Board of County Commissioners on 2024-09-17 9:00 AM

September 17th, BSEC meeting. If you would, please stand for the invocation followed by the Blake of Allegiance. Good morning. Please pray with me. Heavenly Father, your word reminds us not to be anxious about anything, but to always pray with thanks about everything. So today we thank you that you are always near and that you always hear us. As we face the challenges that are before us today, we ask that you lead us in wisdom and in truth. Help us this day and always to do what is right and what is just for the good of all who live in, work in, and visit this wonderful county that we call home. And I ask this prayer in Jesus' name. We have no recognitions. I'll open up to the public for comments. I've got a few, I'll call, and if I leave your name off, you're welcome to come up afterwards. First is Brother Anthony Lawrence. We'll need your name, address, and... Good morning. My name is Anthony Lawrence. I live at 2542 Sand Hill Point Circle, Davenport, Florida, 33837. Good morning. It's good to be here before each and every one of you. I come to say thank you, commissioners, for the great work, county manager, that we are doing here in Polk County. I mean, we are growing by leaps and bounds. And sometimes citizens of Polk County, we may expect things to happen overnight, but no, no, no. The infrastructure is doing its best to try to keep up with the growth that we have in our county. And I love it. I never thought 20, 30 years ago that I see what I see today. Structures everywhere, and especially in our northeast section of Polk County. I want to say thank you for our law officers. Thank you for all our first responders. Thank you for the great work that our leaders are doing to keep our county safe, to keep our county number one in the state of Florida. I really love our county. And we're blessed to have our brother, the sheriff over here sitting by me. He was a blessed man, isn't he, sitting by me? Praise God. So I want to say thank you all very much. I was thinking about Brother John. He's a pastor of a church. I told him that during his appreciation, I was going to give him $100. I didn't have it at the time. I said, I'll give it to you, though. And so he said, weeks turned to months. He hadn't seen or heard nothing from me. I really forgot I said I was going to give it to him. I did. I forgot. But I received the cash out. I promised him $100. He sends me $25. Then I remember, oh, I'm supposed to give him $100. But to humble himself like that, to give me $25 when I promised him, with no type of hurt, no type of animosity in his heart, is a powerful thing. So, beloved, remember, a female reproduces. Wisdom, she's a female. Mother Earth, she's a female. A woman is a female. The bride of Christ is a female. Patience, she's a female. And that's what the Lord asked me to share with each and every one of us in Polk County. Patience. Let her have her perfect work in each and every one of us, that we can be so lovable with each other. Patience when we're driving. Patience when we have our businesses. Patience. Let her reproduce. That's what all the females have in common. They what? Brother Comby, who I voted for, and I don't mind the world knowing I voted for you, son. Patience. Let her be our fruit. Thank you very much. And may our Father and our God continue to keep and bless each and every one of you. Beloved, let's give them a round of applause. Everybody, let's give them a round of applause. Thank you all very much. Thank you, Brother. Brother Anthony, come back next time, will you? But I will say sometimes patience is hard to come by, but we're doing our best, that's for sure. Sheriff, I missed you coming in. I know you're on the clock. You want to talk to us now, or you're just good? Okay. All right, we'll keep moving. Krista Silva. I'm nervous. I'm not used to being on this side of the podium. All right. Let me get prepared. We haven't bitten anybody today. Still early. Yeah. It's early. All right. Good morning, commissioners. My name is Krista Silva. My address is 430 Hill Crest Drive, Winter Haven. I come to you in support of any internal investigation already set forth and any in the future that might be needed to expose issues at Polk County BOCC. I previously worked here for a little over three years. My last position held was digital media services manager, directly reporting to Maya Nelson, director of communications. I filed a complaint against Chief Hesidine Smith for what I consider to be mistreatment, bullying, and abuse of power over my employees, and at the persistent request to do so by my director and my HR support person, Alex Velasquez. Filing the EO complaint was not done in haste and only after I had previously met with my director, HR, Joe Hulman, and Candace Baker-Buford on multiple occasions. My EO complaint was filed with Richard Bradford with a list of witnesses whom were never interviewed. The complaint was inevitably deemed unfounded. After that, the treatment of my employees became worse, and previous SOPs were rewritten by my director, Chief Smith, and Deputy County Manager, Joe Hulman, to serve the chief without regards to my employees. In my opinion, all of this is a direct failure of the management team and human resources. Whether County Manager Bill Beasley was aware of the situation or not is irrelevant at this point. He has either chosen the wrong people to serve on his team, or he has simply attempted to keep the issues under wraps. I want to note that I witnessed many cover-ups, unethical acts, sexism, homophobia, and racism from all sides while working at the county. Managers are asked to deal with things under the radar without sending them through proper channels to keep events from hitting public record. My point is this. The situation does not begin or end with the allegations against Chief Smith and his resignation. The issues with PCFR, HR, and the management team in general have plagued this organization for years, and there have been common denominators through all of it. There is a huge mistrust from the employees for the management team to include human resources. Employees are mistreated and have literally nowhere to go for protection as they have failed them. The employees within HR fear retaliation and stay silent. In my opinion, management has completely lost sight of their duties to the employees and the residents of this county. After the investigation was complete, I went from a well-respected manager and contributor to this organization to an outcast, pushed aside by the very people that had asked me to file the complaint. I could not take it anymore and resigned, even though I had already made up my mind to leave long before this. I have no desire to ever work in government again, which is why I've decided to address you today. Commissioners, county managers, and directors, I want to remind you that I'm a resident of this county, as many of your employees are. The oversight and mismanagement of this county office directly affects your employees and your residents. Commissioners, now that you're aware of the situation, I'm asking that you do what is right. We all deserve better. Thank you. And this will be discussed further during a commissioner of comments. Jessica Post. Sorry, I always struggle with that thing. Hi, good morning. My name is Jessica Post. I live at 1410 Chamberlain Loop, Lake Wales, Florida. I know I've been up here numerous times talking about the same thing about Northside and Southside River Ranch. I do want to thank you for everything that you guys have been working on addressing, trying to get further action taken care of this. So I want to thank you for that. Neil Cumbie and Rick Wilson, I know that you were in agreeance that equal application of the law abides to this county for north, south, east, and west. So I would like to see that with this ordinance being put in place, that Southside and Northside River Ranch will be addressed in the ordinance. I know we've been waiting since May 31st to have this ordinance be put in place. I'm hoping that with all the efforts Randy Minx has been putting into it, that you guys hopefully will have a rough draft and something to be seen here in October. And I'm really hoping that it's going to make a difference for all of us. And I think it's really important what you guys are doing up here. I can't thank you enough for making a difference for everyone. Not only are you guys helping out and giving a community opportunity to grow and prosper, but also with the ordinance you guys put in place, you guys could possibly make a half a million dollars in tax revenue to be able to put back to this county for betterment of the county. So I'm hoping that Randy Minx will have this ready here at this October review meeting, because I know all 42,000 of us are ready to listen and watch and be there in support of this. And thank you for what you guys have done. Mr. Chairman? Yes, sir. I thought you were at $600,000 last time you were here. I don't have the paperwork with me. Come on. Randy's got something. Yeah, Commissioner Comby. Actually, that ordinance is coming. It's an IRA passed draft. It's actually coming to the board on October 1st. How it will work, as I explained at the agenda, there actually will be the guiding ordinance, and then there's a resolution that will come through the same day that addresses both North and South River Ranch. And do people need to be here for a public meeting for that? You're always welcome to be here, but right now I believe I have a support of the board for that ordinance. Well, thank you guys so much. I'm really looking forward to all of your guys' effort you put into this. So thank you for listening and being there for everyone in this county. It means a lot to us. And I do apologize for leaving last time I had a patient that had an emergency I had to leave for, so I do apologize. My patient care comes first. But thank you guys very much, and I hope you have a blessed day. Thank you. Cassandra Richards. Good morning. My name is Cassandra Richards. I'm 2357 Freeland Road, Lake Wells, Florida. I've been here many times before. First of all, I would like to say thank you. You all have been a jewel to me in getting a lot of issues beginning to be resolved. After 10 years, I fought for it, and I found out I have to come see you in order to get the ball rolling. But I would like to say my grandfather always taught me your word is your bond. It goes a long ways. And, Mr. Wilson, I'm not beating up on you. I did stand here and invite you. I'm coming. To our meeting. I put it in our agenda that you would be there. So many people turned out because they wanted to see who our kind of commissioner was because you've never been there after all these years, and we have invited you many times before. But you didn't show up, and I was disappointed because you let me down. You let me down, and everybody was wondering about it. I told them, well, let's see if he would come again. And I found out when I got here that you all had meetings, and I wish you had communicated with me. I would have put you on the top of that pattern letting them know you had. Well, I'll have to say I apologize. I said I was coming, and I am. Okay. And the meeting, I got with my secretary, and she checked when your meeting was. We had to go back and, you know, see when it was, and it had a conflict. And I apologize for not saying that I was going to be at that meeting, but we will make this happen. And I will let you know so you can tell everybody that I'm going to be there. Marking calendar is second Monday every month, 7.30 p.m. If the creek don't rise, I'll be there, but I got a boat, so I'll be there. Okay, because I had wrote this speech, and I said, you know, I was a little under the weather about it. Or you was mad at me. Well, you could say that, too, because, you know, I do a lot of reading, and I once read James Baldwin. You know, he lent his voice as a public speaker fighting against racial equality. And his career as a writer, he always said, I can't believe what you say because I see what you do. And we're going to be waiting to see what you do. Oh, you won't have to worry. We'll make this happen. Thank you. Anyone else wishing to address the board? Good morning, Commissioner Tom Palmer, 1805 26th Street, Northwest, Winter Haven. Yeah, I had a question that came up at a meeting the other night about the use of the recycling carts once the curbside recycling goes away. Some people were confused because it said you could use it for garbage or for yard trash. But how would the haulers know which you got in there? Starting October 1st, you can put yard trash and household garbage in. You're going to put them all, they all go in the same place in landfill? Yeah. Okay. Thank you. You bet. Dale, is that correct? Yes, sir. That's correct. We would now be able to co-mingle yard trash. Before he sits down, I want to make sure I'm right. Good morning, Commissioners. And, Tom, thank you for that question. Yes, that is correct. FTP, since we are starting up our renewable natural gas plant, allows us to co-mingle yard trash with MSW, and it can go in the landfill as it produces more gas. However, I will add that we will be handling yard trash that's delivered source separated, in other words, separately, in the same manner we are now grinding it up and using it as recovered material for landfill construction purposes. Okay. All right. Thank you. Anyone else wish to address the board? Before we move on, come on. Yes, my name is David Spain. I'm 1611 17th Street, Northwest Winter Haven. I'm here to oppose the increase in the impact fees. I know it's became, you know, kind of on the news and everything else, but, you know, by state regulations, you're allowed to increase it by 50% within a four-year period. You're asking for over 100% increase in our impact fees. Well, we build in CRA areas in Lakeland, other areas for workforce housing, and you get in these areas where the city of Lakeland now, to get a permit, it's like $23,000. You add another $10,000 on that, then you're up to, you know, $33,000 before you stick a shovel in the ground. You know, and I believe in infrastructure. I believe in, you know, our law enforcement. I know that they need equipment. I know that the people who are out there fighting our fires, they need money. But, you know, do you have to do it all at one time? Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? Randy, what item is impact fees on our agenda? P4, I think. How many? P4. Were we supposed to wait for that, then? Yeah, yeah. I mean, you don't have to, but that's when we're going to talk about it. Okay. Anyone else? Going once, twice? All right. Moving on. Consent agenda. Move approval. Got a motion and a second for approval. Any discussion? Seeing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. Those like sign, a motion carries. Ms. Butterfield. Good morning. We have for you to approve and ratify your payroll checks, numbers 03-119 through 03-161, and totaling $52,472.23. We have 2,742 direct deposits in the amount of $3,888,950.46. Those are dated September 6th through September 12th of 2024. We have wire and electronic funds transfers of $15,123,431.89, dated September 3rd through September 16th of 2024. And finally, your invoice checks numbered 466-560 through 468-426, totaling $12,699,618.82, dated September 3rd through September 16th, 2024, for you to approve and ratify, please. Second. Got a motion and a second for approval. Any discussion? Seeing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, like sign, a motion carries. We also request the approval of the minutes of your regular board meeting that was held on September 3rd of 2024, please. No approval. Second. Motion and a second for approval. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, like sign, a motion carries. Anything else? That's all I have. Thank you for today. Mr. Ming. Sir, I got one item that normally would be. Are we losing one here? Normally would be on the consent item. That item is the. I think Commissioner Cummings is asking for Mark Thomas to come to the maybe the. He's on talk to. What are you doing? He can look down there. Yeah. Mr. Chair, this item, G1, has approved the release of warranty and surety in the amount of $127,027.83 in the form of maintenance bond numbers S-332987 for Estonia Phase 1 and is recommended for approval. Mr. Chair, Madam Clerk, I'll be recusing as I have a business relationship with the applicant. All right. Motion. We need a motion and a second. Motion. Anybody? Second. Got a motion and a second for approval. Any discussion? Seeing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, like, signed. Motion carries. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Beasley. Yes, sir. Mr. Chair, members of the board, members of the viewing audience, the manager's office will have seven items for board consideration this morning. Mr. Chair, members of the board, item number H1 is to request the board approve amendment number 2 to the existing agreement with Wright-Pierce Incorporated to provide additional professional engineering services in connection with the Northeast Regional Wastewater Treatment Facility Expansion Project. This action will be a one-time additional contract expense not to exceed $6,798,421. The Polk County Utilities Division has identified the expansion of the Northeast Regional Wastewater Treatment Facility as a priority project given the population and employment growth that has occurred within Northeast Polk County. The 2015 Northeast Regional Utility Service Area Master Plan update estimated that that facility would exceed the annual average daily flow of 6 million gallons a day in the 2029 time frame. However, the latest ongoing updates to the Master Plan now contemplates that the facility will exceed its 6 million gallon per day flows sooner than 2029. In response to these updates, the county entered into an agreement with Wright-Pierce in October of 2022 in an amount of $581,465.40 to provide conceptual design engineering services to expand that facility from its current 6 million gallon per day capacity to a 9 million gallon per day capacity, which is anticipated to meet current wastewater demands beyond the year 2040 planning horizon. Amendment number one to the existing agreement was approved by the board in October of 23 as part two services, which included preliminary design and permitting services in an amount not to exceed $1,793,901. These preliminary design services have been completed and the Utilities Division is now requesting the board to approve amendment number two for part three services, which includes project management support, final design and engineering services, and bidding services in the amount not to exceed $6,798,421. These final design services will be broken into four phases that reflect design and upgrades of approximately 30 separate components at the Northeast Regional Facility. These design phases will result in four or five guaranteed maximum price addendums that will be brought back to the board over the course of the next three years by the construction manager at his company for this project, which is Wharton Smith. The total not to exceed amount of now parts one, two, and three of these professional services totals $9,173,787.40. A future amendment to this agreement will be brought back to the board for construction administration support services as anticipated for those various guaranteed maximum price addendums yet to be determined. Funding for this major utility project is available within the Utilities Adopted Five-Year Community Investment Program. So Mr. Chair, members of the board, in keeping with the board's commitment to priority utility expansion projects in support of residential and commercial growth, I would request the board approve amendment number two to agreement 2022-077 with Wright-Pierce Incorporated to provide part three professional engineering services in connection with the Northeast Regional Wastewater facility in an amount not to exceed $6,798,421. Move approval. All right. All right. Motion to second. Any discussion? Seeing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. Those like to sign, motion carries. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chairman of the board, the next item is complementary to the H-1 item we just discussed. Agenda item number H-2 is to request the board approve amendment number one to the existing agreement with Wharton-Smith Incorporated to provide additional construction manager at risk pre-construction services in connection with the same Northeast Regional Wastewater Treatment Facility. This amendment will reflect an increase assigned to planned pre-construction services in an amount not to exceed $926,576. In December of 2023, the county entered into an agreement with Wharton-Smith to provide pre-construction, construction manager at risk services for the Northeast Regional Wastewater Treatment Facility for its planned expansion from 6 million gallons per day to its new capacity of 9 million gallons per day. Due to the size and complexity of this facility, the project was initially broken down into two parts. Part one services for the biosolids elements of the plant as the part two services for the actual capacity expansion of the plant. Part one biosolids improvements pre-construction services included value engineering suggestions, constructability reviews, management of pre-bid conferences and subcontractors, bid solicitation services, along with management of pre-award meetings with subcontractors in the amount of $116,003. Part two services were envisioned as part of the capacity expansion of the plant that included conceptual pre-construction services through 30% design, including project coordination, construction estimation, constructability reviews, value engineering, and initial scheduling in an amount of $204,510. Having completed the above pre-construction services, it has been determined that the most cost-efficient approach to this complicated project would be to combine those parts one and two services and break down the entire expansion project into four phases. To include, but maybe not limited to, phase A, which is the, we call the deep bed filters, chlorine contact chambers, dewatering, and the chemical feed building. Phase B, the headworks of the plant, return pump stations, and the electrical building number three. Phase three would include the biological nutrient removal program, equalization tank, splitter box blowers, as well as a motor control center building. And the final phase, D, would be the ground storage reservoir, high-speed service pump stations, and augmentation wells. These four phases will take an estimated three years to design. It will be essential to overlap both the design and the construction phases of the project to accelerate the project schedule. By overlapping these phases, construction of the most essential areas can begin in order to increase plant capacity incrementally while the designs are being completed for the other phases. This approach will reduce the project completion schedule from its original seven years vision to approximately five years. The guaranteed maximum price for each phase will be a distinct part of the overall project. The engineering services provided by Wright-Pierce, the engineer of record for the project, includes guaranteed maximum price review services to ensure that the individual phases of the guaranteed maximum prices are not any higher than what would have been anticipated for a single guaranteed maximum price contract. The utility division is requesting the board to approve amendment number one with Wharton-Smith for the four phases and resulting guaranteed maximum price addendums. The additional pre-construction services included working with Wright-Pierce through the final design of all phases, the bidding services, the guaranteed maximum price development services, for a not-to-exceed amount of $926,576. It is anticipated that these services will be completed in approximately three years and the overall agreement will remain in place until completion of the overall construction project. Funding for this major utility project is available within the utility five-year adopted community investment program budget. So, Mr. Chair, members of the board, again, I think in keeping with the board's commitment to utility expansion projects to support residential and commercial growth, I would request the board approve amendment number one to agreement 2023-074 with Wharton-Smith to provide additional construction manager-at-risk pre-construction services for the Northeast Regional Plant at an expense not to exceed $926,576. Second. Got a motion and a second. Any questions? Seeing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, like sign. Motion carries. Mr. Chair, members of the board, item number H-3 is to request the board approve and ratify a letter of agreement and an intergovernmental transfer provider questionnaire from the state of Florida Agency for Healthcare Administration in connection with Polk's Public Emergency Medical Transportation Medical Managed Care Supplement Payment Program. This action will be a one-time investment payment to the state of Florida in an amount not to exceed $4,328,212.75. Since the early 2017-2018 time frame, Polk County continues to participate in the Public Emergency Medical Transportation Medicaid Fee-for-Service Program and the Managed Care Supplemental Payment Program. The Managed Care Program works through existing managed care organizations. The Polk County Fire Rescue Division has current contracts with managed care organizations across our region. These state contracted insurance companies will report the total number of qualified participants participant transports performed by Polk County Fire Rescue on a quarterly basis to the Agency for Healthcare Administration. The Agency for Healthcare Administration will then determine the state funding amount that will be distributed to each of the managed care organizations and ultimately paid back to Polk County on a quarterly basis. The intergovernmental transfers funds from Polk County Fire Rescue will only be used to support the Public Emergency Medical Transportation Program. We anticipate that the State Agency for Healthcare Administration will bill Polk County an amount not to exceed $4,328,212.75, which will generate a total return of $10,105,563.28. This return includes Polk's initial intergovernmental transfer amount and an additional federal return of $5,777,350,53. Funding for this continued initiative is available and budgeted in the emergency medical services within the general fund budget. So, Mr. Chair, members of the board, in keeping with the board's commitment to optimize the public's return on investment to serve those Medicaid participants being serviced by and for within the Polk County Fire Rescue Division, I would request the board approve and ratify the letter of agreement and the intergovernmental transfer provider questionnaire as part of our continued partnership with the Florida Agency for Healthcare Administration. Move approval. Second. I have a motion to second for approval. Any discussion? Seeing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. For those who like to sign, motion carries. Mr. Chair, members of the board, item number H-4 is to request the board approve amendment number one to the existing contract with We Care of Central Florida. This is for referral and coordination of specialty care services to eligible low-income Polk County residents. Amendment number one will adjust medical specialty care services to an annual amount not to exceed $694,165. We Care of Central Florida is a not-for-profit corporation that arranges volunteer specialty medical care diagnostics and vision optical services for Polk County residents who are uninsured or underinsured and are living at or below 200% of the federal poverty level with a documented serious medical condition that cannot be managed or treated by a primary care physician. Referral and coordination of specialty care is provided through a network of volunteer specialty care physicians. We Care receives referrals for patients from free clinics and other community health and human service partners as well as self-referrals. County community health funds are used to financially support the operational costs required to manage and administer the We Care program, including but not limited to administrative staff salaries and benefits, contractor fees to include medical screenings, labs, x-rays, diagnostics, and other operating program expenses. The current contract became effective in October of 2023 and is set to expire September of 2026 with an annual funding allocation of $597,420. Proposed Amendment number one will increase funding by $96,745 to address increased salary and operating expenses. This proposed amendment will become effective October 1, 2024. This funding request was presented to and is endorsed by the Citizens' Health Care Oversight Committee. Funding to continue this community health care initiative is budgeted as part of the proposed FY24-25 budget within the Indigent Health Care Fund and will continue in future years consistent with the contract term. So, Mr. Chair, members of the board, in keeping with the board's commitment to community health care programs, I would request the board approve Amendment number one to the existing contract with We Care of Central Florida for referral and coordination of specialty care services to reflect an annual allocation of program funding not to exceed $694,165. Amendment approved. Second. Got a motion and a second for approval. Any discussion? Seeing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. Those like, sign, motion carries. Mr. Chair, members of the board, item number H-5 is to request the board approve a cooperative funding agreement with the Southwest Florida Water Management District to co-fund the Lake Hancock Watershed Management Plan initiative. This agreement reflects a state grant revenue not to exceed $1,250,000 with a Polk County matching fund requirement totaling $1,250,000. The Lake Hancock watershed encompasses about 135 square miles and is located within west-central Polk County. The Lake Hancock watershed occupies an area between the Lakeland Ridge on the western boundary and the Winter Haven Ridge on the eastern boundary. Significant portions of the watershed have been mined, creating remnant overburdened spoil piles, clay settling areas, and water-filled depressions. The entire watershed drains to structure P-1, which regulates flow from Lake Hancock before discharging to the lower Saddle Creek and ultimately to the Peace River. The Lake Hancock receives majority of its flow from three major tributaries, Saddle Creek, Lake Lena Run, and Banana Lake. These three tributaries account for the vast majority of the Lake Hancock watershed. Most remaining areas of the watershed are contiguous to the Lake. Lake Hancock is the primary receiving water body for all inflows from the watershed and has been characterized as hyperutrophic and of poor water quality. Nutrient concentrations within the Lake promotes the growth of phytoplankton with a dominance of blue-green algae. Lake Hancock has the highest levels of chlorophyll of all lakes analyzed in the county's water quality sampling program, apparent by the green color of the lake. Due to the shallow nature of the lake, wind conditions easily stirs organic bottom material, making the lake turbid or cloudy for suspended solids. The goals of this project are to complete a watershed evaluation, a floodplain analysis, a floodplain level of surface water resource assessments, and a best management practice alternatives analysis. As far as the best management practices alternative analysis, we will identify drainage improvement projects throughout the area and prioritize those and will position the county well for future grant incentives. Overall, the project will help guide the watershed's future stormwater infrastructure needs, water quality concerns, and flood inundation. This project has been reviewed by and is recommended for approval by the Stormwater Technical Advisory Committee. Anticipated state revenues and the county's matching funds are included in the FY2425 Parks and Natural Resources Community Investment Program watershed water quality management plans, and accounted for through the stormwater municipal taxing unit revenues for this project that is anticipated to occur over a five-year period. So, Mr. Chair, members of the board, consistent with what I think is the board's commitment to environmental preservation, water quality, floodplain management, I would request the board approve cooperative funding agreement number 22CF0004301 with the Southwest Florida Water Management District to provide state funding not to exceed $1,250,000 in connection with the Lake Hancock watershed management plan. Second. Got a motion and a second for approval. Any discussion? Seeing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. Those are the likes, aye, motion carries. Mr. Chair, members of the board, item number H-6 is to request the board to approve a wetland mitigation credit purchase and sale agreement with the Missing Link Mitigation Bank to purchase 2.07 freshwater forested state credits for the wetland impacts in connection with the Northridge Trail Road Construction Project. This action will reflect a one-time project expense not to exceed $455,400. The Northridge Trail Roadway Project is in the current Community Investment Program year within the Roads and Drainage Division. The scope of the project is a new two-lane road that runs parallel to US-27 and will connect Dean Steel Road to Sand Mine Road. This proposed new roadway is 4.1 miles in length, and the project design is 100% complete and ready for public bidding. During the environmental permitting coordination process with the Southwest Florida Water Management District, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, it has been determined that the county is required to mitigate for impacts to wetlands within a portion of the project limits. This agreement is to authorize the purchase of wetland mitigation credits to satisfy the requirements of the state permit. The agreement with Missing Link Mitigation Bank is to purchase 2.07 freshwater forested state credits, which will satisfy the terms and conditions of the Water Management District permit. A separate mitigation credit purchase agreement for federal credits will be brought back to the board for later consideration. The proposed purchase price is $220,000 per credit for the 2.07 freshwater forested state credits for a total amount of $455,400. Approval of this wetland mitigation credit purchase and sale agreement will allow the Missing Link Mitigation Bank to transfer those 2.07 freshwater credits to the North Ridge Trail project and satisfy the terms and conditions of the Water Management District construction permit. Funding to support these unforeseen road construction environmental impacts is available within the roads and drainage five-year community investment program specific to the Northeast Impact Fee Fund. So, Mr. Chair, members of the board, in keeping with the board's commitment to transportation improvement project, especially within the northeast sector of Polk County, I would request the board approve the wetland mitigation credit purchase and sale agreement with the Missing Link Mitigation Bank in an amount not to exceed $455,400 in connection with the North Ridge Trail project. Mr. Chairman. Go ahead with a motion. Motion, how about a second? Second. Got a motion and a second. Any discussion? Yes, sir. Yep, go ahead. I'm going to vote for this, not because I like it. I don't quite understand, you know, if changes have been made to the way mitigation is viewed and the way it's created. This is two acres of wetlands that we're going to pay somebody $455,000 for in order for us to blitz wetlands on the North Ridge Trail. Is that right, Jay? I see you're shaking your head. We're going to blitz two acres and we're going to pay some guy or some corporation, some entity, $455,000 for two acres of existing God-made wetlands right now. Is that, or, okay. I need to understand because, you know, early on, and I was certainly on the front end of mitigation banks with the Boar and Ranch when I was a member of the governing board and understood that concept, and somewhere, I don't know if something's changed, but, you know, I'm not really happy about spending $455,000 for two acres of wetlands. Now, if somebody's gone out and created wetlands from uplands and they're going to maintain and guarantee that it's going to be successful and viable and pristine, that's, you know, another matter because that was the concept, original concept of mitigation. And this is, I don't know, it's just crazy. I'm going to support it because you all are recommending it, and I want to move that project forward, but I want to understand if this has changed, when it changed, and who changed this whole idea of mitigation. When are we going to have that conversation, Mr. B? In two to three weeks, and we're trying to find the best person that we think can talk to the federal issues as well as state issues, but within the next several weeks. All right. Can Jay answer the question? Is this uplands turned into wetlands, or is this a piece of green swamp wetlands the way God made it, and we're paying $455,000 for it? It's probably a combination of both. It's got some uplands and wetlands, but they've gone in and basically enhanced those to a level that is a higher level than what the existing wetlands and area was. And so that's why part of the mitigation bank process is you take an area, basically enhance it to a higher level of wetlands, higher quality wetlands, and then that's the part that you're basically paying for based upon the quality of those wetlands. Well, with recent discussion, and Tom Palmer is a witness, he was here, in the green swamp core area where this is, you have to have 20 acres for a home site, and it's got to have at least enough buildable area on it, maybe a half acre, maybe a quarter acre. I don't know. Whatever it takes to get the square footage necessary for a septic tank. So you've got to have 20 acres to build on. But for this program, this two acres would probably be worth, well, I don't know. 10,000. Huh? 10,000. You think? No. I wouldn't give 10,000 for it, but. Buy 20 acres, put a home on it, and set aside part of it for a mitigation bank, and you can pay for your house real quick. You've got your thinking cap on, brother. The thing about it is, you know, mitigation banks, you know, when they're designed and built, there's no, I mean, they're competing against other mitigation banks. There's no set cost on any mitigation credits. If you've got them, then you can get what you want for them. And I see where you're coming from, Owen. But most of them, I mean, they're state and federal, you know, we've been having to deal with mitigation credits for a long time. Has it changed since you were originally in there and it was designed? Who knows? I don't know that either. But, you know, it's something we've got to do, and the numbers on those credits are what's in that corridor where them credits have got to be purchased. Well, in two to three weeks, we're going to have all the answers. Anybody else? All right. We've got a motion and a second. Any more discussion? Seeing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. Those like, sign a motion carries. H7. Mr. Chair, members of the board, if I could ask Mr. Sean Smith to come to the podium, please. Mr. Chair, members of the board, item number H7 is to request the board confirm the manager's appointment of Mr. Sean Smith as the interim fire chief for Polk County Fire Rescue Division, effective September 13, 2024. On September the 11th, Chief Hesidine Smith submitted his resignation as the Polk County Fire Chief, effective Monday, September 30. Chief Hesidine Smith has been placed on administrative leave preceding the effective date of that resignation. As this position we know is of critical importance to the overall safety operational issues within the fire rescue division, as well as those first responder services to the citizens of Polk County. The county manager's office will indeed expedite the search for a new fire chief, which could take several months. Mr. Sean Smith is our current assistant fire chief. I believe he has both the institutional knowledge and the qualifications, as well as the rapport, I think, Sean, with the fire rescues to staff, both at the top line as well as in the field trenches, to serve as our interim fire chief until that position can be permanently filled. So, Mr. Smith's salary will be adjusted to reflect the current salary of the outgoing chief. Funds to cover this salary adjustment are included in the adopted FY23-24 budget and will be included in the FY24-25 budget. Salary funding is usually equally split between the general fund and the Polk County Fire Rescue Fund. So, Mr. Chair, members of the board, I think Sean is the right man at the right time for the right reasons. I would, consistent with what I believe is the need for managerial and business continuity within the fire rescue division, I would request the board confirm my appointment amidst to Sean Smith as the interim fire chief, effective September 13th, 2024. Moved. Moved. Second. You got a motion and a second for approval. Before we do that, I got a couple of things. Chief, you know where we're at. Yes, sir. We've got issues. We've opened a can of worms that's going to just get bigger. Uh, you're stepping into not necessarily a firestorm, uh, but, but there's a lot riding on you. Let me put it that way. Uh, we know the employees are not happy. Um, and, and, you know, that, like I said, January 9th, if this was the planning division, so what? This is the fire division. We need you guys to be in unison. Uh, the Esprit de corps needs to be there. And, uh, we're looking to you to, to, to establish that and get it going. Uh, I think it's the right move. And on that, I will take a vote. All in favor say aye. What, what, what, what? Oh, I'm sorry. That's okay. I just, um, Mr. Chair, I just want to say, um, if Sean, in the next couple of weeks, if you can meet with, I don't know about my colleagues, but at least with me, and share how you're going to address some of those issues, um, and what is your goal and objective, um, as a leader of the fire rescue department, I would like to know that personally. Oh, no, absolutely, ma'am. I sure will. I'll be honored to. All right. When you get that honed, make me number five. There you go. All right, sir. All right. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, like, signed motion carries. Do you have something to say? Yeah, absolutely. And, uh, Chairman Braswell, you are correct. You know, the spirit of corps is what we are. As you see today, this is Pope County Fire Rescue. This is who we are. That's a professional organization that is committed to the county, the citizens, and to each other as an organization. A fire rescue is a tight-knit group. It is a profession. We're occupational athletes. We train really hard. Um, we spend a lot of time with, with our families, and we spend a lot of time with each other. And this is who we are. This is a prime example of who we are, and we will continue to build on that and grow. You know, and with this, I just want to humbly, uh, this is humbling in itself, and or just the opportunity to be here is humbling in itself. I mean, there are no words, phrase of words, slogans that I could say that I could express my gratitude and excitement I have for this opportunity, really, to share my passion and, well, really, my integrity and the passion that I have for the profession, for this county, and for my family that is at home, and for the family that is here representing me, and my family that are out on the trucks right now. Uh, this is a great experience, a great opportunity, and I assure you that we will build this organization back up to where it is and to where we'll have pride and ownership, and you guys will be prideful for our Polk County Fire Rescue, much like Sheriff Brady Judd is with the Sheriff's Office. That is a goal, and it's a goal that we will all share, and there will be a vision and a mission statement to support that. But I really want to do is, I want to thank all the county commissioners for really trusting me and supporting me, or showing your support and trust in me and giving me this opportunity. It means a lot. Chairman Braswell, all the county commissioners, all the residents and citizens here in this county, Mr. Beasley, Mr. Hallman, all the deputy county managers, all the division directors, my family, the citizens and residents of this great county, and my family and my Polk County Fire Rescue family. I can't thank you enough for that. And I do ensure you, we will continue to work and refine our programs. There's a lot of successful programs and projects and policies that we have, and we'll continue to build those and monopolize on those. And there's projects and policies that we have that we'll refine and prune and make them better. I promise you that. But thank you very much. Thank you. Yeah, thanks. I think we're off to a good start. George. Yes, sir. I'd like to make a motion to appoint Tony Kirk Senior as a member of the Polk County Sidewalk Advisory Committee for the three-year term October 1, 2024 through September 30, 2027. Second. Got a motion and second for the appointment. Any discussion? See you none. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, like sign, he's appointed. That's it. All right. Rick, now wait. Okay. Martha. Neil. Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to appoint Brianna Latoura Carvalho as a member of the Sidewalk Advisory Committee for a three-year term. Did I mess that up? Probably. Or how do you say that? Don't matter. Yeah, we got it. Yeah. October 1, 2024 through September 30, 2027. I say it don't matter. It probably does matter to her. But, okay. We got a motion and a second for the appointment. Any discussion? See you none. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, like sign, she's appointed. Anything else? No? No? I don't think so. Oh, okay. All right. Yeah. My comments follow up to what the new chief said. On January 9th of this year, I pretty much opened this can of worms with the year. Years of listening to the problems in our fire department, I was fed up with it and still not satisfied. But, I will say, I believe we're working in the right direction. We had an audit that pointed out some serious issues that needed to be pointed out, they need to be addressed, and we're going to address them. I also pointed the fingers at the HR department, which I think we have a plan to go in and take a look at that. And, if we need the sheriff, he has said he will take a look at it because some of the accusations there, I don't know what makes a criminal accusation, criminal or not, but some of the accusations sound like they could be. And, I think that needs looking into, we have an equal opportunity department that's charged with investigating issues within HR with the leader of HR over both departments. That is not how it's supposed to work. You can't have the person in charge getting investigated over the investigator. That's not going to work. So, we've got a long ways to go. We've got a lot more to look at. We have issues. We have management issues that have to be resolved. We're going to move forward. I've expressed all this to Mr. Beasley. I've expressed it to Mr. Hallman and Mr. Taylor and others. And, like the good reverend said earlier, it takes patience, but mine is wearing really thin right now. And, there are quick ways to change things out, and we'll do that if we have to. But, other than that, we'll move on to a lay board. Did you have a comment? Yes, sir, I'd like to tag on to that. Yeah, sure. Yes, we've acknowledged there's some issues in fire services, and this board and this administration is committed to addressing those. But, I would say that it's been my privilege to attend two pinning ceremonies over the last few months, representing probably 120-plus folks, many of which were trainees, going from the trainees to their permanent positions, and also others that were receiving promotions from various ranks, from one rank to the next. Am I bothering you? Am I bothering you? Excuse me. So, it was privileged to watch this promotion from one rank to the next, and the pride that those folks took in their job and those promotions. And, there was black and white, male and female, brown, gay, straight, every stripe you can imagine. They were all part of that big family. They took pride in that uniform. They took pride in their service and the camaraderie. I routinely stopped by fire stations in my travels around the county, and I'm proud of the folks that serve us, and they're committed to good service. But, in spite of the distractions, there's never been a time when the call was not responded to within minutes. When that bell rings 24-7, 365, those folks are on the ball. They give quality service. They're proud of their service, and I'm proud of each and every one of them. We'll address the issues, and we'll put this behind us, but this is a strong organization represented by the new chief, and I wish him all the success, and I'm sure he will do it, and he's got the team behind him to make the changes necessary. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I also learned a new term today, occupational athlete. I've never heard that before in my life. Mr. Chairman, would you like me to frame the next couple of immediate steps associated with this? A couple by way of referencing it. So, Mr. Chairman, members of the board, members of the viewing audience, about 10 days ago, the board received a report in connection with the management review of the Polk County Fire Rescue Division. It was produced by the Allen Norton Blue Organization, professional organization, hired by the county for that specific purpose. Let me first say to the board, thank you for your insistence that we sought outside assistance to better help us define some of the management challenges that exist in our rapidly growing fire rescue division. While, at times, it's not a comfortable feeling to self-reflect in such a public way, I think that step certainly was necessary for our fire rescue division to initiate changes that will strengthen the agency long term. Within 24 hours of receiving that report, I did begin a healthy, lengthy, frank conversation with Deputy Countermanager Joe Holman and Fire Chief Hesiting Smith regarding discoveries that were delineated in that report. On Wednesday of September 11th, Chief Smith submitted his resignation effective Monday, September 30th. Today, the board's support and the chairman's direct involvement, with the chairman's direct involvement, I am recommending that the next step be to sponsor a series of meetings to be scheduled as quickly as possible that are open to all fire rescue personnel and their union representation. I believe that meeting, if the chairman is willing to help lead those meetings, along with myself, Deputy County Manager Joe Holman, as well as Interim Chief Sean Smith, that they'll be couched as listening tours so that we can learn firsthand some of the managerial challenges that I think the staff there is facing. And my most hopeful result would be finding certain solutions to any challenges that we think exist, and hopefully it's seen as a bottom-up solution as opposed to a top-down solution. So, commissioners, I think you, you said at the tip of the spear, I think you have always put public safety as the highest priority for our residents. I believe our employees are most grateful to, I think, the decisions that you have made to make investments in new facilities, new apparatus, additional staffing, additional personal protective equipment, additional compensation. All of those are just to name a few of what I think is the board's leadership role in that. I think now new staff, new senior staff, as well as Polk County Fire Rescue Leadership Team are making the commitment to assure that our employees within that division, that we will create a high-performing, highly-valued culture within that organization. I hope with your support today that you will give me the direction to move forward with scheduling those meetings and that the chair will take the lead and participate in those. I will, and get it scheduled. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Did anybody see the Bucs-Lions game on Sunday or hear some of y'all saw the Bucs-Lions game? And this is for Sean Smith. I'm glad you raised your hand because during that game there was a mistake that was made that ultimately I don't think really affected the outcome. But coming back onto the field the second half, they come up to Coach Dan Campbell, the folks, the reporters on the field, and they said, hey, what were you doing? Why did this happen? They had an opportunity to score three points, and they didn't. They made a mistake. And Dan Campbell said, I'm the head coach. This is on me. It's my fault. It's nobody else's fault. I'm the guy at the top, so it's mine. I own it. I put my people in a bad spot, but I got to live with that, and I'll try to do better next time. That made the news yesterday. I saw it on television. I saw it and heard it on the radio. Sean, you're going to need to be Dan Campbell, buddy. Okay? All right. Anybody else? All right. Martha? Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Chair. First of all, I just want to thank all the fire rescue families, like was said this morning, and everything you've done in supporting our community, keeping them safe, so thank you very much. Sometimes it's a task that's not regularly thanked for, so I want to publicly say that. I'm also optimistic that Chief Smith is going to do what he said earlier, and that is rebuild the department. And I look forward to seeing that, and I appreciate the regular meetings, Mr. Beasley, that are going to take place. One of the things I don't want to see is for us to be kept in the dark and not know what's going on until a year later, and then it catches us by surprise. So that's why I've asked Chief Smith to meet with us or meet with me anyway so that we can know what's going on. And I just wish all of you well, and it's a new day, so let's move forward. Thank you. All right. Layboard appointment. Yes, I appoint Edward Moran to serve as a member of the Community Relations Advisory Council for a four-year term beginning September 17, 2024, and ending September 17, 2028. Second. I have a motion and a second for the appointment. Any discussion? Seeing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, like sign. All right, he's appointed. The fire rescue people are excused. You guys need to get to work, so. Put out a fire. Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of fires. While they leave, we'll go ahead and get started with the hearings. Randy. Mr. Chairman, before we begin the hearings, I'll go over the public hearing general procedures. We ask that you please turn off your cell phones or other devices that may distract from the public hearings. Please adjust the microphone and state your full name and address for the record before you begin speaking on the topic. Individuals speaking during the public comment section of a matter will be strictly limited three minutes. The board is experiencing these matters and is able to discern what is legally relevant to an issue and what is not. Information that is irrelevant or repellent only serves to frustrate and necessarily prolong the day's business. The commission expects civility at all times during all public hearings. Speaking, I'll turn and shout out from the audience that verbal sounds or utterances while another is speaking are unacceptable and you will be asked to leave the chambers for the remainder of the day. If any person decides to appeal any decision made by the board with respect to any matter considered here today, you would need a record of the proceedings and that for such purposes, you may need to ensure that verbatim record of the proceedings is made, which record includes the testimony and evidence upon which the appeal is to be based, which you must gather at your own expense. Any one in the audience who wishes to speak or present testimony today must be sworn in. All testimony given during public hearings shall be deemed to be sworn. At this time, if you're going to address the commission or speak on any case today, please stand, raise your right hand, and answer out loud to the following questions. Do you swear or affirm that the testimony or evidence you provide to the commission today is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? All right, thank you. Mr. Chair, first items are the expedited hearings. I'll go over the expedited hearing procedures. Expedited hearings are held pursuant to resolution number 2022-089. Expedited hearings are used when no opposition was present at the Planning Commission. The applicant agrees to the expedited hearings, and the recommendation of the Development Review Committee is for approval. Expedited procedures are the following. After staff briefly introduces the case, the hearing will be open for public comment. If anyone speaks during public comment, the applicant will be given the opportunity to respond. After public comment, the Board will consider the land use case. At any time, a full presentation from staff can be requested from a commissioner, the applicant, or members of the public. Any document, all documents attached to the agenda items are deemed part of the record of the land use case. Unless removed from the list of experts by motion of the Board, all individuals on the list of experts attached to the agenda item are deemed experts for the purpose of the land use case. At this time, I'll turn it over to Mr. Ziscoll to present the expedited hearings. Thank you, Mr. Mink. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, members of the Board. Ben Ziscoll, Land Development Director. We will have five items on your expedited public hearing agenda today. Item number 01 is an expedited public hearing for case LDC-PAS 2024-5 Innovation West Pipkin Road Institutional CPA to consider a land use change from Business Park Center to Institutional on approximately 1.22 acres. The subject site is located on the north side of Pipkin Road, as seen on the screen, and is currently part of a Business Park Center project with specific use restrictions. The applicant is interested in opening a daycare on-site. Daycare is not a permissible use within the Business Park Center, so they're requesting to change that portion of the property to institutional. This application appeared before the Planning Commission and received a unanimous recommendation for approval, and following any public comments or questions, staff is also recommending approval. All right. Any questions? I'll open a public hearing. Anyone wishing to speak on this matter, please come forward. Seeing no one, I'll close the public hearing and bring it back to the board. Move. Second. A motion and a second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, like signed, motion carries. Item number 02 is an expedited public hearing for case LDCT 2024-16 West Pipkin Road text amendment. This item is a companion item to item 01 that was just approved. As I mentioned, the Business Park Center has specific use restrictions, which do not allow the daycare as well. So now that the land use has changed, this amendment will modify the text to allow the use. Again, this is second reading. Planning Commission has unanimously recommended approval, and following any questions or comments, staff recommends approval and adoption. All right. Questions? I'll open a public hearing. Anyone wishing to speak on this matter, please come forward. Seeing no one, I'll close the public hearing and bring it back to the board. Move approval. Motion and a second for approval. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, like signed, motion carries. Item number 03 is an expedited public hearing for case LDCT 2024-12 SPD changes text amendment to conform the suburban plan development standards with other plan development standards throughout the land development code. As the board may recall, staff has gone through an extensive effort over the last year and a half to two years to change regulations as it relates to plan developments. This item is a follow-up to implement those same changes and same standards throughout the suburban plan development portions of our code. The Planning Commission unanimously recommended approval of this item. This is an adoption hearing, and following any questions or comments, staff recommends approval. Questions? I'll open a public hearing. Anyone wishing to speak on this matter, please come forward. Seeing no one, I'll close the public hearing and bring it back to the board. Move adoption. Second. Motion and a second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, like signed, motion carries. Item number 04 is an expedited public hearing for case LDCT 2024-15 access via easement text amendment to modify land development code section 705B for access via easement. This land use code text amendment is a continuing effort to provide affordable housing options and infill housing options through revisions to our access via easement regulations. Specifically, what this amendment does is allows lots that exist on an existing easement that are already there, that are not creating new lots, to be able to be approved administratively. It also provides that any public hearing that would be required for access via easement be reduced from a level four board of county commissioners approval down to a level three planning commission approval. Staff finds this as an effort to eliminate some of the public hearing processes and cumbersome requirements, which could be a burden to affordable housing. And this will streamline government operations. The planning commission did review this and unanimously recommend approval. And again, following any public comments or questions, staff recommends approval. All right. Questions? I'll open up. Excuse me. I'll open a public hearing. Anyone wishing to speak on this matter, please come forward. Seeing no one, I'll close the public hearing and bring it back to the board. Motion and a second. Second. Motion and a second for approval. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, like signed, motion carries. Mr. Chairman, item number 05 is an expedited public hearing for case LDCT 2024-14 TCX full service car wash text amendment to modify table 4.8 of the use table for the U.S. 27 selected area plan to allow full service car washes as C2 conditional uses within the town center land use district. This is a continuing trend of selected area plans that previously did not allow full service car washes with the increase in population and increase of vehicles. There's an increase in demand for car washes throughout the county. Staff has reviewed this and recommends approval. The planning commission also recommended approval. Today, this is on its first reading, so no action is necessary. And we'll bring this back to you in two weeks for adoption. All right. Any questions? I'll open a public hearing. Anyone wishing to speak on this matter, please come forward. Seeing no one, I have one comment. I just can't see how we've gone from two car washes in the county to we must have 40. It just blows my mind that there's that demand for car wash. Your truck's dirty. I don't wash it. But anyway, moving on to P1. Good afternoon, board members. Mr. Chairman, this is LDCD-2024-3, the Cypress Creek Reserve. It's a new community development district consisting of 885 lots on about 404.48 acres. This is in the Point Siena pre-DRI. This is a paper plat that was never constructed that they are melding into a new plan off of Marigold Avenue in between Palmetto and Laurel Avenue. This is essentially the new plan. It's very similar, same unit count or similar unit count to the previous one. They just had to re-engineer it around wetlands and floodplains to maximize the use. It's a mixture of different types of lot sizes, all single-family detached. Staff has reviewed the petition. These are for the CDD. We'll construct and maintain the roads in the future, so these will not be county-maintained roads that we created. And the net cost is pretty similar to other CDDs you've seen before. It's connecting to Toho Water and Wastewater. Lines exist in the right-of-way of Marigold. Staff finds that it's consistent with Section 190.005 and recommends approval. I'll stand for questions. Questions? Seeing none, I'll open a public hearing. Anyone wishing to speak on this matter, please come forward. Seeing nobody, I'll close the public hearing and bring it back to the board. Move approval. Got a motion and a second for approval. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. For those who like to sign, motion carries. P2. Mr. Chairman, LDCDD 2024-4 Lake Ashton 2 modification. This is an extremely minor modification to a community development district that the board adopted many years ago. It was annexed into the city of Winter Haven. The other CDD that adjoins it to the east is in the city of Lake Wales. This is just adding, taking property from one CDD and putting it into another so that they can maintain it through CDD funds. I'll just briefly go through the sites. They are not non-residential. There are slivers of land here and there, retention ponds, and walking trails. With that, I'll stand for questions. Questions? Seeing none, I'll open a public hearing. Anyone wishing to speak on this matter, please come forward. Seeing nobody, I'll close the public hearing and bring it back to the board. Move approval. Motion and a second for approval. All in favor say aye. Aye. Those who like to sign, motion carries. P3. Good morning. Shonda Bennett with the Land Development Division. This is a request for the board to consider the adoption of a small-scale comprehensive plan amendment to change a total of 1.7 acres of residential low to residential high, LDCPA-S 2024-10. It's also in the transit supportive development area just north of Shepherd Road across from Imperial Lakes. In terms of advertisement, 34 mailers were sent on August 15th. No response was received. One board posted on July 22nd. And a legal ad published in the Polk Sun on August 28th. It's a location map to give you some general context for where the site is in terms of South Florida Avenue to its east and then other development to the west. You can see here on the context aerial, as I stated earlier, it's across the street from Imperial Lakes on the south side of Shepherd, State Road 37, South Florida Avenue was on the right. And you can see lots of different commercial along Shepherd Road and the public's development to the southwest. This is more zoomed-in aerial photograph. The property is part of the master plan for the Le Mans apartments. In fact, its access is off of the driveway into Le Mans apartments. The little notch that you see here, it's part of a drainage structure. The water flows from south to north here. And one of the, there was no response received in terms of our advertisement, but we did have residents in the subdivision to the northwest concerned about stormwater and rainwater runoff. So certainly the rules that we have in place today would require the applicant and the developer to capture what's running on there now, as well as any other runoff and retain that on site. I'm sure that's somewhat familiar to you in some of these hearings. We've talked about stormwater management, but certainly a concern of the residents in the area. This is the current future land use map, residential low. The subdistrict is one. Again, but Le Mans apartments is part of a PD that was approved back in 1983. The Le Mans apartments got built out, but this parcel did not build out. And it was originally approved for institutional uses and community facilities. And the property owner or the developer is a dentist, so it's an institutional use if he builds that. Changing it to residential high gives them an ability to have more density on site. The land use to the west is Community Activity Center, which also allows 25 dwelling units to the acre if you've got a mixed-use project. But what's developed there now is commercial uses. Across the street to the south, you can see that's some retention system for the Imperial Lakes development. This is what the land use would look like if it's approved today. This is standing on the property looking west. You can see the site is to the right. It's a wooded site. This is looking into the site. This is, again, standing on Shepard Road. You can see there's a sidewalk in front of the property. This is looking east towards south Florida. That would be the access into Le Mans apartments in the center of the screen. In terms of the impact assessment that staff conducts for land use changes, it certainly has capacity on all of the different areas that we consider for water, sewer, transportation. It's near parks and public safety. Staff does recommend approval, and the Planning Commission also recommended approval. We find it consistent with the conference plan and the policies regarding residential high, and find it compatible with the surrounding area, and I'll stand for any questions. Questions? Yeah, Mr. Chairman. Is that little out parcel, is that a retention for the widening to Shepard Road? Is that what it is, or is it nothing? Is it, you said it was a culvert there or something? Yeah. It's an existing drainage structure that helps move water from the south to the north of Shepard. Structure as in what kind of structure? Like a culvert outfall for water to flow from south to north. That's what these blue stripes are indicating. Well, there's a lot of culverts all over Polk County, but they don't have that out parcel associated with it. I mean, what's the reason for that? To be so big. Is it owned by the county? Yes. It is owned by the county? Yes, sir. And where do, the water flows north and west toward Poli Creek? Let's just get larger. You can see here, it flows. Here comes the drainage. Thank you, Jay. Is that a retention pond, Jay? No, sir. That's basically the outfall ditch that comes across when we widened Shepard Road. We had to buy that piece, is my understanding, to basically extend the pipe and basically do some erosion control and those types of things. So we actually have that as part of the right-of-way. And it discharges into the natural system that's there and then flows north and ultimately into Poli Creek. Is there a ditch, a canal, a natural? Yes, there's a natural ditch, canal, creek that that ties into. That's why we had to have that extension basically to connect to the existing creek system. Are there issues with the subdivision that is north and west of this site? No, sir. No? They just don't want any issues. That was the reason they called. Yes. They don't have any? We don't want any. Not that I'm aware of. Okay. It's the usual thing that they probably have some flooding of Poli Creek and that system at times when it flashes up. We'll get those heavy, hard, intense rains, but nothing. Well, after the Manatee County episode and watching that for a while, we probably need to be sensitive to those issues. Thank you. Sir. Anybody else? All right. I'll open a public hearing. Anyone wishing to speak on this matter, please come forward. We'll need your name and address for the record, please. We've got two. We've got competing speakers. Where'd you come from? Are you the applicant? Yes, sir. All right. I'm sorry. Tom Woodridge, TDW Land Planning, along here with Ricardo Jimenez from Downtown Engineering. We're the team that's put together this application. I've been working on this site. I wanted just to take the opportunity to answer any questions or address any issues beyond what was just addressed with the drainage that you might have. We've got our wetland determination permit into swift mud. We've got our school concurrency determination letter. We feel like we've got the strong recommendation, both staff and planning commission, but wanted to make sure that if there are any questions that any of you had to get ahead of that and answer those at this time. George? The existing ditch, canal, whatever it's referred to, that will be acknowledged and honored in your site plan and your final civil design? Yes. I'll let Richard get into that a little bit, Ricardo, to get into that a little bit deeper, but we will accommodate that and make sure the flow is maintained and addressed. Hi. Good morning. Ricardo Jimenez, 612 West Patterson Street, Lakeland, Florida. So, yes, as what Tom, echoing what he's saying, basically what we've looked into and, you know, putting up records in as-builds, we do see those connections east and west and then go south towards the Imperial Lake subdivision, and it seemed like the overflow would then go into this property on the north side. So it is our intention to maintain that connection, to incorporate that into our plans, and that was what, that is in what was presented to the Water Management District with our current application as well. Does it move on north from there? And when it pops off and goes across the road to the north, you said overflow, right, from Imperial Lakes. I mean, I'm just looking, I'm just curious, how does it get to Poli Creek? I mean, I don't see, it's got to flow north. There's a ditch that goes north? Yeah. So, yeah, right now the site is undeveloped and there is a big change of topography. So, yeah, the whole site probably overflows and eventually makes it out there. We will be formalizing that a little bit more and really getting the water north with the rest of the system. All right. Question of Jay? Yeah, go ahead. Question of Jay. Jay, you might as well just get a chair and pull up out of here. Or sit on the front row anyway. We ain't done with you. Whatever their civil plans show in their application to the Water Management District for review, it's also presented to staff for review and compliance to ensure that that flow system is maintained. Yes, sir. That system exists. There's a connection. Basically, it goes back to open basin versus closed basin situation. Is there a system that exists? And as we're aware, that system does flow to the north and kind of connects into Pauley Creek. So, it is an open basin. So, yes, sir. I mean, it exists. I don't know whether some of it's private. I assume some of it's private. It's maintained by either private property owners or an HOA or something. The only part they control is that which of the swale or ditch or canal that's on their property. That is correct, sir. And your review will ensure the integrity of that is maintained at least at that boundary line. Yes, sir. Thank you. Yeah, really for the engineer, not for Jay, because I don't expect you to know this. But there's a defined channel at the end of our ownership there. There's a defined channel. I make it go there, and this is where the water runs, and it runs north. I mean, you can visually see. That's a question. I'm not. No, it's not really a defined channel. Basically, it just comes out, and that's really a wide open area. It's, yeah, undeveloped. It's low-lying. It's simply, yeah, would pull up there and probably just, yeah, flow into the rest. It's not really defined or any features there. I think I'm looking at Google Earth here or Google Maps. It's a much better picture than what you're using there. It's more defined. It's pretty obvious when you look at Google Maps. Anyway, were you guys, did you have more? No. Okay. Any more questions of them? All right. Now I'll continue with the public hearing. Is his microphone not on? Okay. There it goes. My name is David Jennings. I live at 6918 Palomino Drive. I've been there for 28 years. Every time that something gets built, the water level in my backyard comes back in. And this Jason that they're talking about that goes from Imperial Lake, it floods north, then it goes to one small retention pond, then another small retention pond that curves back to the west. So my concern is I'm going to get flooded out. I've been there for 28 years. And every time something gets built, you put retention ponds on, but they fill up. And the new retention pond that they just put in fills into the property that y'all are talking about right now. So that's one of my concerns. And the other concern is we've got owls back there. I've seen otters swim back there before, gopher, tortures, all that stuff. So I don't see we're building something that's going to flood that whole neighborhood out because it is terrible right now. We've got standing water in my yard, and we haven't had no rain in two days. So that's all I've got. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else care to speak? Come on up. My name is Nick Cruz, and I live at 6912 Palomino Drive. I've been there about 20, well, between that one and another house right there on the same road. I've been around 20 to 25 years in this area, and I've got the same concern that he does. And on my yard right now, since they've just built right on Shepherd Road a couple of strip balls there and another building, and now they're going to build some more. And, again, the water is, we are very, every time the pond in the front across from Shepherd fills up when we get a lot of rain, and it flows, everything flows into that undone area there, and it just comes right up into our yards. And it's, you know, I just wanted to make sure that, and I've listened to you, and I wanted to make sure that everybody is concerned with the flow of the water and where it's going to go, because even the front of our houses gets completely flooded from the street. And our covert that we have that goes north, it goes also into the same retainment area. There's a little pod right behind our curve, and all the water is supposed to go there, but the water from in here goes there also. And it's just a tiny, you know, as far as traveling all the way to the pond, I forgot the name, sorry. But it doesn't flow that well. And every time something gets built, our water level goes a little bit higher, just from rains. You know, we've had a good amount of rain here in the last, what, two weeks? And already one-third of my yard in the back that touches the retainment area there is flooded. It's holding water. So if we get a storm now, you know, we get a hurricane, we get anything right now, I guarantee you it's going to be right up to my house. I've got a steady drop, almost four feet from my house down to where the property is, the land. And it's about one-third all the way up. Thank you, sir. All righty. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? And I'll close the public here and bring it back to the board. Move approval. Got a motion? Do I have a second? Okay. I'm concerned about the high, Tom. I mean, it's just with the situation there. And maybe it isn't as tricky as it appears, but it appears to be tricky right now. And, again, we're a little sensitive to this right now with what's going on really all over the county. I saw that Tampa International had 19 inches above the normal for the month of August. Sarasota County had 46 inches for the month of August, which is more than twice the old record. But, nevertheless, it just sounds like a residential high on this site, knowing what's going on south of Shepherd Road and the pond and the subdivision. It's a little more than I can go with today. All right. So we don't have a second, so the motion dies for lack of a second. Sergeant Randy, I got a question for you. Do we need a denial motion? Yes, sir. Okay. Go ahead, Tom. I was just going to respond, and I appreciate the comments to the board today, that, you know, whether it's residential low or residential high, we're going to have to deal with the retention issues and the stormwater and the wetlands that are on the site. We've already begun the process to get ahead of this, so we were prepared at this hearing to provide you that data information. Unfortunately, we couldn't get the SWIFT MUD to give us the formal site analysis that we desired due to their timing, not ours. We applied many, many weeks ago. That's scheduled to be held in two weeks or a week and a half, so we'll have a little more information on the wetland. But in terms of the floodplain and the design of the site from an engineering standpoint, we're well ahead of the curve on that in terms of knowing what we'll need to do to move things around and respect the amount of space that's needed to provide for the appropriate level of retention and drainage on the site. So I think, you know, in our opinion, whether it's residential low or high, we're going to have to have some sort of pond. This is a density request to say let us cluster things around a little bit tighter away from and account for that from a design perspective. RH on a tight site allows us to put the units where we can accommodate the other aspects that we've talked about here today and there are concerns of the others to ensure that we can design it a little bit more efficiently, and that's why we requested the RH. All right. With the unknowns, I feel better about RL than I do RH. Okay. Move that we, what's the right motion, Randy? To deny. Move that we deny the application. Second. Okay, you got a motion and a second for denial. Any further discussion? CNN, all in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed? All right. The motion to deny passes. E4. Thank you for your time. Todd, while you do that, I'm just going to poll the audience here real quick. I've got speakers when it comes to the public hearing of Mike Hickman, and you're speaking for Masters, Miller, Tidwell, Diaz. Then I've got Chuck Hunt speaking, and I've got Eric Guardino. Yeah. Does that seem right to you guys? That's the plan. Okay. Go ahead, Todd. Good morning, Commissioners. Todd Bond, Deputy County Manager. Today's public hearing, this public hearing is a public hearing to consider the adoption of an ordinance amending and restating Polk County Ordinance 2019-056. The Polk County amended and restated comprehensive impact fee ordinance for the purpose of imposing updated rates for emergency medical system, correctional facilities, transportation, educational system, library, park, fire rescue, and law enforcement impact fees. And we do have a few slides just to kick us off this morning, which our vendor from Benesh will be sharing with us. Ms. Neilgan Camp has been our project manager through this and working with staff, so I'll turn it over to her to go ahead and go through these slides. I do want to say, though, I don't think Neilgan, I don't think she was in here to get sworn in. So you swear or affirm that the testimony evidence that you present to the commission today is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I do. Thank you. Good morning, Commissioners. Neilgan Camp with Benesh. The presentation is very brief, just kind of refreshing on the background and getting into the fee schedules. As you know, the areas that we are studying were last updated in 2019. Roads impact fee is not part of that. That was updated in 2023. And the purpose of the study was to reflect most current data, which is also one of the legal requirements. One of the recent changes to the statutes were some limits on how much the jurisdictions can increase the rates and, along with it, some phasing requirements for those increases. The legislation allows for an exception if there's a study conducted within the past 12 months showing extraordinary circumstances, and those circumstances are discussed at two public workshops, and the increases approved by two-thirds of the governing body. Polk County conducted the workshops demonstrating extraordinary circumstances in August and early September. The study is using a consumption-based methodology, which is very common in Florida. It is charging new growth based on the value of the infrastructure that is consuming. So, the resulting fee schedules, basically, you can kind of see this for the transportation zone A, using the zone A figures. The current adopted fee for a single-family development would be about, is about $13,000, almost $400. That would increase to $22,300. And then this slide shows the remaining categories as well. So, again, today is the public hearing to get your decision, and then, if approved, the effective date would be January 1st. All right. Thank you. Any questions? Yes, George? Excuse me. One of the fees that raised eyebrows was this significant fee increase from parks, $400, and changed to over $1,400. It appears to me that the earlier fee was limited to regional parks and perhaps some community parks, the new fee includes everything. And I went through your exhibit, and because the print was so small, I may have got the numbers wrong. There was like 156 parcels identified in that inventory from big to little. In fact, 99 of those 156 parcels were less than five acres. Considering that the county is no longer embarking on capital improvements of 5 and 10 and even 20-acre parcels, but concentrating on regional parks or community parks, that perhaps those should be left out of that calculation, since that's not part of the long-range capital plan. To capture that historic cost seems to be an overreach. So our understanding was during the last study, the county, as you mentioned, the study included only the regional and specialty parks, and that was because there were no needs for community or the smaller parks. This time around, in the first draft, we calculated the fee both ways, including just the regional and specialty, as well as all parks, because we were basically told that the county now has needs for other types of smaller types or community park-type parks as well. So that was the thought process behind it. So you made the calculation on the community parks only? No, we made it regional and specialty only, just like how you have it now, and then all parks. What was that number? I believe, I think it was 1,400. Yeah, go ahead. Commissioner, I think just for the regional and specialty parks went up to 1,100, 1,200 range. I can get the exact number in a little bit, where the fee for all parks went up to the 1,400 range. I think it went up to 1,100 or 1,200, but I'll track that down. It was also in the reference to artificial turf conversion as a capital component. That was mentioned in your Extraordinary Circumstances exhibit. That doesn't add capacity. That's a maintenance issue. That's a substitution for maintenance. I think they were trying to show some examples of the projects and needs, but that project itself is not used to calculate the fee. They were just some examples showing needs. Maybe that wasn't the most appropriate example. That was shown in the Extraordinary Circumstances example. Along with several other projects, yes. But that is a maintenance issue, not a capacity issue. I would disagree with that, George, in that just like what we're doing at... If it's new, I would agree, but if it's a conversion... Well, but over in Auburn Hill where we're doing that, the numbers have increased so dramatically at that park to use it, there's no opportunity to maintain it. That's the entire reason of putting AstroTurf in. So I think if, you know, if the population didn't grow and there was nobody coming, it would be fine, but we've got so many go over there on a Saturday and you'll see just how many people have been added to that park. There's the only way to utilize it is to AstroTurf it. Go ahead. I have some other questions later, but that's it for now. Okay. Anybody else? Well, while I don't know if Todd's there with his computer, maybe a good time for me to ask actually for later use, but what is the total Todd impact fees collected for calendar year 21, 22, 23? Do you have a grand total on those handy? Yeah, Commissioner, I will, but if I may answer Commissioner Lindsay's question real quick. So the fee, the calculated fee for just regional specialty parks was $1,112 for the single-family residents. And then it may take me just a minute to track that down, but I do have it here. That's fine. Can we, he'll track it down. We won't move on. We'll keep moving. Did you have something, Martha? No. Okay. Okay. All right. So your presentation is finished. We'll open it up, continuing with the public hearing. First to speak, Mike Hickman. Good morning. Mike Hickman, Hickman Homes, 5412 Strickland Avenue in Lakeland. Some of you know me pretty well. I've been here in the county building for 39 years, raised four boys here, got two grandkids. I have another one coming this month. I've been very active in the community for decades. I have served as past president of the Polk County Builders Association, and I'm representing them today. Also, I've been past president of the Florida Home Builders Association, and I get to serve on the planning commission. So, once a month, I get to sit up there where you guys sit, and, you know, for a little four-hour bid, I get a slice of all the issues or some of the issues that you have to deal with on a daily basis. I tell you this because I want you to know that I get it, and my colleagues in the room, they get it. They're part of this community, too. We understand the burdens that you have. We appreciate the needs and the desires that we have for this county. We also understand impact fees. We don't like them, but, you know, it's part of that taxing structure that is available to you, and we understand your need for revenue. But here's a few things I'd like you to consider. Our business, our industry is comprised of small businesses, the little guys out there working, the plumbers, the electricians, the carpenters, the surveyors, you name it. That list just goes on and on. A lot of little companies that collectively are a huge industry. They had millions of dollars both in the initial build and then in ad valorem taxes to the county, and thousands of jobs every year as well. Those business owners and those employees, they work here. They live here. They're part of the community. Their families are here and their kids and maybe their grandkids, too. They're all part of that economy. They're part of that ripple economy, you know, across all sectors of the county. And I would dare to say that there is not a person in this county that's not affected by our industry. All these people, they're not here in the room today because they're out there working, trying to make a living. But they depend on you all to make good, sound decisions so that they can continue to build and enjoy life and, you know, work and live in this county. I've experienced a lot of ups and downs in the economy. But what's going on today really reminds me of what happened back in the 2000s, 2003, 2004, 2005. You know, business was booming. Real estate was booming. You know, everybody wanted to get in on the action. The commissioners at that time, as well as a lot of other people, felt there was no end in sight. So, you know, they wanted to implement fees and impact fees and taxes and everything else that they could to take advantage of that booming time. Well, that was great until 2006 came along. And all of a sudden, the bottom fell out. People stopped buying houses. Business started closing up. Foreclosures were at an all-time high. It was truly a devastating period of time. People were getting laid off, not just in the business, the building industry, but across all sectors, private and public. So, unfortunately, that's what happens when we are not out there building. This is exactly what we get. So that should be a cautionary tale today. Now, are circumstances exactly the same? No. But certainly, we need to take a cautious approach when we're looking at raising these fees. You also hear a lot of talk about, you know, we need to get these costs up so we can, you know, keep the population down, keep the people from moving in. Well, the reality is the greater majority of the new homes that are being built are being bought by people that live right here in the county. I mean, some of them all their life. And some are moving up. Some are moving down. You know, the people most affected by these impact fees are your neighbors, your families, members, your kids, and maybe their grandkids. I mean, this will go, this will live with us forever. It will go on. And it's not just new homes. This is going to affect the cost of existing homes as well. You know, everything just kind of raises the bar there. So, we need to give everyone a chance to live and work and to own a home in this county. So, here's what we're asking. Please take a hard look at these numbers again. Let's come up with something that would be reasonable in its increase. Again, we get it. You know, we support it to a certain degree. But to do this all at once at this magnitude would be potential for disaster. So, you know, look at the rate. Let's see if we can potentially get it down. And then let's consider doing it over an extended period of time. The last time we did impact fees was five years ago. We implemented it over, I believe, a three-year period of time. And that worked. You know, no adverse impact to the economy and to the industry. And I think if we take that same road that we can get this all to work again. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Chuck Hunt. Okay. All right. Eric Gardino. Good morning, commissioners. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. My name is Eric Gardino. I am the Governor Affairs Director for the Bay Area Apartment Association. We're a trade association that represents apartment owners, managers, and developers, as well as the suppliers that the previous speaker spoke to, all the electricians and plumbers and roofers that support the apartment industry. Our industry understands that impact fees have to be charged. And they have to be increased from time to time. However, increases should be reasonable. And they must comply with state law. The increase in impact fees before you are neither reasonable, or at least some of them certainly aren't. And a number of them do not comply with state law, in our opinion. The impact fees called for in the study disproportionately assigns a higher amount to multifamily units than what the numbers actually justify. In short, impact fees for each unit are calculated based on the number of people per unit. So the lower the total number of unit count used in the study, the more people there will be per unit. The report right now assigns about two people per unit. Actually utilizing the correct data would be more closer to 1.5 people per unit. As is the study's calculation, set several fees at about 23% higher than what it should be. Many of the report's fees are based on a multifamily unit count of about 47,000. This is a significant undercount based on the number of units that you can identify in other census data than what was used by the report for 2022, or data available to the industry through COSTAR for 2022. More importantly, though, the report does not meet the statutory requirements of being the most recent and localized data. That actually is provided in the report for and utilized in the education impact fees. So the education impact fees are based on the property appraisers number for multifamily units, which is about 61,000 here in the county. So there's that huge gap of over 10,000, close to 14,000 difference between what the report used and what the property appraiser provided in February of this year. The report's data is based on census estimates that came out last year. So the most recent and localized data that should be used for the multifamily count is, in fact, the property appraiser's data. That was used for the educational fees but not for the rest of the impact fees. We ask that the data provided by the Polk County property appraiser be used for the multifamily count and recalculate the impact fees, the rest of the impact fees, so that they're more in line with the actual data you have available to you. Additionally, we do feel that the rate of increase, if you're going to institute all these fees right up front, is unreasonable, especially when we're looking at an impact fee of 350% increase for the parks. So, Chris, thank you for hearing my comments. Appreciate your time. Thank you. Anyone else? You can come on up and sit closer. Okay. Tom Palmer. I'm 1805 26th Street, Northwest. I'm the chair of Ancient Island Sierra. I've lived here 50 years, and I've got a pretty good idea of the history of impact fees, what's been done and what's not been done. And I guess the choice for you today is whether you want to bite the bullet and pay the cost or just keep doing business as usual. I mean, there's no free lunch. The roads aren't going to get any cheaper to build. The parks aren't going to get any cheaper to develop. Yeah, I mean, I know it's an expense, but just sometimes reality is what it is. Thank you. Thank you. Next. Good afternoon. My name is Steve Williams with Williams Construction Company. I didn't get to sign up on the list to speak like Mr. Hickman did, but I'm here for 100 subcontractors who work for us and the other 1,000. So I just asked for a few minutes. I'll read directly so I won't get lost. Right ahead. Okay. I'm going to use Ecclesiastics 1-9. It says, what has been done will be done again. What has been done will be done again. There's no new thing under the sun. We call that history. History repeats itself over and over again. So I'm going to tell you, I did a little bit of research. We had a housing boom from 1920 to 1925. It crashed in 1925. We had the Great Depression, 1929. In 1974, we had a stock market hit a all-time low. Inflation went from 2% over 6%. Home prices doubled as the legislation encouraged banks and lenders to keep granting money. In 1997, the savings and loan crisis caused interest rates to rise and new construction dropped to the lowest since World War II. I wasn't around for none of that, so I don't know that part. But I started building in 2000. So from 2000 to 2008, I started building and got a license. And it seemed like all the people I was working for were moving from South Florida. They learned about the chain of lakes in Winter Haven. They were buying up older houses, and we were building. Back then, I'm from Winter Haven. We had Cassie Homes, Bill Reed Construction, Highland Homes, Southern Homes were the track builders. We had Lori Waters, SRD Construction, John Touchton, and Bill Cook were our custom builders. The demand for tradesmen was unreal. We've always had a shortage of tradesmen. So of all the guys I knew in town, everybody went into the construction business. They didn't want to work a nine-to-five. They started drywall companies, framers, electricians, plumbers, ACs, roofer, cleaning crews, dumpster companies, port-and-john companies, new concrete plants opened, supply houses opened. Adam Build Material was down on Lake Ship. They built a brand-new building out in Haines City. Business was booming. People were making and spending money. We were told back then, I remember everybody said, this is a 25-year boom. You can bank on it. Build your business up, hire people, live life. 2004, 2005, we got hit by Hurricane Charlie, Dennis, Francis, Ivan, Gene, and Wilma. Insurance companies dumped $70 billion into the Florida construction. And insurance came in paying 50% to 100% more than new construction to get the work done. So they pulled off all the contractors that were building new homes. They all went and did repair work because that's where all the money was. So, of course, that rose up the price of our houses. And with the insurance companies paying twice as much, it ran up the prices there. So all this money, like a contractor, drove up our costs. Florida saw a 90% increase in the cost of a home from 2000 to 2007. In June, from June of 2004 to June of 2006, the Fed hiked interest rates from 1.25 to 5.25 to put off inflation. This cost increased in lending, and loan repayment escalated by 60%. We became creative, and we figured out this, an arm loan. Y'all know what the arm loan was? Adjustable rate mortgage. We gave people money they shouldn't have got. And it lasted for a little while until the three years came up and you couldn't refinance your house. So, in 2008, we had the crash. Construction come to a stop. All the tradesmen we had, they left and went to, they found nine to five jobs. Filed bank repsies. Shut down businesses. Probably most of them I knew got divorces. They lost everything they had. So, from there, they estimated it took six to eight years for the housing to recover from that crash. The county had to waive impact fees to get people moving again at that time. We shut them all down. In 2015 and 16, Polk County started moving again with new labor coming from other countries, immigration, and states. But still, we've always had a shortage of labor. We can't get the work done. Those that survived 08 are cautious. If you sat and thought anybody who was in construction at 08, they're nervous. They're waiting on the next crash. They tell you, don't spend no money. Don't keep your overhead way down. Pay off everything. Stay small. We know it's coming because history repeats itself. So, let's move forward to 2020. 2020, COVID hits. The government dumps so much cash into the economy. Inflation goes through the roof. It went from 2% to above. We don't even know what inflation is. Nobody can tell us. Is it 10, 20, 30%? Nobody can tell us what it is. House prices rose 50% to 60%. Land prices have doubled. Site development material has doubled and tripled. Interest rates went from 0% to 5%. Increasing lending and repayments went up. Home insurance is up. Property taxes are up. And we are starting new creative financing. I heard it the other day that they're getting people to get two mortgages on a new house now. Get one low and one higher to get them in there because they can't afford it. So, does this sound like history? We're repeating itself again. Everything we've got is going. The way I look at it, we're in 07 right now. Are we looking for a crash next year? But instead, we're sitting here talking about, can we raise more rates up? We are discussing adding more costs to a crashing market. I went and saw the Reagan show the other day. And back then, interest rates were 18%. Inflation was high. Government accounts analysis wanted to raise taxes to pay for it all. Reagan said, lower taxes, put money in the people's pocket, and they will spend it, and government will collect taxes. If you Google Polk County, the largest employer is Publix at $15,361. School Board is at $13,000. Lakeland Regional is $6,900. Walmart is $5,500. Amazon is $5,500. But we don't have a study for construction. If I had to estimate construction, it's probably 30,000, 40,000 people work in construction every day between all the plants and the suppliers that we have. So, we're looking to shut these people down, which is going to kill our economy. Most people work a 9-to-5 job, but we work a 6-to-6 job to provide shelter, education, and recreation for our family. We get up early. We work through the Florida heat. We work through the rain, a few cold days, and we work to make our families work. The study we're discussing shows that we should raise impact fees as out of date and behind. I'm not sure how long this study took place. I heard somebody say a year ago now, but the study is based on 21-22 numbers. If you're in the field like I am, we build about 80 to 100 houses a year that we build ourselves and we sell. Back in January, we noticed the price of the house was going up. I'm sorry, the building costs went up, but the prices are dropping. They're dropping every day. Now, we had cash buyers forever. Now, we have buyers that have to be financed. You have to give them down payment assistance, closing costs. It's just crunching the monies. Interest rates have increased and disqualified most buyers. Homes are not selling. I got an article in this magazine right here just coming out for June. 56,000 contracts that were signed in June were canceled because people don't want to buy houses. The in-depth study shows that 21% of these homes were in Orlando, 20 and a half were in Jacksonville, 20 and a half were in Tampa. So, Florida is not immune to it as we all thought we were. One article has Lakeland as the second highest overpriced area in Florida, stating there's a 34% correction coming to Florida. Another study says that 730,000 people moved to Florida from 21 to 22, but 500,000 have left. They say the heat, poor-paying jobs, and companies cutting out working from home has caused them to move out. The market has cooled and will continue as the COVID rush has passed. Economists label this as stagflation, high inflation, low growth, and unemployment. If we shut down construction in Polk County, we will see this. First, I'm asking you to not be the Monday morning quarterback who's going to look back and say, we should have saw that, we should have saw that. Instead, let's be proactive and let's try to crush these impact fees so we can keep construction moving. Thank you. Thank you. Sounds pretty tough, but I invite you to try farming for a while, and you'll see 23, 22, and 21 weren't good years either. Anybody else? All right. I'll close the public hearing. Bring it back to George. Yes, sir. Staff was quick to give an answer on if we took out those small parcels and limited the parks to regional community and specialty, and it brought it down to about 1,100. Did you have time to calculate the occupancy numbers that the gentleman from the apartment organization, yours was 1.9 and his was 1.5? Do you have that extrapolation of how that might affect your numbers? And we are required to use current and local data, and if they're representing data that was significantly off by that amount, it may be worth taking a peek at. So the data we are using is from American Community Survey, the latest data that they have for Polk County at the time of the study. Even if we can get the units from property appraisers, we don't know how many people are living in each of them, so we can't do the same calculation that we need for the study. The fees that are affected by the person per housing unit are about 17% of the total. So if the rate, persons per housing unit was 25% lower, overall fee for multifamily would decrease about 4%. Okay. Thank you. As I presented in the earlier commission meeting, I recognized the need for the fees. As I said, it's a necessary evil, but never have we not phased in fees of this magnitude. So I'd like to revisit my suggestion earlier that the fees be phased in effective January 25, January 26, and January 27, which on the residential side is about $2,000 each step. Now, while that sounds like three years, it's really just 24 months from January 25 until January 27, that 24-month period to establish those new fees. But while we've concentrated on single-family, there's been little or no discussion on non-residential, and I've asked staff to prepare an example of how these new fees would affect that. So if we look at – that one's hard to see. Yes. Let's go to the table where you did examples because individually is – there we go. An office – a 20,000-square-foot office center or individual office would go from $68,900 to $101,360. That's a 47% increase. Retail commercial less than 20,000 square feet would be a strip center. Probably multi-tenants would go from $104,860 to $162,720, or a 55% increase. Retail commercial over 55,000 square feet, a Publix or certainly a Walmart would be twice that. $288,000 to $447,480, another 55% increase. Industrial manufacturing, a sample 100,000 square feet, $77,100, $119,700. And the warehouse, $660,000 to $745,000, a 13% increase. What I'm suggesting, again, for both non-residential as well as the residential is that we phase these in over three installments. And what I've asked staff to do in this chart is take the delta between the total calculated to the fee from the current, divide that number by three, and have those installments applied equally over the next three installments, 25, 26, and 27. So what I'd... Offer that in a motion, George, and I'll second it, and then we'll have discussion. So move as a motion. Second. All right. Oh, we got a motion now we can... We got a motion to amend... Discussion debate. Yes, sir. So what this would effectively do, what the motion intends is that the example presented here and the granular numbers that support this would substitute in the 300-page ordinance, attachment 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 would be substituted for this exhibit here on the non-residential side. And the chart that I presented earlier, for those of you who still have that... I kept mine. And again, what... I did take some liberties on the parks, and if you recall the recent conversation, the regional community and specialty, which is really what we focus on, would be about $1,100. What I had done earlier was take 75% of the $1,864, which produces $1,398, which is still more than $1,100, leaving off those 2- and 3- and 4-acre parks that we simply don't build anymore. And I also adjusted the school fee, as history will tell us. In the past, we only adopted 75% of the school fee because there was capacity not being used by the school system, and it was up to them to redistrict in order to put the kids where the capacity is. They've made some progress in that regard, and they continue to move forward in that effort. My suggestion there, rather than limit it to the 75%, as we did in previous years, that we make that 85% recognizing they have made progress and certainly could be adjusted at future dates as they continue to redistrict. So the essence of my motion, then, is to have the non-residential differentials be spread over three years and the residential reflect the schedule that I presented to the staff and the board last week. So that's the essence of my motion, and I assume the second. All right. Commissioners, if I may, I'm sorry. Yeah, go ahead. I did want to mention, Commissioner Lindsay, that we had prepared some slides that show that, your plan. So in January 25, these green highlights were kind of the same as what you had put out, where, you know, EMS goes to the 153 library and fire. And then Neil and her team broke out the rest of the fees in a similar manner. So all of these kind of break out in the same categories. The second year, law enforcement. And then the third year is the schools and parks numbers that you had mentioned. So I just wanted to mention that. We have that. When you cascade those numbers across, it's right at $2,000 a year bump in the total. All right. Neil, you want to go? Todd, did you ever get those numbers for me? Well, you looked at it, I can state unequivocally I have no interest in modifying this. The cost is the cost. It is what it is. I don't think this is going to – I just did the math. It's $60 additional on a mortgage. I don't think that's a deal breaker. But the real issue is the cost is the cost. Polk County has been very good builders. We've always listened to you. We've always taken into consideration, you know, how these things impact you. But the simple fact is prices are out of control and our prices are out of control. You know, the way I see it, the only option is to do what Orange County does and put a moratorium on construction, which will let us catch up as opposed to continuing to move on. I don't think anybody wants that. And I'll go to Neil now. Commissioner, I don't have the actuals to date, but what I have is what we were projecting to budget next year based on, you know, our history and what we've seen. So that number was $29,331,000 basically for all of the impact fees except for schools. Schools was about $110 million range is what we were anticipating next year. So $140 million when you combine? Yeah, in total just under $140 million. That wasn't water, wastewater, that's exclusive of those? Correct. That's directly impact fees, not connection fees, or any other permitting fees. Sounds like a lot of money. But I was looking, you know, the county's approximately 173 years old. And for the first 70 years, there wasn't, public facilities were far and few between, I think, until you got into the 20s, mentioned the 20s boom, and then depression that followed. But there wasn't a whole lot of public facilities. There wasn't a whole lot of roads that were anything other than dirt. And so not a lot to talk about there. But, you know, for the first 140 years, there were no impact fees in Polk County. That's not how the county funded whatever it was we were doing. It was through other sources, property tax mostly, and then later sales tax. So there's been other things. But impact fees didn't come along until the early 90s. I was here before impact fees, and I've been here during impact fees. And it's not something I've ever felt good about. And the reason, Mike Hickman actually said it, you know, the people that pay them are not just those folks that are coming from Rhode Island or New Hampshire or, I don't know, California, Puerto Rico, wherever. I mean, a lot of those people are folks that are born and raised here. They're our children. They're our grandchildren, neighbors. So that's always been a little difficult for me because somehow or another we made it for 140 years without any impact fees. And all of a sudden, you know, anybody that wants to come in or create something new, we got to exact a fee from them because we don't want to have our existing residents have to pay for that growth. And believe me, that's a, you know, I feel the same way about that. I don't know if it was Mike or who it was that said it, but you said it impacts everybody, and I agree. But I will tell you, you will have a hard time convincing a majority of the population of this county that they have benefited from the development that's occurred in the last 10 years. They don't see it that way. They see their housing values rise. And when those assessed values go up, even if the millage rate stays the same, or even if you reduce it like we did this year, everybody's paying higher taxes. And a lot of folks aren't seeing any benefit from that. So they may be receiving a benefit, but you'll have a hard time convincing them that they're actually benefiting from it. But, you know, this is, and I agree with everything you were saying about how things happen. And as George says, thanks for taking us down memory lane. So thanks for taking us down memory lane. But, you know, all the king's horses and all the king's men can't stop what's coming. It's coming. Just as sure as the sun comes up in the east, we're going to be facing a slowdown. And I think everybody up here is starting to acknowledge that next year isn't going to be like this year or the year before. We're going to be dealing with less revenue. But, and Bill just said it, and he's exactly right. We have been good to the building community relative to neighbors. We set the bar low. I mean, there's no denying. It's mostly whatever the minimum acceptable is. That's what has been our requirements. If you want to do more, then go do more. But, I mean, we have continuously and forever set the bar low in this county. And we're paying a price for it. The parks is $1,800. I mean, that shocked me when I saw it. I'm like, damn, $1,800. You know, that seems to be outrageous. How can we do that? And so it got me to thinking that while, you know, probably the right thing to do would be just accept this as presented, put it in place, and let things work themselves out. What's going to be is going to be. But I thought there's got to be a better way. But George mentioned a minute ago that we don't do neighborhood parks anymore, although he didn't use the word neighborhood. There was a time when there were little parks scattered around, and there's still a bunch of them that exist. It's difficult to maintain them. You've got to load up. The guy's got to get a mower and a weed eater and a blower and go here, there. It's a lot more efficient if we can have a regional park where you have people on site. They keep the grass mowed or they keep the artificial turf blown off or whatever. I'm not a big artificial turf guy. I like the grass and the dirt. But I got to thinking there's got to be a better way to deal with this. And one way, we're not going to have time to do it, and I've thrown it out to the board, and it's just a concept. And John's tried to help me with it a little bit, but on these platted developments, not necessarily a PD, but anything that's platted over a certain size has to have some, or this is my opinion, and this would do a lot to help solve our deficit and our need for more parks for kids who can't get somebody to take them to it, that don't have a sidewalk to walk to one, if there was one close enough to even walk to. We are putting people in subdivisions with 7,000, 8,000 square foot lots without a single place to play, not even in the street, because we park cars in the streets. So there really aren't many options for a lot of these kids, and I think that we have really done a disservice over the years to a lot of folks by not requiring some active all-purpose field in there where somebody could throw a baseball or a football or a kicker soccer ball or throw a Frisbee. They don't have that, so many of them. But we could do this a different way, and we could have a more affordable way, I think, to solve the recreation deficit and problem, I think, that exists here. But when you look at the county, I've got the number from Stacey, give it to me. Our roads and bridges, the cost, this isn't replacement cost, this is what it costs the people of Polk County, is $4 billion. The depreciated value from that last year was $18,110,000. So she's required to do that through the government accounting requirements that are imposed on us. We have to know what those are. But the insured, I got this from Mark Thomas, that's what I was asking him about, the insured value of our buildings is $800,000,000. And this building, I don't know what part of that $800,000,000 this is, but this building is 34 years old. And I venture to say it's got another 34 years of life left in it. It may have another 68 years of life left in it. It seems to be in great shape, the idea that we've got to pay for this building or anything else overnight, you know, with cash on the spot. It isn't really a good way, in my opinion, to govern that first 140 years. A lot of the things that we did in this county that were created were paid for through bond financing. And that is, you move in, you're paying while you're here. If you decide you're going to go to California and leave here, then you're not going to be paying anymore because it's paid annually, incrementally. You pay these facilities off, but when you've got a life expectancy, and I don't know what the life expectancy is on this building, but maybe it is 100 years. And I don't know, you go to New York and Boston and places like that, and there's buildings that are 250 years old. So, you know, the idea that we need to collect as much as we can to pay for these things all at once, but there's been no opportunity or capacity to do any bond financing because we take everything that we receive every year and we spend it to enhance the quality of life, to make sure that public safety is funded, you know, to a reasonable or acceptable amount, one that will keep us safe. So there's nothing ever left over that we could service those bonds with, again, which I think is a mistake, but it is what it is. But I wish that, I don't want to do $1,800 right now, but I do want to do something with the land development regulations, which would require, if you're going to put in a platted subdivision with 25 homes, that you got an acre or two that isn't a retention pond, because that's a bunch of bull crap. We've let it go on for years, that an open space is a retention pond, or a retention pond is recreational. Sometimes you can swim in it, and sometimes you can play ball in it. It just depends. To me, that's absolutely nonsense, but it's gone on forever, and it'll probably continue to go on. But I don't like the Lindsay plan, but I think the Lindsay plan is better than the fallback, which is the understate statute. And with the $1,800 for parks and recreation, 367 percent, is that the number? You know, it's just a little too much. We've got to have four votes here, if we're going to do. Yeah, so that's, I can do the math. That's two and two and three and three. Well, I can't speak for these guys, but hold on. Go ahead. I'll let you speak. Thank you. Keep in mind the math. So, two weeks ago when George presented, and I'm glad you brought it in, George, because I had a copy of it myself before you handed out the copies. Because I wanted, I'm asking our commissioners here to relook at George's plan, because I think it's a good plan. In 2019, when we increased impact fees then, we did a plan just like this, where we were phasing the different options. We know that we're going to have to have impact fees. It goes along with the growth. I don't think I've heard anybody deny that that spoke today. However, phasing it in is a little bit easier to deal with. One, to deal with the gentleman that brought up about all the businesses that comprise, when we talk about building houses, all these businesses that are here. That is going to, that's going to impact that. But at the same time, it helps them, and it also helps us to be able to get the fees so that we can go ahead and pay for the growth. We're going to, based on what George presented, we're going to reach the same results. Same results, except it's going to be phased out, and it's going to give us an all-in opportunity to be able to deal with this a little bit better. Yes, we've set the bar low before. We're ready to move forward with the impact fees, but we don't have to move it with 100%. We could move it with a phasing in, and I like George's plan, and I'm going to support that, because I think that's the route we need to go. Mr. Chairman, if I can finish, though. Hold on. Okay. You sure you're not done yet? I'm not done yet. Okay. But go ahead. You know, I'm just going to make it short and quick. I'm going to, you know, it's pretty, you know, George's idea when he brought it up is a good idea. And I think this board, and like Billy just said, I know how to count, too. And I think it's good. And, you know, everybody understands. We've been through it for two weeks now. We've talked about it. We knew how it was going to work, how it's not going to work. But this is a good plan. And we're going through enough hell in this world, you know, with prices and stuff. If we can phase this in and help everybody out, I'm all in. So there you have it. Neil, you had more? Well, you know, even if we go with George's plan, we're still at $1,800, and I'm willing to do that. My plan rolls the $1,800 to $1,398. I'm not willing to roll it to $1,398. I'd rather keep it at $1,800 if we don't have an agreement to try to do something with our land development regulations to lessen this need for $1,800. I think what we've done for PDs, as you pointed out, we've overlooked, you know, existing land uses that would be exempt from that. And all we've got to do is tell the staff to put that same standard, you know, and we can do it. And, John, and I have had that conversation. If it's not a PD, then you skate if you want to skate. And it seems like everybody likes to skate these days. But if we did change it to include just the land use and not just PD but anything that gets platted, but I still don't think it's enough. I don't think it's specific enough to do what I'm trying to do and or what I think needs to be done, which would be like a neighborhood park. But obviously when you're out buying a piece of property, when Greg goes to buy a piece of property, he's going to be like, guys, I can't pay any more than that because I've got to take an acre or two acres out to set aside here for a park. So this is the only thing we can pay. That adjustment will be made when the land is contracted to purchase. So I really am adamant about this, that we need to find a solution because we're not really there yet. But this number still reflects more than regional, community, and specialty parks. And then it's on the rest of the board to make that change in the land development code. So I think what's good for PD is good for straight zoning. I agree with that. You don't? Yeah, but I don't know if it's – once we leave here – Have you asked to modify the motion, or are you good with Georgia's motion? No, no. No, I think I've got to go with the motion right now as it exists because then we go back and try to change it. No, I don't want to modify the motion. I want to go to the 1800 on parks. That will be an incentive to come up with a fix. Who made the original motion? George. Commissioner Lindsey. If that's what it takes to get a phase in, then we'll make those adjustments. And does it roll back when you change the – That's what I'm hoping for. Well, we can deal with that then. I just wonder when then is going to be, though, Bill. Seriously. If we leave here, then – You still have – I'm going to be gone. George is going to be gone. I'm going to be gone. Up to these remaining three to make that change. But this basically, as it stands right now, over-collects for what we're really building from the county side. The regional parks, the community parks, and the specialty. It over-collects for that. And it doesn't count all those 99 parks that are less than five acres. So I think we have overcompensated for that. And to go to 18 would be an overreach. So I'm sticking with the 1398, which is still more than the 1100 that staff said would be the equivalent for those three types of parks and the phase-in schedule. Then the onus is on this board. But you have two more installments starting in January 25, 26, and 27. If the board chooses not to make those changes in the non-PD, then you've got a chance to go back and make this change in future. But I think I'm hearing from those who will be here to make that decision, a willingness to make those non-PD residential communities have more recreation on site. Okay. Then I'm going to vote against the motion unless we stay at 1800, and then you all can fix it. All right. So we've got a motion. So the motion on the table is for the 1300 number. Is that correct? 1398, I think you said. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. And we've got a second. Correct? All right. All in favor of the motion to adopt Georgia's modification, say aye. Aye. Opposed? No. Me? Fails, because you need 4-1. Okay. So it did not pass. Correct. Okay. So now we're back to square. I'll offer you a motion then that we take Commissioner Lindsay's plan with the exception of Parks and Recreation, and we change that number to the recommended number from our consultant. 1864? Whatever it is, I don't care. So it's Georgia's plan with one modification for the Parks? Right. Okay. That's a motion. Do I have a second? Got a motion and a second. My only comment is this just kicks the can down the road, which I don't agree with at all. So all in favor of the motion to approve Georgia's modification with one exception being the Parks, say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed, like, sign, nay. That passes 4-1. We'll plug in that table and give it to the chairman to sign. Okay. Maybe I'll sign it. Well, the clerk will attest that that's what's passed. Five-minute break, chairman. Sure. We'll take a five-minute break. It's your adoption of a resolution providing that the proposed Polk County Ag Center serves a public purpose. This action is necessary for the county to seek funding from the state. This action will also authorize the filing of a grant application for funds from the state, and it is recommended for approval. All right. I'll open a public hearing. Anyone wishing to speak on this matter, please come forward. Seeing no one, I'll close the public hearing and bring it back to the board. Motion for approved. Second. Got a motion and a second. George. Certainly for the motion, but it raises a question. The commitment to move forward, did that include, I won't say binding, but strong emphasis on the site we've been looking at for the last few years, south of Bartow, and the plan that was presented by that group with Bartow? No. No on the group. Actually, nothing. And I don't know, maybe you're referring to it right now, but another opportunity has popped up that needs to be vetted, but we'll see how that goes. Right now, it's just moving forward with, I don't even know how to describe it, figuring out what we want. That's really, as far as structures go. Okay. That's why I raised the question, to know that there's nothing binding or leaning toward the deck. It's cleared for any consideration. Correct. Including what we talked about before. Correct. Okay. All right. Anybody else? Okay. We've got a motion and a second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, like, sign. Motion carries. Minus one. P6. Go figure. Morning, commissioners. Scott Lowry, real estate services support manager. I've got three items this morning still, and I will try to be brief. The first one is a petition that we received from James Emery Jackson to vacate a portion of platted, unopened, and unmaintained right-of-way, shown as 3rd Street on the map of Crosby's Addition to Loffman. Recorded in Map Book 4 at page 43. The map filed in 1916. And I have the wrong presentation. I apologize. All right. The map filed in 1916 depicts various rights away throughout the platte, which are presumed to be public, as the platte has no dedication. The petitioner, along with a family member, owned property adjacent to the 40-foot-wide platted right-of-way shown as 3rd Street on the platte. The property appraiser only acknowledges a portion of this. However, we could find no evidence that this area to the north, which is highlighted, had ever been previously vacated. The petitioner is requesting the right-of-way to remove any clouds on the title and allow for assemblage with the adjacent properties for future development. The county received a written consent from the adjacent family member, as well as another adjacent owner to the west, and received no objections. The appropriate utility providers and county divisions were contacted, and there were no objections to the proposed vacation. Staff recommends the board adopt a resolution to vacate a portion of platte, unopened, and unmaintained right-of-way shown as 3rd Street on Crosby's Addition to Loffman, as more fully described in a legal description attached to the petition and resolution. And I will remain standing for any questions. All right, I'll open a public hearing. Anyone wishing to speak on this matter, please come forward. Seeing nobody, I'll close the public hearing and bring them back to the board. Move approval. Motion is second to approve. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed, like signed. Motion carries. Next item is a petition from Suzanne Miller's attorney as authorized agent for Hope Rise Development in 234 Fantasy to vacate portions of platte and unmaintained rights-of-way on the platts of Holly Hill Addition to Loffman and Roy Miller's subdivision at Loffman. The platts, recorded in 1936 and 1946, dedicated various rights-of-way to the public. The petitioners owned the properties lying adjacent to the 30-foot unnamed right-of-way shown on the platte of Holly Hill, and a portion of the 30-foot right-of-way shown as South Holly Hill on the platte of Roy Miller, and are currently developing the area. They have requested the vacation to resolve certain development conditions and multiple property owners, some of which are related to petitioners, utilize the right-of-way as part of their access, and the petitioners have granted easements to them to allow for that continued access. Vacaying the subject rights will remove the public's interest and allow the petitioner to move forward with their planned development. Appropriate utility riders and county divisions were contacted, and there were no objections. However, Duke Energy and Florida Public Utilities did request easements, and the petitioner has complied with that request. Staff recommends the board adopt a resolution to vacate the platte of rights-of-way shown on the platts of Holly Hill, addition to Lofman and Roy Miller's subdivision, as more particularly described in the petitioner resolution attached to the agenda. And I will remain standing for any questions. Questions? I'll open a public hearing. Anyone wishing to speak on this matter, please come forward. We'll need your name and address. Hello, my name is Emmanuel, last name Mohammed, and my address is 1014-1212. So, I just want to thank you guys. I am actually the developer, and this county has just been incredible. John Brody and all of his stuff, building, Ben, I mean, you guys are just awesome. Teaching me a lot and always available to assist, so thank you. Thank you. I'm sure they thank you. Anybody else? All right, I'll close the public hearing and bring you back to the board. Move, adopt a resolution. Second. Motion is second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, like, sign motion carries. Okay, and the last item is a petition received from Brian Mixon as president of Ridge Youth Agricultural Foundation, and he's the authorized representative for Phyllis Allen, Mildred Banks, Christopher Coleman, Todd Rotten, and Waverly Growers Cooperative to vacate portions of the platted rights-of-ways shown on the platter Waverly Manor Town Unit No. 1, and the platter Washington Park. The plats, filed in 1926 and 1941, respectively, dedicated various rights-of-way throughout the plats to the public. The petitioner owns properties, some of which was recently purchased, adjacent to platted rights-of-ways shown as Taylor Avenue, Gordon Avenue, and Pine Street on the Waverly Platte, and 4th Avenue and Carver Street on the Washington Park Platte. They are requesting the vacation of the rights-of-way adjacent to their properties in order to take over maintenance, add fencing, curtail, illegal dumping, and better secure their properties from trespass. Most of the rights-of-way are unmaintained, however, a short segment of Carver Street, and you can see that here, is a county maintained but primarily serves the petitioner's property. One of their adjacent owners in the Washington Park Platte was contacted and no objection was received, but their access will not be affected by the vacation. The appropriate utility providers and county divisions were contacted. Duke Energy requested an easement, as well as roads and drainage and utilities for drainage and utility purposes, and the petitioners have complied with the request. Staff recommends the board adopt a resolution to vacate platted rights-of-way shown the platted Waverly-Mander, and Washington Park is more fully described in the petitioner's resolution, and also accept the drainage easement and utilities easement. Question. And I will stand for any questions. All right, I'll open a public hearing. Anyone wishing to speak on this matter, please come forward. I'll close the public hearing and bring it back to the board. Okay. Motion and a second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, like, sign, motion carries. P-9. Good morning. For the record, Amy Gregory, traffic manager for the roads and drainage division. And I have two traffic calming items for you this morning. First item this morning is a public hearing to consider adoption of a resolution to allow the placement of five traffic calming devices on Lake Thomas Drive and Winter Haven. Lake Thomas Drive has classified a local residential road, 20 feet wide, 8,171 feet long, with a posted speed limit of 25 miles an hour. Upon receiving a request for traffic calming, staff collected speed and volume data and reviewed the crash history. And with an 85th percentile speed of 33 miles an hour and an average daily traffic of 397 vehicles, Lake Thomas Drive met the board's traffic calming policy criteria for speed and volume. Staff subsequently distributed ballots to the homeowners with property fronting Lake Thomas Drive, and we received the required 80% favorable response from yes votes and from non-votes per the board's policy. Staff also distributed ballots to the homeowners whose access is through Lake Thomas Drive, and we received the required 50% favorable response from yes votes and from non-votes per the board's policy. On August 20th, 2024, a hearing date of September 17th, 2024, was set by consent agenda, and staff posted on-site notices as well. And as much as the board's criteria for the installation of traffic calming devices have been met, staff recommends adoption of a resolution to install five speed humps along Lake Thomas Drive. And I'll stand for any questions. Questions? I'll open a public hearing. Anyone wishing to speak on this matter, please come forward. Josh Klein is the name I have. Oh, you're the next one? Okay. Okay. Just have a seat, and you can talk during that one. My name is Jim Serrera. I live at 179 Lake Thomas Drive, Winter Haven. My question, when we did the survey, we all said yes, but do we know where they're going to be placed? They never came back and told us, because we have certain parts of Lake Thomas we want to make sure get one also. So it's not just the main drive. On my section of 179, it's that they can make that turn, and they like to cruise right through the curve, straighten it out and everything. We're just talking Lake Thomas Drive now. The placement is on this exhibit, and it should have been sent with your ballot. Okay. Then you're on the other portion of Lake Thomas Drive, then, that's not getting them. You can go through the process and get them, but we're just not voting on that today. All right. Appreciate it. You bet. Anybody else? All right. I'll close the public hearing and bring it back to the board. Move adoption. Second. Motion and a second for approval. All in favor say aye. Aye. Motion carries. P10. And the last item I have for you this morning is a public hearing to consider adoption of a resolution to allow the placement of five traffic calming devices on Lewis Road in Lakeland. Lewis Road is classified as an urban collector road, 20 feet wide, 2,612 feet long, with a posted speed limit of 35 miles an hour. Upon receiving a request for traffic calming, staff collected speed and volume data and reviewed the crash history. And with an 85th percentile speed of 44 miles an hour and average daily traffic of 3,654 vehicles, Lewis Road met the board's traffic calming policy criteria for speed and volume. Staff subsequently distributed ballots to the homeowners with property fronting Lewis Road, and we received the required 80% favorable response from yes votes and from non-votes per the board's policy. Staff also distributed ballots to homeowners whose access is through Lewis Road, and we received the required 50% favorable response from yes votes and from non-votes per the board's policy. On September 3rd, a hearing date of September 17th, 2024, was set by consent agenda, and staff posted on-site notices as well. And as much as the board's criteria for the installation of traffic calming devices have been met, staff recommends adoption of a resolution to install five speed humps along Lewis Road. Questions? I'll open a public hearing. Anyone wishing to speak on this, please come forward. Josh Klein? Yeah, I'm Josh Klein. I'm at 3068 Weston Place, which is right in the middle of this quarter-mile stretch that runs between Campbell Road and Duff Road. And with the proposed five, I'm trying to figure out what the accomplishment is of slowing down traffic. It's posted at 35, and she said that the average speed is 44. I think we could not spend 25,000 on five speed bumps, but we could better control the traffic flow or slow it down by a number of different things. Most people in just about wherever you drive, if the speed limit's posted one, they go at five to 10 miles faster. So the 44 would be within that limit. We could take and maybe reduce the speed limit from 35 down to 30. That would bring down the speed limit or people driving it under 40, which is basically where we're at right now with this posted speed limit of 35. Or we could reduce the number of speed bumps, which we really don't need one at each end because both ends are T's in the road. People got to slow down and stop to make a turn for a T, and one end is a stoplight, the other end is a stop sign, so they got to slow down for that anyway. So why do we need a speed bump at each end? If we got to go with the speed bump theory, I would put one, basically one right in the middle. I would slow it down to 15. Another problem with having five speed bumps, all your emergency vehicles that got to cut through there are also going to have to be slowed down. They're not going to be hitting them speed bumps at whatever cruising rate they're going to the emergency with. The only other thing that I can think of is right now the postings for the speed limits are only like about 50 feet from each corner as you turn on to Lewis Road off of Duff. There's two convenience stores on each side of the road with traffic going in and out and people coming through there, and pedestrians crossing there, not in the sidewalks, but they do cross there. So you're basically looking at traffic and other things and not noticing the speed limit sign. So after you get past the speed limit sign, a lot of people probably don't know what the speed limit is. I would propose putting maybe more speed limit signs down the road. There are several places where they have no parking signs. They could add a speed limit sign to any one of them on each way. That could help reduce the traffic speed as well. I guess my point is that I think we're spending money that don't need to be spent on traffic flow when there's other options. Thank you. Thank you. Next. Mr. Chairman. Yeah. No, he's coming up. Let him come up. All right. Manny. I own the location at corner of Duff and Lewis. Convenience store used to be 7-Eleven. Now it's independent shell. My concern would be a question for you, ma'am. How many citations were issued last year for speeding? I can't tell you that. That's a law enforcement question. How many wrecks were on the record between... This isn't a question and answer period. This is your time to make a comment, so she's not here to answer your questions. I'm trying to get to the bottom cause that... She doesn't have the answer to your questions. You don't have to. No. Well, you had an opportunity before to ask the questions. You didn't take it then. We're not going to listen to it now. So my concern would be, is it possible? Can we use the same tag-reading cameras? They have capability of measuring the speed for the vehicle for one year. No, the sheriff opposes that. We've had discussions about schools on speed cameras, and he's not interested. What do you mean? It's up to the sheriff, and the sheriff said no to speed schools on cameras. If he won't support them in the speed, I mean, in the school zones, he's not going to support them on Lewis Road, I'll assure you. It's up to him. It's not us. I understand. Yeah, it's not our decision. Why do they have on Kathleen North going north and south? Those are license plate readers. They don't do anything for speed. They do major speed as well, just for a knowledge. All right, well, we can debate that all day, but what else you got to say? What I'm saying is putting five bumps is not going to resolve a situation of accidents, for sure. Number two, it will heavily impact the businesses. People who are using Lewis now, they can either use Green as an alternate road or can use Kathleen. It doesn't solve the problem. And another thing, very seriously, as densely populated those roads with houses are, emergency vehicles will be highly impacted by the speed bumps. That needs to be solved. If somebody needs emergency service, it could be delayed to get that help that they need to. So that you need to consider because putting speed bumps is not an issue or solution to this. We have to come up with other solution. And the biggest thing I would be for emergency vehicles. Will they travel 30 miles or 35 miles an hour to give somebody help with five bumps? There are neighborhoods who have entrances on that, Lewis Road going in. That will be impacted as well. Whether rush hour time people going to work and coming home from work in rush hour, it will be causing a lot of backups because speed restraints. So I would appreciate if somebody from you guys will come up with another solution to revisit the situation. I'm all for safety, but not at the same time causing backlogs on traffic, which makes it more congestion to people who live there. Thank you. Neil? Well, just Amy, you said the average is 44, which is really unacceptable when you look at Lewis Road and the people that live on Lewis Road and what they put up with. But what is the – you got some high numbers somewhere you hadn't mentioned to us. I don't have that data with me. I just have the 85th percentile. Okay. Well, I'll assure you there are probably many trips that are well in excess of 44 miles per hour. Those are the ones that are the trouble. The 44, not good. The 64, unacceptable. So with that, Mr. Chairman, you closing the public hearing? I will close the public hearing unless anyone else cares to speak. Seeing nobody, it's closed. I move adoption and resolution. Got a motion and a second for approval. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed like signed, motion carries. We are not done. Mr. Chair, if I could just take a minute. If I could ask Todd Bond and his lovely wife to come to the podium, please. You know, Todd has – a month or so ago, Todd tendered his resignation for retirement effective a week from Friday. And I can't say enough about Todd. He's had 23 years, Todd, with the county and eight with the state of Florida. Todd has been like a brother to me on a personal and professional level. Todd is probably the one gentleman I have butted heads with more in my tenure up there. But he's walked me off the ledge many times, let me fall off that ledge many times. But I can't say enough about Todd. Todd, you're going to be truly missed by our office. You're going to be missed by the budget office. You're going to be missed in the health and human services arena and all the support services group that you have helped manage for many years. And I just can't say enough about you, and there's nobody who's deserved their retirement more than you, Todd. Thank you. I know it's been a long morning, so I won't say a whole lot. Well, you know, Todd, we probably should have done this at the beginning when you'd have a big crowd to applaud. It would sound really impressive. I'm good with the smaller crowd. I'm fine with that. But, no, I thank you. Thank you for the kind words, Bill. Thank you all for all of your support and work through the years. It's been 23 to 24 years here, plus I had about eight years with the state before I started here. So that got me to my 32 years. They call it retiring, but that's really from this job. I'm going to be under new management. And she's already got me a shirt that says that, so I'm sure she's ready for that, too. But, no, it's just a great opportunity to be able to spend more time with my wife, my parents, and go out and do some things we wanted. Well, congratulations on retirement. That's great. I will say this. You've always been a shell answer man for me. If I had a question, you always had the answer, and it's always been very impressive, and you've done a great job. Mr. Chairman, just let me say, Todd, it's been a pleasure and a joy to work with you. You're an absolute professional, and your calm demeanor is good. When you're working with somebody like me, it's exceptionally good. So I wish you all the best. I hope you all have a great time, and you'll be coming back probably two or three months. You'll be tired of that retirement. Too much work. Thank you both. And Commissioner Braswell, you said that, but I haven't got you the answer to the last question you asked yesterday, so we're still working on that. That's all right. Yeah. Todd, I just want to say thank you for everything that you've done to help me in the last six years. You've been solid, and I appreciate that very much. I wish you the very best in your future. I retire, too, so take heed what retirement may be. But anyway, just lots of luck and enjoy the rest of your life. Are you in District 5? Four. Three, four. Yeah. Eight. I did. I mean, you've been, just like with what she just said, I've been here six years. You've been flawless with me, helping me in every way that you could, and I thank you, and I wish you the best of luck for you and your family. In my 12 years, thank you for everything. And as you said earlier, consummate professional, thank you for your service. Thank you all. And my last day is the 27th, so I'm here all next week. Feel free to holler. I'll load you up. We have a little get-together at 2 o'clock upstairs on the third floor. Today? Yes, sir. Oh, okay. All right, great. Anything else? I just wanted to say that you guys are, I'm so sorry for taking him from you, but he will not find a more dedicated, loyal, competent person than my husband. I'm sorry that I'm taking him from you, but it's our turn. Yeah, and we know that. Yeah, this is an amazing man. They don't make him like him anymore. Thank you. All right, we're adjourned.