Regular Meeting @ 11:30 a.m. - Oct 28, 2025

I'd like to call the Board of County Commissioners of Alachua County, Florida, October 28th, 2025 at 11.30 a.m. Madam Clerk. First, we'll have the invocation provided by Pastor Jacob Newton of High Springs Church of God, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance. Thank you. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this opportunity that we have to live and to work in the beautiful county in Alachua. I pray for your hand to be on this meeting today. I ask, Lord, for you to provide wisdom and direction and insight to our county commissioners. Grant them great grace in the decisions that they make. I pray for the citizens that are represented here today that they would be able to bring constructive ideas and plans as we continue to see you grow this wonderful county. And, Lord, we ask for your hand to continue to be on us. We give you praise and thanks for it all. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Next, we'll have the approval of the regular and consent agenda. Move approval of the agenda and consent agenda. Second. Any further comments? Are there any public comments to the motions on the floor of the agenda? Hello, everybody. I'm Evans Hale, and I am here to – this is Gabrielle Byam. I am here to say thank you to you all. We really want to say thank you for your support of cultural arts in the county for the funding that you've given us, and not just us, but I know everybody else are here to – many other people are here to speak as well. I am here representing the Gainesville Orchestra as well as the Hippodrome today because of your funding. You know, we are proud that we are not just putting shows on stage, although that's a very important part of what we do. I'm proud with the orchestra. We're not just doing concerts on stage, but we are very much a part of the fabric of the community. We are very proud that we have our outreach program with the orchestra. We are one of the founding members of the national organization Equity Arc, which you may have read about a number of months ago when the funding was cut on a national level, which was to provide mentoring programs for underserved communities, underserved kids. We have been able to continue our program mentoring at least two schools. We're looking at three schools this year. Last year, we were able to bring 50 students onto the stage of the Phillips Center when we entertained 1,500 students from around the area in doing our performances. Obviously, we also do major productions of concerts. We have one that's coming Thursday, as a matter of fact. And we are one of the major professional organizations in the country, and I will say in the country as well, proudly. I meant the region, but the country is fine. And also with the Hippodrome, we are proud that we are one of the major organizations that not only does great shows on stage, Equity Productions, designers, et cetera, who are from Broadway, nationally represented along with our local artists, but most importantly, and this is where Gabrielle, who is my partner and managing director of the company, we do our outreach, community, education, and camps during the summer, which is so important. And if you come to any of our productions, you'll know you'll see me when I speak and say one of the most important things we do are our camps because we bring kids together during the summer to learn not just stagecraft but how to work together, how to listen to each other, how to take responsibility, and that is all Gabby's doing. And so your funding is not just helping us do things on stage, which is one of the things that is often thought about, but it is really being a part of the fabric of the community. So for that, I want to say thank you. Gabrielle? Thank you. Thanks so much. Thanks, Evan. Thank you so much. Thank you. This is in reference to the approval of the agenda? Yes. Oh, okay. Sure. Okay. Unless you want me to do something else. No, I can't. I'm Barry Jank from Carson Springs Wildlife. My wife wrote this up. Dear Alachua County Commissioners, we are so honored and thankful for the generous support of the Visit Gainville Grants. We strive to improve every year. We host events 52 weeks of the year and try hard to vary our offerings to tourists and residents. This year, we added drafts. We have opportunities ranging from $10 to $45 walking with professional zoologists and driving in your own vehicle. We have no paid administration to give optimum care to the animals, so our budget would not allow for much advertising or hosting events. We truly could not exist like we do without your kind and generous support. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Barry. Okay. Going once, going twice. Okay. I'm Jerry Lynn Rapsack, representing Dance Company of Gainesville. And I would just like to second what the past few people have come up to say, that we are so thankful to be part of a community that supports arts and culture. And we are grateful for all of you. Thank you. From Gainesville Community Playhouse, thank you very much. We need your money and your support. And I thank you very much for continuing to support us. I just want to confirm this for a general open comment from the public. No, no, no. This is just for the approval of the agenda. And the items they're talking about is on our consent agenda. They're speaking to that in terms of the approval of our agenda. That's it. Good morning. I'm representing the Gainesville big band. And we bring jazz to the Gainesville area. Now, jazz, as you know, is one of the only music that had actually been created in the United States. So we thank you for your sponsorship. And let me mention, I hope that you could come out to one of our concerts. We have concerts coming up at the Cotton Club on November 8th. We have a Christmas concert coming up on the 7th. We play at the Misan Church, if you're familiar with that. It's right across from Santa Fe College. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Seeing none, those in favor of the motion will by the sign of an aye. Aye. Those opposed, same sign. Motion clear. Carries. Madam Clerk. Next, we'll have announcements. Good morning, Mr. Chair. Mark Sexton, Communications Director. Alan, if I could get the projection screen up, please. Mr. Chair, we want to make sure our residents know that we've got an incredible event coming up, the Climate Festival. If you go to our website, there are a couple of different places where you can access this press release. Alachua County invites residents to the Climate Festival celebrating the completion of the county's Climate Action Plan. It's an important milestone that reflects the community's commitment to planning, protecting our roots and resources, and pollinating solutions to safeguard our well-being. And we encourage folks to come. There will be all kinds of incredible speakers, food trucks, exhibits. Michael Grunwald, the award-winning journalist and author, will be the main keynote speaker at the event. And we're very grateful for the Bob Grant Center for Public Service, UF College of Journalism and Communications, WUFT's Environmental and Ag Desk, and the Florida Climate Institute, as well as the Rothman Family Chair in the Humanities for supporting and paying for that great speaker. Also, we want to – and by the way, you can go to the site. We do ask – it's going to be very popular. A lot of folks have signed up. It is open to the public, but it is important to go to the link and sign up because there could be a finite amount of space available, so make sure you reserve your seat. Also, on the home page of our website, you will see that we have Chapter 4 of Sense and Sensibility, Understanding the County's Budget in Eight Chapters. This one was particularly interesting, I thought, and we encourage residents to read this because it describes the pressures on your budget that come from unfunded mandates. Great programs and ideas that are handed over to you to figure out how to fund. And it makes the point that one way the state could immediately impact property taxes, if they would take those programs and great ideas back to the state level. So we encourage folks to read that. And, Mr. Chair, those are the announcements. Thank you. Mr. Cornell? Mr. Chair, I would move approval of the recognitions. Second. Further discussions? Back to the board. For those in favor of the motion, will everybody sign up, aye? Aye. Those opposed, same sign. Motion carries. This will bring us to presentation of proclamation recognized in October as Cybersecurity Awareness Month in Alachua County, Florida. I think it's ironic that they asked me to read this one because I'm the one who still believes in carrier pigeons. And I'm also the one who has to do the training every time I screw up and let something go through that I'm not supposed to. And I do a lot of those trainings, guys. I want you to know that I appreciate you all, your good nature when it comes to me and IT. And welcome. All right. Alachua County, Florida, a proclamation declaring October as Cybersecurity Awareness Month in Alachua County, Florida. Whereas the Board of County Commissioners of Alachua County recognizes that it has a vital role in identifying, protecting its citizens from, and responding to cybersecurity threats that may have significant impact to our individual and collective safety and privacy, and critical infrastructure sectors are increasingly reliant on information technologies to support financial services, energy systems, telecommunications networks, transportation infrastructures, utilities, and emergency response functions. And whereas the Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency, CISA, leads the National Cybersecurity Awareness Program to increase awareness among individuals and organizations to be safer and more secure online, and this year's theme, stay safe online, emphasizes simple, effective ways to protect individuals, families, and businesses from online threats. And whereas the Board of County Commissioners of Alachua County, Information Security, and Telecommunications Net Department has taken key action steps to improve the Alachua County security posture, including the enforcement of strong passwords, timely hardware, and software updates, security awareness, training to help staff recognize, that's me, and report email phishing, and the implementation of multi-factor authentication system access. That's a lot of big words here, y'all. Now, therefore, through the authority vested in me by the Board of County Commissioners of the Alachua County, Florida, I do hereby proclaim October 2025 is Cybersecurity Awareness Month in Alachua County, Florida, duly proclaimed this 28th day of October A.D. 2025. And this is signed by Chuck Chestnut, our chair, and signed and attested to by Jess Serby. And so I want to present this to you, Mr. G. Chow. Welcome. You are new to this organization, and we're glad to have you here. Thank you. Do this, and you can introduce yourself in here. All right. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Good morning, everyone. Mr. Chair, on behalf of the IT department, my name is G. Chow, IT department director. We are truly honored and grateful to accept the Cybersecurity Awareness Proclamation for the month of October. In today's digital age, cybersecurity is more than an IT concern. It is a community-wide responsibility. Through ongoing awareness and training efforts, we empower our employees to recognize risks, prevent attacks, and take active roles in safeguarding our organization. The shared commitment strengthens our collective resilience and enhances our abilities to serve the community securely and effectively. Before I conclude, I would like to take a moment to recognize and thank several members of the IT team leaders for their dedication and hard work. So, to my left, we have Gary Kendall, who sits in charge of the Service Desk and Field Services Group. We have – oh, out of order, sorry. We have Dennis Garrity. He's in charge of the Network and Telecommunications Division and Security Team members, which are sitting in the audience also, I believe. And then we have Virgilio Benza-Moye, he's in charge of Systems and Infrastructure Division. And last but not least, we have Ryan, right? He's also in charge of Service Desk and Field Support. I'm sorry, he's a security team member, but Lawrence – all right. And Lawrence, he's actually works on cybersecurity for us. So, let's say thank you. No picture? No picture? Hey, Helen, picture me. Oh, picture. That's okay. He's always under – there you go. Thank you, Helen. Next, we'll have a presentation of proclamation recognizing November as Youth Homelessness Outreach Prevention and Education Hope Month in Alachua County, Florida. Are Joy, Jacob, and Frances here? Oh, great. Come on. Mary Helen, don't feel bad. I have trouble with all those tests, too, keeping – take the special person. Thank you all for being here today. Okay. So, it is my pleasure to declare November as Youth Homeless Outreach Prevention and Education Hope Month in Alachua County, Florida. Whereas approximately 4.2 million youth people between the ages of 13 to 25 experience some form of homelessness in the United States each year, facing immense challenges that threaten their well-being, safety, and future opportunities. And whereas youth experiencing homelessness may find themselves living on the streets, in their cars, in shelters, or temporarily staying with others, conditions that often make it difficult to access necessities such as food, medical, and mental health care, and consistent education. And whereas the cause of youth homelessness are complex and include family conflict, being forced to leave home abuse, neglect, and economic instability, which are factors that leave youth people without the safety and security every youth deserves. And whereas youth people who face homelessness are more likely to experience homelessness later in life, creating cycles of housing insecurity that are difficult to break without targeting support and intervention. And finally, whereas the National Runaway Safeline and CDS Family and Behavior Health Services are 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 and always. Now, therefore, through the authority vested in me by the Board of County Commissioners of Alachua County, Florida, I do hereby proclaim November as Youth Homelessness Outreach Prevention and Education HOPE month in Alachua County, Florida, duly proclaimed this 28th day of October. It's signed by our illustrious chair, Charles Chestnut IV, and attested to by Jess Irby. And you want to come up and say a few words? Yeah. Thank you for being here. Thank you so much for having us. Thank you to the Board of County Commissioners and for this proclamation and for helping shine a light on youth homelessness and Youth HOPE month. My name is Joy, and I'm here on behalf of CDS Family and Behavioral Health Services through our emergency shelters, safe place program, and prevention and outreach programs. CDS is always here for youth in crisis 24 hours a day, and we couldn't do that without a community that really cares about its youth and families. So thank you again for recognizing this month with the proclamation. Thank you. Thank you. This will bring us to Citizens Disability Advisory Committee Disability Friendly Employer Award. Good morning, Mr. Chair, Commissioners. I'm Jackie Chung, Equal Opportunity Manager, and I have the pleasure today of recognizing the 80th anniversary of National Disability Employment Awareness Month, also known as NDEAM. And with me today are members of the County Citizens Disability Advisory Committee staff and also the recipients of the award, Grow Hub. So a little bit about National Disability Employment Awareness Month. You're accustomed to us coming here in July for Disability Awareness Month. October is specific to employment and employment opportunities for people with disabilities. So it's the 80th anniversary because this one dates all the way back to 1945 when it started as a week-long recognition of people with physical disabilities. And it has since expanded into a full month and to include people of all disabilities, including mental health conditions and non-obvious disabilities. And the goal is to encourage employers to recruit, hire, retain, and advance individuals with disabilities, facilitating the principles of opportunity, participation, economic self-sufficiency, and independent living for people with disabilities. So to celebrate this milestone anniversary, the Citizens Disability Advisory Committee created an inaugural award to recognize disability-friendly employers in Alachua County. With the assistance of our communications office and IT staff, the award was launched with a press release, a web page about the award, how to apply, a call for entries through a social media campaign. We had the application period ran from June to August. We had one application come in from GrowHub. The committee met to review and score the application. We have award categories in gold, silver, and bronze. GrowHub scored 93.57 of a possible 120 points, earning silver status. And the committee chair and vice chair will now present the award to GrowHub. In honor of National Disability Employment Awareness Month, this Disability-Friendly Employer Award is presented to GrowHub. By the Alachua County Citizens Disability Advisory Committee, an observation of the 80th anniversary of National Disability Employment Awareness Month. With the theme celebrating value and talent, the committee recognizes GrowHub for its hiring, support, inclusion, and advocacy of people with disabilities. And I have here a plaque that says Disability-Friendly Employer Award presented to GrowHub in recognition of your commitment to disability inclusion in the workplace and promoting employment opportunities for people with disabilities, October 28, 2025. Yeah, quickly, I just, as they accept the award, I just want to say thank you so much to GrowHub. Beyond being an amazing employer, they've also created such an amazing resource in our community. If you haven't visited the nursery, I highly suggest you do. Not only are you supporting great employment opportunities for those with disabilities, but they have lots of native plants and other landscape plants that you can't always get in some of our other garden centers. So just a really beautiful, community-friendly space to enjoy nature and get plants for your garden. And thank you so much to GrowHub for all you've done. We'll come down and take a picture with you. Mr. Chair, this will bring us to your board and committee items, Alachua County Land Conservation Board appointment. And, Mr. Chair, on this item, you do have a specialty for a natural resources professional, so the first thing to do would be to appoint that position, and then any of the applicants for that position who are not appointed would be eligible for the at-large position. Are there any applicants that would like to speak at this point? My name is Amy Schwerzer. I have already been serving a midterm appointment on the Land Conservation Board, and I've applied again because it's been a really rewarding experience, and I think it's a really awesome way to give back to Alachua County by serving. Most of my conservation work has been these big, broad, big-picture type of conservation planning, and this is something that's exciting for me because I get to do something for my home county. And I know you have my resume in front of you, so I won't talk too much, but I do have a conservation experience for over 20 years now, so I just wanted to say that. Thank you. Thank you. I'm Paul Lyrene. I'm on the board now, and my term is expiring, so I'm applying for renewal of that. I think it's a great program. I think all the biologists of the world recognize that we are in what they call the sixth extinction period now. The fifth extinction period was 66 million years ago when the asteroid hit Mexico and wiped out the dinosaurs, except for all the birds, I guess, or the remaining dinosaurs we still have. During my time on the board, I've really come to appreciate the capabilities of the people that are running the program. It's just the meetings are extremely well run, and everything is done very professionally. I guess my principal expertise, my principal things I can contribute to the board first is the extreme devotion and appreciation of the program. I think it's extremely important. And second, my knowledge of plants and animals in the county is important. Also, I've learned a lot about the importance of connectivity of different parcels of land that are bought. Now, Alachua County has many soil types, and each soil type has its own group of animals and plants that are not found on other soil types. So people might say, well, we've got a lot of land in the county, but when you think about how much scrub do we have, how much high pine do we have, how much swamp do we have, how much pitcher-pant bogs do we have, there's just, we need a lot of different things. So I'm appreciative for having been on the board and would like to be on again, but if you think I need to retire, I'd be willing to do that too. Thank you. Thank you. My name is Casey Harris, and I'm an environmental scientist. In the past, I worked for the St. John's Water Management District, and more recently, for the past few years, I've been doing a Ph.D. program at UF where I researched water quality in Florida rivers that are used as drinking water supplies. And I think that land conservation may be one of the most important measures we have for water resource protection and for environmental protection overall, and I would welcome the opportunity to serve on the Land Conservation Board as part of that, either soon or in the future, and I appreciate everyone who's already doing that. Thank you. Thank you. Hi. Good morning. Good morning. I'm Larson McBride. I am not currently on the board. I've applied to the natural resource professional position. I'm currently on the City of Gainesville's Tree Advisory Board. I'm an urban forester. I'm a senior urban forester for resource environmental solutions. I live here in Alachua County, and I am always looking for ways to be involved and help out and facilitate my neighbors finding personally significant ways to connect with the land and the water and the space around them. Thank you. Any other applicants next to the board? Okay. Madam Chair. I mean, Clerk. Mr. Chair, would you like to just do them separate? Yes. Okay. So I'll call on each commissioner for your vote for a natural resource professional to appoint one citizen to a term from October 28, 2025 to September 30, 2029. Can I start with Commissioner Prizia? Amy Schwartzer. Commissioner Cornell. And this is hard. There's a lot of great, great applicants, and thank you all for applying, and if you don't get selected, please attend these meetings and continue to stay involved. For the first one, I'll do Amy Schwartzer as well. Commissioner Wheeler? Amy Schwartzer. Schwartzer. Ms. Schwartzer. Second. Got a motion and a second. I do want to say, I know Larson was here, and thank you so much for your application. We hope you'll be able to serve in the future. I was excited to give Amy a chance to hopefully serve as chair since she was vice chair. And Larson, we also have many, many other boards, and everyone who applied that doesn't get in. We have lots of other boards where having a commitment to conservation and natural resources really makes a big difference. I think of rural concerns, for example, our agricultural easements board, many, many others. So please keep your application active, and we really appreciate your commitment to community. Those in favor of the motion, we'll buy the sign of aye. Aye. Those in favor, same sign. Motion carries. Madam Clerk. Next, we'll have our citizen-at-large position appoint one citizen to a term from October 28, 2025, to September 30, 2029. Can I start with Commissioner Wheeler? Paul Lahren. Commissioner Cornell. Man, I love Paul. Larson McBride. Commissioner Prezio. I love Paul, too. He's been there for so many years, but he's... If he is willing to retire and give another community member a chance and bring some of young blood on the board, I guess I hear you. And I'll go with Larson McBride. And Chair Chestnut. McBride. See, retiring is a word that I'm not accepting at this point. Well, I think Paul's going to keep going to the meetings, I hope. So I would move Larson McBride, with gratitude to Paul. Second. Motion and a second. Any further discussion? I think we should expand the board. It's okay. It's okay. We're going to need all the help we can get. Okay. Great candidates. All right. Those in favor of the motion, we'll buy the sign of aye. Aye. Aye. Those opposed, same sign. Motion carries. Madam Clerk. At this time, Chair, you want to do public comment? Yes. Mr. Chair, Jim Connish, I'd like to see the overhead. What I'm about to tell you is supported by official records that I put out on my website, whypaygrumore.com. From 2005 through 2013, Ernst & Young prepared GRU's audited financial statements. They were a part of the big three. The big five dissolved in the wake of the Unron debacle. In 2014, Ernst & Young didn't want GRU's business anymore, and a local accounting firm set up the biomass PPA as a capital lease that purportedly doubled GRU's system-wide asset value. Payments of between 72 and 76 million annually for biomass electricity at four times the market rate, whether needed or not, were made, and that went through the fuel adjustment chart, so it had very little impact on GRU's financial statements. In 2015, Baker Tilly took over the auditing of GRU books. In 2017, GRU bought the biomass electric plant for $750 million plus closing costs. In Austin, Texas, a slightly larger plant sold for $460 million to a much larger utility who mothballed it. In 2018, GRU's audited financial statements reported an increase in electric utility plant and service of nearly $800 million. So GRU's very slender net position, which is out of proportion to its massive debt, is based on a dubious valuation. They did not apportion the fee for exiting the contract from the purchase of the assets. This makes what Trump did in Manhattan look like peanuts, grossly overvalued, and they're stuck with this. It's very possible that GRU's net position, in fact, is zero. They have no firm availability on the Duke line into here, and they have four plants that immediately need massive capital improvements to even keep operating. So while we fight over who's going to control this, GRU is the Titanic after it hit the iceberg. And we're going to have to really sit down as a community to decide, are we going to try to keep it from sinking, or are we going to put out the lifeboats? And that's no joke. Thank you. Thank you. I'm here to speak as a citizen of Alachua County. My name is Burt Weatherington, and on your agenda today you have an item on roads and safety of roads. And if you have read my emails or seen the pictures in the past weeks, you know that there have been very dangerous accidents on southeast Hawthorne Road, State Road 20, from Earl Powers Boat Park down to State Road 234, Rochelle Windsor Road. In the last six months there have been six to more accidents, very dangerous. There have been fatalities. There have been dead bodies found in my front yard. And just the other night there was a rollover of a vehicle. And I am urging the – and I have been in contact with Florida Department of Transportation many a times now trying to urge to get street lights put up on State Road 20 and southeast Hawthorne Road because of the danger of this highway, over 20,000 to 50,000 people drive this highway on a daily basis from Gainesville to Palatka. And it is a very dangerous curve of Earl Powers Boat Park at 5900 southeast Hawthorne Road to 6,012 southeast Hawthorne Road. So the DOT has put the curve signs in, but you still cannot see them at night, especially if it's foggy. And street lights, I have been fighting with DOT now for six months to try to get these street lights because they stop at Lakeshore Drive on southeast Hawthorne Road. Why can I not be extended to 234 Rochelle Windsor Road where it is very dangerous? And, you know, I haven't spoken to DOT about this, but they seriously need a traffic light at that 234 Road because I was speaking with some residents this week in Windsor, Florida, who have lost their loved ones at that road to fatalities. And to prevent fatalities now in a Lodgeville County on this major highway, I have been asked by the Florida Highway Patrol who have been coming out to these accidents to come to the county commission and please help us, they said. Please help us and help to get DOT out there. They've been coming around on the highway, but are they finished with their project? Enough is enough. We've lost too many people to fatality in this intersection area. We've had too many accidents, and the Sheriff's Department is spending too many tax dollars to come out and evaluate. Thank you again. Thank you. I hope now is the appropriate time. I wasn't sure earlier if I should hop on later, but I don't want to miss my chance. I'll say it now. Thank you for the Arts and Nature and Culture Destination Enhancement Grant. I'm here representing Heartwood Soundstage. We are now a non-profit and eligible for that grant, and I'm hoping that you'll fully approve it today. And just thank you for your past commitment to the arts and culture. I know this board has done a ton to advance and support arts and culture in Gainesville and in Alachua County. So just wanted to say thank you and that we appreciate you. We see you, and it means a lot to us. It means a lot to the county. Civics are enhanced by a strong cultural and artistic community. So we're all in it together, and I appreciate you. Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon. Julie DeCarmine, Director of Marketing at the Cade Museum. Also wanted to echo what Chelsea said. Thank you for the Arts and Culture Destination Enhancement Grant Program. The funding is incredible. It allows the Cade Museum to do what we do. And in the last several years, we've lost hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars in grant funding. So it is greatly appreciated that this community cares about arts and culture. So thank you. Good afternoon. Susan Scanello with Dance Alive National Ballet. I'm here with Tim Cannon. And we, too, want to thank you. The reason we're celebrating our 60th year of professional dance in Gainesville, Florida, is thanks to your vote of confidence by granting us amazing funds that let us continue to thrive and be a part of the community. So, again, we thank you and continue the great work for the arts. Thank you. I'm Andrea McClintick. I'm president of Dance Company of Gainesville. And I just wanted to say thank you again for the support of the arts. I just wanted to reiterate what everybody else has said. It means a lot to all of our dancers and to the community for us to be able to provide the programs that we do for the community. So thank you so much for your vote of support, hopefully, today. Thank you. Thank you. This is Sayyid Muhammad Haidzal. I came last time and gave some information and emailed to you. And even on 27th, again, I sent the email to everybody. I don't know whether you have gone through that email or not. My simple submission is I just need a reply from you, whether you are interested or not, so that I can go for the next step, vehicle step, whatever I can do. Because luckily, and nowadays, this gentleman, Mr. Yasir Ajelani. Yes. Would you like the overhead? Do you want us to see that or something? Yeah. This I put. Oh, okay. There we go. Not coming? Or I can show you this. Okay. Well, you can leave it down. I think it's more opportunity. Yeah. This is the president of UF in 2006. With his other friend, Mr. Amar Ansari. You see, I sent the letter to him on this address. And unfortunately, the people who are live, occupying that place illegally, they have not accepted this letter. And this letter came back to me. In which I have written, I have given that, I mean, some suggestion to this gentleman. I said, look here. Have an apology. Okay. Tell us the truth. Why you did this thing? This is not, was not your property. You use the name of the University of Florida. And according to University of Florida, you cannot use the name of the university. The University of Florida. Muslim Student Association of the University of Florida. If you go to the website, you will not find it. Even I got a letter from the Adrenaline Corporation. They said, Muhammad, this is not incorporated with us. They cannot use the name of it. This is another, I mean, documentation which has been prepared. But I am very lucky enough that after so many years' struggle and gone through so many hardships, bad name, everything I have tolerated. God bless me. I was having this document, which was keeping secret from the community. Nobody was knowing. But I am thankful for that gentleman who gave me this document. Then my research, which I was doing, starting in 2010, was over. I said, oh, I have done every part. And then the next name is North American Islamic Trust. Its name, the beauty is, its name is on the warranty deed. When your name is on the warranty deed, why you are going for this declaration of trust? You are the owner of the property. Why you are asking the student to give you this property and making you the trustee? Because when I went to the Delaware State, they have not mentioned, when they incorporated there, they have not mentioned the ownership of this property there. Then I said, oh, my God, I got another information. Therefore, I challenge in front of everybody, in front of you and the city commissioner, I said, look, I'm telling you, no attorney in America, no police officer, no detective, if they come here and tell, Mohammed, what are you telling us? On the warranty deed, it is the name of the North American Islamic Trust. They have the owner of the property. I said, in front of me, I will explain them and tell them, you are telling a lie. You are not owning this property. And the most important thing... I'm going to have to cut you off. There is only one child answer. And the beauty of it, nobody will notice it. Thank God I have noticed it. If you read the name here, it is the 1010 work for my experience. What do they have written? The 1010 work. This name is not registered with the corporation. What they are doing, this 1010 work, who are occupying and running the business and taking the help of the GRU and the police department and taking the, kicking out the people from there. Wait, does, Mr. Chair, have we had anybody working with this gentleman? Have we had... Yeah, Mayor Helen, I sent this to Ms. Peoples and she's got our property management department looking at it. Okay, good. So, we're on it. You are? Yes, sir. Okay, what I will do, I will just share this... Give it to the clerk. Give it to our clerk right there. No, no, give it to the clerk. Yes. Do you want it? Yes. No, no, no, no. You need to give it to her, to the clerk. Then we'll get a copy. Then we'll get a copy. Okay. Madam Clerk, the next item, please. Yes. That'll bring us to Victim Services and Rape Crisis Center Advisory Council presentation. Sure. Sure. Commissioner Carnell. Yeah, just a quick comment to the... Are we done with public comment? Yes. There's a couple more public comments. Sorry. Oh, okay. Those who would like to make public comments, please come to the podium now. Okay, thank you. Sorry about that. Yeah, thank you. We have no way of judging who wants to speak or not. My name is Mark Van Suessburg, and sorry to be... I didn't know the timing thing was. Well, interesting. I learned some things today. So this is really about knowing what to do, and there's actually... There's a story that goes with it, but sometimes it's really important when you know what to do, and everything becomes easier because you know what to do. And it reminded me of all the stuff I've been reading about the climate action plan and the various groups and the sort of the aspects. There's so many different aspects. And I started thinking about these little pods in the community in which people can get together and learn more about it. And for example, the churches. And so I was thinking, there's five of you, and if you had, say, one pastor a week or something like that, then, you know, that in 20 weeks, you would have like 100 little pods in the community, potentially, you know, people that have come here, may have never been to this building, they have never really met you, just hear about the commissioners. But now they have a personal relationship, and you explain to them what you think the community should be doing in terms of preparation. And little by little, they become sort of part of it, and so when you ask them to talk to their constituents or their community, that little community that shows up on Sundays, then maybe they will. And they know which words to use, and also which programs to refer them to. And that's kind of like one way in which to kind of like create these little, you know, pods of knowledge, you know, within the community. So it's not all like on Jenison, Kipp, or Stephen, or you know what I mean? Like it's all not all hubbed in one place here, but actually it's sort of distributed. So I thought, I Googled like how many churches are there. It turns out there's 426 according to this thing. Like holy smokes, that's going to take a while. But regardless, you know, the approach is good, and actually communicating it is going to be very important. Because when push comes to shove, I don't know if it's going to be the sixth, I don't know if you mentioned the sixth mass extinction. That just sounds horrible that it's going to actually happen in our lifetime. But whatever it is, the shock is going to be fairly big. And that transition is going to be something that requires coordination and knowing where the tools are and what to do when. And so in that sense, you know, having, I don't know, these pastors and priests come over one by one and learning, you know, what you guys do. And how they can participate, I think it's going to make a big difference. So that's it. Thank you. Thank you. I'd like to use the projector. Over here, yes. My name is Michelle Baer. I'm a resident of Melrose. I'm coming before the board again to discuss my concerns about the Wildflower Music Park. It was my understanding that temporary use permits are not designed to test, evaluate, or be a dry run for future zoning changes. I thought the use of a temporary use permit in such a way, with my limited knowledge, it seems like it's an abuse of what they're intended for. The issuance of a temporary use permit seems like it's a privilege that is earned by presenting the appropriate information to the permitting authority. And the details of which that I was educated on this was through the September 23rd, 2025 Alachua Board of County Commissioners meeting. I believe Mr. Hayes gave that presentation. I feel like issuing a temporary use permit for the purpose of hosting a multi-day music festival with up to 10,000 attendees, according to the organizers, in an agriculturally zoned rural cluster not only modifies the definition of what constitutes a rural event center, but it also opens up the area for potential environmental impacts. Neighbors have also already called law enforcement regarding issues with people going to that property and partying, riding dirt bikes at very high speeds through the neighborhood, trespassing on private property, and giving the finger to one of my elderly neighbors. This occurred apparently on the weekend of October 18th. The lack of transparency about the frequency, size, and general safety and environmental plans surrounding this festival is appalling at best. The organizers regularly amend publicly published materials and express a general disregard for the community, host community workshops at which they refuse to actually answer any questions of substance regarding this event, and they brush us off saying that they're bringing us amazing culture. Not a single one of them resides in Melrose. The organizer, Jordan Perier, has stated on the record that he's comfortable just paying fees for not following local laws and ordinances or pulling proper permits. Furthermore, Guy Fortune, firmly involved in the Virginia Key Beach Organization Trust and is a board member of Wildflowers Music Park, is also on the Hawthorne Zoning Committee. He should recognize the zoning issues with the location. There are lots more suitable locations in Hawthorne itself where egress and ingress to the festival would be accommodated by two lanes of paved roadway in either direction, whether it's SR20, Hawthorne Road, or 301. My name is Michelle Barron. I'm a resident of Melrose. Or as Jordan Perier, the illustrious organizer of this event, would say, I'm a NIMBY, an acronym he coined for, not in my backyard, for people like me that make his job annoying. So as a proud NIMBY, I encourage the board to think about how Alachua County may actually benefit from this and at what expense. Their nonprofit status allows them to avoid their biggest contribution to our community, tax dollars. Alienation of the Alachua County residents and distrust for local government, disenfranchising over 70% of the population of Melrose who live in other counties. Let me ask you to conclude, please. And potential destruction of the environment. More importantly, do you want my vote next election? Do you want my neighbor's vote? Or are you more interested in the desires of a few out-of-area people who want to bring culture to us natives? Thank you. Michelle, do you live in the Alachua County piece of Melrose or Putnam? Alachua County, yes. Thanks. In fact, I live directly next door. Okay, thank you. Yes, ma'am. Good afternoon. Andrea Minder, Director of Grants Development at Santa Fe College. Just wanting to echo the comments from earlier about thanks for the Nature and Culture Enhancement Grant. Our zoo benefits from the opportunity to be able to market our work broadly and bring people to Alachua County. And we're looking forward to having that community at our first event this week at the zoo for their 29th annual event. So, thank you very much. Thank you. I'm Ann Rudig. I'm a resident of Melrose, and I'm speaking on the proposed Wildflowers Music Park. The park will be expensive for Alachua County. At a minimum, this festival will require additional law enforcement, road work, fire and rescue staff, and infrastructure improvements. I'm guessing that you probably have other funding priorities that could or should take precedent. And as Michelle just mentioned, there will be no tax dollars yielded from this effort. Although the promoter insists over and over again that we will love it, he's overlooking the fact that Melrose already has a thriving art and music scene. And since Melrose sits in four counties, Putnam, Clay, and Bradford, those taxpayers and commissioners, we would like to see them consulted as well. Wildflowers likes to say that Melrose is just like every one of their other venues. It's not, and it's a one-word difference, neighbors. This park would not be flanked on both sides by farmland, but it's sitting in the middle of a residential neighborhood. The lack of transparency has been disturbing. Virtually none of our 35 questions, which I've shared with you all, were fully answered on October 18th at the public meeting. Instead, a very few were rewritten in a huddle of the board and the Wildflowers PR person. And then answered in ways that mirrored what we already knew from their promotional materials. This goes directly to our questions about the leadership. Why would Alachua County align itself with the former leader of the Virginia Key Trust, who was forced into an audit for alleged misappropriation of funds by the city of Miami or with a promoter who held a festival in Trumansburg without a permit? Thereby incurring fines from the health department. At the October 18th meeting, Mr. Perrier boasted that the festival will grow to 10,000 attendees. That translates to 5,000 cars in their own estimates. That's about 11 miles of cars, nearly halfway to Gainesville from Melrose. In his own materials, he states that for a four-day festival, people may arrive four days prior, stay for the four days of the festival, and then leave on the final day. So he's turning a four-day festival into a nine-day event. In response to a request to see concrete plans to address traffic, poor roads, safety, law enforcement, environmental and infrastructural concerns prior to permit application, Mr. Perrier said, not going to happen. This begs the big question. How does a temporary use permit for a rural event that has nothing to do with rural life align with agricultural zoning and a commitment to conservation of wildlife, water, and the land? Thank you. Thank you. And you live in Alotspur County? In Bradford. Bradford, thank you. Good afternoon. Brian Bisher with High Springs. And first, I want to thank the commission for your commitment to water quality and helping the citizens of our great county have good water. To that end, my regular update on the city of Alachua. They are planning on pushing forward the Terra April project to planning and zoning board hearing on November the 18th. And so that's in contradiction to a few things that the county has been working with them on, as you probably are aware. My request today is that the county arrange to have a court reporter there in order to record that so that it will set the foundation for an appeal. Thank you. Hello. My name is Izzy Brazell. I'm the assistant director of the Gainesville Circus Center. I wanted to come here to express our gratitude for the funding allocated for the Nature and Culture Tourism Grant and say that one of the things that makes Alachua County so wonderful and a wonderful place to live is the vast quantity and quality of arts and tourism opportunities available to its citizens to enjoy. So, thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you. Izzy was the amazing host of Lights On After School last week. Yes, ma'am. I'm glad I got here in time, not thanks to the city's parking that is everywhere now. Thank you to the county. I first want to share a non-agenda item and then to comment on a meeting that I wasn't allowed to – not allowed, sorry. I was in an appointment and I watched the meetings after and it's to share some feedback with Commissioner Prizia. So, thank you, county. Thank you for fixing the road. City, you already know how I feel about you. So, first off, I want to share about the bear hunt that is still happening. Commissioner Cornell, I can't see you, but thank you for sending that letter and I would like to meet with some of you after because November 17th is our next big day where we will go to the meatball mansion and we will let him know to stop this trophy bear hunt because 82% of Floridians have said, no, we are not destroying our bears, our wildlife, panthers, and all the other animals that will basically get poisoned because if you go put peanut butter with poison in the middle of the woods, you know, anything could get there. Somebody's a random dog, a gopher tortoise. So, that's one thing. And the second thing is I am on my 10th day of starving now since my food got quit and anybody that isn't here that wants to say whatever you want to say, as a veteran, I served my country and as somebody that used to work as a nurse and nutritionist and now is disabled, I did not need my benefits cut. So, I am asking the commissioners to call an immediate state of emergency to address half of our county that are going hungry. We need help with this and also a state of emergency for paratransit which is still not resolved with the city and they have no concept to resolve this with us and basically they're going to put all this on the constituents and on the county and the county is doing a good job. So, I will say it again for anybody that wants to go yell at commissioners, please go to the city. Do not do it with the county because they're actually fixing the roads and doing a lot. And I want to talk to Commissioner Prizzi about that. I know all of you care about this but I want to know who is helping people with food because on Thursday when I found out my benefits were closed, that's the new term, and basically I went to the long list that Bread of the Mighty gives you and they just give you a list and say, oh, there you go. Well, out of 60 places, only three people answered the phone. So, if you want to donate money, give money to UF Health Street. Number two, give money to the Giving Garden. And number three, give money to the Neighborhood House because these are the only three that I know are feeding people. And again, there are some people that eat really healthy like myself and we are not going to eat like some of the stuff they're handing out. So, we really need to work together to make sure people do not go hungry because that's what's happening. Thank you for listening to me and I'd like to talk to you all after this to find out who is working on this so we can create, we can apply for grants, we can get a lot of things to help people because if you go hungry, you can't do anything. And I'm hungry for 10 days now. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. We close public comment at this point. Are there any responses? Yeah, a couple things. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, for the arts and culture folks, we approved, in case you didn't know, we approved that $1.4 million on consent. And I just wanted to make that a point so that, you know, you don't need to wait around for the rest of the meeting. And thank you all for being here today. To Brian's comments about Tara April, I see Steve is here. We're planning to be at the 18th meeting. With regards to a court reporter, is this being recorded, that meeting being recorded by Alachua? So, Mr. Chair, we can certainly look into that. I believe they are recorded. I believe they are, too. As long as we have record of the meeting, I think that's the only request. They're not. They're not recorded? Okay. Steve, what? I see Steve talking to Jeff. So, their city board is definitely recorded. We're talking about the planning assignment. Yeah, but I think what I had remembered was the planning board was the decision maker in Alachua, not the city commission. And so, I don't know if that will ever go to the city commission. Is that not correct? Mr. Chair, Steve Hofstetter, Environmental Protection Department. That is correct. My understanding is this board will make the decision, and I am not aware of whether this meeting is recorded or not. We are going, though, as an affected party, and we've been given party status. We will be sending a chair letter just to make sure of that. But, yes, we will be coming with that expectation. Okay. So, Sylvia, what are we doing to make sure that the record is preserved if it's not recorded? So, Mr. Chair, the record is the items that are presented into the record. They are the minutes. They are – we normally have transcripts of the hearings because we're able to transcribe it from the recordings. We can check on the recordings. If they're not doing a recording, we can certainly send a recorder. Okay. Well, this commissioner passed a motion, and I think it was unanimous, that we put aside a million dollars of legal funds to make sure that we have preserved the record. So, I would ask that our legal department work with our affected party status to make sure that the record is preserved in the event we need it. Does anybody object to that? Not at all. Do I need a motion to that, Sylvia? No? You good? Okay. All right. And, Steve, if you would grab Brian, too, just to get – before he leaves to see whatever update he can give you. Because I see him in the back trying to add to the – Okay, and then the only other thing I had, Mr. Chair, was to Mr. Saeed that we have referred this information to our property management department at the county. I think we've now heard twice from you. I appreciate you coming forward, and I think that our staff will handle it from here, as far as I'm concerned, unless my colleagues feel otherwise. And I don't see Bert here anymore, but I do want to see if we can notify Allison about that state road at the MTPO meeting. And that's coming Monday. That's coming Monday. So, I'll make a note, and maybe we can just bring that up with our DOT rep. And, Mr. Chair, I had on here envy transport for commission comments, but I guess since it came up, I guess this will be the last thing. At the last meeting that we have with envy transport, they were going to be getting us information at our next meeting. Jeff, do you have a comment for us on that? Mr. Chair, yes. I actually reached out to envy yesterday because we had not received anything. I believe his response is that we would be getting something perhaps today. But – so, we'll definitely – well, I say definitely. We have your meeting next week, and then we also have the MTPO is also next week. So, I'd let him know that both of those meetings were coming up and that we were expecting a discussion about it. Okay. That's perfect. I just didn't want that to lapse after the 4th because then we lose a month. So, as long as you're addressing that next week. And I know I was going to bring up SNAP benefits at commission comment. I'll leave that for commission comment, and we'll – I conclude. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Commissioner Prizia? Yeah. I don't know if I'll be here for commission comments. I have to leave due to a staff emergency at UF. But I wanted to bring up the SNAP. We had made a referral to staff asking for two things. The first was for them to look at the impact of that on our community, sort of the relative volume of individuals and things like that related to all of the federal cuts, but particularly food and housing assistance. I don't know where we are on that. But the other thing was I know we also have a standing motion regarding working with the Safety Net Collaborative and others to identify and start putting resources towards a singular resource directory that can be utilized by community support organizations and individuals who are looking for support resources. So I'm interested to know where that is and how that is and how that's going. And then also, finally, we do have our food systems map, and I believe that that's been now reviewed and is in some form of readiness for the community and does identify food assistance locations as well as community gardens and farms and things like that. So that's another resource that we can utilize, I hope. And so I guess given all those things, I'd love updates on them maybe by manager comment or something or in an email. But also maybe we can work with our communications department to put together those resources that we do have for community support assistance. Because I think that food assistance is one thing, and that is getting cut off right now due to the government closure. But it's going to have a trickle-down effect, right? Because if people have to choose between feeding themselves and keeping their lights on, they might choose food. Or if they have to choose between feeding themselves and paying their rent, they're going to be struggling. So we're going to see this have a trickle-down effect on all of our social safety nets. And I want to make sure that people know where they can go for the support services and that we have a sense of the magnitude of the problem and have some communication with the places that are providing those support systems so that we can begin to build some resilience into that system as we see the need increase. Those are my comments. Thank you. Commissioner Wheeler? Just very quickly, you know, we still have not gotten information about this park in Melrose. You know, we're hearing from citizens, but we haven't gotten anything for the board to look at that we can discuss it. No, it has not. So just, you know, we appreciate your concerns, you know, and we want to hear them. But just so you know, we're not on the same page that you all are yet. Is that right? We don't believe we have an application yet. So there is nothing to say. There is no, I guess, I guess my comment to that is there's, there's no lack of transparency because there's no application to be transparent on our end at this stage. So we're waiting on them to get all of those ducks in a row and make that application at which time we will hear from all the sides of the, of the interests and make the best decision we can for our community. Thank you. Yeah, I just want to respond to Anna's comments. You know, when we gave that direction to our staff, it was anticipation of the impacts to the big, whatever the heck you call it, bill, which is going into effect next year. With the shutdown, we now have like immediate needs. And I think it's really important that we take kind of two approaches here, the long-term approach, which is what the direction gave. But we're about to see 30 million people lose SNAP benefits. We've already seen it. And that has a local impact that our staff is probably beginning to see that I'm ready. And I believe the board here is ready to give whatever direction our staff says we need to help those folks. And I, and I, I think we aren't the only county commission, you know, there are 2,500 counties around the country, but we are a proactive county commission. And so I would ask our staff, um, that are hearing and fielding these calls to, um, let's not wait on the long-term direction. If there's short-term direction that you need to recommend to this board, um, that's why we're here. And, and I, and I want to hear from them sooner rather than later. We have one meeting in November. We have one meeting in December. This shutdown from my contacts in D.C. have told me don't expect anything before the middle of the month. And, and, and who knows what's going to happen by the end of the month of November. So we're going to have an immediate need. And I want us to be proactive as we can be, um, outside of our budget cycle. Um, but that's why we have reserves. And I just want our staff that watch these meetings to hear that, hear my feeling on this. And, um, you know, Jeff, to the extent you bring something forward on the 4th or, you know, we have to have a special meeting. Uh, I'm, I'm available and I, and I just want my colleagues to hear, hear that, especially because of the comment that we got from the public today. No, it's, and it, I mean, I, and she's one person here today talking to us, but I can tell you that already bread of the mighty and our local area pantries are seeing an uptick. Our campus is seeing an uptick. Like, like, it's going to happen really fast. And to your point, if there are resources needed, I hope that we lean into the work that we're trying to do around our local food system and economic development as we make these decisions. And that we don't just flood the system with more processed junk food, um, you know, and that we think about how can we accelerate some of the work that we've been trying to do around how the work that we're doing for our local farms and our economic development can tie into this. Because our local farmers were at the forefront of protecting us during COVID-19 when we couldn't get the food system moving the way that it needed to internationally and globally. And I think they can be on the front lines of helping us solve this crisis as well by providing fresh nutritious vegetables to those that are the most vulnerable. So, um, I'm sure, um, Sean and Bailey probably have some things to say about that as they're working on those ideas. But, um, I definitely am with you on being open to creative solutions and trying to, um, help stand something up quickly. And, um, happy to share some of the work that I did previous, previously to being on this board when COVID-19 happened, um, as some of the ways we may be able to move food quickly through the system if we need to. Okay. Manager? Um, Mr. Chair, yeah, I just wanted to let you know from, in terms of a first step, one of the things that we can do is, um, Jen Grice and Mark and I, we do have the North Florida Food Systems Resources Map that we can get out there. And there's some other resources that we can use our communications department to let folks know, you know, what resources are available in the community as a, as a first step on that. It does feel like we're preparing for a hurricane. You know, the same preparations that we do as a community to get ready for a hurricane. That's a different kind, for sure. And you know what? There are a lot of pumpkins out there, too, that are going to not make it past Halloween. You know, you can do a lot with pumpkin. I'm just saying. Okay. Madam Clerk? I think we'll be back to item number two, the Victim Services and Rape Crisis Center Advisory Council presentation. Okay. Crisis Center liaison to the Advisory Council, and Sharika Nicole is our chair. Um, we just wanted to come today and update you on what this Advisory Council's been up to. Some of you have been able to attend those meetings from time to time. Um, and really, it's a chance for me to acknowledge the work of the volunteers on the Advisory Council. So, Sharika Nicole is our chair. We have Dr. Maddie Coy, Allison Ungaro, Rebecca McKenzie, Cushman Hans, Barbara Cudwin. And, you know, everybody comes with different backgrounds, different work history, and, um, the council is so valuable to my team, to us at Victim Services, because everybody brings a different perspective. And we're able to share challenges that the center is facing, whether it's grant cuts and, um, you know, things like that, that the, the, uh, Victim Services is facing, and being able to get input from people who work in, um, you know, nonprofit work, um, to people who are business, um, uh, you know, are involved in for-profit business. So, we have quite a variety, and it's, um, just been a wonderful contribution to Victim Services to be able to have folks like Sharika Nicole. Um, so, some of the things that our council does, um, they review our budget. So, the, the whole reason we have an Advisory Council is we are a certified rape crisis center. And so, the state of Florida does require that government-based rape crisis centers have an Advisory Council specifically to look at things like budget and be able to give input, um, into the budget, into the services we're providing to sexual violence survivors. But at our center, we do work with other crime victims. Um, so, they, the, um, Advisory Council members have an opportunity to give input on all the different services to all the different crime victims, um, that we serve. So, um, you know, one of the things that came from this last quarter, they reviewed the budget quarterly. One of the things that came up is exactly what has been shared here is that resources are limited, um, specifically housing. And so, crime victims often face housing, um, needs, often have housing needs. And so, shelters can be full, um, shelters that focus on domestic violence and dating violence for, um, they can fill up pretty quickly. So, we, at Victim Services, we often see people who, they don't have a place to go. And they're, you know, they're stuck trying to figure that out. And so, our center, we do have grants to be able to help people for a couple of nights stay in a hotel to see if maybe a bed can come open. But one of the things that the Advisory Council did this year is to say, why don't you all start really tracking more closely the number of victims that come to the center for services that the beds are full? They're not able, um, they're not able, um, to find relocation to, to get into emergency housing. So, we've, um, just started tracking those numbers. And that's something, maybe we can look at grant, additional grant funds or other, just even to have that information. And hearing about the food issues that the community is going to face, it's kind of like, should we start checking, you know, having, capturing that information also? So, um, maybe, I think, I think you're, you're right. Um, and then certainly they give, um, a lot of input into the outreach kind of services we provide and kind of helping us determine where maybe in the community we need to focus more, giving input, um, into the types of programs that we provide, different support groups we provide, and, and services like that. So, um, so, and that's all I have. Is Cherique going to call? I don't know if you want to say a few things. I just want to say, um, I thank you all for the time that I was able to serve for these, um, couple of years. As I was just a member and now I'm the chair, I am renewing. So, I'm looking forward to you guys renewing me so that I can continue to serve as a chair. Um, and I just want to thank, um, Ms. Claudia, she's here in the back, um, and Laura and all of the on-call staff that are in victim services because, you know, as you have your own family, they're on call around the clock answering calls for victims, rape, you know, anything like that. And they take their time away from their family. So, I thank them. And then any shortfall that we may have, I just, you know, ask that you guys support us. Um, and especially with Laura saying about the housing, um, because that has come up even in my line of work where women, um, are turned away because there's no room at the shelter. That's been coming up, um, here really frequently where even they're having to look at options out of county and their kids are in Alachua County because the shelters are all full. So, that's part of some of the goals that we're looking at is finding more housing for them. Um, and of course, like you said, the food's probably going to be a, a big issue too, but if we can all work together, we can all support each other. Thank you. Thank you all. Thank y'all. Yeah, thank you for your service to our community on that board and for all the info. Madam Clerk. This will bring us to your action items, um, building permitting fee schedule update. Chair, I will step down here. Jeff Hayes, growth management director. Let me just pull up. I just wanted to pull up one, um, key element. Um, we are here. We did, uh, in growth management, um, uh, had a consultant come on board and, and update our fee study. Um, the consultant's recommendations, and you can see here that I think it's sort of the most telling. Um, as you know, our building division fund is an enterprise fund. So all of the costs associated with, uh, permitting and doing the inspections on new construction, uh, are, are, uh, handled by the fees that are paid by the, um, the builders and permitting. So, um, um, at our current fee schedule, which, uh, just as a little bit of a background, um, we last updated fees. We did a small update in 2023 of about 8%. Um, prior to that, it had been since 2010 that we had updated our rates. Um, you know, the CPI inflations over that time period, over the last, you know, 15 years would have been 48%. Um, and, you know, so thereby we're, we're starting to fall behind full cost recovery in that fund. Um, the consultant's recommendation, after looking at all of the numbers, was somewhere between, uh, 20 and 30%, really 30% to keep it at or above 100% fully. Um, we're comfortable starting off with, um, 25%. Um, and that would be, you know, across the board. What I would say is, uh, and that, that, the fee schedule is, is attached to your backup, um, which would demonstrate that. Um, we are still very competitive in terms of a value. Um, when you look at other jurisdictions, um, I would say extremely so when you look at, say, the city of Gainesville, uh, or even Newberry, some of our surrounding jurisdictions, we are still providing, um, quite a service at, at, at, you know, an affordable cost. Um, and in terms of workload, you know, we did see some decreased permitting over 2024, um, but that has rebounded this year somewhat, and we're looking at, you know, the projections are that we'll, we'll be about the same and maybe increase a little bit more, um, next year. We're keeping an eye on that. Our workload is such that we're still at about 13 inspections per day, um, and the industry guidelines is that we would be 10 to 15. So we're kind of still at the high end of that, um, for each of our inspectors. And so it's, it's not for lack of work, um, but our fee schedule just hasn't, hasn't kept up with the, the cost increases we've seen. Uh, my presentation, have any answer questions? Okay, Commissioner Prezius. Move approval of the increase to the building division fees of generally 25%. Got a motion in a second. Are there any further discussion by the board? Are there any citizen comments to the motion that's on the floor? Seeing none, back to the board. Those in favor of the motion will allow the sign of aye. Aye. Aye. Those opposed, same sign. Motion carries. Clerk. This will bring us to your next item, um, presentation, 2025 Alachua County Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan and resolution to adopt the plan. Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, Jen Grice, Director of Emergency Management, here today to talk to you about our 2025 Alachua County Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan. So our agenda for today, I'll go over the background of the Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan, um, the hazards that this plan is designed to address, our organizational structure when we activate the Emergency Operations Center, some of the programs that are within the Emergency Management Office. And then lastly, I did include a slide about the future of FEMA because that's on everyone's minds at this point. So some background. This plan is submitted to the Florida Division of Emergency Management every five years. We submitted our plan and it was approved by FDEM pending board adoption here today. Um, even though we submit it to the state every five years, we do internally update this plan and validate it. On a yearly basis, based on lessons learned from prior incidents, as well as input from our partners. And since the last version of this plan, we've had the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as six hurricane EOC activations. So quite a few lessons learned since our last version of this plan. This plan is all hazards, so it is not specific to hurricanes. It is designed to handle any large-scale incident that we might have here in Alachua County. And it's really designed to establish a framework for coordination of those large-scale incidents. So this is not the in-the-weeds plan. It is the 30,000-foot view of how we are going to coordinate a large-scale disaster. And lastly, it assigns specific responsibilities to local agencies and organizations and outlines their role within the Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan. So this chart here, I'm not going to go over all of this, but I did just want to show you all of the hazards that we've identified within this plan. Some of these hazards were required by the state, and they don't really apply to us. One example is coastal oil spills. We're obviously not a coastal community. One thing I will say, we could potentially have economic impacts from an oil spill. But as far as the hazard analysis, there are just a couple things in here that we were required to have, but won't really affect us. Our top three hazards are winds from tropical cyclones, flooding, and then severe weather, such as tornadoes, straight-lined winds, severe thunderstorms. Is civil disturbance on there? Yes. My goodness. Yes, it's towards the top. I see it. Towards the top. Yes. A question. Would you categorize, you know, should we get to the point of sort of an emergency status with regards to the demand for food assistance in our community? Would that fit under a critical infrastructure disruption or civil disturbance? I would consider that a critical infrastructure disruption. Okay. Thank you. And where does that fall? I'm not – I need new glasses. Towards the middle. It's about the middle. Less than 10 years, moderate-high, moderate-moderate in terms of – Thank you. Last question. Jen, where would a – like a mass shooting fall? So that would be a mass casualty incident. I'm looking on here. I don't think it's specifically spelled out. And that – terrorism is on here as a mass casualty incident. And then we have special events, which occasionally – Yeah, I was at an event that Jessica spoke at at the Builders Association, and the crime prevention folks came up and said they have some proactive protection from gun violence software. I don't know. Have you heard about that? I have a flyer here. Maybe when you're done, maybe I could give you this flyer and you could just take a look at it. But it's to – using AI to identify the brandishing of guns within three to five seconds. And, yeah, and it has those kind of issues. So I don't know what we're doing in that case. But I think they've also contacted the sheriff's office and just something that I wanted you to be aware of. Thank you. Any questions on this? So this is our organizational structure when we do activate the emergency operations center. We are what's called an incident support model, emergency support function hybrid organization. And that structure really enables us to cover all of the different things that may happen during a large-scale incident. We have a position that is assigned to handle that particular issue. And then we also have in the bottom right our EOC support section, which is really that section that is supporting all of the other people in this org chart to be able to do their job without interruption. So I just wanted you to see the full org chart. But next, I'm going to dive down into those individual boxes and highlight some of the more specific things that are going on within the org structure. So the first one are that dark blue box in the top left. That is our multi-agency coordination and policy group. I know there are at least a few commissioners up here who have served in the MAC and policy group for prior incidents that we've had. This group is really making those high-level policy decisions. Everyone in this group typically has a county-wide responsibility. So outside of county agencies, it's the sheriff's office or the sheriff, the health department director, and then the school board superintendent. Kind of the exception to it being just agencies that have county-wide responsibilities would be if we had an incident that affected one or two jurisdictions. For example, if we had a wildfire in Waldo, we would want leadership from Waldo as part of the MAC and policy group to help guide those policy decisions. So some of the things that the MAC and policy group is discussing and deciding upon includes government office closures, going under a local state of emergency, any evacuation orders, activating the emergency operations center, and then any other protective measures that we need to take to protect our community. So, again, you talked about this being, like, they talk about potentially declaring local states of emergency. How do they monitor situations to activate that discussion? Like in this incidence, we get into a place where we have large-scale hunger in our community. What would trip that wire for you all to activate a state of emergency and begin emergency food deployment or something like that? So each incident is different. It really depends on what we're hearing from the community, from our stakeholders who kind of have that subject matter expert. So we would really lean upon those partners who understand those specific issues to make that decision. So moving down the org chart, we have the EOC director, which is me. I serve as the county coordinating officer. I take those high-level policy decisions that the multi-agency coordination and policy group is making and turn them into actionable objectives for everyone who is sitting in the EOC. So these next few slides, I really wanted to highlight just some of the positions in the org chart. You see we have quite a few positions. So I didn't want to talk about all of them. We'd be here all day. But I did want to just talk about a few things that people may not know about or not understand that that's how the process works. So the first one is our jurisdictional liaison that is staffed by Gina Peebles. And that position works directly with all of our municipalities, our constitutional officers, and our special taxing districts to make sure that if they have any unmet needs, we're addressing those needs within the EOC. Typically, when we activate the EOC, we have a meeting at least once per day where I get on and talk to them and explain the current situation and the actions that the EOC is taking. And then work to address any unmet needs that they identify. I've said this before to Chief Theus, but I think this may be the place to say it again. For many of our municipal jurisdictions, I think our staff liaison is speaking with other staff, but oftentimes those staff don't have the bandwidth because they have such a small staff to communicate regularly with their elected officials. And then we get the angry elected officials who want to know why there isn't a shelter open in their community or why they haven't been included in the conversation about emergency food distribution or whatever it might be. So I think we need to make sure that in this plan there's some level of communication expectation both to the elected officials as well as the staff of these jurisdictions to ensure that they have at least some understanding of the reasoning behind the decisions that are being made so that they can be supportive rather than adversarial, if unless they need to be adversarial for their community's sake, like in those situations. So, I mean, I remember during Irma, we had the mayors on every, once we activated, all the mayors were on the call. Is that right, Jen? It's a different call than our large emergency operations team call, but during Irma, it was a very long time ago, so I don't remember specifically, but it's very long. That's what you're talking about. You're talking about having. What you're talking about is we made the decision on what shelters we're going to open when, and that group kind of makes those calls, and then I think it gets communicated to the municipal staff. And then I get the call from the mayor who's mad that there's not a shelter opening in their community because they don't understand why we make the decisions we make and how we make the decisions about the sheltering and which shelters we're going to open. So I'm just, I've just, it's come up again and again. So I'm just asking that we figure out ways to communicate better our planning and our decision-making processes and sort of the steps we take to both electives and the way we're doing here. Maybe it's we present some of this at our joint meetings so that they have some sense of how we end our emergencies. Yeah, I mean, I think if the EOC is activated and we go through each of the responsibilities, one of those ought to be our small municipalities where all the mayors are on, and if they have a specific issue, they can speak up. Yeah. Anyway. And I will say, I remember you making that comment in a previous meeting, and one of the steps that my office took was to have a municipality day every year where we invited them to come and explain that process so that they understood their role as elected officials and then the role of their paid staff as well. So we did make that adjustment after your comment. Awesome. Thank you. Okay, good. Lastly, on this box here, I wanted to mention the recovery liaison. This is a shared role between fire rescue staff, Cheryl Ellis, and then also Tommy's staff, Ken Fair. This is one of the hardest positions in the EOC because they're starting that documentation the moment we activate, and they don't stop until years down the line when we finally get through that FEMA reimbursement process, which many of you know it's a very long process to finally close out a disaster. So that recovery liaison position is the one that handles all of that documentation and compiling it for FEMA and all of the requests for information and appeals. So they do a great job. Commissioner Grinnell? Yeah. On the FEMA one, are we adding a state person not knowing where FEMA is going to land in the next year or two? As far as the org chart? Yeah, I mean, the recovery liaison may move from a federal liaison to a state liaison, and I just don't know where FEMA is going to end up. And Florida will always have an emergency management state division. So I think we might want to just be thinking about federal and state. I'm sorry, Commissioner Wheeler? We have just recently had someone return to our community who's worked out of Washington with FEMA. FEMA, she took the early retirement out because she saw what was coming. I'm going to try to put her in touch with you. She's worked all over the country with FEMA, but she's a local woman who's been here with us. So I'll find her and make sure she comes to see you. Okay, thank you. All right, moving on to our situational awareness section. Highlighting a couple positions here are business, industry, and economic stabilization or emergency support function 18. This is staffed by Jessica Hirov and Sean McClendon, and their primary role is to communicate with our local businesses to address any unmet needs they may have, as well as just maintain that situational awareness, make sure that our businesses know what's going on, and then in the recovery phase, make sure that they know what resources are available to them to aid in their recovery. Jessica and her team also liaise with all of our hoteliers for bed availability and coordinate with those hotels for any response and recovery needs we may have. Next, our hospital liaison. This is staffed by the UF Health Emergency Manager. He sits in our EOC and works closely with all three of the hospitals in Alachua County to make sure that they are operating at 100%. You know, our hospital system props up not only the Alachua County healthcare system, but all of our neighboring counties count on our hospitals. So, we like to make sure that they have everything that they need to maintain their operations throughout and after an incident. Moving on to our resource support section, Public Works ESF3. This is staffed by Ramon and his team, and they do a lot of things pre- and post-disaster. Just to highlight a few, one of the biggest is road clearance cut-and-toss operations. The moment it's safe out there, they're out there making sure that our roadways are clear so that our emergency vehicles can go wherever they need to go. And that's kind of a multi-agency coordination between Public Works, Fire Rescue, the Forest Service, all of our utility companies. They all work together to get that job done. Public Works also handles stormwater management and, of course, sandbag distribution. And they coordinate with all of our municipalities to provide them with sandbags for distribution within their communities as well. Public Health and Medical. This is Paul Myers and the Department of Health. They do quite a few things as well, and depending on the disaster, they may be doing a whole lot of things, if you remember COVID-19. Special needs sheltering is a big one that they do, though. That is sheltering for individuals who have special medical needs. A lot of times it's folks who are oxygen-dependent or they have just electric dependence for other medical equipment. So they staff and run those shelters. They also do epidemiological surveillance. And then they also communicate directly with all of our health care facilities. I mentioned the hospital liaison is that communication with our three hospitals. But we also have many nursing homes and assisted living facilities and even smaller group home facilities. And if their generators stop working, that's a huge issue for those residents. And so the health department maintains that constant communication so that we can get ahead of any issues we might have at our health care facilities. Moving on to the planning support section, I wanted to highlight Mass Care, Emergency Support Function 6. This is Claudia Tuck and Community Support Services. So they handle our general population sheltering. They also coordinate our fixed feeding sites for impacted areas. And fixed feeding sites are different than our points of distribution, which are, you know, your basic food and water distribution, like the case of water, stuff like that. Fixed feeding is for communities who are really impacted. We have our volunteer organizations go in there like the Salvation Army with their canteen vehicle and provide hot meals to those areas that don't have any other way to get food. So they coordinate all of that. They also oversee our mass casualty reunification and family assistance center operations, which is a whole separate plan from our CEMP to coordinate the operations that happen after a mass casualty incident. Volunteers and donations, this falls under human resources, and their primary role is connecting all of those volunteers or people that want to volunteer in our community with the needs that our community has. So there are a lot of things that fall outside of the scope of government operations, and that's where we really lean upon our volunteers and volunteer agencies. And a big piece of that is actually our community organizations active in disaster, or COAD, which is a group that the emergency management office started to really pull together our churches, our nonprofits, other organizations who have a heart to help in the community. And they work on addressing those unmet needs that we have and that we've seen in previous disasters as they come in. Commissioner Prezio? Would that be a group we could reach out to with regards to this current situation with a lack of food assistance dollars to talk? I mean, they probably have their finger on the pulse of some of what's going on and could at least give them kind of a heads up that we are interested in hearing early that, you know, as the struggle gets, as it gets larger, potentially, to understand what's going on so that we could be, would that be an appropriate ask of a group like this? It's a fine line, you know, I mean, it depends on how you define what is currently happening, but certainly the members of that group are willing to help outside of a quote-unquote disaster. So I don't think it hurts to reach out. I'll follow up with you afterwards. Thank you. Mr. Chair? I just want to say I really do like the heart to help. That is a really nice way to engage the community, I think. And I think the churches are soup kitchens. We've done soup kitchens in this country before and have seen it happen. So I think that's – I really like that. Thank you. Promote that heart to help. Yeah. If anyone's watching and their church or organization is not a member of the COAD, please contact the Latchewa County Emergency Management Office. We would be happy to get you in touch. All right. And lastly, the EOC support section. This is really the section that you don't hear about them a lot, but they are really the backbone of our EOC operations. They're making everything run smoothly. And I'm actually going to highlight a department on this slide and not so much the positions. But our IT department, I would say we probably have more IT staff in our EOC than any other department. So they handle a wide range of things for us. Our website, which is AlachuaCountyReady.com, they're able to spin that up so quickly when I ask them to. It's absolutely incredible. They also handle our incident coordination software, which we use Monday.com to coordinate all incidents. And actually, our website is powered by Monday.com. So I'm able to easily update our website on my phone if I need to. So it's just absolutely incredible what they've come up with. Other IT staff, they handle our phone infrastructure, our internet connectivity and redundancy. And then lastly, our audiovisual system that we have in the EOC. So this slide, I always like to include this. This is not a comprehensive list, but this just gives you an idea of the sheer volume of agencies that we work with on a daily basis. It absolutely does take an entire, a whole community to coordinate and respond to a disaster. And, you know, we're a staff of four, so we are grateful for all of these agencies who come up to bat for us and absolutely help our community recover. So I wanted to briefly mention some programs. The special needs registry already talked about the special needs shelters, but we have a registry within my office for individuals. If they need transportation to the shelter, they can register with us. And then when we do open special needs shelters, we will reach out to them to coordinate that transportation. There are several different ways for residents to get alerts. So the number one thing that I promote is texting the word Alachua to 88877. That is the easiest, quickest way to stay up to date on what's going on when we have a large-scale disaster. And it's really a small lift for our residents to just text that number or text that word to stay informed. We are also able to send other alerts, such as wireless emergency alerts, which are those jarring alerts that you get on your phone when you're not expecting them. And then we have Alert Alachua as well, which is another way to receive severe weather warnings and things like that. Emergency management also handles the local mitigation strategy working group, which is made up of all of our municipalities, our institutions of higher education, and county government. And that group really steers our mitigation efforts countywide and prioritizes projects for any federal mitigation funding that may be coming. I believe probably in the next six months we'll have the local mitigation strategy plan before this board for approval. We also handle continuity of operations planning, so making sure all of our county departments are able to continue to execute their mission essential functions in the event that there is a service disruption. And then lastly, we already talked about them, but are community organizations active in disaster or COAB. So the future of FEMA, that first bullet point, I really want to emphasize that nothing is set in stone. So the next bullet points are all speculation based off of what I have heard through my emergency management channels and different organizations that represent the emergency management industry. So the first thing is that any decisions on the future of FEMA would likely be made after this hurricane season. They want to keep things, for the most part, as they are, just to get through this hurricane season. One of the options they're looking at is block grants to the state. So currently, every single jurisdiction who is an eligible applicant, everywhere from county government to our municipalities and nonprofits, they separately apply to FEMA for reimbursement. And this block grant model would take all of that away and just give a set amount of money to the state to then administer at the local level. Don't know what that would look like, but that's just one of the options that they're putting forward. They've also talked about increasing the dollar threshold for declarations. So here in Alachua County, our thresholds around $1.3 million, and they come up with that figure. They, I don't know the exact multiplication, but a dollar figure times our population based off the 2020 census. So they're discussing increasing that dollar multiplication factor to increase that threshold, which would mean that it would be harder to get a declaration and get that FEMA support in the future. They're also discussing reimbursement from FEMA, not going over 75%. So how it works in Florida is FEMA covers 75% during federally declared disasters, and then the state picks up 12.5%, and then locals pick up the other 12.5%. There are a few situations where it's actually 100% FEMA reimbursement, such as 90 or 180-day debris removal operations, things like that, kind of just to speed things along and get communities, get the debris out as quickly as possible. So things like that where they do 100% would likely go away, and 75% would be the max reimbursement percentage that jurisdictions would be eligible for. This next one has actually taken effect, and that's that there are no more disaster recovery centers. For some perspective, last year we had disaster recovery centers for Hurricanes Debbie and Helene, and those are just fixed locations where people can go to get assistance applying for FEMA assistance or small business administration loans or help with their appeals or providing documentation. So those no longer exist, and I haven't heard of anything that's going to replace it at this point. And then lastly, they've talked about streamlining the application process for impacted residents. There are quite a few programs at the federal level that are available to residents after a disaster, and each one requires its own application. So they've discussed having just a single application and then the different agencies handling those applications as they come in. So Alachua County actions in response to anything that may happen or change at the federal level. So the number one thing, that first bullet point, life safety remains our top priority. There is no change in posture or protective measures due to potential decreases in funding. The next thing is we are identifying agencies, locations, and resources that we would need to stand up a county or state-run mutual aid resource center, or MARC. That would be a replacement for the disaster recovery center and provide local as well as federal and state resources to our residents should we have a significant impact. Next, we are increasing our financial reserves to address any potential reductions in FEMA public assistance reimbursement in the future. We are continuing to build our COAD membership to fill in those gaps in our community. And emergency management will be increasing our cash of supplies once the warehouse is ready for us to move our stuff in. We will continue to educate our partners who handle the recovery reimbursement side of things as we get new information, and that's not just county staff who handle recovery reimbursement, but also all of our municipalities and other agencies who also apply for FEMA assistance. Guidance changes all the time, and we do our best to make sure that they're up-to-date on the latest guidance coming out from the feds. Commissioner Prisian? Just a quick note on the COAD thing and the idea of, I guess, just connecting to make sure that all of our family resource centers are part of the COAD. And I think Claudia would obviously have their contact information, but I think we've been working with a lot of these resource centers recently to provide them supports and think about the ways in which they are sort of those networks out into our community. So having them as members of this would probably be really important if they're not already. It's like SWAG, Pastor Joy in High Springs, Pastor Duncan in East Gainesville, you know, Pastor McEnope. So, I mean, a lot of them probably are already members because they do this kind of work generally, but if they aren't, they definitely should be. Commissioner Willis? Yes, just is there a place on your website that people can apply or actually connect with you to join this group or to become a part of this? So if they go to the emergency management website, all of our contact information is on there and they can email myself or any of my staff and we'll get them in touch with the COAD leadership. Thank you. Thank you. And lastly, we continue to expand our outreach efforts to prepare our community. The more prepared our community is, the quicker they can recover. So we're always trying to get out in the community and make sure that our residents know what they need to do to better prepare themselves. And with that, I'm happy to answer any questions. Mr. Cornell? No questions, just a statement. Jen, thanks for the presentation. I'd be remiss if I didn't say that the state, I think, has recognized this county for many of your efforts and our fire department for just always being ready. And so with that, I would move that we receive the 2025 Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan presentation and formally adopt the resolution. Got a motion and a second. Any further discussion to the motion that's on the floor? Just a big thank you to your staff. The fact that you can do this much work with only four people is kind of an amazing feat. So thank you so much for everything you do. Yes. Commissioner Wheeler? I wouldn't take anything for the opportunity I had working with you out there during the disasters, the hurricanes that we had come through there. It was amazing to watch all of the organizations working together under your leadership. So thank you very much. And it really was a good time. I enjoyed the whole thing. Okay. Are there any citizen comments to the motion that's on the floor? Yes, ma'am. Thank you. I'm glad you approved that. I was just the other night up in the middle of the night with everything going on nationally, and I was actually reviewing the FEMA website and also, Jen Bryce probably knows about this, I'm sure, the Center for Domestic Preparedness website. And I remember when I did nursing, there was a lot of these trainings that we had to have. So what I would like to see the county also enact something like what GFR is going to do in November. Could we have three times a year where we have the Center for Domestic Preparedness, CDP, and FEMA educational protect-respond trainings so that it's not just a small group of people, but that the community starts getting trained for this on how to help one another? Because I think a lot of people in this room nationally know we are in a, what's the word, a place we've never been, and we a lot of times don't know what's coming. So I think it would be really awesome to what the CDP, their mission statement, is training the best for the worst. And I would really like to see a date set for county and citywide trainings. And if the city doesn't want to participate, that the county can do something to implore them to. And to also work with securing more equipment that we could use in these types of things, like if it comes down to civil unrest that Commissioner Wheeler presented, and I am also feeling a lot of worry about that we would have, like, military-style tear gas masks and all of these types of things because we are at a very different time in our nation, and we need to be prepared. Thank you for listening and your consideration. Thank you. Back to the board. Those in favor of the motion, vote by the sign of aye. Aye. Aye. It is opposed. Any time, motion carries. Madam Clerk. This will bring us to request to advertisement amendments to the Unified Land Development Code for inclusionary housing. Good afternoon, Mr. Chair. Chris Dawson, Principal Planner at Growth Management. I have a fairly short item for you. This is a request to advertise amendments to the Unified Land Development Code to implement the inclusionary housing policies that you adopted in the comprehensive plan in May of this year. The policies require updates to implement just because while we did include some ideas in the comp plan, the actual implementation needs a little bit more. The inclusionary housing amendments would include a new article in Chapter 402, generally dealing with inclusionary housing or developments that require or include affordable housing. That would require things like a land use restriction agreement for certain kinds of development plans, methodologies for calculating the number of required or approvable affordable units, and then also creating standards for affordable units to ensure that they're generally the same as market rate units that are within the same development, that they aren't discriminated against from sort of benefits or whatever. They would also include changes to our traditional neighborhood and transit-oriented development sections to allow the substitution of affordable units for non-residential square footage. We're anticipating that you'll see a couple of different rates of substitution that vary with the affordability level. So if it's more affordable, you potentially get more units out of that. Also requiring those units to meet the same sort of LORA and affordable unit standards that are in Chapter 402. And then also we would allow a density bonus for the provision of affordable units. So that's separate and apart from converting the non-residential into affordable. It would actually allow additional density within those neighborhoods if certain parts of those are deemed to be affordable. With that, Chair, I'd be happy to answer any questions that the board might have. Commissioner Prizzi? I just want to say I think our affordable housing advisory committee is really excited about these changes. I mean, obviously some of them have been pushing for even more than this with required inclusionary zoning. But I think these are big steps in the right direction towards incentivizing them in ways that hopefully will actually make an impact. And I guess my only comment is that I hope we can kind of track how these are getting implemented and that we can get maybe get a report from staff maybe halfway through the year to see if anything, if these have actually had any kind of impact on the applications or questions that you're seeing. And if we're getting feedback about potential ways that we could modify them as we learn more by doing. Thank you. I would move the advertisement of the Unified Land Development Code for Inclusionary Housing. Second. Got a motion and a second. Quick question. Yes, Commissioner Gordon. Chris, any impacts on SB 180 right now to this? Mr. Chair, right now what we're proposing in this is voluntary. So the programs that developers might follow here to implement some of these affordable housing units would be voluntary. There are things that go along with that, of course. But because of that, we don't find that they conflict with Senate Bill 180. Okay. Very good. And to my colleagues, we're in Tampa mid-November. And the word I got on the last FAC call was that the Senate sponsor is ready to fix the glitch. So hopefully we'll have some good news coming out of Senate Bill 180 in the upcoming session. Has there already been a glitch bill? Is it already in draft? Not yet, but FAC is talking with them so that we don't have to join our lawsuit. Okay. Thanks. Sure. Okay. Any public comments to the motion? Back to the board. Those in favor of the motion, vote by the Senate of aye. Aye. Those both, same side. Motion carries. This will bring us to presentations. Update Alachua County Safe Streets and Roads for All Action Plan. Good afternoon, members of the board. Allison Moss, Transportation Planning Manager for Alachua County. And I am pleased to be finally presenting a draft version of the Safe Streets and Roads for All Action Plan with you today. An overview of the presentation. I'm going to review what the Safe Systems Approach is, talk about a project overview, just kind of how it's structured, discuss the development of high-injury networks, discuss some of the systemic and location-based findings, and finish up with next steps. So why Vision Zero? Why Safe Streets and Roads for All Action Plan? This is just a sort of collage of news clippings over the last five years. There's been a lot of severe and fatal crashes in our community. The image with the pedestrian beacon laying on the ground on 8th Avenue is actually a photo I took while biking to work one day. And I pulled over to ask the crossing guards if they saw what had happened or were aware, and they said just before the school arrival time, a driver had flown off the road and ripped that sign out of the ground. So to see crashes of this severity, especially in the urbanized areas with vehicles leaving the roadways, is something that we really ought to attend to. And so it's wonderful that we got this SS4A grant from FHWA to analyze and propose solutions. So what is Vision Zero or Safe Systems? It's really a big paradigm shift in multiple ways. So traditionally, traffic engineering has sort of posited that traffic deaths are inevitable. Vision Zero says they are preventable. Traditionally, we've looked at if we could only train people to use the roadways responsibly and to be more perfect roadway users, then we would prevent severe and fatal crashes. Vision Zero integrates human failing. So people will make mistakes. How can they do so and not die? There's a focus on fatal and severe crashes rather than preventing all crashes, and that's universal everywhere in this country and in other nations where Vision Zero and Safe Systems is pursued. This is a graphic that just sort of shows how multifaceted and multidisciplinary Vision Zero and Safe Systems are. So we're looking at safe roads, safe vehicles, safe speeds, safe road users, and also post-crash care. This is a hierarchy from a publication that FHWA put together, and it very intentionally puts some sort of strategies and measures above others. So number one would be to remove severe conflicts. So that would be obstacles in the roadway, things near the edge of the roadway. That would be separating vulnerable road users, say people walking, biking, from high-speed, high-volume traffic. The second thing, reduce vehicle speeds. Speed is a known factor in severe and fatal crashes. Manage conflicts in time. There are instances where people have to cross over and share the same space, so can we use traffic signals to our advantage to help separate those events. And then very last is to increase attentiveness and awareness. And as I mentioned, there used to be a lot of emphasis on focusing people to be good drivers, good pedestrians, good cyclists, and we still do have that, but it's not seen as probably the most impactful thing we can be doing. These were key tasks in the scope of work for the Safe Streets and Roads for All Action Plan. So we've got analyzing the crash data is the very first step. The consultant developed high-injury networks. We have done to date a lot of community engagement, and then we also convened a multidisciplinary and multi-agency task force that's been meeting at Grace Knight, reviewed existing policies, and then the sort of teal-colored steps that you see on this slide are where we are now. So developing projects and strategies, next step will be to really prioritize them and then ultimately a safety action plan that we can use to then go seek grant funding to implement capital projects. I'm not going to go through everything on this timeline. We kicked off in October of 2024, so about one year. There were some delays in getting started, but since we have started, we've been making steady progress. We have held multiple community engagement events and task force meetings. We've developed, as I said, this high-injury network, which I'll go into further, and also started to develop some projects. This was the third and final community engagement event that we held. The city of Alachua was kind to host that for us at the SWCC House. It was well-attended and just an overall good event. There was a lot of interest in trail crossing at Williston and the Gainesville-Hawthorne Trail at this meeting, other interest in resurfacing. And for some people, they were learning about the project for the first time. As I mentioned, there have been multiple engagement events, so three large-scale community workshops. We've also attended several of the forward-focus meetings, sort of piggybacking on those. There were over 5,000 visits to the project website and over 100,000 engagements on social media. So we ended up scoping digital engagement for this project, and it seemed to really pay dividends. We also were able to reach harder-to-reach communities, those that are less represented, likely to come to the meetings. We're engaging on social media and online. There was a policy review aspect, and that will come through in the plan. So looking at policies we have in the comp plan, looking at our land development code, and then identifying recommendations that will reduce fatal and serious injuries and making sure the policies and the recommendations of this plan are aligned. It's not just about projects. There are also strategies. So these are the sort of groups of strategies that you see. So we have different types of strategies for urban or rural roadways. We have different types of strategies for signals, specific ones for vulnerable road users, things based on education, on enforcement, and that would be in-person with law enforcement officers and also automated. And then lastly, evaluation strategies, ways for us to measure how we're doing towards our goal. This is just one tiny snapshot of all of the strategies. This is evaluation, and so we're looking at creating progress reports of how we're doing towards our goal of eliminating severe and fatal traffic crashes, creating a database before and after for projects. So if we apply for a grant or use our own funds to implement projects, is it working? Did it achieve the effect we wanted? And one of the overarching strategies we're looking at when you look at all of them for this plan is who's going to do this work? And it very certainly cannot be myself and my senior planner. We would need assistance, whether that would be in public works or whether that's something we should look at the reforming MTPO as maybe having a dedicated person to do this work. To get into the high-injury networks a little bit, so what is a high-injury network? I'll show you all some pictures. I think you've seen just snapshots at, say, the comp plan evaluation meeting. Highest concentration of severe and fatal crashes. So where are we seeing them kind of over and over, and where may we not have seen one specifically right there, but the roadway characteristics are the same, and you're going to see one probably over time at a different location. It helps us prioritize and allocate scarce resources and identify locations for both hotspot and systemic improvements. This slide is a lot, but I'll just talk through it. We are looking at both high crash frequency and high crash severity. We're normalizing by the volume, so not just looking at the raw numbers. We're then separating into road segments and intersections because the nature of crashes that happen along roadways are really different than what happens at signals. I will mention that when we say intersection for this study, we are looking at traffic signal because those have their whole own types of countermeasures. We're then breaking it down. So we looked at all the roadways in our county. We looked at state, and we looked at county. We looked at the cities. For the purposes of being able to implement projects, we're focusing on segments where we have jurisdiction over the roadway. We've still studied the state roads, and we have looped FDOT into this whole process, but we are trying to advance local road segments. Intersections. Commissioner Cornell. So were you here during public comment? I was not. Okay, so if you'll go back and watch public comment, we had Burt Weatherington talk about state road, Hawthorne Road, and I just thought this would be a good time during the presentation to kind of loop in that discussion for when we are having issues on state roads. So as an example, let's say that you've identified that or our staffs identified that. How do we loop FDOT and we just inform them, or how are they looped into this process? They have been members on the task force group. They have attended, I believe, every meeting. And then we've worked with them outside as well. So I will listen to the item. When there's a fatality or a crash on a state road, then that data then gets updated into this whole process, so they are notified. I mean, if there's a fatality on their roadway, I think that they know about it now. Yeah, because Highway Patrol has to, I guess, attend to all fatalities. Yeah, they have a safety office, and they're routinely evaluating, especially if there's a fatal crash, analyzing what happened and what could be done about it. The process of incorporating that into this plan, so one of the benefits of hiring, say, a Vision Zero or a Safe Systems coordinator would be that they could stay on top of this because it's a lot of data, it's a lot of analysis, and it's, frankly, it's probably more than anything coordination between all the different parties. So this idea of, oh, we don't have to wait for three people to die before we get a light, it's actually we're building a system whereby when something happens, it gets fed right into the safety process, whether that's on a local road or a state road. Yeah, I mean, they ultimately, they being, you know, State Department of Transportation, have authority to make changes to their roadways. We can work with them to share the results of this plan. There are areas, the intersections that are shown here, which I'll mention briefly, but where we have literal overlap in jurisdiction, and so we can't kind of say, well, that's not our road because it is partially. Yeah, that's a perfect example that he talked about today in the public comments is how the state road intersects with our county road. So listen to it, and then we can chat about it at the MTPO. Okay, thank you. I mean, I think a good way to do what you're saying and to make sure that we stay on top of it is that we present this at MTPO2 with regards to the findings at the state level, for the state level roads here, and then be able to have those as potential projects that we can add to our priority projects as we're moving forward and we identify, okay, especially knowing with an MTPO director and hopefully a Safe Streets coordinator, we'd have somebody being like, hey, you're working on this road already. Let's add this in, like, keeping track and kind of coordinating, to your point, all those efforts to make sure that we're aligning our safety efforts with repaving efforts or whatever else might be going on. And I know I have seen in the past where the state has moved projects around or accelerated projects based on safety, and so it's great that we're incorporating this into kind of our own system here. Thank you. So then the next sort of thing I was going to mention on this slide is that, you know, where we have this clear distinction between local roadways and state for the segments, for intersections, the consultant actually did propose, like, let's just look at local, local roads. And I pushed back and said, no, I think we ought to look at the ones where we intersect with the state and at least have the conversation, use this opportunity to leverage. And there's some, you know, promising anecdotes in subsequent slides that I'll tell you about some of that coordination. But then, of course, there are locations where it's just state and state, and we can make them aware of that as well. And the very last sort of bucket that we create in this high-injury network methodology is separating by mode, so pedestrian, bicycle, vehicle, and motorcycle. And again, that's kind of different modes, have different types of crashes and different types of countermeasures or fixes. This slide restates a lot of the same things, but what's in the little chat bubbles, so how did we exactly segment the roads? This is a little bit technical, but we used signalized intersections to break them up. We used speed limit and number of lanes to kind of say these are generally the same character of roadway. And then for bicycle, pedestrian, just wanted to mention that we looked at all levels of severity, whereas vehicle and motorcycle just looked at fatal and serious. So the grant itself just required looking at fatal and serious injury crashes, but a lot of the bicycle-pedestrian ones had something been slightly different, could have gone another way, so we decided to include them. The vehicle and motorcycle high-injury network is shown here both in county-wide form and also sort of zoomed in to the city of Gainesville and the urban cluster area. So what you'll see is for anyone who looks at crash data and knows about how severe and fatal crashes happen for vehicle and motorcycle, a lot of times they're going to happen on the segments outside of an urbanized area where speeds are higher, where the roads might be curved, lighting is poor, and then within the city, a lot of crashes happen at signalized intersections. So sometimes the signal can make things better than what they were, but signals have their whole own host of safety issues. The pedestrian-bicycle high-injury network, probably not surprising with the university in town and just the denser sort of development in the middle of Gainesville and urban cluster. We see more of our crashes happening there. Still, we do see representation in the outlying roads in the county. And then just to sort of explain the process, so the consultants started with a lot of data. They developed high-injury networks, but the intent was always to drill down and figure out what is happening. So yeah, you've labeled a road a high-injury segment. Well, what do you know about it and what can you do about it? And so importantly, the high-injury networks that we've shown covers 73% of all modes, fatal and serious injury crashes. So a lot of our fatal and serious are captured within those networks. And then it covers 70% of vulnerable user-involved crashes as well. So from there, we're kind of drilling down. Yeah. Yeah, so this is a great slide because you can see half, not half, but almost half and more than half are state roads. And so it's really important that we're kind of doing this, what we're doing at the MTPO level. And this is great, great information. So thank you. I'll just add anecdotally, I don't remember exactly what... I'm glad you really pushed back when he said, let's just focus on local. No, let's not. Because I think you miss, you'd miss a lot of it. Yeah. She's doing a good job. Oh. The city of Gainesville has a dedicated Vision Zero coordinator and she has presented at a similar sort of working group just what percentage of the city's high-injury network, or they call it their high-risk network, is state roadways. And it's, you know, a tremendous majority are. And they know that. And they are partners and working on improving them. Yeah. So this is just the percentage happens to be exactly the same. I had to double check. But again, 73% when you're looking at only vehicle crashes are severe and fatal are represented in this high-injury network. So again, a good capture of those within the high-injury. And then for bike, a staggering 100% is captured within this... of fatal and severe crashes is captured within the network. So systemic and location-based findings. Systemic means... I don't know if I described this exactly, but things that we're seeing in the data that you maybe don't see tied to a particular place. So you see this trend happening throughout. And so when they were looking, consultants and myself, at the high-injury networks and starting to look at some of the actual crashes, what are the nature of these crashes? And so the most prominent type of crash within county segments, county roadways, is rural lane departure crashes. And so that's where either vehicles are running off the road to the side or crossing over the center line in areas outside, you know, the urbanized area. Yeah, I guess I just want to say something. And I guess it's... I don't know how popular this conversation is going to be, but I do think that it may be worth us talking to Ramon about looking at these roads in relationship to our repaving plan and incorporating this data into our prioritization of those roadways because a lot of these rural lane departure crashes end up happening because people are swerving to miss potholes and bad roads and those sorts of things as... And, like, we're seeing it. And, I mean, 234, 234, I mean, this is why I advocated so hard for 234 a couple months ago is, you know, I just want to bring that up. I know we don't want to mess with that too much, but we have new data. This isn't, like, us just prioritizing a road in our district or being like, I'm advocating for this road because whatever. This is real data on the safety of our roadways and if pavement condition had something to do with the crash, I don't know if that came into consideration, but I would think we need to kind of incorporate this into our prioritization of roadways. Mr. Chair, I'll just provide a quick response to that. So we do have crash reports for each of the crashes that we're looking at and when we drill down to this level, the number is, you know, small enough that they can review them in detail. And so there may be some of those crashes that are associated with road condition and potholes. a lot of them are, I would say, probably high speed is a probably greater contributing factor and potentially curvature. Yeah. But I will pass that information and request onto the consultant to look into that. We're just going out. Yeah, to respond to Anna, I don't think it's bad to bring it up at all. In fact, I think this is the perfect time and the appropriate thing to bring up. You know, we aren't district commissioners. We're county commissioners. And that's now been confirmed not only by the ballot, but by the courts. And so I think the public wants us to look at it countywide. And when we adopted this plan with Ramon, what we actually said was in two or three years, let's schedule another time where we kind of reassess and adjust based on cost, based on how well you're able to engage the repayment folks, but also based on safety. And I believe, I don't know if we had actually started this process, but it's always been when we finished the bike ped master plan and we have the safety data, then we should look at it. So I think your suggestion actually is right on target and we should incorporate this into our road plan and we should probably in the next coming year prior to the fiscal year 26-27 road budget probably have that update and have them bring back to us, here's, oh, there's Ramon, here's what we found, here's the things, here's the things we've learned, here's the things we haven't learned. And my guess is what Allison said, that there's probably a small fraction of these that are related to potholes. That's mostly probably speed or distracted drivers. Well, I guess I'm also thinking like if we have a project that we're already planning, like if we've got safety that we could do, you know, while we're doing the roadway, if there's also a safety enhancement we could do during the recating process that we've recognized and some of the children could be a great chance. Yeah, and Ramon, in his mind, has a time when he's planning to bring this back. I don't know when that is, but I think using this data, additional data, is always good. And we will, in subsequent slides, come back to this sort of topic and look at some of the countermeasures that we're looking at as well. The font is really small in the map on the right-hand side, so I'll just go back a second to say orange is denoting two plus fatal or serious injury crashes related to lane departure and green is one fatal or serious specifically related to lane departure. So these are a lot of the countermeasures that we're looking at and some, in fact, are scoped into the pavement management plan as they're rolling out projects. So advisory signage about curves coming up, widening shoulders where possible and specifically installing something called safety edge, which makes the sort of edge of the roadway less, Ramon could explain it better than me, more cambered, less sharp, so that if somebody does strike it, the outcome is better. And then lastly, rumble strips and centerline strips just to alert people if they are not paying attention fully. Especially like in the rural areas when you come into a four-way stop sign and they have the rumbles in the road, that really helps. Yep. The next one is something that I have a lot of familiarity with. It's signalized left turn crashes and I've analyzed this specifically for Alachua County maintained signals. And so this can be either just a green ball for somebody making a left turn or the flashing yellow arrow. This is an area where it's frankly a low-cost, high-impact treatment. And we've had county, city of Gainesville and FDOT have had good coordination on this particular issue. In the recent past, looking at FDOT's work, they have developed a tool to sort of survey all of their traffic signals to figure out at a high level what might be going on and then they're drilling down further to determine even what approach is the most problematic at an intersection. And they have made changes, for instance, at the intersection of Southwest 20th and 34th Street. That was a very high crash location for this type of crash. And they've virtually eliminated it by protecting the left turns. So these are the locations with county impact. Allison, so again, all state roads except for that one at 8th and 75th are all of these under the traffic system that the city manages? Okay. And including the county, the county one? As far as I know, there's a cooperative agreement for signal management and everything is managed by the city of Gainesville through that agreement. Which is funded again through the MTPO? Funded by the county and the city. No. Ramon, I'm saying no. Funded by the county and the city. What's that? The capital project originally was an MTPO project, but I, yeah. Good afternoon. Ramon, I'm Gavarrete, probably was the director. The way it works is the state has agreements like they have one agreement with the city, one agreement with the county, one agreement with all the other cities, Newberry, Alashua. So the city, back in 2002, we worked on a reimbursement agreement with the state because before then we didn't get reimbursed at all to maintain their facilities. Okay. But the local governments are responsible to maintain all the state signals in the state of Florida. It was like that gift of the roads that they gave us. Yeah, that was part of the gift. Okay, part of the gift. But anyway, so in Alashua County, the city of Gainesville does maintain, I believe, all the signals and also a lot of the reflectorized beams and everything that you see out there on the road. So we get money from DOT, we pay the city of Gainesville. So it's not the DOT with the city of Gainesville for everything. So that's a clarification. And is that in the city and the unincorporated or is it also in the small The city of Gainesville will maintain all the signals in the county. Including the city of Greenberry? Including the cities, yes. Okay. Thank you. They get paid for it, obviously. And that's always a line item in your budget every year. So that's a clarification. And just to let you all know, so we do look at these things also every time we're doing a project. A lot of the countermeasure proposals that you just saw right now with Allison we are doing right now. As a matter of fact, I personally was one of the big proponents of the safety edge that she spoke about. Contractors have no idea what that is still even so we always have to be educating them. We also started doing and I was also part of the discussion recently the audible pavement markings that I don't like to call them rumble strips because every time we do rumble strips we end up taking them out. Especially in urbanized areas. But we are doing that actually you go the striping on County Road 234 and the section that was just redone has that installed now. The standard now is 11 foot lanes and 50 miles per hour or higher. We have to do that every time we touch the road. So we're doing that. And as far as signage and Chevron signs and everything there's many other countermeasures that you can do. We do that constantly. I also want to bring to the point to the commission that this is a five year analysis. When you see two or three crashes in a five year time it's although one crash especially this fatality is too many. I also want to caution that the headings on these things that's fatal slash serious. That doesn't mean that all these were fatal by the way. I just want to make that clarification also. So I mean they might be serious because of the type of severity of the crash but not necessarily fatals. So to my colleagues I will tell you that Ramona and I talk a lot. I know you guys also talk to Ramona a lot but it is not it's nice to know that when we when I have these conversations usually Ramona is like yeah I'm already doing that or I'm implementing that and that's having a state national guy as our public works engineer is pretty great. So thank you Ramona. Real quick since he's here Ramona when are we going to be hearing the update on the management plan like what's your plan for that that we talked about earlier. We are doing our best right now to update the current cost from 23 to now through the end of this year. I'm working with the with your office of management and budget to try to get updated revenue figures to be able to try to see to reconcile and then we would in the next few months I'll bring an update to the board on that. Some of these roads are included in our plan already. Others are not. You also need to know what the staff applies constantly for safety grants through the federal administration. We are successful most likely you know one or two of those every year. At a national level we're actually working to get more funding direct to the county to the locals bypassing the state DOTs also because right now the state DOTs get the funding and then we get it. They keep about 50% off the top. So we're trying to bypass the state a little bit just like this program the S-4 the safe streets and that's a direct program to the counties bypassing the states. By the way the states don't like it. So we're working on that also at a national level. Okay. Thank you Ramon. Okay. So yeah I think that sort of summarizes this sort of systemic countermeasure and we will sorry not countermeasure crash type and look at some possible countermeasures and subsequent slides. I have noted that it is a right turn arrow not a left turn arrow that the consultant put on this slide for me. The idea nonetheless is that an appropriate countermeasure when we see these types of crashes would be just a protected only left turn. That is standard practice in a lot of places specifically if you know you're seeing this type of crash and if you you know are worried about vulnerable road users. Another thing is to add back plates to the signals and so that's not super visible on this slide but it's a yellow sort of reflective background to the traffic signal heads and then another thing that we're going to have the consultant include in the report itself would be to offset left turns so if left turns are too aligned and you have it as a permitted left turn it can be difficult for drivers to see one another. So an improvement of that nature was made actually at Newberry Road and 98th recently and seems to have positively impacted safety there so far. Red light running crashes is another primary systemic crash cause so within the high injury network the consultants pulled citations for red light running. I will note that this is probably underestimating vastly the number of red light running crashes we have that could be attributed to that cause. Citations are not written per GPD and ACSO for red light running as often as that is a factor in the crash but it is one way for us to get this data. Countermeasures of course would be red light running cameras detection and then extending the red or yellow phases at an intersection so that again if somebody comes through on the tail end we are sort of helping manage that conflict in time so nobody is coming in the cross direction. I think you all know the city of Gainesville has a red light running program that they are trying to get started along with their school zone speed limit pilot and so that is currently kind of in contracting process for them. The next one is sort of a broad category of systemic crash types it is segments we found where the posted speed was over 40 miles an hour so these are very varied in nature we have things like North Main Street near the auto dealer shops we have Parker Road around 24th we have 39th Avenue 43rd Street and then Millhopper Road which you know becomes very rural and scenic so countermeasures really would vary this would not be a blanket we do these types of things on all of the roads it would very much depend on the nature of the roadway but some things that may be effective would be installing raised medians where it seems like access management might be an issue as well of people making turns onto roads with posted speeds higher than 40 narrowing the travel lanes we had a very robust discussion at the task force meeting about whether or not that was effective with paint versus moving curbs so we'll probably you know take more input and have a little more discussion before including that one mid-block crossings so this would be a half signal sort of mid-block crossing shown and pedestrian bicycle crashes so we have just five locations shown here 53rd Ave shows up twice on the list where we don't have facilities along the road or crossings and these are the types of countermeasures we would be potentially looking at so adding mid-block crossings adding lighting in certain locations and then separated facilities where they made sense as well so those are the sort of systemic things that we see throughout the county just sort of these patterns then we also looked at top 10 corridors for fatal and serious injury crashes and so a lot of these were incidentally included in the systemic analysis so we have five locations shown here four out of five were already covered in the systemic analysis and a lot of those looking at them quickly are like the run off the road lane departure type of crashes we have added to this list southwest 170th near the town of Archer 19 you see right below the map of these crashes fatal and serious injury crashes happen on just five segments within the rural area over what period this is five plus years yeah the consultant took a partial year of data visible and then highest ranked roads within the urbanized area we have five locations again and again 19 fatal and serious crashes happening with just these five segments north main street 122nd 39th avenue 16th boulevard and southwest 20th ave consistent with what Ramon was saying about a lot of the things that public works in the county are already doing a lot of you'll see in the ultimate action plan there are certain segments and intersections where the comment is county is actively implementing a safety improvement in response to a known problem and to monitor and evaluate and make sure that it's having the impact that we would want so this is diving in a little bit deeper just one example from the rural area that was not covered in the systemic so southwest 170th and we have four fatal or serious injury crashes these recommended countermeasures are very much in draft planning public works will work together we're also still taking input from the task force and this draft action plan will also be shared with the community so these are just at this point looking at the crash data a repaving project was recently completed that project included a widened shoulder and 11 foot lanes so that removes some of our possible countermeasures that we would look at adding so potentially there's opportunity to look at a center line or a or a shoulder tactile feature he doesn't want me to call them rumble strips so anyway something to help drivers stay aligned and again we have these details on the crashes where we can figure out what's happening I say for each segment and intersection that we're looking at we can also look at specifically what is the exact crash that happened what kind of improvement could we make to address that crash we also can employ systemic things that we know are useful in preventing crashes north main street in this area we are looking at potentially some access management type of solutions so installing raised medians specifically restricting some turns at northeast 31st avenue and then access management at 28th as well 122nd or Parker Road at 24th 24th is included within this area so the county is planning a signal as I'm sure you all know at this location so continuing to evaluate that see that it has the impact again with the mention sometimes signals bring new safety challenges as well so to continue to study additionally there's an area you can kind of see on the photograph that score striped and there's been some discussion and interest would there maybe be an opportunity for a crossing south of 24th so we can look at you know correctable sort of improvements and then also these systemic things that we think might be a good idea on 16th boulevard it's from 43rd Street all the way down to 34th Street so there were four serious and serious injury and or fatal crashes and the consultant has proffered several possible countermeasures for this corridor and so public works the county is already upgrading the rectangular rapid flashing beacon the push button pedestrian crossings to pedestrian hybrid beacons so it's a higher order type of crossing so again monitor that see that that's having the effect we want there could be changes to traffic signals regarding left turns regarding giving people walking or biking a head start and potentially also some evaluation of the speed around 43rd and the public's fresh market area where it goes up to 43rd yeah this is I was just going to say to my guys I have to leave in like five minutes but I wanted to say that I think that overall the conversations anywhere we have like urbanized area the evaluation of our speed limits in the city and a conversation at MTPO about reduction of speed limits especially in this corridor and in the corridor that actually directly extends that we just repaved like I mean I'm watching I live off of 16th Avenue I literally watch people go 65 miles an hour down 16th Avenue on the regular and I mean there's just like so I mean I understand that part of that is speed enforcement and part of that is I think the lower the speed limit is the higher the ticket is the less likely they are to do it maybe but speed enforcement and a collaboration between lowering of speed limits and speed enforcement I think is a conversation we should have at MTPO for some of these high crash yeah so this road I would love to have a conversation because when we repaved it when I first got on the board I begged the city this is your road you know we're going to fix it and then can we give it to you and Anthony Lyons was a manager and we didn't get any traction the mayor was actually the current mayor was actually in favor of this because he lives on 16th not 16th Boulevard 16th and it is really an urbanized city road from 43rd to 13th so is the city was involved in these discussions and you know when we repave it and and do some of these enhancements that's the time for us to then say city now are you ready to take on this road is there any discussions about this road Ramon with Brian I mean Brian is now I guess he is Brian's really high up Brian got promoted and Brian was on our side of the street when we were having those discussions so we can go back and look at his videos of his arguments about why that was important but my guess is Brian's gonna be like no keep your road unfortunately his paycheck comes from the city of Gainesville now so you know she's changing thoughts probably but yeah yeah just a word of caution on speed limits I can post I can post by five miles per hour on these roads they're still gonna go if you don't have the enforcement component it's not worth it or you do something like engineer it physical to the physical like adding like what we call chokers or landscape areas islands unfortunately all that is funding the other thing that I also want the board to know now that we're doing a study you keep hearing the word systemic that has been a a shift at a federal level before they wanted grants that were specific to one location that they had to meet their what they call their warrants which by the way we don't meet them by with one location most likely but there is a push right now at a federal level to try to look at area wise you know systemic wise treatments that's good so hopefully we can get more grants that way we basically need to get do these out of the way and where with a physical directly so that's another thing that we're working on but this study is going to help us actually get hopefully more more grants to get more safety funds done yeah on that stretch there to flashing there there's two different flash points you know where it records your speed going through there and they're ignored yeah and so those are to try to slow down slow down just showing it right they're not recording it yeah so this segment that you're talking about though is 43rd to 34th right right those flash points I think are from 34th to 13th right mm-hmm so no discussion about the city saying we'll take the road no mr chair I have not heard the city of Gainesville wanting to I will keep trying Allison so yeah and I'd say systemic improvements especially when they can be done you know somewhat cheaply through traffic signals that already exist are particularly good opportunities there are things we could do for 16th that would involve tremendous amounts of earth and concrete work that would not be cheap but if you can use signals that are already there that could be an opportunity for the county so next steps the consultant has the basis of an action plan they have not yet prioritized all of the things within it so they've got policies as I mentioned they have pages of strategies that somebody some somehow should accomplish and then they have a lot of projects both area-wide and location specific so they need to develop prioritization for that or refine so we're going to gather input on the plan again more input from the task force from staff from the community at large and then they're going to refine the action plan they are currently working on developing a draft dashboard so unfortunately commissioner priszy is already gone I know she loves a dashboard but it's so far looking very nice it has the ability for users to toggle on and off different features to look at data in whatever way they would like so they can look by their municipality they can look by mode they can look by crash severity um so that'll be something that is actually being produced within alachio county growth management's gis system and we should be able to maintain um at least to some extent after the consultant is not on contract um then finally um we're going to finalize and adopt the safety action plan we have a hard deadline of april of 26. i'm not going to get close to that but we're probably looking at january with the steps left for the action plan so with that any further questions or discussion mr cornell thank you mr chair also this is just tremendously great uh the work that you guys have done and working with public works that this is um this is one of those you know when you're in your third term you finally get to see stuff this is really really good great work and um i really appreciate the just the attention to safety that we've all been talking about and this is actually putting it into place so great great work there's not a motion right you just we're just presenting it so i appreciate the presentation thank you mr chair this is tedious work um it's tedious just to even try to read the maps and find out you know gather all the information that you all have put out there for us but one of the things that i've noticed and i don't know who's responsible for and which location but i've heard not only from myself but others that the striping in the roads that's failing makes it sometimes hard to to know where to go especially at these intersections i know specifically i've been caught a few times at the intersection of eight and 43rd uh coming back from you know the mall area up eight and where 43rd goes up to the millhopper um the striping is is really almost gone so it's really hard to see which lane to get into as you're crossing over 43rd and i don't and and i've heard from folks you know outside the area to outside of town that there are some areas that the striping is so faded that it makes it hard to know where to go onto the road so that might be something that we could look at you know in terms of an easy fix you're talking about correctable um projects that maybe we could all get out there with a pan a can can of paint or something and ramon and others would not approve of that but i'm sure not but community service you know there but uh no that that would be one of the things that i might ask you all to look at too thank you mr chair uh thank you for for the update uh i guess i the only issue i see is that little yellow arrow you talked about earlier i don't think a lot of people understand what that means because they'll just sit there and wait till it turns green or red instead of turning right you know it's just education i think and i don't know how how do we do that because i run into it all the time and then you know and i hate blowing my horn at people because then it creates a road rage uh but sometimes you have to blow on your horn hey god what are you thinking you know and i just don't think that they know you know and they'll just sit there yeah until the light changes mr chair the reality of that type of traffic signal phasing is it puts the onus on the driver to figure out whether or not it's safe to go and whoever and whoever is in front of you may not feel that it is safe to go and in some cases with like multiple lanes of opposing traffic going at really high rates of speed it may not be so i think this study has helped us identify some locations for instance newberry road and 170th there have been three fatalities during the period studied um with this report at that location so that's one we'll be prioritizing number one i just think it needs more education you know that's going to have that that right only and then the roundabout right that's one not that one that i know 170th and newberry road i'm thinking parker that was just my only problem i just think that the more education we give people you know uh about it they'll learn more about it and do correctly but anyway thank you thank you for the presentation allison have you applied for this job have you applied for the job for the mtpo no mr chair i have not she was darn madam clerk i'm sorry this will bring us to um bar hammock field field track option contract to purchase real property hey good afternoon mr chair commissioners um i'm andy christman the land conservation program manager and i'm here this afternoon to present to you for your consideration the option contract for the bar hammock fuel property okay this is a um single parcel owned um through a trust um which is managed by allison fuel the trustee of the wilder keeter warshaw trust it's a fee simple acquisition approximately 28.6 acres this property has a split zoning the northern half of it approximately is highway oriented business services tourist and entertainment and the southern half is agriculture and you'll see its location is um just southwest of the town of mccanope um essentially right near the interstate 75 interchange in mccanope and very near to bar hammock preserve immediately adjacent to the car and mcnab bar hammock preserve additions you can see on the aerial image here on the majority of the property is uplands but that sort of um grayish tan oblong area in the northwest portion is uh a notable wetland and you can see the darker green on the left hand side of the image is the car mcnab bar hammock additions that blue line that is running roughly north south is a private road that the county has an easement on as a part of the car mcnab acquisition natural communities on the property include dome swamp that gray area is the depression marsh music hammock and successional pine hardwood forest and it's part of a larger future goal project and corridor connecting bar hammock preserve to prices scrub state park which is in marion county it's immediately across the county line there would be if that connection is able to be fully realized a recreational corridor through this property between prices scrub and bar hammock there are many pieces still to be acquired in that puzzle there's some images of the property as i mentioned this is a proposed as a fee simple option contract acquisition with the county serving as the lead manager for the property and that would be in conjunction with the property immediately adjacent on the contract closing timeline that would be march of 2026 135 days from now though we are able to close sooner on many properties there's no permitted exceptions in the option contract there is one what we refer to as non-standard title exception and that is an unrecorded easement for some utility lines that's held by clay electric we don't expect that one to be deleted prior to closing because there are existing lines there the purchase price in the contract is 263 396 dollars it is a acreage based contract so that's subject to the final survey estimated due diligence is thirty six thousand three hundred and forty dollars making a total expenditure request of 329 thousand seven hundred and ten dollars and the recommendations i can read them if you would like all right okay oh okay yeah yeah so this is a great great acquisition and i'd move staff's recommendation i would second that heartedly okay yeah great are there uh any uh public comments comments it's the motion that's on the floor back to the board those in favor of the motion vote by to sign it by aye aye aye aye those opposed same sign motion carries put a couple of bears on that property couldn't you thank you very much yeah um there could be certainly yeah madam clerk this will bring us to public hearings this fiscal year 25 budget amendment to reallocate funds okay good afternoon mr chair mo ruchatelli your budget manager uh i am uh requesting that the board conduct a public hearing and adopt the resolution and approve the budget amendment which is our fifth budget amendment to fy25 this was advertised on the county website through public notices on friday october 24th move that we adopt the resolution and approve the budget amendment second got a motion in the second any further discussion to the motion are there any public comments to the motion seeing none back to the board those in favor motion vote by the sign of aye aye aye those opposed same side motion carries very much thank you yeah madam clerk next this will bring us to quasi-judicial public hearings uh clay electric special exception for a major utility vehicle staging area okay thank you so mr chair this is a quasi-judicial item so i will read our statement mr chair all persons wishing to testify 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 of staff their speakers to see clarification of comments and respond to comments or presentations all person who present all persons who present written materials to commissioners for consideration must ensure that a copy of such materials is provided to the clerk for inclusion in the board's record of the proceedings and official minutes while we welcome comments from all persons with an interest in this proceeding florida law requires that the county commission's decision in a quasi-judicial action be supported by competent substantial evidence presented to the board during the hearing on the application competent substantial evidence is such evidence as a reasonable mind would accept as adequate to support a conclusion there must be a factual basis in the record to support opinion testimony from both expert and non-expert witnesses in a moment the clerk will ask for persons other than staff and the applicant who wish to participate as parties to identify themselves and explain to the board why they believe they are parties a person to be a party a person must show that he or she would be more directly impacted or more substantially impacted by the board's decision today than the public at large if the board determines that you have party status you'll be permitted a reasonable opportunity to present testimony and evidence and to ask questions otherwise you'll be permitted to testify as a member of the public anyone wishing to seek additional party status any ex parte communications so i've had no communications i think i got an email on this and i sent them missing maybe but maybe not no no communications though i don't recall no anyone wishing to speak on the item if you could raise your right hand do you solemnly swear and firm that the testimony you're about to give is the truth the whole truth and that's the much truth okay yes sir thank you mr thank you this is matey bengatar with alachio county growth management department and this agenda item is z25 000-014 it's a special exception for a major utility for clay electric cooperative this application is located at 11530 northwest 39th avenue location map shows again the site here it's about an eight acre site to the west of i-75 on northwest 39th avenue the aerial image shows it's an undeveloped parcel and it is directly north to the existing clay electric office on 39th avenue and to the north of the site they also have a communications tower that office was established in the mid-2000s with a special exception for a major utility and there are some institutional uses surrounding saint francis catholic academy to the west and greenhouse church to the east and a countryside christian school further to the east meadow brook elementary across 39th avenue to the south the future land use map on this slide shows that it has a future land use designation of low density residential this major utility for vehicle staging areas considered institutional use and institutional uses are allowed in all land use categories and it is just to the south of the urban cluster line similarly the zoning map shows residential zoning here but again it's institutional use so it is allowed even with the residential zoning and the re1 is a lower density residential land use or sorry zoning r1 aa to the south where the office is and then planned developments where the school and churches are so some background for what this application is is here today for it's for a vehicle staging area so when there are uh natural disasters clay electric currently doesn't have its own facility to put all their vehicles and trailers and supporting materials to respond to those disaster events so this would allow them to have a dedicated facility next to their existing office and it is considered a major utility falls under that section 404 48.5 therefore it requires a special exception in that section 404 48.5 of the unified land development code the they're not really any specific requirements other than the buffer so you can see in the code that is the one requirement and this is not proposing to have any permanent structures it'll only be used during immediate time before disaster and then to respond until the power has been restored so no permanent structures are being proposed again the intent is to provide efficient coordinated staging area for utility vehicles and equipment and supporting staff to respond to these disaster events and outside of these events it will not uh ordinarily be in use that uh buffer requirement as i mentioned is uh for major utilities the default is 150 feet and 75 feet depending if it is adjacent to residential uses or not our staff recommendation is to have reduced buffers based on this nature the nature of this use and surrounding uses and considering that the buffer requirements that are shown in the code really anticipate higher intensity uses that are there full time and this is a more sporadic use depending on whenever natural disasters occur so these following slides show site photos of existing conditions here this is um from northwest 115th terrace looking north and this is the public road and this slide here shows the office for clay electric behind that chain link fence is where they would be accessing this staging area from their existing office here is um clay electrics office from northwest 39th avenue looking north and then this is northwest 115th street this is the private road that is located to the east of the site and there is a residence east of where the staging area would be and that's the same road this is a slide showing a representation of what this staging area might look like when there's a disaster and they're deploying their vehicles so they would need a place that they could coordinate not only with clay electric but possibly other jurisdictions to respond as efficiently in accorded coordinated way as possible the special exception plan shows uh the site here with the ingress and egress from the south where the existing office is um and then the proposed buffers as i mentioned um they're showing uh 40 feet here where there is a existing residents along the east and then 15 feet here where there is a power line easement and then as they own the parcel to the north and the power parcel to the south they are uh proposing no buffer commissioner how big is the buffer um next president so this on the eastern side along the entire eastern boundary and then this area is 40 feet 40 feet okay thank you and then a proposed uh stormwater basin would be in the northeastern portion of the parcel so our staff bases for approval are found on this slide the first is policy 5.1.2 c of the future land use element that considers institutional uses our public utilities are part of institutional uses policy 5.2.1 of the future land use element that's the criteria for where institutional uses should be located policy 5.2.2 the future land use element that is for integration of institutional facilities and communities all c5.5.1 a of the future land use element public utilities are permitted in all land use categories and the fifth is that this site will make use of an existing adjacent clay electric facility therefore reducing the need to open up new areas for these institutional uses our proposed conditions are found in this slide the first is for the special exception to allow this temporary staging of vehicles and supporting facilities to respond to disaster events the second is for the buffers that have been mentioned on the special exception master plan the third is for uh temporary lighting to be oriented to minimize impacts to surrounding areas and the fourth is that if there are any hazardous materials uh that are needed for the uh staging for that to be coordinated with our environmental protection department commissioner cornell thank you mr chair is there any um what's the plan is the plan for lighting to be permanent or temporary uh mr chair so they are planning to bring in the lights on trailers so they're not going to be installing any permanent lighting and no permanent so on the temporary lighting what's the height and how does that impact with the 40-foot buffer i'm not sure the height of those lights the applicant might be able to give us an idea of how high those would be but we're asking for them to be oriented inward away from the residential area okay the applicant could address that that would be great thank you i'm sorry go ahead did you have you want to finish follow up yeah i was just going to give our recommendation is that the county commission approved this application the special exception application with our conditions and bases and our planning commission did look at this in september and um at that meeting they uh had a recommendation to reduce the buffers and thereafter staff has revised its recommendation to match what the planning commission had for reduced buffers and that is our presentation i can take any other questions why did they why did they recommend reducing the buffers so mr chair this like i mentioned earlier the standard buffers are much larger 150 feet or 75 75 depending if it's adjacent to a residential area so that would eat into a large portion of this parcel i see they're trying to maximize the number of vehicles that they can get on this parcel so that they can respond as efficiently as possible and they feel like that this is the right size this is the size they need as it is for that kind of staging they wouldn't have to go off site i mean that looked like a big operation that you showed us on the video right well that's not actually mr chair their vehicles that's just a representation but this is a parcel that they own and it's adjacent to their existing headquarters they're on 39th so it's they're trying to make as much uh use of that parcel as they can i see well you know my concern too is the trees are not only a buffer but they are also shade um you know that that we are looking for for people who are on that site are going to be headed for the shade you know to when they're not working um what about the the the ground are is it going to be natural ground that they're going to be parking on for the short amount of time or is they are they going to try to put some kind of permanent yes mr chair so the applicant will explain what they intend to put there for their uh parking area okay it seems to me that those we're getting into those areas where flooding has been an issue in the past i don't know if it's that far down the road or not but i know further up towards us we've had flooding issues too so anything that we could keep permeable seems to me would be prudent um um that was addressed um you know at the planning commission there were some concerned neighbor oh they are they are considering what they can do to well i'm sure we have neighbors here who would would like us to you know i want to hear from too as well but you know my concern too is you know when we start getting rid of a lot of trees we're not getting rid of just a a border you know we're getting rid of shade you know that if they're going to be people working there too then we we might be concerned about and also those trees that soak up the water that could potentially be in that area as well so you know i of course i'm concerned mainly too um about there being a big enough buffer because a lot of times they start those trucks up early in the day you know and and uh are coming and going at all hours of the day and night that buffers will help at least the neighbors be able to tolerate for whatever length of time that they have to to cohabitate all right thank you mr chair thank you all right at this time we'll hear from the applicant hi good afternoon chair commissioners thank you very much for your time my name is tara howell i am with jb pro out of gainesville representing our client clay electric today while they are seeking a special exception for this use metty has already covered most everything so i do have a short presentation for you i apologize for any repetition i'll kind of go through it quickly so this is just a project overview clay electric seeks their special exception again this is to develop a vehicle staging area in response to natural disasters it is a 7.92 acre site this will support their emergency electrical utility services to the surrounding area and they will operate in conjunction with other existing clay electric facilities so a little bit about clay electric they are number one in customer satisfaction ranked by jd powers they provide electrical services to approximately sixty thousand nine hundred and ninety two homes and businesses that's just in alachua county and that is based on a report from march of 2025 they were chartered in 1937 they are incorporated member owned not-for-profit electrical power supplier and they are organized and controlled by the units that they serve their central office is located in keystone heights they have six district offices one of which is located here in gainesville they are also the ninth largest co-op in the united states which is yet another reason why when disasters strike they have a big demand so this is the subject parcel as you can see indicated by red you can also see the contiguous parcels that are also owned by clay electric with them and then we also wanted to point out the specific location of the driveway we have a couple questions about that so the driveway already exists it accesses the office area and they will be using that same one so they will not be creating an additional driveway so this is your future land use as meti explained it is in the low density residential area because of policy 5.11 it does state that institutional uses can be allowed in any of your future land uses so that is one of the reasons why we are seeking this and again of course as he explained they do own the parcel and it is contiguous to their other operations so these are your surrounding land uses they're bordered to the east and the west by existing institutional land uses they are adjacent to the north and the south by other central clay electric sister developments and this will help them to coordinate this and and operate during these needed times so the staging area will operate compatible compatibly with adjacent institutional and clay electric properties and then buffers will be maintained in order to minimize as much impact as possible to that one residential use so the special exception as you know i'm sure is a use that's permitted only when limited by conditions to ensure compatibility and the protection of public health safety and welfare so the need for this special exception the site's low density residential zoning requires a special exception in order for them to be able to utilize it in this way and the rationale for this is the expansion supports public utility functions and emergency responses again we see almost 61 000 residents and businesses served by them which means when we have a natural disaster and power goes out it is a huge impact to alachua county so this will enable them to be able to respond at a much quicker rate so these just kind of go over the same points that meddy pointed out to you which is how this does align with your current comprehensive plan through general strategy two policy one five point one one five point two point one and five point two two and of course please let me know if you'd like me to expand on any of those points specifically this goes into how it is in compliance with your unified land development code for your ingress and egress again they'll only be that one access point for any type of parking or loading there is more than sufficient space utilities would be site suitable and evaluated through the review process if they even decide that they are going to install any type of permanent utilities that would be part of the development review process noise glare and odor effects there will be no permanent effects and they will be doing buffering to limit any off-site impacts to the one residential use and then you can see here their refuge and service areas will be located and screened appropriately no proposed signage no proposed permanent lighting and then for yards and green space those standards will be addressed and complied with during the project review stage so these are the proposed buffers again um and so you can see here on the this the area here where your residential is is where we have proposed the largest buffer which is that 40 feet um and medi was correct uh the main reason why we're asking for the reduction in buffers is because they need to maximize the use of this property because again when we have natural disasters instead of having staging areas further away from the areas that they service it's a much faster response time to have them as close as possible and so we do want to maximize as much of the area there will be a pretty good size basin to control flooding so that there will be and there's another slide we'll get into that in a minute but again because we are losing that portion as well we're trying to maximize as much as possible on the rest of the so here's our stormwater management just to go over a few brief points it will be designed and permitted with alachua county and the water management district the stormwater basin size to accommodate all required one thousand year one thousand sorry 100 year design storms the discharge rates and volumes analyzed for pre and post development conditions in other words no additional waters will be discharged off of that property post versus pre drainage swells will be provided to route any off-site discharge around the staging areas of the vehicle maintaining a pre-development flow patterns those will be directed into the basin and fill placed within the floodplain offset by compensation areas and net cut to improve pre-development flood stage it is actually our belief that this will actually improve some of the flooding issues that are happening now because you will now have a new storm basin to capture a lot of that flood water so that is the bulk of it any questions mr cornell that's my previous question do you know the height of the temporary lighting so unfortunately i cannot tell you the exact height what i can tell you is that typical commercial temporary outdoor lining averages between 15 to 20 feet okay and the existing 40-foot buffer there's trees there right now right those would just stay there correct and those are pine trees i think if i remember tall pine trees they're they're taller than the 15 to 20 feet i would have yes yes okay all right thank you um i so none of your big trees on there there are no big trees on there that have to be negotiated around large okay okay just just checking but i appreciate that i was concerned about water retention so that helps and helps me understand the buffer being smaller too that that makes perfect sense will the people who are doing the work here where the clay electric workers be staying on site here in rvs as well i do not chair i do not believe that that is an intention for them to stay now there will be temporary staging vehicles such as like showers things in that nature unfortunately in a lot of these situations they're working 24-hour shifts but i do not believe that there is an intention to have any type of recreational vehicles staged on the project site well i i wouldn't for me that's not a problem because i know during the last disaster where we had workers that came in here they were having to go stay way out of county uh and travel great distances to get back in and that puts wear and tear on the workers as well so i i was just curious as to whether we were going to try to accommodate the workers locally too uh i'm a big fan of clay electric and just saying but uh at the same time i just was trying to understand because back then we were trying to house those workers may look as close in as we could so they didn't have to waste their time traveling an hour you know going up to live oak or someplace and then coming back in so if that that was my question mr chair if it pleases the board our engineer on the project is here and could answer and speak to some of these questions firsthand please good afternoon my name is tim baylein with jb pro um and to answer your question there will be some trailers specifically for bunk beds and sleeping for the workers so that is the idea is for during those emergency relief times they will be staying on on site they'll have food trailers they will have bathroom shower trailers so that is the purpose it would not be for people who are working at clay electric part or you know full time but it would be during those emergency times okay no that's that's good that's sensible uh what about the the groundwork that needs to be done to accommodate um all of these vehicles and some of them be quite heavy i would imagine yes we'll be doing a stabilized gravel or stabilized subgrade with the gravel on top for the parking area and then those that area will be delineated for the parking and so it's permeable is that or would it would be built so that there's water that would run off those there will be runoff it will be sloped towards the storm water facility however it will be more permeable than asphalt would be okay all right because i would imagine then if it's raining and wet and muddy you would have trouble getting vehicles out of there too that's what i was trying to understand you know yes it so it will be a higher runoff than natural ground because most of the time when people are there it will be during hurricanes where it is during that hundred year flood event so yes it will be a gravel surface that has a runoff rate that will be channeled towards the stormwater pond and then as mentioned during the presentation all of the stormwater pond will be sized appropriately to maximize that storage um we'll be providing all the treatment requirements and then discharge will be less than pre-development we're also aware of the fema flood plane in this area and so we'll be doing some additional compensation on site to make that fema compensation on site larger than what the pre-development was despite some of the fill that we'll be adding to the site do you have any idea about how many vehicles you're looking at that would act seven acres doesn't sound like a whole lot to me when you're talking about these big things that you know we're looking in the 100 to 120 vehicles really yes and so they'll be parked you know just very tightly with some small drive aisles basically parallel parked and then the area off to the side closer to the basin will be mostly all of the trailers for their you know general accommodations okay all right thank you that that helps a lot i don't have any all right so i would um thank you for answering those yeah so that's better than uh asphalt parking lot no that's yeah that's all right so i would um move the approval of z25-000014 with the conditions and basis as listed in the staff report second got a motion in a second any further discussion for the motion are there any public comments to the motion that's on the floor yes ma'am please thank you i thought i saw a whole bunch of people raise their hands well i have no personal experience with clay electric i have heard wonderful things regarding clay electric from friends that reside in that area however i share the same sentiment with commissioner wheeler and thank you commissioner wheeler and i know all of the commissioners care but especially commissioner wheeler cares about the environment as a lifelong environmentalist ecologist and wildlife rehabilitator i'm concerned with the need and attachment of clearing any more trees as trees do provide shade refuge to animals and biodiversity in a state that already is dedicated to destroying land is there a possibility to bring in an ecologist permaculturist to assess this also the mention of live oaks their longleaf pines also provide refuge to many bird species including some threatened species and endangered species such as the yellow-throated wobbler and an imperiled species such as the red-pellated woodpecker i would like to know has anybody does anybody know are there longleaf pines present and i implore utilizing the infrastructure that already currently exists to be able to have this vehicle utilization while at the same time i do support emergency response with all that land there must be somewhere to stage these vehicles rather than destroying more land and more biodiversity thank you for your consideration yes mr chair chris dawson principal planner i did just want to let you know that as part of every development application we require environmental resource assessment usually at this stage it's a fairly preliminary assessment environmental protection department didn't identify any concerns on the site as part of any development plan resulting from this there will be additional evaluation of that including any regulated trees that are removed as part of this application okay thank you okay back to the board those in favor of motion vote by the sign of aye aye aye those opposed same sign motion clear uh carries uh this will bring us to closing comments okay and i just want to make a statement we will not reconvene at 501 so to make sure we will not okay uh any uh closing public comments please one once go in twice all right uh are there any attorney comments mr chair i do not have any today any manager comments no sir any commissioners are coming commissioner cornell i only have uh one comment and that's to you mr chair so i read the egi chair letter i thought it was very very well done yeah yeah yeah really really well done too yeah so thanks to staff yeah yeah yeah hopefully we'll hear from them in the coming weeks and um and all my other public comments all my other comments were kind of handled during the earlier public comments so i'm good thank you you're going to get us out of here before three i know you want to and mine are quick too mine are just go ahead no no mine are just a heads up book sale is going on downtown you know oh yeah yeah did my share yesterday bought more books than i needed tried to give them away get rid of books not get more but anyway the book sale is going on they're having a really great sale down there so y'all go on down there it's half price today you've got time to get there um serendipity that's opened in high springs you all have a chance to get up to high springs to do the ice cream shop it's right next to the great outdoors it's amazing it's a jewel yet we don't have anything like that in alaska county and and it's it's amazing they had a great opening saturday it was so full that people couldn't get in all day so yes it's it was quite an amazing project and um one other thing the melrose art gallery is trying to have an auction they've got an online auction right now they're struggling and so we we need to support them to kind of keep them afloat out there um it's one of the jewels that we have out in that end of the county too but they're struggling and they are um trying to raise some funds through this this auction so check it out melrose art gallery and that's all i have okay and i want to get back to eji with you ken in terms of that uh i spoke with uh our um reverend smart carl smart uh on monday he had talked with uh eji on last friday and uh he indicated uh to us that um how can i say this have they gotten your letter they they got the email but they haven't received the physical letter yet the official letter uh but they did receive the email they talked about it uh they still have not set any criteria for the bronze or the marker to come back to a larger county they haven't set any criteria uh of course we meet tomorrow we will discuss that but tomorrow we have um another part of our meeting is to deal with reconciliation and so we're going to have a speaker tomorrow uh to uh bring comments in terms of what reconciliation might look like in alachua county and so that'll be some of the discussions uh tomorrow so he'll be giving a presentation uh for that and so we'll go from there i mean right now we have limbo uh we still have four outstanding markers uh to go but they're going to only do one a year from what we were told and but i'm saying this is year 25 and we'll do a marker this year so we don't even know if we're going to get a marker this year or if it's going to be next year so then that puts us behind from from uh being completed by 2028 so it looks like it'll be 2029 the markers coming from uh eji eji right and so we we also talked about uh other ways of doing it but we want to make sure we uh at least talk with eji in terms of because they want to approve the actual wording on the marker and stuff like that in the research so they want to verify the research and all of that stuff that's what the process has been yeah right right right now because we we have everything everything is done except for a couple of the markers do not have the actual language to be approved yet and so we we're going to talk about that tomorrow too and making sure that those subcommittees make sure they get that language in so that we can be done yeah my only comment would be for tomorrow is that um i i think we should really push egi continue to push them to con and and help with those markers if we need to to conclude um by november of 2028 right that's an important date that i would like to see this work done by for as you know why personally yeah uh but you know it's um you know they're still having issues in the state of montgomery alabama so or alabama rather um they're having issues you know with the uh death row inmates and stuff like that so i don't know you know the politics there uh but we do know that there's a uh eji bus trip scheduled for february of next year are we going to bring a trailer so we can bring our thing back that's it to the back of the bus i would love to do that but uh but anyway uh that that is going to happen um in february the trip the bus trip and so there are a lot of folks uh from malachia county is going to go a lot of folks from the university are going also so that's a great opportunity to see them face to face right right well if there's anything this commission needs to do prior to that trip whether that's direction or proposing that we help pay for the markers or finish the wording so that we can meet our self-imposed november 2028 deadline just let us know yeah reference uh reverend smart carl smart is is working with the manager and everyone in reference to the whole circumstances that i just explained and so that um you know that there's some other technical issues uh you know in terms of the bus trip and the the all of that stuff uh but but that's being worked out so that's really not an issue uh the issue right now is basically uh them coming up with the criteria but i think we've met the criteria way above whatever they might recommend like i said your letter was good yeah yeah so it it stayed everything we've done in this community and i think uh if we compare ourselves to other communities i think we're way ahead of the game and and we're constantly having um uh sessions each each year about things in the community in terms of reconciliation and all that stuff and like i stated earlier that tomorrow he will be discussing what reconciliation in alachua county might look like so when's the great to hear when's the bus trip the bus trip uh is february i don't want to give you the wrong number but i believe it's february the six through the eight or something like that it's okay i'll check i'll make sure i get you the correct date okay yeah yeah and make sure it be publicized too also uh but as tomorrow uh they will indicate to the public uh to to people who have already registered versus people on a waiting list so those who uh have already reserved if they change their mind and not go then that opens up spaces for those individuals who are on the waiting list to be available to go so that's some of the discussion we'll have tomorrow and but i'll give you an update after that too all right just to let you know how things are going with eji so if there aren't any further business we are adjourned thank you