Good afternoon, everybody. I hope everybody's doing well on this beautiful Tuesday afternoon. I'd like to call the October 21st, 2025 meeting of the Pinellas County Board of County Commissioners to order. And before we begin today, I want to thank the deputies that keep us safe here, Officer Deputy Winnick, Manley, and Corporal Thornton. Thank you so much for keeping us safe. And at this time, I would ask everyone to rise as Commissioner Nowicki offers an invocation. Please remain standing for Commissioner Peterson. Heavenly Father, we come before you this morning, not as politicians, not as partisans, but as servants that you've placed in positions of trust. You called us to lead, not to hide. You called us to stand, not to shrink. You called us to carry the weight of responsibility, even when the world grows weary and critics grow loud. Lord, we know the greatest battles we fight are not with one another, but within ourselves. The battle in the mind, where the fear argues with faith, where the doubt whispers stays silent, and where the comfort tempts us to look away. But today, God, we choose courage. We stand on your word on 1 Corinthians 16, verse 13. Be on your guard. Stand firm in faith. Be courageous. Be strong. And like the prophet in Isaiah 6, 8, we hear your call. Whom shall I send? Who will go for us? And Lord, here I am. Send me. Father, send us into the moral conflict of our time, not with fear, but with faith. Not with hesitation, but with holy conviction. Because it was once said, few are willing to brave the disapproval of our fellows, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek change a world yields most painfully to change. Raise us up as leaders who will do what's right even when it's unpopular. Raise up our hearts. We stand firm when the ground feels like it's shaking. Raise up voices that will speak truth when it trembles. Because courage isn't loud, it's steady. And remind us, God, that we're all equal at the foot of the cross. No titles, no offices, no applause. Just people here to serve. And Lord, we lift up those among us who are sick, struggling, or healing. For our colleagues, our staff, and for the members of our community who are walking through illness, we ask for your strength. Remind them that they are not forgotten. They are loved, seen, and carried by your grace. So today, Lord, ignite a spirit of us in boldness. Strengthen our convictions. Give us courage not just to lead, but to stand. And let this chamber be filled with clarity instead of confusion. With purpose instead of politics. And moral courage instead of moral compromise. In Pinellas County, we remember that truth still matters, that faith still steadies, and courage still opens the door to everything worth doing. And when our time here is done, may it be said that we just didn't hold these seats, but we held the line. In your name, Jesus Christ, amen. Amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice. Okay, before we get into our proclamation, it's my pleasure to invite State Representative Linda Cheney to the podium. She has something to present to us. Well, good afternoon, everyone. I am State Representative Linda Cheney. I represent District 61, which is the Pinellas County South Beach area. And as many of you were, my district was devastated by Hurricane Helene in particular, and also Milton. And I know the county experienced a lot of devastation from the hurricanes. And so it was my pleasure to do as much as I could for you up in Tallahassee to bring back some money to help recover from the hurricanes. And you may have noticed in the press there was a bit of a kerfuffle up in Tallahassee, and it was tough to get money out of there. But I was able to secure for us $750,000 to help make Pinellas County more resilient and recover from the hurricane. It's my pleasure. Thank you so much, Linda. And I think Barry will probably run to the bank with her right now. Yep. Yep. If we could have our colleagues come up here and we'll get a picture with Linda. Next, I would invite Tara McLaughlin, chapter leader of Team Red, White, and Blue, to please join me at the podium. She will be accepting the Veterans Day Proclamation. For generations, millions of Americans have answered the sacred call to serve, taking the sacred oath to defend and preserve our nation's ideals of liberty and democracy. These patriots represent the best of us. On Veterans Day, we honor their service, we honor their dedication, their valor, and are forever grateful for their sacrifice. The Tampa-St. Petersburg chapter of Team Red, White, and Blue is a community organization that uses technology to connect veterans with veterans, bringing them together to take on wellness activities such as ruck marches, fitness challenges, and outdoor activities, providing both wellness and connection. With over 3,000 veterans and supporting resident members, the Tampa-St. Petersburg Team Red, White, and Blue chapter has conducted over 200 member and group-led events in this past year. They have greatly contributed to giving veterans a connection to each other and their cultural while also promoting physical and mental wellness. Now, therefore, be it proclaimed by the Pinellas County Board of County Commissioners that November 11th, 2025 be recognized as Veterans Day. Thank you, Chair. Wow, how exciting for me. As the Chair said, my name is Taryn McLaughlin. I am the lead volunteer. I'm considered the chapter captain for Team Red, White, and Blue. Military acronyms, we go by RWB, Team RWB. We are a national organization, even international in some military facilities overseas, but predominantly our mission is to enrich the veterans' lives in the communities that they live in. Our vision is to be a leading, if not the leading health and wellness organization for veterans, and we do that by engaging the veteran in the community that they live in. In our case, Pinellas County and some of our sister counties nearby. I like to lovingly refer to it as Tampa Bay, not just Tampa slash St. Pete, but we do social engagements, we do physical activity engagements, and we also do service volunteering engagements. In Pinellas County alone, you heard that we had over 200 events, but some of those are ruck runs and walks at Crescent Lake Park, at North Shore Park, at the St. Pete Pier, down the Pinellas County Trail. We've had socials at Pasa Grill, Fort DeSoto, Madera Beach. We've also done a lot of work at Bay Pines Veterans Hospital and the National Military Cemetery there, and one of the things that we want to remind veterans is that their best days are still ahead of them. We'd like to welcome anybody here in the audience, as well as watching live or in the playback, to join us. It is completely free to join. We are inclusive. Yes, we are for the veterans, but we also allow military active duty or reservist guardsmen, the civilian dependent family members, as well as true civilians who just support the military member and the military community. If you happen to be a veteran or active duty reservist guardsman, you will get a free red shirt, what we call the second uniform we wear after we leave service, whether retirement or transitioning out. We do have a member who's wearing that red shirt. It's an athletic performance shirt, sweat wicking, and all that stuff for all the activities that we get involved in. It is our gift to that service member for their service, and if not, you can purchase it and support us. So with that, thank you. Okay, before we move on to public comment here, just wanted to mention that Commissioner Latvala will not be joining us today, but please keep him in your thoughts and prayers as he continues to recover from some medical issues. So we hope that he will be joining us in the very, very near future. Okay, now we're going to move on to citizens to be heard. So we have a number of public comments today. We have a number on the Ridgemore bridge replacement, and then we have Brian Hunter with DOT here to answer any questions that may come up. We've got the first four speakers, we'll have three minutes. My understanding is they have a letter they want to kind of read through, and then after that, we're going to go to two minutes just because of the sheer volume that we have. All right, so the first one is Randy Burr. Randy, come on up. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, Administrator Burton, Commissioner Scherer, Scott, Nowicki, Eggers, Peters, and Flowers. My name is Randy Burr. I come before you today not as an elected fire commissioner with Eastlake Tarpon Special Fire Control District, but as a resident of Ridgemore, along with the many residents of our Ridgemore and Tarpon Woods communities. I'm one of thousands of homeowners that are opposed to certain aspects of the current Florida Department of Transportation and Pinellas County Public Works plan to replace the Brooker Creek Bridge along Ridgemore Boulevard in Palm Harbor. We believe the current replacement plan for that bridge fails to sufficiently mitigate public safety and potential life-threatening circumstances. Although we have raised these concerns over the past two years on many occasions, it does not appear any measures have been taken to mitigate the public safety risk we fear. We previously voiced our concerns at two public meetings held by representatives of Pinellas County and Florida Department of Transportation. Thanks to Commissioner Eggers, we met with county representatives at his office, and we submitted detailed papers about our concerns, like the paper entitled, No Way Out, Nowhere to Go, that we shared with each county commissioner in advance of today's meeting. I've brought another copy of the paper today to have it become part of the official record of today's commissioner's meeting. We would like your help to enhance scrutiny of the current plan for the replacement of this small 170-foot two-lane bridge. We believe the current plan will not only create an unmanageable bottleneck of traffic for two years, but it will also create potential risks and endanger our families. The current plan calls for a contractor to demolish one of the two current lanes of the bridge, use the one remaining lane to allow traffic to flow in both directions, and to have the only other road servicing our communities be Tarpon Woods Boulevard. The project was last said by FDOT and Public Works to commence during the hurricane season of 2026, so it will be under construction for two hurricane seasons. It is not out of the question that demolishing one lane of the existing bridge could undermine the stability of the entire structure and could lead to a full closure of the Ridgemore Boulevard. That would create catastrophic risk for us. Thank you. Thank you, Randy. Next, we have Pam Maron followed by Christine Giroux, I believe. I apologize if I didn't get that correct. Here a lot. Okay. Hello. My name is Pam Maron, and I live in Salem Village in Ridgemore. The Public Works Manager for this project advised that the bridge replacement plan could be impacted or changed depending on how things develop as the contractor cuts the bridge in half. The FDOT Project Manager for this project confirmed that such an event could occur, but despite that, they have no expectation of getting a guarantee from the contractor that the bridge will remain open during construction. We are providing the clerk a copy of email communications with FDOT Project Manager Mark Dunn and one of our residents on this issue and have brought copies of these emails for each commissioner. You will see highlighted in yellow that Mr. Dunn noted there is no such written guarantee provided by the contractor. No one can predict with complete certainty whether partial demolition of the bridge will require a total shutdown of the proposed single lane during construction. If the partial bridge demolition causes Ridgemore Boulevard to be closed, the only other route in and out of the surrounding area for approximately 3,000 residents in both Ridgemore and Tarpon Woods is Tarpon Woods Boulevard, a two-lane road that always floods during heavy rains. Please go to the website SaveTarponWoods.com. At that site, you will find a link to drone footage that documents the heavy flooding throughout Tarpon Woods during and after Hurricane Milton. Traffic could not move along Tarpon Woods Boulevard for several days. If the remaining half of the bridge were to become unable to handle traffic and we were faced with another hurricane or even a strong tropical storm, thousands of residents would potentially be stranded with no access available by emergency trans responders or sheriff's office personnel for an extended period of time. Even without a hurricane, East Lake Fire Chief Jason Gennaro noted that the total closure of the bridge would add an additional seven minutes of response times to Ridgemore communities creating life-threatening delays. Chief Gennaro stated that an extended closure of Ridgemore Boulevard would require establishing a satellite fire station within our communities east of the bridge to ensure safety. The cost of personnel, equipment, and facilities for that satellite station would be excessive. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Okay, we have Christine and then Gary Reed. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. I'm Christine Garralat. I'm a resident of Windermere in Ridgemore. The current bridge needs replacement because during heavy rains, the flow of water within Brooker Creek continues to wash away dirt from around the concrete supports. Even if the proposed partial demolition of the existing bridge is initially successful, the remaining lane will handle twice the volume of traffic it currently handles. In any significant weather events, chances of an undemolished lane becoming unstable during the project is possible. In addition, we have serious concerns about the traffic flow along the proposed single lane. The current plan calls for a temporary light and gate on both ends of the single lane of traffic. When asked, Public Works and FDOT said these temporary lights will be gasoline-powered, unmanned, and unmonitored. There is no guarantee that the one lane of traffic managed by two gas-operated gates will always function properly without breakdowns, vandalism, or other malfunctions, and that the single temporary lane will not be obstructed because of significantly congested traffic volume. We request that during the first 30 days of the project, county personnel be on site for the express purpose of monitoring the temporary lights and gates, especially during the morning and evening rush hour traffic, to ensure that they're functioning properly and efficiently and are being obeyed and not causing significant backup. Cameras should also be stationed on both sides of the bridge to enable the remote monitoring of the traffic flow, and there should be a method of determining when personnel need to be on site to correct problems with either the lights or the gates. The current plan for the replacement of this bridge does not consider any accelerated bridge construction techniques, nor does it extend work days and weekends to shorten the proposed two-year period of construction. Accelerated bridge construction uses innovative planning, design, pre-pravicated materials in a safe and cost-effective manner to reduce the onsite construction time that occurs when building new bridges or replacing existing bridges. Why hasn't the replacement of this tiny 170-foot bridge been evaluated using the available technology? For comparisons, the world's tallest bridge, a suspension bridge in the people's public group of China, just opened this year. It is 2,050 feet above a river, 4,600 feet in length, has parallel parking spaces along both sides, and an express elevator that takes tourists to an observation deck with a retail coffee shop, and offers bungee jumping from a glass walkway 1,900 feet above the ground. That bridge was completed in three and a half years. Thank you. Thank you. Gary Reed, and then we'll be followed by Edward Gerolat. Gary Reed, Precinct 637, committee man, and also a resident of Ridgemore. In response to our efforts to get PW and FDOT to delay this bridge replacement project and consider all concerns, senior PW and FDOT personnel stated that delays could jeopardize their access to $3.7 million in federal funds available for this project. Our question is, can county and state officials work with federal agencies to secure a a clearly defined extension of time during which these funds can remain available for this project? With that guarantee in place, safer and more reasonable construction alternatives can be evaluated. We are grateful that Commissioner Eggers has made himself available to us, heard us on these issues, and expressed an interest to do what he can to address our concerns. But the current bridge plan that does not address our concerns will commence in less than a year. We came before the board today because we think these issues create risk not only for our communities, but the county in general. In terms of future project funding and overall community safety, respect your service to the residents of the county and hope you will facilitate some innovative changes to this bridge replacement plan to mitigate our risks. We are submitting a transcript of our statement to the clerk along with 110 signed endorsements of that statement received from many of our neighbors. I ask that the transcripts and signed endorsements be made a part of the record. I am also submitting eight additional copies of the transcript of our statement, one for each of the commissioners and one for Minister Burton. I want to very thankful thank you for your time and your consideration in this matter. Godspeed, Commissioner Latvala. Thank you. Okay, now we are on to Edward Garalot, followed by Gail Dull. And at this point, we'll be going to two minutes. Good afternoon, sir. Good afternoon. My name is Edward Garalot. I live in the Ridgemore subdivision. I'm a retired professional civil engineer, previously licensed in five states. I have had lead roles on multi-billion dollar municipal projects in my 45 years as a consulting engineer. According to the FDOT Open Data Hub, the annual average daily traffic flow over the bridge was 7,900 in 2024. Traffic includes school buses full of children, fire trucks, dump trucks, garbage trucks, and other heavy equipment, as well as commuters. As my fellow residents have expressed safety, mainly timely access by first responders is our greatest concern. Significant time delays would likely occur for the first responders to pass over the single lane bridge controlled by unmanned automated signals with the possibility of facing oncoming traffic during rush hours. Daily commuters will face significant time delays during construction. We understand that a pedestrian walkway will be provided during construction, but when the north lane is removed, use of the walkway on the south side will require crossing Ridgemore Boulevard twice since no sidewalk is on the south side. The current FDOT design does not require construction contractor guarantees that the bridge safely support the anticipated traffic volume throughout construction. I've worked on many infrastructure projects in my 45-year career, and maintaining existing operations was a primary responsibility of the construction contractor with large penalties for non-compliance. Any one of us could be injured or worse if the one-lane bridge failed while using the bridge. I urge the commissioners to include large penalties in the construction contract if one lane of the bridge is not maintained at all times. I have copies of my transcript for the commissioners. Thank you. Thank you. Now we have Gail, followed by Sheila Jackson. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Commissioners, my name is Gail Dahl, and my husband and I live in Ridgemore. It was four years ago today that my husband had a massive heart attack and died on my living room floor. We were living in Dunedin at the time. I called 911, and it took eight minutes for EMS to arrive. Eight minutes. We did CPR, and through the grace of God, we kept him alive. His doctor even said he had a less than 10 percent chance of survival, but thanks to the quick response of EMS, he survived. My concern is that if the bridge is forced to close, the additional seven minutes it would take for EMS to arrive could mean the difference between life and death. Seven minutes is more than three times the amount of time I'm allowed to speak today. We're concerned that if the bridge is forced to close, lives and homes could be lost due to this additional travel time. Why will it take two years? Two hurricane seasons that all of Ridgemore, all 3,000 people could be cut off from services and emergency services. If you have doubts to how high it can flood, drive along Tarpon Woods Boulevard and see how high Duke Energy moved the power boxes to get them above the flood waters, and it'll make you think. Even a tropical storm could flood Tarpon Woods Boulevard. No one is saying that the bridge doesn't need to be replaced. We are all in agreement it does, but we have serious concerns about how it's being done and how long it's expected to take, and that if we experience delays due to hurricanes or other unforeseen circumstances, that it would be a much longer time that we have a lack of service due to the additional travel time. The safety of the residents of Ridgemore must be of the utmost importance. Thank you. Thank you, Gail. Next, we have Sheila Jackson, followed by David Triller. Hi, my name is Sheila Jackson. I live on Tarpon Woods Boulevard, and I'm here to express my concern about Tarpon Woods Boulevard being used as the only road potentially in and out of Ridgemore communities. Traffic on Tarpon Woods is already a daily challenge, and any additional volume will make the situation significantly worse. Pool trucks and landscaping trucks with large trailers routinely block one or both sides of Tarpon Woods. School buses, elementary, middle, and high school operate twice daily, morning and afternoon. Garbage and recycling trucks, delivery vehicles, mail, Amazon, FedEx, UPS. Those stops are very brief, but overall there's congestion. Larger vehicles such as moving bands, furniture, and appliance deliveries further disrupt the traffic. If the proposed Tarpon Woods golf course redevelopment is approved, it's expected to bring hundreds of dump trucks entering and exiting Tarpon Woods Boulevard. The newly permitted car wash at Tarpon Woods in Eastlake is projected to add 600 to 700 additional vehicles per week, further burdening an already congested street. Given the narrow design of Tarpon Woods Boulevard and its existing congestion, it does not appear that the overall traffic input has been fully considered. I respectfully request the county conduct a comprehensive traffic review and consider a long-term access and traffic management solution for Ridgemore and neighboring communities before any additional permits or construction approvals move forward. Thank you for your attention to this matter and your continued service to our community. Thank you, Sheila. David Traylor, followed by Susan Bachman. Good afternoon. I'm going to be much briefer because I don't have a whole lot of adding to this. I live in Ridgemore as well, Glen Ridge subdivision. I've spoken with a number of my neighbors in the Glen Ridge subdivision of Ridgemore. Almost all of them are very concerned about the time that it will take to get from Eastlake Road to and from Eastlake Road. They're especially worried about the possibility of the bridge being totally shut down. One man told me, this may be an exaggeration, but he said that it took him 45 minutes to get from Eastlake Road to Ridgemore Boulevard when he got behind a special needs school bus. The two-year time frame is our biggest concern. I know very little about bridge construction, but I googled prefabricated bridges and from what I read, going that route would probably speed up the project by many months. I hope you all help us find a better path to resolve these issues. Thank you for your time. Thank you, David. Susan Bachman, followed by Thomas Sowell. Thomas Sowell, followed by Rosina Bart-Hanning. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. My name is Thomas Sowell. I live in Hawks Landing. My professional background is I'm a structural engineer. I have owned a commercial design build construction company for 40 years. One of my concerns is who's going to certify the bridge to be safe after it's been cut in half. Is that the contractor or the highway department? If it's the contractor, I would say that his easiest way out is to say it's not safe, we can't do it, and it can't be used, and that would make it easier for him just to tear down the whole bridge and start over. Another suggestion that I've got is we do a lot of precast parking garages, and a multi-story precast parking garage can be built nine months, so I think that a precast bridge would certainly shorten a time frame to way less than a year, in my opinion. The other thing is that in downtown Manhattan, there was a 50-story building that had partially sunk on one side and was out of out of plumb by several feet, and they used hydraulic systems to re-erect the multi- to 50-story condo building, and I have I have a gut feeling or a professional opinion that the bridge could be saved if we would remediate the foundations. So those are my comments. Thank you. Thank you, Thomas. Rosina, followed by Mary Strickland. Good afternoon, Commissioners. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. We all recognize the importance of replacing the bridge. That is not in dispute, but the current plan for this project raises serious concerns that if left unaddressed could cause long-term harm to our neighborhood's safety, economy, and quality of life. My name is Rosina Mardani, and I'm here on behalf of Ridgemore residents and also as a small business owner in the community. This bridge is only one of the two ways in and out of our neighborhood. According to USPS, there are over 5,000 homes in one mile radius and 8,000 in two miles. Any disruption here doesn't just inconvenience, it also cuts off vital access for thousands including school buses, emergency vehicles, and daily commuters. I also want to highlight the impact on small businesses. My family runs a convenience store at the intersection of Ridgemore and East Lake Road. We rely heavily on our local customers. We don't have multiple locations nor a corporate resource to fall back on. We are already stretched thin with higher wages and increased food costs. With traffic diverted, or worse, with a total cutoff for two years or more, our customer base will drop significantly, and we may not survive it. Please note that there are other family-run small businesses in the two neighboring plazas, and I'm sure that they share the same sentiment. We are also deeply concerned about school safety. Young families will face hardship due to constant backups. These could cause missed buses and increased risk for our children every day for months. Finally, there's the issue of property values. Zillow shows that Pinellas County property values are already down almost nine percent this year. Thank you, Rosina. Your time is up. Okay, so now we go to Mary. That'll be followed by Kathleen Wilson. I'm Mary Strickland, and I also live in Ridgemore in the Brookville area. I'd like to request sincerely that the project for repairing the bridge on Ridgemore Boulevard be reconsidered to better meet the needs of the hundreds of families in the community, myself included. According to surveys, there are between 800 and 1,200 adults living in developments served by Ridgemore Boulevard, which is a roadway that extends more than three miles from the farthest extent to the road at Eastlake, without access except Tarpon Boulevard. You've already heard what driving down Tarpon Boulevard is like at the present. You can imagine what it would be like when those 800 to 1,200 adults are trying to get back and forth during rush hours. Moreover, there's no guarantee that cutting the bridge in half will be successful, as others have described it, leaving only Tarpon Woods as an access. It's been considered that a northern route could be created, extending the northern edge of Ridgemore to Keystone Road. This is a sensible idea for many reasons, benefiting the community as a whole and making it more accessible, but that would not affect it. Thank you, Mary. Thank you. Okay, next we have Kathleen Wilson, followed by Donna Lopez, who has a speaking on behalf of a group. Hi, I'm Kathleen Wilson, and I live in the Gateway Mobile Home Park. I moved there about six years ago, and we were a lot in our community were deemed substantially damaged. When I bought my home, it was originally a 1961 mobile home, and at some point it had an addition put on it, so I have a total of 1,000 square feet. I'm not sure when permitting started in the county, but I have no record of when the addition is, any of the costs, any of that improvements to it, but I was asked to get an appraisal, and I got an appraisal for the cash value, not the actual value if someone were to buy it. My idea is, before the hurricane, my place would have been worth like 100,000. My cash value was set through what the county asked for my approved appraiser. They gave a cash value of 55,000. It came back saying that unless I had records of all the building supplies, materials of this other addition put on, I could not count it as my cost in my cash value of my home. Also, in waiting for an appraisal, the county closed my account before the deadline of the 31st. But anyway, my assessed value now estimated, when they had my appraiser do it three different times, is now $17,500. I only submitted a receipt for $1,200 of flooring because I wanted all of my flooring to match. And the county has just not made this easy. I have had an open file, a closed file, an open file. They've had my appraiser come back three different times. I don't even know if that's legal. And then, here I am 10 days before the appeal deadline. I have nothing in writing from the county. I have no substantial damage costs. Thank you, Kathleen. We'll have somebody with building development and review services. I'm sorry, what? Okay. Okay. We have staff from building development and review services that will meet you out in the lobby here to help you with that. Thank you. Okay. Donna? Darnay. Darnay. Okay. Sorry about that. Okay. So you have members of, will all members of the group raise your hand, please? We have John Kendall, Thomas Frome, Brittany Moody, Robert Patrick. Are you all here? They're in the lobby. Okay. Do you need to come in? Okay. Got it. All right. Well, then they get 10 minutes, Dave. Okay. Just give. Okay. Whenever you're ready. All right. Thanks. We probably won't need the full 10 minutes. But, you know, good afternoon. Thank you for allowing us to speak. My name is Darnay Lopez. I am one of the regional managers for Gateway Mobile Home Park, 10100 Gandy Boulevard. I'm here in support of our Gateway residents with the homes that the county has deemed to be substantially damaged. These are long-term county residents and voters. You know, you'll see many of them in the lobby. They are seniors. We're 55 and over community. So they're seniors. They're moms. They're dads. They're grandparents. They're veterans. And they need your help. Many Gateway residents are here to share their personal story. With 119 resident-owned homes in Gateway still deemed substantially damaged, their stories are representative of many more Gateway residents that aren't able to be here with us today. We have many people that are traveling. We have a couple of snowbirds. Some people are just ill and not able to make it. But you'll hear a variety of stories from people kind of through different experiences. Common to all of the stories that you'll hear today is that it was over five months after the hurricanes that they were notified that the county had deemed their home substantially damaged. Many receiving the notice suffered no water intrusion or damage. Many with damage had by then already completed the repairs that were needed. And they did so with FEMA funds, some of them. These residents have already recovered. Their homes are perfectly viable. And many, they're in better condition than they were before the storm. Most importantly, they did not incur the home repair cost of 49% or more of their home's pre-hurricane market value. The real challenge for our residents hasn't been the hurricane damage recovery. It's been trying to navigate and deal with the process of the county and its interpretation and implementation of FEMA guidelines. The county's strictly dictated evaluation process that differs from that used by an independent appraiser. And that process values their home more like a used car and not the affordable housing that it truly is. As a result, the county is grossly undervaluing their home. Additionally, the county is largely disregarding the actual repair costs necessary and incurred and instead substituting a seemingly arbitrary hypothetical laundry list of expensive repairs that were in fact never needed or performed. The result of the understated value and overstated repair expense is an erroneous ratio in excess of the 49%. The residents have really jumped through hoops. They've done everything that the county has asked. They've been to the county multiple times. We've had experiences where, you know, a gentleman has come down to the county for his fifth time and just came to the office basically in tears, like almost on the verge of a nervous breakdown because he had provided everything that was required, everything that was asked. They've gotten their, you know, they've hired appraisals, which is not cheap. You know, that these residents are on fixed income. It is affordable housing. They're doing everything that they can to try to get through this process. So they've hired the appraisals, they've submitted their receipts, they follow the process, and the evidence is being overlooked. They're being ignored. They feel like they have to basically prove themselves as innocent and their homes structurally sound when in fact, like, it should really be the opposite. Like, if they need help or their homes are damaged, then they should be coming to the county. They shouldn't have to prove that their houses are viable and able to be lived in and that they didn't receive, like, they didn't get all of this water intrusion that they supposedly got. Like, if people came to their homes and looked around, they would see that many of them have the original cabinetry, the original flooring, and it's okay. Like, they're, you know, they're not castles, but that's their home. That's their investment. This is what they've spent their retirement money on to live the rest of their lives out safely in the home. So, what we're asking is that the commission take action on behalf of these residents by hopefully reexamining the county's process, that perhaps the county attorney can review the FEMA guidelines, as well as researching the interpretation and approach that other Florida counties have implemented. Maybe a less draconian process. Counties that have allowed their resins to remain in their homes and protected their investments. Gateway resins need and deserve a fair home methodology that's consistent. There's so many inconsistencies throughout all the resins that hopefully you'll have the opportunity to hear today. They need the home repair cost to be fair and accurate based on only the actual damage and the necessary repairs. We had a meeting yesterday and that was very much appreciated. It was brought to the attention, you know, to one of the commissioners that our resins are being charged a disposal fee for something that hopefully the county's getting FEMA funds back from. But these resins, the disposal fee is, I guess, based on the square footage. We can't really identify that because they're all over the board. But, you know, they're being charged for fees that, you know, the county's saying that it costs to remove the debris. When oftentimes if somebody did have a contractor that had to replace an AC, the debris would be taken with the contractor. So those fees are minimal. They're just hundreds of dollars. This is just a minute example of something that you'll hear from our other residents. But those fees are not necessary. Somebody was charged $170 to clean a bathtub. $170. I'm in the wrong profession. So with that, you know, they need the repair cost to be fair and accurate. They need additional time for the redetermination status of their home. And hopefully we can find a way to work together to keep their resins in the home that they've invested in. We do thank you, you know, on behalf of the Gateway Residents and the Gateway Management for the time and consideration. Thank you, Darnay. Thank you. Next, we have Misty Nicely, followed by C. Lynn Harbor. Good afternoon. My name is Mistika Nicely. I live in Gateway Mobile Home Park, 10290 First Lane North. I bought my home after the hurricanes. However, it was also five months before the substantial letters came out. I had been looking for a home in the area because I had just placed my mother in there and I wanted to be close to her. There is my home has been determined as substantially damaged. But I'm wondering how that happened because no one has actually came in and inspected any part of my home. They may have driven by and looked at it. However, they have not come into my home to look. My home has absolutely no water damage. Zero. Okay. My vapor barrier is still intact. Okay. That's below my mobile home. Okay. If there was water anywhere, then it would have been there. Okay. Yet, I am being told that my home is substantially damaged due to flooding. And that is simply not the case. I have pictures to prove that. The previous owner completely and unnecessarily demoed my entire home. Okay. It is my understanding that she wanted to move to Texas. And so she thought that she would be able to gain a large amount of money in order to be able to relocate. To go as far as to tell you how unnecessary it was, she removed the upper cabinets in the kitchen. Okay. That water would have to have been eight foot in order to gotten to that area. There are places in my home where they forgot to remove the drywall. And you know, I have pictures where there is no water damage whatsoever. There is paneling in a closet. Thank you, Misty. See Lynn Harbor, followed by Jamie Devine. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Thank you for your attention. Yes, I'm Lynn Harbor from the Gateway Mobile Home Park. I'm a almost eight year resident. I was one of the homes that should never have received a substantially damaged letter. And that is because it was a manufactured home raised up approximately four feet to 2006 building codes, because it was new then in the park. And I had already determined before I purchased it that the land, the property in my front yard was, according to probably a county map, four and a half feet above sea level. So the water would have had to have been eight and a half feet high to come into my house. I was, as I say, originally designated substantially damaged. And there were others like me, I would say approximately six or seven people that I know of from our park that stood in line. And we did appreciate Kevin McAndrews coming out to meet with our people earlier. However, we were told in that meeting that the park had been, our homes had been inspected twice. Anybody literally driving by my home would have seen that it could not have flooded, would have never had to come inside. So wasted time, I'm sorry, wasted effort on homes that should have never been designated that way. I don't have much time here. So I would like to refer back to something that I happened to find online when I was doing my research prior to this meeting. I understand that back in 2010, the Pinellas County website was given a SUNY award for its proactive disclosure of government data. I would like to challenge the current board to do the same. Thank you, Lynn. Thank you, Lynn. You're welcome. Barry, my memory may be a little shaky. But I know when we had the discussion regarding persons who received letters or notices regarding the damage that they were provided with and or we had a process by which they could appeal the substantial damage letter, correct? Yes. But I know with mobile homes, sometimes it's a little tricky when you look at ownership. Well, we've had a process laid out that complies with FEMA guidelines. We have followed that. We've visited other counties and how they process these. By its very nature, it is a bureaucratic, difficult process to navigate because you do, in essence, have to have the documentation required. But we're following the guidance that's provided to us. And we're continuing to work with the residents. I know Kevin's going to be back out, I think, with Commissioner Eggers on Friday. So we'll continue. And you've heard Kevin speak. He's been at many mobile home parks and at others. We're going to have to continue to work with the residents. But we're not putting in things that give this board the discretion just to arbitrarily take on a different process. We're following the process that is required by the federal government. And the substantial damage reports, when we talked before about who was going by and, you know, providing that information based on perhaps what they saw on the outside, which was the water line mark, that wasn't us. That was FEMA? That was us. But there's a process we have to do to do your initial determination. They're looking at flood elevation heights. They know where it flooded. They know what elevation it was. And they know the floorboard of your property. And that's how you have to do your initial determination. We actually set up, we went out of our way to set up an appeal process that's not required. It could have been we make a determination and then they go to court if they want to overturn that. We actually set up a very involved working with Mike Twitty and with Ken Burke, you know, using appeal bodies to where people could have their day in court. So we've tried to set up a process that gives people the ability. And we and we also try to work with residents to be able to where they can get the documentation. But it's like anything with federal government, you have to document it. And and that's what would they that is what they will use to audit us that will determine whether we keep our status and our flood insurance discounts. And I and I do realize that we could not change any of our methodologies. We had to stick with what we had in writing so that we would not get in trouble like some of our southern partners. But I just wanted to I'm not discounting anyone that's here today. But I thought my memory served me well in that there was an appeals process and not a we just got this letter and we we couldn't do anything else about it. And I you know, again, I can have Kevin speak. I think we should do public. I mean, it's up to the chair. Obviously, we can get public comment. I just want it. And Kevin can explain that. But this whole the whole idea about how you get, you know, the market value in their appraisals and different types of things. Those are very technical things. He can certainly address that whenever you choose to have him come up and explain. I just wanted to because I thought that was our conversation, as well as the information we were trying to provide to the public, which was if you had that substantial damage letter, that there was an appeals process that you could go through, you know, because there was a concern. So I I just wanted to make sure I was on the right. I'm not saying I'm not discounting anyone that's coming here today. I just wanted to make sure that I thought I can tell you there are a lot of people who never got actual inspections of their premises. So they got they got general overviews from the outside, but didn't get anybody to come in and actually see their place. And that occurred, that's the most frustrating thing. And the irony of it, just a second, the irony of this is when they come back to inspect us in two years, they'll go inside. So we should have done that to begin with to allow folks and create the argument for them. I mean, you get 30,000 units that we had to inspect. There's a and there's a process to get through that. But but we use the same process of FEMA. And when they come back and inspect, they're going to do it based upon. And that's exactly what they're doing down south in Fort Myer area, where they took and say you had in a neighborhood, you had 200 homes that were a certain elevation and you pulled 100 permits. Where are the other 100 permits? And that's what they're using to make these things. And they're making sure that we enforce our floodplain ordinance. And so that's that audit process that they're doing. But again, you know, I understand the frustration. There is no question if you want to fix something, fix the federal bureaucracy on how this process works, because it's not easy at all. But we are following the process we have to use. So what I'd like to do is we'll have Jamie here speak, and then maybe we can have Kevin come up and just kind of walk us through what's happening. And then we'll continue on with the speakers. Yep. Yep. Jamie. My name is Jamie Devine. I live in Gateway Mobile Home Park. I did go through the appeals process, which was a joke. Sorry. The first thing the county wanted was an appraisal, which cost us $400. We went with one of the county appraisals that was approved by the county. They appraised our property at $120,700. The county refused to accept that property, made them reduce it down, treated it like a car, which it is not a car, it is a home. They dropped the appraisal down to $48,000. Then when we went to the magistrate, they added an additional 15% onto the costs for what they claimed was a regional cost multiplier on top of the already highly elevated costs that they already put on. Some of the things that they claimed that we spent money on was they said my water heater was damaged. I have a tankless water heater that is six feet off the ground. How did that get damaged? When we first moved into our home back in 2013, we remodeled our home. We put in plastic PVC baseboards. We put in waterproof flooring. All of those things they said we had to replace because they had water on them. And if per FEMA guidelines, if they had water on them, they had to be replaced no matter what. So we've already gone through the entire process and have been denied every step of the way. What we basically want is a fair value. We want our homes to be valued at a fair cost for a home, not a car. If you're going to treat it like a home, you need to just leave us alone and let us live in our car. Okay. Or treat it like a car, a house as it is and value it as a house. The appraisal that did the man that did our appraisal was so mad about the way the county was changing his appraisals. He doesn't even want to do these appraisals anymore. Okay. So he doesn't think that we are being treated fairly either. Thank you, Jamie. Thank you. Kevin, if you could maybe come up and give us a quick overview here of the situation and then see if we have any questions. No, Dave, just so you know, no houses got inspected either in the small cities or any, nobody went inside. So everybody had that same frustration. Afternoon, Kevin. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, Commissioners, Kevin McAndrew, Director of Building and Development Review Services. There's been a lot that's been spoken to here. I'm going to just go through some of the notes I took. Maybe I'm going to just start with the big picture, which is it's not whether proving a home is okay to live in as to whether or not it's substantially damaged or not. The overarching premise to substantial damage is protecting people and property and integral to that is breaking the repeat cycle. We understand that homeowners received money from FEMA. That money was not intended to be spent on repairs. We did the best we could. Looking back in hindsight, we could have done better. Do not make repairs to your property. You need to know whether you're substantially damaged or not before you do so. So there was unfortunately a lot of miscommunication where dollars were distributed early on. And homeowners, in fact, did make improvements. But those that are not substantially damaged, we're working with them now with after the fact permitting. We're today right now concurrent with this meeting. We're over at Seahorse Mobile Home Park, working with the residents there. But it's just important to to point out that whether a house is safe to live in does not mean whether it's substantially damaged or not. I want to just also clarify some of the nomenclature that's been used as far as appeals and the process. So it's a requirement of NFIP and FEMA regulations that to participate in that program. You must have an appeal process associated with substantial damage. That appeal process is the final step that we coordinated with the clerk of the court. And we have a special magistrate process that hears these cases. What we did proactively was after the initial determination letters were sent out, we knew that they were approximate, they were initial. So we put forth what we call the reassessment process. That's a detailed substantial damage assessment. That's what includes the detailed cost to repair, the breakdown of labor and materials. That's what has to include the just value of a structure. So in the case of our code, chapter 158, there are two options to establish that value. One is the property appraiser's FEMA letter. The second is an actual cash value appraisal by a certified appraiser in Florida. There's no other options as to establishing that value. The challenge, and this is very much understood with the case of the case of Gateway, with Grand Bay, parks that are corporate owned, where a homeowner does not own the land, own the dirt. They do not have the option of going to the appraiser and having a value already having been established. Their only option is to have an actual cash value, an ACV appraisal prepared. And you heard a number of references to that, the frustration to that early on. We knew mobile homes were going to be a significant challenge. The depreciation value associated with mobile homes is what largely drives down the value. Many of our mobile homes are 30, 40, 50, some are 60 years old. There's very little value left in those. The only way of potentially getting an increased value is potentially through the actual cash value appraisal process. But this is from the outset. Many of the appraisers had difficulty in meeting the standards. We put together a comprehensive checklist and package. We did training with the appraisers right up front to make every effort to facilitate these appraisals being performed so that they could move through the reassessment process. When it comes to inspections of the interior, no question was another lesson learned. The initial inspections, unless a homeowner was present, when these were done within the initial months following Helene and Milton, there were certain homeowners that allowed inspectors to come in and take photos. The vast majority relied on the watermark, the height of the finished floor in determining whether or not the unit or the structure of the home was inundated with water. The issue of performing an inspection five months later, almost every one of these mobile homes were repaired without any kind of permitting. They got money from FEMA, they made the repairs. To go back in those homes and look and look at new improved conditions serves no value as to what the actual damage was that occurred from the event. So we did in some cases have homeowners that had pre-storm photos and post-storm photos. That was the most valuable piece of evidence that we could get that could facilitate defining the scope of work that established the cost to repair. And in many of those cases, we were able to in fact work through the process, reverse the determination. But in many others, we did not have that degree of documentation. So when the homeowner came in, staff would work with that homeowner with the floor plate of their of their manufactured home. We'd get information on linear footage of base cabinry, manatees, flooring, other improvements. And it was through that laborious process that we were able to then ultimately determine the scope of work. And then the costing side, consistency was paramount from the beginning, applying the same costing data to ground-up homes, to mobile homes, not fluctuating that. So we applied that through every one of these reassessments. The county chose to use a national costing estimator that's been around for decades, RS means. I did hear, surprisingly, a reference to a multiplier. The St. Petersburg area actually has a reduced multiplier from the base cost that RS means use. It's approximately 0.85. So if you were doing work in New York, there would likely be a multiplier increase of say 1.25 on every material cost and labor cost. Here in St. Petersburg, it's reduced below the base costing in that manual to approximately 0.85. We've applied that across the board. We understand all the frustration about donated materials. I did the work myself. Why can't I do that? We're not able to apply any exceptions to compliance with what must be included. This is the minimum standards that we've been applying. We've been applying these consistently from the outset. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you so much for the work that you have done and the team because I know it's been a lot. So I just want to get some things clear in my mind. So for individuals who are a part of a mobile home community that is owned by a corporation, that would be different from where the residents together own the mobile home. Is that accurate? It would be different in the option that they would have in establishing the market value in that they'd have the benefit of a value having already been established by our property appraiser. So persons, if a group of individuals own their mobile home park, then they would potentially be able to have that land cost included with the cost of the mobile home? Yes or no? No, no. One of the the baseline distinctions with an actual cash value appraisal is that it is the structure itself. It does not account for where the property is located, the land itself, whether you have a pool in the backyard, whether you have a deck. Everything outside of that physical structure is not included in establishing that value of the structure. So even if it was a mobile home where you're only assessing the value of the mobile home, but perhaps renovations and or upgrades have been done on the structure, just the mobile home, not any ancillary, just a mobile home. And that was harmed as a result of the storm. With proof of that, proof of those renovations, upgrades, would that be included potentially in the cost for reestablishment by the inspector that will be coming in to assess the value of that unit? The answer is yes. And probably the the best example of that is you may recall the the property appraiser put forth what they call a building value reconsideration. And and Mike Twitty and his team did this early on in the process. And this enabled property owners to submit photos of their home that showed improvements. And in many cases, this BVR process resulted in a higher value for that for that structure. Unfortunately, that's only going to apply to the mobile homes that are either either either in a co-op or or or fee fee fee owned. But it did have utility where that worked. The the appraiser can take into account those improvements, though, just as you just as you inquired and and and put that in as part of the ultimate formula in establishing that that market value. So I know others probably won't ask questions, but here's the here's where I'm having heartburn. So we hired help to help us go out and do these appraisals. I mean, do the inspections. And then like I'm I'm going to take the young lady at her word that she hired someone from our list of approved persons to come out to the home to appraise the value of what was left, perhaps to go ahead and follow their claim. They came up with one number. I think she said one hundred and sixty thousand. Then we came back with a number that was maybe a third of that because I think she said down to forty three thousand. And then when she went to the magistrate, they came back with a number of seventeen thousand. Those are to me, those are huge differences. Even if you take the land out, those are huge differences. So my question is, when the inspector or the appraiser gets their report back into your department, who has the final say or who makes that change in the reduction? Do you have a team? Is it you're the final person or is it someone that you have appointed, you know, to be the final reviewer, I guess, of the outside appraiser's appraisal to come up with that number? With regard to the appraisals, we've had a team, an outside team of subject matter experts, cost estimating, certified appraisers, certified floodplain managers in place to support the processing of hundreds and hundreds of these reassessment applications. So for an appraisal ultimately to be accepted, the appraiser would work directly with our subject matter expert. Again, at one point in time in this process, we probably had a half a dozen certified appraisers today. We still have one certified appraiser that remains active on our team supporting this effort, you know, to its conclusion. But ultimately, I'm not going to say there's never any subjectivity, but the checklist and the methodology that runs with the preparation of an actual cash value appraisal is extremely explicit and specific. And the appraiser needs to work with our appraiser to get to that point where it can be accepted. And that can be provided to the resident, to the homeowner, the mobile homeowner that shows the discrepancy, what the appraiser did. Yeah, all of this is documented. Every review is documented in our permitting portal. And one of the things that is important to clarify is that when a homeowner goes through our reassessment, and if at that point in time, there's a final determination of substantial damage, that information in that form, it doesn't change. That file in its entirety, every bit of email correspondence, every bit of documentation that was furnished by the homeowner, that entire application application in that final form is ultimately forwarded, if they pursue an appeal, is forwarded to the clerk's office, where it is then assigned, it's presented to a special magistrate then that works with that file. The file is not fluid from the time a final determination makes and when an appeals occurs. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Kevin, again, to your department over the last year, I know that's been a lot of work and I'm growingly not liking FEMA at all. It seems to me we have issues with another government organization when we talk about other things and trying to penetrate old positions or whatever are difficult. This is difficult and makes no sense to people, to people that are living in their communities and in their, and it has nothing to do with us being consistent. Although the people that I met with yesterday, there was concern about consistency in the park because nobody goes inside to check anything. So people who have contractors that have done work have gone in down to take a look at, you know, get their permit in and somehow they're, they're getting certain costs taken out of it. They've seen the work and, and so their costing side is a little different in certain, some places than in other places. So they're, they're concerned about consistency. What I find really frustrating is that if you depreciate one of these units to zero and you sell that unit for $20,000, it still has zero value as it relates to this. And that doesn't make any sense. If you, if you put improvements into the place and you say we can add to the cash value, well, somebody saw value in that unit. And are you saying that we still have to use the $0 depreciated cost? And, and so that $1 that you spend on that place makes it substantially damaged? Or is there value to selling something for what it's worth? I'm not aware of any appraisal that was accepted that was depreciated to that extent. I am, I am aware, I am, I am, I am very much aware of, of mobile homes that are 50 years old, 55 years old. The final actual cash value, maybe $10,000. When you, when you're working with a value of $10,000 and now it's $4,900 of improvements, it takes very little scope of work to, to reach that threshold to where that unit is, is not substantially damaged. And this is the challenge that we've faced the entire way through this, this process. Almost every one of the, these issues that, that we're attending to at the appeals level. To date, there's been approximately 123 appeals cases scheduled or heard. Um, I think of that 123, there's less than five that are ground up construction. They're all mobile homes. And it's, you know, there's, there's a, it's, it's clear, um, as we had anticipated from the beginning, because of the constraints of, um, of, uh, establishing a value that it would take very little as far as any improvements to pierce that 49%. And the other, the other frustrating piece is, it's the numerator and denominator. We just talked about the value side, because I would argue that that that value of that unit would, if you sold it for 20 should be 20. Um, because somebody saw the, somebody saw the value, somebody saw the value in that, you know, so I, to me, and again, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm just saying the frustrating thing for folks is on the cost side too, that people go out of their way to do their repairs as cheaply as possible. And it doesn't matter because there's an assigned value to each of the steps that they do. And it almost, you know, I, I had people telling me about, you know, you know, conspiracy from FEMA and all that stuff. And I, you know, you start to see the, the approach just doesn't make sense. They're not taking, in some cases, FEMA dollars. They're making the improvements. They're doing them cheaply. And yet that doesn't matter on a value that, on a unit that's undervalued based on either cash value or market value. And so that you, you're caught between a rock and a hard place on definitions that make no sense. So again, I know we're, we're trying to implement what FEMA tells us to. There are times that I just want to say enough, you know, and I think most everybody here probably feel feels that way in their heart. So, um, this, this, this is going to be, uh, this is going to be a tough battle and it is one unit at a time. We can't, we can't look at, well, the whole park was this. And so everybody's substantially damaged. We have to, I mean, and it's a painful process. So anyway, um, I just went out one time the other day with six or seven folks and the frustration is just mounting to levels that, I mean, you could just feel, you could feel the heartache, um, over things that don't make logical sense. That's, that's the frustrating. It doesn't mean we're not doing our job staff. I'm saying it just doesn't make logical sense. And so sometimes trying to make that connection is going to be very difficult, but we're going to go try and we're going to, we're going to make sure that people are heard. Thank you, Kevin. Um, so, so Kevin, we had, I mean, we have some speakers here that, and we've got a lot more, um, said that some didn't even have water in their home or in their mobile home at all. How do we, how do we confirm that? How do we rectify that? I mean, if there's, if they're right, but yet they're getting a substantial damage letter. So that wasn't, that was an important point in this entire process where there was a louder and louder beat. I have no, I had no water in my home. Why did I get this letter? And in fact, it, it turned out that that, um, the spotlight on that issue occurred right before we did an outreach meeting at, uh, the gateway mobile home park in, in April. And, um, we actually, uh, heard that message and we went back and went through very detailed analysis to look at, make sure that every mobile home where it was marginal, where, because we have good data on finished floor elevations of homes and we have good data on the, uh, the flooding elevation, but we went back and we identified hundreds of mobile homes where that water inundation was right at the threshold of living space. And at that time we went back and we ran all of those homes through the FEMA estimator tool. And in the case of, um, in the case of gateway, we started with approximately 240 homes that received a substantial damage letter. And after going through that additional analysis, we reduced it by a hundred. What I had communicated at that meeting, um, was that for those that are saying they still had water in their home, we said that we would be more than willing to accept, um, an elevation certificate because an elevation certificate would tell us whether or not the finished floor was higher than the, than the flood elevations. And I also explained at that meeting that the cost of obtaining an elevation certificate would be significantly less than getting an actual cash value appraisal. So we put that option out there. I'm not aware that, um, that any of the homeowners chose to go down that alternative path, but it, it was a, it was a, um, like I said, it was an option that we presented and communicated from that point on at all the mobile homes. Is that still an option? Is it still an option? It's still an option to get an elevation certificate. Yes. Um, it, the, the reason, the reason that, that we would not go back and run the FEMA estimator tool is because they've already gone through a detailed substantial damage assessment in which all of their scope of their scope of work has now been, been specified. There's been an assigned material and, uh, material and labor associated with that, that established a cost. So it's not really going to, um, have utility, um, at this point in time. You know, is there, is there an exception out there? I don't want to, I don't want to shut the door on it, but generally speaking, we provided that option at that time and it just did not get great utilization. So if somebody says I had no water intrusion whatsoever and they provide a certificate of elevation that proves that, would that be accepted? So what we would do, we could go back into, we could go back, we could potentially, I have to, I have to, I have to, I have to qualify that, um, if this, if this is a case that's already gone through an appeal and there's been a final determination by the special magistrate, I, I'm going to look over here, but I don't believe, um, we have an option. There are, there still are many homeowners that have not yet gotten to the appeal where what's happened at the appeal process that they get continued. And in fact, we reopen the case with new evidence, but when something is through the appeals, it's final. Um, so the, the market value versus depreciated value. So there's, I mean, I can understand the frustration. If somebody is willing to pay $50,000 for a mobile home, but it's depreciated value is 10, there's a big delta there that just gets washed away, is my understanding. There is, I don't want to underestimate the land where it's located. You know, we, while our mobile homes, um, are in many cases located in the most vulnerable locations, they're also beautiful waterfront properties. Um, and in cases of those parks, um, where they're a co-op or part of a subdivision plat, like today at Seahorse, that underlying land has a very significant value to it. Um, Kevin, one of the questions that was asked, um, you know, because they just want to live in their place, you know, and, and continue living in their place. Is there an avenue to sign off on, um, not, you know, not ever stake making claims, um, again, for against, you know, to the government, FEMA or anybody else for reimbursement? Is there a way they can do that and, and avoid all of this mess, um, by, you know, future type stuff, you know, or is that just, or is that just, I mean, again, I'm not saying everybody is interested in that. I'm saying these were some folks that I talked to yesterday that said, we don't want a penny, just leave us alone kind of thing. Can we, is there a path for that or, or not? I'm not, I'm not prepared to be able to. I think the answer is that, uh, we have to apply our, um, FEMA, um, floodplain management plan that was in place at the time of the flood. Um, we're obligated to do that. And so any, and so regardless of what individuals would do, and I'm looking over to the county attorney's office, um, you can't make changes to that. And so they're going to apply it, um, based upon the rules that were applied at that time. And it is an ordinance that we have and that's county for all unincorporated areas. So again, I think it gets back to people's concern about what the ultimate goal is and it's not to, you know, reduce expenses for the, you know, for our, across the board. It really is because if people are willing to just take their place, make their improvements and not worry about future reimbursements. Yeah, I understand that wouldn't apply though. FEMA would still hold us accountable for enforcing our floodplain ordinance that was in place at the time of the flood. And that's how we would be held accountable for that. It has nothing to do with the individual property. Um, and you know, and I understand people's concerns. They go in and they fix it up and it's a lot less than, I mean, we even get arguments about the commercially available rate. Again, that is a FEMA guideline that we have to apply. Um, I'm, I'm not saying it's right, wrong. I'm saying that's the rules in place at the, at that time. And, and, and, and that's what we see occurring down in Fort Meyer where they're coming back two years after and, and then trying to hold them accountable, uh, for the way in which they implemented these rules at the time of the flood. And do we know what those penalties are? Well, they put, they put people on, um, uh, probation and threatened to pull their flood insurance. Um, and so in essence, if, if you, if you no longer have that, you, you and people, in essence, couldn't get a mortgage because they're required to have flood insurance for the mortgage. I think a lot of these folks didn't really care. Well, I understand that, but you're, you're talking about an entire county. No, I understand. I get it. I'm talking about mobile home parks. No, I understand, but I, I think the answer is I can't differentiate between mobile home parks and the rest of the county. It's not based upon individuals. It's based upon our countywide ordinance. Barry, if I, if I may, if I may, I, I, I also want to, I'm not looking to deflect from this, this conversation, but I, I, I want to emphasize that at every mobile home park now we're visiting and we've, we've, we're now on our third visit. Um, we're now accompanied by the horn team, um, with the resources associated with the people first program. And I'm, I don't want to set a false expectation that that will apply to everybody, but there will be many mobile homeowners that will, will get significant relief from this program. Um, and we're, we're making sure that we're going to continue to, to promote that program. And, you know, one of the things we did at the outset was we extended the ability for somebody to stay in their home until June 1st of 2026. It originally was June 1st of 2025. We extended that for a year because we don't want to displace residents. You know, we, we were able to go in, do a safe home inspection where it was requested, um, home was safe to reside in, to give time to have to, to plan, you know, um, a future going forward. We need to see how the funding sources can assist as many residents as we can. We're going to continue to work with these residents, um, to, to see if there's an, an avenue forward for them. You know, we're not, we're not closing the door that this is it. You're out. Um, this is, this is about now making sure that they're aware of the application portal opened up yesterday and pursuing all avenues to, uh, to get assistance. And I, that again, I appreciate that effort. And it's just, um, um, we, we know that this is going to be a tough, a tough process. There are folks that still haven't done anything that I've been talking to because they don't know how to do it. They're there. It's, it's kind of beyond their technical skills, probably like equal to mine about getting online and taking, you know, doing the things that you need to do. So there's a lot of people who are in those frustrated boats that we need to do a lot of, of help, you know, and again, we're, we're ready to do that, but we need folks to, you know, to reach out. Um, and again, all of what we're talking about are people whose, uh, unit is their primary home, right? I mean, if they're, if it's not there for those, yeah, for those where it's their primary home and then they meet the income requirements, they're, they're likely going to be eligible for one of the, uh, the programs. One, one final clarification that did come up is that we have all through this recovery set dates on submissions. We're not holding anyone to those dates. We, we did that to manage this recovery as, as effective as we could, because if we never put a date on it, we, we just would go on indefinitely. So when there was a reference to October 31st for the appeals, we're not going to hold that date. If someone got substantial damage letter and never pursued a reassessment, we'll take that in. And we know there are a few of those. We had, we had a resident from gateway, got the letters, never done anything. We can, we can take them into the reassessment and, and help them go through the process. So again, we had those dates there to manage the program, but we're not, we're not going to, we're not going to shut our door on anybody. Commissioner, just so you know, we have a table set up out front with our CDBG DR staff. Um, and so anybody that, uh, is here, um, for that, um, I'd encourage them to visit the table or go to recover.pinellas.gov and they can sign up for the programs that's available under the disaster relief funding. Well, that, if, if, if there's any silver lining in this, that's it. That's it. So I would encourage, uh, anybody who's here in, in the audience to, to please, uh, reach out if you haven't already and, um, see if you can get some assistance from them. All right. Why don't we continue with public, with public comment? All right. Thanks, Kevin. Appreciate it. Okay. Um, now we're going to go Karen Anderson, uh, followed by Tracy Schofield. Okay. Okay. So we'll go with Tracy Schofield. Um, and then Bonnie Sisko. My name is Tracy Schofield Jevalikian. I live at 10547 First Way North, St. Petersburg, Florida and Gateway Mobile Home Park. In December of 2024, Tidal Basin was the company that Pinellas County hired to come in and assess our homes. They, they were contracted to come in after the storm, and representatives from Tidal Basin didn't speak to the homeowners. I, the day they were at my house measuring was in my home office. I went out and spoke to him. Can I ask you what you're doing? He says, I'm measuring the water line of your home. My home's a 2016 skyline premium. It's five feet off the ground. He was way up over my floor line. I said, would you like to see the, the storm damage where the flood water line was right after the water came in here? I have them time, time stamped and everything. He said, no, I don't need to see that. The next thing I receive in the mail in March, substantial damage. My home was substantial damaged and was flooded during the storm is what the county said. So I believe the assessments that were done were done in error. They marked things on people's homes like AC units, water heaters, split ACs that are up off the ground, saying they were all damaged, and then put on those high values for those items to be repaired without speaking to the homeowner. So that's where I have a problem. It's the assessment that was done even the second time that Kevin sent out the assessors again. It was not done speaking to the homeowners and asking what things worked in the home and what things were broken. So that's where the problem is. So now people have to. Thank you, Tracy. Thank you. Bonnie Sisko followed by all it says is Bob. Well, it's, we've got Bonnie Sisko first, then Bob. Oh, okay. Okay. All right. Thank you. Good afternoon, Bonnie. Hi. My name is Bonnie Sisko and I've lived in Gateway for 16 years. And I don't understand why you want to get rid of our parks and homes. Most of us seniors don't have any other place to go and no money to buy a new place because we put our retirement money into fixing up our places. I thought this was about flooding and I only had $1,200 in flooding in my house, but yet they have me deemed as substantially damaged. No water entered my house. The rest was all wind damage. My expenses were all from the wind. There was a microburst that came down our street, leveled two mobiles and took my lanai. I put all my money into fixing my place back out, yet you wanted to demolish it. And the $400 that we had to pay for appraisal, most of us didn't even have. Mine came back from the appraiser at $24,000, yet Pinellas changed it to $16,000. So why didn't you just let us keep our $400? And you just tell us what you wanted it to be. You only lowered it and raised my expenses so that it would be above 49%. You added an air conditioner to my expenses, which I didn't buy, and said I had my roof replaced when I only had two spots repaired. FEMA doesn't cover lanai or carport yet. You counted them as my expense. And you tacked on the garbage, which we didn't have. And that was an extra $700 for me. These are our homes. We're retired, and we expected to live here the rest of our lives. Thank you. Thank you. Matthew Shuler, followed by Larry Raptor. Yes, it's Matthew Sunlin. Okay. I live at 10571 Bay Street, and I am the president of the Homeowner Society there at Gateway. We have gone through hell with this reassessment and all this paperwork that just gets changed every time these poor people turn around. Many of them have nerve problems because of all this crap that they've been put through. I've never seen anything like this in my life. I drove for 18 hours. I was in Ohio yesterday to be at this meeting, and you have made more sense than anybody in this whole place because of what you see with what we're going through. I really like to thank you because of all your knowledge on this, you know, problems that these people are having. Some people have been hospitalized because of this. They just can't cope. Their nerves are shot from all this worrying about their homes, their retirement. They put all their money into this home. They've made repairs because we never got anything for five months. What are you going to do? Sit there in a pile? No, you're going to fix your damn home. So my wife told me not to say any four-letter words, and I'm trying not to, but it's just a bunch of BS. Thank you. Mary Herney. Tonight's Slotto jackpot is $230 million. I don't know if you remember that commercial. Go ahead, sir. You've got two minutes. I got approved. It took me nine months. This is the paperwork for my approval. It took me nine months going into Pinellas County. Now, with my appraisal, I went down there five different times because my original appraisal was low, so I called up Scott Seaman that day, and I said, look, you gave me a really low appraisal. And then he's like, look, I missed a couple of things. I'll send you a new one later. But I thought it was high enough to get me through. I only thought I had $4,000 in damage. When I was in Pinellas County, I mean, every time I go in there, I deal with a different person. They got interns that kept coming in and out, so it is hard on Pinellas County trying to get people approved with interns. So sure enough, they never used my new appraisal. I went to appeals court, and I won. I'm one of the few people who won. That's why I came in here today. And they're still using my old appraisal, which amazed me. But here's how I got approved. I took a video of everything that works in my house. I had no water in my house. And then I took a video of it when I went down to appeals court, and they used that video, and I did get approved. Okay, so that's how I got approved. That's why they wanted me to come in here. Either you got to take a video, or you got to get a licensed contractor to come in and show that nothing's broken in your house. And that's what Pinellas County has to go through in the buildings department, which is tough on Kevin. Okay, now, the other reason we're all here is, I mean, they showed off our drainage plant that night on 62nd Avenue at 1046 p.m. And the water came in. It's like Mayor Ken Welch shut off our drainage. We had no drainage. Somebody called me at 1030 and says, you're in trouble. And you have water coming. So I went outside. I heard the car alarms going off. And sure enough, the water came in, and it rose till 4 a.m. in the morning. Now, if you go up, it only went up to 112th Avenue. So that means no water came in from Tampa Bay behind us. It only came in through the Gandy, because we had no drainage that day. And they were told a whole year before to fix it. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Antoinette Cummings, followed by Wanda Thornton. Antoinette. Antoinette, I believe it is. And that's followed by Wanda Thornton. Good evening. Afternoon. Hi, my name is Antoinette Cummings, and I live at Gateway at 10817 First Way North. And I have been very upset ever since this occurred. I did not have any water in my mobile home. It was only underneath. If I thought that I needed the elevation certificate and that would have alleviated it, I probably would have done that. But I've been back and forth to the township several times, and I just don't understand how the appraiser also that came to my home said he was dictated by this, by the office to use lower numbers for some reason, instead of what he told me my mobile home was worth. Now, prior to the hurricanes, I put in 30, I would say at least over $30,000 in improvements since I acquired it 11 years ago. So I can't imagine that it would only be worth $24,000 when I have all new windows, a whole new bathroom, and upgraded other things. Not a lot, but enough that it's livable. But I had no water. I had just a couple leaks, a couple spots on one side of my carport where something leaked down, but nothing really on the floor. Because I used to have rugs and I have all new flooring. So I just don't understand how you could put all these people through this. And the gentleman that spoke earlier, yes, thank you for supporting what's going on. And then also somebody mentioned something about the FEMA. And they actually got a three-year, people who got FEMA money, they also purchased flood insurance for us. I don't know if anybody's aware of that. But I got a policy for three years that I paid from them. Thank you, Antoinette. Wanda Thornton, followed by George Estevez. Hello. My name is Wanda Thornton. I live at 1043 First Way North. I've been here in Gateway for 14 years. Just to start off, I think if FEMA would have went with what President Trump said and gave it to the state of Florida, we might be in a different situation today. Ma'am, ma'am, move over to this over here. Yes, thank you. The county commission's unprofessional engineering approach to determine substantially damage is or not is only a one-size-fits-all approach. That's requiring most residents to jump through the county commission hoops to prove otherwise. This can also be viewed as you are guilty until you prove otherwise. In the legal system, it is you are innocent until proving guilty. This has caused a lot of needless worry and frustrations for residents that are age 55 plus. They have put their life savings into their homes to be comfortable in their forever homes. To define unprofessional engineering approach, you send out a spreadsheet email that is unable to be printed without additional help in landscape mode. The category items consist of 42 line items, which are not numbered for simple conversation. And then again, out of the 42 line items, one is non-negotiable. Thank you, ma'am. You can do better than that. George Estevez, followed by Wallace B. DeVries. Okay. Then we'll move on to Wallace B. DeVries. Yes. That will be followed by Gregory Erie. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. And thank you all for hearing us all out. I actually live at Gateway. My situation is going to be a little bit unique and to other people that I've been a realtor, a broker in Florida since 1994. And looking at what, as far as the law goes, it's totally different for people that own mobile homes because it's personal property, not real property. Again, there's no protection for the people that actually buy those particular units. My circumstance happened in January of this year. I purchased a mobile home. And the problem that I have is I was not aware of anything as far as substantial damage goes. Okay. Nothing was ever explained to me in the MLS listing. It didn't say anything regarding substantial damage. When I looked the property over, I went through everything. I saw very little damage. I had to replace a mini split unit. And then ultimately, I had to replace the water heater. Those are the only two things. The former owner replaced the flooring, not the subflooring, but the flooring with a wood laminate. In doing so, everything else was done. The paint was the same. I've got $18,000 of repairs that the county's listing. I don't know where those repairs are. They've done things like electric and other things. All the outlets work. Only one outlet was ever replaced. Okay. So I've got nothing as far as replacement that anything else needs to be done. A couple of closet doors she took out, the former owner, and put up a curtain, which is, you know, basically people are doing that nowadays anyways. So I've got nothing as far as any repairs go. But in the sense of my protection is, had I known this, had the county acted like I've been told other counties did along the coast in a reasonable amount of time, it wouldn't have been March. It was January for me. I got screwed. Thank you. Thank you. Gregory Erie, followed by Heidi Anderson. Erie or Evie? I'm not sure. Okay. Heidi Anderson. Is Heidi here? Okay. And that'll be followed by Constan Aguero. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Thank you all for hearing us. I am fortunate in that I did not have, I was never deemed substantially damaged. My neighbors are in fear every day that they're not going to have somewhere to live every day because the letter, although yes, deadlines are being extended. They are. And apparently we're just supposed to know that'll happen. But we're getting letters that say you have to be out of here. You have to spend money that you don't have or be out of here by this date. Why would we not believe that from our government? Pinellas County has no problem accepting sales tax from the purchase price of our mobile homes. Pinellas County has no problem charging us a tax every year on our mobile homes. Pinellas County is absolutely treating us as different types of citizens in your county than people who have brick and mortar homes. Does that seem, it doesn't seem fair. I appreciate two of you asking really deep questions about this. At the beginning of this meeting, there was a prayer and I heard, do what is right, even when it is unpopular. The Bible consistently emphasizes a Christian's responsibility to care for aging and vulnerable people, including providing them with shelter. We've heard of hundreds of thousands of dollars that have been paid to outside companies to come back in and change the appraisals that we've already paid for. Hundreds of thousands of dollars to those companies. What if we made sure everybody in those mobile homes was housed with that money? What if we made sure we weren't worrying about having a bunch of elderly homeless people in 2026? We have spent every dime we have. Thank you. Constance Aguera, followed by Sheila Lopez. Mr. Chair, Constance Aguera, I have her appear via Zoom. Is she there? Yes. Constance Aguera, please raise your virtual hand. Zoom application. We'll go ahead and unmute you. You'll have two minutes to speak. Can you hear us? I can hear you now. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay. I would like to address the process and procedures regarding substantially damaged homes in Gateway Mobile Home Park. The data that was initially used to determine substantial damage was incorrect. This was brought to light in April when the FEMA model was rerun and approximately 100 homes in the Gateway community were automatically reversed. There are other homes that should have been reversed in that process. Homes that are elevated and had no water damage are claimed substantially damaged next door to homes that are much lower and are not substantially damaged. It does not make sense. Senior citizen homeowners have provided the paperwork necessary, paid hundreds of dollars for appraisals to no avail. The county evaluators have inflated repair costs using estimators designed for prick and mortar homes, declared damages that do not exist, modified certified appraisals to devalue homes and have claimed that repairs and improvements were made to homes that had actually been done years prior to the storm. In the United States, the law of the land is that you are innocent until proven guilty. Senior citizens of Pinellas County are being treated like criminals. The county makes these determinations without evidence and forces the homeowner to prove otherwise. Then the county manipulates the homeowner's evidence. In most cases, no one from the county has gone out to these homes to really look. The county is relying on inaccurate data and inaccurate estimators to make assumptions regarding these mobile homes. In addition, exorbitant miscellaneous costs have been added to drive up the repair costs. Homeowners have gone before the magistrate with all their prepared documentation only to find that their repair cost breakdown had been modified by the county after the appeal. They were given no notice of the changes, so were unable to gather and present information to their defense. Pinellas County was grossly remiss in notifying residents of Gateway Mobile Home of Substantial Damage Determinations. Homeowners were not notified for nearly six months. The information the county put out soon after the storm is notified. Thank you, Constance. Your time is up. Next, we have Sheila Lopez, followed by Yvonne Amor. Sheila Lopez, can you please go ahead and raise your virtual hand in a Zoom application? We'll go ahead and unmute you to speak. Ms. Lopez, can you hear us? Ms. Lopez, can you hear me? We go back to her. We'll move on to Yvonne. Yeah, let's move on to Yvonne. She's Zoom as well. Yvonne Amor, please raise your virtual hand in a Zoom application. We'll go ahead and unmute. Yvonne, can you hear me? Yvonne, you're unmuted. How about Georgina Donato? Is she in? Georgina Donato, if you're one of the call-in users, you can press star nine, then we can go ahead and unmute you. But Angel Sanchez? Can you hear me? We can hear you. Is this Georgina? Yes. Go ahead, please. You have two minutes. Okay. I live at 10660 First Street North, and I was one of the people that initially was called Substantially Damaged. And then when they came back out and did a reassessment and saw where the water line was, I actually have a small water line that was on my shed. And they could see by that that there was very, very little water that came up on the street. And nobody on the street had any more water than I did. But like lots of people on the street were given Substantially Damaged and the other half were not. And then they sent me a letter after they came in and they reassessed. They sent me a letter telling me that I was not Substantially Damaged. But half my other neighbors did not get that. And they were people that were in close proximity to me. So I know that that wasn't done. And I just don't understand how they could do that. And a lot of the people that are in this park need help. They need help processing papers. They need help with computer work, things of that nature, because they don't know what their rights are. And they don't, I mean, the whole thing, more help needs to be given to some of these people. I'm okay for right now. But I really, my heart goes out to the people that live around me, because I don't think that some of them were processed properly. And that's really all I have to say. Thank you. Thank you. Do we have either Yvonne or Sheila? Sheila Lopez, please raise your virtual hand in Zoom application. Hello, this is Yvonne. Can you hear me? Yes, go ahead. You have two minutes, please. Go ahead, Yvonne. Can you hear me? This is Yvonne. Yes. I live at 10742 First Way North, St. Pete and Gateway Mobile Home Park. And I went all the way through the special magistrate appeal and got rejected. My question is, if there are new programs that funds can be gathered or gotten, would I be considered eligible if I applied, even though the appeals is listed as rejected and gone through the final stage? Yes. The answer is yes. If you go to recover.pinellis.gov, you can find all of the information there. Even though I've gone through the final appeal step? Yes. Yes. Okay, great. The programs are designed specifically to help people that are in the situation you are in. Okay, great. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Sheila Lopez? Yes. Sheila Lopez, I see you have your virtual hand raised. Can you go ahead and unmute? I'm prompted. Sheila Lopez, can you hear me? It appears she's still having... There's technical difficulties because she's unmuted right now. Okay. Angel Sanchez, can you please raise your virtual hand in the Zoom application? We'll go ahead and unmute you. Angel Sanchez, can you hear me? Yes, I can hear you. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. You have two minutes, please. Go ahead. Yeah, I have nothing to add, really, to all this conversation. Everything has been said, and my situation is included in many of the previous testimonies. Thank you. Thank you, Angel. All right, one last try for Sheila, and then we'll move. Sheila Lopez, please raise your virtual hand in the Zoom application. We'll try to have you heard. Sheila, you look like you're unmuted. Go ahead and speak. Sheila, can you hear me? No. Sorry. All right. We'll move on to Robert Brown, followed by Richard Randolph. Good afternoon. My name's Robert Brown. I live in Gateway Mobile Home Park, ones that is deemed substantially damaged. I received the list from the county listing all of the damages to my home. There are 21 line items on the list, and only four of those line items was what happened to my home. The HVAC system is on the list. HVAC system is working fine. Worked right after the storm, nothing wrong with it. Working today. There's drywall listed. I don't have any drywall in my home. I don't need to replace two feet of something that I don't have in my home to begin with. Very little water got into my home. And all of these talks about base cabinets and kitchen cabinets and countertops. And no, none of that was damaged. My refrigerator still works. My stove still works. None of it was underwater. There was very little water that came into my home. And so subfloor, yes. Finished floor, yes. Vapor bearer, yes. And that's it. But so I don't understand why all of these things are listed as what I needed to replace or repair. I did not have to replace only four line items out of 21. Also, I sent pictures before and after with time and date stamps on them, showing my home before the storm and after the storm. So some of these people say that they were able to get off the list because of that. And I did that, but I'm still on the list. Thank you. Thank you. Richard Randolph, followed by David Pearson. Hello. Can you hear me? Yes. My name is Richard Randolph. My address of my home is 182 102nd Terrace North. It's in Gateway Mobile Home Park, St. Petersburg, Florida. And I'm here to bring to the attention of the county commissioners the problems that occurred during the process of determining substantial damage assessments post Hurricane Helene. I received my first letter of substantial damage from the Pinellas County Building and Development Review Services dated March the 6th, 2025. I did not receive it for a couple of weeks after that. Shortly thereafter, two men were seen in a white truck with corporate lettering on the side. These men were not uniformed. They did not have any county identification. They were using some sort of an instrument that appeared to be less substantial, but similar to one used by a surveyor. I was home. I approached these men. And I said, what are you doing? And they said that they stated they were determining how much storm surge each home was affected by, how much water you had inside your home. And I said, I didn't have any water inside my home. And they said, well, we have here that you had eight inches of water inside your house. I said, how do you have that? Well, that's just according to our findings. And I said, well, would you like to look inside? And you can see that I've made no repairs. I've done nothing. I replaced my carpet. That was all because I wanted to. I have waterproof laminate. All my baseboards in there are intact. My refrigerator is two inches off of the floor. I don't think it'd be working if I had eight inches of water inside my house. And they said, that doesn't matter. That's not what we're doing here. And they left. David Pearson followed by David Ballard-Gettis Jr. Is David Pearson here? No David Pearson? Okay. David Ballard-Gettis Jr. Good afternoon, David. Good afternoon, sir. I have a speech prepared here. I'm going to set that off to the side till next week. I'm going to kind of stay with the current course of concern before the board this afternoon regarding this hurricane and code enforcement of people's properties and such. David Ballard-Gettis Jr., Georgia Avenue in Palm Harbor. This book here was published in 1972. The largest chapter in this book is regarding weather modification operations. Now, should somebody have modified Hurricane Helene and deliberately caused a tidal surge event, that would make the hurricane an act of warfare and not an act of God. So thereby, what we have here working with the county, Kevin here, working as code enforcement of such, that makes it more of a mercenary working for an actual wartime activity. If it can be proven that that hurricane was modified, then all of a sudden things change drastically here. We don't have a disaster. We have an actual invasion. Somebody that came after our property, somebody that's intending on imposing codes, imposing restrictions upon the residents. They've destroyed our personal property, and they're now expecting to come inside of our homes and tell us what to do. This is a lot bigger problem now that we've opened our eyes up to something other than what it's being packaged as. So this isn't just a hurricane that we're dealing with and a tidal surge that we're dealing with. We're talking about military activities using warfare. And now we've got people that have infiltrated the system of government working as mercenaries to aid and abed that actual wartime activity. We need to take a step back and look at what we're doing here, because I'm not going to sit down and allow this type of political misbehavior to continue. Thank you. Mr. Chair, I'm sorry for the interruption. Ms. Lopez has her hand raised again. It looks like she may have resolved the technical issues. Ms. Lopez, go ahead. Can you hear us speak when you're unmuted, please? Ms. Lopez, I see you have your hand raised. Can you hear us? You're unmuted. Sorry. All right. We'll move on to Ron Walker, followed by Greg Pound. Is Walker still here? Ron Walker, 7100 Olsen Road, Largo. After what you guys went through today, I kind of want to add burden to you, but I must return to an old theme. That theme is that you folks must have a reason in logic not to have a whistleblower protection ordinance. Let me read to you the purpose of a false claims ordinance or a whistle protection ordinance. This is from Broward County. It says, the purpose of the Broward County false claims ordinance is to deter persons from knowingly causing or assisting in causing the county to pay claims that are false, fraudulent, or inflated, and to provide remedies for obtaining damages and civil penalties for the county when money is thought to and is obtained from the county by reasons of false claims. You're getting ready to develop the ballpark. Guys, there's going to be so much money stolen and the whistleblowers are not going to come forward because they know you will disclose their names. They've got to be kept confidential. So if you just copy Broward County's false claims ordinance, they copied Miami's, Miami copied Florida State, Florida State copied the federal. They're all the same. And you will create a good bit of protection for the people you represent. I mean, they deserve a purpose like that, to have the thieves stop stealing from you. But if you're going to expose every whistleblower that comes forward, they're not going to come forward with the one you had, guys. Have a good day. Thank you. And last but not least, Greg Pound. Greg Pound? Okay. All right. Well, that concludes. I've gone through all the cards. Would you want to fill out a card real quick? Okay. Why don't you come on up and just state your name and you have two minutes. If you could fill that out afterwards, it'd be great. It's for, okay. Yeah, that's fine. Okay. She's here. Item 16. Item 16 is not tonight. Okay. Why don't, why don't we say that? That is, well, that's item 16. It's not tonight. It's today. Oh, it's today. Okay. It's about, yeah, it's, it's a regular agenda item here. It'll, it'll be up in a minute. So if you, it's up to you, you can. Do you want to speak now? Do you want to speak when we actually do the? Okay. Okay. All right. I don't blame you. Please introduce yourself. Okay. Esteemed commissioners. Thank you so much for the opportunity to speak today regarding item 16, which is the memorandum of understanding, um, continuing with the salary and fringe provided by Pinellas County in partnership with the Pinellas County extension. My name is Marissa Segundo. I am a certified small, uh, small business and woman owned business owner right here in Pinellas County. Um, I specialize in outreach for sustainability and recycling. I've done this for about 15 years and, um, I have relied on the services of the Pinellas County extension, both personally and professionally, um, from the expertise of the staff and volunteers at the extension. For those of you who don't know that the extension is a partnership with Pinellas County focused on public education and outreach in the areas of horticulture, sustainability, and animal husbandry for children and adults. These resources are vital to our county. Our county loves sustainability, horticulture, and animal, animal husbandry. Um, the extension staff and administration, they are experts at what they do. And without this funding, we are taking their positions away, which are irreplaceable, creating a void within our county. And it will not be repaired in better economic times or with different, um, elected officials. Our universities are strained and likely cannot keep up this level of involvement on their own, the University of Florida. The county should be proud and co-fund this initiative. And without hesitation, I've been an educator and I know how different, I mean, not an educator, but I've done educate public education, you know, speaking at the great American teach and things like that. These people do that every day. They focus on making a better county and ultimately your budgetary decision means a loss of jobs. Thank you very much for your time. Thanks, Marissa. Um, and then we have Maxine Fahey. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Hello, my name is Maxine Fahey. I live in unincorporated Largo near the Parks and Conservation Resource Building. Uh, thank you, commissioners, for a few moments of your time to explain how I have personally benefited from the partnership between University of Florida IFAS Extension and Pinellas County government. I was introduced to Extension at the age of five when my father was looking for safe educational activities for families in Pinellas County. I signed up to be part of the youth development program 4-H with my, uh, in my family and I joined the garden club located at Chester Oaks Educational Center in Largo. I took part in hands-on experiences that are unique to 4-H, such as camps, activities with Pinellas County Farm Bureau, public speaking and demonstration. And it was also awarded scholarships through these programs. I was awarded the scholarship to participate in going to Tallahassee for 4-H Ledge, uh, legislation where we learn about the government. As a high school freshman, I joined the Board of County Commissioners Youth Advisory Committee that partners with 4-H and Extension faculty to understand more about the Pinellas County government, public speaking, group projects, and leadership. I especially enjoyed the Public Works field trip and learning about the sign shop and transportation. The relationship that all 67 Florida counties have with the land-grant universities are very special and provide the public with non-biased science-backed information to help better all of our lives. I know my life is more well-rounded from my experiences with Extension 4-H and the Youth Advisory Committee. Commissioners, I ask that you fund these positions to continue benefiting Pinellas County residents of all ages with information and solutions, but to especially support the youth development programs in 4-H and partnership with the Youth Advisory Committee. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Maxine. All right. That concludes, uh, citizens to be heard. So now, uh, we will work, uh, move on to the consent agenda, items 3 through 12. Would any commissioner like to pull any item on consent? Okay. We have a motion, Commissioner Eggers, second by Commissioner Scheer. All in favor? Any opposed? Okay. Motion passed unanimously. Glad you, glad you timed yourself out, Dave. All right. Moving on to item 13. Item 13 is the ranking of firms with the seventh highest ranked firms to provide, um, contingency on-call professional services for post-storm recovery county-wide. The firms are listed in your packet, and this is a contract that enables any municipality to jump onto this contract and sign, uh, any of these companies up. And, uh, uh, those contracts will be between them. They can use our bid. And, uh, so we recommend approval. That's good. Uh, motion by Commissioner Nowicki, second by Commissioner Flowers. Is there any discussion? Hearing none, if we can open the voting, please. Voting's a little slow to pull up. I didn't even see it. Does anybody else see it? No. Uh, okay. Maybe it's coming now. Well, why don't we just do a voice vote on this one then? Um, all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? All right. Pass unanimously. All right. So moving on to item number 14. Um, item number 14, the funding agreement with Catholic Charities of St. Petersburg for operation of the Pinellas Hope Emergency Shelter. And I understand Commissioner Nowicki has some questions. Thank you, Chair. Um, has this been funded by the county before? Uh, good afternoon, Karen Yatcham, Human Services Director. Yes, this has been funded by the county since 2007. Okay. Um, cause like for me, I mean, it's like, this is just going for like meals and like staff, correct? Like staffing and shelter operations. Um, this, this program offers, um, permanent support, permanent supportive housing in, in the back of the area, medical respite, shelter. So it is all inclusive shelter rate that we pay for this. And the grant for the next agenda item through HUD isn't going towards any of this, right? This it's not aligned. It's the same population. So the grant is for the the medical services for the health care for the homeless to provide medical care for those that qualify. And then do we fund like CASA, Hope Villages and other nonprofits that provide the same service? Do we provide equal or funds to like CASA as well? Not equal. So we do fund CASA for domestic violence services, Hope Villages for domestic violence services, but not equal amounts. No. Less or more. Less. Okay. Cause it just seems like it's kind of a lot. And there's like a lot of people like living in tents at this place still. So I don't know, you know, maybe, you know, if there's a way to have this money go towards actually creating shelters, um, versus, um, cause I think I saw something in there, like travel allowances in the contract, like, you know, so I don't know if they're using this money for travel, you know, it's, it's a little, maybe travel for the staff to travel. Um, we, we also fund, um, travelers aid. So if someone is at the shelter and they have family in another community, that's another service that is funded through, um, human services. And I think this is tied to like a resolution that was done in like 2016, right? Or like a little bit for housing first, correct. Yes. Like we bar shelters like this from making sure people are actually sober while they're living there. Correct. Well, the resolution that was passed for housing first is, is actually the opposite. So that it's housing first and then you engage individuals into treatment, but it's not a prerequisite for housing. You don't have to be sober to be at this facility. No. Seems like a lot of money, but thank you. Sure. Any other questions? Do we have a motion? Okay. Motion by Commissioner Flower, second by Commissioner Peters. Any further discussion? No. All right. We can open up voting. Yes. All right. Passes unanimously. I do think for, uh, maybe a future work session, uh, maybe we, I, I'd like to see what we spend on the homeless population and all the various buckets that we have, um, just to kind of understand, you know, the amount of money we're, we're spending on it and where it's going and what's the impact and what are the results? So Karen heard me. I mean, I think you did break. Yes. Um, Mr. Chair, is that part of the study that we're doing? Um, so many of these, I, Karen would have to speak to us. So many of these overlap. Um, and so we're focused all around the medical side and what we're providing through. Um, so like Everett has a FQHC. And so the contention has been, you could have an FQHC do what the health department does or what Bay, you know, site clinic does or whatever. So we're studying that, but a lot of this homeless population accesses that. So we could also get a list together of all the homeless services, um, all the things that she just spoke at and more that we provide. Oh, I thought we were kind of doing all the health and human services, not just medical. No, it's focused around the medical side. Okay. All right. Thanks. But, but we can get the rest together so you can see it all in one place. That in and of itself. I'd like to see that. It's pretty big. But I guess when you bring in all of that, then are you bringing in the sheriffs with the pick teams and the, cause, cause some of those are homeless, some are not, you know, um, so it can get really convoluted and complicated, uh, if you bring it all, unless you've got a, a Zen diagram that's going to help everybody understand what's going on. But, um, yeah, no, I'm sure you're exactly right. It's going to be complicated, but she can at least try to get together where you can have some idea of the different population. I mean, it's basically all her budget. Um, so, you know, that's, uh, but she can try to break that down to where, put a little transparency to it. Cause there's a lot of programs they support. Yeah. And, um, and it would be, it would be worth the time, but again, a lot of these things are put in place because it costs so much to put them in jail. Sure. Then it does, you know, at one time it was $17 a night to be at safe Harbor, where it was only $35 to go to jail safe Harbor. They don't get a criminal record. They don't have to go to court. Uh, if they go to jail, they got a criminal record harder to get a job. And so, um, so even when we look at this, you can't do it without the whole picture, right? But I look forward to seeing it, but you, you have to look at the whole picture and not just say, wow, that's a lot of money. Um, when you look at, you're spending this much, but you're saving an enormous amount because they're not going through jail. Um, and so, yeah, I look forward to it, but, but again, we're going to have to have that whole, that whole picture. And maybe the sheriff ought to give us that, what used to be $135 a day, what that is today, uh, to be in jail. I don't know what it is now. It's more. I'm sure it is. Thank you. Yes. It's $136. We can, we can get that type of information together for you. And if I can just add, we are awaiting, um, guidance from HUD. There's going to be significant federal changes coming down, um, significant funding cuts that will directly impact this population as well. Thanks Karen. All right. Uh, moving on to item number 15. Item 15 is a service area competitive grant application to us department of health and human services. This is for our health care to homeless, uh, or homeless program. Motion by Commissioner Inwicki. Motion by Commissioner Flowers. Is there any discussion? Okay. Hearing none. If we could open up the voting. Oh yeah. All right. Pass unanimously. Item number 16. This is a memorandum of understanding between Pinellas County and University of Florida Institute for Food and Agricultural Sciences. Um, this is the discussion we had, um, uh, last Thursday. We provided some additional information. If there's questions, we do have JP, um, here in the audience and, uh, so. All right. Move to the board. Motion by Commissioner Peters. Oh, okay. Oh, are we having a presentation? I didn't. Well, I asked JP to be here to answer your questions. I mean, we can. We can if we want one. Sorry about that. I'll second for discussion. I'd like to discuss this because I have a lot of angst about the programs. Okay. All right. Hello. My name is JP Gillerman. I'm the UF-IFAS extension director for Pinellas County. I lead the, uh, UF-IFAS extension office in Pinellas County. Um, questions? Okay. Uh, I'll just go if you, if that's okay, Chair. Um, I have reviewed the, uh, the programs from the extension and I see awful lot of overlap and duplicated efforts. Um, this is a list of the programs that they're running, uh, at the extension. They're supposed to disseminate, disseminate agricultural programs to our county and the citizens of our county to help us learn how to grow foods and be good farmers and urban. But they also have, um, programs for our living, living, uh, living seawalls and like that. But I take, I took all their programs that they have and I compared them with other agencies that we have in the county and the state and the list of overlapping agencies with the, this extension offices, the FWC, NOAA, FDEP, SWIFT MUD, Tampa Bay Regional Planning, Eckerd College, Eckerd Rescue, our cities, U.S. Geological Services, Pinellas County, Pinellas County Schools, Tampa Bay, uh, water. I mean, there is so much overlap here, uh, and programs that we are actively, uh, working on that. I just don't see the need to, to fund a lot of the, uh, these projects. I mean, uh, disseminating knowledge on their programs and, and, and how to be, to, to have urban farming. You know, I can go to YouTube and I'll learn how to do a backyard garden. I can go to the University of Florida's website and grab all the information they have that they want to disseminate to me from their website. I don't need it brought to me. They have extension office. They're supposed to go out and teach people about doing, uh, plantings in their yard that are, uh, Florida native plantings and they're good for the system here. Well, we have a lot of other agencies that are doing that. Um, you, we are supposed to be funding $300,000 a year for six employees in the University of Florida system. University of Florida has a larger budget than we do. It's $6 billion. And I, I just don't understand the need, um, to, to fund this. I mean, there's one program I think maybe 4H. I like 4H when I was living in Kentucky and, you know, it was a very, a farming state 4H was very important, but I, I just don't, I just don't see the need for all these programs. And, uh, the Florida statute that created this partnership was created in 1915. Uh, the whole idea was to, for, is it's for, uh, agricultural economy, which we don't have. And so I, I would say that if you want to keep the program alive, one of the responsibilities is that we provide office space, but the other is all this, uh, subsidization of, of, of employment to run these services that we do not really need anymore. And so I would like to cut the level of funding and leave the offices in place, leave the extension office in place, but I don't think we should be funding more than $50,000, $60,000 a year for, for this office. And so that's what I would like to do is to cut down. Also, this is only supposed, we're supposed to be reapproving this every year, not signing a five-year contract, but, um, you know, the, um, just, well, anyway, I read their, their mission statement and it is to implement educational programs for agricultural producers, uh, disseminate the latest knowledge and applicable technologies and agriculture. I just don't see it here for us. And I think it's time. It's not 1950 anymore. It's not 1915. It's not 1950. And, uh, I, I just think it, we should cut back on this program. Okay. Other questions? Commissioner Nemecchi, did you have any? I mean, uh, I mean, I, you know, you know, Commissioner Shearer, you know, great, uh, uh, great commissioner. Uh, and so, I mean, I would support, you know, if you wanted to keep the 4-H in place, it seems like the county's contribution would be $42,621, um, for that. Um, so, I mean, I'd be in favor, you know, of keeping that to your point. You said you thought that was a good program to have. Um, so if that's what you're asking, you know, I guess, ask or you just want to eliminate the whole thing. Well, I'd like to hear what anybody else has to say, but if we could hit a motion to either eliminate or reduce the funding for the programs, I'm all for it. So, okay. Yeah. Um, is this, uh, was this, uh, on your list that, uh, that we submitted to the county administrator to be considered? No, no. No commissioner. Okay. And I'm not, I'm not, I'm asking the question just because I want to know, not because I'm being critical or anything. And again, another, another group that I, I'm not necessarily disagreeing with your comment. I just want to make sure that we have that vetted out. You've done a lot of looking into this and I appreciate that. And I would like to have further discussion before I vote to eliminate a department. That's all. So, okay. I appreciate that. This is not our department. Well, it's, it's a funding. It's a funding for some. We're subsidizing employees of the university of Florida. That's what we're doing. And it's not our department. They, the university of Florida, we are paying towards that, that service to this county. We are. Okay. 40%. Yeah. And again, I'm not saying I disagree with you. I mean, this is something that again, a group, I'm not, and I don't want to do a five year. I mean, I would like to have this discussion. I mean, again, these are things that have been done, not necessarily right or wrong, but they've been done for so many years that I just like to have that discussion a little bit more than like today. So would you like to propose that we put it on the workshop, our next workshop agenda? I would be more than happy to see that. I don't know what, I mean, I don't know when, what the next schedule for the workshop is, but if this is something that we want to seriously take a look at, then I would elevate it. How critical is it that it gets approved today? I don't, I don't know the answer. Um, I'm assuming it, it, the contract is coming up for expiration, which is a reason it's on your agenda. Good afternoon, commissioners. Um, so the, the memorandum of understanding is a, is a five year agreement. However, annually we do a salary affirmation letter, which is actually what the actual dollar amount is that will be paid to the university of Florida over four installments each budget year. So just because we have the agreement that doesn't commit, uh, the County to the $297,000 or whatever it might be right now, there's a vacancy. So we're not paying for a vacant position. I guess the question from the commissioners is that they would like to discuss this more at a workshop. Um, is it imperative that they act on this today or could this be done in November or December or January? According to the re, according to the reaffirmation letter, it, we would not be in violation or shouldn't harm anything if we don't decide today. The reaffirmation letter states that the initial memorandum of understanding is from October 1st, 2020 through September 3rd of 2025. So that was the end of it really September 30th, 2025. Um, and then, um, the MOU is outlined by exhibit a fiscal year 2025 will support salary and fringe benefits according to the attached documents, which would go from October 1 to September 30th. So they've technically been working without a, a contract for the last, for the last 22 days. So it should not harm anything for us to delay it so that we could have more discussion about it. I would rather have the more discussion about it and get more details. I agree. I was a part of 4-H commissioner. Um, but I'd rather have an opportunity to discuss it. It could be that we decide to just fund that 4-H portion. It could be that we decide to fund more of it or whatever. So anyway, I'm just going on the reaffirmation letter. Thank you. And I think that the frustrating part is this was through September 30th of this year, right? Right. Right. And we're, and we're looking at it in October of the current year. So, I mean, I, I would just like to have that discussion at a workshop and let, maybe by, by, by the, uh, I don't know if we can get it in next month, but it's pretty late. Uh, can we do, uh, do we have any workshop schedule for December or no? We have one. Well, we do have work sessions for both one in, in November and one in December. Um, and the, I'm more concerned about getting the staff work done for a type of review. I guess the question's what, what you're looking for out of staff, uh, to conduct that type of review. Well, I mean, I think the, I think the commissioner brought up like like kind services that are being provided by other organizations that we can at least compare to, to say, yeah, we're covered or, and do we want to be covered? And are we being covered by other organizations? I think it's a, I think it's a great. So we can just, if commissioners, obviously your call, if you want to push, if you want to just table side until we can keep it on the next agenda, uh, we can then discuss it at the work session. If you're prepared to act on it that following Tuesday, you can, if not, you can postpone it until you're ready to act. Okay. I do have one question. Um, Paul, was this already put in the budget that we voted on? Is this already in the budget? The contractual money is yes. Okay. That's what I thought. Um, okay. I, I'm willing to talk about it, but I, you know, and another question, those, um, the master gardeners, are they the ones that manage the botanical gardens for us? They are. We have master gardeners who volunteer in the botanical gardens. Yes. That's what I thought. Um, and I know when, um, community members want to have a consult with one of the master gardeners, they'll come out. It's free service to the residents. Um, my mother used that and thought it was the best thing that she'd ever seen. Um, and I will tell you, uh, the work that they assist with youth and government, youth and government is, that's a big committee to manage. Um, and it's a lot of meetings and, um, and the cooperative really kind of takes that on and takes the lead and really assists. So the commissioner isn't taking as much time away from their work to, to do that. And so, um, because I worked with them closely for five years, I had yak, I think, um, I really appreciate and value what they, what they bring to us. So, um, so I'm up for the discussion, but I think there's a lot in here to discuss because, you know, of all those volunteer works, how many staff would we have to hire to manage the botanical gardens? Right. Um, because that would have to be hired. We would then have to do that. And so, um, I, when, if we have this conversation, I mean, I want to dig into this a lot, you know, what is that pesticide certificate? Cause of course, does that realize into people having a new business, they're entrepreneurs, what does that mean? Well, so when we have the workshop, that's, I'm just telling you, I, when you have the workshop, I really want to get in to what we're doing and what's the return on investment and where's the cost if we do get rid of it, if we eliminate it. Cause typically partnerships benefit us more than they, they hurt us. And so I think it's always worth the discussion. Um, I don't think I'm prepared to lay off people right away, especially if we've already budgeted for it, but I think it's definitely worth the conversation. Um, and, and I do, I have seen value in what, what they do, but I think it's worthy of the conversation. So I think I, I want to thank you for bringing it up. Um, but I want, if we do it, I just don't want to have a conversation. I want to have real numbers brought here. So if you need more time, take more time, but give us the real numbers on what it's going to cost to do the work that they do in, in the, in the botanic gardens. And, and, you know, what those certificates, does it mean that those are entrepreneurial certificates and can they be gotten somewhere else, you know, and what's the cost? So it might not cost much here, but if they do it someplace else, what's it cost them? So, so if you could do some real digging, um, into that and bring some real numbers to us, that would be great. Sure. Yes, we can do that. It's obviously a little difficult to put everything that they do onto a front and a back on a piece of paper. But, um, one of the things that UF IFAS does is keep numbers, statistics, participation, all of those things. Um, and what the ROI is on activities like that. So we'll get that together. Thank you. Yeah. I, I agree with your comments. I think it's, um, I'd like, that was the whole point, I think, is we see what, see what the, the function of the group does, whether, whether it may, there may be some intangible things in there. We can at least qualitatively state them and then see if there's other ways to, to, to, to, to tackle something that we find value in. And if there's not, then that, then that maybe that answers the question. And I, again, I, I like to have the more measured conversation and I, in a workshop, that would be great. So, well, it seems to me that everybody wants to, I'm good about talking about this. If we can, we'll move it to the, uh, November 18th meeting and have discussion at the work session on November 13th. Okay. Perfect. Well, I'm also going to bring to you the fall studies. Um, we have a lot of fall studies that you proposed. Uh, I'd like to get some prioritization on that. There's so many, uh, hours and, uh, some, some of them are quite big and I'm not sure the full board would support those. So we'll have a discussion about all the fall studies at that same time. Okay. And Mr. Chair, um, article three under responsibilities has a large part of, I think what will address, uh, commissioner shares questions when it comes to services and who pays whom and how much. So probably addressing that section would be really valuable. Great. All right. All right. Good comments, everybody. Thank you. Thank you very much. Good to see you, JP. All right. So now we're going to move on item 17. This is a first amendment with Paula nine for wastewater polymers. I move approval. I'm not sure what that is, but I move approval. Sounds technical. Well, Jeremy, Jeremy must've got bored because he left. So, uh, he's got a, he's got a reclaim water meeting tonight in Treasure Island. So he's on his way down there. Yeah. Yeah. I move approval. All right. So motion by Commissioner Eggers, second by Commissioner Nowicki. Any further discussion? All right. Hearing none, if we could open up voting. Mr. Flowers, are you a yes? Yes. Okay. All right. Passes unanimously. Thank you. All right. Item number 18. This is an agreement with Iron Brick Associates for enterprise resource planning clouds solutions. Uh, this is for implementation, uh, the contract of licensing and support for the workday system, the ERP system that we break you on earlier. All right. Any thoughts? Second. All right. Motion by Commissioner Nowicki, second by Commissioner Flowers. Any further discussion? All right. We can open up the voting. Passes unanimously. Moving on to number 19. Second. Resolution approving issuance of multifamily housing revenue bonds by the housing authority of Hillsboro. This is for financing Riverside Apartments, uh, which is located here in Pinellas. Move approval. Motion by Commissioner Flowers, second by Commissioner Nowicki. Any further discussion? All right. Oh, you did. Oh, I thought you did. I'm sorry. It's okay. I mean, you can give it to Nowicki. Okay. All right. We're officially on the record now then. All right. All right. You can open up the voting. You sound just so much like Ben. Thank you. All right. That means young and yeah, I got it. There you go. All right. Uh, County Attorney. No reports today. No reports. County Administrator. Uh, three items today. The first item is Tristan's on his way up to, uh, discuss with you the legislative program that we got your input on last time. So he'll outline the proposed changes. And if you're in agreement, we'd like to have a vote, um, on adopting this as our legislative program. Good afternoon, Tristan. Good afternoon, chair and commissioners. Um, yeah, so I dropped off the one page document for everyone to on the backside of that too. I also have an update, um, on the 9-1-1 fee issue that we talked about last week as well. So we can open that up for discussion too. But basically the big changes are, um, I included the animal welfare language that we discussed last week, making those changes as well as including the monitor of the TDT expansion, as well as monitoring the short-term rental regulation and the MPO, um, monitor as well with a little change in the posture of the language for that. Everything else was already as included on the presentation, um, and the appropriations stayed the same as well. All right. Thoughts, questions, discussion? Was this supposed to be emailed out to us prior? I mean, I thought that was like part of... Yeah, it went out last week. Oh, oh, maybe I didn't see. I must, I must, I must have missed it. Okay. I must have missed it then. Yeah. I sent it out the, you met on Wednesday, so I sent it out Wednesday afternoon with the changes. I'm sorry about that. All right. Oh, well, well, I guess I'll... Okay. Okay. We'll have a motion. Okay. Commissioner Peters second from... Who did second? All right. Commissioner Flowers, we got it. There you go. All right. We'll bifurcate the second now. Um, discussion, did you? Yeah. I mean, thank you, chair. I mean, I would just have a hard time, again, supporting the anonymous code enforcement complaints. I mean, that was a bill by, you know, Speaker Sprouse, I mean, who ran that bill. And so now we're going to go and advocate against a bill that he was instrument, you know, moving, um, through the house. And so I just don't think, um, you know, with conversations with code enforcement, I mean, the county's had a policy, I think for 10 years or so not to have, um, anonymous code complaints because of the department has to investigate and the neighbors use that to investigate their other neighbors unjustifiable. And so it is an increased cost to taxpayers, um, by more work. And so I just couldn't support, um, the anonymous code enforcement complaint element to it. So. Okay. Understood. Um, Tristan, I think you've done a really good job with this, but I appreciate you kind of massaging this and getting this to a good point. So any further comments? All right. Well, if we can open up the voting then. Not listed as an agenda, I don't know if they can. Oh, are we going to, that's right. Voice vote. Well, that's county administrator. Um, we just do a voice vote then. All right. All in favor? Aye. All right. All right. Any opposed? Commissioner, we can post it. Okay. Okay. So I think what will be helpful is, um, when we have our legislative delegation meeting, I, I recommend that you bring it up and we'll get their feedback. Thanks. Okay. Um, the second item I have is on the CWGDR rollout, um, to, as of 1230 today, we had over 1200, uh, applications, um, 657, um, with homeowner landlord rehab reconstruction or reimbursement, uh, 468 disaster relief, um, payment requests. Um, the call center, uh, received 592 calls. Um, so, you know, we have both the online, um, the call center and in person. So I would just encourage you to continue to put the word out. Um, people need assistance and that's exactly the design of the programs. And so they're continuing to work. They'll, you know, our staff's right there. They'll continue to monitor it and adjust accordingly to make sure that we're getting the customer service that our residents need. Um, get those just periodically. Yeah, we'll, we'll give you updates. In fact, we'll have, we'll have them come in and really talk about the programs, especially as they start processing what they're seeing, how we can improve. Um, there will be hiccups, you know, um, but it took the counties down South. It took them a lot longer to receive these numbers. Um, and that's because of the good work of communications and everybody trying to get the word out. So the more we can publicize it and make people aware, the more people we can help. So that's amazing. Yeah. I mean, hats off to Matt and Horn and communications and everybody else. Yeah. Everybody. I mean, that's just like, I mean, when you sent that email out yesterday, it was like, you already had like 400. Like you've only been open a couple hours. Yeah. Yeah. And it does. It speaks to the need, but, and you know, we're there, they're, they're really trying to do what they can to help people through this. Like we were talking earlier, it's complicated, but we'll try to handhold and help people through this process. So please, uh, feel free to reach out. Um, and then lastly, commissioners, as I mentioned before, um, we're going to have discussion at the next work session on fall studies. We have a lot and some of them are really big and so we need to discuss it, make sure there's consensus on the board that you want to take this on. Um, you know, because some, some of them, you know, um, I, you need to discuss and make sure there's consensus around the board. So we'll have all those outlined. We can have a discussion as part of the next work session and get direction from you on that. Okay. That's concludes my report. Is this coming up? Is this, this is that e-bike thing? Was that? Oh, that other new business. Oh, new business. Okay. Great. Thanks. Not mine. You know, I, I, I just want to make one counter and I know this, this isn't our rules. I know it's not our rules, but there's so many citizens that are very frustrated where they had maximum damage, but they make 5,000 or 10,000 or 20,000 more than they're allowed to, but they had maximum damage where they lost entire house flooded. And then in Milton, they lost the roof and had maximum damage. And they're not entitled to any kind of help, none, nothing. And it doesn't matter that they make a little bit of money. They're not really wealthy and they get nothing. There's no help, no, no hope for them, no assistance because they make maybe two people in a household might make one 20, um, or one 25 and it's too much, but to have to replace the house, um, they're in their, you know, they're 55 mid fifties and now they have to get a million dollar mortgage. I mean, it's because they had maximum damage. And so we're not giving people who had maximum damage, any help. We are on some of them where a lot of people that, that had a little bit of damage are getting help. Other people that had massive, massive damage. They're, they're too rich, but they're too poor. And they're really having a hard time figuring out what to do, having to pay rent, can't live in their house, lost everything. And there's no help for them whatsoever. There's no middle of the road for, for those folks. And I just want to say it because I've had a lot of people come to me and say it to me and it's not been said publicly. And so I said it. So commissioners, remember that the program is two days open. Okay. Um, remember that 70% of the money has to be used on low to moderate income, not a hundred percent. And so we have, and so it depends on the program. So we have five programs that open and we're going to come back and review those applications. And, and, and based upon the applicants, we may move to a higher threshold. There there's opportunity there to look at this and adjust the program, uh, based upon, we only have so much money. And so at some point we will run out of money. And so we're going to have to make those determinations, right? But, but we can have different levels of review and we'll be very open about having that type of discussion with you about the actual applications, the numbers that we're seeing to where we can adjust as the program goes along. Okay. Now I do know one person that applied anyways, knowing that they're not going to meet the income. So that's good. But I thought that other 30% was going to be more infrastructure and that they would be left out. No, we, each program has different ones. And, and again, we're setting the first priority at the, at the low to moderate income doesn't mean that we can't help other people. And we intend on doing that. Good to hear. I will, I will pass the word. Thank you. Please make sure that they apply. Please apply regardless of your income. Let us worry about that process and how we have to apply it. Okay. That's a good recommendation. Just apply. Just, just apply. We encourage everybody to apply. All right. All right. That concludes my report. Thanks, Barry. All right. Now we're on to County Commission. Item 22, appointment to Historic Preservation Board from Commissioner Flowers. I think as to, um, it would be reappointing really. And she would go from a, um, alternate to an act to actually serving. And that would be Dr. Hillary. That's the nomination. Yeah. She's been there before. So she's good. Yeah. Very good. Yes. All right. So motion by Commissioner Flotter, second by Commissioner Peters. You can open up the voting. Passes unanimously. Now we're on to item 23, appointments to the North Greenwood CRA. I mean, this is going to be a ballot vote. Yeah. Mr. Chair, I just wanted to, um, mention that Amplified Clearwater gave us a high recommendation on Jason Corbett and Hannah Menard. And since it came from the chamber, I thought I would bring it up. Yep. Thank you. The board has selected Jason Corbett with five votes and Hannah Menard with five votes as well. Thank you very much. All right. So now we're moving on to 20, item 24, appointments to the Parks and Conservation Resources Advisory Board, uh, commissioner appointments by Commissioner Eggers, Lappell, Peter, and myself. Okay. Motion by Commissioner Peters, second by Commissioner Newicki. We can open up the voting. All right. Passes unanimously. And then item 25, appointments to the Pinellas County Educational Facilities Authority. Yeah, there's two. There's two. Okay. Motion by Commissioner Peters. Second. Second by Commissioner Eggers. All right. We can open up the voting. Passed unanimously. And now we're on to County Commission New Business. I'm going to go over here today, Mr. Chair. Yeah. Thank you, Chair. Uh, on October the 7th, I attended a Treasure Island Commission meeting. Uh, sometimes I think it's nice to reach out and go through a commission meeting in, in different cities. And I'm glad I did. And, uh, uh, there was a special ceremony for all the volunteers in the city that happened to come out for, uh, rescue, uh, and, and, and help for the neighbors out there. And I thought that was great. It was inspiring. Uh, and the first responders got a lot of awards for all the work they did to save lives last year, one year ago. Uh, on October the 9th, uh, uh, I, I attended the transportation economic growth on the horizon breakfast in Ybor City. Uh, that was chaired by the FDOT, the Port of Tampa, Tampa Expressway, Tampa International Airport. The discussion was about growth where we, where we need to focus on our, uh, transportation and getting things in and out of the port. And I just thought it was good for somebody to make a presence there. Uh, and, uh, because I was in Tampa, I also stopped in later in that day and visited with Feeding Tampa Bay facility, uh, out in Apollo Beach or Bullfrog Creek where it was out there. But, uh, that is a brand new facility. And I got to know Feeding Tampa Bay during the hurricane season last year because they did so much. We, you know, they, everywhere I looked, there was a feed in the Tampa Bay truck and people lined up and helped them just, just disperse food and, and clothing. So, uh, they're doing a great job out there. Um, and I, I was very impressed with their operations. Yeah, they're, they're doing great. Uh, on October the 10th, I went to the, uh, uh, economic development, uh, annual CEO breakfast exchange with, uh, my fellow commissioners and that was great. I, I just love getting out and meeting with the local business leaders and hearing what's on their line and what, what's important to them and important to our business community. Uh, on the 13th of October, um, I joined other commissioners and we went to the people, I went to the media event for the people first, uh, roll out. And I think that's great commissioner. You're, I saw your Facebook commercial or not a commercial, but good job. And that was a good press conference. And, uh, so I'm glad, you know, that I'm successful. So it's working. I'm glad I went to that event. Uh, on the 15th, uh, I joined commissioner flowers for the groundbreaking of the sky town development and St. Petersburg on us 19. It's on the old Florida, Florida power, uh, campus. It's the largest residential development in Pinellas County. And, uh, this board, uh, funded $5 million of penny money for that. 5.5. 5.5 million. I was close. And so, uh, I wanted to make a presence there and it was great. And, uh, commissioner flowers did a great job expressing the importance of that project. So good job. Um, uh, on the 17th, of course, we all, most of us, we went to the tri-county meeting, uh, with Hillsborough and Pasco and we discussed water quality, wastewater spills and the possible merger of our MPOs, uh, and Senate bill 180, which, uh, and its impact. And today I was very delighted to, uh, go to, uh, representative Linda Chaney's press conference where, uh, she announced that the DOT will be reopening the bus lanes of South Pasadena to all citizens of Pinellas County. And that the, uh, the bus signs will be coming down. And, uh, that, that, that, that's something that the people down there has really been asking for. So I was glad to be there and support that. Uh, and, uh, that is pretty much my report. I don't have any new business. Thank you, commissioner. Commissioner Pierce. No new business. No. She's no free. Wow. We are, we are efficient with new business today. Well, make sure you get it next time. Just kidding. Uh, commissioner flowers. Well, I guess y'all going to talk about me cause I got a lot. I'll try to make this quick. Um, if you are able this Thursday, don't forget, I extended an invitation for you to come participate with the area agency on aging Pinellas and Pasco for our veterans day card writing event. It's just to let our veterans know that we love and appreciate them. That's from one to three, uh, this Thursday at 95 49 Colger building North. This Sunday is the freedom fund banquet. Thank you so much. Commissioner Sharon, your lovely wife will be joining us out here. Um, I'll serve as the MC. So thank you so very much. I won't get a chance to speak to y'all be running, but, um, thank you so much, uh, for, uh, being able to participate. And I truly understand it's a Sunday. Normally on Sundays, I don't like to do anything except rest, but, um, I promised them. Um, on November 14th, I met with the new, uh, planners for the Martin Luther King day parade. That's going to be held in St. Petersburg. Mr. Boyzell Hosey, who used to work for the Tampa Bay times. Um, and who also is one of the founders of the, uh, Collard green festival and miss Samantha Harris. Um, the name has been changed. So I don't want to say the name cause I'm going to mess it up, but it's got St. Petersburg in there somewhere. I did meet with them just to go over, uh, some of the next steps that they need to participate in, um, as it relates to requesting any funding that may be remaining with the CVB. I also attended the CEO, CEO exchange. So I was very grateful for that. Thank you so much for coming to Skytown. I made sure that I mentioned our colleagues and the work that all of us are doing. Um, also if you're interested in coming to the sprouts grand opening, which is a wonderful grocery store that is right there on the property, that will be November 14th at seven o'clock in the morning. So if that's early, but if you would like to come at that time to cut the ribbon, that's fine. If not, perhaps you will visit the store at some point. I really did enjoy the tri-county meeting. I always love meeting with our, um, neighbors, seeing how we can work together on a number of issues. Um, and I thought the presentation, um, regarding conservation, uh, was, was very timely and how that plays into, um, the ecosystem for our lovely coastal area. Um, I was interviewed by two students. Many of us get phone calls. Those from students who are going through St. Petersburg College and they have to do, um, their, um, in year study, um, or capstone is what they call it. So I had a chance to be interviewed by two students, but one, Shania Campbell. I think she's coming for my job. So I told her I will certainly mention her name and would be more than happy to, um, have her, um, uh, shadow me at some point. Um, I shared with, uh, Barry that I was asked to serve on a very small select committee through, uh, NACO, but it's working with the federal government's department of housing and urban development to try to address some of the issues related to CDBG, regular community development block grant dollars, as well as CDBG DR funds. Representative flood, uh, put forth a bill that, um, has not yet gone to the house, but did pass the Senate that, um, deals with revamping the way that CDBG dollars are allocated to communities. The short version is that the proposed new allocation would actually provide Pinellas County with less money than what we get now, because they are looking at the number of units you are able to create with projects. My conversation with them today is we are landlocked. We are bordered by water. Um, and so the ability to have very large housing projects like perhaps Arkansas or Utah or places like that is, is, it's not apples and apples, it's apples, oranges, and pears. Um, and so we had a really good, uh, conversation. There was a representative from the office of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Uh, the other, uh, commissioner that was asked from NACO to, uh, attend is Mr. Larry Nelson. I've had a chance to work with him on a previous, uh, housing component that we service through NACO. He's, um, out of, uh, Wisconsin, Waukesha County. So very different from where we are. Um, Caitlin Jones is a planner out of Arlington. Um, Jared Grigas is the NACO staff person that's assigned. Our very own Joe Riddle, uh, from, um, Pinellas County. He is the vice president of NACED, but he also is in Bruce Bussey's department here. He is serving, but he's representing NACED on that committee. Um, I share with them, uh, because a question came up about the amount of control that communities have or don't have over their planning and the Live Local Act confines us again as it relates to what we can and cannot do when it comes to persons wanting to develop in our communities. It was a very, in my opinion, it was a very good first meeting. Um, I have asked that, let me back up. There was a mock, um, demonstration of how Pinellas County would actually fare under the new proposed guidelines. I have asked that that be sent to me and I'm sending it to Barry so he can distribute it to staff. It is not cut in stone and neither is it, um, on the money, but it's as close as they could get based on the language in section 206 of the proposed bill. There are three areas that would exclude someone from having to adhere to the new proposed guidelines that will be high vacancy rates, low rental rates and population or natural disaster, natural disaster. We're in now high vacancy rates. We are not, um, and low rental rates. Uh, we are not. So, uh, we will be meeting again, um, this coming Thursday through zoom. So hopefully you all understand that we're trying to be as meticulous as possible, but also make sure that we're keeping up with the conversation so that we are at the table when these decisions are being made. Um, I think for the most part, many of us, uh, that were on the call really want them to address changes in the language so that it looks at areas individually and not under one blanket because we are not the same, especially when you look at rural communities out West, we are nowhere near, um, uh, with the land, mass and land, land capabilities that they have. Um, so I will keep you all abreast of what's going on there, but it would be my hope that we could get that language tweaked or changed so that it does not, if anything, it just keeps us the same as it relates to the funding allocation that we get for CDBG and CDBG DR going forward. Should there be any other, um, type of natural disasters? Um, super, um, kudos yet again to, um, the state of Florida, uh, some of the funding that area agency on aging thought it was going to not received. We got word that we will receive that. So that's going to allow us to take individuals off of the wait list. So we are appreciative to that, to the state of Florida. Um, and I believe that's it, but the longest part was the, the new housing component piece. So I'll keep you informed. You're welcome. Commissioner Rikers. Uh, yeah, just a few things had a, uh, the Dunedin ferry ribbon cutting was, uh, last week and, um, it went really well, good attendance. Um, I think they're excited about getting that connection to Clearwater and Clearwater beach, uh, going. Um, so look forward to, to that service for our, uh, Dunedin and North County residents. Um, really, really enjoyed the, uh, the Pinellas County economic development, uh, CEO annual exchange. That was good. And hearing from the executives from Jabil, um, you know, and a lot of the work from Pinellas, the one Pinellas business alliance, uh, really think that was a great move to move that sort of inside and let the, you know, you and staff kind of run that with our executives because clearly those missing skill sets that we're looking for and hearing from our businesses is so important to making sure that our, our education group and our technical school skills groups are hearing that loud and clear so that we're making that match. But anyway, great, uh, great, uh, breakfast exchange. Um, interesting when I went up to Tallahassee to testify on governance structure, they didn't ask me to go testify on the budget proposals, uh, no tax, no tax budget proposals. No, that was down the hall and around the corner and they just, they didn't tell me. Um, but anyway, it'd be interesting to see what, what happens there. And, uh, as you know, I had a chance to visit with, uh, Chris while I was up there. Um, really liked the fact that we're having tri-county business or meetings. Um, it was probably three years ago, I think very more or less when we started those and we hadn't ever had one before between Pasco Pinellas and Hillsborough County, which just, you know, kind of blows you away when you hear the USF talk about the importance of the, this region and not, and not, and us not talking. Um, I think it's really, it says a lot, so I'm glad we're doing it. Uh, I'm glad we're going to up that up the ante on, on the subject matters that we're going to be talking about. Um, also like the idea, um, that, that we're, you know, that we're having good open dialogue about some of the issues. And I think commissioner Shearer brought that one of them up. We'll talk more about that, uh, on the, uh, consolidated or merged MPO possibilities. So, um, anyway, it was good. I'm glad we're doing it. Uh, I'd like to, uh, continue to, to have those meetings. Uh, Tampa Bay water, uh, meeting, uh, went well, more, more conversation on South Hillsboro, uh, major pipeline, uh, still working through all of that construction starting next year or the year. Yeah, late next year. Um, and, um, reservoir is full. Uh, so we were good on that front. They started talking about some of the rivers are coming down a little bit, so there might be some kind of, um, water restriction put in place. And I'm just cautioning them to not overuse that term because people could go numb on hearing them over and over when we're doing really pretty good, much better today than we were a year ago. When the, when the storms came, it started to provide some relief. Um, uh, Polk County, the, the water cooperative that provides water for Polk County has sued Tampa Bay water for, uh, Tampa Bay water asked for permission to take more water off of the Alifaya river. And, um, the swift mud gave us the permit to permission to do it. Uh, we're on the downstream side. So I, I, you know, asked the question during the meeting, I said, where's the water going to go that we didn't take out in Tampa Bay? I said, so we're at the end of the process and they want to sue us for, I'm not quite sure why. So they're at the front end of it. So I think they're wanting to do something down the road and protect their rights to do that as well. But then they affect people downstream. So anyway, we've hired council to represent Tampa Bay water on that. Feel pretty good about it, but water is, um, to say it mildly, a political, can be a political nightmare. So we'll see how that goes. Um, we'll keep a close eye on that. Uh, really enjoyed the Salvation Army's, um, prayer breakfast. It's always good. It's always nice to see people and to, to sit and have prayers for the different elements of our group and pastor from, um, I'm trying to think of the name of the church. Anyway, uh, great, great speaker, uh, really, uh, uh, you know, got us all thinking a little bit more about different aspects of our city of our County, excuse me. And, um, it was really a good, good breakfast overall. And I would just close with, um, um, happy Veterans Day a month from now, three weeks from now, but we won't meet again before then. And I'm certainly glad we have that day off so that we don't get conflicts with anything, uh, relating to our veteran celebration. And, uh, that's all I have. Thank you. All right. Since, uh, since our last, uh, since our last get together, uh, we had a TDC meeting last week. We had a presentation from Adam Ross, our tax collector on just kind of the mechanics of how he collects the bed tax. And that was, uh, it was an interesting presentation. Glad that he's took the time to come and chat with us about that. Um, also interesting that registrations or certifications of short-term rentals are way up from our, from our new ordinance. So that's really encouraging that we're, we're getting, we're seeing that compliance come in and, um, you know, what, what's a little unknown is, is where some of these short-term rentals not remitting bed tax before, we don't really know. We kind of suspect that that might have been the case. So we may even get potentially even see a little more revenue come in the, come in the door as they come online and get in compliance. So that was encouraging, uh, to hear. I also had a good, good one-on-one meeting with, uh, with Mayor Rector from Clearwater and we just talked about just some, uh, things going on in Clearwater and getting his take on a, on a few different things. I had a, um, historic preservation board on meeting last Wednesday where we, uh, recommended a landmark designation for the Vincent House, uh, which is in the enclave community and at, uh, 1334 Riverside Avenue and eventually that'll, that will come before us for, for final approval. Uh, but very, very historic home and, uh, Daniel Vincent, um, was the applicant and it's been in his family for a very, very, very long. They live in, they still live in the house today. So it was very interesting to just give, give some history on Anne Claude and, uh, from his family's perspective that has been around there for well over a hundred years. So it was very, um, you know, it's kind of fun to do, to, to do those things and preserve a bit of our history. Very much enjoyed the, um, uh, the CEO annual exchange breakfast. That was great. So thanks to Dr. Johnson for, uh, for all of her hard work on that. I thought that went really, really well. Um, took part in the, obviously in the people's first, um, press conference that we had here. It was the last Monday. I, I think I thought that went, um, really well. Um, next coming up on Thursday, I'll be presenting a proclamation at the face of domestic violence, uh, luncheon. Maybe I'll see a couple of you there. And then, uh, finally I passed out, I saw this pop up in my newsfeed, um, a week or so ago that Palm Coast has created a new, new e-bike ordinance, um, that requires e-bikers to abide by traffic rules, imposes age limit for riders and prohibiting the use of modified e-bikes. I just thought this was really interesting and thought would be good for us to have some future discussion about it. Cause I think it's, it's kind of time that we address this issue in some, in some form. I don't know whether this is the one that is ideally what we, what we want here, but I think it kind of gives us a good, you know, a good, uh, roadmap to maybe, uh, look, talk about and, um, you know, maybe have some conversation with the sheriff about and see what, you know, what his thoughts are. And, um, I would assume this would, what we would do here would probably only be for unincorporated Pinellas County. I would think it'd be the, maybe we can create something that perhaps other communities could. So something to, um, for some food for thought that we can have a future, future work session. If you can get that to us, chair, we can have staff look at that. Will do. Yeah. Thank you for at least bringing it up for discussion. You start seeing what's going on, you know, and again, I think a lot of kids are using them to go to school, which, you know, and you watch them go and that some of them are doing just fine. Right. And others are just, they're flying everywhere. I mean, I, I, you know, again, it's, it's, you know, it's hard, it's a hard thing to enforce and to govern and, uh, um, but it, there's definitely some concerns out there and some of them have helmets and some of them don't. Some of them are on the sidewalks flying along and, you know, whenever you're on a bicycle, even on the sidewalk, it's, it's, it's got its own sets of danger that's different than being on the streets. I mean, it's almost, so anyway, having the conversation, I just, I'm, it'll be interesting to see. Maybe we can get the sheriff there. Yeah. Well, the, the number of, uh, just injuries and serious injuries are, are, I mean, they're going up. I mean, you just, I mean, you see getting on my newsfeed all the time. I mean, it's a couple of weeks now where there's somebody really seriously getting hurt on an e-bike. And it's not 20 miles an hour. In some cases, they've done something. And those things, a lot of them are heavy. I mean, some of these things weigh like 50, 60 pounds. So you get that thing cruising at 30 miles an hour. There's a ton of kinetic energy to stop. I was just at the drone show Saturday evening and, you know, parking and had to walk up and it was e-bikes, people walking. So it made for a dangerous, because it was a lot of people, you know, all downtown and stuff. So I applaud you for continuing to look at, at this, um, effort. And then some of the bikes where they just dash in and out, they, they're riding in the street. They don't obey even the rules of the road and they're getting hit by a car because they're dashing in and out and you don't see them until they're right up on you. So, um, I think it's a good conversation for us to have. And I've just perused it, but it's, it looks decent. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think so too. All right. Well, that concludes my report. So, um, we are adjourned for the next 33 minutes or so. I'll see you at six o'clock. Good evening, everybody. And welcome back for our public hearing. Uh, before we get going, I do have a quick announcement to make a chapter 14 ordinance revisions related to animal services advertised for tonight's public hearing has been rescheduled and will be re-advertised for November 18th, 2025. All right. So now we will move on to our first item, which is item number 27. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Agenda item number 27 is case number FLU 25-05. This is a request by the county for a land use change from institutional to rural residential on approximately 4.08 acres located in the southwest corner of Keystone Road and Woodfield Boulevard in Eastlake, unincorporated Pinellas County. This item is companion to agenda item number 28. Since this is a quasi judicial hearing, all those individuals who plan to speak on this item must be sworn in. For those wishing to speak, whether you are attending in person or virtually, if able, please raise your right hand. Do you swear from the testimony you're about to give? Is the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth signify by saying I do? Public hearing is properly advertised and an affidavit of publication has been received for filing. No correspondence has been received by the clerk and it matters properly before the board to be heard. Thank you. All right. Would anybody like a staff presentation or have any questions, thoughts? No? All right. Well, do we have a motion to approve then? All right. We have a motion by Commissioner Flowers. No second? Second by Commissioner Huggers. All right. Moving right along. Any discussion? No? All right. If we can open up the voting. Asses unanimously. And then item number 28 is the companion item to number 27. Agenda item number 28 is case number ZON 25-03. This is a request by the county for a zoning change from limited institutional wellhead protection overlay to residential agriculture wellhead protection overlay on approximately 4.08 acres located in the southwest corner of Keystone Road and Woodfield Boulevard in Eastlake. It's companion item number 27. Since this is a quasi-judicial hearing, all those individuals who plan to speak on this item must be sworn in. For those wishing to speak, whether you are attending in person or virtually, if able, please raise your right hand. You swear a firm testimony you're about to give us the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Signify by saying I do. The public hearing is properly advertised. An affidavit of publication has been received for filing. One email in support has been received by the clerk, and the matter is probably before the board to be heard. Thank you, Daryl Lynn. Okay. I do have two members of the public to speak. One is pre-registered by Zoom. I think these were just in case we had any questions. So does any member of the board have any questions or want a presentation? Okay. Motion by Commissioner Egger. Second by Commissioner Shearer. Is there any further discussion? No. Hearing none. If we could open up the voting. All right. Pass unanimously. I actually was item number 20. I was wrong. It was item number 29. I said 28. I got ahead of myself. All right. Agenda item number 29 is case number FLU 25-07. This is a request by 275 HYW Holdings LLC for a land use change from mixed use corridor primary commerce to commercial general on approximately point 60 acres located at 2500 55th Avenue North in Lelman. This is companion to agenda item number 30. Since this is a quasi judicial hearing, all those individuals who plan to speak on this item must be sworn in. For those wishing to speak, whether you are attending in person or virtually, if able, please raise your right hand. Do you swear or affirm the testimony you're about to to give us the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth, signify by saying I do? The public hearing is properly advertised. An affidavit of publication has been received for filing. One email in opposition has been received by the clerk and the matter is probably before the board to be heard. Okay. Thank you. Yes. Just a question. There was only one opposition letter, but he did have some photos that were sent. I was wondering if staff maybe had a chance to see that opposition letter and maybe address some of the concerns that the person had in the letter. Okay. Who's going to take that? Scott or Glenn? Or Michael? Oh, Michael's on his way up. Good evening, Michael. Good evening. Michael Schoderbach, Building Development Review Services. Yes, we did. The opposition that sent in that letter did speak at the LPA meeting and provided info on there, which they're showing, you know, that there was damage to some of the sidewalks at the- In the curbing. On the curb, on there. If this is approved, the next step for this is a site plan, which those would be addressed that, you know, no parking in the right of way. They have to stage operate everything on the property. Okay. They'd have to demonstrate, you know, vehicles coming in and out that they're not be able to make those turns, not going over sidewalks. These are some large flatbeds and depending on whether or not, if they're transporting anything, it makes them a little heavier. So when they're trying to turn, they'll turn wide and they're going to hit those curb cuts and knock them out. I know we're not addressing site plan today, but just a question when it comes to site plan, would there be any requirement as it relates to the fencing? I see where they have the black, whatever you want to call that, that is up there that serves so that you don't quite see everything behind the fence, but you can see it. Yeah. And the only reason I'm saying that is because there are some neighborhoods that even I pass, and you have homes that have been there for forever in a day, and now you have this, and even though it is an allowable use, your house is right in front and it's not beautiful. Yeah. During site plan, we have requirements, certain uses, and would require fencing. So depending upon the distance to the nearest residential and what they're planning, you know, outdoor parking, if there's storage or anything that they would have to have behind fencing, you know, if they have a gate, we have requirements, you know, for setbacks and stuff that they have to meet. Thank you. I appreciate it. So in the same vein, I see that the property faces the residential on the back side or on the north side of the property. So does that provide access there? I mean, is that going to open up so that to the point that Commissioner Flowers brought up? That is their property access. They cannot get access to 54th due to the adjacency to the on-ramp coming on from 275. Everything's going to be going out that way. Yes. DOT will not allow access on the 54th there. It's too close to the intersection. This, this, what was the business they were talking about? The distance to? Business. What type of business? Well, business, the towing. It's a towing business. So they operate towing vehicles out of there for everything from a passenger to a... Is that a 24-7 business? I don't know the applicant, whatever. Okay. I mean, I'm just saying those are the concerns that I would have for that property as it opens up right across the street from residential. Yes. Thank you. Yeah, towing, probably. That's why I brought up the question about the homes that were already there, have been there for years, and so now this is what they have for ingress and egress every day, depending on how many towing they have. And there won't be any fencing there, because that's where they're going to come in and out. Of course. Okay. Any other questions, thoughts? Okay. Well, what would we like to do? I mean, I don't, I don't like the aspect of it being 24 hours and right across from like the resident neighborhood, and that's the entrance. Um, I mean, I don't, you know, I don't know. I don't, I don't know if I 100% support it. So, yeah. Understood. Okay. So here's, here's the dilemma. You know, if, if it meets all of the guidelines, then we have no, there's no, other than I don't like it, there's no reason or rationale not to approve it. Some of those things can be addressed when they go before the next hearing, which is site plan, when it comes to fencing and stuff like that. So, um, that's the only reason if they're listening, that's the only reason why I'm supporting it. And we'll make the motion to approve because we don't, I wouldn't have legal standing to not support what we have that's available for them already in the ordinance. More questions. Um, I'll hold off. Was that a motion? Well, I'm holding off because he just said, Michael, sorry. Um, the three commercial properties, it looks like commercially, um, zoned properties next to it, to the east, west. Do you know what is, what those are used for? Yes. So the one that's to the, directly to the east, let me bring, let me put my map up on here. I have first one to the west. Yeah. Let me bring up on the PowerPoint presentation. So directly adjacent to the site that's along that Northern, which is 55th Avenue North that is owned by the applicant that came in about a year ago for a land use and zoning amendment from residential to commercial. Uh, they bought that property to use with this business as well. So to combine those two parcels, the other one that's kind of fronts along 54th, but that kind of wraps around L shape to the west is a waffle house. So the three parcels to the west are same owner. Yes. The applicant is the applicant. The applicant owns the one, uh, directly. So where this one kind of wraps around, as you can see in the blue, that little piece that sticks up next to it, it looks like a house. It was a house. They bought that property and it went through a land use and zoning change to commercial to be combined with this one to be used as their office facilities for this business. The three, the three will be office facilities. Is that what you're saying? The one, one will be office and be combined with this property if approved for the entire development. What's the waffle house? It's the hotel and the gas station. Yeah. There's a waffle house. Then and then Haynes road. Yep. I travel it all the time. Okay. Thank you. But I'm not going to waffle house. Don't y'all take it like that. Well, how the house is good though. So I am going to make a motion to approve only because of our ability or lack of ability to do anything else. But I am asking, um, so if they're listening, I am asking that they address the concern regarding the fencing and ingress and egress. Um, because if they're right in the neighborhood, once they get off of 54th, I know, I could see why a DOT wouldn't allow them now because the on ramp and off ramp for the interstate 275 is right there. And then you go further down, you have Northeast high school and the other elementary school. But, um, I'm just saying if they're listening, I would hope that they would address those concerns at least for the buffering for the neighbors, the neighborhood. And if there's a second, I can offer a comment. Okay. Please do. Madam director. Oh, well, I know there's not a second on the vote yet, but I would just say those are all concerns that will be addressed during site plan. Um, your staff, if you approve the next case, which is the companion case, um, once those, once they come in for review of site plan, and staff could answer this better than I can, but a lot of the different things that you're talking about will be taking, will, will be addressed, uh, during that process. Second. Okay. So we have a motion by Commissioner Flower, second by Commissioner Scherer. Now, we, we do have, um, two cards filled out on this. Do they want to, just for questions or do they want to speak? I don't know they, but, um, the one Mr. Rivera has his hand raised. Okay. All right. So, Mr. Rivera, go ahead and unmute, unprompted. Mr. Rivera, can you hear us? I can hear you just fine. Thank you for unmuting me. Yeah, I'm the engineer, uh, I'm just here to answer any questions or something about access and fencing. Yeah, definitely. We're going to meet all fencing requirements, including landscape buffer and then access FDOT will let us get through, uh, the main road. It will be only through 55. So, um, it's, it's just keeping the same access we have. And you did say landscaping for buffer, right? Correct. Yes. We, we do think that's escaping buffer. So we have ways of, uh, screening and we do have a commercial block pretty much. And the property was already C2 when the owner bought it. So he was allowed to do the towing service already when he bought the property. However, the, the county changed and overlaid a new district that has some restrictions, but technically within those restrictions, they're allowable uses that would allow pretty much everything that would be happening within the towing service. So technically this is, uh, it's a technicality at this point. Well, technicalities are realities, but thank you. I understand that. Sure. I understand, but I'm here. If you have any questions. Thank you. Uh, I also had a card filled out by Jose Guzman. Um, Mr. Guzman, did you want to say anything up there? We just want to be here so we can answer some questions also regarding this, but, uh, engineer already, you know, um, talk to, you know, uh, give you the explanation that you, you were asking. So we're just here to, you know, listen. Thank you very much. That was the only concern I had. And it seems like you do want to be a good neighbor to the people that are there. So yes. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Guzman. All right. We have a motion in a second. If we could pull up the voting. Okay. Passes unanimously. All right. So now we're on to item number 30. Agenda item number 30 is case number ZON 2505. This is a request by 275 HYW Holdings LLC for a zoning change from Lelman form base code to general commercial and services on approximately 0.60 acres located at 2500 55th Avenue North and Lelman. This is the companion item to agenda item number 29. Since this is a quasi judicial hearing, all those individuals who plan to speak on this item must be sworn in for those wishing to speak, whether you are attending in person or virtual, if you're able, please raise your right hand. Do you swear a firm testimony you're about to give the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth signify by saying I do? The public hearing was properly advertised. An affidavit of publication has been received for filing. One email in opposition has been received by the clerk, and the matter is probably before the board to be heard. Thank you, Daryl Lynn. All right. Move approval. Okay. Motion by Commissioner Egger, second by Commissioner Flowers. Any discussion? Hearing none, if we could open up the voting. Passes unanimously. And now we move on to item number 31. Agenda item number 31 is case number FLU 2504. This is a request by Twin City MHC LLC for a land use change from residential urban and commercial general to residential medium on approximately 8.94 acres located at 10636 Gandy Boulevard North in unincorporated St. Petersburg. This is companion to agenda item number 32. Since this is a quasi judicial hearing, all those individuals who plan to speak on this item must be sworn in. For those wishing to speak whether you're attending in person or virtually if able, please raise your right hand. Do you swear a firm testimony you're about to give us the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth signify by saying I do? The public hearing was properly advertised. An affidavit of publication has been received for filing. No correspondence has been received by the clerk, and it matters properly before the board to be heard. Thank you, Daryl Lynn. All right. So I'm sure we're going to want a presentation on this one. So, um... Good evening, Glenn Bailey, Housing Community Development. Steve Glenn. Hi. So I'll be presenting the land use portion of this request, not the companion zone in case it'll be separately presented in this for this application here. But this is the FLU 2504. The subject property is 10636 Gandy Boulevard in unincorporated St. Petersburg. The future land use map amendment request is from residential urban. That's 8.54 acres of the property. And commercial general, smaller 0.4 acre portion of the property to residential medium for the entire 8.94 acres. The existing use is the Twin City Mobile Home Park, and the intended future use is multifamily residential. Here on the left, we can see an aerial of the property is outlined in blue. It's on the south side of Gandy Boulevard, uh, to the, basically to the, going to the east, close to the Gandy Bridge, and going to the westward, St. Petersburg. You can see the, the old, uh, dog track to the south west of the subject property. Immediately to the west of the the property is Goodwill, Goodwill store, Goodwill center, donation center. You got a various, uh, levels of residential to the north and to the east along some boat storage facilities, some retail along the roadway, a motel, just a whole mixture of uses in this general vicinity. You can see all through the waters of Tampa Bay, just this south along with some canals and some environmental, uh, areas there, preserve areas. Oh, all right. On the right, you can see in the purple is the city of St. Petersburg, just to give you an idea of, um, this is kind of a, not exactly an enclave, but it's an isolated, um, county area, unincorporated county area, mostly surrounded by St. Petersburg. Some background information on the Twin City Mobile Home Park. It was established in the 1950s. This is prior to our land use map and our zoning code. That's on the, um, the plan on file is, um, it's allocated 103 mobile home spaces and three apartment units. As you probably know, it's flooded heavily multiple times during recent storm events and the homes must be elevated, prevent damage during future events. Um, these homes are so old, it's infeasible to do so. Any type of new homes coming in place, they would have to be elevated as well, new mobile homes. I just considered grandfathered are non-conforming. This number of residential units, um, would only be 64 if it's redeveloped under the current residential urban land use, which allows seven and a half units per acre. And it would have to be built to modern development regulations like stormwater building elevation, things like that. Request overview, uh, it would increase the max density from the 64 units that are available now to 134 units, so it would double the density. Again, RU allows it to seven and a half units per acre. A little sliver commercial general does not allow residential in this area. The residential medium allows up to 15 units per acre. A multifamily residential, again, is proposed. It could be apartments or condominiums. Um, the applicant has to provide a concept plan in this presentation, but it is not binding in this case. There's no development agreement, anything like that. We see the future land use map. This is for the unincorporated county. Again, the property is outlined in blue. The, uh, yellow is residential urban. The red kind of pan, panhandled northern part of the property is, uh, commercial general. And you see the majority, the unincorporated property in the area is the yellow. Uh, there's some, again, commercial lesser red. And, uh, the dog tract, the old dog tract is a large kind of brownish commercial recreation area there to the south. There is some residential medium, small parcels up there on the corner, um, toward the, uh, northeast. Those are all single family residential. They're built at around 3.8 units per acre. And slight photos of the subject property entrance on the left. And, uh, views, uh, Longandy Boulevard in the area. That's to the, to the west, the, by the motel, there's a cell tower there. And the, um, the Goodwill Center is just to the, a little further down the road from there. And the dog track, the old dog track. Uh, some zoning information infrastructure. It's zoned residential mobile manufactured home. And there's a separate case zoning case coming up next. And it allows mobile homes and single family detached dwellings. Proposed multifamily use will require zoning change to multifamily residential. Again, a separate standalone zoning case that is not dependent on the outcome of this land use request. This land use request is basically just for the increase of density, the actual use going from mobile home to multifamily zoning request, which will be heard next. Infrastructure, uh, potential traffic impacts at 35 additional peak PM peak hour trips. And this is serviced, uh, water and sewer by the city of St. Petersburg. Uh, the flood risk, there's a high flood risk on this property. It's, um, in the 25 year coastal floodplain. It's in the coastal high hazard area and the coastal storm area. It's also hurricane evacuation zone a, regardless of whether or not it was mobile homes or multifamily. And very importantly, the comprehensive plan restricts redevelopment within the coastal storm area, coastal high hazard area. Uh, the policy 2.1.3 reads Pinellas County shall not approve any request to amend the future land use map to designate parcel of land within the coastal storm area with a future land use map category that permits more than five dwelling units per gross acre. The ones being requested permits 15 of the existing RU category against ground floated in, it already permits seven and a half units per acre, which is higher than the five of course, and requested RM category again, a three times what's allowed. If you had just a blank, if you had something that allowed like one unit per acre, you can only go as high as five for the comprehensive plan. You could not go higher than that. Additional directives in the comprehensive plan. Um, it's limit redevelopment hurricane velocity zones in flood prone areas. Uh, coastal management policy 2.1.4 is based on Florida statutes and it's restricted public infrastructure expenditures and subsidized redevelopments in the coastal storm area and stormwater concerns in the area. Existing infrastructure performs poorly during rain events. It's a low lying area or a redevelopment again must meet the stormwater management requirements and floodplain mitigation of today's standards. The earth, um, you know, regarding potential density increase alternatives other than increasing or changing the land use map category, affordable housing density bonus. The code does not allow it in the coastal storm area. Coastal hazard area cannot increase it by getting a density bonus for affordable housing is not eligible there. An applicant has not indicated an intent to provide affordable housing, just multifamily housing has not stated anything, any desire for affordable housing may or may not be the case. Um, live local act, Florida statutes. It's not eligible for live local act because the property is not zoned commercial industrial mixed use. There is another option, uh, an opportunity for, um, the gray water reuse system density bonus, which also in the Florida statutes up to 35% density bonus. If all the units would connect and utilize the gray water system, which is where it collects shower water, sink water from the, the units inside recycles it and use for flushing toilets, things like that. It cannot be used for irrigation purposes. It can be used on within the facility itself. That would allow up to 86 residential units under the existing RU category. Um, so it's, it's around nine point something units per acre. So it's a way around the limitation of increasing by changing the land use. Um, and the applicants were advised of this option. Yes. The max density is 134 that what they're asking for. They're asking for. That doesn't include this. I mean, add this on top of that. So that would, that would give what another, I have it in the last slide. I believe it's 180 or something like that. 180 or 81. I'll show you. Okay. Thank you. It's on here. Also important in this case is resident relocation. We have a mobile home transition program in the code that's based on Florida statutes. It requires that adequate mobile home parks and other suitable facilities must exist. Relocation of their mobile home residents. Um, the park owners have worked with the county over this past several months to relocate to residents. That's going very well. So that's, um, basically the, the recommendation is that, um, the request is prohibited by the comprehensive plan. It cannot increase the density above five units per acre in coastal storm area where he's asking for three times that, uh, the conference plan directs population concentrations outside of storm vulnerable areas. This is for evacuation concerns and storm shelter concerns. Florida statutes require consistent with consistency with the adopted comprehensive plan. And the other option is the great water density bonus would allow the 22 additional units, which will be around 9.6 units per acre. Commissioner Eggers-Jubraskin, the bonus could also apply to the residential medium, which would allow 181 units at 20.3 units per acre. Staff recommends denial. Um, we support staff does support the redevelopment of this property, but, uh, at its current allowances per density. Um, but multifamily as the zoning case, uh, we'll speak to is appropriate based on the surrounding compatible uses. Local, uh, planning age should recommend denial of 42 vote last month. If you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer. And, uh, just to confirm, I think I saw it on an earlier slide, but there's no affordability bonus allowable in the coastal high hazard area. Not for density. No, no. Thank you, Chair. Um, and so, but across the street of that property, I understand it's the city of St. Pete, um, but that's still in a coastal high hazard area, correct? It is mostly in the coastal either. Yes. Some of those properties have isolated elevated pockets, but yes. Um, but the city of St. Pete has like carve outs, um, and their policy to allow redevelopment in the coastal high hazard area. They allow redevelopment of coastal high hazard area. They would allow density increases, but they have requirements to do so. Those range from, um, they would require the developer provide hurricane shelter mitigation in the form of a pay fee, pay a fee, contribute land, build or shelter. And that's based on Florida statutes. Also require the preparation of evacuation or reentry plan for multifamily developments. So that would require a mandatory evacuation when directed procedures for handling loss of power, backup power, return to normal operation. Uh, there's a legally binding documents, lease documents, condo rules, things like that. They also require CHHA design standards, uh, two additional feet of free board. So it's three feet more than non-corporated county requires, uh, building design to the next higher risk category classification. And there's a list of additional design standards that the developer can choose from and how many of that list they have to do is based on the number of units. My understanding is twin city police have to do two of those. Examples of that are cool, a high reflective roof, reflectance roof, mold resistant building materials, onsite batteries, uh, solar battery storage, things like that. So we have to do all that. And then there's a countywide consideration of the balancing criteria. So hypothetically, we could defer this, come up with some of those carve outs, adopt those, and then bring this back for recommendation. Hypothetically. Hypothetically. Thank you, Chair. Um, so Glenn, so if I understood you right there, the city of St. Petersburg allows higher density in the coastal high hazard area, but they've got a whole bunch of requirements that go along with it. Correct. Yes, Chair. Um, so there's 106 units on the the properties right now. It was approved for 106 back in the 1950s. Okay. There was about 87 or so when the storm set last year. Most of those, almost all of those have been removed. And, and you know, of no way for them to make this, we can't limit the number of units they put on it to what they, you know, agree and further forward and make this change. If we make this change, we can't limit, put a limit on it. Just like, hey, we approved this, but you can only do 106 units. That's what you're approved for now. It would have to be redeveloped per, it would have to be redeveloped with mobile homes, elevated mobile homes as it's cited right now in the master plan. You could not do multifamily higher than 64. And you said they, uh, it's not, uh, they can't use live local because it's not C2. It's not commercial, industrial, mixed use zoning. It's residential zoning. Oh, if they asked to change it to C2 and then could come back and ask for their, what they want to do, could they do that? That's up. We'd have to look at it for compatibility with C2 commercial zoning. Yeah. I, um, I was just having this conversation earlier about, um, some of our areas that continue to flood this backs right up, you know, whenever. Yeah. So why do we continue to build in areas like this? But then I just gave y'all a presentation from the department of housing and urban development that says that if we have the land, we should be looking to provide housing structures, which is how they're going to determine if they provide funding for community development block grant funds to your communities. So, um, the recommendation from staff is to deny this because of the requested additional units. Right. The, but staff would probably support the number of units that could currently be put in place based on. Okay. Staff would support the 64 units. Yes. I think that's probably where the rub is to make the dollars work for the 64 units. I'm, I'm assuming that that's what the issue is. Um, and since they would be market rate, uh, okay. Okay. Yeah. I'm perplexed. All right. So if there's no other questions for, do you have another question? No. Okay. So if there's no other questions for staff, then I guess we'll see if the applicant wants to. All right. Mr. Pressman, come on up. Yes. Oh, good evening, Todd. Good evening. Mr. Chairman, commissioners, county attorney staff, Todd Pressman, 200 2nd Avenue South, number 451 in St. Petersburg. You've had a great discussion so far, a lot of ideas, a lot of thoughts. So we appreciate you being up to speed and having an understanding of the issue. I have a PowerPoint to walk you through, and then I have a couple of documents for you as well. Uh, Mr. Bailey always does a good job, gave you a good briefing. This is the circa 1954, 103 unit mobile home park seeking to change to apartments. And here's the important thing is that the site would meet flood elevation, would meet building strength, would meet hurricane requirements, add stormwater, which there's none, and yes, increase some density. So this site will be tremendously light years approved compared to what it is today and provide housing. I have the slide first because I think it's very important. It's a good direction of what needs to occur here, which is from Lisa Foster, who is your county floodplain manager, who has said in a number of press pieces that it's requirement the county must follow as it participates in national flood insurance program, which is to elevate the homes and get people safe. And that is exactly what these property owners have done already working in concert and partnership with your county. So Glenn has walked you through the location on Gandy Boulevard. This is just a review of that. Here's the site by the property appraiser. And in the surrounding areas is a car wash, strip center, goodwill, uh, cell tower, uh, along Gandy Boulevard and the sites in red. This is just a concept as we've been looking at what would be best for the site, which would be a concept of two buildings, two stories over parking and the big green area. That's big green area on purpose because it would provide a tremendous amount of stormwater of which there is none now zero. So it'd be tremendous improvement from the 1950s. Current zoning is RMH, which would allow for residential mobile manufacturing homes, proposed zoning, which were not in discussion would be for multifamily and your staff supports that. We're proud to have that recommendation support, uh, as well as the LPA. Under the future land use, the current land use category is RU and CG. There's a little piece of CG, which is 7.5 units per acre. Now what's proposed is RM, which is a separate future land use category, which would be 15 units per acre, which will allow 133 units. So the increase from today or from when the, when the park was fully populated before the storms and had a slow decrease is an increase from 103 units to 133 units. So what's before you today in terms of our request as we see it is 33 new units, 103 were captured in the master plan for the mobile home park commissioners. You know that the future land use categories go by jumps. They don't go by one, two, three, four in sequential order. So what we do want to make you aware is that we're, we're residential urban now, which would allow 64 units. We did not go to the highest categories of choice to come before you as residential high, which would be 266 units. That's too much. We chose a category that we felt was responsible, methodical and rational for what's occurring at the site and what Pinellas County needs. And this park has been decimated. These are just a few of the photos here. The residents have been decimated. Their lives were turned upside down. We've all heard the story. You'll hear from a couple of comments in that regard as well. Surrounding land use categories. And you had a great discussion here and a couple of questions by Commissioner Newicki, because I think that's important. Our site is on the, is in the red. You can see that there's RM and RM next door. And as staff indicated to you, most of the surrounding property is in St. Petersburg. And you can very simply look at the numbers. We're requesting 50 units breaker. Virtually everything around us is either 24 to 30 units, a very high density on our side of Gandy and across Gandy. These are the St. Pete future land use categories. And of course, their zoning matches that as well. So again, it's critically important that you know that what we're asking is actually much lower than what could be allowed and what is allowed in the immediate area. And for all the maps and all the plans, and again, Commissioner Nowicki's comments, a stone's throw across the street is a massive multifamily, which is more than what we would like to do. These are, our site is indicated in the yellow and St. Pete and the multifamily is right across the street. Again, just a stone's throw. So we can look at maps and we can look at the zoning of future land use. The fact is what's existing and what's surrounding is greater and exceeds by far than what we're proposing today. And again, looking at the unfortunate circumstances of the site being in the coastal high hazard. Now, this is very important, Commissioners, that when you look at the comprehensive plan, you don't rest upon or use one specific policy. The comprehensive plan directs a holistic approach. When you look at page two of the comprehensive plan, it says that specifically, to use a holistic approach of policies to determine and balance what should occur in Pinellas County. So here's one policy that you did not hear from your staff, which is under housing. Policy 1212, support the preservation or redevelopment of manufactured home communities that meet or exceed required standards, which we would and must be done. Comprehensive plan policy 136, coordinate with public and private partners to create a manufactured home strategic plan, which at a minimum should consider the enhancement and redevelopment opportunities. These are very directive, very strong, and supportive comp plan policies that were not considered or presented to you at this point. Policy 1113, promote programs and funding opportunities for weatherization and or hardening, which is exactly what we're proposing to do. Be sure that there's ample, affordable, safe, and sound housing available to accommodate the current and projected housing needs. That's what we want to do. The comp plan is not one policy. It's a consideration of all the policies that apply. Now, moving in a different direction, and this is very important, and again, it's an interesting point that Commissioner Nwiki brought up, because under Ford Pinellas, and you sitting as a CPA, there is a balancing criteria, which is a balancing criteria to allow development in the coastal high hazard pending improvements of the type of housing. So when you look at that balancing criteria, we asked Patricia Ortiz, who's a professional private planner, to weigh that for us, and she notes and made responses that I'd like to make you aware. But to be critically aware for your power and your authority, under the balancing criteria, you have at your sole discretion, the absolute discretion, to consider approving an amendment based upon the balancing of the following criteria. One is resiliency and minimization of impacts for major storm events and hazards, which we would do. Number two, require development, comply with the National Flood Insurance Program, which we would do. Coordinate and integrate resiliency strategies, which we would do. But the balancing criteria specifically looks at emergency shelter space, which there is plenty. She evaluated that clearly. She notes the addition of 33 dwelling use does not substantially increase demand for emergency centers. In fact, we all found, as you know, over the last year, we found that very few people actually use shelters, and they're very limited in their use. The site's well positioned for evacuation to the north and to Pasco County, east and the Hillsboro, and points beyond. She notes the different evacuation routes. Item B, utilization of existing infrastructure, which we would use. There would be no disturbing of environmental areas. She goes on to note maintenance of scenic qualities and improvement of public access, which would be that there would be no impacts. Water dependent use is not a water dependent use. Part of a community redevelopment plan, which is not an overall reduction of density or intensity, is an issue. So this is something under the CPA, under Ford Penelos, that you have the full authority to consider and approve. This again is another comment in regard from Lisa Foster, noting that the regulations to ensure repeated damage structures are substantially damaged are brought into compliance, which is what we're going to do. It's really important that we get these folks in the safe structures. It's going to reduce our response need, reduce rescues and financial challenges that are associated with flooding of the residents. You'll hear from the property owners who will be making some comments that they are probably the poster child of working every week for the last year with your staff on handling the residents who were severely damaged, who were trying to get their lives back together, and moved the huge majority of them with the county funding and their own funding when the county funding ended and completed, to move residents in the safe places. So when you look at Future Lands Objective 6.3, again, encourage increased development of resiliency and minimization for major storm events and hazards, require redevelopment to exceed national flood insurance program, coordinate for resiliency strategies. And again, which I think is a critical element and critical policy for you under your comp plan is redevelopment or manufactured home communities that meet or exceed required standards. I'd like to switch to the overhead, if I may, for a moment. We can zoom in just a bit. We can zoom in just a bit, please. Where do I do that? This is page two of your comprehensive plan, which reads specifically that the policies, objectives, and strategies reflect a holistic approach. And when implementing the goals, objectives, and policies, and strategies, considerations should support the vision of all the guiding principles. That's an important factor, and why I spent a lot of time going through those criterion and policies before you. I'd like to switch direction a little bit that you'll hear more about. One email from one of the former residents, Ninda, has an email for you, which she's notes that my husband and I live in Twin City Park for almost 14 years. It was a nice park, but unfortunately, we're affected by the storm, Helena, and the park worked with the county helping us to find a safe place. Another email from Dave Morgenthau, who notes he was a resident as well. Lot 47 came through two storm seasons. He and his daughter were first impacted by Hurricane Adelia and then the other storms. It was a tremendous impact on the simple life my daughter and he were living. They were forced to evacuate, and only a portion of what they owned could be saved. In the wake of the storm, officials from Pinellas County and management from Twin City and Shirley Camacho of Endeavors facilitate our relocation to a rental on south side of St. Petersburg. This was possible through a grant created to support members of Twin City community in the wake of the hurricanes and a program which they are extremely grateful for. So I would say to you, in summary, commissioners, when you see what is permissible by St. Petersburg directly across the street, we are happy to work with you and your staff in any direction to make this proposal work. I would suggest to you that this is a way that Pinellas County can move forward, not only being able to utilize these type of sites safely, strongly, but also provide the type of housing, that middle management, middle factor, middle compartment of housing that's so needed in the county. So that we appreciate your consideration. We're happy to answer any questions. I want to place emphasis again that we're happy to work with your staff and yourselves in any direction to make this viable. Thank you. Any questions for the applicant? Okay, Dave. Dave. Could you go to the slide that had the different categories and the number of units? I think it was... Someone worked really hard in this PowerPoint. There you go. Yeah, that one. So the proposal is 133. That's what you say you need? That's what you guys are looking for to do? Yeah. Yes. And the owners and I looked at that very carefully as to where we felt we should come in to be at a reasonable, rational, methodical level. And then the middle category there, the low medium, is 88 units. Correct. And what is that? What would that allow? You said there was some allowance that would go, that that number could go up 181. I think you're referring to the gray water. Yeah. Which I did want to respond to. So let me give a little explanation. Gray water is water that's derived from showers, bathtubs, washing machines. And there was a state law that if you install gray water systems, you can get a density bonus. We've researched that. And gray water is not a great option. First of all, it's very expensive. Very expensive to maintain and very expensive to install. But there's a lot of problems because you get a lot of, well, just gunk. You get hair, soap, all kinds of pathogens that can contaminate soils and contaminate the area filters. So we never looked at that as a viable alternative. And I don't know if anyone in Pinellas County has. I think I heard the staff say in one of the hearings that there may have been one that proposed it, but I'm not aware of it being any widely accepted. And I will tell you that as a former chairman of the Southwest Florida Water Management governing board, and I served for eight years on the board, we never moved in any direction in that regard. And first of all, I'm not necessarily using St. Pete as the standard. I'm not using St. Pete as the standard. So just because they did it doesn't necessarily make it right. Yes, sir. So I just, is there any, can we, can we allow, I mean, if we, if we even considered this 133 units, is there any way to keep it from having that gray water option included? Or does that just automatically go with it? You cannot put a condition on land use. Yeah. All right. Thanks. Thanks for now. With all due respect, if I may, of course, Glenn mentioned a process of coming back with a master plan and such, which in most jurisdictions, you can get conditions to. I can't recall. Master plan relates to zoning, not land use. Okay. All right. So the first thing I want to say is, I do applaud the work that you all are doing with the residents who are there to relocate them. So I will just say, I appreciate that. And I think that is a a joint or concerted effort. Um, I guess my question is, um, is it because the numbers work better for the return on the project to go up to 133 units versus what the land use currently would allow for? Yes, absolutely. It has to be a credible, viable project, both, uh, on the economic factor. Certainly it has to be. And we look long and hard to determine where we should come in, which is why I showed these different categories. Uh, and that's how we derive where we're at. Um, we, we looked at what the current units or what the units were before, uh, the population, which was 103 units. So when we looked at residential medium at 133, we didn't feel that that was really in a grievous amount and recognizing that this was not a walkthrough issue and that we need to be rational. Yeah. But the, the mobile home units that were there or, you know, are being moved, that was based on a prior code existence, not current. So they were like grandfathered in so that should there have, should there be a change, which is now what we're asking for, or you're asking for. So now, since there's a change because it's a new or a new proposed owner or new proposed proposed project, you would have to now fall under the current guidelines. So that grandfathering of those units that were there when they were mobile homes, wouldn't apply to this current project. I will, I will be honest with you. I'm just real leery for any community. I don't care where it is. When individuals are building in areas that are already high hazard, coastal areas. Even if you build them up and I, if I'm not mistaken from the design drawings, the garages would be on the bottom. And then the living spaces would be above. And a lot of places are doing that now in order to not have to have like onsite parking, which increases the amount of land you need, but decreases your units because of that. But I am still just very leery about construction and development in any form when you are in a high coastal hazard zone area, because we got tremendous flooding just from Helene being off of our coast. If she had come on our coast, even three units up would have been underwater. Not saying I want that to happen to us, but just saying three, three, three levels up, we would be underwater. So I, um, uh, I, I can't, I'm having a hard time saying that I could support, um, the requests from the applicant. I'll, I'll listen to further conversation, but, um, I understand the position commissioner. We're, we're all, as you are, are trying to move on from disaster and trying to figure out where that best balance is. We believe this is a good balance. And I don't, um, I don't believe this would increase the traffic pattern. So I'm, I don't have an issue with that. I see what St. Petersburg has did on, has provided on the opposite side. Um, and it's good to know that, you know, there are ways to kind of maybe get around it and require, um, some additional support services because, um, you know, we don't necessarily encourage individuals to go to, um, or to leave the state. We do tell them you need to get to higher ground. So I mean, if they leave the state, they leave the state, but as long as they're getting to higher ground, that's fine. Providing, um, areas for, um, be providing areas for them to go for shelter. I think that has more to do with the ability to actually staff the shelters where, uh, Pinellas County schools used to always have all of their employees staff, the shelters, but now they've kind of come off of that because it's, it's costs, um, it's additional costs for them. So, I mean, I, I understand, uh, what they're representing. And like, I, I felt this really comes down to trying to make dollars and cents, um, or a new construction for new construction, uh, and the way for you to do that or to make the numbers work is by increasing the number of units built on the project. Well, there's another dimension that of course, as to whether this will continue to be a mobile home park, uh, versus being a site that is light years stronger and serves the public better mobile home park, because none of the people that can afford to build, uh, four feet up. So that's a, that will be a no, I can tell you that. So it will be vacated. They'll, they'll have to leave because, um, if they can't, um, elevate their structures, um, so that they meet the new elevate Florida requirements, then it'll be, um, a no go on a mobile home park. So, but, but I get what you're saying, but just want to put that out there. Mr. Pressman, uh, on what's allowable there, like it is, would it be possible for your owner to, if they wanted to repopulate with a hundred new, 103 new mobile homes, uh, elevated? Um, I, I, I mean, hypothetically, that could be a direction. I mean, you know, mobile homes, you know, manufactured houses are pretty. I can see somebody saying, okay, I can't have a 133 apartments. I'll take 103 mobile home, you know, manufactured homes. I'll put them up high, parking underneath. I could see that being something that somebody be interested. Yeah. Bobby Jacobson right up the street. Yeah. There's a local microphone, please. Right. So I guess what I'm thinking out loud is that, you know, we could end up with a newer manufactured housing project, or we could end up with 33 more apartments. And so, uh, I just, you know, when you were talking and I'm just saying, you know, this is kind of what they want to do is consistent with the neighborhood. It'd be good for the stormwater system out there. Uh, because you know, they're going to rebuild it. They're going to have to put a nice stormwater pond. That means water treatment. There's no water treatment out there. Everything out there flows right into Tampa Bay. There's, it's not being treated all the nice stormwater pond. We catch the pollutants off of Gandy Boulevard and their subdivision. We treat it before it goes in the water. Uh, I think it would be an uplift to the neighborhood and the surrounding properties. Uh, and it would be built with new resistant construction up off the floor. You don't have to worry about evacuating people, but if they have to evacuate, they're right there on the Gandy Bridge. I'm out of town. So it's not like close to high hazard over in New Rocks beach where it takes an hour to get across Pinellas County just to get to the bridge. They can go because they're right there. So I see a lot of benefits to this development, but I also, if we can't approve it, then I can see that if it were me, I'd be looking at new, new manufactured housing and 106 units and call it a day. So can I ask one more question, Mr. Chair? Um, so if it were to be approved, he would have to meet the density bonuses that were presented, which is what you said really doesn't work, which is the installation of a gray water system. Am I wrong? Is that to the applicant or to staff? Is that to the applicant or to staff? Um, whoever can answer. And you want to come up? Um, staff, I guess, because I just want to make sure I'm understanding. Commissioner Chair made some very good points, Mr. Developer over there. Thank you. Oh, I'm learning. So, hey. So, um, in order to provide him with the, um, number of units, provide the applicant, I'm sorry, with the number of units they desire, that would require that they put in those additional density bonuses? Or is that what you were saying they could do in order to achieve density bonuses? That's the only thing you can do to get their density bonus that's allowable by the comp plan, but that would only get them 88 units. So it wouldn't get to 133 that way. The only way to get to 133 is to amend, change the land use to residential medium, 134 actually. Okay. Okay. That's what I needed to understand. So the only way to get to 133 units, 134 units that's allowed under residential medium land use would be to change the land use. There's no density bonus allowance here other than the gray water, which will get them 35%, which is 88 units. There's no other way of doing it. What he's saying is under, under the residential urban, you could do a density bonus. Right. Correct. So with the gray water, you could have over a hundred units. I mean, if they just, if they went that way under, under low medium. Yes. But again, the comp plan prohibits residential low medium as well. Any increase is prohibited. Now I'm just looking at compromise. Yes. Jill, did you have a quick comment? I do feel compelled to speak up on this one. Um, just to, just to comment on a couple of, well, a number of comments that have been made here. Um, currently seven and a half units an acre are allowed under current land use. Your comprehensive plan specifically reads Pinellas County shall not approve any request to amend the future land use map to designate parcels of land within the coastal storm area with a category that permits more than five units an acre. They are already beyond that 50% beyond that. There is a state statute that is cited in the LPA report. Uh, it's 163.3194. Again, this is cited in the LPA report. After a comprehensive plan has been adopted in conformity with this act, all development undertaken by and all actions taken in regard to development orders by governmental agencies in regard to land covered by such plan shall be consistent with such plan. The request is not consistent with your comprehensive plan. Um, there's been talk of PPC balancing criteria. You are not sitting as the CPA here tonight. That has nothing to do with the decision that you're making tonight. If this moves forward and comes to you sitting as the CPA, that would be an appropriate time to talk about the Pinellas planning, the Pinellas planning council rules in regard to the countywide future land use map. Um, the density that you're talking about tonight is directly related to the Pinellas County comprehensive plan, which again says you shall not amend it beyond five units an acre in the coastal storm area. This is in the coastal storm area. I hate to say this, but it doesn't matter what St. Pete did right across the street. That's St. Pete's plan. And it has no bearing on your comp plan in your land development regulations. Anything that's grandfathered in this area, likewise has nothing to do with the request before you today. Um, all of the talk about will be elevated. It'll be safer. It'll be better. It will be better if it's redeveloped under the current plan, because the fact is the Florida building code requires all of those things of any redevelopment. So if you stay at the density that is there today, which again is beyond what's allowed by your comprehensive plan today, all of those things are going to be required anyway. So elevation, you know, new building code, impact windows, all the things that we all like, it's all going to be required anyway. And I know it's been pointed out too, that we should balance the things and consider things holistically in the plan. A lot of the other comp plan policies and objectives that were pointed to talk about supporting redevelopment, enhancing housing, coordinating, promoting. Your other, the section that I've cited says shall not approve. So a lot of these other things that talk in terms of the balancing are we want to enhance, we want to promote, but the criteria that speaks directly to density says you shall not approve it. So that's what I wanted to offer up today. Um, this is contrary to your, your comprehensive plan and the state statute says you shall not do it. Um, I'll leave it at that. Thank you, chair. Um, I guess, um, you know, I don't know. Thank you, county attorney. Um, but so, I mean, I guess it was brought up in the applicant's presentation about the coastal management policy 2.1, 2.1.3. It sets limit that the countywide rules under section 4.2.7.1 may approve amendments in coastal high hazard area based on balancing criteria. That's the countywide rules. So the balance planning council rules. Which allow the county to be more restrictive. But not more lenient. No. And don't apply to the decision that you're making tonight anyway. That's in regard to the countywide plan, not the county's plan for unincorporated county. That's what you would look at if St. Pete was coming to you with an increased density increase. You would look at that balancing criteria sitting as a countywide planning authority. So when it says it's at the county commission's like sole and absolute discretion, it's not? Or? It would be if you were looking at an amendment to the countywide future land use map. This is not the countywide future land use map. This is the map that the county has for unincorporated areas of the county. If you all approve this, I don't know if it would trigger a PPC map amendment or not. Yes. Um, but you would hear this again sitting as the countywide planning authority under your countywide planning jurisdiction. So you have countywide jurisdiction for land use planning. That's a charter power. And that is something that's effectuated through the Pinellas Planning Council. But all those cases come back to you sitting as the countywide planning authority. So the county commission sitting as that CPA has final say on future land use amendments that at the local level. So this is at the local level for us for unincorporated county. And just as Glenn pointed out for any other city, including St. Pete and every other city, if they had a land use amendment plan or land use plan amendment that triggered a PPC amendment, then those would all come back to us. This one would come back to us. It's a little strange, I know, because you hear it first as the county and then you hear it second as the countywide planning authority. But those those rules that were just being cited, those relate to the countywide plan. So they have no relevance to the decision tonight. And in that county and countywide plans, those municipalities can be more restrictive than our plan, but they can't be less restrictive than our plan, if I understand it. Than the countywide plan? Yes. Yes. Okay. So, Jill, I've got a question. So if we wanted to do this, can we, not tonight, but can we change the comprehensive plan to allow it or is that set in stone? I will try to answer it and see if your planning staff will correct me. I mean, you can change the comprehensive plan. It's a dynamic document. It's not set in stone. We're required to do amendments to it at a regular frequency. I know some local governments are having a hard time with some of those updates right now, given some other things that aren't at play here tonight. But you can change it. It's not a quick process. I'm going to guess, and I'll let maybe Glenn or Michael, somebody correct me that you're probably looking at maybe like a year to do something like that. So it's not, I don't want to, you know, give any kind of false hope that it's a quick process because, you know, even just going through a normal land development regulation process, you've got to develop the ordinance. You've got to take it to DRC. It's got to go to LPA. It's got to come to two hearings before the county commission. And this would be a comp plan change that would need to go to the state of Florida also. You have to go to the state review agencies. They may require these certain things. It's a lengthy process. And I, so it, it kind of seems to me like we're, this is putting the cart before the horse is that what's being requested, we can't do. So if we wanted to have a discussion about whether we should put greater density in the coastal high hazard area, we should have that discussion first. It's, you know, it's, it's a growing issue in the county. And I know that we heard for, you know, a couple hours earlier from folks that were impacted. I mean, living in flood zones, or it's, it's not a joke, you know, it's no joke. It's, we've seen, we've seen that, you know, up close and personal here a year or so ago. Um, so to the extent that you all wanted to talk about that, you know, you might want to have a work session on it and, and talk about it, because there's certainly, there are certainly other properties out in the county that also exist within the coastal high hazard area or the coastal storm area that you're probably going to see. So it's a matter of deciding, do you want to go there or do not? And, and considering a lot of the other factors at play as far as evacuations and, and all the stuff you've heard about here this evening, uh, shelters and, and, and things of that nature. Just curious, what's the process for changing the coastal high hazard maps? I don't know that we have much to say about that. That's the state of Florida. That's Tallahassee. Okay. I don't know. I've never done it before. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. That's Tallahassee. I've probably tried. I've just forgotten. So I, I do have a couple of, um, in addition to, to Todd, but I've got, um, three other, um, three registered by zoom. I don't know if this was just for questions or if they wanted to actually speak. Um, Daryl Lynn, do we have any of these folks on zoom? Uh, at least two of them are zoom. I believe the other one is, but I don't see the name. Um, none of them have their hands raised. I can call, want to call on them. Sure. Um, Matt Berg, are you interested in speaking? Please raise your zoom hand, um, virtual hand zoom and we'll go ahead and unmute you. Matt Berg, can you hear me? Okay. Just confirming no comments. I mean, happy to answer any questions, but no comments further at this time. Thank you. Thank you. Um, Tom Bootman, can you hear me? You can go ahead and speak. Uh, same, uh, comment, no comments at this time unless you have any questions. Are those individuals with the project or just community people? Individuals with the product, with the project. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for everybody hearing us tonight. And then call in user. Um, you can star nine to unmute. I don't know if you're James iso. Can you hear me? Well, if he raises his hand, let us know. Um, well, all right, what do we want to do? Oh, Dave, and then we'll go. If this is a denied, it's denied. When can they, they're, they're asking for the proposed and that's denied. When can they bring back a request for the now? I have that now, right? I'm going to let these guys correct me again if I'm wrong. Um, but I believe our code still has a provision in it. The same application can't be heard for six months, right? If a different application, I think. Okay. But they do have residential urban rights now. So they don't, they wouldn't have to come back for those for if they could still hear the zoning case tonight. Oh, the zoning case still do that and change the zoning. I will say mobile home is nonconforming. If it's vacant for more than six months, it goes away. So we need to be not vacant for more than six months. So the nonconformity goes away and it would have to meet today's standards in density and stormwater and everything else. I just wanted to let you know. And I know that you all are used to the way that we're doing it now, like if the land use doesn't pass, then we don't move on to the zoning. But this case is different um, because of the nonconformity. And I think if you denied this case, we'd still want to, I think assume an applicant still wants to move forward and move forward and entertain the zoning change because I think the zoning change is recommended for approval and would make it consistent with the current land use. In this case, the zoning, I mean, the zoning is the use, the actual going from mobile homes to multifamily. It doesn't matter what the land use is, as long as the land use allows residential, both the residential urban residential medium allow residential. So it's just a density issue you're dealing with right now. The actual use, the multifamily use itself is a zoning component. So yeah, they are not connected in terms of you have to do one, you can't do the other. So I'm sorry, maybe it's getting late or something here. But on if this is if residential medium is is turned down, we could move forward with the other case or not, depending on what the applicant wants to do. And if he didn't want to do that, when could he bring back any other consideration? I just want to make sure I'm clear. It's six months. If it's denied without prejudice, that goes away, I believe. And that's for the same application. Right. Right. The same application. Yes. But a land use application is pretty straight up and down. That's right. Is your density increasing? And I think that, I mean, I know that you all talked at least a little bit about entertaining a change to the comp plan. It's going to take more than six months. If that's the direction that the commission wanted to go, that would take longer than six months. If they wanted to bring back an application with the 7.5, then that wouldn't have, they wouldn't have to wait six months for that. That's correct. Only if they wanted to bring this specific one back again, they'd have to. But they have 7.5 now. So, yeah. All right. Well, I will recommend denial of the request for the residential urban to residential medium. All right. I have a motion for denial. Do we have a second on that? Or one more question? Thank you, Chair. County attorney, maybe just, you know, just because I'm brand new, you know, almost a year, maybe you could just help me just maybe I'm not understanding it right. You know, it's my understanding of this section 4.2.7.1 of the countywide rules that the Pinellas Planning Council and countywide planning authority, which I thought is us, shall deny any amendment within the coastal high areas, which increases density or intensity, quote, except that they may at their sole and absolute discretion consider approving such amendment based upon balancing of criteria. So it's absolutely impossible for us as this, that authority to approve an amendment based on stormwater that they're improving, lifting it, that's not within our legal purview at all 100%. Tonight, it is not within your legal purview because this is not a countywide planning authority case. It's a Pinellas County case. I know it's a subtle distinction, but it's a very important distinction because you're talking about amending the Pinellas County comprehensive plan, not the countywide comprehensive plan. Those are two different documents. The countywide plan is something that every local government within Pinellas County, so unincorporated county in the 24 cities, all are required to be consistent with, so it's a completely different plan altogether. So no, it has no bearing. It's got no bearing on tonight's decision. Second, Commissioner Egger's motion. And just as a, in addition to that with the, when you're doing a countywide change, it will also typically go through that government entity through their process and then comes to us last. So yeah, it is, it's tough. I love you, Mr. Preston, but I can't support this tonight. Vince, was that a, was that a second for his, okay. And to the gentleman listening, not like y'all too, don't know you, but. Mr. Chairman, with all due respect, I believe I have five minutes rebut. I'm sorry. With all due respect, I believe I have a five minute rebut, which I'll keep short in the five minutes. So again, you're comprehensive. I'm sorry, sir. Thank you. So again, Mr. Chairman, commissioners, and with respect to your county attorney, your comp plan directs you to balance all the comp plan policies, not just one. I read to you from the second page of the comprehensive plan. It's a holistic approach. Policy 1212, support the redevelopment of manufactured home communities that meet or exceed required standards. Create manufactured home strategic plan, which at a minimum should consider enhancement or development, redevelopment opportunities. I think Commissioner Scherr has some good points as to what's going to be the best result here, replacing with mobile homes again, or going with a much stronger, much more resilient, much better housing option for the citizens of Pinellas County. And I do say with the greatest respect to your county attorney, what happens in St. Pete is important because you know, you hear one word every time that you have a land use hearing, which is compatibility, cohesive. And I showed you when you look at virtually all sides of this site, the densities can be at a maximum almost double. We're asking for much less than that. So it is compatible. It is consistent with the immediate area. It's a better result. It's a better housing. You've had no opposition. You had two votes of support from your LPA. We believe it's a great way for Pinellas County to move forward. I think you've had a great discussion. We appreciate your patience and consideration. Thank you. Thank you, Tom. I just had one question for our county attorney. If I were to vote in favor of this, which I shall not do, do I lose my birthday or I get removed? I I don't know what to shout out me. I don't know. You shall not do it. I know. Sounds pretty stern. We could be soon. I hate to say it like that. All right. Well, are we, are we ready to? I'm gonna get your birthday card. There you go. Are we ready to vote? So positive. So we have, we had a, a motion to deny by Commissioner Eggers and a second from Commissioner Newick. Okay. So if we could please open the voting. All right. All right. So that passes unanimously. So now we are, we're on to the zoning part part of this. We're on item 32. And the item number 32 is case number ZON 2502. This is a request by Twin City MHC LLC for a zoning use change from residential mobile manufactured home to multi-family residential on approximately 8.94 acres located at 10636 Gandy Boulevard North and unincorporated St. Petersburg. It's companion to agenda item number 31. Since this is a quasi judicial hearing, all these individuals who plan to speak on this item must be sworn in. For those wishing to speak whether you are attending in person or virtually, if able, please raise your right hand. Do you swear or affirm the testimony you're about to give us the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? Signify by saying I do. The public hearing is properly advertised. An affidavit of publication has been received for filing. No correspondence has been received by the clerk, and it matters properly before the board to be heard. Thank you, Daryl. So I have a quick question. Todd, does the applicant desire to move forward with this part of it? That's the same question I was going to ask. I'm really not sure with the first item being denied. And what I would like to do is to move this forward to another date so the applicant can have the ability to understand the results of the first vote and what they would want. And if that's the desire, what I would recommend and ask Mr. Pressman maybe to concur that it be continued to a date certain so that if they do wish to move forward, we don't have to have it re-advertise and have it go through the whole process again. So I don't know whether there's, I believe you have one meeting in November and one in December, so I don't know if you have a preference. Do we have to determine that right now, or can I work with your staff for that date? If we're going to continue to a date certain, and what I would recommend is maybe if you wanted some time to move it a little bit further out, just because that avoids, like I said, the need to re-advertise and go back through the LPA and all that sort of business. So maybe December, maybe even January, it depends, you know, kind of on your timing, but I would definitely recommend continue it to a date certain so that you avoid those costs. But we have to have a certain date. That's the... A certain date right now. Yeah. Yeah. So... Can I confer with your staff for a couple... Yeah, yeah. I just want to check public hearing dates. Yeah. So I don't have a conflict. December... What are our date options? December 16th would be, yeah, would be the December date. November 18th. That's too soon, I think. Yeah. November 18th, December 16th. What about January? Let's do December 16th, please. Yeah, January is January 20th. That's all right. Then I would recommend that the commission move to continue this to that date, so that we avoid all the things I mentioned. Yeah. Got it. I move to continue this to the December 16th meeting. Second on that. All right. Motion by Commissioner Nowicki. Second by Commissioner Flowers to move this to December 16th. Okay. All right. We can open up the voting. All right. Passes unanimously. Well, thank you everybody. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you, Todd. All right. Well, if there's nothing else for the goody order, then we are adjourned. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.