Regular Meeting @ 11:30 a.m. - May 12, 2026

Okay, good morning, everybody. It is May 12th, and I'd like to go ahead and call this Board of County Commission's meeting to order. Before we get started in the meeting today, we've got Pastor Zach Seder, who is going to give the invocation. If you all will please stand and then join me after the invocation for the Pledge of Allegiance. Pastor, welcome. Thank you. Glad to be here. Father, we come to you today. I lift up every single individual in this room. Lord, whether they know you personally or believe in your existence or follow you closely or not, I pray for their families. I pray for their financial well-being. I pray that they would have a deep sense of joy and peace in their lives. God, I pray that you would have your hand on everything that is said and done here today, that you would grant wisdom for everyone in the room. Lord, everyone here is here because they have a heart of service. They care about their community. They believe in doing the right thing. They want to make things better, Lord. And sometimes we know people have different ideas of what that means, God. And I pray that you would just help people to take a breath. Remember that everybody here wants the best thing. Help them to come to conclusions, guide them. I pray for our county. I pray for our city. I pray for all the citizens, from the wealthy to the most vulnerable to every single person in between, Lord. I just pray that you would have your hand on this entire meeting and help it to be productive, help it go smoothly, and help our county to improve and be better because of it. I pray all this in your precious holy name. Amen. Amen. Thank you, Pastor. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all. Okay, Commissioners. So the first item is the approval of the regular and consent agenda. Do I hear it? Second. And a motion is second to approve the agenda. Any discussion? Anyone from the public which speaks to the motion? Back to the board. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right. That motion is unanimous. All right. So we're off. Mr. Sexton, any announcements today? No announcements today. So, Commissioners, we've got a special item here. Before we get started, we need a motion to approve. Let's go ahead and approve the special recognition and all the proclamations. So moved. Second. A motion is second to approve the special recognition and all the proclamations. Any discussion? Any public discussion? Back to the board. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion is unanimous. Okay. Madam Clerk, Mr. Clerk, sorry, I didn't see you over there. No problem. Could you go ahead and announce the first item? The first item is the presentation of a proclamation recognizing May 12, 2026 as LaToya-Ganey Day in Alachua County, Florida. So we're going to start this off with a poem from our poet laureate, and we're going to all go down to the podium. Commissioners, could you join me, Ms. Lieberman? Yes, and Mr. Chair, I wanted to also mention for the public that after this item, we will take a recess until the noon public comment period. All right, so this is the only item we have until high noon. All right, that's good. First, I want to offer myself and say your condolences to the podium. This was simply entitled this podium. What do we say? What do we say when we have no words? What do we say when we have no words? When words disappear to all that we hold dear, words swallowed by sorrow's appeasement, in the throes of a loved one's bereavement. What do we say? What do we say when we have no words? Do we simply sit in silent reflection as we hold on to the beautiful recollection of you? What do we say? What do we say when we have no words? When silence is the only language left that holds? What language cannot carry our time shared with you? The compassion in your presence, the hymns in your voice, the divine scriptures in your smile, made holy the ordinary hours. What do we say? What do we say when we have no words? When sacred silence is all that remains to explain the unspeakable joy of you, LaToya. So, when you're the chair, you get to attempt to read some things. So, I'm going to do my best. This is coming from the entire board of county commissions, county manager, county attorney, and certainly every employee that had the opportunity to be touched by LaToya. Okay, LaToya County, Florida, a proclamation declaring May 12th as LaToya Gainey Day in LaToya County, Florida. Whereas, LaToya County mourns the passing of LaToya Gainey, county commission executive manager, a beloved public servant, colleague, mentor, who passed away on April 9, 2026. And whereas LaToya Gainey devoted more than 21 years of distinguished service to the residents of Alachua County, beginning her career with the county on February 16th, 2005, as executive staff assistant in the Alachua County Communications Department, later promoted to the county commission office executive staff assistant, program coordinator, executive coordinator, and ultimately executive manager on February 23rd, 2021. And whereas throughout her career, LaToya exemplified the highest ideals of public service through her professionalism, integrity, compassion, patience, and unwavering commitment to excellence. And whereas LaToya was described as the county's north star, the heart and soul of the team, and even the sixth commissioner, because of her wisdom, her mastery of county operations, and her extraordinary ability to anticipate needs, solve problems, and guide both staff and residents with kindness and confidence. And whereas LaToya lived her faith in the way she served others, treating each commissioner, co-worker, employee, and resident with dignity, compassion, and care by making each person feel seen, heard, and valued. And whereas LaToya Ganey's legacy of service, excellence, kindness, and compassion has left an indelible mark on Alachua County government and on the broader Alachua County community, and her example will continue to inspire all who have served this county. Now, therefore, through the authority vested in me by the Board of County Commissioners of Alachua County, Florida, I do hereby proclaim today, May 12th, as LaToya Ganey Day in Alachua County, Florida, it's duly proclaimed on this 12th day of May. I had the opportunity and the privilege of signing it, and it is attested to by J.K. Jess Irby, who is our duly elected clerk. Thank you, Ken Cornell. I'd like to just say thank you for all who showed up and to this particular event, all the way down to the creation, thought, even the thoughts towards itchiness to my beloved wife, LaToya. This was most unexpected, her passing, but it is comforting. I am, we are comforted by the prayers, even if you can't physically connect, but the prayers go farther than you ever know. I know this place well, spent some time here, although we're not employed here, but I sure felt like it sometimes. Many of lunches, many of visits, many of just coming to the office and saying hi to my sweetie, and it's somewhat of an eerie feeling being present now, but I'm thankful to God for her. She was a gentle soul, and she was my rock. It kept me, the girls, and my son, kept us going, and my whole entire family, and I just want to say thank you to all. Thank you to the Gainesville Police Department family, Lottra County Sheriff's Office family, all those who work up close with her. You know, I can't say enough to Mr. Richardson, Stanley Richardson, poet. I will never forget that, ever. What do you say? And all I can say, God bless each and every one of you, and if you are one who prays, when you pray, if you would just mention me and my family, we would greatly appreciate it. Again, we pray God's blessings over the Lottra County Commission, that they will continue to do the great work as God leads them to do, and every employee, every support staff, every person, every part of Lottra County, from the Gainesville family to yours. We say thank you, and we love you. Okay, we're going to stand in recess until 12 noon. We're going to take some pictures here, and then we're going to invite the family back for just a quick break, and then we'll be reconvened at 12 o'clock noon. Let's get a couple of quick speakers. 12 o'clock noon, we'll get back to our agenda, and we have public comment at 12 noon. The way public comment works, for those of you that may or may not know, is we've got a light system. Green means go. It's a three-minute timer. When it hits yellow, that means you have about 30 seconds left, and then red means if you'll go ahead and conclude your comments and let the next speaker speak, if you'll introduce yourself, and let's start public comment. Mr. Connish, welcome. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Jim Connish. I have a neighbor who has contacted your building department. The only thing in writing he's submitted is his name. And based on a claim that we are a sanitary nuisance, a false narrative the county has asserted against me for two years, who slapped a stop work notice on my egg building after trespassing my farm with Kelly Porter, sends it up the line to Dan Gargis, and Dan Gargis makes this report to the Department of Health trying to weaponize the Department of Health against a bonafide timber farm. Despite the fact that six large logs were sitting alongside the road, Todd Harris rushes right out to see some six-by-six timbers there because we were getting ready to do what farms do. We process, store, and air-dry timber. And you continue to harass me, and this is one of many examples where you're trampling my civil rights, you're trampling my property rights, you're harassing me all the time, while neighbors run roughshod over the floodplain, the building code, and the environment. So, sir, in addition to getting ready to sue you along with Yonbo Lee, I've contacted the Water Management District. They won't have jurisdiction of the entirety of your misfeasance, malfeasance, and nonfeasance, but they'll deal with a portion of it. The rest will be handled by DEP, Game and Freshwater Fish Commissions, and the Department of State because of the archaeological resources you failed to protect. In direct violation of the codes, you falsely accuse me of violating. One last thing. If someone does not have a septic tank, that doesn't mean their land is useless. Seven Sisters water bottling plant with 90 people have no septic system. The potable water goes out, and the sewer water goes out in trucks right alongside of it. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Mr. Kosh. Okay, next speaker, please. Good morning. My name is Tom Morris. Tom, if you'll put that microphone right in front of you, then we'll be able to hear you. Thank you. Thank you. My voice is usually strong enough. My name is Tom Morris, and I'm a 10-year resident of Alachua County. I live in Arbor Greens neighborhood in Jonesville, and I'm a retired public school administrator. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today, and thank you for your public service. We're all concerned with balancing the need for new housing with the rights of current homeowners to maintain the existing lifestyles for which they have worked their lifetimes to achieve. Sometimes we have been unsuccessful in accomplishing that. The issue is so important that I ask you to agenda it for public discussion among yourselves as voter information well before the November election. I will attend subsequent meetings in order to check on your progress in that regard. I am providing this proposed statement slash commitment to which I hope each of you and all candidates for open seats will subscribe. I, a current or aspiring Alachua County Commissioner, recognize and commit myself to the following. Growth in needed housing availability and affordability is a positive for our community. New housing should not subvert the lifestyles and choices which current homeowners have to work a lifetime to achieve. Meeting the needs of meeting the needs of the public is primary, while profit is secondary. I will do everything within my power to see that these principles are hereto short of direct violation of the law. Thank you, Mr. Morris. I'm not finished. If you'll wrap up your comments, please. I certainly will. The finish is name, signature, date. Thank you, Mr. Morris. Thank you for your attention. You're welcome. Next speaker, please. Good afternoon. My name is Chuck Ross. I'm a member of the Sierra Club. I'm on the executive committee. I'm their treasurer. And I'm also, we have a board called ECAT, which is Energy Climate Action Team, which I participate in. We're going to have a couple of events coming up. The first one is on May 16th. Oh, let me put it on the screen. Can I get the overhead, please? Overhead, please. So, anyway, this is in Melrose. We're having it. It's open to the public. It's an opportunity to meet some of the people that work in our club, the Sierra Club, and to hear about some of the things that we've accomplished lately. And there were a couple of things, like in Stark, we had, there's a halting to the detention center that was proposed. Also, the Florence landfill, it looks like there's going to be a closure of that. And that's the conservation side of what I call the conservation side of our group. I'm on the energy side. And we are also going to have a meeting on, be part of that meeting. We're also going to be part of, this is another meeting on May 23rd that we're having, which deals with energy issues. And also an opportunity to meet some of the people that work in our local group called, it's called, by the way, it's called the Suwannee St. John's group of the Florida chapter of the Sierra Club. So, I hope that I gave flyers out, and I hope that spread the word. I could email to the clerk the flyers also. Or you could just give them to them. I gave them already copies. Okay, great. Also, before I forget, I want to give a big shout-out to all of the fire rescue and other related public servants that dealt with the recent wildfires and apparently continue to deal with them on an ongoing basis, unfortunately. But hopefully, we're going to get some more rain. But I want to give a big shout-out to those people. Thank you, Mr. Ross. You're welcome. You have a nice day. Thank you. Appreciate you being here, and appreciate your photography, too. I enjoy it. Thank you. Okay. Next speaker, please. Come on up, Mark. Okay. Fighting each other. Come on up. I had printed these for you all. Yeah, if you'll give those to the clerk. Thank you. Hello. My name is Dr. Corey Chaval, and I'm the executive director of the Gainesville Circus Center, a 501c3 nonprofit performing arts school serving Gainesville since 2018. We have been lucky enough to partner with the Children's Trust of Alachua County, visit Gainesville, and the city of Gainesville for the past several years. Today, I'm here to share with you an exciting opportunity for partnership with Alachua County through a project called Banjo Buffalo's Wild West Revival. This production is being presented with support from the National Endowment for the Arts. The NEA award is a special projects grant honoring America's 250th anniversary, and I'm proud to say that the Gainesville Circus Center is one of only 50 organizations nationwide selected to receive this prestigious recognition. Banjo Buffalo's Wild West is a theatrical equestrian performance featuring Native American dancers, trick riders, aerialists, and live music. It draws from the spectacle of historic Wild West shows while also re-examining the stories those performances told about American identity. Historically, Wild West shows blended entertainment with mythology. Audiences were captivated by sharpshooters, horseback stunts, Native American performers, and dramatized frontier stories. These productions helped shape popular ideas about American history and influenced the evolution of modern live entertainment and even the American circus itself. But these shows also presented a deeply inaccurate picture of Native American people and cultures. Too often, indigenous communities were portrayed as relics of the past instead of living cultures that continue to shape American identity today. Our goal with Banjo Buffalo's Wild West Revival is not simply to recreate the past, but to create a more thoughtful and inclusive conversation around it. Working directly with Native American artists and indigenous studies scholars, this project seeks to present indigenous cultures alongside Euro-descendant traditions with authenticity, respect, and historical context. In addition to the live performances, audiences will have access to a digital educational program developed with scholars and cultural contributors. This program will help connect past and present place and identity while highlighting the intersections of indigenous and imported cultures that help shape our region and our nation. Performances are scheduled for July 24th and 25th in Levy and Alachua counties. This project will come before the Board of County Commissioners in June because we're seeking approval to host the event at the Alachua County Agricultural and Equestrian Center. Given the scale of this project and the significant investment already made by our organization and our sponsors, it would be extremely detrimental to the time, effort, and funding already committed. More importantly, it would be a missed opportunity for Alachua County to participate in this event. So I'm just here bringing this to your awareness. Thank you, Dr. Spell. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Sure. Do you want to wait until we're done with public comments? You'll just hang out. We may have a question for you after public comments over. Next speaker, please. Let's get to public comments and then if we want questions. How many more speakers in the chambers? Mark and okay. And then Mark, you have some folks on the phone. Okay. All right. Welcome. Go ahead. Hi there. I'm John Quarterman. I'm the Suwanee Riverkeeper. Do what we can to keep waters clean in the 10,000 square miles of the Suwanee River Basin in Georgia and Florida. This is the second of my third stops today. I started with the Suwanee River Water Management District this morning. Same topic here, which I'm sure you've heard of. I know Mary Alford has. Water First North Florida. That benighted plan to pipe treated wastewater from Jacksonville into the Suwanee Basin. There are far easier ways to address there's two real problems. One is lower flows and levels in the Suwanee Basin, but there are easier, less expensive, and faster ways to address that, such as Dennis J. Price, who's a practicing geologist out of Hamilton County, has long proposed just drill aquifer recharge wells at the overflow of wetlands downhill from forestry, planted pines, and that keeps getting rejected by the districts because they claim you'd have to treat the water first. Now, wait a minute. Water First North Florida talks about putting it into wetlands. How can that be cleaner? And they don't know very much about how Water First North Florida would actually work. Almost everything you ask them, well, we're working on that, yet they reject this other thing out of hand. The other problem is SB64 requires wastewater plants to stop outflowing into rivers starting in 2032. That's not a Suwanee Basin problem. That is a Jacksonville problem. So why should the Suwanee Basin have to solve it? But there is a solution for that. How about use water out of the St. John's River for drinking water or desalinate seawater, either of which would reduce the amount that Jacksonville withdraws from the aquifer or if they can really clean up that water from the J.A. Buckman plant so good they want to send it over here, send it back into Jacksonville's drinking water. Now, Jacksonville withdraws more water than anything else, so every bit they don't withdraw helps levels and flows in the Suwanee Basin. Now, as I think you're aware, you probably saw my letter I sent you a few weeks ago. I think at that time it was five counties, Madison, Suwanee, Columbia, Baker, and Hamilton had passed letters of resolutions opposing Water First North Florida at Lafayette and, of course, the town of Brantford and, as you're aware, your very own Mary Alford voted for both the Rivers Task Force and the North Florida Regional Water Council resolutions against this. I strongly recommend that this body pass such a resolution because you all are, as people sometimes remark, the 800-pound gorilla in the Suwanee Basin. Even though most of Gainesville is not in the Suwanee Basin, even the rest of the Latchwell County is, and when you all speak, everybody listens. Thank you. Thank you, John. Thank you for being here. Appreciate it. Next speaker, please. Come on up, Martin. Don Seward. Yeah. Yep. I'm going to hand it to the clerk. Some copies. Shnert, do you want to come? So I told you the story where it was actually Don Post who first suggested we build a 15-megawatt biomass plant in Newberry, right? I told you that story. And it was in a meeting in the Little Red Schoolhouse there on the second floor in March of 2007 that a guy from Wirehouse said, no, let's go bigger, and that's how we ended up with a 100-megawatt power plant. So just so you know, it was going to be small because he was in Sweden during the first oil crisis, like in the 70s. DOE had a plan, and it said, all these engineers, they sent them over to Europe, and how can you be more decentralized? How can you – it turns out Sweden has like 60% or so of their power, like in tiny little units just spread out around the country. That's one of the reasons when they have many forests. Anyways, so – okay, so this is like three years of not mowing over here, and this is right up front. I took this last week or two weeks ago on the 5th. So this is three years of not mowing, and I get violations, or we get violations because, you know, it grows tall and stuff. And actually, it's only about a foot tall, if you can see over here. But there's no water involved. So I don't know what the gentleman was just talking about water. But one of the reasons people water their lawns is because they keep running out there and mowing it, and then it gets dry. And then they put water on it, and it grows, and they run out there and cut it. And there's this sort of funky cycle that people – many people have gotten into. And so the whole concept is, can we change it a little bit, just a little bit, so it means less water. But also, when it turns brown, then people come, you know, with stuff, and they throw stuff on it, and then they water it, and then the stuff is in the ground. So, okay, you get that. But that's basically – it's a cultural thing. But it can be done. It's just like the jeans. I remember in jeans when I was in high school, if you had jeans with slices on them, people would be like, oh, my God, poverty? You know, now it's like you pay $20 extra for as many cuts as you can. You know what I mean? Like, hey, stuff changes. So maybe lawns can be like the new jeans, you know what I mean? Like they're all roughened up, and they're all like, that's cool. It's possible. We just need to bring it in that direction. So you lead by example. It's doable. We did have a Denim Day last – I heard that. I mean, I was there when somebody did that. We didn't have RIP Denim Day, so that – yeah, go ahead. Well, it was early 1973 that the state of Florida officially allowed girls to wear jeans in school. In 1973, by law, it was made possible because some schools have said you couldn't. You have to wear skirts and stuff. Just an interesting factoid. It was 50 years. But if you allow stuff to grow by itself, you get different plants. Different plants have different root systems. Some are longer. Some are shorter. Some plants are more active in spring. Some in fall. So the whole time, the soil is, like, active, doing stuff. And you have these worms and other critters that are underground. So this whole story about, like, all these guys that are flying around and they're eating, and we're letting them eat instead of cutting it, has another layer to it, and that's in the ground. If you want the ground to be, you know, soil instead of sand, that's the way to go. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. All right, Mr. Sexton, let's go to the phone lines, see if we have anyone that would like to speak to us today. Mr. Chair, we have two people in the waiting room. One has their hand up. To the other caller, whose number ends in 2890, if you're wishing to speak, please hit star 9. In the meantime, the caller, whose number ends in 2964, please hit star 6, state your name, and you have three minutes for anything on the agenda, and if you wish, three minutes for anything off the agenda. Go ahead, caller. This is Haley Hall. Can you hear me? Yes. Hi, this is Haley Hall. I'm calling from Brantford today. Thank you for letting me speak. So I want to reiterate the comments of the Riverkeeper about adopting a resolution against the Water First North Florida project. I really hope that Alachua County can join your neighbors in calling for that resolution and hopefully calling for a moratorium on the project. It's something that, you know, people in 20 County are really upset about and are going to be really impacted by. And like you said, you know, Alachua County has a lot of influence, and so we'd really appreciate if you guys could add your voices to that, you know, growing movement of really a lot of people and a lot of elected officials calling for the project to be halted. In addition to that, I also want to comment on the grass and the native plants. So in terms of reducing Jacksonville's groundwater consumption, one way would be for them to reduce their urban lawn irrigation, golf course irrigation, that sort of thing. So this reclaimed water that they want to send over here could be used to do that. And also, I want to shout out Alachua County's great program that Stacey Greco has about reducing, you know, urban and landscape lawn irrigation. I know that that program has had really great success in Alachua County, and I think it would be excellent if you guys could work to export that knowledge through Jacksonville, hopefully, and get them to adopt a similar program. And in addition to that, finally, I want to reiterate, I had called for, or have requested you guys to enact a moratorium on non-municipal detention centers. And so I'd emailed the resolution that Kansas City had adopted where they had enacted a five-year moratorium on any new, specifically non-municipal detention centers. And so in addition to the moratorium on Water First North Florida, I hope that you guys can lead the charge and adopt a moratorium on non-municipal detention centers, and then hopefully the surrounding region can as well. So thank you very much. Take care. Thank you, Ms. Hall. Thank you. Next caller, please. Okay, Mr. Chair, we have Casey Harris on the line. They are an applicant for the Land Conservation Board. They were not able to come, so Casey will speak now. Casey, go ahead. Hello. Hi. My name is Casey Harris, and thank you for considering me for the Land Conservation Board and going ahead and speaking now. I've worked on water quality and ecology in several areas of the U.S., and my current work focuses on water quality in Florida lakes, rivers, and estuaries. Land conservation may be the most effective tool we have to safeguard these for wildlife, recreation, for drinking water, and future flood or even drought resilience. And I appreciate everyone who is doing work in this area, and thank you for considering me for the board today. Thanks. Thank you so much. Thank you for applying and for calling in. Anyone else, Mark? No, sir. That was the last caller. Okay. Thank you. We'll go ahead and close public comment, and is there any questions or statements for folks? I did have one with regards to the presentation that we got, the Wild West Revival presentation. Can you tell me, did you say that it's going to be coming before us in June with regards to- Right. It'll be on the agenda for approval to host the production as intended. There is an issue with the performing water buffalo. They are bovines, which are allowable at the Agricultural Center. However, because it's a performing bovine, we need approval for that. And also, we would really like any kind of other support that the county can send towards us, since this is a pretty important event for our community. That was my second question. Have you applied for our Visit Gainesville grant? Yeah, we have funding from Visit Gainesville. Okay. Yeah. Great. It is limited, like all funding for the arts every year. The pool is smaller and smaller. So an easy way that the county could support us would be to waive the fees for the venue rental. We've already paid our deposit. We're going to rent the venue regardless. You have an actual event grant from Visit Gainesville? Yeah. Yeah. We've been receiving event grants from Visit Gainesville since 2020 to help support our professional shows. It allows us to bring in artists from outside of Alachua County and also pay our staff to do what they do. So, yes, we do have some support, but we would appreciate, at the very least, if we could get the venue rental fees waived, since we're putting county dollars into the event already. It seems silly to use county dollars to pay for a county facility. Also, just bringing more attention to the event. We thought about if we could have, like, an honorary arena director from the Board of County Commissioners to help. Talking to her. Bring some media attention to the event. Yes. We can put you on a horse or a buffalo. Up to you. I like a horse. Thank you, Dr. Chabot. Thank you, Dr. Chabot. I would ride the buffalo. Oh, listen. He's very friendly. There's actually two, Haley and Banjo. We have some co-county commissioners. Ms. Lieberman, did you have a question? No, I was just going to say, Andrew, your rules for that facility, there are certain things that are permitted that are already allowable. Outside of that, we bring it to you to ask permission for those animal acts. Right, the animal acts. Yeah, yeah. And we did that just to protect animals. We had some sort of extreme rodeo and things like that that were very aggressive with the animals. We wanted to be sure that we were taking care of animals and had the right rules in place. So I would just encourage you when you come to make sure that you have information about the care of the animals and how they're treated during and before and after the performances. Right. Absolutely. We teach natural horsemanship at our facility. It's all about the psychology of the animals, working with them. There is another issue is rigging at the facility. We have a portable aerial rig that we use. It detracts a lot from the aesthetics of the event to put a portable rig in the center of an arena when there's a perfectly good I-beam right up there in the roof that we could access. The grounds manager thought it was no problem to use that I-beam. It requires an I-beam clamp, a pulley, and a rope. Because a circus treated the facility very poorly at some time in the past, circuses have been banned from using the facility at all. We had to take the word circus off the poster, which is fine. Aerialists can also be described as aerial dance. But the point is it would be a much more pleasing view if aerialists were suspended from the building. And we rig off of I-beam clamps all the time without hurting the facility in any way, shape, or form. So that's another sort of caveat in there if we could get a special permission to do it that way. Otherwise, we'll use a portable rig. It doesn't look as nice. Thank you, Dr. Schveld. Thank you. No, I thank you. Mr. Chair, if I could as well. The grant that they received is not event-based. They receive an operational grant. There are arts, nature, and culture grants. That's what I thought. Oh, I'm sorry. That's what I said. Yeah. And we do, for 501c3s, we do give reduced fees on our rentals. Okay. Okay, great. Oh, did you have anything? Well, that's wonderful. I was just going to say the TDC is meeting Wednesday at 1.30. If you want to come and share what you all are trying to do. Tourist development. Okay. Council here. Wednesday, 1.30. Here. Yes. But either myself or Assistant Director Izzy Brazil will come. I just, I don't know if you can be eligible for both. If you receive an arts, culture, or nature grant, if you can be eligible for our event grants. But we do have specific events that are specifically for marketing efforts and provide shared marketing, especially out of county, to try to attract folks to performances. So definitely look into that and connect with Jessica and the team over at Visit Gainesville about those grants as well. Because you may be eligible for those as well, and those would cover marketing and outreach materials. Thank you, Dr. Schell. Thank you. Appreciate you being here. Okay. Anything else, Commissioner? I do. Just very quickly, do we have staff working with Mr. Connish? Do we have people working with the concerns that Mr. Connish brings to us? Ms. Torres or Ms. Daniels? So Ms. Daniels can speak to this because she's the most up-to-date on that. We have received all the information that he sent over. He has an active code case that's scheduled to go before the special magistrate sometime soon, so we generally stay out of those as far as the board is concerned. But we're looking at his argument. Okay. Okay. Thank you. That's it. And the other thing is to welcome John back into the community. Did you leave already? Did he leave? John Quarterman? Oh, here we go. Because I worked with John Quarterman in the Walls Group when we were trying to fight the Sable Trail pipeline coming through. So it's, you know, here we are reactivated again to do the same kind of work again. So I just wanted to thank him for taking the time to come down here from Georgia to do that. Thank you, Commissioner. Thank you. Mr. Alford? I just wanted to thank Mr. Tom Morris for his letter and his concerns about housing and how new housing affects current residents. And, you know, while I'm very, very sympathetic to, and I'm sure we all are, to his concerns, I just wanted to make sure that he was aware that we are bound by certain state laws that require us to honor the property rights of people and what they can and can't build. And so it's very hard for us to not do that. So I just wanted to say that out loud so that, you know, he doesn't think we ignored his very carefully worded comment and the letter that he provided and everything. We're very sympathetic to that. But, unfortunately, there's very little we can do to change that as much as we might like to. Well, I actually, I mean, on that front, he was, I mean, if he watched, if he actually, if he has time to do a public records request and or spend some time on our meetings, we have spent a, I would say, a large proportion of our meetings over the past year, including our EAR process and our affordable housing advisory, adopting new codes and new parts of our comprehensive plan that are all about the things that he's asking for. So I would just encourage him, before he asks us, to spend substantial time on an issue to look at the substantial time we've already spent on the issue. Well, I think that that's not going to address his immediate concern, which is probably, you know, his own backyard. Yeah. So anyway, since he's in Arbor Greens. But anyway, I just, I wanted to say that out loud, that that's not something that we can always control. We can certainly try to help it, but we can't always control it. Yeah, no, I agree with both of your statements. That's right. I spent, I think, 45 minutes with him and the manager and discussed that exact point. Okay, good. Ms. Lieberman, did you, is that a new line? I was going to say that both Mr. Hayes and I had met with him individually, met with him and then the chair also met with him on a second occasion, trying to explain those. Very nice. Yep. Okay. Okay. All right. So, commissioners, congratulations. We finished public comment in 35 minutes, which I think is the first time in the last three or four meetings that it didn't take over an hour. Mr. Chair, there, one of the. I'm sorry, yeah. I'm sorry. Trying to get to you. The Ms. Law that came from Branford, a call from Branford, I don't know if we've addressed that as a board yet. Yeah, so Haley and John had requested, Commissioner Alford, did the North Florida Regional Planning Council do something already? We've asked a resolution. And we've referred it to our staff to bring it back to us. Yeah, and I think Stacey's working on some things. Okay, good. That's all. Let's make sure we let that. What month? Okay, so we're looking at bringing that back before this board, the first meeting in June. Okay, great. See, it was important. Yeah, yeah. And that's enough time, I think, based on what's going on. Yeah. Okay. All right. 35 minutes, but we still got to do it in 35 minutes. Congratulations. All right. All right. Let's move to our proclamations. Mr. Clerk, what's the first one? Mr. Chair, first up is the proclamation recognizing May 17th through May 23rd as National Public Works Week in Alachua County, Florida. And we have some of our incredible public servants from Public Works here. Absolutely. Why don't you all come on up, because we're going to have a picture. Everybody. Everybody up. Everybody. I see a lot of yellow. I see a lot of yellow. Come on up. What about y'all? Y'all get up here and get on the camera. Let the citizens see who's keeping the county moving when we have storms. And you know y'all are all going to have to squeeze in like you like each other. I know. Come on. They do it. They're not. They'll do it. They're not sweaty yet. Yeah, okay. They're not sweaty yet, so it's all good. All right. Who? I mean, and Ramon, too, so. This is truly an honor. I think this is the most people I've ever given a proclamation for at one time in this building. That sucks. This is pretty awesome. So, this is an Alachua County, Florida proclamation declaring May 17th through May 23rd as National Public Works Week in Alachua County, Florida. Their tagline is Rooted in Service, Powered by Community. Whereas Public Works builds, maintains, improves, and protects the infrastructure, facilities, and services that are vitally important to the public health, high quality of life, and well-being of Alachua County citizens. And whereas infrastructure, facilities, and services could not be provided without the dedicated efforts of Alachua County's public works professionals who are managers, engineers, technicians, and other employees at all levels who are responsible for building, maintaining, and protecting Alachua County's transportation infrastructure, solid waste, and recovery systems, and are essential to our citizens. And whereas the year 2026 marks the 66th annual National Public Works Week sponsored by the American Public Works Association. And whereas this year's theme, Rooted in Service, Powered by Community, reflects the heart of the public works mission, grounded in serving people's everyday needs, from maintaining and rebuilding safe, reliable roads, to managing solid waste in an efficient and environmentally responsible manner. And is powered by the community, with the department's work being guided by the voices, needs, and priorities of the people served, assuring that essential services remain dependable, responsive, and aligned with the very well-being of every resident. Now, therefore, through the authority invested in me by the Board of County Commissioners of Alachua County, Florida, I do hereby proclaim May 17th through May 23rd as National Public Works Week in Alachua County, Florida, duly proclaim this 12th day of May, 2026, and signed by our illustrious chair, Ken Cornell, and attested to by our clerk, Jess Irby. Okay, so, I will present this. Thank you, thank you. And I will offer the microphone to whichever ones of y'all would like. All right, Ramon, get us started. I think next year we're going to have to shorten that proclamation a little bit. I don't know. But thank you, Commissioner, for the proclamation today. Words can express my gratitude to the support that we get from the board and from county management. And I cannot even say enough about not just the people that are here today from public works, but those that are actually still working out in the field before the rain start this afternoon. So, once again, thank you. And I want to take advantage of this opportunity to actually introduce to you a gentleman that you have not met before. You all met, by one time or the other, Mr. Donald E. Clifton, who used to be a road superintendent. So, now we have our operations manager, Daniel S. Maltese. He comes to us from the city of Hollywood. So, this is Daniel. Good. Good. Welcome. Thank you, guys. So, thank you, Commissioners, once again. I don't know if anybody would say anything. Brian, but Gus is here representing Solid Waste. They are also, you know, we work very closely together also. And some of our guys actually do assist Solid Waste on the weekends. So, I appreciate everybody being here today. Thank you. Let's give them all a hand. Thank you all. All right, Commissioner Alford, let's get a picture. That's all right. I'm talking. All right. You all squeeze in. Good luck. Like my wife says at holiday events, you all squeeze in and act like you like each other. Okay. Thank you all very much. Thank you all so much for everything you do for us. Thank you, Ramon. And I'm sorry I couldn't shake all y'all's hands. Brian. Brian, do you want to say a few words? It's your last one. I'd love it. Last chance. Last chance. What? Yeah, I'm retiring. Oh. First part of June this year. So, I guess this will be my last meeting. So, I do want to thank you for the honor to be here. We appreciate your service and congratulations on your retirement. You will be sorely missed. Thank you. Absolutely. Yes, sir. Appreciate that. Good. Good to do. Okay. Mr. Clerk, next proclamation. Who's doing this one? Mr. Chair, up next is a presentation of a proclamation recognizing May 15th as Peace Office Memorial Day and May 10th through May 16th as National Police Week in Alachua County, Florida. And I see we have our honorable sheriff here. Yes, sir. Aw. What's up? Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, how fun. Can they drill holes in it? Yeah, right there. Cool. Yeah, right. Oh, yeah. There's like a hole. You all do such good work with all of that. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you. We have one here for Chuck. I got it. Thank you. Okay, Commissioner. You got the board. Okay. A proclamation declaring May 15th as Peace Office Memorial Day and May 10th through May 16th as the National Police Week in Alachua County, Florida. Whereas the Congress of the United States of America has designated May 15th, 2026 as Peace Officer Memorial Day and May 10th through May 16th, 2026 as the National Police Week. And whereas there are more than 700,000 law enforcement officers serving in the community across the United States, including more than 710 serving in law enforcement agencies in Alachua County. And whereas some nearly 85,000 assaults against law enforcement officers are reported each year, resulting in over 25,000 injuries. And whereas in 2025 in the United States, 111 law enforcement officers were killed in the line of duty, 10 in the state of Florida. And whereas the names of these dedicated public servants are engraved on the wall of the National Law Enforcement Officer Memorial in Washington, D.C. And whereas it is our desire to honor the valor, service, and dedication of all our local, state, and federal law enforcement officers and to join with other cities and counties in honoring all peace officers everywhere. Now, through the authority vested in me by the Board of County Commissioners of Alachua County, Florida, I do hereby proclaim May 15th as Peace Officer Memorial Day and May 10th through May 16th as National Police Week in Alachua County, Florida. I do hereby proclaim this 12th day of May, A.D., 2026, signed by our chair, Ken Cornell, and attested to by the J.K. Irby, the clerk. Chair, commissioners, county attorney, thank you so much for recognizing a profession that we all love. For most of us, this is not just a job, it's a calling. You know, as you can see and witness, you know, not long ago in East Gainesville, how things could get deadly all of a sudden. So we thank you, we appreciate you, and we thank you for all the collaboration and working with you. Thank you so much. I want to recognize Major Shawbrush, Major Anderson, Major Bessinger, Attorney Michael Becker, Captain Sims, and Attorney Bruce Bernard. Thank you. Chair, thank you. We'll be together. Okay, thank you, Chair. Thank you, sir. All right. Next one, Adam. Up next is a presentation of a proclamation recognizing May 17th through May 24th as Emergency Medical Services Week in Alachua County, Florida. Hello. Welcome. I'm so happy to see you all. I'm excited to get to do this one. I feel really lucky that our EMS services are so much more than just calling an ambulance and showing up when somebody's having their worst day. They're also there to help our community for all sorts of things, and the new community repair medicine program and the work that they're doing is just really spectacular. So thank you all. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Chair and other commissioners. We certainly appreciate the support that we've received in fire rescue and the EMS side of what we do with Alachua County Fire Rescue. You know, 382 men and women serve in Alachua County Fire Rescue and so many of them are in our operations division and emergency medical services isn't just the 16 ambulances that we have or the five peak load units or even our mobile stroke transport unit. It's our fire engines that provide emergency medical services. It's our mobile stroke unit. It's the idea of of doing preventative health, which is what the Commissioner Prizia talked about with our community paramedicine program. And so it's a really robust system that we have that we're fortunate enough to have in Alachua County. And a lot of that is due to your support of EMS services in Alachua County to ensure that our citizens and visitors are safe. You know, one of the expansions that we're making right now and just released was whole blood. We're now carrying whole blood on a couple of our emergency response vehicles. So those individuals that are suffering traumatic injuries and a loss of blood, we're able to deliver that on scene and it's already made a huge difference. We'll have a case story for you to bring up hopefully in a week or maybe in a month or so. But it's already made a huge difference in someone's life. It has literally saved someone's life just a couple of weeks ago, just within the first week of us carrying the whole blood. And so we're really excited to be able to share that story with you. That wouldn't happen without the 382 men and women of Alachua County Fire Rescue. It wouldn't happen without our Deputy Chief, Jeff Taylor, Assistant Chief Misty Woods, who supervises our EMS division. And I'm happy to have our medical director, Dr. Jason Jones, with us here today. Captain Benware is with us and also Tanner Bohannon, who is in our community paramedicine program. So thank you so much for your continued support with Alachua County Fire Rescue. The best days are yet to come, so thank you so much. Thank you, Chief. Mr. Chair, while they're taking a picture, may I make a comment? Yeah, please. Chief, I just want you to know too, my son escorted a group of sixth graders from Lincoln over to Lofton to see what was happening. There and was the kids were mesmerized by the opportunity to work with some of your folks over at Lofton too. So thank you for being there. It's real important. And I think it's exactly where we need to start engaging our kids. So thank you all for doing that. Appreciate everybody being here tonight. And Chief does have one more meeting. Yes. So he will be here in two weeks. Okay. All right, Chief. Thank you. Okay, Mr. Clerk. When do we announce it? Mr. Chair, that takes us to the Land Conservation Board appointments. We have one full-time citizen up for nominee. And if you pick Paul Lyrene, then we'll have to pick an alternate. All right, are any of the applicants here? I know we heard from Casey Harris on the phone. All right, I don't see any, so why don't we do a roll call for the first one, and then we'll see about the alternate. Yes, sir. Commissioner Prizia, can you have your nominee, please? Paul Lyrene. Commissioner Wheeler, your nominee, please? Paul Lyrene. Commissioner Chestnut, your nominee? Commissioner Alford? Paul Lyrene. And I'll make it unanimous. I move Paul Lyrene for the citizen at large ending in 2028. Second. Motion is second. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion is unanimous. All right, let's go ahead and pick the alternate. Okay. If I can have your nominee, please? Beth Jordan. Commissioner Chestnut, your nominee, please? Casey Harris. Commissioner Prizia, your nominee? Casey Harris. Commissioner Wheeler, your nominee, please? Darcy Doran Myers. Chair Cornel, your nominee, please? I'll say Casey Harris. Casey Harris has three of your votes. I move Casey Harris as the alternate for 2028. Through 2028. Second. Got motion and a second. Thank you, and thank all the applicants for applying. Certainly they are welcome to attend the meetings as well. Any public comments? Back to the board. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion is unanimous. Okay. Mr. Clerk, next item. Mr. Chair, that takes us to the presentation of the Alachua County Land Conservation Board Fiscal Year 2025 Annual Accomplishments Report and Fiscal Year 2026 Work Plan. Okay. Super. Hi, Chair, Commissioners. My name is Emily Yulman. I am the staff liaison for our Land Conservation Board, and I wanted to introduce our speaker today. Kristen Young will be speaking as a representative of the Citizen Board. She is one of our valued and appreciative citizen members who volunteers their time to support our land conservation efforts here in Alachua County, and she will be presenting the Land Conservation Board's Accomplishment Report for the last year and planned for the upcoming year. Thank you. Thank you so much. All right. You're amazing. Hello. Kristen Young. Welcome to the board. Thank you. I don't know if I can pull it up to the introduction. You are amazing. I mean, you're amazing. Thank you. My name is Kristen Young. I'm Chair Cornell and fellow commissioners. I serve on the Land Conservation Board. I'm in my second term, and I'm presenting for the fiscal year 25 where I serve as secretary. Just make sure that microphone's right underneath you so I can hear you. Yep. There you go. So first, starting with the mission statement of the Land Conservation Board. The board will recommend lands for conservation to Alachua County Board of County Commissioners under the Alachua County Forever Program, and advise the Board of County Commissioners on the stewardship of those required lands. And our board's primary activities include receiving presentations on nominated lands from staff, assessing whether those nominated lands should be included for conservation, and receiving the stewardship reports from our various preserves in the county, and the updates on land acquisition, and just in general, make comments on preserve management plans. We meet monthly down the hall in the Grace Knight Conference Room at 6 p.m. on the fourth Thursday, Thursdays. We welcome anyone to join us. We have 11 members and one alternate. We just appointed two. These are the list of people who served in fiscal year 25 and a photo of our board. In fiscal year 2025, we heard 17 property nominations, reviewed them. 11 of those properties were added to the priority pool, and 10 of those properties were added to the active acquisition list by the county commission. We have one additional property of those 11 that was added in fiscal year 2026. An exciting part of it is nine projects were acquired totaling 546 acres. In the map, you focus in on the circles. Those are the lands that were reviewed in fiscal year 2025, the 17. One thing that I noticed is they're in all four quadrants of our county. And going further down the acquired lands, there are nine of them, and they're also circled. I'm going to go through a few of the acquired properties. This is the conservation easement acquisition at Watermelon Pond, Howell. You'll hear a few properties from the Watermelon Pond project area. And this has been a priority area since inception in Alaska County forever. It's a very ancient and special habitat. It's part of an ancient dune system. The aquifer is unconfined there, so water percolates down from the surface directly into our aquifer. The xeric hammocks, the sand hills, and depression marshes, these are being lost, or have been lost, development long before we were here, and they're very rare in our county. Some rare plants and animals live there that either don't live there in other parts of the county or are exceedingly rare in other parts of the county. We have a number of families there that value landscape and their connection to old Florida. Mr. Howell is one of those. He wished for his land to be preserved for future generations. And this conservation easement protects 40 acres from development. And again, it helps maintain an important groundwater recharge area. So we thank Mr. Howell for that. The next property, Lake Santa Fe Block Family Partnership. That is near High Springs across from Poe Springs Park. This is 237 acres, and it's planted in slash pines, but the understory has a number of native plants and animals. This, it falls both in the outstanding Florida Springs priority focus area, which is a area that's where our aquifer is highly vulnerable to contamination. It has a number of sinkholes and karst features associated with springs, and the staff believe there's direct connections from this area to Poe Springs. Because it's across from Poe Springs, it's a great opportunity for recreation while protecting the more sensitive parts of the preserve. One of the exciting things about this property is the county staff is always pursuing ways that Wild Spaces Public Places dollars expand further. And this purchase was, the county received a $1.6 million grant to purchase this from the water management and the state to pay for a portion of the acquisition. And that portion is 94% from the acquisition. That's awesome. That's a very exciting partnership. Again, going back to Watermelon Pond, the Bureau and McDonald Conservation easement. With this, 96 acres are protected in that same area from development. And with this, it was Electric County Forever Program's 100th acquisition since the inception of the program. This area, again, has been a conservation for a very long time, and each acquisition of the land expands the connectivity. The connectivity, of course, is a valued part of wildlife corridors. Again, the property owners, they love the landscape there and are excited about protecting their property into the future and working with staff to enhance the natural communities on their property. Is that a pine snake? Yeah. They will continue to live there with their dogs and their horses in the photos and take care of their property. So, staying in Watermelon Pond, these are four property acquisitions. And they, I forget the total, but they're the Dunford and Palmer, Jackson, Elkhorn, and the Moore, Purcell Pummel properties. And again, they fill in that footprint of the Watermelon Pond conservation area, and they're connected to partner agencies through the Goethe State Forest. And this is part of the Southern Wildlife Corps in our county. Now, going to the other part of the county. This is near Payne's Prairie, west of Noonan's Lake. This is a totally different habitat that we're seeing from Watermelon Pond. This is where aquifer is confined. We see more creeks and water features. This Forest Creek K-Square Holdings is connected to Payne's Prairie. It borders and will be managed by the state. It's also interesting, if you follow the circle up, the next ring property is Morningside Nature Park. This is one property and creating a wildlife corridor there. And their partner lands north of Morningside. So, this will be exciting, very substantial wildlife corridor once those properties are connected. Go on. It's near Mill Creek, north of Alachua. You've heard a lot about the sink there. This was a property donation. It's five acres within the Mill Creek project area, and also part of the Springs priority focus area. It does contain a portion of Mill Creek, which empties into Mill Creek sink. And as you are well aware, that's connected to Hornsby Springs and is part of the protection of the water that we drink in our aquifer. Ms. Williams donated the property in honor of her parents, J. Warren Rousher and Eleanor G. Rousher, so we thank her. We'll continue our goals and objectives from the previous year. We're more properties and evaluate them to present to you for acquisition. I do want to conclude by saying the total acreage acquired in fiscal year 25 was 546 acres, and that brings the total in the Alachua County Florida program to 36,301 acres since the 2000. And one last comment while I'm up here. I want to extend a huge amount of gratitude to county staff in the land conservation area. They're very professional, experienced, knowledgeable, passionate about land conservation, and they hear our dozens of questions of each property in our own special esoteric interests and are very gracious, valiant, giving answers. And when they're not presenting to us, they're managing the preserves and also fighting wildfires in our community. So we thank them very much for all that they do. Okay, thank you. Ms. Young. Commissioner? Commissioner Prizia and then Commissioner Alford and then Commissioner Wheeler. Just a quick thank you to you and to the other board members for all of your service. I know this can be a tedious job because, you know, it can be easy to just rubber stamp these things, you know, they come in, but we really appreciate the diligence and the work that you all do to really dig in and review them and ask those for snickety questions to make sure that we're doing the most we can with these tax dollars. So thank you so much. I'll pass that on to the board. Commissioner Alford? I can't say it any better than Commissioner Prizia just said it, but thank you. I mean, I know you're busy and you do so many cool things, but this is one of the cool things, so thank you so much. Commissioner Wheeler? Yeah, ditto. But I did want to ask you, with the five acres that we've got there at the Mill Creek, does that enhance our affected party status at all when we are, as a county, trying to? So, Mr. Chair, we have made that argument in the past when we've dealt with the last Walmart litigation. We talked about a number of our conservation properties that were in the area. Okay. Does it make a difference? Yeah. Does it? Okay. I like that. Yeah. Just put this right at the table. Okay. Gives us one more. Okay. I'll reiterate what commissioners have said. It's the hardest, not the hardest, it's one of the hardest working boards and we heavily rely on the expertise and your recommendations and thank you and all the board members for the work you do. Thank you. It's also a very fun board. We have a lot of fun. Yeah. It's one of my favorite boards I serve on. Oh, that's good to hear. Well, I've oftentimes said that we all have these opinions, but when the voters tell us something that they want us to do, that kind of trumps our own opinions and this board is really serving the will of the voters since 2000 and we appreciate it. We appreciate it. Thank you so much. Okay. Thank you. All right. Mr. Clerk, next item, please. Mr. Chair, that takes us to the Recreation and Open Space Committee annual presentation. Roscoe. All right. Mr. Scott. Come on up, Roscoe. I have a dog named Roscoe. I have a dog named Roscoe. It's a good name. I guess. Yeah. Welcome. I'm Steve Scott, long-time native resident of Alachua County. You've seen me before. The board hasn't changed that much. I'm going to skip all the stuff we go through every year and move down to what we've accomplished this year. We've had regular updates on improvement of parks. We've had meetings every two months. A couple got off schedule due to issues. And then we get down to the – oh, they fixed it. It said – it didn't say West End Park. It said West something – West Gate Park in my thing. Somebody has fixed it here. That was our biggest thing this year. It was West End Park. And we spoke before. It's coming along. We're extremely appreciative of the presentation from Ed and Jason and what you all commented and that we're going to move along with this park. It's just – I think it's a great thing for Alachua County. I'm getting a lot of comments from friends and relatives and clients, et cetera, of wanting it to hurry up and get done. Let's have it. We've got the World Masters coming up again. I keep wanting to use my finger to scroll this thing up. And we've had the – most of the members of our board attended the community engagement meetings. It's really helped to work on that. But most of the – moving on, the majority of the items in the master plan we accomplished. It's including a new playground at Veterans Park, flagpole, and a new parking lot. Post Springs Restaurant. We had a – I'm sorry, restaurant. Restroom. We had a meeting out there before it was completed, when it was done, but it wasn't opened yet. We got to check out the nice new rest room, and I call it a permanent porta potty. But it had issues getting it completed, but the county staff got through all that, and it's really nice. They're still working on the dock and permitting through, you know, Suwannee River Management District and all that stuff. Lake Alto Park, I've been out there myself. It's really been improved. I went before the last parking lot trees were put in, but I had to ride out there because I hadn't been there in many years and checked it out. Additional projects include installation of the lighting out at the Sealant Oak and the sinkhole remediation at Jonesville Park. My daughter got married at the Sealant Oak. Yeah. Oh, nice. It's the largest live oak in the county, right? Yes. Yeah. What, in the state, maybe? In the state? Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of climbing on it and stuff that's going to hurt it. You know, keep it quiet when nobody ever sees it. It's kind of catch-22 there. Yes. Cape Barnes Park was approved by the state. We filled all our committee positions. It's kind of hard to keep our board full except for me. It keeps y'all, thankfully, reappointed me back to it without my knowledge, really. I'm still chair. I guess I'll be forever. Worked on the 10-year plan and stuff like that for you. Santa Fe Lake Park, been out there. We had a meeting out there. By the way, we take our meetings to parks. Good. In the middle of summer, we take our meetings to parks with air conditioner. But the rest of the year, we bounce around and check everything out. And, again, Jason and Ed have just been awesome in the work that they've done. And they're good employees of yours. Cuscoella, have a meeting out there. And they're doing some lighting for solar lighting that'll be controlled and some really nice stuff that's been done with that. Coming year, we've got to work on Squirrel Ridge Park at a restroom. They've gotten ways to hook in with Meridian and the septic there somehow. They explained it all. It's too complicated for me to know the size of pipes and stuff like that. But that's coming along. West End Park, again, that's going to be the biggie. And I want to mention that out in Archer, just north of Archer, we're working on a new park, Pocket Park. It's going to be a small park, only two acres. But nice to add something out there. Jonesville Park is getting a new stadium for soccer, additional parking and accessibility. And, of course, we've got to throw in some pickleball courts. That's really needed out there. Yeah. Cuscoella, as I already mentioned, with the solar lighting upgrades. Bonioka Park is going to have some new renovations. That's out. Needed to. Yeah. Answer questions. I have the last one here, so. All right. Commissioner Wheeler. The Sealand Park, what kind of lighting are you talking about out there? I think they're trying to add some solar lighting out there. Oh, for the parking area or for the tree? The parking area. Parking area. Parking area. Okay. All right. Yeah. One of my favorite quotes is from Commissioner Sealand, who said, it ain't bragging if you done it. And I use that a lot. Just reporting. That's right. Important. Not bragging. Yeah. Commissioner Alford. Thank you for the presentation. I have a few citizens I've been working with who have presented a petition to add solar lighting during very limited hours at Scroll Ridge Park. And I know that's not considered a best practice to light dog parks, but that park is used by a lot of older folks that come after hours, and they just want a little lighted area that they can feel safe in while they let their dogs run after work. Only during the winter when the time change does that. Should I suggest that that presentation be brought to Roscoe before? Yes. Okay. Okay. I thought that would be a good place for them to do that. How should they contact you directly or the staff liaison? Staff liaison. Yeah. What's that? Yeah. I can make a motion to refer it to them, but it's a student. I'm trying to help them. I think Chantel. Yeah. I'll refer that to the staff liaison, and they can bring it before Roscoe. I didn't know if they'd come to you already, but it doesn't sound like they haven't. Okay. Anything else, Commissioner? No. Just thank you. Y'all are great. Mr. Scott, thank you. Appreciate you very, very much. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner. All right. Have a good day. You too. Mr. Clerk, next item. This takes us to the discussion of the neighborhood workshop for major amendments to the Wiesman Eco Loop Plan development. Okay. Andy, welcome. Thank you. Good to see you. Good afternoon, commissioners. This is Mady Ben-Katar, Alachua County Growth Management Department. And I'm here today to present a little summary of the neighborhood workshop that was held in March for the Wiesman Eco Loop Plan development. And it's related to major amendments that will be proposed by staff in upcoming application. As a background for this application, the Eco Loop site is approximately 260 acres. It's located just north of the airport in the northeastern part of Alachua County. And it's adjacent to the La Vida Brown Environmental Park and Transfer Station. The original PD was approved in 2010. However, since that time, there's been changes in the site. It's no longer to be used for the county fairgrounds. And also Wies-related services, which were considered to be a major part of that planned development, hasn't seen the market develop as originally anticipated. So, therefore, the planned development major amendments that are being proposed will seek to update the planned development and broaden the allowable uses for the planned development, which I'll show in the upcoming slide how the planned development will be proposed to be changed. So, again, on this slide, you see where the site is, indicated with the red outline. The future land use map shows currently it's got a heavy industrial future land use designation. And to the south of the site is the airport in the city of Gainesville. To the west across Waldo Road are also heavy industrial land use and light industrial land use. And this is the extent of the urban cluster. And to the north and to the northeast is outside the urban cluster. The zoning map on this slide shows the planned development in the light green. And then the MP indicates there's heavy industrial zoning. And then further up on Waldo Road, where Fairbanks is, there are some residential zoning districts. So, proposed amendments that we'll bring to you in the upcoming application will update the PD to reflect existing conditions, remove fairground references, consolidate the existing land uses into one developable area, broaden allowable uses such as heavy industrial and governmental uses, retain the CMA, and other updates as needed to reflect current code requirements. So, right now, the existing PD allows fairground, heavy industrial within the eco loop portion, governmental uses if they're accessory to the fairground, waste-related services only within the eco loop portion, and the conservation management area. Proposed PD would allow heavy industrial uses site-wide, governmental uses site-wide, waste-related services site-wide, and retain the conservation management area. This slide shows the existing zoning master plan, the PF is the public fairground portion, and the WRS is the waste-related services portion, and the CMA is to the northeast portion, and also further to the south in pockets in the northeast, or sorry, the northwest. So, there are quite a few conditions here that staff's looking at, and we'll be revising those in the application. So, as a preliminary conceptual layout of the zoning master plan, this shows the developable area in the beige, and then the CMA in the olive color, reducing it just to one area. Our neighborhood workshop was held March 25th, and we had seven attendees. And you see on the slide some of the concerns that they had, one of which was the Murphy Wellfield. This is a little bit in the tertiary portion of the wellfield, and we've spoken with EPD, and we will propose a condition just to ensure that there's no impacts to that. Some of the other concerns didn't necessarily pertain to this site, but more of the area in general, and traffic, noise, and protection of natural resources. So, the expected timeline shown in this slide, we are here today to recap what we've done at the neighborhood workshop, and we look forward to bringing an application soon, and putting it on agendas for Planning Commission and Board of County Commissioners. Any questions you have about in every workshop, I'm happy to answer. And we do have other staff who were present at that. Okay, Commissioner Prezzi and then Commissioner Wheeler. My only question is, I know that we are working on some updates to some of our industrial zoning with regards to making sure that we have appropriate protections in place for things like a data center that might locate in such an area. I just want to make sure that that's not a target use of this site, and wanted to just sort of reiterate that as we move forward because there has been a lot of recent concern from our public in regards to that due to the advertising of a property in Alachua for the potential of a data center. So, I just want to iterate that and make sure that as we move forward that we would make sure that those updates are made as soon as possible through our code, and then also to just make sure that if it's necessary that a condition be added to this, that it would not be appropriate for a data center. Thanks. Okay. Commissioner Wheeler? Is that one of the conditions? We don't have a specific condition laid out. We don't have the application put forth yet. Okay. Got it. We will put that under consideration. Anybody object to that? No. I love how staff is putting conditions on staff, so it's awesome. Yeah, it's really good. For those developers out there, just know that we do it to ourselves as well. Commissioner Wheeler? The questions I have about this property, does the expanding the acreage now to link to the eco loop, does that make it more attractive to some of the businesses that have applied to us before who needed more room? Are we going to be going to look at some of those folks who we've talked to before? So, Mr. Chair, we're not expanding the site, per se. Oh, okay. It's still the same footprint as the original PD. It's just the developable area is being made as just one contiguous area here, whereas before there was a separate area for the fairgrounds. Does it join to the eco loop as it connects to the eco loop? Yeah, so all this property that's north of the airport. That's what I was wondering if, you know, the expansion then into that, expanding the use of that other land would be more inviting to some of these people we've talked to before. Ms. Daniels? Mr. Chair, Ms. Daniels. So we are expanding what's allowed, and like you said, the eco loop. I don't think it will make it more marketable to the people that we've already talked to because of the amount of room they wanted and what they were doing, but hopefully overall it will. Okay. And the second question is, for the application that you are anticipating, is that an application do you anticipate for the whole property or just a piece of it? Are we dividing it up, you know, into sections where it could be used by a multiple group coming in, or is it going to be a site for one business? I don't believe it's only for one business. Okay. Could be. Well, but that's what I'm wondering if, you know, what we're looking at is somebody who's coming in. I don't think this is for any one particular applicant. I haven't heard that. Mr. Chair, we're going to be, the plan development that staff is going to bring forward to you is going to be for the whole site, for uses for the whole site, and it can be, and it can be developed however someone comes in. And everyone that comes in will come to you because you'll have to approve them as still your property. So it could be if somebody comes in and says, we want it all. We're doing this amazing thing. It would be something we could look at, or it could be in individual pieces. The EcoLoop has already got the infrastructure for individual properties to go out there. This other piece that will be taken the fairgrounds uses off of does not yet. I see. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chair. You're welcome. Anyone else? If not, I'll look for a motion. Oh, Ms. Lieberman, did your light go off? Some magical lights. Missy addressed it. Okay. Sounds good. Do I hear a motion? Submit an application for a major amendment. Second. Conditions will come back, right, with the consideration of a condition to the application to exclude data centers. Second again. Motion, two seconds, twice. Any discussion? Any public discussion to the motion? Back to the board. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion is unanimous. Congratulations. You got that approved with your own conditions. Okay. Mr. Chair, that takes us to the presentations for the broadband deployment assistance. To deliver reliable internet to unserved and underserved areas in Alaska County. Okay. And Ms. Bradbrook, welcome to the board. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I'm pulling up a presentation. Thank you, Mr. Scott. Thanks for hanging around. Appreciate you. Yep. Careful that chair. It'll grab you sometimes. Okay. Donna, you are recognized. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair, commissioners. My name is Donna Bradbrook. I'm with Budget and Fiscal Services. As you are aware, reliable internet access is no longer a luxury. It is essential infrastructure. Thank you. The county decided to invest a portion of the American Rescue Plan funds towards high-speed internet access. Specifically, these projects will ensure that thousands of Alachua County residents and small businesses in the rural areas can connect to the tools and opportunities that drive modern-day education, employment, social connections, and economic growth. We have some representatives from Kinetic here today. Mr. Rex Reeves is with us and Andrew Kincaid. And they're here to update you on the progress being made on the high-speed internet access to over 4,000 residents and businesses in the four geographic target areas within Alachua County. With that, I'm going to go ahead and turn the presentation over to Mr. Reeves. Thank you, Donna. Thank you, commissioners. I first presented here about a year ago. So it was May 13th of 2025. So one day short of one year where you formally approved this project. And I'm here today to give you what I think is a very positive update on the status of our project. But I'd first like to say just commend the county and you as commissioners for prioritizing broadband expansion. As Donna mentioned, it's more of a utility now than a luxury item. And it's needed and will be more needed as we enter into the future. But states are working to finalize the BEED grants, which are the most recent federally subsidized program. And we're starting to see that many of those locations are going to be served with alternative technologies such as wireless or satellite. So also regulations and some of the rules of that program will likely delay deployment to 2029, 2030. So the foresight that this county and the commission had really guaranteed and secured fiber internet for the unserved citizens of Alachua County and accelerated that deployment by up to at least four years. So just I want to commend you all for that. From the outset, this has been nothing but a partnership with the county. It's been so great to work with you all. I want to especially thank Donna and Ethan for all that they've done. They've been the lead in coordinating our efforts with the county. And so the collaboration that we've seen from the county has really contributed to our success. So just to kind of give you a preview, I know you have the presentation that's being shared here. Across the four broadband deployment grant projects, I'm happy to inform you that we're more than 80% complete, less than one year in. We've provided next generation fiber broadband services to more than 3,950 locations across the county, which represents 81% of the contractually agreed to locations. We've deployed more than 365 miles of fiber optic cable, which is about 88% of what we believe to be the required total. So currently projecting that we will be finished in the third quarter, which will be at least six months ahead of the contractual deadline. Just kind of entering into some of the project areas. In the East Waldo, Earlton area, Project Area A, which is the furthest along, we have less than one mile of fiber left to deploy. And crews are actively working that area. In Project Area B, which is the least farthest along, it's one of the more remote areas. We had some predecessor projects that had to be completed in order to get fiber into this area. Permitting in this area was a little more complex as well. There was a railroad permit that we do have in hand now. We also have one remaining permit outstanding for the La Calusa Wildlife Conservation Area, which may take some time. But fiber placement in this area has begun. And we do anticipate this being largely completed, if not fully completed, in the third quarter of this year. Project Area C, which is the northwest corner, continues to make strong progress. More than 75% of the locations have been completed, and over 98% of the fiber placement is complete. Most of the remaining placement here is within the city limits of High Springs. A little bit more dense area. It takes a little bit longer in those areas, but we anticipate this being complete in the third quarter. Crews are actively working in that area, as well as in South High Springs, which is Project Area D. We're more than 90% complete. Less than five miles of placement remain here. So overall, this project has made substantial progress within the first year. We're nearing completion. Throughout the deployment of this project, as Donna mentioned, we're going to bring service to over 4,800 locations throughout the county. But 81% of that is already complete. But our investment in the county does not stop with this project. So over the last 12 months, we've also built fiber to over 3,700 locations that's funded internally with our own capital. And over the next eight to 12 months, we expect to double that and build to an additional 3,500 to 4,000 locations across the county. So we're honored to partner with the county on this deployment. Happy to report on the progress and that we're nearly complete. And I'd be happy to take any questions if you have any questions. Thank you, Mr. Reeves. We've got a couple lights. Commissioner Prezio. Thank you. It's exciting to see that we're so close to achieving the goals we set out with the funding. So we're excited. And hopefully we can tell this story soon, too. I'm wondering about the affordability of the internet access with this fiber. Can you talk a little bit about that, please? Yeah, certainly. So anyone can go on our website, check their address to see if they have availability. You'll see our pricing plans there. So our pricing starts at $24.99. So 100 meg symmetrical fiber internet is $24.99. 300 meg symmetrical internet is $39.99. One gig starts at $49.99 symmetrical internet. And two gig, $69.99, where two gig is available today. So we think relatively affordable offerings. And people are excited. We're seeing a lot of new customers. That's great. Yeah, that's really good. Commissioner Alpert. Yeah, with this pricing, can you run some more? I know there's fiber already there, too. Well, I'm thinking city of Archer, because I'm getting complaints every day from folks that say, well, they ran fiber a block away from me, but they're refusing to connect my house. Okay. And things like, I spoke to the people running the fiber. They said they just had to get this in the ground so they wouldn't lose their state funding. But they don't have any plans to actually connect anybody. I don't know if that's really true or not, but those are the kind of complaints that I'm getting. And so I really appreciate the affordability of the service that you provide and the fact that you're sharing information about actual connections, that's really what we're after. You know, we can all put fiber in the ground, but if the connections aren't going to happen afterwards, it's kind of a good point. Good point. Yeah, we'd be happy to take a look, certainly. Yeah. City of Archer. You conclude? I do. Commissioner Wheeler. The permits that you're asking for, where do those permits come from? So I think we have a Florida DOT permit remaining. Okay. The Lock Loose of Wildlife, I assume that's, I'm not sure if that's with the Forestry Department or the Department of Agriculture. So it's whoever it is that is in. Yes, and we've secured the majority. So all of our county permits have been approved. City of High Springs permits have been approved. City of Alachua permits have been approved. We're down to just the last remaining. Is that anything that we can do as a board? I think we are. We're very close. You're good? Yes, we're very close. We have plenty of work to keep everyone busy. I don't foresee any issues with permits at this point. Okay, all right. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Reeves, could you put up the Project Area D, High Springs? How much of that is in the actual City of High Springs? Very little here. I think maybe towards where you see the blue areas that aren't served, I think may expand into the City limits. Once you get north of, you can see in Project Area C here in the blue areas where more of the actual locations are within the City limits of High Springs. Within the City limits of High Springs. Mr. Bradbrook, I'm going to kind of put you on the spot here, but we've got a joint meeting with the City of High Springs on Thursday, and I know this is a wonderful opportunity to share Project C and D that kind of affects High Springs. Would you be available to, if we added that for like five minutes just to tell the community about what we've been doing, would you be available for that? I would be. I think we can make arrangements to be there. Yeah. That would be great. Do you guys agree? Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Love to have you up there. Okay. Great. Thank you. All right. All right. Any, no motion, just a presentation? We good? Okay. Mr. Reeves, great work. You know, when we had that partnership a year ago and you guys were there and we, you've exceeded my expectations and really appreciate getting this, like you said, needed utility to the folks that have been underserved for a long time. Yeah. Thank you, Chair. Commissioner. Thank you. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. All right. Okay. Mr. Clerk, next item. Chair, that takes us to the fiscal year 2026 budget amendment. All right. And we are to conduct a public hearing to adopt the resolution and approve the budget amendment and- Approve approval of the budget amendment. Okay. We've got a motion. Second. We've got a motion and a second. We may be ahead of schedule. I have a feeling somebody's probably running this direction. Well, they gave an amazing presentation. We've got a motion and a second. Is there any discussion? Any further discussion? Out to the public. Back to the board. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Great job. That's how you do it, Madam Manager. All right. Make him not show up and we just move on. I'm just kidding. All right. That moves us to public comment. So we give the public two opportunities to speak to us. Is there anyone from the public that wishes to address this board? Okay. All right. We'll go ahead and close public comment. We'll move to county attorney comment. Ms. Torres. Mr. Chair, I do not have anything today. Okay. You are moving at the same pace as the staff on the last item. Ms. Lieberman? None. Oh, look at that. Thank you. Okay. That's good stuff. All right. We'll start with Commissioner Alford. You got anything? I just want to take an opportunity to thank staff and everyone for the, and for E. Stanley Richardson for all the folks that worked to put together the event for LaToya today. I was unable to speak through most of it, but it was very much a needed sense of closure that we needed here to move, at least for me, to be able to move emotionally forward from that event. So I just wanted to thank whoever's idea was to put all that together and say thank you. I think Christian Chesson and Shannon had a lot to do with that and certainly many staff members. Thank you. And Ms. Peoples as well. So thank you for saying that. Yeah. Got anything? Yeah. I guess I just wanted to ask if we are collecting data with HR on how many people are taking advantage, or how many people we have hired through our, you know, ban the box efforts, our efforts to try to provide opportunity for formerly incarcerated individuals if we have, if we actually track that information? Sure we do. But if we do, we will get it to you. Okay. Thank you. That's all. And if we don't, I will ask if there is a way to do so. Okay. Thanks. With our systems. Okay. Commissioner Wheeler, do you have anything? Just a couple. Real, very quickly. I didn't know if our staff had had a chance to look at the contract again with the university regarding the parking issues that we questioned that would interfere with our business hours during events that the university is having. I don't know if Travis has spoken with anybody yet, but we will if we haven't. Obviously that's an important thing we need to clarify. Okay. Thank you. The other one I realized that I saw the agenda for the High Springs meeting and I worked with High Springs when there was a CRA issue a few years ago trying to help them. You know, they got an extension on the CRA that they were working with us because they were having some issues and they asked for an extension and we gave them the extension and moved on past that. But now there are CRA issues again that have become public. I don't know if we know much about them yet or not, but they're not on the agenda. And it seems to me that if we are partners or partnering and part of the action with the CRA at High Springs, that this is something that we need to be able to talk about and maybe give them a heads up that I'm going to ask about this so that they're not taken aback. Because I've been speaking with the CRA director up there and I had asked if it was going to be presented and she said no that the city manager had not. He said he didn't ask for it so it's not going to be there. Right. Ms. Lieberman, who is our county liaison with the CRA with the City of High Springs? Is that Shawn? Shawn is the liaison for all the high, for all the High Springs, all the CRAs. Okay. And Jessica as well works with that. So in addition to the agenda, the two things that we are going to hear about is we're going to get an inquiry about the CRA, if our staff could kind of be ready for that, and then what we just heard from broadband. Okay. Missy will be covering that. Shawn is out of town. Okay. Missy will be covering that. Okay. Okay. I just didn't want to take them flat-footed on it, but I know that I've been involved with them during another administration, and I just didn't, you know. They were on notice from us because of the audit. Right. And this is an auditing thing again. This is a matter. I don't think it's just the CRA. I think it's kind of, it might be the entire budget. So I'm sure it will come up. Oh, okay. Okay. All right. Well, I just didn't want them to be flat-footed, but like I say, because I've been involved in it before, and I saw it in the news, I didn't hear from anybody personally about it. I just saw it in the news. Right. That this had come up. So I felt like we were kind of in the dark. All right. So we'll have that joint meeting in High Springs on Thursday, and we're trying to move the Alachua one for the following Monday. And maybe by Thursday, Ms. Lieberman, if you can let us know if we were able to move the Alachua one, that'd be great. All right. She had already reached out while we were doing our last meeting. So we'll let you know as soon as possible. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chair. We are concluded, and we are out. Yes. Thank you. All right.