Regular Meeting @ 11:30 a.m. - Nov 04, 2025

All right, we'll call it an order this meeting, the Alachua County Board of County Commissioners. I'm Jess Irby, Alachua County's Clerk of the Court and Comptroller. And I have the gavel to start off this meeting as this is the special reorganization meeting. But prior to the start of the official business, I believe we do have an invocation that's going to be offered by Minister Alan C. Norton of Alachua Church of Christ, which will then be followed by the Pledge of Allegiance. So we'd have everybody stand for the invocation and pledge. If you'll bow with me, please. Oh, gracious and almighty Heavenly Father, we are grateful for this day that you have given us and this time that we have to come together as members of this community, Heavenly Father, to bring issues of importance before the community, to discuss matters of concern before the community, Heavenly Father, and to better equip our community, Heavenly Father, for going into the future. Heavenly Father, we pray that those people who are speaking today have a ready recollection of those things they have prepared and are ready to present, Heavenly Father, that they may present those matters in a way that are clear, that are concise, Heavenly Father, and that bring understanding to those issues to the people here who have taken interest. Heavenly Father, we also pray for those who are here to bring matters of concern or import to the members of this body. Heavenly Father, may you be with them and strengthen them and give them the peace and the strength to approach with peace and with love in their hearts, Heavenly Father, and trust that this body will do what is in the best interest of this community here in Alachua. Heavenly Father, we also know that through your word, your word tells us that if we pray for wisdom, Heavenly Father, we will receive a wisdom in abundance. And, Heavenly Father, we now pray for that wisdom. Heavenly Father, we pray for your wisdom to be upon those who are making decisions here today. Heavenly Father, that your wisdom enter their hearts, enter their minds, and give them the discernment necessary to make the decisions necessary for the best interests of this community here as a whole. Heavenly Father, we pray these things in your son's high and holy name. Amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Now, if I could have Commissioner Chestnut join me at the podium briefly. So, Commissioner Chestnut, as you conclude your term here as chair, on behalf of the people of Alachua County, I would like to present you with this plaque in recognition of your appreciation, and appreciation for your outstanding service as chair of the Alachua County Commission from November of 2024 to November of 2025. So, thank you, sir. Thank you, Mr. Clerk. Thank you, Mr. Clerk. Good morning, everyone. As commissioners, our job seems hard sometimes, and it's very, very hard. But being chair makes it even harder sometimes. As a commission meeting marks my final time as presiding as chair, I want to express my sincere appreciation. Serving as chair has been a privilege. I am particularly proud of this commission work. During my tenure, the accomplishments made are not mine alone. They are a testament to the dedication of the hard work of this entire board and our exceptional staff. While I am stepping down as chair, I will, of course, continue to serve as a county commissioner. And I look forward to working with the incoming chair, Ken Cornell, in his new role in which I have full confidence in his ability to lead this board and our county forward. It has been an honor to serve you in this capacity. And I look forward to continuing to advocate for the residents of Alachua County, Florida, in the coming years. And, again, thank you all for giving me this privilege. Thank you. It sounds like Commissioner Chess has given a hint of who he's going to vote for. We do need an election for the chair and vice chair. So, is there any nominations? I nominate Ken Cornell as chair of the county commission. Second. Second. We have a motion and a second for Commissioner Cornell as chair of the county commission. Is there any discussion on that? Any discussion from the public? Bring it back to the board for a vote. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Congratulations, Chair Chess, or excuse me, Chair Cornell. Yes. All right. And we also, though, do need also a vice chair. So. I move that I nominate Anna Prisky as vice chair. Second. Second. So, we have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Bring it to the public. Any comments? Back to the board. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Congratulations. All right. I'm going to pass the gavel. Okay. Shuffle? We're a congenial group here. All right. We'll do a little commission shuffle. Before I give some remarks, Anna, do you want to give any remarks? Just a big thank you to Commissioner Chestnut. You know, I've served as chair once, and I guess I get to do it again now, but potentially. But I just, I really appreciate the thought and the kindness and the patience that you bring to the position, and I'm grateful for your leadership and all of the work that you've been doing on this commission for so, so many years. Thank you very, very much for your service. Yeah. And as my incoming remarks, I want to kind of say the same thing. You know, Chuck, you were a city commissioner from 2000, 2006, a legislator from 2006 to 2012, been a county commissioner for 13 years. That's 25 years of service. And I continue to learn every week from your leadership as a true public servant that you are. And this board is so much better because of you and many of the things that we do. We are standing on the shoulders of you and others from the things that you have put in place. And so thank you for that. Mary, I'm excited to work with you at the state and at the national level on many of the initiatives that you have brought forward at that level. Anna, I have to say that when it comes to this board, you have brought a heightened awareness to food and shelter. And when you look at Maslow's law, food and shelter is now more than ever with what's going on at the federal government with SNAP benefits. And I'm just so appreciative of your leadership and will continue to look at that over the coming year. Yeah. Give her a round of applause. She deserves it. And finally, Mary Helen. Mary Helen, you have announced that you're not running again. What I'd like to say to you is that your impact on this board and in this community over the last seven years has been immeasurable. And there will be opportunities over this next year where perhaps you want to speak as on behalf of the board. The chair gets that opportunity oftentimes. But what I would ask is that when those things come up, just say something because I'd love for you to be there and serve in that capacity. And you are a troublemaker. That's me. You are a troublemaker. Yes. And you are a sweet soul. Yeah. So I just wanted to say that. To the public, this coming legislative session, there are going to be so many changes that we are anticipating, much of which will affect how this board is funded, how the different services are funded. And so I look forward to working with my colleagues, each of us, to see how that impacts this local community. And I know that this board will continue to serve its citizens as best they can, no matter what Tallahassee does at the same level. And those are my remarks. Okay. Are there any other commissioners that would like to make any remarks? Just briefly, I just want to thank you, Chuck, for the gravitas that you bring to the podium when you're a chair and all the time. So thank you again for your serving. I know this has been a tough year sometimes, and I really appreciate all that you put into it. And thank you, Kim. Thank you, Anna, for stepping up. I would like to say, too, Chuck, you present a very elegant face of our board. You always look beautiful like this, you know. And you always present yourself in a way that's quite elegant. And I really appreciate that. And I've enjoyed our friendship, too, very much. It's been a joy to work with all of you all on this board. And in the coming year, I do plan to get into all kinds of trouble. So anybody out there need me to say anything, I have nothing to lose, okay? Find me. Find me. But thank you so much for doing this this year. I know it's a relief to scoot over. I know. It is. It is. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Okay. Thank you, Commissioner. All right. So we've had remarks of the Chair, remarks of the other Commissioners. Mr. Clerk, next item is approval of the regular and consent agenda. So moved. Second. We have a motion and a second. I would just like to talk about two of the points that are on the consent agenda, and it's not because I need them discussed. The Carver Gardens on 2A, where we have got money going towards the renovation, helping the people get that back in order. When I first came on this board, I had a bulletin board brought in because the teacher and me needed it, you know. So Carver Gardens is at the top, and it's still on my board, so I can erase it now because we've got that addressed. And because it's a neighbor property that we own, I was really concerned, not only for us, but also the people who are living in those apartments, too. So I can erase that off my board now. The other one was Copper Sight. I don't know if we're going to be able to get to that one while I'm on or not, but that was another piece. There's only two left on my board, but I did put Animal Services in big print on the other one. So once I can erase all those boards, I can walk out of my office and feel like that I've done what I meant to do. The other one is the art that we are going to be including in the boardroom now is going to be from craftspeople, not just visual art. We've got people who are doing craft work, too. So that was another part of the community that I wanted to include because we have some wonderful craftspeople in Alachua County that I wanted to make sure got that same. So those are both on the consent agenda, but I just wanted to remark that those things were important to me, and I appreciate our staff making those things happen. Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Prism. Yeah, I just, I actually just, I don't know why I forgot about it. The shuffle just got me confused, but I did want to ask if the manager intends to bring up a conversation around our ADA, para transit, TD transit today. We had asked for them to bring forward the potential costs associated with those so that we could start pushing forward on a decision there, and I just wanted to know if that was coming at manager comments since it's not on the formal agenda or if we need to add it to the formal agenda. Yes, I intend at manager's comments to give you an update on the MV Transport and on SNAP. Okay, great. Thank you so much. Okay, so we'll add MV Transport and SNAP to the manager comments, and commissioners, if we get to that before five, we'll just move those from the agenda to the end of the morning meeting. I had wanted, you know, with my work on the children's trust, we're doing a lot with gun violence. I had wanted to pull 6A and see if we could have a discussion about that. Does any, do you object to that? Well, we're talking about making some awards to some different. Yeah, I saw the email about that. Yeah, and I got an email about that. If you want to have a discussion, I'm okay with that. Well, you're the maker of the motion, so. I guess I just, I feel like we, we put out a call for proposals, we had a process for that, those proposal reviews, we followed the process, we were awarding the top awardees. The emails that I saw were from individuals that didn't even apply for the funding. So I guess I just don't, I mean, I'm happy to pull it and have a conversation about the future of the program, but I really, I'd rather not pull it. I'd rather award it the way that we are awarding it and then have a conversation about the future at a later date, sort of how we would structure that program to support a broader scope of organizations in the future. Does anyone else want to pull that one? I mean, I just, okay. You want to modify it? That's fine. I'll modify it for what's the number? 6A. 6A. All right, so we'll pull that 6A and second are okay with that? Yeah. Okay. All right, so we've got a motion now to approve the agenda, consent agenda, pulling item 6A. Is there anyone from the public that wishes to speak to this motion? We'll have public comment at 12. All right, let's bring it back to the board. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion is unanimous. So we have an agenda. All right, Mr. Clerk, first item is announcements. Yes, sir. Chair, Andrew Kaplan, public information officer. So I'm going to ask that we do a photo, a group photo for, since we have a, changing. I know, we're doing a quick photo. Anna is gone, so we might have to do that. Oh, there she is. There she is. Just ask that you put your mics down and then kind of squeeze in. Squeeze in. Act like you like each other. Do a quick photo. Bring the name tag over. If you don't like how this turns out, we'll do another one at a later meeting. Everybody looks so nice. I think I'll ask you. So I know you all are used to seeing Communications Director Mark Sexton up here. He sends his regards. He was battling his dermatologist in a knife fight earlier. But he is on Zoom and available if needed. First, I want to announce that today is the kickoff of Operation Green Light. It's a week-long initiative. So from today through Veterans Day on November 11th, Alachua County is going to join other counties around the nation. Lighting buildings and landmarks are going to be green to honor our veterans and raise awareness for the different resources available to them and their families. We're going to do the admin building, the Freedom Center, and the health department. So here in Alachua County, we have about 17,000 veterans. So Operation Green Light is a reminder to everyone about their sacrifices. We ask our residents, our businesses, our organizations here to join us. And just honoring these heroes, you can just change a light bulb, make it green. And you can even use the hashtag on social media, hashtag Operation Green Light. Also, this will come out later today. But since we're here, we are proud to announce that Alachua County has competed for and won the 2027 World Masters. Oh, good. Oh, good. That's great news. Yes. It was so great, we decided to run it back. So that will come out later in a news release for everyone. Also, on our website, and if you're subscribed to our press releases, it will be in your inbox, we've released Chapter 5 of our Sense and Sensibility series. This is why budgets grow over time. We encourage our residents to read this in full. It goes into detail about inflation, population growth, creating a stable workforce that basically help us carry out the services that our residents expect of us. And lastly, I would like to introduce our new Human Resources Director, Susie Swain, who you all just confirmed. And I'm going to invite her up here to speak to the podium to say a few words to close out our announcements. Ms. Kaplan? Ms. Swain, welcome. Yeah, you're recognized. Congratulations. Good morning. Good morning, Commissioners, and thank you for appointing me as the Director of Human Resources. I am very, very excited to have this position. I would also like to thank Ms. Lieberman, Ms. Akpan, and the entire Human Resources team for selecting me for this position. I grew up in Central Florida. I was raised in Central Florida, grew up in Central Florida, and know the issues that we face, especially with its hurricane season. Our environmental concerns as well as our environmental concerns as well as our human resources concerns. So I'm very excited to serve the staff in Alachua County. I'm very excited to serve the residents in the community of Alachua County. And I'm here if you need anything. And thank you very much. Thank you, Ms. Fain. Welcome. I have to say while you were speaking, I have not seen Ms. Akpan's smile so large and for so long. It was a nonstop smile, so welcome aboard. Commissioner Prizio, you recognize. Thank you. Yeah, I just welcome. I just want to say, you know, our staff are our number one resource in Alachua County. They're the ones who do the hard work of implementing all of our harebrained schemes and beautiful ideas that come from our community. And so, you know, your role is sort of representing them and hiring them and helping support them and their goals. And also accountability is so, so important. You hold one of the most important jobs in our county. And so we look forward to working with you to make sure that our staff feels supported and that we build an organizational culture we can all be proud of. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner. Okay, Mr. Clerk, next item. Thanks for moving into the recognitions. So first we need to approve the recognitions, I believe. So moved. Got a motion and second to approve the recognitions. Any discussion? Any public discussion? Actors of the board, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion is unanimous. Okay, Mr. Clerk, first one. Now we have a presentation of the proclamation recognizing November as National Adoption Month in Alachua County, Florida. As they're joining me, I have to say this is, I'm really glad that I get to read this one. I adopted a young man when he was 10 years old. He's 53 now. My oldest son is an adopted boy. And I have several in the community who call me mom, though they've adopted me. And there's no greater honor in the classroom for a teacher than for a child to mistakenly call you mom. You know, that's when you know you've really touched a kid and grabbed him by the heart. So I am delighted to read this proclamation. And I would encourage anybody in the community who wants to pick up adoptees, do it. Because it builds a family in a way that is pretty remarkable. It's made my family really large. Alachua County, Florida, proclamation declaring November as National Adoption Month in Alachua County, Florida. Whereas National Adoption Month is a month set aside to raise awareness about the urgent need for adoptive families, for children and youth in foster care. And whereas, as individuals, neighbors, community members, and citizens of Alachua County, we have a responsibility to acknowledge that every child deserves love, support, security, and a place to call home. And whereas there are 62 children in our local foster care system waiting for the adoption that will provide them with the love of a family, a permanent home, and a stable foundation for their future. And whereas families who choose to embrace the life-changing path of adoption, especially those who are willing to adopt siblings, older youth, and young people with complex medical and behavioral needs, make a meaningful and lasting difference in the lives of some of the most vulnerable young people in our society. And whereas adoptive parents and families require and deserve the utmost community respect, resources, and support. And whereas during National Adoption Month, the Alachua County Board of County Commissioners celebrates all families that have invited a child in need into their hearts and homes and express our profound appreciation for the agencies and individuals who make adoptions possible. Now, therefore, through the authority vested in me by the Board of County Commissioners of Alachua County, Florida, I do hereby proclaim November as National Adoption Month in Alachua County, Florida, duly proclaimed this fourth day of November, A.D. 2020-25, and it is signed by our new chair with fresh ink, Ken Cornell, and attested to by Jess Irby, who is here in the room. So may I present this to you, and you introduce yourselves, please, and tell us what you're doing here and how we can help. Yes. So my name is Amanda, and we are from Partnership for Strong Families, and I just want to thank commissioners for recognizing November as National Adoption Month, and I want to introduce our CEO, Ginger Griffith, to give a few words, followed by April Kuhn, our adoption supervisor. So good morning. It is such a privilege to celebrate National Adoption Month with everyone in the room today. Taking time out to celebrate the joy of finding a forever home for a child is absolutely at least the highlight of my day, at least. But I also wanted to kind of look at this as a recommitment from everyone to affirm there are still kids out there who are waiting to find their forever home, and as Partnership has the privilege to walk alongside families as they go through the adoption process, we are often reminded that there are still plenty of children out there, which we're going to talk about in just a moment, who still are waiting for their forever homes. But as we celebrate this month, we have an opportunity to take time out, have celebration events, and at every one of those events, we get to see these families and their happy ending. But I'm often reminded that just how important the mission of Partnership is, especially around these children not being statistics. These are your future teachers. These are your future engineers. These are your future leaders. And they all, all deserve a forever home. And so I like to think of them as hope and waiting in the child welfare system, waiting to find their forever home. So I just wanted to say thank you to the county commissioners for recognizing the importance of adoption through this proclamation, and I wanted to introduce our Deputy Director of Adoptions for Partnership for Strong Families, April Kuhn. Thank you. Thank you for having us here today. As many of you are aware, November is National Adoption Month, a time dedicated to celebrating the children and families whose lives have been transformed through adoption and to recognize the tireless efforts of our staff and partners who make these lifelong connections possible. At Partnership for Strong Families, we proudly serve 13 counties across north-central Florida. Within our service area, more than 275 children have the goal of adoption. Of those, 92 children continue to wait for their forever family. Here in Alachua County, there are 24 children who are not yet placed in an adoptive home. Children who are waiting for love, stability, and a sense of belonging that every child deserves. While National Adoption Month is a time for celebration, it's also a time for reflection. It reminds us of the ongoing need to find permanent, loving homes for the many children still waiting. Each of these children deserve the opportunity to grow and thrive within a family that is committed to them unconditionally. At Partnership for Strong Families, we remain steadfast in our mission to identify and support compassionate, dedicated individuals and families who are ready to open their hearts and homes through adoption. Together, we can ensure that every child has the chance to experience the love, safety, and belonging of a forever family. Thank you for your continued partnership and for joining us in celebrating this important month. Thank you. We now have a proclamation recognizing November 11th as Veterans Day here in Alachua County. Mr. White's going to join us. Great. All right. So it is my pleasure to declare November 11th as Veterans Day in Alachua County, Florida. Whereas the United States of America's veterans have served to defend our country, our values, and our interests since the first days of our founding. And at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918, fighting ceased in Europe, ending World War I, and ever since, this solemn moment has been honored in the United States. And whereas on June 1st, 1954, Congress designated November 11th as Veterans Day so that a grateful nation might pay appropriate homage to the veterans of all wars. And on November 11th, 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower called on the nation to solemnly remember all those who have served to preserve our heritage of freedom and to re-consecrate ourselves to the task of promoting and enduring peace. And whereas Alachua County is home to more than 17,000 veterans who have answered the call to serve in times of war and peace and whose continued contributions strengthen our community each day. And whereas on Veterans Day, we pause to pay tribute to all those who have proudly worn our nation's uniform. They have selflessly placed their lives, well-being, and the security of others before their own. We enjoy the privileges of peace, prosperity, and freedom because of their service. And whereas our county has undergone much change and progress as we continue to strive for improvement, supported and inspired by those who serve our nation, we pause to remember and pay tribute to our American veterans whose courage, sacrifice, and leadership have secured our freedom and liberty, enabling our community to grow and thrive. And whereas we in Alachua County recognize that the veterans have made immeasurable contributions both during their service and afterward, and as many continue to serve in roles to strengthen and support our community, and whereas each year on November 11th, we set aside this day to recognize and honor the selfless service, sacrifice, and steadfast dedication of our American veterans who have valiantly served our nation. Now, therefore, through the authority vested in me by the Board of County Commissioners of Florida, I do hereby proclaim November 11th, 2025, as Veterans Day in Alachua County, duly proclaimed this fourth day of November, signed by our chair and attested to by our clerk. And it is actually the reason why we are not meeting on the second Tuesday. Veterans Day is next Tuesday, so we've moved our November meeting up to today. And Mr. White's going to share with you some words about our veteran services and about celebrating that day. And I'll see you next week. Yes, sir. All right. Good morning, everybody, chair, commissioners, Aladro and White, director of veteran services. On behalf of the veterans and the families of Alachua County, I thank the Board for the proclamation and also for the Operation Greenlight initiatives. Your continued support really is reflected in the community and our office as well. They both reflect the deep respect and appreciation that our board has for the veterans who have served. Now, as the proclamation states, Alachua County is home to more than 17,000 veterans, each with a story of service, of sacrifice, and of strength. Last year alone, over $149 million were returned right back here to our veterans and their families. These benefits earned represent more than just financial support. They help improve the lives of those who have served. They strengthen families. They help create a lasting, positive impact on our local economy and also our community. The Alachua County Veterans Service Office is honored to serve this community every day. Our team takes great pride in providing compassionate and knowledgeable assistance to veterans and their families by filing applications for the earned VA benefits, whether a newly separated service member, a surviving spouse navigating their next steps, a dependent in need of assistance, or a student veteran seeking assistance. Now, this morning, joining me in receiving the proclamation are two remarkable students, veterans, who continue to serve our community in meaningful ways. We have the University of Florida Navy veteran, Catherine Henderson, and we also have Santa Fe College Army veteran and president of the Student Veterans of America, Verinda Covey. It is definitely an honor to stand beside them today as we recognize all those who have served. Now, again, I want to thank the board for their continued support because without the board's support, we couldn't do our life's work, and the life's work has continued the mission of serving the veterans and our families of this great county. And lastly, I would like to give a personal invitation to everyone to the Alachua County Veterans Day Celebration. That's going to be held next Tuesday, November the 11th, at the Freedom Memorial Park, and it's going to be in collaboration with the Veterans Memorial Committee. The family-oriented events will begin at 930. This year, we're going to be having drill team demonstrations. We're going to have our flagpole dedication. We have live band, live performances. And this year, we have a special guest joining us. We have the University of Florida mascot, Albert and Alberta, joining us. So please come out, bring your families. This is a free event to the public. Come out and celebrate the veterans with us. And again, thank you to the commission for their continued support of our office and the veterans that call Alachua County home. We've now hit the noon hour. I don't know if you want to. Do you want to do the clock? No, you want it. It's noon. Let's do it. All right. So twice during the meeting, once at noon, and then once at the end of the morning session, we open it up to the public to bring us any comments that they may have about anything not on the agenda, if they are not able to stay, and we'd like to speak to something on the agenda, if they could just identify that. So we'll go ahead and open it up for public comment. If you'll come forward, introduce yourself, and give us your thoughts. Two podiums. Go ahead. Reverend Anderson, and we'll help Ducali. Welcome. Good morning. Good morning. I honor each of you. I pray that you're having a good day so far. Congratulations to our chair and vice chair, Commissioner Chestnut. We appreciate your service. 25 years. That's amazing. I'm glad you brought that out. That's a long time. We've been in ministry for 25 years. PAVE is my organization that's been doing violence prevention for 25 years, over 25 years. I've been married for 25 years. The year 2000 was a great year. But I'm here to raise a point, and I want to offer a correction to Commissioner Anna Parizia. You did say that the person that wrote that letter did not even apply. That's not true. We applied. Community Impact Corporation did apply for that grant. And what I wanted you all to do was to look at it. Rev, we're going to actually talk about that after public comment. Okay. Do you want to hold your comments, or do you want to just give general public comment? I can hold it. Okay. But I did want to make that correction. Let's do that when we get to that item. Okay. Kelly? Well, I can't hold it any longer. I really want to say this in public. It's about our current government shutdown situation. And I got to say it to one of you, so I felt bad about not saying it to the other four, so this is a chance. And what I said was the Democrats know that the Republicans know, and the Republicans know that the Democrats know. What do they know? That the Senate Republicans will not budge one micron on the issue of health coverage support once the Democrats give up their leverage in this government-closing budget vote that is subject to the filibuster. The Republicans know how to package almost everything in the President's agenda in a reconciliation-type package, pass it with 51 votes, and ignore the presence of the Democrats other than for quorum. So that is why we're stuck in what we're stuck in. And for that matter, even if the Republicans pretended to agree, they would count on the White House to do a rescission on it. So that's the problem that our government has going forward. And maybe the deeper problem is the kind of people we're putting into politics. I wish there were more nurses and teachers and massage therapists and folks such as that in public office. I think we have too many lawyers in Congress. I'm not saying all lawyers are bad. I worked with some angel lawyers when I was on the board of Three Rivers, when I worked out of the UF Law School on a poverty-oriented project, and the members of Equal Justice Initiative. So there's good lawyers, but they're not in Congress. So I think perhaps everyone who wants to be in public office should have to prove three to five years of volunteer community service with a nonprofit, nonpartisan rubric of some kind. Maybe that's how to get humanity back into Congress. So I think I've seen humanity in this board a lot. So I guess we're going to have to boost y'all toward Congress or the White House or, hey, maybe in the Supreme Court. Maybe the Supreme Court has too many lawyers. Thank you, Kelly. Let the record reflect none of the county commissioners are lawyers. Come on up. Nothing against lawyers, like you said. Madam Attorney. Good afternoon. I'm going to speak on something on the agenda just because I can't stay around. Okay. If you could just introduce yourself and let us know which item. Okay. I forgot the item number, but you'll know what it is. Good afternoon, commissioners. My name is Josh Renee, and I'm co-founder of Gainesville's for People, a local organization that advocates for increasing the supply of affordable housing here in Alachua County. First, I want to thank you for the important progress the county has made recently on housing. The approval of the first market rate development on Gainesville's east side and the refurbishment of hotels for transitional housing are both substantive efforts towards a more inclusive and affordable community. Those efforts reflect real leadership, and I appreciate your continued focus on this issue. That being said, I'm here because I'm concerned about the proposed use of wild spaces and public places infrastructure money for down payment assistance and single-family home developer subsidies, which we've seen from Heartwood Homes doesn't work. Specifically, I urge you to vote no on the current plan to allocate 40% of these funds for that purpose, which was 85-whatever earlier this year, and vote yes on funding for Oak View and Royal Park. The proposal is not consistent with the enabling ordinance, nor with the public's expectation when voters overwhelmingly approve the surtax. The ordinance and supporting materials clearly focus on creating and preserving affordable and workforce rental housing, not on assisting with home purchases. The ordinance itself repeatedly cites the creation and rehabilitation of affordable housing as the intended use, references the Florida Policy Institute's findings about how a lack of affordable housing limits economic potential, notes that workforce housing benefits the economy by reducing housing costs and freeing up household income. Importantly, it refers to residential housing projects, a term commonly understood to mean new construction or substantial renovation, not individual homebuyer assistance. Even more telling, the YES campaign's own FAC, which voters relied upon explicitly stated that down payment assistance would not be an allowable use of infrastructure surtax funds. The public trusted that representation, and following through on that promise is essential to maintaining confidence in county government. These surtax dollars are rare and precious. They should be used for durable, transformative housing investments, projects that actually expand to preserve our affordable housing supply. That means new units, rehab units, and public-private partnerships that deliver long-term community benefit, not simply shifting existing homes to new users. Thank you for your leadership and for considering this request. I truly believe that by keeping these funds focused on housing creation and preservation, Alachua County can continue to be a model for smart, equitable housing policy. Thank you, Joshua. Okay, next speaker, please. Hi, good afternoon. Leah Gallien, Executive Director of Peak Literacy. Just want to thank you so much for approving our scope of work. Just giving a quick update on where we're at with our scope of work since October 1. So we began implementing our high-impact volunteer-driven interventions across our partner schools and after-school sites. We determined our assessment protocols and began assessments, hired an administrative assistant and a literacy specialist. Currently, currently, we are working with 66 students who are receiving daily high-dosage tutoring. We have 39 trained tutors that we did this month. We have 51 awaiting training. And we have two active sites going. So we are working with our partnership development. We have a meeting next week with our community partners to help them expand their capacity. And our university partnerships are in place. We are working with the UF College of Education, educational consulting interns, for updating our instructional design and e-learning volunteer training. And we have met with Santa Fe Honors Program to begin designing leadership pathways for volunteers. We also have an upcoming meeting with the Sheriff's Office and Santa Fe College Adult Ed Program. So thank you so much for your investment and literacy in our county. And this is just the beginning. We're really excited about the scope of work that we're going to continue to do for the next year. Thank you, Ms. Gallien. And, Commissors, I attended the literacy kickoff on the 29th. Leah was there. And what a pleasure it is to see grant folks give us an update before they're done with the cycle. So, Leah, thanks for that update. A lot of people are asking. I appreciate it. Okay. Next speaker over here. You're first. And then we'll come back to the middle. Good afternoon, Chair, Commissioners. Patrick Dodds, Bread of the Mighty Food Bank. Wanted to speak with you all. I know I reached out via e-mail just to provide you with an update. The ongoing situation regarding food insecurity in our community, especially as it pertains to the delay in SNAP benefits going out to our neighbors. As of about an hour and a half ago, the President has come out and said that SNAP benefits will continue to be delayed until the government is reopened. I know a lot of us were sitting around waiting to see what would happen in hopes that at least some of our neighbors would see a partial payment in their SNAP benefits. However, it looks like that may be put on hold. Depending on how the administration shifts, as we see they pivot quite a bit, it may be several more weeks, upwards of a month, before any of our neighbors see distributions into their SNAP accounts. We have upwards of over 30,000 of our neighbors who rely on SNAP benefits every single month in order to supplement or oftentimes provide the lion's share of the groceries that they will use to feed themselves and their families. Bread of the Mighty Food Bank has been serving the community for 38 years, providing as much free food to our community members as humanly possible. Over these days, we are finding it very difficult to meet even the needs prior to the delay in SNAP benefits. Last year, we distributed 6.2 million pounds of food. Based on our estimates, the need to fill the food insecurity gap in our community is about 18 million pounds. So prior to this, we were only hitting about 30 percent of the need in our community. We've seen a reduction in the amount of food on the shelves in the stores, which means that we are seeing less donated product coming from grocery stores. That's the majority of the food that we get out to the community is food that we salvage from our grocery partners. So we are seeing an inverse impact right now. Less food coming into the food bank, more people waiting in lines. Over the last two months, we've seen about 100 percent increase in the number of people who are using the services of the food bank. Our response is to purchase as much food as we can in order to create an emergency response. Unfortunately, we are going to be heavily tapping into our reserves in order to do so. This is not something that we were prepared for. So I want to just keep you all up to date on the work that we are doing in hopes that we can find a way to get as much information out to the community and find ways to continue to build up the resources of the food bank and our partner agencies who are on the ground. They really are our boots on the ground and able to connect with folks to not only meet their food needs, but to meet them in so many other ways to connect with them to try and solve underlying issues causing their food insecurity. So appreciate your time here today. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mr. Dodd. And if you'll hang back, we've got lights that want to comment on that. And I know the manager is also going to be bringing that up at manager comment. But if you'll just sit – no, if you'll just sit tight until after public comment. Okay, next speaker, please. Good morning. My name is Max Tipping. I'm the policy director at Community Spring. I'm here to talk about – I can't stay for the infrastructure sales tax conversation. But I did want to highlight a point that, you know, I think we've been making for the last couple years, and I know that this board largely agrees with, which is, you know, these are scarce, really precious public dollars that are available for affordable housing, and they should be targeted to the place where they are needed most, and they are absolutely most needed for households making 50% AMI and lower. That's also known as very low-income households. And I know we've talked about this a lot, and I feel like this comes up periodically, but I think that, you know, there's obviously lots of other things. There's lots of other housing needs in our community. But when you look at 50% AMI renters in our community, only 9% of them can actually afford their housing. There are 17,000 households who cannot afford their rental units right now. So when you look at, like, what the housing gap is in terms of those different places or those different income levels, when you get up to 80% AMI, there's a gap of about 500 units in our community. When you go down to 50% AMI, there's a gap of 10,000 units. That's where we need these resources. The market simply doesn't produce housing that's affordable to people at 50% AMI. That's where we need to be targeting the really scarce public subsidies that we have for this. Not to say that those other things aren't necessary, but the market does actually produce housing at 80% AMI. Maybe not enough. There are other things that we should be doing, talking about that, density bonuses, other incentives to get developers to do that. But when we have these really scarce housing dollars, whether that's the infrastructure sales tax or the affordable housing trust fund, I would just really encourage you to stay focused on 50% AMI. I know those projects are harder, I know they're more complicated to subsidize, but those are absolutely the things that we should be focusing on. Thank you so much. Thank you, Max. Okay, we'll go over here to Brian and then back to Dr. Murmer. Brian? Good afternoon, Brian Bisher. Congratulations, Chairman Cornell. Thanks. And thank you all for your service. I really appreciate – it's nice to be a citizen of Alachua County and be represented by such a stalwart Board of County Commissioners. I appreciate that. You have many, many issues before you, and I noticed they decided to stack Chairman Cornell's agenda today, so I'll try to keep this brief. Last time that I was here, I talked about Tara April, and that public – the notice actually went up on the property today saying that there will be a hearing before the Planning and Zoning Board at the City of Alachua for a special exception permit for that. And just to clarify what I said last time I was here in my request for a court reporter, those meetings are recorded by the City of Alachua. However, our experience is they aren't necessarily bulletproof in terms of their recording. So, that was the basis for my request in order to be able to establish the necessary legal transcript in order to – in order to appeal that decision should that become necessary. So, thank you very much. Thank you, Brian. Dr. Murmer, welcome. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Bobby Murmer, Coordinator of the Alachua County Labor Coalition. I'm here to speak on the Infrastructure Sales Tax Agenda item. First, I do want to apologize for not reaching out to commissioners individually. I've been very busy with the referendum that is tonight. So, if you haven't voted yet, please do vote. I think everybody knows how I wish you would vote. Also, I wanted to thank the Community Support Services staff for their work on this housing issue, as well as all housing issues. I've had a great relationship with them, especially working with some tenants down in the Tower Road swag area. And as far as the Infrastructure Sales Tax is concerned, they did a really good job with community engagement. They came to my organization's – one of my organization's meetings, allowed me to poll our members, took the advice, and I can tell from their most recent proposal that it did move the needle. Community engagement worked, so I want to thank Candy Nixon and Ralston, in particular, for their hard work on this. That being said, while this new proposal is an improvement upon the old one, it's still not what it needs to be, and it's still not what voters expected when we voted yes on Wild Spaces Public Places in 2022. So, the money that we voted, those of us who voted yes and campaigned for yes, we were expecting this money to be used for preserving and building new affordable housing. And the biggest need for new affordable housing by far is rentals. Over half of people who are – half of households that are cost burdened in this county are renters. It's affordable rents that we need. Also, if rent is affordable, you can save up money for a down payment. You can start taking the classes, start talking to people, learn what you need to do to be a homeowner that can maintain your property. That's where you get the most bang for your buck. And staff admits that the consensus from community engagement was that the community wants rentals, not homeownership assistance. For this money. For this money. Homeownership assistance programs can work, but this is not the money for it. This money was to build and preserve new affordable housing, and it is needed most in rentals. So, I'm asking you to please vote no on the plan to use up to 40% of the funds for the homeownership impact program. Vote yes on Oakview and Royal Park. These are the kinds of projects that voters had in mind when we voted yes. Please, please, yes, vote yes on that. Time is running out. Time is money. These developers do really need to get the ball rolling. So, please approve those projects today. And please, redirect staff to focus on solutions aimed at preserving and increasing affordable and workforce rental housing stock. And if homeownership, because there was some in the community engagement that liked homeownership, please spend no more than 10% of the funds on that. Thank you. Thank you, Bobby. Okay, next speaker. Vincent, welcome. Good afternoon to the chair of the county commissions. My name is Jancey Vincent. I'm here this afternoon to talk on affordable housing, wild spaces, and public spaces money on rentals. In 2022, we, the citizens, voted for the sales tax because we were led to believe it would be used to build new rental housing, not for down payment towards home assistance. I believe there's nothing wrong in home ownership assistance program, but that's not what we voted for and was told that the money is going to be used for. So, please vote no on that. Thank you. Thank you, Jancey. Next speaker. Hello. Sorry, Lindberg. I was a little confused earlier when we were doing the consent agenda. Can I have the overhead, please? Overhead, please. Yeah. A lot of great discussion today about housing and homes, and I'm here to talk about my house. I noticed the recommendation to make the bid for the Santa Fe Hills water system. Finally excited, and I just did a quick Google, and I saw that they were not on the BBB. I don't know if that's important or if that means anything to who we do business with. Just bring it up because I don't know procurement. So, moving on to my neighborhood, there are two large cedar trees, two properties down from me. And on the maps, it's known as Lot 54. These trees have DBH of 30 and 33. They're very large. And the root systems probably go about 30 feet wide, based on what I've learned. And the plan that they have is to put the new water line under the sidewalk. This sidewalk, as you can see, the roots are pushing it up. And it's not just a crack. It is significant damage. People have broken bones on these. My daughter doesn't even ride their bike down the sidewalk because it's so dangerous. But I'm concerned about the water when they put the water in there. So, I'm wondering when I did my public record request for this. I didn't see any arborist documentation. So, I was wondering if an arborist can come out and expect it and see. Yes, of course, it's protective. But I'm all about protecting every tree, every water, every wildlife. But not when a human decision can affect the quality of life of other humans. So, if there is an issue here with this water, it's going to be in my house. And when it's all said and done, it will be the property of the city of Elachua. But I say as the county, we should do it right the first time so we do not have this issue. Because if you cut through the roots, leave the tree alone, the roots are going to come back. If you can take the tree out, we'll have that peace of mind. Because I'm a worrier. I'm going to think in six months, do I have to test my water now? What's coming up? So, please have an arborist involved to do this decision. And I also, through my public records request, I know that the ceiling currently for the budget for this project is higher than the quote. So, there is room for a scope adjustment. We can make these choices. JB Pro did these plans and they're probably just following the rules. Like, well, this is a very important tree. Let's not cut through it. But you can see it's just, it's tearing the road up, everything else. I also sent these information to a member of staff on the county to get their information. But I didn't hear anything back. So, I'm including that email as well for a public record. That's it. Thank you. So, I don't know if the BBB is important or what we can do to make sure that this plan is right before we cut through and give us water forever. Ten seconds left. This neighborhood is so old, there's not even a water permit. So, the Swanee River Management District for our well. It doesn't exist. So, the neighborhood was planned a long time before anyone here was alive. So, thank you. Okay. Thank you for your comments. Next speaker, please. Hi. Good afternoon. I'm Susan Botcher. And all of you know me from my political activism and serving on the city commission. But what you don't know about me is for more than 30 years, I have done a lot of volunteering for, you know, different nonprofits and charities and things like that. And so, what I want to do is bring my comments with that experience regarding the infrastructure tax, what Joshua talked about, what Bobby talked about, what Jancy talked about. I'm not going to reiterate the points that they made because you've heard them and I agree 100% with them. What I am going to say is that my experience in the nonprofit sector, and this applies also to politics and political fundraising, is when you ask a donor for money and you say, here's what I want your money for. This is what I want you to open your checkbook and write a check for me. So, they have an understanding that you're going to use that money as promised. You never, ever, it is a tenant of fundraising. You never, ever then go, oops, we're going to use it for something else instead. So, when voters were asked to vote on a sales tax, infrastructure tax, any tax, because the money is going to be used for X, Y, or Z, that's what you use it for. You don't, at the last minute, go, oh, this is a better idea. I like this idea over here better. You use it as promised. And I think that that point had kind of been touched on, but I want to underscore it because I really do think it's important, and here's why. Because I believe in the process of when we are asked to vote for a tax increase, that when we're told it's going to be used on something, you know, I'm like, yeah, okay, I support that. I want to do that. I am going to vote for this, and I will gladly pay my taxes. I am one of those people who I do not complain when I pay taxes because I know it gives me the community that has the amenities and the services that I want. And so, I want other people to have that confidence when they're voting for a sales tax, too. So, let's make sure we stay true to the plans, stay true to the promise that we made to the voters, and use the money as promised. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Bacher. Anyone else in the Chambers? Anyone after Tamara? Come on up, if so. Otherwise, we'll go to the phones after Ms. Robbins. Okay, Ms. Robbins. Thank you, Mr. Chair, Commissioners. My name is Tamara Robbins. Thank you, Commissioner Chetson, for your service as chair of this board, and for Commissioner Cornell, welcome aboard as chair, and Commissioner Prizzi as vice chair. Thank you. I want to just follow up with a little follow-up to Mr. Brisher's comment about the Planning and Zoning Board in the City of Alachua, who has scheduled November 18th for the special exception and a reminder that that board is the decision-making board in the City of Alachua. It happens to be one of those decisions that they are the final decision-makers rather than a recommendation board. I want to put this on the overhead. Overhead, please. I forgot to bring my print. Okay, so that is inside Mill Creek, and that might even be, Mr. Brisher, right there, diving in there. That is what this, one of the main things this whole thing is about. It is about protecting that amazing entry and what it goes to to our drinking water, right? So, Commissioner, Mr. Chair, Commissioner Wheeler, you made an offer earlier that you are a troublemaker and you have nothing to lose, and you are going to come and make comments. I invite you and encourage you to show up at that meeting, and you campaigned on water protection and asked that you show up and make your voice heard, not necessarily as a representation of this board. I know staff is going to be there, but as an individual, which you are. I'm going to leave that up because it's so pretty. I saw that you went before the legislative body to request appropriations this year. I don't understand why you asked for $500,000 to increase the infrastructure amenities in the sports center. You wanted money for the wood floors. Those were in the Victus report you received. You didn't. I mean, some of you weren't on here, but it was approved by the commission then. That facility was supposed to have maple hardwood floors. What's it have? Concrete. There is no basketball team or volleyball team that is going to compete on a concrete floor. Not going to happen. So now you're going back and looking for money to do, which should have already been done with the $30 million that you allocated to build that facility. Also more bleachers, which I don't know if there's more room for more bleachers. It already says it seats 2,500 people. So I would think that money would be available in TDT money. Not sure why you're going to the state to ask them to, the state taxpayers to allocate money for that. I think that's it. I'm hoping you're going to allow public comment on the climate action plan. Yes. Okay. So I'm wondering if you could have asked the state for appropriations for matching funding for affordable housing incentives rather than embellishing a sports center. Thank you, Ms. Roberts. Okay. Next speaker, and then we'll go to the phones. Anyone else in the chambers? Okay. Hey. My name is Corey Brunson. I'm barely a resident of Gainesville. I'm on the border, which is kind of interesting. My, I'm speaking to the staff proposal for allocations of funding for home assistance through the wild places, public places. My understanding is that the previous proposal was split between 85% homeownership assistance, 15% rental assistance, and that the current proposal brings a homeownership assistance portion down to 40% or lower. I agree with some other people who have commented that that's excessive, given the purpose of the fund. As stated in the draft I read online, I'm sorry I couldn't stay. I tried to stay for the presentations, but I'm running out of time. The purpose of the, of this homeownerships or home living expenses support is to catalyze, quote, as many projects as possible, which I take to mean supporting the housing of as many people as possible. While I agree that with the importance of making homeownership more affordable to more people, and I say this as a recent homeowner who spent decades renting and saving up for it, support for homeownership goes a lot less far in terms of number of people helped than support for rental units. Moreover, the problem of diminishing returns due to market responses to the greater financial resources provided to homebuyers and renters is best alleviated by increasing supply. And that can be done most expeditiously through the developments like Oak View and Royal Park that are part of this proposal. And, by the way, through the allowance of accessory dwelling units, which I also would support. Finally, I think it's important to, there might be some legal distinction between the down payment assistance that was prohibited in the original description of the fund and the purchase assistance that's described in the presentation. I can't stay to hear what that is. But I question whether a layperson like myself is expected to know the difference and, therefore, expected to accept that that kind of assistance falls within the bounds of the original fund. So, I want to express my support for allowing accessory dwelling units countywide, for supporting Royal Park and Oak View rental developments, and for supporting zoning changes countywide that might make it more possible to have, to densify the housing of residential areas, but to oppose the 40%. Thank you, Mr. Bronson. Thank you. All right, Mr. Kaplan, let's go to the phones. Or Josh. He's like, no, I'm not doing that. Hello, I'm new Andrew. We do have quite a few callers on the phone lines today, so we will start. We can get the callers to introduce themselves and give us their thoughts. So, we will start with the caller ending in 1240. You'll need to hit star six, and it's your turn to speak. Hi, I'm Greg Johnson. I'm applying for a position on the Tourist Development Council Advisory Board. Is this a proper time to talk? It is. Yep, go ahead. Okay. Okay. I'm sorry I can't be there today. I have, I'm currently serving for the last 10 years as president of the Gainesville Orchestra, and I'm also a commercial realtor. I have served on the Gainesville Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors for six years. I was a local business owner for over 30 years, and I've lived in Gainesville for over 50 years. But I believe that I could bring a lot of local knowledge about tourism, economic development, and arts to the Tourist Development Council, and would appreciate your consideration of my joining the advisory board. So, thank you very much. Could you just introduce yourself again for the board, Greg? Certainly. Greg Johnson. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Johnson. All right. Next caller. Next caller is the number ending in 9930. Hung up. Here we go. Can you hear us? Hi. Hi. Can you hear me? Yes. Go ahead. Okay. Hi, everyone. My name is Michelle Nolan, and I wanted to say, again, sorry that I couldn't be there in person. I'm actually calling for my lunch break right now. But I am a resident in Gainesville. I moved to Alachua County in 2008, and I don't plan on ever leaving. So, I'm calling to add my voice to all of the talk about the affordable housing project. So, the vast majority of the time that I've been in Gainesville, I was a renter. Very recently, I've been fortunate enough to buy a house, but I firmly believe that the housing funds from the affordable and workforce housing surtax should go towards making rental housing more available and more affordable. Rental housing is where the greatest need is for the greatest number of people, and it has become prohibitively expensive in the past few years. Every day, I talk with folks across Alachua County, ranging from college students to retirees, who talk about the pressure of rent and how it has gotten well outside of their control. There's so much stress around this issue and so much risk of people becoming unhoused. So, I am calling to ask the commission to vote no on the plan to put 40% of the wild spaces and public places affordable housing funds towards down payment assistance for homeownership. I would really like to see those efforts focused on increasing affordable rental housing, and I agree with one of the gentlemen who earlier brought up that no more than 10% of these funds should go towards homeownership programs. And I would also like the commission to vote yes on the Oak View and Royal Park projects. When I voted yes on this initiative, those are the kind of projects that I thought this surtax is going to be used for, and those are going to make a large, a huge difference for the people who they affect. So, thank you so much. Thank you, Michelle. And callers, if you are repeating comments, if you could just express your support, that'd be great. Obviously, you have three minutes, but we've got a lot to get to. Next caller, please. The next caller is ending in 6749. If you hit star six, you can start talking. Hi there. My name is Sean Trainor. Like the previous caller, I'm also calling on my lunch break. And like the previous caller, I'm also, I guess, a medium-term Gainesville and Alachua County resident. I've been here since 2015. So, I'll keep this short. I am calling, like many other folks today, to ask the county commission to vote no on the current proposal to allocate up to 40% of the wild spaces and public places housing funds to down payment assistance. And instead, vote yes on the Oak View and Rural Park projects and to allocate no more than 10% of the surtax funds to homeownership programs. Homeownership is great. I'm very happy to be a homeowner at this point in my life. But speaking only for myself, the times in my life where I've most needed support, rental assistance would have been a game changer, whereas the idea of purchasing a home, even with down payment assistance, would have been beyond the realm of possibility. And as many folks have also said, when I voted for this ordinance, which I did very enthusiastically in 2022, I, like many other folks, was under the impression that this money was going to go towards rental assistance. So, I thank you for your work on this effort. And I also thank you for taking the time to hear my call. Thank you, Mr. Traynor. Next caller, please. The next caller is ending in 4565. Go ahead. You'll need to hit star six to unmute. Good day. This is Sarah Younger. I'm speaking today as a resident of Alachua County. First off, congratulations to you, Ken, on your appointment as chair. We welcome opportunities to continue conversations with you, as well as other members of this commission. Thank you so much for taking our comments. Today, I also am not representing necessarily the Sierra Club, but I also support the efforts that others have shared about the allocation of funds out of the Wild Places Public Spaces event monies, that they continue on the manner in which they were first attributed to in the resolutions that were passed by the voters back in 2022. I'm also calling today to let you know that we are also working hard to let people know about the upcoming bear hunt in December. There are efforts to take the message to the governor in Tallahassee, and we're urging folks to join us on a bus as we'll be leaving from Jamesville on November 17th, early hours at about 8 a.m. to get up there for a rally by 11, and you can sign up for it at our website. That's sierraclub.org slash Florida slash Stop the Bear Hunt. And all folks who are concerned about our wildlife, the bear represent an umbrella species that help to defend our wild spaces, speaking of which. These are important animals in our state. We've also extended a huge amount of money for wildlife corridors, which we hope will assist them in maintaining their genetic viability into the future. This is not the time for a hunt, as there has not been a census since 2015, and we're unsure of the count. In fact, Osceola National Forest, they got the census amounts in and found that there had been a 70% drop in the estimates of the number of bears in the North Bear Management Unit. So it's very clear that FWC is doing this without the enough data. So we're urging them to pause the hunt, and we're asking your help get the governor to do so. And thank you again for taking our comments today. I also stand with those at In Mill Creek as we are looking forward to an opportunity to have all development over those fragile cave systems paused and halted for a further understanding of what they can support. I appreciate your time. Thank you. Thank you, Sarah. Next caller. Next caller is caller ending in 1809. You hit star six. You can speak. Hello? Can you hear us? Let's go ahead and move on to the next caller. Oh, go ahead. Sorry, I hit mute right as they were about to talk. Sorry. Let's try one more time. You'll need to hit star six again. All right. We can hear you. Go ahead. My name is Shikasia Phipps. I am a resident born and raised here in Alachua County, and I am also an employee at Race Reentry. I am calling in support of prioritizing surtex dollars for new affordable housing in Alachua County. Right now, for every one affordable rental unit available, there are six people looking. That means six families, seniors, workers, incarcerated individuals trying to find stability in a market that simply does not have enough options. So the math just does not map them. We have to build more units. There are already multiple funding sources that support home ownership, like down payment assistance and rehabilitation programs. But there are very few resources or sources dedicated to actually constructing new affordable housing. So surtax funds are one of the only tools we have that can fill that gap and make a real difference in increasing our housing supply. And if a percentage, I heard some commenters say 10%, is dedicated to home ownership, those programs should include strong wraparound support, financial counseling, maintenance training, and credit building assistance so that residents at the lowest income level like myself or AMI levels can truly access and sustain home ownership. Affordable housing isn't just about building. It's about keeping people here in Alachua County because we are neighbors, strengthening our workforce and ensuring Alachua County remains a place where everyone can afford to live and thrive. Thank you for hearing my comments. Thank you so much. Josh, how many more callers do we have? We have one, two, three more. Okay. Sounds good. We'll wrap this up by one. So three more is plenty of time. The next caller is caller ending in 8-4-1-2. Hey, can you hear me all right? Yep. Go ahead. Thank you. Yeah, my name is Clark Wood. I'm an Alachua County resident here with Gainesville is for People. And, you know, I want to thank you all for letting me speak. Thanks for your comment. Thanks for your work on the county commission. I'm here along with a lot of others to agree with what Dr. Murmur had to say. Please do not use the Wild Spaces and Public Places funds for down payment assistance and single family home developer subsidies. Thanks for your time. Really appreciate it. That's all I got. Thank you, Mr. Wood. Thank you for your comments. Next speaker. All right. The next speaker is the caller ending in 4-1-8-4. You'll need to hit star six to unmute. Good afternoon, commissioners. My name is Julie DeCarmine. I serve on the county's Affordable Housing Advisory Committee as a low-income advocate. I'm sorry I couldn't be with you in person today. I'm out of town. But yeah, I want to join the choir of the ISP funds conversation and just remind the numbers. I know Mr. Tipping touched on them earlier. But here in Alachua County, we have 24,000 rental households at or below 50% AMI. And for this group, we're missing over 10,000 units from our supply. So we have a shortage of 10,000 rental units. If we want to make a dent in affordable housing, we need to help build it and focus this funding on where it's needed the most. So thank you so much for taking your comments and for your time and for your leadership. Thank you, Ms. Carmine. Thank you for serving on the Affordable Housing Committee. And your comments. Next speaker, please. The last caller does not have their number displayed, but if they hit star six, they'll be able to speak. Can you hear me? Yes. This is Moke Chanel. Thank you for allowing us to speak. Sorry I'm not able to be there in person. I am speaking on a major thing that is happening to our community. Once again, I was there last week, and I implore all of you are wonderful county commissioners. I implore, especially Ana Prizia, to help put me in touch with the movers and shakers that are addressing food insecurity. Today, the food lines are tripled. Next week, they will be quadrupled. People are starving. Children are leaving, are not even in school because they've been pulled out of school so that they can be another number because that's what happens at these food lines. If we declare a state of emergency like Lake County did and like Clackamas County did in Oregon, we are then eligible for a lot more of block grants. We can do a lot more. And Commissioner Alford hit on this a couple months ago because she's also a visionary. She spoke about the snap food bucks at the farmer's market being cut. They are not going to bring back snap. They can say whatever they're saying, and it's just hogwash. We need to take care of our people. And if we implore every single restaurant, every single nonprofit, every single church in this community, because I watched last week, God bless bread of the mighty, but I was at something, and I'm documenting all of this because I'm going to work on a documentary to show this so anybody can put me in touch with some videographers. Twenty-five vehicles were turned away. Three people were turned away that were walk-ups. I was one of them. So I'm doing a lot of research on this as well. We can address the hunger with our county. We did it in the pandemic. We can do it again. We need to implore. And then also I will be applying for the new Zero Waste Committee as somebody that is here from the West Coast of a model city that basically is a model for anybody around the country. Everybody knows that Seattle leads in this. And we need to implore the Zero Waste Ordinance that was set into effect two years ago. We need to make fines for the people that are not following it and that that food needs to either go into compost or better yet, go to people. So I would appreciate any help that we can do and some other meetings outside of this to address this because this is for real. People are starving. Thank you for your help on this. God bless. Thank you, Ms. Chanel. And the manager will be speaking about that at manager comment. All right, Josh, are we done with the phone line? All right, we're going to go ahead and close public comment and we've got Commissioner Prizia to respond and then I've got some notes. Well, I want to thank everyone who came out to speak on the infrastructure tax. I hope that even if you can't stay, you'll tune in for that conversation in just a little bit. You know, Ken pointed out that I was the champion of food and shelter and it has been sort of the bedrock of the work that I've done in the community. And I'll say this, the situation with SNAP is not to be taken lightly. It is happening. Rather, we have those SNAPs reinstated or not because in the bill that was passed prior to the government shutdown, it cut a lot of the other food assistance programs and grants by tons. So we saw 100% uptick in the demand for food assistance before the SNAP was shut down because of government shutdown. So this problem is not just a problem because of the government shutdown. This is a problem because of federal policy that is changing the dynamics of funding for food assistance across the board. And I think that I'm really excited to talk with Bread of the Mighty about what they're working on and their solutions. But I think we also need to be thinking about the way in which we address this in a sustainable fashion that builds resilience in our own communities and lifts up our local food economy, lifts up sustainable, good paying jobs and provides fresh and nutritious food and not just shelf stable and processed food to those people in our community by working with our local farmers. It's part of why we're working on the food hub from the same situation we saw when COVID hit and our food supply chain shut down. And I think we'll hopefully be talking about that during manager comments. So I'll hold my comments there. But I just wanted to let folks know that we are taking that idea seriously and we'll be having a discussion later. And my apologies to Mr. Anderson, I do see your application and we'll be having that discussion later as well. Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Wheeler. Thank you. I would just like to ask Steve, do you have any more information about what's happening in Alachua with Mill Creek? If indeed this is going to the board for special exception and it doesn't come back then to the city, at what point do we intervene? Mr. Chair, Steve Hoster, Alachua County Environmental Protection Department. We will be attending that meeting. As was stated, there is a meeting on November 18th with their Planning and Zoning Board for special exception related to the Terra April Project. We'll be drafting a chair letter to let them know we're coming and to put our standing in place. We'll be providing testimony to the concerns we have. I guess what we'll do is we'll see the outcome of that meeting and see what necessary steps may need to be taken following that. Okay. Legally proceed. Okay. How we would legally proceed because I think this board is committed to doing that. Yes. I've got a couple of questions on that. Can I ask? Yes, please. So what is the process by which have we been granted party status? Mr. Chair, we basically what we do is every time we provide a chair letter and request party status, that determination is made at every hearing. So, I mean, they're aware that we have continued to request that. They've honored that each time we've done it. But we will be asking that again. We are anticipating being granted party status, which gives us the ability to cross-examine, ask questions. Have we set up the opportunity for having a transcript provided with a court reporter? Yes, Mr. Chair. We have one scheduled for that hearing. Wonderful. And now if that passes and it's appealed by any of the parties, is the next step that it goes before the Alachua Commission? Yes, Mr. Chair. It goes before the City Commission on Appeal. The Alachua City Commission on Appeal. Okay. All right. So, we have a court reporter set up. We're going to declare party status. And it sounds like our staff will be there representing the county's interests and what this board has asked. There is a plan. Okay. Do you have anything else, Commissioner Wheeler? No. That was the main thing, is to make sure that we are following this as closely as we can. And I would ask Tamara and Brian, both make sure, whatever you're hearing over there, if you'd feed it quickly, that we can respond. That would be great. So, Mr. Dobb, we are going to have a lengthy discussion. We've got a lot on the agenda. It'll be at manager comment. You're welcome to listen in and come back. Sore Lee, I noticed that on item 6B, this board approved in consent, an increase of that funding from $530,000 to $1.78 million. Can we just ask our staff to follow up on the comment that she provided about the tree and the water? Any other commissioners have any comments about that? Okay. I think that kind of covers all the items that I had starred. Did you have something else, Commissioner? You good? Yeah. Okay. All right. So, we got through that. That leads us back to, we're still doing recognition. So, we're going to close public comment. And Commissioner Prizzi and Mr. Clerk, next item. Proclamation recognizing November 7th as Alachua County Forever Day. We've got some special guests coming up. I see our whole team is here. I'm very excited about that. I'm really excited to get to read this proclamation declaring November 7th as Alachua County Forever Day in Alachua County, Florida. Whereas on November 7th, 2000, Alachua County citizens and voters created the Alachua County Forever Program by passing the Alachua County Forever Bond Referendum, generating funds to acquire, improve, and manage environmentally significant lands. And the acquisition of these environmentally significant lands provides opportunities for both existing residents and future generations to enjoy wild and scenic areas and provides opportunities for public recreation and wildlife habitat as well as opportunities to maintain good surface water by using appropriate lands for their natural stormwater cleansing abilities. And whereas on November 8th, 2002, the Alachua County Forever Program protected the first county conservation land, the 1,194-acre Labasse Beach Forest near Alachua, known as Mill Creek Nature Preserve. Fitting. And whereas on November 4th, 2008, voters of Alachua County approved the creation of the first wild spaces public places surtax, a two-year half-cent sales tax continuing critical land conservation work and funding park improvements and created the registry of protected public places to further protect county-owned conservation lands. And on November 8th, 2016, voters approved the renewal of wild spaces public places surtax as an eight-year half-cent sales tax and on November 8th, 2022, voters passed the wild spaces public places surtax for the third time, providing a 10-year sales tax with half-cent for land conservation and park improvements and a half-cent for road improvements and other community infrastructure, namely affordable housing. And whereas recognizing that over the past 50 years, Alachua County has lost over 50% of its farmland, a strategy to protect farmlands was added to the Alachua County Forever Program in 2024. And whereas 2025 celebrates the 25th anniversary of Alachua County Forever Program, marked by the program's 108th environmentally significant land acquisition, and now protecting over 36,000 acres and providing the public access to 23 nature preserves, management areas, and parks. Now, therefore, through the authority vested in me by the Board of County Commissioners of Alachua County, Florida, I do hereby proclaim November 7th, 2025 as Alachua County Forever Day, in Alachua County, Florida, and it's signed and sealed by all the appropriate people. And I just want to say that is an unbelievable feat. I mean, 108 environmentally significant lands. That's 108 real estate transactions that had to happen, and all the negotiation, the legal negotiations, the staff work, the land, you know, evaluation. I mean, so much work goes into every single one of these acquisitions, and it's just a real testament to our voters and to thank them for continuing to renew this sales tax, which has made such a huge impact for us, and to our staff and to our partners at ACT and all the people who were involved in starting this program for making this possible for us. You know, today we're going to be talking about our climate action plan. There's no better climate action strategy than land protection. It protects not only our carbon sinks, right, these places that actually stand as our natural ecosystems, but it protects biodiversity, protects food security, it protects flooding, protects us from heat island effect. The work that's being done through this program really stands across so, so many of our values and so, so many of our priorities in Alachua County. So I just really, really appreciate all of our staff and all of our community partners for making this program possible. And I thank our voters, once again, for continuing to pass this important sales tax that helps us do this again and again and again. And with that, I'm going to turn it over to our fearless leader, Andy Christman, to say a few words. Okay. Thank you, Commissioner Pritzia. Thank you, Chair Cornell, commissioners, county leaders, for recognizing the Alachua County Forever Program's 25 years of success in protecting the quality of life, sustainability, and precious natural resources within our county. I'm Andy Christman, the current manager of the Alachua County Forever Program, and I'm honored to be here today and honored to serve our community through our work. But I'm even more honored to stand with all of our community of citizens, leaders like yourselves, county staff across all departments that contribute to our work, partners, in particular Alachua Conservation Trust, and county voters who have helped create and maintain the Alachua County Forever Program through vision and personal commitment. With me today are all of the leaders of the Alachua County Forever Program since it was created by voters on November 7, 2000. We have Chris Bird, the original EPD director and leader in establishment of ACF as a county program with his department. Steve Hofstetter, our current director and EPD who continues to carry our program forward. Yeah, we're going to do a lot of clapping, so just be ready. Ramesh Bush, the original ACF program manager and leader of our land acquisition efforts from 2001 to 2016. Yeah, I'm ready, Ramesh. Sandy Vardaman, the original ACF land stewardship manager and also program manager who served the program the longest from 2001 to 2021, and Charlie Howder, my predecessor, the director of parks and conservation lands from 2017 to 2022. Each of these people have devoted their tremendous professional skills to our community, and a few of them would like to share comments as well. So I'll let them have at it. Welcome, Chris. Welcome back. Great to see you. Yeah, it's great to be back. And yeah, we're going to do this in chronological order because I'm kind of in the beginning. But, you know, it's great to be back. I think what's encouraging, I mean, I could spend a lot of time reminiscing and reflecting, but, you know, what's really amazing is how thriving this program is still going. And so, you know, I'm glad to be here to celebrate that. And the commission support, the staff support, you know, the one thing that's been really lucky about this program since the beginning is that we've just had people show up with incredible heart and passion and intelligence. And I think back, I think Sean McClendon may be the only one in the room that I can remember that was here at least in 2000, you know, election day when this thing got passed. But, I mean, we didn't have any kind of instruction manual. You know, there wasn't a YouTube channel to do it yourself to figure out how to put this together. But what we did have is we had the Association of Counties. We had some statewide organizations. But we really didn't have any role models in North Florida because, you know, most of the counties that had been trying to do this were big urban counties in South Florida. But speaking of that, that was really where we lucked out. We were able to hire some staff that you're going to hear from that were able to help us set the program up really quick. But what I kind of remember, I mean, the county attorney's office, the county manager's office, finance and accounting, budget, everybody came together. I mean, what really helped was the fact that we had this huge landslide mandate from the voters. And, you know, that never hurts to have something where it's direct democracy saying we want to do this. But I'll close with just saying that I think one thing in the beginning we talked about is how we needed to protect the brand of this program and we needed to make sure there was integrity. And I think that's borne out. You know, the people involved with this since the beginning, not only did they work really hard, but they were really honest with the way they did the program and very transparent. And so I'm really pleased to see how that's all continued. And I will mention the, you know, I think we started with Nature Conservancy and we've enjoyed the relationship with the Alachua Conservation Trust. But the not-for-profits involved with this, there's parts of this program that they really helped make it happen. They're very agile in terms of what they do, so I don't want to forget them as well. With that, again, it's good to be back. And I'm really happy this program is still going so strong. Thank you. Wow. Back in this room again. I'm Ramesh Butch. And I was honored to be the first program manager for Alachua County Forever. Some of you are still on the board from way back then, right? Thank you for your service. As usual, Chris stole a lot of my thunder. I was brought up here at 33. He opened the application cycle for the first piece of property before I had a place to live, still living in a hotel. But he's absolutely right. There was really no playbook for these kinds of programs. And what I am proud to say, and Commissioner Pritzia helped us with this, we ended up developing that playbook. And we have promoted it at FAC, the Florida Association of Counties. And we use Alachua County Forever as the benchmark and as a model for that program that in my private life that I'm doing now, consulting, passing those programs around the state. So Alachua County Forever has been the model for not only Nassau County, Clay County, we're working in Highlands County, we're about to work in Citrus County. And there are several of the counties that I would mention that we're going to go back and say, if you want to go back to your voters, this is the model, these are the benchmarks, these are the best practices that you should use. So again, hats off to the county commission, hats off to the staff, as Chris mentioned, that helped us build that program and build those models. And so appreciative of the time that I had here. So thank you. Thanks, Ramesh. Hi, I'm Sandy Vardaman, and I am honored to be here today to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Alachua County Forever program. I have just a couple of things I was thinking about. What do I really want to tell people? And it's why this program is so special. And I've worked in two other similar programs, but none do I feel about like I feel about Alachua County Forever. First, while we had tremendous support from the county commission, the county administration, and staff, really, Alachua County Forever is the people's program. From day one, this was a citizen-initiated program that was funded four different times by the voters. Wow. You have an LCB, a Land Conservation Board, and the commission gave them a really important job. Over the years of this program, their job was to look at the properties and review whether or not those properties should be forwarded to the county commission. Additionally, you guys gave them the job of looking at stewardship plans and deciding whether that should be forwarded to the commission for their approval. So I think this is really, really important. Oh, and two other things. So it is not just, it is anticipated, expected, that the people come and nominate these properties to the program for potential acquisition, and that the people of the community review management plans and provide input into the stewardship plans for the preserves. So, that was number one. Number two is stewardship of these properties was in the initial bond. It was incorporated also into the Alachua County Forever section of the county's comprehensive plan, right from the beginning of the program, or just after the beginning of the program. And also, this means that the board of county commissioners and the voters recognized that in order to protect the vast investment in these lands, that it was necessary to fund and staff a stewardship program. That is, hats off. You guys rock. Stewardship is really hard work. And the county is so fortunate to have an incredible team of dedicated professionals that are passionate about protecting the resources of the county. I'm very proud of the work they have done and that they continue to do. My next point is climate. Wow, past, present, and future accomplishments of the Alachua County Forever program are consistent with and further the goals of the county's new climate action plan that incidentally is going to be ceremonially approved at the climate festival on the 15th of November. The program is making meaningful contributions to our county's climate resilience and our environmental sustainability. I want to thank you all for the privilege of helping to protect and manage some of my very favorite natural places. And for the privilege of knowing that these areas are improving the quality of life of everyone in Alachua County, whether or not you step foot on any of these properties. By protecting, by recharging our aquifer, by providing flood protection, by protecting wild wildlife and ecological corridors, by sequestering carbon, by improving our mental and physical health, and by providing places for people to recreate in and reconnect with nature. Thank you so many. Oh, thank you so much. And congratulations on 25 years of land conservation. Thank you, Sandy. I'm Charlie Howder. First of all, I want to thank the commission and especially the citizens of Alachua County for setting up and maintaining this program for 25 years. This is important not only to me and the people in this room, but I have four grandchildren who live in Alachua County. This program is really for them and for their grandchildren. Nothing will add to the quality of life and the environmental quality in Alachua County like this land acquisition program. It was a great honor for me to cap off my almost 40-year career in land conservation here of Alachua Conservation, Alachua County forever. Probably my greatest claim to fame ought to be setting up Andy Chrisman to take over for me because I think she's done an outstanding job. Thank you, Barry. Thank you, Charlie. Before we end, I see Tom Kay and Byron Flagg, and I know you're here for this. You guys want to say anything? It's 25 years. No? It's a great team. Okay. All right, Steve, do you want to wrap it up? At least come up for the picture, Tom. Mr. Chair, Steve Hostert, Alachua County's Environmental Protection Department, current director. Just some closing comments. Through the remainder of the year, the Alachua County Forever program will continue to celebrate the 25-year anniversary with field trips and events, including a 25th anniversary celebration December 14th, graciously hosted by Alachua Conservation Trust at their annual holiday, Mingle. And just in closing, you know, I'm going to be here, not planning on going anywhere. So you'll hear lots from me in the future. So I don't want to say too much. But it's an honor for me to be up here among these giants of environmental land conservation. So as the director of the department, you know, it's my job to make sure we hire good people. And then I just get out of the way and let good people do great things. And that's what we're trying to do. And I'm looking forward to the next 25 years. We're going to all come down and take a quick picture. Mr. Chair, while you all are walking, I'm going to join you. But I wanted to talk to Chris and Ramesh and Charlie, Steve. All of you guys worked with Jill McGuire on the acquisitions around Lake Santa Fe. And we named the park over there for Jill. And I just want to thank you all for making that happen for her because she worked pretty intensely with all of you, I think, to make all that work. So thank you. Okay, and I don't know if you guys know David Manet, but he works for Salter Fiber, helps with a lot of these things. Well, Ramesh Bush and Steve Hofstetter founded in their Infinite Wisdom last Saturday to take David Manet and I out to the woodshed in the pickleball game. And they beat us twice really, really pretty good, Stephen and Ramesh. Okay, well, that was a great 25-year celebration. So, Mr. Clerk, what's our next item? I'm moving to board and committee items. This is the Tourist Development Council Advisory Board appointments. Okay, so we've got three applicants for two members. As Mr. Johnson, we heard on the phone, is Erin Porter or Julie Smith here? Would they like to come? Would you like to come forward? Yep. Welcome. Hello. Nice to see you all again. My name is Julie Smith and I do have my application for the Tourism Board. Last year, I had kind of a coming of Jesus moment, I think, with Mary Helen after Hurricane Helena. You know, I had to call her and we got resources up there for the City of High Springs for the local businesses. Multiple times, even with the brewery, they called me. I called Mary. Hello, Willard. And we have done amazing work for those businesses. Over the past couple months, we were able to get two billboard grants that they didn't know about. And it's no part of any issue with Liz. They do an amazing job. But sometimes they just need somebody to say, hey, here it is. Here's the application. Let me come up there and sit down with you. Let's fill it out. Or let me stand next to you while it's getting approved where you're not there alone, where they're together. It's unity. And it's also being that liaison between not just High Springs, but all the local municipalities around here. These grants, especially for events, for billboards, is available to all of Alachua County. And for a long time, I think they felt like they're in their own little world in these little municipalities, not knowing that it's all here and it's available, and we can do it together and get it done. And we have shown that. I think being on the Tourism Board, I have served on the Visit Natural North Florida Tourism Task Force. I'm all about ecotourism. High Springs is definitely a destination. We have seen a unity in the past couple months. Mary Helen Wheeler, thank you for coming up there to Sarah and Deputy. That is just a positive vibe. Between the businesses and the businesses supporting each other. But now it's time to go up there and say, hey, let's start applying for more of these grants. Let's start applying for more of the things that are available for you that they did not know existed. And I'll even show up and help you with it, you know, and get it. So that is one reason why I have really put my hat in the ring for this. A lot of local businesses have expressed great desire for me to put my hat in the ring for it. I was actually quite overwhelmed with the support. But I do feel that I feel like all the municipalities should have, you know, a say in the Tourism Board. And that way it does benefit all of Alachua County, even Melrose and all the little towns. I mean, there's a lot coming, but there's a lot available for them. And although they're 20 minutes away, it feels like they're 2 million miles away and they're in their own cocoon. And so sometimes it's not even about applying for them. It's just about standing next to them, or at least, you know, whether it's a commission meeting or it's a tourism board. Thank you. You know, we've got those two grants coming, $30,000 for two businesses. And we want more. And they want more. And I want to be that liaison to kind of help bridge the gap between Gainesville and the smaller municipalities. Although it's all over Alachua County, it still feels like it's a different cocoon, if you know what I'm saying. Thank you. Okay, thank you for your comments. Yeah, three great candidates for two spots. Anyone else here? Aaron Porter sent an email at 9.49 this morning. Oh, okay. I can read it real quick if y'all want. Yeah, go ahead, real quick. Hold on just a second. Just edit. Representing the unit of the airport. Dear Board of County Commissioners, I would like to apologize for not being able to attend today. GNV is participating in the Routes Takeoff Air Service Development Conference in Tallahassee. We're meeting over the next few days with a bunch of airlines. Alan Pinska and I are driving there today, or I'd be there in person. As mentioned in my application, I have great respect for the Tourist Development Council and its mission. I enjoyed being part of the TDC and feel the airport is a critical part of our tourism ecosystem. I have enjoyed a strong working relationship with Visit Gainesville, the TDC, our chambers, the Alachua County Hospitality Council. In the almost eight years I've been in my role at GNV, working together with all parties in that ecosystem is very important to us at GNV. And being able to accurately tell the story to the airport and the airline community is equally important, as we will be doing in the next few days in Tallahassee. Please know I wish I could be in two places at once and accept my gratitude for your consideration for this important role in our community. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out. Thank you, Commissioner Alford. All right, so, all right, Mr. Clerk, let's go ahead and we'll have each of us. Do you want to vote for two at the same time or one at a time? Let's do two at the same time. See if we get the top two. I'm going to go down the line now. I'll start with Commissioner Alford. Greg Johnson and Aaron Porter. Commissioner Prezia. And Porter and Greg Johnson. Commissioner Chestnut. And Commissioner Wheeler. Porter and Smith. And Chair Cornell. Oh, boy. I'm going to go with Porter and Johnson. I have it right. Commissioner Porter and Commissioner, or, sorry, Aaron Porter and Greg Johnson have four of your votes. They're the top two. Move Aaron Porter and Greg Johnson for the two positions involved in tourist industry. Second. Motion and second. Any discussion? Any public discussion? Back to the board. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion is unanimous. Okay. Thank you, Ms. Smith, for applying. Please feel free to attend those meetings. All right. Next up, we've got our action item. Mr. Clerk, what's the first item? Well, the first one is Alachua County Climate Action Plan. Okay. The recommended action is to hear staff's presentation and accept the Climate Action Plan. And Ms. Kipp, you are recognized. Thank you for being here. Thank you. Good afternoon, Mr. Chair. Jenison Kipp, Resiliency Specialist with the Environmental Protection Department. I'm happy to be here today to present a brief overview of the Climate Action Plan for acceptance today. So under our current newly adopted strategic guide for Alachua County, under the focus area of environment and conservation, the county is to, quote, guide and cultivate environmentally, socially, and economically resilient strategies and solutions to climate change for the whole community through the adoption and implementation of the Climate Action Plan, including lessening the dependence on fossil fuels and increasing energy efficiency in county operations. Alachua County's final Climate Action Plan, while a milestone, and there's a lot of work left to be done. We're just at a transition right now. It is a comprehensive and integrated strategy for responding to the climate vulnerabilities that are here today. They're not out in the future. We're facing them now. And it serves as a roadmap for the county to adapt and put resiliency into action, protecting public health, safeguarding natural resources, and ensuring a vibrant quality of life for all who live here. In short, we say it's a roadmap for surviving and thriving in this community for everyone who live here. The final documents and related initiatives and activities around the Climate Action Plan are posted on the website that you can see on this slide. And this presentation, I'm just going to give a very brief overview of the Climate Action Plan, its history, current status, and then where we're headed with next steps on implementation. So the final plan itself includes a message from the manager, an executive summary, an introduction, eight topical areas, thematic areas that are outlined on the chapters you see here on this slide. Appendices that include the 2024 climate vulnerability assessment that really created the foundation and starting point for developing this plan, references to the comprehensive plan, and how this strategic guide ties in with other county strategies and the comprehensive plan itself. And then each chapter includes a background or an introduction of how that topical or thematic area relates to climate, and the vulnerabilities that we're facing, and the opportunities to respond. It goes into a section on past and, well, it talks about how it relates directly to and is supported by the comprehensive plan, and how it supports the comprehensive plan. And then it goes into a description, again, within each chapter of past and current efforts that have been invested already in these topical areas across programs and strategies. It provides program highlights to give very real examples of this work that's already in action here in Alachua County. And then it outlines strategies and action items. So there are 184 line item action items throughout this plan listed, and we know that that's just a starting point. Some of them are well underway, others are emerging, and others are going to be brand new as we move into implementation. And again, I just want to reiterate, this is an important milestone in acceptance of the plan, but it's not, it's never going to be done. It's an ongoing piece of work, and there's a lot to do. So this slide outlines the historical process of the Climate Action Plan here in the county. This really is a citizen-driven plan that builds on the foundation of strong programs like Alachua County Forever to identify new areas of opportunity to take every dollar that we have further in terms of investing in our resiliency and sustainability. In 2020, the Citizen Climate Advisory Committee was created to guide the development of the Climate Action Plan. And since then, we've had, we now have had 30 members of the public serve on the Citizen Climate Advisory Committee, including those who are on our new CCAC board, and that includes our first youth member, which is really exciting to have that cross-generational representation. So since the CCAC began meeting in the fall of 2020, they've followed this process that you see in this flowchart here for developing the Climate Action Plan. And as I said, it's very citizen-driven, and so it included a lot of outreach and requests for input and feedback all along the way, particularly from communities who are often left out of these conversations and who are most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change that we're facing. The county has had two annual events around development of the Climate Action Plan, a fair in 2023, and a climate summit last year in 2024. And we are now, we've had several rounds of drafting the actual written document, and over the last two years, effectively, and here we are today for acceptance of the plan. Prior board motions related to this item, on August 26th, we held an evening draft Climate Action Plan workshop, so got to hear a lot of feedback from the board as well as members of the public. And as I mentioned, we've had ongoing, you know, invitations and outreach events where we've been inviting and receiving feedback as well. So this was the most recent prior board motion to address the penultimate version of the Climate Action Plan. And then on September 9th, when Alachua County's current Strategic Guide was adopted, we were moved to complete the Climate Action Plan. Well, it's consistent with this focus area of the current Strategic Guide, and then we were, staff were moved to complete and bring before you today the final Climate Action Plan for acceptance. So, some items that we addressed during that time since the August workshop. We added the manager's message and updated and completed the executive summary. We addressed in the narrative the functional relationship of the Climate Action Plan with other guiding policy documents. Again, this is not a policy document. It's intended to be dynamic and flexible so that we can adapt as we go. And we corrected errors throughout where they needed to be corrected. And then we've begun drafting one-page snapshots of the overall Climate Action Plan and the different chapters and topical areas to make it more accessible for the public as we move into the implementation phase. I have some specific items that relate to actual implementation moving forward from today on. So, some items that are underway as they relate to specific strategies within the Action Plan. So, energy security and efficiency, the Lydia B. Stokes Foundation grant-funded county building solar array. That was a long sentence. And establishment of the Community Investment Fund. That grant has been received and we are moving into implementation of that grant. In terms of flood management and infrastructure, a proposal was submitted to the state to the Rebuild Florida Infrastructure Repair Program. A funding proposal to raise State Road 26 and improve the Hatchet Creek stream crossing. So, that addresses both the infrastructure needs there as well as water quality concurrent related issues there. And then for the vulnerability adaptation planning, which is in its second phase following the climate vulnerability assessment, county staff and Jones Edmonds, we are in the process of evaluating 25 identified potential resiliency and infrastructure projects that can reduce flooding, erosion, and risk to county infrastructure and those critical assets. And then we are underway, beginning to initiate the phase one urban forest management plan. So, this is addressed in the natural resources and conservation chapter. We are essentially moving into the dashboard phase. So, to develop this and translate the written document into a dynamic dashboard for ongoing outreach, engagement, improvement, and opportunities for true action along the lines of all of those 184 action items that we can implement. We are going to be acting as well as inviting ongoing feedback for improvement. And then we have been talking about this this year and we are not able to get it into this current draft, but it is a critical piece that is reflected within each of the chapters of the current plan. We have a triple bottom line section, and so we are going to be adding a chapter that speaks to the circular economy and really at the end of the day why this matters for not just people on the planet, but profit, and, you know, where are those most economically efficient opportunities to leverage across all of our action items. And then next steps, following the board approval, we have our climate festival that you've already heard about today from Sandy Vardaman, and that is on Saturday, November 15th. We have an exciting lineup of speakers, including keynote speaker Michael Grunwald with his recently released book, We Are Eating the Earth. We'll have a panel of municipal leaders, a panel speaking to agriculture and food security resiliency, and we have over a dozen, getting close to 20, between staff and community organizations who are going to be tabling at the event, so we're excited about that, and we invite you to continue to spread the word. I'll just say on here that related to the festival, the theme is plan, protect, and pollinate, and it's pretty straightforward what those mean. There's lots of opportunities for us all to continuously be planning, protecting, and pollinating in terms in the sense that we, you know, as citizens of Alachua County, have a chance to make connections across resources, across programs, and really take all of these action items further. So I have to give credit to our intern, Ava Valines, who designed that. And built on last year's theme from the summit and taking it to the next step. So we're excited about celebrating. Again, this is a milestone. There's a lot of work to do, but it's a time to stop, celebrate, and identify, you know, where are those next best opportunities to move forward together on the plan. And then we do plan, in terms of implementation, we plan to be updating the written document itself annually, you know, filling in gaps, addressing action items that have either been completed or are underway. And then we expect or anticipate, you know, based on board direction, that probably every five years we would do a substantive update to the plan itself and the dashboard that it will be integrated with. So the staff recommendation for this item is to accept the climate action plan. I'm happy to take any comments or questions. Okay, we've got a couple of folks, Commissioner Prizzi and then Commissioner Alford. Or Commissioner, do you want to go first? Go ahead, Commissioner Alford. Yeah, thank you. And it looks great. It really does. And thank you for the careful attention of changes and for, you know, all of y'all's hard work. All the many, many people have worked on this for such a long time over the last five years. So thank you so much. It's been a huge, real endeavor. A quick question. So for Mr. Greenwald, will there be an, will his books be available for signing? Yes. We got the news yesterday. I'm very excited to say that the Lynx bookstore will have a table with Mr. Greenwald's, not only We Are Eating the Earth, but also The Swamp, which is one of his other bestsellers. And they're going to set up and be there throughout the event until 1.30. So we're working with Mr. Greenwald to identify, you know, a specified time for him to be there to sign books for those who are interested in purchasing one of them. So you don't have to order it from Amazon. You can go straight to the event and get a copy of the book at the event. So good. I just wanted people to be aware of that. And I'm happy to go ahead and make the motion to accept the climate action plan. Yeah, motion. We've got a couple of seconds. Okay. Commissioner Prisian and Commissioner Wheeler. Yeah. Just to echo the thanks to all of the hard work that went into this. I know, you know, Jenison, you got to come in in the final and make it look pretty and organize it and herd the cats to get us to this finish line. And we really appreciate your work and appreciate everything that's led up to this. And including the leadership of our former county commission and this county commission to actually make climate action a priority and to continue pushing forward on the importance of this as sort of really the crisis inflection point and time to start really taking seriously the actions we need to both mitigate and adapt around what's happening with our climate. So thank you all so much. And I'm excited for the next steps and the event on the 15th. And I will say you can also order his book online from the links. They have online ordering. So even if you can't be at the event, which we hope you will be, you can get the book from your local bookseller online at any time. Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Wheeler. I just want to say thank you as well. What format will this be in? Is it all online or is there going to be a paper copy of this somewhere that we could? So, Mr. Chair, again, it is online and we will make, there's one paper copy that I printed in black and white, but we will make copies of it available for- How many pages would it end up being? Yeah. Go ahead. How many pages? Yes. I mean, if you have to print it, if you were- It's over 200 pages. Is it? Okay. Yeah. Oh, it's quite a document. Yeah. I was going to say, I wonder if there's a way that we could just have, there's an executive summary and there's some action items, perhaps we could turn that into something that we could print selectively for special events and programs and that people would have that they could, you know, and maybe it's even a poster that's got the executive summary on one side and the action items on that so that somebody could post up or, you know, have those action items at the ready to take home with them so that they know the things that they can do to be a part of the change. Yeah. That's an idea. That's where I was headed with that to see that if we could get something in people's hands. So the refrigerator bag. Yeah, the refrigerator bag. You conclude? Yes, sir. I just have one question, Steve. Can you speak to this board about once this plan is adopted, the opportunity that we will have for state and federal grants with regards to many of the things that are in the climate action plan? Mr. Chair, Steve Hofstetter, that's a great question and I'm glad you brought it up. So with the acceptance of the plan, as well as the completion of our vulnerability analysis, this allows Alachua County as well as any municipality within Alachua County to be able to apply for state funds to assist with resiliency, a lot of that funding is directly able to help you with flooding issues. So it's a great financial opportunity for all of our communities to be able to apply and hopefully receive funding to address flooding issues. I do expect over time that the areas of opportunity will go beyond flooding and we'll see other things as well, hurricane assistance, housing, food shortages, agricultural opportunities, all those things that are tied to climate, which we know is almost everything where we're seeing. I believe, I hope to see an expansion in those areas, but right now it's associated with flooding. Thank you, Steve. I only bring that up, Commissioner, because I know a lot of the coastal communities are really involved in this type of work and I remember when this was adopted that we're going to do this, that we really couched this as the investment of something that's needed to make our community more resilient, expecting state and federal funds to flow into the community now that we have this adopted plan in place. So whether you're on the right, the middle, or the left, this makes a lot of sense financially and I'm really glad we're finally to this stage. And it's really a community plan. You know, there's a lot of folks that were involved, but there's, you saw with the 25 year celebration who was at the chambers, this, this plan has the community's fingerprints all over it and I really appreciate the work. All right. Any other comments, Commissioner, before we move to the public? All right. Is there anyone from the public that wishes to speak to the motion? Ms. Robbins, come on up. Thank you, Mr. Chair, Commissioner, staff. My name is Tamara Robbins. And so as you all remember and know that I have my opinions about the sports center. And so I was trying to line up like the climate action plan, which I think is beautiful and it has a lot of stuff in it. And then the promotion that this county has pivoted towards to sports tourism. And the tourism industry is a high impact, can be, especially when you have a facility located on an interstate and you're promoting activities and events that require people to hop on jets and take automobiles. There is no mass transit here like an electric train or anything like that. So how does that fit into a climate plan of how do you mitigate the impacts that you yourself are promoting and spending millions of dollars on and now you've just revealed that you're accepting the world masters again? Well, there's like 4 million gallons of jet fuel that has burned to bring that number of people that came last time to this community. That's quite a carbon footprint. So how do you line that up? What do you do to make that, make tourism be part of a climate action resiliency plan? I know that it was revealed that, oh, so much recyclables was collected. Well, my opinion is you shouldn't sell any plastic at those events, right? Get rid of like plastic containers and stuff out of your concession stands. Nope, not doing it. Here's the refill station. Bring your bottle, fill it up, okay? Stop promoting plastics in this community with the facilities that are owned by the public and that you are promoting. That building was built with complete no consideration for climate resiliency. There's no solar panels. There are no windows in that building that allows natural light. Like, what is the ventilation system in there to, in order to reduce the impacts of heat and the requirement to use fossil fuels right from GRU to run the electricity in there nonstop with air conditioning? So in my opinion, you need to look at your infrastructure on your buildings and you're promoting the use that is a massive impact on climate, right? So why don't you go for money rather than going for what should have already been built, maple floors in there, which should have already been built. I'm not saying it's not a good idea. You're not going to get, like I said, volleyball and basketball players that are going to run around on that concrete, okay? Well, you got a big-ass track, okay? So now you got another big event that's going to bring in lots of people and burn lots of fuel and all around this community. That building needs to be retrofitted to make it climate resilient and make it make sense according to county code, which is it isn't built towards. So where is the solar? There isn't any. It's ridiculous. Please, it's the elephant in the room, from my perspective. Thank you, Ms. Robbins. Anyone else from the public wish to speak to the motion? Okay, to bring it back to the board, Commissioner Alfred. I take, I think Ms. Robbins' comments are really important, and I do hope that as we look forward to the next World Masters Tournament, that we do look at how we can address offsetting or allowing folks the opportunity to offset their impact with respect to, that's a common occurrence in, you know, events around the world is to offset climate impact, and I hope that, you know, we can take the opportunity to, you know, work with local organizations and make that happen. When I ran for office, I ran a carbon neutral campaign, and that's not a real common thing to do. I think that, you know, this is certainly something that can happen and should happen. So to her comments, I just want to say that. Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Prizia. Yeah, I'll echo what Commissioner Alfred said. I think it isn't an ideal scenario to have to offset impacts you're creating. In an ideal world, we would be using renewable energy, and we would be using renewable fuel, to be able to travel, but at the time that we can't, and the fact that international relationships and building community across our globe is still really important, and so is tourism for our communities' economics. I agree. I think we should look not into the possibility, but into actually doing it, figuring out how do we offset the impacts of the Sports Events Center and the tourism that we're bringing in, and what does that look like for us if we partner with EarthGivers to offset the impacts of that event? So maybe we can just refer that to staff as a part of the motion to bring back how we could offset the impacts of that. Yeah, happy to put that in the motion. Okay, so we're going to go ahead and add that to the motion. So we have, as you see, Steve has said to me, this is a living, breathing document. Before it's even adopted, we are referring things to staff to bring back and continue to look at, which I think is great. I mean, that's the purpose of having a plan. So, all right, any other comments? Okay, CNN, all those in favor of adopting the Climate Action Plan, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? We have a unanimous motion. Congratulations, guys. Thank you. Well done. No, we don't usually clap, but that deserves a clap. Clap for our own motion. That's good. All right, let's move on to Mr. Clerk, next item. I take you to the Local Government Area of Opportunity presentation. All right, and the recommended action, commissioners, is to approve the RFA LGAO 2025-201 submittal of Smith & Henzee Affordable Group, Inc., in partnership with the Elastra County Housing Authority. Mr. Ralston, you are recognized. Welcome. Mr. Chair, thank you. Ralston, Rio Deca, Committee of Support Services. And so, this is a request for the Local Government Area of Opportunity funding. As required by Florida Housing Finance Corporation. And so, this development is from Smith & Henzee Affordable Group, in partnership with the Elastra County Housing Authority. Request for $460,000, as I said, required by Florida Housing for housing credit financing. And so, a little bit about the project. It's called Merrillwood Apartments, located on Merrillwood Drive, excuse me, northeast of the intersection of Northwest 153rd Place and Merrillwood Drive. It's new construction and redevelopment, approximately 78 units, all affordable. And so, we do have representatives from the development group, as well as the Elastra County Housing Authority here, for any questions. All right, commissioners, any questions? If not, I'll look for a motion. We have approval of the RFA submittal in partnership with Elastra County Housing Authority. All right, we've got a motion and a second before it was even finished, so that's good. Any comments? All right, any comments from the public? Thank you to Elastra County Housing Authority for continuing to push the envelope on affordable housing units for our community. Yeah, especially to the west of Main Street, so I appreciate that. Okay. All right, back to the board. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right, that motion is unanimous. All right, thank you. Thank you. Okay, Mr. Clerk, what's up? The Chair, that takes us to the presentations, and the first up is Elastra County Living Spaces and Thriving Places, Home Buyers, and Rental Development Update. All right, the recommended action is to hear the presentation. Authorize the Chair to approve the following recommendations, one, two, and three. This is what we've got a lot of comments on, and with that, Mr. Ralston, you are recognized to give the presentation. Mr. Chair, Ralston-Rio Dica, Elastra County Community Support Services. So just kind of going back to the last board meeting where we discussed the infrastructure surtax-funded program for housing, you directed staff to conduct more community engagement to get more input on whether the funds should be used more for rental development or for home ownership opportunities. And so we did conduct a series of meetings with different community groups open to the public, including our own citizen advisory boards, the Affordable Housing Advisory Committee, as well as the Housing Finance Authority Board. And so, and these are, again, these are the other groups we did most recently present to the Forward Focus Group a couple Saturdays ago, and we did have a survey available that it's still available online through Monday, asking just simple questions about, you know, the IST funding. And so really, there was, by and large, more support for rental development. The percentages have kind of varied. Some groups said, you know, 99% rental, 1% home ownership. Others, like the Housing Finance Authority Board, recommended 60% home ownership, 40% for rental. And so it's really varied, but I would, staff, you know, staff agrees that, you know, the most of the interest is in rental development funding. There were a few inquiries on impact fee waivers or reductions or waivers or reductions for utility connections as well. I think a realtor questioned or asked about the possibility of using funding for built-to-rent BTR homes. As we've seen, that's kind of a trend in the past few years from the market. And there's a touch base on the accessory dwelling unit. As you all know, it's allowed. And so IST funds could potentially be used, you know, zero or low-interest financing to construct ADUs as part of workforce housing single-family developments as well. All right. So just kind of a reminder of what the Rental Development Capital Stack Fund program is. It obviously cannot be used as a first mortgage. It's really intended to be gap financing in developers' capital stack. It can be used for construction or permanent financing, and it's really a flexible form of very low interest rates, enough to cover estimated inflation and deferred interest payments. And so the idea is the loan, the IST loans would mature coterminously with a project's first mortgage. And lastly, in order to catalyze as many projects as possible, IST funds can be used for up to 10 percent of a project's total development costs, and also require that developer equity should cover at least 10 percent of the total development costs. And so we've had a rolling application available since December of 2024. We have received only three applications so far. It continues to be available. And so what we have here today is a recommendation for two O's applications to be funded, the first being from Banyan Development for development of Royal Park Phase 2. Their request for the workforce housing portion of their development would be $2.8 million for about 41 units of workforce housing, and $3.2 million for about 52 units. So both of these projects are proposing half of their units to be workforce housing. And the second application is from JE Properties for Oak View Phase 2. But $3.2 million is the recommendation from staff and also from the Affordable Housing Advisory Committee, again, for 81 units. So half of the 162 units total would be for workforce. Again, these are just the 2025 income limits from Florida Housing. And this is the Homeownership Impact Fund that's being proposed, as we discussed in June. And so really it could be a flexible subsidy up to these amounts depending on the AMI level. And the targeting, again, would be for the lowest income households, right? So really at that 50 percent, up to 60 percent level, with the exception for essential workers, right, up to the 80 percent AMI. So that's the first responders, health care personnel, skilled building trades personnel, educators, and active military, and National Guard Station in Alaska County. You want to ask now or wait? Okay. Keep going. Another possible, you know, potential would be for developers to, as a subsidy for single-family housing development, we did hear that, you know, some builders could use some funds for potential mortgage rate buy-down to make the homes more affordable. And the last strategy could be land acquisition, as allowed by statute and within our ordinance, where the county would retain ownership or partner with a community land trust to make sure that the home is affordable in perpetuity. And so that could be a lots of a Habitat for Humanity, who I believe has certification as a community land trust, and then also Bright Community Trust that works also with the city of Gainesville. And also, I believe Neighborhood Housing Development Corporation is currently working on their community land trust certification right now. And then the other option would be using our Housing Finance Authority, similar to how Pinellas County really started their program and get a community land trust up and running. A couple examples, I want to talk about return on investment and sustainability of the program. So, again, we looked at two municipalities, the city of Jacksonville. They do have a local capital stack fund where their city commission invested $1 million to incentivize construction of 17 homes at $40,000 each. That was initially for affordable rentals. And the balance of that $1 million went for homeownership. And so, again, the funding was secured through a land use restriction agreement, protecting affordability. And the other option or another program they have is also a revolving loan fund where they use home funds through HUD because they're an entitlement community. Again, it's secured by a note in a mortgage and also with a Lura. And really, they're focusing on repayment of the fund 45 days after project stabilization. And then Orange County is a very similar program where they do have a revolving loan fund, again, through federal dollars. But just kind of an example of how they structure their programs and to ensure that funding is coming back to sustain the program. Okay. So, staff's recommendation, again, number one, approve rental development program. Number two, approve homeownership impact fund program at no more than 40%. And number three, approve funding recommendations for the IST applications from Banyan Development and JE Properties. Thank you. Okay. Does that conclude your presentation? Yes, sir. Thank you. All right. We've got Commissioner Prizia first and then Commissioner Alford. I have a number of questions and then I have some comments that I'll share. I guess my first question is with regards to your, can you go back a few slides to the, keep going, keep going, home ownership slide, that one. How, I guess, have staff, I guess in the conversations that I've had with the organizations that do this, the city does some down payment assistance, we've done down payment assistance, there's other organizations that do that. You know, most of them have, that I've spoken with have said that at 50 to 60% AMI, most of those individuals aren't ready for home ownership. Like, they couldn't, even with a homeowner's, like a down payment assistance, they still, maybe they'd have to layer multiple down payment assistance subsidies to even be able to afford the home. Um, and so I'm just wondering if it's really realistic for us to have a, a down payment assistance program targeting that income level. Um, if you think like it's really viable for them to be able to be, use our down payment assistance to buy a home at the home cost of homes right now. And if they would be able to afford the cost of, the carrying cost of owning that home, things like roof repair, air conditioning, things like that. Insurance. Insurance. Yeah. I guess I just, it feels to me like they're just sort of mismatched. I mean, I know that I said this at the last, um, the last meeting. And so I guess I just wondered if, if we looked into that anymore, or if you have any thoughts about that, ways in which we would be able to fit them into a program like this. Sure. Mr. Chair. So just based on, um, our kind of data from our ship program for down payment assistance, um, most of our, um, qualified home buyers are really up to the 80% AMI. Okay. Um, but there are some that are at, um, 60% and below. But again, that quote, that requires more subsidy. Um, and so it's going to require more down payment assistance. Um, and again, it's not just about getting the buyer into the home. Um, it's about making sure that they understand, um, the, the costs of maintaining a home. Right. And then obviously taxes and insurance as well. Right, exactly. Taxes and insurance. So we, we do, um, you know, simple underwriting to make sure that the home is affordable, um, once they're able to qualify for, for a mortgage loan. Okay. Well, I mean, I guess I'll just say this on this, on this side for my comment, and then I have a few other questions. You know, I, I was wanting to push back on this to begin with. It's, I, I know home ownership is important. I know that we want to create home ownership as a pathway to wealth building. I do not think that's what the surtax was passed for. It was passed to build new units of affordable housing, rental housing to access that 50% AMI folks, the working folks who are our teachers and our janitors and our EMTs and all of the workers who really need rental housing because they can't quite reach yet to this, this level. But I will say that I do think there are models where you can build affordable rental housing that creates opportunities for tenant ownership, creates opportunities for building equity and learning about what home ownership means. Being involved in the decision-making around the management of those properties so they learn what those carrying costs are. So I think that there are ways to do that. And that kind of leads to my second question, and that is, has staff done any work to look at opportunities for us? You talked about the land trust. Have we looked at any opportunities that exist to either buy land or, or to like raw land to build or lots and developments that have already kind of been on their way as a possibility for this work? Like, have we identified those opportunities? Yes, Mr. Chair, I would say yes. Yes, we do get sometimes members of the public or realtors asking us if the county would be interested in a piece of land to develop for, you know, affordable housing. And so there's definitely parcels out there that could be developed and that could be acquired with, with IST funding. Well, I guess I'll, and now I'll just speak to my colleagues. I guess, you know, for me, I think I, I really, I hear the public loud and clear and I, and I agree with them. I think that we need to focus this on the rental housing market, and I think that we should also really push on the idea of us doing some of that work, like looking at those part, I say public, public partnerships, partnerships with nonprofits and community organizations and nonprofit developers that are focused on affordable housing that really want to protect from speculative markets that want to make sure that there is accountability to the residents and the community and the public about how these properties are managed and how these properties are taken care of. And I think we have a unique opportunity right now to do that with this money. You know, we could buy lots in existing developments in our activity centers, and we could be driving the building of affordable housing in those areas so that not just the doctors and lawyers that work there, but also the people who need to open up the cafes and work in the retail markets could also live, work, and play in those areas. And I think there's, and I think there's some real opportunity for us to showcase a unique, unique opportunities in that area. So I guess my hope is that we would listen to staff. I mean, we would listen to the community and direct that not more than 10% of this is spent on down payment assistance, but also that we would think about directing our staff to really begin to dig in and explore the land trust models and the models of, and potential projects for us to begin looking at how we can drive innovation in the affordable housing construction models. Why 10? Why not just? Hold on. Hold on one second. Hold on one second. Yeah. You conclude? Yeah, I conclude. I mean, you're asking me a question. I'm just saying at a maximum of 10%. I mean, I think we have existing funding for down payment assistance, and I'm okay with us not doing down payment assistance with this money at all. I really am. Like, I don't really think that's the purpose of this money, but if staff feel like it's an important thing to subsidize existing down payment assistance in order to support, you know, families that really need it, then I'm willing to listen to that, you know, the fact that that's still in here and that was still a strategy that some of the community came forward with, and that it's been an important priority of this board that homeownership be a part of our overall affordable housing strategies. So if that is something that this board wants to maintain, I'm just asking that we keep it at a 10% threshold or less. Okay. Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Alford and then Commissioner Wheeler. Yeah. So my question is, if we were to lower that threshold to 10%, would that be enough money to justify having that whole separate sort of program within the program? Does that make sense? How much is in the fund right now that we have? So it's approximately, you could say, $5 million per year, because it's, you know, $54 million for 10 years. So if you look at $5 million per year, $500,000 potentially. Yeah, it's nothing to sneeze at. I think that's, you know, a reasonable sum. And so, yeah, I support everything you said, Commissioner Priscia. And if we are going to do it, I also agree that more than 10% would be appropriate if we're going to do it at all. Okay. Do you conclude? I conclude. Okay, Commissioner Wheeler. Thank you. Now, of the Jacksonville programs in New Orleans, what is their success rate? Have you all been able to track that at all? You know, have there been defaults that would, you know, somehow make that program look like it's not really as effective as it could be? Right. So I don't have the data right now, but definitely can. And so for Jacksonville's local capital stack fund, that's fairly new. That was in recent news. And so I think they just started it last year, I want to say. Gotcha. I just would hate to set people up for loss, not only the people who would be, you know, set up and lose their home because they weren't able to maintain it, but also the money that we had invested would also be lost. I just think that we shouldn't be putting, especially with the economy being what it is right now. People are losing their jobs or having a hard time finding jobs. It's going to be hard to hold on to housing that they have purchased. I don't even know that people will be in a position to purchase right now. We're in such a holding pattern. You know, and I would hate to hold that money up if we can actually encourage people like our churches and our schools and private lots, you know, that we could somehow access those that are already in our community to build on and use that money as incentives for those people to build on their properties or to have them donate or sell their property, whatever. But I would, you know, I know of a homeowner right now who has a very large two or three lots over by Stephen Foster desperately trying to figure out what to do with it, wanting housing on it, but didn't know how to proceed. So if people, if there is someone with a lot, and there are lots all over town, big lots that are just sitting empty, if we could have a way to be in touch with you all, how do we get them connected to you to say, we have this land, you know, we don't want a lot for it, but maybe something or a tax write-off or anything. How would we get those people to you all or to whoever it is that's going to be doing the housing? Mr. Chair, so other than taking direct inquiries, we do work with our real property coordinator also in public works. Okay. So we do have, like, an existing program for conveyance of county-owned properties, but in terms of acquisition, we would definitely work through our real estate colleagues. We also have a rolling application that rolls every couple of months. But where is that? How, you know, is, so we go to, it's the website, or do we call our public works folks? Or you can have them call our office, you know, 337-6240. Okay. Say that again slowly so people listening can. Or 352-337-6240. Okay. So someone who had property that they wanted to engage a conversation with regarding building on that property for, say, their church people, church folks, and they have elders that they want to put, you know, on their property. Or if there was a school that would like to, you know, develop something for their personnel, you know, that they would contact that number and say, let's talk. Sure. It would be a good starting point. But we typically work with public works, growth management, to kind of assess the parcel first. Okay. But in terms of the financing and kind of help linking them with funding, yeah, definitely, that's our office for sure. That would be you. Okay. Okay. All right. I think I've said what I wanted to say. I just don't, I would like to see this recommendation just remove number two. Is it zero? Okay. So before I get to you, let me ask a couple questions. So, Ralston, do you conclude, Mary Ann? Yes, I do. Thank you. All right. So you're in favor of the recommendation without the 40 percent, not even 10 percent. Yes. Okay. Ralston, on the community engagement slide. So first of all, thank you guys for listening to us and going back to the community. Can you go to that slide for me? You had mentioned that the Housing Finance Authority Board recommended homeowners group 6040. I presume also that the Business Builders Association and the Chamber, what other groups were really pushing for the housing assistance as opposed to the rental assistance? For homeownership? Yeah. Yes, I would say realtors, builders, and actually a forward focus group. There were a couple citizens that spoke about just wanting, you know, their kids, grandkids to be able to afford to buy a home and stay in Alachua County. So I think that resonated with us. The majority of that group of folks were this is for we need more units for rental assistance. That is correct, Mr. Chairman. Okay, so on the rental development capital stack, which is part three of the motion, you had mentioned that – can you go to that slide? Yeah. So Royal Park, Banyan, half of – no, back, you were there. Yeah. Half of the Banyan development units, so 43, half of the – and then 52 of Royal Park would be affordable. It's 100 percent affordable, but half of them would be designated as workforce housing, as required by the funding. We do have representatives from both development groups. And when you say workforce, up to 80 percent, or 80 to 120? Well, it would be up to the 60 percent AMI. Because we're targeting really for rental, the 50 and 60 percent AMI, because that's the largest deficit in terms of rental housing needs for the county. Okay, so half of those and then half of the 162. So that's a – so that's a total of 176 units, half of which would be – the 176 units is half of the total units. So I'm trying to understand, are all the units 60 percent or less, or just half of the units? So – Because it's $9.4 million. Yes, sir. We do have representatives from the development groups here, but my understanding is with tax credit financing, the state does allow income averaging. So some households could go beyond the 60 percent cap AMI, but by and large, everyone is 60 percent and below. Okay, so – Yeah, so all of them. Some aren't workforce, because they might be disabled. Gotcha. So of the 350 some odd units, they're all 60 percent or below. Okay. Okay, so that's good. And that would be – if we approve this motion, that would be 9.4 million of what we have in the bank right now, which is about three years of 5 million, about 15 million that we'd be deploying, finally, which we've been yelling about. Yeah. Is that right? No. So 2.8, 3.2, and 3.2? Oh, so let me explain. So for Banyan, there's two scenarios. So they can potentially build 86 units and get 2.8 million or 104 units. Oh, it's or. Yes. It's either or. It's not both. Not the total. Okay. So, yes. Candy, do you have something to add? The 2.8 million would be for 43 units. With 43 units. The 3.2 would be for the 52 units. Okay. Gotcha. That's what it is. Half. Half. Okay. So in total, it'll be about – what is that? About six-something million? Something. Yeah. Six-and-a-half million. Five. Okay. So a little less than a third – a little more than a third of what we currently have ready to deploy. Okay. That's great. All right. Commissioner Prizia, do you mind going to Commissioner Chesson? And I'll go back to you and then Commissioner Wheeler. Okay. Commissioner Chesson, you recognize? Well, I just want to make a statement that I do support – and, you know, I'm kind of with Prizia with the 10% or I could go to 15%, but I wouldn't go any higher with that down payment assistance. So I feel more comfortable there because I know the economy is bad, but when things do eventually change around, I mean, I don't want to be locked in at just that 10% if we could raise it to the 15% to help more homeowners to purchase a home. I think that that's the key because homeownership is the key to wealth to me, to be honest with you, because if I got a home and I eventually get to pay for it, at least I could use the house as leverage to start a business or something of that nature. So that's why I feel that homeownership is very, very important because that's how you get mom-and-pop type of businesses is through that because they put a second mortgage on their home to actually start their business. So I think it's a key to wealth building and all of that stuff, too, in terms of homeownership. So I'm just saying if we lock it at 10, I would like to have the flexibility to eventually maybe go to 15 or something like that in the future, but I wouldn't want to lock it in just say 10% at this point. Okay. But I'll stay at 10% at this point. But in the future, if things get better in the economy, I would like to increase it. And you're good with the other two parts of the record? Yes, I'm good with the other two parts. All right. Let's go. Commissioner Prisian and then Commissioner Wheeler. Okay. So I guess I'm going to put a motion on the table, but I guess I want to speak to my colleagues about the rental development program. So I think that the rental development program as it exists right now has primarily been we have a call for proposals out there for developers to respond, right? And they can get up to 10% of their total project cost in a revolving loan fund that's low or no interest, correct? Low interest. Low interest. And so we'll keep that going, right? And so far we have two projects that have made it through that process. But I do think that given the timeframe that we're in, given the amount of money we have sitting in the bank, and given the home ownership is an important priority for us, I think that us looking at the land trust model is really, really critical. And coming back with a, you know, either staff coming back with a formalized program, like bringing back a formalized program for us that really outlines, like, who we're going to work with and how we're going to work and starts looking for those opportunities. Like, where are those pieces of property that we can buy? And are there opportunities where we could buy parcels in existing housing developments and build a house that is, becomes a rental, you know, for, and, and then maybe we do some kind of equity sharing model. Like, maybe staff can find, there are plenty of models. New York has it. Seattle has it. DC has it. Like, other people have it where publicly owned, quote, rentals are actually these sort of rental slash home ownership models where they build small amounts of equity once they meet certain benchmarks. And that money helps them then to sort of take that next step toward home ownership. So, I guess my motion is that we approve the rental development program, approve the home ownership, home ownership impact fund at no more than 10%, approve the funding recommendations for the IST applications, and ask staff to bring us back the model for land trust and property opportunities for us to move forward with projects of our own with regards to rental and home ownership opportunities in affordable housing. Second. Got a motion and a second. I just wanted to add, Ken, some years back, Commissioner Hutchison talked about land trust. And so, thank you for bringing that up. I think that that's important. And so, I do support the motion because of that, because I think that that is very important. I think staff needs to concentrate there in that realm of land trust. I think if we could make it more affordable for folks in the future. So, thank you. Okay. Commissioner Wheeler. Just a couple of, a question, a comment maybe. The homes that we're looking at being built right now are in the $300,000 to start, $300,000 range. It's only going to go higher than that. To me, that's not affordable. And I would also, what is an affordable range, price range? We talk about what's affordable at 60%. You know, what are the numbers? Austin? Mr. Chair, so I don't have the slide here, but we did have, when we were doing community engagement, we did have a chart of purchasing power for homebuyers based on household size and income level. You have the AMI chart up there. Yeah, we do have the AMI chart, though. And so, roughly, it depends on who you ask, but roughly, if you look at someone's income, obviously, so the affordability, really the measure is you're spending no more than 30% of gross household income to housing, right? And so... So, Ralston, so to make that really simple, if you make $50,000, 30% of that would be $15,000 over 12 months. Okay. So that's over still $1,000 a month. Just over $1,000 a month, if you make $50,000. Okay. Plus insurance, plus, yeah, this is all I'm saying. So that's getting up closer to, you know, $2,000 a month, maybe, you know, for taxes and all that, too. So when we're talking affordable, I'm just, I think, you know, numbers are better than, you know, percentages at that point. And is there any, I don't think we've ever discussed much, I brought it up maybe one time back in the day, of renting to own, you know, it would, if we're, if someone is renting to own, then, you know, and they have a history of renting to own, then that would be the time to check, you know, to use this money you're talking about. And that's exactly what I'm talking about with the land trust model, is we could buy the land, we could build the project, we could actually, or in partnership with a developer that does affordable housing, we could build a project that is a rent to own project, where we would have that wraparound support, where some portion of their rent every month was building an equity, and that, and those tenants had a say in the management and accountability of those properties, and that they were learning home ownership skills and building equity in a rent to own model. And they could be renting to own those, those actual units, or they could be renting to build equity that they can get out when they move out, and we could keep them as rentals. There's both models are out there in existence that are working really well in other jurisdictions to kind of bridge that gap between the, I can afford a house, and I can afford a rental, right, and kind of trying to, there's a big gap there now. Somebody may not, I'm talking about having a rent, someone rent for a while, and then invest with them, not invest up front, because, you know, people will be able to determine then whether they can actually afford what it is that they're, instead of stepping into it right away. Right. There could be a lot of right answers. Yeah, I mean, some of that could. They're towing into it. Totally. And then if they are really able to manage what it is they think they can, that's when we would step in. Absolutely. And these projects could be that they could be that we build a rental housing, it's rental, but they can rent to own, they can opt in to, to an ownership model, and some percentage of the units could be, you know, transferred over to individuals and it's cooperatively managed by the tenants that live there. Those models are working in a lot of places. So at what point do we do that? You know, I mean, we're getting ready to vote on something. I just made that motion. That's in the motion as the, the, the fourth point is to ask staff to bring that back. The recommendation of land trust models and property, property rental opportunities that lead to homeownership. Okay, great. Yeah. I, I'm in. Okay. Okay. Yes. Something to add or no? Okay. So we've got, um, a four part motion. The first three parts are staff's recommendation changing 40% to 10%. You'll put that back up on the board for me, Ralston. And then the fourth one is, uh, what Commissioner Prisio added, which was to ask staff to bring back recommendations of other, um, you know, other programs that are, that are happening, um, which bring, which involve land trust models and property rental opportunities that could lead to homeownership. Um, I will say this. I do want to make sure I want to like, we need to get moving. So I don't, I, I guess that my emotion, what I meant was, and not just to bring back idea, like not just bring back examples, but to actually bring back a proposal for us moving for recommendations. Yeah. Okay. Great. Thank you. And to get moving. Okay. All right. Um, so we've got a motion, uh, the two folks that are in that motion. You're welcome. Now, if you'd like to come up and talk to us about it, um, and before we get started with that, we've got Kali, you're first. So there's a time to open up, speak to the motion. Yeah. Welcome. Thank you. Um, I, I have a multiple perspectives on this being on the board of the housing authority and on housing finance authority and on affordable housing committee. So, uh, rather than be split in three parts, I'm just going to speak for myself. Um, the high priority, where, where I've looked at the evolution of inclusionary zoning. Oh, I said those allergic words of affordable housing and workforce housing, the scholarship in different sources, the projects in different places. Um, what's been important has been at least three priorities. Number one, of course, is the gross number of new affordable safe and decent units, but also the, the, uh, the avoidance of concentrating poverty. That is dispersing affordable housing. And then the ability to ownership, recognizing that there's human dignity and ownership and equity, and that that should be possible at low and moderate income levels too, that they can rise to that as well. So, uh, somebody was concerned that it's a $300,000 houses. Well, now you're talking about land trust to undercut that and, uh, homeowner, uh, down payment assistance to help as well. Um, if, if the, the plans you've talked about under affordable housing compared to what the city has done, I think you've stood head and shoulders above them for having an ownership discussion, period, because the city is saying never mind ownership, which I say just relegates, uh, low income, moderate income people to just always renting. They should not aspire to ownership. Uh, and they only want to go 80% AMI for the most part. They're looking at some special ways to get lower. But their plan talks about 80% AMI when you have openly talked about the need, the need being much greater at lower levels, at 50%. So if you listen to the folks who are telling you to hands off that particular income source, that particular tax to do it, I think it behooves you to have another source on deck, not wishing for, not look, not hoping for and looking out, but have another source on deck and keep that priority just as high, because it is just as important as dispersing affordable housing and as getting many more units that we need. Thank you, Kelly. Okay. Next speaker. Yeah. Come forward. You've been hanging with us for a long, long time. God bless you guys. All right. I'm Joe Eddie. Thanks for being here. I'm the owner and developer of the, uh, the Oakview project. Um, and so I've, we've worked on this for three years. Actually, the whole idea came out of, I think, Commissioner, I mean, uh, Chairman, uh, Cornell, we did a walkthrough of when we bought it and talking about what we wanted to do and you said, Hey, we just passed this in a new program. Um, you know, uh, this is good news and I'll kind of go through it and, and, and still some work, I think, on this to get this off the ground. Um, you know, I think on this project, I think we're doing, you know, just the way we do stuff. Like we have a project that's Weston Main Street. We have, I think, 114 vouchers. I mean, we're, we're hitting the hundred and, you know, the 50% AMI lower. A lot of it's like 30%. I didn't even realize that it was a big deal about this home ownership, but we, we have a program actually like happy to talk to your staff about it where our residents, they live there 5% of all their rent that they paid, you know, if they pay on time, they qualify for, um, a home assistance. So, um, and to your point, we've had, I think two of them, I don't know the exact stats. I didn't prepare for that part of this, you know, this, this, this, um, meeting, but I think we've had two people that are making less than 50% AMI qualify for that. So, there are kind of innovative ways and I think the good thing is that's not capped. Like someone can go in and buy their house and they don't have to sell it to someone that's affordable in the future. Um, so there is a, you know, unlimited upside on, on home equity. Um, I, I guess on, on this, you know, and I appreciate all the hard work. I think what's happened is, you know, we started this, we had needed $3 million, I think, to start the project, you know, inflation, interest rates, you know, interest rates have come back down and that's helped. And so I think kind of what has been recommended is gets us closer, but, you know, I, I, unfortunately we still need to, I think, sell the land to you guys. I prefer to own the land as a, you know, an owner, but I think that's the way we get the project done. I think it's good for the county. It keeps the, you know, you know, I'm long gone. It's, it's perpetual, right? It, that, that'll keep that there, um, you know, forever as affordable housing. So I think that's something we still need to do. Even with that, even with the city's money, we still have like a million and a quarter gap. So, um, like I'm fine with you guys voting and approving this, but it's still not quite there. And I, I know I spent a lot of time with, you know, at AHAC and I, I, they have their hands tied on kind of what the, the perimeters are. Um, but that's just, you know, the reality, you know, we're not looking for a handout that's alone. I don't want more money, but I, we just need it to get the project, um, going. So, um, I'm happy to have any other questions you guys have, but that's, that's kind of where we are in our, our status. I guess I have a question for staff. Do we know, um, in terms of the additional funding that he needs, what percent, or do you know what percentage of, like, if it was increased that much, what percentage of the project, that total project that is? Right. So, I think what you guys have is, um, that's, that's 15% of our new, our new units. You know, when we originally applied, we applied for 15% of all of them. Sorry, I meant the cost. I, it's. Oh, I'm sorry. Um, I guess a million and a quarter to that would be. 25,000 per unit. Uh, five, uh, four and a half million over a $43 million project. It's, I think part of it is the way they counted the 15% as well. So, that's the thing. So, right now, I was going to speak to my staff. I mean, this project is exactly what we're trying to fund. It's, you know, I mean, it literally is, like, the poster child for what we're trying to do. I mean, I think, so, I, I mean, it's other than the fact of being, like, totally publicly owned and publicly accountable, like, it's all of the things. And so, I guess I just, I, we, right now we have a cap of 10%, right, for our, for our projects. Like, they can, they can't get more than 10% funding, um, I believe. And so, I guess that's what I'm trying to understand is, like, perhaps we need to be more flexible with that cap so that we can be able to get these projects done. Because what I don't want is to sit there and spin our wheel. Like, give him 10% and then he's still spinning his wheels for another five years and can't start the project because of a million bucks. You know, that we could still be loaning him and getting back into the fund for, so, I don't know. I guess I'm just trying to understand that piece of it. Mr. Chair, so, currently, the cap is 10% of total development costs. When the program launched initially, it was 15%. And so, the two recommendations here are with the 15% cap. Let's finish public comment and then we'll, and then we'll have, anyone else? Um, so, I know you've already spoke to this item. Do you need something to speak specifically to the motion? Yeah. If you could just make your comments specific to things you haven't spoken about. Yeah, absolutely, and I'll be very brief. Bobby Murmer, I just wanted to mention, when I first moved here in 2014, I lived two blocks from what was then called Horizon House. I remember what Horizon House was like. I've seen the Oakview project. I've seen them rehabilitate that property. I've seen the parking lot be rid of trash and diapers. This is a developer. This is somebody who owns this property that knows what they're doing, puts their money where their mouth is, and actually does what they say they're going to do. The transition from Horizon House to Oakview has been great for that area. So, please consider giving them as much as possible. I mean, very few developers and property managers complete as much of their promises as this one. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Dr. Palmer. And then, if the Banyan folks want to speak to us, we'd love to hear from you. Thank you, Mr. Chair, commissioners. My name is Tamara Robbins. The ballot question that was put on the ballot for the surtax states, shall Alachua County acquire and improve lands for conservation, wildlife, habitat, water quality, and recreation, operate and maintain parks and recreation facilities, repair roads and improve road safety, construct and renovate fire stations and other public facilities, acquire lands for public, or excuse me, acquire lands for affordable housing, funding, fund economic development projects pursuant to Florida statute 212, the one that's around surtaxes. So, I don't support using this funding source for what you're preparing and doing. You're supposed to be buying lands with the money. I mean, a previous speaker spoke to it. That's what the ballot language said. We voted for you to purchase land for affordable housing. So, Mr. Chair, to Commissioner Prizia's point, I believe that, yes, the county should use, and it's no more than 50% of the half cent that you can use towards affordable housing. You have to use the other, you know, you said you were going to use 70% of the surtax towards roads. And so, it says, acquire lands for affordable housing. It doesn't say what you're proposing to do. So, buy land. I agree with the rent with option to buy. I mean, when I moved here 30 years ago, we didn't have anything to hang our hat on. And we found a nice little house in Alachua and rented it. And the owner said, well, you have a purchase option if you want to at some point, right? So, after about three years, we said, yeah, we think we can do that. Okay, well, all the rent that you've already paid is going to go towards your down payment. And then they actually financed us. And it was a great way for us to now, and I still live there, a little house in Alachua through that process. I think that's the way to go. But the county is, you guys are going way off script, in my opinion. Purchase land. That's what the voters voted for. And then find a creative, Commissioner Prizia has been asking for this land trust idea to be brought back, since I can remember listening to her request it. Like, you have an affordable housing trust fund. If you want to use that money through funding from your, however you decided you were going to fund that affordable housing trust fund that the voters approved that you created, then use that for these projects. This surtax money is not intended. The voters did not vote for this with the intention of creating a down payment subsidy for people to own a house or anything. I mean, Commissioner Wheeler has good points. I mean, home ownership, it's not all it's cracked up to be. I mean, you know, it's a great way to build equity, but you've got responsibilities that you might not be able to swing as things change in your life, right? So follow what the voters voted for, which is to purchase land and come up with a way. I think Commissioner Prizia has nailed it, but this is not the funding source for this. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Robbins. Thank you. Anyone else? Yeah, sure. Come on up. Thanks for being here. Chris Koch. I represent Banyan Development Group. Thank you. Chris Koch, represent Banyan Development Group. I just wanted to say thank you. It's been very good hearing the discourse on these matters, and we're here listening as well as, you know, being very attentive to the problems and talking points of Alachua County. But just really wanted to express gratitude for considering us for funding. Thank you. Thank you, Chris. All right, anyone else? Let's bring it back to the board. Commissioner Prizia? Yeah, I guess I just, I wanted to speak to my board and see what the temperature is for me adding to this motion. I think that we, you know, I really want to see the OPEU project happen. It was the first project that came in. They've in good faith been sticking with us in spite of all of the challenges. Like, to Bobby's point, they're a model of a developer that cares and manages their properties in the way we want to see people manage their properties, providing support opportunities for their residents. And so I guess I want to see the project happen. And I'd like to add to the motion that we asked staff to look at the land purchasing option he offered up and or other ways in which we could make that OPEU project possible and bring those back to us. Okay, the seconder okay with that? Yes. Yeah. Okay, so does everybody understand the motion? Yeah, so and I quite like the purchasing the land. I think it speaks right to what Ms. Robbins spoke to. I think it puts in impermanent ownership with the county. I think it's a great, yeah, in addition, and a great partner in what we're trying to do, which is add units in our community. So, again, thank you for sticking with us and for working with our staff. And our staff, thank you for, you know, we've kind of gone through a couple of different iterations here. And I think we're getting close to seeing a couple of success, penciling a couple of successes will lead to other successes. And there's a big pool of money there that we're trying to get folks to work with us to add units. So, Ralston, do you understand the motion? Mr. Chair, I do. There's clarification, though, for Oak View. There was bond financing that was committed by the Housing Finance Authority last year, or this current year, that lapsed. And so there is going to be a new allocation or bond cap available January 1st of 2026. So that is another potential source of funding for this project. Okay, super. All right, so we've got a four-part motion, changing the 40 to 10, plus the thing that we added. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? That motion is unanimous. Okay. Thank you so much. That's a big, big step and something we've been working on for well over three years. So thank you all, and thanks to the community for leaning in on this discussion. All right, Mr. Clerk, next item. Mr. Chair, that takes us to the first of the public hearings, which is Z25-000018, Unified Land Development Code Amendments for Livestock and Poultry, first of two public hearings. And the recommendation is to hear the presentation and approve the request advertised for the second hearing for adoption of county-initiated amendments to the Unified Land Development Code of ULDC Section 404.13. Okay, so you've heard the item, you've heard the recommendation. You are recognized. Thank you for being here. Thank you. Let's talk chicken. I know. Good afternoon, Chair and Commissioners. My name is Angeline Jacobs. I am a planner in growth management. Today, like the clerk said, I'll be presenting the first of two public hearings for an amendment to the Unified Land Development Code regarding poultry and livestock on single-family parcels less than five acres. So the proposed change to our Unified Land Development Code was motivated by public concerns and comments made to the Board of County Commissioners and also at the Rural Concerns Advisory Board to reconsider the number of hens allowed for personal use in residential districts. Staff presented this topic during a policy workshop with the Board of County Commissioners in June. Based upon that discussion, the Board motioned to include ducks and to increase the number allowed from six to ten on lots of one acre or less. Staff then presented that draft language from the direction at the Rural Concerns Advisory Committee, and they offered great discussion. There was public there that also offered opportunity and spoke to the draft language, and so we added some of the recommendations and integrated it into our proposed updates. Specifically, one of the things they wanted to do was to, and we'll talk later on about prohibiting male ducks and also to expand the types of poultry allowed and consider different things for in and out of the urban cluster. And so those, I made some notes during our discussion. I put that in the backup if anybody's interested. Can I ask what their concerns were with male ducks? The concern was related to the sound that they would be making, similar to roosters. That's how it was described to me. Quail, the same? Nobody knows I'm afraid. They did not speak to quail in that sense. They spoke to quail as to add that to the definition of poultry for allowing. Yeah, so. I love to hear quail. So just to kind of overview what is current for poultry for personal use, we now allow six hens as an accessory to single-family residential, regardless of zoning designation, under an acre. And then there is kind of a boost. You can get 40 hens or other poultry per acre over an acre up to five acres in very specific agricultural districts and some of the residential estate. The standards, I'm just kind of highlighting here, covered in fenced enclosures, movable or stationary. Hens would be roaming in fenced areas during daylight hours. They're subject to accessory setbacks for that particular zoning district. Currently, there are prohibited roosters in residential districts selling poultry or byproducts on those premises. There's control of noxious odors and nuisance issues, so cleaning up after yourselves, and the no commercial raising under five acres. So this is just a sample of the research done by staff to compare how other counties and municipalities were managing the keeping of residential poultry. Additionally, staff reached out to our IFAS extension and spoke to Director Cindy Sanders, and she provided staff with recommendations that were integrated into the proposed language as well. So this is a map of our county, just to point out that where this proposed update will apply. So everywhere but the great areas is considered the unincorporated areas, and within what you see is like that black outline, that is considered our urban cluster. And then you can kind of see some circular areas kind of on the outskirts, and that's our rural clusters, where currently this code kind of hit up against, because those areas there would have residential areas, which were only allowed six, but there was a sense that they're more agriculturally based. So that was one of the considerations that I just kind of wanted to point out here. But on the next slide, I'll propose the different allowances inside the cluster or not. So this is what staff is proposing, how many poultry will be permitted. We changed it from hens to poultry just to, you know, with the definition there. But we also identified whether it's going to be in the urban cluster or outside the urban cluster. So within the urban cluster, less than five acres, the limit would be 10, and that would just be hens and ducks. Outside the urban cluster, to give a little broader range, staff is proposing to enhance it to the definition that's down below, which was a modified USDA definition for poultry, adding in what rural concerns comments to add quail. So that would kind of be expanded out into the urban cluster. But staff was proposing that if it is less than an acre still, even outside the urban cluster, you're only allowed 10 poultry, whatever that particular type that you would want to raise. And then it would increase one acre to the five acres, 15 per acre. But that would be everywhere. It wouldn't be in just specific land, like agricultural or residential estate. So that is what staff is currently recommending. I just want to point out that we are limiting poultry, like large birds. So those would be considered more like livestock. And so we aren't adding that within this particular recommendation. So some of the proposed revisions to our standards, what I put in kind of green at the top is what we've kind of updated or added. So instead of just chickens, we've added poultry to roaming in fenced areas during daylight hours. We've also allowed, as an accessory use to single-family residents in all zoning districts, expansion of that poultry type outside the urban cluster, and then allowing the harvesting of poultry or byproducts under state and federal regulations. So we're no longer saying you can't do it. Prohibited, we are adding the drakes into that along with the roosters and residential zoning districts. We're adding the noise element, which is already covered in our Alachua County code already. We're just identifying it here. And then we are also just adding the exception for 4-H and FFA activity just to kind of clarify that that is okay in those circumstances for commercial raising. Can I ask a question about this slide? I'm kind of confused how we can, so the harvesting of poultry or byproducts would be for their own use? For their own use, yes, that is correct. Okay. It's not clear in this slide, but maybe just be clear, because if you're not allowing commercial, but then you are allowing harvesting, like it gets confusing if it's so, I mean, just maybe for home consumption or something like that. I can certainly look to see how I can make that more clear. I'll look at the. It might be in the actual length. I'll review it so we can keep it moving. I don't just, unless you want me to, I can. Okay. Yeah, that's correct. And is that, is that the no commercial raising of poultry, that's for the meat sales or egg sales as well? The no commercial raising of poultry under five acres covers all of that. Like it wouldn't be any, it would just be for personal use. And so while staff was reviewing this section of 404.13, it also includes livestock. And so we, we are just proposing to add this line just to align with the intent and to clarify that people could have livestock as an accessory used to any legal family residents within those particular districts. And just our normal outreach with public notice, publicly advertised, and then our Rural Concerns Advisory Committee, just to reiterate that we reached out to them. And with that, staff recommend that the Board of County Commissioners approve the advertising for the second hearing for adoption of county initiated amendments to the land development code for poultry and livestock on less than five acres. Thank you, Mr. Jacobs. All right. We have Commissioner Alfred, Prizia, and Wheeler. I was just going to move staff recommendation. Second. Got motion and second. Commissioner Prizia? Yeah, I just want to say thank you. I feel, I feel sad for Commissioner, I mean, Manager Lieberman not being able to be here because she loved the term single family chickens. And so the fact that single family poultry is now passing, I just was sad she didn't get to be here for it. We'll make a note of it. But anyway, thank you all for your, like, work on the community engagement. I just, I want to keep commending the work of our growth management department. I think they're doing a really great job of making sure that we're incorporating the work of our advisory committees and the efforts of our community to give feedback into the work that we're doing. And I really, really appreciate it. Thank you. Commissioner? Couldn't agree more. Commissioner Wheeler? I just can only imagine the conversations that went on while you all were trying to gather up all this information back there. It was a fun, you know, it was fun to work on. And I appreciate all the community input because I have never raised chickens or any of these types of things. And so I really relied on the experts in our community and Arifas and some of our other partners. So it was, it was. Did you all include peacocks in this at all? There was some discussion about it, but it did not. I didn't know if that would raise the noise issue or not. I think that's what the concern was in the discussion was that it would also create a noise. Because I used to raise peacocks. And I love them. I love having them around the noise. The drakes and roosters, if people are raising these things on their property, they don't really know what they are until they get there. And I didn't know what was the, how would you get rid of them then if you've got them and you just harvest them there? I mean, you just eat them? That would be an enforcement issue that I don't know what the recommendation would be if somebody complained about it. And then there would be some kind of recourse that they would have to. I see, that's right. I mean, we are allowing processing, so they could. I mean, that's what some people do. Also, there's a lot of farms that, you know, will take them, you know, like if they, because they're raising chickens and roosters and so they can also. Right, right. I'm just, you know, it's just. You can sex a chicken. It's just not super easy. Like a baby. It's hard. It's hard to tell if it's a male or a female until they get bigger. That's what I was just wondering. You know, if you have a flock that's coming up and they're mostly, you know, male, then you, you know. Usually they. What do you do with them? Because I have kids. Make a really good stew. No, they don't. They're stringy and they're awful big. They don't know when they're babies. No, no. Okay. All right. Did you conclude? Could you? I do conclude. Could you please conclude? No, but they're young. All right. Well, we haven't eaten lunch and we're talking about eating baby chickens. No, not babies. All right. Any other discussion from the board? All right. Anyone from the public? I got canned seven chickens. Yeah. All right. Back to the board. All those in favor of the first of two, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right. Well, someone tell manager Lieberman that we're on. Our way to allowing single-family chicken and poultry. I just want to be clear. I'm not advocating eating baby chickens. I meant young chickens, not babies. Before they're stringy. Thank you, commissioner. All right. Be clear about that. All right. Mr. Clerk, please get me to the next item. Z-25-018 Unified Land Development Code Amendment for 2025 legislative update. This first public hearing and the recommendation is to hold the first public hearing for these U.S. Yeah, sorry, ULDC amendments and direct staff to schedule a second public hearing. Mr. Mendikar, you are recognized. Welcome. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm Aidy Bengitar, Alachua County Growth Management, and I am joined with Ms. Jacobs again for this ULDC amendment first hearing. And this is related to updates from the 2025 Florida legislative session. So last month we had a request to advertise on this, and there are two bills that passed in the 2025 session that we are addressing today. The first of these are the Senate Bill 700, which relates to farm worker housing, and the second is Senate Bill 954, which is for certified recovery residences. In late 2024, our county commission passed ordinance 2024-16 that amended the code for farm worker housing. However, the Senate Bill 700 preempts counties and local governments from being able to regulate or, as they say, may not inhibit construction of farm worker housing. So the biggest change here is that special exceptions will no longer be a way to approve farm worker housing. Farm worker housing will be allowed on any ag parcels that have the classification for legally verified workers and must comply with federal, state, and local, and Department of Health building standards. So from the new method of approval will be with an administrative development plan, and the statute references setbacks, landscaping, and maximum overall square footage of farm worker housing, which I will go into a little more detail on the upcoming slide. When farm worker housing is no longer active, it must be removed within 180 days after one year of being inactive. So the new requirement will be an administrative development plan and a building permit. Dwelling units must be 10 feet apart. The maximum climate-controlled square footage for farm worker housing will be 35,000 square feet, or 1.5% of the site. Minimum setbacks will be 50 feet or 100 feet if adjacent to a residential use. And screening would be required if farm worker housing is within 250 feet of residential development. The zoning use table is being amended as such because there is no requirement for ag zoning. It could be in any zoning district if they have an ag classification with a property appraiser. The next portion of the presentation will touch on the certified recovery residences, and Ms. Jacobs will talk about that. Hello again. Angeline Jacobs, Planner at Growth Management. So I'm just going to present the proposed updates for compliance with Senate Bill 954. So that provided a directive that we had to adopt an ordinance by January 1 of next year to establish and review and approval procedures for certified recovery residents where people live communally recovering from substance addictions. They can range in size from single-family homes to multifamily residences. The county does not regulate these residences in any different way. And so whether they're certified or not, for instance, any differently and would not, and they would just have to be consistent with our current land development code for those types of building, single- or multifamily housing. As we come to the highlights, we are, based on the statute, we need to add this category to our use table and create standards, definition, and procedures for approval and to process any reasonable accommodations consistent with the Fair Housing Act. And this is just showing where this category fits into our zoning districts under the group housing. The rest of this is just staff recommendation that the Board of County Commissioners hold the first, or the, we did hold the first public hearing and authorize staff to bring back the proposed ULDC amendment ordinance for a second public. And that would be the adoption hearing in December. And that concludes. Second. Motion and a second. Any discussion? Any public discussion? Mr. Blunt, come on up. I wanted to ask staff, and I don't know if the legislature explained themselves, but it's mysterious to me, they're demanding that this housing be placed to be removed again after 15 months. I've seen the challenge, the likelihood of getting quality construction. If you know you've got to tear it down, you've got to remove it in 15 months, did the legislature explain the rationale for that? Maybe you could stretch it to 26 months. If you let it sit empty 11 months and use it for a year, and then you've got another 180 days, you've got to remove it. I don't get it. Anyone else from the public? Okay, back to the Board. Benny, do you want to go ahead and address that? Yeah, I just wanted to clarify for the, if we're talking about farm worker housing, that's if it is no longer an active ag operation, they must remove it after one year. So, if it's been one year and there's not an ag activity, that's when they would need to remove their farm worker housing. Okay, thank you. All right, any further discussions from the Board? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion is unanimous. Thank you. Okay, Mr. Clerk, next item. Mr. Chair, it takes item number three, the fiscal year 2026, first budget amendment for reappropriations and fund balance. Recommended actions to conduct a public hearing to adopt the resolutions and approve the budget amendment. Mr. Crosby, you're recognized. Yes, sir, Mr. Chair. So, you have in front of you a budget amendment, this is rolling over active purchase orders that weren't spent last year, as well as projects, so we can start paying bills. We will have another budget amendment coming in December, that's more of a reconciliation of fund balance, but this is, all this is getting paid for out of either fund balance or grants that got rolled over reimbursement grants. Mr. Prizio? To adopt the resolution and approve the budget. Second. Motion, three seconds. Got a good likelihood of passing, Tommy. Any further discussion? Any public discussion? Back to the board, all those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion is unanimous. Congratulations. Thank you. Mr. Clerk, next item. Mr. Chair, it takes item number four, the county commissioners redistricting ordinance public hearing, and the recommendation is the board of county commissioners adopt the proposed ordinance and authorize the chair's signature. Mr. Hayes, you're recognized. Mr. Chair, Jeff Hayes, growth management director. Mr. Chair, what you see before you is the map as directed at our last meeting by the county commission with a couple of the precinct substitutions. So that was taking precinct three to go from district four to district two, precinct 37 to go from district two to four, precinct 27 to go from district three to district four, and precinct 17 to go from district four to district three. And that was from our previously submitted map number eight that you had seen in your previous packets. So what you have before you is the ordinance that meets all of the statutory requirements for the redistricting for county commissioner districts. I'm happy to answer any questions. Commissioner Alford, Commissioner Prizio. I appreciate all the work staff's done on this, and I am going to apologize to you, Ken, but I have gotten multiple comments and people contacting me not liking this map and wishing that we would have gone with the map four. Because map four, because map four created in East Gainesville district, and this one kind of dilutes that effect, I feel bad to sort of change my mind, but I can't support the map. I just had too many people with two real concerns about it, and I know this is what I originally supported, but I just had a lot of conversations and a lot of thinking and a lot of looking at the map. Do you want to leave the maps? I either want to leave the maps or look at map four, and I know if we did that would probably involve having another call, another meeting, because we're on a deadline, but that's where I'm at. Okay, Commissioner Prizio. Yeah, I too, since we've had that last conversation, I think people were very unaware of the, like, conversations. See the Dan Smith maps, then didn't get to see these maps, and I got some feedback similar to yours that folks liked map four, the best of the maps that we were now considering, but it was after the fact. So, you know, I think that given the situation we're in, that probably our best bet is to keep our districts the same for now and consider looking at a more robust process for redistricting in the future, but, yeah, that's kind of where I'm at now. I know, and I apologize to staff, too. I feel like we were on a path, and it was a good path, but now we're getting a lot of pushback, and I don't want to create a situation that seems like we're doing something in a sneaky way or, you know, trying to. It's that public engagement thing again. Yeah, it doesn't have any impact on the election. It's not long. I know, we're all at large now, so I think it gives us more time to actually have a robust conversation. Okay. All right. I don't see any other lights. Do I hear a motion? I guess we don't need a motion if we're not going to adopt any new maps. Maybe we stick with the maps we've got. Okay, we've got a motion to keep the maps we have. Do I hear a second? Second. Got a motion to second. Any further discussion? Any public discussion? Barry McDaniel. I live in District 4, and having this conversation the last time, I think we tried to address what you were going to hear from the public because it looks like and it appeared like there was a gendering of these maps in order to address the incumbents who were in the seats. And I'm just being honest, as far as the opinion is concerned. Public opinion may not always be right, but it is public opinion. And in this instance, I think it gave the appearance that elected officials were choosing which voters would be voting in their districts from moving from the maps. And I think there was a consistent theme that ran through that said, you know what, why are we doing this now, and why is it so critical to do this now? And there was never an answer. The other question that wasn't answered I think the public really wants to know is who did those original maps? Who were they presented by? Was it from a group? Was it from a person? Because that makes a whole lot of difference as to the validity of what you're accepting. And I think, Commissioner Pritchett, if you look at it in April, you stipulated the overall situation may not be needed for doing much adjustment. And when those comments are on the public record, folks look at it. And then when something happens that's contrary to that and the argument is swaying, and I understand that arguments are swaying, sometimes opinions and things move so rapidly, but the appearance is let's get this done because that opinion is coming back from the court and let's get this in the place that we want it to be. When you talk to people about coming down here today, you know what they said to me? And I think they said to our group was, why should I go? Nothing is going to change, and what they're going to do is back out of this position. And that's what has happened. If we're going to hire experts with the county, let's kind of listen to some of the things that they say. And I'm not trying to sit on a judgment board, but what I am saying is we're doing this when we could have had this done before and kept the maps the same, irregardless of what outcome came out. And that's what I think two of your commissioners were asking you. Let's not move so rapidly. And, again, I thank you. You know, as a person who lives in those districts, it's real important. And thank you very, very much for listening. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Gannis. Anyone else? Okay, back to the board. Commissioner Prizia. So I just want to go on the record right now and say that I do actually think that we should look at, still look at redistricting. I think that we could have districts that better represent our public. And given what just happened with the single-member district process, I know the courts ruled in our favor, and I'm glad for that because that's the will of the voters, and I think that that's what should have ruled the day. But at the end of the day, you know, this could happen again. And I think that we need districts that have better represent our community, and I do think that a redistricting process is in order, but I think we just need a little bit more time to actually go through with that process in a way that folks feel is transparent. So that is my statement, and I do think we should still look at that option. But to their point, you know, doing it at the last minute maybe wasn't the best alternative, and given that we're at large now, it doesn't seem like it's as pressing. So I feel like let's slow down and let's give what Commissioner Chestnut mentioned earlier a chance to, you know, really have the dialogue and conversation the chance. Okay. Thank you, Commissioner. Anyone else? Okay. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion's unanimous. All right. Thank you. Sorry, staff, for all your work, but thank you. We'll just keep it the same. All right. Mr. Clerk, next item. Mr. Chair, that takes it to the quasi-judicial zoning item, and I believe the county attorney has an announcement to make. Mr. Chair, this is a quasi-judicial item. All persons waiting to testify or present evidence during this hearing will be sworn in prior to speaking during this proceeding. All persons have the right, through the chair, to ask questions, to seek clarification, and respond to comments or presentations. All persons who present written materials to the commissioners for consideration must ensure that a copy of such materials is provided to the clerk for inclusion in the board's record of proceedings and official minutes. While we welcome comments from all persons with an interest in this proceeding, Florida law requires that the county commission's decision in a quasi-judicial action be supported by competent, substantial evidence presented to the board during the hearing on the application. Competent, substantial evidence is such evidence as a reasonable mind would accept as adequate to support a conclusion. There must be a factual basis in the record to support opinion testimony from both expert and non-expert witnesses. Persons presenting testimony may rely on factual information in the record to support their testimony. And in a moment, the clerk will ask for persons other than staff and the applicant who wish to participate as parties. I don't believe we've had a party request. Mr. Chair, we do not have any parties. Okay. But persons who are interested in asking to be a party now have that opportunity, so long as they explain why they were unable to ask for party status ahead of time. Is there anyone here that wishes to claim party status? Seeing none, Mr. Clerk, do you want to do the inquiries? We inquire of each commissioner if you received any ex parte communications involving the minor amendment to the Jonesville Business Park Plan Development, and if so, please disclose us. Have not. Have not. I have not. All right. Have not. And at this time, anybody wishing to address this item, if you will please stand and be sworn at this time. Do you swear or affirm any testimony you're about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Yes, I do. Okay. All right. Good afternoon, commissioners. Mady Bangatar, Electro County Growth Management. This application is Z25-000-023. It is a minor amendment to the Jonesville Business Park Plan Development. Location is at 202 Northwest 140th Terrace. This red outline shows the entire PD. It's located at the intersection of West Newberry Road and Northwest 143rd Street, the northwestern portion of the county. This minor amendment is specific to one parcel, which is owned by Ace Hardware, where that yellow star is. They also have a parcel where the store is. This is a parcel just to the north that's vacant. Some more context of where we are here. This is the intersection of West Newberry Road and Northwest 143rd Street, and this is in the shopping center portion of the PD where the Publix and Walgreens is. The future land use map, this is in the Jonesville Activity Center, and in the portion of this PD, the future land use is shopping center. And the entire site is the planned development that we've mentioned for zoning. So this is the existing zoning master plan, and that circle there will show where the update will occur. There will be a note of revised condition related to outdoor storage for Ace Hardware. Currently, this PD does not allow for outdoor storage. This minor amendment would allow Ace Hardware and only Ace Hardware to have outdoor storage to the rear of its existing store. So existing condition 2 is shown in this slide, and then the red text is what will change if this is approved. So for this particular parcel, 04341-001-012, it may now have outdoor storage of non-hazardous materials, and also it would allow for chain link fencing with obscuring fabric as a method to screen, which is also currently not allowed. So this slide will show all the conditions for the planned development with the added language. And our staff bases for approval are shown in this slide. Policy 2.2.7A1 of the future land use element, which explains the intent of the Jonesville Activity Center. Policy 7.1.2 of the future land use element relates to changes in zoning map. Section 402.77 of the Unified Land Development Code, which has criteria for approval of rezoning. And Section 402.89A of the Unified Land Development Code, which explains criteria for minor PD amendments. And this is a minor amendment. It only requires one public hearing, which is today. Therefore, staff recommends the county commission approve Z25-000-023 with the conditions and bases as noted in our stack report. Okay, thank you. All right, we have Commissioner Alford and Commissioner Priszi. Yeah, quick question. So I consider myself somewhat of a connoisseur of ACE hardwares, having been to quite a few. And so some of them have outdoor storage areas that are where merchandise is available for the public to go in and shop from, and some are barred from the public and are just literally storaged. Do you know which one this is going to be? Mr. Chair, I believe the applicant is here that can speak to that, but I believe this is, their main need was for landscaping materials like mulch and those sorts of things. So I believe the public is going to be able to access this. So it will be like a shopping area. Okay, that's fine with me. I'm happy to move staff recommendation. Second. I motion to second. Commissioner Priszi. My question is, what would normally be required for screening, and what are the adjacent laniuses behind it? So, Mr. Chair, they would not be allowed chain link as a, I believe it would be actual wall. Like a building wall, not like a fence, like a wooden fence. So there's currently, this is the office business park portion. It's undeveloped. Then Campus USA's headquarters is here. So this is the area where they're looking to put their outdoor storage. I mean, I guess it's back of house now, but it may not be back of house forever is my comment. And I guess I would hope that the screening could be something more aesthetic than just a chain link fence with some fabric hanging on it, given that that is facing a road that then will face an office park, right? Like, so right now it seems like it's behind the scenes, but I think someday it won't be behind the scenes. So I guess I would just ask the applicant, is there something that they could use other than chain link fence and fabric to create screening that would be a little bit more aesthetic for the future owners of the property adjacent? Is the applicant here? Hi, good afternoon, Mr. Chair, commissioners. Thank you very much for taking your time to hear me today. My name is Tara Howell. I'm with the firm JB Pro. I'm here representing our client, Canard Ace Hardware, in their request for a minor amendment to an existing PD. Again, most of my slides will probably be a repeat of staff slides, but I'm happy to present and answer any questions. So just to give a project overview, again, this is the parcel number. It is located at 202 Northwest 140th Terrace, and this is a minor PD amendment to an approved PD Z-1019. The purpose of the amendment is to remove the prohibition on outdoor storage for non-hazardist items. It is also to request chain link fence with obscuring fabric as an allowed method of screening the outdoor storage slash retail area and to place two electric vehicle charging stations. So a little bit of information about our client, Ace Hardware, as some of you may know, was founded in 1924. They are all member owned. They have more than 5,800 locations in over 60 countries, and they always have a strong local community involvement. So here is a map duplicate of METI's for you. This shows the area. As you see, this parcel is contiguous to the parcel where the current Ace is located. The section here you see shows the parcel again. It abuts the current Ace Hardware building. While I am not involved in the site plan review process, I have spoken with our engineers, and basically it has been explained to me that this will be a cantilever type awning that will extend from the back of the building with a patio type feature, mainly to store landscaping materials, mulch, maybe an occasional barbecue grill, overflow, if you will. So this is the exact condition that we're proposing. Number two is all that we are asking to amend. Outdoor storage of materials and bulk storage of hazardous materials shall be prohibited with the exception of parcel 04341-001-012, which may have outdoor non-hazardous materials. So again, it still leaves in the prohibition of any hazardous materials. And then asking for chain-link fencing with obscuring fabric may be used as a method to screen the outdoor storage on this particular parcel. So this kind of goes through what staff has already presented, which is basically how this is consistent. For your future land use element, it fits the existing commercial land use. Outdoor storage keeps it within character. There is no increase in any type of density or intensity. And the EV chargers will actually improve utility and support sustainable mixed-use goals. For your energy element, the EV chargers cut emissions and help support clean transportation. Outdoor storage boosts efficiency, reduces deliveries, and solar options can enhance renewable energy use. For your economic element, it supports infill and redevelopment in the urban cluster area, reinvest in an existing site to improve functionality and longevity. And there is no new land use or infrastructure expansion required. This just kind of goes through how it is consistent with your Unified Land Development Code. Section 404.81 is actually particular to outdoor storage. Listed as an accessory use, outdoor storage is incidental to a primary hardware store use. EV chargers are also allowed as accessory use, supports customers without reducing any type of parking. The location, storage placed outside the setbacks, fire lanes, and sidewalks, so we will not be encroaching on any of the requirements. And then the screening, again, six-foot-tall chain-link fence, a skewering fabric, full screening, side and rear per your placement, your code. For Section 407.60, non-residential performance standards, fume and vapors, there will be no harmful emissions. This meets all regulations. For waste, there will be no discharges, proper waste containment and management, heat, air, and odor, no off-site impacts, glare and noise, shielded lighting to prevent any type of spillover, and it will meet Alachua County noise limits. Again, we don't anticipate any changes. We did do an impact analysis summary as required, and as you'll see here, it basically lets you know that there is not going to be any additional impact. And that is it. Any questions? Yes. So I do not have the authority to speak for my client for alternative methods. Of course, we will, you know, be happy to meet whatever the board decides. I think the process here is because it is going to be a relatively small area in regards to the overall size of that parcel, and I also think because it still lends in character with the store itself. I will just say, I think, in our professional opinion, that that particular code where it talks about obscuring view from storage is probably a different type of storage that that intent was trying to hide. But, again, we will be happy to comply with whatever the commission decides. I guess I just feel like the reason that our code isn't allowing this in this area is because the idea is that it's a dense urban environment. There's going to be office parks and other neighbors. So while back and rear of hardware stores are allowed to have just a chain link fence with some stuff in it, you know, that's not really what this is in a long-term scenario. Like, that could be considered sort of front of house for your store for people approaching it from that road behind you and then the office park that eventually will be constructed. So I guess I would ask that the applicant consider, like, maybe a wooden fence with landscaping, something that would provide some additional screening for the neighbors so that it doesn't look just like a storage space and does have some look and feel that it's, like, meant to fit into the character of the overall development plan. Commissioner Alford? I hate to push back, but, I mean, just right next to it is the back of Publix, which isn't exactly pretty. So I don't know. I feel like the chain link fences looks a whole lot better than probably the Publix's box masher and dumpster. So I don't know. I kind of, you know, I mean, I understand the fact that we plan shopping centers not very well so that the back of them are, you know, often things that people have to look at, and I wish we did a better job at that. I agree. But I just hate to put something too onerous on an owner when the rest of the shopping center isn't particularly good to look at either. I don't know. I haven't driven back there a few times since my son lives nearby. So, yeah. Okay. Do I hear a motion? I move staff recommendation. Second. I have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Okay. Any public discussion? Let's bring it back to the board. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? I'm sure that motion is passing unanimous. Congratulations. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Commissioner. All right. Mr. Clerk, next item. Mr. Chair, that takes us to the items pulled from consent, and we have item 6A, which was a request for application, 26-44 p.m., Annual Gun Violence Prevention Grant for Grant Review Committee Award for Community Support Services. Okay. So, Carl, you want to give us just a brief overview of what we're funding here, and then I'll give my comments as to why I thought it should be pulled. Yes. Good evening, Mr. Chair. It's Carl Smart. I'm an executive liaison for public safety and community relations. These are the small grants, if you will, for gun violence prevention. These funds are being provided by the Children's Trust of Alachua County, and the total funds are $222,850. The maximum award per grant has been set at $33,000. We advertised. We got the word out throughout the community about the availability to apply for these grants. We received 11 applications for the grants. Unfortunately, two were not qualified, so we had nine to work with, nine applications. And we put together a strong team, I think a strong team of evaluators, who looked at the nine and evaluated and scored their proposals, their applications. And we, that group came up with the top seven. And you have those seven, I think you have those seven in front of you. So two of the nine dropped out, and we've got seven that are available to take up at $33,000 the full amount from Children's Trust. Okay, thank you. So, Commissioners, thank you, Carl, and thank you for your work on this. So, Commissioners, if you look at the awards, seven of the nine were awarded. The top six are awarded $33,000. And then Dream of Purpose was awarded $24,000, is being recommended to be awarded $24,850. The two that were not awarded were Gainesville Area Community Tenants Association, which does amazing work. They were only asking for $10,000, and then the Community Impact Corporation, which Reverend Anderson asked for, $33,000. So, those two were not awarded. If you actually awarded them all, and I'll get to why I think we should, you give Community Tenants Association $10,000, that changes the award for the remaining eight from $33,000 to $26,600, if I did my math right, or close to that. And when I looked at the aggregate score summaries, the aggregate score summaries, similar to what Commissioner Prizzi did at the last time, the bottom two were off by one point, 163.5 and 162.5, compared to the one that was 164.5. When you get into the details, you see that basically we had one score that gave 80 to those bottom three out of a potential 200. If they would have just given 90, that would have put them right up there with all the rest. And so, I don't want to say it's arbitrary. There was a method to that person's madness. But that minor change would have put all of them above what we are awarding, the 164. And so, I would prefer, you know, when it comes to gun violence, I think that the more meanings, the better. And so, it would be my recommendation to thank the scoring committee, but to change that and fund the Gainesville Area Community Tennis Association $10,000, and then divide that balance of $212,850 by the remaining eight, so that we wouldn't be awarding more money. We would still keep to our budget $222,850, but we would be awarding nine instead of seven. That would be my recommendation, or we can just take staff's recommendation. It's really the will of the board. Chair. Chair, just for clarity, recommendation is just to change the award amount, not to deal with the scoring issue, because the process worked, everything is scored, you're just wishing to redistribute the funds. Correct. Okay, thank you. Yeah, so not increase the award amount. Not changing the score. Not changing the score. Just to award the two that were not awarded. Okay, so I don't see any lights, but I need a motion. And second. What I recommended? Yes, and we need to keep peace in the community. Well, I just think you're awarding. Yeah, so I heard your comment when we were adopting the agenda, but when you kind of get into it, yeah. I didn't, yeah, I didn't, I guess I didn't, I didn't, I did not look at the applicant, I just looked at their organization and all the applications and reviewed them all and saw where they were at. And then I went, but it's not, and it wasn't personal. It was just like a, I was like, why is a person who didn't apply, like, complaining? But then I realized that their name of their organization is not the name of their church, is not the name of the organization doing the work in the, or they have like a pseudonym that does the work in the community. So it was confusing to me, though. All right, so we got a motion and a second. Any further discussion? TJ White, procurement manager. Clarification, full 10 on the, excuse, full 10 funding for the Gainesville Area Tennis Association, and then split the remaining funding with the other eight for even distribution of funds. Correct. Beautiful. Thank you. Which would be around 26, 6, 27, yeah, okay. Correct. Just did my, I hope all the rest of the organizations can do what they proposed for less money. Yeah, a little bit less, which is, yeah. Okay, so we've got a motion and a second. Any public discussion? Back to the board, all those in favor say aye. Any opposed? That motion is unanimous. Okay, thank you, commissioners. Appreciate that. Thank you, TJ. Thank you, Carl. Okay, thanks, Tommy. All right, Mr. Clerk, I think that leads us to now manager comment. Um, commissioners, is it okay if we move manager comment and commission comments to now instead of waiting until after tonight? Okay, so do we need a motion to change the agenda or can we just do it? Okay, we just do that. All right, so we are now to county attorney comment. Mr. Chair, I do not. Actually, hold on. Before we get to county attorney comment, we have public comment, right? Yes. Or does that, no, we do that at 530. Do that at 530. Okay, county attorney comment. Mr. Chair, I do not have comments today. Got to do that one. Good. I have county manager comment. I've got MV transport and I've got SNAP stuff. Can I just say, if we could, I just got a text from Patrick Dodds that he's two minutes away. He was going to come back for the food assistance conversation. So if we can do whatever else we have first and then. Do MV first? MV and then that, yeah. Okay, Mr. Chair, I don't have a lot on the SNAP anyway, but I had some. I'll wait. So for MV, we have received a letter with their funding amount that they would need for the year, and it's $738,777. So it's quite a jump from, of course, from what we're paying now. That's $61,564 a month. We're not, no, that's what it would cost for us with Gainesville making the split. That's what it would cost for us to continue service for just our cost now, $738,000 for the year, or $61,000 a month. Whether that could be paid monthly, we're not sure. We're still having conversations around that, so we're not recommending either of that now. But that is the funding amount we receive from them. And that's $738,777, oh, I'm sorry, Commissioner Alford, before I get to you. Oh, yeah, that's okay. Do you want to finish? Yeah. So that $738,777, that's the total that they would be required to receive, but there is state and federal funding that would offset that number. Our cost would be less. Is that correct? I was told I thought our cost would approximately double, and maybe that's not right. Jeff, do you know? Yeah, Jeff. I'm missing. Mr. Chair, Jeff Hayes, Growth Management Director. My understanding from the letter we received, and we can parse it out in the conversations I had had, was, yeah, it's approximately double. But that's one thing we need to be super clear about. Right now, we, the county, are putting in about $200,000, a little bit more, given a couple of different services. The state puts in about $500,000. The number that we got is that there would be an additional surcharge of the $730,000. And so it pretty much doubles what us and the state put in together, but understanding we don't foresee any additional money coming from the state. So we're short $738,000 that we would have to make up. That's my understanding of it and my discussion with Tom. Yeah, that's a 4X, not a 2X. For the county. For the county's piece. For the community, for the service, it's double. Okay. But that's assuming the state. So to summarize, right now we're paying about $700,000. and MV saying it's going to double from $700,000 to $1.4 million. We get a subsidy from the state of $500,000. That wouldn't change. So the additional amount would be to the county. Okay. Does anybody understand the math? Yes. Okay. Commissioner Alford, you recognize. So when we met with you or when I met with UF officials, whatever that was, week four or last, whatever it was, there was, they mentioned that they were in conversations with MV Transport. Do we know anything about what MV Transport is talking to UF about? Is there an opportunity for us to maybe have some more efficiency in terms of their estimate? I mean, I know you're not done talking with them. I just didn't know if that UF had been included in those discussions. And, yeah, Mr. Chair, that's my understanding is basically what, in the way that MV in their letter to us had posed it was, this is really a way for them. They basically, they have overhead to be in the community. This is a way of them being able to meet that overhead and provide the service. So any other services that they can pick up in the community, whether it was with the UF or any other service that they could provide, would help spread that overhead number over additional users. And so then, potentially, our costs could come down. Yeah. I guess I would just ask that maybe we try to find out what the conversations are that are happening with UF and maybe make sure that we're all on the same page. You conclude? I conclude. Commissioner Prezio? So, I guess I want to say, I don't know, whatever. Okay. Two things. One is, do we have a, did we get information from RTS? Because we had, we were hoping to have information from RTS as well with regards to costs. We do not have that as of yet in terms of what their, what their rate would be to provide the same service. Which they couldn't do until October anyways. That's, that's their current position, yes. Is that still their position? It sounded like they were shifting on that position at the MTPO meeting yesterday. I think it's, officially, that is still their current position. I will, okay, the other thing I want to say is this. University of Florida pulled out of the RTS bus contract. Doing that precipitated this situation. I understand that the University of Florida has to think about their overall costs and everybody is experiencing challenges with regards to budget and with regards to services and that currently their model is that student fees cover the bus contract. And that it isn't just students that they're serving on some of those routes. And so, you know, the increasing cost of bus service and the increasing cost of them became untenable and they made the decision to pull out. But because it was done at such a last minute, in such a last minute nature, close to the end of the budget year. And because of the way that that all happened, it all precipitated this. Then the city made the decision to kind of do the same thing to us with this transportation. I do not think the solution is to now try to finagle something, no offense, with the University of Florida trying to negotiate a contract with a private provider to provide in-house services to their, to on-campus or, or whatever it is they're trying to do with a circulator or their own transportation services. Because that's further perpetuating the privatization of public transportation, which should be a public service and should be something that we're prioritizing at a regional level so that we can leverage all the institutions making the investment so that we have regional transportation that isn't just relying on single occupancy vehicles. And UF is the number one employer in our community. And so their people are coming from all over the place. And we're talking about wanting regional transit. We need UF at the table to have a conversation about regional transit, not hiring a private entity to do the transportation that's only about the people that go to, that are right there around their campus. You know what I mean? Like, and if Envy ends up being the best provider of a regional transit system, then great. Maybe they are. Maybe they're the ones who need to run Jitneys out to our, you know, out to our communities and our small municipalities and our rural areas. Like, I'm not saying that Envy is or isn't the solution, but I don't think that trying to kind of, like, fit all this square peg into a round hole for us to solve our problem is the right answer. I guess that's what I'm trying to say. Like, we need the institutions at the table. I think that we need to have this as a broader conversation as part of our conversation about a regional transit authority. And we need to be thinking about this more holistically and robustly. And I don't want to spend $738,000 to provide transit. I think we can ask the city of Gainesville to fill that gap. I think we can get them to step up. And I think we can get them to do it more quickly for a lot less than that. So I think we go across the street and we have a conversation with our partners, with our colleagues across the street, about how does our, how can RTS fill this gap for us in the short term? What do we need to do to accelerate that timeline? And let's get UF at the table. Let's get the other institutions, Santa Fe College at the table. Let's get all of the major employers at the table to have a conversation about what regional transit for our entire county looks like so that their employees can get to work and people can get to their hospitals and people can get to the appointments and the places that they need to get to and come into the county for services instead of just nickeling and diming and piecemealing this conversation. Because I think it's causing a real, I don't know what the right word is, but it's causing a lot of discrepancies in the real data and what this really could cost us and what it really should look like. And parsing it out into individual conversations instead of one larger conversation. Commissioner Alford, can I speak before I go back to you? Please, go ahead. Yeah, so just doing rough math, Jeff, I think we're at about a million five, 700 now plus another 750-ish or so. And I've heard 15,000 trips, so even I can do that math. That's $100 a trip. I think we need to give the community some assurances that we are filling this gap until October 1st and do what you're saying, Anna, which I think is going to take at least a year to get a deal done by October 1st of next year. Now, that additional cost has to come from somewhere, and we've got a lot of partnerships around this community, but I think that's something that we're going to need to give some staff some direction on to pursue getting something in place so that that emergency is handled on those 15,000 trips per year. So it's 15,000 trips per year. If it's half the year, maybe it's half that cost. So maybe we're talking about filling a gap of half of the 738 if it's as of March 31st or something like that. It's a lot of money. No, it's a lot of money. But to your point, unless we look at it holistically, it's not going to be cost efficient. And right now, I think we have an emergency brewing that we are hearing about on a weekly basis. And there's anxiety about on a weekly basis that we need to give some direction to our staff to fill that while we look for a solution long-term by, say, October 1st of next year. So those are my thoughts. The light's just lit up, so let's hear from the rest of my colleagues. They're all now lit up. So we have Commissioner Alford, Wheeler, Chestnut, and Prisia. And then if we can get some direction or we just keep not having direction, then that would be great. So Commissioner Alford and then Commissioner Wheeler. Yeah, my understanding was that the city of Gainesville could not, would not be able to provide that service until sometime. Yeah, I feel that, you know, they are not, they are training people that have never done this work before to do a job that, you know, quite frankly, the people in Gainesville that I've talked to are really uncomfortable with. The people in the county really are distrustful of Gainesville providing the service right now. I think we need to give Gainesville a chance to figure this all out and to know that they can do it well. It is too important. It is so desperately important to get this right. And I feel like we've got to figure out how to come up with the money to deal with it until next year. And while I appreciate Jose's, you know, assurances, on the other hand, it's, you know, that's, that's, Jesus, sorry. I knew that too. Yeah, I, I, I, I get it. Anyway, I, I, well, I appreciate his assurances. I, I still feel like that's, you know, that's like us giving a contract to an unproven entity, which we typically don't do. And so I, I, I am not comfortable with that idea. I, I do agree, however, on the larger conversation thing. And I want to say that my conversation with UF about transit was a much broader conversation than just MV Transport. That was an aside that they provided. We did talk about the fact that, and they brought up the fact that they needed to increase student fees so that they could do a better job because they recognized they were not doing a good job. They recognized that they need to do a better job with transit. They recognized they put Gainesville in a bad place. It was actually a really productive conversation, and I want to give kudos to my intern that wrote that report that I laid in front of each of them that precipitated the whole conversation. So, anyway, I, I appreciate what you had to say. I agree with most of it, but I, I do think we need to move forward with MV Transport. Okay, Commissioner Wheeler, and then Commissioner Chester, and then back to Commissioner Krizio. You guys were at that meeting with us Monday, and when we brought this item up that was on the agenda that I felt was going to cause a great, robust discussion, it was pretty much crickets. And, you know, I don't, I don't understand why we're not able to problem solve better with this unless the problem is so big. You know, I don't, you know, I don't, I don't know that the university is going to engage with us. They are really pretty much in disarray at this point. They really are. And I realized that the person that was, I didn't know that the person who was representing the university on our board was no longer working with university. And so, you know, I don't think that the university is going to be a partner in this. I just don't. And the city, as you noticed yesterday, was totally quiet about all of that. You know, there was no offering of anything except to be concerned about the residents within, in the city. Well, I'm glad to be corrected. I'm glad, I don't remember that. I just remember we weren't moving very fast on that item, and I was expecting it to be the, the item, you know. And there was no conversation about it. There's no consensus on the city right now, on the county. Yeah. No, so, yeah, so, you know, I don't know that collaboration is going to move us very quickly. I mean, I think it's a wonderful idea, but I just don't see, from what I saw Monday, that we're going to be able to solve this unless we put a whole lot of money toward it and take it ourselves. But thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Commissioner Chester. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think that, you know, my major concern are the most vulnerable citizens are those who depend on the MV transportation. And I think it's, their service does not need to be cut at this point. I just, I don't think it's fair to them. They can't make their doctor's appointment. They can't make their dialysis appointments or their cancer treatment appointments. And so, you know, I'm just concerned about those folks because I think that that's, and then just knowing the history of that particular transportation disadvantage program, even when I was a city commissioner and now as a county commissioner, the same problems are probably going to exist. What happened when I was a city commissioner, when there was a transition in services and the services got worse. And then here comes MV later on when I become, after I come back as a county commissioner and to hear all the praises each quarter we meet with the transportation disadvantage, hearing how services are being run, how folks are not being left behind, how folks' routes are on time and meeting on time. And that, that is very, very important when, especially if you have a dialysis appointment and a cancer treatment appointment and they have to be on time. You can't be late. So that's the most, that's why it's so important to me because that's life or death for some folks. Not getting, especially if you're on hemodialysis, not getting your treatment. That is very seriously because of the toxins and poisons that is in your system. So, and not getting your cancer treatment. So that's a quality of life for those folks. So, so I, I, I sympathize with them. And I just think that we have to do something. If the city of Gainesville wants to take it over, please give us the numbers. Let us know what the numbers are going to look like. And how can we work this out? I kind of agree with commissioner Wheeler. I don't think the university is going to play a part in this. I just really don't, so I don't want to even depend on them. I just think that this is more concerning to me about our most vulnerable citizens at this point and making sure that the service lasts until whenever the city can take it over. But, I mean, I don't know what that gap funding is going to really look like, so that's the problem. Sure. Mr. Chair, if I may, one of the conversations that we've had and the way that the letter was structured from MV was the cost was given in a per month cost of $61,000. The conversation I'd had with the representatives was, you know, could that be a bridge where we do that for a few months, you know, and figure out where we're at rather than do an annual contract? Because I don't even know from a procurement standpoint. Really, what we're talking about is MV walking away from our current contract and defaulting on it and then coming back and say, well, we can now provide the service for double. So we had to go through that and talk with TJ. So if the city gives notice, MV still is under contract with the county? Yes, and the state. And the state. And that is the issue, really, because they have to give notice to the state that they're walking away from the CTC role, which they've been awarded, and they're under contract with the state as well. So they are incentivized to work with us as well for us to come up with something that's fair? I think so. And we all recognize, and, you know, we as staff have heard seemingly good reviews of the service from MV, and obviously the role, you know, the goal here is to not have any disruption in service over the short or long term. And I take Commissioner Prizzi as, you know, ultimately with a transit system, and this is just transit planning theory, you don't want to have a bifurcated – you want to have a one-stop shop, one app, one payment method. The more of that is split up, the more difficult and the less productive transit is in a community. So, you know, that's one thing that we'll keep an eye on long term, but right now we have the short-term issue at play. Okay. Commissioner Prizzi and then Commissioner Alford. I guess I – you know, I understand that there's carrying costs associated with giving this service, and I understand that, you know, they had this many rides, and now they have this many rides. But – and I understand there's sort of like a base cost, like, right, right, you know, you're going to bake a cake, you've got the same ingredients, whether you're baking a cake for 50 people or you're baking a cake for 100 people, and you have to buy a bag of flour. But this is 15,000 rides versus, like, 50,000 rides, right? This is way less, so the carrying cost should still be – there still should be some efficiencies. And the fact that they're coming in with the exact same price for this is what it would have been. Like, that's just not negotiating. That doesn't feel like they're coming to the table to be, like, having a conversation with us about trying to make this affordable. The average cost for a ride for ADA paratransit is between $29 to $36 per trip, according to the Internet. This is $80 per ride. So it's more than double the average cost per ride that they're basically asking us to pay. And I understand that we're in a unique circumstance, and I understand at the end of the day, you're 100% correct. We need to make sure there's no disruption in this service and that everyone gets the quality service that they deserve, 100%. And I feel like we're being held over a barrel with negotiation of a price tag that's just crazy. That's just crazy. You know, like, there should be some cost efficiencies with the reduction in number of rides. And for-profit companies deal with losing contracts all the time. And there should be some consideration that we can't cover the full nut for them to keep the service as big and as robust as it was when they were serving 50,000 people for 15,000 people. I just-trips. Right. Less trips, less overall. So, I mean, at $80 a trip, we could hire-I mean, I know it takes a special kind of person. It takes a special kind of vehicle. It's not just like-you can't just call Uber, you know? But seriously. Yeah. I mean, I just want to give staff some direction to move forward with negotiating a stopgap through a date, whether that's October 1st or not. And if they can't come back with something that's agreeable, then they bring that back to us. I just want-I think we should need to give some direction to our staff. If not today, then we're at December. And every month we wait, we're another month closer to March 1st. Right. Commissioner Alford. Yeah, I just want to say, I wasn't suggesting we work with or negotiate with UF. I was suggesting that if MB Transport is providing services to UF, then that's another efficiency that needs to be taken into account during the negotiation process. Because if that's another 5,000 trips, that's another 5,000 trips. So, you know, I think that it should make the UF save money because we are using MB Transport. It should make us save money if UF is using MB Transport. Maybe they don't end up using them, but if they do, I just think that needs to be part of the conversation. Because that's another efficiency that we can, you know, possibly- Are you talking about University of Shands? No, they have-UF has-UF has students that need to get around just like, you know, we do. Okay, gotcha. I'm with you. I'm with you. Okay. Do we want to give staff any direction to-or what does staff want? What does staff need? And we will do that. Chair, I feel, as Missy said, I think at the beginning of this, we are-and this wasn't a-this is the last offer, take it or leave it situation. I think it was-and the conversation with MB is that they recognize they still have a few balls in the air as well in terms of what they can and can't do. So I feel like we already have the direction to continue to negotiate and come back with a staff recommendation, whether it's a new contract with NV, whether it's work with the city to try to accelerate the transition. We know we have direction to come back with the- Will we have that direction before the end of the year? Will we have some recommendations from staff before-at our next December meeting? Or is it something that's going to get pushed into January? That's-that's-that's my-I'd like to be-have some options before we get into next year that we're considering. We'll know where we're going. Mr. Chair, I think the city has stated in-that they sometime between January and March are going to enact this transition, and they have a 30-day-they have to give- They have to give 30 days notice, so by February 1st. So I don't know that we would have the ultimate solution. I think some of it is some of the issues I brought about procurement and contracting. We need to work through as staff with what the options are. I mean, if nothing happens, NV would have to terminate with us, you said. And then we're-then-then we're in an emergency situation, and do they have a 30-day termination notice as well? They don't in our contract, Mr. Chair, but with the state contract, my understanding is that they do. I see. With our contract, they could just default. They could stop-they should not pick up the phone tomorrow, and they-and we would just say, oh, they've defaulted. Yeah, so they could cancel with the state, and that just affects the $500,000 reimbursement. But the services are very intertwined, so the way that they work now and their role, they're the ones picking up the phone and distributing the trips. So when would staff want to tell us that you'll have some recommendations by? Because that's kind of where I am. I just want to know what y'all-knowing what you know and hearing what you've just heard. We definitely, I feel like by January, need to have an option that you could actuate. I don't think we need that by December, but I think by January we do, because that's when these dates start to-things could start actually happening. I think the community needs the reassurance before that, but I think we are trying to give them that. We're going to figure it out one way or the other. That's what I want the public to hear. Mr. Chester? I'm sorry, Mr. Chair, but I thought the city said to us that they already made it part of their budget to move forward with this. The city has said to us that they are moving forward with ending the service within the city by March 1st. Right. And that they are not able to step up and take over outside of the city until at the earliest, October 1st. That's what, tell me if I'm wrong, Jeffrey. That is correct. That is what they've been saying. Yes, that's what they say. Just one caveat is that it's not necessarily inside and outside the city. It's anywhere where they have fixed-route service. So part of that is actually in the unincorporated area as well where we are paying for service. So they will be doing some outside the city because they have a fixed-route service, and under the state reimbursement, they're required to. Okay, so, Commissioners, are we happy with getting some recommendations by January, or do we want to give different directions? I don't know what we just did. We're not doing anything, but Jeff has said by January, staff will bring back to this board some recommendations because they're continuing their discussions with MB Transport, and I think that's the best we can do. I think as long as if you get any updates, you'd let us know. I think that would be the other request I would have. So are we asking them to support and do it, or period? Right now, the current direction that we've given them is to work with MB to come up with a stopgap solution to carry us to October 1st. And what we've heard from the city commissioners individually, and I think hopefully they're going to give us some collective direction, is that by October 1st, they hope to have some pricing options that we can compare with other potential providers. And, Mr. Chair, I'll say from our perspective as well, from the county perspective, is that two issues that have been raised, one, they have said that they would be willing to do it. I think the other case, you know, one of the reasons they've been so shy to say that they could do it on March 1st is that they know that they want to be able to demonstrate success for themselves, and that way we'll also be able to see if they're demonstrating success, you know, that they could expand. And from my perspective, Commissioner, this just seems like another trunk radio thing. If we're trying to do something countywide, it needs to be countywide. And so I feel like we're – if we're waiting on a good rate from RTS, I don't think that's a long-term sustainable situation unless, you know, you all can convince me otherwise. Because I think it's really difficult to put – when you are a city commissioner – to put resources that serve outside of your city. Which is why we need to retake the regional transit system and make it regional. Which is a long-term thing that may involve a ballot referendum and goes back to Mary Alford's intern's letter. That's a two- to four-year situation. But we have an immediate need right now that we have to deal with. And until we have a long-term countywide solution, you know, we have to make these decisions right now. Commissioner Chesot? I guess, does anybody know the history of the regional transit system? Was it initially the counties at first and then it went to the city? Yep, we gave it away. What caused that? Because why would the county – I'm just thinking right now. Why would the county give that up when you had that authority and you were getting the federal grants to do it? But why did you figure that Gainesville could do a better job than the county? And then the county could have made it more regional, right? I'm having – Mr. Chair, that, of course, would have been – I can't speak for previous commissions. That was obviously well before my time. Me too. It was in the early 80s. Around the same time the GRU – you know, same sort of thing happened with GRU. What I would – my conjecture would be is that this – primarily back then the service would have been almost entirely within city limits. And so that was probably part of that discussion, not to mention it's – you know, there is certainly a liability running. If you ever look at a city agenda, all of the cases and liabilities that go along with the transit system. I would say – and this is just a little bit editorial, and I'll keep it very brief – but that in my time here, we've had a very successful regional transit system that was built on a system of norms for the different partners. And that went for UF, Santa Fe College, Alachua County, City of Gainesville, the VA, the big users. But there was nothing that mandated that all of those things stuck together. And this first card that's been pulled out by UF, to Commissioner Prizia's point, has shown that there's not a system and that as soon as you – and that were the biggest card, obviously, and the biggest provider. So I do think the governance issue – and then so this shows – in the conversation, shows the problem with the governance is because a decision by the city of Gainesville is negatively impacting unincorporated area residents and residents of the smaller cities because they're making the best decision for city residents. So that is – we do have that assignment to come back with the options for regional transit authority, and there are statutory allowances for that, and we will come back with that discussion. Great. I believe that discussion primarily resides at the MTPO. Yeah. You're a countywide MTPO. Much of RTS's operating budget comes through the MTPO, and so that's where we have the governance discussion. Okay, so have we beaten MV to death for now, paratransit? We'll hear back by January unless something – Let's talk about food. Transpires. Okay. Missy, next item. Yes, Mr. Chair, if we know something sooner, we'll come back in December with that. So I haven't looked at the news while we've been sitting here, but you heard earlier that Trump said he's not giving the SNAP, but the USDA said they are giving 50 percent. So what we think now is that they are giving about 50 percent of what they would normally give for November, but it's going to take a while. We have 32,000 people in the county at 100 to 200 each. That's anywhere between 3 and 6 million a month that we would have to cover, which is not really doable. Right now what we've discussed is just really getting out there and sharing the available resources and getting people to donate, and we'll listen to what you may want to do with any of the food banks and donating. And if he wants to speak, you know, there's a lot of fundraising efforts going around that we can support and use our communications and however you want the county to, but we're not – can't recommend funding, covering the funding right now because the cost is so high. And Thanksgiving is just a couple weeks away. Okay. So, Commissioner, any comments? I mean, Commissioner Prizia? Yeah. I mean, I guess my comment is this. You know, we're not going to fill the gap of 6 million a month. Let's just – it's like – I mean, but we're not even filling – we couldn't fill the gap if we threw that money at Bread of the Mighty or any other food assistance organization. Like, they couldn't. They couldn't procure that amount of food and that amount of volume, as he mentioned. So – but I do think that doesn't mean we do nothing, right? You know, it doesn't mean that we just sit on our hands because, you know, one in five of those people are children. And so I do want to see us do something, and I think that a combination of strategies is important. I think that an immediate strategy that helps Bread of the Mighty do the procurement of the box program that they've been spinning up as an emergency response is important. I think that thinking about how we invest in the long-term resilience of our local food system by potentially standing up a voucher for farmer's markets program. You know, SNAP used to have a double bucks program where they would double up your money if you spent it at the farmer's market. You know, we could mirror something like that or come up with something like that so that we're investing with our local farmers and keeping our local farmer's markets afloat, investing in our locally owned businesses that are our first, you know, first line of defense in situations like this and are hopefully going to be a part of a long-term solution to these kinds of problems. So I guess I'm in support of us doing something, and I'm in support of it being a multi-pronged approach, just sort of a short, medium, and long-term approach. I think the long-term approach is our food hub efforts and our efforts around trying to get retail grocery that's affordable in East Gainesville. But I think a mid-term, you know, approach is the farmer's market, local food economy piece, and the very short term is how can we supplement the funding budget needs of Brother Mighty to purchase food for their emergency assistance program. You know, we also have a number of organizations that are doing really cool programs. I know our family resource centers are doing really cool stuff. SWAG is. The one community resource center is with Food is Medicine. SWAG is doing boxes and community feeding programs. I'm sure that the other family resource centers. So another suggestion I have is that we also maybe reach out to those family resource centers in partnership with SeaTac and think about maybe there's something specific we do with those to ensure that there's fresh, nutritious food available at our family resource centers as well as the self-stable stuff that Brother the Mighty is able to get them. Are there any crops being harvested right now? What is incentive? Everything is right. Yeah, right now is the best season we've got because we've got all of the warm season stuff and cool season stuff. So you've got, you know, eggplants and up and ready to go. Yeah, and ready to harvest. I mean, the biggest challenge is going to be that farmers planted assuming a certain demand, right? And now the demand, if we kind of push on this, the demand could be a lot higher. But our farmers do have capacity. I've spoken with a couple of them, and they do have capacity, and they are interested in helping. Use that money to purchase from them. So use it to purchase from them. But there's also shelf-stable stuff that people need. And people need rice. People need beans. People need, you know, proteins that we're not going to be able to get from our local farmers in any kind of volume. So I think we need a double whammy here, you know, work with our family resource centers and our local farmers to hit it at the source and work on a local economic solution and then work with Bread of the Mighty on the volume and on, like, moving good quality, not Cheetos and Pepsi, but not that that's what you all want to give, but I know that's a lot of what the donations end up being to them, unfortunately, into the community so that people can feed their families. Okay, we've got Commissioner Chestnut and then Commissioner Alford. Thank you. Yeah, Commissioner Chestnut. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I guess I'm concerned about the holidays, Christmas and Thanksgiving, and I want to know will there be enough food available. Sure, yeah, for those kind of folks that I know that there's a yearly giveaway during Thanksgiving and Christmas. So I'm really concerned do we have enough food for that time because, to me, that's very important because I couldn't imagine someone going hungry on Thanksgiving and Christmas. Thanks for being here. You're welcome, of course. Yeah, and that's a great point. I think there's never a good time for a crisis like this to happen, but if you could have picked the worst possible time, it's now. We do have plans for holiday giveaways, as we have throughout the years. We purchase 1,500 turkeys and 1,500 Thanksgiving boxes to be distributed. We cover four counties. Alachua is the lion's shepherd. We do cover Gilchrist-Levy and Union as well. And so we do try to have a giveaway in each of our counties. We'll do about 800 turkeys and boxes for Thanksgiving in Alachua County, and then we'll spread out the remaining 700 throughout Gilchrist-Levy and Union at different sites. The largest will be in Gainesville. We'll do a giveaway on the 22nd, the Saturday before, where we'll be giving out 600 turkeys and boxes. Along with that, each of those giveaways will be supplemented with additional produce, additional dry goods, bakery items, and beverages, as we normally do. So outside of the turkeys and the boxes, those giveaways are anywhere from 15,000 to 30,000 pounds of food. So we're providing a large amount of groceries at those giveaways for each of the households that come through the line. Now, I will tell you that the turkeys and the boxes have been set aside, and we're not tapping those right now. But we're generally in the process of gearing up and collecting goods for those giveaways. Those are going out the door. And so we won't have the same volume that we would in years past or that we plan to have this year as a result of what's happening currently. But, no, it's a good question. I mean, right now, the response is still going to cause problems down the road for the families that are impacted. And so we're meeting the acute need, but we're also needing to look to the future. What issues are going to occur as a result of this period of time that are going to have long-lasting impacts? Folks who may normally have just had a short-term hardship and needed, you know, a couple of food distributions to get them through may now see themselves as longer-term clients of our partner pantries in the food bank. But I guess my question to you, how could the county help you, I guess, or help others? You know, we need funding right now in order to purchase more product. I mean, I know that that's a difficult ask. Like, I think we're all kind of caught off guard by the scale of what's happening, and none of us really expected it to go this long and be this bad. But ultimately, you know, we've seen, as I mentioned before, a reduction in the amount of product coming into the food bank through grocery store partners. That's something that's been happening for a few years now. We've also been selective on some of the products that we get. We had a conversation with Commissioner Prizia a while back. We were taking in a lot of candy, a lot of sugar products. We take in whatever the stores have set aside for us. We started rejecting the candy where we could in order to reduce the sugar output of, you know, the pounds that we collect and distribute. But ultimately, you know, we haven't found a replacement for that poundage yet. We're still beholden to Feeding America's requirement for us to get as many pounds out. That's, you know, one of the unfortunate things is that the model of food banking is still the same as it was 10, 20, 30 years ago. It's pounds in, pounds out. Locally, that's not our focus. Locally, our focus is on working with our community resource centers. Our organization is doing wraparound services, right? The idea is that food is what gets people in the door, and then we want to have organizations that are doing additional work to be able to connect with people. The food's the attraction. It's the mechanism. So we locally are looking to use food as that catalyst for change, but at the end of the day, we're, you know, we're still beholden to our nationwide requirements to get as many pounds out to the community as possible and to collect them from the grocery stores, right? 70% of what we get is from our grocery store partners. They contract nationally with Feeding America, and they're expecting every pound of food they set aside to be able to write that off on their taxes. And so they want to give us the sugar products. They want to give us everything they can. So we have to toe that line sometimes. It's a difficult sort of walk that we have to do. Yeah, but to get back to your question, we need funding to purchase more food. Commissioner Alford, then Commissioner Prisley, then Commissioner Wheeler. So I've already been contacted by a mom who can't feed her kids, right? And I posted about that on Facebook, and I had a really interesting response to that. I also posted a link to your website and suggested that's where people should donate and that they should donate money. But so many people have, well, there's two things. First of all, people want to have a certain amount of judgment on what kind of food gets distributed. And so they're like, well, I just want to buy lentils and rice and cans of spinach and whatever. And while I appreciate the fact that they want to do that, can you speak to the fact that we have a lot of people that have, for instance, issues with dietary restrictions or issues with cooking facilities or issues that other things that might not make what Sion sounds like really practical, healthy options, a choice? Can you speak to that briefly? How big of a problem is that, and what are your thoughts on how we manage that right now? It's a good question, and I will preface my response with it's anecdotal. My response is based off of conversations that we have. Now, the way that we operate is we are a hub that distributes through our partners. So we've got 150 partners on the ground that are spread throughout our service area. What's great about that is they can communicate what they're hearing from their community members back to us. It's an ongoing conversation that we hear from them. You sent us this product, and the folks don't want that. They don't eat that. So we're constantly communicating, and our process is always adapting. We don't hear that a lot from our partner agencies on the ground. We do hear that from individuals who might come in or post online about those dietary restrictions. I take that very seriously. I know that that's a real thing, that people have health concerns, and they do have to be very particular about the food that they put in their system. We are not built for that kind of specificity, right? We are built for volume to get as many places and as much food as we can into the community's hands. What a good event. We try. And that's totally fine. And so what I've answered to some people is that rather than buying bags of lentils and rice, they're better off donating cash because you can buy in larger bulk and can save a lot more money. Yes, and I would say we don't want to deter anybody from engaging or donating to the food bank, but for every $10 you spend at the grocery store, you're going to donate five pounds of food. Every $10 cash you give us, we're going to buy 75 pounds of food. Right. So that's the difference. That's what I wanted people to hear about. Our ability to buy in bulk and the partnerships that we have that we're purchasing from are giving us a discounted rate because they believe in the mission gives us the ability to really stretch the dollar far more than you and I would at a grocery store. Say that one more time slowly, just to be part about the money. So the way that we currently operate, every dollar that is donated to the food bank, we turn that into 7.2 pounds of food. Every dollar you'd spend at the grocery store would get you about a half a pound of food. So the value is in donating to the food bank cash versus canned goods. When we are purchasing food, we are purchasing high-quality products. We're purchasing proteins and produce and high-quality shelf-stable items. So, you know, we spend the lion's share of our purchase funding buying as local as possible. We get a lot of our protein from Quincy Cattle, which is in Chiefland. We buy a lot of our, you know, we have potatoes from Hastings, which is not hyper-local but not too far. We spend the vast majority of our purchase funding in the state of Florida within about 150 miles of the food bank. So I think there's another element to that, too, which is donating to the food bank supports the local food systems and local economies as much as humanly possible. A situation like this, I will say, I don't want to over-engineer the response. I sit on the advisory council for new venture advisors as they're doing the research on this food aggregation hub. I believe in it. It's something that we want to see happen. When we're purchasing, though, we want to purchase truckloads of product, and that's currently the gap that we have locally. Logistically, it's difficult for us to coordinate with local farmers to go multiple stops to pick up items that we, you know, otherwise would be able to buy in bulk. It's something that we believe in strongly and want to be a part of as an institutional buyer in the future. But I think now we need to focus on what's the most expeditious way to get food into the hands of people as possible. But I think a hybrid process is absolutely there. It's just going to be a little more difficult for us to source it locally. I think we can have that conversation and figure out how to do that, though. I had one more quick question. So another thing that I noticed as I engaged with folks is a lot of folks wanted to make it personal. They were like, is there a family I can adopt? And I'm like, oh, that's a little like, you know, we want to give people their dignity and all of those kinds of things. But and so I think that's the other reason why people like to go and buy the bags of lentils and rice themselves is it makes it personal. What how do you have any suggestions on how to make this personal for people and still make it good for you guys to operate most efficiently and effectively? Yeah. Are y'all working on some storytelling? What can we do? We're always working on storytelling as much as we can. I mean, I think the nature of nonprofit work is the marketing and outreach side are generally the lowest budgeted items that we have. You know, I would suggest finding a partner pantry in the community that works with a specific neighborhood or demographic and and donating directly to them. OK, because that gives them the opportunity. We have purchase programs for our partners as well. We have products we set aside for them to to purchase at a bulk rate discount to supplement what they're getting from the food bank otherwise. So if you have an organization that's working directly with a community of people you want to support, give directly to those those partners. I mean, we're we're part of one big community. Yeah. The money doesn't have to all come to bread of the mighty for it to feed people. And that's our goal ultimately is to feed people. That's a great answer. I think that's the best way to do that. Yeah. Thank you. That was a great answer. I could. I could. Commissioner Wheeler and then back to Commissioner. It feels like that this is an emergency. Very much so. Right. OK, so we we organize the EOC when we have hurricanes that are coming in. Do you all have do you have you gathered up where all the food is being distributed from? I mean, even I know there are fire stations and firefighters, you know, that have food that delivery or maybe even some of the sheriff's post. I don't know. But I do know that firefighters in the past have done that kind of distribution. So, you know, in the community centers that you're talking about, it sounds like we all almost need an EOC gathering, you know, of all these folks so that you're not doubling up on certain groups or some people are. I don't want to mean double. No, it sounds horrible. But you know what I mean. And even if is there some way to even to coordinate and monitor, though, who's getting what so that the same people aren't getting the getting the food, whereas others are not. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's that's a tough we don't ask any personal identifying information of anybody who gets food from us. And that's something we're proud of is that there's no barrier to get food. Right. We don't want anyone to feel dissuaded or afraid to come to a distribution. It does make times like this difficult where you do want to make sure that it's getting in the hands of people. What I would tell you is this, having been in this line of work now for two and a half years and gone to countless pantries and distributions, it is not an experience that you seek out unless you absolutely need it. You do not wait in line at a food distribution for an hour or two unless you absolutely need to. And so I think that to me is is what that dictates, you know, the most vulnerable needed are the people who are when we're starting a distribution at 10 a.m. are already lined up at 6 a.m. Right. I you know, I don't need to know much more than they're in desperate need of food. Sure. So we have that system. We have 150 partners that are vetted and go through an application process to become partners with the food bank. Part of that vetting is looking at the community they serve, the area they serve, their capacity to serve. So that's built into our model. Right. We don't just just hand out food to any organization. What I love to, of course, but it is an already pre vetted organization that we know is not duplicating efforts in a certain geographic region for a certain community. And you all have communication lines of communication. Oh, constant. OK, the food bank works like a symphony and there are every person is playing their piece of music, but they need to be reliant on other staff members also playing their pieces. And so there's that that that external communication with our partners, understanding, do they have the staffing capacity, the volunteers? Are they going to be ready to accept the food at this time? But also knowing what food do we have on hand at the facility on a Tuesday at 2 p.m. And when will the truck be? It's just this constant kind of ecosystem. I'd like to think of a lot of pumpkins left over. Yeah, we will probably be getting, you know, you can do a lot. Less candy than, yeah, I want to try to get us out of here by 4.30 so we can eat before 5. One other thing, too, there are truckers that are hauling commercial crops right out of North Alachua County, headed up I-75 out of this county. And there are truckloads, too. So I don't know if we've engaged with those local big commercial farmers. So the way that we work and the way that Feeding Florida, the statewide advocacy network, it's a very sophisticated process of working with farmers and our procurement process. So, you know, we are constantly engaged with food producers across the state, and we, Feeding Florida contracts separately with the Southeast Regional Cooperative, CERC, as a third party to help with farmer liaison, procurement, pricing, et cetera. So it's a very sophisticated process. I would imagine there's very few producers that we don't have at least one degree of separation. And they're recognizing the emergency. Do you think? I would hope so. I would hope so. Anna, it's you. Yeah, I'll just say two things. One is food banks are designed to get lots of food to people rapidly in an emergency fashion. That's their job. And their job is not to figure out the local economy. Their job is not to figure out how we support our local farmers. Their job is to get food in the hands of people. And they're, by and large, designed to help big multinational corporations get tax write-offs to do so. No offense to Patrick. That's not him. I mean, he said as an individual or feeding Florida specifically. But it's just the way it's done. Even for the farming programs that they do, they largely do pick and pack where they pay the labor to stay in the fields. That's immigrant labor that doesn't have any, usually doesn't have a lot of worker rights and often isn't paid fairly to stay in the fields and pick the food. And then the farmer would get the tax write-off on the food that they donate. Like, that's usually how that works. And they do have now, thanks to Robin Safley's advocacy, they do have some funding now to actually buy fresh food from farmers. And they're starting to work with local farms to actually buy fresh food. But it's a drop in the bucket compared to what he's talking about and the volume of food that they need to move right now. And I think, like I said, I think I would love for us to take a buy, kind of like a buy approach. So I'm going to take a stab at a motion. I mean, this is literally on the fly here, people. So this is not a very well-thought-out thing. But I do feel like we should fund the work they're doing and we should fund efforts to try to put a sustainable foundation for fresh food being delivered to people in need and who need it. So my motion is that we provide $100,000 to Berta the Mighty right now to supplement their emergency food assistance program, buying healthy staple food products for a balanced diet, not sugar and beverages and candy, but, you know, like rice and pasta and beans and canned vegetables. And $100,000 to the farmers markets that are able to stand up a fresh food voucher program for SNAP-eligible recipients and our family resource centers that are providing fresh fruits and vegetables to people to purchase local fresh fruits and vegetables that they can then get out into the community to supplement the emergency food assistance that they're providing that's shelf-stable. And that would come from? And that would come from Austin. And then we would write a letter to the city of Gainesville asking that they match our donation and to CTAC asking that they match our donation to the family resource centers. And that would come from our reserves. I'm from reserves. Yeah, I would expect Tommy to come. $200,000. Can I ask one question? That would go to the family resource centers are in the small municipalities, so that's why I'm thinking of them, that they could get any infrastructure for fresh food. If they need a cooler, we could provide that, like the infrastructure, like a cooler, and then to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables. So that's Micanopy, High Springs, SWAG, One Community Resource Center. I know that High Springs, I know that those are all family resource centers. I know that there's six, at least six of them, Hawthorne. Do I hear a second? Second. Okay, I have a motion of second. Before I get to commission comments, you had a question. Yeah, you had mentioned the voucher program. Is that similar to the fresh access bucks? That's what I'm hoping. I mean, I think our staff are going to have to. It still does exist. So the double-year impact. But I'm talking about filling in the other gap. Currently in the interim, okay. Filling in the gap. So these folks that are used to going to the farmer's market with SNAP dollars and getting them doubled, we would cover the difference. So they have these SNAP doubling, then they would get the SNAP dollars so they can double them, because right now they don't have any money to double. They just have. I understand. And I would say of the six, we work with all six resource centers in Alashua County. They all have current pantries and are current partners with us. And I will say that there's also the mobile health program that UF Health has stood up. It's like a mobile food pharmacy pantry thing that they've stood up that I think warrants some opportunity, too. But I think we have to look into it. Okay. So Madam Manager, we don't really have the urgency that I'm feeling and hearing is we meet in December, and we have one big holiday, another big holiday, and we have a delay even if SNAP is restored in feeding people. And so I hear this commission saying let's not have our current chair declare a state of hunger emergency while we're out of session, so this is something we can do. Is this something that how would staff kind of implement this ASAP? Because I know Tommy's in the back having a heart attack. I know Michelle's, you know, now our other foot's hurting. Mr. Chair, I have been talking to Tommy, and he is on his way in the room. And to clarify, was that $200 total or $100 total? Look at the look on his face. Self-stable emergency assistance through Brother the Mighty and $100 for fresh fruits and vegetables through our family resource centers. Through the family resource centers. Okay. Tommy's here. Is there any commissioners that want to ask questions or make comments before Tommy yells at us? While he's getting ready to speak about the money, that we also need to hit it from the side of getting the word out to the community. Claudia had talked about adopting a neighbor, and I heard Commissioner Alford, but you could do it in such a way that adopt a neighbor. This is what it would cost for you to adopt a neighbor. Give it to Bread of the Mighty, $30. Give it to Swag. A box is $28. And it feeds a family of four. I think I shared with you all the emergency distribution plan and the cost of the boxes and how long we estimate they will last for a family. I think that would be the best way to make that estimation. No, you did not. I didn't hear that. Is it an email? Yeah, I'll resend it. Oh, an email. I missed it. Yeah, yeah. We have a three-tiered box response, small, medium, and large. Small, we'll feed a family for about one to two days, medium, three to four. The large box is five to seven, again, depending on family size and the amount of time. And they range in costs from? From $12, $21, and $30. That's what your cost is. That's out the door what the cost would be to procure the product. Our staff will pack the boxes and then coordinate. And that's what you would use this funding for would be the purchase boxes. Correct, would be to purchase the product for those boxes. And how quickly can you stand that up? We are already standing that up. So this would just continue. I will tell you that the more that we have, the quicker we have, the better. Every food bank across the country is doing the exact same thing right now. So the supply chain issues are going to come up very quickly. Patrick, could you make a little video summarizing all that and post it on Facebook so I can share it around? I did. You did? Oh, did I miss your video? I only got your letter. I got a video online right now. I saw the mayor's video. I haven't seen your video. It wasn't specific to the boxes that we just discussed, but it was very much in line with what has been discussed here today. Okay. Oh, I'm sorry I missed your video. It's okay. Yeah. Okay. Share it. Okay, I'll share it. Is it Thanksgiving? No, they're not Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving, they are not stable items, but it is proteins, it's pasta, it's beans, it's vegetables, it's breakfast items. It's really meant to be enough to sustain a family. So in a couple of weeks, it would have to be like geared more towards Thanksgiving. And we have those Thanksgiving boxes, but I think we are going to prepare for this the last several weeks. Okay. So we're going to hope to try and buy as many of these and prepare as many of them. And then add the turkey later maybe. We are definitely doing the Thanksgiving giveaway. Okay. Okay. Tommy. Oh, I'm sorry. Those in the community, how will they know to give money and then how many people it will feed? I mean, because I think that that's important. Is there like a radio ad or something? It should be. It should be, you know. Can you get in front of the mic? Can you get so they can? I apologize. Commissioner Chestnut is entirely on me to get out as much as humanly possible to spread that word. But it's something that you all hopefully can do as well. I mean, because those that can give could probably would want to give. I think that one of the best parts of this community is that they can activate in time of need. And so, yeah, the hope is that we can spread the word as much as possible. So, you know, I'm doing multiple interviews a day and doing our best. Gotcha. Okay, Mr. Crosby. And then we'll back back to Commissioner Prezio. Mr. Chair, Tommy Crosby, Sixth County Manager for Budget Fiscal. So, first reminder to the board that we do have quite a bit of money and we just made a budget amendment for revenue recovery. In that pot of money is quite a bit of money we set aside for food. And we actually took back when we did the amendment last time when we didn't do the processing plan, we put a lot of that towards housing and food. So, there are quite a bit more than $200,000 there as well. Is that what you would recommend? That money is already being spent with the consultant, the money that we set aside. Some of it is. Some of it. All of it is not. Not all of it. And can we refer to staff to come back with where that money comes from if we approve this? We have that also. So, that's where I would initially look. And I also remind the board besides just funding programs. I mean, while those are important programs, if you'll remember during COVID, which is kind of how this all started with having this pot of money, we were in dire straits in getting food into people. And there are other processes we used like getting people so they can go to a grocery store and get groceries. And we had other dollars we could declare as public purpose to actually get money or things into people's hands so they can go get it from a grocery store and not just one or two locations in this county. So, there are other avenues. Obviously, I think that that department, the Tourist and Economic Development Department, should hopefully weigh in on that's what they do. The food assistance is a part of their program, as well as if it would be my advice that we use part of the revenue recovery funds to fund this at this time. Okay. Commissioner Prizia. I'm not opposed to spending revenue recovery funds as long as it's not robbing from Peter to pay Paul because I will say that, I mean, the ultimate goal is that we stand up a resilient, you know, local food economy, local food hubs that are able to, like, help us spin up emergency responses that aren't just about shelf-stable food. So, I just want to make sure that that's not the case. But I'm 100% with Tommy on that idea. And I think that that team, and I love the idea of being able to provide families with the opportunity to buy groceries. I know they can't buy them at the same volume discounts that Pride of the Mighty can, but it does give people the autonomy and the feeling of, like, the ability to control their own destinies and be able to pick and choose the foods that they want that make sense culturally, make sense for their diets. Yeah, the gift cards to local grocery stores. I would hope that we would, again, look into locally-owned grocery stores and to community-owned grocery stores as much as we do the big retail chains. So, I would be adding to, I guess I can add to my motion that staff look into the additional funding that we have set aside for food and options and bring those back to us at our next meeting or ahead of our next meeting, I guess. Yeah, I was going to say our next meeting is not until December, so. We'll restate your motion, see if the seconder approves, and if you need to add something, add to it. 100K to Bread of the Mighty for emergency food assistance now, the food boxes that you just talked about. 100K to the farmers markets for their SNAP voucher programs and to our family research centers to procure and provide fresh fruits and vegetables, and then to ask the city and SeaTac to match those, the SeaTac to match the fresh fruits and vegetables funding, and the city to match the Bread of the Mighty funding. From revenue recovery funds? From revenue recovery funds. And then to ask staff to come forward with additional recommendations on food assistance opportunities as soon as possible. Seconder? Yeah, agrees. Okay. So, we've got a motion. Thank you. And it's more than I thought we could do in 14 minutes. Commissioners, any comments to the motion? Motion to do more. Any public comments to the motion? If this passes, I hope, Mr. Dodd, you walk across the street and start spreading the word, because we're going to need help from everyone, and I'll certainly spread the word with SeaTac as the current chair of SeaTac. Okay, back to the board. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? The motion is unanimous. Thank you, Tommy, for running down on such short notice. Patrick, thank you for coming back and for all that you are currently doing to help feed our community. Thank you, Commissioner. Thank you, Commissioners. Thank you for your leadership. Do you have enough people to help distribute that food? Yes, Commissioner, we do, through our volunteers and our network. Excellent. Thank you. Okay. Any other manager comments that are going to cost us a lot of money, Missy? Maybe. Yeah, that'd be great if you could send us an email on that. Okay. Commission comments. Commissioner, we've got to reconvene in 29 minutes, so if you have something that can wait. I'll do it after. Good? Good for now? Good for now. Okay. Yeah, we can do it after. Good for now. Okay. Well, with that, we are going to break and reconvene at 501. Thank you.