Regular Meeting @ 11:30 a.m. - Jan 13, 2026

Okay, good morning. Today is Tuesday, January 13th, and before we get started, we have Reverend Melissa Pisco. Is she here? Yeah, there she is, who is going to give the invocation. If I could ask everyone to please rise and then join me after the invocation for the Pledge of Allegiance. Reverend, you're recognized. Good morning. Let us pray. Spirit of life known by many names and honored in many traditions. We pause together this morning in this shared moment of responsibility and hope. We give thanks for this community, for its diversity of people, stories, beliefs, and dreams. We acknowledge that our strength is not found in sameness, but in the courage to remain connected across our differences. We ask, oh God, for a deep commitment to justice, justice that protects human dignity, justice that repairs harm, justice that seeks the common good rather than narrow gain. Grant our leaders the courage to speak against that which damages the fabric of our community, the courage to name injustice, to resist fear, and to choose integrity even when the work is difficult or costly. May there be a willingness to listen, not simply to hear, but to truly hold space, especially for voices that have been marginalized, overlooked, or intentionally silenced. May wisdom grow from listening with humility and compassion. We do not pray for conformity, but for unity rooted in mutual respect. We do not ask for ease, but for the wisdom and resolve to do the hard work of leadership well. May decisions made here today be guided by care for the most vulnerable, by truth, by accountability, and by hope for a more just future. May this body serve with clarity, courage, and conscience. And may our shared work help this community not merely function, but flourish. May it be so. Amen. Thank you. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay. So welcome to our first official meeting for the month of January in the year of 2026. I think it's going to be an incredibly great year. And Madam Manager, are there any changes to the published agenda? I have not been made aware of any at this point in time, unless there is an item that any commissioner wishes to pull now. Okay. Commissioners, any changes? If not, I'll look for a motion. Commissioner Aprizia. I don't have anything to pull. I just wanted to mention, I noticed that our right-of-way or like hydro seeding contract was on consent. And I just wanted to highlight that I know we've been talking a lot about doing more wildflowers and things like that on our roadside. So as we get into that, I hope we can work with that vendor to make sure he's buying from the Florida Wildflower Cooperative or another seed provider that's using native seed from our region so that we can be sure that we're seeding the right kind of thing. So other than that, I'm good. Motion to approve the agenda. Second. Motion to second. Hopefully staff heard that comment. I think I don't see anyone objecting. I think we all agree with that for sure. You know, wildflowers was a big thing for five or six years and we finally got it right and we're just hoping to continue that effort. All right. Is there anyone from the public that wishes to speak to the motion on the floor to adopt the agenda? Okay. Once, go and twice. Bring it back to the board. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion is unanimous. We have an agenda. And Mr. Clerk, let's get us started. First item. Communications Director Mark Sexton is here to present it. Mr. Sexton, welcome. You are recognized. Thank you. Thank you, Steve. Mark Sexton, Communications Director. Mr. Chair, 2025 was an interesting year for anniversaries. We celebrated our 200th anniversary as the founding of Alachua County. We celebrated Fire Rescue's 50th anniversary. And in December of 2025, we celebrated the 25th anniversary of the founding of Alachua County Forever. It was in the year 2000 where the first of many ballot measures passed to make land conservation a priority in our county. Our film crew went to the event at Alachua Conservation Trust that was held in December at Prairie Creek Lodge. And we have this to report. Alachua County Forever is 25 years old and the community recently gathered to celebrate the taxpayer-approved land conservation program at the Alachua Conservation Trust's annual holiday mingle. The Alachua County Forever program really is about the land and the people. These are your programs. In 2025, we hit a milestone of putting 100 properties in the conservation and we've actually closed on 108 different properties. I personally think maybe the greatest program in the country, certainly in the state of Florida, the Alachua County Forever program that started 25 years ago. The goal of the program is to acquire, improve, and manage environmentally significant lands that protect water resources, wildlife habitats, and natural areas suitable for resource-based recreation. Our program was really designed to be citizen-centric. It has empowered a whole group of citizens to get very involved in land acquisition and parks and so forth. It's kind of of the people and by the people. The people have told us again and again that this is the mandate that they want to see. Our community wants to protect our natural resources and make sure that we have lands in conservation forever. We have a very highly educated, informed public, and they're very much attuned to the natural environment in the county. They understand how quickly things are changing and how precious these natural areas are for both our quality of life now and for our children's future. I've been amazed at how this community, whether it was citizen groups or county commissioners or just grassroots, how many people came together for this and not only to get it started, but look where it's at 25 years later. So much that we acquired here were because local people wanted to protect those. They were important locally and would have escaped the attention of federal and state programs. And so you have more control over your future by protecting yourself locally and having a local program. We use it as a model for replicating programs around the state. Alachua County is really looked at as a sort of visionary program. They've done a great job and that program is still being placed today and is being used as a model for many other counties, actually. I just feel so lucky to live in a place where people care so much about the world that we live in. By preserving the land that is most unique and most special and by preserving those places where we have animals that are losing their habitat, we can share those things with people. With the purchase of these properties, we're able to really create a quality of life here in Alachua County. We do a nice job of balancing the stresses of development and the community growing with the ability to come out in places like here at Sweetwater Preserve and relax and enjoy and find that balance in our lives. One of the added values was the fact that these properties make us more resilient, whether it's hurricanes or floods or droughts. Having these lands gives us some cushion when we have those hard times. The lands that we are acquiring and that the taxpayers are owning are not becoming less valuable. They're becoming more valuable. And they're not just becoming more valuable for them. They're becoming more valuable for their kids, their grandkids, seven generations down. We're opening these preserves so that people can come out and enjoy nature and interact with nature and learn about the ecosystems that are the backbone of our county. Any time that we can put a kid into nature and let a kid experience the world that is Florida, which is a really special and unique place, then we are preparing those children for a world in the future where we can still have those things. There's a huge range of benefits, but it really comes down to doing the will of the citizens, sort of doing what our people want us to do, creating the world they asked us to create. And we've not been able to get this and protect it. Who knows what things would look like today? Another great job, Mark. Wow, special thanks to Alan Yetter and Josh Massery who put this together. Also, a big shout-out to Sophia Seismula with ACT, Alachua Conservation Trust. A lot of this video was shot by her. Mr. Chair, we're very excited, and let me get to the picture. We're very excited to announce the launch of My Alachua County, our new app. I don't know if the commissioners have downloaded the app. We're told to, yes. You all got a notification at 11, and so you can go to your three dots at the upper left-hand corner to see your notifications. You should have also received a pop-up notification. The mobile app delivers timely notifications and information on county services straight to our citizens' phone. It is strengthening our commitment to find new and effective ways to communicate with our residents. It's available for download both on the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store. It's a free app, and it will give you most mobile access to our commonly used county resources. It is a centralized, easy-to-use platform. You can stay informed about county news, meetings, events, services, road projects, weather updates, adoptable animals, employment opportunities, and more. Users are encouraged to create a profile by tapping the three lines at the upper left-hand corner. And I want to let you know that the services provided by this app will be growing. As we get more and more familiar with the app, we are working behind the scenes right now to add features. The most exciting one is very soon there will be a list that you can uncheck boxes on. The default is you will get all of the notifications we send out. If you want to narrow it down to a specific category of notifications, you'll be able to do that. For example, road updates. If you want to only receive road updates, you can do that. But also it takes you to the most – it's a great portal into the most usable and valuable features that our website provides without having to go to the website and navigate the whole big website. The QR code that you see on the screens, if everyone will take out their cell phones and use their camera to – I've already told some of you, but you can actually download that right now by focusing in on that QR code. And we want to acknowledge in G-SHOP, in ITS, that there's been an enormous amount of work and coordination done by this. And we want to send out a special shout-out to Ryan and Hershini and Brian Sparks from ITS on doing the hard work to roll this out. Thank you, guys. And finally, we had a great field trip to Tallahassee in December. On December 17th, three Alachua County 4-H members, joined by our Extension Director, Dr. Cindy Sanders, 4-H Agent Mary Lee Sale, Alachua County Assistant County Manager Gina Peebles, and Assistant County Manager Missy Daniels, traveled to Tallahassee to attend the Governor's Cabinet meeting. The group witnessed the historical and long-awaited measure to remove the deed restrictions from the Weisman Track, which is up Waldo Road, near the transfer station, near the Eco Loop property, and transfer that deed restriction to the Alachua County Equestrian Center. This transfer, as many of you know, was the result of years of collaborative effort by the county manager, the county attorney, our lobbyists, and others. The participants enjoyed a great educational experience, the 4-Hers. They got to meet with Commissioner of Agriculture, Wilton Simpson, and they took a tour of his office and had this photo opportunity. They explored the Florida Senate chamber and took part in a mock Senate session that was led by the new president of the Senate, Gina Peebles. She introduced a motion to withdraw a constitutional amendment related to agriculture. The motion was debated in a spirited way, and the motion passed. I did ask her why she didn't have another motion about the future of property taxes, but this is not the time. The trip offered an incredible opportunity for 4-H members and a unique opportunity to see government in action. So we were very grateful for the warm welcome they received in Tallahassee. And to give you a little more information about the importance of that deed restriction, Manager Lieberman is going to take over. Okay. Yes. Ms. Lieberman. Commissioners, just to make sure the public is aware, too, that was a vote of the governor and cabinet. We're very excited that the 4-H group got to see how government works at the state level. And the importance to that, to the agricultural community and the youth fair group, is huge to get that protection now to be placed on the county's equestrian and current fairground site, which was very important to them and why they wanted to be a part of that. It is not official until it's official. I say that because the vote to approve is there. We still need the paperwork from the state. They are promising to provide it soon. The board will have to. We'll be putting that on agenda. The board will have to approve that paperwork before that's actually recorded in the public record. But as part of that, we are coming to you at the next board meeting on the 27th with a couple of different items that are related to that. So I wanted to make sure you and the public were aware. We are going to, that property now will be available for our use, which it was not before. So it is part of the PD that is EcoLoop. So we will be asking you for your thoughts on what types of uses you would like to see there now moving forward so that we can bring back to you some recommendations for a new PD over those sites. And then secondarily, it took us, goodness, two and a half or so years, but that does give us a separate option of something we own as far as the shelter goes. So included in next agenda, we will have the UF lease and you will have two sites to make a selection from. But along with that, we also know that animal resources has been kind of front and center a little bit lately. So we haven't given you a numbers update in a while. So we're going to have a comprehensive numbers update for you. We're going to ask you to make a final selection between the lease and this site as your choices. And then overall, what you would like to see on this site, because there's enough acreage there that even if you made that choice to place the shelter there, there still has to be decisions made and a PD still has to go through a process to allow those things, uses to be there, including the shelter. So I just wanted to give you a preview that all of that is coming. I know it's of very much interest to the public. We just wanted to highlight this today because we did get the vote and it did take us two and a half plus years to get before the cabinet with all the hoops and hurdles we had to do. Okay. Thank you, Manager Lieberman. Commissioner Wheeler. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair. In light of the report that we've just heard and the approval from the cabinet for the reverter, I would move to discontinue negotiations with UF and free the staff to focus on finalization of the required paperwork for use of the Rieskman property for the new animal shelter. I don't want to wait another two weeks. I think you don't want to have that discussion. No, I do not. No, I do not. Okay. I kind of do, but do I hear a second to the motion? Okay. That is for a second. I think we can maybe discuss it in two weeks. May I add? And I just feel like that if we are freed up from this, if we free our staff up, we can begin now to make plans for the new shelter. We've got two more weeks to have to worry about whether, you know, what we're going to see on that lease. I am not in favor of the lease, never have been. It's taken us this long to get this work done, three years. And to tell you the truth, I'm getting impatient with it because I've spent more time at that shelter than probably anyone on this board. And I have seen and talked to the folks, not only who work there, but the volunteers from the community who are. I think we're all getting impatient. Our staff has been used for three years now to try to get this lease done. And I just feel like two more weeks is not going to change anything in terms of what we see now. And the work that was done to make sure that we have our own land with our own control, saving $3 million, it should be, I hate the phrase, no-brainer. But it seems to me that it should be a no-brainer for this board. And to wait another two weeks just prolongs the work of our staff. And not only the work of our staff, but also the inability for us to work with the designers to get started. Okay. Heard loud and clear. And I hear you loud and clear. And I understand your position. I do know that there's a lot of community that wants to kind of weigh in on this item. And so when it's on the agenda, I think they'll all have that ability and we'll be able to hear those arguments and hopefully make a decision in two weeks. But thank you. I'm disappointed, but I thank you, Mr. Chair. Okay. You're welcome. All right. Mark, anything else on the announcements? No, sir. That's it. The announcements. Okay. Then let's move to the, I think we can do the approval of the recognitions prior to public comment. Do I hear a motion to approve the proclamation? So moved. Motion and a second. Any discussion? Back to the board. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion is unanimous. Okay. So we've got the presentation of a proclamation recognizing January 17, 2023. It's Arbor Day in Alachua County. And Commissioner Wheeler, I think. Okay. Commissioner Wheeler will be giving that. And I think we have some guests here. And we have our staff here. Yeah. We'll see you out there and the crew, the intrepid ones. Good to see. It's hard to realize it's Arbor Day again. Oh, my goodness. It seems like we just did this. Right. And you will tell us, too, then, about the event coming Saturday. All right. Alachua County, Florida, a proclamation declaring January 17, 2026 is Arbor Day in Alachua County, Florida. Whereas this holiday, called Arbor Day, was first observed in 1872 in the state of Nebraska with the planting of more than a million trees. And whereas Alachua County observes our Florida State Arbor Day on this third Saturday in January. And whereas trees help mitigate the effects of environmental extremes by moderating temperatures and absorbing harmful pollutants from the air and water by storing carbon, producing nutrients, and by releasing oxygen for all to breathe. And whereas trees in our neighborhoods and communities enhance economic vitality by creating healthier, safer, and more beautiful environments to enjoy the outdoors and meet our neighbors. And whereas trees, wherever they grow and thrive, are a source of joy and spiritual renewal. Now, therefore, through the authority vested in me by the Board of County Commissioners of the Alachua County, Florida, I do hereby proclaim January 17, 2026 as Arbor Day in Alachua County, Florida. Duly proclaimed this 13th day of January A.D. 2026. And it's signed by our chair, Ken Cornell, and attested to by Jess Irby, our clerk. And, Ken, you probably should have been the one reading this one because you're kind of our tree guru or warrior guy, whoever it is that champions trees as him. But you are also a champion, and you are raising champions. You know, Peyton, who started out with you in High Springs, is now up to here. And the trees he planted with you are way up there, you know. I find you a champion because you come to visit us. I'm so grateful. I love trees, too. Here, please introduce your group and tell us about the Arbor Day. Yes, so I don't know what it is about this podium. You look great behind it, really great. So take a big breath and tell us about it. So, yes, I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank you for this proclamation. Thank you again for honoring Arbor Day. And I've assembled our county's arborist and my colleagues, and I think I speak for them and a few others that we are just so fortunate to work for a community and for an administration that supports the work we do, that protects our forest, and our old growth, live oaks and big trees. So it doesn't take too many engagements with other municipal arborists from other parts of the county to realize just how lucky we are to live in this community and work in this community. So thank you for the proclamation. And I just wanted to give you a little update on our Arbor Day celebration. We will be planting trees. It is – oh, back up. It will be Saturday, January 17th. We'll start at 11. We will be planting trees. We have two guest speakers coming I'm really excited about, and you might enjoy this as well. We've got one guest speaker, lots of credentials, several generations of arborists in his family, and he will be speaking about mature tree care. So those big majestic oaks that we have in our community, they do require a little extra care to keep them healthy. And so we have Daniel Lippey coming to speak to that. And then I also have a local environmental consultant that will be talking about how important pollinators are to our – excuse me? Where will it be? Oh, yes. It will be at Powers County Park off of Hawthorne Road on the east side of Gainesville. And let's see. Oh, and we will have a tree giveaway. So – and our trees this year that we'll be giving away will be focused on the pollinators. So we've got lots of native – smaller understory trees, native flowering trees for – to benefit our pollinators, our local owners. And with that, do I have anything else – anybody else want to say something? Good morning. Andrew Caniglo, Senior Forester. Mr. Chair, I'd just like to say I moved to Alachua County. I've worked all over the state in forestry and various roles. And I moved to Alachua County two years ago specifically because this community has great trees, cares about great trees. And it is my privilege and pleasure to serve this county as their senior forester. Thank you. And could we have our arborist introduce himself? I have a little quick story, too. My name is Doug Persall, and I'm the assistant arborist with Lacey here. And come out Saturday. Get your hands dirty. Remember, green end up. Thank you, Doug. Thank you, Lacey. Sorry. So you all get together. They're going to take a picture. I'll tell my quick story. So I got a call from one of my constituents last week or the week before. And he said, yeah, is there something you can help me with? Your county arborist won't let us take down a tree. And I said, well, tell me a little bit about it. So he started telling me about it. I said, how old is that tree? What kind of tree is it? It's one of these great heritage live oaks. And I said, well, God bless our county arborist. That tree's been here longer than your parents were. And at the end of the conversation, he said, you know what? Thank you for that county arborist because, you know, you're right. That tree has been here a long time. And let's celebrate that tree. And let's figure out how we can kind of work everything else around that. And so thank you for what you do and for representing those that can't speak. All right. Although they do speak, they speak to me a lot. So, all right. Let's go ahead and declare that it is about noon in Lachford County. We're going to open up public comment. And then we'll get to our employee length of service recognitions. I didn't want to rush through that. So thank you all for being here for that. And with that, Mr. Connish, you are recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Jim Connish, can I have the overhead, please? Yep. Sir, next door to Poe Springs Park, there's a gentleman that bought 3.2 acres. Two acres is in a 100-year floodplain. And there's a 100-foot buffer from development along the park boundary. And in violation of your ordinances, this man hopped on a dozer and dozed a gigantic hole in the 10-year floodplain in violation of deed restrictions that I had him sign. And he was given up front this description by my forester. This 3.1-acre stand lies about 250 feet north of the other stand. The site consists of mature hardwoods on messic soils. This is a hardwick hammock with mature eastern, and I can't even pronounce some of these words, found only in the floodplain of the Suwannee, Santa Fe, and Withlacoochee Rivers. And he annihilated it, sir. He annihilated it without consequence. You chased him out of your 100-foot buffer. He's got RVs and trailers in our buffer. He's upsetting the neighbors terribly. They're upset. They've been displaced like the Indians, sir. Now, he poisoned the buffer with ant poison. He disturbed it. He dumped on it. He parked heavy equipment on it. He raped it. He built a 6,000-square-foot structure with no provision whatsoever for the stormwater, which drains straight into the floodplain adjacent to Poe Springs Park. I would ask the county to investigate this matter. He claims he's an owner-builder. He hired dozens of foreign laborers to come in here and build a crappy building. It's large, but it's crappy. And he's done a tremendous disservice to this community, and I've been here before. I would like you to investigate how something like this can happen. You're signing people for cutting one or two trees. He personally destroyed a rare forest and then dug a hole. How can that be? Why wasn't he arrested? Why wasn't his equipment seized? Why don't he get a stop work notice? I don't understand this. It's certainly not consistent with the way I've been treated, and it's a disgrace to you, this disparity. And I'll be here about properties all around here. This is a disaster area. Thank you, Mr. Connors. Thank you. If you could leave that information with the clerk, we'll ask our staff to take a look at it. Chris Bover has all the information. Thank you. He's not doing his job. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Mr. Manager. Good, ma'am. Good afternoon. Robert Thompson, City Manager, City of Hawthorne. I just come to say thank you for your support in Hawthorne with respect to the Hawthorne Industrial Park. I want to say thanks again for the Santa Fe multipurpose consideration also. I'll be working with your staff to make sure you're all informed and updated in a timely manner. And in all updates in the Industrial Park, I want to make sure that you feel inclusive, because I'll be meeting with your staff to ensure that your vision and needs for that part of the county are recognized. So, at this time, I just basically want to say thank you, and I want to say I do truly appreciate it. I tried to get here earlier last year, but, you know, holidays and so forth. But I just wanted to say, you know, we don't take it lightly, the support that we're getting from the commissioners and the county itself. So, my role is to just come say thank you personally, publicly, to let you know that we do appreciate all the support that we're getting and the potential growth that we're excited about and everything that's happening in Hawthorne at this time. You know, if y'all have any questions, I'm going to go. We appreciate you very much, too. Thank you for being here and for expressing that. I know our staff enjoys working with you very, very much. Great staff you have. You all are great also. You all have a wonderful day. Thanks again. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Manager. Good morning. Go ahead and pull that down, and it'll – yep. I have that problem with every – you might ever speak at it. Thank you so much. Good morning. My name is Patricia Antonucci, and I don't know if this will – Yeah, overhead, please. Sometimes that works. It's on my phone, so I'm not sure it'll pick up. But my name, again, is Patricia Antonucci, and I have been volunteering with the Alachua County Animal Resources and Care for approximately three years now. This is one of our dogs. And I just wanted to say there are many issues that I would like to address with the board, including spay-neuter incentives, public outreach, et cetera. But I will return to other board of county commissioner meetings for those issues, because at this meeting, I'm limiting my points to the most critical issues at this point in time. As some of you are aware, recently multiple adoptable dogs were euthanized, dogs that we as volunteers knew personally. My questions to the BOCC is whether you are still in favor of a no-kill community. If so, I have some questions as to why ACAR is continuing as a managed intake facility, meaning turning away strays and foundlings, but still euthanizing pets for space or potential pets for space. I'd like to know who is making these decisions regarding which dogs to euthanize and whether the people making the decisions have had any direct contact or hands-on interactions with the selected dogs, as we volunteers have and don't necessarily feel that the dogs euthanized were eligible for euthanization. In terms of hiring, my concerns are I understand that the position for director is open. I would like to know who is vetting the candidates for this position. Will the candidates be required to have significant experience at a successful, and by successful, I mean very low-kill rate shelter? And will there be an emphasis on hiring someone with experience both on the adoption and foster side and not just animal control side? I also would like to know what is the status of hiring a shelter veterinarian. The shelter has been without an on-site vet for some time. All of these issues, I feel, must be addressed before a new shelter is built. I know that that's going to be on the agenda in a couple of weeks. But if these issues are not addressed, they will just carry over when we move to a new facility. And my concern is that the dogs are the ones who suffer and pay the price for some of our errors and some of our setbacks. You know, I have several other volunteers behind me who will be speaking to the same issue. I don't want to take too much of your time, but would really urge you to consider these issues and provide some answers to the community. Thank you. And feature it as Confetti, one of the dogs that was unfortunately euthanized. Thank you, Ms. Santucci. Thank you. Next speaker, please. And if you guys want to separate, we've got two podiums, if that's helpful. Come on up. Yep. Next speaker. Hi, my name is Melissa Wocosch. I'm a resident of Alachua County. I'm a volunteer at Animal Resources. I'm going to acknowledge, first of all, this could have been an email. I wrote it out on this piece of paper that I'm going to read from, but it's very important to me, so I wanted to be here today. First, I'm concerned about the length of time it has taken to fill the vacant veterinarian position. As a result, dogs are waiting months for basic care, including vaccinations, spay-neuter surgery, and microchipping. These delays have real consequences. A dog was placed in the foster care with my partner without having received a rabies vaccine or a microchip. I understand that the dog was fearful upon intake on October 25th. However, the dog did not enter foster care until December 30th, more than two months later. During that time, the dog was on the adoptive floor, which indicates that his fear level was not so severe that his routine procedures could not have been completed had there been a veterinarian on site. Second, I want to address shelter outcomes. From October through November, the live release rate for dogs was approximately 82%. In December, that rate dropped to 66%. This represents a significant increase in euthanasia in a very short period of time and strongly suggests a shift in policy or practice. My question is why major policy changes are occurring under interim leadership, particularly leadership without animal welfare experience. The shelter currently operates under a managed intake model, which is intended to reduce euthanasia by controlling the flow of animals into the shelter. Managed intake is controversial. People have to deal with strays and nuisance animals on their own. But when you pair that with a sharply declining live release rate, it erodes community trust and support and undermines the purpose of the managed intake policy. I'm also requesting a specific policy change. Any adoptable dog being considered for euthanasia due to space constraints should be publicly posted for a defined period of time to allow rescues, adopters, or foster homes the opportunity to step forward. We need to be honest about the reason dogs are being euthanized and stop minimizing the role that space constraints played in the December outcomes. Finally, regarding the new shelter director position, my hope is that the next director will reflect the values and goals of the Alachua County community and will bring proven leadership experience from a successful shelter with a high live release rate. Alachua County has the resources, partnerships, and public support to be an exemplar of what a county shelter can accomplish. I also want to say that I have nothing but support for the staff at ACAR, particularly the outreach staff, which is who I interact with the most. They're amazing, they're doing the jobs of many different people at this time, and yeah, I want to continue to support the shelter, and hopefully changes will be made that makes it easy to do so. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Wilcox. Thank you for your comments. Next speaker, please. Very kind. That's okay. Strain of shelter information. So, obviously, we're all looking at what's been going on at the shelter lately. 66% live release rate is just not where we're at. It's not where we want to be at, and it's not what we want to have happen in the future. So, I am really asking you guys, because you're the top of the food chain, I'm asking you to set a standard, please. Please let them know what we want, and I think you know what the community wants, and I know how hard it is to achieve, but I want us to maintain a standard and not slip down the hill like we're doing. We're just slipping away. We have great consultants, the shelter and veterinary medicine people over at UF. Engage them. Bring them in on it. Let them help us. We can't do this for the next two years, and it's going to take us two years to get a shelter built. We can't keep doing what we're doing. It's not working. So, please, it's up to you guys to set a standard, to speak to your managers at the shelter, delegate to them, let them know what the standards are that you want them to follow. The community is behind you. We want this to work. Look what a great county we have. Look at all the things that we just talked about that we do. They're so great. We've got to get this back up to a level where we're proud of it. Right now, we're just not. So, I also think that, you know, there were some cases like abuse cases and big hoarding cases when I was a volunteer there, and they did not mainstream those dogs once they took them. They did not mainstream them into the shelter. They had a separate area for them. I don't know a lot about it, but it is out there, and we can't every single time we have a big case like that suddenly go on a rash of euthanasia in our shelter. It's just not ethical, and it's not what the community wants. So, I'm asking you guys, please step up. We're counting on you. You set the standard. Delegate. Get them to do what they want. Demand a standard. Delegate it out. And also, the Animal Welfare Committee. I would love to see them more empowered. They are incredible people. They have so much knowledge, so much to offer our community, and they have no power at all right now. They were told by Julie Johnson not to be involved in any of the affairs of the shelter. Well, why? Why would they not be wanting to protect? Yes, that's what they were told. Why would they not want to protect the very animals that we have in our care? That should be a no-brainer. So, please, I'm asking you guys. I'm putting you in the hot seat. We need you. We know this has been difficult. We know the shelter is a controversial place, but we need you to set the standards. Could you just introduce yourself for us? Pamela Blasetti. Sorry. Thank you, Pamela. Thank you. Okay. Next speaker, please. Good morning. My name is Lynn Moore. I volunteered at the shelter from 2022 to 2024, and I'm currently a volunteer with Puppy Hill Farm Animal Rescue, and I foster many dogs that we have pulled from the shelter. So, I think that we're all trying to find a good plan to try and create a better no-kill shelter because ours is not that anymore. And as Pam just said, bringing in case dogs and euthanizing relatively healthy dogs to make space for them is not the way to do it. A lot of the dogs that were currently euthanized were timid. They were a little bit fearful. They were not aggressive. There was no reason for them to be put down, yet they did that to make space for a case that had come in. And those case dogs have to be there a long time because until the trial is set, et cetera, they have to be kept in. They cannot be released anywhere else. We need a stronger community engagement. I don't think that we engage with them enough because this is a very dog-friendly environment in Gainesville, but we need people in the community to know what to do, where to go, who to get in touch with when they find a stray. And when they take the stray to the shelter, they should not be told, we don't have space, and if you can't foster, take it back where you found it. That's going to minimize the community wanting to help out in the future if they find a stray. So, that is absolutely unacceptable. Fostering is temporary. Supplies are given for free, and it can be ended at any time that person asks to stop. So, we need to get in with our local rescues as well, one of which I volunteer with. We have pulled many dogs recently, two German Shepherds that we were already mentioned. We are willing to do this, but you have to give these dogs every day need to be put out, and we need to know about them. They can't just send an email and say, oh, we have 25 dogs. They need to go in a home, and we're going to euthanize them next week. You cannot do it that way. Every day, these dogs need to be brought up, communicated to the rescues and other places, and see if we can find somewhere to put them. We need to learn to ask for help, especially the shelter. They don't seem to like to do that. We all have the same goal as to save these dogs. Reducing intake, which will be addressed. We need a better spay-neuter strategy. We need to make an arrangement with our veterinary school. Why can't they do this for free? The students can learn to spay and neuter, and yet we can't spay and neuter animals at the shelter right now because there's no vet. We should provide food banks, et cetera, for people who have financial hardships so pets are not at risk of being surrendered. We need to engage the public. We need to have foster or adoption events at places outside of the shelter, which is not bad, but it could be a lot better. Maybe we have a lot of dog-friendly areas, food parks, et cetera. We could have events there, and we definitely need a dedicated vet and staff. The animals need to be front and center. They need medical and behavioral support before and after adoption. There are groups out here in Gainesville that will help. I work with a group called Oh Hey Dog. They will help people for free. So there are options out there. We just need to try and reach out and find them. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Moore. Thank you for your comments. Next speaker, please. My name is Chris Deutsch, and I also have been a volunteer at the shelter. Chris, if you'll just pull that microphone down. There we go so we can hear you. I'm a little bit shorter. Anyway, I know we've been talking about in the new shelter next meeting, but I feel even if we add hundreds of new kennels, we'll never catch up with the populations as things stand now. We were just kind of warehousing pets, and one of the main reasons for shelter overcrowding is overpopulation. Since the pandemic, shelters across the nation have been filled to overcapacity, especially in southern states. Pets are relinquished to shelters or abandoned on the streets. This surge has not ended, and our shelter was no exception. To make matters worse, many pets are still reproductively intact, and we need ways to address the overpopulation. The number one solution is a robust spay and neuter program for our county. The programs combat the unwanted and unintentional litters that fuel the overcapacity in shelters. It also stops the exponential increase in the stray and relinquished pet population before they even make it to the shelter. Educating owners that have not had their companions euphemistically fixed is also essential. The need is to meet the people and pets where they are. Transportation can be a huge obstacle if spay and neuter clinics are in fixed locations. Sponsoring mobile sterilization clinics or teaming up with local vets has worked in many areas. We have a veterinary medicine college right here at the University of Florida, which offers a specialty in shelter medicine. A collaboration with them could certainly help alleviate the overpopulation to the shelter pipeline with more positive outcomes. Many citizens are not clear how the spay-neuter procedure is performed and have heard many myths about how this simple surgery will affect their pets. How can education be accomplished? Again, go where the people are. There are festivals, shows all over the county that volunteers could table at with facts for the community. The information could also be presented in schools and colleges as these are the next generation of pet owners. There are educational presentations available online, so no need to reinvent the wheel. Another good reason to promote spay-neuter program from the shelter perspective is in the event a pet is surrendered or taken to the shelter and is already neutered, it is statistically more quickly adopted than an unaltered pet. The second point I'd like to make on the effort to keep pets out of the shelter is microchipping. Research states that pets that are microchipped are returned to their owners at a very high rate over unchipped pets. 50% higher return rate for dogs and almost 40% for cats. Microchip clinics are another avenue to pursue in the effort to keep animals out of the shelter. I know there were a few, I think there were at least two that were co-sponsored last year with another group that I can't remember the name of, and were very successful. They used all the chips. Okay, one last thing, programs can be expensive, but if we're going to save $3 million on leasing, we got some money available. Thank you very much for your attention. Yeah, thank you so much for your comments. Next speaker, please. Hi, my name is Chris Nard, and I'm the CEO of a business called Fortify Financial. We're a PACE administrator that operates in the state of Florida under the jurisdiction of the Florida PACE Funding Agency. We wrote business in Alachua County in 2023 under a judicial bond validation that was granted to the Florida PACE Funding Agency. We wrote for a short period of time. The county and the tax collector objected, so we stopped. In spite of that, the tax collector chose not to put the PACE assessments on the tax roll. That's how people repay these voluntary financings. And the county and the tax collector, along with some other ones in the state of Florida, sued to have the bond validation overturned in the Second Circuit where those are issued. In March of 24, the court ruled against the county and the tax collectors, ruled in favor of the FPFA, and said that the assessments had to go on the tax bills. The county and the others didn't like that. They appealed it to the Florida Supreme Court. December 15, the Florida Supreme Court ruled, upheld the lower court opinion that they had to go on the tax roll. So this has gone on for years. It's been hugely expensive, I would assume, for you. It's been hugely expensive for the FPFA. It's been hugely expensive for us. And it's been very disruptive to the homeowners that borrowed the money under the premise that they would repay it through the tax bill. So now that the court system's run its course, we'd like to work with you guys to try to get these assessments on the tax roll. There's not a ton here in Alachua. There's about 40. And I don't think people understand, about 60% of those people just pay it directly to us. The other 40% have not put directly to the FPFA. The other 40% have not paid. And if these don't get on the tax roll this quarter, March 31st, those people will fall three tax payments behind on their PACE assessment. That puts them in a really bad position. So continuing to try to make these not go on the tax roll really doesn't do anything for the 60% of the people that know they borrowed the money and are paying it back. It's the other 40% that haven't paid and will now be three years behind on a lien that's recorded against their property. That's not good for anybody because they'll get in trouble and they try to go to refinance or sell that home. So they're not really avoiding any expense. So I'll do whatever I can to work with you guys in the FPFA and the tax collector to try to get these on the tax roll. We'd just like to do it before the end of the call. Thank you, Senard. Thanks, everybody. Next speaker, please. I'm glad to be here today. It's my first trip down here. We just relocated to Florida from Austin, Texas about two months ago. I'm Mike Hunsucker. I work for Unity or as most of you know us as Kinetic, the former Windstream, Kinetic in your markets. We're so glad to have the partnership with the county to deploy broadband to the rural areas of the county. And most of our bills are going to be in Commissioner Cornell's, Commissioner Chestnut's, and Commissioner Wheeler's areas. We're moving along quite well in that. We've already deployed over 80 miles of fiber. We still have 200 miles to go. The permitting, permitting is just a real roadblock, but our permitting here has gone extremely well. So we have very few outstanding permits, and they're not very old. Most of them are within the last 30 days that we filed them. So we're excited to be here. We've already turned up 1,250 customers that can now get fiber-based Internet in these areas. So, you know, I work a lot with Ethan. Ethan's been great to work with. He's on top of this. We keep him in the loop. But I just wanted you to put a face with a name, and if there's anything that I can do that you see problems with, get to Ethan. Ethan can get me in the loop. We'll certainly work to solve any issues that you may have with us. Mike, thank you. Thank you for being here and for what you and your company are doing. Appreciate it. Yeah, you're getting a very much needed utility to those that need it in the rural area. I agree. Next speaker, please. Master Joy, welcome. Good afternoon, everybody, the commission chair, everybody in their respective places. Just want to say that our staff in Alachua County is second to none, and I watch very closely. They're doing an incredible job with a lot of different projects and everything that's going on. I do want to thank you all for the quick response that you had with the SNAP crisis that went on in November. The grant money that was appropriated for that for the six family resource centers helped a tremendous amount of people in our High Springs and Alachua area with the fresh fruits and vegetables. And then we also got delivered last week, I believe it was the week before, two new coolers that will help us keep the fruits and vegetables that we're getting in fresh for the families. I do want to just bring up that we are one of six identified family resource centers in Alachua County. Deeper Purpose Community Charities runs our family resource center in High Springs. Around August, we closed, and it hurt a lot of people. It hit the news. I was trying to go out quietly because I don't like begging for things. Community Foundation stepped up quickly, gave us a grant that lasted five months to help us keep our doors open. And we are now funded by the Children's Trust of Alachua County as a family resource center, as well as consulting with the Partnership for Strong Families. But you guys remember me coming up here before and before and before asking for help from you guys who's able to help more. And the staff, some of them were behind me for the community relations department, many, many months ago, they were reaching out to the family resource centers with surveys and different this and different that. And we were under the impression that we were going to hear back from you all. So it's been many, many, many, many months, and we have not heard anything, I don't think, since June of last year. I just checked my email. So what I'm asking is that now that we are funded by the Children's Trust, and that just helps pay our bills to keep the doors open. It helps fund one full-time staff member. We really need three. So I'm just asking that you do not forget about High Springs, our Alachua area. We have families that come from Newberry, High Springs, and Alachua, even some from Gainesville, who can't get certain help over here. They drive and don't realize how far we are. But we help everybody in the county that do need help. So it is disheartening when we're begging for assistance from you guys over there, and that we're constantly seeing so many projects that you guys are funding in Gainesville. I know Gainesville has the majority of the citizens, but please, I'm asking that you direct staff to follow back up with us at your direction with what we started many, many months ago and possibly help us with funding for more staffing and a few other things at our resource center. Thank you, Pastor Troy. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Next speaker, please. Good morning. Khali Blount, and I'm coming to give you all an invitation. And I was late. I didn't hear your announcement, so maybe this is in your announcement. So if it's a repeat, good. So Wednesday of next week, the 21st at 7 p.m. at Matheson Museum, and I'll repeat that part at the end after people start listening. There will be an opening of an exhibit of quilts made by committees in various communities around Alachua County. This is some beautiful hundreds of hours of quilt work. And these quilts are dedicated to victims of racial violence in Alachua County from the Civil War era forward. So again, this is next Wednesday, January 21st, 7 o'clock at the Matheson Museum. This is free and open to the public. And all those who attend will leave with a level of sublime enlightenment. Okay, I'm overselling a little bit there, but you're going to really appreciate this exhibit. And I also have to apologize to some of you because I've invited you to a jazz set this Friday evening at Cypress and Grove, and I was over-anxious. It is still another week off, the 23rd. But I'm sure there'll be some great live music there anyway at this coming Friday. It just won't be jazz bandits. Thank you, Kelly. There are actually nickel jazz at the MLK Center is this Friday at 7 o'clock. So there will be some jazz going on at the MLK. Next speaker, please. Hello, Soria Lindberg. Happy New Year. I have a little bit of a PSA and then a request for advice, as I do. I know there's a lot of people listening and paying attention. Today is the big Terra April exception permit hearing at the City of Alachua Planning and Zoning Board at 6 p.m. And as someone who's probably been to a dozen of their quasi-judicial hearings, I never read the rules for it. So I just wanted to share it here for those listening and paying attention. This is 2.31 D8. Overhead, please. Affected parties get a rebuttal. In 2025, I've never seen an effective party have a rebuttal before. So that's definitely something to take advantage of. I also want people to know you get a conclusion, a redirect and recross, and an objection if it applies. I think that's very valuable considering how high stakes this is. And I just think as a member of the public, I didn't know that. So I thought that was really interesting and something to take advantage of. And my question, segue to water and the irony that you honored arborists today, too. So a couple of months ago, I've just kind of been putting little notes. So the Santa Fe Hills, where I live, the county does the water. We're working on moving it to city. This is just a copy of the email I sent. But basically, the main concern I have in our request is where one of the planned water lines is, is under two huge trees that has broken up the sidewalk. It's broken up the road. And the county had an engineering firm. I can't remember which one it was, so I don't want to misspeak. Plan this. And my concern is I did not notice if there was an arborist evaluation because if these trees can break up the sidewalk and they're breaking up the road, what are they going to do to my water line? So here we are fighting for water for the region, and this affects three houses. So this is where they want to do the new sidewalk, and that's the water line. These two little arrows are these trees. I learned trees have special numbers. One is 30, one is 33. And since I have the time, I'll quickly show you how broken up it is. And this is buried in your e-mails, but there's probably only one Soria Lindbergh you can search for. So you can see here, too. And this is, you know, I was told by a neighbor these trees were here before in the neighborhood, but I love trees. I love nature. But there's probably a rule or consideration or a decision somewhere. What is the balance with an old tree when it comes to quality of life in this project? Another concern I have is when this turns over to the city, we are an enclave, unincorporated county. If there is an issue with the water line, who owns it? Who's going to fix the line when it breaks? Where does it go? Where's the liability? So things to consider. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Lindbergh. Okay, next speaker, please. Hey, Mark, come on up. This is awesome. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. My name is, oh, there's a lady there. My name is Mark Van Suisbergen. In the end, this is all about pollinators. So there's this story, and in this story you have, you know, two options with only one choice. So you're in this car, and you're going like 120, and you're jamming along, and all of a sudden there's a wall. And you can either, you know, take your foot off the brake and go for the gas and then try to go for the brake, or you can activate the airbag. So pollinators are the only thing that are going to keep this ecosystem together. And you can triple the amount of pollinators yourselves very easily by tripling the amount of food that's available to them. So roadside maintenance is a platform that you can use to communicate to the people that live here what you're doing and why you're doing it. So you mow the edges, and you stick a sign in the middle that says, this is food. And then you start with 300 signs this spring, and you end up with 3,000 signs this fall. And bit by bit, people are going to get the picture, this is food. And then you can elaborate on that and explain what kind of foods do we grow here, because many people don't know. I don't even know. But here you've got the roadsides. They're kind of yours. And little by little, people start learning what it is that we grow here and how important these pollinators are. And pollinators are not important just for our food, but also for food for other animals, whether it's squirrels or birds. Pollinators are also very important for trees. So if you want this ecosystem to, you know, survive, like the next 10 years, you can triple the amount of pollinators. Because when that white thing goes, we're going to lose like 60% of the pollinators. And it's much better to start with a larger number. And the thing is, it's very simple. It's basically there's always this weirdo plant over there, and that weirdo plant is the one that's got like the quirky DNA. Well, when the pollinator is able to actually get to that weirdo plant and take that quirky DNA and spread it around, that's the plant that is more likely to survive the longer droughts, the heavier range, the weird changes that are going to happen. You want as much diversity as you can, and the pollinators are going to do it for us for free. And there's no labor unions. There's no 401ks. And they fly, you know, they work basically from the moment they can fly to the day they die. Anyway, so roadside maintenance is a platform to communicate, and you have to lead by example in everything, not just the roadsides, but parks and everything else. Even if it's only 20-foot wide and 30-foot long, we've got to communicate it. Thanks, Mark. Great idea. Appreciate that. Okay. Next speaker, please. Is there anyone after Mr. Cartwright? Okay, you'll be our last speaker. Welcome. Yes, good afternoon, commissioners. My name is Telford Cartwright. I'm a longtime resident here in Alachua County, Florida. And I want to show something. Overhead, please. Overhead, please. That's a GPS monitor that was placed on my leg by a member of the Alachua County Department of Court Services. And that's a sore on my leg that a GPS monitor caused. Now, I heard some members of the public make comments about pets, and I know for sure that if someone abuses a pet, they'll be arrested here in this iron-blue-fisted county. So, once again, overhead, please. Shows that I never should have been arrested. Incident investigation report. Now, it was conducted by a member of the city of Gainesville, Florida, Police Department. A thorough and proper investigation occurred that showed that I committed no crime. So, the presumption of innocence. I remember on January 6th, my birthday, by the way, commission meeting, how a member of the public by the name of Carly Blunt suggested that a member of the county commission do not refer to the accused as criminals. Because we live in a country where we cannot simply hold people against their will without evidence, you know. So, I was kidnapped in human traffic to the Alachua County Jail. Now, people, I've heard people make statements about Governor DeSantis giving an order to have illegal aliens flown to Martha's Vineyard. I've heard people make comments about the president, President Donald Trump, and his administration's anti-illegal immigration and securing the border initiative. So, what human trafficking is occurring here in Alachua County, Florida, in guise or under the color of law. Yes, it shows right here. Due to conflicting statements, a lack of bodily injuries, and a lack of proper cause. Officer who conducted a thorough and adequate investigation could not arrest me because no crime occurred. Unless the color of this right here is the crime. But I know that this is a culture there at the city of Gainesville, Florida's Police Department. I just spoke with Chief Moya about the culture there, which I can write a long, I mean, a telephone book about. It started in 1929. I think it was the, was it 1925, 29? It was the city of Gainesville's Police Department, I mean, chief. And the mayor then of the city of Gainesville went on campus at the University of Florida, beat up a Catholic priest and cut his penis off on campus. It was an all-white-male university still, and no one was ever held accountable. That could be, you know, white-male privilege in this iron-blue-fisted county. Yes. You see. So, this would be the culture there at that, um. Thank you, Mr. Cartwright. You're welcome. Thank you for your comments. All right, is there anyone else for public comment? Okay, we'll go ahead and close public comment. Mr. Sexton. We have one phone call. Oh, I'm sorry, we have phone calls. Thank you. Thank you for reminding me. That's why you were standing up. I thought you were going to comment, yes. Okay, let's go to the phones. Okay, Mr. Chair, we have a caller whose phone number ends in 0632. Caller, if you will hit star six on your phone, you'll be in the room and state your name. Yes, my name is Carl Summers. I live on Sage Boulevard, Alachua. Part of Sage Boulevard is dirt road, by the way. Part of it is owned by the city of Alachua. Part of it is owned by the railroad. I have discussed with the railroad, with the city of Alachua, and with the road maintenance part of the county, Alachua County. I can't get anybody to come out and do anything about this road. Right in front of my house, there's a railroad crossing in front of my house. Every time it rains, there's about a four-foot-deep hole, and the water stands in it probably 60 to 70 feet across. On down this part of the road, there's potholes two and three feet deep. And I was recommended by zoning board yesterday to contact y'all, call into this meeting, and see if we can get somebody to look at this road and try to figure out who can fix it. Mr. Summers, have you contacted the city of Alachua? Yes, sir. I have been up to the city, and they own from my house east, going into Woodland Oaks, a subdivision. And they say that the railroad owns everything going west, and it's really starting to get frustrating. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Summers. Can you give us your – are you able to give us your address? Yes. Yes. It's 11212 Stage Boulevard, Alachua, 32615. Okay. Thank you so much. We'll see if we can have someone look into it. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, sir. Yes. Next caller, please. Mr. Chair, that was the last caller. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Sexton. So we'll go ahead and close public comment. And before I attempt to answer some of these or ask staff to, Commissioner Prezio, you recognize? Okay. So I just want to ask Michelle and, I guess, Sylvia, do we have someone that can look into the lot that Mr. Connish referred to? We don't have to answer that today. You can just say, yes, we'll look into it, unless you want to give us an answer today. Well, Mr. Chair, I think it has been looked into, and my understanding is that that particular owner was before the Code Magistrate last week. Okay. Very good. Thank you. The second one was, is somebody looking into Ms. Lindbergh's two items that she brought up, the water line and the question that she had? I think that was Public Works. Right. The City of Alachua is going – you want to address that? Yes. That is a project that we are working on, so we'll look into that. Okay. Thank you. Can we – go ahead. Can we just ask that you email us with an update regarding what the plan is to mitigate the impact of the trees on the water line, and also who the ownership of the water line will confer to once the line is built? Thank you. Thank you, Lillette. Mr. Chair, there is no official agreement yet. We're working to get before their city commission to have them execute an agreement, but the permit application, it is proposed that the City of Alachua maintain it once – as part of their – it's part of their system. We are building it to be part of their system. Okay. Very good. Thank you. But we still have to have that officially. Okay. On the Mr. Nard item, Sylvia, do you have the fortified financial – do you have an update? I wasn't aware of the Supreme Court ruling. So, Mr. Chair, the tax collector is who decides if it goes on the tax roll, and I won't speak for him without his authority. What I would say is that the Board of County Commissioners decides whether it wants to enter into an interlocal for PACE. We've gone through that process a number of times. FPFA and Fortify as its representative have taken the position that they don't need an interlocal with you to be in our community. We disagree wholeheartedly. It is being litigated, and that litigation was put on hold pretty much around the state while the Supreme Court was considering whether we could litigate those issues on a statewide basis because there was a hope that we could open up the bond validation hearing and get those issues decided. The court never said that the tax collector had to put it on the rolls. The court said we can't litigate it in that hearing. So, there are a dozen, maybe more, cases around the state that have been on hold and that are going to continue to move forward on litigating those issues regarding whether they need an interlocal from you to act in our community. If you wanted to do what the gentleman spoke to, that would be a retroactive interlocal where you were attempting to adopt a program when you didn't have a program. This is the board that had the discussions about whether to enter into that and was very interested in consumer protections. You clearly can't retroactively put in place consumer protections. So, we've taken the position that those issues have not been decided. They will be decided, potentially in our DCA, and then we'll have a decision on that. I don't – we can ask the tax collector to speak to what he intends to do. No, I got it, and I appreciate that update. That makes a lot of sense. Okay. Yeah, Commissioner Prithia and then Alfred and Wheeler. I just – on that, I have a couple of things on other stuff that you may not have covered yet. But on that note, my question was the gentleman that spoke said something to the effect of 60% of them know that they owe money and are paying it back. The other 40% may be in some form of non-payment, and therefore, if it does go on their taxes, then they would sort of like immediately be at risk of being – not paying taxes. So, I guess the question is, do we know who those – 100% of those people are that they were asking for it to be on the tax rolls, and are we able to notify – send some kind of a notification to those individuals about the court's current ruling and where things stand so that they are getting the same information that we are getting and that the companies have in order that they have an understanding of their current situation with their loan and their repayment? So, Mr. Chair, we do have a list because those records are required to be recorded in the official records. So, we can pull those. We can certainly look to update them. I haven't seen any filed recently. What he's discussing is direct payments to FPFA and Fortify. The statute under PACE says that the sole method for collection is special assessment through the tax rolls. You know, I don't give legal advice to the public generally, but that is a pending issue about whether they can even accept those payments and whether those are, you know, are legal. We are not giving advice about whether they should pay their bills or not. Okay. I've got some other things, but I want to get to the commissioners. Commissioner Alford? I wanted to acknowledge that some of the folks here that brought up concerns about animal services had some really great ideas, and I actually met with an Eagle Scout yesterday about a potential project to match animals with potential adoptees, and one of the things that we discussed was, you know, this animal is timid and that owner might be just the right person for that particular animal. I have three dogs, three large dogs. They're all rescues. One was horribly abused, and I am pretty sure if it had gone to the pound, it would have ended up being euthanized because it was so afraid of people for so many months. And, you know, I'm very proud that, you know, both my mother and I took care of this dog, and he's old now, still very timid, but a wonderful, wonderful dog. And I really, really like the idea of having a protocol for animals that are at risk of being euthanized, being shared with rescued groups and being shared with the public. I think that's a really great idea and fits well with what we're trying to do with having a no-kill shelter. Let's say I wrote down so many things, but, yeah, we definitely need to work on, and I know it's staff's goal to have a robust spay and neuter program, especially now that Project Catnip is having minimum charges for their spay and neuter program. that's going to be hard for folks that have been really dedicated to fixing the cats in the community. So I just wanted to know that you were heard and that I share a lot of your concerns and that I really appreciate the ideas and the thoughts about how we can do things better. And I, you know, if you all need to contact me, feel free to do so, because I'd be happy to hear what you've got to say. Thank you, Commissioner Alfred, Commissioner Wheeler, and Commissioner Chessa. Yeah, I have a question. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a question about the 40% pace. Were those the folks that agreed to have their roofing done thinking that we were supporting? I mean, was that past the time that we had? I mean, I remember that meeting specifically, Commissioner, and I remember me asking the Fortified Financial Group to write those amounts off from the dais. I remember asking that because there was so much confusion, and what I understand the attorney to say is that while the statewide litigation has been resolved, the local litigation has not, and so I'm very comfortable with where we stood when we made that decision way back then, and I haven't changed my position on that. I haven't either. So, Mr. Chair, these are the ones that were entered into and recorded when they did not have an interlocal with you. Gotcha. Okay. That explains that number for sure. I do have a question about the free spay-neuter. It would be good, I think, maybe to get a cost estimate just to get an idea of how much that would cost in a year's time. You know, how many do we spay-neuter, what that cost would be, so that we could maybe look at the fees that we're talking about now. We've got new registration fees that we've had implemented. Maybe some of that money could go to a free spay-neuter program. We need to look at the possibilities to offer free spay-neuter, even to the point of maybe getting private donations towards a fund that would fund that. I know that we have used UF students in the past, and so we do have an affiliation, and that's not going to change being located in the vicinity of the vet school. That's not going to change. You know, the location of the shelter is not going to change that relationship with the vet school. Okay. So I think we need to have that out there. We've always had a relationship with a vet school, and I don't see that that's going to change. I like the idea that Mark brought about the roadside signs about pollinators. I brought this up, I think, to our water and climate group in terms of actually more signage for water protections, too, or water conservation in our hotels or anywhere that large numbers of people gather to understand that water and pollinators are important to this fragile area. So I think it's a good idea, too. And I guess that's in Suryav Senior neighborhood. I've seen what you're talking about, personally, and thank you for advocating, Mr. Chair. I think you've covered everything else that I did not. City of Hawthorne, we really want that to stay on the front burner. I know at this everybody's in, but now it's just a matter of trying to find the finances to actually make it a reality. So thank you, Mr. Chair. Commissioner Judson and then Commissioner Prezio. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just wanted to comment on the pace issue where we had a lot of citizens to come before us and to talk about how unfair it was and what hardships that had occurred to them because they really didn't know what they were actually signing for. That was the main issue. They didn't know what they were signing for. But the problem I'm having right now, he made a statement, if we don't react by March, what does he mean by that? I'm trying to get an understanding of that because are you threatening me or telling us that we need to do something by March? So, Mr. Chair, I heard what you heard, so I don't have any more information than that. I believe in the context what he meant was that if you would adopt a retroactive interlocal and make it legal, the tax collector would then put it on the rolls this year. And the point was that many of them are three years into their payback period. And I think he is saying that if you go into the fourth year and they get on the tax roll, they're going to put four years' worth of the assessment payback on the single bill. Yeah, that's a threat, too. Well, anyway, I'm not going to entertain it. So, me personally, I'm against it. And so, if there's a vote, I'm going to know it. I'll be publicly telling him that to his face that I'm against it. He left. Thank you. Yeah, I know he left. But anyway, I mean, I don't want to talk behind somebody's back, but, you know, be man enough to stay and listen and hear our response. But anyway. And, Mr. Chair, I will let you know that we are in touch with the County Attorney Network and the Tax Collector Network, and they say that this gentleman and gentlemen who work with him are making the rounds in the state to the award meetings. Okay. Well, I'm not sure if all the commissioners are responding, but he's heard from three of us today. So, I think if – yeah, and a couple of other thumbs up. So, yeah, noted. Okay. Commissioner Prisian, then we'll go to the manager. I just want to say a few things about the other items. I had just responded about PACE. First, I will say, you know, to the animal resources folks, thank you for coming. Thank you. I think you know – I hope that you know that this county continues to be a county that does care very deeply about our animals. I think past commissions have tried to show strong leadership in that area, having us be a no-kill shelter or effectively a no-kill shelter. I think we still uphold that value. I know I do as a commissioner. I believe my fellow commissioners do as well. And so – and I believe we do have standards set in that regard. But given all the good ideas that you guys have brought up, the kind of where we are with interim status of the director and the new licensing program and the shelter, you know, I don't know how my other colleagues feel, but it feels to me like it might be worth a special meeting. I agree. Or a policy meeting to have a discussion about animal resources and kind of some of all these issues that keep getting kind of brought up so we can get an update and have a conversation about anything that we might need to update in terms of our policies in that regard. Is that a motion? Sure. Second. Okay. So we have a motion and a second to ask staff to schedule a special meeting to discuss the animal shelter status. Do you want to pause and just – I can pause for that. Sure. So we can – And then I'll come back to you. All right. We got the manager and then we'll see if there's any comments on the motion. Madam. Mr. Chair, I would ask the board to wait to the 27th. As I explained, we are going to have a comprehensive update on the animal resources operation to include a numbers update, to include a lot of that information. We have – And we can add in some of the things we've heard today because I think what's important to note is that a lot of the things and the ideas I've heard we are already either working on and have been or doing to some level, people just aren't aware of that. So I think that we need to be able to come back as was planned for the comprehensive update for next board meeting before we go to that step. So are we talking about the – if I could interrupt – are we talking about on the 27th these issues? I was under the impression that the 27th was just talking about the shelter location. No, it is not. It is a comprehensive update of the animal resources operation because of a lot of the recent emails and comments that you all have been given and our prior director would come quarterly to you all with that update. It has been some time, so we felt it appropriate to come back to you with those numbers update to address – yes, it is already part of that. The shelter location is a piece of that. Okay, so got it. So the motion has been withdrawn. Next item. I'll withdraw the motion. I'll just say I hope that at that meeting we'll get, in addition to sort of the numbers we usually get, that we can have a substantive conversation about what we're doing around spay-neuter, what we're doing around managed intake, what we're doing around licensing, and what we're doing around euthanasia and vaccination. Those were some of the major issues that I heard. And then I would say after that update, if you want to then say, okay, we need something more detailed or more in-depth, then ask us to bring that back again. But at least get that pieces of the information, and then we'll go from there. That sounds good. Okay, on the other stuff I just quickly – I had a thank you to Hawthorne for coming and being here. We really appreciate seeing you and hearing from you. And we do hope, yes, that you are working closely with our – especially our economic development staff to help think through the kinds of companies we're attracting to our industrial parks so that they align with our values as a community, particularly around natural resources protection, given all the conversations we've been having about water resources and natural resources protection lately. On resource centers, thank you, Pastor Joy, for coming. I had asked already our staff at an agenda review when we would be getting an update on that. I know that staff have been working on the surveys and gathering all that data, so I don't know if that's already set for an upcoming agenda or if it will be, but I – Michelle, do you know when the resource centers are – if they're already scheduled for an agenda in the coming weeks, months? Happy New Year, Ms. Tuck. Happy New Year. Thank you. Claudia Tuck, Director, Alachua County Community Support Services. We have been pulling the information together on the 13 resource centers, Chair, and we will be providing that back to you in an email, and then you can direct us if you'd like more. Okay. Okay. And that will be in the next week too? It should be in the next week. Okay. Okay. Well, I can say to my colleagues now, I guess I do want to make sure that we're having that conversation as part of the budget, the overall budget discussions that we're having, you know, coming up in the new year, you know, because I do think, you know, part of that discussion was how do we then support resource centers and collaborate with the Children's Trust so that we're getting services out into the rural area. So I guess I hope that everyone will read that email and then that we can make sure that that's part of the discussions during the budget cycle. And then the last but not least is the resource centers, animals centers, Hawthorne. Oh, is the, never mind. I'll just wait until the commission comment on that one. Okay. Yeah, I've got three quick comments. Pollinator signs, I agree, Commissioner Wheeler. I like the comments. I think educating the public and having that opportunity. We have our own sign maker. Love for staff to be creative and bring something back that they want to do. On the animal services, I'm glad to hear that we're getting a comprehensive update. What I would ask staff to do is we heard from five citizens today. Many of them I have never heard from in my 11 years on the county commission. And when a new person brings up something that is so impactful, I would ask that our staff go back and please review the tape. Make sure that the items that were addressed, that they at least are addressed back to us or considered in that comprehensive update because I took a lot of notes. And instead of me going through them all, I would ask staff that they go through them all and make sure that's part of the comprehensive update because I presume many of them will be at that meeting in two weeks. And so thank you all for taking the time and engaging your board and our staff on the community issues. We try to listen because we know that the expertise comes from that side of the dais most of the time instead of this side of the dais. And then the last, so that's the second thing. The last thing I would say on community support services, family resource centers is a couple things. First of all, Anna. Yeah, I have talked to three or four of those folks and the impact of the fresh fruits and vegetables and the coolers was really felt. And when you brought it up, I thought, I don't think we can do that one, but we'll see. Well, our staff and the resource centers delivered. Great vision, well done. They said that it really made an impact when people showed up to get fresh fruits and vegetables. They hadn't seen that, and especially around the timing of the holidays. So I had to tell you that because it was really, really great. I do want to say to the family resource centers that we need you all to be self-sustaining. We need our community, we need Alachua County, Children's Trust, each of the cities, the public to help. But we also need entities that are self-sustaining through their own fundraising efforts and through their own community engagement because we can't have entities that completely rely on governments for their funding or they need to be employed by the government. We've had those discussions. And that is a fine line when we're doing something new because it's something that we want to do as a government that we're leveraging our private providers who do it better than us to do for us. But we need to find partners that are able to take seed money, whether it's from the Community Foundation, Alachua County, the Children's Trust, and leverage that money so that they become self-sustaining in the community. And so I hope that as you're thinking about the operations, and I know, Pastor Joy, you guys really stepped up. I mean, from the reports I heard, you stepped up before you were asked to step up, and I can't tell you how much I appreciate that. I just wanted to make that comment because government budgets are all under attack from every area at every level. And those entities that are able to self-sustain and leverage the small amount of monies that they've received from their local governments are going to be the ones that are going to really be able to expand and serve our community. And so I just wanted to make that comment because we've been in public comment now for over an hour, and we needed to do that today. This is our first meeting. We haven't really, you know, we have one meeting in November, one in December. This is kind of a culmination of a lot of issues, but our staffs are now diving into zero-based budgeting, looking at the legislative session in the next couple of months. And so there's going to be a lot of demands on every dollar in this budget cycle, probably more than ever. And so I just wanted to make that statement because we are going to have to really prioritize where we put our budget dollars this cycle. So with that, I'm done. Did you want to make another comment? Are you good? Okay. Okay. Sounds great. All right. Commissioners, are we good? Good? All right. We're going to go ahead and close that part of our meeting, and we're going to move on to the next part. Thank you all for being here. You're welcome to stay until the end. We've got some other fun stuff to talk about. So, Madam Clerk, I think the next thing on the item is the Employee Length of Service Fourth Quarter Recognition 2025. Is that correct? Correct. All right. Well, let's do that part of the meeting. And we've got some plaques and some stuff to talk about. Oh, yes, we do. Good afternoon, Mr. Chair. My name is Wanda Santana from Lasha County Human Resources. Former U.S. Senator Margaret Chase once said, and I quote, public service must be more than doing a job efficiently and honestly. It must be a complete dedication to the people and to the nation. So today, we recognize employees whose year of service reflect dedication, integrity, and deep commitment to our community. We also honor a retired employee and celebrate his legacy of 32 years of service. So let's go to the presentation. Mark, I would say, I guess you all know that I've lost a hearing in my right ear. So thank you for making it really loud for me. I don't think everyone else has lost a hearing there. Okay, okay. That's good, though. Yes. Okay. So do we have some of these employees who? Who is here to be recognized? Yeah, we called, we even called in yesterday and said, hey. Yes. Okay, good. And so a picture? Is that okay? Yeah, let's give it a picture. Yeah. And Tim Davis is here now? Okay. Yeah. Yeah. No, the ones that we have, they're not there. Yeah. Sorry, it takes so long to get to. What's that? Yeah. Okay. This concludes our part of the recognition for employees. Thank you. Thank you so much. All right, commissioners. So that takes us now to our first public hearing. Mr. Clerk? Yes, sir. It's the public hearing to adopt an ordinance to amend Chapter 22 of the Alachua County Code of Ordinances, known as the Alachua County Procurement Code. And the recommended action for that was to adopt the Signature Authority Resolution, adopt the Annual Procurement Renewal Report Resolution, and adopt the ordinance to amend Chapter 22 of the Alachua County Code of Ordinances, known as the Alachua County Procurement Code. Okay. Mr. Crosby, welcome. Commissioners, I got Commissioner Wheeler. Is that an old light? No, that's a new light. I was just going to move that we – Well, let's – hold on. I'm going to. That's why I'm saying that. Okay. Got it. I'm going to hold off. So that's all I was for. All right. So after the presentation, you've got Commissioner Wheeler and then Commissioner Pritzia. Yes. Okay. Mr. Chair, Tommy Crosby, Assistant County Manager for Budget and Fiscal – Go ahead, Mr. Crosby. Yeah. Chair, Tommy Crosby, Assistant County Manager for Budget and Fiscal Services. At the December 9th board meeting, the BOCC approved to have a public hearing for the amendments to the procurement code. You asked staff to add a local preference to the bid process along with RFPs, provide a breakdown of the current contract in the new signature authority categories, and come up with a policy to provide the BOCC a report for upcoming annual procurement renewals. We have added those areas. We attached a report of – we can provide – we provide actually the departments to look at what their renewals are so that they request them. That usually is a two- to six-month process after they respond, so ample opportunity for everyone to see it. We would put – we are proposing to provide that list to the board at the same time we provide it to the department so they see what the annual renewals look like. We try to get them in place, obviously, in time for the following budget year. All of them do have appropriation clauses as well. In case things happen, we can't appropriate funds. We have addressed the language for bid processes on local preference, and we stand before you, and we are still requesting the county manager have the authority to award procurement solicitations up to $250,000 as proposed in the original ordinance request. So that's what we have for today, and we have the public hearing. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Crosby. Let's hear from Commissioner Wheeler and then Commissioner Prizia, and then we'll see if we can get a motion on the board. Commissioner Wheeler. My motion was going to be in light of where this recommendation is coming from and how carefully – we've talked about this before, and the recommendation is coming from a staff that takes great care in making sure that this is covering everything we need to. I would move staff recommendation. Okay. Okay, Commissioner – so do we want to – I want to hear everybody before I make a decision. Okay, Commissioner – Commissioner Prizia, I know where you are. Thank you. Well, that – you know, it's just a matter of seconding for, you know, for conversation. I'll second it. Okay. Okay. We've got a motion, staff for commission, and a second for conversation. Commissioner Prizia. Yeah, I'd like to make a substitute motion. I also appreciate all the work that staff has done, but I guess I have a couple of comments. I passed you on some edits. I, you know, I appreciate that staff created a resolution, but I've worked with the attorney's office to see how we could work the actual changes into the code and have some motion to adopt the thing as it stands with the following edits. The ones that I've passed out, which are to have the county manager approve and award budget solicitations in the amount of Category 2 or less provided at the board – Do you want to put this on the – Yeah, you can put that on the – that's a good idea. Yeah. So you can read it. So, essentially, this is doing what staff has asked, but asking that for renewals that they actually present a report June 1 of each year that provides a number of different sets of information, so it gives us the chance to review that information and then have 30 days like we do with, like, departmental reviews and things like that to kind of basically have veto power. So if there was a contract that we felt like they were renewing that wasn't going well, we would have the chance to bring it up at the second meeting in June or the first meeting in July before we go into recess and have some say in what's going on with the contract. Honestly, you know, my original thing was to not approve at that level because it feels like a huge leap from going from $50,000 to $250,000. And of the 10 counties that the county looked at with regards to their signature authority, only three have it at $250,000 or above. The other seven are well under $250,000 a year. So, you know, I feel like, you know, keeping it at category one, the $125,000 level makes a lot of sense. But I definitely feel like we need to have some ability to weigh in on renewals. So I have suggested language for you there. The other thing I wanted to ask that we consider is under 22.4-2023, which is her ability to make change orders, that that would align. Right now, it says 25% or $250,000, whichever is greater. Again, I would prefer that align, again, with category two. And then I have some other comments. I don't know if people have responses or reactions to this language, but I also have in 22.11-2062, that's where we talk about the SBE, which I really love that section. But I guess I was surprised that they get 3% consideration for only 15% of their sub-award being SBE. So I was wondering if we might want to increase that percentage to 25% or something a little bit greater. It seems like a lot of consideration for a very small amount of their contract. So I just wondered, and I wondered under the local business piece, why we didn't include that component, like a sub-award component, if they were using local employment, if we were able to do the same thing. And my final comment is our local business definition. Right now, that could be an individual who still is not actually a local business. They could just hang up a shingle and call themselves local. So I feel like we need to refine the local business definition to include that their Department of Revenue filing is actually in Alachua County, 51% of ownership lives in Alachua County, something. There's a lot of other definitions I've seen out there. I don't necessarily need to define exactly. But when I looked at the definition we have, I think it doesn't get to what we're trying to get at in terms of it's actually a locally owned and operated business. So I was hoping we could revisit that definition to include like the actual file, you know, their actual business filing and their headquarters location being in Alachua County versus just that they've had an office here for 12 months. So those are my comments and I can be prepared to make a motion, but I wanted to hear from my colleagues. Okay. So Tommy, do you want to respond to any of that before we go to? I can, some of that, but not all of that. Yeah, yeah. Okay. So I just saw this for the first time. Me too. Within the last five minutes. So staff wasn't approaching. We can continue. Huh? We can continue. I would table the motion if we need to. So, well, I guess first, I didn't know, did she get a second on substitute patient? I didn't. She hasn't made it yet. Okay. So. Right now we have a motion on the floor, which is staff's recommendation. Okay. So some of the things that were brought up, we have discussed in prior meetings. Um, we believe that we had complied with all the requests of the board, um, on those definitions. Um, we take local preferences, just hanging up a shingle for the last 12 months. We would be concerned that, um, a local business. I'm not sure what the time period you would like them to have been here, but if they expand into other areas, but they're still Gainesville. I mean, I'm not, we're not quite sure how we can define, um, what you consider local as people in Florida are migrating from county to county and new shops are opening up, but they have to be a resident of Alachua County for five years or 10 years. Right now, how do we define it? It is that they do business in Alachua County. They have an office in Alachua County for the past 12 months, which I, I guess I'm, I don't know that that's local, I guess, you know, my hope was that we were working with folks that are owned and operated here. So we made an edit to this language that says headquartered in Alachua County. So that is, that is a language that is SBE. That was per the direction of the language. So that is made and changed per the board. So that is added in this code to make sure that that's good. That is okay. Yeah. I like that. Okay. Um, probably we're probably not prepared to answer all of those questions. That's fine. No, that's fine. I just wanted the, before I turn it over to my colleagues and see if Anna wants to put a substitute motion, I'm, um, Mary, did you have anything to add? No, I, you know, I'm still, I'd like to hear staff's response first. So like I said, I just thought for the first time in general, I, I, I like where you're going with all of this. I've, um, I think that it's, uh, you know, the, it's in line with the direction that we're, we're considering. I just, uh, I want to hear what staff is considered. I, I kind of agree that maybe we need to give staff another couple of weeks to look at this and then come back rather than trying to make a decision today on your substitute motion, because I, I, I don't like doing this stuff on making, asking staff to make these decisions on the fly. Mr. Chair. Well, I, well, I, yeah, yeah, no, I, I would like to get staff's perspective on it because we, you know, sometimes we don't always understand some of the nitty gritty of what goes on in the sausage making. So my concern on the, my concern with the June 1st date is that if the board or, or decided not to renew a contract, that doesn't really give us adequate time to get it back on the street to meet the new budget year. Most of the contracts are ending September 30th. We occasionally have that with departments that come in very late in the renewal process and it just takes time to do things out. So there are many bids that take longer than five months. We got to then put them on a board agenda and get them approved and get them in place. And we've had many occasions. So right now, I'm not sure the issue of why it would be June or not prior earlier in the year, why that's, why that's an issue, but we have proposed to bring it earlier in the year when we do them all. And there would be right now. Yeah. Just, can I just clarify right now, what you're proposing is actually when you send it to the departments for them to comment on whether or not they have it reviewed, you would also send it to this board so that if we had any concerns about any departments that we could bring that up and that, that, when is that timeframe, February, March, January, February. You have it as July 1st. So I, I was only backing up 30 days from what you had in the resolution. That's why I picked June because in our, in your resolution, you have that you would provide us a report prior to July 1 of the upcoming budget cycle. And so I wanted 30 days for us to review that and have a veto power to bring it up during a meeting if we had an issue with any of those renewals. So I was proposing June so that we would have the 30 days. I think we're talking about two different things. So I think it up is fine. As far as notification, that's not a problem. But I'd actually, we want to back it up to earlier in the year. So we have time. He's saying they're going to send it to the departments in January, February. And then when they send it to those departments, they would also send it to us. What you're saying is prior to them renewing it, that we get the opportunity to review it a month before July 1st. And what he's saying is we're actually sending it to you all in January, February. And if there's any issues, let's talk about it long before June 1st, I think is what he's saying. But I think that's, do you understand the difference? That is in the resolution, not the ordinance. So there's a policy decision that can be changed a lot easier than the code, obviously. And I do have also a concern on that front in terms of saying veto power. So these contracts have been put out to a competitive process, and this language of renewals are in the contracts that the board approved at some point in time. So we have to go through quite an effort to disbar or to stop letting a vendor do business with us. There has to be some specific violation or some reason we don't let them do it, other than, you know, I would hate to put the board in a position to say, well, we just don't want that vendor anymore, or we don't like that vendor, or they tore up the yard if they were right away. No, I don't think that's what we're saying. This is really just changing your signature. I mean, all you're doing is trying to bump her signature authority way up and give her a lot more authority, and all I'm saying is if we're going to give her that much more authority, I still want the chance for us to review those contracts and have some veto power. So essentially, it's giving her that authority with a little bit of review. Rather than you all having to bring all the contracts every single time to us, I'm asking you to bring them in summary to us for review. We are right on board with that. We are in the process of saying, like, I just want us to be like, we don't like them anymore. It's keeping some of the authority that we currently have. And that's perfectly fine. I just don't want to put the board in a position to where the statements that a vendor would then come back and say, you know, well, that's because Commissioner Sonos just doesn't like me. It has nothing to do with my work performance or anything else. So if the concern is that these renewals are happening outside of your ability the authority or review process of the board, you know, I would rather go the direction of not having the renewals in the contract, having a longer-term initial contract, and then we put the thing out to bid every four or five years or whatever it is. The renewals are there as much as a work efficiency as they are anything else. But it doesn't mean if we have a contractor currently that doesn't perform in year one, obviously we don't have to renew the contract in a one-year contract. We do a lot of currently one-year contracts with annual renewals up to so many years. We have been moving towards more multi-year contracts with appropriation clauses in them because of the process it takes to put bids out and the number of bids go out. So what – I don't want to eliminate the renewals, but Commissioner Frizio. My point is that in this iteration of the code, they are now giving Michelle or whoever is the county manager blanket authority to renew contracts regardless of size without our consent. Like, that has never been the case in the history of this county. That has never been the case. Now all of a sudden they're going to $250,000 from $50,000. That's like a five-fold jump in her signature authority. And the ability to renew contracts up to that amount. And the ability to edit contracts up to that amount. And giving her blanket authority to renew contracts regardless of size. That means it could be a $10 million contract and she could renew it without it ever coming to this board. To me, that is way too much authority for – it's not Michelle. It's just – to me, that's way too much authority and it's us abdicating a lot of our responsibility to manage our budget. And I understand that we write those renewals in, but we also give the public the opportunity to weigh in whenever we renew a contract and we bring it to the board. It's the public's chance to say, we don't like that vendor. We've been having problems. We've been having issues where – and yes, maybe they're bringing it to us ahead of time, but maybe they're not. And part of due process, part of the public's expectation of us is that we're paying attention to the contracts. That's where the rubber hits the road with where taxpayer dollars are getting spent to do the business of this county. And it's our responsibility to oversee that. And when we abdicate so much responsibility to staff, I think it becomes a problem for them and for us. Because if they start renewing things the public isn't happy about, it's going to come back on us. And it's going to come back to be our problem. And it's going to make them look bad and make us look bad. And so I'm trying to find a happy medium where we're giving Michelle that authority so that they can get business done more efficiently. You know, inflation, times have changed. Like, I heard the writing on the wall. I understand that folks feel like we should increase this a little. I feel like maybe we increase it – well, I was hoping we'd do the 125 level because there's only about 25 contracts between the two. And some of them seem like they're pretty decent-sized contracts. But I care less about that than I care that if we're going to let them sign, the manager sign, then at renewal, that's the chance for us to say, you know what? This wasn't working. Like, we signed that contract and just let it go. But now we're seeing that it's not working and we need to have a conversation about that contractor and we want the staff to bring back. I'm not saying we just be like, Anna doesn't like it. But we say, actually, on, you know, X and X contract, we feel like we'd like to hear a presentation on that contract and we'd like to have that come back before the board so we can ask the vendor questions or we can ask staff questions about how that vendor is working. It's really just, you know, creating kind of a stopgap, if you will, opportunity for us so that both the public and the county commission have the opportunity to weigh in on – and this is just on renewals. I mean, we're basically handing over signature authority five times what it used to be, which to me is a big leap. I wouldn't go that big if it was me alone. But if the will of the commission is to go that large of a leap, I'll go there with you. I'm just asking that in the code we put that there is a 30-day review process for the board on renewals and that we are able to get all this information that allows us to review it with the purpose and the cost and the time frame so that if there is a question from the public or there's a question from one of us about the efficacy of that contract, we have the opportunity to bring it up. Okay. Very good. Thank you, Commissioner Wheeler and then Commissioner Alford. Yeah, that's fine. Yeah, I've just had a question. Tommy, you guys had a chance – I think we had these concerns before at a previous conversation. So are you feeling pretty confident that you all as a team have addressed the concerns that you hear, that you have heard, and that you've acknowledged in what you've presented? Mr. Chair, hearing the explanation of what the goal of what Commissioner has asked is not a problem. That is absolutely – and the reason why the date the second quarter was on there was we believe the intention of the policy was that after the department said which ones they did want to renew and already told us which ones they didn't, you don't want to – I mean, you don't really care to see those. So I think there's probably a timing issue that we need to work on our side, but we would bring it to you and give you at least that 30-day notice. There's absolutely no problem with the premise and the concept of what you're trying to accomplish. So we're on board with that. It's not a problem for us. It's not inhibited. So, you know, maybe we word it differently to say, you know, prior to whatever period of time, June 1st is fine. We can do it in May 1st. We want to get it to the departments and give them a little time to give this feedback because they may say already, these three contractors, we're not interested in renewing them anyway because they have the latitude as departments to let us know that. So there's no need to bring it back to the board. But then those at the department says, hey, this is our list, that's what we would present to this board in ample time before we would have to re-bid it or before we would have to go through the budget process so we knew what to do. And that's in January, February, March timeframe. We would bring it back to you. March 1st would be a good date for us to put. If we want to have a date set, we would say March 1st, and that's what we would bring forward. And we can – I like that. That's not a problem. Commissioner Wheeler, do you conclude? I do conclude. Thank you. Okay, Commissioner Alford. Yeah, I like the – I just had one other quick point to what Anna was saying is that sometimes when we're renewing contracts, they may be for things that have improved substantially in process that we might want to take a look at that. There's a lot of expertise on this board about different kinds of things and being able to ask a question about a new way of providing a service or a different way of doing it. I think some – you know, that's happened up here before, and I think it's worthwhile to – because that's one of the complaints that people have about government sometimes is we just keep doing things the same way over and over again because it's easy to do that. And if we can, you know, just have that opportunity to say, hey, you know, this county is doing it this way and it's working really well, I just think we want to be able to have that opportunity to provide that feedback. But otherwise, I think you get what Anna is saying now, and I think – I do. I think that I appreciate you taking the time to really dig into it. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I've had an opportunity to talk with staff and the attorney's office, and they kind of went over it with me. And, you know, I did have a lot of heartburn initially. And I guess my only concern at this point, are we hindering projects from moving forward by what we have now or by moving it to the 250? Do we get more projects done quicker without going through the process of the commission each meeting or every meeting, I guess, we might have out through the year? So I just want to know what is the time frame? Is the time frame less to get more done, or the current way we're doing it, it takes much longer to get projects done, get things through the process? So that's one question I have. Let's answer that one first, Mr. Crosby, and then we'll be back to the chair. Yes, sir. So probably the short answer is yes. It's obviously an efficiency issue as much as anything that we consider these mostly routine. We're up to a billion-dollar budget now, so, you know, this is a very small percentage of dollars in terms of up to the $250,000 in what we do. And it does start taking attention away from things that are much more expensive and takes the same amount of time to put an agenda item together if it's a $50,000 or $200,000 item or a $10 million item. So that process is – so a lot of this has to do with efficiency. However, beyond that, the best thing to equate it to is much like the P-card. And when the P-cards first came out, everybody was concerned. And we've seen terrible things happen with P-cards in other entities and other agencies, right? And everybody's like, I don't want to be that board that had whatever happened at another agency, we would hate to be the headline of the newspaper that, right? So we agree with that. So we build in those controls, internal processes, to make sure that that doesn't happen to us and the review process internally with staff. So I think you all know how cognizant I am of protecting taxpayer dollars and have them my entire career. So I think it equates to that, the size of the items, even up to $250,000, so like a big number. In a billion-dollar budget, it's not near that big a number. But it's things – example, annual electrical work. And this may be a wrong number, but 10 years ago, it was $45,000 in annual work. We always put them on annual contracts under $50,000 and went all about our business. Now that number is $150,000, you know, or lawn maintenance or plumbing or plumber or doing the service on HVAC technicians or whatever the case may be, those are the kind of contracts we're really discussing here, and those are the big ones we're talking about. So, you know, interlocal agreements are a whole different thing because they're with other governments. They were really not vendors per se. And those are really our bigger contracts, if you will, like the solid waste contract. That's with another governmental entity. So those are some of the things that why we believe is time is past due in terms of just helping us stay efficient because if we continue this path and the numbers I keep getting on, the numbers POs we process, the number of contracts we process continues to increase. And as we talked earlier, we're trying really hard not to add FTE. We're trying really hard to hold the line on cost to implement government services, if you will. And so this is a part of that. So that's kind of a long answer to what you asked. Okay, and my next one was I kind of agreed with Commissioner Prizia. I don't want to give up all of my authority. I think that we should have some authority to do checks and balances. It's nothing against the manager or staff, but it's just that as an elected official, I have fiduciary responsibilities. And I'm just a concern because if anything happens, it's on the commissioner to me. That's how I feel about it publicly. If something happens publicly, it's the commissioner. It's not staff. It's more we get the heat for it than staff would. But I'm kind of there with her with that. But with the $250,000, I can kind of see where you would want to do that, to be honest with you. Because if more projects are getting things, things are getting done and all of that, and we still have some oversight. We will be informed about what is happening. I really have no issues there. But I think that the renewal stuff and all of that, I do have some issues with that. I think that I should want to know more about what's going on and if the company is doing what they're supposed to do and if the people are happy or citizens are happy. I think that because they're going to come to us first with it. And just like with all of the procurement process and all that stuff, people who have different things, they come right here to this board and tell us about it. So I get it. But with the $250,000, I was where Commissioner Prizia was about that big jump. But that was my question to you was, do we get more productivity out of going to $250,000 and getting more projects done than less? So that's where I'm at. So I don't really see a big issue. And if it ain't working, we can always change it. Okay, let me make a quick comment and then we'll go back to Commissioner Prizia. So first and foremost, I appreciate staff really looking into this. You know, we have asked our staff to create zero-based budgeting with what is going on based on my earlier comments today and last year and November and the budget cycle and every time someone asks me about the budget. You know, it's something that this upcoming year is a new ballgame, I think, after session closes. And so we pass the budget. We ask our staff to implement the budget. Completely trust our staff. And really that's with Michelle and Sylvia's oversight and ultimately with our oversight. I agree with Commissioner Prizia's intent to functionally protect the integrity of this process. And I quite like the March 1st date, if that's something that staff can live with, because I think it's really important when they send it out to the departments, Michelle is ultimately relying on the expertise of her department heads, and we are ultimately relying on what we are hearing from the public. And I think both of those are critically important, that we hear that, the departments hear that, they are responding to the public, and that if there's an issue by March 1st, that comes back to us and they let us know, and that we are notified at the same time so that if we think there's an issue, we can let them know. So I really like the intent of that, and I think that does not advocate our authority. I think it actually creates what you were talking about, Commissioner Chessler, that more efficient and effective way for us to pass a budget and have our staff then implement that budget. I also think that I oftentimes compare ourselves with Leon County, and I see where they have gone. I see where our budgets have gone. I had a conversation with a constituent the other day who said, you know, my taxes have gone up 46% since COVID. And I said, well, what has happened to your property values? And actually, they said their taxes have gone up 40% since COVID. And I said, what has happened to your property values? Well, the property values have actually gone up 46%. But because of our ability to continue to reduce the millage rate and staff's ability to efficiently implement that, their taxes went up 40%. And when I was able to kind of show them that, they were like, you know, I didn't really actually realize that. It's just a bigger number than it's always been, and I get that. You know, we are having to deal with bigger numbers from vendors, from road contractors on a daily basis. And staff is constantly aware that this commission wants to lower the millage rate every year, so you've got to get more out of what you got out of them last year. So I want to give staff that authority. The number that kind of keeps screaming out to me is 200,000. It's a lot bigger than it's been. It's not quite 250. It's kind of a compromise. When I looked at the contracts, that means we'd have to look at 16 more if this list is accurate. I think that's doable, and it certainly reduces the load from what it has been under that category previously from 50 to 250. So I'm really happy, commissioners, with a $200,000 number. I'm happy with us reviewing it with the staff's process of sending it to the department heads and having us see it. And then by March 1st, that's kind of like, hey, guys, if we're not renewing, we've got to get procurement back involved because things need to happen prior to October 1st. And if staff can live with all that, I'm happy to do that. I really don't want to kick this to another meeting. I'd rather spend another 30 minutes today and walk it through because we've got the time today, and I know the next meeting we're not going to have the time, and the February meeting we're not going to have the time. And so what will end up happening is we just won't have the time. Yeah, if it makes sense. Yeah, so if we want to have another round of kind of discussions and have staff now that they've had a chance to actually review what's been put in front of them, we can even take a 15-minute break if we need to come back. I'd like us to try to resolve that today if possible. So Commissioner Prizia, well, let's do Prizia, and then Wheeler, and then Chestnut. So I think I agree with all of you. I heard you all loud and clear last meeting and that you trust staff and that you want staff to have the efficiency to be able to move contracts along and that coming into today's day and age that the 250 or 200, if that's the will of the board, felt like it made sense. And so this was sort of an effort to have that happen and create some checks and balances, so I appreciate y'all seeing that. And I think that it would be really easy to do exactly what you're saying and not have to come back. I mean, all that would be is modifying Category 2 to terminate at 200,000. And then, so my motion, my substitute motion is to modify Category 2 to 200,000, up to 200,000, to adopt the draft edits that I passed out with the edit that it be no later than March 1st of each year that the county manager provides the report to the board. Instead of June 1st. Instead of June 1st. That's in section 2. I see. And that we have 30 days, as long as we have a regular meeting within those days, I guess. Yeah, I was going to say, I guess we need to say, you know, 30 calendar days or a regular or with including a regular county commission meeting. How about the first regular meeting in April? The first regular meeting in April? Okay. And agendas for the first regular meeting in April. Added. And then the other thing I would like. And striking 30 days. And striking 30 days, yeah. That it come, that it go to the first regular meeting in April. Okay. And then. Before the budget. Before the budget. So, otherwise, the rest of this language would stand. And then my other, I guess, why don't we leave that motion and then I'll bring my other edits in another motion so it's not confusing. All right. Do I have a second to that motion? Second. Okay. We've got a second from Commissioner Alford on the substitute motion. Any discussion? I've got Commissioner Wheeler and then Commissioner Chester. Yes, I thank you, Mr. Chair. Tommy, why 250 and not 200,000? Why 250? Why was that number chosen? So, in my experience, my 12 years here, as we've come down, we've changed the code once in 2020. And then we had this discussion then. And the board at that time didn't want to change it at all. And so, I think the chair mentioned. Remember that? Yeah. The chair mentioned he frequently refers to Leon County, and rightfully so. I mean, it's obviously similar size. It has a university town, similar demographics, et cetera. So, we went back, and the list you got in your backup was kind of a comparison, which is very interesting. There are three counties that are still at 50, you know. But some of those counties, I don't think we want to reflect their values either. But Leon's at 250. So, that was kind of why we went to 250. We wanted to kind of align ourselves with Leon County. It seemed to be in the middle. We did the five smaller counties or four smaller counties and four larger, so put us in the middle population-wise. And so, that's why we did the 250. Got you. Thank you. Yeah. But, you know, any help, any support of upward mobility to the 200 would be five. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Commissioner Chester. Well, I guess my question is, since it's been since 2020, and things have changed drastically financially, so how do we put things in to make sure that the commission knows to raise it? So. It's like it needs to go to 300 or something or. Yes, sir. And. 275. I'm just saying. Yes, sir. And. How do we. So, my blunt answer would be that it won't be mine, your or Mary Helen's problem. It'll be TJ's problem. So. But. But beyond that. Yeah. Sorry about that. But beyond that. You know, we frequently have this happen in areas in finance. We did it with, if you remember, tangible purchasing a property of how much property you had to tag. And, again, an efficiency of it used to be $500 and it went to $1,000 and it's about $5,000. And it's just the nature of the beast. Over time, as the economy, those boards will have to take up that policy. And I don't think it's a real good idea to build safeguards of automatic increases because you don't know what's going to happen in the future. I think we, it took us 10 years to get here or five years to get here. It may take somebody. I mean, I would say when my gut says when our budget increases another 25% and we're at a billion 1.25, that's another time to look at this and maybe we go from 200 to 250. Right. You know, that's. We'll decide that. That kind of makes sense to me, but I, I would, yeah, I mean, I wouldn't put it in the code, but I would ask staff to just kind of every, I mean, if inflation continues now, if, you know, if Elon Musk is right, then everything's going to be free. And so, you know, maybe budgets will go down. I just don't think he's right. But some of us, like Tommy said, won't be here to worry about that. Right. That's how, that's how I think of it. I mean, our budget has increased significantly with inflation, with property values and with just the world changing. You know, again, I, the little analogy I did, COVID five, property assessed values up 46%, taxes up 40%. It is, it's a, it's a big, big, big jump since COVID. A lot has changed. It's changed. So, so, and I think that it's only fair to future boards too, to make that decision. They'll have to decide that at that time, that policymaking body will have to decide what's in their best interest. So I think it's, it's always concerning to build automatic things because, and again, that's a code change. The policy obviously is a policy change that any board could change pretty easily. For clarity, Mr. Chair. Okay. As I understand the motion to be is for the code itself to change, so to change category two to $200,000 is this request of opportunity motion. And then the edits we received to take number two in its entirety as a part of resolution 26-02, which is a policy, which is the policy we laid out for this review process. Is that correct? 22.2-203, one and two, be edited per the language that I passed out with it change of no later than March 1st of each year and the other majority vote of the board at the first meeting in April, first regular meeting in April. We're comfortable. That's for the. You are comfortable with that? Comfortable with that as staff. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. So that's, that's for that section. I do have a few other edits, but I. Okay, hold on. I want to know. We want to talk about that. I didn't want to like confuse things. All right. So, Commissioner Chesson can continue. You sell the floor. Well, I just want to, you know, like, I understand what you're saying, but when new commissioners come in and they're hit with this and then they're not going to, I mean, really, if it was me and I was a new commissioner coming in, I wouldn't want to do this, to be honest with you. I wouldn't because I got to learn a lot more to find out why you're doing this. And so that's one of my concerns about new commissioners coming in might be hesitant. To do what? To raise the limit even higher. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's why I think it's important we do this right now. Yeah. So you think, yeah, I think just keeping it at the 200 for now and not. Right. Right. I'm just saying, but I just think that I'm worried about new commissioners coming in. They won't be as willing to do that. Oh, I see. They would want to wait and see and learn more. Right. Before they do that. That's all I'm saying. Okay. So that was only just to bring that up to make sure. You go with 200? 200 is fine with me, yeah. I mean, I don't see the difference in 250, but you have a 200 is a compromise. It's a compromise. Which really these 16 agreements would have to come before us versus the process that we're putting in. Yeah, right. I got you. Yeah. Okay. All right. Do we have further discussion on the motion and the substitute motion? Commissioner Wheeler. The point I want to make is that we've got a whole lot of big projects that we're looking at right now. Yeah. And the procurements that you're talking about, a lot of these are going to be related to those projects. And they are big items, big money projects, too. And I don't want to slow any of that down. And, you know, we're talking, and even down the road, we're talking a potential new jail. So these, you've got the courthouse, we've got the animal shelter, we've got whatever else that's going on out there. It just seems to me that there's, and the costs of those things are going up day to day. And I just don't want a hand, what is it, hogtie. Hamstring. A handstrap. Yeah, what did you say? Hogtie in Kentucky, hamstring. That's right. That's a hamstring. That's right. Jim, you know, we handle it. The process, you know. And I don't see the difference in 250, because that's what is being offered up. You know, I just, again, you know, I don't see anything wrong at all with what the staff has promoted, and that they have addressed the concerns that we've had in the past. So anything that we need to block moving forward with this, staff is going to be here long after the commissioners are gone. And commissioners are going to come and go. But we need to make sure that our staff is solidly in place and solidly empowered. Now, you know, of course, you know, staff also changes. Yeah. And a lot of us are getting to the end of our careers in a lot of ways, too. So I understand that as well. But I feel like that they have heard us from before and that the recommendations were coming for that. If you guys feel skittish about $50,000. To me, it's not skittish. To me, it's a combination of what Commissioner Prizzi has said, which is we're giving staff more tools, more tools to efficiently implement the budget that we passed while keeping guardrails in place that the public expects and that our staff can also rely on because if something goes wrong, ultimately, the buck stops right with this commission. And I just heard staff say they are okay and comfortable with the process that they recommended as modified by Commissioner Prizzi. And if they are okay with that, I am okay with that. That's where I am. And, Mr. Chair, that is obviously about, like you said, about 15 more contracts that will come to the board throughout the year. Obviously, if we have growth in that right now 150 to 200 range to start going into that category that becomes more and more, we'll come back to the board just for that item. I mean, one of our challenges every time we look at the code, we actually have attacked this two ways. The first way was, let's compartmentalize this. Let's deal with local preference and small business enterprise. Well, that's been a year. And so it's finally got to where I told TJ, no, we've got to take all of this stuff because it seems like we never get to it, and it just takes so long to do it. So we're going to do it again like we did in 2020, which was a comprehensive kind of thing. So you may see us in a year, two years, three years, depending on what the contract levels come in, come back and say, look, this is what's happening. Are you satisfied with the policy? Maybe it gives you a comfort level as commissioners to say, yeah, we are comfortable to go to 250 or 300. And I would be more apt and a lot quicker to do that once. We can do it that way. Yeah. I really like that. That's kind of what I was thinking is in two years, maybe we plan to see how are the levels. Now we don't have to change the whole thing. We're just talking about a dollar amount. And we have the contracts that we now are more familiar with because we're looking at it closer. And I think it makes sense incrementally. Okay. Commissioner Prisciot, do you have anything? Okay. Any other discussion? All right. Let's go ahead and see if the public has any discussion on the motion on the floor. Okay. I don't see the... What's that? Yeah. And then we'll bring it back. Let's bring it back to the board. Is there any further discussion? What we'll do is we'll first vote on the substitute motion. If that fails, then we'll move to the original motion. Does everybody understand what you're voting on? Yes. Okay. All those in favor of the substitute motion, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion passes 4-1 with Commissioner Wheeler in dissent. And... Okay. I think that item is complete. So thank you. Oh, okay. Sorry. So, yeah. So, I think... Round two. Round two. I think that's the thing. It's like I hear what they're saying is like they brought all the comprehensive edits. And I think this is, to me, this procurement code is as important as our comp plan and code. It's the budget. This is where we spend our money. This is how we spend our money. And so, it deserves that kind of attention and time. And I understand that it's complex and it's confusing, but it does deserve our attention and our time. And so, because there's so many things that they tried to do all at once, that's why I'm like, I decided to do that. And then, you know, and then do the other pieces. And those other pieces are in 22.2... No, 22.42023 is for edits, contract edits. Like, if there's a... Before you go on, can we get that up on the board, which would be in our backup, the resolution, and then... Yeah, it's in our back. Yeah, and I'm sorry. I didn't print that piece of it up. You got it, Chuck? Okay, I can also share options. Contracts for legal services? No? Was that the one you had? 22.2... 0.4... 0.4... 0.4... 0.4... 0.4... Changes to work. So, and then in under three, they give the amount of change orders to the manager. It's still category two, so that's fine. But it also says up to 25, it can increase the contract price up to 25% or does not exceed category two, whichever is greater. And I think it needs to be whichever is less, because if we're capping it at category two, then it needs to be whatever is less, because that would keep it at 250 or below for contract changes. Like, we wouldn't be able to do a massive change order, the contract that was 250,000, to suddenly, like, move it to, you know, another 25% over that, which would then be 150,000 more all of a sudden. You know what I mean? So, it's just a change of whatever is greater to whatever is less, which is what it used to be. It's just... Well, yeah, why did we change that to whichever is greater? I don't know. I just did. So, the reason that I saw that as is that, for instance, let's say that she has a $500,000 contract, and it was 25%, and you're only giving her $125,000 to Signature Authority. At the category two level, she could do up to 250. So, by doing whatever is greater, category two or the 25%, then in that situation, she would be able to do a change order to that contract up to $250,000, is how I saw the language written. If we don't want to match that and say whatever is less, then we can talk about it. But that's how I read the language, is that if it was a lower than a million-dollar contract is where that line is. So, at 25% of a million-dollar contract... Well, now we're at $200,000. So, $200,000 would be 20% if we wanted to change that language there to match. So, that's where that concept came in me, and I didn't want to say something where we have an $800,000 contract, and now she has authority on one side of the agreement to say, you have up to $200,000 on the other side. We're saying, no, she can't do it for a construction project or a contract here. Oh, I see. So, that would be 20%. With a change now, it would be 20% or category two. So, I intend that with this motion that you made to come back and edit anywhere that that would be relevant, category two and or those languages change. So, update that. That's all fine. I'm okay with that. That's fine. And then the other... I guess the question then is, and this is kind of going the other direction, but under our SBE rules, which is 22.11, and in 22.11, sorry, I'm just going to scroll down to it, they have the SBE function, which I love, but then under SBE, under number two, it says the county will award a 3% bid preference. So, we award a 5% bid preference to any SBE. That's certified. But it says the county will award a 3% bid preference to any vendor who agrees to use SBEs for 15% of the dollar value of their bid. And I guess I just feel like that's kind of low, like that they should get a 3% bump just for 15% of their contractor. So, but I mean, there might be a reason that staff have for that 15%, but to me, it seemed like we would want them to at least be using a quarter of their business from SBEs or local business preference if they're going to get a bump. TJ, why 15% and not 25%? That's what the board has chose to do in the past, and we continue to forward. We just re-edit. The only reason that this language has changed and crossed through on the other one is because we removed, based on your motion in January 9th, to remove the 50% cap, and then we just put that there. So, the 15% is what's been... What we've done in the past. What's what was approved by the previous board and it's been working. It's been working fine. Okay. I mean, if it's a will of the board, that's fine with me. I just, it seemed low. And I wondered if we could add that same provision of the 3% for our local preference as well. So, they would get that if they're also using local vendors. So, we determined on the local preference that they had to be a local vendor, and that was the determination of they are only a local, and they have certified that they are a local vendor. Headquartered, they're local. Headquartered. Right. And my saying is, like, they got a 5% bump. Could they also get a 3% bump? If they're not local, but they're using all local subs. So, say they're using local subs. Like, you know, we have a lot of out-of-town contractors that end up getting our business. Right. These big development firms. But a big push for our local economy would be if they were hiring local plumbing firms, local, you know, carpentry firms, local electricians, as opposed to bringing up their guys from South Florida. So, if they get a 3% bump for using our local subs, like, that's a big deal for our people from an employment perspective, and it's a big deal for... So, one of the challenges we have with that is reconciling it on the back end of a contract. Of course. They could say it up front that, hey, we're using local vendors, and then how are we reconciling that process in the back to force that up front by forcing them to say, we are located as a headquarter in Alachua County, we are giving you a preference, and we are giving you this big discount. Because they haven't necessarily locked in there. They're pricing. How do we do it with the SBEs? It's a good faith effort that they're making sure that they're putting that forward, that they provide us the dollar value that they plan on using with those vendors, and then we use that as an award basis on the RFP process to do those. Now, once again, on the back side, you know, contract administration and management should be verifying and double-checking whether that's getting done and handled that way. But, you know, we're making sure that approach is handled from the best stance there. Let me clarify as well. There's a difference between one of the big differences in RFPs and hard bids on a construction deal. So when we do an RFP and do a CM at risk process, we end up with open book. So we're seeing the vendors. We're seeing the subs. When somebody puts in a hard bid, they're saying, I'm going to build this for this. So it's much harder to identify which subs. And if they were the subs, I mean, unless somebody knows that person works for WWA or that person works for whoever, it's not open book. We don't see their payment out like we do in an RFP with a CM at risk. There we see every draw they make and every check they write because of what we're reimbursing based on. And so that makes it more challenging when it's a bid versus an RFP. Gotcha. Well, I think, I mean, I think this is a good faith effort and a good step forward in trying to support our local businesses and getting more local preference out there so that our local people are getting the benefit of our tax dollars. I would just ask that as we're doing it, if there are ways that we can approve upon this local preference with our RFP processes and add either to our code, I would love for you to bring them forward when we do start to have those conversations in a year or two because I think the more we can drive our tax dollars to our local businesses and build our local economy, the better off we're all going to be. Keep the money in Alachua County. Don't extract it out of Alachua County. So I think, and you said you are changing the thing to say headquartered in Alachua County. And that'll be reviewed by the looking at their Department of Revenue filing or something. That'll be what they provide to us, correct. Thank you. So no additional changes? No additional changes. Good. Just clarification. Okay. Except for the one for the, whichever is left. But I guess they're going to go ahead and do that. It sounds like. Yeah. I was going to, I was going to ask that, you know, as we were looking to improve the method that I've been a local contractor myself as well as a small business contractor with folks like UF and I didn't know if we had benchmarked against them. Then it occurred to me that their process has probably changed over the last few years, so it's probably not worth doing that. So that's, but I do think there probably are folks out there that I know, you know, when I was a project manager for the utility, we had to follow those same guidelines. And so we're there. I don't know if there's, I know we're not a private business, but it might be worth if we're looking at some of those things to benchmark against some of the other, you know, folks that have these same kind of values. Okay. My only last thing is the business impact estimate thing was blank in the. It's excluded. It's exempt. It's exempt. Okay. I just wanted you to know it was blank because I was like, it's all blank. So. Okay. All right. So we good. Mr. Chair, I just have a quick comment about workforce. When you're talking about hiring locally, we need to have the workforce available in order to that happen. If you will talk to Ramon about the road crews that we've tried to hire that they've not been available, we have the money, we have the projects, but we don't have the workers. Right. And so you can't always just, you know, focus, get hung up on local workforce until we actually have that workforce in place. Oh, for sure. This is assuming they're there and they can bet on the contract. Of course, but you don't want it to hold up the process. You know, when you're trying to seek out local workers that may not be there, that's all. No, absolutely not. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Okay. Tommy, you get an award, a ribbon, a gold sticker or something, Michelle. He's been working on this for three years and we have finally gotten to a really good place. So thank you for all your work and for working with this board. Thank you. Yeah. We explained it well. Thank you. Okay. Can I say one more thing? Yeah, please. Well, along those same lines, you know, I think that a lot of our angst has to do with the fact that we know we won't always have a Tommy. We really trust our staff, the staff that we have now and the fact that we trust our staff makes it easier to make these changes. And I think that fear that, you know, one day there'll be a new commission and there'll be new staff and they won't be as awesome as you guys are now. So thank you guys for, you know, being folks that we truly, truly trust to do the right thing. So I really appreciate that. We see a guy. I'll try to leave you in a position with some people. I know you're working hard on that. I know you're working hard on that. All right. Thank you. All right. Let's clerk. Let's move on to our quasi-judicial public hearing and do some swearing. Okay. The county, it looks like there may be a... Sure. Yeah, I think he wants to say something. So Dave, did you change the code category two? You didn't... The resolution also has that same number in it. We need to change the resolution to the category to $200,000. Do I hear a motion to... Which resolution? The signature authority resolution signature authority... To 200,000, yeah. Yeah. Well, with the code changes, do we need the resolution? Yeah. Yeah, because the signature code implements resolution. Right. The code just tells category two is up to 200... Resolution. Okay. So you need that added to the motion that we also update the resolution to reflect the code changes. So moved. Probably should take action on that. Second. And motion by Commissioner Alford and a second by Commissioner Chestnut to update the resolution. Any discussion? Any public discussion? Back to the board. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Thank you, Dave, for keeping us straight. And now, Mr. Brewington, I want to hear about where your resume is, and I want to go through that. So, Mr. Clerk? I believe the county attorney has the procedures to announce. Okay. So, Mr. Chair, this is a quasi-judicial item, and I will read the statement. All persons wishing to testify or present evidence during this hearing will be sworn in prior to speaking during this proceeding. All persons have the right through the chair to ask questions, to seek clarification, or to respond to comments or presentations. All persons who present written materials to the commissioners for consideration must ensure that a copy of such materials is provided to the clerk for inclusion in the board's record of proceedings and official minutes. While we welcome comments from all persons with an interest in this proceeding, the Florida law requires that the county commission's decision and a quasi-judicial action be supported by competent, substantial evidence presented to the board during the hearing on the application. Competent, substantial evidence is such evidence as a reasonable mind would accept as adequate to support a conclusion. There must be a factual basis in the record to support opinion testimony from both expert and non-expert witnesses. Persons presenting testimony may rely on factual information in the record to support their testimony. And this is when we call for parties. I don't believe we have any party requests. You can certainly call for any party that did not request ahead of time. Any parties? Seeing none. Okay, Mr. Clerk. Mr. Chair, can we inquire of each commissioner if you've received any ex-parte communications involving Z-25-000024? And if so, please disclose us. No. No. None. Anybody wishing to address this item, if you would please stand and be sworn at this time. Do you swear or affirm any testimony about the table be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? I do. Okay, Mr. Brewington, we are ready for you. You are recognized. Mr. Chair, good afternoon. Jerry Brewington, Senior Planner, Alachua County Department of Growth Management. For the record, I have been sworn and a copy of my resume is on file. And proof of publication of this item was provided by the clerk. It was properly advertised. Happy New Year. This is the first zoning item of what may be turning out to be a busy spring of zoning items and the like. But this one hopefully is simple. It is a rezoning request from R-1B zoning district to R-1A. The project site is located off of Hawthorne Road. It is the next phase of the Celebration Oak subdivision. And they are getting ready to go underway. This is an aerial view of the property. However, the property right now has an R-1B zoning district. That R-1B zoning district does not implement this low-density future land use designation. In order to do so, they have to get it changed from this R-1B zoning to R-1A. It's fairly straightforward. The R-1A zoning does implement that low-density residential land use designation. Again, this is the initial, the next phase of Celebration Oak subdivision. Project site is owned by Alachua County Habitat for Humanity. If approved, the R-1A zoning would allow up to 23 single-family residential units on this particular parcel. Staff has analyzed the request with a comprehensive plan. It will not cause any level of service degradation within our comprehensive plan. And also, it is consistent with policy 7.1.2 of our future land use element, which can, takes into account proposed changes of the zoning map for things like level of service analysis, public facilities, anything like that. And it will not have a negative impact on those. It is simply implementing that low-density residential land use designation that I talked about earlier. It's also consistent with our code. We have to analyze Section 402.77 of our Unified Land Development Code. There are criteria for approval. These include factors such as consistency with the plan, compatibility with surrounding uses, as well as the health, safety, and welfare of the public in general. This, again, is introducing single-family residential development in an area with single-family residential development. The proposed zoning change from R-1B to R-1A does fulfill all criteria found in this section of our code. So that was basically it, Mr. Chair. This is a fairly straightforward one, one housekeeping. It is the new year. It's actually Z26-02. This is a new year with new resolution numbers, so that is your resolution number. But that does conclude staff presentation, unless there's any questions. Any questions, commissioners? Do I hear a motion, commissioners? Move staff recommendation. We've got a motion, a second, to move staff's recommendation, which is Z26-02. Any further discussion? Any one from the public wish to speak to this board about the motion on the floor? Seeing none, back to the board. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion is unanimous. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Well done. Thank you. Happy New Year. Thanks, Chris. Thanks, DeLitt. All right. Let's move on to we give the public two opportunities to speak to us at every meeting. This is the conclusion of the morning meeting. We will not reconvene at 5.01. Is there anyone from the public wishes to address this board during public comment? Come once, come twice. We'll go ahead and close public comment. We'll move to county attorney comment. If you don't have any, we might be able to get to county manager because she's not here. I do not have any, Mr. Chair. Okay, great. Let's ask the county manager, county manager. Any comments? Seeing none. We'll move now to commission comments. Okay, let's start with you. Okay, thank you. Yes, I'm going to be going to that meeting tonight up in Alachua or Mill Creek. Are you going to go too? I don't know. And I think we have teams, you know, from EPD that may be going as well. So I'll see you there. Also, water tables. I'm looking at a pond that's drying up and herons that are eating all the frogs and the turtles that are there. And I don't know if we have any kind of an alert going out, you know, in terms of water conservation at this point. I haven't heard anything more about a burn ban. We've had enough sprinkles here and there, I guess, you know, that might have at least been. I will tell you what Mr. Hofstadter told me because Lake Santa Fe is down maybe three to five feet. Yeah. And what he told me is that the district is anticipating at a minimum three to four more months of drought conditions. And they are, they, the district, are attributing that to the, I think they're allowed to say this at the state level, climate change. The heating up of the atmosphere is causing more evaporation. I know that they are planning to kind of update us in the next couple of meetings maybe about kind of what's going on. But that's the latest that I heard from Mr. Hofstadter last week. Okay. And I'm seeing that they are asking for presentations for the FACT conference too. I don't know for summer. I don't know if we have thought any more about our truth and reconciliation project that is so amazingly wonderful. Do we dare? Do we dare? Yeah. We dare. I would dare. I would think that's a great one to think about. Chuck, I don't know what your thoughts are about that. You've kind of led that charge and certainly happy to present it at the FACT if you're not able to go. But maybe we can talk about that. It's been pretty major and I don't know if it would, you know, be an issue. I'd like to get our, I'd like to get our. Plaque? Our plaque, yeah. I know, I know that's a, we're waiting. No one has gotten one yet. Yeah, I haven't gotten a response from the letter either, so. Yeah, ELJ. Maybe if we're doing a conference presentation, that would just jar them into action. Yeah. It's just a thought. Okay, it's a good thought. Good thought. All right. There is a field trip in February going to EJI and I guess we can ask them. Yeah, I'm going. Maybe you can tell them we're looking at presenting it at the State Association and we'd really like to have this resolved by then. Yeah. Okay. Who's the staff going with you? Latoya? I think Latoya is going. I think Carl's going. Carl's going. Okay. All right. If there are other staff members or not, I know the university is going. Some students from the university are going. Okay. What's the date of that? I think it's the 6th. Is it the 6th through the 8th or something like that? Okay. So it's the first weekend. It's the weekend. It's that first weekend. First weekend. I'm going down to Miami that weekend with Commissioner Duncan Walker. Yeah. You're going. Okay. I'm going down. All right. Do you have anything? No, I have nothing. I just wanted to ask if what the update was on the armory that we have. I'm knowing a lot of clear cutting going over there on Archer Road to, you know, that, I mean, not Archer, Waldo Road. Waldo and 39th with the former IFAS building. What's the update? Do you know? We were originally set to do a ribbon cutting, actually, next week. That's being delayed a few months. They wanted to get a little more of the site work and such done. The building is pretty substantially done, the main building, but they didn't want a lot of us driving in the current conditions, what they have out there. What about the corner? I think she's talking about the corner. Yeah, it's all connected. Yeah, it's all part of the work that they're doing, so specifically I would have to ask, but part of what they did also, we had some issues with those that had taken up an encampment in there, so I think that's part of the reason that they cleared a lot of that out is because of that buildup in that area. Yeah, it looks pretty raw at this point. It's pretty scary looking. I mean, I guess they're not subject to our, because it's the federal government, they're not subject to our tree code or anything. I mean, it seems like they cut down. Well, they're not in the sense that they don't have to be, but they're also in the city of Gainesville. And there was also a burn ban, and they were burning over there, too. Well, the burn ban has not been in effect since the large, heavy rain. It automatically expires after every seven days and less renewed. Okay, well, that's what we were trying to understand, too. Yeah, no, no. The burn ban is still in effect. Yeah, yeah, Sean, verify that it's the cleanup that they're doing of where it'd become all overgrown. You know, there was a lot in there. Anything else in there? No, that's it. Anything, Chuck? Commissioner Alford? Then I'll come back to you. I don't. Okay, Commissioner Pritzker. I do have a few things. One is, I wondered, I guess, soon the RPPC, RPCC applications will be coming up for, with the NRCS, they've, you know, those have re-established. So, luckily, you know, I mean, I know we have some challenges, the feds, with what funding is available, but it looks like those applications, I didn't know if we were planning on doing that, but I'd love to know if we're, especially since we've got our active ag program, if we're going to be going after those RPCC funds. Those are money with the NRCS for ag land easements. I've already signed a whole bunch of documents that Andy keeps bringing me, because they have to be signed, like, in advance. No, like, I signed to be one of the entities that is entitled to funding under that, and I have also signed three different applications, because the farmers have to go through us, if we're talking about the same program. That's the ALE program, probably, because that one's active. This one hasn't opened yet, but it probably will, and what all indications are is that they're going to have a very, very short application period. So, I just thought I'd bring it up, flag it for Andy and her team. I'm sure they're already aware of it. I hope we're planning to apply. Anna, what's ALE? ALE is the agricultural land easements program. So, NRCS has kind of two big programs that they can cost share and match around land conservation stuff when it comes to ag lands, and one of them is RPCC, and the other one is ALE. And then there's grasslands with special significance, which is another thing, but that's, like, under one of those programs. So, there's, like, multiple ways in which we can get, we can leverage federal funds to help with our ag lands program. So, heads up, Andy and EPD and conservation. Yeah, hopefully we're going for that. Next is, I just want to say thank you to the jail staff. They had a jail employment fair today I went to. It was really great. It was, I think that I would love to see the county's HR team there next time and the cities. Both of them are, we're both bare chance employers. And I hope that we could be there to, you know, actually share the jobs that we have available and be a part of supporting the sheriff's efforts to create more reentry opportunities for those at our jail. But it was really, it was cool to see. And CareerSource was there, and they were helping people get their applications filled out and all that. So, that was really great to see. I did, I wanted to tell you all, I don't know if we've already, I don't think we've already sent the letter to the sheriff, but I did want to bring up that I did have a productive conversation with the undersheriff crews about that. And they have already agreed to take down mugshots on social media. So, I don't know that we really need the letter if it hasn't already gone out. It hasn't gone out. I was going to bring it up and ask you all to review it and sign it unless you want to withdraw that motion. Yeah, I mean, I guess I can withdraw the motion if everyone's okay with that. They've said that they would go ahead and move forward with that. So, I don't see any reason to send a formal letter. Second. Got a motion, a second, to withdraw the chair letter. I, too, had a conversation with undersheriff and the sheriff and appreciate the fact that we have a constitutional officer, well, all of our constitutional officers that are just responsive and really in tune with what the community is asking and what we are asking. And so, I will support that motion. Any discussion on withdrawing the chair letter? Any public? Back to the board. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes. Thank you. And then the last thing I want to bring up is for those of you on the library board. And that is, I don't know if this is, like, because of state statute or this is because of some kind of an issue, but currently inmates cannot get a library card. And even when you're on probation, if you still have fines and fees, you can't get a library card, apparently. And I don't really understand why. They have a branch in the jail. They do, but they can't get a library card. So they can't use a lot of the library resources. It's so interesting. And I just talked to the librarians at the jail. I asked them that question. Do they have to read them in the branch? They read them at the jail. They can't take them back to their cell. Well, I don't know that they can check things out. I don't know that, too, but, like, even, like, when people are, like, wanting to use, like, like, if they had, they don't actually have tablets at the moment, but we're working on getting the tablet access that we could have secured access for them to be able to use some of the resources that the, you know, online resources with a secured access so they couldn't just get on the internet and do other stuff. But, you know, but some of those, you have to have a library card number. You have to be assigned. You have to be a library member and have a library card in order to use those resources. So I just wanted to sort of see if there's a way that we could work with to not have your fines and fees and not have inmate status be a criteria for a library card. It seems like once you, especially once you get out, even if you have fines and fees, like, getting to the library and being able to use those resources could help you get a job or solve the problems you have for those fines and fees. So if we could just look into that, that would be great. Okay. That's all I have. Okay. May I ask you a question, Anna? Yes. Did anybody talk to you about the phone system, the current phone system that we're using there? Any of that? Because I was there, too, and I did talk to some of them about that. I mean, I talked to both the sheriff and the undersheriff about it, and I can say that, I mean, if you're referring to the article that was written, then. No, no, I'm not. Oh. I'm not. I'm referring to the folks who are actually trying to supervise people using the phones. I mean, a direct conversation with the major. I did not talk to any of the detention officers, no. Okay, gotcha. I got that. And I did, and I have some of the same concerns that they do about all of that. But also the monitor, the leg monitor, that's the third leg I've seen that looks like the one that Mr. Cartwright brought in. And at one time we were talking about a different kind of monitor, you know, for rather than the leg monitor. And I don't know if that, where that conversation ended up, but it was a while ago. But that, I've seen that wound. The ascort terms. I've seen those kinds of wounds. I'm putting them on too tight. Well, it's not, it's the weight. The weight and the gawkiness of the equipment, you know, cuts into your skin. So I don't know if there's a new design that we could try to pull out a cell phone. Well, I guess, where are we, can we ask Manager Lieberman where we are with the court services, the sort of second phase of the court services rework? I know that the folks were supposed to be here shortly after the new year. I'm not sure if it's this week or next week. But I know that they were supposed to be here for that 1B phase, the added phase that the board asked them to come to have a discussion with stakeholders. Take a look at the ankle monitors. If there's another. If they have recommendations or. Yeah. Yeah, we can certainly talk to them about, about that piece of it. At one point, I think, we talked about a wristband, the possibility of a wristband, you know, that would monitor, like a watch, that would look like a watch. I don't know, but these are. I mean, I think, I think that's a question that staff can address too. I don't think it has to be a consultant to address what options are out there for electronic monitoring. So, I mean, we can look at that just as well. Thank you. Okay. Got anything else? Commissioner Alford? I just wanted to add to the thought process about the, shoot. I forgot what I was going to say. About the jail. Oh, are we getting a, so we asked for, like, was it quarterly updates or six-month updates on programming at the jail? Quarterly. I think we asked for quarterly, too, but that was, they came in October. Yeah, so I was just curious if we, you know, could make sure that we stay on that schedule because I have some, I want to make sure that we're getting the information that we asked for. And I was hoping that maybe we could also ask for, and I talked to the sheriff about this, about getting some mental health statistics. There's been an increase in, and anecdotally, there's an increase in suicide attempts, and I just want to, I feel like we need to be tracking that kind of thing. So, I would like to add that kind of, if they are willing to share that information as well, that would be great. Michelle, do you know when the next time the sheriff is coming before us? I do not. We can. Just check into that. Okay. That'd be great. And the sheriff said he was willing to share that information. I just want to make sure it gets not lost in the shuffle. Okay. Thank you. Michelle. Is that the kind of meeting we could have in a policy meeting? I mean, it's still open to the public. I think we could have some of these folks from the jail come in that we could have a more intimate discussion. Yeah, it's really up to the sheriff, whatever the sheriff wants to do. I don't, rather than, you know, a question and answer thing that we got. I'm sorry, I was about to answer your other question. The stakeholder review from that, from our consultants, has already been done. They're working on the summary so that we can provide that to you all, but we can have staff look at the other. As I said, we don't need the consultants to do that. And your question, I'm sorry, Commissioner Wheeler, was? Next time the sheriff comes before us, can we do it at a policy meeting instead of podium to podium? Sure. Does anybody object to that? No, actually, I think that would be really useful. Good suggestion. Is the part of 1B, or what is the process with regards to the court services director position? We are waiting for all of the process before we do that, and we can give you an update on that with the summary. Okay, awesome, thank you. For some reason, the board wanted me to skip county manager comment. Do you have anything? No. No? Okay, sounds good. Some things just can't wait. Got it. Yeah, no, I got it. Okay, commissioners, we are getting out at a record time. Thank you for being productive. And I think the next couple of meetings are going to be a little bit longer, certainly longer than 228, but we stay and adjourn. Thank you.