Regular Meeting @ 11:30 a.m. - Nov 10, 2026

looking forward to working with everyone. Okay, Commissioner Frizzi. I just want to say welcome.

We're really excited, excited about your background and your passion for mental health and all of the work that you've done in that arena and very excited. I know this commission is really committed to root causes and trying to think about the ways in which we reduce reliance on public safety by making people have the tools and resources they need to support their own families and be successful and safe in their own lives. So we're really excited you're here and thank you for

joining the team. Commissioner Alford. Yeah, I wanted to echo that. I got very excited because I saw that your background was in utilities and I have a background also in utilities and while that sounds like it's the sometimes sounds like the utilities are the bad guys but you work for Progress Energy which is an organization that I work for and I respect it a lot. They're no longer around. They got bought out by Duke. But anyway, I admire not just your background in root cause analysis but your background human performance improvement and those things. I think bringing that to our fire safety folks, bringing that to our emergency management, your background with emergency management, all those things just make me super happy. And so thank you for coming and I know we're probably going to have

some long philosophical conversations. Commissioner Wheeler. Yes, and I want to say welcome to both of you because I appreciate the partner that you brought along with you and the expertise that she carries that I'm not going to tell anybody else about because she's going to be my friend. Former teacher, right? And I don't want to share. Former teacher? That's right. I'm married to a former teacher. And we've got stuff to do.

So welcome to you both. Yeah, and I'll echo my colleagues' thoughts. You know, we all had a short opportunity to sit with Charles and I said welcome to the best staff in the state of Florida and the best county in the state of Florida and I look forward to having you integrate quickly into county operations. And I see Commissioner Leck just joined us. So Tina, thank you for being here today. Okay. Mark, back to you for announcements.

Okay. Mr. Chair, just a historic moment. I've done more roads updates in the last three years than I had in my previous 19 years. So I'm happy to provide this week's road update. Our fourth quarter road report came out. At this point, you have done, since Wild Spaces Public Places was passed, you've done over 50 road projects, totaling $56.9 million. You have four projects that were completed in the fourth quarter, major projects, and you have 34 projects that are in the pipeline that are in some phase of planning and engineering. The pothole update this week, your staff has filled over 1,100 potholes using 49 tons of material. They strip milled and resurfaced almost 8,000 linear feet of roadway using 303 tons of material. And the grand total for that is we're pushing 10,000. We've got 9,360 potholes that have been filled using over 412 tons of material and over 30,000 linear feet of strip milling has been done. So, it's an enormous amount of work that Ramon and his staff are doing. Finally, Mr. Chair, we wanted to remind our residents that tomorrow is Veterans Day. And we invite the entire community to come join us at Veterans Park. The event is from 7 a.m. to 1.30 p.m., and Veterans Park is at 7400 Southwest 41st place in Gainesville. This year's theme is the strength behind the service. And it honors not only those who have served the nation, but also their families, our caregivers, and all that support our veterans. There will be music, there will be a school patriotic display, artwork competition, there are the normal aircraft displays and skydiving performances, live bands, military and historical displays. It is a wonderful event, and we encourage all those in our community to come support our veterans. And Mr. Chair, those are the announcements.

Okay, thank you, Mark. And Commissioner Prisky, you'll be there representing the county. You'll be at the fun run, too, at the beginning, right? All right. Great. Okay. All right. Next up, we've got the approval of the recognitions. If I could get a motion to approve those. So moved. A motion is second to approve the two recognitions. Any discussion? Back to the board. All those in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? That motion is unanimous. And Commissioner Prisky will be doing the first one. Mr. Clerk? Got it.

Mr. Chair, the first one is the presentation of a proclamation recognizing November as National Adoption Month in Alaska County, Florida.

Hello. It's my honor to declare November as National Adoption Month in Alaska County, Florida. Do we have a... Oh, great. We have some representatives. Come on up. Come on up. Join me up here. Hi. All right. The next one is Adoption Month. It's a month set aside to raise awareness about the urgent need for adoptive families for children and youth in foster care. And 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 there are 60 children in our local foster care system waiting for adoption that will provide them with a love of a family, a permanent home, a stable foundation for their future. 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 meaningful and lasting differences 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. Whereas during National Adoption Month, the Alachua County Board of County Commissioners celebrates all families that have invited a child into their hearts and homes and express our profound appreciation for the agencies and individuals who make these adoptions possible. Therefore, through the authority vested in me by the Board of County Commissioners, I do hereby proclaim November as National Adoption Month in Alachua County, Florida. And it is signed and sealed by all the appropriate people. And we are just so grateful to all the families who have taken children into their homes. And hope those of you who are considering it will reach out so you can get more information about what it takes to do it and what rewards there are in being an open home and an open family with an open heart.

Commissioners, thank you so much for joining us and recognizing November as National Adoption Month. When I wrote this, there were 60 kids. Right now there are 61 kids that are ready for adoption. So they are just waiting for that family to step up and accept them and make them part of their family. And I want to thank you for helping us recognize them. We also recognize that it does take a village that while it is a family that is stepping up, it needs to be more than just a family that embraces these children and families. We need the community to come together. We need education. We need parks. We need ball fields. We need religious organizations to say these are our children and we are going to surround them with the resources they need. So thank you so much for having us here today. Let's get a picture.

You stay there.

You stay there.

All right, Mr. Clerk, next recognition.

Mr. Chair, next is a presentation of a proclamation recognizing November as Youth Hope Month in Alachua County, Florida.

And we've got our former school teacher, Commissioner Wheeler, giving this one.

Delighted to be able to read this one today, particularly in honor of my new friend who is going to be in the community helping address some of these concerns. I'm glad to claim kin to everybody. You guys, I just know that. Alachua County, Florida, a proclamation declaring the month of November as National Youth Hope Month in Alachua County, Florida. Whereas approximately 4.2 million young people ages 13 to 25 experience some sort of homelessness in the United States each year. And whereas while living on the streets or in their car, staying in shelters or couch surfing, youth may struggle to afford food, care for their mental and physical health, attend and complete school and avoid dangerous and violent situations. And whereas the common reasons youth may run away or experience homelessness include family conflicts, being asked to leave home, verbal, emotional, and or physical abuse, neglect, and financial problems at home. And whereas the National Runaway Safe Line is working to raise awareness and educate local communities about youth homelessness and the importance of prevention during youth homelessness outreach, prevention and education, hope month in all ways. And whereas through prevention strategies and early intervention programs, organizations like CDS Family and Behavioral Health Services are working to support youth in crisis and end youth homelessness. Now, therefore, through the authority vested in me by the Board of County Commissioners of Alachua County, Florida, I do hereby proclaim the week of March 15th, 2026 as National Safe Place Week in Alachua County, Florida. Duly proclaimed this 10th day of November 8th, 2026, Board of County Commissioners signed by our chair, Ken Cornell, who has been our chair this year and will soon be moving off that seat into another seat. We do the do-si-do here, you guys. This is the way we work our government and we work our community. And that came from me, do-si-do, Kentucky thing. But in any case, and it's also attested to by Jess Irby. And I salute all the people working in this community to address the homelessness of our children because children should never be without a bed to sleep in. So, thank you. Thank you, Commissioner.

All right, Mr. Clerk, next item.

Mr. Chair, that brings us to the board committee items. And the first up is Tourist Development Council board member appointments.

Okay, the recommended action is to go ahead and appoint Carly Baker and Cornelia Holbrook to the two hotel owner-operators. We'll do that with a motion. So moved. Once we... Second. Okay, we'll just do that. We'll do that now because we get that one taken care of.

All right. I know these people.

They worked really hard. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right, so that motion is unanimous. And then we will appoint one applicant who is involved in the tourist industry. We've got three applicants, Patrick Berger, Sean Colas, and Julie Smith. Are any of them here would like to speak to us about? Come on up. Give us your thoughts about why you'd like to be appointed to the board. And we certainly appreciate you.

Hello. My name's Julie Smith. I have been here before, obviously, the last time. And I believe it was Ken that told me not to stop, so I didn't. Since then, I was able to bring Elizabeth Reyes out to High Springs. She met with 35 businesses that were really unaware of all the grants that were available. She told me I had one hour and she stayed over two. And that really kind of put a perspective of, although we market a lot of things on social media, they're just not seeing it, not understanding it, not going through the process. Last week, I had to send her an email with about five businesses that were having problems with applying to be able to list their event inside of our email list. And sometimes, you know, I'm a visual learner. It would have been better if somebody helped show me. I think we may work together in the future. I believe Mary Helen was there on doing workshops that are through YouTube to where people can watch the application process. So I think a lot of it is being boots on the ground and bringing it back to the tourism about how these businesses, you know, don't understand what's available to them from the TDC. So I do attend every meeting. I do take multiple packets back. The last time I took it to Sue Weller in High Springs, you know, with the chamber and said, hey, here's what the grants are, here's what they're approving, here's where you can see what's going on. Recently, I partnered with UF. We're going to be bringing social media workshops to UF IFAS in Newberry. It's in the preliminary. We're doing a research study at UF. Farmers and agriculture, they don't understand social media. And although they want to market themselves, everything that you put on Facebook from Alachua County or from Visit Gainesville, all the grants, they're not seeing them because they're not familiar with social media. And we all know paper is going out. I'm very blessed with everything that you guys put on social media and Facebook because I'm actually learning a lot from even y'all putting Newberry, putting events going on. You guys are really up to your Facebook, and that has made it amazing for these local businesses. But if they're not on Facebook, how are they seeing it? They're not going to your website if they're not even familiar with Facebook. So that is something that we're going to work with. I believe at the end of this month we meet with the UF IFAS in Alachua and Newberry out in Newberry, and we're going to be applying for a grant through UF Research to start those workshops. There's nothing out there to teach these businesses and stuff about social media. And I thought High Springs was behind. I'm sorry, but Newberry makes High Springs look high-tech. Like, I met with a lot of the businesses. They're not going west of UF IFAS or west of these champions to downtown. So they really need help just with the TDC but also social media finding out these grants and that they can actually apply for. This money is there for the local businesses. We were blessed last week. She was there when we got a new grant for the zip line. That's two for the zip line and two for Serendipity. That brings people off the interstate to the small towns, and that's through the TDC. So thank you. I hope for having me. And I did come back.

Thank you. Thank you for coming back. All right. And Sean. Yep.

Welcome. Good morning, Chair and Commissioners. Good to see you, Sean. Great to see you. And we're sad to see you go. Thank you. I'm not going anywhere. I'm just off here. That's right. Again, my name is Sean Coles, and I live in High Springs. My experience brings together tourism operations, community development, destination storytelling. So I use places, history, culture, and character to inspire travel. My wife, Adele, and I own a vacation rental management company called HomeHost. We have owned and operated vacation rentals in Key West since 1997, and for the past six years also here in Alachua County. Nearly three decades in the tourism industry has taught me, or actually three decades in the tourism industry has given me a first-hand insight, really, into what draws visitors to a destination, how they experience it once they arrive, and most importantly, what makes them want to return. In High Springs, I also serve as the president of the Heart of High Springs, a nonprofit focused on historic preservation, arts and cultural programming, downtown vitality, and heritage tourism. Through that role, I help strengthen both the community and its visitor economy. My regular attendance at High Springs Commission and CRA meetings reflects my commitment to the community, and I believe gives me a strong understanding of public decision-making, accountability, and responsible stewardship of public funding. I also know how compelling stories turn curiosity into travel. As expedition leader on Discovery Channel's adventure series, Treasure Quest, my work requires me to communicate history and exploration in a way that captures an audience and makes distant places feel worth discovering. That same principle applies to tourism. In my tourism business, I see firsthand that visitors stay longer when we give them more than one reason to be there. Someone may come for the springs, then discover a nearby historic downtown, attend a local event, and find a new favorite restaurant, giving them a reason to stay another night or return, and I think that's the key. That is our opportunity to connect, to connect our communities, attractions, events, and local businesses through a stronger countywide cross-promotion, drawing visitors from one experience to the next so they explore more of Alachua County, stay longer, return more often, and support more local businesses. If appointed, I would bring practical visitor insight, non-profit and civic leadership, and a western Alachua County perspective while always serving the interest, of course, of the county as a whole. Alachua County has places, stories, and experiences that deserve to be discovered. I would be honored to help more people discover them. Thank you for your consideration.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Coles. Okay. Is Patrick Berger here? Nope. All right. Mr. Clerk, it's nice to see we have two friendly applicants here. Yes. Let's go ahead and do a roll call. High Springs.

We can have your one nominee, Commissioner Wheeler, please.

Goodness, can't we put them both on? They're both from High Springs. We need them up there for sure. Julie Smith.

Commissioner Prizia, your nominee, please.

Commissioner Ulfer, your nominee.

Sean Coles. Chair Cornell.

Sean Coles. So we have a problem here now. We do. Is there room on the board?

We can only appoint one.

We would encourage whoever we don't appoint to attend the meetings. Does anybody want to change their vote?

I'll tell you what. Julie, you keep doing this work. You're doing it, doing it, doing it, and you're going anyway. Sean, we're excited that you're here and that you're bringing this expertise and your experience to the board. I do believe it's something we need. You both have the skills and experience. It's hard to kind of shake those out. But I'll go with my colleagues and vote Sean Coles or move Sean Coles for the term ending November 13, 2030. And I know we have some others coming open. So, Julie, make sure your application stays active for the next.

Second. Second. We've got a motion and a second. Thank you. Thank you both. Any discussion? Back to the board. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That's unanimous. All right. Okay. Mr. Clerk, that moves us to, we've got five minutes before public comment. Why don't we get started on the next item, University of Florida Mobile Health Clinic?

Yes, sir.

And we'll do that item. Let's get started on that item. And then before we, and then when we're done with that, we'll do, we may pause after five minutes and do public comment. Who's here for public comment? We do have somebody here for public comment if we wanted to get started, Mr. Chair. Okay. Let's actually change what I just said. Let's get started on public comment. As long as we don't finish before noon, we're following the law here. And so we'll just declare it's noon. And Mr. Connish, you can start out public comment. You're recognized. Overhead, please.

Mr. Chair, Jim Connish. I've spoken to you many times over the decades about the river and the post springs. And we're in uncharted waters in terms of ecological collapse. As you know, for years, I have cultivated uneven growth longleaf pine. Yet, nonetheless, Holly Banner got our A classification illegally revoked. We recovered it. We lost thousands of dollars. Holly Banner regularly accuses us of residing in an agricultural building, pooping on the ground, allowing campers to do the same. These are all false allegations and outside of the scope of her official duties. She needs to be reined in. We are a legitimate agricultural production process and storing facility. It is beneficial to the community for someone to create something like this, which essentially is non-existent. And you disrespect us and you trample our rights. You have issued a CO under the guise of an owner-builder permit for a 6,683-square-foot facility on a very constrained lot with no stormwater management system. There is an outstanding code enforcement order accruing $100 a day fine for this so-called agricultural pond. This man right here personally excavated. Personally. If I did 1% of that, you would arrest me. And in fact, you're harassing me on my pole barn. I'm spending 17 staff members harassing me on a pole barn. On a lot I pay $700. You're in taxes. I'm not a pole barn. You have taken my property and I will sue you under Burt Harris for that. So these kinds of misallocations of public resources, disrespect of businesses that are protected by statute from your regulatory powers altogether. You are off the rails. And I'm not the only one. I'm not the only one. There's a disturbing collaboration between the property appraiser and the people back there who would not give me a 911 address even though we're taking gunfire into our vehicles, into our buildings. We can't get a 911 address because we're like, I guess, peasants under your authority. You are wrong. And you will be held accountable. Thank you, Ms. Connish.

All right. Next speaker, please. Yeah. Come on up. Aw. Just want to introduce yourself. We've got a little light system here. Green means go. Yellow means 30 seconds. Red means, you know, next person to speak. Okay.

I'll be quick.

Yeah.

Just introduce yourself. Hi. Hi. Sue Halfacre. I'm here for show and tell. I've been a burn nurse for 44 years, so I have a great affection for firemen. And in the past two and a half weeks, they've been to my house and Stacy's house twice at my house for my husband. You might know as Judge Curtin and transported him to the hospital. And they did magnificently because he's very type A and they calmed him quite down quite well. And then I was at Stacy's house going to take care of her two and a half year old when she went in for a C-section. And they called me back and I said, oh, your water's going to break. You know, you won't need this. And an hour later, they called me back and said, Sue, I think her water broke. So I go back and I pull in and then the fire truck from Bravo Shift Station 8, Engine 11, which is right on 34th Street. They are wonderful. Probably TMI. I came in and they were right behind me and they said, what are you doing here? I follow you guys around the town. I just, you know, like to. So we walk in and there's Stacy with Hattie with one foot coming out. Sorry. I used to that in nursing school, but hadn't seen it in 40 years. And they were fantastic with her and her husband and got her to North Florida. She delivered within 51 minutes from the time her water broke till delivery. And everything is perfect. And we just want to give a shout out to Electro County Fire Rescue. Yes. We're taking the baby by on Friday when Bravo Shift is there because we're taking brownies too.

Good. Thank you. Yeah. Sue, thank you for that wonderful story. Wow.

A little different than the last story we just heard. So thank you so much. Glad you came second. Thank you, Judge.

All right. Thank you for that. All right.

Next speaker, please.

Going once.

Going twice. Yeah. Come on up. I'm on Jess. This is your team. Oh, Christine. Come on up. Yep. And then after these two speakers, then we'll go to the phone lines. Okay.

I'm Christine Larson.

Um, I'm a little scatterbrained right now, so, but I'll try my best. Um, I'm here to represent, uh, Gainesville free food. And, uh, that's an organization that my husband and I started in April of 2020. And, uh, now the, uh, Facebook group has over 11,000 members. Um, we regularly make sure that as much as we can possible that food doesn't go to waste. There's a lot of food that is perfectly good. And if it wouldn't go to the dumpster and instead could get, you know, collected by any volunteers and given to anyone that's hungry, which is a lot of people in our community. Um, that's, that's mostly what, you know, we try to do. You know, we try to do, we focus on the free food and getting it to the mouths. Um, we do a lot of, uh, mutual aid and emergency aid. People will contact us and we try to let them know where to go get the food or if they can't get it, we try to get someone to deliver or we'll do it ourselves. Um, so I guess what I'm asking for today is if you, uh, if there's any kind of ability to have any kind of funding that can go towards our organization. And it would be helpful. Um, and I appreciate all of you for everything you've done already and especially like putting the information out. That's a lot of what we do is try to put out timely information. Um, it's hard to get the timely information and that's really important when you're hungry. Um, and yeah, that's, I guess that's it. Thank you guys. Thank you, Christine.

Jess, did you want to add anything?

Um, uh, hello. My name is Jess Larson and, um, uh, Christine mostly said most of the things that we came to, uh, to deliver. Um, or to say, um, uh, we work with a variety of different local organizations to help them achieve the most that they can. Um, we don't work for the organizations. Uh, we work for the people. They are directly who we have our loyalty to is the people who actually need the food. Um, we met them in the lines at the pantries. We met them through the internet. Um, we've built communities and collaborative efforts together with many people. Um, we've had many of our friends pass away that we've met through this. It's been, um, very significant for ourselves and many others that have, um, have been involved. Um, it's actually turned into one of the largest foodie networks of the North Central Florida area. I don't know that anything else that's pertaining to food is as big as Gainesville free food. It's interesting that when you remove the economic barriers to food, more people want to participate with food-related matters. Then, um, you find when it, um, costs money. Um, we saw an event recently at the Streetery, which wasn't about getting people with their groceries, but it was like a Taste of Gainesville event. And it was amazing how many people came out to have a sampling of restaurants and stuff. So I think even from a, uh, completely different capacity than the types of things we do, it can be observed that, um, things that have bare costs bear a barrier for people. But our, um, mission is about making sure people have the nutrition that they need. Um, nutritional deficiency is a very big issue. Um, if people go through, um, moments in their life of nutritional deficiency, it has a lasting effect on both themselves and the generations that come after them. Um, we know that the work that we do improves the future generations and generations from now. That we won't be alive to see a day that has been improved so much by our actions

because they will multiply through time as they go down more generations exponentially to create people who have been nourished by their ancestors' genetic code that was not nutritionally deficient from the times that they were alive while we're alive. So it's like a really big deal to help people in the here and now have enough to eat. And also in the future.

Many people who only think of their own family could consider the idea that you don't know who your grandchildren or great, great, great, great grandchildren will marry. And they might be from a family that's starving right now. And if we could feed them, you would have a stronger family generations from now that you will never meet. Because together on earth, we are all a family.

Good talk. Thanks, Jess. Very nice. Appreciate that. Thanks, Christine. Thank you, Jess. All right. Next speaker. Then we'll go to the phone.

Two more speakers. Then we'll go to the phone. Good afternoon, Commissioners, Chair. My name is Daniel Gill. Well, I haven't done this in a minute. I used to work for the GCRA. So I just have a question. I might have missed it with the road update. I'm just curious about the plan for Northeast 16th Avenue between Main Street and Waldo Road. I'm a graduate from UF Landscape Architecture Program. And I did a thesis. I graduated back in 2017. And my thesis was about creating a looping trail in Gainesville called the Infinity Line. And it was looking at creating a east to west. It's a very complex project. But it was mainly to connect the 6th Street Rails to Trails to the Waldo Road Rails to Trails. And as a student, my project focused on redesigning from the north easement to the south easement and 16th Avenue. And, of course, I was designing without a budget. So I, you know, came up with all these great grand schemes. And since then, you know, working for the city and kind of learned how things work, kind of. And, you know, I've started working and, you know, bought a home and renovated. And so I've kind of settled. And then the other day I went for a walk and was walking down 16th Avenue. And I was like, man, there is a trail here already. But it is, you know, the parts that run along north along Tom Petty Park have, you know, the roots kind of growing through the trail and broken up. And, you know, and I've just always gotten quite a bit of pushback when I go and present this infinity line idea, which is similar to, like, the Beltline or the High Line, if you guys are familiar with that project, to try to create a place here in Gainesville. And one of the main components that would maybe help that would be to make that connector trail along 16th Avenue to connect the Waldo Road rails to trails and the 6th Street rails to trails because they kind of come out of Depot Park. And so they kind of go nowhere. I mean, they don't go nowhere, but there's no sense of being able to loop and come around. Like the Beltline or the High Line, the 606, you know, a bunch of different cities are doing this rails to trails and providing. I got 15 seconds. So anyway, I was just wondering if there is a plan to repave 16th Avenue from Main Street to Waldo. And if so, is that easement trail?

So, yeah. So we just talked about this loop on the TPO yesterday. When we're done with public comment. Sorry. The TPO meeting that we had on yesterday, which is a combination of the city and the county.

Right. But which loop did you talk about?

It went from Depot Park up through. Do you want to do it now or do you want to wait? Yeah. We'll address this after public comment. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I think the county owns the road up to Main Street.

The county does own that road.

And then from Main Street to Waldo, I think it's owned by Gainesville. But, but.

It's a county. It's a county. Yeah. It's a county. Thank you so much.

All right. Anyone else in the chambers before we get to the phone lines? Here's my nephew. Happy birthday, Sam.

Thank you. It is my birthday. 27 years. So I have an idea for a present. Good afternoon. Sam Cornell. In August, I came here before you guys to talk about cameras, the brands Phlox, Axon, all those types of cameras. And I asked why the Nebraska State Patrol can see where I drive on Newberry Road. As of this morning, they still can. Tens of thousands of you on the internet and on Facebook, TikTok, have seen that presentation. And many more have reached around the country for similar comments. I don't know why. Well, I'll frame it this way. A private company runs the Phlox and Axon cameras. It's not the county. It's a private company in Atlanta, Georgia, that costs us $3,000 per camera per year. At this point, as of this morning, we still have 17 Phlox cameras in our county that are activated. We have 12 permits for Axon cameras. We have more on the way. Two dozen pan-tilt live Zoom cameras coming to parks and schools near you. That's on your street and yours and mine and theirs. Meanwhile, I have 1,500 emails sitting in Alachua Sheriff's record purgatory. The bail on that is set at $1,275. So I'm not getting those. This is my ask, right? I ask that we freeze the permits for now. On October 27th, Commissioner Prizia, on her motion, you voted 4-0 to build a surveillance permit. And that's definitely a good starting point. And I thank you for that. But while the permit is coming, the cameras aren't going anywhere. They're not waiting at all. With that, every county that borders this one has deactivated them. The state has issued guidance. And there's even federal discussion about this in the Senate on both sides of the aisle at the national level. So I ask that we freeze the cameras for now. And if you want them back on after your permit and after your vetting process, vote on it. Putnam County turned them off two months ago, a few days after the governor's directive. And it has not devolved into anarchy. In fact, Gainesville maintains the cameras as a suspended status. But that's only about a month ago. Over the last year, violent crime is up 20% in Gainesville. I don't think the cameras are helping. But I don't know that they're not. I'm willing to give it a fair chance while we properly vet the efficacy of that. But in the meantime, I do ask that we freeze them. Alachua County is not going to descend into a lawless wasteland because we unplugged a couple dozen cameras. The one thing that watches everybody should not be the one thing that none of us voted on. Thank you.

Thank you, Sam. All right, Mark. I guess we'll go to the phone lines.

Mr. Chair, we're cognizant of people being somewhat confused at times. So we have one person in the room. They do not have their hand raised. And caller ending in 2984. If you wish to speak at public comment, please hit star nine. Okay. Their hand is up. You are in the room. If you would state your name and you'll have three minutes.

Okay. This is Danielle Valvis. Can you hear me?

Yes.

Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I was wondering if I could have permission to yield my time to the previous speaker.

Back to Sam. Sam, do you need any more time? Okay. Sure.

One minute. Thank you. I'll go on mute. I love your family. That's his mom. I do.

Well, you know, I heard the afternoon meeting was canceled. I was going to have some friends here. But, you know, you can always fall on mom, especially when you call in a birthday favor.

Go ahead, Sam.

Thank you. On a different subject, I want to respect and honor somebody who's here for, I believe, their last time. Before I finish, I'd like to recognize you, Commissioner Wheeler. This is your final meeting, as I understand it, on the Board of County Commissioners. Wow. Well, I know that public service often comes with, you know, considerably more criticism than appreciation. So I would like to use this minute to appreciate you for a moment. There are many of you and many of you who dedicate your lives to a cause. But I think your years in public education stand out to me. Your service on the commission since 2018 represents a substantial commitment to the people of Alachua County. And I want to recognize your important contributions to preserving places that this county holds special. Now, I don't always agree on certain land use at times. But one thing you have done is your work surrounding Camp McConnell, now Cuscawilla. And decisions like those have impacts that extend well beyond any single commissioner's term. They're part of the legacy we leave for the next generation of residents, myself included. Regardless of whether people agreed with every decision you all will make or yourself, I think we can all appreciate the time and the energy and the personal commitment that public service requires. I think it's especially important for younger residents like myself to see people who have spent years showing up and participating in difficult conversations and finding a way to compromise and take responsibility for the direction of their community. So, Commissioner Wheeler, thank you again for your service to Alachua County. Thank you for your contributions. And congratulations on reaching this milestone. I hope there is something I can learn from you down the road.

Thank you, young man.

Thank you, Sam. Happy birthday. Spending his birthday here with us. I appreciate that.

That's right.

All right. All right. So, now we're going to give some comments. You want to address Mr. and then? Yeah, I have a couple. The flocks? Go ahead. Quickly.

And then Commissioner Wheeler.

Christine, thank you for your constant and never-ending diligent commitment to making sure that people have food. We really appreciate that dedication. We do have a community agency partnership grant. And the woman that runs that is right behind you. Her name is Claudia Tuck. Her department runs that grant program. That would be a really good one to look into for your agency. And so I just wanted to bring that up to you. And also just to say a thank you for all that you do to help feed those in need. And we know it's getting worse out there as the cuts to SNAP and the requirements for SNAP become more burdensome and difficult. And we know that the need is only growing in our community. So thank you. For the infinity trail, I just wanted to say we did have a conversation at TPO. The city is working on the Sweetwater Branch connection trail that's going to come up from Depot into downtown. And there was a suggestion from another resident who bike commutes all the time that that connect up through Tom Petty Park to 16th and then over to the 6th Street trail and back down. Sort of very similar view to yours, but not all the way to Waldo, although I'm sure he could be convinced that Waldo Trail should be incorporated into that and it makes perfect sense to me. I believe the city of Gainesville owns east of Main Street, but I'm not 100% sure on that. Regardless, I know there aren't any current plans to repave that portion of 16th at the moment, but it doesn't mean to say that collaborations with the city on improvements at Tom Petty Park or as they do that Sweetwater Trail couldn't be considered. So definitely keep the pressure on, keep the conversation going. And MTPO is also a really great place to bring these as well as our joint city county meetings when we're talking about the downtown revitalization and the investments in those areas. I think the next one is in January.

And is Ramon still here? Which? Ramon, can you clear up who owns 16th? Yeah, just real quick while Commissioner Carrizio has the floor.

Oh, joint city county is in January. I'm not sure when the next TPO is. I think it's December. The next TPO, I believe, is December 7th.

Yeah.

Ramon, who owns the, who owns?

East side of 16th. East of Main.

Southeast 16th. Northeast. Northeast 16th. I believe that it's mostly in the city of Gainesville, but my staff is checking on that right now. But like Commissioner Carrizio said, there is that road, that section of the road is not in the current program right now.

Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. Thank you.

Whoever owns that road. Whoever owns the road. It would be the city or the county. Mr. Gil. You have to talk about that. If it was part, if the county would develop that trail and repave the road, that maybe the city would take over maintenance. Because we know that that's really where the money is. Yeah, we've had a lot of those discussions.

Especially when we repaid 16th, we asked them to take it.

But we will look into that. We have a trail there already, and it just needs some loving. Gotcha. And so I think it would be a great opportunity for the city and the county to create a place to talk about tourism and having a reason to come back.

Well, I'll just add really quick on the end of that is just that the other thing you might want to look at is our bike pedestrian master plan. We do have a bike and pedestrian master plan that we just adopted. And in that, there's a number of trails that were sort of identified as priorities. And we'll be looking for funding and grants to support those projects. So it may be in there. Okay. But that, the CRA conversations with the city and the county, and the joint meetings would be great opportunities. Okay. Thank you so much. Thanks for listening. Appreciate it. And last but not least, to Sam. Thank you again for being here. I am 100% with you. I am the first person to say that I do not believe that unchecked surveillance is necessary or should be allowed in our communities. I am not in favor of it. I feel like it is a violation of our constitutional rights. And I would love to turn those cameras off. I will say that a lot of the cameras in our community that I know of are actually on private property as well as the ones that are in our right of way. So I don't know how many of those cameras we actually control or have the ability to turn on and off. Does anybody on our staff know that?

As part of your motion, I think we were referring this to staff to bring that information back to us. We were, yeah. And when is that going to come back?

Correct. I've asked staff to make sure, because we just got this a couple weeks ago. So I've told them to bring it back in January.

In January. Gotcha. Okay. Well, I hear you on the pause. I'm not sure that we have the authority to actually do that because they're not our cameras and we didn't institute them, pay for them, or control them currently. So I'm not sure that we could turn them off. We could certainly send a chair letter to the sheriff asking him to turn off his and the city to turn off theirs. But it's different. For me, the question is what right of way are they in?

If they're in our right of way, I would think we would have some sort of authority. And so that's part of what I had asked the manager and the attorney when they bring that back is where are they? And if they're in our right of way, what authority do we have to end them, limit them, or?

Monitor them locally rather than send it to Kansas.

So I viewed this request from Sam as part of your motion, kind of more of a global motion. You are asking what's the process for permitting, and I have asked the manager, like, if they're in our right of ways, we should have authority over them. And if so, then let's have a public discussion about whether or not we want them there, and if we don't, let's remove them.

And, Mr. Chair, we also need to take a look at what even agreements the sheriff's office has as far as what data is shared or is not shared because they also separately have agreements. So, you know, we also need to look at that because to know.

I think those are mutual sharing agreements. I don't know if they have anything. Yeah. So do you need any expansion of the previous motion from Anna? Okay. No, we're clear. We're clear. Okay.

Well, I mean, I, you know, I, for one, am happy to make a motion, but it's not like I have support for a motion to cancel, to suspend any cameras that we have control over at this time. But I will say that we will, in January, be having this conversation. I hope you'll bring your data and information and good questions to the conversation, and we'll be sure to let you know when that meeting is.

Okay, Commissioner. Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Wheeler. Thank you. Yes. Jess and Christine, thank you all for coming in here. We talked about you being here, and I was looking for you. I've worked with these two for the eight years that I've been on this board and seen them gone hungry myself, themselves, while they were trying to provide food for the community. And so your hearts are good. Your messages are stronger than ever, and it's really nice to have you come advocate for the folks that you are taking care of. And it's been fun for me to watch you grow to your feet. So keep up the good work. Yeah. We'll find each other. We'll find each other. Sam, my crystal ball says that you are going to be doing amazing things. Washington right now is being run by people your age. You know, the people that are working with the representatives, the senators up there, are young people who are willing to do the research and do the deep dive and are hungry to make sure that solutions are found. So thank you for being a part of my world here today. Yeah, and Sam, if you're not doing anything, go eat.

We're going to be celebrating Commissioner Wheeler at Commission Comments.

And we're going to all have a few things to say, and I'd love to have you here. All right, I'll go ahead and close public comment. And Mr. Clerk, next item. Mr. Chair, that takes us to the presentations with the University of Florida UF Mobile Health Clinic and OBGYN Mobile Outreach Clinic. All right, and the recommended action is to hear the presentation. So sorry for the false start of about 30 minutes ago. Thank you for hanging out with us.

I just wanted to clarify. Is it okay for us to have 15 minutes? I think we were told we could have 15 minutes. Yes, absolutely.

Great. Thank you.

So, Mr. Chair and Commissioners, thank you so much for giving us this opportunity. I'm Grant Harrell. I'm the Medical Director of the University of Florida Mobile Outreach Clinic Primary Care Program. And my colleague?

Adetola Louis-Jacques and OBGYN Mobile Outreach Program.

Nice. And we are very excited today, not to make any specific asks, but just to share the impact that we've been having in the community, not just this year, but for many years, and hopefully have a discussion about how we can continue to serve the community going forward. This is a picture of our Mobile Outreach Clinic Primary Care Bus, which is pretty ancient, almost 40 years old, but she's still going strong. The good news is, we actually found out this year that the state of Florida provided us a legislative request to fund a new mobile unit, so this spring we will be able to retire this poor old gal and welcome in a beautiful new unit to continue to serve the county.

Yes, we have a prettier gal. This is our OBGYN Mobile Outreach. We started in 2025, one day a week, and now we're three days a week and going strong.

So, just to give you some quick overviews about the differences between our two programs. So, our program, the Primary Care, which we just call the Mobile Outreach Clinic, predominantly provides comprehensive primary care to residents all over Latchewa County and other counties. And we've been going strong since 2010. So, even though our bus is 40 years old, actually our program in its current iteration has been operating since 2010. Our focus is uninsured and underinsured individuals. So, we don't charge for any of our services, and we specifically target those who don't have insurance or those whose insurance, the co-pays are too high, whatever it may be, they're unable to get to the clinic where their insurance covers. So, we're there as a safety net to provide coverage and services to all those folks.

So, we provide care across the whole continuum, preconception, pregnancy, postpartum, lactation, and guide services, and for people with limited access. Sometimes people have not had the Medicaid yet or they're working to get it still, but if they can't get care in a timely way, then all throughout their pregnancy, we provide that.

So, just to give you a few numbers, this is last year. So, the top numbers are for our primary care unit. And, excuse me, actually, these are more averages. So, we typically see about 3,000 patients a year. Last year, we saw more about 3,500. We do a lot of training of students and residents. We typically average a bit over 100 trainees that we have rotating through our clinic as a part of their formal training. And, as I mentioned before, we've been going since 2010. So, we're actually in our 16th year now, going strong.

So, for pregnancy care, people typically need a lot of visits throughout their pregnancy and postpartum. So, we have less patients seeing but about 1,000 encounters for giving them the full care they need. And, since our program started, we're about 1,400 encounters. We're in four counties. Well, Gainesville is one of the locations that we, East Gainesville, go to quite a bit.

Yeah. So, those numbers are actually higher for the OB-GYN unit than we have here. So, just to give you a little bit of information on the patients that we serve. As I mentioned before, we specifically are there for uninsured and underinsured residents. And, of course, most of these folks end up being racial and ethnic minorities. Basically, everybody is 200% of federal poverty or less, and the vast majority are at or below federal poverty. Almost all of these folks have some sort of social barriers, whether it's transportation, food insecurity, housing instability, limited English proficiency. And, we've designed our programs specifically to help with those needs. We have care coordination to help case manage things like the housing stability and food insecurity. Most of our staff is bilingual, and so we are able to provide not just Spanish-speaking services, but we, of course, have full translation services through language lines. So, we make ourselves accessible to everybody, regardless of language. We have very flexible scheduling. We don't turn people away. We really emphasize low barriers. So, when we say it, we mean it, because we're all aware about how difficult it can be. Even if you have insurance, if you have a great job, whatever it is, it can be hard to access healthcare. We try to take down as many barriers as possible.

So, our integrated services, as we've talked about, both primary care and chronic disease management, whether it is that we're working hand-in-hand, we have patients who may have chronic diseases, and we work with primary care bus, sometimes locations that we're parked together, or transitioning them in a postpartum to get the care they need. We have prenatal, postpartum, GY and lactation care, as we've talked about. We have nurse midwives and physician assistants on the bus. We have health educators. We talked about the co-management. We have on-site lab and medication dispensing. For our OB-GYN bus, we have ultrasound. We have sonographers coming from the hospital to scan babies. We have testing for moms who are high-risk to get fetal testing on the bus. So, it's really full-spectrum care, even if people are reading from brick and mortar, the ultrasound, or helping support us remotely. And then we have cancer screenings and colposcopy, mental health screening, which is universal, and providing care for that. And then we screen for social needs and address those, and warm referrals through our health educators, our safety, collaborative, and just working hand-in-hand.

And just to emphasize another aspect of multidisciplinary care that we provide that wasn't highlighted here. So, we have implemented a lot of community health workers into our programs. The OB-GYN program has two full-time community health workers that have been there since day one. We just recently incorporated about seven community health workers into our mobile outreach clinic program, specifically for hepatitis C. Sorry, can you not hear me? Specifically for our hepatitis C initiative that we've been doing over the past year and will continue this year. We also, of course, include mental health professionals. We have licensed clinical psychologist Carol Lewis, who's fantastic, and has been volunteering with us for many years providing mental health. So, we really do emphasize the multidisciplinary aspect of what we do. Our care coordination programs are something that we're extremely proud of. And we actually utilize our undergraduate students for that and have since almost the initiation of our program. We have anywhere from 30 to 50 undergraduates that function like care coordinators. So, they not only see patients on the bus with the healthcare providers and take care coordination notes about all of those social barriers, housing instability, food insecurity, transportation insecurity. They then, after the clinic, in the office, then case manage those things. Call the patients over the week. Make sure that the referrals we made to various community resources actually get completed. We take a lot of pride in that. They have their little green check marks. They have to turn from red to green when they've appropriately case managed something for a patient. So, it's not just, we don't just say we're going to do this for you. We follow all the way through. And these are undergraduates that are doing this. Some of whom end up becoming medical students, PA students that we then see as students. So, really cool stuff. So, the primary care mobile outreach clinic, so my program. So, we are, our home base is Gainesville, Alachua County. So, that bus that you saw is here Tuesdays through Fridays. And we're predominant. We've been a lot of different places over the years.

Dr. Heron, I know that people want to hear you. So, as close to that microphone, there you go.

I'm sorry. That's okay. So, we've been a lot of different places over the years. We've settled into a nice kind of sweet spot with Gainesville Community Ministries and Grace Marketplace. We found that those have been really nice, accessible points, especially for a lot of our patients in East Gainesville. And we have fantastic partnerships with both of those places. It's really been a beautiful collaboration. We do also have a rural program that we developed a few years ago where we seek to provide care to Dixie County, Gilberts County, Levy County, where there's tremendous amounts of health disparities. But we recognize Alachua has been our home from the beginning. And so, we always have that as a focus of everything that we do. Again, we're Tuesday through Friday, 8 to 4. We use Mondays to stock our bus and do maintenance kind of stuff. And then we have our rural clinics every Tuesday as rotating sites. We don't turn anybody away. We essentially provide everything that a primary care office can provide. And we even do some things that are, I would say, uniquely impressive. So, for reproductive health services, things like long-acting reversible contraception, you can get that same day. You can show up to our bus and say, I would like to have an IUD. We will do it right then. I would, you know, I would challenge you to find another clinic where you can do that. Wow. So, and that's as a response to specific needs that we've seen in the community. And again, it's the whole concept of low barrier. I can't tell you to come back and see me in two weeks. You may not, you know, your work schedule may not work with that.

You don't have transportation reliably to get back. So, we try to do everything that we can right there at the point of service.

Right. So, we are at Gainesville, Trenton, Williston, and Lake City. And at Gainesville, we're at the Library Partnership Branch and the Gainesville Apartment Zone. We're working to, with Hawthorne, hopefully at the site, and also maybe Newberry and High Springs. So, those are the areas we're hoping to expand in the next few months.

So, just to give you an idea of where our patients are coming from in Alachua County. These are absolute figures that you'll see. These don't include, of course, our rural clinic. This doesn't include our street medicine population or any of the specific outreach events that we do over the course of the year. This is just that core Tuesday through Friday bus population. So, although the largest absolute number comes from 32608, the reality is that we have the highest percentage of 32609 and 32641 by population. So, that's mostly who we're seeing. So, again, it's predominantly East Gainesville. Although, of course, 32608 being overwhelmingly the largest population zip code, we see a lot of folks from there as well as 32607. But I think we've always had a goal of trying to serve East Gainesville to serve the parts of the county that have some of the highest needs. And I think we have delivered on that. Just to give you some background into how we've tried to engage rural Alachua County over the years and where we hope to improve, you'll see that we actually do serve folks from our rural areas of Alachua County. And we desire, because we're mobile, to be able to bring services to them. But even when we haven't been able to effectively do that, folks still find us. We've had clinics in Micanopy at times. We had an outreach in Hawthorne and Waldo. We weren't able to quite get the engagement at the time to justify having a full day of clinic out there. We do know that there is a need, especially in Hawthorne. We're always trying to figure out how to serve that specific population better. And that's something that we're really trying to think about and looking forward in the future. But you can see that even though we're not necessarily parking the bus in the rural areas of Alachua County, folks are still finding us, which of course inspires us to want to figure out how to serve them even better.

So just sharing that who we're serving is that care deserts having social needs that are unaddressed carry real impact and consequences for health outcomes. So some of the low access areas, the federally designated shortage areas with Waldo and Hawthorne. For maternity care, we're in a county, but most of the counties that surround us are actually the low access or maternity care deserts. So really, and most come to us for their birth because there are no hospitals close by. There are two or three counties with full access in North Central Florida. So just also supporting that since a lot of the births then end up with us. And then we know that there are maternal health gaps, racial gaps where there's increased mobility and mortality. And so we're trying to address those, and this is why this work matters. Training-wise, I think one of the key pieces that we want to train the next generation of providers to really understand the impact of addressing social needs and also outreach and taking care of their communities. So we train all groups, so medical students, physician assistants, residents. It could be some in the primary care or OB-GYN, advanced practice providers. We're starting to engage with College of Nursing to start midriff school in about two years to help increase the workforce. And a doula training and community health workers also in the perinatal space in pregnancy and postpartum.

And I actually want to share a story with you right now to illustrate how this even comes around to help Alachua County. So we think about trainees. We're training them. They go out. They go back to where they're from, wherever. Actually, this ends up impacting our county in some really meaningful ways, and I'll give you an example. So a student of mine named Jordan Hall, who I taught probably eight to ten years ago as a medical student, then went on to join internal medicine at UF as a resident. Did his residency there. He had worked with me on the street medicine program as a student. Decided that residents in internal medicine could really be a benefit to the street medicine program. So he developed a little rotation of his internal medicine residents, especially when he was the chief resident, and tell them what to do. And so we started having a regular presence of internal medicine residents on our afternoon street medicine outreach. He has now joined faculty at UF, and we are in the process of creating a clinic using his specific clinic at Med Plaza to help transition folks who we are helping, who have just recently transitioned from being unhoused to housed, many of whom are at the Tumbling Creek facility, of having his office be their primary care home because it's very close to the facility. That's great. So you can see how the full circle of education really can come home to provide needed services to our community, and that's one of the reasons why we take education and training so seriously. So the future is challenging for health care. I don't think I need to, you know, tell you all about that. ACA plans are getting increasingly more expensive. That's going to skyrocket even more soon. We're going to see more people losing their insurance, more people needing services like ours. We do our best to provide care for as cheaply as possible, and we do a great job of that. But it's still expensive to provide medical care. We know we need to expand our services. We grow year over year in the needs that we're trying to meet. We know there are additional services that we also need to provide, not just the primary care and OB-GYN services. We want to do that. We want to look for more partnerships. We're constantly looking for new grants to support our work. We always want to partner with institutions to try and give us stability and to try and meet specific needs. Like I mentioned, I know that there are needs around rural Alachua County. We want to meet those needs. We want to form partnerships with our local institutions to do that. And it's not just primary care. I mean, the OB programs, we're also seeing an increased need as maternity deserts expand and volume continues to expand.

I think in Gainesville alone, we've been at max capacity and been over capacity since we started here. And so we're expanding. We now have two providers to meet that need and then hoping to expand to two or three more larger county sites.

This is just a slide, sort of a breakdown of how we're funded. If people are interested, we get about a third of our budget, at least the primary care side. We get about a third of our budget from the College of Medicine because of all of the training we do of medical students, PA students, and residents. We get a lot of in-kind services from the Department of Family Medicine, from their administrative staff. They help us with a lot of our administrative work. We have a large grant that we've been working with to try and cure hepatitis C in Alachua County, and that's the SAMHSA grant. That's going to be ending next year, so we're going to have some holes to plug there, but that's been a wildly successful grant. I want to highlight CAP. The county's been a fantastic partner for us through Choices in CAP for the last several years. We're just a CAP recipient currently, but we'll continue to try and apply for funds probably for Choices in the future. Then Florida Association Free and Charitable Clinics, as well as private foundations in philanthropy, and that's how we cobble together the funds that we need to run our program. It's a little different for the OB unit, though.

So a lot of what we do is grant-funded, and so this was just a look at last year ending. And I think from the OB-GYN department perspective, it's been providing sonographers that the high-risk OBs read ultrasound remotely, that if there's high-risk condition, they can ask remotely also for some of their needs. And so mainly grant work and department support.

I think health is a great investment, and we thank you for your time. Thank you.

Okay. We've got lights. Commissioner Alford and Commissioner Pritzia. Thank you, Commissioner Wheeler.

Hi. Thank you all for being here, and I'm always happy when I see your bus parked around and providing services. I had a few questions. First, how can the public find your schedule?

So our website is very easy to find. If you type in UF Mobile Clinic into Google, it's the first thing that comes up. Our website has all of our locations and times, our entire calendar. Everything is there. Great.

I knew it was online. I just figured that the public might want to hear that. Yeah. Thank you. Secondly, do you help people sign up for UF Health's Med Needy? I don't know what it's called these days. It used to be called the Med Needy Program. Are you referring to the Financial Assistance Program?

Yes. We heavily use UF Health Financial Assistance Program, and yes. In fact, that's the primary way we get folks specialty care.

And then you do refer them to specialists? Of course. Yeah. I'm just helping you say some things to the public that need to be said. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you. Yes.

So there are all kinds of ways that folks can connect with specialty care. What we have found traditionally is the best, most reliable way is through the Financial

Assistance Program. Great. And then how are Med Records handled? Are they through the Shands UF?

Yes. Absolutely. So we're integrated into the Epic platform through UF Health. Right. We're actually a clinic with them. All of the typical HIPAA safety, the entire gamut of institutional securities we have.

And again, though, if somebody adds history with UF Health from the past, you have access to those historical records as well. Absolutely. Yes. Okay. I had this whole discussion with somebody a few weeks ago, so. Please. Ask away. I just wanted to make sure all this was out there. Yes. And then I was at a presentation a couple of weeks ago about health disparities and Kat Kamek showed up and was bragging about the millions and millions of dollars she's bringing to Florida for rural health care. So I encourage you to meet with her and see how you might can access some of these dollars that she made it sound like were very easy to get. So. They're not.

I know they're not, but, you know. We've tried.

I just figured it was, you know, worth a shot. Yes. Absolutely. But I feel like there are probably opportunities where Alachua County could partner and grant various. I mean, you know, we're in a position where we're being financially constrained right now, too. But I do believe that there are grant opportunities out there where there might be a great chance for us to partner to provide that rural health care. I personally live in Archer and I know that your services, even though there is a clinic out there that limited hours and limited, I just think your services would, you know, especially if people knew you were coming and got used to seeing you, would be utilized. So. Thank you. Thank you again. And thank you also for your support with the issue that we had two weeks ago.

And let me, I want to specifically say thank you. That was a very, very meaningful response that you all made to that issue. Well, your email had a huge impact on all of us when we read it.

And so, I know you couldn't be there, but yeah, we acted. Yeah.

Thank you. That meant a lot.

Yep.

Commissioner Prezzi. Hello. Thank you all for being here. I really, really appreciate it. You know, I agree with you. I think our rural outlying areas need the help probably as much, if not more, even than our Gainesville folks. Have you all made any connections with the family resource centers that we have in Gainesville or in the outlying areas for services and support? I want to.

Abigail's pointing. One of our site is currently, and we're meeting with author and family. Did you want to?

Yeah. So we have connected to ones within the city, but I met with Cesara last Friday, I think. Okay. So we're in communication. Fantastic. And can you, could you share a little bit, you talked about sort of the growing need. Could you talk a little bit about that? Like what your wait lists look like or what your sort of the demand versus supply, like what you're able to do and sort of what the gap is there.

We're always full. Um, we utilize kind of all of our different services sort of for overflow, at least from the primary care standpoint. So we're using, we're referring folks back and forth from street medicine to the bus and, um, creating extra days to go see people. Um, if we can't literally get to them on the bus, but I mean, our nurse will see patients on the side. Like it's people just go above and beyond to try and meet the need. Um, you know, we do locate ourselves in the places that are the busiest. And, um, we know that we're not able, we know we're missing stuff. We hear it from the communities. We're constantly getting emails about going and trying to meet other needs. And, um, we, we just have to be so selective because we, we have the staff that we have. Um, we have the, the infrastructure that we have. Um, so I don't have specific numbers. I can't say, you know, um, we get 15,000 requests and we can meet 4,000 of them. Anecdotally, we have to say, I mean, I basically have to say no to every outreach event that we do because we're so busy having to do our regular primary care. Yeah. You know, so, um, that of course in a perfect world could all be different. We, we could, we could meet all those needs. But, you know, we understand the various constraints that there are.

From an OB perspective, there are two sides we've had to stop taking new OBs because we want to be able to care for the people that we've already said yes to. So we're working on expanding to three days rapid in the next month or two. But it's, um, Gainesville side is our busiest side and it's always overbooked.

You know, I guess to my colleagues, like, you know, I asked for this presentation and thank you for indulging me. I think my experience of working with MOC, I was on the sort of advisory committee for the access task force, which was working with Dr. Atatula and sort of launching this bus into our community. Um, and I've had the pleasure of getting to work with Grant and Abigail, um, throughout the years on various issues, um, related to healthcare in our community. And I think, you know, when we talk about root causes and we talk about sort of how to how do we get to the most vulnerable in our community, I can say with all certainty that these two programs are doing just that. Um, and I know that their funding is really limited. And while UF is doing everything they can to provide in-kind support, um, and financial support to some extent, you know, they can only do so much to pay to take care of our uninsured residents. And, you know, we're seeing more of those now that Medicare and Medicaid have work requirements for people. Um, and some people can't meet those. We're having more and more people falling off of ACA now that the costs are going up exponentially. And I just, I know that we are facing financial insecurity as well, to some extent with what's going on with amendment three. But I would like to ask this board if we could please make a motion to have our staff work with the MOC and, um, the OBGYN mobile clinic to bring forward a proposal to us that would look at how they could provide, um, more expanded support in Gainesville and throughout Alachua County, if you all are open to that.

I'd be happy to second that motion if you would add grant opportunity motion.

Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Funding opportunities, meaning grant opportunities and, and our funding, whatever that looks like.

Okay. So we've got a motion and a second to, um, refer this to staff to see how we can continue to work with and help or expand the mobile outreach, uh, clinic. Do you, I do have a question.

Do you all have needs right now? I know you, I saw the one is ending in 2020 said there's funding ending in 2027. But I, when I was talking with you all at one point there was shortfalls like right now.

Um, because of some staffing changes and other things, I, I don't think we have an acute need. Do you need between now and this summer? I think looking, there's going to be a little bit. So that January direct funding of 325, I wrote it down.

Is that going away? So, um, so that's us. Um, we do, we, we have received additional funding, um, to increase more in the rural, the maternity care deserts. But I think there's acute need that we can meet in rural Alachua County that I think we need to address now, especially if we can meet the needs for the women coming to us who are pregnant.

And grant your funding, it said September.

So that's when the SAMHSA grant expires in September. Okay. We got some hold over funds, which helped patch some things up for this year. Okay. So we're okay. Um, you know, there are, like I say, there are some things that we'd like to do that we can't do. And if we suddenly had an influx of money, we could do. There's no shortage of people that want to come and work with us. Right.

I guess I would just ask that our staff, this is like sooner rather than later. So we could have something by mid year adjustment and we could look at how we could get this

expanded services with what's happening with Medicare and Medicaid and with ACA. Like I just feel the acute need and I see the acute need. And so I'd love to see us being able to expand that. It gives them time to plan and prepare. It gives us time to plan and dig into what additional funds we might have available and then come back with something by mid year.

Okay. Second. Commissioner Wheeler.

Then back to Commissioner Alpert. Yeah. Just very quickly. How do you all work with our health department?

Yeah. So great question. I mean, even last week I was having a conversation with Paul about how we're going to.

Okay, good. Your first name based is good. Okay. That's good.

And there are other programs like the mobile integrated health program, you know, with Jody and Bill.

I mean, we're constantly referring patients back and forth. In fact, some of the folks we've seen out in the outlying years have been because of our relationship with mobile integrated health. Good. So yes. I mean, we, we, we work, we know all those folks well. We work with them. We love them. We're all on the same team.

Right. That's really nice to have that collaboration for sure. And, and the next question is, do you have any way or interest or concerns about the farm worker families that we have? There are a lot of those folks that were living up in the northern part of the county working the big farms out of High Springs and that area.

So.

I know that's tricky stuff to ask, but. We take care of a lot of those folks. Okay. And we have a partnership with the specific nonprofit that does. Okay. Great. Advocacy and organizing in all of those communities.

Okay. Good. And we see them in our rural clinics and we see them in our Alachua County clinics. Okay. So yes, we are very, very tightly integrated with the health care of that community. Okay.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And then we'll, I got a couple of questions, Grant.

Okay. Thank you. I forgot to say this earlier, but to me, I, I feel like what you guys do potentially saves the U.S. health a lot of money. If you catch somebody's high blood pressure, if you provide a, provide an IUD that prevents a, a birth that, you know, maybe isn't a good idea medically or isn't wanted. If you are, you know, helping with the preventative care of dealing with, you know, any kind of chronic illness. And so I, I, I'm confused by, and I just want to say this out loud, why there isn't more funding from UF Health because I feel like there's money saving opportunities there for, you know, for that organization. And so I was curious what kind of data tracking that you do in terms of the kind of patients that you have and the potential savings that, you know, you could talk about.

Yeah.

Commissioner Prizzi and then the grant because she, she wanted to. Well, I guess I just wanted to say that. I know, I know that you all did a really good job of showing all the support that UF Health does provide. And I know that, you know, their salaries and the, and the doctors, as well as the administrative support and the billing to things you can bill for and all of the reading of radiographic and sonographic things. And like, there's a lot of costs. And I, I just want to say, I, I do want to recognize that UF Health has put investment into these clinics. And we recognize that. I think our dream and our hope, my dream and hope too, is that there would be, that we could find some matching support that we would bring in some funding. And I, and I understand all of that.

I, I spent, I was vested with UF Health. That's how I put myself through school was working there. But, you know, one diabetic amputation would fund your bus for a year.

I mean, just pointing that out, you know, I just, I, I, I just want to say that out loud. I'm not denigrating, you know, UF Health at all. I really appreciate the support that they give. And I know you probably can't say a whole lot here. I just felt like that needed to be said that there is, you know.

No, I think every, every safety net health care institution in the country is struggling to meet its needs. And there are large health systems in every city in America. And you'd love to think that we could all work together and meet all the needs together. I think, I mean, I, it is no small thing that I mentioned about the financial assistance program, UF Health, FAP, about taking all of the specialty care. I mean, that's a, that's a lot of, that is a lot of services that our patients receive. And we're very, very grateful for that. Do we know there's a return on investment? Sure. Do we have the best data collection systems to, to show that? A part in health care. And it's very nuanced. And there's a lot of sunk costs that people will refer to in health care. And so it's not always an easy one-to-one. Hey, I prevented this, this guy told me he was going to the ER. We found him and treated his wounds and kept him out. That saves you X amount of adults. It's not always quite that simple. Again, we're super thankful for what UF gives us. We always want more. Yeah. Because we just want to meet the needs. We just want to help people.

Yeah. I'm sorry for putting you in a, in a, in a spot to have to say those things. And I, I know that I'm, I'm probably slightly out of line, but I just, I used to work there and I, I saw it, you know, whether it was a baby in the NICU that could have had, they'd had better health care, wouldn't be there racking up millions of dollars of bills. It's, you know, it doesn't take much sometimes. Anyway, thank you again for what you do.

Thank you, commissioner. Um, a couple of questions. So a couple of years ago, this board said there's a cliff coming with the current administration with regards to the safety net services. Have you seen an increase in demand in the last two years?

Starting in the last two years, clinically, but what we've seen is, um, difficulty addressing social needs because the resources in the community sometimes are joining.

Right. Do you have a comment about that? I mean, this is why we have a public health department and the health department and you all work so closely together and, and I appreciate so much of what you have health does, but this is kind of like our big clip that's coming next year and how we can have efficient partners working with our health department, helping actually people is really important to me. And so, you know, to the extent you can, um, identify to our staff, how we are helping more and more people with less and less dollars, I want to be behind that a hundred percent. You know, we're going to, I'm going to get a little rant here about amendment three. You know, amendment three is, is not a tax savings. It's a tax shift and it's a, to the people that can least afford it. And it's a service reduction to the people that most need it. And I'm really interested in figuring out programs like yours that are serving so many people in need, how we can accelerate that, um, with systems and working with our health department. And so, um, I'm going to support this motion and I, I hope our staff takes it really serious with regards to the shifting federal world that we've all been talking about for two years. It's here, here it is. And the state's now a part of that with this amendment. And so we've been kind of thinking about this for a couple of years and now it's time to implement, not in the current budget cycle, but certainly for the budget cycle, 27, 28, um, leaning on our partners that, that can help us help our people the most.

And I want to say, it's not just, it's not just us and our specific health service. There are other services that the county is bright that we get a really incredible window into. I'll give you an example, right? Tumbling Creek. Okay. Fantastic facility that you all renovated. And we quickly housed a lot of our chronically unhoused folks had a great conversation with a guy on Monday who we were treating on the street for five years was basically just in a constant flare of PTSD on the streets, you know, up and down Newberry road all the time, laying on the sidewalks, wounds ever. I see this guy on Monday looks like a different person. It's a house. He's helping his house. He's helping his neighbor install some of the stuff that, that she needs. And she's paying him a little bit of, a little bit of money to help her out. He's calm. His skin looks perfect. He looks well fed. He's can't stop talking about how it's changed everything for him. Yeah. To be in this, in this place. And we see it, of course, with health, um, how it's, how it's reflected there. And people, I don't, the public doesn't always quite get to see that where they drive by the person on the street and they're maybe acting, um, in a, in a way that's, you know, they're not used to seeing. And then you see these same folks and their life has changed in a meaningful way. And just like, just like your neighbor, just like talking to your neighbor. Yeah.

Well, yeah, I mean, I, I had this direct conversation with our new ACM, um, about this and working with Missy's group and community support. I think there's an integration here now of all. Are you?

Yeah.

So, I mean, this, there's an integration here of our departments and working with partners like you all and the health department to really fill this need. And so, you know, I really appreciate, uh, what you all did. I really appreciate you all coming to us two weeks ago. Um, uh, because that's, that's what we are faced with over the next one, two, three years.

Yep. And, uh, and we are going to be leaning heavily on you all to help us, uh, help people. So, thank you for that. Um, commissioners, is there any other discussion we want to have before we get?

I'm going to just take your vitamins. All right. So we got them. I did want to say thank you for telling that story. Yes. That was, that was really meaningful. People need to know. Thank you.

All right. So we got a motion to refer this to staff. Um, it's part of a number of budget cycle discussions that we're going to be having over the coming year. I'm really glad that, uh, we've got commissioner elect certain here to hear that presentation. Cause she's going to be a part of many of those discussions next year. And any public discussion on the motion back to the board, any further discussion? Okay. All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? All right. That motion is unanimous. All right. Thank you. Thank you.

Mr. Chair. That takes us to the public hearings. The first one is the FY 2026. Seventh, the budget amendment for general accounting government reappropriation of funds. All right.

No recommended action. Staff recommends that the board adopt resolution Z 26-11, approving a request, uh, requested PD amendments.

Move staff recommendation. I got a motion. I got a motion.

Second. Great presentation, uh, in the backup. Any public discussion? Back to the board. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion is unanimous.

Mr. Chair, that brings us to the quasi-judicial zoning item and I believe the county attorney has an announcement to make.

Quasi-judicial. So, Madam Attorney.

So, Mr. Chair, this is a quasi-judicial item. All persons wishing to testify or present evidence during this hearing will be sworn in prior to speaking during this proceeding. All persons have the right through the chair to ask questions, to seek clarification, or to respond to comments or presentations of staff or other speakers. 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 this 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 any factual information in the record to support their testimony. And I do not believe we have any party requests on this one. All right.

Any parties in attendance? Do ex-parte payments?

Commissioner Alford, have you received any ex-parte communications?

I'm real confused by this because we are both the asker and the approver, and I know I've had several discussions without that. Can I get some guidance here?

Sure. Mr. Chair, in these cases what we say is that you should, everything that hasn't been out in the public, and you should reveal anything that has happened since the application has been submitted. And that was when?

Mr. Chair, that was, I believe, in September. In September.

Okay. I don't think I've had any discussions since September, so that works out just fine. That's fine. Okay. Mr. President, any communications? Not about this amendment.

The only conversations I've had about West End were about the organization that raised funding for the park and wants to donate money to us, but had nothing to do with this amendment. Thank you.

The only conversation I had is this amendment. I don't think I've had any, no. All right. No ex-parte. Let's do swearing in.

All right. Anybody wishing to address this item, if you will please stand and be sworn at this time. Do you swear or affirm any testimony about the people will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? I do.

All right. Mr. Chair, good afternoon. Jerry Brewington, Senior Planner, Alachua County Department of Growth Management. For the record, I have been sworn a copy of my resume is on file. And this particular item was publicly advertised on the county website per statute. Z2600013 with the West End Community Park. This is, of course, located on what was previously the West End Golf Course on the north side of West Newberry Road across from the town of Teoga. This is actually part of the larger West End plan development that originally came about in the 1970s. This is, of course, the former golf course section, which is now going to become, or is, the West End Community Park owned by Alachua County. An aerial photograph, an older aerial, you can still see the old clubhouse on this one, which has now been removed, shows the extent of the approximately 75 acres, which is surrounded by the West End Community and its various phases. The zoning on the property, Mr. Chair, is PD or planned development. And what we are here today is to amend that PD to revise the uses that are permitted on that planned development and specifically on the golf course or former golf course section of the site. Importantly, Mr. Chair, this has a recreation future land use. That recreation future land use is, in this case, quite good because we do not have to change that. We are merely modifying the permitted uses that can go on with that. So the recreation land use found in the middle of the West End PD for this particular section will remain. We don't have to change that at all. We're just merely modifying the PD. Of course, Mr. Chair, the property in question was the former West End golf course. It was a recreational amenity for the larger West End planned development from the 1970s. The closure of the golf course ultimately provided Alachua County with the opportunity to purchase the 75 acres and develop the parcels there as a recreational amenity serving the citizens of Alachua County. As part of this process, we are now seeking to amend the uses permitted within the PD to reflect future recreational opportunities as its new designation as a community park. To do this, Mr. Chair, we first look at the comp plan and analyze the various policies within the plan to see if it is consistent. One of these is level of service. Is this going to affect the standards in our capital improvements element for level of service standards? And we have found, again, that the use now as a community park is very similar to its previous use as a golf course. There will be no additional impacts to things such as road level of service and, of course, no recreation level of service impacts. It's going to be open up to the citizens and so actually improves that. Similarly, we have a policy 7.1.2 which provides factors to consider in any rezoning request. We've reviewed those policies and, again, this is consistent with or maintains the criteria identified in policy 7.1.2. Similarly, Mr. Chair, we have a section in our code 402.77 which provides criteria to analyze when we do a zoning change. And this one we have looked at again and have found that it will not impact the health, safety, or welfare of the citizens of Alachua County. Again, we are opening up the 75 acres as a community recreation area. What we have, Mr. Chair, is a proposed zoning master plan. You are adopting a set of conditions, but you're also adopting a zoning master plan. Now, you can't read this. The key parts, though, I will point out to you. Number one, it now says community park. This is what we are going to have now is a community park, not a golf course anymore. Number two, there is a buffer area of 50 feet that will surround the entire park area. So, again, from any of the residential areas, we have a buffer that will be between it and the actual park area. However, it's kind of hard to tell, but our consultant labeled the areas where there's actually access with a little person there. There's not going to be vehicular access, excuse me, but there will be pedestrian access so that the surrounding West End residents can directly access the park area without having to go around in a car. So, there will be five access areas where you can walk into the park from the surrounding West End community. And, again, this will be adopted as part of the PD is a revised master plan, and we will have the conditions on it as well. Now, I'm not going to go through all these proposed permitted uses, but I will hit the highlights. The uses permitted, number B, is uses permitted in the park will include a combination of developed recreation and passive recreation and be consistent with our county park master plan. So, we've outlined a set of uses for it, but they will be consistent with that, with the master plan, as well as with the recreation land use. So, these are all things that we are identifying that will be consistent with our comprehensive plan, as well as the park master plan. We, number D, organized athletic competitions. Again, World Masters is coming back. We wanted to make sure that these were permitted uses within the park area. Certainly, we wanted to anticipate that there may be more beyond next year. It gives an hour of operation. It gives stormwater facilities that are already there that will be addressed. It gives, like I said, hours of operation. The street buffer that I talked about, actually the surrounding buffer, 50 feet, as well as the street buffer from Newberry Road. So, again, these are being added as part of the PD conditions to label the park, to give it a structure so that we can go ahead and continue in the future years to develop the park and for its various uses as a community park. And that, Mr. Chair, is basically the whole of what we are asking for. These expanded conditions are found in number seven of your conditions, which are just all the community park conditions. The other thing I would note is that in condition number two, it hasn't changed. We've just taken out the word golf course and put in the word community park. So, with that, Mr. Chair, staff recommends that the board find the application consistent with the comprehensive plan and unified land development code, and that you adopt Resolution C-2611 approving the requested plan and development amendments with the conditions and bases as noted in your staff report. That, Mr. Chair, concludes staff presentation. Thank you, Mr. Brewington.

Commissioner Prezio. I just have one comment.

Can you go back one slide? I just have one comment on the condition and just to ask that we add. Very slight word, change. I don't think it substantially changes anything. But for the hours of operation, if we could say are generally from dawn to dusk with the exception of illuminated activity courts and special events, which may operate until 10 p.m. We do sometimes have special event permits and requests to have things happen on site. I imagine that with this beautiful park being, I call it our depot of the west side, we may find that there are people who want to do a concert there or some kind of fun activity there, and that would also probably happen after dark hours. So, I just want to preclude us inside our codes to say we can't do special events there.

Any special events? Anybody? Yeah, sounds good.

No, I was just going to move staff recommendation with that change.

Okay.

Second. A motion and a second. Thank you, Commissioner Hufford. Thank you, Commissioner Prezio. Second by Commissioner Wheeler. All right. Any further discussion? You know, as he was giving this presentation, Mary Helen, and maybe it's because I'm thinking about what I'm about to say, I was thinking about, remember when Mary Helen made us go from 10% to 20%? Yeah. I wouldn't be doing this if not for that. So, so many little decisions to get us to where we are today. So, thank you, staff. All right. Is there anyone from the public who wishes to speak to the motion? All right. Back to the board. Any further discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? That motion is unanimous. Mr. Burton, thank you. Thank you. All right. Thank you, staff. A lot of work on that. I know it went by pretty quick, but I appreciate it. And it's going to be a great facility. All right. Mr. Clerk, I think that takes us to our second public comment.

Yes, sir.

Closing public comment. Every meeting, we like to give the public an opportunity at 12 and then at 530. When we don't have an evening meeting, we push that 530 public comment to the end of this meeting. So this is a second opportunity. Anyone from the public, which is just this board on anything not on the agenda? Come on forward. Yep. Just introduce yourself and give us your thoughts. Thank you for being here.

All right. Good afternoon. My name is James Blackman. I'm a first year student at the University of Florida studying political science with a minor in public service. And hopefully trying to add urban and regional planning, which is why I'm very thankful for that last presentation. You guys did a great job on that. My question here comes today, or I just want to know about like some plans revolving RTS. It's not a system that I really use myself, but I know it's controlled by Gainesville, but I know that the Lachua County also helps provide some funding for it. My question is, with the passing of Amendment 3, what are you guys' plans to, you know, maybe try to reserve some of that funding or like save it? Or what are discussions you guys are having about your plans going forward with the budgets coming up for 27, 28, 28, 29, et cetera?

All right, James. Thank you. We'll address those. Any other comments? No. Okay. Thank you for those. Anyone else before we address those comments? Anyone else? Anyone else? Come once, go twice. All right. Public comment. We'll go ahead and close it. You want to take the shot at that one? Mr. Alpert.

Well, yeah. I made a motion a while back that we look at creating a transportation. Regional authority. Regional authority. And take that, basically, that responsibility from the city of Gainesville and turn it into an independent functioning transportation district. Kind of like the airport is independently functioning and has an oversight board. That would be funded differently than how RTS is funded now. And I think it would help solve some of the funding programs because it would be taxed differently as well. So that's how I'm, yeah, we're working on that. So that's the short answer.

Ms. Lieberman, you want to add to that? Yes. In the current format that it's in, however, Alachua County does contribute to headways on several of the routes. That is general fund dollars. So that is something that we will have to discuss in the new year as we look at all of the potential impacts of Amendment 3 moving forward. Currently, I believe that agreement is around $1.8 million in headways that we provide. Thank you.

And if I could just add one more thing, that would be something that would have to go to the citizens to be voted on to create that. So, you know.

And Ms. Lieberman, our MSTU unincorporated currently is at zero. And it is for everything outside of the city of Gainesville. Correct. Does the, do we have the ability to have an MSTU for the urbanized area and then an MSTU for the outside the urban cluster? Or do we not? Or do you not?

We cannot impose it within the municipalities unless the municipalities agree. No, I'm aware of that. To the extent that you're looking at the urbanized area that is within the unincorporated area, we can establish boundaries of MSTUs. They're not assessments which have to be tied to the benefit of the properties. We currently have two MSTUs that are set at zero, one for fire and one general unincorporated area services. We would have to create another one. Those already exist for those boundaries and we would simply need to set budgets for them. Okay. And that is something, again, that is also on the table that we talked to you about that we may need to basically bring those back to a budgeted sum instead of zero.

So as we talk about Amendment 3, we have MSTU, I'm looking at it just so that I can share with you all, MSTU urbanized services, MSTU outside the urban area. The RTS would be an example of a cost that would be unincorporated within the urban cluster.

And that's the kind of funding that currently?

Yeah. Yeah, that's the tax shift from Avalorum to MSTU.

We have also, just to final answer that question, we also have RTS Plus provides our ADA and paratransit services now, which is a sort of statutory required service and federally required service that we provide for transportation disadvantaged individuals. And there is funding that we currently leave on the table, 5311 and 5310 funds, and the hope is that now that we have RTS Plus as a partner for that, we'd be able to go after some of those funds to also provide some point-to-point service for additionally transportation disadvantaged people that may not meet those federal qualifications but still need transportation in the outlying areas. So that's another thing that we're looking at currently.

So, Commissioner, you know, when you campaign, you get a chance to meet new people. And I had a real opportunity to meet James over the last couple of months out and about. And so thank you for being here and for asking that question. All right. Mr. Clerk, next item, county attorney comments. Got anything, Stephanie? I do not.

All right. County manager comments. Yes, Mr. Chair. Two things. First, I would like to take this opportunity to publicly say a big thank you to Diane Suave, who came in as interim animal resources director at a time where we really needed somebody with that experience. With Meredith now taking over as director officially last week. It's been a week. She's still coming back, so that's a plus. Last week, Diane is phasing out her time here. So I just wanted to take the opportunity to publicly say thank you to her. I'm sure somebody over there is probably watching and listening.

She earned a round of applause. She really stepped up in a time when we needed her desperately. Claudia, thank you for getting her here. And Diane, if you are watching, thank you for continuing to help Alachua County with this transition with Meredith.

Secondarily, I've provided you all a draft of a letter that I would, a chair letter I would like to request that would go both to the school board of Alachua County as well as the city of Gainesville regarding, they have finally reached an agreement regarding citizens field. And we would like to request the consideration that they include a track there. I know it changes the size and the orientation potentially of that facility. And I did, in providing this this morning, there were a couple of suggested changes that I wanted to say publicly since you all had a copy of this that I think are good additions and just see if anybody else had any changes. One is to where it says an outdoor track at citizens field. I would like to make that say and field. So track and field, there was some discussion about whether or not there would be a way to add some of the outdoor field events to that. And then also to add in an appropriate place that where we talk about at the end that events such as track and field state championships, USA track and field junior Olympics and many others, just regional and state high school athletics because I think it also does not just involve an economic development opportunity from a county wide perspective, but also an opportunity for the school board to recognize the additional benefits to that property as well and things that we could assist with on that front as well. And also I would add that I realize the CC on the back didn't include Andrew Persons or Kamala Patton and I would like to make sure they also get a copy. I've had discussions with them so they know that this request was being made of you today, but I did not include them on the CC to the letter so they needed to be included.

I move that we send the requested chair letter.

Second. Okay, a motion and a second. Any discussion? Commissioners, if it's okay, I'd like to read it so that the public can... Oh, I think that's a great idea. Read it into the record? Yeah. All right. Dear Chairman Vu and Mayor Ward with a copy of the Manager of Parsons and Superintendent Dr. Patton. On behalf of the Alaska County Board of County Commissioners, I am writing to formally request that the school board bring Alaska County into the ongoing discussions and planning for Citizens Field. While the county was not part of the initial conversations, we believe there's a tremendous opportunity to collaborate and enhance this project so it can also serve as premier sports tourism asset for our entire community. Sports tourism provides immense economic benefits to Alaska County by driving hotel occupancy, supporting local dining and retail, and generating outside revenue and strengthens our local tax base. A clear example of this impact was the 2025 World Masters Athletic Indoor Championship, which brought over $24 million in economic activity to our community. To build on the success, we see an immediate opportunity to work together to expand the site footprint beyond the current stadium to include a world-class outdoor track and field facility in addition to the current stadium field plans. Paired with our indoor track at the Alaska County Sports and Events Center, a cross-country at West End Park, an outdoor track and field facility at Citizens Field would complete the triad needed to establish year-round athletics activity, benefiting our student athletes and local residents while creating a major draw for tourism through our Tourism and Economic Development Department's newly founded Sports and Events Division and the Gainesville Sports Commission. Events such as the FHSAA Track and Field State Championships, USA Track and Field Junior Olympics, regional state high school, athletics, and many others could be a reality again for our community. Please be assured that our goal is not to delay the project or disrupt plans for Gainesville High School and Eastside High School. Alachua County is ready to bring our resources and expertise to the table to identify greater opportunities and we are fully prepared to work with both the school district and the city of Gainesville to address minimizing or eliminating any cost differential required to expand the project. By encompassing tourism driving activities at this site, it brings new dollars to local businesses, generates sales tax, and opens the opportunity for tourism development tax support. Collaborating on Citizens Field will deliver a far greater asset for our students and community while opening the door to exploring future joint capital partnerships. We respectfully ask that you direct district leadership and begin discussions with county administration so we can explore how to move forward together for the betterment of our community. So I think it's a great ladder. I think it's right in line with what we've been talking about, economic development on the eastern part of the county, specifically in East Gainesville and the Water Road corridor, working collaboratively with our school board and with our city commission, and we've got some funds identified exactly for that purpose. So I'm in favor of this. So thank you, Michelle, for bringing this forward.

Thank you. Mr. Wheeler? It's interesting to me that we have to ask to be included in this project. It's such a big project that there are community projects all over the county, that they don't understand that you want to partner.

Yeah, I think it's that fine line between not stepping on people's toes, but now there's funding opportunities and certainly we want to have a say. Sure. Okay. Any further discussion? Any public discussion to the motion? Back to the board. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion is unanimous. Commissioner Alford out of the room, but we'll get her yes when she comes back. Ms. Lieberman, anything else? I have nothing further. All right. So now we're going to do commission comment and then we're going to end with Commissioner Wheeler. Okay. Then I'm going to, because I have some flexibility here and I have some time, after Commissioner Wheeler speaks, I'm going to open it up to the public. I see some people here that may want to speak and say a few words. Then after we do that, then you're going to have to sit there because then Mr. Alford and Commissioner Crissett. Okay. And certainly Commissioner Cornell has some words. I set that up. Fair enough. I set that up. Yes. All right. I have some comments that are not related to Mary Helen.

Yes. Okay. I have a few. Okay. So last week we had so much going on, I forgot I was remiss in bringing up. We had a conversation at AHEC. Our consultant for affordable housing infrastructure tax brought back to us. We have several projects that are in the hopper. You all have seen them. There's two that are already in the hopper. There's one in negotiation with the legacy project. And I guess I'll say a couple things. It's partially the current economic environment that's driving this conversation. But it's also just the nature of affordable housing and the way that it's funded. It's really, really hard for them to figure out how to get enough funding to make these projects work. Our funding and the goal of it was intended to sort of like push that over the hump. Requiring interest and requiring people to pay back our loans the way that we are sort of, they have it structured currently, is making the projects unfeasible. It's just really, really challenging to put those projects together. So our affordable housing advisory committee has made a motion for us to look at those rather than as just a 1% interest or whatever, to have those be subordinate and forgivable loans if they meet our target goal of 60% AMI or below and permanent affordability. So essentially our staff would come up with our consultant benchmarks that they would meet. And at each benchmark, a certain percentage of that loan would be forgiven. So it's not out of the gate a grant, but it is something that would give, you know, the opportunity for if they meet their milestones, they get to final development, they get to construction, they get to five years operation without incident, or whatever those milestones are. I just made those up. Those are not the ones that they chose. That those milestones would allow like forgiveness, a certain percentage of forgiveness, a certain percentage of forgiveness, and then forgiveness of the full loan amount. So I'm assuming that they meet the 60% AMI or below average target and that they commit to affordability.

So is that going to come back to us?

Well, I'm bringing it back to you now. This is me bringing it to you. I don't know that there was any plan for their, I mean, I'm sure that staff wants they, I don't know if once they have it, if there's a plan to bring it back because we're really, I mean, these projects have been in the works and these developers keep waiting and waiting and waiting and they're trying to negotiate with Legacy and they're trying to negotiate with these developers and it just keeps like dragging on because we can't get there. So this is me bringing it to you. Yeah.

I mean, I am interested in hearing a presentation from staff with both Chuck and Commissioner Lectina to see if we need to give new direction. But I'm open to all those kinds of ideas.

Well, I guess then I would ask that we bring that back at the next, the first available meeting because, I mean, we have two projects that have just been dragging

and we haven't been able to get a single dollar of this money out the door yet because we keep kind of like circling the drain on what's possible. So if we could get that done ASAP so we can hopefully get some funds into these people's hands and get some, you know, we've got the Royal Park Seniors Project and the Oak Park Project and the Legacy Project. So Ms. Lieberman, is that something you want to talk about today? Or Raulston's here. Yeah.

Raulston and Claudia are here. I don't know if they're prepared to talk about that, but yeah.

Are you prepared to talk about that?

Okay.

Mr. Chair, Raulston Rio Deca from Community Support Services. And so we are working with our consultant, SB Friedman, on what's been proposed by the Affordable Housing Advisory Committee.

And also to give a little bit of clarification, the two projects that receive conditional approval by the board, they're also reworking their capital stack. There are, one project has requested additional funding because of the costs, you know, for construction and everything. And so they're finalizing their capital stack and really waiting on tax credit financing. Gotcha. So it's not just, you know, the county's IST program. It's really the large portion of the development costs, which is the housing credits.

Yeah, that's what I had heard. And so where I am, Commissioner Prizia, is when we have a developer that kind of finalizes that and the last thing they need is us, then bring us back that change and then we make that decision, you know, collectively as a board.

Yeah, well, I guess I would like to make it as a program change. I would like it that way. The staff don't have to bring every project to us.

Yeah, and so if it's a change in our policy or our program, then I think that's, we need to either agenda that or have a, you know. That's fine with me. Yeah, have, have.

Just have the next, the first meeting available so we can get it done.

I just know it's, it's like it's asking questions. I just want to, you know, circle the drain. We've been circling the drain on this for a while.

All right. That sounds good. Anything else? Yes.

So is that a, we didn't have a motion on that, so.

I mean, okay, I move that we bring the affordable housing infrastructure surtax program qualification requirements back at the next available meeting.

Second.

Thank you. Like, as soon as possible. Yeah, so it's. So, December. I mean, I know staff already have a presentation and they did it for AHEC.

If you want Commissioner Chestnut to attend, it probably needs to be the first meeting in January. January.

Yeah. Okay. Is that okay? Yeah. All right, so we've got a motion and a second to refer this to staff to bring back for discussion with the board. Any further discussion? Any public discussion? Back to the board. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion is unanimous.

Okay. Second thing. We have standing direction to send a board letter to the school board about the Terwilliger property. Also, infrastructure surtax dollar application, active. I believe they asked us for 15 million, of which they want us to buy the land from the school board, own the land, and then lease it to them for this project, is my understanding. And then whatever is left after the land purchase would be funding we're dedicating to the project itself, underground infrastructure or whatever else I guess we need to do. I haven't seen the actual application, it hasn't been brought to us yet, but this is my understanding in conversations prior to them submitting their application and with the manager. Our standing direction is to have a joint meeting with the school board. Right. And to send them a letter, yes, to send them a letter requesting a joint meeting to have this conversation. Yes. We've already sent the letter though, right? No.

We're trying to coordinate a meeting.

We didn't send a letter, but we're doing what the letter is asking.

We're trying to coordinate a meeting for January.

Do we have it set? No. What is the project? So it's a 500-unit affordable housing development on the former Terwilliger site. If we want to buy it, they have a set of appraisals that they were going on, and our original ask was going to be that they try to consider lowering the ask from their highest appraisal because their superintendent's statement was that she could only go on the highest appraisal. That's her job, right, is to go with the highest opportunity, and so it would have to be found as a public purpose if they were going to do something other than that. It would be a board decision, and so we were going to have this joint meeting with them. Since then, the property appraisers passed a certified assessment for that property and has increased the value substantially, and so that really puts us in an awkward position because obviously we need affordable housing. All of us know we need it. We need it for school board employees. We need it for our public service employees. We need it for the community at large. I've heard that a former school board member is going to be on this board to help us negotiate that.

I know.

So I just think we need, I guess my feeling is, my fear is that this project is going to be in jeopardy, so I guess I'm just wondering if we put an option on it in the meantime or we at least send a letter with an intention that we want to.

Well, I mean, from what I've heard is I know the superintendent and our manager are in touch about this property. We're trying to have a joint meeting in January, and we're going to have a new school board. Do we have it scheduled in January, though?

No. That's what I was saying. We don't have it scheduled. We're trying to coordinate a meeting. But I guess the question is whether or not do we go ahead and put in an offer with a price on it, or do we wait to have that joint meeting?

Well, I'm putting in an offer because it's subject to appraisals, ours and theirs, and it starts the conversation going, which we all want to have, and then we have a joint meeting to discuss it.

That's amazing to me because when they first put it on the market and I was saying to them, you know, that would have been the time for us to grab it then rather than have it go up to the point. We didn't have a developer then. I understand. Oh, my goodness. Well, I'm out of the conversation, so I didn't realize it had gone that far even in terms of still talking about it.

Any problem with putting an option that both parties haven't, you know, it gets the conversation started at least in the public sphere and we have a joint meeting to talk about it and they've got a job to do, which is to get the highest and best price. We've got a job to do, which is to get the best price for affordable housing. If we can interact with them about how it can help teachers and it can help other people, then let's have that discussion. And look, we have the former school board member, member Surtin at the podium. Do you want to participate in this discussion?

So, yes, Tina Surtin, current school board member, commissioner-elect. But I'd just like to say the property hasn't been listed, but what has been done is it was cleared because there was some vagrant activity, right? So we demolished it and we got the zoning changed, the land use changed with the city. That's what we've done in preparation because we had been advised that with the zoning change from educational use to something else, you know, it might be more valuable. And so that's what's been done with the property. It's not actively listed with a realtor or anything of that nature right there. So we have wanted to, the board individually have had conversations with Dr. Patton about us selling it, but it has not been listed. And I was approached myself by someone about, actually two people about what we're going to do with it, you know, because they were interested in one for affordable housing for just families and another for like us. Well, it's not assisted living, but it was housing for developmentally disabled individuals in our community to keep them here. They said the closest one was in Jacksonville where developmentally disabled people could live independently. Kind of like a step up, I think, from group home, but not like, it's not like Takachali and it's not like group home. I guess there's something in the middle there. So, but the property is actively available. And I think, I do think maybe making the offer and the interest known in the letter may go ahead and speed the process up versus, you know, so that the soup can bring it to the board. So I would change the price.

Yeah, Mr. Chair, if we're going, and I would just say, I don't know what your motion is going to be yet, Commissioner, but if we make an offer subject to appraisals, I have concern with that given where the property appraiser's value is and the appraisal that they still have pending, even though we would want an independent one. So I would be, I wouldn't, I would be cautious, I will say, about making an offer subject to both sides receiving an appraisal because we don't know what we're looking at now, particularly with that value.

I mean, the reality is that we have to, I mean, also, you know, yes, we have an interest in this. We have a, all have a vested interest in affordable housing, but it's like, it's not our project, right? It's a developer's project and they have a cost and we have sort of a set limit to what we're contributing to those projects. And so, you know, their ask from us was 15 million. So that's kind of, and they need cash money from us to be able to make that project pencil. So we have south of that to offer for the property. Correct. I mean, that's, I'm at offering the 12 million, which is what their highest and best appraisal was at, at like right now. That's what they have in hand. So that's what I was prepared to offer. Cause I know that's what cam said she needed to get. This was again, prior to the property appraiser, but that was going to be the offer. I was going to make a motion that we put the school board to consider. I don't know. Yeah. Tina, she had anything to say about that. Yeah.

Well, yeah. Do you have any comments about that one, Tina?

Weighing what Michelle has, Manager Lieberman said, and what Commissioner Prizia said, maybe the letter would be, is we want to purchase and let's get together and work on, you know, maybe our board authorized her to negotiate, which is what we did with Citizens Field. Yeah. So that the two managers, the two executives work together and then they bring back something to each of the bodies. Yeah. I think that's probably the better way to do it. And putting a number on the guide.

Do you want, and subject to trying to get that scheduled, which is not always easy to do. Right. Right. If you, you could always give me the authority to go ahead and start having those negotiations, if you'd like, then, you know, maybe if they did the same to Commissioner Luxurton's point, we could always start having those actual discussions on where that would be. Maybe that, and that would also allow me to do some due diligence on our side as well.

So we need a motion for authorization to send the letter with an intention to purchase and for, to ask them to authorize their manager. Go ahead and authorize me to go ahead and move, to move forward with, right, any negotiation or see if we can get to somewhere where both sides feel comfortable coming to you with a recommendation.

So moved.

Second. Got a motion and a second to basically empower our manager to meet with the superintendent over that property and then get our boards together if we get to a point where we're close. So I think that's good. That's a good motion. Doesn't put any specific numbers on it, gives both sides the opportunity to kind of continue the discussion. Any further discussion to the motion? Any public discussion to the motion? Back to the board. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Getting some heavy stuff done on your last day, Commissioner Wheeler.

I know. I'm sorry these are all heavy things. I know there are just a lot of them, because I've been a bit out of the loop, to have these things come forward now like that, you know, that have been bubbling for a while. Well, I thought this would be one you'd like to hear on the last day. Yeah. I'm fascinated. Any other commission comments? Yes. One is the Safety Net Collaborative. Our Safety Net Collaborative, which got mentioned today by Grant, is they have a need for support to be able to manage their website and to host their website. And for meeting materials, they're an all-volunteer group. We rely on them heavily for coordination of our Safety Net, as well as many members of our staff go regularly, as well as the Sheriff's Office. And I would like to make a motion that we find a public purpose for $100 a month or $1,200 for the fiscal year for the Safety Net Collaborative.

I was told I need to bring it to you also.

Oh. I'll second that.

For a couple hundred dollars? Okay. Motion and second to support a couple hundred dollars. I think it's the public purpose piece, and you're... I thought we'd already determined it was a public purpose, because we're already supporting them. Well, they don't...

We're including them in our flyers. Yeah. I mean, that's fine. We could just formalize it. Yeah. Not this type of...not necessarily this expenditure.

Okay. So we got a motion to declare a public purpose and provide nominal support to our Safety Net Collaborative. Any public discussion? Back to the board.

And that's for one year?

Yeah. For one year. All those in favor say aye. Aye.

Any opposed? That motion passed. Farm bill, the House and Senate are due to consider the farm bill. I would just like to ask our federal lobbyists to work with our federal delegation on the farm bill and to push to fully fund the Conservation Stewardship Program and the EQUIP program, which we rely on with regards to our program for land conservation. And SNAP. Yep. To fully fund SNAP, to fully fund the local food security program, and to fully fund the Food Supply Chain Resiliency Act, and the Capital for Beginning Farmers and Ranchers Act. So I can work with our federal lobbyists on that. Yeah, Mr. Chair, if we could put a pin in that until the first meeting in December.

I'm actually bringing you the legislative agenda, both state and federal. Okay. And I'm going to get with each of you to make sure I'm not missing out.

We made some minor modifications to propose from the one that we had last year. But I'll be getting with each of you to make sure that we have not missed anything or if you want to expand. So we do have some stuff on there already regarding a couple of those. And we put in general, you know, reauthorization of the farm bill. So we will make sure that the few things you said, we can expand on that in more detail and make sure they're in there good enough. So I'll be getting with all of you on that before we push out the December agenda.

Okay. And don't forget about the Hawthorne Community Center where Santa Fe is trying to get an outpost there.

Do you have anything else? Okay.

Do you have anything, Mary? Just real quick, I have a question about cold night shelters. We have cold weather coming up this weekend, and I know there's been a lot of community finagling. And I see Claudia in the room, and I was just curious if we could get an update on where we are with cold night shelters.

Yeah, I know she has an update. I know Gainesville's already made arrangements for this weekend, and they do have some applications pending. But if you want to, Claudia.

Claudia Tuck, Director of Alachua County Community Support Services. As the city of Gainesville is the one who takes responsibility for cold night shelter, they have arranged to make available the Martin Luther King Center on Waldo. And also they've worked with the Red Cross who will, for the time being, provide cuts as well as volunteers. And there also will be security from GPD.

I appreciate it. I know it's their responsibility, but I get a lot of questions asked about it. So just wanted to get it.

Yeah, we do have a cold night shelter protocol, but it is tied because it's our responsibilities in the unincorporated area predominantly when it comes to that. But it's more of a widespread power outage, which we would activate that. But for just low temperatures, the city of Gainesville takes lead on that. Right, right.

I just wanted to get that update out there for the public because I thought it might be helpful.

If I can clarify, that will be only for families with children. Only for families with children. Singles will still go to Grace Marketplace, which has been available and has been providing cold night shelter.

Blue cards. Is that what they call the folks that have been trespassed? What about folks that are trespassed from Grace?

I would have to check with the city.

Okay. I didn't know. That was another question I got.

Okay. What they had put out was it would be families with children.

Okay. All right. Well, that's helpful too. Thank you.

Anything else, Commissioner? Nope. Are there facilities though for these kinds of shelters? You know, I know we open shelters for hurricanes, but I don't know about the outlying areas and what they do for cold night needs. No crickets. Crickets.

Okay. All right. All right. So I think we've handled all the commission comments. All right. Now we have Commissioner Wheeler. All right. Commissioner Wheeler. Thank you. You are recognized.

All right. Well, may I take that? You may. Okay. Can I have something for you guys that I will explain? She's leaving and she bears gifts. I do. I do. I do. Well, it's the teacher in me, right? Well, look at you. Right? Hang on. No, we revert. When we come off the board, we revert to our old vocations or-

I recognize- We all have things we need to work on, Commissioner. Yes.

Where's the major? No. No. No. No. No. People at home can hear you. I did the Jolly Rancher candy thing. When Lee left, Lee Pinkerson left to become a farmer. Right? That's what he said he was going to do. So I just used the Jolly Rancher kind of as a metaphor for him. I think I may have dropped one. Becky made me a wonderful Jolly Rancher. And, Becky, I had it in my hand when I was walking around there. Is it? Oh, good. Oh, good. I'll bring it. Thank you. I'm so nervous about this little talk than I was the first day I was here. You're going to be great. You're going to be great. Well, I've got a few things to say. These are my notes, guys. And you can see them scribbled on here. They're just big print, though. It's big print. It's hard to, you know, elaborate on eight years of work. But I remember the first day that I was up there just like it was yesterday, truly. Eight years has gone by. And thank you all for sitting through all of that to stay here with me for me to be able to say this stuff. Okay. I see that you're friends and family. I've got two friends here who helped me through my campaigns. Actually, I have three friends who've helped me through all these years of campaigning. When I finally ran for this seat, it was after running for two different shots at the county, I mean at the state, and then one at the federal. And by the time they encouraged me to run for this seat, I was feeling rather pathetic. And so they said, no, no, if you will come on, we will help you with the campaign. And they did. And Kristen Young is one of the ones who was my secret weapon, for sure. And her knowledge and her steadfastness really was what helped get me through that. And then, of course, my friends who are sitting in the back who came in are my sisters who never, ever, in any way, made me feel silly about doing what I was doing. After teaching for all those many years. Roads is a big theme in my remarks as well, Ramon. Roads have been pretty well, you know, the common theme of all of our work these days. But I did want just to say to you that when I left home, I was about 17, about ready to turn 18. And I left a family of musicians. My brother was a wonderful musician. And he wrote a song. And the line in the song is, I told her I would be coming home soon, but this road won't take me there. And see, there's a road thing. Got it? But anyway, I realized after being 30 some odd years in this community, I am home. And I've always said that Alachua County has my hometown. And because of all the outlying municipalities and the way they included me and invited me into their own communities, it felt very much like in the county that I grew up in, western Kentucky. And so it was easy for me to assimilate into those rural communities. And after having taught so many children in this area, too, I taught Tina's child. And I taught several. I won't tell on everybody, but I've taught several of the families who are working now in our community. And I do have notes. And so I'm going to try to refer to them and not take too long because you all have been here for a very long time already today. But the municipalities that included me, those rural communities, I've encouraged, and I hope we will continue to encourage them to interact with us. Find somebody on the board. And I've told each community. I said one of the reasons we're at large is because if you don't like me, you find somebody else out there that you can communicate with more easily. And it just happens naturally. It's just human nature to do that. So I've encouraged all of our communities to make sure they reach out, Tina, to you, our new commissioner coming in so they know exactly. But you know all of those folks. Every time I've tried to introduce you to somebody, you already know them. So that's good. That's really good. The projects. Oh, my goodness. There have been so many projects. And the big win for me, let me start the first day. The first day when I came in here, I remember it so well, walking across the street wondering what the heck was looking for me. And what was looking for me was LaToya Ganey. And she grabbed me up and treated me like I was her long-lost mama. And I cried the whole first week I was here because I'd never had a parking spot before. I had never had something that would open doors for me like this tag did. And I didn't realize the magnitude of the staff that we had working for this county and how accessible this staff was to the needs of the community as long as they had a spokesperson. And I went in and I talked about this project over at, oh, I'll find it in a minute. Actually, when I was campaigning, I went into this neighborhood. It was off of Southeast 22nd Street, I think it is, up in there. There was a pond that had been overgrown. And the neighbors were complaining about the alligator that was terrorizing the neighborhood. And so I came back and told LaToya about this pond where the neighbors were. And she said, well, we can fix that. And she called Ramon. And it was that easy, a phone call. Call Ramon and his crew. And within a month, they were out there draining that gosh-awful pond full of refrigerators and toilets and alligators. And his whole crew was out there. And they had drained that pond, cleaned it up. Kids are fishing in it now. Old people are sitting on benches by there, by that little pond. And they feel like they have lakefront, you know. And it's not one of those fancy lakefront neighborhoods. It's one with duplexes over close. It's not too far from the Cynthia Chestnut Park, off in those areas up in there. And so I go regularly to check just to make sure that it's still functioning and that there hadn't been garbage put back in it. So I'm hoping you all will keep an eye on that one. It's kind of the list on my board. But I just, the whole idea of being able to walk into a community of workers. And, you know, I ran into one of the fellows who cleaned that pond out at Waste Management, out at LaVita Brown. And he reminded me about being a part of that crew that had been out there doing that awful job. And I realized, and I told him, I said, I know you all did that as a personal favor for me, being new on the committee, trying to make me feel like that I had done something important. And you did. And it was a wonderful, it was like it was yesterday. So, Ramon, thank you. And your crew, thank you, thank you. And the staff that we have here, I don't think I've worked with a more professional gathering of folks anywhere. I would, you guys are global, amazing, amazing. From the people who drive the tractors and cut the grasses on the sides and dig up the holes and fill the holes, to the people who are sitting at your desks and answering my calls even in the middle of the weekend. I just appreciate you all so much. It's been such an honor to be a part of such a group because I'm a special ed teacher, art teacher. I went into art and special ed so I didn't have to do math and science. And to be able to work with people like you all who are so knowledgeable, it's, it's, I'm honored to have been included. And the patience that you've shown me in all of the new folks, any, as I watch the new people go to Washington or go to Tallahassee, I'm thinking, goodness, guys, you, you know, hopefully you will have the same kind of staff to welcome you and get you ready that I had here. I tell you, one of the reasons, one of the things I'm going to miss is this badge. It opens doors. And, and not only does it open doors for this building, but it, it helps to open doors for people who need help to come through me, come through all of us to get to these people out here. You know, that's been the amazing part. I didn't have to know the answer. I just had to know the people who did it, have their phone numbers, which I still have, just saying, y'all. Just saying. So you're not losing me and I'm not losing you because I have your phone numbers. And I just appreciate the availability that you've all had to me. Now you each have, I gave you each like a little moral compass. A friend of mine in Cincinnati is making those things. Now I don't know, I know that you don't need the moral compass because you all have them. And I'm going to get some more of these for the rest of you. What it does is give you cover when you are questioned about your integrity. All right. And you will be questioned and you have in question, Ken, I saw you get questioned not too long ago. Right. And so I just, I just want you to say to those people, no, no, no. I have moral compass and it's right here. I can prove it. I think I've misgiven somebody one. It was Tommy. Tommy. Where did he go? Tommy. I have one for Tommy too, because I know he's going to be questioned with all of this amendment three stuff that's going on. He's going to have some issues to answer for. But I have one for him as well. I, Shannon Broom, I know you're listening. And you did an amazing job yesterday with that party that you organized for me. She asked me over the last couple of months, do you like this? What would you rather have? And then she asked me yesterday, did anybody give it away to you? And she has been precious about the whole thing because she really wants to do a good job. And I told her how much I appreciated her taking that, that job on because she had been hired by Latoya and told her that, that Latoya had made an excellent choice in picking Shannon to, to work with her and to carry on. And that I'm sure Latoya was smiling right down on her from the work that she did yesterday and pulling off that party for all of us. And I appreciate it was a lot of fun. I felt like a winner.

It was a Rose thing, guys. The Kentucky Derby Rose winner. And I felt like a real winner there. Let me see. I'm almost through, y'all. I know it looked like a big thing, but it's truly not. I did want to say something about the projects that I am concerned about. And, Tina, I've left you a list on the board. I have a white board that I've been making. Now, there you are coming. Here. Here is your moral compass. It's not because you need one. It's just you need proof of one. That's all. I can get more of those guys if anybody needs one.

Mary Helen, while you're looking at that, let me just tell everybody what's on it. So moral compass, spread the word. And it says respect, compassion, patience, integrity. And then it says moral compass, practice daily, gratitude, kindness, service, and charity.

And that's this group. That's this group. Everybody has them. I know they do. I just wanted to make sure that those of you who were leading the teams had proof and that your teams could hide behind you if need be. Thank you. I had that to do, but I just didn't get there. I got you. I'm lost here. Let me see. All right. All right. Thank you to Shannon and home. Okay. I'm getting there, y'all. Missed my parking spot. Parking spots major, y'all. Never had a parking spot in my life. That was one of the reasons I was tearful, too, that first week. A tag and a parking spot. Oh. Okay. I'm just there. As I leave. That 10% to 20% thing, you know, that gave me some cover, for sure, for all the things that we were trying to do, Kristen, and the land acquisitions that you were involved as well. Cusco Willow. Oh, my goodness. When I first came on this board, it was Hutch and Mike and Ken and Chuck, an austere group. And by that time, you know, they were a pretty tough bunch. Especially Mike and Hutch, because they'd been here a while. And so when I first came on this board, I let them know that I'd been raised by a Victorian grandmother who said, you know, you're not, it's rude to insist and it's rude to argue. And that just caused an uproar on that board. And it's just like, no, no, no, no, this is not, that's not the way it's done here. And I've learned that. And I've learned that. And it's, but it's, I still, I still feel like that our board has always been very congenial. And even when we raggle and haggle, it comes out fine on the other side. Whereas when it was Mike and Hutch and them, I'm not sure. It was never really clear whether they were friends at the end of the day or not. But it was, it was a great way to learn. It was a wonderful way to come on that board and learn. And Latoya and I were the only two women on this floor at that time. And so we were able to really have a good time. We even put a mirror in there so we could check ourselves out to make sure that we were presentable. Cuscawilla is one that I hope, you know, we've got great people out there working right now. And I will continue to try to, to get out there to help to bolster that, what their, the income that they need to keep going out there. The animal shelter, all you all know, I've been out there, you know, doing things for, from even before when I came on the board. And I'll continue to be in the way out there too. Hopefully Meredith won't mind old lady school teacher too much. And, oh, it's the Green Tree Village, Lakeview. That's, that's the name of the pond, Tina. It's Greenview. And I, I'm telling all of y'all that, but I know that it's my list and that I'm making sure that, that I've been telling everybody that, I'll make sure Tina knows that you're important to me. And the main thing is, I think just to make sure that the rest of the, the rest of the community out there, the rural municipalities, all those commissions out there know that we are their friends and partners. And that's, I think we've done a lot to, to make sure that people know that. And we just need to make sure that that continues because it makes it a lot easier for us to do these big projects together. And, and even the big projects may not be something that we can do. I've already had to accept the fact, you know, that the animal shelter is probably gone by the wayside. But I would hope, you know, that, you know, as I've asked this board, the funding will continue with that shelter to at least make it a pleasant place for people to work and to visit and to maintain the integrity, integrity that we have, that we expect from that kind of shelter. Sure. Yeah, money's going to be tight. And I know that you all are going to be having to look at, look at ways to cut back, not just on things like the animal shelter, but I'm hoping that we can keep the momentum going on the roads that we've got going. And I think that's a lot of people who are finally beginning to get excited and to realize that roads are a priority for us. And even if we look at that 20-80 split, as we look at the places where we put money towards land acquisition, you know, I don't know, you know, we, we may have to make some hard decisions too. Do we want our roads maintained going to the lands we've already acquired? Do we need a moratorium on that kind, on those purchases for now until we find out which way that, and I can say that to you guys because I'm coming off the board. It's going to be a controversial thing to talk about. But at the same time, we're going to have to make choices as to what is important to the public that's paying the money into our coffers. And so I hope you will help Ramon keep the road systems top priority and that we have heard the citizens who have been complained, but we've also been hearing from the people who are grateful and are realizing that we're doing the best we can, you know, to address those needs in the community because we have parks now that need good roads to them. We have Santa Fe right now that is, that was really thrilling to see how excited they were that we were finally addressing that road, even though it was not on the priority list. And now, I want to finish this way. This is the way I finish, this is the way I finish with my classes. When I taught at Westwood Middle School, I taught art, special ed, and at the end of every year, I shared poetry with them. We shared poetry all year long. It's a great way to inspire artwork. We did Beowulf, we did Lady of Shalot, we did Charge of the Light, all the classics that they don't get now. But they are great. They have great visuals in the words of the poets who wrote those poems. And so I would use that to end out my time with those kids. And I have, I have two that I'm going to, very quickly, Robert Frost is a great one to go to, especially if you're trying to aspire artwork from kids. And I'm doing something that I have never done in my whole life. I have never read anything off the phone, ever. I couldn't find my book. I couldn't find my book that had those little poems in it. But I'm going to read you two. And this one I think all of you all can relate to. And I know you've heard it a hundred times. I hope you have. Because we grew up at a time where literature is important. And I'm not sure that the kids today are hearing the same poetry that unites us as a culture. Just, you'll know it. I'm not going to read the title. Two roads diverged in a wood. And sorry I could not travel both and be one traveler. Long I stood and looked down one as far as I could to where it bent in the undergrowth. Then took the other as just as fair and having perhaps the better claim. Because it was grassy and wanted wear. Though as for that the passing there had worn them really about the same. And both that morning equally lay. In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh I kept the first for another day. Yet knowing how way leads on to way. I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh. Somewhere ages and ages hence. Two roads diverged in a wood. And I took the one less traveled by. And that has made all the difference. Right? Every one of you in here, every one of you in here can relate to this point. Because I would say all of us in here have taken the road less traveled. Every one of us. And that gave great discussion for kids who are leaving my class going into high school. Right? Okay. I have one more. The road. I just wanted you to pick up on the road part. Right? The road. Not right. Ramon, I'm here for you dude. Okay. Let me find the other one right here. Come on. I know it's in here. No. Okay. Hang on. I got it. This is why I don't use this thing. This is why I don't use it. Hang with me just a minute because this is kind of important. Okay. Here it is. Okay. You'll know this one too. I'm not going to read the title but you'll know it. Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though. He will not see me stopping here to watch his woods fill up with snow. My little horse must think it queer to stop without a farmhouse near. Between the woods and frozen lake, the darkest evening of the year. He gives his harness bells a shake to ask if there is some mistake. The only other sounds the sweep of easy wind and downy flake. Y'all know this one? Yep. The woods are lovely dark and deep. But I have promises to keep. And come on. Y'all know it. And miles to go before I sleep. And miles to go before I sleep. That's us too. That's us too. And that's me. I have miles to go before I sleep. So I've got a lot of trouble to get into. And you all will see me out there doing it. I just want to say that I look forward to regaining the community who witness and report to you. That's this group to you. And hopefully we can guide you to the success that we'll continue to share in Alachua County. So thank you all for this opportunity to be here. To be here for eight years. To be here now with you. And to share my deep love for all of you. And much, much even deeper respect. So thank you all so much for having me as part of this community.

All right, Mary Helen. Now come up here. Because now a bunch of people are going to say some nice things about you. And you're going to have to just sit here and take it. All right. So we're going to now open it up to the public. I was trying to make it so that you could. Nope. I'm getting my agenda item after all. Is there anyone from the public that wishes to say a word to Mary Helen? A word or two? Come on up.

You're going to put people on the spot now.

No, they don't have to. You don't have to. I see Kristen wants to. I know Dana wants to. I know I'll sit here long enough to get a chance.

Thank you, Chair, Commission, Dana Williams, private citizen of Alachua County. I wasn't intending on going first, but I'll take the lead. Thank you, Chair and Commission, for the opportunity for us to be able to speak to Commissioner Wheeler and about Commissioner Wheeler. And I'm going to try and not be emotional for you. I did not know we would have the opportunity to speak, so while Commissioner Wheeler was speaking, I started jotting down some words. Genuine, sincere, honest, caring, giving, listener, unselfish. These are qualities that all of us strive to have, and I have found these qualities Commissioner Wheeler carries personally. Thank you. I am blessed and honored to know Commissioner Wheeler. She's been my mentor, and I'm even more proud to call her my friend. She was a sounding board for me during difficult times, and she always reminded me to stay true to myself while she was true to herself. Her kindness, strength, and determination came without effort and motivated me and inspired me in my endeavors. She leaves big shoes to fill for this commission, and I trust and wish all the best to Commissioner-elect. She left certain? Oh, she left. She left, yeah. But she has big shoes to fill with that. Commissioner Wheeler, what you have given to Alachua County, your hometown, as you say, is unmatched, and there's a lot of things that I know that you did behind the scenes for, not just for me, but for individual citizens across this county that most people won't even know about. You were not in this for the title. You were not in this for fame, fortune, or anything else. You simply gave. You gave of yourself, and your family behind you gave. And I am forever grateful and indebted to you for your service to this county. Thank you so much. Thank you, Dana. Thank you, Dana. Perfect. I'm just moving the chair, so that's when we take pictures of Mary Helen.

Oh. I'm drooling, but I'm going to second everything she said about you. Six years ago, I met you while we were supporting and doing the Pink Flamingo through Brom. I was blessed to meet you. From that, we went on to do the Canoe Outpost in High Springs. We bought that. We just, amazing work up there with that. You know, from that, we went to the brewery. And, you know, when they needed somebody, I said, call Mary Helen Wheeler. Like, call Mary Helen Wheeler. Go higher. Go higher. And you let them go higher. And they called you, and we had them here. You spearheaded us to come to High Springs, and now they're open on Sundays. And that was something that you really took under your wing. We have a lot of beers there. Anyways, even with Seren Deputy, you were there the day Seren Deputy opened. And, you know, like Dana, I wanted to make some notes because it was like you were always there. And when Helena hit, and all the businesses were calling me, they had no power. They had no refrigerators. I didn't know what to do. I called you. You got on the phone with Duke. And like that, they started getting power restored while you were filling up a toilet that you told me you were doing at that exact time, trying to help a citizen being able to flush her toilet. And that was who you were. But you got on the phone with Duke immediately. And these are just the things that I remember. You know, for the past five years, I think, and so, you know, I've been with you on the TDC. You've been sitting there. You brought billboards. You brought awareness to the minister of the different businesses in High Springs and that area. But I've also watched you support Ross Ambers, but support Dana. The day Dana, last time on the board, she was, you were there. You sat next to me and being able to sit next to her to watch you during your retirement, I think it just brought it all around. But as a person, for me, I think the most thing was when you were there with me with my husband. I'm going to try not to get emotional, but my husband is the chairman of the planning zoning board. Like his third meeting, he had to chair the mill sink. And the second six hour, you sat every 12 hours. But the second meeting, you sat next to me. Sometimes you had to pat me a little. But it was really difficult watching my husband up there, you know, on those, as the chairman of that big meeting that had such, you know, of course it didn't pass. But you were there for me to sit next to me through that. So, I do consider you a friend, and I do think we have, me and Dana will keep you very busy in Alachua and High Springs, and I appreciate that. And so, and I appreciate you sitting next to me while my husband was chairing that board. He's still the chairman. I don't know for how long, but they're not letting him go. Now Dana's husband's on there, so we get to sit in the audience tonight, don't we, Dana? And watch our husbands on the zoning board. And so, but I'm okay sitting in the back watching you shine, and I hope we can do a lot of things for High Springs. I hope we can do a lot of things out there for Alachua and, you know, for the local businesses and promoting the tours and stuff like that out there. But thank you for being my friend. Thank you. Thank you, Julie.

All right. Next speaker, Kristen. Come on up, Kristen.

Mr. Chair, I rarely miss an opportunity when there's an open mic or public comment. My name is Kristen Young. I was sitting back there trying to remember when I met Mary Helen Wheeler, and I don't remember because I feel like I've known her forever. Oh, wonderful. I know I volunteered on her 2016 campaign, and you talk about Cuscovilla. You called me up, hey, do you want to go to Camp McConnell? There's an auction. So we went and watched that happen. There's been a lot of calls, hey, do you want to go somewhere? Mm-hmm. She tends to bring people along with her. Mm-hmm. I did run her 2016 campaign, and we're very happy. Eight years goes by very quickly, doesn't it? That's right. And I've learned she is a mother to son. She has adopted children, grandchildren, adopted grandchildren. She has students all over the county. They have their own kids that she knows. That's right. She has a very expanded reach of family, and all staff members, you're her family. That's right. She's been down forever. I'm knowing Mary Helen Wheeler. Her drive is to help. She is a helper, and we know that we're supposed to look for the helpers, and a lot of people in here have looked for the helpers with issues in their community, and she has succeeded on a number of projects, and she wanted to see small towns, small communities, small neighborhoods succeed and have the resources that they needed. So we are a better community for Mary Helen Wheeler. Thank you, Kristen.

Thank you, Kristen. Yeah. Yeah, y'all can clap. Yeah, we're breaking all the rules on this one. All right. Is there anyone else who wants to say? Yeah, come on up.

I wasn't expecting to talk today, but Mary Helen is such a close friend. She's my sister, and I've known you for so long. I haven't done work with you as a commissioner, but we have done life's journey together through a lot of tough times. So when you say that you're going to get into trouble, I hope I'm with you, because we're going to have some good times. You finally are going to be able to spend more time with us. You're a good person. I love you very much.

Thank you, Joe. I love you, too.

Nikki. Anyone else from the public before we come back up here? Come on, Mark. Yeah. Why not? And she just reminded me of something I've got to go grab in the back. I'll be right back, but I'll be listening.

Go ahead. Mary Helen, I just wanted to say thank you, particularly for your kindness, the way you value staff, the way you've respected us, the way you've always listened. I was about to say I'm going to miss our constant phone calls, but then you reminded me you have my number. That's right. And you have mine. Yep. Thank you for your service.

Thank you, Mark.

Yeah. I think I already disrupted it. All right. All right.

All right. All right. All right. Anybody else? Anybody else out there before we get back up here? All right.

Sorry, Michelle. Michelle, you want to say a few words? Yeah. I want to take a moment myself to thank you for your years of service for the county. You've brought a lot of heart to the board. And it's always been clear how much you care about the community and the people who call our community home. I still smile when I think about the first time we were at a conference together. You probably don't remember this. But you said, hey, Michelle, I've got some really good whiskey up in my room. Would you like to come up and have a drink?

Kentucky. Yeah. It was.

I remember thinking at a time, well, this is going to be a really fun time working with Commissioner Wheeler. I did not pick you up on that. But I recognized we were going to really enjoy working with you. And I have enjoyed working with you. And I have appreciated our conversations over the years and the way that you speak up for what matters to you. We may not have always agreed. Right. We've had to agree to disagree on some things. But I've always appreciated your passion for what you believe in. And on behalf of county staff, thank you for all the time and the energy that you've given to your work. And for me personally, I'm very grateful that we've had a chance to do it together. I'm going to miss seeing you up here. But I have a feeling I'm still going to be seeing you out there. Oh, absolutely. At plenty of board meetings. So we'll just have another look on the other side of the dais instead of next to you. Thank you. We'll be waving to you out in the audience. That's right. Thank you. Thank you, Michelle.

Sylvia, do you have anything you want to say?

So, Commissioner, I did not prepare anything. I do have a couple things to say, though. And I have some things that we will share separately. Okay. So, Commissioner Wheeler came on a board with a whole bunch of what I consider to be analytical people who thought in numbers and they thought in, you know, pros and cons and marking it out and, you know, doing charts. And she came on with a huge, like, feeling. She brought the feelings to the board. And I watched her debate with herself over some really big issues. She didn't have a lot of people because she couldn't talk with the board members. So it was the two of us that she would call. And I watched her debate some of those tough issues. And I could tell you what some of those were. Yeah. But her head and her heart were debating themselves. And, you know, I would come to her from my perspective. My perspective was always the analytics, but what is going to happen? But this is more legal. This is more, you know, and I would come to her with that. But she would say, yeah, but somebody told me. And she'd get off the phone and I thought I convinced her. And then she'd come into one of these meetings and someone would stand up and they would speak from their heart about how the decision they were making was actually impacting that. And she'd change her mind. I think she'd change her mind. And someone asked me the other day, they said, oh, man, they're so, you know, they respond. You know, they actually listen and they respond. And I'm just one constituent. And I'll take whatever decision you make so long as I can make some argument in court that it's all right. Right. Might not have been what I would have done, but I'll take it. But I truly felt like you listened. And that is not always the thing. Thank you. I felt respected, which is not something that I've always felt in jobs. I was jotting down some of just, and we'll talk about them. I was jotting down some of the specific issues. And I jotted down that she sees opportunities in literal and figurative holes in the ground. Yes. You know? Yes. I see a hole in the ground. I see liabilities. I see, you know, slopes. And I see rusted out cans. And she sees a vision. She has a vision of something. And some of those visions came true. Mm-hmm. Some of them didn't quite. Some of them may still. But I don't have your vision. And I appreciate your vision. And you have certainly taken us off the beaten path. I have gotten as many calls from Commissioner Wheeler on little itty things that you would think were little itty-bitty issues as a big issue since. She truly cared about those issues regardless of, you know, whether they were changing the entire budget or, you know, helping out someone on what I consider to be a minor issue. We'll talk more. Yes. But this is off the commission a little bit. But I have seen the most amazing thing that Commissioner Wheeler could do. And it is hurting children. I saw insanity going on. All these kids are running everywhere, including mine. And she just kind of gathered them all up. And she had them doing a job. Mm-hmm. They were actually working on something. And I got a chance to breathe. And I appreciate you from a personal side as well. Thank you. You brought my child into that.

Thank you. Absolutely. Thank you.

I'm their grandmary.

Yes, she is. Thank you, Sylvia. All right.

Commissioner Prizia. Well, I think I'll say Kristen hit it on the head with you're a helper. Yeah. And I think that's the first thing I learned from you on the diet is that we are here for the big issues. That's what we got elected for. But it's the phone call from the constituent in the middle of the night because their land is flooded or that pond with the trash in it that's going to change people's lives. Yes. And so I just appreciate you teaching me to listen and to pay attention to those emails in my inbox and those phone calls that I get every day. And so, I mean, because of you and your modeling that behavior, I think I took that really seriously. And I also think we did a pretty good job of being determined about bringing the small towns back into this.

I came in with that as a goal that we would be better partners with our small municipalities and the city of Gainesville. And I think you too felt that. And I was so grateful for you to lead that charge and help us see that we can have good relationships with our small cities and we can build foundations there that can be helpful for everybody involved.

So I will always remember you for that. And for Coscoilla, you know, I wasn't sold on Coscoilla. It seemed like such a uphill battle. But what a gem it is for the southern part of our county and such a space that's needed for active recreation there as well as just protecting a beautiful space.

And to have that camp for the kids is just such a dream. So thank you for continuing to hold that vision.

And I know that Takachali is still on the list. Yes.

I've heard you last year and I've started to try to find out what's going on there to keep that light lit.

Thank you. And, you know, we'll try to keep those things on your board along with Tina. We're excited to have her. You know, like you said, it was like the analysis team up here prior. Yeah. And then you were up here alone. And then I think Mary and I came in. That's right. It was awesome. It was awesome. I all nailed the word to three women who had a lot to do and a lot to say. That's right. I think he was relieved, truly. I think, weren't you relieved? You were relieved to have a little, little, little. It's great. But anyway, I just, I appreciate your determination. I know we, I know patience is something I have to work on on this moral compass. And I know that sometimes I wasn't the most patient when I was trying to get my point across to you about an issue or that issue. That's okay. But what I appreciate is that you were at least willing to listen and try to hear me out. I respect, I respect your good brain. And I think, I think that your determination has rubbed off on me. So. All right. Hopefully I'll just carry it through. All right then. And you know you have my number. Then I've done my job.

All right.

Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Alvin. Oh, goodness. I remember when I first met you, and you may not remember this, but I served on a board called the Old Florida Heritage Highway many years ago. And I believe it's your 2014 campaign. Okay. First Florida, Florida House. And there was a fish fry out in Micanopy. Scott Richardson, the owner of Northwest Seafood, would have this big fish fry fundraiser for our Old Florida Heritage Highway Advisory Board. And I got put on there by Kathleen Pagan. She's like, we need you on this board. I'm like, anyway, I enjoyed being on the board. It was, but there was a pretty good crowd out there. Yeah. And I sat down at a table with my thing of fish and going, I don't know many of these folks. And you sat down at the table, introduced yourself. And I knew you were running for the house, but it was the first time I talked to you. And I think we talked until the fish fry was over. Yes. And I was impressed. Well, thank you. Yeah. And that was the first time I met you. Since that time, you've been my office neighbor. And every time Commissioner Wheeler walks by, when I'm just getting there, you always stick your head in and ask me. Sincerely, you ask me how I'm doing. How are you doing? And I usually tell you. No, it's good. That's good. That's good. And I've really, you know, my 10-year-old autistic grandson moved in with me a few months ago. And you've been so helpful. Thank you. It's okay. Thank you for that. But what you really showed me, I think, you know, as I've become involved in the city of Archer and the city of McAnopee and other small towns too, is the value of showing up. Because you show up. You don't just support the small towns. You are at their events. You show up for their meetings. You know what their issues are. And they're going to miss you. Thank you. And it's going to be hard for us to fill your shoes in that regard. I really think you're going to be missed. Well, thank you. Because of how you show up. And I, you know, you quoted those poems. I had to memorize both those poems in the fourth grade in Miss Neff's English class. Good for you. Good for you. At Idlewild Elementary School. Good for you. And I remembered them as you were, as you were quoting them. But you're right. You know, the kids today don't connect with our literature and language the same way. No. And it's, you know, was valuable to me to do that. But, you know, since the last few years I've realized that we have family connections. Well, kind of family connections. That's right. We do. Yes. That I never would have thought. The world is really a small place. My family's had a close, close family friend from the time since I was 10 years old. A guy named Dr. Eric Chamblant who was here doing post-doc work at UF and became a friend of our family. And he, I think it was after that, that he went up to the Buckhorn Children and Family Center in Buckhorn, Kentucky, where you actually spent a good bit of time. I did.

I worked with him there.

Yeah. And you, you, so you were a friend of somebody that I consider family. Yes. And so what I said to him, I said something about Mary Helen Wheeler. And he's like, I know, I know a Mary Helen. And you were like, I know an Eric Chamblant. So anyway, it's just so, it's such a small world sometimes. It is. Yeah, it is. And, and I think that, I think it's an even smaller world when you put together the people that care about people. And I, I just want to tell you thank you for. Thank you, Mary. For always being the person that cares about other people and the person that always asks the sincere questions. Thank you. And I've learned a lot from you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner. Okay. I'm actually going to go down there if it's okay. Oh. Okay. Oh, he's just got something to show. All right. I'm going to start out with something that Mary Helen gave me last week. She's cleaning out her office. So, cause I think it's kind of a good way to start. A good friend will come and bail you out of jail, but a true friend will be sitting next to you saying, damn, that was fun. And I think a lot of us have that feeling about Mary Helen. So, I want to go back to when I first met Mary Helen, which was back in 2014. So, Mary Helen was running for Congress and I was running for county commission. And we were on the campaign trail together. And anyone that's campaigned, you get tight with the folks that you're campaigning with. Mary Helen actually won in Alachua County against Ted Yoho, 49.46% to 48%. And that was my first time with Mary Helen. Then in 2016, Mary Helen ran again. She ran against Chuck Clements for the State House District 21 seat. She also won in Alachua County. She got 51.9% of the vote and Chuck got 48% of the vote. And that leads me to, Mary Helen has always been out in the community trying to help the community. And that, and in June 22nd of 2017, I think Kristen mentioned it. She said, hey, let's go to Camp McConnell with Kristen and Gina Peoples. And they went down to the YMCA auction in Micconope. I remember that date because I was the chair of the county commission sitting in Grace Knight. And there was Lee Pinkerson and Chuck Chestnut and Mike Barley and Hutch Hutchinson. And it was a budget meeting. I looked, I had chats. I looked it up. It was a Thursday morning at 10 a.m. Now you said, Mary Helen, that Mike and Hutch used to argue. Let me tell you about Lee and Mike. I used to have a saying. When Lee Pinkerson and Mike Barley are on the same side of an issue, sit up straight because something as weird has happened. Those two were really the fighters. But anyways, on that date, it was a Thursday morning. It was a budget meeting. It was June 22nd. And Hutch comes walking in. And we're about to have started our budget meeting. He says, we've got to do a conference call at 10 a.m. because there's an auction going on. And Kristen and Mary Helen and Gina are at it. And I'm like, Hutch, what are you talking about? He's like, we've got to buy Camp McConnell. So Mike starts going crazy. We're not doing that. And Lee's like, well, tell me about it. Mike was against it. Lee was like, I'm for it. So Mike was like, we're not doing that. And Lee was like, let's hear him out. Let's hear Hutch out. Lee had a great way of doing that. And so we actually got on a conference call. And we kind of started the meeting. Michelle, you remember that? We got on a conference call. He wasn't there.

I was abstinent at that meeting. And Sylvia was my stand-in as the attorney for that meeting. He was texting me.

Yeah. Like, what's going on? Well, we ended up buying Camp McConnell for just over a million dollars. I think we had to go up like $10,000 on a bid. And Kristen and Mary Helen were there. What vision you had before you were even on the commission? We ended up buying it at the auction after a failed attempt by State Rep. Perry to purchase it. He was trying to purchase it. And we wanted it for the community. And so that was done on June 22nd of 2017. And on July 21st of 2017, basically 29 days later, Camp McConnell, which is now Tusco Willow, became owned by the citizens of Alachua County. And that was a pretty special day. So that was before she ever got elected. So in 2018, Mary Helen and I were actually on the same ballot because we were both running for county commission. Lee was stepping off. And we knocked on all the same doors. We sat through a lot of the same candidate forums. We heard a lot of the same things from voters everywhere. And it went like this. Make Alachua County work for the people who live here. That's what we heard. When August arrived, I didn't have an opponent, so I was elected. Mary Helen won that Democratic primary against Randy Wells with 60% of the vote. And she became the Democratic nominee. And then in November of 2018, she overwhelmingly won a three-party race with 65% of the vote. That was in an election that actually had more turnout than last week. It was a 64% turnout in 2018. I think our current president, who was also the president back then, had a little bit to do with that. But that was a lot for a midterm. The midterms averaged about 50% to 55%. We had 64%. Mary Helen won that race with 65%. And she joined the board. We both, so now I want to walk you through some of the things that Mary Helen has helped this county accomplish. I'm going to go year by year because the record really tells the story better than I can. So in her first budget year, 2019-2020, first budget year, so elected in 2018, but her first budget year, that was the year the world kind of stopped. When COVID hit, Alachua County was one of the first counties to take protective action. I remember Hutch was the chair. We moved to protect people before the state did. We got more than $49 million of federal CARES Act relief into the hands of thousands of neighbors who were hurting. And even in that crisis, this board adopted the rollback rate, brought the millage under eight mills for only the third time in 40 years. 2020 and 2021, we opened up the Ag and Equestria Center in Newberry. It was a new home for our fairgrounds, largely paid for by visitors to the tourist tax. That was also the year we bought the budget in. That was the first step in turning rundown motels into homes. We put $52 million into the federal recovery dollars to work, and we created the county's affordable housing trust fund. That was the year that Mary and Anna came onto the board. That was a special year. We did a strategic plan. We had a new board. You know, we went from four guys and Mary Helen to three gals and Chuck and I. In 2021, we put a new 24-hour rescue. 2021, 2022, we put a new 24-hour rescue unit into service to help people faster. We protected 605 acres along the Loch Moussa Creek permanently. And again, we cut the millage rate for the sixth year in a row. Then we had another election, 2022. And I got the run with Mary Helen again. And Mary, you were in that election. So in the primary, Mary Helen overwhelmingly won the primary against Charlie Jackson with 73% of the vote. Overwhelming. And then she beat the former mayor of Gainesville, Ed Bratty, in November with 58% of the vote. That was also the year that we had put the expansion and extension of the infrastructure sales tax back on the ballot. This board did that, and that passed overwhelmingly. That led us into the 2022-2023 year. And again, the voters trusted us with the one set wild spaces, public places, infrastructure sales tax. And we put about a half, a quarter of a billion dollars over 10 years, or half a billion dollars over 10 years for lands, parks, roads, and housing. And Mary Helen was the person who got this board to move from 90-10 to 80-20. So we were now doubling the amount of money that we were putting into active recreation. And we had a discussion about West End today, which wouldn't have been possible, Mary Helen, if we didn't have those funds. We also adopted, and you heard her talk about, a quarter of a billion dollars 10-year plan to fix our roads. We opened up the Sports and Events Center at Celebration Point, which was built with tourist dollars that are projected to bring in $77 million a year into our economy. And she led that committee of tourist development. She's been the leader of that committee. So that was 2022 and 2023. 2023 and 2024, that was the year we bought the Scottish Inn next door to the budget inn. 31 more homes. We opened the new fire station, 80, right outside of Hale. We opened the new fire rescue training facility so that the men and women who protect us are ready. In 24 and 25, we opened up the Eastside Clinic, bringing healthcare closer to the people who needed it. We were awarded the contract to bring broadband to rural families who had been left behind. We preserved 35 affordable apartments at sunrise, and we lowered the millage rate again for the ninth straight year. This year, 25-26, we cut the rim in on 67 homes at East Tumbling Creek and Forest Edge. Not shelters. Not temporary beds. Homes. The State's Council on Homelessness has now held that up as a model for Florida. We lowered the millage rate for the tenth straight year, adopting the rollback rate. And we took over the sports and events center so that it serves our community first. And we put in a bid and won the bid to bring the world championship back here in 2027. Eight amazing years of service, many years prior to that. Housing for people who had nowhere to go. Tourism that make visitors help pay our bills. And a lower tax rate every single year for working families in Elastra County. But I only talked about votes. If I only talked about votes and budgets, I'd be missing the most important thing about Mary Helen, and we've all kind of said it today.

This is much better than a funeral, though, Ken.

Every commission needs someone who asks, before anything else, who does this help? Who might it hurt? Mary Helen, for eight years, that's been you. When a debate got lost in numbers, she brought us back to people. When a resident came to the podium scared or angry or forgotten, she was the one who listened longer. She never forgot why any of us actually ran. I think you can. I knew I was going to do this. You do. Yeah. All right. Mary Helen, you have been the heart and soul of this commission. You have made all of us better. You have made this county stronger and kinder. As we face, you know, one of the most challenging budget cycles with the adoption of Amendment 3, you will be sitting on all of our shoulders. So on behalf of this board and the thousands of residents who lived whose lives are better because you served, I want to say thank you, Mary Helen. We wish you good health. We wish you great happiness and every bit of peace and joy that you spent eight years making possible for everyone else. But no goodbyes today. I'm just going to say I'll see you around. I love you very much. And on behalf of all the men and women who serve Alachua County and the citizens of Alachua County, we all love you very, very much. Thank you. All right. So I'm going to ask now our manager, our attorney, my colleagues, and Mary Helen to come on down. We've got a little plaque that I'm going to read. I'm trying not to cry through reading that one. I'm going to ask Commissioner-Elect Tina Certain to join us as well because you have been a part of this community for eight years and I'd like you up here with us because you're going to be carrying the torch. It's funny. You all wear the same colors today.

I know. The same outfit. Yes. Come on up, Tina. All right.

So here it is. Here's the plaque. I'm going to read it. Mary Helen Wheeler in appreciation for outstanding service as County Commission District 2 of Alachua County Commission November 8th, 2018 to November 26th. A legacy of service. 2020. I'm going to stop looking at her. 2020. Supported community during COVID-19. 2021. Helped establish the Affordable Housing Trust Fund. 2022. Helped permanently protect 7,539 acres of conservation land. 2023. 2023. Supported 252 million 10-year transportation capital improvement plan. 2024. Supported the opening of Fire Station 80 and the commitment of Fire Station 21. 2024. Helped expand access to healthcare through the Eastside Clinic. 2025. Supported the expansion of food access through partner agencies. 2026. Supported the renovation of two motels to separate apartment complexes. Provided 67 affordable housing units owned by the county. A champion for animals. Dedicated countless volunteer hours to animal services. bringing compassion, care, and advocacy to animals in need. With gratitude for eight years of dedicated service to the people and places of Alachua County. Thank you.

Hey, guys, can you move down this way a little bit? Can we kind of have that picture?

Michelle, if you would come out in front. All right. Thank you all. We are officially adjourned for the meeting. Thank you all for being here.