Good afternoon, everybody. I would like to call the December 16, 2025 meeting of the Penelope County Board of County Commissioners to order, and it is a wonderful day, and it's great to see you all. At this time, if we could all please rise, and first of all, if you could please join me in a moment of silence and reflection to remember the victims of the mass shooting at Brown University in Rhode Island, Bondi Beach in Australia, and our service members and civilian interpreter that were ambushed in Syria. Thank you. At this time, I would ask Commissioner Peters to offer an invocation, and Commissioner Wicke will lead us. Thank you. Heavenly Father, we come to you today asking for your guidance, wisdom, and support as we begin this meeting. Help us engage in meaningful discussion. Allow us to grow closer as a group and nurture the bonds of the community. We pray for wisdom, for strength, for courage to do what is right and good for all citizens. May we put the interests of others above our own, and may we act with love for the common good. May we be good neighbors recognizing your image in every person here. Amen. Okay. We don't have any proclamations or awards today, but before we get into the consent agenda, I would like to thank our deputies for keeping us safe today. Deputy Tom Manley, Deputy Jeff Atkinson, Deputy Kevin McSweeney, and joining us later on this afternoon will be Deputy Mike Winnick. Thank you, gentlemen. And for a year, keeping us safe as well. All right. Next, we have our consent agenda, items 2 through 24. Are there any items? Oh, we do have public comments. That's right. Thank you. Now we'll go to citizens to be heard. Got ahead of myself there. We got 10 minutes on the board. All right. First, we have Timothy Ewing with the community of Shipwatch, and Timothy is speaking on behalf of a group. And then we have four folks here. Scott, all four stand up, please. Two. Okay. Okay. All right. Thank you. Okay. Welcome. You have 10 minutes, sir. Thank you. Everybody hear me all right? I thank you for the time today. My name is Tim Ewing. I've been a resident of Shipwatch since 2012. 2012. It's a 56-acre community, 404 doors, roughly has 1,300 to 1,450 linear feet of intercoastal coastline. What we're looking for is helping getting a permit from Pinellas County to allow trimming and maintenance of the mangroves from the southwest corner of Shipwatch 10 all the way up to our marina. We obtained an invasive removal permit with the help of County Commissioner Latvala in 2024, and at that time, we have been requesting numerous times drawings and what's been deemed as a conservation easement. We've never been able to get clarity on any of that in many, many years. So what we're looking for overall is to return the ecosystem to a healthy condition through regular maintenance like we've done on the invasive side from the permit that was obtained in 2024. Also, most importantly, is extend the life of the seawall that we own from soil erosion and repairs that we had to do in 2024. We literally had 10 to 15 feet of invasive intrusion into the community that broke irrigation lines and those types of things. So it cost us in excess of $65,000 to get all of that stuff fixed. And we feel that some of that was a lag in permit because we had been trying for seven years prior to getting County Commissioner Latvala involved to get a permit to no avail. We're looking for helping getting a copy of the document referencing in 2021 Florida State Statute Title 704.065 as it relates to coastline highlighting in a permit application with the help of the commissioner's office. We submitted this to the arborist in April of 2025 for a mangrove trimming permit. Most importantly to the community as well is the right of riparian view once that was formally enjoyed by everyone at Shipwatch. That's gone awry. Okay. So excuse me. So we've been trying to get permits since 2013, as I alluded to. We were able to obtain an invasive removal of permit in 2024, which we're now on a $20,000 a year maintenance agreement for two areas within Shipwatch. The area looks fantastic. We've been going around since April of 2025 with a county and three separate responses on the application revision. The first revision that we got was in May asking for additional information, which was provided by the licensed arborist, Red Tree was the name of the arborist. There was a second request for revisions. And at that time, I asked for an update in August and was told that there would be a letter of application was a denial letter for application was going it was in the middle of being drafted and we would receive that. I waited a few days and I asked for that letter, you know, if there's anything that we got. We never received anything. Finally, in September, we received a request that said that we as a community need to provide our trim program and defining criteria for that said coastline. And our thought process was since we had the invasive permit, we would use that same map that was approved for the invasive permit because it's basically the same linear footage. And we have not been able to get anything back from the county that deems the entire coastline as a conservation easement. We know that there's a part of it that is that's behind two buildings. We and we we acknowledge that. But the remainder of it is is not part of a conservation easement that we've been able to find. Haven't been able to find any concrete drawings on anything. So we're looking for the committee commissioners help in getting a permit to allow us to get the community back into the state that it that it needs to be from an ecosystem perspective, from the seawall protection perspective, as if that's our number one or two reserve line item. It's over a million dollars that we have that's set aside for us to to have that repaired and maintained. So it's very important for us as a community to try to get this. And we get requests all the time from realtors. You know, why aren't you guys? Why don't you have permits? Everybody else has permits. Everyone else is able to trim. We've never been able to get since again since 2013 since I've tried to get information, get a firm grasp of this entire coastline is being deemed as a conservation easement. So we're looking for that time, excuse me, that permit application. Hopefully we can get it done. And I will field questions if there's any questions at all on this. No. Have you all filed for a permit? We did. We filed for a permit with your help. Initially, we weren't even able to. Our arborist wasn't able to get a formal application online. He did submit that application. That application was in April of this year. It came back within the 30 days with revision requests, which were done. There was a second revision request. And in between the second revision request and the third one we received, that's when I inquired, you know, what's the status of the permit after the second revision. And that was in May. In August, we were told that we were going to get a denial letter for the application overall. And it was with upper management at that time. And we never received anything until September when we received, you need to, the community needs to provide documentation and a trim plan for the mangroves that we would like to trim. And where we're at conflict is that the county keeps saying that nothing can be done, yet they want us to do a trim plan. That kind of doesn't make sense to me. Thank you. Commissioners, if I can. So the permit has been laying dormant since September. You are required to file a trim, no trim plan. I'll have staff. They can go out and meet with them out in the hallway. And so Jill and Kelly can meet with them and explain those requirements. Separately, the CWO issue, and Kelly is the director of public work. She can also. Sure, no, I'm familiar with Kelly. I've met Kelly. But my question is, how do we put a trim plan together when we don't have, when we can't clearly define what's conservation easement? You've never received that. Well, they can define the conservation easement. They'll meet with you and go through that. We're a delegate agency of the state, so it's not like we have an opportunity to waive something. We're a delegated agency, so we have to follow state statutes regarding that. But I can have them go out in the hallway and talk to you specifically. And Jill Silverboard is our deputy county administrator. Okay. Thanks, Mary. Okay. Thank you. Anything else, sir? Staff will meet you out in the hall. Thank you. Thank you. Next, we have Mary Jo Stanton. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. My name is Mary Jo Santoro. I have lived at Shipwatch since 2015, and I'm currently the HOA president for the master property there. It's nice to see our commissioner, Latvala, back in the saddle again and back to work. I'm sure you've been missed. Just to clarify something that Tim said, we've been trying to get the officially filed document with the county that designated the entire coastline that we are being told verbally is conservation and or preservation. So we acknowledge that we know there are some smaller plots of land within that coastline, but we cannot get our hands on the official filed document with the county after three or four requests for public records to get the document because we'd go away. If we had the document that said we couldn't touch it that was officially filed with the county, the conversation would be over. But we don't have it. So in light of that, we're trying to move forward. I want to thank you all for hearing our issue today. Given the season, I'm actually here to just follow up to Tim and appeal to your better angels, as the saying goes, but your sense of reason and fairness. When I purchased my home in 2015, the property was in terrible shape. Generations prior, we're simply not taking care of the 56 acres, costly as you can imagine. The new generation of owners at Shipwatch have made a commitment to improve the property unlike any in past years. Take a ride through some time. You can see it for yourself. We've committed tens of thousands of dollars in our annual budget to improve and maintain our beautiful property, and now we are requesting the coastal cleanup project, wherever permitted, of course, by regulation. And fortunately, we're at a crossroads with the county because we're going in a circular argument about submit the plans for your trim plan, but we want to trim all around the preservation or conservation or what we cannot touch, and we don't have the parameters for that officially. There is a perception amongst many of our owners that we're being punished for violations noted by the county over the past 40 years. We hear about them on a fairly regular basis, the most egregious of which happened 20 years ago when a resident living along the coastline decided to trim some of the mangroves growing in front of his home on his own. The county was informed, the fine was levied, and the fine was paid at that time. Since then, we've done a pretty good job keeping 404 doors compliant with all rules and regulations, which you can imagine that is not easy. Today, we are here to appeal to the commissioner's sense of fairness. A ride down the intercoastal in a boat is proof that many of the properties similar to ours in Pinellas County are allowed to keep their mangroves in healthy, trim condition, and in good shape, providing the wildlife with the habitat protection, their property lines protected, and giving the residents the right to riparian view. So we thank you for your time and wish you all a very happy holiday. You as well. Thank you. Next, we have Daryl Henderson. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, commissioners. Daryl Henderson here representing the Recovery Epicenter Foundation. I want to begin by sincerely thanking you for your steadfast support, not only of our foundation, but especially of the respite house located in Clearwater. That house has become a beacon of hope, offering safety, dignity, and encouragement to individuals who are working every day to rebuild their lives. Your commitment has made tangible difference, and we are deeply grateful. As we enter the holiday season, I'd ask our community to pause and remember those in recovery. The holidays are often filled with joy, but they can also bring unique challenges. Many gatherings center around alcohol, and without thoughtful planning, those in recovery may feel excluded or pressured. Yet with simple, intentional choices like offering non-alcoholic options, creating welcoming spaces, and focusing on connection over consumption, we can ensure that everyone feels included and celebrated. Recovery is not just about abstaining. It's about belonging. When our community embraces recovery during the holidays, we send a powerful message that resilience, courage, and hope are values worth honoring. And when leaders like you model this inclusivity, it inspires families, businesses, and organizations across Pinellas County. Looking ahead to the new year, I encourage us all to take action together. Let's commit to making recovery visible, not only in September during Recovery Month, but throughout the year. Whether it's through county-sponsored events, community partnerships, or everyday choices, we can build a culture where recovery is celebrated, stigma is reduced, and every person has the opportunity to thrive. On behalf of the Recovery Epicenter Foundation and the Respite House in Clearwater, thank you again for your partnership. With your continued leadership, 2026 can be a year where recovery is not only supported, but embraced as a cornerstone of our community's strength. Thank you, and happy holidays. Thank you. Happy holidays. Okay, next we have Ron Walker, followed by David Ballagatis Jr. Good afternoon, Mr. Walker. Ron Walker, Largo, Florida. Well, the past year or more, guys, I've been asking you to pass a false claims ordinance, an ordinance to encourage patriotic citizens to come forward and expose waste, fraud, and abuse. An ordinance colloquially called a false claims protection ordinance and legally a false claims ordinance. While looking on the web and exploring the various goals of the various commissioners, I came across an interesting and intriguing goal, a priority, if you like. Let me quote. To ensure taxpayer dollars are used efficiently and effectively for the benefit of the community by tracing waste, fraud, and abuse. You will not achieve those goals unless you invite whistleblowers to come forward by passing a false claims ordinance. Bearing in mind, you guys have a budget of 4.3 bill, a million citizens. Theoretically, that's a million opportunities for waste, fraud, and abuse. On July 25th last, I gave each of you a folder like this with two exemplary false claims ordinances. One from Broward County, one from Miami County, and a cover letter extolling the achievements those false claims ordinance had secured for the citizens of those counties. The people of Pinellas County need and deserve a false claims ordinance, and thereby they will attain the means to trace and expose waste, fraud, and abuse. Just copy, guys, Broward County's false claims ordinance, knowing well that they copied Dade County's false claims ordinance. Dade County copied Florida State statute false claims statute. Florida State copied the federal false claims statute, and the first false claims law was written in 1863 and signed by Abraham Lincoln. So you guys are going to be in really good company if you'll pass a false claims ordinance. Thank you, Mr. Walker. Just got in under the line. Have a good Christmas, guys. David Battlegetters, Jr., followed by Harley Baker. Thank you, Chairman, Commissioners, and Chris. It's good to see you, sir. David Ballard Geddes, Jr. I live on Georgia Avenue in Palm Harbor. A half-inch copper pipe is the typical water pipe placed under most residential homes. Now, let's say the average two-bedroom house weighs approximately 80 tons. The question you would have to ask yourself is why would anyone engineer something so inferior as to place a half-inch copper water pipe underneath 80 tons of concrete and expect a favorable outcome in the future, knowing good and well it was a simple matter of time such construction shortfalls were to birth a hardship for the homeowner purposefully underplanning the plumbing process, deliberately undermining the future welfare of the residents, knowingly constructing shortfalls, intending to place the homeowner under future duress, reveals the sinister nature in a larger sense of all the infrastructure racketeered through the entire town. With all the brilliant engineers and their shady lawyers, why wouldn't common sense dictate that all our critical infrastructure be sleeved through a conduit system, creating a small conduit system underneath our homes for easy repair and eventual replacement of our water pipes, constructing an even larger conduit system underneath our easements under the sidewalks to sleeve the county utility and their water pipes as well. It appears to me that purposefully predispositioning carelessness beforehand, underplanning, racketeering in half measures in pursuit of staging future hardships for the residents, legislating impure intentions, underserving the infrastructure, intending to stifle the residents, erecting pitfalls, was a scheme that was constitutionally built up in Article 1, Section 8, Clause 17, purposefully to target and subposition the residents throughout the entire nation. Thank you. Thank you, Dave. Next, we have Harley Baker, followed by Greg Pound. Hello, everybody. How's everybody doing? Good. How are you? God bless you. So I came to testify to the good news. The good news is I grew up in a broken home with an alcoholic for a mother, a drug addict for a father. My stepbrother used to sexually molest me growing up. So I started with drugs at 12 years old, smoking weed, cocaine at 14, every drug under the sun because I was so twisted up on the inside and empty and broken. I tried to do everything the world told me to do is go get money and chase women and do this and that. And I was always still empty, still searching and looking and broken. So I started doing drugs and hanging out in the streets and selling drugs. Then I found myself in trouble with the law. When I got in trouble with the law, then I went to probation and they started to put me in rehabs. And I could never complete rehab because I was trying to do it on my own strength. I couldn't do it on my own. So then I kept on selling drugs, still empty, still broken. I found myself in prison. So I didn't grow up in a house with religion or anything like that. And so I'm in prison. They call for baptisms on the intercom inside the prison. And I didn't know how to spell baptism, didn't even know it was. So I went to go get baptized. And about four weeks later, I'm in prison. I'm reading John chapter one, verse one. In the beginning was the word. The word was with God and the word was God. And then the Holy Spirit fell upon me in that instance. And I realized that Jesus is God, that Jesus came down from heaven. He stepped off his throne and he wrapped himself in human flesh to die for the sins of humanity. And he hung on the cross for everybody in this room. But you must receive it. And when I accepted Jesus Christ, all that baggage, that trauma, that hurt, the addiction, the affliction, the pain, the trauma, all the worries about the fear of death, all that stuff is gone. Because he frees. Whoever the son sets free is free indeed. And everybody in this room today can be free by the blood of Jesus Christ. All you have to do is receive his blood. Receive what he did for you on that cross because he loves you. And I'm here just to say the good news is you don't have to perish in hell. You don't have to die in your sins. You don't have to be empty. You don't have to be broken. You can give it all to him. He's going to take it all away and fill you with joy, with peace, with love. And he wants to spend all of eternity with everybody in this room. But you've got to make a choice. What's the bigger issue at hand? All the things you guys talked about today or eternal life? What's the bigger issue? All these pipes and bustings and getting all these commands and where's the property line and all that. Where do you stand with God? That's the biggest issue today. Where do you stand with God and where's your soul going to be for eternal life? If you put your faith in Jesus Christ, if you trust what he did in that cross, he will deliver you. He will make you whole. He'll give you the Holy Spirit, forgive you of all your sins, and welcome you into eternal life. Hallelujah. Can I get an amen, somebody? Hallelujah. That's all I got for you. God bless you. Holy Spirit, I hope you just open up their hearts, open up their eyes, open up their minds. Lord Jesus, and just let them have a move right now. Let them know that God loves them, that God died for them. He just wants to forgive you. He wants to take that pain, that hurt, that trauma, the things in your child. He wants to take it all away. He wants to make you brand new into a new creation and forgive you and wash you and cleanse you and restore you. Lord, just give everybody the gift of repentance in here. Let them turn to you. Let them be saved by your mighty name. Amen. Amen. Thank you for sharing your story. God bless you. All right. Have a Merry Christmas. Okay. Next, we have Greg Pound. That's Greg Pound, Largo. I started a ministry called Saving Families 7 at gmail.com. Started with AFA, American Family Association. And as I started exposing what was going on in this county and how children were being used and abused through the court system and how we have pedophiles in the county that are actually running the county. I don't know if you've seen the deputy in Pinellas County that would have arrested about a month ago for nine counts of child porn. Now, that's not all the deputies. But just what people do and who they are is two different things. So we can't trust people. And so what it is is in my pursuit of trying to build families in this county, I have been persecuted by the Pinellas County government. It's as plain as can be as I start exposing all the corruption and the people like Bernie McCabe and all these other people. You're all in the newspaper. I can read them to you. I've read them to you, the things they've done. They're adopting little children and using them for sex. And they're in the highest positions. All through history, corruption has always been top down, never bottom up. You study history, corruption is always at the top down. Now, I'm on my way to the courthouse to do my thing that I've been doing in front of the courthouse for over ten years every day. Some young man smashes in the back of my car, blows my neck and back out. Now I'm fined. The judge signed a final order last month on the 26th where I have to pay now the insurance company $18,000. And that sticks me with literally thousands of dollars in medical bills that's going to continue. Because I'm refusing to get this operation done because I'm 70 years old and it's going to be, it's like I got to finish my course in representing Christ. So there's a verse in the Bible that says there's nothing you can do against the truth but for the truth. So the truth is going to continue to come out, which you people are doing in Pinellas County. You protected child molesters. If you go in, the paperwork I got from them passing down at the last gay pride parade where it says Islam and LBGT are working together. And this stuff is insane. And when they put it on paper and pass it out and they've got all the young homosexuals and transgender people passing out these flyers to say that them and Islam is working together. And so what happens is that it's to destroy our country. It's to destroy our family, our leadership, the fathers. And so that's been my mission and it goes way back and all the stuff that this county has done to me is recorded. It's in the record and it's going to come out and there's going to have to be an accountability. What this judge just did and the things that they're doing in your court system is an attack upon me. That's what it's about. I mean someone smashes in the back of my car and now this county is telling me I have to pay them $18,000 of final judgment. And you see what they've done. They either threatened my attorney a month before we went to trial to a jury hearing. He drops my case. Just drops it. Okay. And so what happens, this is what it is. You guys are protecting one another. There's a child molestation ring in this county going on. Thank you, Greg. All right. That concludes public comments. So now we'll move on to the consent agenda. Items 2 through 24. Would any commissioner like to pull any items? 15 and 18. Okay. Okay. Do I have a motion to approve consent agenda? Let's items 15 and 18. Okay. Motion by Commissioner Flowers. Second by Commissioner Latvala. That's so nice to get a second by Commissioner Latvala. So good to have you back. Any further discussion? All in favor? Any opposed? Okay. Pass unanimously. Okay. So now we'll move on to item number 15. Yeah, I was just looking at reading about that particular work, and they're talking about it. I just want to make sure. This was engineering services, and it said it was a five-year project. I just want clarification from it. Go ahead. So I'm assuming the design is a lot shorter, but the project itself certainly doesn't take five years, but just thought I would check. I was looking it up. She was probably doing other work while she was standing there, so we cut her flat-footed. Good afternoon, Kelly. Coordinating on the other item. Thank you. So, no, we're looking at the timeline will include both design and then the services during the actual construction. So we have our engineer of record on hand to answer questions from the contractor when we're under construction, so we need them for the full period from design through construction. So that's not the construction time. It's the time for the engineer, which will include that construction. Correct. Okay. It's the fully, the encompassed time, designed through construction. Okay. And I might as well ask you the one on 18, if you don't mind, while she's up here. So this is the First Amendment to the Purchase Authorization for Institu Form. It looks like a $2 million extension above the $275,000 contract. So I want to make sure I'm clear on what that $2 million is for. It is for the lining of corrugated metal pipes within the unincorporated area. You're talking about the amount. Yes. This is the original contract. What's, why such a big jump? That's the need that we have for the, for this fiscal year. It's what we have budgeted for the program. It is a work order contract. So if we don't use it all, they don't get that money. They just, they, we have a specific amount of pipe. Okay. We get a, we get an estimate from them. All right. And that's what it's for. Thanks, Kelly, for both. Sure. Appreciate it. Move approval. Okay. I have a motion by Commissioner Egrist for 15 and 18. A second by Commissioner Nowicki. Any further discussion? Okay. Hearing none. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? All right. Pass unanimously. Okay. Moving on to regular agenda. Item number 25. So Rankin affirms. This is with Finproc Enterprises for the new St. Peterburg Clearwater Airport parking garage, professional design built services. As you know, this is number one priority. And as Allegiant has said, they're simply out of parking. So this is a critical need and we recommend approval. Questions? Yep. Mark. Where's Mark? Thank you. Bye. He's back. A little slow there. She got you first. Thank you. Afternoon, Mark. Good afternoon. I live over to you. I'm sorry. I missed your question there, Commissioner. The question is a brief summary on what the project is, why we need it, and when do you anticipate it being available? Because not only does Allegiant want it, but a lot of our residents would like to know, too. That is correct. Currently, we have four parking spots. And our long-term and short-term parking spots are filled up primarily Fridays through Sundays. And therefore, we're forcing our passengers to go into the economy lot, or correction, yeah, the economy lot, our primary economy lot during those weekends. But out of 10 months out of the year, our secondary economy lot then gets utilized. So our supply is becoming declining. And this way, we can build a parking garage to accommodate our supply, increase our supply, and therefore, their parking garage will be in our secondary economy lot, called our strawberry. And that's going to be known as our primary economy lot, and therefore, all parking is going to be adjacent or around the terminal. We expect the project to be 27 months. Hopefully, we'll start our design in January. By the end of 2026, we'll know our construction costs. And then we'll be coming back to the board and revealing those construction costs. And then it'll take about a year to construct. And then that will keep our supply up. We expect 2,000 spaces in a parking garage and about over 300 surface parking spaces around the parking garage. So available for use in about 2027. End of 2027, that is correct. A couple years to go before we have that extra parking that we need. That is correct, Commissioner. Thank you for that summary. I appreciate it. My pleasure. Move it. Oh, sorry. Did the Elder Eggers need to ask another question? Did you want to make a motion, Mr. Elder? We have a motion by Commissioner Eggers. All right. I'm a second by Commissioner Scheer. And then, Commissioner LaValle, do you have some comments? Yeah, I had a question. I'm not a tremendous fan of cannibalizing some of the spots in this proposal. One thing that we talked about Thursday was the number of stories that the parking garage will have, and I believe it's four stories. And TIA has, by comparison, has nine stories in their garages. Down the road, is there an opportunity to build up in the garage if the FAA is supportive and so forth? There's opportunities to build horizontally versus vertically to the position. But at that point, once we get to that realm that we are running out of supply, we want to look at other areas besides just the economy a lot. We want to look at other areas of the airport, possibly the long-term lot or the short-term lot. But at this point, it's just to get enough supply, and that is our primary lot is the economy. And we feel the 2,000 spaces plus the 300 service parking is ideal, and not only for today, but for tomorrow. So horizontally within the parking garage? That is correct, Commissioner. Okay. Thank you. My pleasure. Thank you, Chair. Yeah, I mean, I'm going to be supportive of this, but I wasn't going to say anything. But it was brought up about building another garage in the future in the short-term lot. And so, I mean, I think if you look at the strawberry lot, which is like 778 spaces, I think, and the short-term lot, you know, which, again, you could walk right into the terminal, it doesn't make sense from a planning standpoint for me and for every other airport in the country why you wouldn't build a parking garage first where you could charge a premium and would be the most convenient for our residents because our residents are the ones that are using the parking garage, not tourists. And so, when you're going to an airport like Tampa, you have a parking garage at the top of the terminal that you can literally take an elevator right into. Then they built the next terminal next door where you could take the walkway right into the terminal. Then they built a parking garage further away. And every other country or every other airport in the country follows that same model of building a parking garage as close as possible first and then going outward. So, to me, when it's brought up that we're in the future then looking at the short-term lot, which is only a few hundred spaces, so the loss of offline spaces is maybe a hundred net spaces by building it up front first, it doesn't make sense to me. But, I mean, I'm supportive because, I mean, I think that's the will of the board, but I just really can't get a clear answer on why we're not building in the short-term lot first, which literally you could just walk right across three lanes and get into the airport like every other airport in the country. So, it's just, I wasn't going to say anything, but when you say we're, you know, long-term master plan, we're going to build a possible parking garage in front, it makes no sense. And, Commissioners, this is going to add 30%. This is a 30% increase in our parking. So, we're at capacity at certain peak time periods now. So, I hope they're that successful that we're talking about future parking garage at the short-term lot. Now, you'll have the capacity to actually take down those spaces, which currently are available most times of the year. So, that would be the most inconvenient parking group to take out. But, again, you'll have that, and if in the future they're wildly successful in terms, this increase is 30%. It's not like you're going to be coming back and asking for an additional parking garage in that short-term any time in the even planning horizon. This increases our parking significantly, addresses their need on any planning horizon as they try to plan for all of their different capital projects. This is not only their consultant study that does this for a living at parking facilities, it is a staff recommendation. As long as we're asking questions, Chair. I did have two. Where are the employees and the personnel for the airport park? Employee parking is in front of the terminal. Are we still leasing cars to the auto trader over at the old Turtle Club site? Yes, we are. Can we use that? It does not accommodate enough spaces for what the need is for today. We can approximately get maybe about 200 vehicles because of the zoning of that. Let's take it for employee deployment. Then we're looking into shuttles, and the last time that we looked into shuttles of basically a 24-7, and depending on the amount of the peak times, that's an incurred cost that it's roughly right around $400,000 per shuttle to run one shuttle 24-7. So that's an operational cost that the airport does not want to subsidize at this point. Okay, anything further? All right, we have a motion and a second. If we could pull up the voting. Pass unanimously. Thank you. Thank you. All right, nice to see seven votes up there. On item 26. These are amendments to agreements with H.R. Green, Joe Payne, and Wilden Engineering all around our building services departments to extend these contracts out an additional time period. Okay, motion by Commissioner Nowicki. Second. Second by Commissioner Flowers. Do we have any discussion? Hearing none, if we can open the voting, please. Passes unanimously. On to item 27. So resolution extending the waiving of the double permit fee for unpermitted properties until June 30, 2026. Motion by? Lots of approval. Commissioner Latvalo, is that second by Commissioner Nowicki then? Okay. Do we have any questions or discussion? I actually have a quick question for Kevin. Kevin, you're on. Good afternoon. Kevin, how are you doing? Good afternoon. Well, first of all, I just want to say thank you so much for all your hard work and your team's hard work and working with the community to just try to, you know, get everybody in compliance for this pending FEMA audit that we know is going to come. Last time you and I talked, you said we had only had like maybe about a 10 percent, I think it was, of homeowners coming forward to get, you know, after the fact permits. Has that increased, does that changed at all, really? It is nominally increased. I'll be sharing this data in my update, but we're a little bit over 15 percent. But part of the approach is to continue to reinforce the benefits of coming in for that after the fact. So I'll take you through that timeline of a mailing that was just sent on December 1st. We'll have another mailing in February, and we'll continue to really reinforce, probably besides the benefit of the home being safe and compliance, there may be many homeowners that become eligible for up to $50,000 in repairs. So we're just really trying to get that message out. It's one of the number of benefits that will come with compliance. All right, thanks, Kevin. All right, we have a motion and a second. If we could open up the voting. Passes unanimously. Item 28. This is the sale of surplus land at Milton Booth and Cape Puck Cove Drive. You'll see a number of these coming forward. We have a lot of slivers, so this is one. We're going to have approximately 60 for others coming in the near future. Motion by Commissioner Enger, second by Commissioner Flowers. Do you have any discussion? Okay, hearing none. If we can open up the voting. Here's another one. Here we go. All right, pass unanimously. Thank you. Item number 29. It's a capital project funding agreement with Clearwater Marine Aquarium for renovations there. These are the dollars that you approved from the TDC funding. Motion by Commissioner Nowicki. Second by Commissioner Peters. Any discussion? Hearing none, if we can open up the voting. Passes unanimously. On to item 30. There's revisions to the 2026 Elite Event Funding recommendations from the Tourist Development Council. They're listed within your packet. This is the Color Greens Festival. Okay. Will the board? Motion by Commissioner Flowers. Second by Commissioner Peters. Second by Commissioner Lavalin. Okay. Any discussion? All right. Hearing none. If we could open up the voting. Passes 6 to 1. Item 31. So, resolution adopting the 2025 Pinellas County Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan. Questions, thoughts, comments? Move approval. Motion by Commissioner Eggers. Second by Commissioner Peters. Any discussion? All right. Hearing none. If we could open up the voting. Passes unanimously. Item 32. This is purchase authorization for heavy and light-duty vehicles under a cooperative purchasing contract through various sources through the state of Florida. Motion by Commissioner Peters. Second by Commissioner Flowers. Any discussion? Okay. Hearing none. If we could open up the voting. All right. Passes unanimously. Item 33. This is a funding agreement with Suncoast Centers for the Sexual Assault Victim Examination Program. You approved this as part of the 2026 budget. This is an increase from the $3.50 to the $33.30 to stay competitive for the rates for our on-call forensic staffing. A thousand percent increase. It's hard to get somebody to come out for $33.50 an hour after hours. And we saw it as a critical need as part of their investigations. It had 194 victims in fiscal year 2025. And so this is the rate. So our amount is not to exceed amount. And that's the $340,000. But, again, it's a lot of money, but it's a needed part of the program. And you approved it as part of your budget. Mr. Neggers? Was that, when we approved it before, was it bid before? Sure. Karen, I don't recall. She'll have to speak to how this service. Well, this is only one piece of it. But this is the on-call piece. But I'll let Karen address this because I'm not sure how the service was originally obtained. Deputy Karen. Hi, good afternoon. Karen Yatchim, Human Services. This is a longstanding agreement. This is the only provider in the community that provides this service. It was originally funded by the Department of Health many, many years ago. Funding was cut. It was brought to this board. This board agreed to fund it. JWB also funds a portion of this because some of the victims are youth. And they also increased their funding this past year. Well, I was asking primarily because of the increase in the rate and where did that come from. I mean, certainly $350,000 seems a tad low. But the increase was huge. So I just want to make sure that the bidding process was done. And you're saying we had the one provider only. One provider only. We didn't bid this. So it's kind of a multi-funded project. And the new rate is kind of the statewide credentialed rate for programs that deliver the service across the state. Came in after this approval. This change in rate? The change in rate came in after our original agreement. But in anticipation of this fiscal year, we brought it forth as a decision package to make sure we could have the nurses paid the rate that they were looking for. Thank you. Commissioner Laval? Thank you, Mr. Chair. In previous years, they've had backlogs in their rape kits to the point where they needed help from other entities and agencies. Has that gotten better? I know last year it was better. Is it still? My understanding is, yes, it's gotten better. And some of that was because they couldn't keep the positions filled to do the work. And this allowed them to keep those positions filled. I have a meeting with the CEO early January to look at the impact of this funding from 10-1 forward and how it's helped with keeping nurses staffed and any associated backlogs. Thank you. Karen, I've got a couple questions. Does Suncoast fund any of this on their own? I believe there was a fundraising line item. And that was part of our feedback originally to them was what other fundraising sources do they have. And I do believe that there was a line item that was part of their budget when they submitted that to us. So are we being – when I read through this, it just seemed like we were being asked to cover all of that increased cost. We are not. So we shared the increase with the Juvenile Welfare Board. So they added additional funding. And Suncoast moved more of their fundraising line item to this program. Do we have any idea what those percentages were? How much – I'm just curious how much we're – of this increase we're actually absorbing versus the others. I don't have it off the top of my head, but I could send that to you. Commissioners, originally we pushed back on this obviously because of the increase and said for them to go find other grants, look for other funding sources. They did make an effort to do that and simply couldn't come up with a lot of other funding sources. JWB did step up for their proportionate share, but we attempted to find that through other means. And we also have forwarded federal grants that our team came aware of that we thought would align with this. And Suncoast Center did apply for those. They just haven't heard back yet. So they may – so there's a chance that maybe we don't need all this? Potentially. It depends on when the grant cycle is awarded. So I'd have to look at when they anticipate that. So do we have an expectation for fiscal year 27 that this is going to continue then? Well, I put it through as non-recurring last time because I really wanted the organization to go out and see what other options there are. So that's part of the meeting that I want to have in January to look at what other sources of revenue have they been able to explore. I do know in speaking with the CEO, he is meeting with several municipalities to look at could municipalities aid in this funding and also what additional funding could JWB add on a go-forward basis. Second by Commissioner Wicke. Second by Commissioner Flowers. Any further discussion? All right. Hearing none, if we can open up the voting. Thank you, Karen. Okay. Passes unanimously. Item 34. Mr. Chair, if I could go back. We had an item, and I'll look to Joel on how to handle this. We had an item number 22 as part of the consent. I identified it last Thursday, failed to identify it here as part of the consent, and so you approved that. We need that item removed because it needs to go back before legal because there was a change in Florida statute regarding that language. So we need a motion to unring the bell for item 22. However, the parliamentarian. That's what I would suggest. I'm not really sure any other way. Just a motion to. Motion by Commissioner Peters. Second by Commissioner Latvala. Any discussion? Okay. Do you want to just do a voice vote or do you want to call in favor? Aye. Aye. All right. Any opposed? Okay. Pass unanimously. Thank you. Back to the regular agenda. Item 34 is an agreement with Gordian Group. This is our job order contract thing. It's kind of a pre-bid catalog for lots of small jobs that we do around the county. Approval. Motion by Commissioner Eggers. Second by Commissioner Flowers. Any further discussion? Hearing none. We can open up the voting. Passes unanimously on to item 35. Third amendment to an agreement with Smith Industries. This is for fencing gate operators and handrails. Increases the contract for $1 million through February of 27. Thank you. Motion by Commissioner Peters. Second by Commissioner Nowicki. Just one question. Question by Commissioner Eggers. Again, just looking at whether I'm reading it correctly and an explanation if I am. And that is I'm seeing a four multiple increase for the product. Is my reading that correctly? You are reading that correctly and I'm looking around for Chris. Chris, so the question is you go from $250,000 and now you're adding. So why such a significant increase? Yeah. Well, the original contract in 23 was for $2.5 million. An amendment, the last amendment was for $250,000. So this is an additional million dollars. For one year. A little over a year. Yes. That's why I'm asking. So we've pulled the departments and this is what we think we need going forward. So this is one of the things that our asset management system has identified as well. So we're going to be, we think we're going to be spending this kind of money in one year. Yes, sir. So it was more about quantity increase than it was price. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Fair question. Okay. We already had a motion and seconded. Did we not? Yes. That's correct. Yes, sir. All right. If we could open up the voting, please. All right. Passes unanimously. Oh, wait. Almost. Where'd it go? There we go. All right. Pass unanimously. Okay. So now we're on to item 36. This is a resolution dedicating a portion of our county-owned West Closterman Preserve as public right-of-way as part of that purchase. Question? I just had a question. And so this is going to go the length of the Closterman Preserve on the roadside. Correct. How much of that preserve are we taking for that and to straighten out the road? And are there any of those issues that we talked about before on the- None that I'm aware of, but I'll let Jo answer it. Good afternoon. Jill Silverboard, County Administration. The road is already on our property. Um, so we're taking the southern portion, uh, Kelly and Paul are both here. I don't know what the dimension on the, on the map is, but there's an attachment. I can put it up. The area shaded in pink is the portion that will be dedicated, um, if you approve the resolution and it's difficult to see it underneath the pink, but, but that's where the Closterman Road already is. So we need to make it right away instead of part of our property. We're just changing it from our property right away. All right. Uh, do we have a motion? Motion by Commissioner Nowicki. Second. Second by Commissioner Eggers. Any further discussion? Hearing none. If we can open up the voting passes unanimously on to item 37. So resilient Florida grant agreement, Florida Department of Environmental Protection for the Joes Creek Restoration and Greenway Trail project. Uh, this is a significant project, obviously, um, $27 million with a local match of another 27 million, uh, for this area. This will connect communities. This will improve, uh, that entire, uh, uh, Joes Creek area, uh, water quality, et cetera. So significant, they've been at this for years, um, significant funding for that project. State project. What? Motion by Commissioner Wicke. Second by Commissioner Flowers. Any questions? Hearing none. If we can open up the voting. Passes unanimously on to item 38. The first amendment to an agreement with Meade and Hunt. This is for the construction administration inspection with the Mobile Home Community's federally funded project three. Uh, so this, you, you previously approved the project itself. And this is the construction inspection service. All right. We have a motion. Motion by Commissioner Pierce. Second by Commissioner Latvala. Do we have any discussion? Questions? Hearing none. We can open up the voting. Passes unanimously on to item 39. This is an amendment for purchase authorization for Insight Public Sector for technology, products, and services, uh, various software, hardware, and related in support of all the things that BTS does. Three million dollars. Motion by Commissioner Flowers. Second by Commissioner Peters. Do we have any discussion? Questions? Hearing none. We can open up the voting. Passes unanimously on to item 40. Um, item 40, Ken Burke did offer to be here, but I said you didn't have any questions last Thursday, so I don't believe it's necessary. I hope I'm not wrong, but, uh, he did offer. Um, this ranking affirms this agreement with GuideHouse. This is for our implementation of our Workday ERP system. Significance offer implementation. Sure. Again, it seemed like we were getting, there was a 30% fee or profit included in that number of 5.7. I was just asking if that was pretty much industry standard. If that indeed was the case. Afternoon, Jeff. Chris? Oh, I guess Chris is going to be part of our ERP implementation team. Yes, sir. And this is, uh, also a long time coming. So, uh, two things happen with the implementer. One is we defined the scope more clearly, and some of the price went up because we defined it more clearly, uh, which is going to avoid change orders in the future, so we know what we're getting this time. The second thing is we increased the, uh, contingency, essentially. We, we called it, um, owner-directed fund. Thank you. And, uh, that is because this is a complex project, so we increased it from 15% to 30% to make sure that anything that we don't know, we have some room to work with. Thank you. Appreciate it. All right. Uh, do we have a motion? Motion by Commissioner Nowicki. Second by Commissioner Peters. Any further discussion? Hearing none, we can open up the voting. Passes unanimously on to item 41. This is our county-wide, uh, plan, uh, map annual, uh, update for 2025. All right. All the changes you made. All the changes we made. Oh, we have a motion by Commissioner Peters. Second by Commissioner Flowers. Question, a commission, question with Commissioner Rich. Yeah. Um, so, real quick, this is like, this, the state has told us that we can use some of our, that we can use, no, we can, but, that industrial land is available for multi-housing, multiple, you know, uh, affordable housing. Local. Yeah. Well, and then it's gone on to commercial. Does our land use plan, uh, like for industrial, is it reflecting that new, um, new capability? I'm looking around for Witt, and I don't see him here. I'm trying to be positive when I say new capabilities, but I think it. So, I, I would have to check with Witt on that. I, I, so, first off, this, your approval is just reflecting the actions that you've already done. Right, right. Okay, but on to that, you know, we asked Witt to do, um, the, um, the review of all of our industrial plans a couple of years ago. So, their team took that on, looked at all the properties, worked with the city. So, it should be in alignment, and it should be reflective of that. But, but I would have to check with him on that. I'd simply don't. Well, again, I think, again, the countywide plan is, there's a reason for that. Yep. It helps guide decisions for, uh, business expansion in the industrial area and residential expansion in the residential or multifamily area. So, this is, that's all I was, I'm just wanting to make sure that, um, we continue to monitor that, because, obviously, that's a big change for us. Oh, 100%. I mean, and so, this is one of those things that came down. I'm not sure, what was the bill in that, was it? Yeah, I think it was, was it 180? Probably. Yeah, I think 180. Well, I know, but still, this is, this is, this is a huge thing that could affect future, uh, use for it, because it is cheap land. So, now, multifamily would look to this, and I just want to make sure we're tracking it. Um, I'm not sure it has anything to do with our approval today, but, um. I'll, I mean, again, I can't answer in the affirmative, but it's simply because I haven't talked a bit about it, but I certainly will follow up. I just think it's important to keep it, keep a track on it. Thank you. All right, we have a motion to second. Any further questions, discussion? Okay. Hearing none, if we can open up the voting. Passes unanimously on item 42. Uh, 42 is our application for excess, excess stop-loss, um, uh, insurance for, with United. This is for any individual, um, that expends over $650,000, so, added insurance. Motion by Commissioner Peters, second by Commissioner Flowers. Any discussion? Hearing none, if we can open up the voting. Do you, yes, Chris? All right. You're, yes. Passes unanimously. Okay. Move on to, there we go. Move on to item 43. Or, I'm sorry. Change order number one with Cigna. No, this is for our dental benefits next year. Okay. Motion by Commissioner Flowers, second by Commissioner Peters. Any discussion? Hearing none, if we could open up the voting. Okay. Passes unanimously. Now on to County Attorney, item 45. 44. Can we do express groups first? We just did 44, didn't we? We need prescription, we need our prescription drugs. Oh, that's 43. All right. I said prescription. All right. Motion by Commissioner Peters, second by Commissioner Flowers. Any discussion on the drugs? Did you say no? All right. Hearing none, if we can open up the voting. All right. Passes unanimously. Now on to item 45. Under item number 45, I'm asking that you approve staff's recommendation in the confidential memo I shared with you last week. Motion by Commissioner Peters, second by Commissioner Eggers. Any discussion? Okay. Hearing none, if we can open up the voting. Passes unanimously. Any? No reports. No reports. Okay. Item 47, County Administrator. I have two items. First item, I'd ask Kevin to come up and give you a more in-depth report on storm update from our storm recovery. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, Commissioners, Kevin McAndrew, Building and Development Review Services Directors. So my update's going to focus on three areas, the first being the after-the-fact permitting. And for clarification, this is specific to structures not substantially damaged that had incurred some degree of damage where there was work performed without permits following the storms. One distinction to the after-the-fact permitting, which I'll highlight a little bit more, is that traditional single-family homes permitting would be subject to a Florida building code, a traditional building permit for the mobile homes, which is in much of what our focus has been on. They do not require a Florida building code permit, but in fact require what is referred to as a construction and a floodplain permit. And I'll hit that a little bit further. My second area of focus will be changes to further support recovery efforts. There's four such areas. One of those, this board has actually just acted upon earlier in this agenda. And then lastly, our enforcement approach through June, and then what we're contemplating from June moving forward. So to provide a little bit more context to after-the-fact permitting, I think it's important to provide some, some, a couple of data points actually as to those property owners that did in fact pursue building permits after the storm, because building issued 5,351 permits, storm repair permits since, since October of 2024. 70% of those 3,726 were issued for homes in unincorporated Pinellas County. The majority of these permits were issued between November of 2024 through May of 2024. And that level of activity was very much supported by the actions of this board in which at that time, immediately following the storm, the full building permit fee was waived initially from October 24 through December of 2024. And then there was an extension from February 25th through June 1st that really facilitated that, that level of activity. A similar strategy has been taken and will continue with regard to after-the-fact permitting, where just earlier this month, let me just grab my, my notes here that, excuse me, not early this month, earlier this fall on September 18th was the initial adoption of waiving two times the normal permit fee, which would go through December 31st of, of this year. The action that you just took earlier today will extend that, uh, to June of 2026 to give you a sense of the, uh, the data points of after the fact permitting. I mentioned about 15% of the 2,600 letters that were initially sent out, uh, have pursued permits. Since it's roughly 400 or so permits, we have actually also, uh, issued 225 construction and the floodplain permits for mobile homes. And that happens to be about 30% of the mobile homes, uh, that have required a permit. And, and that has largely been facilitated through, um, onsite outreach meeting at the, at the eight mobile home parks that were most impacted, uh, by the, by the storms. In fact, this afternoon, our team is onsite at gateway, which is the last of those, uh, mobile home parks. Our intent is to revisit, uh, those parks one more time, uh, early in the new year when the remaining, um, number of snowbirds would typically return, uh, to, to their residence here. Um, Kevin, quick question. So the, um, construction and floodplain permit required for mobile homes, is that only if they're in a floodplain or is that just because it's a mobile home? Only if they're in a regulated floodplain. So if they're not in a floodplain, then they get a regular building permit. That that's if they're, if they're not in a regulated floodplain, they're not permitted, uh, through, through, uh, through building and development review service, either through DRS or the building department. They're regulated by the state going to transition to the four areas that, uh, we're looking to further support recovery efforts. The first of what is an extension of the compliance date for substantially damaged structures. And this would be, um, a blanket extension from June 1st, uh, through the balance of 2026, December 31st. And this extension is recognizing that many homeowners need additional time, whether it's still going through the reassessment process, whether they're pursuing the appeals process through, uh, the, the special magistrates, uh, through the clerk of the court, um, whether they're pursuing the, uh, the, the people first recovery funding. Um, the data is showing that, um, we've, we have still a significant backlog in this area, uh, of effort, um, and that, again, this time is just going to allow, um, a reasonable period, uh, again, to, to think through the permanent plan forward, whether, whether it's building, uh, rebuilding, uh, rebuilding in place, whether it's relocating, uh, and really looking to take advantage of, uh, any, any recovery funding, recovery funding that may be, um, available. The greatest percentage of, uh, of substantially damaged structures is mobile homes. Today, um, there's approximately 405 mobile homes that still have that final determination. About 116 mobile homes that did go through the reassessment process and the appeals have been, in fact, reversed. So that number today is approximately 400. When we're talking about single family homes, there's approximately 68 today that have that final determination. It's also, I think, from a, from an overall picture, um, relevant to, to highlight the fact that over the past year, there's been approximately 150 mobile homes that have been demolished and removed, and there's been about a hundred single family homes that have been demolished and removed. Uh, anytime the home is, is, is removed, again, that, that brings it into compliance with, uh, the initial substantial damage determination. The second of the, the updates is introducing, uh, flexibility to a temporary housing option, uh, in our mobile home communities in a regulated floodplain. One of the, um, one of the outcomes of our, um, outreach meetings at each of these parks was taking note of the vacant lots. Um, about 150 vacant lots between those eight mobile homes that we've now visited for after the fact permitting. This provision exists in our floodplain ordinance. It's really about activating it and promoting it, which would allow a homeowner to bring an RV onto that lot for up to 180 days and potentially serve as transitional housing, uh, to their permanent, uh, to their permanent solution. The third is, um, is an extension of our, um, existing agreement with the clerk's office associated with the special magistrate, uh, process. This is really proven to be, uh, a successful, uh, management of the appeals. And I want to thank the clerk's office and their staff for building out, uh, this platform, making adjustments as we've navigated through this process. Um, we've had, again, as a couple more data points, we've had 188 property owners that have pursued, uh, the appeals petition. 42 have been heard. We have about 50 backlog that will take place over the coming months. And the balance or, or somewhere in process through that, uh, uh, through that, through that option. The fourth, um, is the one that, uh, had been previously acted on today. And we look at this as an important reinforcement of the incentive to, um, to pursue compliance. And that is the waiving of the two times the normal permit fee associated with an after the fact permit. My final slide is a, is a summary timeline, um, specific to, um, after the fact permitting and, and permitting compliance. Um, and I'd like to sort of characterize what we've done to date and what we plan on doing through June would not be what would typically be perceived as maybe enforcement as much as the approach we're taking is reinforcing the benefits of compliance, uh, and, and, and looking to leverage, um, the extensions, the waiving of two times the permits, um, and through a series of mailings through our, through different campaigns, promoting the benefits of, uh, of this approach. Uh, it started in September with 2,600 letters going out to those that likely did not pursue a permit. We reinforced that with a postcard on October 21st, um, in, on December 1st, we sent out what's, what's referenced up on the slide as the first permit requirement letter. Um, this letter very much has an educational tone to it, spelling out the benefits, uh, highlighting the fact that there could be eligibility for up to $50,000 in reimbursement out intent is to send another letter, uh, in February, taking a little bit of a stronger tone, uh, consideration given to including specific photos, uh, that we have for almost all of the homes that went through a substantial damage inspection to reinforce that it's critically important to come in and get a permit. When we get to June, um, we're going to have to move forward in a more traditional manner with regard to enforcement. And what we're contemplating, um, right now is not what would be a monetary fine or penalty. Uh, what we're, what we're looking at as the approach is one that would potentially put a hold or a lock, um, on a parcel within our permitting portal. What this would do is in the future, any, at any point in time, someone looking to make improvements to that home or structure, that parcel would have a flag on it that they need to remedy, uh, the fact that there was not a permit obtained and we need to do so, uh, before being able to move forward with any other improvements. It's also likely going to show in any kind of title search or, or other search, uh, prior to a real estate closing, which is often when we see after the fact permits remedied outside of the storm, uh, something like this shows up, uh, and then there's a push to get that reconciled. So, um, that's, that's what we're contemplating at this point. I think what's become very evident to, to all of us that at building and development review services is that we're going to be, uh, looking to be adaptive and resourceful all the way through 2026, which is going to be two plus years out after Helene and Milton. And, um, uh, we're ready for that challenge. Kevin, is that, um, is that going to satisfy FEMA, the compliance approach that you're contemplating beyond June, 2026? It is at, at this point now, like it's, it's, um, the, the proactive reinforcement is, is our, is our strategy. Um, and we'll continue to document that. Um, and as I just kind of laid out, we will need to escalate that, uh, to a different degree once we get through June. Thanks, Kevin. Thank you. The only other item I have for you, commissioner. So I just want to thank Michelle Curtis. She's been with us a short period of time, but she's going on to other things and we want to wish her all the best. Um, and I, we have brought on Courtney Vanderberg, you know, very well. And so she's, uh, replacing Michelle as my administrative assistant. All right. That's all I have. All right. Thanks, Barry. Okay. So now we'll move on to 48 appointments, the emergency medical services advisory council. Okay. We have a motion by commissioner Peters, second by commissioner Latvala. Okay. Any further discussion? Okay. Hearing none, if we could open up the voting. Pass unanimously. On to item 49. Okay. Motion by commissioner Peters, second by, was that commissionerне Wicke? Okay. Any further discussion? Hearing none, if we could open up the voting. Pass unanimously on to item number 50. Okay. Motion by commissioner Peters, seconded by commissionerstore Neweckie. Any discussion? Okay. If we could open up the voting. Item number 51. Okay. Motion by commissioner Peters, seconded by commissionerNEWicke. Any discussion? We can open up the voting. Asked unanimously, item number 52. So this is, we're going to have to do a ballot vote on this one, I believe, right? Okay. Yeah, this is 52. The board has selected James Bechtler and J.C. Pritchett. All right. Thank you, Daryl Lynn. All right. Motion by Commissioner Peters, second by Commissioner Latvala. All in favor? Any opposed? Okay. Carries unanimously. Item number 54. This is my appointment to the historical commission. Okay. Second by Commissioner Peters. I'm sorry. Motion by Commissioner Peters, second by Commissioner Flowers. Any discussion? All right. All in favor? Any opposed? Okay. Pass unanimously. Item number 55. Appointment to the United Personnel Board. All the vote coming? We're choosing one. Oh, okay. You got it. Yep. Board has selected Kenneth Peluso. Okay. Thank you, Daryl Lynn. You're welcome. All right. Now moving on to item number 56, appointment to the Value Adjustment Board. I believe we had another ballot vote. All right. Lots of ballots today. The board has selected Frank Makowski. Okay. Thank you, Daryl Lynn. All right. Before we go on to item 57, Commissioner Eggers, did you have an appointment you needed to bring up? I had an appointment to the LPA. My appointee stepped down. He's stepping down at the end of the year. So I'm making the nomination for Joseph Oliveri. So I move that approval, please. Okay. Motion by Commissioner Eggers for Mr. Oliveri. And that was a second, I think, by Commissioner Flowers. Any discussion? All right. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? All right. Carries unanimously. All right. Now we're on to item 57. We've got two items here. Approval of the 2026 bulk proclamations. And then the approval of the county administrator's review. Do them together or separate? All together? All right. Okay. Is there a specific? Yeah. Well, so motion by Commissioner Wickey, second by Commissioner Flowers. And so just to be sure that the motion includes the same raise that the rest of the county staff got, which I believe was 3%, retroactive to the day that they got it, which was October 1st-ish. Ish? Ish. Whenever that was. Right. Per second-ish, whatever it was. Good? Good one. Okay. All right. Any further discussion? All in favor? Any opposed? All right. Motion carries. Thank you. All right. Well, now we're going on to new business. So I'll let Commissioner Shearer. Excuse me. Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to say that looking at the calendar, I believe this is one of my one-year anniversary serving on the Pinellas County Commission. Yeah, that's right. Elected last November, and Commissioner Inouye and I, I'm pleased to be here still. And I've enjoyed working with all of you all this year to solve problems and to make suggestions on how to do things better. And I just, I just thought I'd let everybody know how much I appreciate being here. And, and I appreciate the, the, the way that we're all working together. I think we've come to gel very well over the last year, especially thankful to have Commissioner Lodvala back. And, you know, I look forward to serving another year with you. You know, I, we spend a lot of time visiting different departments and, you know, a lot to learn about the operations of Pinellas County. Like I tell everybody, it's a, so $5 billion business with a million customers. And that's a lot to learn. It was a lot to absorb, but I've enjoyed doing it. And I look forward to serving with you all last year and happy, Merry Christmas to you and Happy New Year. And that's pretty much what I wanted to say. All right. Good deal. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Not too much has been going on with me the past few months. So I don't have too much to report. In all seriousness, thank you all very much for your prayers. They were felt needed and, and they worked. So I'm very happy and privileged to be here and I do not take it for granted. So thank you. So, well, it has been a pleasure to work with all you guys. I can't believe a whole year has gone already. So fast. Isn't that right, Mr. Chair? It's like, it's over so quickly. So I had the wonderful pleasure of going to Vanguard Art doing their ribbon cutting for their expansion. And if you haven't toured it, I know they were trying to get everyone to tour it. If you haven't go, it's worse. I mean, the manufacturing that we have in this county is amazing. And every time I go to a different manufacturer, it's so much more than tool and die, you know. But what Vanguard Art is doing is they're, they're training artisans to do old world stuff. And it's very cool. So they started in just art. When I first toured them in the beginning during the pandemic, they only did art. And so when you go into HomeGoods or Pottery Barn, any of the art for sale, that's their art. If you go into a Holiday Inn or a Marriott, any art on the wall, that's their art. All of the, for all those chains. So all the Bonvoy hotels, those are all their art. And they now have expanded to do lighting, textiles, bedding, towels. So now when you go to a Holiday Inn or a Marriott, everything in the room, from lighting to bedding to towels to art is being manufactured in St. Petersburg. And they are teaching and training people how to bevel glass, how to do old world framing. And it's, it's really something. It's definitely worth doing a tour. If you haven't done it yet, I recommend you do it. And it was good to see them. I, too, they seem to get me there every other year. So at this point, I think I could have done the tour for, for Richard. But, but it's really a great place. And it's so wonderful to see how they've expanded and reutilized space. And they're using the county's programs to help fund that expansion. And they're up to 300 employees. They started with less than 100. And I believe they'll be adding more and more. So they're doing great stuff. So other than that, the estuary program met. And they approved their budget. The golf consortium met. That's the last meeting of theirs I'll attend to. I guess somebody else has taken on that committee. And they just approved some new projects, budget, all that stuff for next year. And PSTA moved forward on approving the ferry with Hubbard's Marina to do Cross Bay Ferry now. I think they were the right choice if we're going to make it true transportation and not entertainment. I think they have the skill set and the resources to make that happen. So, so I think that was a good move. And it did pass unanimously, so it was not controversial. So that was a good move. So short and sweet. Thank you, Chair. You know, I just got a quick little story. T'was the night before Christmas in Pinellas County. Not a gavel was stirring. No motions at all. The agendas were finished and the chambers stood still. As staff headed home from Largo to Dunedin, the budgets were balanced, the binders put away, another year's work now closing its day. From beaches to bayous, from parks to our streets, the county stood proud of its service complete. The deputies rested. The medics caught breath. Public servants who stand at the edge of life and death. The librarians locked up. The planners went home. The crews plowed through tasks most folks never see done. When out on the Gulf of America, there arose such a cheer. I sprang from my seat to see what was near. Away to the window, I flew like a flash, passed forward Pinellas plans and milledrate math. The moon on the water off Madeira's bright shore gave a glow to the beaches we all work to restore. When what my wondering eyes should appear but a sleigh over clear water bringing good cheer. With the driver so steady, so grounded, so calm, I knew in a moment it had to be Santa from Palm Harbor on down. More rapid than sunshine, his reindeer they came and they whistled and shouted and they called them by name. Now Seminole, now Safety Harbor, now Gulfport and Bel Air, on St. Pete, on Tarpon, on Oldsmar so fair. From Wilman to Tier Verde, from Ridge Road to shore, we dash away, dash away, serve all and serve some more. He paused at our county, not for praise or for blame, but to nod all the people who serve in its name. Those who answer the phones when the storms come ashore, those who open the shelters and calm every roar. He smiled at the clerks and the staff and the crews, at the folks behind the scenes who don't make the news. For he knew what we know, thought it's not always loud, good governments built by the steady and proud. Then Santa spoke softly, so only we'd hear, keep faith with your people, guard what they hold dear. Spend wisely, serve fairly, remember each vote. The trust of the public is the heart of this boat. He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle, and away they all flew like a holiday missile. But I heard him exclaim, and he drove out of sight, Merry Christmas to Pinellas, and to all a good night. Very good, very good. That's my commission report. That's awesome. Thank you to all my colleagues and to all the staff that work around the clock, and I'm happy to be here and look forward to doing more work. So thank you. All right. Thanks, Vince. Appreciate it. Mr. Flowers. That was kind of nice. I thought he was going to start singing. That's true. A couple of really good things. The first is that I attended the Career Source Hillsboro Pinellas Consortium Board meeting, where we voted in Commissioner Latvala as the vice chair. So he will be serving along with Commissioner Wastel, who was voted in as the chair. According to our rules, we vote in our officers at the same time during the year. One officer comes from one county, and the other comes from the other county. So I have had a chance to serve. Commissioner Gwen Myers has had a chance to serve, so now it's our colleagues' upturn. Uh-uh. So welcome, welcome. Congratulations on that. Last week, we had the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council meeting, where I was voted in as the chair. of the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council. So I look forward to working with Wren Crawl and the staff there over the next year, addressing some of the topics that we address when it comes to climate control. We will be doing a new version of the Phoenix Project, which talks about the flooding after a hurricane. And so we'll be redoing that. But we have a number of other projects where we have partnered with other municipal governments that don't have a planning department or departments to do some of the studies that they need to have done. So I'm looking forward to that. Commissioner Eggers, we will also be taking up looking at the dues that are allocated, as you had that question. And we'll look at some of the funding options, formula options, that we can do to make it a little more fair. So I just want to let you know we did take that seriously. I attended the CFY holiday party. I can't wait until we have our seafood fest. You got to make sure you come to that. That holiday party was there to raise funds again, because not only do they provide services for youth in North County now, they provide services for Little League Sports in South County. So that was a nice evening event where they raised quite a bit of money. So I'm excited about that. I chaired the Office for Human Rights board meeting. Barry came to that meeting, as well as other constitutional officers and or their delegates. We talked a lot about what occurred here, our conversation, and information was provided to us. That was also provided to you guys, just looking at what it is that they do in some specific numbers when it came to number of persons assisted, how much money has been collected when it comes to the wage theft ordinance, how many people are we helping when it comes to housing discrimination cases, how that flows with HUD, et cetera. I did see an email that went out. If you all haven't already seen it, you will. But it's just giving you an update of where the Office for Human Rights are. And you'll be getting those updates as we move through the process before we have our workshop on that sometime in the spring. I attended the Palm Harbor Parade, Christmas Parade. Commissioner Sher was there, as well as Commissioner Eggers. I had a good time. It was very short. We went down Omaha, made a right and a left, and it was over. But I was, you know, I'm so used to much larger parades, but I had a good time. It started raining. I know. But it stopped. So I had a really good time. So thank you so very much for the invitation that goes out to the chamber up there. I also attended the Lelman Christmas tree lighting. I did miss my two comrades, Commissioner Eggers and Commissioner Scott, but I pulled the lever and I lit the tree. And it didn't catch on fire, anything like that. So that was very nice. Thank you so much to Tom and to Felicia for doing such a wonderful job with the Lelman community. And having said that, the Lelman Honey and Arts event is coming up. It's February 7th of next year, though, from 12 to 6 at the Rainier Park. So please place that on your calendars. On the 18th, which is Thursday, I am a part of a select group of individuals that will be on a call with the White House Domestic Policy Council on Housing and Homelessness. I have provided you guys with some information relative to how the formula that relates to how they allocate housing dollars to communities will be changing. And what it does is it significantly decreases the amount of money that Pinellas County would get. So I have had the pleasure of serving on the special select committee, and I'm looking forward to this meeting on Thursday. So far, from the previous meetings we've had with congressional staff and with the assistant deputy from HUD, they've been very positive discussions, but, you know, nothing is done until the sausage is made and decisions are made. So I will keep you all updated on what goes on with that. Florida Association of Counties Legislative Day is January 21st. So I'm not sure if any of you will be able to make it up to Tallahassee for that. But I just wanted to make sure I shared that date with you. The Area Agency on Aging of Pinellas and Pasco County held its Christmas gift bag stuffings for the seniors that are a part of the Area Agency on Aging Pinellas and Pasco. For some seniors, that's the only gift they get. And the person whose name I pulled, she asked for a house coat, pajamas, and slippers. But I got some other stuff, too. So I got her some Bath and Body Works, smell good stuff and everything. But the reason I'm giving that is because some people only, like men, they only ask for razors to shave. Very simple things, but they don't get a gift from anyone, you know. And so it was a pleasure being able to provide for that. Darlene went and helped stuff bags and whatnot. So it's always good to help seniors. We may be in that predicament one day, and we want someone to reach out and help us a little bit. I attended the Horace Academy Impact Awards over in Tampa. They selected a young lady from Pinellas County to receive one of their awards for her work in the community, Esther Matthew Sonney. And so I went over there to support her, and it was a very, very nice event. The Woodson Museum held its annual tree decorating contest. If you have an organization in the community, non-profit, and you would like to put up a Christmas tree, however you want to decorate it, they allow it. The only requirement is that your tree has to be at least six feet tall. The winning tree, unfortunately, was the organization that the executive director of the Woodson belongs to. But in all fairness, it was absolutely beautiful. So if you have a chance, please go on woodson.com, and you can see all of the trees that were decorated. I'm a member of a sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Incorporated, and we won the award for our historical perspective tree. So it was really nice. The ladies of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Incorporated, Zeta Upsilon Omega, celebrated our 70 years of being chartered here in St. Petersburg. So that was a real nice event that was held on Sunday evening at the University of South Florida in their big banquet hall. Well over 134 individuals came out to support that. I will be attending the free clinic. They are doing like a ribbon cutting. I'm not sure if anyone else is attending, but they're doing their ribbon cutting for their new facility that we gave them the funds for, if you recall, when we were meeting over in the chambers for that additional space, the warehouse space, and all of that. So they'll be doing the ribbon cutting there. I also attended the City of St. Petersburg City Council meeting on last Thursday. Of course, there was a big conversation as to whether or not the Tangerine Plaza project would continue to move forward or not. It was approved to move forward 6 to 2. A part of that project is an affordable housing piece with 186 affordable units and then a grocery store on the bottom floor. So I look forward to seeing that come to fruition. I know that they did apply for some Penny for Pinellas funds. We'll see how that application goes. But they did make application for that. It'll be really good to anchor that part of the corridor in South St. Petersburg with something. Other than that, all I can say to you all is have a very Merry Christmas. Have a significantly Happy New Year. May all your hopes and dreams come true. And it has truly been a pleasure serving and working with you guys all throughout this year. And I look forward to the work we're going to be doing coming up shortly. Thank you. Thank you. First of all, I wanted to thank the food pantries, certainly the ones in North County and around the county for their amazing work over Thanksgiving. Already this month, the use is going through the roof. So really appreciate that during the holiday season. It's extremely important. We had an Oldsmar Safety Harbor annual Christmas mayor's breakfast. And all of those monies were going to Maddie Williams. And again, another facility that does services for the community but also provides the food through their own food pantry. So again, thank you for that. I wanted to call out a lot of people for the 35th annual celebration of the trail. It was really an amazing morning. Fred Marquis, who was obviously instrumental in having that happen, along with the city of Dunedin, was there. And we certainly gave a lot of attention to the trail, 35th anniversary, but at the same time to him and all of his service. Almost, how many years was it? 21 years, I think, as a county administrator. I told Barry he's only got 10 to go. So, you know, and he looked like, yeah, right. Anyway, it was really a nice event. And I really wanted to thank the city of Dunedin, the friends of the trail, and our communications folks who were there that just did a great job pulling that together. I've heard some feedback from different people, and he said he really, really appreciated it. He said the picture of him on the thing was an awfully good-looking guy. But anyway, I think his family was happy, as were people who worked with and for him. So, I mean, an early good event. Parade thank yous, Tarpon Springs, Palm Harbor. Palm Harbor did the short parade, as you mentioned, Commissioner Flowers. But also, they opened up afterwards and had a nice Christmas celebration in their downtown. It was really, really well attended. I think it was, we had a tree lighting there, and it's one of those timing things that we just about missed. But anyway, it was a good, it was very nice and very well done. Tarpon Springs did it in the morning, Palm Harbor in the afternoon, and into the evening. Last week, Dunedin had their parade as well, and then it opens up into their downtown festival, and it was packed. A nice-sized parade, but it was just really well attended by a lot of families, friends, kids, and all of that. It was really great, great evening, and the downtown event was extra special. And then Safety Harbor, of course, had their parade. It conflicted with another one. I couldn't get to that one, but Ozona had their golf cart parade last Sunday night, and it, too, was well done, well attended. A lot of pre-parade celebrations and socializing, but it was a good time as well. Well, Deputy Guzman was the lead, the lead on that, and I was able to travel with him and threw out a lot of candy, so it was good to have him there as well. This past Friday, we had a really, really good, I call it our transportation management group. It's really addressing the merging of the MPOs. MPOs, and again, I think there was a lot of good, healthy discussion. It's still a big-time work in progress. A lot of different groups having questions, and just going through some really thought-provoking meetings and discussions. So I think most people seem to be at least becoming more open-minded to listening to what we're talking about or what's being talked about with the hope that we can all come together with that decision. Sometimes what we found is that there was some really needed conversations that were going on, and we were kind of originally being driven by dates and by the calendar, and we kind of said, stop it. We got to have more of the discussion, the heartfelt one-on-one discussions in our groups before we even start putting a calendar to it. So, again, we have to ultimately report back to the state that we've made a concentrated effort to do this, and so we want to make sure that we do that work as we've been asked to do. And sometimes it just means a step or two back before we can take a step forward. So a lot of good work there. We had a workshop earlier in the month, and that was also done well. A lot of skepticism, a lot of optimism, so we're still working through that. And stay tuned. There will be a lot of that going on next year. AmSkills, I just wanted to give them a shout-out. They're doing a rapid hiring workshop at Infinity Controls who needs 8 to 10 people. So they're pulling together that workshop to try to get some folks that are interested in a new career or a horizontal change or maybe an upgrade to come out and do a boot camp, basically, do a workshop, and then maybe hopefully be considered by Infinity Controls for further interviews and the like. So on the fly, doing some really good work, and let's hope that a few of those, if not all, are able to get a job that Infinity Controls needs. So Metropolitan Ministries, Metropolitan Ministries is hosting their 33rd holiday tent at Holy Cross Catholic Church where there's going to be food, toys, and assistants, heroes of the day. Our first responders will be out there handing out and helping with the distribution of that as well. And so with that, I also wanted to echo the comments here, maybe my Commissioner Shearer and a few others, and also really appreciated your poem. That was beautiful. But thank you for working so well together this year. I mean, it's just been really great, and I do think it's kind of like a square wheel sometimes, and it starts to round off and really starts to move well. And it takes time, and I think that we've had a really, really good year, and so looking forward to that. And just a really deep, heartfelt welcome back to our friend Chris, who, you know, a lot of people in the community have asked a lot of us during the last few months what's going on. And I want you to say it's one week at a time, one day at a time, one hour at a time in some cases, but that all of the prayers were really needed. And a lot of people asking how you were doing, Chris, just really, really miss you being a part of this group and also being a part of our community and the friends that were out there. So welcome back. Look forward to working right alongside of you this coming year. And again, just a heartfelt appreciation for you as a friend. And then finally, just our two final things. I want to thank my loyal assistant, Stacy, for just getting me through last year, just a busy year. And when I said that when they contemplated putting me as chair, I said, are you ready for this? And she says, I don't know, but we'll see. But over the last three or four weeks, she has just come to the work every day to do what needed to be done, and I can't thank you enough for that. And I know we're not going to get through this next year without you, so thank you again. And Merry Christmas to all of you. Have a wonderful time with family. We are so blessed. And I look forward to a really healthy next year for all of you as well. And hard work with our incredible staff, leadership team. We really have a lot of work to do to improve and be better for our residents every single day. So that's what I had right now. So thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Eggers. And Commissioner Lottweil settled right back in quickly. I mean, he's already taken a couple swipes at you. And we've only been here a couple of hours. That makes me feel good. Well, since our last meeting, I had a nice sit-down meeting with Mike McCurk, with JWB. And a nice talk about him, what things they've got going on, and also talked a lot about their new parent pro-tech online safety initiative. And I think it was Monday, I think it was, there was a press conference at the sheriff's office about that. I had a conflict with an Army Corps call that I'll talk about here in a little bit. But he had asked if we would be willing to be at a no-cost partnership on that program just to be listed as a partner. And I didn't think there would be any problem with that, but I didn't want to commit to that without asking you all first. So if you all are in agreement with that, then we'll give him the thumbs-up to say that he can list Pinellas County as a partner on that. So all good with that? Okay. Let's see. I also had a meeting with Duke Energy to talk about some of the things that they've got going on. I met with Lauren Hartman, who handles government relations with USF about e-bike safety. There's one, I think it may even be two bills now, working its way through the next legislative session on e-bike safety. So it'll be real interesting. And they both look like they're pretty solid legislation. So it'll be interesting to just kind of watch and see what comes out the other end and whether or not there's anything that we may need to do on our end. But it seems like almost every week now you're hearing about a serious injury or a fatality somewhere in the county on an e-bike. So it's certainly a real problem. I also had a chance to take a tour of the Wendover Art Group with Richard Forsythe, as Commissioner Peters was talking about. It is an amazing facility. I really encourage you to do that if you haven't done it. I had no idea. You walk into a hotel, chances are you're looking at their art, and it's made right here off of Bryan Derry Road. So if you haven't done that, I encourage everybody to do that. I had a chance to go with Commissioner Vice Chair Eggers here and our communications team to do the video shoot at the opening of the Lake Tarpon Canal Bridge in animal service. It was great to bring five dogs out there. I mean, talk about a canine commissioner photo shoot. We had five dogs. So that was a lot of fun, and I'm hoping that those dogs are getting adopted. So it's all right, hopefully on that. I had a chance about two weeks ago, the first week of December, to join Bryan Loak and the TDC team on a sales mission to Germany. And I can tell you that was a really, really productive trip. It was a very busy trip, four cities in five days. We were in Frankfurt, Hanover, Hamburg, and Berlin. And during that time, we met with eight different media outlets, seven tour operators, one airline, trained about 30 sales staff on how to sell St. Pete Clearwater as a destination. And I gave two keys to the county, one to the CEO of Discovery Airlines, and the other one to the CEO of Der Tour in Germany. So it was a really, really great trip. And some key takeaways from that, because our tourism from Germany and international destinations is down. And so there's some pessimism and some optimism in here. The pessimistic side is that they really don't like the current U.S.'s stance on policy on immigration. They just don't like it. And when you're over there, I think they have more 24-hour news channels there than we have here. And they beat that drumbeat 24-7. And they put no context on it, right? They just show the worst video and the worst that they can show about immigration enforcement with no context to it. So it's really, really turned them off, and it just doesn't go away. It's just they continue the drumbeat constantly, which is kind of disappointing. So that has caused international tourism to come down, as also has the increasing cost of hotel stays. That's not just limited to us. That is more of a nationwide problem. And just coming back from Napa, California last night, I can tell you that problem exists out there, too. But the optimistic side of all of that is the weather over there is really bad, particularly this time of the year. We were there five days. We saw the sun like twice. And that's why they come here, all right? Because, I mean, and the sun comes up at 8.14 and sets at like 4 p.m. So you don't even have eight hours of daylight, right? And when the sun is out, it's not like this bright sun here. It's like this low dull. It's like this – it's not even really all that bright. So they're willing to come here in August because they know what's ahead of them in a few months. So the fact that they're not traveling now, it's always going to get cold there. We know that. So it's going to create pent-up demand. And it's this pendulum that swings back and forth. And I worked with the international inbound tour operators for, you know, 40-plus years. And that pendulum swings back and forth, you know. So it will come back. And when it does come back, it will come back even stronger. And I did also – we've had, I think, two calls with the Army Corps since our last meeting. Frustrating as all get out. And they are – we are working on a date for them to come down here the January – the week of January 12th, I believe. And I want to thank Bill Christian from Congresswoman Luna's office for being very, very dedicating to continue to hold the Army Corps' feet to the fire and just basically kind of call them out what they need to be called out on. I mean, they have the latitude in their current policy to solve this problem. They do. At this point, it's like you guys just – what are you holding up? What is – why don't you want to do it is really kind of what it comes down to. So hopefully we'll get to the bottom of that question when they come down here in January. And then, of course, earlier today we had our final K9 Commission photo shoot of the year. And I want to thank you all for indulging me in that. That has really just been a very, very fun, fun thing to do this year. And I've really enjoyed that a whole bunch. Obviously, as you can tell, I'm a dog lover. So – and here we are at the end of the year. You know, I knew when I became chair, one, it was going to be a lot of work, and it was, probably a little more than what I expected. But I also knew that before I knew it, we'd be here and the year would be over. And it has gone that – it has gone that quick. And I have to really, really thank my aide, Colleen. I could not have done this year without her. Her work on constituent issues is amazing. We had over 1,800 constituent touch points this year, whether that was email, whether that was phone calls, whether that was meetings. That's a lot. And she handles them absolutely masterfully. I'm funny. I had one of my neighbors during – I think it was last year during one of the – right after one of the storms. And they called, and I happened to talk to Colleen, and he just came up to me after and said, can she call my wife? She was just so nice and just was so helpful as to, you know, get him to the resolution that he needed. And she's just masterful and amazing at that, so I can't thank her enough. I definitely could not have done it without Colleen. And I just want to thank all of you for giving me the opportunity and having the faith in me to do this job. It has been an absolute honor and a pleasure to lead this fine group of commissioners. It really has. And as Commissioner Egger said it well earlier here, you know, things might start out a little chunky, and then they get smoother and smoother and smoother. And it's been a good year. It's been a good year. And I just want to thank you all. It's been an amazing year for me, and I just – thank you. It's been an honor and a pleasure, and I appreciate it. And with that, I just want to wish everybody a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and look forward to 2026. A couple little things here. First of all, well said. Well, your comments are right on, you know, especially the part about the AIDS. And we just – we all desperately need them to help get our jobs done and work so closely with our residents. The canine thing will continue, just so you know. We're going to continue that effort to help get more dogs adopted. And so, anyway, I just have a few things to go over real quickly. I think all the aides – maybe you all got a copy as well – of kind of administrative duties that were just kind of doled out. If we have to address some changes to that, if issues come up, we'll do that. But, you know, with the change in the front office and not having an additional person, in addition to – our district is pretty heavy in terms of unincorporated residents. We're going to really need the different administrative folks to kind of do little parts to get – to make sure that we don't let things fall between the cracks. And so, we sent that out and had a, you know, decent conversation, had a little feedback. But we'll keep working at that. Just know that we need you guys to – and your aides to help out as much as possible. And so, we'll – again, if we have issues, we'll try to address that. The only other approval thing I needed was an approval of the committee and board appointments that I made. I think I sent them out – gosh, it seems like a month ago, but it was probably two weeks ago. Hope you had a chance to look at it, review it. I know there were some changes. I tried to minimize those changes. Wanted to get Commissioner Scott back in some appointment that he had before he was chair. When you chair it, it kind of changes a little bit as well. I wanted to get Commissioner Nowicki on one of the boards, and so it would just take a little bit of moving around. But anyway, I need approval of this slate of – Give me a second. Any comments, questions? I have one quick question and comment. On the health and human services leadership, I think Commissioner Nowicki, LaBelle, and myself were on it. I question whether or not that board is relevant or even needed. They stopped meeting two years ago, three years ago? Well, we had one meeting this past year, and I sat down, and for the life of me couldn't figure out what the heck we were doing there. And when we left, basically the ask was for the candidate to fund a staff person. I'm like, none of this even makes any sense to me. Yeah, we have – I had the wrong asterisk here. It was my fault. We're going to look at that one. We're going to really look at getting – well, we're just going to look into it. And if we can, removing our responsibility to put the commissioners on there. The asterisk was really proposed removing, but I really want to look into that and see if we can – Yeah, I think you just kind of look into that, but I'm good with that. We have – yeah. And we've had a few of those things along the way that we're going to have some adjustments on. We had – we took some out. We added a couple. It's a little different list than the one that was there before. So anyway. Okay, so we had a motion and a second. Any other questions, comments? Okay, all in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, thank you, guys. We'll move forward with that and, you know, continue good luck and give us feedback as much as you can on your different boards. I just really wanted to close kind of feeding off a little bit of Commissioner Scott's comments that he made looking back over the past year. And, you know, it was – it was, you know, I could go on and on and talk about things, but I am going to make a few comments about the year. I know that communications will be doing a year-end review more formally, I guess, and put it in video form, and we'll get to see it and probably be a part of our strategic plan meeting in late January, early February. But this one is just more for Brian, and I'm going to have a little bit of commentary just going through this so I don't make it too long-winded. But we're here just to say a thank you to Brian, our chair, for his leadership while working with us and staff and for his hard-working compassion and working with residents of Pinellas County. His tireless work throughout Pinellas County, the region, and many trips to Tallahassee, Washington, overseas was over-the-top wonderful. As importantly, working closely with our federal and state representatives, it was also well-directed and well-received, and it's all about relationships. I was really proud of my friend's year as the chair and just want to review a few highlights. First, he and his office worked to help provide leadership during the recovery process. Remember those two little storms that hit us a year ago, a year and two months ago. Public service announcements on recovery efforts, highlighting people's first, right up front with that, on-the-ground focus in neighborhoods, and relayed stories of bravery, generosity, unity, and community. He's committed to honoring individuals for their positive impacts. In conjunction with the storms and continuing on Commissioner Peter's effort for regular beach re-nourishments, he worked with community to secure temporary easements, knowing how important they were on many levels. More importantly, he sent letters to our federal representatives. He mentioned that a minute ago about working on this with the Army Corps on their insistence on the permanent easements and trying to get rid of that requirement. Finally, he worked to adjust TDT guidelines to include park, facility, infrastructure improvements after our storms. And that's not an easy thing to do, kind of mobilize and use the dollars for a different. Thanks to the leadership, thank you for that. Secondly, in a year where federal and state focus has been efficiency and responsible use of taxpayer dollars, Commissioner Scott led our already ongoing fiscally responsible board right here to control our BOCC millage rate, which is probably at the lowest since 1990, and minimizing our tax increases. That leadership with the BOCC was also brought to PSTA, where he rolled back the millage rate to the lowest in 15 years, introduced a tourist-based service from Pai to the beaches. And finally, with our MPO board, he pushed and received a millage rate reduction for forward Pinellas. So that was three for three on millage rate reductions. His fiscal leadership, shared by the board, was reflected in our welcoming to DOES resolution, which was the governor's way of providing more scrutiny on local budgets for responsible stewardship. In conjunction with fiscal leadership, he championed the use for AI for a pilot project with communication with PSDA's Mobility Customer Service. So he started talking AI early on, and I was, like, scratching my head, but what is he talking about? Now it's front and center, of course, with us, and staff is looking into how it can be used on a day-to-day basis. Number three, in addition to focusing on recovery and fiscal leadership, he focused on economic development sales missions with his responsibility as chair of the TDC. He shared the message of Pinellas still shining, helping spread the word that our county was still open for business. Additionally, as a business person himself, he worked closely with economic development, with other job assistance organizations, and attended many ribbon – look at that picture – ribbon cuttings, all with the intentions of a business focus and bringing more jobs and higher-paying jobs for Pinellas County. Number four, there are so many efforts that this commission, led by Chair Scott, has worked on throughout the year, and all of us sitting around this table throughout the year, to celebrate our residents in Pinellas County, and I'm just going to knock off about three or four other ones real quickly here, if we could. I know the slides have been going up a little bit there, too, so just as I talk through this, you can see some of those efforts. Working alongside the community to help identify and remember lives and their impacts to the community at Whispering Souls African American Cemetery. And so he and one of the boards that he works on helped us receive a Florida historical marker. To that community and to the African-American community in that area, it meant the world. So, again, thank you for those efforts. He revived the use of the key to the county. We haven't seen those too much. To present to those who are really going above and beyond to help our residents. Three of those given out to Governor Ron DeSantis, Congressman Anna Paulina Luna, and State Rep. Linda Cheney for different things, but all very important efforts that they did for our county. Thank you for that. Help lead our efforts on the short-term rentals. You know, that's certainly been let out of the bag, right? We're short-term rentals, but at least led the effort to try to bring some restriction and constraint with our staff right alongside of us to make sure that we try to at least minimize the efforts on some of our – the detriment to some of our neighborhoods. And you mentioned it a minute ago, safety being paramount to all of our residents. You brought up the idea of looking at the e-bike usage on the trail, and you had a nice public service announcement. But more importantly, start to look at some of the issues that we can maybe address to start reining that in a little bit. Because it is – two times this week I've seen those uses come close. And the kids don't even – they just go. They can't get hurt, according to them. And so we really need to look at that. I really appreciate all of that. And so many more items have been addressed by this commission and the leadership of Chair Scott. Very detailed and informative year in review, as I said, will be presented later in January. But I wanted to finish with one of Brian's passions, which is the safety, welfare, and well-being of our dogs and our cats and their efforts to encourage adoption from animal services and our selective animal groups that help adopt as many animals into their forever homes. And so there's a few more slides that should be coming up on that canine program and the canine commissioners. That would be all of us, including Commissioner Latvala, who will have his turn. We're going to get him out there. We'll get him. I know you were. I know. But there's going to be – and, you know, there will be opportunities. He had a dog. Yeah, he did. He had his own dog. When did you get a dog? I got a nice stuffed dog. A stuffed dog. Okay. Yeah, it is absence. Very ugly. But we'll see how we can incorporate you even further this coming year. Sixteen photo shoots have been done, 224,000 views on Facebook, and 46,000 views on Instagrams, all that led to 470 people visiting the adoption page, which I thought was kind of cool. The commission was out in the community showing off some of these dogs and animal services. All but one has been adopted. That's great. All but one of those has been adopted. And only Sissy, and apparently today I checked, is she's still available, a 10-year-old dog who's as sweet as she can be. So she's still out there and available for somebody. And she's just an amazing little dog. But all of them have been adopted. So your efforts – look at those pictures up there. Anyway, so we have a – it is this welfare and adoption mentality and his love of animals that your colleagues have decided to give a gift that's specific to that. And I'm going to ask everybody to kind of go up to the front. But I also want to say that those animals are being used over in our 9-11 center. So they're not walking through the center. We – or I guess the risk folks said it was too risky. So – but we do have them available for breaks, during breaks, to kind of de-stress from the job. So it's kind of cool. We're going to try to up that a little bit to have it more than once a week. But anyway, that was great, too. So thank you for all of that. And, again, if we can all go up there. And if Jennifer – she's here. If you'll go up there, too, so we can present the gift to our friend. Let's spread the commission out here. Get some on this side, too. I'm going to present the gift. Well, here, Jennifer, to my friend. You, too. You, too, Brian. I'm going to present the gift to Brian. It's a gift to Pinellas County Animal Welfare Trust Fund for $540 given backwards. I know. I'm going to show it in just a second. And I'm going to – and it's going to be for – from all of the commissioners, as well as Brian – Barry and Jewel. Thank you for everybody participating. This is a check, a gift to you, my friend. Oh, that's awesome. And you know what to do. And with that, you're going to present it to Jennifer. That is awesome. Thank you. Thank you so much, everybody. I really, really appreciate it. I know that Animal Services has worked with this to very, very, very good use. Absolutely. What a kind and thoughtful gift. Just a few times. A kind and thoughtful gift for Animal Welfare Trust Fund. The Trust Fund. Oh. I'm so sorry. I got it again. Oh. There it is. That's it? Oh. Are we good? There we go. Thank you so much. This is such a kind and thoughtful gift from everyone for Animal Welfare Trust Fund. And this trust fund helps us to make sure we have everything we need to take care of all the dogs and cats at the shelter. Also funds some very important community programs, like our voucher program that helps our citizens, our pet families, to get free, spay, and neuter. So this is a wonderful gift. And of course, first and foremost, thank you, Chair Scott, for starting the Canine Commissioner and to the new Chair Eggers for your leadership to continue this program. It has driven so much new traffic to the shelter, to adopt animals, and has been so successful. And we're looking forward to new adventures with all of the commissioners. Thank you for all of your participation next year throughout the county. So thank you. Why don't we get out front here and let's take a picture with everybody. Again, adjourn us when you're finished. Okay. Stand up here with you. Well, wow. What do you say? Thank you so much. And Dave, thank you for all those incredibly kind words. It has been an amazing year. But, you know, you can't accomplish all of that stuff without great people to work with. And I couldn't do it without the rest of my commissioners, without Barry, without Jewel, and with all the staff. And I just want to thank all the staff as well. Y'all are amazing. I mean, whenever we need anything, you're right there. I mean, and we leaned on you guys a lot this year as we're still recovering. We've still got a lot of things going on. So we've leaned on you guys a lot. And you've always just stepped right up and been right there for everything that we need. So I just want to thank you for your great work and all your great partnership. And it's just been an amazing year. And I'm just so honored and grateful to have been chair this past year. And it has been just a great honor in my life. So thank you so much. And with that, I think we're adjourned until 6 o'clock. Everybody, welcome back. I'd like to call our public hearing, December 16, 2025, to order. First item we have on our public hearing is item number 58. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Agenda item number 58 is case number CW-2508. This is a proposal by the City of Clearwater to amend the countywide plan map from retail and services to public, semi-public, regarding .70 acres, more or less, located at 2201 Main Street. The public hearing is properly advertised in 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. Okay. We do have one public Katie Cole on this one item. Only for questions? Okay. Thank you. Mr. Chair, I'd move approval on item 58. Okay. I have a motion by Commissioner Eggers, a second by Commissioner Latval. Do we have any further discussion? Hearing none, if we can open up the voting, please. Okay. Thank you. Commissioner Peters? Passes unanimously. Moving on to item number 59. Agenda item number 59 is case number CW2509. This is a proposal by the City of Dunedin to amend the countywide plan map from retail and services to residential low-medium regarding .53 acres, more or less, located at 1050 Main Street. The public hearing is properly advertised in 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, Darlin. I do have a speaker on this item as well, Jonathan DeMonte. I'm Jonathan DeMonte. I'm the attorney for Golden Acres. This is very simple. This property was originally part of Golden Acres Mobile Home Park on Main Street. It was carved out by the prior owner as a residence. It's been a residence since the late 60s. In the 80s, it was inadvertently, incorrectly zoned as commercial property. It has never been zoned. It's never actually been commercial property. The resident passed away. The Homeowners Association reacquired the property, and it's incorporating it back into the mobile home park. It will be used only as green space. No new units or homes will be added. We're simply asking that it be reclassified as mobile home park as it used to be. Any questions? Thank you, sir. Any questions for the applicant? Move approval. Second. All right. Motion by Commissioner Wagoner, second by Commissioner Nowicki. Any further discussion? Hearing none, if we can open up the voting. Passed unanimously. Thank you. Moving on to item number 60. Agenda item number 60 is case number LDR 2501. This is the first of two public hearings to consider the adoption of an ordinance providing for the amendment of the Pinellas County Land Development Code, Chapter 138, Article 2, and Chapter 154, Articles 1 and 5, amending the plotting requirements to come into compliance with Chapter 177 Florida statutes. 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 as properly before the board to be heard. Okay. Thank you, Daryl Lynn. All right. So this is our first of two public hearings, so we're not voting on anything tonight. Does anybody have any questions? Anybody want a presentation? Okay. Hearing none, we'll move on to item 61. Agenda item number 61 is case number LDR 2502. This is the first of two public hearings to consider the adoption of an ordinance providing for the amendment of the Pinellas County Land Development Code, Chapter 138, Zoning, and Chapter 166, Environmental and Natural Resource Protection, to more effectively regulate the county's tree permitting process and revise tree replant and landscaping requirements for residential and commercial properties. 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 as properly before the board to be heard. Thank you, Daryl Lynn. Okay. Again, this is our first of two public hearings, so we're not voting on anything tonight. Does anybody have any questions, or would anybody like a presentation? Okay. Hearing none, we'll move on to item number 62. Agenda item number 62 is case number ZON 2502. This is a request by Twin City MHC LLC for a zoning change from RMH residential mobile manufactured home to RM, multifamily residential on approximately 8.94 acres, located at 10636 Gandy Boulevard in unincorporated St. Petersburg. Since this is a quasi-judicial hearing, all those individuals who plan to speak on this item must be sworn in, for those wishing to speak, whether you're attending in person or virtually, if able, please raise your right hand. Do you swear or affirm 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 is properly advertised, and an affidavit of publication has been received for filing. No correspondence has been received by the clerk, and it matters properly before the board to be heard. Okay. Thank you, Daryl Lynn. Okay. I do have a public speaker on this one, Aaron Roth, and then also Kristen Roth, who says they're waving speaking. Good evening. Hello. I just want to say that I do not think or agree that the mobile home park be rezoned. Hundreds, you know, of families lost their homes. Everything. And not just once. It was multiple times. I raised my child there, and it's torn down now. I don't think they should have another chance with that property. Thank you. Thank you. Kristen Roth, did you want to speak, or are you waving? Okay. Thank you. Okay. Against. Yeah, thank you for that. Okay. What is the, what's the, will the board on this? Questions? Thoughts? You want a presentation? This is, this is the, commissioners, this is the developer requesting. It's just simply changing. It doesn't increase the number of units. It simply changes the zoning from manufactured homes to multifamily. Right. It doesn't increase the density. Correct. How many times did it flood? Every, every, every time. Every time. For years. It is. Yeah, I know. There's a lot of coastal, I'm sorry, Mr. Chair. Um, um, I, I, there's a lot of coastal high hazards that don't flood every time it rains. And I think this is one of those that. This is absolutely one that, that does. So, so if we give them this and they do multifamily, is there mitigation required or something to make sure that anyone that ends up living in their multifamily does not live through what the previous people lived through? That's correct. They would have to meet all current floodplain standards. They would have to, you know, elevate the, the units, et cetera, and stuff. So they'd have to go through a whole development review process. Um, if you recall, this was brought in before as a much more dense development. Um, staff's going to look and take your direction to look at how do we, how do we accommodate things in a coastal high hazard area? That process is going to take time. Um, so if they come back with something different, this just gives them the zoning to move it because it will not be redeveloped as a mobile home park. And this simply gives them the same number of units in a, um, with a multifamily. We're not approving a development agreement. You're not approving the development agreement. It's just, it's simply the zoning. They, they, they wanted to go forward with the zoning request. I, I, I completely understand that, but I certainly have sympathy for the speaker that just spoke who watched his home get washed away many, many, many times and, uh, and nothing was ever done to mitigate in the past over and over and over again. So I, I understand where the speaker is coming from and I have great empathy for that speaker. Um, it's unfortunately when a landowner won't do anything time and time again to assist the people that they're running to. And then you get to a point where we have devastation like last year and then, then it's like, oh, well, let's rezone it. And so I, I completely have empathy with the speaker. I understand what he's saying. I completely understand that. Um, and I just wanted to acknowledge that. Thank you. Mr. Flowers. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, this has no bearing, I know, on the decision that we are supposed to make tonight, but I'm just curious. Um, 51 residents applied for assistance, 42 were approved and nine pending. Do we know if those nine have been relocated? Are they still on hold? Do you know the answer to that, Tom? So we, we worked, we, we received federal, federal funds, as you're well aware, to help and assist families for a year to transition over to other places to live. We worked with the, um, uh, Pinellas Housing Authority, uh, to put them, uh, to have priority for relocation. Um, so staff did a number of steps to try to relocate and help families as much as could be done. Um, um, you know, but, but we're down to just a few units and they'll continue to work with them. And, um, just in reading the back of this project areas grandfathered in, which is why they get to have the number of units that they get to have. But I would have to say that I also share concerns with continuous flooding, which we can't control the elements of weather. Definitely. Um, reluctantly, I am going to, um, if there are no other questions or comments, I will go ahead and support staff's recommendation to approve the project. But, um, they may have some difficulty getting through the next step based on them wanting to provide multifamily use when, um, it's still issues with flooding. So, I made the motion. I'm sorry. Okay. So, motion by Commissioner Flowers, second by Commissioner Wicke. And, and I agree with you, Commissioner Flowers. Um, and the only reason I will support it is because it's not increasing density. And if anything gets built there, it's going to have to be built to a much different standard than what was there. We have a motion and a second. Do we have any further discussion? Hearing none, if we could open up the voting. Oh, I pushed mine. It's on my little thing. It's dented in, you know, like, um. Okay. There we go. All right. Passes unanimously. Okay. Moving on to item number 63. Agenda item number 63 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, and an affidavit of publication has been received for filing. No correspondence has been received by the clerk, and it matters properly before the board to be heard. Okay. Thank you, Daryl Lenny. Okay. Will of the board? Move approval. Okay. So, we have a motion by Commissioner Wicke, second by Commissioner Flowers. Any further discussion? Hearing none, if we could open up the voting, please. Passes unanimously. On to item 64. Motion item number 64 is a resolution amending the West Bay Drive Community Redevelopment Plan, as requested by the City of Largo. The public hearing was properly advertised, and an affidavit of publication has been received for filing. No correspondence has been received by the clerk, and it matters properly before the board to be heard. Okay. Thank you. Do we have any questions on this item? Second. Motion by Commissioner Latvala, second by Commissioner Flowers. Any discussion? Hearing none, if we could open up the voting. Passes unanimously. Moving on to item 65. And I do have a couple of comments on 65. Agenda item number 65 is a proposal to amend 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 was properly advertised, and an affidavit of publication has been received for filing. Nine emails and one voicemail in support and one email of concern have been received by the clerk. The matter is probably before the board to be heard. Okay. Thank you, Daryl Lynn. Okay. We'll move on to public comment. First, we have Patricia Kirby, followed by Crystal DeJoseph. Good evening. Patricia Kirby, 1111 Spencer Avenue, Clearwater, Florida. I feel sad to be standing here right before Christmas to ask that the county commission do the right thing. I have great faith in each one of you as a leader, and the right thing is, of course, always to support and speak for the health, happiness of our animal friends. I'm in so many, I mean, I have, I kid you not, I'm in over 700 Facebook groups. Many, many of those are animal groups. People love their animals as if they were family members. I say as if. They are family members. You all who have dogs and cats, guinea pigs, you know what I'm talking about. This ordinance is a step in the right direction. We all want to see animals taken better care of. I was appalled at the number of citations, no offense you guys working at the puppy store, of animals in ill care. I know the puppy mill scene, it is awful. I just ask on behalf of so many people in rescue, so many people who love animals, to please step in the right direction and offer more protections for them. I did have a conversation briefly with Charlie Crist when he was a congressman, and it was at a political event, and he said, what issue is important to you, and I said, getting rid of puppy mills, because we don't need that. We don't need millions of puppies being born when there are millions of puppies and dogs dying in shelters every single year. We just don't need it, but it's a whole other issue that they arrive here and are sold in terrible conditions and sick to families who then have further heartbreak trying to raise these sick animals. So I'm going to ask that you move in the right direction and do that. Try to think of anything else I want to add here. So many counties across the United States have banned the sales of animals in stores like that. They have moved to rescues, being in PetSmart, being in Petco. Rescues provide the puppies, the kittens. Rescues provide the animals. Those animals are in foster care. Those animals are in rescue care. They are very, very well taken care of. I know they are because I adopted one from, I think it was a Petco recently, and I got a chance to talk with that kitten's foster, and she was feeding him super high, expensive diet, and she made the comment to me, not knowing I was the adopter. She said, I just prayed that he went to the right home who was going to take as good a care of him as I did, and I told her, I am feeding him the exact same thing that you fed him, this super high-end expensive food, and she was so happy that he went to a good home. That's all we're asking for, is that the puppies, the kittens are given good homes, puppies in this case, and then they end up in good homes. That's all we're asking for, and if this proposed ordinance does more to support the animals being given good care and that they're being higher standards, let that be the case. And like I said, with Chris, he put a regulation in to support that. Thank you. Next, we have Crystal DeJoseph, followed by Michelle Anayo. Good evening, commissioners. My name is Crystal DeJoseph. I'm at 914 Lutes Country Lane, Lutes, Florida. I'm here tonight as a business owner. I own professional services firms that do tax and financial consulting work in Pinellas County, Hillsborough County, and Pasco County, and I prepared kind of a statement here about this proposed amendments. These are regulations that protect consumers, promote animal welfare, and support responsible local businesses. This issue is not about banning pet ownership or targeting ethical breeders. It's about ensuring transparency, accountability, and humane standards in the retail sale of companion animals. More importantly, I think it's about consumer protections. Consumer protection reports consistently show that pet stores sourcing animals from large-scale commercial operations contribute to serious community problems. These facilities frequently prioritize profit over animal health, resulting in dogs and cats being sold with health defects, infectious diseases, and behavioral issues. The financial and emotional burden falls on Pinellas County consumers. More strict pet retail regulations help address this by requiring clear sourcing standards, health disclosures, and humane conditions. These measures protect residents from deceptive sales practices and reduce the number of animals that end up abandoned or surrendered to shelters due to preventable medical or behavioral issues. This is also a fiscal issue. Let's be honest. When animals have health issues that people can't deal with or behavioral issues, they end up at the county shelter, and that becomes a taxpayer cost. Pinellas County has a longstanding reputation for valuing public health, consumer protection, and humane treatment of animals. Approving these stricter pet retail regulations aligns with those values and reflects the will of residents who expect transparency and responsibility from their local business leaders and community leaders. It ensures that choice is informed, ethical, and humane. So with that said, I respectfully ask that you guys support these amendments to Chapter 14. Thank you. Thank you. Michelle Anaya, and I apologize if I did not get that name correct, followed by Haley Louie. Hello? Michelle. One over. Hi. My name is Michelle Anaya. I live in St. Petersburg, and I am an animal foster, a dog foster with a local rescue organization. And I see every day the issues from pet stores and from breeders, puppy mill breeders. So a lot of the portion of what I deal with are traumatized dogs that have come from some of these shelters, and there simply are too many animals for everyone to adopt them. So the other option is euthanization. That's why there's so much mass euthanization in the United States. There shouldn't be such a thing as selling animals while there are piles of bodies at every shelter. I mean, we're talking millions of animals a year. So it's really hard for us to keep up with all the animals, with all the dogs and cats that are coming from these mills and pet stores, from people who, you know, especially very often buy a puppy because it's cute and it's adorable. And then they realize how much work it is, and then it ends up with us. And because they neglected it, we have to deal with the aftermath of that. So I deal with this a lot. I see the suffering, and I don't understand how, in an ethical society, these for-profit companies stay in business. Their only goal, their only goal is to maintain, to make a profit, as big a profit as possible. The well-being is an afterthought. We can pretend that it's not, but it is. The only goal of these companies is to make a profit. Thank you. Thank you. Next, we have Haley, I'm not sure if that's Lowe or Louie. I apologize if I got that incorrect. Followed by Alexandra Julian. Good evening, Commissioners. My name is Haley Love. I'm a mother and an animal welfare advocate. My family owns All About Puppies. We have proudly worked alongside our breeders, community, and animal services for 30 years. For 30 years, we have stood by our puppies and our word. Today, given that the ordinance is reopened, I want to discuss the unequal application of animal welfare regulations between pet stores and rescue organizations. Pet stores in this county are subject to extensive oversight. We comply with strict sourcing requirements, veterinary protocols, extensive record keeping, random inspections, consumer disclosures, and ongoing compliance costs. Rescue organizations, however, are not held to the same level of regulation, despite handling live animals in equal and often greater numbers. If the purpose of this ordinance is animal welfare, then the standards must be applied equally, regardless of other dogs in a pet store or a rescue. The reality is that the term rescue does not automatically guarantee proper care or ethical practices. In Florida, we have seen documented cases where self-described rescues were later found to be operating unsafe in neglectful conditions. These situations were not discovered through routine oversight, but only after conditions have become deplorable. We have also seen rescue organizations in nearby counties housing dozens of animals in hoarding-like conditions while operating without valid licensing or inspections. Again, without the same regulatory scrutiny applied to pet stores. To be clear, these are not arguments against rescue, but good intentions are not a substitute for accountability. Every dog that we are discussing deserves the same standard of care. Every person welcoming a new pet into their life deserves the same level of transparency. Right now, we have a system where one group is heavily regulated, another group is largely exempt, and both are responsible for the lives and well-beings of animals. There is no justifiable reason why rescues should not meet equivalent minimum standards, including veterinary care requirements, housing and sanitation standards, transparency, record-keeping, and routine inspections. Animal welfare should not depend on a business model or a label. If the county believes regulation is necessary, and we agree that it is, then regulation must be consistent, enforceable, and fair. When one group is held to constantly involving, highly specific standards, while another handling the same live animals operates under far fewer requirements, it creates uncertainty, not just for today, but for the future. Thank you for your time and consideration. Have a good night. Thank you. Okay, next we have Alexandria Julian, who is speaking on behalf of a group. So you will have 10 minutes. Can they make sure they're here? Yeah, can you please, if you're, is Savannah Nielsen, Marilyn Watts, Courtney Stewart, Jason Smith, can you raise your hands? Okay, thank you. All right, thank you. Hello, how are you guys doing? Merry Christmas, first off, so exciting. So, good afternoon, commissioners. My name is Alexandria Julian. My family owns All About Puppies. We have been in the community for 30 years. We were recently voted by the community as best of Tampa in pet stores for 2025. I'm a mother, I'm an animal advocate, and the proud manager of All About Puppies. Before I begin, we are prepared to completely take on the new recommendations. So, just to be clear, we have full intent to do that. But with these incremental changes, it just begs the question, what is the end goal? We've watched the last 10 years, since 2016. My family has gone through this same process over and over and over again to no prevail. Our family has been publicly, our family business, has been publicly picked apart year after year. We are constantly defending, constantly educating, and have been a very loud voice for the animals in our community. With that experience, our recommendation, commissioners and chair, is to stop doing what we're doing. We keep conforming with what animal rights groups are recommending. And what's happening to the people in our industry, what's happening to my family, is not fair and it's not right. Legislation should not be decided upon, or it should be decided upon, science and veterinary framework, not animal activist pressure. There are issues here that we haven't addressed yet, that the ordinance does not address. I addressed this during our, like, most recent Zoom meeting. So, this is, just wanted to echo it here, that way everybody heard the same message. But I do have concerns with enforcement. It is obvious, after years of perfect compliance, that in recent months, something has changed. Obviously, it is possible that all the pet stores across the board started doing business drastically differently in the last couple months. But I do think that it is possible, as well, that enforcement has shifted. My original point and my original discussion in the roundtables that we've conducted is that we don't need new laws to put the bad actors out of business or to get the bad actors out of the community. We need to enforce the ones that already exist. There's so much already there that we can use to protect animals. So, again, when, or actually, side note, when the original ordinance was passed, we asked animal services to come to our store and go through with us what was expected of us as a business and what our expectations should be. That way, we knew what to do moving forward. We were kind of told that the way we interpreted it was going, like, overboard a little bit. So, they asked us to kind of simplify it a little bit more for them. And we followed this to the T from that moment on. We have not changed. We have not shifted. We do what is asked of us when we understand what is asked of us. So, with that being said, in the last year or so, it seems that the expectations changed. And with that being said, I think that as long as there's communication, we will always meet you. There will never be a problem with that. But, obviously, violations will be present in the event that there isn't communication. We don't all understand what page we're supposed to be on. So, when I'm saying the communication part, there are a few things that I think we could do while we're doing this, if it's going through no matter what, is there's some inconsistency in verbiage in the ordinance that we have versus our inspection reports. And, again, I don't think that any of this is, like, intentional or anything. I just want to make sure that everybody understands where we're coming from. But there's some inconsistencies with that in regards to our annual inspections. What we kind of experienced in the last couple years was, depending on what inspector we had, they interpreted what was on the actual report a little bit differently, depending on who it was. Examples would be, like, kennel size requirement or, like, OCVI's being on the cages. So, the verbiage isn't reflective the same in the ordinance as it is on the inspection. So, we would like to figure out how we could, you know, mitigate that. We would also like to see forms developed by the county, hopefully, where it explains to us what our expectations are in regards to reporting certain pets, as well as requirements and the breakdown of what is sufficient documentation. What exactly are we looking for whenever we say we want those veterinary protocols, the sanitation protocols, those type of things? I want to make sure that we have a full understanding of what's being expected of us so that we meet you right there. Additionally, we did discuss, and I think we will be doing it, a training with animal services where their investigators can come in and our staff will be present, so that they can get to know our staff as well as establish, like, a uniform inspection protocol. And, again, our staff knows exactly what to expect and exactly what they need to be beneficial and helpful to the inspectors when they come in. So, consistency is our big concern. We don't wish to repeat this process again. Continuing to repeat this year after year is not sustainable for a small business. I need you all to hear me whenever I say this. We are on the right side of this. We do not do the wrong thing. Uh-oh. Here goes. I have time, so I'm going to go up. We love what we do, and we're extremely proud of the work that we do. We stand behind our puppies. We stand behind our customers, our breeders, and, most of all, our word. So, for 10 years, like I said, since 2016, we have had a never-ending battle of deception. Um, when a lie is repeated often enough, people do believe it, and it's necessary for me to outline to what degree our family has tolerated the harassment, the dehumanizing rhetoric, the incessant dishonesty, the nonstop looming threat of our business, what we've created, being taken from us, or the next unnecessary regulation being the one thing that we aren't able to achieve or comply with that will inevitably put us out of business. So, this isn't the only battle. Um, it never has been. Uh, for those of you who are new to this topic or haven't heard this before, I'm just trying to make sure you get a clear picture of, like, what we've been fighting against for 10 years. Um, and for you to have a clear understanding of the bending, the, um, I apologize. I did not get to expect to get this emotional. Um, the bending, the compromise, and the effort that has gone into appeasing the groups that keep bringing us back here over and over again, that bring us back here over and over again. Um, but the goalpost is going to continue to be pushed back even after this, um, when you allow it, when you allow it to be pushed back, it will not by the community, not by community demands, but by the same people who keep bringing us back here time and time again. And that started this with our family 10 years ago that are still at the forefront of this. So, that group is unappeasable. Um, in reality, regardless of what they're saying now, their end goal is to discontinue the retail sale of pets, period. No matter how well we or our breeders operate. Their goal is to end that. That's been the goal for the last 10 years, and I'm sure before that. Um, it's not politically palatable for them to say that they want to ban pet stores anymore. So, they say things like, we need more regulation. We need more oversight. Um, you know, it's for the animals. But in reality, I do think that 400 citations and a revoked license speaks to the contrary. I think we've got the right thing happening here. I think we just need to make sure that we're following what we said we're going to do. Um, my gran wasn't able to be here today, but I wanted to make sure that I got her message across. Um, she wanted to make sure that it was a clear message that after every enforce, or every ordinance, after every rule change, every adjustment, the way we care for our dogs never changed in 30 years. We still take top quality care of our dogs. We still love them every single day. That's not a rule that you can make. It's just who we are. That's not going to change. This ordinance won't change it. We'll still be operating our business to the full, you know, capacity that we were. Might add a little bit more paperwork, but the quality of care, it's always been there, and it always will be. Um, and anyway, to close up, in some version of the future, if our children, we all have little babies now, um, and if our children decide to take over what their grandma and grandpa and great-grandma and grandpa started, it's our responsibility to make sure that they don't inherit this with it. So, our goal is to make sure that you guys have a full picture of what's going on and that our kids don't have to fight this fight. So, we're going to fight it for them. So, as my grandmother would say, we may sit, we may stay, but we will never rule over. I appreciate you guys so much, and Merry Christmas. Thank you. Okay, now we have, uh, Sarah Mitchell, uh, which will then be followed by, uh, Anna Cook, uh, that is on Zoom. Good evening. My name is Sarah Mitchell. I apologize for my appearance. I just came from a nine-hour workday, but this is a very important topic to me, so I had to be here. Um, I just wanted to start out by saying I actually worked with All About Puppies about 10, 11 years ago. Um, my family purchased a miniature Pomeranian from them. Um, pretty much immediately, we realized something was wrong. Uh, she had kennel cough, which we came to find out after we took her to our vet because All About Puppies would not do anything about it. Um, they claimed they were not reliable, sorry, responsible, um, or liable in that case. Um, it was a miniature Pomeranian. She was a great dog, don't get me wrong. And kennel cough is a very common respiratory illness, um, but still something that should not be happening. While I was there, I was young at the time. I'm pretty young now. Um, but I observed a lot of dogs with very obvious copephragia. Um, if you're not aware of what that is, it's a nutrient deficiency that causes dogs to eat their own feces. Um, it's pretty awful. I observed several different dogs doing that, including a golden retriever, um, a yellow lab, several puppies. Um, and I just, I don't want consumers purchasing sick animals. Um, they're not built for it. They're not, they shouldn't have to go through that. Um, I just, I want this to pass so that we can get some serious change in this county. Because I've lived here my entire life, um, long-time resident, obviously, of Largo, specifically. Um, and I just, I need to see some change here. I'm tired of these animals being put to sleep because they don't have people to adopt them. Um, I've fostered countless dogs and cats through several different rescues in the area. Um, and I just, I see the change that can happen, and I would like it to. Um, I've seen recently, as well, blue sky puppies, um, got in trouble, some serious trouble, um, for falsifying veterinary records for their puppies. Um, obviously, this is unrelated to all about, um, but I just, it's awful. It's awful with the conditions that these dogs are subjected to both before and after getting to the stores. Um, I've seen some of these puppy mill footage, um, some of the puppy mill footage, um, of several different ones around the country. And, uh, it's just, it's awful. Um, once they start getting dogs from ethical breeders, I think I would be more interested in speaking with them as far as, you know, adopting or just even, um, appreciating what they do. Um, but as far as that goes, I believe that's all. Thank you very much, and have a great night. All right, uh, Derry Lynn, is Anna Cook on Zoom? No, she's not. Okay, all right, well, if she comes on, let me know. All right, um, what, um, is the will of the board? Staff presentation? Okay, all right, okay. Line up, Jennifer. And you want to talk, probably, about the process, too, so, okay. Good evening. Good evening, Commissioners. Jennifer Renner, Director of Pinellas County Animal Services. I appreciate the opportunity to present these recommendations to you. We've been working on them for quite some time. The objectives you see up here cover all of our recommendations. First, to strengthen oversight of retail pet sales in 1429, which also includes pet dealers, kennels, and hobby breeders. To protect animal welfare in the county, as well as pet owners and consumers who purchase puppies. Also, to restore definitions that were unintentionally removed in a previous revision. Those definitions clarify other terms throughout our ordinance, so they're important to the integrity of the ordinance. Also, we're recommending modifying our reporting methods, especially for public nuisance animals. This will help provide better service to our residents. And then modernizing disaster impoundment processes. This current process has unnecessary long hold times for the animals and does not actually reflect all of the proactive strategies that Pinellas County has put in place to make sure pets are part of every disaster plan. I'd like to start with 1429 with retail pet sale recommendations. Like I said, this also includes your pet dealers, hobby breeders, and kennels. This work started about two years ago with my predecessor, Doug Brightwell. And the board had asked for us to begin researching ways to strengthen this part of the ordinance. When I became interim director last year in May, I picked up where he left off and brought you some recommendations in February of this year. And I really appreciated all of your feedback. It helped to shape all of the recommendations that I brought to you today. And after that, we actually held stakeholder meetings at the shelter with our retail pet store owners, rescue leadership, licensed veterinarians, as well as our local Florida Animal Protection and Advocacy Association leadership. And we had a lot of great conversation. We actually, one meeting turned into two. We had several teams meetings after that as well to make sure that we had everything down in the ordinance, everything clarified and ready to go. From there, and to put this next part into context, we had six pet stores at the time of all of those conversations. And we now have five. You'll recall back in July, an investigation, a complaint investigation, led to the discovery of 177 puppies housed in one of our retail pet stores. They were being housed in unsanitary, crowded conditions. Many of them were sick and had not been given any kind of veterinary care. We also discovered a deceased puppy at the store. And that led to the discovery of 70 more deceased puppies that were not reported to Pinellas County Animal Services over the course of two years. And all of the severity of that investigation led to the revocation of the permit and closure of that store. And so that one investigation does justify the need that the board saw to look at this section of our ordinance and to strengthen it. The first part of our recommendations involves our inspection process and humane housing standards. We're recommending that we increase unannounced permit inspections from one to two annually to ensure that the standards are met throughout the entire year and not just once a year during inspection. For those pet stores that are still using 100% graded flooring in the kennels, we're recommending covering at least 50% of that surface to allow the puppies to have a comfortable place to lay as well as to protect their paws, which is a national best practice standard. The next section involves protocols and transparency. We already require an isolation protocol in our ordinance for all the pet stores. If a puppy becomes sick, they need to be moved to a separate area with separate ventilation, receive veterinary care, and once the veterinarian releases them and gives them the okay for sale, they go back out onto the sales floor. We're also asking to recommend protocols for veterinary care, especially when those emergencies always happen on evenings, weekends, and holidays. A disaster plan, which most of our pet stores already give to us. This really helps us to be proactive and plan in the event of an emergency. Enrichment protocols. We find it's very important for puppies especially to get out of their kennel, to socialize with other puppies, and have something to mentally and physically stimulate them inside their kennels as well. And then cleaning and sanitation protocols. And as you heard Allie from All About Puppies say, they did ask us to provide templates, and we're happy to do that. And this also gives our officers a great opportunity to collaborate with the pet store owners and share some of the knowledge that we have, some of the best practices that we learn from organizations like University of Florida when they visit our shelter to give us this same type of protocol. For transparency, we're asking for our consumers, for consumer protection, that the official certificate of veterinary inspection for each puppy, which is the OCVI, it's basically a health certificate, that it is posted on the front of every puppy kennel. This gives the consumer information on where the puppy was obtained, so the breeder's information. It talks about all the vaccines that they had. It lists all their medical conditions. Anything preexisting that the consumer would need to be aware of is on the OCVI. So having that on the front of the kennel would help our consumers to understand exactly what their commitment is going to be. And we're asking that the pet lemon law information, which is a Florida state law, is also on the front of the kennel. Or a notification on where the consumer can read that information. So if the puppy was unfit for purchase, the consumer knows right away what their rights are. They can return the puppy, exchange the puppy. They can get veterinary reimbursement as well. And so that is in place to protect our consumers. Our next set of recommendations, reporting enhancements. This also came out of our stakeholder meetings with the pet stores. They talked to us about how cumbersome the paperwork process is. We get giant boxes of paperwork delivered to the shelter every single month that contains all the point-of-sale forms, OCVIs, medical documentation. And the pet stores let us know this is a burden for them. And they were concerned about administrative violations piling up because of missing paperwork. So our field services manager who is here tonight, James McGill, he worked with our Pinellas County Business Technologies Department and developed a unique portal and SharePoint for each pet store. They can log in and at the time of the sale, type in everything on the point-of-sale with the consumer in front of them, submit that, upload the forms, everything is done efficiently, and there's less chance of missing anything. So for both the retail pet stores and for us, it helps to increase our efficiencies to get this data updated in the system quickly. We also are recommending the pet stores submit an animal transport list every single month. The animal transport list will detail all the puppies coming into the county, those that are alive, deceased as well, and that will give us the ability to track the puppies through to the point-of-sale. If the puppy does die while it's under the care of the pet store, we're asking the pet stores to report that within three business days to us instead of 15, which is currently in our ordinance. This will allow us to get ahead of anything that's potentially contagious or infectious, and that could be a community concern for pets or for people. And if veterinary care is not provided, we're asking a necropsy be required as well, and that should be performed at an unaffiliated agency. A veterinarian that doesn't work at the store would perform that necropsy to determine what the cause of death was, and that's only if veterinary care was not provided to the puppy. This last part was very much shaped by your feedback at that February workshop. We discussed permit revocation and suspension criteria quite a bit. I heard from the board that you would like something more of a tiered approach, which we looked into and we discussed quite a bit. We narrowed down the enforcement action here to cruelty or neglect violations. So we're looking at the more severe animal welfare violations here. Citations for those two can be written to the maximum allowable amount, which is currently $500. And the pet dealer permit can be temporarily suspended for up to seven days. But we built in a three-day officer follow-up. They'll go into the store, work with the pet store owners, see how they're going toward compliance, and that pet dealer permit can be reinstated at any time. As soon as compliance is reached, it can be reinstated. If noncompliance still is happening in the pet stores, we can renew that suspension at that time. And I will point out in our most updated revision, we did take out disease risk as a reason for renewing the suspension, realizing that noncompliance is the reason for the renewal. So noncompliance of the initial violation. Jennifer? Yes. Hold on one second. So administrative violations, will they require a suspension? They do not. Is that written? Because when I read your clean copy, I saw that nowhere. I did not see that written anywhere. This specifically applies to animal cruelty or neglect only. It starts with that type of violation to start this action. Okay. Just so it's clear, I did not see anywhere where it wrote that administrative citations would require a suspension. Correct. But it's not written anywhere, and I'm uncomfortable with that. So that I would like to see put in writing, because that wasn't the case recently. And so I would definitely want that in writing, because this to me doesn't make it clear. And we get some new employees, and I don't want the risk of some kind of suspension, because of an administrative citation, which has been problematic to begin with. So I would like to see some clarity in writing. If we have to make a motion to amend it for that clarity, I think it's really important. We'll go to Commissioner Eggers, and then we'll go to Commissioner... Microphone. What administrative violations are? Administrative violations are generally missing paperwork. And so if there's missing paperwork, we're generally going to ask the pet store to provide that to us. If they cannot provide it, then a citation may be issued. And we work with the attorney. And so if the pet store does receive a lot of multiple administrative violations, the attorney is able to reduce the fine amount or run them concurrent once the pet store comes into compliance. So administrative violations are generally missing paperwork. Not missing actions, like, you know, the paperwork for sending a dog to a vet that's sick. No, that would... The fact that the dog went to the vet is the most important thing. The paperwork missing would just be an administrative... Correct. So if it's found that veterinary care was not provided to a sick animal, that would fall under neglect. That would be an animal welfare issue, not administrative. But if it was sent, like it should have been sent to the... Correct. But the paperwork wasn't filed, necessarily. That's just an administrative problem. Correct. Just for clarity, some citations were for font size. And a font size should not require a suspension, is my point. They're not suggesting that either. I know. That's why I want to clarify that there have been citations issued for things as simple as a font size, and that should never... And that's my point. Something like that should never lead to a suspension. And so administrative stuff that's strictly the paperwork has nothing to do with animal welfare. Right. So I'm clear. Correct. Nothing to do with animal welfare, because I'm a huge supporter of animal welfare. But I don't want inappropriate punishment for paperwork, is my point. So just for clarity, I just want to make sure you understand that there have been some citations that were, to me, frivolous. Barry, real quick, then we'll go to... To be clear, when passed violations, they go in and they write up animal welfare issues, then they would write up administrative issues. They were all lumped together. Violations that were severe, such as suspensions, were not because of the administrative issues. They were for the animal welfare issues. And so people can pick out of the whole list. Staff has already modified that process to where it's going to be very clear you're being suspended because of an animal welfare issue. But while we were there, you were missing this paperwork and this paperwork and this paperwork, which you need to correct. But that was not the reason for the action. Commissioner Lovell. Thank you, Mr. Chair. One of your first slides mentioned two unannounced visits per year. Yes. Theoretically, could one of your inspectors go on a Monday, find some issues with a pet store and ding them for those issues, and then have the second unannounced visit the next day on a Tuesday before those issues could be remedied, and then ding them again? That is not – so the way that we run, our enforcement department is run, is a very consistent and standardized manner. And so if they find an issue at a pet store, first step is to educate and see, you know, is this something that we may have missed? Is this something that we can assist you with? Is this something that you're missing that you can produce to us? We're always going to educate first. If they don't have that information, we can write a citation, but we're going to then, like you said, the next day, we can come in and we can follow up. But we wouldn't do another full formal permit inspection. We would go in, follow up, make sure that they're in compliance, and then move forward from there. Roughly, and I know you probably can't say it, but roughly, like what would be the time period between unannounced visits? Would it be weeks, months, days? I would personally within months. I would like to make sure that those standards are applied – the upgraded standards are applied throughout the entire year. And so we would want to split those up in a way that we're able to monitor that and make sure that the animal welfare standards are upheld. Thank you. You're welcome. Commissioner Scherr. Yes, thank you, Chair. Are you still chair? For another 30 minutes or so. I had a few questions. What is the – who determines a neglect violation? Who can issue that? A neglect violation would be determined by the officer. An officer can walk in, issue one, and close the business down for seven days. The officer would have to consult with supervision. So they have supervisors, and then they also have, of course, me, the director. They would have to consult with us first. We would review all the documentation and move forward from there. And under – there's – under convicted of cruelty by – if they're convicted by cruelty, they can be convicted by state, federal, or local law. Who would convict – who would be issuing convictions of cruelty? Would that be a court? Convictions of cruelty would, yes, be through a court. The criminal cruelty is through our assistant state attorney's office. If I go to one of the puppy stores and I buy a puppy, I have to give my name, address, all that, so you have to know who I am and why am I buying a puppy and where I'm going with it? We do – so we do keep a record of all the puppies. All the point-of-sale forms do include the person that purchased the puppy. We put that into our system, and if they're a Pinellas County resident, then we will be – you'll be on our list to receive licensing reminders. So that's for our licensing reminder system. What if I don't want to be on your list? You would receive reminders from us. I don't want to be on your list, period. I just want to go in a puppy store and buy a puppy. I don't – I'm not sure how the retail pet stores handle those situations. On page 26, I found this very interesting that you can be found in violation of this – of the nuisance animal. You can be found in violation of your permit if somebody brings you video documentation or a picture and signs an affidavit. Any citizen can walk in and shut a puppy store down for seven days. Oh, I'm sorry, Commissioner Scheer, that's related to Section 1430, public nuisance animals, and that is a completely different topic, and I do have slides on that. Okay, so if somebody takes a picture, a video, and brings it to you and files a complaint about a store operator, you don't do anything with that? No, this – so this does not apply – that section does not apply to stores. That only applies to public nuisance behaviors, like animals that are running at large, that are defecating on lawns and the pet owners aren't picking it up, noises, and things of that nature. If somebody comes in and has a complaint against a pet store, they can't do it in an anonymous way. And so we will take that complaint, and then we'll send an officer out to investigate the complaint. So a public complaint can't shut down our store with video evidence? It wouldn't necessarily shut down a store. It would just initiate an investigation. And we do receive quite a few complaints every year against retail pet stores for various reasons, and we send an officer out to investigate that complaint. I just ask him because, you know, I see a lot of videos online that are not real, and I didn't know if you were capable of determining whether or not they're real or not. So – and then one other thing, I remember this conversation from February very well, and I noticed that you still have the requirement in there on if an animal dies that they provide you with an autopsy or necropop – I can never say that word right. A decropsy. A decropsy. But you don't let their own vets provide that. Why can't you use their veterinarian? Why do you need a third party and you don't trust the veterinarians? A necropsy would only be required if the puppy did not receive veterinary care. So the in-store veterinarians would generally provide the care. But if care wasn't provided, we're asking the necropsy to be performed at an unaffiliated veterinarian to substantiate exactly what the cause of death was. Okay. Well, I do remember this conversation from February, and I think at the time I remember saying that you were doing such a good job policing this industry. You didn't need any more policing. That's me. All right. Commissioner Nowicki, and then we'll get on with the presentation. Thank you. Thank you. For this, I guess, Section 1429, I guess, Age 9, maybe Paragraph M, where it talks about a special magistrate, if there's a denied, you know, a permit, that they can go to the special magistrate. And there was that they had to furnish a copy of determination within seven business days, but then that was crossed out. So I guess, you know, my concern would be with that, then, like, have the business shut down, and then, like, a special magistrate could hold up a ruling because we're not having, like, a timeline for them to review. I remember going through here, and this is certainly something legal that our attorney did review, and they do have five business days to request a review of the permit revocation. And then from there, it does move to the special magistrate to have an impartial hearing to determine if it was warranted. Right. And it says on the seventh full business day after receipt, you know, that they should furnish that determination on the seventh full business day after receipt of request for review. And that part's been crossed out. So I guess, you know, my concern is, like, a business. It's like, well, they could be held up by, you know, a special magistrate because there's no timeline. You know, we crossed out the timeline, I guess. I believe the special magistrate, and again, I'm not in the legal field, but I believe the special magistrate determines the decision at that time during the hearing. So that decision is made right then and there. And so, like, if they request a review by the special magistrate, it's instant, or is there? We schedule that, yes. We schedule the special magistrate. It's a scheduled hearing, and there's a court reporter there. It's official. And at that time, a decision is made. So that would be the appeal process. Yeah, I guess I just, like, it seems like we had a timeline for that appeal process with the seventh full business day, but now it seems like it's correct. At that point, though, the pet dealer permit would have already been revoked. And so then at that point, the pet store owner would request a review by the special magistrate, but the pet dealer permit would have been revoked for reasons of animal welfare, so severe animal welfare violations. Yeah, I mean, I get that. You know, I just believe that we should spell out the timeline, you know, so I don't know if I would feel comfortable moving forward with this, you know, without that timeline spelled out. You know, someone can be a bad actor, yes, but I think that they have a right to have their day in court, if you will. And so if this is their day in court and we remove the timeline of that process being dragged out, you know, I don't necessarily feel too comfortable with that. And then while we're still on 1429, you know, that section, you know, I guess I'm a little confused when we talk about, like, ventilation. I know maybe you haven't gotten that into the slides, but, like, animal care, physical facility requirements, ventilation, cages. It's specifically for pet dealerships, kennels, and hobby breeders. But is it not for humane organizations and private animal nonprofit organizations? So originally, 1429 was, is written for retail pet stores, pet dealers, kennels, as well as hobby breeders. Those sections were only related to commercial establishments. And one of the first things I asked is to remove that is only applicable to commercial establishments and to apply that to all those that are in that category, the commercial for-profit category. And so I asked all of those requirements to extend to pet dealers, kennels, hobby breeders, as well as retail pet stores. We wanted to create parity within 1429. As far as humane organizations, they're under different standards. So humane organizations and animal shelters fall under Florida state law. They fall under statutes 823 and 828. And non-profit rescues are also required to be inspected by us if they transfer animals out from us. And we also hold them to the standards, the same cruelty and neglect standards, in Chapter 14. But not humane organizations or private, non-profit organizations? Correct. They're not in 1429, but they're still held to the standards of Chapter 14 in all other areas, and Florida state statutes as well. And we do inspect rescues, like I said, that pull from us, and we also investigate complaints against rescues, and we have written citations as well. Can we add them to 1429 for those categories just so it's equal across the board for this great standard of care? So, Commissioner Nowicki, this was brought up when we met with the pet stores, and so it was brought up online. I think Dan brought that up and asked for us to look at that. We agreed to look at that. But we've obviously been working on this particular piece around the pet stores at the board's direction for months. So we said we would take a look at that and bring that back at a later date if we thought there were other things that we could do. Okay, yeah, I mean, I just would like to see, you know, if it's the will of the board to have this, you know, good animal welfare standards that it should be for all to have to follow, not just a few. I'll yield back so we can move forward. Thank you. All right, why don't we continue with the presentation? Okay, so when we began revising Chapter 14, we worked closely with the attorney, and we saw other areas in Chapter 14 that needed some modernization to help streamline operations and to better serve our residents. One of the recommendations related to definitions, like I mentioned before, these were accidentally removed during a revision in 2022, and they are needed to clarify terms within Chapter 14. So we're recommending that these get put back into Section 1426, and we are recommending two new definitions to modernize our language, including photographic and video documentation, which are, you know, pretty much every resident has a cell phone. There you can snap pictures, videos. They have ring door cams as well as dash cams, and this will enable us, they can assist us with collecting evidence. What it really pertains to is this section here, which is public nuisance reporting. Public nuisance behaviors are like dogs that are chasing and menacing people. Like I said, pet littering on neighbors' lawns, and it's not being cleaned up. Noise, like barking, whining, and howling. Those are all examples of public nuisance behavior. And what you see there on the left is an extremely complicated time frame for our residents to be able to report a noise violation. You see there it has to occur on two separate dates within a three-day period for more than one sustained period of 15 minutes over the course of eight hours. Which basically is something that is completely impossible for them to, a time frame for them to achieve in order to report a noise violation. And in addition to that, they have to submit two affidavits from two separate households to report it. So we are recommending that we remove that complex time frame to better serve our residents. The behavior still has to meet the definition of a public nuisance. It still needs to be repeated and continuous. And we recommend that the board add in that they can submit a single affidavit as long as it comes along with video and photo documentation. And all those changes will help to better serve our residents and allow our officers to get out into the field. So they no longer have to close a case because of technicality. They can get out in the field, act on our residents' behalf, educate, and help to mediate some of these nuisance behaviors. And our final recommendation is relevant to Section 1448, disaster impoundment practices, which occurs when we're under a local state of emergency. We're asking the board, we're recommending to the board, that we update these disaster plans. So we have a lot of data. We've been tested numerous times. We've been through Irma, Ian, Adalia, Milton, and Helene. So we have a lot of data that shows that these extended hold times that we have in here that were put in post-Katrina. And so it's outdated language. It doesn't reflect all of the proactive strategies we've implemented to include pets in all of our disaster preparedness plans. And so we're asking for the board to set a standard 14-day hold for all animals impounded during disasters. And we found, looking at our average reclaim rates, that animals that were impounded during disasters were reclaimed within three business days. And so this 14-day hold will give residents enough time to get back to normal and to get in and to reclaim their pets. And it also aligns with all of our surrounding counties and their practices as well. And then also we're recommending to eliminate that 120-day adoption return clause. It's been in there for about 20 years, and we have never enacted that return clause. So it basically says if a pet is adopted, if it's been impounded during the disaster, adopted out, and the owner comes back for the pet, that we have to return it to them if they come back within 120 days. We have never needed to invoke that adoption return clause. And all it does is inhibits our rescue partners from transferring animals out when we need them the most to assist us when we're at capacity. And so standardizing to a 14-day hold will reduce that unnecessarily long hold time, which is up to 30 days, which ends up leading to, of course, disease outbreaks in an animal shelter. Those are all my recommendations. All right. Commissioner Agnes? Yeah. Just a couple of things that have been brought up with questions. So making stories up about pet stores. In other words, somebody takes a fake video or something and says this is happening at such and such a puppy store, and they report it to you, and you send somebody out there to investigate that action. If it was fake, there shouldn't be anything there at the store. I'm just making sure I follow the loop here. If they go there and there is something going on, and yet the video was fake to get somebody there for something that they saw, I mean, I'm just not sure that I understand the issue. The issue really is about taking care of our animals and raising the standard for a business that takes care of animals. I mean, I would think it would be a really tough business. I'm not, again, I'm not saying it's easy, but if the concern is like the one owner that was here speaking about emotionally about all of the pressures that they felt, you know, and I get that. I mean, I'm not living in her shoes, so I don't totally understand it, but I get it, and it's not fair, and it's not right. But again, if they're doing the right job and to the extent that we're providing those additional pallets or those portals, if you will, or platforms to reach out, I mean, I think we can ferret through those who are misrepresenting the truth and turning stores in. I mean, there's two unannounced visits, but there could be other visits. But again, if you're living up to the standard, then you separate yourself maybe from your competitors. It's not necessarily a bad thing. So come see my store. I'm just wanting to make sure that I get what you would do. We don't take any action based on public input except to visit the store. Correct. If the complaint was filed. Correct. Most complaints are called in, and we can't take anonymous complaints. They have to give their name and information. They call in. An officer goes out, greets the store owner, looks around the store to make sure the complaint is not something warranted, and they move on. Yeah, I mean, again, I think one of the comments that was made was being concerned about what an end goal is. And for the record, my end goal is to make sure that their existing business performed to high standards for living creatures. That's simple. There are many other counties that don't have retail stores. So if that was my goal, that's where I would go for. I'm not going for that. I'm going for good behavior by stores and following the rules and regulations that live animals deserve, period. And so it is a tough business. It is a high standard. It's not easy. I get it. But I do want to make sure that that distinction is made about people just randomly calling or randomly sending you stuff that we're going to take all this action on that basis alone is just not true. That's correct. The only action we take is based on evidence. It has to be a documented violation, and our officers will always consult with supervision before any action is taken. I got to follow up on that. So, and I understand what you're saying, but that doesn't mean there aren't bad actors that love animals so much and don't want to see them in a cage. And that will report, and just like people will falsely accuse people of child abuse or they will falsely accuse people of things, these people have been targeted. And I believe that we should have a policy that if people are false reporting, false accusing, and harassing because they are falsely accusing them on a regular basis, then there should be repercussions for false reporting because these people can be on the, I mean, really, the stress of some of the things that I have heard about what has happened to them on that side from false reporting. I mean, they spend their whole life worrying that, oh my God, I got another false report, I got another false report. And at some point, it's against the law to continue false reporting. So I feel that if we constantly get these reports and we get three, four, five, 10 reports from the same person, then to me that should go to the sheriff's department, no different than a child abuse case when you're false reporting. I think false reporting is false reporting. And in my opinion, if we're looking for animal welfare, I want to see total animal welfare. And I completely agree on animal welfare. And I think that this proposal is premature. I've told Barry, I think it was too soon and we weren't ready. I've told you, I don't think we're ready. I think the beginning process was poorly done. I believe you bought the product to the animal welfare people before you ever talked to the retail people, which I think was poorly done. You have remedied that. You have remedied a lot of things that I thought were poorly done and unprofessional. And I appreciate what you've done. So you have been diligent to make sure that we remedy the problems. And I really appreciate that. And so I don't want to come across, sometimes I get emotional, I sound angry and I'm not. But I really appreciate it. I want to publicly say you have done a great job. And Matt, you've done a great job at trying to remedy some of the missteps. Let's just call them missteps. There were some missteps. But I feel, and you just had one store owner that said she didn't feel that this was ready, that there were still things in there that they're not comfortable with. But me, in general, what I would have rather seen is a comprehensive animal welfare ordinance. And that's not what this is. To me, this is picking winners and losers. You've picked out just a small group and you didn't look at the rescues and the shelters. And I think that this ordinance should have been a total animal welfare thing. So you don't have, let's see, you don't have any kind of ordinance for, God, I wrote them down, some of my writing I can't even read, minimum standards for examination by a vet, for heartworm tests, for cat tests, for ventilation, for cages. Now, rescues get puppies too. Rescues will get a whole litter. Now, do those litters have to be in separate cages? Do those litters have to be in the same size cage as a retail store? Do those litters have to separate each puppy so there's not overcrowding in a rescue? My intuition says no, but I'm going to ask that question of you. So when we inspect rescues, generally your private rescues are working out of homes. And so they have foster homes that take in puppies and so they're not keeping them generally in kennels. And we do, like I said, we do inspect them annually if they are pulling dogs and cats from us. So we are inspecting them. And then if they are not providing veterinary care to the puppies, they can be written a neglect citation. And so they do also, they are under chapter 14, cruelty, neglect, animal care, manner of keeping. They are under that ordinance as well, the private rescues. Right, but we aren't checking for food and water and we're not checking for vaccinations and we're not checking for heartworm like we are in a retail store. And so no different than SBCA, right? A non-profit that isn't in a home, I'm not talking about foster. I think foster is a whole different animal. And I don't even know where to begin on foster, right? Other than neglect. But if you're talking about a rescue shelter, then I don't think a rescue shelter should be any different. I think when you talk about animal welfare, you're talking about animal welfare. And whether it's our shelter, if we get a litter of puppies, do we separate all those puppies so there's not overcrowding? So we have larger kennels. So it all depends on the kennel size. Okay, so what I'm saying is you've got requirements for their kennel size. We have bigger kennels. They can't put dogs together to snuggle and be warm. But when we get a litter of puppies, we don't separate them, right? So we have a different standard. Is that correct? So it all depends on the kennel size. You don't want to have overcrowding either because overcrowding then breeds disease. So you need... I mean, and I guess that's my point. So what I would have preferred to see is that we had a comprehensive animal welfare policy that covered shelters, covers the county shelter. I mean, everybody should be held to the same kind of standard. I don't think we should be just picking winners and losing and pick one, right? I think the boutique breeders, we need to do a lot more with the boutique breeders. I think... I don't think we scratch the surface with boutique breeders. And so I just feel that, you know, and if we're going to push this forward, I know this was important to Commissioner Eggers. If we're going to push this forward, you're going to get a yes from me. I'm not liking that I'm going to give you a yes. And the only reason I don't like it is because I don't think it was ready. And I think it should have been a more comprehensive policy. This isn't new to Barry. This is not new to Matt. They've heard me say this for months now. They've heard the retail people say we should have parity. And so this is not a surprise. This isn't a surprise to you, Jennifer. You've heard this. So I believe that this came to us too soon. And it should have been a comprehensive animal welfare package that looked at all animal welfare because clearly we all love our animals. And I just think it should have been comprehensive with parity and really looked at because, you know, I don't know, are you checking when they're bringing in pets from out of state? Because state law says clearly there's within so many days you have to check their transportation. Within so many days you have to see if there's a veterinarian check. But when you and I talked about this, you said, well, we rarely check those. And so I think we can do better. I just think we can do better. And I think this might be a start, but I think it just isn't complete. And so, and I'm going to say all this because the last thing I want is to become Californian. I meant to print a bunch of these, but this article is so long. And I can get you articles from every single state that got rid of retail sales. And this is one out of California that because they eliminated retail sales, their underground market, their black market for puppies is so out of control. And the abuse is so unbelievable and they can't rein it in because they eliminated retail sales. And the minute we go so far to close down these five stores, then we have this problem that California has. And I will never be okay with having our retail stores shut down because that's going to be the result. And this result would be disastrous. And so that's my biggest fear is that we do so much to hurt one industry for animal welfare that we end up with the worst animal welfare in the country like California has right now. And so that's my biggest fear. I've shared that with you. That is my biggest fear. But I just feel that this isn't ready and it should be more comprehensive and be inclusive of everything and really tackle animal welfare on the big picture instead of piecemealing it and picking winners and losers. And I feel like this is picking winners and losers. Sorry, that's my soapbox and I apologize. But that's just how I feel. I think we should look at the bigger picture and not silo it. Commissioner Latval and the Commissioner Eggers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Going to the reporting of complaints that would trigger one of your folks going to visit a pet store. You can do them by phone, correct? Correct. So theoretically, a gentleman from Orlando could call that has never been to Pinellas County and say, I went to such and such pet store and I saw all of these things that had happened. And then one of your folks would say, you know, we don't take anonymous complaints. What is your name? And he could say, oh, my name is Dave Eggers or just make up a name. So there would really be no way of verifying that that person has ever even been to Pinellas County or is a Pinellas County resident and are verifying their identity. And they could just be some sort of activist and that has a grudge against these stores. Is that accurate? That is possible. I mean, it used to be that anyone could complain against anyone. It could be anonymous until the governor changed that rule. And now they do. And we do require the name, phone number, address, but you're right. They could potentially give a false name. Okay. First, I'd like to, you know, if you can, and again, I'm not, I absolutely want to move forward with this tonight, but if you want to, you know, provide a list of phone calls and stuff that, you know, ended up being a fake report, I'd like to see it. So if you get a hundred phone calls and you go out and you find zero, sounds like there's a lot of BS going on. You get a hundred phone calls and you find 90, that maybe there's some validity to it. I mean, I just, you know, I think that's something that you guys probably already track because the last thing we're wanting to do is having harassment. Again, if you go out there and the problem is there, there's a problem. So, I don't know, these other, the, like, the Humane Society and those kinds of organizations, they don't have county licenses, right, for the animals? Or what's the, how do they license? They're regulated by the Department of Professional Regulations and so they are also subject to unannounced permit inspections, permit inspections. And if they also have a veterinary clinic on site, they would also be subject to DEA, unannounced inspections as well for controlled substance logs and so forth and different drugs that they use. They also are governed by Florida statutes, like I mentioned. And all of our local humane organizations also carry multiple accreditations as far as, like, the Association of Shelter Veterinary Medicine, excuse me, fear-free certifications. They, the standards of care are very high at these organizations and they do these voluntary accreditations. And what's the average price that those organizations get per animal? and when they sell them retail? I'm not talking about the retail, but I'm talking about the, like, the adoption fees? What are the charges? Average, I'm sorry, I, our average fee is $40 for an adult dog and it's $120 for a puppy and that covers everything. We are required by Florida state statute to mandatory sterilize every single animal that comes into our care. Humane organizations are also mandated to sterilize all the animals that come into their care. The other organizations, I know Humane Society is generally their adoption fee is somewhere around $100 for an adoption fee. I apologize, I have not been... It's okay, the point being it's not, it's not typically in the thousands. We're, you know, we're talking under $100 and are these locations, I mean, at least the last time that I visited, there seemed to be riddled, in a good word, with volunteers. Correct. I see lots of volunteers. Hundreds. Typically like animals. I guess if you're going to volunteer at a place like that, you kind of like animals. I think they have a little bit of an internal watchdog right there. If there's issues, I mean, it's not like they go there to make a lot of money. It's not like they go there to... So I think it's one of those things where they're there to do something good, give back. Yes, the public service. If you see something being mismanaged or misused, I would imagine they're going to get a lot of internal reporting. Just imagining. And again, just to be clear, we're not talking about closures. We're not talking about closing the stores. So to say that the black market would rise up if we're going to close stores, I'm not necessarily disagreeing, but that's not our action tonight. We're not closing stores. We are trying to raise the standard, raise accountability, and I think that is a good thing. I mean, so we err on the side a little bit of animals. Okay, I'm guilty. But we can bring it back again. If we have to tweak things going forward, the path forward is not always stricter. It can be, well, we went too far with this, or we can add a little bit more to assist us in the process. I don't think it has to be all or nothing the first time around. If it is, we'll never have an ordinance change because there's never going to be a perfect system. Yeah, I think this is a great improvement over where we were. I'd like to see it play out. If we've gone too far, we tweak it back. If we haven't gone far enough in one little area, maybe we go a little further. Not about closing stores. That's all I've got. Thank you. Did you have anything, Barry? After the debate, trying to address some of the concerns that were raised, we have a suggestion. Got it. All right. Thank you, Jennifer. I just got it. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Thank you, Chair. Would we say these are like these new standards, policies, procedures, obviously, are to protect the public and the animals? Correct. Are these like the best things we could be doing? I think our ordinance already has protections in it, but these will strengthen those protections for our consumers and for public health, public safety, and animal welfare. I do agree this will strengthen them, and as Vice Chair Edgar said, on an incremental basis to make the county healthier for animals and for people. Yeah, I mean, I obviously support that. You know, I adopted my 10-year-old little pit mix Stella, you know, and she's my best girl, and I love her. Though I got an email earlier today that said, you know, that standards that we vote on tonight would be like similar standards in places for like restaurants, and then that got me thinking it's with these improved standards, but we don't freeze the creation of new restaurants, but yet we don't allow any new pet retail. So if we're improving these standards and strengthening them and making them so great, wouldn't animal welfare be better off to be done here in Pinellas County than anywhere else? So why would we limit the market, not allow the market, to flourish here in Pinellas County if we have and are voting on these best standards that we could possibly have? And so to me, you know, voting on this tonight, you know, from a free market standpoint, these are great standards, and I care about animal welfare a lot, and I've met with the activists, I've met with people that own the pet retail stores and went to their stores, but yet there's a few things that I don't feel comfortable with, like the special magistrate and us not allowing any new stores if these standards are solving the problems. So that's how I feel. Thank you, Chair. Okay. Jennifer, thank you, thank you very much. This has been a, something we've been talking about for a long time, and you've had a very challenging position of trying to moderate both sides of this here. And I, you know, obviously as an animal lover myself, I want to do everything that we can to improve the welfare of animals. But I'm also a business owner, and I don't want to see any industry die of the death of a thousand cuts. So, I mean, there are times when, you know, standards do need to be raised. It happens in my industry. Sometimes I agree with it, sometimes I don't, but I have to live with it, right? So, and I think, you know, we've identified some areas here, some areas that we can look at the future to improve some things, probably maybe on both sides of the equation, and I think Mr. Nuwiki is bringing up a good point here too. If we are going to have the best of the best, then why should we only have five? I think that's a conversation for another day. But the one thing I want to just be absolutely clear on is a point that Commissioner Peters brought up, is no revocation for admin violations. I just, is there, and maybe this is more of a jewel question, no, is there any way, any loophole, any vagary, any gray area where it would be possible to shut a store down for administrative or form and manner type items? So, rather than Jennifer answer that, that's, that was one of the two clarifications. There's two items that were raised tonight. One is around, could, could you have an administrative violation where you could have a suspension? It could be under the interpretation, and Joel has a recommended action to remedy that. The other piece is a timeline for the special magistrate that Commissioner Niewicki. So, Joel is prepared to address both of those items. So, if you, if you, if you take a look, if you just want to look at the version I'm looking at, I've got the clean version of the ordinance that's included in the backup of the agenda pulled up at the top of page nine under paragraph J. It states if a permit holder under this section receives an unsatisfactory inspection or an ordinance violation, and it does not limit what type of ordinance violation that is. A permit may be suspended or revoked. We could eliminate or an ordinance violation so that a suspension or revocation can only happen upon the receipt of an unsatisfactory inspection. We looked at, you know, maybe striking the entire paragraph. I think Jennifer and her team would have to speak to the rest of that because I do understand the inspections to be an important part of this scheme, but if we simply struck or an ordinance violation, because that could technically be any ordinance violation, any ordinance violation under the animal code. But I think if we struck that there, that would alleviate the concern that it could be an administrative violation because the way it's currently written, it could be an administrative violation. So that is one recommended change I would give you. If you were so inclined, you could simply strike or an ordinance violation, and then that paragraph is then limited to an unsatisfactory inspection as something that could lead to a suspension or revocation. And then the same paragraph goes on to provide that a satisfactory inspection can have the permit reinstated. So I think that makes sense to strike the ordinance violation aspect. To answer one of the questions that was raised about the magistrate, we have a separate ordinance that has very specific procedures and all of the due process stuff that goes along with the magistrate process that's not here in Chapter 14. So that's in Chapter 2, which is an administrative part of our code, our Pinellas County code. And it very specifically states, at the conclusion of the hearing, the special magistrate shall render his or her findings of facts and conclusions of law orally based on evidence entered into the record. So there's going to be some sort of decision rendered there today. And then it goes on to state that the findings shall be reflected in a written order, copies of which shall be transmitted to the respondent. That would be the pet stores or anybody else that was subject to this and the enforcing department within 10 business days. So there is a limitation in the magistrate ordinance. So they couldn't just, for instance, sit on it for six months. I think those were the two issues that I, the two biggest issues that I heard raised. Okay. Jill, do we have a policy about abuse of reporting? We don't. I know that Don, Mr. Kroll, my chief back here, has found there is a statute that speaks to false claims made in writing. It sounds like we might get some things and over the phone. Of course, they have to leave their name with it. You know, I was kind of, you know, toying around with my, my attorneys. There's, you know, vexatious litigants out there that can get struck, stricken from court if they file too many frivolous lawsuits. I don't know if it's realistic for us to look into something like that or not. We could try to maybe come up with a standard. There is currently a state statute that makes it a misdemeanor of the second degree to file a false report in writing. And many of our reports are over the phone. Correct. So, um, could the county put in an ordinance and not rely on state statute, but do something similar? I would certainly want to take time to take, to, to research that. Okay. And I apologize. We also do get a lot of email complaints too. And we, that would be in writing. That's not right. That would be in writing. Well, I would be, I would be comfortable supporting this if we struck that or an ordinance violation to, to be sure that it just cannot be revoked from a form and manner or administrative violation. To me, that's very, a very, very important point. Correct. And, and I will, I completely agree. And I will say under my leadership that would not happen. And I completely agree with removing that. I think, I think the comments that were made can take care of the concerns that are here. Um, so, I mean, I, I would, I would recommend, well, anyway, go ahead. I'm, I'm, I'm done. That was, that was what I had. Okay. Well, I would certainly, I mean, I would like to, and if we're done discussing, I'd like to move forward with a motion to accept, um, the proposed ordinance that we have tonight with the changes that have been discussed by our county attorney. Um, and, um, and the last thing that, uh, Jewel, that you said you needed to do more research on was with the excessive. Is it, there was a way for us to restrict excessive complaints, perhaps made over the phone. And, and another suggestion that's being made to me from staff is perhaps we could require all the complaints to be in writing. I was just going to say that. And I just, I wanted to see if that was in any way in conflict with state law, just to make sure we don't run afoul of that, but that would certainly be another thing that we could do is require complaints to be put in, put in writing, you know, because then there is the opportunity to take advantage of the criminal statute for false reports. I mean, the only thing you're trying to do there is verify the truth. Exactly. And, and, and clearly the state, I mean, they've gone from, you can't leave anonymous complaints to you have to, you know, use your name. So I think that this is, you know, in line with that sort of trajectory of, of taking complaints to make sure that people aren't being, um, harassed. You know, I think that was probably part of the impetus behind making all code violations, complaints, um, that they cannot be anonymous anymore. Is there a way for us to, uh, along that same point, make sure that the complaint is by a Pinellas County resident? We could certainly, I mean, we could certainly ask, you know, when folks call in, um, I think that, I think it would still be incumbent upon us to take a complaint, regardless of where it comes from. We might just not give it the same kind of weight if it was from somebody that didn't reside here in the county. So, and I think that that would be a policy call that, you know, maybe you all could give direction on or Barry and his staff could work on. But I think that, you know, probably my recommendation would be to still take the complaints, just ask people where are you from? Um, and they could, like we talked about earlier, perhaps not be completely truthful. Um, but it's certainly something that we could, you know, come up with a policy that, you know, the, the, the, the gravity that we're going to give the complaint might be different if it comes from California than if it comes from Largo. So shouldn't the complaints come from penalty of perjury? If they're sworn under penalty of perjury? I probably want to research just to make sure we're not getting out of line with the state law that talks about how you can make complaints on code enforcement matters. And that's, I'd want to make sure that we're not getting in consistent with state law. Okay. I have a feeling we'll find something there. So, um, I, Dave has a motion and I, what I would say is if the motioner would be willing, um, I did have a change. I did want. And can I just add in one subtle thing that with the change, um, and actually, you know what, I guess we're not going to strike an entire paragraph. I was, I'd made a note here that if we decided to strike it in its entirety, we would need to look at cross-references and renumbering. But if we're just going to strike the or ordinance violations, then that's not necessary. Um, so now I'm uncomfortable approving this without the right language. So that makes me a little apprehensive. I would really rather wait till we had a comprehensive proposal, but I know this is important to commissioner Eggers and, um, and he has wanted this for a long time. And so I hate to be the one that's the stick in the mud to hold it up. I personally think that our ordinance was sufficient, clearly sufficient to shut a store down. So I don't think we needed this. I think this was for a different reason, but if we're going to change an ordinance, I would like to see within six months parity with any shelter or rescue that we change the ordinance that would reflect that the same thing where you have exempted out in four 29 and now I closed my book and I don't have it, but it's, it's vaccinations, it's vet appointments, it's ventilation, it's all that stuff. There's no reason why any shelter, including our own doesn't have the same rules. I don't care if they're a nonprofit or they're not. We have nonprofit hospitals that have to same adhere to the same regulations as for profit hospitals. This should not be any different just because it's pet sales. And so what I would like to see is yes, Dave, I would be happy to support this, but I would like to see within six months parity, a proposal to come back to us with parity and we look at total animal welfare and not just single out retail. I want to see total animal welfare and look at all of the animal welfare systems. I mean, I know someone who transported horses, they'd go from the state to the state and I don't know that they ever did the checking, right? And I just think that we should be doing comprehensive animal welfare, not siloed animal welfare. And that's what I would like to see. But what, what, again, I'm interested in listening to that, but what would you, what, I mean, I thought you told us that those, that industry that she's referring to is, is the laws and rules are given to us by state or a different organization than us. So I would be supportive of investigating. I think one of the things that you made earlier, Barry, was that let's look, we can look at that and see what wiggle room we have to insert ours. I mean, other than being an implementer of their rules and regs on a local level, if they ask us to go inspect or if they ask us to go, we could, we could look at that. I'd be willing to agree to that. We'd look at it to see if we have an opportunity or not to, to have a say. What, I mean, is that kind of what I'm hearing about state? Mike? So the, the question is that what type of regulations that apply? Is there anything that they're governed under at the state level that would prohibit us from doing something at a local level? Probably not. Maybe. We need to look at it. And so the, when it was brought up, we said we'd be happy to look at it. I just don't know what the outcome of that would be, but we'd be. Well, I think I would agree to that, that we look at it and see what options we have with it and to see if we want to consider it further, but I don't want to make a commitment that I'm going to support that until I see the results of that. I think we can do better at parity and we do ordinances all the time that are different state ordinances. We do ordinance all the time that are more restrictive. There is a different playing field though. There's a different playing field. We do all the time more restrictive ordinances. And if we really care about animal welfare, because there are bad actors in the animal welfare department as well, there are bad actors that are rescues. There are bad actors that are shelters, just like there's bad actors that are in retail. There are bad actors in every industry in the country. There are bad actors. And I would not just assume that just because they're doing rescues makes them not a bad actor. Not that they don't love the animals, but that they didn't have the resources to take care of the animals appropriately, right? There are cases where this happens. And I don't see why we cannot make a commitment to all animal welfare. And I'm just surprised that there's pushback on looking at and making a commitment for total animal welfare, positive total animal welfare. Well, we have an ordinance in front of us to look at. We have an ordinance based on a lot of research. So let's wait to see what that ordinance and that research brings us. I'm not like, what can I, I can't commit to something that I don't see. Okay. And, and, and parody talk of, let's, if you want to talk parody about the two industries, they're hardly on the same table. I mean, you know, commercial ventures, commercial for-profit organizations are very different than, and I'm not saying that there can't be bad actors. I'd like to see those reports that you're referring to that talk about bad actors. Other than I heard complaints about the SPCA. I didn't hear anything. I haven't heard from anybody else on any other organizations, but if there are, then we ought to be talking to the state about that organization. That's, it's pretty simple to me. If we're getting complaints about the Humane Society, then by God, we should be, be right at their doorstep and telling the state about it. If we're hearing complaints and we should respond to complaints on any, any of those organizations. And I'm told that we do. So, I mean, again, I think the part about in writing, I think might be a good addition. It makes people have to take an additional step instead of just being goofy and on the phone and saying, I'm, I'm Jewel White. I'm not going to use Dave Eggers this time. Jewel White, you know. But I mean, I think we have to, I think something in writing, I think would be at least another step for people to be accountable to be whether they're telling the truth or not. So, again, err a little bit on the side of the animals this time, maybe, hopefully, and tweak it back if we have to. We'd be happy to look at that and to Commissioner Peters, it's not, it's not pushback. We just haven't looked at the state laws, whether, whether there's things that we have to govern differently because of that structure. So, if it, if it's good for this, it should apply to anyone where there's animal welfare issues. And we will support that. But we haven't looked at it, so we can't say it's exactly parity. So, the extent we can apply it, 100%. Okay. So, I, I, I, you know how I feel very, and I have not been very public about some of the missteps that I think were really badly done, and I just don't feel like we're ready. And that's just my opinion. And out of a courtesy, Commissioner Eggers, I was happy to support this, but I think if we're serious about animal welfare, it should be across the board. And that's just how I feel about it. I think you can't be part-time animal welfare. I think you have to be, if you're serious about animal welfare, I think you have to be completely serious about all animal welfare, and that we're going to do the best for every single animal in the county, and not just assume that there's just one silo that's bad. That our organizations have had, and I'm assuming that you're, you're the one that's going to inspect. If, if, if they get calls, they call you to inspect, or do they inspect? So, absolutely, we can research any complaints that we might not be aware of with our local humane organizations or nonprofits. But when we receive a complaint for a rescuer or a nonprofit in our county, we are the ones that are inspecting. We go out, perform an investigation, and we have written citations. Okay. And to those that know the system, that they may, they may be calling a different organization to report that, or would they always call us? Do you know that? I don't know that. I'm sure there are a lot of organizations. You've got the USDA, you have, you know, the Florida SARC organization. So, we can find out those groups to find out what bad actors we might have in our county. Correct. I can research that. Thank you. Okay. So, Commissioner Inwicki, and then we either need to land this plane or crash this plane. Maybe I can help land or crash. Okay. So, I agree, you know, with what Commissioner Peters is saying, you know, about, you know, this, you know, move forward with it tonight. You know, if we have this six months of where we can, you know, bring it back and look at the parity, you know, of these humane organizations or nonprofits, with including, you know, that with these tighter and higher, you know, best standards that we also look at allowing new pet retail stores. I mean, if we're saying that these are great policies, why wouldn't we want more have that? And then also to help with the pet stores, you know, they said about, you know, forms created by the county, training. I mean, so are we able to help, you know, implement these new procedures over the next six months? Why we're looking at the few other things that were talked about tonight with the retail stores? Absolutely. The pet stores during our meetings asked if our officers could come out and do like a dry run to show them how the new upgrades would affect the inspection process. And we 100% agreed. We are ready to collaborate with the pet stores and to help in any way that we can. I guess you need a second for a vote. So, I mean, I'll give a give a second. But, you know, I'm 100% in line, you know, with Commissioner Peters of, you know, we need, you know, the six months to look at it across the board. And then after, you know, the six months, I mean, I mean, I think you got to just put this to bed totally. I mean, because, you know, I've, you know, Commissioner Sheer and I've been here a year and we've talked about this, I feel like four or five times already. So, I mean, in our first year. So is that part of your motion? Because that was going to be part of my motion and he didn't approve that. So, if the motion doesn't. No, I don't have any problem. I don't have any problem. So, that was going to be my second and I got the inclination that you didn't support that. I said I have no problem bringing it back. I did say that. I'm saying I'm not ready to support anything I haven't seen. But I am ready to, I would support bringing it back to look at that industry and what we, what we can do about that industry that looks like the other industry. I have no problem with that. And I don't have any problem. But to your point, to the, to the question that you're bringing up, which is a separate one about opening the door for more stores, there's a limit right now to the number of pets that are sold through the retail stores. So, let's say you open it up to 10. It doesn't mean you're going to have 10, twice the number of animals. There's just a limited number of that. You might put the five that are in business at risk. So, I think that's something we can look at. But it's about seeing how this new ordinance plays out, too. Is it doing what it's supposed to be doing? We think it will. We hope it will. But it's new and a little bit, a little bit tighter. And maybe it does it. Maybe it does the trick that gives us more confidence in what you're asking. Is that a county rule, Commissioner? What's that? The number of dogs sold. Is that a county rule or a state rule? No, no. It's not a rule. I was just reporting on the number that are normally sold in the county through the retail store. That's all I was saying. Okay, I got it. Well, Commissioner. But I have no problem looking at it. I mean, what was your, I guess, motion then going to be, Commissioner Peters? It was exactly what you just said. Okay. So, yeah. Including the number of pet stores. Well, I had said that earlier. So, last meeting I had said that. So, I didn't, wasn't including in the motion, but he made the motion. So, if you approve it, then. I'll agree to look at both topics forward. Commissioner Shearer, did you have anything to add? I'm fine if you don't. Well, I'm sure that you are. No, I just wanted to reiterate, Commissioner Peters had to say, I don't think this is ready. I don't think it's all the way across the board. And my personal opinion is, I remember from the last time this was brought up or the time before, that the enforcement record on the pet stores is very good. And I think we're fixing a problem that doesn't exist. All right. Well, I believe we have a motion in a second, correct? All right. Is there any further? Any further? All right. Daryl Lynn, if you could open up the voting. All right. We got six. We got... Oh, you're yes. Okay. So, it passes unanimously. All right. Well, thank you, everybody. All right. Well, with that, we are adjourned. Merry Christmas. Happy New Year. Thank you.