It is September 8th, and I'd like to go ahead and call this meeting to order. Before we get started, Senior Pastor Patrice Cathy Long Richardson with the Greater Love and Faith Ministries here. Come on up. If you could give our invocation, if I could have everyone please stand. And then after the invocation, we will join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. Senior Pastor, you are recognized. Good morning. Let us go before the great throne of grace. God, we ask you this morning, in the name of Jesus, that you give this board your wisdom, your knowledge, and your understanding. That they'll make decisions in line with your will for the people in this county. And God, I pray this morning that you bless each and every person in this room, their households and their families. I plead the blood of Jesus this morning. I thank you, Lord God, for the opportunity to touch and agree with those that are saints. In the name of Jesus, I pray. Amen. Amen. Thank you. The Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. Okay. All right. So, Commissioners, any changes to the published agenda? Yeah, I just asked for item 7F to be pulled. Yes. And they do have someone here that does have a prior engagement, but they came so they could be here. So, if we can put it towards the front of the agenda, that would be a request I have. That's the funding agreement with Meridian Behavioral Health, which is item 14097. And then I have also had a request to pull conveyance of utility easement and temporary construction easement to GRU for the lift station relocation. Also off consent. Okay. So, 7F, if there's a way that we could put it maybe after recognitions item G1 or before the action items. Or with access, the first action item. First action item. Okay. So, we've got I1 adding 7F to the action items and also 8A is the other one that GRU easement. That's a motion. Okay. I got a motion. Do I hear a second? Second. I got a motion. A second to approve the agenda with those two changes. Is there any discussion to the motion? Okay. Before we adopt the motion, I know we've got Ms. Alovia May here. If you could come forward and maybe give us some comments on the consent item 26-00450. We are certainly pleased to be adopting that with the vote after your comments. Yes, sir. My name is Alovia May. And again, I'm a member of the Fairbanks community and the Fairbanks Church of God by Faith. And Elder Jeremiah Lee has been more than a pastor. He has been a loving father, a devoted servant, and a faithful friend to the Fairbanks community and to so many people throughout Florida. His sweet and kind spirit, his willingness to help others, and his genuine love for people have touched countless lives. He has given himself through his faith and his service to our community and his compassion. He understood that ministry was not just what happens inside of the church, but also what happens outside of the church in reaching our community, helping those in need, encouraging families, and showing the love of God through his actions. And today, as we honor him hopefully by naming the street, we are doing more than putting a name on a sign. We are continuing a legacy. We are remembering an influential man of God whose life represented family and faith. May the street serve as a lasting reminder to Elder Jeremiah Lee's love, his service, and the many lives he's helped. He's helped my life and so many others, so this will be a great service to our community. Thank you. Thank you. And so when we adopt the agenda, we will essentially be approving a resolution designating a portion of Northeast 69th Avenue in honor of Mr. Jeremiah Lee. Leah, did you have any comments on the consent item for Pete? Yeah, come forward, please. I was like, wait a second, is it good morning? Good afternoon? We're still kind of morning. Good morning. Yeah, one more. Just want to say thank you so much for your belief in Pete and what we can do. Just want to give you a quick update on where we ended this last school year and summer. We delivered almost 28,000 reading lessons. We had 461 unique students at 14 unique sites with over 100 volunteer tutors. And that averaged around 60 individual lessons per student. So we're really, really thankful for the investment in Pete and what you continue to do for us. And so we're really, really excited about this next year and serving over 700 kids here in Alachua County. So thank you so much. I don't want to pause on that. So with the adoption of this agenda, we will be approving an additional half a million for that contract. Okay, commissioners, any other comments before we get to the agenda? Okay, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, that motion is unanimous. Okay, we've got an agenda. And the first thing on the agenda, I believe, are the announcements. Mr. Sexton, welcome. Good morning, Mr. Chair. Mark Sexton, communications director. Mr. Chair, we want to take an opportunity to point out to our residents that we've made a pretty major announcement about residential curbside collection in the unincorporated area. If you go to our homepage of our website, the first thing in the spotlight is that press release announcing that. And we want to let folks know that within the press release, there's some basic information. But we'll also use this as a commercial for our community hub. If you click on that, it's our great new site that gives you all kinds of government information at your fingertips. And in this case, if you go to waste management, you'll go to a – there are two places there. You'll go to the residential curbside collection page, and you will find all kinds of information about how to – in this site right here, you can enter your home address, and you will see if your collection day is changing. In my case, I put in my address, and I'm Tuesdays now, and I'm moving to Thursdays. So this is a chance for GFL, our vendor, to tighten up and make more efficient their routes. They are going to be doing not just this kind of announcement. They're going to be doing stickers on your trash cans, door hangers, and direct mail so people will know if their day is being changed, where it will change to. There are also some minor changes in the general rules about household garbage and recycling, and there's a great deal of information here, exactly how you have to present your yard waste, bulky items, what will be collected, how often, white goods, cart sizes and rates. So it is a highly informative site. Is my time up, Mr. Donahue? I like how our clerk is keeping this – Wishful thinking. So it's a great site, and we want to make sure people are aware so that they're getting their trash out on the right day. Also, Mr. Chair, we want to just let folks know that tonight is your first budget hearing, the first of two. The next one will be two weeks from today. And, you know, you all have done an enormous amount of work and had a lot of meetings to prepare this budget, but we would always love for the public to join us for those meetings, and they are certainly invited. And if you want to learn more about the county's budget, also on the homepage of the county's website, you can scroll over and go to Sense and Sensibility, which is our eight-chapter, how to understand the county's budget. Because you shouldn't have to have a finance degree to understand county finance, and that is a great resource for learning more about the budget. And, Mr. Chair, those are the announcements. Okay. Thank you. Commissioner Frizia. Just a quick – I just wanted to make sure I know – I know we've spent a lot of time and energy on our Zen City pages, on the Community Hub pages. And I just want to make sure that those Community Hub pages are also linked on our webpages for each of those topics. So on roads, if there's a link to the Community Hub page, on the Waste Management page, there's a link. So that way, in addition to being on the homepage, if they just get to – if they type in Alaska County Waste Management and they get to our Waste Management page, they can also find those pages. Is that currently the case, or – I would have to go back and look at how each department is linking theirs, but I will do that. And if they're not doing that, I will encourage them to. Great. Thank you. Yep. You're welcome. Thank you. Commissioner Wheeler. Mark, I saw a video on – I think it was Facebook – about waste – recyclables, and it was a really helpful video. I don't know if that's – we did that or if GFL did that, but it's a good one, and I don't know if – will it be on our site, too, that we could use it? We did produce a video about exactly what can and can't be recycled, and we pushed that out on a regular basis. But this would be an opportune time to do that again, so we will. Oh, it was really good. Thank you. Okay. Yep. Okay, Mr. Sexton. I should have known you all did that. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Appreciate it. All right, Mr. Clerk, first item. Mr. Chair, first item is the approval of the recognitions. Move approval of recognitions. Second. Motion and second. Any discussion? Any public discussion? Back to the board. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion is unanimous. Then we've got Commissioner Prizia's doing the first one, which is a proclamation recognizing September 14th through the 18th as Florida Redevelopment Week in Alachua County. Mr. Prizia. All right. And do we have – oh, great. We have our economic development staff here and a few others to come. Excellent. I'm excited to declare September 14th through September 18th as Florida Redevelopment Week in Alachua County, whereas community redevelopment agencies and redevelopment programs play a vital role in revitalizing neighborhoods, strengthening local economies, uplifting downtowns, and improving the quality of life for businesses throughout Florida, whereas redevelopment initiatives encourage private investment, support small businesses, upgrade infrastructure, and expand affordable housing. And whereas the Florida Redevelopment Association partners with local governments to promote best practices for community revitalization, and whereas the observance of the Florida Redevelopment Week awareness brings the importance of community redevelopment and encourages continued public and private investment in Florida's neighborhoods, downtowns, and commercial corridors, and whereas Chapter 163 Florida Statutes provides essential tools for local governments to address community needs and fund key public improvements. Now, therefore, through the authority vested in me by the Board of County Commissioners of Alachua County, I do hereby proclaim September 14th through September 18th as Florida Redevelopment Week in Alachua County. And it's signed and has the beautiful seal and everything. And I will turn it over to our Economic Development Program Manager to share a little bit more about what we've been doing with our CRA dollars and how we've been collaborating with the City of Gainesville to do just the things in this little proclamation. Good morning, Mr. Chair, Sean McClendon, I'm Alachua County's Economic Development Manager, very happy to be here today. A significant portion of the economic development budget is dedicated to both our statutory CRAs as well as our interlocal agreement with the GCRA, the City of Gainesville. It represents the lion's share of the budget to reinvest the community's dollars in the economic redevelopment of its key communities, whether it's East Gainesville or the City of Hawthorne or Alachua or Newberry or High Springs, making sure that they have thriving downtown communities. It's very important to recognize the staff that do all the hard work on the background and make us look so good. And we're very happy today to receive this proclamation. And we thank the board and the chair for their recognition. Thank you very much. And I see some of our esteemed guests from other cities. If you're from another small city, could you please stand up for just a minute? See Manager Marlow there. Okay, great. And let's give them a round of applause. Thank you all for being here today. I ask to see a school board member, Dr. McNeely in the audience. Thank you for being here, Dr. McNeely. Okay, Mr. Clerk, the next item. Next up is a presentation of a proclamation recognizing September as Suicide Prevention Month in Alachua County, Florida. Okay, and we're going to have Commissioner Alfred attempt to get through this one. This one I can remember doing in the past. It's been a hard one for me. So, Commissioner Alfred, thank you for doing this one. What's that? This is always a hard one, so thank you. Yeah, this is a hard one. So, we have some folks here from our crisis center, and we'll welcome them up for their dedicated and often very, very difficult work of helping our community manage some of the hardest days of their lives. So, whew, let's see if I can get through this without going on. I know. Just a second. This is a proclamation declaring September as Suicide Prevention Month in Alachua County, Florida. Whereas suicide is a significant public mental health issue, and we can all work together to support and protect our community. And whereas according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there are 48,824 deaths by suicide in the United States during 2024. And whereas in our country, suicide is the second leading cause of death for those aged 10 to 39, and the 10th leading cause of death for people of all ages. And whereas 3,633 people in Florida died by suicide in 2024, it is the eighth leading cause of death in our state. And whereas each death by suicide directly impacts numerous family members, friends, and loved ones, and by extension, the entire community. And whereas culturally specific and responsive mental health services are a critical component of supporting communities. And whereas the 988 Lifeline provides 24-7 free and confidential support for people in distress. And whereas the Alachua County Crisis Center offers 24-hour crisis intervention support through phone, face-to-face, mobile, and telehealth options. And whereas all individuals should be aware of the warning signs and feel empowered to seek help for themselves, loved ones, co-workers. And whereas we must reduce the stigma surrounding suicide, encourage the pursuit of mental health resources, and truly listen to those affected by suicide. And whereas no single suicide prevention effort will ever be sufficient, everyone is asked to join together and take a stand to prevent suicide. Now, therefore, through the authority vested in me by the Board of County Commissioners of Alachua County, Florida, I do hereby proclaim September as Suicide Prevention Month in Alachua County, Florida. Duly proclaimed this eighth day of September, A.D. 2026, and signed by all the appropriate people. Now, I had a cousin commit suicide after losing her daughter to sudden infant death syndrome. You know, a really hard, hard, traumatic event. And it was so hard for our family to feel like they had done everything that they thought they could do to help this person, but still they were overcome by grief. And they made a decision to end their life. And I think most of us know somebody that's been affected by suicide. Our community at large has been affected by several suicides in the past few months. And in those suicides, we've been able to see some of the holes that our community has in supporting people that need our help. And I imagine we're going to hear more about that over the next coming weeks. But I would like to turn the time over to the folks from our crisis center because they deal with this every day, and I honestly don't know how they do it. Thank you. Thank you to our chair, Madam Vice Chair, and the commissioners for having us here this morning and for this proclamation. I'm Ariel Drescher. I'm the director of the crisis center. And I'm joined here today by Claudia Tuck, our director of community support services, and some of the incredible, amazing staff and volunteers at the center. It really is an honor to me to be here this morning talking about suicide prevention, and it feels especially meaningful in light of some of the losses that we've had in our community recently. And it is my hope that this proclamation is a message to anyone right now who might be struggling, that your story matters, that your voice matters, that your life matters, and that help is available. This is not only, September is not only Suicide Prevention Month, but today, September 8th, is 988 day. And what that is is a designation of a day to recognize and bring awareness to the still relatively new three-digit number, 988, that you can call or text anytime, day or night, from anywhere in the country and be connected to a crisis counselor. Whatever burdens you're carrying, whatever pain you're holding, you don't have to hold it alone. Help is here. And the crisis center is really proud to be a part of that national 988 network, in addition to answering our local line, and in addition to providing our 24-hour in-person crisis intervention services. But I do want to recognize that this is not something we can do alone. Suicide prevention has to be a community-wide effort. And here in Alachua County, we're fortunate to have a lot of really dedicated individuals in different organizations throughout our continuum of crisis care. We have folks at Meridian, our co-responder teams, our mobile integrated health, our community paramedicine, NAMI, and so many more. And I do, to that idea, just want to add that you don't have to be a professional to help in suicide prevention. You don't have to be a professional to be there for someone, to connect them to the right resources, to help someone who is struggling. And the crisis center does quite a lot of community trainings. We do trainings in crisis intervention, in de-escalation, in suicide prevention, and other mental health topics. And I wanted to let everyone know that at the end of this month, September 28th, 29th, and 30th, we'll actually be hosting our annual mental health symposium. That takes place in the evenings. We'll have over 20 sessions, including a session on how to navigate the continuum of crisis care in Alachua County, bringing awareness to all the resources we have, all the different ways someone can get help. And that event is free. It is open to the public. Registration is on our website and our Facebook, and we invite you all to join us. We would love to see you there. Thank you so much, again, for having us. Thank you, Laura. And I think they're going to want to do a panel. I think you're all happy. Okay, Mr. Clerk, our next item. Mr. Chair, up next is the Alachua County Health Care Advisory Board Annual Work Plan and Accomplishments. And the recommended action is to hear the presentation and accept the plan. Okay. Yes. Welcome. Thank you. Will our slides show up? Mark, do you want to help get the slides queued up? Is that the one? Okay, thank you. I'm Leilani Doty. I'm the chair of the Alachua County Health Care Advisory Board. And this is Trelawney Pennington. She is our liaison, but she's also the program manager of the community initiative and grants and the community support services. Essentially, she does all the work. So if you just flip it. Okay. So just an overview. There is a nice little overview in your program on the agenda. But our Alachua County Health Care Advisory Board's purpose is to provide guidance to the Board of County Commissioners, you all, regarding health care and medical needs of low-income residents in Alachua County. Our board serves as an advisory body focused on improving access to indigent health care services and ensuring that available resources are effectively aligned with community needs. We have a wide range of health-related providers and professionals. Mental health professional, a doctor, nurse, and that actually is, I'm one of the people in that role, a dentist, a department of health representative, a nonprofit health care provider, a pharmacist, and representatives of health care agencies serving primarily low-income people. So our accomplishments for this past year, number one, a county comprehensive plan. The advisory board collaborated with growth management to review and modify the community health element of the Alachua County Comprehensive Plan that extends from 2019 to 2040. And one of our suggestions was to include not only social determinants, but social determinants in terms of epigenetic determinants. So those wider range of parameters are considered when they plan and develop initiatives. Our second bullet point here is the community health assessment. Our advisory board prioritized challenges identified through the community health assessment toward combating health and correlating social issues in Alachua County. And then next, in the area of dental therapy or dental therapists, on the recommendation of our advisory board, we are very appreciative that the board of county commissioners wrote a letter of support for dental therapy legislation. And in fact, that letter was hand-carried to a very important committee meeting by one of the commissioners. We also worked with Find Help, which is a free online feedback system that identifies related resources in the area. So you can search by zip code, keywords, or a program name to identify local services using the Internet, and this is a free service. So one of our board members took it on to the responsibility just to work with them and make sure that the information was readable by a general consumer. We met with Bill Nice to update us on what the community health workers are doing and to explore with us the new coach program, which focuses on how to train people, and the community health workers went through this, the training to improve health support for people to meet their health goals. So it's not just a one-stop, a one-time shopping. It's ongoing support to community people. So our goals and objectives for next year, our advisory board priority areas are health literacy, aging, uninsured people, excuse me, uninsured people and underinsured people, mental health needs, dental therapy and dental needs, wellness, et cetera. We will explore initiatives to increase access to services and resources where residents live, so be more attentive to the opening up the possibilities of services in place. We will participate in initiatives through the direction of the 2025 Community Health Improvement Plan, and we link to Courtney Oliver out of CHIP to help us identify where the needs, where the health improvement needs are for improving public health to try to develop initiatives to meet those needs. We will review and support legislation aimed at health care reform, including dental therapy, and this is a big one for us. Dr. Frank Catalonado, who is a member of our advisory board, is now known as the father of dental therapy in Florida. He's a past academic, was the dean of the college of dentistry at UF, and he has provided leadership for Florida to have dental therapists available to improve access to care. We are very proud that he was awarded by the American Dental Association at their national conference in August the Advocacy and Policy Award for his long work. So one of the things that he was successful in doing with some other people is gaining a recent grant for Floridians for dental access to support communication and travel to meet with legislators in this upcoming year and social media contacts to see if this time we can get not only the House, Florida House, which passed the dental therapy statute, but also this time to get the Senate to meet, actually, so that they can take a vote on it. And through some logistical changes and challenges, the Senate was not able to bring that vote up this past legislative session. So we're, under Dr. Catalano's leadership, we're really eager for that to happen in the House and the Senate for a Florida statute for dental therapists to be allowed to be trained and licensed and to work in dental offices with the dental hygienist and actually licensed dentists and licensed oral surgeons who will actually provide this supervision for the dental therapists. And last, our advisory board will serve as ambassadors of county health programs, including Choices, and Choices continues. Thank you. Are there any questions or comments? There are. We've got a couple of lights, and then we'll get to public comments after that. Commissioner Prizia, and then Commissioner Wheeler. Yes, thank you so much. I know that you all lean really heavily on the community health assessment and the community health improvement plans. I know that the state has discontinued the health department's work in doing those community health assessments and community health improvement plans. And I'm wondering if our advisory board would take up the mantle of figuring out how we would move forward with continuing to do those health assessments and those health improvement plans. They're really critical to how we make decisions up here, how you all make recommendations to us and how we make decisions and prioritize funding that goes into health needs in our community. And seeing that that's no longer going to happen through the health department, I'm just concerned that we wouldn't have that data and that information at our fingertips. I know, well, Florida has been a part of that conversation, and perhaps they would take up that work. But I just would love to see, with this board's approval, to ask our community advisory board to take a look at what we might do to continue doing community health assessments and community health improvement plans in spite of the change and the health department's focus of that. And SHIP going on to a quarterly collection of data is going to be helpful with that, but that will be very important for us to link with them at our meetings to find out how we can do just that and make suggestions to the county commissioners. Okay. Yeah. Well, I'd be happy to move that we accept your goals and objectives with the additional objective to make recommendations to us on how to continue with a community health assessment and improvement plan process moving forward. Second. Got a motion and second. Commissioner Wheeler. Yes, thank you. Boy, this is some heavy lifting you all are doing. Your committee is really, has got some amazing goals and objectives to take care of for the community, and I appreciate your work in doing that because it's not for all of us. Not all of us have the expertise to be able to handle what you all are handling, so thank you for that. I would ask you, what is the current status of the Choices program right now? Ms. Bennington. Good morning. Child Independence and Community Support Services. Yes, Choices, we currently have two recipients. We are collaborating with OMB to figure out as far as the next funding amount. We do have an anticipated amount, but we foresee it continuing. Thank you. We had spoken with some labor representatives who were really anxious to make sure that we get, you know, keep this going and actually increase the power of its impact in the community based on what we're seeing with people's inability to pay for insurance or to make even their medical payments. And so, you know, I think there is an interest in this program, again, in terms of making sure that it's healthy and functioning for the community. Additionally, I'll add that one of the items that Healthcare Advisory Board will be doing next fiscal year is getting presentations from both of our Choices recipients to identify gaps in services and figure out how we can better serve the community. Great. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Commissioner, all right, got a motion and a second. Any discussion? Anyone from the public? Okay, back to the board. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion is unanimous. Dr. Dye, thank you so much. Thank you for your leadership. Yeah, we really appreciate you. All right, Mr. Clerk, I believe it is right at 12 o'clock. That clock's fast, so we'll go ahead and open up public comments. So twice a day, we give the community the opportunity to come speak to us about anything that's not on the agenda or if you are here to speak about something on the agenda, if you'll just identify yourself as that and then when that item comes up in the future, you won't be allowed to speak to it. Some folks have to come in and then they have to leave. If you'll just come up to the podium, we've got a light system. Green means go, yellow means 30 seconds, red means stop. If you'll make your way up to either this podium or that podium, introduce yourself, and we'll go ahead and open up public comment. And then we'll go to the phones, and then we'll get to our action item for those of you that are here for that. So welcome. Hello, my name is Dale Proct, and I'm a resident in our county. And I want to first thank each and every one of you as the commissioners for your service. My grandfather and my father were county commissioners in Kansas. I'm not in Kansas anymore. But I definitely, totally respect the work that you're doing. I'm here to talk to you a little bit about an infrastructure concern that I have for the community. As we know, infrastructure can be and should be a community asset and a capital. I am going to talk about a three-mile stretch of roadway on Northwest 53rd Avenue. It goes from U.S. 441 or 13th Street all the way to 43rd Street. I don't know if any of you have driven on that. Oh, yes. Okay. Regularly. All the time. That's actually become beyond a liability or a nuisance. It's beyond a nuisance and then a liability at this point. Not only are my selves, and I was warned one day for driving around potholes. Did you know that's not legal? You can hit a biker, I was told by the policeman. So I asked him, well, what should I do on this road? He goes, well, go really slow and stay on them. So I've also observed county vehicles trying not to hurt themselves on this road. All I can say is I've called it in twice. The last lady I talked to, she was a really nice lady. But she said, I'm so sorry to tell you, this stretch of road isn't even on the plan. So I have no idea. So it's beyond potholes where the little plates are, you know, the water, sewage plates. It's actually sinking in in a couple of places, almost a sinkhole. I don't know where or how I can affect your decision. Someone drives it regularly. Who was that that drove it regularly? We all do. We do. Yes, yes. All right, good. So you all know. Please see if you can make that a little bit higher on the priority for the roadways. Because someone's going to get hurt on that road. And I just want to thank you again for your time. I know budgets are tight. And I know that decisions are hard. But sometimes you might have to reassess because of things that happen or the nature of things that happen at different times. So thank you. Thank you, Mr. Brockman. Yep. Okay. Next speaker, please. Good morning to the chair and commissioners. My name is Joseph Cawthon. I represent a group called Save Our Scenic Roads. I'm asking for a specific and measured action concerning the town of Tioga South Annex, also known as Tioga Gardens. The proposed connection to Southwest 143rd Street and Southwest 15th Avenue is what I'm specifically concerned with. I emphasize this is not a request to oppose responsible development or revisit every feature of the preliminary plan. It is a request to ensure that the county's scenic road protections are applied openly and on the written record before a final plan authorizes construction affecting the corridor. The county recognizes Dusty Trail, now Southwest 15th Avenue, as a scenic road. County information states that the scenic road ordinance creates a protected area extending 100 feet from the right-of-way line. That protection exists to preserve the roadway's natural and historic character, including heritage trees, while addressing public safety and compatible development. The preliminary Tioga Gardens plan contemplates as many as 500 residences plus commercial space. In 2024, the commission discussion identified its concern about added traffic and speed, collision risks, and damage to heritage trees. A roundabout with a directional design was discussed. These ideas may be helpful, but their effectiveness should be demonstrated and made enforceable through a final plan condition document. I ask the board to direct growth management, public, works, environmental protection, and the county attorney to provide a single written assessment before approval of the affected final plan. It should identify every applicable policy and code standard, quantify existing and projected traffic, evaluate turning movements, speed, crash exposure, emergency access, and cut-through traffic, inventory protected trees, and scenic resources, and explain explicitly how the design will avoid, minimize, or mitigate adverse effects. It should also state who will monitor compliance, what measurements will be used, what corrective action will follow if actual traffic or safety conditions exceed the assumptions that were used for approval. I will yield, and thank you for your attention. Thank you, Mr. Kaufman. And if you'll just hang tight, when we're done with public comment, we'll have the commissioners address that item. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Come forward. If you want to queue up, feel free to queue up behind Faye. Hey, Faye. Good morning. Good evening, commissioners and audience. I take my shades off from having vision problems, but I came up here to show support for the Hutchinson Foundation. When I was sitting here, I thought about two things that I need to put out from my heart and my brain. I was really upset with the elections that we had for a lot of reasons, and I'm sure a few of you were upset as well. And what I'm asking, especially with the commissioners, to form a task force, and it should be the city and the county to be able to sit down and talk about a few things, mostly about race. And I know nobody wants to talk about race and sexism and homophobia and classism, but it's needed. It's really clear it's needed. So I'm asking for a task force from the county. I'm also asking, I'm going to ask for $50,000, and that may sound like a lot of money, but you've given much more than $50,000. And that's going to be for the Environmental and Climate Change Conference. We had it set up for September 18th, 19th, and 20th, and we postponed it. It will be held on International Women's Day. I don't remember the date, but I'll provide more information on that. And it should be, you know, I'm asking for $50,000 because we need to have the right kind of a, we're going to, let me back up, we're going to have a workshop that's going to be October the 3rd or 4th, and that will be held over at Acron Jones. We're going to have a workshop on environmental justice. And the purpose of that workshop is to define some of the terms. I've been talking to a lot of people, and everybody's like, climate change, what does that really mean? When people say environmental justice, what does that really mean? When we say racial justice, we kind of know that, but we're talking about environmental justice as well. And so we're going to have a workshop October the, I think it's the 4th, from 12 until 5. Last thing, yeah, I think that was pretty much it. But I, you know, it was troubling. The election was troubling, and it really didn't have to be. So we want to prevent that from happening next time when we have an election, you know. I'm a community organizer. I know how to organize people. I know how to talk to people. And I'm able to listen to people. Thank you, Ms. Fay. And that was some of the major problems. So I hope that you think about forming a task force. Okay, thank you, Ms. Fay. And we're going to get to Mr. Hutchins' proposal when we get down to our action items. Okay, anyone else from the public? If you're here to speak on that particular item, if you'll just hold tight, we'll get to that. This is for everything not on the agenda. Yeah, and, sir, if you want to queue up here, you'll be after Monica. Monica, welcome. Good morning. I am Monica Frazier. I didn't really intend to speak today, but I just want to say a few words about 15th Street. I know that it is on the schedule for paving and for fixing and glorifying. And I appreciate the fact that how it's – why is this – the schedule of how things are moving and the patchwork is coming more regular, but the problem is with every rain, the potholes are becoming bigger and deeper. And now they really, truly are like craters. So when they do open, they're deep. I won't drive on that road when it's raining. I'll do the long way all around by the graveyard because I'm afraid of popping a tire because it's bad. You know, and once the water is on the road and you can't see anymore, it's really dangerous. So somebody needs to come out and look at that, please, and to see what else can be done in the meantime while we wait for the big, glorious fix. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Frazier. Okay, next speaker, please. My name is Jay Fowler, and I want to thank you for this opportunity to address this county commission. I have deep respect for each member of this commission as you represent democracy directly to the people in our county. Regarding our scenic road of Southwest 15th Avenue, also known as Dusty Trail, I am here to help preserve it. I have been living a long, dusty trail for 50 years, and I have seen it change from a lime rock road to one of four scenic roads in our county. We have at present 55 stately live oak trees along the very edge of this road, which are over 100 years old. At present, Tioga South Annex is a threat to this scenic road. In their plan, they have designed one major east-west road called Road J to service 500 homes and exit on the west end in line with our scenic road. We are talking of 500 to 1,000 cars or more using our scenic road to continue driving west toward Newbury. When we had our first meeting with Mr. Diaz and Jay Brown of J.B. Pro showing us their design of Tioga South, we pointed this fact out to them, and they seemed surprised, as if this never thought came about for this impact. In a court of law, the difference between first-degree murder and manslaughter is intent. So what was the intent of the designer for Tioga South? Did they design in a vacuum, or was it just a convenient solution? Never thinking of our scenic road at this same meeting. After pointing out the harm it would do to our scenic road, Jay Brown of J.B. Pro suggested a Band-Aid to the problem. A roundabout. No roundabout drawings have been submitted. And it's still an afterthought. A plan that can't be changed is a poor plan indeed. There should be no Road J continuing to the west of this annex. It should loop north before this point and tie into other roads of the thing. This will surely protect our beautiful scenic road for another 150 years. Thank you, Mr. Fowler. Thank you. And we're going to address that. Yeah, come on up. Next speaker. How many more in the room need to speak before we get to the phones? Okay, Mark, you'll be our... Okay. There's in the back. Yeah, come on up. You'll be next, and then Mark, you'll be the last one, and then we'll go to the phones. Okay. Go ahead. Hello. Susan Milbrath. I'm with this group that is trying to preserve the scenic road, and I really appreciate what the commissioners have done in the past meeting with us. And we just need a little more action here. I want to thank Joe Coffin for leading us. Our group is called Save Our Scenic Roads. I also want to thank Byron Flagg for advising us on the legal issues on this matter. Southwest 15th Avenue has been a scenic road for more than 20 years, and is really being enjoyed for recreation by bikers, walkers, and even occasionally horseback riders. With the expansion of Town of Tioga South Annex and their plan to put a roundabout at the corner of our scenic road, we have had to pull together to save a road that is only one of four scenic roads in the county. We do not want to stop development. We want wise development. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good afternoon, commissioners. My name is Chelsea Legault. I am the treasurer for the Across Town Repertory Theater. For the past five years, the county has invested in our non-profit volunteer-run community theater through the Nature and Culture Destination Enhancement Grant. Last year, we averaged 93% capacity, and 14% of our audience traveled from outside of Alachua County to spend time and money in our community. I am here today to ask for your support in allowing the Across Towns grant application to be considered, despite a mistake I made during the final submission process. I want to begin by taking full responsibility. Our committee completed the narrative responses and saved a draft of the application in the portal 10 days before the deadline. Regrettably, I waited until the day of the deadline to upload our supporting documents and realized that the files did not follow the required naming convention. I corrected the file names and began uploading them again, but I failed to complete the submission before the portal timed out at 2 p.m. I contacted the tourism department at 2.03 to report the problem, and my request for assistance was forwarded to procurement, who ultimately denied my submission. I understand the county's policy and why consistent deadlines and procedures matter, and I'm not asking the board to disregard those requirements. I'm asking you to consider whether this particular circumstance warrants a small exception. There is precedent for the board exercising judgment when an NCDE application has been submitted after the deadline. In the fiscal year 24 grant cycle, the board approved an application that was submitted after the deadline, but before the next working day. The following year, the board again accepted a late application from the same organization. I mention this not because we believe we're entitled to the exact same treatment, but because it demonstrates that the board has previously recognized circumstances where a late application can still be considered. This was also the first year that this application was submitted through OpenGov, and it's my first experience with this portal. We're a completely volunteer-run organization. We have no paid or administrative staff. The people managing these applications are the same volunteers, producing theater, and serving our community. And we have taken corrective action. Going forward, at least two members of our executive board will share responsibility for every grant application and ensure submissions are completed on time. Most importantly, I'm not asking for the county to award us a grant without review. I'm only asking that you allow our application to be considered on its merits. The purpose of this program is to bring visitors to Alachua County, and we believe that our application demonstrates that the Across Town is doing exactly that. I respectfully ask you to exercise your discretion and allow our application to be considered. Thank you so much for your time and for the five years of partnership and support you've already given to the Across Town Repertory Theater. Thank you, Chelsea. Okay, we'll address that after your comments. Mark, you're the last one, and we're going to move to the phones. I like that. That's smart. First time I see somebody do that. This is about a timeline. So, you've got seven years and four months. Excuse me? My name is Mark Van Suisbergen. Hi. I like your presentation, by the way. So, there are seven years and four months before it goes into a completely different direction. So, you've got September, October, November, December. That's the four months. You've got 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33. It's January 34, and it's gone. The white thing goes away. The atmosphere slows down. It has no center. And large waves of, like, atmosphere are going to, like, wander from the south to the north and from the north to the south. It's beyond the capacity of most of the DNA in the northern hemisphere. You see rain parked on top of Iowa for six weeks. If you think the Rhine is low now, it'll look like Hatchet Creek. Seven years and four months. And that's it. Now, I know you understand that, but there's a difference between understanding and grasping. Grasping is that moment where you go, oh, crap, I need to do something, like, right now. And so, you can use the roadways as a platform to show people what you're doing and explain why you're doing it. People drive to work every day. And not everybody will totally get it, but they'll see it, and they'll begin to understand. So, you've got seven years and four months to get the herd to get ready to feed themselves. Because when that center goes away, that's it. You get your monsoons coming in, you know, a month or two earlier. That means your rice goes down. You've got all these normal natural crops that are, like, berry and fruit-oriented. They're just out of sync all of a sudden. You've got these large rain events or long dry spells. The global food production is going to go and falter really fast. So, seven years and four months. Thank you, Mark. That's it. Thank you. You're welcome. All right, Mark, let's go to the phones. Some talk a little more positive than others. Okay, Mr. Chair, we have three callers. Two have their hands raised. If the third caller wants to speak, please press star 9 on your phone. Mr. Chair, the first caller has a number ending in 2-1-2-1. You are in the room. If you would hit star 6 and state your name, you have three minutes. Hi, my name is Abigail Perejentiel, and I really wanted to be here today. First, I want to thank you all for declaring Suicide Awareness Month and for all the work that people do to help folks that are struggling. I want to talk about my friend, Carrie Ford, who died by suicide downtown on August 13th. She was a baker, an activist, an animal lover, an artist, a poet, and one of the most meticulously thoughtful people I knew. I've been working with people experiencing homelessness and health inequities for about 11 years, and I could not help her enough because of how bad it is right now. Carrie was number 1,186 on the housing wait list for a year. She was discharged from CSU without her medication. She was doing everything right. She was looking for work. She was sober. She was meditating. She was reaching out for help. The people who were trying to help her have very low resources themselves, but I want to share some bullet points about the systems that have been impacting people on the streets right now. First, people are being discharged into vulnerability, released straight from mental health lockdown without necessary medication or discharged without a safety net, which set her up to fail the moment she stepped out of the door. There was zero aftercare. There was no transitional housing or safe shelter for women. The bureaucratic runaround has forced people to jump through endless administrative hoops to just secure basic medical prescriptions, navigate housing wait lists designed like cold data-driven corporate maze rather than a lifeline. A system blocked by red tape ping pong endlessly from agency to agency facing year-long wait list for housing vouchers and over 1,200 people desperate for basic rental assistance, rendering real-time help virtually non-existent. The invisible human costs, people are stripped of dignity and treated like a data point rather than a person, leaving friends like me and frontline workers to carry the weight unpaid, unsupported, and burning out while paid structural systems look away. My call to action is our call to the community is for community-driven, real-time support. Agencies have been stripped of funding or autonomy for real-time support, having to turn people away for rental assistance and move-in costs. There are people who are advocating to make it harder. And I just want to emphasize how health care and housing are suicide prevention. During post-COVID, there was the CARES Act funding that led agencies to move fast. That's gone, so everything is the coordinated entry list. If I was able to walk Carrie into an agency and get help in real-time, she may still be here. Thank you for hearing. Okay. Caller, whose number ends in 4565, if you will hit star six, state your name. You'll have three minutes. Go ahead, caller. Good day, Commissioners. My name is Sarah Younger. I'm calling today from the Sierra Club Swanee Street Challenge Group. Thank you for taking time to take my comments. I wanted to, first off, let you know that later today the city of Alachua is considering language that could open the door to large-scale data centers. We are asking people to ask the city of Alachua to pause data centers, not to pave the way. You know, across our area, there are many counties and municipalities that are adopting moratoriums because data centers pose very serious questions about water, power demand, infrastructure costs, and who actually pays for that. We are asking that Alachua not rush this decision. We're telling our supporters to show up and ask the Planning and Zoning Board to strike policy 15E to recommend instead a temporary moratorium on large-scale data centers. That meeting tonight is in Alachua with City Hall, which is 15100 northwest, 142nd Karis in Alachua, because we're asking Alachua to know the true cost when dealing with a hyper-scale data center, like this massive water consumption. They can require up to 5 million gallons of water every day. These, as we know, are this at a time when we're facing drought throughout our state. Public health and noise is a matter as well, where they create permanent high-deciple drone sounds that disrupt residents and could drive them out of their neighborhoods. And then, you know, it also offers very minimal economic benefit, as many of these centers do not actually have very many permanent jobs. So we're urging folks to take action today, and we also would like them to look for our website, sierraclub.org, slash Florida, slash data centers. You can learn more there. We offer online materials as well as a toolkit for residents that are looking to get more engagement on this. As the county has already expressed that they feel that these centers are not appropriate without further scrutiny, we urge you to also consider what you might need to do in order to eliminate the threat of these massive data centers in our county. I'm also letting you know that, once again, we're having a water summit, October 10th. This is at the Lions Club in Alachua. This is open to anyone from 2 to 5 p.m. We've also got future Commissioner Tina Certain will be there as the moderator. We're looking forward to this, where we bring experts together to discuss water issues for our region. I think it's highly important before this next cycle of the election that people get accurate information on what all these streams on our system for water are. Thank you. Mr. Chair, that was the last caller. I will tell you, though, that there's been a great deal of social media interest in what's going on in the city of Alachua. So we posted the county commission's policy and recent discussion on it. You can see that close to the top on our Facebook and other social media pages. So with regards to the data center, I did have a question about with it being this particular proposal being within a municipality, but the potential impacts on our water resources, what is our standing with regards to how that decision is made? Ms. Torres, do you want to take a shot at that? So, Mr. Chair, I think it depends. We do not have a land use authority within the cities, but to the extent that they might have to submit something to us for us to look at in the development plan potentially. But ultimately, the land use authority and the decision whether they can go in that jurisdiction or not is for the city's land use authority. What about their use of water? Because we have jurisdiction over the whole county for our water resources protection. Right. Those are CUPs that are issued by the state. Those are consumptive use permits that are issued by the state. Our jurisdiction is less about consumption and more about quality. Can I step in? Mm-hmm. So, Ms. Torres, as I understand it, the planning commission is hearing something tonight. Is that right? Or is it the actual? That's correct. Okay. And so, if we object to something the planning commission does, then that would be appealed to the full board's commission for modification. Is that correct? So, Mr. Chair, I'm not sure what exactly the planning commission is doing, but if they are reviewing part of their code, then there would be an adoption by the board. The planning commission would have the first hearing, and the board would have a second hearing. That would be a legislative item. What you're talking about is those quasi-judicial items that go before the planning commission that can be appealed to the city board. So, do Ms. or Steve know if what the planning board is doing tonight is actually going to become law, or is it something that would then go before the full board? Mr. Chair, it will have to go to the full board. I'm going to look up their agenda, but I believe the only thing they're considering tonight is the transmittal of the evaluation and appraisal comp plan amendments. So, it would go like it goes to our plan board, then to you guys. That's how it would travel. So, this would be the first public hearing to consider the amendments for that evaluation and appraisal process. So, if it's transmitted, would it be adopted by the full board or the planning commission? Well, it would have to go to the full board for transmittal to the state and come back 30, 60, probably 60 days later for adoption. So, Commissioner, we have not had a joint meeting with the city of Alachua, so we'll see what happens tonight. And then, if it's something that we want to act on, we have plenty of time to act on that, it sounds like. And I'm going to try to verify that on their agenda right now. Okay. Thank you. You still have the floor? Okay. So, that was that one. Thank you. And we will keep an eye on that just to Sarah and the members of the Sierra Club. Thank you for bringing it to our attention, and we'll certainly be paying close attention as that moves forward. Second is Abigail. Abigail, thank you for calling in. I was made aware of Carrie's suicide through Abigail as well. And, you know, it really made me think long and hard about the systems that we have. And I don't think we can answer this today. And I don't anticipate staff coming forward to give me an answer today. But I would like to have a conversation about the by-name list and how that's working or not working to serve our community. I know the importance of it in some regards with certain pots of funding. And I understand that it's supposed to create fairness. But I do see again and again how it is failing so many people who are at the bottom of that list and who might only need minimal services to be able to then get into housing and get stabilized. And yet they fall off, you know, of this, they fall into this pit of despair, essentially, because they know they're never going to get onto the top of the list if they're number 1,185 on the list. So, you know, I do, we had a summit on housing and homelessness not that long ago. I felt like there were some okay recommendations that came out of it. We've had some conversations about family homelessness. And we've had a group from the Children's Trust come and give us some recommendations on that front. I think we have a lot of conversations swirling around the issue of unhoused individuals and homelessness in our community. But I'm not sure that we've really come up with an action plan that is solution-oriented. I know we need our school board at the table. I know we need Children's Trust at the table. I know we need our city at the table, all of our small cities, really, as well as the city of Gainesville at the table. But I do just want to say to Abigail, I hear you. Say to all of our housing advocates and homelessness advocates, I hear you. And ask our staff to hear me in saying, like, I think we need a next step. What is the next step after these summits and these conversations that have been had in the community so that we can feel like we're putting together a real plan, much like our action plan for climate change? How do we get an action plan for homelessness? I think we had one many, many years ago, but it's very outdated. It's time to create a new one. So that's to Abigail. Thank you for calling. Road, Scenic Road. I wanted to ask Missy or Chris or somebody who's here from Growth Management if they could address. I remember this distinctly, and I remember very clearly bringing this up in the meeting and making sure that one of our conditions of approval for this project was that that Scenic Road be protected. And the idea wasn't just a roundabout, but it was a one-way roundabout that had restrictive access, so they couldn't go on to dusty trails. And I'm just checking in that that's still the case and where we are with that project. Mr. Chair, Chris Dawson, Principal Planner for Development Services at Growth Management. The Board did adopt a condition with the preliminary development plan, and it's worded, provide a roundabout that precludes westbound traffic from Road J onto Southwest 15th Avenue at the intersection of Southwest 15th Avenue and Southwest 143rd Street. This will be constructed when the connection is made from Road J in Phase 2. Okay. So we are holding them to that. The condition is part of the preliminary development plan, so there's not really a way for them to get out of that. I would say it's unlikely that there is an engineered plan for that right now because that happens when they make their connection, and right now the phases that are being developed in Tioga are on the east side of the development, not the west side. But it would preclude any traffic going on the dusty trail. That's the word I heard you just say. Mr. Chair, that's the intent. I mean, drivers do whatever drivers do. So we can engineer a solution, but they, you know, people are going to make the movements that they make. My understanding is that that movement, when we discussed it, the way that the engineer presented the part, and I don't know if you all were at that meeting. I believe you were at that meeting. But the way they presented it would essentially be that the roundabout would have a cement barrier that would, people would not be able to, like when you go around the roundabout, you wouldn't be able to exit onto the 15th. You'd have to exit, drive north, turn, then turn around, then turn back around, and go onto the road. So it would make it very difficult. I mean, yes, there are going to be some people that are going to come on your road. There will be probably more traffic on the road than there has been in the past. But the majority of the traffic coming out at Road J, the idea was that this would preclude that. They would turn north or they would go out of the belt. That's what our transportation demand models show is that most people are going to go north or east. And there is another exit in that development? It goes out through the existing phases of Tioga, yes, to Southwest 8th Avenue. Okay, great. Can I cut in on this one? Yeah, so if we could get the latest plans that are being discussed so we could see that it's meeting the precludes. There are no plans right now, Mr. Chair. There are no phase that proposes to connect to Southwest 140. Okay, they're developing to the east, moving to the west. That's correct, Mr. Chair. Okay, sounds good. And, you know, 55 Live Oaks, that's one of our most scenic roads that we want to just stay on top of to make sure it's protected. Okay, Mr. Chair. Thank you. And then my last is to the Across Town Repertory Theater. I would be happy to make the motion that we give you the opportunity to be considered for consideration on that award. It's a grant program. It's not a procurement program, so it doesn't fall under our procurement rule. I'm not sure why procurement was consulted. It's a program of our tourism department, and we have the authority to, you know, waive. And I understand mistakes are made and problems happen, especially when you're an all-volunteer board. And you made every effort to get it in on time. And so I would be willing to make the motion that they still be considered for that award along with the other applications. That's my motion. Okay, we've got a motion in a second. Before we get to that motion, let's get the finished comments. So we've got Commissioner Wheeler and then Commissioner Alford. It meets at 930 in the morning, so we can take it up there. That's when tomorrow? In the morning. Okay. Yeah. Yes. And is it Mr. Procton? Is that your? Okay. Have you been from 441 up towards Waldo on 53rd? Have you seen how beautiful? That's beautiful, isn't it? So we are familiar with the road system. So, you know, we're focused. And so far, that's been done. But thank you for bringing that forward, too, because I do travel that quite a bit, too, to get to animal services. And then, Faye, I would say the 930 in the morning, too, if you're still here, the meeting in the morning at Tourist, we can talk about, you know, your concerns for your events that you've got going on there, too. And, okay, the 15th. And 15th, yeah, the... I'm sorry, I missed your... Yeah, 15th, yes. That's going to be getting a lot of attention, isn't it? When is that planned? That was my question I meant to ask. Do we know... Well, with the act... We moved it up. Southwest 15th. Ramone's here somewhere. Let's see if we could get that, because it was... It was... Was it 20? Is it 27? It was 28, but we moved it to this year. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I just know that's a big number, a street number. The 15th is a big street number, too. But I think that's what I needed to say. Thank you. Can you conclude? I'm sorry. I'm trying to make sure I've seen it. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Oh, wait. I do have one question for Anna. I'm sorry. You guys will... Okay. Come on. I'm going off here now. Just give me a little grace. The housing group that you're a part... That's all. Go ahead. You're trying to get what? Nothing. Go ahead. This is what we do. The Housing Action Committee meeting. Are you on that? Who of us is on the Housing Action? The Affordable Housing Advisory Committee? I'm on. Well, I just saw that there was a note in the morning for a 10 o'clock meeting, and I didn't know if that's the sort of thing that we talk about. You're talking about, you know, working together for a plan or moving forward so that we could get better options or more creative options to get people in housing, and I didn't know if that was the group. Is that the COC's Housing Action Committee? It's just listed on my calendar as the Housing Action Committee meeting in the morning at 10. Ms. Tuck, do you know if that's the same? It might be a COC meeting. There is also a SHIP training meeting for commissioners. That's not tomorrow, though. But it is 10 o'clock next week, the week after. Well, it's just, you know, I just didn't know if that's where we talk about. I've been on. I've logged into most of those meetings or at least connected to the individuals. I think that the challenge is that it's not about what I'm asking for is that we rethink systems. We have really broken systems, and the bureaucracy surrounding housing and homelessness has gotten really dense. And, you know, the new federal rules aren't making it easier. They're making it worse. And as we see the work requirements for SNAP and for Medicare and these other things come, it's only going to make it worse because people's being able to meet their everyday needs and having to make the decision between paying rent and feeding their families and paying their health care bills is going to get worse and worse. And so it's a bigger discussion, and it's a discussion about how we as institutions lower the thresholds and the barriers to people entering supports and help and case managing and supporting people through those processes instead of having them show up at one office. And then two weeks, they have to show up at another office to fill out another application. And then they have to bring their firstborn child in a brick of gold to, like, this application process. And then they have to go through this training to be able to even qualify. You know, it's just there's so much. We make the paperwork burden and the time burden so heavy on people. Well, I knew that you've been involved with a lot of these different, and I just wanted to point out, you know, that you are engaged and involved and that there are venues for us to talk about these things. There are. Okay, thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Commissioner. Now I'm done. Before we get to Commissioner Alfred Ramone, did you want to give an update on Southeast 15th Street? I did see him come around the corner. I saw Monica recognize him. There he is. There he is. Yep. Could you just give an update on, that's the Southeast 15th Street and then also the three miles between 441 and 43rd Street on Northwest 53rd. Do you know about that one? Good morning. Ramon Gavarrete, the Pollywoods Director. Well, the only update I have for Southeast 15th is that it is on a regular schedule for potholes on one of the crews. I did send a report earlier this morning to all the commissioners also on the pothole efforts. So it's on the schedule, and we go there regularly. Yeah. Ramon, I want to thank you. Did you all see this? Yeah. This came through. So this is, I guess, is this going to be the weekly thing that you're sending us? Oh, my goodness. Yes, but I don't expect you to print it. Oh, my goodness. Well, I printed it because I'm going to read it, but I wanted folks to see. These are the pothole requests that we have in the last four counties. This is, but I appreciate. It's spreadsheet format, not individual papers. Yeah, I appreciate the effort, but thank you. Yeah. All right. The other section on Northeast is 53rd, I believe, the question, right? Between 43rd. That one, again, is on, you know, potholes, and we cover those potholes as needed. It's not one of those roads that we get a lot of requests on. We just heard today if you could just send someone out there to check on that. I'm sure it's going to make it to the list. Okay. Just to let the board know, this morning there were 222 requests through RV maintenance for potholes, and just take advantage of this opportunity that I have. You know, we would appreciate one email per roadway instead of 15 emails per roadway from the same individual, because that just basically just slows down the whole processing. Yeah. Yeah. But anyways, we have 222, I think, is what I saw this morning. But we are grouping them by road, and then going now. Those that come in, like, that are very large or are darkened, but by DSO, like after hours or something, we do have a crew that will go out. And as per my report also, we have secured now another material, asphalt rock, that we tested last year, and it seems to be staying. The previous coal patch that we used to use wouldn't stay more than a week. But this other one, now it's a little bit expensive, but we're going to be using those in those days where we have to go do special requests and let's say that asphalt manufacturers are not producing asphalt. Let's use those on Southeast 15th Street. That would be great. Can I just hop in on that real quick on 53rd? It's 53rd. No, I understand that we heard from. I guess it's also on Northwest 53rd, if I'm not mistaken. I mean, we've had a number of major accidents on that roadway. And I just, I'm interested to know if there's anything that we could be collaborating with through our Safe Streets, you know, through the Safe Streets for All plan and our work with DOT through the MTPO, if that roadway might be something that should be evaluated. And, Commissioner, I'm not going to speak to that report right now because, quite frankly, I don't know if that was in the report or not. But looking at the report, if there was one crash, it's probably in the report. So I'm sure it's there. At the end of the day, it comes down to, like we all know, the mighty dollar. But, again, if it's a pothole request, it will get a work order that will be issued, and we'll look at it. Now, if it's a, like I said, if it's a large one, and we will send that fourth crew out. And I just want to say, just because we sent a crew out to do one pothole report, one pothole that we did on that road, doesn't mean that we're going to forget the rest. It's just that the fourth crew is the one just going for special requests. Okay. The other three crews are doing the whole roadway. We're getting emails also complaining about, well, you came and did this one. You didn't do this other one that was 50 feet away. Which were the emails that we used to get before we started doing the whole roadways? So, we're doing basically a mixture of both. Three crews are to do the whole roadway. The fourth crew is to do special requests. Okay. All right. We got to keep going, guys. We got a lot on the agenda. Mary, do you have anything else before we vote on this motion? Yeah. I just wanted to talk real briefly about Abigail, which isn't what this motion is about. Go ahead. Okay. So, I wanted to let people know that Abigail wrote a pretty detailed substack thing on that that I shared on my social media sites. But I would like to make staff aware of this. Because in this essay that she put on substack, she lists some very, very specific problems that our community, places where our community messed up, basically. And I think it's really important that we look at this. We've had too many people that have committed suicides that have been leaders in our community, that have been the helpers of others. And we can't afford to lose those people. It's really, it's really discouraging and sad to me. But what, so this is on, if you're familiar with substack, it's Abigail, her, it's under De La Hoya, D-E-L-A-H-O-Y-A. And I'm happy to send a link to anybody that would like one. But I do encourage staff to take a look at this. I think it's really an important thing to read. I encourage her to actually read this whole essay into the record today, but she didn't have the resources to be able to do that. But I also thought that it was really interesting to me that a comment on this post was by Abigail on September 4th. And at the end of the post, she asked for financial donations to pay for Carrie's funeral. And she noted on September 4th that sadly, the amount we don't have to bury her properly is the exact amount we would have needed to house her. And it's interesting to me that, you know, the community could come together to help marry somebody, but we couldn't come together to help house somebody. And that to me is, you know, that's a lot to carry. So I wanted to make that staff aware of that. Mayor, would you mind if I added to my motion that we refer to staff the action recommendations in Abigail De La Hoya's sub-stack and ask that they bring us back a response to that with some recommendations or information for discussion? That would be perfect. Thank you. Yeah. Secondary? All right. We've got a two-part motion to open up the repertory and to refer some information to our staff to look at and bring back to us. All right. Anything else? All right. Any comments from the public on the motion? Seeing none back to the board. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? All right. That motion is unanimous. Thank you all. A little bit longer public comment than we anticipated, but we appreciate it. And we will now get back to our agenda. And Mr. Clerk, I believe we've got two items that were pulled from consent real quick. And then we'll get to the, I promise folks, we are going to get to the presentation of the legacy development. First item is 7F, which is the fiscal year 2027 funding agreement with Meridian Behavioral Healthcare Incorporated for community support services. Commissioner Prizio. Yes. I pulled this one. It has been brought to my attention several times, the challenges that we are having with our co-responders team. And so before I, or co-responder teams, I guess I should say. And I guess before I really approved this, I just felt like I really needed to hear from Meridian about what we're doing to have an improved recruitment and retention process for our co-responder teams. We've got 11 now, I believe. And of those, probably I think only seven right now are staff with social workers. Yes. And of those, I think those include the UF ones, I believe. So we manage eight total. And of those, we have five currently staffed with one candidate in the hiring process pending. We did have two depart at the same time to relocate to another state. But we've been meeting with both GPD and Alachua County Sheriff on some collaborative recruitment strategies because we found that sometimes when people want to come to our site or recruit with us, it's more of a traditional therapy type of position and not so much the co-responder type of work. Some of those individuals are going to law enforcement sites. So we're working now on getting those up collaboratively on both of those sites so that when applicants are looking on the law enforcement sites, they'll also see the position, although not managed by law enforcement, they do have a role in the recruitment. We've also discussed doing some more informative videos and recruitment strategies to paint a more detailed picture of what the positions are doing and what type of impact in community. Involvement, they do. So I think that could be very meaningful. So we're working on coordinating that now. We also did recently increase the salary for our positions to be able to hopefully attract more of the candidates. We realized that there are different salary tiers for office-based therapy, as you can imagine, if you're sitting in your office and individuals are coming into your space to be seen. Maybe that isn't the same level of working commitment that community-based work does. And even in those community-based programs, co-responder work riding along with the officers, responding to some certainly very difficult calls and some very difficult situations really isn't the same either. So we've adjusted that. And we did see a better response there. So we're continuing the discussions with both law enforcement agencies to see what we can do to get those positions filled and maintain them. Great. Well, I just wanted to highlight that as a real priority for us. Those co-responder teams have been, I mean, as you know from that, trying to do that video or thinking about it, the numbers, like what they've really been able to accomplish in terms of diverting people from jail and helping to diffuse situations that are very volatile in the community have been really, really important. I mean, it would be even greater if the police officers weren't uniformed, but that's a conversation for another day. But I do think that having these co-responder teams out in our community have been a huge, huge asset to us. And I would love for our, you know, our communications team, if there's any support we could do to help get that video out, once you've got it created to tell the story about these co-responders team, help those social workers and police officers that have dedicated themselves to crisis intervention to get the respect and sort of the storytelling that they deserve, I think we'd be really happy to do that. That would be fantastic. I think that the more we get that out, it is a position that, you know, we're also partnering with academic institutions to highlight because I think when you, you know, go to school to become a therapist, it's not the first type of position that is, that you're thinking of. So the more we can highlight that as a potential career path and some available options, I think the better. Yeah. I mean, FSU does have a social work program, so maybe we could collaborate directly with them. I would love to. The other thing I wanted to bring up, since we just had it talked about, is the way that people are discharged and discharged with medication. And I just wanted to be clear that through the central receiving facility and through your programs, people are discharged with their medication, correct? Yes, absolutely. Okay. So there's a number of different paths where that happens, but yes, they are discharged with medication. I know that we do see sometimes, although people are being discharged and they are certainly stable and ready for discharge, there is sometimes an unwillingness still with medication. So we do see that where clients will refuse and that is their right. Of course, we set them up with follow-up care and appointments and care coordinators reach out after discharge to see if there's a change to that mentality or a more open-mindedness on considering those certain medications. So we're using all of the available resources. Great. Well, I don't know how you all work with some of the other mental health service providers like VISTA and others in this community. But if you could bring it up at any meetings or coordinated efforts that you all have, that this is a real issue that we're seeing in our community. This individual in particular, I believe, was discharged from VISTA without medication even after asking for it. And it was a big issue for her. And I'm sure it's happening in other instances. So just conversations about how we can always ensure that if they're willing and they want it, that they're getting the medications when they leave. I think this is a great item for us to take back to the Advisory Council of Central Receiving just because you've got all the stakeholders represented there and can certainly talk about how we're collaborating and working together to make sure everyone has what they need. Great. Thank you. I know, you know, also hearing, I don't want to let it go unsaid with the housing issue. You know, we're working on connecting everyone with all of the available resources. Meridian has, you know, operates and manages housing. We have the Lodge. We're operating at full capacity despite the fact that it's only partially funded just because we know how critical housing is and the importance that it plays in the individuals, you know, post-impatient success and treatment success. Thank you. Well, with that, I would move that we accept the, or we, yeah, staff's recommendation on the contract for Meridian and appreciate you continuing to focus on the co-responder team's recruitment. Absolutely. Can we ask communications to also work with you? Oh, yeah. And communications to work with you all to get the word out about these positions and to help spread the word about the great work our co-responders are doing. Perfect. Thank you for your support. Got a motion? Second. Got a motion and a second, which is to approve item 7F without addition. Any discussion? Anyone from the public? Back to the board. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion is unanimous. Okay. Next item, Mr. Clerk, is 8A. Thank you. Yes, sir. The conveyance of a utility easement and temporary construction easement to Keynesville Regional Utilities for a lift station relocation. Ms. Lieberman, you pulled this one? I did. Oh, oh, Mayor Alford. Commissioner Alford, you recognize? Yeah, I looked at the map for this easement and this lift station would be going, if I'm looking at everything correctly, across the street from Chopsticks, across 13th Street from Chopsticks, basically. Is that right, Ramon? Am I looking at that correctly? Or whoever? Yeah. And so I guess, you know, we've had so many conversations, not so much this last year, but before that was GRU, and they have not been particularly willing to jump through extra hoops for us when we needed something. They did for our roadway recently. They did for our roadway, but it still was a lot of work. But I'm thinking back to GRUcom and other things. I just, you know, I understand we have property and it's an easy place for them to put it. I'm worried about there being longer term repercussions of putting a fairly large lift station in an area right across from a very popular restaurant where people eat outside. And the lake. And right next to the lake. Yeah, that's a good call. I just felt like there, you know, we need to think carefully about that. Ramon, do you want to speak to this one? Can we just maybe table this and have it come back for a presentation at a future event? Yeah, I would be totally okay with tabling it and having it come back for a presentation. Is there a deadline for GRU, I mean, I would presume? You know. Ramon. Can anybody speak to this item? It's about to not get approved. Ramon Cabarrate, Polyworks Director. I don't believe there is a deadline on their part. Just for the board to know, there's already a lift station there. DOT is the one that's asking GRU for safety reasons to move it back so that when they go and work on the lift station, they're not parked on the road. So that's really the reason why they're moving backwards. This is not citing a new lift station there. It's DOT asking to move it back. So there's already a lift station. It didn't show on the map that I was looking at. It didn't show. Yeah, there's already a current lift station there. How close is it to the restaurant? Excuse me? Do you know what the difference will be in terms of closeness to the restaurant? Will it be further away or closer? With respect to the restaurant, I really cannot tell you. But I believe they're just basically moving it backwards. Betsy, do you have any additional information? I just want more information. Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's right across the street from this picture I'm seeing. But it's literally moving it where it is right now, moving it back. Good. So that when they park their equipment, they're not parked on the road. It'll be better. It should be better. So it's moving further from the restaurant. Correct. Okay. And the lake. And I don't know that it's moving further from the lake. But if it's across the road, then. A few feet. Yeah. It's really not that much. They're moving it, I believe that I saw it was about 25 feet. Okay. But they need more to be able to work and work around. But it's really for safety reasons that they want to move it backwards so that their staff does not have to be parked in the middle of the roadway. And I understand that. Yeah. That's fine. Okay. If y'all are okay with it, I'm okay with it. I just felt like those questions needed to be asked. No, good. You want to move the staff recommendation? I'll move the staff recommendation. Second. Now, motion and second. Move the staff recommendation. Thank you. Ramon. Any discussion? I think we should just jump. Any public discussion? All those in favor say aye. Any opposed? That motion is unanimous. Okay. All right. So that got our consent items done. That moves us now to our first action item. Mr. Clerk. There's a lot of chatter in the back. Mr. Clerk. Next time. Mr. Chair, that takes us to the second item, or the first item on the action list. It's the Alachua County Legacy Community Development Grant Application Presentation of Proposals, and the recommended action was for the board to consider both grant applications, rank and grant applications, using the attached evaluation criteria, which I will be handing out in a second. That was published as part of the grant solicitation. Direct staff to negotiate a proposed grant agreement with a top-ranked applicant, and direct staff to bring the proposed grant agreement back to the final board consideration and approval. All right. Thank you, Mr. Clerk. And we've got Ralston Riyadika, who is here. Did I pronounce your last name correctly? Riyadika. Yes, sir. Mr. Chair, yes. Okay. So welcome. And I know this has been a discussion in the community for many a year, years. And so thank you for presenting the presentation, and you are recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Ralston Riyadika with Community Support Services. So a little bit of a recap of how we got here before I introduce the applicants. We do have two applicants present to make the presentations. And so the last time we came before the commission about this legacy development project, you directed staff to go over the grant application process to offer the land plus potential funding using the workforce housing component consistent with the wild spaces and public places infrastructure surtax. The other part of the motion was to consider allowing options that include mixed housing types, such as attached single-family duplexes and triplexes as designed appropriately. And so a little bit of the scope from the grant application. Obviously, this is for development of workforce and market-rate housing of the 13-acre site development that the county currently owns. Looking for at least 30 or more detached single-family homes, providing a mixed-income model with workforce and market-rate housing for families within 50% to 120% of the area median income with long-term affordability where applicable. Obviously, we want to seek durable, energy-efficient, cost-effective housing types, maximizing site utilization while preserving neighborhood character, generating community benefits including attainable home ownership, and economic impact in order to incorporate community amenities, supporting livability and neighborhood identity. We're really seeking a qualified developer that has demonstrated experience in single-family residential and mixed-income development with capacity to deliver workforce and market-rate housing, evidence of financial strength, bonding capacity, and demonstration of the ability to secure financing, and a history of navigating land-use approvals and infrastructure planning, and a commitment to sustainable design and community engagement. So without further ado, I would like to introduce Kendrell Hutchinson from Hutchinson Foundation, one of the applicants for this grant application. Okay. Mr. Hutchinson, welcome. Come on up. If you want to give those to the... The clerk, he's not here at this moment, but if you leave him right there, he'll pass him. He'll pass him out as soon as, yep. So, Ralston, we're going to have two presentations, and then you're going to come back? Yes, Mr. Chair. Okay. Very good. All right. Mr. Hutchinson, welcome. How are you guys doing? Great. Very good. My name is Kendrell Hutchinson. I am the founder and principal developer for the Hutchinson Foundation, and this is a brief presentation as it relates to the development proposal that we signed. Thank you. A lot of accounting on behalf of the legacy site that uses. So just a brief bit of information about the Hutchinson Foundation. We are a Gainesville-based non-for-profit developer dedicated to creating affordable housing. We're locally rooted. Anything that we do, we take a community-first approach, and also we are very focused on housing, affordable housing, and then also workforce housing to ensure that we present premium quality in our own community. And also, we have a proven developer's capacity as well. How we got here? I mean, it's kind of obvious. I mean, there was a bunch of conversations that have been had over, what, four or five years. The county site is 3.11 acres at the intersection of Southeast 2nd Avenue and Southeast 15th Street. One of the things that the community called for, which is Mr. Rothman stated, was that we were looking, the community was asking for home ownership, quality home ownership, senior housing, child care, and also neighborhood retail. So what we did was we met with the community several times, had a lot of different conversations. They kind of gauged exactly what the community was looking for, and we came up with a comprehensive plan that I think you guys will like. So this is a layout of this development project that we're looking to propose and develop on behalf of the community, is what I would say. What you see here is the legacy project. It's a mixed income, multi-generational community. The master plan includes single-family homes, seeing living rentals, a community space that also features a daycare, commercial space, and also a community area, which in turn we normally call a pocket park. What you see within the red lines here is all single-family homes, comprising of maybe about 50 to 60, depending on, as we move forward with our design team, what that will look like. And what we're looking to present is premium workforce housing. The sizes range from 1,100 square feet to 1,800 square feet. There are two bedrooms, two baths, three bedrooms, three baths, and three bedrooms and two baths with flex. Now, with that particular model, we do have five different models that we would like to present, which we will as we move forward in discussions. This is one of the conceptual designs we have for our single-family models, one of five. We're looking for cool colors and also wood imprints throughout the homes. And this is another one from our amazing architect that is working with us on this project. These are actual homes that we have that we're looking to provide within this community. And then also alongside of 15th Street, we are looking to develop about five buildings that consist of two bedrooms, two baths, three bedrooms, three baths. And these will be five duplexes that are facing alongside 15th Street. And that is one of the conceptual designs that we came up with for that. And again, the cool colors and wood imprints throughout the homes. And we also have what we would like, I call it a senior enclave, because one of the things that we had many discussions with the community on is that as people are aging, they don't want to be displaced. They don't want to have to move out of their homes and go to some industrial park where some people put single-family homes at or senior-living homes for them. They want to live in the same community in which they raise their own families. So an idea that we came up with with our architect is to build a small enclave within this site in order to house or to provide housing for our seniors. That's awesome. Another area here is the one that I love. I call it the parking park. My architect will tell you it's a communal area. And this particular area is a multi-purpose green space where you could have family moving nights on the lawn on the weekends. And another idea someone came up with was being able to allow access to food trucks, thriving food trucks that could use this space to sell goods. And then also it's an exercise area that you could use for your seniors that are living right next door or anybody in that community. This is the commercial space that has been having a lot of buzz. It's comprised of maybe 45, and again, this is conceptual, 45 buildings that we were looking to develop and designate for retail space, misuse opportunities such as barbershops, coffee shops, and, of course, one of the things that we discussed moving forward with is the Gainesville first farmer stop. And this particular area is one that does so many different things for our community. Not only does it address the food desert issue that we have in our community, but it provides a space where our local farmers could come and sell their goods around the clock without having to be there on site in order to sell their own goods. And, again, this is one of the models that we've kind of already taken from those that have been pushing this initiative. And I'm pretty sure you guys know who they are, and I believe that it's definitely a good additive to our development plan. And then also, if you're going to build new homes, you've got to have somewhere for those families to keep their kids while they're off working. We decided to use some of the space here between the heartwood and the commercial space to develop a daycare facility. And we are partnered with probably one of five of the companies that already run daycare facilities here in Alotua, Florida. And they have their Gold Star Standard, and we're looking to utilize them to help us lease this space as well. And the last question that we have before the board is, you know, this is counter land. The only question that we have is, is what legacy we want to leave behind. I keep telling people whenever they come up to me about this project that this is a community project. In order to be able to develop what the community needs, you have to know the community. And I'm born and raised here. And if I'm born and raised here, I feel like if I can put my hands to anything, it'll be in my community first before I go into what else. So, if you guys do give us opportunity, we're going to put our best foot forward to develop this on your behalf. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Hutchins. Thank you. All right. Hold on, hold on. Hold on, hold on, hold on. So, we just want to do this? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, we don't want to do it. Okay, that's good. We don't want to do any clapping and all that because we've got another presenter, and we just want to keep this, you know, well. All right, Commissioner Wheeler. So, I think we're just going to do some presentations. And then we can do questions afterwards. Okay, okay. Would that be okay? Sure. Yeah, all right. Let's do the next presentation, and then we can, then we'll open it up for questions for both parties after we're done with Rawlsky. Thank you, Mr. Chair. The next applicant, Ellie Romy from Plaid Homes. Okay, thank you. Thank you so much. My name is Ellie Romy from Plaid Homes. Thank you to the Chair and the Commissioners for this opportunity. Let me start with this little video clip. No sound. Thank you. Florida landscapes meet modern, sustainable architecture. Our development features high-quality engineering, built to last with a 145-mile-per-hour wind rating. We are committed to building more than just homes. We are building a vibrant, inclusive community. With 146 residential units, we're providing luxury, ADA-compliant housing for Alachua County. Our project brings local training and jobs to the area, strengthening the Gainesville economy. Join us as we build a stronger, more sustainable future for Gainesville. Experience the difference today. Great. Thank you very much. So, just a little background. I've been in manufacturing for over 15 years. You know, I started in the medical sector, providing the state. So, we've successfully done over $3.5 million with the state, registered as a vendor with all 50 states, about 1,000 counties and 3,000 cities. So, our expertise is in government projects, RFPs, and working with local government. You know, after COVID and successfully helping in the medical sector, you know, many of the counties and states have reached out to us to get into housing. That's how Plaid was born. I've been in real estate for close to 20 years, and in the last couple of years, starting to manufacture our own homes made of steel. Why steel? Because I realize that for every home that we built from steel, we actually save about 1.5 acres of trees. So, I'm a big fan of steel, a product that's going to last for this project over 100 years, maintenance-free, and there's a lot more other benefits, such as not having to deal with termites and other issues that we don't want to see in our community. So, in addition to that, we've also created a certification course where we can train locals and local builders to build our products within a matter of days, since we do a lot of the welding and the plumbing and electrical in our factory, and we bring all the materials for an on-site build. This is not a manufactured home project. This is an on-site traditional construction using steel materials. Now, let's talk a little bit about the project. We do not want to repeat the same mistake that's been on this site, which, from what I understand, from the Dogwood Village, there was a situation where, unfortunately, the project cannot see its future. What we did is, obviously, study very well and recognize what Lincoln Heights and the Azalea Trails exactly wanted to see, and that's a project that's really going to come to life. For that reason, we actually opened an architectural firm, so we have all the architects in-house being able to deliver plans within a matter of days, and being able to make changes as needed to accommodate the projects. In addition, we plan on building 146 residential homes, 22 single-family homes, 34 stacked duplexes, and about 90 apartments. This project is very different to the last presentation in the sense that we actually went for a smaller footprint, because we actually wanted to keep that workforce housing completely affordable so that the members that are going to buy these homes can afford them. That's the whole idea here behind this project. In addition, we also, you know, if we get this project, we'd love to engage and work with the Hutchinson Foundation. They seem like an amazing group. And we estimate a total project cost of about $10.8 million, hitting a 50% to 120% AMI. The rest is going to be financed by myself, also CalP Advisors, who is our financial partner. I gave one of the brochures out there, who's already approved this project with the financing needed to get it done, where we're going to be bringing in about 80% of the project. The way that this structure, the way that I pride, and I'm actually very happy how LaTrua County did put together this project in terms of the financing, because the structure really prevents what happened previous to make sure that any funding that comes in first comes to the site development so that we get that infrastructure in place, and then the rest is up to the builder to, you know, to deliver. So we're asking for the conveyance of the 13.11 acres to be provided to us at no cost, in us covering the doc stamps, the reporting costs, a $2.1 million infrastructure surtax to cover infrastructure. We will be providing the rest of the funding, and we also, you know, because we're a manufacturer, we're actually able to manufacture steel homes at a more cost-effective rate than your traditional stick build. We're also members of the MBI, Modular Building Institute. We've been awarded for our projects, and we actually, a little background, working with county, we have been awarded a project working for the Miami-Dade for the Homeless Trust of 175 homes to build out a community and homestead, which we're in the permitting stage right now. We also want to provide five acres of green space and amenities. We believe that for workforce, you know, you've got to get out there, you've got to have the space to do sports, community pool, laundry, gym, shops, and also, of course, utilize local labor force to put this together with our training program. One thing we also thought was, you know, some of this workforce can actually, even if they want to be involved, they can also be involved in building their own homes, just like we're doing with Miami-Dade. So we're looking at connecting these two parcels. We're planning on putting about 262 parking spaces with enough green for everyone else, so making it ADA accessible, and, of course, using your stormwater as an amenity by placing a retention bond. There's four types of housing that we're proposing here. The first is called the Omni. You know, if you go to plathomes.com, you have a wide range of videos on how we've installed this in South Florida. The house gets built in about four hours. So we do this at construction expos. We show how we build it in four hours. It's a very extreme, amazing method of building because all the skilled labor where, you know, the welding and plumbing electrical is done in our factory. So when we put things together on site, it's mainly bolting it together, and it happens quite rapidly. We have proposed also to do 34 stack duplexes and then 32-bedroom apartments and 60 studio apartments. So it's a mix of single-family homes allowing for these workforce, you know, members to have a place for them to have their own space and then a mix of also very affordable studio units. So this is what the community would look like that we propose. We have hundreds of options of different exterior cladding. We can make it look like any neighborhood. You know, we've worked on a proposal for Hawaii, and they want all these colorful, you know, exteriors. We can do all that. We can make it look like stucco or your traditionals. You can have an exterior of brick. We have multiple options and flexibility when it comes to steel. So this is the concept of having that duplex where this is something that if the county wants to support this idea, we could do it or not. But basically is that the homeowner would live on the bottom level and can go ahead and rent out the unit at the top or can give it to grandparents or for senior living, whatever it is that they foresee and create additional income to help offset their mortgage. This is how I was able to start building my real estate portfolio by renting portions of my home. So I think that this can take off the financial stress of any mortgage or debt. Our homes, we meet all the categories. Our homes are actually rated for 185 mile per hour wind loads. We have a systemic resistance of grade 9. We have soundproofing of 60 decibels. Our products are tested in the laboratory to meet 50-year shelf life, but actually that extends and converts into about 100 years in real life. Also, very energy efficient. We're completely net zero. So with the insulation that we have in our homes, we can be very energy efficient. The average home of the first single-family home that I showed you that's a two-bedroom, one-bath will run on a full 30-amp breaker. So those electrical bills will be about $30, $40, extremely affordable. We have three phases that we propose. The first phase is to do complete site infrastructure, site clearing, grading, put in all the utilities needed, and start building the first set of duplexes and single-family homes. And then the second phase, we run into the multifamily blocks and then completing it with a complete streetscape to get this project into full realization. This is the timeline. In the same amount of time that a traditional builder can build, you know, take two years, let's say, to build a small community of 20 to 40 homes, we're actually able to build all 146 because of the speed that we're delivering our materials, and we also work with structurally insulated panels. So this is just the timeline. I'll skip through this because I know we're behind the schedule. Here is the budget that I proposed. So we have about $9.8 million that's going towards all vertical, the housing portion. We have another $589,000 that we estimate for the basic site prep. Vertical installation, about $250,000. Logistics, $118,000. And design engineering permitting, $120,000, which that number significantly reduced because we do all the architectural work in-house. A little bit about our history. So our company has successfully supplied the federal and state government over a quarter billion dollars of business during COVID in that period. We plan on doing it again with housing and actually doing what we're going to say we're going to do. And thank God we've never unsuccessfully delivered a contract to date. We have – I bought production line from the largest steel manufacturers in the world that have actually successfully delivered 5,200 homes in 60 days for the Qatar Games in 2022 for FIFA. And so this is just a little bit of background. I've been in real estate for about 20 years. And I mentioned earlier about the project we're doing for the Homeless Trust out of Miami-Dade. So we part ourselves from, you know, having an integrated team. Our team consists of different departments. Plaid Homes is the – we're the developer and manufacturer of these homes. And we have Plaid Development that does the on-site work and development. We have Sofer, which is a license that we bought of the third largest – it's a company based out of France that does all of our interiors. We import all the materials from there. And then we also teamed up with Mythic Engineering and LB Engineers out of Miami, licensed in 48 states, to help us with all the certifications. We also, of course, hire local contractors, and this is the kind of the timeline. We're estimating total, hopefully under 36 months. But most of the time is going to be allocated towards approvals, permitting, site infrastructure, because the build is actually very, very fast. We just built a temple overseas, and we did a two-story building. It took us 10 days to build that. Community-based organizations. We definitely want to work with, you know, the local organizations, the local churches, and continue working with local community to be able to have full support of this project. And we also have lending partners that have supported this project, have approved this project, and we plan on continuing to work with faith-based institutions and nonprofits, along with providing home buyer education. We have this Plaid certification program, which is great, which anybody who's involved in this project can continue building steel on-site construction homes with the certification that they get from us. Here's just a little scorecard that covers the different sectors and different areas that I've covered to kind of give a point system as to what we focus on in each area. But the true focus in this project is really to actually do what the project and site is meant to do, is to provide workforce housing and give our workforce the ability to finally own a home and make it right. Thank you very much for the opportunity. Okay. Thank you. All right. Ralston, back to you. We'll open it up for questions as soon as we're done with Ralston. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So these presentations were also heard by the Affordable Housing Advisory Committee and the Alachua County Housing Finance Authority. And there is another external potential funding source for a project like this. It's going to be an RFP likely put out by the Florida Housing Finance Corporation. It's a pilot program emphasizing single-family homeownership. Utilizing manufactured and modular housing. They say the funding can be up to three million. And so once that RFP is put out, you know, staff doesn't intend to apply with your direction. And as discussed earlier at the last commission meeting, you gave the opportunity for this project to consider the use of the infrastructure surtax funding to help fill the gap for infrastructure and workforce housing for economic development. So that concludes our presentation with the recommendation here. Okay. So we've got Commissioner Wheeler, Alpert, and then Prisia for questions and comments. Commissioner Wheeler, do you recommend? Yes. Thank you. For the first presentation where you were talking about the senior enclave, are those smaller, like one-bedroom housing? Yeah. Or come on up. Come on up. Either podium. You know, I noticed you've got, you know, three bedrooms and two bedrooms. And I didn't know if for the seniors that there would be a smaller, differently designed. Yes. It's one-bedroom, one-bath. And I believe we also have an option where it's one-bedroom, one-bath with the flats as well. Okay. All right. Thank you. You're welcome. Of course, I'm very interested in that kind of housing, you see. But, and then for the second group, do you have any problems, are you concerned about material steel? You know, with all of the trade stuff we've got going on all over the world, are you able to still get steel? Yeah, that's why we actually purchased the production line and secured the next five to ten years of production. Here in this country? Yeah. Well, yes. Yes, of course. Yeah. So we have- It's hard to know anymore. Yeah, yeah. Well, we have backup options if we need locally, but we only- the reason why we actually open up our own manufacturing is because we want to control the production of every component so that when we actually have an RFP or we have an award, we already are putting in place. And we won't start a project unless that production line of steel and all the components that come with it, the interior materials, are all going to be available for the project. I really love the design. I mean, I love what you're doing, and I really love the creative response to the need, the housing need. I really, I do. What is the smallest lot size that you all would consider as a project for yourselves? Because I'm just saying we may have others, you know, in the area, not only just here, but in all of North Florida that we could recommend, you know, your work. Of course, absolutely. So the smallest unit we have actually is 160 square feet. It's an 8 foot by 20 foot module. I mean the land. Oh, yeah, no, right. I'm just saying that's the smallest unit size. So for that, we would need more than about 300 square feet or so. But in terms of the houses I'm proposing, generally, are you talking about the individual parcels or the whole land? The whole land that you would take on, that you would consider as? Consider, I would say we typically are working with counties that are providing us at least 20 unit per acre density. Okay. We have some consideration for some that have only 10 unit per acre, but that's because we can double stack the units. But how much for the whole property that you would even consider going in for a project? I would say, I would say, I mean, it's a hard question to answer. Because you've got 13 acres here, right? Right, right. I would say that, I mean, we usually do a minimum of one acre plus, but typically there's other conditions that would obviously come into factor as, you know, where, how far are we from the electrical utility lines? Is it something similar to this where the county will be helping with the site infrastructure? But typically, if the local counties or the cities are going to be funding the land and infrastructure, we are completely fine to do everything vertical. Okay. Yeah. All right. Thank you. So there is no, there would be no limit? No. No, no. No, it's a minimum one acre, I would say, in terms of size. And then typically, we, you know, right now we're trying to solve a problem in America. America is one of the few only countries in the world that has a housing crisis. And we ask ourselves why. And I kind of get the answer every time I travel to Vegas for the Modular Building Institute. And we're about 40 manufacturers that get together. And it's unfortunately due to the outdated code. The building codes that surround our country. So we try to work around that and try to make things work. Well, thank you for your work. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mr. Chair. You conclude? Yes, sir. Okay. Commissioner Alpert. Thank you. Thank you. You know, I, for those that don't know, I used to own an architecture engineering firm. And there's things I like about both proposals. Some lead platinum homes that we designed one here in Alachua County was done with steel structural insulated panels and was, you know, net zero, net zero minus, actually. It's a great way to construct homes that meet high wind resistance and have excellent, excellent sound and energy efficiency and all of those things. The challenge with SIP panels is creating something that's architecturally significant and attractive. And what I find disappointing in the presentation is the lack of emphasis on what would be, you know, I would consider important for long-term value in a neighborhood, which is the attractiveness of the homes that people are living in. There is a lot of, you know, I believe when somebody walks down the street, they should be able to see their house and differentiate it from everyone else's. And it should be very clear, you know, that their house is for them and it's not one of, you know, three models that all look the same and just might be painted different colors. Those things to me are really important in terms of creating a neighborhood that is diverse and is interesting and that, you know, where kids can be raised with pride in the house that they walk to and live in. The other thing that I really liked about the Hutchinson proposal is the emphasis on front porches and the fact that these houses, though close together, were raised off the street. Because when you have houses that are put on small lots and they're close together, when houses are raised up off the street, that gives you another level of privacy because you lose a lot of privacy on a small lot. And when you, you know, can take a couple of steps up and you look out the window of your home, you're not looking right in the eye of people walking down the sidewalk. You're looking, you know, over their heads and it gives you another level of privacy. And these are, these are just basic new urbanism concepts for, for design and, and, but they're very important when we're looking to try to take a neighborhood and, and, and get as much use out of it as we can. You know, there's a lot of people that like, that, that don't like the idea of having smaller lots. But as we get more dense downtown, as the price of the land starts to be more than the price of construction, we kind of have to do that. We have to put houses closer together to, to, to make it work financially. So I, I, I appreciate all that. And I know these things are all things that sit panel houses can do because my firm did them. But on the other hand, I know it adds tremendous cost. It adds a lot more time to the construction. It changes the whole project when you do those things. So, so those are some of the things, some of my first responses on the plaid one, on the plaid presentation. On the legacy, I mean, sorry, on the Hutchinson Foundation, I, I really like the emphasis on the mixed use, on the mixed of housing types. I like the, the, the real emphasis on, and there is a mix of housing types in the other one, but the, the mixed use in terms of adding a commercial component, I think is really important to the health of the neighborhood. I believe that, that, that does introduce some challenges in terms of financing. When you have mixed use, there's, there are challenges with respect to, to financing. But sometimes if you can finance the, the whole thing together as a home with a, with a working space, it gets a little easier. I could talk to somebody about that if you're interested. But anyway, I, I also really appreciate the working with the community and listening to the community and understanding what the community wanted. And I think that, that's an important thing to talk about, too. I don't know that I have any questions, but if either of you wanted to comment on my comments, I'm happy to hear what you have to say. Thank you, Mary. Thank you so much. Ellie Ruymi speaking. So, what you were saying is exactly why we're a modular company, because it gives us the flexibility to make any open space, any size, revise the proposal, sit down with the county, sit down with the community members to adjust anything that we need. This is a very preliminary proposal. When it comes to exterior cladding and looks and styles, we went with a project we're doing very similar to what we're doing in South Florida. We can go ahead, we have actually have hundreds of options. And because we manufacture everything in-house, we don't add any added cost to that. So, we control the, the cost. We control and put a ceiling to the number per door, regardless of the unlimited amount of options that we have. And I provided you a brochure. I only had two of them that I came in. If you flip through the pages, you'll actually see the various different type of models that we have that out surpass any traditional build. Floor-to-ceiling glass windows, you can have decks, we can offer front porches, all that. And guess what? Instead of having it traditionally built, made from materials that are raw to need maintenance, it'll, again, it'll all be a steel product, not adding to the cost. So, I just wanted to emphasize that, and I appreciate your comments. Thank you very much. Screen porches. Huh? Screen porches. Hold on, hold on, hold on. Yeah, let's look at that. Mr. Hutchinson, did you want to respond to Mary's comments? No? You're good? Okay. Mary, do you conclude? I conclude. Commissioner Prizia, and then Commissioner Chester. Great. Thank you all so much. I appreciate you. I'm trying to use my scoring criteria sheets just to keep me on task. And, yeah, I agree there's things about both of them that I like. I definitely understand the sustainability component of the pre-manufactured homes. I think they do bring that piece to the table in a really big way. But I can definitely tell that the Hutchinson Foundation has done what we've asked them to do, which is to sit with the community, to talk to the community, to understand the community's needs, and to bring a project that matches those needs with what is possible today in today's construction environment. And so, I really appreciate the mix of uses in this development. I appreciate the idea of a multi-generational component. I think that's actually really huge for our community as a whole across the community. I wish we'd see more of that multi-generational type of development. I do have a few questions for you, if you wouldn't mind. The first one is time frame, like just sort of what you see is sort of the projected phasing of this project and sort of the time frame on this project. I saw some of it was LIHTC, so are those all 4% LIHTC, or? So, with the LIHTC, that was an option that we were looking to explore, but based on the amount of senior homes that we're looking to develop, the juice isn't worth the squeeze, if that makes sense. So, we're going after other funds in order to fill that gap. Okay. So, that would be a financing, like traditional bank financing or private financing? Well, we have some partners that we're working with, like the Florida Community Loan Fund and also Black Business Investment Fund to be able to finance the construction for all the housing and commercial. And we're also going after other subsidies as well. And the time, what are you looking at from a phasing? So, it just depends as we get further along through the negotiations, but we're looking somewhere between three to four. Three to four years. Yeah. In a phased process, because, again, one of the things that we want to ensure that we do is build this in a low-risk model to where we don't cause any strain on the project as we move along our schedule. Do you feel like, can you remind me the total number of units that you're proposing? So, for the single-family homes, we're looking between 50 and 60. And then for the senior and the multifamily? It looks somewhere between 16 and 24 for the seniors. And for the duplexes, it's five buildings, so it's 10 duplexes. Mr. Hutchinson, that microphone is set up for a short guy like me. You can go ahead and lift that up. And then you don't have to keep bending over. My back is starting to hurt watching you. There you go. Awesome. And then you were starting to get a little bit into the financing, but I guess I'm just what I was looking at, some of your financing numbers, I just wanted to understand just a little bit on that financing side, how much of that is sort of secured or sort of like partners that are kind of waiting in the wings on this development versus things like the LIHTC that you'd have to apply for and, you know, wait sort of on in terms of being able to... So we have about seven of that secured. Okay. And we're looking to, we have some on the sidelines as well. Yeah. Great. Fantastic. And then the preservation of affordability. One, I want to say thank you for sizing your homes appropriately. Like it's so nice to hear like reasonably sized homes that are affordable, that are, you know, a starter home for a family or something that, you know, a family of different sizes based on the size of the home, but just not these sort of like overly sized like homes with a lot of unusable space that we end up paying for in the square foot pricing of homes. So I can see the affordability is built in just by the size and, you know, the sort of thought that went into the design. But can you talk a little bit more about the affordability of these homes? What are you assuming they're going to sell for approximately? Because of the model and how we're going to construct these homes, we're working closely with some local developers that, builders that are here now. And we are looking to streamline our material costs. And that's one of the ways that, I mean, I've recently done it and we're going to do it again with this particular project, streamlining the material costs to keep the cost down to ensure that it's affordable for those that are looking to purchase homes. And also we have partnered with, I'm going to mess her name up, but it's Juanita Bowles, I believe, who provides a pipeline for those that are normally not eligible to afford the homes that we're going to be constructing. They provide the pipeline and also subsidies to assist them with that as well. We also have down payment assistance and so does the NHDC. So there are some opportunities there for down payment assistance. But do you know, do you have in your pro forma sort of what the average, you know, two-bedroom, two-bath home is going to go for? My number is a guy. So it's somewhere between like 250, 275. Okay, great. I think that was all of my questions. Thank you. Thank you. And if I could, yeah, I just wanted to ask, I have a few questions for Plaid too, if they don't mind coming up real quick. Along the same lines, I guess I was interested to understand what sort of engagement you've done with the community in terms of dialogue and conversations about your development. Yeah, so my team has reached out to local communities to see exactly, and also local architects and contractors. We found that the best voice will be coming directly from the workers and the workforce that is building these areas to tell us exactly what is needed and what they're lacking and where they're falling behind. So my team has done that with my architectural division and also our sales division. Okay. You talked about your project being self-financed. You meaning like you personally finance? Yeah. You're talking about like an equity? No, no, no. I finance any project development. You know, we don't do too many developments at a time. So any project development we do, you know, I basically finance myself with my own funds. Okay. So I'd be contributing the down payment, which is about 20%, and we expect the rest to be completely financed by Calp Advisors, who's already reviewed this project and given us the green light for financing. Okay. And remind me the total number of units again that you're- 146. And that includes apartments, right? Yeah. So there was about 64, I think, 64 single-family units and then 90 apartments. The townhomes or duplexes give the ability, like it could be one owner or we can divide into two owners. But if it's one owner, then you're looking at about 1,000. And is that part of the 64 or the 90? That's part of the 64, yeah. Okay. So those are technically- But again, this footprint, by the way, can be completely modified. If you want to build, you know, 50 homes of 1,500 square feet, or you want to do 100 homes of 900 square feet, it's all- you know, modular allows us to do that flexibility and go up to three stories. So as long as we don't surpass the three stories, we should be good. Okay. And then affordability. Can you talk to me about the sale price on one of these units? Yeah, so our study of the area came, I mean, around $170. That's what we saw as averaging in the area. $170? Yeah. $70,000. $170,000. Oh, sorry, sorry. Oh, sorry. It's being the price per square foot. Sorry, I apologize. No, I was like- Sorry. I wish $170. $170 per square foot. So, you know, your 1,000 square foot house would cost- you know, would sell for about $170,000. That's why we knew that, you know, doing this modularly is the only way that we saw made sense, you know, to do this because our cost basis is around $115 a square foot. So, it gives us that, you know, wiggle room to be able to work, help us with our down payments, and be able to finance the project. And so, the numbers work. It's not- they're not large margins, but for us, this, you know- So, just for easy math for me who's not up here with a calculator, two-bedroom, two-bath, sell for- So, two-bedroom, two-bath, sell for about $170,000 if it's over 1,000 square feet, yeah. That's a 1,000 square foot house? Yeah. Okay. And again, you know, it depends also what kind of construction. Maybe if you promote this as new construction with being very unique, depending on the demand, it can go up a little bit, it could go down. But, you know, we use that number as a safe number to prepare ourselves that if we can't sell for more than that, we're not going to be in trouble. Okay. Great. Thank you. Thank you so much. You're good? I do. Can I get your chest up? Then I'll make some comments. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Well, first, I want to thank everyone for giving their appreciation. I'm going to just be frank with you. I have a lot of issues, sir. First of all, my first issue, I don't think you know much about this area. That's number one. And the issues we've had with residents in the area, that they don't want just something plain and simple. They want something that looks like a neighborhood. To me, this does not look like a neighborhood. This looks like you just threw something together and all the homes are the same color. There's not a lot of decorations to it. First of all, they don't have garages. I mean, I just have issues with it. I'm just going to be frank with you, sir. I don't like it, just to be honest with you. I don't think you spent the time in that area to really, really talk to the folks in that area to find out what they were looking for. This is not what they're looking for. I mean, I'm just being honest with you. This is not what they're looking for, and it's not what I'm looking for. I'll just be honest with you. Thank you for being candid and honest with your presentation, but, you know, the modular homes I saw in Ocala fits more to what I thought this would be when you said modular homes. But this does not meet it, sir. I'm just sorry. I don't like it, and not for that particular area, in that particular neighborhood, because they've had problems in that area. And if you'd have did your research, you would have known historically what was in that area, why we take this position, at least I'm taking this position. And I don't think you understand the neighborhood, and I don't think you did your due diligence to find out what the folks in the neighborhood wanted and that lived around this particular project. So, you know, and I'm just sorry, sir. I just couldn't support it. I'll just be honest with you. You know, unless you have some questions for me. I just think, if you haven't taken the opportunity to take our brochure and look at the other models that we have, those are models that we've designed, and I think they fit exactly beyond what it is that you're expecting. I apologize if my site plan didn't meet what you think is the local flavor, but what we can do is that's a simple, you know, one-hour modification where we change the coloring, the cladding, and we make it towards attracting the community. And our plan was that in the first phase, before we do anything, before we start constructing any homes, I put together five or ten different options of what the community would look like, send it out to the community members, and have them vote on it. We can do this online today. So we do a vote, an online vote. They let them choose exactly what they want it to look like. This way, we don't have a problem after the fact having to deal with, you know, individuals that are not, you know, appreciating what we put together. But modular allows us to give us that flexibility. Ocala, we build much stronger homes in Ocala. We'll know, and you'll see it in about 15 to 20 years, the maintenance that comes with it. We actually have a big demand in Ocala for that reason. But again, the look and the style is something that is such a, it's less than .01 percent of what we put together in the project in terms of the components. Because as you see in our brochure, we have so many different styles, hundreds of different options, so we can accommodate the look that, you know, you're looking for. And I guess my question would be to you, why didn't you use those type designs for this project? Right, so. Then, to do this. Right. Good question. We know that this is a look and a feel that was working and asked for by the South Florida market. So we figured that the South Florida market is, you know, accepting that as a plan. And again, we wanted to go also with something that was affordable. So adding garages may have not allowed us to reach that number. Doing a carport was something that was more conducive and having a little bit more space. The moment you start adding garages, you lose your footprint and you lose a lot of footprint around you. But if that's something that locals want, it's something that we can do. But we went ahead with what we thought was going to be best fit for the community using the best materials and steel, steel cladding, steel roofs. As you all know, if you ever have to replace a roof, a shingle roof, they tell you it'll last your 20 years. I want the multi-generational, I want it to last 100 plus years for their kids and grandkids. So that was the concept behind it. And I guess another thing, in terms of the house foundation, is it concrete and that the metal is anchored to it or what? Yeah, so obviously we have to do our environmentals and boring tests, et cetera. But depending on, we have actually some amazing, we actually save 50% of the foundation costs. Because steel is lighter weight than your typical concrete or stick build. And so what it allows us to do is it allows us to elevate the house as high as we want using helical screw piles. So those screw piles we manufacture in-house. Okay, to give you an idea, they sell them locally for $1,000 a pile, increasing the cost of the homes. We manufacture them for $150 a piece. So you would, you know, for an average home would have about 14 helical screw piles and those would go into the ground. You don't need to level the land because you're leveling the screw piles. Then you put an H beam on top of it and then you bolt through the helical pile to the bottom of the H beam to the bottom of the house. So that's how you create your tie down to get your 185 mile per hour wind loads. We do have the option as well to do a concrete pad if that's, you know, feasible or if that makes sense. And that's what the, you know, local regulations require. And what we would do is we would create a tie down with the foundation of concrete. So we have the flexibility of the piles or the concrete. Well, I just want to tell you, you're in North Florida. You're not in South Florida. And designs and different things are in South Florida that folks from South Florida now is moving up this way. Right. Because they want open space. They want more environment. They want to see more trees and stuff like that. So I just want to make that correction. Yeah. So the next time when you're doing this, you'll know to make sure you do your research. Yeah. We have the equal eights in the brochure. If you open up the brochure, the equal eight is exactly fitting what you're mentioning. Well, sir, I appreciate that. And I, you know, but I'm just telling you how weak your proposal is to me. Okay. I know what the citizens in that area want. Right. And I don't think you did your homework to make sure you knew what. We have stressed, and this commission has stressed, that we wanted something nice to look good. Right. We didn't want no apartments in that area at all because years ago, I'm going to just give you some history. Years ago, they had a project there that was called Kennedy Homes. Yes, yes. Okay? And it went down. And you know how it went down because investors kept switching it. Right. You know? And then making no repairs, no nothing to it. Right. You know? And we didn't want that anymore. Right. That's why we wanted single-family homes or a mixed-use type of development. Right. Sir, in that area. You know, I'm not here to get on you, sir, but I'm just saying you just didn't do your homework to really know what this community is wanting, and particularly Southeast Gainesville, what they wanted. Right. So that's it. Okay. And I just want to say thank you for your presentation and all of that, but I will not be supporting it. I'll just let you know that. And that's why we want to work with locals. So, like, before we would engage any community, we'd actually work with a local architectural firm that would work with the local communities. And like I said, even maybe Hutchinson actually would, you know, collaborate with us. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I just want to talk about the Hutchinson's project. I'm really impressed. I want to say because I think that's what the folks in the neighborhood was actually looking for, something that's mixed-use, something that's nice, that will bring quality to that area, and people want to live there. You understand what I'm saying? That's what I like about it, and the mixed uses that you are actually, in terms of the pictures, and you do have garages. That's what turned me off against the last proposal just now because they didn't have any garages. You know, I'm sorry, you know. But I just want to say I support your project and all of that stuff, so I just want to make that known. I don't think the other gentleman, Mr. Platt, or whatever his name is, I don't think that he spent the time to get the neighborhood and to talk with his citizens. So I just don't think that that happened from this proposal. I can see that. So I conclude, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Commissioner Hutchinson. All right, I'm going to give a couple comments, and then I've got some more lights. This is really a question for staff before we get started. On the Plaid proposal, total project cost is $10.8 million. They are requesting $2.2 million of infrastructure surtax money. That $2.2 million would be for roads, sewers. What's the infrastructure money for? Mr. Chair, I believe it's for the, it wasn't clear in the proposal, and so I invite Mr. Rumi to answer that question. Mr. Rumi, could you answer that? It would have to be for workforce housing economic development. Yeah. Yeah, so it would be contributing towards permitting, engineering, architectural work, site plan, and basically infrastructure. All the site plan work. Yeah, we've run it by several contractors locally and also, you know, in South Florida. And the estimated cost came in at around $2 to $3 million. So we understand that there's a cap as to what, how much this, you know, grant could give us. So we've already embedded the overage through my own funding. Okay. $3.2 million on a $10.8 million project. Correct. All right. Which is about 22%? Anyone with that? Approximately. Okay. Mr. Hutchinson, could I ask you the same exact question? $3.5 million on a $29 million investment, which is significantly less, like 11%. Yeah. Tell me what that would cover and what the timing of that would be. We did the same thing. The site team that we are planning to work with is Andrew's paving. They gave us an estimated cost of somewhere between $3.5 to $4 million for our site work as well. Okay. All right. Thank you. So, commissioners, what we're being asked by our staff is to rank the projects, to instruct them or direct them to negotiate with the proposed grant agreement, which I would presume would be for the infrastructure, and then to direct that, to bring that back to us, to then review that again. From my perspective, I think the Hutchinson group really nailed it. As commissioner trust has said, you hit every component that the community has asked us for. I know there's a lot to be done, even if you are awarded the top ranking. But I'm very open to having our staff work with you and your team. When I went to the backup, and I got to read this document here, what impressed me the most, and I'll talk to my colleagues here, is really the team that he put together. This is a team of local folks that I know very, very well across the board, from the marketing to the community, to the attorneys, to the pre-development. This is literally like the A team, in my opinion, of Alachua County, which this is going to take a team. It's not going to be one developer. It's not going to be one developer in the county. It's going to be a team of community people that truly want to create what this project is named, which is a legacy project. I would be in favor of staff's recommendation naming Hutchinson as the number one. I think we have a lot of discussions to still have, with regards to how that 3.5 million is, how we come up with that. But on a project of $29 million, that is, to me, a small price to pay to create a legacy project that will literally, in my opinion, help transform an area that this board, previous boards have made promises to, and I think we're, like, here. Like, we are where we wanted to be three years ago, when we said no to Ability Housing. And there's a team in place that we don't have to find, because the work's been done, the meetings have been done, and I'm just really pleased to be at a place where we are. I mean, I wish it was, like, two years ago, but we're here now, and it's going to be 20, 30, 40 years in the future, so I'm glad we didn't rush it. So that would be what I would support. I appreciate the other proposal. There may be other places in Alachua County that, you know, maybe in the future we could look at, but that's where I am. Okay, let's go to Commissioner Prizia, Wheeler, and Alford, and at some point I'm going to need a motion. Yeah, I mean, I'm happy to make the motion that we consider, that we negotiate with the Hutchinson Foundation for the Legacy Project and bring back the proposed grant agreement to the board for consideration and approval. But having said that, I just also wanted to say, like, I. Hold on, do I have a second? Second. Second. Okay, great. We have three seconds. Three seconds, so I think we have a good chance of passing. But I guess one thing I want to, two things I want to say is, one, I agree with you. I think there could be other places for PLAAD in our community. I think the product that they bring has a lot of potential, both to reduce the cost of construction and to increase sustainability of housing and to address critical gaps in our housing. But this is not the project for you. And I agree with our, with Commissioner Chestnut. You know, part of this project, if you watched our meetings, was really about this community. They live there. They've lived there for decades. They've dealt with generational issues of racism and generational issues of disinvestment. And what they were asking for is that the government listen and that the government bring something different to the table. And to do that, that means you have to have the conversations with these people about what they want in their backyard and really listen. And I think that's what the Hutchinson family has done and that's what they've brought forward in this proposal. And so, you know, that is the difference. But it's not that your product isn't a stellar product. It does seem to be that. And I think there are potentially other projects. And we have infrastructure surtax dollars waiting for developers that want to do good projects for affordable housing in our community. So take a look at it and think about it for other things. And then, I guess, to my colleagues, I just want to say, like, I do think we need to do this. I think we need to do this. And I think that 11% of the total project funds is a very reasonable request. I'm not so sure that the IST funds are the best funds. I mean, we committed not to spend those east of Main Street. And we committed not to spend those on affordable housing. You know, those are for affordable housing and workforce. So I guess it's just a matter of, like, that's literally what was your motion, that we not spend those east of Main Street. And this is very far east of Main Street. This is actually the project that caused you to make that motion. And so I just want to be thoughtful about that, like, which funds we use. But that's not really a big issue for today. But I would like staff to bring forward potential pots of funds to use other than IST for this project. My motion to respond was to not use monies for affordable housing. I don't view this as affordable housing. I view this as workforce market rate housing. So I don't view my motion in conflict with this at all, actually. Yeah, but when we set aside the money for the IST, it was specifically for affordable housing. We had to use the workforce development caveats because that's the requirement of state statute. But it was very clearly for 80% AMI and below. And with all due respect, I think this is exactly what the community is asking for. But $250,000, $275,000 is not going to target 80% AMI and below, which is really what our affordable housing infrastructure tax target dollars are for. So I just want staff to bring us options for the money that we are going to provide. I want to provide them the full amount they're asking for, that 11%. I just want options for, yeah, for the money that we use. Okay. Okay, Commissioner Wheeler and then Commissioner. Yes, thank you. That was one of the reasons I was trying to ask about, you know, the size of the land that would be required because I really do like the product. And I really do like the idea of affordability being under $200,000. I really do. Anything closer, guys, anything closer to $200,000 would be great, okay, because I'm talking for school teachers, my son being one, and young professionals who are trying desperately to, you know, to live. And that's, when you're talking about $250,000 to $300,000 homes, that's, it would make, could somebody from your group tell me about the Heartwood community? Are all the homes sold out of there, are they, and what their going prices are, the Heartwood development behind there? Same thing, $275,000. Hold on, hold on, hold on. Do you have a question to ask? Yes, I'm asking. If somebody could come up to the microphone, whoever's going to answer that, Ms. Butler? What the Heartwood community looks like, because I know they'd had some trouble selling homes, and because maybe in that price range. Well, that's, that's what I'm asking. A lot higher. Hi, I'm Avis Butler. With the Heart, and I'll tell you what I know just based on some of the research that I've done there. They still have 16 lots that are available to be constructed on. The lots that they have built the homes, those were sold at the amount, and the average amount ran about $300,000 for the Heartwood community in terms of the housing. But when you look at what was presented by Mr. Hutchinson, that's not really going to be a major issue making it affordable. Yeah. Back in the day, I was the executive director of Porter's Oaks. Yeah. All of those were home ownership. We made that affordable. We made it for the workforce community. In fact, all home ownership. We can still do that again. That money is out there. There are other places we can find the money to do that, and that's why we are part of the Hutchinson Foundation doing this project. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. I just, you know, that was my concern. That's, you know, when you get up 300 plus for a home, that's a lot. That's a lot for a working family. Okay. All right. Thanks for my questions. Thank you. Commissioner, Mr. Alford? Yeah. I just, I wanted to make one more point that I think is really important. Well, I appreciate the fact that a home can be built here in Gainesville for, you know, just a few hours. I hear over and over on social media and in other venues that jobs are getting harder and harder to find in our community. And this project will bring a level of economic development into our community that we need. We need those jobs. And I really like the whole idea of investing locally, keeping our money in town. We are using taxpayer dollars, and we can keep the taxpayer dollars in our community. And that's probably one of the biggest reasons I want to support this project versus the Hutchinson project over the Plaid one. Because, and that's not really on the ranking list, but it's really important to me. And I see that as being, you know, sort of a core tenet of this commission is to, you know, keep your money in town, right? Yeah. And to reinvest taxpayer dollars in our own community. It's the basis of all of economic development. And I just, I felt like that hadn't been made, and I feel like we needed to make it. So. Good point. Do you conclude? I conclude. Commissioner Aprizia, do you have one more thing to add? No. Okay. For now, we've got a motion with three seconds, and we're going to now ask for public comment. Before we get to that, though, I do want to ask Mr. Hutchinson one other question just to clear something up. So, I just think this is really, really important. Yeah. In your presentation, you talked about single-family houses of 2 to 1,100 square foot. Mm-hmm. What would you price that house at approximately? Oh, my, where's my numbers guy? This is Malcolm's here. He. Yeah, Malcolm. He's the numbers guy. He's the numbers guy. The calculator. 2 to 1,100 square foot. Talk to me. Good afternoon. We would seek to price that between 260 and 280. Looking at just what the average sale price is in our community, it's in the mid to upper 300s right now, down over the past couple. Between 240 and 260 a square foot? Yes. Okay, and on the duplexes, the 2 to 800 square foot and a 3 to 1,200 square foot, what would you price those at? I would say that we would try to keep that price under 300, if possible. For the entire duplex. Oh, for the entire duplex. Yeah, I mean, 800 square feet is a 2,200. What would you price just that unit? That would probably be closer to, between 330 and 360 for the duplex. No, for an 800 square foot, 2,200, it's going to, that 2,200. Just the one side? Yeah. It's going to be less than 200. Oh, yeah, absolutely. One side. I'm thinking you're talking the whole building. Yeah, 100%. So, for the teachers, I mean, so, thank you. That's what I wanted to just get out. 800 square foot is going to be in the 100s. A 1,200 square foot is going to be probably on a duplex around or less than 200. And I think that's important because it's workforce, but it's also affordable. And I think it's market rate, and we're going to have a number of those. So, I think that's important. Okay. Thank you for the information. Commissioners, anything else before we get to public comment on the motion? All right. That's an opportunity. And what I also love is that we've got the first proposal already talking to the one who may win this about collaborating. So, that's great. All right. Who would like to speak to this board about the motion on the floor? If you'll come up, introduce yourself for the board, and give us your thoughts. Good afternoon. I'm Monica Frazier. Again, I 100% support the Hutchison Group. And thank you for also supporting them in advance. That's it. Thanks, Monica. Bishop, welcome. First of all, we in Alaska County should be happy at this moment. I remember some months ago when I was running for city commission, I made a statement about I've been waiting since I was 14 to see the true development, not just a meeting, not just a talk. I got tired of going to the black on black crime force and we're saying we're going to do this and we're going to bring this. It never happened. When I'm 42 years old, the county commission actually listened. The person in this county should be looking at the city and saying, what are you doing? You say you're giving all this money to make East Gainesville better, but we're not seeing results. I've been here from the process. And you guys have worked amazing. Chair, you have listened to the community. Every commissioner has actually listened to the community. As I was sitting there, it was hard to sit there because I'm saying to myself that the one thing we're missing is they're not listening. But the Hutchinson group was listening. They understood the needs of this community and they're part of this community. Thank you for listening. Chair, county commission, you've done your job and you've done it well. It's reelection season. Let's reelect him for now. He's done his job. I mean, let's reelect him. All right. He's fighting for us. Just to the motion, Bishop. Just to the motion. I'm feeling fired up, brother. Just to the motion, Bishop. You know how I'll get it. But I am just excited because it's actually happening. And I was a little boy and I grew up here. And you're listening. Why in the hell we're not listening across the street? You need to take some lessons. And they need to take some lessons because you're doing your job. And I really mean that. Thank you for doing your job. Thank you for listening. Thank you for understanding what we need. Because you've got to be here to understand what's here. You've got to understand what we have. What we've struggled for. What we've fought for. What we've fought for. What we've fought for. And it's here. It's going to take a process. But that's all we need. Let me say this one last thing and I'll be quiet. As the chair of the Lodger County affordable housing for 10 years when I was the chair. And I served on all these boards. Plan board. And what they told us. And Mr. King. We need numbers to bring positive development. These houses will bring numbers to the east side so we can have more viable businesses. And it will happen fast. Because where they see numbers. They see money. And when they see numbers. They see income. And it won't be low income anymore. Because we have to prosper. So again. Thank you. Thank you all for listening. And that comes from years of living here. And that comes from years of seeing your people going through. Not hacking. But thank you for doing your job. Hear the need. Start the change. And serve the people. The county commissioner. The county commissioner has done that today. Thank you so much. Thank you Dejon Cain. Thank you for that. Okay. You just speak to the motion. That would be awesome. But I do appreciate the short commercial. Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon. To the entire. And to everyone that's here. My name is Raymond Modley. I'm the local boy. President of the Gainesville. Greater Gainesville. Lots of County Builders Association. We started this association late 2024. We are very pleased to show up today and be very supportive for the Hutchinson Foundation's opportunity to engage in further business with the county on behalf of the legacy project. I'm grateful to hear Commissioner Alfred say something that's very important to us. There is a stigma on our county. My son's a UF graduate. He's a fourth generation builder. I'm a third. We've served this country over 100 years. Some of you may be old enough to remember the president is barbecue. That's my family. We have been in this community a long time. And to see our kids born and raised in this county graduate from UF and can't afford to live here is an awful stigma. It's something we have to fix. Because if we don't do it, who else will? I think this is a very positive step in the right direction to creating a legacy that we can all get behind and we can be better for it. I appreciate the work you guys are doing and let's keep up the good work. Thank you, Mr. Mobley. Thank you for being here. Next speaker, please. Good morning. Hello. I'm Carrie Parker Warren and thank you for the opportunity. The other half of Thelma and Louise is out of town and that happens to be Mrs. Evelyn Mikkel. But she did ask me to say on behalf of her and on behalf of our community, the only thing I can say is thank you. It's about time. We certainly appreciate, I certainly appreciate everything all of you have said today. Whenever I talk about the county commissioner, I refer to you as our friends. It hasn't always been that way, but you have become friends to the east side of Gainesville. And I live in Azalea Trails and the Azalea Trails community just wanted me to say thank you for all that you have done, for listening and for hearing us. And we appreciate that. And hopefully on our next project, it won't take so long. Thank you. Thank you, Warren. Thank you so much. Sherry, come on up. Hi. My name is Sherry Roberts, and I am very emotional right now because I am a former resident of Kennedy Homes. And... Take your time. Good. You've got plenty of time. This is one of the best news that I have heard since being a resident in East Gainesville. And the changes that I see that the Hutchison brothers are going to bring over there are really, really going to make our community shine. And I hope this is the first step of us growing in a positive way. Thank you. Thank you guys so, so much. This means a lot to me. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Roberts. Anyone else? Come on up. Come on up, Mavis. Again, Mr. Chairman, I'm Avis Butler, and I just wanted to say thank you. It's been a long journey for all of us over the years. And I just want to just basically reassure you all that the project, we will make sure that our workforce community will be able to get these homes. As I said earlier, you know, back in the late 80s when we did Porter's Oaks, they thought it was just absolutely impossible. But we made 68 homeowners be able to afford their homes. And so that's going to happen here. We're going to make sure that there's funding available sometimes that we don't quite see right just yet, but it will be done. And I just wanted to say that to you all that for all of the homes that Hutchison Group will put together and construct, we will have the homeowners. Thank you, Ms. Butler. I believe that. Anyone else? All right. All right. So we've got a motion on the floor to move forward with the Hutchinson Group to have staff negotiate the proposed grant agreement and to bring back the proposed grant agreement to the board with consideration and approval. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? That motion is unanimous. Now you guys can clap because we're going to take a break. Chair, can I make a quick comment? Yeah, quick comment, and then we're going to take a five minutes. All right. Before you all leave, if you all could pass on. I know that there was some concern that we had this scheduled for today during the day, and there were people in the community that were upset that they couldn't be here to comment. And I just wanted to say thank you. I think you represented your community really well, and I'm sorry for the folks that weren't able to be here today, and please pass that on. Yeah, we're going to stand in recess for 10 minutes. Mr. Chair, may I just address this community? Ms. Carey, I want, listen, this took four years off my life. I'm telling you, it's four years ago that I cut that project twice, and it still, talking about it now still causes me PTSD. Seriously, to go against what the county had accumulated, you know, for a project that we cut. I just want you to know that I am delighted to see it come to this end, at the end of my term, when it was at the beginning of my term, that we have this big thing. So, I'm really just glad to see it done. All right, so we will recess and reconvene in ten minutes. Sorry, are we good? Okay, let's go ahead and reconvene our meeting, and Mr. Clerk, next item. Mr. Chair, that takes it to the Town of Tioga Phase 22 Special Improvement District. All right. The recommended action is the Board approve the resolution to create the district for Town of Tioga Phase 22. Authorize the Chair to sign the resolution. Mr. Gavarete, you're recognized. Good afternoon, Commissioner. From Gavarete, the Body Works Director. Commissioner, this item, what we're asking this Board to do today is to execute, to adopt the resolution, that would basically establish the Town of Tioga Phase 22 Maintenance and Capital Improvement District Municipal Service Benefit Unit, MSPU. In the resolution, you will see the maximum estimated annual assessment. Just for the Board to know, this does not go under tax bills for next year. It has to go to construction first. It's probably going to be a year or two before you actually see the next step, which is establishing moving forward with it. So, we ask today for your approval. Okay. Commissioner Aprizio? Approval? Oh, I was just going to move staff recommendations. Yeah. Commissioner Aprizio, we've got a second. Okay. We've got a motion to approve staff's recommendation. Any discussion? Any public discussion? Back to the Board. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion is unanimous. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Gavarete. Mr. Clerk, next item. Mr. Chair, that takes us to the Pine Hills Forest Special Area Study. And the recommendation is to approve the resolution accepting the Special Area Study for the Pine Hills Forest Strategic Ecosystem. Okay. Okay. Mr. Chumley, welcome. Good afternoon. You're recognized. Good afternoon. Ben Chumley with Growth Management. And we have a presentation for you today on the Pine Hill Forest Special Area Study. As you know, this is a project that the Board initiated a couple of years ago. We have been working on this along with our consultants, Kim Lee Horn, and Water and Air Research for a little while now, and we're happy to bring it to you today. I have just a brief introduction, and then I'm going to turn it over to Blair Knighting with Kim Lee Horn, and she will walk you through a full presentation of the study itself. The Pine Hill Forest area, just a brief bit of background, this area is designated as a Strategic Ecosystem in the County's Comprehensive Plan. Strategic Ecosystems are areas throughout Alachua County that are of very high ecological value. And the Comprehensive Plan calls for the county to conduct special area planning for strategic ecosystems to ensure that the most valuable natural resources within those areas are protected through ground truthing or identified through ground truthing and protected prior to any potential development. This particular strategic ecosystem is unique in that it is located within the urban cluster. And at 1,200 acres, it's the largest contiguous piece of undeveloped land remaining within the urban cluster. So the Comprehensive Plan does envision this area for future urban cluster type development. And so an emphasis on this process has been on balancing future growth, strategic ecosystem protection, and infrastructure planning. So through the study process, this has kind of been an opportunity to examine all of the existing conditions in this area holistically and to document those conditions within the study report that you have in front of you. And just really briefly about the process itself, special area planning is a process that is outlined in some detail in the Land Development Code. It calls for a special area study, which is then followed by a special area plan. And so today we're just looking at the special area study. The study itself does not establish any particular regulatory requirements, but it does provide data and analysis that will serve as the foundation for a special area plan, which is the next step of the process. So the requested action by the board today is that the board accept the special area study and authorize staff to begin developing the special area plan. If the board does accept the study, then you will see this again when the special area plan comes back to you next year. And so with that, I'm going to turn it over to Blair Knighting with Kim Lee Horn to walk you through the presentation. Okay, thank you, Mr. Tremblay, Ms. Knighting, welcome. Afternoon. Thank you for having me today. Blair Knighting, Kim Lee Horn. Ben took some of my thunder and some of my slides, so it might be a little bit of a repeat. That's okay. So we have the county and Water and Air and Kim Lee Horn. We're all working together on this with the landowners and the public on it. And real quick, the agenda for this PowerPoint, I know you guys are probably exhausted, so I'll be quick. We're going to just quickly talk about the study and the plan, and then we'll talk specifically about the Pine Hill Forest study, and then we'll talk about the public involvement plan that we came up with, and then next steps. So again, as Ben already mentioned, the requested action today would be to adopt the resolution and accept the findings, and then authorize us to proceed. So Ben had already mentioned, in the early 2000s, Pine Hill Forest was designated as a strategic ecosystem, and those do require the study and the plan. The purpose of those is to identify and evaluate significant natural resources, proactively plan, and that's what we're trying to do here with this study is really proactively plan with the landowners how we can all come together with a consensus on the development of this, and then consider necessary infrastructure improvements. And it is outlined in the comprehensive plan. And so the process for that study is you come up with a scope of work, you define the study area, evaluate the requirements, you do the study, you use public participation, environmental analysis, infrastructure needs, land use scenarios, and then the last step is really come up with the plan and the regulatory framework. So specifically for the Pine Hill Forest study, the scope of work was let's ground truth some of the significant areas, let's consider land use options, let's identify conceptual road network alignments, and utilities and stormwater planning. Super high level conceptual planning. And so this was the study area. And as you can see, it's between 39th and Newberry Road. And what I like to lovingly call it as the hole in the donut, you can see there's obviously development all around it. So we really anticipate these areas being developed in the near future. And approximately 1,100 total acres in this strategic ecosystem. And then more than 10 property owners. So water and air did a lot of environmental report, they should have a pretty hefty report in there. Yeah, it's very big. And one of the interesting maps that they created was this heat map, I like to call it a heat map, but really it's a topo map to show it really is Pine Hill for a reason. If you look, it's huge ridge. And the levels are between 190 and 80 feet difference. And then they did conduct an environmental assessment to kind of understand the significant habitats that are in here. And this map shows you the green where those potentially significant habitats are. And then this map kind of overlays that on the ownership pieces. And then so we looked at kind of the environmental piece. And then we wanted to look at the roadway network. So if you look, these roadways are already in the comprehensive plan. They're contemplated. But they didn't really, they're more like very large swaths on a map, right? So what we wanted to do is say, hey, what can we do in these early stages to understand where these road networks could go? Based on the topographical maps, based on the significant habitats. And then also based on that large GRU infrastructure that goes through this. So if you look, we, and the topo was really a big thing too. So what we did is we had two concepts. One with roundabout and one with the traditional intersection design. But you can see, I don't know if there is a pointer. Use the mouse. Okay. I will use the mouse. Oh, okay. Let's see. Here we go. Okay. So if you look, this is where a 30 second comes in. This is obviously we've planned. We're coming through here. We sloped it down because we're trying to avoid all these significant habitats and this GRU utility easement. And then that's also why we have it kind of like this too. We also tried to place it where the lower, lower areas for these ponds. And then we tried to swoop it this way to get in between these GRU poles because GRU is very specific about how close you can be to their poles. And try to avoid some of the residential here because these are significant pieces of habitat too. So that's kind of high level roadway network planning. This map is the traditional without the roundabouts. You might not have noticed, but this one you see how it has the roundabouts. We wanted to make sure we had enough area for the roundabouts. Sometimes they have a lot of space they need. And this one you can see all of the topo on this. So we wanted to make sure we tried to account for pond sizes in the low spots. But again, super conceptual, just trying to understand where these roads may end up. And then the land use scenario, we really wanted to try to balance the needs of the land owners, but also the desire to protect all of these significant habitats. And so the goal of the study was to preserve 50% of the ecosystem, but also try to retain those development rights for the property owners. So we really went in going, okay, how can we look at this from a development standpoint? And so, you know, as a planner, I go back to DRI days where the whole area had a number of units. And so we said, all right, well, let's give them a base density of four units per acre, because that is kind of what they all have already. And then if they have, you know, with or without significant habitats, they still get those units, so they could cluster it. So they protect the significant habitats and then cluster their four units, all their units for their property, instead of taking away. So it's gross, not net. So that was kind of how we came up. We tried to really come up with a way to make everyone happy, which isn't really always what we can do, as we know. And so we came up with the transfer of development rights concept within the Pine Hills. And yes, you guys do have a transfer of development rights program in the county already. But we tried to kind of, this is Pine Hills own, so that Pine Hills can kind of share the units within the landowners who can or cannot develop some of the significant properties. And so it really does try to offset those who have a disproportionate amount of significant habitat on their property. And these were just kind of concept scenario plans of like, if you had 50% of your site that was significant habitat. So you would preserve 50% of your site, but you'd be able to cluster all of your units onto the developable portions. Or if you didn't want to develop, you could sell your units to other landowners who might want more than four units per acre. And so we also wanted to really look at this from not just a residential standpoint, but also maybe a neighborhood commercial standpoint. Because if these roadway networks do actually come to fruition, there's going to be people on these roads. And so we want to try to reduce the trips from one portion of the neighborhood, one side of the other. So we came up with the idea of adding these mixed use nodes to allow some neighborhood commercial in these kind of intersections where you traditionally would see some neighborhood commercial at intersections. And then the public involvement plan, we came up with a plan for, to make sure that we were very transparent in this planning process. And we created these little business cards that had an email address specific to this project. And we brought them to the meetings with us. And so the involvement plan was specific email. We developed a three-prong approach. So we met with the landowners first. We thought that was really important to really sit down with the people in the Pine Hill Forest. We also had a public workshop. I think there was probably a hundred people there. It was really well attended. We had a lot of boards, a lot of comments. And then the second, we also had a second landowner meeting where we presented the study. And then I think staff also met with some other individual landowners when they had separate questions. So lots of public engagement and lots of engagement with the landowners. So overall, the landowners seem pretty supportive of this study and the results. The public expressed strong desire to protect existing green space and wildlife, which is essentially the goal of the ecosystem. And then the public raised concerns about developing increased, development increasing the traffic. So I'm pretty sure we all know, we hear that all the time. New development equals traffic. That's what a lot of people say. And then overall, the public was supportive of limited high-quality residential mixed-use development and neighborhood commercial. So the majority of the comments we got were, as long as it's high-quality mixed-use, we could support it. And then the next steps are, pending your acceptance, we will work on proposed comp plan amendment changes and land development regulations for the actual plan. And I'm here if you have any questions. I hope I didn't bore you too much. Okay. Thank you. A little dry. Questions or comments? Okay. Commissioner Prezio. Yeah. Okay. Two quick questions. I think they're quick. One is, I noticed in the report that the, it seems like the mixed-use, if you, can you go to that mixed-use where it has like the nodes? Yep. Oh, there we go. Yep. Yep. That, the second blob from the top. Let me see. That kind of as the road is curving. Yep. Yep. And the roadway kind of both seem to align pretty closely with an area of archeological significance that was found. I'm kind of wondering how you all. So I try not to talk too much about that because we don't want to identify it too much, need to know kind of thing. But I will show, we are trying to avoid this area. Okay. Yep. That we dipped around. Okay. Right? Okay. So you can't tell by, because it's such big blobs. It's. But you did work on. Yes. With like actual alignment. That's what we were, our goal was to avoid any archeological significant in that area. Okay. We noticed that on the, yep. Mm-hmm. And then it talks about the densities and intensities. I got, I'm assuming, and this is maybe a question for our staff, that those align with our TND, TOD for those mixed-use nodes that we're trying to align this as carefully as we can to what currently exists in our comp plan and codes for how densities would be handled. I think that when we get to the point of doing the special area plan, that the nodes that we're identifying on here for mixed-use would be along the lines of a TND type of density. Okay. And then my, oh, my last question was just, there was a, we had a couple of emails from people who, concerned citizens who were worried about the intersections of the road on the western side of our county and some of the issues that they have with stormwater. Yeah, stormwater runoff and flooding. And just wanted to make sure that we've, like, looked at making sure there's enough room for stormwater in those areas and how we would handle any additional stormwater and issues related to the development of that roadway. Yeah. Thank you. Sorry. Through the chair. We read that email and I would say valid concerns. Stormwater in Florida is always a valid concern. What we did is we aligned it with the existing 32 32nd Ave here and it's really conceptual. We don't know exactly where that's going to align at all. I mean, it could be 100 feet more north. It could be slightly so that I would say to the question about that one. We're absolutely in design, make sure that we take into account the stormwater and where the ponds are. What we tried to do is if you look at our roadway network, we tried to put a pond here where the lowest spot is. Again, this is conceptual. Maybe that's where the pond is. We don't know because we really need to determine if this parcel is developed in the future. Where it stormwater goes and all that. Yeah, exactly. It's so early. It's so early, but we at least needed to put some lines on a paper. But when you start putting lines on a paper, people start to get like a little nervous. Where's that going? When is it going? Well, you know, we're not quite sure. We just needed to at least have some type of alignment somewhere and it could shift up this way. And we did look at going this way too, but this ridge. I was going to say, yeah. It is, it is high. So we try, we really tried to make the most economical sense to go this way. And from a, I guess from air and water research's standpoint, like when you guys evaluated those, I would imagine the amount of groundwork that have to be done on the higher ridge one would also have been more environmentally. Exactly. Like grading as well as economic, like less economical. Yeah. So all of this is the really significant. So we really tried to avoid crossing that. And then, you know, we already are going to need probably retaining walls for this road. If we were to go up, the engineers were like, let's not even look at that avenue. Well, I can tell a lot of work went into it. I really appreciated reading the report and seeing the level of collaboration with the landowners and the amount of work that went into this. So thank you to all of the people on the ground that did this work. And I think it's a great study. I would move approval of the strategic area study unless there are questions. I'd second that. Okay. We've got a motion and a second. Any other questions, commissioners? I just have one question and one comment. With the 11 landowners, are they all on board with the TDR concept, transferring rights within the study? So we had a meeting with the landowners, a second, and everyone seemed, at least at that meeting, everyone seemed supportive of the idea. Okay. Some of the landowners were like, well, can I get started now? And I said, well, let's, let's, let's get this through and see what happens. So. Yeah. So I think that's an important concept. Um, you know, we just dealt with that commissioners on, on Everly. And so I think within that study, if they're able to work that out, I think that, that'll be great. My big concern is just the elevation changes. And when we get to the planning stage, um, that's going to be the big concern. Cause I know there have been water issues downstream. And so making sure that we've got that all engineered correctly and, um, planned correctly is really my biggest concern. But thank you for all the work that you have done. Okay. I guess that's a question. The, the TDR is not just within the, they can't, they can sell to any developer that needs development units, right? They. Great question through the chair. So what we did, we originally drafted the report to say it's within the Pine Hills study. We had the landowner meeting and they said, well, what about if we wanted to go outside of the Pine Hills? And we said, yeah, let's draft, let's put that in the plan. So we did draft it in the plan that they can use their, they can sell their units outside. It within Alaska. As long as it meets the comprehensive plan for the TDR. So in the urban cluster, those, all those requirements. Right. So, so in the urban cluster in Alaska County. Yes, sir. Yeah. Okay. So that's okay. Okay. Do you want to clarify? Mr. Chair, one of the things that was mentioned at one of the landowner meetings was the idea of being able to send units into land within municipalities. So we do have a policy in our comprehensive plan now that would allow for transfer of development rights where areas within municipalities could be the receiving area if there is an interlocal agreement with the municipality. And that's based on the concept that it's within their urban cluster like it's in our urban cluster. Right. It would need to be consistent with the city's comprehensive plan. The city would need to, there would need to be an interlocal agreement with the city to allow for that to happen. Okay. Okay. Okay. So that would be the first step would be them getting, I guess, what would be our interest then in terms of the approvals for the land use moving forward? Would we, would we have a stake in that land use approval then? The last thing I want is we transfer development rights. Then the neighbors are like, you're building twice as much and that's all the county's fault. And look what they did. You know what I mean? But it's within the city and it would be up to that city. But they would be the ones to approve the project. The land use. Yeah. The city would be approving the project within their municipal boundaries. And before that they would, or as part of it, they would be approving an interlocal agreement to even allow the TDR to happen. It would have to be within the zone, the zoning category that exists for that property. I believe so. Yes. Yeah. And we would look at that interlocal before we signed it. Yeah. So we'd have to agree on that. Yeah. Okay. So we've got a motion to accept the study and a second. Is there any further discussion from this board? All right. Is there anyone from the public that wish to speak to the motion? Now is your time. Come forward. Welcome Ryan. Craig. Craig. That's all right. Craig Brazier with NV5. We've been working with quite a few of the, or a few of the landowners in this special area study. But definitely want to thank y'all for moving this from last month to this month to give us time to meet with your growth management staff and EPD staff to talk through some questions and concerns that property owners have. And I think, you know, they now have a much better understanding. You may hear from some of them directly today as well. So Craig, can you speak to my question? Are they good with the TDR concept? I mean, yeah, the TDR concept is great. We do appreciate the fact, because one of the things we talked about when we met with staff was the ability to use those credits outside of the special area study. So I think that is very important. Trying to build on those hills. Right. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. That was the discussion we had. And staff was very open to that discussion. And we look forward to being able to work with staff on those things as we move forward. Because I think that was also part of the understanding and some of the concern that the property owners had was like, you know, what does the special area study lock in place? What does it actually do or limit them or prevent them from doing moving forward? And so it was that understanding, too, that this really creates the baseline and framework, but there's still opportunity to provide input and really have influence as things become policy and get locked in. Because one of the things that we wanted to discuss with them is that their ongoing bona fide civil culture operations back here have been for decades. They wanted to make sure that there was nothing in this special area study that would, you know, prevent or limit those operations that are already allowed today. And with the understanding that, you know, they still have opportunity to discuss the policies that will then have a little bit more impact on the types of behaviors that can, you know, continue on the property. But the other was being able to provide some additional ground truthing in some of these areas that may not be as clear habitat as others. Because we've had, through working with the Mullally's and the Fletcher's over the years, we have experience back here on this property and know that there are some very significant environmental features and natural features that there's, you know, no question about that are going to be protected. But then there are some others, you know, these habitat areas that we may would want to be able to provide more ground truthing as the special area plan becomes real. And so it's our understanding that we can do that. And so we look forward to working with staff through that special area plan process. Yeah. So that raises a question. What's the timeline between the adoption of the study today and ultimately the plan coming back before the board? Mr. Chair, I think once the study is accepted, we will begin work immediately on the special area plan. So I would anticipate that would come back before you early next year. Early next year. Okay. I mean, I just want to be clear that the maps that are in this, these delineate the conservation management areas and the significant conservation areas. So those maps are, once they're adopted, they're adopted. Mr. Chair, we think that the significant habitat areas that have been identified in the study, those are the significant habitat areas. We are, if Mr. Hofstetter is here, he might want to speak to this. But I think we were, of course, willing to look at additional ground truthing that may occur and work with the property owners on that going forward. But we think these are, you know, in general, the areas that are significant habitat. Can you put the conservation management areas up on the screen? Do you have that? I didn't see that in the present. Oh, there it is. Yeah. The, I believe the green on this map is the conservation or the, excuse me, the significant habitat areas. Yeah. It's a lot. Steve, did you want to add anything to Ben? Yeah, Mr. Chair, Steve Hofstetter, Environmental Protection Department. I just wanted to add, you know, what we described is minor adjustments to the boundary lines. These are at a very large scale. Sure. And kind of like we do with a wetland delineation. Yeah. We have it on the map, but on-site ground truthing is what we're talking about. So the ability to make those minor adjustments. The other thing is to recognize if we're for 20 years, you know, later than now, you know, to allow that recognition that minor changes may be appropriate. Okay. Fair enough. You good with that? Yeah. Yeah. Perfect. Okay. Anyone else from the public, would you just speak to the motion? Yeah. Come on up. Hey. Good afternoon. My name is Nicole Mullally and I'm one of the property owners in the special area study. I understand that Alachua County needs thoughtful, well-planned growth that protects environmental resources, anticipates our growing population, and provides the infrastructure need to serve that growth responsibly. I've met with members of the county's planning staff and appreciate the time they've taken to explain their work and listen to our concerns. I was especially impressed by the length of time many have served in their roles, a testament to their experience and commitment to this community. As this study moves towards becoming an adopted plan, I ask that landowners continue to be engaged as meaningful partners. We recognize the environmental characteristics that are present in this area and are not asking for unrestricted development. At the same time, restrictions should not be so extensive or prohibitive that responsible, high-quality, thoughtful development becomes unfeasible. The county's planning staff brings valuable expertise in land use policy and environmental stewardship. However, I encourage the county to also consult professionals with real-world commercial and residential development experience who can evaluate construction costs and financial feasibility. This is not simply about developer profit. A plan that does not work economically may never be realized as intended or may result in lower-quality development as future developers attempt to offset excessive costs. As the final plan is developed, I ask that three issues receive careful consideration, which we've already been brought up a little bit so far today. But first, allowable density be flexible enough to support environmental preservation, necessary infrastructure, and successful mixed-use development, such as a traditional neighborhood development, and making sure that density is high enough to support that. Second, transferable development rights should be permitted to move outside the study boundaries so they remain a useful and valuable conservation tool. Third, environmental restrictions should allow for reasonable edits based on additional data, changing conditions, or third-party review. Significant features such as sinkholes, steep slopes, and wetlands may be protected, but there may be gray areas where carefully planned lower-density development could occur without compromising the land's overall environmental character. My hope is that landowners, county staff, environmental experts, and developmental professionals can work together before the major decisions are finalized. We have an opportunity to create a plan that is environmentally responsible, economically realistic, and a genuine win for property owners, and more so the Alachua community as a whole. Thanks. Thanks for listening. Thank you, Nicole. Is it larger than landowners? Buy a lot. Yep. Mr. Russo? Hey, Helen. Welcome. Thank you for being here. Todd Russo. I'm one of the small property owners up here. I'm in the top 25 acres. I just want to say we want to have a chance to work with staff on some of the development back there, some of the habitats and things. As long as we can tweak a little bit and massage it, we're not locked in today to what's up there. I think we'll all be able to work together. Okay. I think Nicole said it eloquently, so I'll leave it at that. Thank you. Thank you, Todd. Appreciate you. Mr. Dienenbach, welcome. Colorado? All the way from Colorado? No, no, no. All the way from 8th Avenue and 34th Avenue. Okay, good. Good to see you. This is a good feel-good Tuesday here. It is. It's been a pleasure to work with staff and borrow your map here for just a second, because some of us in the room remember when the MTPO put those lines out there for future roads. And it's going to take really careful consideration. And I think, Mr. Chair, through the Chair, Commissioner Prizia, this is a good snapshot today so that we have the first portion of this on the map. Because when we met with Chris and Steve and Ben, now's the time to start the scenario planning. And just like you were heralded, I won't go as emphatic as Mr. Dijon this morning, but doing this right is really important. Because this is expensive infrastructure to cross this vast area of land, and the development that needs to occur in there is really thoughtful development. And it needs to reflect the reason why people come to Alachua County and not just carpet sprawl in this area. This is a big chunk that's not developed yet inside the urban cluster, and it's more important to do it right than to do it haphazardly or in a patchwork model. So we had a really good meeting a week or so ago with staff, and it's always a pleasure because I think I might have seeded the idea that the reason you have such good longevity in your staff members is because they all care and they want to move the community forward in the right direction. So thanks for your time and happy Tuesday. Thank you, Jerry. Appreciate you being here. And anyone else? Who wants to come twice? All right, let's bring it back to the board. Any other questions or comments? Okay. All those in favor of the motion say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion is unanimous. Okay. Thank you guys for pushing that off and giving that extra time. I think that was important, certainly for the landowners and for the staff. So we'll see you in the spring of next year on this item. Okay, Commissioners, I think we are done until our public hearings. Is there anything significant we need? I just have five questions for Jim Cerdic. He didn't hear me, unfortunately. Do you all want to do manager comment now or do it tonight? Yeah, we do not. I'll get over it. Let's go ahead and move the manager comment up. Anything from the attorney? Nothing from the attorney. Anything from the manager? Yes, Mr. Chair. As you're aware, we have a pending lease option with the University of Florida for the animal shelter. We have not completed our due diligence at this point. And we've already used our initial 60 days that we could just automatically ask for. We have asked for an extension of the due diligence period. And so, but the date is September 11th, so we cannot wait. This is the last meeting we have. So, oh, I'm done. Okay. We need a motion to approve. I moved. I moved. Yes, I moved. I just need approval that I can go ahead and execute that extension. The only thing that would be changing is giving us 90 more days because otherwise the option automatically basically locks us into the lease come September 11th if we don't get an extension. So, if they didn't grant the extension, then I have to say we're done. Commissioner Wheeler's a motion? Yes. Any second? Second. That puts us past the November election. We know what the money looks like. We're asking for 90 days. 90 days. Okay. Any discussion? Any public discussion? Back to the board. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. Okay. Anything else? No. Okay. Sure? Yes. Okay, good. All right. Commission comments. Mary Helen, you good? No, I just want to ask you guys to help me remember at the MTPO meeting or the GACPO meeting that the airport has asked for lighting out there off of Waldo Road because it's hard to see the entrance going into the airport. So just I'm telling you guys so I don't forget. Okay. All right. Please. They need better lighting on Waldo Road to get into the airport. Right. Anything, Chuck? No, I have nothing. Do you have anything? I do. I just wanted to give everybody an update on our jail. We have 971 people in our jail as of today, apparently. 360 of them have been there over 60 days, between 60 days and a year. 82 of them over a year, with 26 of those having it be their first felony. We have 67 misdemeanors that are their first misdemeanor mostly, and 16 of them have been in over 60 days. I'm just going to bring this small report to you all from time to time, from now on, just so we can keep track of what's going on. Because I feel like our sheriff is working really hard to try to think of ways to reduce the jail population. And I really hope that our court system is also thinking about ways that we can reduce our jail population. And I think our staff, we've asked them to think about workforce programs. We have a reentry program. We spend a lot of time and a lot of money thinking about the people who are incarcerated at our jail. But we rarely talk about it at these meetings. So this is my public service announcement. We have 971 people in our jail today, and that's a lot of people. Our jail only holds, I think, 1,200 at its very maximum. So we're bumping up close to that maximum. And every time we do that, you know, we put stress on the system. Not just on our budgets and our finances, but on the people, the men and women who are working at our jail. To keep those people safe. The people who have to make the food for those people. The people who have to take care of the facilities, Travis and his team. Because built spaces that haven't been used in a long time start to get used more. Because those people, they have to expand where people are sleeping. So I just wanted to bring that to you. And ask that, you know, our state attorney and our public defender and our courts all work with us. That's on the joint goal, I think, of reducing our jail population in Alachua County. Mr. Chair, may I ask a question about that? Yeah, go ahead. Can we, do you have an idea about how many of those people are not able to make bond, make bail? That's why they're there? I mean, if you could get that number for us. I've tried to ask for a, I do have people who are in, who have been in there a long time. So that's usually why they've been in there a long time. But that's part of why I gave you the numbers of how many people. And a lot of them are like their first felony. So likely their bond wasn't that high. It's probably that they couldn't afford their bond, 26 of them. But what I don't understand is all of all of these numbers that I gave you of the people that I talked about, the 360 that have been in there over 60 days to one year, all of them are awaiting sentencing according to the report. So I'm not sure why they've been in jail for so long. But I do know that it likely is, some of it is about bond for some of these individuals, particularly the misdemeanors with their first violation, 67. I would imagine most of them had a bond set since it was a misdemeanor and it was their first event. So likely they just couldn't afford the bond. But I don't know that for sure. We don't have, there's no report of people in bond and the bond amounts or anything like that for us to be able to look at at this time. So I don't have that. And some could be holds, some could be holds for other counties and things like that. Yeah, because I know at one time there was a group of people who were helping to pay those things. This was a while ago. Yeah. Yeah, no, I know. It would be great to know if someone's in there solely for financial reasons. It would be great to know so we could think about what are the ways in which we could shift that. And I, and I, yeah, and I agree with you. We also are holding a lot for DOC, like a lot, a lot of lot. Like we're holding a lot of people basically for the Department of Corrections. You know, I think, I think it's close to 70 or something like that of those individuals. And a lot of these individuals also are waiting on mental health beds. And we just don't have enough beds in our state hospitals or any, even mental health beds in our own jail, which is a real problem because then they have to segregate that person so that they can keep them safe. But they don't really, we don't really have a place, a good place for them. You know? So anyway. Thank you, Commissioner. All right. Commissioner Alper, you got anything? Actually something along the same lines. I've been talking with someone and y'all got this email to this person just to read the email. My primary concern pertains to the due process of pretrial detainees. My friend was held for over five months awaiting trial. During this time, their court date was repeatedly continued. Their possessed body camera footage, they possessed body camera footage that would have been exculpatory. Yet their public defender advised them that proceeding to trial wasn't a viable option. The defender asserted that due to continual rescheduling, they would likely have served the entirety of their potential sentence before ever seeing a courtroom effectively coercing a guilty plea. And they were under the impression this was a common occurrence in our jail. And I, based on conversations I have, I don't think it's an uncommon occurrence. I did contact our state attorney, Brian Kramer, and request a meeting with him, as well as Stacey Scott, to just sit down and talk about what their ideas might be for moving people through the system faster. I want to understand where the rescheduling issues are. Are those rescheduling issues happening because of what? You know, is it court services? Is it the judges' schedules? Why? Why are things being rescheduled over and over again and causing? I have some personal experience with this as well, and I found that really disturbing. Also, a couple of weeks ago, I helped someone who was arrested. They had been released from a psychiatric unit a week before. They were arrested due to suspicious drunk driving. They had, they did not, they blew a zero, so they weren't drunk. They had blood drawn. They didn't have any drugs in their system. Of course, they didn't know that at first appearance. But I went to first appearance and asked them, you know, to take into account the psychiatric place where this young woman was. And they let her go under, you know, psychiatric care that she has to basically, you know, take whatever medications and show up and all that kind of stuff. But my question is, is why was a person who was in obvious distress when she was picked up, and blew a zero, taken to the Eletcher County Jail and not to our crisis, you know, center for evaluation? Central receiving. Central receiving. Yeah, sorry, central receiving. I mean, why is that? Why did I have to show up on a Saturday morning for first appearance when we've paid to help this young lady who had, you know. Who was the arresting agent? It was the Eletcher County Sheriff's Department. Yeah. So I, you know, I don't know how to track all of this. But, you know, they let her go. Everything was fine. But she should have never have been there to begin with. And the thing is, she only moved to this county a couple of months ago. She hadn't established a permanent residence yet. And if I hadn't have shown up for her, they would have kept her because she didn't have an address. And so I, I just am, I'm just really, that really disturbed me. And I don't know what to do about it. But I feel like we all need to be aware of the problem there. Okay. Thank you, Commissioner. Anyway, that's all I've got. All right. All right. So we will reconvene at 501. We'll do our non-avalurems. And then we'll do the first hearing. You have the script. Tommy will have the script. And we will stand and resource until 501. So, here I will confirm that, the O N K supplier unit came in the back. And then we areO P DESEVICS ADVICS ADVICS ADVICS ADVICS ADVICS ADVICS ADVICS ADVICS ADVICS ADVICS ADVICS ADVICS ADVICS ADVICS ADVICS ADVICS ADVICS