going to go ahead and get started i want to first of all welcome everybody to our june 16th commission meeting and we have a full house of staff and of our residents over here so looking forward to hearing from all of you and in our presentations proclamations and citizens to be heard we will start with the invocation led by commissioner latvala and followed by the pledge led by commissioner peters dear lord thank you for gathering us all here safely i pray that we will have a productive meeting today and i pray that you will give everyone here wisdom and i pray that you'll give the county commission wisdom as we ponder important decisions before our county today and in the coming weeks and months i want to pray especially for our president and our federal leaders in washington dc as they have very important decisions in keeping our country safe and prosperous and i want to also pray for our governor and state leaders as well as our local leaders in the tampa bay area and i also want to pray especially for everyone as they leave this meeting and travel home and i pray that you will get everyone home safe to their families in your name i pray amen and before we start with our proclamations i wanted to thank deputy kevin mcsweeney deputy jeff atkinson and corporal clyde thornton for being here today sergeant you as well thank you for being here for taking care of us and for all the service you do for the residents of this county every single day so god bless you and thank you for being here um all right this first proclamation obviously uh an important year uh for this country uh as we celebrate 250 years of being a the most amazing country in the world um and so today we're going to do a proclamation for independence day and i'd like to welcome and ask the following folks to join me up here uh joan russell uh regent laurie coffee past regent barbara bacchus come on up as i mentioned name uh member sue simmerman member irma member irma anderson um let's see did i get everybody no i did not get everybody i knew how to pronounce her name and it wasn't on this list so um it's also good to have a charlene dozowski here um all of you ladies um it's great to have you here they're all um daughters of the american revolution caledisi chapter and it's great to have you here this morning i'm going to read the proclamation if you would like to comment that would be great and then we'll take some pictures okay on july 4th 1776 a declaration of independence was adopted establishing the united states of america and affirming the principles of liberty equality and self-government the year 2026 marks the 250th anniversary of the founding of the united states of america a historic milestone known as the semi quincentennial and for two and a half centuries the united states has stood as a symbol of freedom democracy and opportunity shaped by the courage innovation and dedication of its people this anniversary provides an opportunity for all americans to reflect on the nation's history honor the contributions of those who came before us and inspire future generations to continue the work of building a more perfect union communities across the nation will commemorate the historic anniversary through educational programs community events historical recognition and celebrations that highlight the nation's heritage and shared values the daughters of the american revolution kaladisi chapter encourage civic pride community engagement and appreciation for the freedoms and responsibilities of citizenship about this shared history now therefore be it proclaimed by the pinellas county board of county commissioners that july 4th 2026 be celebrated here as the 250th anniversary of the united states thank you very much we're so excited obviously 250th birthday of america and yes and we all can be americans no matter where we were born i was born in japan i'm an american how exciting is that that's the beautiful thing about being an american and one of the things that you may not know is that i have 30 ancestors who fought in the revolutionary war and if all of our members did that means we'd have at least two regiments just for one more but the thing is anybody in here could have an ancestor that fought in the war you just may not know it we're lucky because we know it we love researching our families and we are able to find all of them if you're interested in finding your families i have some forms that i'm going to hand out i wasn't going to and i thought i was late and also i have a gift for you as well for all of you guys so uh anyway thank you very much for this honor and i probably won't be around for the 300th but it's exciting to be here for this one and we want to remember it thank you thank you very much we're gonna line our second proclamation is a juneteenth proclamation um and i'd like to invite david baldwin to come on up and um got some family members that would like to join you they're more than welcome i don't have all their names here but you're more than welcome to come up here and support support david as we all right david this young man right here is the grandson of dr excuse me mr dan henry who played a pivotal role in establishing a tight-knit self-sufficient community in pinellas county referred to as the danseville area thank you for being here today my friend and accepting this proclamation each year june 19th commemorates the emancipation of being enslaved people in the united states and is commonly referred to as juneteenth recognizing a pivotal turning point in american history on january 1st 1863 president abraham lincoln issued the emancipation proclamation warning confederate states that he would declare enslaved people free forever on june 19th 1865 the union troops marched throughout galveston reading to the people of galveston that all slaves were free and the form and the formerly enslaved citizens rejoiced in the streets with jubilant celebrations on december 6th 1865 the 13th 13th amendment was passed which formally abolished slavery in the united states of america enforcement of the emancipation proclamation occurred only in the confederate states there were under union under union army control and texas was the last of the confederate states to receive orders requiring the end of slavery juneteenth is an occasion to remember and reflect upon the struggle to gain equality of african americans during slavery and after emancipation juneteenth is a day to honor and reflect on the significant ways that african americans have enriched society through their steadfast commitment and loyalty to the american ideal of freedom and justice for all we recognize the significance of residents such as dan henry who in 1946 purchased two 40 acre tracks in pinellas county built a home for his family encouraged other african american families to settle in the area and subdivided the land into smaller home sites by informally stepping off parcels from the original tract dan henry played a pivotal role in establishing a tight-knit self-sufficient community in store excuse me in store and mount excuse me in pinellas county which grew to include about 80 homes a store and mount olive baptist church now therefore be it proclaimed by the pinellas county board of county commissioners that june 19th 2026 be recognized as juneteenth right here in pinellas county morning on behalf of my granddad dan henry i would like to accept this award for him i know if he was here you'll be overexcited just as i am and i want to thank the county commissioners and all they had a part in this making this possible i appreciate it i'm not going to be long because my daughter and i'm always telling them i'm too long in it so but i just want to say thank you and it's a great honor for us for the dan henry's family thank you good morning i'm wanda mccarton the president of friends of rich crest and it is an honor to be here this morning to witness dan henry and grandson and family to be honored with this proclamation yes juneteenth is a celebration that we do in the greater rich crest community we've been doing it for about 15 years now and we are proud to be an american going to be an african american in the greater rich crest community in pinellas county we are celebrating juneteenth on friday night at the y with the groove night and we're looking for all our young adults to come out and groove with us on friday night and we're also celebrating on saturday with our graduates we honor our graduates on on juneteenth celebration and we we honor the past and we serve the present and we inspire the future so we're having a program at the ymca to honor our graduates to tell them about the past and serve the present and inspire them for the future so 10 o'clock a.m on saturday morning come on out and be with us and we have the fan finale of our great fish fry in the community so we invite you to come and be with us thank you for this honor thank you for letting us be here this morning god bless you okay our third uh proclamation goes to our waste and recycling workers week proclamation and i'd like to ask paul sacco who is uh the director of the pinellas county solid waste william joseph sanitation director city of saint petersburg and tracy mihan corporate communications director waste pro usa to come on up here the nation celebrates the week of june 15th to the 19th as waste and recycling workers week effective garbage disposal leads to the higher standards of public sanitation which promotes health prevents environmental contamination and reduces the risk of disease proper collection transportation and processing of garbage and recyclables are vital to preventing litter and illegal dumping the county's integrated solid waste management system is comprised of garbage and recycling collection and transportation performed by municipal and private haulers non-profit organization and disposal facilities managed and operated by county staff and contracted entities the actions of residents and visitors and businesses to recycle responsibility along with the collection transportation and processing of recyclable materials help to lessen the burden of county's waste energy facility and prolong the life of the landfill the people serving in the garbage and recycling industry perform an essential service by making significant contributions to the safety health and welfare of residents garbage and recycling collection is documented by the federal government as being in the top 10 most dangerous jobs and the safety of waste and recycling work workers is important to pinellas county pinellas county values and celebrates the garbage and recycling collectors recycling processors and all others employed in the garbage and recycling industry to serve residents and local businesses and recognizes the importance of their safety as they perform these essential services and now therefore be it proclaimed by the pinellas county board of county commissioners that june 15th to the 19th 2026 be recognized as national waste and recycling workers week congratulations thank you so much for having us here today and the it's an honor to receive this on behalf of all of the solid waste workers at waste and recycling workers in pinellas county and beyond we appreciate the acknowledgement and the hard work the hard-working men and women behind this that make curbside magic happen with collections transport and disposal thank you thank you on behalf of solid waste and the passionate staff that we have out there your contractor for FCC environmental that operates the waste energy facility we have waste management that operates your landfill all the garbage it's generated and the way it comes to us and we dispose of that it's an integrated system we couldn't do what we do without the private haulers and also our municipal partners so we appreciate that and the recognition we appreciate the board's opportunity for us to do that safe I can tell you it's solid waste we're six and a half years without a lost time injury we're proud of that and we want to continue to do that as safely as we can so thank you all very much good morning um just to kind of piggyback on my colleagues i want to thank the board of county commissioners for recognizing june 15th through the 19th as waste and recycling workers week and also i like to thank the men and women that dedicate their lives to the residents and the businesses to make sure that the streets and businesses are all clean and safe thank you all right um we'll move on to our citizens to be heard um we do have a few uh few speakers this morning and um we'll call you up one at a time and uh you'll have you'll have three minutes to speak and uh we have one one group speaker here at the end of the group so all right we're going to start off with um joey krasnowski krasnowski and you're going to say your name for me when you get up here because i just did a terrible job yeah i did i tried i tried i tried not to but krasnowski krasnowski joey welcome and you'll have three minutes introduce yourself and your address and my name is joey krasnowski i'm doing this for um an autism certified program i know this thing could you lift that speak uh that microphone up a little higher for him can you hear me now yeah okay all right my name is joey krasnowski i'm an autistic individual college student and an advocate for autism i'd like to propose an autism certified officer program for security and law enforcement for panellas in panellas county i'm an autistic individual i don't always know whether the officers or security officers i'm i'm speaking with understand autism or known how autistic people communicate many people do not know i am autistic unless i tell them and they can sometimes lead to misunderstanding autism is the spectrum not everyone autistic person is the same i like to compare autism as puzzle piece one puzzle piece does not fit every puzzle every autistic person is unique it has different communication style and support needs this is why i believe officers and security personnel should have received aware and autism awareness training thank you sir i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry sir and be aware be able to wear a visible patch or showing they have completed the training this would help autistic individuals recognize trained personnel and feel more comfortable asking for help i believe the program would improve communication build trust and help make our communities safer for everyone and um continue on to nursing thank you for your time and consideration thank you joey thank you joey um commissioner yeah so um just joey you did a really great job but i do want you to know that in florida they do give extra training to law enforcement i don't know about security officers but law enforcement and then there's a blue envelope program that you can keep your driver's license in and then an officer will know um so there are some things that florida does that um are good and maybe we just need to do a better job they right yeah i understand like an officer wears a cit pin when they're trained in behavioral health yeah so well we'll that's good to know but thank you thank you joey joey could maybe would you could you mind leaving your comments here because we'd like to be able to get back with you and chat with you do you mind leaving your comments with uh one of the yeah the officer will take that from thank you thank you really appreciate your being here this morning okay thank you sir appreciate that all right uh diane duldy yes dulled excuse me well that's two names and two people that i've messed up come on up and you've got your please introduce yourself and he'll he'll remind you of that always my notes are on my phone diane dulled and uh i want to say thank you good morning to everyone for allowing me to be here and speak my topics on lake seminal management before i begin i want to extend a sincere thanks to the public works department specifically matt and i'm not going to attempt to pronounce his last name i'll leave that to you as we speak he's out on lake seminal right now taking care of some clippings and uh things that have been problematic on our lake and i happen to live on the lake as many other residents who are here uh do um i recently reached out regarding an issue with over extended cattails and matt's team or public works proactively sent a crew out to spray and manage them our neighborhood deeply appreciates that swift response um and an excellent communication may i say i'm here today to build on that success by proposing a long-term proactive solution to a more uh to a problem with the the massive overgrowth um of you know the weeds and the uh that choke out our shorelines communication with the county at this point is reactive and because residents can't get their boats out of uh where they are uh where they are next to the sea walls uh who live you know on the lake like i do um because of the weeds uh they're taking desperate measures some are spending out-of-pocket dollars uh hiring private divers to clear paths so they can get the uh weeds out of the water their boats uh engines are becoming entangled uh also others are taking matters into their own hands by buying chemicals and spraying along the shoreline which we shouldn't have have to do i i haven't but i know there's other people that are doing it that toxic spraying is a disaster for our ecosystem and we shouldn't have to choose between a poisoned lake and unusable boat docks i want the board to authorize on proposing that a formal lake seminole resident public works liaison position or committee be established we partner with the environmental management division to achieve two goals a coordinate coordinated mechanical harvesting schedule uh instead of relying on individual chemical spraying the county and residents can coordinate a predictable timeline to deploy perhaps floating mechanical harvesters which cut and remove weed biomass entirely clearing navigation paths without toxic chemical runoff and streamlined communications a single volunteer liaison can um with non-emergency uh report to public works that can save our our county tax dollars i think that's all the time um diane if you could could you if you haven't already could you send that to to my office uh just email it to me and we'll pass it around certainly we'll do thanks again everyone for listening thank you okay next up is greg greg it starts with an f r o i think frock frockle but i'm sure that's a third one now third name third person i've messed up so my apologies greg come on up thank you my name is greg stockel i live uh also uh in on lake seminole on one of the channels um we've got a tremendous problem with the sewers are all draining into a pond and then into the lake and the sand and cans and garbage it's it's it's like a giant retention pond it really is and it's we can't get any help there's a there's a section i live right on the water it's all all weeds and and sand we're also right now um getting our sewer lines redone they're almost finished and they've pumped so much silt into that lake just to keep the water table down it's not their problem but some of the silt bags exploded when they were when they were pumping took them three four days just to get one box in because the water was so overwhelming but anyway um it all starts at 104th street going into lake seminole drainage canal and the amount of stuff that's coming through there is unbelievable it's like i said it's like a giant retention pond i've called several different agencies in the in the county and everybody seems to want to pass it off on somebody else and uh so anyways sure like to see something done about it all thank you okay appreciate it thank you greg laura laura wants to speak about data centers and last name is moans or moors law well i think it's laura lauren i can't tell at the end you want to speak about data centers yes hi good morning i'm lauren monas i live in saint pete beach uh i'm also the president of the florida coalition for safe technology we are a grassroots organization made up of floridians from across the state who are advocating for safe and responsible technology on the local and state levels for the past year and a half we have fought cell towers being placed in our neighborhoods in the right of way they're only 10 to 20 feet from our homes this is extremely dangerous and it plummets our property values this placement is irresponsible and it's egregious i want to encourage all of you to work with our state officials to amend 337.401 it's the advanced deployment act amend it so that we as floridians can have some protection so that these cell towers don't go right in front of our homes we are also asking you to ban data centers hyperscale data centers we don't want them here no one wants them in florida no one wants them in the united states they're unnecessary and they're for mass surveillance and no one wants mass surveillance so i'm here to ask you to ban them or at least put a 12-month moratorium on them about 10 other counties have done that so far in florida so i think pinellas county can follow suit and i understand that senate bill 180 preempts new restrictions on land use but also senate bill 484 preserves local authority over large-scale data centers so local communities and counties can regulate these data centers so we can't use senate bill 180 as an excuse to not do anything about this um and i know kathleen peters i've read an article you are against this so i really encourage you i i'm happy to work with you as my entire coalition we're statewide and we're happy to work with you and and get this done because i really think like no one wants these here um so please follow suit with the other counties that are also doing this thank you thank you laura lee hansen morning thank you for having me being a florida native in largo florida i know how much florida has changed just in the time that trump has been president not only will ai data centers change the outlook of florida it is also to spy on your people the destruction of the land the erosion of the ground the water coolant is not only about the environment the erosion the water is harmful to the fish animals and the people a study done at mit has said pardon me i'm nervous i haven't spoke since high school now here we go over 144 companies in china if we are supposedly to compete with china out of 144 ai data centers that they've done in china only 10 are still functioning so that is only 10 percent that they're even generating revenue and most of the time the land that they're using once it has built been built up for ai data centers data centers it cannot be used for anything else due to the coolant runoff and the uh harmful contaminants that they've done excuse me some data centers would rather rather sit empty rather than pay to use for the electrical and the water usage that it would take to even run these data centers and as i stated once these are built you cannot go back and erase ramifications that you've done to the environment and a lot of times also they're saying that the kickback and the write-offs that the government is giving to these companies is a large portion of why they are even building these data centers they're not even using that and they're destroying florida and if you look around a lot of the changes that are happening to florida are not for the better being a native you can see the cell towers the concrete structures going up around town a lot of the new apartment homes town homes we don't need any more build up and just destruction of beautiful florida and not to mention if it's all about greed which this administration is totally about greed once that is built and you get your kickback there's nothing we're nowhere left to go and if you build up florida too much it's going to be like another place and then you're not going to have the people coming to florida to visit another place with all the town homes etc so you're how is it you say you're biting off your nose and bite your face so please no data centers being a florida native keep it beautiful thank you thank you larley david ballard gettis jr hi good morning commissioners david ballard gettis jr i live on georgia avenue in palm harbor let's say for instance that i went door to door in every neighborhood in the county and i deceived all the residents into signing the reclaimed water variance application which in effect grants me development rights throughout the residents entire parcel of property it permits me the right to re-plumb all the residential homes with reclaimed water for laundry and toilet use the variance quarters the consent of the homeowner into forfeiting their third amendment rights allowing me the right to enter the homeowner's property day or night as based on pinellas county resolution 95 286 section 3k and to levy an annual indoor water inspection charge for water use privileges as written in chapter 1 section 13 of maloney's water code published in 1972 the variance affirms my reasoning to take hold of civilian fourth amendment rights in my doing of things in statute 153 20 and allows my seizure of civilian owned property claiming eminent domain of both personal and real property of the residents in statute 15303 section 5 tapping title to the residential homes in pinellas county ordinance 97 103 section 126 509 taking hold of the religion to in my development rights as i have contrived as i have invoked and let's say that i want to sell all of these development rights to a third party developer transferring such development rights in order to limit my liability and the national legislation and the judges we're all in on this scam using third party mercenaries as written in the declaration of independence using bashawas as referenced in federalist paper number 30 we've got a problem when it comes to water and the 14th amendment in this country and uh trying to limit political liabilities and um this conversation's on the table thank you greg pound yes greg pound largo florida i just want to bring up um st petersburg florida's largest lgbtp is this month and thanks to the county commissioners they granted forty thousand dollars for advertisement for this kind of activity the number one this is this is out of the newspaper number one thing destroying people from genesis to revelations all through history has been one sin and the sin is called fornication and that is premarital sex and sex outside of marriage the bible says run from it it tells the young people to run from it instead of us running from it we're teaching it to the children we're pushing it on the people and it's destroying us this county last week i went to the public library they had and they had a suicide crisis seminar saying that this county has a suicide crisis with white males between the age of 50 and 60 years old and it's out of control then we have the highest suicide rate in the state of florida among young people and the highest drug problem in the state of florida among young people so as i've been working with the county now trying to get into position i started with afa american family association defending families and since i've started that i've been under attack by the by the courthouse the sheriff's department police's department harassing me and it all has to do with and it's all documented what's so amazing they document it themselves by the activities they do so i ran for sheriff and this is a statement out of our constitution it says florida bar was unified with and became part of the supreme court and made every state bar member lawyer a person belonging to the judiciary branch of government so i ran against three attorneys robert guattery was one of them and he comes in uniform in violation of our election code and so what happens is we have a major problem this county with corruption and all the perverts if you were to see all the people that are at the top as being child molesters in this county this county has i mean this this county has literally destroyed the family and gone after the children just i can show you one article after another is i got i mean i've been keeping them now for like 20 years and documenting this stuff and we have a major problem this county is being covered up robert guattery is a cover-up for what the court system's doing he's working with the court system i mean how can i someone smash into my car how can you beat me up for running for sheriff and we go to trial i win the trial but no one's charged for all the crimes they committed against me i've been arrested for standing on corners with signs that says rescue my family or documents out in front of the sheriff's department how can i be hit in a car smash total out my car blow out my neck and back and then i'm fine seven a final judgment against me for eighteen thousand dollars in this pinellas county court system i mean how does this stuff happen and the list goes on and on and on i don't have enough time to explain it but it it's it's okay thank you you guys got to clean up your corruption thank you clean it up aiden barnes welcome oh thank you hi my name is aiden barnes i was born and raised here in pinellas county um i have been a homeowner in largo for about 20 years now i serve on the largo library advocacy board a lot of great things happening in largo there's a few things i'd like to talk about that tie into each other first the proposed county budget second the homestead exemption increase on november's ballot and third a quick reminder that we'd have a lot more money freed up for roads parks and infrastructure if that 165 million dollars and penny for pinellas money wasn't going to things like housing development projects and i know another speaker touched on all the development i just can't believe um pinellas county taxpayers are like voluntarily giving extra money for development on top of all the taxes we already pay so i'm hoping in 2030 um when penny for pinellas is over i hope it stays over because i don't want extra sales tax going to you know more development you know being born and raised here this county has changed a lot and i just think we're just building over every square inch of land here and like the other speaker said we're about to the point where you know what made this county so great it's going to be gone because it'll all be developed over with townhomes and condos but anyways um data centers i agree with the other speaker um i would love to see a ban on data centers in this county i'd love for everyone on this board to get behind that because this is what the citizens want we do not want any more data centers there are 130 data centers across the state already and counting and we don't want one here um so i'd like to address the proposed millage rate for next year's budget um i know the rollback rates are back to 90s levels let's do it even farther um we can do this because um property taxes the values have gone up so high um so um i think we can have a larger millage rollback rate to offset this burden i just feel really bad for people a lot of people are struggling um in this economy right here in pinellas county um i work in the public school system i see these families they can barely afford anything for their children so not only are they paying in sales tax to penny for pinellas um they're also you know a lot of people want to stay in their homes some people like me bought years ago when the property tax values were a lot lower um so if people want to move you know it's just it's impossible now for a lot of families and i i want this board to know so many people are struggling right now um so let's go back to the table i'm sure cuts can be made i saw the budget it is huge um one thing i was really surprised about is um the sheriff's department 476 million a 20 million dollar increase support the police but that's a huge budget thank you all right thank you thanks aid caitlin caitlin new i'm here today to address the grievances of the people of pinellas county i am here on behalf of my office administrator who had to leave pinellas county for hernando county because she had an eighteen thousand dollar annual tax bill in tarpon springs i'm here because for some reason the county budget has doubled but yet the population of the county has decreased the county commission has grown fat on the backs of the citizens of pinellas county i'm here because common sense would be to pour money into beach nourishment projects common sense calls for protecting the people from invasion of privacy instead sheriff galtieri embraced the deployment of flock cameras which will no doubt be weaponized against the people to track and mine data a clear violation of the fourth amendment common sense calls for the elimination of property taxes on an allegedly conservative dominated board but yet there's been an an outcry from the majority of this board against the santis's initiative of property tax elimination if this body really worked on behalf of the people none of my friends presence today would be necessary yet here we are losing out on income and productivity to enforce oversight of your egregious violations against the people of pinellas what's baffling is that the people seem to get more interactions and responses on facebook than they can when they enter this building which is the people's building what's even more baffling is that when i a citizen of pinellas county interacts on a facebook post of chris shearer who was promoting his trip to the uk as a trade mission the post gets deleted and i'm gaslight but i'm gaslit by the commissioner's wife as being hateful and unappreciative of his creativity all this ironically on the same day you had specific training on the parameters of the sunshine laws blocking me from your public plate page and unblocking me all in the same day and then brian scott comes to my page likely because you were all discussing county business outside of the sunshine and this isn't the first example la vala on a trip to philly years ago eager's on a trip to ireland kathleen peters on a trip to british columbia and these are just the ones we are aware of all on the back of pinellas county taxpayer allegedly there are rules of conduct when speaking from the dais but yet the rules of holding public office seem not to be applicable applicable to this governing body there's been no oversight for how this body acted spending covet care money there's been no accountability for how bed tax has been spent which i may may i remind you is still the people's money and not your personal piggy bank there's been no accountability for the struggle the people of pinellas had to wait for months if not years for rebuild permits post hurricane as i look around this room of elected officials who aren't even really participating in this meeting and are preoccupied with their phones and businesses on your computers i'm extremely disappointed barry burton just had a card game game up on one of his tabs do you think we can't see what's going on don't we pay you enough to do your work outside of the meeting then meeting time on behalf of your lack of common sense and flagrant abuse of taxpayer money i feel okay um we have one oh uh linda marcelino is linda here um and then um david happy uh has four folks that are here for him christine clore is she here okay thank you christine kelly popple kelly thank you karen panarelli thank you and gina casa thank you good morning you'll have 10 minutes david go ahead good morning my name is david happy i have the distinct honor of having been named florida politics biggest loser in the 2024 election which is amazing because i never ran for office so apparently i'm uniquely qualified to talk about losers and under this county commission's tax record the biggest losers appear to be the property taxpayers of pinellas county today i want to talk about one government term that taxpayers need to understand which is ad valorem when you hear these commissioners talk about um ad valorem they're talking about property taxes they're talking about the taxes based on the assessed value of the property when this county talks about that when they talk about lowering the millage rate taxpayers just need to ask one question how much money did you actually collect because taxpayers don't pay talking points in 2018 ad valorem property tax collections were 410 million under this county commission in 2025 that number had swelled to 620 million that's roughly 210 million more per year than the county was collecting in 2018 a 51 percent increase in property tax collections so when these commissioners say we lowered the millage rate my answer is simple who cares who cares that you lowered the rate if the rate went down but collections went up by 51 percent that's not restraint that's not conservative government that's a shell game pinellas county's total budget total spending in 2022 was 2.9 billion that includes capital expenses all the all the special projects 2.9 billion in 2022 4.8 billion in 2026 that's not modest growth that's explosive local government while county government was growing pinellas county's population was decreasing you all know that our population in pinellas county right now is less than it was in 2018 so we're paying more you guys are spending obscenely and we have less people living in the county taxes are rising and the population's falling something's wrong here commissioners that's why pinellas county has become the poster child for why governor de santis needs to step in and intercede you are the poster child for why property tax reform is needed in florida if local government can raise can collect 210 million more per year in property taxes grow the budget by two billion dollars in just a few years watch a population decline and still call it fiscally responsible then local government is not capable of policing itself thank you governor de santis some of you are warning about the dangers of property tax decreases commissioner peters said this is going to bring unintended consequences if we cut your taxes commissioner scott called this an unbridled power grab commissioner egger said the government's the best that's the closest to the people you're not wrong you're just not the government that's the closest to the people when government raises collections while the population is falling grows a budget by two billion and hides behind millage rate theater that's not local governance the unbridled power grab is not in tallahassee commissioner scott it's right here on my tax bill so let's talk about the dais let's talk about our county commissioners commissioner peters you were a huge talker when the democrats controlled this commission now you've supported record spending before this commission and many of the things that we've spent money on you introduced commissioner latvala you're on video campaigning that you would vote against every tax increase every single budget you voted for since you've been here has been a record both beating the last one commissioner eggers i hope you enjoyed your trip to ireland last month you at least had fake that you were going to do millage rollbacks before you voted for the budget last year the record-breaking spending budget commissioner scott you said one of the first things you were going to do the first thing you were going to do when i was on your campaign bus you said first thing i'm going to do is put in term limits i'm going to raise it for a vote remember what the first thing you did was you voted to put janet long as the chairperson we're still waiting commissioner for that promise of the first thing you said you were going to do meanwhile you voted for every record spending bill that's been before you that's not what you said you were going to do commissioner flowers i didn't vote for you at least you're honest you tell the people you're going to tax them and then you tax them for your special projects you're the honest one commissioner nowicki is the only one here that voted against this record spending bill last year commissioner sharer champagne and caviar in europe while taxpayers are staring at rising bills that's a terrible optic i didn't vote for you because i didn't think we needed a developer on the county commission and i was right but the people got exactly what they voted for and that's the bigger point taxpayers were told that republican control of this commission meant restraint accountability smaller government i donated to more than one of your campaigns as did hundreds of other taxpayers because we believed you when you promised these things when charlie christ is running to the right of all of you people charlie christ is running saying hey we need to lower property taxes commissioner scott is saying that's an unbridled power grab charlie christ is running to the right of this county commission a republican county commission should not need ronda santus to force it to act like taxpayers matter but here we are so let's talk about oversight we got our unelected county administrator barry burton is our county administrator we pay him an annual salary and package that approaches four hundred thousand dollars did you know that we recruited barry burton from lake county illinois when there was an investigation as to financial oversight and management in the county that we pulled him from did you guys know that lake county illinois is in the top 10 spending counties out of 3 500 counties in america how do we get this guy so i got one question for you because he's bringing you yet another record budget he's going to probably propose a millage increase at a minimum our taxes are going through the roof and your spending is going through the roof he's going to bring you a higher spend budget so do you work for him or does he work for you because it sure seems like you county commissioners work for barry burton it's time to correct the oversight problem we have in this community and with this county commission who's watching the spending who's watching the watcher who's telling the county administrator no when he brings these absurd budgets before you then include i watch some of your budget meetings by the way the public wasn't allowed to speak at those meetings because the staff that gets incentivized to raise the prices proposes an increase the county administrator oversees all that and these people don't get to say anything at your meetings that's part of the problem so what do we need to do what do we need to do we need to stop hiding behind a millage rate and publish a plain english year-by-year explanation for what's happened between 2018 to 2025 we need to direct the county staff to propose propose a rollback budget and we need to support real property tax reform like bold commissioners are doing all across the country it's not going to have unintended consequences to let the taxpayers keep more of their money pinellas county is not your piggy bank you are the poster child for why governor de santis needs to step in and protect our interests okay okay thank you all appreciate your being here today and we um yeah i know all right we're going to move on we have a couple public hearings this morning um item five yeah i just want to advise that when we get to item number 42 i will have to recuse myself because i did check with jewel i serve on the board uh for uh area agency on aging and under item number 42 uh they're being recommended for funding from the social action funding pot okay so they're supposed to have the documents i need to sign today but i just wanted to make sure i got that out so that when we get to that item it wouldn't upset the flow of your meeting gotcha okay all right uh first up public hearing um number flume 26.01 go ahead thank you mr chair um agenda items number five and six are companion items so i'm going to read them into the record together but they will need separate votes agenda item number five is case number flu 2601 this is a request for a future land use map amendment from residential rural to institutional on approximately 2.69 acres located at 2577 keystone road in east lake tarpon and item number six is um agent a case number zero and 2603 this is a request by al raman incorporated for a zoning change from ra residential agriculture to lico limited institutional to conditional overlay on approximately 2.69 acres located at 2577 keystone road in east lake tarpon since this is a quasi-judicial hearing all those individuals who plan to speak on this item must be sworn in for those wishing to speak whether you are attending in person or virtually if able please raise your right hand do you swear a firm testimony you're about to give us the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth signify by saying i do the public hearings were properly advertised affidavits of publication have been received for filing no correspondence has been received by the clerk and it matters properly before the board to be heard thank you um commissioners any questions for uh this morning any want to move forward with the presentation are we comfortable um with what we have in front of us commissioner flowers did you have anything no sir i was going to move approval go ahead move approval a motion motion and a second by commissioner peters and this is on item five any other comments um can we pull up the board please i can't see the uh board up yeah there we go all right okay that that passes unanimously item six is the companion item that's the uh zoning case uh motion by commissioner scott second by commissioner flowers any question by by the commissioners comments pull up the board please motion carries unanimously on to item seven please agenda item number seven seven is a proposed resolution approving the fiscal year 2026-2027 annual action plan and authorizing actions related to the administration of the community development block grant home investment partnerships and emergency solutions grant programs the public hearing was properly advertised an affidavit of publication has been received for filing no correspondence has been received by the clerk and it matters properly before the board to be heard okay questions yes commissioner flowers um so thank you mr chair so after the passage of this um do these new dollar allocations take effect immediately or is it about the october one funding year joe's on its way up uh riddle housing and community development yes ma'am they do go into effect october one uh at that time of this year okay thank you thank you any other questions motion by commissioner flowers second by commissioner scott uh you can pull up the board thank you we're a few more one more who oh there we go uh motion carries unanimously okay we're on to the consent agenda and uh in our workshop the other day we discussed item 27 um so i'm going to go ahead and pull that and put it up first under the regular agenda does anybody else have anything to pull if you have any questions on the rest of the consent chair yes yeah i just had a question under item 28 28 so that's the detailed log for the administrator uh so i guess 20 uh item number 20 on that was a 115 000 loan uh to arc tampa bay under resolution 21 22 and i couldn't find that resolution so i just didn't know we could just have a little bit more detail all right let's go ahead we'll you said that was item is that 28 we'll pull that one anybody else have anything to be pulled okay uh do i have a motion for approval of the rest of the consent second commissioner flowers second second by commissioner no wiki uh all in favor aye any opposed okay uh we'll move on to item 28 um 20 on 28 yeah 20 uh yeah greg do you have do you have an answer on that this is affordable housing funds for the arc of tampa bay for the renovation of encloak group home loan amount of 115 000. i need somebody to come up and speak into the so well we we don't we also don't have bruce here who oversees the housing oh so um since i didn't know i didn't you know ask them to attend um what we can do is just postpone the uh this item and we'll just put it on the next agenda all right that's fine we're gonna get get some answers is that the only uh item yeah yeah that was it or we can maybe we can wait and i can get you an answer before the end that's fine we can revisit it either later or another next meeting either way just we'll have it but by the time we get to the county ministry report how about that all right um what is it i know i haven't read it well i guess my granicus it doesn't pop up in the you know it's not attached and just give me this well i'm just looking at delegate log i don't know okay let's uh let's go ahead barry we're going to go ahead let's come back to that we'll come back to that okay i'll move on to the regular agenda and the first item is the one we i pulled from item from the consent item 27 a ranking of the firm's agreement with fleshman garcia architects for professional design services for the east lake community library expansion and tom who's going to address this tom al monte assistant counter administrator um following the our last review of that agenda item i met with the secretary director and mary uh and they would like to proceed with the project um the deputy director is here and he can answer any questions related to you okay um it's it really was in the context of it wasn't so much the context of the work it's the context of can they operate of they of if we pass the item yes um and it moves forward are we going to be in a position of funding and so the question was do we want to move forward with the design and thinking that you know we'll have to wait for the outcome of the election that was the election outcome of the correct item and they assure me that they can maintain the facility but you know can answer that question go ahead yes even uh excuse me even with um budget cuts for our ad valorem taxes we would still be able to um function as a library and retain our core services the biggest thing that um we have discussed in renovating and expanding the library is better utilizing the space reducing the amount of service points and creating space for patrons to be able to utilize the library that's our biggest issue with our current building so utilizing the space better is really what we're looking to okay so barry um this was in this project is in the penny yes and it's cash right i mean we're paying it through the penny dollars no debt no debt yes and they and they have two million dollars that go towards the uh the project that they've raised um two million towards um two million towards what's the estimated cost seven point five so two million dollars okay so the balance of that's in the penny correct and we're not they're not concerned about staffing reductions yeah i think i don't want to speak for hold on they're not concerned about staffing reductions right if the budget is you know the reduction in the ad valorem taxes for um um our our homes is is passed yes that's correct yeah we will still be able to staff the building properly okay all right just wanted that on the record now open up for conversation thank you appreciate it appreciate your being here today any um comments thoughts about moving forward with the design of the expansion of the east lake library okay what's the will of the commission motion by commissioner nowicki for uh to pass that second by commissioner scott any other comments questions pull up the pull the board please number 27 do you have that yeah perfect thank you passes unanimously thank you all right moving on to item 32 it's ranking of firms for four firms for st p clearwater international airport this is professional engineering services motion by commissioner nowicki second by commissioner latvala any questions on this item pull up the board please that passes unanimously it's the first amendment term extension with train for the central energy plant maintenance and services motion by commissioner scott second by commissioner nowicki any questions comments pull up the board please motion passes unanimously item 34 these are the next four just small slivers of project of um land that we're getting rid of that followed construction projects so the first one 34 35 36 and 37 that's correct uh we can do that right yeah okay motion by commissioner nowicki second by commissioner latvala for approval of 34 35 36 and 37 are there any questions or comments by the commission you go ahead and pull up the voting board please that motion carries unanimously thank you item 38 this resolution is approving a substantial amendment to the annual action plan for additional homeless prevention funding compounded 1.6 man anybody motion by commissioner flowers second by commissioner peters any comments or questions on item 38 pull up the voting card please motion carries unanimously number 39 this agreement is for the coordinated access model for the it platform development with a night group this will bring that in-house 1.3 million dollars that will be paid for out of opioid abatement settlement funds motion by commissioner peters second by commissioner flowers any comments or questions pull up the voting card please commission uh passes unanimously item 40. uh this is our edward burn memorial uh justice assistant grant funds 90 000. motion by commissioner nowicki second by commissioner peters any questions comments pull up the voting card please motion passes unanimously item 41. so opioid abatement uh priority list uh recommendations from the commissioners to the florida department of children and families motion by commissioner peters second by commissioner nowicki on item 41. any comments questions bullet voting card please motion passes unanimously item 42. these are our funding recommendations for the fiscal year 2027 human services social action grant program 1.7 million dollars okay um i think we have some questions on this one okay so whoever's handling this one needs to be at the mic and ready for conversation one up jennifer good morning jennifer artiaga with human services say your name again please i'm sorry jennifer artiaga with human service okay thank you welcome jennifer we have a couple questions i'm sure commissioner shear yes thank you chair uh jennifer is are any of these contracts time sensitive because so the nature of the social action funding process is it is an annual application period so each year we do an annual application cycle and the awards that are recommended today would run october 1st through 9 30. so it is limited to um fy 27. i just i feel i think no i haven't had a chance to go through this the budget for this department in detail and this is proposed contracts for the 2027 fiscal year so i just don't understand why we would could you speak a little oh i'm sorry no it's okay i just the um these these contracts are for the 27 year and i haven't had a chance to go through this whole department to see i mean i'm just wondering why we're approving things that for a budget we haven't approved yet i guess because we've had the selection i mean it doesn't have to happen i'm the same they've had the selection they just bring it forward but there's nothing that says we can't wait and look at things more and bring it back next month to if we have some questions commissioner scott excuse me uh did you have anything else commissioner no that was my concern commissioner scott uh thank you mr chairman i've got some concerns with this because i'm afraid that if we approve this we're creating an expectation of funding and we have not decided on our 27 year budget yet and i think that all funding discretionary funding it needs to be really looked at very very closely which is what this is and i don't want to put something on the table and then have to take it off i'd rather we just defer this until we get down the road with our 27 budget and then or maybe even just wait until november and you know if we want to do this then we can come back and and do a budget an amendment but i kind of feel this is a little premature okay okay so we can change it you know it's obviously at your discretion the way we and this is how we've done it in the past several years it's so they can get all the contracts in place and have those ready to where the funding can start on october 1 for the new programs um the contracts and stuff are subject to your approval of the budget though so if in the budget process you would eliminate that or change that well then you're under no obligation to move forward but again that's how how we've set those up because otherwise then it takes like two or three months to get all the contracts in place and everything based upon that so the non-profits are then waiting until january to get the funding so that is the impact thank you very as accurate in terms of the approval whether it's now or next month really is allowing us to ready the contracts for execution pending approval of the budget yeah i think there's two things one um maybe a little more time to look things over which could we could take this in july and have that discussion then um and if we're comfortable moving forward with the understanding that these groups are subject to final approval of our budget and all of the things that we're going to be talking about really in um um that that we're um that we have time uh to to take a look at it under the under the scope of our budget discussion and so as long as they understand that because we really have obviously a tight budget coming up and those discussions are going to get a little you know um heated discussed and and and we're going to have some time to do that so we'll be doing that mostly in august so um but to the point about time i think that's a good point so we could have that i think we can move this comfortably to july and that still gives everybody two and a half months to do if we decide to move forward with it subject to the final budget being approved it gives people time to to do what they need to do um is that okay with everybody to just kind of prefer yeah i'd like to look at the whole picture fair enough i mean i have some questions too about you know the scoring system and how close some some got and got nothing and how close the same people asked for a whole bunch and got everything and to me i to me it's more spreading it a little bit and letting some of our other groups like casa like feast like hep uh all of those none of they got nothing and they were and most of those were close they were right up there the same scoring that a couple of others had so i'd like to have that kind of discussion in july as well anything else that we want to bring forward for thoughts to jennifer in preparation for the july discussion well chair yeah on that thought i mean i'd be okay with scaling back some of the hla funding and giving it towards some of those organizations you just mentioned okay so we'll have that discussion yeah commissioner scott did you have me yeah and just um i think i might have mentioned this last week in one of our budget sessions but you know when we're talking about potentially deferring raises for staff you know i'm just uncomfortable understand approving dollars to go just need we need to take care of our own first yeah i understand so well again we're we're going to move forward or not in july with the understanding that it may not make it through the budget process yeah if we have the discussion in july just understand we've pushed back the budget um my budget recommendation to august the 11th so just yeah right so we're not having that we're not having the detailed budget discussion in july it's going to happen the first meeting correct in august okay all right so we're going to july and you can make a decision at that point if you want to delay we just need a motion on this to to move it to a date certain or does it on something like this you you can just simply defer it it's not a public hearing type item that needed to be advertised um you know and i will mention too most of your contracts and i'm assuming these do have fiscal non-funding clauses that you can exercise right um if you do not fund something and that and that's the whole point of a fiscal non-funding clause is to say this contract is contingent on budget actually being provided for it yeah i'm not but again you could create an expectation yeah i appreciate that and we will make sure that our those folks out there they probably understand that but just want to make sure that's clear and we'll have this discussion um so we'll have a motion do we have a second to defer it to july second yeah second yeah okay uh motion and second to defer this item to the july meeting all in favor all right any opposed okay thank you appreciate it jennifer okay item 43 it's a first amendment to approaching authorization with home depot i think staff sent you some um additional information requested um since last thursday you're comfortable any before questions on this item did we get what we needed i'll move approval um though is there any way barry we could get like a list of other i don't know if there's other contracts that have been like approved under the 250 threshold that have been going on for like multiple years i don't know if we can get a list of all of those contracts sent to everybody for review chris is shaking his head yes okay yeah move approval okay motion by commissioner nowicki do i have a second he made a motion and we need a second to the motion to approve an item 43 commissioner nowicki at okay second by commissioner sheer commissioner nowicki asked for a list of contracts that have been signed under the 250 threshold and commit we can get that so sure no problem okay so we have a motion and a second any other comments questions okay vote the voting card please thank you motion carries unanimously on to item 44. emergency watershed protection grant program agreement with the department of natural resources and conservation services motion by commissioner nowicki second by commissioner peters um could somebody just briefly tell us what this grant i mean i i can read it i'm just saying yeah no i think this is i think this is a huge grant so it's a big number so i'd just like to have a you know it's got a you know big project ahead of us so kelly thank you for coming forward appreciate it kelly hammer levy public works director so when we were uh when we had all the channel flooding during hurricane milton uh to restore those channels you have to go through a federal process to get approval for that for that work but also to get funding for that work so instead of going to fema they require that you first go to nrcs to request that funding if they have funding available then they will oversee that process not fema so that's what we've been doing it's taken quite a long time to get here but they do pay a hundred percent of the construction and they also pay for the construction oversight services so um while it's taken a long time it's a great benefit to the county and so these four creeks that you've identified four or five creeks you've identified that's going to get the the primary yes everywhere where i where erosion or uh vegetation destroyed the bank where we had slumping so we had to basically go out there with nrcs staff and they walked the channels um identifying each location and the scope of the work necessary to do those repairs mostly bank issues mostly bank issues correct um great because i know there's a lot of problem areas yes there are and and yeah and they're all under kind of an overlaying easement these are all uh sections where we do have rights uh so there are you know i know there are some areas where we uh where it's private and that's that's on the private property owner to handle but everywhere here we have rights or we have an easement that allows us to do this work and so it would be nice to know i mean i'm not talking about voting yet on the voting issue here but i'm nice to know the condition the issues that those creeks have that are outside the scope of the work that we're going to be doing do we have other problems there because i mean i i'm envisioning this this channel and we're we're working on the areas that we can do the rest of it probably may or may not need work i don't know but not necessarily under our purview correct yeah we don't typically inspect private sections of the channel so i can't speak to we're supposed to be inspecting for movement making sure that it's clear for movement so we don't have eyes on those areas at all there are areas that are completely i mean they're completely fenced in they're completely private there would be no way for us to get in but basically we go from the upstream into the downstream and we can see water moving in between there then we know it's flowing freely um but yeah there's a lot of areas where we have no rights whatsoever not even a flow easement that is just for that last part we don't even have a uh what we call a a flow easement in out so we there's a lot of areas of major drainage channels that are wholly private where we don't have any type of rights so we have to go to the homeowners and correct yes when we had to do that they have the responsibility to maintain the banks and the flow there yeah we we had an area on alligator creek where a private property owner had a tree across the channel and it was blocking flow and they were responsible for it so yeah it it's it's a challenge we do in case of emergency what happened well we we can't touch private property in an emergency you'll remember a number of years ago there was a case uh you know that um that came up and and that happened during an emergency and so the very firm county policy that we don't touch private property um even in the state of emergency unless we have the the rights in place and that you know if it is absolutely necessary and a property owner will allow us to do it we can get a temporary construction easement or a temporary right of entry um but we we cannot go on to private property and clear anything without the proper rights seems strange i don't mean that we can't go on to private property i'm talking about in case of emergency or all the other public damage that it could cause from backing up but again a discussion for another day i appreciate any other comments or questions for kelly thank you okay we had a motion in a second any other thoughts okay pull up the card please two more mr peters is the oh motion carries unanimously item 45 it's a grand agreement with u.s department of transportation um this was also a question last thursday i think staff sent you additional information clarifying what it's used for yeah i think we had this we brought that forward during the meeting during the workshop but okay any questions or comments on this item motion by commissioner scott second by commissioner nowicki bring up the card please motion carries unanimously 46. resilient florida grant agreement with florida department of environmental protection for the 98th to 100th way drainage improvement project more drainage work more yeah motion by commissioner peters second by commissioner shear any comments questions on item 46 bring up the card please motion carries unanimously item 47 resilient florida grant agreement with florida department of environmental protection this is for the crystal beach drainage and roadway improvement projects this is the companion to item 29 and this is for the actual improvements motion by commissioner peters second by commissioner nowicki any comments or questions on item 47 bring up the card please motion carries unanimously item 48 this resolution is supporting the honorary designation of county road one from state road 586 curly road to tampa road as sergeant nicholas a flowers memorial road motion by commissioner nowicki second by commissioner peters and that if assuming this passes that will be scheduled for when june july 30th the end of july we'll be having a actual ceremony out on county road one staff will give us all the details at the appropriate time any questions or comments and this will be a section from tampa road to curlew there'll be a sign at both ends that will designate that road as sergeant nicholas a flowers memorial road um his mom will be at the ceremony and his widowed wife and son i think will be at the ceremony i know the wife will be the son may be as well so um they are uh looking forward to that uh on on the 30th i believe 31st um bring up the card yes did you have a question 31st okay thank you thank you commissioner um bring up the card please uh motion carries unanimously thank you i thank you everybody for your patience on this item we'll move on to item 49 this is a second amendment to the cooperative funding agreement with florida um south of florida water management district uh this is for grant funding amount of 119 000 county matching the same amount motion by commissioner nowicki second by commissioner scott any questions comments on item 49 uh bring up the card please motion carries unanimously item 50. this is the sixth amendment to an agreement with image trend for safety and emergency services or emergency medical services records management system motion by commissioner scott second by commissioner nowicki any questions comments bring up the card motion carries unanimously number 51 this is the third amendment with u.s emergent technologies for grit removal services at utilities motion by commissioner flower second by commissioner peters any questions on item 51 bring up the card please motion carries unanimously 52 third amendment with unify for voice over ip internet protocol for telephone equipment and maintenance services a little over a million dollars motion by commissioner flowers second by commissioner scott any questions or comments on 52. bring up the card please motion carries unanimously number 53. issuance of 17 certificates of public convenience and necessity for non-medical wheelchair transport and stretcher van providers second motion by commissioner flower second by commissioner peters any comments or questions on item 53. bring up the card please motion um item passes unanimously number 54. motion carries unanimously number 54. under item number 54. i recommend that you ratify the chair's approval to file a petition after an animal was seized by panellas county animal services. motion by commissioner scott second by commissioner nowicki any comments we'll go ahead and take that recommendation uh bring up the card please motion item passes unanimously number 54. 55. in item number 55 i recommend you approve staff's recommendation on the proposed settlement on the proposed settlement and the reference case it was outlined in the confidential memo item 50. motion by commissioner peters second by commissioner nowicki any questions comments uh bring up the card please motion carries unanimously anything else jewel no reports today all right county administrators report uh we have three or four items to get at least update us on what's going on well we have several items um first if we can go back to the delegated log item number uh 28. um and then joe can come up and give an explanation to commissioner newicki's question yes sir that hundred and fifteen thousand dollars was for renovations at the and cloak group home for the arc of tampa bay it provided uh hvac replacement generator installation three bathroom renovations and chlorine and and door replacement to your point for the uh resolution that was our authorizing resolution giving uh authorization for the ship grant this was ship funds our state housing initiative partnership funds and that was our resolution that provided authorization to spend those funds yeah thank you for that clarification i appreciate it mr amante sent me the copy of that resolution um you know it talks about in the resolution there's a local housing assistance plan i guess i was just more interested in like how does that one organization was there like an open grant that multiple people could apply to um yes sir this is part of the affordable housing funds right that application is is open continuously and they made uh application through there the list that you're talking about there is the state housing initiative partnership annual action plan it is the state plan of how we use our ship funds so it's just like the action plan except for the ship funds perfect thank you sir yes sir thank you approval motion by commissioner newicki second second by commissioner peters any questions comments uh bring up the card please for m28 that's really item for item 28 but that motion carries five to zero unanimously that's okay all right um next commissioners uh we we discussed this last thursday the as a result of house bill 803 um over and building development services the fee modification that um recommendation and a resolution is in your packet um we need to add this to the agenda and act on it you're looking you're looking for approval to move uh to or asking for this be added to the agenda and the approval of this modified fee structure okay so we need a motion to bring it to the agenda yes motion to bring it on second by commissioner peters to put it on the agenda okay and kevin brief you on it if you're comfortable um act on that or rick it's about sending this letter no that's a second one so if we this is on the fees for um kevin mccandrew's shop say that again this is the fee modification over in building development review services oh okay okay okay so if we can act on that first yeah okay um do i have a motion for approval of that okay yeah no we brought it on to the agenda for discussion okay no it's okay okay motion by commissioner peters second by commissioner flowers did we actually get a copy of it yes we have copies but did we actually i never received like a hard copy or a digital copy uh okay we passed it out on thursday is that the desk you mean yeah well it was in thursday yes oh okay mr chairman i stepped out for a moment what just remind me what we're this is the fees for kevin mccandrew's shop the adjustments the adjustments okay we got a motion and a second any comments questions other than commissioner nowicki hadn't really looked at it yet uh bring up the card please oh mine says towing update voting on no this is this is not for the this is we're just bringing it up one item at a time same thing that's okay we talked talking about the fee adjustments to our building department that's what this is approval for you you may you may want to just do a voice vote on this since it's in addition to the agenda if it's easier the board can take a voice vote on this item because this is towing updates it's reading what's on the agenda and it's free and put it in there already since we added it that's fine we're we've added it all under these items 57 so that's why it's coming up that same thing but we'll do the rest of these if we need other votes okay we'll do them and so do we need one more person in this in this yeah one more come on motion carries unanimously all right now the rest if we have any other votes on this item yes do it vocally and then the the second item that we've asked is that authorize authorizing the chair to send a letter um on the sankey uh erosion control line motion by commissioner peters second by commissioner flowers any questions or items on that this is about sending a letter regarding opposition to petition for rescission of the erosion control line in beller shores beller shore okay um all in favor say yes aye any opposed motion carries unanimously the third item i need to do is um is to read this for a future meeting so there will be a tefra hearing on july 21st st paul school a florida non-profit corporation has requested that the pinellas county educational facilities authority restructure and reissue the pinellas county efa series 2015 bonds for the series 2015 bonds to be reissued as tax-exempt bonds the school must receive tefra approval by conducting a tefra hearing the school has requested that this occur at the commission's july 21st meeting the county would not be the issuer of the bonds and the bonds would not be a debt liability or obligation of the county i just need to put that on the record that concludes that item the next item we have is a cdbg dr update and i would invite erica henry our program manager to come to the podium to give you a short presentation morning chair commissioners erica henry disaster recovery program manager for pinellas recovers cdbg dr funding i'm excited to be here today to give you some updates on how our program has been progressing since we opened applications in october of 2025 and to present to you some policy recommendations that we have to cast a wider net for applicant eligibility to date we have received over 8689 applications which shows that our community is listening we've had a great response from them we are over subscribed in our homeowner reimbursement and homebuyer assistance program and continue to seek applications for our homeowner rehab local landlord and disaster relief recovery payments we've started increasing outreach efforts through attending hurricane expos social media plugs and radio live streaming sending out mailers to those that were in our fema ia database to increase awareness and application our team continues to monitor program progress application trends service gaps and area needs and we'll be discussing some of those policy recommendations later today we have approved a total of 464 applications with a total award amount of 29.4 million dollars to date and applications are being approved and moving through that process daily quick question um what's the stream look like a stream of applications is it a trickle is it a a babbling brook or do we have a flood stream going through uh of applications how would you kind of describe it in your own mind sure so initially when we opened applications obviously we had done a lot of outreach and i really encouraged the the community to be active and apply and so we had you know a really great turnout in the beginning and we have tried to continue that outreach effort by doing um city by city outreach efforts connecting with the mayors um and other representatives of those cities and getting the word out to to everybody in those communities doing um community events and whatnot so our application stream has has slowed some but we are continuing those those application outreach efforts to um continue the submissions of applications um yeah it's interesting that the very next slide that you have to present because it's perspective so trying to get some perspective on i mean i feel like there's a lot of folks out there that are missing opportunities here and that's what that's the messaging and yet it seems like on the next slide if you know that looks like relative to others we're not doing badly no sir go ahead so yes here's the next slide so this is a depiction of our other first-time grantees and our neighbors and neighboring counties and the progress that they have made as well thus far with using the cdbgdr funding so historically it takes about a year to a year and a half to get um programs up and running and pinellas county uh has far exceeded that um general time frame as we opened applications in october um so as you can see our expenditures we've drawn 8.6 million dollars from hud and we account our county alone accounts for 66.5 percent of the total draws of these nine different grantees so we are leading the pack and proud to be leading the pack the map on the right shows the total awards locations where applications have been approved and people have received assistance so you can see that our awards are pretty well spread throughout the county our top three cities continue to be clearwater largo and unincorporated pinellas this next slide outlines some factors that are impacting eligibility so we've had about 5 240 cases that have gone inactive or closed for a range of different reasons and so when we drill down to those these are our top four standout reasons so the first at the very bottom the 1942 is not eligible and just for reference 749 of those are not eligible due to being located within the city of saint pete who has their own separate cdbgdr allocation so that is why the majority of those are not eligible but would you say the reason the other maybe one or two key reasons that for eligibility because that might be driving some of the folks that don't want to apply they're like well i've heard that you know these are the reasons that maybe it might be unique to an area or you know a group and they shouldn't necessarily rely on what they're hearing but rather apply so if you don't mind maybe two or three things that jump out at you yeah so there are there are many different factors that can come into play for for not being eligible whether it be geographic location whether it's not your primary residence or or even um some people are voluntarily withdrawing because they don't want they don't like some of the aspects that our programs are offering um we didn't have a program that fit them or they just didn't like the requirements of the program or um not necessarily so you know we're constantly evaluating these programs and identifying service gaps in areas where we could um open up and cast a wider application net and so some of these policy recommendations that we discuss that i discuss a little later in this presentation will um address some of these that were already determined not eligible to being eligible so we're trying to um open it up as wide as we can while still maintaining hud uh regulations and guidelines the um the next uh most frequent closure is for non-cooperative or non-responsive so these are applicants that we have tried to reach out to that are not responding to our efforts to communicate or where we have requested documentation that is required for the program and they are not willing or unable to provide that documentation the next one is where an applicant will voluntarily withdraw and that can be for a number of reasons maybe they just aren't interested in the program anymore their issues have been resolved or their need just isn't there anymore the the other one that we have on there is for suspected irregularities and that is primarily focused in our disaster relief payments for renters and that is where we are seeing um activity that is concerning or potentially fraudulent so we are partnering with our local office of inspector general as well as hud's office of inspector general and referring those cases for additional investigation yes um thank you mr chairman a quick question so on the non-cooperative and non-responsive how does that kind of break down is it is it mostly people that are cannot provide the documentation that's required or is it people that file an application and then just forgot about it and just decided not to follow through or what i think it's it's a pretty good mix of both they're pretty evenly distributed in that number um it really it just depends so i'll bring up ryan flannery for bdo if um if you can shed some more light on the drill down of that non-cooperative non-responsive morning chair commissioners so we could get you those numbers i don't have them um off the top of my head i don't really have much more to add other than it's fairly distributed it's fairly evenly distributed i mean oftentimes it's a situation where um applicants either don't want to provide certain documentation citizenship documentation has been a big one for us recently um they don't want to get their passports up or their birth certificates um other times they just may not have certain documentation but the process works we give them um multiple opportunities we work with them very closely in fact you know oftentimes we'll go we'll help them actually like for example access the irs website to be able to get the the documentation we need for like for income purposes um so we we do hold hands as much as we can um but you know sometimes applicants just either you know choose not to provide or cannot for whatever reason but if there's more information that you'd like for us to compile we can get that to you the reason main reason i asked that question is that my office has been contacted us who all of us probably have by by a number of people that said hey you know i submitted my documentation back in october i've submitted it three and four times i was told i qualified and then i get a an email or a phone call or whatever a couple weeks ago that says yeah you don't qualify sorry so you know it's just that there's a level of frustration out there with that understand and and take that um very seriously right so we we want to make sure the process is as least burdensome as possible for applicants um we're always balancing that with our compliance requirements and the fact that these programs fundamentally do require a lot of documentation um and so there have been scenarios we're talking a bit about um we'll be talking about policy changes we've made some some minor policy tweaks process tweaks different documentation that we believe can help streamline which actually i think sometimes applicants will see as well now you're requesting something else from us but ultimately it really is us streamlining that program so i think what we've what we've found is there is a general frustration with the number of documents required and i think that that does come out um when when when when the the documentation is required is requested and sometimes applicants think they're giving us a certain document but it's not this is not the right document for example tax returns we need the tax transcript they may not understand what a tax transcript is relative to a you know a basic 1040 document or some other document they have so some of it's educational we have to talk to them work through some of those things with them in order to be compliant with the hud requirements there's a lot of strings attached with federal money but there there are and we're doing we are doing a lot to try to reduce those those burdens on our applicants thank you commissioners also just just know that we set up the contract with them where they they only get paid as a contractor when they get an approved application so it's incentivizing them to help our residents get through this process as much as possible but it has to be hud compliant um we had the um this may be as much for kevin and after the fact permitting process that we you know said you didn't you didn't ask for the permit up front we're allowed a pathway to get a permit after the fact um at the same time of those folks that obviously they did it without a permit they're not going to be seek they can't then seek reimbursement so is there a way to tie that is there an opportunity on the after the fact permitting and advertising in addition to making your house more marketable and saleable later by getting this after the fact permit in place you also could be reimbursed for some expenses we have several programs that might fit you i don't know how that works um kevin maybe you could comment on that as it relates to this good morning mr chair commissioners um bdrs actually has partnered with the recovery team on all of our outreach events for after the fact permitting where there is the ability to become eligible for reimbursement um with an after the fact permit obtained so this has been one of our approaches to incentivize our residents to come in to become compliant with an after the fact permit and at the same time become eligible how are we doing on that after the fact permitting process we've had some we've had some um surges of good activity um typically following uh mailings that we've sent out in fact we just sent out last week um a postcard reminder regarding after the fact permitting at the end of june um the waiving of the two times the normal permit fee will sunset so this was the timing of getting that in place uh again was to to bring as many residents forward as we can we've made that process um as straightforward um in almost every case it's a homeowner that is obtaining this because if a contractor was pursuing it would have in effect have been uh a violation of doing work without a permit so these are permits uh that we're able to almost in every case issue on the spot either across the street or in the case of our mobile home parks we're able to also do that on site thank you appreciate it go ahead okay now to talk about some program accomplishments we're really excited to share this information with you so we do have applications that are running through our review and approval process every day and so some highlights for our homeowner rehabilitation program are that we currently have 20 homes that are assigned to 10 general contractors for construction five of which has have already started construction and two have already been completed our local landlord program as well has three homes that are assigned to three different general contractors and they are also in the pre-construction phase so we're very excited that this program is ramping up and and ready to roll our homeowner reimbursement program continues to do well with over 81 approved applications and 25 grant agreements that have been signed to date um 23 actual payments have gone out to applicants as a result of a final review and payment by the clerk's office our home buyer assistance program continues to do well with 41 closings to date and people moving into their new homes and 44 applicants who have already been approved that are searching for the home of their dreams our disaster relief payment program has over 200 applications approved 166 grant agreements signed to date and those payments are made directly to the applicant as well after a final review and approval by the clerk's office for payment so i did want to take a second to thank the clerk of court for all the work that they're doing and the positive partnership that we have together so now as i've said we've been evaluating program progress applications some service gaps and and areas of need that are still needed so i did want to talk about some policy recommendations that we have to cast a wider net to to be able to serve more people get money out the door quicker to people that are truly in need our first is regarding our multi-family structures so think condominiums townhomes this this request is clarifying how condo owners can be served that we would serve them through the homeowner reimbursement program versus the homeowner rehabilitation or local landlord program for repairs that have already been completed up to 50 000 the second topic for a policy recommendation is regarding the homeowner rehabilitation and local landlord program and the homeowner insurance requirement that we currently have for this program this is not a hud requirement so we are requesting to update the guidelines to encourage homeowner insurance after after construction rather than require it this would help to lower the financial burden to entry for most of our vulnerable applicants the third topic is mobile home unit elevation so originally we selected five feet and we would like to increase that to eight feet elevation this would be able to assist more mobile home units to elevate them and approximately 72 percent of our total mobile home applicants may be able to be served with a change in this policy the next one is regarding our reimbursement award thresholds we are looking to put a cap on the amount of assistance for our mobile home unit reimbursement to fifteen thousand dollars and we're requesting this change to align with the federal cost principles and cost reasonableness as well as to make it equitable with our our hrp program our homeowner rehab program oh sorry about that the next topic is regarding our homeowner reimbursement program and the minimum property standards we would like to modify the requirement for these standards to allow applicants to receive awards for even if their home still has minor quality issues like peeling paint a cracked window a smoke detector that is not installed so these homes are fundamentally safe to occupy and are livable and so this modifying the minimum property standards in this case would would allow more applicants to be served so commissioners these are minor tweaks to the program if you have any concerns about them then we can discuss those if not it doesn't necessarily require a vote they can just incorporate these but these are policy changes that they want to incorporate into the program to help speed up these areas and they're our policy our policy well they would be they would be modifications to our policies these do not require hud approval so it's below that threshold understand any questions from the commissioners i would like to see a vote on this by the commission commissioner scott did you have a question oh commissioner flowers i'm sorry thank you mr chair so for the viewing audience what does hrrp stand for a homeowner rehabilitation reconstruction program what does llp stand the local landlord program thank you sometimes persons don't know what you're talking about and we use those acronyms frequently um number one i do support the update guidelines to encourage homeowners insurance after construction rather than require because we know that has well the concerns i've gotten that has been a major barrier with individuals that are applying that's number one number two i want to make sure i am understanding so under your hrrp llp eligible structure types you're asking to remove multi-family structures yes would essentially be condominiums and in exchange it will be reimbursement structure types to add condos as a component i just want to make sure that people who are watching now or later will understand that should they live in a condominium that may have suffered damage they still are eligible to apply okay just to be a different category under reimbursement right under a different category for your this is a question for those persons who we've been able to assist with their home uh owner purchasing yes congratulations and thank you yes can you give me an average amount that we have provided someone with that assistance so our our awards are up to eighty thousand dollars and most of our awards thus far have been for our low to moderate income population to get them into homes um so it is the it is generally around 70 to 80 thousand dollar range that is again good to hear for the viewing audience because a lot of persons think they don't qualify potentially for that program yes um the other is um the very last one reimbursement minimum property standards you'll slide over thank you that's okay modify requirement for minimum property standards for reimbursement to a lot applicant to receive awards with minor quality issues can you give maybe one example so that persons will know what might fall under that court category where maybe they would qualify absolutely so we're looking at homes that are liveable um that are that are fundamentally safe to occupy um they may just have minor uh repairs that are needed such as a fire alarm to be installed or a smoke detector to be installed a cracked window or peeling paint is is another minimum property standard that um we're looking to lessen the strictness of and that will be all again as a result of your home or condo having received damage as a result of hurricane helene or milk or idalia yes just want to make sure because again some persons still don't quite get it thank you so much mr chair yeah that and that's just getting the message out to people so not only getting it to them so but that they can clearly understand and then to trudge through the process and that's you know a lot of hand holding i'm sure yes and we are happy to walk them through the process yep chair i wanted to clarify something real quick um when you talk about approval so these together these policy recommendations could help roughly 300 of the applicants that are just out there waiting right now depending on other qualifications some of these two of these would require an action plan update that would require your formal approval the policy items we've talked about before we've been in front of you several times and had policy discussions and and and those are not required to be approved the policy per hud but we are required to to have this type of discussion with you so the yeah so you can vote on them but but you would see two of these back before you at an action plan stage which we would need a formal approval from hud but the um so do you know i've got it yeah so it would be for the reimbursement structure type because we are opening up eligibility it would also be for the uh minimum oh i'm sorry that's incorrect um the next policy is on the next slide that i'll be discussing and it will be a substantial amendment to the action plan so the only one on this page then is that number the second one correct so if we wanted to just approve the other ones we can approve that list except that one operated into our program guidelines okay and the purpose of that through hud is just speed so we all talk about speed of these applicants are waiting they may have applied in november and so just to get them in the pipeline understand perfect commissioner scott did you have a question i did thank you mr chairman uh this may be on a on a page to come up here but you mentioned earlier in the presentation that there was one program i forget which one that was over subscribed yes so is this designed to sort of even that out or is that a further policy recommendation so this this is designed to really cast a wider net across all programs even if we are over subscribed because there are applications that people have applied for that they may not be eligible or or meet those basic requirements are we at a point where we need to be moving money from one program to another at this point or we're still no we're not we're not there yet um we are continuing to evaluate i mean we evaluate on a consistent ongoing basis um as far as do we need to pause applications for certain programs that are over subscribed what additional outreach is needed what kind of policy recommendations can we make to to widen that net um of availability so it is it is a continuous and ongoing process yeah that's the that's the that's i know we'll get to that one side that's that's really the tough part i'm not and i'm and i certainly don't have the answers on where to get the word out to an audience that actually might be interested in listening to it at that time so i i don't know we tried to get really creative with our communications department as far as the different outreach opportunities that that we can do and they've been really great and responsive in in trying to get the word out to as many people as they can go ahead yeah i did want to add that the uh the reimbursement threshold for mobile home units for 15 000 would also be a substantial amendment that one we were going to pull that off as well it would be a substantial amendment for the action plan yes so those three those pull those three off and vote on the other and then i do have one more policy recommendation to discuss and it gets its own slide because it's a lot of information so this would be a substantial amendment to the action plan as well and it is to create a pathway within our homeowner rehabilitation program for our mobile home or modular home unit owners where replacement or reconstruction on the site that they're currently on is not feasible or safe so these are your low to moderate income populations that don't own the land that are living in a mobile home park that they don't have a mortgage on their mobile home and they have a substantially damaged or sd determination this opportunity would would be offered to eligible applicants which is a new path to purchase an existing housing unit outside of the flood plain versus replacing their mobile home unit since it's it's not able to be completed this is a population just for awareness that we can't currently serve and this policy update or an substantial amendment to the action plan we would be able to serve these individuals so i was a little confused i thought we already had a program that that looked for a you know a house of buying a house in fact we've done a home buyer assistance is that what we're talking this is a different program this is this is a pathway within our home owner rehabilitation program so if they have a mobile home unit that is substantially damaged that we can't replace safely um they would be given the opportunity to be relocated we would demolish that structure um and then they would be able to relocate outside of the flood plain with another mobile home how much with up to three hundred and seventy five thousand dollars with enough for another mobile home unit it could be another mobile outside the flood plain yes any kind of existing housing unit outside the flood plain so this one we're going to wait on because it needs to come back matt i want to i want to pull off the ones that we need to separate and the rest of them i want to get the commission to go ahead and approve chair understood so um so we can pull off those three if the commission's fine with there's three that will have to come back before you in a different setting um for approval so that's this one and can you go back this slide and and so so the if if the commission's fine with the remaining policy recommendations the motion could be to approve those minus the three that have to come back before action plan and those will be back before you and again claire just name the three that are of those that looks like we have seven including that one on the second page yes so it would be um the multi-family structure type adding it for reimbursement that's what we're going to pull off yes for a substantial amendment the um cap on the mobile home unit um for 15 000 and then the uh relocation pathway under our homeowner rehabilitation program so the remaining four we need a motion for approval we don't need it but we're going to do it so do we have a motion on the other four items that we can move uh just agree with yeah thank you commissioner wicki second by commissioner shear all in favor say aye aye aye any opposed motion carries okay so those four we've taken care of this board has and we have those other three to bring back go ahead and then we have some good news stories to end our presentation so the um the lovely lady on the left is our first um homeowner rehabilitation uh construction um she was very grateful and uh was part of our social media campaign uh to encourage uh more applications for this for this program she was overjoyed um that her home was was repaired after after the hurricanes the uh the remaining two in the middle and on the right are two of our home buyer assistance um applicants who moved into their new homes uh in the last few months anything else oh that's it does anybody have any questions or need more information thank you mr flowers thank you mr chair i don't have a i have a compliment first of all i was very grateful to be able to present a check like so many of my colleagues as well to be able to present a check to someone who received um support from our program so thank you so very much because um i got over 3 000 hits on people saying i didn't know that this was a part of so thank you for that number one and thank the comms for that number two um you all probably going to do this but hopefully there will be some type of media rollout as it relates to the changes so people will now know that maybe i didn't qualify before but i qualify now because while we've done over 400 or so persons that we've impacted um with a couple of million dollars we still have more people that we could help and so to get this out as soon as possible i think would be absolutely lovely not saying you guys aren't doing that but just making a very strong suggestion yes absolutely we do that we do that so they'll know we are planning an update on the status of the program for social media and we're also working with communications regarding these changes fabuloso thank you i think letting people know what which how much you're actually granting uh gives people like i i'm not going to bother and then you hear oh it's 62 000 or you hear and it's like oh well that that might grab people's attention a little bit absolutely we try to get as many good news stories as we can good thank you all right thank you very much appreciate the update very much okay very okay the next item we had you asked that we uh provide our an update and actually put on for your consideration a towing update uh doug is unable to be with us but his boss tim burns is on his way up and we'll provide you um an overview around the towing hello welcome tim burns with pinellas county human services um i'm going to be providing a brief update on our towing rate discussions that we've had recently i'm going to be covering our previous ordinance updates um kind of the origin of the uh ordinance administrative lien release fee that that came up in recent years uh the current rates that can be updated by resolution um the towing industry recommendations that we have received um our staff ordinance recommendations that would need to be brought back for public hearing as well uh and then just a little bit of information related to the complaint summaries that we've been receiving so our towing ordinance was established in 2000 it was intended to help guide local towing regulation and help set our towing rates from 2000 through 2019 our ordinance did not see any updates to our rates um so there was a gap in time for those rates to be um updated in 2019 consumer protection brought back updates to the rates um those updates uh increased the typical tow by approximately 20 percent um again in 2023 after having conversations with the towing industry we brought back towing industry recommendations that we are in alignment with uh and increased the um current rates by an additional 18 percent when you look at um the base rate of a typical tow um it went from approximately 100 which was set in 2000 to 147 dollars for uh which is our current rate for uh our typical base tow um that's been increased 100 to 147 since 2019 including the increases to the base increases to mileage increases to storage there was approximately a 51 percent total increase um since 2019 on a typical tow during our meeting in 2023 yes sir it was an increase a significant increase from 2019 on those those three areas that you talked about the base mileage and storage but what was done from 20 2000 to 2019 on all three fronts there were no rate increases during that time that was a gap in time increase in the last three years but nothing for a 20 year almost 20 year period that is correct go ahead um during our meeting in 2023 we were asked to return to to have conversations with the towing industry to explore other recommendations and bring back additional recommendations to the board we held a series of different conversations with the towing industry we had five meetings following that 2023 august meeting and we were very close to consensus and in july 2024 there was legislation that came forward which pushed forward a 250 administrative lien fee we immediately saw that lien fee being implemented and charged in pinellas county and started seeing a spike in complaints from consumers so at that time in order to explore and assess what that impact was we did pause the moving forward on additional recommendations that we were discussing and we started exploring what that impact was for consumers we did send a memo to brief the board about that pause and have been looking at our rates since we received updates to our rates our two rate recommendations from the towing industry in 2025 and then again in may of 2026 we reached out again for any additional updates from the industry do you want to note that consumer protection very much agrees with having competitive rates for our towing industry one of the things we're trying to do is just figure out what that balance is between those competitive rates and the impact to our consumers question for you yes sir when you go to a parking lot and you see a handicap spot that says handicap only and below the handicap sign there's a little little number there that tells people it's just not right to do it but if you do it it's a 250 charge minimum it kind of gets your attention like if you're not going to do the right thing you're going to also pay 250 dollars if you don't have the ticket has there ever been any talk about bringing that same picture to residents like say average towing charge because there's no specific because it's all over the place but an average towing charge might be 450 dollars maybe 500 dollars um i suppose the bad actors are still going to be bad actors but there may be an opportunity to let folks know our consumer you're talking about that balance letting them know this is a 450 average charge if you park here which is even it's double again i think it's it's dramatic um not that i want to raise my hand and say that i'm guilty of doing that like just for a second you know um and i've so far lucked out but there was never oh it's just a towing charge the towing charges have changed but i don't think people really get it until they go down there to pick their car up so i think maybe we need to think about that dramatic statement uh when however you phrase it maybe it's average towing uh whatever it is um i think that might be something to help with this balancing thing that because we're all we're all sensitive to our residents but we're also we're saying hey it's almost like buyer beware you know you take that spot you know here's go ahead i didn't mean to interrupt too much but i think that's something we need to look at absolutely sir uh we do post the rates on on our website but and then we do prescribe um very specific signage for the towing areas but to your point i think you know certainly we can be looking at how do we enhance um public awareness on the rates as well when they go find that parking place they're not going to our website first you know absolutely we need that dramatic statement when they go into that parking spot and then go across the street to some other place go ahead you can explore that absolutely so expanding briefly on the administrative lien fee um the administrative lien fee is an allowable um lien release fee under florida statute 71378 so it's allowable um it is uh a rate that is set outside of our typical rate setting authority at the county um so it came about um you know with the statutory changes we saw it being applied more often in the community um and again as i mentioned saw some spikes in complaints this 250 dollar fee um you know did immediately for some of the complaints almost double the cost of the tow so that's where we paused um when we started looking you know and it's also important to note that this lien fee is in addition to a 60 administrative fee that can be charged after the first 24 hours and a 40 filing lien notice fee that are both existing currently within our ordinance mr scott has a question thank you yes sir so that administrative lien fee a 250 fee can that be charged on every non-consensual or police directed tow my understanding is that it can um it is falls within statute it is not part of our ordinance so we have been monitoring um a case in hillsboro hillsboro has language in their ordinance that does restrict lien fees um within the first 48 hours of a tow um there they have a current lawsuit related to this restriction um related to the timing and hillsboro initially prevailed in their ordinance language in november of 2025 that case is currently um under appeal it's elevated to the second um dca um and we don't have timing for when that case will be resolved but that is something we've been monitoring um as you know a potential language option related to our ordinance um the application of the 250 dollar fee really does seem to vary uh across the state in terms of folks seeing complaints um with pinellas as i mentioned uh we saw an immediate charging of the fee um our complaints started to increase uh we have seen 318 complaints specific to the 50 uh to the 250 dollar fee since its inception in july 2024 um for the lien that they make up the complaints make up 83 percent of all 10 related complaints we've received in 2025 and in 2026 to date um and for just 2026 to date 183 of the 200 complaints we've received related to towing are related to this lien fee those are the things we've been trying to sort through related to what this administrative lien fee increase on the cost of a tell this slide shows a brief comparison of our current rates and several other counties question again a quick question on the last slide so the last bullet point in the last slide says that in other counties the 250 dollars is assessed in few instances or allowed under ordinance so why is the difference between it appears that it's being applied a lot more in pinellas than other counties based on that statement there so can you explain that i think we're seeing it um a varied implementation depending on the counties um different counties have different ordinances in place and they have different tow operators um you know we we see that hillsborough's been um you know they had 48 hour lien language in their ordinance at the beginning um and that while that is in court um i don't think that they have seen as many complaints coming into to hillsborough do we have the ability to control that 250 fee by updating our ordinance that's what we're exploring um in our discussions with legal um they believe that that is um potentially sound language um but as i mentioned it is currently under appeal with the second uh district court of appeals um and they did prevail and originally in november of 2025 but it is under appeal so yet on this slide this shows our current rates um for some of the basic rates that can be addressed that are currently in our ordinance that can be um raised by resolution um so we can see that we're currently at 147 um and we're a little bit below hillsborough and pasco we're a little bit above manatee and polk it's important to note that um each of the counties they look at their rates at different times um i will note that hillsborough has been looking at theirs as well um we don't have a you know any time frame or anything like that on when they're looking at their rates um but uh you know that's just an important note this slide also shows what the average cost of that tow related to base um tow rate the mileage at 10 miles max um which is five dollars per mile and then storage of thirty dollars after six hours and it shows that the cost typically would be about 227 dollars for the consumer um when we saw the lien fee um really start getting implemented quite a bit in pinellas county um we started seeing complaints where the individuals are paying up to 477 dollars for the same tow just as a note uh several other fees that can be changed by resolution include um adding additional time on scene which is currently at thirty dollars per 15 minutes um a tarp fee of thirty five dollars um can also be changed by resolution and existing administration fees which i referenced previously that's that are in our ordinance at sixty dollars um after 24 hours and forty dollars um for the mailing of lien those can all be adjusted because their existing fees within our ordinance as mentioned we've been reaching out and meeting with the towing operators we've had a lot of great conversations we're absolutely in concurrence of trying to ensure that we have competitive rates in pinellas county um you know from our meetings um and from reaching back out we received um a lot of different recommendations from tow operators uh this slide shows just a brief um consolidation of some of those recommendations um when asked for feedback the uh to operators advised that they would like to see that the base trespass tow be at between 210 to 250 dollars um the mileage up to 10 miles from eight to ten dollars per mile um the daily storage go from thirty dollars to forty five to fifty five dollars um the administrative um the county administrative fee and lien notice fees would go uh the recommendation would be to 130 to 150 dollars combined um and then also a raise of the tarp fee from 35 to 50 dollars um so looking at these a typical tow um based on those rates uh would increase by approximately 108 to 178 dollars uh for a typical um type air class a vehicle tow in addition to those rates these are the other um adjustments that were um sent in from the towing operators um and so these are additional um lists of new rates they don't exist in the current ordinance um these are items that the tow operators um are looking to have um put into the ordinance um they involve new equipment fees um ev related fees and other specialty types of fees do we know how what other counties do on this on these fronts a majority of these are not um currently in other ordinances that we've explored but we would have to do uh more review for some of these uh we just recently got more of these updates um in may from the towing industry moving on to our recommendations um so for pinellas consumer protection we've been looking at this for a while we are trying to figure out how to balance a competitive rate with impacts to consumers um we are looking to explore um inclusion of the hillsborough language restricting lean fees to after 48 hours prior to establishing new base rates um we think that that is an important safeguard um to avoid you know immediate high cost tows um we're also exploring uh adding a new emergency fuel surcharge that would be a dollar a mile when diesel is what's true is triggered when diesel is over five dollars and fifty cents uh we'd be looking at implementing a cpi based adjustment to base tow road tow rates that would happen annually uh we are looking at that being capped at three percent but never below zero and you can see the january um 2024 2025 and 2026 rates um they were 1.7 1.9 and then negative 3.3 so obviously in 2026 we would not do the negative um but that is something to allow for tow rates to adjust in between years um whenever we we don't have all of the the review coming back to the board so it's a more proactive approach one of the things we talked quite a bit with the tow industry about was the need for gate uh after hours gate fees um we believe you know in all of our discussions that this is a very important fee to ensure we include um you know the tow operators talked about um having to pull individuals off the road in order to come back open up their location uh they have to respond within a very specific um period of time in order to um release the vehicle uh and so there's definitely an impact to to operators that um this fee would assist with uh and then finally it's looking at recommendations for um ordinance clarifications so requiring photo video documentation of violations um updating the drop fee language that clarifies that there's no more than half of the base tow rate um before arriving at the storage location so if it hasn't so if it's dropped before going to the storage site um that would be half the fee um clarifying that failure to provide required records to investigator investigating officer would constitute a violation um and providing updates that from recent statutory changes on acceptable payment payment types those were other clarifications we felt were important for the ordinance and looking at um our recommendations for the actual rates themselves so this again is a class a trespass rate comparison i will show all the classes shortly as well but in this one what we are looking at is raising our base rates from 147 to 175 per as a base tow rate we'd be looking at increasing the mileage from five dollars per mile to six dollars per mile you can see um the top is the current rates the the bottom shows are what our proposed recommended rates would be um the storage would go up by five dollars to 35 dollars um and what you can see there is that does put us in line with um a majority of the of the counties that are in the region or should put us in line with the counties in the region uh what this also shows is what um so we added in what the lean release fee adds to that base tow and again currently a base tow with a lean release fee would be 477 dollars with our recommended adjustments to the rates it would be 520 that's what our that's what your recommendation is our recommendation and and we're making it contingent upon looking at the 48 hour um language that hillsborough has in their ordinance um but our recommendations would be to go to 175 dollars for a typical base um and then adjust the mileage and storage again we want to try to keep pace with a competitive environment um but we also want to make sure we're balancing consumers oh my so the red the hillsborough is currently what they're charging the borough currently is at 160 they have discussed that they've been exploring rates they have not um you know advised on any time frame or any um next steps on their rate review yeah because that red thing says recently proposed to hillsborough is that from the industry uh or is that what the hillsborough folks are thinking about it's the numbers that they um received when reviewing their towing um i don't i'm not positive whether that came from the industry specifically or whether that is more of an internal those are the numbers that they shared that they were reviewing do we know if pasco manatee and polk are all looking at them too i am not sure of their current status in terms of um actively looking but um you know everybody has a slightly different time frame on looking at the their rates thank you mr chairman so the average tow fee with the addition of the state lien admin fee increased the average tow by 110 percent with the lien fee when it was included yes and all the complaints um that i've referenced that we've seen that lien fee um in those complaints i'm sure we don't have any idea when the court case is going to be decided but i'm just to me that's just it's kind of shocking so i can understand why the complaints have gone up quite significantly because because of that um i'm kind of a little hesitant to move forward with anything until we kind of find out the outcome of that uh is that 110 is just that's just that's just massive uh i'll see if there's any other questions here so i think it'll be flowers thank you sir so i'm asking just for clarity so the 110 increase is that an increase that would flow from 2000 to 2019 or is that a one-year increase no i believe the increase um that commissioner scott's referring to is the administrative lien fee that was pushed forward with some with some legislative changes um in july of 2024 so we were looking at bringing forward recommendations for increasing our rates um and in line with this um and at the time when that lien fee started getting charged we paused um and that's when we briefed the commission and advised that we needed to understand what the impact was for to consumers because our typical toe what you can see there is you know our typical toe um you know at 227 dollars um with the lien fee added on to it becomes 477 dollars and we did see a series of complaints related to that well that's two years essentially then from 2024 till now yeah that lien fee is ongoing um yeah but i'm saying as far as the 110 increase because you're saying we paused it so i was just trying to see if it was like you know just right now or okay well the recommended above the current is about 10 percent the difference is whether you're including the lien fee as an automatic or not that's correct i'm sorry i said the difference is whether you're including the lien fee as an automatic or not and that's the that's what's being appealed over in hillsborough so we have a couple of slides in your packet um for reference but i'm going to move to the overall recommendations one of the difference commissioners is what they're saying is that administrative fee shouldn't shouldn't be applied until after 48 hours um and so is that your record and so that's the difference staff's looking saying okay the administrative fee kicks in at 48 hours so it so it's whether or not you agree with the 48 hour rule or not on when that now again subject to the outcome of the court case but that's how they've looked at it and then you can see um the impact of pre or post 48 hours so when we go ahead i'm sorry go ahead so for the state lien release the fee that that is being proposed the fee that's charged is that for the paperwork that is required to be completed and filed um when they are towing a car and for the release of the car and all of that and if so what is the actual fee that the state charges the tow company for the release of lien just like if you know we go pay a ticket or whatever in that ticket it's a fee because it goes through the court system and they're charging that fee which is essentially a clerk's office fee because they're having to do that paperwork do you know what that is i don't have that exact fee here um that 250 is for uh administrative fees that the tow operators incur for their tow um in our ordinance we also have a 60 dollar um fee uh administrative fee and a 40 um mailing fee in our ordinance as well that would be in addition to you're welcome so um in terms of the the 48 hour language that that is something that barry is mentioning uh we are recommending um looking at rate increases to maintain a competitive environment but we are mentioning that we're looking at this contingent upon that language to help prevent uh an immediate impact to consumers that pick up their vehicles within two hours um and and so that's what we did when we were looking at our recommended rates um you do see a um you know in terms of class a trespass tow or police directed tow you see the rates that we're recommending the mileage um the storage and then you see what that um approximate cost range would be with 48 hour language included in our ordinance um and then post 48 hours what that cost would be for the consumer um so we tried to take a look at it as a if we were able to put 48 hour language in our ordinance um if hillsborough prevails with that um then we would be able to um avoid immediate impacts for consumers within the first 48 hours um but still allow for that fee to occur after 48 hours do we have any any sense of how many vehicles are picked up after 48 hours or within and after 48 hours i don't have that number but we certainly can get that and i'm sure that the industry um would be happy to share that as well i'd be kind of curious to know that okay um so in terms of our increases this chart shows our percentage increase for each of the different categories for toe um so our recommendations on class a uh would be for trespass toes um our rate would be 175 that's uh approximately 19 increase for police directed it would be 31 increase to 200 um the mileage would be a 20 increase from five dollars to six dollars per mile up to 10 miles and then storage would go up five dollars and that's roughly 17 percent you can see um you know for class b uh the increase is 19 um for trespass 26 for police directed um for class c the increase would be 19 for trespass 21 for police directed and for class d it would be 19 for trespass and 22 for self-directed or police directed sorry um so this just shows the percentages of increase for these rates and these would be our rate recommendations based on a 48 hour um revision added to our ordinance could you explain the 48 hour provision one more time as it relates to the 250 charge that the state's doing i just want to make sure i'm clear on so hillsborough has a provision in their ordinance that um restricts from restricts liens within the first 48 hours of um of the toe um they have enforced that um provision but it has been taken to court um they prevailed in uh their initial hearings in court um in november of 2025 but um it is currently being appealed with second dca so we don't know what the outcome of that ordinance language is for that 48 hour restriction but it basically would prevent an individual that picks up their vehicle um you know immediately after the toe from being assessed the additional lien fees thank you mr chair so if we update our ordinance with all your recommendations including the the increases the 48 hour language the annual cost of living increase and then the hillsborough lawsuit turns out to get shot down where they can charge the 250 fee how do we unring the bell we would have to reconsider the the ordinance if that's the case if folks would want to review the rates that's the reason they initially didn't bring forth recommendations that that's my main concern is we put all these increases in place and then the court says no you can charge a 250 fee and then our consumers are getting hammered so that lean that lean piece there that would essentially would have to go away if the 250 is reinstated at that point you add 250 to each one of those correct does that mean i have a question mr peters so do you know why the state agreed to put that in what was the argument that the legislature debated on the floor as to why it was important for the towers to have 250 dollars originally they were looking at that as a cap or limitation on predatory towing um so it had nothing to do with what it costs for the certified letters that have to be sent out because i know in my business that i had previously um just being in a storage business um the cost to me on just having to do the certified letters when someone didn't pay and the arduous process that we had to do to take ownership of that property um was very expensive and every single year it's gone up in expense so if i'm not mistaken i believe that administrative fee had more to do with the cost of certified letters and the cost associated with that same kind of process not necessarily predator towing um was my understanding so you know we haven't talked at all about those kind of costs um you they wanted money on electric vehicles but we haven't talked at all about the cost of the new technologies the new equipment and what it cost to tow an electric vehicle versus what it cost to tow a non-electric vehicle and so you know the fact that you just went over that and dismissed that kind of concerns me because there's real costs there and so i know there's concerns about what a state law went by but that state law was put in by the state and i don't think it's our discretionary purpose to judge that when hillsborough county does that i think they can but those those questions we never even discussed even when you had our one-on-ones they just weren't even discussed um and so i think there's a lot more to this and i'm looking forward to hearing from the towers to hear what they have to say um about this because i think there's a whole lot more involved in in their stuff and i have seen all the conversations between doug and the towers and you said that you met with them often there was no conversation for almost a year until i alerted them that you had a presentation for us so i i didn't feel like a whole year going by was real communication so that's for a later discussion but that administrative fee that we're talking about there's more to it and the law the state chose to put that in for a reason and i have not heard and i'm sure the towers can give us a better explanation as to why it was so critically important that that law was passed and and i don't think it was predatory towing my gut tells me that's not the real reason thank you mr chairman we already have in our ordinance the ability to charge fees for that purpose yes there's currently a 60 administrative fee after 24 hours within our ordinance and a 40 fee for mailing notices as well in our ordinance thank you so i wanted to just finally um and and quickly just address what i mentioned about complaints so uh this just represents our telling complaints that we receive um you can see that the number of telling complaints we received in 2022 130 2023 102 in 2024 we had 103 17 of those were specific to the 250 we started seeing those occur and in 2025 we've received 168 towing related complaints 112 of those were specific to the 250 additional lien fee being assessed and then in 2026 to date we've had 200 complaints so far uh and 189 of those complaints have been related to the 250 additional lien fee so um and then one final thing we did put a couple case examples um in your packet um you know do you think it's important just to note um that you know this in this example this is a lawful tow um the person should have been towed um the vehicle was picked up within two hours uh the individual paid 463.21 for the vehicle um with the towing industry recommendations on rates um it would potentially be about 559 to 621 dollars um for that tow um pre-july 2024 um before the lien fee was prevalent um it would have been approximately 204 for that exact same tow um and with our new recommendations um it would be um if we are under the 48 hours since it was picked up within two hours it would be approximately 242 dollars for that specific tow um so just you know an example of some differences in in the rates but this is one of the complaints we received they picked it up within two hours uh and the cost was 463 dollars i'm just so glad this is clear as mud uh for me um commissioner nowicki thank you chair uh thank you so far for the presentation you know i'm not really sure you know how i feel about it all yet but going back to the towing complaints um how many of them resulted in like an actual fine or a penalty um against the operators um i can so a lot of those complaints did not result in a um fine or citation with the towing operators and because they were lawful tows um and so at that point it was um really uh a it was a complaint that we tried to mediate with the towing operators but it was not a citable offense um i can get you information about the numbers of citations and warnings that we have issued over the last several years yeah yeah because you know just trying to look back in the ordinance and maybe you know you can maybe you would know better but the penalty of like five hundred dollars um i think that's like the maximum fine i mean that hasn't been increased since like oh seven oh five something like that is that right that's um a typical i mean our our citations that we have in pinellas county are set you know set across for all of our different ordinances um i'm not sure when the last time that that range was updated i would have to get with the county attorney's office on that yeah because it's been like oh seven i mean i'd you know if we're increasing rates you know for people to charge more you know i think that should come with increased penalties as well so that's something i would be you know in favor of looking at but just thank you right any i mean these are just examples of this is just an example of it within a two hour till what the cost was for that consumer that's correct on these years where we have the number of complaints um the number of 250 is there a column that you could put together i know we're going to come back with this the number of toes we actually had i mean i'd just like to have a sense of is it 200 complaints out of 200 toes or is it 200 complaints out of 20 000 toes i i just i mean i know it's not the first i just have no clue we can explore no kind of what we're looking at it's still in increases you know we can see that dramatically i'm not sure why the big increase from 25 to 26 to date that seems to be a big jump i know the 24 to 25 is that 250 charge probably anyway although it doesn't seem as high as i would have imagined on the number of 250 complaints um any other questions just karen's saying we we don't have the data on the total number of toes yeah we we only have work complaint driven understand yeah relative year to year versus the number of toes that we're getting okay any other questions uh anybody i mean are you finished i'm finished absolutely we did have one person who wanted to speak uh justin heller you want to come forward morning commissioners um so i wanted to thank you guys all for considering the update to the county's towing rates as you know the towing industry has faced substantial increase in labor insurance fuel equipment training and compliance costs these adjustments are necessary to ensure that we can provide continue to provide safe professional and timely service to the residents and the visitors of pinellas i do respectfully ask that the board consider the towing rate adjustments separately from the proposed restrictions and the rate increases recommendations from county staff relating to the florida lien release administrative fee the need for a rate increase exists regardless of anyone's position on the lien release fee florida statute 713.78 governs that fee it applies only to a limited subset of vehicles that process through the lien process and is separate from the standard towing and storage rates being considered today additionally similar issues currently are the subject of ongoing litigation neighboring hillsborough county rather than tie these two separate matters together i believe the most prudent approach is to move forward with the rate adjustments the industry needs today and address any concerns regarding the lien release fee through a separate discussion at a later date with the local stakeholders on behalf of the towing operators to services community 24 hours a day 365 days a year i respectfully ask your support of the rate adjustments at your consideration and keeping the lien fees issues separate from today's vote my colleagues and i are here to answer any questions that you may have and did the last question you guys asked i don't know why the number of toes isn't available because it's public record um but to answer the the ongoing question the amounts that was presented here of complaints last i checked when we started this in may was just about under three percent of the total volume of toes that took place in pinellas county that gives a little perspective um any questions um or gentlemen yeah so um just i know that it seems like a big increase right and uh and i i still get worked up because you you guys went 20 years so i've been more on your side than not because you went 20 years without increases so um and then i was upset that we promised you something in 23 and then we just never produced what we promised so so that that i you know that's an exception with the county that i have an issue with but we talk about this being a high increase but tell me what your increase in insurance has been both for the industry and for your employees absolutely so since that fee went into place just for example um we'll go from july july of 24 through current day we've seen over our company alone has seen a 45 percent annual increase every year in insurance we've seen some towing operators have a higher increase than 40 to 45 percent we've seen some that just didn't get an increase and folded because they just couldn't they couldn't take the burden on um and then um tell me about because i brought up the electric vehicles and and i know that there's a big just with fire department salad and the expense that they've had to go through to deal with electric vehicles tell me the increased cost because we we aren't considering a fee for electric vehicles in this proposal tell me the cost that's a different from an electric vehicle than a gas vehicle absolutely the if you're looking at this traditional electric vehicle like we'll say a tesla you're going to be as a tow company it's going to cost you anywhere between 100 to 150 between your time between you know the employee going slower using the additional equipment that you have to use then you're factoring in that that vehicle has to be parked x amount of feet away from any other vehicle you can't just butt them up like you do other every other car because if it ignites eight hours later it's got to have room for fire department to get around so not only are you paying your employee more you're using more expensive equipment than you would with let's say a toyota corolla that's a front-wheel drive um you're also losing two additional storage spaces in your tow yard to allow that that vehicle to have a little bit of extra space so if it does erupt in flames the cars next to it aren't going to be charred okay um so how many companies in the last five years have folded in pinellas county um outside of uh what i know with professional record operators of florida um just in pinellas county we've seen i want to say it was eight closed three sold out to bigger competitors that could afford to take on the burden and then a few just did early retirement oh what about state because of the state i do have the state numbers i'm just curious that i don't honestly know i'm only the chair over the local area i'm not familiar the state numbers are in the last oh here they are um in the last two years 37 tow companies went out of business and 10 of them had a fleet of 40 cars and that's a big issue because to me who's going to do this business who's going to do it is the sheriff going to start towing cars when there's an accident if i made to that point yeah all the local jurisdictions will use our neighboring hillsborough county guess who a few years ago got rid of their uh tow company and gave it to the private sector tampa police department that's all part of stuff we have to consider but thank you for answering my questions so let me ask a question i brought up the idea again with the current rates or even the proposed rate or whatever it's a lot of money for a resident i'm not talking about what it means to the industry and the toe what what are your thoughts about and what do you think the cost would be to put an average toe sign on every toe sign that there is an average dollar an average focus that i wouldn't be able to say the actual cost because we would have to have discussions on is that going to be additional lettering below the current toe sign that the toe company can get a run of however many signs go out and add it on to their current signs or are we talking an additional sign which then yes that can become quite costly i don't want to amend the big sign because that becomes more costly i'm talking about the little right the putting a new little sign like when you referenced earlier underneath the the handicaps um that it would probably cost if i had to guess 50 bucks per sign so if we put in average cost is 500 and it changed and we it would be 50 probably and i'm just the owner of the property would be required if we made that a requirement it's or the property would be paying for that correct the owner of the property would be the one having to pay for it again they're trying to protect their property by keeping people away from using it and it's just like you know and i've met it with a few of you guys that a lot of people forget that these property owners are using toe companies to protect themselves from fair housing litigation from all code enforcement violations fire code violations um i mean the list goes on and on it can be very costly for a multi-family property owner who does not utilize a towing service or if they're they're losing their towing service it can get quite costly quite quick which then in turn is passed on to the renters of that community or you know the renters of that strip mall or whatever the case may be i'm not worried about the strip mall they those guys they i am concerned about the the apartment folks but i just what i'm saying is is we're trying to you know there's discussion here about trying to bring some balance to the equation so that uh at the same time ways to make the impact you know more obvious to the to the to the resident that's making a bad choice right what that's going to cost to me that's that that makes me feel better that we've at least done what we can to say hey you park here it's going to be an average 500 understandable yes so a minimum average you know that's all we're talking about so to me that helps me at least boy because it's tough you know these are it's tough for you guys and it's tough for residents it's tough for everybody the ultimate part is is we have to do what we have to do in order to protect everybody from mitigating what their rental increases no yeah it's not a critique i'm just just making a statement any other comments just uh chair yeah just commissioner did you have a question for the gentleman or i don't really know i just want to say what um no i don't have a question okay i'm thinking thank you we're we're done it's okay you can sit down um thank you it seems to me that everyone wants to or the attempt is to try to separate the increase in the fees and the administration fee for 250 dollars i can't do that just they are what they are and if we approve the fees and they and they win their suit then we're doubling fees so i don't like that and my question to the uh our uh attorney is is it possible to approve an increase to the fees to standard fees that would revert back to the original fee should they prevail and the 250 admin fee be determined valid and enforceable i would recommend against that just simply because i think it's better to take action by this board i would recommend that you just bring it back to the board and change it um and i don't know what what the thought process is on how this may come forward as far as changing fees but i mean you can change the fees i sometimes court rulings can be waffly and i'd rather have something very black and white to trigger a change is it possible or impossible to make a deal with the local tote companies to to maybe they hedge their bets uh you know like they would agree to a smaller admin fee should we i i don't know is it i'm i can make a deal you know could i make a deal on the admin fee thank you mr chairman so um i think we all got this letter at one point i don't i don't know who who wrote it or where it came from but it was a letter from the towing industry and it starts out as i'm here today asking this board to become better stewards of the towing industry and i got to be honest this really irritated me because it's not our job our job is to protect the consumer and it's not you know any more the federal motor carrier safety administration's job to make sure they're a good steward of my industry it's just it's just not their job right it's our job to to to protect the consumer and the industry conditions that have been described to us are the same things that happen in my industry that's an industry adapting to change that's innovation that's what happens okay it's not our job to direct that or to prevent that or to encourage that that's just the free market at work i'm not suggesting that the towers don't need an increase but it's not our job to ensure that they have a thriving industry that is just not our role period so um but we do regulate well we do but there's another side of the industry that we don't and that's the retail side if your car breaks down and you don't have triple a or arrangement with some other emergency service you're being charged a market rate but you're not being charged a 250 i don't think for that well i don't know you may be i don't know that's well no only that's only if it goes if it goes that's a trespass that's a trespass charge i believe but the market rate i'm saying is that these other rates here don't apply if they want to charge ten dollars a mile to your car they can charge that one of my buses breaks down i'm being charged a market rate trust me i'm being charged a market rate so all i'm saying here is that it's not our job to prevent what's happening in that industry i'm not saying they don't need an increase but it's our job to protect the consumer and make sure that our consumers don't get hammered i'm going to lean on the side of the consumer on this one that's just my position it seems like the base rate mileage of storage and just in comparing to others might need some adjustment right and yeah i'm not saying adjustments don't need to be made and that an annual increase based on cpi is not the right way to go i mean i'm probably okay with that but certainly it would have been nice 19 years to have had a standard increase but what really concerns me is there is a predatory nature to this industry that is designed to nickel and dine people to death and some of the examples that have been cited here you know if you're a single family or if you're you know a young family some of these fines some of these uh fees to get your car back could be you know two weeks worth of groceries yeah it's it's it's a tough it's a tough um a tough thing it's almost like well you can do the i almost in my industry call it the triple net rate which is just your base rate and then all the other all the other add-ons which makes it different for every violator right but it's also more confusing and complicated so that or you could charge a more full service rate that everybody pays the same rate there's none of these other charges and you end up some people paying more than they should have and so it's a it's a it's a real catch-22 you're either paying that triple net or the full service and both have it they both have you know you know some positive things behind it so because it is i'm just listening to this conversation i'm like i'm like ready for a break this is like this is complicated stuff and it all plays together i'm not saying anyway um barry what's the uh what's the staff target as far as like advertising a public hearing and doing all of that so any of these current rates that you have we've we've listed here so you could make any adjustments to the current fees if you so choose if you want to so at the last meeting you um discussed a um surcharge that is currently not within our ordinance if you would like to do a surcharge we would then need to advertise it we could have it available for your consideration at the july 21st meeting or any of the other fees that are not currently part of our ordinance is there yeah so we can we can make some adjustments today if we choose to do that um or yeah okay i i'm i'm i'm still i'm still hot on this like sign thing and i maybe nobody else shares that with me but if i'm going to park in a parking place and i know it's going to be 500 minimum uh i think i'm going to think twice about it now there may be some that just blow it off and they don't care and they're going to pay the fee um but to me that just just yells to buyer beware you're about to you know so i don't know but if nobody else is interested in looking at that i would like to make that a part of i like your sign idea i'm all for it i thought that i like the penalty to look at the penalty idea that vince newanke yet but i i do have a lot of comments but okay when you're done okay um what's that yeah go ahead so um so i would like to move forward with not only the fuel surcharge but the electric car electrical vehicle charge um because those are getting more and more common and they are more expensive to deal with whether it's firefighting or towing or they're just more expensive to deal with um they're heavier um i got hit by one i can tell you they're much heavier it's like getting hit by a pickup truck uh or a big truck and so there's more where i mean electric cars there's just more cost to having an electric car on our road to take care of the fire to tow them um and because we failed to come back and keep our promise in 2003 and we're now in 2006 that's that's part of my issue had we done the cpi like we promised had we done what we had promised we wouldn't be here today but these are my thoughts and they're different they're different than my business they're different than everybody else's business because they're regulated when gas went up they couldn't raise their price because they're regulated when their cost to do an electric vehicle went up they can't raise the rate because they're regulated so it's different it's not free market for them so you can't compare them to a free market business when they're regulated the way they are they're not free market they're not true free market um uh so i mean really true they'll hold up and i knew i know one company personally that has to pay six hundred thousand dollars in insurance plus i think they had a fifteen thousand i mentioned it last month uh weekly fuel bill because gas was now gas is coming down but we've done nothing to assist them and help them um my concern there's a couple concerns i have not only the apartment buildings that really keep the homeless people from sleeping in the cars in there so it keeps climbing down low it keeps vagrants from sleeping in their you know cars and if there's other issues issues i i think the safety they provide in some business communities and the apartment communities is very important um my big fear is that these go out of business because we're seeing a trend of these things going out of business and who's going to do it i don't think we want to be paying the sheriff to be doing it are we going to have fire departments doing that now is that what they're going to be doing because we're regulating this and we're putting them out of business by not keeping up with the market rates and so that to me is problematic and it certainly has it's it's been happening 37 in the state just 10 of them with 40 vehicles in their fleet that's 400 vehicles in the state that we have lost a due towing so there could really be at one point a big problem so i think that we should not push this can down the road i don't think we should wait to the lawsuit if hillsborough county prevails we can come back we can change our policy we could do whatever you know then if hillsborough county prevails then every county is going to go and and change their policies but the only counties in this state are hillsborough and pinellas that are taking that 250 out after the legislature implemented saying that they're supposed to have it and so i have a problem with that too so i think that we should give them the rate increase i i don't know that i agree with what they asked for um we certainly didn't get close to some of the stuff that they're asking for um quite frankly hillsborough isn't even as close as to what they've asked for um with their ones in red that they're asking for um but i mean i would be more inclined not that i want to be the highest paid county just like the sheriff doesn't want to have people to be the highest paid i would like to go with the recommendations i would like to add the electric vehicles i would like to add the fuel surcharge um and i would like to move forward on this and not kick this can down the road for years and because right now it's three years well we kicked the can down the road for 20 years then it was the you know we had the the recession and whatever the reasons were for how many years this regulated industry struggled and flailed because we didn't do anything and then we made a promise we came we gave them the 20 i mean we bailed out ems when they couldn't keep up with staffing rates we we've increased deputies year after year after year we increased our staff year after year after year but yet we won't do it for this regulated industry and so i think that we should move forward and give them the rates that are recommended recommended honestly i think they should more be closer to hillsborough but just to get us moving and keep that cpi going the way that it's recommended um and give them the fuel suit charge and give them the electric vehicle charge i'd even go into the dolly issue um that that's important but at a minimum the fuel the electric cars and the recommended rates so that they can move on move forward and keep their being their business sustainable and that's that's my recommendation and and the signs that commissioner eggers mentioned and i think looking into the penalties is a very good idea but if it's only three percent of those complaints are only three percent that's not a very high percentage of people that are that's not predatory when it's only three percent so those are my thoughts thank you thank you mr chair so um i'm going to give you two examples and i'm sorry i didn't call you back i was ripping and running mr heller and i wanted to yeah i apologize um so i shared with you all one experience that was personal for me where i got my car towed because i parked in the wrong spot i really did not see it but i paid the i paid the tone because i saw it after it was pointed out to me um i also shared that there was another experience that my family member had and that's not that all people do but i have a niece and a nephew who live in an apartment complex they live there they pay rent they have a current uh lease agreement the apartment complex was supposed to pass out the stickers for the new year they were doing it based on whatever grouping they didn't have their sticker yet because the apartment complex didn't get it to them their car got towed they went to the apartment place and said hey my car got towed but you know we live here um can you do something about it apartment complex didn't do anything about it we tried to talk to the tow person i'm not going to say their business publicly we tried to talk to the tow person and say here's the lease agreement here's the number you can call for the office staff to say this was a uh not an accurate tow of course they were towing because no sticker was on it no current sticker they would not come off of anything they wouldn't release the car until we paid the tow they wouldn't come off of the tow amount even when the staff at the office said yes they live here it's an appropriate car we hadn't passed out the stickers yet we paid um to get the car out of tow so i've experienced both sides where you know you can sit and try to negotiate with the person or try to share with them this is why i shouldn't be towed and then i've because i was wrong where i got towed so i just wanted to share that publicly because there are both sides of the coin when it comes to towing i can support the electric vehicle um tow fee amount i can even support the fuel charge supposedly gas prices are about to come down you know we'll believe it when we see it diesel seems not to be the one coming down though just regular gas so i can support that um i support the the the signs because i think it does make a difference when people see that blue handicap sign and then underneath it it says 250 dollars i think it does make a difference to people when they see that and they you know first of all it's wrong someone who's disabled should be parking there but it also highlights the people park here at your own risk because you're gonna you're gonna get it so i do support that idea some of the other things um you know and this is not to sound mean but even us here at the county we have to pay for the increased cost for these things for our vehicles that we use for service it is the cost of doing business i have my own business i'm paying increased costs so for some of the other things i like for us to have maybe some more dialogue and conversation about but i can support the electric fee and i can support the fuel charge um fee i can support that going forward some of these others i would need to have a little bit more information just like mr heller um provided me with an education on uh when i share with him about why are you charging this administrative fee this administrative fee so i thank them for providing me the education about we have to file this with so and so and this is what it costs us um so that helped me and i really appreciate that um but those are the two things um that i could go with right now and then if you all want to come back and communicate a little bit more about some of the others at another point in time i'm happy to do that but just wanted to share where i am right now today well um trying to to corral all of our thoughts into action today um it's again i'm i'm certainly not because i'm still working through it myself so i'm certainly not going to put words in everybody else's mouth they have but it seems like a an adjustment of some kind of a base tow rate you know just comparing with hillsborough and pasco maybe it's not 175 as recommended maybe it's 160 dollars the mileage uh we're currently at 50 it seems like well hillsborough 60 pasco's 50. um if you want to move to 55 or 60 as recommended storage seems to be 30 35 35 maybe go to 35 on the storage those are three adjustments that are that are again i'm not taught in the scheme of things they're minor they're not it does it adds to an overall cost and then you talked about electric vehicles i'm not sure how we monitor the gas price thing how we keep a you know if it's 551 or it's 549 or you know how we monitor that but um if you want to do something on the electric vehicles i don't know if there's appetite for cpi or we just revisit every two or three years and not deal with the cpi automatic increase but the 20 years of not having any increase is kind of odd i mean we're looking for that kind of thing in our own gas tax increase you know to protect our gas tax give us three percent give us cost of living to keep up with it um so i don't know if we want to look at that piece and then you know kind of let the rest of it settle let's let the the thing in hillsborough settle that the court case settle and then come back and address other things otherwise i really don't have an appetite to do everything to change everything over so i mean that's just me commissioner scott thank you mr chairman um i'm very similar to where commissioner flowers is right now i don't have a problem with the with the fuel and staff monitors that at the department of energy's website okay and and diesel is coming down um my wholesale delivered prices dropped quite significantly in the last 10 days which is good to see it's it's uh down to about 425 a gallon which is finally there uh and i'm fine with the with the electric car fee the the rest of it though for me i can't separate that 250 from the rest of all from the rest of all of these fees i just really want to see where that's going to shake out because if that lawsuit you know fails and they can charge that i mean that changes the trajectory of all of these things so to me i just really want to wait on that piece to see where to see where that lands it's just kind of where i'm at today um on this sign thing do we have to have a yeah to do the sign thing do we have to have a hearing on that uh to implement that that that would be a significant change if you're going to make it a requirement of the ordinance then the ordinance needs to be changed okay so we that the any kind of electric fee since we do not have a fee on that right now or a fuel surcharge if you're proposing any of those those would have to come under we we would need to advertise those tomorrow for the july meeting okay api same thing on cpi okay so no rate increases at all no we're talking about these four items they would have to come back in july because you would advertise it and then we could bring it back i mean that doesn't answer commissioner scott's concern about the and mr chair to give some clarity you could make a rate change with a resolution yes right and i understand there's a resolution that's been drafted simply a rate change no fuel surcharge no automatic cpi no signage no i mean right i don't really think we could go with electric cars i feel like somebody needs to look at what an appropriate rate would be rather than just shooting in the dark so i think some things need to come back in an ordinance but a simple rate change you could do okay yeah for for any of the current rates you can make adjustments here today if the other item that's not in the ordinance then we then we have to advertise it and bring it back to you in july so i would support the recommended staff recommended rate changes for today and then come back with the other but the signs and the and then in looking at that wait that's to wait signs have to wait well that's she just said if it's a rate change you know the recommended rate change this has been this is about the signs on the uh a sign a electric vehicle fee that would all have to come back or a fuel surcharge those would have to come back those would have to come back but the rate fee would not right so we can at least move forward because if we're at three years now and we have to wait for this lawsuit we're going to be at five years and there we are on track for 20 years again and i just don't think it's good form we made a promise and we have to keep our promise and so i i recommend we take the rate change that the staff recommended and then work on the others come back and do the others that's that's what i recommend um because again we promised three years ago and there we are doing exactly what we did for 20 years i think the mileage is kind of in line the recommendation i think the storage is in line with the i'm talking about hillsborough and pasco but i think that the base tow rate's a little bit high if we could do something a little bit more in line with pasco and hillsborough 165 or something like that i think at least we have some you know we're not we're not going right now to the highest highest number and again i think this is all in the talk of trying to do something today versus bringing it back again or we could just bring it all back again and hillsborough's going to 185. that's what they're proposing that's what they're proposing so i understand yes yeah yeah recommendation from staff is the base tow rate 175 mileage 60 storage 35 we're not going to take up the state lien release admin fee because that's another conversation those three fees so those three so i would make a motion that we move forward today with the base tow rate of 175 the mileage rate of 60 the storage rate of 35 and can we bring this back in july to discuss those other items okay and the cpi those four items commissioner wickey thank you chair uh does that include the 48 hour 250 i mean because i think was with the staff recommendation was tying the 250 to 48 hours that would re that would necessitate the need for the hillsborough county case to be resolved yeah so right now we're leaving the 250 in there and that's we're not having that other 48 hour discussion that's up to you right you could not make that change today anyway yeah you would need to bring it back an ordinance okay so the proposal is the motion was 175 60 and 35 on those three items correct sir in a second any other thoughts and and i think you know as we if we bring this thing back and we start talking about the entire package again i mean i i'm not i'm not i don't want to give it and take it the way but if it's all part of a bigger package where they're getting some other room i'm not like we can put these in place right now and then have that further discussion and how it all fits in together sorry what okay what's that okay no i have a motion in a second um all in favor say aye aye aye one two three that all i got and then okay so uh and against no no no and you're the tiebreaker so you're going to have those three rate adjustments and then and we're going to bring back for yeah bring back the others and um and we and when we talk those other things i mean i'm everything's on the table every time we have the discussion so i'm good with all of it all right all right all right we got to move on um and um i am going to ask the commission under their comments today i have a bunch of them and i'm asking everybody to kind of really take a hard look at and screen your comments so you have item 58 commissioner what item 58 appointment and reappointment the appointments i was having this really great speech and you just interrupted me um we need i'll get back i'll get back to 58 in a second next i already got i knocked all that stuff out under my county administrator's report first yeah till we got off on this item because i figured we'd forget so okay we're good commissioner yeah you have not 58 and then commissioner okay just and just look at your comments and try to bring them down because we have um i have a we have a a final little presentation at the very end which i'd like to spend more time on and less on our comments so just take it i know there's some minimal things that we have to do all right first thing item 58 appointment or reappointments of the ems advisory council do i have a motion for that second motion by commissioner nowicki second by commissioner flowers bring up the code uh the voting card please that takes care of item 58 and we'll go to commissioner shear chair i'd like to uh give my time back to the chair okay what oh yeah i hit it okay thank you for catching it um all right um i'll wait till next meeting okay um commissioner latvala i will have a couple items i wanted to congratulate uh pastor willie rice on becoming the southern baptist convention president uh mike that felt good yeah um i wanted to congratulate uh pastor willie rice from calvary uh on becoming the southern baptist convention president um and the southern baptist convention is a big big deal if you add up the number of mcdonald's subways and starbucks in the united states there are still more southern baptist churches um and uh clearwater's own willie rice is uh president of the convention uh so i'm not sure what he's gonna do as the president but he lives in clearwater he's a resident of district five which i will uh mention and um so congratulations to him that that is a big deal um i gave you a letter for the skyway 10k um if we can do a vote to or nod to to do that and also i just wanted to talk very briefly about uh jwb all right uh let's do the letter first okay um there's a letter here um on the skyway race is everybody okay if i pin that letter and get it out it just closes down the skyway bridge for sunday yeah they do it all the time okay so do i have a motion motion to approve motion by flowers second by nowicki on the letter going out to close the skyway bridge for a 10k all in favor say aye aye any opposed motion carries and then the last thing i wanted to talk about was i wanted to thank mike mccurrock for his um leadership over the past year or so um as the interim ceo of jwb uh it's been a very tumultuous time um we thought we had a ceo uh we've gone through the process you had to have six votes in two meetings our public defender made a motion or a bylaw change to make it six votes in one meeting that failed uh one of the candidates got six votes in one meeting and then in the second meeting uh he did not get six votes uh so now we're going back to the drawing drawing board um and i think we're going to have a totally new search um our coo is the new uh interim uh karen bogus uh she's a wonderful lady uh she's been at jwb for 20 years i think she will do an exceptional job um at the last meeting that we had um uh commissioner flowers was there i brought up some issues that i had with a couple board members we've had threatened uh threatened with lawsuits uh we've had lawyers and and during um some of the demand letters we had public records records and uh one of the lawyers kept saying that um he was going to make the public records available to anybody who wanted them so i i asked for him to just see what the board members were up to and uh one of or a couple of the board members were uh speaking to one provider uh pretty exclusively um and i thought it was interesting because uh and and one of the board members that was very active uh was miss renee chia and uh she had a couple of her friends here today um point out uh how much mr burton makes and i won't mention the provider that she was talking to uh but that provider makes uh barry burton money uh as i would call it um and she has a much smaller staff and a much lower budget and a lot less responsibilities that our county administrator makes uh but one of the things that miss chia has really focused on on the board is trying to keep uh this provider from having to pay a 250 000 advance which i think if you are given public money you need to pay it back so that's been contentious miss chia has uh not been supportive of cam which this provider does not participate in cam which she no longer this provider no longer receives uh money from the county which has been an issue in the past and she's made claims about hipaa which weren't accurate um and she's done all sorts of stuff that that has caused jwb to have all sorts of issues uh but i then went and uh because i saw all sorts of emails that she she had due to this public record so i went to see how many uh jwb emails she uh sent to jwb since november and that number i thought was pretty interesting she had sent uh 101 emails to jwb since november 1st uh miss chia had and 71 of them were from uh monday through friday between the hours of nine to five uh so miss chia takes her job at jwb very serious um so but that is uh my report thank you commissioner scott uh thank you mr chair and i'll be brief and save most of my comments for our next meeting um i passed out a resolution uh this morning that was passed by indian rocks beach that outlines the city's commitment to preserving and promoting full-time residential communities and acknowledging the impacts of short-term rentals on residential neighborhoods um just wanted us to consider see if there was support for us to pass a similar resolution it's very it's symbolic in nature in nature but i think it just helps gives us another tool and and advocacy uh with our legislative delegation because at at some point i'm hopeful that the legislature will consider the ability to to regulate the the density and intensity of short-term rentals because i think that's really kind of where the big problem is coming from now so um you know bring this back for for that kind of action yeah yeah not not today this is just to see if there was kind of if there was general i'm interested in taking a look at it for sure okay okay got it yeah okay okay all right we'll work with uh barry and and uh see we bring something back and uh and then lastly um we had several speakers this morning on data centers and i see that in the tampa bay times there was a data center permit that was just submitted for pinellas park a small one but i'm just wondering if i see some other communities across the state doing moratoriums on that i don't know if we ever determined if we could do that or not but i just wanted to see where we're out on that and if it's something that we needed to do here uh staff has met staff from my office and staff under under the administrator have met on this um and i don't want to speak for kevin he wasn't here earlier um but we've met with zoning staff the way that the county that pinellas county zoning code is written it specifically states that if a a use is not allowed under the code it's prohibited data centers are not allowed under the pinellas county code um that is the interpretation of our zoning administrator it's you know it's something that i agree with and my staff does too so our code does not currently allow for data centers um you know we had a little bit of discussion at staff level you know you have some facilities here that may have small ones affiliated with their use like the university or maybe hospitals um so there may be you know some looking at and examining how to kind of make sure that those two things remain distinct right um but currently our code doesn't allow for them so our conclusion has been we don't need to do anything um if you want us to take a look at something we certainly could um but our conclusion is we don't allow for them currently that is an unincorporated county we have no control over the cities um but for what might occur through the county-wide planning process and i am unfamiliar with what the county-wide plan may say but just to be clear the county itself has no control within the incorporated municipalities commissioners i'm meeting with staff with the attorney's office in two weeks and we're going to be reviewing all of that in as a follow-up to the request from this commission which was to look at this and so whether or not we go with just that interpretation or moratorium or whatever again we're meeting with staff in two weeks okay yeah i think that's a great point thank you for both of you for bringing this stuff up i think it's something that we ought to reach out to our partners our city partners as well because obviously we can't do anything with them but the interpretation that our legal counsel and our building department we at least need to be sharing that so that it gives people a comfort that you know maybe they should be looking at something like this as well so think through that a little bit and how we can reach out through your managers meeting type thing and and i'll save the rest of my comments uh for for next time so thank you mr chair just real quick on that i thought there was legislation this past session also that dealt with there was uh uh not allowing data centers in the state of florida so um that didn't pass because i know there was i thought there was something being proposed in the environmental there's a there's a bill that passed that allows local government to regulate them that's okay then that's why i said i i wasn't clear on them i'll just say uh you know happy birthday to america uh we won't have a meeting before fourth of july but uh happy 250th uh anniversary and i'll save the rest of my comments for our next meeting thank you chair sure peter so i i was going to waive it but sorry i have to do one thing so uh yes all of you received a shirt um and you're probably wondering why we gave you t-shirts from um the pinellas park fire department well this is a fundraiser for one of our firefighters in pinellas park kaden riley he's 18 years old and he just graduated from school high school but he couldn't attend his graduation because he was in the hospital he's now fighting cancer for the third time he was first diagnosed at 11 years old or at 11 months old for his first round of cancer and the money raised by these t-shirts helps his family pay for treatment and you can get them from the fire department um i got them from all of you and ashley will share the t-shirt with you after this information or after this meeting um and there's also an information on an upcoming golf tournament if anybody was interested in sponsoring that golf tournament to help support um riley's family would be great um i did want to follow up on the data center so thank you for that jewel um i think um once you meet with staff i still think it's worth um doing something even as a moratorium just reconfirming um because since we have companies looking they don't know that our code says that and we have companies that are looking and other information that i'll share with you later barry um but when i inquired about this two months ago we had somebody inquiring and we didn't know the policy because you didn't tell me that policy so that concerns me so um so i think that ceremonial or something if we have the law there to support us i think if there's something ceremonial we could do just to reiterate and and and i do agree and if we have to talk about sending letters to the cities i don't know if that's what you want to do but um i think if you do something even ceremoniously then maybe cities would consider the same thing um and then barry i want to talk to you about um the four square neighborhood that's unincorporated by cross bayou i started to talk to you and kelly about it before but i need a deeper conversation with you so that's all i got i'll leave the rest i had a long list so yeah i think we all had long lists and different um so i'm glad appreciate you all uh doing that i um uh we have a presentation i think it's important to do and um and as we ask as we invite uh the folks in and as staff puts up on the screen uh we're here to talk about renee flowers yeah and so first and foremost to the family who's been waiting since probably about 11 or 11 30 i apologize for my for my estimate on the amount of time it was going to take to get to this and i really do i mean that i but it's just great to have you welcome i i know you know this lady down here in the corner so but we're here and i want to thank ashley over and for helping me kind of pull all this together um but we we the commission are very happy and proud of you for all the work you do but certainly this step at the florida association of counties it's a big deal and uh we just have a few formal comments to make here um then we'll like if the commissioners want to make anything else personal comments they can and then we'll come to you commissioner flowers to respond but we're going to start we're each going to take a part of this as we read through this okay so it's a little bit more formal but i think it's it gets the message across today is a very special day for pinellas county commission for pinellas county as a whole and frankly for county government across the state of florida it is my privilege today not only to recognize one of our colleagues but to celebrate to celebrate a historic and meaningful achievement the upcoming installation of commissioner renee flowers as president of the florida association of counties in just under two weeks commissioner flowers will be sworn in as the next president of the florida association of counties as your colleagues we couldn't let a moment like this pass without properly recognizing you and your accomplishments to make this occasion even more special we're honored to have your family here and friends joining us to celebrate alongside of you pinellas county itself has a very unique and proud place in florida history established in 1912 pinellas became florida's newest county at the time formed through the determination of residents who believe this peninsula deserved its own voice and representation the florida association of counties was established in 1929 during a transformative period in florida government created so counties could work collectively advocate together and ensure local government had a unified voice in tallahassee that has since become an important organization in florida's public policy representing all 67 counties on issues ranging from transportation and infrastructure to public safety affordable housing water policy emergency management and home rule authority we're proud that several pinellas county commissioners have previously served as the president of fact but it's been nearly 20 years since the pinellas commissioner had the presidency past presidents have included the great susan latvala from 2006 to 2007 barbara sheen todd from 86 to 87 and good old ed beckett from 1940 to 1941 now that legacy continues through you dr flowers your presidency will reflect not only your own dedication but also the reputation of pinellas county has earned as a county willing to lead collaborate and innovate thank you what makes this achievement especially remarkable is the breadth of experience dr flowers brings to this role her public service spans decades as a member of st petersburg city council the school board and now the pinellas county commission she has paired that practical experience with an extraordinary commitment to the professional development and leadership commissioner flowers completed facts advanced county commissioner program levels one and two and has served extensive what extensively throughout the organization including the fact board of directors the executive committee the executive committee the finance audit committee where she served as chair dr flowers has consistent consistently showed up not just for pinellas county but the people of florida and it's all its counties her leadership is about service not titles and we're all proud of you commissioner flowers has been a strong advocate on issues that directly impact florida families affordable housing affordable housing community development education water policy public health and equity and opportunity she understands that county government is where people experience government most directly counties maintain roads support public safety protect vulnerable residents uh preserve uh preserve environmental resources respond to disasters and deliver essential services every single day as fact president dr flowers were now will now help shape conversations and policy priorities impacting more than 22 million floridians those of us who serve beside dr flowers know her not only as a capable policy maker but as a thoughtful and compassionate leader leader she leads with intelligence she leads with intelligence dignity preparation and authenticity she understands how to build consensus why never losing sight of principle she has always represented pinellas county with grace and professionalism wherever she goes commissioner flowers your colleagues on this commission are extraordinarily proud of you we know that you have spent a tremendous amount of time commitment travel relationship building and hard work to earn the confidence and trust of our peers statewide this honor reflects years of service and leadership and while today's recognition belongs to you it is also a proud day for pinellas county and on behalf of the pinellas county board of county commissioners congratulations thank you for your service and thank you for continuing to elevate pinellas county on the statewide stage dr flowers election as fact present is not merely ceremonial it means commissioners from every corner of florida from the panhandle to the keys have placed their trust in her leadership judgment and a vision for county government so ladies and gentlemen please join me in congratulating our president of florida the next president of florida association of the association of counties commissioner dr flowers so um yep yeah um you need a minute um i'm good yeah you're good go ahead yeah um go ahead first of all um people like to separate uh religion from politics but god knew this moment even before i did so i have to give him credit that's number one number two um i also want to thank my family um being an elected official you miss birthdays weddings graduations um you can't be present at some holiday functions but my family has stood by me since i've gotten into um elected office i come from a big family y'all know um and i have an extended family so um it's really nice to see my godmother here miss ruby shannon who keeps me lifted up in prayer consistently my um my big little sister lenore who also works for hospice by the way um my brother eric i saw him out there somewhere veteran um so dave has seen him a number of times he goes with me to uh a lot of the veteran events and activities for memorial day and fourth of july but i have my um extended family and that's my aka y'all know pink and green so i wore the day too my extended family which are my sisters um connected to me through my sorority some people don't remember this or know this but lynn harold johnson and her brother lynn is the president of the national council of negro women she's also an aka but we used to usher together at pleasant girl missionary baptist church yeah we were uh in the on the usher board as well as in the special course um so it's it's heartwarming when you grow up with people and even if you don't always agree you still can remain friends and you can still have those good solid conversations you can be there for each other when you need to and when you don't and then excuse me esther sonny esther matthews i call about her whole government name esther and i met actually when we were on opposing sides regarding the jordan park senior village construction but we always disagreed in a professional way and we became friends we've remained friends and we support each other on a number of battles um sometimes we get beat up for our own community but it is always focused on what is best for people not for uh what looks good but for people and sometimes um the end of my days don't feel very good because i'm a i'm fighting my own community for my community um but i am very thankful that um i get a chance to work with you guys i'll be honest i didn't know how it was gonna go i didn't know how it was gonna go i mean i've known kathleen since when she was with the y um yeah i mean back in the 80s when she was with the white and her little boys were younger so i've known her chris and i used to battle each other on social media on social media but i didn't i really didn't i'm gonna be honest i didn't know how i was gonna go but i tell people when they ask me i tell them i get support from my colleagues more often than not i just have to make the argument do it factually not with emotion and i've gotten your support and for that i am grateful i am grateful um because i actually enjoy coming in here today when some comments were made about you guys that messed with me because i know that that is not who you were and you had to sit there and take it you know even though he said he didn't vote for me he didn't vote for me but that's okay yeah he and he and i have he and i go at it all the time yeah he and i uh go at it all the time but it really bothered me because persons don't realize that when we are passing anything on this dais we are also doing it to ourselves we are not absolute from it so whatever we're talking about it affects us as well but we do it uh because we love our community and because we have said that we want to serve um and and we do it sometimes um again even when so many people don't support but we try to vote on what's right so i want to thank you all for honoring me today y'all really did pull this wool over my better be glad i didn't have to go to the bathroom you weren't going huh because i yeah i would have to wait that way but i really did not know um so thank you all for doing this for me for those of you that are able to make it next week thank you for those who have had to unfortunately have some stuff um come up i certainly am going to acknowledge that you may not be with me in person but you certainly are with me in thought heart and indeed and to my folks over there oh renier hey girl i just saw you is that judge more around the pole yeah judge you out of court um and sherman white um who's here um she's like a godparent to my three kids um she's had some trying times so it's good to see you today and lost her mom her dad and then her husband within about three months and we were there with her so that's why i'm surprised to see her today and angela johnson all the way from tampa oh my gosh um and then my daughter with the video camera back there um and darlena has um y'all know darlena gonna be leaving me in february of next year yeah she's gonna be with darlena worked for the health department first and then she came to work for ken for 20 years and then she's been with me for five it'll be six so is that 40 plus years 37 almost 40 um years um but i am thankful because when i asked ken hey are you trying to take darlena with you because if not i need her to stay and um she agreed to to stay and it was it made the transition just that much smoother because i was the only newbie coming on so i didn't know all the nuances of county government and it's totally different from city but she stayed on board and i am thankful and grateful for that and now having to juggle my county calendar my fac calendar my national legal cities calendar my church calendar my community calendar so i am thankful and grateful um for her and her family because she's missed a lot um of her family things being with me so to staff i know i get on y'all nerves sometimes but i love you too and i i try to show that during christmas i make sure every person in this room gets a gift from me to let you know at the end of the year how much i appreciate you but so any who do y'all maybe mess up my makeup and i spent a lot of time on it this morning commissioner flowers you know thank you for your comments because you touched on your your religion and your faith you talked on your family you talked about your residence in this community you talked about your colleagues staff touched on everybody and the importance of all of them and what they mean to you they mean that same thing to all of us individually too so um again congratulations we have a we have a small little lunch that we're going to have here yeah and i and i and by the way just so those folks that were here earlier know that i wanted to thank my colleagues and jewel and dawn and barry for their personal contributions to cover this lunch it's it's on us not on county not on our residents out there's uh pocketbook so because we're being watched carefully so but but but we are here to celebrate you and uh i just hope you have the most incredible week next week culminating with that uh celebration and coronation because it really is a big year coming and we're we're we're as i said we're all very proud of you uh from the depths of our heart uh so proud of you for what you've accomplished there you go love it um any closing comments before we yes commissioner thank you i don't think i've ever told this story if i have i apologize um but it's about my friend uh commissioner flowers um as y'all know i had a little health issue and um and there was a day or a few days that uh my family was told that i may not uh be here so quite a few folks uh hundreds if not thousands of people were praying for me uh one saturday in particular and i'm sure that a lot of y'all got that text in early october um when doctors told my family that um i may not make it uh there was one person though that when my wife texted who and my wife um uh has a unique friendship with uh dr flowers uh because they spend time together at different events cutting up and and whatnot and but there was one person that when they got that text said can i come up and sit with you and she dr flowers wasn't coming to sit with me because i was in la la land unconscious and and on the quote unquote good stuff uh dreaming about uh heaven knows what uh but she wanted to come up and spend time with my wife which had i been in tamper clearwater would have been nice whatnot i was three hours away um but and i think you i mean there weren't too many people that made that offer um but that says something about uh the person that you are and um you know i love you my my whole family loves you and um you know not only is pinellas county lucky to have you but the state of florida is soon they're lucky to have you as well oh yeah and um uh she got me a um because i needed a cough uh well i had a cough pillow because it i had um the surgery was in my stomach i had four of them and uh and i still have intense stomach pain sometimes and i still use that puppy as a cough pillow and my wife uh caught me sleeping with it one time and sent uh commissioner flowers the photo so thank you for that commissioner and again that just speaks to who you are commissioner flowers so yeah all right um and we're going to go ahead and break for lunch then and oh i'm sorry brian go ahead oh just one quick thing renee i just want to say i appreciate your friendship and i'm incredibly proud of you yeah uh yeah we're gonna where are we having it photos first excuse me sorry we're gonna have families in the photos too so nobody leave anywhere i almost blew that um so we're gonna have pictures with the commission uh and and flowers and barry and jewel up there and then we're gonna have flat pictures with the family and then we have uh renee have pictures with family so real pictures and then we'll get some meeting going all right all right and uh and for the clerk's purpose can we go ahead and declare the meeting adjourned yeah no i was just just about to do that meeting is officially adjourned