let's get started on the october 21st 2025 regular board of county commissioners meeting would everybody please stand for implication and stay and remain standing for our pledge allegiance please good morning please pray with me heavenly father as the events of our day continue to unfold we seek your clarity and your peace as we gather here today and make decisions for the good of our county it is comforting to know that you are with us and for us as we seek your counsel scripture reminds us that the more we seek you the more we find you lead our surrendered hearts to the path of your peace today and i ask this prayer in jesus name amen we have some employee recognitions everybody down good morning commissioners staff and visitors i'm caitlin hoverkamp public and media relations officer for polk county government today we are recognizing five employees for their service to polk county i'd like to invite the employees to come to the front as their names are called and then if the honorees will remain at the front while the commissioners return to the dais behind them we'll take a group photo at the end rodolfo rudy socorro has worked for polk county fire rescue for 20 years rudy began his career with the department as a firefighter emergency medical technician he was then promoted to a driver engineer position before being promoted to captain in 2012 rudy is a certified hazmat technician and rescue specialist and has received several unit citations throughout his time with polk county fire rescue in his spare time he enjoys traveling cars watching his kids play soccer and spending time with his wife vivian and their three daughters sydney tabitha and penelope in the future rudy looks forward to continuing to help build the future of the organization working on professional development and hopes to promote to the position of battalion chief one day david searite jr has worked for polk county fire rescue for 25 years david joined the department as an emergency medical technician throughout his time with the department david has also served within a wide range of roles including paramedic firefighter paramedic an engineer paramedic before moving on to his current role as a captain paramedic david obtained his emergency medical services associates in science degree from polk state college and is a certified fire instructor too and an american heart association instructor he currently serves as chair of the 2025 icardi foundation conference agenda and is set to the chair set to chair the 2027 conference for the icardi foundation a non-profit organization dedicated to aiding families affected by a cardi syndrome he is also a make-a-wish foundation family alumni member in his spare time david enjoys building legos with his son oliver and spending time with his wife katie and daughter adeline michelle sims has worked for the polk county procurement division for 25 years and she currently serves as the operations manager michelle is currently pursuing her bachelor's degree in public administration from polk county polk state college she is a certified public manager public procurement officer and professional public buyer michelle is a member of heartland community church and is a member of many professional organizations including the florida city and county management association and florida center for public management she is also a national and state member of nigp the institute for public procurement and the florida association of public procurement officials in her spare time michelle enjoys reading traveling completing hands-on creative projects and spending time with her husband will and stepdaughter naomi in the future michelle looks forward to continuing to grow professionally within the polk county procurement division charles also known as charlie blocker has worked for the polk county roads and drainage division for 30 years he joined the department as a service worker operator one before being promoted to his current position as service worker operator two for the frost proof roadway maintenance unit charlie is a member of the first baptist church of frost proof and has received special recognition from former polk county sheriff lawrence w crow jr for volunteer service work he completed ensuring the south county jail achieved its national inspection certification in his spare time charlie enjoys hunting fishing fishing traveling and spending time with his wife marcy his daughter abby and his sons jeremy aiden and johnny in the future he looks forward to continuing to travel with his wife danny tucker has worked for polk county roads and drainage for 35 years danny began his career with the department as a service worker before being promoted to the equipment operator two role and was then promoted to his current role as equipment operator three for the fort mead roadway maintenance unit he is a member of the church of god and has received multiple certifications in auto mechanics body work and one-year diesel mechanics in his spare time danny enjoys working on cars trying new restaurants working in the yard and spending time with his beautiful family his daughter tanya tucker manager for the polk county code enforcement division his granddaughter caitlin and his three-year-old great-granddaughter in the future danny looks forward to retiring and traveling the world that he hasn't had the chance to see it all right everyone it is time for some public comments concerning our agenda agenda items and i have two people signed up regarding g3 the first one is david brown you'd like to come forward state your name and address and you'll be given three minutes good morning commissioners my name is david brown i live at 1220 north galloway road in regards to g3 i want to let you know that i am in support of the roundabout that you find people are putting in it'll certainly help with traffic there's many accident happens there all the time we see the lights then we we see the ems i do believe the roundabout is going to be a great thing the one issue that we had a concern about would be the storm water runoff from that affecting my property personally and i want to thank you for the foresight that members of the commissioners have had here to address it by doing a clean out of the ditch going to the drain pond that this water will go to so i'm here to thank you for the foresight to do it and the heart to bring it to pass so thank you very much that's it thank you uh shannon tuberville good morning shannon turbyville uh on the parcel on the southeast corner of the proposed roundabout project at 1325 north galloway road i'm also in support of the project that i believe will provide some not much needed safety improvements to this dangerous intersection i'm also here because i owe some of you a huge thank you uh for hearing my stormwater concerns associated with the project and ensuring that not only my concerns were addressed but also my neighbors commissioners troutman and braswell i reached out to both of you with my stormwater concerns in my opinion you did what you were elected by the people to do you were accessible you were sensitive to my concerns and you were solution oriented i can't think of any better representation from my elected officials and i truly mean that thank you to the county manager who i don't think is here hurricane milton gave me a new respect for the importance of adequate and maintained stormwater infrastructure prior to milton i didn't have a personal understanding of just how devastating stormwater can be the coincidental coincidental timing of this project following that storm may or may not have had me overly sensitive i'm sure mr jarvis has an opinion on that one nonetheless i'm appreciative for the efforts made by the deputy county manager bode and the involved department directors under his leadership who worked with us and not against us to address our stormwater concerns while also keeping the project moving forward so thank you all very much thank you sir yeah go right ahead yeah i went out to his house and the weirdest thing is you you you walk off the road you would never think that area would flood uh he showed me how high the water went up like foot and a half in your house just like blew in wiped him out and was gone before the sun came up and just totally destroyed the inside of his house and when you look there it you would never think that area would flood right there i mean there's drainage ditches everywhere um obviously that's a that's a clue that it gets wet but there's so many places like that in the county and we're just you know glad to help you glad it worked out but there's so many others that aren't going to be as fortunate the next milton all right thank you mr brazil all right let's move on here we need to approve a consent agenda move for approval second i got a motion in a second uh all in favor aye opposed motion carries i can see miss butterfield's not here today but uh she in hawaii or anywhere like that okay go ahead good morning today we have for you to approve and ratify payroll checks zero four two three four through zero four two five eight in the amount of thirty one thousand seven hundred and fourteen dollars and fifty two cents we have two thousand nine hundred and seventy six direct deposits in the amount of four million four hundred and fifty eight thousand one hundred and ninety two dollars and seventy four cents those are dated october 17th 2025 we also have wire and electronic funds transfers of 21 million eight hundred and twenty two thousand three hundred and sixty two dollars and sixty five cents dated october 7th through october 20th 2025 and invoice checks numbered four nine two three four four through four nine three three one one totaling twenty three million four hundred and eighty seven dollars seven hundred and eighty five i'm sorry twenty twenty three million four hundred and eighty seven thousand seven hundred and eighty five dollars and forty three cents dated october 7th through october 20th 2025 for you to approve and ratify please mr chair if i may um just for the agenda we apparently d1 d2 got flipped so we are doing d2 at this point regarding the disbursements all right yeah still there yeah still there didn't really matter how it came yeah yes sir yes all right we got a motion and a second all in favor aye opposed motion carries let's go to d1 we also request the approval of the minutes of your regular board meeting held on october 7th 2025. motion for approval second got a motion in a second all in favor aye opposed motion carries all right thank you got anything else i do not all right uh moving on if you don't have anything randy uh uh says county manager bill peaslee but i'm gonna go with ryan taylor today filling in for the county manager who will be back soon and we wish him yes recovery good morning mr chair and commissioners the county manager's office has five items for your consideration this morning g1 is an item before the board is to request approval of an agreement for sale and purchase between texas aquatic harvesting inc and polk county for property that will be used in part for the construction of a new wastewater treatment facility to serve the east regional service area this action follows prior board direction to expand polk county's utility capacity in the eastern portion of the county to meet anticipated population growth county staff evaluated multiple sites in the region and identified a property located along the north side of masterpiece road just north and east of lake wales as the most suitable location for this facility the site consists of approximately 197 acres in total about 150 acres of contiguous land for the project and an additional 47 acres directly adjacent to the northwest staff determined that the 150 acres could serve for a wastewater facility for a wastewater facility and other future public purposes such as a roads and drainage maintenance unit a fleet maintenance shop sheriff's operations or other county operations that may arise in this growing area notably the 47 acre tract borders land previously recommended by the conservation land acquisition selection advisory committee also known as classic and then by this board for staff to pursue acquisition under the conservation land program that adjacency provides an opportunity for expanded conservation preservation in that corridor approval today will authorize the execution of a purchase agreement the allocation of funds totaling eight million five hundred thirty thousand dollars which consists of eight million five hundred thousand for the purchase and the estimated closing cost of thirty thousand dollars with engagement of american government services corporation to close the transaction funding is available through the utilities capital expansion fund and cost sharing among the divisions that will use the property will be reflected in the fiscal year 26 27 cip budget so the county manager's office recommends approval of this eight million five hundred thousand dollar property acquisition along with thirty thousand in estimated closing costs for a total of eight million five hundred thirty thousand dollars for this purchase ensures that polk county secures the land needed not only for the the planned east regional wastewater treatment facility but also future public service operations and conservation preservation in the area uh mr brattle i know you can't answer this specifically but what would be a ballpark idea when the wastewater facility would be completed ten years from now five years from now what do you think no we'll start studies here soon and probably i think the guess is within five years two years two years as well two years okay wow sure man which will be inside that five commissioner scott i just want to thank the staff you know when this first came up and we were talking about this property with the adjacency to our conservation lands that we have and some county on land this wildlife corridor concept that i had thrown out there is i really do appreciate it because this property allows us to tie that together and there's some conservation areas down south of this property so for me from a county position not only servicing the community better but also looking out for our conservation abilities and kind of tying these other adjacent lands together this is a really great purchase so thank you for the staff for considering that yeah we've been real lucky on just like the lance ties that into people coming forward and being able to want to put it in a conservation deal it's been really great that was one of the that is a great program all right got a motion and a second any further discussion all in favor opposed motion carries mr chair the next item is g2 which requests board approval to ratify the letter of agreement and the igt provider questionnaire from the florida agency for health care administration or aka for pulp county fire rescues continued participation in the public emergency medical transportation medicaid managed care supplement payment program through this program pulk county fire rescue partners with the state of florida to recover a portion of the uncompensated cost associated with transporting medicaid patients the program operates through existing managed care organizations which report quarterly to aka the number of qualifying emergency transports performed by polk county fire rescue aka then uses that data to determine the amount of federal and state funding due to each participating provider polk county fire rescue provides an intergovernmental transfer or igt to the state which is used to draw down additional federal medicaid matching funds through this program aka will build polk county fire rescue roughly 4.99 million dollars and in return the county will receive about 11.66 million the original amount and the additional 6.67 million in new federal dollars these funds are limited and can only be used within the public emergency medical transport program funds are budgeted within the general fund emergency medical services budget and the county manager's office recommends approval of this four million nine hundred eighty nine thousand eight hundred ninety three dollars and four cents agreement with the florida agency for health care administration which will generate an estimated total return of eleven million six hundred sixty four thousand seventy nine dollars and ten cents which includes the six million six hundred seventy four thousand one hundred eighty six dollars and six cents in new federal funding this approval ensures that polk county fire rescue continues participation in the program and receive supplemental medicaid reimbursements maximizing available federal funds to support our emergency medical response services all right any questions all right seeing that need a motion motion for approval second second got a motion and a second any further discussion all in favor opposed motion carries mr chair item g3 which we heard public comment on earlier is an item requesting the board approval of a construction contract with ajax paving industries of florida llc for roadway improvements at north galloway road and 10th street in lakeland along with a cip amendment and budget transfer this project includes construction of a new roundabout installation of street lights and drainage improvements and a maintenance of traffic throughout construction the improvements are designed to enhance safety and reduce congestion at this intersection which serves as a key connector in the area bid number 25-494 was advertised to qualified contractors and five bids were received ajax paving industries of florida based in north venice submitted the lowest responsive and responsible bid at two million nine hundred seventeen thousand two hundred thirty six dollars and fifty six cents in accordance with resolution thirteen dash zero sixty six an additional one hundred forty five thousand eight hundred sixty one dollars was added to the contract for allowance work bringing the total contract amount to three million sixty three thousand ninety seven dollars and 56 cents the contract duration is 200 210 days to final completion with an allowance time of 31 days in your approved fy 2526 cip budget we funded two million dollars for this project which requires a cip amendment and a budget transfer in the amount of one million sixty three thousand ninety eight dollars to fully fund this project funding for this project is available in the transportation trust fund the county manager's office recommends approval of the construction contract with ajax paving industries of florida llc in the amount of three million sixty three thousand ninety seven dollars and fifty six cents for bid number twenty five dash four nine four in addition to a cip amendment and budget transfer in the amount of one million sixty three thousand and ninety eight dollars to fully fund the north galloway road at 10th street roundabout project that will enhance traffic flow and public safety along the north galloway road corridor any questions i do sorry uh with respect and we didn't talk about this before but on uh road closure necessity for implementation of this project do we know i know there was two residents that spoke today i'm just curious as far as the work plan for this are we aware or know of any details on how that's going to be phased so there is jay's shaking his head no no closure okay so there'll be access during the entirety of the installation okay that's all mine anyone else i just want to make for staff um regarding the the public comments that we heard um i just want to say thank you sometimes it gets challenging because we have the constituents calling us we're trying to get information passed along but for everybody to be on this together and doing the right thing to get this project started and completed so i just want to say thank you to staff all right anyone for approval got a motion in a second uh all in favor aye opposed motion carries mr chair item g4 is an item requesting the board approval of a local agency program or lap agreement between pulp county and the florida department of transportation for the kathleen road project development and environment study or pd and e study pulp county has identified the widening and extension of kathleen road as a transportation priority driven by continued population and employment growth in the surrounding area this growth has created increased traffic demand and additional development pressure along the corridor under the agreement the florida department of transportation will provide two million dollars in lap funding and financial oversight for the pd and e study which will analyze improvements along the approximately 4.7 miles of kathleen road from duff road northward to us 98 at rock ridge road the lap agreement establishes the funding structure for this phase of work and pulp county will manage consultant selection and project administration under fdot oversight an rfp will be developed to hire a qualified consultant to perform the pd and e study which will evaluate the project's environmental impacts design alternatives and overall feasibility while fdot is providing funding for this phase pulp county agrees to cover any additional costs should the actual expenses exceed the grant amount approval of this agreement also includes associated budget and cip resolutions to establish two million dollars in unanticipated revenue in the special revenue grants fund within the roads and drainage cip so the manager county manager's office recommends approval of this two million dollar lap agreement between polk county and the florida department of transportation to advance this important planning phase for the kathleen road corridor all right any questions see none i need a motion got a motion in a second all in favor aye opposed motion carries mr chair the final item from the county manager's office is g5 and this item requests board approval of an agreement for fleischman garcia and moslowski also known as fg and m for architectural and engineering services related to the design of the polk county and city of bartow joint use fire rescue station on april 1st 2025 the board approved an interlocal agreement with the city of bartow to jointly design and construct the 20 000 an estimated 20 000 square foot fire rescue station located at 24 21 smith lane and bartow under the terms of that agreement polk county will fund 60 of the total project cost and the city of bartow will fund 40 the city's contribution will be provided to the county as a lump sum payment at the within 60 days of the construction contract being executed the project is designed to improve emergency response times and enhance firefighter safety through a modern layout featuring red yellow and green or hot warm cool zones and these zones help manage contamination control equipment storage and crew safety through throughout the station fg and m will provide all necessary architectural and engineering services including conceptual design construction documents floor plans exterior evaluate elevations landscaping cost estimates and specifications required for bidding construction and project closeout the agreement amount is 799 930.85 and the services are expected to be completed within 730 days although the agreement will remain active through final construction completion request for proposal 25-377 was issued for this project and seven firm submitted proposals on july 1st 2025 the board approved the selection committee's recommendation to negotiate with fg and m and the agreement presented today as a result of those negotiations funding for this agreement is available in the general capital improvement fund and the county manager's office recommends approval of the 799 930 dollars and 85 cents agreement with fleischman garcia and moslowski architects which will allow the county and the city of bartu to move forward with the next phase of the joint use public facility public safety facility ensuring improved service delivery and operational efficiency for both agencies all right any questions so these numbers as they come forward will always be the total and like this 800 000 it'll be 60 percent of us okay all right anyone else all right do we have a motion got a motion in a second all in favor all right opposed motion carries all right uh commissioner troutman you have anything some good job ryan no sir commissioner brasville uh yeah move to appoint angelic sims as a member seat six of the polk county planning commission for the three-year term november 4 2025 through november 3 2028 i need a second second i got a motion and a second all in favor those motion carries that's all again that's all okay commissioner santiago all right commissioner scott uh yeah just a note uh highway 98 north construction is moving along i'd say fairly expediently uh for dot but if there are any residents that have issues or concerns or questions on how that's going to get phased in how it impacts access to properties along 98 uh certainly feel free to reach out to our offices so we can provide those details i've done multiple meetings now with residents along that corridor and provided some clarity so continue to continue to do that and if there's any issues uh that you see let us know right away all right thank you uh and i don't have anything so we're going to move on to the expedited hearings thank you mr chair before we go into expedited hearings i'll go over the public hearing general procedures first i'd like to remind everyone if you're going if you wish to speak on any of the public hearing items you will need to fill out a speaker card in the back and give the card to a member of the communication staff 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 before you begin speaking on a topic and individual 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 the issue and what is not information that is relevant or repetitive only serves to frustrate and necessarily prolong the day's business the commission expects civility at all times during all public hearings speaking out turns shouting out from the audience discrepancies 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 will need a record of proceedings and that for such purpose you you may need to ensure that verbatim record of the proceedings is made which record includes testimony evidence upon which the appeal is to be based which you must gather at your own expense anyone in audience who wishes to speak or present testimony today must be sworn in and 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 question do you swear or affirm that testimony or evidence you provide to the commission today is the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth thank you mr chair at this time i'll go over 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 hearing the applicant agrees to the expedited hearing and recommendation of the development review committee is for approval expedited procedures are the following as after staff briefly induced 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 full presentation from staff can be requested from a commissioner the applicant or a member of the public all documents attached to the agenda are deemed part of the record of the land use case unless removed from the list of experts by motion of the board all the individuals on the list of experts attached to the agenda are deemed experts for the purpose of the land use case and at this time i'll turn over mr zisco for a presentation of started hearings thank you mr mink good morning mr chairman members of the board my name is ben zisco i'm land development director today's agenda has three items on the expedited public hearing portion item number n1 is an expedited public hearing for case ldc pas 2025-15 crescent road cpa to consider a future land use map designation change from a residential medium to employment center on approximately 17.42 acres in the north ridge selected area plan the subject site is located on the east side of us highway 27 just south of crescent road as you see on the screen the square with the yellow outline is the subject site it is currently designated as residential medium the request is to change the designation to employment center which is similar to the properties located just to the north and this is to facilitate the development of non-residential and multi-family development along the us 27 corridor this item appeared before the planning commission and received a unanimous recommendation of approval it was also transmitted to the florida department of commerce and received no comments and following any questions or comments today staff is recommending adoption any questions anyone ladies and gentlemen this is a public hearing uh we will open the public hearing but no one has signed up to speak on this so i'm going to close the public hearing and bring it back to the board for a motion move for approval got a motion in a second all in favor aye opposed motion carries item number n2 is an expedited public hearing for case ldcd 2025-3 hamilton road sub-district change to consider a future land use designation sub-district change from business park center one to business park center two on approximately 38 acres the subject site is located on the west side of hamilton road just south of drainfield road as you can see the property already contains two existing non-residential warehouse buildings this request will facilitate the ability to have outdoor storage as well as auto-oriented uses on the site this change will reduce the ability or remove the ability to have multi-family development but as it's already developed there's no intent to have multi-family residential on the site the subject property is located just to the south of other bpc2 uses and it is directly adjacent to the city of lakeland this item also appeared before the planning commission and received a unanimous recommendation of approval and following any questions or comments from the board of the public today staff recommends approval any questions for i do have a question just for my uh planning perspective on the um bpc1 because the reason that there was that instead of bpc2 before it was developed was to allow that flexibility of multi-family versus warehousing or what's kind of the tactic there the bpc1 is the is the the default bpc so when a land use is changed from another land use to business park center it defaults to bpc1 and then a sub-district change is required to move to two so when this was changed to bpc1 they didn't go through the the sub-district change at that point and now they're requesting that change okay thank you anyone else ladies and gentlemen this is a public hearing uh being we have nobody signed up i'm going to open it and then i'm going to close it and bring it back to the board for a motion motion for approval got a motion in a second any further discussion on it all in favor pose pose okay sorry i was looking at something uh motion carries mr chairman item number n3 is an expedited public hearing for case ldct 2025-13 non-phosphate mining exemption this item would provide an exemption to the land development code for public hearing approvals for non-phosphate mining activities such as borrow pit development on properties that have an approved phosphate mining plan um this is to facilitate the the movement of uh dirt to help facilitate gypsum stack and incite on-site remediation uh on the properties that have already been approved for phosphate mining so again it's non-phosphate mining activity on phosphate mining properties this is the second hearing the planning commission unanimously recommended approval and following any questions or comments from the board or the public staff recommends adoption and uh mr brazil i'm assuming mosaic's the only one that has a phosphate mining permit anywhere in this county yes sir all right anyone else uh ladies and gentlemen this is a public hearing i want to open it and i'm going to close it bring it back to the board motion director we didn't have anyone sign up okay sorry i've said it yeah no one signed up that's what i meant by that uh and bring it back to the board motion for approval uh we have a motion and a second all in favor all right opposed motion carries and that concludes the expedited portion of today's public hearings thank you bant for the record scott lowry real estate services support manager uh have one item today which was a petition we received from heather erweiler as authorized agent for lisa sure to vacate and close right away for a county maintained roadway known as j-day drive the right-of-way for j-day drive was conveyed to the county in 1956 by a quick claim deed recorded in deed book 1041 at pages 296 and 297 the roadway is a paved dead end roadway located west off of us 98 to the north of 540a it currently only serves two adjacent properties which are both owned by the petitioner which are partially bisecting uh their properties by the road right away the petitioner is requesting the vacation to remove the bifurcation and prepare the properties for future development they came the subject right away will remove the public's interest allow the county to cease any maintenance activities associated with the roadway and allow the petitioner to assemble it with her properties the appropriate county divisions and utility providers were notified the city of lakeland through lakeland electric and the polk regional water cooperative requested easements due to existing facilities and the petitioner has complied with that request no other objections were received staff recommends the board adopt a resolution to vacate the deeded and maintained right away for j-day drive as fully described in the legal description contained in the petition and the resolution and i'll remain standing for any questions any questions i wanted to clarify regarding the regional water cooperative so i know that they've got a it's not i'm not sure part of that hardware that's there on 540a so they will continue to need access and they have granted that yes their their their line is coming up the east side of 98 through j-day drive and then down to this interconnect facility so my understanding is they've secured the easement across this property to get to there okay thank you mr scott i guess that was my question too as far as prwc goes what type of we're talking about them developing the site to just put that easement still being necessitated if that was something that was yeah the easement's in place they've already granted it'll be recorded along with these vacation documents they'll have to address that if it needs to be relocated okay during development all right anyone else all right uh ladies and gentlemen this is a public hearing uh we don't have anyone signed up so i'm going to open it and i'm going to close it and bring it back to the board for a motion motion for approval got a motion in a second all in favor opposed motion carries thank you all right next item we're going to carry on to the general public opportunity to speak and i think miss amber's bringing me up some and then yep okay right and the first one is signed up is a miss becky bywater uh please come forward and state your name and address and you'll be given three minutes thank you thank you i'm becky bywater i live in south lakeland i prepared a powerpoint today but as technology has it man we need your address please um brookwood drive lakeland florida so say that again ma'am brookwood drive lakeland florida okay thank you i couldn't understand i prepared a survey on animal wellness for the 10 most populous counties in the state of florida miami was one number one pasco was number 10 polka's number nine out of those 10 only two animal controls are responsibility of the sheriff's department which i think is a huge problem here since he has better things to do um out of the 10 spay and neuter programs only one other county and that was deval did not have a spay neuter program i've heard you give millions out today i don't understand why that has to be tnrv out of 10 polk is the only one that offers no services to that effect out of tethering only one other than polk polk offers no tethering ordinances out of air conditioning polk is the only one we know the historical highs of the summer and this is could be considered animal and human cruelty as we all here in this room exist in an air conditioned world i compared animal control websites i visited all of these 10 and when i could not find information on the previous notes that i just gave you i call them so i feel comfortable that my statistics are correct according to google our website falls short in functionality and transparency compared to leading animal services in the county comparing voicemail recordings as i said i called all of these um most of them had a prompt to go to another animal um department um the other thing that i had on the slides are um orange county is a key difference as to the amount of monies that are given to intake programs orange county donates 920 dollars per animal polk 319 how can you not be embarrassed about this i will leave you with a saying from the late senator john lewis the power of the people is greater than the people in power thank you thank you ma'am eve salabine eve salabini 42 30 live oak road lakeland florida good morning morning um i have a couple things i wanted to talk about today but i know i only have my three minutes so i want to get the biggest thing out of the way um when we were here the last time commissioner scott said that he had spoken with two counties around us and that tnvr doesn't work um so i who am a science-based person i thought i might want to check into that because who's saying it doesn't work maybe i need to look at that so i contacted hillsborough um mr trebutowski who i know from previous engagements and i assume that's who you spoke with um at one point and they are doing about two 2200 cats a year for their tnvr program the part that mr scott left out of the conversation was that mr trebutowski said they have not seen a decrease in kittens doing those 2200 cats here's the key because that's not enough so in order to get a process moving you would have to do 4 000 to 5 000 cats a year and mr trebutowski did agree with me that they're not doing that and they want to increase that and the reason they want to increase it is because they've had so many fewer nuisance calls that tie up their animal control facility because the cats are fixed and they're not fighting um it's hard to quantify their savings dollar wise but we know from other studies that it is less to trap and return a cat than it is to kill it um their euthanasia rate has dropped by 2200 go figure their intake has dropped by 2200 so if we had 5000 ergo we would have euthanasia rate lowered by 5000 so i just wanted to get that out there that it sounded like it wasn't working when he mr scott presented it but that is not the whole story that was behind mr trebutowski's discussion um you have sent us from here and told us several different times that we need to talk to the sheriff and to the sheriff's animal control facility so on september 30th i sent an email to the animal control facility to gordon shearer and desiree quito who are the two people that run it um today is what the 21st of october i've had no reply so if you're going to send us forward at least someone could reply or give us an answer just leaving us hanging out there doesn't answer anything or help anyone so please talk to them about replying to us if you're going to send us their way all right thank you ma'am uh k b b o u r q e e burke i hate to say it wrong so good good morning my name is k bork okay and i'm 1133 brook road in fort meade i thank you for allowing me to speak with you again today um a growing number of animal welfare advocates have spoken for the last several months to share concerns and to propose solutions to stem the growth of the pet overpopulation we've heard you tell us we're talking to the wrong people we get that and that we need to communicate with the sheriff's team yet so far efforts to do so have yielded no results we get no response we've heard you to tell us to do something ourselves to help by rescuing supporting volunteering and other positive efforts um the rescuers supporters volunteers fosters and adopters have been and will continue to work tirelessly to daily even when they feel like they're drowning to do what they can to make a difference in individual animals lives it doesn't make a difference in the whole the whole structure as a a big effort would do but it's terribly important and it's baby steps these efforts are not going to stop indeed the work is snowballing with the increasing pet overpopulations there have been several changes proposed to animal control ordinance which if implemented would put the groundwork in place to see that real change for example tnvr will interrupt the community cat breeding cycles while an ordinance limiting backyard breeding will disrupt the backyard breeding supply chain will there be a step change in animal intake the minute these ordinance changes are are put in place no it'll take time for any change to make a difference however i'm confident that if we make no effort to improve we will continue to see the number of animals entering the shelter and the rescues continuing to increase we've heard you tell us that you're happy with the way that the sheriff is running animal control and that you're not going to ask him to consider any changes even though polk county has the lowest save rate of any shelter in florida yet we all know that sticking to the same methods without adopt adapting or learning from past experiences is unlikely to yield new or better results and this position could even be seen as irrational the proposed ordinance changes are not new they've been successful in many other locations across the country across the state and even internationally it's disappointing that our board of county commissioners as well as the sheriff's team are fully aware of the issues and the toolbox with which to address them but are unwilling to consider the proposals put forth or even engage in constructive dialogue with those who are both educated and practiced in animal welfare and management we as a county need to move away from the ways of the past and utilize proven methods that will enable the residents of polk county to be proud of the way we treat our animals as the 875 000 residents of polk county are further educated on the present situation they will demand change my hope is that you'll be prepared to drive that change with us and be a part of the solution we cannot rescue adopt or kill our way out of this crisis thank you for allowing me to speak thank you ma'am uh ali vanderbush excellent um my name is ailey vanderbush i'm at 1203 king avenue in lakeland uh i just wanted to do a little um it's an interesting project uh comparison of budgets for animal control between polk county and orange county um polk county spends about 4.6 million annually uh orange about 10.8 and that's not including their new multi-million dollar building that they have agreed to build for their animal control um already a massive difference so polk uh income uh the budget we got from polk county didn't actually have any income so it doesn't include grants um anything like uh impoundments citations any violations from citations um rabies the tags that were required to get for our pets so it didn't include any of that but it did include oddly um that we make 10 just over 10 or almost 11 000 annually from biocorp um selling our dead cats uh i don't know about you guys but to me that screams uh why should we implement any programming when we get 10 a dead cat to make some money um and just for the next slide this is what uh biocorps website their very first page looks like yay mad scientist activities let's um play around with dead cats um the information was asked through all the appropriate channels it took about 80 days from polk for polk to give us um very bizarre information we got a crap ton of uh job descriptions which was not what we asked for and out of probably a half a page um in excel of a budget very generalized budget uh if you go back one sorry um we got job descriptions um we got uh random things um but it took uh orange and hillsborough county took about two and a half weeks um polk required multiple reminders to get the information i mean the sunshine law this is information that we're legally allowed access to and it also cost over 300 for a bunch of documents we didn't ask for um over 90 percent of polk's budget is salary and benefits that's a lot just as an fyi look at like the county's budget that's a lot um all right on the next slide a little short breakdown of budgets um that's regular salary i will say it was very difficult to do a comparison because half a page versus two page of a drilled down budget if you go to the next slide um orange county includes um operational costs inclusive of medication food and supplies um office supplies was a very weird one for me um but polk county only included um it didn't include all of the operational expenses that i could tell um we'll quickly go that's the next one of like travel and education and then we should be really close to the end um polk county didn't include any fleet services which i assume the trucks come from somewhere and fuel comes from somewhere um and then also didn't include over 110 000 like orange county did for computer and maintenance repairs um that should be it all right thank you thank you if i if i may mr chair real quick was that ma'am was that public records request you spoke spoke about was that to polk county or to the sheriff's office do you recall good question okay i i can check yeah i just tell you yes ma'am okay thank you uh all right betty amaro m-a-m-a-m-a-r-l-l well i try that's okay that's great everybody kind of messes up sometime on that name um good morning my name is betty gene emerald emerald emerald emerald i live at 11 59 colony arms drive lakeland 33813 um i have been going out to the animal control um pretty well since august just to check on i'm kind of a cat mom but i check on the dogs and cats and see what improvements or things are going out and just real quickly i wanted to say when i was here um a while back i had i think expressed that several of us had filled out paperwork and it took like four or five months to get a any answer about being volunteers at animal control and um they just took our application and filed it but never called us well when i was out there i went out there yesterday and when i was out there yesterday um they uh the volunteer program is gone they said they took it away this past year and i said well why are they giving out i mean letting you fill out an application and i talked with the sheriff william and he just said that the volunteer program is completely gone as grady judd has said he gave the orders no more volunteers and the only people they have working out there are a few paid young like teenagers or 20 year olds and they're all inmates i saw five inmates there yesterday um getting the dogs out of the kennels so they could clean their kennels and um the only improvements that i've seen since august or the summer is they have installed ceiling fans so there are now ceiling fans for the dogs and the cats and then they've installed a a lot of fences wire fences and um um partitions so that you can't go from one facility to the other and they said that they've done that because some of the animals escape and um you know of course you can't have any cameras out there they don't want anybody to take any pictures and um and i wish they would advertise i didn't know until i was out there yesterday that the whole month of october and possibly the first of november um there the adoption fees are waived um so you don't have to pay an adoption fee and that includes spade neuter um spade neuter uh rabies vaccine and when i took a kitten uh this past year to the sbca they charged me 145 for all that so i wish they would advertise and so um actually i adopted another cat yesterday because it was no they it was free free adoption and so i took home i'm going to get another um kitten um and i will say again that um i know um mr scott you had said that you didn't think pasco was all that but when we toured the pesco animal shelter they have 300 volunteers and they have a whole schedule which ones come what days and it's really sad that we have none we have no volunteers they're all inmates so i would like to um you know say we do need some improvements thank you thank you ma'am christine alberg good morning good morning hi my name is kristen alberg i come from 651 altamira circle all the way from altamont springs florida um so this is my first time ever speaking i'm a a little nervous um i drove two hours to agree with all these ladies and what they're saying i don't have numbers or figures or anything like that i'm just going to speak from the heart um i know firsthand what they're talking about because i've actually been inside um polka onto animal control and what i saw left me in tears um there's no air conditioner i didn't see any fans and the only two fans i saw were just circulating all the heat that's inside so you can imagine with all the brick walls two fans that i saw and all the heat that's in there again it's just circulating the heat i saw dog cages that are in between like you got um all the animals that are going to be euthanized at one end of the building the other end of the building are all the cats and in between are the dogs dogs that are on concrete that are laying on concrete and the sun is just beating on them the cats are lucky if they have bowls of water and they're lucky if they have food i did a walk through i was again i was horrified by the conditions um so then i i gathered a whole bunch of people together and we actually had a protest we um had a rally somehow um the sheriff found out we were doing it i don't know how he found out we didn't do it on his property we did it on a public sidewalk and he actually shut down um the animal control that day and there were people that were surrendering surrendering the animals they were people that wanted to adopt that day a lot of people and he shut down so people couldn't do that and that was pretty sad i went back about a month later to adopt a black cat i have seven black cats i went back to adopt a black cat i went in there i gave my driver's license and they said oh you're banned from here i said why they said you're banned from here and i said can you give me a reason why and they said no can you leave the property um and that's basically it i i i just wish they would take some of the money that they do have and put in some proper um air conditioning or circulation or anything these animals are suffering and it's not fair and i wish again what they're talking about as far as tnr and stuff i i wish that you would take your pens and write down a facebook group helping cats of central florida and you will be in shock with how many tnr groups there are out there and how many cats and kittens are being saved i i wish you would join that group because i can see all your names and i'd be happy to allow you into the group helping cats of central florida thank you for your time thank you ma'am um mr abercrombie good morning james abercrombie 2737 gibbs only galloway road lakeland florida 3310 last meeting was finally a little productive we found out that i'd been asking for a contract for six months it's not a contract this is an agreement of a maintenance agreement that's all it is the 5.3 million dollars that you signed off on just kind of threw up in the air they can use it any way they want to anyhow they want to they can change it anytime they need to that right there will tell you all about the difference between a maintenance agreement and a contract a contract is binding legally binding the other is not uh as we go on from there once again i uh with that said i still have i want to see where that fence went to i want to know where it went to what kind of money was brought out of it and i tell you why when you take when you go to the salvage yard you take copper whatever the case may be you don't have to pay taxes on that money it's free money so what happened to that product that fence without any money and with the money that they received from it of course there's no public records one way or the other but i want to see it once again they are public records now because they do do business with county they take county money everything their books are open records to the county as well i want to see it now i have an article here coming up from the um yeah right there uh he states there that we're never going to get caught up on the roads never i wonder why because we're giving away our polk county money our our ad valorem taxes to companies nine million dollars to companies to move to to polk county which is oh yeah that's gonna that's gonna help us a lot right now we don't need it 10 years from now we need it right now fixing roads you're putting in these brownie bouts and once again there's no no no information about the ones that have already been done how it's improved how it didn't improve what problems are within we're already fixing the one on 33 already gonna have to i don't know what's going on i'll have to go to the agenda review meeting to actually catch what's going on how it's actually being handled the contract once again for their for their fence as well has not been uh it's not complete it's not correct nobody really cares one way or the other there was supposed to be there's there's eight fields and two football fields that have been replaced as well as a retention area none of that's in the in the bills so on and so forth one last thing mr muck you realize that i don't have my friend with me today you understand why miss sue last last session you don't have what miss sue came with me last session all right he took her name and address that she mentioned here and started looking her up right away trying to disable this discredit her right is that not true okay mr abercroman your time's up i i appreciate it very much you have a great day we appreciate your help uh and that's everybody that we have signed up we thank you yeah okay go ahead just on the lady talking about transparency in the budget um i'm on the county's website right now every budget since 2016 is on there i'll give you an example you talk about no not showing up revenues uh 540 million and ad valorem or 357 million in taxes half-cent sales tax 77 million it breaks it down every way of sunday and it's a huge document and uh franchise fees 221 thousand dollars i mean it's all there i mean you just gotta look all right okay ma'am yep all right yes ma'am and then also to make a comparison um when you're talking about orange county and polk county it's important to look at those population differences too orange is about double the number of people that live there as well as hillsborough in comparison to polk so you would expect some of a difference because there's vastly different numbers of residences there as well right anyone else have anything to say uh i think that's about it i can i will say this real quick quickly about it you know we talk about numbers everybody brings up there's five counties that does this 10 counties that does that well like today the 10 counties what about the other 57 and uh but we're at our same place so i want to adjourn this meeting everybody have a great day