motion of second. Do we have any comment from about the agenda? Welcome. Good morning. You're talking about general and consent agenda? Yes, the general and considered agenda. OK. My question is consent agenda, which is humongous, are on items P1, P3F, and P8B. P1, the workforce development board, they're having that send back money. I wonder is this a local fumble or another piece of state level vandalism? P3F gun violence is this a cooperative? Are you putting money into the pot along with the city or any community-based organizations that are already on board? And P PAB is hammock reserve. Is this another, more likely than not, I attended the work, the plan board or developer view for that, but I don't remember, but this is a huge development. And I want to be noticed that this is another missed opportunity to have included affordable housing. So I'm asking about those three items in consent. P1, P3F, and P8B. You're asking to remove them from consent or do you want your questions answered? And just if those questions can be answered. OK, all right, thank you. Do we have any additional public comment to the agenda? All right, let's see what we can find out here. So you wanna answer P1A? It's a Bradford County. Any personal? So, Madam Chair, I can speak to P1, the career source item. This was a, this is a, a agreement that we have with Bradford County, Bradford County is the other county in our career source district. A number of years ago, there were a number of what's called disallowed costs. Those were costs that were paid out, but they were not. In the end, they were audited and not found to be properly paid out. We were told that we needed to pay back that money. Alachua County makes up, I don't know, a large percentage of the money that comes into our community regarding the workforce board. In the end, we negotiated it down. We paid back our share and we paid back Bradford's share at the same time so that we could get ourselves out of being in a default position. Bradford County agreed to pay us back. It's share of that money, the money that we paid back to the state that were disallowed costs. They have a repayment of about $113,000 to us. They've already made half of that payment to us and this agreement has them making the other half in I think six months. All right, thank you for that explanation. Manager. And Madam Chair, I can speak to the Gun Violence issue P3F. It's a small grant award that is being made available. The amount of the award is $50,000 with a maximum application to not exceed $10,000 each. It is intended to help encourage neighborhood groups, grassroots organizations to apply for these funds and help them to do organizing and capacity building. A lot of it is to encourage is to help them do the work that they're already doing. Some of them are already doing prevention and intervention work in their neighborhoods and just need some funds to help provide supplies, equipment, et cetera. So we're providing this opportunity through a small grant. And as I understand it, if this goes well, and we have a lot of good results from this grant, then we do have additional funds that we can put towards that. Absolutely. We started with 50,000 realizing that's a, as merely a start, if the program is successful and there is more demand, and we'll come back to this board with a request for additional funds. I'm sure. Yes, go ahead. Could I also speak to this? It seems like a good time. At the Children's Trust meeting yesterday, the Children's Trust Board approved the movement of that original 250,000 that was supposed to be spent in the current fiscal year to next year's budget and is also being matched in next year's budget. So the trust will be providing under their strategic plan 500,000 of money for this initiative in the fiscal year 2025. Both Tom and Brittany were at that meeting and both county and city staff will be coordinating our proposal back to the trust on how to best use those funds. So I thought that was a big win and worthy of mentioning this morning. Thank you, mentor. And I have to say looking at recent statistics it looks like some of our endeavors may be starting to work. We've seen a decrease in violence, so yeah. Knock on wood, but that's, I believe, good news. So I like to think we're moving forward. Commissioner Prisya. Yes. Thank you. I guess I was gonna make a comment on this after we did public, but now that we're on this topic, I just said too, I didn't wanna pull it, but I did want to say a couple things, and that is one, I'm excited we're doing this, and I think it's not clear to me from the RFA, sort of what the capacity support is going to be for these organizations, and I know that in having conversations with the children's trust about their capacity building grants. There's been a lot of need to support those organizations with handholding with regards to some of the administration of funds as well as with regards to just even some of the implementation and evaluation of the impact of the work that they're doing. And so I just, I had this conversation with Mr. Smart, but I just wanted to bring it up here that I hope that we are thinking about the fact that we're probably gonna need to put additional staff resources, if not fiscal resources, into that hand holding support and help for these small, like limited resource organizations so that they're able to meet their goals and provide us with evaluation. And again, I wanna echo what I keep saying every time we get into this topic and that is that I really hope we put together a set of evaluation tools that we kind of expect all of the organizations that are working with us in receiving public funding under this initiative are measuring so that we can begin to, you know, compare apples to apples, talk across organizations, and gather robust data to show that we're making the impact we want to make. And so I hope that will be part of this effort as well as other efforts at the alliance is getting ready to undertake. Thank you. Excellent. Okay. Madam Chair, regarding the plan, I think the stand-in was wants to speak to that. Oh, yes. Good morning, commissioners. The plan for Hemic Reserve is just a minor replat. You have seen it before. But they weren't ready to develop so they didn't record the plant so they had to come back and get the plant re-approved. They also adjusted some minor lot lines interior and I believe added a space for a community center. So it had gone back to the development review committee and then you have to re-approved the plot, but it was just a minor approval. Great, thank you. Thank you so much, Ms. Peebles. All right, hopefully that answered your questions with Mr. Blunt. And so... What do you have answered on a portable house? And so. What he said. Oh, a affordable house. Oh, yeah, I think that that's an old plat. So it was well before we were making those efforts. And I wish we could go back and revisit that. That would be a wonderful thing. But unfortunately. We can't do that. So we're going to move on to announcements. Hello. On the agenda. Oh, the vote on the agenda, right? I'm sorry. All in favor of the motion signified by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right. We'll move forward with announcements. Good morning, Madam Chair. Mark Sexton communications director. Madam Chair in response to the board's interest and the manager's interest and staff in making our contracts more accessible online. I am here to show you the new system that procurement has put up. If you go to the county's homepage at elacroacounty.us and you click under county offices find procurement on the list and once you get there up in this navigation box on top you go to contract record access and that will take you to this explanation and once you kind of understand you can go to the cobblestone software and that takes you to a site with multiple navigation options and just for example let's say you're interested in contracts with Ajax Construction. You click type in Ajax, hit search records, and those contracts pop up. So those are immediately accessible to folks. Procurement has started with contracts from July 1st moving forward, but they also wanted me to mention that everything that's on your consent agenda today under the notations of record item number one, those are contracts from April, May, and June that the manager signed. Those are also available on the new system. And if you have any questions, TJ is here from Procurement to explain further. But we wanted to let you know that that is now there, and it is accessible to our residents. I don't say any questions, but I have to say that's pretty amazing in terms of transparency. That means that not only can we go back and look at any contracts that we've executed in recent months, but the public can go in and if they have any questions about what a contractor or any contractor is supposed to be doing, you can find out. So I really applaud the transparency of us providing that and such an easy to access way. So thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. And before I move on, are there any questions about this for TJ? That's great. Thank you. OK. Thank you, Laura. Also, Madam Chair, on the homepage, we want to draw people's attention to the Elatua County Damage Reporting Portal. You can click on this link on the homepage. Jen Grice, an emergency management, is working very hard, she and her staff, to try to include Elatua County in the FEMA dollars that are available for folks who have experienced damage to their residences or businesses. Unfortunately, when the initial list of counties came out, it was more focused on our coastal counties and counties that were hit harder than a Lachua County, but there were many residents in a Lachua County that were hit hard, who had flooding, who had tree damage, who had other damage. So it is crucial for folks to go to this portal and to enter their details, take photos and enter those if possible. And we will continue to try to get those FEMA dollars to our residents as a result of this. And then finally, Madam Chair, the adoption event at Animal Services on Saturday was phenomenal. And it resulted in 85 pets finding their new homes. And we are just thrilled about that. There were 50 cats and 35 dogs adopted. So it was truly a banner day for animal resources and Madam Chair those are the announcements fabulous thank you so much and yeah I was you know in the EOC when some of those damage reports came in some folks had very significant damage so if you have any damage at all, please, please report that. It will help all of us get those FEMA dollars. So it's good for everyone. All right, our next item is the Retirement Recognition for Gerald Bailey. This is pretty awesome. Shit, we all go down there. Good money, Madam Chair. One does antenna from human resources. So today we have every time in recognition and it's in public words. So I'm going to ask Ramon. Gava Redter, who is the director, to be here and say a few words. Good morning, commissioners. Ramon Gavara at the Polywards Director. I usually don't write a speech when I have somebody leaving us, but in this case, I made an exception because Gerald is Gerald. You know, Gerald's very unique. In today's employment world, you hardly ever find a career employee anymore. I mean, they're all coming in with a notion, I'm gonna stay a year or two and then I'm gonna jump. And they keep jumping. When I look at applications, there's a lot of those now. They just jump every two years. And it used to be that that was badly looked at, but that's the norm nowadays. But Gerald is not that type. Gerald started the employment with Alatua County in August 1st of 1988 as a fleet technician. And then he went to senior fleet technician, then fleets of a advisor, and since July 2nd of 2012, he's been the fleet manager for this county. You know, when I was considered coming to work for Alatua County, my friend, Mr. Jim Heriot, the time he was a Deputy County Manager, he may not want to have a cup of coffee here, Starbucks. And he started going about everything that I was walking into. That was the example. I want you to know what you're walking into when you come to Pollywoods. And he said, there's one division that you don't have any problems. And he said, that's fleek. I said, all right, good. So I came in, and after a few weeks of looking and saying, he was right. So Gerald kept doing what Gerald did. He did an amazing job with a vehicle replacement. And all the things that fleeked us took fleek from very small to a larger division. So basically, Gerald Fleet was my own division that I did not have anything to worry about. You know, one thing that I can say about Gerald is that he is constant. He's constant in everything, from being extremely sarcastic. And sometimes a pain, and I'm going to let everybody feel in that was coming after being a pain. But he also was an excellent, excellent, excellent fleet manager. And to that end, Gerald got the advantage to grow with the county. Now many people get to do that. So he got to grow with the county. He grew the fleet division. But over the last eight years, two months and 13 days, he always has had my back. And that's one thing that I have to say about Gerald. He can be sarcastic. He can be a pain like I said. But he was always there constant, and he had my back. So I really appreciate that of Gerald. I can really say that Gerald is my friend. And now I want Gerald to come up here. Applause So Gerald this is thank you for your services fleet management on Lachio County Paul the worst department August 1st 1988 to July 31st, 2024 This is to show the appreciation for your 36 years to a Lachio County Florida and its citizens and he has all the names of the appreciation for your 36 years to Elijah County Florida and his citizens. And he has all the names of the commissioners, current commissioners, so thank you, Gerald. Appreciate you, man. I really don't have much to say, but I had a career for 36 years that I truly enjoyed. I worked with some great people and had a career for 36 years that I truly enjoyed. I worked with some great people and I had a good time doing it. That's what gives. If you don't have anything else to do, there's still cupcakes and stuff in the training manager's training room, so they'll recognize Gerald for a little bit more. I wanted to say a couple of things. When I first came to the county, it was in middle of COVID. I got one of the things that happens with the new commissioners. They go around to each department and get a tour. When I went to public works, I got dropped off in fleet. I think I was there for an hour. We talked for such a long time and we hit it off so much. I actually used to fix my own car and I really get into all the big heavy equipment stuff because I'm a nerd like that. So anyway, I was so impressed with that shop. I've never seen such an organized just everything was I don't know. It's like it could have been on a commercial. So I have been impressed with fleet ever since. It's just going to be I don't know, it could have been on a commercial. So I have been impressed with Fleet ever since. It's just gonna be, I don't know who you've got lined up, but that's gonna be tough job to fill. So thank you, thank you so much. Thank you guys, I just wanna say a few words that I said before the meeting started. I've been a commissioner for a little over 10 years. Cheryl's been here for 36 and I can remember a specific instance when, believe it or not, the sheriff and the county commission weren't on the same page. Commissioner Byrly and Sheriff Darnell. And I met with Jerry and I said, how about you go meet over there and then come talk to us and This guy saw the problem and he saw the problem because he's a true talker He's a true public servant and we need more true talkers in this society and in this world and Jerry You are sorely going to be missed and I like like the chair just said I don't know who's going to follow you But it's kind of like follow andurrier. So we have to give them grace. We need to give them grace, whoever that is, and thank you for your service. I think we're about to find out. Thank you, and I'm sure for allowing me to do this. I want to introduce to you today two new managers that we have in public works right now. I'm going to start with the one replacing Mr. Bailey Gerald. So Jonathan Dotsler and you could get up. Jonathan is our new fleet manager. So Jonathan you want to say a few words of who you are? Come here. Is he going to be able to stay for 36 years? That's right. No, my name is Jonathan Dawson. I'm coming from the Jacksonville Transportation Authority. I've already learned that I've got a big shoes to fill. But I'm very excited and learned a lot. And Jarrah's giving me a cell phone number. So I will be calling him with questions but very excited to be here with you all. Thank you. And then I also have our new county surveyor, Mr. Matthew Pickle, over there. So I know you want to say yourself your words. But we haven't had a county surve or for a little bit over two years. Commissioner, so Matthew is going to be feeling in also that whole and putting poly works. Hey, y'all. I come here with about 40 years experience. I've had about 30 years experience in government. I also had my own business, which I gave up to come here. And I appreciate the work. Everybody's been great so far. Welcome. Thank you for being here. And thank you, commissioners. Thank you. Thank you. All right. That is all super wonderful. All right. Our next item, give these guys a few minutes. Thank you all for coming for that recognition. That's pretty awesome. That's a lot of a county. When departments support each other like that, I think that's just pretty amazing. Our next item is the County Alliance for Responsible Government Stewardship Recipient Recognition of Hodge Farms in New Barry. This is actually super cool. So who do we have presenting this? Oh, yes, okay. Of course. Hi, commissioners, Cindy Sanders, UFI for Extension Director. And I'm happy to be here today to represent one of our largest farmers in a Latvia county. Farm Bureau is also a partner in this and I'll introduce them in just a minute. But Florida Farm Bureau's County Alliance for Responsible Environmental Stewardship Program publicly recognizes Florida farmers and ranchers who demonstrate exemplary efforts to protect Florida's natural resources by implementing best management practices. In 2024 the Hodge family from New Berry which today we have Mr. David Hodge his wife Gail and their son Mark. They receive the Cares Award and I just want to talk a little bit about this family. They have a rich history as an agriculture family in La Chua County dating back to the 1800s. They've grown tobacco, watermelons, blueberries, vegetables, pigs, and cattle, and some other ventures along the way. They understand the importance of being stewards of their land. They've worked hard with our commercial agriculture agent, Dr. Tatiana Sanchez, who's here today. She's worked with them with soil health, the drip irrigation, soil moisture sensors, sap testing, and grafting water melon demonstrations. Personally, I've known the Hodge family for 30 plus years, and I won't say how long the plus is, but Gail has served on our Latria County Rule Concerns Committee for the board. She has served on our Latria County Youth Fair Board. She also serves on our U of IFA Extension Advisory Committee, as well as Mark, and has been an active member of our Latria County Farm Bureau. They are entrepreneurs as well as innovators, as they developed one of our first agraterism businesses here in Latvia County with Newberry's Corn Maze. And they also have haunted hay rides, which I can attest to many years ago. In addition, they have a wedding venue and partners with Southeast seed, Mark has a venture there, and they have other successful ag enterprises in our area. I just want to say when Mark or Gail calls our office for Tatiana or I, it's usually Tatiana, but sometimes I get them, you know it's going to be a challenge because they always have ideas, especially Mark who really is outside of the box thinker, and he challenges us, and we appreciate that. He always has an idea about maybe a new product or something they can grow. So we appreciate that. We can see their commitment to environmental stewardship and research through their desire to accurately identify problems and solutions and apply science-based recommendation to enhance soil health, such as cover cropping and crop rotation. Through multi-generations of the Hodge family, they've always been open to collaborative projects with us, UFI for Succintions, such as Farm Trial's demonstration ag tours and field days. And it's because of their innovativeness and diversity that they remain a viable family agricultural business in Elotra County today. And I'm excited and Tatiana is to continue to work with them hopefully for many years to come in Newberry. And at this time I'll present them with their plaque but I also want to recognize our Elotra County Farm Bureau president, Mr. Richard Fiegel, and Scott U-Banks, our Florida Farm Bureau rep, represent district rep for our area. And so Farm Bureau and UFI must both work together on this award, so I appreciate them being here as well. So at this time, I'll present the Hodge family with their plaque, that will be at their farm. If you see these on farms in a lot of county, you know, they've also won the award and we try to recognize those folks. And I'll present it to them and then I'll allow Miss Gale to say if you all have any comments. Cindy, do you mind if we come down there for a picture? I'll say. I love. Thank you. Okay. I'm going to go to the next floor. Thank you. I just like to say a couple of things. I thank you for the award. I appreciate that very much and our family appreciates that. So taking care of the soil and the water, it's not just my family or my farm, it's the community, it's the state, it's everyone. Because if we don't participate in those things, we will have a problem in the future. I wanna, like I said, just thank you all for the award. And I wanna tell you that I'm very proud that we have been in the Farming Business since 1919. We've seen a lot of changes, a lot of changes in the community in this county. And I hope that you remember that agriculture is a very important part of everyone's, you know, their lives. Everyone goes to the table and sits down at some time in a daytime. So all of that is important to all of us, not to just a few, but to everyone. Thank you. Thank you. All right. I'm not talking about my position. Oh, yeah, please. Commissioner, could you? Yeah, I just wanted to say a special thank you to the Hodge family. Y'all are such great examples to our agricultural community. Doing this work, you know, it's not easy to be both a farmer and thinking about how to provide for your family and also thinking about how to be good stewards and environmental managers. And we really, really appreciate y'all going above and beyond to manage our natural resources and take care of the things that matter to all of us. Keeping our water clean, our air clean and helping to manage soil so that we can all eat and eat healthy food. So thank y'all so much for what you do. And I hope you see that this commission, at least now, is very committed to agriculture and really trying to push forward how we can support both economic development and environmental responsibility with our farms. And we'd love to hear more from y'all and anybody else who has ideas about how we can support that. Thank you all. Thank you, Commissioner Prisya. And I'll echo that. You know, I heard there were some good ideas out there, so if you have any good ideas for the commission, you or any other farming family out there, please feel free to bring them forward. We are looking for creative ways to support our agricultural community. You guys help us create that green belt around the Latvia County that's so important to all of us. I grew up, my dad was from a farming family, my mother was from a farming family, and I see so much loss in our community of that. So thank you for what you do. All right, we will now move on to our general public comment. I would remind everyone that would like to speak during public comment that we limit the comments to three minutes on an agenda item and three minutes to something that isn't on the agenda. So if anyone would like to speak please come forward and introduce yourself. Hi, my name is Brian Bisher from High Springs. I have some handouts. I don't know if it's appropriate to the clerk. Yes, yeah, hand them the clerk and he'll get them to all of us. Wonderful, thanks. What I'm handing out to you has three pages six total front and back. And what I would like to talk about today is I'm very concerned about the development that's happening in the city of Alachua. And you may think, well, what does the County Commission have to do with that? And obviously, one of the county departments is at EPD, overseas stormwater issues with that. So, why is this one development so important? Well, basically, it's painted a target on the back of high springs. And it's like, well, how is that possible? You know, high springs is six miles away. So as we know there's a lot of connections with our aquifer right and this development actually borders Mill Creek sink and Mill Creek sink is one of the premier ecological features of a Latchua County. And the reason why is because this whole area drains into the swallowed of Mill Creek Sink. And then that drains into what's called the Cross County Fracture, which is on the first page here. And a die trace study has been done, which is actually on the county's website. The die trace study shows that the water goes directly from Mill Creek Sink to just north of high springs passing through out City of Alachua, parts of the county, and also the City of high springs. Well, okay, so why is that really important? Well, it shows that when they dumped a die in there, it showed up over at Horn's B spring within five to seven days, but it lingered up to 150 days. So anything gets dumped into Mill Creek sink is going to definitely impact that area for a long time. And you think, well, hey, it's just one storm overflowed. Well, that storm has gone impact for another 150 days. Are we going to have another storm within 150 days? Perhaps. So here's a study. The conclusions for the die trace study is on page, on the second page. And then on the third actual page or page five, there's an outline of where the Swaini River Management District is planning a recharge field, 372 acre recharge field and wells. And this cross county fracture passes right through there. So it's going to impact that as well. So where the county comes in, and I'm going to give you a few more seconds because we spent some time with the distribution. Where the county comes in as you may be familiar with I believe it's Brittany Forbes and their situation where the stormwater from the archdiocese failed basically and floods their field and is done so for the last seven years and supposedly the same engineer is involved in remediation of that which has not happened and doesn't appear to be happening and that's my concern for Mill Creek sink is that it's a problem. Thank you, Mr. Persier. Okay. Go ahead. I'm just here for a periodic repeat. I talked to you guys about an idea recently called property tax work off that is done by several school districts and counties and cities around the United States, where they allow people to do work in the public sector for local government agencies and credit it toward their property tax bill. The various programs may use income categories, More often they use age categories. It's frequently for people over 60. And it also has a significant anti-junction vacation impact. So until I hear a definite answer, I'm just gonna repeat this to you guys every once in a while. Collie, you didn't introduce yourself, so I'm going to tell her about your Collie book. Okay. I do too. I love that idea. Welcome. Good afternoon. I'm Diane McGraw, the chair of the Allotter Academy School Board, and thank you to Chair Alfred and to all the commissioners. I came before you last year to end of the year about schools. They were in school improvement, a turnaround status. And at that time we had three that had come out of seven that had come out of turnaround. I'm here to report. Now we only have two remaining in turnaround. And so this year we made for the 2324 school year we made great games in our highest need schools and I wanted to report the most dramatic games Metcalf went from a F2C so that mean African-American children, kids with disabilities made some improvements. Lake Forest both went from a D to C, Shell got a C, also Newberry Elementary went from a C to a A. And also they improve in the federal, we get federal funding for those schools of 41% index of federal funding subgroups looking at kids with disabilities, looking at African-American children. They have no more failing subgroups in New Berry, Glenn Springs Elementary, and also in Hit Nokes and also at Lofton High School. And so the increase for late four is moving from a D to C means we do not have to spend the $500,000 on external operator. We will be able to utilize that money in another way. But I can tell you overall, we made extreme gains. Williams Elementary, which is now our whole Magna School went from a C to a B. Talba Elementary went from a B to A for Clark went from a C to a B. Lincoln Middle School went from a B Lincoln middle school went from a B to an A. And so now we were had an I and E side high school but they're now a C. But I can't tell you a lot of county public schools is moving in the right direction also I each that program started at Santa Fe high school. So that career and technology education is going the second Barbara class. People don't realize how much our students can make the second Barbara class started this year with ninth grade. Last year we started with 12th grade since it started in the spring of the year but now we have the second Barbara class going as well. Also kids who are enrolled at Santa Faye part time. Those students are able to take those classes on campus, on their high school campus. If they're still full time, they have to go to Santa Fe. But I can tell you, we made some great gains with our grades. Where we want to be, absolutely not. But this board has been together 19 months and Superintendent Andrew has been this March of 2022 and we are training in a very good direction. And so part of what I'm doing as a leader is coming around and marketing to the city and the county to share how we are improving in a lot of county public schools. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Mr. McGraw. Thanks for your out update. All right, Annie, more for public comment. Thank you, Madam Chair, commissioners, Bobbi Marmer, coordinator of the Elatua County labor coalition. I sent an email right before coming here, but then I realized that people might not be checking their emails in the middle of the meeting. So I just come here on behalf of an unilatsoized reform reach out to let the commission know that there was support for the proposal in the community. There is the ACLC endorsed it last September, mostly because we are concerned that Habitat for Humanity is unable to afford the current large lots that are required to build the sort of homes they build for working class people. So they have been essentially shut out of the city unless they are able to work directly with the city on a case-by-case basis. So we wanted to give more opportunities to, we wanted to have more opportunities available for groups like Habitat and their offshoots. One of the names is escaping me right now. But we're also concerned with the current state of development in Gainesville, where we have two big development consultancies, EDA and CHW. They can circumvent all these requirements by turning a big amalgamation of land into a planned development and then negotiating whatever they want. And it sort of keeps out smaller developers and especially nonprofit developers. So this minimum lot size reform that is currently pending a second reading in the city, I think liberalizes that sector of the economy in the city and also presents new opportunities to build working-class homes through organizations like Habitat for Humanity. So I just want the commission to consider that there is some support and there are multiple sides to this issue. If you'd like to sit down and discuss maybe hold a town hall, I would love to host that for you all, but just want you to know that there was support for them in the process of forming. Now, Pierre, can I ask you a quick question? Yes, go ahead. Bobby, thank you for the email I just got it, and I'll certainly read it. I did see a paragraph, so I'm getting up to speed on this issue, got a couple calls over the weekend about a compromise that they had proposed, a proposed compromise from the Gainesville neighborhoods that would limit the building square footage to houses built on lots one eighth of an acre, less an acre and less than 1400 square feet. Have you guys looked at that compromise and do you support it or have you, has that been discussed at all? We've been made aware of that, but we were not made aware of that until last month, and we had to cancel our membership meetings because we had a lot of events last month. If there is interest in talking about that at this month's membership meeting, the fourth Tuesday, definitely open to asking the co-chairs to put that on the agenda. Okay, yeah, I would love for the Labor Coalition and the neighborhoods to kind of talk about that and see where you fell out So thank you for coming. Yeah, there's and there's definitely space on the agenda for this month's meeting And I'd be happy to ask the co-chairs to agenda that okay, super. Thank you so much. Appreciate you. All right. Thank you All right any further public comment All right Mr. Cornell, do you have anything further? Oh, I'm sorry, that was it. Thank you. On the, yeah, go ahead. Madam Chair, one of my items I was going to bring at commission comment was the mill sink. And I don't know if he's left, but I had a couple of calls from folks that dated back to when we were discussing or when Walmart was coming to a lateral back. I think it was 2015 or 16th and the county did get very, very involved. It's actually pretty ugly between two commissions and I'm not looking to repeat that. However, I think it would be appropriate similar to the chair letter that we sent to the city of Archer, to maybe duplicate something similar to the city of Alachua, to try to open up a dialogue between our EPD department and their city to offer those resources and see if we couldn't get into at least a discussion about protecting the Millseq resources. And so I don't know how this board feels about that, but if this board's okay, it's a very non-threatening letter and it really just offered resources. If you guys are up for that, I'm happy to make a motion that we said the chair letter on that item. I don't see, is not here. May we can talk about it, commission comment, but that was gonna be what I brought up the commission. Commissioner Prithi? Yeah, I just want to say I definitely want to. Maybe it's not on there we go. Okay, I would definitely support that. I also feel like it might be useful for us. I know they don't have an environmental protection department and perhaps they don't really realize the quite the impact of this sink and its relative importance to the overall watershed and the overall spring shed, of which they just came to us and said, we want a partner on this project to protect a spring and that spring shed and think about it. And so perhaps in addition to the letter, we could ask staff to spend just a little bit of time gathering what data we do have about the importance of that sink and its environmental sensitivity so that they might have some background data for why they might want to accept our help because it's easy to say we have help, but you know when you're busy and you've got a lot on your mind and you've got a developer wanting to move forward with a plan ASAP, it can be hard to take the time to slow down. So I would be supportive of staff spending a little bit of time doing some pre-work and sharing that along with the letter. You're my girlfriend? Yeah, I would move that we ask staff to do research and see what baseline data we have regarding MilSync and its importance to our watershed and share that along with a letter offering our support for developing environmental protection standards for the development near Mill Creek. Mill sink. All right. We have the motion second regarding chair letter and support from the APD for the City Velocita for Mill sink. Do we have any public comment to the motion? Any staff concerns? No? All right. Seeing none. All in favor of the motion. Any staff concerns? No? All right. Seeing none, all in favor of the motion signified by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right. Awesome. Great. Thank you, Quinter. That was something I was going to bring up if you all didn't. So thank you. All right. Then with respect to the property tax workoff, I would love to see that as I know you would. I don't know how we could work with the Property Appraisers Office to put something like that into play. I mean, I think it's an interesting idea. I mean, I think it would take a lot of partnership between all our constitutional officers, the tax collector, the property appraisers, us, our school board. You know, that they would take a lot of people and a lot of time. And I know we've said no more new initiatives right now while we get staffed the time to catch up on all the things we've been doing. Yeah, we're almost at the end of that year. Yeah, we've got 301 corridor, we've got so many things. So I mean, I do really love the idea, and I appreciate Collie bringing it up again. And I would love to learn a little bit more and do my own homework about what other jurisdictions are doing in that regard. And maybe we can bring something back in the future. Because it is an interesting concept, and it would be a great way to help people who may not otherwise be able to afford their tax bill to be able to ensure they don't end up in default. But I'm not ready to have us move forward with something at this time. But I think signaling our interest in that will give staff the heads up to maybe start thinking about it as well. All right, let's see. All right, we'll move on to our next item, which is the Lachor County Housing Authority Board appointments. Commissioner's Gina Peoples Assistant Council Manager Chief of Staff just wanted to remind you that Ms. Porter did withdraw her application, so please don't consider her. Madam Chair, I have a question about this one. Okay. I'm just confused about how I know that the tenants qualify as tenants, but don't they also qualify as citizens at large? So yes they can qualify as citizens at large, but since we currently have one tenant vacancy and one tenant alternate vacancy and we only had two applicants. The thought process was that they would likely fill those slots. But if you would prefer that they choose, that they fill a citizen at large, that they would also qualify for that one. One of them up in the average. I know, it's just, you know, I just, I think it just makes sense to list people where all they, everywhere they call it, I just think it just makes sense to list people where everywhere they call it, like from a process standpoint, you know, like they qualify for those seats, so it's just awkward if they're not listed under that. Okay, but I understand you're logic. Thank you, that clarifies things. Well, what we could do, Madam Chair, is we could make Nicole and Angela Randy and Tyrone, all available for the at large. The issue would be if we choose them though, then we're going to have a vacancy and potential in the alternate. Yeah, and then advertise it. But I'm okay with that if that's what you want. I think let's see, well, let's see what happens. Okay, are they here? Any of them here? Yeah, are any of the applicants here? Would any of them like to speak to feel free to come forward and introduce yourself if you'd like? Good afternoon, Madam Chair and commissioners. My name is Randy Hunziker and I did send in an application for the opportunity to serve here in the Latsville County. I have a background as an attorney and as a real estate agent and felt like it was time to step up and help. So I'm happy to answer any questions you guys might have about me, but it's just my opportunity to say I'm ready to step up and help in any way I can. Thank you, anything. Does anybody have any questions? I do. I guess I wonder what your experience and or sort of interest is in affordable housing and the work that we've been doing as a board on that. Yeah, so I have served on the Gainesville Housing Authority in the past and have a strong interest in making sure that housing is available to everyone. And I'm very aware as a realtor that is not. And so any way that I can be involved to encourage that, increase it, I'm all for it. Okay, thank you. You're welcome. Any other questions for Mr. Honsecker? Okay. All right. All right, thank you. All right, we'll move on to voting, moving the two other applicants into the at large position. If, yeah, we're gonna, well, we're gonna vote for the first citizen at large, but we're gonna. Yeah, okay. Four, four, four, four, four, four, four, four, four. Well, no, see, we have, we're Graham and Robinson, so. Yeah, so, yeah. Hunting or Johnson and Rob. Oh, yeah, because the quarter is out right. That's right. So there's more gotcha Commissioner Perzi your nominee please Hansinger I will go with Johnson, just because we will have it. Move Johnson for Cisnet Large with the term ending July 31, 2028. And I would like to thank Mr. Hunsiger for his interest in this. Thank you for coming. We will have other opportunities probably very soon. So I encourage you to apply again. You are very qualified. Thank you. All right. Well, we'll move on. Shall we? We have two applicants in two positions. It's just the 27 and 28. Do you want to make a motion. I just move Johnson. Oh, yeah, we move Johnson. All right, all in favor of Tyrone Johnson for the citizen at large for the term ending of 731-28. Oh, yes, we'll take comments. Sorry, forgot about that. Public comment on the motion. I'm used to it. Thank you for paying attention to these openings. I've been on the board of the housing authority for a long time, past chair, past vice chair, and I want to recognize that who you replacing is our late tenant commissioner, Rudolph Vaughn, and he served very faithfully and very earnestly for quite a long time. And he died very recently. The tragedy is he had no local connections, no family connections. And so we don't even know the disposition of his remains. It took us a long, it's just to verify that he had actually passed away. So we can't even, he's a long time colleague as well as a brother in faith. And we can't even set up a memorial for him. But I did want to recognize that you're replacing somebody who gave great long service. Thank you, Mr. Blant, for those kind words. That actually, that means a lot. We have a lot of citizens that serve on our advisory boards and give long years of dedicated service. And it's really wonderful to acknowledge that. And I'm sorry that I did not know that Mr. Blunt had died. I did meet him at one of the meetings that I went to. That's all right. I'm going to move forward with the vote then. All in favor of Tyrone Johnson being appointed as citizen at large with a term ending in 073128. Signified by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed, like, sign? All right. Congratulations, Mr. Johnson. All right, moving on. Do we want to? One nominee for the appointment of one tenant with the term ending 731-2028. And then we'll start with Commissioner Prisya. Can you have a nominee please? Nicole Graham as the tenant and Angela Robinson as the alternate. OK. I didn't know if we were doing both, sorry. Yeah, let's just do them both. That's fine. Yeah. I didn't know we were doing both. Yeah, let's let's just doing both. That's fine. Yeah Nicole Graham is a tenant and Angel Robinson is the ultimate Commissioner Chestnut you're not me Chair Alfred you're not and the same Moving Nicole Graham for the term ending July 31st 28 and Angela Robinson as an ultimate for the term ending July 31st, 2028 and Angela Robinson as an alternate for the term ending July 31st, 2027. All right, we have motion a second. Do we have any public comment to that motion? Seeing none, all in favor of the motion signified by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Like, sorry. All right. Congratulations to the new housing board members and we'll move on to the recreation open space committee update. Oh wait we have sorry I missed one the historical board hiding down at the very bottom of the page. All right point two citizens at large and one alternate member of the historical commission. Do we have any of those applicants here and would they like to speak? All right, let's move on to to um do you want to speak? Come on up. Oh, we have someone here? Okay. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah feel free to come forward introduce yourselves if you'd like to speak. Still morning. Good morning or good afternoon. I'm John McLean, 60 generation Floridian born and raised in Gainesville. Going to be with historical society. I have a degree almost from UF in history. I'm a living historian. My family has been here as I said since 1828. These are two of my family members, on horses 1907 and Gainesville. Right on. All right, thank you for applying. So y'all learned some stuff from me. All right, awesome. Awesome. All right, anyone else? Madam J. why don't we choose two, and then that will help us? That will just determine who the alternate is. Yeah. OK, that works for me. Is that work for you? Are the terms are not the same, however? Yeah, so you get some of those. Whoever gets the most votes, votes okay that's fine we'll work it out that way. Okay. Mr. Chessna could we have your two nominees then? Kurtman and McLean Commissioner Cornel your two nominees. Kurtman and McLean. Commissioner Persia, you're two nominees. Kirkman and McLean. Commissioner Alford. Kirkman and McLean, that doesn't help us into determining who gets which. All right, so I would move John McLean for the term beginning August 13th and ending September 30th, 2026. And Karen McClaim for the term ending April 30th, 20... Karen Kirkman, sorry, for the term ending April 30th, 2025 and Barry Bomsine as the ultimate for the term ending April 30th, 2026. All right, give us a second to that motion. Second. Okay. Do you have any comment? Okay. Any public comment to the motion? Seeing none, all in favor of the motion, signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Thank you. Any opposed, Lakesteinane? All right. Congratulations, Mr. McLean, and to the other applicants. And I hope you enjoy serving on the board. Yeah, excellent. All right, our next item is the Recreation Open Space Thank you. All right. Our next item is the Recreation Open Space Committee update. Good afternoon, Gina Peoples, Assistant County Manager Chief of Staff. It's my pleasure to introduce our Roscoe chair, Mr. Steven Scott, and he's going to be presenting this year's Roscoe update for you. Hello, thank you commissioners. Madam Chair, I was here last year. I'm still chair. We have issues getting volunteers and people on the board. However, we do some great things, and this person next to me is what does it all I'm pleased to provide an update on park happenings I'm old I It's been a long time since I was in school or you know university or whatever. I've never done a PowerPoint before But she's gonna help yeah you. I told her to push the button. And 2023, the county commission unanimously voted to name Jill McWire, Santa Fe, Lake Park, and recognition of Jill McWire's decades of advocacy for protecting the Santa Fe Lake, Swamp, and River. She loved the lake, used to park frequently, and lobbied for many of the improvements we enjoyed. On April 13, we celebrated the renaming and dedication of the park in her honor. Pictured is the new restroom building, which was a high priority for her. It's located up top as you come in at the playground and stuff. And I've seen it, we've had meeting there and it's an awesome new restroom. And the old one was, I've used Santa Fe Lake a lot and the old one was really disgusting. Yeah, multiple comments about that. Copeland and Monioca Parks. We've had meeting at Copeland and staff received the boundary and topographical surveys for both parks. Our next phase will be a schematic design. We anticipate the work to take six to eight months after which the bidding and construction phases will occur. Staff conducted community engagement meetings, improvements at Copeland Park Copeland, and we'll include a new relocated playground, additional parking, better accessibility, landscaping and sight lighting. Monioca Park will likely include similar. Jonesville, the purchase order for the architecture and engineering for the soccer stadium and Pickleball was issued in June. Survey work is almost complete and we already have a schematic design for the bleachers and press box building with changing slash restrooms for the officials and storage below. We anticipate this work will take six to eight months after which bidding and construction phases will occur. The sod installation on soccer fields two and three took place near the end of May, top dressing and stabilizing and final fertilization was completed and secondly, catch your life. Moving on, we have Rollings, Cape Barnes Parks. We'll put this project out for bids for construction schedule beginning later this year to include replacement of the existing boarding dock at the ramp. A courtesy dock at the south side of the channel. In addition, some accessible parking and sidewalks connecting from there to the restrooms, playgrounds, but very important and courtesy dock. That's one part I have not been to. I need to get there. Post springs, one of my favorites. We are replacing existing springside restrooms. Construction documents have been completed. And we're working with procurement to put this project out for business construction slated in beginning October. They tried it off to try to get past the busy season. And there's been some issues with placing the restrooms. The boat launch there, water managed district has requested delineation of the wetlands and high water levels and the vicinity of the proposed improvements. Afterwards, they came for a site visit and were waiting for their feedback. I'll know how dealing with that is. Veterans Memorial Park, construction continues on the new inclusive playground, accessibility improvements, additional parking, increased site lighting, and associated stormwater and utility infrastructure with projected completion around Labor Day. A ribbon cutting with the board and stakeholders would be scheduled in the coming weeks. West End, the county closed on West End on June 14th. I have to commend Parks and Public Work staff for cleaning and demolition operations. I drove by there on Monday after that Friday. I didn't even know we'd bought it. And I saw Jason Moore out there with his staff and it was like about noon and that place was already looking immaculate. The change over was just amazing. I was shocked. It's made a big difference already. We have community engagement meeting tonight at the extension auditorium. Community is invited to attend and provide input on the future of the park. I plan to be there. I don't know if y'all will or not. I'm not sure how that works. I have to find out about sunshine laws and all that kind of stuff. Staff are working to get the site ready for the World Master's Athletics event. The impervious footprint on site will actually be very small with the cross-country course as well as throwing area being mostly turf. Many of the amenities that the event itself will be temporary in nature, such as tents, bleachers, portable toilets, et cetera. I believe we're trying to keep this park lower cost, because we've kind of spent a lot of money already on it. Our next meeting is September 19th at 4 p.m. inside the Veterans Park. It's kind of hot in September and we try to do inside during summer and outside in the winter. Please show up for one of our meetings. We've had ones there and of course there's something about two of you can't show up. I think I showed up to the one at Costco. I was supposed to have Costco with on here. Yeah you talked about it. Skip it. Can I go back? No you showed it did you? I think it. Can I go back? No, you showed it, did you? I think it's you showed it. But we have a new pavilion there and some others and they know they're working on lighting for the parking lot and that pavilion is going to be a great help because I was here when y'all approved. And y'all just go, y'all go from park to park. We meet different parks each time. That way we get to see the park. I had never seen Copeland when we were out there. It's a nice one. It's a great program. I'm still chair. I'll probably be chair for the rest of my life or something. And once you start, you can't stop. All right, we have one question from Commissioner Prisya. Yeah, I just noticed I was out at the Post Springs Park recently for my for fun and I just I noticed the volume of traffic at the park and I wondered I know that there had been like we have some caps in terms of visitation and things like that but I wondered if Roscoe and our environmental protection advisory board could just take a look at our recommendations with regards to the visitor numbers for the summertime and the impact it's having on the spring. And if we're kind of, if we have an OK policy or if we need to revisit that policy, it's just seeing there was a lot, a lot, a lot of people there and I felt like maybe we might be impacting the springs in ways we don't realize what the number of visitors we were having every day. So I know that's environmental but it's also parks because we do want to make sure it's accessible to our public. It's publicly owned and we want to make sure people can have a free or affordable place to go and enjoy the spring. So I would appreciate if you all would take that up and have a conversation about it. I have another question and I don't know if this is something for Roscoe to look at or just something for our staff to look at but I went to a birthday party also at a post spring recently and did not have three dollars on me and so I was there illegally the whole time and had to go back and pay that another day. But what would be really helpful is if there was a way to pay pal or Venmo or something, the fee to get in, I think that a lot of residents would appreciate that convenience. And I think that could work in a way where it would be easier to check really than if people dropped money into the little box. Madam Chair. Yes. I know that the City of Gainesville uses the Passport service for their parks to be able to pay. I'm not sure if that's something we could do, but it would be an option to look into piggybacking on their passport contract or something like that if it's of interest to staff. I definitely don't want us to get into Venmo because that or anything like that. That would be, we'd end up in a crazy situation with them randomly been mowing. I don't know who they would even Venmo, but I do think there are softwares that can manage that sort of thing. I've seen it. I saw it in the park I went to and I thought, well, that was clever because everybody has that. But some people don't like the passport app, but it is what we use. So anyway, just a suggestion, an electronic pay option would be super awesome. I say, Jason might have something to say about that. There he is. Jason, Parkstone, Ms. Base Director, Madam Chair of Commissioner. So that's one of the things that we're looking at with the contract renewal that we put out to bid for the concession operations was to have them since we're now only collecting fees May to September and then the rest of the year we allow free entry so that folks can enjoy the park and you know use facilities without having to worry about paying during the non busy months. So one of the options that we've looked at is actually contracting them to actually work our ranger station seven days a week during those during that season to collect the fees and provide better customer service since we can't staff it during the week. So we think we're going to that should provide a lot better customer service. And also during the weekends, the staff is supposed to be monitoring the traffic and that is one of the things that with the manager comes on board of October to make sure we reiterate to staff and properly train them that you are supposed to manage as parking this is the parking capacity and close the gates once we reach and then as people leave you can let more in but that's just staff needs to be better about doing what's already on the books. So that's just something that one of my... I appreciated that staff person letting me into the birthday party even though I didn't have any. Oh, they're phenomenal. My staff is amazing. They are very accommodating and they understand. I've had my staff actually pay for people out of their own pocket. So they're not like, you know, but I think a lot of that stuff will resolve itself when the contractor is there, running it and then be able to make change any 70s a week and then again, there'll be more amenities available for the people that want to rent canoes, get concession food, there'll be a better customer service there. So, okay. Thank you. All right. Thank you for that excellent update. I just want to reiterate, this is some awesome staff we have. Oh, we know. We're the luckiest county in the state. All right. I believe that our next item is you also, Gina, the Infrastructure Surtex Oversight Board for Sport Representation. Good. Good. Good afternoon. Gina Peoples Assistant County Manager Chief of Staff. Your oversight board reviewed the first quarter surtax expenditure reports from all nine cities in the county at their April meeting. During that meeting they elected a Lachua County member Eric Drummond as chair and Jill Cunningham as vice chair. They added a consent agenda to approve reports with no quarterly expenses. That action alone streamlined 11 motions during our July 22 meeting. The oversight board discussed whether option contract expenditures were surtax eligible if the property is ultimately not acquired. The consensus was that they are eligible as part of due diligence. They also discussed the insurance expense for the City of High Springs canoe outpost. It was determined that insurance expenses are eligible as the canoe outpost was purchased with the Sirtax and the State statute permits operations and maintenance for qualifying counties of which Alachua County qualifies. They discussed the county's housing strategic development coordinator position. Our outside council Patrice Boys reported the county doesn't currently have inclusionary housing and is exploring a community land trust. The oversight board requested clarification on the reported pickle ball ribbon cutting expense for the city of high springs. The city since opted to fund their ribbon cutting expenses from their general fund in lieu of the surtax. They also inquired about the city of Newberries' $2,125 multi-purpose field expense. The city responded that this expense was an invoice for civil engineering from J.B. Pro for the drainage design of their multi-purpose fields. This particular slide shows that the cities of Gainesville and Waldo are starting to invest their infrastructure CERtax funding in projects. And all vacancies on the oversight board have been filled. So thank you to everyone who helps spread the word. Our new members include Ross Ambrose, Mary Lou Hildrith, Makilah Maffee, Nancy Wilkinson, and David Yorkowitz. So with that, thank you very much for allowing me to provide this quarterly update, and I'm happy to answer any questions. Do we have any questions or comments? I had one question. Oh, Commissioner Wheeler. I just have a quick comment. That sounds like a great board and it sounds like that they're really taking this seriously by asking the questions in order to get clarification. So that's exactly the kind of involvement we were hoping for with this oversight board, as far as I'm concerned. They're amazing. Thank you. I had one question. So this is from first quarter results or from the last quarter of 2023. Why is it takes a long, what has to happen before we get the report? Sure. So the quarter has to finish out. So for example, the first quarter of everyone's fiscal year is October, November, December. So that's the first quarter. We need to wait for December to close probably middle of January. I send all of the cities the request saying it's time to submit your quarterly reports. I give them about 30 days, so that's February, whenever they're all due. So we can review them at our March meeting If everybody submits everything beautifully and perfectly and nobody has questions I can report to you super quick But if we have to bounce back and ask what was this thing then it just takes time to To work through those issues before I can report back Appreciate I had a citizen calling us that question so I appreciate that clarification thank you all right all right we will move on now to our action items our first is the interlocal agreement between Lutra County and Lutra County Sheriff's Office for the Radio Maintenance Program and this is Chief Theas. Hi Madam Chair I Harold Theas Chief of Fire Rescue and just provide just an overview of what this agreement entails. As you know, in December of last year we closed on purchasing the Trump radio system. Prior to that, when we knew that we were working towards the purchase, we had advertised for a radio system manager that was part of our FY24 budget. Those individuals we learned are hard to find, and we did an exhaustive search, interviewed several candidates and we were unsuccessful in finding an individual to fill that position. In the meantime, as this was going on, the Sheriff's Office really stepped up to the plate to help us with managing the daily operations of the radio system. And to be frank, I had no idea how involved and how detailed that was. The Sheriff's Office has a radio shop that's employs three individuals. And we had long had an agreement with the Sheriff's Office where we provided funding for 0.5 of one of those three FTEs that helped us with managing our mobile and portable radios that were in our apparatus. The way it would work is we would go by their radio shop and they would troubleshoot or fix any problems that we had with that. So we already had an agreement with the Sheriff's Office. Sheriff Gain and his staff in meetings with them really in late October identified that we would need really a more robust program and an immediate program starting in January when we took over the ownership of the trunk radio system to make sure that the radio system was being run properly from not just the mobile and in-user point of view but from the global putting the radio signal out. We have a wonderful relationship with Motorola and with TriCo. And with the radio shop and their tech team does, it's helped us bridge that gap between our vendors and our trunked radio system of what we need to have happen. And so they have stepped up to the plate to do so. We have tried this now for the last really six months and it has worked well, them doing the technical side of the managing of the daily operations. And it's just the maintenance side of what we're doing. And so in this agreement, we are providing the funding for a full FTE, which is that radio systems manager, along with up to $50,000 for the purchase of a vehicle, for that individual to have to be able to visit the seven sites that are across the Lachua County and also a recurring cost of about $15,000 a year, up to $15,000 a year to purchase any equipment or replacement parts that they would need to manage the radio system. So it's a win-win as we see it for us. They are the technical experts in the radio shop and so we are deferring to them. The county will still maintain all control and operations when it comes to the budget of the trunk radio system, the user agreements, the expansion of the radio system. And so it's truly a partnership between the Sheriff's Office and Alachua County. Wonderful. Commissioner Wheeler. Chief, I'm so gratified to hear that. Truly, I had a meeting with the sheriff yesterday and he said the same thing about working with you all in terms of the gratification of that kind of collaboration. And I think it's really needed since our focus is community health and well-being. It makes sense that you all would partner any way you can working together because we've focused a lot on fire rescue and the idea that they would be working closely with you to help us also focus on some of the needs that they may have to that may carry over like this system. So thank you for that. I think the timing is perfect for the two leaders that we have now to put this firmly in place that we are working together. I love it. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, the sheriff is here if you'd like to say a few words is up to him and up to you. Great, ma'am. Welcome, Sheriff Gainey. Thank you. Thank you, Chief Madam Chair, commissions, and McGainey-Chief. I think the Chief said it very well. It was an opportunity to take the expert teeth that already existed within our shop to work jointly. Obviously, we depend on this system greatly. Not law enforcement for our rescue partners working together. We own a lot of scenes together. So, anything that we can do to help ensure that it's operating in its maximum efficiency, we are ready to do that. Chief Diss and I and his staff and ex-use some of his staff, the former Sheriff's Office staff that we know very well, no their expertise and their technical abilities. So, it's just to us made logical sense to be able to use this staff work on a system that benefits us all We're happy to do it glad that they do it and use exactly the type of partnerships that we want to do and just a little quick stats Of course, we want the system to run no matter what but I had my staff run the 2023 stats We looked at about 20 to 61 thousand dispatch calls 71% of those calls were law enforcement calls. So you heard a user of that system is law enforcement between the city of Gainesville, high springs, and the Sherps office. So not only would we be willing to help simply because it's our partners at the fire rescue, but quite frankly, we got a major investment in making sure that system runs and runs well. Thank you, Sher Sheriff Gainey. Appreciate that. I had, oh, Commissioner Cornell, you had a question? Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to echo Commissioner Wheeler's comments. You guys really set the example of how interagency should be working together for our citizens. And so thank you to that. I would move that we authorized chair to sign the interlocal agreement between Latvia County and the Latvia County Sheriff's Office. All right, good. We have a motion to second. I had a couple of quick questions. First, if there's only a couple of people in the office working, do we have, are we training anyone else just in case we need a, we need additional folks trained that can do this work? Because that's actually, you know, if we have a shortage of folks I just makes me nervous sure absolutely the we always try to be two or three deep and all the things that we do the sheriff's office has currently has three employees based upon this agreement they'll be hiring a fourth employee over some period of time the Lawtruck County Fire Rescue our staff we are fortunate one of our battalion chiefs is the Mark Unit Coordinator, which is the mobile area radio communication system in the state of Florida. So he is the state coordinator for the radio system in the state of Florida when they go out on deployments. You've seen those presentations before. We also have some individuals in our E911 staff that are very familiar with radio systems. And so we really rely upon a lot of individuals to make this happen. Excellent. Thank you. And then my second question, I saw as reading the contract. I saw the words potential expansion. Do you have any ideas of what that might be? Was that just a covering your basis kind of thing? It's a little bit above. Yes, it is covering our bases. But Madam Chair, when we purchased the radio system, we've made it very clear in our meetings with our vendor, Motorola, that we want to make sure that the radio system today is resilient. And so we are working through some steps right now to make sure that the infrastructure of the radio system is adequate for our needs to give you some examples of that. We are checking all of the generators at all of these sites that we have. We're checking the brains of the radio system isn't a shelter at the base. And so we're making sure that there's temperature control monitors in those systems. So we've done a lot of maintenance work to get us back to where we feel comfortable from a point of view that we should be. And the Sheriff's Office staff has been key in identifying those needs for us. And to expand that further, there may be some purchases that we come to you to request to bolster the technology behind the system a little bit more before we work on expansion. So a hard thing of the system, basically. Yeah, you know, I like to work in phases. We're in phase one right now. Let's see what we've purchased. Let's try to get what we purchased up to our standards. Phase two is to build out that resiliency from a technology point of view. Phase three is the expansion. All right. Thank you very much. All right. Commissioner Cornell, did you have any? Thank you very much. All right. Manager, I may have just add a comment. Sure. Some of this also looks at the growth of the county. As the county grows, high rise building, tree panically grows, it changes the ability of that radio system to operate. So it sometimes requires extension simply based off the growth of the community as well. Yeah, that makes total sense. All right. Thank you, everyone. Seeing no further comments, all in favor of the motion signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Like sign? Aye. Motion passes. Thank you both for your partnership, and thanks to the Sheriff's Office for stepping up and seeing the need and creating a partnership where we needed one. So thank you very much. Thank you. OK. Moving on to the next item. This is the, oh, this is great. This is to request approval of the joint wild spaces public places project with a town of McIntyre Opie. Move staff recommendation. And purchase. All right. We, this people's, do you mind Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. of the county's funding with all nine cities. 85,000 was set aside for the town of McAnopee. Up to this point, they had not requested a partnership project, and then the county purchased, so with the next item, so these two items go hand in hand. So the county purchased the former dollar general site in 2022, and the town then sent us a letter offering to purchase it from us for 170,000, 85,000 from our 2016 partnership funding and 85,000 in cash. So town manager, Sarah Owen is on Zoom and so if you do have any particular questions for the town but again both items really kind of do go hand in hand. All right thank you from a so on for being available do we have any questions about either of these two items? Okay I'm just excited that this is happening. All right all in do we have a public comment to the motion? I asked that. All right saying none all in favor of the motion signify by saying I. All right any opposed lakeside? All right congratulations on that. All right, saying none. All in favor of the motion signified by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed, like sign? All right, congratulations on that. Let's move to the next item, please. Somebody like to make that motion? We approve the purchase and sale contract, the deed, the conservation easement, and the resolution authorizing the sale and authorize the chair. To sign the contract and the deed and conservation easement and the resolution authorizing the sale and authorize the county manager or their Designed design any additional documents approved by the county attorney necessary to complete the transaction of sale second Right, we have a motion a second to sell the Basically the dollar general property to the town of Bikinope. It's any public comment to the motion Any further comment from the board seeing none all in favor of the motion signify by saying, I, I, and he opposed like sign. All right, great. That's kind of the end of an era, I feel like. That's the beginning of a new one. In the beginning of a new one, right? All right, our next item is the appointment of substitute and alternate members of the canvassing board for the 2024 general election. I'm going to defer to our attorneys. All right, Samemcha, this is the item that we talked about at the end of the Thursday meeting, and this is Mr. Hanson. Okay, Mr. Hanson. For Hanson, Senior Assistant County Attorney. As As Torra has mentioned, this was brought up at the end of that Thursday meeting with the idea that there'd be some some thought given to Who might serve as a substitute and potentially an alternate member of the county canvassing board? Miss Barton is has opposition in the 2024 general election So she is not able to serve on the county canvassing board and we will at the very least need to appoint a substitute for her position If we cannot appoint a substitute from the County Commissioners, the chair, we would send a chair letter based on past practice to the chief judge of the eighth judicial circuit, asking the chief judge to appoint someone. And we usually provide some recommendations as to who we think they should appoint. And I understand we've had some folks that have agreed to serve on these as alternates. Is that correct? Madam Chair, I did have a conversation with the recently retired judge, George, he did say that he could serve as an alternate because of the time demands for being the substitute member. I believe there was some conversation with former commissioner Pinkison that he would be able to serve as a substitute member. Madam Chair. I was informed that because of the timeline between Judge George, he's retirement and now there had enough time had not elapsed that he would be allowed to serve. He would not be a senior judge who's serving in the capacity as a member of the judiciary. He would be serving just as a qualified elector. I guess, okay. So the timing of his retirement isn't a problem? It wouldn't be something where he is acting in a judicial capacity that I think there had been some discussion about you know coming back And and could he be a senior judge and could he be appointed as a as a member of the judiciary under the statute This is just he is a a member of the public a qualified elector is the term they use in the statute Maybe they were incorrect then. That's a weird thing. If he was the judge acting on there, then I think you could do that. But since he's acting as a citizen, he's not acting in a judicial capacity. I understand that. It was still there was a comment about the time from his retirement. Like, they need to be retired at least a year before they could serve. And I didn't quite understand it. But it was something that was told to me by in a conversation I was having a trying to see about people's interest in the position, but it sounds like it was inaccurate information that was provided to me. Thank you. Okay. Commissioner Cornell. Thank you, Madam Chair. I spoke to former Commissioner Pickerson yesterday at the Children's Trust meeting and he said he's happy to serve as a substitute. Yeah, he got your message. He thanked you for sending that. And so I would recommend that we send a letter to the Chief Judge. We asked that he appoint Commissioner, former Commissioner Lee Piggison at the Substitute, former Judge Worsky as an Alternate. And would you be an, do you want to serve as an alternate or could you serve as an alternate? Then we would have a second alternating commissioner chestnut. So Is that right efficient for a motion commission? So I'm sure the way that works is that the county Commission the kind of chair can appoint an alternate if the alternate is from the sport. So the chair would appoint Commissioner Chestnut as a, it will actually be a third alternate which we may need this cycle because of a potential recount. So the chair would appoint Commissioner Chestnut as an alternate. We would send to the Chief Judge to point former Commissioner Pinkison as substitute and former Judge Shawarski as the other alternate. Senator Smith. All right, we have a motion on a second. Good motion, Madame Attorney. I think good motion, Madame Attorney. All right. We have a motion a second for the appointment of Commissioner Chesnut as the second alternate judge Jorarski to send a letter requesting Judge Jorfsky as an alternate and former commissioner Lee Pinkerson as substitute. All in favor of any public comment to the motion. All right, seeing none, all in favor of the motion, signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed, like, sign? All right, we've got that taken care of. I wanna thank Judge Dwarfsky and former commissioner Pinkerson for their willingness to serve this can sometimes be be and of course Commissioner Commissioner Wheeler who has was late to this meeting because she was attending a canvassing board member This is sometimes a very demanding role and we appreciate all of those folks and their willingness to serve and and what you know might be a very interesting election. So Madam Chair the volunteers that have showed up to work to work this campaign are amazing too. They've already counted over 9,000 ballots, mail-in ballots. Over 9,000 mail-in ballots that's excellent. Still wonderful. Well still not. I wouldn't call it excellent. We have less than seven percent turnout right now. Right. Yeah. This is average for this election. We have a 25,000 people show up in vote and that is an invisible turnout. I certainly hope that more citizens become excited about this primary and do get out in vote. I will say that. Okay. We are now going to move on to the purchase of the sunrise in from St. Francis House. Chair and Vice President, Chair and Vice President, Chair and Vice President, Chair and Vice President, We are aware the Sunrise Inn is located on southwest 14th Street, two parcels across the street from each other. On May 2nd, Elatio County entered into an option contract following discussion with you to purchase the Sunrise Inn. There are 35 residential units in the two buildings. There are 34 one bedrooms or SRO single room occupancy and one is a two bedroom. Purchase price requested is 1.95 million and the property right now 30 of the 35 units are subsidized with what's called an SRO HUD voucher and those are very old vouchers that are tied to the property. They cannot be moved from the property and they will be lost if they are not retained on that site. The remaining five units are subsidized and that's why they can be scaled. And they could be for market rate rent if you chose. Pursuant to the option contract, the staff has done the due diligence requested. We have a survey, the title report, the insurance commitment, as well as the architectural engineering report, which I believe you've all seen and are ready to proceed. The purchase price of the property, again, is 1.95 million. We have already paid St. Prius' House the 150 initial deposit and as you recall that is a non-refundable deposit that they requested. If you exercise the option contract today they would receive a second 150,000 and that is all part of the 1.95 not on top of. The due diligence costs are listed here for what we spent on it. We did try to do some research into the items that were brought up by the inspections. For instance, there was obviously concern relative to the asbestos, the lead, and the mold issues. And so staff reached out to experts to give some estimate. Again, the anything we can tell you today is estimates based on the best information we have. It's anticipated to be about 350,000 to remediate the asbestos lead and mold. The total cost of the immediate renovations, and that's what we tried to break it for you into immediate five-year and ten-year need so that the cost would not be all at once unless you chose to do otherwise. So the immediate need is 1.55 million. Additional cost of renovation in five years is another 870,000. And then the final ten years is another 1.15 for a total of 4.2 million. So staff recommendation is to approve the option contract, exercise the option to purchase the sunrise in, authorize the chair, county manager or designate to sign the documents, approved by the county attorney, necessary to close the transactions and approve the closing and other transactional costs. We do make this recommendation in an effort to prevent the loss of the 35 affordable housing units, particularly those 30 vouchers which we cannot get back. It's also though made with the knowledge and concern that this facility will require extensive renovation and there is currently no funding identified. All right. Thank you for that Commissioner Prisya. I know I spoke with Claudia but I read this report that we got the the condition due diligence report and it's pretty dire. And I mean, I think the numbers for renovation reflect that. And I think staff is being conservative and trying to do the best they can with what we have. And I guess I asked Ms. Taken about the opportunity to just tear this stuff down. It's my recommendation. I mean, the actual outside structure of the building doesn't seem like it's that bad. It sounded like the structural engineer said that the actual building itself, the actual outside structure of the building doesn't seem like it's that bad. It sounded like the structural engineer said that the actual building itself is not bad. And so maybe it would just be a full gut and a reroof on one of them. But either way, I guess it could take us up to six months to get the answer on if that's even possible from HUD, knowing that the vouchers are tied to the units. And if they would allow us to tear the building down and rebuild and re-home those people and maintain those vouchers while we do so. I do think and that most of these people are on disability or some other form of assistance and probably would not be eligible for workforce in that they aren't working. So they don't qualify for our infrastructure surtax to do that reconstruction component only to buy the land. So I don't know if we've been able to suss out what the land cost is for this property versus the buildings and if we're able to use our infrastructure surtax for the purchase, that was something I was trying to understand. And maybe that's a question for Madam Attorney. Or? So Madam Chair, we've had that discussion pretty extensively among staff. I think ultimately the different ways that that's interpreted around the state as far as being able to purchase land for affordable housing is broad. I think the point is if you're purchasing it for the land itself for the affordable housing versus purchasing an asset. What I would tell you is that I don't think, and I'll let Mr. Cosby speak for himself as I put him on the spot. I don't particularly think Mr. Cosby is comfortable with using that for this particular land purchase at this time. So we haven't opined on whether that is something that we potentially could. It certainly does not appear to be just land that we would be purchasing here. It's improved land. It is improved land, but they didn't say you can purchase assets. You can purchase buildings. It's very imperfect. I mean, we could figure out what the cost of just the land is, right? I mean, what the improved land would be? I mean, that's pretty easy to do with the real estate. So Tommy Crosby, Assistant County Manager, that's true. So obviously, and I've been communicating with the Clarks office out there. He's not even here to talk about it, but we have had communications and we obviously look at it from more of the financial realm and what we do with auditors and how you, what you're acquiring. So I'll leave the legal interpretations to the legal staff, but from our side, when we're talking about purchasing land, it is not improved land that nowhere else in anything that projects that we that I've worked on historically from a financial standpoint land is land and an improved land is a building on the land and it would be very hard for me to get to saying we bought land that had a $30 million building on it and that was all eligible to use workforce money or affordable housing money because it's the purchase of land that happens to be improved. Improve land. It's not land. Land is land. So I agree with you we can carve that out. We obviously could expand the interpretation and so these teams can do a lot more on supporting whatever policy position the board ended up with in using those dollars if that's what the board does from a policy standpoint. From a financial standpoint our concern has been that our financial recommendations if we purchase this so we use we said that we did say a million dollars of general fund money over into the into that trust we also have other general fund money and I don't think we need to try to manipulate solutions of money if we're talking about a couple million dollars. We've a lot of things over time. If the board says it's a one-time purchase to use to minimize or the reserves, that's what my recommendation would be. The bigger concern is what y'all just talked about. What are we getting into from a renovation standpoint? And now we're up to, if you had the four plus the two for the purchase, you're up to six alone, you're up to $180,000 a unit. Is that the best policy decision that you'll have to discuss and using that money or is it to put $180,000 to build your own units to replace them and have your own unit somewhere else do the same thing? And there may be HUD reasons and voucher reasons that you can't do that and I get all that so those are policy discussions to have but from a financial standpoint I'm not comfortable yet with using the sort tax to buy a building. So I just want to say a couple things while we're on this topic because it's really starting to get frustrating for me like I'm a kind of at my withsend with the how we can spend and not spend this money. Like every single time we come across a project, we get told we can't do the product. That project is an eligible, we can't do. And it's, I think that the interpretation we're taking, I understand it from a risk standpoint, I understand it from a legal standpoint, but I think that we're being overly cautious with regards to how we're looking at this. you think that land is land and this is a land transaction. And there are improvements to land that developers pay for when they buy land or when you make a land transaction all the time. Utilities, underground, sewer, water. I mean, there's all types of improvements you can make to land that make it more valuable or less valuable. Those are land considerations. They aren't a building. I get the building asset itself not being part of land, but it's very easy to Kind of separate that out like the improved property if we tore this building down is worth something So I would 100% agree I don't disagree at all with Infrastructure in the land I agree with you to me that's in from my financial world That's still land purchase right? I mean it just happens to be have the infrastructure in place with water sewer or whatever else You have in there. I don't disagree. It's the actual cost of that actual asset of that building on top of it. That the challenge. But again, that's only $2 million of the entire cost we're talking about anyway. I realize that but $2 million is $2 million that we then have $2 million of general fund to do. The $2 million renovation we're going to have to do to. And it's just a matter of point, like I just want us to get to the point we're starting to use that money. I mean we've been sitting on that money. It's not going on two years that we've had a infrastructure surtax. We've gotten, we've done zero projects with it because we've been going round and round and round about what it can be know and this and we can't spend it and we can't spend it and we can only spend it on land and anyway I guess I'm just saying I think we could divide this out have some of the money from the infrastructure surtax cover the cost of the land and improve land here we've got a piece of junk building that we're going to have to basically tear down or gut and renovate and spend a ton of money on so that we can save voucher housing, which is really important to keep because you can't just get those vouchers. It's not like we can just go to hide and be like, hey, now we've built this new building. Can you give us 30 vouchers? Like it doesn't work that way. Then those are really old vouchers that are going to be hard to get. So it's kind of like they put us, St. Francis House, it's put us between a rock and a hard place, in that they were gonna sell this to somebody, to tear it down and build something fancy, and we're trying to save it. So now we're gonna have to spend what I think is too much money for the property and the condition it's in. But, and then we're gonna have to spend the money to renovate it. And I personally would like us to get with HUD, see if we can help them to understand why we need to tear this thing down and rebuild. See if we can't rebuild more units, some of which could be workforce units, some of which could be family units. I had a conversation with family promised yesterday and they have 433 families consisting of 1,636 individuals, and about 1,000 of those are children that are in some form of homoasis right now. They weren't counted in the point in time count because they're on couches, they're doubling up with other families, they're living in their cars, they're afraid for DCF to find them, take their children away. But these are families that need housing too. And having this property or other properties, we have the opportunity to build things that we want to your point. So it's not $180,000 a unit. We could put more units potentially if we go up. I know we've used most of the land there, but I just want to get creative since we're being, we're kind of stuck. And I agree with staff's recommendation that we need to do this because we need to protect these units but I also feel like we need to get creative with using the infrastructure money for this project and other projects and thinking about how we can leverage not just throwing good money after bad. So and from a financial standpoint heard everything you said and I'll disagree with any of it. So from a financial standpoint only, it is better in my regard if we just use, we use general fund money then we have the vouchers coming back because now we're also going out where you're going to use infrastructure, her certite money to hold on the vouchers that are coming in to support the program over time. So that should be revenue streamed back in to actually offsetting a lot of these costs over time. So which I don't know how much that goes to the operations and the maintenance and ongoing all those things and how much the vouchers are. So that's one of the other financial decisions we looked at about how's the best way to resource it and what concerns me is I don't want that financial discussion of resources and the funding source taking away the policy direction of what you're trying to accomplish as a policy. So if you're saying we need to keep these vouchers in place, we need to keep this building in place, that's fine. Let's do that. Let's figure out how to do it within the general operating budget and identify how we want to use the infrastructure turtax. How you want to do that over time, that so we're not bogging down what you're, like we're saying, your frustration of getting bogged down in the discussion of this particular pot of money. If this is something we need to work on from a general fund standpoint, then we need to make sure we're building that in your budget process, and we have those discussions to say we need to be committing ex dollars of general fund money to this affordable housing concern and homeless problem that we have and we need to do a better job of that on our side and I need to make sure that we're doing a better job of directing those funds to direct because the board has mentioned several times about the extreme poverty need and that being our focus more than a workforce housing need being a homelessness need. And so we need to start directing our attention in a budget process to making sure we're funding that through general taxation to support that relief in the public based on what you want to do as a policy and stop having y'all worrying about a restrictions on the funding source, I guess. That's we need to be able to bring that back to you and to help you support your policy need from that regard. That makes sense. I hear that. And I agree with you in a lot of ways, and I appreciate that. Thank you. I guess the only thing I want to say on that front is that I do think that in some, I mean, I 100% agree with you. I want to see more general funding in the Affordable Housing Trust Fund, I've been wanting us to see us putting more than a million dollars, I don't think a million dollars is what the public meant when they said, give us an affordable housing trust fund. I think the kind of dollars we're seeing in the infrastructure search checks are more in line. I know we can't go there like that right now, but I do think that that's true. And it is a feel like we need to start getting creative with how we are working on capital stacks for affordable housing projects with our infrastructure service tax money. Because that's the only way we're going to find projects to spend that money on. Because that's just how the affordable housing world works. It's not a place where it's straight forward development type projects. I mean, when you look at the capital stacks for affordable housing around the country, they are super complicated. There's a little bit of money coming from this pocket and a little bit of money coming from this pocket and a little bit of money. We need to learn how we can be creative and carve out the parts that are approved and are legal for us to use that money for and start learning how to do it and start moving that money so that we can get adept at it because we've got eight more years of trying to do these projects and soon it's not just going to be our projects, it's going to be external projects. So I'm just interested in this as an idea, as from that perspective, it's not so much that I'm like trying to tell you where to find the. Because I know my job is to make the policies and your job is to find the money for it. But I just I'm concerned and I'm interested in seeing how we begin to leverage the infrastructure surtax money that we've set aside for affordable housing. Thank you. Commissioner Wheeler? My experience with Claudia, Ms. Tuck and her group is that she's very conservative about where we put our money and very careful. And so I feel like that with the staff recommendation being what it is that it's been carefully evaluated. And so I would certainly be in favor of approving what it is that they are recommending for this. I'm still trying to understand what it is you were saying. I think that very just straight to. Are you in favor of this or not in favor of this? I am in which parts of it you're in favor of. I'm in favor of this or not in favor of this. I am in which parts of it you're in favor of. I'm in favor of us buying the building. And I'm in favor, and then I'm in favor of staff working with HUD to find out if we can tear that building down or gut that building completely and renovate it. And then for staff, Claudia's team, along with our facilities team, to explore all of our options with regards to what we could do there. How much would it cost us to go up another story and put in an elevator and add some family units? Does that make sense? What's in the kinds of individuals that are like, bringing back a suite of options for us on what we could do with those two properties to maximize affordable housing, keep the vouchers and like leverage the money, the different types of money we have housing, keep the vouchers and like leverage the money, the different types of money we have for affordable housing projects. Okay, thanks. I'm clear now. Is this sort of thing that if we bought this property, had the land and took the, took what's there down, that ability housing would work with us on something like that. Chair, I was that can't speak for ability but it could be a property if you chose to put out for a match for a developer who was applying for the low income tax credit package. It certainly could be a possibility. It would have to be competitive. And it wouldn't have to be, I don't know if the condition of the buildings are such that it would have to be done right away. Are we, are people in danger of living there at this point so that if we bought the thing then we would be liable for the safety and well-being of people in that building immediately. That's a chair. There are risk concerns. Okay. Okay. I mean, when you read, I think the point is, when you read this condition report, there's the lead mold and asbestos, which is contaminants and concern. There's actual structural concerns with things like staircases and rust. There's water damage and water all over the apartments. I think there's like half of them in one building are water damaged and then a third of them in the other building are damaged. And so I know, and I see the other thing is like, I know staff is trying to do their best to be frugal with our money and also make sure things are safe for the residents, but I don't want us to be similar. Like I don't want us to just be painting over water damage so that, you know, even, I know we're gonna get rid of the mold in the middle of the room, we wouldn't do anything that, but I want us to have high quality units that represent the type of things like well, I want us to be a model for what we should be providing for permanent support of housing and affordable housing, not just making do with what's there. I mean, clearly, I mean, this place was, we got that report about that you guys, I think, have taken care of at this point. But like we're just dealing with bad management over a long period of time. So if we purchase, we're purchasing really the land in the infrastructure. Yeah, basically with the land in the infrastructure. And the vouchers and the vouchers. Okay. Okay. All right. All right. Mr. Cornell. I think the chair just nailed it. The vouchers. It's the 35 families. The cost of those families being put on the street is enormous, it's huge. And the ongoing cost that we will get back from the vouchers is really what we're doing. We decided to step in and this land could be sold, mowed down, and student housing gone up. And then we have a big hole in our community that it's providing. And so, I think ultimately that's the public purpose and why we are where we are. I want to thank our staff, what an enormous amount of work. We dropped on them and the report they provided is great. It really does lay it out and I agree with Tommy. If not for the vouchers, could we find a place and build a $480,000 probably? But the vouchers are really the value here. To the bigger point though, is what Commissioner Prisya kind of hit on. What we're trying to do from a policy perspective is what we committed to five years ago, really without a funding source, to the city, will take the permanent supporting, permanent supportive housing piece. That's a big, big commitment. This is a great example of when we hear y'all need to help us in the emergency shelter, we have to say we want to help you, but this is a big commitment. And if we do that, we can't do this. I mean, we just can't. And so, I'm with Commissioner Prisya on this idea to our legal of looking at how we can expand the definition of how we utilize infrastructure short tax dollars for affordable housing, economic development, whether that's by us renovating this, it's economic development all around it. There are things that we need to kind of consider from a, we need to ask our staff to give us thoughts about to consider and let us take that risk because I'm willing to take that We went to the public that said we're gonna spend 30% of this half set for affordable housing The public said please do it overwhelmingly and so let's do it. Let's do it as best we can And this is a good a good example of what we're doing here. So I'm in favor of staff's recommendation. I'm in favor of what Commissioner Prisya was saying with regards to looking at expanding the definition to the extent we can. And without a doubt, I'm in favor of asking the private sector whether that's ability housing or those like it to help us stack capital for instances where we have property now that we control that's in the right place that's diversifying the pockets of poverty around our community. And for me I want to move forward on this because for the exact same reason we directed y'all to start working on it three months ago. You know we don don't have to. We can let it be more student departments, but then we're farther behind and that's not a huge need. Our need right now is saving these vouchers, permanent support of housing and getting this facility up to stuff because obviously, you know, it hasn't been maintained and it couldn't be maintained. That's, they just don't have the resources. But they're gonna have a lot more resources with this purchase. And so I think we can all collectively work together to help them with their mission, which they're kind of a single source for us. Thank you for what they do. And I think this is a win-win. It's more expensive than we thought, win. It's more expensive than we thought But it's always more expensive than we thought and it doesn't change the need and also doesn't change a reason why we're doing it So I'm ready to move forward with SAS recognition Uh, thank you, Madam Chair You know, I normally don't say much, you know, keep them off clothes, I try to not get upset and stuff like that. But it's deplorable what happens to poor people. Those sound like a lot of code violations that were never reported. People were afraid to report what was happening in those units. This just didn't happen overnight. This happened over many, many years of neglect, lack of maintenance, and all of that stuff. I'm not getting mad because there might have been some financial reasons why they couldn't do it or something. But as a government, it seems like there's a fear in poor people to report housing violations that affects them and the government really. And we got to wake up and start supporting new people who don't have a voice. And they don't have a voice. And it just upsets me because it just takes me back to days, to Kennedy homes, what happened in Kennedy homes. It just takes me right back to that thing. And the hell we caught going to the federal government, asking Congress to remove the vouchers and all of that stuff to get these people temporary housing and all of that stuff, just because some well-to-do profit company did not put the proper maintenance in the structures over a period of years. I support what staff is doing. I get it. I understand it. I don't want to be known as we did something illegal. And if our staff is telling us to do something that is legal and legit, then we're not going to be able to do something illegal. And if we're not able to do something illegal, then we're not going to be able to do something illegal. And if we're not able to did something illegal. And if our staff is telling us to do something that is legal and legit, that's where I'm at. That's where I'm gonna always be. And so I'm just saying, I support this. I understand what is going on and what has happened at that facility or that complex, but it's just a shame that our codes and city codes didn't do their job either, and that nobody reported that, so that that place would never gotten that condition it is in now. So now we're gonna have to do it and renovate it and do the right things. Yes, it's gonna cost us more money, but I think to save those vouchers, that's the right thing to do and to also make it better for those folks there. And that's the most important part because it just hurts my heart that people are living like that. And if you guys probably weren't there and you all probably didn't visit Kennedy Homes back then to see how deplorable that place was and the conditions people was living under with ceilings falling out from sewage pipes. It was just horrible folks and it's just unbelievable that that is happening in affordable housing ramp that it's just a mechanism to make money and do deferred maintenance and to create more profits for investors. And it just upsets me. And so when we talk about affordable housing, I mean, there's a lot of things I think we need to do as government to clean up affordable housing to make sure that those people are doing what they're supposed to do when they say they're going to do affordable housing, making sure they take care of the maintenance and do the things that are proper to maintain that facility for 20 or 30 years, not just to milk it for the dollars they can get out of it. And I think that that's wrong. And they're doing it on the back of poor people and people who are less fortunate. And I disagree with that. I just totally disagree with that. I think that that's wrong and we're using our taxpayer dollars to do this. Thinking we're helping people and we're not. And when we're turning our heads and not recognizing that there's a problem here in addressing that problem. And I don't care who they are. I mean, I don't care if it's a nonprofit or a profit business. You know, do your job, do what's right, and make sure you take care of the people that you're actually providing housing for. I'm sorry to have been, but I'm just frustrated with this kind of stuff that we're doing in government. And I've heard this say before, poor people catch hell in this country. And that is a true statement is the more I live and the older I get, the more I see that happening. And I'm a pall of that. You know, you got rich people who maintain their lifestyles, but don't have compassionate for somebody who's less fortunate or who living down. And I would say in the gutters, in that I thought it was my responsibility as a Christian to bring those people up to where I met and to support those people. But we don't live that way no more. And it's just sad. And but I'm gonna do all I can as a commissioner and make sure we're doing the right things. And if we can save this property and make it right and make it better for those 35 people or whoever, how many are the people there, that's what we need to do. And make sure that we continue to head on that path of creating more affordable housing for folks in this community. And I'm having some issues with live local too, so I'm just studying it, but I'm just having some issues there. And I think I'll talk more with the attorney on that issue, but I just have some issues there. I just think they're just reading it and visiting the Regional Planning Council last Thursday down, well last Friday down in St. Pete, Pinellas County, when some of the local cities are now talking about some things about live local that they're kind of disagreeing with, so I like to see how that pan out with the league of the yeah. Yeah, yeah. That's sort of taking advantage of tax. Right, right. And that's what it's set up for. Yeah. And that's what some of the cities are really concerned about, especially in South Florida. But anyway, I'm sorry to be in folks. I just sit here and hold my piece and it's just become frustrating sometimes just to let people continue to get away with murder, just some degree with things like that. But anyway, thank you. Mr. Chestnut, I always look forward to you, Vint. You always have... Just right back then. Yep. You always have the right point to make and you always say it very eloquently and I I appreciate appreciate your thoughts and appreciate your venting and I also was horrified by those reports and particularly the safety issues. Yeah, it was pretty disgusting. I also really don't like their own good money after bad sometimes. And so I really hope that we can negotiate with HUD on this. I mean, they the one that they keep approving these, right? They have continued to approve these as appropriate for people to live in. And I find that really, really frustrating. And it feels to me like if we shared this report with them and said, what the heck? Can you help us here preserve these units? My thought would be to put out an RFP and let the private sector rehome these 30 families, of 30 individuals, while we got and rebuilt to the standard that we want to see. This is property that's right by chance, right by, or sorry, UFL, right by the University of Florida We are in desperate need of affordable housing that is within distance of those places We have thousands and thousands and thousands of people commuting into our county because they can't afford to live here If we could put a significant number of housing units and I know I'm talking to you Claudian You know this already, but if we could put significant housing units in a location where the jobs are. And if we can properly house those people, I'm sure they'd be perfectly happy to go live in a cleaner, safer, better place while this happened. I feel like HUD should work with us on this. And I know that, you know, they're all sticklers for their rules, but can I ask for you guys to like try with them? Is it possible? Well, I would suggest that we talk to our congressional delegations. Oh, good idea. Because that's what we did with Kennedy Holmes. We went to Congress. We went to the people who control hoods and they made everything happen from that point on. I got to give credit to Corine Brown and Congressman Sterns. They took the leadership on that role and they got it to happen. And, matter of fact, Congressman Stern told him, no, this is going to happen and I want to hear something in two weeks about how you addressed this issue. And so that's why I think that we need our local congressional delegation to help us with this with HUD and Believe me HUD will change because they didn't want to give the vouchers just to be honest with you at first They didn't want to give the vouchers to move the folks because they said a lot of people were living there Illegal and they didn't want to give them money to move but Sturms came in and said no no, you're going to give it. They live there now. You put them there. They live there now. So you're going to give them money to make sure that they're relocated. And so that's, I think that that's where our help needs to come in terms of HUD. Because they're going to go by their regulations and all of that stuff. But the congressman or congresswoman could make sure that change. And the big problem is going to be is where did they go? Because we're already short of places. But if we had congressional help, they could, I mean, a hotel would provide the same amenities that they have now. Because they saw the injustice that happened. Yeah. So I, anyway, those are my thoughts. But Commissioner Cornell, are you ready with a, oh, right, sorry, Commissioner Prowseh, are you or next? I'm sorry. So I know or not, it doesn't look like based on the recommended action that we're approving the renovations today. They're just estimates we don't have the real numbers, but the reality is there's 1.55 million million of renovations that are considered immediate need. That's a huge investment in this piece of property. And so I guess I'm, yes, I thank you for your articulation of the issue and the problem and being willing to vent. And I had on my notes that I think that our action needs to include involving our federal lobbyists and our legislative delegation in talking to HUD and trying to get an answer from them more quickly than you sitting and waiting six months so that we could potentially move these people out. We don't have to do this $1.55 million in renovations right now while we give staff the time that they need to look at what it would take to do this well and what options we have for potentially expanding because I know the zoning that was something I asked and I don't know if you were able to get an answer I know the zoning is U8 and it's a mixed use but do you know what number of units would be able to put on that property if we can expand it? Chair our growth management staff did check into the U8 zoning and we would be able to go up to five stories by right and with some special exceptions it could go to six stories. Five to six stories, okay. And it's mixed use so there could be some economic development or potentially storefront on the bottom and then housing above or do you know that? Chair, we could look at all the options. I don't know that answer right now. Okay. Certainly something like daycare or some other facility that might be work well with whatever is going in there. Anyway, I guess I would like to see us for this motion and include that legislative, I mean, I'm happy to make it or you said like you were working on it and I'm going to have something with the lobbyists in the Congress to work with HUD and for us not to move forward with any renovations until we have some answer back about that because that other than things that are life safety. Because I just don't want us to spend a bunch of money and I would like to get these people moved out if in fact we're going to do that sooner rather than later because I don't want them living in the conditions that they are currently living in. And I do appreciate, I hope, our code enforcement officers listening, our new code manager I'm really excited to have him here. And I know he's building an education program. And this is just the kind of thing we're talking about is these folks that live in conditions like this, feeling empowered to be able to come forward and share with the people that are supposed to care for them and help them have their minimum housing standards met. I'm hoping that our staff realize the apartment complex is where we need to do those kinds of education and that coordination with our community support services is going to be really important. Thank you. I conclude. All right. Commissioner Wheeler. I'm a quick question. Is St. Francis House planning to stay open? I defer to Saint Francis' house who's in the room. Laura ship ours, there's CEO. Nothing against it, but board into the job. I got a new commissioner. Thank you so much for taking this under consideration. Yes, we do not intend to close. We want to keep the shelter open. We'd like to relocate the shelter into a different area. Still on a bus route, but a little bit more out of town. Downtown is not necessarily family friendly. So that's our plan. Long term is to relocate the building. And thank you. Again, if you have any other questions, while I'm here. Thank you. What was your name again? Laurie Schiffbauer. Thank you for the work that you're doing. We. Yeah, and actually that's one of the goals. We right now we have eight rooms that are available for families and single women. We really want to have the capacity to have at least 20. We've been 100 percent full for about two and a half years now. We are always at capacity, so it's a real challenge as Miss Tuck knows to find housing for them. So it's unfortunate. And I do apologize about the condition of the building. I frankly did not know. It was that bad. We work with ACHA and they do room inspections every year. And it's never been brought to my attention that there was lead, that there was asbestos. It just all rooms pass. So I deeply apologize for not being more aware. Madam Chair, this was the question too that I had to go along with that too because the city and the county housing authorities are the ones who need to be going into those buildings. They were and that they said they were. This is this is this is but I mean and actually doing the inspections because this isn't the only one I know about other housing developments too that we are the city, not necessarily the county, but the city is supervising and their conditions are not good either. And it shouldn't be up to the tenant to have to be the one reporting that code violation. It should be these authorities that are set up. Exactly and that's what I was saying, Commissioner Chestnut, you're exactly right. It's our authorities, our county and city authorities that should be held responsible for the lack of a reporting, not the tenant. That's just a quick question. That was the Lachra County Housing Authority, not the Gainesville Housing Authority. Correct. Wow. I'm not a liar. I'm not the Gainesville Housing Authority. Correct. Wow. Okay. I'm not a liar. I'm not a liar. I'm not a liar. I'm not a liar. I'm not a liar. I'm not a liar. I'm not a liar. I'm not a liar. I'm not a liar. I'm not a liar. I'm not a liar. and co-inforcement folks could be partners in those inspections? I think somebody needs to... Flood blows my mind. I think we need to have oversight of that for sure. But... I might as well do a good job. Chair. Let's see. So Commissioner Cornell, you were next. Thank you, Madam Chair. If how long do you think we need to interact with HUD and to get some of these answers? 90 to 120 days? Is that enough? That would be a good start. Good start. Good commissioners, let me draft it up. It makes a addition to the motion and certainly open to modifying it. So, in order to prevent the loss of these 35 vouchers, first part of the motion will remain the same. I would move that we approve the closing and other transactional costs for the option contract between the Lachor County and St. Francis House Inc. with a property located 2105 and 2120 Southwest 14 street games with Florida 3268 and authorize a chair or the county manager or their designated need to sign the notice of exercise of option and any additional document approved by the county attorney necessary to complete the transaction. Part two is a request that staff work with HUD to help us identify additional potential funding sources for the rehab and renovation of this site. Part three, and we request that our federal lobbyists and our local delegation work with us with our HUD request and bring back an update to the board within 90 to 120 days prior to any long term renovations being made. And then part four is that we request that our chair write a letter to the two housing authorities, the Elatra County Housing Authority and the Games with Housing Authority requesting that they provide us with a report or a presentation on how their annual inspections are done for, I guess, federally in state-funded housing vouchers that we receive so that we understand how these units are being maintained. I just want to know how they got into the condition, how they were looking at these units and got to the condition that they were. From my discussion with Commissioner Duncan Walker, she says many of them are various phases and some are a lot worse than others and so I think the housing authorities are probably trying to prioritize these working with HUD but I don't know. I would ask that we just send the letter to those organizations and then let them tell us. Presumably then we will have questions. And perhaps it's at a board meeting or through a letter and then we can go from there. Can I ask a clarifying question about your motion? When you talk about staff working with HUD for funding, are you thinking that part of that is the maintenance of those 30 housing vouchers so that if we do decide to go further than renovation and tear down and build that we can retain those vouchers. Yeah, I just want to make sure that's me the key is keeping the vouchers. Okay, just to make sure that's part of the motion. But it's also Commissioner Chess, that's point that the serge made, which is we want to do what's best long term and we're taking this on. So what funding sources are available and is the best to tear down and the so we need temporary housing while we do that for a year or two or is the best you know come up with a different funding source? I don't know. But the creativity of what I heard up here and working with our staff to bring us back the recommendations in 120 days. That's 1.5 million. You're talking about preventivation we could use for rehousing. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure we could negotiate with the other. I want to ask. Miss talk is there anything in that motion that you need clarified or that is unclear or that you would like added to it. I think you understand our intent. Yes, but if you could add that the purchase would come from reserves with the ability to repay ourselves if we get clarification on the infrastructure. Yeah, I had to add that to the purchase. Is that OK, Tommy? Yeah, coming from reserves. OK, so yeah. Would the ability to be reimbursed if we can get reimbursed by the government? So coming from reserves. The four-part motion did anybody second it? I'll second it. OK. So we have a motion in a second. And I see we have a citizen who's been standing there very patiently waiting for public comments. We will now take public comment on the motion. Thank you. I agree with Commissioner Chessna. He is shocking that they got to that condition. And the phenomenon you're talking about, Commissioner Chessna, is called learned helplessness when the people living there felt fearful to speak up. But I can tell you what I know about our inspection regime at the housing authority is I presume, but I would have to go ask that this was farmed out to city housing division or to Gainesville Housing Authority, because there's no way we would have, we have to deal with keeping what's called a C-MAP score to keep HUD funding in. And I can understand how units in that condition, the conditions that are described, kept a passing C-MAP score in order to retain those vouchers. So that is an issue to find out how and why they got that bad. I consider saying Francis to be a good faith operator, but their resources and what they're able to pay attention to is there's limits. The value of those vouchers, those vouchers are important, but compare it to the cost that you're looking at and talking about. Those 30 vouchers, that's about 200 grand a year. That's not a huge amount compared to the expenses you're talking about taking on, but yet it is so important, as you said, to model and to be an actual net collection of affordable units close to amenities that are important to support that population. That's what was so terrible about the whole seminary lane debacle that location was lost. So it is very, very important for you to retain those and both housing authorities, I mean, it's been decades since I've been on the board in Gainesville housing. So I had to talk about a lot of county housing. Plenty of experience with updating and remodeling units and certainly plenty of experience with dealing with HUD. And yes, you're gonna have to get CatCatCamic to jump on HUD for you to help you push this along. But the housing authority might also help with providing provisional vouchers for those residents while you're doing whatever you're going to do to that site So please Followed through I think you're doing the right thing to retain it and to upgrade it if you'd go to six stories with Commercial on the first floor making a laundromat and a daycare on the first floor as I mean it serves the people living there. Thank you Okay, any further public comment? Seeing none? Any any other comment from us staff comment? Commissioner Prisya, did you get a chance to? Okay all right all right all in favor of the motion signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed, like, sign? All right. Yes, Commissioner, sorry, Chloe. I'd just like to acknowledge Perry People's and Public Works, Travis Parker and facilities, and also Diana Johnson, who helped really move this forward quickly. Yeah, there was an incredible amount of work and a very short amount of time and we very, very much appreciate everyone's work on making all this happen. All right, so our next two items are a ranking for request for reposal for A&E services, for animal resources and care facilities, for facilities management, and also the ranking and request for proposal for construction manager at risk, for animal resources and care facility for facilities management. I requested to have these pulled from consent for transparency purposes. I've gotten a lot and I think we all have a lot of communication from the public suggesting that we were doing things without letting the public know what we were doing and accusing us of doing nothing and all kinds of things and so I pulled these just so the public would know that we are at this step. So these next two items relate to selecting the top-ranked architecture engineering firm and construction manager for the new animal shelter. I'm aware that many of expressed interest in this project. This is not the time to discuss the needs and wants for the shelter but only to provide input for the top-ranked firms for the board's condition. And once these firms are on board the staff will conduct community engagement meetings to ensure your thoughts on what should be included in our new shelter. So I just wanted the public to know that the next step will be the community engagement part, but this is the part that we need to do next in selecting architects and construction managers. So did I do that okay? That's great. I could send it better myself. Okay. I'll help with that. But that's my intro to those two items. Do you want to add anything and do we have that? That's it. I think the only thing that could be mentioned were the two that are the apparent awarded vendors which are old rich construction for the CMAT risk and Barrelli partners in for the architecture design needs. So those are the ones that we're looking to start a negotiation with for those two in this process. All right, do we have any questions or concerns from anyone on the board? Very quick question. Were there any challenges to these? OK. No, ma'am, there were no protests on either one of these. It followed the same process that we have. And the intent to award was posted with no complaints from many of the vendors. We had a lot of responses, seven on one and quite a few on the other, five on the other for the architects. So over 1,000 people are looking on it on OpenGov where they're reviewing the semiddles. It's been a very positive outreach to want to be able to be involved in both of these projects. One the design phase and one the construction phase. I know they're looking forward to getting these off the ground once we're at that point in the process. Do we have any samples of what the design? No, I think we're at the point of where they're talking about what they want to do. They'll start working with the architect and engineer to pick out what they need that was in the scope of service, put that together, and then start negotiating that contract that will then come back to the board for approval. They've done anything locally. Not that I'm aware, but I would have to lean that to Julie. That's all right. I was just curious of, you know, if we, there's... I know they have a big history in animal services, animal services facilities for when I could, I could see from their proposal. That's all I need to know. Thank you. I had one further question I had. One resident asked me if we had a update on the negotiations with UF properties. I would have to defer that to Tommy. And I see him sitting there ready to answer the question. First before I answer that, just to expand on what was just asked. So we're actually excited about getting an architect with a background in this to help us as we as we move forward into what we actually end up building, whether it is on the UF property, which is our current direction or something like that somewhere else. But I think getting that, especially, is really going to help. For our UF goes, we are pretty far along. I was hoping to have something on this agenda actually. So that has with all the people at UF, things have kind of shifted around a lot as we're working with them. But I think we're really close to a final agreement on a lease agreement and I'm I feel confident that that will be coming back pretty quick here back to the board and that that will process will move forward. But I said that before and there are big government where a big government say we'll try to get things worked out but so far we're moving along and should be there pretty soon. All right great and we are moving along on the other side as well. So this is really good. Commissioner Prisya, did you have something to say? Nope, that was for last time. Commissioner Cornell. Move staff recommendation. Second. All right, we have a motion of second. Move staff recommendation. Do we have any public comment to the motion? Any further comment from the board? All right, all in favor of the motion signify by saying aye. Any post-like sign? All right, and was that for item six and seven? Six now seven moves. That recommendation for item seven for the ranking for proposal RP 24-481 LC construction Manager risk. All right. Any motion? A second for the next item for the construction manager. Do we have any public comment? Any other comment from the board? Seeing none, all in favor of the motion signified by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed like sign? Right. Awesome. We are moving forward. Everyone please note moving forward with our Animal Resources Facility, which I'm very excited about. All right, our next item is the ranking of the RFP, oh wait, sorry that's not it. It's presentations, evaluation of the Metamorphosis Therapeutic Program. I'm sorry. Go ahead. We have two consultants from University of South Florida who have worked with us on the metamorphosis therapeutic program. I'm just waiting for the monitor to come up. They are on Zoom. Okay, so Kathleen Scott, excuse me, Kathleen Moore and M. Scott Young. If you would unmute your microphones please. Can you hear me? Yes. Yes. Is that Kathleen Moore? Yes it is. Yes. Yes. I'm Scott is at another meeting so I'll be taking the lead on this. And thank you, clutter. You're going to be doing the PowerPoint. I am. Okay. Thank you so much. So again, on the phone with you on Zoom, you have Dr. Moore, Dr. Young will join if he can. And I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Moore to introduce herself and carry us through the evaluation. Thank you so much, Claudia. And thank you all for having us this afternoon. We really appreciate being able to discuss some of our findings. We're going to do kind of a broad level view of the evaluation, findings, and recommendations for you, so that we have some time for discussion and questions at the end. So we were privileged to work with the meta-programme, and before we do get into what that is, what the therapeutic community is, just to kind of get everybody on the same page. We know that substance use is a major problem across the U.S. with about 25% over the age of 2012, admitting that they've used illicit drugs. This is from SAMHSA in 2022. And according to the United Nations on drugs and crime, we have about 271 million people aged 15 to 64 years that have used drugs at least once and about 35 million suffer from substance use disorders at any one time. And we know that with all of the research that we've done on substance use, it has a lot of negative effects that can cause both physical and mental health issues impaired functioning social legal issues and increase mortality. With that there's been a lot of work done on what are some of the treatment regimens that can be used in order to reduce substance use and give folks back the healthy lives that they deserve. And therapeutic communities are one of the more effective approaches to treating substance use disorders. So meta, which is in a lot of county, metamorphosis, I some call it meta, is a therapeutic community, which is a long-term substance use residential facility for adults with co-occurring mental health and serious substance use disorders. The program employs evidence-based treatment that treats substance use as a disorder of the whole person and challenges their thinking and their behavior. So members that are within this community learn to recognize and respond to challenging situations that arise from daily social interactions or former lifestyle circumstances in which they were using substances or whether instead of using tools to gauge some of the issues that we deal with on a daily basis. And recovery is taught to be a total lifestyle change and a form of learning that is cultivated within the context of self-help. And so some of the things that members learn is they learn the importance of tolerance, patience, openness, being resilient, accountability, and they come to know that how they deal change is critical in their recovery. So we had the opportunity to evaluate this program. And when we sat down with Claudia and Joe earlier this year, we talked about the type of evaluation activities that we would want to engage in. So these included planning meetings and those were virtual. So you can see the administration was either on site or virtual. We reviewed program materials. We did interviews with county administration, program and agency staff. And that was both on site and virtual. We did focus groups with both active meta clients. Those were on site when we were there. And then we also engaged in some of the meta graduates. And that was a virtual focus group. And then we did, while we were there, we did chart reviews of program graduates and non-graduates. We observed a client process group. And then we did a fidelity assessment, both on site and virtual. So this took the span of several months and we concluded at the end of April with a final evaluation report and then submitted it to the county in May. So just to an overview of the findings, we used different evaluation methods and several common themes emerge across these different methodologies and those were incorporated into our recommendations that we'll talk about later on, but just to kind of give you an overview of some of our findings. So we were able to look at participant reason for discharge over the past two years, 2022 and 2023. And you can see that the majority of reason for discharge was AWA, which is absence without leave, followed by successful completion of the program. There were some folks that violated program rules and were asked to leave, and there were some that were terminated from the program. We also looked at progressive insatisfaction, and you can see that these subcategories are rated very highly all over 80%. So participants were asked to rate their satisfaction on access to care, their quality of care, outcomes of care, involvement in treatment, their social connectedness, and their functional satisfaction. So, these were all rated very high. So, we looked at staff experience, and what we wanted to do was to see where staff, how many staff there were, and what their background was in different levels of therapeutic community, mental health area, substance use area corrections, and so on. And so at the time that we were there, there were seven staff members and they all had varying degrees, although the majority of them had come from a background in corrections. And as you can see, only two came from a background in therapeutic communities. We also looked at some of the program and staffing strengths. And we had some of the strengths, and we'll talk about the challenges on the next slide. But all of the stuff that we talked to were very dedicated and very committed to the program. And you can see across this spreadsheet is how we evaluated these particular strengths and challenges with the different evaluation modes. We also noted that the clients that we talked to and that we reviewed had very high levels of satisfaction that the therapeutic community model, it's an evidence-based program, was implemented with fidelity, that they had a daily schedule that was very routine, so clients knew what to expect each day. That the program was funded. There were traditional housing opportunities and that the program had a good relationship with JL probation and with court. And I will note that that is important because a lot of the clients that were there at the time were court ordered into the program. So some of the challenges that the program had were in particular with staffing and this kind of had a domino effect on some of the other other issues that we observed. So with the amount of clients there, there was insufficient staffing in terms of FTE, particularly in relation to mental health, addiction, and therapeutic community model. Because of that, and as you saw, a lot of training in motivational interviewing and some of the other mental health and addiction models that might be relevant for staff that were at this program. There was also some lack of individual therapy time, again related to lack of staff in general. And because of this, there were staff were not really available to do outside activities, right, to bring clients to different types of programs outside of the facility. And as I mentioned that there were staff were more experienced with corrections based than community based programs. And at the time that we were staff, staff were more experienced with corrections based than community based programs. And at the time that we were there, no staff currently were bilinguals, folks vanish. So some of the programming challenges that we, that we noted were there high, as you saw, there was a high rate of A walls that we got through program materials and staff interviews, particularly within the first 30 days of a client being there. Also we're having some challenges with program orientation and welcoming. There was also a lack of discretionary funds for incentives and rewards to help foster resident motivation and staff bonding. So again, to incentivize folks to remain in the program. There was a lack of recreational and other outings. Again, this is due to the limited staff that were present at the program. And a lack of focus on job prep early on in the program. So to get clients ready for when they depart the program. And since this is a residential facility, when they get ready to be back into the community. Early in the program, family and some of the social support network within the individual clients, they're not allowed to have that contact. And so that just seemed to be somewhat of a challenge. And there were some other prohibitive rules in regards to smoking. Some of the meals were based on the jail menu, no candy, no coffee. So some of those other programmatic challenges that we noted. So because of some of these findings, some of the recommendations that we thought might be beneficial to the program were increasing the staff FTE. And one of the underlying themes that kept coming up was hiring peer support specialists. And so I know that we just got a report from Claudia and Joe last week about the fact that they are considering doing this hiring peer and also having additional staff that had mental health and addiction training. Within the peer support specialist model, you can have these successful graduates. When we interviewed the focus group with graduates, they love this program. And so having folks that really understood the program and being able to come back and give back to the program, I think would be a great opportunity. And so that's something that they are considering. As well as hiring bilingual staff that have experience working in community-based behavioral health programs. And then having that additional manpower I think would just facilitate some of these other programmatic challenges that I just discussed. Another piece is creating a more welcoming environment. So if you were to hire peers and increase program graduate involvement, that could help foster and create a more welcoming atmosphere and it may reduce incarceration culture by hiring individuals that have a history of working with community-based programs. Another underlying issue that kept coming up was training staff. Again, because a lot of the staff came from corrections, our training staff on motivational interviewing, and some of the other evidence-based practices that folks may want to employ there, I think would be very helpful. The problem, again, is that there's so, there's limited time for training because of the scant staff. So hiring more within offers some opportunities for increased, increased training. And then also re-examining, and I know they're're doing that now some of the restrictive rules in terms of visitation, the daily menu, being able to have coffee, candy, and smoking. In terms of programming, one of the recommendations that we put forth is to consider shortening being flexible in the in the length of stay and maybe shorting some of the phases for residents who progress more quickly and increase the outings that are offsite with both staff and residents. And then we thought, again, there's so many things that this program is doing that's so good, but it's kind of insular. So to maybe enhance that public relation piece where maybe periodically presenting the program in terms of the description, some of the outcomes, and having former graduates come in and talk about the program to the community, I thought would be very, very helpful. I think I hopefully hit it within the 10 minute frame. Thank you, Claudia. And again, just to note that the county is acting on some of these recommendations and they're in the process of hiring some staff. And I think quite if you want to, I don't know if you want to talk anymore about that, but the staff that we recommended, as well as training opportunities. Thank you, Dr. Moore, Chair. We have been working actively on the meta program for the past year. We've done a lot of facilities upgrades, and then we brought in the consultants because we really wanted to look at the programming. Really appreciate Dr. Moore and Dr. Young taking the time, spending the time with our staffing and residents and appreciate the report that we received from them, and we take it seriously. We have been in conversations about being able to get funding from our grant or relative to the peer positions. We've already started having staff going through some additional training. You do see several staff who came from corrections if you recall when we closed work release. Many of those individuals were transferred to meta. So the supervisor there has been working to bring them up to the standards for a therapeutic community and working actively on that. So you will have attached to the agenda the implementation plan that Mr. Lipsey and staff developed in response to these recommendations and what they've done so far and where they anticipate going with your support. Excellent. Do we have any commission comments? Commissioner Wheeler? I'm a big fan of the program out there. I had some experience with it some 20 years ago. And so I'm I am a big fan and I appreciate the effort being made to make sure that it stays in place. Even as we make the changes, I see the value of what the recommendations are offering. I would also say, I had talked to the last director about the possibility of a therapy dog out there. As a resident old guy, some old thing that would just be glad to have a nice place to sleep, you know, from the shelter maybe, you know, and I, you know, if you're talking about therapy, you know, it might something we could add to the list to consider. That's fair. We will have to check with the therapy cats that are out there on the ground. And I know there's a raccoon. I'm sure it's a caravacat. There's also a raccoon out there. That's why I was suggesting an old dog that didn't have a lot of enthusiasm for anything like that. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Oh, Commissioner Prisya. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for this. I'm, you know, we've had so many people that I know in the community who have used meta and have found it. You know, some of the people they've interviewed have really seen that it's changed their lives. And so I'm excited that we're looking at it and thinking about the ways we can enhance it and make it best it could possibly be. I did look at the implementation plan and I'm most interested in the programmatic pieces, the shortening phases, the promising best practices and the relaxing of things like family support and things like food and coffee and stuff like that. And I was wondering, it just says not posted email inquiry said there's not a status update on that. Do you have a sense of when those sorts of things are going to be implemented? Mr. Ellipsis has been working with a dietician and they have been meeting with the residents so they have been developing more of their own menus because they were following a jail menu, although they have been using different recipes but following the jail menu. And we also are working on the phases to relax those as well as looking at the restrictions. Okay, and I do know, I mean, it's something that maybe Mr. McClendon or one of our food folks could help with, but I know that we did pass the, you know, buying more local food and trying to work with the Good Food Purchasing Program. So this is one of the few places where we buy food besides the jail, and so perhaps some of those folks could help support some of the purchasing options and connecting the dots on the food piece. Great idea. Well I'm glad to hear these things are moving forward. And honestly anecdotally I had been, there have been a few of the community advocates and community folks who have been giving me feedback and they're very similar to the recommendations that were found by these individuals. So I think it echoes the fact that this work is the work that needs to get done and also the benefits of meta. So thank you to all of you for making that happen. All right, Mr. Willow, do you have something else? Yes, one more question about the phases. I know that sometimes it's real easy to maneuver your way out of a program by saying and doing all the right things. I would hope that we're very careful about this phase consideration and that even if the phases are shortened that perhaps there could be follow up to complete the amount of time that it's been required of these people. So that even if they are released from the program, the residential program that perhaps they would come back for the group sessions weekly or something that would actually support those, the reentry. That big because it's really easy to manipulate when you've gotten that far into a program or to a problem. Chair, we do have a graduate group that meets and so we also have the transitional apartment which is an apartment just a few doors down that we rent that two individuals can stay in once they graduate but I'd like to defer to Dr. Moore. She had any comments on what you said. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Well, and I think when we made that recommendation, it was also to have flexibility, right? So not everybody's going to always follow the same path. And so if somebody is ready to move to phase two, a couple of weeks or a month earlier than the actual timeframe to be able to do that. But I agree with you that I think it would be nice to be able to, in addition to the transitional housing that Claudia mentioned, to come back. And I know some of the graduates are doing that. When we were there, leading some sessions and with the current clients, but having maybe some booster sessions would be great because you're a lot of times people leave and then there's so used to being having this structure and doing things, having everything regimented for them them So being able to kind of ease that out Towards the end of the time that they're there, but then also having the flexibility of perhaps coming back I think would be very beneficial More comments? Thank you. And afternoon, Madam Chair and commissioners, Joe Lipsy, Assistant Director of Court Services. Just want to say that the recommendations that were made were spot on in regards to the need for additional staff and programming. Some of the things that have happened, you have the implementation plan. We, on the 16th of last month, we had an open house where different probation agencies, law enforcement agencies, Meridian, behavioral health care came, and they really enjoyed the presentation and afterwards several referrals were made. So we're doing well. One of our performance measures is the number of graduates that come back for aftercare. And typically every quarter, that's 100% whether there's one, two, or three people that graduate they all come back and join the aftercare group which helps us to create opportunities for graduates to come and speak to the group. We currently have several former graduates that are working at in significant positions at Grace Marketplace. So they are finding ways to help the community outside of Metta and speaking to their experience while at Metta and the growth that they've occurred, that has occurred for them. It's a great program. The recommendations are exactly what we need and we're already implementing some of those. Thank you, Mr. Bluxy. Thank you for your question. And maybe I might be for Mr. Lipsy, if you'd be. Sure. With regards, since I know opioids are something that we've been really concerned about in our community, we've been working more on. And I was wondering with RGARDS to those with opioid addiction if they are prescribed like I think about methadone and heroin or like if they have a prescription or some right maltexatone or suboxone, those drugs, are they allowed to be on those while in these programs? Do we have a policy with regards to that? We do and right now they have to significantly detox before they come into the program and drugs like those are not used while they're there because of some of the addictive potential for their use. And that has been in place basically. I've been out there about 12, 13 years now, and it's always been like that. All right, thank you. Mr. Cornel. Thank you, Madam Chair. So the recommendation is to implement the consultants' recommendations that have no budget or budgetary neutral impacts. And then for the recommendations that impact the budget, work with Lutheran services to what identify, well, I didn't understand the second part of the recommendation. Yeah, Chair, we really weren't asking for any motion. This is really just a presentation that we would bring back any changes or budgetary impact, but we are working with the funder to see what we can do to add some positions. And everything we're doing right now is within budget. Okay. All right. Thank you. No motion necessary. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, mentor. I had a couple of quick questions. When I read the report, I saw that recommendation for utilizing the transitional apartment for potentially housing women and then that would therefore create additional spots I assume is that something you're considering. I read with interest the challenges of having a coed type unit so I was curious. Your thoughts were on that particular recommendation? Cher, yes. Coed units bring unique challenges. It is being considered and looked at. The challenge is when someone's first coming in, we try and keep them more contained in the location, because of either either just getting out of jail, they've just been using, you know, they need a lot more support. So we're trying to evaluate whether being a couple of blocks away in a condominium complex with neighbors, whether that will work or not. We're looking at a variety of alternatives. Typically there's one to two females in the program. It is a predominantly male program. Have there been any issues where women felt unsafe or were threatened while they were there? Chair, I have not heard that, but there have been issues with the co-ed situation causing individuals to be asked to leave because of behaviors. And then I did read with interest the enhanced public relations. Are there opportunities for donations if someone is a graduate and does well and wants to donate or if someone else supports the program in the community? Is there a mechanism for people to donate to the program? Sure. If someone wanted to, we certainly could receive it through the clerk. would be that ability but we really do want to grow and enhance the entire system. Very good. All right. Thank you. All right. Any further questions? All right. Thank you for the presentation. I look forward to hearing how well the how the recommended changes are implemented and seeing the program continue to improve. I have to say my son, his first job when he was a freshman at the University of Florida was with Meta and he was hired for a summer job to implement some sort of a database program that they put in and this would have been 18 years ago, but it had that experience changed how he thought about folks going through these processes and what was very good for him. So thank you. Madam Chair, may I ask one quick question? Sure. Staffing, are you finding is there a pool that we're going to be able to pull from in terms of staffing this program now? Is it, are we skinny out there? Is the chair we do have two staff vacancies that are currently vacant and it is challenging filling those. What one was not responsive? What are you looking for? Actually, the Director of the program left. And so we are looking to fill that position as well as a residential councillor position. Okay. But we do believe that filling the peer positions once we get them funded will be easier to do, simply because we have a lot of graduates that would would like to come back and work with Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Would it be possible to hire a former peer position for a director if they were qualified? Chair certainly if they were qualified. They were qualified to do that that might give some body some goals. All right. All right. Thank you. We'll move on to the next item, which is public hearing for affordable housing inventory list of properties Hi, good afternoon. Good afternoon. My name is Diana Johnson. I'm senior assistant senior assistant county attorney with the Lachel County Attorney's Office. This is an item that I worked on with our housing programs and since there's a lot involved, I'm helping present them to you. There is a Florida law which requires that the county review the list of properties that it owns every year and then determine whether any of those properties are appropriate for affordable housing. However, the statute doesn't define what is appropriate for affordable housing. So thank you very much for the commission because you updated your policy last year. So a list of properties that were initially determined to be appropriate for affordable housing scheme before you in 2022. That was before we had the benefit of the updated policy. Then we then went to that list, looked at the new policy that we had which gave us factors to consider and housing program has Now present or would like to present to your resolution that has 22 properties attached Some of the properties that you previously approved would come off the list one of them was an air property that we sold back to the immediate prior owner Some of them are in flood zones which wouldn't be appropriate for housing. And then we had one that the EPD had interest in due to its environmental benefit. And so if the board so approves, we're asking for approval of the resolution, which includes those properties on it. And then housing programs is going to take it from there to follow the policy to make them available for affordable housing. And the next step in that process would be to nonprofit housing organizations. I'm going to take it from there to follow the policy to make them available for affordable housing. And the next step in that process would be to nonprofit housing organizations. Excellent. All right. Commissioner Prisius, this year is that from previous side of the... I know the Farwell Housing Committee, like Dota, the West, and was supportive of all the recommendations and excited to see that we're increasing the frequency and the way in which we're increasing the frequency and the way in which we're reviewing these properties for their potential for affordable housing. Agreed. Sure. We look just, does that include the property that was purchased off 15th Street behind? So there is the ability for the county to do a set aside for it to keep any properties under the policy that it wants to utilize for its own purpose. So these are the properties in which the county doesn't have a purpose for, which has determined by staff to be at this point appropriate for affordable housing. The next step for the laws that we have to post it online, and then housing programs is working through essentially like an application process. I think that would probably be the best way to put it for non-profit housing organizations to come forward to say that they would like to obtain these properties from the county. And then ultimately any type of a sale approval would have to come to you. It would go to the affordable housing first so that they could review what the purpose of why a non-profit would want it and that it would come to you ultimately to approve any type of conveyance of the properties to another. You have an idea about the average size of these properties? So one of the recommendations from the Affordable Housing Committee, which is a great recommendation, was to expand the exhibit lists that was attached so that you can actually see the acreage, have the zoning, and see it right there, kind of where about before we didn't actually even have an address because some of them don't have nine-won addresses. So we kind of put where they're located in the county so the acreages are listed on the exhibit attached to the resolution. I'll look at it and then some of them have structures do yes ma'am some of them do you have structures some of them are vacant some of them do you have homes on them any of them worth they're just selling the home and the property right out or they considered condemned in any other way abandoned is what I'm trying to say. I think they're in a variety of states but I personally haven't been to each one of these they are county owned so if they are in a state which makes it look so good we do have no trespassing signs posted to prevent access and to avoid risk. Thank you. Thank you, thank you. All right. And Madam Chair, I just wanted to mention the 15th street, I think staff is currently working on an RFP for that one to go out on the street so that we can look for a partner. But most of these properties when we look to them through the affordable housing advisory committee, some of them do have houses on them in various states that prepare. States of repair, I think the goal is if we don't want to use them to build for ourselves then we would offer them up to nonprofits like Rebuild and they may want to renovate that house or they may choose to tear it down and depending on the zoning build more units on that same piece of property. So that's the hope anyway. Right, right, good. Yes, and the goal would be to follow that policy the way that we have it written is basically a flow chart so that we don't want to own them for a long period of time. So if a nonprofit doesn't make an application within a certain period of time, we're going to go on to stop to and then try to even do a private sale which is authorized by law. Very good. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner Cornell. We adopted the Affordable Housing Inventory list. Find properties listed. Find that the properties listed are appropriate for use of the forewalsing, prove the resolution as presented authorized chair sign. Second. All right, we have motion on a second. Any further questions from the board? All right, public comment to the motion. Yes, I'm glad to hear her talking about the attributes that will be listed for the property. So you can see at a glance, but you also need to toggle include the shape of the property, but if it's 10 feet wide and 1,000 feet long, a piece of an old utility easement, and the road access, what if it's double frontage? So those are things you need to know at a glance. All right, thank you. And that was Cully Bl uh, since he didn't, he got to remember to identify yourself. We all know you so well. So it's, but for the record. Okay. Um, any for the public comment? Seeing none, all in favor of the motion, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Like sign? All right. I'm very excited to move forward with that. All right. Our second public hearing is the first of two public hearings for the amendment to the ELDC related flood statutes and staff initiated updates. All right. Good afternoon commissioners. My name is Angeline Jacobs. I'm a planner in our Growth Management Department. They hearing this first of two public hearings, has been properly advertised on our public notice website. And I am presenting the first of these two hearings related to the Unified Land Development Code changes. So the first two are staff initiated, developments like the Royal Cluster Access Redwelling Units and the Royal Commercial Agricultural Use Standards and the following three are related to compliance with Florida statutes, electrical vehicle charging, expedited building permits and preliminary plat and the Live Local Act. We're starting with Royal Cluster, ADUs, or Access Redwelling Units. This is just a quick background. January 9th of 2024. The BOC approved a comprehensive plan policy, 6.4.2.1, to allow ADUs and rural clusters on lots greater than 1 acre. July 9th, you approved the request to advertise, and today is that first hearing. So this is a map just to orient you to the general areas of rural clusters and where these changes would apply in our unincorporated county. And the simple change is to section 404.24 to add rural clusters to allow the ADUs in the same standards for lot sizes and square footage allowed elsewhere in the unincorporated areas. And with this, just to basic outreach on our online public notice. So if you just know what further questions on this, I'll move to the next. Okay, all right, not concludes. No. At least that part. Okay. All right. So the next item is related to real commercial agricultural uses. And so back in August of 2021, the board did approve CPA-03-21 to update the future land use relating to the land use designations and the standards. And then again in July, you approved the request to advertise. During that discussion, Board did direct staff to evaluate specifically produce stands in the rural agricultural zoning district. And I'll be talking about that in the next slide. So regards to that Board direction. We wanted just to clarify that you, landowners are allowed to have an open air roadside produce stand that is without a permit and accessory to a working farm. However, a building permit may be required if it's an occupied structure to evaluate certain things like sighting and parking lighting and things of that nature per our ULDC section 404.11. I just wanted to also point out that that special exception process in the code is narrowly applied to standalone occupied produce stands in rural commercial agricultural zoning districts. And this is just a map to show you and kind of see the little red dots throughout. Those are the 43 affected parcels for this particular section of code. And those considerations that are in the backup, the code language talks about these special exceptions, the limited new non-commercial square footage of 3,000 square feet, the parking increased to 5 spots per 1,000 square feet. And that's it for this one. If there are no further questions, move on to electrical vehicle charging. So back in May of this year, Florida statute 366.94 preempted our county from regulating electric vehicle charging stations. We had a discussion and the board directed to bring back language that encourages electric vehicle charging. And with that, because the State Statute targets electric vehicle charging stations, staff recommend removing those two specific sections out of our ULDC and amending our comprehensive plan to encourage renewable energy uses and infrastructure that can be transformed into policies focused on our county climate initiatives and also based upon our vulnerability analysis. And so that's something that we can't do directly in our code because the statute is so very direct about preempting us in that particular type of vehicle charging for electric vehicle charging. And so this is just the removal of those two. And if we had any further comments on that. Sorry, we couldn't do more on that. All right, so the next item is the Expected Approval Residential Building Permits. And we had the Florida statute was made into law, May 29th of this year and this is related to plating and subdivisions and statute 177.073. This is allowing the issuance of residential subdivisions or plan to community building permits prior to recording of that final plat and required to have a two step process to be established before October 1st of this year. And so when we discussed other request to advertise, we talked about that the applicant must request this and identify the lot specific to this 30 day process before submitting the building permit 30 days prior. There is the two step process that is required by statute. We have established a preliminary plat process to be approved by the development review committee and then they would recommend final approval to the Board of County Commissioners. And then that final plat would be on consent and approved by the Board and then submitted to the clerk courts for recording after those permits are gotten to a point where they're likely to sell. It does require a 130% performance bond, a whole harmless agreement with our county. The county may also utilize a third party to review the building permits if staff cannot handle the load if that does come up. And then the statute also requires a certain definition for a preliminary plot which we've included in the code language. And that's it for that item. All right, I think the next item we might have some more conversation about I'd like to. That is our Live Local Act. And so the Live Local Act implementation is proposed as a new section and our Unified Land Development Code. And so back in July of 2023, this became a subsection of Florida statute of 1, 2, 5, 0, 1, 0, 5, 5, parents, 7. And then there also was a revision in this year. And this is an effective law until October of 2033. And so again, May of this year, staff presented this code language for input from the Affordable Housing Advisory Committee and received input from them. And in our conversation in July, there was some board direction to bring back options to increase density up to 48 dwelling units per acre and additional density bonuses for incentivizing affordable housing below or at 80% AMI. So the affordability requirement, we just means that the monthly rents are the monthly mortgage payments including tax insurance and utilities do not exceed 30% of the amount which represents the particular area median income. And this particular law requires it to be at 120%. And so those developments that are applying this must be able to maintain at least 40% of their residential units or below, well at I guess mostly, at 120% AMI for that 30-year period. So the statutory standards are the preemissions that our staff are recommending certain changes to our code relate to the density, the height, administratively approving it without a public hearing, and our floor area ratio. This is just emphasizing because the location of the preemption requires us to allow these types of developments to occur in commercial industrial and mixed-use areas. This is just a list of those zoning districts that are affected. So based on staff evaluation of this Florida statute, the highest density proposed is 24 dwelling units per acre as the residential high-future land use category without an additional bonus. And so we looked into this just to kind of clarify that staff do not interpret it to include the TOD bonus of 48 because there are certain requirements and development standards that they need to do in order to specifically develop that type to receive that 48 dwelling units per acre density bonus. And that's generally in the village center, it's not further out. So there's very specific standards for that. So we are recommending the 24. So the direction that the board gave us last time we met had to do with bonus considerations. And so this is right now what staff is proposing that the development subject to this chapter may develop up to two 48 dwelling units per acre subject to the following. That it would be located within an activity center and not an industrial zoning district. The part B is pretty much the same as the live local that there's still required to have at least 40% of the number of those units up to 24 dwelling units per acre, maintained as affordable and for rent at or below 120% of area median income for a period of not less than 30 years. And then the bonus of adding at least 30% of the number of units exceeding 24 dwelling units per acre are maintain as affordable at or below 80% of the area median income for a period not less than 30 years. I'm not trying to understand that. I so at least 30% of the number of units exceeding the 24. So this one, and it suggested that we would allow up to 48, more than 24 or 48 if 30% of those, which is 7 1 1 2 1, units, or below 80% is that what that means? Correct. I have on the next slide a calculation, sort of like a general calculation. I think that'll help me go to that. This is how we're setting 24, but we can do 48 if you do more affordable. That's correct. Got it. This is just a calculation example that we did for a two and.5 acre site. So the total units are listed at the top. Units at 120% AMI would be 24. If you were at, let me just read that again, 24 units per acre. So multiply that obviously. You get 68, if you're at 24 units at 120% AMI, those would be the affordable units. You get overall at the 48 units per acre, 120 units. Based on our tiered approach, you'd get 24 that would have to run out of 120% and then 18 that would rent out at 80% of AMI. And so you'd get 42 units out of that 120. And then as another layer to the staff just proposed a discussion point of potentially going down to 50% of AMI with a huge bonus of 72 units per acre based on a review of the Schimberg Center for Housing Studies 2023. Annual report, it did show that our county right now has a deficit in the 50%, and even the 60%. And we do have a surplus in the 80% and above. So I just wanted to bring that up for conversation to see if that would be something that you would want to consider. And so in that scenario, you would have 180 units. We would still consider the 24 at the 120 and then just a big jump down to the 50% asking for 36 of those units within that. And so we'd get about 60 affordable units within that scenario. And so that's something that's not currently listed in our proposed code, but that's something that we wanted to kind of bring up and to discuss if you had comments about that. I'm gonna keep going. Or a commissioner quarter? I mean, I just started out. So, I mean, it sounds like what we're trying to say here is you can build 60 units, but if you build more affordable housing that we want, you can double or triple it. That's kind of the purpose. So you get a higher density bonus. The question is, do the economics work? It's going to cost them three times as much, presumably, to build a lot more units. Is that have we done any of those calculations? Or is this just kind of our best thought to see if we can increase more units below 120 AMI? I did not do an economic study like to cost it out. I mean, because you're looking at building materials and different mortgage, or I don't know materials and different, you know, mortgage, or I don't know what they would, you know. There are economies of scale. I think so. Yeah. The interesting thing though is that, I mean, when I went to a presentation on Live Local when I was at FAC, and one of the big things that they talked about was the fact that like, well, it wasn't just about Live Local, but affordable housing. But one of the things that they were talking about is the fact that once you get to a certain level of a number of housing, you don't see a lot of developers go those routes or take advantage of these things because they have to go into parking garages. They end up having to do structured parking and they end up having to do elevators. And the structured parking and the elevators and those sorts of things are what cost a lot a lot of money So I think if we are going to go down this route We have to think about the like what is our parking requirement and what what a parking requirement for that look like and is that would that require structured parking like with most of the lots that we have that are this regard and would we say that Would be add then another provision that would say Either that they are we're waving parking requirements or that were because they have to be in close proximity to these other things or you know are we going to say that we're reducing parking like some of those things because otherwise probably no one's ever going to take advantage of these things because they're not going to be able to afford to your point commissioner Cornell to do the kind of construction necessary to get this number of units. I mean, I'm willing to try. I don't think we'll know until we have it out there. Right. But I do think that it's going to be. I will say though that 120% of AMI is almost $120,000. It comes with $1,000. And that's just what they're requiring at the law, right? Right. And so, but 80% of AMI is what, 70,000 somewhere in there. I'm just doing that in math in my head slightly. I mean, these aren't like the folks that are, this may very well be, if you're looking at students, even their their income you know targets I don't know that I think we should try it well I'm not interested in incentivizing more student housing no I'm not either I'm just talking about the financial model you know right but right but the model works for for that level of income. I mean, we are trying to incentivize a affordable housing for that giving away at Valor. No, I agree with that too. But I mean, I'm just talking about what that AMI actually is. And so 50% AMI is what, 45,000? Somewhere in there? 50% AMI is about 45,000 here. Madam Chair, Chris Dawson, principal planner. So a couple of things, I think, to keep in mind, the impetus for this is a state statute that says we have to do the 40% and 120% AMI. And I think what we had heard from the board sort of in the last discussion was some interest in potentially allowing people to do more higher densities but also trying to sort of inch towards our affordability goals as the county. And I think that's what we were trying to do. It would be nearly impossible for us as staff to do any sort of analysis for multifamily development on these kinds of properties to determine if they're financially feasible. There's so many variables that go into that. In fact, some of these could be properties that might be eligible for other kinds of financing potentially. So I think that kind of analysis is very difficult. I think I heard Commissioner Cornel say, let's kind of throw it out there and see what sticks. I think what we are seeing is that we are likely to have some affordability requirements in multiple places or allowances even in multiple places throughout our code. And we probably are gonna need to sort of identify what are some of the things that go along with that. So we may need a more general sort of, affordable housing, discount on parking, or whatever that is. So that we're, and I would just say our parking requirements are pretty flexible. So some of those requirements are not necessarily ours. Those might be a developer's need to have structured, to have that much parking. We don't typically require a whole lot of parking, especially in our T&Ds or mixed use areas. Our parking requirements are fairly limited, and they allow for a lot of flexibility in reducing even below what we do require. So I think the idea for staff here was to kind of put some things out there for you to consider as an opportunity to maybe try and get a little bit more. And if a developer can make that work great. And if they can't, maybe they can come to you and say, we can't do that, but we can do x, y, or z. And I think every kind of one of those projects is going to have a little bit different model for how they get there. So it's an opportunity, I think, is what we're trying to put out there. So I can't say that this is financially feasible on any site or isn't financially feasible on any site just because I think the economics will be varying. I think that we've made it very clear to the developers that we're open to conversations. And so I'm hoping that they will take advantage of that. All right, it feels like a good compromise. It was just the conversation at the state level with this concept of construction gets insanely more expensive. When you start going vertical, fire suppression, elevators, structured parking, all of those things as you start to get bigger units with higher, that are higher, the structural engineering, everything becomes more expensive. So it's like at some point, to your point, it's going to have to be that they can make the capital stack work with other state incentives or money and that the density is worth it to them. But I don't see any reason why we shouldn't try and encourage this as one step towards our affordable housing comprehensive plan goals. I agree. Yeah. I agree. I'm going to staff recommendation. I guess one. And the other four. Do we have to do it especially? Do we have to convene is anything? No, this is the first of two. The next hearing I have anticipated for September 10th. And so we're just going to be meeting again to discuss this and I will bring back the language for that third tier for you to evaluate as well. All right. Move staff recommendation for all the ULDC updates. Staff room. Okay. Okay. We have a motion in the second. Any further discussion on the item? Any? Can I just make a quick clarification? Sure. Just for that. We would be doing the normal 24. We would also add the 48 and the 72 just to be clear that that we create those three Tires. Yes. Okay. All right. Thank you very much for clarifying. It's a good stab at trying to get more 50% I mean never have really anything to do that. Right. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. And I hope somebody sees this and takes the challenge. All right. Do we have a mechanism for sharing this information with the developers? We do. I believe there's a meeting that staff attends. That's that monthly meeting that they go to. Yes, I'm sure. Yeah, okay. Just just want to make sure that they hear about it. So, okay. And all right. All in favor of the motion signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? what you all are getting creative? Yes, thanks for the hard work. I know that some of this was a lot of work, so thank you. Thank you very much. All right. That brings us to our closing comments. Madam Chair, Mark, section of communications director. There are some folks from the Elatua County Housing Authority here. And Miss Tuck invited them to come into the meeting to be part of the presentation they had technical difficulties getting into the meeting so I told them that I would explain that and and you know at your discretion perhaps give them an opportunity to say what they would have said during public comment. Okay yeah we would welcome the opportunity here from anyone from the Electric County Housing Authority that would like to speak we'll give you each three minutes to speak and treat it just like our regular public comment. Okay thank you thank you for having me I appreciate thank for both of us. My name is Amanda Nizero I'm the executive director for Alachua County Housing Authority. I was on the call. I've been listening all day since 1130, but wasn't able to get in. So I apologize. Definitely want to speak first to the inspection. I haven't gotten to see that report yet. Look forward to it. But we do inspect our units. So we inspect them thoroughly. Only of those units, the 30, they are that we talk about that have subsidies only 20 are occupied by housing participants, but all of them are, they're in good standing. And for units fail inspection, there's your requirements to fix it within 24 hours, depending on what the fail item is seven days or 30 days. Honestly, St. Francis House doesn't typically have an issue, but again, my inspectors, I'll be honest, he's not a mold, a species or lead specialist. He's a general housing inspector who is visibly going in and looking at these units, right? Making sure that they meet our general health and safety items. And then behind my inspector, we have a layer of quality control where we pick a random sample every quarter we go behind those units to make sure they're passing our inspection. And then HUD actually comes behind us. They do their quality control and reinspec those units. So, well, I'm sure there's no doubt that I'm sure there's many concerns. Again, I haven't seen the report. I look forward to seeing it. That's why we're excited about the potential cell of this property and so that we can make these units better for our clients. But they do pass inspection. They're very small. But they pass, you know, with no problem. Those specific 20 units I can speak to. And I will present our report. I know you guys want more coming forward. I can give you all the data. I'm like, when they pass inspection, when they failed, what's failed on them? What's a common fail item and things like that? So I can get that information, but I least wanted to give you some clarity on our inspection process. you know, we have a team of, there's potentially four, but really my lead inspector has been with us over 20 years. My next next inspector has been over five. And then we have Ron has been with us over 20 years. He's an expert in the field as well. But I did want to speak to that. And then we are excited for this. We are working with HUD. This program's been around for over 30 years. So it's been so well for 30 years. This partnership between HUD and the St. Francis House, where we have provided subsidy on these units for so long. As they are, there's never really been talk about moving them or what's it, because there's not vouchers. It's not your typical section eight where you have a voucher to go into the private market and get a unit. It's truly like what would you consider project-based? The subsidy comes with the unit. They leave the unit, it's done. So if that was property, what's to sell to a private market? All of those, we've had individuals within their 20 years and these, like, they want to stay. This is exactly what they need. It meets all parts from, you know, the rent, the utilities, having it all in one. So we are excited. We'll be happy to work with HUD. I've had many conversations with them. I'm the one who actually sent I had a send in the original contract from 30 years ago that we have been to still having storage and dust off because they're like, oh my, you know, they provide us the dollars, but it's ran well and it's like it's new to it's so old it's new to them. The potential 30 that we have. Don't worry about the life. So we thank you. So we will work with them. I'm conscious. It's just it's hot. It's a HUD going through a huge transition with like hot mud, inspired the HUD world, the federal world isn't for the first time since the 80s putting all these new things into play, new regulations, inspection standards, all these things. So when I kind of came to them and said, hey, for the first time in 30 years, we're talking about selling this building, new contract, new owner, the county, all these things, but hey, we might lose it as well to the private market. They're definitely interested. They just don't know. They don't know. So they're more than happy to sit at the table with us. They don't want to lose it. I think it's possible to have that conversation at length That's why really, you know, Claudio and I it was talks of this going private That just didn't seem like the right option like these individuals have been housed there successfully for a very long time So we'd like to working in partnership with you guys and I will have all the data you need and we can go, you guys want, we can go and expect some of my units together. I really do take pride in our units and the quality we provide to our residents. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Barrow. I appreciate that. Say what? Commissioner Prisya? Thank you so much. I appreciate you coming down here at such a quick time. When you do the year inspections, to me, a lot of what is wrong with this property, I mean, some of it was the units, I mean, over half of them have some kind of water damage or water issues in them. And so, you know, perhaps the fore inspection they get painted, I don't know what happens. But I'm just saying, like they definitely seem like the units themselves do need a lot of help. But it seemed like it was also the building on the lobe and a lot of the like structural issues and flooding and things like that. Are those things that your inspectors are there looking at the unit itself specifically? He is looking at the unit himself and they'll look at common areas, that they might share, but structurally, no, he's not looking at any of those things. Like he'll go in like his testing devices, make sure the HVAC, like it's fitting out the right temp, right? Checking all the outlets to make sure that they're all working. GFCIs by any water source, things like that. We have a very general eye. It's truly a checklist sent down by HUD. It's a 12 page booklet that we know we have to go through every single item and look at. But we're only looking at truly that individual unit and the shared areas. Okay. Right. Thank you. Yes. Thank you. Commissioner Cornell. Thank you, Madam Chair. Amanda, thank you for being here. Yeah, and I hear your passion. Hopefully you heard Commissioner Chesson's passion. Yes. We are We are the voices of those without a voice and we we really want our partners you obviously Speaking on behalf of those tenants and making sure that their facility is safe, clean, and livable. And so that's why I only ask is that that part of our motion where we're sending a letter is that you actually really help us identify here's the ones that need help and here's the ones that are, you know, great examples because of what he said. You know, we want to make sure that they have, those folks have the same voice that everyone else has with regards to living in a safe and healthy environment. Yeah, 100%. I couldn't agree more. Thank you. And we have great landlords who set great examples and we have that and we have many landlords who unfortunately get abated from long periods of time if they don't fix it. So. Well, I want to help the ones that are doing the good stuff. Good work. No, we want more of them. Of course. And we want to know if the bad ones are in Gerritable. No, exactly. No, more than happy to do that side by side. Because the last thing we want is like a candy homes. I was much younger when that was going, you know, but that is the housing authority. I've been around since I was a kid at the volunteering at UF, but the goal is these units are as older than I am. It's imperative that we're not just polishing them. We don't need to go in and band-aid at this point. We're at the same point as the housing authority. We're knocking them down and thank you for that. Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to talk. I do appreciate it. So thank you. Okay. All right. Good. Your colleague like to speak. Good afternoon chair and commission Ron Hall director of operations for Lachikany Housing Authority. I know I've met with every one of you at some point and another over the time. I've been with the Housing Authority over twenty something years now. I remember when Amanda came in part time helping us out in different programs including the homeless shelter that we were doing at the time. So I do want to say there's a changing the guards and the first and foremost Amanda is an awesome person. She is our new director, Secretary Director. She came in through the voucher program and before that doing volunteer work, etc. I'm not sure what you were doing before the volunteer work. But he was just a lot of stuff. She's always been around. Gail brought her in for those of you and member Gail Monahan. I've seen a lot of executive directors in my time at the Housing Authority. And I think you can be very pleased with where the direction the housing authority is taking, and it man is putting forward. We have regular meetings, we have agenda items that we're taking care of and I guarantee that we're going to address your issues on this very quickly and efficiently. I did inspections when I first came in there and I can tell you I did inspections that that sunrise residents in a long time ago. Just reiterate we used what we used to call the uniform physical condition standards or UPCS standards for the, actually that's fine. Yeah, yeah, just making sure it's right. I'm doing development stuff now. So, but now we are using Inspire. It's a national standards that they put in effect. And like I said, it's like 12 pages. Our staff are not required to be led-based certified, mold certified, et cetera. They're housing quality standard certified, and they go through training on a regular basis. So the report you have, and again, like Ms. Nuzaris said, we do have not seen that report, but whenever you get a report, it's on the whole facility. They do extensive testing on those environmental reviews and additional reports. I've had some done on our units, so I know what their extensive are, and it's not stuff that we as an authority staff will be testing on a regular basis So again take that report in hand and then please share it with us so we can take a look at it and see if it has anything to do with any units that we inspect And we're once a year on those units also so again I'm very pleased with the direction of the housing authority and what miss Mizarra is doing for us And you should be very pleased in which you're going to see coming forward. Thank you. Thank you very much for your comments. And thank you for the appointments I've ever boarded earlier. Two quick questions for one of the two of you. One is, well, I guess the cocoa one isel's point, we wanna know when that toll-fade check less, a lot of them are probably guessing life safety things with GCFI and power and things like that, less about aesthetics or general condition potentially. I don't know. And I think that that's something that I think more and more this board at least is very interested in understanding and trying to ensure that just because your port doesn't mean you have poor living conditions, right? And I understand that you all are following like federal guidelines and we can't, I don't think we can locally necessarily impose additional requirements on those houses for the voucher standpoint. But it's important for us to understand those and think about as we have voluntary vouchers that we're now developing, that we make sure that we're creating checklists that are above and beyond those standards and that we make sure that we're kind of holding the bar really high for what these are like. And so that's kind of where we're trying to go. And I'm just wondering if there's anything from your perspective that we might be able to do locally at the policy level that would help support your efforts in trying to hold landlords to a higher standard. So we are bound by federal regulation, but we operate under policy too. So if we do see something happening consistently across the board where we need to address it, we bring it to our board and we'll implement a policy change. So if we did see consistent patterns, let's say, of problems in our units, 100%, we can go above the federal regulations and mandate within our policy that landlords with it. You know, maybe something that's, maybe pertains to California, not Florida, those things, because when they're doing federal regs, they're not worried about us here. So we can definitely make policy more specific to a lateral account me, to our residents, if we see something, definitely. Well I do know you know moisture mold, mildew, water issues seem to be a big one in this place and a lot of the places that I've been at so maybe I guess just personally I might encourage you to explore that as an area for policy for policy consideration and again if you all come up with something that you see that could be something at the county level that may be important to implement for policy or say could please bring that to us because we'd love to hear it. Definitely. We'll do that. And I'll get you guys out report. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Uh, Commissioner Wheeler. Uh, this very quickly. Yes. Thank you for coming down. Um, first. The building that that that we're that we had the inspection for. Was that done in house? Where did we hired? We hired somebody to do that. So. Brain. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Just because we were going to purchase it that those facilities is that in the city limits? Okay, so why is the county then? Why is the county in our local agreement us in the city housing, Gainesville housing and allatric County housing went into an interlocal agreement back Probably 15 years ago that say we can operate within each other's jurisdiction. So we do have tons of properties. What we have tons of properties when the city County has today. So we share. What about the 100 building and the 104 building? These are housing. Those are gains full. Okay, this is why I'm confused is to. I get it. So who has what? responsible. It seems to me that we ought to have somebody doing those same kind of inspections we had to pay for for anything that we have because we have facilities that may have all of these issues and not even know it because you know they're hiding behind walls. Definitely and they know when the inspections are coming not just I mean my landlords are prepared and they keep their units upright there's always going to have some who they know exactly when the inspections coming I mean there's no way to have some, they know exactly when the inspections coming. I mean, there's no way to hide it. That's why we go behind within 90 days of that last inspection, that quality control round. You're supposed to get any units, like you picked that random sample of ones that were seen in last 90 days. So you really get the fresh ones that, oh, all of a sudden, now the paint, you know, it's imperative that we go behind and make sure. What are the others that we have responsibility for in the city limits? What other of the units that we have here? Other than the SRO, the single poll. And that's it. So the second Francis owns the SRO. We just help we have a contract that we provide subsidy on behalf of those 30 units. So really the Lachel County Housing Authority has no stake in the SRO, but we've been providing subsidy on behalf of the individuals living there for decades. And so with the removal, if those were to go to private market, those families that they'd moved to the by name, that's wherever they would go and be unhoused. But we have, I mean, the Elatio County Housing Authority, we own almost 300 public housing units. and not less than a quarter of those are in the city mainly, most are outside the city limits, but we do have properties within the city as well. We have rocky point, Phoenix, and areas such as that. Okay. It was a housing authority. Thank you. That's what my confusion is to. Of course. Who's really in charge of what? In maybe, if this is an easily produced document, maybe perhaps you could provide us with a list of the things that you all own and operate and the ones that you inspect regularly so that we might understand the sort of comprehensive list of properties that you all are taking care of. For sure. And we partner with Gainesville Housing. We inspect their properties on some if there's a conflict like the Grove, which Gainesville Housing recently built. We inspect those properties. Well, they'll inspect like the sunshine in on 13th that we own. So we do work in partnership with them as well. So I can easily get that to you. That'll be great, thank you. Thank you. And I just want to say that anybody that has popcorn ceiling or has a house of vinyl tile or has a house built before 1960 is going to have his bestest. They're going to have lead. They actually still sell where or they did, the last time I checked, his bestest containing roof mastic at the store. You can still buy it. So, you know, these standards that we have for apartments are really different from what we have for single family housing, but I'm sure Ken can say as a realtor, I mean, if you know that stuff is there, you're supposed to tell folks and they buy the house, but most people don't check. But if you have those things in your house, you probably, and everybody knows that mold issues are endemic and even new construction, actually mainly in Newcastle. I think the point that I made, which is a great point, is when you own the property, you take it to the right. point is when you own the property, it's you, right? Yeah. When you're a tenant living and there's a power to protect structure, you're afraid to report. Could you don't want to get evicted for being the troublemaker? And so that's our role. Our role is to be their voice. Yeah, to be their voice. I get it. So does it have to be, yes. Right. And I just wanted to point that out that, you know, what we're talking about are things that, you know, most people would want to address their own home, but many people can't afford to. So these are, yeah, and if they're renters, they're afraid to talk about it. So, but I did want to talk about the fact that, you know, just in case somebody was getting the wrong idea, these are problems that are throughout our community. All right. Thank you. Thank you very much for coming down here from sharing that perspective. All right. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Okay. And so is there any other anyone else from the public that would like to comment for general public comment? Are ending general public comment are ending general public comment. I see Vangy out there. Yeah, I didn't know if she wanted to talk or not because she's here. I don't say that. Our only public at the moment. Okay, and then County Attorney comment? Madam Chair, I do not have any today. And I know we do have something for County Manager comment. Yes, Madam Chair. Thank you. We have a walk on item for you this afternoon to consider. We've recently discovered opportunity to work on a potential purchase acquisition of some of the rea near timberland properties in Alachua County. And these lands I've been told include portions of the Murphy well-filled protection zones, the Florida Wildlife Corridor and Priority Alachua County forever project areas. Rea near lands exceed 13,000 acres in a latchewa county. So this would be a subset, not the full 13,000, but a subset of that footprint. If we were able to fully negotiate and enter to a contract, but it has to be done by the end of December, of this calendar year. So we're dealing with the tight timeframe and talking with our director of EPD, Stephen Hostetter and of course, Andy Christman, that this causes a short timeline for us and this reason why we bring it on as a walk on today to get your authority to move, the commission authority to move forward with the, looking at the acquisition. In order to do that, we need a right of entry agreement. Ray or near requires a right of entry agreement. That's not usual from what I understand. So I'm going to ask Andy Christmas, she would come up and talk about what that entails and why we're having to bring this to you in order to get authority to move forward with that. Andy. Thank you very much, Mr. Manager. And Madam Chair, commissioners, Andy Christmas, Land Conservation Program Manager. And as Carl represented, this is a fairly quick turnaround project for us. So it's going to require us to take advantage of every chunk of time available for us to move forward. Our intent is to do site evaluations on the Rainier property as soon as possible. And that, meaning like this week hopefully and they simply just have a standard requirement that any entity entering onto their property sign this very standardized right-of-entry agreement. Now the one thing that it does include which is slightly unusual is that it requires the county to indemnify rainier from liability and also defend rainier. And so in terms of the exp, and that would be from liability associated with our staff in a county vehicle going on to their land. So if there was some kind of accident or something, you know, that's the risk that they would be perceiving there. Or right. Do we assume, do we assume any liability for if we go onto their property and something happens to them? So it does include for potential damages to their property by us, so by basically my program staff. It's very similar to what power companies have for their properties that I've seen. So yeah, Commissioner Kornel. Yeah, I move that we authorize the right of entry agreement with Rainier and the related indemnification clauses and ask staff to be careful. I guess right. Okay, can I just add that because the county has a non-indemnification policy, the board needs to- That we wave our non-indemnification policy. Okay, second. Okay. We're good at anticipating your words, huh? I see for Ziano in the- Yeah. Mr. Forzaiano has been looking at this agreement. If there's any questions, legal questions, he's prepared to answer. You know, how much property, I mean, how much acreage is your talking about? So the total holdings are 13,000 acres. It's possible that there could be a multi-thousand acre portion of that, but that's all to be worked out, subsequent to staff being able to get onto the property. Our target would be as much as we could possibly acquire that reineer could be willing to sell, that we think we can close on in a very, very short, unusual for our program time period. Give me a brief idea of where that is. I know it's in the wildlife corridor. You're talking about the eastern part of the county. Yeah. Yes. I guess it's the general. It doesn't have to be. Sure, sure. It's physically like a line almost that connects the Murphrey Wellfield Conservation Eastman with Austin Carey teaching forest and then going north from Austin Carey to the east side of the town of Waldo. Oh, that's where it is. Okay. Yeah, it's weird it wasn't set up this. I never knew it had a magic pocket there. Overhead, overhead. Please. OK. Oh, there it is. Oh, there it is. OK. So it's the yellow properties on this map. And of course, that's our standard dark green or the county's conservation land holdings and the squiggly line green or the other partner conservation lands in the county. This is a really exciting opportunity seeing it and mapped out really Shows what the opportunity might be right right and and it is again all subject to a normal contract process that might just be moved on very quickly by us, but would still follow our normal contract process that would come to you for all of the steps that are the board authority. But yeah, we would like to try and make what happened that we can. It's an interesting configuration of the insulate out. It is interesting. This white section right here is actually also Timberland, but it's owned by Warehouse. So. Now this is really fabulous. I'm looking at LaCrosse in Waldo. And OK, South or it's not South, it's West. Right, correct. LaCrosse and Waldo in okay south or it's not south. It's west. Yes Right correct lacrosse is here. There's actually a small holding north of lacrosse and then this is the well field Conservation easement buck Bay preserve gains. Oh Waldo Yeah, the plan is you're gonna go on there to a site evaluation That's a lot of property to do a site evaluation on Yes, fortunately a lot of our site evaluation. That's a lot of property to do a site evaluation on. Yes, fortunately, a lot of our site evaluation work can be done digitally. But we do need to get on the ground to ground truth things. And we would anticipate this coming back to you for active acquisition list decision making at your next meeting. OK. Wow. That's true. You have a drone? That's what I was talking meeting. Wow. That's that's you have a drone that's what I know. No, you need a drone. You're going to be. My rescue does. That's true. Fire rescue does. They have a whole team that drives them. So maybe if I rescue could pitch in here and help you all out. Yeah. Awesome. Well this is great. Yeah. If you need that drone help, yes, we could certainly talk to fire rescue about helping out. Yeah, that's actually a great idea. So thank you. Just with the lake's area up there too. Right, that's right. OK. All right, so any further comment to the motion? Seeing none, all in favor of the motion signified by saying, aye. Aye. Any opposed, lake sign? All right. Thank you. Thank you so much. Really exciting. Thanks. Thank you. I just like to step on them without boots. Manager, spark was that all you had? Yes. Okay. All right. Moving on to commission comment. I'll start at this end. Commissioner Cornell. All I think I had was at the last meeting I brought up this idea of being asked to run for second BP. I would need the boards blessing if that were something that you all would be willing to do. Yes, what is that in tail? Because that's what I was going to ask you. Just move that you support if I choose to run for second BP. I know that we support you if you choose to run for second BP. I love it. We support you if you choose to run for second BP of fact in the coming year. Second. All right, we have motion in a second. And I would say that from the other folks that I've seen hold office in fact, that there are benefits to the county by having someone that is on the fact board and it is just to note the stepping stone to becoming president of fact in three years. Yeah, it's a five-year commitment. Five-year commitment. Second, VP, President-elect, President, past president. Not only to us locally but to this state because from what I've seen in some of these presentations, we're way ahead of a whole lot of what's going on in the state. Thank you. Absolutely. All right. So do we need to have a letter of support? Yeah, that's what this motion would then generate. Okay, a letter of support from our chair and our board that we support your can to see. Your can to see. Okay, so you were modifying your motion to say that the letter of support. Yes, please. Yes, I think our car is. And okay. All right, we'll make sure that the clerk understands the modified motion. It would only be if I decide to, if I decide to run, then I'll get with them. Okay, so you're not asking for it now. You're just approval. yeah, imprep. OK. All right, all in favor of the motion signify by saying, aye, aye, any opposed, Luke's, aye? You don't need that letter now? I would need it before I file. OK. And you're going to be doing that right away, right? It's soon. I got more calls to make. Thank you. That was a step. The only other thing I had seeing Steve here now is I'd see did you hear our earlier discussion at public comment regarding Mil Creek? You may not have seen it. I was wondering if you missed that we covered that and we authorize a chair letter to Provide them with data and offer our assistance similar to what we did with archer to the City of Elatua and the really kind of lean in. Did you see that discussion? Madam Chair, C. Postor and Environment Protection, I did not. I was in a meeting, but I will go back and listen just to verify. I have been told what the motion was and I'm already starting to work on a chair letter. I mean the idea, if I could just re-express it was, we got into a conflict when we had Walmart between the two commissions. We're trying to avoid that, but still provide the data analysis so that there's no challenge and that we ask them. I think there's only a handful of commissioners on both boards that we're still there during that time. And so really, I think it's a matter of just getting everyone up to speed on really what are the sense of countywide and city of Alachua natural resource issues and to Commissioner Prisius Point. She brought up this idea when we had our joint meeting of us helping to protect the spring that was brought up. And so it's all connected. And we just want to make sure that the citizens and our voices are heard. I would, if it's up to me, I would like to include in that letter that we offered to do a presentation to their City Commission about the environmental sensitivities. That's the right word of the site so that it's shared with the public instead of just meeting with those commissioners individually. I think it would be great for us to offer to do that if that's something you're amenable to. In addition to that, the spelunkers and the Cape divers who did the initial, you know, the work on all of that, those reports are in those felicitors to deal around. Yeah, that's what I move that they gather any like baseline data or impermanence of the ill-mulled, provide that along with the cheer letters. So thank you all. Thank you. And those connectivity data or any of those die studies available that we can send so that they have some of that initial. Madam Chair, we have some of that data. Okay, I'd like that as well. All right, thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that Mr. Hofstner. Okay. That's all ahead. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Cornell. All right, Commissioner Chussman. Not anything? All right. Which are prissy? Yeah, okay. We talked about Eastside Clinic of the policy and meetings, so that letter is being worked on. Deconstruction and reuse. We had a conversation the other day that got me thinking about deconstruction and reuse. And I don't know if the county has any current policies on deconstruction and reuse of materials from facilities, but I was interested in our facilities director, maybe just giving us an update on what their current strategies are, whatever policies are, how they handle demolition and management of construction to worry for the county, given that we're going to be doing a lot of renovation and construction in the near future on all kinds of buildings. I feel like it's a good time to have that conversation. Maybe I could I suggest that maybe it's a joint presentation by our new facilities manager and Betsy Riley. Yeah I think we've been working on that. Whatever staff are interested I just would like to hear where we're at with those policies or those or those practices I guess and then if there are any policy recommendations for us regarding deconstruction and reuse of materials and facilities. And then the other thing I wanted to bring up, I sort of brought up it earlier when we were talking about housing. But that is, I had a meeting with family promise. And they're really wanted to just essentially point out a, you know, a crisis point essentially like we have with all of our housing situation. And that is that, you know, they have over 400 families that are currently experiencing homelessness. And that, you know, with that's about 1600 individuals and about half of them are children. They're, you know, an average two to four children in these households. Many of them are staying in, about a third of them are staying with family and friends about a quarter of them in a hotel, about 15 to 20% of them in a vehicle. And only four and a half percent of them in a shelter, and only 4.5% of them in a shelter, because that's all the sheltering we have. They are buying the CDS building and turning it into a shelter. It will have four shelters, four for four families. The CDS building? The CDS building is behind McDonald's on 13th Street. Oh, yeah. And then of course we have St. Francis House who just came and said that they're trying to move to a building where they might have a 20 bed shelter which would be huge or 20. How are they funded family promises? That state funded? I don't know their funding makeup. Certainly we could get that. I mean there are non-profit so a lot of it I'm sure is donor based but they probably also get state grants., what I wanted to say is my goal here is to recommend that we, or move that we ask staff to explore collaboration opportunities with them with regards to housing construction, because they've been in conversation with the NDC and others about possibility of construction of housing. And 79% of their families, 47% of their families are already working, yet struggling to find housing. And 88% of them are like housing, are working eligible. So most of them are workforce. This is workforce, this could be considered workforce housing because these people are working or want to be working. And so I just wanted to refer to staff to explore opportunities to collaborate with family promise with regards to our infrastructure service or other funding opportunities for construction of housing for homeless families. Excellent. Okay. Motion a second. Um, any further comment? All in favor of the motion signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Like sign? Thank you. Thank you. I have some potentially well, Commissioner Wheeler, what do you have in this? I'll say what I have. That just, thanks to Ramone again for the bagging of the, you know, making sure that the sand was there for everybody during the storm, but also for addressing, Mabain Middle School's sidewalk issue, I saw his response to my gamble that it would be done by Thursday, so I really appreciated him getting right to that one as well. And then I was just going to talk about Commissioner Cornel's campaign ambitions and I was excited about that. That's all right. That's I'm ready. Okay. Thank you. I just I have one item. So I've been working for the past few months with a group of folks that are dealing with housing for children and we're calling ourselves the housing first for children collaborative and it includes Nancy Hart, Brendan Chertley, Monagel de Ghibaja, I never say that right. Teresa Beechy, Sherry Jones, Kathy All, Adam Gersky, Freddie Jones, Tony Jones, and a few other folks. And I'll try to keep you all updated, but there's been some money offered from one of the rotary clubs for some purchase of facilities and some other things. And so where, what's that? Are you talking about the housing that they want to build in collaboration with the writer house? Nope, this is a whole different thing. So it's been sort of quiet leaping organized here for a period of time and so hopefully I'll have some good news to bring about that as well but I think these things, like I like to say about housing, there's a lot of right answers and we need to be doing all of them. So the more people working on that, the better. Mary, thanks for working on that. That's a good group. Nancy brought that group up at Children's Trust. Yeah. Thank you for that. Yeah. Yeah. I'm very honored to be working with them and it's their their movers and shakers for sure I had one other thing. I don't want to sign on an action But the job at the Gainesville neighborhood letter. Okay. I also got we also got today the letter from Bobby and the Labor coalition and we got also a letter from Gackar It is my hope that these groups can work on this compromise and and the city can get from a 4-3 vote to a 7-0 vote. And so that's all there recommending is actually that one compromise. So hopefully they'll all get together and we won't have to get involved because I had lots of folks asking me about it. And I think these groups can hopefully work this out. I have a copy for everybody. I'll just pass it out so you have it. Is it okay? Okay. I just need a reference system. What we're talking about. All right. Minimum all right. Anything else? Anything else for anyone else? All right. I will call this meeting adjourned. Thank you, everyone. We'll get one for the tour.