Good morning. We're going to go ahead and get started, and I just obviously would be remiss if I didn't say Happy New Year to everybody. It is just a couple weeks ago, so I hope everybody's having a good start to the year, good health, obviously, happiness in the coming year, and lots of hard work ahead for sure. We're going to go ahead and get started. Barry, get us teed up. Light agenda today, but we have two important items. So we have the United Way Suncoast. You had asked a while back that they come and give us an update on their ALIS report and their findings, and so at this time we can ask them to come up. And then as they're on their way up, we will give you an update on our People First Pinellas program and obviously the agenda briefs. Good morning and welcome. Good morning. I'm Ernest Hooper from United Way Suncoast. I'm here today to serve as the hype man for my colleague who will be presenting to you about ALIS data. Before I get started, I just wanted to ask for a moment of personal privilege and say that I'm thrilled to see my friend, Commissioner Latvala, back here on the dais. And I wanted to remind all of you that after being successfully treated at Shands Teaching Hospital on the campus of the University of Florida, Commissioner Latvala promised that he would be an Arden Gator fan. I'm going to hold him to that promise, and I won't back down. All right, without further ado, I want to bring forward my colleague, Dr. Nicole Pena-Miller, to present about the ALIS data. ALIS is an acronym. It stands for Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed. But we love that it forms a name because behind all the data, and she's going to share much of that with you, are actual people, people with names, people who are our friends, people who live in our neighborhoods, people who serve as the backbone of our economy. All right, Nicole, come forward. Thanks, Ernest, and thank you, Commissioners, for allowing us to be here this morning and share this with you. Nicole, before you get started, from time to time, a commissioner may raise their hand, so they may have a specific thing that you've talked to. They may have a question, so we'll just play it as we go. Will do. Thank you so much. So, before we talk about what is ALIS, we need to talk about the Federal Poverty Line and why the Federal Poverty Line is a broken tool. So, for those of you who aren't familiar, the Federal Poverty Line was created in the 1960s by an individual named Molly Orshansky, pictured here. Ms. Orshansky is not the villain of my story. Ms. Orshansky cared deeply about the community and worked in multiple federal agencies, including Family and Children's Services, caring about what was going on with children who didn't have enough food to eat, and later landing at the USDA. And so, in the 1960s, we had a war on poverty, and there was an interest in defining how many people didn't have enough to get by. So, like any good social scientist, she used the best data that she had at the time, which was the 1955 USDA's economical food plan. At the time, households spent about one-third of their income on food, and so she did some math. She said, okay, households spend a third of their income on food, so let's look at a third of their income, multiply it by three, and here is the Federal Poverty Line. That formula is the same formula used to calculate the Federal Poverty Line today. It's been adjusted for inflation, but it is the same. So, even multipliers, 200% of the Federal Poverty Line, 150% of the Federal Poverty Line, is still a multiplier of a broken tool. So, when we talk about ALICE, ALICE stands for Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed. It's a dollar threshold that recalculates how much it costs to get by, taking into account local indicators, like current costs. Households across the nation now spend about a sixth of their income on food. It takes into consideration geography, because you might imagine that it is more expensive to live in Miami, Florida, than it is to live in Miami, Indiana. And it takes into consideration family type, that a household of four might look very different, whether that's two adults who are working and two children, one adult and a senior grandparent and two children, or one adult and three children. And it includes all individuals. And so, we have limited time today. I would encourage anyone to visit unitedwaysuncoast.org, slash what we do, slash ALICE. And you can get our local data. You can also find all of the ALICE data for the state of Florida at unitedforalice.org. So, when we talk about who ALICE is, within Florida, it's nearly half of the households that are below the ALICE threshold, either in poverty or above poverty, but still not earning enough to make ends meet. And locally, within our Pinellas County, it is 204,000 households. So, that's a lot of people. It's nearly 46% of the households in our region. Our neighbors, our community members, the people who are serving and making our county great are struggling. When we look at this over time, the percentage of ALICE households has changed, but that is due in part to the rising number of individuals who live in Florida. We've seen an influx of people, and Pinellas County is no stranger to that. And so, while the percentages may have changed, we see the number of ALICE households growing in our communities. And finally, we just want to note that ALICE is in the workforce. So, when we look at people in various occupations, as Ernest mentioned, the people, it's one in seven registered nurses. It's one in five elementary and middle school teachers. These are individuals in our communities who are tasked with caring for the well-being of our community and who are practicing a quiet resilience of doing a job while also wondering how they're going to pay rent at the first of the month or how they're going to make their utility bill and how they're going to have enough to eat. So, for the sake of time, I'm going to skip a couple of slides, but I do want to note that there are various households' budgets. There are 120 different slots you can look at on here. Specifically, we want to call out child care at $2,188 a month for two children. It is the highest in the state of Florida. There are some resources to help, and we would encourage our commissioners to look at the state tax credit that's available to businesses who provide either on-site child care or off-site child care to their employees as a way of boosting the economy and including economic development while also supporting families and getting them to work. So, what's different? There are more households below ALICE. We've seen budgets increase from 2022 to 2023, keeping in mind that the data that we have is before Hurricanes Helene and Milton, and so we know that those budgets have continued to climb. And we're going to briefly look at some demographic discrepancies that exist. So, this is Florida, and the way this map works is the darker the blue, the more ALICE households are in the area. So, we see that ALICE is more concentrated in rural areas, but every city, every county has pockets of ALICE. This is Penelope County. You all know that. And we can see that certain zip codes have above-average ALICE households. The zip code where I live, 33712, 57% of my neighbors are struggling to afford their basic needs and are struggling to get by. When we look at family breakdowns, we see that single-headed households are much more likely to struggle, particularly single-female-headed households, and they make up 37% of the residents of our counties. So, when we're applying programs, we can think about who lives in our county and what their households look like. And when we look at age, we also see significant discrepancies. Households under the age of 25 struggle, but there aren't many of them. Households over the age of 65, our elder members of our communities are struggling with nearly 60% of them not able to afford basic needs, and there are a lot of them in our county. I love Ernest. He anticipated my next slide. When we look at the demographics over time, we see that our senior communities are the fastest-growing demographic, and they've seen a 20% increase in the number of households who can't afford their basic needs. So, while we maybe see declines in the households 44 to 64 who are ALICE, we see a sharp 20% increase in the number of senior households who are struggling to get by each day, many of them still in the workforce. We heard recently at our national conference from an 85-year-old man who was still working, and I would like to hope that at 85, I do not need to work in order to be able to afford basic necessities. But he was still working because he couldn't afford to get by. He couldn't buy groceries. He couldn't buy his medication without doing that. So, how do we respond? In general, we want to bring together partners. So, we thank you for allowing us time to be here today to share this data. We want to continue to reinforce efforts, community, collaborative, co-created efforts around education, financial security for families, and community resiliency in the wake of disaster. And we want to educate about the real magnitude of those in need. Each of you will be sitting at tables that I will never sit at. And so, we ask you to continue to share the magnitude and to share this data. And if there are others that you think can benefit from learning more about this data, please encourage them to contact us so that we can share that with them. And I believe we have a couple minutes for some questions. Thank you. It's always extremely enlightening. You just don't realize the numbers. When I looked at that two adults, two in child care budget of $108,000, you're talking about four people, and the cost, you know, whether it's food, transportation, I'm assuming that includes gas? Yes, so transportation includes one car for a household of four. So, two earners, but one car that you're sharing. And that includes gas and minimum liability insurance. Any questions from the commissioners? Yeah, I had a few. So, food pantries, which, you know, continue to, you know, sprinkle around the county for sure, and at a higher level than we've ever seen being used, probably one of the key areas, looking at your numbers there for people being, there may be right at that tipping point. Any thoughts on that effort to either make it more palatable for people to go to pantries? Is there any of that education that is going on to let people, it's okay, you know, that kind of thing? Certainly. And this is something we've seen for years. We saw during the pandemic, 70% of households using a food pantry had never used a food pantry in their life. And so, there is a lot of encouraging Alice households to use the food pantry. And many Alice households are using the food pantry to supplement their budgets and to get enough food to eat, as well as things like free and reduced lunch at schools and aftercare programs. During the pandemic, we had quite a few folks that, you know, left the workforce. I mean, they didn't come back to the workforce. And I'm looking at your daycare, childcare, is that childcare for, like, is it assuming one person, one child, two children, or? So, that is two children in full-time childcare that would allow a parent to work. So, younger, typically younger families. Yeah. So, younger, under, like, under school age. Well, you know, when our companies tell us they're having a hard time finding people to work, they didn't necessarily before. So, we're having a lot of people, and you look at $24,000 a year, right? That's what it's. Certainly. That's a lot of money. It might stay home for the kids. I mean, if you're making $40,000, $50,000 a year, there's a discussion about that. Certainly. That's a tipping point. There was a point in my life when I had small children, and I declined shifts at work because it was more expensive to pay for childcare than it was for me to go to work. And so, you know, when we're thinking about people making smart decisions with their money, sometimes that is the best decision. That said, there is a state-approved legislation from last year allocating $5 million to businesses as a tax credit if they provide childcare. Currently, there's between $1 and $2 million left, and that could all be pulled down and go to Pinellas County employers. There's nothing saying that we can't advocate for our businesses to provide supports to families and then take that tax credit and take all of that remaining. And I would love to see as much of that come to Pinellas County as possible. Yeah. I've often wondered about how the insurance companies, they provide insurance packages, and it seems to be one-size-fits-all for an employee workforce. And yet, there are older folks that they certainly don't need childcare, and there are younger folks that need it, and they don't need maybe dental care. And it seems like there would be a way to kind of work through that so that it gives that – I mean, the entire package would be worth the same. It's just how you split it up. But it's difficult to maneuver through that. But, again, I think with having the problem with having the workforce being affected so dramatically, that's – to me, that's something that they ought to be thinking about and us as well. So, number of seniors going up, are there under Alice? I mean, some of that's obviously the baby boomers getting older. That's a big group of people. So, I think – is there any numbers on the vet community, the veterans community, or – because, again, those are folks that might tend to be in that older group. Sure. I don't have that data in front of me, but I can certainly put you in contact with our data team, and they could get you. That would be great. Yeah. I'd like to hear a little bit about that. So, again, the idea of getting more and better-paying jobs, and really the jobs that we're getting are across the gamut of skill sets required. So, protecting our industrial lands so that we can bring companies that have jobs I think is really important, something we need to do to have more companies coming here providing more jobs. I ran into a company, took a tour, and they're exploding in terms of growth, and they're just looking for people that they can train up. So, it's not like you need a college education. You need high school, good behavior, and even folks that have had troubles and they need a second chance. They're trying to develop that. But those opportunities are there for our folks, and making those connections is obviously the difficult part sometimes. But to this issue of having more income in your family so that we can have the housing, have the food, have the gas, have the things that you need. Okay. Last time. Any other questions? All right. Well, thank you for being here today and giving us an update. Thank you so much. The data. All right. Good morning. Morning, Chair. Morning, Commission. Happy New Year. Let's see. So, the last time we were in front of you was December 11th, and at that time we were working to get some checks out the door before Christmas. This is a brief update of where we're at today as of the 15th, and we will continue to update you as we progress through. What you have in front of you is a snapshot, a monthly front and back, with some data points on it, that over time those charts will obviously have more numbers and more data points because we just got started. I should say, for those watching at home, we want to drive everyone to the recover.pinellas.gov website. That's where they will get all their updates. That's where residents apply. We still need applications. That's where they can find support, and that's where they can also find updates on their application status. Here's an overview of those first five programs and where we're at. There are additional cases pending as of today. In fact, I was told this morning that we have another closing for a homebuyer assistance, so that number is going up as we talk. We sent out 12 checks by the end of December. Those totaled right there just over $400,000. The good news is that the small batch of checks allowed us to work through the test and test the application portal and our review, and it also allowed us to test the reimbursement portal with the federal government. So I'm happy to report that we've done two drawdowns from our grant, totaling $375,000, just shy of $375,000. We've done the drawdowns. The clerks received the money, and as recently as yesterday, staff was working on what accounts it needs to go to to reimburse us. So the good news is that the system works from start to finish. Click it forward. All right, here's the program overviews just to kind of give you a snapshot of where we're at. This graphic reflects our planning assumptions based off of other disaster programs we've seen around the state. It includes a 50% to 85% fallout rate depending on the program. And so what that does is that helps us plan for staffing, vendor support, realistic timelines for when these grants are going to be rolled out and approved. It also helps us with future funding. So as you'll see there, we have the estimated awards. We have the fallout rate, the total applications needed if we're going to approve that many awardees, and then what number of total applications we have currently and how many of those are active. So there could be active or non-active status depending on a lot of different categories. Right now, the top two reasons for non-active are location. 400 applications are either outside of the limits or in St. Pete. Some are even outside the county. And then 100 are because of income. So those are the top two. After that, it falls off drastically in terms of the reason why they may not be active applications. Here's a familiar slide. Yes. On the total applications and then the current active, how does that stack up like with the counties to the south that have gone through it? It seems like it's slow, but maybe it's not. I have nothing to compare to. So, and BDO can come up later and maybe give some more intel. But from what I've seen, we saw that first surge, right, the first surge of applications. And so now it's plateaued. And so really what we need to do is go through those first group and then do outreach, which is on a future slide, and get more applications in. Okay? The videos that have gone out, the press that's gone out around the holidays certainly helped us with more applications. So we'll continue to do those, and we have some more scheduled. But we do need to drive applications. So we need to still be out there in the community talking to partners and getting applications in the door. Commissioner, you know, getting the word out is just hard. I mean, you know, my own personal example, as you guys know, I was just in the hospital and one of my nurses was in St. Pete, got completely obliterated, didn't know there was any federal funding. I'm like, how can you not know that there's federal funding out here with everything we've put out? Now, she's in St. Pete, so it would be their program. But still, she was completely unaware. And that just gives you the difficulty of reaching people. So this is a familiar slide to you, and it's one we'll keep showing. But it shows the total number of applications received, where those are in the county. So you can see it blankets the county. There's nearly 3,000 active applications under review. The strongest are in disaster relief payments and homeowner rehab and reconstruction. So that just confirms our early modeling for immediate financial relief for housing repairs. And those are the two highest applicant programs right now. If I go back, sorry, if I go back to this slide, this will also help us as we move forward, kind of show us the life cycle of some of these programs and which programs, when we see the applications drop off, where we might have to bring you a new program or bring you a revision to the action plan to offer something new to the residents. So this will help us drive those decisions as we see those numbers. On the homebuyer assistance, now you say we may have a fifth, and there's still other applications. And where are they coming from? Are they coming from the mobile home community? What community are they coming from? Yeah, so I don't know. We can get you a breakdown of those, where they're coming from, the HBAs. They're coming from all over the county right now, in terms of, that's the homebuyer assistance. So, but we can do a breakdown and see what's coming from where. Just curious what kind of receptivity in some of these mobile home communities that are in the floodplain, are we getting any interest there? Are they just looking to, I mean, I'm just trying to understand. Yeah, Tom and I had that conversation late yesterday about trying to identify those areas and how many applicants are coming from those areas. We know we could have an eligibility issue in some of those areas based off of ownership, based off of if it's a second home or if they're not a U.S. resident. So those automatically would disqualify them right off the bat. So we talked yesterday about running some of those numbers. And you have, this is all about the first $575 million. There's still another couple million, the 30% that we set aside to consider later that may not be quite as income-driven. Are you, as you go through these applications, are you seeing any of that possibility that may come, like, you're not going to qualify right now, but maybe, maybe in that next go-around? I would say it's too early to tell, but I will tell you that based on the data I saw right before this meeting, there's 100 applicants in one of those buckets that do not qualify now because of income. So we could go back and do a deeper dive once we start serving the other applicants about why and how far out do they fall, to your point. The other programs that we've not started yet aren't necessarily in that 70-30 bucket that you're talking about. We'd have to come back and look at some of these at that point in time if we adjust that in the future. It's frankly too early to tell. Okay. So, talking about community outreach, here's some of the outreach sites that we've been to. We have been to community festivals, HBA workshops, we've held HBA workshops, we've done targeted recovery events, and we've been in the mobile home parks. We have some upcoming and one that just happened recently, the Joe's Creek Industrial Park Mixer. There's a few others. There's one that's not up there. We've been invited to present to the Pinellas County One Business Alliance to try to talk to business CEOs and have them help us get the word out to Barry's point earlier to drive more applications for individuals that work for them. So, we're doing presentations. We're getting out there and continue to try to drive applicants. So, we're doing twofold. We're trying to work through the applications we have for eligibility and get checks out the door, and we're trying to drive new applicants. Anything on the Chamber of Commerce front with all the businesses they represent? Yeah, we've had some conversations with them, and we will set up meetings. Anyone that will have us, we will set up meetings for. Yeah. Commissioner Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks, Matt, for all the info here. Do we have a sense of how long the average, and I know we've only got a few awardees out there right now, but do we have a sense of how long it's taking people to get through the pipeline? So, right now, I don't know if we, do we have a number for that? I'm looking at my two teams. I can tell you that we're around 90 days from when we initiated the application process. Three of those were holiday weeks, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's. So, that's not a great, you know, so we probably have to back those three weeks out. So, I don't know if we have a timeline. Do we have a timeline? Yeah, averages. Yes, yeah, yeah. Good morning, Commissioner. Morning. So, timeline to assistance varies by program, and the biggest variable is how quickly the applicant themselves is cooperating with the program to provide documentation, information, schedule inspections, schedule signing events, et cetera. So, keep that in consideration with these averages. They vary by individual. The program that will take the longest to provide assistance is the homeowner recon program. Obviously, to do a complete reconstruction, that is our longest lead time program. And from intake to completion of a brand-new house, it's usually around one year for those applicants. There are interim milestones that we can celebrate, but until you get into your new house, on average, about a year. For home purchase assistance, probably around 90 days to qualify for what we call a letter of eligibility, which is essentially that household's indication from the program that, yes, they are qualified to receive assistance, and they can start shopping for a new home. That assumes that the household is already mortgage eligible. Households that are not mortgage eligible may take a little longer to go through credit counseling and financial fitness training to become mortgage eligible, but we will work with those applicants hand-in-hand to do that. And then our shortest lead time program is the disaster relief payments program. That program, from intake to payment, about 90 days. That is provided the applicant has turned in a complete application with good documents. If there's a lot of back and forth on the paperwork and we have to go back to request additional items, that timeline may take a little longer. But the attitude of let's try to find a way to make it happen instead of having excuses why not to make it happen, I'm assuming we're having that. Every day. Okay. Yeah. I mean, you know, systems are set up to turn people down. This is, you know, again, in general. So it's like, you know, check, check, nope, nope, sorry. You know, it just frustrates people to no end. And I would love to, you know, there's like a, like you take these to these different groups to educate folks, whether that's a three-, four-page simple document that can be put together that we can have ourselves. It's like, because we all speak to different groups at different times. It'd be nice to just have that at the ready so that we can do some of that discussion when we have that. Because people bring it up. So we will get you that. It's sitting in my e-mail box for me to approve. And it is scheduled to go out before tomorrow. And it's going to go out to all applicants with each of these five programs and some timelines and some information that they can help us with through the process. So staff and BDO have worked on that. And I received it this morning. And I just need to review it one more time. And then we're going to send out a mass e-mail. So we'll make sure you have a copy of that. Okay. As we go along, just that people that have the experience, like a 10, is we're super excited that the programs that we have are matching people's needs. Or a 1 is we're just, we're not seeing it. We're just not. So I know that I don't want to ask now, but I'm just saying as we go along, I think it's important for us to get a temperature of how things are going so we can pivot, as you said before, pivot out and pivot into other programs. So at the end of that e-mail is a survey, too, for the applicants to take to tell us exactly that. Okay. Well, maybe not exactly that, but to give us feedback. Yeah. Do you have anything else? Anybody? Okay. Go ahead. I'm sorry. So you all have probably seen the press over the Christmas holidays regarding some checks that went out. We would like to schedule more of these, and I know we're coordinating with your offices to do so. And, again, this will help us drive more applicants to our website and hopefully get them assistance. Lastly, and Jenna just spoke about it, but when we talk about the general contractors, and I know we talked about this prior, but there's just an updated timeline. We published an addendum on December 19th, and we updated the proposal submission due date to January 23rd. So we're looking to have contractors ready sometime in February, which realistically means end of February, March, before we could start to see that impact. I will tell you that our team and BDO are also going through some of these applications now, and they're starting to do inspections now so that we're ready for that February or March time frame. We're not waiting until February or March to start that process in terms of applicant approval. So we're working through that process. If you start that process, if you're in the queue somewhere, like your mobile home, it's livable, but we have a time frame that they can stay there. If they're in the queue and they're already working through it, does that protect them after the timeline is up? I would need to work with staff on that. I understand the question. Well, just because it just said it takes a year for these folks to get another, you know, what was it? Yeah, you're talking about the temporary housing situations. Yeah. So we could have Kevin speak to the ones for the unincorporated area, and we are working with them, and I'm sure he would continue to work with them. Obviously, these go into municipalities and stuff too. So as long as they have a program and are willing to extend those temporary occupancy permits, well, then that would work. Well, I mean, they've approached and they're getting reviewed and all the frustrating, you know, circles they have to go through. Yeah, sure. It would be nice. Just, commissioners, you know, we're going to get complaints on this, okay, as we ramp this up. I just ask you to know this. We're going to work to make it as easy and simple to process people, but we can't process stuff without documentation. And then they're going to call you and say, I send it to them three times, and that won't be true, okay, and you can follow up, and staff will get you the details on that. But we had this issue when we had that other federal money. It was impossible to get the documentation necessary to cut a check. And if you do that, well, that's when fraud occurs, okay? And there will be attempts at fraud on this. So just be patient with us. Know that staff's working every day as hard as they can to help these people. We want to get checks in their hand, get them into a home, you know, but there will be frustrations, and that's the piece that you will do. And I'm sure each of these programs have the list of things that are needed. Yeah. So when people come in and check, they've got this list, and then they go back and start working to put it together, right? If you recall back, we were trying to give people money that lost their job, you know, and we actually switched to an attestation form to where all they had to do was sign saying that we lost our job as a result of COVID. We couldn't get that. I mean, we took it from you had to get something from your employer, you know, remember that? You had to get something from your business saying the business shut down. Then we worked through legal, and we figured out that we could do this attestation form, and in essence, put the risk on them. In other words, if we audited it later, well, then you've committed fraud. So we made it even easier. We still couldn't get that back. And so I just want to highlight we will be working, calling, doing everything we can, but we've got to get the documentation to be able to cut the check. Well, that's why I asked about that comparative, you know, when we get these updates, it's nice to know that things are going better than expected or as expected or not. Well, we're way ahead of schedule. I mean, in terms of comparing other counties, we're way ahead. It took down south, what, two years to cut the first check? So, you know, we're— So am I hearing a 7 or an 8, you know, on a 1 to 10? Do you feel good about the program that we're delivering what people are needing? Okay. Easily right now, yes. I will tell you that Barry's correct. It took several years. St. Pete, we had a meeting on Friday, and they still did not have their grant application. I mean, grant agreement, sorry, grant agreement. So we received that end of July. So—but we're working through all the issues of starting programs from scratch and getting the applicants in the door and getting them approved. So we are working through that. Our hope is that as we progress these charts that you have in front of you, you'll start to see bigger numbers, bigger applicants, larger approvals. That's our goal. So that's what we're working towards. St. Pete knows how far ahead of them we are, so they can look to us for assistance or— Well, they can. They can look to lessons learned. They're also going to try to catch up very quickly. Okay. All right. And, you know— Well, there are residents, too, so— That's right. Right. They'll have good programs, and some of their programs might do better than our programs. We'll just have to kind of feel that out and bring back to you updates. Commissioner Nowicki. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Mr. Spohr. Just quickly, maybe kind of already went over briefly, but do you know, like, roughly, like, estimated what percentage of applications stall due to missing documentations, and, like, what documents specifically are most commonly missing? Do we have that data? I'm sure someone here has that data. All right. So, in general, a lot of applicants stall because of missing documentation. The biggest documents that stall tend to be income documents, especially as we change the calendar year and the tax year. So, we're in that—income documents can be difficult to get. For disaster relief payments in particular, gathering expense documents and documents to demonstrate hardship have been more difficult for our applicants than perhaps some of the other documents, but, Commissioner Nowicki, I would say probably 80 percent plus of applicants experience some stall related to documentation. I'll also add that that does not mean we are simply waiting for applicants to deliver documents to us. There are things that our case management staff can get on behalf of applicants, and when and where we can do that, we are doing that. We will do, like, for example, a three-way call with an applicant and a utility provider to get expense documents. So, each applicant, as soon as they apply, is assigned a case manager, and that case manager is working one-on-one with that person directly and daily, if that's what it takes, to get a complete application package turned in. We are also available to meet people where they are physically. So, if that means a home visit or I go to the property tax collector's office with you, we're available to do that as well. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. And I understand that, and so it seems like there are some process changes maybe that we could do to help increase or decrease those fallout rates, but is there, like, if you're selling your house, you could do, like, a third-party authorization to have a title company request your payoff or get information like that. I mean, is there, like, a document where they could sign to say, hey, go to the IRS and get my paperwork or get my, you know, utility bill or go to the tax collector for me? Is there something like that that they could sign off giving permission for us to? Yes. Yes, sir. Every applicant actually signs that as part of their applicant certifications when they apply. It's the release of information, and that release of information authorizes the program to act as a third party to collect information on behalf of the applicant. There are some limits to that. The IRS is one of those limits the IRS won't let us act on behalf of, but that's where those three-way calls and those screen shares and those in-person sessions really come into play because although the IRS won't give us, for example, a record of account or a tax transcript, our case managers know that process in detail so they can call the applicant and walk them through over the phone or in person. Awesome. Thank you. Yeah, you're welcome. And then, Matt, I guess just lastly, and, like, let's say the city of St. Pete did, you know, call you and say, hey, you know, you know, and to model their program, like, what cautions would you give them or what advice would you give another city or municipality, you know, through your experience thus far? It's been a year, so I think right now it's building the engine that is going to start turning out these applications, and so that's important, and we did a lot of things at the same time, like parallel, and so now we have the opportunity to fine-tune that, and so just really putting the plan in place and then being ready to act on that plan and implement so that we start seeing production, and so that's where we're at now. We're at that point where some fine tweaks and production's going to start happening. Awesome. Well, I know I appreciate it, and my constituents appreciate your work and your team's, you know, hard work on, you know, getting this money out, so thank you. Thank you. And I guess that ends the presentation. So, again, recover.pinellas.gov. I thank you for your questions. Your questions were timely because they were somewhere in my notes, but I was able to answer them throughout the presentation, so I don't have anything else. Yeah. I think the communication, getting it out there is you can't ever do enough, and I don't know if it's through the, you know, you do it through the churches, you do it through the chambers to let people know, just to be points of contact with folks who may be struggling, or, oh my gosh, that's been a year and a half ago. There's no, I don't, I'm sure I don't qualify for anything, and there's a lot of that, I'm sure, going on. And I, again, I'm not, I don't know, that's why I look to these folks to say, hey, how are we doing in comparison to other? Yeah, I, listen, we can always strive to do better, so we will continue to do that every day, but I will give one quick example. So, last Friday, Commissioner Scott's office received some information from a resident, but they were very truthful, and they said that they had been communicated with on a weekly basis from their case manager, but they just didn't know where it was in the process. When we went back and looked, the day before, we sent an email with four documents that were missing to move it forward. So, a lot of times, these applicants, too, need to either pick up that phone or call that case manager back, or just pay attention to their emails when things are coming through that they can do to help speed up the process. But that's a battle we are going to be up against every day, and so we will continue both county staff and BDO to work through each and every single one of those. Yeah, and like you said, that person picked up the phone and called, but, you know, our case managers probably know, too. Well, we haven't heard from them in a week or two, and there's, I know there's two documents, maybe I should call them. I mean, I know that's tedious, but it's... Well, no, it's a requirement, and it's something we're working through, and I would, and we have some information on that, but the case managers are to reach out weekly, regardless of if there's, even if there's no documents. So, we're working through that process. We have some data on the ones that are getting hit weekly, and then some that are not, so we're working through that process now. Any other questions before we let Matt go? Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Chair. Thank you. Oh, I'm sorry. So, are we having the city councils announce this at their meetings? I know right now, Treasure Island gets a lot of viewership, so I don't know that anyone's done a presentation or gone there, and since they've got a lot of viewership, it would be a nice way to, I mean, I'd be happy to go to one of their meetings and during public comments say something, and if you have something, I could have them put on their screen, or I know they put it in their newsletter. I just don't know if we're, I don't know if every city is putting, I think one time they put in their newsletter, but it's not continuous. So, if somebody didn't see that newsletter that week, then they didn't get it. So, if there's any way we can get the cities to put it out in a newsletter more than once a week, and like I said, I'm happy to go to, I don't know, I've got a lot of cities in my district. I'm happy to go to every city and, you know, take public comment, and if you've got like one little, even if it's that slide, that I could take and have them put on the screen, that, you know, why not? That's a great idea. That's a great idea, great input. We will take you and any other commissioners that want to do that up on that, and we'll put that together. Yeah, I'm happy to do my district, and so that's, you know, Chair Verde to Reddington Shores, Seminole, Pinellas Park, St. Pete, we don't do St. Pete, so I can, I'll skip that one, but I don't think there's any unincorporated, I don't think there's any, there's very little unincorporated in that northeast side of St. Pete that I have, so. Well, they're doing the outreach, but to your point, though, you know, going to the cities and having them, you know, is just another way of doing it, especially the beach communities where you had, you know, a lot of people in, so, no, it's a great idea. So, yeah, and if we can get in the newsletters every week versus one time, would be great. So, yeah, I'm happy to, if you give me that slide, I'll get all their meeting schedules, and as long as they're not conflicting with ours, I'll go to them. Thank you. Yeah, that's a great idea, and we all have those cities and the district, so whatever we can do to get the word out, let us know. Okay, thank you, Matt. Okay, jump right into the agenda. Agenda review. Okay, so, let's see, you've got a Martin Luther King Day proclamation. Just real quickly, Barry, we're going to have a Fred Marquis remembrance kind of moment of silence at the beginning of the meeting, just to give everybody a heads up, and depending on how many citizens to be heard, I don't know how many cards we're going to get for whatever reason. Right. The number 40 item, the families of Dillinger and McCabe, will either be moved up right after citizens to be heard or right before. Okay. So, the families will be here, and we're going to have that discussion, and we'll have that vote and all that, but they want to be here as well, and then they're going to have some comments. So, we'll move that up a little bit, but just so you all know that we're just going to have a moment of silence with some stuff playing behind to honor Fred Marquis. Thank you. Go ahead. All right. So, you've got your public hearings. The first item is your second public hearing for this item. This is as a result of complying with new statutes that we have to incorporate around our plotting and permitting process. The item number four, it's companion to numbers five and six. This is around, this moves this out of the land development code, and we've talked about this, so this puts this out of the land development code and makes it easier. Item five, this moves it into chapter 58. Excuse me, Chair. And then- Can I- Yeah. Just one second. Commissioner Shearer. As long as this is a work session, we've got plenty of time. Can we talk about four and five for just a minute? Tom? Yeah. Okay, Kevin. Kevin, whoever's paying attention, come on up. Okay, so let's go through each one. So, the first item, you know, is item number four. So, this is all around our tree, you know, permitting ordinance. We talked about this. We had this at a work session a while ago. I remember. And so- So, well, Kevin's here. Number four, I appreciate- First of all, I appreciate all your work on the tree ordinance because it's in the development community. It's a big thing. And a lot of the things you've done have been great. I just want to point out number four, for the work on number four, section 160, 686. I didn't understand why permits expire in 90 days. That seems like a short window. People are going to spend money on topographical surveys and hiring an engineer, and then the permit's only good for 90 days. I thought, can we give them six months? Can it take, you know, you spend a lot of money to get these permits. I don't know why they should expire so quickly. So, that would be something for you to consider. But on item number five, I'm very disappointed that we are going to be still requiring after- I remember this subject very well when it came up before. And I am under the opinion that we need less permitting for trees on single-family homes than more. And this requires permitting for trees that are four inches in size, and palm trees that are six foot in size. I am of the opinion that requiring a homeowner to come hat in hand and ask the government for a permit to remove a tree in their backyard is just ridiculous. It's government overreach. There are many, many reasons to remove a tree on your property. I personally am highly allergic to oak trees. There's safety concerns. There's property damage. If you want to cut your tree down because it's destroying your driveway, you know, you should be able to do that. And you shouldn't have to come to the county government to get a permit to cut down a tree in your yard. I just, I had hoped that we were going to have relief from this, but I just, I don't see it. And I thought we had a lot of heads going, yeah, you know, we really shouldn't be required to have this many permits. I think we should let the homeowners in Pinellas County decide whether or not they want to cut down a tree in their yard. And if they do want to cut down a tree, they shouldn't be facing a permit fee and a penalty on top of it. Oh, if you can't plant this many trees on your yard, you've got to spend money on a tree fund. And it's just, you know, I was taught that my home is my castle, but it's not if I have to ask somebody to cut down a tree on a Sunday afternoon because my granddaughter wants a swing set. It just, it's my tree. It's my property. I'm paying the property taxes. I appreciate your comments for sure. Um, so let me ask you when a, when a home gets built and there's, we have, we have tree require, tree planting requirements, right? Is that, I mean, we build, we do. So there's really two sort of buckets. There's landscape requirements, um, for single family homes, as well as for non-residential and multifamily. Um, and then there is the, the separate issue of tree protection and tree removal. So we, within each of those areas, we've brought a lot greater flexibility, um, to both landscape requirements, um, as well as tree removal. Within landscape requirements, um, we've put a cap, uh, which previously wasn't in place depending on the size of the lot as to how many trees would be required. We've given greater flexibility to the type of trees that can be planted rather than it needing to be one specific type of shade tree. Um, we've also given, um, and, and modified the credits. So if you were building a home, um, and you had existing trees on your property and you're able to preserve those trees, those could offset the requirement to have to plant any trees. So we've done a lot of fine tuning in that area on the, on the issue of tree removal at the highest level, we've, um, reduced the, um, the payment in lieu option. If someone does not want to plant trees, um, by approximately 60 to 80, 80%, depending on the quality of the tree. So we've made major changes to that, um, to that, to that area. Um, we've put a, a res item number six is a fee resolution, which sets now a fixed fee for the payment in lieu option where previously, um, we've used the market rate of planting a tree. Since I've been here, that number has almost doubled. So it was like two 79 four years ago. Now it's like four 79. So we've, this was something that was having a big impact, uh, on our residents and business and property owners. We, this, the item six now puts a flat fixed fee, uh, in that payment in lieu option. Uh, we've simplified, uh, we've simplified, uh, again, um, for both professionals as well as homeowners, uh, the whole process associated, uh, with, with tree removal. Uh, and as I mentioned, it's, um, significantly, uh, reduced where there wasn't a logical correlation. If you took out a tree as it existed today, an example would be if you took out an 18 inch tree, you'd be required to replant 12 trees. Well, first there's the cost issue, uh, which was overly burdensome, but then there was the practical, the practicality issue who can plant 12 trees necessarily on their property. So when you look at how we've refined both of those, the cost option and the replanting option, they're in a completely different place from, from where it is today. Um, I, you know, I, and I, I appreciate cause I've been trying to do something with this for a while now, and I think it's really important. Um, I think the comment that you're bringing up though, just, you know, again, is having a little bit more latitude of what to do with your property, whether, and I, and I, that's why I brought up that the first part of it, because the first part of it, we're telling people what they must do to their property from a landscaping and trees to, although much better, I'm saying we still telling them. And then we're telling them if they want to get rid of it, they have to come get permission. So both of those things are, I mean, if nobody wants to put landscape on their property or trees on their property, you know, I guess that's their own business, but it cuts their value down and I'm in real estate. So I understand the value piece, that's their choice, but I don't, I don't want, I'm not trying to put words in your mouth here. I'm just saying it's a, it's a, you know, they kind of tied together. Well, I just, if you're going to require it, then you have to get permission to, yeah. Yeah, I just, I don't, I think we need permission to do too much in Pinellas County. And I came here, I worked hard to get on this commission because I think that we rely on government too much. We have to ask permission too much. And this is a one case where I think it's indicative of that problem. You know, I, I don't need, I don't think I should have to have a permit to cut down a tree that's destroying my driveway. And I don't think I should have to ask the government. It's my decision to make. And so I'm going to propose next week that we, I'm going to propose a motion next week when this comes up to exempt single family homes from chapter 58, because I asked to increase the size of the tree. I was like, okay, well, let's maybe make it up to, if the tree is greater than 21 inches, we'll protect it and make sure you get a permit, make sure there's a license contract or whatever. But I'm seeing a four inch tree this big. I got to get the government's permission to cut down that tree in my backyard. I just, I, that's too much. Well, I think it's too much and it's also burdensome on our staff to, to, but I don't know what that permit turnaround time is, Kevin. I mean, if somebody has a, just, I mean, on a practical level, Chris, uh, commissioner. So that, that permit turnaround can be, uh, just within a couple of days. Um, one of the, one of the objectives, uh, was simplifying the, the whole permit process, which we continue to make internal policy and process changes. But within this code, uh, when it came to a homeowner understanding, can I take down a tree, not take down a tree, they would have to navigate into our land development code and flip back and forth between two different chapters. And quite frankly, it was, you know, very frustrating and too complex for them to understand. One of the key drivers here, here was let's simplify the, the, the whole permitting and tree process and put it in a standalone ordinance within chapter 58. And that's, that's one of the key outcomes of this. I, I also want to address the issue of safety. When there's a, when there's an issue of a tree of safety, a tree can be removed. The state has put in place, uh, a process that, uh, for single family homes, um, if there is, if there's a tree that poses a potential safety risk, uh, that tree can be, uh, with an arborist completing a tree risk assessment, that tree can be removed, uh, without any, any penalty, without any permitting, uh, as well as without any further, uh, tree mitigation. So there are other options, the state, the state, uh, statute being one of them, when there's an issue of, uh, of safety. So we, we could make that, we could add onto that and make it more like if we wanted to say, um, endangering the property, that's not really safety, but it's economic hardship perhaps, or, um, we want to put a pool in the backyard. I mean. So, so we've looked to, to strike that balance. That's what this, that's what this whole approach was about, was striking that balance of not having, um, if someone does not want to replant trees, um, where the payment in lieu option would be reasonable. And that's, that's, and, and, and when you look at the numbers, uh, as to how we revise them, like I said, in some cases, it's 80% reduction from what it would have been today. Generally, it falls between 60 and 80% cost reduction in the payment of lieu, the payment of lieu option. So we've made a significant change. You know, our goal, um, with this whole update too, was to have the improved outcome of our residents pursuing and using this process. Um, we know today in many cases, uh, homeowners they'll call, um, they find out what the current regulations are, what it may cost to, to, um, to have to do a payment in lieu and they go away. They never, they just never pursue a permit. They either do it, you know, on their own without a permit or they pursue the state preemption. And in many cases that it's been stretched as a circumvention of our code. So we're, we're looking to get, uh, a better participation from our residents where we'll actually see, um, an increase in those pursuing tree permits. And I think the difficulty is that, you know, when we were talking like this and, you know, Commissioner Shear has experience that he can visualize what's being said. When I bump into it is when a resident calls me and says, can you come out here? I've got to show you something. And he shows me what the, what we're requiring and I'm going, it can't be. And yet, and I'm not, and I'm not saying where we are now, but there were times that just blew me away. And it's hard for me to necessarily picture everything that we, the changes that we're making and the relief that we're really giving. Um, so. We can highlight, we can, we can, we can zero in, um, and, and highlight those changes if needed on, on, on Tuesday. It's been tremendously challenging for staff to have to administer the code in its current place because, uh, to your point, Commissioner, um, Mr. Chair, I, I'm well aware you've been out to properties where you'll come back and, uh, speak with me and say, you know, this, this, this homeowner was told to have to plant 48 trees on their property because they're taking down, they're taking down four trees. And, and you can imagine what it's like for staff to try to have to, um, be as flexible as we can to try to reduce that through some other means of, um, industry standard practices where we can depreciate the value of trees, but there's no reason for it to have to be that complicated. And so that, that the biggest, one of the biggest goals, again, is to simplify, make it more flexible and make it reasonable. And Kevin, it's been a while, but we had some slides that he used as examples of, here's a kind of a before and after to your point. Yeah. Um, and he can, we can get those loaded up and he can present those on Tuesday. I think it might be healthy and helpful. And then if we get to a point where we're just, maybe we want to like one more loop through a workshop and, and, and deal with it on, after we talk about this on Tuesday, uh, we'll do that. But if we do, if we're comfortable at that point, I think it would be helpful. I re I just remember the two cases, you know, two properties side by side up in North, you know, up in the North part of the County. And one was almost like a tree farm. There were so many trees on this property and they wanted just this little corner of the property to build their home. And you remember, I'm sure. And it was, it was like, uh, they were being told they had to add trees. They had so many. And then the next property over was a very similar size property. There wasn't a tree on there. So I don't know what their case will be Lord help them because I mean, they got nothing. The other one had plenty, but either one of them had to come here to get permits to do more. So it just, it just nice to be able to see maybe to help you guys do your jobs easier because it is a painful process. I mean, you know, and some trees don't count if there's trees on your property and they're not the right kind of trees, they don't count. So you have to get rid of them and put the right kind of trees, the ones that make Commissioner Shearer allergic, you know? So I mean, I, and again, I know we're getting into the, into the minutia right now, but I do think it's important to a lot of people and it can be really cumbersome. So maybe we can get some examples on Tuesday. Absolutely. That would be, that would be helpful. And then, um, I know I'm not saying that we'll make it better for you. I'm just saying, well, I think we need to have a little discussion on it. That's not great. Okay. For me, the simplest way to simplify the whole situation is to eliminate the need, eliminate the requirement. Yeah. And then it'd be easy for everybody. I understand. Mr. Chair. Oh, I'm sorry. If you're done. No, no, I just said one, but on a different one. Finish up. That's fine. Go ahead. Go ahead. So I, so I, I am going to, I'm siding with Commissioner Shear on here. So are you telling me that if my palm tree had top rot and the whole head of the palm tree fell off, I'd have to get a permit to take that palm tree down and then I'd have to replace it if I don't want it anymore. Cause the, I'll tell you that happened to me and that tree from the storms was leaning so close that in another storm, it would hit my house. So when the top fell off, I had no idea I'd have to get a permit to take that tree down from top rot and, and, and then I would be required to put another tree there if I, that doesn't even make sense to me. When trees are damaged or, or, or they are to that degree, they're not going to require replant things. We have provisions, whether it's a palm tree or whether it's a deciduous tree, shade tree. Again, that's all taking into account and palm trees are regulated significantly less to a less degree, uh, than, than our shade trees and accent trees. Yeah. I mean, I love shade trees and I love canopy streets and I love all that, but I don't love them in my yard because I don't want them getting in my sewer lines. I don't want them breaking my driveway. I don't want them breaking my swimming pool. And, uh, so I, I'm, I'm inclined to, to be with Chris Scheer. I, Commissioner Scheer, I, I just don't know that government needs to be on our private property as much as that. Now, don't be wrong. You've not been here when the people get upset when a neighbor cuts down a beautiful tree. Oh yeah. Um, and when Duke Energy went and cut some trees, I'll tell you, um, we all love our trees and, and I completely agree. And I, but I, and I agreed with those residents when Duke Energy came and cut these trees and it was a sad sight when this one house had beautiful shade coverage, um, helped him with their electric bill and then Duke, Duke Energy came and, and it was a gorgeous, gorgeous tree. So I get it. I get, I get wanting to save them, but I kind of, um, uh, I, I would like less government in my private property and my private life. And so, um, if we could do this a little better, I think, I know we're doing it simply fine, simplifying and Kevin, you do such a great job. And I know this is kind of going in the right direction, but I think maybe there's more we can do is kind of my thought. I, I am siding with Commissioner Scheer on this. And I think a workshop might be better to, to really hash it out, um, versus, you know, and I know if we delay it, we have to do a time, but, um, I, I think it might be worth a conversation. Yeah. And then maybe you can talk to whether we want to, if it's better to pass what we have on, on Tuesday workshop and bring more changes or to just wait, do a workshop and do them at once. You can think about that and what is it that's very much an option, uh, you know, in almost every case, when we bring an ordinance forward, I'll often conclude by saying, let us put this in place. You know, there's a lot of improvements that are going to be realized and we'll track it. We'll monitor the effect of that, the effectiveness of that. And if necessary, we'll come back, uh, and, and refine that. Um, okay. Uh, okay. To you, Commissioner Scott, in just one minute, Jewel, you had a comment? Sure. One thing I just want to raise is, um, depending on the extent to which you all might want to modify the ordinance that's included in the agenda and that has been advertised for hearing, we could possibly need to re-advertise it because the title of the ordinance is what we use. And if we change it enough, that title might not encompass what we're talking about. And I apologize. I cannot pull it up from the agenda. I'm having a problem getting it pulled up to look at, but we would, we would need to take a look at that if we were talking about a pretty significant change. Well, we'll do that real time on Tuesday. Once we look at any changes we want, if it's significantly different, we may have to do it anyway. So, you know, re-advertising is not a, not a big deal. I understand. We can, we, so the question for you, and we can have that is, you know, pass it and then bring back and make more changes or, you know, or, or, you know, re-advertising or, or delaying it, not doing it, not acting on this. And then we just have to re-advertise. Yeah. That's okay. Oh, go ahead. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. So, Kevin, is this 100% our ordinance? I mean, if we said, you know, we're just not going to regulate trees at all, we're going to get rid of all of it. Does that run afoul of any state law? Well, it, it runs, it runs contrary to our comprehensive plan, which speaks to making every effort for the preservation of our natural resources, which is inclusive, of course, of, of our canopy in the county. So, um, that is a, that is a consideration. It's, it's spelled out very clearly in our comprehensive plan. It's also spelled out within the land development code at the start of chapter 166, the importance of tree preservation and, and the benefits that are derived from it. And, you know, when we had the first workshop, I started off by going through all the benefits of tree canopy, not only from an environmental side, but from an economic side. You know, often it's, it's, it's not, um, thought of that it's shown that, uh, properties and neighborhoods that have a heavy tree canopy have a higher real estate value. Uh, and, and there's, there's, there's energy savings that, uh, are derived from homes that have trees, uh, so the house is not getting baked in, you know, in, in, in the sun all day. So there's, there's, there's a whole litany of reasons why tree canopy is so important. And like I said, this is, this has been, our approach has tried to balance, uh, bringing something that preserves and is consistent with that, but also brings a lot of relief, which is necessary. Yeah. So we'll talk about both packages, right? We'll talk about the, if we want to take one down bucket, and we'll also look at that other one, which is if you're building a new house, what the requirements are. I just want to be able to have both discussions because they're separate. They are, and they do, they do, um, as proposed, those two will reside in different chapters. Anything else on the, on this one quick, just a clarification. Um, what I thought I heard was, so it's our comprehensive plan, but that's not state law. So it's within our control. If we wanted to change a comprehensive plan, we can do that. Yeah. Yep. Yes. So that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's your, that is your doctor. But it is within your control. All right. That's all I was trying to get. Okay. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Thank you. Good clarification. Um, Kevin, while you're there, just on, on, uh, on the first one, which was the, the changes that the state's requiring on month on Tuesday, could you just summarize? Like I, I, sometimes I said, I'm not saying I'm complaining about it. I'm just wanting to understand that these cases go to the board of adjustment. And this, these come to us and these go to the L, the LPAs that advisory to us. So are these things that we're doing right now, changing the directions, again, to the point about the, the discussions each way. Some people want less involvement at the county commission level. They want the, and then others say, my God, we want, you're our elected officials. We want you to hear these kinds. So I'm just trying to make sure I understand, are there things that we're changing the hearing process on? I'm not sure I'm following the, the question is with regard to these, these matters. Making it less cumbersome. Oh, item, item number three. Yeah. Number three, which is, which is the, um, a 12. So this, this bill, yeah, this bill I'm, I am, um, I'm quite familiar with. So while this is largely resulting in a change to our land development code, uh, relating to our plat process and permitting, I can give you the background on this. This is, this is, this is a, a, a bill from two years ago, um, Senate bill 812 that, uh, was largely driven by the, the large builders, Lenar and D.R. Horton, um, where an outcome of this bill, um, has to really do with large tract subdivisions. Now, so what, what, and this is now on our website is that, um, it's in effect that today up to 50% of parcels at the time of preliminary plat approval can pull a building permit. So the, the, the building community was looking to be able to see building permits get released early so that they could derive some income and get, get ahead of, of, of completing all their infrastructure before they could start a building permit. In 2027, that 50% is going to increase to 75%. So this is, this, this is, um, a case where, um, we've had to revise some of our, uh, procedures in place, specifically the platting procedures so that at the time of preliminary approval, we're prepared, um, administratively now to be able to issue today up to 50% of those parcels in a building permit. And then in 27, up to 75%, there are other requirements to, um, because the, the builders can go into contract, they can't close on lots, but there are other requirements, bonding requirements that a builder, uh, will have to put in place, uh, to moving forward with, uh, with building permits ahead of a final plat. Um, but that's all, that's, that was all part of this, uh, process that, that we have addressed. So in, in recent times, we've done nothing that's changed the hearing process, uh, for development, um, improvements, change in zoning, change in land use, type one, type two, whatever. We still have the same processes in place right now. Oh, I should have clarified also that one of the provisions that's, um, that they came out of this bill is that plats are, um, approved administratively. They no longer will rise up to this board for approval. And again, this was, this was driven by the, uh, the building community from a time-saving measure. Um, we know that, uh, if a plat, um, has to get on the, your agenda, it, depending on the timing, it could be easily two months. Um, and so when, uh, when a plat, uh, goes through internal technical review from public works survey, DRS engineering, um, and is, and is completed and effectively, um, approved administratively, that plat then will be signed by the designee of the county administrator. Yeah, and I, I'm, I'm glad about that. It just seems like when those come here and they finally get here, they're just so quickly dealt with that it would have been much easier to have done it administratively. Agreed. And so I'm glad that's been changed. So, okay, well, let's, let's not belabor that anymore. Did you have anything else? Just, I just wanted to, uh, a couple things I just wanted to say, you know, I'm just looking at exempting single-family homes, single-family residences from that. And I think we could go forward with the, with, uh, item number five as it is and just exempt, uh, I would think that could be a modification. It doesn't need to be re-advertised. That would be my thought. Well, and even if we decide that a certain size and above needs to come for permitting versus anything under that, you know, we could, but let's, we'll talk about that. And I'm glad that there's provisions that allow me to prove to the world that my tree's dying, but I really don't want to hire an arborist, so. I understand. Yeah, that's kind of what I'm thinking, so. Anyway, I appreciate y'all giving me my indulgence on this one. Yeah, no, no, I think it's a good point. We'll talk about it on Tuesday. Oh, thank you. All right, thank you. Appreciate it. Okay, so that's four, five. That's four, five, and six. What, you're going awfully slow. What's wrong with that? Well, you know, see, that's what happens when we don't have a lot on the agenda as we get bogged down on other items, so. Go ahead. Anyway, item number seven is historic. This is an owner seeking a historic designation for five historic resources on a place of property. Item eight is the first public hearing. This, again, is, what is this one? Oh, this is with certified recovery facilities. This is a result of Senate Bill 954 that requires local governments to amend their code as related to allowing these types of facilities. Every municipality or county, everybody has to make this change. Item number nine is the request for a future land use amendment from residential low to employment. This is a companion to item number 10. So this is the land use piece in Loewman. No comments or concerns were raised. And, again, item 10 is the zoning piece tonight. Item 11 is residential urban to residential medium on 18 acres, unincorporated largo. So they want to increase the density from 7.5 dwelling units to 15 dwelling units. So this is kind of a donut hole. It's in the middle. This would significantly increase the zoning. They had a public meeting with the residents. This is what we didn't hear a while back. Well, people showed up, and then the applicant removed it, and so we didn't hear the people speak. Well, so they'll be back. But the Katie Cole and group, they did have a meeting with the residents on January the 6th. So they did have a public meeting explaining it. So that's what this case is. But it's significantly increasing the density. Item 12 is a petition for Land Assembly Trust Housing Finance to vacate a three-foot utility easement. Staff recommends approval. And item 13 is a resolution adopting the solid waste tipping fees, as you recall. It wasn't done correctly, so we had to postpone that. So this is implementing just what we had talked about. Item 14 is an order. Barry, that's an 8% increase? That's correct. And they're saying we need that regardless of whether it's better than the reptile says that it justifies it, but do we need it? Well, you know, remember, we're phasing these in. I mean, you have a fund there that pays for the garbage and lowment. And so if that fund doesn't have enough money, well, then you can't pay the hauler to take away the trash. And so we had to loan that fund money. No, no, I'm talking number 13. The 13. Oh, never mind. Come on up and explain that then. The tipping fee one. Sorry. I'm off. No, it's okay. Hey, good morning, Commissioners. Jill Silverboard, county admin. So this resolution is actually duplicating an action you took when you approved your budget back in September. And we subsequently learned that it required its own hearing, that it needed its own public hearing. You've already adopted this. The budget's built around it. For that reason, it's a little bit of housekeeping. However, to the percentage on the 8%, you're correct. That is what Raftelis provided. The reason that it's worded as sort of, yeah, you could or you could, it doesn't mean that they actually recommended more than 8%. So we moderated down our recommendation to you from what Raftelis provided because we are using some of the balance to smooth in those increases. So they're looking at it from our perspective, not necessarily, but they also show what the other communities do. So we're in line there, but they're saying more to the point, we need to do it. That's correct. And as you may recall, we brought a work session item on this, and Raftelis was here before your budget adoption. And we'll be doing the same thing this year. But it's, it also, these fees, this increase also went through the technical coordinating committee. So, you know, I mean, there's a lot of steps that are behind this. But we'll, we get a redo every year, so. Well, and you said, as you recall. And I'm like, well, I didn't recall. Oh, okay. That's why I needed that refresher on the. I didn't recall. Giving you credit for it. So if we could just kind of, maybe, when it comes to that, just kind of talk to the rationale behind us doing it. On Tuesday? Not justifying it by comparison, but what we need. Why it's important to us. On Tuesday, why do we need the April? Sure. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. And Chair, to that point, I mean, I think with the presentation, the Alice presentation we saw earlier, you know, a lot of it is these increased costs. That burden, you know, senior residents and things like that, so. Oh, I'm, I know. No, and staff loves when I bring up the idea of using penny money to offset utility infrastructure to reduce the pressures on utility rate increases because it's their, their, their, their own kind of enterprise fund. But yet, it would relieve pressure, but we have to take it from somewhere else, whether it be roads or something else. So, but that's, that's the issue. It's all the same money, and it's about trying to keep costs down for, to your point about our residents. Go ahead, Barry. Item 14 is an ordinance for amending the tourist development plan. So, this adds beach park facilities, which was, went through the Tourist and Development Council, and I believe Brian briefed you all on that. Lots of consent items and things like that, reports. Next item is item 27, authorizing the sale of county-owned equipment. It's listed within your packet. Item 28 is award a bid to SecureTech. This is for security guard services at various locations around the county. Item 29 is a ranking of firms agreement with six firms. This is professional engineering services that Parks and Conservation uses. Item 30 is a ranking of firms for professional engineering services that Public Works uses. Item 31, this is firms in agreement for the four highest-ranked firms providing disaster, debris, collection, and removal services. This is for Public Works and municipal partners. And so, they can jump on these and have these in place in the event of a storm. But it's an as-needed basis. Item 32 is a grant application. This is for overgrown long-leaf pine habitats at Cross Bar Al Bar Ranch. Okay, this is up there, and you can see the breakdown of the cost. Item 33 is a bid for applied drilling for the Chestnut Park. Managed aqua for recharge, well drilling, and subsurface hydrological property testing. Does this have to do with our work with Tampa Bay water? No. It's on the sewer side? Or? Yeah. Okay. It says aqua for recharge, well drilling. Yes, so that it can be drinking water someday. This is one of our projects to, and this one's basically a pilot, if you will. But the purpose is to be able to put treated wastewater back into the ground. Into the ground. Okay. Well, all right. It's a storage method because we're faced with having to eliminate all surface water discharge from our wastewater treatment projects. Well, anything. And again, I'm not speaking to where it's going or what we're doing. But however we can improve the availability of reclaim in North County, which is from time to time really not good. Yes. I guess this would provide another reservoir, so to speak. Is that the concept? That's, we, Commissioner Shearer brought that up, I think, some months ago. And our issue is land availability. You know, it's large enough to do that. But we are looking at alternatives. And we have a meeting with the county administrator tomorrow, actually, to talk about what we're going to recommend, how we're going to be recommending a set of solutions to the board. Thank you. Did you have a question, Commissioner? Is it deep well injection we're doing? I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you. Is it deep well injection we're doing? It is. Oh, yeah. Now, this is way below the drinking aquifer. Okay. And how often do we do this? I didn't think we did deep well. Oh, this is new. This is relatively new for Pinellas County. And again, that's why there's a monitoring plan that will go along with it. So, yeah, it's to test the subsurface. This is treated wastewater. Oh, yeah. No, this is. This is tied to our surface water elimination, what we usually put in the creeks. I know, I understand, I understand, I do, I understand. I just, and I know lots of people use deep well injection, but we also have a city in this county that didn't treat their sewage and didn't strain their sewage, and then deep well injected it. And so I'm just, I'm just not a huge fan of it because it's been so abused. And so I don't know how, I don't know how I feel about this one because I've seen it be abused. I'm the one that had the investigation on that city where they committed 83 felonies and 104 misdemeanors because they failed to do it properly. And I just don't even like that we're going to get in the business of doing the same thing when it can be abused. And not saying the county would abuse it, but we've witnessed it get abused and I'm just not a big fan of it, so. We, we, she can explain that, but that's the reason I, I mean, I could see where you were going with that in your history. This has created wastewater. Our system's completely different. We couldn't do what you just suggested, but, but they can, they can explain that. We have an item that we'll be bringing back on your reclaimed systems and the surface water elimination to look at our systems. But this is, this project is, um, we're talking a fairly limited quantity. It's not a. No, and I get the recharge. I get all that. I love that we do reclaim water and that people have access to reclaim water. So we're not using potable water. Right. Um, and I think that's the best system, uh, I'm disappointed other cities haven't done the same. Um, and so I'm, like Dave said, I would much rather see us do something that fortifies our reclaim system because it protects, it protects our potable water. It allows us to have longer potential of potable water by using, um, reclaimed in a different way. And so I, I, I just, I mean, and I know more pipes and all that's expensive, but I just prefer that over deep wall injection. Well, they're two separate issues, commissioners. And really, and I want to explain that because, you know, this, this, we have to eliminate surface water. I mean, we have to, it's, it's a requirement. Okay. So this is coming up with an alternative to meet a regulatory requirement that we have to do. So that's what this is related to separately is the reclaim. And I guess I'm going to find out tomorrow what they're going to recommend. Um, but you know, Jeremy and Jill have been all over that of, of getting pressures where we have limited pressures, people at the end of the pipe that don't, and all the different things that he's talked about of whether you, you know, have cycle days and, and all these different things. So we'll find out they're working hard on solutions for that, but that's completely different than this issue, which is I've got wastewater. I put it in the Creek right now and I can't do that after a certain date. Thank you. Well, and I, and I will say, I'm meeting with two different folks in North County to talk about their own solutions to not having enough water for their lawn and not wanting to be charged for sewer. And, um, and you know, to the extent, well, we'll put another, another meter in and all that, but that, it goes to a different issue. Yeah. But I mean, it, it started with when we first did this, you guys can have all the reclaimed you want. No, it was very minimal. If any charge, it was like here, we need it now, you know, you, you're kind of stuck with that system on your lawns and that's a problem. I mean, it's a real problem and I'm going to go listen to a couple of residents this week or next week, express their opinions, um, about using potable and not getting charged for sewer. So we'll, we'll bring back the, that's what that item is. We'll bring it back, reclaim at a later date. Thank you, Chair. Yeah. I've had those similar discussions with people very upset that they're playing an availability fee for something that's not available. Well, that's a different issue, but yeah. Yeah. Um, but, um, so Jill, back to this here. So, so this is a word of contract to actually drill the well, but not actually start putting water in the ground, correct? Well, it is to actually build the well. So yes, the intention would be to use it eventually. I don't know what, I'd have to ask Jeremy about the timeline for implementation of the use, because this is going to take us over a year. This project is, um, over a year and a half. I don't know. They put it in days and I always have trouble. 540 days. So is there, so would, would, um, the, the county be actually doing the pumping or would there be another contract for a contractor to actually deep well inject it? I need Jeremy to answer that question. I don't believe the infrastructure's in place to start, but it could be, I need, I need to get you that answer. If we could maybe get that. Yeah, it's a good question, but I need to get you the answer. Jeremy can be here on Tuesday. We can have Jeremy here on Tuesday. And there is, there is some, um, options at Tampa Bay Water for a, the next water supply project and they're, they look for different opportunities around the region. And one of them was in the East Lake area. And I thought it was this particular property about, um, having a place to store water, kind of like a reservoir that we have, the big reservoir over in Hillsborough County to have other places to store water. That's why I was asking about this reclaimed or is this water or is this, so I mean, that's just something else being looked at by Tampa Bay water. So just, that's why I asked the question. And this, this is just on the sewer side. On the reclaim side, there's a lot of different options. You could, you could store, remember we talked about being able to draw water out of the lake. I mean, there's, but you know, that would be back to the recharge. So it's all, those are, those are coming at a later date. We're actually running these things concurrently because we do have a regulatory deadline that's going to hit us. So, um, you know, we are going to be coming back to you with those reclaimed recommendations on the system as a whole availability, you know, pressure, all those things. Okay. Thank you, Joe. Item 34 is a joint project agreement with city of Bel Air bluffs, uh, for, um, water mains, et cetera, and stuff as part of their project. Um, item 35 is ranking of firms with 14, um, firms for utilities, professional engineering for all of their various projects. Um, item 36 is kind of attorney. That is a receipt and file claim for, uh, lawsuits that we've been served with over the past month. It's a segregation claim. And to the regular agenda, item 37 is a public transportation grant with Florida Department of Transportation. Um, this was with the parking garage for St. Pete airport. Um, item 38 is reappointment of special, special magistrate candidates. Uh, this is, um, for the code enforcement for special magistrates. Uh, 39 is revisions to the capital project funding, uh, guidelines from the TDC. Commissioner, uh, chair mentioned earlier, uh, item 40 is the resolution renaming the Bayside Bridge, Dillinger-McCabe Bayside Bridge. Item 41 is a resolution adopting MSTU. Um, Barry, on, um, back on 40, I'm sorry, on 40, um, I think our tax collector was hoping to be able to call in and have some comments. Is, do we know if that's been? I don't know. You've set it up? They've set it up. Okay, thank you. Appreciate it. Tom saw me struggling on item 41 because I don't remember this. All this is, all these are the guidelines that they briefed you on, so this is modifications to the guidelines on the, um, MSTU special projects, modifying the guidelines. Okay. We, and we talked about those. You, you talked about those. Yeah. Did you have a question? Oh, sorry, Chair. Uh, back to 38, it's a renewal of a contract for special magistrate, uh, but there's no contract attached. I mean, can we get a copy of the current contract? Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Let me get that, um, we should have that uploaded, so. Thank you. Um, where am I at? Item 42. Item 42 is MSTU for Whispering Souls African American Cemetery. Uh, this is to assist them with irrigation infrastructure and a storage shed for this nonprofit. Item 43 is acceptance of, uh, City of Deneen's downtown community, uh, CRA midterm review report. Item 44 is affordable housing project recommendation for 60, 90 apartments, uh, this, uh, 7.6 million dollars for 204 multifamily units on St. Petersburg, 122 of those at 80% or less, 82 at market rate. Hey, Barry. This, do we have a running total of the monies that we've spent on this? This will complete 85 million of the 99 million that we had. Thank you, Barry. That's what I was wondering. Yeah. I had it at the bottom. I was getting there. But, I mean, as you can see, we're, we're just beginning 2026. Um, and we've, um, staff, I mean, I can't thank them enough. I mean, the whole staff back there, they've, I mean, they've really pushed this program hard. They've, there's a lot of, a lot of projects. Um, item 45 is the second amendment with bullied centers. This is what Karen talked to you about, um, for the permanent supportive housing. It's a not to exceed $907,000. Um, item 46, a second amendment with Playmore West, uh, for recreational products. Uh, this is for new playground equipment at 13 playground locations. Item 47 is an agreement with, um, big brothers, big sisters. Um, so this actually has to do with, we have to give permission for, uh, them to advertise in our right of way for the PSTA, um, bus stuff. And so that's what this does. And PSTA has an agreement with them to do that. What I was saying. What? Um, item 48 is an amendment to advanced life support, uh, first responder agreements with three municipalities. So Madera beach for the Reddington beach EMS station. Dunedin has major incident support unit, and then a small piece in Clearwater. Item 49 is issuance of, uh, a new certificate of public convenience necessary for a non-wheelchair structure van transport service. Item 50 is a resolution to improve emergency medical services, water rescue grant program. This is a pass through it, but it does increase the amount from 300,000 to 400,000. Under items 51 and 52, those are, these are both, uh, foreclosures that we will be requesting authority to file. Um, these both are issues that arose from the special magistrate for code enforcement. Um, 53 is a confidential settlement. Um, I will also be bringing forward a confidential settlement under item 54 that was, was added late because of the time sensitivity of our need to respond. Um, you all should have been, you all should have met by this time with my litigation manager, Christy Pemberton, who briefed you on both of these cases. Again, the one that appears under 53 and one that will be walked on under item 54. Um, if you did not have that opportunity, please contact me. Or if you have any additional questions, please let me know on those two cases. I do have the confidential memos that you all are used to seeing, but again, you were briefed on all that. Um, but should you have any additional questions, please contact me. We'll have a county administrator's report. Item 56 is appointment to emergency medical services advisory council. And item 57 is appointments to the Penalice Opportunities Council. Okay. Any questions as we finish up? Um, we have, um, just, just so everybody knows, I'm, I'm, uh, we last year, because of the storms, we didn't have, um, um, um, any proclamations and presentations for a while. We were kind of storm centric. Then we brought those back. I'm going to do my utmost to limit that presentation and proclamation time to about 30 minutes. So, uh, we'll see how we do. We let staff know because occasionally staff wants to do one and when everything, to come through Stacy, so we can kind of keep track of that. If we can push it a little bit or, you know, we'll do that just to try to keep, try to be respectful to the rest of the, the, the commission meeting. So, um, I think we got to you about invocation responsibility. Um, you can bring pastors or not, but you'll have those days of, you can do it yourself or bring a pastor when you guys are up. Uh, I said before, thank you for everybody stepping up and helping out, helping Stacy with some of the job responsibilities that the person who was at the front desk was doing a lot of. So I really appreciate everybody kind of stepping up on that. And, um, last thing I had is, um, uh, MLK will have that proclamation on Tuesday. Um, there are a bunch of them. I hate to even say where they all are because I'll miss one, but I know Dunedin's having one Saturday morning. St. Pete has it Saturday and Monday. They have a parade on Monday. I Clearwater has, uh, a celebration on Monday. Tarpon Springs has one on Saturday. So there's, there's quite a few of them. Um, I've done a couple, one proclamation that we'll give here. I've got one that I'm taking and we have one extra one. If anybody's going and they want to take one with them to provide at a program, I think Stacy has one extra one. Is that right? Okay. You let her know that. Um, and I think that's all I have. Did I miss anything? Is that okay? Um, does anybody else have anything? Just, um, kind of over the next couple of weeks, um, first, thank you for, um, kind of, um, working with me to modify some of our one-on-one meetings. Um, I've got to go out of town next week. And so, um, I've had to switch things around a lot. Um, so we did push those around a little bit. If, you know, in the meantime, if there's, if there's something you need to talk to me about, just call me, like, you know, it's not like we can't meet, you know, and talk, but I, but I did have to go out of town and cancel some of those meetings. I did want to bring up, though, that we do have the Tampa Bay days, um, up in Tallahassee coming up here on the 20, uh, 28th. Uh, so a lot, several of us will be up there the 27th, 28th, come back 29th. Okay. Um, and so we'll, we'll have that. And then we go to strategic planning where we got the board meeting. So we won't have a work. We won't have a work session before the board meeting on the third, so we won't have agenda review. So we'll send it out again. If you have questions about the agenda, well then just call us. Okay. Um, and we can, we can handle the agenda for the third that way. And then we have strategic planning on the fifth, I'd make Magnolia room. And then we kind of get back to a more normal schedule with, um, the, uh, on the February 12th, a work session and the BCC the following Tuesday. So. Okay. Anybody else that I just want to finally thank corporal Clyde Thornton, deputy Mike Winnick and deputy Kevin McSweeney for taking care of us this morning, making sure that all went smoothly from your perspective. So thank you. Real quick chair. Yep. For the strategic planning, is that going to be like the same format with the same people like lady as last time or. No, we're going to do it internal this time. Okay. Um, so, uh, you're, you're, you're going to, you're going to have Jill and Matt as, uh, the stars up there. Um, and, uh, uh, so we've, um, we've worked with our, our team internally to kind of modify that process. We didn't think we need an outside facilitator. We're, we're going to do it as a discussion and, um, where we're going to run it. Yeah. I think every once in a while, it's good to go outside, but I don't think you need it every year by any means. So I think I'm glad that we're internalizing that different ways over the years. And sometimes, you know, it just works. They're able to facilitate the thing. And the next time it's like, well, they don't know anything. So why do we have them here? And I mean, it's, it's, we, we've done it different ways. And so we're, we're going to try it this way. This time sounds good. Anything else? All right. We're adjourned.