Joint Water and Climate Policy Meeting - Dec 01, 2025

call this meeting to order if i could get a motion to adopt the agenda second excellent any comments to the agenda hearing none all those in favor say aye aye all right next up is approval of minutes i believe they were attached when you were sent the agenda if anybody has any thoughts or comments otherwise i'll entertain a motion uh move to approve minutes from september 9th 2024 second august 4th yes and october 6th second motion a second are there any comments hearing none all those in favor of the motion say aye aye any opposed like signed okay motion september 9th of 2024. 25 oh good catch i thought that's what you said she did say 24 but it's what's it yeah correct dates um those were reviewed by the city clerk kristin on the city side um and there was an edit yeah so we need to so it's fine we're good okay okay all right um before we get out of business i just wanted to say a big thank you to our team for the climate action festival i don't know how many of you were able to attend but it was fantastic it was really well done thank you jenison thank you steve thank you stacy thank you to andy thank you to everybody who was a part of it sean everybody really it was it was such a fantastic event and i felt like the community really enjoyed it and i've heard a lot of good feedback and ideas and it was we had some good controversy some good like dialogue got people thinking about things so it was it was it was interesting but anyway thank you all i know that was a lot of work so just really appreciate it all right we are going to move on to our business discussion items the first up is our proposed meeting dates and if i could add to that in your backup it has the proposed dates and i missed august 3rd at one and those put that up on the little overhead there just because i don't think everybody has i think they just have the agenda with them now they might have looked at it and did not bring it thank you josh um like he's getting that let me do this so if we want to stick with staying on the mpto mpto is meeting monthly next year that's what they've got currently scheduled but we typically do every other month so this would stick to our every other month and would be two hours before mpto would be these proposed dates and times has um have those dates been run by um like latoya and all that to correspond with like conference schedules because the august 3rd looks suspicious to me i have not i first wanted to know if we wanted to kind of stick with that sticking with the mpto and then would reach out to um city and county support staff to get on calendars but typically um since everyone is at mpto those dates historically have been the easiest i remember there being a problem with the mtpo dates that's why i'm asking is there i don't but maybe it's fixed now i may have a conflict with the june 15th date but if i do i'll just have us someone else to chat yeah i think june june was already changed okay yeah that's good well if everyone's okay with these dates can i get a motion to adopt our calendar for 2026 so moved any comments hearing none all those in favor of the motion say aye aye aye any opposed like sign all right we have dates for the coming year and i'm sure there may end up being an adjustment or two but at least we have something to work with which is always thank you um next up very exciting we have our countywide bicycle pedestrian master plan update and i believe jessica is here to share that with us oh since an audience she's gonna hide excellent let her do it and i think you can just use the arrow to go through or i can do it here thank you all right so good afternoon everybody is can you all hear me okay perfect so i'm here to present the update to the countywide bicycle pedestrian master plan um and my name is jessica klutz um i'm the senior transportation planner for alachua county um so just to give you an overview of what we're going to be discussing um first we'll go over the project itself uh the public engagement that has been done so far our draft goals and policies for the plan draft program recommendations and our draft network and projects um so first really quickly um so alachua county is undertaking this countywide bike ped master plan to make walking and biking an attractive transportation choice for residents and visitors of all ages and abilities to our county and the study outcome is to develop goals and policies and programs to support walking and biking as well as to create a prioritized list of potential future projects for further study design and hopefully implementation and um both of these efforts are aimed at improving safety and mobility for biking walking for again all users within the county so just to briefly go over the project approach throughout the whole study i started with taking inventory of where alachua county is today analyzing and understanding what is existing the destinations as well as assessing how our system is currently performing and then we'll take a look at what our active transportation network what is so it's defining the context creating a vision for county-wide and local networks as well as creating those goals policies and program refinement next taking a look at what our network could be which involves identifying gaps and needs within active transportation networks as well as evaluating projects and refining the network so kind of building on each step as we go and finally looking at how we make it happen so developing cost estimates and funding strategy strategies prioritizing improvements and creating a phased implementation plan um in stages there's been um community engagement throughout do some summaries of our engagement our first uh in-person public workshop was on november 13th 2024 down at the horn art museum at uf campus we had 87 people attend that and just the opportunity to engage in conversation with our project team provide feedback regarding their level of comfort walking and biking in alacho county and providing specific geographical feedback at several interactive map stations we tried to identify not only what people are looking for but where they're looking for it and seeing what comfort levels are for different facility types we also had an online survey that was heavily advertised throughout the county online we had 2012 people respond to that survey and we got some really great insights from it primarily that residents are most comfortable biking walking on either wider or completely separated facilities separate from traffic um so that can be like a trail or a shared use path or sidewalk with planners separating it from the road more than 50 percent of our participants wanted to walk our bicycle to parks schools libraries social activities and shopping destinations so people are very destination focused where they would like to go on the network um the com the community's primary uh perceived obstacle to walking and biking are high vehicle speeds dangerous intersections uh facility gaps and long distances to those various destinations and the primary vision the community gave us for the future of transportation is to improve the bicycle and pedestrian safety reduce traffic fatalities to zero and to improve bicycle and pedestrian mobility along roadways so we've been talking a little bit about gaps so i just want to quickly define what a gap in the network is there's a location where there's either no bike ped facility such as county road 234 which just has a road with no shoulder no nothing just turns into grass or where the current bike ped facility is not comfortable so on a northwest 16th street we have a bike lane directly next to traffic and a lot of folks reported that that did not feel safe due to little separation between high-speed vehicles and the facility and um one of the ways that we identify these gaps or where things are needed is by looking at the level of traffic stress this is a measurement used to see what the perceived comfort and safety of people walking or bicycling along a given roadway is so the level of traffic stress one is comfortable and safe for all ages and abilities from age zero to 99 anyone can use it feels very safe whereas a four is a very low level of comfort the only people who might use the facilities are very experienced cyclists who are comfortable being with cars possibly so our goal is to have those all be very low in this network and we find that this is a more useful measure than average daily trips and analyzing facilities all right so next we're going to talk about the draft goals objectives policies and strategies that have come out of the study so far for alacho county again these are all in draft right now and we definitely welcome some feedback so the goals are on the topics of safety healthy people and healthy communities connected network equity increasing our multimodal trips and implementation and next we'll look at some of the objectives policies and strategies under these goals you know there's a lot so i'm just going to kind of highlight some that i feel are relevant to this board we can always go back and look at any of them in more detail if you'd like but the way these slides are is we'll have the goal at the top with the main objective underneath it and then to the right of that is some policies and strategies under that objective and finally reference to other communities that have implemented this or a similar program that has been successful so our first goal is safety which is to eliminate bicycle and pedestrian fatalities and serious injuries by 2045 and hold it there and the objective under that is to reduce crash severity by achieving appropriate speeds for the context and level of expected activity and one of the main strategies under this is to reduce default speed limits to 20 miles per hour in school zones parks and residential neighborhoods through a 20 is plenty policy and we'll go over that a little bit further absolutely are you also talking about restricting the speed of the cycles cyclists themselves since we have so many e-bikes on the road i do not know i will i'll take that down that is a really good comment i've asked that comment a lot the answer i always get is that 40 issues so we can set three minutes but enforcing that is really i read an article this weekend about marin county california they just implemented a whole bunch of uh e-bike um they're huge e-bike users there but they just they had so many they actually had several fatalities due to e-bikes and so they are implemented some e-bike um regulations i guess that were kind of forward thinking so it might be a reference to look at sure i will say one thing we've kept in mind on this study is for highly trafficked corridors trying to have enough space that e-bikes could be separate from pedestrians like a 12-foot pathway to try to eliminate those conflicts as much as possible most of the conflicts were with e-bikes conflicting with regular bicycles chill that's definitely a concern i will take back and see if we can yeah i just thought i'd ask i didn't know if y'all discussed it or not it becomes an issue as you have those separated pathways even more because people treat it like it's a road it's happening on the latua trail already we're seeing um complex and i'm a fan of e-bikes absolutely a fan but they're you know kids that get on them and treat them like lupeds understood yeah we'll definitely talk with our consultant who they're kind of the expert in this see if we can come up with something that might be helpful in that conflict regard as well thank you guys so much so next we're going to talk about healthy people and healthy communities which i believe would be the most relevant goal for this board in specific this is to increase the number of people who walk bicycle and wheel at least 30 minutes per day by 100 by 2030 would be the main goal for this topic and the first objective under it is that to ensure all neighborhoods support safe and accessible active transportation by 2030 so that's kind of the objective under it and some policies that support it include designing block patterns with high street connectivity creating design standards for low speed yield streets to encourage walking biking and social engagement on those streets mandate dedicated pedestrian bicycle pathways linking residential areas to key destinations such as parks trails and schools and this would include having traffic calming sidewalks bike lanes or shield use paths and paying special attention to comply to ada standards require developers to include at least one direct low traffic route for safe access to schools and parks within a half mile radius of all residential developments offer density bonuses or reduce development fees for projects that exceed minimum connectivity requirements or enhance access to active transportation and finally establish neighborhood walkability audits so those are just some of the policies and strategies that could support that goal just so everyone is aware a yield street is a street that's narrowed so that traffic can only go in one direction at any given time so cars have to yield to traffic going in the other direction next we have the goal of a connected network which is to establish prioritized modal networks with context sensitive street classifications to create a connected bicycle and pedestrian network that supports diverse users and trip types on the objective under there is to identify prioritized uh modal networks to assign a context sensitive classification to each street that's kind of looking at streets saying how much traffic's on it what kind of development is on it and giving a classification so we know what kind of facilities it needs to support transportation next we have equity which is improve the safety and comfort of walking and bicycling for historically marginalized and walking or biking we go back to that one really quickly the one just prior so for this there's the IDENA assigned priority network so essentially you're going to look at all of the networks particularly in our urbanized area that already have public transit like RTS is already going on and then prioritize connectivity to those areas so people could theoretically ride their bike then get on the bus then come downtown is that what you're saying kind of it's more looking at where transit is most needed and prioritizing transit there um looking at say where cycling facilities are most needed just kind of assigning finding ways to assign what is going to be needed in certain areas and prioritizing that and transit definitely has a place in there um again these are very draft right now so i don't have an exact answer on how that's going to look okay i guess i would just love to find out more information about what we're doing in terms of connectivity with our transit system so that you know it this could be used for first mile last mile and then transit could be used intermittently so for those long traffic because that was one of the things that people said was a barrier was the long distances so if we had good transit routes that connected that long distance component and then we were able to have good first mile last mile intermodal yeah and part of this might be looking at areas where there are a lot of demand and then another area there's a lot of demand and identifying that may not be the best way to cycle between but we can like get people to hubs where they can then use transit to get between them yeah yes ma'am that the increased bicycle and pedestrian crossings i'm really still concerned about santa fe high school in that corner you know there's the traffic there is so intense and increasingly so um that the kids coming and going from there don't really have an opportunity there's four lanes of traffic going in that direction and going across 235 there's the subdivision down there you know where kids could be coming in from school too and there's really not good access i think that really does need some attention and the speed limit there is at 45 miles an hour through that intersection it needs if we're really going to be 20 is plenty that would be a place to do it absolutely schools would definitely be a priority for that program thank you identified as a priority in the network map when i looked at it good yeah if we just i just we just need to say it out loud you know to keep it keep it moving because yeah it is because it's a it's a tricky place anyway with all well you know oh yeah it's definitely a very busy area for the school to be and the kids don't have a whole lot of opportunities for us and and i don't know how you can connect i don't know if there are other pathways to get there from the back there'll be more subdivisions in there you know i don't know if new new pathways could be created there or not um opportunities coming from all over the place where they can come in through the back way to the school rather than just from the highway yeah it's definitely something to look at while we're going through our network and a little further this presentation i'll have those networks i brought large maps of it as well so we can take a look together and the vein is the same you know it's right there on that um on this right on the streets absolutely yeah we'll revisit that when we get to that for sure okay thank you all so back to here i believe we were on the objective um which is to prioritize equitable investment in bike and pedestrian facilities and one of the strategies to support this is to develop metrics to guide the prioritization of programs and projects that provide people of all ages abilities and backgrounds access to high quality affordable transportation choices and then next we have increased multimodal trips to ensure all households have access to essential amenities goods and services within a comfortable appreciated 10-minute walk bike or transit trip by 2050. the objective under this is to create safe accessible infrastructure for walking and biking to increase a multimodal trip facility and reduce reliance on single occupancy vehicles this is another very relevant goal and some of the policies under there are to provide a low-stress bicycle facility within a quarter mile of all residents in the urban cluster and that's going to kind of tie back to our level of traffic stress make sure that people that those facilities are safe for all ages users and abilities not just simply all painted bike lanes and to prioritize low stress walking and biking infrastructure development in areas with the highest concentration of trips two miles or less or within two miles of less of a specific destination such as encouraging growth around existing infrastructure in a trip destination so that that concern about oh it's five miles to get to the library is maybe less of a concern and then last we have implementation which is to support the maintenance and support of multimodal uses during and after construction and as well as concerning weather events such as hurricanes so ensuring all urban cluster roadway projects shall provide multimodal support during and after construction and weather events and part of this is creating a resiliency uh network multimodal resiliency network by identifying the critical and necessary bikeways and pedestrian paths to prioritize for debris removal after hurricanes and major weather events as well as developing flood and high water maintenance plans for pedestrian bicycle facilities during rain events so it's making sure that these facilities aren't forgotten about when there is an emergency situation people might need to use them to get around i guess i i do i think this is another really important one for us to emphasize in general in the urban cluster because i'm a regular walker and biker and i ride on 16th avenue for example all the time and it's this i won't ride in the bike lane so i ride on the sidewalk and the sidewalk is always covered in debris and what happens is our our the maintenance folks i think come and sweep but it just keeps getting swept into the corner and so that corner is getting thicker and thicker so it becomes just like this little like mound of leaves and stuff like stuffed on one side of the sidewalk and then you know a clear path at the edge which is closer to the road which is where people want to be the least so i think we need to think about like either having some sort of regular like you know zamboni machine like this i don't know what would go down those but something that would go down and actually like clear the debris completely um rather than it just getting pushed around a bit so that those full pathways are accessible for biking and walking right because that absolutely will narrow the facility yeah it's a narrow i mean the facility on 16th is usually narrowed by at least a quarter to a third between so yeah maintenance building facilities is great maintaining them is a huge part of that so that's why this is one of those top six uh goals goals this is just looking for the longevity of the plan um and next we're going to shift into the draft project recommendations these aim to support the county in implementing the previous stated goals of the bike plan i'd like to also add that many of these programs may be better served by being held by the mtpo or another agency or department within alachua county to support overall county efforts a lot of these are very high high concept so may be better served coming from the mtpo and then coming down to various agencies so the five programs are measuring alachua county's active transportation success training and certifying transportation professionals and advocates requiring safety assessments and plan reviews for projects over fifty thousand dollars installing and evaluating lighting crosswalks and traffic calming and high injury and underserved areas and lastly launching that 20th plenty program across local streets is the proposal for the count if these are draft these are um again we've been working with the consultant kittleson and associates and these are just five programs that they have given us to review and take a look at that could support the goals and objectives it's just like immediate action that can be taken okay so this isn't necessarily what will be in the final plan adopted correct okay well i mean it's getting there this feedback is going to yes absolutely yeah no for i i was just curious how your public works department built about item number three but we can because that i mean that sounds they are also reviewing the the launch 20 is plenty program across all local streets or would that include even state roads going through communities such as waldo that so fdot is kind of their own okay so we couldn't we couldn't we can reduce the speed limit going through wall because even at 35 people are still speeding through there we can certainly reach out to them collaborate you know bring this plan as evidence that it is needed um but fdot ultimately is who makes the calls on fdot roads i got you because there's that crosswalk going to the park you know that people were concerned about children coming across that road it's gotten better the new crosswalk is so much better though they when they redid it i have to say they've done a better job it's still difficult i don't think no is it working because i think the last we heard in our mtpo meeting with it through there but it was okay good okay okay but you're right it still needs to be addressed but it it's a lot better than it was the traffic is really picking up through there really picking up and um coming i don't know that i think we're just gonna have to really pay attention to that area yeah pretty much all of these are gonna require some kind of collaboration efforts that's kind of why i mentioned the mtpo they could kind of shepherd these and involve public works fdot and kind of push the message through to everybody and try and get them get them rolling um i i remember when there was a safety issue on east university avenue and mtpo asked about lowering the speed limit on that road and they did not look at the posted speed limit they looked at the average speed limit and if the average speed limit was um higher than the posted speed limit that's what they used and they they decided they were not going to lower the speed limit even though it was posted 45 and most people go 58 or something i can't remember what it is something entirely inappropriate so my my question is is when we are planning planning for um bike pathways that are along major uh roadways um i was an advocate for a while when i lived in east gainesville for a parallel bike path on third so like taking a different road that has access and pushing the cyclists onto that local road that we have control over and you know making that very friendly and and um attractive to cyclists versus trying to make it work along something like east university avenue so i i wanted to make that comment um so it's it's it's really hard to get dot to lower speeds but but we we do have control over speeds in our own you know that are in roads that are in our own district uh jurisdiction my next question is um the green uh share the street markings kind of thing um are those still going away i can answer that i figured you could i was kind of looking at you the the the green shared markings fell prey to the same thing that that got rid of the rainbow crosswalks in downtown they are not by the book of the of an updated mutcd um green marking green lanes are supposed to be for bikes only they're not supposed to be in shared use areas so i think um i forgot how i was told how many there are there's like maybe close to 100 that are across it again so we are going to slowly but surely put out proper mutcd compliant um you know just so we're not cyclists like just the cycle without green underneath it okay so we're we're still designating those roadways as share the road but we're not okay i was just curious how that went and the other question i had was um or suggestion or thought was that um if people are using if we're we're wanting people to use bikes to commute more people have uh e-bikes and uh some people you know have um regular bikes but both bikes need access to um maintenance periodically so i know the city has put a couple of places out where people can um add air to their tires but also it would be i had a citizen suggestion to um put up some uh possibly reuse solar panels to make some um charging stations in more remote areas for apparently that's been done in some other towns for uh charging for uh e-bikes um but i just want to you know if we're going to encourage it we need to make it easy so i want to make sure we we have those kinds of amenities in our planning process absolutely i do not believe that that has specifically come up so i've taken a note of it and i'll bring it up at our next meeting with the consultant because that is a good point that if people are cycling and they have an issue having those maintenance stations available we'll probably encourage them to continue biking right yeah the first time that you get a flat tire and you're three miles from work and your boss sails at you it's the last time you bike i've been there good question yeah absolutely how how closely is the county collaborating with the school board because one of the issues that came up in high springs was when they changed the perimeter for for bus transportation from one mile to two miles that became a major safety issue for us because then kids were crossing 441 to get to school so for us i mean it was an unfunded mandate for the city of high springs we had to hire somebody to demand that intersection because there's just no way um that the walkability and bike ability prior to that was infinitely better because you know heavy residential surrounding high springs community school um what options do we have because 441 you're not you're not sending your seven-year-old to cross four lines of traffic it it became a really big issue for us so i don't know is there any any way we could work with the school board i know they're having a lot of issues with having enough bus drivers anyway i'm going to defer this one okay hi i'm allison moss transportation plan manager for the county um and we have um a stakeholder as part of our working group for the bicycle pedestrian master plan from the school board okay i believe suzanne winn okay um as the appointed member there um and then as far as like a data driven approach we've also looked at you know schools and walk sheds around them and tried to prioritize um bicycle pedestrian improvements within those areas um so given the basically expansion of the walk shed i'll make sure that the consultant has considered that as well but we do have um at least participation in the working group good address that question i'm glad to know that that that makes me feel better yeah so we have a pretty it's the stakeholder group we meet i think we've met with them twice now it's pretty diverse we've got a lot of different from the community at large all righty so i'll briefly just discuss some of those programs and give you a little bit of an overview um the objective of the first one which is measuring the active transportation success is to track and demonstrate active transportation outcomes to inform continuous improvement and this will have different measures of success tracking metrics such as miles of new sidewalk and bike facilities the number of new pedestrian crossing and a mode shift to walking and cycling trips that's just some examples of how that would be tracked um next we have to train and certify uh transportation professionals and advocates can we go back to the previous slide so reduction in crashes involving injury and death one of the things that was an issue in marin county where i read that article was that nobody was tracking bicycle injuries even though they were um motor basically motor vehicles and so they had to work out a deal with their emergency room department to work to require to ask them to track those um those accidents i know you know i had a um i went over the hood of a car one time on my bicycle and was somehow landed on my feet i'm not sure how i did that but um you know that was never reported so you know how how we track um crashes and it's like the analogy of you know for for every band-aid you know for every 100 band-aids there's 10 people that need stitches for every 10 people that need stitches there's one broken bone for you know what i mean it just piles up so it's like a leading indicator i guess so i i feel like we need to track those as leading indicators of problems and i don't know how to do that so that's something i would like to ask the consultant i will absolutely pass that concern along yeah anyway a lot of it would have to be self-reported unless it was a police report what's that i said a lot of it would have to be self-reporting unless there was a police report well right but we can ask for that you know um but i don't think they'll get seriously so thank you so much for that like i'll definitely bring it to the next meeting with the consultant and see if we can come up with a solution there on how we can track those or at least start to um and then next i have the training and certification of transportation uh professionals and advocates the objective here is to ensure that a certain number of professionals and relevant board or advocacy members in planning public works and transportation services complete within two years would be kind of a timeline goal that it has initially been come up with and a measure of success for that would be 120 or more professionals certified within those two years having the course repeated annually so more people can get educated on it and having evaluations to assess the effectiveness of the the actual training and tweak it as you go next we have a requiring safety assessments and plan reviews for projects over fifty thousand dollars the objective here is to ensure all public infrastructure will address safety access and comfort for all users and having different uh set plan reviews at stages of plans a lot of plan review just i mean conceptual 30 60 and 90 i guess my feeling on this to brian's point is like if we want buy-in from our public works departments and partners probably coming up with all plan review time frame that you know maybe at conceptual and 90 i don't know but like having it at so many stages could really slow down a project well i i think that would make sense for a really large project for a really small right maybe it's like maybe you only need one maybe 50 to 500 000 it's one review and then 500 to you know on or something of it like coming up with some thresholds might be worthwhile yeah i mean i i would think and i i'm really curious to see i don't know if we get into the actual roads and the uh classifications of it but um i mean it's something that i'm trying to think about for the city and for this like you want to balance um bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure with like context right so like we don't have to fight about university avenue if everyone could just go on to third to the north or third to the south then you got bicycle boulevards on both sides you might you might still in a perfect world have university avenue be a complete street but it's just less of a priority at that right right so then but the problem is is that always happens when you're you know repaving a road right so public works going and repaving the road but you want to make sure that a new design goes in at that point and what's the right time to do that when it's not the right time to do that is um i think hard because you got different departments all with different priorities public works wants to pave a road as quick as possible as cheap as possible to save taxpayers money and transportation wants to have safe streets as much as possible and um so i'd be curious like how this actually works out in terms of tech like how technically it just runs through the transportation department and then back through uh the design phase because i mean i know i'm trying to figure out the same thing in the city and i would say went to an acto conference and every city in the country is having the same like it's always that friction of figuring out the right way to move quickly through your projects while also planning them um but i so i'm very curious how you guys come out with the classifications and all that so you know when to prioritize and how to prioritize for each one of us you will get there and i've i've i've heard i've talked a few people where they are having uh in some counties they're having people straddle departments yeah so that that sort of helps things move along a little bit more because things don't get um sort of hooked you know you end up with less of a silo and more of a web of people all trying to achieve the same goal which i i mean that's something we've been having a lot of conversations with the county in general is having these cross-functional teams that are thinking about the big picture projects and the way that they're being managed so that the whole team is a part of the project rather than it being like this is a public works project but like it needs legal and it needs this and it needs you know having sort of everybody feel a part of the project team so maybe it's a little bit more crazy i mean i don't think that we've done that for everything but there's been a few instances of that happening um recently yeah so and part of this is assigning those contexts and the facilities and the goal is to have that kind of road map so when a project comes in transportation plan can you say hey on the map in the plan that's now part of the comp plan this street needs this facility and it can just be a very simple conversation absolutely um i think there is um so alice moss again with the county um i just wanted to say that there's some level to which this is already happening um so transportation planning already reviews say higher value higher dollar more significant projects um that go through the public works department um it might be you know formalizing it a bit more um the the practice of going to do a site visit together i think public works department already does that because i've actually seen when i've been out um i've seen some public work members and i'm like that's what they're doing i know they're checking out this location for a sidewalk and i think what could happen if you had um people who are active transportation experts there on site is hopefully um streamline some of the design process help provide input that would actually make the plan development more efficient um because sometimes there are things that are missed um by people who don't walk and bike for transportation so i think some of those uh sort of edits could be avoided by having uh you know uh sort of interdepartmental group meet on site is there uh when you're doing the certifications are you looking at doing certifications for folks in other departments like having some folks certified in public works yeah and i think that slide might have been outmoded in terms of the number of people that were hoped to certify but i think that would be one of those that would be very well suited to be at the mtpo because it would be sort of this convening organization for people throughout the county excellent so much so the next project is to install and evaluate lighting crosswalks and traffic calming to prioritize safety and comfort in historically underserved and high risk locations as um it is has been proven in studies that poor lighting contributes to crash causation so upgrading that infrastructure can lead to less crashes then also of course you know enhancing crosswalks as well installing new ones and then next we have the 20 is plenty which would promote safe livable neighborhoods by setting 20 mile per hour target speeds on all local streets and the thought on this is to start with areas within a half mile of schools and parks and then extend expand that county-wide implementing traffic calming and redesign efforts to support speed reduction and the timeline on this would be to identify and implement two to four pilot areas within six months of adopting the master plan and then expanding the program after those pilots with county-wide adoption targeted within 18 months there's some funny stuff this runs up against state law with right like the setting thing so you have to do studies and things on this in order to get it to this level am i remembering this right yes okay all right and that's why that's why this is a phased rollout of this is that it there's a good amount of staff work on the front end to get this done but this this has done a lot of that studying in terms of looking at the crash data and identifying the dangers never so we ostensibly i think would have a lot of the foundational data necessary to sort of make the case i think the bike ped plan would cast service as a foundation for the program all right i'd love to piggyback on this at the city well i'm hoping that is i mean it was a county-wide that we yeah no no no for sure i'm just saying from the city this is awesome great job guys we would love we would love to piggyback on this this would be great i think you helped pay for it so yeah for sure i'm just i'm just saying great work that's all i'm saying this particular one is definitely you know anyone interested you know i think it'd be fantastic to implement bridge everywhere in the county and now for the moment we've all been waiting for um i'll be sharing our current draft pedestrian bicycle networks i also brought large plotter printouts of that that might be a little bit easier to read than the ones on the projectors so i can grab those after the presentation if we have time but first we've got our draft bicycle projects and in the top corner there it is very illegible but we have facility types color coded you'll see the majority of it is green those are shared use paths so that's going to be a 10 to 12 foot off street facility separated which is what most when in all of our community outreach that is what people are the most interested in as it is say it feels the safest it's kind of like a trail um and it is separated from the road where possible and i have an inset just kind of focusing on the city of gainesville um again i have the paper versions that will be legible and there's the draft pedestrian projects that wasn't another inset and lastly i just want to discuss what the next steps for this project are so from now until late december um the us and the consultant were doing feasibility analysis and review that's looking at all those lines on those maps and saying is this possible what does this project look like when it's actually like looking at what the actual conditions are um in early january we have finalizing the project recommendations and then in late january it's going to be draft project prioritization so after having that feasibility analysis saying what are the projects that are the most feasible that we should prioritize what gives us what closes the most gaps with the least amount of concrete laid that sort of thing i just want to put a plug in like i've heard at least four times today in this meeting and several times during mtpo that our school areas are a priority and so i just want to make sure that no matter what even if they're not the most efficient or inexpensive areas that we prioritize the areas around our schools for project prioritization because those are probably the most vulnerable people using those networks so anyway i just want to throw that out there absolutely that schools are definitely a highly weighted destination for sure and that's been a lot of our feedback is you know make this network safe not just for adults but for kids as well that's why i've been really emphasizing all ages so i fully agree schools are going to be very high on that list of course you know especially since there's that two mile that you're talking about that a kid has to get two miles is a long light yeah that's like a 40 minute walk for me um and you know any anything within that two mile we're talking half mile but i think because the school board's got two we should as well absolutely um and then after that revised project prioritization in mid-february we have our second task force meeting and that's again where the school board representative and other representatives i believe we have one from the sheriff's department like there's there's a big handful of people um we're going to meet back up and kind of look at everything we've done get some more feedback from them helping the prioritization and then in early march we're going to be having another public meeting i believe this is going to be held in nikonobi yes that's the goal um so we're going to get just share our findings and everything with the public that's going to be more of a sharing meeting saying hey this is what's happening um and finally in april we're finding and documenting all the progress and hopefully in may which is actually national bike month we're hoping to adopt the countywide bicycle pedestrian master plan and bring it to the boards so i do have a question i mean i wasn't just being facetious about the city the city helped pay for this yes master plan and they're a part of it and you asked so will they also be adopting this master plan um ultimately madam chair um the mtpo in the 11th hour swooped in and paid okay so right now the county is paying the invoices but then getting reimbursed okay so will the mtpo adopt it or will the city also i guess i'm just looking to see like how this is yeah i believe our conception madam chair is that sort of um everyone the constituent you know groups that are part of the master plan will adopt it okay um i think the mtpo will approve it um and then the county of the city and to the extent that you have yeah okay would like to adopt it as well can i imagine like any other plan it only goes as far as we as policy makers press the point i mean i've been asking um allison uh privately like uh is there some way you know we a lot of these get incorporated by reference into your comp plan uh which we are both going through at the same exact time the timelines on this don't exactly add i mean we're i think we're supposed to turn ours in in may this supposed to be adopted in may but there's um you know you could do it that way you could i mean we could but i think us making a big deal like even if we're even if only the mtpo accepts it if we as a body accept it as well like the county and the city um that goes a long way to telling our staff that this is something that we want them to take seriously in the future we'll hold them accountable too i think um to to some extent the county and the city have been um and the mtpo have been putting forth bicycle pedestrian projects kind of ad hoc there there are projects that come you know to the fore and they seem interesting and worthwhile and then there's a little bit of horse trading to make sure we do equal parts county and equal parts city projects um but there hasn't been a very transparent and robust planning process that undergirds that whole process and so the idea would be that we stop kind of making up projects and we look to this because we did a tremendous amount of data analysis community engagement um and you know engagement with our boards um to come to this you know these sets of prioritized lists um so that when we look at the list of priority projects for instance in the mtpo um that we're looking at this okay this was our number one project why is this one now supplanting it um so it'll be something for us to kind of come back to um and then similarly both the city and the county have mobility plans we collect mobility fees from private development and those go very directly to developing infrastructure so rather than being you know semi-random projects that we've you know determined that we need over time it'll eventually be updated to include these what about um projects that are more um aren't necessarily commuter based but more uh tourism based like you know the hawthorne trail kind of thing so we've you know talked about trails to waldo trails to from high springs to newberry from mckinopi to the hawthorne trail are are where did those fit into the prioritization and how do you rank those given you know the emphasis on on transportation versus uh that's a very good yeah very good question um and so i think because because they're so different by nature you could have like a two mile bike boulevard versus a 10 mile you know rail to trail project they'll have to be evaluated in different buckets and compared against one another so for instance there's a project that has a bit of traction called um the gainesville hawthorne to micanope spur right so that would be a really cool project um for both the county and then for one of our smaller municipalities um but then there's also the you know high springs to newberry and so those two might be you know sort of more apples and apples whereas if you take a smaller safe routes to school project that should be compared to something that's more you know akin to it what is your definition of a shared use path that um it strikes me that i mean the previous bicycle pedestrian master plan was just 20 years old now like a lot of that was it was focused on defining uh bike lanes right like where are there not bike lanes where are there gaps in bike lanes and a bike lane we sort of know and then a shared use path i think of as a 12 foot wide yeah paved and you there's it's a lot of right-of-way that would be required if that's the i guess that my first question is what is your definition of a a shared use path so it's not my definition um yeah so um it is a um so shared between different modes um and it is 10 feet wide um is the minimum standard it can go down to eight feet and limited scenarios where for instance you have to avoid a utility pole or something like that but generally 10 feet wide fdot for their sun trail program uh sets the standard at 12 feet and so that's just a high level of investment for them and i think they tend to do those projects where they anticipate higher volumes so the width of the trail just like the width of a road is somewhat dependent on what kind of volumes you expect um but within the county standard um which is consistent with other national standards it's 10 feet and i'm pretty sure that that's the same for the city of gainesville okay so the idea here is that along all these you would either have a a more an oversized sidewalk or like a traditional multi-use yeah so the reason i settled up to the table um jessica did a very very good job but on this slide i wanted to talk about um i'm sorry i'm so excited i'm sorry i don't mean to ryan's been waiting for this thing we appreciate the energy so all of the tremendous amounts of green is is would be incredibly expensive and almost all of it would um require demolishing curb and gutter and moving it out and so almost all of it supposes that on most of these uh collector and arterial streets we have your standard five foot painted bike lane and this would be moving the curb out and creating 10 foot wide paths so no longer having a sidewalk and a painted bike lane but having 10 foot wide paths and so the idea is to put on a map what really should be there not just what we think we can do easily because that's not really helping move the needle so i mean if we wanted to just put what would fit there we would just put bike lanes and that's what we already have um so will that be a factored in as a feasibility constraint absolutely especially in built out areas where you know we're not seeing development come in to do these sorts of things however i would point out um and this may be a little bit bittersweet but 16th avenue was completely rebuilt not that long ago and it could have been you know designed in such a way so it's also an opportunity to incorporate low impact development in certain certain areas did i read your mind there stacy i mean i will say that like places like 16th i mean we could you still could i mean i know it's not like you said it's not necessarily going to happen anytime in the near future but like there are already painted bike lanes and there's already a sidewalk like you could just expand the sidewalk to take over the bike lane which would narrow the road which would slow traffic down and increase the multi-use trail on either side of the roadway at a lower cost than like trying to yeah so it's not right-of-way acquisition but in reality with the engineering that needs to be done you still are demolishing and you're moving curb and you're extending storm drain inlets and all of that kind of fun stuff um but it is effectively the same footprint as we have today um and so that's consistent with the county's recently updated land development code which is no longer having um you know bike lanes and say one five foot sidewalk and one eight foot sidewalk but rather have to push the curbs for that same reason um madam chair traffic calming for the vehicles and then building a facility the majority of people will feel comfortable using um and then one thing you don't see as much here but the the bigger bang for your buck within our network is um i guess stay on that slide but i'll just maybe you don't have a cursor do they're faint blue kind of periwinkle lines in between all of the kelly green and these are more um what commissioner eastman was referring to as bicycle boulevards or alternatively people sometimes call them neighborhood greenways and so these are i live in this area there are a lot of there's actually pretty good network um there's decent connectivity but getting across the arterials and collectors is a really big problem yep and so some of these areas the roads themselves don't need that much improvement but a really safe crossing needs to be put there and perhaps some traffic calming um speed tables neighborhood traffic circles things like that um so that represents a really um you know favorable benefit to cost ratio um whereas the shared use paths of course a huge engineering project so um it could be that we see that's the hope um a lot more network expanded with relatively little investment because you know these streets like these streets i bike all the time to get to work they're pretty good right now they could use a little bit more traffic calming but they don't really need a separated facility because the volumes and the speeds are not through the roof so it's yeah it's mostly the shared use paths the neighborhood greenways the improved crossings and then just did want to point out there are some locations on the map where um same thing we're talking about when the volumes get high you start looking at widening the facility when the volumes of bicycle bicyclists and pedestrians get very high you also have to start thinking about separating the modes and so to the extreme in new york city now they have so many e-bikes and e-scooters that they actually have developed some corridors that have standard or analog bike lanes next to an e-powered bike lane i don't think we have the right of way um almost anywhere to do that sort of thing here um but that that's sort of the extreme example in certain parts of the urban core this plan is at this time calling for separated bike lanes um and separated sidewalks so for instance 13th street university um part of main street those are areas where a shared use path is really not the appropriate solution because you just have such high speed differentials and such high volumes and so is that tenable in the near future probably not given all the conversations we've been having but as this plan is the first update in over 20 years it should be consistent with best practices that we document here this you know our sort of marquee corridors in town for this university town you know deserves separated bike facilities i guess just quickly to i don't know where if it goes under maintenance or if it go what section it goes under but just to quickly go back to commissioner alford's point not just about having the maintenance stations um and thinking about the speed limits but maybe that's a place where you can signage i don't know how signage comes into this but you know like where it's a shared use path like yield to pedestrians like e-bikes must yield to non-motorized vehicles like i don't know but thinking of strategically about how we do signage as we put in these quarters it's always cheaper to do it when we're putting them in so in addition to the maintenance infrastructure like thinking just need to give up what we need to do to get ahead of those conflicts with appropriate way finding and we can look at design of the facility sometimes like more signage indicates bad design right if you design it properly sometimes you don't need so many signs to tell people how to behave so perhaps like a center line um or maybe a brick detail down the middle or something yes are we um i'm not sure how to ask this i i'm i'm thinking post springs and high springs right now that the do we have access trails or bike lanes that would take to our parks like from high springs to post springs it's a really busy road but i don't know if there is any sidewalk at all outpost springs there is a path right now okay it's a pretty nice path okay so that's are are all of them accessible like that our parks that we have throughout the county i don't know if there's one at lake alto or um where are some of the other places that we might have you know that's in waldo the um some of these that are parks that we're trying to get people to and we're developing this this trail you know the hawthorne to newberry and the waldo and the hawthorne trail if we have uh you know connectors we are we are trying to connect i'm not sure that we have um at every single but that's location but yeah that's in the plan i would say our our initial um sort of model for developing the low stress network outside of the city and of the urban cluster was to be a little bit more um sparse and you know we're talking about we're going to have the hub and the spokes and then we weren't sure how much wheel and the more community engagement we did people are like no put that one on there too and put that one and it and it came became obvious that this is when we should evaluate at all and we can look at the data and look at all the different factors is it close to parks or schools or how much community support has it had and then see what rides we're looking at that field that's interesting because uh lexington where i'm familiar with the new circle road where it is a big circle like that and then all the spokes lead into the city the main part in high springs the the nice bike path that the commissioner wheeler talks about though that's only about a mile from my house and there's no way i get on a bicycle to get there from my house there's no crossing there's nothing yeah now if there were rails to trails then i could get right on there but there it's it's so much as right down 2741 or 441 and yeah very few people bike on there yeah well that's too bad yeah that was one when the county anyway updated its land development code to include say a higher level of facility um for the sort of areas in the unincorporated where we have these high-speed rural roadways we do have a path um just for one side of the road is what the code calls for um and commissioner prissey's comment at that point was like okay one side is probably sufficient out in the rural area but at least have crossings to tell if there was one side sure yeah that would be absolutely adequate but it's people it's fast out there yeah you're working on that road too any other comments comment do you guys want to see the big maps or do you want to just pull those out maybe we can pull those out for folks that want to stick around but i'll take some and there's any i don't know if there's any public comment on this issue no okay all right well thank you all so much for the hard work i'm really excited to see this continue and brian to your point we will be referencing the bicycle pedestrian master plan in our in our master plan update even though it won't be completely adopted at that point i do believe we have the we have already made those recommendations same as what the city i understand is going through we're going to for sure make sure we hit all the statutory marks with the first comp plan evaluation and then try to incorporate it by reference and see how far along we are when the sort of we're in the process of updating our ldc this year how could we plug into you guys as a resource to help take this into the big picture because there's so much we need to do and in plugging into this out in high springs people want to be outside they want to get on their bikes but they're so you know the smaller neighborhoods are easy yeah um but i would love to be able to incorporate this vision into our ldc that's it it'll it'll be yours as well okay so you know while it's being led by you know it's technically led by the mtpo through county city and uf staff have been the main people shepherding this project um we have you know done planning in all of the smaller municipalities and so there are several routes going through the town of high springs and one thing we could do is make sure that this is on the agenda for all of our joint meetings and that are going to be coming up this year so that you all could give the presentation specifically to their areas and and then provide them with the the goals and objectives that they could adopt into their master plans or ldrs yeah comp plans and ldrs yeah i mean if if any of the municipalities within the county would like to adopt say our street network standards that require say shared use paths on the collector roadways or sidewalks at a certain level we would we would be glad for that um because sometimes there are instances where development comes in you know in one of the smaller municipalities but then on a county road um and so it would sort of help smooth out the interface between the two like i know our cop plan references a map that talks about future multi-use paths that are not fully built and requires developers to set aside that area which um back then there was like i think the only multi-use path that was future was the hogtower creek greenway this is a very different map of a lot more multi-use paths it would be we'd have to find a way to figure out how to reference that in there but that'd be a way i mean because the problem with any transportation is that if you know there's gaps in it then it doesn't really serve any use right if it could if a road becomes two lane then four lane then two lane and four lane that's much less useful than you know having a four lane road that goes all the way through so yeah having high springs and other municipalities like referencing this map to say that developers have to set that land aside for future trails i think would be i think when um so every year actually presently i've solicited on behalf of the mtpo all municipalities to submit applications for transportation alternatives grants um and a lot of times staff from the smaller municipalities are like we don't know like what should our projects be sometimes they do have an idea we have a sidewalk app it's really important um but you know when we adopt this plan they can look and say high springs or lachua this is the project that we you know we want this one and we would like to submit an application on our behalf this time and elson you all are available as staff for questions right i mean because i know there are a lot of municipalities who who have questions you know that we have the answers for and you all are available for that yeah it'll work you all but i'm about to have one last all right awesome well thank you all for the hard work and uh if there are no other comments or questions we will move on to public comment general public come up to the one of these trusty microphones here and take your three minutes or so we'll be a little flexible since you don't have very many folks but are you going no okay i i brought someone i went to meet to have you all meet okay good no no oh i didn't see you back there in the area you're important too um hi folks i i think many of you i have already met and have heard me speak before but i'll reintroduce myself i'm erica hernandez i work for the trust for public land we are working on the newbury to high springs rail corridor and i thought i could maybe just update you where we are in that acquisition process and maybe talk about some of the the barriers and some of the the challenges that we're going to face in acquiring this property of course this was a priority to the county and the local communities many years ago and we had funds set aside at that point but it really came down to some of the issues that we might expect with an industrial use being converted to public use and contamination and how that would be very challenging for the local government to take on that potential liability so how we've moved through that is by working with the state of florida the project is now eligible as a estate underlying ownership through their state acquisition program the florida forever program where the office of greenways and trails which is part of department of environmental protection has identified that corridor as a priority project we have a contract with csx we have about a year before the price potentially will go up because we anticipate that property value increases the market changes real estate values increase and so while we can maintain this relationship and trust for public land works nationally we have a national relationship with the railroad company but we're also very fortunate that they're in jacksonville and know this project and no high springs and know this community and the springs and so it is something that they it's a project that they like which is really nice for us and so at this time the state has a very the budget is not where we'd like to see it to protect a lot of lands in the state because this project has to compete with all the other projects that are also already on the list and don't have a lot of available funding that's from last year or potentially this coming year so what that might look like is um we we hold on to this option agreement and we keep working through our various budgets and we we keep kind of kicking the can down the road and we have to wait the timing is better for funding opportunities what we're working really hard to do right now is looking at philanthropic opportunities where we can at least begin with some of that preliminary due diligence if we have a mitigation plan that is required for any kind of project like this where the state understands that they'll have to remove soil or push soil and cap it so that any potential contamination is no longer an issue sometimes that can reduce purchase prices so if we have seed money for that type of activity that's something that we're looking into right now so that we can get to that real number um that i've been speaking at these boards and looking potential for um just making sure that everyone supports it which i think it's it has been very clear that folks see this as a priority that you know it's on the map um it would connect high springs to that poe springs sidewalk um it does and just south of um where the easton um uh archery places down in newbury um we're looking at a potential phase two to connect all the way through newbury and then connecting to the nature coast out to trenton the reason why it's a phase two is because right now there is a short rail lease on that section of trail so it's not part of this original uh option agreement um but i'm very interested in the um neighborhood greenways and the uh bike boulevards that could potentially go from the end of the trail that could connect to the zip line and to easton and then maybe go into downtown newbury because i know they're very interested in connecting to their their parks and their um their businesses there um so yeah so we're looking for a match because anything that we can do to bring money to the table i think helps the state helps the effort um and then we also have um a letter of support that i've been working on that maybe the some of the different boards could consider um reviewing making their own and and then also submitting um to the state are there any questions could you come to high springs next thursday yes it's on my calendar it is on my calendar yes you'll be there yeah it would be i mean i would love for local folks to have an update to whatever extent absolutely i want to make sure it stays 100 accurate and i didn't want to yeah thank you because this is something that there's so much support for in high springs and i am meeting um has high springs just has high springs set aside any other wild spaces money for this project you know we haven't talked about it that's pretty much the only place we have money right now so it's at least it's a possibility okay um and i'm speaking with the city manager on wednesday well he's trouble so we'll talk about it all right thank you uh commission really the um how much money are you talking about is it a matter of having money so that that is the proof of our interest i think i think that it would encourage the state to bring money to the table so that they could find a five million dollar project isn't very expensive compared to the the wider expensive projects that are out there so if we could bring a good egg that kind of amplifies the state budget it might be easier for them to find the money um so and that's just for the the purchase price per se and then there's so we're hoping private sources can help with like the due diligence that's what i'm the private source is like what for an example we are talking to a few different foundations right now foundations um private businesses are really interested but the kinds of funds that they can contribute are going to be smaller dollar amounts have you talked to theme works no but if you have a contact i do okay i do because i had talked to those folks and they've gotten huge contracts from orlando and disney huge and and to the point even that we were worried that they might leave the community because the work was so big and their their operation is small and parking is an issue you know for that kind of stuff too but when i was talking with them they said that uh if they had that rail system in place that it would pretty well secure them there you know that the people who work there are very much interested in that network and so you know if they're getting big contracts maybe and they get them worldwide contracts too you know that maybe they might be a possible donor maybe they could hook us up with disney money also we should talk with our economic development department because there are things we can do to support the things that they need to sit around yeah it'll be really economically appointment to the those two communities i think would be great trail towns and i have put a at least a little bug in to know if this is something that you know uh tourism dollars could could be spent on because it is it is i mean it seems right up our alley for tourism infrastructure because it's i mean that's what it's going to attract is the people coming here to visit and ride i mean i know it will also be used by residents but really it is a tourism magnet so it would be great to um see if we can't tap into some of those dollars all right thank you all right any oh okay commissioner wheeler i just brought my friend d hendrickson you don't have to say anything d but you may if you'd like to introduce yourself as back in the community and what you've been up to it's up to you it's up to you yes absolutely yes like and introduce yourself if you would d has worked for the city in the past and uh historic preservation work and then she left and uh has been working nationally uh with fema has just retired from fema and so um she's yeah i've worked for the state for eight years um have a degree in architecture and specialized in historic preservation so that's what my career has been about essentially is historic preservation so i worked at the state um was the cultural resource uh person for 18 counties for the state for eight years did the what we refer to in the preservation business of section 106 of the historic preservation act of 1966 so it's a review process um a compliance process and then i worked at the city for 15 and a half years as their preservation officer retired from that decided to travel uh around the the united states with i had uh i had been appointed by the governor in 96 when opal and aaron hit uh the panhandle back to back i think they were like a few days a week apart um and i represented the state so i got a got my feet wet with fema and thought that that's something that i would do as a as a retirement project so to speak so uh i worked for fema just retired in september for nine years so uh i know everything's in flux right now people that are working for fema are uh somewhat anxious about their jobs and uh what's going to happen with fema and sort of uh everybody's kind of speculating uh there's a lot of speculation out there but i can give you a hard fact um there's a house bill and i wrote down the number and i i keep an eye on it just to kind of see um you know what might be happening with the bill and the house bill is uh 4669 and if you just put in hr 4669 and you can put some other information a fema or whatever it'll pop up uh currently it is uh in the transportation and infrastructure committee they will take a look at it at some point um i'll give you the i wrote this down so there wouldn't be any question about the name of it uh fixing emergency management for americans act of 2025 uh it's also called the fema act of 2025 so at the very beginning of it it talks about sort of the reorganization somewhat of what's going on with fema and um so that uh in the very beginning it talks about establishment of fema as a cabinet level independent agency so essentially they're requesting it to move out from under dhs and it be a several a separate cabinet position they've talked about this for a couple of years we've actually got a couple of senators in florida that have been pushing for it to be a separate cabinet it pulls it out from the purview of dhs christy gnomes and and that group of people so if it does become a separate it sits at the table and it's independent and you know it goes head to head with transportation and housing and urban development and you know all of the cabinet positions so that's that heads heads it off it you know it's it's copious reading if you're interested to kind of see um the direction that fema is going fema also has um a committee uh that's been put together uh there are several emergency management people that are on the committee and essentially they're developing uh the policies that will be under fema they're talking about how everything is going to physically work so i'm i'm hoping i have no definitive uh yes answer for this that that both the hr bill people and the committee are talking that that there's not a dysfunction between uh those two initiatives so what i did um for fema was i worked in the environmental planning and historic preservation cadre and so i am a compliance person uh i'm a manager i was a manager and um i'm supposed to have five people under me i had 25 people under me so um well it sounds like you would be right for one of our advisory boards so that's the way that works um been all over the country it's been a year and a half in california from northern california all the way down to southern california flooding fires you know that type of thing so um i wanted to make sure that d was meeting with stacy and jenison too and our our um risk our um the team that we have over there for you know disaster disaster yeah yeah jen grace pardon jen grace yes jen she's the next one whether you know it's kind of a pig in a poke as to how things are are going to change but i'm assuming because y'all are officials you know how the how the process works for declaration do you all yeah well this is a this is a committee of a of the city and the county this isn't one board i just didn't know whether you all know how that sort of works when when damage happens um in a state they do a preliminary study it's a prelim what they call preliminary damage assessment and they take a minivan and it's people from the state um it's people from the what we have are 10 regional offices fema has 10 regional offices um we're in region four which is out of atlanta here and so people from region people from anybody that'll that needs to be there and you know somebody from a lot of people from the state well so they get in and out of this van and they take a lot of pictures and sort of determine what the damages look like and then they look at dollar amounts and there's a threshold of dollar amounts for declaration and then yeah we spend a lot of time filing costs to those to ensure that we get our declarations when we need them so i'm sure i've got another yeah i know i appreciate i really appreciate you coming i think we have to some folks have another meeting that's right after this one so i want maybe we can schedule one-on-ones with some of the folks here so we can learn more about what you do i've introduced her to the people that i felt like you know could best use your expertise and that's that's what i want to make sure they know but i hope she essentially it was you know we've got 20 plus laws um clean air clean water um you know wetlands floodplain uh so that's essentially what my cadre did that's essentially what i did that's essentially what my team members did was was review those and of course i'm the specialist the subject matter expert with the with historic regulations thank you thank you thank you very much for taking the time to be here and look at our advisory board list because we have a number that intersect with your skill set so we'd love to see you on one of them awesome well i'm retired and um i have to tell you i sent to my aunt in my we have to we have to finish the conclude the meeting so i have to wrap it up for the for the recording but we can chat afterwards okay okay all right are there any other member comments thank you thank you member comments yes yes go ahead oh okay drought what are we looking at in terms of drought situation right now because my pond is drying up completely it's raining and the lake the lake santa bay is very low and the river is very low river so i just paddled it yeah things are low um we should be receiving the hydrologic report from suwannee water management district any day now because then they're you know they always present that at their board meeting which is next tuesday so we should see that and i have not seen their agenda yet for that meeting but you know that is the agency that typically will you know declare a water shortage restrictions um well restrictions are year-round so if they do a water shortage it does have a little bit stricter water restrictions when we last time we did it was 2012 and they weren't that different than the regular but i it's on my list of things to look into their agenda to see if they are talking about that at their next meeting which would be tuesday next tuesday they're they're predicting a dry winter all the way around the the other part of that too is i don't you know i have visited some places out west where they put park signs regularly to address and even in orlando where they're talking about signage where people are using water to cut back or to do other things i don't know if we can somehow make a put put signage somewhere that says we care about our water the water here is very precious you know we need to conserve it help us do it any way you can and i don't know what that would involve but i know that at west in the state parks they do that kind of thing you know to draw attention to the fact that you know the environment is important and it seems to me because of the springs area and then in and with the water this surface body body surface body waters that we have here that that we have a lot to protect and that we have a lot of tourism that happens here that if somehow that we could make sure the public knows that water conservation is important to this region and that we need the buy-in from the people coming into this region to respect that i see those a lot where all over i mean billboards you've got a lot of stuff out there yeah maybe it's just you know what i see and what you see social media no no i'm talking about actual signs in public places you know where where do you see that i've never seen anything like that we did work with some of the state parks and get some sign got some signage at like olino and it's a tuck knee in the bathrooms there but we run water conservation messaging year-round because we really we get into drought so infrequently that we really want to we don't want to tie water conservation behaviors just to drought right because we want people to save year-round so i mean we've got we have one billboard that might still be up we're actively looking for a couple more billboards they tend to focus on irrigation because that is the biggest use so that tends to be what we are targeting what i'm thinking about is an idea the the signs that say springs protection area that's good that's one but there ought to be places that we could put those where we have tourists come hotels or it somewhere we can say oh i see what you're talking about yeah that where there's a lot of people coming in that we can plant that seed that this is important to this community and you guys need to pay attention to how much water you're using here because you know it's a limited what i said florida field i mean i was gonna say i think that the challenge becomes honestly is like the amount of energy and time and money we're spending on things like signage and community education on people like running showers and washing their hands when the real water users are ag and irrigation and and industrial uses right and like so and if we could get the like i'd i mean i think it's a good idea but if we have limited staff and time like i'd much rather us focus on what we can do to reduce the center pivot irrigation and the boom guns on the end of those and like because one of those would be like an entire hotel of people washing i understand i think it's really more it's the mindset that's all it's the mindset when i see the wild spaces and public places signs it says to me we care about this area this this region is important to the county and when i see the springs protection signs that this part is important but it's all important you know with one percent of the water that on this planet is all we have to drink you know we need to we need to get that out there that this area is fragile i mean at one point we were talking about making this a world heritage site and yet we're not you know we're not doing everything we can i think to uh make it significant to people coming into our area and they need to respect this area for being as fragile as it is there's a springs protection sign right in front of a subdivision it's going to double the population high springs it's not making any difference i'd like it to yeah but well i mean maybe that's something we can also refer to the the tourism board because they work with all the local hoteliers so perhaps there could be something interesting that tourism could develop like take some of the materials that you've already developed and that you were working with gru on that are kind of funny and kind of share some of the tips for water conservation that they could then share in hotels and in the areas well i think it even needs to be serious you know this is really serious you guys you know this is this isn't water isn't a toy you know we've made water a toy in florida you know with with with the swimming pools and the the fountains and all that it's it's quite beautiful but it's also um i you know i just feel like the focus needs to be in a in a more serious approach to making sure that this fresh water is protected that's all and you know just think about it just think about it but um i just think we're awfully frivolous with our with our water thank you and we did have one meeting with um tourism to try to find synergy between epd and tourism and we're starting to look at their website and things to find partnerships there so i will definitely i know in the past we've had cute you know stuff what you're talking about you know that it's clever and trying to engage but at this point it's getting serious it's getting serious especially in florida where we're so in such you know we've got climate issues here and i think we need to have a serious focus on making sure those those resources are protected that's it thank you no okay all right well we are adjourned our next meeting is february 2nd so i hope that you all have a very happy holiday season and get to rest and relax and come back rejuvenated and do we have potential items for that agenda are there not yet so open to suggestions and i will work with staff to make sure that everything does get on your calendars jellison