everybody. I'd like to call our November 18th, 2025 meeting of the Pinellas County Board of County Commissioners to order. If you could, Commissioner Peters will be unable to join us today, and if you could all keep Commissioner Latvalley in your thoughts and prayers as he continues his recovery. And in his absence, we are honoring him today with a stuffed dog with a bow, graciously provided by Commissioner Flowers. We thought it was appropriate to rib him a little bit because he's the only one who has not done a canine commissioner photo shoot, so we want to make sure that we give him a little hard time about that. But anyways, if we could please stand, and Commissioner Shearer will provide us an invocation, and then Commissioner Eggers will lead us in the pledge. All right, so we have a couple of proclamations to do here today, and the first one is for the 35th anniversary of the Pinellas Trail, also known as the Fred Marquis Pinellas Trail. So I would like to invite Scott Daniels, Vice President of Friends of the Pinellas Trail, Chip Freeman, Treasurer of Friends of the Pinellas Trail, Richard Valentine, Secretary, and Dan Yost, Chief Park Ranger for Pinellas County Parks and Conservation Resources, to please join me. And also, if the winners of our Pinellas Trail photo contest could also join me. Mark Majoris, Pets on the Trail winner, Miguel Celis, Animal and Plant Life winner, please come up and join me. So who doesn't love the Pinellas Trail? It's hard to believe it's been 35 years. I remember the day that it opened. So where it airs in 1983, inspired by the advocacy of Bert Valerie after the tragic loss of his son, Pinellas County envisioned a safe scenic corridor for recreation and transportation. Through the efforts of Valerie, Brian Smith, and then County Administrator Fred Marquis, supported by citizen advisory groups, the vision to repurpose a 34-mile abandoned rail line into a multi-use trail took shape. The first section opened in 1990, funded and expanded by a penny for Pinellas, growing into today's 65-mile Fred Marquis Pinellas Trail, connecting communities all across the county, and soon to be completed into a complete loop around the county. Now averaging 160,000 monthly users, myself among one of them, the trail provides a green sanctuary and an urban setting, linking parts, neighborhoods, and coastal areas while promoting health, safety, and environmental stewardship. Its success is sustained by law enforcement, volunteers, park rangers, and devoted volunteers who patrol and maintain the trail, and the friends of the Pinellas Trail making it a national model for multi-use trails. They are therefore being proclaimed by the Pinellas County Board of County Commissioners, hereby recognized and celebrates the 35th anniversary of the Fred Marquis Pinellas Trail, and honors the individuals, organizations, and community members whose vision, perseverance, and commitment brought this extraordinary public resource to life. Be it further proclaimed that we encourage all residents and visitors to experience the beauty, connection, and vitality that Pinellas Trail offers. It's close to home, close to work, and close to the heart of Pinellas County. Sir? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I see a lot of people in the room that I know because I've been involved for 37 years when the Citizens Group started in 1988, and in 1990, on December 1st, we opened up the first five miles of the Pinellas Trail from Largo to Seminole, or to some people, Seminole to Largo. But that's where we started, and now you hear that we're 65 miles and we'll be 75 miles when we finish the Pinellas Trail loop. So you'll have lots to look forward to in the coming years. We've survived COVID, and we've survived a lot of other economic issues over these 35 years, but we're on our way to have a successful Pinellas Trail loop. For those of you that don't know, we will be the western terminus of the Coast to Coast Sun Trail with the state of Florida. It'll be about 275 miles from Pinellas County all the way over to Brevard County. So if you're ready to go on your bike or walk or visit, it's going to be a statewide program supported by the folks in Tallahassee, as well as all the counties that we're involved with. I want to tell you what a pleasure it's been to be in this private-public partnership with you all, with the county government all these years, with the citizens who come and let you know what we want in our community. We were one of the first to take this adventure, and the journey has been nothing but positive. Dan Jost is here representing your rangers and the team from the Parks and Conservation Services that have supported what we want for our community, which is safe and safe community bike and walk and inline skate. And so you all can be very proud that next to our world-famous Pinellas County beaches, second on the list is the Pinellas Trail. And I want you to remember that because these folks that are here voting, these folks that are here running our government need to know how important it is to keep the funding and the support for staffing that we have the best trail, not only in Florida, but we believe in the United States, being recognized by the National Rails to Trails Conservancy and recognized by tourists that come here specifically for our beaches and for the Pinellas Trail, among many other things that we have. We look to the future for that success, and all of you are a part of it. So you all have a fan to let people know that you're a fan, and we'll be continuing to support you, the citizens that vote, the citizens that volunteer, and the citizens that live in the neighborhoods that enjoy having the Pinellas Trail as their neighbor. Thank you very much. The Pinellas Trail is a great asset. We are so lucky, lucky to have it. And for our photo winners as well. My wife and I recently moved to Florida, and we are honored to be able to help celebrate the anniversary of the Pinellas Trail. And thank you all for making it available. And we're pleased that my wife and my dog were able to help celebrate with you. So thank you. We love dogs on the front. If my fellow commissioners can join me for some photos. I just want to thank everybody as well for the opportunity of having such amazing trail. To me, it's right now I do photography for a living, but the nature and wildlife photography, it's my hobby, and it will always be. And having the Pinellas Trail is just an amazing thing to have. It's my happy place. It's where I go to really enjoy photography. Okay. Next, I would like to recognize Achievement of Excellence in Procurement. I would like to invite Mary Celeste, Division Director of Purchasing, along with members of the Purchasing Division staff to please join me at the podium. They will be accepting the Achievement of Excellence in Purchasing Award on behalf of the entire Purchasing Division and the Board of County Commissioners. Okay. Is that everybody? All right. The National Procurement Institute awards the Achievement of Excellence in Procurement to recognize organizational excellence in public procurement. This prestigious award is earned by organizations that demonstrate excellence by achieving high scores across criteria measuring innovation, professionalism, productivity, e-procurement, and leadership. The Achievement of Excellence in Procurement is widely regarded as the premier award in public procurement, profession with approximately 200 organizations nationwide receiving this award each year. Pinellas County's Purchasing Division is one of only 48 counties in the United States to earn this prestigious recognition. And to put that in perspective, there's over 3,000 counties in the United States. This marks the ninth time in the past 10 years that the Pinellas County Board of County Commissioners Purchasing Division has been awarded the Achievement of Excellence in Procurement. Please join me in congratulating them on this outstanding achievement. Sure. Mary Celeste, Division Director of Purchasing. I'd like to introduce some of my staff. Jim Just, Manager of Purchasing Operations. Katie Jansen, Manager of Purchasing Support. And some of our leads that handle some of the biggest procurements that come before this board. So Pam Ulrich handled the C-MAR contracts for the new county campus. Pam, you want to raise your hand? Michelle Jurek in the back. She handles all of our capital construction projects. Probably most notably would be the mobile home communities, wastewater facilities. Let's see. Darren, I can't give him anything. He just started two weeks ago. Patty Cortez, CDBG-DR, Administration of the Funding with Horn. Kim Meador is handling the ERP system, the brand new one for countywide that's coming up. And Marcus Robinson is handling the Star Center Redevelopment P3. So those are some of the large projects that we send to the board for consideration and approval. So I want to thank everybody. Oh, Alex. Alex Molloy, Waste Energy Facility Operator. You guys just approved that. So thank you. We very much appreciate everything you do. We really like it when you bring those contracts in under budget for us. So, right? All right. So if you could, my fellow commissioners, please join me for some pictures. Joe? Joe? Joe Lohr, could you join us up here as well? Hey, pleasure. Thank you. I hope you all got your fan. I'm a fan of Pinellas Trail. So now we're going to go on to citizens to be heard. And first we have Brian Rothy. Rothy? Good afternoon, sir. Good afternoon. It's Rothy. R-O-T-H-E-Y. My apologies. No, of course, that's fine. Had no idea I was going to go first today, but thank you for having me and thank you for giving me this opportunity. Brian Rothy, I'm the Assistant Vice President for Adult Community Programs, Quality, and Government Relations recently at Park Center for Disabilities in St. Petersburg, Florida. I'm here today, pretty simple, just to say thank you to all of you, all of our commissioners, and to share some of the progress and some of the impact that we've had at Park Center for Disabilities. Most recently, we've partnered with the county and with our city and received several CDBG grants. So we've been able to update our campus. We've been able to elevate our programs. We've been able to update a lot of the residences that we operate. We also recently received a PCSA, Penelope County Social Action Grant that supports our, sorry, a little nervous, our young adults with, and supported employment. I'm sorry. We just recently started a transition program at Northside Hospital, so we received a grant for that. Thank you very, very much for that. That's some of the progress that we've had over the last several years, simply because of the impact of our community, our commissioners, you all sitting here today, the entire county. Because of your support, we have been able to elevate our programs, our campuses, and it not only impacts the over 500 individuals with developmental disabilities that we serve, but the more than 300 employees that we employ throughout the year. So it gives them a nice, fresh, modernized place to come to work every single day. It has, it's increased the quality, the safety, and the accessibility of our campus. So PARC, PARC in general, has been in our community for well over 70 years. Founded in 1953, so truly a staple in our county. We serve children as early as two months old, and as late as six years old, and then from 18 years old through the end of life. So we have literally the full circle that occurs at PARC Center for Disabilities. And we remain committed to serving children and adults with developmental disabilities, with dignity and innovation. And is that my timer? Oh, geez. Thank you, sir. Thank you guys very much. Thank you for those who have come out and toured. And for those of you who haven't, open invitation to please come. Thank you. Thanks. Next, we have Daryl Henderson, which will be followed by David Ballard, Gettys Jr. Good afternoon, Mr. Henderson. Good afternoon, Commissioners. Daryl Henderson representing the Recovery Epicenter Foundation based in Clearwater. Tampa Bay is leading the nation with a bold new vision, the creation of the first tri-county inclusive recovery community in the United States. Hillsborough and Pasco counties have already proclaimed themselves IRCs, committing to visible, stigma-free support for people in recovery. Vanellis County's participation would complete a powerful regional model of hope, inclusion, and resilience. So what is an inclusive recovery community? It is a city, county, or neighborhood that intentionally creates safe, welcoming spaces where recovery is not hidden but celebrated. IRCs are built on dignity, equity, and hope. They prioritize leadership from people with lived experience, host public events that make recovery visible, form cross-sector partnerships across health, justice, education, and business, and embed recovery-friendly language and policies into everyday life. At their core, IRCs declare, recovery is real, recovery should be visible, and recovery belongs everywhere in our parks, workplaces, and policies. Hillsborough and Pasco have already committed to concrete steps, forming local IRC councils led by lived experience, hosting at least four inclusive recovery events each year, embedding recovery voices into planning and policy, and collaborating across the Tampa Bay IRC network to share progress and scale impact. These actions are not symbolic. They are structural commitments to ensure no one walks the recovery journey alone. Now the momentum is building. If Pinellas County joins, Tampa Bay will become the first tri-county IRC region in the nation, setting a precedent for communities everywhere. Imagine the message that sends. Three counties united, declaring that recovery is visible, valued, and celebrated. This is not just about local pride. It's about national leadership. So here's the call to action. Pinellas County has the opportunity to stand shoulder to shoulder with Hillsborough and Pasco to help build a region of hope where recovery is woven into the fabric of community life. By joining, Pinellas can help Tampa Bay shine as a beacon for the nation, proving that when communities unite around dignity, equity, and hope, recovery isn't just possible. It thrives. Thank you. Hey, David Ballard Geddes Jr., followed by Ron Walker. Good afternoon, sir. David Ballard Geddes Jr. I live on Georgia Avenue in Palm Harbor. The Great Gale of 1848 was a hurricane that created John's Pass down in Madeira Beach. The hurricane of 1921 created Hurricane Pass just up the street here. In 1935, the Labor Day hurricane ripped through the Florida Keys. In 1944, Sarasota was hit by a hurricane. In 1946, a hurricane went straight up through Tampa Bay. Hurricane Easy came ashore in 1950, and in 1960 was Hurricane Donna. All the while knowing such weather catastrophes, the development racket in the state of Florida purposely built homes directly on the beach, directly on the ground. Developing in coastal high hazard areas and developing on wetlands throughout the state, knowing good and well that it was just a matter of time before a disaster was to befall upon the development practices and the homes would be flooded. Even old Florida cracker homes and sharecropping homes built in the early 1900s had enough common sense to build their homes up off the ground because they knew that when it rained in Florida, it flooded regardless of where you lived. The problem lies with the recent development, the racket beginning around the 1960s, building all of these homes directly on the ground, knowing it was a simple matter of time before a hurricane was to flood all the homes. The developers and legislation knowingly staged such pitfalls. The residents got set up. The developers intentionally set snares built in with their staged development practices, entrapping the residents, legislatively backstabbing the residents as self-evident setting pitfalls and traps we see in our hindsight today. Such staged upgrades in county code enforcement upon the residents that are being imposed upon the residents that are being imposed upon the residents today were reasonably foreseen and preventable happenstances that were purposefully overlooked and legislatively neglected intending to place the residents under future duress that we see happening now, ultimately intending to dispossess us to dispossess us of our homes under such new code under such new code under such new code enforcement procedures and you as county code enforcement don't have a permit for that. You the county is guilty of maritime poaching and racketeering and your license has been revoked. Thank you. Thank you David. Ron Walker followed by Greg Pound on Walker 7100 Olmerton Road. Largo. Pinellas County needs a false claims ordinance. Now for you folks who are from unfamiliar with the terminology, a false claim ordinance is an ordinance that protects whistleblowers. Further, a false claims ordinance is an ordinance that encourages patriotic citizens to sue thieves who are stealing from the county and the county. And if they win the lawsuit, the county gets the money. What county in all the world wouldn't want an ordinance like that on the box? Pinellas County with our seven intellectual giants leading us. All you've got to do is copy Broward County's ordinance. I've given you all copies of it. They copied Dade. Dade copied the State Act. The State copied the Federal Act. And as a result, billions and billions of stolen dollars are recovered by various government entities every year. But not Pinellas County. All you've got to do is copy Broward County's ordinance. I've given you all copies of it. You won't have to work hard. I know that chills you a little. Other than that, guys, have a happy Thanksgiving. Thank you, Mr. Walker. Next, we have Greg Pound. Yes, Greg Pound, Largo, Florida. I want to bring up an issue I'm dealing with. In 2019, I was on my way to the courthouse. I've been exposing the corruption in Pinellas County court system for over 10 years, standing out in front of the courthouse and explaining to people the corruption going on in Pinellas County. So I'm on my way to the courthouse in August. And August 18th, I believe it was. And I'm sitting at a stoplight, waiting for the light to change. And a car plows in the back of me, blows out my neck and back. And as I'm as, as all this happens, as I mean, instantly, you know, the ambulance was there and the police and so forth. They want to take me to the hospital. And I told him, no, I don't want to go to the hospital. And so what happens is I heard one officer say to the officer, another officer, he said, do you know who's in this car? He says, yep. He says, keep my name off all the paperwork. Now, I've been in this, I hired an attorney here, and then Paranek law firm. And he takes my case for four and a half years. We're just ready to go to trial. And he goes before a judge, Patricia, um, what's the, I can't, um, I can't remember her last name now. So what, so what happens either way, the judge dismisses him. I follow an appeal before she dismisses the, the, before she dismisses the attorney, judge Muscarella, Patricia Muscarella. When we're in court, when, and so now I'm dealing with progressive attorneys and judge Muscarella, and you want to see some, what I call a sham proceedings, you couldn't make it up. Um, this stuff is, this stuff is insane. Now they're telling me that I owe $17,000 to progressive insurance company for this guy hit me in the back end, blowing out my neck. Now the MRIs don't lie all the stuff, all the material. I mean, I got, I literally have thousands of dollars in medical bills. And what happens is once you see the scam that the insurance companies and the courts are doing for money, they're running a scam between the attorneys, the doctors and the court in order to get money. And you're talking about millions, billions of dollars. I mean, progressive is like, I don't know, it's like $165 billion a year, billion. And so what we have is we have a major problem with corruption. And if you look at my filings, I mean, I've noted everything that they've done. I mean, progressive attorney in court calls her by her first name, but I was, I can't say it. It was, um, Pat. And so he's, um, so now what I'm dealing with is chronic fatigue and chronic, chronic pain from the, and so forth of what I've been going through for over four years of this, but this is the way, this is what Pinellas County has done to attack me, to shut me up, but it's not going to happen. They're not going to win. Okay. That concludes public comment. So now we will move on to the consent agenda. Items four through 27. Is there any commissioner that would like to pull any items? Okay. Um, right. You want to do it now? Okay. Yeah, go ahead. Thanks. Um, I just always like to, or sometimes like to bring attention to our division of inspector general, uh, department or clerk of the court and the work that they do on behalf of the residents to make sure that our departments and everybody that works here are doing things the right way and within the law. And, um, I just wanted to draw special attention to, they had five cases in this report, which is a little bit more than normal, but they continue to see these and they come from us. They come from staff members. They come from pop the people out in the, uh, of the residents of our County. Uh, one was a followup audit of an economic development and employment sites program. That's one of the five cases inspector generals observation of the public's work customer and technical service divisions, physical inventory. The third investigation of building and development review services, personnel alteration of a permit record, just so you know, the kinds of things that they get involved in. And number four, investigation, investigative review of a building permit itself. And then a followup audit of accounts receivable write-offs for two separate years. So they get into all aspects and in a lot of detail to make sure that we're doing the things that we're supposed to be doing and doing them in the right way. And I just really want to take my hat off to the division of inspector general Ken Burke and his entire department. Thank you. And move approval on your, on the entire consent. Nice. Very nice. Okay. I have a motion from commissioner. There was a second from commissioner. Was it a wiki? Okay. Um, all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? All right. Consent agenda carries. Now we'll be going on to our regular agenda item number 28. And just commissioners on that past item. Um, the inspector general put on a several hour presentation to our, my entire executive leadership team on how to use them, how to work with them, how to engage them early, uh, to where we can continue to have that oversight and make sure we build into our processes, um, proper governance and, and, uh, oversight structures. So that just occurred a couple of weeks ago. So, um, on the regular item item, item number 28, this is the word of bid to Hubbard construction for the new air co taxiway at St. Pete international airport. Okay. Any questions, comments, thoughts? Motion by commissioner and a wiki second by commissioner share. Any further discussion? Okay. Hearing none, if we can open up the voting, please passes unanimously. Item number 29. Item number 29 is a memorandum of understanding. So item number 29 and 30, these, um, our current county, uh, facilities, we leased that land from the airport and we had to pay fair market value per the terms of our agreement with FAA. And so the, both of these reflect updates, uh, to those annual rent payments. Yep. Um, it's, and it said there was a short, is there, is there a shortfall since this, uh, 2024? This was, uh, not 2025 on there. So I was thinking it would have been this year. Is there a shortfall, Chris, or, um, you can, you go ahead, Mark. The owner and director at the airport. Uh, it is 2024. We just had to go through, um, the building and the, um, uh, and the sheriff's department. So it was a lack between, um, uh, last year, it just fell through. And then, so we brought it back up the date for this year. So it's a new rate as of then, and we were running the old rates or the old rates. Um, it's effective this calendar year. Okay. So, but the, the lease is actually started, um, in 2024. Thank you. You're welcome. I'm going to give you some air time too. It's good to see you, Mark. See you as well. Chair. Thanks, Mark. Chair. Yeah. Hey, do you have Commissioner Nowicki. Yeah. So the new rates, um, we actually backfilled it last year with some, uh, construction and property management funds. So it was budgeted for, we just didn't bring it forward. And so the 22.7% annual rental rate increase seems a little high. It's, it's reset every five years, which we're going to deal with that every waiting once every five years to reset has this type of huge escalation. So we're going to start pursuing more annual increase. Perfect. Thank you. Thanks. Any further questions? Okay. Can I get a motion? Motion by Commissioner Flower, second by Commissioner Nowicki. Uh, this is, I guess, could we do both of these at the same time? Okay. And if you, either way you want to do Daryl and she's got to record it. Okay. All right. Okay. So we're going to vote on both 29 and 30. Okay. Okay. Any further discussion? All right. Hearing none, if we could pull up the voting. Pass it unanimously. Thank you. Item number 31. It's adoption of the honor, honorary naming rights policy and associated resolution that, uh, that Blaine briefed you on earlier. Motion by Commissioner Nowicki, second by Commissioner Scheer. Any discussion? Okay. Hearing none, if we could open up the voting. Pass it unanimously. Item number 32. This is NMSTU for Tampa Bay Watch for boat lift, boat lift replacement, $20,000. Second by Commissioner Scheer, or motion by Commissioner Scheer, second by Commissioner Flowers. Okay. All right. Uh, any further discussion? Okay. Hearing none, if we could open up the voting. Okay. Pass it unanimously. Moving on to item 33. These are two TDC fund projects. Um, both, uh, capital projects with the city of Clearwater for the Clearwater Beach Marina, uh, and the IDC Moore, uh, uh, uh, complex upgrades. Okay. Motion by Commissioner Nowicki. Second by Commissioner Scheer. Any discussion? Hearing none, if we could open up the voting. Pass it unanimously. Moving on to item number 34. It's the third amendment to an MOU with, uh, Pinellas County Schools for capital improvements for, uh, hurricane shelter retrofits. This is to add Campbell Park Elementary. Motion by Commissioner Flowers, second by Commissioner Nowicki. Any discussion? Hearing none, if we can open up the voting. All right. Pass it unanimously. Moving right along to item 35. Affordable Housing Advisory 2025 State Housing Initiatives Partnership Program Strategies Report, um, to each year where, uh, we have to provide this report. It has no fiscal impact to the county. Motion by Commissioner Scheer. Second by Commissioner Nowicki. Any further discussion? Hearing none, if we could open up the voting. Pass it unanimously. Item 36. A contract with the State of Florida Department of Health for the operation of the, um, Florida Department of Health in Pinellas County operation. So this is 5.9 million for core services, a little over 2 million for the school nurse program. Motion by Commissioner Flowers. Second by Commissioner Nowicki. Any further discussion? Hearing none, if we could open up the voting, please. Pass it unanimously. Item number 37. It's a grant agreement for the State of Florida Department of Environmental Protection for the Philippi Park Wastewater Collection System Improvement Project. Motion by Commissioner Nowicki. Second by Commissioner Flowers. Any discussion? Hearing none, we're going to open up the voting. Pass it unanimously. Okay. Item number 38. Item 38 is a memory of understanding with, um, Pinellas County and the University of Florida Institute for Food and Agricultural Sciences, um, for salary and fringe benefits for our extension service program. All right. I have a number of, uh, public comments here, so we'll just go ahead and get to that first. Take a break. Um, so the first I have here is a group, a group speaker. Uh, so Nancy Page. Dave, this one will be 10 minutes. Good afternoon. I'm here to obviously speak on behalf of the extension, IFAS extension. Um, the extension isn't a standalone agency from the county. Um, the, uh, extension is housed in the parks and conservation resources building. They serve, the staff serve as emergency responders during disasters, whereas parks and conservation has, uh, is responsible for the points of distribution in the county staging area. So those staff do have emergency assignments, just as the rest of Pinellas County staff do. Our, um, our, um, natural wildlife agent provides training classes to the park rangers so that they are better able to handle situations that go in on our county parks, whether it's questions from, um, our visitors or dealing with wildlife problems. So they make our rangers better able to respond to our citizens and visitors. And it's also part of their, um, career ladder from going from park ranger one to park ranger two. So they serve as a vital component as well. And as you heard at JP at the work session, um, they also do lunch and learns as part of the county's wellness program. So they contribute to county employees or overall, um, um, wellness program. The commercial horticulture agent, um, provides classes to, um, public works staff and for mosquito control. Both of those departments have, uh, sprayers, aquatic sprayers, right-of-way sprayers, mosquito control sprayers. They are required by the Department of Agriculture to have licenses to spray chemicals on county lands. And the commercial horticulture agent, um, provides that testing at the extension, as well as doing the continuing education credits that are needed to maintain those licenses. Um, so there are, as I mentioned, there are urban horticulture agents, a commercial horticulture agent, natural resources, and 4-H. And as Commissioner Shearer mentioned, when we think of, of the extension, it's agriculture. We don't have agriculture as he discussed, but we do in our, in our communities, the most densely populated county in Florida, we need to try to maintain what little, um, vegetation we have to care for in the most responsible way so that we can have, um, trees and landscapes that don't require lots of fertilizer and lots of water so that we're able to conserve our water resources so that we're able to reduce or eliminate nutrients that are going into our water bodies. So the, um, extension programs, um, do not, um, duplicate, um, what some of the other agencies, departments are doing. They complement them, such as Tampa Bay, um, Water has the, um, uh, Adopt-A-Drain program. So they, and, um, Lara has created the Adopt-A-Drain program so, uh, residents can actually go in and do maintenance in some of those things, keep them clean and functioning properly so our, our roads don't flood. The, um, public works department has the, the, um, street cleaners. They go out on a regular cycle, but the folks who are out there doing storm maintenance can go, they're out there regularly, can maintain that stuff. As well as, um, Kelly's group, they do the drain markings. So they take that piece of it. So it complements so many pieces that the county is doing, but they don't duplicate what's already going on. Another big piece of, um, of the extension are the master gardeners. And they, um, take courses, um, learn more, um, about the landscapes, the plants in Florida, planting the right plate, the right plants in the right places so that, as I mentioned, we can conserve water and nutrients. And also, so we can better adapt to storms that we may have, which palm trees will fall over during a hurricane, which ones may withstand salt, you know, salt water inundation. And as, uh, Commissioner Peters mentioned at the work session, um, we do need to have, um, we do need to have, it's vital that we have that University of Florida influence at our fingertips. After the hurricanes, they responded with a planting list for things, for resilient plants, which plants can withstand being at the beach and may be able to withstand, um, inundation. The master gardeners, um, have, um, I know it is a big cost in the MOU, but the return on that benefit is five-fold. For all of the hours that master gardeners or the, um, the water stewards put in, there's a five-fold payoff for that money that we are spending, the county is spending. And I do agree that we do need to be just judicious with the spending of county money, but when we're getting a return of investment five-fold of what we're putting out by the wildlife agents going out, um, the natural resources agent has a water stewardship stewardship program where she teaches about why watersheds are important, retention pond protection, and, um, you know, just putting, um, things in the right places, as well as the master gardeners who conduct hundreds of classes out into the community and spread, um, the message of putting things in the right places. And it also helps citizens. We do have little vegetable gardens, community gardens, so it helps people feed themselves as well as some of the, um, the, uh, community gardens feed, um, people who are food insecure. So the community, the Dunedin community garden, they give all their food to people who are food insecure. Uh, Homeless Empowerment Project has a garden that master gardeners work at. So there is a, a very big bang for what we're doing and, um, that's all. Thank you very much. Okay. Uh, next we have, uh, Jan Allen, which will be followed by, uh, Suzanne Hassel. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Thanks for letting me speak. Um, my name is Jan Allen. I live in Largo and I'm representing the Pinellas chapter of the Florida Native Plant Society. Uh, our chapter is the biggest in the state of Florida. We have nearly 600 members and some of those are here now to show their support for continuing the MOU. The FNPS mission is to champion native plants and native plant communities of Florida. And, uh, I was extension is a vital partner to our organization as it is to many other environmental nonprofits in the county, including some that may be here today. It leverages its association with other counties, extension offices, University of Florida and other universities to really magnify its impact. And it provides really excellent and, um, educational speakers, outreach materials and conservation messages, both in person and in multiple media, um, in multiple venues, including social media, online videos, podcasts, and other media. So it has a really a great reach. Um, it's an important collaborator with the county's public works department, as Nancy just mentioned. Um, it provides stormwater management education and the majority of the county surface waters, as you well know, are impaired by nutrient pollution and the sustainable landscape management practices that I've just extension promotes are one solution to help that problem. Extension educates homeowners about the negative effect of invasive species as well. Eradication of which costs county hundreds of thousands of thousands of dollars every year. And, you know, it's millions of dollars in the state of Florida. For example, a single invasive removes removal project in Lelman costs the county $75,000. Um, the extension also provides biological controls like air potato beetles and Brazilian pepper thrips that combat invasive plants. And in 20, 24, 25, as Nancy also mentioned, extension trained and certified 725 county residents, including Pinellas County employees in the application of pesticides. And, um, that protects our water resources from those, those chemicals. Extension has excellent programs in place to reach and recruit volunteers. The master gardeners contributed 11,692 hours of work in one year, 24, 24, 25, valued at $369,584, which is more than the value of the MOU, the cost of the MOU. Creating a new volunteer recruitment system would cost the county a significant amount of money. So in summary, the Pinellas FNPS considers county extension to be a reliable and important partner in its efforts to promote sustainable landscape practices among county residents. Failing to approve the extension MOU would be a financially unsound decision with negative environmental consequences. And before taking such an action, the board should at a minimum perform a full cost benefit analysis to determine whether the return on investment exceeds the relatively modest cost to the county. Thank you. Suzanne Hassel, followed by Patricia Kirby. Thank you, commissioners and fellow citizens. And I'll be a short speaker, uh, figuratively and literally. Uh, so I'm, I'm here to support, um, please sign the MOU for the agriculture, um, extension service, uh, for, uh, UF-IFAS. And I wanted to say a couple points about this, just two, uh, primarily that, uh, that the training that they provide is so much more than agriculture. Um, and it's provided, uh, to people, uh, such as myself, who's a recent retiree, so that we can, uh, then go out and volunteer in our communities. And, uh, in addition to being able to give back to the communities, all of the UFAS programs generally involve fresh air and sunshine and are very healthy, uh, to children and adults. So that's, uh, that's, uh, that's another benefit. But I do want to say that, uh, as a master gardener volunteer, we're expected in the first year, in fact, required to contribute at least 75 hours of volunteering, um, and then 10 hours of classrooms. So we have to maintain volunteer hours every year in order to, uh, maintain the title of being a master gardener. And then also take, take that further education so we can go out and help work in our Pinellas County parks, work in the Pinellas County schools, work in city parks, and also help encourage our neighbors, uh, to go out and conserve and understand their environment. I live on Long Branch Creek, which is a very sensitive ecosystem, and, um, all of us are really banding together to, uh, look at protecting the shoreline and protecting the water and being sure that we don't, you know, I have planted the wrong thing, being sure that we do not release invasive species and that we, um, keep them under control. And really, um, and really, um, it's a compliment to, to the county that, that we can help do this. And also with, um, you know, with the 4-H and working in the schools as well as, um, again, the outdoor parks and attending various, uh, workshops and the help desk. That's a really big thing I just want to point out because we also are required to do help desk hours. And that includes things such as general turf grass questions, what killed this, what plant is this, isn't this invasive, what's wrong with my plant, pest diseases, um, soil testing, all kinds of things like that, uh, that volunteers and, uh, of course, the Agriculture, uh, Extension Office do provide this. So I just want to bring that up, and it is very important as, you know, in our suburban environment that we do this. And so please approve the MOU. Thank you. Thank you. Patricia Kirby, followed by Kathy Foster. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, Patricia Kirby, Spencer Avenue, Clearwater, Florida. Quick note about Chris Slotvala. Um, I'm friends with his mom, Betty, and she said she regretted that she never got him a puppy or a dog when he was a kid, so he doesn't relate to dogs and cats the way that we do. So maybe, hopefully, once he gets better, you guys will encourage him to adopt a, uh, a cat or a dog from the shelter. Okay, so I'm, like everyone else here, I wanted to speak up in, in favor of renewing the memorandum agreement. Um, I, I don't work for any particular, I'm not part of a group or anything like that. I'm literally just a citizen, I got my little tax bill, I pay taxes here, I absolutely love the county extension services, I love it. I go there for flower identification, I go there for vegetable growing advice, I even took a spider in there one time saying, is this a brown recluse, I need to know what this is, and they were so nice to me. It's, it's just the best organization, I can't say enough good things about it, and I know, like everyone else here has spoken very positively about it, but on a personal level, I attended the Tri-County Water School. This was in 2013, information on that water school experience has impacted my life for the rest of my life. I mean, I literally, every single month, 100% quote something from that experience of Tri-County Water School, and that was part of the county extension. Those, the, these memories last forever, the education lasts forever, and I, I was impacted as a citizen. I work with seniors doing, in holistic vision improvement, and we have about 40,000 students, but several thousand students go through our programs, and I say this because they retire at the age of 60, 70, and 80, and they want to do what? Garden, I swear, it is the number one thing I hear these people say. I want to work in the garden, I want to grow some vegetables, I want to grow some flowers, and the county extension service is there for them. The other thing I notice when you go to the library and you see the number of topics of books, of new books, go look, it's about sustainability, it's about homesteading, it's about growing things, it's about being self-sufficient. It's such a good thing to do for the community to keep this interest level going. So I'm going to strongly ask you, please, please, please, as a county taxpayer, please keep it going. I, I, it's in my heart to say that I appreciate the county extension, and I only found out about this question an hour ago from Florida Farm Finder, and here I am, because I was like, no, you can't, no. All right, thanks, you guys, I appreciate you. Thank you. Kathy Foster, followed by Eric Lieberman. Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Kathy Foster. I live in an unincorporated Eastlake area, but I'm here speaking on behalf of the board of the Friends of Brooker Creek Preserve, of which I am chairman. I want to thank you all for your desire to develop a well-thought-out budget that's not wasteful, but that also meets the needs of Pinellas County residents. In thinking about the Pinellas County-IFAS connection and collaboration, I think we need to first be clear about the services IFAS provides, and I think that's been made pretty clear already, so I probably don't even need to go into that. But because of my tie to Brooker Creek Preserve, I focus on the part about natural resources. The MOU that you're considering now, the IFAS mission, and your own Pinellas County strategic plan for the coming five years all incorporate protecting our natural resources in some form. The collaboration with UF brings a wealth of scientific knowledge to the county government, as you've heard, and to our residents through the IFAS program, and this has the benefit of helping all of us to make informed decisions as we go through our lives living in this densely populated area. In representing the Friends, I have to say that IFAS has had a huge impact on the education programs there. During the recession in 2008, the county leadership was talking about the possibility of closing down the education center at Brooker Creek. That would have been horrible. It never happened, but for quite some time, there were no education programs there, no regular guided hikes, unless our Friends group decided to do a hike, a lead one. And eventually, an IFAS agent was placed at Brooker, which was such a boon. Laird's background and access to IFAS resources, with her access to IFAS resources, she was able to get the education center back up and running as it was originally intended, with meaningful, quality programs for the public. And also, she was providing valuable leadership to the staff that was eventually hired following the recession. Her ability to access those resources and her knowledge continue to inform the programs that happen at Brooker Creek. As an extension agent, Laird has trained, developed training for environmental educators that she offers each year. And these bring in whole groups of people at a time who share an interest in being environmentally responsible and who will go out and share that information with their students and other people. I believe the connection with IFAS clearly supports the county's environmental initiatives. And then we also need to think about fiscal responsibility. Can the service that IFAS provides be taken on by other agencies? I would hope that you, as a fiscally responsible board, would very thoroughly investigate that. The level at which they can be provided, at what cost? Will they be the same quality? Will they reach the same number of people? That cost-benefit analysis that was mentioned earlier. I ask you to take the time to really investigate how that would play out in reality if you would decide to make any changes to the MOU. But my purpose now is to encourage you to just accept it and adopt it. Thank you. Eric Lieberman, followed by James O'Connor. But I have, are you waving, speaking, James, or did you want to speak? We'll go with Eric Lieberman. Mr. Chair, Eric Lieberman registered to appear via Zoom. However, he has not joined us. He has not joined. James O'Connor? All right, but you're in support. Okay. All right, that concludes public comment on this item. So, any board member discussion, comments, motion? Chair. Commissioner? Okay, Commissioner Nowicki? Then we'll go to Commissioner Flowers. Yeah, just, I don't know if somebody from, you know, the extension maybe can briefly talk about the affirmative action policy in their advisory handbook. Didn't even know that was in their affirmative action. And I also passed around, had Colleen, there is an advisory council of committee members as well that creates the priorities and sort of directs the program. So, these are the members of that council. Hello, J.P. Gellerman, UFI Extension Director here in Pinellas County. Yeah, I was looking at the advisory handbook and it talks about affirmative action and parity and, you know, can you kind of talk a little bit more, you know, about, you know, the affirmative action policies? Thank you. That handbook, I think, was last updated in 2020, 2014, somewhere in that area. Since that time, there's been a lot of changes and currently, I do not believe we have an affirmative action criteria associated. We follow all the laws by the federal government as well as the state of Florida. So, there's no affirmative action within the program? Right now, no, sir. And then these advisory committee members obviously just, you know, found out about this today. I mean, how are they selected or appointed? How does that process work? Each agent is required to have an advisory committee of folks in the community that can provide them guidance and technical abilities as well as connectivity to the community. Those agents in the fields basically bring those names to me. I review them, and then we go ahead and approve them based on their ability to provide guidance, technical support, and or connectivity to the county, to the residents and the issues associated. For the Board of County Commissioners, we have no input on these selections? For the advisory committees, no, sir. Could we get input on these selections? You're more than welcome, yes, sir. So, we could change the MOU or how would that work? My knowledge is, I've been in four different counties. I don't know any other county that has input from the County Commission. I'd be happy to provide that, though. If that's what everybody, you know. That's just maybe something we could look at if, you know, the Board has any input on that. But I'll yield back, Chair. Thank you. Commissioner Flowers? And then we'll go to Commissioner. Thank you. So, I don't know how affirmative action became the linchpin in this conversation, but I will say that the executive order that was signed by the President deals with affirmative action when it comes to federal contracts. This is not a federal contract. Neither are there any African Americans on the advisory committee. They're white and Hispanic, so I don't think that's something that should be taken into consideration when we're talking about a budgetary issue. I thought that's what the concern was, a budgetary issue, and whether or not we were getting, I guess, a better bang for our buck with the IFAS Center. My comments remain the same when it comes to IFAS that we had during the workshop. I believe there is a place for the relationship. Commissioner Peters made some very good points during the workshop as it related to the relationship. I have since had an opportunity to speak with some staff from the University of Florida. I am hopeful that the head of IFAS will be at the Florida Association of Counties Conference starting tomorrow. We've asked him to come speak, and that initially didn't have anything to do with us here, but I wanted an opportunity to be able to communicate with them on tomorrow. Unfortunately, we couldn't meet today. I wanted to be able to say without a shadow of a doubt that should we decide to no longer support this program, which I'm going to support this program, I voted to support it, that IFAS would continue the services and not require or request that there be some financial enumeration from us as a partner. The general partnership is just that everybody puts a little something into it. We didn't talk about Weed Nylon and the services that IFAS provides out at Weed Nylon, but I do know that IFAS provides, you have a center right there, an educational center right there, where you are providing services to the community. And when we look at whether you believe in climate or not, when you look at global warming, when you look at the flooding that has occurred from the last two unprecedented events, there's nothing to say that that won't happen again, it very well may. But when you look at all of the things that you all bring to the table to try to help individual residents do what they can do, not just for conservation, but for long-term, long-range planning, because the resources that we have is all that we get for right now. I think you all do a wonderful job. I think that the financial costs that our taxpayers are paying into this, they've received something out of it. I don't think it is something that is such a strain on the budget for the county that it would hurt any resident. It is hurting any resident by providing this. Of course, I can't speak for all 900-plus thousand people, but I just don't believe that it does. We voted to support this program through our normal budgetary process. I would not be in support of reopening an MOU to now go back and say we're only going to fund and support for one year, and then we'll take it year by year. If that was the case, we should have done that during the original budgetary process. So I don't want to rehash all that I said. Individuals can go back and look at the tape, but I think it has been shared quite inclusively that the relationship between IFAS and the county is a strong one. It is not one that puts a strain on the county, nor does it put a strain on the residents of the county. And quite frankly, I've not, just me, I've not heard anyone say do away, you know, with IFAS from the community. So maybe others have gotten that, you know, I don't get all calls and whatnot. I've read all these emails. Yeah, I have, and I respond. Thank you very much for your comments. You know, sure, and some I've gone a little bit more in depth because they've asked more in-depth questions. But I've not had anyone come to me to say this is a program that we would like to see the county no longer support because of X, Y, and Z. If that were the case, then I will probably have more of a discussion to talk about. But like I said before, I know the value of IFAS. I am very appreciative of the relationship. I believe that we are actually saving money because if we were to try to hire out a consultant or to do some type of contractual agreement with not just you, not just IFAS, but University of Florida, Ecker College, all of those who do studies when it comes to Red Tide, when it comes to water quality and all of that, we would be paying far more than what we pay in a partnership and collaboration and being able to get those things from IFAS as a part of the total package. So that's me. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Flowers. Commissioner Chair. Thank you, Chair. You know, I started looking into this because my job is to look for savings for the taxpayer. It is. I take it seriously. That's why I ran for office. Now, the program doesn't just cost the county $300,000. It costs the University of Florida $450,000 a year. And I don't want to do away with the program either. As a matter of fact, I really like the Master Gardening Program and the 4-H clubs. I think they're great. We have beautiful botanical gardens. And many people come here just to see them. So I love that program. But many, many of the efforts of the extension are duplicated. They're duplicated by the FWC, the Southwest Florida Management District, their Tampa Bay Watch, Tampa Bay Estuary, Tampa Bay Water, Vanellas County, Eckert College. I just think it's time for the University of Florida to take a look at what their programs are and downsize them accordingly. You know, I just don't understand the emphasis on all the material I see. It's about horticulture, agriculture, agriculture. I mean, we just don't have to the agriculture to support a lot of the programs. So I think it's a, you know, it's a five-year contract that's coming to renew. It is my understanding that they're supposed to bring us a new budget every year that we approve. I've read that somewhere in the thing. So, yeah, I thought it was an appropriate time to look at their budget and decide whether or not it was appropriate. I just don't think it is. I want to keep the programs that are working well and that everybody came here to speak about. And the ones that we're sharing with Tampa Bay Water and Swift Bud and others, we can let those state agencies handle that. I had proposed a reduction. And the word I got back from the University of Florida was, no, you can't produce anything. But I think that they could if they wanted to. So I'm going to vote no because I want them to reprioritize their programs and keep the ones that are working good and get rid of the ones that are duplicated. It's pretty simple for me. That's kind of where I am on it. And thank you. Yeah. Thank you for the workshop we had on Thursday. I, too, think it's a good idea to look at our programs to make sure that they are in keeping not only with the cost efficiency side, but also the quality of life that we have here in Pinellas County. And mine's going to be short. Basically leveraging university knowledge right here into Pinellas County. It merges. I think one of the speakers said merges carefully with our own strategic plan. I think is critically important. Promoting knowledge, volunteerism, the culture of this community that's been built over the years, and encouraging outdoor activities are all positive things. I hesitate to do measuring of ROI because I would imagine that it would be maybe perhaps a little embarrassing that we're having a conversation because a return is probably far greater. And I don't know how you measure quality, you know, some of the qualitative values. I think it's extremely important, ultimately, to protect the kids and the seniors in our community. And I think this program is ideally set up for that, in addition to many others, not just the young and the old, like me, but people in between of all ages. So I think it's a great program. I think the return is good and strong, and $0.33 per resident per year is something I think we can afford. And I look forward to those ongoing conversations. I'll be supporting this. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Commissioner Reckers. So I had a chance yesterday. I had a call with Andrew Johnson, the dean at UF that oversees this program. I had a good call with him. And also had a good call yesterday with Patty Reed, who's a council member of the city of Pennells Park and also a farmer. And I consider her not only a friend, a friend that I trust, but also a subject matter expert on this. And she related to me how important this program was and how deep that really goes into our community. So I asked her, I said, just if you could put that in writing, which she did, and she emailed it to all of you all. And I, like I said, consider her a subject matter expert. And I'm really glad that, Commissioner Chair, you brought this up because I really didn't know a lot about this program. So I think we've done a really good deep dive in this, and I have a much better, clearer understanding of what it does and how it works now. And I will be supporting it. I do think that we get a great return on investment for this. The only thing that I would request is that we get kind of more regular updates, you know, that we get check-ins, maybe a quarterly check-in, just an activity report, what it's doing, you know. And we have this, I didn't even know we have this advisory council here that sort of steers the program. So it would be kind of nice to know where they're going, what they're seeing, what changes they, you know, they want to make going forward. So I really appreciate you bringing it up. I think this has been very, very good for us to have a much better understanding on this, but I will be supporting it. Mr. Chair, thank you for bringing up Council Member Reed's comments, because I did read that earlier, and it just really, really hit home on the value of the program. I mean, the true qualitative, quantitative value of the program, not only to our seniors again and our kids, but everybody in between. I meant to say something about it. I'm glad you caught that in sharing those thoughts from her. Thank you. All right, does he have any comments? No, I'm sorry. All right, well, what is the will of the board on this? Okay, motion from Commissioner Flowers, second from Commissioner Eggers. Any further discussion? All right, hearing none, we can open up the voting. Passes four to one. Okay. Thank you, everybody. All right, now we'll move on to item number 39. Item 39 is a word of bid to Hubbard Construction. This is our countywide pavement preservation program, a little over almost $19 million. Second. Motion by Commissioner Wickey, second by Commissioner Eggers. Do we have any discussion? Hearing none, we can open up the voting. Passed unanimously. Thank you. Item number 40. This award of bid to Suncoast Development for the 2026 through 2028 Americans with Disabilities Act. These are for our sidewalk drainage and roadway improvements for our ADA issues. Motion by Commissioner Eggers, second by Commissioner Wickey. Do we have any discussion? Hearing none, we can open up the voting. Passes unanimously. Item number 41. Renewal of certificates of public convenience and necessity for advanced life support providers. There's a whole bunch listed within your packet. Motion by Commissioner Eggers, second by Commissioner Flowers. Any discussion? Hearing none, if we can open up the voting. Passes unanimously. Item number 42. This is an addition to add Flowerwood Club Park Association to our mobile, our manufactured home community's wastewater collection system improvements through the American Rescue Plan Act. Is this a single park owner or is it an individual? Jeremy? I don't know the answer to that. And if it is single, I'm assuming we have the clawback provisions for the… We do have clawback provisions in all the agreements, but I'll let Jeremy answer that. Jeremy? Afternoon. Jeremy Wall, Utilities Director. No, this is a resident-owned community. All the mobile home parks that we identified in the program are resident-owned only. And this, they do have the clawback provisions? Yes, all the contracts have the same standardized contracts. Thanks, Jeremy. Appreciate it. Okay. Do we have a motion? Move approval. Motion by Commissioner Egger, seconded by Commissioner Flowers. Any discussion? Hearing none, if we could open up the voting, please. Passed unanimously. Item number 43. This amendment to the Advanced Life Support First Responder Agreements with 16 municipalities and independent fire districts. Motion by Commissioner Wicke, seconded by Commissioner Flowers. Any discussion? Hearing none, if we could open up the voting. Passed unanimously. Okay. Item number 44. This is a fire protection services agreement between Bel Air, Bel Air Bluffs, Pinellas County, and Largo. This modifies the contract to reflect updated percentages. Motion by Commissioner Flowers, seconded by Commissioner Wicke. Do we have any discussion? Oh, yes. So this is for a five-year term, but could be extended, but it would come back before us if there was a request for an extension or another five. The agreement would come back before us for an additional five years, it would come back here. Okay. And I want to give kudos to staff. They really did a good job with helping address differences amongst how that should be provided. Everybody came together, worked together, and they got this agreement done. Okay. I believe we have a motion and a second, right? Any further discussion? Okay. If we could open up the voting. Passes unanimously. 45. It's a third amendment to the second floor lease with Melrose Clearwater Holdings and with Solomon Clearwater Holdings to extend lease for the Pinellas County Tax Collector at the north side. What this does is it puts us through to when the North County Service Center will be completed. Motion by Commissioner Wicke. Just a quick question. Seconded by Commissioner Flowers and questioned by Commissioner Edgar. Yes, somebody who knows the lease. I don't know who that is. Does any staff know the lease? Okay. Just a quick question. Lane, is it? This lease was started in 2016, from what I'm gathering, and that it is a full service lease, which includes everything, operating costs, utilities, and all of that. And the rate is increased a certain amount. And then there are additional pass-throughs of all the operating costs above the base year. Is that how this lease is structured? Sure. I'm not sure about the pass-throughs. And I know that JLL manages the building. They're on behalf of the owners. And we work with them sometimes on some of the facilities improvements that need to be done. Commissioner, Bill Greer couldn't be here today, so Blaine's subbing for him. All right. If you'd like, Commissioner, I can find out those answers if you want to push it to the end of the agenda, and I'll come back and answer those questions for you. Yeah, I'm just trying to make sure I understand the lease type. And because it seems like a reasonable rate, it goes all the way back to 2016 with increases, but also pass-throughs. Pass-throughs are kind of like TIF, you know, above the base year there's a certain amount, and then you add the incremental. Well, that payment at the base is included in the rate usually. Yes, sir. I just want to make sure that is the case, that it's included in the rate and only the increases above the base year. If you can look at that, that would be great. Yes, sir. Chair, if we could. This is something that we would like to move forward with today. I did ask Bill, and so I'll get those. It should be real quick to easy to find out. Yes, sir. Okay, we'll come back to this. Thank you. We have a motion to second. Do we have to unring that bell before we move on, Madam Attorney? No, sir. No, we do not? Okay. All right, so we'll move on to item number 46 then. Under item number 46, I'm requesting authority to file suit in the referenced case. This is a case that arose out of code enforcement, and we will be filing for an injunction. Okay. Motion by Commissioner Nuwiki. Second. Second by Commissioner Flowers. Any discussion? Hearing none, we can open up the voting. Passed unanimously. Thank you. Item 47. Item 47, also asking for authority to file suit. This is likewise in a case that arose out of code enforcement, and this would be a foreclosure action foreclosing the special magistrate liens. Okay. Motion by Commissioner Flowers. Do a second? Oh, well, I get it. I get it. They are all non-homestead properties. We can't offer clothes on homestead properties. Okay. All right. We wouldn't be bringing that forward. No, I'm just standing with him. All right. We have a second by Commissioner Nuwiki now. All right. Any further discussion? Good. If we can open up the voting. Passed unanimously. I'm writing that. I'm writing that unanimously. I'm going to leave it. I'm going to leave it. All right. Item number 48. Well, under item number 48, we have another foreclosure. A special magistrate liens rising from a code enforcement action. We're going to see how big that heart is. And we do put this in the memos so that you all can see. We don't have the legal authority to foreclose on a homestead, period. But we do include in here that says that this is an unoccupied non-homestead residential property. And keep in mind, these are cases that have been to the special magistrate. They have racked up fines. They have likely been complained about by their neighbors. They've missed 1,000 extra ramps by this point. Bingo. And many of these homes that we bring to you are homes that are really causing problems in the neighborhood. I know, like when I first got on, we put together a process to really be concerted about reaching out, going above and beyond. I believe it was Tom Almonte who was tasked with, because some of these properties had some liens like, you know, you could never pay them unless you were a billionaire. And, you know, to try to see if they wanted to convey the property to somebody else and they could do something with it or whatever. So, yeah, these are, like you said, they missed several exit ramps. Move approval. Second. Okay, motioned by Commissioner Eggers. Yeah, I was just sharing. Seconded by Commissioner Nowicki. No? Okay. I'll take the vote. Any more discussion? All right. Open up the voting, please. All right. Passes unanimously. Item number 49. Don't tell me it's another foreclosure. This is not another foreclosure, no. This is actually, I passed around the file at the work session last week. What I'm asking is that you ratify the administrator's delegated approval relating to agreements effectuating the Florida plan for the opioid litigation. Okay. Got it. Motioned by Commissioner Flowers. Seconded by Commissioner Nowicki. Any discussion? In many areas, actually. Okay. If we could open up the voting. Passes unanimously. Any reports? No reports. Okay. County administrator report. Two items. One, I'm happy to report that we hosted the international city and county managers from around the country. And if you don't believe you live in a slice of paradise, over 5,200 registrants. And that is a record from the history of ICMA. So everybody came to Tampa. And Dunedin was one of our host cities where we took them out to look at the transformation. And that's how people learn. They come and they visit. But they go on field demonstrations. They look at best practices. They look at what has occurred, you know, and Dunedin did a great job of kind of mapping out how they changed their community. So they take that education back and that experience back for their own communities from around the country. So we had demonstrations around Tampa Bay. And except for my cold, it went off without a hitch. We also have the People's First, our help centers. And so if you haven't been to one of the two, I'd encourage you to go out and visit them. They're there. They're very helpful. They're trained. And they're sitting there helping residents every day fill out all the paperwork to access our DR funds. That's the end of my report. Thank you. Any questions for Barry? All right. Moving on to item 52. We have an appointment to the Emergency Medical Services Advisory Council. So we got – so voice vote will suffice on this one. So the motion by Commissioner Newicki. Second. Second by Commissioner Eggers. Any discussion? All in favor? Any opposed? Okay. Passed unanimously. Item 53. One motion to the Palm Harbor Community Services Agency. Individual appointments by Commissioner Eggers, Newicki, and myself. All right. We have a motion by Commissioner Eggers, second by Commissioner Flowers. Any discussion? Okay. Hearing none. All in favor? Any opposed? Passed unanimously. Okay. Now on item 54, selection of the 2026 Chair and Vice Chair. I received expressions of interest from Commissioner Eggers to be Chair and expression of interest from Commissioner Latvala to be Vice Chair. Commissioner Flowers, your microphone, please. I move approval that Commissioner Eggers be nominated as Chair for the Board of County Commissioners for 2026. Okay. Okay. We have a motion by Commissioner Flowers, a second by Commissioner Scheer for Commissioner Eggers to be the Chair in 2026. Any discussion? Okay. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay. Passed unanimously. It was close. Thank you. That was, that was, that was like razor thin margin. Making sure my assistant hasn't left the building. Yeah. Because she's, because she's... Well, I just heard a car start. Yeah. Because she's equally excited about, about the opportunity. But thank you all for your confidence. Appreciate it. Okay. And now a selection for Vice Chair for 2026. Commissioner Latvala has expressed his desire to be that. And I know we had, I think, from Commissioner Flowers and also Commissioner Scheer, they have put an option on the table to be interim in the event that he was unable to serve in that capacity. He has not rescinded his, you know, his desire to be Vice Chair for 2026. So, from my perspective... Move approval for Commissioner Latvala to serve as Vice Chair. Second. Second. And then with the caveat that I guess we all could share in the duties until he's able to return. And if we had to make a change or something in January... Later down, yeah. We could. Okay. So, a commission, a motion by Commissioner Flowers, a second by Commissioner Eggers. Any further discussion? Okay. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? All right. Passed unanimously. All right. So, now we're going on a County Commission new business. All right. Who wants to start us off here? Well, the dog... Ah, the dog can't. Ah, geez. All right. Well, I guess we'll go over here to Commissioner New like you did. Thank you, Chair. I toured Park Center for Disabilities and met with the CEO, Michelle, where they provide service to over 600 children and adults a day. It's a great facility. It's been in existence started by her dad in West St. Pete because her sister was in a state facility that was improperly ran. And so, her father started this Park Center for Disabilities in West St. Pete and grew it into, you know, what it is today, housing, I think, over 100 residents there full-time. And, you know, bringing people through all around the region and the county. So, just a great, great place doing the Lord's work out there. Also, went in toward Pinellas Hope since it was something that we recently voted on. I figured I'd go and put my eyes on it. You know, they're doing good work up there, you know, and I was talking with them about, you know, whether they would prefer, you know, funding for services or funding for, you know, like capital improvement projects. And so, they seemed that if it was, if they had a choice, perhaps between funding services, which is what the contract we voted on, or to give them, you know, 1.5 million for, like, a new building, they would much rather have money for a new building or a new structure than to fund services. So, maybe that's something that we can talk about in the future. I attended the Circuit 6 Advisory Board. That's one of the committees Chair Scott put me on, maybe Chair Elect Eggers. You know, we have one meeting a year that didn't have quorum, so there was no business decided. But I'm happy to volunteer for that again, I suppose. Toward the Bowley Centers, you know, they're doing good work. Kevin, the CEO, over there, you know, they provide, you know, valuable, valuable resources to the homeless throughout the county. Met with Jason Mathis from the St. Pete Downtown Partnership and hearing about all the work they're doing in downtown St. Pete. Attended the Feather Sound District Happy Hour. It was a great turnout. Attended the News and Brews with the Tampa Bay Times, downtown St. Pete as well. I toured the Dunn Water Treatment Plant, and kudos to Jeremy and the whole staff up there and Gunner, who runs the plant. I mean, they're doing a great job and doing really good work. Also toured Neighborly. You know, we fund 20,000 meals a year, and so that's a great service and great program, you know, that I think we should continue. Also toured the Florida Holocaust Museum to see all the good work they're doing. I attended the Veterans Day ceremony in Oldsmar with Commissioner Flowers, where she gave a stirring speech and really left everyone speechless and just, you know, made me look bad having to go after her. Well, it ain't hard to do. So I did the Great American Teach-In at Shore Acres Elementary, and the teacher said, you know, not to be partisan, you know, because it was fifth graders. So I said, okay, but if they asked me a question, she said I could, you know, lean into politics a little bit. And so one student asked me, what kind of e-mails do I get? And so I made a joke and said I get a lot of e-mails about nude beaches. And so the teacher didn't appreciate that, but the kid's got a good laugh. We invited back. The kid's got a good laugh, though. And I said, you asked. So it is true. It is true. It is true. I attended my other committee assignment, which, you know, I wouldn't be opposed. And this is something that I think we should, you know, the COC, the Continuum of Care, you know, we did vote 11 to 10 for the COC not to have virtual meetings. And so you have, like, a 30-person board that voted to not have virtual meetings, and with half of the people there voting essentially against going in person. So I know, you know, we as a commission fund, you know, the COC and HLA a little bit. So, I mean, you know, I think that's something we should, you know, really look at. And when I think we're doing, like, human services, I think kind of going through all of the programs and stuff that we fund. You know, when you have an 11 to 10 vote of not being allowing virtual when you have a 30-person board, you know, I think that's, you know, something we really need to look at. And then lastly, from our, you know, delegation meeting, you know, I think kind of a key takeaway was our stormwater. And so, you know, I've talked with, you know, Barry and seeing about if maybe we could do a workshop on some of our stormwater to, you know, hear what, you know, we're doing and maybe alleviate, you know, some of the concerns of our delegation members that, you know, if they think we're not doing certain things to, you know, kind of have a workshop on our stormwater, just to hear kind of what we're doing and, you know, how we can tweak things. So if you guys would be in support of that. And then since I guess, you know, then, yeah, that's, so I didn't do a report a couple times, but so I figured I'd save up a few things, so. We haven't met in a while, so. Yeah, yeah. So I've been busy. Thank you, Chair. All right. Welcome. Mr. Flowers. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Congratulations to our new leaders. I look forward to working with you all in your positions and your roles. I attended my Florida Association of County Finance and Audit Committee. I chaired that committee. We approved the budget for the Florida Association of Counties. We did have all 67 counties renew their membership, so we are appreciative of that. And, of course, we start our part two of our legislative conference tomorrow in Tampa. So it will really be wrapping up, putting the buttons on the legislative items that perhaps a few people had questions over. But we'll take a vote on moving the whole agenda forward on Friday, which will be the 21st. I had a chance to attend the Pinellas Pal Breakfast along with my colleagues. That was really, really nice. I think every year, in my opinion, it gets better because we get to see the hard work that goes into helping youth in the Lelman community. And I love it when they identify high schoolers and are able to provide them with some financial remuneration for scholarships. So that's really, really cool. I met with Ms. Kedron Kunkel, who is the president and CEO for CareerSource Hillsboro and Pinellas. And our upcoming meeting, we'll be selecting a new chair and vice chair. Those positions are held for only one year. The rule is, or the policy is, that if the chair is from one county, the vice chair has to be from another county. So that gives individuals an opportunity to serve. So we will take care of that at our next meeting. In addition, we do have a legislative request item to assist veterans with employability skill training so that we can help those who may be looking for another field of employment. So I'm hopeful that we can get some movement on that from the legislative delegation. And I do have a white paper on that if anyone would like to see a copy of the ask and request. That way, if someone asks you about it, you'll know. I had a chance, like Commissioner Nowicki said, to attend the Oldsmar Veterans Service. And it's always very moving to go up and see the names that are on the marble stones that they have. And then this year, they did something a little different. The mayor of Oldsmar asked for all of the individuals who had served in the military to stand. And she had them to say their name and say what branch of service and how many years and what their level was, whether it was lieutenant colonel, corporal, sergeant, what have you. And so that was a really nice event. It was cold, though, but that was a really nice event. I attended the Palm Harbor Fire Station ribbon cutting. Well, not ribbon cutting. Yeah, it was kind of like what they call it. It was an uncoupling. Uncoupling. That's right. Uncoupling. And that fire station is really, really nice. And what they have done to try to assist with the chemicals and things that the firefighters have on their uniforms when they return. And having a clean room on the total opposite side, it was just a very nice place. So if you get a chance and you're up that way, just stop by and give them a holler. I continue to attend the NACO meetings that are dealing with all of the changes. We were very happy that we don't have to deal with the government shutdown on our agenda anymore, but we are still working on the affordable housing component pieces and some of the new policies that are being proposed as it relates to how HUD funding will be distributed throughout the states. Sprouts is now open in South St. Pete on U.S. 19 and about 40th. So if you're down that way and you want to shop at Sprouts, please feel free to go in and visit them. I attended my Area Agency on Aging board meeting. We passed our budget, a very clean budget. We did have a slight reduction in some of our financial areas, but the one thing that we were able to get, if you all recall, I mentioned that we were losing some funding from DOEA because of what was going on with the federal government. However, we were able to get that funding back. So as of October 1, $184,806.75, we were able to retrieve back. And that takes care of our MIPA program, which is the Medicare improvements for patients and providers, making sure that seniors know what services and what options they have as it relates to their Medicare funding. So I was really excited about that. And then for the rest of the week, starting tomorrow, I will be over in Tampa, hopefully doing some good work on behalf of the residents of the state of Florida and setting forth our agenda. I know you have several conflicts and you'll be there. Okay. For the board meeting. And I've already shared with them, Commissioner Lockvall wouldn't be there, but of course. So thank you so much for making room for that. I appreciate you for that. I look forward to bringing back that information that we have. A lot of things that are on our agenda as it relates to legislative matters, there are also things that are on the agenda for FAC. So it's always good to be on the same page. So that is all that I have. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Eggers? You want to? Okay. Commissioner Chair? Yeah. Okay. Mike. Mike. On October 23rd, I toured to our communications department, which I had not been able to do yet, and got to learn about all the magic that goes back here behind the scenes to make us all look thin on television, which makes me happy. So that was great. David Connors and his crew run a type ship here. So on the 24th, I attended the JWB luncheon and learned about the programs that they support and why and the good works that they're getting done for our community. On the 26th of October, I, at the invitation to Commissioner Flowers, joined her for the 84th Annual NAACP Annual Freedom Fund. And I thought it was great because our commissioner here was the emcee of the whole thing. So she did a great job. Thank you for coming. Made us all proud. Thank you for coming. Yeah, it was great. It was inspirational. Thank you for the invite. On the 28th, I started my morning bright and early meeting with the Sunrise Republican Club with a bunch of go-getters who like to get up early and get me up early. And it was good. They're good people. Yeah, sunshine. So that was great. The 29th, I toured the Bowley Centers as well. I was very impressed. We went to three of their properties. I had no idea they had 2,000 homes. They rented out to people and just, you know, to help out the community. Their program is unbelievable. On November the 8th, I went to the Suncoast Fire Station No. 28 groundbreaking. It was a barbecue. It was a lot of fun. It was a good time. I went to see all the families of people who work at the fire station, and they're so excited because it's an old building. It was an old metal building, and they're due for a new fire station. That was great. And that night, I went to the Park Ball to support the hard work for the people who run Park, which they are a treasure for our community for the work they do. I had an opportunity to meet our lieutenant governor, Jay Collins, at an event at the Bel Air Country Club. He is an outstanding man. He's given so much to his country in his years of military service. I was very impressed with the guy. That made me happy to finally meet him. And then, of course, we attended the joint delegation, and I enjoyed doing that as well. I did want to, you know, just because this is new business, I would like to say that next year, I really think it would be nice to have that meeting before the deadline to get local bills into the House. Because I wanted to talk to them about local bills that I had ideas for, and the point was mute by the time we got there. So I'd kind of like to, I don't know who organizes that or how, but I'd like to get that done. And then also on the 14th, I attended the Alberto Giacometti showing at the Dolly Museum. Commissioner Widowicki was there. That was great. It was supported by PI and the TDC, and it was a great event. And it was good to see all the people there that support the Dolly and thank them for doing that. So, anyway, it was a busy month, and thank you. That was pretty much my report. Thank you, Commissioner Scher. Commissioner McGregor. Yeah, thank you. Yeah. Real quickly, there's quite a few things, so I'll touch on them as quickly as I can. We had a town hall meeting in Palm Harbor to show the plans for the new recreation shelter center. A lot of people came out just to see the plans or to see the renderings and have the discussion. Erica did a great job, as usual, running that presentation, had some staff there, a lot of community excitement. So that was good. Attended the 7th Annual Lift Rise Awards, Learning Independence for Tomorrow. Great group of folks and award winners and just a really good program there. And you get a chance to see it. It's getting better and better every year, the ceremonies themselves. And also attended a Gold Star Tribute. There was a wall ceremony, so to speak, on 49th Street at the – what's the name of the facility? Is it the motorcycle? Oh, Burst Bear Club. Yeah, yeah, thank you. Really great ceremony. A few of the families who lost children were there, obviously. That was what the Gold Star Tribute Wall is for. Very emotional, really good, and just enjoyable to be there and to be a part of that. Palm Harbor Museum had their annual fundraiser, Wine Around Palm Harbor, last week. That was really good. Area Agency on Aging, Pasco Pinellas, they had a wonderful event. Thank you for your participation on that board. It's really great to see and honored Martha Linderman. And you said she was the creator of the Baker Act? Excuse me, can you finish your microphone? I'm sorry. And she taught that program throughout law enforcement and social organizations. Back then it was HRS, then DCF. So it was nice to give her those kudos. And she was a really good program. And they did some good work raising some money. So it was good. A friend of mine, Commissioner Gao and his family, they lost their daughter. A 30-year-old daughter passed away a week and a half, two weeks ago. It was just tragic. And they had a ceremony for her this past Saturday. Just devastating. And only parents who've lost kids can understand fully. But I certainly can't imagine. But anyway, our prayers and condolences to that family from all of us. There was a group called RNR, which is Rescue, Not Retail. It's a fundraising group. They had fundraising this past Sunday. And what they do is they raise money to get food and supplies and all of that for pets of veterans. It's a really targeted market that they go after and help out. And a lot of their work is over at HEP, a couple of other communities as well. But they did great work. They had a good fundraising event on Sunday. Congrats to them. I attended Veterans Day Celebration in Dunedin. That was really good, enjoyable. They did a great job. The VFW emceed the event. A super job on their part. Let's see. We have the ARC Innovation Center opening, I guess, so to speak. The reopening on November 19th. That's just tomorrow at 6 p.m. If you guys get a chance, get to that. And then I think the Arts, the Annual Creative Pinellas, they have an event this Friday. At 6 down at their facilities on Walsingham. I was also at the fire station grand opening. It was really good. A lot of energy, excitement. Certainly the building's in a lot better place and a lot better condition and can do, what they say, about 45 seconds quicker response time. So those 45 seconds can make a big difference when you're trying to save somebody's life. So anyway, they did a great job by the staff pulling it all together. I know Pinellas County worked closely with them making it happen. Penny money was used, et cetera. So anyway, good program that day. And the delegation meeting was excellent. I agree with you. The more productive, the better. Next year, it will be, if we do it at the same time, they're going to be doing it a few months later because it's an off year as far as elections go. So we'll have more time and it would be better to do that. And then all I would say is I got a note from Stacy. We'll be sending out a few e-mails here in the next few days to get your input on next year's boards and committees. We know where you are this year. We'll hear what you want, and then we'll see if we can work out the best we can. But try to get those back as soon as possible. We want to have them for the next meeting for approval for next year. So whenever we get that out, try to get those back as quickly as possible. I don't know what else is coming your way, but obviously your responsiveness is helpful. I received an e-mail today from CareerSource because we'll be voting for chair, as I shared in my thing, chair by chair. So my only question is, do you think you may, if we get it back to you, you think you'll have decisions by our next meeting, which is the 16th of December? I just wanted to get, because they were asking, do we know when we would know that time frame? So, okay, all right. We'll have that one included as well. Thank you. And then just obviously everybody's heart and soul and everything else is on Chris up in Gainesville. And, you know, the folks up there know what's going on, and I'm glad he's there. And, you know, he's got a battle ahead of him, and I know he's getting lots of thoughts and prayers from everybody, and we'll just keep at it. And hopefully he'll be able to do his rehab up there, staying close to that, and we'll see. But anyway, our prayers continue for him. And then finally, just say, Feast, Dunedin Cares, Maddie Williams, Oldsmar Cares in North County, each of them do incredible work for Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving time for residents in our community. And so just on behalf of all of us and to all of our residents, happy Thanksgiving. And whatever you can do to help somebody else that's maybe in need, contribute to any of those groups, be involved with any of those groups, deliver food with any of those groups, and at least you get a sense of what Thanksgiving is all about. So happy Thanksgiving to all of you around this table. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Eggers. And we do have one business item that we have to finish up. We punted item 45 to get, and it just occurred to me. So before I do my new business, why don't we see if we just get this one cleaned up? Thank you, Chair Scott. Thanks, Commissioner. Sorry I didn't have that answer at the time. So, Commissioner Eggers, you're correct. The lease goes back to 2016. There was a base rent there. The pass-throughs are for several things, and that pass-throughs are another name for additional rent, and those things are fairly variable over time. So increases in operational expenses, such as parking lot maintenance or lobby maintenance or things of that nature, as that increases over time, we get an allocated, provide a share of that. Taxes also change over time, and that would be another pass-through in addition to the base rent. Insurance as well. So those are the three pass-throughs. Oh, and that first year, it's all included in the rent and then the increases in those areas. Some are controllable, and some are not controllable. It's interesting that they say property taxes are not controllable on their part. That's kind of fun. That and insurance, I guess. But anyway, thank you for checking in on that. I thought that's the way it was, and it makes it a lot more reasonable rent. Yes. Rental rate. Sorry I didn't have that answer. It's okay. Appreciate it. Thanks for looking at that. Thanks, Blaine. Move approval. Well, we actually had a motion. Oh, we did? Already. Yeah, we have a person in a second. We can do a voice vote if that works. We can do a voice vote. Okay. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay. Passed unanimously. Thank you. Thanks, Blaine. All right. So I'll get to my new business now. I would like to thank the sheriff. He has returned about $3 million of unused funds from fiscal year 25 back to general funds. So I want to thank him very much. I thanked him personally. But I just wanted to publicly give him a big thank you for doing everything he can to keep our belts as tight as possible. So thank you, Bob. So since our last meeting, I've been pretty busy, actually. But it's been a while since we've had a meeting. I was at the canvassing board for, I think, three or four different days for the city of Seminole elections. So congratulations to Mayor Waters for her re-election. I traveled to Orlando with a group of four Pinellas board members to visit Metro Plan Orlando, which is their joint three-county MPO they've had in place since 1977. It was a very good use of time, learned a lot about the structure of their organization, and their regional collaboration works very, very well. They have definitely figured out a way to do that as we look to see if it makes sense to merge our three MPOs. I attended the Faces of Domestic Violence Luncheon for Hope Villages of America and presented their CEO, Nick DeSeglie, with our Proclamation for Domestic Violence Awareness Month. I've also met separately with nonprofit leaders from PARC, Florida Orchestra, Feeding Tampa Bay, Neighborly Senior Care Network, and Home Base, all doing work in our community and helping to meet the needs of our residents. I attended, along with Commissioner Eggers, the Honoring, Remembering, and Healing opening ceremony of the Gold Star Tribute Wall at Burt's Barracula, Harley-Davidson. I was also with Commissioner Eggers at the Palm Harbor Museum fundraiser. I presented the National Animal Shelter Appreciation Week Proclamation at Animal Services. That was very nice because that was just a big meeting of staff, and it was just really nice to recognize staff for all of the great work that they do in animal services. Let's see. Happy 75th anniversary of the Bel Air Garden Club. I presented them with a proclamation for their event about two weeks ago. Many thanks to the Tampa Bay Chamber for inviting me to participate in the Public Policy Roundtable. That was about, I don't know, 10 days ago. It was chairs of the three county commissions, and the only downsides had to be in downtown Tampa at 7.30 in the morning. I didn't really enjoy that part of it so much, but it was a very nice event. So kudos to Commissioner Starkey and Commissioner Hagan as well for participating. That was a very nice event. I attended the Pinellas Pal Breakfast, the Bowser Ball, the Lincoln Day Dinner, and the opening ceremony of Palm Harbor Fire Station No. 68 with Commissioner Eggers, Commissioner Flowers, and another big thank you to Commissioner Flowers for driving all the way from St. Pete up to Palm Harbor to attend that. Yeah, so that was very nice. And then last Friday night, I guess it was, Friday evening, Congresswoman Luna hosted a Friendsgiving event at her office, and it was very well attended. There was at least 200 people there. And I recognized her and presented her with a key to the county for all of her work during hurricanes last year and everything that she's done to help us with grants for hardening, Lelman Exchange, and also all of her hard work with the Army Corps of Engineers on getting us over that hump here. So, anyway, she was thrilled. She was absolutely beaming. I worked it out with her aide, Olivia. She didn't know it was coming, so it was very, very nice. And then this morning, I had the great opportunity to do a fabulous photo shoot with Sissy. Here we are, right? All right. Sissy is a 10-year-old beautiful girl, and she needs to be adopted. She's been with – look at that picture. Isn't that a great shot? She's been in animal services since July. I don't know why this dog hasn't been adopted. I mean, that dog is just an absolutely beautiful dog and very, very well-behaved. So, somebody needs to go and adopt Sissy. That is. That's a – right there. That is just a great shot. You should get right in with all those. Yeah. Well, you know, so they go, well, how about sitting in that rocking chair? I'm like, are you trying to send me a message? Anyways, but always fun to do those canine commissioner photo shoots. So, somebody come and adopt Sissy. And that concludes my report. So, unless there's anything else for the good of the order, then we are adjourned until 6 p.m. All right. See you all then. Good evening, everybody. I would like to call our November 18, 2025 public hearing to order. First order of business, could I have a motion to allow Commissioner Peters to participate remotely? Motion by Commissioner Nowicki. Second by Commissioner Scheer. All in favor? Any opposed? Okay. Motion carries. Welcome, Commissioner Peters. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it. And before I forget, because I will forget, I would like to thank our deputies for keeping us safe this evening. Deputy Winnick, Deputy McSweeney, and Deputy Atkinson. Thank you so much, gentlemen. Appreciate you both, all of you. All right. So, now moving on to item 56. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Agenda item number 56 is a proposed ordinance that will allow human resources staff to fingerprint and receive Florida Department of Law Enforcement and Federal Bureau of Investigations criminal background records to screen county employees and applicants for positions that are determined by a chief human resources officer to be critical to security or public safety. The public hearing is properly advertised, and an affidavit of publication has been received for filing. No correspondence has been received by the clerk, and the matter is properly before the board to be heard. Thank you. All right. Do we have any comments, thoughts, discussions, questions? Okay. Motion by Commissioner Nowicki. Second. Second by Commissioner Eggers. Any further discussion? Hearing none, if we could open up the voting, please. I mean, yes. Thank you, Commissioner Peters. And Commissioner Flowers with a yes as well. Okay. Pass unanimously. Thank you. Item number 57. Agenda item number 57 is an amendment by resolution supplementing the fiscal year 2025 budget realigning reserves and recognizing unanticipated revenue for requesting departments. The public hearing is properly advertised, and an affidavit of publication has been received for filing. No correspondence has been received by the clerk, and the matter is properly before the board to be heard. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Okay. Do we have any thoughts, questions? Second by Commissioner Nowicki. Second by Commissioner Scheer. Any further discussion? Hearing none, if we could open up the voting. And I'm a yes. Thank you, Commissioner Peters. All right. Passed unanimously. Moving on to item number 58. Agenda item number 58 is an amendment by resolution supplementing the fiscal year 2026 budget realigning reserves and recognizing unanticipated revenue for requesting departments. The public hearing was properly advertised. An affidavit of publication has been received for filing. No correspondence has been received by the clerk, and the matter is properly before the board to be heard. Thank you very much. Okay. Questions? I had a quick question. Okay, Commissioner Scheer. $191 million unanticipated. Where did that come? Is that the... That's a hospital direct payment, so this is coming from federal government to our hospitals where the pass through for that. And we did not know that? No. It goes right to them? They amended that after the budget was done, and so this is just recognizing that additional revenue. We're going to give it to somebody else. We put an administrative fee on for passing that through, and then it goes to the hospitals. And it was a negotiated agreement between all the hospitals, which is the reason it sat there for years and never got done, because they had to have agreement on how they were going to do that. So we're going to keep $19 million of it? I'd like to keep $191 million, but I can't. No. We just have a small administrative charge to be able to manage it. We have to put the package together. We have to submit it. We have reports. So we have an administrative fee for that, and then they get the remainder. It's a pass through to our hospitals. I didn't remember hearing it. It's a big chunk of money. I'm glad you asked it. Motion by Commissioner Wicke, seconded by Commissioner Flowers. Any further discussion? Hearing none, we can open up the voting. Yes, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Commissioner Peters. Passed unanimously. On item number 59. Agenda item number 59 is a ranking of firms in agreement with HDR Engineering Incorporated for a five-year update to the Solid Wastemaster Plan. This is a consent agenda item. It's also companion to item number 58. No correspondence has been received by the clerk, and the matter is probably before the board to be heard. Okay. Thank you. Motion by Commissioner Wicke, seconded by Commissioner Flowers. Any further discussion? Hearing none, if we can open up the voting. Yes, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Commissioner Peters. Passed unanimously. All right. I don't think the next few items are going to go quite as quick. So, moving on to item number 60. And, Mr. Chair, if I could, just before the clerk reads the notice into the record, just because we had a little bit of confusion at the last hearing, because there were some land use and zoning cases that were not heard how you normally hear these cases. Case number 60 and 61, which is a future land use amendment requested change and a zoning requested change. She'll read both of them into the record. There'll be a single staff presentation, a single public hearing, and two votes. First, we'll vote on the land use. If that is passed, you'll vote on the zoning. So, two separate votes, but single everything else. Okay. Agenda item number 60 is case number FLU 2508. This is a request by Justin Gringrich of Ignite Academy Incorporated for a future land use map amendment from residential rural to institutional on approximately 5.23 acres located at 2271 Keystone Road in East Lake Tarpon. Agenda item number 61 is case number ZON 25-07. This is a request by Justin Gringrich of Ignite Academy Incorporated for a zoning change from RA residential agriculture to LI limited institutional on approximately 5.23 acres located on 2271 Keystone Road in East Lake Tarpon. 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 a tenant in person or virtually, if able, please raise your right hand. Do you swear a firm testimony you're about to give is 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 both items. 56 letters in opposition and six emails in opposition have been received by the clerk, and the matter is probably before the board to be heard. Thank you. All right. So I'm assuming that we're going to want to see a staff presentation on this. So come on up. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good evening. How are you doing? Ladies and gentlemen, the Board of County Commissioners, I'm Scott Swearingen. I'm the long-range planning manager for Pinellas County. It's a pleasure to be before you this evening, and I appreciate your time. So with that, let me jump right into these two cases combined in one presentation. The subject property is approximately 5.23 acres. It's located at 2271 Keystone Road in East Lake Tarpon. The future land use map amendment request is a change of land use from residential rural to institutional, and the companion zoning atlas amendment case is to change the zoning atlas from residential agriculture to limited institutional, and the applicant has expressed the desire to build a private school kindergarten through eighth grade. The subject property outlined in red. You can see that's Keystone just on the south end of the property, and you can make out the northern part of Lake Tarpon. You can see somewhat the character of the area, mostly rural, some rural residential, mostly to the east and the northeast, and then vacant lands to agricultural lands to the west and northwest. There are more of a mix of residential type of dwelling units and a little bit of non-residential as well that you can see that's kind of along Lake Tarpon just in the south side of Keystone. And just an oblique area to give you a little bit more perspective, the property outlined in blue, you can get a sense of kind of the character from that oblique area there. That's sort of looking to the northwest along Keystone. The future land use map on the left is the current future land use, which is the residential rural, and you can see it, and it is also within the East Lake Tarpon Community Overlay District. It's at the very northwest kind of corner of that community overlay district. The city of Tarpon Springs is in the area in white, mostly to the north and to the west. The land use in the city is designated as very low residential. You can get a sense of the land use character around it from the north to the east, pretty much the same type of land use. To the south, it's more of a mixed bag of a residential and non-residential along the shore of Lake Tarpon. And with the zoning, kind of a similar situation, the residential agriculture is a zoning, and that's predominantly to the east of the property, and then a little bit more of a mix to the south, excuse me, across Keystone along the shore of Lake Tarpon. You can see the change that would be on the right, on the map on your right, which would be to limited institutional. Some site photos. This is looking at the property if you're along Keystone Road. This is kind of looking at the frontage of the property. You can see the current access drive onto the property, so you're looking to the north at the subject property directly. And this is looking facing to the southeast along Keystone Road, so this is the approach as you're moving toward East Lake Road, and then in the opposite direction, moving toward Tarpon Springs, toward US-19, looking westward along Keystone Road. And that current residential rural flume category allows primarily residential agricultural uses, and it also, in certain circumstances, under certain conditions, allows institutional transportation, utility, ancillary, non-residential, recreational open space. And let me pause there for a moment to explain. This kind of gets to kind of the gist of the request. Residential rural actually also permits educational facilities, such as K-8 schools. However, there is an acreage limitation upon that. So no more than five acres. If a property is larger than five acres, then they are not permitted that type of institutional use. Thus is the request. The subject property, again, is 5.23 acres in size, so they do not fit within that five-acre threshold to be permitted that K-8 school, which is why, you know, the gist of kind of the land use part of the request. Otherwise, they would be permitted that by the land use. And verbatim in our comprehensive plan, these uses, this area is generally appropriate in areas where use and development characteristics are rural in nature, in areas where environmental features are linked to the protection of natural resources, such as aqua recharge areas, groundwater resources, 100-year floodplain, two dwelling units per acre, another way of framing that 0.5 resident use per acre. So, I'm sorry, one dwelling unit per two acres would be the density that's permitted under the land use category and a 0.34 area ratio for non-residential uses. That's the current land use category. And the proposal is a change to institutional, which, as you'd expect, allows most, you know, the gamut of most institutional uses, so schools, medical, community, civic, daycare, public services, those kinds of things, as well as residential and recreation open space uses. And per our comprehensive plan, this category is primarily suited to those locations where educational health, public safety, those types of uses are required to serve the community. 12.5 residential units per acre is what is permitted under the institutional category and a 0.65 floor area ratio for non-residential uses is also permitted. Moving to the companion land use case, the current residential agricultural category, large lot residential dwelling units, primarily in agricultural activities. There is a minimum two-acre lot size under the RA zoning category that's in place now. And then educational uses, to note, so educational uses, including public and private schools, they are permitted in the RA zoning category, but as a type 2 use. However, again, they are not permitted in the residential rural when you have more than five acres. So permitted by zoning is a type 2 use, through that type 2 use process, but the land use kind of dictates, it's the be-all, end-all of what uses are permitted. And then the proposal that goes along with the land use will be a change to institutional limited. And that allows, again, kind of a range of educational, public, semi-public uses, including private schools, which is what the applicant has expressly desired as their use for the property. And the purpose of the zoning category, designate, develop, and accommodate public uses that serve the needs and interests of the surrounding community. Maximum building height of 50 feet is also included in the zoning. Some additional information. This property is located, as I showed you, on a future land use map. It's kind of at that northwest corner of the East Lake Tarpon Community Overlay District, which is in our comprehensive plan, and it's mapped on our future land use map. And what that does, that district includes objectives and policies that really aim to balance a predominantly residential community with limited commercial, limited non-residential natural areas, recreational areas, to support that, but in a limited manner. And then this is also, it's along Keystone Road, and this part along Keystone Road is a scenic, non-commercial corridor with a rural open space sub-designation. So scenic, non-commercial corridor, rural open space is the frontage road. It's the be-all, end-all access to the property. It's the only access to the property that's there. That's on the county, that's in the countywide rules, and it's also on the countywide plan map. And so that has tied to it. So properties that are fronting that scenic, non-commercial corridor designation, there are restrictions for certain types of development along these kinds of corridors. And it's upon the applicant to demonstrate that they can meet, you know, some of the intent of having that type of designation. So it's a rural open space designation. So they have to show how they meet that. This falls under, this would require, if approved, a countywide plan, a countywide map amendment. So if this were approved, the applicant would go into the countywide plan process to amend the countywide map in order to make the countywide map, you know, concurrent with our future land use map. And they would have to show that they meet these requirements along with the lane use requirements as well. This is a common, this commonly happens for future land use map amendments. And finally, so looking at potential traffic impacts. So this is a change from residential rural, which generally is about one unit per two acres, to institutional and looking at this as an educational use. From a future land use perspective, from that 20,000-foot level, if you will, the change in land use could generate up to an additional 570 vehicular trips per day is what we calculated. And if you look at Keystone Road specifically, the segment of Keystone Road, in the p.m. peak hour of traffic, it operates at about 54% vehicle-to-capacity ratio. So in other words, it's about 54% of capacity in this segment during the p.m. peak hour. Traffic would obviously be looked at in greater detail, and perhaps traffic mitigation needs would be looked at during site plan review. But we do look at it, and we want to provide you with information at the future land use map level. With regard to flood risk, this property is neither in the coastal storm area, the coastal high hazard area. So low flood risk for this property, as we've looked at. So in summary, staff is of the opinion that these proposed amendments are appropriate, and especially when we consider the site's frontage along Keystone Road. Narrow property, five acres. It's not a property that likely could develop into a subdivision or anything like that. It's a smaller property. Keystone Road is a four-lane divided arterial, and so having a lighter non-residential use onto Keystone Road, not necessarily retail, but having something else that would work well with the access on and off of Keystone. If that's your address and if that's your access on Keystone Road, staff feels that this is an appropriate change in land use to the subject property. It's consistent with other uses in the area. There are, you know, as you move along Keystone Road, you do see institutional uses like educational uses, ALFs, religious institutions, and whatnot, kind of spread across the corridor as well as along, you know, just in that area and that vicinity in general. Staff also finds this consistent with the comprehensive plan. The local planning agency recommended approval after October 8th hearing for both the future land use map amendments request and the zoning atlas amendment request. The vote was five to one. There were folks that spoke on this matter, some in favor, some opposed. The gist of the opposition at that hearing was with the rural residential character of the neighborhood and the potential for traffic impacts on Keystone Road. That was the gist of the comments. That concludes my presentation. I would be happy to try and answer any questions if you may have. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, even with the increased number of trips per day, I think you said about 550, I think it said it only took it up to a service level of C? The service level is currently C, and based on the additional trips on this segment of Keystone Road, the service level would remain at C. Yes, ma'am. Okay. And then from the photo that I saw, it looks like a little small service road, I guess, going up and down, which will be the front part of it. So, that would be the entrant, based on whatever their character design would be for the building of the school, if this should pass, that would be their only entry point off of Keystone? That would likely be, well, they're incredibly limited with the amount of width along Keystone, so that would most likely be their entry point. I can't imagine that there could be more than one entry point along Keystone. I can only imagine that that would be the entry point that would be utilized if the site were developed as such. And then my last question is, when I'm going up to Pasco County, I take this route because it's less traffic. But how close would, I saw where it has buildings that are, would be compatible in zoning perhaps for the school, but how close is the closest residential, either house or apartment complex or whatnot, since that seems to be a concern for some? Well, there's, it's a good question. There's currently a residence on the property, and there's a residence on the property directly to the east as well. There are mostly kind of larger acreage, rural residential single family properties along that north side, mostly moving to the east. Now, as you go west, it gets a little more sparse. Of course, the city is tarp and string zoning immediately to the west is agriculture. It's a little more kind of more vacant land, open land. But directly to the east and to the north is a lot of large lot single family residents. And then, of course, across Keystone to the south, you have more of a mix of, you know, like townhome type, multi-unit developments, and single family as well. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for the presentation. So, I'm just trying to get perspective here. So, if 0.23 acres, and that's about 4% of the property, were deeded away, and it became five acres, what process of approval would they have to go through? Another good question. So, if the property were five acres or less, I would not see a reason for the applicant to pursue a land use amendment for the property. They would already, from a future land use perspective, by the comprehensive plan, they will be allowed to build a school as what they've expressed that they would like to build. There would be no land use amendment necessary in that regard. What about the zoning? Zoning, the zoning is residential agriculture. The type of facility is permitted by the zoning. However, they would have to follow a type 2 use request. And that type 2 use request would require the applicant to go before the Board of Adjustment and Appeals to make that request, to show that this was fitting and that they could accommodate this property and the surroundings to that regard. So, instead of not deeding off 0.23 acres and having to deal with this, I mean, and they're asking for quite a bit more rights to the property than they have, I mean, commercially based rights. I mean, it's almost like we're over, giving them over rights if we're that close to getting what they need done without the additional rights. And, again, I'm just trying to talk through for perspective. Again, I'm not suggesting anything other than trying to understand the process. The 500 plus 570 traffic count for this development? Yes, sir. With the current land use and zoning, what's the most intense thing that could be done, and how does that compare to what would be allowed under this change? Under the current land use of residential rural, the traffic count would be significantly lower because the maximum development that you could achieve on the property would be up to three dwelling units. Three what? I'm sorry. Three dwelling units. Now, when you include the zoning, if the zoning were to remain as residential agriculture as it is, that requires two-acre lots. So, if you just look at land use, as we do when we look at traffic, it would be up to three dwelling units you could have on a property. If you looked at land use and zoning, you couldn't get more than two dwelling units on a property. So, the 0.23 acres is pretty magical. In this case? In terms of having rights that are much more than just two or three houses on it. In this case, it appears so, yes. All right. I think that's all for now. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Can you kind of explain how the Eastlake-Tarpon community overlay was intended to function? We have a little more than a half dozen, I believe, community overlay districts in unincorporated county. And these districts are a part of our comprehensive plan. They're in our future land use element. They include goals, objectives, policies that try to bring areas into cohesion as a community, if you will. Now, I don't know the date that this overlay went into place. It was at least 10 to 15 years ago that this overlay went into place. But its intent is written into the overlay itself, which is for a primarily low-density residential community with services, to paraphrase, services limited to serve the community. So not really to have kind of regional or other types of, you know, retail that kind of brings people in and out of the area, but to have enough services to serve that community specifically. That's the gist of how the overlay was written. And it is in our comprehensive plan. And so when we have a project, when we have a future land use map, a member request, in one of these overlay districts, we are to review policies, objectives and policies to make sure that what is being proposed is, from a planning perspective, is in line with what is written in our comprehensive plan. And so it's my understanding that that overlay was to kind of protect the rural character of that neighborhood. Yes, sir. And now we're saying, or you're recommending, we don't want to do that on this piece of parcel anymore. What is being proposed, and the way that we've looked at it and evaluated it, is a use that is complementary to the residential character of that large Eastlake community. So we have, for example, we have neighborhood retail, mostly along Eastlake Road in the community. We have a library, we have assisted living facilities, we have religious institutions, and we have schools as well. And those things are deemed as being appropriate and necessary to support the community. And that's why we have made the recommendation we've made. And so would this kind of be like opening the door to, like, all future institutional uses on this site? So, like, if it's approved, let's say the school is there for 10 years, it folds for whatever reason, somebody could come in and say, I want to build an assisted living facility. That would be, like, okay, wouldn't have to come necessarily back for discussion. That's a good question, and that's true. The uses in the future that would be permitted on this property would be those uses under the future land use category of institutional. That would include generally. Now, there are other limitations, right, that could come into play, but generally would include those uses as well. That's correct. Okay. That's all I got for now. Thank you. You're welcome. I've got a quick question. So just looking at access to this site, it appears that the only access, direct access, would be if you're traveling westbound on Keystone Road. If you're traveling eastbound, you'd have to go down and make a U-turn to get into the site. Is that correct? That's correct. It appears, because of the divided nature of the roadway and where those turnabouts are, the access would most likely, almost entirely likely, be a right-in, right-out access to the property. So if you were moving eastbound on Keystone and wanted to turn onto the subject property, you would have to pass and make that turnaround. Is it in vision? Could they request a traffic light there in the future? Would that go through? My understanding is that they would most likely not be warranted for a light, but I can't. Even if I were a traffic engineer, I'd probably say the same thing. It would need to meet warrants in order to fulfill the need for a traffic light, and my guess is that it would not. Okay. I appreciate that. And then, so, to tie on to Commissioner Wicke's question, let's say that the school goes there, and in 10 years, it's no longer viable, so it gets torn down. Could somebody put multifamily residential there under what it would have, under the new? One thing that I did not mention is that the limited institutional zoning does not permit residential. So based on the zoning, they would not be permitted multifamily residential. They would need a zoning amendment to a multi-residential category in order to achieve that. So they wouldn't automatically be able to do a lot of density right there? Absolutely not. Commissioner Eggers, and then we'll... So, again, just getting back to the historical perspective on the road there, because we do have churches there. We do have...actually, we have some office. We have a retail center. Were all of those originally land used and zoned more restrictive, and those have all gone through the same process that we're going through tonight? Or is it just dependent, again, on the size of the properties? And how did that corridor develop commercially, I guess, is really about it. Because we do have churches on both sides. We have restaurants on one side. We have a lot of that already in the corridor. Yeah, you know, it's a combination of, for example, the scenic non-commercial corridor aspect of Keystone Road. So that changes as well along Keystone. So it changes the ability to pursue certain land use designations. The countywide rules over the years have changed as well. So there can be properties and developments that predate the current rules when they went into place. The property directly across the street on the south side, for example, that's a residential plan development. So that's under a master plan development that went to the Board of County Commissioners for adoption. It specifies. It's very deliberate and specific in the uses and the development parameters that it specifies. I think those things can be more palatable sometimes for adoption because they had that specificity. But it's really kind of a mixed bag. Again, you know, the primary and per the community overlay and what's arguably appropriate, you know, the primary land use and primary development along the corridor is rural residential. And then, as you noted, Commissioner, there are instances along the way where you'll find institutional uses like a school or a church, some limited retail, some limited office, some limited office, that goes in as well. It's just sort of that mix just kind of comes into play and contributes to the overall development of that East Lake community. Thank you, Chair. And so, you know, maybe not like multifamily, but I think like a lot of the concerns that the neighbors have is, you know, like, again, let's say the school folds, but maybe they won't increase density, but under that institutional use, they could put a behavior health facility or addiction treatment center could go there, right? In 10 years, if the school folds under that use, like a mental health facility could go in there and occupy it. Theoretically, now they would have to meet other criteria as well. I mean, it's just not the land use that would dictate in that instance. There would be other criteria as well with zoning and obviously, you know, other regulations outside the county that would perhaps come into play. But it definitely opens the door. So I would agree. Thank you. Mr. Chair. Yeah, thank you, Chair. Are there other K-8 schools in this area on Keystone Road? Pardon me, I missed that. Are there other K-8, you know, kindergarten through eighth grade schools on Keystone close to this one? Are there any schools right there? I'm in my mind driving Keystone Road. I was just thinking maybe that the traffic would be pulled from the schools. On East Lake Road, my colleague is approaching. Michael Schroederbach, zoning manager. Yes. Down the street to the east is the Solid Rock. It's a private school. Would this site require on-site stacking? Yes. So, like, I don't know how you've, what the matrix is for determining the amount of stacking. The parking ratios are determined by the students. So number of students in the school. There's a ratio for parking requirements. They do have requirements for all queuing must take place on the site. So with the site, the depth on it during our early assistance meeting where we looked at a concept plan. They do have significant depth to provide stacking on there, but they will have to demonstrate that they can meet it all on-site. Okay. Any other questions of staff? No? Yes. Oh. Mr. Chair. Yes. Commissioner Peters. So, I know it was brought up that a drug treatment program could be put there. Well, we own property just east of there, and I mean just east of there, where Axe is, and they have residential treatment for people for addiction. And we've never had a complaint from any neighbor ever. So, I just don't know that you all know that there's a location there that the county owns, and Axe, I don't know how many bed residents it is, but it's quite large facility. And we have never had, that I know of, ever a complaint from a resident. So, I just kind of don't want to have a negative spin on that. If people are trying to get help, that's a wonderful thing. But it does state that it could be medical, which I assume could be a surgery center, or it could be a standalone emergency room, and then you'd have ambulances going back and forth. So, I kind of get all that. I think a school is consistent and congruent with what's already on Keystone Road. And I think if you go down to the sports fields, just a little farther, I believe east of there, you probably would get more traffic from those sports fields in the evening and on Saturdays than you would from a school. So, you know, and even if you did, based on the report, I think, just to make sure I understand this correct, it says you could do 12.5, based on the future land use map, 12.5 residential units per acre, which means you could put more than 60 units on that. And I think a school may be more palatable than 60 units of residential. I think the schools are congruent with what we already have there. So, I don't see that as a problem. But I do have a question on the maps. And I know you said the only entryway in was off of Keystone Road. But when you kind of span out on those maps, there's a road, three property, two properties over, looks like George Street. And you can see the back end of the property lots. That's not an alleyway, is it? No, it is not. It is not an alleyway. Okay. Because I was just wondering if there was another way to divert traffic. If there was an alley, that would have been ideal. But evidently, that's not an alley. So, that doesn't work. Okay. Yeah, I just wanted to mention there is a very large drug rehab facility run by Axe just down the street at a county-owned facility. And they do amazing work. And people are able to get their lives back in order and, you know, get back with their families and have a job and be productive citizens. So, just wanted to bring that up. If my colleagues have never been there to see it, it's worth a tour. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner. And since you brought up the addiction treatment center and other uses that can be kind of unique or more intense, most of those per the zoning, for zoning that they would be permitted to use, would require a type 2 process. So, an addiction treatment center, for example, it would require a public hearing before the Board of Adjustment of Appeals to go through that process. It wouldn't be, I mean, it wouldn't be by right, come in, file a site plan, stamped, approved. It would have to go through that public hearing process as well. Okay, so you say that, but when I'm looking at the future land use, so anything on that future land use map that you've identified, is that the case? So, if it were a standalone ER, where ambulances would go back and forth, would that be the same thing? That's not for me. That's medical. Medical could be a hospital. Medical could be a standalone ER. Medical could be a surgery center. You listed, in one of these zoning, you listed, one of them, you listed daycare and, oh, I'm not finding it right now, but right, am I incorrect, right? They could, I mean, it allows for that, so I'm not so opposed to it. It allows for medical, it allows for daycare, and I'm not sure if daycare means, if that means elderly daycare or young children daycare or assisted living or anything like that. And if you can have 12.5 residential units based on the future land use, I'm thinking a school is not as intrusive. Am I right on those assumptions? I apologize. I think I missed the gist of your question. I would, I mean, that would be an opinion of mine that a school would not be as intrusive, but as far as what could be permitted by the zoning on the property? Yeah, I mean, well, that's my opinion. I don't want to impose my opinion on you, but it could be a standalone, right, a standalone ER. But you currently, the current land use allows for all of this, correct? At the land use level, yes, but at the zoning level is when it gets into the specifics of does it require a public hearing? Are there special, we have Article 9 of our zoning code that has special standards as well that are included with certain types of uses. So the scrutiny is much higher. The land use is just kind of giving you that broad brush of the types of uses. So, so I get it. So it limits, it does limit the range of education, but it does allow for education. And that's that extra, what, three blocks, right? The 0.3, is that where we're over? So it's allowed based on zoning, except that it exceeds by 0.3 on the acres. Is that correct? It exceeds by 0.23 acres in the land use. And by the current zoning, it would, just to be clear, I want to be completely clear, it would be a type 2 use, which would require a public hearing before the Board of Adjustment and Appeals. But it wouldn't require a land use amendment or a countywide map amendment or anything like that, which is what this request requires. Right. Okay. Okay. Thank you. I still think I'm clear on this. It's, we're really talking about a 0.23 exceeding the size of the lot. I would concur. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions for staff? All right. Thank you, gentlemen. Okay. So now we will invite the applicant up. Mr. Chair. Yes. And just for the record, we, the clock wasn't stopped on their presentation. So I'm estimating about six minutes, six or seven minutes left for staff to rebut. Seven. Okay. Thank you. All right. So we have, with the applicant, we have Brian Onks, Jr., Kurt Heinrich, and Justin Gingrich. Sir. Evening, gentlemen. Just pulling up the PowerPoint, if you give us one second. Perfect. All right. Mr. Chair, Commissioners, Brian Onks, 625 Court Street, Clearwater here on behalf of the applicant, Ignite Academy. Ignite Academy is a K-8 Christian private school, which is in existence. It currently operates in the area, about two miles from the site, at the Radiant Church, which is located at 1350 East Lake Road. The Radiant Church is merging with another church, and they have elected not to renew the lease for Ignite Academy. So Ignite Academy is looking for their forever home, and this site was identified as an appropriate site for this use and is consistent and compatible with two other K-8 Christian schools directly, less than a quarter mile away. And I'll get into the specific uses in a more clear map here in a moment. I'm joined by Justin Gingrich, who is one of the operators of the school, and I'm also joined by our civil engineer, Kurt Heinrichs. And the current property owner, Wayne Vaughn, is also here with us in the audience. I did want to just orient us, and I know I'm sure you're all aware of this, but what we're looking at on Keystone Road here is U.S. 19 to the west and East Lake Road to the east. So this is not Keystone Road out east of East Lake Road. I wanted to make sure we were clear we're between U.S. 19 and East Lake Road. And as you can see, and again, we'll get into more specifics in a more clear map that outlines all the uses, but you've got a very intense, dense residential use to the southwest right there on Lake Tarpon. We've got a site that will be developed that's going through the development review process with Tarpon Springs directly adjacent to the west, which will be residential. It will certainly be much more dense than it is now. So I don't want you to operate in a vacuum because that is going through the process. We've been approached by that applicant about potentially doing a joint access. We're open to that conversation, but we're not anywhere near that site plan level yet. This is obviously not the site plan approval. We also have many houses of worship that are on this screen. And like I said, we have two large and successful schools that have about double the enrollment of this particular school. This school has 75 families and 130 students. So it is a much smaller school than the Plato Academy or the Solid Rock Christian School. So I wanted to get right into why are we here. And this has been brought up at length. We are here basically on a technicality. The land use and zoning allow the school to be there. The land use allows it as of right, and the zoning allows it as a type 2 Board of Adjustment approval. So if I was five acres or less, I'd be in front of the Board of Adjustment. I wouldn't be here. We approached the staff about this. I have an email here that I'd like to put on the overhead back in June. And asked, hey, you know, we've got this site. We're over five acres. And the guidance was, because you're over five acres, you have to do a land use amendment, which is totally fine. And that is correct. And they are 100% correct. One of the reasons for that is you don't want to have a bunch of conditional uses on larger properties. If it's a property that is going to be institutional, the public policy perspective of a comp plan is we want to describe the property for what it's actually being used for. So that's why they restrict those conditional uses, because if the site is actually going to be more of an institutional site, they want it to be appropriately indicated on the land use map. Having said that, I've talked to Mr. Swearengen last week. We are perfectly open to a development agreement to limit the site to the school. That's fine. It's not something that had been brought up at LPA. It's not something that had been brought up. But if your concern is opening Pandora's box, I just want to kind of address that right out of the gate and let you know my folks here who are looking for their forever home are not property speculators. They're not here to trick you to flip the site. That's not what they're here to do. You have a bunch of family members here that have students and maybe even siblings and future students of the school. And so we're open to that. This isn't the final approval on the land use amendment. As you know, some of you sit on Ford Pinellas. So what would happen if this was approved tonight, the county would then apply to Ford Pinellas for the countywide map amendment, and then we would go to a Ford Pinellas hearing. We would get a recommendation from Ford Pinellas, and then we'd be back in front of the county commission sitting as the CPA. I believe we could run the development agreement through that process. So if you were to say yes tonight, even though we don't have a development agreement tonight, if I don't have one to your liking by the time I get back to you in February, you can hold me to it and deny it. And so I just wanted to kind of get that right out of the way. Again, we do believe it is compatible with the existing uses, and compatibility, I think, is found objectively in the fact that the use is already permitted under the current land use and zoning and that we're here on this technicality. And that's an argument that the LPA heard. So, again, the request is to do a rezoning from residential agriculture, which allows this use as a type 2 to limited institutional. As Mr. Swearengin said, the limited institutional does not allow any residential. So you see the land use of institutional allows 12.5 units per acre, but the limited institutional zoning does not allow it at all. So even if you approve this without a development agreement, you wouldn't be opening the Pandora's box to some kind of multifamily. Institutional is not eligible for live local, so you wouldn't have to worry about some, you know, end game on trying to get a live local in here. The institutional is not allowed for that. And as Mr. Swearengin and Mr. Schotterbach said, any kind of treatment use would require a level or a type 2 conditional use by the Board of Adjustment, which would get a notice to all of the neighbors. Just like this hearing, there would be a site plan. The Board of Adjustment could put conditions. They could deny it. If the staff is always looking at compatibility and consistency with the goals, objectives of the comp plan and the code, they believe that this current proposal for this small school is consistent. And I think objectively it is. And I think that's why they're recommending approval. If I was coming in with a large 24-hour emergency room, I think they would be potentially recommending denial. But, again, we are open to that development agreement suggestion, and I would appreciate that opportunity if that is an overwhelming concern of yours. This is a very conceptual site plan. One of the things that the 15.23 acres gives us is a lot of room to provide buffering compatibility. There are tremendous opportunities here for landscape buffers, for retention of trees, for addition of trees. And what you can see here is this is, again, a concept. This is not being approved tonight, but this is showing you where it could go. We've got a 20,000-square-foot footprint, two stories. So that's where you get the 40,000-square-foot proposed interior. And you've got 80 parking spaces, which is 20 spaces in excess of code. And you have a 700-foot-long drive aisle, which means every car, all the 75 families, if they all showed up at once, would more than adequately fit on site with no queuing, no traffic problems off-site. Many of these families already traverse Keystone Road. The school is right in the vicinity. Many of them live here. Traffic is, for a large part, already on this road. And that 570 traffic count that you see, that's the worst-case scenario. That's not analyzing this school. That's not analyzing this use. And objectively, at the site plan level, a traffic study would be required. And I guarantee you that it would probably be less than half of that in terms of the actual trips generated by this school. There are no athletic teams at this school. There's not going to be any travel sports here. There's no stadium proposed. This is a straightforward 820 to 845 drop-off, 320 to 345 pickup. They're in and out at 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. every day. This isn't going to be one of those uses where there's a lot of noise, especially in the evening. There's not going to be large events here. This is a school. I'm going to ask Mr. Heinrichs to give you a little more feedback on his conceptual design and maybe address some of the concerns I haven't addressed yet. Kurt Heinrichs, 3077 Doxbury Court, Clearwater. As you can see on the site, it's a very deep site, over 1,000 foot long. We have a large setback from the building, approximately 500 feet from Keystone Road. We have a large driveway, which would allow up to 80 cars to stack up, which would far exceed what code would require and what we would need for if every parent were stacked up waiting for their child. Code is going to require a six-foot fence along the east side. That would be the top of the drawing that would buffer us, our cars, and the school from the next-door neighbors, which I think possibly they might be speaking tonight. We would have to buffer the parking lot as well, as well as we'd have to buffer along Keystone Road to meet code. Also, our recreation area would have to be buffered as well. As Brian said, we're going to be required to have a traffic study, so that will show us what we need to do for that, as well as there were some concerns about the trail. We're going to be crossing the trail at our driveway. Code will require us to post signs that we're going to be crossing the trail, as well as bollards, which you've probably seen if you've been on the Pinellas County Trail, to warn people and to keep cars from possibly turning onto the trail. With that, that concludes my presentation. Thank you, Kurt. And he'll be here to answer additional questions. And, Mr. Gingrich, if you address just the operation of the school, I know I haven't. I gave a little bit of context, so you can give some more, but then also your desire for this to be your forever home site and not some speculative real estate investment. Hi, my name is Justin Gingrich. I'm one of the school administrators there. I'm also a parent at the school. I'm also a resident of the area. I live probably a mile from this site, approximately. So our school, we started eight years ago. We're a K-8 school. It's our first year K-8. We're stopping there. We have 133 kids. He told us kind of our hours of operations. Parents start lining up 8 o'clock. Pickup is done by 3.30. A few kids stay for aftercare until like 4.35, and then we're done. Our doors are closed for the day. I think one of the things that's been talked about here is kind of serving the area. I feel like our school is a service to our community. Families are looking for quality education, and we want to provide that for the Tarpon Springs area. We've been in the Tarpon Springs area for four years now. We've been renting from a church, and so we're already a couple miles down the road. A lot of our families come across Keystone already, and so there's going to be no additional traffic from them. But, yeah, we serve a lot of families in that Tarpon Springs, Eastlake area already, and so we want it to be a service for our community. Thank you, Justin. And, again, Justin's here to answer any questions as well. So as we wrap up here, I promised you that I would show you a better aerial, a better map of the immediately surrounding uses. We discussed the property to the west that's being redeveloped for residential through the city of Tarpon Springs. That is not in unincorporated Pinellas County. Directly behind us is an equestrian ranch, which is a commercial agricultural use. We have Augustine Construction Yard, so there's a construction yard, you know, just a couple parcels over to the east. To the east of that is an Orthodox Church, which is a very large site, very similar site, and you can see that they're basically right up on the road. That's an institutional use. Next to that, directly adjacent to the Orthodox Church is a mosque, and directly adjacent to the mosque is a commercial center with a title agency, I think there's a dentist's office in there. So there is a very, very mix of community neighborhood compatible uses directly in this area. And then further to the east, we have the Solid Rock Community School and the Plato Academy West Coast World Church. And if I could go back to the overhead, I wanted to just give you an idea of those uses as they exist. So the Solid Rock Church is at two, I'm sorry, Solid Rock School is at 2801 Keystone Road. That's approximately 30,000 square foot of existing building footprint on 2.87 acres, which puts it at an FAR of 0.24. The Plato Academy, they have over 300 students, an A school, very successful school. That's at 2795 Keystone Road, approximately 53,000 square feet of building space on 5.9 acres, and their FAR is about 0.205. Our proposed FAR of a 40,000 square foot, 20,000 square foot footprint on two stories on 5.23 acres is 0.175 FAR. So under the current land use and zoning, we're entitled to an FAR of 0.3. We're going to be well below the allowable FAR for this particular use, which is why, again, objectively, I believe when you look at the uses, you look at the Eastlake overlay, it's compatible. I mean, the use exists in the area, uses that are very, very similar in nature, from large churches to very successful private schools are directly in the vicinity of the area, and then directly to the southwest, you have a very large, dense residential neighborhood. So when you hear that 570 traffic number, that's not a real number in terms of what this actual use is going to be. It is the worst-case scenario, but even under the worst-case scenario, you're not at all impacting the level of service, as has been pointed out several times. So just to wrap up, I'm trying to – oh, there we are. Back to the PowerPoint, if we are there. So there are several goals, policies, and objectives of the comprehensive plan that the staff outlines in the staff report. I will not repeat those here. We believe that we agree, of course, with the staff that this meets all of the goals, policies, and objectives of the comprehensive plan. It is compatible with the existing uses. It's consistent with the existing uses. And this site, as you know, is not up to code. It has no stormwater. It has no stormwater nitration or treatment or attenuation. Everything about what this is going to be for the neighborhood is an improvement over the existing on the site in terms of all of those things that we talked about from a code compliance perspective, bringing everything up to code and improving that property and putting it to good use for the citizens and allowing the school to be successful and to serve the neighborhood. With that, I will reserve the balance of my time for rebuttal, and we'll answer any questions that you have. And I know there's several members of the public here to speak as well. Thank you, Brian. Any questions for the applicant? Yes, sir. Any questions? Thank you. All right. Thank you. We will go to public comment then. So first we'll go with Beverly Downing, followed by Linda Van Dam. Good evening. Hi. I'm Beverly Downing from 1131 East Lake Drive in Tarpon Springs, fairly near this facility that they have applied for the change in a residential area. Our family has been, had this property since the 80s. We like the space at 2.8 acres and love the wildlife, the scenery, being outside, and the nature of living here in Florida. But Nellis Trail is a great asset to provide safety for citizens to walk and ride bikes on. It parallels with Keystone Road that is four lanes for the huge amount of traffic we've had with many developments and increased population. The zoning change that has been applied for to allow Ignite Academy to be in the middle of a residential area is simply going to add a tremendous amount of car traffic at rush hour, both morning and afternoon, and will cause backups on Keystone Road and mixing with the Pinellas Trail pedestrians. As parents are trying to manipulate through the maze with their children, each car will cross the Pinellas Trail four times a day for drop-off and pickup. It's difficult to see car and trail traffic when getting back onto Keystone Road as that driveway drops down. I've lived in Pinellas County since 1953 and personally witnessed several accidents with serious injuries and fatalities. They were at intersections with stop signs or red lights on the trail. One at East Lake Drive and Keystone Road near the area that is being applied for this change, and where a man I saw literally go over bicycle handlebars, and as he went over, fortunately he said he had a $200 helmet on that saved his life. But I saw the skin peel completely off his face. He did live and survive. But that was at a stop sign where this area does not have, where the academy is supposed to be. And he did it because a car quickly turned in front of him, and in order to prevent hitting the car, he hit his brakes and flew off the bike, and the car just barely missed him. Another fatality I witnessed at Alternate 19 and Klosterman Road on the trail. There was a red light there. It was an extremely busy time in rush hour traffic. A truck had stopped. A bicycle had stopped. The light changed for pedestrians to cross on the trail. The man on the bike started out. The truck came around the corner, barely bumped him on his hip. The bike fell over. His head cracked and bled out and died immediately. It was a horrible experience that I had. After starting to proceed on that Klosterman trail, this bicyclist, and got hit, a car behind the truck did not see it, decided they were going to run around and get the... Get the... Your three minutes is up. Three minutes is up? No, that wasn't three minutes. Anyway, the traffic congestion is going to cause a lot of problems and with fatalities. I've already witnessed. I don't wish to see that or anybody else. Linda Van Dam, next. And I live at the house directly on the lot line of 2271. First, I'd like to make sure that the board knows that 63 families encompassing 2271 signed the petition and said no to the rezoning. We love our neighborhood. We do not want to see a change like this. Second, the traffic report for the 45 acres next to 2271, Pioneer Homes wanted to build 17 homes, approximately 34 cars, and it was turned down for too many traffic issues, and that was only 34 cars. Now we have nine grades, and I will use really small classes as an example, 10 children per class plus teachers, 100 people. So 100 cars in and out two times a day is 400 passes over the Pinellas Trail, 400 every day. At the most dangerous portion of the trail coming off the hill over Salt Lake, they're flying by. By the time they get to 2271 driveway, it's a tragedy waiting to happen. Lastly, we have personal gun ranges out here, and I don't think hearing gunfire is good for any child. Way too frightening. And also, somebody was supposed to be here today to talk about the Eagle Nest, which is on the Eagle Map, and it is right on 2271's northwest corner. There's a mating pair that's there, and it's mating season. So thank you very much, and please vote this down. Thank you. Okay, next we have Nancy McAmis, followed by Jessica Serrano. Good evening. My name is Nancy McAmis. My address is 2373 Keystone Road, adjacent to 2271 Keystone Road. My husband and I have owned the property for over 40 years. We've raised our family there. I taught for 30 years in both Pinellas and Pasco County, from elementary to high school. I'm aware of the proposed school and understand that this is one of the conditional uses or variances done on the residential agriculture property. We've seen a lot of changes out there, and we understand change happens, try to better the community. Between East Lake Road and U.S. 19, there is a mix of residential and institutional, encompassing commercial churches and schools. It's been like that all along, way before they widened the road. It's about 50-50, so I'm not surprised that this is a proposed site for a school. We need more schools. We need more choices for our families in Pinellas County and Pasco County. We, our family, are in support of this school project. Please note that in the 40 years we've been there, we have seen a lot of changes. And I understand the concern about the trail. We all have to be conscious of it, but I just don't see that being earth-shattering. And as far as nature, we've seen a lot of nature out there, and it changes. On the west, no, on the east side, Northern Pioneer Homes is building 44 homes, and there was concerns about eagles' nests over there, too, and tortoises and everything, and they didn't find it. I haven't seen an eagles' nest on our property, and we're adjacent. We have eight acres there. So, in closing, thank you very much for listening to us, a longtime resident of Pinellas County and Tarpon Springs East Lake area. I hope you support the school. I really believe we need it. And I think many of the issues can be worked through. Okay. Thank you. Jessica Serrano, followed by Kyle Loomis. Good evening, everyone. Thank you for your time this evening. My name is Jessica Serrano. I'm born and raised in Florida in Pinellas County. I'm a proud graduate of Pinellas County Schools. I graduated from East Lake High and have lived in the East Lake Corridor for several years now. I am also less than two miles away from the proposed location, so I am a neighbor and a resident of this area. But most importantly, I am the proud co-founder of Ignite Academy and a teacher there as well. What I love about our school is that we are a neighborhood school that was created for the community and to serve children. We are intentionally small because we believe every child should be seen and every family should be known. One of my proudest moments during the day is our car line. We are proud to say that it takes literally 10 minutes to get all learners into school. I have a walkie-talkie along with our other administrators, and I know every car by heart, all 73. So as our families pull into the school, I announce their names based on their car, and then they exit. So it is truly a unique school. When I hear the word institution, that actually isn't a word that I would use to describe our school. We have one class per grade level, one teacher per grade level, currently 133 kids, and that is how we would like to keep it, a school where every kid, again, is seen. We love the East Lake area. Again, I grew up in this area, and part of it is the nature and the way that our kids cannot be in a plaza or a parking lot but have the opportunity to be in a beautiful space where there are trees, there's animals, where they can play, where they can really learn to appreciate God's creation. We're also a school that is here to serve, serve the people in our community, our neighbors. It's a place where our kids want to return, the love that they have, and really a respectful place to raise our kids. So I'm thankful to be here, and thank you for your consideration tonight. Thank you. Kyle Loomis. Good evening. My name is Kyle Loomis. I live in Palm Harbor, 2211 Shadow Walk, born and raised here in Pinellas County as well. And when I hear people saying that we love our neighborhood, so do we. And that's why I want to serve it. Our goal is to find a new nearby home for our school that strengthens the community around it. And our school supports kids and families. My job at the school is to engage with families, strengthen families from strong families come strong kids, and that strengthens our community for generations to come. And that's our desire for this new home, and we hope to serve well in this location. Thanks for your time. Thank you. Okay. And then I had five speaker cards that say they were waving in support. Dan Kuchamanis, and I'm sorry if I didn't get that name right, Shannon Perrault, Wayne Vaughn, L.S. McCamas, and Maximilian McCamas. Okay. All right. That concludes the public comment that we have. Did the applicant want to do any rebuttal, or did we have any questions here on staff? You coming back up, Brian? Okay. All right. Just get that PowerPoint back up real quick. All right. Okay. So, again, Mr. Chair, Commissioners, Brian Onks, 65 Court Street. I won't belabor this. I know you received a lot of correspondence, a lot of e-mails, folks with the concerns, but then a whole bunch of e-mails of people that were in support. The vast majority, if not all of them, are residents of this community, and by this community, I mean the East Lake Overlake community. I think, again, we have demonstrated consistency with the comprehensive plan, goals, policies, and objectives. County staff agrees, as does the LPA. I completely understand the concern about opening the Pandora's box 10, 15, 20, 30 years down the road to another use on a five-acre site that could be more intense. And so that's why, and I think the county staff is okay with this approach. I don't want to speak for them. They will definitely let you know if I'm mistaken. But if we could come back to you at the final approval of the CPA, or even before then, depending on how long it takes, with a development agreement. I talked to Mr. Gingrich. He's totally fine with that. This is the goal, is to open this school on this site and to keep it there. And so, obviously, as you know, with a development agreement, that would be a contract for a term, and that any changes would have to come back to you and to the staff for approval. And so, I don't want to give you legal advice. I'm not going to try to do that. My suggestion would be, if you wanted to make a motion to approve tonight to allow it to move to Forward Pinellas, but also direct the staff to negotiate a development agreement with us, to come back to you at a date in the future, that would be something that we would be fully supportive of. And again, I think just from the uses you can see in the area, there are a number, all of these uses interact with the Pinellas Trail. You saw a picture that Mr. Swearensen showed of the current driveway. Anyway, everything we're going to do is going to improve the safety of the site. It's going to improve the site from a stormwater drainage attenuation treatment perspective. That Pinellas Trail interaction with this property will be significantly safer. I mean, exponentially safer. Clear lines of sight, sight triangles, bollards, lights, striping. It will be a vast improvement for the Pinellas Trail. Mr. Heinrich is going to address that if you want him to, but again, I'm not going to belabor the point. We're happy to answer any questions you have. Thank you. Any questions of the applicant? Commissioner Flowers? That are currently on that site, three of them, will they remain or they'll be gone? We've already worked out an agreement with them. They will be gone. So Mr. Vaughn is the current property owner. He is selling, so this is under contract to the school, and this conceptual plan is behind you. So no residential whatsoever, straight school, parking, drive aisle, long driveway, and stormwater retention. And this is just my wish. I wish there was more than just one way in and one way out. I know Keystone is a very busy road because it's like a main road, you know, off of if you don't take US-19 or if you don't take the interstate and come back around. But I just wish there was, you know, an ingress, egress, opposite ways, just to help, even though I know what you're saying about the extended driveway. And it will be able to host the cars, because I guess you figure one car per child, a family, 100 cars. And they wouldn't all be there at the same time because drop-off. Yes, ma'am. It just depends on whenever they do it. What timeline are you guys looking at? Because you all have to be out of the current location by... July. Oh, July of next year. Yes, ma'am. But I have made sure, and Mr. Gingrich can address it if you want him to, he knows that they're not moving into this building in August of 2026. This is a long-term project. So they're actively negotiating a lease with another church for next year. So I don't want you to think that my client's under the belief that they're somehow going to get a building built and approved and all that by next week. I don't know, they have modular now where they bring in prefab walls and you can up it in 180 days. So, you know, I'm just saying. Yes, that is true. It could be done if you put your mind to it. And just for the record, I did not think or believe that you guys have an undercover alternative motive to flip this property and turn it into multifamily housing or market rate, anything of that nature. I'm not thinking of that. My only concerns are, because it's quite compatible with what's already in the area, I just wish there was another way to ingress and egress. As you would be eating up, you know, some of the property, you have very limited space to work there. But that would be my only hope. But, you know, that has nothing to do with the vote we have to take tonight. Yes, ma'am. And we will take a much closer look at ingress and egress before we come back to you and hopefully have some more information on that. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, sir. If there is an active eagle's nest, would you guys try to preserve that on the site? I'm not sure that there is an active eagle's nest. I'm not sure what – yeah, I mean, that would go through the site plan process. So, obviously, if that were the case, that would be something that would be addressed through the site plan process. But you'd want to try to preserve it? Of course. Yeah, I think we'd be required to. Absolutely. Love it. Thank you. Yeah, that would be a number one priority for sure. Mr. Chair, if you don't mind, you wouldn't have a choice. I'm just – you probably already know this, but when there are active eagle's nests or those other white cranes, they guard them off and you can't do anything in that area, especially around nesting season. So, if they had one and there was school, they wouldn't even be able to drive their cars up in there. They'd have to walk because they're really – the rules around those are really strong. I know that because of, you know, what we have in St. Pete. And we've had active eagle's nests where nothing can happen, yeah. All right. Yeah. Okay. So, questions – any more questions to the applicant? No? Thank you. Okay. All right. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it. Okay. So, we have some questions for staff. I wanted to ask about the development agreement. And we certainly understand, I think, conceptually the benefit to it. But could you get into any more specifics about what the benefit to that development agreement would be? Well, for starters, a development agreement with the land use, the development agreement would either go – and I might look toward Jewel for this one. This is interesting because the development agreement would typically go with the zoning and not the land use. So, the land use, if it were approved, would be approved with – you know, it wouldn't have the development agreement, but a development agreement would go with the zoning. Now, if the development agreement goes with the zoning, per the land development code, it requires a public hearing again before the local planning agency and then before this board as well. So, this would have to come back – there would be essentially a repeat for the zoning. I'm not asking what the detriment is. I'm asking what the benefit is. Well, the benefit is that it can help prescribe the development parameters. So, for example, a concept plan could be required to substantially, significantly – the plan that actually ends up as a site plan to follow that concept plan very closely. And it can also prescribe more specifically the land uses on the property, the setbacks, building heights, all those kinds of things that can be incorporated into a development agreement. You, in essence, the concerns that you raised earlier about an alternative use in the future, you could limit it under that development agreement. So, you could restrict it to the school, for instance, okay? And, you know, and, Joel, you can speak, you know, not just to that, but there's another way of coming at that too. There is. There's quite a number of things that you can do with a development agreement. As Mr. Onk referenced, there's a term to it. We frequently require applicants to record a deed restriction along with those development agreements to ensure that the limitation on the types of uses that can be put on the property remains in perpetuity, despite the fact that those development agreements will eventually expire. But there's a number of other things you could do. You can deal with buffers. You can deal with the ingress-egress, which sounds like it's pretty limited here anyway. A lot of the site planning issues that you normally hear about and, like, was referenced, you could really kind of lock in, to a certain extent, the concept plan. So, there's quite a number of things you can do with a development agreement to limit, most importantly, I think, the range of uses that could be there. What about the term of the development agreement, typically? What are they typically? They've changed it a few times, so don't hold me to it. It's gone from 5 to 20. It might be back to 5, but that's why we typically will record a deed restriction as well. In conjunction with the entry into that development agreement, again, to a deed restriction isn't going to get to, like, trees and buffers. It's going to get to the use of the property, though. So, and I think that that's really the prevailing consideration. That's the heart of the concerns that we heard, and that's reason a development agreement would fit nicely in this property. Okay. You do have a tool in your code as well for conditional overlays that is another zoning-type issue. Perhaps a development agreement is more appropriate here. Well, I certainly appreciate the offer from the applicant for that. I mean, to the extent that we have to, it goes a little bit longer to get to the end, but their willingness to do that, I think, to protect the uses or future uses of the property, I think, is a good thing. And like was mentioned, it does require a public hearing, so it would come back before this board. You would see it again. You would have the opportunity to see the limitations that are imposed. Would it also have to go back to Board Pinellas and then come back here again? Not for a development agreement, no. And I think what I heard from the applicant's representative is that the goal would be to have the development agreement in place before you all would hear this land use sitting as the CPA, so that if they don't live up to their obligations under the development agreement, you could simply say no at the CPA part of the process. All right. Well, what is the will of the board? And keep in mind you're going to vote on the land use first, and if that is passed, then you'll move on to the zoning. Right. So this is the land use part here. I would like to move approval of the land use plan. Okay. So we have a motion by Commissioner Shearer, seconded by Commissioner Flowers. Where would the development agreement come in? I would suggest that you do that with the zoning. Okay. No, I would suggest if your intent is to direct staff to negotiate, I would recommend that you do that with the vote on the zoning. And that's tonight? Yeah, that will be next if the land use is approved. I understand. No, I understand. All right. We have a motion. A second. Do we have any further discussion? All right. Hearing none, let's bring up the voting. I'm a yes, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Commissioner Peters. All right. Six to zero. Passed unanimously. Thank you. All right. So now we'll move on to item 61, which is the zoning piece. So this is where we would direct staff to. I'd move approval to that, Mr. Chair. Okay. Thank you, Commissioner Peters. We have a motion from Commissioner Peters. I'll second. Okay. And a second from Commissioner Flowers. Is that part of your motion? Yes. Yeah. Was that part of your motion, Commissioner Peters, to direct staff to negotiate the development agreement? Yes. And that's your second. Okay. All right. So we have a motion by Commissioner Peters, second by Commissioner Flowers. Any further discussion? All right. Hearing none, we can open up the voting. And I'm a yes, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Commissioner Peters. All right. Passed unanimously. All right. Yep. On to item number 62. Agenda item number 62 is case number FLU 2509. This is a request by Green Energy for North America LLC for a future land use map amendment from residential urban to residential medium on approximately 18.43 acres located at 13400 Pine Street in unincorporated Largo. The public hearing is properly advertised. An affidavit of publication has been received or filing. No correspondence has been received by the clerk, and the matter is properly before the board to be heard. And I do have something to pass out. Okay. I'm assuming we would want a presentation from staff on this? Yeah. Okay. I understand there may be a request to continue this matter from the representative, so I would recommend we potentially let the board hear that first. Okay. All right. Come on up, Katie. Excuse me? Oh, that's okay. I was able to limbo. I thought you were going to hurdle it. Yeah, exactly. Katie Cole with the law firm of Hill Ward Henderson representing the applicant. And I apologize for the late request, but we did want to ask to continue this item to your next public hearing date. There were some specific questions about the RPD and the site planning surrounding this, similar to your last hearing. The applicant continues to work on some geotechnical reports that are going to drive that. Additionally, because of the recommendation of the local planning agency, it would require a supermajority tonight to move this forward. And so we would appreciate having a full board to consider the application. So with that, we would respectfully request this to be continued. So continue to a date certain, Jill? If we continue it to a date certain, that would avoid the need to re-advertise this. I don't know if we'll have a full board in December or not. So would you like us to December 18th? To the date certain, I believe, I don't know that there's a public hearing date set in January. It should be. December 16th, yes. We have December 16th and then, yeah. January 20th. One, one in January. January 20th. Only one. It would be the December one in January. So January 20th. January 20th? Yes, please. Okay, so do we have a motion to continue this until January 20th? I'd make that motion, Mr. Chair. Okay. Thank you, Commissioner. January 20th. Would you second that, Commissioner? This is being continued. Well, we're getting ready to vote on that. It's really up to the board what to do. Say what? I mean, they're going to hear something. They're still working on the proposal, right? I mean, that's the idea. If they could speak to something that may not be what's being presented. The question to, I mean, it's, it's, the attorney just said, you know, it's your call, but you're, you don't have a presentation from the applicant. I don't know. And so you're going to get comments about the plan that may change. So, right. All right. Well, we have a, we have a motion and a second. So is there any further discussion? Well, I mean, I do sympathize with members of the audience. I mean, when did you know, like, you didn't want to make this presentation? I had a discussion with my client who is out of the country. One of the other client representatives is here. So today when we, I learned, honestly, about Commissioner LaFalla's continued absence. And then just talking through that with our client. Today. Is when I had the conversation with my client, yes. I mean, I, you know, I mean, I do real estate and I, I mean, I think that's a little poor taste in my opinion, if you didn't know your client was out of the country, but. Oh, I knew my client was out of the country. I was saying we had the conversation today. You asked when this came about. And that's why I said I was sorry for the late notice for the ask. Right. Okay. Thank you. Katie, would you, for the individuals that came here today, and I understand that you have a concern, but we didn't know either. And so typically because there's not been a presentation and because they're asking for continuous, whatever it is that they want to present may in fact change. So what I'm asking is, do you think the representatives would maybe want to entertain a conversation with the persons who, not tonight, but maybe speak to someone this evening and set up a time where you all could communicate with the group about whatever it is and your changes. Because we're talking about January, so there may be a lot of changes between what you would have presented tonight versus what you'll present in January, two months away. And perhaps whatever the concerns may be between your clients and the individuals that are here tonight, perhaps they could be either fully resolved or somewhat resolved. I don't know. Happy to have a conversation with them. So to the persons who are sitting in the audience, what I have asked is that there be some dialogue between yourselves. You can pick a representative or however you all would like to do it to meet with the applicant to discuss whatever your concerns were going to be for this evening. And perhaps, I don't know, perhaps you will come up with a solution, partially, fully, or whatever, but whatever they are presenting or would have presented tonight may not be what they present two months from now in January. So this will give you a chance. And it very well could be that you still don't agree and you come back and say, we still don't agree. We want our three minutes. But tonight, because we don't have a presentation, nor do we have the other party here, there's not going to be a presentation on this matter. And, Mr. Chair, thank you for allowing me to do that. I just wanted to explain it to the individuals because they came. And they didn't know, and neither did we. But I didn't want them to think that they were being ignored, I guess is the word I would say. It was well put. Commissioner Flowers, I appreciate that. Thank you, Commissioner Flowers. I do want, especially in light of Commissioner Nowicki, staff does have a presentation. We also have a similar presentation from the LPA. We would respectfully request the board to entertain the continuance. So I just wanted to be clear about that. Yeah, I get that. I was saying you schedule that at some other time between them. I get what you want us to do tonight, but I was just trying to make peace in the home front. Yes. Okay. So we have a motion and a second. Is there any further discussion? Okay. All right. If we can open up the voting, please, for continuance until January 20th. And I'm a yes, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Commissioner Peters. Thank you. Thank you, Katie. Okay. That passes unanimously. All right. All right. So now we're moving on to item 63. Agenda item number 63 is a petition of Ross and Tracy Patton to vacate the 10-foot public drainage and utility easement line along the north boundary of Lot 5, Bardemore Country Club, North Phase 1, Platte Book 80, page 54, line in Section 133015 in Pinellas County, Florida. Since this is a quasi-judicial hearing, all those individuals who speak on this item must be sworn in. For those wishing to speak, whether you are attending in person or virtually, please raise your right hand. Do you swear or affirm that the testimony you are about to give is 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 the matter is properly before the board to be heard. Okay, thank you, Daryl Lynn. Okay, I did have one speaker card for the applicant, Ross Patton. Ross? Would you like to speak, Ross? You're just here to answer any questions. Okay, thank you. Any thoughts, questions? I'll move approval with the condition that Pinellas County is granted a new utility and drainage easement that runs through the rear of the property. Correct. I'm saying I'm recommending approval subject to the Pinellas County being granted a utility and drainage easement that runs through the rear of the property. That's the motion I'm making. Okay. Sorry about the... I guess it's important to hear what I'm saying, so I got it. Thank you. I'll second it. All right, we have a motion by Commissioner Eggers and a second by Commissioner Flowers. Is there any further discussion? All right, hearing none. If we could open up the voting, please. And then a yes, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Commissioner Peters. Who's not showing up? There we go. All right, passed unanimously. Thank you. Okay, moving on to 64. Agenda item number 64 is a resolution of electing not to exempt property under Section 196.19783, subsection O, Florida Statutes, commonly known as the Live Local Property Tax Exemption. The 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 probably before the board to be heard. And, Mr. Chair, so everyone is clear on this item, this does require a two-thirds vote of the membership of the governing body. So regardless of the fact that there's only six of you here tonight, it requires five votes. Okay. Thank you. All right. Do we want staff presentation? What are we? This is to extend what we did previously, which is continue to not allow the exemption for the 80 to 120, correct, for one year. You have to renew it each year. Yep. Yep. Move approval. I'll second. I don't need a presentation. Somebody else may. Mr. Eggers? I second. Did you want to? I had a question. Yeah, he looked like he had a question. That's why I was pointing. I was going to go ahead and vote, but do we have a surplus of affordable housing units? No, we don't. Go ahead. Come on up, Glenn. Within the, I forget what the term is. It's at the statistical area in the Metropolitan MSA, right? MSA. MSA, yeah. So there's a surplus in the Tampa Bay. It's called the Tampa, St. Petersburg, Clearwater, Florida, MSA, between 80 and 120 percent AMI. The surplus is 4,873 units. And that's with the Schoenberg Center housing study? Correct. Correct. It actually went up from last year. All right. We have a motion and a second. Is there any further discussion? Okay. We can open up voting, please. I'm a yes, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Commissioner Peters. Passed unanimously. And now we're moving on to item 65, right? Agenda item number 65 is an acquisition agreement with the town of North Reddington Beach to transfer its wastewater collection transmission system to Pinellas County. The public hearing is properly advertised, and an affidavit of publication has been received for filing. No correspondence has been received by the clerk, and the matter is probably before the board to be heard. Move approval, Mr. Chair. Second. Thank you, Commissioner Peters. Motion by Commissioner Peters. Second by Commissioner Flowers. Do we have any discussion, questions? All right. Hearing none, if we could open up the voting. And I'm a yes, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Commissioner Peters. Renee, did you hear yours? Oh, gee. Passes unanimously. Thank you. Okay. Item 66. Agenda item number 66 is a proposed ordinance amending Chapter 14, Pinellas County Code Restoration of Definitions, Enhancement of Retail Pet Sales Oversight, modification of public nuisance animal reporting, and modernization of impoundment protocols during emergencies and disasters. The public hearing is properly advertised, and the 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. Chair, we would ask, staff would ask that we delay this until the December 16th meeting. We did have another meeting with the pet store owners last Friday. We offered them to submit comments regarding that, and some of it was clarification in language, and so we asked them to submit those. We'll review those, and we'll bring this back to you at the December meeting for a vote. Chair, we want to defer to a date certain December 16th. December 16th. Okay. I move approval to refer item number 66 to December. Okay. Motion by Commissioner Flower. Second by Commissioner Nowicki. Any further discussion? Okay. If we could open up voting. Name me yes, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Commissioner Peters. All right. Thank you, Commissioner Eggers. All right. So that passes. Yeah. There we go. Unanimously. All right. And that brings us to the end. Yay. All right. Well, then, everybody have a great evening. We are adjourned.