Hey everybody, it's 1130 on September 22nd. I'd like to go ahead and call this meeting to order. Before we get started, we're going to have the invocation by Mr. Theo Lighthorn. Oh, there you are. If everyone could please stand, join in the invocation, and then if you'll join me for the pledge, thank you. Let us pray. God of grace and truth, we come before you this morning to ask that you will be present with us here today. We praise you, Father, because there is none greater than you, and I pray for the agenda that is set before the Board of County Commissioners today. There are many in Alachua County who don't know you as Father, and we ask this day that you would adopt them into your family and make them your own. Save them, Lord, and send your spirit of adoption into their hearts. We pray for the people of our county and for the commissioners and our county judge. We pray for wisdom, stamina, and compassion for all of our leaders, and we pray for help, encouragement, and lasting improvements for the people of our county who are struggling. We have been blessed not to have endured the recent effects of a hurricane in our region, and we ask that you would comfort and continue to guide those who were affected by storms in our nation. We ask that your peace will be shown to all in our county as they seek you with their whole heart and turn to you in worship and in praise. Lord, your will is to bring about happiness, stability, unity, justice, and compassion to this county that we call home. Would you decrease oppression, victimization, and all manner of evil that constantly comes before us each day. Bring healing and hope and love to us all, Lord. We pray for wise and kind and just decisions from our governmental leaders. Would you please allow us to be wise stewards of the resources that you've given us. For our mayor, the various levels of city officials, and for this assembled county council, I ask that you would give all of the aforementioned a keen thirst for doing what is right and what is best for our people. Confidence in what is good and fitting, and the ability to work together in harmony and unity even when there is honest disagreement. We also ask that you would grant them personal peace in their lives, enjoying this task that you've set before them. Relieve our anxiety about the future. Soften our hearts by allowing us to see your faithfulness in the past in order that we might quickly and deeply trust your promises about the future. Give us a heart to believe your good news and learn to love what you love and to hate what you hate. We love you, O God. All satisfying and all loving God, may you find our desire to turn to you this day to be pleasing in your sight. We ask these things for Jesus' sake. Amen. Amen. Thank you. I pledge to leave you to the five states of New York Island in New York City. Okay. Thank you all for being here. We've got a big agenda today. Madam Manager, is there anything, any changes to the agenda? Yes. We've been requested to pull item 5A, Growth Management, Alachua County Bicycle Pedestrian Master Plan, off of the consent agenda. Okay. Any objection to that? All right. So we'll do that at the, make that item K, items pulled from consent. And with that, I'll take a motion. Move approval of the agenda. Second. Okay. We've got a motion and a second to approve the agenda. Anyone wish to speak to the motion? Seeing none, bring it back to the board. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion is unanimous. All right. We have an agenda. Okay. So the first item is the announcements. I understand there are no announcements. All right. And so then we'll start with the recognitions. I'll take a motion to approve the recognitions. So moved. Second. Motion and a second to approve the recommendations. A couple of motions and a couple of seconds. Commissioner Wheeler is going to be joining us shortly. And Commissioner Chesson is not going to join us today. So I just wanted to let you all know that. All right. Back to the board. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion is unanimous. All right. And the first one, Madam Clerk. The first one will be presentation of a proclamation recognizing October 4th through October 10th as National 4-H Week in Alachua County, Florida. That's the wrong one. You have the wrong 4-H week? Let me go. Yes. Let me go. Skip ahead. Yes. Skip ahead and I'll go get it. Sounds good. Yeah. Let's go ahead and do the second one. The first one will be presentation of a proclamation recognizing October as Community Planning Month in Alachua County, Florida. And we're going to have Commissioner Alford give this proclamation. As some of the most dedicated folks in Alachua County come forward to get this presentation. These are some hard-working folks that take a lot of grief. So we're recognizing October, and we're also going to take a minute to recognize them. So this is a proclamation declaring October as Community Planning Month in Alachua County, Florida. Whereas Community Planning provides a vital long-range framework for guiding decisions concerning land use, housing, transportation, parks, and public places. And whereas Alachua County's strategic guide advances compact development and infrastructure, protects natural resources, provides or promotes climate resilience, supports housing stability, expands accessible transportation, and strengthens stewardship, and strengthens stewardship of public resources. And whereas transparent data informed approaches to population economic trends, along with adaptable planning practices, strengthen public trust, support informed decision-making, and helps the county prepare for uncertainty and the needs of future generations. And whereas meaningful public participation ensures that the county plans, policies, and investments reflect the experiences, priorities, and aspirations of residents throughout Alachua County. Whereas the month of October, designated as National Community Planning Month, provides an opportunity to highlight the importance of sound planning and to recognize the Board of County Commissioners, the Alachua County Growth Management Department, the Planning Commission, advisory boards, professional planners, partner agencies, and residents, whose efforts enhance the quality of life in Alachua County. Now, therefore, through the authority vested in me by the Board of County Commissioners of Alachua County, Florida, I do hereby proclaim October as Community Planning Month in Alachua County, Florida, duly proclaim this 22nd day of September, A.D., 2026, and signed by all the appropriate people. Would you like to say a few words? Thank you. I'll say a few words. All right. And I'll give you this fancy piece of paper. Thank you very much. Thank you, commissioners and Madam Manager. Jeff Hayes, your growth management director. I just wanted to once again say being a planner and doing community planning in this community is actually easy because we have a community who is very invested in planning, and we see it every day. It doesn't mean our lives are easy every day, but it makes it a really rewarding place to do this work. And I think the commission and the manager for supporting the staff and, of course, all of your staff here, and this is not all of them, but you can see them every day. And I was even just looking at the agenda today where we have the culmination of two really long-range planning efforts, our evaluation and appraisal comprehensive plan amendments, which should be adopted today. We have our bicycle and pedestrian master plan, which has been a multi-year effort working with multiple local governments as well as members of the public from all over the community. And then we have economic development with your EcoLoop project moving forward and just the everyday work that we do with a cell phone tower that's proposed to provide infrastructure for the community. So with that, thank you very much, and we're happy to do this work and look forward to continuing. Commissioner Frizio. Yeah, I just want to say thank you to all of you. You know, you make us look so good with the work that you do. I consistently get positive feedback about your team, and that's saying a lot, given that oftentimes planners are at that intersection between, you know, development and environmental protection and our community and the way that we live our lives. And so there can be a lot of tension in that space. But you all, the feedback I get from the community is about the high level of customer service that you all provide, about the professionalism and the thoughtfulness that you bring to your job. And that comes from consultants. It comes from developers. It comes from individuals who are trying to navigate building permits and other things. So I just want to say thank you for the work that you do and for all of the hard work that you've been doing recently with all the special area plans and the EAR, and we've really piled it on of late. So thank you all very, very much for everything that you do. Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Wheeler. I would echo all of that, but also to say that in my experience with all of you folks that I've been able to count on for good advice, support, and recommendations, I've come to realize if you say it's so, it must be so. And so I really do appreciate the professionalism that you all bring to this board for us to look good, for sure. And if you say it's so, I believe it's so. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And then I'll add, and I think we're all going to come down and take a picture. You know, so I know all of you have worked with all of you for over a decade. You know, all the department heads are the keepers of our comp plan. And the comp plan is the community's vision or the business plan or the strategic plan for our future in Alachua County. And there are no greater keepers and protectors of the comp plan than those individuals that are standing up there and everyone that you all represent in your respective departments. So thank you, Growth Management, for being the keeper of the comp plan. Let's go down for a quick picture. Absolutely. Next, we'll have the presentation of a proclamation recognized October 4th through October 10th as National 4-H Week in Alachua County, Florida. And we've got our IFAS representative up here, Commissioner Prizio, who's going to be giving this proclamation. Hi. Excellent. Well, as we all know, ag is near and dear to my heart. And it's really wonderful to have a robust 4-H program here in Alachua County that supports our youth and their energy and efforts around thinking about the future of our food system. So I know 4-H does a lot more than that, but for me, that's the heart and soul of what it is. So I'm proud to be declaring October 4th through October 10th as National 4-H Week in Alachua County. Whereas the Florida 4-H program has been positively impacting children's lives since 1909 and has celebrated over 115 years of service, its mission is to create a supportive environment where diverse youth and adults may reach their fullest potential. And 4-H is an organization open to all children age 5 to 18. 4-H reaches over 6 million youth nationwide, with Florida having over 220,000 youth members and adult volunteers. And with the Alachua County 4-H program boasting over 450 community club members and volunteers, along with over 4,000 youth participating in schools. And whereas the Alachua County 4-H program is part of the Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences at the University of Florida, and is a program where young people learn by doing through programs such as the Alachua County Youth Fair, 4-H community clubs, and 4-H members participate in projects such as science and technology, photography and creative arts, horticulture, entomology, public speaking, and animal sciences that help them develop leadership, citizenship, and other life skills. Whereas the Alachua County 4-H members have shown extraordinary leadership abilities, by having consistent county membership on the state executive board, where they work with youth and adults from across the state to implement statewide programs and maintain positions on the state council. And whereas the Alachua County youth have excelled on club, county, district, state, and national levels, with members participating in the state 4-H legislature, 4-H university, the Southern Region Teen Leadership Conference, as well as competed in the state contests for the Avian Bowl, the Envirothon, horse judging, shooting sports, public speaking, creative arts, livestock projects, and more. And whereas Alachua County encourages the people of this community to take the opportunity to become more aware of this special program and to join us in recognizing the unique partnership between our city, our county, and the university system. Now, therefore, through the authority vested in me by the Board of County Commissioners of Alachua County, Florida, I do hereby proclaim October 4-10 as National 4-H Week in Alachua County, Florida. And, of course, it has the sign, signatures, and seals as approved. Do you want to say if you would? My name is Mary Lee Sale, and I'm the 4-H agent for Alachua County. I work over at the UFI Phys Extension Office in Newberry. One thing that makes 4-H unique is that we don't see youth as the leaders of tomorrow. We see them as the leaders of today. Every day, young people in our county are leading club meetings, practicing public speaking, mentoring younger members, serving their communities, and tackling real-world challenges. They aren't waiting until adulthood to make a difference. They are making differences right now. That mindset is reflected in our Beyond Ready initiative. Beyond Ready is more than just a theme. It's the work that we do every day to ensure that young people have the skills, experiences, and confidence to succeed in both their careers and their lives. In a 2026 survey of Alachua County 4-H alumni, more than 95% reported that our county's 4-H program helped them become more strongly prepared than their peers in the top five skills most desired by employers, including leadership, creative thinking, and resiliency. Today, those alumni from Alachua County are working in fields including healthcare, construction management, biochemistry, elementary education, forensics, and many others. Across the board, Alachua County 4-H is proving to be a significant contributor to a thriving local workforce. What makes me most proud is that these young people are not waiting until adulthood to create positive change. They're already serving their neighbors, strengthening their communities, and demonstrating the leadership that our county needs and values. On behalf of our youth, families, volunteers, and staff, thank you to all of the commissioners for this proclamation and for your continued investment in the young people of Alachua County. Together, we are helping them become truly Beyond Ready for life and work. So, thank you. Okay, Madam Clerk, next item. Next, we'll have a presentation of a proclamation recognized October 4th through October 10th as Fire Prevention Week in Alachua County, Florida. Okay. It's my pleasure to declare October 4th through the 10th as Fire Prevention Week in Alachua County, Florida, whereas Alachua County is committed to ensuring the safety and security of all those living in and visiting Alachua County, and whereas fire remains a serious public safety concern both locally and nationally, and the presence of lithium-ion batteries in many household devices introduce fire risks, and whereas the National Fire Protection Association, NFPA, reports an increase in battery-related fires underscoring the need for public education on the safe use of lithium-ion batteries and devices, and whereas safe charging includes using the cord and charger that came with your device or one approved by the manufacturer, charging on a hard, flat surface watching for warning signs like devices that are very hot or start to swell, unplugging when fully charged, and charging larger devices like e-bikes outside and away from exits, and whereas residents are encouraged to understand that safe charging means making smart choices every day they plug in, and whereas Alachua County first responders remain dedicated to reducing the occurrence of fires through prevention and safety education and community outreach, and whereas the 2026 Fire Prevention Week theme, charge into fire safety, safe charging is a superpower, serves to remind all residents that safe charging can help reduce the risk of fires in homes and community. Now, therefore, through the authority vested in me by the Board of County Commissioners of Alachua County, Florida, I do hereby proclaim October 4th through the 10th this Fire Prevention Week in Alachua County due to the complaint this 22nd day of September, signed by myself, the chair. It's attested to by our clerk, Jess Irby, and a personal story. I think I read this one last year, and up until then, I had all the batteries in my garage for my, now my lawnmower, but also for my blower and for my weed whacker, and now, after reading this, I unplug those things every day after I charge them, and I just feel better because there's literally four of them in my garage. So, Chief, you want to say a few words? Good morning, Madam Manager, Commissioners, Jeff Taylor, Interim Fire Chief, Alachua County Fire Rescue. I just want to take the opportunity, on behalf of Alachua County Fire Rescue and our fire prevention staff, to thank you for the recognition of Fire Prevention Week, October 4th through 10th, a week we're certainly happy to share with our 4-H friends. As Commissioner Cornell said, this year's theme focuses on charging your lithium-ion batteries. In 2024, the latest data that come out of Florida, in Florida alone, the Florida State Fire Marshal reported that 260 lithium-ion battery incidents occurred across the state. And it's important to note that those happen not just while they're charging, but can also happen when they're not charging. And so, what we would like to say is it's really important that we recognize the unique risk of these batteries that are really taking over our lives, quite frankly. I mean, they're in everything, as the Commissioner stated. We're very careful about how we charge them, that we use the appropriate cords, that we're alert for swelling, and batteries that are no longer charging, and that they are not thrown into the household garbage, but rather taken to our hazardous materials sites so that they are taken care of appropriately. Just, again, I want to especially thank our fire prevention staff, who's out today keeping our community safe, Fire Marshal John Adler and his staff. They do an incredible job each and every day through inspections, education, community outreach, to get the word out about things that make our community safer. And so, we really appreciate their efforts. And, again, thank you all for this recognition, and we are happy to accept it on behalf of the men and women of Alachua County Fire Rescue. Okay. Next item, we have the Alachua County Agricultural Land Conservation Board appointment. Appoint one citizen-at-large member to the ALCB with a term ending April 30th, 2029. Okay. Commissioners, I think we've got your tally sheet in front of you. Why don't we – yeah. So, if you are here, Donald Odom, Heather Stover, Jose Alvar Sevilla, Callie House, or Justin Diamond, if you want to give us just a minute here and tell us why you'd like to be on this board, come on up and speak to us. Anyone? Yeah, come on up. Yeah, just come on up, introduce yourself, and give us just a few minutes as to why you'd like to be on the board. Thank you for being here. Good morning, Mr. President, commissioners, and board members. My name is Heather Stover. I previously introduced myself as an applicant for the Land Conservation or Agriculture Land Conservation Board. I could stand here and list my accomplishments, such as authoring two books or graduating in the top 10% of my UF MBA cohort, but this appointment isn't about me. It's about serving Alachua County, and it's about protecting our agricultural land. The authors of Land Conservation Financing state that agricultural and land in general is consumed at a rate three times that of our population growth. What is the consequence of this? I'll tell you. Oftentimes, agricultural land buffers land that has been previously conserved, and if this buffer disappears, ecosystems are fragmented, and people who use the already conserved land for hiking or equestrian use no longer have a safety buffer of that land. Alachua County is a leader in land conservation efforts, and to sustain this leadership, it requires responsibility and a care for the land and for its community. To sustain this leadership, conservation must be strategic, responsible, and coordinated as well. Alachua County has two separate boards that work in tandem, and I believe that I would be a really good fit to help these boards work in tandem. I request an appointment to the ALCB to help protect our agricultural land. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Stover. Anyone else here? I'm going to record this board. Okay. All right, Madam Clerk, you want to do a roll call, and we'll just pick one on the list, see if we get a consensus? Can I start with Commissioner Parizia? I'll just say it's a really hard one. Thank you so much for your application, and we do need more landowners and farmers to be a part of these committees to help us. We had so many really qualified people, and Justice has been an amazing advocate for land conservation with our ag lands as well, so this was a hard decision for me, but I know you've applied before and you have a real heart for it, so my motion will go for Heather Stover for my vote. Commissioner Wheeler? The same. Heather? Commissioner Alfred? Stover? And Chair. I'll make it unanimous, Stover, so it will be a motion now. Okay. I move Heather Stover for the Alachua County Agricultural Land Conservation Board. Second. A motion and a second. Okay. All those, is there any public comment to that motion? Yes, sir, Mr. Chair. Okay, go ahead. Mr. Connish? We do have really good people serving on these advisory boards. However, I don't really think they're informed as to what our rights are as private landowners who are actually engaged in agricultural production. There are no minimum acreages. Once you're classified as agricultural production, if you're one of ten types of farms subject to State of Florida best management practices... Mr. Connish, if you speak to the motion, the motion is to appoint. I would want them to realize that the county's disrespect of the rights of private landowners is the biggest impediment to land conservation because land conservation needs to occur on a grassroots level. And when people are committing their time, their money, their resources to agricultural production, you need to leave them alone. And you need to let everyone know they have a right to farm without interference from you or the neighbors. Thank you, Mr. Connish. Thank you. Okay, thank you. All right, so anyone else? All right, so the motion is to appoint Heather Stover. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right, that motion is unanimous. Now you can clap. Go ahead. I mean, we normally don't do clapping, but thank you for applying, and thank you. Congratulations on being appointed. All right, Madam Clerk, next item. I think we can get this done before public comment. Okay. Okay, next item will be Recreation and Open Space Advisory Committee Appointment. Select one applicant to join the ROSCO Committee for the term ending September 2030. And are any of the applicants here? Okay, let's go ahead and tally. Take a tally. All right, if I can start with Commissioner Alford on your vote. Murphy. Commissioner Wheeler. Casanova. Commissioner Prezio. Taylor Murphy. And Chair. I like Casanova, but I'm going to say Murphy to make it three votes for Murphy. Murphy. Move Taylor Murphy for our Roscoe board. Got a motion and a second. Any discussion from the public to the motion? Back to the board. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion is unanimous. I think I taught him. Yes, okay, good. All right. Next up we have the, yeah, so the next up we have the Alaska County Affordable Housing Advisory Committee Annual Work Plan. We're going to go ahead and start public comment. So before I get started on public comment, this is a time for anyone to speak to us about anything that's not on the agenda. You'll have three minutes. Introduce yourself. We've got a light system. I see some new faces in the chamber, so I just want to show you the light system. Green means go. You have three minutes. Yellow means 30 seconds left. Red means time for the next person to speak. If you want to speak about something that's on the agenda and you can't stay, you're welcome to do that as well. So you can speak about something on the agenda if you have to leave. If you speak about something that's on the agenda, then when it comes up, you will have used your turn. So I know there are some folks here for some later agenda items, but if you have to go, feel free to speak during public comment. We'll take public comment in the chambers, then we'll move to the phones, and then we'll conclude with our public comment. Okay? Everybody understand? All right. Ms. Connish, you're recognized. Mr. Chair, Jim Connish. I have the overhead, please. I'd like to call your attention to County Road, Northwest 282nd Drive, that dead ends at the park emergency entrance to Poe Springs, and that is the best-maintained road in the universe. I've used it since 1980. There's never been a blemish on it. It's nice to have that kind of service from the county. You closed Poe Springs to all swimming on September, on July 20th, and it remains closed to this day, and it really hasn't come up. You've graced our formerly legendary waterhole with a six-stall pump-out, so six people at one time can relieve themselves right on top of the spring, which is insensitive at best on your part. And when I drive down Northwest 282nd Drive, a neighbor has paved a limerock driveway through the floodplain next to my property, tied into the road, quote from the county attorney, staff found no violation of the code with either asphalt or limerock constructed at grade through a floodplain. Well, that's disappointing. This gentleman also removed this county dock from county to county park and installed it on his property without a permit. The dock was removed and disposed of because it was trash. That's not trash, sir. That's surplus county property. Your senior environmental engineer came out to an absolute decimation of a rare 2.1-acre natural hardware hammock in the floodplain, and it's fine with it. It's fine with clearing a buffer that was supposed to be undisturbed, and as remediation, 23 cane clumping bamboo were planted, even though the county is in possession of a survey of this property before it was decimated. With no consequence, county staff has the information. Instead, they've issued 400 e-mails attacking any improvement or any use of our riverfront property and our farmland. So that's a disgrace. Your failures are evident. Just look at your spring, and if you think this is the worst of it, you're wrong. The river's going to keep going down, and the flows are going to keep going down, and Rum Island, Lily Springs, they're next. Thank you, Ms. Connish. Thank you. Okay, next speaker. Yeah, come forward, please. Just introduce yourself. Hello. Hi, my name is Yvonne Bartow, and I'm a horse trainer, if you can't tell from my boots. Three minutes is not very long, so I have something written down. What I want to talk to everybody here today is that the Alachua County, I guess it's the fairgrounds now, it's the Canterbury, it used to be Canterbury. I show there a lot as a dressage competitor, both Western and English. And we have had our Spirit of the Horse fundraising show for my rescue, Horses Without Humans Rescue. I'm the founder of the rescue. I'm a lifetime horse trainer. It's in Bell, Florida. We work very closely with the animal control in both Alachua and Gilchrist County, but also all over Florida. We've taken in some very big, very trying cases. The Boneyard, 19 horses at once from Old Town, an illegal slaughter ring down from South Florida. And our fundraiser, the Spirit of the Horse, is our biggest fundraiser of the year. And we need funds, always. It's very hard to run a rescue, my family will tell you. I'm insane. So I'm just going to read this so I don't run out of time, because I'm not a good gauge. The covered arena rate for the Spirit of the Horse, December 18th to the 20th, 2026, which has no, there's no prior engagement there. So the arena would sit empty at that time. We have twice had our show at the Canterbury, and it has done very well, because they have the bleachers on the side, and we can, the ticketed prices can, everything goes to the rescue. I have coerced many, many top riders in the United States. I'm a Grand Prix rider myself. I've been long listed for the Olympic team. And we have gotten a whole bunch of people to come together, like we are the world for horses, into one of the biggest rescues in Florida, which is Horses Without Humans Rescue. So thank you for having me today. The Spirit of the Horse is a live equine theater production, presented each December as a benefit for Horses Without Humans Rescue. This will be its 18th year. Horses and riders from across the country perform alongside professional dancers with costumes and an original soundtrack. It is a family Christmas story told through classical dressage, liberty work driving, choreaft riding, and over three evenings of about 100 minutes each. The horses in the show come from every kind of background. Some are world-class competition horses. Some were surrendered to our rescue. They share the same stage, and a child watching from the stands cannot tell which is which. The money raised in those three evenings feeds and doctors more than 60 horses through the following year. We take no government funding. It comes from the seats being full. We would like to bring the show to the Alachua County Agricultural Equestrian Center. Because we sell tickets, the center has classified it as a spectator event, which puts a covered arena at $1,600 per day. The equestrian rate for the same arena is $425 on a Friday and $625 on a weekend. Over our three days, the difference is $3,125. The enclosed summary explains why we believe the equestrian rate or non-profit rate would better fit this event. I respectfully ask that you direct the staff to review our event for the equestrian rate or a non-profit rate and bring it back to the board. I'm done? Yep, Ms. Barto, if you'd like to give that memo to the clerk, she can make a copy of it and make sure we all get it so that we can get all your comments. Okay, you're welcome. Thank you. Thank you for coming. Mr. Chair, is your information on that, your contact information? Wait until we finish public comment. Okay. Okay, and so the way we do public comment is once all public comments done, then we'll address the items that were addressed to us during public comments. So we'll address that item after public comment. Thank you. Okay, you're welcome. Okay, next speaker, please. I'm yielding my time. I want to back up. Hi, my name is Mary Hill. Hi, Mary. Hi. I'm here to help save the last mile of 75th Street. This street is over 46 years old. It continues to be repeatedly patched, and those patches are very temporary. This is a major safety issue. In order to get past these sinkholes, or basically it's a small sinkhole, there are some that are over about a foot deep and three feet in diameter. And I have swerved off the road. I have had a blowout tire. I have almost hit somebody on a head-on collision, and so has my husband. So do you want to think about that? This is just an atrocity. It serves over 500 people, and it has gotten repeatedly busy because of truck traffic and using a side road, the 185th way, that was not properly done. So I asked the commission. There's no money, as far as I know, that's been put aside to actually repave this road, at least that portion of it. And I asked that that get done because of the safety issue. I have even thought, okay, do I call the sheriff's office to report a safety issue? Not 911, but this is just a terrible, terrible road. And we, of course, because it's 1130 a.m., a lot of people are at work, but this is a major concern of the majority of the residents that this affects. So basically, I ask that this be put higher up on the priority list as far as not just patching it and patching up sinkholes, which are not effective, but to actually replace that road, that section of the road that's really bad. There are, throughout that area, sinkholes, but that last mile is the worst. And it just keeps getting worse, and it is a major safety issue. Thank you, Ms. Hill. Yeah, and I know you said there's 500 residents. We've gotten maybe 100 e-mails in the last week about it, and I know we'll be addressing that after public comment. Okay, next speaker, please. If you're here to talk about the last mile, if you could give us new information or just say what she said or, you know. We'd love to hear from you, but we don't want to cut your time off either. So, okay, you're recognized. Hi, I'm Joe Prager from Crash, and I'm here to talk about the last mile, and I have some new information. Although this lady did such a great job, I should probably just sit down. Here's the last mile here. I hope you can see it on the screen and folks at home. I want to thank the Kanapahar residents who emailed into the commission over the past week or so to let you know what their feelings are. I want to talk about the timeline of the last mile. Using chat GPT, I did some research. In 2008, the last mile was number 26 on Public Works paved roads priority list. Three years later, in 2011, it had gone up to number 25 on the prioritized pavement management list. It had $1.92 million set budgeted for it that was unfunded. Then 10 years goes by. The road falls apart. As homeowners, we expected it would be replaced. We didn't think we had to do anything. By fiscal year 2021, the last mile was an actual specific capital project in your budget, your CIP, on page 441. I sent a copy to all the board members in your email. It was set up for full-depth reclamation, which means major reconstruction, tearing it all the way down to the roadbed and completely rebuilding it. That continued through 2022. The last mile was still in your CIP. But then something happened. The last mile vanished from the county's records completely. Chat GPT can find no copy of it, and no one seems to know why. It must be a mistake. Notice on the chart there, the red bar, on September 27, 2022, the 2023 budget was adopted, and the last mile project no longer appeared in our capital plan. In March 2023, as the TCIP program began to be considered, citizens alerted the county commission and public works about the last mile. And yet, when the TCIP was adopted in May 2023, most Kanapawa residents were completely unaware that our road had been omitted from the TCIP. And even now, three years later, in June of 2026, with the revised TCIP, the last mile is still not in the plan, and this makes no sense. As Kanapawa area homeowners, it's inexplicable. We've waited decades, literally decades, for this road to be replaced. Now, if we compare the last mile to other roads that were on this 2011 roads list, let's take a look at some of them real quick. Northwest 32nd was number 32 on this list on page one. It was a full-depth reclamation, rebuilt, repaved, redone completely. How about Fort Clark Boulevard? Joe, you want to wrap up? Let me wrap up. You have the information in your queue, but there's some disparate treatment here, and we're asking this commission to correct these omissions and errors. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Joe. Appreciate that. All right, next speaker, please. Hello. It's my first time doing this, so. You're doing great. Thank you. My name is Mary Beth Buddha, and I am a resident of Kanapa, Farms of Kanapaha, which Southwest 75th Street serves. I want you to put yourself in our situation. You own a home. You pay $10,000 in taxes, property taxes. I've lived here 22 years. I'm a Florida resident and a gator. Every day, every day, I have to travel down this road. It's the only road in and out of my neighborhood. There are potholes. The road is crumbling, and it's an embarrassment. I'm beginning to be embarrassed to have friends and family visit me. The road now looks like a third world country. I think Alachua County can do better than this. You are better than this. And I'm asking you. I'm getting involved. I'm just saying. I'm going to get involved, and I'm going to go door to door to every single resident in my neighborhood. Because when we have our parties, one of the topics of conversation is always that road. So please, just put yourself in my shoes. If you want, take a drive down the road yourself. Okay? I had a young woman who came to clean my home the other day. Got a flat tire. She barely makes minimum wage. Now she has to pay, what, $200 for a new tire? I know she's going to go to the county for reimbursement. There's also the issue of a potential accident that could occur. And I know there are now, on the books, a lot of complaints about this road. Now, if I get in an accident, guess what? I'm coming to you guys. I'm just going to come to you because this is unacceptable. I wanted to be nice up here tonight, but I'm thinking, you know what? I think we're through being nice. We're kind of at the point now where it's like, come on, bring us back up to a, what, first world country where we have a safe road to travel? So, anyway, I didn't even read this because it's really gotten to be now a real issue where data, numbers, charts are not going to do it for us anymore, guys. We need a new road, and we need it yesterday. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Buddha. Okay, next speaker, please. Anything great, by the way, first time ever being here. My name's Nancy Henry. This is my first time here. I also live in the meadows of Kanapaha, concerned about the last mile. I agree with everything everybody has said up here so far. So I'm just going to reiterate, if we don't spend the money to fix it right, it's going to end up being a lawsuit. So do the right thing. Fix the road correctly. Don't let an accident happen because they have happened. They're going to happen. It's a dangerous situation. Please repair the road. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Next speaker, please. Morning. My name's Lance. I live in Kanapaha Gardens. Just to give you some pretext, I drive the road twice a day, every day at least, and I know every pothole on that road. And I bent two rims in my car. I know every pothole. How did that happen? It rained. They open up that fast. There was one that opened up last week. You get three basketballs in. Seriously. Three basketballs could fit in this hole. Somebody coming to buy a place out there, probably buy a lesser place somewhere else. Just because the road to and from the work. If you fix it, the guys will, people will pay more for the houses. Taxes go up. You'll get more money to spend on other things. As it stands right now, sometimes I'll take 85th over to Williston Road. It's not as bad. Some days it's worse. So you go the other way. Please. Thank you, Les. Thank you for being here today. Next speaker, please. Hayley. Hello. Good afternoon. I'm going to pivot just a little bit. I'm Emily Westerholm, the founder and executive director of Released Reentry. I want to take this moment to thank each of you, not just for myself and all the programs we've been able to do, but most importantly, I want to be able to thank you for the 1,122 participants that have utilized this program since we started two years ago. And not just those people, but they continue to come back. We have around 10,000 services we've provided. So we're really grateful for that, and we just wanted to say thank you, pause, and have some gratitude. These services help strengthen the fabric of our community by reducing recidivism and empowering individuals not just to survive but to thrive and re-engage in a genuine manner. We look forward to continued collaboration in making our community a healthier and more humane place to live. So thank you. Appreciate y'all. Thank you, Ms. Westerholm. Appreciate you. Next speaker, please. Good afternoon, Commissioners. Tom Jaworski. Kind of weird being on this side of the bench here, but as I have to. Welcome, Judge. I want to use some of your own words, Commissioner Cornell. You said we had Fire Safety Week proclamation. I think we should have a Road Repair Year proclamation. I don't live in the Kanapahaw, but I live in a neighboring neighborhood, Mentone. But I have numerous friends down that road, and I go down there. And when I go down there, it reminds me of the time I went to Jamaica, when the tour bus driver said, I have a Ph.D. And I said, well, really? What's that? And he goes, pothole dodging. Okay? And I've hit that pothole. I'm surprised, you know, I haven't had a blowout. I've had to do miraculous things to avoid accidents. If it rains, it's horrible. I mean, the visibility's down. So, I mean, I was glad when they did the temporary repairs. And that's great. And that's like, okay, a relief. But as the other gentleman said, it didn't last. So I would urge the county, Ms. Lieberman, perhaps the county can get somebody out there to fix these until they get a permanent plan done. But those holes are huge. They're enormous. So with that, I also have a couple other areas that are in our neighborhood, and perhaps the people in Kanapha can attest to this as well. But when you leave Publix on Tower Road, I saw an accident there about three weeks ago. I can't believe there hasn't been a fatality at that accident. People are playing chicken to get out of there. You've got those trees along that one side you can't see looking north. So that really needs to be addressed as well. I don't know. On 75th? On 75th and Archer Road, that Publix there. Another thing, I play chicken to get out of my subdivision. I know I've talked to Commissioner Wheeler about this a while ago, and she said, Archer Road's going to get widened. I said, okay, so we have the highest gas prices probably in the state. Where are our tax dollars going? I don't know if it's accurate, but I pay a lot of taxes and gas, and our roads are in a horrible disrepair. I've got a friend who I go fishing with. We go down that one road, and we hit Levy County. He goes, now, I can tell I'm in Levy County. It's like night and day. The roads over there are beautiful. Over here, we don't have that. So I would urge you all, before we get death in our community because of these bad roads, to fix them. As I said, coming out of Mentone, it's horrible. Hickory Forest is across the way. I've seen people try to make a left-hand turn out of there in the morning, and they use the left-turn lane as an escape route to get in between the traffic coming in both directions. I would really like to see a traffic light go in there. I know we've got one at 91st Street, and we have one at Tower Road. But that traffic from Tower Road backs up all the way to Parker Road, and trying to get in and out of there is just abysmal. About two months ago, my daughter witnessed a pickup truck getting flipped over on the side of the road over there because of somebody coming out of Hickory Forest and trying to merge in in all that traffic. So I know you all do the right thing, and I appreciate all that you do. Thank you, Judge. And we are working with the state on that. That's the state road, Archer Road. So we are working with them on that. Thank you. Okay. But thank you. Next speaker, please. I'm Alexandra Docha. I live in Thousand Oaks, which is at the end of Southwest 75th. And I would just like to add my voice and ask you, please, please, please fix the road. My husband's blown three tires. He's bent a wheel. I bent my rim. It's expensive, and I'm kind of tired of having a, like, Ph.D., you know, pothole dodging constantly. It's a problem, and please just fix it. Thank you, Alexandra. Appreciate you. All right. Next speaker, please. You guys are doing great, by the way. Appreciate you. My name is Ron Pasquarelli. I'm a resident of the Meadows of Kanapaha. And in respect to the equestrian community, I'm here to beat a dead horse. And 75th, from Tower Road to its end, is a dead horse. Fortunately, we haven't had a lot of rain this year, which to some things in Alachua County isn't good. But for a road with literal or no base holding it up, the hydraulic fractioning has been to a minimum this year. But even the repairs that were put in last year are all falling apart because there's big trucks on that road. I was a Florida contractor for over 30 years before I retired, and when you see someone put lipstick on a pig and for the repair, the temporary repair that was put on 75th last year probably cost as much, if not more, than the total replacement that was lost in the sauce from the previous budget. It's just out of hand. My daughter lost two tires, same shot, had to get a record to get the car out of there. And there's commercial traffic there. There's commercial traffic that comes up from Williston on 85th Avenue. It's an accident, a real big accident waiting to happen, and it's just something that needs to be done. Thank you, Mr. Pasquarelli. Thank you. Next speaker, please. My name's Tom Jordan. I'm also a resident of Meadows of Kanapaha, and I travel that road that they've been talking about. I want to just reiterate everything that Dave said that I'd like to add. It used to be that when they came out to fix the potholes, they would fix every pothole on the street, and they used to come out fairly frequently before the potholes got huge. Now they come to fix the potholes, and they may fix half of them. They leave the other half there. Why, I don't know. But if you can't address getting the road replaced, could you please address getting the potholes fixed properly, completely, and timely? That would be a big help. Thank you, Mr. Jordan. Thank you. How many more speakers do we have in the chambers that want to speak during public comment? Just raise your hand if you're just Kathleen. Okay. Then we'll go to the phones after this. Good afternoon, Commissioners. I'm Kathleen Walston Pagan. I'm here to speak on a matter that is on your agenda later, the ordinance amendment regarding firearms. I apologize. I cannot be here for the public hearing. After retirement, I am now a caregiver to a disabled Vietnam vet, so my time is somewhat constrained. I'm here today as a member of, but not a representative of, Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. My only daughter married a young man who grew up in Newtown, Connecticut, which, if you know, that is the location of the Sandy Hook Elementary, one of the worst tragedies in our national life. Not because it's a tourist destination, but because of this family link, I have visited Newtown. My first trip there, we traveled by train from New York City, and my now son-in-law's father met us at the train station in a neighboring town and drove us into Newtown. When I saw the Rotary sign, I thought, you know, this is Everytown, USA. My hosts are immigrants from India since the 1980s. Their two sons grew up in Newtown. One played on a sports team with a family member from the sociopath that committed that horrible crime. I mentioned it, they also proudly showed me the American flag on their main street and showed me that the town has demolished the elementary school. I have been back since. There's a sadness that permeates the community, and yet there's, I think, a high level of emotional intelligence. One day we were walking at a community field, and there was a young woman's sports team running, and one of the girls said to another, how are you? And I thought at first, okay, they were talking about the practice, and maybe that's all it was. But it was also, how are you doing? I'm a financial contributor to Sandy Hook Promise, a nonprofit that started, to educate people. And a recent text message said, four or five school shootings, someone knows the shooter. So I know there's state preemption, but, you know, please consider there are a lot of people with a lot of emotional trauma. I'm also the descendant of a police captain, the early part of the 20th century, who lost his life responding to a domestic violence call in Tampa, Florida. People that want to have firearms, why don't they join their well-regulated militia, our police or our military? Thank you. Sorry to go over. That's okay. Thank you, Kathleen. Sorry you can't be here for that item. All right. Is there anyone else that wishes to speak during public comment on any item because they have to leave? Okay. All right. Let's go to the phones. No phones. Okay. We're going to go ahead and close public comment and get back to our agenda. Before we do that, though, I know we have some commissioners. Did you guys want to speak? You're staying. You're good. Yes. Yeah. When that item comes up, everyone will be able to speak to that item. Yeah. I just know some folks may have to leave, and we're probably going to get to that item around 1, 1.30. Okay. All right. Commissioners to public comment. Commissioner Alford and then Commissioner Prezio and then Commissioner Wheeler. Yeah. I wanted to address the Southwest 75th Street. I have spent, I've made multiple trips down that road. I've met residents down there. I've met with Mr. Prager multiple times, and it truly is an issue. And so I'd like to make the motion that we ask staff to bring back a proposal to add 75th to the TCIP plan and let us know the, you know, how we might move forward with making the repairs that need to happen to maintain the safety of the residents in Canepahaw. Second. Okay. I got a motion and a second to refer this to staff, which is something that we've been hearing from a lot of you, and we'll see what the proposal is that comes back from staff if this passes. Any one that hasn't spoken to it that wishes to speak to this motion? Okay. Let's bring it back to the board. Any further discussion? Michelle, you know, you understand the motion? Okay. All right. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. That motion is unanimous. And I do want to say, I wish we could just add it to the list today, but it really needs to be brought back by staff, and we need to get their, you know, their evaluation of the road. But I believe, I know Ramon's here. Are they doing a count on the road right now? Is that what the strips are? Can I ask about that? Mr. Gavaretti? Ramon Gavaretti, Polyworks Director. Commissioner, staff is there again today doing potholes on that road. I personally went out there yesterday afternoon. I actually saw Mr. Prager out there because a piece of steel actually got into my tire, not a pothole, and I counted, I believe there were approximately, I think it was six potholes that were done, that were there, so the crew is down there today again. But commissioners, I'm just going to be as honest as I can. I've always been honest with you all, and I'm going to be honest today. When you look at that road, and you look at other 400 miles of roads that you maintain, alligator cracking is on all our roadway system right now, and that's something that we all need to understand. It's, we can keep filling in potholes, we can keep doing street milling and resurfacing, which by the way we are doing, and actually the contract tribulation is going to start next week, and some roads, but unless you go and mill and resurface all our roadway system, this is not a one-year problem. This is going to be year after year after year after year problem, and you all, I did send you all a report today. We are going back to the, like my wife says, the olden days. We're actually just going to go there, clean the hole. We're going to torch it to heat it up if it's wet. We're going to tack it, fill in the pothole, compact it, and move to the next pothole. We were taking too long cutting it out, which is the right way of doing it, by the way, but it was just too long, and we have a crisis right now in our hands, and so I told my staff just no more cutting, no more removing many materials, just clean it up and tack it. So they are still attempting to do all the roads. As we all know, nobody's perfect. Once in a while, there will be one pothole here and there that is going to get missed, and then when we find that, we send the crews back. So that's all I can tell this commission right now. Keep in mind, one road is not the exception. This is what we have on a roadway system. Yeah, we understand, Ramon, and thank you. I know it's a thankless job. To Mr. Jordan's point, though, I don't know that we've corrected this idea of if you go out and there's five of them, not just fixing two, fix all five. I think that's been corrected. That's been the direction. I appreciate you bringing that up, but we had a discussion about that two weeks ago, so I just wanted to say that. Can I ask a follow-up question? You were evaluating some new products, and one of those, I think, was to address some of the alligator cracking. Where are we at with that? That material is called Mastic One, and we are actually right now, well, first of all, the manufacturer says do not put down that material in Florida unless it's the cold month, quote, unquote. So that means November through about February. That's the time frame to do it. Yeah, 45 days of that, right. Because it's very rubberized, so if you put it when it's 100 degrees out there, it's just going to melt. Yeah. And we did test that, like I said before. There's a section on 235 right there by Savannah Station that we tested it last year, and I think it was like late October, early November, and it's still doing great. But, again, that's the caveat. You have to use it during those months because you cannot use it in Florida unless, since those months. So we're working with them. We do have a contractor that is already under contract that might could use that material, but we would need to do an amendment to the contract. That's one option. The other option is just to actually go out to bid again. So we're working on both avenues right now. But, again, you cannot use the Mastic One material until, and, again, it's very expensive. It's more expensive than asphalt. So it's not that we can use this Mastic One material on all roadways. It might as well just go middle and resurface and do all the roadways. Okay. And I will tell you that the manager has, during manager comment, we're going to be doing additional things that she's going to be communicating to us at manager comment about the roads and filling them. Thank you, Mr. Keverett. Can you, you should just stay because I have a question for you, Ramon. One of the questions that I have is, you know, what keeps getting brought up about this road, and from my perspective makes it a little bit different, is that it was on our TCIP list, high up on the TCIP list, and then it disappeared. I'm wondering how many of the other roads that were, say, the top 25 of our TCIP list ahead of our evaluation work that we did with our consultant are now no longer on our list. This is the only one I'm aware of. I'm glad you brought that up because I want to make a clarification. In 2008, 2011, like Mr. Prager said, yes, there were a lot of roads on a capital program. I'm not going to call it a TCIP because it was different. There was a lot of roads on a capital program. With the exception of two or three roadways, everything else was not funded. So when I came in 2016, I asked where was the capital program, and I was given a copy of the capital program. Well, when you have a capital program and all you say, all these roadways, and then you have a column here that says unfunded, and you have a number that's unfunded, you should not have included those roadways in a capital program because once it makes it to a capital program, residents, their normal understanding is it's in the program. Well, if it's unfunded, it's unfunded, and therefore it's not in the program. So when we did a TCIP in 2023, I said, I am not putting all the roads on the program because unless they're funded, they're not in the program. So that's what you have today. So even though this road wasn't in that program, it was not funded. That was after the infrastructure sales tax passed, and we actually had a funding source. Yes, I guess what I – so – is it my – there you go? Okay. I was going to do road second, but I'll do it now. I think that something that our – I hope our residents hear is that, number one, it was not intentional for us to just take your road off of a list. As he said, we had – former commissions had, like, a couple million dollars a year that they were putting into roads, and it cost us a million and a half dollars a mile to pave a road. So it's nowhere near what it costs for us to do the repairs. I don't know who mentioned that, but those repairs cost us a fraction of what it costs us to repave a road. And we had no funding for it. Thanks to the residents of this county and voting for the infrastructure sales tax, we now have $24 million a year to actually invest in our roadways. And we used an engineering firm to go through all the roads in our county, give them grades, and kind of put those into a software system that helped us to kind of prioritize roads based on their condition, based on how much traffic went on them, based on equity, sort of how much attention those roads had gotten in the past. And it spat out a list of roads. And in order to be fair, none of us went in and then started advocating for specific roads in our districts. We tried to say we're going to stick with the engineer's evaluation of those roads, and that's the list that we adopted. And so, but it doesn't mean that that list is not without flaws. And we're learning those flaws now as we realize that some of the roads, this road, 234 is another one. You know, we have a few others in our county. I mean, we have a lot of roads in our county that are failing, but we have a few that are just very heavily traveled and in really, really bad condition. And so we're learning along with you about the pains of not having taken care of an important asset for tons and tons of years. And now having the backlog of that and having to figure out how we do more with less. We've put more money than any other commission before. I know that's not a consolation to all of you, but we're putting $24 million a year of this infrastructure surtax. Our overall budget for roads is closer to $100 million a year. That includes all of our gas tax, as well as other funds that we get from grants that Ramon and his team write, DOT funds and partnership funds that we get, mobility funds that come from developers. So we really are doing our very best to make investments in roads. And to Judge Jaworski, you know, part of the reason why you drive into Levy County and the roads are great and they're not here is because they get funding from the state that we don't get because they're a small, constrained county. And so they get money we don't get to be able to take care of their roads. So we got an unfunded mandate to take care of thousands of roadway miles, whereas they actually got some funding for it. So we are funding the roads, we are working hard, and we are as frustrated as you all because we have this road plus I don't know how many more hundreds of miles of roadway that we, as Ramon mentioned, we still have to take care of. But we are working on it. I think this motion shows you we really do care and we really are trying. And hopefully our staff will be able to bring us back some suggestions for how to take care of Southwest 75th. That's my comment on the roads. Did you have anything else on other public comments? I do. I do too, also. We'll come back to you after Wheeler. Go ahead, Commissioner. In terms of. No, no, we'll let her finish and we'll go to you. Okay. On the guns, I don't know that Kathleen is here, but I just wanted to say, you know, I think that this commission stands with you and, or at least I stand with you and Moms Demand Action in our solidarity around common sense gun control. Unfortunately, we're preempted from the state in having, you know, rules and regulations regarding guns. And the ones that we're repealing are, in fact, because of that. We, you know, we, they're not lawful for us to have those rules on our books. But however, I do think that our judiciary takes seriously the security for our judges and for all of the people who are in our courthouses and will continue to make court security a priority regardless of us having that regulation on the book. So I just wanted to assure her of that. And I also wanted to bring up that I do believe that the spirit of the horse should be receiving the nonprofit. We have a nonprofit rate for our other events. We do not, we do not have a nonprofit rate, Mr. Chair, for this facility as this is a facility that is operating as a business. And so. We have one for our sports and events center. So perhaps we could explore that. I guess I would like to make motion that we explore having a nonprofit rate for our horse arena as we have it. The fair uses it. Several other nonprofit community uses have wanted to use this facility in the past. And while I know it's a business, it's also a, you know, community asset that was bought with tax dollars. And I think we should have the ability. You want to refer that to staff? So, yeah, I would make a motion that we refer to staff to explore a nonprofit rate for the horse arena and explore giving it to spirit of the horse as well as connecting them with Visit Gainesville grant funding that's available. I was going to mention that there is also an opportunity for them to apply for funding through our tourist development folks. And the event center does not have a nonprofit rate either for that reason, just to clarify. I actually think that's not. I mean, I remember us just passing. I'm going to pull. I'll pull up our fee schedule. But I believe when I reviewed our fee schedule, we did have nonprofit rates for almost all of our facilities. Yeah. Not for the event center, though. Okay. Hold on one second. So do we have a second to the motion? I thought we had a motion on the floor. Yeah, we have a motion to put. I think this is a referral to staff to look at. Sure, I'll second that. Okay. So to clarify, referring this to staff to evaluate a nonprofit rate for our event center. All of our facilities that currently don't have them. Yeah. And bring back a recommendation to us with that. And any discussion to the motion? I would just say that we do have these grant opportunities as well. Right, and that's what I said, I said to work with them on the visit Gainesville. I'm going to clarify my motion. My motion is to refer to staff to bring back nonprofit rates for all of our event facilities that currently don't have them. And to work with the spirit of the horse on a rate that works for their event as well as to work with them on our visit Gainesville grant process. Seconder, okay? Yep. Seconder is okay. Okay, and what I would add to that is I think when staff is looking at bringing back that rate to the extent as – I want to get your name right. Yvonne. As Yvonne said, for me what's really important is when it's not booked, it should be a real opportunity, especially for someone in our community, to use the facility. I think the issue comes with the event center is they're booking so far out in advance that if you allow a nonprofit to book that, it could take away some of the income. But in this case, December 19th through the 21st, or whatever those dates are, it's not being used anyways. Let's use it. Right, I mean, you know, the rate – part of the rate structure could be that, you know, nonprofit rates book no more than, you know, a quarter in advance, you know, three months in advance or something like that. Where the facility is available. You know, something like that. I just – I think we need to do it because this is now the third time that it's been brought to my attention that somebody in the community has been wanting to use that facility. And the other ones, they were just sort of complaining that the prices were too high, and I didn't really dig into it. But that's why I looked at our fee schedule and thought that we did have nonprofit rates for all of our facilities. So I must have read incorrectly. No, we'll refer to the staff. They'll bring back your recommendation. All right, we've got a motion on the floor. So I don't think you want to talk us out of the motion, I presume. Anyone want to speak to the motion? Back to the board. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Motion passes unanimously. Okay, thank you. And we're going to get staff to take a look at that, bring back a recommendation to us, and we'll be in touch with you. Yes. Okay. Mr. Chair, if I could – I don't know if it will be in time for them to make it – for their specific event, given how it takes time to bring back. And then we also have holidays and such. So I would strongly suggest that they reach out to our tourism about support from the county in that way. Can we have Jessica contact them? Yes. Yeah, so we will have the tourists' development – tourists – Liz can – Yeah, we'll have Liz contact you to see about a sponsorship. Thank you. Okay. All right. Thank you for that. Commissioner Wheeler, did you have anything else on public comment? No. I've got to get out of public comment. I still wasn't done. I'm coming back to you. I've got to get out of public comment so I can get to the agenda. I just – no, that's all – what I want – oh, I did – yes, I did have something to add to what Anna was saying. And if I don't get it when she's talking, then I forget. But about the portal, the pothole portal, I was wondering if it's being used at all. And if that – if any of the folks who were texting us or sending us emails know that we have this portal. And if that portal is going to make it – it's a more direct way to communicate the issue. And that's what I was trying to ask – you are? Yeah, she's going to give us an update and manage your comment. Okay. All right. Do you have anything else on – do you have anything else on public comment? Just one more thing. Go ahead. Because Judge Jaworski brought up the gas tax, I wanted to make the brief point because I've had so many people ask me where our gas tax dollars have gone. We are – when we collect gas tax, it is by the gallon, not by the dollar spent. So even though people are spending hundreds of dollars more on gas right now, the money coming to us is actually less because the price of gas is so high, people are driving less. So we are getting less money on the gas tax. But what's up? It's not indexed. It's not indexed, right. And so that hasn't been looked at since 2006, that particular number. And the amount of money we collect on the gas tax every year is enough to do maybe 10 miles of roads on a good day. So it's not this huge pot of money that everybody thinks it is. It is one thing that contributes. We have money coming from lots of different places that go into how we are funding the road work that we're doing. The gas tax is one small part of that. But it is not the primary way that we are funding road repair. So I just wanted to make that point because a lot of people seem to think that it is. And it may have been in the past, but right now it is not. Because things are just too expensive. So I just wanted to make that point. Thank you, Commissioner. Did you have something else? Just to Judge's concern about the public's intersection there, our TPO, that's a place we can talk about that. Yeah, I wrote it down. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Yeah, our road is a state road, and so we are looking at that and to your comments. All right, anything else, Commissioner? All right, we are closing public comment and responses to public comment. Thank you all for coming to speak to us about the last mile and about Canterbury. We're going to now get back to our agenda. Okay, so, Madam Clerk, that leads us to item G3. Item G3, Alachua County Affordable Housing Advisory Committee Annual Work Plan and Accomplishment. Okay, and the recommended action is to hear the presentation and accept the work plan. And then after this, we might do some agenda management commissioners. Okay, Mr. Ralston, welcome. You are recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Ralston, Rio Deca with Community Support Services. And so the Affordable Housing Advisory Committee is a very passionate, engaged, and accomplished citizen advisory board. And so here to present their annual work plan accomplishments is the chair of the committee, R.D. Bonahan. Thank you, Mr. Chair and commissioners. This is R.D. Bonahan, I'm the director at Rebuilding Together, and I'm here today in my official capacity as the chair of the Affordable Housing Advisory Committee. Recognizing that you have a long agenda in front of you, I will do my best to hit the highlights here and leave you to read the rest. So first things first, our meetings are monthly. We have, as Ralston mentioned, some excitable members who are experts in their fields, which is what this list shows. These are the folks who serve. And they have strong opinions, and they bring them to our discussion. So everything that goes to the housing committee is well discussed. And you're welcome to sit in any time that you like. If you're not sure that that's the case, you'll see quickly that it is, in fact. So a few of the things that we did in the 2025-2026 year. Of course, we have been speaking for the last few years. We've been looking at additional housing items beyond our charter through the SHIP and CDBG rules that require us to look at certain things. And so we've, as you can see from our list, we've really, we've had a lot of meetings about a lot of topics. And this board has sent nearly everything connected to housing to our board for review. And we have had some great discussions about a lot of those things. Of course, we do review proposals related to certain funding pots. We've got the Wild Spaces Public Places Living Spaces Thriving Places program that we keep hearing about. We've got the Incentives and Recommendations Report. That's an annual report that's required of us. We review all sorts of programs that come through. And we partner with other committees to look at things that are also being reviewed by Housing Authority, for example, or Housing Finance Corporation. And so all of that stuff comes to us. We've also been part of an interesting conversation on heirs property. And so we've had a number of presenters come and share information and ideas. And you know from all the agenda items that have come to you that we have made recommendations on many of those. And so that's part of our report. There's several more pages of this, believe it or not. Guys, we've been busy this year. We're doing a lot. So we've heard from a lot of our nonprofit providers that just this section on who we've heard presentations from, you're like, that's a lot of meeting hours. And it absolutely is. And we try to really leave the number of items on our agenda so that folks can really speak fully to each of those items. We have very smart people on the board who are talking about these items. And so all of these things have come to us. We've talked, you know, at length about a number of the projects that are now in progress, a number of proposed projects. And then as new legislation comes down from higher up, we take a look at that as well. So you'll notice the yes in God's backyard that came down. We heard from a number of parties with some expertise to help our committee understand those things so that they could bring recommendations here to this board. And we've supported, of course, a number of the proposals that have come to us and made recommendations to that effect to this board. Almost there. East Tumbling Creek and Forest Edge Apartments, this is a super cool project that we're grateful to be invited to. Several of us attended the grand opening of some of these things. And then, of course, we have the upcoming year to look forward to. We recommended some amendments to previous housing assistance plans related to SHIP. And then we'll fast forward to what we're up to in the upcoming year. Of course, we'll plan to meet all of our statutory requirements. We'll meet a required number of times. We'll continue to work with the city of Gainesville. We'll continue to be an open forum where members of the public can come to speak to their housing concerns as well. So our meetings are public, and we have had a number of public commenters come through. We hope to continue to be a place where people feel comfortable doing that and bringing their opinions so that we can share their concerns with this board. And then, of course, community engagement. That's what I was just talking about is really important to us. So we hope that we do a good job of being a place where people can bring their concerns. That includes housing, and we've been talking increasingly about the unhoused in our housing conversations as well, as that's a major point of need. We, of course, plan to hear from experts in the field. And this list will continue to grow as we hear about new programs and new things will come to us, and we'll get it added to the agenda. We'll continue to talk about these things. Yeah, I think I might wrap up there unless there are questions or concerns. No questions or no concerns. I think you might have some questions and comments. Commissioner Alfred. Thank you, RD. You're one of my favorite people out there doing the good work in the county, so thank you for that. I appreciate the focus on our unhoused populations, given that one out of every 30, basically one kid in every classroom is, based on the McKinney-Vento definition, unhoused in our community. That's huge that we have so many unhoused families and children. What, can you speak a little bit about what the committee is focused on with respect to housing families versus the, unhoused families versus unhoused individuals? You know, not very directly, I don't think, other than that several of the partner organizations that we've heard from and several of the folks representative on our committee have that as a priority and do bring that expertise to all of our conversations. The real conversation in housing across the board is that the need massively outweighs the available funding and resources of other types that are required in order to try and meet that need. So there's a lot of kind of circling around these topics there and trying to figure out how to reallocate funds without increasing them, which is a complicated way to solve problems like housing or the lack of it. Well, I appreciate all the work that you're doing and all the creative different ways that both this group and the rebuilding together, which you're part of, attacks the housing problem. So thank you. Commissioner Prezi. I'll just say thank you to Artie. He's a great leader and I get the privilege of sitting on this board to represent our commission and feel really lucky to be there. I appreciate the staff and all the time that they put into this meeting and making sure that we have the backup so that we can be prepared for the meeting. You know, to your point on the unhoused and family situation, I think we're sort of in a place now where I think we have standing motion from this board to sort of think about the way in which we move forward on next steps. So we've had the conversations with the Children's Trust and the recommendations that they gave us. And so we're kind of waiting on how does the commission, the city of Gainesville, the school board and the Children's Trust put their heads together to think about the ways in which we could fund sheltering and housing for families in our community that are experiencing homelessness. But I don't think that this board yet has tackled that because I think we're really looking for kind of our boards and the other boards to kind of like at least lead the charge in terms of what is the scope of that. And then I think our board would stand ready to make recommendations within that scope if we were needed. But I really appreciate all the work that this board does. I love being a part of it. And I would make the motion that we accept the work plan. Second. A motion and a second to accept the work plan. And R.D., I completely agree with my colleagues. You are just an amazing human. And this community is lucky to have you in the leadership role that you are in this committee. Do you want to announce Rebuild's thing this weekend while you're here? Only since you asked. Rebuilding Together is 21 years old this year. And we're having a party about it at first magnitude this Friday from 5 to 9. Okay. Congratulations. Good public announcement. All right. Is there anyone from the public that would speak to the motion? Let's bring it back to the board. Any further discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion is unanimous. Okay. Thank you so much. I'll just say thank you to the county for supporting and caring about housing as an issue. And thank you to the staff who staff our meeting for having that as a priority and doing a great job. Commissioner Prissy, did you have something? No. Okay. All right. Commissioner, so next up we have a couple of things that I think we can move around. Yeah, so we've got the comprehensive plan, evaluation, and appraisal. That's really our staff. So maybe we can move that one or pause that one. Budget amendment, that's our staff. Next up we have the special. Who is here for the special assessment? Raise your hand. Okay. We'll move that one up. We'll do that one next. Who's here for the wireless in the cross? Okay. That will follow the special assessment. And then who's here for the ordinance firearms? All right. So commissioners, okay with agenda management? Yep. All right. So we're going to next move to Madam Clerk to the special assessment. I-3. I-3. And then that will be followed by the quasi-judicial J-1. So could you announce I-3, please? Yes. This will be I-3, notice of intent to create a special assessment district for repaving northeast 222th Street and northeast 69th Ave, Totem Pole Road. Okay, and the recommended action is that the board adopt the resolution of intent to use a uniform method of collection of non-avalorum improvements to a portion of northeast 225th and northeast 69th Ave, authorize the chair to sign the resolution and the notice of intent and authorize staff to record the notice of intent and distribute the notice pursuant to statute. Okay, before this item, I want to go ahead and give my disclosure. So I want to state that I have an interest under section 112.3143 Florida statutes. I am directly impacted by this item as I live on Totem Pole Road, which is a subject matter of item 26-000663-notice of intent to create a special assessment district for repaving northeast 225th Street and northeast 69th Ave, which is considered Totem Pole Road. This item is for the purpose of adopting a resolution of intent to use a uniform method of collection of non-avalorum assessment for road rate improvements. I will not vote on this item or any later action on this district, and I will file the required form B as I have before with any vote related to this item. One more thing I want to add. I have advocated for the use of special assessment districts for over a decade, and much of the Southwest 75th discussion is the reason why. I have said so openly in helping constituents work with county staff as part of my job, but the process is set by county ordinance, not by me. When approached by neighbors about fixing this road, I have suggested that the only real opportunity is through a special assessment district. According to staff of the 30 owners asked, 25 responded, 16 of them are 64% supported moving forward. My colleagues, not I, will decide what happens next. Neighbors disagree on this, and they all deserve to be heard today. My communications on this are public record. I welcome anyone reviewing them. And again, since I will not be voting on this item, I will ask our Vice Chair, Commissioner Prizia, to preside for this item. So Commissioner Prizia, I will pass the gavel to you. All right. Well, I guess I will turn it over now to Ramon, so he can explain the process we went through, what next steps are, and what our options are. And then once we've heard from him, the board will speak, and then we'll give the community a chance to comment. Thank you, Madam Chair. Ramon Gavarrete, the public works director. Today, in front of these commissions, like the clerk said, is a notice of intent for the proposed, special assessment district, SAD, for Totem Pole Road. Like it was just said earlier right now, the first step that we got, we actually got a petition signed by over 50% of the property owners. The next step of that was staff came and asked for authorization to send a poll out. So we got the poll back, 64% of the 25 that responded said move forward. So then we kept going with that process. I just want to make sure that we all know that Florida Statute Chapter 197.3632 gives the authority to the Board of County Commissioners to adopt the special assessment districts. And it's the sole authority of the Board of County Commissioners. The Board of County Commissioners also then also has Chapter 37 of the Code of Ordinances that also align some processes to follow on these type of assessments. Northeast 225th Street and Northeast 69th Avenue, which is commonly known as Totem Pole Road, is currently a paved roadway. And one of the questions that was asked during the process is, when did they become public right-of-ways? And we found a deed from 1965, I was one year old, when that deed was received by the Board of County Commissioners. Northeast 69th was created by the Platts of Walgrove Groves and that was in 1949. I wasn't born then. So it's been quite some time since this road has been in the books, or at least the right-of-way has been in the books for the county. One question that was asked is, when was it paved? And just doing, looking at aerials and looking backwards, we believe that maybe it was paved somewhere in the late 1960s or early 1970s. So we could come up with looking at aerials. So, once again, 83% of the folks that were polled responded on the positive to move forward with this assessment. Sorry, 83%, 25-30 responded to the poll, and 64%, 15 out of the 25 responded positive to move forward on that. The map that's on your screen right now shows the entire length of Florida and Pole Road, which starts at State Road 26th, like I said, and goes all the way at the eastern end of Northeast 69th Avenue. For the purposes of this Special Improvement District, the limits of the Special Improvement District, or Special Assessment District, are from basically Black Lake Preserve driveway, all the way to the eastern end of Northeast 69th Avenue. During this process, we were asked what if, what if, a lot of questions. And actually, all those questions, by the way, Commissioners, I want to make sure that, like, because we promised the property owners that came to the public meeting that we had on Wednesday, September 9th, that you as the board will get all the questions. All those cards were actually included in your packet, and they're also in this presentation. Is there people to make that bigger? It's really hard to see the numbers. Is that? Probably not. Oh, look. There you go, but I'm going to have to be moving. Oh, yeah, you can move it. Look at that. Okay, great. All right. So, Commissioners, we were asked several options. You know, one of the thing is, why isn't the Board of County Commissioner's properties included in this SAD? And let me go back to the map, if the board will give me some leeway. If I can go back to the map, now that I've messed the... Yeah, you've gone through. Okay, now I have it here. Here. Okay, there we go. Thank you. So, if you go back to the map that I have in the front here, the Board of County Commissioner does own four properties. You have this large piece of tract land on the west side. You have this sliver here that fronts 100% on Totempole Road on the east side. You also then also have this large tract of land on the east side. And this northern piece of tract that is on the northeast corner. All this is the Black Lake Preserve. There's only one public point of access to Black Lake Preserve, and that is the driveway to which the Board of County Commissioners, back in November of last year, instruct the staff to go ahead and include it in the TCIP, by the way it's in 2027, to pay from the state road to the Black Lake Preserve driveway. Which was another reason why the limits of this Special Assessment District is from Black Lake Preserve, north towards the North East 69th Avenue, to the east end of North East 69th Avenue. So that's the reasoning as to why the limits of this Special Assessment District start at the Black Lake Preserve driveway. The Board already voted to pay all the way to the Black Lake Preserve driveway. That's the only distance the members of the public are going to be able to go because they're going to the Black Lake Preserve. There is no other public access, except a pedestrian access, small gate, someplace else, for people to be able to go to the Black Lake Preserve. So back to the table, and I'm going to widen it a little bit. I zoom out already. Tell me when it's enough. That's good. All right. So, the first option that you see there is what is currently being proposed. The estimated cost at that time was $372,570, plus the $10,000 that I estimate for staff time and other things that will be rolled into the SAD. And the board action, if you remember, commissioners, when we said that the fee schedule for current year, the petitioner only paid the original fee, and that was basically the petition fee. And then from that point on, anything else was just actual time, and that cost is to be rolled over into the SAD. My estimate on that is $10,000, so that includes the $10,000 in there. And then the total assessment per property, this is divided into 30 properties right now, because, again, we did not include all the properties of the Board of Cutting Commission because of the fact the board already said paved to the Black Lake Preserve driveway. So, for clarification purposes, the $382,570 is from the point which we were already paving that gate back to the end of the road. Yes. Okay. Thank you. The estimated cost, the original estimated cost, to pave the county section from the state road to the driveway was originally $66,822. When somebody asked me for an estimate at first for this, I do not logo the estimate. We provide an estimate that could capture what I call the oops later or inflation costs, et cetera, et cetera, because you never know how long it's going to take to actually go through this entire process or what could happen in the middle of the year. One thing did happen is that we actually have two contractors under contract. We have Watson Construction and Hicks Paving LLC. As we got closer to this process, to the end of this process, I hope, I asked staff, okay, which contractor are we actually going to really use? And Hicks Paving has indicated to us by contract that they want to do low volume, low speed roadways. So, this road matches that criteria. So, the next option you see there is the current estimate based on the low bid, which is Hicks. So, right now, the current estimate from the Black Lake Preserve to the end of Totem Pole Road is $314,368. That does include the $10,000 of the additional staff time. The county estimate dropped to $51,238. These numbers do include also a 10% contingency. The assessment is going to be based on actual final cost. So, it's going to be, most likely it's going to be lower than this because I expect this project to be a straight mill and resurface. We're not going to touch the drainage because we don't see a need to touch the drainage. There's only one driveway that we might need to fix in that limits of the SAD. But I do have to include any construction. You have to include some kind of contingency in the estimate. So, as it is, nothing changes. It's looking that right now, the assessment will be approximately about $10,480 per property, property owner. There's 30 properties right now included. Or $1,048 per year for 10 years. And again, the Board of Credit Commission has already said, we're going to go pay from the state road to the Black Lake Preserve driveway, which is a cost of $51,238. And during the process, a question was asked, was said, we believe the Board needs to be part of this, of the Special Empowerment District. So, there's two options for that that you, that I'm, there is an option here that you see here in front of you. The blue option or option number three in your package. Assuming that the Board wants to meet the property owners somewhere. And there is the northeast property that is definitely bordering Tontemple Road and is beyond the Black Lake Preserve driveway. So, that's one property. And then the other piece of the sliver bordering along the eastern side of the right-of-way. That's two. I said, okay, the Board wants to do, let's divide, instead of 30, divide into 32 properties. And therefore, two properties for the county would be in addition to the $51,238 that the county already voted to invest into paving the state road, from the state road to the Black Lake Preserve. It will be an additional $19,648 for the county. And the assessment for the other property owners would drop, you know, to about $983 a year. The other question that was asked during, especially during the public meeting was, we believe the county, all four properties should be part of the, should be part of the assessment. My recommendation to the Board is, if you want to go that way, it's okay, fine. Revise, let's revise the, the limits of the Special Assessment District all the way down to the state road. You include the cost of the, of paving the entire road into the Special Improvement District. And you divide everything into 34 properties then. If you do that, Commissioner, you actually end up paying less. The Board ends up paying less if we do that. The property owners actually end up paying slightly more. Again, another reason why staff, when we came up with the limits of the Special Assessment District, we decided to start at the Black Lake Preserve driveway and go north. So, the current, what's in your package right now, is either one or two. One is basically, will be basically just the revised estimate, but the, but the, the legal description and everything stands the same. So, you can approve the resolution that's in your packet today. And again, it's based on final cost. So, most likely will be even less than 314,000 and change. Because there is a 10% contingency in that number. So, again, the Board was provided all the questions that were asked during the process. And also, the, the, the cards that we got. Some of them were very difficult to read. So, hopefully, the Board could actually read them better than I could sometimes. So, we're here to answer any questions the Board might have. Okay. Thank you, Ramon. Okay. So, it looks like we have three options on the table. We have the original plan, which is us paving to the public access and then the remainder of the road going into an SAD for a total of $1,048 per resident per year for 10 years. The second is for us to pave to the public access and then for us to also assess our two properties. Which means there's a total of $983 per property per year for 10 years. Or for us to do a new SAD and include all four of our properties, which would result in each property paying $1,074 per year for 10 years. And those are our three options. Or do nothing. Or do nothing. Right. So, I want to turn it over now to the Commission for conversation. Anybody? Ah, Commissioner Alford. I just was going to recommend that we, or sorry, make the motion that we go with the first option just for discussion purposes so that we can hear what the public has to say. The original? The original from one and two so that we can get a motion on the floor. And because I'm really interested in hearing from the residents. Okay. We have a motion. Okay. Well, I'll second it for discussion too, but we have more discussion from here as well. So, go ahead. Okay. All right. We have a motion on the floor for discussion, which is the original SAD that was advertised to the public. The county paving the first part of the roadway to the public access at a cost of $51,238 with the remainder of the road being in an SAD for the rest of the residents at $1,048 a year for 10 years. And we will open it to public comment. As you mentioned, there's three lights here. If you have three minutes, green, yellow is kind of wrap up and red is please conclude your comments. Please let us know your name and you have the floor. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. My name is Jeanette Burke. I'm at 22820 North East 69th Avenue and I urge you to vote no against this special assessment district. The whole SAD was very disorganized. We didn't get information until after people were petitioned and polled and you're really doing your residents a disservice by not first having an informational meeting so that they fully understand what they're voting on. At this point, there are still residents that are not aware of the SAD. I also urge you to change your ordinance. Put in that ordinance that the first step of the ordinance should be an informational meeting for all the residents that are affected by your ordinance. This is very important, so I urge you to do that as well. Secondly, I'm very disappointed by Commissioner Cornell because he's on our road and it could have been. We could have been very well informed because he understands this ordinance. He understands the process and not all residents were contacted. So I really don't understand or I wonder about the ethical behavior of that. And then last but not least, this ordinance was created for capital improvement projects, not for road pavings. For capital improvement projects like water lines, sewer lines, what I'm urging you to do is to send staff back. You own property there now. You can find other resources. Repave this road. Do it right. Focus on the water runoff that's currently going in Santa Fe. So fix that too. Do it right. Pay for it yourself. But find out where other sources are available. There are other funding sources available now that you own that property. I thank you for your service and I thank you for the time. Okay. Any other speakers? Please come forward. State your name. And you'll have three minutes. And my wife would like to get me there. Okay. That's fine. So you'll have six minutes. If we could put six minutes on his clock. Okay. It'll, it'll ding at three minutes, but you can, and then we'll reset it for another three. I don't know how to get this. It's coming. Just a moment. I'm sorry. It just takes a second. We could have the overhead please. Okay. Thank you all. I'm Larry Warren. I'm a resident and owner of two lots on this road for over 50 years. My wife, Belinda and I were actually, were never notified about this, uh, SAD. I learned of it from neighbor just in passing just a few days before the required vote and found out that I was going to have to contribute over $24,000 to, um, and we had no information about it. And just do I want it paved or not? Well, of course I want it paved. It's a mess. The road is terrible. Um, not informing us or giving us a chance to question or comment on this SAD before a required vote is just wrong. It's inappropriate and maybe even illegal. I don't know. There was finally a county initiated meeting about, as Mr. Goverett mentioned, about this SAD a few days ago. It was given in Putnam County, oddly, but, um, knowing about this SAD from the very beginning would have been really useful to the SAD to everyone. Our families have built and developed over 3,000 homes and shopping centers in Jacksonville and some in Gainesville. We've paved miles of road. I could have, um, I could have commented and helped out a lot because I'd love to see this road paved. The project really has two simple components. You just mill the top and then pave over it. It's really, when I looked at the amount that was being charged, I said, let's go out and get some other, uh, other bids. And I did not have the specs, but I used what is used for county road specs. And I found bids that were from three different contractors that were roughly 50, close to 50% of the price that Ramona's gotten. So I'm glad to work with them to help find somebody and get some other competitive bids. Um, if we're all asked to pay for the repaving, we should have some input on the contractors and the costs. And I'm glad to work with the county engineers, as I've said. As a resident of this road for over 50 years, I have never had a single tire damaged in five decades. Since Wild Spaces purchased this property, and I think the idea of Wild Spaces is wonderful, but since they purchased this property and started developing it, I have had five cracked wheels, one bent wheel, and had to replace four tires. This is after five decades of no tire damage at all. Both the people that work for us on our property have had tire damage. So it's really a problem. It's developed, it's deteriorated markedly from the development of the Wild Spaces Park. And Wild Spaces had the money to purchase this park for $2.5 million. As you can see on the map, Wild Spaces owns all 100% of the property up in that circled area. And benefits from all of that, the entrances are marked there with ease. So it's eight times the size of the property that's owned by the residents, some of whom knew about this SAD and some who didn't. And SAD should include all the participants, including Alachua County, or all the ones who would benefit from the road, which includes Wild Spaces. Presently, the road is dangerous. We, like the gentleman before on Tower Road, we have to weave around and drive on the wrong side of the road and such. It is a mess. And I understand and sympathize that the county has not done what it should for the last several decades, I gather. I do respectfully request you either deny or even just delay this SAD application for now. And at least let the Wild Spaces budget pay for its portion that totally surrounds the road. A new SAD would inform all participants from the beginning, not have you learned about it in passing just before a required vote. After you've paved the portion, we're glad to work with you to help get you funding. That's what Mr. Burke does for a living, has done for a living for years, is get funding and solicit funding for places like Lake Santa Fe, which is a protected waterway and a special waterway. I have, we're about four votes difference. I've created and signed a notarized document that will change our vote from approved to deny, which would make it a 50-50 vote, which would kill the SAD. If you would kindly consider either working with us to get some additional funding and we'll work with you, or at least pave the part that's in the Wild Spaces environment. I think that's it. Let's work together and get this dangerous road prepared quickly. I do appreciate the opportunity to speak and understand your problems with the roads. Thank you. We're all suffering. Thank you for your consideration. Over there. Hello, I'm Ken Burke, 30-year property owner on Totem Pole Road, Northeast 69th Avenue. And I'm asking you to reject the proposed special assessment district on Totem Pole Road, or to amend it to be voluntary only and allow us to opt out if we want to. There's no reason for it to be mandatory. It is an inappropriate and illegal use of an SAD. There is no specific benefit or capital improvement gained only by adjacent private property owners for this long overdue road maintenance for a countywide property. This is not simply a residential road serving homeowners. When Alachua County purchased Black Lake Preserve and opened it to the public, Totem Pole Road became a primary access and maintenance road serving a 300-acre county-owned public preserve. The county now owns property on both sides of 225th Street and one side of 69th Avenue. This road is not only used for public access, but for county land management, including heavy equipment contractors for timber operations, prescribed burns, maintenance vehicles, and other activities associated with maintaining Black Lake Preserve. And that includes the back entrance on 69th. The county spent $2.5 million of taxpayer money to purchase Black Lake Preserve to protect the water quality of Lake Santa Fe for the state of Florida and open access to the public. Alachua County should have immediately applied to obtain matching funds from state and federal programs to bring the 60s-era dilapidated road up to modern standards, including improved stormwater runoff treatment to protect the adjacent outstanding Florida waters OFW of Lake Santa Fe. Failure to do this is highly negligent of Alachua County and is equivalent to leaving $2.5 million on the table that could be used for match. Such a project has a high chance of cooperative funding as the road has a direct pipe into Lake Santa Fe's OFWs. OFW is the highest water quality designation in the state of Florida. Since the purpose of buying Black Lake Preserve was to protect the water quality of Lake Santa Fe, it makes no sense for the county to not propose this project to partner agencies and apply for funding. A jointly funded project should be a slam dunk for approval as it meets multiple objectives. The proposed special assessment would place financial burden primarily on a small number of neighboring property owners on top of their existing property taxes to maintain infrastructure serving a county-wide public facility. This is fundamentally unfair and illegal. One owner owns 17 acres, which is half of the residential property, and his four parcels pay the same amount as my half-acre home lot, and I won't be profiting off of development or building new houses or selling more lots. It's very unfair the way it's structured. So please vote no or amend it to be voluntary and look for public funding. Thank you. Do you have any other speakers? Please come forward. State your name. Hello, my name is Eric Costaldo. I've been asking you to vote no on today's special assessment district because operating procedures according to county ordinances have not been followed. A petition was turned in February 26th from a poll of property owners spearheaded by Mark Avera about this project. According to ordinances 3706, 3707, and Publix Works Operating Procedure ERE 09, property owners shall petition the board. Only after receipt of the petition shall the county manager direct staff to create a cost of the improvement. However, the community had estimates far in advance. The first estimate was in November of 2025. In January, we received the current estimate of 375,000, bypassing the rules. I have an email here dated February 23rd from Mark Avera, where you can clearly see that he has mentioned that the estimates have already been included. This was three days prior to the petition being turned in, in which you, excuse me. As neither of these procedures were followed, this process should be halted. Additionally, the February survey sent out by the county included the owner of four parcels of land that did not meet the criteria set forth on the petition presented to the property owners. Quote, the area to be specifically benefited by construction of the improvement is described as those parcels with direct access from the north part of Northeast 225th and Northeast 69th. Those four parcels only have southern access. I emailed the county manager office in March and I'm still waiting for a response. Since then, the county has updated the language on its public notices of this hearing to quote the 30 properties which either abut or gain access to those roads. This language changes as a tacit admission that the survey is invalid and procured by improper means. Given that the description of the SAD has now changed from the initial survey, yet another reason this should be halted. As well, the initial poll was split 17-13 and those four votes were the difference. They should not have counted and no majority would have been obtained. None of us would be here right now. Furthermore, the owner of the overwhelming majority of the road frontage that would be benefited through this proposed project was not included in the petition. The county owns those three lots that abut 68% of the road frontage and, in fact, owns 89% of the road frontage of 225th Street with its Black Lake Preserve. According to ERE 09, staff of Public Works determined whether an SID is appropriate. How could anyone, this map, think that services all of that? On September 9th, our first community meeting was held in which Mr. Gavarete just told you that he believes the last time these roads were paved was in the 1960s. Just think about the abundance of tax dollars that have been collected by all the current and former property owners of this proposed SAD over the last 60 years since before I was born. Yet the roads have been completely ignored. And SAD should only move forward if 100% of properties are in agreement. For neighbors to force assessments upon others for something they do not desire is quite simply wrong. Thank you. And I am here to ask you to vote no on the Special Assessment District. My husband and I have been emailing county staff with questions since March. Some have been answered, but many remain unanswered. I tried to ask these questions at the September 9th community meeting and I was told my questions could not be answered and I was directed to come to this meeting today. I'm a speech language pathologist in the public schools and I'm having to take a day off away from students to come here to ask you these questions. So here I am. Question number one. The language used by Public Works in their February survey to the parcel owners described the properties should have excluded four to seven of the 30 properties that were polled. Then after your meeting on August 11th, Public Works changed the language describing this Special Assessment District to give a different description of the properties impacted. Does this change to the language invalidate the legal process? Question number two. Alachua County owns 68% of the total road frontage. Why should the parcel owners who own less than a third of the frontage be responsible for funding and assessment when Alachua County owns 68% of the total road frontage? Why was the county excluded from paying their fair share? Clearly Alachua County receives a benefit from the proposed improvement. What is the legal basis for excluding Alachua County from participating in the cost but yet you still benefit? Alachua County number three. Alachua County is paving to the first of five county owned entrances to the Black Lake Preserve which was funded with wild spaces and public spaces. So question, did you evaluate wild spaces and public spaces funding the road improvement through all five of its entrances? If so, what was the reason for not pursuing this option? If not, why was it not evaluated? All five entrances were used to build it and they will continue to be used to maintain this preserve. I want to end today with reminding all of us to think about the golden rule. To treat others the way you want to be treated. I'm asking each of you to consider how would you feel if your questions that you've been presenting for many months were just ignored. Some were answered and I'm appreciative of Mr. Perry and the people he brought in to answer some of my questions. But a lot of them were just frankly just ignored and you were forced to give a $13,000 donation for something you don't own. This is the equivalent of being forced to pay for your neighbor's home renovation. So please vote no and choose to work with our community towards a solution that addresses the condition of the road while fairly allocating responsibility for its improvement. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Do you have any other speakers? How many other speakers are in the room that want, that wish to speak? Okay, three more. Okay, we'll go here and then yeah, if you want to plan to go to that mic just as soon as he's done. I want to apologize. I don't have a presentation. But I did ask the clerk to pass out information. Okay. It's in the weeds so, but it's detail of what I'm saying, speaking to you, okay? Okay. Your name? My name is Peter Van Dyne. I live on Totem Pole Road since 1-1 of 1984. I'm here to ask the commission to postpone any action in this proposed special assessment district until such time as the affected residents can have a group meeting so that we all understand what exactly is being proposed. On September 9th, we had a meeting with several county officials in Melrose to address this proposed SAD. It was quite apparent based on the county's list of questions to be addressed at this meeting that a number of residents did not have the necessary information to make an informed decision when we were polled by the county asking the residents to vote on this proposal. Many attendees expressed their concerns on how this proposed SAD came about exactly what was about to happen. It is my belief that many of us do not believe we were informed of the process in a timely manner before we were asked to vote on the issue, nor did we have adequate information to make an informed decision. So I'll be happy to ask the county at this time what capital improvement will assess to my property beyond that of every other owner of property on a county-maintained road. I already live on a county-maintained road and it's not being county-maintained. I am not getting a capital improvement. Also, the IRS defines a capital improvement as not something I can deduct from my tax return every year as property taxes. It's a capital improvement, it goes to the basis of my property, and I only get that back when I sell my property. It is my understanding that a proposed SAD under these rules is designed primarily for somebody who's on a dirt road to have the county help fund it so they can bring it up to standards and become paved to your standards, or a privately-maintained road to have it brought up to standards so that the county can decide whether they will maintain the road. Both of those things are a benefit to a property owner that I'm not getting here. This is just for routine maintenance that the county has not proposed. I recently downloaded the county's master index inventory of paved roads and cross-referenced it to the Transportation Capital Improvement Program data sheet. The master inventory data sheet has 1,896 separate entries for roads. Now, several of the roads are broken into several sections. Totem pole road is not one of them. When I sorted the spreadsheet by the pavement control, the pavement condition index, totem pole road was 89th on the list, including other roads that have the same PCI as us. There are 94 roads that have same or lower PCI than totem pole road. The county's capital improvement data sheet, which is not in it. Sorry to wrap up. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. That's okay. Y'all have the information. We do. We have. We were just given this, so we'll be sure to review it. Thank you. Next. Hello. My name's Andy Sherrard. I'm a homeowner on Totem pole road. I may be the lone voice in favor of moving forward with the SAD. I can't speak to the legal side of this. I think I come at it plainly. I mean, it's clear that the road is in desperate need of repair. You know, folks have mentioned that. It's dangerous. Folks drive on the opposite side of the road, then they cross over and they drive on the shoulder to avoid potholes. It desperately needs to be done. And I think the realist, you know, part of me recognizes that, you know, county funds are likely significantly insufficient, you know, to cover projects like this. This is a dead end road, one mile, 30 parcels, fewer houses, and the likelihood of county funds being used for a project like this is not going to happen. I would be thrilled if the county could use county funds to invest in a project like this. I love the idea of some of the grant opportunities if that was possible. The time that that would take, you know, certainly could drag on. I think that the county's created a mechanism, you know, for, you know, neighborhoods to step forward, identify areas that they'd like to see improved, and move forward with an initiative. You know, we did that. I was not part of the initiative. I was just a resident that was notified, you know. I did get informed along the way. You know, the very first vote was to repave the road. There was an estimate of cost. We received information from the county, you know, with an estimate as well. I did attend the community meeting several weeks ago. You know, I think what we originally voted on was the higher number, the 12,000 a year, and it looks like it may be less than that, closer to the 10,000 a year. Perhaps even less, you know, if you adopt some of the other parcels. But I think most importantly, the neighborhood followed the system that you have created, which I think is, you know, you do not have the money to do all of the things that you want to do. And that a project like this could be, you know, county could get the money, spread the cost over a 10-year period of time in an interest-free way, I think is a good way to get county projects completed. At the end of the day, I think the formal vote was 16-9. If you take away the two votes, you know, mentioned here today, I think that's still 14-11. The majority of the residents do want to move forward. Obviously, they're not here today. There are a lot of motions, you know, behind this initiative. But I think the will of the neighborhood wants to move forward, and I hope that you will support the initiative. Thank you. Sir, I believe you're up. First of all, introduce myself. My name is Dana Bradford. My wife, Donna, and I own a property on 69th, and the address is 232-210. It's hard to remember when you have two addresses, because I live in Jacksonville. But I'm a graduate of the University of Florida, and for over 50 years, I've been coming to the Florida football games and spent a lot of time in Gainesville. I am a lawyer. I've tried cases in the circuit courts and the federal courts here. And I make that disclosure only to let you know I'm not here to represent the group. I do not represent a client other than my wife and myself. But I cannot divorce myself from asking, for example, several questions that popped into my mind over what I just heard about the Kannapaha people. Why aren't they being asked to pay for their own improvements with this special tricky way to ram through a special assessment district on them? Is there some reason why they wouldn't be shuttled into the same procedure that you're suggesting for the residents of Total Pole Road who are away from the bulk of the property? When I bought this property 15 years ago, I found out real quick with some phone calls to the county over time that the Melrose area in northeast Alachua County is the redheaded stepchild of the county when it comes to people paying attention to it. I went to the public informational meeting and I asked the county employee at that meeting at Melrose Center. I said, don't you have official meetings for Alachua County purposes in the county? This is Putnam County. And the county agent didn't even know that. Did not know that they had scheduled a public meeting on an Alachua County matter in Putnam County. That shows you the level of intention of attention and care for the residents involved here. There are not many of us. People who live on this road are generally fairly well off. They pay their taxes, that's for sure. The disingenuous manner in which we are treated is best exemplified by Mr. Navarro, who I had the pleasure of meeting at this quote informational meeting, telling you that, well, only the county has here is a little sliver of property. That's bunk. The county has that block of land in its entirety. Both sides of the road are in their property. It's not, you don't own a little sliver, you know, it's just disingenuous. And for you to be fed that type of malarkey, and I'll call it that gently, in a public hearing like this by a county officer, should not occur. Someone else has ceded their time to me, as you know, so I'll get busy on a couple other issues. Can you put another three minutes on the clock for him, please? Molly Noble. Molly Noble, thank you. Okay. First, the only property owned by property owners involved in this SAD begins at the far end of the northerly end of 225th Street. If you had an SAD that just included the right people who owned property that would be subject to the ability to be cut out and to voluntarily opt into a public funding by themselves, we wouldn't be here today probably. Even though I believe it would be unlawful, we'd probably all sit still for it simply because it would get it done and the county would pay the rest of the road that they should have paid. You weren't told that you should have been if you see the E on the top of the map on 69 Avenue up there. That's an improved entrance to that park road, to that park property, directly across from the property I own just about. And I see, I've seen public vehicles going into that property ever since it was acquired by the county from time to time. And as was pointed out, it's used for improvements and maintenance on that public property. So how does the county get out of paying their fair share of paving 200, excuse me, 69th Avenue? It shouldn't happen. But that's what they're proposing because, again, we don't get a lot of attention out Melrose Way. Maybe that's good because that's kind of how you like it. But like the old Ronald Reagan phrase, the scariest phrase in America is, I'm from the government and I'm here to help you. Well, maybe that's good, maybe it isn't. But the point is, if you single us out and you fund county-benefited improvements that benefit the county equally to us, you've imposed an unlawful tax. It's unconstitutional, it denies the equal protection and due process rights of the residents on that part of the road that is not owned by or frontage on county property. It relieves the county of an obligation to treat us like the people, for example, in Canapahaw have come to you and asked to be treated. This is a county road, public road, people's road, the county should take care of it. Now, if the county needs some help doing that, that's fine, but it needs to go about the right way. My suggestion, and I'll close with this because I know you all are tired of hearing about it, I hope you've learned some things today that you didn't know about this special assessment district. Because nobody from the property owners group is attempting to put one over on you all. And I'd like to make, as a part of the record and offer that, my comments, which I emailed everybody, but I would ask to be able to. Thank you, yes, you can give it to the clerk and she will make a copy of it for all of us. Thank you. And based on those issues. Sir, if you would wrap up, please. I am through, other than to say that the right thing for the county to do here is to defer consideration of this. Thank you. For further study. And then make a decision when everybody has had a chance to do something with it. Are there any other comments? Okay, we're going to close public comment and we will go back to the board. Do I have any comments from the board? I do. Commissioner Alford and then Commissioner Wheeler. Yeah, I'm, you know, after listening to the residents, I'm inclined to go back to our original idea, which was to pave to the entrance and not do anything else until the residents, you know, come together, get the information that they need, understand the process and decide whether they want to move forward or not. I think that we've already funded that small part up to the entrance. I am interested to know exactly what damage the county did to the rest of the road in putting together the trails and everything else. If we did an assessment both before and after we did that work. We often ask utilities when they do work along major roads to assess the road both before and after they do the work. And I hope that we do something similar. But that would be where I'm leaning right now. And we have gotten a lot of emails in favor of the project as well. But just the concerns that I hear today make me pause. I have the same concerns that people were saying they didn't feel like they were properly informed. But I do want to address Ms. Burke. I can tell you that Ken Cornell is probably one of the most ethical people I know in the whole world. And I would trust him implicitly with any decision or anything that he would say coming forward. So I just wanted to assure you that that ethics was not an issue on this. Maybe information not being completely disseminated in the way it should have been. And so I would agree that this week we probably need to put this on hold until we're sure that everybody is well enough informed. Another question that I had too is how often do we really use this road, the county, in terms of accessing the entrance point at the north? And I understand there was quite a bit of truck activity in terms of actually getting the property ready. But in terms now going forward, will we be using that road? Is that you, Ramon? We could get an answer from staff about the road condition before and after and about the frequency of use moving forward. Yeah. EPD staff, yeah, conservation staff. Good afternoon, Chair. My name is Ryan Kennelly. I'm the senior planner with the Electric County Forever Program, part of EPD Land Conservation. And I can speak to the question of use of our land management staff on the preserve. The entrance all the way on the north end, 69th, is not an entrance that I believe our staff have used possibly ever, maybe once or twice. There have been a few contractors removing solid waste and material from the site that have used that just because it was the closer entrance. That was a one-time project, a few trips with some trucks. And I do believe Clay Electric occasionally accesses that gate. They don't communicate with us when or how frequently they're using it, but there's a power line in that area that they access that gate. I can't imagine that as a very frequent use, maybe once or twice a year. For the record, this E on the north and west side of Totem Pole Road does not exist. That was a temporary access point for the logging operation that occurred on this western tract. That was permitted and authorized only to be temporary. It was not even culverted. It was just a rock crossing through the swale. All of the rock has been removed. The timber operation is complete. No scheduled timber operations in the foreseeable future. The parking lot has a service entrance that our staff will mostly use for our kind of weekly or however frequent we're going out there. Occasionally, maybe I would approximate once or twice a month that next entrance north of the parking lot on the east side of the road would have a bigger tractor for mowing the trails or tractor for disking fire line prep. That would have occasional but not frequent use. Most of our comings and goings would be in a pickup truck through that public parking lot. Okay, thank you for that. Are there any plans to log the other side, the western side or the eastern side of that property? In this part? Yes. That was also part of the original logging operation. That is complete and no additional future plans for the foreseeable future. I mean, years and years down the road maybe but not anything on the docket. Sir, please. So we would not, we're not going to be using that road then further north of there except for an occasional, just an occasional check from the other end? We would not be using this entrance. Our staff have no reason to use this entrance. Okay, period. So Clay Electric does have an easement that they- They actually don't have an easement. So we're working on clarifying and our preferred entrance would be farther south because there's no, it's, the power line goes all the way into the middle of the property so there's no reason for them to go in that gate. They can access the power line from the lower, the southern gate. Okay, great. Thank you. So the other question that I have though too about the top up there, that's all I needed. Thank you and congratulations. It's a beautiful park. Thank you. The other question that I had too, and I don't know, this may be for Ramon so I'm going to ask two questions or make a statement and a question. Could citizens pay their own contractors if they got together as a group for it because that's private, that's a private area up there? Could they come together to hire their own contractors to put a road in there? Ramon Gavarrete, Pollyworth's Director, the answer is yes. The contractor will have to meet all the county requirements and it will be done by permit to an individual or the contractor can pull the permit and they'll have to comply with all the county requirements including insurance and the other items. And it has to be done to county specs. I see. Okay, thank you. And the concern too, and Ramon you can maybe help me with this too. If the county, which folks are saying that we own that great expense of property on either side of the road, if we pay that for the county's benefit, it's going to look real bad. I think when we have so many other roads that need it that we are serving to our own benefit for actually benefit of private citizens at the end of that road. That would be a really hard thing to justify, would it not? When I was in school I would say that's a good question. I can answer that myself because that's what I would think. I'll answer it this way. I believe the board already voted to pay from the pay from the stay road to the entrance to the Blackwood Preserve, which is the access to the preserve. We're talking about the impact of the preserve, that is the access point. There is absolutely no need for somebody to come from the east side or whatever to the preserve unless it's the residents that live on this road. And this is not a through road? No, it's not. It doesn't go anywhere. It ends at the east side of the lake. Right. Okay. All right. So thank you. Thank you, Mr. Gabaretti. Thank you. Okay. I have a few comments slash questions and then I believe we'll hopefully get a motion on the floor. Or we have a motion on the floor to move forward with the original, but it sounds like there isn't a desire to do that from the same folks that made the motion. So we can either do a substitute motion, hopefully I'll get one of those, or we can vote and see how it goes. My first question is, we mentioned the cost of the bids. We've already gotten the answer that the community can get their own bids as long as they meet all county specs and pay for the project themselves. So the answer to your question on that front is a yes. I do want to be clear that Black Lake Preserve is not the issue. I just, I want to be really clear to the public about that, everybody. Like we, we did do logging. We are doing improvements on that. This road hasn't been paved in a very long time. And as you've heard, we have a backlog of thousands of miles really of county roads that haven't been paved. And roads like this where there are very few properties and they're dead end properties often don't ever make the list for us improvements. Unfortunately, it's really an unfortunate situation that we're in. We have very, very limited resources to cover all of the roads that we have in our county. So the answer to that question, I just want to be clear, is that Black Lake is not the issue. That road is deteriorating, but it is not because of the preserve or any of the activities done for the preserve. I believe it's just a deteriorating roadway, much like many of our roadways in the county. There was a question about the language on the survey being changed and four properties being included. Those are, those properties were included in the most recent poll, just to be clear that, I just want to get the answers to the questions. Commissioner, all the properties, I don't know if this is on, but all the properties were included. Okay. The way that, what the public said is, is how it was originally written. Okay. To clarify then that the terms were changed a little bit. Okay. But all the properties that were notified were included in the SAD. Okay. And to be clear, this was a community-initiated SAD. It was a community-initiated from the neighborhood. By the way, there was a virtual public meeting held in February, I believe. Actually, January 12th, there was one, and that was organized by the primary content neighborhood. And we had that meeting. We went through the process. We went through how also the assessment was going to work. And then we had the public meeting on September 9th. Okay. And then I did want to answer the question from Mickey Cassato about why not Wild Spaces Public Places. I just want to, when we first talked about this SAD, when it was brought to us by the community, there was a motion made for us to pave to the access road so that, you know, our bringing public onto what acts almost as a private roadway, even though it's not, that we would make sure that we're taking care of that component of the roadway and additional traffic that might be on it. And I think all of us were in favor of doing that, making sure that that part of the roadway would be taken care of and that we pay to have that paved. I was adamant that we not use Wild Spaces Public Places money to do that. That half penny was very clearly voted by the public to provide natural resources protections and to buy properties for the purposes of natural resources conservation. And so I didn't feel like it was an appropriate bucket from which to take money to do paving projects. We purposefully moved those properties onto the general fund docket eventually when it comes to sort of maintenance of those properties over the long term. And that includes access to those properties. So our board agreed and we felt that, yes, we should pave it, but we should not be using Wild Spaces money to pave it. We should be using general fund dollars or other road paving dollars to cover the costs of that paving. So if that answers your question, why not Wild Spaces Public Places money? I think even if we were going to pave the entire roadway, we wouldn't use Wild Spaces Public Places money to do it. We really made a commitment to the community that that money would be for purchasing easements and fee simple properties for the purposes of conservation. And we want to continue to and maintaining those properties while they're under that umbrella. And we want to keep to that commitment. One other question I had, informational meetings. I did think it was a good point that somebody brought up that we don't have an informational meeting ahead of doing these polls. And I think we do require developers to do that when they're going to do a new project. And so I wondered if that's something that we, it sounds like we did eventually do it, but it sounds like if we are going to do an SAD. I know they're community initiated, not initiated by us. So it would be hard for us to kind of have the community meeting. But what are the thoughts, I guess, about being able to include that in an SAD process? Yes, Madam Chair, and Ramon can speak to this, but that's what I was going to ask is there was some concern expressed that there was not sufficient knowledge or information or they did not feel that they got information. I was going to ask Ramon to please let the board know all of the things that we did do, which we also, I think there was probably a little more done here, too, than we typically have done in others. We also put a, send a letter with the poll that also has information for the resident, which we have done for other initiated, citizen-initiated SADs that the board has adopted. So I'll let Ramon, if you could explain all the meetings and information that we've provided. Okay. All right, Commissioner. Yes, like I stated just a few minutes ago, on January 12, we actually had a public virtual meeting. Yes, that meeting was organized by the primary contact of the neighborhood at that time. And we had the meeting, and there were a few people that actually attended. We provided information on the virtual meeting. Believe me, people were calling all the time to Mr. Peoples, asking questions, answering questions. A lot of those questions were in your packet. Most questions were about the same questions, and they were asked and answered repeatedly. And then on May 20, on the poll that was sent on, that was on May 26, like the manager said, there was a letter, there was also an explanation, and there was a map. Everything was explained right there. That was on May 26. We're in September now. So between May and now, there's been numerous questions asked, numerous answers provided also. So I believe that the property owners and those folks that want information have been given the information. Okay, thank you. All right, well, you know, I will just say this. I'm with you, Commissioner Alford. I think that we should pave the portion of the roadway that's going to be for public access, as we committed to doing, and defer the conversation of the SAD to such time as the community residents have a chance to get together, have some conversations about the way that they would like to go. Perhaps they want to do a bid themselves per all county's requirements and pay for it themselves. Perhaps they want to not do it. But it sounds to me like there's a significant number of individuals along that roadway that are not interested in the SAD. It may not be a majority. It sounds like the majority actually voted in favor of it. They're not here today to represent themselves. I do appreciate the one that did come to say that he cares about it. But at the end of the day, I do want to be clear that this isn't an illegal SAD. We have the sole authority to create an SAD, and we could have created the SAD. But this was actually a citizen-initiated SAD, which is why all of those processes were followed to begin with, the surveys and the polling. Because it was somebody on your roadway that said, hey, we should do this. Like, we should pay for this so that we can get it done because the county's not doing it. And I appreciate that they stepped up, and I appreciate that they wanted to do this. And I hope that the community can get together and have a conversation about the roadway and what they want for it. But, you know, it doesn't make sense from my perspective for us to force down the throats of the residents that don't want it doing this until there's at least some more conversations in consensus. Because it sounds like there was a lot of confusion with regards to how the SAD got communicated. So I would be with you in just foregoing this SAD at this time and providing the residents more time. With that in mind, I'd like to make a substitute motion that we, the motion would be to move forward with the paving to the entrance to the Black Lake Preserve and to defer the SAD until such time that the residents come back with a proposal or that they propose something different or have the option to look at other funding mechanisms or whatever they so desire at this point. I do think it's in our best interest to try to do these projects as inexpensively and as well as possible to meet county standards. And if they have recommendations that can do that, then I'm certainly interested in hearing that as well. Okay. All right. We have a substitute motion on the floor. That means we'll vote for the substitute motion. We have a second? Yeah. Second. I have a question about the part of it where you're talking about paving up to the entrance. I thought that it had already been done. No. No. It has not been done. No, it's just been funded. We funded that. We haven't done it yet. I see. Okay. All right. Yes. Second. Okay. We have a motion and a second on a substitute motion, which means we'll vote on that motion first. If that motion fails, then we'll vote on the original motion on the floor. All those, is there anybody that wants to speak to the motion that hasn't spoken to the motion or to the substance of the motion? Okay. Hearing none. Manager. Yes. Madam Manager. Sorry. Because the ordinance says that for road improvement, not where it's unpaved, it's a majority of the interest poll received. Of course, it is your authority, so if you're saying put it on hold, we need to understand, are we redrawing a district? Are we telling them they have to start the process over and redo a poll? My understanding is that there are residents here that felt like they did not understand the process, and I want to make sure that all the residents understand the process. I also want to make sure that we are putting out there the most cost-effective solution, and several residents mentioned that they had the ability to offer a more cost-effective solution that would meet the county standards. So I feel like we have just a little more work to do before we bring this back. We're deferring it and asking. So would you like us to do a new interest? What I'm asking is we have an interest poll that meets the ordinance. Would you like us to redo that poll? I think it has to, right? If we're deferring it, I think we have to redo it. Is that true? Recall. No. We don't have to. We can just. Can we just do it because we're nice? Madam Attorney. So, Madam Chair, I think you can reject the assessment today. You can not adopt the assessment today. You can certainly continue it. We would have to re-advertise if we brought it back to you. If anything, substantive changes, you know, the costs that you put forward, the way that you draw the district, who is included, your allocation methodology, we would need to start over per your ordinance. But remember that you can do this unilaterally. So following these processes is an alternative method for adopting a special assessment. You can do it unilaterally. You certainly do it unilaterally under your code for new subdivisions. What do my colleagues want to do? That's a lot of staff time. Yeah, that's a lot of staff time. I'd be, but I think it's staff time either way. Right. Well, I mean, my feeling is this. The majority of the residents said they wanted it, but the majority is by very few. It's close to 50% want it, 50% don't want it. You know, I mean, it's maybe by a few, but like, honestly, for me, when an overwhelming majority of people don't want something or do want, I mean, when an overwhelming majority of something people do want something, it makes sense to me. Like, honestly, you know, that to me is really, I know it's 50 plus one, but it's in our authority to reject it if we don't want to do it. And from my perspective, if the majority of them don't want their road paved, then they don't want the road paved. I mean, I can be honest with you. There's probably no chance that this road is getting paved anytime soon. It's just that's just the reality of it. I just drove it the other day. Whenever we have a road on the agenda, I try to go drive it. So I have a good understanding. I drove and I went to the Black Lake Preserve opening. I drove the front of it and I was like, thank God we're paving this. But then I drove the rest of it and all the way to the end. And I saw what conditions there are. But regardless of that, I can just be honest with you. There's probably almost no chance this is coming on a TCIP anytime soon. So, you know. And I think also if we make the county party to this, then, and we have, what, four different properties on there, then we would be four additional votes. And if we're all voting against it, then we would, it would, it would fail because we aren't part of that initiative. See what I'm saying? Yeah. So from that point of view. From that point of view. My concern, too, is that there's a lot of conversation about not being well enough informed to make a decision, to make a vote. You know, that if we went back with the information we have now, the vote may be very different. I think, so do you want them to redo the vote or do we want to reject the SAD? That's what the staff are asking. Is the motion to reject the SAD? My motion, I think, is to reject the SAD. Okay, I would second that. So, Madam Chair, before you move forward with that, I know we're almost at the end of the fiscal year, but your code only allows it to be submitted once per fiscal year. It probably won't impact this one, but you are limited. If you send us back, like the county manager said, we're going to need a little bit of direction because what I've heard from staff and what our office has recommended is that the same methodology with the same line drawing. So, if you would like us to draw the line to include county properties, what I would tell you is that your code says that the allocation should be by trip generation. And it says you go directly to the source of where we get our trip generation data, and what I've been told is that no trips would be assigned to the county if you did that. So, it would be, in essence, the exact same thing if you draw the county lines in. Road frontage is not a basis under your code, and it's not generally a basis that's supported because the property, these are roads that provide transportation, and trips are the allocation of transportation. And that, you know, to that end, I just want to be really clear, like, you know, we are paying. I mean, if we assessed ourselves, you saw Ramon's spreadsheet. If we assessed ourselves, you all would pay more than what you're paying now. You would pay now with us having that, you know, short portion of the road paved because the cost per foot of paving is so high. So, us paving a portion of that road on our own dime is actually more than us just getting assessed as an individual property. So, I do think that this is the best deal that the neighborhood's ever going to get. But I hear the neighborhood loud and clear also saying that it's, you know, that there's a good portion of them that feel like they didn't have a say and that they don't want it. So, you know, I'll support the rejection of the SAD. I'll support deferring it for the community to have more conversation and re-poll. I support either of those. Well, I think if we defer it, then staff has different, I'm not sure exactly what staff does if we defer it. Right. That's, you know, and so I think rejection's really the only way that we can move forward is that way it's very clear what needs to happen, is that, you know, the community needs to get together. And re-poll. They need to discuss this further and decide exactly how they want to move forward. And that's my take on it. And they can bring it forward in the new fiscal year, meaning October, between October 1 and September 30th of next year. Yes. This October. And to that, if we get, if we, again, follow that process, if the petition is brought, we will, again, be bringing this back to you if it exceeds the 50 years. So if it exceeds the 50 percent, whether that's one or 10, just so you're aware, we're going to, we will follow what's in the ordinance. But I do think it would be cleaner to do as Commissioner Alford suggested, because otherwise we're going to ask you what is the direction of what you would like us to do. Right. I guess from a process standpoint, I guess I would, it's not a part of the motion now, but I do think us revisiting community initiated SADs and the 50 percent plus one being enough of a majority to make these things happen is probably worth a conversation. I feel like we need kind of a super majority of properties to make it make sense. I mean, if only half the people want something, you know, I mean, it works, it works in politics that way. That's right. But I feel like when it's about individuals, front yards, their property values, you know, having a bigger say in what goes on in their backyards makes sense. So perhaps we need to think about that ordinance and increase the majority required for a community-oriented SAD to go forward, or is that in statute? No, no, Madam Chair. The whole process, all these processes that we're talking about, like the poll and, you know, having to come to you to ask you whether you want to go out for the poll, talking to the public is all in your code. The only legal requirements for this are, you know, an assessment role hearing, the adoption hearing. There's four weeks of legal ads that need to be placed. That's all that's required by statute. Well, I feel like we need to also look at the part of the statute where, you know, if it's 50 percent plus one itself and we don't have a really good mechanism to make sure that every resident has an opportunity to vote. and be educated on the issue. I think that community meeting that was one person suggested, it should be part of the process. Can we add to the substitute motion that we refer to staff to bring back at a policy meeting, the voluntary SAD process in our ordinance? Can you add it to the substitute motion? Are you okay with that? Okay, so my motion now is to move forward with the paving to the entrance to Blake Preserve and deny the SAD and also to ask staff to bring back to a policy meeting discussion of our SAD process. Voluntary SAD process. Voluntary SAD process. Voluntary SAD. Okay. All right. All those in favor of the substitute motion say aye. Aye. Any opposed like sign? Motion carries. So the original motion fails, the SAD fails, and we will be discussing voluntary SADs at a later date. Madam Chair, may I just add one quick comment about Melrose being the redhead stepchild? Well, I own property in Melrose too, but it's in Bradford County. You know, one of the problems is that we have divided that little community up to the point nobody knows where they are in Melrose, right? And they don't have a mayor. There's no city council. And so it's really hard to find the heart of the community until you guys, until we all come forward. So, you know, if you all want to, that's right, that's right, that's right, that's right. Thank you, Madam Chair. So it's not we don't love Melrose because we all want to be out there. You know, I'll just say to those residents that voted for this SAD, I'm sorry that it failed. I think you did an admirable thing in trying to create a process by which your roadway could be paved. I do hope that those that were interested in thinking of different strategies might still continue that process to look at bids that might be cheaper and still meet county requirements, to look at the conversation with our staff about potential grants that could leverage the money we spent on Black Lake Preserve as a match. You know, we're certainly open to those conversations and I hope that we can still find a way to work with you all to get your road paved. All right, moving on. I'm going to pass the gavel back to Commissioner Cornell. Thank you, Vice Chair Prizzi. All right, Madam Clerk, next item. Next item would be the quasi-judicial public hearing item, LaCrosse Personal Wireless Services Facilities, PWSL Special Use Permit. Okay, and the recommended action is to, oh wait, yes, and the recommended action is staff recommends that the Board of County Commissioners approve Z26-000011 with the basis and conditions as mentioned in the staff report. And because it's quasi-judicial, I believe we've got something for the attorney to read and then we'll have the clerk see if there's any ex parte communications. Mr. Chair, all persons wishing to testify or present evidence during this hearing will be sworn in prior to speaking during this proceeding. All persons have the right through the chair to ask questions, to seek clarification, or respond to comments or presentations of staff or other speakers. All persons who present written materials to the commissioners for consideration must ensure that a copy of such materials is provided to the clerk for inclusion in the Board's record of proceedings and official minutes. While we welcome comments from all persons with an interest in this proceeding, Florida law requires that the County Commission's decision in a quasi-judicial action be supported by competent substantial evidence presented to the Board during the hearing. Confident substantial evidence is such evidence that a reasonable mind would accept as adequate to support a conclusion. There must be a factual basis in the record to support opinion testimony. Persons presenting testimony may rely on any factual information in the record. In a moment, the clerk will ask for persons other than the staff and the applicant who wish to participate as parties to identify themselves and explain to the Board why they believe they are parties. I don't believe we had any requests. So, again, Mr. Chair, people who want to participate as parties who have not put in the request in time can petition you at this time to be party so long as they speak to their party status and explain why they weren't timely. Thank you, Madam Attorney. Are there anyone that wishes to be a party? Seeing none, Madam Clerk, do you want to do ex parte and then we'll go ahead and swear everybody in? No. No. It's done. Perfect. At this level, just iterate your right hand. If you saw the only phone you're about to give is the truth. Okay. Mr. Reilly, you are recognized. Welcome. Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is Madi Bengatar with the Alachia County Growth Management Department and this is Z2600011, known as the LaCrosse PWSF, which is a personal wireless service facility. And this is a special use permit application. Background on this application, that's for a special use permit to allow a tier three tower. Our code has a tiered system in relation to proposed cell towers. And there are four tiers, and this is a tier three. And on that basis, it requires a special use permit approved by the county commission. Specifically, if this is approved, it would allow a monopole type tower up to 199 feet. The application is situated here on North State Road 121, north of the city of Gainesville and south of the town of La Crosse. This aerial image shows the site. It's actually just a portion of the overall 68 acre parcel. And it's approximately where that site box is located on the screen. To the north of the site is the Jungle Friends Private Animal Sanctuary. They have been there for quite a while. And they would have received a notice for the neighborhood workshop, which was held prior to this application being submitted. Outside of that, to the north, there are timberlands to the east, or sorry, to the west, and the city of Gainesville to the southwest, and residents to the south, and then larger lots that are vacant to the east. Future land use map, this is in the rural part of the county, has a rural ag land use designation, as well as those parcels surrounding it. And similarly with the zoning, this has agricultural zoning, as well as those parcels surrounding it. The proposed site within the parcel is near North State Road 121, and it's shown with that star. It is proposed south of where there are wetlands, and as well as the wetlands, there is a wetland buffer, so the site would be outside of those wetland buffers. Additionally, there are flood areas on this parcel, and the proposed site would lie outside of the flood area to the south. There is a proposed easement that would have, provide access from State Road 121 to the site, that's shown there with the beige color. And within that red dotted line is where the tower compound would be, where this would be, where the equipment is, surrounded by a landscape buffer, as required for the coat. And then further on the right-hand side, that's an elevation showing what this monopole design would look like at a maximum height of 199 feet. As part of the requirements for special use permit for a tiered three tower, the applicant is required to have a visual impact analysis. Part of that analysis is providing before and after photo simulations from at least four locations. And the applicant provided us with seven from various locations as shown in this slide. Of these seven locations, the only one that provided any impact, as we can see, is this slide here. This is location E on State Road 121. And there you can see within the red circle what the image would look like if the tower is built at that maximum height. And this is about 1,400 feet from the south of the site. We are required to retain a consultant as part of our review for the cell tower applications. And we have worked with Omnicom, so we'll turn it over to them to discuss the technical aspects of this application and what their findings are. Okay. Mr. Monzingo, welcome. I'm actually Tim Barenton. Mr. Monzingo is about, he has a death in the family, so I'm- Oh, sorry to hear that. I'm here in his place today. Okay. Um, so Omnicom was hired by the county to look at the RF engineering for this special use permit. And so one of the first things we do is we do a search for existing towers within the radius of two miles for this proposed tower site. Closest existing site is about 2.1 miles away to the southwest, and T-Mobile's already on that site, that tower location. Here's a satellite view, uh, being the search radius rings. Uh, and you can see, uh, the tower at 2.1 miles away. Southwest would be, uh, one, start to go, one, two, three, nine, three, nine, three, ASR number. Um, there is an FAA tower. It's a little bit, uh, a mile or so to the northwest, but that's a really small tower, and we wouldn't allow to be on it, or any carrier would not be allowed to be on it, for that matter. So, um, we used, uh, data from the applicant's tower application to validate coverage maps presented, uh, with the next tower application. Uh, OC, we did a simulation using our own model of the T-Mobile coverage in the area closely matched, uh, and, and closely matched what was presented in the application. So, uh, if you'll look on the right, this is the applicant's, uh, coverage or T-Mobile's coverage, and the relative signal levels, talk about in-building coverage, would be the dark green, and it goes out from there until you get into unreliable coverage in the purple area out there. That white-green color in the middle is essentially no coverage, uh, uh, in that area. And if you look on the left, uh, you'll see Omnicom's coverage simulation, and the white area with no color at all is no coverage as well. So, it's, uh, we obviously verified, uh, that in this mid-band, which is like 1800 to 2100 megahertz for, uh, LG, or 5G, uh, there's not, there's a strong need for, uh, radio coverage in that area, or cell coverage. This is after the tower, uh, projected coverage once the tower is built. Uh, as I said, it's a 199-foot monopole. I believe the tower itself is, uh, 195 with a four-foot lighting rod. Um, so, uh, that would allow future other carrier, future carriers, uh, to be in this area. And given the coverage in this area, I'm sure you're gonna have other carriers on this tower if it's built. So, again, we verified their coverage, the, the need for coverage, and more or less, uh, projecting, uh, what we anticipate this tower will do for the carrier. So, we would recommend approval for the special use permit, uh, based on the coverage maps. There's significant area of coverage deficiency in this area. Uh, I guess it's Northwest 156 and State Road 121 and County Road 231 area. Uh, and we're in agreement with the provided two mobile coverage, uh, maps that the proposed tower height is the minimum that you'd want to build in this area, especially if you want to get to allow for future carriers to be on this, uh, this side as well. Uh, which would, uh, uh, uh, that's not me. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, we've got Commissioner Prizia and then Commissioner Wheeler. So that's the recommendation. Second. Yep. Got a motion and a second. Commissioner Wheeler. Yes. The question I have is the, the two, two miles that you're talking, there were several. There were several in that area. What does that, how does that impact development if, if we have that many of those, those towers in there? You know, I, I can't imagine that many people wanting to move close into that area or what does that do to the land availability for development? Um, I'm looking at that circle right there and it's a pretty rural area, you know. So the inner circle is one mile and the outer circle is two miles and the closest usable tower for T-Mobile is at 2.1 miles to the Southwest. Right. But were there other towers too that were marked? I may not be reading this, what the map was. No, there's not other towers available to them. That FAA guidance tower that you see the yellow pin on it, the one mile to the Northwest, that's a small 50 foot federal or facility that wouldn't be available to carry. Well, the, uh, there was another slide though that had, I thought was, no, no, no, no, let's, that, I'm sure I didn't make it up. Was there another one that had more marks on it than that? Um, we've got, we have two coverage maps down here. Uh, this shows the applicant tower on the right in the middle there that, uh... No, that's, that's not the one I was looking at just a minute ago. Mr. Chair, are you, they could be referring to the photo sim locations. This one? No. Okay. I can't believe I just made that up. There aren't any within the two mile radius. Okay, that's, that's fine. And that was my question on that for sure. But, um, is, that's such a rural area there out of La Crosse, you know, to, and, and it didn't look like to me from the site, go back to the slide where it's the splatter that shows before it there. Right? Does it, the light green is the part that it would cover? No, ma'am. That, that, that, that area in light green essentially showing no coverage and that's what we verified on the left with the white. Uh, there's a little splash, uh, that, that purple color that the, uh, T-Mobile has provided is, would be on the edge of unreliable. You'd be going in and out of a phone call if you were outside, probably not even reliable. Okay. That's, that's. The next page says you can show her what the coverage would look like. Well, yes. But, but look at those, those, that's where I think I saw all those, uh, marks with the red mark on them. Those are all towers? Yeah. I mean, all these. In the, in the bright green spots there are towers all in there. Yes ma'am. Those are all towers lit up at this time. Current towers. How far away are those towers? I believe that one to the southwest is 2.1 miles away. That's that 2.1, 2 mile search ring you see. Right. Uh, but those other ones, we are further out than that, so. But how much further is what I'm trying to understand because. I don't know. I didn't, we don't have, I don't have a search ring for those, how far those are away. Is that generally the way they're condensed? The one, the one that. They look for, they look for holes and then they fill them. Oh gee. Okay. So, uh, the one that's almost due south of the special use applicant, uh, tower is 4.1 miles away. Okay. The one that's in the far southeast corner over there, that's 7.2 miles away. Okay. Okay. The one that's in the far northeast, that one is 6.86 miles away. And the one at the top of the screen on the northwest is 4.8. Okay. Thank you. That's what I was trying to understand because with that kind of condensed condensation of those poles, I didn't know how people feel about actually trying to live in that kind of a condensed area, you know, because there are a lot of concerns whether they're justified or not. Yeah. You know, in terms of health issues. Yeah. Right now in that area, they don't have a whole lot of cell covers. Not yet. Not yet. And that would keep it from happening is what I'm trying to think. And La Crosse needs to grow. Okay. Thank you. Oh, wait. One more question about the 199 foot. There's something magic about 199 feet. There is. There is. At 200 feet and above, you had to light the tower. And you had to get an ASR registration. That's why they're all 199. So that one foot would make all the difference in the world. It would have to light it. And then you'd have a two-level lighting system. You'd have a strobe in the day, red light at night. And the 199 is to the tip of the lightning rod, by the way. So the tower itself is 195, I believe. The four-foot lightning rod on top. Just up. You stay up under 200 feet so they don't have to light it. It doesn't have to be monitored. So that's the magic of that. I understand. But even that high, you know, there are things that go that low for sure. No. I'm done. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. We've got a motion and a second. Any further discussion from the board? All right. Anyone from the public, which is just the board on the motion? All right. Back to the board. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion is unanimous. Okay. Thank you guys very much. Thanks for hanging with us. We will now get back to our agenda, back to, I think, most of our staff initiated. There's no one here. Yeah. Most staff initiated. All right. Aye. Aye. Madam Clerk. Comprehensive plan, evaluation, and appraisal amendment, adoption, public hearing. Recommended action is to adopt the ordinance approving the Alaska County Comprehensive Plan, Evaluation, and Appraisal Amendments. These are ones we've already heard, correct? They were transmitted to the state and then came back. Let me, uh, someone's- Can you get my presentation? Yes. This is the adoption hearing. Mr. Schumley? You are recognized. Once you get that presentation up, tell us what you need. What's changed from the state? Good afternoon, commissioners. Ben Schumley with Growth Management. This is a public hearing on the Comprehensive Plan Evaluation and Appraisal Amendments. Um, as you know, the evaluation and appraisal is a state mandated review and update process that is completed every seven years. The proposed updates include amendments to multiple elements. You have a copy of the ordinance in your backup, which contains the proposed amendments in strike-out and underlined format. And the requested action today is to adopt the ordinance to approve the proposed Comprehensive Plan amendments. And this graphic just shows the timeline for the evaluation and appraisal process from early 2025 through today. Um, over the past year and a half, we've been engaged in, uh, the process of reviewing the plan, uh, identifying the updates that are needed for compliance with statutes, scoping of local issues, and preparing the proposed amendments and the supporting data and analysis. The proposed amendments to the plan incorporate direction from the board as well as input from advisory committees, multiple county departments, and the public. So, we've, uh, reached the final step now, which is the, the bottom line of the chart, uh, which is adopting the proposed amendments to the plan. The board held a transmittal hearing on this set of amendments on May 5th and voted to transmit them for state review. The state reviewed them and they issued their objections, recommendations, and comments report on the proposed amendments. Uh, and that was in a letter dated July 1st. And per statute, the county must hold its adoption hearing on these within 180 days of receiving that report. So, we're well within that timeframe. Um, I'm gonna just focus a little bit on the, uh, the state's report and what we've done to respond. Okay. Um, we have prepared a written response to the state's report, which addresses the state's concerns point by point. Florida Commerce identified two objections and one comment on the proposed amendments. If you look at them, um, they were primarily about data and analysis, additional data and analysis that needed to be provided. Um, and there was also one, uh, technical issue where we needed to, uh, make some, some additional changes in policy or add some additional language into policy, um, to make sure we're complying with certain sections of the board. With certain sections of the statute. We did get a comment about, uh, Senate bill 180 for two specific policies, uh, and that's, um, saying that they were potentially more restrictive or burdensome. And we have addressed those with some additional revisions, um, as well as some explanation in our written response. Um, so the vast majority of the amendments that you see in the ordinance are the same as what you saw in May, uh, with the exception of a couple policies, uh, where we needed to make some additional changes. Um, so the state's objection number one had three parts, um, and they're all kind of related. Um, the first part was that the amendment did not expressly state that the comprehensive plan includes a 10 year and a 20 year planning period. Excuse me. Um, this is a fairly new requirement in the statute. Um, so the state reviewers are focusing on this a bit. Our plan does cover a 20 year period. Um, and it also refers to, uh, both the 10 and 20 year planning periods and existing policies. Um, so I think the issue was just a matter of needing to, um, explain that a little better and identify where those policies were. Um, and, and also, um, make sure we're stating clearly enough in other policies that, uh, our plan does cover a 20 year period, which obviously includes 10 and 20 year planning periods. Um, the second part of the objection was that the amendment was not, not based on relevant data and analysis of public facilities for those 10 and 20 year periods. So in response to that, we have included some additional data and analysis. Uh, just make, making it clear that we're looking at those 10 and 20 year periods when we're, uh, analyzing public services, uh, and level of service. And then the third part of objection number one, uh, was that the amendment did not update the housing element based on relevant and appropriate data and analysis. And analysis for the 10 and 20 year planning periods. So again, um, we're making sure we needed to make sure that our, uh, data and analysis was showing very clearly the 10 to 20 year planning period. So we think in the revised data and analysis now that we've done that. The, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the second objection objection number two was that the amendment did not, uh, address a requirement, which requires us to consider the feasibility of providing sanitary sewer to certain developments that are currently on septic. Um, this requirement stems from house bill 1379, which became law in 2023. That bill contained a number of provisions on water quality, including new requirements for, uh, comprehensive plans. And we actually addressed this requirement to an extent in 2024 by adding a new policy in the potable water and sanitary sewer element. That is policy 2.1.8. Um, in response to this comment, we did take a closer look at the policy and made some additional revisions from the, uh, version that was transmitted. And we also included some additional data and analysis, uh, that, uh, was relevant to this particular issue. So here is the, um, policy that directly addresses, uh, objection number two. This is 2.1.8 of the, uh, potable water and sanitary sewer element. The red text is what has been changed since the time of transmittal. The black and white text is the existing policy. And the, uh, black and white regular strike through an underline, uh, is the policy change that was originally transmitted to the state. Um, so we think with these additional policy changes combined with the additional data and analysis that we have adequately addressed the state's objection on, uh, this particular issue. Uh, Florida commerce also had one comment concerning Senate bill 180. Um, they identified two specific policies as being potentially more restrictive or burdensome. Um, and those were future land use elements policy 1.6.5.13, which deals with T and D design standards, as well as conservation and open space element policy 4.8.2 G, which deals with floodplain setback requirements. Um, I think it's, it's important to note that according to the letter from Florida commerce that, um, this comment, this particular comment was offered to assist the county. Um, and it will not form the basis for a determination of whether or not the amendment is in compliance. Those were the words that were used in their letter. So, um, that said, we have provided a written response, um, to this comment, as well as made a couple changes in those policies that they cited. So, uh, first to, uh, policy 1.6.5.13, uh, this deals with T and D design standards. The policy itself, uh, doesn't establish any new requirement or regulation. It just says that standards will be included in the land development regulations. And, uh, of course at the time the land development regulations would be subject to Senate bill, um, 180 at the time they're being considered. Uh, that said, um, we do think the second sentence, uh, in this policy is probably more detail, uh, than we need. Um, and, and that was most likely the, uh, uh, offending language in the policy where we're talking about limitations on numbers of drive throughs. Uh, so we would propose to, uh, strike that second sentence in the red double strike through. We think that issue is adequately addressed in the first sentence of the policy, um, and that, um, second sentence is really not needed. Okay. Okay. And the other policy that, uh, they tagged for Senate bill 180 was 4.8.2 of the conservation and open space element, which deals with watershed planning. Part G of that policy is new language, which calls for special setback requirements for structures located adjacent to floodplains. Um, and again, the policy itself does not specify any setback requirements in the comp plan, but it does say that those setbacks would be developed as part of the land development regulations. Um, so we, uh, made the case in our written response that policy as proposed was not more restrictive or burdensome. However, we did make some minor revisions to the language to, uh, I guess, make it as clear as possible that the floodplain setbacks are something that we would only be considering as part of the land development regulations at a future time. It's good. Kind of mamby pamby, isn't it? It's good. Not specific enough to actually protect. Um, so that, that just kind of summarizes, um, what we've done since this was transmitted in May. Um, looking forward, if the board adopts the amendments, we will transmit those to Florida Commerce for a final compliance review. Florida Commerce then has 45 days to determine, uh, whether the amendment is in compliance with the state's planning requirements. And during that 45 day period, they will issue, uh, a notice of intent to either find the plan amendment in compliance or not in compliance. So, uh, if it is not timely challenged, uh, it should go into effect, uh, around the middle of November. Okay. So that's the staff's recommendation. That's good work by staff. At least we know they read it. Right. Um, so that's awesome. That's also good news. Um, we've got a couple of lights. Commissioner Prizia and Commissioner Alford. Commissioner Prizia. Okay. Thank you. Um, yeah, I was looking at the staff summary report and, um, on page eight, it talks about the work. commercial agriculture policies, um, which call for the future land map to be reevaluated to consider reclassification of these areas. Um, but it says this is a legacy policy and there's no plan for reevaluation of these areas. I just wanted to check in on that. I remember these rural commercial agricultural areas actually being the source of contention, um, on a land use and zoning application a while back. And so I'm just checking in to make sure we were gonna, I thought we were gonna look at those. Yep. Mr. Chair, we did make some revisions to the comprehensive plan and the land development code back at that time. And, um, we made a number of revisions that one, you know, said that single family homes would be allowed on those properties. A lot of them are really only really appropriate for a single family home. So we made that clear. And then we put some restrictions in the land development code in regards to requiring them to come back to you if there was any really significant commercial activity being proposed. Okay. Um, and so I think that's where we landed, therefore not having to kind of go do a rezoning or reland using of those properties to get into some of those issues. Okay, thank you. My, my second is, um, on page 14 of the report, we talked about the infrastructure surtax fund for affordable housing. Um, the way we have it worded in here is that, that funding, um, can be used for land acquisition for workforce housing. But my understanding is that it can be used for land acquisition for affordable housing, which also includes workforce housing, and can be used for the construction of workforce housing. So I just want to be clear because we are in fact utilizing portions of that sales tax for the construction of workforce housing. Um, currently in negotiations with two projects for that. And I just want to be clear that we are using it for both land acquisition and construction of workforce housing and make sure that that's spelled out. Mr. Chair, um, if you would like, we can, um, clarify that policy if that's the motion of the board. Yeah, I just, I would move staff's recommendation with the addition of construction of workforce housing to the infrastructure surtax fund for affordable housing policy 1.4.13. Do I hear a second? Second. All right, any discussion? I think that's good. I have a question. What does that do then now? If those changes go in now? What happens? Do you have to send it back and then get done? Mr. Chair, we have to send this back anyway after it's been adopted so we can just make that change and we'll make a note of it in our letter to the state. Gosh, I'm just impressed that there's only those couple of objections out of all of that. That's just amazing to me. As much as they scrutinize us here that that's all they could find. Good job, you guys. All right, you conclude? Thank you. All right, so we have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Any public discussion? Seeing none, let's bring it back to the board. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion is unanimous. Good work. It's a lot of work. It's a year of work. Plus, I see Jerry back there saying that's amazing. Yeah. Just because there's not a lot of people here telling you guys you did a great job. We're telling you great job. Great job. Yeah, really. Yeah, seriously. All right, Madam Clerk, next item. Fiscal Year 26 amendment. All right, recommended action to conduct a public hearing to adopt the resolution and approve the budget amendment. Second. Move staff of recommendation. Got it. Move staff of recommendation. Second. And we got two seconds. Yes. Group of four, that's a good sign. That is. Great presentation. Thank you. Do you have anything to add or do you want to talk us out of it? I'll see you at 501. Okay, all right, sounds good. Back to the board. Any public comment? Back to the board. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion is unanimous. Thank you, Moe. And now we move to the ordinance to amend, oh, I'm sorry, Madam Clerk. I will mention the ordinance of amendment firearms. And the recommended action is to adopt the attached ordinance. And who's presenting this one? Mr. Chair, I'm happy to speak to it. Okay. Do we need it? You know, I'll just say this. I'll make the motion. I'll make the motion. I'm not happy to make the motion. Because I believe that home rule and local authority should have the ability to make ordinances and rules related to gun control in our communities to keep our residents and our public servants safe. But seeing as we are preempted from doing that, I move that we adopt the attached ordinance. Thank you. Do I hear a second? Second. Got a motion and a second. I appreciate the speech before. I think I agree with that. Any discussion from the public on the motion? Back to the board. Any more discussion from the board? Mary Helen, you good? I am good. I just didn't know if it needed to be read out loud if there's a short, you know, for the public or not. I mean, it's not really been addressed. It's essentially read out loud when we publish the agenda. Okay. All right. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion is unanimous. Thank you. Okay. Mr. Brewington, I think we are now back to quasi-judicial. Do we need to re-read the attorney? No, Mr. Chair. We do need to ask for parties and do our poll work. All right. Is there any parties for a request for the major amendment to the eco-loop plan development? I don't think anybody lives out there. So I don't see any parties. Okay. Madam clerk, no, no, no, no, no, no. Okay. Let's do the swearing. I do. Chair, good afternoon. Jerry Brewington, senior planner, Alachua County Department of Growth Management. I have been sworn a copy of my resume is on file for the record, both this item and the other quasi-judicial item, the PWSF item were properly advertised and proof of publication was provided. This is Z26-000010. This is the Wiesman-Echo-loop plan development amendment. Just some slides for some brief background. This particular property is owned by the county located on the east side of Waldo Road in the Fairbanks area. This property was, as you can see from the aerial, is already home to the LaVita Brown facilities owned by the county as well as a large area of undeveloped property to the north of that on the access road. But the whole area of this PD is outlined in red and shown on this slide. And again, this is an application to amend what was originally shown as a PD or plan development district for this parcel. The parcel has a land use designation of heavy industrial, which is one of the land use classifications in our comprehensive plan. This is implemented through a PD or plan development district with its own specific conditions. In view of recent changes with regard to the original intent of developing this property, the county is now amending the PD to allow some additional uses on the property. Again, these parcels are subject of this application total of 160 acres. This was originally known as the Weisman Tract and was purchased by Alachua County for multiple purposes, including expansion of the Ecolope facility run under the auspices of Waste Management. And ultimately, they were also intended to house structures and facilities for the Alachua County Fairgrounds. The fair site has subsequently been relocated elsewhere in the county. Therefore, the present request seeks to amend the implementing PD zoning district for the property and the associated permitted uses that are allowed on that parcel. In doing the analysis, staff has looked at both the comp plan and the code, the policies that we normally look at when reviewing a rezoning to ensure consistency. In the case of the comp plan, it is looking at level of service standards and the capital improvement element to ensure that no level of service standards will be exceeded by this request. We have done that as well as analyzed policy 7.1.2 of our future land use element, which provides a series of factors to consider in any rezoning request. Again, staff have reviewed these and it shows that the proposed rezoning is consistent with or maintains the criteria in this particular policy of the future land use element. Similarly, Mr. Chair, there is a set of criteria found in the code, our Unified Land Development Code, and specifically 402.77 related to proposed zoning changes. And again, staff finds that the proposed amendments will not impact the health, safety, or welfare of the citizens of Alachua County. Additional conditions are proposed to ensure protection of resources on the site, as well as the nearby Murphree Wellfield. We have an accompanying zoning master plan, Mr. Chair, and this will show what is basically the previous zoning master plan, but there are a couple of changes. Some of the conservation management areas have expanded, and you can see that in these darker areas noted on this map in the upper portion off of 69th Avenue and near La Vida Brown. Again, we are expanding the conservation management areas based on recent analysis of property. It's been quite a while since the property originally was brought in, and our EPD staff looked at that and made those additional recommendations to expand the CMAs for those particular areas. There are a number of conditions that you can see in your staff report, Mr. Chair, and I won't go over all of those, but I will hit the highlights of the proposed permitted uses. And these are found, again, in Condition 1, and I just want to highlight these really quickly and go over them with you. The proposed permitted uses for this property, as it stands, if the PD is approved, would allow that all permitted uses in the MS or MP zoning districts would be allowed. These are the permitted uses, and those two, which are industrial zoning districts, they have a series of outlined uses that are permitted. You'll see them noted as a P in our use table. Those would be allowed by right in this PD zoning. Secondly, we would allow a solid waste transfer station, salvage or recycled metal or tire yard, a storage yard, material recovery, recycling and composting, and storage transfer or treatment of household hazardous waste. This, again, reflects a lot of what is also going on in Levita Brown right at the very moment and is a permitted use that would be continued to be allowed if the PD is approved. We would allow government buildings and facilities. We would allow a public fairgrounds if we ever chose to relocate or go back in that direction. Excuse me. There's also a notation on E that data centers or large-scale data centers as defined in Florida statute are prohibited. Thank you. So we took note and staff took note and made sure that that was included in there as a prohibited use under this PD if amended. I also wanted to point out, Mr. Chair, that staff notes that the uses MS and MP are standard zoning districts in our code. These typically include self-storage facilities, vehicle sales and service, wholesaling and warehousing, research facilities, materials, recovery and recycling, as well as limited office type and commercial uses. Again, these are all the types of permitted uses that would be allowed if MS and MP permitted uses are approved as part of this PD. However, we would also note that the board ultimately controls uses on the parcel as long as you retain ownership. So while these are permitted uses, the board, as long as they own the property, ultimately get a say in what does or does not go on on this property. So it rests in your hands until the property is sold or otherwise divested. With that, Mr. Chair, staff recommends that the BOCC find the application consistent with the Comp Plan and Unified Land Development Code and that the board adopt Resolution Z-26-09, approving the requested PD amendments with the conditions and bases as noted in your staff report. And that concludes staff presentation. Thank you. Mr. Hopper? I was just going to move staff recommendation. Second. It's MS-MP. I don't know what that stands for. Those are two zoning districts in the industrial category of our Unified Land Development Code. MS is manufacturing services. MP is manufacturing trucks. I'll look it up. I'm sorry. Go ahead. Those are zoning districts. I used to know those so well, but they are industrial zoning districts in our code. We have a series of zoning districts that are light industrial and heavy industrial and they are implemented by those zoning categories. So MS I got. MP I'd have to look up again. That's okay. Thank you. Thank you. It's just processing. It's just processing. It's just processing. And Jared, did I miss it? Did you tell me your resume is on file? I did. You were talking to the other commissioner. I missed it. I apologize. All right. Thank you. It's just a standing joke between me and I for the last 12 years actually. So you're a good sport. Good work. We got a motion and a second. Anyone from the public would speak to the motion? Back to the board. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion is unanimous. I just wanted to say too, it looks like the do-si-do has broken the urban boundary. You know, we got it. It's everything is coming and going out there now. Okay. Madam Clerk, I think that moves us to the consent item. Yes. 5A, which I think is the Alaska County Bike Pedestrian Master Plan adoption. The recommended action is to adopt the Alaska County Bicycle Pedestrian Master Plan as presented. Corrects that to proceed with any necessary amendments to the county comp plan to ensure internal consistency. And Commissioner Priscilla, you had asked that this be removed, right? Yes. Yeah, I guess this is the result of many, many, many years of planning and many, many years of the public and coordination between the city and the DOT of us trying to get this done. I know there's a number of our community that are really interested in this, what it means. We had more public engagement on this than we've had in most things that we do. So I thought it was important for us to at least have a provisional opportunity for the public to hear it. I know it was presented MTPO, so all of us have heard it. But just for the public's good and so that it gets hopefully some media attention on this really great plan that's been developed, I wanted us to at least put it on the agenda for a little bit. And can I add a request to the presentation? One of the things that I've actually gotten some negative feedback on is this thought process that the money that we're spending on bike-ped facilities is money that's being taken away from road facilities. And I just, if you could sort of address that in terms of funding and philosophy during the presentation, I think that would be really useful to the public. Sure. Thank you. So when we get to the end and talk about implementation, you'll see how little funding we may have for this. So countywide bicycle pedestrian master plan, I did not realize, sorry, Allison Moss, transportation planning manager for Lachua County. I didn't realize that this project actually was originally initiated around 2017, I think I heard, at the transportation planning organization meeting. So we started developing this plan in 2022, I believe. I have prepared a slightly abbreviated version of this presentation that hopefully still hits all the highlights for anyone who did not catch the TPO version. It cuts down a little bit of the content. So agenda, we're gonna go over project overview, sample renderings, and next steps. So this is a collaborative effort. It was funded by the TPO for Lachua County in Gainesville. But it's also had a strong partnership between the county, the city of Gainesville, and University of Florida. The project has lasted a little over two years, and it is the first comprehensive update to the master plan in over 20. The master plan focused on strengthening countywide policies and practices to support biking and walking, on identifying gaps in the network, on recommending targeted infrastructure improvements, and then developing an implementation strategy. And then, I'm not gonna read verbatim the sort of vision at the bottom, but it's really about making walking and biking reasonable, attractive, safe transportation choices for people of all ages and abilities. So how we did this master plan, we started off just looking at all issues and opportunities. We sort of looked at creating a network, refining the network, and then developing projects. Throughout it, we had a lot of community engagement. And there were three, we call them touch points or community meetings, throughout the process. The project developed six distinct goals, policies, and strategies. And these have to do with safety. Safety for bicycling and walking actually improves safety for all modes as well, something I'll mention. We looked at connectivity, healthy people and healthy communities, which focuses on safe routes to school, among other things. Improving conditions for historically disadvantaged communities, increasing multimodal trips. So that has to do with integration of transit and bicycle pedestrian facilities. And then lastly, implementation. Potential programs. So these are things that were developed specifically for the urbanized area of Alachua County, but can be adopted by the other partner agencies, by City of Gainesville, and other municipalities within the county. And so we looked at, these are called the six E's, and we looked at things that fit into these different categories. So measuring success, and that could be looking at our mode share or the number of people walking and biking. Also looking at safety is a good indication of our success. Number two is training and certifying transportation professionals and advocates. And this is an idea that we thought could be housed in and championed by the TPO as kind of a sort of regional hub think tank that could help professional planners, engineers, and others. Number three, prioritize implementation of low-cost countermeasures in underserved areas on the county's high injury network. So those could be things like raised crossings or lighting enhancements in specific locations where indicated by the data. And number four, explore road safety audits for all projects over 50,000. And that just sort of gets at fostering increased collaboration, for instance, within the county. So planners and engineers and environmental folks are working together as they develop projects to efficiently use our time and our financial resources. And then number five, create a 20 is plenty template or toolkit. And in that 20 means 20 miles an hour, and that would be for largely residential streets. Community engagement by the numbers. So we had, as I mentioned, three in-person workshops, over 2,000 online surveys completed, over 600 interactive online map comments. And then we had agency working groups, which include people like me, people from public works departments, and others who touched this work. And it was within the county, FDOT, City of Gainesville, UF, first responders, all sorts of folks. And then three in-person community focus groups, and those were with people who are advocates and who may advocate to actually see some of these projects come to light. Facility type identification. So once we had projects, I might have skipped something. Once we had projects, we needed to look at what type of facility we would recommend. And this is kind of what I mentioned at the beginning of the presentation. The vision is to create a network of infrastructure that people of all ages and abilities feel comfortable using. So if you had a child who was school age, and they wanted to ride their bike to school, quality of facility that would make you feel comfortable doing so. Conversely, elderly parents who might want to bike to the grocery store. And so in certain contexts on, say, high speed roads, we may be looking at doing a shared use path off of the roadway. And if it's a neighborhood context, which is already meant to be kind of traffic calmed, we may do additional traffic calming to make it more comfortable to share the road in reality. We prioritized our projects. So we had nearly 500 distinct projects that we identified through this planning process. And we weighted project need and feasibility with a higher weighting for need to develop an overall priority score. And these are just the inputs that went into need. And these are all consistent with the goals we developed for the project. And we did a deep dive on feasibility. So a lot of projects that seem feasible at a high planning level when you get down to it. The county has a lot of swale section roadways. Or we maybe just don't have enough right of way within existing curbs. We have utility conflicts. And so the consultant we worked with did desktop analysis and looked at all of these things to give us a realistic idea of feasibility. And this is just a very small sampling of countywide project ranking. And so we looked at the left-hand column at rank by number. Priority score, which again includes need and feasibility. Project description, just where is it. And then potential funding sources. So some of these projects could be funded by Safe Routes to School grants, as you see. Some of them through transportation planning organizations passed through federal dollars. SunTrail grant program may fund others. And then we didn't list every local funding source. But mobility fee, for instance, can fund, and that's developer fees, can help implement some of these projects. These lists can be sorted by jurisdiction. So who owns the roadway. I'm sorry, where the roadway exists. Roadway owner and then also potential funding source. And here is a map with QR code. And these are just the top 50 projects. I'll just mention a couple things. For one, the sort of Kelly green color shows up as very prominent. And those are shared use paths on our higher speed collector and arterial streets. Some of these streets today have a five-foot bike lane and a five-foot sidewalk. And what the proposal is, either for these roads, say with grant money or if there's redevelopment, would be to create shared use paths instead. So instead of a painted bike lane and a sidewalk, do one shared use path off the street. Again, consistent with all ages and abilities, getting, you know, kids to school safely, things like that. These are just a couple different categories of the projects. So we have long distance connectors. And these go outside of the urbanized area. They are long. They're over 13 miles long. These would require special sort of funding source, something like SunTrail. Program. As they cover very long distances and are more recreational in nature. And then Rails to Trails are another pot, SunTrail eligible projects. Those are where railroad corridors are converted to trails. And these are just some of those projects. One thing of note in this project and something that caught the attention of the Office of Greenways and Trails. Statewide was the extensive work we did on trail crossing or bicycle pedestrian crossings that might be needed in this plan. And so the reason we looked at this is because you can have a great project. You can have a very low-stress trail and if we, quote, give up at the intersection, whether that means no signalization at all or a signal that doesn't have any special accommodation for people walking and biking, you can have a lot of conflicts, near misses, and it really discourages somebody from trying to walk and bike. So conversely, an investment in improving crossings can really leverage the rest of our network to be great for walking and biking. How we did this is we looked at the presence of an existing crossing device. So is there a signal or is there something there but it needs to be enhanced or is there nothing there? We looked at how well the project scores that this crossing connects. So a better scoring project, the crossing would be prioritized. And then we looked at proximity to existing crossings. So even in the urbanized area, we have sometimes a mile or more between crossings, even when we have, say, transit stops along both sides of the street. So most people are not going to make that trip a mile to a near signal. So this gives us some policies leverage to look at adding additional crossings. Renderings. I'm just going to show a few of them here. So this is one for the Hogtown Creek Greenway, which has been a project in the imagination of people doing transportation planning for a very long time here in Alachua County. This is a segment that is behind the Lowe's off 13th Street. And this is how it would be rendered as a paved path with wayfinding. Southeast 43rd Street. This is near Lake Forest Elementary School and also Eastside High School. And this project rendering reflects this kind of trade-off. You can have a painted bike lane that's very narrow next to a swale and then a sidewalk. Or we could, quote, move the curb out and then have a 10-foot wide shared use path where people could walk and bike separated from traffic. And that could also afford the chance to do some street trees. Which would be a great project. I like that one. Yeah. As a very high-ranking project among the list. Yeah, I like that. Southwest 16th Avenue is an example of a relatively low-cost, high-impact project. So, taking separated bike lane, or sorry, a buffered bike lane and making it a separated bike lane with concrete delineators or separators. And then the last one is a project that shows up as a very high priority in both the county's bicycle pedestrian master plan and also its safe streets and roads for all action plan. And that's Southwest 20th or 24th Avenue. And again, this is showing a conversion from five-foot sidewalk, swale section, drainage, and painted bike lane, and then to this 10-foot wide shared use path with street trees. Another great plan. This area is also very close to an area that the county has received a raised planning grant for, for the design of the 20th Avenue bridge over I-75. Great. So, we'd be coordinating that. Next steps. You were talking about that before. Yeah, that's great. Next steps. So, next steps would be to identify funding for priority projects. And, Mr. Chair, to Commissioner Alfred's question or request, there are limited funding sources. There's definitely a color of money that can be used for bicycle pedestrian projects. Those include, for example, developer funding through mobility fees, capital improvement projects, where we have those listed, a list of priority projects through the transportation planning organization locally, and then grants. So, we're always busy looking for grants to help fund these. Then, from there, we would do detailed project planning and environmental review, design, and then on to construction. And so, with that, we've prepared suggested recommended motions, adopt the countywide bicycle pedestrian master plan, and to direct staff to proceed with any necessary amendments to the county comprehensive plan. Okay. Commissioner Prizzi, and then Commissioner Alfred. I, I, can you go back to the slide that had the priorities? It's like way back at the beginning. Like project, project, keep going. Keep going, keep going. That one. Potential programs. Okay. First, I just want to say thank you for all of this work. Again, I know it was quite a labor of love. And I think it's a really great example of what an action plan should look like. Not only does it have sort of our big picture goals and talks about things that we want to see, but it gets all the way down to the potential feasibility and implementation of very specific projects, which is exactly what we need if we're going to be able to move things forward. So, I really applaud the extra effort that the consultant and that the team really did to make sure that this has actionable items in it for all of us. On this side, I guess I wanted to understand with the adoption of this plan, are we adopting these sort of recommendations for staff to move forward with these potential programs and to bring them back to us for implementation. I'm particularly interested in sort of, I guess, all of them, but you know, for me, measuring the county's successes, how we integrate that into our dashboard and into sort of the metrics that we're thinking about with growth management overall. So, prioritizing low-cost projects, like if we're kind of planning to bring those back to us for recommendations within future budget years, the exploring the road safety audit, is that something that we're all going to plan to do now from now on or would we have to give extra direction to that? And then for the 20 is plenty, the same thing, like is that something that then? Yeah, so they're all asked, they all have an asterisk next to them with the potential up there and then the note that they are for consideration. It's not my view that adoption of this plan means that we are necessarily going to do these things. These are things that would require subsequent coordination. So, particularly number four, the road safety audit and the 20 is plenty. Well, the 20 is plenty as a toolkit, so I think that that is not something that's ultimately binding, but the road safety audit is something that there'd need to be coordination, I mean, direction from the board potentially in coordination between public works and growth management, for instance. It's like a parks master plan. Yeah, I guess my hope is, I mean, I'm happy to make the motion since I pulled the thing. I know Mary might have some comments, so I don't want to do that yet. Maybe she wants to make the motion, but I would just ask that we perhaps add the road safety audits and measuring active transportation success into the motion so that we can make sure that it's integrated into our, okay. I move the adoption of the bicycle pedestrian master plan and request that staff bring back how we would do road safety audits for all projects over $50,000 and how we will integrate this bicycle pedestrian master plan into our metrics for Alachua County's success in growth management and transportation planning. And that they proceed with any necessary amendments to the comprehensive plan. And that they proceed with any necessary amendments to the comprehensive plan. Sure. Internal consensus. Second. Okay, motion is second. You good with the motion? Yes. Okay. I had a question though. Yep. Commissioner Alper. So, and this is just getting in the weeds slightly, but I remember the hog town trail being paved as a, being paved as a proposal the city had like maybe 25 years ago. And that the residents fought it off due to concerns about environmental impacts to the creek itself. We would, if we were to pave that, would we use concrete or asphalt? I expect to get that question from some friends that live on the creek who were part of that. Yeah, so right now it's just sort of a dream and a rendering. Yeah. I think the, if the project had legs momentum, I think we would work with environmental specialists to figure out what the least invasive way to pave it would be. Okay. Yeah. That's, that's the answer I would like to give them back. Yeah. I think there could be like a permeable pavement. Just in case they were, happened to be watching this. Oh, digging up the path. That's a big one. Do you remember that? I do. Yeah, I do. I think that's not going to be. Because they were going to pave it a long time ago and it got, it got. It was a big fight between the. It was a big fight between the. It was a huge fight. Your predecessor and the city. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Good question. Do you have anything? No, just that I'm excited about the opportunity to get these programs moving and begin prioritizing these projects and thinking about how we can integrate them into what we're already doing. Mary, do you conclude? I'm sorry. I didn't mean to shut you off. Yeah. Okay. Commissioner Wheeler. I just, I just want to congratulate you on the really beautiful presentation and the work you've done in the past year or so trying to get the TPO up and running. Who works with you on these projects? Um, which ones? Oh yeah, everybody. This one. No, I wouldn't. I just wanted to hear a few names because you know, we don't really get to acknowledge folks, but I know this isn't a one person job though. Yeah. We were probably capable. On this project, um, just Ms. Jessica Klutz and Alachua County. Um, and then we had coordination with public works. Um, so Stuart Cullen and Tony Flegert, um, were, you know, sort of advisors on this project. And then at the city of Gainesville, um, Scott Wright and Seth Wood. And then at University of Florida, Linda Dixon and Brady Castellano. Nice. Thank you. Pretty big like project management team, but, um, not everybody wanted to be running it. So. Gotcha. Well, thank you. No, I, I just, you know, congratulations. It's a beautiful presentation. Good question. Thank you. All right. Thank you, commissioner. All right. Anyone from the public, we should speak to the motion. Seeing none, back to the board. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion is unanimous. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for, uh, coming back and giving that presentation again. All right. So commissioners, we have got to be back here at 501. Everyone's going to be here, correct? We need to make sure everyone's here. Yes. Till 540. Yep. Uh, till 540. Um, we're going to, if it's okay, do manager comment, attorney comment, and commissioner comment now, so that we can end at P4540. Uh, so, Sylvia, do you have anything? No, sir. All right. Um, Michelle, do you have anything? And then you're going to give us a Rhodes update. Yes, Mr. Chair. I, I promised a Rhodes update, um, for somewhere in this pile is my bullet points of stuff that we were given today. So, um, first I do, um, do my notes. Hold on one second. I may have to pull them up. Oh, here we go. Um, so I did want to give a Rhodes update today. Um, specifically with regard to the pothole issue, um, that, that we're experiencing. And I do, and I know we really don't have, um, a lot of the public here at this point in time. So hopefully if they're watching, they, they hear this, um, you know, we do understand the frustration. Um, you know, if, if you hit a pothole or travel the same, you know, roadway that's deteriorating day after day, you know, I understand they're not really interested in, um, hearing about budgets or plans. They just want it fixed. Um. That's right. And none of us, um, is insulated from this. I think, you know, there is no different roads. So commissioners, you all drive those roads. Administration drives those roads and all of our staff drives those roads as well. Um, and it is important and it is part of the budget this evening. And I, and I do want to make sure that, you know, to say this, that this commission has made roads a priority and, and road funding a priority. Um, but I think we also understand that, um, it doesn't feel like enough, right, to people when they're, when they're on these roads. And that's what we're hearing from a lot of the public, even though this commission has devoted more to roads than in. It's not fast enough. Yeah. Um, in years to come. So, you know, the, the pavement management plan was the commitment the board made that is not just looking at what is the worst. It takes into account a lot of other factors, which is a complex issue. I know that, um, people don't understand necessarily how that works, but the pavement management program really is the long term. The pothole issue is the short term issue. And so, um, with that, um, I want to explain, you know, we, as Ramon mentioned earlier, you know, this is a, this is a crisis that, and we are taking it as such. So earlier today, you did a budget amendment that included, um, another half a million dollars just to potholes, um, going to that effort. Um, and then in addition to that, um, you know, staff is working very, very hard. And this is, it's hard for them to, um, when they're out there doing what they can. So, um, public works is currently operating for pothole crews Monday through Thursday. We also have two crews on Fridays and two crews on Saturdays, which are normally their days off because they work 10 hours before days a week. And this is weather and equipment permitting. Um, we've also adjusted how the crews work, as you mentioned today, and some of this was mentioned earlier. So, um, rather than cutting the larger square around the pothole, we've returned to patching the pothole itself. Um, and this has allowed us to get more potholes repaired. Um, at the same time, we are also not just doing the one pothole and the other time leaving. We're doing the full stretch. This is a little more time consuming, but I think over in the long run, that is a more efficient way to do that rather than continuing to go back because they didn't do the stretcher road. Um, so it may make it take a little longer. Um, we're also using a work order system that allows both employees and the public to submit requests, um, to ensure that they're logged, tracked, and routed to the appropriate staff. Um, we have added Friday telephone coverage from 8 a.m. until 4 p.m. Um, we have staff assistants rotating responsibility for answering calls, but I will also tell you that in looking at the call analysis, the number of calls we have is exceeding even their capabilities. So we also have a call center that we are ready to pull the trigger on and activate, um, within a few days. Um, we're trying to determine now what hours we want that, it's a third party, um, what, what times we want that call center to be activated based on the call logs that we've gotten this morning and we're looking through, but it looks like probably during the day hours are our, um, our busiest times. Um, so, um, and for the larger emergency potholes after hours, the public, I will say, should continue calling the non-emergency line for the sheriff, which has been the policy and they will, or the practice, and they do notify the, um, road crews that are on call, um, when it's, when they're not working. Um, we have contacted neighboring counties and cities about providing us help, um, for those days as well. Some have, uh, expressed a willingness to assist us, um, subject to their staff wanting to volunteer because we're talking about having to use their crews on their days off, um, and we'll be paying for, um, their wages and, and potentially use of their equipment as well. So we do have, um, some that have expressed their willingness to come and help us. Um, so we are working through that, and of course, as I said, subject to them getting volunteers of their staff. We've also approached our existing contractors about adding pothole patching to their work. Um, while they declined that specific work, um, they have, um, agreed to assist with strip milling and resurfacing. So Watson Construction is actually scheduled to begin that work during the week of September 28th. Um, and that will complement the work of the county crews. So we can address some of the larger areas rather than repeatedly patching those areas. So we've done that. Um, material availability continues to affect the work. Um, hot mix asphalt is not produced at all hours or on every weekend. So Public Works has now ordered rock asphalt, which, uh, it's more dependable than the, than the cold patch method. Um, not as dependable as the hot asphalt. Um, but it works. Um, we tested it, um, on some areas last year. Um, so we have now begun ordering it. It is also more expensive, um, for not quite as good as, as the hot asphalt. But it works. And where we have crews, but not asphalt, we can still go out there and get work done. Um, so we are ordering more of that. Um, the, um, we're also working in this, this came up earlier with the existing pavement preservation contractor, um, to use mastic in the appropriate locations. Um, again, that's a cold weather type of application. But we are moving forward with looking to do that between November and February. Um, the, um, so, um, we have, um, you know, we, we are aware of the, you know, unfortunate coverage regarding one crew that was back in January. I will say, or excuse me, June, uh, a few months ago. I will say that we have since added safeguards to better verify completed assignments, um, and the proper use of materials. And, of course, employees are expected to do their jobs. And, um, when they don't, it's our responsibility to, um, act promptly and hold them accountable and improve our controls. And I believe we've done that, um, in this particular case. So, um, again, I did mention the budget amendment. Um, so, uh, I, I will just say there, while I understand there's, uh, there's no one action that is going to fix this problem overnight. Um, we are increasing the capacity. We're changing repair methods. We're expanding contractor work. We're pursuing regional assistance. We've used alternative materials and we continue to do so. Strengthened oversight, committed additional funding. Um, you know, we know there's still more work, but we're going to continue to do it. And I just want to say that I really appreciate Ramon and his road crews. They, they are really working hard out there. And as I said, their normal work week is Monday through Thursday, 10 hours a day. Um, and we have crews working additional days a week, Friday and Saturday. So they're trying as well because again, we all drive the roads. Okay. Commissioner, is any, thank you for that update, uh, Michelle and Ramon. I know you are a big part of providing it. Um, Commissioner Alford. Yeah. Can I ask a couple of questions? I've gotten a lot of questions from, uh, citizens asking why we're not, I, I think we used to do use chip seal, but we decided we made a decision not to do that. And I understand chip seals may be 20 to 30% cheaper. I don't know if that's exactly right, but, um, We had a chip seal program and the board discontinued it. Right. And so, you know, given where we are now, does that make sense for us to go back to doing chip seal as an option to get more roads made? That's taking dirt roads and putting them into a maintenance road, a chip seal road. It's not helping the asphalt. She's not chip sealing on top of asphalt. Oh, oh, you are? You're talking about chip seal on top of asphalt? No, not necessarily. I want to just do the chip, the cheapest option. And, and, and if, if we can chip seal a road that's asphalt now for two thirds of the price of doing it and get a project done, we wouldn't be able to do otherwise. I don't know. I'm, I'm just asking if that makes sense because citizens are asking me. Ramon? Okay. Ramon Gavarrete, Public Works Director. Yes, we used to have a chip seal program, but it was only for land rock roads to go to, to chip seal program. By the way, a lot of these roads that you all are getting, that we all are getting phone calls and emails from our chip seal program. Mm-hmm. Like Southwest 85th that was mentioned today, that's a chip seal road. Southwest, I think 142nd that we're also getting in 110th. And those are also chip seal roads. Yeah. And here's the catch. Here's the thing. Again, just like the asphalt, chip seals are supposed to last eight to 10 years. Some of these roads were chip sealed in 2009, 2011. So let's do the math. So, but unfortunately, yes, like Commissioner Cornell just mentioned, the board did decide to stop the chip seal program. So those roads are now pothole after pothole also being opened up. Now, when it comes to using chip seal on asphalt versus just mill and resurface, unfortunately, a road system is such that if you just go chip seal what's on top, those, that alligator cracking and that cracking is just going to come back up. Okay. So, and that's why you have to mill and resurface now. And so, there is some cities that I have spoken to. They do like what they call a skim coat of asphalt, and that buys them a few years. But, again, eventually you're going to have the same problem again. So, chip seal, unfortunately, is not a solution to the problem. The only solution for the problem is milling and resurfacing all the roadways. That is a solution. Okay. I just said I would ask, so I'm asking. And the second question was, and I don't know if this one's for you or not, but would it make sense on some of the roads where we're having continual new potholes on a regular basis that are causing dangerous conditions to reduce the speed limits temporarily until we can address those roads? I want to respond to you, Commissioner, like I respond to many residents when they call me. You can post five miles per hour on the roadway. People are still going to go what they feel comfortable. Oh, absolutely. And you know that. Oh, does it? So, a lot of these roadways are already like 45 miles per hour. People are still going to go 55 or 60 or more. We know that. Conditional roadways are taken into account when we set a speed limit. That's a given. We also take into account driveways and other things. So, it's not just the 85th percentile. And I have decreased speed limits on some roadways, and we also have put no truck traffic on roadways. They're not respected. They're not enforced, which is the other problem that we do have in the county. They're not being enforced. No, I agree with that. But, you know, roads like 346 where we're getting really large paroles overnight, I just wondered if it made sense to lower the speed limit and for… And we can take a look at that. And again, we can reduce them, but I'm just… And I totally agree with you, but at least we can say, we asked you to go slower. Well, one thing… I guess my question, if I can, as a follow-up, is can we coordinate with the Sheriff's Office to start enforcing speed limits on those roadways more adequately? Like, we know which roadways they are. We know where we have potential accidents as a result of some of the road conditions and where we have had to lower speeds, and can we coordinate with the Sheriff's Office, communicate that to the Sheriff's Office. So, when they're choosing to do speed enforcement, they choose those roadways first and foremost. And we do that. Every time we do what's called a speed survey, and we can see in the Sheriff's Office, because we actually provide the information to the Sheriff, what time are the biggest speeders. They actually do get a copy of that, too. And we ask them to do enforcement. So, we do that when we also, every time we do a speed survey, we also send an enforcement request to the Sheriff's Office. Okay. And my last question is about what is, how do you define a stretch of road? Because I'm getting, I'm still getting lots and lots of complaints. Like, they were out here on Thursday, and they left, and it's been a week, and I haven't seen them, and half the road still isn't done. What is a stretch of road? Because I try to, I don't know how to tell a resident that, you know, maybe that doesn't include all seven miles. Actually, it should include all seven miles. However, I'm going to give you an example, and you all got the report this morning. Last week, we did not, we were not able to run the pothole, the pothole truck, because it was down. Thank goodness it's running it this week. So, it also, depending on the equipment, is it available or not. And because of the volume of requests that we're getting, and when I get a request, I'm going to say it, from Sheriff's Office, or sometimes even some commissioners or others, and a picture here it is of a large hole. We do divert groups from some roads to the other roads. And then, unfortunately, we're not religiously going back to the same road again. And that's something that I've been talking to my staff as early or late as this morning. If we leave a road, we need to go back. Yes. And that's something that I've been trying to tell my staff. But, Commissioner, and the manager just said this, and you all have said it, and I appreciate that, and I'm sure my staff also appreciate it. We're trying to do our best. We know that, yeah. Moving from spot to spot and e-mails and text messages all the time. By the way, there's residents that send the call, send 20 e-mails, and now they're also using the reporting tool. Good. The more requests we get, the more the system bogs down because the staff assistant has to analyze all the e-mails that we get, all the phone calls that we get, and now all the requests that we're getting through the one button request. May I? Oh, sorry. Can I finish one more thing? Yeah. I'm sorry. The reporting tool, I've had a lot of questions about that as well. Okay. And so my question there is, I've suggested that the reporting tool saves staff time because it can create a database, kind of, that you would normally spend time typing all that into a spreadsheet, correct? Correct. How's that going? That's the way it's working. They are actually, when somebody used the reporting tool online now, they automatically generate a service request that goes to a staff assistant to review. It's still got to be reviewed because if not, we would have 200 service requests for County Road 346, for example. So it still has to be reviewed by a staff assistant. We are talking to IT and also to Citywide, which is your work order system, about the possibility of maybe using artificial intelligence to try to group them together. I know Citywide is working on it. I know your IT department is working on it for the email system. But unfortunately, we do not have the mechanism at this point. Can Citywide go in and pre-populate some of those fields that are like, I mean, like country and state? Because that's one of the other complaints I had. It's like, it's asking me all these stupid questions. And I've gone in and I've put in a pothole just to see how it works, you know. And so I didn't know if that would be… I can ask the question. Keep in mind, Citywide is a software that is used across the country. Right. And we are actually linking to their portal, so I need to ask that question. It seems like it's something they could do. We'll ask the question. That's all I have. I'll stop. And, Mr. Chair, we would hope also with this call center, one of the things that we noticed on the call log is we may have one person that calls numerous times because they're leaving a voicemail, not talking to a person. So it's actually we're getting that same one, you know, ten times. I understand. And so having a person to that, you know, instead of 30 calls going to voicemail because there's so many during the day, if we've got a person saying, you know, I've got it. I'm putting it in the system, you know, hopefully that will help some with that as well. Now, that doesn't mean they're not going to say, okay, it's been a day, I'm calling again. But hopefully having, you know, a call center that can help with that will decrease some of that. And the public needs to know that if they are continuing to call over and over every day about the same pothole, that is not helping us fix it faster. Okay. Do you conclude? I conclude. Okay. Commissioner Prezio? Yeah, I guess what I want to say is that I hope we can expedite the conversation around AI. You know, I'm not a fan of generative AI. I'm not a fan in general of the way that AI has been overly subscribed and used without ethics. But in this instance, this is a perfect example of an application of AI that could work. It could get through that bogged down level. It could identify IP addresses for the same request over and over again. It could identify phone numbers. It could do a lot of work for us that would really relieve the cost that burden that we're covering with call centers with all of these things and also help to generate work orders that would really relieve the cost that burden that we're covering with call centers with all of these things. And also help to generate work orders that would remind the staff to go to the same road again that didn't get finished if they put it in at the end of the day. So I just really encourage us to try to integrate the AI components as much as we can. And if we need support on that, I know that there are a number of faculty and students at the University of Florida that are now beginning to develop AI applications and support work around those sorts of things in the community. I could certainly reach out to our computer science department at the University of Florida if that's of interest to see what sort of applications they might be able to help us craft. But I wanted to say thank you to the staff that are out there filling the potholes because I know right now it's really, really hot work and to say thank you to the people answering the phones because I'm sure you're getting not very happy individuals on the phones and they're probably not treating you very well because they certainly don't even treat us very well necessarily when they're in the boardroom. So I just want to say thank you to all of them for continuing to stick with us. This backlog isn't, you know, isn't necessarily the fault of this commission, but overall it's the fault of the county as a whole. It was our responsibility to take care of the roads. We didn't do it. And we're doing our best now to play catch up. And so we just ask patients from the community and we say thanks to the staff that are working on this. And we just ask you to please, please don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Like I'm a little worried about us not now cutting and patching the holes the way we should because we're trying to speed things up. That worries me. I understand why we're doing it. I understand speed is of the essence right now. But I do hope that we continually are evaluating that as the call load slows and maybe that we're making note of the roads where we did that, that we could go back and do a full patch when we have the time. I just hate to think that we're, you know, reducing the level of service in order to get to the speed of service that ultimately is going to just cost us more in the long run. So those are my comments. Okay. Thank you. On this, I do have commission comment. Well, let's go to the manager comments. Let me just speak really briefly to both of you. You were both elected in 2020, and you both brought this issue really front and center. And I will say that you didn't pass that budget in 2020. Your first budget was 2021, and the infrastructure sales tax was 2022. And so we really didn't have a funding source until the infrastructure sales tax passed, it wasn't the budget that you got to vote on until 2024. Exactly. The 23-24 budget. Yeah. So I know your time of six years on this commission has been consumed by roads, but you've really only had two and a half years of funding of roads. The budget we're going to pass tonight is over $100 million of roads in the 26-27 budget. Over $100 million. That's more than previous commissions have allocated in over a decade. Okay. So I appreciate both of you all. I appreciate our citizens for passing the infrastructure sales tax. I think we're going to get ahead of this pothole issue, and we're going to really start laying down a lot of asphalt in the next year. And I hope the citizens see that, and I hope we see that, because I just wanted to thank you guys for that, because that's how I see the last three or four years, being on it for 12 years. And, you know, hollering since my first budget was 2015, and I was like, we need more general fund money in roads. And that commission listened to me. We went from $1 to $4 million. But that doesn't do anything, you know? $100 million? That's going to do a lot. So anyways, I just wanted to say that, and we can stop talking about roads now for this meeting. All right. You conclude? Okay. All right. Let's move the commission comments. You got anything? I just wanted to thank Ramon. Ramon, let me say thank you, because generally when I forward things that come directly to me, and then I include you in asking you to fix it, you do. And you're very professional, and you make me look good because I know who to call and help get these people set up. So, no, the emails that you send back to these folks, you know, were really remarkable. So thank you very much for being my go-to guy. I echo that. Conclude? I'm done. All right. You got anything? I do. I have a couple things. Just on outreach stuff, I want to say thank Jeannie Necessary for going out to Santa Fe College and for starting to get us out into the community more at events and programs. I would love to have a schedule of events that we're planning to go to over the next fiscal year. So we could look at that, and then if we have ideas for events, we could pass them on to her. I wanted to ask that we include our language access coordinator from EO in the conversation about what materials are going out to those events, and that we make sure that we have them available in multiple languages when we go so that anybody can have access to the information that we have, and that we consider ideas she may have for events that maybe aren't on our radar but maybe multicultural events that are happening around the county that we might not be aware of otherwise. So if she could please kind of look at that list and review it as well. But a thank you to her and that request. I don't think I need to make a motion to that effect as long as we get that list back. Yeah. Second is on our advisory. Oh, and that she include information about both our volunteer opportunities and our advisory boards. She did a great job of promoting our advisory boards, but I think having something about our volunteer opportunities as well would be great. And to that event, to that respect boards, I know that we have a lot of advisory boards, and therefore we have a lot of staff that oversee those advisory boards. I know that we've talked a lot, and I keep bringing it up, this idea of having sort of a consistent process. I just want to keep reiterating we really need a consistent process for the way that our advisory boards are handled, the way that we recruit for those, including letting us know when they're actively recruiting for seats. I know Mark has been trying to give us the list of active advisory boards in our box and things like that, but if staff liaisons make us aware of recruitment opportunities for boards, if we could please contact the applicants of those boards when we're going to have it on an agenda. Some are doing a better job, I think, of letting the applicants know that it's on the agenda than others, which is why sometimes we have people come and speak and sometimes we don't. And if we could make sure that all of those boards know about our volunteer appreciation events and about other opportunities for them to be plugged into the work that we're doing, and that all of them are consistently sending out agendas the same way, sending out backup the same way, sending out minutes the same way, it would just be really helpful to have that process. Sounds like a great thing for our new chief of staff once we're hired. Yeah, and it's something that Gina had started doing. That is something that Gina had started doing, but in her absence and without anybody covering that, it's… And that's a great point, though, because they're all done differently. Yeah, they're all done differently. I think we need, like, a process, right, with the staff liaisons having the training or somebody handling those pieces of it for them. Another…I've had several requests about 16th Avenue. You know, we've repaved it just past… Once you go past 43rd Street, we paved it, you know, all the way down to the highway. I've had several requests for us to… Maybe 23rd. 23rd. 23rd. Sorry, it turns into 23rd. Yeah, it turns into 23rd and keeps going. Um, for us to plant trees along that trail now that we have the shared use path on either side. I know there are some power lines, there's swales, there's lots of issues, but if we could please ask Lacey to evaluate tree planting opportunities along that corridor. Um, I think in 10 years everyone will be really happy that we have shade there. Um, and then I had a question of… I know the sheriff is going to be coming soon for a presentation on their programming and jail update. Do you know when that is? Um, I did ask that question, um, and so hopefully soon. I know they're working on something. This is the, um, basically this is the end of the quarter. So we should be hopefully seeing them in October was my understanding. Yeah. I guess I, um, during that request if we could ask them to please, um, give us an update on the tablet pilot and next steps with regards to that program. That would be great to have in addition to the other things I know they're probably planning to bring. Okay. Cut that, Michelle. All right. And I think that's it. All right. Let me do it. Yeah. You go ahead. I'll double check. All right. I have one thing. I'm going to pass this down. So, um, I got a call from a friend who happens to be the, um, I guess the director, the person in charge of the Cross Creek volunteer fire department, and they have a problem that is common among all apparently of the volunteer fire departments here in the county, which is, they have a shortfall this year. Um, their shortfall is, is going to be about $30,000, $25,000, $30,000 depending. And the reasons for the shortfall are pretty predictable. Uh, it has to do with the cost of increased cost of fuel. It has to do with the fact that there's a shortage of firefighters and they're having to pay some of our firefighters to come in and work some of the shifts so that they can have coverage and that, um, and the county funding doesn't fully cover, um, workman's comp. And they're required to have workman's comp and, you know, the costs of all that are going up. Um, I think that, um, the Cross Creek fire department did a really nice and succinct job of sort of laying out the problem and, and, and what they need. And, you know, I know that this isn't something we could do for Cross Creek. And not do for the other fire department. I was about to tell you, I met with Melrose. I got a similar discussion and the cross is the same. Can we just refer this to the chief? And so what I'd like to do is refer this to the chief because I, we can't really lose our volunteer fire departments. Right. Um, and I, I feel like, you know, they're telling me that if we can help them this year, they're going to figure it out for the future. But, um, because a lot of this was unexpected budget changes. And so I would just like to make a motion that we refer this to the chief and see what we can do to address all the problems with the volunteer fire departments. So Cross Creek and all the other ones. Okay. Got a motion and a second. Good motion. Yeah. They didn't get to have their blueberry festival either. I know. You know, and that, that, you know, it's, it's not just our volunteers. It's the volunteer fire departments throughout the state. Yep. And in the fiscally constrained counties, some of them don't have anything except volunteer fire departments. They pay them out of their general fund. Their millage is maxed out. And if amendment three passes, they're going to go away. And they have yard sales. Yeah. And so, um, it's an amendment three issue. They may go away. They may go away. They may not, but it's an issue which the firefighters around the state are talking about. Yeah. And if you happen to be in Cross Creek this coming weekend, the fire department's having a fundraiser from 11 to one, you can buy $15 fish fry dinner. Oh, that sounds great. When is it? This, this Saturday, 11 to one. They're having a fish fry fundraiser. So. All right. So we've got a motion and a second. Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes. Okay. Anything else Mary? That's it. All right. I just got two quick things guys. One is an announcement. The library is having their 50th anniversary celebration on October 3rd from 10 to 4. Uh, you're on the library board. You know about that. Yes. Yes. And I just wanted you to know about it. Thanks. Yes. And then, um, I also wanted to let you know that that back last week, um, I had to leave, but there was a great presentation by Axon, uh, about the difference between them and, uh, flock cameras. That's an issue that came up. So I wanted to pass out something about Axon. I know I'll share a few of these and I, it's just for a future discussion if we ever have that discussion. Um, and that's all. Mr. Chair, I forgot one thing. Yep. What you got? Um, I just, I wanted to acknowledge something. It's on our, it was on our, um, consent agenda. It's the Equity Advisory Board minutes. Um, and in the minutes, um, it talks about the, you know, their struggle with their raison d'etre. Um, like why they exist, right? Um, you know, the state has basically told us we can't think about diversity, equity, and inclusion in the work that we do. Um, and so, uh, you know, they, they, and they existed in many ways to help us guide us in how we think about some of those issues. But they also exist, um, to help us think about the ways in which we think about economic mobility, um, for all of our residents and the ways in which we think about the social determinants of health for all of our residents. And I think that we need a cross section of, um, the many types of people in our community to provide us with good quality recommendations, um, in those regards. And so, I was really disappointed to see that the committee feels like they don't know exactly what direction to go in. Um, right now, I think they're doing a good job of wrestling with those issues and talking about them. And I look forward to hearing their recommendations for the way in which we move forward with that. But I, I just wanted to acknowledge that we hear them. And I wanted to acknowledge the chair's resignation and say that we hope he'll reconsider his resignation. Yes, because we really do, um, value his expertise and his experience in the community and his leadership in the community and hope he will consider, um, not resigning and sticking with us while we continue to think about the ways in which this board could potentially interact with our economic development board and our health care advisory boards and other boards that are providing us with really key insights and recommendations around the way in which we support our entire community. Well stated. Um, did you have anything to say to that? Mr. Chair, I was just gonna say this is an analysis, not just on this board, but county government operations as a whole, that we have been undertaking extensively understanding this, uh, law goes into effect on January 1st. Um, there will be some decisions that we can just simply make internally, but there will be some decisions that frankly will have to come to this board for further action action because they exist in our, you know, in our ordinances or in our policies that I can't specifically, you know, make those decisions on. Um, with regard to this particular board, um, I know they have come up with several ideas of where their space may be to continue as a group. Um, I will say given that we have 30 plus advisory boards, um, a lot of those ideas have already been encompassed within the authorities of other boards that we have. So being real deliberate and, and how we rethink what that would look like, um, is definitely something that we want to do. Um, but we're not quite, you know, we have to be very cautious and narrow focus to make sure that it doesn't bleed over into areas that we no longer can, can partake in. Yeah. May, may I say something very quickly with regard to that? I, I don't know if you all knew. I did not know about the unveiling of this plaque in Waldo. No. Over Saturday. And it was apparently. I got it just by the wind and I called Carl smart to know. And I went and there were many people from the community who were there, but. Yeah. Apparently it was actually a county event, but it wasn't. It was a big deal. They had lunch for everybody and we didn't, we didn't know that. I, I just happened to find out about it and then called Carl to say, yes, it was indeed. But I didn't know if you all had gotten any notice of it and I had just been missed. Not till the day of when I was on my way to Carl's. Mr. Chair. Yeah. Mr. Saxon. Actually, you all got an email in your inbox about the event. You all, there was extensive social media on the event. There was also a press release on the event. That isn't. There was also a press release on the event. Really? It wasn't. I guess what I'll say is this staff's job is to put things on our calendar. I have said so many times on this dais that I want all of the county events to be on our calendars. I don't know how many ways or how many times I can say it, but if there is a county sponsored event, I want it on the BOCC's calendar. I can't really. And this was yet one more where it wasn't on the calendar. I can't speak to that. It's embarrassing. It's not the communications job to put every pin. It's the person that's handling the event to do that. I am so sorry. I understand what you're saying, Commissioner, and I will certainly communicate that to the person that was responsible for this event. I will say, though, it didn't happen in a vacuum. There was an enormous amount of information put out about this event. I'm so sorry. Never saw it. I never saw it. I mean, we would have been there. I'm just saying. I was driving right through Waldo coming back from Jacksonville on that day. I'm not blaming you for not communicating it, but I'm just saying, like, as a board, like, we have a lot of things going on and algorithms for social media, ironically, may not be putting them on our Facebook pages or social media just because we're county commissioners for some reason. So we can't rely on your putting something on social media to be how we know about county-sponsored events. The main thing leading to that was the question of when we have our new person coming in. Have we already hired someone? We finally do have somebody that we've made an offer and accepted, so should be hopefully starting soon. And I apologize. I know that you all want to make sure these get on your calendar. I will tell you, there are several things that have fallen. We've just spoiled. That's all. That have fallen through the cracks. And, you know, we really are trying on that administrative level to get that. Yeah, I was really just trying to lead to the question of when are we going to have that. Okay. All right. So we come back at 501, have all four of us for the public hearing, and we'll get through the public hearing at 501. Right. Correct. With Commissioner Chestnut's absence, we do need all four here for at least the MSTU portion of the budget. That's critical. But we're doing, it's the only thing, and we are doing that right off the bat, so should not exceed the timeframe in which I know one of you has to part tonight. All right. Thank you. We are in recess until 501.