Good afternoon. Thank you, everyone, for coming out to the Special Committee on Droughton Prevention. We'll start with introductions to my left and my right.
Shannon McGillis, Office of General Counsel.
Phil Peterson, Counselor. Reggie Gaffney, Jr., District 8.
My Gay, District 2.
Good, good. Thank you, everyone, for coming out. And happy Veterans Day. I know we one day removed, but thank you for your service. We haven't forgotten what you have done for the city. So this is our fifth meeting. You know, we've been going at this for the last two or three months. This might be our last meeting, bearing any further conversation. We have gotten a lot of results, a lot of information, a lot of valuable information. What we have determined is Droughton Prevention is everybody's responsibility. I want to give us a recap how we got here, since this might be our last meeting. So as you guys know, for those who don't know, if you haven't been following along, mid-August, we lost a child off Broward Road due to drowning. In my district, in District 8. At that point, I reached out to our OGC. I also reached out to the Mayor's Administration. At that time, us three, we gathered and we talked about what can we do to prevent this. The following day, we had another drowning in my district, this time in River City. This was in late August. After that, drowning, myself called the notice meeting amongst my colleagues. I think it was the first week of September. We had a notice meeting. From there, this special committee was called. From that special committee was called, President Howland. He tasked us with six responsibilities. That's important because as we've been meeting the last two or three months, it's been our goal to task the six responsibilities. What I will hope today is for us to look at the six responsibilities to go over and make sure we have tasked and came up with solutions for every responsibility. I have also met with OGC to discuss potential legislation. I'm not sure if I'm prepared to talk about it today. We're still going back and forth. What I'd like to do today is pretty much go over the six tasks that Council President Howland has tasked us with and we'll go from there. So, Tyler, you want to come up? Let me say this before you come up, Tyler. I want to thank JFRD, our legislative services, our auditors, our OGC, our special working group. Just thank you for your dedication. Thank you for your commitment. Thank you for your effort. This is an important subject. For those who just are falling along, we have had testimonials from parents who have lost their kids. We have had presentations from school board members. This is a big task. And one thing we do know is that Jacksonville is surrounded by water. So, this will always be an issue. This won't go nowhere. And another thing we know is that we have drowners every year, you know, as we've seen in some of these data and these stats. So, thank you everyone for coming on. Also, you know, one of the things I did before I forget, you know, Northeast Florida Regional Council. You know, so, Beth, thank you guys. You know, Tyler, thank you as well. You guys have been integral, you know, and playing a role. So, we'll get into the presentation. And, like I say, what I would like to do today, Tyler, is make sure we cover the six tasks that President Hollins has tasked us to. And then we'll go from there. All right. Thank you.
Yes, sir. Tyler Nolan, Northeast Florida Regional Council, 40 East Adams Street. And, Mr. Chair, before I do start, I would like to echo what you said about working with JFRD through this process. The Emergency Preparedness Division just is a fantastic group of folks that have really hit the pavement hard, done a lot of research, done a lot of effort. And because of them, this working group was as successful as it has been. So, I'd like to echo your comments on that. As you mentioned, and I know that we have had some discussions about what the work plan looks like, and as we look at our ultimate goal, which is delivering a final report to the Neighborhoods Committee by the end of December, I know we've been kind of hashing out some dates of looking at some drafts and looking at that report as we pivot away from this research and investigative standpoint to more putting a report together that serves as a toolbox for these efforts that we spent this time talking about. So, more information on that will be decided, and then, as I mentioned, to meet that deadline from President Howland's memo to City Council by the end of December. As you mentioned, you know, looking at these committee charges, we've talked about them and their variety throughout this process. And I will say, as I continue through this presentation, I'm not going to spend a whole lot of time because you have heard all this information before, at least a vast majority of it, but you will see the committee charges at the bottom of each slide as we kind of go through. And as we pivot into that final report mindset of what are those toolbox items that we're going to spell out and offer recommendations on, a part of those closing comments of that, while we'll outline everything, it's pulling some of those out that are the most important to you all as the committee members. So, if there's something that we touch on that you think needs a specific level of importance, you know, just raise your hand at me, shoot me a nod, interrupt me, ask more questions. But there's definitely a part of all the overall recommendations that will have a little bit more priority based on what you see and what you feel is best for the residents of the City of Jacksonville. The thing that we looked at and that we conducted was this GIS risk mapping and property ownership layering. If you'll remember back, the city worked with basically anybody and everybody that had a data set on stormwater systems throughout the city of Jacksonville, Florida Department of Transportation, St. John's River Water Management District, the own city's data, and they put this into a GIS layer. With that, now that that base layer has been built, there are opportunities to expand upon that. And one of the ideas that came out was that thousand foot buffer that really kind of highlights it in a GIS computer based system. That takes a lot of man effort to do, to run the analysis, to verify. So, pointing the chip in the right direction and saying that this is an initiative that's worth moving forward on is something that we wanted to touch on. And as I mentioned, you can see the committee charges of how it relates to Council Member Howland's memorandum are at the bottom of each slide. The missing persons operations, and forgive me for not knowing that acronym in its entirety, but it's the JSO, missing persons, system that they have in place. With that GIS layering comes the ability to input that system into the computer-aided dispatch system that our first responders use. To speak in simple terms, our public safety agencies, when they're in their vehicles responding to a call, this is the computer system that they have in their vehicle. With the resources that we have as a city through REVAMP and this computer GIS layer, there's the opportunity to merge these two systems together. So, if somebody is registered through REVAMP, if a call goes out at their incident location, it is a possibility that this computer-aided dispatch system would identify those nearby ponds, water features, or any other type of thing that really the team deems a necessity for this system. That takes a lot of man-hours, so really looking at that and understanding kind of what it means and how we can advance that system, and it's just, right, it's cutting down the response time. If JSO or JFRD knows that a water system is nearby and a child with intellectual and developmental differences gets out, how can we intervene quicker? That's really what it boils down to. Yes, sir?
Tyler, thanks for that. How do we make sure all the kids with autism who have developmental disabilities get enrolled in REVAMP?
Yes, sir. So, and actually, right here on the next slide with DCPS, really looking at that, there are some partnerships that can be expanded upon. I'm sure everybody, and especially parents that may be listening, understand that a child's first enrollment in school, and then each school year after that, there is an overwhelming amount of information that gets shared. And it's all good information, but sometimes some things get lost in translation. And with that, we thought it would be a better idea to kind of take a more targeted approach when it comes to drowning prevention. And with DCPS, there's some integration that can happen. They also have the charter school system, which creates some communication barriers at little places. But they've been a valuable partner through the working group, and they're looking at that and figuring out how they can improve that process as each school year kind of goes along, and then the specific opportunities to communicate that throughout the school year. And it'll be in a couple of slides as well, but the working group also came up with a really good idea about our military family. So I'll touch on that here in just a moment as well.
Yeah. While you're on this water safety slide, I think we touched this maybe by our second meeting, our third meeting. And hopefully you can refresh my memory. The city of Jacksonville, we do have a program where we teach kids how to swim for free, correct?
Yes, sir. There's a couple of opportunities for that, but yes, sir.
Okay. All right. I just wanted to bring that up. I got it. So I received an email from a young lady who teach several Jaguars players how to swim. And she was just saying, you know, some of these players are 30, some of these players are 40, and she would love to partner up with the city of Jacksonville and teach some of these kids for free how to swim. But I wasn't sure we had a program or not, so I just want to make sure, you know, when I respond back to her, you know, point in the right direction.
Yes, sir. And we tried to point out those kind of gaps as well. There is a transportation gap that comes with that and really trying to close those issues down. And changing the terminology a little bit, you know, when you hear swimming lessons, everybody's mindset kind of goes to being a competitive swimmer, right? Different strokes, ways to swim. It's much more broad than that. It's falling in the water accidentally, learning to float, just being able to keep yourself above water. So sometimes when we use that word swimming lessons, it gets folks more targeted than they really need to be. It's more about just kind of water awareness and being able to stay afloat.
Thank you.
Yes, sir. With that, targeted registry outreach, there is the special medical needs safety initiative. So trying to just merge all of these different programs together and really just trying to improve upon what is already there, not recreating the wheel. You know, we've heard from a variety of folks. Home Depot has been a valuable partner throughout the working group. But hardware sourcing, we went back and forth for a while on locks and alarms, and we really found that the best path was actually just the door alarms. There was an issue with, you know, the idea of putting a lock way up on the door for fire safety and different initiatives. So the path that we kind of redirected the ship towards was more of the alarm aspect. But there's plenty of hardware stores and organizations across the city that may be able to get those resources to our families that need them. And pushing all of that stuff through the revamp system, right? Merging all of these systems kind of together and targeting the populations that they would be best beneficial for.
If I may, if I may, how can the students, our parents, or even the kids, I can, what can they find these resources at? You know, so I know you mentioned locks, performing helmets, safety walkthroughs. Right now, if I'm a parent and I have a disabled kid, where can I find these resources at, these partnerships with Home Depot, fencing companies, the locks companies?
Yep. Right now, I would be here until the end of this meeting telling you where all of these things can be found. And you'll see here in just a couple of slides, that is a specific issue that we wanted to target as it comes to this. So if you'll hang with me just for a minute, I will answer that question, I promise you. Looking at the next one with the, actually there it is right there, this unified resource hub. How this gets done is very much still in the air. There are a bunch of considerations that come with this. If anybody has ever managed a website or managed a page, it is a very difficult process. It's a very time-consuming process. But there is the importance of all of these resources being combined into one page. We have kicked around ideas of this, is this an external partner? Is this one of the agencies here in the city of Jacksonville? Or is this an overarching Jacksonville.gov initiative? And those things would have to be determined by you all that have that power. But there is an extreme value in letting all of this stuff land on one page. However, being diligent about how it's reviewed, how it's updated, how it's maintained, is a decision that has to be made up front, not on the back end.
Yeah, I was hoping to see Mr. Ender Heads here today. Because you're right, after this meeting, we're going to have to make sure we get a centralized page, you know, in terms of going forward. How do we continue to get the information out? You know, it was said in a few meetings, I think in September, you know, make sure we have, like, an autism month awareness, you know, where we have a PSA announcement. One of the things that you guys have done a great job, y'all have let us know about the peak days, the peak seasons. And I think what we need to do as a committee, and one of the things we need to do as a city, is right upon the peak seasons and peak months, there need to be a PSA announcement out. You know, we need to make parents aware, you know, and I'm not sure where. I'm not sure if it could be JFRD, the mayor's office. I don't know if we have a position who could retain all this knowledge. You know, one of the things I hate to happen is that we meet and nothing just happens in terms of education and awareness, you know. So this resource hub is great, but if we don't have anyone to manage it, you know, we don't have a person to manage it, a department to manage it, you know, it's just information for nothing. So I guess you're giving me a homework assignment, and, you know, like I said, I want him at the end of here to speak about it. He's not here right now, but hopefully we can figure this out sometime, sooner or later, you know, because, you know, January will be here sooner than later, and I think peak seasons, I want to say it's in March to July or something like that.
Yes, sir, that April to July. April to July, yeah. But, right, your public messaging starts before you get into that peak season. And that is something that we've been diligent about as we've looked at what this final report is and how we incorporated that data that the Emergency Preparedness Division and JFRD put together. There are those commonalities, and we did try to spell out that there's opportunities to push water safety initiatives, during specific time frames that would be the best to public message those. And as you mentioned as well, there are those awareness months for folks with IDD that could be a specific targeted month for, you know, elopement prevention and those kind of initiatives as well. So, yes, sir, they all work together. Last little piece on this is that event calendar. There are a ton of great organizations across the city of Jacksonville that are doing fantastic work. And a lot of times they do events that are open to other agencies. It's just more about getting the word out, right? We've all been to events where folks can staff a table, share informational resources. And so the idea was presented that there be an event calendar somewhere that where all the agencies that revolve around this topic can see XYZ agency has this event. I can staff a table there. Let me reach out to the proper resource. So bringing that idea to fruition as well is a good path forward for the group.
And, Phillip, I'm going to give you a homework assignment. And I know we tight on funds. And when I say we tight on funds, the city is tight on funds. But we have to prioritize public safety. And I think what we need to do, if you can, if we need to try to identify some funds. And I'm not sure what this position looked like. I'm not sure what would the salary be. But, you know, to a taller point, I think we need identified staff to, you know, oversee this issue going forward. And when I say this issue, you know, with trainings, events, resources, the peak seasons, you know, swimming lessons, you know, public safety initiatives, you know, this data. You know, one of the things Councilwoman Pittman, she came to one of our meetings in, I think, in September, October. And she said, hey, Councilman Gaffney, everything that you guys have done, I did in 2022. But, however, we can't find none of the information that they worked on. And, you know, so, you know, and Phillip, I'm not sure we have money lying around. But, you know, I know this will come with a cost. You know, maybe we might have taken out of JFR and the apartment. You know, I know that it's a joke. But, you know, we really need to, Phillip, we'll get together to see, you know, if we could find some money lying inside. Because what I would hate, we have to be proactive. And that's what we're doing now. You know, we have to be proactive. And I think we need to put someone on top of this right now, at least in the beginning of the year, to start tracking all this information. It's important. You know, my biggest fan, I said it from day one, I would hate to come next year or next month, we lose another kid because we just didn't do anything. You know, it's one thing to have these committees, but it's another thing to act on it. You know, so I'll be meeting with our auditor's office to see can we find some low-hanging fruit funds falling on land. You know, we potentially hire someone so we could tackle these important issues that you bring to our attention.
All right, moving on. You know, this next one speaks for itself is just the standardization of physical materials. There's a lot of opportunities to put those in city-owned buildings, a variety of partners all across the city. Right, that idea of just public messaging and getting these into the hands of families really becomes the most important. And then, excuse me, this military family outreach. This is something that kind of came up later in the process. But the military, and we all know the importance of that here in northeast Florida and the number of installations that we have, but they maintain what's known as the Exceptional Persons Registry. It is actually a requirement for military families that meet this criteria that their family members are registered into this system. Well, luckily, here in the city of Jacksonville, you have one of two in the country military and veterans affairs department that's a cabinet-level position of the administration. They have fantastic contacts, resources. The lead over there at that department is just unbelievably talented in what he does. Jacksonville just got named a great American defense community. So these resources are there. They just need to be tapped into. And getting a hold of this list, getting it to JFRD, military families come, they go, they transition, and giving them a one-stop shop to be like, hey, here's a helpful resource for you as your family to hopefully make your life a little bit easier becomes a huge outreach possibility. And we wanted to include that and the importance of it because a lot of students and a lot of school-age children in this area have ties to the military in some way, shape, or form. And that just kind of will bolster these public outreach numbers. So we came up with that one to share with you all. As you mentioned, there's a lot here. We have gone down rabbit holes. We've been successful in some. We've been unsuccessful in others. We have made pivots. We have looked at different ways of addressing this issue. And really, it comes down to how do we sustain this effort moving forward. And so in some way, shape, or form, it is a recommendation that this working group be sustained and progress over time. How that looks is a much bigger discussion than we're able to offer. But in some way, shape, or form, whether it's an outside agency or an outside community partner or the city of Jacksonville itself, has to sustain this effort. Once you get that snowball rolling downhill, it becomes very easy to collect momentum. And that's really what we want to do. And then with that, the autism, elopement, and water safety framework, just looking at everything and how they tie together has really been an eye-opening discussion that the working group and the committee have had throughout this entire process. There's a way to build this lasagna in layers and let it all work together in one nice little way. Go ahead. Yeah. And then while we all understand in the world that we're living in and then the things that come with that, is there is value in somebody managing this process. How it looks, whether it's a part of the city, whether it's an outside agency, a community partner, but somebody has to keep a pulse on this because it's going to change. Technology will change. How that looks, we talked about the CAD, the commuterated dispatch, and the GIS layering maintenance. Somebody has to kind of track these progress and these programs kind of as we go. What that looks like, I'm not able to tell you that, but we do see value in having a person, and as you mentioned this just a few moments ago, carry these initiatives forward. But I know that's a much broader discussion, especially in today, than it was, you know.
Tyler, thank you for that. One of the things, and I appreciate that report, you know, it was thorough and got to the point. It meant all our tasks that Councilman Highland, you know, asked us to do. Now, one of the things that I didn't see from this report, and it still bothers me, is that once the kid get out the house and on the way to the pond, how can we prevent it? You know, I know we talked about locks. I know we talked about bracelets. I know we talked about swimming lessons, and all that's good. But let's just say we have all that, and kids are still able to get outside the house and somehow wander to a pool. One of the things I didn't hear enough about is, you know, how do we address that issue? Just to give you guys an FYI, you know, I did. I'm thinking about, and I'm not sure if I could do it or not, you know. So my personal opinion and my personal mind, I think it should be a nuisance if a pond is within 500 feet from a sidewalk. I think it should be a nuisance if a playground is 500 feet or within 500 feet from a pond. I think it should be a nuisance if a nursing home, because nowadays you have these elderly and these patients leaving out the nursing home that's disappearing and walking back to the ponds, you know. So I still think, and I'm in contact right now with OGC to try to figure out how do we come up with some type of barrier to prevent, even though all the resources that you named today, that person still get out, how do we prevent that? You know, and we haven't been able to tackle that, but, you know, right now I'm talking to OGC to try to figure out how can we, what is, I don't know. And that barrier could be a sign. It could be, you know, some vegetation. It don't necessarily have to be a fence, and I know that's what a lot of people want, you know. But I think we still need to identify what happens when that 7-year-old or that 95-year-old mom get away from a nursing home who got Alzheimer's and still disappeared to the pond, you know. So these are conversations that I'm having with OGC right now. You know, what I would like to do is try to figure out, you know, where is the disconnect between, like I said, the pond, the sidewalk, the school, the nursing home, and that pond. So that's one of the things I'm working on. Another thing that I'm working on right now, you know, maybe is incentivizing some of these subdivisions, you know, in terms of maybe meeting a subdivision that I nurse at home halfway in terms of funding. You know, maybe that might encourage them in terms of, you know, being proactive. Because as I stated in the beginning of the meeting, this issue is not going nowhere. As long as Jacksonville continue to grow and get 10,000 or 15,000 people every year, as long as developers and builders continue to build homes, you know, as long as they're going to have to build retention ponds, this issue is not going nowhere. You know, I think we're going to have to take some strict measures. I'm not sure what that'll look like yet, and I appreciate for all you're doing, but I want to cut this number in half. You know, I want to get to a point where the city of Jacksonville have no drowners, no years, you know. So I'm working on that.
And, Mr. Chair, if you'll allow me, that is the piece that we're looking at is known as elopement recovery. Once a child or individual gets out of the home, how do we find them faster? And I think that CAD project that we talked about will help with that. It's important, like, when that 911 call goes out, if JSO knows that this is a home of somebody that is known to wander and they have a pond located within a certain distance of their home, maybe their response is tailored to getting to that pond while also sending resources to the home as well. There's a couple of those. Committee member Gay at one of the last meetings mentioned the Safe Communities Initiative, and that's something that we have looked at and thought about, about how do we incentivize one way, shape, or form, if it's just the communities themselves marketing themselves to these populations as, hey, this is why you should live here, not just when it comes to the way that they, you know, put barriers around their stormwater facilities, but other aspects of the neighborhood. And then same with the no-mow buffer around at least the city-owned ponds that the city does to kind of, like, create a barrier there. I know that the city is looking at that policy and how they can possibly expand upon that. Just like you said, just trying to make it a little bit harder for somebody to find themselves in that water. Thank you for that.
Councilman Gay, you want to add anything? Oh, GC. Phillip, y'all need to add anything? We have any public comment cards? Okay. So, as we bring this meeting to a close, I do want to thank everyone for your time, your participation, your commitment to this important responsibility. I think you guys know it's people dependent on us, and they're looking to us. Well, before I close out, I'm going to let Councilman Gay go first.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate that. One of the things that I do want to look at is, and I kind of touched on it at the last meeting, was us as a city getting with our public works department on what we do as a city with our construction and our facilities as to be the lead example to say go ahead and get some legislation enacted where when we build a new park or add on to a park that we put certain measures in on our retention ponds and go ahead and not just say we want the private sector to do this, but we're going to take the lead and do it ourselves and to be the example. So that's one of the things that I'm going to be getting with public works to see about getting something codified on that and to be able to, the city to be the lead and not just saying we want everybody else to do it, but we can go ahead and do it and that doesn't affect the House Bill 180. That lets us govern ourselves and to take it to a safe example for the city. Thank you.
Yeah, that's a great point. A great point. Thank you, Councilman Gaye, because as we shared in a few minutes ago that every week, you know, the L-U-Z, the city of Jax, us, our colleagues, we are approving developments every week. You know, I'm not sure how many permits for ponds that's being submitted, but we approve developments every week. So retention ponds is getting built every other day, and we've got to do something internally, you know, to provide safety. So go ahead.
Yeah, yes, through the chair. So, yes, you know, with the L-U-Z, that's more of the private sector, and so all we can do there is encourage. And so with the SAFE initiative that was mentioned before earlier, that, you know, that that would be a target to just to say if you want to have that classification on your development, then we can grant that but not require that. And so, but what, you know, I just want to see us, what we can mandate is what we do ourselves for the government. And so I just wanted to clarify that.
All right, thank you. One of the things I forgot to do, and before we close out, I need to get a motion for our approval of October 21st meeting minutes.
Motion approved.
Second. Okay, I forgot to do that in the beginning. So, aye. All in favor say aye. Second. Okay, approved. All right, so as I shared, you guys, you know, I want to thank everyone. You know, this issue is not just one person's responsibility. You know, I have heard the critics say, Councilman Gaffney, why are you doing this? You know, it's the parents' responsibility. You know, we need to penalize the parents. But the way I look at it, it's all of us our responsibility. You know, so the government have a job to play. I think the parents have a job to play. We all have a job to play. If we could save one life, I'm thankful for that. You know, I'm thankful for that. And, you know, we had a young lady who came all the way from Alabama who was interested in what we're doing. Because it's not just a Jacksonville issue, it's a nationwide issue. And I think Jacksonville, we need to be proactive in taking an initiative and doing something about it. One of the things I want us to do is have a sense of urgency. My biggest fear is leaving this meeting and we don't meet again or nothing ever get done. You know, and I want parents to know that they have a government and they have a city that care, you know, about implementing solutions. You know, I think we must be intentional. You know, we have identified the issue. Now it's up for us to come up with protocols, you know, training, you know, communication, providing resources. You know, I share money is tight, but we must come up with some type of funding. We must hire that person, you know, as for us to remain focused. So thank you again for your dedication, you know, for being a part of this special committee. You know, I appreciate everyone coming out. You know, like I said, this is not our issue. It's the city of Jacksonville issue. When people move here, we want parents to feel safe. We want parents to feel safe. It's parents every day that fear, their biggest fear is losing their kid's life. And if we could do anything about it, I don't want parents to live in fear. I want to make sure we do our part. And you said what that part is, prevent tragedies before kids die. So thank you. I appreciate you guys. We'll be in touch. I'll be, I will be introducing legislation. Tyler, what you can do for us, if you can finalize this report, you can finalize this report, you know, over the last six to seven weeks that you guys have met. You can make sure you get it sent to myself. Then we'll send it, make sure we send it to our colleagues, you know, Councilwoman Clark Merritt, who can't be here today. And Councilman, again, we'll make sure we get it. We'll also make sure our rest of our colleagues on city council get it as well. So, you know, I think from there, you know, I will be introducing legislation. You know, like I said right now, I'm all over the place with legislation. But like I said, my goal is to prevent one kid from drowning. If I could say that, I could live at peace. You know, it hurts me when I see parents calling me, inboxing me, and saying, hey, Councilman Gaffney, can the city of Jacksonville do something about this? And we will do something about this. So thank you again. This will be our last meeting. This will be our last meeting for right now. You know, like I said, be on the lookout. I will be introducing legislation. I'm not sure if I'm going to call it a press conference, but I would love for those who played a pivotal part, a critical part, to be a part of the legislation, be a part of the press conference. So thank you again, and God bless. Meeting adjourned.