Okay, we're going to go ahead and get started today. First of all, I want to welcome everybody here. We've got three or four proclamations, presentation from our clerk, and we have a pretty busy schedule as well. And before we get started, I just wanted to take the privilege to recognize our friend, our colleague's father, Jack Latvala, who passed away last week. And he was a friend to many, an adversary to some, but a really, really good man with a good heart and brought a lot to us in this area. I was at a Tampa Bay water meeting yesterday, and we talked about the impact that he had in bringing regional Tampa Bay water to this area. And so many, many other ways that he affected us all here. So just I know that folks have maybe gone, went to the funeral or went to the night before, but just wanted to take a moment of silence and recognize a really good, powerful man in our community. And he will be missed, and to my friend, to the right, prayers to you and your family. Moment of silence, please. Thank you, Jack Latvala. Okay, we're going to start with an invocation led by Commissioner Scott. A pledge will be by Commissioner Flowers. Please rise if you can. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let us bow our heads in prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the gift of this day and for the privilege of serving the people of Pinellas County. Grant us wisdom to make decisions with integrity, humility, to listen with open hearts, and courage to always pursue what is right for the communities we represent. As our nation commemorates the 250th anniversary of America's founding, we pause in gratitude for the vision, the sacrifice, and enduring principles that have guided our country for two and a half centuries. We remember those who pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to establish a nation founded in liberty, justice, and self-government. May we honor their legacy not only in celebration, but through faithful service, respectful dialogue, and a renewed commitment to the freedoms and responsibilities entrusted to each generation. Today, we also pause to remember State Senator Jack Latvala. We give thanks for his many years of public service and his dedication to the people of Pinellas County and to the state of Florida. In this time of loss, we ask that you surround his family, his friends, and all who knew him with your peace, comfort, and strength. May they find solace in cherished memories and in the knowledge that a life devoted to serving others leaves a lasting impact. Lord, remind us that while we may differ in perspective, we are united in our shared responsibility to improve the lives of those we serve. Help us to conduct ourselves with grace, civility, and compassion, always seeking the common good above personal interest. May your guidance be with this board throughout today's meeting, and may our work reflect honor, justice, and a sincere desire to leave our county stronger for future generations. In your holy name we pray. Amen. We pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. And before we get started with the proclamations, I wanted to recognize Corporal Thornton, Deputy Manley, and Deputy Atkinson, all three here today. Thank you, Corporal, and to the others for taking care of us and protecting us while we conduct the business of the people. Okay. Go ahead and get started with the proclamations. Okay. We're going to start first with a Purple Heart proclamation, and I'd like to welcome Father Bob Swick, who, come on up, Bob, commander of the local chapter of the military order of the Purple Heart, and Michael Schwanger, who's the director of Pinellas County Veteran Services. I'm going to read a proclamation and then give you a moment for a few words. Half hour. Yeah, be fine. A Purple Heart is the oldest military decoration still in present use and was initially created by George Washington in 1782 as the badge of military merit. The Purple Heart was the first American service award made available to the common soldier and is awarded to any member of the United States Armed Forces, Armed Services, wounded or killed in combat with a declared enemy of the United States. The military of the Purple Heart John F. Kennedy Memorial Chapter 1963 has been a steadfast advocate for veterans across our community. Thank you, Bob. And in 2006, the chapter played a leading and historic role in establishing the city of Dunedin as the first Purple Heart city in the state of Florida. I remember meeting with Danny Souter, former member of your group, and talking for hours about how we can make it happen. He was a leader for you guys back then. In 2017, the chapter again provided the key leadership in designating Pinellas County as a Purple Heart county. Their continued dedication has contributed to successful recent state legislation, enabling Purple Heart recipients to obtain specialized license plates, granting them toll-free travel throughout the state of Florida. The military of the Purple Heart John F. Kennedy Memorial Chapter 1963 and its Purple Heart recipients remain unwavering in their mission, fostering goodwill and camaraderie among combat wounded veterans, promoting patriotism, supporting critical legislative efforts, and providing essential services to veterans and their families throughout Pinellas County. Very instrumental in getting Oldsmar done as a Purple Heart community and others and working on Palm Harbor right now. So we're looking forward to that. Now, therefore, be it proclaimed by the Pinellas County Board of County Commissioners that August 7th, 2026, be recognized as Purple Heart Day. And I'd just like to say thank you for all that you do, my friend, and I'd just like to say thank you for all that you do, my friend, in this community, on behalf of veterans everywhere, and to you as well, my friend. Let's give them a sound of appreciation. Well, good afternoon. Good afternoon. I promise I keep this under a half hour, maybe three minutes. I just want to say thank you all. You know, there's something of value here that we need to grab hold of. That's called patriotism. And the chapter, which was established 20 years ago, being the first here in the state of Florida, actually, you know, we thought we were the first in the entire United States. And we found out that some Podunk County up in Upper Michigan or someplace beat us by three months. But that's okay. We're second. But we are first in the state. And I believe now if we get Tom Harbor to get its certification through the county here, that will give us somewhere, I think, what did I say, 87. 87 cities here in the state of Florida are Purple Heart cities. Most of the counties are Purple Heart counties. A number of roadways have got recognition. Our state highway route 60 from Pinellas on the Courtney Campbell Causeway at the beginning of the county all the way to the beach, that's Purple Heart Trail. And as Dave just mentioned, last year we got the state to unanimously, both House and Senate, to approve an enhanced Purple Heart plate. Why enhanced? Because right now, if we're totally disabled, such as I am, I'd have to relinquish my Purple Heart plate to get a disabled American veterans plate, DAV, or just a DV plate. Which gives these toll-free abilities and free parking at airports. But we don't want to give up our Purple Heart plate. So we now have that in the works. And I'm going to ask Commissioner David here to help me get the DMV to relinquish and give us that plate. But again, I thank everyone for this. It's very kind of you. And it's an extraordinary honor. Thank you. And just, I don't know which Purple Heart cities are going to have events on August 7th, but I know the city of Dunedin at 10 o'clock in downtown at the Purple Heart Park will have an event celebrating Purple Heart Day. Our next proclamation is for National Parks and Recreation Month. And we have a few people to bring forward. Rich Cerrone, Park Preserve Maintenance Worker, come on up. Michael Dyer, Park Ranger 1. Robert Gardner, Crew Chief 1. Hannah Hayes, Curator of Educations at Heritage Village. Jason Miller, Park Ranger 3. And Lynette Preston, Section Manager 2 of the Visitor Services and Outreach. I'm going to read this proclamation and you guys can decide who's going to speak on behalf of all of you. All right. Parks and Recreation programs enhance our quality of life by contributing to a healthy lifestyle, community building, economic development, and environmental sustainability. Parks and Recreation activities and leisure experiences provide opportunities for people to live, grow, and develop into contributing to members of society, as well as to boost the economy, attract new businesses, and increase tourism. Pannels County's parks and preserves provide outlets for physical activities, socialization, scenic beauty, and preservation of habitat for native plants and wildlife that create personal connections and experiences which help strengthen families. Pannels County's parks, playgrounds, nature fields, open spaces, cultural and historic sites make the community an attractive and desirable place to live, work, play, visit, and contribute to our ongoing economic vitality. The parks, preserves, greenways, and open spaces provide a welcome respite from our fast-paced, high-tech lifestyles while protecting and preserving our natural resources. The National Parks and Recreation Association and the Florida Recreation and Park Association have designated July as National Parks and Recreation Month, and the Pinellas County Board of County Commissioners proclaim the month of July, 2026, be recognized as National Parks and Recreation Month. And so just want to say it's great to have the cities all over this county have their recreation programs. It's great that we have a park and environmental land program, and I love the educational programs that we have, whether it's Heritage Village, Weed Nile, and other places. It's just amazing what we do for the residents and visitors, and you guys do it every day on the front line. And so, again, thank you for all of that. And who's going to speak? Come on. Good afternoon. Thank you, Chairman Eggers, Commissioners. As Commissioner Eggers said, we are celebrating Park and Recreation Month this month. But one thing about us, we celebrate it all year long. But this year, the theme is the power of connection, the power of well-being, the power of nature, the power of community, but mostly, importantly, the power of parks and recreation. So I won't take too much, but just want to thank you all for celebrating with us. And, again, not just this month, but all year long. Thank you. All right. And our last proclamation for the day is we call it 727 Day. And I'd like to invite Brian Lowak, the Director of Visit St. Pete Clearwater, up here. He's already on his way. Tourism serves as the largest economic driver of Pinellas County, supporting more than 100,000 jobs, along with local businesses and public facilities, and approximately 15 million visitors traveling through Pinellas County annually, creating more than $10 billion in economic impact, contributing more than $6 billion in direct spending each year, and saving every Pinellas household nearly $2,000 in taxes annually. Most of that's through the property taxes, but Brian will speak to that. Local residents are the heart of Pinellas County, making significant contributions in creating a unique and welcoming destination for visitors from around the world. This unique collaboration between Visit St. Pete Clearwater and the local hospitality and tourism industry serves to thank residents for the warm hospitality they share with visitors year-round. Visit St. Pete Clearwater generates opportunities to educate residents about the value of tourism and the integral role that tourism plays in fueling our economy, while highlighting the incredible impact that comes from visitors with love. July 27th shall serve as 727 day and an opportunity to celebrate our incredible destination, home of the best area code of them all, 727, showing appreciation to residents for their positive impact on local tourism through specials and celebrations around Pinellas County. Now, therefore, be it proclaimed by the Pinellas County Board of County Commissioners that July 27th, 2026, be recognized as 727 day. We celebrate the invaluable contributions of our local residents and encourage everyone to take this day to acknowledge and appreciate the essential role they play in making Pinellas County a premier tourism destination. We extend our gratitude to visit St. Pete Clearwater and our local tourism and hospitality industry for their ongoing efforts to promote tourism, highlight the immense value of tourism, as well as the importance of our community in these endeavors. Brian, congratulations. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And Pinellas County's favorite holiday is back yet again, 727 day. So, this year, we're really taking advantage of the day to celebrate three things, really. Thank our residents for welcoming millions of visitors to the destination each year, highlight the value of tourism and the importance it is on our local economy, as well as drive foot traffic through the doors of our local businesses. So, you can do that this year through downloading, if you have not already, the 727 day mobile passport. We partnered with over 140 local businesses to create 727 inspired deals all over the county. And as a bonus, if you check in and redeem that passport at at least two of those locations, you will, too, receive one of these 727 day shirts designed and created by local artist Clancy Ream. We also partnered with the Tampa Bay Rays and iHeartMedia, where you can go on 727day.com, take the 727 day quiz, and claim your pair of tickets to this Saturday evening's Rays game, where we will be in attendance. And the first thousand folks that come over to our table can also claim their 727 day t-shirt. So, last but not least, on 727 day, it is a Monday this year, but we're celebrating all week, all weekend, on Monday, actual 727 day, between the hour of 727 a.m. and 827 a.m., you can go into any Kawa coffee and claim your free small drink. So, thank you guys for your commitment to tourism and to our million residents that make this the best destination and the best area code in the world. Thank you. From three really, really fun and good proclamations to an even more fun presentation, coming from our clerk of the courts, Ken Burke. He's going to talk about the annual comprehensive financial report and audit results. Thank you, Ken, for being here today. Certainly, and thank you all for inviting me to participate in your meeting. I appreciate that. And, Commissioner Eggers and Commissioner Scott, thank you for your prayer today, and thank you for your remembrance of Jack Latvala. He was a bigger-than-life personality here in Pinellas County, and we certainly do miss him. His spirit will stay with us for a long time to come. So, I appreciate both of you all mentioning him in your prayers. Today, we're here to talk about the county's finances, and the county has good finances, and that's important to hear, and it's important for you all to know that. You know, I was talking with Jeff, our auditor, and just asking him, you know, do you at times have to go give bad news to counties and to cities? And he says occasionally he does, but we're very fortunate, Pinellas County, to have excellent financial reporting. Our clerk's office is the one who prepares the various reports. The auditor only prepares, and Jeff will tell you, there's several pages in this booklet here. They give the opinion letter that's contained in this annual report. This annual comprehensive financial report is something we submit to GFOA, and we get a Certificate of Excellence. We've received a Certificate of Excellence for 44 years for our financial reporting. We also prepare an annual financial report, which the state of Florida requires, and that includes the financial statements for each of the constitutional officers included in that report. This report does show the combined financial report for the county, including the financials, but it doesn't show the individual financial statements for the constitutionals. And we also prepare this, and this is something that y'all should, we have copies for everyone, Bill. We'll pass those out to you. You should have those. Good. You have copies. This is something, let us know how many copies you need, and this is something you can, you're welcome to distribute to your speaking engagement. You have the citizens who you come in contact with us, with y'all, so let us know how many of these. This is a condensed version of our annual financial report in a very friendly format so that people can understand how our finances work. We also prepare this, and by the way, we've received our excellence in financial reporting every year since we've been publishing this for the past 18 years, so we're very proud of that. We also have our debt report. This debt report is very small, which is good, because we have very little debt in Pinellas County. We have $57 million of debt in Pinellas County, which for a county of our size is truly amazing. So that tells you about how we pay down our debt on that. We also, and Chris, you deserve credit for this, the budget award. You receive the budget award for the best practice there, and so we have what's called the triple crown of awards, and they've only given this five years, and we've earned it each of the five years, and we're very proud of that. And when I talk about these awards, okay, you may say, gosh, well, that's very nice. You get an award. Does that mean anything to Pinellas County? It does. When we go out for the new construction of the new courthouse and have a bond issue, the ratings of these excellence factor into our ratings, and so we will receive a reduced interest rate as a result of the excellence of this financial reporting. And that's something, this turns into tens of thousands of dollars over the period of time, so this excellence in reporting is something that the rating agencies look at when rating our bonds, and so that's extremely important. I want to also mention about our spending in the Sunshine site that we have on the clerk's website. I'm sure you take a look at that. I hope the citizens listening to this take a look at it. It's the most financial transparent site that I know of. It shows every dollar we spend in Pinellas County. If you want to see an employee, how much an employee makes, if you want to see how much Barry Burton makes, you can go look it up. If you want to see how much Ken Burke makes, you can look it up. Every employee of the Board of County Commission, every employee of the clerk's office, our salary year-to-date is listed. It changes each payroll, and it shows you what our annual compensation is. And so that's something which I'm sure our employees look at, especially comparing other employees' salaries. But also it shows all the expenditures that the county makes. It's a very robust website. You can look it up by departments, by all types of different types of search engines. If you want to look up everyone who makes between $50,000 and $60,000, you can put those parameters in, and it will show you those folks who make between that amount. It also helps us with public records. We don't get public records requests on financial information on employees anymore. We direct them towards that site. I want to also pay tribute to our court clerk, our board reporter here, who is reporting our meetings, and to Daryl Lynn, who are always at your meetings, making sure that the minutes are always accurate. I certainly appreciate them. But I want to pay special tribute to the finance staff of the clerk's office. Jeanette over here is the director of our finance office. We have Bill Scyther, who is one of her assistants, and Nicole Woods, who is back at the office working, is our other assistant. But they work extremely hard at making – and our finance division as a whole works extremely hard at making sure that all the financial reporting is done accurately and on time. And on time is very difficult with the staff that we have. I also want to say we should take tremendous pride in our finances. I come to you – this is my 22nd year presenting to this board, and each year I have good news for you on our financial reporting. And this is not something which is very common across the state. And so that's something that we should take great pride, that we have an unmodified financial report, that we have the best financial report that's out there, and that we should take pride in that. That, as a government, that we work together, we work with Barry and his departments on the financial reporting and on the excellence that we have in our financial reporting. It takes everyone involved, your departments, all the assistant county administrators, Chris, everyone involved, to make this financial reporting work and work well. So on that note, I'm going to introduce our auditor, who's going to give you the audit report, and that's Jeff Wolf with four of his mazers. Thank you, Ken. Good afternoon. Just before I start, I always want to thank both the board and the constitutional officers for allowing us to serve you. We work for you, and we take that role very seriously. And secondly, I'll just remind you, you may or may not remember, we were a smaller firm that was acquired by Forrest-Mazaars, which was a top-ten firm. This was the first year that went under – that the audit was performed under the Forrest-Mazaars audit methodology. And I say that, that means you really got a fresh look. We looked at things differently. We asked different questions. I know it was a challenging audit, but ultimately, the results are the same. And I think that really goes to Ken's comment, just the quality of staff you have at the clerk's office and the board finance. This was really, you know, a different look. And as you'll see, the results were really the same. So with that, I'll just go right into – what's the move? So, just first is our recorded communication, which is a handout included in your packet. This is kind of hugely standard-driven, so I'll just kind of do a high-level overview of that letter. First, it covers our requirements as your auditors. As Ken mentioned, you know, we are not responsible for preparing that large document, the ACFER. We are responsible for auditing it according to standards and writing your opinion on those financial statements. We do test internal controls really just to help plan our audit and gain an understanding of the county. We do not render an opinion on those internal controls, but if we found any significant deficiencies and material weaknesses in controls, we would communicate those to you. Again, ultimately, the clerk's office is responsible for preparing the ACFER. One key thing to note is we did not have any audit adjustments. I think that's always important to note, that meaning that the trial balance we started is what we finished during the audit. So as you get, you know, financial information monthly, it's important to know that, you know, you're getting reliable information. Then lastly, it just goes on to cover, you know, if we had any other difficulties encountered during the audit, which I'm happy to report that there were no issues. No accounting transactions that were not in accordance with GAAP, and again, the audit was completed in accordance with the planned schedule. So on to the service and deliverables, and I will apologize. This will be repetitive, but, you know, as it relates to audit reports, typically no news is good news. So first is our independent audit report, and that is a report on whether those financial statements are materially correct. We had an unmodified opinion. That is the highest level of assurance you can receive that your financial statements are materially correct. So that is a clean opinion. That is the highest level you can receive. Next is our report on internal control over financial reporting and compliance. Again, we don't render an opinion on those controls. However, if we saw any material weaknesses or deficiencies in controls, we would communicate those to you. But again, no findings, no issues noted with that report. As always, the county met both the federal and state single audit thresholds, $1 million for the federal and $750,000 for the state. So that requires a separate audit as it relates to compliance to internal controls over grants. We tested four major federal programs and three state projects. We both test for compliance with requirements related to those grants and internal controls. And again, we had an unmodified opinion as it relates to compliance on all those grants. And no material weakness towards the significant deficiencies or any other findings related to those seven programs tested. So again, another clean report. Our next report is the Ard or General Required Management Letter. This report kind of encompasses several things. If there was any deteriorating financial condition or financial emergencies, we'd be required to communicate to those. As Ken mentioned, you know, the county is in a strong financial position, so no concerns there. And or if we had any other findings that we thought maybe didn't reach the level of the previous report, but we thought it would be still worthwhile to communicate to you, we would note it in that report. But again, no findings or no noncompliance noted. We also issue an independent account report as it relates to compliance, as it relates to Florida statutes for investments and the E911 system. Again, no findings, no noncompliance issues noted. You can tell we issue a lot of reports, so a lot of work goes into this. We also issue agreed upon procedure reports as it relates to the solid waste management facility. Again, no exceptions noted with those reports. In addition to the county audit, we also separately audit every constitutional officer. All of those audits were clean audits, no findings, no issues noted in those reports. We also audit your community redevelopment agency. Again, that was an unmodified opinion, no findings, no issues noted. And lastly, we issue a separate report related to the passenger facility charge program with the FAA. And again, no findings, no issues noted. So I think the takeaway clearly from the audit side, you know, it was another strong audit, clean year, fresh set of eyes, different way of looking things, but same results. So going on to some quick comparative data, looking at some peer counties, which is a little bit small. But as you can see, looking at fund balance, you're seeing a little bit of the impact of the hurricanes, you know, the fund balance dropping down to 19%, but still within industry standards of a reasonable fund balance. And still pretty much in line with your peer counties, you know, Hillsborough kind of being the odd one with that 50% fund balance. But I think really the key, I think financial, as Ken alluded to, was really the little to no debt that you have, which really allows you to be pretty flexible when you don't have those debt service requirements. You're really in a kind of a class of your own when it comes to looking at your peer counties. That's, you know, basically very little debt. So in closing, I'd be more happy to answer any questions related to the audit. But, again, I think the takeaway, which we've said a couple times here, is, again, very strong financial reporting, very, you know, another successful clean audit, and the county remains in a strong financial position. Well, first of all, thank you for the absolutely boring report. I mean, we do love that. I mean, seriously, that's excellent. It continues to be the same over and over, and it's a testament not only to Ken and his group, your financial group, just amazing what they do in our own finance department. And the work that we all, the groups, have to play in making sure that the audit comes out, as you've described. So, again, thank you for being here, and I'll just open it up for any comments or questions from any of the commissioners. Anybody? No? I had a commission, Chair. Go ahead, Commissioner Chair. This is obviously the end of 25. You did the 25 audit. Anywhere in this report, do you compare the budgets for 25 to the actuals, or is that out of your scope completely? Yes, there are budgets, budget to actual schedules in that document that shows, you know, the beginning budget, the final budget, then an actual, then a comparison. And I would suggest just reading also the management discussion analysis that kind of discusses some changes in the budget. Is it per department or per? It's going to be, it's not going to be that level of detail. It's going to be functioned, so it'll be broken out like public safety, general government. So it's not to that level of detail. But, you know, certainly the clerk's office would have that information as well. That's what I want to know. Okay. Thank you, Commissioner Chair. Anybody else? Okay. Thank you. Appreciate your being here today. Ken, and you and your group, thank you again. Appreciate it. We're going to go on to Citizens to be Heard, and we're going to start with Jamie Carlton. If you'll come forward, state your name and address, you'll have three minutes. And then Everett is here as well. So you'll each have three minutes right there. Yep. You got it. Hi. Welcome. My name is Jamie Carlton, and I live in Harbor Hills, 4522 Clearwater Harbor Drive. My home was substantially damaged in the 2024 hurricanes, and I chose to elevate rather than trying to appeal, which a lot of homeowners decided that they were going to appeal. I chose to elevate. My project was completed last year. I immediately applied for Pinellas Recovers, the homeowner reimbursement program, and you would think four feet of water, I'm the poster child, right, for Pinellas Recovers. I should get all of my money back, or at least the $50,000. Not only was I denied initially, I was denied a second time. So I'm here not to complain. I know you guys are doing everything that you can do to help us, but this program has a lot of inadequacies that need to be addressed before the next hurricane. So I'm heeding the rest of my time to my husband. I'm trying to get him to come up. Okay. But that's essentially why I'm here. And do you want to come up? We... Oh, okay. That's okay. And then we'll bring up Everett as well. Come on up, Everett. Yeah, and just as a side note, I've had three calls this week, two calls this week that said there's some issues they felt as well. So you're not, certainly not alone, but appreciate your coming and expressing. Everett, go ahead. Hi, guys. I'm kind of sad that the Parks and Rec people are gone. I was going to tell them we love the Parks and Rec, and we love the county, we love living here. What we've noticed is a little of a procedure over purpose, right? Everybody's out here to do the right thing. We just get kind of boggled up in paperwork, et cetera, et cetera. And this is kind of us just giving information to you guys, too. What's interesting is we first applied for Elevate Florida. We were denied Elevate Florida because we signed a contract with an elevation company before getting approved for this Elevate Florida. The reason we signed for a contract to Elevate the home is because of the substantial damage letter we got from the county. So Pinellas County sent us a letter that said we had a certain date to comply with the remediation of the home pursuant to the substantial damage letter. What did we do? We signed the contract. Then Elevate Florida comes out. We apply for Elevate Florida. We're denied because we signed the contract with our present lifter. So then the house gets finished. Then Pinellas Recovers comes out. We apply for Pinellas Recovers. We were denied because they said the house wasn't finished. The house is finished. We're just in litigation with the contractor over issues that have nothing to do with the completion of the project, but that's why I guess the permit isn't closed. Anyway, I just thought you guys should know, and if you guys want to help, that'd be great. If not, that's cool, too. Appreciate your being here. We do have the disaster recovery personnel, substantially damaged personnel out front. I know you guys have gone down that path many times over, but I just wanted you to be aware of that. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. David Ballard-Gettis, Jr. Hi, good afternoon, commissioners. David Ballard-Gettis, Jr. I live on Georgia Avenue in Palm Harbor. Again, the Declaration of Independence states to dissolve this government and assume separate but equal stations among the powers of the earth as this government constitutionally capturing both land and water in Article I, Section 8, Clause 11, giving rise to exclusive and particular legislation as enumerated from Article I, Section 2, erecting fortifications 10 miles square in Article I, Section 8, Clause 17, while birthing unwarranted despotic water jurisdictions under the 14th Amendment as the new seat of government, directly taxing the Christian population as deduced based on the reclaimed water variance application, taking the liberty, the property, and life, health, safety, and religion of Christianity claimed as due process of birthing a ship of war assailed from Article I, Section 10, deaf to the voice of justice and consiguinity, all the while declaring themselves to be gods, nature's gods in the Declaration of Independence. Federalist paper number 79 states that in order to control man's will, you must first control man's subsistence. Legislation is using water as their Second Amendment election of choice. Based on Reclaimed Water Statute 15303, Section 7 and 11, our current government is being dissolved, recognized as an interagency self-liquidation in and of itself in Statute 163.01, transferring county function and power to an internal foreign occupier in Pinellas County Home Rule Charter, Section 2.04Q, as based on Statute 218.415, Section 16F, in a long train of usurpations as declared as audited. Therefore, the county, the city, its municipal governments, along with the water district, are all to be charged with constitutional contempt, racketeering, and perjury, and further charged with high-seize constitutional crimes, such as bills of attainder, ex post facto laws, letters of marquee reprisals to include the charge of treason in its non-ad valorem levies and acquisitions underpinned in and on the county ad valorem bill. Thank you. Okay. Greg Pound. Greg Pound, Largo. Just to clarify for everyone, just go to YouTube, type in, St. Petersburg audit shows that $49 million of wasteful and excessive government spending, then $100 million audit found for disabled and injured individuals had gone missing. That's in this county. And this is the latest news. So these guys aren't telling you the truth. All they're telling you is what they want you to hear, and that's what it is. You've got an illegal sheriff in this county, one of the highest offices is your constitutional office. That's why I ran for sheriff. They brought out three attorneys. I brought the pictures here to show you at the debates. Scott Swoof, Everett Rice, and Robert Guattieri. And then after the – I mean, this stuff is so insane. I mean, we've got illegal people running for office, and we have no one understanding what's going on in our county. It says in the Bible, it says – this is what it says in Isaiah 9, verse 16. It says, For it is the leaders of this people that calls them the heir, and they that are led of them are destroyed. All through history, it's always been the leadership. Number one thing destroying us and our families is one sin in the Bible that the Bible says to run from. The one sin is called fornication. That's sex outside of marriage. It says run from it. And you look at the filth they're teaching our children through Planned Parenthood, our little kids at three and five years old, and the terminology they're supposed to use of the human anatomy when it comes to sexual parts. I mean, this is unbelievable, pushing sex, and this sex is destroying us. It's going to destroy you, your families, your country, and your children, and that's just what it's doing. It's destroying America because you won't stand up for it. You won't stand up for the Word of God. So this is it. Since I've been in this county, I mean, I've been beat up, gone to jail, lied about. All the evidence disappears in the court. I mean, who would ever imagine you go to court as I run for sheriff, and after they beat me up, they lose all my documentation. I mean, at this ballroom event that I was at, a political ballroom event, this is insane. It's out-of-control corruption, and you people all are part of it. You've been stuck in here. You go from office to office. They moved you around. You're not of the people, and you're not for the people. You're for one, and that's yourself and your power and getting money. That's what it's all about. You're not loving America, and you're not loving our people, and that's why our country is being destroyed. That's why our families, that's why none of our families are working. Look at the corruption in our court system, in our sheriff's department. The whole thing has gone haywire. It's gone out of control. So this is my prayer for Pinellas County and our leadership. He casted upon them the fierceness of his anger, wrath, and indignation by sending evil angels among them. So that's my prayer, that the creator will deal with those in the positions of leadership who are destroying this county, destroying our country. Instead of being a leadership of changing this country by going back to the Constitution and living by it, we've got an illegal sheriff, and he should be cleaning the county up, not working with the courthouse to do what they're doing. Thank you. All right. We are – that's all the comments that we had today. We'll go on to the consent agenda. Does anybody want to pull anything from the consent? Yes, Mr. Chairman, I'd like to pull 17, 18, and 23. 17, 18, and 22? 23. 23. 17, 18, and 23. Yeah, I just have to put questions on. Yeah. Anybody else want to pull anything? Do I have a motion? We'll move. Okay. Motion by Commissioner Nowicki, second by Commissioner Peters. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Item 17. Okay, thank you. I actually have the same question for both items 17 and 18. Therefore, 36-month contract with two additional 12-month terms, it says with mutual agreement by the county and firms after the initial 36-month term. Is there any price escalators or any guarantees in that, and would that be just negotiated and then brought back to this board for approval? So I'm trying to look up what item 17 is. Chris, do you know? I can move to the other ones. 17 is Florida Public Service Commission. No, this is the Public Service Commission docket. No, 18. 18 and 19. Yeah, you said 17, 18, and 23. Oh, did I say? I meant 18. Oh, 18? Oh, I'm sorry. 18 and 23? 18, 19. Oh, 18, 19. Okay, I'm sorry about that. All right, got it. That helps me. I didn't know what 17 was. Okay. We'll go back to 17 later. So, Bill, you want to come up and address these agreements? I'm assuming these are three-year contracts year to year so that, you know, things change in the next few months that we have abilities to. Either you or Chris. He's on. Good afternoon. Bill Greer, Director for Construction and Property Management. So, the questions are on both 18 and 19, the landscape, landscape, what question can I? And the air conditioning. Yeah, there's the air conditioning. And the air conditioning. On the extensions, the two 12-month extensions, I didn't see anything in the follow-up documents there indicating if there was any price escalators in there, or would that be just negotiated and then brought back to us for approval, or? No, the price, there will be no price escalators. The price will be set for the term of the contract. Including the additional? Yes. Okay. Yes. That's for 18 and 19, correct? We don't have price escalators because of those prices. For those. I'll have to get you a different answer. Paul Sock will have to address the question on 23. On 23. Okay. So, if we chose to go with those two, exercise those auctioneers, then it would be the same pricing? That's correct. 36 months? Yes, sir. All right. That was my question. And while you're there, on both of those, their three-year contracts or an extension of a contract, do we have the ability to terminate contracts, adjust contracts during? Yes. Absolutely. Okay. All right. At any time. Okay. If there weren't funds available, we can ratchet back activity. These are our standard contracts. 18 is actually a consolidation. So, we've actually saved approximately $300,000 because we consolidated multiple contracts into one. So, we're getting efficiency of service, and we have multiple vendors instead of singular vendors. So, we have created more competition for the work. Love it. That's great. I appreciate that. Okay. Did you have anything else? No. I would move approval. On those, move approval on, we'll do 17 since we didn't do that. Yeah, 17, 18, and 19. 17, 18, and 19, I have a motion by Commissioner Scott, second by Commissioner Nowicki. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Item 23. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So, my question on item 23 is the recommended vendor is 30% lower in cost than the runner-up, and that just seems like a very, very big gap. I just want to make sure that we're confident that they can complete the work, because a little later in the agenda, I think item 45, we're actually terminating a contract with utilities for flood barriers, because what appears is they underbid it and then tried to renegotiate the contract after the fact for more money. So, I just want to make sure that we're comfortable. We've got a good, solid vendor that can – I love the fact that they're 30% cheaper. I just want to make sure they can complete the job. Understood. Paul Sacco, director of solid waste, we had a pre-bid meeting. This was – and it wasn't mandatory, but this was one of the crews that came out. This is not a complex project, but it's complex in a sense that the air conditioning systems for the building are being done while it's being inhabited. So, different contractors have different approaches on how they were going to do that, and that's probably where they're seeing the reduction on their approach to make that happen. But we're comfortable in the prices that we have. It's also in line with what the architectural and design engineer that we had for the project. So, we're comfortable. Thank you. I move approval unless there's any other questions. Motion from Commissioner Scott for approval of 23, second by Commissioner Flowers. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Scott. Appreciate that. On to item 27, Barry. Item 27 is a project application for FAA funding. This will – a grant will enable the airport to fund 36 vehicle movement area transmitters, which will be installed at the airport. Any questions? Motion by Commissioner Wicke, second by Commissioner Peters. Pull up the voting card, please. Motion carries unanimously. Okay, item – oop, did I get the right one? Go ahead, Barry. Item 28 is historic preservation ad vorum tax exemption for two historic properties in the city of St. Petersburg that meet the qualifications. Any questions? Motion by Commissioner Scheer, second by Commissioner Wicke. Bring up the voting card, please. Motion carries unanimously. Number 29. 29 is First Amendment term extension for BKN Creative, and this is for marketing services for St. Petersburg, Clearwater. I'm sorry. I take that back. I was thinking BBK that we used to have. This is out of Human Services. Yeah, I apologize. This exercise is the – first, this is the Care About Me program, and so this is the marketing piece that we talked about previously. Motion by Commissioner Peters, second by Commissioner Scheer. Any questions, comments? Commissioner Flowers. Not a question, but just a comment because I just want to make sure – I think all of us want to make sure that the program is being marketed appropriately so that that connectivity is there and we can get the best access we can from this. So maybe a third of the way through or something we can have, like a presentation about what's going on, where they're at, how many touches, you know, things like that just so we can see because this is a nice little amount of money. Well, you know, just to make sure, you know. As we get this contract up and running, the commission has, you know, requested to be kept abreast of this program. We certainly – this is kind of our last best chance to be able to make that connection. So we certainly – I was just saying, you know. We can schedule time at a work session to provide updates periodically throughout the next year. And I would say sooner rather than later. Yeah. Because it just seems very generic approach and too many – we hear from too many people that they haven't heard about it. Yep. And so we need to get into the weeds in terms of getting a hold of people and making sure that they understand the benefits. Yeah. Did you have something, Commissioner Scott? Yeah, I just – I agree with Commissioner Flowers. I'd like more regular updates on this sooner rather than later because the last update only showed about a 4% utilization rate. So, you know, we need to make sure that we're spending money wisely. There's way too many people that just haven't heard about it. It's just not, you know. It's such a great program. But anybody else? Okay. Grant with the voting – excuse me? Yeah. Grant with the voting card, please. Motion carries unanimously. Item 30. This resolution is declaring Pinellas County Government as a hybrid entity for Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. This puts us into HIPAA compliance. Motion by Commissioner Flowers. Second by Commissioner Peters. Any questions? Bring up the card, please. We only have five. No, we have five. There you go. Motion carries six to zero. Item 31. Commissioners, item 31 is the funding recommendation originally provided by staff for the Social Action Grant Program. However, you know, you had asked it to be delayed a month when we looked at this. Staff's further looked at this, and we have some recommended changes that we're going to recommend as part of the budget. So we would recommend that at this point you delay this until after we have our budget discussions here in August. And we can either put it on for late August or September. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Is everybody okay with that? Yeah. Do we need a motion to do that? Do we need a motion for that to – I don't think so. Okay. We just wanted to simply delay it to a future meeting. Okay. So we're going to – You directed it to be on the agenda. That's the reason it's on the agenda. Yeah. So we're actually going to have some staff recommendations as part of the budget recommendations. So first or second meeting in August, you'll bring it back. We'll bring it back to the second meeting in August. Okay. All right. I'll just – real quickly, Barry, is it possible just to make it a decision package? Well, it – Does it need to be? It's an ongoing program. I'm going to have some recommendations as part of the budget presentation on August 11th. And then you can discuss where you want to go with that, whether you agree with it or want to change it following that meeting. I think it's still good to have discussion here publicly. I mean, I know those are public meetings too, but at a commission meeting. Yeah. Anyway. All right. Okay. So we'll move on to item 32. Item 32, service area competition grant award. This is for our health care for the homeless program. So this is a grant award. Chair? Yes. I had a couple of questions. Commissioner Shearer. A couple of questions. Yes, sir. Go ahead. First of all, I looked at this. First of all, $67,000, but this is – are we actually approving $5,411,000 of the general fund? I'll ask Jennifer to come up. It looks like that to me. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, Jennifer Tiago with Human Services. So the $5 million in change, that's already in the FY26 budget currently supporting the program. I believe it was in April. We were before you and accepted the first portion of this grant award, so this reconciles the second half of the year, and then a one-time infusion of the $67,000 that we were given specifically for additional services for HIV. So, Commissioner, to follow up on that, so the answer is yes. It requires a significant grant amount of general fund matched by a lot of money out of the federal government. That's the program that you asked us to look at last year, and we're currently doing an evaluation of that program. It's been a complicated review. That won't be back to us until August, so we're going to put that on for kind of – it's going to take time if we made a change anyway, so we want to put that on for, like, October. To go through all of our health care programs and look at it at that time. So this is money already budgeted for this in FY26, but it's not going to come out of the FY27? Well, this is actually a grant award, so this piece is the federal money. Well, I was confused about that, too, because at the top it says federal funding in the amount of $1 million, and then the county anticipates non-federal funds of $5.4 million. That's general fund. That's general fund, so is this going to come out – is this going to be coming out of the 27? It's been an ongoing program for many years. So it is? Yes. Well, I just wanted to – you know, I've looked at this. That is not a matching fund. We're not required to match this program, and I don't know why this couldn't be part of our budget discussion for 27 as well. And why this – I don't even know. I looked through the documents. I didn't even see exactly who's getting the grant funds, the $5.4 million. Is there a – do we have a list of – Karen actually sent – she sent you a list of the homeless services. That was the email that she sent to you. I did get that. That is $1.7 million. Yeah, we also have – we also have the funding out of the – that we do for the health department. Okay? That – we have that, and then we have this area of funding. I'm looking back. If they want to correct me, they certainly can. But this is – looking at the way in which we do – because that was the question about this is an FQHC. So do we want to provide these types of services, or do we want to outsource it to someone, or what – so we hired a consultant to do that review. That's what you asked last year. We just haven't completed that study yet. The consultant's going to be bringing back recommendations so we can look comprehensively at all of our health care programs at that time. But we don't have the report back. So we will get there, but we don't have that alternative. I just want to make sure we're not dedicating funds out of the 27 budget for this program. Well, we absolutely are. They're ongoing. Unless we were going to cut the program. Well, that's what – The whole budget discussion was about, what programs we're going to fund and which ones we're not. Correct. And so this is a significant program that we've had ongoing for many years. So are we going to be prepared to have any discussion at all in August at our budget workshop? We can have any discussion you want to have regarding this funding. We won't have the consultant's report ready for a discussion that this year's won't. Well, I mean, would you like to get a little peek at what's going on with that report? I would love to. I haven't even seen it yet. I don't know. Well, it's a question that can be asked. They bring things together pretty quickly. Well, Karen's not here. Karen's on vacation. I mean, I prefer to Jennifer or Matt. But we need to see what's in the report. I mean, I can't – I literally have no information of that. We've been pushing the consultant. But it's a complex review. You're talking about federal funds, local programs. Part of it is with the health department. The health department is a state agency partly funded by us. And so there's a lot of pieces to that review. And I get what you're saying. The conversation about how much of it should be in the next budget is also – I understand that discussion as well. So what do we do to handle the month of October? We're going to get the report in October? Well, we're going to – Matt, I don't know when the draft is supposed to be here. We're going to review a draft with Barry in a couple weeks, I think August 3rd. And then we can get the – once it's finalized, we can get that before the BCC. And as Barry stated, there's decisions you can make in October or November. And then we – depending on what those decisions are, we'd have to look at the different agreements and what would have to – we could unwind things based off of that discussion. I just want to make sure I'm clear. You're going to have kind of a summary in August. Sometime in August, we can provide the report summary, yes. That's correct. But why do we have to wait until October? We don't. If – it depends on – the consultant's report is exactly that. I've been through this a thousand times. Some come in, they're on point, they're direct. Some, they don't have correct information. They have to do follow-ups. It takes them a month or two to respond. So until I see that draft report, it's hard for me to put a timeline on when we're going to deliver it. If we see a good draft, we'll share that the following, you know, day. I mean, we have no problem with that. I just – I haven't met with them. I don't know where we're at with that report. But you're getting a sentiment here that you would like to have a sense of it, so, you know. I get that. Okay. And we would like to, too. Let's have – we can have that discussion as part of the budget, but I don't know whether we'll have the consultant's report, if that's usable or not. Well, let's do that then to see where we're at at that point. Do we want to – what do we want to do with this today? I'd like to do the same thing we did with 31. So do we have – we have – it's – right now it's budgeted through the end of this year, through September? It is. We're good? Yes. Okay. Yeah, you've already included in your budget, this is accepting a grant. Right. This is all the action you're taking here today. Yeah. That's the only action you're taking. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think the discussion for what we're going to do going forward is appropriate in August, or if we can, hopefully. If it's just accepting a grant. Yeah. The grant does not – I read the – whatever this thing's called, the Granicus Review. The grant does not require matching funds. So if we're just accepting a grant, I'm good with it. Yeah. But if we're – if we're dedicating – Make that motion. We're good with accepting a grant. Yes. That's what we'll do. Any grant we receive is always subject to – future funding by the commission. So if you choose not to fund something in the future, then the grant goes away. Okay. All right. Any other questions? So do we need – have a motion to accept the grant? Motion by Commissioner Flowers. Second by Commissioner Scott. Can you bring up the card, please? There we go. Motion carries unanimously. Item 33. Item 33 is a contract for painting, building exteriors, and infrastructure countywide. I think you had asked some questions at the work session, and staff responded with a memo yesterday. They're available. Answer your additional questions if you have. Any further questions for staff? Motion by Commissioner Scott. Second by Commissioner Flowers. Bring up the card, please. Motion carries unanimously. Item 34. Item 34 is a reimbursement resolution. You had asked that we put on a reimbursement resolution that would allow us to issue bonds on behalf of the North Branch Court, if we so choose to do that at a later date. Thank you. Approval. Motion by Commissioner Scheer. Second by Commissioner Nowicki. Any comments, questions? Bring up the card, please. Motion carries unanimously. Item 35. The declaration to the public provide notice for the county's closure of the 119th Street Class III Landfill in Seminole. This is a requirement that we have to do for Federal Department of Environmental Protection. Motion by Commissioner Peters. Second. Second by Commissioner Scott. Question by Commissioner Flowers. Thank you, Barrett. Do we test or determine if there's any need for remediation or whatever when it's a field site like that? We have to clean it up and return it to the condition that it was prior to our utilization. Kelly Hammerlevy, Public Works Director. Yes, we were required to undergo extensive testing of the property to make sure that it achieved certain levels of contaminants so that it could be used for green space. Okay. The mitigation that we're doing on site is specifically for methane. Okay. So it's a gas, it's a passive gas system. That's what I was wondering since it was a landfill site and just to make sure. So it can only be used for green space and no future development or development or anything like that? Okay. I just want to make sure. Thank you. Okay. We had a motion and a second. All in favor? Oh, bring up the card, please. Sorry. I guess I'm rushing too much. Motion carries unanimously. All right. Item 36 is an environmental assessment determination and compliance findings for the state of Florida. This is a community development block requirement for the Joe's Creek Restoration Greenwell Trail Project. Motion by Commissioner Flowers, second by Commissioner Scott. Any comments, questions? Bring up the card, please. Motion carries unanimously. Number 37. This is a grant application and resolution requesting inclusion of the County Beach Erosion Control Projects into the Florida Beach Management Funding Assistance Program for their long-range budget plan. Motion by Commissioner Nowicki, second by Commissioner Scott. Any comments or questions? Bring up the card, please. Motion carries unanimously. Number 38. And same. This is a grant application and associated resolution for our program. And this is the funding to be used for reimbursement of construction monitoring equipment. and the Treasure Island Beach Renourishment. Motion by Commissioner Peters, second by Commissioner Scott. Any questions, comments? Bring up the card, please. Motion carries unanimously. Number 39. Some modification number three to the grant agreement with US EPA for our air pollution control program. Okay. Any comments, questions on number 39? Motion by Commissioner Peters. Second by Commissioner Scott. Bring up the card, please. That passes unanimously. Number 40. And this is purchase authorization for communication components for our various traffic management devices. Any comments or questions? Motion. Who is motioned? Commissioner Scott, thank you. Second by Commissioner Peters. Any comments, questions? Bring up the card, please. There you go. Motion carries unanimously. Number 41. This is a state-funded county incentive grant program agreement and the resolution with the Florida Department of Transportation for construction activities for ITS system. And you can see the section that this is covering. Motion by Commissioner Peters. Second by Commissioner Scott. Any questions, comments? Bring up the card, please. There we go. Motion carries unanimously. Number 42. This agreement is with three firms for our waste energy facility for professional engineering services. Motion by Commissioner Nowicki. Second by Commissioner Latvala. Any questions or comments on 42? Bring up the card, please. Motion carries unanimously. Number 43. Item 43 is a resolution repealing our resolution, establishing the program, and terminating the municipal recycling reimbursement grant program. This program has outlived its useful life. Paul Sacco is here and can discuss it with any questions you have. Motion by Commissioner Nowicki. Second by Commissioner Peters. I don't see any questions. Bring up the card, please. Motion carries unanimously. Number 44. Change order number two to the agreement with Roland for annual sanitary sewer maintenance. This is in the amount of $5 million for our annual program at various locations. Motion by Commissioner Nowicki. Second by Commissioner Scott. Any comments or questions? Bring up the card, please. Motion carries unanimously. Number 45. And this is the item Commissioner Scott was mentioning earlier where we're, in essence, terminating for part of the agreement and assigning that work over to the other firm performing. Motion by Commissioner Peters. Second, but I have a question. Second by Commissioner Scott. Commissioner Scott. So the company we're terminating this contract with, have we spent any money with them, and do we need to recover anything? Linda says no, but I'll let her come up and speak to it. Good afternoon, Commissioners. We had not spent any money. No work commenced because the contractor, prior to even signing the agreement, sought to change their bid, and our procurement department, you know, put a stop right there. And so no funds have been expended. Thank you. Thank you. So we had a motion and a second. Any other questions, comments? Bring up the card, please. Motion passes unanimously. Number 46. Purchase authorization with Granicus for software maintenance and support. Motion by Commissioner Flowers. Second by Commissioner Nowicki. Any questions or comments? Bring up the card, please. Motion carries unanimously. Number 47. And here you have issuance and renewal certificates for public convenience, and you have this firm or these two firms that have completed the application to meet the requirements. Motion by Commissioner Peters. Second by Commissioner Scott. Comments, questions? Bring up the card, please. Motion carries unanimously. Number 48. Under item number 48, I am requesting authority to file litigation in the referenced case. This was a housing discrimination case that was investigated by your Office of Human Rights. I know that we do have staff here today if you have any questions. And if not, we are asking approval to proceed with litigation. Motion by Commissioner Peters. Second by Commissioner Scott. Bring up the card, please. Motion carries unanimously. Number 49. Under 49, I am requesting ratification of the chair's authority that we received to file this action that was an emergency petition for custody of cruelly treated animals. Motion by Commissioner Peters. Second by Commissioner Nowicki. Oh, anyway. Bring up the card, please. Motion carries unanimously. Number 50. Under item number 50, I am requesting authority to file litigation in the reference action. This is a suit that came out of a report done by your Inspector General. We are seeking to recover from a former employee. Motion by Commissioner Peters. Second by Commissioner Scott. Bring up the card, please. Motion carries unanimously. Number 51. Oh, number 51. Excuse me. Go ahead. In item 51, I am requesting ratification. Again, of a filing we did with the chair's authority. This is actually the ratification of a counterclaim that we filed in a lawsuit that was served upon the county. Given the time frame, we needed to seek authority from the chair in order to meet court deadlines. So we're asking for ratification of the counterclaim that was filed in this lawsuit. Motion by Commissioner Peters. Second by Commissioner Scott. Bring up the card, please. Motion carries unanimously. Lastly, number 52. Under item 52, I'm again asking for ratification of litigation that has been filed with the chair's authority. Unfortunately, this is another petition that we had to file for cruelly treated animals. Motion by Commissioner Scott. Second by Commissioner Peters. Pull up the card, please. Motion carries unanimously. Number 53. 53 is another ratification of litigation that was filed in the referenced case. This was filed due to a pending statute of limitations that would be expiring. So I'm asking for ratification. Motion by Commissioner Peters. Second by Commissioner Scott. Bring up the card, please. Motion carries unanimously. Number 54. Under 54, I am requesting that you approve staff's recommendation as set forth in the confidential settlement memo of today's date. Motion by Commissioner Peters. Second by Commissioner Scott. Bring up the card, please. Motion carries unanimously. Number 55. Under 55, this is another case where I'm asking for you to approve staff's recommendation in regard to the proposed settlement that you were able to review in the confidential memo. Motion by Commissioner Peters. Second by Commissioner Scott. Bring up the card, please. Motion carries unanimously. Number 56. Any other reports? No reports today. Okay. Thank you, ma'am. Let's go to Barry. All right. Chris, come on up. Okay. If we can pull up the presentation. Good afternoon, commissioners. Chris Rose, Office of Management and Budget. Thank you for having me here today. So, let's see. All right. So, maximum millages. Pinellas County must establish maximum millage rates by July 28th at the request of our property appraiser. They will be included in the trim notices that are going to be mailed on August 17th. The rates may be decreased after certification, but they may not be practically increased after that. And, of course, a millage rate is the rate applied to a property's taxable value expressed in dollars of tax divided by $1,000 of taxable value. So, the voting thresholds required to approve the property tax rates in the counties depend on the rolled back rate. And the formulas have changed a little bit this year according to state law. Now, it does require a simple majority for anything. And, by the way, this is what was being requested at our work session on Thursday. What's happened this year is it requires a simple majority if it's the rolled back rate or lower. Between the rolled back rate and 110% of the rolled back rate, it's a supermajority, two-thirds. And anything above 110% is now a unanimous vote. And you'll see that as we go through each of them this year. And in each table, what we're looking at is the third column. So, I'm going to go through each of the rates that are up here. And, again, the millage rate included in this presentation is the maximum of what we can do. We'll see when the budget is proposed on August 11th. It can be lower than that, but it may not go above this number. So, of the 23 millage rates that the commission approves, we will have three that are a simple majority vote, as I explained earlier. Nineteen are two-thirds majority votes. And one requires a unanimous vote. So, the countywide general fund plus 20 others, so 21 of the 23, are proposed at the same rate as the current year. And that's for the purposes of maximum millages? Yes. One of them is proposed to be increased, which is the Seminole Fire Rescue District. And as we told you last year, we expected this one to go up again this year. And, sure enough, it is. You can see the new millage rate of 1.9581 mils is the rate that we are proposing for that area. And then, the Pinellas Planning Council is proposed to decrease by .0004 mils. So, I'll go through each one of them. First, the countywide, three countywide millage rates. They are all proposed to remain the same. They are, therefore, requiring a two-thirds majority. The Pinellas Planning Council, as we already talked about, is proposed to be decreased. Out of the dependent special districts, they're all proposed to remain the same. One of them requires a simple majority. That's Feather Sound. And the other five, six actually, require a two-thirds majority to pass at the same rate. Then, out of the 12 fire protection districts, one, as we said, is proposed to go up. That's Seminole Fire, kind of two-thirds down the page. Out of the 12, 10 of them are requiring a two-thirds majority. One, Clearwater Fire, is requiring a simple majority. And, of course, Seminole Fire is requiring a unanimous vote. By the way, that unanimous vote in the two-thirds applies to the second budget hearing. So, it can be a simple majority up to that point. At the first budget hearing. So, the budget timeline we have before us, on or before July 28th, based on what happens here today, we will send these maximum millage rates to the property appraiser. They're out of order a little bit, so I'll just put them all up on the screen. So, on August 11th is when the budget will be proposed to this Board of County Commissioners. On August 17th, the trim notices will go out. September 10th is the first hearing. September 24th is the second hearing. By the way, those are both Thursdays this year. And, on October 1st is when the new fiscal year begins. And, I'd be happy to answer any questions you may have. Any questions? In essence, what we need is consensus. We don't need an actual vote. We need consensus of the Board. If we have that, we can send these to the appraiser. And, that begins our process. Again, the budget is really going to kick off August 11th, when I make my budget recommendation to you. We still are wrapping up final budget issues with the Sheriff, with several outstanding large departments. And so, we are working on those right now. So, we've got a lot of work to do. We still have a lot of work to do between now and August 11th. Actually, about a week before that, because we've got to publish. Right. So, what we're doing today is just simply getting a consensus that the maximum millage is shown here. Correct. We'll be forwarded. That will be the top millage rate. That will be the top millage rate. Approvals after that will come based on the different. On all those discussions. Yes. Okay. Commissioner Flowers. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah, I just wanted to, you know, just because sometimes when the public sees these numbers up there, they assume that that's it. These are just starting point numbers. Correct. You know, we have lowered the millage rate every year for the last three years. I'm sure that will be some discussion again this year. I will just say that I would want us to just be very thoughtful, because until we know what happens with the November amendment that's on the ballot, you know, once we decide whatever we're going to decide with our budget, that's what we have to stick with. And I know that that amendment referendum is for the next year's budget, but you still need to begin to plan for that. So, these are just starting point numbers. This is not what the millage will be, I'm sure, like I said, with a lot of robust conversation and discussion, there will be some requests for changes in certain areas. I would just also say to the public, if you have any interest, you know, to please come out or send an email or whatever and share your concerns or thoughts regarding the millage rate so that you can also hear how the programs that the public has requested of us are funded. So, thank you. Barry, in August, when we have the presentation of the budget and we have discussions, presumably we'll have more than one or two meetings on this. You can have as many as you want. I mean, the August 11th, I have it on the work session for every single work session beginning after August 11th. And so, we can have as much discussion about individual topics or the overall budget as you want between then and when you finally pass the budget. Yeah. I mean, my thought, again, you know, in going to different meetings and having different discussions with different groups, you know, we're finding that people are either confused or they're just steadfast in favor of the change, of the budget change. And so, my concern is that after the fact, that people don't come back to us and say, why didn't you tell us what we might be missing out on? So, and then the flip side of that is being overly, they don't want us to be scaring them with things either. So, when we have these discussions in August, I think it's going to be really important that we parse out different pieces, maybe not for the coming budget year. Yes. But things that we might have to really look at to make each of those steps, or at least the first step possible. So, and I'm not quite sure how that's going to look, but, you know, there may be different alternatives that we show people that if this is what, at some point we will have to address that if this passes. We absolutely will. And what combinations of possibilities are there are important to start sharing with our residents. And so, I'm meeting with statewide, with county managers from across the state, you know, as part of FAC, and, you know, we're having these types of conversations. It's a hard conversation because anything that I'm going to outline for you about the potential impact of the property tax referendum will be viewed as negative because it will be scaring people. When the reality is, if the sheriff's 50% of our budget, sheriff has to be part of that solution if we lose $184 million of property tax value, okay? And that's just the whole card reality. You're going to see things in our budget this year that I'm going to propose on cuts to current programs that we have. You're going to see reductions in the number of employees in certain areas that we have as we realign in kind of preparing not only for that, but in the way that the change in the budget for future years is going to occur because we've capped now how that growth is going to occur on the non-homesteaded side. And so, we're already going to be taking steps to make sure we look at a sustainable budget in the current recommendation. We can outline areas and types of things, but the cuts would be significant. You can't get there without significant changes in structure and law enforcement. I take that because if you just look at, for instance, our EMS levy. Our EMS levy funds seats out on our fire departments. It loses $28 million through the referendum. It's a self-supporting fund. No other funds come into it. So, that fund will have to be reduced, and those will directly impact seats that are out on fire departments. There's no other way to get around it. Everybody thinks about the general fund. We can talk about the general fund, but as you just saw, how many levies do you pass? All those levies would be impacted. So, we can talk about those in great detail, but it's far more than just the general fund that would be impacted. Yeah. Well, I mean, the overriding message is, I don't know, it's just kind of like, folks, if it's 50% and it doesn't pass, or 55% and it doesn't, or 61% and it does, in any of those situations, our residents will be telling us something that's significant. Like, they want some downsizing of government. And how we do that, maybe if it doesn't pass, how we do that and when we get there is kind of in our control. Right. But if it does pass, then it'll just happen. And if it passes, we're going to have to come together as a county, and this is where the board is going to have to set some priorities, because it'll be a direct discussion about, okay, you know, how many, you know, we talk about mandatory function and non-mandatory functions. What we don't talk about is, you know, if you look at statute, statute doesn't say that I need 100 people doing this task or 10. Again, okay, it'll say, well, I have to do that. It doesn't set the level of service. That's where it gets complicated. And we'll have to go through program by program throughout county government to be able to do that. You had to do that back, you know, in the recession. You had to make choices, and we would do that again. Yeah. Again, I think this is going to be a very interesting budget time in August, for sure, as we discuss this budget, but then kind of preparing for what might happen in November. So, okay. Great. All right. Do I have a motion? What's that? We have consensus. I'm looking to join. We have a consensus to keep the millage rates as presented. As presented. Okay. I'm seeing seven nodding heads. All right. And the rest of my report is vacation was nice, and now I'm back and onto the budget, so I have no other report. I'm glad you're rested up. Oh, that's the reason I got the other item confused as I just read this yesterday. All right. All right. All right. On to item 58. These are appointments? Yep. This is a commission as a whole for two positions, right? Just motion by Commissioner Peters, second by Commissioner Flowers. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. 59. 59. We have an appointment to Parks and Conservation Resources, and what do we got? I got a ballot coming around is what we got. Ballots for the next three items. So we vote for two on this first one. There you go. On 60, 61, and 62, we have some ballots going around, and so bear with us as we go through these. And we're still not up to your age. Nope. Not even close here, brother. You're right. All right. We're going on to – do you want to go ahead and do these one at a time? Okay. Why don't – yeah, go ahead and pass out numbers 61 and 62. 61 is for appointment to the Suncoast Health Council. I'm sorry. 60 is for the Solid Waste Technical Management Committee, and 61 is for the Suncoast Health Council. So she'll give us ballots for those, too, collect them, and while she tallies, we'll go on to other business. Mr. Chair? Yes. On number 60, you know, I know only sometimes we make comments on these, and I really thought this one was worth making a comment on. There are a lot of good candidates on 60, but the candidate that currently is on there, and I know she is asked to be reappointed, she has already served for eight years, and although she's been a great committee member, I think it might be time that we consider some new ideas and maybe things like that. And although there are really great candidates, I just want to throw out my support for Brennan. I know her personally. She has a very impressive resume, and based on the number of letters of support, I am very confident that she brings a lot to this committee. So for your consideration. Mr. Chairman, I would agree with everything that Commissioner Peters just said. You got it, Walt? Yes. Okay. All right. You go ahead and take your time counting. We're going to go ahead and start with commission comments. Thanks. Uh-huh. Okay. We're going to start with Commissioner Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So I had sent out, or had Colleen sent out a couple of days ago, the resolution that I talked about a few weeks back or maybe a month back that was modeled after one passed by Indian Rocks Beach, outlining the county's commitment to preserving and promoting full-time residential communities, as well acknowledging the impacts of short-term rentals. So I just wanted to see if everybody had a chance to review that and what they thought of that. Yes, you're done. I liked it. I liked it. That was good. I mean, there was not a ton of bite in it, but I think it's really important that they hear what we have to say. I mean, it is symbolic. I recognize that. But I think it just gives us another tool in the box that we can maybe try to apply a little pressure to our legislative delegation. And when we have our meetings with them later this year, that hopefully other communities will do the same. Because at some point, I think we need the ability to regulate the density and intensity of them. Any questions? Yeah, Commissioner Nowicki. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Commissioner Scott, for the resolution. I agree with it. But I think, you know, I did a little bit of research. And to give it a little bit more bite, as you say, Chair, I think we could, you know, direct our administrator to, you know, bring our comprehensive plan, which, you know, kind of goes a little bit against, you know, home ownership a little bit. So, you know, I think, you know, maybe we could add our comprehensive plan, maybe our transportation design manual, our land development code, you know, if we really want to not just pass a symbolic resolution, but pass something with a little bit of bite that, you know, we can actually give direction to staff to make sure we're protecting home ownership, that's, those would be my recommendations. So, I'm not exactly sure what specifically you're referring to. I mean, it sounds like sort of high-level stuff, but I don't, or comprehensive plans, like several hundred pages long that, you know, talks about, you know, increased density, zoning. I mean, it's the framework for, you know, the problem we're in today that you'd want to submit this resolution to move forward. I mean, I think it's over, I think oversimplifying that. I mean, I don't, I hear what you're saying, but, I mean. What's the guiding documents, I mean, so that. But just because some of those things are talking about density doesn't mean it's supporting short-term rental. What's home ownership, too? No, I understand. I mean, it's trying to, this is, this is dedicated, right, to. I mean, this is really more for trying to really kind of rein in commercial activity in residential neighborhoods is really what, is really what that is. I mean, at some point, I mean, the comprehensive plan we have to review on a, forget when we do that. Seven year, seven year cycle. Well, right, but, I mean, we're going to have to touch that document again at some point in the future. I mean, I don't think I really want to complicate this too much with that at this moment, but. Well, I think it's directing our administrator in your resolution to come up with things. So, I mean, I guess that would be, that's something that the administrator would look at in that direction from this resolution. Well, I think, you know, there may be an opportunity, as we look to revisit at some point in the future, potentially, our updated short-term rental ordinance as we get some data on that. I think that would be perhaps the time to address that. I mean, like I said, I'm for it. You know, if the board wanted to give it a little bit more bite, those would be my suggestions. But if we want a symbolic resolution, I'm all for that too. All right. So, yes, Commissioner Flowers. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. I read the document. And I've already shared that information for the housing subcommittee that I chair with the National Association of Counties. So, that will be worked through. But also, we have, with FACT, the legislative conference that's coming up in Jacksonville. And so, I'll make sure that that's a part of the docket for that. I'll take that document and give it to Davenham so they can, you know, write it up the way that it should be and present it before the committee. You weren't able to make it to the – yeah, you were there. You were at my swearing in. But I created that new task force that addresses issues like that. So, we'll definitely have that for the open discussion for the entire body. And it would be nice if they, you know, support it to move forward so it becomes a part of one of the things that we push through the legislative session. So, I want to thank you for including that. I was also appointed by the new president of NACO as the subcommittee chair for the housing component piece. And so, that will give, you know, me some additional voice, if you will. Because it's not just here. It's, you know – It's everywhere. Right. And so, we'll have that. So, I can keep you informed on it. Certainly, you're invited to come in at the meetings that we have. I could see the link. But I thought that was a decent start with the document. And, of course, when you open it up, people want to add their little pieces. But one thing we have found with the success that we have had in getting some legislation supported, both on the state level and the federal level, is to kind of hear it is straight down the road and keep them focused on what it is you're trying to do. Because too many other things take them off the beaten path. And before you know it, it's too watered down. And it doesn't accomplish what it is that you're seeking. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, ma'am. Mr. Chair. Yes, Commissioner. So, this is something I don't think I've ever said before, because I don't usually do the politics and the rhetoric. But I support this 100%. And what I've noticed in the last several years at the legislature, that whatever our current sitting president says, they seem to pass laws that mimic what he says. Now, he has said publicly, since he got sworn in, that corporations should not own individual family homes. And so, if we're going to look at language that we want to use at the state, since they've been mimicking much of what this sitting president says, it might be worth adding that kind of language. I don't know if for us, no. For a resolution, no. But in our talking points with Tristan or anyone else that's going to work on that, since they have been mimicking much of what this sitting president says, it might be worth that conversation, that line, to say corporations should not be buying individual family homes. Corporations should not be buying family homes. Because that's why we have an inventory problem for housing, and that's why prices have been driven up so high. And that's why the price wars started, because corporations started buying and going into bidding wars, and so we don't have inventory for families to buy homes. And that's why prices are so expensive. So, I really support this, but in our work on it, I think that's kind of the language we have to use in our talking points. Not necessarily in this document, but in our talking points. Thank you. Good point. And, Mr. Chair, if I may, the passage of the Road to Housing Act that just passed, that limits, it doesn't go as far as we wanted it to go as what we could get, but it does limit corporations to only being able to purchase 300 homes and cut it there. So, that helps us for those who are already starting, and it gives them that cutoff so that in places like Nevada, Arkansas, even here in Florida, there's an end to it at some point. And we will continue to push the envelope, as you're saying, because it certainly helps to drive up the cost. It takes homes off the market that people can't afford to buy based on whatever the income is that's generated for that area. But we were very grateful for the passage of the Road to Housing Act, and we continue to try to enhance that. Certainly bringing attention to it. Yes. I mean, because, you know, you can go to Rhode Island and create 1,000 corporations and do the damage all over the place. So, you know, but still, I think the point hopefully is starting to be made a little bit. But, yeah, thank you again, Commissioner Scott, for bringing that up. And we can bring this up as part of the legislative program. So, I would make a motion that we adopt the resolution. Second. Motion by Commissioner Scott. Second by Commissioner Nowicki. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Okay. Thank you, everybody. I appreciate it. Next, I have, before I get into just the community activities and stuff, I have gotten a lot of communication from residents over the last, I don't know, probably six months or so, I assume we all have, about flock cameras. And I don't know that we've ever had a really discussion about how they're used, why they're used, what their purpose is, who has access to the data, what the data retention policies are. And I think we should have that discussion. So, Barry, I'm asking if we could get a presentation on that, I assume maybe from the sheriff or somebody within the sheriff's office that could give us some, you know, a little bit of information about that particular topic. So, I've kind of watched this topic kind of boil up, and we've watched other jurisdictions try to address it. It's a little bit more complicated with us, having independent elected a sheriff, right? But they're utilizing these, and flock is the acronym, but that's only a product. It's really around access to data and information and storage, et cetera, and stuff, and how people access that. And so, I've asked Tristan to look into this, and so he's kind of preparing a white paper on, you know, that. I think it would be a decent discussion, but I need to bring the sheriff into that, you know. It needs to be part of that. They've used them successfully to track it down, but it's not just like sheriff cameras. The question is, is, you know, we have, we don't record, but we have, you know, cameras for monitoring our ITS. We have license plate readers that monitor parking enforcement, you know, down at parking lots. And so, we need a comprehensive look for us to be able to even have a decent discussion. So, we can do that. But, yeah, I need to bring the sheriff as part of that, because they're really the people that access that data. Well, I think we should have that discussion, just because we've never had it, so far as I know. We haven't. And I have no idea what is the cost of them, what do they cost to implement, what's the ongoing cost to maintain them. I think those would be things that we should know about. So, I have a question on that. Like, I know we have cameras for our, like, red light cameras and to help our traffic system. We don't have red lights. I'm sorry, not red light cameras, but for our traffic lights to help the traffic flow. The ITMS system, yes. Do those cameras read, they don't read license plates, do they? They just read the traffic and know when to change the traffic lights? That's correct. And we don't record, okay? And so, but that's the question. You know, when, I kind of knew this was coming up. We only had this conversation yesterday. But, but I'm like, I can't even tell you what cameras I have out in all the different various 30 departments, you know, that have information that can be accessed and stuff. I just, we, to Commissioner Scott's point, we haven't, we haven't kind of pulled that together and how the, how the sheriff is utilizing what type of information and from where. I don't know the answer to that. Up to this point, we've had inquiries about public records, but we've recently gotten several more. We've been referring those over to the sheriff's department to answer, okay? Because they're the ones that would access it, utilize information, et cetera, and stuff. And they've effectively used it to track down people that did something wrong. And, and so how they do that, I haven't had that kind of conversation. So I don't know, but I, but I, I need to get a better handle around what we have within our system, whether the sheriff accesses those or not. Or there are other cameras out there that they've put up or something. I don't know the answer to that. I have not seen this app, but I was told by a law enforcement officer in another county that he has an app on his phone and he can put any plate in there he wants and it'll pull up the data of where it's been. I haven't seen that app, so I, but that's what I was told by a law enforcement officer. So if, if, if that's available, that's kind of scary if that's in the wrong hands. So I think we'd like to get some answers on that. I appreciate the suggestion because I have been getting a lot of calls. I get, I got, I have people texting me pictures of these new cameras going up in their neighborhood going, who's authorized this? I don't know what's going on. So answers would be good. Yeah. Okay. I'm happy to pull that together. Okay. All right. Thank you very much. Uh, let's see, since our last meeting, we've actually had a lot cause we didn't do this the last, uh, our last meeting, but I'm going to, I'm going to economize this and boil this down. But, uh, at a good meeting for Pinellas, uh, was it last week or the week before we talked about, um, at a data center, you know, trying to create some parameters for data centers in, in Pinellas County attended a habitat for human education in Clearwater. It's always, uh, an uplifting event to see the, the light on people's faces that they get the keys to their, to their new homes. Uh, I toured, uh, both Safe Harbor and also HEP, um, to just get a little better understanding of what the sheriff does over at Safe Harbor and perhaps how HEP can, can potentially help with that in the future. Uh, attended the FAC conference and congratulations again to, uh, Commissioner Flowers for beginning her term as president of FAC. So good for you. Good for you. Uh, Chair Eggers and I attended the Palm Harbor street lighting re-energizing event. And thank you to sponsor Duke Energy and the Palm Harbor Merchants Association, Palm Harbor Main Street, and the Chamber of Commerce. Uh, I had a really good comprehensive tour of BDRS. I want to thank, uh, Kevin McAndrews and his staff, uh, for hosting me there. Uh, it was really kind of exciting. I just kind of wanted to see how's the permit process work, you know, because we get feedback from, from residents all the time. And I just thought it would be helpful to go through and just walk through the process and it would give us better tools to be able to respond more quickly to our, uh, to our residents. And it was really interesting to see how they are really embracing technology. And, uh, they've got, um, I think residential, correct me if I'm wrong, Kevin, but they've got it down to 1.5 reviews on residential permits, which is really pretty, pretty darn good turnaround. And by the end of the year, they're going to be offering over 30 types of inspections, uh, virtually. So, so great work, Kevin, to you and, and, and your staff. Well, hopefully he's packaged that tour so that maybe other commissioners who might be interested in it one at a time can take advantage of it. Thank you, Commissioner Scott. Yep. Uh, attended events hosted by Pinellas County Veterinary Medical Association, North County Republican Club, the Clearwater Rotary, Pinellas Federated Women's Republican Club, and then, uh, last, it was a two, Thursday, two weeks ago, I guess, Amplified, Clearwater, Heather, Politics, and Pinellas, um, which was very well attended. I was, I was, uh, pleasantly surprised at that and had conversations with people about, I mean, really in-depth conversation about property taxes, e-bike and trail safety, short-term rentals. I mean, it was just nonstop talking from the moment I got there until the moment I left. So it was a very, very engaged crowd. Uh, met with a small group of Pinellas County judges to listen to their feedback about the new courthouse design. And, um, was very, very happy to support, uh, Commissioner Flowers in her art, uh, program last week. We, uh, we stuffed the bus over at FAC in Orlando with art supplies, and, uh, we divvied them up to, I think, with six different organizations, uh, last week. So that was, that was great to be able to, uh, do that. And, uh, participate in a number of America 250 events, too many to even, uh, go down. Um, and then a few weeks ago, uh, I don't know if they got the picture here, but I met Lady, uh, which was a dog at Pinellas County Animal Services that's up for adoption. And we did a great photo shoot up at the historic Bellevue Biltmore, and I hope Lady has been adoptive. And, uh, with that, Mr. Chairman, that's my report. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner Nowicki. Thank you, Chair. I have no new business. Thank you. Commissioner Peters. Um, I have very little, so I did meet with, uh, two of the new owners at Derby Lane, and that was very interesting, and, uh, and I spoke at the Tampa Bay Beaches leadership meeting, um, which was a really good exercise. They had a really good panel. Uh, we spoke after the sheriff, and it was really good. But other than that, um, great 4th of July, and that's all I got. Thanks. Commissioner Scheer. Thank you, Chair. July the 4th, I, uh, enjoyed very much right here in downtown Clearwater. Uh, it was a beautiful, uh, July the 4th celebration right here. It was great. Got to do it, share it with Commissioner Ladvon, the mayor, and just a whole delegation of elected officials. It was awesome. Uh, July the 8th was a busy day for me. I chaired the Value Adjustment Board while my friend, Commissioner Eggers, was out. Uh, and I enjoyed doing that very much. Thank you. Uh, on that day, I also attended the PST Executive Committee, followed by a Ford Pinellas Special Act Review, because we're trying to figure out if we merge our MPOs, what we're going to do about a Pinellas Planning Council, because we won't have one. And so we'll need one. Uh, and I'm working with Jewel and her department on that as well. And then followed by that, I had a, uh, PSTA Board meeting. So it was meeting after meeting on July the 8th. Uh, on the 14th, I zoomed in for our Oversight Committee meeting. Congratulations, Don, on becoming our new County Attorney soon. Right? That's great. Uh, and then, uh, on the 15th, I, uh, had another PSTA Finance Committee meeting, and then, uh, I joined in on the, uh, Board of County Commission work session. Thanks for letting me, uh, join virtually last, uh, work session. I appreciate it. And I thoroughly enjoyed being one of the people at the FACT Conference that actually knew the incoming president. I felt very special everywhere I went. So, you actually know Dr. Flower. Oh, of course I do. So, congratulations to you. I enjoyed at your, uh, suggestion going to the conference, Commissioner. I, uh, I actually, uh, the, uh, symposiums or whatever you call them were very, uh, I thought a great learning experience. Rethinking county capacity, uh, the oncoming air mobility. I, I enjoyed some of the sessions that I attended. So, thanks for the suggestions. Congratulations again. And that would be it for me. Thank you. Commissioner Flowers. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, thank you all for those who, uh, were able to attend and those who couldn't make it. I understand why, but I want to thank you again for your support, including staff that were able to come. Um, it was a, a busy conference, um, but it made it super special with having you guys there, um, with me. So, I really appreciate it. And everyone talked about how big my family is when they lined up across it. So, yeah, and that's not even a third of us, you know. So, that's just some of us. So, thank you all so very much for that. At that same meeting, though, um, I had a chance to sit down with the incoming speaker of the House, Garrison. Um, and so, it was a very good conversation to try to get some information as it relates to where he thinks he will be going when it comes to policies. So, um, I'll be happy to share that information with staff. Um, um, it was a lot, so I won't go into all of that now. Um, if you were there, um, hopefully you got a chance to sit in on the panel discussion where Senator Brandes was there to talk about his perspective, which, um, he has some real interesting thoughts and some real interesting ideas. Because I told him too bad he couldn't have those when he was serving. But, but I looked, uh, I look forward to hearing what comes out of that. As a result of the panel discussions that we have, I created a, it's called a Guiding Principles Committee. And that committee is going to be looking at the Florida Association of Counties and what we were designed to do and, um, if you will, updating what our mission vision is. And that information will be presented to the body for further discussion and ratification. But I just want to make sure that we are in line with the things that, um, are the urgent business of counties, you know, going forward for the growth and development of the state of Florida. Um, we had our Office for Human Rights, uh, meeting. Thank you to all of the constitutionals that were there. Um, we're moving forward. We, we have seen an uptick as I believe was presented. We have seen an uptick in wage theft, um, uh, concerns and complaints. It's not any one industry, even though, uh, the hotelier, uh, industry, um, seems to be one, but it's also in the construction trades and other things of that nature. But, um, Bettina will continue to keep, uh, an eye on that so that we can kind of see by graph what areas we may need to really hone in on and focus on. I've already shared with you guys for the, um, National Association of Counties, um, the road to housing bill that passed. But, um, I, um, also provided, and each one of you will get one. I brought the summary of the actual bill because it encompasses some other parts that deal with Tom Amante's department, um, which is loosening the belt, if you little, if you will, on home funds and how those dollars are used. Um, surprisingly enough, and, and I'm sure this is going to be an issue here locally based on, um, some of the bills that have passed out of the state. But one of them is, um, for home projects, um, section three of the housing and urban development, um, act, um, it requires that a portion of the labor hours on any federally assisted project go to low income individuals. Um, and of course, some of the bills that have passed for the state of Florida say that you can't make those carve outs. So it's going to be interesting to see how they do that. But I did bring one for each one of you and I'll have Darlene to give it to your aides so that you all can have it. There were three sessions on, um, data centers. Um, of course, it's a big issue all around the greatest number. I think they said it's over 300 data centers in the state of Texas. Um, you have areas like Memphis, um, Kentucky, um, Nebraska, Arizona, uh, they're starting to have a great number of companies come in. So there was actually a person from one of the data center organizations that served on the panel. Um, I had a chance to share about the concern with the potential data center that wanted to go in the Pinellas Park area. Um, and so it's, you know, both sides of the coin. You got some, uh, rural communities whose total budget is $3 million. So if a data center coming in is going to provide additional revenue, um, to the tune, I think the gentleman said one to 2 million, you're looking at what you could do for your constituents in your community versus some of the things that occur in your community as a result of the data center. So those conversations were certainly, um, not heated, but they were very good conversations. Um, there were also a lot of conversations around utilizing technology, AI in various sectors of government. Um, and so I'm sure that will continue to be a major, um, conversation. Um, and then of course your normal conversations around disaster, uh, preparedness and, uh, you know, I got out of new Orleans yesterday because of that storm birth that is coming. And so some people are still there and I'm sure they're dealing with birth. But I'm not, um, retirement services, program services, membership, uh, within your local communities to different organizations that you can partner with. So it was a really good conference. Um, the new president of the National Association of, um, counties, uh, comes from Dunedin. Her name is Sarah. I don't know if anyone knows her, her family, Sarah Benatar. She graduated from Dunedin high school, went to college and then moved out to Arizona, which is where she's been living. But she was voted in as the second, not new president, I'm sorry. She was voted in as the second vice president of NACO, which in two years, she will be the president unless something happens. She will be the president of NACO, um, state of Florida, um, held 237, uh, proxy votes. So I had 237 votes at my disposal. Um, and, um, I hope I use them wisely when it came to the various policies and things that we were voting on, um, throughout, uh, the United States of America. So I'm going to cut it there because it is a whole lot more, but, um, again, thank you to, um, for allowing, um, the bag of arts, the bags of art to be, uh, brought down because they were big, big bags, um, and they were full of art supplies and we, uh, donated to six organizations. And then, um, commissioner Scott said he'd take some and distribute them to one of his places of worship. And I also took some to my place of worship and I still have a ton of boxes of art supplies that I'm going to divvy up and give some to, um, North County, Mid County, and South County. That's how much I still have. Um, but that just goes to show how people really feel about using art as a medium for a number of things for, for children to be able to express themselves. So thank you, um, commissioner Scott, for getting that, holding them in your training center for me, and then allowing us to be able to distribute them. The organizations that received the art supplies is the Woodson African American Museum of Florida, Creative Clay that provides services to adults with disabilities, which they brought some of their, um, clients up and they were very excited, uh, Maximo Elementary, Fairmont Park Elementary, um, National Council of Negro Women, Youth Development Foundation of Pinellas County. That's six. So those were the ones who were recipients of those supplies. And that ended my report, sir. Thank you, Commissioner Flowers. Uh, Commissioner Lett-Valley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Uh, I want to, uh, thank, uh, Clearwater Council Member Mike Menino and the Church of Scientology for the public records request I received, uh, the day of my dad's funeral. Um, I finished their first one today, uh, with the assistance of, uh, the Pinellas County Attorney's Office, so I wanted to thank Jewel and her staff for that. Uh, the new one is a lot more, uh, broad than the first one. Um, and it encompasses about 15, uh, private citizens and my family and, uh, so forth, um, and a lot of topics that have no relation to county business. Um, but, uh, I will leave other comments to myself. Um, but I also want to thank, uh, each of you, um, for, uh, your texts and phone calls and, uh, flowers and, and love and support over the past couple weeks. So, thank you very much, and that's all I have. Thank you, Commissioner Levin. Um, just a few things, um, first of all, uh, Commissioner Scott mentioned the re-energizing ceremony in downtown Palm Harbor, which I thought was, you know, it was great, um, pushed, you know, the lever and actually the lights came on perfectly, uh, even though I had nothing really to do with it, but it was great. Um, but what I wanted to comment on was to thank the businesses in downtown who made the commitment, private property owners and businesses that made the commitment to pay the utility bill ongoing. Um, there was two or three, I think, um, 501c3s downtown and they're being subsidized or paid for by those private entities. So, they've all made a commitment to kind of getting some, you know, lighting in downtown. And I know that when you go through downtown Dunedin, you see lighting everywhere. Well, it didn't happen overnight. And when it did happen, it made a big, big difference. So, um, I'm, they're really excited about it. I'm really proud of the community for stepping up on that. Um, I'm also proud of the fact that our, our first, our first responders are all of our commissioners, all of our, um, the clerk, the sheriff, all our constitutionals got together and chose Don Kroll to be our next County attorney. Um, and I couldn't, couldn't be more proud of him and, and all that he's done, not only ongoing for the last number of years for the organization, but what he continues to do. And, um, he and I actually will be meeting on Thursday to begin the negotiations, if you will, about his compensation package. Um, and we'll keep you updated on that as we go along. Um, and, uh, sorry to see your accident from over the weekend. He was so excited. He broke his collarbone. I know he got so excited. He had a different, I guess you're right. It must have had a different giddy up in his step or something. I, I'm not sure, but anyway, he's been trying to convince me to bike ride and he comes in with a, you know, anyway, look forward to our conversations, Don, and congratulations again. Um, on July 31st at 10 o'clock, uh, near Manning road on County road one, which is just North of Curlew. We'll have a renaming of that road, uh, after Sergeant, um, flowers, uh, down. Um, he, he, uh, was, was passed away while serving, um, and we'll have that ceremony at 10. Um, there's a little church there and people can park in there. Um, and I think it'll be a nice quaint ceremony with names at both ends of that stretch and his son will be driving back and forth to school every day and seeing the name of his dad there. So I think that's, I think that's kind of cool. Um, I think I mentioned a purple heart ceremony in Dunedin on the, on, um, uh, on August 7th at 10 AM. Um, I also wanted to just continue pitching the, the wonderful success of the canine program that the commissioners have been involved in. Commissioner Scott started us off with that last year and thought it was such a good thing that we continued it this year. Um, and to your, to your point, uh, canine commissioner lady that you talked about was adopted and, and was adopted after you. And one of the volunteers did a little pitch. Um, so I, I, I just wanted to get an update from, from Jennifer, how, how the program was going. And in general, the dogs are adopted, uh, within 12 days after the commissioner's, uh, programs that we're doing. So, um, and when you think about the number of dogs that are, that are now, there's less adoptions going on right now. Um, so whatever we can do to help that process, you guys keep, keep at it. Cause it's, it's making a difference. I just wanted to, to pitch that and thank you all for, for continuing that and continuing that effort. Um, July 4th was, uh, I didn't get to do this, the clear water scene. I did go on July 3rd to, um, to Dunedin and they had a really nice celebration there as well. Um, Tampa Bay water was, we had a good, it wasn't too long of a meeting. It was a pretty productive, gave an update on the South Hillsboro pipeline, which is a huge line, huge capital project that will bring more water to South Hillsboro County. One of the biggest, uh, ventures that they've done in recent times. They gave us an update on the new waters, uh, new, new water supply source, uh, expansion of our, of our river, uh, river water, uh, river water plant, so to speak. But, um, anyway, it was really good, uh, both, both projects moving along on time, on budget, um, and just incredible, the amount of work going on over there. Um, most, all of that happening in Hillsboro County for our benefit, Hillsboro Pasco for our benefit here. So, um, let's see, um, then we had, um, the YMCA Palm Harbor got together and had a fee serial train, which is just kind of fun, but it's really about a community coming together. And bringing, bringing out thousands of boxes of cereal and, um, making out, um, uh, an imprint of, of, of the, uh, of the, of the, uh, endeavor, but it was really good, had a lot of kids involved and a lot of good stuff, a lot of good product brought together for, um, for those who really are in need. Um, St. Pete Clearwater had a sight line gallery art exhibition, uh, on, on June 30th, which was, uh, really good. Um, and, uh, let's see, two last things. One, I wanted to, uh, thank Commissioner Latvala for a 15 minute workshop. I understand it was really fast on Thursday. He was first telling me that, you know, we sweated and worked hard. And then he said, no, we actually did it in about 15 minutes. So, um, but thank you for taking over on a, on a, on a very tough day for you. Appreciate that. Um, and the last, but not least on, in the, in the spirit of, of, um, young people, um, it was last, last, last, maybe four months ago, it was, it was going to say last quarter, but, you know, well, I sat down with a young man and he just, um, had some questions about, you know, his IB, he's an IB student and he was doing some work. And anyway, he just wrote back out of the blue and said, I hope you're doing well and enjoying your summer. I wanted to reach out and thank you again for taking the time to speak to me back in November. I was the high school IB student who interviewed you for global politics reporting on Padela's Cald arts funding. I really appreciated your perspective. I received a very high grade on the paper of both you and Ms. O'Donnell, a lot of credit. Also wanted to congratulate you on some things, but, but he said, commissioners, I'm very glad to see that someone with your passion experiences is, is, is, is working there. But really he took the time as a young person to just say, thank you. And, you know, we, we, we oftentimes as, as when you get old, like commissioner let valid, you start to get a little, you know, codgerish about young people. And, uh, but they really are really special people. And these folks from Palm Harbor are no different. And I was really, really, really glad that he took the time to do it. We don't do enough of that. Um, so people need to be picking up the pen and thanking each other for what we're doing. Kindness and love. Remember that. Um, I've got nothing else. Do we have anything else that for the good of the order? Mr. Chair, just a ballot result. Oh yes. Thank you. Yeah. Three, right? There was three of them. Correct. So for item 59, the board selected Miles Croom and Mary B. Neely for item 60, the board selected Brina M. Hagar and for item 61, the board, uh, chose Samuel Ali, Patrick Benston, and Jacob Knighton. Thank you. Thank you for pulling all that together. Appreciate it. Okay. Any final comments? Anything? Okay. We are adjourned until six o'clock. Item number 63. Agenda item number 63 is case number CW-2607. This is a proposed ordinance by the city of Clearwater to amend the countywide plan map from residential low medium to residential medium regarding .41 acre more or less located at 2446 Nursery Road. The public hearing was properly advertised that an affidavit of publication has been received for filing. No correspondence has been received by the clerk and the matter is properly before the board to be heard. Thank you. Um, any comments, questions, any motions? Motion by Commissioner Scott. Second by Commissioner Peters. Call up the card, please. He said yes. Oh, you got him already. We got one more. Oh, over there. Uh, vote passes six to zero. Item 64. Yep. Yep. Oh, she's here. So that's a unanimous vote. On to item 64. Oh, yeah. Oh. County Administrator Burton. Item 64. Um, item 64. This item is at the applicant's request, uh, has to be continued to the August 11th meeting. Motion and a second. All in favor. Any opposed? Can I make a suggestion that you continue that specifically to the August and just confirm with the motion to make of it? I thought it was a motion to continue. Specifically to? Okay. That they requested. Motion to continue to? Per their recommendation, move approval to continue until August 11th, 2026. We have a motion by Commissioner Nowicki and a second by Commissioner Peters. Let's bring up the card. There we go. Motion carries unanimously. Item 65. Agenda item number 65 is case number CW 2609. This is a proposed ordinance by the Town of Reddington Shores to amend the countywide plan map from retail and services to residential low-medium regarding .13 acres, more or less, located at 109 180th Avenue East. The public hearing was properly advertised, and an affidavit of publication has been received for filing. No correspondence has been received by the clerk, and the matter is properly before the board to be heard. Any questions or comments? I have a motion. Motion by Commissioner Peters. Second by Commissioner Nowicki. Comments, questions? Call up the card, please. Motion carries unanimously. Number 66. In this item, it requested to withdraw this at the request of the applicant of the city. Motion by Commissioner Latvala. Second by Commissioner Flowers. Bring up the card, please. Here we go. Motion carries unanimously. Number 67. Agenda item number 67 is a proposed resolution to adopt an increased solid waste tipping fee for fiscal years, fiscal years 2027 and 2028. The public hearing is properly advertised, and an affidavit of publication has been received for filing. No correspondence has been received by the clerk, and the matter is properly before the board to be heard. Motion by Commissioner Peters. Second by Commissioner Scheer. Any questions, comments? Bring up the card, please. Motion carries. Six to one. Yeah. As I said, it was a red no. Six to one. Number 68. Agenda item number 68 is a request to adopt the annual certificate of the non-ad valorem assessment rule and a proposed resolution increasing a non-ad valorem assessment for the Lowellman Solid Waste Collection and Disposal District. The public hearing is properly advertised, and an affidavit of publication has been received for filing. One letter in concern, five letters in opposition, and three voicemails in opposition have been received by the clerk, and the matter is properly before the board to be heard. Questions? Motion by Commissioner Scott. Second by Commissioner Flowers. Anybody? Okay. Bring up the card, please. Motion passes six to one. Number 69. Agenda item 69 is a proposed tax equity fiscal responsibility act resolution for the reissuance for federal tax purposes by the Pinellas County Educational Facilities Authority of its Revenue Refunding Bond Series 2015 in the principal amount not to exceed $3,528,367.30 on behalf of St. Paul's School Incorporated, a Florida not-for-profit corporation, and for its existing school located in Clearwater, Florida. No correspondence has been received by the clerk in the matters properly before the board to be heard. Questions? Comments? Motion? Motion by Commissioner Scott. Second. Second by Commissioner Nowicki. Bring up the card. Motion carries unanimously. Number 70. Agenda item number 70 is an amendment by resolution to realign appropriations and reserves for requesting departments and funds supplementing the fiscal year 2026 budget recognizing unanticipated revenue, realign appropriations for requesting departments, and realign reserves for requesting departments and funds. The public hearing is properly advertised and an affidavit of publication has been received for filing. No correspondence has been received by the clerk in the matters properly before the board to be heard. Motion by Commissioner Peters. Second by Commissioner Nowicki. Any questions, comments? Bring up the card, please. Motion carries unanimously. Thank you. All right. Item 71. Agenda item number 71 is a proposed ordinance amending the Pinellas County Code Chapter 122 related to the county towing ordinance. The proposed amendments revise County Code Sections 12240, 12241, and 12242, adjusting a tow rate schedule and operational guidelines for tow operators. The public hearing was properly advertised and an affidavit of publication has been received for filing. No correspondence has been received by the clerk and it matters properly before the board to be heard. Okay. I'm sure probably a good idea to get a updated presentation. Do we have anything? So, commissioners, we can. So, Tim Burns is here and he was here last time. Doug, over consumer protection, and Karen are on vacation. So, we advertised this. You'd ask that we advertise this. We were specifically talking about the one provision, which was the fuel surcharge. There are a lot of other fees within that that the towers would like us reviewed. Staff actually has recommendations, but again, as we talked about last month, we were waiting until the adjudication of the $250 fee on how that plays out in court. It's in the appellate court because our recommendations may vary based upon the outcome of that. And so, it's right, it's here, it's been advertised, so you can discuss it. We can postpone it and wait and bring it all back together. So, it's really at your pleasure. We do have a presentation if you want to go through that, but it's going to be convoluted because some of the staff recommendations are really contingent upon these other things. And in many cases, they agree with the towers, but that it all has to do with whether the outcome of that appellate case. Commissioner Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There's a lot of the recommendations staff has that I do agree with. And I do think the towers need an increase in some areas and some of the fees I do agree with. But I am very, very concerned with the additional fee. I would rather see this play out in court because it is the totality of the effect to the consumer that I'm very, very concerned about. And I think that the recommendations are going to change depending on that specific outcome. So, that would be my recommendation. And I'm not opposed to all of the fees and things that the towers are asking for, but I just think right now is not the time to do it. So, it would be my preference that we wait to see what that final outcome is. But that's just my thought. Thank you. Commissioner Scheer. Yes, thank you, Chair. First of all, I agree with Commissioner Scott. I'm happy to wait for the adjudication. And then when that happens, then we can have a full discussion on what we should do and not do as a grader of fees. But I would also say to you that I think we should add a couple other items to the discussion. One would be the language itself. I handed this out at the beginning of the meeting. This is just a, this is page five of the towing ordinances as proposed. And I don't expect to settle this today. I'd rather do it after the adjudication. And we've had a couple meetings. But in paragraph N on page 71, our item 71, page five, in blue, my suggestion is that, you know, we have it in the ordinance that videotape and pictures of the towing and all that must be available for the police. I think they should also be available for the vehicle owner. And, you know, why can't, if the police can call and get a picture of the car where it was sitting and there's the sign says no parking or however they do it, then I should be able to as a consumer. It should be something I could ask for. If I know I'm, if I feel like I've been wronged and my car has been taken, I should be able to see what the police can see without having to go and ask for a police report or whatever. It's not a, it's not a theft. So I'd like to add that. And if it's found out that the towing service made an error, they took your car in error, and you can look and see from the pictures they provided, then I think that they should owe you for your time and effort. So just something I wouldn't throw out there. I put some preliminary language in there. Our attorney hadn't looked it over, but just an idea of what I'm looking at. Like, it's fair play. You accidentally took my car you shouldn't have. You should owe me something for it, or at least send me pictures and don't charge me for it, you know. Also, kind of a different matter, we're talking about raising rates and payments to the companies. But, you know, I would like to see something in our discussion about how our constituents are treated when they go to pick up the cars. I included, I passed out the picture of a towing site that's in unincorporated Pinellas County. And if you look at the little property lines I drew there in red about half an hour ago, you can see the building with the little dot on top. And then, so what I wanted to show you is at this location, there is no parking. So if you go there to pick up your car with another car, you can't park. So you have to get dropped off on the street. Or there's a little eggshell area right here where they bring the cars in and out. You might be able to park there unless they've got a tow truck there. Then, to get to the front door, you have to walk all the way around this grassy area, which has got a big giant ditch on it. There's no sidewalk there. And then I'm marked where there's a little, it says a little front door here on the picture you can see. So that front door is really a big black fence. And the second page shows the entrance to the facilities where you have to go to pick up your vehicle. So I would, if I was a 100-pound girl and I just got off my shift and I go pick up the car in the morning, I'd be scared to go here. I'd be intimidated. I wouldn't want to go. So there's no sidewalks. There's no handicap parking. There's no parking at all. As a matter of fact, there's no sight lighting. There are no restrooms. There are no addresses on the building. I don't even know if I'm at the right building. I've got to go up to the scary building and try and get my car. There's no cover. You have to stand outside to pay for your car. In the rain, if it's raining. And so I just think if we're going to redo the code or redo the ordinance pertaining to this, then some level of service for the people who have had their cars towed, some level of politeness should be incorporated into the ordinance. There should be a minimum standard. If I'm handicapped and my car was taken, I can't get to this place to even pay for it. There's no way. I can get around the – there's no sidewalk. There's no handicap ramp. There's no accessibility at all. So anyway, I'd like to add that to the discussion that we're going to have in the future. I have some. Yeah, go ahead. So, Barry, could you remind me, we weren't voting on the whole package. We were just adding a couple things, the fuel surcharge and the electric cars. What you have here is a whole shebang, but we said we needed to do something in the meantime to make them whole because fuel was so high. Fuel is now rising again because we started war again. And so what you have in front of us is not what we said in that meeting. We said we wanted to add a couple things, and it was the fuel surcharge. So this is confusing. Very. This is – what you have presented to us in this package is very confusing because we were not doing the whole package. We were going to make them whole and get their fuel surcharge. Electric wheels cost a lot of money it was going to make – there were a couple things, right? So you all wanted to do the lawsuit. I have a problem with the lawsuit because there's 65 of the 67 counties are all instituting what Florida law says. We have chosen not to follow the law because Hillsborough County is in a lawsuit. There's one person in a lawsuit out of the entire state of Florida, one lawsuit out of the entire state of Florida. And we are holding up enforcing a law because one lawsuit in the entire state. So I think it's silly and ridiculous. And so what I have a problem with isn't all of this, right? ADA – there's ADA laws that they have to enforce and do, and that's up to ADA. That is not a pricing fixture, right? And I get what you're saying. Sidewalks, unincorporated doesn't have sidewalks. I don't go into Publix and tell them how they have to do customer service. So there's some things that I think we can't do, and there's laws in place for ADA requirements, right? And those laws can be enforced, and if they aren't enforced, then there's – but this was – here's the issue that I've got a big issue with Pinellas County and the towers. We went 20 years. We went 20 years, and they are a regulated industry. They can't just raise the rates because business is harder. They can't raise the rates because tires cost more. They can't raise the rates because oil costs more because gas – they can't. They are regulated. They are not like any other free enterprise business. And we went 20 years, and we did not give them an increase for 20 years. When we finally gave them an increase is when I came here. It was like 2019, I want to say. And I remember asking our staff person if he had consulted with the towers, and he said yes. And that moment, I texted the towers, and they told me he had not spoken to them at all. So I had a problem with that. And then I said, we need to fix this. You need to meet with the towers. You need to come up with a solution. They met with the towers. They came up with a solution. It took three years. We finally said, here's a solution, but we can't give you all of it in one year. We're going to give it to you in two years. So we gave them half of it in one year, and that was four years ago. And then three years ago, we were supposed to give them the other half. We have failed to do that. We did not keep our word. We gave them a promise. We went 20 years and gave them nothing. So we, if there are bad actors out there, it's because we created them, because they couldn't raise the rates on their own. They didn't have a choice. It's not a free market business. So that's what I have an issue with. So we are stifling a business that is not a free market business, because we are choosing to follow one county that has one lawsuit, and 65 other counties do not have a lawsuit. 65 other counties have followed state law that has been mandated by us to follow state law. We have chosen to follow the other county that isn't. So there's two counties that are not following state law. And if the lawsuit in Hillsborough County comes through, there's no reason we can't come and amend it. And let's say they prevail in Hillsborough County, and then Hillsborough County has to pay everybody that didn't, they have to pay everybody back. Are we going to do that? Right? So the question is, all I asked for was to give them at least the gas, to give them something so that they had something. And we are choosing again, and I mean, the fact that we kicked the can down the road 20 years, and then now we are kicking the can down, we are now year four. Year four. We made a promise. They've had to endure higher gas tax. They've had to endure inflation for tires and everything else that they need. And we've kicked the can down the road and have not kept our word. And that's what I have a problem with. We can come back and we can say, we want to make more changes. They didn't get everything they wanted. We didn't like, we can always come back and change it. If the lawsuit in Hillsborough County changes everything, we can come back and change it. That's really easy. That's not hard. We can come back and change it. But the fact that we have not kept our word, and it's been a consistent problem here at the county, 20 years, and now three years, three more years. We're on year four when we made a promise. You come back next year. We'll make you whole. I promise. Three years have gone by, and we've kicked the can down the road. And now we're asking them to kick the can down the road. Gas prices are skyrocketing again. They went up 12 cents just yesterday. And we're asking them to endure those cost increases that they can't make up because they are not a free market industry. They are a regulated industry. And by doing that, I feel by not giving them the money they need to make themselves whole, either they're going out of business. Listen, like I said, last time we talked about this, I believe, I don't have my notes in front I mean, I think it was 37 companies went out of business in the state of Florida that are towers because of reasons like this. Ten of those had fleets of 40 or more trucks. So if we keep doing this, we're either going to create bad actors because they can't do it any other way, or we're going to have to start having the sheriff or somebody else or the fire department or somebody else start towing to clear accidents away, start towing to get cars out of the parking lots and apartment buildings that people are sleeping in and making it dangerous for those apartment dwellers. That's what we're going to have to do if they go out of business because we are choosing not to allow them to have a gas fuel surcharge to make their businesses whole. And I just think this is a silly conversation to kick this can down the road even farther with a company that is not a free market like every other business is. But no, my question to Barry was, and I know I went on a rant, what were we proposing? Because what you have in our documents are not what we were proposing. So we put the entire ordinance on. Why? Because the towers also want these other fees. But that's not what we talked about in the meeting that we're going to vote on today. We had to advertise the ordinance and specifically do that in order for you to consider a fuel surcharge. Okay. Now, to correct the record, though, the $250 fee that was applied, that was when we were considering coming back with an ordinance. And I understand that that was the state and this is us, but this is over in consumer protection. This is what our residents pay when they get towed. And so we didn't bring that forward because the lawsuit over there, and by the way, it is not being applied in all the other counties. It is in some of the areas. It's been very hard to get data. But I can specifically talk about call counties out there that are not applying that $250 fee. Some may be applying it after a period of time. It's been very hard to get data. So I don't want to misspeak on that. But it hasn't been universally applied. And there's been allegations that it has, and that's not true. So were we at consensus at the last meeting? We weren't discussing that. If you want to do a fuel surcharge tonight, you're welcome to do that. It's been advertised, it's properly noted, and you can do that. What we've just said is all the other things that they were wanting, okay? And, I mean, I would throw, we didn't recommend the fuel surcharge. You brought it up. If you want to do that, you can do that right here tonight. When we said we were going to come back, it was consensus on fees, fuel surcharge, and electric charges. We weren't talking about the $250. That wasn't part of it. So you didn't bring back what we talked about in the last meeting. It's complete. You can consider anything that was in here. But we had already separated out. We spent an enormous amount of time, and it separated out that it wasn't the $250. It was regular fees. It was gas, and it was electric cars. The $250 is being applied right now. So the other thing is that we're not applying the state law. That is simply not true. The reason we're getting complaints from residents is because the $250 is being applied to the toes today. And we get people all the time that come in and are furious because they follow the tow truck there, and they not only get the tow fee and that fee, and then they get a $250 fee, so they're getting a $450-plus tow for a six-minute hold. And that's a consumer protection issue. Right. And our discussion was putting information on the sides on how much it was going to cost. We really had consensus on this. And I feel like I don't understand why we're going back from the beginning when we had that. We had consensus. And we're not. And anything that's in here, you can consider tonight. So we're going right back to square one on what we're going to negotiate to let them be whole and have their gas surcharge. As I remember, it was gas. If you want to do the surcharge, you can do that. It was electric. We were going to have them put something on the signs that gave people a warning about how much it would cost if they parked illegally. I mean, I remember this conversation pretty darn well, and it wasn't all of this. It wasn't the whole package. But you need to see the totality of those because those are both things staff's looked at and what the towers are doing. There are a lot of things that the towers are asking for that were not part of the discussion. But that wasn't what we agreed to in the last meeting. But you didn't agree on everything. You did say we need to talk about fuel surcharge. There was discussion about electric vehicles and whether or not that. And then we talked about signage. But there were a lot of other outstanding issues. The other outstanding issues were to come back later. That's what we agreed in the last meeting. And we have advertised it. But that's not what you brought to us. You are bringing the whole package again. We already debated this. We're just going around in circles here. We did. We already debated this. I know. So we have it on the table. So you can do whatever we want to do tonight. What's the issue? So to me it was giving them the fee, giving them the electric car thing that was on there. It wasn't everything that they wanted. And it wasn't everything the county said. It was a medium thing. It was putting signs on the thing. It was electric cars. It was a fuel surcharge. And it was the fees that we had promised before. I think it was $35. Because the electric cars are very expensive. Tim, come on up. Or Matt. Either one. It was. And we had it all kind of settled down. It wasn't everything they wanted. Hold on. It just frustrates me very much. Well, I know. But I want to just have some conversation here. Go ahead, Tim. Please. For the overall presentation. I wanted to know about the electric car thing. What's the cost? What's the reason? What's the issue? I mean, I know they're heavier cars. But tell me what that ask is. Well, for the EV fees, it does require oftentimes dollies or other types of equipment. So there are extra expenses that the towing operators do incur. There's also storage considerations for those vehicles once they're back at the lot or back at the storage yard as well. So there's several things that do impact costs for towing operators. And so what we actually put down as a recommendation to get started was an EV fee that would be $35 per 15 minutes up to a total with a cap of $70. So a total $70 EV fee could be charged for a tow of an electric vehicle. And it's because of specific storage because of what might happen to the car? Well, oftentimes in terms of in our discussions with the towing operators, so we do have regular conversations in our discussions, it oftentimes, you know, can require additional equipment like dollies and things like that to be able to properly handle the tow of an electric vehicle. There's also considerations for the storage. Last year, there was a statutory, there was language that was proposed at the state level. That language did not pass, but they were pursuing language that would also would allow fees related to the storage, safe storage of electric vehicles. But that's not in play right now. That statute is not in play. No. But what we are proposing is up to a $70 electric vehicle fee and $35 increments per 15 minutes at the scene. And so for the first 15 minutes, it would be half that. It'd be $35. And then for the second 15 minutes, it would go up to $70. And by establishing this as a new fee, the board then has the option of adjusting it. We can monitor it. We can assess how it's being applied. And the board could then adjust it by resolution in the future. So this is outlined on page seven of your thing, the recommended new rates, which was the after hour gate fee, a new emergency fuel charge fee, an annual CPI, if you want to build that in, and an electric vehicle fee. Those are the four issues that were raised. Those are the four that are here before you. I mean, we advertise the entire ordinance, but you can consider those. Then we added in ongoing engagement with industry, monitor and implementation of new signage, which was discussed at the last meeting, and then consumer outreach. The Towing Bill of Rights, the Towing Bill of Rights is actually in state statute right now. So that's not new. It's talking about these things. There was discussion before about should that be strengthened. Well, that's what was brought up here today. We can look at that. That is not part of the discussion here tonight. So can I make a motion to adopt everything that's on page seven, page eight, and I don't know what page nine is as future efforts because it's already there, but I think the signage is important. I think the community outreach is important, and so those are the four, so I apologize. I didn't think you put them in here, Barry. I missed it. I didn't. I looked at a different document and not this, so I appreciate you putting in those four things. That's what we talked about. We didn't talk about any of the other stuff that they wanted or not wanted. We only really talked about those four, and then the signage and the consumer outreach to protect the consumers. And so I would make a motion to adopt those things and move forward. And anything else, you guys have to negotiate with them on, negotiate. If you need to keep working on more stuff, I think the signage shouldn't wait. I think the signage should go immediately. So I would like to make a motion for number seven, page seven, and add in the new signage, not monitor implementation, monitor it, but mandate new signage that informs people how much it will cost if their car gets towed. And so I think that should be all part of the package. I don't think that should be later. I think it should be at the front end. I thought that was a brilliant idea. And so that would be my motion, and just let's stop kicking it down the road. They want to continue to negotiate. Y'all want to continue to negotiate. You want to continue to negotiate that $250,000. Whatever you want to do, that's fine. But at least let's let them operate where they can at least keep their business operating, and we don't create bad actors because they're having trouble meeting their ends meet because fuel's getting so expensive. I mean, we all know how much inflation is. And they've got nothing, and I don't think it's right that we kick the can down the road to year four or year five. And if I can make a suggestion, I need to know which version of the ordinance we're looking at. There's a clean version and a redline version. And it will be significantly more helpful if we can let me perhaps identify the specific sections that we're looking at. It's very hard to pull an ordinance apart on the fly like this. It's in the PowerPoint. Okay. Page seven of the PowerPoint. And then on page eight, it talks about the signage, and then just put the signage in with that to be a mandatory thing. We need to identify it in the ordinance. The PowerPoint, we're going to work on pulling out the parts that you're talking about. We have to conduct a public hearing. So people need to be entitled to talk if we're going to move forward with anything. I understand. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And again, you know, I think the $250 charge is creating a lot of the concerns. I share the thoughts that you had, Commissioner Scott. And, you know, frankly, I've talked to a few people that have been in this business the last week or two, and, you know, they've expressed concerns about the need for $250 within the first 12 hours of a situation. There's hardly any administrative, again, these folks were within the business, within the industry, that there ought to be some way to compromise on that amount anyway. And I want that to be discussed at some future time. I don't know what, I mean, their interpretation when the $250 can be charged and what, you know, Hillsborough County is doing and what we might think is fair and reasonable ought to be on the table for discussion as well. I don't really want to run rampant on this thing. You started with a couple of things. You thought the fuel surcharge, which I get, I understand that, we're in the moment, so I understand that. When you start getting into all the other stuff, it's coupled with the $250 charge. It's all together. They're running parallel right now, and I want to make sure that they're taken care of, but at the same time, protecting our residents to some degree as well. And they're getting $250 on top of whatever we're giving them now. So, again, I just think we ought to be careful until that piece is taken care of. If you want to take, you know, the surcharge, I'm not even sure a new after-hours gate fee, what that is. And, I mean, I guess somebody has to come out and open the gate and let somebody, you know, bring the, I don't know what it is. But I would suggest they're doing a lot of after-hours towing. They don't need a lot of after-hours gate fee, for crying out loud. They just bring the car there and open it up. I mean, I just think we've got to be careful to piecemeal this thing. And so, for me, I'd be less is better tonight. But I'm okay with the fuel surcharge. I get it. It's right now. It's real time. And I, you know, I'll be open to other conversations, other pieces. But I don't want to do the whole thing. Commissioner Flowers. So, I will make a second for purposes of discussion because there's a motion on the floor. So, that's what we should do. I just wanted to add, we did have a great discussion. That was a wonderful idea about putting that information on the sign because a lot of people sometimes don't realize how much it is. And all of us have gotten concerns when a person's car has been towed and they have to go pay to get their car out, especially our tourists that are here that may not know exactly what's going on. I don't have a problem. I believe I said this at the last meeting. I don't have a problem with providing the financial remuneration for gas prices. We have vehicles within our own fleet, you know, where they use diesel or whatever. And so, they're having to be, we're having to look at addressing that cost increase. The towing of electric vehicles, I kind of look at it like my Mercedes. It can't be pulled up. It's got to be on a flatbed. And so, I have to wait sometimes a little longer for somebody to even come out and get it because it has to be towed on a flatbed. It had a flat tire and it had to be towed on a flatbed. So, I don't have a problem with that either. The questions I had and I did speak with some representatives was, and I know we're not talking about that tonight for the vote, but the concerns I had was the administrative fee and just what all is entailed in that because I know, and I gave the example, when I got towed, the same man that towed my car is the man who opened the gate. I had to wait because he was out towing another car, so you're not like paying two and three different people, you're paying a, there's a person, and so I just kind of felt like that was paying like three fees or three services for one person that's on. I also asked some questions and I was educated on whenever there's documentation that has to be filed with the clerk of court and the fees that may be entailed in that. So, it helped me with my understanding a little bit more with administrative fees and costs, but I also know that if you have one body doing a job, you should not be paying three administrative costs for that one body. So, I have a problem with that, but if there is consensus tonight, I have no problem supporting the increase for the fuel mitigation. I have no problem with supporting the up to $70 cap for the EV vehicle. I can support those things, but the others I still have, you know, and I know that's not what Commissioner Peters is asking for tonight, but I'm just sharing on some of those other administrative costs I still have a concern with. Okay, well, we do have a couple of folks that want to speak. Do you want to just go ahead, let's go ahead and listen to those folks right now, and then we'll bring it back. Can I ask one question before you do that? Yeah. So, Jewel, so even what we're talking about tonight, can that vote occur tonight? Because I heard you say it has to be a public hearing, so I want to make sure. What I was encouraging is that we allow public comment. Oh, okay, I'm sorry. You can absolutely vote tonight, and we're just trying to pull the pieces out. I will tell you, ideally, it is not good to pull an ordinance apart at a hearing like this and try to put it back together. We're trying to pull right now the parts out of the actual ordinance that relate to the provisions you all are discussing, and we'll see how that goes. Thank you. I'm sorry, Mr. Chad, just wanted to make sure. Commissioner. Yeah, I was going to ask the same question about the public hearing that Jewel mentioned, and that was answered. Thank you. We have two speakers, one person speaking on behalf of four, so they'll get 10 minutes, and then another speaker for three minutes. So we'll go ahead and listen to, we'll bring up Jason Goldstein first. But first, I need to know, Aaron Watkins, just raise your hand because I've got to know you're in the room. Sorry. Calvin Hudson, sorry about that. Nathan McIntyre, and Rowan Kosher-Jones. I've totally abused all of your names, and I apologize for that. But the four of you are here, so Jason, you have 10 minutes. Good evening. My name is Jason Goldstein. I'm an attorney in St. Petersburg, and I represent many of the tow companies that operate in this county, Hillsborough County. And I seem to get a lot more in a lot of other counties that are coming lately. I've been doing it for pretty close to 20 years now. And I've handled cases from small claims cases to jury trials over these tow issues. A lot of what I have to say is going to be reduced now based on the discussion that I just heard. But I will address at least some of the stuff that's in the ordinance or the proposed, specifically with I, section, I'm sorry, section J. There is a proposed $40 cap on filing a lien notice, which is fine. And that's what's currently there now. I think the proposal in there is to not allow that to happen after 48 hours, which appears to mirror or do what Hillsborough County is doing. The issue is, is that the statute itself allows, 7-13-78 allows five days to do that. When you cut it 48 hours, excluding Saturday and Sunday off, because the statute also excludes Saturday, Sunday, and legal holidays, you're now reducing 7-13-78 to three days to file those notices. So you're cutting off, and it used to be seven days. They changed it to five in the 2024 change to the statute. And by imposing the language that you have here in section J, you're now taking potentially two more days off of that by cutting out 48 hours before you can do that. So that's the first issue. The second issue is this isn't really clear, but it kind of dances around 7-13-78 as it pertains to the $250 administration lien release fee. The regular fees that the county is adopting come from section 122 in the ordinance, specifically, I'm sorry, 125.0103. The $250 fee that we're all talking about now is contained in section 7-13-78-15A, and that is in a completely separate section. So the lien ability to file the lien starts in 7-13-78-2A. A towing storage operator may charge the owner or operator of the vehicle or vessel only the following fees for incidental or incidental to the recovery, removal, or storage of vehicle or vessel. One, any reasonable fee for services specifically authorized under 125.0103 or 166.043 by ordinance. That's where the $40 fee is coming from that you're talking about here. You don't address the specific $250 fee. That is addressed in subsection 4, any lien release administration fee as set forth in 15A. 15A is where Chapter 7-13-78 specifically authorizes the $250 fee. That $250 fee materializes immediately upon the hookup of the car. So the county, in imposing a 40-hour wait period, is in violation of that statute, and there is nothing in the statute that allows the county to take away that fee. And that's, the legislature drafted that statute. I'm not saying the fee is right or I'm not, I'm not here to say the fee is right or it's wrong, and I'm not saying that it's a consumer protection issue. You know, maybe it is, maybe it's not, but it needs to be addressed at the statutory level because the county cannot change the ordinance, the statute, the way it reads as it's currently in place. And I believe if you look at the posted on the Pinellas County website, and I have copies of all this for you as well, if you look at it right on the Pinellas County maximum non-consent tow rates, the county has already acknowledged that, and it talks about other fees applicable in addition to that $40 fee. In 2024, the statute clarified that tow operators may charge several types of fees, including independent lien release fees, which are separate from the rates fees the county are allowed to set pursuant to statute 713-78-15A. So the county has already acknowledged that that separate $250 fee is an allowed fee, and it's not something that the county can control via ordinance. And it's posted right on the website for the county. I mean, I really wasn't here to talk about fuel surcharges and stuff. I recognize that you all see that that's an issue, and those are other things. But in the last few minutes, I kind of would like to address some of the stuff that was brought up by Mr. Scherer, or Commissioner Scherer. I can honestly tell you, and this is just from a personal standpoint, in the 20 years I've been doing this, I recognize that the industry itself is not the best of industries. It's not the most customer service-oriented industry. But I can assure you, in all the cases that I've handled, I've never, ever once had someone come up and say, I parked here, it was my fault, where do I pay? That's just never what happens. Nobody shows up to any one of my clients' yards and is happy to pay to get their car out. It's just not something that happens. I've handled jury trials. The worst thing, the heart-sinking feeling that you get is trying to pull a jury about having a client and trying to pick a jury for a case about having a client as a toe injury. Nobody likes them. Nobody wants their cars towed. Nobody's happy about it. Their employees have been beat up. Their employees have been shot at. I have videos, civil cases I have to go after people. People will climb over gates and under gates. They will get in their cars. They will crash back through the gates. There's criminal investigations. People get arrested. So on the flip side of it, I agree that the toe companies need to have a standard. But I don't know how you impose that standard when the people that they're dealing with are really not happy either. You have to impose an equal standard on them as you do the people that are going to get their car. So while people may be entitled to photos of their car, they may be entitled to all the things that they should be entitled to. ADA is certainly one of them, and that's governed under ADA laws. But as long as the establishment is in code compliance and the establishment is not in violation of any of that stuff, I don't know how you can force or even talk about requiring certain code of conduct when they're getting attacked left and right. Like, not everyone, not everyone does that, but I can't think of one person that has ever walked up, like I said before, and said, I'm sorry, I parked wrong. Tell me where to pay and how much to pay, and I'm going to be on my way. Nobody is happy about getting their car towed. Some people are nicer than others, but nobody is happy about it. So it kind of is a two-way streak. Toe companies aren't the best to deal with. I'll be the first to admit that. I mean, I have them as clients. But on the flip side of it, to force additional restrictions on them to deal with that kind of stuff, I don't think is the answer, and I don't think that's the picture, without mirroring the same things against the public that you're trying to give the rights to. The statute, as far as photos go and as far as what people are entitled to, the statute is clear. It provides prevailing party attorney's fees. It provides things you can do. It provides bonding cars out if you're unhappy about it, which is another issue. It provides for a lot of different remedies for people who feel like they've been damaged by a tow company, whether it's damage to the vehicle, unfair rates, whatever it may be. I mean, I'm busy. So there's plenty of litigation going on dealing with those issues. And the statute itself, 7-15-07 and 7-13-78, provide plenty of consumer protection. To go further into it in an ordinance and try and enforce that stuff down, I think, is just creating a bigger problem. Thank you. Thank you. Justin Plouffe. You have three minutes. Good evening, commissioners. My name is Justin Heller. I serve as the Region 6 Chair for the Professional Record Operators of Florida. I do want to begin by thanking all of you for the time and effort that you've invested in modernizing this ordinance. Our industry has waited many years, as you've heard, for these updates. And we do sincerely appreciate your willingness to move forward with this change. Unlike most businesses, the county, not the market, determine what we are permitted to charge. That's why updates like the fuel surcharge, the EV recovery fee, the after-hours gate fee, and the annual CPI adjustments are so important. They help ensure qualified towing companies can continue to support law enforcement, clearing crashes, assisting property owners with lawful parking enforcement, and providing the public safety services that this county relies on every single day. There is, however, one issue that I do need to respectfully ask you to consider separately. My concern is not with the Florida lien release fee itself. The fee is authorized under Florida Statute 71378. The ordinance before you today is governed under Florida Statute 715.07, and that is intended to establish county-regulated towing rates. Those are two separate statutes serving two separate legal purposes. If the legislature intended Florida lien release fee to be governed under Section 715.07, it could have placed it there. Instead, it chose to authorize it separately under 71378. Now, I believe we should be just as careful about staying within the legislature's framework as we are about modernizing this ordinance. I have respectfully raised concerns about this language with staff over the last year because delaying the required statutory notice by approximately 48 hours can result in consumers paying additional storage charges before they even know their vehicle has been towed. At the same time, House Bill 179 shortened the statutory deadline for the towing companies to send certified lien notices from the seven days to five days. Delaying the start of the process leaves less time to complete legally required research, processing, and mailing without providing correspondence with the consumers. We've already seen this language come to subject to litigation in neighboring county. I don't believe this is a burden any taxpayer should have to take on. If you can approve the ordinance, table the one issue, let's work together to get this right the first time because getting it right today is far less expensive than fixing it tomorrow. We agreed with the county staff on the CPI of 5% of fuel surcharge over $4.50 per gallon. Those were agreed with the staff already. And to your point, Commissioner Scherer, if a tow company does something wrong, the person doesn't need to get refunded right then and there. The state statute calls that a felony. It's called grand theft auto. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Those are the only cards we had. So, yeah, Commissioner Lettvelle. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, I've had an interesting few weeks. Three weeks ago, my wife bought a brand new car, first car that she's ever bought. She was so proud of it. And two weeks ago, as many of you know, I lost my hero and my best friend unexpectedly. The very next day after that, her and myself and my sister were sitting at a red light on Olmerton, minding our own business, actually going to the lawyer's office. And my wife screamed. And the very next moment, a car smashed into us. So, there went her brand new car that she had for a week. And, you know, after the ambulances came to help another person that was involved in the accident, a tow truck driver came to take away her car. And so, tow truck drivers and wreckers have a very important purpose. And I'm not going to dispute that. But, you know, one thing that, you know, one part of the legislative process in Tallahassee is when you amend the bill, you do amendments, and you take each vote one at a time, and because sometimes there are things you like, sometimes there are things you don't like. When I look at page 7, 8, and 9, as was part of the motion, there are several things here that I agree with. Fuel surcharge, for instance, that's very valid. The CPI increase to base tow rates, okay, that's, to me, that's acceptable. Electric vehicle fee, you know, I can live with that because electric vehicles are heavier than regular vehicles. But one thing that somebody needs to convince me of, if I am to vote on this, is why our residents need to pay $70 on top of $250 for a tow truck driver to step out of their car or out of their truck to open up a gate, to drive in, and then close the gate. That, to me, I don't understand why we have to do a $70 gate fee. And so, if that's staying in, I'm voting against it, because I just think that, you know, we're adding fees upon fees upon fees. And I'm not faulting the towers by any means, because their job is to represent their industry and represent their businesses and their business people, and they are going to do the best that they can for their businesses. And so, it's not their fault, but it's our job, and it's my job, to look out for our residents and our consumers. And I think if we're already going to be charging our folks $250, I don't understand why we have to charge them another $70 for somebody to open up a gate that would take, you know, five minutes. And, you know, that's just me. So, if that's staying in this motion, I will be voting against it. And that's really the only reason why I'm voting against it, because the other parts to this motion I would agree to. Thank you. So, as a motioner, I would be happy to remove that, because they still have work to do. They still have work to do on the rest of the ordinance, and however that lawsuit plays out. So, if they have to come back for the $70, if they're going to explain to us better, that's fine. But my goal here is to give them what we promised, because back at the time when we promised, and we were going to do it over two years, it was the same time we were getting police raises, staff raises, EMS raises. We gave Sunstar. They didn't have to wait two years, but everybody else had to do it over two years. Police did. Everybody else, staff did. They all had to do it over two years. Sunstar didn't. We gave them one foot up sun, and then we said for them, two years, just like we said for everybody else. Everybody else got it. They didn't. So, this is why I'm pushing. This is the only reason why I'm passionate in pushing, because we promised it, and three years have gone by, and we haven't met our promise. $70, happy to take that out, happy to amend my motion if you're willing to second that. I'm fine. I just want to try and give them what we promised them three years ago, which is that CPI increase. And on this, it was 3%. The attorney mentioned 5% in the ordinance. What we had agreed to at the last meeting was 3%, the fuel surcharge, and the electric vehicle. I remember all that. I don't remember the gate fee thing. I'm happy to let them negotiate that. I'd like to see the signage done right away, and while they're working on fixing the rest of this, because they're not done, they've got lots more work to do, let them continue negotiating that. But if you're okay with seconding that, then it would only be those three, the fuel surcharge, the CPI increase of 3%, but never below one, the electric vehicle fee, and the signage. So, it would be those four things. It gets them at least whole. And my concern is that I know two businesses in Pinellas County that are towers that went out of business because we did not act. And so, I just don't want to see more go out of business. So, I would be happy to amend that. Commissioner Flowers, if you would second that. I will second the motion removing the after-hours gate fee and including the signage. Yes. One more comment. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We have not failed to act. Conditions changed. The $250 fee dramatically changed the outcome of the situation and the mathematics of the situation. And knowing the outcome of that lawsuit is going to potentially change how we're going to look at these numbers. Some may go up. Some may go down. Some may stay the same. But if we think for whatever, if we pass something tonight, they're not going to stop charging that $250 fee. It's still there. And that $250 fee is one heck of a fuel surcharge. I'm telling you. Okay? Take it from somebody that buys fuel. Okay? That added significantly the cost to every single tell. So, I would just rather take a holistic view when we understand what the outcome of that lawsuit is. I'd rather just wait. That's just the way I feel about this. And if I could add, we're trying to identify all the sections of this ordinance that apply to what you are discussing. But staff has just pointed out to me in talking about the $70 fee. And before a vote, please humor me. I'm going to read every section that we have identified that you all are speaking about so that we can make it clear on the record what we're talking about. But one of the sections that discusses the $70 fee, the ordinance currently reads, no fee shall be charged for this access, talking about after hours. That's the gate access. But a fee may be charged for granting access during non-operating hours. That's how your ordinance currently reads. A fee may be charged. You're inserting the $75 to create a cap there. So, we would need to all together change that language because if you take the $70 out there, the fee could be anything. So, we could say that no fee could be charged. But we're talking about the $70 for the EV. I'm sorry. This is the gate fee for after hours. Okay. Okay. Apologize, Mr. Chair. I have a question. And this would have to be from the towers. Is that $250 fee charged to every car that gets towed or is it only for impounded cars? Can we have somebody answer that question for me because I don't know. $250 fee. The fee that everybody's hung up on. Is that charged on every tow or is that only charged on cars that are impounded? Because I'm getting the feeling that people are assuming it's charged on every car. Can someone answer that? You'll have to come up to the microphone. Only on. Yes. To answer your question, the $250 lien release fee is only on vehicles that a lien is placed on. Meaning, it was a bad actor that wound up in a tow yard. It is not accidents. It is not roadside. It's you got impounded. You parked in a fire lane. Parked in a handicapped spot. Your vehicle is now impounded. That impound company has to set future sale dates in the newspaper. Send out certified letters to registered owners, insurance companies, lien holders. We have to go through all these different things to be able to perfect that lien if, in fact, the registered owner or lien holder doesn't show up to pick up the vehicle in the amount of time that the state says. So, what's the percentage? And if I could interrupt, the attorney that spoke earlier said that the lien attaches when the car is hooked. He sure did. Oh? He did. The attorney said that that's not true, that it's attached when the car is hooked. So, that's if it's that there is an applicable lien. So, if you're hooking up a car because Commissioner Flowers' tires went flat, we're not putting a lien on that vehicle. We're taking it from point A to point B. The only time we'll place a lien on the vehicle is if you are doing what's considered non-consensual, meaning you have to come pick your car up from me. You are not going to want to pay your bill. I can force you to pay your bill in what I'm owed because we have a lien on your vehicle. The way that the industry in PWF interprets it is, yes, state law says that the second you hook up to a vehicle that there's a lien on your car. It's no different than if you're impounding a vehicle. Someone comes up, jumps in their car, drives it off your tow truck, causes all this damage. That's a felony that they just committed by taking their vehicle from a lien party. The way that the PWF and the organization views it is once that vehicle gets back to your tow yard and you get a case number with local law enforcement assigned to it, the gate closes, there's a case number with that vehicle that's impounded. At that point, they then charge the $250 lien fee. But that is not a broad one-size-fits-all for every single tow company out there. That's a very small sector of towing. So what's the percentage of your towing at your company that gets impounded versus just tows? Well, my company only does impounds. We don't do all the other tows. We're the only company that really does that. Most everybody else, I mean, and this is just a guesstimate looking at most of our members, impounds are about a 15%, maybe 20% with some of the bigger ones. Of what they, of all the tows they do, you're looking at an under 20% threshold of what's an actual impounded vehicle that that fee would apply to. So Clearwater Towing, is that about 20% that you impound and the rest are not? Mike, please. Yes, I would say that is an accurate number between police impounds, anything that's police-directed brought back to our yard, and private property impounding, that 20% number is pretty accurate, yeah. So the rest of the 80% don't get that $250 fee? No. Okay. Thank you. Could you identify yourself, please? My name is Rowan Cordner-James. Thank you. Okay. Yes, Commissioner Flowers. I've been toying with whether or not I wanted to say this or not, and please don't anybody take this bad. And I know it may appear as though the request to try to pull bits and pieces together to create the language that we will be voting on that's appropriate. My point is, because Commissioner Peters is correct, when we had this conversation and what she was asking for, we did ask for it to come back today for discussion. And then we even talked about it at the workshop. So, again, this is not being mean to you, Jewel, or your staff, but there should have probably been a draft of something put together because, you know, just in preparation, because we did have a very lengthy discussion about this at the very last commission meeting. And then at the workshop, Barry wasn't here, but staff was here, and, you know, we said this would be coming back. So, perhaps if, and, you know, hindsight is 20-20, you can't read people's mind, but perhaps if a draft of something would have been put together based on what it is that we discussed and what Commissioner Peters did ask for and got a kind of head nod, not a consensus, you know, because Commissioner Scott is being consistent in his comments, but my suggestion prop, you know, will be maybe if something like this happens again, just kind of have something put together, hanging out in the wings in case it needs to be voted on so that we, you know, have it clear and have it there for everybody to make sure that they know exactly what they're voting on so we won't have some of the kind of confusion. Again, it's hindsight 20-20. I'm not blaming anybody. I'm just sitting over here thinking about, you know, just processes that sometimes allow things to run a little smoother, if you will, rather than the feeling that we're putting, we're throwing something together that may have implications later on down the road. But sometimes, you know, ordinances are passed by making sausage. Well, I mean, you know, to your point, I mean, this 250s, you know, I mean, I'm hearing, you know, 20% of somebody's business and somebody else says that's all they do, so I'm not sure what the industry does, but to me it's a big part of this whole thing. And so, you know, when Commissioner Scott talks about a holistic approach, I think there's value in that. If we're going to pick out one or two things, I mean, I think all of it's on the table when we come back. You know, we can pass something tonight, but if, you know, all of a sudden things, you know, something changes, all of it's back on the table. You're right. And so we can change anything back. And so for me, the surcharge in the vehicle thing makes all the difference, and the sign is just, to me, that's, let's do it. To me, that's fair. The rest of it, increase, CPI increase, that's a, you know, whatever that charge, 3%, it can wait. Gate charge, it can wait. Those kinds of things to me can wait. The dollar charge, the surcharge in the other is fine. I'm good with that. Other than that, I don't really want to get into much. The less, the better to me tonight. So if we want to deal with that, I'll support the fuel surcharge in the EV and the signage. That's what I'll support. So just as a reminder, we gave our staff two years, did it. We didn't promise that. We promised it. And we didn't do it. We did it for police. I hear you. Well, we got 250 in there, too, so for a lot of it, there's 250. And it's not a, it's not a, I'm not sure the term you used on it, but it's like hung up on. That's a big, that's a big number, right? So anyway, all right, we have a motion. I didn't know if Jewel was still waiting for language to. Can we get there? We have pulled out the sections that we think apply, but let me take another attempt at explaining to you one of the issues. I know you said you're not wanting to take up the gate fee. One of the changes in your ordinance is putting a limit on an after hours gate fee that does not currently exist in the ordinance. So if we make no change to it, they could charge $250 for that gate fee. You're currently putting in a change that says up to 70. The ordinance currently reads a fee may be charged for granting access during non-operating hours. The change puts the $70 limit. So I know you didn't want to take that up, but that's one change you will be overlooking tonight if we don't go there. And that's fine. I just wanted to point that out to you. I'm not interested in the $70. Right now it's unlimited. I know. I'm saying so. Make it zero. Right now it's unlimited. It could be $500. Well, he's saying make it zero. We could say that no fee can be charged if you'd like, but that's not the way the ordinance currently reads. And that would be taking something away. What else? Where else? How else are we? How many are we? And I'm going to ask Matt to help me out because we've been conferring. So you would be going forward with the changes to Section 122-39. And that one basically just cites to some of the statutory authority. So we think that one should go. 122-40 only, subsection O, which relates to the signage that you all have talked about as far as, you know, Commissioner Eggers, you brought that up about just information for the consumer, the signage that we were talking about. We would also be included. 122-41 is the section I said. If we don't make the change, the after hours gate fee is unlimited, which is the way it currently reads. You could put a cap in there or we could say you can't charge a fee or you can leave it as is. That's a decision for you all to make. If we don't touch it, it's going to remain unlimited. And we're not going to touch it unless somebody tells us they want it touched. We want it touched. Okay. Because I don't want 70. To eliminate the fee? No fee. Okay. If you're going to have a fee, then I don't want a fee. Right now. I'm saying at the appropriate time we could talk about that further. But right now, I don't want a fee, a $70 fee. I mean, I know that's the cap, but 30, 20, 10, zero. I mean, it's me. I mean, I think the issue is right now it says that they could charge $5,000 for an after hours gate fee. So you're saying you want to strike through that completely and say there'll be no after hours gate fee. That's what you want to add to the ordinance. Correct. But that's not the motion. That's not the motion. The motion is to strike it for the vice chair. If we're not taking up the after hours fee, I just want to bring to your attention. Correct. As you said, Commissioner Wakey, currently an unlimited fee can be charged. I don't think, I agree with you, but I don't think that was the intent. And maybe I'm wrong. So that's what I'm trying to, you know, Commissioner, so the esteemed vice chair, the great Latvala. So when you said, you know, you wouldn't be supportive of the motion if there was an after hours gate fee, did you intend that you preferred no cap or you intended for no fee? I don't want there to be a fee at all. Okay. That's kind of what I would say. And so I don't know if to the motion maker, if that was your amendment was to be no fee or to be no cap. My motion was not to take that up at this time. That's what my motion is. They've got to come back and finish working on this ordinance. So they could come back in a month. They can come back in two months. They can wait until the lawsuit is done and they can come back. And they can do a better job at educating us on this system because clearly not everybody understands. But in my business, if I was forced by law that I have to show up at 3 o'clock in the morning on a Sunday, I would want a gate fee. If I had to come in at midnight on a Saturday night when we close at 6, I would want a gate fee to open that gate. So, you know, that's the cost of doing business. And I wouldn't want it to be more than $70. I don't think that's right. It's how much do you pay a person for an hour to drive back to the place when it's closed to open up the gate. That's really what they're asking for. If you don't like $70, you could do something else, but negotiate it later. I just want to give them the fuel surcharge to give them the CPI we promised them three years ago. That's all I wanted to do. And the $250 isn't impacting 80% of Clearwater Towing's business. It's not. And so they are not getting the CPI we promised them three years ago. Just like we promised everybody else, we fulfilled those promises. We didn't do it here. And, yeah, for one business, they may be getting the $250, but for others, they're not. And so I don't think that – I don't think this was presented very well. And so it's mix-matched. I get it. But gas is rising. They're regulated. They can't do their adjustments on their own. Just trying to give them a little bit of relief. In the time that they are trying to continue working on this ordinance and finally get it done, because the total ordinance said that they wouldn't come back again, that there would be a CPI permanently. We'd never have these conversations again, which is ideal and the best way to go. So I'd like to see them keep working on it, but give them a little relief. That's what we said last month. Keep working on it. Give them a little relief. And for some reason, that conversation is not the same this month. I don't get it. But however you all vote, that's how you vote, and it's how it goes. Well, so the $70 gate fee, max, is what Commissioner Latvala was not going to support. But she's saying you can't – it's in the amendment. No, I just wanted to make clear that if you don't make the change, the ordinance currently provides for whatever fee they choose for after hours. I just wanted that to be clear to the board. You can decide – make whatever decision you like. So do we need to make – make another motion to ensure that there's no after-hours gate fee? Chair, could I clarify one thing? Matt Spores, Assistant County Administrator. We're talking about Section 122-400, and it is access to a vehicle after hours, not releasing the vehicle. So my car was in a wreck, and I want to go get things out of my car after hours. If it's during hours, there's no issue. So it's after hours, and they would have to have someone come in and meet me there to get access to my vehicle. I'm having Tim look – I'm not sure there's anything in the ordinance that says they have to do that after hours, but what we were trying to do was provide a cap for if they did do that, what they could charge. So I'm sorry for the confusion, but if you leave it the way it is now, then you are correct, Commissioner Wicke, that technically they could charge whatever they want for that. But the way I read it, they could also say, we'll see you in the morning and not show up. But I guess – and you're right, you're right, they could say see you in the morning, you know, because they don't have a person. But when they are towing – and I'm not talking about auto accidents and all of that. I'm talking about when – like when I gave the example that I was wrong, sir, I did not argue with anybody. I admitted I was wrong. I got a ride to the tow yard, A1 right there on Fifth Avenue, South and 22nd Street. I paid them. I cried when I paid them, but I paid them, and then I drove off. Not happy, but I wasn't mean. But anyway, so they're out towing. They're back and forth in that yard. The yard is operational. It's not closed. So I guess that's my concern with – I get what you're saying. They could say see you in the morning, which means, you know, or, you know, if I want, I could just hang out there. And then they wheel in another car that they've towed, and I say, hey, I'm here to get my car. So a person's there. That's, I guess, the concern I have. Because for those type of tow entities like Tri-Jay and others, they're out, you know, getting cars all through the night or whatever. There are people parked in the wrong spot. They're going in there. So it's not like they're sending someone who was home in Clearwater. They got staff out there already working. I agree, Commissioner. The ordinance does state office hours that they have to be open and have someone there during those hours. And then there's hours after that that the ordinance does not state they have to have someone there. So depending on their book of business, maybe they don't have anyone in and out of the yard. And that person in and out of the yard is working on a vehicle, you know. So this is office hours. I get what you're saying. I'm just, yeah. Anything? No, we just clarified that 12240 is for access to the vehicle. It's not to obtain the vehicle. It's just your personal belongings are in the vehicle. You want to go after hours. Right now they can charge whatever they want for that call. Or they can tell you, we'll see you in the morning, the way it's written now. Okay. And the consumer would have the choice whether they wanted to pay that. It's not like, oh, after you get your stuff, pay us, you know, 250 bucks. Like, hey, here's the cost of what it would be prior to getting your belongings. They could show up during regular hours. So it's a specialty charge for accessing, getting to their car. Right. Not to collect their car to take. It's not an additional charge. So just, hello. Yes. Sorry. Yes, I'm sorry. Yes. Okay. Correct. I just, I just, Commissioner Shears. It just occurred to me that some people may really have to have access to their car. Medicine, inhalers, insulin, I don't know, you know. People might need to actually have the access. And if we do what you're telling it, saying, make it zero, and then they can say, see you tomorrow. Right. And they can't have it. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's why I was making sure I was clear what he was saying, because it's different than just getting your car out another 70,000 charge. It's just getting to it. But they could still say, see you tomorrow. We're not going to charge you anything and not give you access. Go up there, please. Go up there. Yeah. I'm not them, but they, if they don't want to send someone in for that, they don't have to send someone in for that, the way I read it. Okay. Go ahead. So I wanted to help, hopefully provide some clarification on this. To the point of, yes, if they have, if, well, let me back up. The state statute says, if someone requests their vehicle, that the towing company has one hour to provide them access to that vehicle. We have our normal business operating hours, Monday through Saturday, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Anything after 6.01 through 8 a.m. The next morning, overnight and Sundays is considered after hours. If someone says, I want to come get my vehicle by law, that towing company has to have someone if it's 3 a.m. And, yes, to your point, tow truck drivers are in and out, but every other county that has that gate fee has established it because, as we all know, usually the bad actors in society are pretty good with using Google. They will see that if you request your car, that tow company has one hour to provide it. Well, guess what they do? Call, I need my car. They don't show up. They call back an hour later. I need my car. They are perpetually, by not having any kind of recourse to say, hey, you need to come get your car, or if you don't want to pay this fee, come tomorrow morning. The contents is completely separate. That is, hey, I don't want to come get my vehicle. I want to come at midnight. I need to get a baby seat, or I need to get my insulin out of the car. That is because someone still has to send someone back to that facility that is closed because even though tow truck drivers may be bringing cars in and out, they are still closed. So if a tow truck driver isn't there, they now have to travel to that office. It's kind of what he just said, though. But I wanted to clarify the difference because I know she was saying that the gate fee is like, oh, well, they're there. Theoretically, the state statute says you have to be there no matter what. And they may or may not be there. And if they're not there, that can seriously cut a business off at the knees. If someone goes to Google and they just every hour call, that can prevent a tow truck from ever once going out in the field and reaching all the other clients that they have to. Thank you. Chair, can I clarify something? We're in agreement. If you want to access your vehicle after hours, the state law does not require that they show up within an hour. And so we're on the same page. We just talked. If I want to access my vehicle, not obtain it, not pay to get it out, just access it for medicine, right now they don't have to show up. The way our ordinance reads, if they do show up, they can charge any fee they want to charge. I want to make sure we're clear on this. That's the way it reads. That's no different than what you said a minute ago. I know. I know. But what he was just talking about was obtaining. So I want to be clear and I don't want to confuse the two because we're not talking about a gate fee for obtaining the vehicle. Right. We're talking about 122-400, sorry, 400. And we're talking about if I want to get the pills out of my vehicle after hours, they don't have to show up. That hour rule that he just said, they don't have to show up because I'm just accessing my vehicle, not obtaining it. Those are two different things. If you want to take it. That's right. They have to show up. Yep. So they could show up or they could say, we'll see you in the morning. They could do that. Okay. So is that crystal clear for everybody? I get it. Okay. So getting back to what the motion on the table is right now. And can we go over just this? We got through some of the sections and then we got a little sidelined with the discussion that we just had. We're taking that one off the board. So let me just start from the beginning. We would be making the change that's proposed in section 122-39 that simply updates the statutory references to Florida statutes. We would be making a change to section 122-40, subsection O, which is the signage. And then the other changes we would be making are in 122-42. So section G, which is the fuel surcharge, section H, which is the CPI, and section K, which is the electric vehicle charge. Jewel. Mike. You turned. No, Matt was, I was asking Matt to follow along with me and he confirmed that I got the sections right. Okay. That's the motion. So if that, if you, those are the topics, the signage, the fuel surcharge, the CPI, the electric vehicle surcharge, and then we're just recommending that you leave in the one section that updates the statutory references from Florida statutes that talk about towing. And that's 122-39. So currently on that one item. I did not read that change and we would not make that change. We would leave that section reading as is. And that's the motion on the table and the second. Yes, sir. Very clear. Call, bring up the card, please. Motion passes four to three. More, more work to come, obviously, down the road. Anything else for the good of the order before we adjourn? Motion to adjourn. The meeting is adjourned.