we actually have a pretty full agenda today so we're going to go ahead and get started um i was going to ask that we move the discussion of our board leadership to the end so that we can have our guests and the folks that are here for our business items um get to go first and not have to sit through our internal stuff unless they want to so um with that change do i have a motion to approve the agenda so moved excellent motion a second is anyone in the audience want to speak to the agenda or have anything that they want to see added okay hearing none all those in favor say aye aye any opposed like sign motion carries we have an agenda okay first up on that agenda is approval of our minutes from our december meeting are there any questions on those minutes or i'll entertain a motion move approval minutes from december 1st 2025. second all right i have a motion and a second any comments hearing none all those in favor say aye aye any opposed like sign motion carries we have minutes all right next up is our water shortage update so i will turn it over to eliana to give us an update good afternoon eliana party with the electric county environmental protection department in the water resources division and i know you have a full agenda so i'll keep this update pretty brief just a quick background on the water shortage declaration this is something that the water management district does after reviewing hydrologic data like river flows rainfall aquifer levels and the current drought advisory started back in january with recommendations for voluntary measures fast forward to actually last week on june 9th both water management district had their governing board meetings and we remain steady in a phase three extreme water shortage for the saint john's river water management district portion and in this next slide if you look at the map it shows you the yellow dots identify the municipalities of gainesville hawthorne and mikanope those follow under the saint john's restrictions and then the rest of the county the bluish purple is all under the suwanee restrictions fortunately most of them are very similar in that they prohibit any water waste they limit irrigation to once a week but there are some slight differences between the hours of the day that irrigation can take place and the establishment of new landscapes and i won't go into details unless you have questions but this is kind of the more specific and detailed information that we send to irrigation professionals hoa managers and property managers so that they have all of the details in front of them but to the general public we kind of summarize it and we say okay landscape irrigation we're still under the winter schedule once a week is the max we always recommend to just turn systems off and only run them as needed for establishment of irrigations like i said those are now being restricted used to be that you could water every day for like 30 days and then every other day now depending on which district you're in you're definitely limiting that establishment and our advice has been to postpone any new installations until we get like consistent rainfall coming into our region um non-essential water uses are prohibited this is like anything that waste water so like over spray or fountains or things like that aesthetic features that some communities may have and we've had a really high number of inquiries on pressure washing and soft washing i think part of it is like the spring cleaning frenzy you know everybody wants to clean everything up none of that is currently allowed for aesthetic reasons people can do pressure washing or soft washing for pre-construction like pre-painting type activities um and for like warranty things like if you have mildew or issues like health issues but not for aesthetic reasons so we've had a lot of communication actually about that with hoas because sometimes residents will get notices to clean up their property and so we have to make sure they understand that you know they would be in violation of the water shorter orders if they follow those and that comes the last bullet it's like that hoas at this point cannot require any additional watering or those landscape replacements that sometimes they require of their residents or any pressure washing at this time so there's a lot of communication that goes out to communities and residents and we do continue to encourage people to call their phone numbers 352-264-6800 to report water waste this is anything wasteful that i've already mentioned there's also an online form that can be accessed with a qr code and a lot of times you realize that some residents are still unaware that we are experiencing a water shortage so we take a very basic education first approach we send them information we visit them we help them set their controllers if needed and typically would reach compliance just in this approach so people shouldn't be scared to let us know especially because irrigation systems run sometimes with property owners are not present and they may not even know that they have a leak so we can at least alert them of that that said we have really ramped up our educational efforts in the past few months a lot of them are just water conservation in general because we do believe that it's important to conserve water year-round but a lot of these are also specific to the water shortage we ran ads on wft radio in april specific to the water shortage we do a lot of press releases anytime there's an update we'll get a press release out facebook posts um just letting our residents know which stage of the water shortage order we're in and then again i've mentioned the direct communication we're just about to deploy an oak small advertisement we're kind of excited we just finished designing it so hopefully they'll be out soon and as of today we should be getting some of those um message boards the alert boards alongside 441 they just say you know water shortage conserve water so that people that are not on social media or tv or radio can at least see them as they're driving by and so lastly you know we do get a lot of just citizens that are concerned about their wells going dry this happened in previous droughts so that's definitely a concern up there our springs and rivers any waste future water supplies we get a lot of comments when we do social media posts about who is wasting what and a lot of times we don't have any control over certain entities so we have to kind of explain that but one thing that the county did many many years ago that has probably saved us a lot is to discontinue irrigation on all of county properties except for like athletic fields and so i know that has saved us a lot of time and money um and also calls from citizens because we don't have any leaky irrigation heads at our county facilities that they'll call in and uh they're quick to point to like our government entities and our institutions you know government institutions when they observe water waste there so one thing it would be like to lead continue to lead by example i don't know that the manager just sent out a county-wide email to let all of our staff know about the water shortage orders and to implement these practices in our you know daily um duties so and with that i'll take any questions if you have any does anybody have any questions just commissioner are fire restrictions still in order are they in place do we i mean it seems to be a partner i thought it was lifted the permit yeah i mean i think with the um with the water the deficit is just so significant that it's just going to take you know a real good soaking for us to really recover the aquifer whereas i think that with the burn ban it's just a little bit um more reactive to rain i think the rain we got a couple weeks ago was enough to lift the burn ban for now yeah i think what happens is the the moisture in the soil and the plants is moist enough that it can withstand some light sparks or things like that so the fire is less of an issue but we still just don't have enough water in well aquifers in the rivers and streams like it's just that it's been spotty the rain has been spotty i haven't gotten rain i haven't gotten the kind of rain you're talking about so i just you know it's got you know it's pretty sporadic in places it's good and not good in others but okay yeah thank you thank you madam chair all right thank you any other questions or comments about this any any is there are you all watching the weather at all is there anything really coming up out of the gulf our way that you know of i mean i'm i am i am not aware um i do i do hope that i mean it's kind of a tricky thing to say here but you know really to get us out of this when we do need a good soaking like a you know tropical depression tropical storm would go a long way this summer summer exactly yeah the one thing i the one thing i was going to add is that we are formally now into an el nino cycle so el nino is anticipated what that means is um it does mean the potential for less hurricanes in the in the atlantic it only takes one hurricane so it's not something to start thinking there's no issues but that there's a the change in conditions usually means less hurricanes wetter winter for the southeast um so that's one aspect it doesn't necessarily mean wetter summer i just guess i'm hoping the gulf that's all yeah something brewing there that might throw something our way one thing i i did want to just mention to our city partners i think one of the things that we've been trying to do is um with regards to our irrigation policies and some you i don't know if you were here for our presentation on our new irrigation code um but we have gotten new irrigation code now that um limits irrigation installs to 50 of the landscape and only in like you know in the types of irrigation and things like that it has a lot of different restrictions and i think it's going to make a big difference in terms of how much water is being used in lawns and landscapes um but i as for residential for residential and commercial and those rules do apply within the municipalities yeah not golf courses although it depends on i mean like the new golf course that uf is building we actually um we actually negotiated with them a water budget and only is reclaimed water except for in certain various specific areas but otherwise they're using all reclaimed and they have a water budget required um so some of the golf courses are using reclaimed water not that that's an excuse just to waste water but it is um they're not they're like reusing water and things like that as opposed to on you know our lawns and landscapes there's very little purple pipe until you get out west a little bit like oakmont i think is purple pipe and stuff like that um but most most of our lawns and landscapes are potable water so i just wanted to encourage the municipalities to look at that if they want to in terms of like as you're updating your codes for residential landscaping and irrigation to consider those options i'm sure our staff would be happy to pass that information on to you to be able to consider it for your own purposes i have noticed in gainesville um there was a mention in our recent presentation of heartwood that they were getting ready to install the permanent irrigation that was part of like the updates and i was like wait hey let's lead by example to your point and i have been invited to attend one of the hia meetings that's coming up so i will be involved in the conversation and i have been in in touch with um the project manager just awesome because we do have soil amendment rebates available right now for new construction so we have a lot of incentives to not install the permanent irrigation also as a cost cutting feature both from the get-go and maintenance and operation over time so we're at big in our ldc right now who would i put in touch with what i have them call you yeah sure just to make sure we can grab that verbiage absolutely yeah okay and our irrigation design standards already apply countywide so we're already reviewing projects in the municipalities um but i i think when our codes are consistent exactly definitely helps right right to reinforce that or even referencing our irrigation design standards in your code helps okay excellent thank you thank you okay uh any other comments on any public comment on that issue okay hearing none we'll move on to our next um um agenda item which is citywide outdoor drinking water fountain initiative thank you this is great i'm sorry so good afternoon my name is dan zu gainesville chief resiliency officer we are pleased to present one of our recent projects finding water in gainesville parks a brief background gainesville's resiliency plan was approved last year it includes two tracks mitigation and adaptation so this project supports adaptation side of the plan and one of the highlight is that city staff were able to distribute it 500 copies of the in-house designed heat playbooks to our students to help them understand the symptoms of heat exhaustion and learn about the resources available throughout our community so today we'll be focusing on three questions here first why is access to public water fountain important how can we find them and finally how can the community help to support this effort so if you have the heat playbook in front of you please turn to page four why hydration matters so according to the lateral county vulnerability assessment our community experiences more than 100 days every year with a heat index of over 105 degrees or even higher so as a result heat stress becomes a growing public health concern and have access to drinking water is the most efficient and simple way to stay healthy so in the heat playbook we also have cooling center information from page five to seven there are information about symptoms of heat stress on page eight on page ten there's emergency response steps so that brings us to today's focus area which is access to drinking water why water fountain matters so city staff inspected 76 public water fountains across 56 parks and trails locations in gainsville and very glad to share that ninety percent of the water publicly are in good working condition so you may wonder how can we find them because they are varies in shapes they are varies in colors so the water fountain are typically located near the playground picnic areas or at the park entrance so in order to make this resource easy to use staff created this water fountain map now let's take a look at the map together so once we open the map we'll see the different dots each dot represent one water fountain so for example by the 24th avenue we have the click on this one we have the abbey wambach park all the water fountain over there are in blue and not too far from there we have let's find another one nearby okay we have the green acres park so we can see the water fountain is next to the playground and the color is dark green so the water fountains appearance vary from park to park and another important aspect of this as effort which is to save the public resources so staff were able to identify a very significant underground leak at the west side park which is this one here so there are water leak six feet underground and because of this effort staff were able to identify resources and have it fixed in a timely manner and help us to conserve water back to our slide so we encourage community participation if you notice any issues with the public water fountains please contact us so we can send staff over and fix it in a timely manner in summary drink water regularly take hydration breaks and monitor the signs for heat stress for yourself and also for others together we can improve access to public water fountain strengthen gains best resiliency to extreme heat with that thank you so much for your continued support thank you any questions yeah mary hill i just a comment this is really wonderful i'm hoping that you will get some of these to the library they're doing programs for the kids for hurricane preparedness there and this would work really well i think with those presentations but also the summer camps that are being sponsored throughout the county um it's it would be really nice if you could if we as the county had access to what's happening in our outlying communities as well i was gonna say perhaps if you have a quantity of these children the children's trust of alachua county is sponsoring i want to see 20 different um spots with these literacy boxes and trying to find fun resources that are also educational so they might be able to add this to those as well as the summer camps that they're funding for children around the county so if you do have a large quantity of them christy goldwire at children's trust would be a great contact for getting them out and about in the gainesville area thank you for the suggestion any other questions or comments all right thank you so much all right next up is the empower coalition community investment progress update we have a wonderful group cohort from the empower coalition here today thank you all so much for taking the time to be here all right good afternoon thank you for having this on the agenda it's such an important item uh jenison kipp resiliency specialist with the environmental protection department i'm just going to very briefly give an introduction to our speakers today so as part of the climate action plan approved last year one of the key items not only under the energy chapter but i feel like across the board for helping our residents survive here and thrive in alacha county uh we know that weatherization of homes and efficiency upgrades to homes um are one of the key action items right and one of the critical low-hanging fruit ways we can help people here in this county um respond to the increasing heat uh to dr sue's comments and the work that the city's doing as well so um i'm going to introduce our speakers for today unfortunately kwanda ja with the cultural arts coalition representing the empower coalition is unable to be here to present but we have marianne schmink and elaine humrick from the community weatherization coalition to provide progress updates on the empower coalition and this is a follow-on to work that they've been doing for the last five years since the founding of the empower coalition um to really get to the communities who are most vulnerable to high energy cost burdens in their communities and do on the ground work that's that's you know essential in helping people keep a roof over their heads and be able to pay those utility bills which we know you know it's a challenge for all of us with the disposable income to pay the bills keep food on the table keep the kids you know clothed and everything that the stress that we're facing with increasing costs to quality of life um so in the last couple of years since 2022 the empower coalition was one of only uh 24 communities throughout the country who received grants technical assistance grants from the department of energy through their communities leap program so local energy action projects and they through that technical assistance they've been able to build on that and create some really innovative projects and two of those that are happening in the county right now are the alantua county energy efficiency program and the lydia b stokes foundation solar pilot project and so the work that we're going to hear about today is funded through a separate direct grant from the lydia b stokes foundation that's helping support a community investment board in collaborating neighborhoods where some of the highest energy burdens are in our community and so we have leaders from the community investment board who are going to also speak to their experiences there and i'm happy to answer any questions following the presentation but i'm going to turn it over to mary ann schmink to give the next everybody introductions i think you'll need to be by the mic though sorry so thank you for having us um it's a pleasure to be here representing the empower coalition i serve as kind of volunteer facilitator for the volunteer facilitator for the group which includes the city government county government and a whole variety of other organizations and non-profits it's a community-led coalition from the very beginning and you'll see today how that's working um and kwanda ja really is the leader and it's too bad she was unable to make it today but um we have been working on with this pilot project um it created a community investment fund which the we want to have governed by a community board and so we've been working for the last couple of years with periodic meetings with representatives from several communities the greater duval spring hill sugar hill and swag neighborhoods all of which have high energy burdens to devise uh procedures for dealing making decisions about these the expenditure of these funds um and the representatives we we started from learning about energy efficiency in the home costs and impacts of different kinds of measures and then working through criteria what kind of people would would be um so we now have a board of uh seven members to from roughly from each neighborhood and as well as in kwanda representing as a non-profit representative they are here most of the members of the board are here and um i'm that you're going to hear from them in a minute but first we're going to hear from elaine who's going to tell us about what kinds of work we've been doing to help those homes sure yes or the um or the arrows down yeah either one all right um hi everyone my name is elaine i'm the program director at the community weatherization coalition um for those unfamiliar um the cwc has worked since 2008 um to help our neighbors save energy water and money on their utility bills all across alachua county uh we believe everyone deserves a manageable utility bill and to feel safe and comfortable in their homes so our flagship program is to help people with the home energy tune us we also have a diy option that we developed during covet and then the third program that we have that we don't advertise as much is that it's an upgrade program so this is to fill the niche between that first step weatherization and then a lot of the the critical home repair that some programs in the community do like roofs and major plumbing and electrical so there's a lot of need out there for air sealing attic insulation new appliances and things like that so we choose those homes from the over 200 homes a year that we serve so today um does video work on this maybe it may okay um so this is mr b um and he had some issues i'm going to highlight um five homes today out of the nine that we've served so far and tell you what we've done and the impact these small grants have made so on average these grants are two to three thousand dollars from the lydia b stokes foundation that has helped pilot this if this works i think it will yeah you can see that water was just shooting out of the faucet it was also pouring down the back so um this is underneath the picture here on the right is underneath his sink so he wasn't really using his sink he was actually washing dishes outside and he had a lot of water damage and the wall was open with the plumbing as you can see he wasn't cooking as much he shared we were able to get in a licensed handyman and replace the sink replace the piping the floor cabinetry the wall we also addressed some weatherization needs that he had so we sealed um where that gator flag is that was a his front door and he was missing a pane of glass he had cardboard there and all around his window units was cardboard and not well sealed so air sealing was done as well another home i'd like to highlight is uh miss m and she had her tune up earlier last spring and we found that her fridge was leaking there was a water leak her gaskets and her freezer were bad she was missing shelves in the fridge as you can see on the right so we replaced the refrigerator we had a broken window in her grandson's bedroom there was a board over it but it wasn't sealed air sealed at all it was unsafe and we were able to replace that pane of glass additional work done the first thing we did for our water people here was replace that faucet which was just drizzling i should say like constantly replaced the leaky toilet we air sealed wall patches there so interior walls had big holes in them insulation was exposed so that's unsafe unhealthy and air leakage so all of these items that were that were done this home actually came in i'm really excited to say it was under three thousand dollars for all of these things and then with our partners rebuilding together we were able to they operate with teams of volunteers so they actually were able to help us clear some vegetation and debris from the sides of her home and some items that she had in her yard this is the homeowner helping us out and a rotary club on the left it was several days of work to get her exterior cleaned up was also happy for this one to get um she did not have working ac she was using uh window units at the time but gru leap program was open so we funneled her through that and she was able to get a new working ac and she was about to get more attic insulation soon gru just closed for application so thankfully we were able to get her in before that the next home was in greater duval uh she had an inefficient water heater you can see some um issues with the ceiling board as well from a previous roof damage that was had since been repaired and uh the plumbers needed that fixed first so once that was fixed they were able to replace the water heater her water heater was old and inefficient but also uh unsafe she had leaves and debris on the top of the water heater there that could be a fire hazard so she was at risk of losing her home insurance because of the unit was 29 years old we were also able to weatherize her doors caulk around the windows air sealed doors door sweep she can safely use her doors again they weren't locking properly this one is also a video technically working ac this one was a package unit in the swag area in a mobile home park there and fixing the ac is was over our budget but we were able to leverage funding from the county with the cap grant thankfully because her major issue here was she was having 700 plus utility bills and the issue was the ac and duct work so until we addressed that and fixed that it wasn't going to really help her bill so it's really important we fixed um replaced that unit the duct work was improperly sized and so we replaced all of that as well and this is exciting she went from 3 129 kilowatt hours to 1700 so she's saving 235 a month just in an electricity portion of her bill um this one's my favorite lastly um in greater duval there was the home we did a tune up for that had a really high three three to five three to 450 utility bills um she had a leaking faucet here the home got weatherized um the main issue was that she had two leaking toilets inefficient they were badly leaking constantly refilling there was only two people in the home and we were able to replace those with 1.28 gallon per flush toilets and she went from 17 000 gallons a month to only 2 000 which is way more appropriate for two people um saving 145 dollars just on her water portion of her bill and conserving water in times of drought as you can see we've done some tremendous things um with this thanks to the community advisory investment board members and it's been a real honor to work on this project any questions for me or marianne are there questions from the board uh commissioner wheeler i always got it i do you all work with community action agency no not not in recent years okay because i'm chair of that board and have been for the last four years and we do a lot in terms of making sure that the communities you know utility bills are paid if necessary if you all have ever been around one of those days gru there's a whole line outside of people waiting to get help and that's what community action agency does and community action agency has all the way also been involved in trying to help with homeowners like what you're talking about and there's money that's coming down from the state that you know needs to be spent so please you know contact dr ruff glooney who is our ceo there and a wonderful uh partner for the community because what you're doing is what we're doing on a smaller scale but we have money that we can help you know clients that you may not be able to so just just we'd be happy to reconnect um if you could help reconnect us we'd love that it hasn't been difficult in recent history yeah okay well it shouldn't be now okay and at least in the last three four years you know that she's come on board because we've got a really good crew over there and they are johnny on the spot when it comes to trying to make sure people have what they need so thank you okay any other questions from the board i just i just want to say a huge thank you i i remember when in kwanda brought this idea forward um and you know the conversations got started uh with marianne and others you know about this idea of how can we empower our communities that are experiencing these energy burdens to not only have opportunity with the resources that they're putting in tax dollar resources but also community dollars that they're spending and also have the opportunity to be stewards right like now you all are champions of the idea of energy efficiency in your communities and you're helping people understand what the possibilities are what the opportunities are to connect to these programs that we run and how they can lower their bills and also be champions for protecting our natural resources in the environment and i just i think it's a model program for how government should operate programs like this because the people who are most impacted by the issues are the ones making the decisions about how the money is being spent they're the ones that are thinking about the issues and learning about the issues and educating their fellow community members about it and i just i just really thank all of you for the hard work you get all the energy you've put into this and thanks to the lydia b stokes foundation and to and kwanda even though she couldn't be here for all of the amazing work you've done to build this program it really is one of the favorite things that um we've been a part of since i've been on the dais to see something that's truly community based and community built happening inside of bureaucracy like the county is kind of a miracle like truly so thank you all for being part of it and um bearing with us through all the ups and downs that have been a part of the process and thanks to the team on our side in environmental protection that helped make it happen and the cwc and rebuild together for being the conduit between our bureaucracy and the community in many many ways so thank you all very much i just wanted to say that we have five of the seven members of our board here present today i really appreciate all of you and the effort to be here we have um we're missing only the representative from spring hill and in fonda who's also a member but i know that some of you wanted to yeah i would love for you all to come and please feel free to come join us at the table we've got plenty of empty chairs so pick your pick your favorite chair and come and join us please really anyone else going to come up no come on they want to see it all right i was going to say don't come here shy hello good afternoon my name is sheila williams walden and i'm representing the sugar hill neighborhood in the southeast part of gamesville near depot park and it has been a pleasure to work in that community with that's the community i grew up in i came to gamesville in 1957 and all my aunts and grandparents lived over there great-grandparents and so i was just pleased to help the people and if you could see the expression on the three families we helped on sugar here some days i don't answer my phone when they call because it's all about oh this is they did this they did this they did this and come and see my steps they put in different things like that so i'm just overjoyed and i thank you all for inviting us hello everybody i'm pastor butler greater duval and um we probably have one of the oldest group and neighborhood and uh just seeing the joy and of simple little things that we take for granted uh seeing them in action uh that's what pushed me and uh miss wheeler i missed the last meeting but praise god uh one of the big problems that we have as far as because i've sent a lot of my people to community action agency the big problem is they've been there more than one or two times uh in order because of the light bills being so high and uh so that's one of the big problems got it uh that we have um so every little thing that we can do like uh teaching uh all the teaching that we've done uh and keeping the water bill low and keeping the lights off and and changing light bulbs and so forth has helped but when you're living in duval area and uh you see a mother of nine nine children and um she's been there uh light bill wise three two or three times then she can't do it again because i sent her there saturday the outreach uh that was done uh but she she didn't qualify but nevertheless uh she have lowered her bill by learning simple little things like uh that they've been taught of how to put elaine help me that little thing in the toilet that uh yes uh that uh and a couple of other things and uh just changing the light bulbs and uh being aware of everything that's happening uh so it's uh quite a joy for me uh and our board to see simple things that we take for granted uh to see it work and seeing how it it works so well so we do appreciate uh all the help that we can uh get and uh everything this board has done uh to help one another uh and the things that we've done in order to help our people help themselves and that's what it's all about to empower them uh to help themselves but share that with us too yeah so that's been the big problem is that they've been there you know a couple of times and uh you can only do it so many times so that's been the problem but we've uh learning other little things to do in order to help uh with the light bills and with water and uh things like that so i'm very grateful to be a part of that board too thank you this is you're going to be very valuable but going forward now because we got stuff to do yes we do hi i'm clemmy johnson i represent the swag area and i'm so proud to be on this board because it empowers a lot of people that don't have things and need things done to the house and makes them feel like a better person like a human being when their house is fixed up they got heat you know coming in they're not the steps not falling down so i just like to see the people when after elaine and show us all this stuff and how they're smiling they're happy so that's a good thing for the people to make you have to feel comfortable in their own homes and feel like somebody's out there helping them i feel great when you fix up something that's been broke for a long time and makes them feel like a better person they can get by the community more and do more things with the community because they got help so they like we help them they send other people but they helped us so we're going to go help them and what people know about because of the help that they have gotten and improving their house so thank you do you all have a waiting list of people who are interested in working with you and the program that would be lane yeah it's basically the waiting list from the cwc okay so the first step is the tune-up to see what's needed what else is needed and then elaine brings us cases okay i guess uh maybe a follow-up question if there was a bottleneck to the program what would that be is it staffing is it money for staffing or money for materials or both money materials materials staffing you know we have been working with small amounts right now so it's not an additional huge burden on the staff wayne's been doing a lot of work for us without and part of the small grants have been compensating her so but the fund itself we would like to be able to do more we're not able to do everything that these homes need so it's it's that's what's so difficult about the decision making is what we can do with the money that we have uh commissioner wheeler does habitat get in there anywhere is that can be accessible is there any way to dovetail to use the the workers or the the financing or the materials that they're using we're not using we're not working with new construction no no rebuild but i'm talking about you know anything that needs to be redone i who is it that rebuild together works with them though is that who it is that rd and his group and they do a lot of the construction type work okay because i know there was a home and also we worked on so they're a partner and as you saw they have been helping okay do additional work reporting problems when they can because i knew there was a group that worked in hawk on a home you know that and i it wasn't it wasn't habitat i don't think and i don't and it wasn't in power i don't know who it was so it may have been it might have been together yeah i think it i think that's who it was okay i can tell you this if we had more money because out of duval alone uh it ain't how many uh do you usually get uh 15 uh soul applications uh or more that comes in because one person see oh wow that worked and this happened and this happened so of course we have to pick and choose uh who we can help this time with that money and have you gotten the funds from the solar rebate from us yet what is the status of that matt oh my leg is asleep don't crack out on it yep uh matt williams sustainability manager environmental protection for the county uh we are in the process of the solicitation to get the partner that will allow the money to pass through so essentially similar to what we have with the ac the alachua county energy efficiency program where those work with renters we're going to do the same kind of a solicitation process here i'm not i'm not following you so we we need a non-profit partner much like rebuilding and cwc or another kind of entity like that so we have to do a solicitation process to move the money to the community so it's not we can't just directly move the money from the county into the company we already have a partner i mean cwc and rebuild together are our partner on this program correct but this is a separate funding source and a separate grant so when we've worked with procurement we need a separate contract for it okay the work that we've done so far has been with separate small grants to dwc for the beginning the process okay so when is that rfp going out i mean we've this has been a i mean we've had to be having this conversation for a year so i'm i'm confused why we're just now in the rfp correct um well there's the 10k that came with the original lbs that one is moving forward we were waiting to get a little bit of a return potentially on the solar side of it first um and then figuring out what that first set of dollars would wind up being so we've been having those conversations with procurement and we're and it's probably within the next month that we'll have that out on the street would be my guess okay well i don't i mean i know we're not a board that can take action but i would love to refer this to our joint boards to hear what the empower coalition is doing and to bring back an update to the county on where we are with this program and when the next when we're going to be able to move forward because i i was under the assumption they already had that money and we're already operating i mean we've been at this a while this community has been dedicating their time and energy into this and our part was just to kind of be a conduit for the lydia stokes money and this you know and the solar rebate money to get to them and i i we don't we can't be another year we can't wait another year for this to happen so we need to get that money out and get it moving and i think commissioner wheeler if you're okay with it i'll bring it to the board when we have our next general meeting but just as a heads up to our team i don't know if the city would want to hear the same but i definitely want to get this information to our board so that we can make sure this is moving quickly but we are and we that's still going to be a very small amount of money so we are in the process of trying to figure out how to raise money okay to replant to put more funds in there and i think maybe betty had something um yes i represent the swag area also is that um one thing i want to get close to this board is that we are the most unsubstitious board that you will make because if the swag area don't have the immediate need for help why keep the money over here when the board can need it and i i'm just so impressed with that type of attitude with a board it's because from for myself it was like a rude awakening for me to see how some of these folks was really living i couldn't really comprehend that at first is to seeing somebody have to wash their dishes outside you know that just in 2026 it's just totally unacceptable and it don't take for a little bit to get somebody some hope and the hope that i see that these individuals is receiving in their lives it's it's spread through their community um they become better citizens uh they become better residents um but also it's the educational part with cw is that when they come out to majestic and that's apartment complex but they their light bills are six eight hundred dollars so when you are already living on a low income in a hud uh apartment higher than it because you pay a light bill that high so just for them to get that light bulb uh educated about different things uh weather wise their apartment just to see a hundred dollars come off their light bill that's a hundred dollars that they can feed their kids with those food stamps don't want us to hold so that's the type of changes that we are making with this type of program is that we really educating revealing and giving people hope absolutely absolutely that's why it's so important to me to see how we can can get the money to you that we promised to begin with and think about i mean one of the motions that we made was for all of our future rebate projects to to move that money into that fund and i i wanted to get clarity on that i know we have that conversation that was the original motion that was made but i'm not totally sure that's clear i know we will have a solar project i believe at the courthouse that will generate some funds but understanding an update on what funds is already going to them what the potential is for the program understanding what the potential is to be able to do these kinds of projects potential impact and savings to the community and energy efficiency generally based on what you already know from the projects you've done would be really helpful because i know that this board has a real interest in getting to the root causes of issues right like we can keep paying power bills and utility bills at the community resource centers with our cap funds or we can fix the challenges that these families have give them the dignity and the opportunity to get the education and the support that they need so that their houses don't they don't have to have those high bills and they don't have to come and ask the community action agency for help with their power power bill every other month so i feel like if we can get to that root cause and that kind of support we're getting we're solving problems rather than treating symptoms if you will and so i really hope we can look at that um with our board as we're having those conversations about zero-based budgeting and where we're going with the future of funding for our resiliency projects for our climate action plan and and thank you i'll get off my soapbox now may i just yes ma'am majestic oaks was taken over by a new company and repurposed right so did were they not risk they just got they got new management it's no new company it wasn't okay is that um um they have a team here now is they're going in and individually respecting those apartments it's because you know they they also provide subsidized to help those residents pay their life is also and it's just that i guess with age uh a lot of stuff that uh they willing to do because they got a team okay again it's just that and a lot of it is about education is that letting the people educating the residents is about how often they need to tackle like bug uh weathers and scripts and um take five minutes showers instead of 30 minutes hours in that i don't know but it's just in the swag area i don't know why it's like that but their light bills is much more higher than the average person not only at majestic but in that area all together and and i think it's because um if i have to go in and pick a a regular light bulb which is about two or three dollars versus one about nine or ten dollars i'm going with the cheaper light bulb sure so i think and then after we brought people's out and elaine came out and educate it began to click because they begin to realize that the light bulb don't go out as quick so it's this is about re-education and redirection and that at what what i enjoy seeing is the resident is being open to it exactly is that because nobody won't want to come home with their lights up and no one don't want to be able to have kids and send them up to school and can't afford a light bulb so i i think that what i see in the residents and the people that who participate in this program um they ask them for a handout they're asking for a handout and they appreciate that and that and at the same time we educating another generation as their kids is that we teaching them now is to take responsibility for their environment and for the stuff that um changes their they see changes in their lives so i think that's the greatest thing is when you see a six-year-old understanding can have a dialogue with you about the difference in between the light bulb is that that's we didn't change something right well that's what i was trying to understand it's not the facility it's the use of the facility yes i got it okay good because it would be awful to have these big complexes not working to function one thing i can say about the owners of majestu though as out in california they invest in their residents okay see my my job there is i'm the um coordinator of resident resources is that and they invest that to make sure we do first time home by us program we pay for it uh they pay for it we have a resident everything she told us she she was going to do she did it is that she in the process of becoming she got to take the class over again because her pontific aspire but uh standard in california uh keeping that agreement she got her credit score up she graduated nursing school she uh passed the nursing board on the first try and now she's working in north florida nurse and that's that that that standards philosophy is to give these people's hope by giving them a hand up and encourage them that they don't have to be here as a generational because you have families in uh those low income that been their grandma their mother and their children is that we they're trying to break that cycle and re-establish in them that it's different things that are in the world for them i'm glad you're there thank you so much thank you all for being here and taking the time to come down and share with us please invite us when you do another tune-up i'd love to come out and help clean up i might not be able to change out water pipes but i can clean some debris out of the yard so please invite me madam chair would it be okay if i added a comment yes we are we have a hard stop in the not too distant future because of tpo and we have one more item but as long as we keep it free it's very free bless you thank you yeah i wanted to speak to you know the questions about the grants that the county currently does have and you know kind of as a follow-on to the update matt provided but also that you know in the climate action plan in all of the work that the county's been doing as we focus on what it truly means to make an investment and highlight this is the community investment board right and getting to the root of the problem and the funds that can be generated that go into the community investment fund you know at a higher level and that we can take it you know to the lowest hanging fruit where we're getting the greatest return on our investment i just want to you know reiterate that like things have been slow you know or we have to go through the proper channels and working with the empower coalition as a coalition of individual entities and non-profits it's you know we can't direct a grant directly to empower as a coalition but to one of their partners so we're following those channels however i've just been so delighted to see the ongoing work every day that you know one of the takeaway actions we've discussed in the climate action plan approval is we need to make sure our climate champions already doing this work in our community are able to stay solvent and keep doing their work and so that was one of the reasons we wanted to bring these stories here because in this case where we knew we had a process to go through with the solar solicitation and then secondarily the how to get that ten thousand dollars out would require another solicitation and during that time the empower coalition and marianne the leadership of that group and in kwanda they pivoted and were able to through the graciousness of the lydia v stokes foundation they were able to get another direct grant that they could right away start i've been saying this is like the pilot for the pilot pilot for the solar pilot because they're essentially you know what the work you've heard today and the impact you've heard about today are exactly what the county has already funded and lydia v stokes through that grant like that's so it's almost like greasing the wheels to make sure we can really roll it out that this community investment board in prioritizing where that goes with the weatherization partner it'll just hit the it'll hit the ground running because they've already done and demonstrated you know the ability to deliver maximum impact so i just want to again thank the lydia v stokes foundation um i see nancy darren is here and also the um commission for the leadership and the city for being supportive and this joint board for being supportive so i you know in an era of decreasing availability of funding also like i just think that nimble approach and strategizing and they've also submitted for another two million dollar community grant that the county is not on but it's to fund this kind of model or continue this kind of model and scale it so i just want to give kudos to the empower coalition to community weatherization coalition rebuilding together cultural arts coalition you know all the partners on the ground who just done really fantastic work to take every county dollar and you know the investments that the local government's making and taking it as far as they possibly can so that's all i'll get off my soapbox now yeah thank you thank you and thank you all so much all right we will move on to our last item of the day which is uh electing a new policy board or to talk about electing new policy board uh leadership um and uh also to talk about our board in general so um what i want to say about this is that i think that um a lot of i think this board is still really important i think it's a really good board it does things like this it hears kind of issues it's able to bring back issues that are related to our environmental concerns particularly water and climate but really resiliency as a whole um and be able to bring that forward to our respective boards and our community at large and it gives our community a forum to come and speak to us and to talk to us about issues that are important to them in that regard um and i think that uh we have done a lot of our heavy a lot of heavy lifting um you know we have now have climate action plans each we don't have the municipal utility any longer so we have limited authority or ability to influence decision making around how the utility um is operating or providing supports for the things that we're doing and so i do feel like it might in our uh resolution it allows for us to have quarterly meetings and so i wanted to before we do an election just sort of suggest and see if everyone is okay for us going to a quarterly meeting schedule rather than a monthly meeting schedule or every other month meeting schedule that we have been doing because i just i'm just not sure that we have the agenda items or the necessity of meeting every month or every other month so i don't know how other board members feel about that but i felt like a quarterly candor might be fine with that yeah i mean the interlocal allows it i think staff we've talked about it and feel like that would be adequate for i don't know that we even need to make a motion to that effect but it might be helpful just to have it sure stuff no okay i move that we move this board meeting to a quarterly second okay we have a motion and a second do you have any comments hearing none all those in favor say aye aye aye any opposed like sign great um also there was some we don't have one of the city members right we had a big we have a vacancy on the city side we do and i believe the city mentioned that they might not be filling in that position yeah so i think when um mayor ward cycled off in december then that seat was not filled so i think officially our representatives from the city of gainesville are commissioner eastman and commissioner engel and i think do you do your assignments in december and they start in january i believe so yes i mean um and so what we do is people just fill out which board they want to be on and i guess james and i were the two that put this on here i think we have three or four that we could choose from and so i mean this is mostly as you point out it is a way for folks that are passionate about this issue to discuss it to come back to our respective boards i don't think we necessarily need to have three city commission members but i can bring it up to the other members that commission comment to say if there's anyone interested in joining they're welcome to but uh i i mean unless you think it's a point worth pressing i i'm i think i think we're comfortable with having you know james and i serving on here if the mayor would like to join or another person in the future that'd be fine yeah and i think for thinking about finishing out this year i mean we need to have our august meeting because that's when we will elect the ccac members but then i think we could then start quarterly we could not do the december unless there's something else we need to address and then by that time you know there will be three seats available for the city if there is interest at that time and then maybe we address it if there is an interest okay you know it just can it can be a challenge with forum yeah i also feel like it could be helpful to move our election to that cycle like i have been thinking like with some of the other boards that i sit on we've moved our election like the affordable housing like to right after the board does their elections with people to committees because then you have new you have everybody there and you have new people and you're able to more easily say like okay who wants to run the show for a year and it's like you know you're not doing it like midstream i don't know how others feel about that either but that was one i don't know if that's in our it is not in your interlock but it is just that it's written that every year leadership will potentially switch between like city and county because right now it's city it's county staff supporting our communications office and i guess we've done it based on the budget year rather than on the calendar year but we do our board assignments on the calendar year so it feels like the calendar year makes a little bit more sense i'm i think that would be fine i think we were slated to do it in april just because that's when it had been done another time but then our meetings got canceled so i don't think we're in violation of our interlocal if we just continue with leadership as it is and then you know once those new board members come on the beginning of the year then can decide who's going to leave i mean that's a it really does come down to you all because it would switch to you all and then city staff have to take up the i mean that's the other thing i think it's been switching in terms of who takes up management of the and i know that's a lift for either side and historically it was gru that did it one was in the city i mean city staff would um your communications team and would help with you know hosting the meetings but yeah but then um but the city has graciously been clerking even though it's been under county leadership which we greatly appreciate and publishing the agenda so i think a staff will work it out okay great i'm fine with with moving it to j i mean um waiting until january yeah i mean honestly the the um like i said this is um i i think you're doing a great job as chair you seem i mean you're really passionate about all of these things and you're um you thought to bring in the empower coalition and to keep this thing moving even though we don't have the um you know a a an acute or a project in front of us like we did when we had our sustainability plans right like we're continuing to move forward to discuss you know our uh citywide outdoor drinking water which i had not heard either as a city commissioner um the um it's uh it's i think it's good to have with these conversations and so um i think having someone who's very passionate about it like you are stay in the seat figuring out how to make these move along and move forward makes a lot of sense and then in january when we get new folks in there we get we can see where we want to go from there okay and i think just while we're talking about this you know we have historically had this meeting right before the mpto which is no longer the mpto tpo tpo thank you um because of all of the players then have to go to that meeting so i think it was just an ease of scheduling i think we can continue to pull calendars and try to do that for you know 20 27 unless we get feedback that you'd rather try to find other times i think it works fine right yeah mondays are always good too because there's just not a lot of other things going on on monday necessarily so okay um well i guess do we have a motion to defer our election until january yep so moved second here we have a motion in a second are there any comments to the motion hearing none all those in favor say aye aye aye any opposed like sign motion carries okay we will bump our election to january i'm happy to continue as chair and i think we just have one more meeting between now and then correct yeah we'll have our meeting on august 3rd that one i believe is a one o'clock meeting and then on your agenda for today you still have public comment and member comment yeah okay do we have any comments from the public to share with us we have a microphone here or here so feel free to take either one let me do a little we have the tpo meeting in here so yeah nancy darren i just want to say how important i think this committee is and i'm glad you all seem inclined to continue it and i think the collaborations especially around resiliency are going to be ever more important given what the state and others are are moving toward so i'm really glad you're doing that and the support the staff that is here and the staff that the county has and the city has are just so amazing and i'm so full of gratitude for the hard work in the face of so many challenges um and that you took the time to hear from the the folks in those three neighborhoods i've been lucky to sit in on some of those meetings i know this is catch the meeting but anyway to see the the focus on what's going to make people's lives better bring dignity and empower them truly and not get into territorial well we're doing this for you and that for you those women are absolutely amazing so what you all have supported in that direction um is just it's it's what's going to help us thread the needle going forward and um and really create ownership and citizenship again so thanks to all the staff and all of you thank you nancy any other public comments the general ones yeah oh cool snert you got something to say huh i was asking snert yeah i didn't want to like him too um i really want to talk about soils but actually the composting thing so a hundred locations around alatso county have a you know it's about look it make it easy for the people man let them come the little thing like this that you can shake out you open it like this and so the juices and whatever the nastiness and it's easy to wash people have it at home this thing that you guys did where you go to people's homes very nice but it's much more cost effective do something like this and get a hundred locations every public's every all the blah blah blah people come there once or twice a week anyway so they throw the stuff in there and they wash it at home and that's that's that you can get a 30 participation rate in like five years just make it easy can you tell us your name for the record mark down seussbergen that could be like a million tons if you're going to help you sell them that's like five bucks a ton seriously you can it's people make it easy make it convenient anyway uh because nobody wants to nobody wants to but i mean how often do you go to laveda brown and you know what i mean like how often do people really do that and go out and bring their yeah it's not gonna happen so but really it's about soil so yeah so soils you know long grass long grass also means long roots and you got these worms and you got beetles and you know there's those fungi and there's all this stuff going on so retention ponds as an example retention bonds are not retention bonds they're drainage ponds because you keep mowing mowing mowing mowing you guys do it you guys do it hoas do it people at home mowing and mow mow mow mow and it's like this tall and when it doesn't rain for three weeks this grass is like fighting with this grass for the water and then this one wins and this one dies and you got a patch of sand you know what happens when you but it rains after five weeks of nothing and it rains sand it goes straight down into where where does it go to well anyway it goes it goes straight down and it grabs all of the garbage from the 12 acre neighborhood i mean everything from cat litter to cigarette butts to you know transmission fluid blah blah blah it all goes in there and it goes straight down and you're paying people to make this happen you're paying people to to continuously and it's all about well my contract says i have to mow every month so they're thursday they're going to mow because there's no plan b there's no plan b by the way on your website you should have a little mower and when it's not time to mow you should have like a little mowing thing with a red x through it on the landing page seriously you have these other icons as well so anyway because people don't know they just do there is no plan b and plan b could be well you get every single piece of microplastic every single thing of styrofoam and you pick it all i don't want to do that i'm a mower you know there's no plan b that's why people just go mow mow mow mow mow if you are really like it's basic stuff let the grass grow to 12 inches cut it by sitting you know another six or something don't don't go to two go to six then you have long leaves long pieces of natural material that's what becomes part of the soil also longer grass means longer roots it means more water so if it doesn't rain for five weeks like it just did it's okay i mean it's okay it's still struggling but it's got it can retain whereas now you have a long drought all of a sudden you know it's all sandy but we're paying people to do this simply because we have no plan b there's only like wow it's it's the third week of the month i gotta mow well okay that's what i'm telling you it's so simple it doesn't cost anything to change that habit longer grass and you know longer grass and don't mow it down to two let wait longer and an extra time that you save with the labor the money the insurance the i don't know the equipment blah blah blah you can direct it somewhere else it's so simple it's simple it doesn't cost you anything you can improve the sand back into soil and and it'll actually retain some of the crap that comes out of the neighborhood it will because really it will it will it holds now it doesn't process everything but it holds a lot so anyway thank you yeah any other public comments okay we'll go to commission comment do you have anything brian no commissioner wheeler no i you know i had mentioned to our board at one time about the possibility of putting life lifelines in our parks at coast springs jenny wherever it is that people are using the springs to have something we have something that we can throw out after the young girls were that drowned there you know we realized that there was nothing that we could have thrown them um and it wouldn't hurt just to have something on a book in our parks on a ring or something that on they have that at rainbow springs there are some at the state parks they have a it's not inflatable it's a foam hard foam ring orange and white you know what and it's on a really long rope that's attached to the dock and i believe it's a carabiner so i believe you can disconnect it but that it may be like bolted because people would just run off with it but they do have one there um at i know at rainbow springs because i've used it um but i'm sure at other state parks as well so maybe we can look at what how the state parks did it and do something similar yeah i'll definitely refer that to jason parks my only thing is um items i think i would love to have gus present the conversation that we had um or or a conversation similar to the one that we started to have with the commission about our um landfill and about sort of where we're going with waste and our needs to think about the landfill to this board i think that it'll give our community a chance to come out and have a conversation and have a place to direct people to come and give input and feedback and also a chance that gives him to august to sort of get some responses from our landscape or our landfill partners and to mark's point on compost i mean i i said it in our meeting i'll say it again 30 of our waste is organic material 30 of it 30 of it we could cut the amount we're trucking to landfills by 30 we could be using that as a resource for building soil and organic matter which we are paying people to put out right now um so i mean i think it's just it's a no-brainer for us to come up with some organic composting solutions i know it's been a conversation the city's been having for a while so it'd be a great chance to maybe have them tell us where they are with their organics program and the the wins and losses the lessons that they've learned in trying to do it both commercially and residentially and have a dialogue about organics and about our landfill challenges so that's what i would like to add if everyone's okay with that to our next agenda i don't know if anybody else has anything that they would like to see on the agenda i would just like to add to what you're saying is i've been texting gus all weekend about this and uh he's sure he loves that no he's been he's been very kind he's been because i really wanted to do something like this too to get waste grow and gfl and um all of these people that are picking up stuff and just taking it to the dump because people call them to come get stuff up off the side of the road you know repurpose um have us all sit down together to come up with a plan so that if a homeowner which i saw last week and this is what started my thing with gus two dressers were sitting there gfl came to pick them up and i you know i asked i said where are you are you picking these up he said yes we're picking them up they called us to come get them and this is the thing people are calling the the the gatherers to come pick them up and we just need to find a way to have a communication between those haulers and repurpose or whatever whoever else is doing this to come up with a plan so that if if my neighbors that called and said i have two dressers then gfl could take that call and send it to repurpose or something so that there would be somebody else but we would have to have a plan universally with anybody who is doing that kind of hauling and a contract right with repurpose to do that kind of because right now it's sort of you know i mean if we expanded that all sit at the table and come up with a plan you know then even if we had to we're talking about the murph that we we've tried to have even if we had a big warehouse cover somewhere that we could take those things even when gfl had to pick up those two dressers they could have taken them someplace else rather than to la vida brown yeah so i'm i would love for us to be able to do that but at the same time if we could all and have a big powwow yeah and come up with a plan i think that that would be beneficial i know that i know that dana of waste pro and kevin of gfl they're good friends and they work well together we can all you know pull together coalition and sarah all of us yeah i think it's going to get there i mean i do think it's going to get there i think it i think you're right i think ultimately that's where it has to go i mean i think we need to start the conversation first because i don't even think everybody's on the same page as where we are and where we're potentially going and what the options are so i'm hopeful that's what this meeting would do and then maybe yours would be like a second step of like some kind of a summit or some kind of a yeah an actual like workshop if you will where where you're working through different waste streams bulky waste organic waste commercial waste whatever it might be and need a plan and having like mapped out strategies for those different waste types it bothered those guys if they were picking up these good dressers i mean we have a zero waste plan we paid a lot of money for a zero waste plan you know so we do have a plan it's just it's actually executing the plan and and having the both the political will and the capital to execute that plan um we do have it it also is very vague it doesn't have a lot of the details to your point it doesn't have you know the nitty-gritty of how does it actually work and we're ready to do i think everybody's ready to do that we just need to sit down and make a plan yeah all right this is what we're gonna do love it all right any other commission comments all right and we are adjourned thank you all thank you