Regular Meeting @ 11:30 a.m. - Jun 10, 2025

I'd like to call to order Alachua County Board of County Commissioners for June 10th, 2025 at 11.32 a.m. Mr. Clerk? Mr. Chair, we'll start this morning off with the invocation. We have John Nix from the Hall Chapel United Methodist Church here to give the invocation. If everybody will please stand for the invocation, and then it'll be immediately followed by the pledge. So if you'll please stand, remain standing. Good morning, everyone. Let us bow our heads. Heavenly Father, we come before you today with grateful hearts, acknowledging your boundfulness, love, grace, and mercy. We thank you for the gift of life, for your guidance, and for the opportunity together as a community committed to service. Lord, we ask for your presence in this meeting. May your wisdom lead our discussions. May your peace range in our hearts. Help us, Lord, to embrace unity, understanding, and respect for each other, setting aside any division and seeking harmony in all we do. We especially, Lord, feel grateful for your greatest gift of all, your Son, Jesus Christ, who gave his life so that we may be redeemed. Through his sacrifice, through his sacrifice, through his sacrifice, through his sacrifice, we are reminded of the power of love and selflessness. May his example inspire us to serve with integrity, kindness, and compassion. Lord, bless this commission, its leaders, and all those who they serve. Guide our decisions that they may reflect justice, truth, and well-being for all. Let love be our motivation, and let peace be our legacy. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. I pledge allegiance to the love of the United States. Mr. Chair, that brings us to the approval of the agenda, and I'm not sure if there's any amendments to the agenda for this morning. Yes, Mr. Chair, we are requesting that item, pulling the number 4, the ranking request RFP 25-519LC, Legacy Community Development of Workforce and Market Rate Housing, be pulled and moved to June 24th agenda in two weeks. Mr. Chair, I move to approve the agenda and consent agenda, moving item I-4 to the next meeting in June. I second. I got a motion and a second. Are there any further discussions to the motion that's on the floor? Are there any citizens' comments to the motion that's on the floor? Seeing none, back to the board. Those in favor of the motion, vote by the sign of aye. Aye. Those opposed, same sign. Motion carries. Mr. Chair, that takes us to the announcements, and Communications Director Mark Sexton's here to present those. Thank you, Steve. Mr. Chair, Mark Sexton, Communications Director. Just one quick announcement today. You can see on the screen that the Alachua County Equal Opportunity Office, in partnership with the City of Gainesville, Office of Equity and Inclusion, are holding a joint Alachua County-Gainesville Employment Law Seminar. It is June 25th, 2025. You will click to register, and I believe the seminar is online, so you will click to register. You will get the Zoom link, and it will cover things such as recent developments in employment law, and a specialty this time in accommodating pregnancy and religion in the workplace. So we encourage our residents, our business owners and employers, to take part in this, and stay up to date on these important matters. And, Mr. Chair, that is the announcement. Okay, thank you. Mr. Chair, that takes us to the approval of the recognitions, if we can have a motion for that. Move approval of all four recognitions. Second. All right. Got a motion and a second. Any further discussion on that item? Any back to the board? Those in favor of the motion, vote by the sign of an aye. Aye. Those opposed, same sign. Motion carries. Mr. Chair, first up is the 2025 Alachua County Citizens Academy graduates. Are we all going to? Staff's going to present first. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chair, commissioners, Shannon Hahn, Alachua County Manager's Office, and I'm here as your Citizens Academy coordinator. Today, we recognize the graduates of the 2025 Alachua County Citizens Academy. The Alachua County Citizens Academy invites citizens to participate in a series of presentations, hands-on activities, and tours to learn more about operations of all county departments, special districts, and constitutional and judicial offices. Today, we recognize the graduates. I would like to thank everyone who helped make this program a success. This is truly a cooperative effort among all county-level local government offices and their staff, including the county, constitutional, and judicial offices, as well as the library district, school board, and health department. To graduate, participants must attend six of the eight weekly sessions. This year, 28 people attending the program met the graduation requirements, and of those, 12 had perfect attendance. We congratulate you for your dedication to the program. As we call up each graduate, after receiving the certificate, please remain standing for a group photo over here. We'll do a number of folks. We do have a number of folks who were unable to attend today due to work or summer vacation, so please hold your applause to the end. So now I'll have the commissioners come up, and we can present your certificates. Mr. Chair, if you want to stand here, and then hand certificates. So first, we have Audrey Williams, Cynthia Binder, Devaney Reed, Eli Newman, Gordon Tapper, Joan English, Marie McMillan, Marsha Mott, Mary Lee Sale, Nicholas Vigilante, Paige McDaniel, Pamela Alcott, Rosa Colon, Tina Sarton, Tyler Forrest, Yasmin Padilla. Now those with perfect attendance, Amanda Williams, Angel Brown, Brett Wiseman, Carol Ahern, Caroline Huguenin, Cecilia Shula, David Goboff, Julie Whitney, Kim Miller, Rachel Rogers, Tiffany Ross, and Tom Whitney, and that is all of your 2025 Citizens Academy graduates. Come over. Yeah, before you go, I asked the chair if I could say a few words. So first of all, John, thank you for continuing to have your staff participate in this. I just want to tell a quick story. I first ran for office in 2012, and I ran against Hutch Hutchinson. Do you all know Hutch Hutchinson? Yeah, he kicked my rump because I really didn't know what I was doing. And I then had the opportunity to take this class and figure out really what public service is all about. And we have some of the best public servants in the state. And so I just want to express for myself and I know for my colleagues how much we appreciate your time, your commitment to really learning how your local government works to serve its citizens. And so thank you, thank you, thank you. I think most of us. Yeah, we all. Mr. Chair, that takes item number two under presentations, which is a proclamation recognizing June 16th through June 22nd as Animal Rights Awareness Week in Alachua County, Florida. Do you need a kitten holder? It's part of the presentation. Good morning. I'm Mary Helen, and my friend Julie here, I had asked her to bring a whole lot so that we could give them to the, as the Citizens Academy Award winners went out, could take a kitten with them, you know, as the prize. But we only got one here, but I think it has been the hit of the morning. So, Julie, thank you for bringing this kitten in. It just accentuates the fact that we have animals out there that need homes, for sure. All right. Animal Rights Awareness Week, declaring June 16th through June 22nd as Animal Rights Awareness Week in Alastra County, Florida. Whereas Animal Rights Awareness Week advocates for the humane treatment of animals, including pets, farm animals, and wildlife, and whereas this observance seeks to educate the public about the ethical, compassionate, and responsible care of animals in all aspects of human life, encouraging individuals to make informed choices by knowing where their products come from and ensuring they are obtained humanely, supporting conservation and preservation efforts, both locally and globally, and participating in spaying and neutering programs in their communities, including those that address the needs of feral cat populations, and whereas the spirit of this week calls on citizens to volunteer. The spirit of this week calls on citizens to volunteer at local animal shelters and adopt pets from shelters rather than purchase them, and support pet stores that host adoption events for shelter animals, and whereas individuals are further encouraged to purchase cruelty-free products and to thoroughly research breeders if they are choosing to buy a pet, ensuring breeders are reputable, transparent, and willing to provide references and access to their facilities. And whereas Animal Rights Awareness Week also raises critical awareness about the use of animals in medical research and testing, promoting ethical considerations, the pursuit of humane alternatives, and the advancement of compassionate scientific practices, and the recognition of this week affirms our collective responsibility to protect, respect, and advocate for the welfare of all animals, both domestic and wild. Now, therefore, through the authority vested in me by the Board of County Commissioners of Alachua County, Florida, I do hereby proclaim June 16th through June 22nd, as Animal Rights Awareness Week in Alachua County, Florida, duly proclaim this 10th day of June, A.D. 2025, and it's signed by our board chair, Charles Chestnut, and attested to by Jess Irby. And I think our legislature has also weighed in recently on animal rights, and so I am excited to see where this goes in terms of protecting animals and animal rights in the state of Florida. And I do want to share very quickly, Julie, I don't know if you had a chance to get over to the Veterans Memorial in Newberry that was just, it was just opened, dedicated on Memorial Day. And in the center of this beautiful Veterans Memorial is a bronze statue of a German shepherd. And it really, I think we don't often acknowledge the importance of animals in our lives, and even in times of war, in times of disaster, that we count on these critters for not only therapy, but for peace of mind and protection, exactly. So with that being said, I'm going to turn this over to you, and you can give this little kitten to Cheap this on the way out. Cheap, we know you need a good ratter over there on the new station, right? So don't forget to take your kitten when you leave. Julie, thank you. Thank you. I just would like to say, well, first, I'm Julie Johnson, the Director of Animal Resources, and I do want to say thank you to this incredible community for supporting animals, supporting our adoptable pets, and making sure that our pets are loved and taken care of. Animal abuse is never okay. Cruelty is never okay. And, you know, we see these cases heartbreakingly often, and so it does make everyone happy when we can take a little bitty thing like this, who came to us very injured, and see it through to health and well-being and get it into its forever loving home. So I just really want to thank this community for protecting animal rights, not just in this week, but always. Thank you so much. Mr. Chair, that takes to item number three, the presentation of proclamation recognizing June as Gun Violence Awareness Month in Alachua County, Florida. Okay. It is my pleasure to declare June as Gun Violence Awareness Month in Alachua County, Florida. Whereas far too many lives across the nation in Alachua County have been tragically lost or forever changed by gun violence, leaving behind grieving families and communities. And whereas every day in the United States, 125 people are killed and over 200 are wounded by gun violence with nearly 18,000 homicides and over 26,000 firearm-related suicides each year. And whereas gun violence is both a public safety and public health crisis, requiring increased access to mental health support, crisis intervention, and responsible gun ownership practices. And whereas we honor the work of educators, mental health professionals, law enforcement, health care workers, and citizens who are committed to creating safer communities. And whereas the color orange, inspired by 15-year-old Hydea Peddleton's tragic death, has become a national symbol for gun violence awareness and a call to value human life. And whereas each year on June 6th, people across the country were orange to raise awareness about gun violence and to honor and remember all victims and survivors. And whereas we renew our commitment to reduce gun violence and pledge to do all we can to keep firearms out of the hands of people who should not have access to them, support those impacted by gun violence, support access to mental health services, and encourage responsible gun ownership to help keep our families and our communities safe. Now, therefore, through the authority vested in me by the Board of County Commissioners of Alachua County, Florida, I do hereby proclaim June has Gun Violence Awareness Month in Alachua County, Florida, duly proclaimed this 10th day of June. It's signed by our illustrious chair, Charles Chestnut IV, and attested to by our clerk, Jess Irby. And I will say that we've taken great strides. We've got partners across the street. Carl, I would ask you to maybe speak briefly about that. We've got an incredible crisis center, the best in the state. And we've got multiple partners that are really leaning in on this, from the Children's Trust, to the City of Gainesville, to the youth councils that are helping kind of bring this awareness front and center in our community. And I couldn't be prouder. So, Carl, you say a few words. Thank you, Commissioner. I just want to say is we appreciate the Board, Chair Chestnut, and the Board of County Commissioners for this proclamation. It's so important for us. You can see by the numbers that Commissioner Cornell mentioned in the proclamation, the number of lives that are lost, the number of lives impacted, families impacted throughout the nation, throughout our community. The proclamation clearly shows that. And so we want to thank you for that. I can share with you that the alliance that you formed with the City of Gainesville and Santa Fay College, and Brittany Coleman is here today from the City of Gainesville. That alliance is going strong and is meeting regularly and with stakeholders and partners throughout the community. And so the work is progressing. And I just want to take maybe a special thank you to Commissioner Cornell as Chair of the Children's Trust for, and the Children's Trust stepping up and providing funding for the program that are involved in helping to prevent and intervene with gun violence. As there's a lot of partners out there, grassroots organizations that are working in neighborhoods, that are doing after school programs, mentoring programs, working with youth and young people to help make them aware of the consequences of gun violence. And so we want to support that, encourage that, and we are with the funding that we're providing and the programs that we have. With me today is Dr. Ali Martinez with the Crisis Center. They're 24-7 accepting calls and talking to people about their emotional state, which a lot of times involve violence and gun violence. You notice that the number of suicides exceed the number of homicides in our nation. And so it's very important work that they're doing. Also with us today, with me today is Amber Peacock. And Amber represents the Department of Community Support Services, and they're all, they're just, you know, totally involved in this process. So thank you again, thank you very much, Board of Commissioners, for all that you do in helping the community deal with this very important issue. Thank you, Sarah. Thank you. All right. Ali, can you just say just two minutes? This person is a superhero. Good afternoon, Commissioners and Chair. Thank you. So honored and inspired to be working along the city and other community stakeholders and partners every single meeting that we have, I'm kind of just in awe of all the passion that we're trying to turn into action with very sort of deliberate, thoughtful conversation about how do we move forward on this. And obviously, on my end, very concerned about the mental health trauma side and, of course, the suicides by firearm, which is a huge concern. So I think we're really, really excited kind of to move forward on that and begin to do even more sort of training, education, and awareness specifically around those issues. So thank you for creating that space and for those beautiful partnerships that we have to move this forward. Thank you. Mr. Chair, that takes item number four, presentation of a proclamation recognizing June 22nd through June 29th, 2025, as amateur radio week in Alachua County, Florida. Hello, everyone. I don't know if we have anyone. Oh, good. We do have some of our folks. I'm so glad to see them here. You know, I don't know a whole lot about amateur radio except to say that I was so impressed. It was one of the things that I learned about as a commissioner, how much we rely on these volunteers to support us and back us up on emergency response in times of need. So I just really wanted to say thank you and do so by reading this proclamation. Declaring June 22nd through June 29th as amateur radio week in Alachua County, Florida, whereas amateur radio has historically played a significant role in developing worldwide radio communications and has continued to provide a bridge between people, societies, and countries by creating friendships and sharing ideas, whereas amateur radio operators have provided countless hours of community service to local organizations and during emergencies throughout the decades, and whereas amateur radio operators of Alachua County and neighboring communities offer free technical training to all interested citizens, and whereas Alachua County recognizes these uncompensated services amateur radio operators provide to essential emergency response organizations, including the state of Florida and Alachua County, and whereas Alachua County emergency management and fire rescue departments value the partnerships that amateur radio operators have provided during our hurricane season to provide support for emergency communications on behalf of our impacted citizens and shelters, and whereas amateur radio week in Florida is an opportunity to honor and recognize the valuable work of radio operators in dispensing public safety information to the citizens of Alachua County and Florida. Now here, therefore, for the authority vested in me by the Board of County Commissioners of Alachua County, I do hereby proclaim June 22nd through June 29th, 2025 as amateur radio week in Alachua County, Florida. It has all of its signatures and its seal, and we just really do appreciate, you know, so many people in our community volunteer their time and energy to help, but to do so in a time of crisis when your own families may be experiencing needs is really something to be commended, so thank you all so much for what you do. Good morning. It's nice to see all of you. It's been a while. I'm David Huckstep, for those who don't know. Retired law enforcement, 47 years, spent the last 14th in the sheriff's office as a chief deputy. Many people did not know when I was here that I've been in the ham radio ever since I was 16, I got involved in ham radio. We're particularly a group that's dear to y'all's heart and you've been very supportive of, and that's Amateur Radio Emergency Services. We share a small room in the Emergency Operations Center. We answer directly to the director, Jennifer Kreiss, our assistant director, David Peton, and Chief Theus. We have a wonderful relationship. You all have been very supportive of us in what we do, and I appreciate and wanted to say thank you for the acknowledgement that you're doing. There are over 2 million amateur radio operators in the world, 700,000 plus are in the United States. There's about 42,000 plus in the state of Florida. And locally, we have about 35 amateur radio operators in Alachua County that are in some way or another involved with amateur radio emergency services, ARIES as we call it. And we practice what we preach every Wednesday in the Emergency Operations Center. We fire up all the radios. We talk to the state of Tallahassee. We talk on federal frequencies to the nationals in southeast and southwest regions. We do that for a couple hours every Wednesday at the EOC, and we also do it on Thursday nights here locally to make sure that our net is working here. And recently, through Chief Theus, we were given permission to add a repeater on top of this building along with the others on the tower that's atop of this building. So we now have a repeater on top of this building in addition to Channel 20 and some other towers throughout the county for our local communication. We have diverse personalities that are involved in amateur radio. I'm law enforcement. We have retired fire people. We have retired judge, judges, lawyers, doctors. We have two doctors that come to mind. We have a Ph.D. doctor, two medical doctors, a Ph.D. doctor, a scientist at University of Florida, a bug doctor, as I call her. She wanted to be here, and we could not be here today. But anyway, we have diverse careers, and a lot more people getting more involved. They've wanted to do most of the career like me, but I couldn't do so until I was retired. Then I've gotten more involved in volunteering my time as the rest of us do throughout the year, particularly during hurricane seasons. One last thing I'll share with you, try to turn it over to Judge Gallup, is when you make a decision, the emergency operation director, the chair makes a decision to open up a shelter, and we're one of those people at that shelter providing communications, direct communications with the EOC, radio communications. Partly that came about with a partnership with the sheriff's office when I was there with Sheriff Darnell, that most public safety, police and fires radials will not work in our schools because the fort that the school is, the bricks and the mortar and the steel, are their radials when they need to call for help or give direction. So when you open one up as a shelter, we don't have communication with the police and the paramedics there. So the sheriff's office had 14 communication boxes built. We handle those things. So when you open up a shelter, one of our people will volunteer and spend the hours that shelter is open with the communications box that we have direct communication to the EOC. So when you're making those decisions, taking that in consideration in your decision of what's going on in your shelters. Fortunately, it's been more of a training exercise. We've never had the real bad, big one where we have thousands of people we're trying to house. We open them. You open them. Not only for our local residents, but from people who are trying to escape from the danger that's coming into their county. We have many times, as you know, have housed people there. I'd like to introduce to you retired Judge Gallup, Leland Gallup. He is one of our leaders in our group, and he'd like to share with you an exercise that we've got coming up at the end of the month. And I would acknowledge Commissioner Alford, I know you have been there a couple of times to see what we do, and you saw us at Memorial Park when we were set up there, and we very much appreciate it. It did not go unnoticed. Mr. Lee Gallup. Thank you, David. I also wanted to recognize Commissioner Alford. She and I spent about 20 minutes during one of the hurricanes discussing the role of amateur radio in providing emergency communications. And Commissioner Pritzia, you said you don't really know much about it. Well, I can tell you how you can find out something about this. The week of amateur radio will be culminating at the end of this month, and the fourth Saturday and Sunday of the month, in the largest amateur radio event in the world, called Field Day. And it's when thousands of amateurs literally take to the field to make sure that we can get communications out on behalf of disaster zones and people who need help all over the country and, indeed, all over the world. So, on Saturday, I think it's the 28th of June, if my memory serves me, at the Alachua County Sheriff's Office, more specifically the Alachua County Emergency Management Office, we will be conducting our own field day operation. And you'll see a bunch of us doing, I call it combat, but you'll see us engaging at a pretty high level in emergency communications. And that's how we'll show you what we do. One other thing you mentioned during the reading of the proclamation, that we conduct training. For example, tonight I will be training a class on one of the elements of getting the first level of amateur radio license. We do that for free, our own time, our own treasure. And Mr. Wallace will also be conducting a class later this week. So we do it pretty much all. But again, I invite Commissioner, members of the board, members of the public, come on down to the Alachua County Sheriff's Office on Saturday, the 28th in the afternoon. You'll see what's going on. With that, thank you very much. Okay, go ahead. Yeah, if I could ask a quick question. You guys are conducting these classes for free, and I know the first one was June 4th. Is it too late for the public to get involved in those free amateur radio classes? Well, for this year, it is, Madam Alford, because we're already in Chapter 5 of the book. Okay. And it would be a little bit late to try to catch the bus at this point. But we are convinced this is the way we're doing it right now. It's very easy because all people have to do is click on a Zoom link and watch us teach the class for free. So we will be announcing more of those. I wanted to thank Chief Theus and Director Grice for putting out information on the class that we're doing right now on social media. Yeah, I signed up, but I wasn't able to go because the nights don't line up for me very well. But I'm hoping that I can see. I think we can probably fix that. Okay. All right. All right. Thanks again. So where do we sign up where? Where do you people sign up for this class? And where is it? It's all Zoom? Is it all Zoom? It's all Zoom. All Zoom. And you sign up on a website? Well, there is a website. And if you're able to accept, I will tell you what it is right now. It's called the North Florida Amateur Radio Club. Just Google on North Florida Amateur Radio Club. And you'll find a link. You'll find our homepage. That is a link to the class that we're teaching now. Great. But we will be doing this again in the future, I am certain. And Chief Theus and the other media, the message will get out. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to thank Judge Gallup, Colonel Huckstep, and really everyone that participates. You know, a lot of the work that you're currently doing, as the colonel said, is training, exercise, training, exercise, training, exercise. And God forbid we have one of those events that our communications goes down. But knowing that you all are spending every Wednesday night, hours on Thursday, every week, volunteer time for our community, is really, really amazing. And I really appreciate it. So thank you. Well, our group has gotten good enough that we have now been top 10% operating. Another one? Chair, it's now time for public comment. Okay. Thank you. Chair, Jim Connors, nice to see you. Good morning. I think we all can agree that Poe Springs is worth protecting. If we could have the overhead, please. They're working on it. Okay. We have outrageous assaults on the water quality of Poe Springs. First of all, there's the macro condition that essentially is drying the river and the springs up. This is your floating dock installed in the mid-'80s. Your engineers never envisioned the river to be at this level. Because the county would never buy anything from me, I gave up on trying to sell my land next to the park. And I sold this piece of land to an Asian gentleman who somehow got permission to build a 6,000-square-foot structure on one acre of high and dry land. And without any permits, he dug a stormwater basin in the floodplain of the Santa Fe River, slightly upriver from Poe Springs, which is an outrageous attack on the springs. He was cited for clearing the rare hardwood hammock that existed on this land. And then with his own rented equipment, he dug this pit. It's as if China bombed, dropped a bomb next to Poe Springs Park. It's not his ethnicity. It's the arrogance. This man needs to be dealt with harshly. I commend staff for bringing compliance concerns. But it's time for the whip to come down on this gentleman. There is no defense for what he did and irreparable harm is done. But he's not alone. I've talked to you about this property before. I actually supported tearing down the shanty and building this building under the condition that an anaerobic septic tank go right there. I own land of both sides. The owner got tired of a river house, and she's operating a $200 a night Airbnb on an anaerobic septic tank with no operating permit for over five years, no inspections. I finally got Todd Harris to send her a week letter asking her to get her operating permit. She has ignored him. When this is in a two-year floodplain, when this floods, the sewage goes straight into Poe Springs, which is routinely closed to swimming by locking your gate. But people like myself that walk down from my property or people that come in the river have no idea that the spring is contaminated. Your water in your well frequently is under a boiled water notice because of contamination. This lady right here, Carolyn Newman, likewise is assaulting the quality of the Poe Springs and essentially operating a motel on an anaerobic septic tank that hasn't been expected in five years. You have a legal department. You attacked my agricultural building unsuccessfully with nine people. I'd like you to attack these people and shut them down and punish them. This is a community resource, and they're trashing it. Thank you so much. Can you give that information to the copy? These are my only copies. You'll make a copy and give them. Okay. If you want to bring back copies later, Jim, whatever. If you want any copies, I'm not used to a response. Is there anybody else wishing to give public comment? Pull it down. You're down. I'm short. I know the feeling. In under one minute, I want to dispel and or alter neuroassociations regarding individuals that are disabled and or... Can you state your name for the record before you start? Oh, I'm so sorry. My name is Angela Spitz-Garcia. I hold three college degrees, one in business administration, another one in marketing and advertising, and the third is a paralegal. And again, to reiterate, I want to dispel neuroassociations towards individuals that are disabled and or disenfranchised economically. This is in regards to the Sunrise Residence Inn, to which we all know is in deplorable condition. The engineer reports don't lie. Tangible evidence is what it is. However, it continues to degrade in an eight-month period. Now, I'm not the only individual that is suffering health issues due to this. And I want to jolt your memory, Commissioner Chestnut. I spoke to you on the phone because I was in such distress. News brief indicating that it was possibly the tenant's fault for not filing complaints and such. Yet, we have dozens of complaints, every agency, mounds of tangible evidence. It's just agencies turned a blind eye. You see, they think everyone that is economically challenged, it's their own fault. Well, to a degree, it is. We made poor choices. In 2006, when I became aware of the criminal conduct of child predators on the Internet, I founded the former nonprofit Angels Against Child Predators. And I made an executive decision to protect the community of Volusia County. And I destroyed tangible evidence to protect. And unfortunately, insidious individuals countered that with intentionally economically decimating my life. Again, tangible evidence doesn't lie. People do. I'm not here about what happened to me personally at that time. But it did lead to the economic disenfranchised. I am now disabled. Nonetheless, as of recent continued, we were elated when the county purchased it. We thought, okay, we've got some heroes. We have individuals that will actually listen. Well, we still have the management company of Alachua County Housing Authority. Personnel there, when my doctor submitted a letter indicating to them that it was medically necessary, in writing, by the way, medically necessary to move me from that establishment because of the condition, they returned with, no, they deemed it unnecessary. And by the way, not one of them hold a medical degree in science. My health has continued to degrade because of the condition of the building, along with illicit conduct that is not being addressed, to the degree that is necessary that I leave under default. Material default, I'm being forced out. And I don't think the county commission is aware of exactly what's going on there. They're wanting the tenants to sign an arbitrary contract, that they accept full responsibility of the condition, that they will pay for the plumbing. And it's so ludicrous. It's punitive in nature and discriminatory. So I contacted the Florida Bar Association, obtained an attorney, and they addressed it with housing authority. I'm sorry, I have to limit your comments. You're only three minutes. Your comments is only three minutes. That's okay. I should have had a stopwatch. That's all right. I even have documents. But I had to walk three blocks for parking. I like to die in the heat, and I left the documents, and there was just no way I could go and get them. I apologize for that. Nonetheless, it is an issue that really needs to be addressed. I appreciate your time. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the commission. My name is Donna Blanchard, and I represent my family and friends and neighbors of Southwest 12th Avenue. And it's hurricane season, and we are once again petitioning you to help address our flooding issue that we face every season. I did come with some updates for you as to what we have been doing in the meantime. As of just this past Wednesday, June 6th, about 10 till 5, I received an email from Mr. Luwani offering to purchase our house because it's in the flood zone. Not my personal residence, but our rental house that's in the same neighborhood. And the amount that he offered us was based off of, like, maybe two years ago market value. We did some research, and the current market value based off of Zillow is somewhere between $60,000 and $70,000, more than what was being offered. And then he went on to say that the grant money would not be available for that purchase for potentially another year to two and a half years. So now we're looking at market valuation that is, like, maybe five years out of date. So that made the sale of our property a hard no. And then compound that when we pressed Mr. Luwani as to when the demolition of the house and the construction of the retention pond would happen, he responded, probably eventually, but he couldn't be nailed down as to a specific timeline. That's a second hard no. So in the meantime, over the course of this past year, on our half, we have trucked in over half a dozen dump truckloads of field dirt, constructed a retaining wall, built a berm around the sides and the back of our house. And we want to know what is the commission doing on your end to help us, because I'm looking back at prior notes. I've spoken many times on this subject, and I found an old e-mail from August 24th of 21 where you approved on a 5-0 vote following a motion by Commissioner Wheeler to approve issuance of purchase orders described at funding sources for pumps, materials to prepare, enhance pumping locations, storage buildings, et cetera, including 91st Street and Tomoka Hills, which I'm going to circle back to. Tomoka Hills, I understand that there has been a litiginous issue with the neighbors up the hill in Tomoka Hills, but what, okay. What's the address of the house that you were talking about? 92-18 Southwest 12th Avenue, Gainesville, 32607. Thank you, Ms. Blanchard. It's been a while, right? Right. So I don't know if it's something that you can share with us, leave with the clerk, or give us copies later as to what's happened since that amount of time. Is there an opportunity for me to come back and speak? Or you can come back and we can talk. That's what I'm talking about. Yes, please. They will set up an appointment for you in there, in our office. I'll do that. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your time. I would like to know where you are, I mean, what's been going on. Okay, thank you. Is there anybody else here for public comment? Good afternoon. Hi. My name is Mark Van Suisbergen. I'm here to badge you for $15,000 for a climate dashboard app. It kind of looks like this. It's got three elements. Basically, the topic, you push this button. There's buttons, basically. There's a screen that shows you what the button is about. And then here you have, like, stored information. So it's super, super simple. And it's going to be made by the people at UF. It's, like, part of a project that they have every year. It's a capstone project. You get five students for two semesters. So the product would be, like, ready next spring. So they would start in August. So it's a capstone course. So, like, you know, August and blah, blah, blah. And then they have Christmas break. And then they do the spring semester. So basically, you could do, for example, you guys are working on, you know, you have, like, various things. I think it was 10 items that you had in your climate adaptation plan. And so you would push number one. And then it would say agriculture. And number two would be energy. And over here would be all the stored information, you know, whether it's PowerPoint or PDF or something like that. And so it's a super, super simple design. It's $15,000. And so if you want to get a custom app made, you know, there's no way a vendor can get you an app for $15,000. So, first of all, it's a price perspective. It's really, really attractive. And also it's open source. So if somebody comes up with a feature that adds to it, then, you know, basically you get, like, you know, developmental time for free. If people, you know, hey, how about this? So, and I talked to the lady at the city, and she said that she would like to use something like that for her greenhouse gas emissions. She wants to share the greenhouse gas emissions. And so apparently they have got, like, I think eight, is it eight or seven or different categories? Like one is for, you know, for transportation or there's energy, transportation. Then there's a commercial. There's residential. There's various kinds. So she would like to use it. So what happens is that this thing is static, and then you on the back end, like whether it's, you know, you, for example, you get to, like, upload what number one is number two, number three. You get to, you get a web browser, and you say, well, number one is a number, or what number one is a text. And then you get to add, well, once you click this, this is what appears. So you control what actually the users see. So just a template that lives in somebody's pocket. But you can also communicate to that person. Like, for example, if there's a fire or something, you can say, if they have the climate, you know, app in their pocket, that it goes bing, bing, bing, and you can tell them where the fire is and show them a picture of the fire. Or if it's really, really hot and you want them to go to a, I don't know, if they want to, you can show them where the locations are of, like, a cooling place where they can cool off. So you control what's on, what information is shown. This is just a template that people have in their pocket. And the reason you want to start at one point is you need a 1.0. Only if you have a 1.0 do you know what you want more or you want less or what it really should do. So, and I'll give you this in an email. Well, you can have the, I'll send you an email. Thank you. Mr. Chair, we have two callers. One has their hand raised to speak. I would let the caller, whose number is ending in 4494, if you wish to speak, please hit star 9 on your phone. In the meantime, caller ending in 7522, if you will hit star 6, state your name. You're in the room and you can speak. Hi. Good afternoon. My name is Melissa Ray. I am the executive director of the Nehemiah Project. And we are the new recovery community organization for Alassua County. We were requested to come by our managing entity, Lutheran Services of Florida, and provide some peer support through our RCO organization. I spoke with you guys last month to introduce the agency and let you know what we did. And I'm coming back today. I apologize for not being able to be there in person. We are actively moving into our new office. So we're very excited about that. We are actually located at 4114 Northwest 13th Street. We are neighbors with the release reentry program, which is going to be a very good relationship. And I also wanted to make you aware of the fact that we have a 24-hour peer-monitored helpline available for anyone who has questions and needs resources or assistance with any kind of substance use disorder. So this could be somebody looking for treatment. This could be a family member who's out there with them. This could be somebody who's just wanting to learn more information. Somebody in crisis. And so we monitor this line by peers. A peer is somebody with lived experience who has found recovery and been through training and is now certified through the state of Florida. And I just wanted to let you guys know that we're here. And if there's anything that we can do to assist the community in their recovery efforts, we are more than happy to provide that assistance. Thank you. Just quickly, since she's on the phone, I don't know if she'll be going. I just want to quickly say, if you haven't already connected with our community resource paramedics program, which I can't health intercept team. I can't remember what the name of it is, but through our fire rescue, we have a community outreach program that's been doing some work through with opioid addiction and things like that. So if you haven't connected with them already, I would encourage you to reach out and we can get you that contact information offline. Thank you, ma'am. That mobile integrated response program, we are already connected with them. Thank you. The contact number would be great. The 24-hour hotline number? Yes, I'm sorry. It's 1-855-352-PEER, P-E-E-R, 7337. Thank you. Thank you. And we would appreciate it if everybody could just blast that number in any avenue that you have. Mr. Chair, that was the last commenter. Okay, thank you, Ma'am. That takes us to board and committee items. The first item is advisory board update on the Citizens Climate Advisory Committee. Afternoon. I'm going to pull up my presentation. Thank you for having me. Hi, everyone. My name is Jenison Kipp-Searcy. I am the resiliency specialist with the Environmental Protection Department and the staff liaison to the Citizen Climate Advisory Committee. So thank you for having me here today to present an update on the CCAC. I'm first going to go into the membership because we have a lot of changes coming up. And so our current fiscal year members, I want to recognize them for all of their service. And Mr. John Nix is here with us today, thankfully. Our current chair, Mr. Barry Jacobson, could not be here. I was the chair until February, and I rotated off into my staff position. Sage Sarah is our secretary. Jackie Davis, Catherine Talbert, Terry Clark, Pamela Hawkins, and John Lawson. And I want to recognize also the staff liaisons who serve this committee through the fiscal year. So Stephen Hofstetter, the director of EPD. And then we've had participation throughout from our city partners, Dr. Dan Zhu and Jenny Ford with the city. And so this year we will be having, we will have four members vacating. So myself, Mr. John Nix, Jackie Davis, and Catherine Talbert. And importantly, as you're aware it's on the agenda this afternoon, we have a new resolution for the Citizen Climate Advisory Committee. And it's exciting because we're going to be adding a youth voting member who is ages 16 to 21. And this was a recommendation made by the CCAC a couple of years ago. And I know the commission, you've been supportive of adding a youth member to other committees as well. So we will be bringing on a voting youth member as well as an alternate member, which this committee has not had before. So we'll have that alternate member. And then in addition to those two positions, we'll have three member vacancies. So we will be advertising this month once that updated resolution has been adopted. We'll be advertising for five positions. So we're looking for motivated, dedicated citizens throughout the county to apply for this. And we're really excited to be having a youth member coming on board soon. And then the other members who are staying on are as well listed here. So a reminder of the purpose of the Citizen Climate Advisory Committee. It was established through a resolution in 2020. So it's been in existence. We're in the fifth year. And the key responsibilities are to provide recommendations to the Joint Water and Climate Policy Board, assist and advise the county and the municipalities within the county on development of a climate action plan, which is currently in draft form. And a key of this is that this committee provide bold and innovative climate adaptation and mitigation strategies, policies, target goals, and action items to achieve those goals. Stakeholder engagement from day one has been critical to this, making sure that it's inclusive of all the voices in our community and ensure that those who are most impacted, as we know through our vulnerability assessments and just, you know, by living here, we know where the impacts are touching all of us. So that ensuring that there's equitable representation of everyone in this community and the climate action plan is another goal of the committee. And then assist in promotion of greater community awareness of this initiative and all of the work, not just the county programs, but our community partners who are doing the work to help enact and reach our goals at the county level. So this chart was actually created in 2020 or 2021 by the first round of the Citizen Climate Advisory Committee. So Mr. John Nix and I are the only two members who had been on since the beginning, and I just am showing it to you not to walk through it, but to highlight that we are at the bottom of this process that the CCAC itself had established back in 2020, 2021, during the COVID years. So we are here at, we've got the draft climate action plan, moving it toward adoption this year. And so in terms of the CCAC goals for this fiscal year, there were three high-level goals, and I'm going to tell you, just give you a snapshot of the accomplishments of those and then open it up to questions. So the top goal was to evaluate and provide critical input and feedback on the drafting of the climate action plan, and I wanted to read the purpose of that plan to share with everyone who's listening and remind you all of the broadest goal, you know, the end target of what we're trying to achieve. So the purpose of the climate action plan is to guide, develop, and cultivate environmentally, socially, and economically resilient strategies and equitable solutions to climate change for the whole community. So that's a huge ask, it touches everybody, but the CCAC is at the core of guiding this again. So the first goal is providing that input on the draft cap and move it forward. The second goal was to participate in this fiscal year in our last year's November climate summit that was held on November 16th. And then the third goal, collaborate with the municipalities, nonprofits, stakeholders, and others within the county to increase the awareness of and citizen participation in the plan itself and keep those, like, communication and feedback loops going so that it's an informed plan and headed in the right direction. So to speak to those three goals, the CCAC did accomplish their first goal by the end of April. So all of our CCAC meetings were structured to have staff authors of the draft chapters come in and present and then do a deep dive into each chapter each month. So this is the schedule you can see and the breadth of the topical areas covered. So water, waste management, natural resources, energy, land use, and transportation, flood management and infrastructure, public health, which is drafted addressing primarily mental health because public health is spread throughout all of the other chapters. We're addressing that as we move to the next draft, agriculture and food security, and then the introduction. So this was the schedule that the CCAC reviewed these chapters. The second goal with the climate summit was highly successful. So in November, we had over 170 attendees, and CCAC members all played a really important role in this in hosting all of the ins and outs and, you know, the long-term planning as well as the execution and delivery to make it a success. And we received very positive feedback, and we're going to continue to grow that with our this year's climate event. And then the third goal of the CCAC is that broad stakeholder collaboration. And I just have a snapshot of one example of where a CCAC member, Ms. Pamela Hawkins, who's the president and founder of Grace to Overcome, worked with the county and a grant through the Urban Sustainability Director's Network to hear voices in our community of how they are experiencing climate change and where the needs are. And so we premiered a film on April 2nd that Grace to Overcome, Pamela Hawkins was an interviewer for those interviews with local residents of Alachua County, and then we premiered the film at the Matheson Museum. And the Well Creative Production Company was another important stakeholder partner in creating that. So I just wanted to highlight that work of Pamela and the CCAC in guiding this work. All right. And then for next steps, so we're moving forward with finalizing the cap, moving into a, you know, we have a strong, robust current version, so we have a schedule of reviews and events moving forward with the CCAC to bring it to the finish line for adoption by the board and then help coordinate the planning of our climate event this year, which we're calling a climate festival. It will be November 15th with a focus on food systems as solutions to our climate crisis. And then continue the ongoing stakeholder engagement and outreach and soliciting feedback. So we're constantly in discussions, requesting feedback, trying to respond to concerns and gaps and opportunities. And then provide guidance to the staff, to Mark Van Sestbergen's public comment, you know, providing feedback on transitioning this into a living, it will be, it is and will be a living document, but it will be transitioned to a dashboard that enables that ongoing, like, implementation, where the rubber hits the road, actually, like, enable this work to continue and leverage it and amplify it and make sure the resources are there to continue the work through a dashboard. So CCAC will be providing input to that process as well. And that's my update, and I'm stopping on our climate initiatives page, which is housed in the Environmental Protection Department because the draft climate action plan is there. When we open up the vacancies for the CCAC, we're going to want to get that out broadly to the community about that opportunity, and we'll make sure that's posted on the page. And we also have a portal, so this is where anybody can go and click on this link where it says the draft climate action plan form. We can, we're, we've had this open for a while now to invite feedback and comments and criticisms and ideas. So that's up there, and that's not going to come down while we're finalizing the plan. So thank you. Are there any questions? Yes. We have Commissioner Alfred, Commissioner Prizia. I want to thank you for your dedication to this effort and to your hard work, which has culminated in you being an employee of ours. So congratulations on that, and thank you for that as well. I wanted to ask the film, is that easily found on the Climate Initiative site there, or is there another place folks could look for it, or is it on YouTube? So it's not currently on YouTube, but where we're directing people, the full-length interviews of all of the, I believe it was 13 residents, and our Francine Vincent, she's highlighted in that film as an interviewee, the Emergency Operations and Management. The full-length interviews are in a digital exhibit at the Matheson Museum on their website. Okay, so if they could go to the Matheson website if they wanted to see that. Okay, good, because I had someone actually ask me about that, which was kind of incredible. That's very cool. Okay, and thank you. Thank you for your work on this. Thank you, Commissioner Alfred, for your support. Commissioner Prizia, then Commissioner Wheeler. Yeah, thank you. We got to hear a little bit about this and give some initial input with the Joint Water and Climate Committee about a week, a little over a week ago, and I think we're kind of headed in the right direction, so I'm excited about, we've, we made some recommendations that we have a couple workshops where the board could actually kind of go through the content of these chapters as well and provide some feedback before we finalize it in case there are thoughts, ideas, initiatives that relate to your specific areas of interest and expertise. And then I just wanted to say a request, which is if we could possibly work with Mark's team to put together a flyer specifically for the CCAC, like just a digital one that we could then share out, since it's that there's so many positions available. I think when we have that number available, it's really helpful to get the word out on social media, and so if we can share that with our Joint Water and Climate Board and this board, you know, we can share it on our social media and spread the word, and I would make that request of any of the boards that we have that have a lot of vacancies, like sharing them that way, I think is helpful. It's kind of hard to do it ourselves if we don't have something visual, especially the way that social media works now, so something like that would be fabulous for us. And the same for the feedback, a link to the feedback for folks would be great. Thank you. Wonderful, great suggestions. Yes, we will definitely. Commissioner Wheeler. Yes, I'm really excited about the youth member on this board, too. I was impressed with the speakers that we had invited to the summit in the fall, so I'm hoping you will extend, you know, the information to them individually. But also, I don't, you know, it's really hard to get information out to groups, I think, the importance of what it is we're doing and how much we really do want involvement from the youth community. And I know I've attended a few of the 4-H events that they've had, awards, FFA, you know, some of those young people who are invested already in climate issue, well, what's going to be affected by climate. And so I don't know how you would actually get the word out to organizations, the schools, you know, or have you thought about, you know, how we can – I know Nkwanda Jha has got a team of people, too, in place, but they're, you know, they're young people out there throughout the county who are being groomed through the programs such as 4-H and FFA and some of the other environmental groups that we might be able to make sure at least they are invited to participate. So – and I just appreciate the energy that you all are putting into this for sure. The dashboard that you're talking about, is that something that you would be coordinating with what Mark is offering, or are we setting up our own? So we currently have – the county has a contract with a vendor who could provide services for the dashboard, Zen City. So we're participating in trainings and review of that because other counties are going to be using that. Oh, I see. But we want to make – but it's not – it hasn't been decided. So, you know, hearing ideas like the app that Mark van Sussbergen presented, I mean, we're – right now we're open to what we want to have as the best, most functional platform that achieves the goals that we need for this community to make it actionable and really, like, enable it to be a dynamic platform that allows for the engagement and jumping on opportunities to leverage funding sources that go directly to those, you know, identified action items, for example. I guess timing is an issue, too, as to whether it would be up and ready to go compared to what is already being used. But even if we – if something more effective and innovative, maybe Elastra County could lead the charge through the rest – you know, the group that you're talking about that might be more effective, I don't know. It's – dashboards are not my strength. Yeah. I still believe in carrier pigeons. I mean, you know, so, you know, whatever you all decide, we have people here, you know, on our board who are very proficient with dashboarding. So, you know, but it would be interesting to see if we could somehow improve the model. That's all. And if the university has students who are willing to help us do that, it would also promote their work at the same time. So – Yeah. I mean, I can say leveraging our local resources first. And I also, you know, as a follow-on to that answer, I don't think it's an either-or necessarily. Perhaps the app is a complement to a larger integrated climate action, you know, dashboard. So we're exploring all the options and, of course, have to look at the cost-effectiveness and the trade-offs. And so, yeah, we'll be getting into that process, and the CCAC will continue to provide that critical input and guidance. I'm sure you will. I'm sure you all are on it, and I'm excited. We're really lucky to have amazing experts on this committee. I mean, it's really humbling when we hear the feedback every month on these topical areas that touch on such a breadth of, you know, disciplinary issues and just practical challenges that our community's facing. Like, it's really – it's amazing. So I'm excited about where this committee can go. And they're still pretty young, but I think it's – yeah, it's a good opportunity. So thank you. Yeah, we'll do our best to involve everyone. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Okay, we have Commissioner Prisian, too. Mr. Chair, just because Zen City came up, I agree that it is an ideal platform for what you're talking about. What is happening now is really departments all across the county are being trained. You saw an example of a Zen City microsite with the road project site. That is something you will be able to get to from what will become the dashboard that you all have been talking about for so many years. So there will be major categories on the dashboard. We're thinking probably in line with your strategic vision, your priorities. And, you know, one, it would be environment, for example. It would go to a Zen City microsite, but it can also go to all kinds of other resources and links and information. So it's not a limiting kind of thing. It's a very expansive thing. All I was going to say is as we're exploring that and exploring the dashboarding, the opportunity to create something that's integrated with our ubiquitous cell phones would be really cool. And so if that works out, and I was thinking more at the meta level, like more at the sort of county-wide level that would drive them to the different Zen City sites, that would drive them to the different resources. And, you know, our website is difficult to manage, and I imagine as we build out more Zen City, it will be challenging to navigate all the opportunities there, too. So having something that folks can explore by topical area easily from their phone could be really powerful. So I like the idea. I think how it fits into our goals and desires, yeah, and budget and sort of who our collaborators are on that I know is to be determined. But I like the concept, so I'm excited about that. And I would just leave with Zen City is really mobile-friendly. Take a look at that road project site on their phone. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mark. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions? It's called the Mark Rescue. It happens a lot. The Mark Rescue. Love it. Yay. Thank you. Anything else? No, that'll do it. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Clinton. Mr. Chair, that takes us to action items. The first one is the Elijah County Living Spaces, Thriving Places, Program Evaluation Criteria. Good afternoon, Mr. Chair. Commissioners, Ralston Riudica, Housing and Strategic Development Coordinator, or Director, with Community Support Services. And so what we have here is an update from your May 6th meeting regarding the Infrastructure Surtax for Housing Program, which is funded by the Elantra County Wild Spaces and Public Places Surtax. So, so far we've received three applications for the IST funding. Two of them are listed here that may appear to be eligible. One is from Bain Development for Royal Park Seniors. Again, that's located on West University Avenue at Southwest 2nd Avenue in Gainesville. They have requested $5.4 million for 88 units and up to $6.5 million for 104 units, because that's largely dependent on other funding that they're going after for, like, sale money and state funding. So that is actually for senior housing. There is a component that we're waiting on in terms of confirming, like, workforce housing, the population that they intend to have residing there. And so we're waiting for confirmation from the developer for that. The other application was from JE Properties for Oak View Apartments, Phase 2. That's located at 1515 Northwest 10th Street in Gainesville, and another project at 1500 Northwest 12th Street, also in Gainesville. And so they have requested $9.65 million for 162 units. 92 of those units are for workforce housing. 70 are for senior housing. So they're proposing to do a renovation of 80 units and then new construction of 82 of those 162 units. Also waiting for confirmation for that and any other specifics in terms of economic development impact, because that's obviously what this funding is for, is developers to show the economic impact of the workforce housing that they would like to build. And so, again, we're talking about the infrastructure surtax with IST, approximately $54 million that will be available or that is available over the next 10 years. And the goal is to increase housing stock units and development opportunities with the surtax revenue. And so this is just the five-part motion that the board gave to staff on May 6th, basically developing the program guidelines, evaluation criteria for the IST program, also for taking a look at the city of Gainesville's ADU policy, which is already allowed in Alachua County, and then also having a staff person looking at how development applications come through and coordinating with the county departments, and then also looking at return on investment, specifically at Orange County, how their program is sustainable and ensures that the revenue continues to come in. So, Ralston, on the two projects that you mentioned up above, would it be staff's recommendation that they would utilize what Orange County does with regards to if we awarded those funds for those two developments, meaning a 0% interest or a 1% or 2% interest rate that they paid back? Because I think they're asking for equity funding, and I know this board is interested in having some sort of a revolving-type facility that is always used into the future. Has staff gotten that far on those two? Mr. Chair, there's a slide on there. We did put in Orange County's revolving loan fund program as an example. But the idea for our program would be it would be a low-interest loan to developers with the intention of getting repayment. Okay, so in all of your staff's discussions with developers, it's not a grant. It's actually a loan, low-interest loan that would then be repaid. That is correct. It should be and it needs to be a loan, as you know, developers can pay and they should pay. But obviously this ensures that the program would be sustainable, right? And so the evaluation criteria, we have 13 criteria that we've gathered from Orange County, from Pinellas County, and also looking at Florida Housing Finance Corporation, specifically at their RFAs for workforce housing. And so the total points available is 300, and so these are the different criteria that we're looking at that we've also received feedback from our Affordable Housing Advisory Committee. So pertaining to per-unit subsidy, local government assistance, any other county funds for affordable units, and then the target area of up to 60% of AMI. Again, the direction was 30% to 60% of AMI. Obviously, development location as it relates to services and amenities, such as employment, health care, and access to food and grocery and other services. And then also whether the location is relative to other affordable housing communities, right? Because as you all said, we don't want to build just in one neighborhood, right? We want to be able to have communities throughout the county, right? Again, then just targeting the income served, making sure that developers have long affordability periods. Typically, best practice is at least 50 years now, and so the way we have is they get more points if they have at least 50 years of affordability, right? Some are actually going higher in other states, but 50 years, that should be the minimum for that. Again, percentage of housing that is workforce housing, because there are some criteria like mixed income that some developers will propose. None of them have yet in the applications that we received. Then we also look at the developer fee in terms of the percentage of the total development costs, and then also looking at their experience, how many workforce or affordable housing developments they've completed in the past two years or in the past three years, how successful they've been in securing, you know, housing credit and tax credits and layering those different amounts of money for the development. And then lastly, looking at energy efficiency that is incorporated into their developments. So not just Energy Star-rated appliances and systems, but also making sure that there are low flow, they're using low VOC paints and other things that are aligned with Green Building Coalition and other certifications for energy efficiency. We have a question, Commissioner Alpert, and then Commissioner Prizia. Yeah, regarding the energy efficiency, since we have one of the proposals is doing renovations as well as building new units, energy efficiency is less of a concern with new units because if you build to code, they're pretty energy efficient. But in terms of renovating existing units, energy efficiency could have a much bigger weight because we're dealing with older building codes and we all know that, you know, apartments in Gainesville can have outrageously high energy bills. So I'm curious, is there a way to that weight? Weighting would be looked at differently for renovations versus new construction? Mr. Chair, certainly. That would be part of the review of the applications. I'm just wondering if we should have a separate rating criteria for renovations versus new constructions, maybe, is a thought process. Sure. Thank you. Mr. Prizia? Yeah. I mean, I'm with you. I think that if we had a standard energy efficiency criteria, it would apply across the board. So the new ones would automatically score, but then the renovations would have to meet that same criteria. So it would sort of lift them up, I would hope. Yeah, but if it's only getting 20 points, then it may not happen and it may still score very high, is my point. We're looking at 300 points total and it's 20 points. Yeah. I will say that when we have this conversation, and he hasn't mentioned it yet, but a lot of these are based on energy efficiency is added by us, but everything else is based on what the Florida Housing Corporation and other financing authorities that do affordable housing use so that it aligns with them. Because we're going to be one tiny portion of their capital stack and there's lots of others and we don't want to make it more difficult for them to get those other things by creating a bunch of hoops for this smaller amount of money. So that is, but we are adding that as it stands. So I think that's something to consider. But I agree with you, we do want it. So, I mean, but we've got other incentive programs too, right? Renovation also qualifies for our funding for new units. I mean, for doing energy efficiency upgrades to apartments. So they could also maybe qualify for some of that support and funding. Yeah, that's very limited though in terms of availability. So anyway, it just popped out at me when I was reviewing this. The one thing I wanted to mention that I hadn't thought of at the time when we had this conversation at the Affordable Housing Advisory Committee was timeline. I do feel like having some either understanding or expectation in our criteria around the timeline to construction, like what their anticipated timeline for this project is, because we've seen some of these projects kind of drag on as they're looking for their financing. So, you know, we should kind of be the last shopping, and then they should be ready to go with the project is the ideal scenario, right? Because we don't want these to drag on, and we've got all of our money committed to projects that don't happen for six, eight, ten years, and then we're still waiting on those units. So I think I don't know how exactly we work that in, but if we can chat with the team and think about the ways in which we could incorporate a timeline for the construction of the project into our criteria or evaluation, I think that would be really important. But I think these criteria are great. I'm excited about this strategy, this approach of providing financing to developers of low interest to meet those gaps in their capital stack so that we can get more units of affordable housing moving, and I think this is the direction we need to go with this funding. Thank you. So to proceed, so as I mentioned before, Alastair County would approve the city of Gainesville's ADU plans if they were submitted. Obviously, they would require a standard permitting process and permits for electrical, septic, and others if applicable. Wait, can I ask a question about that, sir? So are you saying that they would still, like, we can't pre-approve them the way that the city has done so that they would be a streamlined process? I think that was the ask, was not that we just, like, that, sure, they would, we know they would pass, like, we looked at them and they'd be okay, but that we create, I think the city, what the city's done has created a streamlined process to make it easier for people to use these and not have to go through such a lengthy, if there is a lengthy permitting process for ADU, so I guess I was hoping to have that same streamlined process. And, Mr. Chair, that is the intent. They would be approved, so there wouldn't be plan review necessary. They'd still be permitted, but we wouldn't have a 30-day plan review cycle. Awesome. So we have a lot of ADUs getting there. Good. So as I mentioned before, county department staff continues to coordinate when there are workforce or affordable housing development applications. All right, so this is kind of going back to initially when we asked Florida Housing Coalition to look at our IST program and how we can provide more homeownership opportunities and even a community land trust or some other shared equity type of model. And so we did incorporate that when we developed the IST program and the application because it wasn't strictly for rental or multifamily. It was open for single-family development for sale or for homeownership. And as I mentioned, so far we've only received three applications that are all for rental developments from developers that are targeting sale money at the state and other tax credit financing opportunities. So the application continues to be open. So it is a rolling application, you know, for developers for sale and rental developments. And so really what we have here is another option. Again, IST really is the financing mechanism, right, to provide workforce housing, whether it's for rental or for sale. And so staff has done, you know, due diligence, a lot of research, reaching out to other communities, looking at best practices, even looking at our own SHIP program where we provide, you know, down payment assistance to first-time homebuyers to see how we can augment that and support, you know, renters who are ready to move into homeownership because, of course, that would free up, you know, those affordable rentals for people to be able to come in. And also, if this were another option, then we would be able to spend the IST funds a lot quicker because to Commissioner Prizia's point, we're just – the IST funds are just one slice of the development pie, a really small slice, especially at $54 million. Typically, a developer, it's multimillion-dollar deals, right? So, for example, Woodland Park or Carver Gardens that we had for Housing Finance Authority, those are, like, up to $35 million bond deals or up to, like, $20 million. And so, again, the applications that we've received so far is largely contingent on the developer being able to secure other financing opportunities. And so sometimes what happens, local governments will commit the funding, and they won't get awarded the housing credit deals or the tax credit deals from the state. And so we're committing the funds really for a year or even longer without seeing any actual units being built or renovated. And so what we're proposing here is, like, a, you know, down payment assistance-like program, similar to our SHIP, down payment assistance program with higher funding levels. Again, target would be workforce at 30 to 60 percent of the area median income, and we have the income chart here a little bit later. And then also allowing up to 80 percent of AMI for essential workers. So that goes, it can be first responders, health care personnel, skilled building trades personnel, teachers and educators, and active military, National Guard stationed in the county. Again, so this is the income chart for 2025. So, for example, it can go up to, for a two-person household, up to 80 percent. If it's, you know, two persons, 66,560, or if it's 30 percent of AMI for the two-person household, it would be 24, the maximum income limit would be 24,960. Again, the focus would be on the 30 to 60 percent area median income. And so based on the income levels, this is how staff has determined the maximum award amounts. And, again, this is not a grant. This would be a zero percent interest loan, but it's a soft second mortgage, you know, very similar to how other local governments, you know, create their programs for homebuyers. So if you're at the 30 to 40 percent AMI level, you can receive up to $100,000, 41 percent to 50 percent AMI up to $75,000, 51 to 60 percent AMI up to $60,000, and then also up to $60,000 if you're an essential worker, up to 80 percent of the area median income. The purchase price limit would be set at $300,000, and that's looking at, obviously, the area median purchase price is pretty high in Latchewa County. It's roughly at $340,000. But, again, we have to set a cap so it remains affordable, right? And then, obviously, these homebuyers would have to qualify also for a mortgage loan, right? So this could be used for a single family, condo, townhome, or modular homes. And, again, this would be for primary residents. The home must be homesteaded. It's a subordinate mortgage, and it's a soft second mortgage, 0 percent interest. And this could be used for any existing or new construction homes. It could be part of a new development, or it could be a scattered site. So really making the program as flexible as possible, again, to try to facilitate, you know, more workforce housing, not just in one particular neighborhood or one community in the county. Here we have a question. Commissioner Prezi, I think Commissioner Alfred. Mine is, like, an overall comment and questions and sort of input, so I was going to let that finish. Yeah, my question was about how, if we're calling this down payment assistance, which it really isn't, it's just like a second low interest, it's a second mortgage at 0 percent interest, right? How does that affect, how does the bank look at that? Some will allow it. Mr. Chair, that's, yeah, so it's not a down payment, it's a down payment assistance-like program, so a bank would have to approve it. They typically look at what are the program guidelines, and so we would send them these types of guidelines, what it is, it has to be a sporting mortgage, and it's a soft second mortgage. So there would be a lien on the property. I mean, I think the way this would work is we would have a series of preferred lenders. Okay. And then an individual would have to qualify on the first, presuming a non-interest-bearing second on a monthly payment perspective, and so it would basically, you know, be up to that first mortgage lender. Many of them don't accept second, so we would really have to find a local credit union, a local lender, someone that's done this in another county successfully. Yeah, that's, I did a little research on it, and that was what I found was that a lot of banks weren't real keen on the idea. I think it's, and I, yeah, right, and so I was just curious how, because I, despite all the emails we've gotten against this, I don't see this as down payment assistance. I see this as a whole, we need another title, because it's, yeah, it's finance assistance is what this is, and so I, I just wanted to, I just wanted to understand if we, if we had approached banks or talked to them or if we knew any, you know, if we knew of any other communities that were doing this that had worked out a deal with banks or whatever. Well, I guess I can, if I can, I guess since we're doing it, I'll go there. I'll just say, I am not in support of this idea at all. I, no, I don't think that this is in keeping with what we promised the voters. We promised new units. We promised construction. You know, building new units, adding to the housing stock. That's what this money is for. And I think that the first program that they put together and all the criteria they put together very well meets that. And I think that we can figure out a way in which to do that in such a way that we, they've already secured their other financing. Like, that could, that could be part of that timeline. Like, if they've already secured their other financing, they get way more points than if they haven't and they're still waiting on things. I think we have a lot of developers in our community. I know that they, a lot of the developers that came and talked to us said, like, you know, people do affordable housing, that's what they do. And then they have a way of doing that and they, you know, this sort of fits the mark of, like, meeting that gap financing that they might need and their local match, which is great. But I also think that I'm seeing more of our for-profit developers that are doing market rate housing be interested in affordable housing. They're showing up at our meetings. They're having conversations with us. NV5 is doing the voluntary inclusionary housing with the city. Like, I think we have developers that are ready to start units that we're approving, that already have their preliminary development plans, that already have their financing, that we could be going to and saying, hey, we have this money. The housing project that's going at Lakeshore Drive that we just approved, like, they could be taking advantage of this funding to make those houses accessible and more affordable. Second phase of Tioga is another example I think of. Like, we're in the process that's coming our way. It's going to be, you know, apartments in an area of town where we really need affordable, like, workforce housing. Like, there's ways that we could work with existing developers to also push the envelope on getting more workforce housing units into those places. I don't have an issue with it being for sale housing versus rental housing. If there's a way for us to work with a developer that they're also the builder and the seller and they want to buy down mortgages, like, use the money to buy down mortgages and offer it to people at certain AMIs and they could figure that out, like, okay. But I really do feel like we have a program for down payment assistance through SHIP. We have money coming for that program. And the big gap we see in housing is that 30% to 60% AMI. And honestly, the majority of those people are not going to have the credit scores or the financial capability to even qualify for a loan to buy a house. Like, they're just not. You know, I mean, we just saw what their income levels are. We're talking about $24,000, $50,000. And, like, those people aren't going to have, with their other expenses, the wherewithal to even afford a mortgage, let alone a second mortgage, let alone have the ability to secure that mortgage. So I just, I feel like we really, we made a commitment when we talked to the voters about this part of the infrastructure surtax and that was more units adding to the housing stock. And I really think we have an obligation to continue that path. I know that it's frustrating because we're already two and a half years down the road and we, I might not see any of these projects actually break ground for another two or three years at least because of how time works with construction and development. But we're working on rapid permitting. We're working on reduced costs of permitting. We're working on other inclusionary incentives that I think can help. And I, if we work on that timeline criteria, maybe that could help as well. But anyway, I'm not in favor of the down payment assistance program for this funding. I do think it's a really cool concept. I love that we do it with ship and I'd like to see us be able to do it with more affordable housing trust funds should we have that money coming, but, um, not with this money. That's, I conclude. Okay. So, um, a couple of things. I just want to kind of, I want us to keep an open mind so far because I heard Commissioner Chesson say in our strategic plan, home ownership is really, really important. Um, and I'm not necessarily in favor of 85, 15%, but I, but I would ask us to consider one thing. One reason a lot of folks aren't buying properties right now is because, um, the interest rate is not something that they can afford at 7%. And the prices of houses has, has gone up so much since COVID that's beginning to change. And because rates are high, those prices are coming down. If we added a qualification that said in order to apply or, or receive this assistance, you had to be currently renting. I mean, you can't be a homeowner and upgrade. You have to be currently renting, then that actually does provide housing stock because that person that's in a rental moves into home ownership and then that rental becomes available. So, um, that's something that I hadn't thought about until actually I was getting a lot of calls this weekend from people because I'm having also challenges with providing subsidies to developers. And this would be a way on an individual basis to provide more housing stock. If that person were currently in a rental situation, that's point one. Point two, what, what really hit me over the weekend is the calls I got were from many of the folks that live in the city of Gainesville. And it struck me that if we're serious about this as a community, the county has put 30% of the set of consent aside. The city hasn't. And I would like those folks to address that with the city commission and us get in sync here, county and city on what we're doing for housing stock because housing is literally a municipal issue. And I think if we had a range of programs that, that cities could look at and perhaps mirror, like we're mirroring their ADU, that this would increase housing stock exponentially. And I don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater on this one because I think it actually does provide more units if we added a clause that said, you don't qualify for this if you're a current homeowner. You qualify for this if you're a current renter. That's point one. To your point, though, I don't think it should be 85-15 because I think that's too much. And I want to try this before we just kind of throw all this money into it. So just a couple of things to think about. And I'm really following your lead on this, Anna, because you've been in a lot more of these housing discussions than I have. But as a real estate agent, what I have found is a lot of buyers, if the rate were 2% or 3%, or in this case, 0%, they could qualify and they would make that move out of a rental into a house because housing prices are coming down and they're coming down fast. And we're going to see that in the ad valorem next year on January 1st of 2026. And I think this would also take some of the pressure off of what we're requiring developers and developers could actually use both programs. Like they could, instead of it being just an affordable housing program that's stacked, Adam's Home could take that program that they're doing and they could say, we've got some preferred lenders and you, if you want to buy this house, the preferred lender is going to offer a low rate, 5%. And the county is going to offer, if you qualify, another $30,000 at 0% and get them into those houses. So I think we could actually build one program off of the other if we add that one clause, that you can't be a homeowner and qualify. Just some thoughts to think about. We've got Commissioner Alfred, then Wheeler, and then Prisian. I think that's an old one, but I just wanted to throw out there, though. I think I sent you guys an article that talked about another community that did similar low interest loans for ADUs or zero interest loans for ADUs. I love that. And I think that is a way that we could put a lot of affordable housing out into the community as well, is by providing, you know, zero. Finance and financing is zero percent. Yeah. I mean, that's a real incentive right there. Just wanted to throw that out there. Okay. Commissioner Wheeler and then Commissioner Prisian. I've been trying to check on this a little bit, too. I feel like that the AMI being that low is a setup for people for failure. And the AMI of the folks, I think, in the Tampa group that I was talking to had an AMI up to 120. And that ensures that the payments can actually be made, that there is a real commitment to purchase. And it makes me a little nervous. Already my stomach is kind of churning just the idea of us being into real estate business, especially if we are having to monitor these kinds of things and then be responsible for putting people out of their homes after they've defaulted somehow that we've helped set up. And I just can't help but think that, you know, we keep talking brick and mortar, $300,000 homes, whereas we have modular homes that you can purchase right now to be set up. Turkey Creek Forest is one of my favorite places to go. I feel like it feels like a community, but those houses are not, you know, they're not built brick and mortar. They are modular homes that have been moved into place and created a community there. You know, for less than $100,000, you can put a home in place. I would say if we want to incentivize something, give these developers an opportunity to prepare a space of land, if it's a land trust, that makes it even easier for them, but to go in and prepare the land set up with sewage and water and bring in these homes and set up a community, we could get a whole lot of homes in place in a very quick amount of time. And these homes are obviously approved, they're obviously approved by the state, or we wouldn't be able to implement them in our communities. Yes? I could be wrong. I don't know. I'm not. But it seems to me that, you know, and these homes are outfitted. I mean, they are fully, they've got furniture, you know. So I just feel like that we are limiting ourselves by not, I mean, ADUs, great, you know, whatever we want to do to try to get those things in there, but there's a lot of land that's available, including our own land, that we could put quite a few really nice homes on for a lot less than what we're talking about here. And I just think we need to expand the way that we look at housing. You know, it's the idea of trailers, you know, that's outdated. That's a whole other era. And these homes that are being manufactured right now, if they're being approved by the government, there's no reason we can't approve them too. So I am concerned about something like this, an AMI of, what, 30 to whatever, 60? That's low. And that's hard to make those payments because you're not even just talking about buying a home. You're talking about insurance that's going to be required by the bank and taxes. And so we're setting people up for big issues, I think, that they might not ever recover from. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Okay, Commissioner President. Yeah, I agree with you, Mary Helen. I think we're setting people up in this situation. You know, to Ken's point, costs are coming down. The cost of housing is coming down. We already have this program. We have ship money. We already have money to do down payment assistance programming. We already do. The biggest gap in housing that we have in this community is rental housing for low-income families who need housing right now. And they can't afford a loan, and they can't qualify for a loan, and they're not going to be able to afford a mortgage, but they need a home. We have eight families looking for every unit we have. We need new starts. We need actual units. And I understand that we want to increase homeownership. You know, I was the first person to say that on this diet, along with Commissioner Chestnut. I 100% agree with that. But we can walk and chew gum at the same time. We can do both ends. We have the Affordable Housing Trust Fund. We need to put more money in there. We continue to figure out that investment. Maybe the revolving loan fund. I don't know. Once we get this money back, it's no longer the infrastructure surtax. It's payments on a loan. I don't know what the rules are from the attorney if she could weigh in on this. If once we get paid back, would that money still have to follow the infrastructure surtax? Perhaps we could put a portion of that into our down payment assistance, like some percentage of return funds from this program could be put into homeownership. But I think we need to get a little more creative about how that works. Like maybe it's a rent-to-own program where, you know, they could, they would be renting condos in partnership with a developer. And some percentage of that money of their rent every month would go into a fund that would be their down payment. And then that down payment, you know, they would have that money. Like there are some of the things that I'm seeing people, places like Chicago and others do in order to help people that would never otherwise be able to qualify for a loan. Start a savings account to save for their down payment by subsidizing essentially their rent, things like that. Like I could see things like that happening and getting really creative with our housing programs. But for this money, I really think we need to be focused on housing starts. I'm down with it being for ADUs. Like I think if somebody wanted to apply for this money, I mean, they just want to build one thing or they have a lot and they're in the city of Gainesville. They can build three ADUs. They can build one on their house and two detached. They could apply for this money as long as it's owner occupied. I'm not building, I'm not building a bunch of Airbnbs for people. Yeah, exactly. It has to be for low income housing. They have to have a LERA that shows that they're actually renting these for two low income households or to, you know, 630 to 68% AMI households. Like I don't want to be subsidizing people just building their own ADU for their grandma or, you know, their, or to rent out for vacation rentals. No, I don't know if grandmas are okay, just not Airbnbs. Well, you're right. Grandmas might need affordable housing stock. But you know what I mean. I just mean like not for them, their own benefit, right, for their, and for income, no trans, right, right, with actual leases to people they can prove are meeting these income restrictions. But like I don't see any reason why someone couldn't apply that was just doing a three unit development. It doesn't mean that an individual can't apply. It doesn't have to be a big developer building a multi-million dollar project necessarily, right? So I just want to see stock, I just want to see stock moving. You know, I want to see us working on that construction side of things. And that could be, you know, it could be buying an older hotel and turning it into apartments like what we're doing. Like it doesn't have, it could be adaptive reuse and renovation of a building that wasn't housing or was market rate housing and now they're going to buy it, renovate it, and turn it into affordable stuff. Like it doesn't have to be greenfield development, you know, I just want to see it be new units of affordable housing. And I, I'm not sure we get there with this project. I really don't. And I don't think it's in keeping with what we promised the voters. And that's the most important thing to me because we've been really, really, really specific about not changing our roads program. And we've been really, really specific about not changing our conservation program without the whole conversation of adding the ag lands, right? Right. And so it's like, we've just been really thoughtful and diligent about holding to what we told the voters on all of these things, even though some of that was just policy and some of that was just us talking and wasn't in the resolution. We're trying to get it. We don't, but what we told the voters was new units. That's what we told the voters, new units and 30 to 60% AMI, like the low income units, you know, and that's rental housing mainly. It really is. So I, I, but I do want to do home ownership. I do want to think about ways to do that, and I do want creative solutions in that regard. So I, but I, again, we have this kind of program already, and I, I feel like we'd be doing ourselves a disservice. How much of SHIB funding do we have, do we use? So it's actually declining in recent years, so it's roughly around $1 million. $1 million, okay. Approximately $10,000 per, uh, per home. It's $10,000. No. I mean, sorry, $100,000. $100,000. $100,000. $100,000. $100,000, yeah. I mean, I guess, I guess I'm just saying it's not that I think this is a bad idea. I just don't think it's the right idea with this funds. I hear you. Yeah. That's all. I, I mean, I think the idea is solid. I don't know that these income targets are the right targets either. I think home ownership, I think if we're trying to target these people for home ownership, we should be doing a program where we're doing, like, rent to own, where we're actually, like, maybe the money we, we get back from the loan, we sequester for down payment assistance, and then we're helping those people that we've already placed, like, you know, that kind of thing. Yeah, so can I respond before I hear from you, and then I'll, I want to hear. Sure, go ahead. So, so on the, I, I think we're setting them up for failure. The first, the first mortgage is going to ensure that that's not going to happen, because the, they're not going to get the first mortgage if they don't qualify. So, I hear your concern, but I'm, I'm alleviated by that concern with this program. If we had a first mortgage person, and you're right, Anna, this is basically an expansion of SHIP with some unique things to make current rental properties available to other people. So, I'm not saying that it shouldn't be tweaked, and I'm also agreeing with you that we shouldn't use 85% of our money. I'm just wondering if, if there is some, and I love the idea of using it for 80 use, you know, that are, that are utilized for a minimum of a, no transit rentals, meaning six months in a day, or long-term rentals, or home ownership, or, you know, homeowners in those units. But I want to hear from Chuck. I don't know where Chuck is on this. Well, I think it's a, it's, it's a tough issue, but I've always been a favor of home ownership, and I'll tell you why, because it creates wealth for folks, and it creates an opportunity to open a business, too. You know, if I need to take a mortgage on my house to go into business, I can do that. But I guess the problem I'm having, when I hear people saying that they're paying anywhere from $1,800 a month to almost $2,500 to $2,600 a month for rent, I mean, wow, to me, that's a mortgage payment. To me, I'm sorry, that's a mortgage payment. And so I would rather help those people get into home ownership, and then by saying that then free up additional rental units, yeah. But I'd rather help those folks get into home ownership more so than to have rents or giving developers breaks to provide new rental units. I mean, you know, when you talk to just common people on the street, I mean, they see things a little bit different. You know, they see, well, why are you giving them money, the developer money, to make things better for us when you can give that money to us to make things better? That's what I thought. Developers said to say. Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, that's what I hear. You know, I mean, if we need more apartment units, the state has a program. I would just say allow those developers to continue to use those programs, and we use our funding to help people get into housing or home ownership, which then frees up those units. Do you like those? I kind of like it, I'll be honest with you, because I can tell you it's better than what the city used to do, what they did in Porters, and I think what they did in Cedar Grove. They did forgivable loans, right? Then those people got in trouble. Right. They couldn't pay the first nor the second mortgage, right, because they both had interest on it. And then that's, I've always said, well, you just set them up to fail. You know, yeah, you're building a house, but now you've created all this debt for them. Now they've got a first mortgage and a second mortgage. That's what this is, though. It's just that it's zero interest, but it's still a second mortgage. It's still a second mortgage. And it's a $100,000 second mortgage. I mean, I know it's dropping into zero interest, so it cuts the overall interest rate, you know, buy a third if it's a $300,000 house or in half or something if it's, you know, maybe not quite in half, but if it's a $150,000 house, which, like, don't exist right now. But I'm with you on the idea of homeownership. I am. I just am not sure that this is the money for that. I'm not sure it's in keeping with what we promised. I also think it could be for homeownership because a developer could use this money to build starter homes, like what's happening at Lakeshore Drive, like what's happening, you know, like it could be used for that, and it could help them cover the cost of water and sewer to make those units even more affordable. So he could come in and ask for a portion of this money to do his water sewer, to do his underground utilities, or to do some portion of the construction costs, and then the houses that were done with that would be for sale at, instead of $250,000, at $200,000 or $180,000 or whatever, you know. And so there's, it can make ownership happen. And we could give more, I mean, I guess we could try to arrange our. . . How would they pay that active? How would the, if the developer's going to lower that price, it's not a revolving fund. Right. Well, it wasn't, I mean, originally our, I think originally our conversations weren't about, weren't necessarily about the revolving loan fund. They were more about just getting the, getting the money out to get affordable units built and trying. And I was. . . You can do that on the sales tax. Yeah, I don't have a problem with that. I just, I think the, for me, the big challenge is, like, I just, it's, for me it's not hard because it's not what we sold the voters. Like, I love this concept and this idea, and I'm totally down with let's talk to Tommy about where we can find the money to put money in our affordable, I mean, we've been putting a million a year in. Let's put a million bucks towards this program and see how it goes. Like, I'm told. . . Towards how they go? Yeah, towards this idea. Like, I'm totally down with this concept. So you're. . . . But I just don't want to use infrastructure surtax to do it because that's not what we told the voters we were going to do. Oh. This is not that. This was for constructing new units, and I, you know, it really was. And we're still talking $300,000 homes. And I'm okay with, I hear you about modular, like, there's all kinds of really cool, like, SIP houses and modular unit houses and the tiny homes that we're going to go tour next week. Like, there's lots of options that developers can use. I mean, Mary's, like, the queen of that. She's actually came up with ideas about that long before it was even popular. Like, I think there's a lot of opportunity there, too, for developers to get creative. I think that's where. . . With the kinds of construction that they're using. That's where I would be more willing to try to figure out ways to use money to help people to get in homes that they can actually afford to keep. And if it's on our land and they're just being able to flip their homes, they're still getting that. . . They still have that investment and ability to acquire wealth by selling that home if they don't want to stay there. We had a piece of property where we needed to. . . Have you all been to Turkey Creek Forest lately? I've been there before, yes. Yeah. I mean, it's a lovely community. I mean, but these are modular homes. They're not fancy. They're not $300,000 homes, but they're homes and they're cozy. I will say. . . I agree with you, but I will say I'm not in favor of trailers. I'm not in favor of us buying things that depreciate over time and that don't meet, like, current, all of the standards. Like, I do think it needs to be homes, but I think there's a lot of modular homes and there's a lot of off-site construction homes now that are bringing down the cost of construction for sure. For sure. So why we're not talking about them, I don't understand, that we're still talking $300,000 homes that a builder is trying to put in and make money. Are we trying to, you know, fill the pockets of the developers or are we trying to put people in homes? Well, I think that when we sold this, I'm just telling what we said we were going to do, you know. If we had said we were going to do an innovative housing program where we were going to incentivize developers to use new construction technologies to build affordable housing with county-owned land and we were going to go out and buy the land and then put a call out for developers to build tiny homes, that'd be cool, but that isn't real. And that could be a project. Like, we could take all this money and go buy land around town and then put a call out for developers who want to build tiny homes on it. Increasing housing. Increasing housing stuff. What I'm saying is by someone buying that was renting, we are increasing. Potentially. It's not the way we traditionally think. It's not the way we traditionally think about it, but it is increasing stock if they're moving out of a rental into a homeowner. Do they have to have been a renter to prove that they've never been a homeowner? Yeah, because that increases the housing stock. They're moving from... Right, but I'm just saying, like, if I knew I could get a zero interest rate loan, I'd move out of my... I'd sell my house tomorrow. I'd move into a rental for a year and then I'd get your money and then I'd... Okay. But that would increase the... Oh, you're saying you would gain the system? Well, I mean... No, you wouldn't, Annie. But those people... I'm just saying you could, but I also, I don't think people that are in the 30 to 60 percent... No. I'm just telling you, this rental, that target... I mean, when you look at the chart, we're talking people who make four, a four-person household, $31,000 to $62,000 a year. Are they even going to qualify for a mortgage for a house that's $150,000, $180,000, $200,000? If they use a deferred payment option and the first mortgage person qualifies them, they're a good credit risk, then they could. But maybe we need staff to help us here because we're... Yeah, manager. So a couple things, and I would like to say, first of all, Ralston has a lot more... has more presentation to get through that some of this stuff may be in, first of all, that we've not seen yet. But secondly, so a lot of what you're referencing would be in the criteria that we're putting on when somebody were to get the money. So, you know, you would ensure that the person has to live there, not turn it into an Airbnb. And the other pieces, so what we're talking about is putting money as, when we say soft seconds, so it's no interest, but it's also not a payment that is due. So how do you perpetuate the money? If the house is sold, then we would get that money back. Or it's one of two things. The house is sold and the money's returned so that we could then replace it with another house that's in affordable housing. Or it is sold to somebody who meets the AMI threshold so it remains affordable. So either one of those things, you're keeping the house in affordable housing stock, either by selling it to somebody who meets the AMI or getting the money back that you've put into it, the loan, and then taking that for another unit. I think the other thing that we are struggling that we need very clear direction on is what is a new unit in housing stock? Because we're being, so we're hearing one thing is we're not putting new units into housing, but if we're taking even an existing house and making it that somebody who is in a certain AMI level can now own the house and pay for the house, did we create a new unit of affordable housing? I don't know. That is the question is what is creating, what is a new unit of affordable housing? Is it constructing an apartment that now is available? I mean, that's what Anna, she's saying we sold to the community that this money was going to create more stock. So that's a new house or it's converting a hotel into a home. So that's a, and what I heard staff tell me in my staff review was that we're trying to target home ownership as well and moving a person that's in this AMI category from a rental to home ownership opens up another rental. Right. And the other, if, I lost my train of thought. So that's one question is what, what is a new unit if we're adding to what then becomes an affordable unit and if the house either constructed or purchased either stays affordable where it wasn't before or. To me, this program. We'll give 10% of this. Right. This program to me moves what Chuck kept saying to the treaty plan from subsidizing the developer to subsidizing the actual individual. And I also want to remind the board of the source of income that we're, revenue that we're using, that there, it's workforce housing, which is not, which could be that lower AMI. But I also, we also have to be mindful of that when we're talking about who we're putting in some of them. So I just, there's just a couple of factors in there. And Mary Helen just is saying new units that just cost less because that's new stock. And that kind of loosen our permitting requirements, speed that other people, you know, are living in modular homes and they're very happy. So let's get more of those units out there. Well, if we just flip, I mean, I don't really want to do this because I don't think it's keeping with what we told the voters. But I do think if we want to move that needle and you all feel really strongly about this and you think it can work, why don't we just flip it? 15% for this program, 85% for new stock, and 15% is another million a year for the ship. And it gives ship more money. It gives a chance to prove if this program works. And then we can always shift it back. You know, and it gives us a chance to, like, see how it works. But we've got the majority of the funding still going towards new housing stock. And we can incorporate this ADU component. And can we add to that that we ask the city to also look at their infrastructure sales tax funding? I'm fine to ask them, but, you know, the city's already committed that money. They've made their plan, and they are moving forward with their plan. What are they using it for? They're using it primarily for infrastructure. Fire stations. Fire stations and things like that. So, you know, I mean, we can ask. We can ask them to consider it, considering we know that housing is a crisis. But I think they're doing other things to try to push the needle on housing, and I'm not sure they're going to respond favorably. But we can certainly write a chair letter and ask. I see what you're saying. Okay. Mr. Chair, I would say that just remember that if you change this now and we go out and we commit 85% of this money to developers, you won't be flipping this, that change. You're not going to change your mind because you're going to have allocated money. And until that money comes back to us, either through the repayment or through, you know, just, I'm just saying, if we allocate it, then we're not going to go move it to something else because we've already committed it to other, to developers. I'm ready to move forward on the ones that I've put in the proposals. I think that adds stock. I think if it's in the form of a loan, that money will come back. I'm ready to try this, but I have no problem lowering the threshold amount. And I'm also not opposed to saying, you know, we're still working on it, Anna. You know? I mean, maybe we need to try financing ADUs. I don't know. I mean, I was going to kind of let. I mean, I think ADUs can be in this. Somebody who's built, like I said, somebody who's building an ADU. I mean, I guess the way the program is kind of structured, it's like a developer, and it's like you have to have experience and qualifications. And so we may want to ask staff to bring back, like within that 85% going towards new housing stock incentives. Maybe we need to carve out another 10% or something like that for ADUs, and we try to look at that program. But that's another program for staff to run. You know? It's another thing for staff to sort of, like, look at and run and organize. But I do like the idea of building new stock in existing neighborhoods and expanding, utilizing lots more efficiently and densifying our community. So I do like that idea. But I, you know, I'm open to that and ask directing staff to come back with what that might look like as an addition to this developer criteria for new housing stock because it is new stock. But so I guess, yeah, Chuck. Well, first, you know, I wanted to get back at least to where I was initially when I was talking. If we build these new apartment units, what is the rent going to be on those? Is it going to be $18,000 to $2,000 a month or more? I don't know. So how are we helping people? I mean, they're still going to be struggling because you've got utilities. You've got, you know, everything else that goes along with your rent, you know, you know. They have to be for that. You've got to have a deposit. You've got to have first and last and all of that stuff. But maybe I'm just a different thinking guy. But if that rent is going to be high, those folks aren't going to be there long. I mean, we can't – I mean, the public housing has a certain amount of rent that those folks have. And then they have where they have to pay a portion of their rent and all of that stuff. But we're talking about people who are going to have to pay their rent every month. No, we're talking about what you're talking about. I think we're talking about new housing stock that's in that 60% AMI. A lot of those are subsidized housing. So you're talking about new housing, not new apartments. I'm thinking that when we start giving developers money, they're going to build more like apartments to meet that need that we said that's out there that exists. And it's not building homeowner-type homes. I don't think that they're doing that. I thought maybe it was more rental, and that's why I'm hovering on the rental. The rent is going to be high. So I don't understand how we're going to solve the problem when the rent is high still and folks can't make it. And I'm just saying if you're going to pay higher rent from $1,800 to $2,500 or $2,600 a month, then that's a mortgage payment to me that somebody could pay. And then whatever else. But I'm not into real estate, so I don't know what the market is for rents on new apartment units. I don't know any of that stuff. I don't have any of that information. But common sense tells me that it's going to be expensive. It can't be cheap because they're going to have to recover the cost as the developer. I mean, at least I do know that much. And so I'm just saying I'd just rather have something not so high as $85 to $15. I just think that that's not fair that we give $85 to the developer and $15 elsewhere. You know, I just don't settle well with that one. But anyway, you know, I think I kind of know where I'm at with this, but, you know, I just want to help the average person here. I don't, you know, and I don't know how I do that with the way things are, but the only way I know is helping people is homeownership. So, I mean, apartment rents and all of that stuff doesn't really help anybody. And as I stated earlier, people get into a mode where I've been here 15, 20 years paying rent, so I don't want to move. I want to stay right here. And I don't care if my rent keep going up, I'm going to stay here. And they don't ever move. And that's the kind of thing I think that people get settled in and they're, like, complacent and satisfied, you know, that kind of stuff. I just don't think that that's really helping people. I think it's making them more dependent on the system. And that's just me personally. But I'll leave it at that. But if it's going to be the 85-15, I'm not going to support that. So I'll just be honest with you. Mr. Chair, if I may just finish the presentation. Sure. Yes, please. I'm sorry. No, it's okay. Thank you. You need a stool. I will say it, Mr. Chair, though. I think these would definitely not be those high rent units. Like, that's definitely not what I'm trying to subsidize at all. The whole point is to build units that 30% to 60% AMI families can afford. And we would be holding them to that in the contract. So this is essentially subsidized housing. We are doing the subsidy by lowering the construction costs by providing a portion of the construction. And so it lowers the cost. And they may also have vouchers on top of that or have qualifications where they only have to pay 30% of their total salaries. And I hear you. I'm with you on the upward mobility component. But I'm just telling you, in our current market. What assurances would we have if we did that, though? We have the LURAs and we have the contracts with them in terms of the construction. But maybe our attorney could talk about that. So, Mr. Chair, when you say what assurances do we have? Yeah, that they're going to keep the rent low and all of that kind of stuff. Because what they could do is come back each year and increase the rent. So, Mr. Chair, we use land use restriction agreements that require them to keep the property at certain levels. What we've been talking about is home ownership, not rentals, though. Okay, we're talking about homeowners. That's what we've been talking about. If we did rental is what he was saying. And the rental program that we were talking about, they would be required to keep them low, low rent. Right. If we're doing homeowners, I'm fine. But if we're talking about rental units and subsidizing the developer for rental units, no, I'm not for that. So, the structure of our agreements requires reporting annually about where they're setting it. I think it's set at a rate that is a percentage of market rate. Typically, FMR, the fair market rent. I'm sorry, what is it? Under our land use restriction agreements, the owners that take advantage of the program are agreeing to set it at a certain rate and to report annually to us. So, they're basically locking in low rent with a contract with us because we gave them money. I'm more of a visual person. But anyway, if you're saying that, then. Okay. I'm sorry. Go ahead. So, I'll wrap this up quickly. So, one of the requirements, obviously, is the homebuyer must complete a homebuyer education class. So, there are other options like Neighborhood Housing Development Corporation. They do budgeting and financing, savings. And also, we partner with the city of Gainesville to do a class every month on homebuyer education. And so, they wouldn't just be left. I mean, a big part of a community land trust program is stewardship. And so, it's not just providing that upfront education, but also ongoing education on how to maintain a home. Because it would most likely be their first time, right? It's also how to save for rainy days and really looking at budgeting, right? So, it's not just trying to get them into the home, but also helping them throughout, you know, getting into homeownership. So, another requirement is obviously home must pass local building codes or as applicable if it's rental HUD HQS standards and other property maintenance standards. And so, we do have a list of certified lenders that we've worked with over the decades through our SHIP program. And so, staff's plan would be to tap into the knowledge of these certified lenders, you know, for this program that would be funded by IST or Housing Trust Fund. So, because typically corporate lenders, they're not going to want to touch our programs like the big banks. So, we do have a lot of lenders that are local community banks, credit unions, and like the Florida-based lenders, right? So, we go through that process of certifying that they understand the SHIP program and what's required of us from the state statute and the rule for the SHIP program. And then, in terms of servicing, there are other local governments that will partner with the Community Development Financial Institution, or CDFI, which is a nonprofit, to do the ongoing loan servicing and compliance monitoring. All right. So, this is when we reached out to Orange County. They currently have a couple options for repayment. One would be a repayment agreement for multifamily or mixed-income housing. And, again, Orange County's loan is a subordinate loan, and they would sign that developer repayment agreement with the county to ensure that the public investment comes back into the program to be able to assist future developments, future homebuyers, and such. So, they also do 0% during the construction period, typically one to two years. After that, it's a lower interest rate, 1% to 5% for the remainder of the loan term. And then, determination, obviously, will be made by housing staff based on marketing conditions and recommendation from credit underwriting. Another program they have is the Revolving Loan Fund, where developers are required to pay the loan application fee, origination fee, and a 1% interest rate on the loan itself. And then, the other expenses are paid by developers, such as title insurance, appraisal, doc stamp tax, and all. And so, I wanted to make a couple notes on why homeownership adds to new housing stock. There was one study done by HUD where they looked at, you know, voucher holders in their Housing Choice Voucher Program, formerly Section 8. And they were able to free up 5,000 rental units over a period of 10 years by assisting these voucher holders to get into homeownership. And we've actually done that through our own SHIP program, too, where we have, whether it's the Lasseter County Housing Authority or Gainesville Housing Authority, they have these programs where we can, the voucher holders who are able to qualify for a first mortgage, a mortgage loan, we use our SHIP down payment assistance to help them get into the home. And so, they transition from being perhaps long-time renters into homeownership. And again, that frees up that affordable rental unit. And then also, just, it relieves the pressure on the rental market. Sometimes it will bring down the costs because of the availability in the new units. And again, homeownership, it builds wealth, whether it's a community land trust model or not. It stays, you know, with the family. So, yeah, that concludes my presentation. Thank you. I'm sorry for the interruptions. But anyway, it's good and healthy. Oh, sorry, one point. Give me to the president. One point, I forgot to mention. The $300,000 purchase price limit, that's the maximum. Typically, it's much lower than that. So, for example, like the past year, the homes are typically around $250,000. If you look at the past three years, that average purchase price has been about $210,000 for our SHIP program. And that's looking at 26 home buyers that we've assisted over the past three years. Eighty-eight percent of those are workers. A couple of them are retired. But exactly half of those are essential services personnel. So, again, like first responders, educators, health care personnel. So, that's all. Thank you. Commissioner Prizia, and then Commissioner Alfred, and then Commissioner Wheeler. I guess I'm not – I just want to be really, really clear. I was the first person to bring up homeownership as the pathway to wealth. I am 100 percent with you on that idea. And I really do believe in it. And I want to see that happen. I think, again, we need both and. We need more rental housing in this community that's affordable for people who otherwise cannot find housing. There are lots and lots of people right now that cannot find housing that also would never qualify for a mortgage. And right now they're struggling. They can't find housing. And we have an obligation to help figure that out. And so, I want to make sure we're doing both things. We're building new housing and requiring the developers to keep it affordable and holding their feet to the fire and making them do what they say they want to do when they fill up our chambers and talk about affordable housing. Like two weeks ago, all of a sudden they all cared about affordable housing when it was about their developer building something, right? Like, let's hold their feet to the fire on that and let's make them build those units. At the same time, I do agree with you. Affordable housing ownership and building generational wealth is also important. I just am very skeptical that at the income levels that we're talking about, we'll find the numbers of people who can qualify for those loans and move that forward. But I'm open to trying. And, you know, I mean, 15% is $8.5 million. That goes nowhere on building a new development, but it goes a really long way in helping with, you know, $60,000 in down payment assistance. And so I guess that's another reason why I'm trying to say the $15,85. It's not because I'm trying to be, like, stingy or anything. It's just that, like, when you're building a new development or when you're building a new house, you know, the costs are a lot higher than if you're subsidizing a mortgage down payment. And so I feel like we could get there. And I'm interested to know what kind of split you would be in favor of because I really do think that we can do both things. And we can do both things well. Okay. Commissioner Wheeler? Yes, sir. Yeah, I'm sorry. Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. Commissioner Alfred and then Commissioner Wheeler. I wasn't sure if it was my turn or not. I want to start by saying I think that there are a lot of right answers and we need to be doing them all, right? We say that a lot. And I think this is one of those cases. I agree. I don't think that the split is right. And I think that there needs to be additional thought put into how we would structure this. And I don't want to call it down payment assistance because it's not the secondary mortgage. I do like the Orange County's way of loaning money. I think that, you know, that is a – the cost of borrowing money for a developer is high. So by providing them, you know, loan help for low-income housing or rental units, I think that makes sense to me. I wanted to ask Ralston, what kind of public engagement have we done around this proposal? Have we had any community meetings at all? Have we asked the community how they feel about that? Or is this based on your, you know, listening in on other developments that have taken place and what public comments have been? Mr. Chair, so because of the limited time since the May 6th meeting, we discussed this with staff. We got feedback from, you know, ship partners that we've had over the years, like certified lenders. But obviously, before we would, you know, roll it out, we would look for the additional, you know, community. Yeah, I think I personally feel uncomfortable making a full recommendation on this until I hear from the community, I think, because we are using their money ultimately. This is, you know, we are using Wild Spaces Public Places money. They have a perception of how we're using that money. We've been entrusted to do it based on a narrative that we presented, you know, and I want to make sure that we're, that anything that is, you know, different from that has that community buy-in and that community support. Not because, you know, because we, it's a trust issue that I want to make sure that we're maintaining with the community. And I want to, I want to make sure that that, that's how I feel about it. And, and I'm curious what my colleagues think. Okay. If I can respond on that, we did not hear it at the Affordable Housing Advisory Committee. And we did make a motion to put all of these ideas through the Affordable Housing Advisory Committee. We did not hear this presentation. We did approve the criteria, though, for the other part of the program. Yeah, AHAC meets next week. Okay. Commissioner Wheeler. I'm just, who's going to monitor all of this? The, the, the coming and goings with the monies into different projects. You know, who, who would actually be in charge? Our staff? A bank? I mean, who would do that? Right. So, currently, like for our SHIP down payment assistance program, staff monitors it, right? So, we make sure that annually that there is still a homestead exemption, the other criteria. Other ways we can do it is staff can do it in conjunction with, like, a CDFI or other loan servicers, nonprofits that do typically do compliance monitoring. Gotcha. Okay. And, and then the other question I had, the, the homes that we have been able to help that were under, under $300,000, where are they located? Were they in the unincorporated areas? Were they in town? Where, where were they located? So, for that, for the SHIP program that I, the data that I cited earlier, that's outside of the city limits of Gainesville. Okay. So, it's anywhere in Latchard County. It doesn't have to be unincorporated. But we can't, currently can't assist, cannot assist homebuyers in the city limits of Gainesville because they have their own SHIP down payment assistance program. Okay. But these are folks that are all over the county. Would this, would, so would this, what we're trying to set up now, follow that? Yeah. That would just be nothing inside the city limits? There, but no criteria set for this. Okay. Well, I'm just trying to understand. Without the city of Gainesville not having a home ownership program, you know, I think that decision rests with you all. Okay. But even though it's a county program paid into by city residents as well, I just, I didn't know, you know, how exclusionary that would be, even though there are people paying into this surtax. I think this is county. Well, that's, that's what I'm trying to understand. Yeah, the SHIP is county, city. This is, again, the city doesn't have any part of the infrastructure surtax for housing. So we're doing it for the whole county. I wouldn't exclude the city on this. Okay. That's what I was trying to understand. We're not excluding the developers in the city. That we were finding housing that was under $200,000, under $300,000, because the $200,000 to $250,000 is the range that I had been hoping people would build to. So that are these, so these are not new homes, though, right? They're probably older homes? It's a mixture, really. Is it? Because some of them are Habitat for Humanity homes or Neighborhood Housing Development Corporation, new construction homes. So it's a mixture. Okay. So Habitat homes, we would help, we would assist into, you know, with this kind of program? Oh. Yeah. This is for the SHIP, the current down payment system. Okay. I got it. Yeah. Okay. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Commissioner Prezio, is that all right? No, I guess I just wanted to say, I think, I just want to be clear, like, if the split, we're talking about $45 million and $8.5 million. It's essentially, or $8 million, right, of a $54 million is what we're talking about. But the $85 million, and I guess I just, like, other people are going to make money on this program no matter what. The banks are going to make money, and the real estate agents are going to make money if it's home ownership, and the developers and the builders are going to make some money if it's new construction. Like, there's money to be made in this business. It's part of the housing world we live in, and I just want us to split that money in a way that makes the most sense in terms of what we think is going to move the needle on getting the people that most need housing into housing. And I agree with you, Mary. I do think that community engagement on this is really important. And I think that hearing from the public that voted for the surtax on how they want us to spend it and what they believe we were spending it on and making sure that we're keeping that at the forefront of this is the most important thing that we can do to keep their trust and them passing the surtax again in the future. Yeah, exactly. Because we know we need it. We know we're going to need it again, right? We're going to need the roads money again. We still need housing money. We definitely still need conservation money. So I don't want to erode trust in our voters by not in keeping with what we said we were going to do. And that's why I've been so adamant about this side of things, because I think it's what we told voters we were going to do, not because I think it's necessarily the very best thing that we could do. So we have an oversight board, don't we, for the surtax? We have different, but we did ask that all programs for the infrastructure surtax dollars go through the Affordable Housing Advisory Committee, and this did not come to the Affordable Housing Advisory Committee. Yeah, if I can make a motion, Chair? Sure. I'd like to move that we thank Steph for their patience with us and that we bring this back after doing some community engagement, some presenting these options to the public and educating them about them and getting their feedback, and then taking into account what we said today, come back to us with, you know, with that information and this or another proposal. And go to the Affordable Housing Committee? And of course go to the Affordable Housing Committee. Yeah, that's part of the community engagement. Okay, second. Got a motion and a second. Any further comments to the motion? I have a question. Ann Wheeler? I have a question about their recommendation up there. Was that separate and apart from what the second part was? I was going to say, can we also go ahead and move forward with what they said, what staff said about the ADUs, the cities, and go ahead and move that forward and move forward the two existing proposals that we have so that we at least are moving those forward? I'm okay with that. Yeah, that's... That right there or no? No, that we're moving the two proposals that have already been put before us and asked for funding. Oh, you mean the companies? The two companies that have already asked us for funding, moving those forward and moving the... Because that was a call we already put out and we've already solicited. Yeah, I think staff's recommendation was what Orange County is doing, 0% interest during construction after principal and interest payments of 1% to 5% on the remainder of the loan, determination of the rate made by the housing division based on market conditions and credit underwriting. Mr. Chair, if I may, that could be the staff's recommendation moving forward, but for the ones that we currently received, the criteria that we put out there is it's a low-interest loan. Okay. So just point of clarification. Yeah. Okay. So those will come... So if we fund those... If the motion includes funding those two, then those would be offered to them. If they ended up closing, that money would ultimately come back in the form of re... Yeah. As a repayment. Repayment to the fund. So I'd modify my motion that we also include approval of those two projects and I'd also ask staff to look into the... Maybe it's just finalizing. Yeah, finalizing the ADU thing that they looked into as well as maybe looking into how we could provide low-no-interest loans for ADUs as well. That's going to take... Those first two projects of the $54 million is going to take about $10 of it, right? Mr. Chair, if I'm right. You haven't analyzed how much... Yeah, Ms. C. Daniels, County Manager's Office. I just wanted to clarify that part of the motion because we're not asking you to approve those developments. We have asked both of them for more information. Oh, okay. And we need to even see if we agree in the end that they do meet the... Because when we sent this out a year ago with the low-interest loan and everything else, we had criteria in there. I mean, it was open because we were trying to get... So continue that process. Yeah, okay, I'll change my motion for staff to continue to work with those two proposals. Yeah, because that's $15 million, $9.6 and $5.4. That's a big chunk. You can give them all the pens, right? Like they applied for all that money, but maybe only the... Like on the one that's 88 units, maybe only 40 of them qualify. Right. And the same thing with the others. So this motion doesn't approve that $15 million. It approves staff to keep working on it. Right. And bring it back to us. Yeah. Okay. While we vet the rest of this through the community and the affordable housing. Okay. And the staff's evaluation criteria, right? That's in the motion. We like the staff criteria, right? Yeah. I think the staff's scoring criteria is fine. Yeah. Yeah. They have done a lot of work in a very short amount of time. And I do appreciate staff's work and their patience with us on this. Okay. Does the secondary agree to your... Yes, I agree. Okay. Dr. Murmur, come on. So we've got a motion and a second. And any further discussion to that motion? If not, we'll open it up to public comment to the motion. Thank you, Mr. Chair, Commission. All right. So I'm Bobby Murmur. I'm coordinator of the Alachio County Labor Coalition. I want to say I think this is a great motion. I came here today originally prepared to speak to a motion to accept staff's recommendation as presented on the screen, which would have been a problem because my organization did endorse the surtax in 2022, and this would be pretty much the opposite of what we had told people that it was going to be used for. I think you guys landed at a very, very good place, though, right? It's been a while since 2022. I think it's good to have staff go out into the community, listen, present the options that have been discussed here. It was a very exciting conversation to hear. Commissioner Wheeler had made some great points about modular homes, something that I'm interested in personally. Having grown up in a trailer and seeing how far manufactured housing has come, this is really the way to go. Have staff come with an open mind to the community, hear from groups like the ACLC, have an advocate for humanity, Grace Marketplace, League of Women Voters. There's a lot of groups in town that can set up meetings for you. You were obviously invited to an ACLC meeting to have some community engagement, so I hope that there's a unanimous yes vote here, and I hope that we see you at a future ACLC meeting to discuss these options and others. Thank you. Good afternoon, commissioners. My name is Julie DeCarmine. I serve on the county's affordable housing advisory board, and I just want to thank you for the very thoughtful discussion. It makes me really happy to see that you all care about this issue and that you're putting a lot of thought into it, so thank you very much. A lot of great points were made, a lot of creative ideas were thrown out there, and we need to really explore all of them. I just came to say that I definitely disagree with the allocation that staff proposed, and we really need to think about, yes, it's taxpayer money, right? What do our taxpayers need? What does our community need? And so I looked up the most recent report from the Schoenberg Center, and in Alachua County, we have over 24,000 renter households at or below 50% AMI. We are short in rental housing options for that group by 10,000 units. So I just wanted you to know the number that we're working with. 10,000 is a lot, and developing new units takes time, and it takes a lot of thoughtful consideration. But we're doing that, so we're on a good path, and thank you very much. Any further citizen comments? Okay. Goose to Cornell. Yeah, so I, too, first of all, thank you all. Thank you all for your thoughtfulness over the last two years and really contributing to the conversation. I think it is important, though, staff did ask for direction, that we affirm what we heard Ralston say, which is anyone that we can get off of a voucher into a home as a homeowner creates a new unit, because I do feel that way. And as long as we all feel that way, I think that's an important point as we go out into the community, that that creates another housing stock unit. So do we all collectively agree with what he said on that? You do? Well, okay, yeah. So not saying that just because you're a renter, you become a homeowner, that creates new stock. But what you said, what I heard you say while I was in the back, that replacing, not everyone that has a voucher can't get qualified. They just can't get qualified for a $300,000 house, perhaps. But they can get qualified for some sort of home ownership. And if we further develop this program where we're focused in on that, then that does create additional housing stock from staff's perspective. And I agree with that. And I think we all agree with that. So does that help you, Michelle? Because you had asked for that specific guidance. What is a new unit? I mean, if the statement is you have to create a new unit, what is the creation of a new unit? Am I constructing a new house? Or am I constructing a new apartment unit? Or am I taking existing housing stock and we're purchasing it by making it an affordable unit that has to stay affordable or regenerate money for another replacement affordable unit? What is a new? Okay. And so hopefully the community can help us with that when that comes back. But from what I heard Ralston say, I agreed. I just want to say I agree with how staff has viewed that. Not necessarily the way I articulated it to Anna, which is just because they're renting and they buy, that's a new unit. But when you articulated it, Ralston, which is why you're the pro and I'm just the guy in the back. When you said, you know, we have a new voucher available, that to me said, okay, yeah, that does create more stock for those that need it. Can I just appreciate it? I just want to highlight what was just said to us, though. 10,000. 10,000 gaps. So one voucher being released because one person buys a home is not cutting a gap in that. A developer building 100 units of new affordable housing with 5 million of our dollars, that's putting a dent in that number. And that is what I think we promised the voters. That's why I've been animated about this is because I really think, you know, we committed to putting a dent in that number. And I, you know, while I agree on all of the things that have been said by Ralston and by Commissioner Chestnut so eloquently about home ownership and the importance of it and getting people stuck in a system where they're just paying rent and losing money and not gaining equity and all of that, there's, again, I think that we can walk into gum. And I think the community will give us some really good ideas and input that will allow us to move this program in a way that makes the most sense. So, thank you. Those in favor of the motion will vote by the sign of aye. Aye. Those opposed, same sign. Motion carries. Mr. Clerk. Mr. Chair, that takes us to the second item, which is the West End Park Community Engagement and Development Plan update. Mr. Chair and Commissioners, Jason Maurer, Director for Elachio County Parks and Open Space. So we're here today to recap our second community meeting that we had with West End about the improvements at the property. Yes. Okay. So what we did in this second meeting is we broke it into four workshop groups. So we had our general feedback at the first meeting. So this time what we did is decided to break it into different stations for everyone to come and get a chance to, like, give them specific input to the staff that we had working in each station so that we could get more details and more information from them about the general ideas that they had from the first meeting. But this was kind of to help the community kind of zone in and kind of focus on the key components and what they really were asking us to do. So we had a good turnout. It was just about 200 people. So it was an amazing event that we had. The community was very engaged and spent a lot of time communicating with us. So as you can see, special thanks to Growth Management at EPD. They sent volunteers to assist with us as we were trying to have two to three people at each station. We had a lot of great feedback, and it was a fantastic meeting, and we will start off like this next time, I think. It was definitely a lot easier to kind of control and keep everything moving. So overall site plan is what we just want to kind of recap with you is some of the amenities and things when we decide to go out to design that we'll be incorporating is just some of the trails, arboretum, the batonk, dog park, fitness equipment, et cetera. Those are kind of samples of the general amenities that we'll be looking at. And, of course, in the map, it's kind of giving you just a general idea of what could happen is some of the amenities being on more of the central back area. So we would probably utilize the interior drive, maybe make that the interior road. It would give us more ability to kind of spread out the amenities, not trying to cram everything in one spot. And also on this map, you can kind of see the cross-country course is kind of still laid out, that was the 2K, right? That was the 2K course that they used for World Masters, so it's important to highlight that, that that's important to kind of see where that is and that we need to kind of consider that in our development of the property that that still needs to be a component. So short and sweet, we're basically at a point now where we think we can move to the consultant. And as you can see here, our recommendations is to kind of move forward with that, start on basic amenities. We will also, as part of a later phase, we want to do the development plan, master plan for the park, so what we build today will fit with what we build 15, 20 years from now. So some of these amenities will be shown on the map, but they will not be funded. So they'll be on there until later funding can be identified. And then we also will be exploring public partnerships for some of the amenities that the community wanted that were kind of beyond what we would be able to do. So once we have that master plan and design and conceptual plans, we'll probably come back to you again in the community and kind of have, you know, a final review of that and then permission to move forward with, you know, what we'd like to start with construction phase one and then what public partnerships, how we would go about that. We'd work with the procurement team of, like, how do we put that out and kind of narrow it down because we don't want, like, you know, a general restaurant or a store. We want recreational partnerships. So we don't want, you know, so that's pretty much all we have today. Do you have any questions or any? Okay. We have Commissioner Prizia, Commissioner Cornell, Commissioner Wheeler, and then Commissioner Alfred. First, I just want to say thank you. Thank you for, I know it was, there was a lot of people who had a lot of interest in this park, so I know it was a lot to do that community engagement, but I heard from the neighbors and the community that they've really appreciated the time and energy you put into that. So I just want to say thank you. I think it's a great model, like you said, for future park development to have that sort of charrette style with the stations and things like that and to start with what we kind of already have in our master plan. So thank you for doing that. I will say, you know, one of the things that I heard loud and clear, you know, from that community, which is not a surprise given it's what it was to begin with, was golf. I also understand that with what we already have there and what we can afford, the idea of actually running a golf course is not really in the cards, I don't believe, for us. But I do think there could be some opportunity for like driving range, putting green kind of spaces, but I didn't see that on your list of amenities for phase one or two, and so I did want to hear from you about your thoughts about golf amenities and what, if any, you were considering. Yeah, we have the, you know, obviously priority, you know, golf, pickleball, those are high on the list. We actually got a lot of requests for fitness trail trails came up, you know, which is not necessarily a partnership, but playground again for kids. So when we work with procurement, we don't want to kind of steer it any one way. We were going to figure out how to put out the public partnership to where it doesn't seem like we're just focusing on golf or if somebody wanted an aquatic center. So we were going to work with procurement on how we want to word that and, but still also fit within the range of what the community was asking for. So, you know, we, we, again, we didn't want to like put golf specifically on here so that it misled anyone so that that's like what we're only going to do. So I think we just kind of left it general for now. And then once we kind of get the conceptual plans back and, you know, we'll keep that in mind too, of like, this is the, let me go back a slide there. So as you can see the, where the throwing area is and the area to the left where the cross country 2k loop was, that's kind of going to be the general area where if someone wants to do a public partnership, those would be the areas that we would probably consider allowing them to do that, which obviously driving range would fit with throwing fields. But if there was someone that wanted to come in and build golf, it would have to kind of be on this section over here because that's where it's going to be a better fit. Well, I thought, okay, sorry. I thought a driving range could go on. I thought that was one of the ideal scenarios as a partnership with where we had our throwing areas because they both need leveled land. So yes, we did have it on there originally, but we, you know, just everyone thought it was kind of just a better idea to maybe leave it more general for now. But the driving range would be the only place they could build that would be in the throwing field. So it is still, that would be the best case scenario for that. That's the only place a driving range would go. Okay. I'm not sure that I'm very clear on that. And I will say that in the past, we've had some issues with the way that our procurement's been put out when it's too general and it's not very clear what's needed or expected or wanted. So as staff are working on that, I just would ask that we get really more clear so that the responses are clear and we have a real understanding of what that's going to look like so the public's not confused. But I'm excited about the opportunities. I think we're on the right track for sure. I also know maybe two years ago or so, I connected you, I connected the Parks Department with a nonprofit organization that provides fitness equipment like in trails. And that's their whole thing. They do grants to do fitness equipment around a trail. I don't know if you all remember that. It was a long time ago. But I can try to find that again. And I still have a contact for the individual that is, or at least she was working there at the time. She used to work with me at the University of Florida. But that may be an opportunity for us to get some of that fitness equipment a little earlier if they're willing to provide it free of charge. So I'll try to pull that up and send it to you. But otherwise, great work. I'm excited about this. I just ask, we definitely think about that, those components that were asked for that are unfunded and how we might ensure some opportunities through public-private partnerships to get those done. Thank you. Commissioner Cornell. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Ditto to what Anna said. I look at the list here. Pre-engineered restrooms, playgrounds, pavilions, sports courts, pickleball, and support amenities, walks, tables, benches, grills, and the Arboretum. Love all that. I support a driving range on the flat area. I don't think we can do golf course, so I support that. I really appreciate the mentioning and the work of Public Works EPD and Growth Management to help with the community process. You all listened to the County Commission. This was a long kind of acquisition. And then we had the World Masters, and now here we are. And the citizens that I have spoken to that have attended those meetings had nothing but the highest of praise for our county staff, which to me is the best compliment I can ever receive is when I hear that from the community. So I want to thank you all for that. I think we are absolutely on the right track when the design team brings back their plan. It will go to the community, and then it comes to us for approval. Is that how that will work? Yeah, we won't move on anything until we bring it back to you for final. And then we'll know what's in Phase 2, theoretically, and we'll kind of have a plan. So I love it. I think you all did a great, great job. I appreciate it. I'll move staff's recommendation. Second. Second. Okay, Commissioner Wheeler. Have we even bought this land this time last year? I'm just wondering if we hadn't even. I think it was this month. So it was about this time that, no, this is the point I was trying to make. It's amazing what we've transformed. You guys have transformed out there in that amount of time. We're with the Arboretum. We're talking about tree plantings, right, where the community, or I don't know how we're, don't remember how we're doing that, but we're planting trees again. So that will be part of the design engineering portion is what's going to be designated an Arboretum, and then what's the process for that. So we'll have a clearer picture for you by the time we come back. I have forwarded you a company that I had talked to when we first started talking about this who really would like to be involved in the re-greening of the area because the natural green features that were once there are gone. The rolling, you know, it's still pretty flat right now. So I don't know, as we get into the sea part down there, maybe we could have some opportunities to, you know, make it, I don't want to say aesthetically more pleasing, but at least to connect us a little bit better to the earth that used to be there. Yeah, I think when we have the conceptual plan and we, you know, I think there's going to be some consideration of rewilding, wildflowering, you know, doing some Florida native plantings in places that would, you know, okay, hey, we can do this and rewild because this is going to be mostly a trail. You know, we don't need to have this big open flat. You say that much better than I did. And there are people out there walking those trails right now when I go by, you know, there are people out there all over the place. It's really exciting to see what you all have provided for us. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Go ahead and say one thing on that front. I just want to say we have, like, I think there's two different departments. Like, the Forestry Department has a new native greenhouse and, like, they're doing, like, native production of plants and doing a lot of education and components on that. And Gainesville, I know, is not technically in the city limits but is a bee city and there's been a lot of efforts around that with sort of wildflowers and wilding and, of course, Field and Fork itself, the department that I coordinate with at UF also does a lot of work in that regard. So, if we can offer volunteers or support around the native plants and trees and then the Forestry Department, of course, we have a small armoretum-ish thing on campus. And there are definitely some faculty that I'm sure would be interested in plugging in to support the idea of, like, choosing species that make sense and labeling and things like that. So, I just wanted to put that out there. They even have some of the equipment to print the labels that we could probably buy from them a lot cheaper than – so, all that's to be continued. But that's what I wanted to say to support what you're saying. Yeah. You know, and the restrooms and things that we're putting in there could be, you know, more nature-oriented, you know, rather than industrial. Okay. Just to – Ditto to everything that my colleagues have said, including all the things about native plants and bees. I had a couple of questions. What does the public want if they can't have golf? Have there been any other public-private partnerships proposed? And I ask because I was contacted by the owner of CrossFit, and they wanted to know if we wanted to build a CrossFit gym there. And I was like, I don't think that was the kind of public-private partnership we were looking for. But I was curious what else was – Croquet. Oh, a swimming pool. Well, the first meeting, we did have a strong request for an aquatics. Second meeting, not so much. So, golf and, you know, driving range. I think there was a lot – there was definitely some folks there interested in the driving range clubhouse idea, like they would be the ones to build something with a cafe and whatever, or maybe a rentable space, just depending on – if they can't do a golf course. Concessions would be nice. Yeah, so maybe a concession of some type with the driving range. I know procurement's been getting phone calls. We've been getting phone calls. I mean, there was, like, top golf type of facilities wanting to, but obviously that would be too big of a footprint. What was the – with private partnership, I think, other than that, I mean, there wasn't a huge demand for, like, we really want this. I think a community center came up, but that was the big one. And, like I said, there really wasn't as much for the aquatics this time. But we would still be open to that if we put it out with, you know, specifying, being a little more specific of, like, these type of amenities, driving range, whatever, when we go out. And then open it for aquatics. The aquatics idea, if you all remember, was also at the time when the developer was trying to develop a big neighborhood. So that was kind of an offset to – but that's also very expensive. And, you know, if those people are still around, they're in Tioga, I know them, then now's the time for you to present yourself with the money. I don't think it's going to happen. I think what I heard most from the community was the community that bought into that neighborhood, which is we would love to have a place where we can go hit range balls, we can have lunch, we can have a meeting space. If we can't have a golf course, can we please have a range? And I think we're kind of set up for that. And if we can do that, I'd like to try to do that for them. I'm not opposed to that. I did have one other comment that I got that came out of Veterans Park, which was to keep in mind when we put in playgrounds what the distance is from the – they appreciate the new parking area, right? The distance between the parking area and the playground for mothers that have to, like, run back to change a diaper or whatever and not have to drag all the other kids with them, that kind of thing. I was looking at the map and trying to figure out where parking would be with relation to picnic areas and playgrounds and just thought I would just remind you that that was something that was mentioned to me about Veterans Park, that they appreciated that new – the new parking lot with respect to the playground made it a lot easier than some other facilities around the county. Yeah, definitely. We'll keep that in mind. Only other thing, yes, that shading around the playground, natural shading for the playground is another big one that we hear a lot when we get new playground development and it's in a green field because it can be so hot. Hopefully the Arboretum can help with that. But what I was going to say about aquatics is, you know, I was at that original community engagement meeting and I was also on the campaign trail a lot during that time. And so having a lot of conversations with Tioga and West End and all the neighborhoods that surround that. And, you know, water came up a lot in those conversations. So I understand that aquatics are expensive. We're probably never going to – we're not a municipality. We're probably not opening a swimming pool. But, you know, we have a splash pad at Veterans if there's a chance – or did we do this? No, we didn't. I mean, we didn't do it, but it's in the plans, right? Yes. It's set up. And I think doing something like that here, too, or we could sort of have it, you know, sort of ready to go if we found the funding or found a grant that we could do for something like that, right? Yeah, because I really do feel like that area – I mean, yes, on the west end side, it's a lot of retirees that want to play golf. On the south side, it's a lot of families with little ones. And so, you know, having water activities as climate change continues and we need to get out of the heat and thinking about this – I think about this as Depot West. I think about this as a Depot Park-type facility. It's lots of open space where people can play with their families, where people could grill out, where people could go to the splash pad, where there's a playground. You know, it's a gathering space for the western side of our county. And so, I mean, that's how I think of it, and I think that's what I kind of heard from people. But I do think that having that water feature that gives people some break from the heat in the summertime months and still allows them to get outside and have fun could be really important. So if we can at least think about that in the underground utility side of things, if we're doing any improvements for the bathroom and other places, I would really appreciate it. We have a motion. We got a motion and a second. And are there any citizen comments to the motion that's on the floor? Okay, back to the board. Those in favor of the motion, vote by the sound of aye. Aye. Aye. Those opposed, same sign. Motion carries. Mr. Clerk. Chair, that takes us to the third action item, which is the acquisition of Newbury Rural Collection Center site. Second. Second. Further discussion to the motion? I guess this is something more. Thanks for all the work that you put into it. I know it took a long time to get to this point, but thank you. Nice presentation, Gus. You did a good job. Excellent job. But may I ask, Greg, what kind of timeline are you looking at for this? So, Mr. Chair, we still got to go through the sign and permitting. My best guess would be the first quarter of next year, somewhere in there. Okay. Are there any public comments to the motion that's on the floor? Got to ask. Okay. Those in favor of the motion, vote by the sound of aye. Aye. Those opposed, same sign. Motion carries. Mr. Clerk. Chair, since we moved the fourth item. I believe that brings us to closing public comment, and then it doesn't look like there is any. It doesn't seem to be any public. So, county attorney comments, if any. She's not easy. That looks... Running down the hall. She's coming. Mr. Chair, I do not have anything today. County manager comments. I only wanted to bring up, because I know it was, it has been a question regarding Celebration Point, that we, I figured it would come up from one of you if I didn't mention it, that the attorney, our outside counsel that represents us, did send a default letter to the operator, and that was, it was sent via FedEx. I understand it went via email and was received via email on Friday. I did confirm with him. I don't know if he actually received the FedEx official hard copy, but it's a letter that provides 30 days to, it provides a time to cure those items. So, that puts us to your first meeting in July. So, basically, I'm here to tell you, we will be back to you at your first meeting in July with a plan moving forward, to let you know what, whether it was cured, and if not, the plan moving forward. I have a question. Madam Manager, whether it's cured or not, will we still consider bringing the event center under our house? Whether it is, whether it is cured or not, there are provisions in the contract to terminate the contract for cause and not for cause. So, essentially, if it's cured, you can still look at moving in a different direction. But, again, and I have asked the operator that even if it is cured, he needs to provide to us how he plans to move forward, so that that is something that you all can weigh in that if that should happen. If it is not cured, that's a whole other subject on. That we'll be discussing next month. Yes, because we'll know more by that first meeting in July on where he stands with that. So, it's waiting, but in the meantime, we are monitoring the situation very closely. Thank you, Mr. Chair. That's all I have. Commission comments? I would just like the comments from the public this morning, we didn't talk about those. Mr. Connish was talking about the concerns of the properties along the Poe Springs area. I don't know, are we watching that? Is that something you are? Okay, Missy, y'all got that. Okay, it's in your hands. Okay, and then the Sunrise Inn, who is, are we monitoring that? That, yes, and the entity that is overseeing the rentals on that is not the same entity as before. Previously, it was St. Francis House, who we purchased it from, and now it's the Alachua County Housing Authority. We've already done some work, and we're in the process of getting estimates for the first full stage of renovation. We've done, you know, needed work that, like, couldn't wait. But we are in the process of getting estimates right now for the first phase of renovation. We specifically have left units open so that, you know, during renovation, we're going to do open units, and we're going to shift people, and then we're going, you know, because obviously we have quite a few residents. So we've left some vacant for that reason. Okay, that's what I was... We've also submitted grants for renovation costs and such, but we're already moving forward. We knew that there was going to be a lot of renovation necessary. I think we talked to you all about that when we bought it, that we knew we were going to need to do a lot. Right, and one more question in line with that. The Sunrise, but also the hotel rooms that we're going to be having ready open by fall. I've got an email, and I'm sure you all did, too, about questioning the amount of money we were going to be charging for rent for those rooms, and the emailer was asking for clarification, I think it was $1,000 to $1,200 a month, which sounded high to me. I'm not sure that we have an answer to that. We can get you an answer. Okay, okay. If I can, one of my requests actually was going to be that given that those are coming online pretty soon-ish, given, you know, really relatively speaking, if we might be able to have a presentation about our plan for the operations of those, both in terms of, you know, the management entity and the pricing and things like that, how that's going to all work with the COC, et cetera, but also just any security, like just kind of generally, how are we going to be handling case management so that we can communicate? Because we're starting to get a lot of questions now that it's coming online, and it'd be great to be able to get those answered for the public. So we could refer that back. Is that okay? Motion made? I have a motion and a second. Any further discussion to the motion? Are there any public comments to the motion? Those in favor of the motion, vote by the sign of aye. Aye. If there's opposed, same sign. Motion carries. No, that's okay. And one other thought I had about, you know, we are approving these developments, and they happen, and they get out there, but I would really like to go see them once they're done to see, you know, so if we could have our developing community invite us in to see what we actually approved so that we know we're really getting what we thought we were, it would be nice to go have a tour. About a golf park? Something. A tour, you know, of these facilities that are being built. I know we'll have a ribbon cutting for all of our things, but, you know, for the developers that are out in the community that are putting out these big places, it would be really nice to go see them, since we said, told them what we wanted, and hopefully we got what we asked for. So I would, you know, just, y'all help us, if you know these things are coming online, if staff, if you all hear, it would be kind of nice just to have a bus tour or something to go see what's really happening out in the community, because these things, Oakmont, I've never been through Oakmont. You know, these big things out there that are, I've never been, I have no reason to go. I know, I know, I just don't even know where they all are. Until I get lost out there and all that road work that's out there, you know, by Hale Plantation and the Oak Hall School, all of that stuff that's coming in there. It's worth going out and looking at the new Adams developers community in Newberry. It's worth driving out there and seeing what they did. Are they done? Is it finished? Yeah, they have a finished development out there. They're working on phase two now. Yeah, see, but that's what I don't know, where the status of all of these things and where to go hang out. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. My only thing other than the hotels, which thank you all, is, you know, we talked about this a little bit at our retreat. It kind of came up, but I think, you know, the new county news talks about budget cuts for SNAP and how it could impact our county, you know, estimates from, for example, for New York Department of Social Services currently placed direct cost of $12.3 million to Erie County in 2026 as a result of these cuts. So I just wanted to ask that we have staff give us an update about any potential impacts where they see the big impacts coming from the federal budget cuts to housing programs and food assistance programs so that we have sort of an order of magnitude and at least we have sort of a risk assessment, needs assessment for what's coming, and then that gives us a chance to be, start a conversation. Is that okay with you all? Yep. All right. I would move staff bring back update on any impacts from federal budget cut, federal and state budget cuts for food and housing assistance programs. Second. Okay, motion and second. The discussion to the motion. Any none. Those in favor of the motion, vote by the sign of an aye. Aye. As opposed, same side. Motion carries. Commissioner. Can I ask, can we bring that back to you as part of the budget discussions? And provide that information as we're talking to you about budget funding? Because I think that's where it's going to really come into play. Absolutely. Okay. Okay. I don't have anything other than an update on the Children's Trust that I wanted to share with you all. Because we had a two-hour workshop yesterday and then another meeting yesterday. And I want to just kind of level set you all for the last three years and the upcoming year so you kind of understand where the trust is headed and what has happened. We also did our audit. So we got the audited numbers. So I'm just going to read you all some numbers. 2023, 2024, budgeted 25, and then what we're looking at in 26. And it'll become really clear as to why I'm doing that. So in 2023, we had ad valorem revenue of $8.4 million and we had program expenses of $8.2 million. Obviously, that's kind of level set. 2024, ad valorem revenue of $9.4 million, program expenses of $10.1. So now we're starting to use fund balance because we had a big fund balance for the first four years. This current year, we actually budget a big use of fund balance to get that money into the community, ad valorem revenue of $10 million plus interest of a half a million. So $10.5 million, program expense revenue of $16.9 million. So a big use of fund balance. We are expecting $2 to $3 million of that will probably not be used. The upcoming budget, which is where we kind of said, hey, we got to really look at this, is ad valorem of $10.7 million with interest that we're earning of $800,000. So $11.5 million of revenue and our programming budget is $18 million. It's obviously not sustainable to use $6.5 million of fund balance. So you may start to hear some discussions in the community about us having to cut services. It's because we're not on a sustainable path of using fund balance because we've made some decisions in the last three years to really try to push some of those things out. We also, at yesterday's meeting, engaged Tom as a lobbyist. So we now have someone to be our voice in Tallahassee to hopefully help us with additional funds from a bipartisan issue, which is kids. So that's really good. And he can also coordinate with our county department for our legislative ask with what are we asking for the county and what are we asking for the trust. So that was good. We also wanted to let you all know that there's a big cut in early childhood ELC. So we're trying to fill that gap at the trust with budget amounts of about $400,000, which is a big number. We announced the launch of the first doula-friendly hospital at UF Health, which is the first in the country, another first, which is awesome. And then we got a gun violence update. Our board is not happy with what's happening. And so we have asked the alliance to present to us in August, and Judge Bullard is ready to go on accountability and what other programs can we use. One of the programs that I'm really in favor of is a program, the Strike 352 or Stark 352, which is a liberal arts program out of UF. Spark 352. You all know about it. They're great. They have a budget. They have budget through December, and they're looking for $240,000 to fund them through the next year. I think that's a program that maybe the trust should look at, maybe the county, maybe the city. We can cobble together some money and keep that thing going. So I wanted to just bring that up to you all. And then lastly, as we were wrapping up the meeting, we got a draft of the literacy update from Teresa. I put it in your boxes. We, the trust, as you all know, has committed to $550,000 for the next three years. Teresa and staff is supposed to bring back a plan for the community to the trust at either the, I think, the August meeting. This is the first draft. I know you have a meeting on Monday scheduled. If y'all can just read through this, engage with Marsha or schedule a sunshine meeting with me or whatever, because the county really pushed this. And I want to make sure that we are utilizing the resources of the trust to really hone in on what we're trying to do, both with our $250,000, their $550,000, hopefully the school board, the library, and I don't know about the city. But that's why I put that in your box. And that's it. All right. Who's nailed it? I had a meeting yesterday with four second-year med students, or well, three second-year med students, one third-year med student, and some political science students about medical debt. And they have done a project, and they gave a little report to me, which I knew some of, which is medical debt's number one cause of bankruptcy, that we have 8,000 people in Alachua County with medical debt in collections. We have 23,000 people with zero medical insurance that fall, many of them fall into the Medicaid gap. And then they shared with me some projects that have happened in some other counties. Orange County, in 2021, used some of their ARPA funds to, working with a company called Undue Medical Debt is actually the name of the company, they spent $4.5 million of that money to buy out the medical debt of 400,000 residents at a 100-to-1 ratio, which sounds like an incredibly good deal. But when you look at how little medical debt is repaid, how much hospitals and doctors spend on collecting that medical debt, it ends up being a pretty good deal for them. So these companies that negotiate these payments, that's pretty much the standard, is the 100-to-1 buyout rate. Yeah, 400,000 people is a lot. Leon County is in the process of doing this now with a different company called Rising Voices. If we were to do this in Alachua County, they've done some work and they have figured out that we have, if we were to take folks that were four times the poverty level, so if you take our poverty level in Alachua County, and I'm sorry I didn't write that down, but if we were to multiply that by four and we took all the people that were underneath that number and or the people that spend more than 5% of their income on medical debt and we were to buy out their medical debt at that 100-to-1 ratio, it would cost us $139,000 to buy out about $13 million worth of medical debt. That would take, if we're looking at 5% of somebody's income going to medical expenses, that puts that money back into their pocket, helps them buy groceries, helps them pay rent, helps them pay regular expenses. And I would like to make the motion that we ask staff to look, since we're in budget season right now, to work with one of these, to look into working with one of these groups to see if we can negotiate something similar for Alachua County, because I think this is the time to do it right now, while we're looking at things like cuts to SNAP, cuts to other funding that help these families that fall into this Medicaid gap area, make ends meet, that I think this could be a good deal for us, because I think these are probably some of the same families that we're helping in social services anyway. Commissioner Cornell. Can you add to the motion that we reach out to Leon County and figure out what program they're doing? Absolutely. They're using one called Rising Voices, but I think we should reach out. Our staff reach out to their staff. Yeah, we can, certainly, that would be part of what I would ask staff to look into, is to talk to Orange County and talk to Leon County and see if they, you know, their social services department saw the impact to that, to sort of ground truth these numbers that the medical students brought back to us from their project. I know those commissioners will second. And a motion is second. Any further discussion to the motion that's on the floor? Okay, hearing none. Those in favor of the motion, vote by the sign of aye. Aye. Aye. Thank you. Opposed? Same sign. Motion carried. I do want to. Commissioner President. I don't know if you have anything. No, I don't have anything. I just have one other thing that I forgot. It was sort of a response to your comment about the gun violence, so it's a bit about that. It's also a bit about just the jail. And so I was at PSCC on Tuesday or Wednesday, whatever day it was. You're welcome. Thank you for being there, because I couldn't be there. I had one last-minute emergency. And I'll just tell you, you know, we had a really productive conversation. I felt like it was one of the more productive conversations that we've had at that. But it really centered. First, we had a gun violence update from Crawl Smart. And, you know, it was, I think, to your point, I think there's a lot of work being done on prevention, which I think is good. We need prevention, right? We need productive things for our kids to do and mentorship for the kids that aren't involved in violence yet so that they don't get involved in violence. And I think that's what we're doing well and funding well with this current gun violence initiative. What I don't think we're doing and what I'm seeing again and again is that there's a list, and we have it, Cheryl Kaufman can get it for us, of the people who are returning to our community that had violent crimes, that went and served time, come back on probation, and they're the ones who are continuously recommitting and re-offending. And they're, like, so many more times likely to be the offenders of violent crime. And that's, it's, like, sort of over and over again, right? And so I think I asked at that meeting that, Carl, take to the Alliance, how are we going to address that list? What wraparound services can we provide? What can we do to increase the funding for released re-entry or work with developing more programming to provide hand-holding for those individuals? Because when you come out and you have that level of intensity in your life and, like, all the things that go along with that person, like, they don't just need probation. They need somebody who's mentoring them and holding their hand. Did you call probation? Did you do your thing? Did you do your paperwork? Did you do this? Are you working on that? Like, they really need that level of intense support if we don't want them to go back to jail. And I can guarantee you it's cheaper for us to provide that support than it is to support them or to pay for them going back to jail. So I put that ball in Carl's court to the extent that I could. Obviously, I don't direct staff. But the PSCC was interested in, I think, understanding that as well. Just sort of, like, what are we doing for these repeat offenders that are perpetuating the majority of violent crime in our community and how can we break the cycle of recidivism by providing them with support? So I'm hopeful that you'll maybe hear from the Alliance and we'll hear back from the Alliance at the next PSCC meeting or even before that with regards to that issue. Well, to give you color on the discussion yesterday, so as you all know, the statutory members of the trust are Department of Children and Families, that's Cheryl Twomley, a judge, that's Susie Bullard, and she was one of the original members. And then she rolled off, Ferraro was on, but she rolled back on. So she's had a gap of, like, two or three years. And what she said is she said, wait, we're funding the gun violence, the half a million dollars? Like, the trust is literally the majority funder in this. And she said, here's what I'll tell my members. When I left, it was bad. I'm back now, and it's gotten worse. So what are we doing? And I, you know, I wasn't prepared because I'm just chairing the meeting. But I will tell you that she's going to lead the charge on that discussion in August. And it is entirely likely that if there are not measurable things that she feels like the taxpayer money is being used for, that funding is going to go away. Because we're going to, you heard kind of where we are, we're going to allocate it to programs that we know are working, that we are actually holding people accountable for, and they're reporting back to us. And it was my hopes that over the year, the alliance would have some things that they could point to. And I think the, you know, the gun violence crimes, I think the numbers that we heard from the city three or four months ago, they said are down. I don't think you were at that meeting. I was there. Oh, you were there. I watched it. You watched it. Okay. But from the judge's perspective, it's not whatever, whatever that money is being spent on, it's not working. And if it's not working, we're going to spend it on something else. And so I just wanted y'all to hear that. I just wanted y'all to hear that because she's leading that discussion because she is our expert in that area. Well, and I think she, she'll, anyway, I think she'll do a good job of doing that. But I do think that there needs to be a bigger push on the violent offenders and actually doing some intervention and doing some real, that component of it. So I'll just throw that in there as an advocate. And I will set up a sunshine meeting with you. The other thing that was talked about at that PSAC meeting, which I think is really relevant to us, is the real issue around mental health in our jail. The fact that it's not only is it becoming, I think, really, really difficult for our sheriff's office and detention officers who are not trained medical health, mental health professionals to deal with the number of people we have with mental health disorders in our jail. Well, yeah, and I think WellPath is trying, you know, but they just don't have a lot. And it's just, it's really, really challenging. And a lot of it is about, there's just not spots in programs or beds in hospitals to, for those people to move into and to house them. And so even our mental health court, like she, the judge was just saying, like, it's so challenging because she can't, she's just like waiting for bed space, waiting for bed space, waiting for bed space. So, you know, I, I think it's an important conversation for us to have because it's really coming to a head. And as we're having conversations about, you know, legislative appropriations for like jail renovations and all of those things, I think we also need to be thinking about how we're advocating for bed space and funding for mental health programming that helps, again, to cut this recidivism, this like process, this cycle of people with mental health disorders ending up in jail. And I don't know exactly what the answers are and I'm not going to put anything out there in a motion today, but I just wanted to tell you that that was a really powerful conversation and our, one of the staff that has to deal with that on a regular basis really, I think, gave a very compelling and a very strong and a very brave statement at that meeting, given that, you know, she's staff and, you know, usually they just give us data and kind of sit on the sidelines, but about some of the challenges that they're seeing day to day in the jail with these individuals and just how, how hard it is and how awful it is for the people who are working there and the people who are incarcerated there under circumstances that just are not providing the services that they need. So I just wanted to give that to all of us to hold and think about and, you know, be talking about because I think it's really relevant to the funds we're already giving to release reentry. I think we could be giving more funding to them to do programming in the jail. I think we could be running more of our reentry programming from booking on so that we could see them start to get those services earlier. They provide mental health counseling. They provide job assistance. They provide family connection. They, you know, they're doing a lot of stuff once they get out, but if we could start that earlier and if we could be thinking about some of the other services and supports that we have out there and how, like this central receiving facility and how that interacts with the jail, I just, it's a big conversation, but it's one I think we're going to need to have because the population of the jail just is still continuing to rise. I mean, the graph looks like this. When you look at the graph from 2016 to now, it's just like, and we're up at, we're bumping 1,000 on the regular. We do have bids in this community. We have bids in this community. We just don't have access to them. Well, that's what I was actually going to address, that I sit on the board for New Horizons housing, which is housing for people with mental health disorders with varying levels of support, including, you know, a bedroom in a facility with a full-time staff that makes sure people take their meds and do all that kind of stuff, to just regular apartments where people have just the support that, you know, wraparound services that they might need in order to be successful in renting. They have four different facilities, and they have a whole, the whole setup done for a fifth facility. They just don't have the funding, and this is an opportunity for a public-private partnership, and I'll say it again, to go out there and have an organization that's ready and able to provide the oversight for that housing, and if they have the housing to, you know, built and available. Right now, they, you know, they have 140, 140, 144 beds, I believe, right now, space for that many people, and they're full and a waiting list. And so, you know, we could provide, we could potentially take 200 people out of our jail if we had 200 more beds. We do have those beds. Those beds are out at home. I know, but we still have to go through the process of doing that, and I don't know that that, you know, is anything that could happen tomorrow. I don't mean, like, we don't have beds. I mean, like, there are not programmed places where they can put people where the courts feel safe that those people will get the services that they need, and that they won't be a threat to society. What's that? Where are 140? There, the New Horizons properties are, there's one on North Main Street, right off North Main Street, a whole apartment complex. There are assorted apartments that are part of duplexes and all in Southwest Gainesville. There is a women's facility that is in, also in Southwest Gainesville, and then right off 34th Street is their high level of support facility where they have 24-hour care, and it is sitting right between two big apartment buildings, and, you know, they could probably sell that property for a lot of money and build something else, but they, you know, they can't because they have to have a place to put them so that they could do that. But they, this is a state-supported wraparound facility. They provide really, really good support. So one thing we might do is ask staff at some point to talk to the folks at Meridian and see if there is a partnership opportunity. Yeah, I just think that, and I talked to, I mean, at that I just said, like, we have lobbying ability. Like, if there's legislative appropriation, like, we went for the CRF. The CRF is helping divert people, but if there's nowhere to divert them to, we have a problem. So the next step is, let's build those, let's help build those facilities, those places for people to go, rather. It's wherever it's located. Yeah, it's never going to work. About the next steps to that, and not, you know, we, I just think we have to not rest at CRF. It's done, okay. Like, now our next legislative appropriation, like, our next ask, our next push with the state is, like, the facilities that are necessary, because there are people actually in our jail that are supposed to go to their state beds, and they don't have enough room either. Well, I mentioned this at the ribbon cutting for the central receiving facility. If we don't have housing, this isn't going to work, because we're, you know, we can have, provide all the support we want, but if people are on the street, then, you know, there's nobody there to, you know, make sure that they are able to hold on to their meds, much less take them every day. And I guess that, this whole conversation, all the things we're talking about with gun violence and mental health and the, like, it's why, when we were originally doing our, our sort of strategic planning that I, I kind of put my dot on criminal justice, because it's an area we have to deal with if we're going to deal with all the other components, right? The public health components and the social justice components and how people afford their lives when half of it, when they're spending their family's income just to, like, pay for their person to buy commissary and make, you know, I mean, at least we've eliminated the phone call expenses and our portion of the fees. But there's still so much that's there embedded in that whole cycle that we have to figure out. And this is a big one. The mental health component is a big one. So anyway, thanks for listening. Is the phone, is the phone, I haven't heard, is the phone situation okay? I think they figured it out. They figured it out. Yeah, new, new sheriff, new sheriff in town. I don't think it was a lack of a problem. I think it was a lack of will. Have you all been in touch with WellPath to know how they're doing over there? Because I know we hired them on, but I didn't know you're saying that you're hearing Well reports. They could do better. Okay. Okay. I think the doctor, I've heard the doctor over there is great. I think it's, they have a very, very high turnover rate on their staff. Okay. Very high. And they need a couple more. And they need, yeah. Probably need four. They can't find them. They can't even, they're having, that's the thing is like even Meridian said at this meeting, they're having trouble finding people to hire. Like there's just like, it's like a, it's another pipeline. Private practice. Yeah. The public misses out when they get bored with our meetings and leave before we have this, these discussions at the end. It's only time we get to talk. Thank you for, thank you for entertaining that. I just wanted to give you that update on the PSCC. Okay. There's nothing else. We adjourn. We adjourn. We adjourn. We adjourn. We adjourn. We adjourn. We adjourn. We adjourn. We adjourn. We adjourn. We adjourn. We adjourn. We adjourn. We adjourn.