Regular Meeting @ 11:30 a.m. - Jul 08, 2025

I'd like to call to order the Board of County Commissioners for July 8th, 2025, at 11.32 a.m. Mr. Clerk. Mr. Chair, the first item of business is the invocation. It will be followed by the Pledge of Allegiance. If everybody can please stand and remain standing for those due events. The pastor did not show up today, so unfortunately you're stuck with me. Gracious God, thank you for this day in which we have come to serve. We are here with grateful hearts, as we call to mind the vision of freedom and justice upon which our country was built. We ask for your blessings of those who continue advocating for and pursuing a land of peace, liberty, and justice for all. We offer our thanks for the dedicated lives pursuing these goals. Please be with the supporting staff and interested citizens who bring their ideas and concerns as we work to continue the pursuit of a more perfect union. We thank you and praise you for all the joys and blessings you have bestowed upon this country and her people. In your spirit we pray. Amen. Amen. 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. Good job. Pastor Steve. Mr. Chair, up next is the approval of the agenda, and I'm not sure if the county manager has any amendments to make. There is to be pulled from the consent agenda, Commissioner, if you're still the RTS item. Yeah, I would still like to put a lot of thoughts on that. Okay. And that is the RTS agreement on consent. Hold on one second. I don't have that number in front. Move approval of agenda. Move approval of agenda with 7A moving to J. Is that right? Okay. Second. Got a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Are there any citizen comments to the motion? Moving to M, right? Yeah, sorry. Yeah, okay. It's usually J. We just have more things. Yes. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning, Commissioner, or Mr. Chair, Commissioners, staff. My name is Tamara Robbins. I have a couple comments on some consent agenda items. I'd actually like to ask that you remove item 25.00547, which is the renewal of an interlocal agreement with the Alachua County School Board regarding emergency shelter locations throughout the county. I think that it's time to revise and adjust where the locations are for emergency shelters in this county. The populations are expanding. The fact that people in Alachua or Archer or any of the outlying municipalities would have to travel into Gainesville to access an emergency shelter I think is inappropriate, and it's not a safe idea that we should have some smaller ideas. There's schools out in the rural communities for emergency shelter options. I'd like to see that re-looked at. On the minutes of the joint meeting that you had with the city of Alachua on May 19th, it states in there that a fire truck is going to be necessary at the cost of $2 million if ordered today to provide safety services to the city of Alachua as considered four-story buildings. I think you should pursue that and send a chair letter to the city encouraging them as an interlocal agreement that you look at that. That's a big safety issue. And you are increasing the fire assessment fee this year. Uncollectible accounts, $2.876 million, actually $2.877 of uncollected money that you're going to write off. I find it offensive that you want to get authorization for the attorney to file a lawsuit for a $2,401 ambulance fee for a deceased person. I think it's a waste of public resources to do that, and it's proven that you're willing to write off almost $3 million, and a lot of that is for ambulance fees. So that's just not a good use of public resources, to be filing a suit in small claims court to collect $2,000, because it's probably $400 fee to file for it. I mean, come on. It just doesn't seem like a good use of money. The consent item on the revising of the Animal Welfare Advisory Committee, it's to re-include specific persons' qualifications for that board. I think you really need to look at the way that board operates, where they are held. Their meetings are way over at the health center. They're in the middle of the afternoon. They don't allow public comment until the end of the meeting. They don't record the meetings, I don't believe, for future streaming or watching. That board needs to be looked at again, and I'd like to see you pull that off and have a discussion on what that committee is doing and how it can do it better. Thank you. Good morning. Kali Blount. I didn't quite catch what you decided about the RTS item in consent, but that's what I got up to speak about. Along with what you're asking for and negotiating with RTS, you ought to be concerned with their general customer service profile. Having served on the RTS board in the past, I'm speaking from what I know and what I've observed in the last few days. You still ride into the downtown center and see buses leaving as other buses are just arriving. In other words, in a transfer station, how do you transfer between moving buses? When you see some of the conflicts that are not rider-initiated between riders and drivers or some of the poor treatment that people trying to board get, it reflects poor driver morale, which is a management issue. I don't believe that there are a bunch of evil drivers. I believe they're passing on their unhappiness in their job, and that's a management issue. And I hope you will help RTS become more customer service oriented. That is, how do you get the most people where they're going the most directly? That should be overriding all the things they do. Thank you. Okay, back to the board. Those in favor of the motion, vote by the sign of aye. Aye. Those opposed, same sign. Motion carries. Mr. Clerk. Can I quickly address the advisory board? I just wanted to quickly say I know that we have the advisory boards coming back to us, I believe, in August or sometime in the near future with sort of updates to overall policies and procedures for the way those are handled, managed, recorded, minutes, notices, recognitions, all of that. Okay, great. So, certainly, we can look at that one along with all the others when we do that in August. Thank you. Mr. Chair, that takes us to the announcements. The Communications Director, Mark Sexton, is here to present those. Thank you, Steve. Mr. Chair, good morning. We want to let folks know, you can see up on our screens, that the Disability Awareness Expo for 2025 is coming on July 23rd from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. It is at the MLK Multipurpose Center, located at 1028 Northwest 14th Street in Gainesville. You can see we have a lot of partners this year in addition to the city of Gainesville. The county and the city are the co-producers of this, and we've got a lot of folks helping. We encourage businesses and individuals interested in this to attend. Also, we have some congratulations to put out from the Florida Association of Counties meeting recently. Is my time up, Steve? Sorry. I'm all to test. I know you'd like it to be. And we wanted to, first of all, congratulate Commissioner Cornell. He has been reappointed as the chair of the Community and Urban Affairs Committee, and that's a big one. It's an important one in the state of Florida. Also, we wanted to send congratulations to Commissioner Alford for being officially appointed as the District 9 representative on the Florida Association of Counties Board of Directors. That includes Alachua, Levy, and Marion Counties. And I wanted to share something with you, and it's not to put anyone else down, but her other nominees were dressed in a kind of a nondescript way, and we noticed that Commissioner Alford, if I can get the doc cam, guys, she was dressed in a limited edition Alachua County Discover 200 Bicentennial T-shirts. So it doesn't surprise any of us who know her that she stood out in that crowd. But we wanted to say congratulations. That's actually a really big deal. This is an election of your peers at the table, and it's every two years. And, Mary, congratulations. And finally, many of you were able to join us, but we wanted to share with the board, with the folks here in the room, and with our residents watching a very special event that took place recently. Alachua County recently celebrated the grand opening of Fire Rescue Station 21 in the city of Alachua with a hose decoupling ceremony. We appreciate so much you being here today to celebrate with us something that we have talked about and dreamed of for many, many years. I think it's one of the great things that the county is, in terms of our partnership with the city of Alachua, to build this station with new fire trucks and the new water tanker. As the mayor, we are overwhelmed with gratitude. It's another step in our commitment to public safety, having this brand new fire station in Alachua. You know, we've been planning this for quite some time. I feel like we were turning dirt just a couple of months ago, and here we are. The stands is a powerful symbol of our community's enduring commitment to safety, service, and preparedness. The county is definitely committed to core services and public safety here. We put a lot of time and energy into making sure that our fire chief has what he needs for his crews. We wanted to make sure that we were still close to downtown Alachua. And from this location, we are 2.3 miles away from City Hall in Alachua. So it really provides for great coverage. We are a growing community, and it assures safety for all the business that is connected around this station. And I know they feel comfortable knowing that we have a fire station right around. So this facility is going to help not only taxpayers when it comes to their insurance costs, but also in the event that they ever need to dial 911, our folks will be there quickly. The $7 million state-of-the-art 11,500-square-foot facility is designed to serve the community for more than 50 years and includes energy-efficient systems, sustainable design features, and 100% backup power generation, ensuring operational readiness in all conditions. A lot of planning has gone into place of this state-of-the-art building, and our crews are very excited. Not only is it going to serve the community well, but what it's going to do for us as a county is going to be a great magnet for us to be able to attract good personnel here and keep them. Now with this new facility, we'll provide the comfort that the firefighters need and also serve this area of Alachua. Mr. Chair, those are the announcements. Mr. Chair, that brings us to the approval of recognitions. Move approval of the three recognitions. Got a motion and a second. Any further discussion to the motion that's on the floor? Those in favor of the motion, vote by the sign of aye. Aye. Those opposed, same sign. Motion carries. Mr. Chair, first up is the employee length of service first quarter recognitions. Are you going to say anything first? Yes. Good morning, Mr. Chair. My name is Wanda Santana from Human Resources. Today I have the honor to present the employee length of service second quarter recognition and retirement. As Franklin Delano Roosevelt once said, and I quote, the public service is trust granted by the people to be exercised with wisdom, integrity, and compassion. So, let's watch the presentation. As to those who retire, so we have two plaques in here, and one is for Robert Jensen, and the other one is for Ivy, Ivy Bell. Speech, speech. From Grove Management and Jeff. Speech, speech. You can put pictures. Not today. Right, right. Take that picture right next to the microphone for after your speech. There's no speech, Mr. Chair, but I will say that Ivy and Bobby are exemplary employees and have been, obviously, for many, many years, and we're looking forward to many to continue. I just want to say thank you to them and to everyone who serves for that long with the county. It's such a testament to your commitment to our community. And, you know, Ivy, you get to come before us every now and again, so we recognize you, and we really appreciate the work that you do. But I know so many of you dedicate your lives to our county and are behind the scenes and don't get your chance at the dais, although I know it's not necessarily fun for everyone. But we appreciate all of you, and thank you so much for giving us a lifetime of service. Thank you. I just want to say, too, as I'm looking at the pictures of the people that we recognize there's a whole company of people that we don't see. We don't see their faces until they're up here, but we see the results of their work. And so thank you all so much for all of you. And I would also thank you all who are making these presentations to slow them down so that we can really absorb who they are. So thank you for doing that, too. It makes it easier for us to really understand who these folks are. So thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, up next is a presentation of a proclamation recognizing July as Parks and Recreation Month in Alachua County, Florida. Notice the T-shirts, everybody. Just saying. A proclamation declaring July as Parks and Recreation Month in Alachua County, Florida, whereas the use of our parks in open space adds balance to life, teaches vital life skills, and provides safe spaces for space, I'm sorry, excuse me, safe place to play, and whereas the benefit provided by the parks and open space boosts the economy, enhance property values, attract new businesses, increase tourism, reduce crime, promote family values, make people happier, and help residents live longer. And whereas our parks, preserves, open spaces, and trails provide space to enjoy nature, help maintain clean air and water, and preserve plant and animal wildlife, and whereas July 2025 has been designated as Parks and Recreation Month by the National Recreation and Parks Association and the Florida Recreation and the Florida Recreation and Parks Association, and whereas we celebrate parks and recreation professionals and how they improve the lives of tens of millions of people, making a lasting impact in communities across the country. Parks and recreation programs are essential to communities' health and well-being and help cultivate lifelong friendships, memories, and family bonds that people hold dear decades later. Now, therefore, through the authority vested in me by the Board of County Commissioners of Alachua County, Florida, I do hereby proclaim July as Parks and Recreation Month in Alachua County, Florida, duly proclaim this 8th day of July, A.D. 2025, if I attested to by me and attested to by Jess Irby, the clerk. Thanks. Jamie Bass, Cusco-Willam manager. I brought some friends with me today to talk about what they enjoy most at camp this summer. We are in the middle or kind of almost at the end of our summer camp program, and we've got about two weeks left after this week, and we've been having a fantastic summer. I hope you've been seeing all of our photos and videos on Facebook, and they're going to share a little bit about what their favorite thing is to do at camp. My name is Esme, and I'm 8 years old, and this is my second summer at Cusco-Willam, and my favorite thing was the chill zone. Chill zone. My name is Rose Holcomb. I'm 8 years old. This is my second summer at Cusco-Willam. My favorite thing is the game room. My name is Jackson, and I am 9 years old, and this is my second year at Cusco-Willam, and my favorite thing is the game room. My name is Layla, and I'm 6, and it's my first time, and my favorite thing is the game room. My name is Josiah McCormick. I'm 9 years old, and I've been at camp for 3 years. My favorite thing at camp is the pool. Mr. Chair, next up is a presentation of a proclamation recognizing July as Disability Awareness Month in Alachua County, Florida. This morning. Excellent. Excellent. All right. Alachua County, Florida, a proclamation declaring July 2025 as Disability Awareness Month in Alachua County, Florida. I think it should be other abilities. I have a hard time with the word disability, right? Look at you guys. You weren't good, because you can explain to me why when you get here, okay? Thank you. You can convince me. Whereas a nationwide campaign conducted in July 2025 will mark the 35th anniversary of the enactment of the Americans with Disabilities Act, ADA, the 50th anniversary of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, IDEA, and the 52nd anniversary of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which was the first law to provide equal access by prohibiting federal agencies from discriminating against individuals with disabilities. And whereas the ADA has expanded opportunities for Americans with disabilities by reducing barriers, changing perceptions, and increasing full participation in employment, housing, public accommodations, and education for people with disabilities. And whereas on the 35th anniversary of the Americans with disabilities act, we celebrate and recognize the progress that has been made by reaffirming the principles of equality and inclusion and recommitting our efforts to ensure equal access, equal opportunity for individuals with disabilities. And whereas Alachua County Government and Citizens Disability Advisory Committee joined the nation in celebrating 35 years of progress in access and inclusion for all citizens, and in partnership with the City of Gainesville will co-sponsor a Disability Awareness Expo on Wednesday, July the 23rd, 2025, at the Martin Luther King Center. Participating vendors include public agencies, private businesses, and community organizations that offer local support services, assistive equipment and devices, vocational training, and peer support. And whereas October 2025 will mark the 80th anniversary of National Disability Employment Awareness Month, Alachua County and the Citizens Advisory Committee will sponsor a Disability-Friendly Employer Award in October to recognize local employers who demonstrate commitment to hire, support, and advance individuals with disabilities. Now, therefore, through the authority vested in me by the Board of County Commissioners of Alachua County, Florida, I do hereby proclaim July 2025 is Disability Awareness Month in Alachua County, Florida, duly proclaimed this 8th day of July, A.D. 2025, signed by our Board Chair, Charles Chestnut, and attested to by Jess Irby, and I'm, as a former special education teacher with a master's degree in special education, I am excited to see you all here and hear what you have to say, and introduce yourselves, too, please, to us. My name is Christy King, and I am the Chair of the Citizens with Disabilities Advisor Committee, and I want to thank the Board so much for this proclamation and encourage those that are able to attend our celebration at the MLK Center on the 23rd. Yeah, I'm just going to be sideways. I'll have to be sideways. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay. I'm Erin Field. I've been on the committee for, I think, almost three years now, and just to answer your question earlier, I think it's good to say disability and to say disabled because it shows people it's not a bad word, and it's okay to say, basically. So, yeah. You got me. Yeah. Anyone else? Face the respect, too, certainly. My name is Jill Weinzier, Equal Opportunity Investigator staff. We're educated properly. The expo is amazing, too. It really is. You all go if you can. And if you have any interest at all in getting more information about what we have to service our community, please go. It's quite wonderful. Mr. Chair, it's now noon, so it'll take us to public comment. It's where we offer three minutes for any item on the, or not on the agenda, and three minutes for any item on the agenda. Those speaking to the items on the agenda cannot speak to the item later when that agenda item is called, and they ask that you try to keep your quasi-judicial zoning comments to that item as it's proper. Still, Khali, what I'm going to speak about, you don't have to do anything about it. Isn't that refreshing? But it does concern you and all of us. In 1979, because of organizational affiliations I was involved with, I got a chance to see a document called Global 2000. This document had been nicked from the desk of a very conservative member of the U.S. Senate at that time, and this document was floating around amongst some members of the U.S. Congress. Global 2000 talked about fomenting wars, withdrawing aid, financial and medical, and food from various places. Throughout the document, it used the phrase, pockets of useless eaters, and it talked about getting rid of certain problem areas and barbersome populations sitting on valuable resources. Now, at that time, the document seemed to be talking about international behavior, about other countries, but I would bet you my house that a copy of Global 2000 is sitting in the library of the Heritage Foundation because Project 2025 is a very faithful update of that document, and that document was talking about culling the human herd globally based on a very real level. And now Project 2025 shows that it's meant for domestic use also. So many of the things we're doing, cutting health care, cutting food assistance, cutting housing assistance, What we are seeing in this country today is a dedicated work of culling the herd. Thank you. Mr. Chair, Jim Connish. I'd like to bring your attention to these documents that reflect every month thousands of meters belonging to GRU are being disconnected remotely with the push of a button. Millions of dollars are going into collections. And if you think this month is unrepresentative, take a look at the next month. Take a look at the next month. Take a look at the next month. Take a look at the next month. Now, this commission and others have perpetuated the myth that these connections, disconnections are because our thermostats are set wrong and our buildings are crappy. As a matter of fact, these disconnections are a result of failed policies of our elected officials and hirees. At my house, the Connish Thomas House, if I don't use anything and I factor in a connection fee over 12 months, I take off from $120 a month. The county is much lower because the county puts garbage and stormwater on the tax bill. That's happening in the city of Gainesville because I've worked on it for 15 years, and that's going to happen. But the bottom line is, when you're taking off for $120 on all these services, you're going to hit $200 or $300, regardless of what you do. Sir, I was invited by my plumber, Brennan Bowie, to look into a house in the Copeland settlement. And I walked into the house, and there was a middle-aged woman. She had two profoundly developmentally disabled children, male and female. The female had a baby. They had one extension cord going to the neighbor's house for one air conditioning. They were on a well. They had no power, no lights, no refrigeration, no running water. And you can imagine what it's like. Sir, you know this, sir. This is your district, sir. We don't know how many people are behind these meters, but it's a lot. They're not getting reconnected in the same rate they're being disconnected. I've never heard any of you, including Collie Blunt, say anything about this. This is right here in Alachua County. You have conditions deplorable that you wouldn't even find in a third-world country because our utility was hijacked, mismanaged, looted, and plundered. And now there's parsing, bickering about who deals with the roadkill. Thank you. Thank you. Soria Lindberg. I need to pause after that comment. That's really intense. So I am calling here to ask questions about the process when it comes to upgrading the Santa Fe Hills Well. I don't know how any of this works, so I am just going to put my questions on the overhead. I know there's only three minutes. So, Chair, I don't know if this is a question for County Manager or Ms. Daniels or Mr. Gavarate that's here. I would like to focus on three, then two. I just want to know what status we are at when it comes to the interlocal agreement from the county legal team and also the Public Works and Procurement team finalizing bid documents. I just want to know what to expect for how long this would take, which is question two. Because in the last email I got, they said that after everything is the paperwork's finalized, I would have to go to city and commission for review. Is this something that could ever be voted down? Like, that is a concern. And I bring this up because the well we're on is under threat by decisions that the city of Alachua has made. Between the golf course that's 80 and 90 acres, they're really proud of this thing called furgitude. They're putting fertilizer in their sprinkler systems for irrigation. So that's going to go right to our water. And also, whatever happens with the terra developments with Millsink. So I feel like we're kind of on a time crunch when it comes to this. You may have seen my email. This started in 2022. I was just a glimmer in Alachua County's eye by then. I didn't live here. I didn't know anything about what's going on. There's one and a half million dollars somewhere for this. And that's why I put question number four. Is it still going to cost that? Is it more? Because if that's an issue, that's another concern. So I just want some clarity on how this is going to work out. I'm a project manager by trade. I know scope creep happens. I know things change. There are hurricanes. There's lots of things that could affect this. But there is a plan. And everyone here is very good at their jobs. So I know this plan is somewhere. Even if it's going to change. So I wonder if there's a motion you can make to provide a rough plan. Maybe within by July 15th, July 23rd. Just so we know that there are moving targets and what is available. Instead of me waiting, you know, days to get an email or to come and ask you more questions. So I do appreciate Public Works participation and give me this information. I have neighbors come over and they're like, what's going on? How's it going? The neighbor across from me has six kids. They have no time for email or anything else. The other neighbor next to me broke their hip walking their dog on our broken sidewalks because our roads are orphans. And they haven't left their house unless a fire truck helps them. So I'm here to be that voice. So I would love any kind of answers to these questions. And since I talk fast and get emotional, you've seen me cry at meetings. I wrote it down. And you guys can keep it too if you need to. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. If we could. Yes, please. Good morning, Mr. Chair, Commissioner, staff. My name is Tamara Robbins. I'd like to back up Ms. Suria there on that. That is a project that I honestly thought was done, and it should have been done to a year and a half ago. So I encourage you to direct staff to get a timeline on that and get it moving. It is real what the city of Alachua is planning to do. The injection of fertilizer into a watering system for a golf course is kind of insane, and they are exempt from your irrigation code. So that might actually even want to be looked at for a modification of your codes on that because that seems like a really bad idea. At the joint meeting when you were at Alachua back in May, I guess it was, I brought up the fact that the fire station there at Phoenix Park, which I'm well aware there's going to be a new one built in Tech City, it does not have a sign. And I was assured by the chief at that meeting there was going to be a sign. And I'm well aware you're not going to spend the money, I don't want you to, to build a permanent monument sign because you're going to be relocating, but a temporary sign to get out there for identification of what that facility is because, honestly, you really can't tell. So I think it's a public facility. Let's identify it, please. Something else I've been thinking about. So you all are aware of the contract you have with the Army for the, it's a, what is it, a maintenance, vehicle maintenance storage facility out there, right? Well, it just dawned on me the other day that I think you ought to make sure, I'm asking you to put this on your radar because you're all aware of Alligator Alcatraz, okay? Governor DeSantis has already said he wants to have other locations around the state. I'm sure the president would easily issue an emergency order to take over that facility if necessary. It's already in a 30-year, 10-year lease with the county for that facility. It is on an airport. It is what they want to locate a temporary immigrant housing facility. It is an absolute location just like that, okay? It's all flat, it's there, it has landing strips, it's in a perfect location. I think you all need to be, you need to get it on your radar that this could happen in Alachua County, and you should be reviewing that contract to see if it's any restrictions. And let's face it, it doesn't even matter if there are, right? But that is the perfect location in this state for another Alligator Alcatraz, and who knows what it would be called. But I'm just bringing it to your attention because it meets all the criteria of what they would be looking for. Thank you. Thank you. Good morning. Thank you for this opportunity to speak. My name is Debbie Ringhaver, and I am here to talk about Payne's Prairie. I have a half dozen things that I just want to give you some food for thought regarding the upcoming ruminations, things that y'all will be thinking about as you decide whether or not to rezone for these 143 houses. The first thing that we should consider is that increased habitat fragmentation is something that's really going to occur. However, species can be isolated, populations can be harmed when animals can't safely travel between natural areas, and Payne's Prairie is unique in our state, and we need to be able to protect the wildlife, the cattle, the buffalo, the horses, everything that's out there. Increased flood risks. Less land means less rain absorption, raising the chance of flooding during storms. We'll have loss of groundwater recharge zones. If pavement replaces the prairie, that means less clean water seeps into the aquifer, and that is our main source of drinking water. Increased pollution runoff, chemicals, and debris from development, such as fertilizers and insecticides, flow into the prairie. It damages the water quality, and it threatens the wildlife. Increased light and noise pollution. Construction and traffic disrupt wildlife behavior while inhibiting their natural rhythms. This is a dangerous precedent for wild Florida. Rezoning here could open the floodgates for more development on or near our protected lands, and so I ask you to give this prayerful thought when you are making your deliberations. Thank you. Thank you. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay, perfect. My name is Brianna. I am a Gainesville local. I'm also an ecotourism kayak guide. One of the really cool things about doing that job is that I get to see all of our green spaces that are available to us, and they're really amazing. People pay a lot of money to come and do those things. The number one question that I get while I'm doing these tours is, after we're finished here, what do you recommend we go do? I always refer them to Gainesville. I love this area so much. The green space that's here is incredible. It's unique to Florida. No other town has that. No other city has that here in Florida. You have done an amazing job to make sure that you accommodate both urban development and green spaces. One of the main places that I recommend is Pains Prairie. It's incredibly important to a lot of people here. It's incredibly important to the environment. That water runoff, like she was saying, when it rains, it needs somewhere to go. If we keep developing these areas, there will be nowhere left for those to go. It causes mass flooding, all of those other things. It's also incredibly important for the wildlife. We need that. Also, I take my kids to go look at the sunsets there, and we watch fireflies, and we do these things together, and it's really, really important, and it's special, and I hope that you don't decide to sell it off. I'm sorry. Thank you so much. Thank you. How are you? Good morning. My name is Bailey, and I'm also here to talk about the importance of thinking about what we need to protect Pains Prairie. I know that this decision is not up for a vote yet, and who knows when it will be, but I just want you to remember this moment here today. I believe many people here today are showing up and calling in for the prairie and for the lovely place of not only ecological importance that this green space holds, but so many people have an emotional connection to this place, as you can clearly see. And it's heartwarming and heartbreaking to see something like this come up, because it keeps happening. But it's heartwarming, because every time it happens, I see people stand up, people that have never posted anything about advocacy on their social medias. They post. They show up. And this is true Gainesville. This is what makes people care. And when this decision comes to a vote, I want you to remember that the people of Gainesville will continue to show up, and you represent the people of Gainesville, and we are here to tell you that green spaces and places like Pains Prairie that hold vital, not only ecological importance, but connection, history, these are the places that we need to safeguard, and these are the places that cannot be recovered once they're developed. And not only should we think about the 300 species of birds that live there, all the bison that's one of the only places in the country that they roam naturally and uninhibited, but why don't we think about ourselves, too? If we develop this land, we are also putting ourselves at risk. We're putting homes there, but we're putting the homeowners at more risk. These homeowners are going to experience increased flooding. They're going to, every time we pave over a wild development, we have more animal interactions. I mean, think of how many turtles you see on the side of the road dead. That's not because we're driving, silly. That's because the turtles have nowhere to go. It's because of what we talked about, habitat fragmentation. These animals cannot move uninhibited in their own lands, and it's being divided, and it's continually being divided. Saying yes to this proposal, I know that a lot of you know the environmental impacts. I know that a lot of you have worked on a lot of amazing environmental projects, which I appreciate. But I also know that it's hard to say no when money comes along, but I want to remind you that this is only leading to more destruction down the line, and that this will continue to perpetuate if we don't say no now. It's like a sibling. You can't say no to them, to one sibling, and say yes to the other. So I urge you to remember what wild Florida means to us, and protect it, please. Thank you. Good afternoon, Patricia Lee, and I just want to add a little bit more food for thought for the comments that I've heard regarding Payne's Prairie. About four years ago, when I was finalizing the formal plan for my Center for Commerce, Education, and Culture, some of the research revealed that not only is that important locally, but people travel internationally to study the sweetwater wetlands as well as Payne's Prairie. And so that is an important piece of ecological land for Alachua County. So I would ask that whenever anything about developing it and reducing it and whatever comes before you, that you think real strong about perhaps not reducing that. I also want to share that when I talk to people, and I have friends across the country and across the world, when I talk to them, and I tell them that we have a buffalo in Florida, they are amazed. They can't believe that there's actually buffalo roaming in Payne's Prairie. So it is important to the ambiance of Alachua County that we think about that. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Chair, we have quite a few callers today. I want to remind the callers, some of you have your hands up, some of you don't. If you wish to speak today, you need to press star 9 to raise your hand and get in the queue. And, Mr. Chair, we will start with the caller ending in 9267. If you will hit star 6 to unmute your phone and state your name, you have three minutes. Hi. This is Kathleen Rupert. Hello, Chair, fellow commissioners, and staff. I'm calling regarding animal resources. Following your meeting of June 24th, wherein you voted to consider alternative sites in which to build a new animal resources facility, I was informed there is no written sheet of specifications, but that you were looking for about 20 acres, easily accessible, utilities, and either has or can get correct zoning. Since the UF property is buildable on perhaps 8 acres, does this mean you are looking for property 8 to 20 acres in size? Regarding utilities, does this mean the property can be served by a septic system, and what is the definition of correct zoning? Regarding the Animal Welfare Advisory Committee, I noticed on the agenda for their last meeting that the public comment section of their agenda was moved to the end of the meeting, with no mention of there being any response from the members of the committee. Is this the protocol for all advisor committees? The public can speak on a concern or an idea, and no action or even a response is offered. I previously inquired, asking if there was a document containing guidelines for all advisor committees to follow, with a response that there was no such document. Why? Why not have an opportunity for an interactive dialogue during advisor committee meetings, rather than waiting for a response that may not be offered, even at their next meeting three months later? I appreciate your time. Thank you. Thank you. And, Mr. Chair, our next caller is named Hannah. Hannah, and Hannah, if you will hit star six, you have three minutes. I'm calling today in regards to the proposed development and rezoning next to Payne's Prairie. I think, just as others have said, this is really just not a good idea, given that it is one of the only pieces of dry land that remain dry year-round next to the prairie. So, the habitat fragmentation that would come from this would mean that there would be animals going through and increased risk of floods. And, of course, being so located nearby the springs, we know that the importance of groundwater recharge zones. So, paving over this area that is right next to the recharge in the aquifer is just never a great idea. Construction materials and other human-made pollution is going to run off into Payne's Prairie. And it's a dangerous precedent for Wild Florida. We know that there are currently developments happening in wetlands all over the state. And Gainesville has been unique as a place in Florida where Wild Florida is still intact. And we don't want, you know, people starting to get the idea that they can come to Gainesville and run these wild places. So, please don't set the precedent for this. Yeah, we don't want more increased light and noise pollution. Of course, that disrupts wildlife behavior and natural rhythms. And, of course, as many people have also mentioned, this is a place of cultural significance, historical significance. The economic significance of our groundwater recharge system is really priceless. And so, we, you know, I just encourage you to give it full thought of the generational impacts that it could have for this development to take place and what it could set precedent for in the future. Thank you. Thank you. Caller whose number ends in 9901, please hit star 6. State your name. You have three minutes. Hello, everyone. My name is Caroline Love, and I'm a senior at U.S., and I would also like to speak about Payne's Prairie. Just a few things to say. First of all, the fact that the housing company is requesting the land to be rezoned, I think, speaks volumes of itself. I agree with what everyone said about how important Payne's Prairie is economically, psychologically, and ecologically. I think it's beautiful that the city of Gainesville and Alachua County have protected Payne's Prairie so far. And I really don't think that approving rezoning and the building of these houses, no matter how much environmental impact protections there are, I really don't think it's a good idea. I think that just the amount of people showing up for it and talking about it and being outraged on social media about the potential of it happening shows that the city of Gainesville citizens really don't want this, and we're asking, when you do make a decision on this, to keep in mind that the majority of us are really against this idea and really want to protect Payne's Prairie. Thank you. Caller ending in 8537, please hit star six, state your name, and you have three minutes. Hey there. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. My name is Haley Dansby, and I'm also here to comment on Miranda Home LLC's request for zoning change. I know, again, as we discussed, it's even currently at third decision, but I did want to just kind of echo other commenters' ideas about why this would be harmful for our town. Housing growth is one of the largest threats to biodiversity, but I also think it's a threat to our residents. Payne's Prairie provides really valuable ecosystem services to our area. A big one is going to be absorbing rain, which can help with flooding, and so we're seeing across the country increases in storm severity and flooding, and residents in Gainesville are already struggling to manage all this water, and water always wins. So I really think that we need to be doing everything we can to promote a sustainable way for water to absorb, and, you know, Payne's Prairie is a great example of recharging and filtering that water that goes into our aquifers so that we can drink it and use it, but also preventing flooding, and so when we start building on that and using those small strips of year-round dry land, I think we really run a risk of negatively impacting the residents who are already here, and as we see more storms, like, this just is a space that really needs to be protected regarding those ecosystem services. I also want to echo other commenters who have spoken about the draw of Payne's Prairie's wildness, its unique features, and wildlife. This is a place that attracts people to Gainesville, and they're going to be spending money staying here, camping, purchasing supplies, and as a resident, it's a refuge, it's a place to relax, and to be in touch with the space, and my career has taken me to many different places in the U.S., and this to me is just one of the nearest and dearest to my heart, and I really hope that you'll consider not only the ecosystem services of Painsbury, but also the intrinsic value of its beauty, its wildlife, everything that lives there that's not human when it comes time to make these decisions. Thank you so much for your time and consideration. Caller ending in 2027. Actually, that caller just disappeared. Caller ending in 9260. Please hit star six. State your name. Hello, my name is Harrison Cooney. Thank you for your time. I am calling about the prairie. I'm so stoked to hear everybody's emotional response to such sacred land. I'm a wild spaces photographer, and really, I'm just so impressed with Gainesville's dedication to preserving wild spaces because they are exquisite. I mean, these places are so unique and so beautiful. It makes me cry. I go out to these places and I literally cry because it's just like, it's so well preserved. You have bison and horses and migratory birds and so much incredible nature. To start to rezone these areas, especially areas around the prairie that are high and dry, it just doesn't feel like a good thing to me personally. So I'm really grateful for the time and the ability to communicate that. And I hope you're able to take that into consideration in 2027. Thank you. Caller ending in 3316. Please hit star six. State your name. You have three minutes. Hey there. My name is Anthony Verde. I'm calling about the rezoning also. I really want to thank everyone for coming and showing up and sharing everything about this gorgeous place that we have. I don't need to say much. I think it's actually insane and preposterous that we're even discussing this kind of thing. These people, there's more than enough places to work on for development right now. There's places that are unpopulated and that are left vacant. These people keep raising rents and no one's able to fill these. The houses already exist. And then they keep wanting more and more and more. And they're going towards our cherished special places in town. I've met so many people out there and that come from all over the country to appreciate the thing that we have in our backyard to even possibly consider letting people get closer to the sacred areas is unsathomable to me. So I just hope that you guys consider that when this comes to a vote. And yeah, when have these guys ever stopped? Why would they? They'll say all the right things. And then we'll be having this talk in 10 years about them actually going on the Lachua Trail or Sweetwater or something. It's the greed is unbelievable and they'll never stop. So we need to solve them now and not set a precedent. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Caller ending in 2861. Please hit star six. You have three minutes and please state your name. My name is my tree. I am a resident of Alachua County. I am 30 years old and have lived in Alachua County. Most of my life. I have lived in Alachua County. I have also lived in other major cities and other beautiful areas. And I came back to Gainesville maybe four years ago now. And I'm calling about the prairie as many others have. And I can honestly say is that there are no other cities. There are no other places in the state of Florida or in our country that are the same as our prairie. And as many others have said, it is a sacred land emotionally, ecologically. It protects the residents of Gainesville from flooding. It is a sustainable way to keep our lands from flooding. And I am so thankful and in awe that Gainesville is such a nature loving green space holding city because almost anywhere in Gainesville, I can walk or go to a trail and be connected with nature, take a break from the hustle and bustle of everyday life that all of us are living. And I can be in nature. I can feel connected with the land that I live in and I have lived in other major cities and all of them have felt like suburb after suburb concrete jungles where there was not access to green spaces to connect with land, to take a break for our wildlife to live with and among us in our city. And so I ask you, Commissioner, I know when this proposal comes to your table, you're hearing our voices. So thank you. Please just consider what the people of Gainesville want in our connection with these spaces. Thank you so much. Okay. Caller ending in 2027. Please hit star six to unmute. My name is Jana Moline. I am a graduate student at University of Florida, and I am also calling kind of to just add my voice about the rezoning proposal next to Paines Prairie. I really just kind of want to add to what people have been saying. Just the natural beauty and inherent value of Paines Prairie, I don't think it can be overstated. As other people have said, if we rezone these areas and allow developments to be built right next to the prairie, that this will create a lot of changes that cannot be undone. The loss of the groundwater recharge zones that people have mentioned, this will affect our aquifer and our drinking water and anything that affects our drinking water will not only be more expensive, but it is very, very hard to reverse effects like that. There's increased flood risks, which, as we've seen, have been just increasing across a lot of parts of the country and is always a constant in Florida as well. Increased habitat fragmentation and roads is a big problem for wildlife. Species can be isolated and populations can be very harmed when animals can't safely travel between natural areas. It's just also, it does set a bad precedent for wild Florida, for old Florida. I am very proud of living in this area of Florida. I feel like in people in Gainesville, we do just really appreciate the natural beauty of this area, and I don't want that to go away. I have worked in other parts of the country where their prairies have been lost, and it truly, it does feel like it is something that is very hard to get back. So, yeah, I just appreciate that I am here and able to lend my voice to the others, because clearly the people of Gainesville really, really care about this prairie, its importance, its historical importance, ecological importance, everything like that. We do not want any more increased pollution runoff. We don't want more habitat fragmentation. It's just the rezoning-ness, I really don't think is a good idea. Thank you. Thank you. Caller ending in 0238. Please hit star six. State your name. You have three minutes. My name is Carol White, and I just wanted to really say thank you for giving us the time to speak today. Getting a full three minutes is really awesome. And I just wanted to lend my voice on the Pains Prairie rezoning issue. I know you guys are really hearing it today, and so I won't, you know, go on too long. But it's clearly really important to the people of Gainesville that this doesn't take place. Back in January during the delegation meetings, sorry, I'm so nervous. But during those delegation meetings, a lot of people talked about mental health issues. And clearly, Pains Prairie and the surrounding areas are critical for this city's way of life, quite frankly. Not just flooding issues and habitat fragmentation, which is a real, very true issue that we are dealing with. This area is something that's precious and protected. I have lost count of the amount of times that I've taken my own family out to the prairie for stargazing at night. An additional 132 homes is only going to increase the light pollution. The closest dark sky zone is north of Jacksonville or all the way down in Orlando. I know that the prairie isn't a dark sky zone, but it certainly is one of the best places for stargazing in our area. It's beautiful for wildlife spotting. We've talked about the bison and the wild horses, the wetlands. It's just, it's a very important and critical area. And I wanted to lend my voice in asking you guys to please keep that in mind and don't allow for rezoning. Protect the area that we have. Gainesville has always been so forward thinking as far as our habitats and our green spaces go. You can, the previous speaker wasn't wrong. You can go any direction, you know, a mile and find a beautiful park. And that's beautiful and wonderful and great, but that doesn't mean we can take away this space over here that is so precious to everyone. And I really hope that you guys remember all of the voices that spoke here. And when it comes time to make that decision, you decide against it and you protect the prairie. And that's it. Thank you so much. Thank you. Caller ending in 9637, please hit star six. You have three minutes and state your name. Hi, my name is Amanda Diller, and so thank you all for the opportunity to share my thoughts today. I'm also sharing about Payne's Prairie, my concerns about changing their zoning for 134 homes to be built. Similar to so many sentiments that have been shared already, I am concerned about nature and wildlife. I think that Payne's Prairie is a unique place where bison and wild horses roam together, that it has something like 800 species of animals. I'm concerned about water pollution. I'm concerned that people were to live there, there'd be flooding. But I don't think that that's a great idea to interrupt that habitat. I think of Payne's Prairie as a really magical place, and I believe it's a sacred place with nature. I have, similar to what other people have shared about fond memories and just feeling very emotionally connected, it is a place that I love to personally go to stargaze and to enjoy the night sky and overlook a vast piece of land, and it's just beautiful. And I hope to be able to take my newborn son there someday to stargaze. And so I think of that, and then I think about the potential light pollution that could come from so many homes to be developed there. And so although I would love to welcome people to our beautiful community of Deanville and Alachua County, I just don't think that that's the place to do it. And so along with so many others and so many other reasons for not developing that land, I just want to thank you all for hearing our concerns today and to be thinking about this as this comes forward. I appreciate the commission's consistent kind of advocacy and thoughtfulness around conservation, and I hope that that continues. I think that that's one of the things that does make Alachua County so special, is how much we care about nature, and it's where nature meets our lives. And I echo that it's important for our mental health as well. And so thanks again for allowing me the opportunity to speak and so many others today. Thank you. Caller ending in 9691. It's star six. You have three minutes. Please state your name. Hello. My name is Jamie Church, and I'm calling today to also speak on the Payne's Prairie revision of land. And I could talk about everything else that everyone else has said, but I figure you've heard it, and I just want to say that I echo that as well. But I wanted to bring up the point of the Great Outdoors Initiative earlier this year or last year, where they tried to develop many of the state parks without hearing from the public and how outreach everybody was about that and urge you to see the similarities between developing this beautiful state park as well and how bad that could be for the community. And then to also point out that we just recognized July as the parks and rec month and to continue to urge you to preserve and care for natural spaces. Thank you very much for listening and have a good day. Caller ending in 4566. Please hit star six. You have three minutes. And state your name. Hi there. My name is Catherine Pastor. I live in Belush County, which has been crazy overdeveloped. I can tell you the amount of light pollution we see, the water pollution, just the smog that happens in this. They started developing out by, like, I-95 area, which if you're from Belush County or you know anything about it, it was just like the prairie. Like, it was just a big open space. It was a park. And then they rezoned it. And then they rezoned some more. And now all of a sudden it's like 50 square miles of new homes. But, you know, I've lived here my whole life. And every other house is for sale. It's housing crisis. It's not a crisis. It's just manufactured. You know what I mean? Like, there's a ton of empty houses. People can't afford rent. There's a lot of homeless people. So rezoning it for new buildings. I see what might happen at Paines Prairie is, like, what's happening out here in Belush County? Where they're like, well, you know, there's so many people moving to the state. We need to zone it and make more buildings. We already have half a dozen empty houses right here on my block. You know, and then they just get foreclosed on and they get forgotten about. And these are nice houses. There's a bunch of nice houses. So I don't think it's a lack of housing. But maybe they just see the dollar signs and they're just like, oh, let's just rezone this whole area and, you know, make a mint. Why not? But I wanted to kind of stress to you that I've seen it happen here. And then we kind of had an outrage a couple years ago. And then public comments and everything. Like, we really don't want this. You know, we don't want more pollution coming in. There's a ton of empty houses. And the manufactured houses that they're making, the apartments, you know, the new houses, they're not good quality. They're really, you know, you see them a lot go up within a month. And, you know, we have, like, stucco and brick houses. These houses have lasted since, like, 1940s, 1950s in my area. And they're still good houses. They're still standing. They've withstood every hurricane. I'm just wondering about the construction of these new places. I don't think they're going to be willing to stand up to Florida. Florida is harsh. And, you know, make them out of cheap construction materials, which is not going to last long. So I would really try to tell you guys to please vote no on all of this rezoning and all of the new manufactured buildings. Because it's just not good quality. It's not going to stand up to what Florida can offer. You know, hurricanes and wind and rain. And it seems like the prairie is a really special place. And people really like it. But it's got parks. People get, you know, to see the sky. Where it's out here in Luthers County, you can't see the sky anymore. You just can't. There's so much light pollution. It's just crazy. Anyway, I know there's a lot of talking points. And people have better education than me. I'm just, you know, a Florida girl watching it happen around me. I'd hate to see it happen to you guys out there. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Okay. Caller ending in 9963. Please head star six. You have three minutes and state your name. My name is Yakin. And I'm a lifelong resident of Florida. And an Alaska County resident since 2018. I think everyone has made really good points about how beautiful this place is. And the value of wildlife. And having a beautiful place to live. And to call home. And to welcome other people to. I think those points have been well made. And I want to speak more to this company that's coming in to develop this place. And I think other people have spoken to the fear that if they do start developing, if part of the prairie is rezoned, then blood will be in the water and it will never stop. The person who is the director of entitlements, from Rhonda Holmes, Alex Moldovan, he said that they're trying to be good stewards of the environment here. But if they were good stewards of the environment, they wouldn't be a land development company. If they start developing here, they will not stop. They do not care about their residents here. They care about their bottom line. The bottom line is not us. The bottom line is further development and expansion. And I think we all remember, those of us who have lived here a long time, we remember what the flooding from Hurricane Irma was like. It will be ten times worse if there is no ground to absorb the water. Like it was rough then. It will be rough now if more homes come in. If there's more impermeable ground, we will all be at risk. And they will not care. This company does not care about the residents of Alachua County, doesn't care about our natural resources. If they did care, they wouldn't be a land development company. And I want to speak more to just on a personal level. I grew up in Panama City, Florida, and Hurricane Michael wiped out what was my home. And it was beautiful. And it's not beautiful anymore out of no human's fault. And it would be heartbreaking to me if my second home was destroyed by greed and by the people who are supposed to protect this town. Thank you for your time. Caller ending in 5745. Please hit star six. You have three minutes. State your name. Hi. Good afternoon. My name is Lisa Sunerski. And I'm a fifth generation Florida native. So I'm speaking on behalf of not only myself but my ancestors and for those who came to this land many years ago. I know they're so disappointed by the destruction happening in this state. I can barely speak without getting emotional. But I'm going to try. I just am so proud and so honored and so grateful for everyone else who spoke before me for Sains Prairie. And I just know that, you know, coming together and speaking like this really shows volume or speaks volumes. And, again, just to reiterate what everyone said, this land matters. And there's just no reason why we should be here having to express the importance of it. The land, the ecosystem, the wildlife, it's just heartbreaking that we have to take the time to come and express something that is just so obvious, so clear. Our land needs protection. It needs to be honored. It needs to be respected. And as one of the last speakers said, these homes are not necessary. They're not needed. As in my area, we have plenty of homes for sale. But they're not affordable. And so we need to look, you know, deep down. And the people making decisions, we have to really think about what we want, what we want to be surrounded by, what we want to see when we drive around our beautiful state. And we have to make the right choices. The land in Florida is being taken at rapid speeds. And I literally drive around crying, crying seeing what's happening. We feel that we don't have a choice sometimes. But today, we're grateful to be able to speak on behalf of the animals that can't be here, the people that are no longer here. And, again, they'd just be heartbroken by what's happening here. So we have to stay connected. We have to stay together and be strong and fight for the ecosystem and the land because there's just not much of it left. So please just say no to building these homes or rezoning and protect our lands. Save Wild Florida. We just need it. We can't handle anymore. Please. Thank you. Caller ending in 6126. Please hit star six. State your name. And you have three minutes. Thank you for this opportunity. So my name is Hannah Gottesman. I'm a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Florida. I'm commenting on the same thing as everyone else, the Payne's Prairie rezoning. And so my research is focused in part on isotope chemistry of the earstones of fish. And those are surprisingly influenced by groundwater and aquifer hydrology. So I've had to do a lot of reading on that for my degree. And that's, I guess, introduced me to the issues of how taxed our Florida aquifer is by all of the draws on it for drinking water, irrigation, and other purposes around the entire state. And it really does connect a huge part of the state. And Payne's Prairie contributes to aquifer recharge. It serves a unique role in that way. So I'm just concerned about how development and landscape hardening in that area could degrade that function. I think spaces like Payne's Prairie that have unique functions like that should be protected. So, yes, thank you again for the opportunity. Okay. Caller ending in 3711. Please hit star six. You have three minutes. State your name. Mr. Chair, it looks like that caller has dropped off. And that was the last caller. Okay. Thank you. That takes us over to the board and committee items. The first one is the Alachua County Citizens Disability Advisory Committee Annual Report. Can we have a minute to respond to some of the public comments? Okay. I mean, just took 30 minutes of call. Well, I mean, all these people, yeah, all these people showed up and spoke. And I just wanted to make the point that, you know, all applicants have the opportunity to apply. And just because they've applied, you know, it's part of the process that they go through. And I appreciate you coming and letting us know how you feel. But I encourage you all to stay informed. We can't really talk about it because it's quasi-judicial at this point. But what you can do is come to public meetings, share your opinions at the Development Review Committee board meeting and at county commission meetings like this and continue to stay updated on the project itself. But anything else you want to add, Michelle? No, Mr. Chair, I was just going to say this is quasi-judicial application. So it's not something that the board should be commenting on at this point in time. And the application is, it just started along the process. I understand that September would be the earliest, but we're more than likely looking at October before this board would even have an opportunity to hear any information on that. And it has to go through planning commission first. So it will be some considerable period of time. It's not something that the board has even had an opportunity to start reviewing. Right. Staff has not even begun to review the application yet. All I wanted to say was that if somebody lives in or around that location or feels that they are more substantially impacted than the average citizen by the proposed rezoning, they can't apply to be a party in that judicial hearing. So they would get the opportunity to present evidence or speak on issues related to the hearing. And if you're interested in that, our staff can walk you through the process of applying to become a party for the hearing. Okay. Commissioner Cornell? Yeah. And as Commissioner Alpert said, it is quasi-judicial, so I don't want to speak specific to it. But I will speak in general, Ali's, at the Florida Association of Counties, this issue of protecting Florida is front and center. We're seeing red counties elect blue commissioners. We're seeing red commissioners actually have more of an interest in protecting conservation lands. I remind them every time I see them that it's in the word to conserve. And so this isn't going to come to us before September, but I will tell you that our e-mails, our voicemails, and the communications that the public has given this commission from this commissioner has been heard as much as I've ever heard any other issue, and I thank you. I will remember this day when we get to that, and I will remember the future days that I know we will hear from the rest of our community. So I don't want to speak specifically about this particular thing other than to say I don't even think it's been a complete application yet. But I hear my community loud and clear, and it's what I ran on, and so I thank you all for letting me hear your voice again today. When I see people that I have never seen in three terms, it warms my heart, and it makes a big impact. So thank you. Commissioner Wheeler? No, I am glad to see people acting accordingly. And let's see, is it Brianna? I want to talk to you, too. If you're doing ecotourism around here, I am chair of the board, the tourism board, and we need to make sure you have access to what we have to give. All right. Yes, we do. We do. And, Bailey, you know, I want to talk to you some more, too, okay? So you all can find me. That's all. No, I was impressed. That's all. I'm impressed. We're looking for folks who are here invested in the community to engage, and all I would say is run for something. Just saying. No, no, no, no. Just a minute. We'll talk. We'll talk, okay? You can't do that. Sorry. That's why I say come find me. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, that will take us to the Alachua County Citizens Disability Advisory Committee annual report. Advisory Committee annual report. I'm just going to summarize it for you. The committee comprises of six members. The purpose of the committee is to assist the equal opportunity manager in reviewing the county programs and services to ensure equal opportunity for people with disabilities. Some examples of accommodations provided are sign language interpreters using 711 Florida Relay service and providing documents in Braille or large font. Staff training. County staff receives training on the ADA to understand their responsibilities to ensure that county programs and services are accessible to individuals with disabilities, and over 600 employees participated in the ADA training last June. Public education outreach. July is Disability Awareness Month. The committee helps to raise public awareness of disability rights during the month of July. We have two outreach events coming up that were mentioned earlier during the morning announcements. The 2025 Disability Awareness Expo on July 23, 2025 at the MLK Center. And we also have the Disability Friendly Employer Award to be presented in October. The public is invited to participate in these events. And please contact the Equal Opportunity Office for more information. On behalf of the Citizens with Disabilities Advisory Committee, thank you to the County Commission for your support and commitment to disability inclusion. Thank you. Yes. Hi. Yeah, that's good. Mr. Chair, Commissioners, Andy Chrisman, Program Manager for the Land Conservation Board. And I just wanted to briefly introduce this item for two reasons. One, it's a new board, and so you're selecting a large number of candidates for the board. And I know we tried to make the tally sheet as clear as possible, but to be clear, for the folks that have applied that have experience with agricultural profession or education, you're selecting five full-term members plus one alternate, so it's six in that category. And then for the folks that are the citizen-at-large positions, you're selecting four. All of the folks with agricultural experience are also listed on the tally sheet for the citizen-at-large as well. And we've got two term dates because everyone's getting seated at once so that we have, in the end, we have a staggered board. I would also like to take a moment to introduce our brand new, as of yesterday, started yesterday, senior planner who will be taking the lead on implementing our ag land protection strategy, and that's Jean Willoughby. And we're very, very thrilled to have Jean join us. She comes from a role as the executive director of the Agrarian Trust, as well as other really valuable and important professional experience. And we do have a few people here, I know, that came for this item, applicants. Wonderful to meet you all. Thank you so much for this investment. And I really believe that this is an incredibly strategic investment in Alachua County's future and engaging farm owners and farmers, landowners, as conservationists, along with other types of landowners, is just a brilliant move on the county's part. So thank you all. And we hope to make you proud with this program. Welcome. We're really excited to have you. Did we want to recognize any applicants that wish to represent their application? Yes. If anybody wishes to speak towards your application, please come to the podium. Hello, county commissioners. First, I just want to thank you so much for your leadership in protecting agricultural land and natural resources. I'm Nina Bhattacharya. And as my application for the Agricultural Land Conservation Board reflects, I have valuable experience I want to bring to the table for this board. In my previous role with the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, I led our agricultural land easement program and our regional conservation partnership program to protect working lands, wildlife habitat, and spaces for people to have economic opportunities. I know that I can take this experience and help the county identify best ways and strategies to protect land. And so I just thank you so much for your consideration for my application. It's an honor to be here. Thank you. Thank you. Hello, Mr. Chair, commissioners. John Paul Perez, resident of the city of Gainesville. I'm an urban planner by profession, and I applied for the citizen-at-large seat. Being part of our understanding development, I think, offers a different perspective as to a good strategy for preserving land. Wanted to introduce myself to the board, offer you the opportunity to ask me any questions that you may have, dedicated to public service, so veteran, now city employee, county employee, moved up to Gainesville. I appreciate the open space. Would like to see it also protected, especially as we see Tallahassee take over, kind of erode some of the home rule that a lot of local governments have enjoyed in the past and are seeing some of that go away. So any questions, I'm available. Thank you so much. Okay, thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Scott Eubanks, resident, lifelong resident. My family, my children are the eighth generation to be raised on our ranch in Micanopy. So I have a very, very long history here and a lot of ties to agriculture. Excuse me. So I was raised on the ranch. My agriculture, I got my degree in agriculture, and I work for Farm Bureau. So I'll be also representing all of the agriculture. I work with the farmers and ranchers across this county. So I really appreciate y'all's consideration and I look forward to hopefully serving with you guys. Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. My name is Earl Beatty. I am a lifelong Floridian. So I've seen this state change. I was born in Orlando, grew up in Miami. And every time I have to go back, I get about the Palm Beach County line and try to fight to make a U-turn to come back this way. So I don't have any formal education in land conservation, but I know what I like and I know what I need to see. I would like my great-grandchildren to walk out and see a cow, a deer, anything pertaining to it. I do not like clutter. So I would, if I'm appointed, I would work hard to protect this land that I like. Thank you. Thank you. Good morning, Mr. Chair and the board. My name is Art Nelke. I am a lifelong Florida resident, a native. I am originally from Tampa, Florida, and I have watched that town develop, which is already a large town, you know, historically. And I have just grew up in that rural area and watched it change throughout this, my life. I've moved away in work and then have been brought back. And I was brought here for work. And it is, I'm a new resident. I've changed. I would hate to see this natural spaces and green spaces be reduced. They are very rare. They are very important to us. They do protect our lives and our communities. And I would be very interested in helping out, be a part of a better future for this county. Thank you. State your name again. Arden Elke. Earlton. Neighbor. Is that everybody that wishes to speak for their application? All right, Mr. Chair, we have five positions for members with qualifications, including education, experience, and agricultural lands management practices. Would you like to just pick your top five and then we'll pick an alternate from? Okay. Sounds good. Commissioner Alford, your top five, please. I might butcher Bhattacharya. I always get that one not quite right. Eubanks, Lance, Hernandez, and McPherson. Commissioner Parizia, your top five, please. John Nix. I'm sorry. We need an alternate, Lance. We were going to take that. I apologize. I missed. There's five and then an alternate. We need our top six because there's. Well, I just figured six would come out of five votes. Oh, I see what you're doing. I missed your. I missed someone on your application. I apologize. Nina, Scott, Erica, Kelly, and John Nix. Okay. Kelly was who I missed. Sorry about that. Commissioner Wheeler, your top five, please. Nina, Scott, Erica, Kelly, and John Nix. Commissioner Cornell, your top five. The same. Nina, Scott, Erica, Kelly, and Nix. Commissioner Chestnut, your top five, please. Okay. Nina, Scott, Lance, McPherson, and John Nix. You need my alternate, I guess. No, you're not yet. Let's see. Let's see. I got three with five and two with four. So, I would move Nina, Scott, Erica, Kelly, and Nix. And to what term? Oh, for the, I'm sorry. Is that the 2029 term for the three? Oh, I'm sorry. So, the top three, yeah, which would be Nina, Scott, and Kelly for the 2029 term, and then Erica and Nix for the 2028 term. Backwards. We need two. Oh, it's backwards. Oh, okay. We have it written up, we have it written up top one way and in the thing another way, so. Oh, my apologies. Okay. So, there are. Whatever it is. Okay. I see. Are there three for the 2028 term and two for the 2029? Go with the text. Yeah, go with it. Not the, not the columns. Go with the text. Yep. So, you got it right. You had it right. You had it right. I was going with the words. So, there are top three, which got five votes for the term ending in 2029, would be Nina, Scott, and Kelly, and then the next top two, which would be Erica and John Nix for the term ending 2028. Good. That's my motion. Good. Second. Got a motion and a second. Are there any further comments to the motion that's on the floor? Those in favor of the motion, vote by the sign of aye. Aye. Those opposed, same time. Motion carries. And then Lance got two, so we should name her as the alternate. I was going to vote. I didn't add her, but I would have voted to her if that was okay. Yeah. So, I would move Lance as the alternate. Okay. Okay. Sounds good. Okay. Got a motion and a second. Any further discussion to the motion? Those in favor of the motion, vote by the sign of aye. Aye. Aye. Those opposed, same time. Motion carries. Okay. Okay. Now we move to four. Four. That's four. Oh, okay. Are any of these repeated? They're not. Yeah. They are. They're all. They all repeat. Yes. Okay. Give us a second. Let's mark off those. We're trying to eliminate. Do you have an opinion? Okay. Are we ready? Yes. I'm sorry. Call it, Mr. Prisio. We're going to do that. All right. We're going to start the top four. Commissioner Prisio, can we have your top four, please? Okay. I have Paul Pritchard, Juan Salva, John Paul Perez, and Arden Elke. Commissioner Wheeler, can we have your top four, please? Oh, my goodness. Etherton, Pritchard, Salva, and Perez. John Paul Perez. I'm sorry. Could you repeat that? Yes. Etherton, Pritchard, Salva, and Perez. Commissioner Alford, could I have your top four, please? Beatty, Pritchard, Elke, and Perez. I did mess it up, didn't I? Commissioner Cornell, could I have your top four, please? Yeah. Perez, Arden, Beatty, and Pritchard. Sorry. You said Aiden? Yes. Arden, Elke, John Paul Perez, Paul Pritchard, and Earl Bate. Earl Batey. That's what I was missing. Sorry. It's a long list. And Commissioner Chestnut, your top four, please. Perez, Elke, Pritchard, and Kane. Who was your fourth one? Kane. I have Perez and Pritchard with five, Elke with four, and then we have two nominees tied with two votes, and that's Beatty and Salva. I move Paul Pritchard, Juan Salva, and Arden, Elke, and John Paul Perez for the terms ending in, are they all the same terms this time around? Oh, no. I'm sorry. Two. Okay. So, Paul Pritchard and Juan Salva for the terms ending in 2029, and Arden, Elke, and John Paul Perez for the terms ending in 2028. Wait. Oh, sorry. Perez had more votes. So, Perez and Pritchard for 29. President Pritchard for 29, yep. And then Elke and Juan Salva for 2028. So, Salva and Beatty had two each, right? They both had two. What do you all want to do? I move Salva. Up to the board if there's a second and a vote on that. I would have moved Beatty. I would have moved Beatty, too. So, it's really Chuck and Mary Helen has to choose between Beatty and Salva. Do I have an opinion? If you don't have an opinion, it's okay. Salva. Salva? Okay. I'll do Salva. Okay. Second. Motion and a second. Any further discussion to the motion that's on the floor? Those in favor of the motion will by the sound of an aye. Aye. Those opposed, same time. Motion carries. I thank you to everyone who applied. We had amazing candidates and we appreciate all of your input and ideas and I hope you'll stay involved and there'll be lots of opportunities to fill in as new terms open. And can I say the applicants for this were amazing? Amazing. Amazing group of applicants. It was really, really hard to go through this list. Yeah. Good job, Anna. Mr. Chair, that takes us to action items and it's the Sports Event Center update and discussion. Are we going to do the item pulled from consent at the end? That's it. M. The agenda had moved that to. Yes, M. Towards the end. Yes, toward the end. Okay. She said F. Okay. M. M. M. Okay. Okay. Are we ready? Pull from consent. I know, but I thought she changed it in the motion. Out of the frying pan into the fire. That's stressful, you know, trying to come up with folks who are so many good. I know, but everybody wants to play. Hopefully they will still be involved even if they are not on the board. Absolutely. Absolutely. Okay. On this next item, as you are aware, we sent a notice of default to Celebration Point regarding the operation of the event center. Uh, technically that 30 days is not up until July 10th, but this is the only meeting that we have, um, due to commission summer break until we come back in August. So we wanted to bring this back to you now. Uh, the operator provided a response in writing, which you all have received a copy of, and it's been included in the agenda. Um, that response didn't directly address the default itself. There were some options that were provided. Uh, one was regarding a 12 month extension and renegotiation of some terms. Um, and in the alternative, if we wanted to transition the facility, uh, to the county's operation, there were some suggested or offers of how to transition specifically that that transition, um, go through to December 31st and occur effective January 1st. Um, we do have a, uh, uh, Mr. Jerkin Bolton could not be here today, but we do have a representative of Celebration Point in the room. If you had any questions, um, he is here. Um, but staff's recommendation after taking a look and reviewing that, and we do have, we provided you with a copy of our recommendation. It is, it is rather lengthy due to the technical and legal nature of the agreement that we have with Celebration Point. It is two pages long. Um, we can put it up, um, do you have that copy, Mark? We can put it up on the Elmo for you, um, and I can read through it. The gist of that is to, um, go ahead and move to default them on the agreement to, um, transition the facility over to the county, make the transition date, boy, that's very small writing, make the transition date, um, October 1st. That is, um, it makes more sense to us because we operate on a fiscal year and we would just do it as part of the new fiscal year, um, and then along with that, um, providing me with certain levels of authority to take care of what I need to from an operations perspective until we can get back in front of you, um, and, and until October 1st so that we can do what we need to do to operate. Um, essentially there are programs, summer camps, things that are going on right now, and it is, um, in staff's view, extremely important and I think the board will agree to make sure that the children that have, that have their plans there this summer, that have summer camp, that they still have that place to go, their families have paid for that summer camp and so we want to make sure that anybody who's rented the facility or is there for programs can still participate in those programs through October 1st. Um, so that's the critical point and, you know, really I'm back, you know, we're, we have a meeting August 5th, we have a meeting August 12th, August 26th, um, you know, our meetings in September, so this is really, um, that we'll be coming back to you and I will come back to you in August with the board, with the staff's recommendation, um, for the operation of the facility from moving forward for the fiscal year from October 1st. We'll bring you a budget for the year, um, a staffing plan, um, for the FTEs we will need, you know, all of that we'll bring back to you in August. Okay, Commissioner Alfred first I have, and then Commissioner Prizia, Cornell, and Wheeler. I'm, I'm happy to move staff's recommendation, but I had one question. Um, I know there's been a lot of discussion about, uh, documentation of expenses and things like that, um, over the, since, since the beginning of the operation of the Sports and Events Center, uh, will part of your efforts be to continue to collect that documentation, uh, in order to, um, not only understand the expense of operation, but also to document the cost that, um, the actual costs that have been, uh, put out by, um, Spain and the, um, company. We're, we're, we're aware of some of that, um, you know, the, the, the records that we have been provided over the time have not all been what we've, um, expected or what they should have been by agreement. Um, some of that information we, we are aware of though, because we have gotten some of that. All of that has to be turned over to us and will be part of the transition. So, um, whatever they do have, we'll, we will get, um, and we will, you know, start working to take over the, you know, whatever's necessary to transition from the, you know, the accounts, the money in the operating account, that kind of thing, whatever we need to do to properly transition the facility. Okay. Um, and as far as, you know, record, as far as what it costs to operate, we have a general idea already, what it costs to operate just from conversations, um, you know, as we, as we were looking at what would a budget look like. Um, so we have a general idea just from those conversations. Well, that, that was my concern as we move into budget season, taking this on, we want to, you know, have, be able to have a, a pretty accurate estimate of, of what things cost. And, and so that was why I was asking. We have a general idea of what an annual budget would look like. Okay. All right. Thank you. Okay. Is that your motion? You conclude? I, I, I make the motion. Second. Got a motion and a second. Okay. Commissioner Prezio. Thank you. Um, I guess, yeah, my, my concerns, I guess, are, are questions are around sort of budgeting as well. I'm a little concerned that, um, we have no idea what we're taking on. Like, I, I'm concerned that this is directing staff to automatically bring it in house. And I guess I'm interested to understand the full budget costs of operations and revenues. And if it makes the most sense for us to bring it in house or if it still makes sense for us to contract operations with an organization that does this kind of thing and to fully understand those options before we like dive in with creating a whole county department that operates a sports and event center. So I just would love for us to have that step in the middle somewhere. And I don't, I wasn't clear in reading the language here. If we would have that step where we would get the full operations costs, revenues costs, and, and options with regards to management of the facility, um, prior to us just starting to hire people and bring them on board. So, Mr. Chair, we will be back to you in August with the options for operating this facility moving forward, um, which would include all of the options for operating this facility. But to be clear, um, the county has to operate this facility at least probably for the next foreseeable budget year, because to go out, create a scope, issue an RFP, go through the RFP process, we either have to, we're either going to have to operate it for the next six months to a year, if that would be the board's choice, or we're going to just have to close the doors until we get an operator. So, which is not an option we want to do. So regardless, we're going to have to operate this facility for a period of time. Um, and we just need to be prepared to do that. And then if the board chooses to take an option of going out for, uh, procurement for another operator, uh, we will do that. Um, and I, I don't know that that's the best option. Right. No, no, no. Well, we're going to provide, we're going to provide those options and our thoughts on that and a recommendation. But regardless, we will have to operate this facility for a period of time. Okay. My second question, I guess, is more for you and, and for, um, Tommy and his team is that, I mean, this wasn't anticipated when you were developing the budget. And I know, I mean, just from looking at utility bills alone, I know this isn't going to be a small bite. And so I'm, you know, we're supposed to be setting millage today. And I'm concerned that taking on this, creating a new department, new staffing bills that we're going to have to pay that perhaps we need to think about adjusting our budget. Some that was presented to us and that we're going to be in a situation where we're going to have to cut either cut things out of the budget to make this fit. Or do we have, do we have, based on what you understand about operations costs, do we have enough in what's kind of left in reserves or things that we don't dig into reserves that we wouldn't normally touch to be able to accommodate this in the meantime? So to say we won't dig into reserves that we won't normally touch, reserves are for the purpose of, of unexpected, unanticipated things. So, you know, I think we will be fine as far as moving forward. I would not, if, if I thought we need, I needed to recommend an additional amount in the millage, I would. And I'm not, I'm not recommending that. I'm comfortable that we'll be able to manage this moving forward. Okay. Good. All right. Thank you. Commissioner Wheeler. The only point I wanted to make is that what we were saying is what you've already said is that we need the time to get our ducks in a row. We need to find out, you know, where the monies have gone, what we need to do to right the ship. And then at that point, if we are going to send out an RFP for someone else to run it, like we did the Equestrian Center in Newberry, we have somebody else operating that too. We own it, but we have other people who are owning, running it. So I'm, I'm comfortable with the way that it is. This is business now. This is just business. You know, the friendship thing, you know, is, is not interfering in this at all. It's business. And I'm, I'm good with what our staff has put together. I'm very comfortable to second your motion, Mary. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Okay. Thank you. I guess there's no others. I think that the letter that was returned to us stated some figures. And I guess my concern is about an audit. I mean, how do we know what has actually been spent or not been spent? That's the question I have. Will there be an audit on those numbers that was presented in the letter? Because I have concern, some concerns about it. That's all. So, I mean, I don't know. About the, the numbers that were stated as far as the projection, as far as what, what they've generated in revenues from. And what they're spent. I think that it was something like $600,000, some thousand dollars. Right. So, we do, so those, that information is tracked because there's a portion of the operating agreement that allows for a recovery of the operator's expenditures into the facility. So, he has to, so those things have to be tracked. And I know we're aware of some of those from the prior financial records that we have. We'll verify whether that's, you know, whether ours match that, of course. So, that's the expenditures. As far as things like the generation, you know, what it's generated and such. We're, we should be getting back a report that I will plan to have to you in August as well. We have an economic report coming from UF on the World Masters event. It's not on every event. It's just on that one. But that will give you numbers on what the economic impact both direct to the county, direct to our businesses, hoteliers, and indirect spend what the value of that was just for that one week event. So, we will have that to take a look at also. I expect to have that back in time for your August meeting as well. Okay. All right. We have a motion and a second on the floor. Are there any further discussions? Are there any public comments to the motion? Thank you, Mr. Chair, commissioners, staff. My name is Tamara Robbins. Well, I've been anticipating and looking forward to this day for almost two years that I appreciate you hearing and understanding that the reporting that you've been getting on the finances, in my opinion, are cut and paste, made-up numbers that are non-verifiable. The audit that you had done on the operations of this facility over for the year 2023 resulted in numerous, numerous issues that were not verifiable. So, I appreciate it. Back in January of this year, I emailed the finance director to ask if there was going to be an audit of 2024. And I was told that, no, there were no plans to do an audit. That county staff has assigned a higher-level county fiscal staff person who is working with the management team at ACSEC to implement new procedures, controls over financial transactions and records. So, I asked, please provide me the procedures and controls which have been and are currently being implemented. And who's the staff member that's assigned? Crickets. So, that was in January of this year. And I'm just wondering, why am I being led to believe that there's some higher level of oversight that's going on regarding the county facilities and the spending of money? And apparently, it's, I don't know, is it true or not? I agree with you guys taking it over. If you can't implement camp procedures, just get staff over there to open the doors. Let the public go in and shoot baskets, run on the track, maybe play pickleball. It's cool in there. It's a county facility that we have been paying, according to a ledger sheet, $50,000 a month for parking to Sven. He hasn't been charging for parking, right? But he's charging us for him to have people park to go into that facility. Is it right or not? Or is he just charging the county for people to go shop down at Celebration Point in that parking garage? I don't know. But just so you know, we don't have any place to park over there. So you better pay attention to the fact that he could implement a massive parking fee to use that parking garage because that facility is only on the land that it sits on. You don't own anything else to park, right? And that McGurn lawsuit, you guys should be paying attention to that because he mortgaged that full 9.75 acres of that land that includes the land that the event center sit on. The McGurns are suing Sven for the money that they loaned him, and that is the collateral. So you guys should be paying attention to that. McGurns may have signed a waiver to allow that, but they are suing Sven for the entire 9.75 acre value to get their money back from him, just like many other people who are lined up to sue him to get some of the, let's see, how many millions of dollars does he own? And please bear with me here, Mr. Chair, $500 million. So I'm just saying that that, in my opinion, is in a super bad location. I'm just saying. It should have been on the east side or somewhere more neutral, and now it's over there stuck in the middle of a development that probably is going to be required to liquidate. If any of you have been paying attention to the bankruptcy hearings, right, the person who was going to bail him out is suing him for $100 million. Okay, this is a bad situation, and I appreciate it, but. I'm going to have to end. Yeah, well, I've spent two years researching this, so thank you. Yes. I have a statement and a question. I guess I do the question first. I was wondering if the employees at the sports center are Alachua County employees, or are they the employees of the operator, and they're, of the operator. I actually had, a couple of years ago, not a good experience with, I guess, the person that was in charge. I tried to get some information and no response, and I see that the county hasn't been getting response, too. I worked for some of the largest corporations in America in their financial department, preparing finances for the presidents, and I would never have guessed that we would let an entity go 18 months without providing some kind of support and some kind of evidence that they would stand true to the contract. Typically, you would get a monthly financial report and projections for three or four months in advance. Internal controls seem to be nonexistent, and adhering to generally accepted accounting practices as well as ethics in managing contracts is a serious issue, and I'm just surprised that we let this happen this long. I mean, when we, when the county gives out little small contracts and what have you, there has to be accountability, there has to be reporting, and you have to do what you say you're going to do. How is it we can let an entity get this much of citizens' money and have them be as apparently inept and maybe shady as they are, because it is the biggest surprise that I have seen in an entity anywhere that is supposedly capable of the positions that they have. Thank you. Thank you. Hello. Sorry Lindberg. One day I'll learn how to walk through the podium without doing a shuffle. This is new to me. I haven't been researching this as much as other citizens here, but something stuck out to me that county manager said that the operator would have expenditures that you may be responsible for. I encourage you to use your legal team and audit team or anyone available that is good with numbers to really dice it down and ask questions. Don't accept it at face value, because it sounds like this person might be good with some numbers or too good. It goes the other way. I'm not sure. I don't know anyone involved, but just please be very picky about these expenditures, because it is the money that we're responsible for. Thank you. Any further comments to the motion? Okay, seeing that, I'm back to the board. Commissioner of Prisons. Yeah, I guess Ms. Robbins did bring up a good point about parking. What are our options with regards to how the parking is handled now that we have, I mean, we own the land the facility is on. The portion that the building itself sits on, we own that. The mortgage holder, what's the phrase I'm looking for, released that, gave a partial release of their surety on the land of their, for us to take that in fee. Gotcha. So, while they have the interest in the front portion still remaining. The parking, there is a portion of parking in the operating agreement that we have with the operator. Currently, it does not charge for parking. We've not paid for parking. We have not paid for parking. Neither has their cash been submitted for parking. It may be something that is on a ledger, but there has been no money exchanged for the purpose of parking. The county has not provided any parking funds. Okay. Whether or not parking gets charged for, for that garage in the future, I can't say that there won't be a cost for the parking garage in the future. I mean, it was intended at some point that, that, that they be able to charge. There's not, there's not a mechanism in place to do that right now. The operator, as part of the agreement, and I know Dave knows the agreement better than I do, but the operator's part of the agreement was supposed to be paying something into parking. But I don't believe any parking has been paid because the operator is also the operator of the garage. Okay. I guess I, my interest is just as you're negotiating that transition plan that, you know, special attention to be paid to parking, particularly for, you know, when we have vendors and we're negotiating, you know, having parking as a part of that conversation. So that, and also the, the maintenance of the lands in and around the facility, because, because we don't own anything except the footprint of the building, those other pieces of property, because they are yet to be developed, you know, can tend to get pretty weedy and just sort of left to sit. So if we can also make sure we're focused on maintenance of the, you know, just the grounds and the facilities surrounding the building so that the building looks presentable, either that we're able to go in and mow and take care of it or, and have that capability and right, as well as that they maintain their own pieces of property to a standard. So, but thank you. And when it comes to the parking garage, I mean, I, we will, we will do what we can to negotiate with the parking garage. Obviously that is an important part, but that is also part of the current financial proceedings. So we will do what we can to get an agreement on the parking garage as soon as possible as part of what we're working on. Commissioner Alfred? Yeah. In addition to the parking compatible uses in the parcels that surround the event center is, is I know also of concern because you and I talked about it, but that's part of your negotiation as well. There, there is currently a, that is a plan development. There, there's currently, um, uh, a overall master plan that goes, development plan that goes over that, which includes that parcel. So at least. We have some amount of control there. Correct. Okay. For now. Yeah. Yeah. I conclude. Thank you. Okay. For now. All right. Any further discussions before we vote? Okay. Those in favor of the motion vote by the sign of aye. Aye. Aye. Those opposed, same sign. Motion carries. Mr. Clerk. Chair, that takes, uh, land conservation projects. First item is Lock Lusa Creek Flatwoods Wirehauser Track Purchase and Sale Agreement to purchase real property. All right. Good afternoon, uh, Mr. Chair, commissioners. My name is Andy Christman. I'm the program manager for the land conservation program, and I am presenting for your consideration today, the Lock Lusa Creek Flatwoods Warehauser acquisition. Uh, this is a fee simple acquisition, um, a single parcel owned by the Weyerhauser Natural Resources Company, approximately 133 acres, currently zoned agriculture with a rural and agricultural future land use, scored a 6.31 on the Alachua County Forever evaluation matrix. On this, uh, larger map, you can see, um, the parcel that the county will be, um, acquiring should you approve, uh, shown in red. And basically, that north-south running kind of orange-colored line is the county boundary on the east side of the county with Putnam County. So, this property and, um, the surrounding properties would all be part of the Little Orange Creek Nature Preserve. Zooming in with an aerial photo, the green shading is, um, the little current footprint of the southern part of the Little Orange Creek Nature Preserve. The property that, um, the county would be entering into contract to purchase is the one outlined in red. Immediately adjacent to the east is another parcel owned by Warehauser that is in Putnam County and Alachua Conservation Trust. At the same time that we would be pursuing the Alachua County parcel, Alachua Conservation Trust is pursuing the Putnam County parcel to fill in those inholdings. And so, this contract is a tri-party contract that includes the county, Alachua Conservation Trust, and Warehauser as the parties. Uh, it's a, it's, it's a, um, retention basin for the expansion of State Road 20, Hawthorne Road. The little cutout, yeah. So, we would not be acquiring that. That's owned by DOT. That's huge. Yeah, here's, here's a bigger picture of the parcel and that retention basin. Um, one thing to note on this parcel, uh, parcel image is that the standing timber, the darker green footprint in the upper right-hand corner of the parcel, um, is through this contract subject to our timber reservation by Warehauser. So, they, in the contract negotiation, reserve the rights to harvest, um, it's approximately 22 acres of, uh, slash pine. Um, and they reserve the same right on the Putnam County parcel with ACT as well for, for that ownership. Correct. Correct. Harvesting the currently standing timber, um, they have, uh, 12 months to do that with, if there's consistently wet weather up to a six-month extension. If they're not able to conduct the harvest in that, um, in that time period, they waive the rights to harvest the timber after that. Uh, the site is, um, upland pine forest, former Sand Hill. It's been recently managed as pine plantation, but retains many of the species of, of the highly diverse Sand Hill natural community. Falls within our Alachua County Forever-Lacalusa Creek Flatwoods project area. It also falls in the Little Orange Creek strategic ecosystem and is part of a recently established Florida Forever project area. called the Little Orange Creek conservation area, and it will be, the intent is that it would be incorporated, um, for both recreation, but also all other management into the Little Orange Creek Preserve. Some images on the ground, and this, this image actually shows the intersection of the, um, the previously harvested area and that remaining standing timber on, on the site. And the aerial photo, um, taken during the appraisal tour. Um, so, yeah, on the left is actually an endemic species, a Florida endemic. So, it's not the most beautiful plant picture, but, um, and on the far right, you can see there is, uh, natural regeneration coming up in the harvested area currently. Um, and, uh, that is, uh, likely to be managed over time with fire and converted to longleaf pine across the entire site. This is, uh, slash pine. So, again, the details, um, again, it's a fee simple acquisition. It's a tri-party contract, but it is a purchase and sales agreement. So, instead of you signing a notice to exercise the contract, you would actually be signing the contract at this time. We, the Alachua County acquiring one parcel and Alachua Conservation Trust acquiring the one in Putnam County. Warehouse are retaining that, um, 12 months, uh, plus one six-month wet weather extension for harvesting that, um, stand of approximately 27-year-old slash pine on the site. Um, and land management would be assigned to Alachua Conservation Trust, who currently manages the entire footprint of the Little Orange Creek Preserve, including lands already owned by the county, lands owned by the city of Hawthorne, and lands owned by Alachua Conservation Trust together under the partnership of one preserve. Um, and we have a land management agreement with ACT for that management of the county-owned property, um, with a closing date, um, mid-November. One thing to note, and in the map on this, you can see in the lower right area of the preserve is that cutout of those two parcels. Um, but you can also see the ownership, um, that makes this really nice partnership in this property. Alachua Conservation Trust does many innovative things in the area, and one thing that they're doing that's really innovative at Little Orange Creek Nature Preserve is, um, hosting the Creekside Environmental Education for Kids program each year. And, um, that is done with the Friends of Little Orange Creek, which is a CSO that's established there. Um, and they have approximately 1,700 students from the underserved schools in Gainesville and Putnam County, um, learning, basically, wetland and wildlife ecology at that site. So it's a really, really fantastic program they're implementing there. One of the other unique features of this purchase and sales agreement is that it includes more language about, um, title exceptions and contract exceptions than our standard option agreement does. And so this first slide lists, um, some of what we normally normally would call standard exceptions that we wouldn't even present to you because they're things that are typically just agreed to in our acquisitions. Um, and, uh, they relate to liens, um, zoning law limitations, flooding, uh, state or United States ownership over portions of the land associated with waterways. Um, so these are actually stated in the contract, which is a slightly different approach to the contract from what our normal option contract has in it, although we typically accept all of these things on all of our acquisitions. And similarly, the next, um, are also stated in the contract, but this particular subset allows us to, um, issue a title objection during due diligence. If one of them is revealed to be particularly, um, compromising to the value of the acquisition for the county or creates, um, excessive risk to the county. Our more normal method of presenting title exceptions to you is calling out, um, items from the title search that we feel are likely to be in place at the time that we close on the property. And that's what these are. Um, seven and eight are ordinances related to, with the city of Hawthorne's urban boundary. Um, nine is a easement on the west side of the parcel that the county is buying that provides the city of Hawthorne access north along that west boundary to get to their land that they owned, which was purchased with a Florida communities trust grant. And which is constrained by that grant to remain in, uh, conservation and natural recreation condition. So we don't perceive that to be a significant threat to the property value purchase price, uh, for the land. Um, 6,000, six, 6,000, $669,950 with approximately 49,212 for due diligence for a total expenditure request, including the 10% buffer contingency. Of seven hundred ninety one thousand and seventy eight dollars. And these are the recommendations. Um, move staff's recommendations and approve and authorize them to move forward with the purchase of this property. Okay. Got a motion to second. Commissioner Alpert. Uh, at a question. So, um, you said that you expected there to be some planting of longleaf with, is that what this originally was, was this longleaf sand till or was it a different sand till? And, and what other rest sand till restorations are, would we expect ACT to do besides just what would naturally occur after fire? Yeah. Uh, thank you, Mr. Chair. Excellent question. Um, so we do know that Alachua Conservation Trust has already acquired funding from the Florida Arbor Day Association, as well as another. Um, and I'm, I'm sorry, I'm forgetting the other donors name. They have already acquired land management funding to replant longleaf on this site. We do believe that historically this would have been a longleaf pine dominated site, particularly because it's very high and dry. Um, in terms of ground cover restoration, we do anticipate them to be doing, uh, management of the non-native invasive, uh, grass, Natal grass that's found on site. And they will probably need to wait to see whether or not additional plantings of ground cover is necessary, um, once the site is no longer being managed for plantation condition. Um, it does retain currently gopher tortoises on site and other native wildlife that are also imperiled and associated with that type of habitat. Um, but I, you know, the common practice is to give a little time to see what recovers from the soil seed bank before jumping in with more dramatic, um, interventions. And sometimes fire can lose things that, that are in the soil. So, uh, and I don't know how much wire Hauser has been doing in that area, but, uh, what, um, what are the, uh, um, plans if, if, uh, going forward with longleaf pine, would there be any future tempering or would we look to have old growth longleaf in perpetuity? Um, yep. Excellent question, Mr. Chair. Um, the management will be assigned to Alachua Conservation Trust. So, um, in general, their management strategy is to move towards, um, more highly diverse, not, um, managed for consumptive purpose habitat. There could be some cutting for management purpose. In, in all likelihood, there would be a common practices to plant the pines at a higher density to ensure survival. And there typically is at least one thinning that needs to occur. Once you have that stand, you can, it's revealed what survived from the planting, right? Whether or not they did additional plantings over time would really be dependent on the site conditions and how, how survival continues. Their strategy is typically not to be managing for revenue over, over time with sites like this. But, um, the management authority would rest with them for those decisions. Okay. Thank you. Appreciate it. Okay. Commissioner Wheeler. And just a quick question, um, as it reclaims itself, the gopher tortoises have come back. Is that what you're seeing there? There, there are actually gopher tortoises on site currently. So the, in theory, the population could expand because there would be a more diverse, um, herbaceous understory that they would be able to graze on. Um, but, you know, there are also other limiting factors that, that can affect how tortoise populations survive and move on a site. Our expectation would be that more diversity is going to yield a more stable and potentially larger population. I was just thinking is where we might relocate, you know, some of the tortoises that need to be relocated with the developments that are coming into some of these areas. I didn't know if there would be a possibility of doing something there like that, but I know they're territorial too. Right. And if there's already an established population there, that might be an issue. Yep. That's an interesting point, Mr. Chair. Um, so the, uh, the site wouldn't, is not established as a recipient site for gopher tortoises. When you translocate tortoises to a site, typically it does need to be an established recipient site. And there needs to often be, um, some kind of constraining barrier because the relocated tortoises will sometimes leave the site. Um, cause they will recognize it's not, you know, their, their territory that they're, they've been used to occupying. There can be, um, territorial effects between an established population and, and tortoises that are moved in. That depends on the density of the population on the site. Um, so it's not currently intended that this would be a recipient site though. I just, you know, it's dry. It is a dry and dry. So we don't have many of those in order to relocate some of those species. That's why I was curious. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I guess on that front, do we have any of our conservation lands certified as tortoise recipient sites? We do not do that. That's typically something you have certified and it's like a whole process and people pay a raise, a fair amount of money to migrate tortoises. But we aren't in that business currently. So what are we doing? Just eating them? I mean, you know. No, we don't. They move them. They have to move them to other sites, not ours. Well, where then? That's just what, no, I'm, I'm, I know that sand is sarcastic and it kind of was. Because, you know, if we're moving these things, we have no place to move them to. You know, why are we worried about protecting them if there's no place to move them to? Um. Hit it. Yes, Mr. Chair. It's an excellent question. Um, so none of the county, um, conservation land properties are established as tortoise recipient sites. And the, the sort of simplest answer to why that is, is that they all have established gopher tortoise populations. And you can't just cram more tortoises on just because the site is good. However, your question is very valid. Um, there are limited spaces for tortoises to be relocated to, um, not just in Alachua County, but throughout the southeastern United States. And having recipient sites established is something that's needed to prevent those animals from, um, perishing as a part of a permitted development with a fee paid for it. Thank you. Okay. Any further discussions? Are there any citizen comments to the motion that's on the floor? Okay. Seeing none. Back to the board. Those in favor of the motion vote by the sound of aye. Aye. Those opposed, same sign. Motion carries. Thank you very much. Thank you. Chair, that takes us to item K for public hearings. The first one is a special assessment district for quail street roadway chip seal improvements. Yeah. Let's talk about the issue at hand. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Yes. I see what you're saying. I see what you're saying. I see. I see what you're saying. I see. I got it. Give us an overview. Good afternoon, commissioners. Ramon Gavarrete, public works director. Um, generally this will be pretty fast, but we do have a gentleman, a resident today here that I'm sure is going to want to speak. Okay. So I'm going to have to actually go through a presentation this time. Um, this is a special assessment district. Uh, the board established this a few months ago, quail street email in Melrose. Um, the background is that again, the SID or SAD was created in accordance and according to the Florida statute, 197.3632 and also chapter 37 of the Alachua County court of ordinances. Um, the pre owners thought we followed the procedures. Petitions were made. Uh, we got the required responses. Uh, the estimated cost of time that we provided, uh, to the owners at first was $74,459. And the actual cost of the improvements came in at $62,133.16. You know, we cannot forget those 16 cents at the end. So, um, which, uh, yields a, a, a, a, um, a proposed, uh, special assessment, uh, assessment of $766.66 per policy per year. Um, this, um, the map that you're seeing right now on the, on the screen, commissioners, includes those properties that are included in the special implement, uh, district or special assessment district at this time. Um, there's actually more dimensions later in the, in the presentation. So I'm just gonna move, move on. Uh, this, I included this, uh, in the presentation as to give you an overhead, an overview of Quail Street. Quail Street is not a road that goes from a pay road to a pay road. It's a road that goes from a pay road to about, to over two miles of, before this ship's project of Lime Rock Road, because it goes from Quail Street to 255th Drive to 35th, uh, Avenue, and then to County Road 2198. So it's, it's a long road. Um, we, as far as this project, uh, we actually, uh, went further south than South, than South Street, because those were the property owners that, uh, wanted to be included in the district. Just to give you an idea, commissioners, what you see on the map here is this long road that you see here, where my cursor is going. I don't know if you can see the cursor on the screen. You can. This is, Quail Street is just to about this point right there. Then it goes to, to on Northeast 255th Drive to about this point here. And then it turns into Northeast 35th Avenue, which then connects to County Road 2198. This entire road from, from road, say road 26, all the way to County Road 2198 is Lime Rock Road, with the exception of the cheap seal surface that we already did. So this is just the final cost, uh, that we just provide. These are pictures commissioners, uh, for before and then during construction. And now we are on how it looks today. These pictures were actually taken this past Friday on July 4th. I had staff went out there and I wanted some pictures for this presentation. Um, unfortunately the state of Florida does have a, uh, paving project right now on state road 26. And the contractor Whitehurst decided to mill into our cheap seal, uh, surface. And now there's potholes developing there. So the state of Florida has been already notified that they have to repair those things. Uh, I believe what's going to happen is they're actually going to pave the surface, not just cheap seal the surface. So maybe at the end of the day, the turning rate is going to be better. But unfortunately right now they have damaged what, what we had done back in April. Um, and you can see a little bit more of the potholes right here in this picture. And again, we have already communicated this with the state of Florida, with DOT. These are pictures looking south going on Quail street. Um, and then commissioners, what you see here, this is a driveway to the last property on the special assessment district, which if you go by the tax roll is, uh, the, the property owner last name is Bero B E R R O. Um, the stakes that you see here, the distance are the end of the cheap seal surface right now. So I asked my staff, I said, give me a dimension from the driveway, from the southern edge of the driveway, Mr. Barrows, all the way to the southern boundary line of tougher property. There's 48 feet, uh, approximately 48 feet from his, uh, southern port line of driveway to this stake, which is his property corner. In addition to that, the cheap seal actually do extend approximately 15 feet south from that property line. So we went a little bit further for the transition, uh, to be able to do that. So you can see, I see a little bit more clearly in this picture, the dimensions. You went to that, you went to that stake. Excuse me, sir. Yeah, go ahead. So I, I drove this yesterday. Did you go to the stake? I saw there was a stake there. Yeah. These stakes that you see here were set actually by our surveyors on Friday. Right. So 15, 14 and a half feet more, uh, past the property line. Yeah, I saw that. Okay. Thank you. In addition to that, we actually placed some, uh, about a hundred feet extra of millings. Uh, this picture doesn't look that great because quite frankly, lime rock is being dragged on top of the millings. Uh, you know, it rained, it has been raining. So there's a lot of being a material being dragged on the millings. Um, in addition to the issues that I'm sure a few of you might have, uh, been aware already of, uh, of the ending of the, in the dust. We did get a letter of objection yesterday, uh, from Mr. Sherwood, which is the first property at the intersection of state road 26 and quail street on the west side of the property. It's a, it's a square property piece of property. Mr. Sherwood actually sent us this letter. We, uh, I was, uh, we received it yesterday. Uh, one of the items that Mr. Sherwood is, uh, contesting is he in his letter. I don't have as much frontage as other of my neighbors. My neighbors have more frontage than I do, but yet I'm paying the same as my, the rest of my represents. And I understand that your chapter 37 of your code of order and says that it has to be. Based on the trip generation from the ITE to interpretation engineers manual. That is based on number of dwellings. If you have a residential dwelling, the average trip per day is 9.7, 9.8 trips per day period. Doesn't matter if you have a property that is 50 acres. If you have one dwelling, that's what it's based on. So in layman terms, this assessment is based on number on, on one property, one assessment, not on the frontage that you have. Uh, again, we follow your code of order and assess by the ITE trip generation. There are actually two properties commissioners that actually agreed to be part of this SID, even though they don't have direct access to Quail Street. They actually are accessing from State Road 26. Uh, the bank is one of them. And then the other property that surrounds, uh, Mr. Sherwood's property. Um, again, they're all being assessed the same. The bank, technically, their driveway is off State Road 26. But they're still going to be assessed at $766, just like the other property owners. And they have agreed to that. So the assessment, uh, Mr. Sherwood was provided several opportunities, several informations as to what the assessment was going to be. At first, it was going to be more than what it is. Okay, like I said, we, uh, originally the estimate was around $74,000 and came in around $10,000 less. So I just wanted the commission to understand, to know the facts. There is a letter of objection, which I'm sure we're going to respond. And part of the response is going to be that the board does have actually a process also to actually to apply for hardship on a special assessment district. So that's going to be included in the letter that we're going to include to Mr. Sherwood responding. Um, but once again, all the property owners were notified following your procedures. Several notices were sent out. Assessments were provided, estimates of assessment, and the staff actually did ship seal the area that is in front of the assessment properties. We did go 14 and a half feet, 15 feet further for the transition. And then we actually placed millings for about a hundred feet, uh, uh, south of the property line. So staff recommends to the board to adopt the resolution establishing and imposing a non-valorment assessment for roadway improvements to Quail Street, specifying the unit measurement for the assessment and the amount of the assessment, which is currently $766.66 per property per year for a 10 year period. So that's my presentation, Mr. Chair, and I'm here to answer any questions. Okay, we have Commissioner Cornell and then Commissioner Pritzinger. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, so, Commissioner, I don't, if y'all are, have y'all driven this road? Okay, you know this road. Yeah, this is the road that actually goes to the wildfire park. And the one that I've heard, the biggest complaint I've heard is dust. So this has got to improve, I would think, dust from at least those, those blocks. I know staff's been working on this for over two years and, um, and certainly the, the, the dust will still remain because it's lime rock once it's passed. I don't really know how to solve that other than lime rocking the entire road. Um, I think staff's done a really good job addressing as many concerns as possible. Um, I think it is less than what we anticipated it being that everyone agreed to. I think it has solved some of the problems. Um, I think one of the individuals that lives on that street is in a, um, electric, uh, wheelchair. And I know it's helped with that situation. And so, uh, you know, I'd love to hear if there's another suggestion. I, I got some emails from Mr. Bonazzoli, um, but I don't know how to fix the dust problem. Um, that's coming from the area south of what they did. I appreciate going an extra 15 feet. I don't think you had to do that. That has to help a little bit, but it certainly isn't going to solve that problem until the rest of the road is either paved or chip sealed. So I would move staff's recommendation. Second. Motion and second. Commissioner Prisian. Yeah. I, I, I mean, I hear you. We can't control dust. It rains. There's no dust. It doesn't rain. There's lots of dust. Um, and it did go all the way to the end of all the property lines. I guess I would love for us to have some kind of an established, like maybe we can establish what that distance we, you know, I think it's good that we go past the property line proper so that they get the full extent of the quality of the roadway on their property. And that we have a good transition. So I, I guess it, but I think that communicating that for future projects, like if it's going to meet a limestone, what our process is like having a standard distance that we chip seal and then millings that we do. I know sometimes it'll change based on the project, but a minimum maybe that we could establish that we could communicate so that it's just clear. I think the more information we transmit upfront, the less there'll be issues in the back end. So I would just other than staff recommendation just recommend us adding a standard, you know, sort of transition process to roadways that are meeting lime rock or dirt unpaved roadways for future projects. Do you have a recommendation for that? Uh, Mr. Chair, yes, if I may. Um, this chip seal project was different than many of them ones that we have done. Usually we go from a paved road to a paved road. Right. Or from a paved road to already a chip seal surface. So transitions are anywhere between 10 to 20 feet or so, depending on the conditions. We know whether you have an uphill or downhill or flat. So 15 feet is right there in that transition area that we do. In addition to that, I actually asked my road, my road staff to actually add millings also for another 100 feet. Actually, the measure was 120 feet from my, by my surveyors onto, on Friday. Um, so anywhere between 10 to 20 feet is usually a transition because the edge is always going to get messed up. So you, I mean. Yeah. So it sounds like we have, it sounds like we have a method. I think all Commissioner Prizzi is asking is that included in the motion is that we communicate. Um, we communicate that to those that are being assessed. Is that right? And, and, and, and that's a good suggestion. Yeah. Okay. I'll add that to the motion. A good recommendation. Okay. Got a motion a second. Any further discussions? Are there any, I'm, I'm getting to you, sir. Yes, sir. Yeah. Come on up. Yeah. Any further comments at this time to the motion? One that I guess you might say started this whole process over two years ago. Uh, I sent you all a picture, an email picture of the current conditions for Mr. Barrow, who as it turns out is the last one on the southern end and he's not being protected from the dust. I was repeatedly assured that he would be. And the reason that there's millings at the southern end is because they removed the chips, the lime rock, because they were going to go further and do what they promised to do. They also prepared the embankment and anybody that wants to get on there and take a look, it's so clearly obvious. They prepared the embankment, et cetera, to go far enough to protect Mr. Barrow. I've got numerous emails assuring me that this would happen. The day they were doing the chip seal, of course, I was there. I've been there through the whole process. All of a sudden they stopped well short. It took a long time to find out what, what really happened. Because when I got Brian Kaufman on the phone, well, I had to make a line somewhere. No, that's not what happened at all. What happened is at the last minute, Ramon changed his mind and said, no, we're not going any further. And the reason he changed his mind from what I'm being told is because Ramon was concerned that if he went any further than the last person's property line, somehow we, the people that are paying, would be upset. Oh, geez, you went beyond. Not only is no one upset, but every one of us, every homeowner that voted for this wants it to be done fairly. We're less than upset. We're upset because Mr. Barrow is not being protected from the dust. Asphalt leavings is not the solution. The solution is to extend the chip seal as has been promised all along. We're all going to pay approximately $8,000 for what was done. And what was done for the people further north is it got rid of the dust. Do we have a nice road? We do not have a nice road. It's bumpy. But it got rid of the dust. We'll accept that. He is contesting the price we're paying. Now, Sherwood, you know, I'm not here to talk about his beef suddenly as to the price. But I will say this. When this whole thing was first put together, it was going to be we were all going to pay a different price depending on how much frontage we had. Then it was changed. The reasoning being we're all using the road. We'll all pay the same. Okay. Okay, fine. We accepted that. But this is why Mr. Sherwood is upset. Because initially, Mr. Barrow has a very narrow lot. Guy to my north, Sexton, has three and a half acres. They're both going to pay the same. Whether you feel that's fair or not, it really doesn't, you know, that's not why I'm here. But you've got Mr. Barrow with a very narrow lot. He's going to pay the same $8,000. And he is not being protected from the dust. And none of us want that. All of us voted. All of us sent you, the commissioners, a letter within the past two weeks. Everyone saying this is unfair. This is not what we want. And the solution to this is so simple. You simply extend the chip seal. You can go 50 feet, whatever. To go to where the leavings, as they're called, stops, it's about 84 feet. And that's how far the embankment is also. And the reason, again, is because this is what they were going to do all along until Ramon changed his mind at the last minute. I damn near had a heart attack that day. I couldn't believe it when they stopped there. And started frantically calling and emailing everyone. Because, you know, it would have been easy to fix then. You had the crew. You had everything right there. Just go a little further. So I'm going to have to ask you to conclude, sir. The chip seal was laid in January. Right away, it left this unresolved issue. There was talk about doing this. There was talk about doing that. I've been very patient. I waited six months waiting to see what's going to happen. I finally sent an email to public works saying, you know, what's going on? Turns out that the certified mail that was sent to each one of us homeowners crossed in the mail, you might say. So I was invited to a meeting with public works two weeks ago yesterday, which, you know, I was belittled. I was, you know, it was just, it was just awful. It was just, I was treated terribly. And so, again, the point is, is it fair for Mr. Barrow to not be protected from the dust? The procedure seems to be if you happen to be the last guy, you're going to get dust. Oh, well, sorry. Well, the simple solution is we simply extend the chip seal in this and every case coming forward far enough so that everyone is protected. It's not a big deal. It would take so little to fix this and make it right. A day's work, day and a half, everything's ready. The embankment, the leavings, just pick them up. So I'm here for Mr. Barrow and every one of us that voted for this sent you an email, each one of them separately, because we all want this to be fair. Right now it is not fair. It's not fair at all. I mean, if you have any questions, you know, I've been there through the whole thing and I'm happy to answer them, happy to, you know. And so I feel that the vote to move forward and, you know, send us the bills should be delayed until this is fixed, because once you approve it, I can guarantee you nothing will ever get done. I hate to say, but, you know, now that I've been dealing with public works for two years, man, I'll tell you, you know, I haven't been well treated. You know, I mean, there's been falsehoods, there's been, it just hasn't been pleasant at all. And I don't trust them anymore. At the meeting two weeks ago, Ramon, you told me that you would go the next morning. Sir, sir, please make your comments to the chair. Okay. Thank you, sir, please. Ramon told me that he would go the next morning, that Tuesday morning, and look at the road, and that he would give me a decision by Friday. Well, Friday, geez, you've run out the clock. We only had 20 days. Monday was the last day to object. And I didn't hear from Ramon until Friday. Then I get an email saying, oh, you know, your neighbor to the north, your neighbor to the north. Well, first of all, it's the neighbor to the south. So right away, I got to thinking, I don't think Ramon went. I don't think he ever even took a look, even though he said he would. Well, sure enough, when he sent his two men down on Friday to take pictures, didn't they admit to me, no, Ramon never went to look. We're taking pictures for Ramon. Well, this is just another example of a falsehood. He didn't go look. But once he said no on Friday, I figured, you know, I'm done with Ramon. You know, I need to appeal to you. And what I'm asking you is to make this situation fair. It would be a very small job to extend the chip seal far enough, as they were going to do, to take care of Mr. Barrow. And this thing with leavings, leavings do not work. They're there now. They don't work. And you saw the picture that I sent you. It's on my phone. If anyone would like another look, I'd be happy to hand you my phone. To approve this as it is, it's wrong. It's just plain wrong. And I thank you for your time. Okay. Thank you. Do you have any questions? Yes. I have some. I don't know if there are questions, though. But no. Okay. Commissioner Cornell, Commissioner Wheeler, and then Commissioner Preeza. Are we going to go ahead and do that and not hear the rest of the public comment? I thought that was the only one. No. Yeah. One public comment. Is there any other public comment that was wrong? Because there were other citizens here. He said there was other citizens. Oh, okay. I'll be the only one here, Dave. Okay. All right. Sorry. I misunderstood. Commissioner Cornell, and then Wheeler, and then Commissioner Preeza. So, Ramon, you said that the amount due came in at $10,000 below what we had estimated? Yes, Commissioner. What would it cost to extend at 85 feet? Would it come in at basically what we originally? It would be. It would be less than the $10,000, most likely. Is that something that we're able to do? Well, let me, if I may, Mr. Chair. Yes. The board needs to make a decision. Here's the issue. You're going to pay, if you're going to extend the cheap steel surface on this one, this will create now the new standard for any cheap steel road that is going to be ended. I don't want to do that. In the middle of a lime rock road. I don't want to create a precedent. Yeah. No, I was just thinking if that, if, I was thinking if what we had estimated could be still done under budget to solve this issue, then, you know, I'm happy to do that. If that makes everybody happy. That's fine. I don't want to send a new precedent, though. I mean, if the issue is that when you have a paved road connecting boat and $8,000 because they're sired of the dust on their property and what's needed in order to resolve the dust issue is an additional 50 foot of paved road, then that becomes our new standard for how we pave roads. Oh, that was kind of the essence of your. That was the essence of my question. Like, what is a. How do we create a minimum distance or a set distance that we pave in order to ameliorate the issue? I mean, there aren't that. Like he said, most of these are pavement to pavement. So there's not a lot of. Pavement to pavement. There's no issue. It's really when there's a dirt road. Okay. I'm happy to authorize that extension. Yes. Um, the board also needs to be aware that if you extend the payment beyond those that are already in the special assessment district, there's going to be one or two property owners that are going to are going to enjoy also a cheap seal surface without paying anything into the assessment district. We had a similar issue, not 100% like that previously, and the board ended up forgiving an entire special assessment district. Um, so I'm just need the board to understand if we're going to be doing this. Yeah. So I, I hear you loud and clear, Ramon. I think this is a unique situation in that the, um, that was to create a chip seal road. This is one where we're trying to, the only reason we're doing it is to alleviate the dust. Um, and so as I don't feel like we're creating a precedent if the reason that we're doing it is for dust, it, there will be, um, like on this property, there's two property owners, but they are large property owners, correct? Like they're going to receive a partial benefit, but not like a complete benefit. Well, Mr. Chair, if I could to, to that point, if they're not included in the assessment, then they're receiving the benefit that they're not paying for. But you also cannot include it in the assessment that is being established for the owners that are paying for that because that's not their benefit. It is outside of the assessment area that you have established. So we will pay for that. So as the county, and we will be paying to provide that benefit to a property owner that is not part of the assessment. So just. Yeah. I'm okay with extending, which we can do, but less than 10 grand if it makes all eight of them happy. I don't want to create a precedent. Um, and I would just ask as the second part of that motion, which was Commissioner Prizzi is that when we're doing chip seal onto a lime rock road that we perhaps extend the period from 15 feet to something a little bit longer. We'll leave that to stop. Okay. Commissioner Wheeler. Yes. I just. It's Mr. Barrow's property that we're concerned about. Is he paying the full price of the assessment too? Mr. Chair, yes. All the property owners are paying the same amount, 766.66. Okay. But his complaint is that he's not getting the same quality that the others are? Is that what the question is? Okay. So I, I guess I, I'm trying to understand what we have done to set this up so that he would not be happy with the amount of money that he's have, you know, what he's getting for the amount of money he's paying. Try again, Ramon. I'm sorry. Mr. Chair, um, you established an improvement district a few months ago based on the responses that we got and the limits of the chip seal project are set at that time. It hasn't changed. The only thing we did was to transition to be able to protect that edge. If not, five to ten feet all the time, it's always going to be getting damaged. So it hasn't changed. The limits haven't changed. I know what you heard today from Mr. Buonzoli. By the way, I did go out with Mr. Don Clifton, the role superintendent, the last Tuesday, the last Board of County Commissioners meeting that we had when we all headed to Orlando that day. So I did go out there to look at it. And then I did ask my staff about statements that Mr. Buonzoli said my staff did. And so the decision then that I was made on Friday, like I had promised Mr. Buonzoli that I was going to do, was based on the comments and the responses that I got to those inquiries. Plus the fact that I personally did go out there, made a field review with Mr. Don Clifton, the role superintendent. My job as your director is just to caution the Board. You and the Board are going to make a decision and staff is going to do what you told us to do. But once again, if we extend the limits of the chip seal to then include more properties, again, there are going to be properties that are not part of USID that are going to be benefiting from the chip seal service. And then, like your accounting manager says, from what I've heard from legal already, was that that extra cost is going to have to be paid by Alachua County and not by the SID. Well, I'm okay with extending it 50 feet and charging the SID because the reason we're doing it is for the dust. Is that, is that, can we do that, Sylvia? Can we define that as the benefit? So maybe you could have to begin with. But my understanding is that that is physically beyond where you've drawn the dust. Oh, we can't do that now? That's my understanding. All right. Legal. Okay. I understand. Commissioner Wheeler? Yeah, I guess I'm still puzzled by the quality of the work that is not being done, that's being paid the same that everybody else is getting. If it's not the same, but you're saying it is the same and it just happens to be close enough to the dirt road that that's impacting what we've done? Mr. Chair, the entire road from State Road 26 to the end of the chip seal is a chip seal surface. There's always going to be the people at the end closer to the lime rock that are still going to be getting dust. Okay. Okay, I see. I understand. I understand. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. No, sir. I can only give you one shot at it. I'm sorry. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, no, sir. I'm sorry. Well, if we ask for the citizen to respond, we can do that. Yes? I don't know. We have to ask the attorney. I don't think that that's what they're saying. They're saying that the boundary has been set and that was it. So, Mr. Chair, if you're asking whether he can step up and speak, then this is the chair's meeting to run. Right. So that is your choice. But as to whether we can actually add improvements outside of the district into the cost that you're assessing property owners in the district, you may not do that. No, you cannot do it because it's been set. The fee has been set, right? Right. The physical boundaries, the geographic boundaries of the district has been run. But it was based on the fee too, right? I think, and I would have to pull up the ordinance, but I think what we decide, now you can certainly assess higher than that. But I think what we decided in our ordinance was that once you give an estimate, you're not going over that estimate as far as what you charge them. And that would be what would be charged on the property owner's basis. I'm not particularly concerned about the cost. Okay, gotcha. I'm concerned about the physical. I'm concerned about the physical limits of the district and about other property owners getting benefit and shifting that cost from those other property owners on to the people who are being assessed, other properties that are being assessed. Okay. Commissioner Wheeler, you conclude? No, I just wanted to ask Mr. Bonazzoli a question about his involvement with Mr. Barrows. He's out of town. Does he live out of the area? We can. But this is his homesteaded. Yes, it is. That's what I think. I remember reading that too, because you and I have talked a couple of times on the phone about all of this. I didn't realize that you were advocating for your neighbor too. So is there something else that we have missed? Well, something that you've missed is that this whole process as it currently stands is flawed, as Ramon has admitted. Well, but you have specific answers for what we've been talking about up here. So whoever is the last guy in line as currently set up is not going to be protected. That's a flawed system. Okay. Everyone that's paying should be protected. Okay. Okay. I got you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Okay. Commissioner Prisian. Well, I guess I want to say one thing that's general and then I'll say something specific about this project. In general, I think that from now on, I will never be voting for another special assessment district again. Not that aren't established at the outset of a development because they don't work. We've always had this issue. We've always had every single time we have in a special assessment district, there's some kind of problem. And so there's either a problem with the process because we have issues with the way that communication happens and how clearly communication happens. It like happens in bites and steps and it's confusing to citizens. So we either need a much smoother, much easier to communicate and much easier to understand process for these things, which I would ask that we consider. If the board wants me to make that motion, I will. Or to add it to the motion, I'd be happy to. Otherwise, I think we should stop doing these things altogether because they just cause issues and conflict. I understand that it's citizen-led, but it's one or two citizens always on a road that lead the initiative because they don't like the situation. Then they talk their other neighbors into it. Their other neighbors do it. And then somebody is mad about some kind of issue. It's happened every time. I mean, I've only sat through two or three of these, but they're never smooth. They're never happy. And there's always issues with like, we didn't know we were going to have to pay for this. And we didn't know we were going to have to pay for that. And we're being nickel and dimed here. And I didn't get the value. And it happens. I know it's not staff's fault, except that I will say that what is staff's fault is that it's not being clearly communicated. All the costs up front aren't being clearly communicated. All of that part. No, because I've had the experience with multiple where I was like, you have to pay for the mailing. Now you have to pay for the survey. Now you have to pay for the second mailing. Now you have to pay for the paving. Like, I just think we need like, this is how much it's going to be, period, the end. This is how long it's going to take. This is exactly the spaces we're going to put, we're going to pave. This is the deal. And I feel like that never happens. This happens every time. And that may not be staff's fault exactly. But it's, then it's nobody's fault. And they're just a bad idea. Well, yeah, if I could. They could just hire somebody privately to pave their road. Like we don't have to. They can't. It's a county road. That's that, so that, I wish that were the case. If it were a private road, you're absolutely right. But in this case, this was something that this group of citizens were attempting to deal with the dust. And I think staff tried. I really think they tried to deal with the dust. And I think all but the last one, it has improved the dust situation. I think what you added to the, to the motion is a really good one, which is to, to, to communicate, even though this is where the property ends, we're going to go this far. Right 50. Everybody understands this is how far we're going. It's not going to solve the dust problem. It's going to help the dust problem. And I think that's a great addition. I mean, I, I hear what you're saying. And there is always issues with the special improvement districts, but they're usually citizen led. I mean, I, I'll tell you on my road, it's the worst road. It's as bad as Wakahuta. And the majority of my neighborhood wants to do an SID to improve that road. And so, um, is everybody going to be happy? No, but most people are going to be happy. And we, it's the only process we have because it's a county road. It's literally the only process. So I think staff that did a good job. You know what, what Mr. Um, but as Ellie, what's lost here is the, the nuance. Cause I just learned about it. The nuance of the legality of we can only go so far. We can only go so far because otherwise we've got to include that neighbor and you didn't get that neighbor. Now that's going to affect dust. I wish, you know, and so maybe we didn't communicate that as well. Um, and, and we can seek to do that better, but I think staff did a great job on this. And I know they've spent a lot more time and effort than $62,000. And, um, for some of the people like the lady in the, the reason I wanted to do this was I wanted to respond to the citizens, reduce the dust. But also there was a lady that basically has an electric wheelchair and I've watched her go around the, the lime rock potholes in the rain. I was like, this is going to fix that. And this has fixed that. So, um, you know, I, I hear your frustration and I, and I've had it too, but I don't, I don't want to abandon SIDs when citizens ask for them. Well, I think, then I think we need a much, then I would like to ask that we refer to staff to review the process for an SID and come up with suggested improvements to the process to, to improve communication and, and options for different types of roads. Like these, where it's connecting to an unimproved road or it's connecting to a dirt or lime star, a rock road and think about these. And it may be that we have, if we have to incur some of that cost, it's a county road and it's going to, for every SID that we do on an unpaved road, it's going to cost us a couple thousand dollars. Then it's going to cost us communications. Well, that'll be part three of my, of my motion. Yeah. And I say we go ahead and extend it. I'm with you. I think we just go ahead and do it. And, and have the public pay for it. It's our road. I'm okay. Spending an extra 10 grand to solve for 50 feet to solve it for the, for the entire public ever. I'm, I'm fearful that this road actually is going to be continuously in front of us because there's a lot of stuff happening on this road. So I'm okay with us making a public purpose that we need to extend this 50 feet. Um, but it's not outside. It's outside the SID. It has to be outside the SID. So that's, that's, I think part four, I mean, that'd be part four that we, that we do this. Okay. Yeah. Ramon, you said about 10 grand for 50 feet. I would say plus or minus probably less than that commissioners. Uh, there's already, uh, asked for millions, uh, on there. So actually the plan would be just to go there, scarify that the top a little bit, level it out and possibly just put, and possibly just put tack and then put the rock on top. So it'll be less than the 10 grand. Um, but I'm going to let the cat out of the bag here a little bit. One of the issues that we do have with the SIDs, and I agree with Commissioner Preece on this, are the fees. Is what? Are the fees. It's a fee here, a fee there. And that's following your adopted procedures and fee schedule, by the way, not staff. So one of the things that is coming back to the board with the budget cycle on the fees is there's going to be one fee only at the beginning for the petition. That's it. After that, all the actual costs are going to be rolled into the SID cost. That's a good idea. Okay. Uh, so that's coming to the board. So I want you to know. And if the board would like us to come back and maybe later, maybe have a little workshop as they decide this is the process. Because the staff is following the process as a statute and in your procedures. All right. So three part motion. Staff's recommendation. Part two is the second part you're already bringing back, but to work on communication and seeing if there's ways to improve it. And then part three is outside the SID, extend the chip seal 50 feet and use your reserves or whatever, whatever, whatever public works has to do. Communication and process because he's actually working on improving process. Yeah. Communication and process. So three part motion. Who seconded it? Seconded it. Are you okay with that? Okay. Commissioner Alfred. I'm going to go ahead and get to the points of special assessment districts as well. And also to the, uh, make a point of the fact that having dealt with a lot of neighborhood meetings over the course of my career, there are always going to be people that are unhappy no matter what happens, you know, and they're very loud sometimes, but that's just how it is. And it's just part of the, part of the deal. But anyway, that's all I was going to say. New manager. Mr. Chair, um, I was only going to add, we do provide an estimate to them of what the cost will be early on in the process. The point we're at now is now that we have the final cost, we're setting the assessment at that final number, but we provide estimates and as well as estimates of how it will be assessed. As you see the, um, timeline that, um, Mr. Graverette put up, um, you know, we noticed them that it would be equal payments and we've, you know, we give estimates. So we do the best we can to let them know what they're looking at when they make this decision. And that 50 feet is around whatever you, you, when you ground through the fifth, it's 52 or 48, you know, whatever you, whatever makes sense. So approximately 50. Right. And then when we get to this point, this is when we know the actual cost. So now we're setting the actual number. Got it. Okay. I guess it's my turn. Um, uh, I, I can go back, um, I guess early on and I guess my terms as a county commissioner and, um, I'll never forget that we paves, uh, did a chip seal road in Newberry. Yeah. Well, no, no, no, no. Yeah. Newberry. That's what started it. Right. Newberry. And then we got Mrs. Blake and her folks to come to us and say, Hey, you all did the city of Newberry free, but now you're going to charge us an assessment for the chip seal roads. And they paid it for a while. And then they came back to us asking us again to correct that. And we, and we did. And that was at the point I felt like commissioner Prizio just said, because we're not going to make anybody happy. Period. Not with a chip seal road. Period. Because some people want to pay and some people don't want to pay. And they feel like they're left out, uh, because their road didn't get paid. Well, you didn't pay for it. And that's why I voted. I think back then I voted to do away with, uh, chip seal roads. I just voted. No, I just didn't think that I would be able to support it again because of the issues and the problems. And I don't think that this is going to go away at all. Period. Because just what we see today, we will see in the future. I just want to state that. And I'm going to say that today I am not going to support the motion. So I just going to make that known because I think that this is a serious issue with chip sealing roads, uh, because we're not going to satisfy citizens. And if we set a process, we have to follow that process. We can't keep changing a process every time somebody comes and speak out against it. And now we've setting presidents again on something else. And I just don't think it's right. And I don't think it's fair. If, if you want it, pay for it. If you don't want it, stop complaining. That's just that simple. And, um, I don't know what else to say, but I, I don't think we're going to solve anything with chip seal roads with folks, uh, with a special assessment and people, uh, feeling left out or feel like, uh, they don't want to pay for it. So I just don't think it's fair and I, and I will stick to it. And so I guess, um, I'm going to stick to it from now on, as long as I'm here on the board that chip seal comes, I'm going to vote no. So, um, so I'll just take that for the record, uh, because I just don't think we're going to be able to solve it. We're going to have these same issues again. So, so, uh, commissioner Wheeler again, I just wanted to say, no, I'm sorry, Alfred, I'm sorry, Alfred Wheeler and Cornell. Okay. I just had one quick question. So how would this work? Should so wildflowers music parks down this road, am I right? Yeah. So, and so if they come along later and want to pave the whole thing, how will that then affect this special assessment district? And the fees charged because or chip seal the whole thing, or, um, I, I, you know, I mean, cause there's potentially going to be a lot of traffic at during certain periods of time down the road. And so I'm curious how that would work. So, so Mr. Chair, I, what I would say is in my time, we've never had that happen. I don't suppose it could happen. Um, these are sunk costs. It is for county road though. So if the county, you know, we have forgiven these on county roads, we potentially have a process where you could do this on private roads. We couldn't let you do that. Forgive those because those are the public paying for something private, but this is certain members of the public paying for a public road. So theoretically you could forgive it at that point. Um, but not automatically. These were sunk costs and they had the benefit of it for the time it was there. Okay. I was just, I was just curious because it seemed like that could potentially happen. Okay. Thank you. Commissioner Wheeler. And then. Yeah. I was just talking about the wildfowl saying, God, we're putting the, the cart for the horse on that. We haven't even talked about all of that. No, we haven't, but it's still a potential potentiality. Just saying we haven't seen anything yet. And we, we're going to see, we're going to be hearing from people, you know, who aren't excited about it too. So I don't think it's something we can count on, although you can certainly anticipate if you want to, but I just, Ramon, I feel like we have put you in a, in a bad situation with the road stuff. I'm, you think, I think you have the hardest position to lead in, in the whole county because of the roads. Everybody wants a road. Everybody's demanding the roads. We don't have the money up front to do the roads and we have rules that we set in place that we try to stick to. And then we ask you to stick to it and you're better at sticking to rules than the rest of us are. And so I feel like that, you know, and we have put you in awkward situations and there's a lot of tension that goes with what it is you're trying to respond. And it's a lot easier for us up here to say, oh yeah, we'll just change it, just fix it. And the reason I wanted to talk to Mr. Bonazzoli again is that I wanted to make sure he had his day in court. You know, he, so that he had the opportunity to say everything he wanted to say that we had the opportunity to, to hear what he had to say. But at the same time, I understand exactly what it is you're trying to do. You're trying to hold the line for us, whether we are willing to step over the line or not. You are willing to tow it for us. And I appreciate that. So, and your staff. And I know you're willing to do anything we've asked you to do because we've asked you to do amazing things in the last year. And you've done it. And I think that's one of the reasons we keep asking you to fix it because we know you always do. And so, to be fair, I just want you to know that, that I think we put you in an awkward position, not only with the board and what's going on, but with the, with the public. And I, I don't want to set you up that way. I don't think the board wants to set you up that way either. So, thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to reiterate Commissioner Wheeler's point. Ramon, you and your staff, I think, have done a great job. And I so appreciate the interactions. I think we're, I think we're solving Mr. Bonazelli's problem today as best we can. They're getting an extra 50 feet that we probably should have done. We, not Ramon, we should have done on the front end. So, I think that's really good. But I got to talk to Chuck. Chuck, don't, don't, don't give me an absolute because if I bring you one for my neighborhood, I want you to at least consider it. I think the, the, the problem between chip seal and paved is, and you're right. A million dollars or so. It's a lot of money. And so, everyone says, okay, well, let's just chip seal it. And then what happens is after five years, like you said, it starts to fall apart. And then they're like, we paid for this road. And, and, but you know, that's a, that's back to what Commissioner Prizia says. We have to communicate, look, we can pave it under an SID. It'll cost a million dollars or, and last this long. Or we can chip seal it and it'll cost a couple hundred thousand, but it's not going to last as long. Does everybody understand that? So, I think, I think if the citizens want to extra tax themselves for the benefit, let's, let's just communicate it up front. And if my neighborhood comes to you, I'm going to say, Chuck, I know you said you'd never do it, but maybe make an exception. So, we'll see. We'll see. Okay. All right. But today, no. But today, no. Okay. I guess I, I'm interested to also to understand, like, if there are, you know, on some of our roads, we're doing like maintenance stuff. You know, we put like a coating on them so they last longer, things like that. Like, I don't know if any of that applies to chip sealed roads at all. But I do think that I just want to also be clear that if there are maintenance things that can be done for chip sealed roads and those maintenance costs can also be built into an SID so that they get the maintenance and upkeep built into their SID. Because right now, it's like, we pave it and then we walk away. Can I respond to her? So, when all this came up, we actually, it was under an eye block. So, it was before the manager. And he brought forward, let's put a half a million dollars into our three or four million dollar road budget and let's chip seal roads. We can do a lot more roads. And so, that was a whole discussion. And we actually almost got that done through the budget cycle because we paved some of them in Newberry and then we did Miss Blake. And then we decided as a board collectively, kind of what Chuck said, which is no more chip seals because they don't last long enough. People, they don't hold up. You know, we can't, it's not going to be a 30-year road. It's going to fall apart. And so, let's just, so that's when we stopped doing chip seals. So, a lot of our SIDs, why? If I may. Yeah, go ahead. If I may. Yes, the history is sort of correct. Yes, we did have a half a million dollar a year chip seal program at one time. And we did a lot of those roads. By the way, a question was asked, what do we do now? I can tell you that road staff this year and last year, we did what we call fog seal, some of them already. We're actually looking at having to go and put some sealant and maybe another layer of rock on some of them already. And that's been done on the maintenance. So, yes, if we're going to bring to the board a revised procedure, well, probably going to be adding in there the option of include maintenance in there just like you do for the new subdivisions. So, that might have to be there, which means SIDs, SADs are going to be more expensive. And that will be up to the board to decide. So, yes, we did have a program of half a million dollar one time per year. The other thing that the board did many years ago before I got here was establish the standards for chip seal. They're actually called unimproved roadways still. And the reason is that once you put asphalt on it, real asphalt, then it becomes a paved and improved roadway. And then that has a lot more meanings when it comes to licenses, liability, and other issues. So, that's one reason why we don't just go straight to paving. Because, for example, in this road, we would have to clear the entire right of way. Those rails would have had to most likely do stormwater retention and other type of treatments. That's part of the reason why paved roads are way more expensive than chip seal roads. So, those sort of, and yes, by the way, when people ask what's the difference, we do tell them the difference. So, communication does happen, Commissioner. It's just that usually you have one person communicating with us, not the entire neighborhood. That one person is the one that goes and communicates on behalf of the property owners. Do send mail us like you see on my list, following your procedures, following your steps. And we communicate everything in writing also to all the property owners. Whether they read the notices or not, I'm sorry. But there are multiple notices that are sent, multiple mail us that are done when it comes to a chip seal project. But we are going to bring back to the board the policy and procedure because maybe we all might need a refresher on how things are getting done. But if the board wants to actually include maintenance costs in there, I'll be the first one to say, yes, let's do it. It'll be up to the board to say yes. But we'll bring back that to the board. But, again, I just want the board and the public to understand, staff follow procedure, staff did communicate, staff provided the limits, staff provided the cost. And, yes, we're always going to be a little bit on the high side when we first give a cost because you don't know what's going to happen. In this case, usually when you already have lime rock on a road, we're still going to assume that we're going to have to put in eight inches of lime rock. So a lot of the savings are on the lime rock because maybe we don't have to bring all that in. And, yes, we've had some issues with cheap steel roads before. But, Commissioner, we have done many cheap steel roads in these projects where you only come here due to assessment and nobody ever comments. So I don't want the board and the public to say just because we had one or two where people do come and have concerns that we need to go ahead and throw the entire program out. So I just caution that as the director for that, cheap steel roads have their purpose and when to do it. Maybe part of the agreement, maybe part of the procedure should be you're only going to cheap steel paid service to paid service. And then you won't have this problem anymore. You're going to pay for it. Yeah. I think we've covered all other things. I mean, I think that if we improve the process, the communication and get a system together that is much clearer for the public to follow in these situations, I'm not necessarily against them. But I just want to be, and I think adding the maintenance in makes a big difference because that's another piece that we often hear is it's not right away. It's, you know, six years down the road or they've been paying this assessment and then they come and they're like, but our road. So I just, I think that all of those things are great opportunities for improvement. And, and I'm sorry that the, the people on the street have had to deal with the challenging issue of figure of being our trial and error around this unpaved road to paved road and a different scenario. We appreciate your patience and hopefully everybody's problems will be solved with this motion. Okay. All right. We've had public comments. Um, we've discussed the item, um, those in favor of the motion, vote by the sign of aye. Aye. Those opposed? No. Motions carry, uh, four to one. Mr. Chair, um, the last item, you make me laugh and I love it. The last item I was out of the room. I just wanted to, uh, have the clerk here that I was, uh, in the affirmative on the block. You can just make note of that because I wasn't here to vote. I don't. Are you wanting me to make the vote five, nothing? Yeah. Cause I was out of the room. I heard in the back, but it was four. Oh, with me out of the room. Right. So I just, just, I would just make a note in the record that he voted. He would have voted for it. Right. Okay. Next item. Okay. The outcome is we approve the SID and the county is paying for an additional 50 feet. You're welcome. Thanks for being here. He owes you dinner. Yeah. He should have been here personally. Mr. Chair, that takes us to the, uh, quasi judicial zoning item. And I believe the county attorney has the procedures to provide. Mr. Chair, all persons wishing to testify or present evidence during quasi judicial hearing will be sworn in prior to speaking in this proceeding. All persons have the right for the chair to ask questions, to seek clarification of comments and 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 spread to the clerk for inclusion in the board's records of proceeding and official minutes. While we welcome comments from all persons with an interest in this proceeding, Florida law requires that the county commission's decision in 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 experts and non-expert witnesses. Persons presenting testimony may rely on factual information in the record to support their testimony. And then I think we wanted to know if anyone, that's all staff, if we have anyone wanting to be a party in this proceeding. There have been no party requests. So, Mr. Chair, people can request party status at the hearing, but they have to explain to you why they think they're a party and why they hadn't put in a request ahead of time. Is there anybody requesting party status at this time? All right. Anybody wishing to address this item, you will please be sworn. Do you swear or affirm any testimony you're about to give will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? Can I inquire the commissioners if they've received any ex parte communications involving this matter? And if so, please disclose them. No. I have not. No. This isn't on Payne's Prairie, is it? No. Mr. Chair, my name is Jacob Stout, planner with growth management. I've been sworn in and my resume is on file. This item was properly advertised. It's a preliminary development plan for the Ironwood Industrial Park, 1.4 million square feet of non-residential entitlements at 6505 North County Road 225 and 6310 Northeast Waldo Road. The two parcels together are approximately 137 and a half acres. It has heavy industrial future land use and manufacturing and processing industrial or MP zoning district. A little bit of some unique things going on here with the way the city of Gainesville boundary, urban cluster boundary work in this area of the county. So outlined in red is, if I can get the cursor there, is here, is the two parcels for, or are the two parcels for the Ironwood Industrial PDP. The urban cluster boundary is this here in black, follows this weird line and then goes up. You've got Northeast 39th Street and State Road 24 Waldo Road on either end of the property. There's ag zoning outside of the urban cluster. The Levita Brown Environmental Park is over here. You've got residential, the R1C zoning to the north. Some other existing or vacant MP zoned land to the south of it. And then as you can kind of see here over under the overlay, this is across the street from the Buck Bay Flatwood Preserve. This is an aerial view of the existing conditions on site and surrounding areas. This is a southwestern view traveling south toward Gainesville on Waldo Road. This is about where the proposed, or one of the proposed entrances along Waldo Road would be located. Again, in that southbound lane looking back the other direction. Northeast 39th Street is a county maintained road. And the access here would be, it would be a single access and it would be gated and emergency only. And I have a little bit more details on that later in the presentation. That's looking north then on Northeast 39th Street. So here's the preliminary development plan. The tree canopy retention areas, open space, developable area, access points, buffers, and the wetlands conservation management areas are all shown on this. There's a 75 foot buffer along the northern edge of the property as required by the code due to the residential properties to the north. And then collector road and project boundary buffers that are required both in the landscaping code and in the NP zoning district on the frontages of Northeast 39th Street and State Road 24. We've got a few different conservation management areas. These are the hatched and green areas. This is also the tree protection areas for the site. This line here delineates the secondary and tertiary wellfield protection zones for the Murphy wellfield plant, or Murphy wellfield. The secondary zone is here on the western portion of the parcel, and the tertiary zone is then on the eastern area of the parcel. There are specific criteria for wellfield protection and hazardous materials in Chapter 353 and 355 of the ULDC. There's also specific requirements that GRU would impose for wastewater treatment and any hazardous material storage due to the wellfield protection zones. The application proposes overall entitlements but not a specific use. Allowed uses in the NP zoning district range from those by right, like warehousing or distribution, some that are required to go through a special exception or a special use permit, which would come before the Board of County Commissioners and require additional analysis by staff. Those things might be a concrete batching plant, a junk or salvage yard, for example. And then the review of the zoning standards for building setbacks, height, lighting, and plantings for the landscaping, buffers, and stormwater basins would all take place at the final development plan. That would also include parking and the other engineering for horizontal infrastructure on the site. So open space is not required in the ULDC for non-residential developments unless conservation management areas are present. As you can see, and as I've alluded to, there are several in the wetland areas in their buffers. And these constitute 18% of the site or approximately 25 acres. And then they coincide with the tree canopy preservation areas. So the application was submitted and deemed complete prior to the recent adoption of the new tree code. This plan proposes to save just under 34% of the existing trees. And the larger trees of the specific live oak species are all included in the wetland buffers. Obviously, there's other trees outside of that, but those ones that are included for protection in the new code are in those wetland buffers and will be preserved because of that. So the code, as you all know, requires two functional access points on different sides of the development. There's one single access point on 39th Street and multiple on State Road 24. So there's a note, or excuse me, I'm sorry. The county engineer has made the determination to restrict the 39th Street access to gated and emergency only due to safety and functionality concerns of the network in the surrounding area. There are two conditions of approval related to this restriction that are included in the resolution. There is a note on this sheet, note 11, that no internal network is proposed but may be required if the excluded facilities conditions and the access management code are not met. So typically when we have a preliminary development plan come before you all, there's blocks, there's streets identified rights of way through the site. That isn't shown here, but if we have worked with the applicant to make sure they understand that if the excluded facilities conditions are not met, that they may have to provide an actual network through the site. These are the conditions of approval for the application. The first, the applicant must submit a revised traffic impact analysis that analyzes the roadway network impacted by any final development plan that proposes a full access connection to Northeast 39th Street. The TIA must outline the appropriate improvements on Northeast 39th Street including mitigation strategies for the intersections of Northeast 39th Street and Northeast 53rd Avenue and Northeast 39th Street and Northeast 55th Place for evaluation by the county. The improvements and mitigation strategy must be implemented in the final development plan. And then the second is that the county will only permit one common access driveway or street connection on Northeast 39th Street at final development plan if full access is proposed. The intention here is that they may connect with a full connection if they can show appropriate mitigation strategies for the impacted intersections south of the property on Northeast 39th Street and then that any parcels that may be subdivided within the developable area must connect to that single access point. They can't have if there's one parcel that has frontage along Northeast 39th Street. They won't get their own access. They have to use that common access. And with that, the preliminary development plan is consistent with the Alachua County Comprehensive Plan and Unified Land Development Code. And staff recommends approval with the conditions of the preliminary development plan for Ironwood Industrial Park and Resolution DR 2517. And that concludes that presentation. Thank you. Commissioner Wheeler. Yes, sir. I have a question about, I don't know where this comes into play, but I know with looking at the preliminary plan with it being, having a housing development close to it. When you said the word concrete batch plant that, you know, perked my ears up to the point where if there's not much boundary, if there's not much of a boundary between the housing and whatever is going to be coming in there, that maybe we're not protecting that development well enough if we're not going to increase that boundary somehow or tree cover, you know, that would provide a natural screen for anything like that that would affect the air. Even if it was recycling or landfill or whatever we put there, it seems to me that whatever we are butting up against where there's already development that we really need to make sure that there is a boundary there that will protect those people from whatever might be coming off that site. Yes, Mr. Chair. So if there is a final development plan that proposes one of those uses that requires a special use permit or a special exception, that would have to go back through the zoning process. It's not allowed by right in the use table of our ULDC. So it would go back through the special exception process or the special use permit process where the board could then place some conditions to those effects if it was deemed necessary. So further down the road? Correct. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Commissioner May Alpert? Thank you. I had a couple of questions. Is it expected to be 24-hour operation? And I'm asking about because of lighting because that's actually one of the darker parts of Waldo Road was you're driving down. Oh, yeah, you're going all the way down. It's across from Lavie to Brown. So it's pretty far out there. So, yeah, I'm just, you know, it's just, I'm just curious about 24-hour operation and lighting and what the security would be and some questions like that. I didn't know if the applicant had a presentation. I believe the applicant has a presentation. I would be able to answer some of those questions, but I know that as far as lighting goes, and I don't remember off the top of my head what exactly the outdoor lighting provisions require, but there are restrictions on, you know, the type of lighting that is used in an effort to minimize. So they're looking at full cutoffs or something like that? Yeah. Like I said, I don't remember the code off the top of my head, but I know that there are, you know, they would have to present a photometric plan that meets that part of the code in order. Okay. To receive approval. I haven't seen an industrial park in a while, so I'm trying to . Okay. I'll wait and see the applicant's presentation. I'm waiting. Oh, one more question for you. What about traffic interfering with Lavie to Brown? I think that that would be part of a TIA, but Waldo Road is controlled by the FDOT as a state road. Right. So we really don't have any jurisdiction. We don't know that we have a ton of authority. Public Works or transportation might be able to answer that question a little bit. Lilith Albani, Alachia County Public Works. Yeah. As part of the report that they presented at TIA, they had to analyze that particular intersection where Lavie to Brown is, and they, of course, have the five connections to Waldo Road. Some of them are full access. Some of them are just right in, right out access and others, but they did provide an analysis, and I know that GOT looked at that report as well. Okay. All right. Thank you. Okay. Make sure it's not evening yet. Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and board members. We're getting there, though. We are. We're on the cusp. Ryan Thompson with MV5, agent for the applicant. I do have a full presentation that I can go through if you'd like. You know, really, the site has the heavy industrial future land use and the MP zoning on it already. This process going through the preliminary development plan has literally taken us a year to go through. That was the client's motivation to get through this process. They don't have a specific end user. I think they might have some interest coming in now that we're getting close to setting this framework for how the site can be developed, but none that we've seen or evaluated. So some of those things about the lighting and security and what would need a special exception or special use permit are unknown at this point. We wanted to, again, set the framework for how the site could be developed, make sure that the wetlands were delineated, which they have, and set into conservation management areas, ensure that we had access worked out with public works and FDOT, and identify where buffers would be located in then the resulting developable area. So that's really, in a nutshell, trying to respect your time here. Again, happy to go quickly through the presentation if you'd like, but those are my main speaking points. Where are the wetlands? Moved south for recommendation. Is there a second? Okay. Second. Got a motion and a second. Are there any further discussion to the motion? Well, I just, I haven't seen this to understand because I know in the areas out there, you know, we've been concerned about wet areas, and that's how we haven't been able to do a lot of development. And we also have issues with neighborhoods who've been concerned about us putting things in a neighborhood, you know, the dump that we've had in a neighborhood out there. And I just want to make sure that we're, I know, I know it is, but I also know that there are developments that are around there, and that could possibly happen even on the ag lands. You know, I just, I just want to see where they are. The wetlands areas, because we complain all the time about not being able to do anything out in those areas because of the wetlands. And so this is, it seems very cavalier, that's all, not to at least see it. Where I just, yeah, but the whole community doesn't have this. You have it in front of you, and I don't have it in front of me. But there's people in the community who could see this. We don't even have to go through the whole thing, but I would like to know where the wetlands are in this and how they relate to the outlying boundary of this property. Flood is an issue for us, you know, water quality is an issue for us. And I know it's 3.20 in the afternoon and we have 5 o'clock, but this is, you know, any time we start, you know, going too quickly with these things, in my case, I just need a little more information. Chair. Yes. APD. The lobes you see here, there's six wetlands you see in the corner, in the middle of the H1 is the wetland boundary. That was verified through St. John's Water Management District two years ago. And then the perimeter is a 75-foot buffer that's applied to each one. And to combine the buffer and the wetland in each one, we refer to it as a CMA, and there's six CMAs there. And so when they come in for final, then they'll have a CMA management plan and a conservation easement associated with it. But until that time, it's just, you know, on paper. How much of that property is not wetland, is not considered wetland? I think there's, correct me if I'm wrong, Ryan, I think there's 60 acres that are wetland. And it's maybe a little less, but it's 137-acre track. So it is, like you said, it is a wet site. It's in the 100-year flood zone, basically the northeastern area. And they'll have to design based on that in terms of criteria, in terms of flood plan encroachment. Right. Also, based on the zones, the tertiary zone in all terms of wellfield, that plays, in fact, in terms of what kind of stormwater they have, where they have to have lined ponds, and that's based on what they're manufacturing and what kind of materials they have in their warehouse. So a lot, from that standpoint, is unknown because they don't have a good client lined up yet. But in terms of the preservation aspects, the CMA errors, they've already established those, so that when somebody comes in with a plant, that's already taken care of for them. That's it. It's good to see you. We haven't seen you in a while. It just seems counterintuitive, you know, to put an industrial site here. That's all I'm saying, guys. It makes no sense to me who's dealt with flooding and water. That's all. You know, I'm trying to make it make sense into my head as to why that's okay, especially with the wellfield. Yes. Going through there like that. And if you don't know, see, the eco loop we designed. Right. And had nobody. Right. And still have nobody. You know, so I just, you know, it's a gamble, and we all are doing that kind of stuff. But, you know, guys, I just, you know, I don't understand why you all think that's okay just to send it through like that without even a question. Well, I haven't. I'm not done asking questions. Oh, okay. Well, but, okay. Good. All right. Thank you. Commissioner Alfred, then Prizia, and then Commissioner Cornell. I, my question actually for the applicant is about the eco loop. I mean, we have our own industrial park that we've been trying to get started for a good number of years. And I feel like, and I've seen this in large cities where they have done these partnerships with, it's almost like a synergy between different kinds of industries that can be located next to each other. There are, we have turned down opportunities at the eco loop that didn't meet our specifications that might work very well in what you guys are looking to do. There's, you know, opportunities for, you know, potential reuse and use of the products from our transfer station. And then there's also potentially opportunities that could help produce a need in our eco loop for a supplemental project. So I'm hoping that, that maybe there's some synergy here and that this particular project could, and I hope that you'll perhaps meet with our EPD as you go and look for and recruit folks for this, because I think it could be an advantage in both ways. So, um, I, I just wanted to point that out and I do hope that as you think about, um, utilizing the site that, uh, you know, we are an environmentally conscious, you know, county. This is in an area that, that could potentially affect our well field. And, uh, I, you know, I believe that there is a place where industry can, um, exist in a responsible and good way next to where, um, you know, the environment is if, if it's done well. So I'm hoping that you guys are those neighbors and that you will, you know, think about things like the impact of lighting at night in an area that has been, had a lot of wildlife in the past. It looks kind of parts of that area. It looked like a wasteland, but parts of it are actually, uh, pretty heavily, um, uh, there's a lot of wildlife there. So I, I, I just wanna, you know, uh, hope that, that this, it works out to be a really good project for you and for us. I think there could, um, this, this really could be an opportunity. So. Okay. Commissioner Cornell. I mean, uh, Prisia and then Cornell. Um, so, uh, I guess I had a couple of questions. I, I, I had a hard time looking at the, at the site map. Like I had a hard time understanding this as some of the site maps. There was, uh, the, there was one that had the CMA one through five and then it had the flood zones overlapped and then it had this weird like gray triangle that like swooped down in the, in the, um, southwestern corner of the property. Um, it's in our report in the staff report. It's under natural and historic resources protection under conservation areas and management plan. I, I don't know what that gray, the well fields in the north portion of the property. I'm gonna turn this on. Yeah. There's the others. I guess in the report, it looks like that whole section that's been dotted off. Yeah. That whole is dark gray. Yup. No. There we go. Yeah. That, that see how that's. Yup. That the, the, the whole, the whole gray of that, that whole triangle is a secondary well field protection. It swoops across. Part of the circle. Okay. Okay. And then the tertiary is the remaining, the remainder of the property is a tertiary protection zone. So given that that's the case, are there additional requirements with regards to what would be allowed on this site with regards to certain industry types? Uh, Chris Gilbert is with hazardous, um, response, but yes, there are additional requirements in the, in the code for the Murphy well field protection area. Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, commissioners, Chris Gilbert has his materials program manager. Uh, the tertiary and the secondary get protection zones have each have their own restrictions in regards to the type of industries that can go into, uh, any, or be allowed under a special use permit in that area. Okay. Depending on which of those two zones that you're going to be located in. Okay. Uh, as well as both of those zones would also require a hazardous materials, uh, storage license, which puts additional requirements onto each of the facilities that would end up on any of the parcel. Okay. And so each one would be reviewed separately based on the industry and what kind of materials that they would have on site. Okay. Okay. And the applicant, you, you mentioned you don't, you're just building this on spec or you're just trying to get through preliminary and then you'll build as you have interest. So it's going to be built site by site based on. Correct. Based on the market as interest, um, arises. So you're not doing a master development plan and then. No, Mr. Chair. Uh, you know, it could be one user. We don't know. Uh, it could be eight. Yeah. It just depends on, you know, what the market bears. Okay. Well, I guess the only other thing I'll, I mean, I get what you're saying. I'm glad to know that there's a lot of sort of understanding of what this place is and the sensitivity that it has to our water resources. And that will be on top of checking out which industries are coming. Um, you've heard us say it's important. We will be keeping a close eye on it. Um, I, the other thing I'll just say is that, you know, a lot of our, um, industrial parks, it seems have been putting a lot of eggs in the distribution basket. I understand why it's an easy market. Um, and I, I can't tell you what to do, but I will tell you that those trucks just tear up our roads. And they are not good businesses in terms of providing job, like quality jobs that are high paying. Um, they aren't the kind of industry we're looking to bring. And we have a new economic development department that's acting as our EDO. We'd love to partner with you to look at attracting industries that are in keeping with our values and our quality. So I hope you'll connect with our economic development folks, connect with our eco loop folks. And think about the ways that this can be synergistic with, you know, Alaska County's values and your goals of trying to attract high paying jobs and good quality industry to our community. Um, I think staff has done a good job of exploring your issues around the wetlands. The only other question I have is with regards, do you have a plan for your stormwater or will that come in with the applicants as well? Or are you doing master stormwater plan for the site? That is still to be determined. Uh, we looked at master planning the stormwater on a very, very preliminary, uh, level. Um, I think, you know, with this approval, we'll get with the client, see how he wants to design the infrastructure and if stormwater would be shared. Um, it seems to make sense. Yeah, I was just gonna say, I mean, I would encourage that given that the ponds may have to be lined, given that there's a lot of sensitivity to the areas. There's that Fairbanks contamination that you have a lot you're dealing with on the site. Right. And anytime you move dirt, you're going to be causing challenges to that, those contamination issues. So I would just encourage the idea of master stormwater planning. So you can be sure you're capturing everything you need to capture. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, Commissioner Cornell. Yeah, I agree with Commissioner Prizia. This is, you know, future land use heavy industrial. This is what it is. Um, and I think staff and the applicant have done a nice job of protecting the wetlands that are there with the existing buffers. Um, and so I think we'll have to deal with this once we see what, what the site plan comes in. But the preliminary looks like you're setting up the proper protection zones based on what staff is asking for. So that's why Mary Ellen, when I, when I, when I look at these, I go right to map genius. I look at the wetlands and the flood zones and then I see where they ground truth and do they line up and they almost line up exactly. So I actually liked the fact that they're now ground truth. We know where they are. Staff has got them in protection. Um, and so that's why I made the motion. Okay. Commissioner Wheeler. I just wanted to, I don't know if you all are aware too, of some of the restrictions that the airport puts on us. That's been some of the issues that we've had at the eco loop. So you may want to look at that, you know, so that, because they had told us that there were certain things that we, we put, we couldn't put there because it would interfere with their air travel and their control. So just be aware of that. That's another layer. Another issue may have to look at too. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. All right. Yeah. Public comment, I think. Yeah. Cause we did have a motion in a second. So, uh, any public comments? Yes, please. Directly to the north of this property. So we sit between the county borrow pit and this property, our property floods tremendously. We've had lots of communications with the road department. Um, they've come out, put culverts in trying to drain the water off. If this facility is built, it's going to block the water from exiting our, our property. The, the prop, the water flows south out of there. We already have a tremendous flooding problem. If this is built, how's it going to affect, uh, the water flow? How's it going to affect our traffic? Has there been any studies done on this? I don't, I don't think this is something you should, if you approve it now, it'll just keep growing and it's only going to create our neighborhood problems. As you said, flooding, the buffer 75 feet, 100 feet, 200 feet of woods between an industrial park and a house ain't going to help nothing. It's not going to help one thing. The traffic, the roads are already crap. It's just not a good situation. And I wish I had more of my neighbors. They, they all work. We all work. But if we got a 24 hour facility built right in our back door, it's not going to be good for anybody. I hope you take that into consideration before you pass this because it is going to cause a flooding issue more than what your county borough pit already causes us. That used to be a lake. You guys have filled it in. Now we flood every year. I talked to you, please dig it back out. You continue to bring waste in, fill in the pond. Every year it gets worse. Build this behind us. Water has nowhere to go. It's going to sit on top of us. Thank you. Sir, what was your name? North. Sir. Sir, state your name again for the record. Michael Martin. Thank you. No, we can ask. Oh, go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead, please. My name is Damon Watson. I actually live just northwest of this. And I think what you're going to find is that I've lived there for about 50 years. My parents have lived there for 20 or 30 years and everyone around us and to the north of this, and they can attest to it, have been there forever. So you're going to have a bunch of grumpy old people really mad, you know, about all this stuff. But a lot of them are grumpy old people and some of them, a lot of them work. So it's hard for them to get here. I'm a real estate broker. I'm normally on the other side of this. So it's different for me to see it from this, you know, from this angle. I respect that they have the zoning on the property. They own the property and they can do what they need to with it. But I think the couple of things I, you know, wanted to point out was that the, the, the Murphy water, the well field and all those areas, the wetland areas, they do have problems on the north side with water, just like on the south side. I honestly wish that this was different and that most of the developable property was on the south. So it wouldn't, it would be more of a buffer. Um, 75 feet sounds like a lot of space until you're looking at it. And I, I do feel like the 75 foot buffer on the north side is, is going to be something that they'll probably have a problem with. Um, I'm also kind of the mindset that, you know, the roads probably could come into Walder Road, do a loop, come back out Walder Road. But I know everybody likes connectivity. That's that favorite word that everybody loves to use. And so there has to be some kind of out road going on to 225, which is Gator Nationals road there. I'm just asking that it's more towards the south of the property. Um, I know that looks like there's water stuff down there, but if it does come out towards the south, there's already a park there. There's already some designated stuff and you're staying away from the north end where the, the, the buildings and the houses and stuff are. Um, my other thing would be the way that it's laid out. Most of the stuff that's already been established, you know, what you can build there. Um, but it also says they can build 60 foot tall buildings and they can have a special exception and put in concrete batch plants and stuff. I don't think any of the residents that are around there want any of that stuff, but they can have certain buildings on the property. I think the, the main thing that would be nice is to maybe try to, to somehow do it where the northern section of the property has restrictions on maybe the height of the buildings or the size of the buildings. They're, they're not right up against residential with lights and things. And I mean, you know, and I know that you can build a two, three, four story. I mean, six story building pretty quickly. Uh, Amazon. I don't think anybody wants that there, but at the same time it can get out of hand. But if it's more towards the south side of the property, that's budding up to more industrial property already and commercial. So I don't think it'll have the same amount of problems as it would on the north. Um, so, and, and also the special exceptions, special use permits. I kinda, it's such a environmentally sensitive, water sensitive. I don't know that you really need anything there that's gonna hurt, you know, cause more problems for that area. So if it's going to be something where they're going to have some car dealerships or some commercial use or different things like that, or low use industrial on the Waldo road side, front edge, south side, I don't think anybody is going to make a big stink in the community. If you put it right up against the north section and then you have water problems and things, that is going to be a bit of an issue. And I think that's the biggest thing that we're looking at. So thank you very much. Thank you. Any further citizen comments? Back to the, okay, good. Um, can I ask, I know currently there's a 75 foot buffer on the north side proposed, I believe, for the residential. Do we know if that's the maximum size buffer that would be needed if any of these special exception uses come in? I just want to be sure that we've protected and preserved existing tree canopy and other buffered needs on that northern side for any particular uses that may come in. I just wanted to verify that I was thinking correctly. If there was some of those other impactful uses, that buffer is what is required in the code just in the MP district when there is, when it abuts residential property. But if there were a special exception, a special use permit, you all could consider that, um, an extension of that buffer along with that application. And then when we came back in, or when it came back in for final development plan, we would evaluate the conditions, um, as set forth by the board. And what it, there was a mention of six story buildings. Is that allowed across the whole property? Is that allowed in this current zoning? I would have to check the table really quickly, but I believe that that is correct. That the, um, building heights are allowed to be that tall, but I can check the code table really quickly and answer. Okay. If you can do that. Well, I, I guess to the applicant, is there, um, I guess understanding that there's residential uses to the north. Is there, um, is there an ability to have, uh, some, you know, reductions in building heights in the areas where lights would be impacting the residential uses to the north? It's not a planned development. Um, this is the preliminary development plan. I would defer to the county's attorney, uh, to see what mechanism, uh, that could be implemented. Um, I, I don't have the ability to speak on my client's behalf as far as artificially restricting the building height. I don't see industrial uses typically exceeding one story. You know, warehouses, you know, probably are mini storage and something like that are typically the taller uses, uh, that we see and they don't, um, reach nearly 60 feet. So. Okay. Commissioner Wheeler. I'm, I'm just, uh, go ahead. Mr. Chair, just to clarify, it's 60 feet, not six stories. So it's more like a three story building than it is a six story building. Corbin Hanson, senior assistant county attorney. This is a preliminary development plan. You can condition, uh, the actual development site to ensure compatibility with neighboring uses. So if you want to talk about heights on the northern section, you could certainly come up with something. I mean, I guess, I guess just in terms of the motion, I would love to be able to just have some level of restrictions to height and lighting and impacts on that northern section. So that the neighbors who are adjacent aren't negatively impacted by industrial uses in their backyard. So if we can just, yeah, have a condition around the maker of the motion is open to that idea of just a condition that we would, you know, restrict building heights and lighting and include buffers, you know, as appropriate for the, um, housing. It's hard to know, knowing, not knowing this is preliminary and not knowing exactly what's going to be going there. So I, and I don't want to unduly restrict the industrial, the ability to recruit industries to the area that we want in the area. But I also want to make sure we're protecting the households in the northern section. Okay. Commissioner Cornell. Uh, sure. Thank you. I'm sorry. I miss you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. That's okay. Go, Mary Ellen. You want to go? Go ahead. Go ahead. No, I, I, I just, I'm confused because the, the Murphy water, the oil, the well field cuts up by the, by animal services. And one of the reasons that we weren't able to use the site existing site that we have there is because that well field was there. And so I'm concerned as to why we can set this up as industrial when we couldn't do it there. And, um, the environmental impact on a wetland where the well field was there, we couldn't use for animal shelter, but we can use for this. And Mr. Chair, uh, that's due to the fact that, uh, the, uh, area that they were looking at to put the building is in the primary and the primary zone is fully restricted to no development. Okay. Just due to that location. So these are secondary and tertiary? Yes. Buffer of the secondary and then of course all on the tertiary. Okay. Okay. On that part. And then, um, I had another question too, um, but it's gone. So, um, Oh, I did want Mr. Thompson. Are you, are you representing the, are you the owner? Who is the owner of this property? Is it already been purchased? Yes. Uh, so I, I work for a consulting firm, NV five, uh, formerly CHW. Uh, so I'm the agent for the applicant. Which is local or local. Yes, ma'am. Gotcha. Yes, ma'am. Um, the owner is, uh, in Jacksonville. Um, so he has purchased the property. Okay. Thank you. All right. Thank you all. Commissioner Cornell and then commissioner Alfred. Thank you. Jacob. Could you, um, could you go to map genius and, and just put the lot up and then go to the future land use and then I have a couple of quick questions while they're doing that. I guess if, if I don't know, I mean, we have other situations like this, um, that perhaps Jeff pays or others could tell us like what in the past we've done in terms of building height restrictions, lighting restrictions or buffer requirements in areas where industrial bumps up against, uh, residential and that would be helpful in terms of conditioning. Light's going to be an interest. You want zoning or land use? So, well, you can answer commercial previous question. Oh, I can go. Okay. So Jacob, if you could just go to the applicant's property, it's right there in that triangle. Yep. Click that. So now go ahead and yeah, go ahead and click future land use. Okay. So that black line is the urban cluster line. Correct. The electric County borrower. So the yellow is where everybody lives. The heavy industrial is the, is right where, right where he is located that parcel and the one next to it is what we're talking about right now. The borrow pit is the bar of Alaska. So those blue ones to the top are institutional. Those are owned by Alaska County. Which one is the borrow pit? One second. The North one. Yeah. So I think it's that middle one. This I believe. Yeah. Okay. So, um, and then when you hone in on the previous slide before you put that up, you kind of saw that on the Northern end of the property of those two big wetlands and then that's all in the flood zone. So I got to believe you're going to design everything mostly to the mid and then closer to Waldo road, not to the north. So if that's the case, there should be no problem with us conditioning on the Northern end, not having anything. What did you say above three stories? Three stories. 60 feet. 60 feet. Maximum height. I was thinking. I mean, I think the concern from the citizens in the yellow would be making sure that the buffer to the north, um, maybe it needs to exceed 75 feet. I don't know what, what, what. I don't want to restrict the applicant too much, but I think, I think practically that having a buffer to the north that maybe exceeds 75 feet or something that's 60 feet. Oh, 60 feet. The buffer is 75 feet. 75 feet. Yeah. So can you speak to that? Can the applicant speak to what additional buffers are available to the north? Cause I mean, commissioners, this is where we're asking for heavy industrial. Cause this is our future. Literally like where we, what we want. And, and I understand that to the north is low density residential and I want to buffer them as much as possible. But. Yeah. It's like. Maybe it's only three stories. Then perhaps. Yeah. So you have those two wetlands, you have a flood, you have a flood zone that goes right to the middle of the property. So they're going to have to probably build their road. There's a little, Mr. Chair. There's a little wetland here or a portion of a larger wetland here. Yep. Um, and then this is the line loosely, if I can trace of the FEMA floodplain, um, which would need to be compensated if development was done in that area. Right. Um, so I, I would be more comfortable with, you know, a modest height restriction within, you know, proximity of residential structures than a required buffer. Uh, buffer requires installation. It's an expense, um, and it's also maintenance, but it, I think limiting the building height within a proximity to a structure would be more favorable. So no, what three story structures within 150 feet of the Northern line, something like that. Well, the, the building height is regulated by feet. Yeah. Yeah. Because a warehouse can look like a three story building, but it may need to be that tall to put whatever in the building you need, but it's only a single story. Well, you recommend it. Right. So maybe, you know, maximum of 40 feet within two, 300 feet of a residential structure. Yeah. I like that. That seems reasonable. Lighting, light, skylighting. You guys are going to have to concern, be concerned with the airport with lighting at night. I'm telling you. But they'll, they'll take care of putting those restrictions on it. We don't have to do that. The aviation. That means it'll have to turn them off at night. Whatever, whatever the airport requires. All right. So let's add as a condition, no more than 40 feet within 200 feet of a residential structure. Is that okay? Is that the staff? Does that make sense to staff? Okay. You okay with that? Yeah. So that handles the Damien's issue. Um, now with regard to just actually developing maybe, let me ask staff. So these wetlands have been ground truth. Now, what are the buffers around them? 75 feet or 150 feet? 75. 75 feet. That'll further limit what they can and can't do. And then the flood zone, if they want to put a road or building in the flood zone, they're going to have to mitigate that with stormwater. So they're probably going to just practically, commissioners, they're probably going to develop as close to Waldo Road in our heavily industrial zoning as possible. And then to the south. Where are the access roads coming out? Four on the Waldo Road or any coming on the 39th County Road, Racetrack Road? There's five on Waldo Road and a single access on Northeast 39th. That is conditioned to be gated and emergency only unless they provide the appropriate mitigation strategies for, let me go back to Map Genius here. All right. So for the residents, you hear that, there's not going to be access onto that Racetrack Road. So that's good. Go ahead. Unless there is mitigation strategies provided based on a TIA that would be submitted with the final development plan for the intersection of Northeast 55th Place, which is this road and Northeast 39th Street. Yep. And then down here at Northeast 39th and Northeast 53rd. Maybe we can ask them to put a big old roundabout there for the citizens to mitigate it. But I mean, it's basically access is going to come in on Waldo Road. Yeah. Okay. That's the intention of the... Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Okay. Commissioner Alfred. I wanted to address the borrow pit flooding issues, which isn't really part of our discussion today. But since the citizens brought it up, I would like to invite Mr. Martin and Mr. Watson and any of the others to let us know more about this flying situation if it's coming from our properties. I need to... I want to understand that better. So... And we'll let... Yeah. I mean, that... When you go to Map Genius on that institutional, all the wetlands are on the western part of the property and the borrow pit must be on the eastern part. I just want to understand if that's happening and what we can do about it. So that's, you know... Mr. Chair, commissioners, I don't have knowledge of that. Yeah. I didn't think you did or you'd fix it, but I just want to... I will bring that to our road and bridge and get that more information on that. But one of the questions that was raised was, what about the offsite area that is coming into this low area here? That has to be accounted for in the stormwater basin design. It does have to be accounted for. It has to be accounted for. Okay. So, you know, one of the questions... Overland flow is part of... Overland flow outside from that has to be accounted for. Okay. Great. And I wanted them to hear that. So, thank you. Excellent. All right. But I've got a card if you want to contact me later or you guys can find me online. I just wanted to... I do want to understand if there's a problem there. We'll talk after. What's that? Okay. There are no other public comments. We're back to the board. There is a motion and a second on the floor. Those in favor of the motion, vote by the sign of aye. Aye. Aye. Those opposed? No. Okay. Motion carries. Four to one. Commissioner Wheeler, in dissent. Thank you. And I think we have one item pulled from the... Mr. Chair, that brings us to item 7A, which was the Regional Transit Services RTS Fiscal Year 2026 County Services Contract. Me. Commissioner Alfred. Yeah. I pulled this item because I am concerned. I've gotten multiple communications from citizens about routes being cut, particularly routes being cut to UF Health. We have upped our supplement to the free bus fare program. And a lot of those free bus fares are going to medical care. And so, you know, I wanted to understand. I wanted the public to understand what we were, why we were paying more for less service, basically. So, that's why I had it pulled. Mm-hmm. Good afternoon. Chair, members of the board. Allison Moss, Transportation Planning Manager for Alachua County. I do not have a presentation prepared, but I am prepared to speak to the issue in question. So, the staff recommendation is to increase the county's contribution to the fare-free program. It would be to increase it by $75,000, which would bring the county's total contribution to, I think, 41% of the total and $190,000 total. The reason for this increase is that there was a target that the city and the county set for subsidizing the program. And so, there's obviously no fare box recovery since everyone who is eligible is riding for free. So, the county and the city were contributing, and the target was to get each trip to be between, I think it was $0.50 and $0.75 per trip. And so, what has happened is there's actually a lot of subscription or use of this program. And so, the average rate that's coming in is currently $0.34 per trip. And so, the idea is both the city and the county would increase the subsidy to bring it closer to the $0.50. I spoke with RTS program manager, Jesus Gomez, and he tried to sort of project out what he thought ridership would be this year going forward. If the county does provide the subsidy as recommended, it would increase the amount that we're paying per trip, but still be within that range that the city and the county were going for. Additionally, I think staff from both the city and the county are committing to tracking and seeing how the program goes going forward. It's sort of speculation at this point to say exactly what ridership will be like going forward, but there was a commitment to subsidize within a certain range. And I'm okay with that subsidizing within a certain range. My concern was is that, you know, the overall ridership could just decrease significantly due to the fact that one of the main places that people go to is being removed from the transit map. So. Understood. Yeah. I'll move staff recommendation. And a motion and a second. Any for Commissioner Cornell? Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chair. There are two recommended actions and then the second recommended action that refers to our joint meeting. Do we ever resolve the route 26 serving grace in the airport? It's my understanding. I was not present at the joint meeting, but that the city determined through, I don't know, shuffling funds around within their overall program that they would be able to restore or provide that service. Okay. So there's nothing being asked of the county at this time to provide that service to Grace and to the airport. Good job, Commissioner. Okay. Great. Thank you, City. Got a motion and a second. Are there any public comments to the motion that's on the floor? Mr. Chair, just to clarify that, just to clarify that a little bit, we are splitting that route 50-50. What Allison, I think, was speaking to is that in the overall budget that you saw back in May, it did not increase the overall cost to the county through shuffling some other routes. Okay. Okay. So this motion, though, is approving that weekend service? Yes. That weekend service will be provided on Route 26. Good. Thanks. Just on that note, since we're talking about things, there was one request. I know that the city has been doing a number of upgrades to bus shelters around the county. That is an area that really could use bus shelters, both people visiting their family at the jail, people visiting Grace, people leaving from the airport, standing with bags, are often just standing out in the hot sun. And there's nothing but a little bench there at any of those locations at the jail, like any of those areas stop. So if they could explore that area for any of those improvements, if they happen to have resources available, I'd just like to put that on their radar screen, if you wouldn't mind passing that along. Mr. Chair, we did provide or pass that inquiry along to Mr. Jesus Gomez with RTS. He replied that they do not currently have any shelters planned for the area in question. He's preparing to provide a response at the MTPO meeting coming up in August. And so he will be there and able to provide more detail and to hear concerns and requests from the MTPO board regarding shelters. Thank you so much. And thanks for waiting around. Since the MTPO was brought up. Um, did y'all see Heather Akpan's email on yesterday at 4 PM? Yeah, that we have one qualified candidate. So I was going to bring up a commission comment that, um, that we, that this board asked the subcommittee to lower the qualifications so we can get more candidates than just having one candidate. Um, I think the subcommittee is empowered to do that and, and I don't know if that's a full board discussion with the city and the county. We had a lot of applicants that weren't that were had lower qualifications that I did not. I wouldn't have considered anyway. So I don't know. We'll have to let it. We'll discuss that. But I, I looked at all the applications and yeah. Yeah. Yeah. My, my concern is only having one and, um, not pushing that back. Jeff, did you want to just, uh, my concern is that we lose two months if we then make this decision at the MTPO meeting without the subcommittee kind of putting it back out. And I don't, I mean, I don't want, I understand we have one qualified candidate who's from out of state. I would like to have a bigger pool of candidates, especially some that are familiar with DOT, Florida DOT, not the, and the out of state may be the best. I don't know, but I feel like we don't have that opportunity to evaluate them. If we just have one. We, we had some really good candidates. I don't know why they dropped out. I would really like to understand why they dropped out. Yeah. If it was a salary reason, if it was. We can dispose of this motion, but then I want to put another motion on the floor. If related to this item that we asked, um, the subcommittee to go look at the MTPO meeting. Well, we can. It's just, uh, when's the next MTPO meeting? Mr. Chair, uh, do you want to, do you want to dispense with this motion before and, or, I mean, I can. Yeah, why don't we dispense with this motion? Okay. All right. Are there any citizen comments to the motion? Back to the board. Those in favor of the motion vote by the sign of aye. Aye. Those opposed, same sign. Motion carries. Commissioner Cornell. Yeah. So Jeff, when's the next MTPO meeting? So, Mr. Chair, the situation that we have with the MTPO is that the next meeting is the interview meeting next Wednesday and the gentleman has booked his travel to be here. And so the next time the MTPO could speak to it really is at that time. Um, I think the discussion that I had with Heather was he had been booked to come in. It, I think, um, having the interview and then having the discussion about whether, whether he's a good candidate or not, if you want to reopen it up, that's, that's another conversation at that time. I mean, I cancel flights all the time. I do it the day before, and I don't want to bring him all the way in if the majority of the board wants more candidates. I think that's unfair to him. That's why I'm bringing it up now. Um, if you all disagree, then y'all can disagree and I'll bring this up at the MTPO meeting, but I just feel bad for the candidate that if the collective boards decide that we need multiple candidates, that we've essentially put him at risk with his current employer all the time and effort and the expense and just doesn't seem right. I'd rather cancel that and put it back out. Like one, if we have one candidate that happens to be the right candidate, then they're the right candidate. We had three candidates, two dropped out. This gentleman's still interested. He's willing to travel to come and see us. We've had the interview set up. He could be a great candidate and we could hire that person and we could move on. If he's not the right candidate, then we reopen it and we put it out for another couple of weeks and we do a bet. Maybe we lower the qualifications. Maybe have that discussion. I, I'm not sure. I don't think that our qualifications were that were of that highest standard. That we should drop them all of that, all that much. There may be a few things. The management piece of it may be one that was difficult for 10 years. Yeah. So that may be one that we need to lower and think about, but we weren't, we weren't super strict on that even, you know, we were pretty. That's my point is I think there was a lot of, you know, we kind of intimated that flexibility around that would be okay if there'd be a lot of ways that they could meet that criteria. But anyway, I'm just saying if you got the right candidate, having only one candidate isn't necessarily a problem. And I, you know, if this gentleman is a good candidate, I would hate to lose him because we tell him to cancel his flight and we're not interested in interviewing him and then we're down to no candidates and we have to start the search all over when we could have had a good person. And I mean, I'm just saying like if it's the right, if you walk into a store and you see a really great, you know, thing you want to buy, all you need is that one great thing you need to buy. You don't need 15 sweaters picked from if the sweater that you wanted is right there. And I understand this gentleman could be a perfect candidate. Yeah, but if you're cold and you walk into that same store and you have to buy a sweater, then you buy the sweater and maybe that's the wrong sweater. Okay. Well, and I'm saying we're not going to do that because we all have a, we all, we all know what's at stake with this MTPO, right? We know. I know, but we're talking about buying sweaters. I'm just saying that I like that. I, this is a really important position. Exactly. And I feel like we owe it to our community to give them some options. I think we had three. That is to raise the salary, not, not lower the criteria. No problem with that either. I just, I, I, I'm more interested in getting a good pool of people from which we can choose from. And we had that. We had three and now we have one and I just feel like we should have more than one. Well, I, I just feel like this is, it would be, I, I think we should go ahead and interview this candidate. We don't have to make a decision on this candidate. We don't have to say. I agree. I agree. I agree. I think. I mean, that's important that you'll say that. Yeah. I, I agree because just because we interviewed doesn't mean we have to hire. Exactly. So, Mr. Chair. Okay. Thank you. Part, part of our question here is what can this board do? Because this is the seating of the board of county commissioners. And certainly requesting that the MTPO subcommittee or the MTPO as a full board do something is something this board can do. This board can't necessarily set different qualifications and do cuts and decide who's in or out. Um, my understanding is that this candidate's travel is being paid. Yes. So it's not on, and it's not on his time. Um, and the, the first meeting you're going to have is at that. So at that meeting you can discuss, and I would suggest that you bring in human resources to discuss changing qualifications during that, during the, during the, uh, cut period, during the time when you're actually deciding who you're going to interview. Um, but you can discuss it then about whether you want to open it up to more candidates, either in that pool or open it up to new candidates. Okay. Manager. No, I was just going to say, so I, I don't believe at this meeting the board can decide to, to, you can recommend, but I don't think you can make the decision to go out for more. It's a, because it's a decision for the full MTPO board. Right. Right. I agree. Yeah. We'll just leave it. I just want it. My colleagues that make up five of the MTPO board to hear that I'm really interested in having someone that knows DOT, FDOT. And, um, when I interviewed this person, if he has a good understanding of that, that's great. If he doesn't, he may be a perfect, great person, but DOT knowledge is really important from my perspective. I guess I'll just say that, you know, you can, you, are you talking about relationships? Are you talking about understanding? I mean, you can learn, you can learn that kind of stuff. You know, there's a lot of things that we want around innovation, around creativity, around communication with regards to like the way that we communicate, what we're doing, long range transportation plans are clunky. All the things that we do in there can be super complicated. We're looking for someone who can lead with the idea of innovation, communication and collaboration. I think, I mean, you can learn the DOT rules. Talk to the DOT people and see what they're wanting because that's who sets our budget. And, uh, when I've talked to them. If that's the case, then we shouldn't be doing an external. So we should only be doing a search within the state of Florida. I'm just saying, I'm just saying, talk to DOT about what they really want in a leader. I have. And someone familiar with DOT is really important to them. Well, that's because they want them to tow the DOT line. And I kind of want somebody that's going to like not always want to tow the DOT line. Yeah. True. I mean, that was somebody, I believe it was somebody from out of state that came down to district one and really changed how their relationship with FDOT worked. And they were able to do really good. I'll keep an open mind. Yeah. I would keep an open mind. I will. Yeah. I would just wish I had more than one option. Yeah. We all, we all wish that. We had three. I was excited. I'm either, I'm guessing they used it to leverage raises up their own organization. Could be. Yes. No motion. I hadn't even thought of that. Are we doing other commission comment now? Are we going to do that later? I'm doing it. Well, it's up to you all. And we go right into the next meeting. Doesn't matter to me. We can't do that. I mean, we need about 20 minutes to, to reset if we, if we want, but we can go it. We can take care of county attorney and county manager comments. Okay. Did you get home earlier? If you'd like. I'd rather do commission comments. I mean, we can do commission comments now too, if you'd like. I mean. Okay. I have nothing. I've got the manager and the attorney. So, Mr. Chair, I do, I do have something for you. We're asking for a shade meeting in Juliana Witte plaintiff versus Alachua County defendant. That's case number 2023-CA-4087. I'm requesting that you approve a close to the public attorney client litigation session to occur on August 5th, 2025 at 10 a.m. The estimated length of that session will be one hour. The names of the persons who will be in the session are the five commissioners on the dais today, the manager, Michelle Lieberman, Sylvia Torres, your county attorney, Bob Swin, your deputy county attorney, David Forziano, your senior assistant county attorney, and a certified court reporter. Procedures for holding the closed attorney-client litigation strategy session involving boards subject to the Florida Sunshine Law are governed by Section 286.0118 of the floor statutes. So, I'm asking for a motion to schedule an attorney-client session. So moved. Second. Got a motion and a second. Any further discussion to the motion on the floor? Are there any citizen comments to the motion that's on the floor? Back to the board. And those who are in favor of the motion, what about a sign of aye? Aye. Aye. Those opposed, same sign. Motion carries. Thank you. Manager, I guess? I have no. Nothing? Okay. I have no comments, Mr. Chair. Okay. All right. Commissioners. No. Commissioner Prizio. So, I have two things potentially. One thing I just wanted to share with you that the North, the trust, the North Florida Land Trust just recently published Common Ground, which is a land conservation guide for local governments, and Alachua County is featured in it. So, I thought you all would be really proud of the fact that our conservation program was featured in it. We got to present at FAC, and it was really well received. You got to present. I got to present at FAC. And it was really well received. Got some really good questions and follow-up afterwards. And it's meant to be a primer specifically for folks like us, like policymakers. So, if you have others that reach out and need information, it's all online on the North Florida Land Trust webpage. And they did do, they are printing hard copies as well. There was a mistake in the one that they printed initially. So, I brought them to you, but they're not the right one. So, I'll get you new copies once they are reprinted. But the online version is accurate. And so, just wanted to share that and give our staff kudos for being highlighted as a program to look at. And then I also had a comment that was about, but I have the feeling that Mary's going to bring it up as well. Oh, please, please. So, I guess, you know, I guess what I want to say is that I think a while ago we had a conversation about getting an update on jail programming. And I just wanted to reiterate that I'd really love to get the Sheriff's Office here sometime soon to provide us an update on programming in the jail and, you know, to look at the impacts of that programming, you know, numbers of people that are going through it, the kinds of programs we have, you know, the quality of those programs, what their goals and intents are, what their impacts are, what their numbers are, all of those sorts of things so we can have a better understanding of what's going on for programming. And in particular, how they're promoting the reentry program and coordinating with our released reentry programming to ensure that there's opportunities basically for coordination from booking all the way through to release so that our inmates understand the opportunities that are available to them as they transition from jail back to life. And while they're in jail that they have the opportunity to, you know, learn and improve themselves and, you know, sort of, I guess, just begin to explore opportunities for a life after jail. So, I'm hoping that we can get that done. If you all, I don't know if we need a motion for that. If you all are okay with us just asking for the Sheriff's Office to provide that programming update sometime in the near future and about their relationship with released, I would really appreciate that. I'll make the request to the Sheriff's Office. Yeah, before I get into mines, first of all, Anna did an amazing job at FACC. There were four counties presenting Alachua, Volusia, I think Nassau, and Clay. Clay had just passed by 72% land conservation measure in 2022 where they're adding, I think, a half mil to their ad valorem. And what became really, and we heard from a caller today from Volusia County about protecting Payne's Prairie. What became really clear was, you know, Alachua County really is leading the way around the state with regards to that. There are two, I attended to listen to Anna, and she was great. There's two issues that are nonpartisan in our state, kids and conservation of land. That's just, that's just the bottom line. And, and that session, Alachua County was very well represented. Great job, Anna. I think it was Flagler. Flagler. Yeah, Flagler. Not Nassau. Flagler. Yeah. And Ramesh Bush, who used to be with us, kind of was the moderator. And he did a great job, too. He works with them now, right? Yeah, he runs the North Florida Land Trust. Yeah, he runs the North Florida Land Trust. Okay, two quick things. So the first one is this, which kind of came up, the Special Assessment District. But I wanted to ask this board if they have an opinion about if we are building a park and that park has an entrance of a road that goes through a neighborhood that needs to be improved, should the Wild Spaces money be used to improve that road into that park? And I feel like it should be. I know that we're we're probably going to request this to the advisory board or the was the infrastructure sales tax board, but I just oversight board. But I wanted to know if you all had an opinion about that. I think that it's definitely situation dependent. It depends on is that I'm is that the main access point to the park? Is it the only access point to the park? And what what is the roadway? Like why do we have, I guess I'm, what are you talking about? What roadway? Black Lake Reserve. So it's a real small, it's a real small area of road from State Road 26 into the Preserve. That road is a bad road, but it's a neighborhood road that's only used for the neighborhood to get out to 26. It's the only entrance into the Black Lake Preserve. Is Black Lake Preserve open to the public? What's that? Is it open to the public? Yeah. Black Lake Preserve is now is going to be open to the public. I asked not for an opinion, but ask that y'all think about that because I think it's important that we I see you walked in. Well, I mean, I do want your opinion. I do want your opinion. I'd love to give direction actually because I have a strong opinion. I feel like absolutely that that road should be improved because we're opening up to the public and it matters because the rest of the road then could be subject to an SID special improvement district. But the time to do that would be when they're improving that piece of the road for the park. So everybody want to park down the road now. I asked that question when we were looking at the Copeland Park and the Copeland that road going to the Copeland. Oh, yeah, because that was a really bad road. I remember that. You know, could we use that money because there's a park there, you know, and I don't know what we decided, but we did give some work in there. But I don't know if it was related, you know, to what you're talking about there for the road. But I know it was a question that I asked a while ago. Yeah. I mean, to me, it seems like we're providing public access into a county improved park. We need to redo that road because that road is a mess. We're going to and we're adding or adding trips to it. And then if in fact we are going to do that, then that would be a good time to do an SID for the rest of the road that the neighborhood would pay for. If they want it. If they want it. Yeah. I guess I wouldn't want us to put an open any time we have a conservation land and there's a neighborhood adjacent to it that accesses the, that we are going to improve that road with Wild Spaces money because, as you know, road improvements are really expensive. And we would gobble up our conservation funds real quick, improving a bunch of roads. Yeah. This is about, I think it's about 200. It's probably about 100 yards. So it's a small. Yeah. I'd almost feel like it should be parks money, but I think it should just be either conservation or parks money. Whoever's if it's a, it's a park, it's a park. This is conservation park. So yeah. Yeah. And so I think we're going to I think our staff is going to ask the oversight board for their opinion about that. I just ask that you all think about that as well. Secondly, we got put in our box today, Sylvia, this Daniel Smith. And my question is, as I look through this commissioners, we've not been directed to ask the oversight board that question. Oh, I would move that we ask the oversight board to look at the eligibility of improving that road in front of Black Lake Preserve as a conservation expenditure. We're not asking to do it. We're asking of what they think about it. Yes. If it's an acceptable. They think it's acceptable. So expenditure, but we're not asking them to say yes or anything. Right. Okay. I'm okay with that. Mr. Chair, they pre clear things. So they say that if you use this expenditure, they will consider it when it comes in to be either within the surtax or not within the surtax. So I would ask that we refer that to them. Okay. You second that? I second it. Okay. Got a motion to second. That way they can look at the specific, how far is it? Does it make sense? And then give some advice. Okay. Are there any further discussions? Are there any public comments to the motion? Back to the board. Those in favor of the motion, by the sign of aye. Aye. Those opposed, same sign. Motion carries. Okay. So my question on this, because this is coming up on August 12th is, did Dan Smith, when he, when he came up with the three maps, did he consider each of the commissioners living in the district of the proposed maps? And if not, how would we implement a map, which would require a commissioner to move? So, so Mr. Chair, the, I, I'm not certain. I'd have to go back and look. He didn't. I looked at it. What it says is you can continue to serve in your seat. If you don't live in your district and the districts are changed until the next election. And then you have to run in the new district that you're in. So he did not consider that in his maps. No, they would run for the district, they would run for the district that they are now in. They don't have to move to run again. But like, for example, I'm in district three. If I get shifted to say district one or whatever, then I would be running off cycle because Ken runs two years before. Or you would serve until the next. Yeah, potentially it would be. Yeah, you would. His, his district four, all three of them, all three recommendations are in the city of Gainesville. They're in your box. I just was reading it. Yeah. And so the, these recommendations would require me to move if, uh, which makes no sense. And I mean, he's our expert. They would require basically all of us to move, um, for the next election. And I, I don't understand how we could have hired him to do that and he didn't consider it. So I would ask before we have a discussion about it, August 12th, that somebody from our legal staff talk to him and address that. So that when we talk about it, I don't have to address it in on August 12th. That's all I have. And Mr. Chair, if I could just say, um, on that, of course, we know that that's something that happens, uh, for example, at the state level, when they redraw districts, um, sometimes intentional, sometimes not. Um, but I mean, we can horse trade on changing the districts. Yeah. So, you know, right now I'm green. So for green makes me move. And so I could, if we chose one of the maps be, it's your district right now, five. So we could say, okay, that map now is going to be four. I guess we could do it that way. But, but that only addresses me. And when I look at my colleagues, y'all are going to have to, y'all going to have to probably move. And so I think it's, you know, to address the immediate concern of 2026 is fine, but it doesn't address 2028. And there's three seats up in 2028. Yeah. And I normally, when you redraw district maps, you at least keep people that live in their district in their district. So ultimately I think what, and, and, you know, legal can speak to him and speak to any other issue. But ultimately I think the bottom line was, we wanted to bring you back something that was defensible, um, that makes a change. And so, um, you know, Mr. Chair, if you remember your direction was to try to track those precinct lines and, and force all the commissioners to move. So when, when districts are drawn, they're not drawn necessarily to protect incumbents. And that was not one of the things that is generally considered in those. It is considered by you, of course. Yeah, clearly it wasn't. We will have the conversation. Okay. I mean, I just, uh, you know, it's, it's a subtle thing, but it's kind of an important thing when you have three of us running in 2028, two in 2026. And I don't believe it's going to matter because we're going to continue to be at large. But the reason you still have to live in your district, you still have to live in your district. So, um, that's going to get resolved in the court, but I expected more. That's all. I'll, I'll be as brief as I can. Um, the, uh, I, I made another jail visit last week and had, uh, had a meal, had lunch with the inmates and, uh, would like to report that, um, my main dish was, um, actually pretty good this time. They had spaghetti and meat sauce, which the inmates were very happy about. Um, vegetables were frozen, not what I would call fresh. The court, I didn't have a stack of bread to bake up the calorie count. Instead, I had a brick of a piece of corn bread, uh, which I couldn't eat, nor could I give it away. Um, which was, yeah, it was, it was hard, man. It was, it wasn't quite a weapon, but, um, you know, you worry when you can't give away something. Oh yeah, absolutely. But, uh, anyway, and, uh, some rice pudding that was strangely devoid of rice. Um, uh, it was, yeah, it was some kind of starchy goo. Um, but, uh, it was, um, it was better than the last meal. I will say that. And, uh, I had, um, discussions about requests for items from the, um, for the, uh, commissary, which I passed that information along to the, uh, jail staff, um, which, because there were some very reasonable ones, uh, requests from IDOL, for instance, which I thought was a reasonable request. I'd been told that they were going to be stocking emergency, which they want to have when they're feeling sick. They want to have something to take to try to ward off sickness. And I was told that they had stocked that, but it wasn't on the commissary list. So, uh, it's not there. Uh, commissary list was pretty, you know, it's the first time I've, I've seen it since some of the changes were made and it was, um, it was pretty good. They, they had some requests for the ability that they have, that they have in some other jails to be able to buy full size packages of things in order to save money rather than, you know, buying one package of ramen at a time. Why can't I buy the 12 pack reasonable request? I thought. Um, and then, um, but my biggest concern about the lunch was the fact that not a single one of them had heard about released reentry. They didn't even know it existed. And this is something that we are paying for. And I know there's been, um, that I, I know that Emily Westerholm was working in the jail. She doesn't have an office there, but she's working there. But, um, I, I was, I had a conversation afterwards, um, with, um, some folks about, uh, one of the, with some of the folks that work with released reentry that are not allowed to go into the jail because they have been justice impacted in the past. Uh, other jails allow after a period of time, like after seven years after your release, then you get to go and work in the jail. We apparently are having a really hard line of saying if you've ever been justice impacted, then you can't work in the jail. And I think that goes completely against what we're trying to accomplish with released reentry by having peers help folks that, you know, the people that understand the problem. Now we, I, I assume this is a sheriff's department policy, so we can't necessarily change that. But I would like to bring some light onto that. And so when we have this discussion with the sheriff's department about programming and about lifting up released reentry and their, and their, you know, ability to work in the jail and how they work in the jail, I would also like to ask them to look at that policy about allowing justice impacted folks, um, to work in the jail. And so if we could, you know, add that to the request, I, I think that, um, and, and maybe ask them to benchmark against other institutions as to what they're doing. Because as I understand it, ours is one of the strictest rule. They're, they're taking, you know, a very hard line, whereas other institutions have, uh, have time limits. I don't know what you guys think about that, but, um, that's what I would like to discuss. Well, I will say that I, I had heard that as well. Um, and I have, I had actually asked if our legal team could give me kind of what the real, like, what are the hard and fast rules around like access versus what might be a local policy that we could have a conversation about changing? And what are some innovative practices that are happening? Like, do we know of anybody who's doing a good job on that? So if you want, I mean, if we want to just refer stuff to give us some of that information, I, you know, you know, cause I want to understand some of it may be FDLE restrictions or other, um, you know, statutory. Well, that's why I was asking about best practices in terms of other, you know, what other jails are doing in other counties, because from what I understand, you know, um, I believe Marion County at seven years, which is, you know, completely different than what we're, we're allowing. So I, I think that, um, asking, asking some of those questions is, you know, yeah. Yeah, I think that's a great part for a part of that presentation. That conversation would be, that would be a great part of it for sure. But if we can, you know, if that's not something the sheriff's department is prepared to bring back to us, if, you know, someone from court services maybe could help provide that, that would be great. That's all I got. Okay. Um, well, I have nothing. So we are in recess to 5-0-1. That's a good one.