The Alachua County Board of County Commissioners for August 27, 2024 at 11.33 a.m. and our first item is the invocation. Thank you. On behalf of the Lathia Church, we appreciate this opportunity to begin this session in prayer. Please pray with me. God of grace and truth, we come before you this morning to ask that you will be present with us here today. We adore you Father because there is none greater than you. You are the best. I pray for the agenda that is set before the Board of County Commissioners today. There are many in Elatua County who do not know you as Father and we ask that this day you would adopt them into your family and make them your own. Save them all God and send your spirit of adoption into their hearts. We pray for the people of our County and for the commissioners and our county judge. We pray for wisdom, stamina, and compassion for all of our leaders and we pray for help, encouragement, and lasting improvements for the people of our county who are struggling. We have recently endured the effects of hurricane in our region and we ask that you would comfort and continue to guide those that have been affected. We ask that your joy and peace will be shown to all in our county as they seek you with their whole heart and turn to you in worship and in praise. Lord your will is to bring about happiness, stability, unity, justice and compassion to this county that we call home. Would you decrease oppression, invictimizationization and all manner of evil that constantly comes before us each day? Bring healing and hope and love to us, O God. We pray for wise and kind and just decisions from our governmental leaders. Would you please allow us to be wise through it so the resources that you've given us? For our mayor, the various levels of city officials, if we're this assembled council, I ask that you would give all of the aforementioned a keen thirst for doing what is right and what is best for our people, confidence in what is good and fitting, and the ability to work together in harmony and unity, even when there is honest disagreement. We also ask that you are granted personal peace in their lives and join this task that you have set before them. We leave our anxiety about the future. Soft in our hearts, Baoyal, allow us to see your faithfulness in the past and order that we may quickly and deeply trust your promises about the future. Forgive us for our unbelief and guide us to be champions of forgiveness for others. Be our shepherd. Give us a heart to believe, your good news, and so learn to love what you love and to hate what you hate. We love you, O God. All satisfying and all loving God may you find our desire to turn to you this day to be pleasing in your sight for the sun's sake. Amen. Amen. A pledge of 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. Okay, the next item is the approval of the regularly agenda and consent agenda. Second. Second. Are there any discussion to the motion that's on the floor? Okay, hearing none seen none. those in favor of the motion? Vote by the sign of buy. Aye. Those post-same sign motion carries. Mr. Clerk. Chair of the First opening of the new UF Health Urgent Care Clinic on the east side of Gainesville. Okay, so let's play that for you now. Three, two, one. Woo! Woo! This is going to serve all of East Carolina, La Cholacame. This will be helpful for the folks of the popcorn, the folks in Waldo. We expect this place to serve 12 to 15,000 residents a year. That's 12 to 15,000 residents. There wouldn't be waiting in the ER, shans on our to roam, or other facilities further away. It's clear that for many of you, this was a labor of law. This was not just an opening another clinic on a side of the panel. This was you believing in a community, you being willing to work for a community, and you being willing to kind of stand up for that community. The significance of this initiative has extended way beyond just providing care services to East Gainesville. The journey has been a true testament to the power of partnership and our shared commitment to improving the health and well-being of all that we serve. Having this facility will absolutely improve access to health care. It won't take 30 minutes to get to the hospital. Having this facility here, always also a quicker treatment for non-emergency type issues when you push your ankle or you break your wrist. Now the folks who live in these neighborhoods, you can trust this clinic. You want to get built. You work part of the process of getting to go, that's why there's a community room right here. That's why there are multiple exam rooms. That's why there is an X-ray room here. There is technology here that most facilities like this just don't have. This absolutely amazing center, the actual facility features 9,000 square feet, which is equipped with state-of-the-art equipment. We serve and treat every member of our communities the same way, which is we bring the best technologies, the innovation directly to our communities. This is a community building. It was built by the community in a lot of ways because they put the interest in, they put the input in and as a result there's so many other services here that wouldn't have been here without them. And I hope that they really take hold of it and continue to provide input and feedback to us so we can ensure that it stays the great place that we envision it to be. And Mr. Chair, to quote Mark since he's not here, those are the announcements. Okay, thank you. Mr. Clerk. Mr. Chair, the next item is the second quarter, 424, link to service presentation. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to put the I'm going to make a little bit of the you I'm going to be a little bit more careful. I'm going to be a little bit more careful. I'm going to be a little bit more careful. I'm going to do it. This morning we only have the land of service but we also show those simply who retire. So we want to congratulate everyone and I know there I be in the next one but I have just had my pain and I am so proud of it. Thank you. Thank you. Madam Chair. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Madam Chair. I just, every time we do this, I'm always just so amazed by the amount of time that our employees commit to the county. It's such an amazing testament to their commitment to public service and to our team's ability to provide a workplace that inspires people to want to stay and to grow with the organization. So a huge thank you to all of them and 47 years in IT man I bet she's seen some stuff. I wonder what IT was like 47 years ago. It's just got to be such an amazing thing. I'd love to hear those stories. Yeah are any of the folks recognized here today? Well, if you are, if you're watching, thank you. Thank you very much. And in a day where so many people go from job to job to job, I am just so grateful for the employees that decide to stay and make a career with government. It is really, really helpful to have the institutional knowledge that comes from long years of experience, but it's also just great to have familiar faces in the county that continue to do the work day to day for the citizens, so we really appreciate it. So thank you. Thank you all very, very much. Moving on, we'll go to our advisory board update, the health care advisory board presentation, and while they're coming forward, I do want to apologize for being late. I had a bit of an emergency as I was leaving my house. my house so. My dog got up. I couldn't catch you. We can find our presentation to drive around the neighborhood. I did. He's just a pan. Good morning, Madam Chair and commissioners. Jay Athe, Captain Choices Program Manager and Staff Liaison for the Health Care Advisory Board. I have with me Bill Garz, who is our esteemed chair this time around, and he will be doing the presentation. Wonderful, thank you. Where's the... I don't know. Which button do we push? But I think the arrow button goes back. There we go. Great. Well, it's a pleasure to be here. Madam Chair, commissioners. First of all, I'd like to thank each and every one of you for your service to our community. I know it's a tough deal sometimes. So anyway, I appreciate that very much. I also like to thank the support services that the healthcare board has. We have Jay-Aathy, who introduced me, Tom Tunkovich, Tyler Yeeden, and of course our own county attorney, Bob Swain. And they do a great job. We had a kind of a turnover with people and so they've been hurting cats and doing things and getting everybody up to date of what's going on and Bob Swain did a really excellent job. I just want to compliment him publicly of telling advisory boards what we can and cannot do. So anyway, there we go. All right. There we go. 36 years ago. Man, 1998, 1988. The County Commission has established the health care board and we're community leaders in health care to strive to increase access to healthcare services and address disparities and inequities in care of low income and under insured. And currently we have 11 voting members and two alternates. The mission is to identify specific gaps in the healthcare services and other issues affecting low income and underserved and residents underserved residents of Lachua County and we try to develop strategies to help meet those needs and we try to advise you the best we can on how to do that. The 23- 24 accomplishments. We work closely with the Community Health Worker Program. We abbreviate things in medicine, quite the CHW, but the Community Health Worker Program. And we reviewed strategies and challenges and successes. In February of 2024, a member of the advisory committee spoke to you about supporting the dental legislation that was going up in Tallahassee and to approve your renewal of Elatua County's membership in the Florida and Floridians for dental access as a government member and we appreciate that very much. The dental legislation just update you was successfully passed by two legislative committees and if you are aware of that that's not a bad deal. However it needs to be finally approved and hopefully it will be reintroduced again like most legislation it takes a few years to get things get everybody convinced but hopefully it'll be we anticipate passage in this next next year. Dr. Garz for the public do you mind explaining briefly what the Community Health Worker Program is and also just briefly what the dental therapy legislation entails? Okay well the dental therapy legislation since I'm not a dentist, I'm a pharmacist, but basically it expands the scope of practice for people that can do safely minor procedures for and it just lets the dentist be able to do what dentists do and minor things and things that can be safely done, but it expands the scope of practice. For the hygienist. For the hygienist. I believe that's how it works. That's what I thought. Frank Hanoano is the one expert on it, but I didn't want to speak too much out of terms. That's fine. And the community health care worker basically, you know, you got a set of people that need services, okay? And you got people that can provide these services. And so I look at the community health work, health care worker is people that can safely navigate the services and the people together. And basically the community health care worker can do just about anything that doesn't require a license to do. community health care worker can do just about anything that doesn't require a license to do they can make appointments call up on making adherence to procedures physical therapy so anyway, it's basically that and also to the community health care worker is designed to be somebody from the actual community that they serve. So it's somebody that people trust and people can relate to and this person knows the needs of the community. Perfect, thank you. Well that went too bad. Okay, all right. All righty. Let's see what else we got here. The work plan is to continue to support the dental therapy legislation and we continue to support and monitor the community health care worker program implementation with looking at resources, training and relationship building. And we plan to participate in the 2025 community health improvement plan and we plan to participate in the 2025 Community Health Improvement Plan and we continue to hopefully encourage you to produce policies that are support the improved health care access for the underserved in our community. And I'm the chair Scott Derrius is the vice chair. We've got members here. We've got Amanda Reed. We've got Lonani Doty. We've got Aaron. Aaron. And we also have a Yanna Archer, Eric Bernard, Frank Connellato, Jessica Forbes, Tina Lloyd, Kra Ott, and Lindsay Redding and Catherine Striley as members of our community. So it's a broad, broad base. And anyway, if I can, if there's any other thing I can advise you on or it's that we've been busy. We were supposed to be meeting like two or three, four times a year, but we've been meeting like almost monthly here for the last just because a lot of stuff been going on. If you have any direction or anything that any questions that you would like to, you can forward it through Jay Athe. We probably would be the best and then they should bring it to us and that would be something that we could do. Have you all been following the Eastside clinic? I wasn't able to attend personally because I was working but we are going to be following that. We'll probably be asking for somebody from the urgent care that's the one you two showed. Yeah, probably urgent care to maybe come and speak to our little advisory board and see what's going on and see how they're doing and see if there's anything else we can do. I know we sent a letter. We're a little concerned about what the transparency in terms of the financial side of it, charging folks and things like that. Transparency is an issue. So we will do what you ask us to do about that. Thank you. And we appreciate it. I'm not sure. Anyway, once again, I want to thank the staff workers that keep us informed and anything else. Commissioner Cornel, is this your light? Yep. Okay, your name's not on here, so I wasn't sure. Okay, great. Thank you, Madam Chair. Dr. Garth, thank you. Thank you for your work. Okay. Has the advisory board had any discussions about the pending kind of explorations of funds related to the choices, services, and programs that is kind of being spent down. Nothing specific, Jay. I can't remember anything specific. What we try to do is we try to periodically review the choices of funding and as part of an evaluative process. I know Grace Healthcare Services Corps had a desk audit recently and was asked to provide de-identified figures and statistics of who they serve and what they serve and how their funds are being spent. Jay? Yeah, so we have looked at the choices funding in the past and the trust fund and some solutions that were proposed by previous commissioners. And we do have that data. We're working on that as well currently. And would this be the advisory board that you would work on that for recommendations to this board or is there a different one? Yes, it would be this board. OK, so commissioners, we had a little discussion about this at our last policy meeting. And I know prior to Anna, you and Mary getting on the board, the previous board did have some of those discussions. And I would like our staff to maybe work with this board if it's okay with y'all, and maybe bring back to this board during next year's budget cycle, maybe some recommendations. One of the things that I remember coming up with, when I thought we were $800,000 and eight years out was that perhaps this board could put aside 100,000 a year and built up a fund so that it just was part of our funding. But a lot's changed. That was pre-COVID. And so I think that would be one task that I would like for this board to kind of tackle next year and bring back recommendations. And I'll make that motion after I hear from you all if you all agree. Thank you, ma'am. Mr. Prisya? Yeah, I was going to say. Sorry, yeah. I was going to say similar. We had that conversation about cap and choices and sort of how are we going to fund some of the core services for our safety net and health care needs and equity for access in the community. So I think it's great to ask this board to kind of work alongside our staff and to use the community engagement data that we already have and potentially think about ways in which we could host some other listening sessions as needed to be able to understand the changes and health care needs in our community and how we might make new recommendations for how we fund those types of services. Are you going to get any cheaper in the health care? No, they aren't. But there's a group of medications out there that you probably all heard about the Olympics and the GLP ones and all that kind of stuff. So of course the people that are talking about those things have got big, big ideas, but there really are supposed to be very effective in reducing long-term diseases. Unfortunately though they're very expensive, but then again too you're supposed to save on the other end, so we'll see how it all that works. But you write it up as a proposal, and our board will tackle it. How about that? One thing that I would also like to see as part of the recommendation are things that we can encourage or incentivize to your point, to do preventive medicine, to prevent disease. And I do believe that that does tend to pay in the long run, whether it's addressing pre-diabetes that came to my attention that, for instance, our own insurance here doesn't cover drugs that treat pre-diabetes until you're almost diabetic. And so that, to me, know, a not a good thing. We, we, a medicine have a habit of trying to put band-aids on symptoms instead of trying to find out why the symptoms are occurring again with. So anyway, I'm more in the, in the functional medicine type of thought is why, or why is all this happening? And a lot of it's,'s unfortunately the food that we eat you know and that is such a I'm going I raise my hand you know Well Madam chair if I might I was just gonna say I mean I think you'll hopefully when we get the full presentation from the community health worker program I think it's doing exactly that and We do have a food as medicine pilot that was conducted in collaboration with Grant Harrell's mobile outreach clinic and Pastor Duncan. The food pharmacy. Yeah, the food pharmacy. Yeah, which is a great idea. Yeah, and it actually was, it has some pretty amazing results about being able to drop people's blood cholesterol levels and blood sugar levels. And they've got real kind of hardcore data showing that changes in lifestyle and food can make a difference in those long-term diseases and avoid hospital costs. Absolutely, but you know, just so we don't normally do siloed programs, anything we can do to tie these things all together in a program I think is a good thing. Well, in the long run, if the community health care workers services can be reimbursed through insurance or some way, that would be probably the long-term solution to funding or at least help funding. So anything that our lobbyists can do up there in Calhassi or even Washington, D.C. to increase the reimbursement of these workers that would be helpful. Yeah, thank you. All right, anything else? Mr. Cornell, did you want to have the motion? Are you ready? Yep. All right, so I would move that we accept the presentation by the advisory board describing the work plan and the accomplishments and ask the advisory board to work with our staff to use the current community engagement data and develop health preventive technique recommendations which would include the community health care worker program prior, which will include the Community Healthcare Worker Program and address the upcoming expiration of the Choices Program and Services and bring back recommendations to this Board of County Commissioners to consider during the 2025 budget cycle. Thank you. Okay. Madam Chair, if I might, the Community Healthcare Worker piece is unnecessary. It is coming back to you. I might, the Community Healthcare Worker piece is unnecessary. It is coming back to you. I believe the next agenda. Separately, to bring forward staff recommendations for changes to the program. Okay, so I can take that piece out. I think the board and this board. It's supposed to be a separate presentation. Yes, it's a separate presentation coming to you for an update with the numbers of those served with you know how the program has been going as well as some recommendations for some modifications to the program and that's coming separately to you on the next agenda. So that one's already being taken care of and that did go through this board for discussion and review. I'll take that piece out. I'm really just trying to get a handle on what's in the trust. On choices. Yeah, what's in the trust fund? What's the plan for when it expires and what are some recommendations? Yeah, especially for those core services, like dental services that are provided for free or clinic services that are provided for free. Like how do we plan to continue those services that are so needed for people once choices runs out. And any well-care services that are needed. Yeah. Those are all worthwhile questions to ask. And projects to work on. OK, thank you. All right. OK, we have a motion and a second. Do we have any further discussion from the board? Do we have any public comment to the motion? Seeing none, all in favor of the motion signified by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed, like, sign? All right. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Before we move on to action items, it's now time for public comment. Public comment, you have three minutes to speak to anything that is on the agenda. If you do speak to it then we ask you to speak to it later or to speak to anything, three minutes to speak and three minutes to speak to. And three minutes do speak to it then we ask you not speak to it later or to speak to anything three minutes to speak and three minutes to speak to anything off the agenda. We ask that you keep your comments polite and respectful and we look forward to hearing from you. And please introduce yourself. Ronnie Madame Chair, Anthony Johnson, before you start my time, can you kind of go over what the ground rules are today for public comment? If I were to stay for the entire session of the meeting. So it changes. The last time I was here, I was blindsided by some rules. So I'm going to sit through the meeting, entire meeting today. How does public comment work with me? If you speak to something that is on the agenda now, then you don't get to speak to it later. But I can speak to other things, maybe. You can speak to it right now. You can have three minutes to speak about anything that is not on the agenda. If it is on the agenda, then we ask for you not to speak to it later. OK. Because that will give you six minutes, If it is on the agenda, then we ask for you not to speak to it later. Okay. So that, because that will give you six minutes and that wouldn't be. Well, I'm honest. So now if you have motions that are on the floor, can you speak to those? Yes. You can speak to the motions that are on the floor, but if that it's, you're speaking to it, for instance, to a staff recommendation about something that's, we know you're going to have a motion about and you can't speak to that again. You know, I mean during the meeting. During the meeting? Yes, that's what I'm talking about. Yeah. Okay. So, all right. Got it. I think so. Okay. All right. Sorry, it's a little complicated, but we have so many. We want to listen to everybody, but we also need to. I understand. Okay, Madam Chair, I want to talk about a little bit of history. What kind of like gangs do you have history? So I remember in this town where there were large communities, ground brick and cereal mornings for communities on the east side, there were mostly black communities. There were large developments. And this was taking place, this took place at a time when there was no herd, no house in urban development in Washington. So therefore there was no gangs built a house in authority here in town. But people were buying homes without any subsidies, without any government help. They were just doing hard work and trusting in their garden, hoping in their garden, and they were accomplishing things. Large communities are right there now as evidence of that. It happened. But as I look at the county today and what's going on, I think something is going way wrong here. We've gotten out of that now. People can't buy home anymore. People can't do this, it needs subsidies for everything. So yeah, I can go back because I'm old enough to remember. Now I can go through this chronologically and go, now what changed? OK, well, we had a large, UF grew up, became a large institution, and had a large student body. And they now get the vote, and they've kind of influenced a lot of our elections. They determine now what this city, this town looks like now because of their large numbers when they vote. And that has really changed things here now, so we want to get back. I'm going to need to overhear. Over here please. They're getting it. Stop the time please, why didn't you get this ready? ready. You're going to probably need some help. Can you help? Yeah, there they are. All right. We'll give you a couple of extra seconds. Okay. So now, you know, so briefly, I just want to say that one thing we have on the ballot coming up this November, it's something that can maybe help change that. I would like to see this thing turn around because the direction we are going in now, just going down further, race to the bottom, we got to turn this thing around and it starts with you, the county commission. So we have a ballot measure on this kind of vaguely written but kind of nevel us. But we want to basically say no to this whole at-large voting thing for the kind of commissions. We don't want that because you're all on autopilot. You aren't really doing anything to help change the jobs in this area, jobs which we need in order to lift people. You just want to basically give away programs, all these things that order to lift people. You just want to basically give away program. All these things that don't help people. I want to get back to what the county I knew when I was growing up. When I saw large developments breaking ground, but people buying homes, only on without any government help. I want to get back to that. We can do that by voting no on this ballot measure at large voting. Thank you, Mr. Johnson. Thank you very much. We all have a one-of-a-day. All right. Do we have any additional public comment at this time? All right. Film calls. Do we have any one? Yeah, if you want to speak, please come up. And... A lot of the other things have changed too, since then, by the way. My name is Mark Venskussberg and Hi. Hi. Good to be back. Well, I read through your climate stuff, and I wanted to say congratulations, or maybe extend a hug, because it's really hard till that go off the solar thing. I was on the solar boat for like 10 years, man. And I was going to save the world and plant trees and all of it. But at one point, it's not really going to happen. And it's really hard. It was really hard for me to let go because it's kind of like something I really going to happen. And it's really hard. It was really hard for me to let go, because it's kind of like something I really wanted to work, not wanted to save everything. But then the dynamics were just not there and to get 7 billion people to suddenly, you know, it's just very, very hard. So I was going to say, that's really amazing. I read through not everything, but a lot of the going to say that's really amazing. I read through not everything, but a lot of the stuff and it's really cool. And so the way I kind of look at it is kind of like, you know, let's say you're in grade school and you're like, you know, I'm going to save the world and so other panels and you know, okay, there's plan B. And so let's say ninth grade is what you just did. You got to go up with a master plan. You know, you architect, you have a big giant vision of all the things and direction you want to go into. And let's say the tenth grade is where you actually get to, with is where your treat comes in. It's where you, because there's like 50, 60 different points in the everyday processes in which you can actually implement tiny little changes that are free, but you can tweak your own operations on a daily basis internally and with your staff and other contractors. And so that's like, 10th grade is where you actually begin to implement all these little things that make you sort of change the direction of the boat. And I guess 11th grade is where you find which ones work and which ones need more and maybe you go to a different agencies and maybe you go to the city and you go to different countries a little bit more further. And then imagine like 12 of the greatest where you take all of that and you go to the public. And so first you get your own crew, you get your own systems, you get your own operations, all of the people that work with you to understand why this is a concern. And when some developer comes up here, maybe Miss Torres has her, Rita, a sentence about like there is this thing called Climate Change and the Florida Building Code was really made to reflect the past and not the future and so on and so forth in which somebody acknowledges that they are being encouraged by the board to really go above and beyond the Florida building code and that they take responsibility for making their new development as climate resilient as possible. So those are the little things that are free that you can do. And there's like that, there's many, many of the other points in which you get people to commit the sort of this general direction. Anyway, it's hard. It's really hard. I want to tell you that's a really great job. And I love the fact that you got food on the control and next is shelter. Thank you, Mr. Sorson Bergen. Appreciate that. Any additional public comments? Good morning. Good morning, Lizzy Jenkins. I want you to know that there is a place called West Gainesville. I live there. I compliment the urgent care center that you all just built in East Gainesville. I just want you to remember there is in West Gainesville and we need a an urgent center there. It's approximately 35 minutes to get from Archer to the hospital in Gainesville going down our Pothole roads, okay? Hit hit. Also, I wanted to talk about, I read this, I'm not asking for any questions. I'm going to look into this with our new upcoming district one, whomever is the winner, commissioner. Small farm grant, I live on a farm. We're interested in that. So keep that in mind, I don't know where to start, but I am going to start with our new incoming person and I just want wanted to put that out there so that you all will know that Lizzy Jenkins is on the run. Thank you, Ms. Jenkins. Good morning, Miss Lee. Good morning, Patricia Lee. And I just want to report that, and thank you all again for the lot of support for the grant submission. I did submit a grant to the HSS for the Community Economic Development Grant in the amount of $800,000. We have not yet heard back, but I pray every day that is positive and the longer it takes them to answer the better our chances are. So I want to thank everybody who supported that effort for that. I also want to say, like the gentleman, perhaps we can go back a little bit. There was a time in a luxury county when there was a formalized effort to attack the poverty issue in this county. You know, we're a county, a persistent poverty for decades, after decades, after decades. And I think it would be good if we, rather than just provide on that and do band-aid approaches like, well, let's do band-aid approaches like well let's do some share out to us and let's do some houses and let's feed some people that kind of thing. If we made a more comprehensive approach especially to that other homeless population and that other homeless population is the small business owners in this community especially those on the east side. Most of them operate out of their homes. We have some excellent caterers, a lot of them. And some of them have the prepare food out of their homes. Some of them use the commercial kitchen that was pretty a start some time ago. So we have an excellent opportunity now to help to provide a space for local businesses on the east side, to operate other than out of their homes and have an opportunity to be visible and to grow and we can do that with your help. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Lee. Any further public comments from the audience? All right. Do we have anybody on the phone? Yes, we do, Madam Chair. If you'll just give me one second to get set up for that, I will get us going. We did have a couple of people. And anyone that is called in to give public comment, if you'll hit star nine, you'll be added to the list of people that will be given public comment. And we do have a couple of people. So we will start with the phone number ending in 6040. If you would hit star star six you can speak. Yes we can hear you were you calling to give comment on something on the agenda something off the agenda or both. I think it's all can you hear me? Yes we can hear you. Okay my name is Virginia Greg and I live out on top. Eastside Highway 234, next up near the Elastra County Trust. And the road out here is deplorable and very dangerous. I don't know if you've ridden out this road before but it's just really, really bad. It's full of hot holes and then where they fixed it. Looking when you drive over where they fixed it, your car kind of wiggles. So if somebody's coming the other way, I don't think it's too long before they're going to be some accident. And we just wonder if we could get on the list pretty soon to have it redone. Hello. Can you hear me? Yes, Ms. Greg. Please finish your comments and we'll address all the comments after the comments are over. That's all. Thank you so much for letting us speak. Thank you, Ms. Greg. Thank you. All right. Madam Chair, the next caller is the caller ending in 3699 if you will hit star 6 you can unmute yourself and where are you calling to give a comment for the agenda off the agenda or both. Off the agenda. Okay you can go ahead with your comments. Yes, good afternoon. My name is Tillford Cartwright. I live here in the Lodgeville County and my comment today, I refer to it as the People's Comment, not a public comment. And it pertains to a Lodgeville County, a welfare county in regards to mass subsidization, which includes property taxes. This is one of the biggest shams that I've ever seen here in the state of Florida, living in this, so I say, plantation town, and it's never really powered to the people. It's really powered to the plantation. Which has been controlled stock barrel with an iron fist by these Democrats, also called crafty devils. And a devil's want to devalue human life and explore that human precious life in the process. And after they've finished exploring that precious human life, they discard themselves. So, have a take, for example, the east side of a lot of accounting games were floored. There is businesses that don't trash, recycling plants, businesses whose applications are approved less than right like dollar general, family dollar, they don't sell food. That's poison. Oh yes, the people are being poisoned. That's not food. That's poison. Oh yes, the people are being poisoned. That's not food. That's poison that they sell. This has been pre-orchestrated systemically done by the Democrat operating here in a lot of accounting school order. Now let me keep going. Nunez late, where's the environmentally conscious supervision of that late? If high in mercury, the people living in the east of portion of the game to afford it or a lot of a kind of catfish, no, I guess they can, but I'd eat the fish there soon to be poisoned. Many of the Democrat public, uh, plantation, housing, uh, uh, apartment complexes, the pipes are pikes are uh... old rusty oh yes and then the water being exposed to the land in mercury i'll just read an article that when children are exposed to the lid they have low IQ iQ means intelligent quotient this is by design everyone the wise the vast majority of the schools or all of the Underperforming schools in a lot of accounting on the east side. Oh, yes I'm gonna expose all of this and by the way Trump's putting four and that's my people's comment Thank you, Mr. Kurt rate All right, madam chair We do have a few other callers. If any of them would like to speak, they'll need to hit star nine, so that we know they want to give public comment. And I'm not seeing anyone doing that, so they must be, must just be listening. So that's everybody. All right. We will now end public comment. Do we have response to public? Oh, yes, please come quick. Hi, Madam Chair. Excuse me. Excuse me. My name is Joe Eddie. I'm president of J.E. Properties. We're the owners of a previously called Horizon Sunset. We call it Resonce Oak View. We have a parcel of land next door that's vacant. I came in front of the board I think a month ago. We're working on trying to build a affordable community there. Basically putting together money from ARPA was from the city from ARPA about $1.2 million of ARPA funds which we were the priority priority project at the city. Working with the county for infrastructure funds. As well as working with the county for bonds and some vouchers with the Gainesville Housing Authority. Unfortunately in our world timing is everything. We're close to putting everything together. I know today you guys have, I'm not going to speak on it right now. I'm not excluded from talking about it, but I know you're going to talk about the infrastructure funds later today. It wasn't quite ready. It came last month. You guys wrote a very nice letter to the city. Ask him to wait on the, you know, defunding our upper funds. Unfortunately, they didn't wait, and they defunded our project on that. Very supportive of it, but they just, you know, they have to move on. I guess my, you know, when we came last month, we talked about applying to the state. The state has an RFP that just came out last week. They need, it's $37.5,000. You need a local contribution. Now that we don't have the RFP funds, we have no local contribution. And I'd like to apply for the funds from the state. It's due September 12th. I know we talked about going to coming back to you guys for the local funds. I'm not sure if that's something that's possible or not to get documented before, you know, so we can apply for September 12th. That was it. Thank you, Esther. Thanks. All right. Now, do we have any response to Commissioner Prisya? Yeah. I, one thing I wanted to ask, I guess, for staff is whenever I go, I keep, I think people are having trouble finding the spreadsheet and the list and the interactive map that's the list of our road projects. It's not on the main page at public works and it's not on the road and bridge main page at public works on the website. You can find it by the press release that Mark did and it has links to those two documents but they aren't available easily accessible from the main. On the home page, it's accessible but I think a lot of people probably go to public work, so go to road and bridge to find that information. So we should have the links there, so it's really easy for people to find. And to the caller, 234 is slated, like as a row that is being worked on, I believe right now, but I'm sure that Ramon could call us to give us updates on where that project is. on where that project is, but I do know it was one of the first priority projects for the 24-25 timeline. I, in fact, I believe it was 2023, but I think because of that was like the design and engineering, and so the construction would be coming this year and next year, most likely. And then to Joe Eddie's comment, Commissioner Cornell, I know we've talked about this project quite a bit, and you brought up that the state was looking for applications as soon as possible and you and Commissioner Wheeler had spoken with the state and I'm really excited to hear that Mr. Eddie heard you and did that application and is now here asking us for that match and I certainly would like to see us do that match because I don't want us to lose the opportunity to get the senior housing in Gainesville where it's really really needed right next to services. So I would certainly support and make a motion to provide the match of 37.5 I believe is what he said to include in his application to the state for financing. Second. Okay. And Madam Chair, May I speak, Madam Chair? So I think one of the things that I was going to ask when we get to that agenda item is as the state puts out these rolling grants, and I think it is monthly, what's the staff's internal process to bring the slow hanging fruit like these where they, we have a current policy where they have to go through the advisory board and then they have to go to the county commission But the small amounts are really just Applications that then see if we win that lottery and so hopefully that will be addressed at the agenda item And I you know as long as it is consistent with our board stated policy of affordable housing West of Main Street so that we don't have a concentration. I would like us to be, you know, ready to make these matches as these rolling grants come about. So it's to discuss that agenda item, that was going to be my comment. And I 100% support this application, especially if we can leverage those funds of the state. Commissioner Prisbee? I'm happy to respond during that. I agree with you 100%. But I do think we need to have some requirements around there presenting us with the community engagement they've done ahead because we don't want to get into a situation like we did. The last time we went through this where we approve they go for they get the money in then we realize the project is not one that we'd like to support. So I do think we do need to come up with some criteria that we have for those. And then Staff could just bring them to us quickly, so they wouldn't have to wait through those long processes. But 100% agree with you. Agreed. I think also as long as it's west of Maine, that's kind of the overriding policy. And then we have a list. I mean, we have a list of when we were doing the ability housing thing, here was the list of potential 15 or 16. So those folks can theoretically be doing community engagement with those opportunities. There's a timing thing though. There's usually a 30 to 60 to 90 day timing thing in putting these applications in. And so, and they may not result in anything. So we'll talk about it later. usually a 30 to 60 to 90 day timing thing and putting these applications in so and they may not result anything so we'll talk about it later. All right we do have emotion in a second and I was going to ask if there was a requirement for us to submit any sort of letter or something with those matching funds. I'm at a manager did you have comment as well on this item or was it on something else? No, it was a response on the road item. Okay. Well, so let's do, and I assume that we can provide a letter should one be required along with that. So, okay. Is there any public comment to the motion or Tommy D. Have something to say about this? I saw you moving it towards the microphone. I saw a little clarity because I didn't quite and catch the full motion. So you mentioned a billy housing item. So I want to make sure we're not in a position to where we're making recommendation letters to supporting things. And then end of the day, something comes back and the board decides they don't vote on a rezoning or the community engagement doesn't work that way and then all of a sudden we're buying property again that we didn't really want. So I'm terribly pleased. I mean so this project they did do community engagement with the neighbors all surrounding it and had those conversations with the neighbors about the project. They brought this to us several times and so we've had lots of conversations about the development both with the people who live in the development as well as the surrounding neighbors and with the city of Gainesville about their interest in the project happening. So I don't think we're in any kind of issue with that project. It's been a long time coming. This local match would only be $37,500. Right. $37,500. Yeah, $37,000,000. Oh no, $37,500. 37,500. 37,000 million. Oh no, $37,500. You're putting down rather quickly. Okay, I just didn't want to, you know, I didn't know if all of that's well, well, a good, I don't, you know, your policy makers, not I, I just wanted to make sure that whatever we passed today in terms of support that I didn't know if there was any votes down the road and then the board has strapped themselves to voting a certain way or making certain decisions in advance that kind of caused the problems before. Just want to clarification before we go. Thank you Tommy for that. Okay, do we have any public comments? Yes, Anthony Johnson, Madam Chair. I need some clarification as well. So the 375, that just for the application fee for the applicant, that's what the county going to be paying, is that's what this is about. What's the 37.5 going to cover? We'll finish your comment and we'll address that. Okay, so if it's just the application fee, then we need to talk more about what the return on that investment's going to be. Okay, thank you. Any further comments to the motion? Madam Manager. Madam Chair. I believe this may not be west of Maine, but it is the elderly housing project. If I recall. Okay. It's west. Okay. Okay. Just want to verify that. All right. Okay, we have a motion in a second to clarify as I understand it, we are putting a matching 37,000 against a state RFP, which may or may not be awarded. And if what's that? Only if it's awarded, right? If it shows a commitment. Yes. Only if it's awarded. Right. If it shows a commitment. Yes. Only if it's awarded. Right. It's not an application fee. Yeah. Only if it's awarded and then it would go towards a project for an affordable community. So that is within the kind of thing that we are trying to encourage here. So that's actually a very small amount of money in the big picture when we look at some of the other projects that we've put out there. So given all of that, all in favor of the motion signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed, like, sign? Okay. All right. Back to comments on public comment. I did want to introduce Lizzie Jenkins to the new emergency care center that is on the corner of Archer Road and I-75. It could be a little closer, but it's that's a new clinic just open. So you might want to check that out. It would be closer to you for sure. And okay. I was supposed to go to that ribbon cutting, but had a, uh, uh, ended up having a county conflict and couldn't be there. But, um, but it did just recently open. And let's see. Um, uh, we are working on a project right now to clean up noon and slake. We are aware that a project right now to clean up noon and slake. We are aware that it is contaminated and we are working on that. And I think that's all I've got to comment on anyone else. All right. Madam manager. That road I believe was slated for 2024. We're just verifying that there's still on time with that but it was on the list 2024. So, 2.34 is on the list for 2024. Hopefully we're still in time with that but it will be very soon either way. Yep. Correct. All right. We're now going to move on to action items and we have several action items and we actually have a pretty large room full of folks. So if I could ask how many people are here for item number one, the small farmer grant awards. And then how many people are here for the CAP evaluation awards? Okay, and how many people are here for the Affordable Housing Plan update? Oh, a lot of folks are here for that. Or is that for the legacy project? Legacy, okay, you're here for legacy. All right. Do I have a suggestion for the board as to how that order we pursue these on? Madam Chair, I would suggest we move legacy and action item number four and up to item number two under action items. Okay, so we're gonna do the small farmer grant awards then we're gonna do item number four legacy Then we'll do the cap grants and then the affordable housing update. I would move I would ask that we also move item number five before item number three so that Meridian can move on as well. All right so we're gonna do item number four, I would say item number one item number four, item number two, then item number five. All right, y'all help me with that, when we get there. Okay, all right, we're gonna begin with by a pretty big small farmer grant awards, and I believe that is you, Mr. McClendon. Madam Chair, Shama Clinton, economic, dealt in food system manager for Lachokanning. Very pleased to be here for our second round of funding awards for the small farmer grant. We just quickly review the program criteria. Look at some statistics. Look at the recommended award list, and hopefully take some action at the end of it. Very pleased to report. Again, the small farmer grant is for very small farmers as an equity component to it We also has a additional criteria that we want to Smart these very small farming operations. Hopefully they're under 75,000, but there's a range to that And we also need to support the capital and infrastructure needs of these farms not so much the operations We saw an uptick in the overall applications to the program. You're getting to come up with this. I don't know if we're going to have to wait. So 51% increase and we are recommending this year that you award 28 of those 56 applications because they scored an outstanding 38.3 or higher in their application scores from the committee. Of the grant criteria, of course, you must be a resident in Lachic County. They request again our for only equipment and infrastructure. We have an economic priority, first pass of small farms that can make no more than 25000 a year. You can score up to 10 points there. There's a priority overall for equity, for women-owned farms, for our farms by black farmers or for persons of color. And then there's also a viability of use priority in which the committee reviews, in terms of the economic, return on investment. For what the farmer says they're going to do with the resources, and it's a maximum award up to $5,000. For this cycle, we also included bonus points that the farmers could earn. If they had a farm plan, that is a business plan for their farm, and if they were not previously awarded. So a total of 50 possible points could be awarded. Just some basic statistics. A hundred percent of the applications that we're recommending to you today, they meet the equity priorities. Ninety-six percent are extremely small farmers that are being recommended to you for a ward out of the 28. That means that their farms make probably well under $75,000 a year. 86% of this pool that we're recommending to you, their first time submitters and approximately 36% have farm plans already. And as you may recall, the board authorized some of the funds that we used to allow for small farmers to go to the Ag Extension program and actually get a farm plan for themselves. As part of this, I believe we had four individuals that took advantage of that offer. So again, we're encouraging folks to become more savvy in terms of how they run their operations. And what are farmers purchasing? So generally breaking down the need and there's overlap between the categories, but for the most part farmers need equipment. They need stuff. They need to fix their tractor. They need to have a small pull behind seeds better. They need to do improvements to their overall structure. Sometimes they need cold storage for their goods that are bringing to market. A lot of them need fencing and then finally some of them need irrigation. And these are fairly simple irrigation systems. These are not center point irrigation. So they're usually requesting funds for very discreet drip irrigation type systems a lot of times. And as you can see, we're trying to map out, there's a good geographic spread. So north, south, east, west, even some urban farming going on, which we're happy to see. And it wasn't a requirement, it wasn't something that we put in the methodology, but it just happened that out of the 28 applications were recommending recommending to this board for a award 50 percent were ranching operations and 50 percent were farmers. So for the ranchers you have cattle, you have goats, water buffalo, and you have dairy operations in the ranching operations. And for farmers you had, of course, people doing row crops to honeybeaks and some other things in there. But just a general good spread of farming applications, ranching and farming applications. Here are the recommended award-eat lists. Again, we're recommending a minimum score of 38.3 points out of 50. These were all very impressive applications and town chair. The recommended action is to prove the award of grant funds to all applications scoring 38.3 points and above. Excellent. Commissioner Prisya. Thank you, Sean. I'm so excited about this program. It's such a small amount of money to make such a big impact. I mean that's like how many businesses and lives are impacted with just a $5,000 grant. It's such a cool thing. So thank you for all the hard work that the committee did to review these applications. I know it's no small feat to support them in getting the applications. Many farmers may have never done grant applications before and also to really do your due diligence about how it's making a difference for our economics and also for our community. So I'm just really excited to make staff's motion, but I also, before I do, I also wanted to add a few things I wanted to talk with my colleagues. One is this ends this program theoretically. And so we talked a little bit during the budget cycle about including this. I just want to make sure that in this motion, I'd like to put in there that we continue this program next year and we can, you know, I'll let Tommy figure out where the money comes from, but I'd like to see us continue this program and continue to award, you know, the, I guess we've, in the past, we've had up to $200,000 was that the amount that we had initially? Madam Chair, it was $200,000 for two years with the program. It was $100,000 a year. So up to $100,000 a year next year for awarding excellent scoring applications. And I'd, so a motion to approve staff's recommendation along with moving this program forward for next year with $100,000. And the second thing I would like to do is just ask that we also have our environmental protection department do a one pass over our excellent applications. Make sure it aligns with any environmental protection standards. Like you mentioned center piviti irrigation. And I notice one of the applications is doing some work on water stuff. And so just making sure that we align these and make sure that all of the sustainability and natural resources components of our farmers' decision-making works together with the work that we're doing for economic development. And I'm sure that's already happening, but I just wanted to throw that out there because I did notice a couple in the motion. Yeah, so the motion is to align, in the future, align the program with Environmental Protection Department for a review to continue the program with $100,000 and to approve the award grant funds of all applications scoring 38 points and above. 38.3. Yeah, just to make sure there wasn't anybody right on that edge. Okay. All right. We have a motion in a second. Commissioner Cornell, do you have any additional comments? I do. Thank you, Madam Chair. So I echo my colleagues' comments. 96% extremely small farmers. 86% first time applicants. I did my little math of the 28th, 7th and the North, 6th and the South, 7th and the West, 8th and the East. Wily dispersed, really, really great. As small as 650 is high as 5,000. And to Commissioner Prisya's point, the small amount of dollars with the large impact to these families, these farms, and ultimately, our local community is a great return on investment. I would be remiss if I didn't at least recognize Commissioner Prisya. We all have kind of our levels of expertise. She brought this one to us four years ago. All of us agreed. You know, we all get credit on this one, but the papers need to identify Commissioner Prisya really as the person who educated us brought this to us, and we used ARPA funds to try it out, and it's working, and so let's continue to do it. I support the motion, and, Bishop Prisya, thank you. Excellent. And if I could just add a comment, I read the heartfelt letters we got from many of the participants, some of whom are here, and they made me cry. My dad was a small farmer, you know? And these things are really helpful. They really are. So anyway, public comment to the motion. Would any of the applicants like to speak? Please come forward if you would like to speak. I'm here, I'm having my life. We raised bees. We just started a couple of years ago. But we have chickens and stuff like that. So what you said is, you know, but the people love it. That's local. So yeah, we appreciate it. What you all say. And to encourage it to go further. Yeah, we appreciate it. What you all say and to encourage it to go further. Yeah, we appreciate it. We work our ass off and both of us are 65. So it's, yeah, it's hard. So, but yeah, we appreciate it. That's all I just want to say. What was your name against? Bill Furman. Bill Furman. Thank you, Bill. I'm a retired law enforcement, so. Okay. Thank you Bill. I'm a retired law enforcement, so thank you. Any further comments? Yes. I'd also like to thank the commissioners, particularly Commissioner Prisya for this program. As a small black farmer for generation. It's helped a lot. All the little things that can help the farmers out. We're losing a lot of our farm lands, and we're trying to get this next generation interested in farming. And if it's not profitable, they're not going to do it. So any little thing we can do to keep the family farms is greatly appreciated and thank you commissioners. Can you please introduce yourself to everyone that doesn't already know you? I'm John Nex. I'm a fourth-generation farmer that raises grass fat beef in the allotric county area East Gainesville. Thank you, John. All right. Any other public comments? Please come forward. Hi there. Jennifer Speedy. I've been in small ag for almost 10 years, which is crazy. And I want to keep doing it. And it is really hard as a small farmer to make it. So even $5,000 is so helpful. So yeah, thank you guys so much. Yeah, thank you. Thank you very much. All right, any further public comment? Hi, I'm Natalia DeVianco. I run Exotics Farm in Archer. We do everything from growing fruit vegetables to livestock and poultry. So we had a little bit of a loss last year and this is really going to help us out to get back on track. Very nice. Thank you. Thank you. All right. No further public comments? Mr. Prisya? Yeah, I just wanted to, since we have some farmers in the room, I would be remiss if I didn't take them a minute just to also highlight the agricultural easements program that we're working on. Some of you may be aware of it, some of you may not. So I just wanted to share that it will be coming back to us. Maybe Madam Manager, I don't know. Do you know when that's coming back before us? But we are, we're looking at doing a program where we would be able to utilize some of our wild spaces, public spaces, infrastructure, surtax funding to be able to purchase easements on agricultural land as well as conservation land. So our small farmers could sell their development rights to the county so that they could earn some of the value of their farm for development without actually having to develop their farm. They could keep their family farm in their family and continue to farm it. And we wouldn't, and it would still be privately owned and it would still be an agriculture where they wouldn't be able to build houses or do commercial development. So that program and the criteria and sort of the overall plan for it is gonna be coming back to us in the near future. So if you're interested in that kind of a program, stay tuned and come back and give us more input. And I really appreciate the fact that September 10th, September 10th that's coming back. And I really appreciate that that program will help keep this county resilient and more stable as we face an uncertain future with respect to food. And I think it's incredibly important that we save as much of a farmland as we can that makes sense. When I think to a couple of the commoners points about economic development and needing to invest in that, I think this is a great way as we can that makes sense. When I think to a couple of the commoners points about economic development and needing to invest in that, I think this is a great way that we can also support both economic development and keeping our economy strong and our values of protecting our conservation and our natural resources. It's a way to dovetail those two priorities together. So. All right. Thank you to all the farmers that applied and that spoke. And we look forward to eating your fruits and vegetables and other products and honey, yes, all the things. And we'll take a vote now. All in favor of the motion, signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed, like, sign? All right. We'll move on then. So the next item is item number two, is item number four, the Legacy Project Request for Proposal. And who do we have presenting for this one? Oh, our housing folks and our new Rostin Rideka. Yes, excellent. Oh, okay. Yes, we're going to just let Rostin do this. Good morning. Good afternoon. Commission Candy Nixon. Today I'm here to give you from community support services to give you an update on the East Gamesville legacy project. As you know, the East Gamesville, first I like to acknowledge the East Gamesville Alliance group that is here to support it and other East Gainesville residents that have come out in support of legacy. As you know, we had a series of meetings with the East Gainesville Alliance and other East Gainesville residents in terms of what they would like to see done with the property that was formally called ability housing. So we had a series of meetings. We came back to the board with the results of those meetings and at the May 28 meeting, the board voted unanimously to give staff the go ahead to move forward with a housing project that would look at workforce and market rate housing on those 13 acres. Again, the property is 13 acres. It's entirely located in the city of Gainesville, so we would have to work with the city of Gainesville Planning Department and it does have access points. Descripts since when we had our meetings there were some properties that we looked at land use categories that we looked at single family Multi-family mixed use plan to use public and instructional facilities and recreation out of that the community ranked Single family homes as their highest priority. They gave 101 votes to that the lowest was multi-family homes So what we realized as a community had decided that they wanted an emphasis on single-family homes and when we came to the meeting, they also expressed a desire for market rate homes. So we as staff came back with a proposal of services that we would like for the board to consider. What we would like to do is to initiate an RFP that will look at proposals for the development of single-family workforce in market rate housing over the 13 acres. The county currently owns the land but the county may choose to give the property to a developer at no cost in exchange for their development. We looked at having housing that would accommodate what you would normally call a attainable housing that would accommodate different income streams. This housing would be built to remain affordable for workforce households according to our allotric housing plan. Again, we had some discussions with the community. They would like to see walkable safe routes for walkers and bicyclists. And also they like to see a beautiful development that enhances their community. Therefore, we're not asking that you have a cookie, cut a type approach, but to look at bringing different types of housing. And again, it looks at the different income streams. You know, some people can do starter homes, some more of a middle and some may be able to afford even more expensive homes. We would ask that all of the homes are energy efficient and that any other buildings would be in any other landscape would be low maintenance. Also we're asking that the developer that he partners with the community every step of the way. So as we know with this community and as we have learned in the county, community engagement is very important. So we want to make sure that the voices of this community is heard and that they see something that they can appreciate and that will grow in value to them over time. So we're also asking the developer as he makes, he or she makes their pitch to us to show us some examples of where they have done this or something very similar to that. We are also getting to the financing for the project. And again, we want a project that will be sustainable for this community and that would tie into the community that's there we look at heart with that surround there Lincoln estates a zealous community and others so we wanted all to tie in so it becomes part of the community something that they can be proud of. As such we're asking the board to initiate, to give us the approval to move forward with this scope of services as is, um, and to allow us to work with procurement for, for the scope. Some of the things I do want to bring up is that we've had meetings with the community and they have some specifics. So I spoke with our procurement. So we would do some, um, sending out the solicitation to certain groups to make sure that they, that it meets equity standards and they have an opportunity to apply for this RFP. Thank you. Let's see, Commissioner Prisya. Oh, that's old. Oh, that's old. Commissioner Cornell. Thank, that's old. Oh, that's old. A commissioner Cornell. Thank you, Madam Chair. So, Mr. Cixen, thank you. A lot of work has gone into this to the folks that are here. Thank you. A lot of work and meetings have been had. So, just to be clear, I like the staff recommendation, we will prepare the RFP. We'll put that out on the street. Presumably, we'll get three or four or five or six proposals back to staff, which identifies not only their thoughts for building a single family residential community, but also where the green space potentially could be, what their ideas are for parks and other amenities for the community, the entire community, and really what their ideas are for parks and other amenities for the community, the entire community, and really what their community engagement process would be prior to us making a decision, as well as what the financial commitment would be for them from us and from them in order to make it work. Yes. Yes. Then I presume there would be an evaluation team. There will be an evaluation committee. First, I guess the first evaluation would be staffed to see that the proposals answers the RFP as we stated. We also work very closely with our A-HAT committee and with our HFA. So if we feel that there is a project that we want to move forward with, we'll then meet with those groups also to receive some input, but we will have an evaluation team and that will be comprised of at least two community members. Two community members okay and then I would presume that those making their pitch would be under a zone of silence but that the evaluation team and the community members would be able to help be that kind of connection between what the communities looking for, what the commissions looking for, and what staff is looking for. And then at that point you would rank them. Yes. And then you would bring those ranked ones back to this board, to a determination at which point we would then select a first and a backup, and then we would proceed. Is that how you're envisioning this? That's how we envision it. We do envision it, maybe so little hiccups along the way. Not only will the proposal be under a code of silence, but also those who serve on the evaluation team. Sure, so we had all those issues. Yeah, so we're not thinking we need to have a code of silence. So I like the approach a lot, slow and steady, but long term, correct, and taking the input from the community. And so if there is no objection, I was going to. I just want to make a comment. Go ahead, and then I'll make the record. I guess my comment is that I know eventually the item was going to come back before us in reference to how projects are being scored and stuff like that. That's going to come back to us, I think, in a workshop form. But I'm just still concerned that this is going to be a RFP process. How is it going to be fair to those developers who actually spend their time and come through the process in terms of, I think my only problem is the scoring. I think I've made this known. But the scoring, I think, what somebody makes a score and then when they get together and meet and hear each other, then the scores change. I have issues with that. I really, really do because it doesn't seem like a fair process. If I sit there, you came and gave me a presentation, or if I looked at your project and I rank you high, but then now I get on a group of people of my peers, and then I start making decisions, and then I'm hearing, well, oh, and they're explaining why they like that particular developer person and the scores get changed at that point. And that's where I have a stickler and I have an issue. And so hopefully when we have that meeting that's coming, that we can hash all of that out. And so there's a better understanding of where I'm coming from with that. And I think that some of the issues with some of it has been like affiliations and stuff like that. Are there affiliates somehow with that developer and on a board making decisions? You know that kind of stuff. So that's the kind of stuff and or associations. So just want to make all of that clear, okay? And I'm just, that's just me, okay? All right, thank you, Kim. All right, Commissioner Proseon. Yeah, I just, I also wanted to bring up that, the Affordable Housing Advisory Committee, we had a quick, we were in support of this approach and felt like it was a really great way to move forward. And we did have a discussion about the point of the development partner being responsible for leading a community engagement effort regarding the proposed development and visioning process and to make sure that that was part of their application packet that they showed how they had engaged with the community to have a dialogue about what they're planning ahead of time and that that be part of what they submitted to us. So it's not like that this is what they will have to do as a part of the project, but it's what they are, what they're telling us they have done in order to ensure that the community's voices heard in the proposal they're sending to us. Yes. Okay. Just wanted to make sure. Thank you. Commissioner Cornell. So I thank you, commissioners, I completely agree Chuck. I think in this case we have experts in housing that We don't need to rely on folks that are applying also being on the evaluation board. I think this is a that that issue Hopefully will resolve itself I hope to yeah, and I agree to commissioner and prissy I think one of the things that came out of the community engagement was that we score and value those that live in the community, that know the community that are providing their proposal to the community that that has value because this is their community. So with that, I would move staff's recommendation. All right. We have a motion of second. I didn't have a chance to do my comments yet, but I truly appreciate the comments about diversity in the neighborhood in terms of the types of housing. I really appreciate comments about making sure it's energy efficient. If I could add one thing, and I imagine it's probably in your standards already, but some of the least less expensive developments that I've been to see have... They're not always built to last. And so I'm hoping that our standards are... We're giving good bones to our houses that we're putting in systems that are not just energy efficient, but good long lasting systems for air conditioning and things like that. So I'm assuming all that's in your process and you're used to dealing with other kinds of affordable housing. So I also want to... Martin? kinds of affordable housing. So I and I also want Pardon? Market rate housing. Well, it's market rate, but you can make good market rate housing and you can make bad market rate housing. And I want to make sure that we're building the good market rate housing. Also, what's going to ask is, are the density and the layout of how the neighborhoods put together and connecting is that gonna be up to the developer to come up with their best approach? Yeah, they'll have to develop our Indian school. We anticipate that it'll be high intensity to what you see. Excellent. Okay, well I also support the motion and I think this is a great time now to take public comment. And we can use both podiums and go back and forth. Please introduce yourself. Anthony Johnson, Madam Chair, thank you for mentioning this. I'm amazed by the amount of time, effort, treasure. This item has taken from the board. I mean, you've talked about this for years. You spent money on this. This has been going on forever. And it's just a small, repartional land. What is it? 13 acres? I mean, what can you do with that? It's not very much. I mean, you got a heartward next to this. I mean, you could go ahead on just expand heartward and be done with it. But what did you get from that? People here today about playing these games, doing all the things they want to see in these games, they'll just, whatever you do, there's not going to make that happen. I would have liked to see the time and the effort resources you put on this project to go toward something more meaningful, like, jobs. People, you need money. You need to make a decent living. You can't make a decent living working in service jobs And right now we're going through a Renaissance in this country the Biden administration green jobs You got to try to get those and you haven't tried to get the single one here and for me you it would be better If you were to land it on nice factory out of hearth on road that pays good money You know, I told you about the Hyundai deal that you didn't try to bid on. You could have gotten that EV contract, big time jobs, big time battle plan, but that's what's needed. And you don't spend any time if you were to go back and look at the minutes for the time, but that you spent on from the dives, talking about issues, jobs are just than 2% over the last year. Trying to give incentives to bring companies here. You can do it. That's what county commissioners do. They incentivize, give tax breaks. They're making ease if a company is to relocate. We're going through a real assault now. People are moving their supply chains back to America or building this country up again. That's what you should be looking for. That's what you should be looking for. That's what you should be going after. This little project here is all the time. But it's literal. I mean, it's not okay. I mean, I live around there, but I would love to see something more comprehensive that do this. You will fix all your other problems. You get rid of all your other socio-economic problems that you're trying to fix. But we need people on the board who value a job over a tree. Okay? We need people on the board who value a job over a tree. And that's what we have now, people who don't do that. So that's why it's important that we change the makeup of this commission. We need people that know what's going on and take the advantage of the system, the system of now putting people to work. That's what built this cultural life of the East side. Well, my time isn't up. Are you talking about? Okay. See, now, see, that's, if that's the kind of stuff, that's why you don't, they don't like to hear what the truth. You're okay. Yes, I'd like to do that. That's what we're doing. Thank you. Time is in up. Paul, please finish your comments. But you know what I'm talking is right. Madam Chair, thank you very much for moving the agenda item up. We appreciate that and those who are here who have something to do this afternoon appreciate that as well. My name is Wayne Fields and I am a 65 year resident of East Gainesville. I'm here representing a Zellier Trails in addition to the East Gainesville Alliance. I've attended two meetings that the a large accounting staff put on. And I would like to commend them for what they've done. They did a very good job under the direction of Carl Smart. Thank you very much. Dr. D. Drew Houchin, Candy Nixon, and Santora Days. We appreciate everything that they've done. And there were two, transparent, very transparent items that came out of the meetings that we attended. And that was one that over 100 people, 101, wanted the single family homes and seven on the far end only seven wanted the multi-family apartment complexes. We're hoping that you will vote accordingly to accept the recommendation. Why do we want single-family homes? Well, we found out that gun violence takes place less frequently in single-family home neighborhoods. We've also found out that homeowners are taxpayers and taxpayers that vote. Home owners attract grocery stores, insurance companies and other businesses and we'd like to see people have and reach that American dream. We would also like to have local businesses, local minority businesses to be given preference, be it non-profit or profit to be developers, contractors, as well as realtors, surveyors, and so forth. So we're hoping that you all will allow us. It has been stated that you all would like to have some of the individuals that are here be on a committee and I raised my hand Can I please be on the committee with whoever is chosen and I'm sure there are others who are here? So thank you all very much. Thank you, Mr. Fields. I'm Carrie Parker Warren and I thank you for the opportunity. I was at a meeting last night and there was a quotation that one of the members said and I wrote it down so I could bring it to you. I'm not just speaking to the commission. I do want to say we have friends up there and I thank you for voting the way that you have voted so that we can get this project started and complete it. The quotation I have is I cannot believe what you say because I see what you do. Not all that's for everybody in this room and that's a quotation by James Baldwin. Thank you again and after Wayne said that he want to be on that committee I'd like to be on it too when you get ready to choose the people for that committee that you have put my name in the hat too. I was thinking also about our children and when did elude to the fact that gun violence. We need to give our children and our community hope. They need hope. They want homes. They want their own bedrooms. They want their own yards. And when we get this project finished, our children will have hope. There is a connection between having a home and gun violence and other things that happen in our community. We need to give our parents hope because there is very little hope because so many people have promised things to the east side of our Gainesville and they have not followed through. They've been talking about the east side of Gainesville since the beginning of time. I'm not from Gainesville. I don't know all the people. I don't know all the plans that they have had. I do know that there have been lots and lots of promises. I know many of you may think that we're getting a little bit of crumbs, but we have to start somewhere. And if we have people now that's on the commission that's helping and getting this is not the end of East Gainesville to put some houses over there. This is just the beginning of what we want and what we need over there. And we also need jobs. That's the fact of life. We do need jobs But when we bring this housing and we give people hope we're gonna get jobs on the east out of town They're going to have homes. They're going to that there. I'm here not because I need to be here I'm here because I live in that community I already have my home and I'm on the decline. I'm slowly declining right now. But most of us in here have our homes. It's just we live in that community. And we want our community to be respectful and look like other communities in this city. This is not the end. This is just the beginning. Thank you, Ms. Warren. Good afternoon. First of all, I want to commend Ken Cornel and the commission for really looking at this. This is again, like she said, a long time coming. And like she said, a lot of things have been said to the east side that they were going to get, they never gotten. Some of them are still waiting on. I guess it's going to take an active God. But what I will say on the good side, we have a great kind of commission that actually listen and I want to commend you on, I went to those workshops listening and they really dug into what the people said and listened to those workshops, listening, and they really dug into what the people said, and listened to those people. So that is a step forward with this commission. What I will also say is I think that not only do we need to have that board, but we need to create a board that wants to find businesses that want to come to the east side. And I'm not talking about small businesses. I'm talking about like Windexy Public's, you know, ViStar Credit Union, maybe Florida Credit Union, that want to partner in making the East Gainesville what we needed to be and what they're looking for. Because once we have the development, we have the numbers. Once we have the numbers, then we can start getting the grocery stores and all those things added on. And I think your community engagement with the county has really, really picked up and it's looking very well. But add that one component where you'll have a group of people and you guys just reach out as a county and say look would you like to come to the east side this is what we have to offer this is where we're trying to go and this is what we want to change so when you do that they'll hear the need then you'll be able to serve the people in your spot the change and that's what we continually have to do here in the county and also groups like Wayne Phil's group. I really commend them on what they do and you know we give money to everybody else but let's just be honest. Groups like this this putting forth this effort that is faithful that really shows up goes to those meetings. This is where we need to have a 501C3 where we need to help those organizations grow even more because they're doing the job and they're standing in the paint with you and Partnering with the county. So again, thank you guys for your efforts. Great job Mr. Kane, can you introduce yourself for the record? My name is Mr. Dijon Kane. Some call me Bishop and some call me mustard. So thank you. Thank you, Mr. Kaye. Good evening. My name's Doris Edwards, and I'm here representing Lincoln Estates neighborhood. And I'm gonna tell you how this all got started. For about 12 years, I've been a little culpert, actually a big culpert, realizing that in southeast northeast Gainesville, we get the brunt of nothing. Everything that has no value floats to east Gainesville. And it's a strategic plan if you look at what we have there with the jails and juvenile justice and even now with the homeless center, the homeless center spread out. Now with the governors, ordinance, it's all spread it back to East Gainesville again. At one time, one of the people at the City of Gainesville tried to get homeless and four components of this county, Mr. Murray, that was the plan. But you can see it came back to the point of least resistance. That's what East Gainesville is about. Everybody tries to put the bad stuff in East Gainesville. So as a little culprit, I put up a shield. I start looking for things that are coming. And then I'm keeping it away. Whenever someone wants to build a low-rent housing complex, somehow I'd get them to change it. And so far I was very successful with what I did. In fact, Gigi Simmons sat there and cried one day on the dius because they wanted to put a low-rent housing right beside church God by faith. All of the commissioners voted for it, except for her and she was big and not to do it. Bigging not to do it, but I got ahold of the person that was in charge of it, changed it. I'm telling you this because there was also someone who proposed a federal halfway house for prisoners for East Gainesville on fourth avenue. Okay and said this was good for our neighborhood. The people in that neighborhood came to me and asked can you help? Can you help keep this out? I feared for my life but I did it. I did it and so the same thing is happening with this ability housing came. I didn happening with this. Ability housing came. I didn't have anyone. I tried so hard. Ken Cornel is the person that stepped up and said, let's take a closer look at this. I can't believe that you have all these low rent housing. And East Gainesville, he didn't believe it. He did statistics. It's true. He's the one that stepped up. He's the one that invested in this. I think all of you there is going to be a change in East Gainesville with the things that we're getting now. No, it's not going to be enough that we're going to get stores. It's not that's not going to happen. It doesn't work that way. But what we get we're going to make good of it. I'm going to ask you to please do a feasibility study for that. Miss Everett, please wrap up. OK. Yes. Thank you. To please do a feasibility study for the road, 15th Street and 8th Avenue, because at one time there was a child run over by a truck and killed coming from the middle school from the Elementary schools many years ago. I don't want that to happen again So would you please look into that and I will find that article about the child because I don't want any more kids killed Thank you Hi, my name is Bridget Johnson and I represent Lake Forest Farms. I don't use games but I'll offer a University Avenue. I'll buy East Side. And I do look forward to the housing project of homes that you're looking at putting on those 13 acres. I was a little disappointed that it was not going to be businesses put there, but to have homes over apartments, I think is a lot better if you do agree to vote on that. I think that the young people do need to see that the government does listen to what the families are talking about in the houses when voting time is coming up and what is actually important to their parents, because these things are passed down. One thing I would appreciate you looking at is that we do have a lot of empty buildings on the east side of town and we would like for there to be some businesses brought to the east side of town so that our property value can go up as well as that we can go locally not have to drive across town to go shopping to go pay GRU bill Cox cable bill. I mean the simple things that you're putting up on the west side of Town, like Cox Cable and little the emergency rules. You put the urgent care center, which is great. I'm glad you did that. But I think trying to mirror the other side of town will help to grow Gainesville completely, not just one side of Gainesville. It helps to develop all of Gainesville. And we do appreciate the start and we would like to see you keep moving forward including the East Gainesville when you're looking at bringing commerce to Gainesville. Thank you. Thank you Miss Johnson. Hello, my name is Raymond Mobley. I'm a local homegrown boy of this community. I try to keep this real short, but this is more of an statement more than a question. I think if I heard correctly as a relates to this development, there will be a process where the local developers or builders will have to go through these steps, meet the criteria, in order to be considered. What I would like to say as a third generation builder, my son's a fourth, he's a University Florida grad, kind of tough even to have this conversation, because even with the UF degree, his wife's a nurse, he's a contractor. It's kind of tough to make them understand it. Why they can't buy home. That being said, you can either be a part of what it takes to make that different, or you can be on the outside, you know, making statements. We choose to try to get involved. If it's possible as a local builder, most of these projects take bonding capacity, experience. The criteria for most minority builders is beyond our reach individually. But if there's a way for us to collaboratively come together, if there are two or three builders, for example, 30 homes, you get three minority builders, we can find a way to mutually work together, meet that criteria. There's 30 homes, 10 for this company, 10 for that company, 10 for this company. Everyone gets an opportunity to be a part to be involved in your, in our community. I was born and raised in these games, Bill. My family has been serving this community for decades. If any of you are old enough to remember President is, Barbara, you're those are my people. We've been here a minute. We've been here a minute. But that being said, we don't want to just be here. We want to be a part of what's making our community better. Our slogan is building value in our community, one job at a time. And we just want to be a part of that if we can. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Moupley. Madam Chair, commissioners, I'm Rodney Long, president and CEO of the Long Foundation. I'm also President and CEO of Rodney Long Realty here in Gainesville. I just want to make sure we understand the staff recommendation and as it relates to the bullet points you had in your presentation, you authorize the staff to move forward and put it together in RFP to actually move forward with development. I understand the RFP process very well. I just recently went through one. But I want to make sure that you're clear in what we're saying here in RFP. If you look at what you're saying here, you're looking for development of attainable of senior family and market rate homes if you look at one of your bullet points In your presentation it says to ensure housing built in the development remains Affordable to workforce households as defined in the Alachua County for the housing plan Workforce housing that's defined and you'll plan is 30% to 120% of AMI. So, if you're going to make housing market rate, what type market rate are we talking? I'm in the real estate industry. It's going to be a challenge to make this affordable housing market rate if you're defining it to be home ownership. Are y'all speaking of home ownership or y'all speaking of rental housing? Which is let's be clear. Home ownership. So you're saying town houses condos if you're speaking multi-family. If you're speaking multi-family according to your housing plan now, I'm just getting it on the record so we all clear I'm getting on the record now Because multi-family could be considered home ownership if it's town houses and condos and it could be market rate Let's be clear. We're talking about single-family detached housing I want to make sure everybody in this room understand what we're talking about if you're not say it because if people put together Proposed us and present to you and if it's single-family detached and you say that it does not meet the housing plan Then you have some problem with some people submitting these plans I just want to make sure I'm standing here today, making sure I'm clear, and what your staff is presenting, and what you're going to be looking for proposes to come back to you looking like. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Long. No applause, no applause. We all know that's the rule. If you want to say you appreciate something, you can do this, if you like, but no applause. All right. you appreciate something you can do this if you like, but no plus. All right. And I'm going to do this. Thank you. I'm Leanne Attermanck-Neely and I'm a resident of East Gainesville and in Mrs. Wheeler's absence, but to the other four commissioners, I say thank you for all that you are going to do that you have done and to Mr. Cornell. I heard some accolades to you earlier in the comments from citizens, but I too want to say thank you for all that you have done, all that you are going to do. And I expect so much from all five of you because you have been elected to lead, to guide and to serve. I expect so much from each of you and I don't have anything else to say but two words. Thank you and then this. Thank you Ms. McNally and congratulations on your election. Okay. Good afternoon Madam Chair and members of the commission. My name is Avis Butler. I am the former executive director of United Gainesville Community Development Corporation. Back in 1984, we started the process for Porter's Oaks. We were the developers of the 68 multi-family, single homeowner unit. Yes, I was a developer, up through the completion of the 68 units. So there's a lot about affordability and home ownership that I do know, but that was multi-family. I did write a few comments down based on what I've read and what I've heard. In order to make it affordable, first of all, market rate and affordability, they're not the same. They're contradictions of each other. Okay. To make it really affordable, you do have to donate the land. You do have to donate the land. I also heard Mr. Maudley say about more than one developer. Absolutely. You need more than one developer to be a part of a 13-acre development. And I definitely agree that we should give priority to developers who are registered here in a Latchua County, who are from a Latchua County. And if you want to add additional points, if they are developers of color, we certainly agree with that. Okay, particularly since we're talking about Southeast over there in that area when we look at the population of that particular area. Also I was looking at, when I took a look at the application that was a part of the process, I went, you ask me for everything, but my first born. A lot of information to be shared, particularly if it's information too, that will be exposed to the public. You know, there's some of that information you can get once you've looked at what a developer can bring to the table. And so I'd like to think maybe we can streamline that application process somewhat for that particular project. Also, when we're talking about affordability, can we somehow look long-term after 20 years, 25 years? Housing will probably need roofing. We're trying to present this housing for people who are affordable, I mean, of lower incomes. So we need to make sure that when that time comes, that they will be able to get a new roof or some other things that's happening. So please keep that in mind. I'm just thinking about some things that we see going on now, you know, 30 years later with Porter's Oaks. Okay. So certainly would like to provide whatever other information to your committee that you'd like to see. Got tons of information on affordable housing. Thank you, Ms. Butler. Thank you very much. All right. Oh, Ms. Lee. Hello. I have heard today, particularly, that I live in Gainesville, and I've heard today a lot about the affordable housing and about the hurt, a lot about the business, and I've also heard challenges and requests made of the commission to continue to do the great work that you're doing and to move forward and so on and so forth. I stand here today to say that we cannot just sit back and wait for our commissioners to do it for us. We have to help them. We elect them, but they can't do it by themselves without you. And I want to share that almost everybody in this room, especially those leaders who talk about businesses, I've talked to most of you about the Center for Commerce Education and Culture that I've been working on to try to put together every since decades ago when I ran and I drew near development program, I recently talked to you since I've been back in these last four or five years but don't seem to be able to get those leaders to really come together and work with me other than saying it's a nice project so I'm here to ask you to let's work together and let's help our commissioners do what we want them to do for us because they can't do it by themselves. And I know you may not like what I'm saying, but I have to say it because it's been a long time coming and that $800,000 grant that I just submitted was to help to get up space for businesses to be visible. So we can support businesses local, especially our business. So we can have those businesses visible on the east side of Gainesville, generating taxes, providing goods and services so that we don't have to send all the money to the west side. We can keep it on the east side. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Lee. All right. Does anyone else would like to speak to the motion? Thank you. Thank you miss Lee. All right. Does anyone else would like to speak to the motion? Thank you Candy Nixon Community Support Services just a point of clarification this legacy The legacy project does not have an application. This is an RFP Process so not an application to process The application is in support of our infrastructure sales tax, but not legacy. Okay, thank you for that clarification, Ms. Nixon. Hi, good afternoon. Devanda Dicks Brown, lifelong resident here in Gainesville, Florida licensed realtor, next year April be 40 years in this community. I had a quick question. I wanted to make sure I understood this RFP that you're going to be proposing doesn't include the infrastructure as well. We'll answer all the questions after all the comments are taken but is that the only question you have? That was it. That was it. Thank you. She does. That answers maybe. Yeah. All right. Do we have any further public comment? And then we'll start addressing these comments. All right. Seeing none. Madam Manager had some words. Yes. Thank you. And we do have procurement staff here as well if you have questions, but one of the things we were discussing I was discussing with them was the potential option to look at maybe saying that we may select multiple As part of the RFP process, when we submit it, there's also always the option for one overall developer to join with others. We have that in other RFPs or Bids where you'll have one overall person who will submit that has multiple subcontractors, so to speak, as part of a project. So there's that. We're also going to include small business as an option. So if they're registered as a small business They do gain points and if I'm saying anything wrong TJ sitting right over there But one of the things I heard was about you know multiple people so we may be able to just put as part of the scope that we may select Multiple as an option so that that's clear up front. And a manager we do also have points for minority and women contractors still is that still the truth? Oh the state doesn't allow us to do that anymore. It's I think it's just small business. TJ White procurement manager, it's small business enterprise. We just we just rewrote that policy right three months before months ago, but but we increased the amount it was followed with the state and it is an active part in our process so I think we upped that price to five million dollars with not exceeding 25 employees being in the local area Alachua County and the surrounding areas so we reiterate what Miss Miss Lieberman said is that if we have a lot of local contractors that can make sure that they are certified as a small business enterprise and they can team up with a large developer or multiple developers, then they have an opportunity to have better power to bring forth to the county as an application and then be able to discuss those and bring those as a proposal which includes most of the community here. And briefly, can you, yeah, don't move, yeah, I think we have some more questions. And can you briefly talk about what it takes to become registered as a small business? I know I did it. It wasn't too much to do. The application goes to our EO office. So if you go to the Elatua County Equal Opportunity Office, you'll submit your application through there, answer their questions, meet their criteria, and then you become a certified small business enterprise. Once you are become a small business enterprise and you are part of a proposal or the proposal, it depends on the amount of points you will get for the application or the post that's received by our office when this happens. So those points are laid out in the RFP when we release it. And those totals that you will get, whether you meet a certain percentage of a criteria of how many points you're going to get to a total ranking score that will be bought back to you. And how would that work if you had multiple businesses working together? Would there be more points if they're all local or that is that work? If you have one big business that might be in town but they're subcontracting. It depends on the amount of percentage you're committing to use local business. So if you are a small business enterprise, you get 15 points. If you are percentage, the number of whatever that percentage is, you'll get a certain amount of points and so forth. So if you have more local, that percentage increase, and you're able to get more points towards your total. Now remember that SBE point total is added to every evaluator so the more teams and the more people you have evaluating these proposals potentially the more points you're going to have for an SBE adding to the evaluation factor of a score. Excellent. All right. Thank you. Commissioner Prisya. To be clear. All right. To be clear though, that you're saying we can't add an additional set of points for locally owned or small or minority or women owned businesses that's not. Those are included in our small business enterprise. In the SBA. In our SBE program is an inclusive program that addresses both small businesses, minority and local business. So that is how we take a stance as a county. Okay great. And the RFP Madam Manager mentioned that there's a possibility of having multiple bids. Is that something that we have to make a policy decision about? Or that's just something that you can do if we want to be able to have that flexibility? So currently in all of our solicitations, we leave that language in there that allows us to award to multiple bids. If we wanted to determine how we wanted to award, I think it's a good practice to say that up front and how we do our job and what we're going to do and how we're going to award it versus doing it after the fact. But we can have that discussion when we put the RFP together and make sure that community sport services and the communities engagement and of course county managers and agreements what we're doing. Okay. I guess another question that I have with regards to like the the gentleman's Mr. Mowbley's point about our smaller contractors and business people, something we've been talking about on this diet for a long time, trying to get more of our business at the county into the hands of small, locally owned businesses. But a lot of times the requirements, the thresholds of insurance and bonding, those sorts of things can be challenging for them. If they wanted to, like, if we could we put into this proposal that our interest is in seeing collaborative proposals with different developers? And I guess the other question is, are we able to have any kind of flexibility in those requirements or for the county to work much like we're doing in community sport services where we're working with our small nonprofits that are limited resource to be able to access our grant applications? Is there any ability for us to work with them if they're collaborative for each of them to have maybe a smaller amount of that bonding best but additively it meets those thresholds? I can't speak to what the proposers are going to want to bring to the table, right? That's really out of where I have that realm and it's ultimately what they feel comfortable being able to manage and use as a program. I would make the suggestion that if you do want to see collaborative proposals, you included in the scope of service, and that you would use that as an opportunity to say, we are looking for collaboration with local communities and contractors to do this work. So I think that candy and staff have a pretty good overview of that, but if you want that directly related, I would include that up front right now in this conversation. Yeah, I would definitely add that for sure and I guess the other thing is so to that point though when it comes to our thresholds like if we have a requirement for say I don't know $5 million in liability and the ability to bond at the total cost of the project if it was a collaborative and each of the individual businesses stand alone couldn't do that but collaboratively they have that capacity would that be acceptable was a collaborative and each of the individual businesses stand alone couldn't do that, but collaboratively they have that capacity. Would that be acceptable in a collaborative proposal? I would defer the risk in those questions to somebody more than that. That's not a requirement from a procurement standpoint. That's a policy. That is a risk decision that we include in our solicitations. That is the requirement of insurance by the county. So I can defer to Sylvia or the attorney here. But I would say that it is out of my realm of make-telling you what is allowable to be done for insurance is waving those policies, those procedures. Okay. Well, I definitely hope we'll put it in there. The idea that we want to see local businesses and supported and working with this project and collaborative proposals are going to be considered for sure. I guess I also, my other question really quickly is when we had the conversation, this is probably more for candy, but when we had the conversations at the Affordable Housing Advisory Committee, there was a, the comment was that they were definitely, I'm sorry Miss Mikkel, did you have something you want to say? I just want to say thank you all for listening and for asking the questions that answers our concerns and not pushing this so fast that we, you don't cover the things that's really necessary for the, not only the development, but the nurturing of this community. Thank you so much. Yeah, I'm okay. Thank you. Thank you. So, okay. So my question is, I guess, when we had the conversation at the Affordable Housing Advisory Committee, we were clear that we wanted it to be home ownership, that the focus of this was going to be for home ownership, single family home ownership. But it sounded like we were trying to leave it open for detached versus detached housing and multiple diverse housing types so that they could make the best use of the land. Is that still the understanding? It was our intention that it was home ownership. When we think about single family home, that was home ownership and mock you right. If you can adjust that mic just a little bit. Thank you. Sorry. Yes, the staff intention was for home ownership. This is what this is written for. But it was, but I guess you have a diverse architectural styles that minimize perceived mass transition blah blah. But my point in that was that you when we, when we asked the question, you were saying the developer could come forward with both detached and detached housing proposals. Now the developer could come forth with whatever they envision. And that's part of that visioning process where they'll meet with the community. But we were looking at home ownership, things that when we think about single-family home ownership, so in terms of rent to a home ownership, we were strictly on home ownership. I'm not talking about ownership. I'm talking about types of housing. There's lots of types of housing. I'm not sure what type they will bring. I do know that it will probably be different in the when we thought about it as staff, single-family homes. You may have a starter home, which is what I stated, and then you may have a more moderate home. And then for some people, when you think about mockery rate, those can be more expensive homes. So it would be a diverse community in terms of what type of dwellings those are. But we have always thought about it in terms of single family homes. So detached. Yes. Okay. Because at A-hack, that's not what staff said. Staff said that there could be a mix of both detached and attached housing. So I just want to. Now, when you say single family, from our standpoint of view, you could have two separate, you could have a, what is that called? Town home? A town home. Those are each single homes. But that is not what the whole community would be like. We would look at it being a diverse community with different types of single family home. Some areas may be detached, some may not. We're not certain of what it will be. We're just asking the developers to show us what you're gonna give us for single family homes and market rate homes. And show us, because the developer can figure out what they can do that will allow them to make enough money to make the project worthwhile. And at the end of the day, they can do it. That is what's going to drive it. Is it going to be marketable for a developer to come in and to build this type of home? And they could meet with the community and they could be certain aspects that the community say, okay, on this side you can have this on this side you can have that. But our intention is single family home. Okay, and then my last question, I just wanted to be clear about that because I just want everyone to understand that the proposals may come out with a diversity. So maybe all detach, some maybe town homes and detach, some maybe, I just want people to understand that that's possible in terms of the proposals. It doesn't mean that they'll be the ones we accept, but that's the way this proposal is written They said it's extremely important that the developer get community input, get community input as to what the community think is viable. Okay, great. And then the last question I have is with regards to the late, like right now we're offering up the land and consideration as a potential of free land in order in exchange to sort of make these houses attainable for first time home buyers, et cetera, et cetera. And with the potential of additional support for underground infrastructure, if it meets certain workforce requirements in our affordable housing plan, is that accurate? I'm not sure. Not just ask the attorney, Diane, that question. We have to have more discussion on that. With that, it was not determined yet. Okay. Thank you. I conclude. All right. Mr. Cornell. Okay. Thank you. I conclude. All right. Mr. Cornell. Okay. Thank you. Thank you Madam Chair. So let me first say that I appreciate my colleagues who, you know, this wasn't a unanimous vote to start, but I feel like we're moving forward under a unanimous common goal. And I just wanted to say thank you, because this process has been a long process, but to many of the individuals that spoke today, it is really a beginning of a commitment by this county to listen and put its best foot forward to build what I have heard single family detached neighborhood. With different price points, not affordable housing, single family detached market rate neighborhood. I would like to add to the recommendation what Commissioner Prizya brought up, which is a very important point and to the folks that spoke and to our local builder, Mr. Mobley, who's at third, Marbury, sorry, third generation and fourth generation, I value that. I value if you can't make a specific proposal, that you can participate with another group and know that you can be a part of building a home, not just for your son, but your son can build it for his son and so on and so forth. Hail plantation was developed, but when it started, it was 10 builders, 10 different builders. And all we're looking for is what they have over there, over here. That's it. So I value that. I value what you added to Commissioner Prision. So I'd like to add to this motion that additional points, or however staff needs me to add this, collaboration with local providers will be given additional consideration or points under the RFP. I don't see TJ But okay, so but you understand that yeah that point if my if the seconder will agree Yeah, I think that that's really important now To this idea about well developer could submit on one side of the 13 acres, 20 town homes and the rest, they can submit whatever they want. But their community and this commission is going to grade these RFPs based on what we have heard over the last year and what we will continue to hear. So I would suggest if a developer wants to do that, that they spend some time with the community and understand what this commission is directing our staff to do because it won't be great it as well, even though it may be more units. We are putting a significant amount to Mr. Johnson's point of time and effort, and it's worth it into this process. We are. And for that, they don't have to put in all of time and effort and it's worth it into this process. We are. And for that, they don't have to put in all that time and effort. We've done the heavy lifting with the community. We may, in the first bullet, the first bullet, it says, Elastro County may choose to provide the property at no cost. They may not, but they may. And again, we're looking for a developer that has not only the financial wear with all, but the depth and knowledge of the community to know what the community wants and what will work and the counties, I've never seen a county like contribute 13 acres of land, all this staff time, all this effort. So there's a lot going in to making this a successful project. And look, Harvard's had this challenges. They're price too high. And if you look at the value of the lots, I mean, it's three or 400 grand of tax dollars in each of those lots. That's just too much. It just isn't working. So we've learned a lot, we've observed a lot, and I think this is the right step. It's going to be adjusted some more. I trust my staff, I trust my staff because I've been at the meetings and I've watched Candy, Nixon, and Hurstaf's Atari, and we've got some new staff that the community is gonna get to know. They understand what this commission is asking them to do. And it's a, it's a, can't even say it, we haven't ever done this, you know? We haven't ever done this. And Kudos to all of you. I got some, some recognition, but look, this is not, this is all of us and our staff listening to the community. And I thank the community again for being here. So with that addition, I'm ready to move forward. OK. Good news, sir. Chesson. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm having some concerns right now. I'm going to just be honest with you, because I'm hearing different things here. I'm hearing the community say they want single-family detached. Now I'm hearing that there is a possibility for detached and attached. So I'm just kind of puzzled what are we talking about? Are we still with single-family detached housing? Are we talking about condos? I just want to make sure. I just want to make sure because I'm going to tell you now I won't support it. Now I think Mrs. Dick's brought up something very important in terms of the infrastructure. Now we're saying the developer is not supposed to do the infrastructure or the county is going to do the infrastructure. I'm just trying to get a good understanding here. So when it comes back to me, I'll understand what's going on. Because we got to be clear now. I just want to hear it. I just want to know. Yeah, we can't take any more public comment now. We're past that now, but we're. You all right? Would anybody allowed to hear her to ask you? Please come to the mic if you're gonna interrupt, you can't interrupt from the audience. So we've been told and state your name, please. Avila Mechel. Avila Mechel. Yeah. 15th Street is gonna be redone. That's all I want to say. The engineers would know what to do with this. Right, that's a city road, but I know it's a city. But I'm talking about the infrastructure. Please don't worry, we're not taking any more public comment or any more questions. I thought I had to plow. Yes, you have the floor. Please go ahead. In terms of infrastructure, I'm talking about the infrastructure inside a development. That's what I'm talking about the infrastructure inside the development. That's what I'm talking about. Who's going to be responsible to the developer? Or is the county's going to be the developer of that infrastructure? I mean, that's a question has to be answered and I think that this board has to make that decision. Because I mean, because that's going to come up. Or is that part of the RFP that he has to do the infrastructure whoever the developer is? That's all I want to know. As I understand it, it's part of the RFP. Thank you. And I think Miss Nick since coming up to clarify that. The developer will propose an infrastructure and they are single family detached. Okay, and I just want to say one of the other most important things that I think with the neighborhood being involved that is not going to be a cookie cutter type of housing. I do not like that. That destroys a neighborhood because sometimes they paint all of the buildings. There's a cookie cutter, the same color. They don't distinguish the colors or anything. And it doesn't bring value to the community in my access. It reminds you of an apartment complex and stutter of a neighborhood. So those are my comments. Thank you Madam Chair. Thank you Commissioner Chestnut Madam Manager. Yes, we're working to get the scope up on the screen. So to be clear and I need to make sure that this board clarifies very clearly because right now this scope is left open to allow for flexibility in housing types. They would all be owner homes, but they may not come back as all detached unless you specify that. So like a hail plantation to the point that Commissioner Cornell was talking about, hail plantation is a mixture of ownership of different types of housing. This is left open so that whoever submits or the multiple entities that submit have flexibility to provide something that is something that they could provide. As for the owners, you know, that they could afford to build and would still provide that affordability factor on different levels. But also on the land piece, just to clarify that, the scope says may provide the land, may provide certain things. So that can be part of the proposal. We can do these things if the county provides the land or if the county, you know, so there's a very openness to the scope with some very general statements to allow for many options for proposals, but clearly those have to come back to this board in an open public meeting to be discussed and to Commissioner Cornell's point if they've not done those community engagements that will be clear when those proposals come back to the board and people come and speak to you. So but if this board wants to stay today I would like to keep it open so that I'm detached only then we need to it open so that we can make sure we are doing what the board is at wants us to do. Right. Thank you. Sorry. Madam Attorney. Madam Chair, we changed our SBE program recently and I just wanted to make a certain that you were clear on what it says. Ms. Johnson's here to speak. Hi, Diana Johnson, senior assistant county attorney and I am just following up to what TJ already presented to you. I just wanted the board to have certain clarity to know that our procurement code doesn't specifically state the word minority. This code section on small business enterprise was amended just recently to add an emerging small business and establish small business. And that was something that you all requested and last day indicated that's already been approved by the state. It doesn't show up in unicode yet, but it is an effect. And that's what's going to be utilized to help in the selection. Will be our SBE program. It doesn't specifically call it the word minority, but it is an all-inclusive program. Can I ask you a question? I might. I might. We were told, I believe, that we were by the state's law not allowed to have special points for minority or women owned businesses or locally owned businesses. That was specifically by the state, totally we were not allowed to do that, which is why we left it as a more broad, small business. Is that accurate? So there wasn't opinion given before my time. And so I can't really give, I can't really weigh in on that. I do know that the current program that you have was reviewed in this 2024 version, was reviewed by our EO office, and they were in support of what you currently have. That doesn't answer my question. Does the state explicitly provide us an inability to include minority and locally owned businesses and women owned businesses as specified in any of our policies. So again that opinion was issued prior to my time. There is under the Florida Statutes an ability to have a minority enterprise program I think is what it's called and there are state entities that do utilize that in this county We do not have that in your procurement code. It is not something that we're just currently utilized What was chosen by this county is to have an over all everyone inclusive everyone apply and then also to have this SBE ability So I'm not a little frustrating to me. I have to tell you all. I mean we've had this conversation no less than three times on this diet, a diet is about procurement and in every time it was told to me that the state explicitly excludes our ability to have minority women owned or locally owned businesses as a special program or point. So now I'm being told that the state does have a minority own program that's available to us as a possibility. So I'm point. So now I'm being told that the state does have a minority on program that's available to us as a possibility. So I'm a little frustrated. I'm going to let it go at that right now, but I would ask that in whatever motion is made, which I'd love for somebody over here who's been working on it for a long time, because can you have been the champion of this? And I really do appreciate your leadership on it will add that staff bring us back what the state does or doesn't allow with minority businesses so we can explore that as an option for future procurement because that's confusing to me. And I'm sorry if there was any clarity but that minority enterprise program is directed in the statute at state agencies that is something that's utilized by state agencies. So we're not allowed to have it. I'm not gonna give you that opinion, I really. Are we a sort of division of the state? Well, I guess we would all ask because that staff just review it and bring us back what our options are under that program and possibilities for inclusion of that in our procurement policies. Like if that's something that's possible. Yeah, especially for this transaction. I mean, we have heard loud and clear, we want local businesses, we want local contractors, we want minority owned businesses. If we have that opportunity to include that in this RFP and the state that you allows that, please do. I mean, I would add that to the motion. Yeah, and generally speaking, I'd love for us to understand what's possible for our procurement policies moving forward. That is something we can add in addition to our SBEs that we can have points for minority and business program. I think it's something we should explore. Yeah, I agree. I agree. Great also. And then I think I just wanted to be clear around the infrastructure piece. Right now we say we may offer the land and when we all made the motion that was what we agreed that since it was market rate housing that we would offer the land and that would be really all we could offer because we don't have the financing, we don't have the CR, we've given the city all of our money to do infrastructure. The CRA has our cash. Y'all, like if we want to see infrastructure build on the east side, we all need to go march over across the street and ask that infrastructure be built with that funds because that's where it sits. It sits over there. And we gave up, unfortunately I wasn't on the dius back then, but we gave up all authority on that CRA money, which is not something I would have ever done. But so that's that's something else for another day. But we do have but we do have money for infrastructure for work for these points, Commissioner. I like what you're saying. But we do have money for workforce housing infrastructure. And so to the extent that it can meet our affordable housing plan, workforce housing criteria, we could potentially provide infrastructure. And so I think that's something we could put into the proposal. RFP is that we may be able to provide infrastructure if it meets our affordable housing workforce housing criteria. That would be something that we may be able to do. That would provide us the opportunity for if they have this mixed housing and they want to provide attainable first home buyer type housing, smaller housing that would be attainable for say a EMT or a teacher to be able to buy a first home that whatever percentage of the infrastructure is going to be for those types of houses, we may be able to do some additional infrastructure costs. Mr. Cordo. Thank you, Madam Chair. So I think it's really important that we kind of clarify these two words we keep using, because I have seen and I've heard, and I've even heard some of our citizens say workforce housing. And I've heard you just define that as teachers and firefighters. And I agree if that's how we're defining it, because then we have access to additional funds. I've also heard it described as 30 to 120% of AMI. And that's under a condition where it's being subsidized for a rental purpose and that's not what we're talking about. Those are different kinds of things. No. And I clarify, but that's not accurate actually. That 30 to 120 percent AMI doesn't necessarily mean that that subsidized housing. What it means is that's the average median income. And that's the average median income of our EMTs and our firefighters and our police, we just had this conversation, is $60,000 a year, and that's $60,000 a year is within that, like data 120. And so that's fine, that would qualify. And so when I hear you say that, and if that gives us access to infrastructure dollars, I'm for that. What I think and what I've heard the citizens say is we want it to be market rate. So a smaller house that's 1,200 square feet and it's a 3,2 or even a 2,2 would be market rate, but it would also qualify as workforce housing. That's what I think the community is fine with. What the community is not fine with is when we add that affordable housing, subsidize housing, that's what we're hearing. They don't want there. And we actually have a policy of not supporting East of Main Street. Can I ask a question about that? Can I ask you a question? Do you consider building the infrastructure and giving them the land subsidy? I don't. No. Because that's the subsidy that would be there. It's essentially what we've told in the developer is like. Helping the developer make it financially feasible. Right. Yeah. Right. I guess that's what I'm saying. I was, I was, I was, I mean, be because that infrastructure was paid for, the land was paid for. And so that house can now be sold at a rate that's much, much lower than it might be if they had to pay for all of that. Right, because we bore all those costs. We basically bore all the development costs and they're building there's we then become the essentially The quasi-developer that's turning over the lots to the builder Yeah, but I think this is a partnership between the developer and the county and the proposals that we get Well if we can add the collaboration as points and if we can add minority own businesses as additional points. I think are great I wanted to say I haven't had a chance to talk too much, but I did hear someone mentioned bringing banks and credit unions to the East Gainesville as part of this. And so there's an opportunity. You see developers sometimes offer financing packages with their homes. And there is an opportunity here for whichever developer decides to work on this, to go to a credit union, go to a bank, and say, look, I'm building 36 houses, and I would like to offer a financing package to folks that qualify. And in exchange for that, would you consider, that would give you a presence in East Gainesville and help incentivize you to build a facility over on our side of town. That has worked in the past for some folks. And so I'd like to just say to whatever developer is out there that this is know, this is an opportunity to court a bank or court a credit union and secure good quality financing that makes sense. So I've seen that work, so just put that out there as an idea. But I am really happy with how this conversation has gone is someone that has helped design neighborhoods. I love to hear diversity of housing. I love to hear no cookie cutter. I love to hear energy efficiency. I love to hear quality development and that's what we're talking about. So I'm very excited about this. So it looks like we are done with comments from the Dias so we're ready to take a vote next. Any further comments from staff? All right seeing none? All do you want to can you repeat the motion? I think the motion has been amended so you have to have public comments again since it was an addition. I thought you did. No, no, we did not. Yeah, we restate the motion. So it's staff's recommendation adding two things. We're commission and prissy, both of our points. Actually, one that additional points will be given for collaborative efforts with local builders and developers and additional points will be given if possible for minority on businesses. Yeah. And the seconder is okay with that. and additional points will be given if possible for minority on businesses. Yeah. And the seconder is okay with that. Okay. And the land is on there. The land is already on there. Yep. So that is already in the proposed RFP. So all to be determined. To be determined. We can't answer that question today, according to the attorney. Okay. All in favor of the motion, signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed, like sign? All right. Thank you all for showing up. Thank you all for caring about your neighborhood. And I look forward to this being a really, really great project. And I'm really proud that what we're doing. I really am. So thank you all. Yeah so wait I thought we were doing. Next we're going to go back. I thought we have all the cap people right here too. We're going to do Buridian next. All right, we're going to do item five here, Meridian behavioral health care annual report and funding request. Yeah, this one should be very quick. Hi. You guys. Why? You just gave it to you. You gonna help me? Yeah. I'm chair commissioners good to see you again. It's been a while. We've certainly talked about things, but I heard you when you said, be brief. So I'm going to run through slide pretty quick. The slide's pretty quick. I do want to say that one second, if we can sort of lower the volume back there it's a distracting okay thank you so as you know and for the community Meridian is a 501 C3 not for profit we have about 700 employees a little more than half work here in Alachua County I do want to let you know who sits on our board we have an 11-member board for members representing Latua County. Mr. Jeff Feller, who is the CEO at Walflarta, is our president, Paul Matz, who is retired CEO from UF Health Shans, is on our executive committee, Hermann Maxwell Phillips, who was retired from the VA is on our board also, and new last year, after his retirement from the VA is on our board also. And new last year after his retirement from the county, but he came back, is Stuart Wagoner, and he's here today. Where he was here. Yep, there he is. We know Stuart. So he keeps us on the straight and narrow. As a community board, they do one heck of a job for us. So I'm going to take you through just some quick points. I won't make more than one point per slide. Really, this is about our services and we have made a change to walk-ins. Sometimes people may have to wait an hour or two, but that certainly beats waiting four to six weeks to get an appointment with a 50% no-show rate. On average, here we're serving between 20 and 30 people a day in a walk-in and it's making a major difference. The other thing that's not on the slide is we heard last week that we were reaccredited from CARF for three-year accreditation, the best you can get for all our locations and services. We're kind of proud of that. This slide really tells it all from a continuum of services. Meridian, while we provide treatment for behavioral health, mental health, substance abuse, we also provide primary care and social supports are absolutely critical. I'll talk a little bit about housing, but veteran services, supported employment, AFTA care, prevention or key. There's a lot changing in our communities and the way Meridian has grown to support those needs, quite frankly, I'm very proud of for the staff that we have, the quality staff that we have. I want to get into the numbers. They're pretty much on par with what we've seen. This is through April. We're well over 700 and acute care. Miss Cohn, our executive vice president, will talk a little bit about central receiving here in a minute. So just kind of jump through. I do want to go back. Just so you're aware, when I came before you last year, the CGM SAG, or Criminal Justice Mental Health grant, had gone away and wasn't being renewed. We were really proud of the fact that we were able to get a multi-disciplinary forensic treatment team to fill that gap, along with some state and federal dollars to continue outpatient. I'm excited to tell you that that grant had been reinstated. Our chief clinical officer, Richard Anderson, applied for the grant, and we got the grant again. It starts back in October. So we're back on track, guys. It's super, super important. I'll get into too much on the service side here. We are growing with our medication assisted treatment or really just treatment as it relates to addiction. We're seeing more and more need. It continues to grow. But the beautiful thing is treatment is available. Sadly, stigma is still part of it and access the treatment. We have doubled the size of our SSVF program, which is supportive services for veterans and families here in Alachua County. They're not on our main campus, but they're closer to downtown. We do have in-house pharmacy. We provide a lot in the way of indigent drug programs, prescription assistance, and other things. I will mention the larger meridian housing a few years ago when the gains of the respite went away. We did pick up the funding for the six beds, but that's a 39 bed facility. I can't say how important it is without funding that when someone comes into our addictions receiving facility or our crisis stabilization or even shows up on our door but doesn't meet that criteria. If they need a safe place, if they need respite, it's there. And there isn't a lot of funding, but we are filling those beds short term because our care coordinators, case managers can walk across the parking lot. We can engage those folks in treatment. We can make a difference in their lives. And Commissioner Wheeler, she calls on me all the time to get someone respite in the short amount of time. She's not here today But you know tell her to keep calling it's making a difference remember we make a difference one person at a time and you know I heard of something last week. I thought was pretty powerful You know when something happens to one person it's a tragedy when something happens to a hundred thousand people It's a statistic. We got to remember who we serve and why we serve them at one person at a time. I did mention SSVF, Gabby and Gabby have gone away, but the beautiful thing is we found another grant called TIA, which offset that and the exact team just kind of slid over in their out in the community, providing homeless services here in Gainesville and Electric County. I'm going to miss a few things for sure, but I'll pick them up at the end. The lodge, I mentioned that. I do want to mention something called New Horizons Properties. The Chair of the County Commission knows well because she sits on the board of those four non- nonprofit companies. What we do there is we provide 76 units supported by HUD for permanent sported housing to up to over 100 individuals every single day. And we even provide service overlays for folks who are mental illness and several of those facilities. Just giving an idea for that 100 housing units that we have, we have a wait list of about 400 people. So I really want to say thank you to the county for what you're doing with adding additional housing. I think it will make a difference. It will make a huge difference. But I got to say this. Treatment. Treatment for addiction is absolutely critical. We can't build enough housing. We have to provide treatment and supports. We shouldn't let people fall into poverty because addiction or mental illness has taken hold. That is critical. And also we have to work with the folks in the jail. We look at the numbers at the Public Safety Coordinating Council and it is very high. We're seeing 60, 65 percent with a, I can't say a diagnosis, but a identified potential mental illness. We need to break the cycle. We need to make a change there. And I think we all need to work together. We have programs we're working with folks from the jail, from well path. Really everyone to make a difference and it really is making a difference. What we're seeing, you know, just some of the keys, things are changing. We're seeing more depressive disorders in adults, substance use disorder at 27% and then bipolar and schizophrenia at 17 to 15 percent. Trauma has come down since COVID a little bit from our numbers, but I think that may be massed by some other things. On the children's side, we're still seeing behavioral problems and attention deficit, but depression at 22% for children. That just is too high. That's something that we have to continue to work on as a society, as a community, one community at a time. I do want to call out a couple of our partners and I'm going to take a minute I'm going to read some numbers because I think they're pretty powerful. Our partners with GPD, Gainesville Police Department and Latvia County Sheriff's Office. I mean I when they say protect and serve, they mean it, they're partners with us and everything they do. Just gonna take a minute, go off script. Our six co-responder teams, remember in 2020, we only had two co-responder teams, we now have six. Calls for service last year, 4,615. Contacts, 1,821. Patrol support, 1,821 Baker a Marchman X 280 Baker or Marchman X diversion 311 jail diversion 123 secondary transport that's voluntary transport typically to Meridian or other supports. 72 ER diversion. We talk a lot about the cost of emergency rooms and health care. 83 last year. Those numbers are for six teams. There's a lot going on in the community. I hope to come before you here or have someone from Meridian in the very short order. We are looking at adjusting some of the funding for the co-responder teams and potentially bringing some additional online. Can't get into the details now. We're still talking with Lachwick County Sheriff and GPD and Gainesville Fire Rescue. But we know this makes a difference. We know this partnership. We're meeting folks when and where and how they're having a tough time. But if you think about it, if we can engage people in the community this way, we make a difference. The other thing I've seen personally is our officers. Well, you have the co-responder in play. There's a change in how you respond. Remember, these officers are our neighbors. And they want to help. That's why they got into the job that they have. Having other avenues through the co-responder teams, through central receiving, through voluntary, through outpatient service, it all gives hope. And everybody wants to do good. That's why they have the job, it's why folks are there. So we are seeing a real difference with that. Let me just get back on track here. Told you I'd get off track. Let's go with my notes. I did mention last year, but I'll mention it again, Williams Manor. It's a 16-bed residential facility up in Lake City. You know, it does serve folks from Elatua County. What we're seeing, what I'm seeing is we're seeing a population back in 1970, we did a lot of deinstitutionalization and we had a lot of group homes. Then the funding got cut for the group homes and they went away. There were a lot of folks that were supported very well by their families. Those families are aging out now. We're seeing folks get into their 60s and 70s and 80s and we're seeing our clients that will live in with their families get their entire sports system pulled out from under them as their parents age and die and we have to get back to more supportive and group home services for these folks. It's imperative. Think about it. If you lived your whole life supported by your parents and they died on you and you couldn't live on your own, what would that do to you as a person? And that's what we're seeing. Because of the progression of how things happen. These things happen in a sine wave. I wish we can get ahead of it a little bit for what we're going to be seeing. We'll talk a little bit about central receiving. Just so you're aware, Merit is one of the largest behavioral health systems in Florida. We're proud of that. We cover 14 counties now well over 10,000 square miles. And I think it's worth noting. You see a vertical integration of services. So here in Elatio County and in Lake City, you'll see every service we offer. We have offices in every county. When we get out to the next ring, you'll see outpatient psychiatry, mobile response teams and other things. And then when you get out to the other counties, there'll be a little bit lesser services, but a lot more telehealth. As we continue to grow with things like Certified Community able to health centers, primary care, and other related things, you should see from Meridian the services in Elatua County grow first. It's that virtual, think of it as a tree. You got that stalk for each of the core counties and then the services roll out from there. Then we are in every single county. You may wonder why health care is local. And one thing I've learned moving to Florida in 2008 is you've got to be part of the community to be in the community. And I learned that early on and that's part of Meridians focus as well. We do have a mobile MATV and our hope is to get that into the Jails and continue to provide a method on and other medication assisted treatment, but specifically methadone. Think about it. You go into the jail and you are in hot medication or you are on diabetes medication. That continues. Methadone does not continue in the jail until we change our approach to substance abuse that health care is health care and needs or needs. This isn't going to go away. We really have to look at it as health care like anything else. And that's tied to the stigma as well. So I'm going to get to the central receiving. But before I do that, in that vein, if I can just put something up real quick. Tomorrow, we have a town hall at Meridian to roll out the staff. This has been supported by the board. Do I need to move that or are you guys got it? Thank you, folks. No longer will we be called Meridian Behavioral Healthcare. We will be called Meridian Healthcare, supporting the heart, the life, and the community. It's critical that if, you know, I've been doing this for almost 40 years, we were always called social services. We're not, we're health care. We have to change the way we think of mental health substance abuse and other treatment that's related, including social supports. If we're gonna make the real difference, then we're gonna, you know, reduce the stigma. Let's face it, people talk certain ways in their homes, they talk about folks that are dealing with SMIs, severe mental illness and other things, only by the grace of God with that be us. And it is not a socioeconomic issue. It affects everyone. So we will be rebranding here in the coming months. Why? Because we have to sort of walk the walk and talk the talk at the same time. And I just wanted you to be aware of that. With that, I'm going to turn this for a minute over to Lauren Cohn to tell you about central receiving. I did a walk through yesterday, and it's really looking good. The other thing I'll tell you that Lauren may or may not jump on. Two years ago we got funding from the state. We lobbied very hard and we got added to permanent funding for Circuits 3.8. This past year we got that funding named to Meridian permanently. So we right now have 2.1 million our budgeted dollars to provide central receiving services permanently in a Lachua County. Y'all should be very proud of that. Hey, do this. Yeah, well, I've been here for a while to do that. But it didn't happen by one person or one group's efforts. It was a group effort from everyone to make that happen. Y'all should be very proud as a community for that. Proud of you for making that happen. Thank you. Lauren, you want to tell them about construction? Hi, good afternoon. So I'm here to give you an exciting update on Central Receiving. Since a couple of you were at the ground breaking, you know construction began some months ago, and it is progressing very, very nicely. We are expecting to complete the project by mid-October. So, which is very soon right upon us, and we have already had some preliminary discussions with Mr. Sexton about coordinating a ribbon cutting and an official opening of the facility, so we'll continue that and solidify a date. But you will find, as some of the slide features, a very welcoming voluntary entrance and a dedicated, secure entrance for law enforcement. We did consult with law enforcement officers, so thank you to all of the officers who participated in those discussions to identify a process and a structure that would work for them in the drop-offs and comings and goings of the facility. So we're very excited that we were able to secure quite a bit of input that really drove the final outcome of that project. We have gotten some questions on the facility. So we have created like a one sheet, frequently asked questions and information. So I brought some copies of that to leave. We've got copies of these digitally available as well. So we're some copies of that to leave. We've got copies of these digitally available as well. So we're hoping to provide that to answer some of the basic questions that we've received about what the facility isn't and what it will do and will not do. So that's as done kind of stole the thunder on the 2.1 million. So we're very excited about that. So thank you. Thank you for your support as well. Great. So as we move forward with central receiving, there are a lot of questions. And you all may have some yourself. We've talked a lot about it. Maybe this is a 15 year project. It's been moving forward for quite some time. I will tell you, we've hired the majority of the staff already. It's important that you have the staff in and prepared. You know, you don't bring them in day one too. So with the funding we've had we've been able to get that up the speed. We're gonna have dedicated nursing and essentials we're receiving. I did want to share with you. Let me pull out one more piece of information. We have started scheduling meetings. We do have fully executed memorandums of our understandings with the Lachor County Sheriff's Office, Levy County Sheriff's Office, Gainesville Fire Rescue, Gainesville Police Department, North Florida Regional, UF Health, Chan Psychiatric Hospital, so we have all the hospitals on board. We are waiting back from Lachor County Fire Rescue, the H. Judicial Circuit, Lutheran Services, NAMI, the Veterans Administration, a couple others. So once we have all those in place, those meetings have already started to be scheduled, I will caution you. One of the things we heard from others that have sent up central receiving. The Advisory Council is an operational unit. It's really about solving problems in near real time so that we don't have problems on the back end, whether it be transfers, referrals, beds, other things. So we are looking at who we put onto that advisory panel to focus on problem-solving, if it comes. So to to grandios or in the public, it's going to be really hard for people to speak their mind around solving problems. And we did get that from Appalachia up in Tallahassee, Aspire in Orlando and Grace Point in Tampa that those were some of the challenges they saw too as we move this forward. So we're pretty excited. You know, it's really gonna be a recidivism and coordination of care. And now that we put primary care and other things on our campus, we've switched to care coordination with two of the major plans, manage Medicaid plans in Florida. We are now a health home and we are identified as a health home. So that means we provide the full wraparound care, not just for mental health and substance abuse, but also for all their care. We will follow to make sure they go to the cardiologists that they follow up with blood work, they follow up with all those things. We've even brought phlobatomists in-house and hired our trained our nurses to be phlobatomists. Well, Meridian will not serve everyone. The people that we serve trust us. And when there's trust, then we can improve things. We've all heard the statistic that someone with severe mental illness dies on average 25 years sooner than those without. That's typically not because of the mental illness. It's typically because of other healthcare factors that go untreated and that is part of what we're changing to improve. Just kind of give you the funding numbers. 88% of the Latchery County residents are at or below the federal guidelines or who we serve. Only 1% of those seen are ineligible for subsidies to cover the cost to care. 45% of the services are covered by energy care funding from the state and county. 27 have been covered by Medicaid. 20, this is the most important one. 24 are covered by some form insurance, but insurance only covers seven percent of the services they receive. So we are asking again for the same funding that we had over the last five years that I've been CEO, 895,0556. We work really hard to make up the difference and you've heard me say this, but it matters. We always look at funding from private insurance, federal grants, state and county last. We understand the cost to the community to provide those services and y'all do a really good job of keeping us honest about how we provide care and how we serve the community to provide those services and y'all do a really good job of keeping us honest about how we how we provide care and how we we serve the community. And last thing I want to tell you, I just want to say thank you. I am retiring at the end of this calendar year and I've been in this business about 40 years. It's been a labor love for reasons that only recently kind of hit me, related to family and other things. But I found it. I love the people we serve. I love our clients. I mean, a lot of people look in their eyes and that they see they're scared. They're scared of our clients. You know, I see my mom and I see I see someone that's scared and needs help. And that's made all the difference in the world for me. As I move on, I'm entering retirement. I'm going to spend more time with my family. This job, just working in this business, not the job of CEO, just working in this business is not a nine to five or eight to five job. It is a labor of love for all the folks at Meridian. I couldn't be more proud of them, but as I sort of transition out, you can see I got a lot of ions in the fire and a lot of things moving forward. You know, we're a larger organization with a lot of caring people and they will they will keep that moving forward, but I do want to say thank you. You guys have been very kind. You've been very supportive. You understand the needs of the community. And you know, that doesn't just happen. So thank you all very much. I'll answer any questions you may have. All right. Don, thank you. That was heartfelt and made me tear up a little bit because I get it. So thank you. Commissioner Prisya. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. I couldn't be more excited than to hear that we have operational funding for the Central Receiving Facilities. So thank you for all, I know that was a massive lift. And I'm so happy to hear it. That was always the missing link. And I think part of it was the commitment of all of us to just sort of take the leap and do it. And for all of the partners to just say, we're going to make this thing happen. and we'll figure out the operational funding later and the universe provided. So I'm really excited about that. That's really fantastic. I guess my question is you brought up a lot of issues and we're really sad to lose you and your leadership. But thank you for all of your commitment. And I hope that there's a really great plan for filling your big shoes. And I know Maggie's going to be sad to hear you're going to. Anyway, but I guess you threw out a couple of really big things that have been burning in my mind. And so I just wanted to sort of say when you come, maybe when you come back to talk about the central receiving facility stuff in the co-responder teams and things that you wanted to share with us, maybe you might be able to also bring back. You mentioned the jail. You mentioned mental health needs in the jail. It's something that our sheriff has brought to our attention and our public safety coordinating council has brought to our attention. And so I would love to hear recommendations from you all about ways in which we might better serve those folks from within the jail. And then also, you mentioned young people and depression and anxiety. And I know our schools are really struggling to meet the mental health needs of our young people because they don't have enough people. They don't have enough partners and they don't have enough people in the schools. So any recommendations or ideas you have for ways to support our young people. And then last but not least, I just wanted to put a plug in for our community health worker program. We have an active program where we have funding available to support salaries for community health workers that can go into the community and engage. I think mental health is a frontier that we haven't really explored as much as sort of the traditional healthcare areas, but I think it could be a really powerful collaboration to work with our community health worker program and think about the ways in which they could provide referrals and partnerships and follow-up from services that have been provided at the Center for Receiving Facility and others. So I just want to ask you to connect with our Community Health Worker folks to chat about that. We'll get to work with you. Thank you, Commissioner. All right. Commissioner Cordo. Thank you, Madam Chair. Don, great, great report. Really great report. Thanks for getting all the MOUs in place and the ones that are coming soon. Love the name change. I mean, it really, really I think says it all, right? Health care. And so I appreciate that to Commissioner Prisgill's point. This was a leave of faith. I remember us saying, guys, we just have to do it. We got a lot of folks that are working on it and you came through with that permanent 2.1 million of operational support which we had no idea. I'm not going to remember meeting with the CEOs of the hospitals and the sheriff at the time and then saying we can't do it and we're doing it, we'll figure it out and now the hospitals are on board. I agree with you completely that the advisory board needs to be small, solve problems and keep working for the betterment of the community. I'm so impressed. Commissioner Alfred has pushed you guys from the time she's been on the board. And look, we all have family members that have, we just all do. I mean, I know I do. Lots of us do. And I've heard Commissioner Alfred talk about how excited she is about this central receiving facility. And so that takes a lot, you know, to bring us all along. So I thank you for that. When you replace Maggie, I remember thinking, how do you follow Spurrier? Yeah. Like how do you do it? So, now I don't know how the next person follows two Spurriers, because that's how I feel. I really think that you have put your heart and soul into this. You've taken this to kind of that next level. Our community is better for it. And thank you for saying involved in finding the third spurtier, because that was a huge fear of mine, and here you are with this report. So I'm happy to make the motion to approve staff's recommendation and even the money side. You know, very easily, you could have said, look, we need another 300,000. You understand our budget. You work with our staff, and we really leverage as many dollars as we can to provide the service that you provide. So the commissioner, the only thing I add is, you know, right now the funding that Meridian gets for the Baker Act match and that's what we're talking about here. Right now, I believe 6.95 comes from General Funds and another 200s from choices. In the future, we know that choices is going to be going away. And, you know, I don't know where that's going to be coming from. Were you here at the beginning of our meeting when we talked about choices? I was. I must have missed something. No, we have tasked our staff to bring us back some recommendations in the 25 budget cycle to address that point. Thank you. We share that same concern and I'm glad you just brought it up again. All right, thank you. Yeah, you're welcome. Thank you. All right. Okay, so I'll move south for a recommendation. Okay, Commissioner Chester. Thank you, Madam Chair. Don, I just want to say thank you for your service. I think you've done a whole lot of great for a lot of county. And I've been following an article in the county north of us and I just want to say with you, you are a very patient man. So my head is off to you. Okay. Those are my comments. You know what I'm talking about. So, we, you know, one thing you'll find with folks that, you know, work in healthcare, mental health and substance abuse, we never take no for an answer. And you know, that's part of what got us central receiving with any luck, it'll get us to make sure our hospital too. Okay. To serve the community. All right, thank you. I have some more pointed questions because, you know, me, actually, a couple of citizens saw this on the agenda and called to ask me to a few questions that I didn't know the answer to. First, the methadone clinic is that still at 7 a.m. only for walkups or is the your new process going to allow some flexibility on that? When I heard that about a year and a half ago, Warren can help me with that. I walked out there myself because I get in early in the morning. That was true over in our bup and orphan clinic but my understanding is no. We walk people over and we try and get them seeing same day okay good and engaged and it should not be walk-ups. If you hear back from that person would you give them my number and ask them the call number? Because we've changed that. And I don't want to say months ago. I want to say a year ago. Well, they were, I can't get into their details. But yeah, I will see if I can get in touch with that particular person again. Sometimes what I believe is the case, and what is the case or two different things. And then someone contacted me and said they had court ordered alcoholism treatment and they were sent to Tallahassee. Is our bridge house full and not able to accept treatment folks or are we have a waiting list here? We don't have a waiting list and we do have availability in bridge house. We're pretty full but we were able to, and just like I mentioned a lot, we'll put someone in the lodge for a day or two if instead of getting them to an environment. I don't know the details of that, whether it was a specific program or a specific organization, but again. They were upset at having to travel to Alhassie to see if family member, right? I was like, we have a program here. I'm not sure why they would be sent to Jacksonville. So, or not Jacksonville, tell us. We assess for all levels of care. And we find what is medically necessary for the individual and will plug them into that level of treatment. It's most appropriate as part of their treatment plan. If they don't meet the criteria for residential, you know, that's the case. And I have had some family members call me saying, why isn't my relative in Bridge House? Well, quite frankly, they don't meet the medical necessity criteria for it. But they do have intensive outpatient, there's outpatient, there's psychiatry, there's all the other things. And then the community sports through NAMI, A-A, NA, all the other things that we coordinate to make work for someone. But it's not always, it's like the Rolling Stones always say, you know, it's, you get what you need, not what you want sometimes. And I don't mean to be flippant about it because it's people's lives, but it's true. Well, it is, does bridge house accept patients right from the jail? We would accept anyone. Yes, I see. It's criteria, yeah. right from the jail. We would accept anyone. Yes, I see. I see. The criteria. All right. And then, let's see, I had... Oh, this was my question, not anyone else's, in your partnerships. I know the numbers of depression among youth were really high. And you know it's been particularly tough for LGBTQ kids. And I was curious among your partnerships. Are you working with any LGBTQ organizations to help address that particular issue? Lauren may know better than I. I will tell you that we started an LGBTQ clinical group in the north. And, you know, quite frankly, we treat everybody. Right. Right. And that's where we focus. But Lauren, do you have any? Come on. Yes, I think through concentrated efforts like our prevention manager reaching out and partnering for certain events, especially during Pride Month and focusing that our newest initiative has been the group, says Don mentioned, to try to provide a more targeted focused effort with a particularly vulnerable population. Excellent. Thank you so much. And I want to echo everything. You know, Don, I started out with a whole lot of questioning about Meridian because of some experiences from a long time ago that my son had had there. And I want to say that while it also had family members that it had very good experiences at Breadchouse, I wanted to thank you for that but I also want to say that over the past few years serving on that board with you working with you on other issues like the central facility receiving facility I've learned to greatly respect all the things you brought to this community and I'm very sad to see you go. I'm going to miss working with you on all of these things and I am waiting with great trepidation to see who takes your seat but I will see you at the lunch slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go comment on the motion. Thank you Madam Chair Anthony Johnson. I want to also thank Meridian, the staff, Don. I don't know what if it's serving deputy or what, but every time I come to these meetings, you are here for some reason. They always rounds up that way, which is good because I like your numbers. I like the numbers that he presents. You know, he gives good data and I'm a data person. I when I hear the numbers that he gave I know it's all when you hear it he's giving it in the context of you know treatment and service but when I hear those numbers I think about underlying cause root cause. So I'm always happy to hear the numbers and they'll reaffirm some of the things I believe that need to be happening in order to address those recalls. But as far as the meridium and what they do, I mean, again, there's a service that's needed. And as far as the motion, when it comes to the money, I would just have one question on that. Is that a philanthropic donation that the county gives each year? Is there a return on investment that John can speak to? How does that work? Is just a gift, you know, just not return, just a gift. Is that something that, because I know we talked about the Center receiving, was a facility at one time, but I guess it's, I'm not sure what it is now, Center receiving service I guess. So, and at one point, it wanted to meetings, it was talking about what advantages it was going to offer to the jail. It was going to reduce the jail population at one point, this facility. So if that's the case, then yes, that's money will spend. OK, if you can reduce the jail population anytime, because it's kind of high. But again, but if it's just a philanthropic donation, that's good too, because we need to give. Giving is good. Okay, so I don't mind that, that's good. So before the service they offer. So again, I'm gonna miss the numbers. If you're not coming back, I hope your replacement continue to provide the data because that data helps me in my thinking, cause view the role or the methods that's been put forth by the county. I'm down here complaining to them all the time. They know me. But that's the impetus of why I be down here when I see those numbers I think we should be focusing on the cause of those numbers treating the people as good cause but it's a losing battle because the numbers are rising so I think you'll get my phone thank you miss you thank you darling I hope I see you again somewhere around. Good afternoon. Madam Chair, commissioners, my name is Tellford, got right. And Meridian. I think when I think about Meridian, I think of a classmate, who I know, who was admitted to Meridian. I didn't want occasion to bridge house. Now while my classmate was at a bridge house, he impregnated one of the clients, but he himself was a client. Okay, and I think the criminal justice system will circumvent it, and he was diagnosed by, I think, a clinical psychologist with having some form of a mental illness. Then you speed up, you move to Orlando, and he, while in the commission of a crime, he killed two people. Now I think about what he allegedly did. Now he's currently serving 50 years sentence in one of Florida's correctional facilities. But in regards to Meridian, once again, when I think about Meridian, I think about my classmate and how the criminal justice system will circumvent it. Now Meridian is there, but it is not a panacea. And I know that. You all know that. And some people refer to psychology as a pseudo science. It is not really fact-based. But once again, I think about my classmate and how the Latra County courts, the Latra County Department of the Jill could have prevented what happened in Orlando, Florida. All right, that's my comment. All right, thank you, Mr. Cartlite. I'm not sure if you support the motion or not. I'm confused, but okay. Just in general, we need folks to speak to the motion. We've got a lot of business and this is not a place where people get to have a soapbox on whatever they decide to talk about, so. All right. We are concluding public comment and any comments on public comment being done. I'm sure Prisya is out of the room but I think we have enough to vote. All in favor of the motion. Signified by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed, like, sign? All right. Congratulations, Stan. And I appreciate the presentation. We have a suggestion from our manager that we hear the sheriff and take a break before we hear Cap, because there's some calculations that need some review. If that's what I mean. Madam Chair, I had asked for a schedule on Cap of a couple of different options. And I know they were okay It looks like the manager's got them for so that I'm a fan of that. I apologize for the cap folks, but we want to make sure that you get everything that you need so if we can go ahead and Hopefully briefly here item number J1 yeah here item number. Where am I? J1. Yeah. Yeah, J1 on the well path and Trinity services. I, um, this is just a presentation. Then we will go to cap. And then I guess we'll do the affordable housing update last. Sounds good. Okay. Okay. Sounds good. Okay. Okay, thank you. All right, sorry for the change in change and schedule. I hope we're not messing you all up too bad, but we do want to make sure that we get everything the right way. So. Madam Chair, commissions, Emery Gaining Chair, commissions, I'm regaining Sheriff and Wells Andrews trying to get the presentation out. A few months ago the commission asked for an update from Trinity Services, our food and vendors as well as our medical vendor well path. They're both here today. We'll start for us with Trinity, Mr. Chris Watts, South East Regional VP, and Mr. Christine Murrow, our sales director. The other one. So to I apologize. Madam Chair, we're pulling up the presentation right now. There is a little bit of confusion in the rail. There was two different presentations for this item. I'm Chris Watt. I am the Vice President for the Southeast Region of Trinity Services Group. I'm Christina Miro, I'm the Regional Sales Director for Trinity Services Group. And we wanted to provide a contract compliance update for you today on the food services at the jail. A little overview of the contract. We have been operating in the jail for almost two years now. It's part of our three-year base term and then we have two one-year option terms remaining on the contract as well. We have a staffing requirement for our operation consisting of one food service director and four supervisors and our contract incorporates the good food purchasing program which I will get into later. Some achievements to hang our hat on, at least in the last couple years. We were able to help the jail achieve further accreditation with the Florida Model Jail and the Florida Correctional Cretitation Commission with no findings in the food service area. And also we have achieved the highest level of inspection from the health department according to Florida Code 64E11, which is satisfactory. On the Good Food Purchasing Program, we conducted a self-evaluation and determined that we are a two-star level certification, although that's just a self-assessment. We do provide healthy options for staff dining and we've received minimal grievances over the last two years, only seven formal grievances, two were denied, four were resolved and one was approved. The staffing was key focus for this contract. We wanted to provide the county with the best possible value with our contract and also achieve the workforce goal component of the Good Food Purchasing Program. And with that we implemented a what we call on our meal pattern, a hot, hot, cold meal pattern. So the dinner meal is a cold meal. It allows for less time operating in the kitchen. It reduces the workforce hours, both civilian and inmate. And again, lowers the cost and provides best value to the county. Training is our ongoing focus. We provide training to all staff members through various media, including Trinity's leadership management system, and on-site monitoring. Trinity offers over 400 what we call quick core competency training modules, and these are modules. They're basically five minute vignettes of how to operate a certain piece of equipment or how to prepare a certain kind of food. And we share these not only with our staff but also with the inmates that work in the kitchen. It gives them some additional skills that hopefully they can carry on with them. But we certainly won't be able to cover all 400 of those vignettes with everybody, but we've got such a broad library of it, and that is just ongoing. As of today, we were fully staffed a couple of weeks ago. We did lose a staff member, and now we're back at being fully staffed. And the new staff member should start either Friday or Monday. We're just waiting on a final clearance through one of the onboarding requirements. The menu? The menu is a four week cycle menu. So we know what we're serving every meal of every day of the week for a four week cycle and then we start the cycle over again. The inmate menu was built around the good food purchasing program requirements. It's heart healthy offers some plant based on trays, some scratch made items, and some whole grain products like a whole grain bread or wheat bread. Trinity honors the therapeutic needs of the population by providing diets meeting the medical requirements for those inmates. And at the time I put the presentation together we had 53 inmates on therapeutic diets and that included 14 full vegetarians. So they weren't just getting vegetarian options as part of the cycle menu. They receive a full vegetarian meal three days or three times a day for about four week cycle. The therapeutic diets are pushing about 70 now. So whatever the needs are of the inmate population, we work with well path medical provider, they identify those needs and we carry it out in the kitchen. All right, the good food purchasing program. This provides a little summary of our self-assessment. Our self-assessment was pretty in depth. This really compresses it down into its basic format. We get two points on local economies. We use a company called Cheney Brothers for our food supply and they're based out a Riviera beach. So we actually get a point for that. They're local to Florida and that's part of the two points there. Environmental sustainability, we get three points. Again, Cheney fills the need of one of those. Our meatless menu options is another point not serving bottled water or any kind of bottle to the M8 population that's worth a point. Valued workforce we got three points there because we do have a system in place to report violations and protections from retaliation for our staff and we're paying above the living wage. Animal welfare, we get two points for our vegan menu options and nutrition. We receive one total point. There's a check, there's a whole checklist with that goes with this component and we tick to 11 of the boxes. That's worth one point. And when you roll it all up, we get 11 points total. And that's a two-star compliance. And I'm pretty proud of that and just looking forward to growing in the future on that. And that's it. Any questions? All right. Any questions? Any questions? I'm sure Prisia. Yeah, I guess I appreciate the information. It's great to hear from you all. I love this opportunity to kind of interact with the contractors on a more regular basis. So thank you to the Sheriff's Office for that as well. I guess one of my big questions is what are your plans for next steps with our guards to the Good Food Perception? I'm sort of goal setting for the coming years and sort of moving the needle on some of those points that you're working towards? Yeah, that's in process and I don't have a goal set in mind for this next year until I understand what our capabilities really are. And there's probably some low hanging fruit here to get us the 11 points in the two stars. If I dig in deeper with our food supplier, there may be additional certifications that they either have or their suppliers have that could help boost us. But that doesn't necessarily change the program from where we are today. But certainly, you know- Well, I know we worked with Good Food Purchasing Program and I've worked with them a lot around the country and just so they have a lot of relationships with wholesale providers and multi- like the national distributor providers, like the food providers on the- that do meet some of the criteria that they have. So I'm sure that they would be happy to sort of look through some of what you're getting now and sort of make recommendations for potential switchouts that you could make that would make it easy and be kind of low hanging fruit in terms of that. I know in fact I believe when we were first looking into this eggs was one that would be an easy switch. So there's a few things there that I think would be easy to do. And then of course there's always the aspirational goals as well. So I look forward to hearing more from that. I know we have staff at Stanford ready to help support you all in meeting those goals. I guess the only other question I have is one of the things that comes up, a lot from folks that are in the jail is that they still are hungry after all of their meals. So I'm wondering is you said it was a 2700 daily calorie. Okay, so that's a lot fair of a number of calories. I guess is it, is it a large spread between timing of meals? Is that maybe the issue or what is the? No, and the standards that the jail follows speaks to the number of hours between meals and we're within standards. So the biggest would be from dinner to breakfast. And I don't know the breakfast time off the top of my head. I do know it's fairly early because our staff go in at 3 a.m. So it might be 5 o'clock when we're serving breakfast. But 2700 does exceed the American Correctional Association standard by about 300 calories per day. So we certainly can increase that if everybody was amenable to it. But unfortunately, more calories more cost I understand I just wondered I just have heard that's just a you know Feb I may just be but people are used to eating when they're not in in jail and how many calories they eat you know normally But yeah, we hear a lot of facilities But we also have a software and that analyze you speak into the microphone Yeah, we also we have a software that analyzes. Can you speak into the microphone? We also, we have a software that analyzes everything that's served on the menu. It's called our net menu software. It's an internal database. So when we say 2700, we're not just throwing that out. That's, there's data behind that that absolutely shows you what we're serving. Right? The last thing I'll say is, I love that you guys are working with Cheney Brothers. our local company and they do great work. I would just say, you know, we have a lot of local farms here in Elastor County and one of the big points is local food procurement and that certainly helps our local economy and it means more fresh food and our meals. So that's something that I know our economic development director can help connect you with those local farms and talk with Cheney brothers about how they can buy from more of our local folks right here in Elastor County. And that would be great because I know that when we first were looking into it, we did, we were reaching out and we had some trouble getting in touch with some local. So if there's someone we can work with to get some more information on that, that would be absolutely yes. Thank you. And I was very happy to hear myself about the higher number of calories. I guess we could gauge whether or not that's working by the number of packages around the noodle sold in the comments. But I know that has been you know or we could look at entering and exiting weights of folks that come into the jail that would be another thing but I think that overall I was very happy I had a list of questions you answered them all in the presentation so thank thank you You're welcome. Yeah, I'm pleased to hear about vegetarian and vegan options as well. Very good So any further questions or comments from work. All right. Thank you so much Yeah And commission next. Our medical services provider. Well path. Ricky Parson regional director operations and Cape Bird and the health services administrative are giving overview on our medical services contract. Good afternoon members of the Elatio County Board of Commissioners. My name is Ricky Barz-Ram. I am the Regional Director of Operations with Well Path. I'm here on behalf of Well Path to provide an update on our medical services at the Eligor County Jail. We were asked by Sheriff Gainey to present back in November of 2023. And after doing what I call a post mortem on that presentation, I don't think we did a great job at telling everyone about well-path. So well-path is committed, where a correctional health care company, where we're committed to delivering localized high quality and compassionate health care to the vulnerable patients and population in challenging clinical environments. We are the largest correctional healthcare company in the country for a reason. So today I will be giving you an overview of our performance for the past six months highlighting not only just our achievements, discussing some challenges we've encountered and sharing new updates that will help continue to provide the best possible care for our patients. Over the past six months our team has been working diligently to provide comprehensive health care services to the patients at the Eladio County Jail. I wanna highlight some key performance metrics that illustrate the care that we've been able to deliver. And what we did was we wanted to do an Apple to Apple's comparison. So what we did was we looked at the first six months of 2023 to the first six months of 2024. And in comparison, we've seen a significant increase in the number of sick call slips triage so those are the paper forms that our patients fill out that they give to our nurses while letting them know that they're filling out a slip to to let our nurses know that they're requesting sick call services. Our nursing sick calls so these are actual encounters that they've had face to face with a nurse, our mental health encounters, and medication management. So as you can see, our sick call triage numbers jumped up 34%. Our nurse sick call encounters jumped up 38%. We're attributing most of this to the free sit calls that are now being offered. And while increasing the access to care, this current trend is adding a tremendous amount of strain on our operations. There are times we're having to pay overtime to staff members, to address backlogs, and we're constantly looking at our staffing matrix to shuffle around resources to be able to meet the daily needs. In a couple of slides, I'll go over how we plan to address these challenges. I'm also pleased to announce that we've recently received accreditation from the National Commission of Healthcare, NCCHC, on August 5th of this year. For those that don't know, the NCCHC, they're the gold standard within the correctional healthcare world as it pertains to accreditation. Our facility underwent a rigorous and meticulous three-day review period where the auditors examined patient charts, reviewed our policies, conducted interviews with both patients and staff members. And so this re-accreditation really is just the testament to our continued commitment to the excellence in correctional healthcare. Our challenges, now, beyond full transparency, just like every company out there, we have our challenges as well. These achievements also come with challenges. We're currently facing staffing shortages, particularly in the nursing and mental health profession. And this shortage has really exacerbated the demand for healthcare services as reflected in our rising numbers for sick calls, mental health encounters. And to help address this, we need to revisit our rates that were originally agreed upon in 2019 to make our positions more competitive and also to be able to retain our high performers. And in response to these challenges, we're going to propose additional FTEs for our mental health providers and to also be able to address and handle the load of sick calls contract year so we can address our staffing challenges and also look to attract and retain our qualified staff members, which is becoming problematic because as we're learning, there are folks and industries out there that are offering more money for these types of services, so we're looking to be a lot more competitive in that field. A couple of things that I want to just glance over and that I'm excited to talk to you about are the new initiatives. I would like to share some updates really that we're working on. So the first of the list that we're planning to partner with an insurance company to assist patients in enrolling in the Affordable Care Act or an Affordable Healthcare Plan. Essentially, this will provide them with the essential healthcare service or insurance that they need upon release. And what I've seen working in this industry for quite some time is that when patients that come in to this environment don't do the best job at taking care of themselves on the outside prior to being detained. And this will help increase the amount of patients that have health insurance, essentially, as they re-enter back into the community. And the only way we're trying to combat, that is to help them sign up for health insurance really inside of the jail. So this initiative really aims to increase the number of patients who have health care, coverage upon re-entering the community, really just promoting a longer term health outcome. We're also continuing our efforts to improve continuity of care for patients. So we're partnering with a company called Healthy MD. Healthy MD really prioritizes and they specialize in HIV and STD. So they are actually going to be coming on site into the jail to treat those patients. And it's a cost savings as well because they're also going to be covering the medications, the high expensive medications that these patients are on. And just honestly, just reassuring that they receive the specialized care that they need. And I want to thank you all for your time today. And I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have. Okay. Anyone have any questions? All right, Chris, you're a Chris here. I know we talked about this before, but can you remind me, I guess one of the things that we've heard a lot from both, and you know, Merinion was just here. So it's like really kind of front and center in my mind is around the formula area and around the medicines And you know, Merinium was just here, so it's like really kind of front and center in my mind is Around the formula area and around the medicine that you keep in that the challenge with many many of our clients or inmates in the jail is that they they aren't able to stay on the medications they're on so and oftentimes is our mental health medications or Substance abuse medications and so can you talk a little bit about your formula area about how you work with their medical providers and their medical records to ensure that they're on a medicine that they need and that they're kind of maintaining their prescriptions even when they're in jail? Sure, so we have an ROI process which is a release of information so as the patient comes in on intake we are going to verify those medications that they are claimed to be taking. Once a verification has been made, we have a formulae process and there's a list of drugs that are approved and for those drugs that are not approved, we have a process, a non-formulary process to get them that medication as well. So there should really essentially never be a situation where a patient who has been taking a certain medication out in the community would not be able to have access to that medication within the jail. Well, I've definitely heard of situations in fact I've had family members call me and they can't get them that drugs they're not in town and somebody's going to have to like go to a pharmacy to fill the prescription or they're like working with the chaplain to do it. So there have been challenges there on and off and I don't know them specific but it is a challenge and it may just be that that process isn't clear for the inmates, like what that process is or how to do it. So maybe that's something that the education process for the inmates on how to do that when they, when they have intake might be something that's useful. My only other comment, such question, and it may be for the sheriff or it may be for you because I'm not sure who takes care of this. But there also been some issues with people being able to get their family members to get their medical records. I know that the inmates can sign a release of medical records form when they come into the jail, but I don't know if that standard practice to provide that form to them on intake. Does anybody know if that's the case? This is Katherine Bergen. She's the Health Services Administrator for the jail. Okay. Hi. So we offer the release of information for obviously any kind of medical care and if they would like to request it at that time Now a lot of times they call like mothers, you know call and our family anybody and ask we have to get permission Obviously from our client and if they say that's fine and we do offer it to them We don't do everybody that comes in some people that come in don't even want to talk to us about releasing anything and it might take a couple days And then they do but it's just not everybody that we do unless they ask for it we'll give it to them as soon as they come in. Well I guess I would love to see how we might be able to make that process also more streamlined. I don't I don't I'm not going to make a motion today because I don't want to put something but I would love to between you and the Sheriff's Office like in the future, we could follow up so maybe we could make a referral to staff to ask them to come back with that. But a way in which we could do that while the patient, while it made it well, like sometime within the first couple weeks at that, the jail or whatever, it might be if they're going to be there well because I think what happens is like once they're sick, they may not even be able to fill out that form or they don't know or they're going to transfer to the hospital and then it's a challenge for the family member. So if they knew that they could go ahead and sign that release in case of any kind of issue or the first time they come to the infirmary they fill it out or something so that there would be a better process for that. I think it could be helpful for the family members that are trying to support their care and decision making. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner Cornell. Thank you, Chair. Thank you for your report. Congratulations on your reacreditation. Just looking at the numbers. So it looks like there are 1695 more mental health encounters in 2024 versus 2023. It's a 26% increase. Can you talk to me about the staffing? How many folks do you have at the jail? And how many of them are mental health professionals? We have three MHPs, a psychiatrist, and a nurse practitioner. The jail? How many hours? Sorry. Hours? The MHPs work, is it 16? They're 40 hours. 40 hours? Yeah. Our MHP, we have three full-time MHPs work, is it 16? They're 40 hours. 40 hours? Yeah. Our MHP, we have three full-time MHPs, and they work obviously 40 hours a week. I have the mental health nurse practitioner. She is 40 hours a week, and I have a psychiatrist that works 20 hours a week. And how many did you have last year in 2023? It's the same, the same, the number of the numbers have changed since last year. Yeah, so how are we addressing that? We have a couple we picked up like PRN actually that work and help us with the numbers because our case load obviously you see the numbers have changed dramatically. So we do have four that come in for PRN now they don't have set hours. They come in after hours or on the weekends and help us to keep our case load and make sure everybody is seen in a timely manner. Yeah, I mean to me that's the biggest challenge. You know, I see when numbers go up, I know when we don't have the right professionals on the front end, it's more work for the staff. And so I would love to see kind of a report back in 90 days as to what we're doing to kind of address that and how you're overcoming that challenge. That and what? The forum that medical release forum process? Yeah, yeah, if you guys could let us know kind of how the number, I mean, 26%'s a lot. And I know it's just the biggest challenge I constantly hear. And so if y'all could maybe address that with a plan or let us know how we're doing in 90 days, that would be helpful. So I would move that we accept the well path and Trinity Services Group presentation and we ask well path to report back to us in 90 days with regards to how we're addressing the increase in visits and what was the second item? Medical release for process. And the medical release for process. Right, we have a motion to assess. And thank you so much. I actually had a few questions also. A pun discharge how many days of medication are provided up to seven days up to seven days. I thought the original contract was a higher number. And I understand they're not actually given the medication. They're given a voucher. Right. Okay. That's be that has become a real issue, I think, for folks in terms of actually having transportation, having ways to get to where they can get their medication. I was under the impression when people are being supplied days of medication, they're actually getting seven pills or 14 or however many it is. Rather than a voucher, wouldn't that be cheaper? So the problem we run into is that they leave it all hours of the nights and days and different times. So we can't just dispense meds without like being in proper bottles or the push cards out. So we have to get them from a pharmacy so we can get like the child-resistant stuff though. So we have to actually get a voucher and send it to the pharmacy for them. We pick any pharmacy they wanna go to. Right, I understand that. And so there's no communication between you and the jailist of when somebody's gonna be discharged because it could just happen anytime, I guess. We do have, we have comfort, but it's like right then. I.K. this guy's leaving today. We have some planned discharge, I'd say this guy's saying, it's let's say 30 days or 60 days, and that's a different story. We can order those meds, but people that are leaving like right away, or even in 24 hours we can order them from a backup pharmacy and get them to them, but sometimes we pour in and out before we can get the meds to them. Excellent. I really was pleased to hear about the assistance and enrolling in the Affordable Health Care plans. That's, I think, a critical and very helpful service. I do know that two inmates in the past year died from heart-related issues. What is the process for screening for things like that? I know you take blood pressure when somebody comes in and you may ask about their medical history. How else would you be able to prevent that type of death? That was very sad to me. I know some heart-related issues come in very suddenly. We would not be able to do that. But heart attack is heart attack. But I asked the question, nobody could answer it because I guess it was a medical, the sensitive, you know, hippo thing. But, you know, if those patients were on medication, had they been screened, had, you know, what, you know, was their root cause analysis done on, you know, how, why those patients died, if there was anything, it could have been done to prevent that. Do you have any just comments on that? Like, when they come in, they get a 14 day physical. So they come in and then take, they get a complete screening, answer all of our questions and stuff like that, then also in 14 days, and nurses, everybody that is still there. And we do ask, there's a whole set of screening questions that we do with a 14 day physical. If they are already reporting that they're on medications or have blood pressure issues, or we notice that their blood pressure is high, obviously when they come in during the intake process, we set them up with a chronic care appointment with our provider. And at that time, we tried to do baseline labs and the EKG obviously for cardiology, but there's different like baseline stuff that we do before they are seen in our chronic care. And they see the provider. So if they come in reporting anything or we see a problem with the blood pressure, we monitor blood pressure and send them over to the provider to be seen. Perfect. Thank you. That was the answer I was hoping to hear. And then finally, our medical records retained for the inmates. So if you have return inmates or up to seven years and then and those are made available with all the proper forms to doctors outside. Okay. Yeah. All right. Those are questions I have. All right. We have motion and a second. Do we have any further comments on the commission? I'm just going to ask if we could add to the motion that since we're having that 90 day return if we might also ask Trinity to return with the goal there goal setting for the good food purchasing program in the 90 days to. Sure. Yeah. Thank you. That three part motion. Thank you. Alright. Excellent. Alright. Since we have a motion on the floor we'll take public comment. Are there any public comments to the motion? Anthony Johnson Madam Chair, I just have a quick question. We're prepared now. Has it been five years already? I think when we brought them on, it was a five year contract. So we at the end now, we're looking to modify the contract. What's going on with this? I'm not sure. I'm trying to follow this. So I know we brought them on with a five year contract. So What's the deal we're going to wait to this five year contract expired and we're going to go and do another request for what was what's the plan of the commission? Thank you, Mr. Johnson Hello county commissioners. There are some letters here from people who are in the incarcerated system that may highlight and shed some information about the suffering in the carceral system that has to do with the nutrition and mental health that you have also discussed with Meridian and then also with their medical services. There's just some like quotes that I've underlined from these letters. Can you introduce yourself? I'm Lee Hoffman. Thank you Lee. In one letter they say they have never replaced filters and the water fountain most water fountains are broken or removed from the pods. They also talk about the food. They only have two hot meals in one bag for dinner so it sounds like the hot hot cold. And they say that the servings are very small. They're only provided milk to drink once a week. In the dinner bags most days consist of meat that smells and tastes like raw hot dogs with bread or PB&J which cannot satisfy the appetite of any grown man or woman. It is just that and then they continue on and they talk about the commissary. They said it is just that the jail will not approve. They ask for more stuff in the commissary to supplement the diet that is given by Trinity or well-path the food one We are told by commissary workers that even they have the means to provide hot food sales if approved by the jail But the jail denies us the opportunity to And another letter from an inmate They talk about, they want to start, their food is not good at all. The breakfast is the best meal of the day. Dinner is always sandwiches, peanut butter and jelly, or bologn day, and the drains stay stopped up. And in a few other letters that I have, they talk about bladder problems due to, I believe like, I mean, it doesn't sound like they have very adequate access to water. So understanding that might be why they have that, but they talk about how they're only lucky enough to get Advil sometimes. They aren't seen for those very specific problems. They say the nurse is always late with medication if you are lucky enough to get anything. They don't let you see any specialists or doctors unless you're pregnant. I personally have had over 45 surgeries and have an incurable bladder disease but don't even get ibuprofen back. They also comment on how the lights are on on night and they're only turned off. Only a few are turned off so they are also getting inadequate sleep. If you can keep the comments to the things that just affect will path us. Yes. Okay, well, your time's up. So maybe somebody else can continue. Hello, my name is Kai Christmas. The presentations we saw looked really good, but I've just read several letters that contradict so many of the things that I've seen. So I would like to read a few of these. Just a few minutes, like 10 minutes ago, we heard someone say that there should never be a situation where drugs aren't available. And in this letter, this person talks about how their medicine that they take for bipolar was, they were told it's too expensive to be carried and it just hasn't been available to them. And a lot of these different letters, I read four letters, all four of them mentioned that the male portions are way too small. In the presentation, it said 2700 calories, 2700 calories should be enough. So I'm wondering where is the discrepancy here if we're being told there's 2700 calories being fed. But all of the letters I have read have... it's just not possible to still be so hungry and be told that these portion sizes are so small. One of the quotes that I read is, we don't receive dinner, but a snack. Like the amount of food is equivalent of that of a snack, not a full meal. On one of the slides, it said that no bottled water is given. That sounds really great, but in one of the letters I read, it mentions that the only water available is that of the letters I read it mentions that the only water available is that of the toilet water. There's reports of moldy tasting water, of bugs in the water, of the food being moldy. And I want to mention that all of these letters are dated within the last six months. So these are current issues that are happening. Earlier, I think Commissioner Alfred mentioned like something to the effect of like interviewing inmates. I think that's a great idea. What we are being told from these presentations and what the inmates are saying are not matching up. So if we can hear from the people that are actually experiencing these conditions, I think that would shed much... I think that would shed a lot of light about what is actually going on. Let's see. I've got like 15 seconds left. Let me see if I can find a quote that I want to read. There's a lot of good stuff in these letters. I think you guys provided copies of those letters to us a while back. I think these are different. Okay, maybe. There's a clerk. You want to sign up? Thank you. Yeah, if you wanted to give us copies to the clerk, we can make copies of whatever you have, and they'll be distributed to us. Okay, I'll scan them and email them into you all. That would work. Okay, would you like to speak? Yeah, hi. This is Kimbera from Florida Prisoner Solidarity. I just wanted to respond to some of the things that were presented on with Trinity, obviously, from the letters it's inconsistent on if this meal calorie thing is happening, if the cold has even happening, I would suggest you all maybe even just show up on like surprise and have a meal with people in the chow hall, see what's actually happening. And also to say that bottled water is and served is obviously not a great thing in this conditions when the mold is in water and there's not really sanitary water options alternatively at the jail. I would also be interested in knowing specifically what the booking meals look like because that's a completely separate operation than one, two, and after intake. And to only say that there's healthy options for staff but not giving healthy options specifically for people that are stuck there is not really great to me. And then as far as accreditation that doesn't really mean much to me because it's usually just people that are exactly like them reviewing each other and just, you know, benefiting it. As far as well path, well path is one of the largest providers across the country. And that's not a good thing. They have so many lawsuits against them, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of lawsuits, many deaths related to neglect of care. And that is specifically under staffing. And like they're just, they're never staffed. They're anywhere across the country. That's a constant issue. So I wouldn't expect that to change. And I would be like extremely concerned about the welfare with people inside because of that. Also, yeah, I mean they're strained to do because but they're doing what they're supposed to be doing right they're paid but they're strained and that's their problem and like the people inside are gonna suffer. Also, they're just constantly making undercuts and cost saving measures and changing meds out or refusing to transfer people to emergency care at the hospital. All of these things are happening so that they can save a dollar. Also I would say that there's a specific example that I've been helping out with of this man needing glasses. He's been calling us to get glasses. He has Medicaid, all of this to help cover it. He was told to go to the chaplain that maybe it's his own reason that didn't work out. We've been through hell trying to help him get glasses. He sent us his script. He had finally seen an automatry at the jail. He sent then mailed us or his script. He had only seen an automatry at the jail. He sent then mailed us or his script. We went to Walmart to get it for him and then tried to pick it up from his property. And then to return the glasses, it was this whole ordeal and the jail gave inconsistent information on how to make it happen. But that's a thing that we just have elected to do out of care. This should be an operation that's already happening inside the jail. like people he can't see. Like how is he going to live there until he gets out in six months if he can't physically see. So just, it's inadequate. Everything is inadequate and the answer is not new construction. The answer is not large companies. The answer is releasing people from the jail. Thank you, Kimber. I appreciate all of those comments. Fisher, Prisia? I guess I would really love to hear from the contractors to respond to some of those things. But I guess a question for the Sheriff's Office. What is the situation with the water fountains in the jail? Can you talk about if we maybe don't have adequate water fountains or if our facilities folks need to deal with water fountain breakages or? Madam Chair, Sheriff Gainey, the water fountains are not consistently broken. There's been some broken water fountains. Quite frankly, the new facility directs of Travis Parker has been very responsive. And those are fixed on a constant basis we've had a number of complaints that you know allegations that our staff went and looked at within five minutes that there's a bunch of fly-escomment from a drain that was not the case there have been cases of that in the past but those water fountains are either working majority of them already affixed in a relatively quick manner and you feel like there's adequate water frountains across the jail for everyone to have access to clean water? Well they're adequate based off what's there in the jail obviously it's not one for everybody so they have to use them in terms but yes I do. And the contract terms I think we're on a two year contract? Yeah, second year or three year contract. Second year or three year contract. Second year or three year contract. We've asked for annual presentations for that so that we're just getting a presentation and an update so that we have opportunity to ask questions and the public has opportunity to ask questions. And we, you know, are educated when the next contract comes up so that, you know, when we issue that RFP, we know what to look for, yeah. And I, regarding the calories and the, perhaps what we could do is get a sample menu with their calorie accounts for a month of service or maybe a month every quarter or something like that. We could see the calorie counts and what's being served and have a better understanding of why it may be. I do think that the sandwich cold meal as the last meal of the day and probably early in the evening is probably a challenge because that means they're going from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. or whenever else they eat their breakfast with only a sandwich and whatever else is in that bag I don't know but that would be difficult for me to only have a peanut butter sandwich and then go to bed and sleep all night and wake up in the morning for breakfast. Just a thought on the meals that may be the issue that we're targeting here with the amount of calories and things. And I just want to say overall, this commission is a commission that cares very deeply about the inmates who are in our jail. Most of them haven't been convicted yet, first of all. Second of all, serving their time, being locked away from their family, from their friends, not being able to see their people all the time, not being able to do their jobs. That's their debt to society. We don't need to punish them further by not having them be hungry or having them be in substandard conditions. And I know that our jail staff know that and understand that. And I know you're working really hard on that. And we hope our contractors are too. And if there's something that we need to do to increase the level of care so that those inmates are getting everything that they need. We want to hear it. We're happy, I think, all of us are happy to figure out what we can do to make sure that our level of care of people who are under our care is the top level that it can possibly be. That's all I want to say. Thank you. Thank you. Sheriff, I would like to come to the jail on Friday and maybe join a pod for lunch. You're welcome. And anytime Breco's lunch in dinner commission. Okay. I would like to come and join a pod for lunch and be able to randomly speak to some inmates. Absolutely. So, lunch is between 10 and 11, so if you have either by 10, we'll get you as many inmates and as many lunches you would like to eat. All right, thank you. A response from the well-path regarding eye glasses care, what level of eye glass care do we provide, and then the nurse being late with medications and also access to specialist doctors for people who have some kind of occurring or acute condition. So the process for eye glasses, we have an eye glass or optometrist who comes to the jail once a month. They do eye exams. They refer to the, our patients are referred to them by level need. We see them. We write prescriptions for their eye glasses, and then it's placed in their property, and they have family members that will come get it and get it filled, or they can bring their eye glasses up to the jail, and we can put them in their property, and we give them to them. What if they don't have a family member to fill their prescription for them? The chaplain will have been reaching out and helping us and covering for the glasses. Okay. That process just seems a little like not kind of like I'm with the prisoner's authority here like the fact that you have to like find someone outside to fill a prescription for you in order to get your eyesight taken care of seems a little over the top to me like we should there should be a way that I mean you are giving them their other medications and you know if they have dental care needs you're taking care of those correct I don't know why I care would be a need different why you wouldn't get them the prescription that they need versus expecting somebody else to just go pick that up for them. I don't understand like the we do give them the prescription they need. We also get them, or that we get the orders for the lenses. It's the product of getting them made and brought into the jail. That's the big thing. It's like how we're going to get the glasses to the jail. I'm sure that well path could contract with an eyeglass provider. We have millions of them all over the country and they would be happy to provide you with eyeglasses at the jail. Okay. You know, if you had prescriptions that you were getting, I just don't understand why someone should have to go pick up their eyeglasses. I'm out of tune in that RFP process. We can surely increase those things. We'll talk to the commission. We'll talk it in. I'm sure there's a cost associated with it, but we'll build it in. Yeah, we'll like hearing aids as well. Okay. Any further questions? Specialists and doctors. Yeah. Specialists and docs. Did you have a question on specialists? So they see our primary care provider here and they make referrals. We use North Florida, we use Shans. They can see any kind of, we have people that see transplant doctors. We have dialysis patients. They go to any specialty, endocrine, cardio. Once they see our provider, they have to write a referral just like anywhere else to see a specialist and we've completely referral and we send it over for them to get an appointment. I know some of my referrals have taken two or three months has that an issue with you guys as well. All right. Um, but I'm glad to know that you're doing that and I'll be always interested in hearing in any inmates experience and how this all goes, you know, real life on the ground is sometimes different than what we are intending to be. So I am looking forward to having the conversations on Friday with folks and hearing what their experience is and ground truth and everything. I know all of this is a challenge with short staffing and everything else, but ultimately our goal is to give our inmates an experience that helps them not want to come back to jail, but also prepares them for life in a community in a healthy way so that when they leave the jail they are prepared to do the things they need to do to not return. So it's like Commissioner Prisius said being incarcerated is punishment enough. We don't need to add to that by not taking care of folks. So Commissioner Cornel, I was just going to ask, do we have the data that shows of the folks that entered the jail who's ultimately adjudicated or found not guilty? Is that something that, because I completely agree with Commissioner Prisbee's point, but I would be curious to see, is that data that's easy to get? Yeah okay all right thank you. Yeah go look forward to getting that. All right so we have a motion we've got any further comments seeing none all in favor of the motion signify by saying aye aye any opposed like sign all right we've concluded that item we are now going to take a break until, oh, did you have some more comments? Yes, Madam News, it will be real quick. Fakus, perfect timing. Some of you comments you just had. As we mentioned, I mentioned to the commission on a number of occasions, we have some serious maintenance concerns at the jail. We are trying to work through those. There's been some leaks because we wanted to pause that 3G to just renovate it. Painting it in all of the things. We've had some seepage. That was not addressed. Recently, Mr. Parker, when Outshave vinder, came in, we bust it through the wall with those pipes are, and we found the problem. And we have an example of that problem with you today. This was in the walls of the jail, and that's only one pod, quite frankly, and we're concerned about others that we've seen similar type of sea pitches that is going on within the Department of Jail. So there are some significant maintenance issues that are ongoing at the Department of Jail that obviously we're concerned about. Not only for the inmates, but our staff who also spend their day and their nights in the Department of Jail. So I want to get that on the record. And I appreciate that. And I do look forward to putting together some team to address and create a strategic plan as to what we need to do to go forward. Madam Manager. Madam Chair, I was going to say that this is something that we are in constant communication with the Sheriff's Office about and Mr. Parker is Working closely with them and we are working on a plan that we can bring something to the board We are aware of the cost of a new jail which may be Overly difficult given what the costs are right now out there I mean half a billion is kind of the number that's been floating around. So something shy of, we'll bring some options, but something shy of that unfortunately is probably going to be the more realistic option. I have thoughts about all of this, which is why I think we need to have some talks at the PSEC and other places about the right way to go forward with this because we need to solve the problems, but we also need to look at the way that our inmates live in these dormitory situations and look at the challenges involved with that. I think that there can be a strategic plan going forward and I look forward to working on something like that. Mary, I just, I do hope that we as a board will have that conversation. Absolutely. And we can kind of decide as a board what our goal is. And I, and then obviously we want to have the way in of the, the sheriff's office who have to manage that facility and the judges and everybody else from the PSEC but I think getting on the same page is a little bit here. Oh absolutely and that's one of the things that I'd hope to talk about and I retreat is the whole jail system so I think that all of the all of everything from recidivism to medical care to all the things. What I do hope we're talking about at the PSCC is how we get our jail population down. Yes. That's what we really need to be talking about at the PSCC, how we can work with the judges and the state attorney and the sheriff's office to reduce our jail population as a whole. Yes. I imagine I think all those are absolutely necessary and critical, but obviously in the meantime we've got to operate a jail and we have a jail with pipes and drainage that looks like this. And this is indicative of the type of piping all over that jail that we got to address that immediately. While we have any discussions about what you repaired all, what you're talking about a new new facility that since much is 10 years away, this is happening today. I guess I got some 50-year-old pipe. Probably as old as the jail, some of the older parts of the jail, and that was only one of many pods that's out there. Yes, copper pipe has a 50-year lifespan. So Race Wall is Deputy Director of the jail. That pipe is about 30 years old. Well, then that's it's from 1994. It's part of the new jail that was built between $89 and that was recycled copper then. No, I'm just telling you I know this though. I'm really beginning late. Copper is weak. The left, yeah. As I've understood from facilities, some of the concerns they had is that previous employees with facilities were using acid-based drain cleaners that they believe found where the stoppage was but the acid sat there and eroding. Well you shouldn't put drain cleaners down drinking water pipes and waste pipes should never be copper that's crazy. Yeah waste pipes should have never been copper that's just nuts. We don't argue with it. This is the situation. This is the jail that's got to be addressed. Sorry, that's my building my building background questioning the use of copper pipes and drain. Anyway, thank you for that update. All right, we are. Do we take a vote? No, we haven't. All right, we took a vote. We heard from the sheriff. We were going to take a break now. No, we did not vote. Oh, no. OK, I thought we'd go. OK, have we taken a vote? All in favor of the motion signify by saying aye. Any opposed, like, sign? All right, now we've taken a vote. We're going to take a break now until 4 p.m. Thank you. you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you the meeting back to order. The next item is the cap program. And that is my pages are all mixed up there. Okay, yes, RFA 25-198PM Community Agency Partnership Program, Evaluation Committee Award Recommendations for Physical Year 25-27. Good afternoon, Madam Commissioner. J. A. Thie, CapChoice's Program Manager. Back here again to talk about the RFA this year for CAP. And I wanted to start with a little bit of a review as you remember in February. I came to you and we looked at a little bit different evaluation criteria, trying to be a little bit different evaluation criteria, trying to be a little bit more subjective. And using the evaluation criteria and the newer questions resulted in higher scores and the evaluators were better under able to understand what the proposers were saying that they were going to do with their programs. In the initial go-around, a ratio of approximately 45% was applied to all of the funding requests, which you may notice is either much higher or much lower depending on how you look at it than we have had in years past. Typically, we've been around a reduction of 15 to 17%. So large funding requests, which this is the first year we have had what we would look at as excessive funding requests. Might result in looking at a dollar limit per future request. Applications by category were affordable housing at 15% of the applications, adequate food, 9% quality child care and education, 53% of the applications and quality health. Is that on the big screen? On the big screen? There you go. Thank you. I know. That's the only one I can see too. And quality health care at 23% of the applications. Mm-hmm. So I would like to very much thank the CAP evaluation team. There were 34 applications for them to screen, and if, you know, the applications for cap are huge. There is so much information for them to look at. Our values this time who I'd like to give a shout out to were Leah Vale-Hompton, Erica, INA, and Gautia Fernandez. As I said, they scored 34 applications in Open Gov. 31 of those were recommended for 100% funding. 2 were recommended for 75% funding, and 1 was not recommended for funding. They also attended public meetings to review their scores and proposed funding awards. Thank you again to the members of the Alliwation Committee. They provided us with outstanding service, a ton of expertise, commitment and determination. The next three slides kind of go over the applicant's funding request and where their funding would be if we apply that ratio, which is currently at between 44 and 45% of their request. So the first screen goes down to 100,000, then it's 100,000 down to 50,000 as you see on the right, we're at 44,000 at the 100,000. The last page, 50,000 down to a request of 14,000 from the Girl Scouts. Total Funding requests were 3.1 million. As you know, we have 1.35 million to give. We would like you to review the evaluation committee scoring recommendations. Give us some direction on finalizing those funding awards, what you would like to do with those. Delegate the signature authority to the County Manager for all of the awards regardless of amount. And authorize staff to negotiate contracts with the agencies that you recommend for funding. Okay. I believe we're gonna have some discussion about this. Mr. Prisya. Yeah. So I guess I'm I first I guess regarding the existing recommendation. I guys I want to say we have a major outlier that's causing us a big swing. I think it's unfair to call it an excessive request from staff to be honest with you because we told them to apply through this process when they came to us. So it's our fault is a board that we have that quote excessive request because we told them apply through cap and they've never applied through cap before and they're not a part of the sort of network of organizations that typically applies for cap so had no idea how this process works and probably didn't really realize that they would totally throw off the potential words for a bunch of other organizations with their requests. So I do feel like that's a little bit on us in terms of, yeah, in terms of that conversation. And I almost feel like we should just pull that out of this conversation for a moment and talk about just awarding all the other organizations based on the normal ratio and get that done and then have a conversation about AMI kids and have a conversation about a cap for the future. So regarding that, I guess I have a couple questions for staff one is, do we know what the percent funding in the past typically is, like what that ratio varies around and generally? Yeah, it's typically, we have to reduce it by 15 to 17 percent, has been in the last two RFAs. So everyone gets reduced by 15 to 20 percent essentially on average. Right around in there, him. Okay. Sure. The government manager, TJ White, actual numbers for the 2019 FYCAP funding was .78 and the one from the .22 FY funding without pulling out the low scores which was recommended by this board. It was .85 and we pulled them out with the low scores and was .57. So those were the final ratio of numbers that we applied to those agreements. And then do we know what the, you mentioned this to me but do we know what the average request spread is in the past like the average request and the request spread for the past applications like the total amount that was requested in 2019 was $2,157,000 the total amount that was requested for the 22 year was $3,106,900. So give or take with some pennies in there, but that's the total number that was requested during this period. Can we average individual requests or do we know what they are? I mean, it looks like, when I'm looking at this, it looks about nine of them are over 100,000, which is about 25%, 26%. The requests from the repeaters are pretty typical of what they have requested in the past. It may have gone up a little bit. One of the other things that we're having, a little bit of difficulty in giving you an answer to that is because we asked them to combine their requests this year. So for instance, there's a couple of agencies that in years past would have made for requests for four different programs. They said rather than doing, you know, changing an end to a but, combine your programs and make one request. So we're not doing four different contracts. So overall, the requests are pretty typical with what they have been in the past. They may have gone up like 5%, but not much more than that. OK. Well, I guess to my colleagues. So I guess I would ask that maybe we have the conversation about AMI kids support funding and what that looks like separately from this and that we try to look at the recist of the recommendations and apply the ratio the way we normally would without AMI kids in consideration right now. It just throwing things off so wildly that it doesn't really make a lot of sense to approve it as it stands, but I think applying a cap after the fact is also not really fair to the other organizations that applied. So that's my request on all my other colleagues think secondarily would be to discuss the idea of a cap. I think it looks like about 25% of our organizations ask for somewhere in the neighborhood of $150,000 a year. The remaining of them are under that. So it feels like I guess a starting place would be that $150,000 cap, because that would get all the organizations that traditionally apply in their maximum amount that they tend to apply for. Doesn't mean that they're going to get all that again, and they might get 70% of that or 60% of that. But that feels like it's a fair cap in terms of what I'm looking at in terms of the spread. And then the last thing I would say is, once again, I would love to see us expand cap. Every year we have about three, we always have about double the asker about, I guess at least 25% more of an than what we have got. It does feel like these organizations are those organizations on the front lines to the point of Meridian and peaceful paths. St. Francis House homelessness. Literacy which is a priority for us. So many of the things that are priorities for us are covered in this cap program. It just feels like the conversation about increasing the percentage should be had. Thank you. Madam Chair, can I request that when we talk about the cap for cap, if we could clarify whether that's a cap on the request amount or a cap on the award amount because there's two different things. Good point. Yeah. Cap on the request. I think it's a, for me, it would be a cap on the request amount. They can, they can, they can have a program and show a budget that's larger than that and show our, our portion is that amount, but I would say it's a request cap, not a award cap. I mean, it ends up being the same thing into the, into the day. I guess if they got 100%, we happen to have enough money to give everybody 100%, it would be the award cap too, but that's never gonna happen. So. Was this analysis done based on the reward cap? An award cap? We're on a request cap. This one that we're looking at here. That was done based on a request cap. Another request cap. Okay. Okay. Commissioner Cornell. Okay. Thank you Madam Chair. So for my colleagues I'm on the $100,000 limit spreadsheet. But before I get into that let me just make a couple of comments. I believe we should have a cap on the request for the future. I think that number, if I'm looking at these numbers, should be probably 150,000. When I look at the organizations that requested more than that on that sheet, number 6 AMI Kids, which you want to separate out, Child Advocacy Center, which is the only of its kind, similar, single source, similar to Peaceful Pass. Same for Ancest House, which we all know is kind of a single source too. It's something that we've just spent millions of dollars to try to prevent. And you have mobile outreach clinic, which those are the four that requested more than 150. Which is the only clinic. Yeah, so to your point, Commissioner, I think the AMI discussion, you could actually kind of pull all these single sources out, have another discussion about it. I don't know if we want to do that today. I'm happy to kind of have some discussions and push this off and do it next meeting because I do agree with you. I also think that if you look at historically what was requested, what was awarded, we are obviously deficient in 1.35. I'm happy to increase that this year to 150, 1.5 million for three years because we're going to at least be there probably after our strategic plan and I'm ready to do that today. So I think that also kind of helps solve a problem. And I think we need this probably kind of be somewhere in that 78 to 85 percent range that we've historically been for the last six years. I don't know if I'm ready to award that today because I think staff would need some direction to go back and try to figure those things out. Now with regards to AMI kids, are they unique? So I agree with you. We shouldn't penalize them. We told them to do this and here we are. But are they unique, a sole source like Child Advocacy Center, like PACE Center for Girls, but they just had a real federal state funding issue. Is that right? So they did have a federal state funding issue and they did not in their application indicate where the rest of their funding was coming from. They had a budget in excess of $1 million and it asked us for about half of it, but there wasn't an indication where the rest of the money was going to come from. Yeah. Yeah. They do have, I mean, they're providing a school within a school kind of situation. We do have a couple of those, not necessarily, for this population. So I think that would, from a procurement standpoint, maybe be a single source rather than kind of a soul source situation. Wait, single source, soul source. What's the difference? So soul source would be from a procurement standpoint. That's the only person that does this, like, period. So they would be like- Like, how I would have a consentor. More like peaceful past is the only domestic violent shelter, right? like periods, so they would be like. I can't allow that because of the center. More like peaceful paths is the only domestic violence shelter, right? OK. Up. Soil sources, they're the only one that can provide the source. Single sources that we're choosing to use them as an option to do the thing, whether it's for standardization, whether it's for continued operation and function. New world, for instance, we put out a solicitation selected at vendor, now we're moving operationally with it. That amount of work that it would take to move. Of the 34 agencies, which one would you classify as sole source? Well, they have, well, I would, these are all classified to me as 501C not for profit organizations, more so than a singular sole source procurement type. I understand. You may not be able to answer that question, but Madam Andrew, can you answer that question? No, I was going, well, let staff answer that. I was going to make a suggestion to you about when we could bring this back. Are you thinking September 3rd? I am, because that agenda, if you just saw that, was quite sparse. And I am because that agenda, you just saw that with quite sparse. So I just looked it up, yes. And I just spoke with TJ and we can be ready with that. So but whatever information you need or would like and we'll just have staff amend that agenda. Yeah, so where I am, so that's great. Where I am and I appreciate the providers being here. And I see a number of folks that have done a lot of work to get us here, but I don't want to also rush to this decision and then have a three year that we got to live with it. Where I am commissioners is have staff look at the first of all, let me back up. 31 of the 34 getting 100% means we've got a bunch of awesome providers. So I think that's really evident in why I'm also feeling like we need to allocate more resources here, commissioners, in my opinion. Let me just, I should have started with that. Where I am is that I think we should be asking staff of the 34 providers who are sole source in your opinion and bring that back to us so that we can have a discussion about how those organizations were impacted by the state and federal things that have happened. And perhaps looking at our dollars that we have put aside related to, it's their in reserves, it's our per dollars and it's one-time dollars, but it could help us bridge for the next three years. So having some of that money available and I don't know where it comes from yet for those entities. The rest of them I think we need to get somewhere to 70, that 78% number with a total of 1.5 million instead of 1.35 million. So that would be an increase in cap, 150,000. And that's as far as I've gotten in the last 48 hours reviewing all this stuff. And I do want to kick it to September 3rd because I kind of want those answers and then have that information because it's a three year decision. It's not a one year decision and it's not a to me, to me, this is really, really important and I would love to have it after a strategic plan. I think what will happen though is if we can go to a million five this year, then in our strategic plan, we can adjust years two and three if we increase funding. That's where I am. But I'm open to hearing suggestions. Mr. Prissy. I'm not trying to be confrontational here, but I just want to remind you that you said the same thing. The last time we had this conversation. This conversation we had, this conversation, when we were in cap the last time, and I said we needed to increase it because we had the same thing, and you were like, absolutely, and it's important. And then when it got down to the wire, we said it's good enough because budgets are increasing, and so that 1% is getting to be a bigger number, and we're trying to increase it. And I guess I'm just, I want us to, I just, I'm okay with us going to one five. I just want us to make the decision to tell staff we want to increase cap if that's what we want to do and have it be part of the budget process so that it's, it's a regular part of the budget process and we give that to them now and they do it instead of us like shifting it at the end. Do you know what I mean? That's the part that's frustrating for me is just like. I'm happy to live with 1.35 this year and do it next year. I'm happy to do that. I think we have organizations that are. They need it. Yeah, I mean, I'm happy to. In huge needs. That's why I'm saying one time on it, because until we have what I guess I should have done last year and what you just said, I think it is part of the budget process next year. But we also, I mean, I've been doing this now 10 years and I was on the CAP committee for two years before that and we never came up with lots of CAP the request until right now because so I'm continuing to learn of our flaws in the process. So you want to do nothing today. You want to kick the whole thing to the third or you want to just kick the cap conversation and the budget conversation to the third. So I think we can adjust cap 150,000 and not crush our budget in September. Okay, because I think that's moving money from fund balance or reserves. And we can make that decision September 3rd. I'm more interested in making sure that the organizations understand in for the three years that instead of getting 78% of what they requested for the last six years or getting 40%, that's like, that just doesn't work for me. It just doesn't work. So I think we have to fix that with these awards. This year. You guys, that's why I was hoping we could pull AMI out and have a separate conversation because I do think the other piece is they're asking for half of their budget. It's the fault of the state and it's a question of that. I don't have a sense of that organization's overall need, they're a national organization that provides funding locally. I don't have a sense of what that national organization has the capacity to fill gap out. Like I don't have a lot of information about this ask, which is really big compared to all the other asks, which are in keeping with what they typically ask for. So I guess I just feel like we asked AMI kids to go through this process. I didn't realize what it was going to, we didn't realize, I don't think what it was going to do to the process or how it was going to mess it up. I kind of feel like having a conversation with that advisory board for our gun violence prevention folks, talking with AMI kids and like understanding more about their role in that work with youth, understanding more about their national organization with capacity they have to fill some of this gap. So they're not just looking at us at the local level to fill a gap for a national organization and a state level like funding gap and that we have that dialogue and conversation separately from this process, but that we go ahead and award these organizations with their money today, with that additional $150,000 and we get it done. Yeah, I mean, I feel, may I respond? Please. I feel like AMI kids should be subject to, if we're going to use that $150,000 requested cap for like some of these others and redo this calculation, year that's what they're subject to even though they request the 533 to your point we can't blow the budget I also feel like AMI kids could qualify for children's trusts money and I am going to be directing that on that board because I want to help them as much as we can but I don't I don't feel like we should take them out like we did peaceful past this round. We should just, whatever the limits are, if we say 150 is the limit, that's what it is. And then we redo this so that the percentages are more in line with what we've done for the last six years. And none of these spreadsheets that I've reviewed do that. They don't do that. And so I think if we were to say to staff, tell us who the sole sources are. Apply a 150 cap to what their request was, even though we didn't ask them to cap that. And then increase the funding from 1.35 to 1.5 and rerun those numbers. And if there's a sole source pull it out so we can have a separate discussion, then I think we're going to get a lot closer to what we've done historically. I just want to give them the time to do that and meet the time to review it. And I ask, I guess one last thing is that I think that the word sole source is a misnomer because there's probably Other small nonprofits that could technically fill that goal But what you're saying is are they the majority or are you saying are they literally the only provider or are they the majority provider of this service in our community? All sources what I heard is sole sources. They're the only provider and we're not providing a service than we should be Gotcha, okay And I and I thought advocates on our thank Francis and and we're not providing this over to some, we should be. Gotcha, okay. And I thought advocates on our thank Francis and Peaceful Paz met that. I thought maybe I'm wrong. Commissioner Chesson. Thank you Madam Chair. I'm trying to remember when I came on in 2012 and I think I remember negotiating which ones we would give funding to. We turned it over to staff. Staff did a very good job in handling that. And so I remember when it comes back to us it'd be the totals in terms of they would do the site visits, they would do all of those things and give the credit where it was due. And we would just just vote on the funding. And now it seems like we want to go back to that old system that it was done. And it was very difficult for me as a commissioner. It was very difficult because now I'm picking and choosing agencies to fund. And that was no fun because all of them were good. But then I got to be the bad guy and cut somebody. And so when staff did it, they did an excellent job. They addressed all the needs. And so I don't want to go back to that. I think that what staff was doing, because then we became bad guys to certain agencies. Yeah, political. Right, right. Yeah, very political. And so I sort of like this way. You know, if it's a full source, I get it. But we should not treat them different than we treat all of the other agencies. I'm sorry. I just feel that way, because it's not fair. Because they can make that same argument that I'm sole source. And so what do we do now? So now we create a different funding for all those. I mean, come on guys, it'll be a never ending process here. So I'm just saying, so I'm just kind of concerned, you know, so everybody should be funded fairly the same. And that's just the way I see it, because they're all nonprofits, and they're all doing a service for the county. So that's just my feeling. So I don't think one should be treated different than the others. Because I went there and been there before. Mr. Chesa, can I ask a question? So we had, you know, AMI kids that asked for over a half million dollars, which was way, way, way, way more than all the other folks. What are your thoughts on how we treat that? Whatever percentages that were kind of like sort of like crossed the board for everyone. So you're not interested in capping the cap, like saying the maximum amount you can ask for is 200,000 or anything like that. And that's a good question. But I think that you're gonna create another situation where you're beginning to pick and choose who you wanna find and who you don't wanna find. And you're gonna give one more than you give the other. And it's like being a parent, you know, once I do for one child, I got to do the same for the other. So I mean, that's just the way I see it. So I'm... Yeah, so the way I'm here in that is, is you know, if we give this one agency, if we just do the percentages, they get, you know, way more of the funding, and that means we underfund everybody else. So by, you're, it sounds like you're in favor of, of like reducing the amount that they get so that the other people can be funded as we have been funding them, sort of way underfunding them, because of percentages, they and my kids would get like a huge chunk of the funding. Is that, am I making it, is it clear? So I have everybody, so everyone's on equal playing field not just one organization. Yeah right yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah I agree with that though. Yeah okay so I can pull the full source out because I hear your concerns and I remember those times actually. If we lowered the max request funding saying you couldn't request more than a million five that drops the requested funding from 3.1 to 2.5. If we then increase the funding from one point, yeah, 150, what did I say? Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Yeah. I'm sorry. 150, I'll do a math over it. If we let me start over. Let me start over. If we changed the requested funding to be capped at 150,000, then you would reduce numbers 6, 9, 20, and 32. And you would total about 2.6. 61960208. 2.6. And you would total about 2.6. 61960208. Okay, and then if we increase from 1.35 to 1.5, then 1.5 divided by 2.6 is 1% They'll have a calculator, right? We're all looking around, you know what I'm saying? That's 58%. Yeah. So, that is still 20% less than 78%. The other thing to consider is can AMI kids run their program on that kind of reduced funding, given what they had asked us for to begin with? And that's a separate conversation. Yeah, I mean. Right, so just for clarification, Ken, because I think you're trying to get to what we have awarded in the past as a standard practice, before we removed the low scores last year from one of the all the evaluators and we went through that process, it kind of happens, you know, it ended at .5757 so it was 57%. So in your logic that you'd be at 58% here versus 57 from the previous year. And then you do the allocations. Correct. We base that 58% spread evenly across all the awarded vendors with the 100% 75% based on what you're getting. Yeah, except this year is different because 31 of your 34% are 100%. Correct. Most years there is that conversation where the evaluation committee is awarding some of them don't get any funding. Last year there were three that didn't get any funding recommendation this year there's only one. There were nine that got 75% funding on the previous cap awards this year there's only two. And then there were 21 that got 50% funding. So the stricter and that's part of the board's direction was to evaluate the scoring amount on the previous one, which so that was changed from 100 to now 215, which increased the thresholds of where they could fall within the 100% range, 75% range. That's all part of the direction of what the change in the process was, same with adding SBE component to the CAHT process. So all of these factors play into how the whole range is at. Those are the two big factors that got us this time, guys, is that we didn't cap the request and we basically eliminated the 50% and almost everyone got 100%. And so it's just compress the percentage of what they're typically used to getting. And that shows me there's a big need, they're doing a good job, but there's a big need to your point, Commissioner Prizia, but that apparently is going to be a next year conversation, which is fine. I just do think that we need to make this three-year award with a clause that says if the board increases the cap funding, then you will be awarded your Pro Rata percentage in years two and three as long as, you know, we'll figure out how to do that because I think that's where we need to be. I don't know if staffs are ready to give us those numbers today. I mean, I guess if we have that policy conversation and we increase it at that policy meeting, then we could go ahead and increase it this year by the amount. But I guess I'm just throwing 150,000 on it may not be the right number to get us to that person and send your talk to the guy. Yeah, I think any amount is going to help though, because of those two things. Something's better than nothing. Do that or nothing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's the fair way like you said. Well, what action do we want or need to take today? You guys like the 150 cap? I do. Okay. I would move that we direct staff to redo this spreadsheet using our requested funding threshold of 150,000 that they review with those organizations. What one, part two, they review with those organizations if they could still utilize the funds with the reduced amount to your point J. Because if AMI says, well, I can't do it, then that would take out more money. And that they then redo this spreadsheet based on the previous board direction and presented to us at the September 3rd meeting. Do you want us to use 1.5 million? Oh, I'm sorry. And part three is that we increase from 1.35 to 1.5 for the first of three year contracts. Okay. We have a motion on a second. Is there any further discussion from the board? And that staff don't tell Tommy because he's not in the room. Where he's listening. He's listening. And he's got to find the 150,000. All right. I know that we have some agencies that have been able to wait to be able to comment on this. I apologize. I know many agency folks left. And I am very sorry about that. And hopefully they'll be able to return on September 3, in comment, if they would like. But now it's public comment. So if you would like to speak as a member of the public or as one of the agencies that may be receiving funding, please come forward and share your comments. Good afternoon. Jeff Lee, Director for Eldrick Air of Elisabeth County. First, I want to thank the cap and crew. And they have a tough task. They really, really do. I've been doing this for 23 years now, and it never gets easier any year. But I would speculate to tell you this. As people, the agency is that apply for cap on the regular. We kind of have a good feel for what's out there and what you can ask for and what you can't. And now that I kind of understand the outlier, right, and where it came from, I get it. But for eldercare, you know, we have a waiting list of 1400 people for services. I could have easily asked for $2 million. And in today's world, that would have borne everybody out of the water. But as a steward of county funds, it's my responsibility to ask for what I can use and still allow money for everybody else, right? And I think you're asking all the right questions in terms of how do we fix that? We may not be all fixed this year, but how do we fix it going forward? I think you're doing a great job. But I would speculate to say that you would, you need to add another layer. Personally I don't think as an agency we should rely on the county to fund a greater percentage of our operational budget or our program budget for which we're asking for funds. And while I think it's fine to put a dollar cap on the ask or the reward, you're not fixing the entire problem. If the county wants to be in the business of providing a service, then you need to be in that business of providing the service and not going through this process. For an agency to ask for money for funding, I think you should put a cab on the percentage of the operational budget for the program in which they are applying. Whatever that percentage is, you should give us more than 10% of our operating budget for this or 15, whatever number you come up with. But I think that also should be a way to put in to future application processes. I think it makes sense. It's fiscal responsibility for the county because you guys got a bunch of things that you're trying to do. You got to do, you got to fund what you have to have and you're trying to fund the things that you want to have. Right? So I would respectfully submit that you should think about that in your process and come up with a second where 10% seems to be logical to me. Maybe it's 15 but you ought to work that out and they should probably be I'll tell you historically even not this year but years past what the ask is versus what the operational budget is as a whole and see what those percentages are. I think that makes sense. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Lee. Additional public comment. I think well it is for some agencies and Good afternoon, Madam Chair, commissioners, staff. Thank you so much for even having this process. These are difficult conversations. I appreciate the care with which you are looking at all of the CAP decisions. And I've been here since the meeting started and really appreciate the care with which you're looking at all of the decisions for the county. I'm really impacted by a number of them, especially as I listen to Meridian talk about the number of children that they're surveying or the percentages that have different kinds of mental health issues. The Child Advocacy Center works exclusively with child victims in our community. And we're the only agency that only does that for children in the way that we do that, which uses a multidisciplinary team model and saves the county a thousand dollars a case for every case that we're working collaboratively our county and be productive citizens and not need some of the other services that you are working on with the jail and with Meridian later on down the road. So we're really looking at the prevention side of things. We're looking at definitely an intervention agency when there's been abuse neglect, abandonment, human trafficking, sexual abuse. But also, we don't want these children to be revictimized. And we know without good quality high level intervention, they will continue to be victims forever. And we don't want that to happen. So we've been able to show really good quality work and good quality performance and good quality performance measures with your funds. And so we appreciate that you acknowledge that that our center does that good work. So thank you all we enjoy partnering with you. Thank you. You might introduce yourself. Oh, I'm so sorry. I'm Sherry Kitchens. I'm the director of the Child Advocacy Center in Elatua County. Thank you. Thank you. Hello, Jonathan Leslie with Project Youth Build. I kind of want to echo some of the sentiments of two previous speakers. I know that you guys have a very tough job and really appreciate everything that the CAP team does and that the county does as a whole. I know there's needs, especially since COVID that are, you know, continuing to grow. And I think all of the nonprofits and the local community are experiencing that and we're no different. So I'm supportive of, you know, I think what you're talking about is reasonable and I appreciate you taking extra time to figure this out and to do it the best way. I can say real quickly that since job core close, we are the only provider in the city of Gainesville and in the county that works exclusively without a school youth. So for young people that drop out of school, we are the only program that's designed specifically to help them. Not that that makes what we do any more important than what anyone else does, but I think you'll find that there's a lot of organizations in town that have a niche that they're doing something that no one else really does. So, and we all work together very closely, and I know the two previous speakers have need well and above what they ask for, and same goes with us. We try to be reasonable, and I think we were in our request so I'm appreciative of what you guys do and look forward to hearing the outcome on September 3rd. Jonathan I don't see your name on this list. We're under because we have a DBA under Florida Institute for Workforce Innovation. Oh, there you are. Yes, okay. Thank you. I was like, oh no. Yeah, no, we're on there. Thank you. And I like to comment Jonathan is a pickleball extraordinaire and champion of some tournaments that he's played in. He's a good pickleball. I don't support in state parks though. We're going to talk about that. I commission comment. I think a lot of us have a commission. All right, additional public comment. And Madam Chair, I don't think the boards decided specifically on anything for September 3rd. I heard him comment about making a decision September 3rd. I don't think we're. I thought I put that in the motion to come back on September 3rd if you all have time to do that. Okay, so that's so that's when you want to make the final decision on the funding. Yeah, I mean I think we need to make it before the budget, right? Correct. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So can I ask a question? What is it that you wouldn't change about our decision today that you would see on Just redo this fetching and then we can see the award amounts. I don't know what the award amounts are Okay, cuz I was confused cuz your motion said a hundred gave the numbers But they have what the award they have to redo the 150 madam chamber and run to the minzroom while I run my spot I'm gonna run to the men's room right now If you don't mind can you do that because we interrupted you have a We interrupted you it was public comment and we started talking. I'm sorry Thank you, ma'am. Sure Anthony Johnson You know, I always feel bad when I come up to talk. I mean, I don. I don't intend for my comments to be in a type of aberration or anything, but what I have to say, I have to say. I got to write out a big check in November. So I feel that at least I'm paying for it. So I'm not letting you take me in and bearing with me, tolerating me because for free, I'm writing your big check out, so. But I know, True, so lighten up. I know when you have these type of conversations, this is your wheelhouse. These type of conversations is your wheelhouse and cap, cap doors, but cap those, and all the other nonprofits. They do what they do. And they will do it in perpetuity. OK? There's no end and side for what they do. There's always be need because of the policies that you implement. So to me, when I hear these type of conversations they have these type of public hearings. It's painful. It's painful. I mean because basically it's infinite regress. You know it's what it is. Okay they come each year and I've been here many years watching them come and you all go and hang all over some kind of posse money, a solution for them and they get that and then they'll be back next year and they'll keep coming back whenever. And they do what they do, cap does what it does and I mean, it doesn't need for that. But I just feel that the county, your policies, you have one quip, you have one arrow in your quip basically. And programs that cap and like mine, like programs, they're here to solve problems, social problems that exist. But there are other ways to solve these problems that go beyond what these people do. OK, they, I mean, they're there to clean up. And they will continue to clean up. But I would love to see your board, you know, move in a different direction somewhat when it comes to solving problems, not basically shippering problems or managing problems, solve them. That tells you that you're doing your job. Okay, to just continue a fun problem for projects and programs to just keep the problems going, that works, but that's not good. Thank you, Mr. Johnson. I want to go take that. If there was a way we could solve some of the problems that some of these agencies address, that would be absolutely amazing to me. But I do get your point. All right. So I guess I'm just wondering. I mean, the only thing that we're going to apply is that $150,000 over these organizations, a percentage and then- That's the number of 1.5. Right, and then apply that percentage across these organizations. And then staff has to say to the organization, with 150, could you still do what? Oh, so you're waiting to see if some of these organizations fall out and the money is more. Yeah. I mean, either way, can't we just move to do that today? Yeah, we are moving to do it today. Well, I'm fine. I'm fine to do that. OK. I guess it's one of seeing that if we, and then the conversation is about cap for the future. Yeah, or I think there's a number of options. Can we do that? TJ, I mean, you could redo this red sheet in an hour. It's just a matter of contact in those already. Correct. If the direction is that, if the board's direction is to increase it by $150,000 and total of the 1.35, and then put a cap on the amount of $150,000 requested amount of $150,000 and amount of $150,000 and then apply that new ratio to the amount that's awarded, that is going to give us a finite number. Whether the company, if a vendor comes back and says, we can't do it, we're not asking all the vendors whether they can do it. If they're with a loose rate of 58%, my recommendation is probably in line with Mr. Prizzy as that. That would increase everyone's ratio. Everybody's gonna go up, but they're still not gonna get their total asking value regardless. And so it's either they can or can't do it based on the funding or recognition that you're making. They just get a little more. Okay, so I would modify my recommendation for that. And then does everybody understand the motion? Yes, okay. And then we make the decision today, and then at the September 3rd meeting, or whenever you can, just tell us what the award amounts for all the agencies are so that we have that number. And if we wanna have additional discussions then, based on maybe any feedback we get from those agencies, we're sure we're gonna get it. We're sure we're going to get it. You can't get it. Then we can also discuss that on December 3rd. So it won't? Well, about AMI kids or about anybody. I am concerned about that. Yeah, but I mean, to Commissioner Pritziest Point, we're setting the budget in September. So any of those discussions have to be what's the funding source. I agree agree on that too but I do want to understand the repercussions of our decisions. Okay so I'll modify my motion so that and then yeah to make the awards is it the second I agree yeah yeah yeah all right all right we've you good with that? Yeah, I'm good. Yeah, OK. All right. Well, we've had a motion. We've had public comment. My only question is, do you want something on the September 3rd agenda? And what is that? Because the agenda's been published. We were going to move this whole item over there. But we can add something to the board the final numbers. Okay, and not put it on the third agenda. We have questions we can bring in. I am interested in hearing what the repercussions to, if there's any major repercussions to any of these organizations that are in this. We can, we can put an update in the email as well if we're aware of it. And just a reminder to the board that we do have a process now for any either monies that agencies say never mind we're not going to accept which we've had because they say we can't do it with what you're offering or that are unused we now have that supplemental process so people don't have to wait three years where we take that pot of money and distribute it for one time capacity building capital needs those kinds of things so we do already have that part in place as far as funding that is not utilized. Okay all right thank you all right well let's take the boat on the motion all in favor of the motion signify by saying aye aye any post-like sign all right we have a cap. Adam chair the housing item can that be pushed to after the public hearing or do we need to do that I was just about to ask that because it is eight minutes to five I don't know what so we so we do have staff that's here waiting that would not that is prepared now to have them you know wait for the evening or that's not sure how long that's going to take we could bump that to the third if you'd rather that's a staffing thing internal I hate to make everybody I know well I don't want to make them sit through a public hearing that's probably going to take a while. But I expect the public hearing to take a while. And I also expect the how I don't want to rush the housing discussion. Puppet to the third. Is the can as are is there any part of the housing discussion? Is there any decision making that needs to happen right now? It isn't a policy discussion, though. It isn't action item, right? So if there's one. Yeah, I don't know that one week makes a significant difference unless Ms. Tuck comes up and says that. Before you answer, you get to go home based on your answer, or say. Chair, the only issue would be we did attach the application for a year of review for the infrastructure sales surtex projects, so that would delay it by a few days. Okay, but I'm okay with that, yes, ma'am. I don't want to rush you. I apologized to you all for sitting here all day. I did not know the cap discussion and some of these other discussions would take so long. So thank you for this time, but I do want to give the housing discussion the time it serves so that we can make the best decisions on that. We'll take care of that. And as Madam Chair just says a reminder, we will need a 15 minute break before you start the 5 p.m Right, and that's the next thing so we will adjourn this meeting until 510 It's 510 adequate. Yes. Okay. We will re adjourn at 510 for the public hearing You need a motion to move this item to a future. Yeah. I would move that we need. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, just to administer it. Yeah. I would move that we move the affordable housing update 24.00763 to the next available meeting. Second. All right, we have motion a second. All in favor, is motion signify? I was saying aye. Aye. Any opposed, Like sign? OK. Manager and attorney comment can that also wait until after the public hearing? Yes. All right. This meeting is adjourned until 510. Thank you.