Good morning, everybody. Welcome to the special committee on Duval Doge. It's April 7th. It's 11 a.m. Let's begin with introductions to my far left. Stephen Libby, Council Research. Mary Stafopoulos, Office of General Counsel. Brian Parks, Council Auditor's Office. Kim Taylor, Council Auditor. Hey, good morning. Rory Diamond, District 13, The Beaches. Good morning. Chris Miller, At-Large, Group 5. Ron Salem, Group 2, At-Large. Rory, District 11. Mike Gay, District 2. Thank you. Before we get started with a public comment, let me just make a couple of announcements. It is my goal to wrap up Duval Doge by the end of June, and I'd like to give the next president maximum flexibility to do what he or she wants to do in terms of oversight, whether it's a Doge-type process or something different. So there are three things that we need to kind of wrap up. One is the health care initiative, and I've got a call on Monday to try to pull that together by the end of June. The telehealth, and we'll get an update from Council Member Diamond in just a minute. And the 2% lapse, which could go beyond June 30th, and I would advise they come to finance if any departments want to pull any dollars back. It would be appropriate, in my mind, to go through the finance committee versus coming back to us. So that would allow us to kind of pull everything together and allow the next president to do what he would like to do. Any questions on that? Okay. So let me go to public comment. Mr. Nooney, you have two minutes. Hello. I am John, philanthropic, jelly roll, good boy, resiliency, Nooney. Ojo, Tres, Cinco City, Spaskum Road, Jacksonville, Florida, 3216. I'm in City Council, District 4, CPAC 3, School Board, District 3. All right, Doge, Doge are waterways. You know, at an Ethics Commission meeting, I asked, we have six CPACs representing the entire city, the MDC, the Mayor's Disability Council. They're meeting later today. Two of the meetings were canceled. The Council on Elder Affairs, the Senior Citizen Gang, why is OGC, the Office of General Counsel, not represented at these meetings? Now, I'm just down to a minute. You know, Agenda Item 5, JTA update. JTA is on the agenda. Now, there should be a show of hands of how many people in council chambers took public transportation to this meeting. Now, I rode the Skyway this morning. It was about 830, and only one train was running. The elevator's out over at James Weldon Park. You know, not one security guard anywhere. You know, the downtown ambassadors didn't even see one. Now, the thing is, you know, I'm just down to 30-some seconds. But, you know, that should be, and also for the Duval County Public Schools, everyone should be riding and taking public transportation regardless. And, you know, you'll have them up here. And even the media, especially the media, you know, get out there and, you know, just ride the thing or do – just do it because then you'll see. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Nooney. Okay. Moving on in the agenda, Council Member Diamond. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just an update on telehealth. I know we've got a lot to do today. So, I've been pushing our attorneys to give us a draft report. I asked for it seven weeks ago. I asked for it a month ago. I'm going to call Jason Gabriel today and be like, look, we need a draft report. We can't do anything unless we have a draft report. I think we've done everything we can on the telehealth contract. I think it's going to be very informative for the budget season this coming year. And that report is going to, I hope, guide the Finance Committee when looking at the budget. I hope the mayor doesn't ask for another $1.5 million for telehealth. But if she does, that report should end the discussion, is my best guess. So, any event, as soon as we have a draft, I'm going to take a look at it. I know other members can have a chance to look at it. And then we can get it finalized in a public meeting and issue it. And wrap that one as the chair wants to get this stuff done. Thank you. Council Member Diamond. Okay. We're now moving to JTA. I've asked for like a 15 to 20-minute presentation on the various issues that have been provided to me by Mr. Ford. And then we'll go through questions. This is the only topic for today. So, I think we've got ample time to thoroughly review this. So, with that, Mr. Ford. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Welcome and thank you for coming and putting yourself in this position. I know I appreciate it. Well, thank you so much, Chairman Salem and members of this DOGE Committee. It is an honor and I'm humbled to be here before you at your request to give you an update on the JTA's actions related to the FY 2026 budget amendment, our power transit services, and the ultimate urban circulator program. The JTA's budgeting process begins over a year prior to when the actual budget goes into place. In fact, we have to prepare our budget rather early based on projections and then submit it in a timely fashion to this body. This schedule allows for us forecasting and projections and with JTA's legal leadership approval and then the JTA Board of Directors approval, we ultimately get this budget in front of you by June 1st of the year. This is a very advanced timeline to try and comply with, but changes in our economy sometimes actually affects what the actual outcome is over that time frame. So to this point, in the first quarter of this fiscal year, we recognize that the JTA, that the projections we made in 2025 to forecast the FY 26 budget were not materializing in the fashion that we expected. The primary driver is declining sales tax revenue, something that the city is also experiencing broadly. And for the JTA, this represents more than half of our operating budget, almost 60% in our original budget and now 58% in our amended budget. So we're highly reliant on sales tax revenues. Recognizing this reality, the JTA, the staff took swift action to get us back on track. And in February, we made a recommendation to our board and they approved a $14.2 million adjustment to revenues and expenditures. And we did so without impacting our customers. So what was most important to us as the JTA staff and the Board of Directors was to have no degradation on the level of services we provide across the spectrum. Everything from First Coast Flyer, our ReadyRide service, First Coast Flyer, Bus Rapid Transit, St. John's River Ferry, as well as Connection and Connection Plus, all of those services remain intact and operating at the same levels prior to this action. So as we evaluate the trends toward the end of the first quarter, we realized sales tax revenues were trending lower by $10.8 million. Fair revenue was down about $1 million, and interest earnings were down about $2.3 million from when this budget was constructed in February of 2025. To that end, the Board approved the reductions on the expense side primarily to salaries and benefits and other expenses, which I will cover today. As stated earlier, in order to avoid impacts to our operations on both our fixed route and paratransit services, we focused the cuts on our administrative costs and strategic containment in those areas. We froze hiring and new administrative staff and eliminated 34 administrative positions. Senior leaders who we categorize are individuals who make $90,000 and above, including myself, will share in this sacrifice through furloughs, which will total $6.7 million in cost savings. And the furloughs will be strategically taken during the designated weeks by the JTA executive leadership team. Each employee will have a designated representative so that the work of the JTA won't suffer at all. We have delegated authorities and ability to continue the work of our administrative staff, and we will minimize any impact to our business at the JTA. Related to the contracts, the JTA is suspending some of our contracted services for the remainder of the year, primarily in staff augmentations, training, and IT. That represents about a $3.2 million savings. And then we were fortunate to negotiate a reduction in the connection contract, connection and connection plus, which represents a year-over-year cost escalator. So built into those multi-year contracts are automatic escalators in each year for those contractors. We've been able to reduce and eliminate, in one case, the actual escalators as it relates to our connection service, which is our base ADA service, as well as the connection plus, the premium private ride service connection plus. Navi and Skyway costs will be reduced by $2.6 million. We're bringing some of the IT, data lake, as well as utility elements of the NAVI contract in-house at the JTA. Our staff will have to do more, and we are making adjustments as it relates to inventory and parts related to the Skyway. For our capital program portion of our portfolio, we are delaying some of the projects that are not LOGT funded. These are not LOGT projects that we will be slowing down. We are slowing down projects that will require some upfront expenditures by the JTA or maybe a match related to a grant that we're receiving from the federal government. We will reevaluate all of these decisions on our capital budget as we go into FY27. I'll close with this portion of the topics presented here today by saying that the mid-year budget amendment the board took in February will be presented to the city council later this month and we'll go through your normal committee process in terms of budget amendments for additional review. And so with that, is there any questions in terms of our budget amendment? And then I do have some continuing items to cover with you. Why don't we pause there and see if there are questions. I have some myself, but let me see if there are others. Well, I'll start with nine. The reduction in sales tax that you're seeing to the auditors, how does that impact our budget, the city budget, for this particular year and potentially for the 26-27 budget? To the chair, so their half cent, first of all, it's a slightly different half cent sales tax, still kind of same impacts. The half cent transportation tax, keep in mind, is a locally imposed. So that one, you have anything over $5,000, you don't have that half cent charged on. The half cent that's in our general fund budget, there's not a limit. So in that portion that comes from the state, you don't have that $5,000 cap. So that creates some different numbers. But overall, we're still seeing, we have in the first quarterly summary that we got, and we're going to be getting the next one April 30th. But the administration have projected about an $8.5 million deficit just on sales tax within our general fund. So that debt savings that we talked about in the first quarter is helping to cover some of these revenue shortfalls. Property taxes also is projected to come in over, we know, from the November, based on final assessed values. So all of those things are helping to stabilize that. But we are definitely seeing that shortfall as well within the general fund projected. So that $6-plus million we've talked about in debt savings could be used to cover this reduction in sales tax. Is that what I hear you saying? Through the chair, I believe it was about a total of $14 million initially, and then we used some of that for completion grants. Right, and there's about $6 million left. Yes, sir. So we do, my recommendation is to be careful because as we're watching these revenues, if they do get worse for some reason, that is using to help balance that fund as a whole. I got you. Two other questions. Mr. Ford, you mentioned escalators for the bus transportation. So is that increases in their payment? You're holding flat? Is that what I understood you to say? So it won't affect trips or anything, but it's just their payment will be reduced? Mr. Chairman, you're 100% correct. So we contract out the Connection and Connection Plus services. They're multi-year, five-year, on average type of contracts, and each year is a built-in escalator based on salaries and inflation, things of that nature. And we have been able to hold steady with that with our partners as part of this cost containment. Okay, my last question is, you mentioned NAVI reductions. I assume those reductions are not in the actual buses going around and such. It's sort of behind-the-scenes reductions. Is that correct? At this juncture, yes, sir. But we are looking at actually changing the NAVI frequency. So that is something that we're working with the Federal Transit Administration because our grant was for a seven-minute frequency, regardless of actual ridership. So we have gone back to them to see if we can adjust that headway based on ridership and thereby save additional dollars in terms of the operating and maintenance costs. When do you expect to hear from the feds? It's hard to tell, sir. We sent them a request probably two to three months ago as it relates to this strategy. And so it should be within the next month or so. I think that would be reasonable to expect their response. Okay. Council Member Diamond. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And through the chair to Mr. Ford. Thanks for being here. I know it's not fun being at that podium. You got me on the best possible day. I'm exhausted watching Michigan win last night. I'm the happiest guy in the universe. So I'll be brief. So how much in the revised budget is still budgeted for NAVI? This entire year, in terms of the actual contracted costs on NAVI, was scheduled for $10 million. But we've pulled out, I think it's actually merged with what we're doing in terms of the Skyway. But I believe it was a overall $3.2 million reduction. But 100% of that is not tied to NAVI. So I could get back to you with the specifics on what is the specific reductions in cost on NAVI. Tracking. Okay. I guess maybe a better question, and then I'll move on to just one other item. Did you guys entertain in your executive leadership team with these shortfalls just to stop doing NAVI? Was that on the table for discussion? We looked at how we could reduce the operations and maintenance impact of NAVI, but actually totally eliminating the service was not part of those discussions. Tracking. And then the only thing I'll say is, like, it's unpleasant having to do what you guys are doing right now. And having to take reductions and lay people, all that stuff is not fun. And so I commend everybody for, you know, taking on the chin and dealing with the task. Like, I'm curious, though, is there a structural problem that this is going to happen year after year after year? Do you expect the budget to kind of bounce back in the out years, or is this the new normal for JTA and the budget size? I think for any organization that is so dependent on sales tax, gas tax, and various different taxes, I think we all need to watch very closely what's happening in terms of the overall economy of the United States. We're not immune to some of these realities that I think all of us are seeing in terms of affordability, inflation, and costs. What we will do as the JTA, and this is probably the first time. I've been your CEO in, I guess, December will make 14 years. Wow. This is the first time we've found ourselves in these types of struggles. It's pretty normal that we're running a surplus, and then that helps us with our capital budget. But this was one that I wouldn't say surprised us, but it really caught our attention in the very beginning of the first quarter. The sales tax revenues we were expecting were not coming close. Yeah, and through the chair. And, yeah, so that's what I'm used to. It's like, you know, JTA is doing great. There's extra money. We get to pave some more roads or do something else. So just for somebody watching, when they see on TV that JTA has got a shortfall, what percentage of that is just sales tax related? I'd say 60% of the challenge here, 60% to 70% of our actual operating budget is from the sales tax revenues. Now, one thing I would point out, though, we have the revenue side of our operation, too. We have not raised fares in seven years. And so we also have that downward pressure in terms of our actual revenues. And more recently, as you're aware, we've done the unique pilot to reduce fares even further. I'm happy to say that ridership is bouncing back to post the pre-pandemic levels for us, but people are paying less. But we do have to examine, this board will have to examine a fare modification going into FY27. Will that be 100% of the solution? No, but it will be a strong part of the solution. Okay. I'm tracking. What I'm trying to understand, though, is so I get 60%, 70% of your budget comes from sales tax. But the shortfall, what percentage of that is sales tax related, like if sales tax collection is just lower? Yeah. I'm just trying to figure out how to get here. I think out of the $14 million, this shortfall over the year is about $10 million. So it's tracking pretty close to the 60%, 70% of our actual $14 million shortfall is tied to sales tax revenues. And unlike a business where you could raise prices or whatever else, the revenue side is not going to close this gap. Is that your view of it for the out years? Our original plan this year was for the JTA board to consider a fare increase in this year. Based on the affordability issues and other economic, outside the JTA economic issues, we as a staff and a board made a decision not to raise fares this year. And to actually reduce fares and fill up the capacity on our existing bus fleet. That's why there's no reduction in terms of actual service levels we're providing. We're trying to encourage people to give us a chance, ride the system, and hopefully they'll stick. And we will have to consider some type of fare modification going into next year. Gotcha. And then just to finish this out, if you raise fares, ridership is going to go down. What does that do? I mean, what's the sweet spot? Yeah, exactly. And there is a committee that has been formed, a special committee within the JTA board, headed up by Director Max Glober, who this six-month pilot started in February, will end in August, where we reduced fares. We'll provide him the information and data to determine that elasticity. Have we maxed out the number of transit riders in our community, or is the pricing a little too high or too low? We're doing that right now dynamically with Director Glober. All right, thank you. If I can follow up on one thing, Council Member Diamond, the impact of gas prices, how is that impact on your budget? We haven't seen that impact yet, but we're watching very closely in terms of the local option gas tax that's on every gallon of gas that's sold. What we're seeing in terms of the increase in ridership year over year, so March of 26 was 14% higher than March of 2025 in terms of ridership. So I imagine some of it may be people are leaving their cars at home and using transit and or the reduced fares that we're charging at this time. But we're watching that also very closely because it would not be unexpected for a reduction in actual gas utilization in our community. Thank you. Council Member Arias, you're recognized. All right. Thank you, Chair. Good morning, sir. Good morning. A couple of questions, and I've been hearing the dialogue here. I'm a little bit concerned as to why we were not, as a city or as a JTA, prepared for a shortfall in tax revenues. You've been here for I don't know how many years you mentioned earlier, but I would assume your team would be equipped to say, okay, well, in the worst-case scenario, should we have a shortfall? We need to be prepared. This is the first time you've experienced this, but has there been a plan and action implemented before for this? No, I think the JTA, we're fortunate because we do have reserves in the event something like this does occur. This is the first time we've ever had to use reserves to actually fill a gap. That was for FY25. In 26, we're deciding our decision has been not to touch our reserves, not to touch our service levels, and actually tighten our belt in terms of administrative overhead and contractual costs. I would add in one more thing. Again, there were, as a policy, the JTA board every two years by policy was to make an increase in our actual fares, and that was to happen every two years based on wages as well as inflation. We decided to forego those three increases. So those three increases in and of themselves comes very close to the deficit we're seeing right now in this year. Through the chair, so would you say that, based off what you said, you haven't increased fares in six years? Is that what you're saying? We're at seven years, heading towards eight years with no fare increase. Got it. Okay. I'm kind of torn because one side of me says I don't want you to increase fares, but the other side is we've got to keep up with it. Otherwise, we're going to have to tax people at some point, and it's going to be a significant fare increase. So I'm not sure where we're going to be at, where we're going to land, but I will tell you this, that before you even consider increasing any kind of fares, I think you need to do this same project again next year to make sure we keep on reducing without tapping into reserves before we actually increase fares. I think, you know, the 6.6 that you're saving right now in reductions, I think it's great. My only worry is that some of these contracted services will decrease and some of the contracts will actually diminish because if I was one of your contractors and you told me, hey, this year we're not going to... bump up your wage based off of what we agreed on, I'll say, okay, I could slide with one year of this, but I also had to have my people paid as well, too. So when you told these contractors you're not going to extend the escalator, is it for one year or is it going to be for how many years did you tell them? It's for one year. Did you add it to the back end of their contract? No. So, okay, and how long are these contracts typically? On average, five years. I'd have to check in terms of where we are on each one of these different contracts, but typically it's a five-year operate and maintain contract with those services. Okay, cool. All right, and I guess the only other part would be on my part, looking at my notes. Yeah, when you decide to do a fair increase, if you decide to do one, would you come back to our body for that, or is that something you guys do internally? Yes, so it's within the JTA's purview with the Board of Directors. We have to do a public meeting process as part of that evaluation. We have to do a Title VI evaluation in terms of a fair modification, and it's brought to this body however you may like. If you choose from a finance committee or a TEU committee, we can present it to you, but that actual decision rests with the JTA board and would be included with our budget we present to you. Okay, so just so I can make sure I'm understanding, we don't vote on that. It's all you guys. You guys just present it to us and let us know, and then from there on, the community will come to us. If they don't want it, then we'll obviously ask you guys not to do it, but otherwise, you guys are in full control of that. Yes, sir. Okay. All right. When do you expect to have that meeting about the fair modification increases? The actual fair committee that is studying this right now is running until August of this year, so it's been two months so far. There's another, you know, four months of actual work that they need to do, and then it'll be presented to the board. Now, the challenge we're facing is we did a six-month pilot, right? So we did it from February to August. Our budget has to come before you in the June timeframe. We may have enough information at that time in terms of we need to do a fair increase, the actual numbers and specification in terms of single ride, you know, weekly passes, monthly passes, things of that nature, that would have to be fine-tuned by the August timeframe. Our hope is we can bring it back to you before you actually finally accept our budget. Okay. Thank you. But we do have to present you a budget by June, and so that's a challenge. I see no other questions on this particular subject, so Mr. Ford, if you'll continue. Okay, sounds good. So next up is Connection and Connection Plus, and so just to make sure we're very clear in terms of these different services, Connection is our federally mandated paratransit service, which provides door-to-door shared public transportation for people with disabilities who are functionally unable to use fixed-route services for some or all of their transportation needs and for people who are transportation disadvantaged. So customers must be certified as eligible under either the guidelines of the ADA program or the TD program. We are federally required to provide that service. At no point was the discussion around Connection and Connection Plus a discussion that was going to totally eliminate or a suggestion that we were going to be eliminating these services for our disabled community. Connection Plus was launched in 2019. It's a premium on-demand private, and what I mean by private, non-shared ride. It is not public transportation. These are customers who want to travel by themselves. That's why it's considered a premium same-day door-to-door service. Another caveat as it relates to the difference between Connection and Connection Plus, with Connection, you have to make a 24-hour reservation. With Connection Plus, you need about an hour, and it's operated more like an Uber-Lift-type ride where you are not sharing that vehicle with any other customers. Again, you do have to have the basic eligibility under the Americans with Disabilities Act or the TD program. So I wanted to clarify that at no point were the JTA eliminating service for our Connection customers or disabled customers. And following up on the Connection and Connection Plus conversations that were occurring in this chamber as well as our board meetings and throughout the community, I wanted to provide you an update on where we stand today. As you know, we identified an $8 million growing cost pressure in providing the Connection Plus service. This is the premium service above our legally required service. So that service is actually costing us $8 million a year and growing. We started back in 2019. We thought it was an additional service to provide the disabled community so that they had the same level of mobility and didn't need to do the reservation that we required on our Connection service, but it continues to grow in cost. Our proposal earlier in this year was to eliminate the Connection Plus service, but in coordination with that elimination, the Connection service, our base service, the fare was going to drop by one-third from $3 to $2. And again, on the Connection service, they can travel throughout Duval County. However, it is public transportation and a shared ride. We started hearing from our Connection Plus customers the strong desire to maintain that service, and we knew that to maintain it, we had to make some adjustments to the service as it relates to our budget. We also need to take into account that in providing this additional premium service, those costs were rising exponentially year after year. I took it upon my office's responsibility to pull together a group of leaders from this community, leaders and stakeholders within the paratransit and senior citizen community, working with them directly through the month of February with a total of four meetings. And out of that, we came up with a consensus strategy to go forward. We implemented a new fare structure that improves the cost recovery while preserving access for those who are depending on this service. The new fare that went into effect on April 2nd is $10 for 12 miles and $2.50 per mile thereafter with no monthly trip caps. So no cap on the number of trips anyone who qualifies for this service is able to take during the month. This adjusted increase in distance to 12 miles covers 75% of the distance our customers are using. So 75% of our customers are actually traveling less than 12 miles. And we're very excited about that because one of the challenges was the length of trips that people were taking. The JTA will continue to subsidize the cost of this trip by 65%. But I think we reached a very positive compromise with this group. And it was, you know, I think a commitment over those four weeks to get there. We'll continue to focus our efforts to strengthen the core connection system. So a lot of the, some of the comments we were hearing is that a lot of people had never used the base connection service. We're actually seeing significant increase in people using the base connection service. So in 2019, they started with Connection Plus, never used the utilized connection, heard some horror stories about it or some less than pleasant situations there. But I'm happy to say that the reduction in cost or reduction in fare from $3 to $2 is working. And we're seeing a transition over to the connection service and growth in that area. So on April 2nd, we also rolled out another cost control and strategy, but it's customer focused. We partnered with Uber, and the strategy on this particular operation is for those Connection Plus customers, particularly those who take the much longer trips beyond those 12 miles. This is an option for them. The trip cost is actually $3.50 for the customer per trip. With the JTA providing up to $20 in vouchers for 10 trips per week using Uber. So it limits the JTA's actual cost in terms of the cost of the trip to no more than $20. The customer pays $3.50, and anything above that $20 will be borne by the customer. And so we're doing this as a partnership. It came out of those meetings that we had in February as a recommendation. And so far, we've had over 120 customers register for the program with more expected as the word gets out related to this service. So it gives them the same day availability. It has a $3.50 initial cost, $20 borne by the JTA in terms of a voucher, and the additional cost will be borne by the customer. Additionally, an example based on the average ride information provided to us by Uber, a customer traveling up to 18 miles using Uber will pay approximately $10 for their trip instead of $25 on our Connection Plus service. So what we're providing customers based on their travel needs, multiple options, and also trying to cap our actual expenditure related to the distance on that trip. We plan to continue our stakeholder meetings with this Connection and Connection Plus group and our JTAG advisory committee, as well as other paratransit groups as we develop our FY27 budget. And so with that, I'll stop at that point. But as far as we're concerned, I think in the short term leading up to FY27, we've solved for the Connection Plus challenge. And let me first – thank you. Let me first go to Council Member Diamond. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Again, Nat, let me just walk through a couple of these things. And I'll be up front. Connection Plus is the thing I get the most calls about when it comes to anything JTA related. I mean, most of the folks I talk to, you know, they don't love Navi or whatever. I mean, that's high-end policy stuff. And I think a lot of people in this council really care about the folks who've been at this podium who can't walk, right, or can't hear, and they're trying to live their life. I think genuinely everyone here at 19 agree, and I know your entire team cares about those folks. So what I'm trying to understand is – and I'll ask this the best way I can – what is the filter between Connection and Connection Plus? Like, when you might qualify for Connection and then – but you wouldn't qualify for Connection Plus or vice versa. You know what I mean? Like, how many – I'll ask this better. How many customers qualify right now for Connection Plus? Like, how many are using it in a month? It's the same population. So if you qualify for Connection, you qualify for Connection Plus. Okay. How many people are we talking about, like, total? On a daily basis, it's about, I guess, 8,000 riders or so. 8,000 total riders, and they're split about 50-50 between Connection and Connection Plus. And that's what really, I think, triggered some of this, which was the expansive growth on the Connection Plus side. Yeah. I mean, look, if you gave me free first-class tickets, like, I would take them every time. Right, exactly. No, I'm tracking where the cost increase happened. What I'm trying to figure out is, is it 8,000 trips or 8,000 customers? It can't be 8,000 customers. It's 8,000 trips. 8,000 different individual people use Connection or Connection? That are qualified to use Connection and Connection Plus. Okay. How many are using it a month is a better question, maybe? It's evenly split, but I can get you that detail. Yeah. It's evenly split between the two services. I think what he's trying to ask is, do those 8,000 people use the service at least monthly? Oh, yes, definitely. Okay. Yeah, definitely. My gut tells me that number is high from what we are kind of thinking about who we are trying to help. I could be wrong. I'm wrong about stuff all the time, and I'm curious about what the federal government and the ADA allows us to do for someone who really has a massive transportation problem and mobility problem versus a relatively limited one, right? Because there are gradations to everything in life, and I'll be more blunt. If I have no arms and legs versus I have a limp, these are very different experiences for someone's mobility. I've had to deal with this before in different contexts. So is there a way for us to sharpen this up so that folks up here, and I'm sure your team, can get connection plus high-quality service to those who absolutely really need it and maybe push towards connection those who don't absolutely need it, or even just regular bus transport? I think the litmus test is the ADA requirements, and we put anyone who applies for our connection service, we put them through a physical assessment. So there's actually a process that they go through that has to be federally certified and mandated to determine whether you qualify permanently or even temporarily. At one point, I used the connection service because I was temporarily coming back from a surgery. So we watch that very closely to ensure that we don't have any waste in terms of people who are not duly qualified for those services. Okay, I'm tracking. I might have. And in some cases, if you're able to access our fixed route bus service, we will steer you towards the fixed route bus service. But in our community, some of the challenges are lack of sidewalks, things of that nature get in the way, and it ends up the person is using our connection service because they can't walk, there's no sidewalk to get them to the bus stop that may be at the end of the block. Yeah, no, fully tracking. I'll probably have a follow-up with your team later on on that piece of the puzzle because I don't want to take everyone's time on that for me. The second question I have is the biggest complaint I get about connection and, of course, regular bus service is how long it takes. And so someone who, I mean, they've been here at the podium and folks have called and text and all the rest and they say, hey, like, I would use connection, but I can't get to school or work, particular work on time. It just, it takes hours to get there and then hours to get home. And if I have to pay $54 to get from the beaches to downtown and it takes hours to get there, it would be easier for me to not just stay home and stay on government. So do you guys have an average trip time for connection versus connection plus? Yes, we do. In fact, we monitor it very, very closely because we heard some of that discussion. In actuality, the differential between a connection and a connection plus trip on average is eight minutes. And so eight minutes because you are obviously traveling. The difference is eight minutes? Huh? The difference is eight minutes? The average difference between connection and connection plus is eight minutes. And so we have that data. We are required to keep it very, you know, very closely and detailed. And we have that information. And so, you know, that is the challenge in terms of the operation is to make sure that people who are using connection plus at least look at connection as an alternative. And that was the reason we actually dropped the fare from $3 to $2 because the maintenance of the connection plus service, which is a private non-public transportation operation, we cannot even include those numbers in our federal transit numbers. So our national transit database, we are prohibited from allowing those numbers to be part of our actual annual numbers, ridership numbers. I'm tracking. Okay. So, and then you talked about the meetings you guys had. And I do appreciate you guys pulled it all together. Some of the folks in the meetings came back and they told me, he says, Rory, we just kind of agreed to some of this as the best of worst options. Like we didn't like any of it. We liked the old system. We liked connection plus how it was and what they were charging us. And now we just had to agree to this because it was the least worst option. And so I'm somewhat concerned. And I'm going to speak for my district rather than the other ones. Because if you live in San Marco, respectfully to my friend, like everything's within, you know, 12 miles. Like you can't miss. For folks, like for me to get here, I had to travel 17 miles this morning. And so in order to get to here and back on Connection Plus under the new system here would cost me $45. If I took an Uber, it would be $32 each way. I just checked. I mean, I know there's surge pricing and all the rest. But just, you know, for right now, that's what it was. So $64 to take an Uber. I mean, for those, Jacksonville's big. We talked about this in Leadership Jacksonville like 14 years ago. This is a really hard city to do a public transportation enterprise with. But for those who are at the beaches, is it possible to do some exemption for those who are across the ditch? Because in order to get to Baptist, to get to downtown, to get to almost every major public service is more than 12 miles. And I feel like just because they lived there or grew up there, they're getting the short end of the stick. Is there a possibility for that? I think there's a possibility to look at a host of different solutions. I mean, the solutions we've arrived at right now came out of sitting down with this community and looking at those types of unique situations. And what was originally proposed in terms of, I would say, an agreement to move forward, we found that, again, it wasn't enough. So our cap was going to be 8 miles versus 12 miles in this particular case. And we had a much larger base fare and higher increments in terms of every mile thereafter. The challenge is, we're public transportation and we're trying to operate more like a private operator. And we thought it made sense in 2019. And frankly, it probably made even, we didn't have the foresight of the pandemic. But having one individual in a vehicle was probably the right way to go during the pandemic. The challenge we have now is, we are not in the private transit business. And we're, unfortunately, fortunately, we were innovating, thinking of something creative to serve our customers. And it became so popular and so costly that it's going to be hard for us to maintain it into the future. So we're looking at other solutions. That's why the Uber solution came in. Yeah, last question. I'm not trying to dominate this. It's just been such a big issue. The last one I have is, I get the Uber taxi, Uber thing that you're doing. It makes some sense. You know, why not go all in on Uber? And instead of building the infrastructure for this other stuff, why not just, have you guys evaluated what that would look like to go all in on Uber and just pay them to do this? Or one thing I would, yes, that's a very good question. And so we're looking at how we can have a mix of different services. One thing with Uber is they do not have the population of wheelchair-accessible vehicles. And so, you know, going all in on any kind of private operator, they do recognize the cost of moving people who are disabled. They try to focus more on able-bodied customers. That's why Ubers tend to be mostly sedans that someone's privately owning and doesn't have a wheelchair ramp or the accessibility requirements that we have to comply with in terms of Uber. Yeah, trust me, I get it. I've had to get four service dogs into one Uber multiple times. It's not always the right one shows up. Okay, I get the challenge, and I guess we have kind of an unfunded mandate right now, which is we really want to keep this door open, but there's a financial challenge to it. And personally, I'm frustrated with where we are right now. It's not a – I'm not casting shade on you guys at all. I get the challenge. I just don't know the solution to this. But I do think we need to keep working at it. Thanks. Okay. Mr. Chairman, I just got some additional information that may help with your specific situation. So using the Uber solution that we proposed, a customer traveling up to 18 miles using Uber will pay approximately $10 per trip instead of the $25 per trip on a Connection Plus service. So that Uber option that we added in just on the second, that could be an option for those longer trips, and that's what it was tailored towards, the exorbitant cost of a trip using the Connection Plus service. Saves us money. Saves the customer money, too. Okay, because we've got a third presentation and questions there, let's put five minutes on the clock, and let me go to Councilmember Arias. I have some questions, and I've got Miller in here as well. All right. Thank you, Chair. I do have two pages of questions, but what I'll do is I'm just going to ask you one question, sir. Yes. The Uber portion of it, this is actually pretty interesting, and I do agree with Mr. Diamond. Like, why don't we just privatize it since you said you're not in the private sector business to, you know, have curve-to-curve pickups. But I do understand that, obviously, not all Ubers are accessible, so that's going to be a tough ask. I do encourage you, though, I've been at many Florida Association of Counties and League of Cities conferences, and they do have a lot of vendors that offer these type of services. I'm sure you work with some. Actually, I know one of which you work with here. Are you guys looking at expanding that range of contractors to make sure that we do privatize it and you get out of that business? Because it's not your forte at all. Right. Well, in the private space, in terms of these operations, you're right. I mean, we walked into it with the Connection Plus. Our focus is shared rides on larger vehicles and people, massing people going in the same direction. As a service for the JTA, the challenge is when we get into that private sector operation, it impacts us. You know, we're putting the effort, we're moving people, and we do believe it's important for us to move people no matter how they need to travel. But when we get into this space, it's a market that, you know, we're overseeing. I think we should give them the opportunity to provide those services in our community, but I'm not essentially sure that it should be the JTA overseeing it. And so that is something I have got to work with our board of directors. We had this foray with Connection Plus, and it has created a bit of an internal challenge for us from a financial standpoint. Just in the timing component. Yes. Sorry I took too long to answer. So, yeah, I definitely agree. We should definitely still continue doing the services we offer with Connections. But if Connections Plus is becoming a burden on financial restraints to you guys, maybe look at privatizing it. That way people could just kind of work on that. That way they're not really dealing with you on that part. Connection Plus is privatized. So Connection Plus and Connection. So you're talking about everything in general then? Yeah, they're provided by private operators, those services. Okay, all right. The Uber part of it, I'm looking here on the screen, it says $20 voucher discount per trip. How many times can somebody use that per month? Endlessly or just once a month? 20 trips per month. 20 trips per month. Yes. And it says curb to curb, so realistically they'll be using it twice whenever they need it. So that's about 10 rides essentially. Yes. Is that enough? That is what we've worked out with Uber in terms of that operation. And then folks have a choice between Connection, Connection Plus, and Uber to use any of those three services if they qualify under our ADA program. All right. And who's paying for that voucher? We are as the JTA. Okay, good. So how much of a cost savings are you guys truly saving by giving people a $20 voucher each trip versus just doing it yourself? Approximately $19. So the average Connection Plus trip costs us about $39. So why don't you just do them all like this? Okay, I get it. So, but the thing is that if they're saving $19 per person, right, wouldn't you, because right now you're limiting to only 10 rides per person. Why don't you give them more if you're saving $19 per trip? Essentially, we're offering it to all of our customers if they choose to use it. So we, I think we need to be very deliberate in terms of the actual utilization. For some people, having that extra distance, they can fit in. Put it this way. What we proposed in terms of Connection Plus, if we could go back to what Connection Plus is, right? $10 base fare for 12 miles. And another piece of this, too, is do we have the Uber rolling stock? Does Uber have the rolling stock to handle all those trips also? Okay, all right, well, and that's just in time. I mean, we could take this offline, but I think that it's a great pilot program that you're doing, and I think that if it's on demand, you obviously will work with Uber to see if you could get more Uber riders or drivers to participate in this program. If they have a wheelchair-accessible vehicle, too. And we've seen where that challenge has come in, where an Uber vehicle has shown up. It's not able to accept a wheelchair. So now we've got to work through Connection Plus and then Connection to get that customer the vehicle that can work with. And then very quick, you said, Mr. Diamond asked how many total riders you have. You said 8,000 in your whole network. Yes. I wanted to know, actually, how many trips are you doing daily is what I want to know. Because I don't think you're doing 8,000 trips a day, are you? Okay. By the time I finish, I should have that answer. Thank you. Okay. Council Member Miller, and then I'll have a few. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Through the Chair to Mr. Ford, thank you for coming back today. Appreciate you sharing with us. And also for your team, thank you for sitting down with these groups that we've heard a lot from in public, and a lot of them come to us, as Councilman Diamond has stated. My concern is still with the Connection Plus area. I know you say you're a public transportation company, or entity, rather, but as you pointed out, we've been doing this for seven years. So, especially our disabled community, they've come to rely on this for these last seven years. And many of them that have come and spoken to the podium where you are right now many times, they can't move out of those chairs and are limited in their ability to get anywhere. But they've come to rely on that Connection Plus option to be able to get to and from work and get there on time. I know you've said there's an average difference of only eight minutes between the two services. Those aren't the stories we're hearing from these individuals. And so, I really would like to get more information on all that, because they talk about wait times are increased. They talk about the shared rides, the time to get there, and they can't depend on it. And an employer who's expecting them to be on time going from the beaches to downtown or the north side to Mandarin, we don't want them on public assistance. We don't want that. And so, I think it's important for us as a group, as a body, for us to get that and get that right so they can have the quality of life and be productive as independent members of our society as possible. And I believe you all want that. Along those lines, thank you so much for having those meetings. That shows you do want to find a good place to go forward. What was their proposal when they came to those meetings? I kept hearing from the individuals with the disabled community that's involved here. They had a proposal they went to with. Would you mind sharing what that proposal was versus where did we end up that you've just briefed us on? What were the differences in what they proposed versus where we ended up? Thank you. Right. I think, obviously, on the fair, there was some debate in terms of where that fair should land. So, we started out with a $6 fair. And it was very interesting. In the public meetings we were having and also those more focused meetings, there seemed to be no issue with a $10 fair. They did recognize after we shared the difference between connection, connection plus, the cost profile. So, it was a great deal of just transparent information sharing. And they recognized that it was a service that was increasing in cost. The challenge was, where was the right place to put the kind of geographical bubble around that $10 fair? Was it 8 miles? Was it 10 miles? Was it 12? We tried to land at 10 miles because 10 miles carried about 65%. Just for that additional two miles, we picked up 75% of the actual connection plus riders. In terms of the cost per mile over the 12-mile limit, there was a lot of debate on that one. And that's where we started out at $350 every mile thereafter, got into outrageous costs for those extreme cases in terms of distance. And we walked back to a cost of $250. So, I think, I wouldn't say they had a position and we had a position. We kind of came to that kind of conclusion together with the folks who were working in the room as well as the JTA staff. But we started out with, first, just fully opening up the books and sharing with them the actual cost for the service and the data related to the number of trips that were 8 miles, 10 miles, 12, and in some cases, 20-mile trips were the more extreme cases that we were subsidizing. Okay. Through the chair. So, you, the mileage on that base charge, where to set that level was the, was the. The percentage of customers, because we know origins and destinations for every customer we serve. And we have the data as it relates to the number of people who are traveling within 8 miles, 10, and 12, and so on. Well, through the chair, I think that's a, that's a good change. And again, it shows you all were willing to work with them on this. And I'm going to have follow-ups with them as well. But I also would like the exact number of trips per day in each one of these categories to give us a better feel for what's going on here. We do need to find a way forward. And especially in the Connection Plus arena, since we've been doing this for seven years, we certainly want to somehow make adjustments to mix public-private, to be able to provide for these people who have come to depend on this. So, thank you very much. Thank you, chair. Thank you. Very quickly. Very quickly, Mr. Chairman, daily ridership connection, 1,500 per day. And then Connection Plus is averaging just over 500. A day. A day. So, 2,000. Yes. Thank you. 2,000 trips. That is, those are trips, correct? Yes. Those are trips per day, yes. You are correct. Okay. Very quickly, let me get real basic here. Connection is a federally mandated program. So, the feds provide you X number of dollars for you to provide that program. Is that correct? We don't receive exactly federal dollars for providing that program, but what the federal dollars that matter to us is the formula dollars we receive based on the number of people we carry. So, the people, in terms of the entire population of riders that we carry, we get federal funding based on a formula. The trips that are on Connection Plus do not count in that formula. I understand. So, the dollars you get are strictly for Connection? Yes. Okay. Number two, Connection Plus was started by the JTA during COVID because you wanted to keep people isolated in one vehicle, correct? Right before COVID. So, we launched it in 2019. It just so happens that innovation helped us during the COVID timeframe. So, it wasn't started because of COVID. No. So, the JTA on its own decided we wanted to provide greater accessibility, freedom of movement, and you did not have to reserve a trip 24 hours in advance and you could get a direct trip from door to door. Okay. And not have to pick anyone else up or wait for any other customer in that shared ride environment. I assume you didn't foresee the growth in Connection Plus when you started this program. Not at all, sir. Not at all. Obviously, you must have done some projections, but they just weren't completely accurate, I'm sure. Well... And I'm sure COVID assisted that. That's right. Okay. Yes. I get it. I think you said this. The qualifications for Connection and Connection Plus are the same. All the same. All the same. Do you know where people are going? I mean, the reason for the transportation, does that enter into this at all? We tend to know by the origins and destination if they're going to a medical facility versus going to a job. We don't specifically get into their privacy of where they're traveling and what is the purpose, but we can extrapolate that based on the origins and destination. But if you pick them up from their house and they go to someone else's house, you transport them? Yes. Yes, sir. Whether they're going to the movies, whatever actual transportation need they have, we provide that service. Okay. And if I understood you correctly, you reduce the pricing for Connection versus Connection Plus as a part of this review to try to encourage more people to use Connection versus Connection Plus. Yes, sir. And you did that recently. Is that correct? Yes, sir. We did that in February. In February. Are you, and did I hear you say you're getting more ridership on Connection and less on Connection Plus because of that? Or at least that's, you hope that's the reason for that? Yes, we have seen that trend of people moving from Connection Plus to Connection. Not wholesale, but enough to recognize that the fare reduction worked. Can you give me some percentage of increase in Connection and what reduction you've seen in Connection Plus? I'll have that within the next few minutes. I'll have that data point. Okay. With that, why don't we move to the next topic? There's no other speakers. Oh, yes. Okay. Next up, finally, as you requested, let me address Navi and the Skyway. So related to the budget, as you heard earlier, we're making some cost adjustments in this particular area also. Navi service continues with a six-vehicle utilization model with additional vehicles that are available for rotation. The on-time performance is at 83%, with the vehicles operating in AV mode 86% of the time. And this is really primarily due to the road closures and the number of detours that are occurring in the Bay Street corridor. In the first 130 days of Navi's operation, we had over 100 detours. So we're now probably in the 300-plus range in terms of detours on Bay Street. We continue to see the safety benefits of this technology in action. There has been no incidents reported over the last quarter. However, March ridership for Navi was 1,075, bringing our total ridership since we launched to 11,892 riders. But, you know, as I've said before, it's not just so much about ridership today. It's about ridership into the future. And it's also been found to be a driver of economic development for our city. Since we launched this service, we've hosted city leaders, including mayors from across the world and the country, to analyze our Navi service. We've had visitors from Tokyo, Atlanta, Cobb County, New Orleans, Shreveport, and Greenville, South Carolina. And the list is continuing. As well as USDOT leadership was here about two months ago. They're actually looking at the AIC and is there opportunity to leverage that facility for pilots related to autonomous trucking and how our actual facility could be leveraged to oversee and monitor autonomous trucking on I-10. We're now well into the project development and environmental study phase as it relates to the phase two, skyway rehabilitation and expansion. This is the phase where we're evaluating feasible alternatives, assessing benefits and impacts, integrating community feedback, as well as refining the options that will ultimately go before the JTA board for a final recommendation. We've had a series of meetings to listen to the community, as well as stakeholders and business leaders, and a total of eight meetings have been held so far. There are five alternatives that have been presented as part of the first round of public meetings. Alternative one is to retrofit and restore the existing skyway in kind. Alternative two, a new automated people mover where you would retrofit the actual trains and the structure for modern rubber tire people mover vehicles. Alternative three is convert the skyway to autonomous vehicle track with dedicated lanes. Alternative four is to remove the elevated structure and add street-level autonomous vehicles. Alternative five, repurpose the skyway to a multi-use trail and add street-level autonomous vehicles at street level. And then there's always the no-build option, which is keep the skyway operating as long as possible and then sunsetting the entire operation. So to ensure transparency and broad participation, we've taken a multi-layered approach to public engagement. So far, we've completed eight community meeting, open house meetings. We've engaged more than 205 participants in person through presentations, question and answer sessions, surveys, and direct conversations with subject matter experts. To date, we've received a total of 660 responses to our survey as of our March 27th public meeting, and our virtual meeting option remains open through April 10th. In terms of demographics, majority of respondents aged 26 to 45 are at 55 percent, with 25 percent between 56 and 75, and participation remains majority male at 60 percent, and the remainder is female at 34 percent. Skyway usage, nearly half of the respondents have ridden the skyway in the recent past. The rest have never ridden the skyway. Public sentiment so far seems to be favoring and preserving and reinvesting in the skyway rather than removing it or inaction, with an ongoing split between the placemaking of Alternative 5 and new trains for Alternative 2. However, there's still a lot of work that needs to be done, cost estimates that need to be taken into consideration. That is part of the PD&E process. So in subsequent phase, before we go into the second round of public meetings, we'll have a range of cost estimates that could be also applied to the decision-making. And I said from the outset of this process that we as the JTA want to stay agnostic, and that the plans were initially envisioned for the U2C and the skyway need to be scrutinized as long with all of these other options and other possibilities as to what we should do with this community asset called the skyway. So, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, that concludes my prepared remarks. I'm available for any questions. Let me begin. Councilman Miller just popped in. So, the first quarter of 26, going back to the NAVI, was 3,650 trips versus the fourth quarter of 29 was 2,908. Is that correct? Did I read that correctly? So, for roughly a 20% increase in NAVI use from one quarter to the next? Yes. That's correct. Yes, uh-huh. Okay. Number two, you're still looking at the first of, in August, of making a decision on the future of the skyway. Yes. I think we're chiming that out with the board, the annual board retreat in August, where we will make a set of recommendations related to fares, budget, as well as the future of the skyway. Okay. So, we should know what the plan is at that point. Definitely. And do you really believe, if we did tear it down, that the feds would come back for us and ask us for those dollars back? Not the full amount, sir. And I want to be very careful, you know, not to get ahead of the FTA and USDOT. The last letter that we received from them just a few years ago stated that they could request up to the full $100 million they invested in the skyway. We have done our own research. We've actually sent a formal letter to the FTA asking their interest in a discussion to negotiate down that actual payback, as well as could we actually transfer the remaining life of the skyway into other transportation-related assets. So, we're very positive. We're optimistic that we'll be able to reach something short of the $100 million, up to $100 million payback. Okay. Council Member Miller. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Through the Chair, Mr. Ford, thank you for what you've shared in your last statements there, because as I was going back and forth trying to get documents on our interaction at the federal level, most of them were very old, the exchanges. And some only had a response, didn't have our requests. So, it was trying to get to, are we asking the right questions when it comes to payback for any federal resources that have come our way for the skyway or any other grants that we've received, and there are clear stipulations in there about if you don't continue on this path or if it isn't used in the way it was intended and the grant monies were given, then you may be subject to paying it back. And so, I was trying to explore, you know, have we gotten into the details of the options? You had mentioned previously that when you first got here, you felt, I believe, 14 years ago that we should have extended the skyway to places of population densities to really explore what the options really were and the usable, ensuring that we've gone as far as we could have at that time in making it something that someone would ride if we were going to where the population nodes were, and we didn't do that. And so, what I'm asking is on these alternatives, you have five of them listed here and you've given me some hope here, have we gone through those details on each one of these alternatives with the federal folks that we've received over the years, different letters about payback on, have we gone into the details with them and saying, here are some of our alternatives, would you give us specific feedback on payback, potential payback? Because there's a new administration from the last letter that we received from them. There are new philosophies on transportation that you're very well plugged into. So, I just wanted to make sure that these are feasible alternatives and they aren't feasible if the finances don't turn out to support these alternatives. And so, I just wanted to hear a little bit from you if we could, as a group, hear from you on, have we gone into those details with the federal level context to explore whether these are feasible alternatives or not? Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you for that question. Very thoughtful, well thought out question there. Interestingly enough, we've received letters from multiple administrations related to this federal payback, and it's been consistent from one administration to the other because this is congressional law in terms of this federal payback requirement. And to your point, they want us to get it to the end of the useful life. We have provided a letter to the federal government. We've shared with them through our quarterly meetings, the various different options that we're looking at, and we've asked them for their consideration that whatever solution that we choose to, can we transfer those actual remaining years of useful life? And in the case of the Skyway, it's 14 years in actuality. So, 14 years on the Skyway structure, about two years remaining on the actual vehicles. We've asked them if we decide to take any one of these options, can we transfer that remaining useful life into the new asset, the new transit system, so to speak? The interesting thing is that, you know, as we look at these options, the financial or cost of these options, we will just have a range of those options going into the next round of decision making for the public. It's my expectation in the June timeframe, we'll take this to our board of directors with our preferred alternative based on all of the feedback, the feedback we get from you, and then that's when we go into the deep dive of actually engineering and actual 30% design work. So, we've got a ways to go, and we would not, at this juncture, they're not going to give us an answer on specific alternatives. They'll give us an answer, we're hoping an answer that says, in general, if we were to replace the Skyway with another transportation system, that we could transfer that investment in. One thing I'd like to point out, you know, this is a different conversation 10 years ago, right? 10 years ago, we received these letters, we've moved up the timeframe, we've gotten successive letters saying no, but we're now at the 14-mile mark in terms of the remaining Skyway utilization. It sets up a different conversation. Thank you very much to the Chair. That's encouraging. I like where you're going with this. I like where your leadership team is going with this to actually explore the details with the current FDOT and FTA leadership. So, thank you for that thoughtful and collaborative approach. I appreciate that. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Mr. Millen. Okay. I have no one else in the queue. So, Mr. Ford, thank you so much for coming. All right. I have found the presentation and the questions from my colleagues very helpful to me to understand what's going on with all aspects of your operation. You have some data for us? I have some data for you. Okay. So, connection, 12% increase since we lowered the fare, connection plus 7% decrease since the change in fare. So, we are seeing a shift, and in some cases, people are giving it a shot, connection a shot. They've heard all of the negative stories, but we have the data in terms of the ridership and the actual travel times. Well, that's encouraging. Mm-hmm. So, at this point, our next meeting, we will go back to a health insurance presentation, and appreciate you coming, and if there's nothing else, we will be, oh, Council Member Diamond. I just wanted to get from Mary an update on the oversight committee bill, because I sent all that stuff your way. Through the chair to Council Member Diamond. So, I just kind of wanted some direction on when you intended to put it on the agenda for the committee's consideration. Okay. How about the next one? If that's the case, then I'll work on having the draft available for the next meeting. And I had just one more item. Can we bring up on one of these? It doesn't have to be the next one, but before we're done, I'd like to talk to the folks at UNF about the eSports Arena. I'd like to have them come here and talk about it, 10, 15 minutes. There's very serious concerns about where our money went. Okay. I can reach out to UNF. Okay. Anything else? Yeah. I had one quick one, Mr. Chair, if I may. I just wanted to ask about if there was anyone that checked in on the specifics on the state-level DOGE and when they came for those two days and then they had a report, did we get specifics back from the state level on each one of those areas that added up to that, what was it, $190 million or thereabouts that they claimed that we had in waste? I just want to make sure if we can get those specifics that we don't miss anything that may be obvious that we can localize and actually explore. So I didn't know we brought this up at one time, but I didn't remember if someone was pursuing that to get those specifics out of that report. If you remember, the auditors led by Ms. Taylor did an analysis. I forwarded through a contact that analysis to the state DOGE effort. I never heard anything back from state DOGE on our analysis. Most likely I think a lot of the state evaluation was based on population and it was projections and I thought the auditors did a very nice job of analyzing all their numbers. But no, I did not hear anything back. If possible, and I'm not sure, I'm happy to help in any way I can. I just want to make sure we didn't miss anything obvious because they didn't go into a lot of details that we could kind of grab onto and explore further. And so if there's a way that we could do that, and maybe that's a follow on going into the next year. But if possible, I certainly would like to get those details from the state level with if someone knows a little bit more about how we may enter into that world to try to get some of that information. Anybody else? We stand adjourned. Thank you so much.