our next item 7.2 mtpo renaming and branding director ruthfield are you going to lead this one yes thank you so much um i will say it's been a pleasure so far this is a week and and um i'm super excited to be here and i have to apologize now my glasses they sometimes work so renaming and branding as everyone knows we've extended to cover a large area the entirety of the county as opposed to the previous gainesville urbanized area which is the city of gainesville proper and some unincorporated areas of the county so with that transition to covering the entire county there's a need to sort of change the name because it basically covers just gainesville urbanized area now and then coming up with some logo and branding to kick off the new agency in its in its transition so some of the factors that staff um considered were how do we create connections um the name needs to connect and resonate with our our partner agencies as well as our residents our property owners visitors so we wanted to think of something that connects past present to future people to other people people to destinations and also systems to systems because we have a lot of systems that do need to work together there's a movement relative to first mile last mile things so connecting bicycle systems to roadway systems things like that we also want to recognize the importance of how the existing names are in the county hawthorne trail newberry road archer road that's a significant thing for me it it resonates with the the um the value that the cities and their residents have in the history of each of the communities there's some commonalities between all of the communities rail being one of the big ones but every jurisdiction's website that i looked at there's a big emphasis on preserving and protecting the historic value of each of the communities so i wanted to have the name tied to that as well um and then continuing to protect people um i'm sorry not protect connect people to nature as i drive around the county there's still a really beautiful canopy one of the things that is required in terms of federal funding is to also preserve our natural environment so MPL TPL's responsibilities are not just limited to roadway systems and cycle systems we also need to take care of our environmental resources so with that said uh wrong button so there's some names that we came up with connect alachua that is our favorite um onward alachua looking towards the future and then move alachua and then the distinction between whether the board wants to be known as a metropolitan planning organization or transportation planning organization neither one is better than the other and neither one is correct or incorrect um a lot of the federal language makes reference to MPOs so there are lots of MPOs out there there are some agencies that have changed their names multiple times over the decades they've gone from TPLs to MPOs to TPAs transportation planning agencies some have gone back to from being a TPA to a TPO so it's really up to the board how you want to be named um staff's preference would be transportation planning organizations simply because district two which is the district of DOT that we're in there's one other agency and they are a TPO so for purposes of forms it's easier for the district to say our two TPO's instead of our MPO and TPO it makes any documents a little bit shorter so with that again i'm hitting the wrong button some branding options um as i mentioned staff's preference is connect alachua there are some you know some opportunities to in terms of the font we want to make sure that it's also readable in the black and white should we want to do that and what i've shown here is the connect the lateral with metropolitan planning organization and transportation planning organizations just so that you can see how it would look written down there's also some more sensible fonts this one is a free download i had downloaded it to my personal computer and then snipped it and moved it over in the two color backgrounds um so these are this is another option and then you can you know just to play with some other options there's this the little wave it's used in a lot of organizations now so i don't know if you want to do that or not but um the other option is to and i'm jumping out to the bottom is uf has a really nice graphic arts program um i've already gotten the phone the phone number and contact for the director of the uf arts program to see if the students the uh the director would entertain like a grant opportunity or an award of some type for their graphic students to do a little competition to see which graphics they might come up with that the board would like and then just giving them like a 500 dollar stipend um or award towards the educational materials the background on that would be that they would have to learn a little bit about what a tpo or mpo is um learning about transportation safety and then part of the branding or logo that they develop would also be a little informational um uh flyer that they could disseminate to the university to help with our students um education on on public safety for transportation so with that staff is asking for yes you should go ahead and finish and we'll go to some um staff is asking for board approval of the name connect alachua transportation planning organization and then either one of the locals that's presented or the option to pursue maybe a design competition with the uf students all right yeah oh sorry just a quick clarifying comment um the name of the organization there's kind of a lot more being held up um with the name being in limbo than the design um so we're currently trying to get a new web developer to give us a modern accessible website and we're also trying to get an interactive transportation improvement program um neither of those can really be executed until we have decided what the name is so the design really can be decoupled from the naming effort just want to mention that yes and the naming is so that we can get the domain name going great commissioner prisian um i have i don't really have a strong feeling about the name i know there was a lot of conversation when we were originally trying to come up with the name in the subcommittee that there was still some strong affiliation with gainesville and so we were like wrestling between gainesville and otter county this sort of just says a lot to us i don't know how the city commissioners feel about that um or the other city commissioner from the other municipalities but it does cover our whole geography so i i'm fine with connect galatua i i think it's fine when it comes to the design part is what i'm more concerned about i really think that it makes sense for us to hire a professional design firm to design a logo and a branding package that'll give us you know usually they'll they'll think about the county's stuff they'll think about the city's stuff they'll try to have something that integrates with all of what we do and create a branding guide that'll give us colors and lots of other things so i don't mind going with uf there's actually they have a design studio called mint um and you can hire the students i think it is about 500 that you pay as a client of this mint studio but it is student designers that do it and um so there's something we could do like that or a competition but i would hope that we would ask for a full like brand package for whatever we do versus just like come up with a logo because i think we'll need a lot of other things as time goes on you know templates for powerpoint presentations letterhead like all the other collateral that goes digital and physical collateral that goes with an organization so i would ask that we either hire a professional firm and spend the cash or if we're going to go with uf um try to go with the club the mint design studio class or um there's one other one that's out of the j school um and i can't remember the name of but it's another design kind of branding firm that's student based so you can hire commissioner cornell thank you mr chair i agree with anna i like connect a lot to a transportation planning organization with a big butt and a caveat we've got to have in my opinion in all the branding material uh whether that's the logo or something we've got to have this the name of games like right now we have for the games in alaska county area um everywhere i go around the state folks know alaska county because they know alaska county uh if they're a county commissioner but if they're not a county commissioner they don't know alaska county and we have to have gainesville in that because everyone knows gainesville everybody knows the university of florida and so that would be my my butt on the name um i don't mind the name and i don't mind moving forward that name but i agree i think you got to have gainesville there was a prior version that i had that said connect alaska and it had um the transportation management area for and it had the longer thing and gainesville and alaska county yeah i mean we did yeah we we kind of went through the same discussion when we were doing the course um rebranding of the of the course development um organization and we it was really important that gainesville was branded in that um for the reason mr jay santos thank you chair um i agree with both uh commissioner prior uh i think on the paying for i we should pay for it i i've worked with uf on different things and yes it's nice but something we're actually going to be using and sort of brand package which we do need i think actually having a firm that does this every day it's going to be quicker and um complete and crisp and everything like that it's not working back i mean we're a professional organization i think we treat ourselves like that and not just try to uf just for like if we have a competition other stuff like this great but not something where it's going to be the whole front page so i would say we should hire um a company to do that um for the name i i agree on gainesville somewhere needs to be in i mean i represent the games regional airport we are made up of the city the county and the state of florida the governor points for gainesville because that's what he'll know gainesville um much more well known than alachua county yes i think county commissioners do but across the state of florida and across the country and really the world gainesville is known because it's uf and then they know gainesville um so maybe like what do i got gainesville alachua county transportation planning organization um and i i was looking at other ones not everyone has like that kind of action and maybe just keeping it simple gainesville alachua county transportation which i drew people gainesville alachua county transportation planning organization yeah and lop off the connect to alachua yeah looking at other ones i didn't i saw that there's cannellas county has four cannellas but if ours is already so long with or maybe people actually we could also do something where graphics is to us i it'll be gainesville dash alachua and then transportation finalization um in this area like the the sub name i think that anything that needs to be in the top part of the name people don't um to commissioner um cornell is like i can feel them so they know just alachua so i think having it up higher um and yeah i think hiring when we go out there is having them help with the logo design what's the process if i want to comment this is commissioner alford all right that's going to be good enough thank you um i was just at the mpoac meeting and um not only did tampa have a a different name but also it's um uh metro plan orlando was one of the other uh tpo names that i thought was you know had like an act more of an action oriented um name i like the idea of the action oriented name i think it's sort of you know this idea of connecting with the public and helping you know being like like forward focus alachua county i think it gives the it it to me it sounds more accessible than a lot of we're losing you commissioner alford is that better i think it may be on our end oh dear but speak up no you sound like you're going father which is i i i'm i haven't moved so i'm going to just keep talking um but um i i just feel like i appreciate the fact that there was an effort to make this a a way to connect with the public um the the theme of the mpoac meeting was engaging the public and i feel like um the public don't have a a good history of of connecting with our former mtpo so having a name that is like that is significantly different from that i think is important to me because i feel like it it will be more inviting to the public um that that's my thought but um in terms of hiring someone and doing a professional logo while i think the the ones that were presented were fine i i also see the real advantage of having a full package created so i agree with that commissioner really if you're talking about an action word that seems to me that um commissioner alford was just saying connecting to me that that's the action is you're connecting not just connect but also my concern is alachua or alachua because we have a city named alachua and um when i see this i think of the city alachua um so i don't know by putting gainesville in there i don't know if it's alachua county connecting alachua county transportation planning would be we'll connect gainesville and alachua county transportation planning yeah sometimes but because just seeing alachua by itself like that i think of the town of of north end i i will say for my part i just um if it's that tpo is really where we need to be going and that's what i'm kind of hearing that perhaps um but because definitely connect alachua metro campo means you know country or the rural area in spanish and you know we're a metro transportation so campo might have uh some false uh some false advertising um so that's the only thing that stuck out to me i'm really kind of open but i i get commissioner cornell's point about that when it comes to landing big dollars it is about what people know and can you know whether it's whether it's the federal officials um that they need to hear that oh yeah gainesville and most if not all but most of the roads that we talk about in essence it's about it's about usually connecting people to gainesville you know some of it's cross city traffic and see there's that word again connecting yeah it really is so i mean i'm kind of i'm kind of agnostic anyway i'm hearing good comfort uh arguments about like that a change from the old is would be better though because of we didn't have enough engagement so i'm somewhere agnostic i just don't besides uh campo sounds like false advertising commissioner book all right thanks uh thanks for the work uh down there so you're wasting no time getting up and running and that's what we've been hoping for for some time um i i'm i'm like many of you all i don't have uh much uh in in the way of uh passion for any particular way i think that what we're settling on or what sounds like we're settling on is fun i would have been against move actually uh because it sounds like we're telling people to get out and so that just didn't make sense i do like transportation planning organization in there and i do think gamesville and alachua county should be um and and branding and logo and making sure that people know how to reach um the the people that are on any particular governing board has to be real easy and that's about branding and logo however we can do that all right board member certain thank you so i i named the dog dog dog so um this my comments gonna be limited but i do agree with having a whole package of stuff and i i like that logo up there i don't know why like the county shape in those two different colors um i'm okay with the transportation planning organization and for me i i do know we we folks we always focus on gainesville and i don't at the expense of sometimes the the smaller municipalities say at them but folks do know alachua county as being gainesville because that's what i have to say gainesville harris of florida when i travel right but um i do would like the like and i i i would go with us having the two games of alachua county and and i'm gonna gonna say i really i like there was one on the bottom with the the outline of the county that was kind of jaggered it gives rise to all of the trails or whatever i did that one on the left i actually like that outline there and um i don't i don't want us to focus so much on the cyclists because that we kind of have that negative rep from a lot of people that they get all their knickers and a knot about us focusing a lot on bicyclists when our city and county are not it it's not folks aren't cycling as much we use a lot of cars we depend on cars you know because we've got so much sprawl i could not um i could drive in on a bike i mean ride in on a bike from where i live but i'd be hope my insurance would be paid up because the chestnuts may have to provide services to my family because of the way folks drive out on newberry road coming in east and west so um pretty much kind of like um cases like i'm not real creative but i do like uh that current logo with the two different colors and that going up that does give rise to us moving people and connecting or whatever i like that one all right miss dixon yeah i just wanted to say um i i do like the tpo and for the reasons that everybody's mentioned it's a it's a very complete uh rebranding of the organization and at uf there are two um groups you could look into the mint studio and the college of the arcs was the one the other one is in college of journalism and communication that's called the agency and it is it is run very professionally with uh faculty and and professionals involved and they could probably also produce that whole package of materials so i appreciate the idea too of going to uh you know to a consultant but but you might look at those two on campus and just see if they could meet your needs um yeah so i um i well one i think what's most important in this is that when people see the name of the organization that they know what it is they're looking at i glad i got from this one because the when i first saw connect alachua i was like well you know what is connect a lot like it we're a transportation organization right and so um and so i'm glad that it looks like you guys are trying to put connect alachua tpo which means that when i see it i can know what that is i i don't um i don't have a i don't have a problem with kind of more i i like the idea of more interesting names or kind of future names but i also think that like when we're talking about reaching out to people connecting with people i mean we do that through our actions right and the name of the organization is sort of secondary to all that so i don't um i if we just went with connect alachua which i don't only have a problem with per se it's better than uh former commissioner hey santos up here with like some of the cutie cutesier names on here heartland regional tpo or like some of these are like where exactly are we talking about here right at least alachua county is specific right it is it is alachua county and like metro plan orlando for instance is uh like we were the gamesville organized area and then or metro plan orlando has three or four different counties so it's the msa of orlando right now we are alachua county right so it's a very you know concise you know what the jurisdiction about um so i don't mind calling it game or just or even calling it a a boring boring name like the games will alachua county tpo and then call it i think we show we show innovation and we show who we are through through our actions and how we do that kind of outreach most important is that when someone sees a sign up they say i'm going to go to this thing they know what they're coming for it's transportation planning that is countywide and for our right you know for our entire area um uh and so if we're i guess what i'm saying is that if we're adding in like games will alachua county connect or connect games will alachua county tpo it you just i don't want to get too unwieldy like uh you know let's kind of keep ourselves focused on things and make it so people know exactly what it is that they're interacting with all right commissioner frizia then chestnut uh i just wanted to say two things one is i mean we are the gaines biological and transportation planning organization like that's what we are and i think maybe we already have that domain uh it's ac g and b i don't know what you are dot mobility mobility oh okay well i guess my point is like we don't have we can just use the domain we have and get the website up like i don't understand why you know if we're going to hire a professional firm like they can actually like name test like that's part of what they do is they'll go out into the public and they'll like kind of see what names are and like generate i mean it's just if we're paying a firm like they'll do some of that work for us and kind of see what people think about i mean because connect alachua to me even though i really like what you brought forward about the way in which we're connecting people to us and and to their their region and to their nature i also think of that as like an internet company like it sounds like internet mobile to me so i'm just thinking like we may want to just let a firm that does this work do it and rather it's a student firm or a for-profit firm do it but if we can find a domain that works no matter what like our domain doesn't have to be connectalachua.com it can just be gainsville alachua transportation organization and that's the website you know what i mean and then we have a logo that has our name and our and all the other stuff in our collateral and that's what's on the website and all of that so i guess i feel like maybe we let the staff move forward with the domain that's gainsville alachua transportation planning organization or the acronym of that and in the meantime we hire a professional firm sounds like we're getting closer to motion commissioner chestnut uh well i kind of like connect the lodge i think it's appropriate but um as as commissioner prizia said you know if we're going to hire a professional let them come up with some names for us to look at and consider uh because we're going to pay them so let them do the research and come up with something nice uh for us if it's going to be a branding tool because that's what you do when you hire a firm because that's going to be your website everything you do your logos that go in your cards or whatever uh so i'm i'm i'm in favor of hiring a professional company to do it uh but either way i mean i'll go either way but um but i think connect the lot says it all in a sense that we don't leave out the other municipalities because they are a part of boato county so i mean and that's me against gainsville but you know and it'd go either way with me i'm not saying anything different but i just rather it has been bold so continue that way but you know i'd like to give a professional opportunity a company to do that for us and then we make a decision as a board okay uh mr hey santos and then councilwoman taylor um i'll put up a motion on the floor down for some more discussion well let's get can i can i skip to councilwoman taylor and then we will go back around um just go back a little bit to the name and then perform the motion um when i went to the convention down in west palm beach that was one of the things that was mentioned as well um to make a mention about the changing of the name and agreeing with um vice chair santos and commissioner chestnut of kind of what we discussed with that as well was not just saying gainesville and to incorporate alachua county not just sort of with the alachua on there because it's true we are encompassing all of alachua counties which means our rural areas as well but if we just leave it as gainesville then you're going to have some people that are going to get antsy and say well it just says gainesville and you're just representing gainesville no it's all of alachua county so the i i i like to connect alachua and gainesville gainesville alachua county but make sure you have it as county on there so that they won't think that it's just standoff alachua by itself but encompasses the whole alachua county so again it was something that we discussed at the um conference down there as well all right mr jacentos yeah um i was gonna put out there um well i do um i do think if we go out there for a whole name branding that can turn into a huge that's true of all of that and i think they're they're saying we have to come make decisions sooner so i i would i think it'd be great but i don't only get the time and then it could be blown up to a lot of money have all those good names so um i would have put out uh gainesville alachua gainesville against dash alachua county transportation planning organization sorry i got a motion on the name um to clarify is that omitting the county from alachua county no gainesville either dash or i'm looking at other ones they have dashes and flashes yeah but the word county county's there gainesville alachua county transportation planning organization all right a motion from hay santos and a second by wheeler and do you and let's just kind of repeat back at least what we're at can we add yeah can i hiring a professional firm oh yes and the second portion is we hire a professional to help with a logo and to create a um not a brand package is that brand yeah yeah style style guys design style guys design style guys okay and that's yeah okay so that's what we got right now uh uh commissioner cornell yeah i i agree with the motion i think it's really three parts one name two hiring the firm three the branding so we've heard uh the reason connect the last was nice is because it's two it's two words but we can we can build that into the branding of connecting gainesville and alachua county connecting games in alachua county so i like the name uh gainesville and alachua county tpo i like the hiring in the firm and then getting into the branding let's get that word connect somehow in there so fourth motion okay just one thing to clear so there's a dash there's a flash and there's an and it's like the dashes and flashes on other ones i like gainesville and alachua county tpo the reason i don't like that not to spell out the end the ampersand is because then it seems like it's i mean there's other municipalities so we're gonna be like gainesville mickinoki newberry alachua and alachua county oh like it feels like it's just is it just yeah i see and alachua county as incorporating all these communities could you put underneath there connecting communities yeah that way you'll be using your word but you know have the main titles that people could go and then if you wanted to as part of the the branding of it put connecting communities because that would then talk about all of our outlining as well i support the motion i think we would just allow staff to come back and determine whether there's an and a slash a hyphen and figure out because that's part of research by people who have expert of what what works best and the font we choose will matter um director woodfield do you have a time frame that is you know urgent on what we're doing i know you you had a recommendation but we obviously have a different path that we're headed down um we are working on the upwt and tip and other documents as well as the marketing firm that um this month mentioned so we can put in a i guess a blank space um until we can as we get along further in the document and then once we get some resolution on the branding and then the name we have yeah it could just say electric gamesville i've seen it dash and slash um for purposes of reproduction i think the slash is better because if you're printing in a newspaper the dash sort of gets lost um and then gamesville slash with this elastro county tpl we can just use that in our documents do you like the slash better than the ampersand you know i like the ampersand gamesville and ampersand so not the word but the symbol because it brings in my opinion it brings the other cities and the unincorporated part of elastro county with game not not a bad point you know yeah i'm an ampersand versus the dash yeah the slash feels like or the slash like an afterthought does the maker of the motion agree to change it to gainesville ampersand elastro county let me just say i'm just looking at other ones and um i don't see any ampersands you mentioned dashes but it looks like those dashes are like oh charlotte county punta gorda i guess has a dash in it um okaloosa walton tpo has a dash in it um okalamarian is a slash uh miami dave is they have hernando citrus is a slash so i guess it's about 55 in terms of that i don't see any ampersands not that we'd be at first we could be yeah people will be talking about us in a few years i mean i'm okay with ampersand if there's not like any issues but like print i know some like typographical typographical stuff and sometimes happens but anyway some of our forms are very digital with the federal government isn't ampersand you know like part of government digital it just has to be translatable to meet ada requirements so it'll be translated into the word camp right probably so gainesville and alachua county tpo yeah it's simple okay is there any more conversation from this board um this is a motion that has name um going to find a company to do it and getting its branding package of some sort any other further conversation here do we have any um public comment we'd like to comment on this motion i don't know designers there's too many cooks in this kitchen as is um i don't i don't see any so we're ready for a vote all those in favor say aye aye those opposed that passes unanimously um and so uh director whitfield yes does that sound good you you you have enough direction on that that motion is clear yes sir all right and then is there anything else you need more around that or we can just go straight to the next item um that's it we can go to the next item all right 7.3 mtpo or what will be gac tpo office space and location so office space location um thank you to the county for the space that we have so far it's a very freezing frigid cold storage room jeff brought me a heater i appreciate that very much um so some of the some of the considerations that that staff looked at were um that the location could be centrally located um that office space office space was easier to find than anything else there's there's ample um leasing companies that offer just strictly office space the challenge has been um getting something that has a board room that could accommodate the board uh roughly 30 people 30 to 35 people so the board plus the audience and staff um and then something that uh because the we are on a very fixed budget is having something where the lease terms are predictable so um this is the old one this is the old so okay so i just counted on ai and google to help me with searching instead of driving all over god's green earth and so there are lots of um locations out there leasing agencies loop net is one they have um there's another image where you see the the red markers throughout the county um i filtered that down to just office slash flex space and this is how many is left over some of them are out in a latchway and and other locations but when you look at all of those the office spaces were limited in terms of um they're fixed there's no opportunity to reconfigure any of the space and the majority of them if not all of them um didn't have space to accommodate a board room um this is another website uh property shark and i am by no means a real estate agent so i'll just put that out there um looking at other locations and then looking at the cost um and what i've learned is that i also looked at regius.com commercialcafe.com i spoke with chair willits about availability at uf i also contacted the santa fe college office president's office to look at if they had any space to accommodate us i am still waiting to hear back from santa fe college but the president's assistant recommended these locations i also did comps comparing them to orlando's rates as well as the city of winter garden which has a very vibrant downtown as well as the city of ocoee looking at communities um close in size and the what i found was that the almost all of them if not 90 percent are what's called triple net and i learned that recently and the the smallest rate in these other cities are 16 dollars per square foot to as high as 68 per square foot um i didn't know this i'm new to the whole real estate world but what that means is that the landlord offers a very low rate the lowest rate that i found in alachua county um it's ten dollars a square foot um and uh the tenant would have to deal with all of the taxes insurance maintenance uh everything else repairs um structural repairs of their location any interior repairs also um cleaning and janitorial staff for all the common areas and then there's another location the seagull building they have purchased the first six floors this company trimark purchased the first six floors and also all the grounds on three sides of the building so this lease is 28 flat rate their base is five years but because they are in doing interior renovations to meet our our needs at no cost they increase the rate term leads to 10 years and the 28 fixed rate includes property taxes property maintenance water wastewater generator staff security surveillance on-site parking and break rooms equipped with kitchens the only thing that the tpo would have to finance would be the electric and phones and then i'll show you the cost sheet for teams like teams for video conferencing but also teams for phone service their modifications could take anywhere from three to five weeks and then like i said the landlord would pay for all of those for tearing down walls adding new walls and things like that as i mentioned i looked at the wells fargo building they ten dollars per square foot triple net is the lowest that they have in the entire county um and again tpo would be responsible for all utilities property expenses and building services they were not able to provide me with a a time frame until we agreed to build the next step with them so i'm not able to add any information here um this is just a moment uh commissioner president did you yeah yeah i guess i just i had two questions one is um did you have normal conversations with the last row county's real estate office like our folks that do like real estate funding for the county because they may be able to they might have been might be able to if you're still if you're if you're not satisfied with either of these i guess the other thing is we don't pay property taxes because the government so i i prefer one where property taxes aren't built in because we don't pay them but um um also i was wondering why you think we need a boardroom we just upgraded this boardroom to accommodate the tpo so that's um a conversation for this board to have in terms of optics um i again i just started some of the information that i've heard from some members is that it's just another alachua county agency so it's really up to the board i think the optics is better if the tpo actually has its own location where the board meetings are there on neutral territory the tac cac vpap meetings are all there on neutral territory the board room that's there could be sublet or rented out to be a money maker as well to help some offsets but that was i thought was the direction was that the board wanted to have a new beginning for the agency um this location is the county's location it will continue to be enjoyed by other county business so there to me isn't a loss to the county um the other thing too is um i have not reached out to the county real estate uh rem office but i can certainly do that um were there any other questions so i went to the wells bargo building because again it was like the cheapest rate that i was able to find on the internet um these are structural columns there's like office spaces here these are all generically done um they did not offer to make any structural wall changes or anything like that other than you'll see in the floor plan this space here the the walls if you wanted to create a enclosed room like this one so that sound doesn't bounce all over they would not be able to do that because of the sprinkler system um the walls would not be able to go to the roof for for fire it would have to maintain like a two foot clearance and then all of these spaces here are just i'm not exactly sure what these are because there were not that many office spaces in the building when i went to tour the building they did not have any floor plans so it took them almost three weeks just to have an architect lay out their existing floor plan and they haven't offered up any modifications to meet the tpl's needs again with the um the sprinkler system it's difficult to create a board space um the triple net as i mentioned this is uh 3 388 square feet at 10 um is 33 but what the lady told me was well you're not paying 33 you're paying like 66 so don't anticipate that you're getting 10 a square foot it actually equates to 66 000 the other thing too is that individually partner agencies are government um and tax exempt i have not confirmed yet if the tpo itself is also tax exempt so that's something that i still need to look into with like another finance expert i know that there are some tpos out there that registered themselves as a 501c3 and some that do not for various reasons metro plan orlando for example is not a 501c3 they've incorporated their name but that's because they have other funding sources besides the they're not just federally funded they have other funding sources i think that with the new state legislation we don't pay sales tax but the property tax was not off the books but i can confirm that we pay the county's sales tax okay um this is i didn't take any pictures for the seagull building because their brochure already had lots of good photos so i just snipped those over they have um the fifth floor and sixth floor are completely done and ready for leasing the floor plans for each of the suites are the exact same between the fifth and sixth floors um this is just a brief so these are pictures from the brochure and having been there they look exactly like this so these are the three suites five and six floor are the same there's a 1500 15 a 15 15 square foot suite 1492 and 16 57 individually these are annual rates individually at the 28 dollars per square foot fixed rate are these 42 41 46. i originally liked the two combining the two smaller ones it yields a slightly smaller square foot and i did a redesign of it so total it comes to i'm sorry 84 196 but i didn't like how there's two offices here one here and then this is the space between all three suites that could accommodate a meeting space and then these these other two so it's separated so then i drafted my own floor plan um i didn't get a chance to digitize it so i'm sorry um but the and i sent that over to the um the landlord and he said that because of the hvac system and the flooring and taking down walls it would be too costly an initial rate was like 250 000 so like okay don't do that um the next option is combining the medium size and the larger size at 3145 square feet um 73 38 per month 88 60 annually and then i asked them if he could just make some modifications so as it exists now this suite is completely walled in suite 501 is also completely walled in they all have non-ada accessible bathrooms but they the floor shares this 180 accessible bathroom the changes that i had asked for is to add uh replicate the double doors here so that when people come into the tpo office this these double doors will essentially be closed designating that that is a board room and then moving the reception area to here adding in a wall here to sort of isolate and protect the board room which will also make it easier if someone wanted to stop let it or for you know if we wanted to rent it out or offer it up for other people adding um taking down this wall moving this wall here to create a copy area slash storage room um and then opening it up to here adding this wall and this wall and this wall to create a larger office space um closing in the kitchen so staff will work here and here my thought is you know i don't have a preference as to who goes where um this ideally would be the executive director's room you know should whoever um if i if it's me or whoever else looking long term this is a 10 year lease sorry um so all of these modifications will be at no cost to the mtpo um the difference between the option a which is these two smaller ones and option b which is this larger one is 138 square feet um 3450 per year so again the numbers are 88060 or 84196 but the offices will be sort of separated um this is the leasing details again 3145 uh security deposit of 7500 um 8860 10-year lease um landlord will let us move in when the room is substantially complete if the board chooses to go forward with it and then exit at the expiration of the lease any improvements that the board or the tpo does but we would not have to revert the building the suites back to its original form so that's included in the lease terms um some initial costs set up um tables and chairs i have no idea how much this table costs but home depot and others have some really great options for costing out um laptops so everything that i could think of i worked with county i.t staff to sort of price out the electronic components of the office space comes to roughly 39 285 um that would be the one time upfront cost um and then working we would still be working with the county department as far as network uh it would be probably a contract where the tpo would vendor to the county for storage like cloud storage space as opposed to it being in kind um you know all of the all of these systems here so or you know whatever the board can negotiate with the county as far as it being in kind it really boils down to how we want to report it back when it's time to audit how the funds for the tpo is spent i have a question about the the ab like what's our current setup because the county we pay the county or the county in kinding not merely you know the physical but you know the staffing to to make sure we're out we're broadcasting i'm going to ask allison to help me with that one because i didn't get a chance to read that contract the staff services agreement between the mtpo and the county county communications is providing um you know support in terms of getting the meeting published i mean i published the meeting but you know getting it out through the proper channel as part of the press release um and helping broadcast the meeting as they are now um i don't frankly understand all of the inner workings um but they are helping through the staff services agreement when we if because we're we're going to have some conversation about are we looking to move just offices or office and a meeting space and then this meeting space has been pretty you know useful because we have the staff and the expertise on site to help us whether when we move off how we're going to make sure we have the expertise um because i'm sure director ribfield you're not a navy specialist none of us are um so that's why i just wanted to poke that now but we're going to probably get around yes sir so that's one thing if the board decides to move forward with having a separate space um i would work computer work with the county staff it may be via the county being a vendor as opposed to the county offering it through um support through that contract one other reason why i think having a separate location is good is that if we were to um have meetings with fhwa or dot or any other agencies want to come and meet with the tpo we have a dedicated space for it we don't have to check the availability of this conference room um also the tpo's office will be open more hours um more accessible um and more accessible than uh this facility i actually learned that my office closes and locks the door at one one or two so thankfully i already had my backpack when i exited the building um but i didn't know that so just for from an optics perspective having a standalone facility would be good for the organization with the new name the the transition and everything but um also the the accessibility of the facility would be another reason okay i think we're going to get into the conversation now i think commissioner book yeah uh thanks for the research and looking at all the different data so i my question is what do we know about other tpos and mtpos and how are they what are they doing are they meeting in shared government space for example are they in separate space what do we know and dot may have some uh oh thank you uh dot may also have some um insight on that as they move around the state so how are they operating i uh allison and i went to the mpoac meeting um this last week and every executive director i could get my hands on i asked them that exact same question and they have all essentially i've spoken to st lucie um the capital region which is the tallahassee area north florida treasure emerald coast and i can't recall all the other ones but they've gone through a transition period that where they've now occupied their separate space um and it took them a couple decades like um miami-dade for example that that executive director is willing to set by weekly meetings with me to help me get this tpo transition it to an out of source um mr butch buckwald with st lucie tpo as well as uh mr slay with with capo region have also offered their services to help us get on our feet with the transition um some are sharing space but that's because they have had the opportunity to learn how to leverage funds to where the big project is like tpl the north florida tpl for example they were able to get to a point in their tpl transition where they could leverage a large dollar figure to pay for a new transit facility and through that they were able to be given a facility just for them but it's inside of another building their transit building which is like a multi-million dollar project um some have metroplan orlando uh uses a suite they before they moved to um the building next to city hall they were in what's called the twin towers in orlando they leased a space there a portion of the third floor because they grew they now moved to another location but they're still housed inside of a suite of a much larger um i think 15 story building so it ranges uh they have a much bigger staff some of the other tpos have staffs ranging from five to like 10 or 15. i think for us there's a benefit to having a zone it's just going to take a little while to um to get there but my concern is that if we were to go with one of the three um it's highly likely that the landlord is not going to sit to wait for us to decide if we're going to move into the other suites just to speak candidly they're in the market of leasing out space so if we were to say we're just going to use this space this is basically open to the kitchen so it's not really conducive to to meetings this one has the best meeting space but it only has two offices this one is also three offices but it's just a general open area so none of the three by itself i think would work well in the five year like even in the five year um this one will probably we would have to get them to agree to maybe create a third office space but at the end of the day if we rent any of these three the other two would be um leased out so at some point we would have to move again and remind us because the capacity you need now versus in the future right um so the the ideal situation is to have staff from three to five so the director's position plus either you know two more staffers but if we grow to a point where we are actually rolling out projects through leveraging funds and corridor studies and um um just completely had a senior moment um but the more projects we have the more staff you're going to need even if that staff is just two the director and three people director and four people you would still need based on the complexity of the project these staff support from consultants that's not going to change very much because the agency is not going to have the expertise gis surveyors and all those things to do that so at the minimum i think there should be at least a um an office that accommodates four um you know in the i think having a staff smaller than that would would be quite taxing on the staff that's there thank you thanks for reminding the context we are still learning and yes going off to the future uh mr let me go i got hayes santos and cornell and mary um and mary then book so hey santos uh thank you chair and thank you for all this work um i think i'd like to i don't think we've had like a budget yet of what of our predictions i mean this is a million over a million dollar in conference for 10 years and i i and we've kind of been just i don't even know what our budget is or where we're at or what are we what are we at like for the organization um so i'd like to kind of that also since it's it you're talking about 10-year lease what are our projections and kind of like if we grow a lot this is what we're going to be we're going to be medium if we're going to be kind of mr chair do you mind if i just speak to that so this is another thing that um i was working on so it didn't get included in your packet and you apologize for that so um based on so mpls are funded through federal funds um there's su funds and pl funds we can rely on pl funds not so much su funds um the su funds the limit that is guaranteed to us based on the population formula is 1.68 million that's that's pretty much what we have to work with and there are seven tasks that mpos and tpos have to accomplish that's our our directive from the federal government task one is administration two through seven is pretty much all the forms the documents the plans the projects everything falls under two through seven so what i attempted to do here is based on the number of positions and this is in an excel spreadsheet so i can modify these numbers and then they'll just trickle over this is based on a five positions with the 35 fringe this is the director's salary this is the and i looked at the position ranges based on the draft position descriptions that the county and the board had when interviews were being done and then i added a 20 percent above base higher to try to get a better um better candidates and then i added the 35 fringe so this number populates this salary plus fringe 5 000 for travel 37 50 for professional development the yields personnel is 643 820 and then office space is 101 that's the lease and then electric and teams with phones with phones and basic office supplies these two numbers i i don't know what the county pays for phone service but i would imagine that the basic office supplies um there will probably be like a three thousand dollar expenditure because you just gotta supply the facility and then it will taper off subscriptions this is eco interactive that is the agency that is for creating the interactive tip platform for us this is their year two expectation um in the contract that was signed this mvp website their contract i think this is high their contract includes maintenance and maintaining our website for us i think 10 000 is a little bit inflated and then the net store network storage is in kind with the county and they did confirm that it's unlimited availability to the tpo so all of that 774 000 is for task one with the budget of 1.68 million it still leaves tpo with 900 000 5 905 000 for doing these plans and these are numbers that i took from the existing 2024 2025 upwp where you know we're planning for these this doesn't happen unless we actually do rfqs or rfps to actually secure consultants to work on these projects so there's no guarantee that we need to do all of these i lost my mouse that we would do that we will be funding all of this at the same time so special studies maybe we'll have one or two in the year if i've been reading the existing tpt tip the existing um list of priority projects and the existing 2050 long-range transportation plan i think that before we sit down to allocate any of the 900 000 there really needs to be a clear path forward as to those projects and improvements that the board wants to do once you see the entire network in the county all the projects mapped out and then prioritizing which one do we really want what are the top 10 that we really want to put in our transportation improvement plan and out of those 10 which ones do we really think that we can get done so one of the the main um messages that district district secretary tyler put forth was the movement of dot is to try to identify those projects that we think can go from actual concept to construction and implementation i think we're getting a little deep into thank thank you so but that's but i'm gonna we brought this up this is part of the larger conversation so let me step out for just a moment um mr hay santos and and commissioner parizia i think we have some conversation y'all are gonna go a little bit into this then i'm gonna come back um yeah so just i i think we should really kind of adopt a budget for the year and where we're at before we make a decision on office i do think downtown gainesville is where to me the center of the city and county governments are here it's easy to get to um i do think going i work in commercial real estate uh commissioner cornell works in there as well i do think having um either hiring real estate agent or are going to the county um uh county real estate office or the gainesville real whatever whichever one i think that is that's good there's a lot of weird little things in commercial real estate there's no real rules in essence so i think having people who have kind of knowledge and that i think would be um helpful and find places also places that are not um they're like not even available publicly as well that are that people who are kind of in the business can help find things too um i do think i need furniture to talk about using home depot i wouldn't use home depot as a as a place there you kind of got to go for like a certain quality or you're gonna like i think some of you're charging for chairs probably not be high enough like stuff breaks and also we're having it buying for a long time and sitting in broken chairs sucks kind of do it um i would say uh one other thing too like the prices that are listed and all of those everything's negotiable um office space in gainesville is not selling well it's probably the least performing um or not rent it's the worst performing kind of uh um asset class out there as well so everything out there is um as well not just the prices they give i do think i don't i think i think we wouldn't have to pay property taxes either i don't think either yeah and firstly i like to see kind of where projections are on the fdes as well if we're signing a 10-year lease how is this going to work with us in the future and for as far as a space that is here or a meeting space um i see the benefit of going somewhere else and kind of having the independence but also what is the cost if we're spending extra forty thousand dollars a year to have that extra boardroom space is it worth it um or is that better to put into staffing or other projects thank you chair all right commissioner president yeah i just i i know there's a line but we got the budget i am in a hundred percent agreement commissioner santos i think we need to adopt an annual budget before we start talking about how much we can afford for lease space i would also say that um i don't see the county's services on here anywhere um or if we're not using the county services then i don't see legal accounting like any of those services i don't know if those are under like the like under the task stuff like if each of those has it built in like but those are things that i definitely would hope we would add into a budget because they're big expenditures oftentimes in these scenarios um and then last but not least i would just say i understand the idea of wanting an independent conference room and i think maybe someday we'll be there but my personal feeling is we're all right here and i know that our our city person is going our other municipality person is going to travel and they're going to travel in no matter where we sit and i don't think the counties are going to feel like we were out money or anything but i mean we just spent i think upwards of maybe mark can confirm this number but seventy thousand dollars to upgrade this room i mean that's how much it costs for the furniture of the chairs the av like you know it's not a cheap proposition to create the space and the staffing to be able to operate one of these so i just would hate for us to waste the money on that when we could use taxpayer dollars to be able to give you better staff and to focus on the projects that we're meant to be doing around transportation and transit and things like that so those are those are my thoughts about the the space but um but i love the idea of being downtown and i love the idea of having everything in one lease structure rather than triple net because i've been in triple net leases and they always end up biting you um back so i definitely think an all-in cost on your lease is a good idea okay uh commissioner cornell thank you mr chair i'm here to remember and then and then i'll figure next miss what feels how long have you been here i know she hit the ground running i mean holy cow yeah so first of all thank you for not apparently sleeping over the last years of being here i i think um so that's just comment number one comment number two i think getting this budget this discussion is probably our first discussion i very much think that this board wants an independent location so you've kind of already moved on to that discussion uh which i i think is great um all you're really asking for is directional and do we want to be independent separate and i think that answer to that i've heard is yes absolutely um and i really appreciate uh mr fleming kind of spending the time to kind of think about where will we be in three or four years because you've kind of designed it already and i think we're we're almost there i think we just have to kind of go through that process of getting this budget kind of signed off on um before we enter into a letter of intent we've already broken the confidentiality so i hope he doesn't mind that because we're talking about it publicly um he emailed he's fine with it yeah i knew he would be and he's great and he's great to work with and you'll you'll learn that you have a number of folks in this community that want to help um how long in talking to him would he want to get from a letter of intent to an ultimate i haven't had that conversation with him um i think that he wants to move quickly if if the board i told him that it's completely up for discussion today um there is no harm with the board saying yes if we were to go with the seagull building can you do blah blah negotiate terms instead of since we are a somewhat public agency instead of 28 for a windy's headquarters um could you do 20 or 25 also can you provide abc so that could be so the board's decision doesn't have to just be yes or no it could be yes with these conditions or you could direct staff to negotiate better terms yeah and so so where i am is i want to give you i want to give you the reins to keep going obviously you don't need the reins to keep going you're obviously going which is great um i want to sign off the budget first and um have our county and if the city has a real estate department ask them knowing what the mppo has and needs how do you see us moving into a space while still utilizing the county space during the transition of you hiring people and then staffing up i think the first year we probably could use these facilities until we have our own space and you have all your employees um and so maybe that office space budget number is a two-year number 102 000 that may actually work out great in the seagull building because this is fully loaded 84 000 and we're not going to you know use two full years so um i'm very much in favor of you continue to move forward with that space once we get the budget signed off on um and also utilizing the resources of the county uh real estate and the city's real estate to see if there are any other locations but i really like this location i like the idea of how you're thinking about growing into that location that board room i did have a specific question how many how how big is that one um it's roughly 15 by 32 and this room is roughly so this one is 15 by 32 this one is essentially like 30 if you count the tiles are like 34 tiles in one direction 35 it's more of a square this is more of a rectangle okay so that room would facilitate the same number of people approximately as this room i think so i started doing the graphics um this configuration would be ideal because it's a lot bigger and wider like deeper and wider um but yeah i think this could work probably one role yeah i mean i think what what i think you will need in the first six months is office spaces to staff up and utilize this building until you get that done and then um ultimately having that board room for other meetings you know with dot and other agencies so that's where i am that's where i am members i really like uh all the work you've done but i'd like to sign up on a budget too can i ask the clarification question um when you're referring to the budget you're talking about the tpo's budget or the individual agency budgets uh tpo's for yeah so um i guess once you adopt the budget what figure are you going to adopt for use for a space in the second year whatever's reimbursable my answer is whatever's reimbursable by deity and and that we can justify with overhead yeah so pretty much everything in the first column is pl funds is meant to be um so this pl funds is is can be spent on all of the tasks i'm sorry there's probably a lot of questions floating around so let's let's let's go commissioner alford thank you um i have to say i can't wait until you know i have conversations with the public and i can tell them to go to our um new tpo office wherever it might be but it won't be in the county building because they will be excited about that a couple more resources um both the university of florida and elettro county has surplus furniture that may be available um i thought that might be something to take note of and i when i had my own office i always found really um amazing opportunities at the uf surplus um places i don't know why they replace some of the things that they do but they do and then the second thing um do you anticipate the employees of your office being in the office um nine to five five days a week or are you looking at allowing a schedule in the off what happened there that's us i think we got the question uh director woodfield yes i would have visualized them being in the office because they do need to be working and accessible to the board um at least in the next in the first two three years there needs to be something because we we allow our county employees to have pretty significant flex time and that's been a real advantage in hiring so just throwing that out there the flexibility like as i mentioned um the importance of family if you need to work from home yes that's an option um but i think it's also important to this i would hope that it's important to this board to have staff that has predictable office hours as well for answering questions okay absolutely mr chair yes this is mark section on so thank you commissioner commissioner prisia had mentioned uh that i might be able to clarify the figures and uh she was correct just the renovations that we've done recently cost about seventy thousand dollars um we did these renovations specifically to accommodate the mtpo um because of the size of it um i can tell you though if you're thinking about recreating uh anush this um the capabilities of this room what you see in this rent renovation is a tiny piece of what it would take the real expense is in the board room in the control booth and that's what controls closed captioning it what it's what controls getting the signal to pops cable over fiber it's what controls getting the signal to facebook apple tv um roku those things it has all of the control of the presentation stuff that you see in the room but it's all controlled in that booth um you're you're talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars just off the top of my head to recreate that capability so another decision point would be are we going to continue to televise and broadcast mtpo meetings to the public um on a live basis and um so there are a lot of factors that uh and you may have considered these things already i don't know but um there's a lot that goes into recreating what we do in this room that you don't see in this room uh thank you director sexton i think you that was my original question is considering all of this and in this board has to have some conversation about you know how accessible we want are we talking about just being able to zoom it or in this kind of you know out to the whole world that we've gotten used to um commissioner book you you had a hand we're hearing a lot of good questions okay i've spoken one time all right commissioner smith um yeah so uh as we were planning on bringing a notch in and beginning our first staffing we sort of had a um my understanding is we had a plan to house staff temporarily with it am i remembering this right that's correct correct so that would should be in i guess the annex building currently right yeah up to six months i think is what we had agreed okay um i i guess what um what i've always thought with this and i'm glad you talked with the st lucie county um tpo because they're about a cap they're a tpo that's about our same size i spoke with them when we were beginning this transition we are a fairly we're a small tpo compared to many of the other tpos i uh since we're already through the transition i guess i could say now in hindsight i really went back and forth as to whether or not it makes sense to have it be an independent tpo versus you know fully housed underneath a city or a county where you see a lot of smaller tpos come in because you just get a lot of efficiencies that way right and then more money that you can spend on your transportation studies that sort of thing i like our kind of lean independent model which is the you know in independent but then have getting the efficiencies of working within the county um uh despite being a city commissioner like it's uh i i think it's i i i i think it's perfectly fine i have not been concerned similar to st lucie county that they are um they are housed underneath the county but they work very hard to show their independence and to be genuinely independent in how they approach all of these things right a lot i think a lot of it is through your actions less so than your uh you know the appearance of being underneath there while being an independent one um i uh i so it stands now with all this i i mean i agree with the idea of i one great job with all the uh i mean jumping in figuring out all the real estate questions uh coming up with a whole with the budgets with going through all uh with you know really thinking through what this is going to look like this i mean i haven't actually seen a budget this clear from the mtmo ever yeah and even even if there's still some some details that you have to work out i mean this is great this is what we this is why we want an executive director that was working directly for us as opposed to what we had previously um my my thought with how the tpo goes over this first you know year or so is it's sort of like a caterpillar turned into a butterfly eventually we will we will fly on our way into it as a beautiful but you know there's a step you gotta you know you gotta you gotta move through each one you gotta get you gotta eat the food get through the cocoon and as it stands now we're sitting there um we have you you're gonna we're just gonna have to triage all of this because we're small tpo move trying to move into an independence uh set setup um does it make sense to use this if maybe it maybe it does three or four years from now also think through does it make sense to do that right now at this at this juncture because it's you're one staff member right now we have allison who uh has i think tremendous confidence from both the city and the county uh on the commission and from our transportation staff we have our transportation staff and this whole the creation of an independent gamesville alachua county tpo has really been a a team effort from all of these staff that really want to see it succeeded i haven't seen as much kind of like turf guarding or some of that at least not at this stage governments descend into that generally at some point but that's not really where we are right now and kind of figuring out what what can we lean on that we need to move forward with and then what um then what makes sense to defer you know three four five years kind of like i see you put the word mvp i guess this minimum viable product website is that what you put for mvp it's uh victoria pennington oh never mind never mind so that's a it's a tech term for minimum viable product what is it that we need to stand this thing up and then move it forward and uh most valuable player most valuable player the um the uh but what what can we do it like just triaging that and then trying to lean on folks um i think this is great i do get i do get concerned about the idea of locking ourselves into a 10-year lease um and things like that before we kind of know where we're standing and that means that we're physically separated from i think a lot of great staff that have been doing a lot a lot of the mtpo work over these past year or so um but i i agree with commissioner cornell is you know um you're you're you're let let you cook you know like like you know figure this stuff out kind of think through what your priorities are but uh that's sort of where my renaissance is is i i really i'd really like to lean on on what we have and try to take up priorities when they're needed and that this would maybe we may be a little earlier that that's what i have please all right i'm gonna go and then we have uh i i and then cornell thank you um so i i i think one of the issues is that we just with this big the issue one of the issues is the the length of lease which is boxing us in because do we need a small space a large space or a small space with potential to grow and you know what's going to be available so i understand that it's a bunch of we're trying to accomplish the impossible and you know fly the plane while we're building wings um i don't mind the idea of us still meeting here as our big meetings now if a different space also has meeting space that is available for our smaller committees you know that's i'm kind of that'd be great but um like commissioner eastman said i don't think there's been too much turf war uh meeting here is not not not so bad i do like the idea of a separate office space so that it is truly a separate organization and that not either the city the county or other folks have kind of as much you know the staff having all the access as opposed to whether it's the board or staffs of the organizations of the cities and county needing to go there so i like that it's somewhere separate so seagull makes sense great building um it would be kind of a circle of history you know with the seagull building um but i'm i'm open to continue to hear what you need if there's other if there are other options um but i i don't know that we're ready for a 10 year just so that we can get that great extra room a board room um i don't think i don't think i'm i can support that but um if it's that we need to do a five-year lease and we have enough office space um and then to continue to use this space um and then obviously for um any of our other committees the cities across the you know the city is probably we're always going to be willing to to do what we can as well um if it if it turns out that this space is not the perfect place for our committees in the future maybe something in the middle like maybe suite 503 um three spaces and then the the smaller committees not the board could meet there if we were to add like a gathering table here just something to think about the offices there the board that still meet here yeah so that option that's where i'm open for you telling us kind of really what you need um we have mr hey santos and then commissioner yeah let's put a mo put a motion up for um it's his turn you can go then i'll think i'll make my comment just i don't think we're in a place to even have a five-year moving in i don't know if you've done moves there are a lot of work a lot of work setting it up and yeah so i would say we should just focus on all the other other things getting our stuff like hiring i mean in my thoughts um i'd like to have discussion on the future of our gap um and what are the after we what are the ftds you're talking about hiring kind of like getting an idea of where we're going and then um building a budget bringing back a budget um and i think work i think we have uh part of the deal with the county i think it's financials part of that as well so i think working with the um the county financial staff as well and helping to build budget make sure it's including everything and then i would say it's kind of putting hold on office space until we figure out our future figure out kind of our budget and then like i think we have a six months i think there's lots of we can find space for three people and all buildings we have to do that space and stuff thank you mr cornell okay so my motion is actually kind of a combination of what i've just heard but really it's focusing in on working with the county to continue to use the county resources and i define us being ready by us um having our staff staffed up and then identifying what specific phases two seven we want to get accomplished by the end of next year two years and so um the motion that i put which is open to change by every one of you if you guys would like it is move that the board authorize the executive director to continue working with trimark properties for the potential execution of a letter of interest so we're not doing it yet but continue working with them i like what you just said maybe we could do once we while we work through a transition plan and then hopefully sign a lease so move that the board authorize the executive director to continue working with trimark properties for the execution of a letter of interest at the segal building and empower the executive director to bring back a transition plan that identifies a timetable for utilizing county chair resources prior to executing a long-term release that's my motion so what i would envision is at our next board meeting you would come and it doesn't seem like you're going to need more than one board meeting to come up with all this stuff because how quickly you're working you would come back and you would say we're going to use the county conference room for a year or two with the board here's all the resources that we're using with the county i'm going to be hiring these people i can put them in these two offices and for the time being this is how it fits into the budget and then you and and mr fleming can work out how long a lease is and how that transition plan works and that's so that's my motion i'd second that okay we have a motion from cornell second from book all right and then i we're going to go uh commissioner wheeler commissioner book and what i'm seeing in my head is the next couple of years where we're going to be shifting around downtown we're going to be moving these offices over across the the way to the courthouse we've got a lot of things going on here so that's why i would be reluctant for any kind of a long-term lease right now as we open out the space that we don't have to pay rent for because we were really trying to get out of the single building you know we we work hard to move our folks out of there parking is better there obviously and parking is an issue downtown when people want to try to come interact with any of us you know it seems to be but it seems to me we just need to keep that and maybe our new director did not realize that we have this bigger plan you know of shifting around downtown that needs to be figured into whatever it is we're going to be doing going forward thank you all right commissioner brooke i think you all right thank you i so i heard um commissioner cornell's motion and i'm a little reluctant to to support it because of what um the fact that um commissioner will just brought forward and because we as a board maybe we haven't seen the budget it's like a whole lot that's really jumbled and i really appreciate the work in your how you come in and you're getting going like um commissioner used to say like letter cook but because you are new here and it's still like a lot of things that you haven't been filled in on and then because you you said that you weren't like um the real estate background i think you really should consult with the city and the county's real estate staff to really get into something um commissioner prisoner mentioned the the cumbersomeness of the triple net lease and um me being a schoolwork member i've gotten burnt um our organization's gotten burnt on real estate deals so anytime i hear a staff moving forward in the real estate realm um without representation from professionals that's looking out for the taxpayer's interest i pump a break so um really i think right now i think really maybe before we move forward with the letter of intent to get that i i appreciate the work that's been done but i don't think we're ready to move forward i think we're going too fast um and we may be able to have figure out some kind of transition plan or some plan to be able to work with in um the the resources between the county and city thank you mr hay santos chair um yeah i can't support the current motion i think we're not at a place yet for well i i mean i would rather us i think transition i think coming back and saying okay what is from the director what what is our plan for the next couple years and also where we haven't talked at like where are we actually going we've just been searching as well um what are the ftes that we're hiring and then having a budget then once we have that and we go okay yes we all agree we're all going there then um move forward on another space but i think having that that plan or where are we going over the next couple years what are the timelines on that but i'm definitely not in favor of moving forward even on a loi i don't think we're making one minute or i could have a substitute motion on but i'd like to hear your substitute motion but i would like to respond because this motion um doesn't authorize the signing of an loi it authorizes them continue to work on that yeah i don't think we're i think it's wasting time on that that's better used on other uh yeah that's like commission brook and then prisia yeah i think uh probably inherent in the motion what i was thinking about was the fact that we're authorizing nothing concrete we're saying continue to get some additional information we've just provided we said look at less space for less time um i would never be in favor of a 10-year lease at this point in fact it should be as as short as possible while it's maintaining some fiscal responsibility so i'm talking one or two years why because we just don't know uh where we're at and i do think also inherent in the motion is that we're going to use this space which has just been retrofitted at great cost um to to the county to be public and welcoming space which is all about engagement so i don't think anybody will be uncomfortable coming here uh certainly the city commission is not uncomfortable to do the large government meetings that allow the mtpo or the tpo as we ought to operate so i think this is just allowing a timeline to move forward a little bit uh no lengthy uh time lease and working with the city and county and this is what i heard you say commissioner cornell is exactly what we said figure out what the other costs yeah maybe i can restate my motion differently because i think i so i move that we empower the executive director to bring back a transition plan that identifies a timetable for utilizing county chair resources prior to executing a long-term lease period also allow the executive director to continue to work with trimester properties for the potential execution of a letter of interest at the seagull board so it's transition plan first and foremost not executing a letter of intent yet but you know keep talking to them because maybe they have some ideas and we probably should add and engage the county and city's real estate department to look at other potential options that would be part three yeah i like if you had that okay and then uh commissioner christian you okay with that on the second yes sir yeah i i guess what i want to say is that i'm i'm 100 in favor of you having an independent office as well and i think having a suite that's got you know three offices a small kitchen space bathrooms that are publicly accessible a place that the public income is a great idea and i don't see a problem with moving forward in a rather quick time frame for that um i know even our growth management people want out of the annex and we're trying to move them as quickly as we can well maybe they don't want out but we're we're getting them a new refreshed space in the not too distant future so there's going to be a move anyway um and if we're going to move anyway we might as well be moving them into the space they're going to be in for a little day or she will be in for a little while um so i i'm not i'm not on the problem with that but i but i i'm in agreement with commissioner hay sanders i do think it would be nice to have a little bit more of your vision for the future the timeline for that how that is going to play out and some um information a little bit more information about the overall budget and our what services are we planning to keep leaning on the county for and what is the county going to charge us for that and what services are we planning to hire out either with contractors or hiring in with employees and kind of just understanding that lay of the land so we can better understand like what spaces are we going to need like you know are we going to have internal it staff probably not we'll contract that you know those sorts of things would be really helpful and understanding what those costs would be and i'm definitely in favor of us continuing to meet here because i think the broadcasting our meetings really lends to that connecting and that that public engagement piece um i think it's really convenient for all the board members to meet here and i think the community is used to coming to this space for community-based meetings but i like the idea of the your advisory boards to be able to meet in your space if they're not if they're not broadcasting your meetings um so anyway i i guess i'm in favor of the motion to keep exploring um real estate spaces office spaces and um and that can include the trimark properties at the seagull building i'm in favor of um negotiating with the county on which things we're going to continue to lean on and what those costs are and bringing back a full budget um and staffing plan um for bring back a transition plan that includes a detailed budget yeah i did not and staffing plan that includes the detailed budget and staffing plan and i can restate this when you're done i think that was all i want to say i just i want it and i i too am like really impressed with that quickly you hit the ground running and i don't think i would ever have attempted hunting down office space in a new city that i i'm just like that's amazing so good job thank you so much for being so um proactive yeah um and really seriously and um i'm excited about where we're headed and i'm excited already just even about the accessibility and the transparency that you're providing in these conversations for the community just in and of itself is fantastic okay i want to make sure we have the current motion that is both the motioned and seconded correct book there was a slight edit there yes sir chair let me restate yeah at this point can we restate it yeah let's go hey santos and then we'll restate slowly for our scribe please uh commissioner would it be all right to not just say trimark but to pretty as other like just keep it open and looking at i'm okay with that is don't say that same trademark we've selected one building i don't think we're at that point yet of selecting a building we'll continue to explore real estate options okay it's not tribal i mean just maybe we end up there but just still keeping it open to what okay do you have a commissioner cornell do you can you read yeah i'm writing that and thank you for being a copious note part it's three-part motion very slowly move that the executive director bring back a transit a transition plan that includes a detailed budget and staffing plan and that identifies a timetable for utilizing county chair resources prior to executing any long letter of intent period part two allow the executive director to continue working with real estate entities to develop a letter of interest and then part three engage the county and city real estate departments to look at options as it relates to future space all right that's our motion 100 okay okay i'm gonna go to the pub the public now are there any members of the public that would like to speak to this specific motion or i probably also the general idea of we're looking for space to be independent both in office potentially in meeting space and our continued relationship uh with the county who we've been relying for on services it's there's a lot here but if there's anybody from the public would like to speak about this i don't see any hands it's a lot of stuff all right uh so i unless there's any other conversation from this board any other uh i just i just want to say very quickly i really appreciate you going to the effort to put your vision out there i don't think i've ever seen anybody go directly like you have to say this is what i see this is what i want to be that bold i think it's pretty admirable because now we understand who you are and what you want and have a goal so thank you for that and don't don't be put off by anything you've heard today because we're with you it's just that you're way ahead of us we're still learning this whole game and you're on top of yours so thank you you uh i'm the youngest of 11 with seven big brothers and four big sisters so i'm very used to and we did say that our number one thing was to stand up stand up an organization and so we i think we uh we put out a big goal there and you you jumped right into it all right one last comment so one thing you said commissioner eastman that i really like that i think that this this motion does is it preserves efficiencies where we have fiscal and budget efficiencies because we have some overlapping services that will allow us to do that and that's really good business as far as government both city and county operating and then it also allows us to stand up staff and and get the independence that we need so i think that those are two good things i appreciate the point you may have noticed that twice in one meeting the word efficiency was used with government and we've mentioned the word department as well somewhere in there wish list so okay i think we've had enough i think we have all the discussion we've had on this so uh those in favor say aye aye those opposed nay uh passes unanimously thank you that's a lot of work thank you director rightfield um we really did tell you to get started immediately staying up an organization and you you took us for our word uh like commissioner wheeler said we may not been completely prepared but we know we are literally building this plane while we're while you are flying it um so or maybe we're flying and you're building i don't i don't know which way this metaphor goes all right um i've gotten lost now in our after this we go into oh informational items and we have 8.1 rts five-year major transit development plan update the tdp now i am going to hand over my mic and warm seat to mr chris of kia mr chris of kia from city of gainesville want me to make a formal presentation or just summarize what we have so many summarize summarize yeah we we're happy to see a new face and we love you but uh let's let's give us a summary and if we have any questions we will jump right in i'm sure so last march march march one we submitted a transit development plan to fdot and in that plan we identified the strategies the alternatives um projects capital and operation we talked about our funding and listed these projects and so after a year we are required to do an update to that plan so this is the 2026 update to the plan and the reason why fdot said we should come and make an informational presentation to you is that they want to make sure that we are coordinating with um the mtpo to make sure that this project we are listing here that are included in the unified work program in the transportation improvement program in the list of priorities to make sure like somebody says we don't build a bridge and there's no road to get to the bridge and so when we then um next year we're going to come back and talk about what we achieved or didn't achieve because we're like all of you know we're having financial problems um for example in the last one year or so we've lost about over 3 000 hours of service so that will affect how much we can achieve um if you push that to a year ago to school 24 we lost about 37 000 hours of service okay so that will tell you how our ridership is going to go because it means we are cutting down services it means we cannot initiate new services the capital projects are there but what we sell is transit service and if those ridership goes down then not only are people not buying our service but this number affects how much money we get from fdot and fta so that's why we work so hard to see how much you can do to improve or increase ridership so what we're doing here is just let you know we have these revised programs and projects for 2026 and then we're going to uh send this to fdot and just to again to make sure they're included in the um work program that mtpo does that's basically what the story is mr acentis uh thank you just a general statement um on this i mean yes i think i'm worried about rts and and the decline ridership and we cut more than that decline for ridership and um so i mean with the finances that uh rts has right now i think that this is the best plan but i think it's something for our community to to have a discussion on is is we need to invest more into rts so that we can actually um upgrade and get our system back to where it was we're we're not going out a good path and i think that it comes down to finances a lot of other um government entities across the state of florida invest from their general funds i know that the county does but the city has been the more we need to bring more money into the rts or uh i think we're we're not going to have a good functioning art system and we have to um that's something that's really important to our community um yeah thank you okay i'll i'll offer that um you know just so that people know this that this board knows in the city's last year budget we actually put substantial dollars out of general revenue um into rts which is a bit of a a new thing i don't know how many x number of years that that rts has mostly um not relied on cities um general revenue our general budget but we really did and i think it was roughly five hundred thousand dollars i could be wrong but that was a big motion on the city's part to not just the normal sources for rts but the city say no no this is very important much the same way the county has very specific routes that they help fund um we said we we want to make sure we want to save some of those routes that have been that we're going to need to be cut because they'll pull back on the hours of service uh mostly um from the university of florida as chris mentioned that thousands of hours of service um and that's dollars on the other end of that so that's that's one where the city did step in this year i will say that though it is a year that we are spending some of our excess fund balance so whether that is a sustainable long term it may have been just abandoned we put on this fiscal year um and so that to commissioner hayes on to his point like it is a is you know i don't think we're quite in the you know the the death spiral of ridership not quite because we have some really efficient routes and and rts is working with you to make the cuts that are that are not going to have a huge impact and lower ridership um to really be looking at the ones that are truly lower lowest performing even though those services are really needed so it seems like we're holding on that's what i gather from the city side that we are holding on um but that the next route that gets cut could be really where we start getting that spiral um and to um chris mentioned that part of our part of our funding is based on those ridership um so that's just a little bit of what i had uh commissioner presia did we have any information from the university of florida about their long-range plans with regards to transit support for their staff and their students i feel like we got this information kind of at the 11th hour like we're we're not going to use these bus routes anymore we're not going however it all went down but now i've heard they might be working with mv transport to negotiate bus route surfaces i've heard they're going to do their own thing and they've already got the campus circulator going so i don't know miss dixon if you have any information or if we could get an update from rts or somebody about like where that's going because i mean if they keep going in that direction they keep pulling out and pulling out like it's it's only going to make things worse and i feel like we as an mtpo we need to start planning for that reality if that is a reality if it's and if it's not and there's an opportunity to negotiate with uf to bring them back to the table i would love to know that as well because i think we need them as a partner um i do not have any specific information on that but if you have you know some specific questions um i could try to find out the answer and get someone here who does all right commissioner cornell yeah um i agree with commissioner pridia and i heard the tail end of commissioner hayes santos but i think it would be really helpful for me and perhaps this board if we could get the presentation that the city got on rts budget and the projections for next year because you know i don't if we are going to move to a true regional county-wide transit system it's not sustainable to just say well the county has to pay for this route county has to pay for that route and so i would move that the mtpo receive a budget presentation of rts and our next uh mtpo meet and that way y'all they can get us up to speed on on what you all already know i don't i agree we got to kind of know what's the long range and i should ask the university of florida to share with us their plans for transit support for their staff and students yeah and as part of that presentation um rts could uh ask uf to to communicate whatever their long range plans are for the next let's say three years i think three years is a good term so this is a request to the city for presentation and request to uf through rts i mean rts is giving the presentation but rts is requested from the city if you're not ready by the next meeting and by the meeting after that because it may take a little bit of time would you would you not want to include a representative from the university directly from the horse's mouth yeah they won't come and we haven't you ever presented but i mean and you think that that might happen um i think we can get the information you're looking for yes yeah that's great all right okay so we have a motion to to ask for a president to put a schedule on the next mtpo meeting um and then so i i see rts and and our city manager here i don't see any shaking no heads so i think that's something that we can arrange um you know the discussion on that motion just that that's what we want for the next next next go around any other discussion um so you mentioned fund balance i know they're separate fund right they have their own separate fund yeah they have their own separate fund and then um operations budget and vouchers from that does this have any of that in capital what what we have here are um the next thing 10 years what we intend to do if things were just perfect but in the short run fdot requires us to tell them what we're going to do this fiscal year so that's the list of priorities okay so we'll present those right so does that answer your question okay so i think we if we're all under the right understanding no more conversation on this i don't see then we'll go ahead and vote on this motion and continue with the rest of the tdp if there's any other questions all those in favor say aye aye as opposed say nay motion passes now chris can you continue if there are any other questions about this tdp update he's available so i i think the point some of us got out of is this is the this is a bit of the dream if if the if we had good steady steady finances that these would be the next things we would be tackling to some degree it's about bringing back some of what we've always been saying we wanted right the eliminated routes um that's what i picked up from it um some of it's interesting um some of the different some of the different routes the only question i have about is just how does the e-site transfer station the e-head e transfer station fit into the tdp okay so that's part of the plan but and that's something we are going to be accomplishing because it's capital dollars mostly and we have that funding lined up correct correct just just to throw this out so you guys have an idea um in fiscal 24 for example uf contributed 49 of our operational funds 49 the city 1.5 percent county 6.5 and sound effect 2.4 okay so you go to 26 2026 uf is down to 36.9 percent which is down 12 the city is up to 3.3 the county is up to 7.5 and sound effect is up to 3.1 even though the city county sound effect um are up and the county are up it's not enough to compensate 42 percent decline in um resources from our partners at uf we didn't we didn't know yeah so so that's why that number of hours of service are gone because the problem is you don't have enough fun to um fund their route so you go from three buses to one bus right so what happens right that ship goes down so what do you do next time you call it up remember you used to be three buses now you have zero and so you're extending the number the distance people walk their bus stop and in the presentation when you look at that you find out the number of hours we've lost in service but interestingly the the number of people who live in household of zero to one vehicle is about 30 000 hasn't decreased but it's the the service they depend on is deteriorating and that's really in our opinion actually it's something the community this body everybody should be thinking about because those people need to get to work and job i mean at school and go to the clinic and go shopping but they have less service to depend on and they have zero vehicle in their family um so i i really like the idea of the presentation and budget to see where we're going and recover some of those lost services because we had an extensive meeting during the last round of um service change people came in there and complained and complained and complained but there was nothing rts could do we gotta go they were upset that salary can help you okay so um i'm willing to come back with me talk more about our services but it's it's not looking good mr cornell so just to just to restate so ufs is paying 36.9 percent of the budget the feds with the mtpo is 16.5 and the state is 13.7 our local option gas tax is 8.7 percent then alachua county is 7.5 percent santa fe is 3.1 and the city of gainesville is 3.3 is that correct alachua county is actually contributing twice as much as the city of gainesville even though they're putting part of their fund balance it was less quite a bit less than 3.3 last fiscal year correct for fy25 the city was under yeah for for 24 the city was 1.5 yeah so that's what you're gonna say we we increased and so we went from 1.5 to 3.3 it's nowhere close to the seven right the 7.5 of the county but like i'm saying this was a beginning step down that road of the city taking on more of the responsibility um but it isn't a budget year where we specifically intend intended to spend out of fund balance um as opposed to being 100 balanced um i just want to throw that out there yeah no i understand i'm just saying that the county is spending two plus percent two two times more than one correct yeah so the payment wrapped okay well we'll get the presentation tonight is there uh any members of the public who would like to talk about our transportation development plan update for 2026 see any um did this was just informational so you don't need any action yeah no no actually no no okay well we look we do look forward to a presentation at our next mtpo um jesus chris so and mv is outside of this yes we have another we have another conversation coming up in an item or two about mv so all right thank you okay our next information item uh it's the rts december ridership report sometimes we get into it and talk to about talk about it and sometimes we just all read it commissioner hey santos thank you chair uh can i just make a request that we i think that's before but having the previous like five years we can see trends because right now it's just very i have no idea because it's hard to tell what's actually happening or not so it's possible to have those last five years reports in there as well thank you chair all right i think we hear that it does it does help that way um no other conversations or questions about rts ridership none from the public i don't see me i don't think all right then our next item is 8.3 mv paratransit discussion um i don't know who is starting or leading this jeff then jesus mr chair uh thank you jeff hayes eletro county growth management have been helping out with this mv transportation and uh transportation disadvantaged discussion um and i'll let jesus speak to the rts component but uh uh i believe the transition for uh rts in sourcing the ada service is going to commence on march the first uh and mv has been notified of that so we at the county have been in discussions with mv about what would be necessary to continue service into the unincorporated area and into the smaller municipalities um and we are continuing that conversation um so we have an item that we'll be bringing to the county commission actually next week on this subject so i don't have anything of great import to bring to this board but happy to have the discussion and and jesus has anything to add for from rts's perspective yes excuse me um we're ready for mars for to take the ad's everything house we have uh train we have all the drivers we train all the stuff so we have the new app and running we have a final meeting and we got we i guess we're finalizing the education material for everybody to to send out you're already taking rice though right no um march 15th we can start scaling rights for the next two weeks to be march 1st will be the first day of service so we work to live and be in that transition because they have our vehicles and we do the transition you see some of the buses or i mean events with the new logo and what's that what's it called rts plus rts plus got it thank you so you see that on the dance um we pretty much are waiting you know and we're going to be doing a lot of information out here workshops so we can inform the public you know the difference between ada and tv you know what the county is responsible for what we are you know the ada services uh is within the rts service area and includes the county but it's a three-quarter mile from from a fixed route so that's uh the same service has to be the same house as the fixed route so we will be providing all that information we have some materials in here but it's just a draft but we are released in that soon we start having uh meetings with the center for independent leaving but it's actually doing that certification for for us and uh we'd be ready to go commissioner book yeah thank you director so i downloaded the app rts plus over the weekend i think this meeting is a real good opportunity just to get that information out so talk a little bit about what are people going to do they're going to download an app they're going to put information because there's going to be a lot of people clamoring for that information i have seen some media attention on order already uh but more is better in this case we don't want to leave anybody out um that's going to need these these significant services yeah how it works yeah you can get the the you can download the app on android and and apple and that's the rts plus um you're gonna have the next like i said in 15 days you're gonna be able to to scale trips for march 1st and um the it's not only the app you still continue calling for reservations you know in um in federal 15th or 16th there's a monday so you're still going to be doing that you have the app and we're gonna have also options for payment the app is uh giving you the option that you look at like uber type of uh app that you're going to see when the van is available and coming to you so you can cancel the trips on the app but it's uh and you can also do the same thing you do with mv you can call and and and do that and we do that the same is uh yeah three dollars is the the payment under ada different under tv um what is the number for people to call is it the same mv number or is this an rts number it's the the same as the rts connect up it's uh three five two three nine three ride yeah i think in this particular case um mr chair and director there's it's going to be impossible for us to put out too much information in this case as we get closer to that that implementation date so every um messaging medium that we can put out mechanism we're going to want to do it every every government board because there'll be a lot of people clamoring for it and um they'll want to know just the specifics of what's step one what's step two what's step three and how do i book it so i can get them and we don't want to leave them you know curbside so thank you thank you one thing to notice is that when you download the app you're not a ada eligible it's not it only going to show the rts connect piece so you're a dls you're going to be able to be in the app and and schedule your trips so in order to be in the app you have to be ada eligible but that's all of the kind of stuff that we're going to be presenting and talking to to ada people we have a a list of what we have of about 10 000 people we're going to be sending all the all the material to them and uh you know we'll be this would be right you know we we're going to offer workshops in case they want to go you know and see do that training in person we will can do online and you know and go to the the senior center also it's one of the locations we're looking at putting information to the dialysis centers and all the hospitals and you know everybody has family resource centers that might be a really good place there's six of them and they're funded to be partners for strong families resource centers and they do it kind of pushing information out to the community so that would also be really good locations to be around the list to contact any questions commissioner i do do do you does rts work at all with the school board transportation in order to set up specific or fill in specific transportation needs not only for the regular kids that take the rts system but for any children that would might need special transportation that this might provide i i know that sometimes there's a shortage of bus drivers both sides but i didn't know if we had worked if there's any kind of actual arrangement to work together with the school board and if there's any specific training that's going into the schools for kids to be able to use rts yeah we have our marketing staff they usually go to to meetings uh probably once a week to defend uh different schools and because we have the under 18 uh program this world or you utilize um and yeah the school kids that they use that now we do an ada we're going to add that in as a additional service to the students yeah with disabilities yeah gotcha great thank you all right uh councilman taylor so it's basically kind of similar to what they have in west palm beach the circuit google you can um as you said you can call in you can um download on the aftertimes and you can pay over um the internet yeah but that that was something again at the conference when i went down to west palm beach um as we were sitting out at lunch you could see the little trams the little uh vehicles riding by and they're really nice and again you can call and download um what time you want to to for the bus to arrive to pick you up and you could see them zipping all around downtown uh west palm beach as you're sitting out there um and again what i wanted to add to that no streets were closed off like we have here downtown canesville where it's closed off the street is exactly like that and you have the cars you have your big trucks you have everything that's just zipping around and moving um the people moving about no one getting ran over but the little the little cars they were so cute and just full of people and they're just going all around and dropping them off and picking them up and it was nice and that was something that i mentioned before um we're having the issues with md so thank you yeah that's really closer to the micro transit service that we have but uh right now it's a the the service for um ada and the people with disabilities so it's going to be see system-wide okay so system-wide you meaning all of elogio county the rts service area okay so no wall not until we get a fixed drop within three quarters of a mile so commissioner wheeler i just one just as a heads up to you know um the world masters is coming back to gainesville in 2027 so you guys make sure you keep that on your radar too because you know the bus transportation i think was one of the things that you know we had not quite gotten solid but now that we and we've got people coming in from countries that are used to using bus transit too so uh they'll give us a chance to shine yeah we we did meet with them and they decided to go over the route and that probably was part of the problem okay we offer classes and we offer different um options we got another turn another another hit out thank you mr chair i just want to into the point that was brought up i wanted to be clear since we're giving public information talking a lot about the paratransit service that's still as of march 1st if you're in the outside of the rts service area which is you know obviously outside city of gainesville and where there's routes in the unincorporated area within three quarters of a mile you would still be calling as of today we still have a contract with mv transportation to provide that service and as and so does the state of florida has a contract with mv transit to provide transportation disadvantaged service so that number is still the one you would call those those are still the the processes you would go through if you live outside of the rts service area okay i think sometimes we see the map of the service area and the um three-quarter overlay three-quarter mile but it's almost like people need to understand the map needs to be of if you're out and if you're outside of that that's where you still need to call a graphic that has if you're outside call this if you're inside call this may be something that both city county mtpo rts can all something because i because it is a little confusing does it go outside of the city partially not the entire right so um councilwoman thomas just i'm sorry yeah thomas right from waldo she said no waldo so that would include probably no um archer correct no elijah right and so that's why i was asking if it was outside of that yeah about the only area outside where we have a permanent route is i wonder how many people on that bus that goes out to jonesville what's the ridership of that you know is it uh is that uh i saw the ridership i saw it he's going up on that route yes and do we have on the on the brochure we have the service map so you can see what the well it would but uh commissioner realer i can't remember commissioner books there's probably no amount of information that it's going to completely get everyone to understand so just more and more and more on probably definitely on all the city sides county sides mtpo side rts sides um it can take a lot of information i'm sure there'll be some some bumps but um do we have uh any other comments or questions about this informational item that mtpo should create i mean do we need that flyer a flyer that talks about what the city's doing what the county's doing and what the state is doing if the state is now going to do something different or are they going to go with the county like how is that so we have one flyer that everyone can use that would communicate transportation options for transportation disadvantaged and ada mr chair will court county and city staff will coordinate together on that and we'll get with the graphics that they have and make sure we can and with envy transportation make sure that information gets out good i think my my worry was if we get siloed into this particularly now that we have our own tpo staff everyone should be together on this and and try to and nobody fight over the branding or whatever just the information needs to get out and be clear to everybody because as a school board member certain said like it is the question is does it go everywhere same ways uh you know whether it's going to walter or not we just need those those need that clarified who calls what and what is changing because some people freak out and think that it's all going away versus it's going to be there but for now these are the two operations that's going to happen so are there any members of the public that would like to comment about uh this item i know it's very important to members of the public we're not voting on anything but i don't see any um so on to our we're done with the informational items we have agency reports agency and partner no no we got new mtpo position oh i'm so sorry i skipped right over 8.4 i'm sorry only the most important there we go i'm so i'm sorry director whitfield new mtpo position actually based on our earlier conversation i i would request that we just table 8.4 and come i'll come back with the staff do you have a motion to postpone that to uh the future meetings all right so it sounds like i've got a motion and a second uh certain and wheeler no other discussion all in favor aye aye those opposed and nay uh passes unanimously all right now on to agency reports do we have any reports from no miss brown no okay um any of our other partners we've heard from the city today all right i don't see anybody else standing up um upcoming meetings do we have any on the list i apologize because i think they didn't make it on to the agenda um they did for the subcommittees um but we'll have a incidentally a march 2nd mtpo meeting which is also monday here um and then we'll have intervening tac and cac those are the relevant meetings i'm sure they're excited to see this new conference table and as well right they haven't seen it oh the subcommittees no okay or the um yeah advisory committees no okay uh what time is that meeting um that one is at three as well the march yes okay and then we're on to if there's any other general public comments about anything that the uh mtpo deals with i see anybody standing or raising a hand um all right now we um on member comments uh there's wave one listed from commissioner presia and i think we'd like to hear a little more about the the conference y'all went to maybe i mean i heard some of it you know so maybe we'd like to hear about that but commissioner presia has something she would like to discuss with us i'm sorry discussion of speed limit setting yes thank you i know that the county um sets speed limit on county roads and city sets speed limits on city roads and state sets speed limits on state roads but i think we've had a lot of conversations about safety and deaths on our roads and there's a number of places in our county they're primarily county roads this is primarily a county commission conversation but i think it makes sense to bring it up at an mtpo meeting because we all have the vested interest in the safety of our roads but i i think we really need to consider lowering the speed limits on a number of our roadways and in particular in areas that are residential in nature even if they're larger conduit roads um because we're just seeing people speeding so much and as we're paving roads it's making it worse because we're making the roads better and then people are like yay now i can go 65 miles an hour instead of 45 miles an hour when the speed limit was 35 to begin with so i'm just i'm really concerned about um both the speed limits that we have posted in some places and i'm concerned about and we got we got a complaint in an email of a specific area um and staff are looking at that again and taking another look at it which i really appreciate um but i just wanted to kind of bring that up and see if you know there was interest from this board and also just sort of having a more robust conversation about speed limits and what best practices are and what we might do there's even in our bike ped plan i think there's a new we had a little tagline what was the cute tagline 20 is plenty 20 is plenty yeah for residential neighborhoods but anyway i just i think it's something worth talking about and talking with the sheriff about enforcement because we're really just seeing speeds and um normally if we've lowered speed limits on county roads you know we've done a study we've tracked up after they go we try to do enforcement 219 is a great example we repave that road and then it became you know it's a cut through right and so um you got to engineer the road to slow down and it's really hard on county roads because there's just not a complete street type of situation so i'm with you if we can figure out how to best do it i would rely on ramon and and the experts that the city to tell us how to do that on a specific road or how the mayor ward would have said basically the same thing about engineering he's every meeting we've had there's there are things that you can do that aren't or don't require like hardscape engineering though like just like putting trees in right our right-of-ways instead of having it just be wide open grass so it looks like a speedway and so i you know if you can't see as well it makes people slow down so they can pay attention anyway i just think there are things that we can do i mean i'm trying to block visibility on a roadway i don't mean that i just mean like you know yeah so here i would say to an extent the state can help us on state roads yeah let's do that on the county roads can i jump in uh first i have uh mr hayes santos and then we will go to commissioner albert thank you chair yeah it comes down to design and here's your point about trees i mean the vertical um friction that can be caused by putting in the trees or artificial fear whatever they might be but i think that's i mean i think that's something downs when you guys are funding your roads and looking at how you're funding them it costs money to do that other stuff and i think yeah you do less roads you make safer roads but yeah making roads smooth people drive fast well it yeah it might be worth the conversation about what we're doing when we're doing our receiving that that conversation is coming back up yeah in the next month he's like bringing back here's what we're done all right commissioner alford yeah um i had a conversation a little bit about this with allison at lunch when we were at the mpoac meeting and uh allison correct me if i'm wrong but i think you said there was some research that justified um lowering speed limits because some people while people will always speed some people are low to speed over a certain amount over what is the post speed limit can can you comment on that there there is empirical evidence in some studies that have been done from american cities that simply lowered posted speeds and contrary to conventional wisdom that the road must be re-engineered to get a lower speed if you post it lower in these cities they have seen a statistically significant drop in the speeds um i could only speculate as to why presumably it's because people have a comfort level of speeding a certain amount um but that's published data that we can share with the mtpo board and there's a big difference in a ticket over 10 miles an hour versus over exactly yeah that's the yeah people with that experience yeah commissioner alford is that all you had for this question but that's all i have for this question thank you all right commissioner easeman um yeah i guess um well i do think it's incumbent on us as both the city and county and really the mtpo is as we are uh the easiest time to re-engineer these roads when we're repaving them of course we're going to have our folks that do the repaving are trying to you know move the repaving through they want to save money they want to repave the road they want to make sure that they're being as efficient with taxpayer money as possible but then there are certain times where you need to say okay let's take a stop but we need to actually send this through our transportation departments redesign this road and not just worry about you know getting getting asphalt down on the ground and uh when the right time to do that is what roads you're not going to do that on every road what roads that makes sense on um i think it's something that we need to continue to work on but i think perfecting that process of this road is it going to be repaved what kind of design do we want for it during that time that we're already ripping them and if we can't if we can't increase the engineering and the hard scapings you know the right of way or it's too expensive you know we all have tree mitigation funds that we could spend on landscaping efforts we have lots of resources probably in other buckets that we could spend that would at least do some of the some things that we know work to help slow people down including lowering right but to the point of also the mtpo i mean this this board is what gets you know for department of transportation you know making sure that we're playing paying for studies that we are doing you know whole corridor studies newberry road is one of the worst between jonesville and newberry like people fly so fast like i mean people are treating it like it's an interstate yeah and it's not an interstate well after they get out of the clogginess of it the congestion so from 98 to 122 one and then from 143rd westward and from newberry 170 to 32nd that's like a cut through now and because 32nd is so smooth man they like get going on there boy it's like i don't but i don't know what you can do it's just it's yeah so it sounds like a we have state roads which is primarily the mtpo we're talking about our state roads um and a lot of those the deaths we're talking about our injuries are car car on car in the more urbanized area we talk about a lot of pedestrians i will just throw out there my last vacation payable arkansas i saw 20 mile an hour speed limit signs and i thought this is i didn't know this i didn't what's going on with this and i went back and read that in 2021 they just said all of our streets that don't have that are not currently signed they're all 20 miles an hour they just in one way they just said knock them all down from 25 to there was an assumption of 25 but if they had not had a sign they just said we've been operating without signs we knock them all down to 20 miles per hour that's a city though less so these state roads or other county roads so i just offer that out there that some people say like no it's still worth it you know if there's some studies that will suggest it i i lean towards the you got to engineer something but i i know that i'm a a person who says hey i don't want to speed at all but knowing the difference of a ticket and then as we do some some of the school zone then people are going to real quickly there's going to be people who understand what 10 miles an hour over that penalty what will get you in a school zone and i think we're going to start to see across the county a little more awareness of uh that we're serious about enforcing speed limits even in the few places and hopefully this is a cascade of better action you know across the entire county across our entire npo yeah commissioner presia is that all you really just wanted to start the conversation the conversation i know there's not going to be a definitive today but i wanted to start the conference and i wanted dot to hear that we want if there's when we're working on projects anything that we can do to create those moments in the urbanized area that slow traffic down we'd like i'd like to see us doing that and you know if there are ideas that staff have as we're talking about these repaving projects i'd love to hear them i'm always going to say that southwest 13 doesn't need to be 45 miles an hour when we've got huge apartment complexes on both sides and and uh and there's no mid-block crossing so 45 miles an hour is really fast miss moss um so while speed setting is definitely the purview of engineers from the city and from the county um the mtpo could be a place that is uniquely qualified to look at studying you know context-based speed limits um and sort of target speeds throughout the city of gainesville and the urban cluster and then maybe within the more village parts of the smaller towns um and to sort of lay out priorities because then yes retrofitting and making capital improvements is very expensive um so how do you kind of get a sense of what i would like to make a motion that we refer to staff to bring forward what it would take to do a study of the context area and speeding second all right so we have a motion can you restate it i didn't quite hear it i said i made a motion that we refer to staff to bring back what it would take like costs and time frame for uh doing a study on speed limits in our context area okay hey santos yeah i i do want to there's a lot of we should look at all the different things we want to do and um what studies well that's why i should bring it back yeah yeah and then we kind of decided okay the truces are going to be priorities on that i i think we should but yeah that's something i think we got to be careful with though yeah just throwing stuff out there yeah as we kind of have that transition and what are we going to work on the next two years councilwoman taylor hi yes that was something that was um remember a few years ago that was brought up to waldo and as ms certain said one of the issues that i was having with our community was shortening our road which was one of the objects of trying to slow the speed down but then as the study was done and the um citizens came out one of the issues that i pointed out as as you're coming into waldo where you wanted to shorten the the highway off so that it would go down speed then you started seeing where the cars are coming in at 100 miles per hour i'm going to want to try and beat the cars that they're trying to get up to the front of the line that's merging off of 24 onto 301 so then you have the people cutting through the neighborhood because wise or whomever they want to use map quest will tell them okay i can cut through here or you may have a few people that no longer live in waldo but know waldo and they cut through so you have to kind of be careful with that when you're going into the little small communities as well because that's one thing that i know me coming from a small community in waldo that we take into consideration of the people cutting through our neighborhood especially if there's an accident or something that's what they are going to do there's no way around it because if i'm running late to work i'm not thinking about you you you or you i'm trying to get to my job on time so and another question i know it came up i'm not very sure if it's still going on maybe i heard wrong but was it a discussion once upon a time ms ikea that um mdot was going to raise the speed limits on state roads and they were trying to when there were people requesting i'm not sure i think i heard something about that in tallahassee a while ago because i i know with them looking at other states of going 100 miles per hour because i think like in texas now you can actually go 80 miles per hour on the regular highways um so yeah even though i would like to go 80 but the more i get older i kind of look at the other people you have to ask me you know this last night mr chair if i made that be less nerve with the city of kings of the transportation department uh we the city did apply for an ss4a uh grant for a planning study for uh speed management plan uh within city limits uh that's still we're still working with fhwa on the agreement so we don't have a timeline for that study yet um and then the other thing i was going to mention um mr cherry mentioned the south southwest 13 street corridor that's one of the ones that will be uh conducting a study through the mpto is on the upwp so we do have some of those studies in some of those corridors and i think that's helps help help helps us to understand because part of what we're i think i heard a lot we're going in this independent model is that we that's some of the stuff we wanted that we had ideas about different ways of have studying and seeing if there's some other options um that we can really guide so i know some of them are built in but commissioner prison i really appreciate the let's come back to this and let's see where do we need a big study do we just need to coordinate all of our small studies or where there might be a gap in the small in the small out um the smaller communities around gainesville so i like the idea of starting this conversation all right thank you for having that conversation are any other member comments we did we did have a motion i'm so sorry it's out there oh no no no oh yeah no no talking i'm sorry there was a motion basically to direct staff to put this on a a list not a priority but a list of things that we are interested in um this is what it sounds like okay uh if there's no more discussion discussion all those in favor say aye aye those opposed say nay motion passes unanimously um commissioner book yeah i just thought with the new executive director maybe went before we uh finish today we should take a group picture and the reason for that is because we're kind of a new day and in this organization i think that would be good for her good for us and it kind of gets us moving that idea commissioner cornell uh uh i at member comments i just want to say miss with the um i want to reiterate what commissioner wheeler said welcome and you hit the ground running and um mr hay santos i think she can handle lots of multitasking so i'm glad we set that motion to you because yeah you're gonna you got this great all right councilman taylor um okay last but not least the other night uh myself and commissioner wheeler and a few other people we attended an event down at the matheson um museum the issue that i kind of have is and along with some other ladies that were crossing the street with me some senior ladies elderly seniors um it wasn't the speed of the cars but it was the speed of the cars but it's trying to cross the street because if you really want to cross like we were parked over in the school board park you would have had to walk all the way down to the end to the light down there to push the button so right across we're crossing and it's kind of dark up in that area so you couldn't really see us crossing the street so that was dangerous is there any way i don't know to do a study if they could put like a push button right right there to cause to go across i don't know but i know that that's very very dangerous and by a lot of events happening at the matheson museum i tell you the mayor is very interested in a long term a whole greenway that connects kind of a lateral park on the creek and that a crossing would probably theoretically happen down there but the full funding that some of our funding is it's on our it's on it's on a list for wall spaces public places but um to develop that but it's not coming anytime i don't think super soon i'd have to get with city staff but my understanding is that if we did if we put that money into kind of a linear park uh greenway that we would i think we would all want a crossing there so it would end up being something like that maybe not as close to the matheson as some people would think but closer to where the creek is because that's where a trail would go commissioner yeah so it has been on a long term i think it's on our mobility plan and it's uh and i think it's been a long-term discussion also i believe florida department of transportation is repaving that particular section so it would be in uh the next couple of years it would be an inexpensive time my understanding um so i think our staff we we've we've asked this uh for department transportation to take a look at this correct did we about that crossing there right across the bath system okay so we did it's already in this study yeah so we did have a request for it yeah and i was thinking more of the park plan thank you commissioner spune for the actual road plan and thank you for taking care of the ladies all right other member comments did i miss a hand if i can jump in commissioner alford yeah um i i did want to talk a little bit about the mpoac meeting um i want the theme was um citizen engagement and i have a few notes that i'd like to share but i'd rather do that in person and i apologize that i'm not there in person so i'm going to save that for next time however i did want to let you know that i did get elected to the mpoac leadership uh team so um of course you did i'm not quite sure how that happened but um anyway uh i i look forward to um bringing back um more information about um you know how how people are doing it around the state so um just wanted to let y'all know that mr albert normally if you don't go to a meeting you get elected to this yeah well they were very excited to see the involvement of a lot of county in gamesville we historically have been you know not particularly involved in the mpoac and having three people there was um certainly noted and um enthusiastically uh welcomed so you're saying you brought your votes thank you commissioner alford are there other any other member comments before we finish all right i think we're gonna take a picture uh but thank you for everyone thank you for all the staff of all of our our partners city county and state uh we will see you again on march 2nd